Читать книгу The Green Memory of Fear - B. A. Chepaitis - Страница 7

Chapter 2

The Planetoid atmosphere, created through a mass generator, had spit out a hot day. On Wednesday morning Jaguar stood in heavy humidity on Yonge street, staring at a bronze and gold silk pantsuit in a store window as the sun pressed against the back of her neck.

She’d woken early to finish her final report on her last assignment, then decided to take care of a few errands downtown. She was almost done when she was captured by the outfit in the window of Wild Child Boutique.

She pressed a hand against the glass. Shimmering bronze and gold washed silk, pants and sleeveless top, perfectly cut. Simple as air.

“That would look so good on me,” she murmured. The color worked for her eyes and complexion, the silk was good for her skin, and the cut was right for her lean and muscular body. It looked comfortable, too. Easy to wear, without too many moving parts.

She went into the store, found her size, and tried it on. When she emerged, she was bearing a package and smiling. A good day. Her work was done, and the outfit was hers.

A steamy breeze ruffled the hair at the back of her neck in a friendly way. She tilted her head back and took in a good breath. She’d spent her adolescence in New Mexico, her childhood in Manhattan. She knew the heat of the mesas, the crowded streets, and the sweat lodge, and she liked them all. Today’s heat in particular seemed to hold a promise she wanted to take in, though she couldn’t name it. Whatever it was, it made her steps light and easy.

She went through her mental lists of other tasks to perform. License renewal, a physical training session. Maybe tonight she’d have dinner with her friend Rachel.

But no. There was something else she was supposed to do tonight. She frowned, trying to recapture elusive memory. Something important, she thought. Something she had a nagging feeling she was nervous about, which might be why she was inclined to forget it. The air tickled her neck, and the sun patted warmly at her back. It would come to her. If not, she’d look it up on her calendar when she got home. She hoped she remembered to put it in. She walked on.

As she neared the Teacher’s building where she’d go for training she felt a drop in heat. She glanced up and saw dark clouds clustering over the high buildings. She stopped at a corner and peered up at them. If it was a storm, it was moving fast. Like great shadows of wings flying low over the buildings.

She glanced at the people walking past her. They smiled and nodded, no disturbance in their faces. She turned back to the darkening sky and felt an encroaching cold wrap her skin. Not a cloud. Something living. Something unpleasant. She wanted to run, get under cover fast because this felt like terror about to swallow her whole. Then, a voice, stopping her.

Jaguar. Here.

That voice. She’d heard it in her apartment not too long ago. The voice of a little girl.

Jaguar.

She held herself still against her own fear. “Who is it?” she asked.

It’s me, Jaguar. Here. Look.

She scanned the street to her left, her right, behind her. Traffic moved along the road and overhead. People passed, heels clicking against cement. They noticed nothing wrong. Whatever was going on was just for her.

Right in front of you. It’s me.

There. Dead ahead, standing in the middle of the sidewalk facing her.

A little girl, maybe eleven years old, wearing a grey and red checked dress. No shoes. Long mousy hair partially obscuring a very pale heart-shaped face, with large dark eyes, eyes full of shadows. Behind her, darkness shimmered, as if she’d emerged from it.

There weren’t many children here. The facilities for accommodating them were limited, so seeing a child alone on the streets was unusual. Even more unusual was her dress.

“That’s my dress,” Jaguar murmured. “I had that dress.”

She remembered the pattern and texture. It was her favorite. She was wearing it when she ran out of her apartment in Manhattan, leaving her grandparent’s dead bodies behind.

“Why are you wearing my dress?” she called and the girl turned and scampered away.

Jaguar trotted after her, reaching out subvocally. Wait. Tell me what you want. Don’t run away.

Again that laughter, watery and bright. Jaguar kept moving, pushing people out of her way as she went. The girl turned a corner and Jaguar followed until she found herself in a long alley. The girl stood at the far end. She lifted her hand and pointed down.

Look, Jaguar. For you.

Jaguar looked down. A newspaper had wrapped itself around her ankle. She reached for it and saw a headline.

PSYCHIATRIST TO STAND TRIAL.

Under the headline was a picture of a man who was perhaps fifty, more or less. He held a hand out in a gesture of negation. Warding off journalists, Jaguar thought. His name was Dr. Thomas Senci.

She grabbed the paper and held it up to ask the little girl about it, but she was gone. And when Jaguar looked down at her hand, so was the newspaper.

She rubbed her fingers together. They could still feel the paper between them. She looked down the alley. Nobody was there. She was alone. She scanned the sky. The darkness was gone, too. She walked back onto the street.

Somebody, she thought, wanted to tell her something. “Okay,” she murmured. “I’ll bite.”

It was easy enough for her to find out about Dr. Senci. If he was standing trial for anything serious he’d already be in the Planetoid files. They tracked all cases that might end up here.

She stopped and hailed a cab, which took her to the Planetoid offices. Once inside, she made her way to the computer research room in the basement, found a screen and punched in her code.

“May I be of assistance?” the computer asked.

“No vocalization, please,” Jaguar said before she could stop herself. Alex always said please to the computers and apparently she’d caught the habit, though she’d told him the computer didn’t give a rat’s ass. He did, he said. It reminded him of the importance of courtesy.

“Voicebox shutdown,” the computer said, and was silent.

Jaguar went to the prelim area and keyed in the name Senci. The same picture she’d seen in the newspaper appeared on screen, along with information on his case. The charges—child molestation—made it clear why he was in their files already. All pedophiles were shunted to the Planetoid system these days, and most of them to Planetoid 3. What they did was much more effective than anything the home planet could offer, and the home planet was glad enough to get rid of them.

Dr. Thomas Senci, a neuropsychologist, was being charged with sexual abuse of a twelve year old boy who was his patient. That charge was seen as more pertinent in Planetoid terms because Senci had also recently been investigated for murder conspiracy because four of his other patients, all boys between the ages of 12 and 16, had gone on a killing spree, spreading laser fire around a fast-food restaurant. When the body count was totaled fourteen people were dead, including the boys, who had killed themselves.

One remaining patient—a boy of 13—said Dr. Senci asked him to participate in the killing but he refused. That boy’s diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia ended up discrediting his claim, so the charges against Senci weren’t pursued, but they made the Provincial prosecuting attorney more amenable to trying the new charge of sexual abuse. The identity of the boy charging him was being shielded from the public. Further reading told her Senci’s information had already gone to the testers, which meant odds were high for a conviction.

Jaguar contemplated the face on the computer screen and asked the imaging program to turn it half right. This gave her a projected image of his full face. She considered it, and requested hard copy of that, and his folder. Medical records, fingerprints, employment history, one more photo, rolled out of the printer. There was as yet no psychological profile.

Staring at his photo gave her a slight queasiness, and a feeling of something familiar. Had she seen him somewhere? She was generally good at remembering faces, but she couldn’t place this one. She put it away and went back to the computer screen. If she chased it, it would elude her. Whatever it was would be visible in time.

The end of the report gave a place where Planetoid researchers could sign up if they were interested in conducting the preliminary research. Whoever got the job would do interviews, create a personality profile and a narrative account of the trial, slated for two weeks hence, for use here if he was convicted.

Her hand paused. She didn’t do research. She was a Teacher, not a note taker. So she always said. Somewhere in the empty room, she heard a scuttling sound.

Are you ready, Jaguar?

The queasiness grew stronger. Her hands moved on the keys, typing her name in.

“Ready when you are,” she answered.

* * * *

The next person to visit the computers was team member Rachel Shofet, who was updating preliminary files for her zone.

Rachel always claimed she hadn’t a bit of empath in her. She was just lucky. In this case, she was utilizing the bank of computers only because her own was getting its annual servicing today. And though she had no idea she’d just missed Jaguar, didn’t notice the keyboards were still warm from her fingers, couldn’t pick up on what an empath would detect as the most obvious signs of her presence, she did notice the Senci case had an applicant for prelimary researcher.

“Jaguar?” she asked it. Something odd there. She’d been both a coworker and friend to Jaguar for many years, and knew she never took research assignments.

Rachel tapped on the desk and thought. She usually sent files electronically to Alex’s computer so he could look at them on his own schedule and dole out assignments accordingly. This one she printed out as hard copy, and walked it upstairs to his office.

She knocked on his door, heard his voice, and stepped inside.

“Hey,” she said, “What’s Jaguar got to do with Dr. Senci?”

Alex, head bent over his computer, regarded her vaguely. “Another riddle?” he asked.

“What?” Rachel said.

“Never mind. What about Jaguar?”

Rachel tossed the paper on his desk. “Look at that,” she said.

He scanned it, saw Jaguar’s name. He also knew she avoided research like the plague, unless it was unofficial research into a topic that tickled her personal fancy. Like the rings of Saturn. Or varieties of mint. Or Greenkeepers.

“What’s he being tried for?” Alex asked.

“Child molestation. Your basic pedophile, it looks like. The Medical Board acts as judiciary panel, but it’s a criminal trial. Toronto’s system is strange.”

“Strange,” Alex agreed. He thought about riddles, like how do you tell the difference between a pedophile and a Greenkeeper.

“What do you think?” Rachel asked. “Why’d she sign up for it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll ask her tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“We’re going out.”

“Out?”

“To dinner. I’ll ask her. I think.” He paused. Was it protocol to ask why she was lying about her interest in vampires while they were on their first date? He rubbed his hand over his face.

“Going out?” Rachel repeated.

He raised an eyebrow at her, dared her to comment.

Rachel tucked her lower lip under her teeth, then released it. “Oh,” she said. “Then, I can probably have it for you in an hour or so.”

“Did I ask for something, Rachel?”

“No,” she said. “But I figured you’d want the full file on Senci. And I’d suggest that blue shirt with the salamander design on the sleeve. It’s a great color for your eyes.”

She turned and left, while Alex took a moment to thank all available deities that Rachel wasn’t an empath. She was dangerous enough as it was.