A Lunatic Fear Read online

  Alex nodded, and signed off. He put in a quick call to Rachel to update her, and when he was done with that he spent a minute tapping his finger against the edge of his desk. An image of Jaguar came into his mind, and he heard her say this was a three body problem - moon, earth, and planetoid. For him, the triad was governors, prisoners, and corporations. He’d taken care of two, and now it was time for corporations.

  He asked his telecom to reach La Femme personnel headquarters, and it made the connection.

  A very smooth, fair face filled his viewscreen and showed him a perfect set of teeth. “May I help you?” the face asked, looking as if it really wanted to help any way at all.

  “Maybe you can,” Alex said. “I’m Supervisor Dzarny, calling from Planetoid Three. We have a prisoner here who worked for La Femme, and she arrived without her personnel records. Can you track those down for me? And I’ll need to speak with her supervisor, maybe some of her co-workers.”

  The smile showed itself again and the face nodded. “We’re glad to cooperate with the legal system, Supervisor. I’ll put you through to the appropriate party.”

  Her face disappeared, but was soon replaced by one almost exactly like it, also looking eager to be of assistance.”

  “Supervisor Dzarny,” an equally smooth voice said. “I’m Janet Crowly, Personnel director.”

  “So nice to meet you,” Alex said. “Were you told why I called?”

  “Yes, and we’ve confirmed your ID, so we can proceed, if you’ll give me the prisoner’s name.”

  “Karena Halsey,” Alex said.

  The smooth face showed some tension. “I sent a note to your researcher, didn’t I?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Did you?”

  “I believe so. Yes, I’m certain I did.”

  “Maybe it got lost. Tell me what it said.”

  “Karena’s file was expunged. I – I checked three times. It’s not there.”

  Alex knit his brow and made himself look imposing. “Ms. Crowly, this is a serious legal matter.”

  Under her perfect makeup, she blanched. “I know. I just – I can’t explain it either. I don’t expunge personnel reports. I can’t. Nobody can, really, except-“

  “Except?” Alex asked.

  “Except nobody,” she said quickly.

  “I’d like to confirm that with some of your management people,” Alex said. “Can you put me through?”

  “Oh,” she said, her hand flying to her mouth. “Management?”

  “Get me your Liaison VP. That should do.”

  The screen went blank and soon another face appeared, slightly older but no less perfectly groomed. Only, he couldn’t see the teeth because this face wasn’t smiling. In fact, it looked grim.

  “Supervisor,” she said. “Margaret Riley. Janet tells me there’s a problem?” Her tone indicated that the very idea of a problem was in bad taste.

  “Regarding records for one of your former employees. Karena –“

  “Halsey. Yes. She was expunged from our files.”

  “So I understand. But Ms. Crowly tells me files aren’t ever expunged.”

  “Not by her. Under certain conditions our office will do so. In this case, we didn’t want her name associated with our products.”

  “Did it occur to you that you were depriving us of important information?”

  “No. We didn’t think of that,” she said, and her tone indicated that the Planetoids weren’t even a blip on their radar screen.

  “Yes,” Alex said. “Well, I’ll need her former supervisor to have a good long talk with my researcher. Can I arrange that now?”

  “Can you hold while I get him?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She disappeared from the screen and was replaced by a fractalling design, accompanied by a Bach fugue. The fractals spit out periodic logos or ad copy for various Global Concerns products, but Margaret returned before Alex was stricken with the urge to buy any of them. Her face looked more grim than it had before.

  “It will not be possible for your researcher to speak with Karena’s supervisor,” she said firmly.

  “Has he been expunged, too?” Alex asked.

  “In fact, he has. He’s with you.”

  Alex frowned. “More, please,” he requested.

  “Brendan Farley. He’s also on your Planetoid.”

  “Right,” Alex said. “Then I can take care of it here. Thank you so much for your time.”

  When he hung up, Alex felt the sting of sharpened awareness. There was little room for coincidence in this. He wondered what was going on at La Femme right now, how many people were buzzing around his inquiries, around the inquiries he knew Rachel had already made on Brendan. It wasn’t a bad thing, he knew, to fluff people up. Sometimes they reacted in useful ways. He debated putting in a few more calls, then decided against it. Instead, he’d let the corporate world did what it liked to do best: Buzz. Spin. Have meetings.

  They did just that.

  * * * *

  When Margaret Riley saw Alex’s face disappear from the screen, she thought she’d better apprise her local manager of the situation, in case it did become a legal matter. She punched in a number, and was put through a number of secretaries until she got him.

  “I’ve been receiving inquiries about Karena Halsey, and Brendan Farley,” she said. “I thought you might want to know.”

  The manager’s face stayed neutral, as did his tone. “Who is inquiring?” he asked.

  “Supervisor Dzarny from Planetoid Three. And one of his researchers wants to interview their co-workers. Should I allow it?”

  He considered for a moment, then said, “Give them what they want. And let me know if they want more.”

  “Very good,” Margaret said, and signed off.

  When she was gone, the manager drummed his fingers on his desk. He’d been given some names that were specifically of interest in Corporate headquarters, and both of these were on the list. He called his district manager and passed the information on. The district manager thought it best to let the buck pass from her desk to the next one up, and so on, until at last, the private secretary for CEO Lawrence Barone got the call.

  She was irritated at the interruption, which occurred when she was trying to proofread a rather tricky bit of lobbying verbiage, but she was trained to respond, and so she passed the message on immediately to his message box, where the buck stopped.

  In his office, when Larry Barone listened to the terse message, he sat at his desk and lowered his face into his hands. He’d been working hard, lobbying for the Hague repeal, and establishing a site off the home planet was crucial to those efforts. He couldn’t afford trouble with the Planetoids right now.

  He was told it would be simple. ‘Leave it to me. I’ll take care of everything,’ were the words his associate used. Planetoid people nosing around his offices wasn’t his idea of simple.

  His thoughts circled possibilities for danger or opportunity. He’d have to find out where the women were, who was working with them. He’d have to find out what Dzarny was up to. He’d have to decide if he could actually trust his associate who told him it would be simple. And he’d have to start figuring back-up plans, just in case.

  He rolled his shoulders around, trying to release the tension at the back of his neck. He was considering his next move when there was a quick knock on his door.

  “Come in,” he said.

  The door opened, and a woman in her early forties, with hair the color of wheat and a figure like the goddess who ruled that plant stepped onto the thick carpet of his office floor.

  He held a hand out, gesturing her to him. “Darling. Come in. Come in.”

  She closed the door behind her, and observed that he pressed the button to set the lock. She walked toward him, leaving her shoes at the door, her skirt at the rug in the middle of the room, and her blouse in front of his desk.

  He smiled as he removed his jacket and tie.

  “Miriam,” he said, sweeping hi
s arm across his desk to clear space, “Always such a treat.”

  * * * *

  Jaguar started the next sweat at dawn, waking up the women, who were bleary-eyed and still fundamentally nonverbal. She noticed that Karena’s hands were lined with dirt, her fingernails torn and paint peeling off, and she didn’t seem to mind. Jaguar picked up a handful of mud and spit into it, rolling it around her hand. She took a finger-full and smeared it on Karena’s face, painting her with jagged streaks of brown earth. Karena jerked back out of her reach.

  “Be still,” Jaguar commanded, and she stood, blinking and afraid. Jaguar described a circle of earth on her forehead, a spiral on her cheek. “This is what you want,” she murmured more gently. “To be dirty.”

  Karena sighed and relaxed. That was good. She’d have more to do with Karena in the morning. There was still old material to clear, but her consent right now was a very good sign. They were all doing well. If they continued progressing at this rate, she’d be able to get the information she wanted from them a lot sooner than she told Alex.

  “Go get more wood,” Jaguar told Karena when she was done, and Karena walked away silently.

  Fiore tended the fire, which was blazing nicely. Jaguar went and stood by it, found it too hot even for her, and took a step back. She didn’t know how Fiore was able to get so close without spontaneously combusting, but she seemed unbothered by the wall of heat.

  The twisted, heavy muscles of her arms and shoulders strained to lift wood into place. Her dark eyes caught and swallowed the sparks that flew up around her. When she leaned too close to the flames, a line of fire bit at her hair, sizzling the grey to a frizzled mass of black. Jaguar moved to her and smacked the fire out with her hand, sucking in heat and smoke and choking it back out as she stepped back, coughing.

  Fiore whirled on her swiftly.

  “You were on fire,” she coughed, turning away, seeking air. “Burning up.”

  Fiore breathed out heavily through her nose and returned to her work.

  The fire blazed itself down, and the rocks grew red and alive beneath it. Jaguar moved the women inside, starting with the chant for renewal she’d learned from One-Bird, used in the sweat following the onset of menses in girls. The women wouldn’t know the words, but their bodies would understand. And she supposed the moon, riding high above them, bursting almost past fullness, would understand as well.

  As she chanted, Fiore picked up the repetitive syllables and the tone, and began chanting with her. Jaguar was surprised at the strength of her deep, true voice and the fervor with which she used it.

  Her body knew. Her body wanted this. Needed this. A fiery woman.

  I am fire.

  Jaguar stopped chanting. In the wake of that large sound, the silence beat against her with the heat of the stones.

  Someone had spoken into her. Empathic contact. Fiore?

  In the darkness of the sweat, with only the red glow of the rocks to see by, Jaguar reached across the pit, balancing precariously at the edge of it, and grasped Fiore’s face in her hands, pulling her toward the center where stones burned and were not consumed. Fiore leaned forward and fell, her hands pressing against the red hot rocks.

  She did not scream.

  No fire chewed at her hands.

  Jaguar let her go, and she pushed herself back to her place without so much as a whimper.

  “Chac Ma,” Jaguar whispered reverently.

  Fiore was an empath. And she was pyrokinetic. She held fire in her hands.

  Jaguar had a great deal of respect for those who could hold fire in themselves, releasing it when necessary. She wouldn’t try to touch Fiore or her gift here, not in this closed space with the two other women present. She’d have to think about this before going any further with her. It could be very interesting.

  Fiore hadn’t shown any of the usual indicators of psi capacities in her testing run. Pyrokinesis especially was clearly indicated in the advanced neural workup. It created a distinct set of spikes that couldn’t be mistaken, and it just hadn’t been there.

  Did she have a way of deliberately hiding her talents, as Jaguar did? Or was it a different kind of psi capacity. Something to do with Artemis. That would be even more interesting, Jaguar thought.

  For the remainder of the sweat, she watched Fiore’s eyes watch her, two sparking stones that ate fire in the howling dark.

  Chapter 5

  Home Planet, Global Concerns Executive Offices

  Miriam, dressed once more, sat on the other side of the desk in the leather armchair, looking as innocent as a mother or a nun. She could do that. Play hardball, roll naked on the floor, and turn around to show the world a Madonna’s face. It was a useful talent, Larry Barone thought, but right now, it was time to see her business face.

  “What’s happening with your prisoners, Miriam?” he asked.

  “Not much,” she said. “Alex Dzarny is supervising the women’s case. They’re assigned to Dr. Addams.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  “Someone you don’t like very much?”

  “Someone nobody likes very much. With one or two exceptions.”

  “I’ve heard her name before, haven’t I?”

  “Probably. She gets in trouble a lot. No sense of discretion.”

  Miriam was being far too offhand. She was hiding something. Larry searched his mental files to see what they held about a Dr. Addams. Something from the news? Yes. The news.

  “She did something with a cult leader, didn’t she? Got a medal or something?”

  “Ye-es,” Miriam said hesitantly.

  Then Larry remembered the rest. Jaguar Addams. When Miriam started talking about using Planetoid Three as an Artemis site about a year ago he went through some of their files, looking for who might help, who might get in the way. Addams was high on the list for get in the way. She was an empath, with a 98 percent success rate and a history of taking on the big boys. She didn’t play by the rules, and she almost always won. And he knew about Dzarny, too. Her supervisor, and another empath. Shit.

  “Jesus, Miriam. She’s the one who took out DIE. She’s with the women? Our women? They were our test subjects for Chrissakes. If she gets to them, it’s all over.”

  “Darling,” Miriam said quickly. “Don’t worry. I’m managing it.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll see. Really. I know the system. I know how to work it.” She leaned over the desk and patted his arm. He jerked it back. He hated it when she did that.

  “Then why is her supervisor asking questions about Brendan? He’s supposed to be with some easy-going Teacher who’ll get nowhere, but Dzarny’s not any of that.”

  He wasn’t too sure about the plan to get Brendan arrested in the first place. Planetoid people were savvy, found out way too much too fast. He’d only agreed because Miriam said she could work it from her end, and because it was the best way to get him where they needed him to be.

  “Alex,” Miriam said, “is part of the plan, darling. “Can’t you just trust me?”

  Larry narrowly avoided laughing. “Sure. Once I know the set up. And approve it.”

  Miriam’s mouth turned itself into a small smile. “Remind me never to throw a surprise party for you. I hoped to save this as a treat for later, but since you’re so nervous, I’ll tell you now. The Planetoid insurance policy carries a waiver. If disaster strikes and a worker caused it, they can only claim 50 percent of damages. You know that. Assured wrote the policy.”

  “Dzarny’s our worker?” Larry asked. He had to admit, he liked that. Dzarny was vocal about not wanting non-prison facilities on the Planetoid, not wanting prisoners to take part in work programs. Using him was elegant, and very Miriam.

  “He’ll save your company more than 200 million dollars.” She lifted a smooth hand, let it fall again. “Feel free to thank me at any point.”

  “I do,” he said. “I thank you very much. What’s going on with Farley?”

  “He’s in process. He and Alex will meet very soo
n.”

  At this, Larry’s skepticism returned. “This is the part I like least,” he said. “Farley’s totally unstable.”

  Miriam laughed. “And totally under my control, darling. He’ll have Alex spinning in no time. The man is a fool.”

  Larry sensed more venom in this than necessary, and he could guess where it came from. “Because he didn’t respond to your charms?”

  Miriam’s voice grew cool. “His choice of women is questionable.”

  “Better luck next time,” Barone noted.

  “Fuck you, Larry,” she said coolly. “He’s a fool and you’re a nervous old hen I’m tired of reassuring. Everything is going as I planned, and if you backpedal on me, I’ll give you away like an old pair of shoes.”

  Larry laughed. He enjoyed baiting her, just to see the limits of her Madonna persona. Generally, if you messed with her opinion of herself, or with her grasping for money and power, she’d lose it. Ego, money and power were pretty much what she was about, underneath all the smiles and soft eyes. She once told him that when she fucked him, she was fucking the world.

  “Fucking it, and coming out queen,” she said, her eyes wild with delight.

  Not that he minded the attitude. Half the fun of sex with Miriam was the challenge of who would be conquering whom in a series of physical interactions that were more like wrestling matches than lovemaking. Both of them, vying for the turf of each other’s bodies. But that was pleasure, and this was business, which still looked dicey to him.

  “Addams is good,” Larry said. “Very good. If she makes the women talk -”

  “What’ll they say? And who will listen to them say it once the Planetoid’s destabilized? And Brendan will never talk. The women might rehab, but men can’t come back from Artemis. Not at his level of exposure. They’re too weak.”

  Though her arrogance never ceased to amaze him, he had to admit she knew what she was talking about. Men’s reactions to Artemis were off the chart compared to women’s. They just needed more of it to get there.

  When Artemis was legal, the men who worked in their research plants showed no trouble, but Miriam pointed out that nobody spoke with their wives. Usually when men had trouble, their wives experienced it, she said. She also believed women had a different level of tolerance. And there was bound to be individual variations, too. She had no negative reaction. In fact, she’d had some real benefits from Artemis, though she wouldn’t elaborate on what they were.