Vacant (19 page)

He turned back, rebellion in his every line.

Probably I should lie to him, but I didn't see how that would help. And I didn't want things coming out later. So I tried. “The unfortunate truth about investigating bad people is that that they don't always do what you want them to do. Sometimes they do bad things before you can catch them.”

“Who did they kill?” Tommy asked, unable to help himself. He wasn't happy, but he also wasn't shutting down.

“A gun store owner who may have brokered the deal, and now some of the people who we believe attacked you.” He probably already mostly knew about the gun store owner, but telling him officially might as well happen now along with news about the other deaths.

“The guys who attacked me are dead?” Happiness and sadness mixed inside him like the ingredients to a grade-school papier-mâché volcano, ending with a burst of fear. “Does that mean I'm safe now?”

“I don't know,” I said.

He looked up, and his mind wanted comfort, wanted a hug. It went against nearly every habit I had—telepaths don't touch as a rule, and I'd been working with the police for years, who were just as much against touch—but I reached out and hugged him, awkwardly.

He grabbed onto me, shivering, emotions still roiling inside him in ways he couldn't quite cope with. He was grabbing my clothes, at least, so the skin-to-skin telepathy increase was minimal. But those emotions were overwhelming, even from a distance, even from the outside.

I didn't change anything; I didn't manipulate or cause anything. But I stood there and let him shiver, and helped dampen down his emotions from the outside, small structural changes to help him feel more in control. Just at the point where he could think again, I stopped. He needed to feel what he felt.

“There's too much dead,” he said then.

“I know,” I said, feeling it too. He missed his bodyguard, and he was terribly, terribly afraid now that I would die just like her.

But he hadn't said it out loud, and I didn't want to lie and tell him that it couldn't happen.

Loyola knocked on the hallway side, a dull thud of fist impacting wall.

I looked up.

“We need to leave for the courthouse soon,” Loyola said. “Sridarin and the judge left twenty minutes ago, and Jarrod doesn't want us separated for any longer than necessary.”

Tommy pulled away from me then and rubbed his face. “Nobody can die today, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. I hoped I could keep that promise.

And then he turned and went back to his room to get his toys together.

I was still
at the house. Tommy was moving slower than Jarrod wanted, and Loyola was back there trying to hurry him up. Even Mendez had asked for another ten minutes to pack equipment. Jarrod was in a mood, and I was spending time on the opposite side of the house so I couldn't feel it.

The phone in the kitchen rang, and I picked it up.

“Is this Adam?” Kara's voice asked.

“Yeah. Let me call you back on another number,” I said.

“Um, okay. I'm at the office.”

Ignoring Jarrod's impatience across the house, I grabbed a jacket and walked across the street to a pay phone and dialed. This was more important than a ten minutes' delay.

A woman walked her tiny bioengineered dino-lizard past me along the sidewalk. The thing hissed as it got near to me, its mantle rising and turning red-yellow. She glared at me like this was somehow my fault and pulled the lizard along forcefully. It went. Nasty thing, it was like a blazing sign of wrong priorities. Get a cat from the pound; cats were free.

Kara finally picked up the phone. “Guild Public Relations Office. Kara Chenoa.”

“It's me.”

“I want you to know we had to get an engineer and a Structure guy to work overnight.”

“Huh?”

“For your stupid demand. For that influencer device. We had two pros work overnight on the thing on my request directly. My superiors aren't happy with me. But we have a solution. You aren't going to like it.”

“That was fast,” I said. Then, awkwardly: “Thank you.”

“I didn't do it for you. Honestly the Guild needed this. That's what I told the departments, along with the request for discretion. If it's out there, we need to be able to counter it.”

I tried to take that personally and just couldn't muster up the energy. Kara played for her own team, always had, and lately maybe it wasn't bothering me quite so much. At least not if I got what I wanted. “What's the solution?”

“Is the line secure?” she asked.

I turned around and scanned the surroundings. With the exception of the woman and her dino-lizard (currently peeing on a flower bed two hundred feet away), no one was around. “No. But it's a public phone I doubt is monitored. Say what you're comfortable with.” It was chilly out here, but not outright cold; warmer today. Hopefully it would stay that way, though in late February even in the South I doubted it.

A pause. “We're not going to get any better?”

“No.”

“I'll chance it, I guess. You remember your Structure basics?”

“I used to teach the stuff, Kara.”

“With your history, I didn't want to assume.”

Okay, that one hurt a little. Mostly how she said it, dismissive and judging, with hidden weights, more than the fact of my drug history. She'd been the one to turn me in to the Guild. Maybe it shouldn't surprise me. “You going to tell me or just string me along for another half hour?” I
asked. “I'm running out of time here.” I really was; Jarrod would be out looking for me at any moment.

“So, the mind has thirty-six set points for telepathic communication, yes?”

“Yes. Which are we changing and how?”

“You remember them by name, not just position still?” she asked.

I was irritated. “Yes, I do remember, Kara.” It was a valid question; I'd had a lot more opportunity to do practical hands-on work than teaching in the last ten years. But I was tired of being asked the same stupid questions over and over again. “Give me the answer, okay?”

“The pro wanted me to be absolutely sure.” The rustle of papers, and then her voice changed to read something. “A1, B5, B7 through 9, A13x, and C4 need to be closed, as fully closed as possible. HL7 spun up as much as you can hold. And . . . you're really not going to like this. Processor 4 muffled as much as you can stand.”

I closed my eyes. “That one processes all the senses, not just telepathy, Kara! You screw with it too much the wrong way, and you're blind and deaf until somebody comes to bail you out. I don't have anybody to bail me out down here. And with those comm points closed, really, Kara?”

“I told you you wouldn't like it.”

“Why in hell do you have to make so many changes? That's like spinning three plates on your head while you do the tap dance samba singing ‘Yankee Doodle' over a pothole. There's no way I can do all that, not and Mind my charge.”

“You're Minding now?” Kara asked. “You're not certified for that.”

I could hear her disbelief, disbelief and judgment. “They cared more about non-Guild talent than credentials for this
job. It's legit, and that's all I can say. I didn't misrepresent. And it's a good thing I am here, considering. Who else would have called you and put up a fuss? I need to know, though. Why so many mind-changes?”

She sighed, then offered resentfully, “They aren't exactly sure what part of the mind the interference waves are manipulating. It was trial and error, honestly, with the version we have. This was the first combination that worked. You want an answer quickly, you're going to have to put up with some fuzzy edges.”

“The mind has plenty of fuzzy edges all on its own,” I said.

“Yeah, well,” she said, in that tone of voice you get when someone complains about the weather. “What are you going to do? I don't like you taking Minding jobs.”

“It's not like you have a vote anymore,” I said. “And you put pressure on me to get money. You can't get too particular about how I get it, now can you?”

“It doesn't have to be like this, Adam.”

“You're the one who started it.”

She sighed. “I got you your answer. Please keep your side of the bargain. I really need that device to not get out in the normal population.”

“Don't we all,” I said. “Tell me that group of sets again, slower this time, please.”

“Try to listen this time.” She repeated the numbers, and I paid close attention.

Then she hung up on me.

“Good-bye to you too,” I said.

It started to drizzle, a cold, cold drizzle that interacted with the nasty gray fog in a way that made me think pollution, and nasty pollution at that. I wanted a shower, but there wasn't time.

Jarrod stood on the back porch of the house, tapping his watch. I nodded and moved faster.

I just prayed the information Kara had given me would be enough.

And then I went back in to deal with Jarrod. I was only ten seconds later than Mendez and got away with a single, frustrated wave to hurry up.

*   *   *

We made it to the courthouse with maximum alertness and minimum excitement. Then, after a long and careful procedure, Tommy and I settled into the judge's chambers for the morning. A long morning. Hours passed, hours during which I was on too-high alert and was fighting off worry—and a craving for my drug—only through sheer will, because Tommy was watching me.

About noon, I couldn't take it anymore. I was starving. And losing track of my emotions. A walk would do me a lot of good, but I couldn't leave him either. “Let's get lunch,” I said to Tommy.

He sat up, thought he was hungry too, and started picking up the toys strewn everywhere.

“Leave them,” I said.

Tommy looked up.

“Really. We'll clean them up when we get back. I'll help.”

“Okay,” he said. He was nervous about leaving stuff in his mom's office. She'd get mad.

“It'll be fine.”

“If she gets mad, it's your fault.” He stood up and got his coat.

“Fair enough.”

We moved out into the now-crowded hallway at lunchtime. I could still feel his nerves over the general cacophony of the surroundings. Now that I was moving, mine
were settling. A little. I still wanted . . . a lot of things I couldn't have.

“What do you feel like eating?” I asked him.

“Food,” he said.

“Very funny.” I pulled us to one side of the hallway, close to the benches. For security's sake, I should get Loyola or Mendez to escort us. When I went to locate their minds, both were halfway across the courthouse, busy in something mentally demanding. I looked around. There were a
lot
of people here, to the point it felt overwhelming in Mindspace. I couldn't see us being in a lot of danger in this kind of environment.

“What are you waiting on?” Tommy asked me, not happy.

I sighed. “Nothing, I guess. Let's go.” We'd go to the busiest place, the one all the jurors were going to, close enough to the courthouse that everyone could get there immediately.

*   *   *

The deli across the street on the opposite corner from the courthouse was to the right of the newspaper kiosk I'd seen Sibley at earlier, but it was crammed with people, with no danger to be felt anywhere around. I remained alert but kept moving. Inside, it was standing room only, a line for the food all the way to the door. But a group of courthouse employees—led by a bailiff—just abandoned a table as we got near. I dashed forward and sat, hurriedly, uncaring of the abandoned plates.

An old lady gave me the stink eye, but I'd claimed the table fair and square. Tommy next to me leaked a little embarrassment, but he sat down.

Another group of three pulled the second small table away from ours and sat down too, talking steadily like a flock of geese. The old lady harrumphed at them.

I ignored Tommy's embarrassment and started collecting
up plates. “Let me clean, and then I'll get in line. You hold the table. What do you want?”

Ten minutes later—after watching Tommy like a hawk from ten feet away—I was back with a tray, two sandwiches and two flimsy veg-fiber cups, one with water for me, one with some sugary neon drink Tommy wanted. He perked up when he saw it, and I got the distinct impression his mom didn't let him drink the bright green stuff.

I settled the food and unwrapped my sub. Fluffy ciabatta two inches thick cradling a bounty of thick soy loaf, artisan lettuce, fresh tomato, two thin strips of grown bacon, and mustard so sharp it cleared your sinuses. Good stuff.

Tommy had half his drink gone already and his sandwich barely unwrapped. The surroundings were loud, constant chatter filling the space like the constant thoughts, raindrops falling on the surface of a lake. Tommy seemed distracted—very distracted. I realized I'd closed off my mind in self-defense.

I opened just enough to remind him mind-to-mind,
Remember the house? You need to slide your door closed and pull the curtains a little.
I paused, knocked on his mind, and when allowed, helped him build rudimentary defenses against the chatter.

When I settled back into the real world, the deep line in his forehead had disappeared. He opened up his own sandwich and tore into it.

“Thanks,” he said, his mouth full.

“You're welcome.”

“How many people have you saved?” he asked, after his next bite. I saw that tinge of hero worship again, and didn't know what to do with it.

“A couple,” I said, a little uncomfortable. “I've only worked
with the police for a few years, and mostly they have me doing interrogations and helping with crime scenes. There's nobody to save at a crime scene; you're there to figure out what happened.”

“Oh,” Tommy said. I expected him to ask me about crime scenes, since we'd been to one already and there'd been that display in the courtroom. Instead he asked, “What did you do before you worked with the police?”

I paused, putting the sandwich down. Questions about my past were always tricky, particularly in a context like this. “I was a professor at the Guild for a while,” I said. “I taught the advanced students for Structure.” It was true, so far as it went, and I was prepared to talk about it in depth, answer all his questions.

He ate the sandwich a little more, cut peppers falling out of it onto the tray.

I let him think; I could feel the thinking. He knew he'd be a telepath, and I'd answer whatever questions he had about telepathy in as much detail as he wanted.

But instead he asked, “Why'd you change jobs?”

I took a sip of the water, to buy time, and to try to decide what to do. My past wasn't a secret—everyone I'd worked for since rehab had known about it in advance. And the kid had a bad habit of pulling information out of me without being able to control it. Details coming out later under bad circumstances would be much worse than telling him now. As much as telling him now wasn't the best choice either.

I put the water glass down. “I changed jobs because I got addicted to a drug named Satin, something the Guild was experimenting with. I took it way too far, and I don't think they work with it anymore—but there we are. I had to put my life back together. I've been clean almost four years.”

“You take drugs?” His voice was too loud. We were attracting attention.

“I've been clean almost four years,” I said again, in as calm a voice as I could manage. “I didn't lie to you,” I said, deeply embarrassed by all these strangers staring at me, judging me with thoughts that leaked through my shields. It would have been way easier to lie to him, and now I wished I had. “Look, let's talk about this.”

“Whatever,” he said in a tone of voice that didn't invite further discussion.

“No, seriously,” I said.

But his attention had moved, across the street looking through the window at something I couldn't see. He was frustrated at me, that much I had felt, but now the feeling turned to something like . . . longing.

I turned. There was a school bus in traffic, pulling up in front of the courthouse.

He was on his feet now, putting his napkin down. “That's the field trip. They're doing the field trip to the courthouse.” Flashes of friends from school shuffled through his mind like a pack of cards, and that frustration and longing coalesced into movement. He was walking out.