by Dima Zales
And her manipulative boyfriend—but I don’t say that, deciding instead to move on to safer topics.
As our impromptu meal proceeds, I learn that Lucretia knew the big names in psychology personally. At one point, she had discussed dreams with Freud and human needs with Maslow. I even get the sense that she might’ve influenced some of them but is too humble to admit it.
As I listen to her, it occurs to me that I actually do feel better after our therapy session. Maybe Nero was right to force me into it.
In fact, now that I’ve eaten, I feel so relaxed I can’t stop yawning.
Lucretia yawns herself, then says sternly, “Stop it. I don’t need to sleep anymore but can still catch a yawn, apparently.”
“I’m sorry,” I say and yawn again. “Why doesn’t America adopt the practice of siesta?”
“Shortsightedness,” she says. Then she smiles mischievously and gets up. “Come with me. I have an idea.”
We walk down the block until we reach the mattress store.
“Watch this.” Lucretia’s eyes turn into mirrors as she walks up to the store manager and says, “My friend is thinking about getting that Tempur-Pedic—but she wants to try before she buys. Let her sleep on it and make sure she’s not disturbed.”
The guy robotically nods and mumbles that it would be his pleasure to let me sleep on the mattress for as long as I want.
Lucretia walks me to the bed in question and turns on the heat and massage features. “I consider this part of your therapy,” she tells me. “You need the rest.”
I plop down. “Hey, you don’t have to ask me twice.”
“Will you come see me next week?” she asks.
“Only if you agree to do lunch with me again.” I close my eyes as the vibration and the warmth combine with my food coma and the weight of my sleepless night.
“That’s a deal,” she says. “See you later.”
She walks away, and I smile like the Grinch. I’m going to make a dent in Nero’s stupid “allotment hours” by napping.
Still smiling, I let sleep drag my consciousness away.
Chapter Twelve
I wake up in the mattress store with a start.
In my sleepy state, I completely forgot about the shooters from before.
Someone could’ve easily killed me in my sleep.
I also realize I never told Lucretia about what happened today. She probably would’ve taken me somewhere safer to nap if I did.
I look at my phone and nearly fall off the bed.
It’s almost 8 p.m. My little siesta turned into an all-day affair.
Jumping up, I run for my office, only stopping in the gym to brush my teeth.
Then I text Nero that I’m done with therapy and take the elevator to the top floor.
“That must’ve been a hell of a session,” Nero says when I step out of the elevator.
“Yeah,” I say carefully. “I feel much better.”
No need to make Mr. Polygraph realize I was slacking.
“You even look better,” Nero says. “Lucretia is worth her weight in gold.”
“Did I not look my best before?” I ask, half-jokingly.
“Your office is ready. Come.”
Nero leads me in, and I struggle not to gape at the stunning view.
“I’ll let you get acclimated,” he says. “Talk to Venessa if you need anything.”
“Sure,” I say. And I will—as long as it’s not food or drink she can spit into.
Nero leaves, and I log on to my computer.
As I feared, I kept getting work emails throughout my computer-less incarceration in the basement. I deal with them for the next couple of hours until I realize how late it is.
I walk over to the door and sneak a peek inside Nero’s office.
He’s hammering away on his keyboard, looking like he’s not planning to leave today at all.
Okay, so that’s going to be the not-so-fun part of being on the same floor with my boss. He’ll know when I come and go—and realize just how much of a slacker I am.
Not that I care.
At least, not really.
Then I spot Venessa gathering her things and decide this is a sign from the corporate gods.
I lock my computer and walk over to the elevator.
Venessa has already summoned it, so I just stand and wait.
She looks at me disapprovingly, then casts an admiring look at industriously working Nero.
The elevator doors open.
She pushes me with her shoulder to step inside ahead of me.
Dude. It’s not like she’ll get down sooner if she enters the elevator first.
Following her in, I press the bottom floor and face away from her.
“I have to say,” she mutters under her breath as the doors begin to close, “I’ve never seen the ‘sleep your way to the top’ cliché quite so literally.”
The doors slide shut, and the elevator starts moving.
I stand there openmouthed.
Is this what all my coworkers think about my relationship with Nero, or is it just her?
Maybe she has a crush on Nero, and this is jealousy talking.
Or—and I shudder to think this—is she speaking from experience? Did she sleep with Nero at some point to get her spot on the top floor?
Those beady eyes aside, she’s attractive, if plastic blond bombshells are your thing—which I didn’t think was the case for Nero. Then again, maybe it was wishful thinking when I decided that my boss was into very intelligent (and equally modest), black-haired, pale-skinned women who are good with playing cards.
Violent scenarios flit through my mind—most of them reminiscent of Nero and Thalia’s martial arts training, except with Venessa’s face as the punching mitt.
My anger grows with every millisecond.
Turning around, I face her. “What did you just say? Say that again. To my face.”
She opens her mouth to reply, but the elevator doors open and something she sees over my shoulder makes her swallow her words.
I spin around and fight the urge to rub my eyes.
It’s Nero.
But how?
He was in his office when we got inside the elevator, so how is he down here? Did he run down the stairs?
Then I notice the thickness of his limbal rings, and my insides grow cold.
I’ve seen him like this once before—just prior to the orc massacre.
Staring at the quickly paling Venessa, he growls, “You will apologize to Sasha. Now. After that, you’re fired.”
Holy crap. Did he overhear her softly spoken insult as the elevator doors were closing? Just how good is his hearing?
Venessa’s chin comes up, and some color returns to her cheeks. “If I’m fired anyway, why—”
“If you say anything besides an apology, you will never work anywhere again,” Nero cuts in.
I wonder if Venessa realizes this isn’t a hyperbole or a bluff. When I tried to leave this job, Nero ensured that no one else would hire me.
Apparently, Venessa does understand. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles, and before either of us can critique the sad excuse of an apology, she rushes out of the building as though a monster might give her chase.
Given Nero’s expression, that might’ve been a real possibility.
“I’m sorry as well.” Nero looks at me, those dangerous limbal rings shrinking. “I hope you know that you’ve earned that office. You’ve made this fund more money than all the other analysts combined, and the traders know it. Anyone with half a brain will see that this promotion was merit based.”
I guess this is the day to stand openmouthed because I’m doing it again.
Nero apologizing and praising my work? And this was a promotion? I thought the office thing was so that he can keep a closer eye on me.
“I have something I need to finish back in my office,” Nero says and walks into the elevator. “Thalia is already waiting for you outside.”
The elevator doors clo
se, and I do my best to reboot my overwhelmed brain, so I can head out of the building.
As promised, Thalia is standing outside.
Though I didn’t think it possible, the nun is even thinner now. The grieving process hollowed out her eye sockets, and her cheekbones look like they could cut grass. Worse, the usual twinkle is completely absent in her gaze.
Something must’ve been going on between her and poor Bentley. Why else would she take his passing so hard?
“How are you doing?” I ask carefully.
She demonstratively shrugs, then turns and walks to the illegally parked limo.
Oh, right. Vow of silence. I almost forgot.
“I can take a cab if you’re not ready to get back to work,” I say as I follow her. “We can tell Nero that you drove me.”
She shakes her head and jabs her finger at the limo door.
“Fine,” I say and get inside.
As Nero promised, my apartment has a new door that looks thick enough to withstand a nuclear blast.
Except someone left it unlocked—which kind of defeats the whole purpose.
When I enter, I lock the heavy-duty lock behind myself, and soon I see why they left it unlocked. There’s a new key on the shoe rack and a note that it’s for me.
Pocketing the key, I walk in and find everyone in the living room, watching a movie.
Fluffster is on Kit’s lap, and the cat is on Felix’s.
“Honeys,” I say. “I’m home.”
Felix pauses the movie and eyes me curiously. “Working late for a change?”
“Working off a debt,” I say. “Any news on all the projects?”
“I got the first overnight shipment from the spacesuit guy.” Felix scratches under Lucifur’s chin. “It’s already at our JFK lair.”
“Itzel, the gnome, is there too.” Kit strokes Fluffster’s belly. “Already working on your problem.”
“Can we get back to the movie?” Fluffster mentally complains.
“I’m sorry to be such a bother,” I tell him and stalk to my room.
Behind me, the movie resumes.
Oh well. I’d rather sleep.
Except sleeping doesn’t work out. Between my super-nap and the eulogy worries, I feel like a coked-out banker from the eighties.
So, I spend a couple of hours rehearsing what I’ll say at the funeral, and for the rest of the night, I learn Russian with the aid of my powers.
By morning, I’m fairly confident that if my Wall Street or illusionist-for-Cognizant careers don’t work out, I can always become a Russian translator.
Bleary-eyed, I head to work, where my day goes as was usual before the cell days. Nero asks me to research a few companies, and I do it as well as possible on what little sleep I had.
At seven, I get a text from Felix.
The gnome and I need your help.
I agree, and he explains how to find the “secret lab.”
Jason—not the hockey-mask killer, but Nero’s Venessa replacement—enviously watches me as I depart for the day.
Though Nero himself isn’t looking my way, I’m not fooled.
He knows that I’m leaving at seven p.m.—also known as early for a hedge fund.
Who am I kidding? Nero can probably hear me thinking these thoughts.
“To JFK,” I tell Thalia when I make my way downstairs. “Let’s try to beat the traffic.”
Beating traffic and JFK are not compatible, as usual, so I thank the stars for the buffet in Nero’s fancy limo as I stuff my face during the long drive.
When I finally get there, the secret lab isn’t hard to locate. As Felix said, the path is exactly like going to the hub, but with a different turn at the very end.
When I step into the room, I find it to be like every depiction of a mad scientist’s lair jammed into one. Cables and computer parts are everywhere, as are high-tech gizmos and power tools. The air smells like ozone and a faint hint of perfume—the latter wafting off a person I’ve never met before.
Presumably, she’s the gnome.
Though she’s short—the tip of her spiky black hair is below Felix’s chin—she’s taller than I’d expect a gnome to be. The weirdest part about her, though, is the breathing apparatus.
She has on a metallic mask that covers the bottom of her face, and as she breathes through it, she sounds like a miniature Darth Vader.
Catching me looking at the contraption, she says, “One of the few downsides of my kind are respiratory problems. It’s what initially drove us to explore technology.”
Though her voice is distorted, it’s familiar. Kit used this nasal, rehabilitated-princess tone when she first mentioned the gnome. Come to think of it, thanks to Kit’s random shapeshifting, I’ve even seen this woman’s face without the mask.
Yep, the same round-cheeks are peeking out—and it’s probably safe to assume the gnome is smiling the same dorky smile under the mask.
“Sasha, this is Itzel,” Felix says. “Gnomes are also not big on civilities, so I figured I’d introduce you two.”
I walk forward and extend my hand to the woman. She looks at it in fascination but keeps her hand at her side like a germaphobe.
“Unlike your friend, you could pass for a gnome,” Itzel says after she gives my face a thorough examination. “A young and exceptionally beautiful one, but a gnome.”
“Thanks,” I say, lowering my hand. “I think.”
“Gnomes grow tall in adolescence and then shrink as they grow older,” Felix chimes in. “Itzel must be a few centuries old—though she refuses to tell me how many.”
“What did I tell you about asking women their weight and age?” I mutter to him under my breath. “It’s not just gnomes who lack civility.”
“As I was saying,” Felix continues, unruffled, “the very old gnomes eventually get to their garden namesake’s size—and that’s part of the reason they can’t live on worlds with humans. Beings that tiny are hard to explain.”
“Our growth cycle is another reason we had to get inventive.” Itzel walks over to a large table covered with books and looks at Felix. “You know a lot about my kind. How come?”
“Orientation,” he says. “Plus, I’ve met one of you before, and he would not shut up about what’s it’s like to be a gnome. Well, that and space exploration.”
I notice the books on the table also deal with space exploration, but I don’t say anything.
“Why shouldn’t we talk about ourselves?” Itzel lifts her chin. “We’re the most interesting and powerful of the Cognizant. Also the most—”
“Prideful?” Felix suggests. “Pompous?”
“He’s just upset because I’m much better at dealing with technology than he is,” Itzel tells me conspiratorially. “And because unlike him—who’s a one-trick computer pony—I, as a gnome, have tons of useful attributes.”
“Sasha, don’t do what I think you’re about to do,” Felix hisses at me theatrically. “If you ask her what gnomes can do, we’ll be here for a week.”
“Sasha, unlike some, looks like a woman with intellectual curiosity,” Itzel tells him, then looks at me. “We’re immune to the many influences from other Cognizant. Vampire glamour doesn’t work on us, tricksters can’t influence our fate, and it is said that even the legendary thought readers and pushers couldn’t access our minds—”
“Thought readers?” I interrupt. “Pushers?”
“There’s no proof they’re real,” Felix says. “Let alone that gnomes would be immune.”
“Oh, they’re real.” She wrinkles her nose. “They’re two races of Cognizant that were extremely dangerous—and that waged open war with each other that put the rest of us at risk.” She stacks a book about Elon Musk on top of the recent Neil Armstrong biography. “The gate makers joined with us gnomes to banish all the readers and pushers to a backward human world not unlike this one, but without a gate to get back. And with memories of their origins wiped for good measure.”
Overwhelmed, I blurt out the first
question that comes to mind, “Gnomes and gate makers worked together in the past?”
“Of course.” She puffs up. “Even the gates themselves are part gate makers’ powers and part gnome technology.”
“You make it sound like you worked on that personally, but we both know that’s not even remotely the case,” Felix says. Looking at me, he explains, “As a thank you for their help in creating the hubs, the gate makers gave gnomes an Otherland with gates that lead back out but not in. That means any gnome you see here—as in, outside that world—was exiled for whatever reason.”
“In my case, it was my grandparents who were exiled,” Itzel says defensively. “The sins of the fathers do not extend to their offspring and all that. Either way, all that ancient history is boring compared to the full list of gnome attributes.”
Felix rolls his eyes.
“We’re more intelligent than any other Cognizant type,” she says, pointedly ignoring Felix. “We quickly understand every technology we come across.” She waves a rocket science textbook in front of her, then puts it down and picks up a French dictionary. “We have a knack for languages—both computer and spoken.” She swaps the dictionary for a programming textbook. “But of course, it’s not our mental prowess your friend is most jealous of. It’s this.” She puts the book down and extends her arms forward, as if miming the action of holding a small sphere.
A ball of lightning the size of an egg escapes her palms—like a Hadoken move in the Street Fighter video game.
The thing floats and crackles—and the smell of ozone goes up exponentially.
“Is this ball lightning?” I ask reverently. I’ve read about the rare phenomenon and have always wanted to see it with my own eyes.
“Even better,” she says. “Because it’s under my control, it can protect me and be the power source for devices, even—”
“I told you she would brag all day,” Felix butts in. “Sasha is here for the test, remember? It was your idea.”
The ball lightning takes a sharp turn and flies right at Felix’s face.
Felix gasps, eyes widening, but the projectile dissipates right before it would’ve singed his unibrow.