Diamonds and hearts. Hearts and diamonds. No aces, unless he had one in his hand that was still hidden.
He began pulling from the deck.
More hearts. More diamonds.
Too much red.
His eye was briefly distracted by the blip of a small light on his comlink, a closed-line circuit that ran directly from the Research Center to his files.
He frowned at it, shifted his glasses on his nose, and reached over to flip it open.
He'd told the center not to attempt contact with him except under emergency situations. Though his line was the most secure on the home planet or the planetoids, he didn't want to take any chances. There was too much at stake. And too much had gone wrong already.
He was disturbed at the failed attempts to have Clare disposed of properly, not sure if it was bad luck or bad strategy that caused the trouble. It seemed like the bad end to a series of bad moves that had started with the decision to buy Governor Patricks. Of course, it made sense at the time to do that, and seemed a simple enough business deal to negotiate. They would use their influence to push the sale of the preservation land through so he could have his casinos and, through a complex series of intermediaries, see that he received a generous campaign contribution. He would ensure mining rights and a good price for the pyrite on the land in question. It took a good deal of the raw ore to make one transmission chip, due to the particular chemical process involved in activating its potential for e-wave transmission, and they wanted all they could get, as cheaply as they could get it.
His group had been pleased at the mutually beneficial agreement, but the Governor reneged on his part of it and began talking about taxing the ore, partly to reassure his constituency that the destruction of the preservation land would generate enough money to justify its loss, but partly to remind the Division who was in charge.
There was no point in continuing a business relationship with such a man. He obviously had no honor. Fortunately, the Lieutenant Governor who now held the office was much more trustworthy in these matters.
But Clare had gotten caught. Of all people, Clare—the best they had, on the most simple assignment. She'd done so many hypodermic bubble deaths without leaving a mark, and to leave her—her panties. The Looker had been particularly offended by the tears of the outraged, betrayed Governor's wife. Such scandal it created. Such noise, and visibility. His group had never allowed one of their assignments to become so public, and so messy.
Clare had talked openly on the witness stand when she didn't have to, but at least she mentioned no names. Her motives were always mysterious, elusive, as she was. Although the absolute mastery she could gain over a man or woman looked like telepathic work, she had no empathic ability, no psi capacities, and all attempts at empathic intervention with her failed. The Looker often itched to get his hands inside her brain and do the surgery necessary for a thorough examination. When they got her back to the center and debriefed her, he would try to avoid any cortical damage. At least then he could obtain a postmortem read of her. Of course that would render her useless as a subject in his primary research, but one had to make difficult choices sometimes.
He glanced at his solitaire layout and pulled a card. A black jack, which would go on the red queen. But then, he had two red tens. He had to decide which one to move, and he knew that this decision could determine the outcome of the whole game. One wrong move was all it took.
The wrong choice at the wrong time and you were lost. Then all you could do was... cheat. If even that failed, you could only hope to fold and walk away. Walk away quietly, and preferably while you were still breathing.
The Division was set up to ensure, as much as possible, that this happened. More than any other intelligence group, they had created a working order that provided a shield of invisibility for their people. They had no central headquarters. Reports on research and on completed assignments were made via computer line only, to coded compuboxes that served as the first in a series of relays. Where they ended up was a matter for speculation. He assumed it was NICA, when he bothered to think about it at all. To him, it didn't really matter.
All he knew was that he'd been approached by a nondescript man in a blue suit whom he'd never seen again, when he was working for the Pentagon, on psi research. The man offered him an opportunity to make progress in the field of his interest beyond his wildest dreams. Any support he wanted would be his. He'd have access to the materials he needed, a contingent of lab workers, a quiet house that they'd find and equip for him, but which he would own as his personal home.
All he had to do in return was work with a specified number of outside assignments each year, acting as liaison, transferring messages and collecting information from the liaisons they had specified as his contacts.
It was perfect.
They'd found him a caretaker's house in an unused cemetery, just outside a park where children played. He was close enough to the major research centers to utilize their resources if he needed to, and obscure enough that no one would pay any attention to the nature of the work he did. The Division was big on obscurity, and he was glad. Some people, he knew, were squeamish, and found his line of research unnerving.
Of course, he wasn't exactly comfortable with his interactions with Clare, though she was a fine source of material for his work. Like Terence, he'd resisted the notion of working with an assassin. He had hoped to obtain his research material from hospitals and morgues, or from donor programs. But when it had been explained to him—over the coded line through an unnamed source—that this would increase the Division's visibility and decrease their control, he'd agreed to let Clare be his supplier. He firmly believed that the absence of governmental control had created the onslaught of the Serials. He'd go far to see that control protected and maintained.
The sort of power they were exploring in their research needed to be guarded, kept in the hands of those who knew how to use it, as he did. As the Division did. Psi capacities needed monitoring and technological control. Monitoring and control were the keys to safety in all things.
That was how he'd survived the Serials.
He holed up in a basement in Denver while devastation raged in the streets. He had stocked in food for a year, and every day ate exactly what he needed. No more. No less. He disciplined his body through exercise, and kept his sanity by reading the classics and writing about them. He kept a scientific journal of possible experiments, formulas, ideas, so that he wouldn't forget who he was, what his job should be.
He had a new solar-fed system for his viewer, and so he could watch the news, monitor the progress of the killing, gauge how much longer it might last. He wasn't sure, at one point, which would ran out first—his food, or the violence—but in the end, he'd calculated almost perfectly when to come back out.
After eleven months in hiding, he deemed it safe enough to leave his basement in search of food.
By then, the killing in Denver had subsided, though the East Coast was still rioting. He remembered the glare of sunlight—how foreign it seemed. The feel of its warmth, and his realization that his skin must be bleached white by now.
When his eyes adjusted, he looked around and saw that the street was strewn with bodies, rotting and covered with maggots and flies. He particularly remembered a cat, scrawny and almost hairless from mange, licking at the blue and putrefying hand of a young girl.
At least, he thought, she won't go to waste.
Because what horrified him most was the waste. All those bodies. All those dead bodies, and he knew that Denver's death rate was lower than other cities'. Bodies that just ceased functioning, just stopped acting in the world. A small hole in the chest and it was all over. Death was such a waste of manpower, of womanpower, of the machinery of the body.
That was when he conceived of the idea he continued researching to this day, and would continue to research until he died, at which point he would donate his body to the ongoing work. Many years passed between that moment and the day wh
en a man in a blue suit approached him with the opportunity to carry out the work, but here he was today, actually doing it. Pseudogenics. Instilling kinesis into dead bodies through e-wave amplifiers. Letting someone else's mind become the central control for the dead. Within a week, he expected to see his research become a reality capable of application.
Now he waited while a series of pictoglyphs scrolled across his computer screen. The people at the research center wouldn't do this unless the news was important. When the green light on the screen ceased its blip, indicating the end of communication, he read through the code, deciphered it, and then smiled.
"Good news for a change," he murmured at the screen. "Project developments."
Subjects had responded to the simple set of instructions issued through the central amplifier. The amplifier was not breaking up its wave frequency, and the transmitters were stable. Researchers were now increasing the complexity level of instructions according to the Looker's protocol.
That was very good. Very good. So much invested. So much risked. And now, it would pay off. Pseudogenics would change the world, and he would be in control of that change. He would be the one who had the foresight to see it through.
And once research established ways of creating a central amplification of telepathic commands, they could try again with live subjects, which had proved difficult up until now. Working with the dead cut down on the variables and simplified the human subject to its basic neurological necessities. It was the best place to start, but from there, the Division could go anywhere.
He would be pleased when he could get off this Planetoid and get back to the center. Of course, if this crisis wasn't averted, there might not be a center to get back to. He was aware that Clare had to be dealt with first. And this Addams woman. He wished the range of the central amplifier was long enough to reach her here, but it wasn't yet. Still, it would be interesting to see how the transmitters worked between two empaths vying for control. Every problem contained its own opportunities for learning as well.
The screen ceased its blip, and he reached over with his left hand, typing in a simple code.
"Continue," was the translation of his response. Just continue.
Then he went back to his game, reshuffling the cards and starting again.
7
When she left the house for her gig, she was feeling even worse. Adrian had been unable to perform, which was good for the case, but bad for her. She was surprised at the level of anger she felt at him, and unsure what its source was. Perhaps the contact with Clare—that ice against her fire, melting and cooling her and then causing her to charge up to high in order to compensate.
She'd almost blown it, out of an inability to gather her seams in and stay cool. Now the postempathic feeling, which was generally euphoric, made her feel shocky instead. As if she'd been hit hard in the jaw. Something was wrong. Something was not working the way it was supposed to.
Was this how shadow sickness started, and had she picked it up from Nick somehow? She'd been very careful, blocking him hard and sure.
Something was wrong.
The streets were dark and not much traffic interrupted the flow of her thoughts, which were all also dark. She walked fast, the heels of her thigh-high boots clicking hard against the pavement. Something was wrong. All her instincts told her something was wrong. What?
She slowed her pace, walking toe to heel to quiet her own steps. Was that someone following her? She stopped to gaze into a store window, waiting for the sound of footsteps that slowed and then stopped. She ought to know how to recognize a tail by now, even if it was someone as good as Nick.
Though it might not be Nick. It could be someone Clare's people sent. Someone who didn't want Clare to talk. Wanted to—
In her peripheral vision, she saw the movement of shadow against building. Someone following her. She would stand a minute and think what to do next. The store window reflected her face dimly, in translucent echo of herself, eyes wide and alert.
Jesus, she told herself, calm down. A tail is nothing to get that excited about.
Then why were all her neurons firing at once? What was it she felt getting closer and—
"Shit," she said, "too late."
Reflected in the window, Nick walked up and put a hand on her shoulder.
"Ready or not," he said, "here I am."
She brought her leg out for a roundhouse kick, but he was gone.
Gone?
"Nick?" she said. He was there.
Wasn't he?
She stood and listened to her own breathing, letting air flow into her. Something—was it what happened with Clare? What the hell was it with this case, anyway?
She felt the hand on her shoulder again. Behind her. She whirled.
"Nick, what is this shit?" she demanded of his image as it stood, seemingly encased in the window she stared at.
"Maybe you're losing it, baby," he suggested. "Maybe it's not me that's got troubles. Maybe it's you."
She raised her chin up, her jaw growing tight and firm. "I doubt it," she said.
Then laughter, and an explosion.
Explosion.
No. A hand hitting. No.
Implosion. She felt herself sucked into a whirlpool of darkness. Her own face disappearing from the window. There. Not there. Where? Nick, laughing triumphantly, and she carried away in his laughter, drowning in shadows and a tumbling darkness.
Falling. She was falling, hit hard or dragged down into whirlpools and eddies. Voices whispered her name as she fell, tumbling through something infinite and dark and where would she land would she break into a thousand pieces or fall into water and drown she didn't know.
What makes you think you can escape? You better than everyone else?
Fool, she cursed herself as she fell. Time to think. Enough time of falling and then ... a hand. A voice. Nick. Hand on her shoulder.
She, still in that darkness, dizzy and swaying, something hurt. What—her shoulder? Her head? Hard to breathe here. She twisted toward him with great effort and heard his voice, slowed like a broken tape, laughing at her, Nick pointing at something.
Pointing at.
Pointing at ... there.
A gun firing. A gun firing. A gun firing and she flinched with the sound of each bullet. Blood everywhere. Not again. Yes, again.
Her grandfather, falling. Blood and he was falling, like a great tree. Falling over and over again. Nick pushing her into the blood. An ocean of blood and she was screaming, falling again into the ocean of blood drowning her drowning her. Couldn't breathe here in the blood in all this blood.
Nick, you asshole. What the hell is this?
There was his laughter, slowed and dropped in pitch.
Who do you think you are, Our Lady of the Empathic Arts?
Empathic contact. It was empathic contact. Some part of her was standing on a street, looking in a store window. She hoped it was most of her. And she wouldn't let him do this. He wasn't practiced enough, hadn't the skill or the strength to work this powerfully inside of her. Inside of her. Or was she inside of him?
She could pull herself out of it. She knew enough. She'd been taught by the best.
Her grandfather, his hand pressed against her forehead.
Her grandmother, handing her mint. The fresh scent of mint, covering the rotting smell of death.
Where is your darkness, Jaguar?
Her darkness. If she swam up, looked for the light. The streetlight. Some light. Her eyes were somewhere and could turn toward it. Push, she told herself. Focus. There's a light out there somewhere.
There was a streetlight. She focused, reached up and out, hand touching something cold. It was her hand, slapping out at something cold. She reached for it, felt nothing, but kept reaching, kept slapping until her mouth found air and she gasped in breath.
Nick, cursing her, grabbing for her, feeling her slip away.
"No," she gasped, sucking in air, swaying hard, her hand touching something cold.
The alarms?
She blinked hard, gazed down at her hand, and saw it was bleeding. Looked around and saw that she was standing in front of the shop window, which she'd broken, setting off the burglar alarms.
"Dammit," she said, watching the blood drip, "now what?"
Wings zoomed in low and flanked her as she stood. A man and a woman in uniform pulled stun guns and pointed them at her. A third woman emerged from the back of the wings and approached her, talking as she came.
"Hands in front. You're under arrest," she said, and Jaguar felt the slap and sting of the electrode cuffs around her wrists.
"Why'd they put me in the museum?" Jaguar stared at Alex, who stood on the other side of the freestanding iron jail cell, hands behind his back, rocking back and forth on his heels and pointedly not smiling.
Behind him, models of prisoners dressed in gray, ill-fitting jumpsuits occupied other such cells. A view screen showed old footage of prison riots from pre-Serial days. Jaguar stretched languorously across a thinly padded steel-frame cot, her narrow face framed by the lines of steel bars.
She supposed Alex had been dragged away from a date to get her out, and that he wasn't happy about it. She figured Gerry wouldn't be too happy about her failure to appear at the gig, either.
The Planetoid police were required to hold whomever they picked up until they were cleared by a Supervisor.. They didn't always know if they were part of a Teachers' program, or if the person they arrested was a prisoner, or a Teacher. They had a series of holding cells in the basements of their offices, but Jaguar had been brought here, to the prison history exhibit at the city's museum.
"You have a reputation for breaking the computerized locks on the other holding cells, Jaguar," he said, and he raised his hand in the gesture of the empath. She was, he had to admit, very good with a lock. But iron was beyond even her will to bend.
THE FEAR PRINCIPLE Page 12