by Alex Hughes
The wire-inset glass door had moved along a track to shut with a thud I could feel in my soul. It must have been three inches thick, and nothing I could move or break without a lot of noise and even more time. Worse, the small metal commode in the back was probably the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen, clearly not cleaned in years. There was a sink beside it, just as dirty.
Seriously? I was in a holding cell for defending myself? I kicked the wall and cursed. Now my toe was screaming at me. Kara, damn it!
I stood up and paced, back and forth, back and forth, anger pushing every one of my movements. I had come to help Kara. And she . . . she . . . she’d betrayed me.
Again.
You’d think I’d learn to stop trusting the traitor. But no.
I was a damn stupid fool. A damn stupid fool.
I walked until the anger turned from hot flames to banked coals, I walked and turned and walked until the muscles in my sides hurt from the pivoting, until I could tell where the walls were without looking, until I could reach out a hand and touch the electrified front bars and not curse. I walked until my lungs complained and I wanted a cigarette so badly I couldn’t think. They were gone from my pockets, of course. As was the lighter. And my shoes, damn it.
Thirst eventually drove me to the sink, where I wrinkled my nose before turning the grime-encrusted faucet. No water came through. So I lay down on the dirty floor and waited.
“Um, hello?” I called out eventually, more out of exhaustion than anything. I was starting to get cold again now that I wasn’t moving.
“You’re awake,” a calm woman’s voice said, a lovely contralto.
“Yes,” I said cautiously.
“I’m two cells down from you. They brought you in unconscious. Sometimes people don’t wake for days.”
“Oh.”
There was a long silence.
“Why do they let us talk to each other?” I asked.
“Best shielding in the building, right? The psychologists think if we get too isolated we’ll go crazy. Well, the ones who aren’t crazy already.”
“The screaming ones,” I said.
She sighed. “I don’t know what she sees, but whenever anybody walks by her cell she screams for hours like she’s being attacked by a monster. Princess cries sometimes, but she doesn’t talk and it doesn’t last.”
“And who are you?” I asked.
She was silent, even when I repeated the question.
I counted spots on the ceiling, my back getting cold. I tried to sleep, knowing this was the best response to conserve energy, but I couldn’t. I just lay, with a mental stopwatch in my head, waiting for them to be done with this.
They had to be done with this soon. People would notice if I was gone. People would notice, eventually. Stone had said himself I wasn’t a threat to the Guild. There was no point in keeping me locked up; this was to scare me, nothing more.
“Person two cells down?” I finally asked, to distract myself from the anger and despair that were doing their best to play tug-of-war with my insides. “Person? What happens next?”
“Next they forget about you. If the psychologists and mind-repairers can’t fix you, or they think you’re too dangerous to let out in the population, they forget about you here. Only place in the Guild you can’t get past the shielding no matter how powerful you are. You’ll break your mind trying, trust me. They put us here to isolate us. They put us here to forget.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I killed my husband,” the woman two cells down said. And again went silent.
I counted spots on the ceiling then. I knew this game. Make the suspect uncomfortable. Give him difficult conditions and leave him alone. Let him drive himself out of his mind in the waiting. But knowing didn’t make it easier.
Hours passed, and the stopwatch in my head kept building, the stopwatch and the pressure and my thirst.
The girl started screaming, screaming again, high-pitched and panicked, in a tone that made my whole body tense.
I sat up. The world spun as my blood pressure changed too quickly.
A man stood on the other side of the glass front wall of the cell.
CHAPTER 4
Midforties, with dark carrot hair mixed with gray, the man was tall, with enough age and wrinkles to project authority without seeming old. His nose was a little more prominent than the average, almost hooked, and he had the posture of someone both highly educated and very used to being in charge. That, and the large Council patch on his jacket, told me I should pay very close attention. There were only twelve members of the Guild North American Ruling Council, and they made life-and-death decisions daily.
He moved to the side, his hand going up to press against the wall where I couldn’t see him, and Turner was revealed behind him.
My heart leaped, and I forced calm as much as I could. I should have been able to feel her coming. Her, at least, I should have felt coming. The fog in Mindspace, like suffocating cotton, filled all my senses.
The screaming stopped, abruptly, and silence filled the cell. My ears rang with it. Behind them, the woman huddled in the corner, her sides shaking soundlessly.
The man hit a button. The door opened with a low screech. I noticed Turner was carrying a water bottle.
I pulled myself to my feet, to better face my jailer.
“Adam Ward,” the man said, in an elderly statesman voice.
“Who are you?”
The man stood in the doorway, no farther, so that the field of the shielding still hid his mind from me. I couldn’t tell how strong he was. I couldn’t even tell what his Ability was.
Turner stood behind him, ready. We’d established she could handle me without backup, but this also seemed to establish that this man held her reins.
I forced myself to look away from the water bottle and back at the man in charge. “Who are you?” I asked again.
He took a breath, like a man preparing for a long speech. “My name is Thaddeus Rex, and I am the executive chair of the Council. I also lead the Guild First faction, which proposes to improve the lives of Guild members through better health, stronger safeguards, and innovative training and management techniques.”
“Good for you,” I said. “You realize that doesn’t say anything at all, right?”
He frowned at me.
I wondered if I’d be harder or easier to interrogate than your average Guild suspect. I knew all the verbal tricks, what could and couldn’t be said, and I’d spot the lies at ten paces, but I wasn’t used to someone who could read my mind, not anymore, and I couldn’t say for sure I could still lie mind-to-mind and not get caught. Still, if they left me in the shielding cell here, it might be a moot point. “I take it this is the part where you interrogate me?”
Rex shrugged, with a small smile. “You’ve been accused of a very serious privacy violation, and you owe the Guild Enforcement Division an astronomical debt. Technically, I don’t have to interrogate you. I can leave you down here until you rot. Of course, I’d have to turn on the water eventually, but it’s not very good water.”
I stood my ground, swallowing. “I work with the police. They will miss me eventually. They will send people looking for me.”
“Likely they will—you’re right. But I don’t have to let them in the door; the Koshna Accords are very clear. You’re still a telepath, Adam Ward. There’s not much they can do except file a protest.” He smiled that small smile again. “We receive a dozen protests a week on various topics.”
I swallowed. “Won’t Stone have something to say about that?” I’d mention Kara, but since she’d had them throw me in here, who knew her loyalties lay. With herself, probably—the way it had always been, I thought with a deep resentment.
“Stone reports to Tobias. Tobias reports, well, indirectly, to me,” Rex said quietly.
My face must have fallen, because Rex smiled outright in satisfaction. He gestured to Turner, who moved forward cautiously to hand me the water bottle.
I took it, numbly. Thought about not drinking it, in case they’d put anything in it. I didn’t need to be hooked on anything new. The Guild’s damn drugs had done it last time quick enough, when I’d participated in a study of Satin’s effects on the mind and gotten hooked on the second dose. Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past the Guild to put something in the water here just to see what would happen.
“It’s clean,” Turner said quietly, and moved to the side of the cell, still watching me. Rex was still at the door.
I looked at her, trying to decide. Rex I didn’t trust any farther than I could throw him, but Turner seemed like one of the pros I’d trained with and grown up around. She also had a small mallet-shaped pin, the Guild founder Cooper’s personal symbol, the symbol for a system of ethics I ascribed to. Didn’t mean she was trustworthy, though; the pins had been popular for years among the guards.
I held the water, deciding.
“I have a proposal for you,” Rex said smoothly. “Green says you managed to get through his defenses with real skill.” He held up a hand, waving away my protests. “Green isn’t one to exaggerate, much. It takes quite a skill to manage such a breach while under attack and in the presence of several witnesses who saw nothing. Not to mention a great deal of moral flexibility to break one of the Guild’s foremost ethical guidelines without so much as an accusation of wrongdoing.”
“Foremost ethical guidelines? Really?” I said. “Since when is a basic probe anything but tactics?” I was uncomfortable with the compliment, and even more uncomfortable with the ideals behind it. “I did what I had to do.”
“You did what you had to do,” Rex repeated, like he was testing out the words. “A very interesting approach, to be certain. I can be appreciative of your skills, as long as you understand those kinds of ethical breaches can’t be deployed on just anyone. Green, for example, was a very poor choice. He’s a Councilman, after all, though not a particularly impressive one.”
I barely repressed a snide comment about the Council and double standards. “No comment,” I said. In the non-Abled world this would be the point at which I should call a lawyer, but the Guild system didn’t work like that. And I hadn’t paid Guild fees recently enough to justify an advocate being called for me, even if I could somehow argue I had a right to one. I wasn’t a member, so technically I didn’t have access to an advocate. But if they were trying to claim jurisdiction . . . honestly, the whole thing made my head hurt.
“Don’t be modest. I have a use for someone with a high degree of skill and a weak sense of privacy. You’re in great debt to the Guild, Adam Ward. I propose you work for me to pay some of it off now.”
Great, the debt was coming back to bite me in the ass, just like I’d thought it would.
“Look, I showed up to talk to Kara. That’s it. I’m not getting involved in Guild politics, and I’m not working for you. Thanks anyway. I have a job.” But my doubt must have shown in my face, because he smiled.
“I can leave you in this cell on the debtor’s system instead if you prefer. Let’s give up the pretense. I have a highly political situation with a suspicious death. Kara’s uncle, as you may recall. You have a debt to pay. There’s no reason why we can’t both get what we want. My people tell me it’s very likely Meyers went mad and then concealed his illness from all of our watchdogs. I also can’t afford to ignore the issue, or not to investigate. He’s a fellow Council member, after all. We can’t let a killer go, if indeed it was anything but suicide, which I am assured it was not. But neither can I expose my people to a potential contagion of this magnitude. If there’s something there, it’s already proven itself deadly.”
I moved forward until Turner’s gesture stopped me.
I did not want to expose myself to madness if it was going around. I tried one last-ditch effort. “This is not the first Guild death under suspicious circumstances. Hell, even if it’s a suicide, it’s not the first suicide in the history of the world. He’s dead, and Enforcement is very capable. Why in hell bring me in?”
Rex’s right index finger tapped against his leg. “I have my reasons. Let’s just say, I’m better positioned to advance the causes of the Guild if you investigate. Plus I can argue we’re saving Guild lives if something goes wrong.”
“Let me get this straight. You want me to walk into a potential mental health death trap, to solve a case I’m not qualified to solve?”
“Exactly so, yes. You understand perfectly.”
I shook my head. “There’s no way in hell.”
Rex stood at the doorway, unperturbed. “It’s amusing to watch you protest. But you realize you don’t have any choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” I said.
He shrugged. “You can stay in the cell. The investigation into your privacy violation is already tending toward guilty. Between that and your debt, we’ll call it ten years. Should pass quickly, I’m sure.”
“I’ve agreed to work out the debt. And that’s a huge overkill on a privacy violation!” I protested. “When I left it was a slap on the wrist. Two weeks, tops, and a memory deletion of the offense—and that was for stalkers. How in hell do you get ten years?” Even combining that offense with the debt would be four years, tops, even if they’d thrown the book at me in the old days.
“Don’t be coy. We’ve changed a lot since you left the Guild, Ward.”
“I guess so,” I said with contempt.
He smiled, an almost obvious pride. “Privacy is sacred in the Guild now. Guild First has seen to that. We’ll give you some reading material. You’ll have plenty of time. Unless, of course, you take my offer.”
I swallowed. After the Guild got me hooked on drugs and tossed me on the street, after I cleaned myself up, wiped out everyone who’d ever sold me drugs, them and their lieutenants, I’d told myself I’d never—never—be used again. I wasn’t about to start now.
Rex smiled. “I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Mrs. Turner. I’ll expect a report every twenty-four hours.”
My fists clenched as he walked away.
I looked at Turner and she looked at me; her facial expressions were as deadpan as could be, and her body language was merely prepared. I might be able to get past her in the holding cell, with the shielding removed, do something physical to knock her out—but physical was Cherabino’s department. I smoked too much.
“How about I report you to the Council for using unethical tactics instead?” I said. “I’ve been away for years. What’s your excuse?”
The sound of footsteps stopped, then resumed back in our direction. The screaming started again.
Rex held up a hand when he came back in sight. The mask dropped. I saw the man within, the utterly, utterly ruthless man within. “Don’t threaten me, boy. I’ve been playing this game since before you took your Guild exams. You step out of line, I will discredit you and destroy you and then go after anyone who ever stood with you. That includes the lovely Kara Chenoa. You’ll do what I say, and you’ll do it with a good attitude. You report to Stone, for now. If he asks or anyone else asks, Enforcement as a whole has put their weight behind you. Naturally this will earn you enemies. That’s not my problem. See that you toe the line—I wouldn’t want to see a slip cost you everything.”
He held up a Guild Enforcement badge, a red card, and a key. “You’ll need these to do your job. I’ll expect a full report in forty-eight hours.”
He handed the items to Turner and then turned around.
“If I solve the case, I get my debt cleared,” I called out after him. “I get my debt cleared and I don’t get called up on any privacy violation.”
“We’ll see.” Rex resumed walking.
I stared after him.
• • •
The water bottle in my hand felt suddenly very heavy.
“You sure this is clean?” I asked Turner.
“I didn’t get it myself,” she said, “but it came from the regular security refrigerator.”
I looked at it, my thirst and my sense of self-preservation warring, while in the background the woman screamed with a hoarse voice. “Give me the badge,” I said. “The key is to the main doors, I take it? What’s the card?”
She gave me the badge. “We’re on lockdown, so if you want access to the major portion of the Guild you’ll need clearance, which is the badge and the card together. They change the card every couple of days, so make sure you keep up to date. The key is for the elevators.”
I took a breath. “What time is it?”
“Six a.m. Friday,” she said.
I shook my head. I was due at work in less than two hours, and I’d gotten no actual sleep, just a few hours of forced unconsciousness from being knocked out. Plus I’d missed my regular meeting with my sponsor with no notice, which would trigger all sorts of worries.
Turner looked at me. “Restroom? I can get a male guard, but it takes a minute and I’d rather know now.” Her tone wasn’t exactly pleased.
I sighed. “I’ll wait.” I’d used the horrible little toilet once, and I’d rather have a clean washroom with a shower anyway, back at the department, even if she would let me take the trip. “I’d kill for a sink with running water and soap, though.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and moved out of the cell to a point where she could watch me. “You first.”
So I went first. The woman’s screaming got even more irrational when we passed, and the crying one inched away. Two more cells went past, empty.
But in the last cell, we passed a man with a long, long beard, who sat in a cell the size of my previous one and stared at the wall. Even through the shielding in the cells was heavier than I’d felt anywhere in the complex, I still felt leakage through it—a disturbing feel, like worms burrowing into the edges of my mind. I moved faster.