“You seemed a bit upset,” Helman said, looking with solemn concern at the stain on her blouse. “When we left the containment chamber, I mean—you seemed shaken. Mr. Krasnoff can be an upsetting character.”
“But from what I saw on the recordin', we made progress,” Forsythe said, clasping his hands together with a clapping sound. “We got him contained and at the same time we got him working for us, all at once. Got our cake and chowing down on it too. Haven't been able to get that with many of them.” He pursed his lips and looked at Loraine with a touch of amusement, adding patronizingly, “I understand you think we're going about it all wrong, Agent Sarikosca.”
“Oh, well—I just thought you might catch more flies with honey, sir.” She balled up the wet napkin and tossed it into her coffee cup. “And it seems to me”—she felt a bit reckless, now, and thought she ought not to say these things, but she had to, somehow—”it seems to me that we are trying to contain things that can't be contained. Not for long. Like trying to catch moonlight with your hands. What happened in there today...” She thought of the face forming in the boiling blackness on the wall. “It wasn't contained. It wasn't controlled.... To think you can control the supernatural...” She shook her head. “I don't think you can. In ancient times, people made deals with it. Maybe that's what we need to do—but after today, I'm not sure we should.”
Dr. Helman was making
tsk
sounds. “Now you make me wonder if you're suited for this job, Loraine. The whole point of this facility—well, shall we say a fundamental,
preliminary
point—is to demonstrate that so-called magic is not spiritual, not supernatural, it's just another form of natural energy; an unknown branch of physics. You know, radio waves are invisible to people. They can seem mysterious. Primitive people hearing a radio for the first time assumed there were spirits in the box. It's the same principle. And if it's a product of nature, it can certainly be mastered by human beings.”
Forsythe was watching her closely. She didn't think she'd gain anything by just buckling under to Helman, here. For a woman in an agency dominated by men, it was better to show strength. “Yes, Doctor—I'd guess the Hidden must be something 'natural' in a way. But some kinds of natural are just past our understanding. We can't control them with machines. We can't hem them in.”
Dr. Helman and General Forsythe exchanged looks of amusement. “Oh, girl—” Forsythe shook his head. “Wait—am I being politically incorrect, saying
girl?'
“I believe you are, General,” Helman said.
“Then I'll say,
Agent Sarikosca,
you'd be surprised what can hem in the supernatural. And how long it's been goin' on. I think you're just too valuable to us, with that inquirin' mind you've got, to stay out in the 'waiting room' of the CCA, any longer. Doctor—I think you should take our young agent here up north.”
Helman nodded. “I was a bit dubious. But I'll honor your instincts, General.”
“Well—she's got that special connection. And Sean...you know how Sean feels.”
She looked back and forth between them now. What were they talking about? Special connection? Sean?
“I was a bit dismayed by the break in connection,” Helman said. “That black-cloud effect. Curious. I've never heard of anything quite like it. As if a particular geographical area was being curtained off from us.”
“Yes...” Forsythe's eyes had gone even blanker. “You know—it might be best if you focused on the other one, for now. On Bleak. This whole Gulcher business—just a distraction. Let it go. I'll deal with it my own way.”
Helman opened his mouth as if about to object—then shut it. He looked puzzled—and annoyed, it seemed to Loraine.
“Hokay, ladies and gents, I'm off,” Forsythe said, looking at his watch. “I've got a meetin'.” He ducked his head in a fractional bow to Loraine. “Ma'am.” And hurried off.
Dr. Helman watched him go. Then muttered, “That's truly odd. He was quite hot on finding Gulcher a few days ago. And Troy Gulcher escaped from a prison using ShadowComm abilities which are beyond any we've known, in terms of sheer aggression, judging from the stories of the few survivors. Quite dangerous. And if that was a UBE we saw, in the session with Krasnoff...I'm not conceding it was, but...” His voice trailed off.
“If it wasn't an, uh, yube—what was it?” Loraine asked.
“Hm? Perhaps—something fabricated by our Mr. Krasnoff to scare us. It's difficult to understand them, you know. They're a volatile lot, these ShadowComm types. Innately rebellious. Troublesome. Not to be trusted operating on their own.”
'°s
She picked up her plastic cup. Then put it down again. “I knew, when I came aboard the CCA, that there was graduated briefing here, and a lot of need-to-know levels. But...if it concerns me personally...” She looked Dr. Helman in the eyes, to let him know how seriously she felt about it. “If it concerns me personally, I think I should know exactly what's involved. Krasnoff said something about 'her and Bleak.' He seemed to mean me. And the general mentioned something of the kind. And who is Sean?—”
Helman raised a hand, his eyes brittle with warning. “All in good time. What Krasnoff was referring to...I'm not convinced it's the case, what he thinks, but you've been picked to work on the Gabriel Bleak matter for a good reason. Let's just leave it at that. We find him to be surprisingly elusive. We believe you may be particularly useful.... Well. The details will have to wait.”
“Isn't he just one more ShadowComm subject? Why focus on him?”
“No, he's not just another. General Forsythe has some particular use for him. Now...if your nerves are mended, we'll return to the lab and review the recording we made today. And we should be able to see some live drone surveillance of our Mr. Bleak. The UAV has been in the air for some time, and I believe they have him on camera.... So—if you think you can deal with what, after all, is your assignment...?”
He looked at her with raised eyebrows.
She hesitated. Thinking maybe now was the time. Now was the moment to say,
I am not cut out for this. For containment. Seeing what happens to people like Krasnoff. I just don't like the way it's being done. It seems wrong to me.
But things were different, now. Four thousand people had been killed in the terrorist attack on Miami a couple of years back, and even more basic rights had been suspended—it just wasn't safe, anymore, when you worked this close to the heart of Spook Central, to say, /
just don't like the way it's being done. It seems wrong to me.
You didn't tell them that something seemed wrong to you, not when you knew as much as she did; when you were privy to as many secrets as she was.
Suck it up or move on down the road.
She took a deep breath. And she nodded. “I'm ready.''
CHAPTER
SEVEN
That
same day. New Jersey.
Walking down a Jersey City sidewalk that threw heat back in his face, past store windows that glaringly reflected the sun, Gabriel Bleak knew he was again being followed—and watched. The watching seemed to have come in two phases. First, he'd sensed someone was watching him through the Hidden—the name
Krasnoffhad
come into his mind. Orry Krasnoff? Orrin? Wait—didn't he remember hearing about a ShadowComm named Orrin Krasnoff, out West somewhere? Once in touch with Shoella...then vanished?
Krasnoff's psychic surveillance of Bleak had suddenly ended, minutes ago. Now it was another kind of surveillance. The twenty-first-century sort. Through a machine, somewhere up above.
Where was Yorena? The familiar should have turned up by now, to guide him to Shoella and Coster. But he hadn't seen her yet. Maybe the creature was lying low because he was being watched.
This other watcher was observing him from up in the air, some elevated place—he caught a glimpse now and then. It was harder when they were using cameras—a step removed—but Bleak was able to connect with the observer's viewpoint, from time to time.
When he did, he saw himself from above. Like watching someone from the roof of a building. But the point of view seemed roughly centered above the street.
It wasn't Yorena's POV he was seeing. It was a woman, a human woman, watching him through a flying camera, he decided. Some kind of UAV flying overhead, somewhere. Hard to see in the glare. The Rangers had used devices like them in Afghanistan for recon. He knew how to duck them—knew how the Taliban did it. He would choose his moment. But it had to be soon. The UAV was just the beginning.
He thought he sensed who this woman was.
Agent Sarikosca.
But someone else was watching too, maybe more than one person. The multiplicity of viewpoint broke the connection for him, much of the time. But he knew the UAV was up there, electronically staring.
It was a small, oval flying machine, not much larger than a garbage-can lid, with rotors on its undersides, and cameras. Maybe armed. Drones could be equipped to explode.
Probably this wasn't an assassination drone. Why would they want to kill him? But then—why did they want him so much they were going to this kind of trouble?
There were other ShadowComms. So why was the CCA dogging him? Because they'd come upon him, so they were following up the nearest lead?
But maybe not. Maybe there were other reasons, considering what Shoella had told him about Sean.
Whatever their motivation, it was making him seriously angry. And his military instinct had always been to take the fight to the enemy.
He was passing a thrift store, on his left. Several stories high. That'd work.
He ducked into the doors, nodded to the elderly, blue-haired lady sitting behind the glass counter with all the old junk jewelry in it; smelled the mild funk of old furniture and clothing as he found the stairs, in the center of the big room, that rose to the second floor.
“There's an elevator, if you prefer,” the elderly lady said, as he started up the stairs.
“This'll be fine,” Bleak said, and in a moment he was on the second floor, which seemed to be mostly chipped old dinette sets. Another flight, the third floor: floor lamps, rusty chandeliers, and, for some reason, used computers. He found a back stairway leading to the roof, loitered near it as a bent, old black man in janitor's coveralls went by whistling a tune. When the old janitor was gone, Bleak climbed the stairs—and found the door to the roof chained.
He put his right hand on the chain, reaching with the field of sensation around his body, reaching out to the field of the Hidden around him...and his attention to the Hidden revealed the ghost of an old woman, slowly wandering the stairwell, trailing her translucent fingers on the wall, softly moaning that her adult children had given her best furniture to this thrift store. And something else about being sick with cancer on her fifty-fifth birthday and no one coming except the youngest kid. Some ghosts stayed°9 where they died; some wandered. This one had followed her furniture to a thrift store.
Why are so many of them completely useless to anyone, even themselves?he
wondered.
Bleak ignored the apparition and drew energy from the field of the Hidden, pulling it down through the top of his head, directing it into his shoulders, down his right arm. He used it to form a small “grenade” of sheer kinetic volatility, which he cupped in the palm of his hand, slapping it on the chain, feeling the chain through it, though he wasn't quite touching the links. He drew his other hand quickly back, to cover his eyes.
The chain burst apart with a crinkling
pop.
Bits of steel clattered on the floor. He heard the ghost hissing in irritation at his breach of the door.
“Woman, you are dead, it's ridiculous to follow your furniture around, and it's time to move on from this place,” he told her, and went through the door to the roof, as behind him the ghost muttered indignantly about “busybodies, stickin' their nose in.”
It was hot up on the roof—the naked sunlight, reflected from tin sheathing, jabbing at his eyes. An aluminum ventilator exhaled the musty smell of old thrift goods.
Bleak shaded his eyes, scanned the sky—and saw the unmanned aerial vehicle almost immediately. It was glinting in the sunlight about a hundred feet above the roof, and out over the street; hovering, turning, looking for him. Seeing the drone like this, it was easy to understand how they caused so many UFO reports.
He formed an energy bullet, took several steps, winding up like a softball pitcher, and threw it underhand straight up, as hard as he could. Saw the energy bullet zip up, and up, like a small, gravity-defying meteor.
And saw it pass the UAV and fade out.
“Fuck, I missed,” he muttered.
The gleaming drone turned to look at the source of the energy bullet streaking past. And Bleak saw himself, then, in someone's point of view, staring up angrily from a rooftop. Looking small downno there.
Focusing on his own point of view, Bleak decided to take a chance on the noise of a gunshot. And maybe it was taking a chance of a bullet exploding in the chamber too.
He drew his gun, popped the clip out, rubbed a finger over the top bullet in the clip, extending energy from the Hidden into it. He knew how much he could infuse it with before it exploded in his hand. At least he hoped he knew. He'd only infused the Hidden's energy into a bullet a couple times before.
He quickly jammed the clip back in the gun, chambered the round, held the gun with both hands, and, squinting against the light, took careful aim up at the UAV as it started to back away from him— and he fired.
A streak of violet, and the bullet struck its target just behind the camera in its prow. The extra energy he'd infused in the bullet smashed through its armored underside and it rocked in the air, like a boat in high seas, then began to spiral down...and crashed into the rooftop, skidding and sparking.
Ought to get out of here,
Bleak thought. The UAV would have been tracking him to set up another attempt by a CCA containment team. And maybe people downstairs would have heard the noise. He didn't want to have to explain himself to a security guard, or the cops.