The Green Memory of Fear Read online

  “How is Daro?” he asked.

  “He’s well,” Jaguar replied. “Why do you ask?”

  “Being polite. Does he sleep?”

  “Yes. He does now.”

  “And do you?”

  Jaguar paused. No. She didn’t sleep well. She was having dreams that woke her in a cold sweat. Dreams of choking. Dreams of Alex, bleeding from a wound made with her knife. Senci would see that. He would know that.

  “Will you have children, Jaguar?” he asked.

  An unexpected question, and not one she was ready to discuss. She remained quiet, keeping herself inside herself, as if she ducked to the bottom of a car sunk in deep water, sucking at the one pocket of air left, feeling the tons of cold water bearing down on her.

  “Wouldn’t you like to have children? A little girl of your own you can protect and teach the way your grandparents taught you. Or, maybe a little boy, like Daro. You’re so alone. Without children, you’ll grow old and die, alone.”

  She felt herself drifting down into his voice, seeing herself in the image he projected. She would be old, was growing older every day and her day would pass into endless night. She pushed it away, and was able to produce words.

  “I’ve got a few years before I’m old,” she said, and immediately felt better. The first words opened up the way for more. “And old isn’t that bad.”

  “Not as bad as dead,” Senci said.

  She forced herself to laugh. “C’mon, Senci. You think your little psi tricks can work on me? If so, you don’t know me at all. What is it you’re doing anyway? Hypnopath stuff? Maybe a little telekinetic work mixed in?”

  He sat attentively, his hands folded on his lap, his lips drawn tightly together. His voice spoke inside her, sliding beyond any blocking capacity she had.

  You’d like that, wouldn’t you Jaguar?

  She pushed him away, spoke out loud. “I don’t scare as easy as the children you bully and abuse. Only the truth works with me.”

  He sighed and reached across the table to her.

  Give me your hand.

  Jaguar watched her own hand lift and move to his. She asked it to return to her, but it wouldn’t. As if he could command her body. As he held it, she saw the skin go white and cracked, the bones twisting. An illusion. Just a parlor trick. She could do that too. Any hypnopath could.

  But the feeling that went with it was no hypnopath play. His touch stole from her. Stole energy, stole life.

  “Dying isn’t much fun, is it, Jaguar?” he asked, speaking out loud again.

  She focused on her hand, asked it to become itself again, and it did. With effort, she pulled it away from him. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t tried it yet.”

  Senci laughed softly. “You’ve come close, haven’t you?”

  His voice was thick inside her, a metal bar pressing into her brain.

  You were a little girl when you stared down at your grandfather’s body, still twitching, nerves not as ready to die as his heart, drained of blood by the bullets. The man who shot him lifted you and tossed you like a pillow onto the couch and held you down and pushed himself into you until you thought you would die, felt his death in you and looked into its eyes and said hello. Are you my death?

  His eyes were dark like the wings of birds you dream about sometimes. They wanted to swallow you but they couldn’t. Not entirely. He tried and failed and then he was gone and you never saw him again from that day to this. Remember, Jaguar?

  The gray meat of old grief stuck in her teeth. Fishbones stabbed her throat, choking her. Her belly was filled with stones. When she breathed in, she tasted the air he expelled, and she couldn’t stand it. He’d plucked this memory from her so easily, without her permission to enter ground she held sacred as a cemetery, her dead, dead past. Only a Telekine could do that, and so she was certain now about one more piece of the puzzle.

  “I remember,” she said out loud.

  “But you’re not afraid,” he noted.

  “No,” she said.

  He leaned closer and breathed in deeply, as if to drink this notion. Something important here, she thought, but she couldn’t tell what.

  Then, he leaned back and laughed. “You will be,” he said, and he withdrew into himself.

  The interview was over. Jaguar got up and left the room.

  * * * *

  When she left the building, she stood on the street corner outside for a good ten minutes, doing nothing except drinking in light. She was thirsty for light. Starved and parched for light. She let it flow into her, let it wash away what she’d inhaled down in the basement.

  The streets were clean, and cheery people passed her, smiling and nodding politely. She wanted to say fuck you to them all.

  Their smiles bothered her. They smiled as if they didn’t know, wouldn’t allow themselves to know what dirt they’d swept under their own rugs. Dr. Senci, under their feet, and they didn’t even care. How many other killers from the Serials lived here, protected by their amnesty clause. She felt anger current through her, neurons and muscles, and let it drain out her hands. Let it go. Let it go.

  She walked, not sure where she was going. Maybe back to the hotel. Maybe to get a drink. Maybe to go see Daro. Tomorrow was the first day of the trial, when the judges would review the list of witnesses and the first experts would testify about the voxchip. Daro didn’t have to be there, but he asked if he could and his parents allowed it, under protest. She wanted to see him tonight, make sure he was okay before it started. But first she had to make sure she stood on solid ground.

  She walked, aware of the sound of her own feet against the glittering pavement, aware of the electromag rumbling under her, aware of all the people who walked, unaware of resident evil, down the street with her.

  The faces she saw were all strangers. She knew very few people on the home planet, and none of them lived in this city. She was lonely in a way she wasn’t accustomed to, and at a bench outside a deli she stopped and sat, and did something she’d rarely done.

  Her hand, opening and closing, sought a friend.

  Alex, she called.

  He was with her as quick as thought, and she knew he’d been waiting, open to her.

  Here, Jaguar.

  She didn’t use words, didn’t tell him about the interview with Dr. Senci. She just let him see the moment she was in now. Her presence in a city of strangers. Her concern for Daro. Her loneliness.

  He returned a wordless comfort with the feel of a hand on her shoulder, a mouth briefly kissing her hair and a finger brushing her cheek. A courtly gesture from a man of profound courtesy.

  Okay, Jaguar?

  Yes. Okay. Okay now.

  Planetoid Three—Toronto Replica, Zone 12

  “How very odd,” Alex muttered. He sat in his office, staring down at his hand, the sensation of her skin against it still tingling in his fingers.

  She’d never contacted him for comfort. And she hadn’t been specific about why she needed it, though she’d let a pretty heavy burden of sorrow run out of her. Then she was gone.

  He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. After some thought, he decided it was both. Good that she called to him. Bad that she was feeling this way. He’d call the hotel later, see if she was okay. According to his calendar, the trial started tomorrow. He hoped it would go speedily and well.

  A quick knock on his door was followed by Rachel, poking her head in and saying, “Busy?”

  “No more than usual. Come in.”

  She did, and slid a microdisc across his desk to him. “Pop that in and call up file S3,” she said.

  He did so, and noted that Rachel’s face showed a very badly contained confusion. When the file scrolled across his screen, he viewed it.

  “What am I looking at, Rachel?” he asked.

  “I was going through Senci’s file for previous offenses, thinking maybe I could pull something up for Jaguar to work with, right?”

  “That’s not really your job,” Alex said. />
  “Sure. So as I was not really doing my job, I found out Senci has a previous record, kind of. At least, there’s a DNA match for him on a child rape and murder charge.”

  Alex swiveled his whole body around to look at her. “There’s nothing in the file—”

  “I know. Look at the screen. You’ll see why.” Rachel pointed, and he looked.

  Senci’s DNA matched semen found in a seven year old girl murdered in Boston. But the name attached to the murder was James T. Smythe, never convicted because he disappeared before trial. The physical description was different than Senci, too. Smythe was blonde and stocky, older and shorter. But the DNA was a match.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked.

  Rachel shifted from one foot to another. “It’s kind of weird, really. I was running Senci’s DNA through a global check—just poking around, you know? It pulled up a lab experiment on cold cases, using old evidence to see how long it held up over time. This murder was part of it. The girl’s dress had semen on it, so they tested it and put the results in their system. It came up as a match with Senci. But see—it’s old.”

  Alex felt something cold enter the room, take a seat, and have a laugh at his expense. “How old?” he asked.

  “About 200 years. At the time, Smythe was 51.”

  Alex was silent. Dr. Senci’s DNA was on a crime committed 200 years ago.

  “Weird, isn’t it?” Rachel asked.

  “I’m afraid it may make more sense than I’d like it to,” Alex replied.

  Chapter 8

  Home Planet—Toronto, Canada

  The primary judge, honorable rex bannur, m.d., spoke first.

  “Our task today,” he said, “is to determine whether the recorded evidence against Dr. Senci is admissible. We’ll begin with expert testimony for the prosecution, and then hear from the defense.”

  The transcriber spoke into his bell-like apparatus and his words were entered into a computer log as he spoke. The other two judges—panelists they were called, as if it was a game show, Jaguar thought—listened solemnly, but without much excitement.

  The primary judge, Dr. Bannur, would be responsible for all matters of protocol. The others, The Honorable Doctors Katherine Delorn, and Daniel Serino, would continue to listen solemnly and without much excitement, perhaps asking questions now and then. Daro and his parents, Clara and her assistant Gary, and Jaguar were on one side of the courtroom. On the other side there was only Dr. Senci and his lawyer. Behind them, the expert witnesses for prosecution and defense. No spectators allowed. All drama forbidden.

  Jaguar was used to procedural meetings. She’d attended enough exit meetings for prisoners to understand the nature of legal ritual which was, for the most part, stultifyingly dull. Nobody expected any surprises today, not from the expert witnesses for Daro’s side or Dr. Senci’s. Later, after the decision to admit or not admit the voxchip, after the judges listened to it, they might not need any other witnesses. If they did, they had two doctors who would testify that Daro wasn’t delusional, a teacher to testify for his honesty in school, and Daro’s recorded interview, done in the presence of both defense and prosecuting attorney.

  Dr. Senci’s witnesses besides the voxchip expert would be parents of other children he had helped, a medical colleague who would testify about other cases Dr. Senci had worked on with him. Then Dr. Senci would testify, and it would be over.

  But for today, it was all about the voxchip and whether or not it had been tampered with.

  Daro was already nervous. He squirmed, sandwiched between his parents and Jaguar, trying to be quiet but unable to be still. Jaguar didn’t blame him. She wished she was young enough to squirm.

  As the expert for the prosecution took his oath and started answering questions she tried to listen, but found herself tuning out pretty quickly. She’d stayed late with Daro last night, playing VR games with him before she went back to her hotel and collapsed into a series of bad dreams. In the morning she found a message from Alex, but she hadn’t had time to return it yet. Better to speak with him after they went through this morning’s proceedings, which were too predictable to hold her restless attention.

  Regarding the recording Daro had made, their expert said all his tests came up clean, and besides, it was ludicrous to think a twelve-year-old boy could tamper with a voxchip at that level of sophistication. He talked about wave sine correlations, damage warps, overlap sequences, used other technobabble Jaguar could almost decipher. The defense lawyer cross-examined him to no avail. He wouldn’t budge. Then he was done.

  When he left the stand, the panelists turned to Dr. Senci’s lawyer. “Your witness may be called now,” Dr. Bannur said.

  The lawyer at Senci’s side stood, cleared his throat. “Your honor,” he said, “we won’t be calling an expert to speak to this issue.”

  The Judges whispered among themselves and then the Honorable Katherine DeLorn asked the obvious question. “What’s the reason for this change?”

  The lawyer cleared his throat again. “It was my client’s decision.”

  Clara looked to Jaguar, her eyes asking the question, ‘what the hell?’

  Jaguar had no answer. She’d filled Clara in on her interview with Senci, which hadn’t recorded, and told her she now knew the guy was a hypnopath and a telekine and explained those terms.

  And now this. Senci wasn’t calling an expert witness to say the voxchip was false. She didn’t like the implications at all.

  The judges concluded their consultation. “We’ll convene to consider our decision regarding the admissibility of Prosecution’s evidence.”

  They rose. Everyone else rose. They left. Everyone else sat back down.

  “I’m staying,” Clara said to Jaguar. “My guess is they’ll be back real soon.”

  And she was right.

  They re-entered the room in less than ten minutes, let everyone present rise and be seated again, then Dr. Bannur fixed a pallid eye on the people in the courtroom.

  “We have determined the voxchip labeled exhibit A is admissible to these proceedings as evidence in the case of Karas vs. Senci. Let it be duly noted.”

  His gavel came up. His gavel went down. Jaguar saw Clara’s shoulders drop, as if she’d been holding them about half an inch higher than usual throughout. Daro scribbled furiously on a piece of paper. Jaguar took it from him, read, then passed it on to Clara.

  “What does that mean?” he had written.

  “It means we’re on second base,” Clara wrote back.

  Daro read her response and nodded solemnly.

  “We’ll take a forty-five minute recess to review the voxchip,” Judge Bannur concluded. They rose again and left the room.

  Clara nodded at Daro and his parents. “It’s a good time for you guys to go get a soda,” she said. She ruffled Daro’s hair. “Go play some VR tennis. There’s a machine in the cafeteria. We’ll call you back in when it’s time.”

  “Get some coffee?” Clara asked Jaguar when Daro left.

  Jaguar looked around. Dr. Senci was speaking in low tones with his lawyer. The transcriber had followed the panelists out of the room.

  “I’ll stick,” she said.

  Clara followed the direction of Jaguar’s eyes, to Dr. Senci. “Suit yourself,” she said. “But don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Never,” Jaguar said, biting back a grin as she thought of what Alex would say to that.

  Clara left, and she relaxed back into her seat. She’d stay and keep an eye on Dr. Senci. His decision not to call their expert witness, the way he made it public, had the feel of a threat or a challenge.

  She folded into herself and breathed deeply, seeking the energy she could surround him with to hold him still, keep him from doing harm. Just a shield, without direct contact. That should be enough.

  It was quiet here, and dark.

  Dark, and unexpectedly cold.

  Not cold like winter air moving in, but cold like heat drained away. A hollow coldness, like a sc
ar cupped in flesh. She was drawn into this hollow as if she would fill the vacuum that nature abhors. As if that was her job.

  She was being pulled. She glanced over at Senci and saw he was smiling. Smiling at her.

  A fine trembling ran across her body, uncontrollable and without discernible origin. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t afraid. She looked down at her hands and saw they weren’t trembling.

  Look again, Jaguar, a voice said.

  She blinked, and saw that her hands rested on a dress which was grey and red checkered. An old dress. A dress from her childhood.

  Remember, Jaguar? Look again.

  The dress became her suit again, but now a small circular metal chip rested in her hand. A voxchip. The metal shimmered, dissolved into liquid and held its shape for a brief moment before running through her fingers. She tried to catch it as it oozed away but it was gone. Simply gone.

  “No,” she whispered. “No.”

  The room shifted. The cold dispersed. She looked to Dr. Senci and saw that he no longer smiled at her. Instead, he was reading the newspaper, calm and composed.

  The door at the back of the courtroom opened and people came in. Clara, bailiffs and lawyers entered the space.

  “All rise,” a bailiff said, and they did.

  “Jaguar, you okay?” Clara whispered in her ear.

  “Where’s Daro?” she whispered back.

  “Still at lunch. I thought it’d take longer. I didn’t have time to get them. You sure you’re okay?”

  Jaguar shook herself. “I’ll let you know after the judges talk,” she said.

  * * * *

  They talked, but none of what they said was good.

  Something about the voxchip. Something about it being damaged. Unusable.

  “Nothing on it at all,” Dr. Bannur remonstrated. “Of course, we understand that technical failures occur, but it was the responsibility of your office to bring us clean evidence.”

  “Your honor,” Clara said, “it was in perfect condition when we gave it to you. Our expert witness testified to that. I haven’t any idea what’s happened, but we have a notarized transcript of the recording, and since I’ve heard it, and the expert witness heard it, I suggest we admit the transcript as evidence and call one of us as verifying witnesses.”