by Jody Wallace
“We need you in house.”
“Of course.” I sighed. “I have a villain to unearth. I could grow to hate that part of being me.” Like I didn’t already.
“Cleo,” John said, concern coloring his tones, “it’s who you are. Don’t hate yourself. As soon as you find our problem, you can just be a consultant. You’ll be great at that.”
“I’ll try.” It wasn’t me who hated me, it was usually everyone else. If it came to light I’d been investigating my peers for however long it took me, how would they feel?
I know how I’d feel. Pretty damn deceived, which was ironic because I deceived everyone on a daily basis.
Luckily I’d have a few acquaintances who knew what I could do, which was more than I’d had three days ago. Perhaps it would be enough. John and I had spoken easily about YuriCorp, the supra community, and where the best shopping in Nashville was, which I pretended only a moderate interest in. Nothing drives a potential boyfriend away faster than revealing your adoration of the mall too soon.
“Let’s take the alternate route.” John downshifted off the interstate, cutting through a residential area. “You could go this way if there was construction or a wreck.”
A little glimmer of dishonesty, noteworthy in its rarity, hovered around him. If this wasn’t an alternate route, what was he doing?
Hiding the fact I’d seen him lie, I asked, “Will I work downtown?”
“It’s not likely they’re our problem. They don’t have access to the data getting out of YuriCorp.” He seemed confident, but a person could be convinced of something that turned out to be untrue.
The landscape shifted from urban to suburban. “All of this used to be farmland,” he said. The developments on either side of us boasted large, stately homes. Interspersed between the neighborhoods were tracts of land for sale. We reached an intersection, and John chose the new highway. It gave way to more farmland with larger homes in the distance.
Not that I objected to extended time with him, but this couldn’t be mistaken for a logical re-routing of interstate traffic. “This doesn’t look like Nolensville.”
“It will.” John cleared his throat. “Nolensville is where we do the majority of our testing, experiments and supra training. It’s also where we track new supras. That information is tightly safeguarded, and that’s part of what’s leaking out.”
I studied the white picket fence on the side of the highway until it blurred into a white smear. “You don’t share what you learn with other supras?”
“It’s difficult to explain. Sometimes a company develops a technique it teaches only to employees. I’m a good example. Most supras in my area can’t taste supra abilities. YuriCorp patented that process, inasmuch as a supra company can patent something without going through official channels. If anyone needs the technique, they have to hire us.”
A tractor pulled onto the road ahead. John braked, put on his blinker, and eased around the slower vehicle. There wasn’t much traffic, even though it was a nice Sunday afternoon. We’d definitely picked the scenic route.
If he were trying to extend our time together, you’d think he’d flirt a little or respond when I tried to flirt. “What do you do when you’re not working, John?”
“Nashville has an NFL team I follow in season. Otherwise, I work all the time.”
It was true. The poor, poor man. All work and no play made John sadly lacking in non-business conversation.
“A lot of people in Nashville are into country music. Do you know any country stars?”
“No.”
Yeah, he was really enjoying his extended time with me. Every time I tried to broach personal topics, his ratio of words to sentences decreased drastically. He hadn’t seemed socially inept yesterday, but you never knew about people once you got them alone.
At least he was honest.
After a long, awkward silence, I revisited the work discussion so he’d say more than five words at a time. “What if somebody gets a job somewhere, learns everything, quits, and takes their shiny new skills on the road?”
“That’s definitely an issue.” The set of his shoulders relaxed. “The same thing happens at other companies, so eventually knowledge is disseminated. For a while, though, discovering a new tactic or a new supra can give us an edge.”
“Is there any way to stop a supra from using his or her abilities? Burn them out on purpose?” The concept of a supra nervous breakdown was foreign to me, but so was a management consulting company filled with mutants.
John frowned, his face creasing into its habitual, and cute, grooves. “There are unreliable methods. I’m sure you’ve noticed your suprasenses are dulled by narcotics.”
“Sure.” Alcohol dulled all my senses, including the lie sight, but not enough for booze to be worth it. “I guess you can’t force a crook to stay hammered. Are there supra cops?”
“All efforts to form a police force have dissolved.” He sounded like he was a news reporter reading cue cards. “No one agrees on a central set of rules or guidelines, aside from the laws and regulations of the countries in which we live, of course.”
“Who kicks your ass if you get out of line, supra style?”
“The other companies,” John said. “We also have a central organization called the Registry, but it’s a laboratory, not a company.”
“That’s the thing Yuri mentioned about being in the system.”
“It’s a library and an extensive private laboratory,” he explained. “The companies who support it receive equal access to the database and the services of the Registry lab. But it’s not a regulatory agency, and they don’t control anything.”
“What other ways are there to turn supra powers off?” Supras were as human as the next clod, so supra criminals had to exist.
“Lobotomies,” John said.
“Are you kidding? You lobotomize people?”
“Not in recent history. It proved ineffective.” He gave a slight smile, and I realized it had been his version of a joke. I hope. “A large electric shock can disrupt abilities.”
Being dead would disrupt anyone’s abilities. “Tazers?”
“They don’t work for long.” He cued the windshield wipers to vamoose a splattered bug. “Most supras who burn out overdosed on amp. It’s a drug that stimulates new connections in the brain. Small doses can heighten one’s suprasense, sometimes permanently, but there’s a fine line between enhancement and overdose. A loss, like a gain, can become permanent. Most supras don’t touch the stuff.”
This was getting more science fiction by the minute. “That’s not good.”
“Burnout is rarely good, though it can be relaxing if it’s brief.”
“You’ve been burned out?” He didn’t seem like druggie to me. That would involve having a life outside of work, unless he did his drugs in the YuriCorp broom closet. I obviously needed to teach the man how to have a good time.
“Yes, of course.” John glanced at me quickly, a surprised expression on his face. “You haven’t?”
“I, uh, don’t know. Maybe if you describe it?”
He eyed me as if my ignorance had to be fake—or made him suspicious. “Your suprasenses subside to normal levels. There’s a numbness like mental exhaustion. Aside from amp or electric shock, a minor burn can happen when you overuse your ability during emotional or physical stress. As I’m sure you know, all supras lose their abilities at...certain times.”
He was wrong—I didn’t know. I couldn’t recall a time I’d been unable to see lies. When I was drunk or tired, I couldn’t see the masks as well, but they were always there.
“I forgot about that,” I lied, unwilling to admit I wasn’t like the other kids. “When people don’t have anything to say, it’s hard for me to gauge.”
He reddened, and I got the impression it embarrassed him to discuss it. I, on the other hand, would love to be free from lies, but I didn’t know how to ask about this universal incident I was supposed to know already.
�
��I could use an extended burnout,” I said, to keep the conversation flowing. “It would be a nice break from other people’s crap. Are you sure I can’t schedule one?”
For an uncomfortable moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. His flush deepened, and he avoided eye contact. Not that he should have been gazing into my limpid pools while driving. “As you know, I can’t lie to you,” he began, a lie fluttering around his face. “Aside from unavoidable ones, you can’t risk a burnout.”
Either he thought he could lie to me, or he thought I should risk a burnout. Well, in a way, we all were at risk. YuriCorp’s consultants were on the hot seat and it was my job to help ice the bad guy. So to speak.
“Are you going to require I take Xanax to make sure I don’t get anxious?” I asked. Considering my history, I didn’t think they had much to worry about with me losing my abilities otherwise.
“We’ll know more after your tests,” he hedged. “Most of your testing will involve your chameleon side since we need to conceal your primary ability from our lab staff.”
“I’ve never been good at tests.” John had gotten part of his information about me from licking my hand. Samantha had suggested he kiss me last night, and I thought of that now—as I had several times today. What would kissing him be like, if he were tasting me so intimately he could sample my DNA?
It didn’t look like I’d be finding out from Mr. All Business. It was almost as if he’d been assigned to tour me around the city.
“Tell me something,” I said. “Did Yuri delegate you to show me the sights?”
“Er.” John stared fixedly at the road ahead of us. “He mentioned you might feel more comfortable deciding about your future employment if you were familiar with the area.”
“You’re working.” That answered a lot. “This is part of your job.”
“No, I—”
Whatever he was going to say was cut off when the car ahead of us on the quiet country lane screeched to a stop and whirled sideways, tires smoking.
“Holy hell!” I clutched the dashboard and braked with my feet, which, of course, did nothing to stop the vehicle.
John swung the truck off the road, rattling through a small drainage ditch and onto a grassy embankment.
I screamed. He jerked the wheel. Our tail end spun and crumpled a section of the ubiquitous white fence before we chunked back down the embankment.
My teeth chattered in my head like a manual typewriter. I pointed at the other car, a large black sedan. “What’s up with that asshole?”
John stopped the car half on, half off the gravel shoulder. We were about twenty feet behind the sedan.
“Are you all right?” He whipped off his seatbelt and leaned across the cab.
“I think so.” The rush of adrenalin gave me swimmy-head. I took off my seatbelt, too. When he patted me down, I let him.
His palm was warm. Not tingly, like Roxanne Spivey, but nice. Normal. He gently probed my shoulder where the seatbelt had lain across me. “Bruises? Sore neck?”
He lingered on the skin of my neck, a fingertip rubbing my collarbone. He was close enough to kiss, to taste that magical tongue, and I was already halfway in his arms.
God, he was appealing. There was just something about him, something earnest and sexy at the same time.
Heat rose in my face when I realized his touch was turning me on. “I’m just startled,” I claimed. If he didn’t want to be mauled by a sex-starved woman who hadn’t gotten any skin in months, he’d better keep his hands to himself.
“You’re sure?”
I brushed him away. “Let’s go check on the asshole and see if he had a heart attack.” I’d feel bad for calling him an asshole if that were the case.
“Stay here.” John popped on the emergency brake and shut the motor off. He got out of the cab and walked around to check his tailgate.
I’d have been more worried about why somebody careened to a stop in the middle of a highway than the damage to my vehicle. The other guy was blocking the road, which meant this could turn into a bigger wreck. I peered into the distance. No cars ahead, one approaching from behind but far off. The closest house was several cow fields away.
Ignoring the fact John had told me to stay put, I unlocked my door and jumped out of the truck.
And promptly sank to my knees, more wobbly after our near-crash than I’d expected.
A hand caught me before I bit gravel. “Cleo, I asked you to stay inside.”
“We need to see if the other driver is all right.” Nobody had clambered out of the black sedan, a bad sign. “He could be sick. We should call 9-1-1.”
I leaned into the cab and scrambled for my purse. In the commotion, it had wedged itself under the seat.
“Let me check it out first.” When John stepped toward the other vehicle, all the doors opened and four people stepped out in unison.
“They had to have practiced that.” When I realized they were all wearing ball caps, sunglasses, and black track suits, I added, “Should I call 9-1-1 now?” This had all the signs of a carjacking.
That’s when the car behind us closed the distance, executed half of a three point turn, and parked next to our tail end.
“John, look out!” After the warning he probably didn’t need, I leapt into the cab and slammed my door. Since John wasn’t in the truck, I didn’t shut his door, but I did whip out my phone.
“Arlin,” one of the men said to John. “We’d like a word.”
I quit dialing. This made the second time I’d come within a digit of invoking the cops when John was involved.
With one snap of John’s spine, his posture changed to stiff and angry. “I don’t have anything to say to you and neither does she.”
Wait a minute, she? I was she.
“She’s not registered yet, friend. As I believe she informed one of our compatriots last night, it’s a free country.”
“She’s our guest.”
“You hid her away, Arlin. You prevented open access. Bad form.”
More Psytech assholes. Though they were older than Alex, they had that look about them, glossy and confident, including the woman. What would John do if they wanted to kidnap me? Punch a senior citizen?
I wasn’t going to be dragged off by four oldsters who were nowhere near as well-dressed as John, Samantha and Alfonso. Matching track suits—really? They looked like the early bird buffet eating team.
I wrenched open the glove box, hoping for a gun or pepper spray. In the terrible mess inside, the closest thing I found was a tire pressure gauge. Should I call the cops and involve them in what was evidently supra business?
Right now it seemed like the wisest choice. I hit the final “1” on the phone, but when I lifted it to my ear, all I got was static. Shit! What a time to be too far from a cell tower.
“Miss Giancarlo.” The shortest guy tapped the brim of his cap and raised his voice so I could hear him. “Please don’t call the police. We mean you no harm.”
I rolled down the window. “You made us wreck! Look at the fence. Tell Psytech to leave me alone. I mean, Jesus! This is like a bad Mafia movie. You stalk us down a deserted road, and I’m supposed to believe you mean us no harm?”
The thugs and thuggette appeared taken aback by my tirade, but the short guy said, “We’re not with Psytech. We’re with Baumhauser.”
“I don’t care who sent you. You pissed me off. Now get out of our way because I need my dinner. You don’t want to see my sugar bottom out, trust me.”
“We’d love to take you to dinner.” The man took off his shades, which had been concealing a mad monobrow. “Steak? Lobster? You name it, missy. Anything you like.”
A shadow fell across me, and Alex, who’d apparently been in the second car, placed a hand on top of John’s truck and peered in the passenger window. I scooted to the middle of the bench seat so he couldn’t touch me or breathe on me or whatever he might need to do to use his powers on me.
“Hello, Cleopatra. Are these people bothe
ring you?”
If I leaned closer to roll up the window, he could grab me. I gripped my tire gauge. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Following you.”
“Why are you here, Berkley?” one of the track suits yelled in a voice that shook with age. “You had your chance. Go soak it.”
“Now who’s trying to prevent open access?” Alex snapped his fingers. “Say the word, fair maiden, and I’ll rescue you. Arlin’s obviously incapable of protecting you.”
“All of you need to go soak it,” I said. “I’m taking the position at YuriCorp.”
“That’s a mistake, young lady,” the woman called.
“Definitely,” Alex agreed. “YuriCorp is second-rate. Even lower than the counseling outfits. You’re selling yourself short, Cleopatra. You don’t want Baumhauser, either. You’d be the youngest person there. Psytech can do a lot more for you.”
What they could do for me, I didn’t want done. “Listen, buddy, I never go by Cleopatra. I hate that name. Stop calling me that.” Then I yelled at everyone except John, “You people are all too creepy to work with, so forget it.”
I hoped my defiant attitude wouldn’t initiate a gang rumble. The fashion-challenged foursome had the advantage, and I didn’t get the impression John and Alex would team up against them.
“John,” I said, “I’d like to go home now.”
“She’s not signed yet. Open access, Arlin,” one of the Baumhausers reminded my escort.
John put his hands on his hips. He looked all manly and ticked off, the muscles in his chest and arms outlined by his posture.
I still wouldn’t bet on him over the four track suits. Or Alex.
“Can I help it if you have incompetent finders?” John asked. “She’s our score.”
I felt like shark chum. It was almost like I wasn’t valuable, but one-upmanship was. How had the recruit poachers found us in the middle of nowhere? Was this a supra pissing contest?
Supra powers. Urination. Oh, my brain did not want to go there.
“Let me drive you home,” Alex said to me. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go, and Arlin can follow me. It will give us a chance to chat. You can see I’m telling you the truth.”