The Whole Truth (The Supercharged Files Book 1)

by Jody Wallace

  “He has one and he thinks it’s your heat and air.”

  “Sorry, I don’t.” He probably had a headache due to an overdose of the Force.

  Lou uncovered the phone. “She’s fine. No, don’t do that. Uncle Herman, I swear. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times. Okay, bye.” She hung up. “Better hurry, Yuri has doughnuts. One of the kids is raising money for band uniforms.”

  “Want me to bring you one?”

  “I couldn’t eat another bite.” She patted her stomach. “But thanks, hon. By the way, Uncle Herman wants you to pick him up some ibuprofen.”

  The frequency with which I ran errands for Uncle Herman had increased until he ordered instead of asked. Lou was nicer, but she didn’t hesitate to boss people around either. It surprised me she was a Registry operator instead of in management. There wasn’t much call for an eraser in consulting outside of damage control, but this was the job she said she wanted, and Lou seemed the type who got what she wanted.

  Despite her alarming skill, she’d been one of the first people I’d crossed off my list. She and Pavarti were the friendliest people here, and Lou had taken me under her wing. Her memory zapping had originally drawn her into the family PI business, but she said she was too old for the stress and despair.

  Lesser stress could often be soothed by pastry, and if I wanted doughnuts, my violent encounter with Samantha would have to wait. I hustled to Yuri’s office before the hyenas sniffed out the goods.

  Yuri had a new plant, I noticed, when I slipped into his office. The overly large Venus flytrap reminded me of The Little Shop of Horrors.

  “What did you feed that thing, somebody from Psytech?” I asked.

  “Not at all.” Yuri liked to suck the wind out of my sails by taking my jokes seriously. “I tried a different mineral mix.”

  Yuri had a green thumb—literally. He could read soil content with his fingers. What it didn’t translate to was an advantage for management consulting, but he did have a head for business. He had some small ability to read people’s hormonal chemistry if he could get his fingers in their mouths. Also not that useful on a consulting gig outside of a dentist’s office.

  “Lou said you wanted to see me.”

  Yuri flicked the switch on his blanket box, which was a lot like one of those ultrasonic pest control devices. The lab guys said you just had to retune it on a regular basis. That way ears like Alfonso couldn’t train themselves to hear beyond your particular frequency.

  You couldn’t run a blanket full-time or you got a killer headache, so this meant Yuri wanted to have a big talk. I sat in one of the visitor chairs and tried not to stare at the boxes of Krispie Kremes next to the coffeepot.

  “How’s our special project going?” Yuri asked. Today he was sans-suit, wearing a striped sweater and slacks that made him look like a French mime.

  We’d had a couple meetings about my search, but he didn’t want our interactions to seem out of place for a chameleon in training. Since my suspicions about Samantha had insufficient confirmation, I decided not to mention them or what she’d done to me and John.

  “I’m sorry, Yuri. I don’t know anything yet.” The squicky search for the mole had continued to be futile as I pawed through the private lives of my coworkers. “I’m starting to have doubts.”

  “There’s no room for doubt.” Yuri leaned back in his chair and rubbed his bald head with his hands, heaving a giant sigh. “As if losing Pavarti weren’t bad enough, another job blew up today. Donning burned out like a hosta in the sun. Another stroke. We haven’t told anyone yet.”

  “Oh, no.” I’d met Adam Donning long enough to get him confused with Mike Mason and quiz him about his loyalties. He’d seemed like a decent guy.

  “We’ve never been hit this close together, or this bad. They’re stepping up their efforts.”

  There was no way two healthy consultants stroking out within a couple days could be a coincidence. YuriCorp was going to have trouble keeping the norms from noticing. Perhaps Lou was going to have to use her skills after all. “You’re sure I don’t need to spend more time downtown?”

  “The issue is definitely in this facility. Some of the information leaks involve the work of our trackers, who function strictly out of this office. You’re our last new recruit, despite our best efforts. We’re working on Tina.”

  “I don’t think it’s a tracker.” We had quite a few on staff. No other company spent as much time, energy and resources on trackers as YuriCorp did, and it was a demanding job. Jolene had spent years in tracking before switching to DNA with Beau—and said working with Beau was easier. “Are you positive the burnouts are connected to the information leak?”

  He peered through his fingers at me. “Do you see a lie around me, Cleo?”

  “No.” Usually good natured, today Yuri was testy, and it was obvious why. “I just wondered how you knew. Pavarti was near the end of a motivational seminar when she burned out. It’s arguable she could have been overtaxed. What was Donning doing?”

  In training, I’d learned how to protect myself from stress—meditation, dark rooms, quitting situations that over stimulated my suprasense. To prevent my chameleon half from burning out, I needed to avoid situations that made me want to disappear, like public speaking or someone smacking me around. So disappointing to remove speeches and beatings from my schedule.

  To avoid a lie sight burnout, I’d concluded I should avoid people who lied. Which was most people, but I’d suffered all sorts of stress in my life watching liars lie and had never burned out. Perhaps my years of, you know, leaving the house had increased my tolerance.

  “Donning and his team were on day two.” Yuri massaged his temples like he could squeeze the company’s misfortunes out of existence. “We were going to send John, but he and Sam took over Pavarti’s seminar.”

  My breath caught. “You think they were gunning for John?”

  “No way to tell. John’s been on any number of assignments and never on a team where somebody got hit. What are you hearing from the staff about morale?”

  “Pavarti’s condition spooks them.” Yuri and Al had received some complaints, but not as many as I’d seen in people’s masks. The disquiet was a low rumble, distant thunder before a storm. “When they find out about Donning, it might get ugly.”

  “I agree,” Yuri said, still rubbing his head. “Chameleons rarely burn out under normal circumstances. Donning’s situation is highly unusual.”

  If our ill-wishers were escalating, we needed to escalate as well. I just didn’t know what else I could do. “What if we create a chart of who burned out where and see if there’s a concentric pattern that leads back to the villain?”

  “There’s no pattern, Cleo.” Yuri dropped his hands and leaned back in his seat. “On-the-job burnouts have always been a risk for people who exert their suprasenses. The only consistency is it happens at work, it happens more than it used to, and it happens more to our employees than anyone else’s. I’m going to have to approach the other companies again, and I don’t like exposing my throat that way.”

  All my best ideas, shot down like squirrels. “I don’t see how anybody could be hiding something of this magnitude from me. The few people I haven’t met are on the road all the time and couldn’t be doing this anyway. Everyone thinks I’m a busybody.” I considered telling him about my note-writing friend, who had continued to gift me with little advice bombs, but it seemed trivial compared to the threat to our staff.

  “I’m sorry,” Yuri said sincerely. “This won’t be forever. We’re all fumbling in the dark. The situation is unprecedented.” He didn’t mean the corporate infighting. Supras had been undercutting each other’s bids and stealing employees since they’d had the bright idea to create rival companies. But according to everyone, they’d never attacked one another like this.

  All this strain was enough to make a girl crave carbohydrates. I needed a doughnut. Bad.

  I clenched the chair arms and concentrated
on Yuri. “If a suprasensor is causing the burnouts, isn’t that against our code of ethics?” Of course, the code didn’t keep Samantha in line, but I had no proof—yet—that her actions extended beyond her own personal amusement.

  “If nobody can prove you did it...” He trailed off with a shrug. “During our, ah, management consulting conferences, we’ve discussed forming a police unit, but the idea never gets off the ground.”

  “You’d think this would change everyone’s mind.”

  Yuri shook his head. “No one else has been this affected.”

  “So no one else cares.” Opinions were mixed about supra cops. Lou, after her time as a PI, felt strongly that we needed protection from the dangerous elements among us, so strongly she circulated a regular petition. She, Samantha, Ursula and I had debated it at lunch the other day, after a much more entertaining discussion of the fashion indiscretion that was dresses over pants. Other supras were more ambivalent.

  The more I saw YuriCorpers injured, the more I sided with Lou. “I think it’s time to revisit it. Everyone abides by other rules, like use of the Registry. I don’t see why we can’t agree on some policies and a way to enforce them.”

  “We all benefit from the Registry. Many don’t want the oversight of a police unit.”

  “Probably the men,” I griped.

  Yuri smiled a little. “Not just the men. I for one would support a police unit as long as there were measures in place to disrupt oppressive tendencies.”

  One thing I’d noticed—strength and power were relative when women like Samantha pushed moods and men like Yuri grew flowers. That being said, there was no way so many people could have abilities and not be swayed to the dark side. Suprasensors were no more morally upright than anyone else, and Lou had told me stories I didn’t like to think about.

  Like nearly everything that came out of Lou’s mouth, the stories were true.

  “I wouldn’t have dreamed management consulting would be dangerous.” If I’d known, would I have taken the job? Maybe. Whoever was attacking my fellow employees needed to be stopped, no matter who it was—even Yuri’s own granddaughter.

  “Nor would I,” he said. “Dangerous times call for desperate measures.”

  How could I sound him out about Samantha? I got us both a doughnut to lighten the mood before I broached the topic. When I resettled into my chair, I cracked a joke. “We do have long-term disability, right?”

  Yuri cast me an exasperated glance over his pastry. “Of course we do, but it won’t matter if we go out of business. We’ve lost too many key employee skill-sets. We’re struggling to fulfill contracts. We’re like grain without nitrogen—poor yield, low protein. Our effectiveness plummets when we fall back on normal management consulting techniques.”

  I looked him in the eyes and took a deep breath. “Did you know Samantha is dating Alex Berkley from Psytech?” I bit into the Krispy Kreme and hoped the sweetness would erase the bitterness of the near-accusation from my tongue.

  “Cross pollination.” With his half-eaten doughnut, Yuri waved away my concern about his granddaughter and favorite employee. Well, next to Lou, who was everyone’s favorite. It helped that Lou let YuriCorpers stay in the Lampey family beach house in Destin for free. “A number of employees are involved with competitors. Married, even. It doesn’t mean there’s trespassing. Suprasensors are drawn to one another.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t comment on the bed-hopping at YuriCorp. It was old news. “Alex can’t force her to tell him things, can he?”

  “Samantha can protect herself from Alex.”

  So what could he do? Listen? Smell? See? One thing I did know, Alex Berkley had no concept of personal space. He always crowded me when he joined us at Merlin’s, and if I ever found out he was hoodooing me, there’d be hell to pay.

  “Can he burn people out?”

  Yuri shook his head. “No supra can do that.”

  “Samantha tends to, um, use her powers outside of work. Casually.” By casually, I meant without a second thought and for her own malicious purposes.

  “Most of us do.” Yuri steepled his fingers and frowned at me, which he rarely did. “Are you trying to tell me I should be suspicious of my granddaughter’s loyalties?”

  “Gosh no.” I changed the subject fast. “What if it’s not one of us? Maybe it’s a hacker.”

  “Not all information goes into the computers, and our network is secure.”

  “I have one last idea.” Yuri was like a father to me and I hated to disappoint him. Okay, that was crap. Yuri was like a boss I was fond of, who paid me a lot of money and seemed to think I could make miracles happen. “Maybe Alex isn’t getting it from Sam, but what if somebody else is having the information tricked out of them? Or not tricked. The leak and the saboteur don’t have to be the same person. It could be, like, a whole conspiracy.”

  Or Psytech.

  “Hm,” Yuri said.

  “Is there any way I could meet people’s families? A company party or a picnic?”

  He blinked a couple times. “I’ll consider it. But you’ve got to wind this up, Cleo, before we leak ourselves dryer than the Atacama. I need to set a deadline.”

  An unpleasant feeling settled in my stomach along with the last swallow of doughnut. “What if I can’t make the deadline?”

  “We’ll switch to a more direct approach and hold mandatory interviews. I’m sorry, Cleo. We’re losing too much business, and my employees are being hurt. I have to act.”

  “Do you mean interviews where you ask people if they’re traitors and I pretend to be your secretary?” I said hopefully.

  “I mean interviews where Samantha pushes compliance and you ask questions.”

  I squeezed my hands together, my fingers sticky with sugar. “Then Lou can make them forget it happened.”

  “No.” Yuri didn’t smile. “Multiple touch effects aren’t healthy, and touch skills tend to negate each other anyway.”

  “If people know what I can do, they’ll hate...I mean, it will ruin my advantage.” Pushed by Sam, read by me... The giant violation of privacy wouldn’t go over well, and my coworkers and friends would all find out about it the worst way possible. Samantha and I would be personas non grata, with more hostility funneled at me because Samantha was a known quantity.

  “It’s dirty but it’s quick,” Yuri agreed. “We can’t sit around and let our employees be attacked. We’re already having to consider layoffs, even with the attrition.”

  Starting with me, I bet. “At least organize a picnic first.”

  He inclined his wrinkly, bald head. “All right. We could use a day off. I need to make some calls and find a safe location. You can’t hold a supra function just anywhere.”

  Though I’d gotten Yuri to agree to a stay of execution, I left the office feeling worthless. Our deal from the beginning had been that once I found the mole, I could be an ordinary consultant. I wouldn’t be asked to pry into my coworker’s secrets ever again. I don’t know to what extent I’d have been befriended if everyone had known my ability from day one, but if they realized I’d been probing them for months, I’d be as ostracized as a whistle blower.

  I’d waited so long to meet others like me, only to find I might still be avoided, disliked, different, whether or not my skill bumped me up the food chain. I’d be the caviar atop the USDA pyramid all by myself.

  Who wants to hang out with smelly fish eggs?

  ~ * ~

  Not John Arlin, that was for sure. He ignored my texts all week, asking him if he’d like me to burn a copy of the Hero Wars finale for him. Another to see if he liked the brownies. One more to see if he’d received my other messages. A last one to ask if he wanted to sign Adam Donning’s get well card. It wasn’t as if I messaged, “U want 2 go steady, txt Y / N, pleez nsr.”

  John and Samantha had taken over the job in Cool Springs, so neither was in the office, but it wasn’t like John to ignore texts. Was the thought of a relationship with me that horrific? Whenever my ce
ll phone buzzed, I got all excited, thinking he’d responded, but apparently my little friend had gotten my number and was using it to send me more helpful advice about the evils of inquisitiveness.

  My friend was watching me, and my friend was not happy. My friend also knew how to use the internet to send anonymous texts.

  Well, I’d given Sheila a great show this week. After Yuri lowered the boom, I increased my mole hunting to anytime I could escape from the lab. My desk gathered dust, and my mouth did not. Since Adam and the burnouts were the topic du jour, I was safe bringing it up. Incessantly. The other YuriCorpers were starting to think I was a slacker and a rubbernecker, but I’d hardly be written up for dereliction of duty.

  I had to keep my chin up. Once this was over, I could be the hard worker I wanted to be. They’d change their opinions. They’d like me again. It all hinged on me finding out the truth.

  Samantha, back from Cool Springs, pounced me mid-week as I was finishing my ten-thirty coffee break with Lou. The conversation had been fruitless insofar as the mole was concerned, but I did find out Sheila and Bob were having relationship trouble. I was tempted to send Sheila a message of commiseration from “a friend”.

  I’d nearly forgotten my thirst for vengeance for what Sam did to John and me, but I remembered when I saw her. She was wearing a chic designer suit with whiskey-colored accents that reminded me of John’s eyes.

  “Have a nice weekend?” she asked. She ticced her head to the side. “I see you didn’t spend it clothes shopping.”

  I inspected my black slacks and brocade blouse with the Mandarin collar and frog closures. “What’s wrong with my outfit?”

  “Nothing.” She cupped her fingers over her mouth, which interfered with my ability to read what her mask was saying. Great. She’d learned another trick to help her lie to me.

  “What I wouldn’t give to be fifty pounds lighter and twenty years younger.” Lou dabbed White Shoulders perfume behind her ears. I wondered if she could erase the fact I wanted to kill Samantha so I wouldn’t follow through with it and get myself arrested. “I’d give you girls a run for your money. All these hot men wouldn’t know what hit ‘em.”