“Nothing. No, that’s not true. I lose all my powers, but I stay a girl, now.”
“That wasn’t always the case?”
“No, to start with, I was a boy when I went to school, and the rest of the time I’d be a girl as long as I wore the torc.”
“When did that change?”
“After I started at this college. I’d been a girl permanently for a few weeks and my games mistress made me take it off to play hockey. I didn’t have a choice, so I took it off. I waited for the change to happen, but it never came.”
Amber nodded.
“I’d say that was the default if you left it on for longer than a couple of weeks. It wasn’t designed for humans, but for another race that needed to look human. I think it was one of a pair. This was the one to allow them to look female, while the other one was to make them look male.”
“How do you know?”
“Part of my power is to feel inanimate objects and understand their history. It’s not clear, but that’s the impression I sense.”
“Why would they want to look male or female?”
“They probably didn’t look anything like us, so needed to appear normal. Humans come in two genders, so they probably felt it right to have one of each, at least.”
“You mean there are more of these things?”
“I don’t know. Possibly.”
“Why did it change me if I’m not the same race as they were?”
“I can sense that it is tuned into female human DNA. It gives the wearer the image of being human female, regardless of whatever they happened to be originally.”
Keira thought for a moment, gently touching the torc with her fingers.
“Are there many people, like us, I mean?”
“No, very few.”
“I suppose I’m not really like you. I use an artificial means to obtain my power.”
“No; actually, I sense in you latent power that is simply amplified by the torc. Some of its powers are definitely unique to the torc, but others are most definitely of you.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Keira admitted.
Amber sighed.
“I have a daughter; she’s grown up now, and lives and works in America. Her father David was an American serviceman who was gifted and never knew it. He had some amazing latent powers, which made him an exceptional policeman. Jenny is probably more powerful than me, but we were careful no ensure that the security and intelligence services never found her.”
Keira frowned.
“What happened?”
“I went to work in America during the Cold War. The Soviets had a cunning plan to operate a sleeper programme and cause mayhem in the 1970’s and 80’s. We managed to stop them, but grew so close that we could not ignore things any more. We had to be careful, as we both knew how the official mind works. Our daughter Jenny was born just after David and I got married. As far as my people and his were concerned, we just happened to be enjoying some well-earned leave.
“We settled in the States, as I managed to get a job as a liaison consultant to the American intelligence people. David was still in their military, but they were good enough to keep us working in relatively close proximity to start with.
“We had fifteen wonderful years, and then he was diagnosed with cancer. Jenny took his death hard, as she couldn’t understand how neither of us could use our powers to save him. Jenny went into medicine and is now a wonderful physician on the West Coast. She has some amazing gifts, but she refuses to use any of them for anything other than medical practicalities. I actually respect her for it, but can’t help but think that in a way it’s a waste of some amazing gifts.”
“Do you see much of her?”
“Yes, I do. She has a wonderful husband who is a doctor as well. They have three children, and I see them as often as I can. One of them, little Chloe, is showing great promise; if you know what I mean?”
“Where are we going?”
“I have to finish what you started, so I thought you’d appreciate a ring-side seat. Am I right?”
“Oh yes,” said Keira with a smile.
Ali was afraid, but he was never going to show that he was afraid, nor that all his training and preparation was insufficient for his current predicament. He pretended to pray whenever he thought someone was watching him and said nothing to the infidels whenever they spoke to him. The truth was that he actually was suffering from extreme doubt as to the existence of Allah, and specifically that he was on the path of righteousness. Nevertheless, he refused to be drawn to say anything, despite their use of several different interpreters.
They fed him regularly, and quite well too. But because he refused to speak, they had yet to attempt to interrogate him.
He was pretending to pray when he heard them open the wicket on the cell door. Then he heard the keys in the lock and the door opened. He still refused to look, even though he knew that someone was looking down at where he knelt.
He became more than a little disconcerted as that person made no attempt to speak to him or to try to get him to move. He looked up.
Keira stood a little behind Amber in the doorway of the cell. The policeman stood just behind her, twirling the keys on his finger. Amber simply stood there, looking at the prostrate man.
When she finally spoke, she said the nine words in Arabic that the man least wanted to hear. Then they simply left the man quietly sobbing.
“What did you say to him?” Keira asked, as they left the custody suite. Keira didn’t see the identity card that Amber showed the police officers, but it seemed that she could go anywhere she wanted. Keira felt important to be with the older woman.
“I said, ‘Usman Khalid, your mother will be disappointed in you.’ That’s all.”
“I thought you wanted to interrogate him?” the younger girl asked.
Amber smiled.
“Oh, I did, but just not how he expected. I now know everything he knows, but now I have to remember it all, so hush for a bit, there’s a love.”
Keira followed her upstairs, to the CID office. Amber seemed to know her way around, and no one challenged them.
They walked through the general office. A few detectives looked up in mild curiosity as they passed and seemed to remember important stuff they ought to be doing.
“Are you doing that?” Keira asked.
“Clever girl, now just say nothing for a bit.”
They walked into a detective chief Inspector’s office. A female DCI sat at her desk. She looked up as Amber breezed in. She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again, abruptly, and stood up, allowing Amber to sit down.
Amber reached down to the third drawer down and removed several lined A4 pieces of paper. The woman handed her a pen without being asked. Amber started to write in a very neat and precise hand. Keira and the DCI simply watched as Amber filled three sides of A4 paper. She then signed a name at the bottom and stood up, handing the paper to the police officer.
“That is a complete run down of the terrorist you have in custody. His real name is Usman Khalid and he is a Pakistani national. He is a seasoned bomb-maker and is responsible for several atrocities across Pakistan and the Middle East. I have listed all those on page three.”
The woman was reading the paper and she nodded vacantly without looking up.
“Ready?” Amber asked Keira.
“Yes; for what?”
“The other two, of course.”
“Oh, right, super,” the girl said, making Amber smile.
They returned to the car, and Amber drove quickly and well across London.
“Do you have any questions of me?”
“So many that I don’t know where to start. Did you just read that man’s mind and then make the police do what you wanted?”
“Yes, well, actually, no. What I did was to encourage the man to think of everything I thought we ought to know, and then I read what he was thinking. With the police, they need very little encouragement to be helpful. They do, however, have an unfortunate tendency to be rather bureaucratic and pedantic about certain protocols. All I do is by-pass the silliness and actually, they’re normally very happy with the way things pan out.”