by Jody Wallace
Samantha put both hands on my shoulders and leaned down to whisper, “You wanted to be found, Cleo. That’s why you had the blog.”
Her hair brushed my ear, and my face heated, but Yuri didn’t acknowledge her. “There are supra PI firms, but we’re not one of them,” he said. “Our business draws in more revenue and has less contact with legal matters.”
The old guy was enjoying the guessing game, but I wished he’d stop being coy. I also wished Samantha would get the hell away from me. “I give up. What do you do?”
Yuri raised his chin. His lips began to part. I almost expected a drum roll.
“We’re management consultants.”
“But of course,” I deadpanned. “It’s so obvious.”
He seemed a bit taken aback by my reaction. With a slightly defensive edge, he explained, “A majority of the top boutique firms in our niche are supra companies.”
“And nobody’s working in the military or spying on China?”
“Not that we know of.” Yuri grinned. “Suprasensors have above average IQ. Perhaps that explains it.” Something glimmered around Yuri’s face, not a full-on lie but an exaggeration of the truth.
Of course, when people told jokes, it looked like that, too.
“Perhaps,” I conceded.
“Samantha, could you hand me the graphs?”
Samantha finally let go. She rounded Yuri’s desk and scooted a manila folder across it.
I allowed my spine to rest against the back of the chair. It was a relief Miss Pusher was no longer lurking over me like a short, well-dressed vulture. Not that she was short for a vulture, but she was shorter than me, and that’s what counted.
Yuri opened the folder and placed a number of colorful spreadsheets on our side of the desk. With these handy visual aids, he described what YuriCorp did—something about productivity surveys, loss prevention, and human resource allocation, tasks suprasensors could do with greater accuracy and speed than norms, hence the supra companies’ domination of their particular consulting area.
Visual aids or no visual aids, it was mud to me. I was still stumbling over the fact an entire network of suprasensor companies existed in corporate America and didn’t have anything to do with Mulder and Scully. Buzzwords flew around my head like gnats in the summer. My brain clicked over to “grin and nod” halfway through the lecture, and I was thrilled when Lou from the front desk interrupted with pizza and soda.
Lunch was served. John claimed he’d already eaten, and Samantha sat in Yuri’s chair behind the desk, swiveling idly and chewing on a slice. Yuri and I balanced paper plates on our knees.
“Good, isn’t it?” Samantha asked when I snagged a third piece.
“I’m hungry.” It was interesting pizza. Thick crust, low grease, heaped high with veggies and cheese, but it had white sauce instead of tomato.
Yuri wiped his lips with a napkin and tossed it in a wastebasket next to a lush fern. “I won’t keep you much longer. Any of you. I know you’ve all been up all night.”
“She had a nap,” Samantha said, “while we filled out reports.”
“Not a very long nap.”
“Cleo, you might be wondering where you fit into all this,” Yuri said. “Why we went to such great lengths to interview you.”
“Kidnap,” I muttered. I wiped my fingers and sipped my soda. He was right, though. I hardly had an MBA, a law degree or any of the things that qualified one for business consulting. Including an actual interest in the field.
“Our desire for you to join our team is twofold. A lot of what we do is conduct employee interviews and observe relationships and interactions. A woman of your skills would be a great asset to that aspect of our consulting work.”
“Any supra consulting firm would be anxious to have you on staff,” John added. “Add to that our suspicion you’re a chameleon as well, and you’re invaluable.”
In my wildest dreams, the ones that didn’t involve winning the lottery, I’d wondered if I could be useful. I’d dreamed of amounting to something, but never of being invaluable. “That’s nice of you to say.”
“It’s the truth.” Yuri gathered the graphs, stuck them back in the folder, and handed it to me. “This is all the information about the company plus salary, benefits, that sort of thing. Read it over the weekend and let us know what you think Monday.”
Across Yuri’s desk, Samantha’s lips tightened. She cleared her throat. “She should know the risks, too, Pop-Pop.”
“Of course.” Yuri steepled his fingers. His nails were short and a little dirty. “Thank you for the reminder. We won’t deliberately conceal anything, Cleo, but that doesn’t mean we’ll remember to tell you everything. There are dangers in this business.”
Dangers in management consulting? Was I at risk of becoming so smarmy I found myself longing to sell used cars?
Yuri cleared his throat. “There’s a certain amount of personnel poaching between firms. Representatives of Psytech and others may contact you. Not all will be polite.”
“John mentioned something that.” I twiddled with my folder to hide my unease. “Are they a threat to me? What about my stepfather?”
“If you sign with us, you’ll both be protected—you’ll be in the system, in what we call the Registry, and there are checks and balances for that sort of thing. But we can’t protect free agents and we can’t protect you from other offers.”
I don’t know why I’d need protection from those. More likely, they wanted to protect their investment. A fat salary and benefits would be protection enough in the normal world, but Yuri didn’t seem interested in discussing the practical aspects of me becoming a consultant.
Like whether or not I had any idea how businesses worked so I could tell people how to run theirs. Economics—not my forte.
“I confess there’s another reason we’re interested in hiring you.”
Now it comes, I thought. The rest of the truth. Should I hold my breath?
“Because there’s so much competition for key talents, there’s also a degree of corporate espionage. It gives the other guys an edge to know what new talents we’ve located and what progress we’ve made understanding the talents we’ve hired.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Exhaling carefully, I said, “Talents like me?”
He nodded. “You’ll need to keep your main ability concealed. No one can know that you see lies.”
Part of the attraction of this whole thing was finally getting to be myself. “Why?”
“If what you can do becomes common knowledge, we lose our advantage.”
“If your advantage involves corporate espionage, count me out.” I put the folder on the desk and crossed my arms. “That’s, like, illegal, even when you’re operating under the radar.”
“We wouldn’t ask you to do anything criminal. We don’t employ thieves, but we do have a problem with them. What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room. You can speak freely with myself, Samantha, John and Alfonso about this, but no one else. We’re under attack, Cleo, and we’re hoping you can help us find a saboteur.”
Chapter 4
Freak among freaks
I opened the folder as soon as Alfonso returned me to my digs behind the RC Cola machine.
Wow. Just...wow.
If I’d known I could make dough like that in consulting, I’d have gotten an MBA through a correspondence school ages ago. Someone had circled the annual salary and written, “Why are you worth this much?” in the margin, like a taunt. A dare. A challenge.
Greedy person that I am, the salary enticed me like a shoe sale at Macy’s, and I was burning with curiosity. After being alone with the masks all my life, I was ready to try something new. I could be a part of a team, surrounded by people who knew what I could do. Who could do weird stuff, too.
The New Mutants! In Suits!
Except part of YuriCorp’s deal was the people around me wouldn’t know the bulk of what I could do. The supra world would be told I was a chamele
on, whose task on a consulting gig was to blend into the background. Way, way into the background.
I had no idea how being a wallflower was the stuff of anyone’s superheroine dreams. Didn’t know how it could help in consulting, either, but Yuri assured me the other YuriCorp employees would have no trouble believing it.
Now I had to decide—take this job or shove it. Was YuriCorp my best option now that a whole new world of income potential had fallen into my lap?
My instinct was to go for it. I’d have a sizeable paycheck and interesting coworkers, and Nashville was closer to Dan’s house in Kentucky. If it was true about this saboteur, my success would help lots of people. A disproportionate number of employees had burned out on the job in the past year, which meant they lost their abilities after some weird supra panic attack. No one remembered anything out of the ordinary, and the other companies weren’t talking, or gloating, more than they ever did. The leak had to be plugged, and Yuri hoped I’d be the cork.
I’d always figured there was another shoe and one day it would drop. But did the shoe fit? And was it even in style?
One thing for certain, my foundation had been shaken like a pair of maracas. Instead of freaking out, instead of catching the first plane to New York City so I could hide out in the subway system with the Mole People and the Morlocks, I found myself unable to do anything besides stare at the shadowy window. Eyes unfocused, I stroked Boris’s fur, soothed by the silk beneath my fingers and his rumbling purr.
Yessss. I should do this. Change was good. YuriCorp was good. My life would be good, and the things I would buy with all that money would make it even better.
Natasha jumped onto the bed and startled Boris, who dug his claws into my thigh. The pain jolted me out of my trance.
Wait a minute. Wait just a hairball-kakking minute.
This wasn’t me. I knew me, and I was paranoid. I’d have donned an aluminum foil hat if I thought it would help—in public, no less, when it didn’t match anything I was wearing. Who was this change-is-good person and why was she so mellow? I’d never liked dealing with new situations and new liars.
Samantha Graves. That bitch. I’d never have faith in my own reactions again with someone like her around. Was it live or Samorex? Maybe that’s how they convinced people to sign. Protocol, my ass.
I’d battled with the ethics of my ability throughout my life. Harder when I inadvertently discovered private things that didn’t affect me, not as hard when I was, say, in pursuit of a guy. In that situation, I’d used my lie sight as a tool in my arsenal. Besides my boobs, the other tool in my arsenal, considering I was neither gorgeous nor charming.
But that was me, by my lonesome, unable to shut off the lies unless I poked out my eyeballs. Where did ethics figure in if you could turn it off? When you weren’t the only one with an ability? Was it worse when you used your evil power on people who knew or when you did it to people who had no clue your kind existed?
How about if you used your secret power on people who did know your kind existed but thought you were an entirely different kind of girl?
It seemed I was going to find out whether I wanted to or not. I’d cried out into the darkness of the Internet and a light had been shone upon me. I doubted any of them, not even YuriCorp, would leave me and my shadows alone now that they’d found me.
~ * ~
“What are you doing here? Leave me alone,” I said churlishly when Samantha popped her head into my temporary abode. “You pusher.”
Echoing my dislike, Natasha scuttled underneath the bed at a speed worthy of the most highly trained military operative.
“If you can bawl at me like that, anything I did has worn off.” Samantha frowned, resembling John more than I suspect she’d have wanted to, if she’d known. “You don’t absorb it like you should. Maybe it’s the chameleon element.”
I bounced off the bed, ready to lock myself in the bathroom if I had to. “Keep your hands off me. I mean it. If I take the job, it’s because I want to, not because you slimed me.”
“Hey.” She lifted her hands, making no attempt to approach, and said without a mask, “I just came by to see if you want to grab some dinner. The only thing I did today was relax you. I realize for you it’s an occupational hazard, but you shouldn’t be so suspicious.”
“You didn’t vibe me to take the job?” Because I wanted to, despite my doubts, and that didn’t seem like me.
“Maybe when I relaxed you, it kept you from a knee-jerk fear of change.”
I decided to ignore her valid point. “You aren’t telling me everything.”
She gave me a classic “duh” look. “Of course we haven’t. We only talked to you a couple hours. If you have questions, we’ll answer them. We can’t lie to you, so why try?”
“Here’s a question. You guys drag me down here and stick me in this boring room instead of a fancy hotel. No room service, no masseuse, no goody bag. Heck, nobody even offered me a free coffee mug. Is this supposed to convince me YuriCorp can swing my paycheck?”
“Pop-Pop explained where our profits go,” Samantha said. “Straight back into research. We don’t do frills. If you want frills, you’ll have to go with one of the other consulting companies. However, I guarantee you won’t like their business practices as much.”
There seemed to be a degree of bitterness in her statement. I didn’t dig. She believed what she said. Perhaps she’d been employed elsewhere at some point—to her detriment.
Instead, I said, “I would think I’d at least get wined and dined.”
“I’m here with an offer, aren’t I? You can have wine if you want, but as I recall from your blog, you’re not much of a drinker.”
“True.”
“If you can’t stand to be around me, I’ll order you a pizza. I’ll even go pick it up.” The corner of her mouth twitched, like she found my belligerence humorous. “Unless you’d rather have bagels.”
“There are no more bagels.” She looked fresh and rested, and she’d changed clothes. I had not. Except to eat the bagels and pee, I hadn’t moved off the bed. “Did you go home and nap?”
“John and I both did. He’s due to meet us in twenty minutes.”
“You and he don’t live together?”
She raised one eyebrow.
“I guess not.” If I went with Samantha, I’d be having dinner with John as well. My personal recruitment team...off the clock or on? “Where’s he meeting us?”
“A local restaurant. It’s supra owned, so we patronize it regularly. Food’s better, too.”
“I need to clean up first.”
“We don’t have forever.”
I ducked into the bathroom to splash water on my face and refresh my makeup. My hair hung in lank, mousy strands—in other words, it looked normal—and my suit had that lived-in sag. It would have to do. Samantha didn’t seem the patient type. I hated to slip back into the pumps, but I had no other shoes that would go with the slacks.
I could live with sartorial anguish...for now. I followed Samantha to the parking lot. The temperature had cooled, and a light breeze blew my hair into my mouth. “If I’m going to stay here, I’ll need my things,” I said.
Samantha clicked a button on her keychain and a hybrid parked outside the chiropractor’s office beeped. I slid into the passenger’s side of the ungainly little car.
“Make a list. We’ll send someone.” She jetted onto the highway, weaving in and out of traffic.
I didn’t like the idea of somebody poking around my apartment, going through my underwear drawer. I hadn’t exactly left the place in a guest-friendly state. “I’d rather do it myself.”
Except for the sound of her manicured nails clicking on the steering wheel, she didn’t reply. Was that because the answer was, “Sure, who cares?” or “Forget it, you’re a prisoner”?
The neighborhood we traveled through, mostly commercial, showed signs of wear and tear. Signs were missing letters, and there were a number of establishments I associated with
sketchier areas—pawn shops, check cashing places. We passed an international grocer that could have fit inside my favorite one in Chicago before Samantha pulled onto a street beside it. She drove to a building with tinted windows that had to be a restaurant because a menu was airbrushed on the glass in big red and yellow letters.
A sign, missing bulbs, proclaimed we’d arrived at Merlin’s Bar and Eatery.
A pack of Harley Davidsons had glommed the spaces near the front door. The rest of the vehicles appeared to be pickup trucks with large tires, junkers, and a few incongruously shiny sports cars. Samantha eased into a space between the motorcycles and a red Ford dually with a gun rack, dirt splattered up the sides like peacock tails.
“Excellent. Front row spot.” She turned off the ignition and tilted the rear view mirror to check her hair and lipstick.
The whiny strains of country music wafted out the front door when it opened to emit two men wearing boots, ball caps, and T-shirts with the sleeves ripped off.
“This is a beer joint,” I accused. I guess it was an in-joke to name a supra bar after a mythical—maybe mythical—wizard.
Samantha exited the car. “Just because they serve beer doesn’t make it a joint. It’s a family establishment.”
“Where’s their family?” I gestured at the two dudes.
Samantha smiled at me through her open door before she slammed it. “Don’t be stuck up. I see John’s truck. He’s probably holding us a table.”
I got out and she pointed her keychain at the hybrid, the cheery beep-beep of the automatic locks ridiculous next to the beefy Harley that was almost bigger than her car. Sighing, I followed her through the door, also tinted black, the tint peeling in spots.
Inside, it still looked like a beer joint. Glass lamps advertising various brews dangled above the booths. The tables were scarred and scratched, the chairs mismatched. A waitress with large hair, breasts and teeth greeted Samantha by name.
“John’s back by the juke. This one of your newbies?” She gave me a once over, and suddenly I knew why they called it a once over. Once it was over, I felt sticky and used.