Poisoned Pearls

by Leah Cutter

  The lobby was empty and echoing. To the right stood a huge gas fireplace, open on both sides, with a blue fire that didn’t cast any heat, I’d bet. Large modern chairs with no arms but cushions of orange and red vinyl filled the middle of the room, looking like Danish sculpture. To the left, just below the wide staircase leading up to the second floor, stood a white reception desk. A perky young Asian man sat behind the desk. “Can I help you?” he asked. He wore a standard blue blazer and light blue button-down, with a silver tie.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m here—I’m here to get tested.”

  I pushed my head up, making myself stand straight. I was doing the right thing, being here. I didn’t have to take the training. The government would strongly encourage that I did, but I didn’t have to.

  I would just know, for certain, that I was one-hundred-percent mundane.

  The young man took my ID, entered me into the system while I filled out a paper questionnaire, mostly about my health and making sure that I understood this was completely voluntary, that I wasn’t required to act on this information, that no one could access this information, yada yada.

  I got back my ID and sat on one of the excessively uncomfortable chairs. They were too long for me to sit back on without my feet coming off the floor, and I’m not a small woman. The vinyl gave off an unpleasant chemical odor, burning the back of my throat.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long. Another young perky assistant—this time a young African-American woman, also in a blue suit and silver tie—came out to fetch me.

  The testing room was exactly like the ones I’d seen on TV: a small cubicle-like room, with a chair and a desk, the lights low and brown. A large glass window was set in the wall. The lights on that side were bright and white, showing what looked like a computer lab. On the other side sat a large pale-skinned man in a white lab coat. At least he wasn’t perky. Behind him were half a dozen computer monitors on the wall, plus two on the desk in front of him.

  “I’m George,” the man said through the microphone. “I’ll be administering your psychic ability tests today. Do you have any questions?”

  I shook my head. I just wanted this over with.

  “All right, then. I will ask you a series of questions. Sometimes I will have you answer out loud. Other times, I’ll ask you to just think of the answer.”

  “Okay,” I said. I hadn’t really known what to expect, though I’d known that the TV show with the cartoon dolls that the tester asked the testees to use for illustrating their answers wasn’t real.

  George turned down the lights on his side so the glass was dark. If I strained, I could see him. The chair was actually comfortable, I noticed. And the dim lights were making me sleepy.

  Was that part of the plan? To get me relaxed?

  The questions ranged from the mundane (“How old are you?”) to the bizarre (“Should Franklin the lion have a lollipop or ice cream for dessert?”)

  I knew that everyone received a different set of questions, dictated by the computer. It was calibrating my answers, determining what was most likely to show my abilities.

  None of it made sense. But I’d bet the comfy chair I was slumped in probably had sensors in it. The table might, too.

  Now I was being as paranoid as Hunter was.

  The testing didn’t take too long. George turned up the lights on his side and said, “Thank you for your time. We’ll have the results shortly. If you’ll just go and sit back in the waiting room.”

  No one was there when I walked into that cold lobby. God, I was dying for a cigarette.

  Five minutes passed, then ten.

  What the hell was the hold-up? I checked my phone, checked my email, but there was nothing, no magazines for me to look at or anything.

  When I heard steps coming down the stairs, I stood up, figuring that was my cue.

  I didn’t expect the pudgy man in the suit.

  “Hello, Cassandra,” he said as he walked across the room.

  “Hello, Josh.”

  ***

  The office Josh took me to had that feeling of a hotel room, with generic modern art—squares and circles in red and green and yellow—as well as a fake plant on the veranda and no papers, no notes, nothing on the poster board behind Josh’s head.

  The window faced the freeway, where it curved around and went under the campus, across the Mississippi. The traffic made faint sounds through the weatherproofed glass. The office smelled of chamomile tea and honey, though I refused the beverages Josh offered me.

  Josh had cleaned up well. His three-day shadow was gone, along with his fatigues and maniacal grin. Instead, he wore a standard blue business suit, with a white shirt and red-and-gold power tie.

  “I must admit, I hadn’t expected your name to pop up on the registration,” Josh said. He kept his hands folded on the desk but kept licking his pudgy lips.

  “Someone’s killing my friends,” I told him bluntly.

  “The whores? And that drug dealer. Yes. I read about it,” he said.

  “Really? Because it isn’t in any of the regular news reports,” I replied. When Josh had no answer for that beyond a shrug, I asked, “Does Hunter know you work for the government? In their PADT center?”

  Josh laughed and shook his head. “Oh, no, you misunderstand me. I’m not with the government.”

  “But the PADT centers have never been privatized,” I said. “So if you’re not working for the government, how did you get in here? Who do you work for?”

  Hunter had struck me as paranoid. Now I wondered if he hadn’t been paranoid enough.

  “Hunter actually put it together, though it took him long enough,” Josh said, rolling his eyes. “I work for a company you’ve probably never heard of. The Jacobson Consortium. We’re a pharmaceutical company.”

  “Wait—didn’t your company create the drugs that supposedly boosted psychics? Back in the ’70s and ’80s? Weren’t you sued out of existence when they failed spectacularly?” I asked, vaguely remembering my history lessons, though it had all happened before I’d been born.

  Josh pressed his lips together in distaste. “We were allowed to make restitution,” he said primly. “We’ve been working with the government ever since. They still believe in our mission, that through various chemical boosters we will be able to improve psychic ability.”

  “You deliberately made your drugs addictive, adding a heroin compound, right?” I asked. “Does Hunter know that you’re the people responsible for making him a junkie?” I wouldn’t have wanted to bet on Josh’s longevity once Hunter found out the truth.

  “Hunter likes the drugs. They help him. They greatly improve his area of knowing. I think he’d be honored to know me, if he knew where I truly worked,” Josh said.

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “So what do you want with Hunter? Or with me, for that matter?”

  “As I said, we’ve been allowed to make restitution for some individuals, like Hunter, in exchange for continued access,” Josh said.

  I tried to sift through the double-speak. “So you’re continuing your experiments, aren’t you? Watching Hunter after he takes the street equivalent. Or do you provide the drugs yourself?”

  “Ghost Tripper really is a street drug,” Josh said with disgust. “It’s impure, not safe. I’ve been trying to get Hunter to come in and get the clinical equivalent.”

  “How’s that been going for you? He’s been coming in regular-like, right? Because he trusts you people so much,” I said. Josh and his company didn’t get it. They’d screwed over Hunter and his kind. Addicted them to something they didn’t really need.

  “What we’d like to do is to get you in on the program from the ground floor,” Josh said, ignoring my previous comment.

  “Ground floor,” I said dryly. I’m not sure Josh would understand sarcasm if it bit him.

  “Hunter swears that you have talent. Sight. That you’re his true blood brother,” Josh said.

  “Wait, you beli
eve him?” I asked. “My test results aren’t back yet. Are they?”

  “I knew you were lying when you said you’d been tested,” Josh said, looking smug. “Hunter didn’t know that, however. He thought the test was wrong.”

  Josh paused, then leaned forward across the table, sounding sincere. “I bet your cognition scores are off the charts. But you’ve never had the training, so you’ve never been able to access your abilities.”

  “Or I really am one-hundred-percent mundane,” I pointed out.

  It could happen.

  “By agreeing to work with the Jacobson Consortium, you’ll have access to cutting-edge training technology, as well as the best drug therapy. The drugs we produce today are one-hundred-percent non-addictive,” he swore. “And you’ll have greater access to your abilities, more than in your wildest dreams.”

  “And the catch?” I asked. “What is this marvelous opportunity of yours going to cost me? My firstborn?”

  “While we encourage parents to enroll their children in our continuing education program, and we help to get them tested early, we don’t require it,” Josh said.

  “Then what?” I asked. “What do I give you?”

  “Four years of service,” Josh admitted. “We provide housing and you provide service.”

  “Even if you flunk out,” I said, suddenly understanding. “You failed, didn’t you?” Which was why he worked at a coffee shop, in addition to this supposedly cushy job.

  He was a recruiter.

  Josh gave a too-casual shrug. “It doesn’t matter what I am. What matters is you signing this agreement to go into testing with us.”

  “And if I don’t?” I asked, not convinced at all.

  Testing, training, everything was voluntary. The US government had tried—and failed spectacularly—to make it mandatory. Other countries’ governments were more demanding and overbearing about it.

  They also had a significantly higher flunk-out rate, while the US continued to turn out the strongest, most talented PAs.

  “I believe the police might be interested in your lack of cooperation,” Josh said.

  “They can’t get my information without a subpoena,” I told Josh, stung.

  He shrugged. “In most cases, yes. But we can also volunteer to work with the police when we believe it’s in the best interest of the public.”

  “So if I don’t sign on with your company, you’ll basically make my life hell,” I said.

  Maybe I should just go to Florida with my mom. At least it might be warm there.

  “Your life is so great now?” Josh asked, spreading his hands wide across his empty desk.

  He had a point, but I wasn’t about to give up without a fight. “My test results haven’t come back yet,” I pointed out.

  Or they had and Josh had squirreled them away, so I’d never know.

  “No,” Josh said, frowning. “We want to provide all of your testing and training. It’s part of our conditions, actually.”

  That made sense to me. The records would be doubly buried that way, in case I did turn out to be a failure. They could just dump me, claim no knowledge of me.

  This was just getting better and better.

  “Look, this is a huge decision,” I said. “I can’t make it right away, not like this.”

  Josh shook his head. “Sorry. Deal is only valid for today. This morning, really.” He paused, then added, “Believe me, we understand your reticence. It’s part of your nature as one of the blessed. You’ve been in denial for so long. It will feel better once you admit your abilities, once you start to use them.”

  I’d actually heard that.

  Still didn’t trust the fucker as far as I could throw him out his generic office window.

  “Can I at least have a smoke? Calm my nerves?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Josh said. He stood and opened the door. “You can go out onto the balcony and have your cigarette. I hope when you come back inside that you’ll do the smart thing and agree to our conditions.”

  I’d had that conversation already this week, about how my mother always said I was more stubborn than smart.

  I didn’t need to repeat that to him, though.

  I wrapped my scarf around my neck and zipped my jacket high before I stepped onto the second floor balcony. Then I went the obligatory twenty-five feet from the doorway and got myself out a smoke.

  Was I really contemplating this idiot’s offer? No, I couldn’t be.

  Restitution, my ass. They’d ruined people’s lives. With government approval and support.

  And now they were doing it again. Looking for people like Hunter. Like me. Planning on using us.

  Well, they’d find out exactly how amenable some of us were to being used.

  I knew they were watching me, up here on their patio. Could I jump, reach the ground without breaking my leg? Was there a fire alarm I could pull, create a distraction?

  Just inside the door stood two burly security guards. They were hired for their muscle, not their abilities, I could tell.

  While I leaned over the railing, contemplating my fate, I saw a figure down on the sidewalk below me staring up at me.

  He stood, unmoving, frozen as a statue.

  I finally recognized him.

  “Yes,” I told him softly, assuming he could hear me.

  Hunter started to climb the outside of the building. All I had to do was delay for another minute or so.

  The cavalry, such as it was, was on the way.

  ***

  The guards didn’t know what happened. One minute I was standing there, taking a long, slow drag on my cancer stick, the next minute, I slipped over the edge of the railing.

  I looked up only once, seeing their dark heads silhouetted against the pale blue sky. At least they weren’t pointing guns at us. Just talking on their walkie-talkies.

  Hunter smelled as bad as the homeless guys who came into the store sometimes, the ones who hadn’t bathed in days and days. But at least he didn’t stink of urine or booze. Just his own masculine smell.

  Kind of gave me the creeps.

  Of course, Hunter didn’t put me down, let me walk like a normal human being once we reached the sidewalk. He took off at his manic run, me tucked beneath his arm.

  I’d never met someone who was this super strong. I really wasn’t sure about it at all.

  Though the sidewalks were clear, Hunter didn’t run in straight lines. Was that part of his military training, to zig and zag unexpectedly? Or was it just part of his crazy? It wasn’t like anyone was going to be shooting at us.

  Besides, Josh knew where Hunter lived.

  Then again, Hunter knew where Josh lived.

  I wasn’t about to start betting who would be safer from whom.

  After more than two blocks—further than I could even have run at the speed Hunter moved, he slowed down.

  “I can walk,” I told him.

  Hunter grunted and spent a few moments looking over first one shoulder, then the other, checking every inch around him, before he finally set me down.

  “Thanks,” I told him as we started walking. Bastard wasn’t even winded.

  I didn’t want to even think about the type of training he must still be maintaining to be able to do that kind of thing.

  “It was Josh, wasn’t it?” Hunter asked, his voice gruff.

  Maybe the run had affected him.

  “Yeap,” I said. I told him everything Josh had told me about Jacobson Consortium. How they’d manufactured the drugs that had screwed Hunter up in the first place.

  Hunter shrugged. “I was in the Army. In the program. P-training and everything. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “Dude. I thought you’d be pissed,” I said, surprised.

  “Josh is right—it did expand my area of knowing,” Hunter said. “They just couldn’t know all the side effects.”

  “Sure they could have,” I said. “They could have waited. Tested more.”

  “The drugs work only
on human subjects,” Hunter pointed out.

  “Why are you being so reasonable about all this?” I asked, frustrated. I expected Hunter to be furious, and rightly so.

  I’d wanted this well-trained war machine to go after them.

  “I am pissed off,” Hunter said. He gave me one of his rare grins. “But I’ll deal with them later.”

  “First?” I said. When Hunter didn’t reply, I prompted him again. “If you’re dealing with them later, that means you must have something else to do. Something that’s first.”

  Hunter finally nodded. “First, there’s you.”

  I must admit I didn’t see his fist coming. All I saw was the warm darkness rising up.

  ***

  I didn’t know where I was when I woke up. I was warm, at least. That was an improvement on most of my day. It took me a few moments to pry open my eyes because my head was still spinning. But I needn’t have worried; it was dark in the room, hazy cloth covering the window above the bed so the direct sunlight couldn’t get through.

  My hands weren’t tied, which was good. I’d been lying on a bed that had an iron bedframe, similar to mine, so I was doubly glad they were free.

  It left me free to strangle Hunter. Because that was first on my list of things to do.

  The place smelled of damp concrete and pine. As my eyes adjusted, I could see a single door in the corner, leading out. Outside the room, I heard a furnace kick on.

  I sat up carefully on the bed. Damn. My head hurt worse than that time I drank that jar of moonshine on a dare. My stomach settled after a moment, but I held onto that feeling of vertigo. Did I have a concussion? Seriously. I was going to kill Hunter.

  I kneeled up on the bed, lifting the rough cloth that covered the window—not a proper curtain, but a hunk of fabric that had been tacked to the top of it. Snow was piled up against the window, completely covering it. The window was new, and couldn’t be opened, with thick, double-paned glass that was energy efficient and fucking hard to break.

  No escape that way.

  There wasn’t anything else in the room. Just a bed. I stood, heading toward the door, wanting to verify that it was locked. Because Hunter, while he was crazy, wasn’t stupid enough to leave an easy escape route.