CHAPTER 16
I was in the same damn chilly cell for three hours, three echoing hours in which I had no one and nothing except my own thoughts. At least there was water this time. The floor, of course, was just as sticky and cold and uncomfortable. The sound to the other cells was turned off, though, so I didn’t have to listen to the screaming.
So instead I listened to my own thoughts telling me I was going to die—or much worse, that I was going to be unmade, made something not me. I pulled out Swartz’s voice over and over again to tell me not to overreact, to calm down. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes the panic seeped into my bones and took over.
Footsteps came down the hall, and I sat up like a startled rabbit. I went as close to the door as I could get without being shocked and looked down the hallway.
“Hello, Adam,” Jamie mouthed when she saw me. I couldn’t hear anything, but I saw the words. She had a man in uniform with a gun with her, but his body language was more wary of the surroundings than hers. I was betting she’d called in a favor with a former student.
She stepped up to the cell and pushed something in that control panel on the side of the cell. A small beep came over the cell. She said, “It’s good to see you.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“What are you?” she returned. “The student I trained would never have misstepped this badly.”
“I didn’t . . .” I trailed off.
Her eyes focused on me, and I realized all at once how much deeper the wrinkles around those eyes were. She was older—I was older—than when she’d trained me. So much older.
“Things have changed. The whole world has changed, the Guild notwithstanding, and I’m supposed to keep up with everything all at once? I don’t have a rabbit for you, Jamie. I don’t have a rabbit for anyone, it seems. My hat’s empty.”
Jamie looked at the man, who nodded and walked back to the end of the row, keeping an eye on the surroundings but giving her some privacy.
Her mind was strong enough that even through the insane shielding between us, I could feel an echo of it.
“I just finished giving my testimony to a roomful of Council members. They wanted to know if you were reliable.” She held up a hand to stave off my automatic objections. “They wanted to know if you were a reliable Cooperist all those years ago. I told them that you, like Cooper, believed in unbreakable ethics. That you believed the ethics and the rules mattered more than the cost you had to pay to keep them. And even your drug habit was induced by an experiment that you did not fully understand the consequences of. I told them you were reliable, once, and that if your experience with the normal police should prove anything, it’s that you’ve learned to be reliable again.” She paused. “Did I tell them the truth?”
I stood, inches from a door that warped reality with an electrical field that might kill me if I touched it. I stood, an unthinkable distance from Jamie, in ways that had everything and nothing to do with that electrical field.
“Are you still a good person?” Jamie asked, her old wise eyes demanding me to tell her the truth.
“Yes,” I said, in a rush. “Yes, I’m a good person—I am now. I want to be. I want to stand up for something that matters. I want to do something that matters, again. The Guild is getting too arrogant, Jamie. They’re doing things that could break the world. And what’s worse is, I don’t think all of you believe in those things. Do you realize what Guild First will cost you if some of their tactics come out into the world?”
“Do you realize what it will cost us if they don’t?” Jamie asked sadly.
I was floored. Jamie was . . . she was a Cooperist. She’d always been. She’d taught me!
“I’m sorry, Adam. I can’t stand for idealism anymore. The normals are arming themselves against us. Not just detection devices built into their very skin, as if that wasn’t worrisome enough. No, their military is arming themselves with what they’re calling bats, small devices they believe will immobilize anyone with Ability through repeated bursts of Mindspace waves, like a bat’s call paralyzes its insect prey.”
I took a breath. That was terrifying. “Does it work?” I asked. I had no reason to doubt her; Jamie’s family, like Kara’s family, was an old Guild family heavily involved in the normal military under contract. If anyone in the Guild would have military information that was supposed to be secure, it would be one of these two old families.
She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “It works somewhat. But not on all Abilities, and not nearly as well as they think. There’s too much bleed-off into electromagnetic waves, and not enough into Mindspace directly. This will change, Adam. They will get better.”
“You’re Guild First?” I asked, still in shock with all of this. “You’re in favor of arming yourself against the normals?”
“I’m a pragmatist, not a proponent of podium-slapping and propaganda,” Jamie said. “You know me well enough to know I believe in discourse and freedom. I’d like to try every other conceivable tactic before we use anything irrevocable. But if you’re asking whether I’ll side with the Guild in a war against the normals . . .” She smiled that not-smile again. “Isn’t the choice obvious? There’s still a place for you here, Adam. There’s always been a place for you here.”
“There hasn’t been a place for me here since I got kicked out!” I spat. “And now you come here to gloat while they decide to do it again, only worse? That’s nothing at all like the Jamie I used to know.”
“That’s really what you think? That I’m here to gloat?”
“Isn’t it?”
“I’m here to show you support. To visit you in your dark hour. The deep-scan has already begun. If you’re certain of your course, you have nothing left to fear.” She took a breath. “Tobias Nelson is an incredibly powerful man. If he has done things to hurt the Guild, someone had to speak up against it. I’m proud of you for being that person. Whatever else you have become, you’ve become brave. And that much I recognize.” She turned, as if to walk away.
“Jamie?” I asked, more quietly.
“Yes?”
“The Council sided with me for the deep-scan?”
“They recognize your training”—and there was a real smile—“and the expertise you’ve built the last years. The vote was overwhelmingly in your favor.”
“They’ll still wipe me if I’m wrong, though,” I said.
“I don’t know. If they do, I’ll sit with you while it happens,” she said, that gentle, grandmother’s voice.
“You won’t stand up for me?” I asked.
She took a step toward the door. “Adam, if you’re lying, you’re putting one of the most powerful men in the Guild through an incredible amount of pain and suffering because you were too lazy to do the job you were set to. Or, I suppose, too incompetent. I’ll sit with you. I’ll make your transition as easy as I can make it. You were my student. But at that point you will have earned your fate.”
“That’s a hell of a vote of confidence,” I said.
“I’m reasonably certain you’re telling the truth as you understand it,” Jamie returned gently. “I must go.”
“Wait. Don’t—”
But she’d pushed the button already and couldn’t hear me. I watched her walk away, and wondered all over again in the silence: Had I done the right thing? Fiske had to be behind this, but apparently the Guild First persons were far more concerned about their maneuvering against the normals than they were about the letter of the Koshna Accords. Would it even matter that Nelson had been making deals with the devil? Would the Council even care if people had to die as collateral damage? I realized all over again that the mind-scanners all worked directly for Nelson. They would have every reason to cover this up.
And then even Jamie wouldn’t speak for me.
• • •
I was dragged out into the elevator again, then across the walkway to the main elevator for the professional building. Johanna was there when I was marched out, in cuffs.
“You’re everywhere,” I said. “Why are you everywhere?”
She smiled a smile that felt a little empty. “This is a Health and Human Services crisis, which is demanding the full Council vote. My boss is out of town at the conference and has empowered me at this point to take her role on the Council. Plus there is a great deal to be done and I have the expertise to do it. Here, I’ll show you where you’re to go.”
Back to the top floor, where a central open area had plenty of flowering plants that set off my allergies immediately. I sneezed. The guard pulled me along anyway.
“How do we tell they’re ready?” the guard asked her.
“There’s a light. We’ll go ahead and get queued up.”
We passed through two hallways, me sneezing like mad, finally settling in front of a closed double wooden door. No benches or anything stood in front of it, just the door and some empty carpet, no windows.
We waited there for maybe five minutes while we looked at the red light above the door. My tension kept ratcheting higher, and it was everything I could do to remain standing and not broadcast in Mindspace.
Johanna looked bored. It struck me as odd.
“Aren’t you going to wish me good luck?” I finally asked her, more to keep my focus off what was to happen than anything else.
She glanced at me. “Luck has nothing to do with it.” She was certain, then, even in Mindspace, certain about something I didn’t understand. The job promotion had been good for her, maybe. Or she was pretty sure I’d get exonerated. Only she didn’t feel pretty sure. She felt certain.
“Do you know what the deep-scan found?” I asked her.
A green light turned on, and she smiled.
• • •
My first time in the Guild Council room opened as the doors did.
“I’ll walk under my own power, thanks,” I told the guard, and did.
The room was a massive thing, raised desks in a row curving around a central open space while behind, ten-foot-high frost-free windows looked out over the city. Talk about perspective.
The raised desks meant the Council members looked down on me, literally. I was too worried about what was to come to feel anything but impatience.
Behind me, a line of chairs rimmed the outside of the wall nearest the door. Several of the chairs were filled, and it bothered me that I couldn’t watch both them and the Council at once.
A woman beside me announced loudly in Mindspace, Adam Ward, no status, removed from Guild for improper conduct, provisionally reacquired, under judgment for accusation against Tobias Nelson, Guild member First Class, voting rights, all privileges.
Don’t you think that’s prejudicing the room? I broadcast back to her.
The prisoner will be silent until spoken to, Rex’s voice said with hard condemnation.
A feeling of movement, of mass discussions in Mindspace, then private thoughts flying back and forth, causing waves I could feel. I couldn’t intercept the thoughts without a lot more time and the willingness to be terrifically obvious. So I started cataloging my surroundings instead.
Nelson sat in a small chair near the tall desks, almost literally overshadowed by them. He looked like he’d been awake for days. His presence in Mindspace flickered like a bad lightbulb. Next to him was a man in clothes so plain they were almost a uniform. He had the quiet intensity I associated with a bodyguard or a Minder.
“Can I speak?” Nelson asked the court, in a voice that sounded . . . pained.
If you must, Diaz said. Try to keep it to a minimum. Did you have something to say?
“No, just the question.” He looked at me, and it wasn’t a pleasant look. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had blamed me for the consequences of their own actions, but making an enemy so high up in the Guild was not something pleasant.
Is the scanner here? the man sitting highest, in the middle, broadcast. The chatter in Mindspace eased off.
I assumed this was Julio Diaz, head of the Council, and by all accounts, neutral between the various factions. He looked ancient, wrinkles upon wrinkles, balding, gray, and possessed of a brittle strength in Mindspace, but he did not look familiar.
She’s on her way, the woman next to me said. An officer of the court, there to keep things moving. I returned my attention to the raised seats in front.
Of the ten seats, only six were currently filled, Thaddeus Rex, whom I recognized next to Diaz, a pale woman with a blue badge of an acting member next to him at Financial and Budgets, a woman I vaguely recognized from Research—was her name Chin, or was I making that up?—and Chris Tubbs, Kara’s ultimate boss, behind Guild-World Relations. Charlie Walker, whom I’d gone to school with, was currently sitting behind Military. Had it been that long that one of my classmates had risen so high?
The Employment Guild chair was noticeably empty; with Meyers and his assistant both dead, and others at this conference I’d heard so much about, there was likely no one to fill it.
Johanna Wendell climbed the steps to take her seat at the second-to-smallest chair, her own blue badge clearly displayed. Where she’d gotten it in the last few minutes, I had no idea. She sat, of course, behind Health and Human Services, where her boss worked.
The last permanent Council member was Joe Green, my accuser of deep-thought theft from earlier. He sat behind Academics and Training, a decision bad enough to make me cringe internally; that man had no business leading teachers and students.
Ethics, the chair specifically set aside by Cooper to question the Council’s actions, was noticeably empty. I hoped the member was at the conference. I hoped.
The door behind me opened, and I turned. A tired woman in scrubs entered. She reminded me of a younger Paulsen in looks, the shape of their faces and the way they held themselves similar, though this woman’s complexion was a shade or two darker. She was also far more ordered, more precise in her presence in Mindspace, but then again she’d have to be, living among telepaths, working as a scanner. She’d had to learn to get along, not to lead, and her mind reflected that.
Latisha Jones, reporting as requested, she said in a way that broadcast both her mental exhaustion and her high-level control. She “spoke” just loud enough to be heard by all, and not a fraction louder.
Thank you for agreeing to speak so soon after a scan, Diaz said, with overtones of great respect and appreciation. She’d just labored at one of the most demanding jobs at the Guild, his mind put in, on very little notice and with no rest. Going through a person’s entire life with a fine-tooth comb while the person tried to stop you . . . well, it was exhausting to say the least, and required a great deal of pain and suffering on all sides. If it was not an emergency, they would gladly have provided rest time. We appreciate your sacrifice.
She nodded. The whole room was strangely silent.
The woman beside me, the officer of the court, then broadcast as though reading from a script, Adam Ward, no status, formerly of the Guild, has accused Tobias Nelson, Guild member first class, voting rights, all honor, of two serious crimes: one, the consorting with a known normal criminal whose interests lie in opposition to the Guild’s, without the knowledge of his superiors and for the clear detriment of Guild interests, and two, the knowing and planned manipulation of Council member Del Meyers and his senior assistant to the Council, John Spirale, for the purposes of their death and the creation of a contagious madness crisis in the Guild, for unknown reasons. Latisha Jones, senior deep-scanner first class, voting rights, all honor, has been asked to determine the truth or falsehood of these claims beyond argument through the application of a total scan of Tobias Nelson. She paused, a clear sense of waiting coming from her mind next to me.
Rex shifted, but Diaz held up a hand before more than a sense of thought could come from him.
Tell us what you found.
The court officer nodded. Ms. Jones, your testimony is beyond reproach. Have you examined Tobias Nelson?
I have.
And what is your judgment of the charges laid against him?
Ms. Jones shifted her weight, and I got a careful sense of not looking at me. There is both truth and falsehood to the charges.
Explain, Rex said, leaning forward.
Referencing the first charge, it is true that Tobias Nelson has met and bargained with a man named Garrett Fiske several times. He believes Fiske is both fully mind-deaf, as charged, and working for criminal interests, as charged. These criminal interests and power were referenced several times with full knowledge. Whether the criminal interests are in opposition to the Guild is undetermined.
Diaz looked at me. Explain your knowledge of Fiske. The context was that I should transmit as much information as possible, in images and memories rather than simply words.
I hesitated. Fiske is part of an ongoing police investigation. I am not to discuss the details of the investigation. Officers’ lives could be at stake. Most of what I know is the details of the investigation. I put my certainty of that fact into the words, and my mixed regret and determination.
Rex leaned forward. You are no longer employed by the police. The results of this inquiry could result in your death or mind-wipe. We expect the full truth from you.
I swallowed. I knew what I faced. But Cherabino was on that task force, along with other officers I knew and liked. Bellury had worked on that task force, to provide additional information. Could I let his work go to waste? Could I endanger Cherabino by talking with the Guild about her most difficult case, the one she’d spent years on the fringes of?
I realized I’d thought those thoughts in my public space, and likely with enough emotion that they’d broadcast to the room.
I spoke out loud, for the illusion of control. “If you kill me or you don’t kill me, if you wipe me or not, I’m not going to endanger people who are just doing their jobs. Whoever wipes me is going to have to swear to keep the secrets until all of it is over, or I won’t cooperate.”
Protecting your criminal friends will get you nowhere with the Guild, Green said then.
You no longer work for the normals, the woman from Finance put in, after a glance at Green. There is no benefit to protecting them.
Don’t they treat you badly? Tubbs, Kara’s boss asked.
Most of the room was filled with a sense of seeking understanding, not anger.
They took me in when I was nothing, and they gave me a chance to be useful. To make a difference. How they treat me doesn’t have anything to do with those essential facts, I said to the room, just realizing it.
A long pause while people looked at Diaz and Diaz looked at me.
For the first time, he spoke out loud, in a quavering baritone that sounded nothing like his sure mind-speech. “You may pick and choose what you say, out loud if needed, to tell us what we need to know about Fiske.”
I was surprised, really, genuinely, surprised. “You don’t know this stuff already?”
Would we ask if we did? the woman from Research asked me. Why do you believe he is dangerous to the Guild?
“Fiske is dangerous to everyone,” I said. “He seeks power. He’s risen in the ranks dramatically in the last three years. And he’s already reached out to corrupt politicians and attempted to infiltrate the police. He’s . . . well, he’s getting involved in things I can’t talk about, in crimes I can’t talk about, and as near as the police can tell, there’s some kind of master plan they can’t see.” I realized I knew a lot more than I should as a direct result of my mind-Link with Cherabino these last months. What to choose? Stick to the question. “I believe he’s dangerous to the Guild because he’s tried so hard to get in here. He’s dealt with several people—including Nelson here. He’s meddling, and from what I know about him, his involvement is never for your benefit. It’s for his. He was the one who was working with Bradley and buying his technology, something that clearly was bad for the Guild. I know you paid attention to the Bradley case. You assigned me a Watcher, for crying out loud. You realize how dangerous these things were.”
A blank moment, and finally Diaz nodded. That was my doing, he said, and the feelings around it in Mindspace were simply determined. You have made yourself infamous, and possibly dangerous.
“And then you hired me,” I said. “And then you let me inside the Guild, at least some of you—” I looked at Rex. “And wanted me to solve this murder for you.”
He killed himself, the pale woman said.
Madness, madness, and fear, the room echoed dimly.
“No, he didn’t,” I said, in as clear and certain a voice as I could get. “Do you know how I know?”
A burst of concern from the podium, maybe from Green? He wasn’t looking at me. Huh.
How? Diaz asked.
Because we found a device influencing him through Mindspace, a device we also found in his assistant John Spirale’s apartment. Meyers also threw out his knives and even his sheets and towels to avoid any possibility of the death he kept seeing in visions. He left a note telling us that those visions had happened. My mind added all of the details of the case I’d found to support my belief in homicide. The electrical system was tampered with. Kara Chenoa, a smart woman, thinks Del Meyers would never, ever have killed himself in that way. I believe her. My complex feelings for Kara and my anger about her leaked out; I couldn’t help it. Kara may not be for me personally, but she loves the Guild. She loves the truth. And there’s a reason you’re letting her family get involved in what should be a Council matter. There’s huge benefit to dialogue. To discussion. To truth.
Then, quietly, in Mindspace, with overtones of exhaustion: Can I please finish my testimony? Ms. Jones, the deep-scanner, asked.
We all looked at her.
Of course, Diaz sent, with great overtones of apology.
The court officer had a moment in which she collected herself in Mindspace. Then she stabilized. Ms. Jones, what about the second charge? The proposed manipulation and madness causing.
She again concentrated on not looking at me. The second charge is categorically untrue. Tobias has neither caused nor participated in any action contributing to either the deaths noted or to the current crisis in the Guild.
Loud discussion in Mindspace swamped the room. I shielded, hard, to block out the huge noise.
And then I turned, and stared at her.
“How can that be true?” I asked.
The prisoner will be silent until spoken to, Rex’s mental voice cut through Mindspace with outright tones of anger. Ms. Jones deserves rest!
Order in the room, Diaz put in. Thank you, Ms. Jones. You may go.
She nodded gravely and turned to leave, never once having looked at me.
It hit me then: I was wrong. I had been wrong. I had assumed . . . but assumptions were for idiots and fools. What he’d done, to meet with Fiske, was bad enough. But to leap to conclusions when my life—
Quiet your thoughts! Diaz told me, on a private channel, the tone blistering in its ferocity.
I looked up at the old man, strong in his position, wrinkled and old, and quieted my thoughts.
Then he spoke out loud, in that quavering voice that did not match the mind behind it. “Tobias Nelson, do you have anything to say in your own defense?”
“What I did I did for the good of the Guild. What was done with the parts that I obtained is not my doing.”
Rex looked over at the Research chair. “Ms. Chin—”
Aha! I had remembered her name correctly.
“—what are the results of your inquiry into your depart- ment?”
Patience, Rex. There will be plenty of time for that, Diaz said.
Chin sat very straight, and I got a faint feeling of embarrassment and shame from her.
Nelson, finish.
Nelson pulled himself up. He still looked awful, like he’d been run over by a truck and then had the flesh wounds healed. You still got the impression of unimaginable pain and exhaustion. But there was strength there too, and anger. “A member of this Council told me to obtain certain parts. Parts that the Guild could not get any other way. I did as I was told. No one asked where they had come from. No one wanted to know. Any deals I made with Garrett Fiske in addition to those parts were intended to keep the Guild safe.”
Diaz turned an eye to Rex. What did you—?
It was me, Chin said, and the room grew totally, completely silent. Or rather, it was my department. I am ashamed that we have brought embarrassment to the Guild.
And why did you require specialized parts we could only get from a criminal? Diaz’s mental voice was very, very dangerous.
I—
Sir, do we really want to have this conversation in front of an outsider? Green said, in the most reasonable voice I’ve heard so far. Of course, in Mindspace, “outsider” had entire layers of negative connotations that wouldn’t translate into language, and specifically referred to me. There was a clear overtone of “criminal” as well. Thoughts were such a rich medium, well beyond words, and for the first time I had cause to hate that fact.
I’m not in any hurry to leave, I said.
Diaz looked at his son, then me. Let’s wrap up the matter at hand, then, and then turn to the why and wherefore.
The Council officer beside me straightened. Adam Ward, no status, has been informed of the severe consequences of a false accusation against someone of the first class.
And I held my breath, waiting for the ax to drop.
The officer went on. Tobias Nelson has admitted to consorting with a known criminal whose interests do not lie aligned with the Guild’s.
She paused for effect, making a silence as clear in Mindspace as a drumroll. It is traditional for the accused to be sentenced first. What say you, Council?
My heart beat faster.
Diaz sat, his mind releasing grave determination as his robes settled around him. Further investigation into Nelson’s transgressions is required.
I agree, Chris Tubbs said, but Green’s point is valid. We must sentence him now, at least provisionally. I propose Nelson is removed from his current post pending that investigation and reduced to the rank of base Enforcer until and unless such a time as he is cleared or earns his status back. Additional penalties to be assessed in the result of future findings. What say you?
I am ineligible to vote. Chin’s mind-sending was weak, quiet.
You are, Diaz agreed. I vote aye.
My old classmate Charlie voted aye along with Tubbs, and nays came from the pale woman from Finance and from Rex. Then, quickly, two ayes from Johanna and Green.
So mote it be, the officer of the Council said.
I couldn’t breathe. Obviously Nelson had had the support of some on the Council, and now he was being stripped of his rank for being caught carrying out Council orders. No other reason. It seemed harsh.
On the matter of the accusation of Adam Ward against Tobias Nelson, what say you, Council?
“May I speak on my behalf?” Nelson asked, true hatred now in his voice.
You may, Diaz said.
“This man falsely accused me of murder and worse. He has done damage to my reputation and to the reputation of the Guild as a whole. By removing me from duty, he has damaged the ability of Enforcement to respond to the current mental health crisis. And he has conspired with many—including Kara Chenoa—to discredit me and other members of the Guild. He was removed from the Guild once and he has returned to wreak more damage. He has been convicted of felonies in the normal system and he does not learn. I argue he should be killed.”
Was this how it was going to end? Because of the enemies I’d made and the mistakes I’d put through? I’d gotten Bellury killed. I’d screwed up, over and over again. I’d screwed up here.
Do you have anything to say for yourself, Adam Ward? the official asked.
We have a great deal to do this afternoon, Tubbs put in immediately, with a censuring thought. This is not a cut-and-dry case, and it is not the most important thing on the Council’s docket. I say we delay the matter until a better time.
You want to keep him here during a madness crisis? Charlie asked, unbelieving. It’s stupid to waste good resources on watching him.
That hurt. We’d been in school together, and he was treating me like a stranger.
We could throw him in a cell, Tubbs said. Worked last time.
And Kara’s boss, just as heartless. I felt my heart sinking.
Throw him out on the street, the pale woman said, without any compassion.
Won’t he run? asked Chin.
Give him a mind-tag, Johanna said, the first time she’d said anything. The implication was that they could find me anywhere if I did run. She, like the pale woman, seemed utterly without compassion.
I was going to die.
We could just kill him now, Rex observed.
I braced.
Release him, Diaz said, as if coming to a decision. In two days, we’ll meet again. And, Adam?
“Yes?” I said, feeling like I was in shock. Divorced from all of my surroundings. Confused.
You will receive that mind-tag, from a member of Enforcement. If you do not report back here on time . . . well, there are worse things than death. And far worse than a removal of your Abilities. Think about that.
I backed out of the room, numb, numb, so numb. I backed out and, when the door shut behind me, collapsed on the floor.
“What did they decide?” Stone’s voice asked me.
I struggled to breathe, the pressure so great. The only thing worse than dying today was not knowing if you were going to die in two days. I let go of the information, letting it whoosh out in Mindspace in an uncontrolled, amateur blast.
He took a step back.
I stared at the floor. “You’re still a member of Enforcement?”
• • •
After it was over, Stone had Turner drive me home. I kept poking at the tag in my head, the little piece of Stone’s mind stuck onto mine, temporary in theory, but this was the second time we’d done this. Every time I poked at it, I had pain, pain like poking at the empty place where a tooth used to be.
The city lights passed over us as the aircar settled into a ground lane and Turner took a turn.
“You know when to show up?” she asked, flatly.
“Yes.”
“Do you need me to pick you up?”
“I think I’ll find my own way, thanks.” Even if I had to take the bus, it was better than them ferrying me around, especially if it was going to be . . . I shied away. I shouldn’t think about that. It wasn’t helpful. It wouldn’t do any good.
She didn’t say anything else, and after a while the aircar came to a stop.
“It’s time to get out now,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, and looked up, walling off my thoughts as strictly as I’d walled off the rest of the world, as strictly as I’d walled my mind against Mindspace.
We were sitting in front of my apartment building, an old converted office building with lovely architecture . . . and stains and cracks so deep you could hardly see one without the other. It looked . . . sad today. It looked defeated.
I got out and closed the car door; the car started moving right then, without waiting. Ignoring the cold, I trudged up the cracking stairs and into the lobby, where some homeless guy was settling on our couches. I didn’t know where the security guard was. I didn’t care. The key got me into the stairs, and the stairs got me onto my floor.
I paused outside my door. Too many people had been in my apartment over the last months for me to ever go in without checking. A mind sat in the middle of my living room, a mind I recognized.
I turned the key and opened the door.