Clean: A Mindspace Investigations Novel (32 page)

“She’s my lieutenant,” I said pointedly, out loud. “If she asks me, she gets the truth.”
Either deal with it or shun me,
I told him privately, accepting the pain the sending caused me. I was running out of telepathic juice quickly, but this guy was being an asshole. Probably learned it in a Guild class, “How to Be an Asshole to Outsiders.”

“If you’ll excuse us?” Paulsen asked the guys. When they didn’t move, she said, “I’d like you to stand on the other side of the room. Now.”

They reluctantly moved—but closer to the furniture, to the machines I could see on the other side of the grouping. The machines were the only thing in the
warehouse I could see that didn’t look brand-new. I was hoping these were the Guild’s, though I couldn’t see Bradley abandoning something so valuable without a fight.

Those what you looking for?
I sent them, trying not to give away the effort.
If we need to be looking for something else, I need to know about it.

There was a long pause, and the blond telepath sent a wave of distaste.

Look, I don’t want these things out there any more than you do.

Another pause, and his fellow finally spoke.
These are it. Everything that’s missing.

I closed my eyes in relief. Then I noticed the low-level projections they were sending out.
You’re messing with their minds, keeping them from seeing the machines,
I observed.

So?

So, don’t. Put a sheet over it. Stand there. Do what you have to do. But leave these people alone.
I let him see the ruckus I’d make with his bosses, and mine, if he didn’t. My head was pounding, and if he got a taste of it, tough for him.

He turned away, the other guy with him, with tense body language. But, slowly, subtly, the projection backed off, until it was a shadow of its former strength. I’d made my point. They stood facing each other, talking to each other mind to mind, probably about me. I didn’t care; I couldn’t hear them, and the body language of a conversation without words didn’t bother me. Still, they were pretty blatant—some of the techs sidled away. Normal people didn’t really like telepaths, especially when they didn’t bother to blend; I’d learned that the hard way.

“The truth, huh?” Paulsen brought my attention
back to her. “There’s something going on with those guys, and I’m expecting you to keep me apprised. Now. Can you do the fish-tank thing?”

“The what?”

“The fish tank. With the honey. Where you can see where someone teleported—what do you call it?”

Ah, she was referring to the metaphor from earlier. “The pucker. Yeah, I can do that. I think. I’m not exactly… at full capacity. The other—”

“
Be
at full capacity. If there’s even a chance in hell Bradley will lead us to Cherabino, we’re going to hunt him down.” Her determination had a hard edge, an edge I didn’t really want to test. “You need to do your thing now.”

Of course she chose now to trust me. Could I do this? Physically, could I? “I need a clear warehouse at minimum,” I said, my tone very flat. “No techs—and sure as hell not those two.”

“I can do clear.” She put two fingers to her lips and whistled—piercingly.

I winced. And every person in the warehouse—maybe twenty officers and techs—turned around.

“Everybody out!” Paulsen yelled. “The teep needs space to work!”

“Telepathic expert,” I corrected.

“You can call yourself the Grand Vizier of Tokyo, for all I care,
after
you find my officer.”

Completely ignoring protocol, Paulsen traipsed over, grabbed the sleeves of both of the self-important Guild guys, and frog-marched them to the door a hundred feet away. They pulled away and leaned on the wall next to the door, staring at her. Paulsen settled in, arms crossed, and waited.

Now I had to deliver.

Beyond the ashtray and table were other groupings of furniture, some of which looked like a scene from a hospital, some like rooms in a house. All far too new, as if they’d been bought and transported here recently.

I walked around them, slowly. I was working up the courage to go back down, deep into Mindspace, deeper than I’d gone in a while, to face up to the real possibly I might not be able to do it. I had to conquer the fear in my head before I tried it in Mindspace, or I might ruin any chance I had to succeed. I couldn’t shake the idea that I could have done this, easily, in the old days. But now…I had to believe I could do this. I had to. Cherabino couldn’t afford for me to fail.

My steps on the concrete floor echoed against the steel-barred roof. The air was hot and stale, as if central air conditioning was an afterthought, and a bad one at that.

I passed rows and rows of medical supplies, like props for a bad soap opera. A low gurney marked with someone’s death. And finally, a grouping that smelled of death and pain.

A tall machine dominated, its empty flat green screen like a terrible eye. Racks of parts were arranged in a long circle on either side, hundreds of electronic things that gave me the willies. And in the center, a chair, like a dentist’s chair with straps, sat in front of the machine, lead wires trailing out of it like a scene from a bad horror movie. Two lines of blood stained the fabric of the head of the chair where someone’s ears would have been. I shuddered, and hurried to the next grouping, and the next.

Finally, in the far corner—next to a pile of old boards—was a particularly dirty patch of floor that felt
familiar. I knelt down, and bent even farther down to smell the ground directly. Chalky gray dusty dirt, with the incredibly faint tinge of chloroform.

I eased into Mindspace. Sure enough, the space was covered in her presence, like fine perfume. Cherabino had been here—and
I
had been here. Not very long ago.

And behind me, less than two feet from the back of my head, was a hole, a little hole, rapidly turning into a Mindspace pucker. The Cherabino-feeling was slowly draining into that hole.

“You want to
what
?” Paulsen looked as confused as if she’d just found a squirrel with an old-fashioned nutcracker.

“Getting Cherabino back is the priority, right? Not the politics?”

“Okay, sorry, back up. Not the politics,” Paulsen said. “That’s what the captain’s for. And if you can get Cherabino back in one piece, neither one of us cares who we have to screw. But”—she opened her mouth and held up a hand—“you want to
what
?”

“Look, we don’t have a lot of time. They Jumped Cherabino out with at least one really strong teleporter—probably Bradley. Maybe more. And the Guild’s not sending anybody. Kara can follow someone else’s Jump—usually—and she let Bradley get away. I have to call her
now
, if this has any chance. But she is Guild, Lieutenant, and officially they’re not sending anybody for a couple hours. The politics could—”

“Screw the politics! Call your ex,” Paulsen interrupted. “
I’ll
ask her if that’s what we need. Hell, we’ll take up a collection.”

I walked back out, past the two telepaths, while Paulsen kept the techs away from the area.

I sat on the scratched loading dock, feet hanging off the cold concrete side, and called the Guild main phone line on the warehouse’s beat-up handset.

The phone rang for forever before the operator picked up. I asked him to connect me to Kara’s private number—something they never, never did. I explained why I needed it.

“Hello?” Kara’s voice answered. She sounded tired.

I caught her up. “We have a matter of minutes before the pucker runs out. There’s nobody else who can be here fast enough. The Battle Ops guys say nobody’s coming on their end.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Kara asked.

I took a breath. “Look, I need you to help me here. Cherabino’s life is on the line. I can’t…She can’t die, Kara. I have to save her. I have to come through this time. I have to.”

After a pause, Kara blew out a long line of air. “Give me two minutes to call Logan, and then let me do a ‘grab’—be
open
this time, okay?”

Who was Logan? I fought not to respond with a biting comment; that time had been her fault. But she didn’t have to come at all. I could deal with her, with whatever she said, if she’d come. Finally I settled for saying, “I’ll be here,” and hung up. One of the cops carried the phone back inside the dock.

I took a deep breath, queasy. That link with Cherabino? Well, it was nothing to what I’d once had with Kara; nothing at all. I thought I would marry Kara—I thought we would literally be bound together
forever.
As much as had happened since then, some of that was permanent—nothing ever quite went away in Mindspace. Repressed, blocked off as it was, that link was the only reason this would work—she could find me anywhere in the world and Jump there. But the process
was much less dangerous for everyone if I was open—if I helped.

I carefully ignored the telepaths just a few yards behind me and spent a few moments remembering. Visualizing all of the happy/painful memories of when we were together, when we were truly together at the height of our happiness; the memories twisted like a serrated knife. I followed the feeling of
Kara
to stand directly in front of the mental door I’d walled off years ago. I pulled down about a third of the bricks—painfully, breaking metaphorical fingernails—and then suddenly, recklessly, dropped every shield I had.

I was open.

I was open, damn it! I was standing open and vulnerable to the world—now would be a good time, Kara.

She rushed through the door, over the bricks, and
grabbed
my mind, my position.
Not
gently. My vision doubled as I staggered under the pain.

Then she appeared with the sound of
crashing
air—pop!—right next to me on the open loading dock. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. Her tone—if not her mind itself—made it more than clear she wasn’t. Her husband wasn’t exactly thrilled her ex-boyfriend was calling her to go on random adventures.
If you get me in trouble, I swear to you—!—

She was married? It hit me like a blow.

You never asked,
she replied, bitingly.
Woman’s life at stake here, remember?

Fine.

She stalked past me into the painfully bright warehouse, taking the position of the pucker directly from my mind.

I took the time to rebuild my defenses from the
ground up—every last layer—and put most of those bricks back in place. I wanted
some
layers between us, link or no link. We weren’t the people we were all those years ago, and I did
not
want her in my head one iota more than necessary.

When I caught up, Kara was arguing with the dark-haired telepath.

“Look, Rashim—I can only carry one. If I’m going in, I need professional backup.”

A pause while Rashim said something mind to mind. Paulsen stood to the side, uncomfortable and rapidly approaching anger.

Kara shook her head and made a point of speaking out loud where Paulsen could hear her. “Bradley is a public menace. He almost certainly has an entire team waiting for us. Surely you can spare
one
of you away from the machines. I can have another telepath here in a half hour. Ten guys, if you like.”

“Machines?” Paulsen asked. She wasn’t happy and showed it. “Look, my officers—”

Rashim cut her off. “The
equipment
is our priority right now. Recovering the Guild’s property is our primary responsibility. Bradley won’t get far.”

Paulsen bristled. “How do you—”

“He’s a Jumper!” I said. Come on. “A strong one. For all we know he could Jump to the space station and leave even the Guild’s jurisdiction. We need to follow him. Now.” And as much as I was pained to admit it, in my current state one of them was worth two of me. But. “Are you going? We need to move now. Not in five minutes. Now.”

I looked at the blond guy eye to eye and sent painfully:
That’s my partner out there, we’re not leaving her.

Like a cut from a dull knife, his thought returned:
Do what you have to do. We have to get these machines out of here
.

“Fine,” Paulsen said. She waved Michael over and handed me a small wrapped bundle from his pack. “You two get going. Cherabino is your priority, understand? My officer’s life and then the perp. Bring me back both.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When I caught up to Kara, she was kneeling in the dust, looking at a spot of empty air very intently, for all the world like a house cat with a dust bunny. The dirty gray spot she was staring at held the pucker, just a few feet over the dirty ground.

Kara knocked politely on my shields.

I opened up just enough.
What?

Need to borrow your link.

I glared at her but allowed her to take what she needed. I thought of Cherabino, the way she smelled….

And there we were, the tail end of a connection through the disappearing spot in Mindspace—like a yellow rope to nowhere.

Kara warned me mentally, then grabbed me in a bear hug. She smelled like flowers.

The world blinked out,
twisted
, collapsed; between one blink and the next, we arrived.