Mind Over Matter

By Joanna Berry

 

 


I looked calmly at the bullet resting in my palm.

 

            “I hope you realise how lucky you are,” Henderson said as he flipped over my charts, scrawling something before handing it to a passing nurse. “A few centimetres, Agent Cooper, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

 

            I flexed the muscles in my lower back, cautiously. A slow fan of warm heat spread upwards, a heat that was not pleasant. My fingers closed into a fist with the bullet inside.

 

            “How is she?” I asked.

 

            Henderson looked uncomfortable. “Your gal? Under heavy guard, though she isn’t going anywhere. If she makes it through the night I’ll be surprised.”

 

            “She’ll live through the night.” I slid slowly off the examining table; my feet were painfully warm against the cold tiled floor. “Do you have my papers?”

 

            He handed me a sheaf of identification slips, forms and the like. I sorted through them, balancing them on my palms as I looked for my ID. Pulling it out, I clipped it on and asked Henderson for a pen so I could sign for them. He handed it to me, but I was holding too much and I dropped it.

 

            “Sorry,” he said, and reached to get it. I shifted the papers, opening my hand and the pen came to me like a reversed movie clip. Henderson recoiled, just enough to see. Clicking it open I scribbled my signature in triplicate, counter-signed various items and wrote my serial number on the form for my sidearm.

 

            “I think that’s all in order,” I said, handing him the papers with the pen clipped onto the leading edge.

 

            He appraised me coolly. “When are you going back to work?”

 

            “When I’m needed. Which will probably be next week.”

 

            “Take some time off.”

 

            “I don’t need it.”

 

            “You were underweight anyway, the surgery to remove the bullet took a lot out of you and I know the calories involved in psionics. You can’t take it, Agent Cooper. Get some weight on before you go back to work.”

 

            “I have classes to take, students to teach, and regular duties to perform. I’ll be there next week. And I’ll be back here in two days to check up on her.”

 

            “She might not be here.”

 

            “She will.” I painfully put on my coat. “She will.”

 

I met Jack Pallance out in the parking lot of the hospital, limping. He was waiting by his car but came to meet me halfway. He looked very shocked to see me lurching towards him.

 

            “Jesus, Mauran, you’re a mess.” He caught my forearm as I came close enough.

           

“Good morning to you too, Jack,” I replied wryly. “Company car?”

 

“They laid it on. Least they could do. How is she?”

 

            “Dying.”

 

            He was tactfully silent helping me into the car. It was only when we joined the flow of traffic on our way to my home that he spoke again. “Tell me.”

 

            “Bullets in chest, leg, stomach and one clipped the side of her neck. She got internal bleeding. They’ve operated but they don’t think she’s going to live beyond tonight.”

 

            “You do.”

 

            “I followed her for months, Jack, I know what she’s capable of. She’s got strength where it matters. She’ll live, for a while at least, then when she’s made her point she’ll let go.”

 

            He didn’t reply, but one hand briefly left the wheel and found mine.

 

            As we pulled up onto the driveway I had a nice surprise: my assistant at work, Lisa, opened the front door, followed by her partner Robert. They came to meet us as I struggled to get out of the car on my own. Jack balanced me while walking around the front of the car and with my own help I lifted myself up with a little less trouble. Lisa held me gently and kissed me on the cheek. I was very glad to see her.

 

-          So how are you? – she asked, her face compassionate.

 

- I’ve been better – I replied, backing up what I was saying in Ameslan. Lisa had very little hearing capability, one of the reasons she was a prolific psionic. She preferred not to speak verbally in company where she didn’t have to.

 

Robert gave me a very careful hug. “We’ve all missed you, Mauran,” he said. “I’m sorry if we sort of took tenancy of your house while you were in hospital –“

 

“Rob, you know you and Lisa are always welcome,” I said, then sniffed at the smell coming from the open door. “Dinner?”

 

 - Lasagne – replied Lisa.  – Rob said you’d be hungry -

 

We went in to eat, but even as I was greeted enthusiastically and somewhat painfully by Lisa’s son Jamie, even as I was taken back into the bright circle of my peers and friends, even as I sat at the table to eat a good and companionable meal, I couldn’t shake the memory of the last time I had seen her, bloodstained and unconscious, slumped on a hospital gurney being run to the operating theatre, one eye hidden, the other meeting mine.

 

*****

 

When Rob and Lisa had eventually gone home, taking Jamie with them, Jack lingered for a while as we drank coffee and talked, avoiding legalistic matters, just small talk. He watched me feed the lionfish in the middle of the conversation, his eyes calm and grey as Rho and Chi and Omega took their own meal.

 

            “How are you?” he asked suddenly, bluntly. I turned to look at him, forgetting, and something like a spear of pain lanced my back.

 

            “How am I? I don’t know. I’m hurting, I know that.”

 

            “Mauran, we know each other too well. Don’t bullshit me. You were after her for months before we cornered her in New Orleans. I know how you used to look. You don’t give up on something that easily. Tell me about it.”

 

            “There’s nothing to tell.” I poured more coffee. “She shot Axel Kingsley. I shot her. She shot me. Kinglsey’s dead, she’s dying. I’m still alive.”

 

            I felt his touch on the inside of my head and rejected it. “Do you know,” he went on, as if he hadn’t done anything, “that they still haven’t got a positive ID for her? No name, no social security, no dental records, no credit cards, forwarding addresses, insurance – it’s worrying. The FBI are kicking themselves trying to work out who she is and where she came from.”

 

            “At the hospital,” I said, “they had put T. Hunter on the intake cards. The only name they got was The Hunter, so I suppose they assumed The was short for Theresa or something similar.”

 

            I felt my pocket and took out the bullet, cool and smooth and calmly lethal, cradling it in my hands.

 

*****

            A week later, as promised, I was back at work, while my charge hung on and on in the hospital, breathing through a tube. Sore and stiff, I was shocked to come into one of my classes to a round of applause. Putting my bag on a stool slowly, I looked at my students in true amazement and a facsimile of gratitude. Their faces were young and admiring. Eventually I settled them down.

            “Thank you,” I said, “but you need to remember I’m not proud of what I did. And as you know, Coach Kingsley, from the training circuit, is not here to share that applause with me.” They were solemn as I reminded them of PILEA’s loss – Axel had been a genuinely good and decent man. “There will be a memorial service on Tuesday for those who wish to attend.” I opened my bag to bring out my folder. “Now, according to my notes, while I was away you got up to 22.7 in the green textbook, under Psionic Ethics and Codes of Practice . . .”

            I taught an hour’s class, then had to take some painkillers the hospital had given me. Resisting the temptation to take a rest on the sofa in my office, I got out the case file on our girl in Intensive Care. I knew the whole thing off by heart, but I had to write a statement, do the paperwork for discharging a firearm, fill out a PILEA witness form and perform the other thousand and one tasks I needed to do before the case of the young woman we only knew as the name we had dubbed her with, the Hunter, could close.

            Lisa put her head around the door as I was deep into my work.  – Mauran, I’ve got a call from the hospital for you –

            I put down my pen and patched the call through, waving gratefully to Lisa. “Agent Cooper.”

            “Ms Cooper, this is Harvey Marshall, head of security at the Memorial. We’ve just had a serious situation with your charge in the ICU.”

            Cold fear strangled my heart. “Details, please.”

            “She went into convulsions and experienced a TK event. Everything is normal now, but I was told to inform you that –“ There was the sound of papers rustling. “Her brain wave patterns are experiencing strange fluctuations leading us to conclude she –“

            “ – has psionic capabilities,” I finished. My hand was tight around the receiver. “When do you want us down there?”

            “The situation has been resolved, Agent Cooper. If anything else happens –“

            “ – you might end up with a hospital ward full of flying glass. No. I’m sending you two of our good agents to supplement the watch. Their names are Z. Curtis and W. Jackson. They should be there within the hour.”

            “I appreciate it, Agent Cooper.” His voice was stony and calm. “Goodbye.”

            I cut the line and called down to Zack and William separately, explaining in a moment what they needed to do and how to get to the hospital. Then I closed the door quietly from behind my desk and lowered my head into my trembling hands.

            A TK event. TK was the PILEA abbreviation for telekinesis, a gift I possessed myself. Now I knew I should have warned them, that I should have said something. Because when we were being wheeled away to our separate operating theatres, when we had made that split-second eye contact, the Hunter had spoken to me.

- Are you proud of yourself? –

Of course I wasn’t. I had shot a young woman in the prime of life. She would not live to see another month. But she saw things in terms of black and white. Either she won or I did. And while she had earned herself a place in the psychology textbooks as possibly the only true female serial killer, she had been winning. By shooting her I had taken her off the high spot. Never mind if she had shot me with her last strength as she lay in a pool of her own blood. I had killed her and that meant I was the winner.

I didn’t feel like a winner. I felt used up and cheap for shooting her. I didn’t deserve the awestruck applause of my students or lasagne from Lisa, any more than I would have deserved it for harpooning a unicorn. In my mind, the Hunter was, as she no doubt knew, a mythical creature, an urban legend with no moral ties. That didn’t mean I was too blind to do my job. I knew that her psychosis drove her to murder, and therefore she was a menace to society. I knew she was dangerous and very likely to kill again. But that had just been a fact, a scientific snippet I had tucked along with two and two make four, and the equations for photosynthesis and relativity. I felt differently. I could relate to the Hunter, as we were both rare creatures in a world where normality was drab and drear. I had a genius IQ, and a P rating of twenty-nine when the average person was around three or four, which marked me out somewhat even in PILEA. I belonged here. But sometimes I felt that I did not deserve to be here.

My eyes strayed down to my company notepad, where the PILEA crest was ghostly and colourful. The words around the edge could be clearly read: Psionic Investigations and Law Enforcement Agency. The Latin motto underneath was a little harder. Quo mens se habere aeternus. Something along the lines of: The Mind is Forever. Whoever had written that had the right idea. I knew that I would not forget the Hunter, even if I lived to be older than Methuselah. And I knew that wherever she was going, she would not forget me in a hurry.

She was a psionic, and I had murdered her. Perhaps the fatal event had not yet occurred, but it was a foregone conclusion. And psionics do not kill each other.

            I left the building as early as I could without being suspicious.

*****

That evening I sat in my living room with several manila folders scattered around me and a cold coffee on the table next to the chair. Rho moved slowly around the large tank on one side of the room and fixed me with a baleful stare as if he disapproved. I glanced up. My lionfish were my pride and joy. Rho was the single male in my life I could relate to. I wondered if the Hunter had kept lionfish.

            My eyes strayed back to the page. The inventory of the small motel room where we had found her was on my lap. It was the one and only place we had found which she had lived in for a period of time. The place had been extremely neat and tidy, the only evidence of occupation a damp shower curtain and piles of electronic surveillance equipment, binoculars, a Kevlar vest, which she had not been wearing when we finally cornered her, a switchblade and a .38 Police Special. The only even slightly personal item we had ever discovered was a small bonsai tree on the side of the table, carefully clipped and cared for. I supposed the Hunter favoured minimalism, as I did, and that the meticulous nature of bonsai upkeep appealed to her nature. Assuming, of course, that the tree was hers.

            In these folders was the work of months, mostly mine. We had tracked the Hunter across most of the continent, going from city to city – Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, Saint Louis, Los Angeles, in a seemingly random pattern. She went to a city, killed one person, usually a high up like a lawyer or a company executive, then left. The modus operandi never altered: gunshot wound to the back of the head that killed instantaneously. Residual epinephrine levels in the bodies and nerve-pattern post mortem psionic scan – usually performed by myself, Jack or Axel, as we had been the three assigned to the case – revealed that they had been held at gunpoint for some time before they died. The Hunter had been talking to them, I remembered writing. Flipping over the corner of a page, I read it again in my sloping handwriting. But I knew now that wasn’t true. If the Hunter was a psionic, she could have been doing anything to them while she held the gun on them.

            I closed my eyes, seeing in my imagination the face of the third victim, Michael LaPointe, a successful junior partner in a wealthy software corporation. I saw him sitting in the office he had died in, working, and the door opens revealing his secretary, Louise, who I had interviewed tearful and shaking.

            Mr LaPointe? Your eleven o’clock is here.

            Thanks, Lou. Show her in.

            Louise retreats and the door is held for a young woman, mid-twenties, blond-brown hair, arresting hazel eyes, wearing an expensive trouser suit. She comes in and shakes his hand.

            Ms Hunter? Pleasure to meet you.

            Thank you, Mr LaPointe. I had never heard the Hunter’s voice, but I created a cultured accent that was from nowhere and everywhere. She keeps her voice low all the way through the conversation. They arrange to meet later that week, but LaPointe is busy and can only make the last slot in the evening. Moving time ahead to their appointed date, I watched the Hunter walking towards his office and being shown inside by Louise, just as she is leaving for the day. LaPointe is behind his desk, and they talk for around twenty minutes. The Hunter has exquisite hearing and she can tell when the offices around them are empty. They conclude their business and LaPointe asks if she’d like a small drink while she signs a contract he has given her. She agrees. He turns to get her the drink and when he turns back . . .

            I snapped out of it. The murder weapon in this case was a different gun, threaded for a silencer. He sees it, knows what this means – maybe drops the glass. But what then? What happens after he slumps back in his chair, his voice trembling, and asks her what she wants? Somehow, I doubted it was money. She didn’t feel like the blackmailing type.

            So what, then? What had the Hunter done to him with her psionic gift before she killed him? She was maybe criminology’s first true female serial killer. How did that make her different? God damn it, what had she done?

            I read the other files, but I was tired and wanted some sleep. Yet even as I lay back carefully onto the braced mattress, my mind kept turning it over. I already knew that the Hunter in psionic terms was a rara avis, again, like me. PILEA used three initials for psionic abilities on ID: TK for telekinetic, TE for telepathic, and T/T for both. T/T was extremely rare and highly respected: NITA, the Non-Profit International Telepaths Agency, practically framed authentic certificates for T/T. I knew around a hundred and fifty authentic cases, and most of them worked for PILEA. The Hunter had, with that little unconscious stunt today, proved that she was a T/T. I mused over the implications aloud into the darkness. Even with PILEA’s no-shit reputation – unlike NITA: they were basically a cataloguing service – the public was still wary of psionics, and to put it out that one of the most notorious serial killers of our age had been a T/T would do irrevocable damage. I decided to do an internal memo in the morning.

            As I finally turned over stiffly, in a reasonable amount of pain, I began to drop asleep. And only then did the thought hit me, unlikely as it was: What if she didn’t know?

*****

I discovered that Jack had telepaged me in the morning and I responded when I woke up, bleary eyed and sleepy.  – What is it? –

- Just wanted to see how you were. Apparently you left in something of a hurry yesterday –

- I was in pain. I’ve been shot, you know –

- Is it the Hunter? –

- Why is it that every conversation we have ends up being about her? –

- Cool down, Mauran, it was just a question. Is it? –

- No, it isn’t –

- Have you been to see her? -

I hesitated, and then, suddenly irritated, cut the contact. I had better things to do with my morning than justify myself to Jack. Coffee, painkillers and toast put me in a better mood, and I decided to come in a little late to work. After the way I had been acting recently, I doubted anyone would notice. After showering, I went into my room, unwrapped the towel and squinted over my shoulder in the mirror, looking at my back injury for the first time. It was not a pretty sight. I had a tough knot of scar tissue beside my spinal cord which was an angry livid purple, as if a bulb had been jammed under my skin. I realised for the first time just how right Henderson had been. The Hunter had almost killed me too, or at least left me paralysed. She had intended for me to die with her, as she had killed Axel Kingsley, but I had moved at the last moment as she turned up to look at me with my back to her, gun in hand. Then there had been the crashing echo of the shot, the incredible pain. I remembered feeling oddly interested in the concrete floor I was lying on, and wondering why the sounds around me were so muffled and strange, before I spent thirty six hours unconscious and was yanked into the operating theatre to have a slug removed. I had come out several pounds lighter and a year or so wiser – I would never turn my back on a corpse again, at least. And for some reason, I felt as if I was living on borrowed time.

Maybe I was, if I wanted to find out what the Hunter had done to those she had killed before she died in her coma. For some reason it struck me as important. I knew it wasn’t – the case was closed, those final, damning shots I had fired myself had seen to that. I had fired at the murderer of, amongst others, my co-worker Axel, who had been a good agent and one hell of a sports coach, and locked the case closed – but by locking it closed I had locked myself out too, like closing the lid on a jigsaw puzzle which had one piece missing, and expecting it not to matter to the picture.

I rubbed myself slowly dry and got dressed.

So if I was so eager to go and find out for myself what had happened, if time was so short, why wasn’t I streaking down to the Memorial now to find out? I had an answer I could give readily to myself which I would rather have died than said out loud: I was afraid. Not of the Hunter. She was dying, kept alive by machines and chemicals. Her days of harm were over. No - I was afraid to reach into her soul and find that thing she was keeping locked down, which had caused her to kill, which had made her live like a nomad and which was preventing her from finding final peace. I was afraid to pull it out of there, because I thought it might have my face.

I felt close to the Hunter. I regretted not coming to know her as a person. But that didn’t mean I wanted to meet her secret self. And yet, if I wanted to find out why she had done what she had, I was going to have to.

I turned away from the thought and went to work.

*****

Lisa met me in the corridor on the way to my office.  – Mauran, I’ve got the files on the Carparthi case you wanted –

I detected a distinctly nervous air in her communiqué and I had some idea of why. I began to get seriously annoyed, not at her directly, but at someone else.  – Lisa, has Jack Pallance from upstairs been talking to you? –

 She looked and felt uncomfortable.  – Not exactly. How do you mean? –

- I mean, has he been asking questions about me? –

- He asked about how you’d been behaving –

- And what did you tell him? –

She looked hurt. – Are you accusing me of something? –

- No. But I think Jack Pallance is after me about something. What did you tell him, Lisa? –

- The truth. You’ve been a little withdrawn and you’ve had a few irregular hours, but other than that you’ve been completely normal. Are you going to tell me what this is about? –

I shook my head and gently took the Carparthi case files from her hand. “I’m sorry,” I said aloud and signed to her at the same time. “It’s just that Jack seems to think I can’t do my job any more.”

I went into my office and took the five or so messages on my desk – minor things that were handled quickly. Some angel, probably Lisa, had collected essays from my first class of the day and left them in my tray for me to mark. I felt disgusted with myself for attacking Lisa like that. She was a kind and generous woman, a loving mother and an extremely good assistant. She put up with me in all my moods, but I had never snapped at her before. Running a hand through my hair I thought about it. Jack Pallance. That was it. That had set me off.  He had been a little too protective of me the past few days. I truly resented being taken care of, as if I had gotten this job by being effeminate and meek. I decided to have a word with him, but not now. I had work to do. Taking the Carparthi case files I flicked through them, then sighed. – Lisa? –

- Hmmm? – She was working at something on her computer.

- Lisa, I’m sorry I shouted at you. I’ve been under a lot of stress, but that’s no excuse. That was rude and uncalled for –

- That’s all right. I’m used to you letting off steam –

I winced.  – I know I’m not an easy boss. Next time just yell back –

- I’ll bear that in mind –

I let her get on with her work and started on my own, sorting through my student’s essays. Marking them was oddly soothing in its familiarity. I reflected as I finished that and started typing up a report that sooner or later I’d be assigned a new investigative case, and that soon the Hunter would just be another case cipher, another notch on my gun. The second I formed that tasteless thought I felt physically sick. Leaning back from my computer, I breathed in one deep breath after another, ignoring the serious pain forming in my back. So I had come to this: collecting trophies. How sordid.

I felt for my painkillers and took two with a dash of water. They tasted bitter, but I crunched them viciously, hard enough to jar my teeth as they went down. Penance wasn’t the healthiest concept ever formed, but I usually felt better if I had balanced things out in the great scheme. A bitter taste in return for death by gunshot wounds. Not the fairest of exchanges.

Looking back at the neat lines of text on the screen, I wondered what had happened to me. A genuine sense of remorse and concern, if a little misguided, had turned into something quite different. I supposed it was morbid obsession. But my mind just wouldn’t leave the subject, however hard I tried to turn it the other way. It was as if my subconscious was working on the problem but occasionally had to remind me about it. I rubbed my fingers into the corners of my eyes and sighed deeply. Maybe I was just too damn tired. Those painkillers might have a bit more than morphine in them.

I turned the little white canister around and looked at it absently. Then my eyes caught an interesting but trivial titbit of information on the label: they were made by the same company the Hunter’s second victim, Jordan Cole, had worked for, a successful pharmaceutical firm. Below the name was another, printed small, and I squinted to read it. Once I had, I frowned. Bader-Cameron Associates. But it couldn’t be.

I saved the report I had been typing and went onto the office server to try and find the victim files of the Hunter case. I typed in my password, misspelling it at first, then searched for them amongst the myriad cases PILEA had handled in the past few months. Finding the area, I opened it …to find it empty.

I scowled. This was not good. I came out and went in again. Still nothing. The victim profiles had been deleted from the server. This was looking less and less good all the time. A superuser had deleted case files from the server without even leaving a message. And did I know who had done it? You bet your ass I did. A certain agent from upstairs called Jack Pallance, maybe? By God, you might be right.

I slammed both my hands flat down onto the desk in frustration. A little voice that was quickly drowned out told me that it was paranoia, that I was getting a little stirred up over something so simple. People cleared out the server all the time, just to keep it from getting overloaded. The Hunter case was closed, and the files were now defunct. But my usual inner voice, the one which I habitually listened to and which had gotten me out of trouble before, told me that was so much bullshit. Jack had done it to get my mind off the Hunter, to stop me dwelling on the case which was over and done with. He was doing his chivalrous act again, the one which always got my hackles up, and I knew just the line he would take if I confronted him: Well, Mauran, I did it for you, my dear.

I picked up a hole-punch without touching it and flung it across the room. But Jack’s deleting the files didn’t change anything, really. I knew what Bader-Cameron Associates was – but what the name was doing on a bottle of painkillers, I didn’t know. The Bader-Cameron Associates I knew was an attorney’s resource: the name had surfaced momentarily on a legal document belonging to the sixth victim. I decided to take a look when I got home that evening. Maybe I’d see the name again. Perhaps those killings had not been quite so random after all.

*****

Bader-Cameron, over and over again. I slammed the last folder closed.

            How had we missed it? How had I missed it?

            The same company name, in several different contexts. According to the small print on various documents connected to each of the victims, Bader-Cameron was a pharmaceutical conglomerate, a software giant, a law firm, a financial advice service and half a dozen other unconnected companies. The killings hadn’t been random at all. She had been taking out people who, via a tortuous route, worked for the same company, or branches of it, or companies with the same name. All high ups, or soon-to-be high ups, all killed execution style.

            I wandered restlessly around my home, unable to sit or stand still. What did it mean? Why had she done it? Why those particular people? Why that company?

            Then a thought struck me and I went into my small study, going extremely carefully on my knees before a low drawer stuffed with papers. I pulled page after page out until I found what I wanted: a page from my contract, or a Xerox anyway. Taking it into the light, I looked very carefully at the small print on the bottom. My eyes picked out a now-familiar logo and writing in the smallest type possible: Bader-Cameron Associates. I raised my head. Whatever Bader-Cameron was, PILEA had some connection to them. That meant nothing – PILEA took some funding from companies as a goodwill gesture, as well as in return for our services – but for some reason it gave me a chill. That tiny little inner voice told me to go and surf the Net for Bader-Cameron Associates, if I was so worried, but I knew I would be wasting my time without even bothering.

I did, however, turn my home computer on, as well as my scanner, grabbing the small print from each document I had seen the name on and blowing it up before printing them off. I was about to shut my computer down and turn off the printer, when I hesitated, then printed another two copies. Taking them and a roll of sellotape, I opened the drawer in my bedroom and taped one to the bottom of the drawer above, then wriggled under the bed and taped another one there. I felt ridiculous, but feeling ridiculous had saved my skin before now. Paranoia was only paranoia when it was unjustified, and those deleted files had spooked me. With the paper now folded into my jacket pocket, the one on my computer and the two in my room, there were four copies of the evidence and more if you counted the originals. Only then did I go to sleep, my mind at ease for the time being, at least. But now I knew what I had to do.

The next morning, I woke up with the mother of all pain lurking in my lower back. I had forgotten to put on my brace, especially after kneeling down yesterday, and it felt as if someone had strapped a staple gun to my spine. Every time I moved I had to clamp my teeth together or scream, and getting out of bed was seemingly the work of hours. Finally standing on my feet, I decided enough was enough and supported myself for once as I staggered to the bathroom, groggy and in agony. I took another look at my wound in the mirror, but the swelling hadn’t changed much. It was the muscles that were giving me the greatest trouble, cramping with teeth like knives. Munching more painkillers with a glass of water, I checked the dosage and recklessly took another few. The pain eased a little bit, waking up as I struggled downstairs but giving me a break as I found muesli and instant coffee, eating while standing up. There was no way I could drive. I disliked taking time off work, especially since I had only just come back, and my hours had been very erratic recently, as Lisa had told Jack. But I shuddered at the thought of sitting up all day with my back in this state, and anything I did or wrote wouldn’t be worth reading when those extra painkillers started kicking in.

Reluctantly, I phoned the head office and apologised profusely. I was grateful for the supervisor, Gale Harding’s sympathetic response. She told me to take the rest of the week off until my back calmed down, which I thanked her for, and promised she’d get someone to cover for me. I said I was sorry for putting this trouble on her, but she just chuckled warmly and cut me off. Extremely thankful, I dragged several soft pillows from upstairs onto the sofa while I hunted for my back brace. Finding it, I tried to put it on, then realised something: it is impossible to put on a back brace alone while your back is giving you hell, unless you want to spend the rest of the day on the edge of crying with pain. I did without and sank carefully back into my chair, against the pillows.

At least it gave me a chance to look over the files again. I brought the folders to my hand to save me the pain of getting up, and looked down at the sheets I had taken out last night. My eye fell to the name again. Bader-Cameron Associates. Mysterious, omnipresent – and the missing link. The pain had sharpened me up: when I tried to find Lisa, I caught her attention on the first try.

– Morning, Mauran –

- Lisa, my back is very bad and I won’t be coming in today. Did Gale tell you? –

- She called a while ago. Jack Pallance is looking for you –

- I know what Jack can do. I don’t particularly want to talk to him, Lisa, so if he asks if you’ve heard from me, you haven’t. Kapeesh? –

- Kapeesh –

- How are things, anyway? How’s Jamie? –

- He’s got his P-grading today – Lisa was referring to a quick test as routine as an inoculation which measured a child’s P level via responses to an injection. I remembered my parents’ reaction to my results and smiled.  – He’ll be fine. He’s got two psionic parents so he’s got a better chance of getting five or more at his age –

- Mauran – sorry, but I’ve just got some more files in to work on. I’m going to have to get on with them –

I quit talking to her and fumed quietly as I looked for the first victim’s file to go over it again. Jack again. Didn’t he have a case to work on, students to teach? In other words, didn’t he have something better to do than nursemaid me? Picking me up from the hospital had been kind enough, but he didn’t win the right to follow me around like a puppy.

I read the files and made notes on a pad beside me until my eyes started to hurt, and not for the first time, I wondered if I needed glasses. My back was now incredibly painful from sitting still so long. All of the victims seemed perfectly clean to me, as they had the first time I had been through these files: no criminal records, all reportedly friendly people who were sorely missed, loving fathers, caring girlfriends. In other words, their profiles were squeaking. In light of my recent discoveries, I became instantly suspicious. Not even a parking ticket amongst them? Something had to be wrong. I had never worked anywhere else but PILEA – not that I would want to work anywhere else – but I knew every company had its black sheep, misfits, office flirts. I had investigated a few in my time. Either the Hunter had deliberately targeted them for their spotless records or had coincidentally picked at random, angels of the establishment. Somehow I doubted the latter.

But there was only one way to be certain, and I was in no shape to do it.

*****

Zack Curtis picked me up an hour later, helping me to his car. I was limping and exhausted, and I caught a shocked sound he didn’t make aloud when I had opened the door. Once inside the car, I leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the window. Zack got in beside me. “Ms. Cooper, I would honestly rethink this. No offence, but you look terrible.”

            “Please just drive, Zack. You’ve got your post to get back to.” I winced as the engine rumbled into life beneath us, and Zack gave me another concerned look as he pulled out into the street.

            The Memorial was almost inaccessible, the parking lot crowded. Zack squeezed into a tiny space next to a tree, the only one left, and helped me out of the car. The world greyed out briefly as I tried to stand upright, and I groped for something to hold onto. Zack caught me before I fell. My back was spasming. I had no idea I was this ill, but it didn’t change anything. We limped across the parking lot towards the hospital, and I ignored the look from the hospital receptionist as we showed our ID. As we made our way to the lift, I heard Zack: - Ms. Cooper, she’s comatose and wouldn’t understand you if you spoke to her. It isn’t worth you putting yourself through this –

- It is, Zack – I replied, hanging onto his elbow.  – Trust me, it is –

We stepped out into the ICU and Zack spotted his partner, Jackson, waiting at the end of the ward. I could feel a furious flash which stopped before it reached him: clearly, Jackson was irritated at Zack but had seen me. I could catch drifts of their lightning conversation but I wasn’t really listening. As I approached, he stretched out a hand, not for courtesy but to take me out of Zack’s hands. “Agent Cooper,” he said, pleasantly. He was a TE, like Zack, only not as forthcoming. I accepted his firm grasp and stepped past him, into the ward, and opened the correct door, the one with a guard standing next to it. Zack and Jackson stepped in after me, but I spoke firmly to them. – I want to be in here alone –

Jackson countered:  - Our orders were not to leave her alone for any length of time, and for there always to be two agents pres –

- I issued those orders. Go and get a coffee –

They left, after exchanging glances, and closed the door behind them with a gentle thud. Painfully, I brought a chair to me, silently, and sat down carefully next to the bed.

Here she was.

They had done their best for her, the doctors. There were tubes in her nose and mouth, IV drips in her arms. An oxygen mask concealed her lower jaw and the respirator breathed softly beside her. Her vital signs were measured day and night with an alert and her injuries had been treated to the best of their ability. They had done all they could. But it would not be enough. What I had done to her was just too severe.

She had called me here, with the TK event, whether she knew it or not. A sneaking hunch had been confirmed. And she wanted me here. I didn’t know why. Even here, my back on fire, looking at her bluish eyelids, her neck purple on one side where one of my bullets had clipped her, her body covered with a sheet, I didn’t know.

- I’m here – I said, as quietly as I could. Then, one of my hands stole out and took hold of her left, the one with the tube taped in the back. The fingers were as cold as ice and unresponsive. I closed my eyes and breathed out slowly through my mouth. Silence reigned supreme.

The light in the room seemed to change. The sunlight from the window that led to the outside world slowly filtered until it was a soft bronzed yellow, and the corners of the room softened with it. I caught colours I hadn’t noticed in the sheet, and I realised that I could hear people walking beneath me, on the floor below us. Their thoughts were crystal clear, and I could see them, know them, as if just by hearing them I could tell every aspect of their lives. A little girl with a broken arm was waiting for her parents to pick her up in the children’s ward. She was hoping her father would have time to come too, but I knew he wasn’t coming because his extra shift had come up this week, and his goddamn boss wouldn’t even –

The figure on the bed beside me stirred, and I wondered how I had ever seen her as ill and frail. Occasionally I had come across TE type psionics who saw people differently, like picking up their thoughts just by looking at them. Now I knew what they meant. The Hunter was burning with strength and colour, her face alive with light, her hair a strange aura. Her eyes opened, and the grey colour seemed to hold every storm ever birthed, bright with the power of the wolf.

Her right hand reached up and pulled the oxygen mask away. I slowly understood what was happening. I was seeing what she wanted me to see, inside her own mind. This was the world for her, shown to me the way she saw it.

Oh my god . . . I could feel it now, the indescribable sense of power that emanated from her, like standing next to an electrical generator the size of a city block. In terms of light or sound, a supernova waiting to happen or the anticipation of a symphony that could shatter glass. My hand, still held in hers, trembled very slightly. The psionic energy I could feel was incredible. Once, I had been to a PILEA conference where the heads of various departments had gathered: some of the strongest psionics alive in one building, one room. It had been a charged atmosphere, the air seeming to sing with power. But that was nothing compared to what I was feeling now.

Oh god, she has to be . . . the strongest psionic alive, the strongest psionic anywhere. Think what she could do, what she could be capable of . . .

“Nothing, now,” she answered calmly, sitting up inside this dream world, whereas in the real world she was immobile, in a coma. “My days of power are over.”

I turned to look at her, meeting the expression I had known I would see: reserved and coolly humorous, as if the world was a joke she alone could understand.

“You wanted me here,” I said, and my own voice sounded very strange, both muffled and clear at the same time. “What do you want?”

“Ask yourself,” said the Hunter. “You came here with questions. I’m willing to answer them.”

I swallowed, and glanced down at the bedclothes. “Why should you help me?” I asked, my strange voice thick with the remorse I was longing to express. “I shot you. You’re going to die because of me . . . because I was too stupid to understand at the time, because it took a bullet from you to make me get the idea. You’re the strongest psionic I’ve ever met – think of the things you could have done, think of what you could have been.

She smiled, enough to trail around the corners of her mouth, but it was quickly gone. “I have my own reasons for helping you,” she said simply. “Let’s leave it at that.”

I closed my eyes, pained.

“What do you want to ask?”

Eyes still closed, I didn’t hesitate this time. “Why did you kill them? What is Bader-Cameron Associates?”

She met my gaze only for a moment, then looked away, her hands kneading the bedclothes.

“You’re not going to like this.”

“Try me.”

“They’re invested in pharmaceuticals, software, law and finances, amongst other things.”

“And PILEA,” I added.

“Yes. Mauran, what is PILEA’s biggest problem?”

Taken aback, I nonetheless considered. “Lack of . . . T/T type psionics, I suppose. They’re the most useful for investigations.”

“Why doesn’t PILEA have many T/T psionics?”

I frowned. “There’s not enough of them in society. P-rating tests rarely shown them up. Why are you asking me this?”

“Bear with me, Mauran. Not enough T/T psionics because there aren’t enough of them in society.”

“Plus, existing T/T types tend to blaze easily . . . they can get affected by what they feel and hear and some minds just can’t cope with it. They break down –“

“Then what?”

“It depends what happens to them, but they sometimes go into institutions run by NITA, to help them rehabilitate, or public institutions if they’re unlucky.” I looked back at her. “What has all this got to do with Bader-Cameron Associates?”

            The Hunter gave me a solemn look. “Do you want to hear something crazy, Mauran?”

            “Go ahead.”

            “What if someone was making sure there weren’t many T/T types in society? What if someone, somehow was ensuring the number of “official” T/T types was kept down?”

            I stared at her. “Wh – what? How could somebody do that? It’s impossible, they’re –“

            “How about,” said the Hunter, “someone with access to, oh, I don’t know – pharmaceutical research companies? Companies researching certain drugs and chemicals which could inhibit psionic ability? Some company, perhaps, who gets records from PILEA through its financial assistance and is able to find T/T types and – what was the word you used? – ‘blaze’ them, with the use of other drugs?”

            Sickened, I could say nothing. For once, I was completely lost for words. Finally, I struggled out: “Why?”

            “Why?” agreed the Hunter. “Why? Why would anyone want to do such a heinous thing? I have a new question for you, Mauran. How often does PILEA check up on blazed T/T psionics in their separate rehabilitation institutions? Don’t worry, I’ll answer for you. Hardly ever. So PILEA never finds out that eventually they are removed, and the records altered to show their deaths from suicide, or another inmate’s actions or whatever. Via computers, with special programs used to randomly generate scenarios, which are then checked by human technicians and implemented. While they are living, healthy if not happy, in housing provided by Bader-Cameron Associates. Along with people whose psionic T/T ability was repressed while young, after being randomly picked while they were having their P-rating tested, and who had subsequently lost their minds along with their gifts.”

            Chilled, I shakily asked the question I did not want an answer to. “Then what happens to them?”

            The Hunter lifted up the back of her hair, which flowed like liquid light on her hand. I saw a small surgical incision in her scalp where it was not immediately visible.

            “Tests,” she said, solemnly. “Tests done to into repressing intelligence, and increasing ability. All to create someone who has the IQ of a small child coupled with the psionic power of a god. Then – who knows? What do you do with someone who can topple buildings when their temper gets out of control?”

            “You teach them.” I didn’t say it – I was sure I didn’t, but the words came from somewhere. “You show them how to use their gift, in the way you want them to, as they’re not intelligent enough to object.” I covered my face with my free hand, and felt the hot salt tears. I sensed the Hunter come closer on the bed.

            “It doesn’t happen to every T/T,” she said softly. “Enough are allowed to keep their intelligence, to keep their cover. PILEA and NITA just think it’s a genetic anomaly, so T/T types are treated in special ways and given special training. Bader-Cameron just waist, then picks a few of the best, one or two, and introduce the correct chemicals and hormones to blaze them. The rest are allowed to live their lives, and die happily.”

            She sighed. “I never knew what happened to me. I never found out why they let me live after I woke up with no memory and they discovered I had a genius IQ coupled with enough psionic talent to blow up a city. I never knew. I just knew what the other inmates told me, the ones that could, explaining what Bader-Cameron had done, and why. So I left. I took the thousand memories I had from the institute and broke out one night, with six floppy disks and a portfolio of names. The people I killed, Mauran, were the ones who masterminded it, or their protégés. They were carrying on the work – they were the key figures. I killed them for what they had done. For the hundreds of people they had harmed, for the lives they had destroyed. I showed them who I was, then made them feel it. I gave them the pain of a dozen of their victims, gave them the anguish, made them hurt before they died. And from each one I got five more names to my list.”

            I sat in silence for a long moment, lost, immobile. “If I had known . . . if I had only known. Oh god, I’m sorry. If I – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

            “If you had known,” said the Hunter, “you would have died too. They’d have hunted you down as you hunted me. But I forgive you, Mauran. Because, in another place, in another life, I would have done the same to you. So I forgive you, Mauran.”

            I turned to her and we hugged each other, both crying, both desperate, both exhausted. Then I felt it . . . a touch on the side of my mind, a familiar touch that someone else had laid on me. I heard her say, softly: “There’s just one condition.”

*****

And then I was back.

            The strange light had gone, and the Hunter was no longer a burning vision of power, but an almost lifeless husk lying in a hospital bed, her hand loose around mine. The oxygen mask was back in place. Very faintly, I could the last echo of the minds I had sensed, and then they were gone.

            It was over.

            I stood up and realised something entirely welcome: my back didn’t hurt. Puzzled, I flexed the muscles and tensed. The pain had completely gone. Confused, I touched the hard bulb of flesh where I had been shot. Still there, and still sore – but gone was the searing agony of earlier today. It had been replaced by a greater anguish.

            None of us had ever suspected it. Bader-Cameron Associates, a sleeping giant – no, an ogre, that dragged innocent children away to be eaten, either during their P-rating tests or –

            Oh no.

I froze in horror. I remembered what Lisa had said. - He’s got his P-grading today –

Jamie . . . he was up for his rating today. And with both Lisa and Rob being psionic, there was a chance that he was . . .

Frantically, I tried to find her, searching like a beacon in the night, but I couldn’t find her. Now seriously worried, I tried again. There was no response from Lisa. It was like listening into a dead line. I ran blindly out of the door, past a surprised Jackson, and into the lift. Zack Curtis slid in beside me just as I punched the button.

            “Mauran! What is it?”

            “Can you reach Lisa Howell?”

            I watched as he glanced off into space for a moment, then frowned. “No, she must be –“

            “I have to get hold of her. Where’s your mobile?” Snatching it off him, I punched in the office number and waited. Three rings.

            “Is something wrong?”

            “You bet your ass there’s something wrong.” Seven rings.

            “Is it to do with the Hunter?”

            “Yes.”

The ninth ring, and someone was answering. “Lisa Howell’s office.”

“Who is this?” I demanded.

            “Red McKendrick. Who -?”

            “This is Agent Cooper. I need to reach Lisa Howell. It’s an emergency and I can’t find her.”

            “She went home to pick up her little boy.”

            “I know. I need to reach her right now, Red, get an agent over to her house if you have to.” I broke the connection and punched in another number. “Rob?”

            “Mauran?”

            “Thank god. Where’s Lisa?”

            “She’s gone home to get Jamie for his P-rating. She said she –“

            “You have to get him home, Rob. Right now. I’ll explain later, but you cannot let him take that test.

            “But – what – I’ll get him. It’s being held at his school, so I’ll have to –“

            I hung up and tossed the phone to Zack. “I need you to take me back to my house. I have some portfolios to collect. What’s the speed limit around here?”

*****

Twenty minutes later, Zack paused at my driveway while I jumped out. “Thank you for the ride. I’ll pay you for the calls –“

“Mauran?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Whatever happened in there . . . you look much better.”

            “Thanks, Zack. Get back to PILEA headquarters and tell head office I’ll be there in a few minutes. I have a report they’ll want to see.”

            “I’ll tell them.”

He pulled away as I ran up my driveway towards the house, pulling my keys from my coat. I had to get the files from the Hunter’s victims, the scanned images I had strapped around my house, and a –

The door was open.

I stared at the lock. There were a few bright scratches around the lock, where the wire used to pick it had slipped. I glanced behind me, but Zack had already gone, and calling him back now would only delay him.

I touched my hip, but remembered I had left my gun in the house.

One hand slid out and pushed the door slowly open. I stepped inside, breathing the violated air. Somehow, I doubted any ordinary thief had come in, not when I was so close to blowing the whole thing wide open. I wondered who had taken the trouble to pick the lock, who had come into my home and might or might not still be here.

I opened the drawer in the hall table and took out a letter knife. A puny weapon, but anything sharp was useful when you could use TK. Grasping it in my hand, I advanced slowly into the living room. Everything was orderly, as I had left it. But the door was open. I never left the door open.

One step inside.

Every sense was alert and quivering. My eyes were everywhere.

Three steps, and I was heading for the kitchen.

On the sixth step, I was on the threshold of the door to the study. I turned my head slowly inside, and then my eyes found Lisa. She was slumped on the floor, gagged and bound, her blond hair bloodstained from a blow from behind. She wouldn’t have been able to hear whoever it was that attacked her. My gorge rose.

The phone was close by.

I half turned.

I turned, and was suddenly in a world of white with noxious vapours filling my mouth. A chloroform pad was being held hard over my face while someone yanked my sleeve up. I fought like a cat, even as I felt the sting of a needle, even as I felt the chloroform knocking me out, even as I clawed at leather gloves in an effort to free myself, even as I sensed the floor rushing up to meet me, letter knife falling from my hand as I realised I couldn’t throw my attacker away from me.

            I slumped to the ground.

            The world went grey.

*****

Sleepily, I turned my head from side to side, then noticed that I was awake, and in a very uncomfortable position. Opening my eyes, I realised that I was bound to one of my dining room chairs, my hands tied behind me, my ankles tied together and to the chair legs. My back was hurting considerably, particularly in the unwelcome position. I wasn’t gagged, but outrage had done a pretty good job. I looked around the room and saw that on my coffee table, someone had laid out a case of equipment. Medical equipment. I saw hypodermics, ampoules of amber liquid, prophylactic gloves, a cloth thrown over something small and bulky and, chillingly, a set of scalpels.

            I woke up very quickly.

Turning my head to one side, I concentrated on one of them, intending to bring it close enough to cut me free. To my surprise, it didn’t move. I tried again, this time pulling with all of my psionic ability. It didn’t as much as twitch.

            Someone was coming downstairs, leisurely. I listened, quietly fuming, as the living room door opened.

            “Hello, Mauran.”

            I looked up and saw the face I had been wondering about. The face I could cheerfully have cut open, right now. I watched him walk around the room and sit opposite me, on the other side of the medical equipment.

“Hello, Jack.”

            He stretched out, looking quite pleased with himself. “I wouldn’t try moving these, if I were you,” he said calmly, tapping the medical case near the scalpels. “And you were, weren’t you? I would, so I know it’s the first thing you’d think of.”

            “Yes, I was,” I said. I was exercising a fascinating amount of self-restraint. “Where’s Lisa?”

            “Safe upstairs. In your bedroom, actually. Sleeping, right now, under a good sedative.”

            “What have you done to her?”

            Jack gave me a lazy look. “I was incredibly tempted.”

            “You son of a bitch.”

            “Don’t worry. She’s quite unharmed. Even if I had given into my temptation, I wouldn’t have hurt her. I’m quite fond of Lisa, as you can imagine. I know that she’s a good friend of yours.”

            My hands were kneading the ropes, feeling the knots. Fury didn’t even begin to approach how I felt. “It was you, wasn’t it? You, in PILEA’s files, giving them the information they needed. You told them the names of the T/T types, and – you –“ My speech fell apart as my anger began to grind its teeth.

            “Thank you for shooting the Hunter,” said Jack, coldly. “You saved me god knows how much trouble. She was a loose end.”

            “She’s a hell of a lot more than that.”

            “I know what she is. What I couldn’t understand was why you were so morbidly fascinated with her. Unfortunate for you, Mauran. I actually like you a lot more than Lisa. She’s a little too – meek. Perfect assistant, perfect mother, perfect partner, perfect fucking life. You, on the other hand, are screwed-up enough to be interesting. I know you were interested in me, as well. Which is why this is going to be both fun and extremely sad at the same time.”

            I lunged forward, testing my bonds. They were nylon ropes, virtually unbreakable. I ground my skin against them, but I didn’t care. The pain ignited my anger and I flicked a glance at one of the scalpels. This time, it had to work. Jack watched serenely as I tried with every inch of me to get the scalpel to move. Finally, panting, exhausted, I slumped back in my seat. The thing hadn’t even tilted.

            “Finished?” he inquired.

            I just looked at him through hanks of hair.

            “You may be wondering why you can’t use your T/T abilities. That’s because your system is now trying to flush a drug called thelohydraline out of your bloodstream. A psionic inhibitor developed by Bader-Cameron Associates, pharmaceutical division. You won’t be able to move as much as a matchstick for a few days. Which should give me plenty of time.” He stood up.

            “Jack?” I asked, now worried if not actually frightened. “Mind telling me what you’re planning to do?”

            “I thought the Hunter had fully briefed you.” He took up a hypodermic and one of the ampoules, filling it carefully.

            I was almost physically sick as it hit me. The thought of going to a – no, it was too horrible. My mind was all I had, all I was.

            “Please, Jack, don’t do this.”

            “Don’t plead Mauran, it doesn’t become you.” He stepped around the table, flicking air from the syringe. “Now. This won’t hurt – it’s just a little top up for your medicine.”

            I moved away as far as I could, but he tutted and grabbed my arm. The needle stung, but I’d had worse. I had a feeling things weren’t over yet, though.

            “Hmmm.” Jack examined the floor. “Nice carpets you’ve got, Mauran. It’s a shame my little home surgery is going to make such a mess.” He went back to his medical kit.

            “Think what you’re about to do, Jack. You’re going to lobotomise one of your own kind. A psionic, like you. It’s worse than murder, Jack, you know what we teach them at PILEA . . .”

            I was begging and I hated myself for it. I sounded childish and weak. Worse, I was starting to babble. I forced myself to calm down, though under the circumstances it was quite a stupid thing to do.

            Then something very strange happened, on a day of strange things. I felt a great and good peace go through me, like dropping into bed at the end of a long, hard day, or coming home unexpectedly to a meal which someone you love has made for you. It was like afternoon sunlight, sleepy and golden. My head drooped slightly and I breathed more easily, as I wasn’t hyperventilating with fear. I thought it was acceptance, before I spoke again, without thinking.

            “You know, I’d be very grateful if you reconsidered.”

            He paused. Something in my tone had caught his attention.

            “Excuse me?”

            “Don’t be stupid, Jack, you said it yourself. There’s always been magnetism between you and me.”

            “You never cared. You’re just doing this to stop me.”

            I laughed, a light, carefree laugh quite unlike my usual one. “You’re right. But that doesn’t make me wrong.”

            He turned slowly away from the medical kit. “So you’re saying –“

            “ – that you and I could get on a lot better in future if you change your mind.”

            I caught an incredulous look in his eyes. My last lover had cheated on me and I had broken his nose in three places when I found out. With my fist, mind you. Since then, I had lived alone, kept to myself while I worked on the Hunter. I wasn’t exactly known for my caring, loving personality. Even if he hadn’t already threatened to lobotomise me, he would have been wary of any kind of advance I made. Still . . . I thought I saw a familiar look in his eyes.

            “You mean that?” he asked, as if I thought he was stupid.

            “Of course I mean it,” I replied, my voice quiet enough to draw him closer. His mind touched mine, but the drugs were keeping all my cerebral processes at a minimum, and he couldn’t read a thing.

            “You really must think very little of me,” he sneered suddenly. “As if I’d fall for a trick like that!” A contemptuous laugh, and he turned away.

            “A kiss, then,” I called, wondering where my words were coming from.

            “Don’t make me laugh.” He was choosing a scalpel like a rare and expensive cut of meat.

            “I’m about to lose most of my higher brain functions. I’d like to enjoy what time I have left, and I’d like my last kiss to be with you.”

            He stopped moving for a moment. I could tell he was tempted.

            “No.”

            “So you’re a lousy kisser. Who am I going to tell?”

            “Look!” He brandished the blade in his hand at me. “I can either make this hurt, or make this quick. You choose. Stop talking and I’ll make it quick.”

            “Please, Jack.”

            This time I got through to him. I knew vulnerable women appealed to him, and he turned around slowly. As if this was a chore, he moved over towards me and gave me a quick peck on the lips. Then he drew back, and looked at me. I could see him remembering all the years we had worked together and he leaned in for a second time. The sunlight welled up in my veins and I moved forwards again, our lips close.

Something burst through me like a rushing dam, shoving me aside within my own mind and flew at Jack. It hit him between the eyes like a jolt of electricity, punching everything else aside. We screamed in concert, me in terror at what was happening, him in pain which wasn’t worth imagining. I could feel it, like static electricity pouring through me, like lighted oil, like everything powerful and burning and terrible. It didn’t stop. It wouldn’t stop.

Jack went on screaming, as some horrific psionic power lifted him off his feet with the strength of its own fury. His hands tried to claw at his face, his eyes, but something held them back while it poured in, knowing only itself, only what it could do – which was to hurt him, and drag his soul through a torment so dark it didn’t bear thinking about. I could only wonder in fear at what he was seeing or hearing, as some unnamed psionic terror took his life away.

Then it stopped.

Everything stopped.

***** 

I remember very little of what happened next. All I can dredge up is a roaring in my ears, the ropes falling away like dead snakes, and feeling Lisa’s mind upstairs. After that I think I passed out.

            The police and PILEA came an hour or so later that evening, alerted by Rob. They found Lisa upstairs, unconscious, and myself and Jack in the living room. I was close to death, they whispered in the ambulance. I wouldn’t make it through the night, they thought.

            And I wondered: How is it I can hear them when the drugs haven’t been flushed?

            My back didn’t hurt at all.

*****

I woke up alone in a hospital ward three days later, dizzy and restless. For two hours no doctor or nurse checked up on me, and I had time with my thoughts.

            I knew what had happened to Jack, just by what I had heard-sensed while I was under. Comatose, they said. A large section of his brain had just died under an influx of some kind of energy. With it had died his ability to communicate, his higher brain functions, his psionic abilities and his problem solving skills. He was little better than a human husk, doomed to the rest of his life being spent in cold institutions. And I knew why. The Hunter had told me. There’s just one condition, she’d said, and then I’d come out of whatever trance she’d put me in. Only I hadn’t, not right away. She’d placed her ability in me, enough to do the job, to take out the last target in her lonely quest for revenge. Her gift had overloaded Jack’s mind on purpose, and blazed him. Taken everything that made him a person, and left him still alive, her last and most fitting punishment.

            I cried for a little while, then went back to sleep.

*****

I was discharged a week later, after my back had been examined and my brain for physiological damage. I explained what had happened the best I could, but psionics make bad witnesses in stress situations like that, and they eventually concluded that Jack had tried to sedate me with his ability, but had blazed himself by accident. I knew it was impossible, but I kept my mouth shut.

            Some things are better left untold.

*****

Three weeks later, after Lisa had returned to work, shaken but otherwise fine, after I had written and filed my report on the T/T crisis – and caused a media feeding frenzy – and after I had finally been ordered to take leave after my experience, I was woken one night by a strange sensation. It felt as if my heart was beating in a disordered rhythm. Sitting up I tried to modulate my breathing, but it didn’t make any difference. The next second I was in pain, and then nothing hurt any more. Even my back, which was still twitchy, kept its peace.

            I looked up and she was standing there, psionic residue, ghost or whatever she was in the first place. The Hunter. My fugitive, my enemy, my ally, my confidante. I could see through her, and I knew she was dead. I told myself I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not, but I knew I wasn’t. She was here, and she was here for the last time.

            I blinked and she was gone. Who knew where? Where do such people go? I don’t know, and I think any God who judges her will sit in court for a long, long time. Her heart will weigh strangely on the scales of justice, and I know whatever happens to her will be the right decision. She will stand by it, because that is who she is.

 Since the Hunter used me to destroy Jack Pallance, my psionic abilities have roughly doubled. I can do things that frighten and amaze even those who are like me. But I didn’t get these gifts for the record books. I know what to do with them. I have a list of names, in my mind. I can see the people, their faces and their house numbers. I know who they are. Because she wants me to know. I am her protégée, and the wrong has not been righted yet.

            It will be legally done, of course. The law is my life.

            But they had better pray I somehow pass them by.

 

 

The End


Ó 2000 by Joanna Berry

I'm a student from the UK working through A levels at the moment and trying to find time to write in between. My usual theme of writing is speculative / science fantasy, but I'm also trying to explore archaeological and film noir ideas. I draw as well as write, and my work in both areas is displayed on my website, the Hypergate. Other interests include going out with my friends, my family (plus my two cats), music, ancient cultures, and astronomy. I'd love to be a professional writer, but I'd settle for actually getting all my ideas down on paper :)

 

Address for the Hypergate is http://jump.to/hypergate