“Thank you. I’m glad to know someone else thinks it’s a reasonable concern.”
She nodded, hiding her amusement at being told, ever so politely, that it was as obvious as sunlight.
“My second question is about monitoring. I’m being electronically monitored in the office and my medical appointments, which is to be expected, but I believe my hotel room, local comms, and transactions are also being tapped. Is that standard procedure?” His tone was mild, but she thought she detected a note of complaint.
She sighed. “Yes, it’s standard, but it’s not supposed to be. I could call them on it, but it will stir up trouble. Right now, they’re distracted, but a request like that would make them look your way again. If you want a little privacy, buy yourself a disposable cashflow percomp and don’t do anything stupid with it.” She eyed his CPS percomp. “That reminds me. While you’re here, let’s set up a shared-key secure hypercube. That way, if I have to travel or the CPS reassigns you, we can still exchange data.”
“Aren’t they supposed to notify you if they move me?”
She snorted. “Agent Sòng, I’m sure you’re a model employee, but you’re…” She was about to say dimwitted or chemmed out of your mind to trust the CPS, but thought he might take offense. “…charmingly confident in the CPS’s administrative competence.”
He didn’t reply, but she could tell from a certain stiffness in his posture that she’d offended him, anyway. It hadn’t been her intention, but maybe it would help him wake up and take on the flux, if he planned to keep his career with the CPS. If they let him.
CHAPTER 7
* Planet: Concordance Prime * GDAT 3238.214 *
Lièrén was sweating like he was in a steam sauna, and his legs and arms shook with fatigue. He still wasn’t sure how he’d let Rayle talk him into doing this.
The music was something in Portuguese about defiant love. Lièrén tried to copy the movements of the dance students in front of him, but suspected his attempts were an insulting parody. It didn’t help that about half the dancers in the class, including Rayle, were professionals, and knew the choreography well. The song ended, and an extremely well-built and athletic man up front added a spin, a foot stamp, and a flourish, head and one arm held high with pride. He only wore short, tight shorts and was barefoot.
Lièrén gasped for breath, trying not to sound like a bellows.
Up front, the instructor, a tall, tanned woman with shock-white hair tightly drawn back and impossibly straight posture, waved her baton at the athletic man. “Muito bonita, Celestin.” Confusingly, the dancer looked irritated as he slunk toward the water fountain at the edge of the room.
Lièrén looked to Rayle, who was standing next to him, for an explanation. Rayle’s hair was now a rich, dark brown interspersed with subdued gold highlights, with no hint of electric blue sparkles anywhere to be seen. He wore a loose, thin-strapped red top over shaded gray, skin-tight leggings that ended below his knees, and nothing on his calloused feet. He seemed oblivious—or accustomed—to the openly admiring gazes from both men and women in the class.
“Farruca isn’t supposed to be ‘very pretty,’” said Rayle quietly. “It should tear your heart out. If we do Lágrimas da Lua, watch Fumiko.” He pointed to the middle of the dance floor at a short, porcelain-skinned Japanese woman with midnight black hair and gauzy black clothes that outlined a lithe, muscular body.
The instructor tapped her baton on a waist-high floating bar to get everyone’s attention. “No more playtime.” Her accent sounded Slavic when she spoke English, but she gave movement instructions in a dozen languages. Lièrén had no idea what most of the terms meant, so he’d just watched the others and mimicked. He felt about as graceful as a newborn kitten.
He stepped back further into the corner. It may have been playtime for the other twenty or so people in the studio class, especially the pros like Rayle, but twenty minutes of “play” was just about killing him.
Instead of moving back into place, Rayle came closer and gave him a sympathetic smile. “Why don’t you take a break?” He pointed to the long bench a few meters away along the wall, where another dancer sat shaping a brace to her ankle.
Lièrén shook his head. “It would be disrespectful to Instructor D’Cruze.”
Rayle chuckled. “It would be much more disrespectful if you passed out. I’m impressed you’re even still standing. I hadn’t realized how stubborn you are. Come on.”
Lièrén reluctantly allowed himself to be led to the back bench, where he slumped back against the wall. He was annoyed that his stamina still wasn’t where it should be. Rayle patted Lièrén’s bare shoulder. “Give yourself ten minutes.”
Lièrén’s talent flared on the brief physical contact, and he was startled to realize Rayle was an empath. He didn’t know why he was surprised. Empaths were often drawn to the performing arts. There was a fine line between natural acting talent and empathic talent in swaying audience emotions. The regular CPS Minder Corps used high-level empaths in combination with illusionists for crowd control.
The languid syncopation of a well-known classical Second-Wave nocturne swelled, and Rayle rejoined the others. When serving at the Quark and Quasar, he was flamboyantly flirty and pretended to be irresponsible, but in class, he was focused and driven, and it showed in his skill and physical expressiveness. Most of the company was equally good. Lièrén felt like he was being treated to a private performance.
He felt the subtle textures of more talents, empath, exciter, forecaster, telekinetic, finder, and the characteristic blank slate of a shielder. None of them were activating or broadcasting heavily, they were just potential, feathering the edges of his sifter talent. After his sister’s visit, he’d decided to stop floating along on the current, and to pay more attention to what his mind, body, and talent were telling him, rather than just attributing everything that was different to the accident and waiting for it to return to normal. This might be his new normal.
He must have still been running hot from using his talent that morning in an interrogation for the local Spires police. From Supervisor Yamazaki’s apologetic tone when he’d given out the assignment, Lièrén gathered the local field-office staff considered such requests an unpleasant duty, but to Lièrén, it was a welcome relief from slogging through the badly neglected Testing Center records. Also, though it made him feel disloyal to admit it, the police department’s telepath had been more pleasant and easier to work with than his distant and contained partner Fiyon ever had. As a double bonus, the interrogation subject had been innocent of the charges, and because it wasn’t a covert investigation, Lièrén had no need to use his twist talent, which would have guaranteed a killer headache for hours afterward.
The dance music changed to an upbeat romana with an insistent rhythm, and Lièrén was glad he was still resting. If he’d tried to match the strength and speed required to achieve the precise movements, he’d have ended up in the nearest minder health clinic. Neither of his therapeutic martial arts classes required even half the effort needed for a single dance class. He didn’t know how the others survived doing it five or six days a week, plus all the afternoon and evening rehearsals.
Women predominated in the group, and several could put top-class athletes and vid stars to shame. He liked looking at confident, skilled women wearing clothes that revealed more than they covered, though none of them appealed to him as a potential hot-connect partner. He took a sip of water from the bottle he’d brought and tried to analyze why not. Some of it was his body’s weakness and exhaustion, but mostly, and it took him far too long to realize it, he’d subconsciously found each one lacking when compared to Imara Sesay.
Just last night, Lièrén had realized that Imara was a lot smaller than he’d initially thought. Her charisma and quick wit made her seem physically imposing, but when she’d brought drinks to the booth he and Derrit were about to appropriate for the evening’s training session, he’d noticed the top of her head only came up to his chin. Sh
e’d been wearing wide-legged, high-waisted pants that hugged her hips and a silky orange blouse on top that outlined her surprisingly toned figure when she moved. Her hair had looked different, too—lighter and softer, maybe, though still with a mind of its own. Rayle had praised her, when he could have teased, and a couple of regular customers had complimented her. Lièrén wasn’t sure why he’d suddenly noticed her clothes, and couldn’t remember what they looked like before. His biggest failing was his poor memory, which had degraded as his minder talents had blossomed. He’d love to have a filer’s memory like hers.
He took another sip of water, still slouching against the wall. His eye was caught by a regal, dark-skinned woman with a wide face and close-cropped hair, as she and the rest of the class bent and curved their bodies fluidly like willows in the breeze. She was wearing a colorful bandeau top to bind her breasts, and it made him wonder what Imara would look like in something like that. The image was hot and compelling, and took hold in his imagination. His hormones sputtered to life, and for the first time since the accident, his body responded with awakening sexual interest. It was just Lièrén’s luck for it to happen when he was wearing pants form-fitting enough for anyone to see. He didn’t even have a towel or a jacket to drape across his lap.
Compounding his embarrassment, the instructor announced a five-minute break, and he was suddenly surrounded by dancers, several of whom smiled when they saw his arousal, and one of them gave him a grin and a thumbs-up. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and hoped they assumed the flush on his face was from exercise.
Fumiko, the small Japanese woman Rayle had pointed out earlier, sat next to him and smiled companionably. “I’d be pleased to help you feel less constricted.” There was no mistaking the direction of her glance and the invitation in her eyes.
Before Lièrén could respond, several of the dancers chimed in with encouraging remarks.
“Say ‘yes.’ Fumi is an exciter,” said one, and another smiled and nodded.
“Yeah,” said an older, sinewy man who’d given him the thumbs-up signal, “and she’s joyhouse trained in novo-tantric and kama sutra.”
Lièrén had never been around such friendly, touch-happy people who treated sex—or a minder talent for stimulating sensation—quite so casually. He was coming to the conclusion that, for all that he’d traveled across the galaxy, he’d lived a cloistered existence until crash-landing in Spires.
He gave Fumiko a rueful smile. “I am honored and deeply flattered, but regrettably, I am not medically cleared for such activity.”
She touched his bare arm with light fingertips and gave him a provocative smile. “The offer is open anytime, hansamu.” His talent detected the subtle brush of her dormant exciter talent. She leaned under the bench with enviable flexibility to grab a water bottle from her bag, then headed toward the fountain. She went out of her way to avoid Celestin, the well-built blond man who was now standing next to Rayle, his arm draped casually across Rayle’s shoulders.
“I’ve had her,” announced Celestin, a little too loudly. “She’s not that great.” The sharp flare of synaptic disturbance told Lièrén the man was lying. More likely, she turned him down flat.
He caught a quizzical look from Rayle. It was the same look he gave Imara at the bar when asking whether or not to serve a patron. Rayle must have heard about this side of Lièrén’s talent from Derrit. He minutely shook his head to indicate that Celestin was not telling the truth.
Rayle half-blinked one eye at Lièrén before ducking out from under Celestin’s arm and giving the big man a quick, slightly feral smile. “Sure you have, hansamu.” Lièrén didn’t need his talent to know that Rayle was lying about finding Celestin “handsome.”
For the rest of the class, which was blessedly less strenuous, and in the short shower afterward, Lièrén mulled over his response to being approached by Fumiko. Before the accident, he would have readily agreed to whatever she had in mind, pleased that she found him attractive, expecting a no-strings liaison and an enjoyable interlude. Now that he was grounded in Spires, he wanted something more… someone more. He’d felt lust before, but it had never felt so focused.
It wouldn’t be fair to either of them to start a relationship, assuming Imara was even interested in someone like him. Sooner rather than later, he’d be recovered enough to return to duty, and he’d be gone. The prospect didn’t make him as happy as it had just a few weeks ago.
He believed in what his unit did for the CPS, helping stop the worst of what humans could do to one another. He understood that his work could never be publicly acknowledged, but after his short time in Spires, he wasn’t looking forward to going back into the isolation required to keep it secret. He missed his family, even his disapproving great-grandfather. He wanted more than just a few distant coworkers, he wanted actual friends, even if they dragged him to an advanced-level dance class or cajoled him into teaching a young minder to wield his formidable talents.
The choice was out of his hands. First, he had to survive the threat to his field unit. After that, he was still under contract, and his skills were needed. For now, all he could do was store up memories of this time for the days and years ahead.
CHAPTER 8
* Planet: Concordance Prime * GDAT 3238.214 *
The Testing Center’s multiple data cubes were assembling on his deskcomp to restore their associations. It was about as exciting as watching hydroponic grass grow, and he was sleepy. He was sure his muscles were stiffening up as a result of the dance class workout.
Lièrén had stopped at his usual restaurant for lunch, only remembering after he got there that he’d decided to vary his routine and schedule more. It would be easy to become paranoid and think every shuttle-docking accident on Concordance Prime—or its space station—was about him. On the other hand, it was neutron-star dense to make himself an easy target.
To keep himself awake, he ran commonality queries against the field-unit case-file data he’d downloaded. The unit’s data was in better shape than the Testing Center’s, partly because in his cover as the trade office’s data admin, he helped keep it that way, but the queries created more questions than answers. What he needed were the personnel, travel, and expense data cubes to make useful correlations. He could get them, but he couldn’t think of an innocuous excuse for the OII. Patwardan had been right to warn him they’d be asking.
By all rights, the field unit should have limited his access the day of the accident, but it was typical of them to only clean up when told. Routine audits always resulted in multiple red flags… which gave him an idea. A technician he’d worked with on a case last year had remarked that the CPS’s protections always lagged behind industry standards. Lièrén pulled the prepaid percomp he’d purchased at a tourist shop out of his pocket and considered it. Under its decorative case, he’d added a top-of-the-line security defense and action framework and some customized data divers, all tools of the covert operations trade. His initial download of the case-file data had been questionable but justifiable, but using unauthorized equipment and the auditor account that he was betting was still active, despite his repeated warnings to management, was flat-out defiance of CPS procedure.
It came down to whether or not he trusted the OII or his new supervisor to look out for his interests. He reluctantly decided he didn’t.
It only took a few minutes to connect, authenticate, sweep the cubes of interest, and sign off. That done, he moved the case-file data from his CPS percomp to the prepaid percomp, then automated some commonality queries. They’d take awhile since he hadn’t rebuilt the associations.
He considered going for a walk to keep his body somewhat mobile, but he was reluctant to leave any of his datasets unattended.
With nothing else to do but wait, he used his CPS percomp to research minder talents, refreshing what he remembered from school. Having accepted the role of teacher for Derrit, he wanted to do the best job he could in whatever time he had left in Spires. He’d had four
sessions with the boy, and had been working with him on managing both his precociously strong shielder talent and burgeoning cleaning talent. He’d even cautiously let the boy clean deliberately created small memories, such as what had been hidden under a napkin, to teach Derrit fine control. The boy was amazingly good already, but especially so, considering he was only eleven. Nearly twelve, he amended with a twitch of a smile, remembering Derrit’s insistence.
When Lièrén had been tested and entered the Academy twenty years ago, the CPS had presented the talent categories as accurate and complete for 95 percent of the minder population. He’d been told having two strong talents like he did was rare, but they fit neatly into the existing categories, so he hadn’t thought any more about it, and his instructors never said anything else. They ignored his telepathy altogether. From what he was discovering now, he’d been taught a very simplified view, and reality wasn’t nearly as neat or classifiable.
For one, there were far more people with dual or triple talents than the official CPS statistics indicated. Maybe the Testing Center data he had access to was anomalous, but multiple talents were common, and even minder polymaths made up a measurable percentage. Which made it more likely that his talent wasn’t misfiring when it insisted Imara had multiple talents.
Out of curiosity, he used the deskcomp to look up his own official record and skimmed through it, looking for his minder testing results. He was surprised to discover that his third talent, telepathy, which was admittedly low-level, was mentioned as a brief note in a comments section rather than as an official designator. No wonder the CPS instructors had ignored it.
That made him rethink the work he’d been doing with the Testing Center data. He’d been ignoring the notes because the Testing Center had told him they were unimportant, but in checking a few sample records again, he saw the notes had useful data, if unstructured.
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