“What question?”
“Who is it that you see in the backseat?”
I shrugged. “My mom.”
“Ah.” His voice remained mild. “Elora Jameson. Dead at thirty-two, at the hands of her husband, David. Your father.”
“Don’t talk about my parents.” I felt my hands bunch into fists, knuckles cracking.
“I have little interest in your progenitors, given their respective fates. If anyone should pay them heed, it is you.” Those copper eyes drifted down to my fists, and the empty smile widened.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The sins of the father, passed down to the son, repeated through history in an ever-spinning cycle of tragedy. How many decades before madness consumes you as it did him?” He nodded to Mom’s ghost as if he could see her. “How many decades before your mother has company by your own hand?”
Mom met my gaze with a cheery smile and absolutely no recognition. I turned to look out the window, where a hundred miles of desolation stared back at me through bleak and empty eyes. “Everyone knows what happens to Crows.”
“Untrained ones, yes. Poor, mad bastards like the father you do not wish to speak of.”
I swallowed a second time. “Are you saying that training could keep me sane?”
He shrugged. “Power cannot be controlled through ignorance. No Crow has ever attended the Academy, but if its instructors can teach a Weather Witch to harness the lightning or a Shifter to hold their second form…”
“Then they might teach me how to keep from going nuts.” I felt the first crack appear in my shell of well-honed pessimism. Since I was nine, I’d known my fate, known there was fuck-all I could do to stop it. It was hard to believe that there might be an alternative.
“However, if you prefer not to attend…” The Finder reached past me to push the passenger door open, letting in a blast of heat. “You are free to leave.”
“We’re in the middle of the desert,” I reminded him.
“Yes.”
“I’d die before I could make it to either Bakersfield or Los Angeles.”
He shrugged again. “Every decision has its consequences.”
I pulled the door shut before the hot air could cook my exposed skin. “Yeah. I think I’ll go to the Academy.”
“That choice will have consequences of its own,” he warned.
I rolled my eyes and sank back into the uncomfortable seat as we began to move. No wonder everyone hated the government.
•—•—•
A half hour later, we encountered the first signs of life since leaving Bakersfield; a collection of sun-weathered, rust-covered buildings, huddled like hungry beggars around the cracked ribbon of highway. The Finder pulled our car onto a side street, driving past a handful of houses before coming to a stop in a parking lot. The building that bordered the lot was twice the size of its neighbors. A fresh coat of paint was busy peeling away from aluminum siding, and both front windows remained intact.
“This doesn’t look like Los Angeles.”
“Because it is not.” He nodded to the mountains that rose above us just to the south. “The City of Angels lies beyond those hills. But this is a stop we must make first.” He slipped out of the car and headed for the building.
With a shrug, I followed. If the place was on the grid, it might have air conditioning. And water. And hopefully some food. We were several hours past lunch, and I was already regretting not having swiped some of Mama Rawlins’ synth-rations before we left.
•—•—•
As we passed through the doorway, the blessed hum of central air conditioning greeted us like the whispers of a benevolent god. I heard the room’s other occupant before I saw him. He had his feet up on an oversized desk and his eyes were closed. His snores would have gotten him smothered in his sleep at the orphanage.
Mr. Grey made a beeline for the man, waited half a second to see if he would wake on his own, and then slammed an open palm against the desk’s surface. The loud crack of flesh against wood was almost immediately followed by a startled scream, and an even louder thud, as the stranger toppled backwards out of his chair. A few moments later, he scrambled to his feet, reaching to pick up a pair of glasses from the desk.
“Uhm…” He squinted at us both. “Can I help you folks?”
“We are here for testing,” the Finder told him evenly.
“Oh, right.” The other man nodded sagely. “I’m going to need you to fill out…” He rustled through a stack of papers. “…forms 36A, 57B and 99.” With a frown, he gave up his search and scanned the room. “Assuming I can find any of them.”
“That will not be necessary,” said Mr. Grey, leaning forward to flash the other man his identification. “The paperwork has been filed.”
“Alrighty then. Which of you is being tested today?”
Something like emotion leaked into Mr. Grey’s voice. Assuming irritation qualified as an emotion, anyway. “The boy.”
“Right. Right.” The other man looked over to me. “Well then, welcome to your testing. My name is Jeremy, and I’ll be your operator today. Are you familiar with the process?”
Since I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, I shook my head.
“Sweet, I get to give the speech.” Jeremy escorted us into the back room where two chairs—one of them slightly elevated and cushioned like an old barber’s seat—had been set up next to a machine the size of Mama Rawlins’ liquor cabinet. Atop that machine was a messy bundle of wires, each terminating in a white plastic pad. A set of bicycle handlebars had been grafted to the top of the machine and wrapped in copper wire. “Powers, you see,” he began with obvious excitement, “come in all shapes, flavors and sizes, from the smallest trickle of ability to… well, someone like Dr. Nowhere, I guess. What this device does is…”
“Measure my power levels,” I
