fuzzy. Ai had taught me a lot over the past year, and directing that particular ability was one of the most important, probably. No more accidents, and no more guesswork. When it had to be done, I could do it quickly, easily, and painlessly.
“You ought to slow down,” a man said as he passed. I looked up and saw an older guy with gray hair and a gold watch stop near my table and grin. He was doing the fatherly thing, I guess. Or maybe he had a fetish for weirdos. There was interest brewing around his head; I could sense it, but I couldn’t tell what his game was.
“Go away.”
“Troubles?” he asked. Was this guy for real? The guy I was waiting for came in every Friday around seven. He stayed for one drink, then went home to his wife. It was almost seven now. I didn’t have time for this.
The room got brighter as I looked into his eyes, and patterns of color appeared around his head. His smile dropped a notch and his eyes got stupid.
“Come here,” I said. He came closer, and I waved for him to lean in. “What do you want?”
“Nothing, I—”
“Did someone send you?”
Genuine confusion rippled through the pattern of colors. “No.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“No, you just …You looked lonely,” he said.
I focused on the little ebbs and flows of his mind but didn’t see anything like sympathy. What I saw in there didn’t have anything to do with me. He didn’t think I looked lonely. He thought I looked pathetic and that I might be an easy mark. He was the one who was lonely.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” I told him. “Walk away, and forget you ever thought to come over here.”
I pushed, and his eyelids drooped. He nodded.
“You understand?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Smile, then walk away.”
I let him go. He smiled. I smiled back. He walked away. It was a good thing too, because just then, Marcus Landers walked into the bar.
He walked in, comfortable and easy. He was known there, and he knew everyone. People smiled and waved and he waved back. He signaled toward the bar, and the bartender started pouring him the usual scotch and soda. He didn’t even notice the weird redhead who he’d never seen there before.
This one was a politician of some kind. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was he did, but he was making a huge deal about unnecessary search and seizure. He was stirring up a lot of media attention around the search for the Huma carriers, and he was smart enough to know he had to go independent, off the CMC’s grid, to do it. Ai and the others had done a good job of sweeping it under the rug so far, but it was time to stem this one at the source.
He was a piece of work, anyway; for all his screaming, the only reason he could walk into a place like the one we were in was because he used a contact inside the FBI to funnel money impounded from weapon-smuggling rings into private, offshore accounts. He was a liar, and a thief too.
On a more personal level, he had a year-old assault record for punching his wife in the face after a domestic dispute. That was all I really cared about. That right there was enough for me to sign on for the job.
I watched him approach the bar and take the drink. He started talking to a pretty brunet with big tits who was not his wife. He kept glancing down at her cleavage like she was blind. There was no way she didn’t notice, but she didn’t seem to care.
He stayed for one drink, like he always did. Then he made a big, showy good-bye, like anyone there really cared whether he lived or died, as long as he kept buying drinks. He leaned forward to the woman with the big tits like he might hug her or kiss her, but he didn’t do either. He turned and left the bar, stepping out onto the sidewalk.
In the dim light, no one noticed my eyes change as I stared at Mr. Landers through the window. As he bundled himself against the wind, I saw the colors, that strange signature of his consciousness, bloom around his head. The patterns there looked content, like he was a guy on top of the world. I burrowed deeper, to where other patterns swirled—righteous anger, ambition, and fear of getting caught—then entered his mind. It was as easy as slipping into a warm bath.
He stopped suddenly, perking up as he sensed me.
His face went pale and he started to look around, until I made him relax. He stood there as people streamed around him.
He wasn’t equipped to resist me. Actually, he was one of the easier ones I’d come up against during the past year. His mind was easy to influence, and what I wanted him to do was hardly anything at all.
Outside, he nodded, still not even aware I was there watching him. His eyes looked a little unfocused as he stepped to the curb and waited. Snow drifted down and collected in his hair and on the shoulders of his coat while he breathed slow and steady. He stayed like that, between the bumper and grille of two parked cars, until I saw what I was looking for.
The oncoming driver was already speeding. It took only a very small push to make him accelerate. Landers didn’t even look over as the engine gunned and tires chirped on the wet blacktop.
He knew, I think. Right at the last second he knew, and I felt him resist, but it didn’t work. He took a single, well-timed step backward off the curb and into the street. The crash made everyone in the bar jump. The driver stomped on the brakes, dragging Mr. Landers for several yards before slamming into the rear end of the vehicle ahead of him. Blood rained across the snowbank piled up next to the sidewalk as his body was crushed.
Someone outside screamed. People crowded around the accident, some of them using their phones to take pictures. I saw the bartender pick up a handset and dial as his customers began flocking to the window.
I just sat for a minute and waited. If Landers somehow survived, I was supposed to finish him off. But when I tried to sense him, he wasn’t there. Mission accomplished.
I paid my tab, and then without making eye contact with anyone, I left the bar.
Faye Dasalia—Treatment Inflow Pipe
I swam through cold, black water at near-freezing temperatures, through the narrow pipe that seemed to have no end.
The only light came from my own eyes, and even my night vision could barely make out what lay ahead of me. The rumble of the treatment plant’s centrifuge had faded behind me a long time ago. The sounds of the street and underground metro were lost through the tons of concrete above me. The only sound that far down was the electric hum from inside my chest.
Three hours had passed since I entered the pipe, and my body temperature was far below normal, even for me. The void that yawned beneath my field of memories seemed very wide, very deep, and very close. With nowhere else to look, I stared into it while fear buzzed in some disused part of my brain.
The words appeared in the dark and floated there, as I watched a seam in the pipe pass by me. It was Fawkes, contacting me from the surface. I scanned ahead for movement but didn’t spot anything.
Lev had been three hours in when we lost him. Whatever he’d encountered, it had to be close. I left a circuit open, hoping he would pick it up, but so far there’d been nothing.
