“Sean!” Helman snapped. “Have some respect for the agent.”
“But it's true—I've had women! Brought in special. Kind of like the ones you'll see here on the TV tonight. That what we're going to see, Dr. Helman? That experiment with Gulcher?” “Yes, yes.”
One other thing was in the room. She hadn't seen it till Sean leaned forward. It was behind him: a suppressor, plugged in and turned on.
Feeling pity for Sean, thinking he had been raised in places like this and there was no telling what he'd been through, Loraine impulsively said, “You can call me Loraine, Sean, if you like.”
“Thank you,
Loraine,”
he said, studying her. He smiled, suddenly, briefly showing yellowed teeth, as if he remembered that it was good to smile broadly but wasn't quite sure how to do it.
Helman used the remote to turn on the television and clicked through a menu till he got a window on the screen that said PREPARED MATERIAL. “Here we go. This is...” He turned to Loraine, putting on an expression of solemnity. “Well—perhaps I should prepare you.”
It was funny how socially artificial both of these men seemed, Loraine decided. In different ways, each seemed strikingly insincere. As if they'd learned to interact with people the way a clumsy man learned to dance—by rote.
“Why don't you turn that suppressor off, Helman,” Sean said suddenly. “You don't need it. And could show Loraine some things.”
“No, not this time; I don't think so, Sean,” Helman said, with asperity. “I wish to tell her...” He leaned toward Loraine, his manner grave, weighty. “You've seen some hard things, Loraine. Your duty has taken you to some dangerous places. You saw women you'd recruited taken into custody in Syria —and there was nothing you could do for them. You saw a suicide bomb attack in Kabul. You were involved in the debriefing on the Miami attack. You know what the terrorists did there. That is what we're up against—a brutally unstable world.” Helman gently rapped the table to emphasize the next sentence. “We cannot afford to be concerned with every fallen sparrow! We must be willing to do
whatever is necessary!
Power like this, potential of the kind the CCA contains, and directs...we cannot risk losing control of it. It's like the Manhattan Project in the last century. Sometimes the testing is dangerous. People die. We need to know that you're... capable of dealing with the harsh realities.”
Loraine shrugged. “It's all been harsh reality, Doctor.” She wasn't thinking of Syria, though that had been bad enough. She was thinking of Krasnoff—and Sean Bleak, sitting across from her. It seemed likely he'd been pried from his parents' hands, raised in an institutional setting. She'd had to work hard on accepting that kind of reality at CCA.
“To be sure,” Helman said. “But what I am going to show you may shock you anyway. We run tremendous risks here—and to protect the country we must test the forces we work with. Test them on people, on human beings. You must have a spine of steel to proceed with us, Loraine. And if you don't —well.” He glanced at Sean. “One way or another...we will have your help.”
That one startled her.
One way or another?
“I've had women,” Sean said suddenly, out of left field, almost leering at Loraine, “but nobody with your class.”
“I'm here as a federal agent, Sean,” Loraine said, forcing herself to smile politely—but feeling her skin crawl. “Let's keep this professional.”
“Professional?” Sean's eyes looked shiny, as if he were close to tears. His mouth compressed. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth, and hard to make out. “What profession do I have?”
It came to her that Sean was stuck in adolescence. He had his brother's penetrating eyes—and a sense about him, as with his brother, that he was always aware of something you couldn't see. Even with the suppressor in the room Sean knew the Hidden was there, in ways she couldn't.
But he was so different from Gabriel Bleak. Gabriel had a still, strong center to him. You felt that he was ready for anything. You knew you could trust him. He might hold things back, but he wouldn't want to lie to you. It would be unnatural to him.
But his brother, she suspected, might say anything to get what he wanted. Sean was damaged— and there was no telling how deep the damage went.
“Your profession, Sean, is to serve the United States of America by helping it control UBEs,” Helman said, using the remote control again, fast-forwarding. Images flickered by on the television screen, too fast to make out. “You even get paid for it, every month. Sometimes you spend the money.”
Sean sniffed. “Spend the money! EBay purchases. Amazon. Once a month I get to have a bottle of wine.” He sniffed in disgust. “The occasional hired girl. It's how they manage
me... control we. “
The images on the screen slowed, became recognizable: a concrete courtyard, a view from high on a wall, and to one side was General Forsythe with a man she didn't recognize at first, and a group of armed black berets. The man with Forsythe turned, his face caught the light, and she recognized him. “Troy Gulcher!” she blurted.
“Very good,” Sean said, with a kind of nerdy irony. “Our man Gulcher. Who's been bitching continuously since he got here.”
She saw that Gulcher, in the video, had no restraints, no cuffs. That he was standing with Forsythe in a friendly way. She realized that Gulcher was not just contained—but recruited.
A wan like that. A wurderer.
Was she really supposed to work beside him?
Doors opened, in the courtyard. People came through, accompanied by more guards. She recognized Helman, Soon Mei, Krasnoff—and someone she didn't know.
“Who is that child? He's got cuffs on!”
“That is just one of the difficult elements I was warning you about,” Helman said. “William John Blunt. Billy Blunt. We purchased him from his parents—” “You
purchased him?”
“Yes. We arranged for them to report him missing and gave them a substantial fee. They were quite happy with the arrangement. He is a casebook psychopath—they were quite afraid of him. He was starting to use his abilities on them. Just coming into them fully, then. He's quite a little government secret. Top secret, as you might imagine.”
“Like me,” Sean said ruefully. “But uglier and not so talented. Can't play a first-person shooter to save his little ass.”
“Yes, indeed, just as you say,” Helman said distractedly, watching the screen. “There...you see something interesting...Krasnoff is now projecting his vision.”
“I don't see it,” she murmured. She could see the light projecting from Krasnoff's eyes and mouth —and a circle on the wall, sparkling around the edges. Nothing inside the circle but concrete wall.
“Exactly so,” Helman said, with an expert's excitement. “It doesn't show up on this video. Other visions of his have shown up, rather fuzzily. But not this.”
“It's because it's the Wilderness,” Sean said matter-of-factly. “They don't want you making pictures of them.”
Loraine was peripherally aware that Sean was looking at her. Specifically, at her breasts. Which was something else he had in common with Helman. “Now these girls...”
Then Loraine went rigid in her seat as it played out: The three women in blue prison shifts brought in. One of them somehow being influenced by Billy Blunt to attack another. Blood flowing. The woman being attacked with teeth and fingers. Soon Mei summoning ghosts—seen only murkily on the video. Madness—possession. The boy in the midst of it...
Loraine forced herself to watch—sure that if she came off as if she couldn't handle it, she'd be in danger of “containment” herself. They wouldn't take any chances. She'd have to pretend to accept this.
But she
couldn't accept
it, not really. Not seeing a boy purchased from his parents. Three women held prisoner to be used as experimental subjects. Women deliberately subjected to possession, violence.
Deep down inside, Loraine knew she'd changed sides. She could pretend she hadn't, for a while. But she couldn't really be part of this.
And that was it—she had pivoted, internally. She'd shifted the center of gravity of her loyalties. She was still a loyal American. But she was no longer loyal to CCA.
Then the courtyard footage was over. She stared at the blank television screen.
“I could have called something to take control—something better than that idiot kid,” Sean was saying.
Loraine realized that Dr. Helman was watching her closely. “This is a kind of initiation for you, Loraine—almost in the ancient sense of the word. But—the initiated can't always bear the initiation.”
She had to keep up the facade. She managed a faint smile. “You were right, Doctor,” she said calmly. “It's shocking stuff. But I can...see the potential.”
“Can you?” Helman looked at her skeptically. “If we could control people with talents like Krasnoff and Soon Mei and Billy, in the outside world...”
“Anybody's name left off that list?” Sean muttered bitterly.
Helman pretended not to hear. “We can't control them
efficiently,
as it stands. We need to establish real, reliable power over them—that's what we were trying to do, through Gulcher...and other possibilities. To control these ShadowComm types—but also so-called spirits that may be of use. You see, those UBEs who could be of use in...in offensive capabilities...they do not cooperate with one another. Or consistently with us. They're rather savage. But we believe they can be forced to cooperate with much greater control. We believe that Gabriel Bleak will give us the means.”
She looked at him. “Gabriel Bleak?”
“Yes. That's why we've been pursuing him in particular. Oh, yes, we know you met with him today. We lost track of you once you got on the subway—but we weren't trying very hard to keep up. We don't want him to be too suspicious—too wary. We've been readying you for interaction with him, for some time now. For special work with Gabriel Bleak. We hoped to simply capture him, first. He's proven remarkably elusive. But a special sort of recruitment... that might work too. Might perhaps yield better results. We have people already preparing the ground.”
“So—” She licked her lips. She really wanted a drink of water. “So you would be willing to work with the Shadow Community on its own terms? To let them work independently, in the field, under assignment? Bleak—Gabriel Bleak—was willing to consider it.”
Sean chuckled; Helman's head bobbled with amusement. “Ha-ha, well, we would not allow that, no, no, not as such. But we want them to
think we
might do that, in the short term. In the long term, we'll need to have most of them in constant containment. Except for a very few special individuals. In time, Sean here, and Gabriel Bleak, selected others, may be allowed to work in the outside world. But we have to create certain
control precedents
first.
You,
Loraine—you are one of those precedents. You and Gabriel Bleak are, to use the old-fashioned term, soul mates.”
“We're
what?”
She actually rocked back in her chair.
“So that's what they mean by
taken aback!”
Sean said, amused. “Yeah, Loraine—you're fated to be mated with my brother.” He added sullenly, “Like he hasn't had all the luck already.”
“It's not as if you're 'soul mates' in the sense of two people who merely feel comfortable together,” Helman said. “True soul mates are fairly rare. They are souls that were
created at the same instant,
a symmetrical cocreation, for a special kind of union. They're not created merely for romantic reasons, you know. It has something to do with creating a ripple effect from the symmetry of putting them together—soul mates send out a 'harmonic transmission,' when they unite. Helping, supposedly, to bring more harmony to the world.”
“See, now you're getting all pompous and erudite and shit,” Sean said, rolling his eyes.
Helman seemed to control his temper, then went on, “Now, with Gabriel Bleak—our profile suggests that deep down he's a very romantic man. He's lonely. And we believe he's already unconsciously enamored of you. As he's your soul mate, and you his—he really cannot help falling in love with you. At first it might be hard to get him to admit that—”
“Have to get him hard before he admits it,” Sean said, grinning around clenched yellow teeth.
Helman sighed and shot Sean a look of irritation. Which Loraine thought was ironic, considering Helman's own arrested-adolescent behavior. Could be that Helman was a kind of warped role model for Sean.
Helman looked earnestly back at Loraine. “We don't believe Gabriel Bleak will work with us willingly without you on board. And we need him to be genuinely on our side. There's something very* specific we need him to do. And for you—though he may not know it yet—he would do
anything. “
“Bleak and I hardly know each other. I find it hard to believe that...that he and I are... 'soul mates.' Find it hard to believe in soul mates at all.”
“Nevertheless, it is the case. Soul mates are just one of those oddities of metaphysics. But believe me, they are quite real. But we use the term in a higher sense than the usual sentimentality.”
Soul mates. She'd thought the idea childish, improbable, before. But there was something beautiful, really, in this higher kind of soul mates, she decided. Souls “created at the same instant, a symmetrical cocreation, for a special kind of union.” And CCA had perverted that beauty—used it for their own sick little agenda.
What had Zweig called it? The “lure concept.” That's what she was—a lure. To get Bleak here— to containment.
Keeping impassive, she asked, “What is it you need Bleak to do for you...specifically?” “He's got to work with me,” Sean said. “Do a dual magicking with me.”
“A...a what?” she asked numbly. Trying not to sit there with her mouth hanging open.
Soul mates.
“A certain ritual.”
“There is great power,”' Helman put in, “when you put the Bleak brothers together. So we're told. They represent two ends of one metaphysical pole. Bring them together, in the same working, and we can bring under our control a certain entity who will, in turn, control all the ShadowComms we can locate. Gulcher was just a temporary expedient. This...other entity will make it possible for us to bring about a basic and much needed change in our society. We cannot go on like this, you know, with the world so dangerous, so unstable. For a start, the president is planning to suspend elections, a couple years from now.”