Chasing Power (Hidden Talents) (35 page)

When dinner arrived and she noticed the server wrinkle his noise slightly, Sam realized she cared more about not smelling than if some anonymous N.T.U. drone got a peep show.  After taking the world’s fastest shower, she came out and picked up the papers again.

Slightly refreshed now, Sam was able to slough through the legal-speak and translate the documents into something understandable. 

She’d hoped that after reading the paperwork she would feel better.  Instead, the lump lodged deep in the pit of her stomach got bigger.  This couldn’t be the usual paperwork they handed out to new citizens.  Everything was so vague.  If you read it one way, it could be taken to mean that the only “proper” use of one’s abilities was in the service of N.T.U.  That couldn’t be right.  It was ludicrous to think that even a large-scale organization like N.T.U. was keeping people from using their god-given abilities in day-to-day life.  People in the outside world got upset if you couldn’t use a swear word on TV; she could hardly imagine a group of nearly a thousand people submitting to put their own talents and abilities on review, only to use them with permission.  But this clause clearly hadn’t bothered or interfered with Lane, Al, Harry, or Tess using their powers.  Maybe it wasn’t enforced?  In that case, if the N.T.U. didn’t punish everyone for using their abilities as they wanted, why was the clause in there?

Unless they wanted the ability to punish you if and when they chose.  In essence, the clause gave them the ability to imprison people at will, because if people weren’t used to having their powers restricted, it wouldn’t be hard to find an instance of them using the powers “improperly” whenever that person did something that bothered you. 

But maybe, probably, she was reading too much into such a little vague paragraph.  It would help, she decided, if she had a better history of the organization.  Sam wondered if Lane knew about the clause, or could explain the history to her better.

Lane.  Something about that caught.  It was Lane’s job to keep her safe, but not just for her, for N.T.U.  Hadn’t he told her, from the beginning, that his responsibility was to them?  And now here she was, telling him that she didn’t trust them and he wasn’t standing up for her, but for
them
.  Trying to convince her that she was wrong.

Oh god
, Sam thought,
I can’t have been that stupid, could I?  What if he’s been leading me on this whole time?

Sam tried to reassure herself that this wasn’t the case.  Crawling into the oh-so soft bed, she laid out all of the reasons she had to trust Lane and his friends.  It was too bad the “cons” side was just as heavy.  If only, she thought, she knew what N.T.U.’s true motives were.  

Putting the mental list aside, Sam was at last able to fall asleep.  Unfortunately, the comfortable mattress did nothing to stop her nightmares.  

#

When Samantha awoke the next morning, she felt rested but ill at ease.  She ate breakfast alone in the small kitchen that Joseph showed her down the hall.  It felt strange to start a day without seeing Al, Harry, and Lane smiling at her.  She’d only known them for a week.  Odd how quickly one adjusted to having company.

On her way back to her room, Sam found Joseph waiting at her door.  He announced that he’d been made Sam’s “orientation officer.”

“That sounds made up,” Samantha said, munching on a handful of cereal she’d brought back with her.  She’d opted for the Sweet-Yums for breakfast.  Name brand sugared cereal, that was luxury stuff when she’d grown up. 

“It’s not,” Joseph said, “It’s a real position.”

“Did they just invent it this morning?”  She popped another marshmallow into her mouth. 

“If you want to find your own way around this massive organization on your own, just say so.”

Sam opened her mouth.

“Don’t say so!”  Joseph said, “You want my help, trust me.”

Annoyingly, Joseph turned out to be right.  He proved invaluable throughout the morning, not only navigating through the maze of corridors to fill out and deliver endless forms, but also in briefing her on how to act and behave in the different interviews.  Sam didn’t always follow his advice, but she did take it into consideration.

Her plan, which she’d developed over breakfast—the sugar boost had helped—was to fly low.  Governments, like many groups, preferred things they could control and disliked things they couldn’t.  Thus, she would make herself look like—well, her own personal opposite.  Her power grabbing would obviously be a big scary deal to these people, so she’d just forget to mention it.  She’d be sweet and amenable.  As far as they were concerned, she was simply a failed Talent with a mental block; oh so controllable.  Not at all a loose cannon.  If all went well, she could skirt by.  She imagined N.T.U. probably wanted an excuse to go after the Corp—she would present herself as an innocent bystander who, by an accident of birth, had become a target of the big bad business.  They could play that song for the member Talents when they went after the Corp and hopefully, after that, she could fade back into the woodwork.

The plan began successfully.  The first interviewer was mainly interested in biographical information and her account of the trip—focusing primarily on the operations of the Corp, who they had sent, how they’d behaved, how she had responded.  Sam filled them in as much as possible, in order to create a picture of herself as an honest and open person.  Her interviewer didn’t even question her when she relayed tale after tale of watching from the sidelines as Al, Harry, and Lane took care of the threat.  A man in his mid-thirties, he seemed comfortable with the thought that, of course, as a young female she had not thought to try and fight back on her own.

The second interview was a little trickier, a psychological review and personality test.  Careful to maintain her block as well as she could, Sam found herself in a conversational dance, trying to guess what the interviewer wanted to hear and oblige.  The written multiple-choice personality test was much easier.  She just had to figure out what “personality” her persona would have and answer appropriately.

The last interview, however, threw Sam for a loop.  It wasn’t actually an interview.  Rather, Sam was placed into some brain-scanning machine, and then a man in a lab coat asked Sam about her powers.  Not sure of how much the machine could actually tell them, Sam kept her answers as vague as possible.  They released her without comment, and Sam allowed herself a small feeling of accomplishment.  Only early afternoon, but she felt like she’d just run a day-long marathon. 

“Not much to do now except sit and wait as everything is reviewed and people do their jobs,” Joseph said, “Speaking of which, I should probably get back to mine.  Have fun!”

#

Joseph’s suggestion to go “have fun” was easier said than done.  With strongly worded instructions not to go anywhere, she couldn’t snoop in the name of “exploration.”  In her rooms, there was nothing to read and nothing on TV.

The master plan, apparently, was to kill her with boredom. 

Sam flipped the radio on, lay down in bed, and found her eyes drifting shut...

“Wakey wakey, eggs ‘n bakey!”

“Lane!”  Sam sat up, grinning stupidly on her face.

“No, dear, sorry to scare you.”  Joseph stood at the foot of her bed, “but you didn’t answer the door.”

“Oh.”  Sam rubbed her eyes and glanced at the bedside clock.  Five P.M.  Whoa.  That had been a hell of a nap.   “What do you want?”

“The deputy chairman would like to see you.  Then you have to meet the council and chairman.”

Sam’s eyebrows went up.  From what she had gleaned in her day or so here, the council and chairman ran this whole thing.  Near as Samantha could tell, areas of Talents voted on an elected representative for the council.  The representatives then elected a chairman to act as their spokesperson.  Or something along those lines.  The chairman was like the prime minister of Talents.  He answered only to the top levels of the North American Governments.

“Now?”

“You probably have time to make yourself presentable, but sooner is better.”

Nodding, Sam got up.  Joseph left and she hurried to the bathroom.  Someone had brought her bag of things from the shopping bag the night before.  She went through it, looking for the cleanest, least-wrinkled, nicest thing she currently owned.  It happened to be the magenta camisole and matching light pink hoodie.  She debated what was worse to wear to a high level government meeting: dirty and grimy jeans, or relatively clean sweatpants that said “Sex Kitten.”  She decided on the jeans.

“Oh!” Joseph said as she came into the living area, “That color’s good on you!”

#

“Ah, Samantha, come in!”

Erik had a lined journal open on his desk. As she entered, he hurriedly shut the black notebook and thrust it into a drawer.  He grabbed a stack of papers and straightened them out, compulsively tidying up his desk.  That finished, he smiled warmly up at Sam and gestured for her to take a seat.

“I brought you here today so that we could have a chance to talk before the council meeting.  I realize that since you don’t have any experience with N.T.U. you might want to know what to expect today, and I also wanted to clear some things up before the meeting.”

Samantha nodded.

“Since you’ve had a chance to read the paperwork, is it safe to assume you are ready and willing to become a member of N.T.U.?”

“To be honest,” Samantha said, “I have some questions.”
“Oh, of course, of course, feel free!”

“In this section, it says that there should be no unauthorized use of powers—what does that mean, exactly?”

“Any use of your powers has to fall within strict parameters of the N.T.U. constitutional guidelines.”

“And what are those, exactly?”

“You’ll find them in the additional literature I gave you.”

The literature she hadn’t paid close attention to.  Sam shuffled through the enormous stack of papers, wishing she had better prepared.  She felt like she was standing up for an oral exam she hadn’t studied for.  The membership agreement sat directly in front of her, the blank signature line looming.

“What it boils down to is that you don’t use your powers to harm others, or in dishonest ways.”

That’s safely vague, Sam thought.

“Between you and me, Samantha,” Erik leaned forward, glancing from side to side, “I would sign the paperwork.  It would help you build credibility.  Ease some doubts.”

“Doubts?  What doubts?”

“Reports show you’ve used your powers less than judiciously on several occasions.”

“I’ve been going through transition.  I can’t always control my powers.”  The feeling of dread intensified. 

“That’s not what we meant.  Attempted murder, violent attacks, making people your sex slaves—that is not how N.T.U. Talents use their powers.”

Sam blinked.  Where had this come from, reports?  What reports?  And then she remembered the notebook Erik had shoved into his desk.  She knew where she’d seen a notebook like that before.

“Samantha?”  Erik went on, “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I sure do
, Samantha thought,
you’re about to be blackmail me into doing something I probably won’t want to do.

A polite tap on the door announced Joseph’s arrival.

“Sir,” Joseph said, “The council is here.  The chairman would like to speak to you privately for a moment.”

Erik excused himself and left.

The moment the door shut Sam leaned across the desk, yanked his drawer open and grabbed the notebook.  Pulling it out, her breath caught.  It was Lane’s journal, the one she had seen him taking notes in the whole trip. 

Sam read the first page and rifled through the others, quickly glancing at different passages.  She knew she didn’t have much time before Erik got back, but thanks to the clear, all-caps engineering print, Sam had had no problem reading more than enough.

Her chest tightened, and Sam quickly dug out her inhaler, taking a puff.  The medicine didn’t help.

Every mention she had made about her abilities, every lesson, each step of progress she had made, painstakingly written in black and white.

And not just that.  More.  Hypothesis, speculation, connecting her past with her powers.  A detailed rundown of every trauma and pain she’d endured that he was aware of.  Bullet point lists of “possible mental blocks preventing full maturation.”

It was Sam’s worst nightmare come to life.  In this journal was evidence ready and waiting to be misconstrued against her.  Here, in neat, legible type was her death warrant—signed, sealed, and delivered by the one man she had actually started to trust.  Someone might as well have walked up and kicked her in the chest with a steel-toed boot.  

Stuffing the journal back in the drawer, Sam reflected on how totally and completely screwed she was. 

“Samantha,” Erik came back, “They’re waiting.  Ready?”

No, no way
, Sam thought, as she stood up: 
I most certainly am not.

Chapter
31

The top-floor office where Sam was to receive her death sentence was surprisingly informal.  Maybe because the Missionary-style furniture clashed with the stark modernism of the huge windows that overlooked the sharp cityscape and gloomy, gray skies.  Sam noticed the windows first, made a mental note not to focus on them at all costs, and turned her attention to the occupants of the big room.  This meeting, it turned out, was not with just the chairman, but around eight or nine men and women, most in their fifties, leaning back in overstuffed cushions on the couches scattered throughout the room.