Periphery (8 page)
The air outside was damp and chill; redolent of burning leaves. Autumn. I stood, just breathing, remembering the smell of freedom. Buildings clawed the heavens, a narrow strip of blue between. Part of me wanted to run back inside, where it was safe. Part of me exulted in the crisp, cold weather.
The car was beautiful. A Mercedes Air. Pre-programmed. They ushered me inside, sealed the door and stood back. Job done.
Custom fitted jets cut in, lifting to the permitted height in line with air traffic regs. Flight path confirmed, GPS took over, speeding me to my destination.
I was barely out of sight of my prison when, in the clear blister of the windows, panic gripped me. I averted my eyes from too much space, too much sky, searching instead for a way to prize open the control panel. If I could cross the right wires I’d be free. I couldn’t imagine where I’d go, but not to try was somehow a betrayal.
“Don’t.”
I ignored her. There must be a camera. I didn’t have time to find and blind it. The control panel looked molded. It couldn’t be. It was stainless steel. There had to be—an edge! If I wrenched the handle from the glove compartment, maybe I could…
Fuck! The pain was a knife through my head. Don’t let me pass out before I finish. Don’t let them take me again. My hand spasmed. Against my will I released the handle I’d been yanking.
“Killian, stop.”
How could she sound so reasonable when she was murdering me? I ground my teeth and fought to stay conscious. My hand moved an inch. Another.
“Be reasonable.”
“It’s the law, Killian.”
She tsk’d like a mother saddened by her child’s tantrum. “I’ll have to take direct action. Forgive me.”
The pain in my head increased. Then everything went black.
*
The bed was soft. It smelled of jasmine and ambergris. I shot upright—too quickly—and was pushed back with a soft admonition. My head throbbed and my stomach threatened to purge. Blue eyes met mine. A cool cloth mopped my brow. She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear, then smoothed down her uniform.
My eyes tracked her hand helplessly, hypnotized by the motion. Impressions it conjured, the memories. Needs I’d hoped repressed.
I snapped off that line of thought. I can’t be alone in my own head anymore. If I’d been seen…
A slim cordless phone chirruped politely. My nurse set aside her cloth to answer it. Her brow creased then she handed the instrument to me.
“I’ll give her to you for an hour if you play nice.”
I held the headset away from my ear as if it was venomous.
“Hold the phone back, Killian, there’s no need to frighten her.” Reluctantly I complied. Her dulcet tones caressed my tympanum. “Who said anything about forcing? She could be persuaded.”
I shuddered. The woman is the thought police. She’s everything your parents warned you about when you were a child. The femme fatale of noir fiction. The monster under the bed. I sent her that image.
“You wound me! I just do my job; help keep the country in line. Stop malingering. You’re ruining the lovely suit.”
“Don’t, Killian. Come upstairs or I’ll have you fetched. I’m not sure how much more damage you can take. I’m authorized to use lethal force if you don’t comply.”
Pressing aside my gentle nurse, I swung my feet to the ground and stood.
The blonde took my arm until the room stopped spinning. Her perfume was forget-me-nots and violets. It spoke of summer days and sunshine. Her wide blue eyes held mine, sinking into what I was feeling, projecting.
A soft breeze, running butterfly kisses over her skin, lifting her hair to caress her nape. Running water, the rustle of tree branches, golden light dusting her arms.
I shook my head, stopping the shared daydream. I didn’t know if it was hers or mine. It was too real, too vital. I couldn’t afford such feelings. People I cared about disappeared. A tool with other interests than doing the job was an inconvenience.
She blinked, seeing the room around us again. I braced myself for the inevitable slap, for invading her thoughts. Instead she stepped right into me, her warm breasts crushed against my bound chest. She feathered a hand through my newly cut hair, re-arranged my tie, brushed imaginary lint off my shoulders. Then she kissed me.
My eyes closed and I kissed her back. I couldn’t help it. Even though I knew any cameras in the place would be trained on me. On her. Her effect on me. She stepped away with a smile to open the door. I hated myself. Whoever she was, whatever she’d been, she was their pawn now. They’d use her as a stick to beat me with if I didn’t comply, then make her disappear when the job was over. I wanted to howl at the unfairness of it all.
I took the stairs three at a time, furious. What can you do when you know you’ve been played?
The doors to the ante-room were open, but she took her time admitting me to the inner sanctum. To chastise me for delaying my response to her summons? Make me fret about what they would do to the girl? Other business?
There were no chairs and I’d be damned if I’d pace. The wall art was too uncomfortable to look at and the floor length windows brought back my agoraphobia. I adopted a kind of parade rest and waited.
Finally she relented. Steel vault doors swung open to a dimly lit interior. I walked up the three shallow steps and entered. The doors closed behind me with a hiss that set my heart racing. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons rattled invisible windows.
She reclined on a burgundy velvet chaise in the middle of the room which, disconcertingly, appeared to have no end. She seemed relaxed. I wasn’t fooled. The apartment had a ceiling like the sky. Casual observers think it patchily painted but a closer look shows it’s moving. One glance at what was visible between the branches of the arbor she’d created around the couch showed storm clouds racing across the sky. A suggestion of dead leaves whirled around her. Lady Death personified.
I held off looking at her as long as I could. Cassandra Sarian is a chameleon and an empath. Useful talents. She can assume the likeness of anyone she pleases. Usually someone you desire. After the little charade downstairs it didn’t take a genius to guess who she’d look like today.
Being an empath isn’t a crime. Nor is being a chameleon. The government condones the ultimate in identity theft, but not the possibility someone might get inside your head and find out your grubby little secrets.
Cassandra was blessed—or cursed—with three talents. As a chameleon she could change her face and form. As an empath she could receive feelings, thoughts and emotions. But unlike most other empaths, if she had a telepathic receiver, she could send back what she gleaned. Which was where I came in.
Law enforcement authorities were quick to see the advantages of a controlled partnership between telepaths and this kind of empath. There are hundreds of empaths. They can turn off their abilities and live ordinary lives. Until someone nearby is in the grip of strong emotion, murderous emotion for instance, and it bleeds over onto them. Telepaths can’t turn it off. We’re receptive all the time. We learn to manage our abilities or go mad. If we’re fed the images, emotions and thoughts from a crime, we can track those thoughts to their source. Bring killers to justice. A mental sniffer dog for murderers.
Telepaths make up less than 2% of the population. With forced sterilization we’re never likely to be much more. We have no voice, literally. To us, vocal chords are an anachronism. What need for something so cumbersome when you can “say” exactly what you mean direct to the speech centers in the brain, complete with smells, tastes, emotions? My vocal arrangement is no more complicated than a domestic cat. With the exception of the few “blanks” who can’t receive me, I’ve never had difficulty conveying my words. But no voice means no choice. From the moment we’re born we’re isolated. We’re well behaved kids because we can read our parents’ thoughts, know what they want. Can’t have a human teaching us—we might pick their brains. Cheat. And when we “show our true colors,” use our powers to be free, we’re incarcerated. For the good of society. You see intrusion, we see honesty.
For being different, I’ve been locked away from “perfect society” for the better part of twenty years. Had my mind plunged into every kind of mental sewer. Had murderers and rapists hijack my senses with their own so completely I didn’t know whether the thoughts I had were mine or theirs. Another reason they lock us up. They’re afraid we’ll become our quarry. Once the empath’s released the mental time-bomb they’re free. It’s gone. Telepaths are haunted by echoes from the psychotic personalities we hunt. Even when they’re caught, there are the memories. I’ve lost count of the nights I wake up screaming. The days when all I want is the peace of death.
She beckoned me forward and made room for me.
Without touching me she put her face close to my neck and inhaled. “You smell wonderful. Arousal only improves that cologne on you.”
Did she want me to thank her for the compliment? I knew what was coming next. No amount of flattery was going to put me at ease.
If what they make me do for them is bad, the way I pluck out the thoughts is worse. All my life, I’ve only ever desired women. Making me another kind of minority. Since my death wish, they gave me to Cassandra. Who specializes in sex crimes against women. To feed me the memories, we have to re-live the crime.
Her fingers reached up, brushed my temples and we were there.
Red light district. Me feet hurt. The wind cuts like ice through the fake leather jacket zipped beneath me boobs. It’s late. I haven’t had a punter all night. Years o’ practice is the only thing that lets me keep the toothpaste-ad smile when the air car twirls down to stop on the curb next to me. Steamed up windows drop, warming me with a blast of heat and posh aftershave. I can’t see inside, but it don’t matter what he looks like. I need the money and he needs sex.
“How much?”
“Depends on what you want, lover.”
“The works. A full hour.”
“I don’t do kiddies or animals.”
“Neither do I.”
“A ton fifty, then.”
Money comes through the window. Near a grand. I force meself not to snatch his hand off. Rent and food sorted for two weeks with enough to treat the babby!
I stuff it in me bag and get in when the door opens at the back. I still can’t see nothing, but the money and the warm are enough. I don’t care what he wants. It’s only an hour of me life.
I can’t see where we’re going so I spend the time counting me stash. I haven’t finished before we’re there. The car park’s big. Middle floor of a building.
He tells me to get out and what to do. It ain’t hard. Go through the door, turn left and go into the first room on the right. It’s not locked and the lights are on.
Blimey! It’s bigger than the car park! View to die for. Pity he wants me to wear a blindfold. But he’s paying, so I do what he says. I take everything off ’cept the push up bra, hold-up stockings and fuck-me shoes. Leave me stuff in the lounge, kneel in the middle of a big oval plastic covered bed, (s’pose it takes all sorts) and put the shiny blindfold on. I hear his shoes on the wooden floor and fluff my hair up quick, shifting a bit to suck me stomach in and stick me boobs out. I don’t hear him come in the room but I feel the bed dip when he kneels on it.
“Like what you see?”
“You have no idea.”
Then there’s a hand on me shoulder and…
…that quickly I’m someone else. Male. Aggressive. Full of righteous anger. I feel the rush of lust as I transfer—my hips narrow, my breasts gone and between my legs the urgent need.
God, she’s ugly. She stinks of cheap wine and cheaper perfume and other men’s cum. The thought of the cleansing makes me hard.
I push her back, even get permission to tie the stupid bitch up. She keeps wriggling, trying to flash herself at me, the way they all do. I keep telling myself it doesn’t matter, it’s just more proof. My mission is pure.
Once she’s secure I take the gloves, the mask and butchers apron out of the drawer beside the bed. Perhaps I should have covered the cabinets with plastic too? They always make such a mess when they go. But it’s only repro. I can burn it with the body when I’m done. Perhaps I’ll burn the whole place? That would be the ultimate cleansing. The cathartic sweep of flame, a votive fire sending her purified essence to heaven. Yes, I like that.
I reach for the bottle, a concoction of my own devising. Household ammonia, detergent and pest killer. Appropriate, readily available and generic. Not specific to me, who I am or what I do outside my crusade. If they could tie this to me it would all be over. There are so many more who must be cleansed. I can’t let them stop me. Who would continue my important work?
I say some meaningless nonsense that makes her open her mouth and I uncap my potion, my hand ready to grab her jaw when she tries to close it, tries to spit it out. It’s been a near thing sometimes. I thought I’d lost an eye once. I had to leave my task and get to a hospital! When I came back I had to punish her.
I’ve been more careful since. The glasses, the mask, the apron and gloves cover nearly all of me. Any burns I take I think of as war wounds. Injuries in my holy crusade. I wear them with pride.
I pour the liquid into her willing mouth, a mouth I’m sure has serviced many sinners. She gags, chokes, but I stoke her throat, telling her the medicine is for her own good, and, unable to resist, she swallows. Then the screaming starts.
I spun away and vomited up everything in my stomach. Cassandra maintained contact, feeding me the last of the memory. Mewling, I crawled away. She followed. God knows where she’d got it. A street person? The victim herself?
The woman’s pain was my world, overlaid by her murderer’s arousal. The smell of Cassandra’s perfume. The music reaching its climactic allegro. The whirl of leaves. Cassandra’s true face, layered with the face of the woman outside, of the woman on the plastic covered bed of her murderer…