“What else do you see?”
I didn’t want to dig too deep, but I examined his aura for nuance and saw the joy the creation of music gave him. I described it to Adam, who nodded.
“See if you can push aside the anxiety and let the joy flow.”
“Sure, that sounds easy.”
“Just try it.”
This was different from what I’d done before. Adam wasn’t suggesting I project an external emotion onto him, but help him isolate his own. As I studied him, the colors fluctuated as his joy started to swell, but his anxiety regained dominance. Probably he was thinking too hard. I couldn’t affect that, but maybe I could suppress the anxiety. I imagined reaching out with invisible hands and was startled to see tendrils of green stretching away from my body. I guided them to his aura and swept them over the orange anxiety. It stuck like cobwebs to a broom and actually came away with the green when I pulled it back. The joy started to fill the newly empty space, and his music took on a new rhythm, a new exuberance. Pedestrians paused to listen, bouncing to the beat, and coins poured into the hat. He flashed a grin and drummed harder. Fifteen minutes later, the hat was full, his anxiety was completely gone, and he practically danced as he carried his gear toward the Metro.
The anxiety I’d taken off of him had disappeared on its own. Emotion wasn’t made from matter, despite its manifestation in a way I could see as well as feel. For a few minutes I’d been afraid it would remain with me, but luckily it hadn’t touched me at all.
“Excellent,” Adam murmured in my ear as the drummer disappeared from our view. “Couldn’t get better results than that, right? Now try her.”
I followed his gaze and saw a young woman walking slowly on the other side of the street. Her shoulders were hunched, her head bowed, and depression hung on her like a cloud.
“I don’t know, Adam. That’s pretty deep. Surely a physical cause . . .”
“Just make it a little easier to bear.”
I wanted to. I ached with the need to siphon some of her pain. “But what if it backfires? What if it helps just enough to make it worse when it comes back? I can’t fix the underlying cause. She could try—” To commit suicide. I couldn’t say the words, thinking of Gino Scarengio.
“Or she could seek help.” He turned my shoulders toward him. “Daley, psychiatrists face this dilemma every day. What can they do for someone that won’t do more harm than good? What could they have done differently to stop the person’s self-destruction? It doesn’t keep them from trying.”
Dammit, he was right. I turned back toward the woman and did the green-hands thing again. At first there was no effect. I couldn’t wipe the heavy, sticky depression away. But when I imagined a hose siphoning off the cloud, it lightened in color. The woman straightened her shoulders, stood straighter. Her step picked up, and she smiled at a dog that pranced in front of her, trying to get her attention.
God, I hoped Adam was right, and it would hold beyond the corner she was turning.
“This is easier than I expected it to be.” Adam rubbed his hands together and grinned at me.
“More addicting than I expected.” Jazzed, I scanned the circle and the branching streets, looking for someone else I could help. “How long can we stay here?”
He laughed and settled against the brick behind us. “As long as you want to. But we shouldn’t get back too late,” he corrected, as if realizing we were supposed to be training me for tomorrow and then remembering what tomorrow was.
“Right. Okay, only a few more.”
After half an hour, Adam had me change my approach. Instead of addressing other people’s emotions, I tried to use my own.
“Altering what they are actively feeling is another tool for you, but I think you can do more.”
I watched the delight sparkling in a bubble I’d formed around myself. “I don’t know what more. I’ve already done this.” I mentally pushed the bubble outward until it engulfed Adam, making him laugh.
“Try other shapes. Other approaches. I can feel the happiness like a skin, but as soon as you let it dissipate, it’s gone.”
“I know, that’s what—”
But Adam wasn’t letting me minimize my power anymore. “Go inside. Dig into the core. I know you can do it.”
I knew I could, too. That wasn’t the point. “People’s core emotions are personal, Adam. It’s not right to attack them.”
He held my shoulders, a smile curving his lips slightly and making his eyes dance. “That’s exactly it, Daley. You’ve finally gotten it. It’s an attack. And tomorrow, we’ll be responding to an attack that will be a violation of a lot of things. Sometimes the only way to protect is to do the same thing.”
I scowled. “Well, I’m not doing it to any of these people.”
“Nope, you’ll do it to me.”
I argued a few more minutes, but he’d already convinced me. Speaking generally, digging into people’s core emotions might be wrong. But it wasn’t any different from shooting the bad guys with guns, if it could make them stop doing harm. So as we left the circle and headed back to HQ to meet the others for last-minute reports and planning, I experimented with the tamest emotions I had, trying to find the best entry. In the end, Adam’s pride and approval assuaged some of my guilt and reluctance. I felt confident and comfortable with myself again, and though I didn’t expect to have to use my newfound tools, working with them had done what Adam had set out to do.
We stayed at HQ that night, up and ready the next morning. Very early the next morning. In fact, from the looks of us, none had gotten much sleep.
Adam, Kirby, and I stayed at HQ to await the expected call. Evan took Summer and Trace to the memorial, hoping to catch members of CASE at the points we’d identified.
The three of us sat in the break room, silently sipping coffee. Every half hour Trace reported in, and it was always the same report. Nothing happening. The kids had appeared at the far end of the Mall, as planned, but otherwise it was quiet.
At ten, my cell phone rang. Kirby jumped up and her duffle zoomed into her hands before she realized it wasn’t the HQ line.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, sitting back down.
Adam patted her shoulder sympathetically, but I noticed he hadn’t moved.
“Hi, Mom,” I answered, trying not to sound resigned. Was she anticipating crises now, instead of after the fact?
“Hi, sweetie. I know you’re busy, I won’t keep you. I’m just calling about the family picnic next week. Your cousin Lilah was finalizing the menu and she had so many calls to make I told her I’d call my kids. Sarah’s doing that seven-layer salad with the peas and broccoli and bacon—”
I cut her off before she listed the other four ingredients. “Why can’t we all just bring something, like other families do?”
“You know Lilah, she likes to have things coordinated. She complained last year that we had too many brownies and not enough macaroni salad.”
Except every one of the eight pans of brownies had been eaten, and the lone bowl of macaroni salad only half so. Lilah was all about symmetry, not logic.
“Fine, I’ll bring lemonade.” I had no idea if I’d have time to cook, but I could stir some concentrate into a pitcher of water.
“Oh, no, not store-bought! Daley, you can’t do that!”
Her dismay and future embarrassment didn’t move me. “I’ll be lucky to get there at all, Mom. Don’t push it.”
“All right. I’ll let her know. Just put it in a nice pitcher, okay? Don’t leave it in the jug.”
I didn’t bother to explain my plan. “Okay, Mom.”
“And please, make sure you get there. Spike is leaving right after, you know.” Her voice broke on the “leaving,” and I softened.
“I know. If I can be there, I will. It’s top priority.”
>
“Okay. You have a good day, sweetie.”
“You too, Mom.”
“Oh, wait! Daley! Daley?”
“I’m still here, Mom.”
“Don’t forget to bring all your HQ friends.”
I smiled at Adam and Kirby, who were watching my conversation. “I’ll make sure they try.”
“Okay, good. Love you. Bye!”
I replaced the phone in its clip on my belt. “You guys have my family picnic on your calendars, right?”
“Of course,” Kirby said.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Adam’s lips tilted up a bit. He and my brothers got along like gangbusters, which I’d never understood. He was so quiet and strong, and they were so loudly immature. Even my mother, despite her dislike of my role in HQ, took to Adam. He was very good at the flattery.
Three more hours passed. Kirby went to the office to do some computer work. Adam and I went to the gym for a light workout, just enough to keep our blood pumping without tiring us. After that, he attacked paperwork, and I addressed a few old employer accounts that needed updating. The busywork did nothing for us, however, and we kept drifting into each other’s areas, as if one might have heard something the rest of us hadn’t.
Finally, just before two o’clock, the call came. Adam answered the phone and nodded once, sharply, at me and Kirby hovering in the doorway. Kirby summoned our gear bags and we ran to the truck, not waiting for Adam. Kirby started the vehicle while I opened the passenger door for Adam and then climbed into the back seat. He ran into the garage a moment later, his cell phone to his ear.
“No, it was Hurley, I recognized his voice.” He slammed his door. Kirby peeled out into traffic. “That doesn’t matter. He wants us to meet at the northwest corner of the building. Good, but stay hidden. We’ll meet you there.”
“That’s near where I cut the wires,” I told Adam. “Under the trees. What did he find?”
“He didn’t say. Trace questioned if it was even him, and honestly, I couldn’t tell for sure. Get us as close as you can,” he told Kirby. “We’ll have to walk in. The others will hold until we approach.” She did, and Adam called Hurley back as we hurried toward the memorial.
“We’re almost there. No, traffic was fine. What’s the level of urgency?” He listened for a minute. “We’re all here. Okay.” He snapped the phone back onto his belt. “He said he’s concerned about crowd safety and doesn’t understand the nature of what they found. He wants everyone to stay back while I approach, because he’s afraid it’s unstable.”
I didn’t like that. “We’re still operating on the assumption that this is a trap, right?”
“Yep.” He pulled his flexi-shield over his head and fastened it, looking grim. “I don’t see how else to approach it, though. We went to all this trouble to hide the fact that we knew something was going down. To delay for recon will blow that.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“None of us do, Daley. Let’s go.” He pushed into a jog.
We followed, and a minute later met the others standing among the trees off the northeast corner of the traffic circle.
“Anything?” Adam asked.
They shook their heads.
“I walked past a minute ago,” Evan said, “but without walking into the trees, I couldn’t see anything.”
Adam nodded. “Okay, everyone suit up.” We had our suits on, but added gloves and flexi-shields. “I’m going over there to meet Hurley or whoever called us. Daley, you come with me, but stay back. I just want you to read who’s there.” We didn’t have an angle for me to do that from here. “The rest of you, coms on and spread out. Half-circle, as much cover as you can get, not too close but with visual. Ready?”
We all moved off. I strode next to Adam, focusing on the copse of trees along the north wall. “Three people, all with high excitement and eagerness. No darkness.” Shorthand for no negative emotions.
“Three to one’s pretty good odds, right?” Adam flashed a smile, hesitated, then said something much more intimate with his eyes that I couldn’t understand before he moved away. “Stay here,” he cast back over his shoulder.
I ignored him. I walked further around the circle before cutting back toward the building. If all eyes were on him, they wouldn’t see me. I eased close enough to see three figures wearing our stolen suits. They stood in a triangle, about twenty feet apart, all holding some kind of odd equipment aimed at their center. Wires trailed from the units back to the wires I’d cut yesterday. I held my breath when Adam appeared. He halted outside the triangle.
“What’s going on?” He looked around, pretending. “Where’s Hurley?”
The trio didn’t say anything. The two flanking Adam moved past him to center him between them. I saw a light on the woman’s machine glowing. It was powering up. Which meant they had repaired the wires. I started to shout a warning, then remembered the coms. I hit mine to activate it.
“Adam, get out!”
I didn’t have time to say more. Bright white bands of light zipped up and down over Adam’s body. He backed up a few steps, frowning down at the bands, but before he could do more, they froze.
And so did he.
Chapter 19
I opened my mouth to yell and leapt forward with the intent to do . . . something, but noise erupted over my com. Shouts and impact sounds I couldn’t decipher. I paused, disoriented, and that gave the fake HQers time to insert their weapons into metal boxes on the ground that sealed with audible hydraulics. I waited to see what they were going to do next.
“Trace, what’s going on?”
He didn’t respond. There were more shouts, crashes, running footsteps, a few screams I hoped were fearful bystanders, not anyone who was hurt and not anyone on my team. The three who’d immobilized Adam conferred too far away for me to hear what they were saying. I crept closer, keeping low to the ground, but ran out of cover and still couldn’t hear.
“Evan? Summer. Kirby.” No one answered, and I wondered if my com was malfunctioning. “Dammit.”
The gang of three surrounded Adam. One of them said something and they all laughed. Anger sizzled in my blood. I wrapped my hand around the asp in my bag and rose to my full height. I sparred with three or more law enforcement types at a time. I could take these three.
I moved into the small clearing under the trees. It took them a moment to notice me. The dappled light hid me in my dark suit. When I did catch the woman’s eye, she laughed again.
“Cute outfit,” she sneered, squaring off. “Whatsa matter, you lose your pretty gray and white one?”
I closed my eyes and let myself see just their auras. Excitement, anticipation, caution. E, A, C. The woman, E, flashed toward me, wanting to take me by surprise while I had my eyes closed. I held still until she was a couple of feet away, then stepped to the right and lashed out with the asp, smacking her in the knees and sending her stumbling. She recovered and back-kicked me in the stomach. My suit absorbed the blow. Hers would protect her, too, but the technology of the fabrics was different, and I knew the strengths and limitations of her protection. That gave me the edge.
Caution stayed back, but I saw Anticipation heading for my “blind spot.” I dropped flat to the ground, catching myself in a pushup, and rolled to my right. A missed me completely and plowed into E.
“Get off me, you asshole,” she shrieked at him.
I opened my eyes and grinned at the heap they made, legs tangled together. Neither one of them wore their flexi-shields. Two taps with the asp, and they were out.
I hadn’t forgotten about Caution. He moved slowly in my peripheral vision, smudges of black staining his golden aura. He wasn’t making a move toward me. Suddenly alarmed, I jerked around to face him, using my eyes instead of my sight, and saw the gun in his hand a split second too late. Th
e bullet hit me in the left shoulder. The suit deflected it—chips of bark flew off a tree to my left—but shock knocked me back. He fired again, and I fell. The end of the asp caught on the ground and it twisted out of my hand. I rolled again, coming to my feet as he attacked.
He didn’t strike but pushed me back, keeping me off balance as he reached for my flexi-shield and tried to strip it off my head. I thrust the heel of my hand upward under his chin. He howled, and blood spilled out of his mouth. I might not have hit hard enough to hurt his neck, but he’d bitten his tongue, and there were now several feet between us. I swept the side of my hand toward his throat. The glove’s fabric stiffened as it contacted, becoming weapon as well as protectant. C gagged and bent forward. I kicked him in the face, and he was down.
“Adam!” I ran toward him but stopped before I passed the lines of triangulation. I didn’t know if the beams would freeze me, too. If they did, I’d be worthless. I could see no animation at all, not even eye movement or emotion behind his eyes.
His aura was there, though. Faint, but readable. He was terrified, and I wondered how much effort it was taking him to focus that terror on the others instead of on me, so I’d know he was still in there, still alive.
“I’ll get you out,” I promised and hoped I wasn’t lying. I crouched to examine the box on the ground. It fitted onto the base of the unit, a slot allowing the beam to continue unimpeded as the cover was put on. The seams were almost undetectable. There was no handle on the top of the box, and the sides were smooth. I touched the top and perceived a slight hum. But I had no idea what the beams were, how they worked, and what would happen if I interrupted them. If I moved one unit, would it disrupt the energy and release Adam? Or would it kill him? I couldn’t remember if they’d activated the three units at the same time. If they hadn’t, it was probably safe. If they had, it might not be.
The Color of Courage Page 24