Hard Magic psi-1

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “There’s always a possibility,” Stosser said. “How do we rule it in or out?”

  “I could… Someone could go back and ask him.” He was still a suspect. I was still in the doghouse for letting my interview with him become more. Someone else would be better at talking to him…but he would answer my questions without suspicion, if I phrased them right.

  But if I had been wrong about him to begin with, how could I trust my evaluation now?

  “Sharon,” Venec started to say, “could you…?”

  “Already on it,” she replied. “Bonnie, there’s a way, maybe, to determine if our guy was full of shit or not. But it’s going to require that you trust me.”

  “All right.”

  “No. I mean…trust me. Really trust me.”

  There were only three things that required that kind of trust, and I was pretty sure she didn’t have anything kinky in mind, so that ruled out two of them.

  An hour later, I was thinking that maybe I was going to have to redefine my idea of kinky. Tying someone up and covering them with butterscotch and strawberries was totally normal. This? This was a little weird. And uncomfortable. And I really wasn’t sure I did trust Sharon enough to let it happen.

  Not that she would hurt me; I trusted all my coworkers with my back. I even trusted them with my front. It was the insides I was still sorta protective about.

  “Are you comfortable?”

  “No.”

  We were in the smallest of the meeting rooms, the one where Venec had held his current-conference. The table was pushed to one side, and someone had scrounged a folding massage table thing, like the kind they used for blood drives, and set it up against the far wall. That was for me. Sharon got a club chair, a padded leather one I don’t know where they found, but I was so damn stealing it when this was done. Maybe Nifty would lug it to the apartment for me. Translocation would be too traceable.

  Putting aside my thoughts of larceny, I hopped onto the indicated surface, letting my feet dangle a few inches off the floor. I’d taken off my boots, and my socks suddenly looked dingy.

  “Lie back. You need to be relaxed for this to work.” Sharon seemed to think that just telling me that was going to do the trick. Not exactly.

  “Tell me again what you’re going to be doing.” This was twice now people had worked current on me, with my permission. The others didn’t seem to have any trouble with what we were learning to do; just me. My entire life, current had been a thing I used, not the definition of who I was—not because I didn’t have much, or because I didn’t appreciate it, but just because it didn’t really connect with who I was or what I was doing. J trained me to think like a person, not specifically a Talent. I guess that’s why I’d never really felt part of either world, Null or Cosa. I didn’t, as the psych books say, Identify. Now, suddenly, everything I did revolved around what I was, what I could do, around being a Talent, and it was scaring me. But it was also fascinating, and like everything else that ever caught my fancy, I wanted to know everything possible about how it worked.

  “It’s like the trace-dump Ian worked out, a little,” Sharon said, but she was clearly hedging, meaning that it wasn’t like that at all. “Except that I’ll be looking at your memories of the event.”

  “In my head.”

  “In your memory of the event. It’s not like I’ll be able to read your thoughts or anything. Just focus on that event, and so will I, and I’ll be in and out before you know it.”

  Sharon was a damn good tactician, and was probably great out in the field, but she had a lousy bedside manner. I could feel my anxiety actually spike, rather than decrease.

  “I don’t like doing this, either,” she said, I guess picking up from my expression that her reassurances hadn’t helped. “I don’t want to know what people are thinking. It’s not comfortable for me, either—everyone’s got just enough room in their head for themselves, and anyone more makes for crazy. So believe me, I’ve got no interest in poking anywhere else but what we’re after.”

  “And you’re just going to look? No touching?” I didn’t mean it in the physical sense. She understood.

  “No touching, no taking. Imagine it…like having a painting you think is an undiscovered Master’s work. You can hang it on your wall, and tell everyone it’s real, but the insurance company wants to be certain. So you bring in an expert, who can tell just by studying the brushstrokes if the work is real, or if it was done by the Master’s apprentice, or some hack ten years ago. The painting stays on the wall, in your possession, and the expert walks away with a memory of having seen something that, like all memories, will fade over time, or be pushed out by new memories.”

  All right. That…made sense. I could visualize what she was talking about, make it work for me.

  Lying back, my head and shoulders elevated slightly, I took a deep breath, held it in, and then let it out, counting the way she’d told me to:

  “Ten. Nine. Eight.”

  At seven, Sharon’s voice joined mine in the count-back. At four, I stopped counting out loud and just did it in my head, Sharon’s voice still accompanying. At two, I realized that Sharon’s voice was in my head, too.

  That easily, I was back in Will’s office, looking at him across the desk, listening to him answer my questions, but it wasn’t exactly the same as the moment, and it wasn’t exactly the same as a memory. It was like…watching through a one-way mirror, the kind they use in cop shops when questioning a witness. You can see them but they can’t see you. Although anyone who has ever seen one of those shows knows there are people staring at them behind that huge-ass mirror, don’t they?

  Focus on the memory, Sharon chided me, inside my head. You’re blurring it, sending me elsewhere.

  Ooops.

  I concentrated on the memory, on the words Will said, the way he said them, the way his body moved…okay maybe not so much on that.

  All of it.

  All right, then.

  Some other stuff leaked through; the way he’d looked at the bar that evening, his gaze intent on mine, the way he’d taken my hand, thumb sliding under my palm, the tilt of his head when he listened to what I was saying rather than thinking about what he was going to say next…the touch of his lips on my skin and okay, not going there.

  Thank you for that. Sharon’s mental voice was distracted, dry…but not totally disapproving. I guess I’d been more worried about that than I thought.

  Worrying about what someone not-J thought about me was a new thing. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  All right. Going to back out now. Will leave you here, all you have to do to come back is let go of the memory, and count forward to ten.

  There was something in her voice that made me think it wasn’t as easy as all that, but worrying wasn’t going to make it happen any easier. She’d have to explain to Venec if she left me trapped in my own brain, after all, and I didn’t think she’d want to do that.

  I waited what seemed like only a few seconds after I “felt” Sharon leave. The sense of that mirrored wall disappeared, and I was back in the room with Will again. He was still handsome. Still charming. Still intense. I still wouldn’t mind getting horizontal with him, yeah. And yet there was a distance there that hadn’t been before, not at the time, and not in my memories. I wanted to blame Sharon for it, but knew, even then, it wasn’t her fault.

  I was looking at him as a possible suspect, now. Things could never go back. Forward, maybe. But not back.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  “Five. Six. Seven. Ow. Eight. Nine.” My back was killing me, but I finished the count-back the way Sharon had told me, just in case breaking it off had dire consequences. “Ten.”

  “Sit up slowly. If you feel dizzy, let me know right away.”

  I’d been expecting Sharon, or maybe Stosser. Not Venec, and certainly not with that gentle touch on my arm, and soft voice in my ear.

  “We get what we needed?” I asked, even before I could open my eyes. They felt gummed shut
, and might take some working open to avoid tearing the lashes.

  “We did.” Sharon’s voice, a little farther away. Someone—Venec?—held a damp pad to my eyes, and the gunk softened enough that I could open them.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” His voice was cooler now, or maybe I’d hallucinated that softer, warmer tone.

  There was a glass of water in his other hand, held up in offering, and I took it thankfully. My throat was dry, but not sore, and nothing else hurt, so I guess I came through the experience okay. Wasn’t sure I ever wanted to do it again, though. Being a stranger in your own memories is weird shit.

  “So what’s the judgment call?” Venec asked, leaving the glass in my hand and moving away.

  “He wasn’t lying to her.”

  Before I could even think about being relieved, she added, “But he wasn’t telling the truth, either.”

  “Well, we already knew that,” I said. “I mean, that he had a silent partner he wasn’t telling us about.”

  “No, it was more than that, like there was something else entirely on his mind, something he was trying to keep from you but couldn’t stop thinking about, and it was distracting him. Something that had nothing to do with what you were asking him.”

  Sharon sounded so puzzled and annoyed about not being able to figure it out, that I tried really hard not to laugh. Venec had no such hesitation.

  “He was on the make,” he said bluntly.

  Sharon’s expression was worth getting up at oh-fuck-early for—a combination of dawning comprehension, horror, and an embarrassment I didn’t quite get until I realized that she was embarrassed for me.

  Then, I admit it, I did laugh. “Well, that made two of us then. Oh, stop glaring at me, Venec. I admit I was an idiot, and it won’t happen again. But scoping someone out doesn’t make you a criminal. Especially if it’s mutual.”

  “Hmm.” He sounded so noncommittally disapproving, it just made me laugh harder. Inappropriate stress-responses 101.

  Sharon took refuge in clinical pissiness. “I don’t think that was all he was avoiding,” she said. “There was something on his mind that he didn’t want you to know about, something he didn’t want anyone to know about, but it kept coming into his mind anyway.”

  Venec paid attention, then. “The kind of thing he didn’t want anyone else to know about? Or the kind of thing he didn’t want to know about, either? Something he was trying to not-know?

  Wow. I would never have thought of that. Venec was a tricky bastard.

  “Maybe…” Sharon sounded as if she was trying the idea on for size, too. “It fits, yes. How he was sliding around, telling the truth but not, as he was aware of the truth, letting himself not-know, yes.”

  “Would you recognize it again, if you encountered that?”

  “I…I’d like to say yes. I don’t know. But I’d be looking for it, as a possibility, now.”

  “Good enough.” Venec nodded once to me, then to Sharon, and left the room, leaving the two of us staring at each other.

  Oh hell. Might as well deal with the elephant in the room, before it crapped all over everything. “The initial interview. They should have sent you to talk to him, not me. He would have opened up to any female, and you would have known right away something wasn’t on the up-and-up.”

  “Damn straight,” Sharon muttered. Then she shook her head, sighing, and sat back down in the club chair and looked at me, as direct a gaze as I’d gotten from her since day one. “Do you get any of this? I mean, not what we’re doing, but how we’re being handled? The big dogs knew about my truth-sensing, the same way they knew about Pietr’s invisibility thing, and your ability to see and remember details—and by the way? You are absolutely awesome. I’ve never dipped into anyone with that much recall. I couldn’t have gotten such a good reading if you hadn’t seen and stored it all.”

  I’m pretty good at accepting compliments, but Sharon’s sort of floored me. “Um, thanks.”

  “Earn praise, get praise. Earn ass-kicking, get ass-kicking. I just resent like hell that my one seriously useful skill is being overlooked, especially since it cost us time. It’s stupid, and I don’t like working for people who are stupid.”

  “How about forethoughtful?”

  We both jumped. Damn it, Stosser had just ghosted in like he was taking lessons from Pietr, and I was going to bell everyone in this damn office before I had a heart attack.

  “Do you expect to speak to every suspect, every time?” he asked Sharon.

  “No. Of course not. But—”

  “Do you think that you will be the only one out in the field?”

  “No. Of course not. But—”

  “Then you allow that your coworkers, not blessed with your natural skill set, will need to learn how to ask the right questions and listen for responses? To determine on their own, through experience and training, if someone is lying or not? Even though they might not be as immediately accurate as you?”

  Sharon clenched her jaw, but I could see that what he was saying was clicking inside.

  “And what happens if you run into someone who can block you? If we all come to depend on your skills, and don’t develop any of our own in that range?”

  “All right.” She didn’t sound angry, just tired. “All right. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. Point made.”

  “But where does that leave us now?” I had to ask. “Having used Sharon’s skill in conjunction with mine—and I think we deserve an attagirl for that, by the way—we’re now left with the fact that Wi—that the suspect was not—truthful about something beyond being a hound and that he had a silent partner, something that he didn’t even want to let himself think about. So what is it, and how do we find it? And is it even relevant or just another goose chase? That’s our uncracked nut, right there.”

  I guess maybe I should have been more upset about Will, about getting my brain searched, about, I don’t know, all the stuff I was being stuck with. But all I could see was the puzzle, shiny and bright in front of me. The prize was inside, but the puzzle was what fascinated me.

  It’s what makes you good at this.

  “Get out of there,” I said out loud, without thinking, and had the other two stare at me with confused expressions.

  “Sorry. Thinking out loud.” Damn it, did Venec do that to everyone, or just me? And if just me, how come I was so blessed?

  The little voice in my head had disappeared. Of course.

  Meanwhile, Stosser took the nut—and us—to our resident nutcracker.

  “Can you do it?”

  Nick looked up at the ceiling, as though he was calculating his chances in the tiles. Sharon and I, not knowing what it was Stosser wanted him to do or why he needed to calculate it, held our breath, waiting for a response.

  “It’ll be tricky. And maybe ugly. But…yeah. I think I can do it. You going to foot the bill?”

  “So long as you’re on the clock, we’re covering the costs. You know that.”

  “Yah.”

  Whatever it was that he was going to do, Nick didn’t seem too happy about it.

  “All right, later—”

  “Now.”

  Nick looked like he was going to balk. Funny, he was still the skinny geek I’d met that first day, but something was different. Something I couldn’t quite see, but knew was there. We were all changing, I guess. I wondered what they saw in me now.

  “Come on, Shune. You’re going to have to trust them with it sooner or later. Might as well be now.”

  Nick swallowed, then nodded. “They might be useful at that, anyway. Bonny Bonnie, you’ve got some solid grounding in you. Would you be willing to loan me some of that?”

  “Sure.” I didn’t even have to think about it. “But what for?”

  “I’m going to go surfing.”

  “You weren’t shitting me. Wow.” The computer system wasn’t brand-new or, as far as I could tell, particularly powerful. But it was a computer, and that meant it was to
be treated with caution. A computer, kept in an office filled with Talent under significant stress? I was amazed it hadn’t been reduced to a plastic shell of smoking and melted metals by now, especially considering the bad case of gremlins we’d had.

  “It’s grounded and warded. There are ways to make it reasonably safe to use.”

  The pile of cables behind the desk were thicker than normal, and plugged into a surge protector strip that looked as though it came straight from NASA. “Reasonably safe can still cost you significantly in repairs. That’s something Old Ben and the Founders never foresaw.”

  “Old Ben was a genius diplomat and inventor, not a genius prognosticator.” Nick got down on his hands and knees and fiddled with the cables, making sure everything was set to his satisfaction. He was muttering something under his breath; I assume to reinforce whatever protections he’d put on them in the first place. Stosser had deposited us in this room and muttered something about getting everyone out of the office for lunch. Part of me wanted to be with them. The other part was totally fascinated about what I thought we were about to do.

  He paused in his fiddling, and I took the opportunity. “You’re a hacker, aren’t you?”

  He nodded, not looking up at me.

  Rare. Oh my god rare, like flawless-diamond rare. No wonder he was quiet about it. No wonder why the Guys wanted him. Most Talent could, carefully, use technology. Some could even use spell-tech, a specific cantrip designed to interact with tech, not conflict. A Talent-hacker? That was someone who could slip inside that most delicate of technology, the computer, and use free-form current to make it…do things. A Talent-hacker could ferret his or her way into the virtual world and make it dance to their tune, not crash….

  The most famous Talent in the Cosa Nostradamus was McCunney, who had used current to siphon seven million dollars from a military contractor’s account, and then disappear so well that even ten years later nobody knew where he was. He was alive, though, because every year on the date of the heist, that company got a postcard, mailed from a different location, addressed to the current CEO. Sort of our version of D. B. Cooper, I guess, except that we knew McCunney was alive and well and having a blast.