small winged fairy earrings that swung cheerfully. That whimsical touch and the talking, and she and Abby may as well have been twins separated at birth.
“A real psychic. I can’t believe they found one, and you even look like one.” She used her gloved hands to peel off the round EKG pads from my chest. It seemed my heart was fine. “Or maybe you make yourself look like one because you are one. Part psychic, part actor.” She smiled, her teeth small, white, and even. “I wonder if I brought my Silly-cat in… I call her Silly, short for Priscilla. I inherited her from my mom who had a huge thing for Elvis. But if I snuck her in, could you tell me what she’s thinking? Or why she pees in my boyfriend’s shoe instead of the litter box?”
She was an Abby clone. It was the only explanation.
“I can tell you what she’s thinking right now, no touching necessary,” I drawled. “She’s thinking if she were three times her size, she would eat you.” Funny, yes, and every cat person asked it sooner or later, but funny or not, it was the truth. Every cat that was awake when I’d smoothed its fur with a bare hand thought that. Every cat I touched that was asleep dreamed that. Not that animals thought like people. As I’d told Hector, it was more emotions. But their emotions were so much stronger than ours that it was, in a way, a method of thinking. It was no less an expressed intelligence than what we worked with-only different.
She frowned. “Silly-cat loves me. Don’t tease like that, or I’ll be afraid she’ll smother me in my sleep. She’s fat as a biscuit.”
“Eden, enough,” Meleah warned in a low voice. “If Thackery heard you, he’d fire you on the spot.”
Eden shook her head and gathered up all the plastic-wrap trash that medical tests produce. “That one. He has one mood. Bad. If you ask me, he needs to get laid in the worst way.” She laughed. “Of course, if he was psychic, his dowsing rod wouldn’t find a thing. If he even has one. He probably had it removed so’s not to distract him from his almighty science.” She gave me a wink and walked off to dispose of her armful of waste. Definitely Abby all over.
Meleah-Dr. Guerrera-must’ve notified Hector that all the prodding in the world that could be done on a live person had been performed. He showed up just as Eden walked away. And about time. By then, I was hungry enough to eat whatever was slopped on my tray in the cafeteria, and it was a good thing, too.
I poked dubiously at the shriveled brown lump on my plate that was masquerading as a baked potato. Fluorescent orange goop cascaded over the sides of it and pooled into a sticky puddle. It looked more like a biohazard than the questionable source of nutrition it was. Hell, at least it was soft. Theoretically. I started in on it.
“And here we are again.” Hector contemplated the limp tuna fish sandwich before him. “Meleah will have all the scans read by the morning.”
“Whoopee,” I responded. “I’ll tell all my friends.”
“Aren’t you at all interested to know if what you do is detectable by medical means? How the structures of your brain might differ from others’?”
It seemed Hector and Charlie did have something in common, an insatiable curiosity. Charlie’s had been blazing bright and out in the open. His brother kept his far more tightly under wraps, but it was there. Almost reluctant, mostly hidden, but there.
I countered his question with one of my own. “So, Hector,” I said, imbuing his name with mock camaraderie, “what are you a doctor of? Or was that a lie, too?”
“No,” he said evenly. “I have a doctorate in quantum physics, as well as one in applied mathematics. Charlie was a neurobiologist but also had a doctorate in engineering.” He tilted his head slightly, watching for a reaction… any reaction. “Not that you’re remotely curious about that, either, I’m sure.”
He didn’t get a reaction from me, but I couldn’t deny to myself that there was a fleeting sense of warmth within. Neurobiologist and engineer. Good for Charlie. I never had a doubt that he’d be something impressive, because Charlie himself was an impressive man. Even at the age of seventeen, he’d been a man, and one hell of one to boot. The potato, thick and cloying with cheese, stuck in my throat, and I chased it down with milk. Plain, no chocolate today.
“And did the Army put your overachieving ass through college, Dr. Allgood?”
“Very good. One would almost think you were psychic, Jack.” He used the name I’d facetiously requested with false courtesy and checked his watch. “Nearly done? We have an appointment with the project leader.”
“He’s not going to poke and prod me, too, is he?” I picked up a few packets of crackers and put them in my pocket. One thing you learn when you’re a hungry kid on the run: you see food, you take it. If you weren’t hungry then, you’d be hungry later. It was a habit I’d never been able to shake. “Because that’s getting old fast. Of course, that’s only the guinea pig’s point of view, which I’m sure amounts to jack shit.”
“I don’t think you have to worry.” He stood. “Dr. Thackery considers his time too valuable to be spent running tests that mundane. He has people who do it for him.” It was said so very mildly that I was immediately suspicious.
“So, there’s a tall dark asshole in my future, eh?” I raised my eyebrows and added, “Besides you, I mean.”
“Actually, he’s blond.” He left the rest conspicuously unaddressed, pushed his chair under the table, and gestured. “After you.”
We walked to another one of the buildings in the compound-the largest one. The moment I passed through the door, I could hear the hum. I could feel it, too. It was everywhere-in the air, under my feet, throbbing behind my eyes. It wasn’t loud, but it was inescapable and annoying as-
“Shit.” I closed my eyes and ground the heel of my hand into my forehead.
Allgood turned from speaking in low tones to the guard at the door. “What… oh, the vibrations. It does take some getting used to, but eventually you learn to tune it out.”
Here was hoping I wasn’t around long enough to pick up that particular skill. “Jesus.” I gave up trying to rub the sound out of my head and set my teeth against yet another incipient headache. I opened my eyes when I felt something nudge my gloved hand. A familiar red and white bottle of painkillers was resting in my palm.
“Keep it,” he said with genuine apology. “We don’t exactly seem good for your health.” Hector was either softening up or he was more like Charlie than I wanted to admit.
I shook the bottle lightly and decided to hold off for the moment. If today were anything like yesterday, I would need them more later on. I followed silently as he led me down a hall and into a large, open lab area. The far wall was glass from ceiling to floor, and behind it squatted a mammoth machine, oval-shaped. It was encased in smooth white metal and almost looked vaguely medical in nature, but I had my doubts. Some fancy new X-ray machine wasn’t enough to justify the military presence or the blackmailing of an obscure psychic.
“Is this the one?”
The voice came from the side, and I turned to see a man approaching, followed by two more. The one in the lead had a laptop computer under one arm and a brusquely impatient expression. It sat with ease on his face, which was all sharp angles and planes. His hair, a little spiky and long from inattention, was blond streaked with gray. He had ferociously intelligent brown eyes behind silver-framed glasses and a pugnacious jaw. “Finally,” he muttered under his breath, not waiting for confirmation as to my “oneness.” He pushed up the sleeve of his lab coat to check his watch and shot Hector a barbed glance. “We’re behind schedule. Did you give him a tour first? Dinner and a show?”
Tall dark asshole versus short blond asshole. The reality was no improvement over the prediction.
“That’s precisely what I did, Julian. I’m sorry, did you want an invitation?” Hector answered smoothly, with a deliberate insult behind the first name. He was talking to a man who, unlike Hector, would shove his academic degrees down your throat in the first moment.
Eyes narrowed behind clear lenses. “It’s approximately forty-two hours until the next ether-rip, Dr. Allgood. Do you want to engage in this sparkling repartee or do something more useful with our time? Perhaps something along the lines of saving a few lives or so. Your decision entirely, of course. Shall the rest of us go for coffee and croissants while you think it over?”
Damn. I felt my status as ruling smart-mouthed bastard slip a fraction. I was curious about the phrase ether-rip, but I could wait to ask Hector later about that. I certainly wasn’t asking this guy. He was one razor- edged, cold son of a bitch; working with him was probably hell on earth. I didn’t have it in me to feel sorry for Hector, but surprisingly, I could feel sorry for Charlie’s brother. Hector was the one who had coerced me into being here; Charlie’s brother was the one who’d fed me before tossing me to the wolf in the lab coat. That meant, of
