“In public,” I added.
“What’s not public now?” Kate asked. She was as tipsy as the rest but she was on the same couch as me, with her head on my shoulder. “There’s a hundred events this week and you need one cell camera to record it forever. So almost anything qualifies.” She stabbed at the agenda without looking. “’Pediatrics for Africa, twenty minute event, ten children who’ve survived traditionally-fatal diseases. With Heads of State, entourage and Media Pool.’ There’s twenty more like that tomorrow and that many more every day to the end.”
“Shit!” Tauber groaned. “This is no good. We can’t sit around guessin’.”
“I can’t start probing,” Max said. “The one advantage we have is if they think we’re dead. I can’t blow that without a reason.”
“Why’s it always probing?” Tauber spat. “ Kidnap somebody, knock ‘em on the head and sodium pentothal ‘em, do something! Drag some information outta somebody!” Kate took a step back, involuntarily. “I’m sorry but it’s time ta get our hands dirty or admit we’re fakin’ it. You’re not stoppin’ these guys politely-they’ll walk right over ya.”
“I don’t think-” Kate started and fizzled out.
“So who do we kidnap?” Max asked. “Pietr Volkov? Marat? Surely they know the plan but I don’t want to try taking them. The drones don’t know anything. I could feel it when we were filing out of L Corp headquarters; they send out a message, they don’t know what they’re sending and it vanishes as soon as they’re finished.”
“ Somebody’s gotta know,” Tauber snarled. “They’ve got a system-they don’t have all those people beamin’ out all those messages without somebody riding herd on ‘em.”
“Well, there’s the question,” Kate said. “Their own men are with security, right at her hip. If they’re going to shoot her, why beam anything out at all? I can feel the humming all night long. They’ve got crowds of drones on it right now! What are they beaming out? To who?”
“We’ve got to narrow the possibilities,” Max said, “and be ready to defend her at a moment’s notice.” He blinked at Kate. “You’ve got to work on making shields.”
“ Now?” She was blinking too. We were all fried, braindead. It had been three days since that morning.
“We’re not getting a second chance.” He turned to me. “You’ve got to work on blocking yourself and reading danger when it’s near. You could be an early warning.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing; I‘ve got no power.”
“But you’re not preoccupied with twenty other things. Concentrate on that.” He turned to Tauber. “And you can-”
“I can get zapped in the head or run over or otherwise beat the shit out of because we don’t have a plan,” Tauber said. He was boiling over finally, after simmering for days. “Because we’re too pure to start a fight.”
“We’re here to prevent damage,” Kate said. “ First do no harm.”
“I’m not a fuckin’ doctor, sweetie. I’m a spy. Nice people put the garbage in the can; my job’s takin’ out what nobody wants. If it stinks, it’s mine. And if I don’t take it, ain’t no molelike son-of-a-bitch comin’ up behind me to do it.” He headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Max demanded.
“Out!” Tauber replied, slamming the door behind him.
We stared at the door like the answer was written in the wood. The air was thick now-nothing felt right.
“Okay, let’s get to work,” Max told Kate. “Make a shield.”
Kate sunk into the chair. “I don’t think I can make coffee right now,” she replied, head in her hands. “What if they attack and we’re so worn out we can’t respond? Does that help anyone?”
Max sighed. “Let’s try these things once or twice- just get the feel of them-then sleep if you need to.”
Kate constructed an energy shield. Max tested it with his hands-it gave and pushed back. Then he held up his fingers, sitzing and sparking. He tried to throw a lightning bolt but the spark only went a couple inches before fading out. He zapped the shield and Kate flinched.
“Once you’ve made it, let it go,” he instructed. “It grows from energy but then it has it’s own life. If you try to retain control, you only make it weaker.”
“So Tauber was right-it’s alive?” she asked.
“The Universe is alive. Children, birds, mosquitoes, those are reactive forms of matter; rocks, not so much.” Renn’s voice was firm. “I’m only comfortable with a philosophy that develops out of what I know-which is not necessarily what I can prove. What I know is, the same little things make all the big things. Electrons are electrons-everything is one thing.”
“You’re working on lightning bolts,” Kate murmured-it was a reproach, though a polite one.
Max shrugged. “I don’t have a plan, so I have to prepare for everything. Mark is right-at the moment, they’re running the table.”
When I woke, Kate’s face was inches from me. Which would have made me very happy, except for the look on her face, which was alarming.
“You were crying out in your sleep.”
Her hand was on my chest. When she took it away, I could feel the absence like a memory. The sky was still black outside the window-the clock on the night table read 4 in the morning. And then Max was in the doorway behind her and the way he looked at us on the bed together cut my heart out. Jealousy didn’t become him but I knew the feeling myself.
“Do you remember anything?” Kate asked. She’d glanced over at Max and had to have seen what I did, but she didn’t budge. “Do you remember the dream?”
“Touch me again,” I said. That took her by surprise so I added, “It’s how I felt when I woke up. Maybe I can use it to get back there.” She laid her hand down-it fit right where it had been. I closed my eyes and, in two seconds, I was in a room, a tiny room. In the toilet. Literally. I had locked myself in the toilet, avoiding the knock at the door and the voice calling, “Are you alright?” My mother. My mother? It was supposed to be my mother but I couldn’t see her face or pinpoint her voice. I knew what she was saying and how I was expected to answer but I was overcome by her memory being so close and the fact that I still couldn’t see her face. And then I was in the living room in uniform, ready to ship out, and here was an older face straining to be younger-but this mother’s face didn’t go with the voice in the bathroom. This face came accompanied by another voice, more musical and familiar. And then I was back in a living room decked with party hats, a huge cake and kids waiting for a party-waiting for me. Waiting while I hid in the bathroom, refusing to come out. Not wanting them or the party.
I opened my eyes and blushed because I could see, looking at Kate, that she’d seen everything I had. And Max as well. But what did it mean? I’d been in combat-I’d killed men and seen my friends killed. What was the trauma about a birthday party?
“How did you feel?” Kate asked.
“Confused.”
“That’s it? You were panicked when I woke you.”
“Maybe the problem is, it’s not his memory,” Max said. “It’s mine.”
Kate swiveled on the bed like someone had kicked her.
“You’re a receptor,” Max told me quietly. “You’re picking up bits and pieces of memories and thoughts around you.”
“I didn’t at Dave’s,” I protested. I wasn’t sure why I was against this idea; it seemed obvious as soon as he said it.
“Dave was against all this,” Max said. “He stopped emanating a long time ago. If he’d kept it up, maybe he’d still be alive. Since Florida, everyone around you’s been getting into your head, making connections. You’re responding. Just not always as expected.”
“So it was your birthday party?”
He nodded. “Remember, my parents were never together-nor my grandparents, for that matter. They mated for the state and disappeared, expunged so I shouldn’t go looking for them. I grew up in a collective of teachers and parents. When I got to be 3 or 4, the program became concerned I should have American memories of childhood. So I suddenly acquired a split-level house and a room with a television and a father and mother from the film academy in Moscow. I’m not sure they loved performing for an audience of one in Novosibirsk but they were patriots and did their duty. To no good end. I saw through them in days-it was my first out-of-laboratory invasion of someone else’s mind. Not that mindreading was really called for in this case. I longed for family enough to know this wasn’t it. I could sense what was missing even though I’d never had it.”