Chapter 6

Every once in a while, the fact that I’m an obscenely early riser works to my advantage. Driving before rush hour has a chance to take hold is a cinch, as long as I avoid the intersections where the most gruesome repeaters hang out before sunrise. And the fact that I was showered, dressed and caffeinated well before the clock struck six meant that I could grab one of the first slots at the FPMP firing range and get my marksmanship test over with. Maybe I’ve never shot another living being, but apparently the weight of a gun against my ribs was still a comfort. Because I was itching to fill that empty holster.

I signed for my new sidearm with a woman half my height and at least ten years older…who’d clearly be able to kick my ass from here to next week. Agent Jodie Watts was likely ex-military, though my perception might’ve been influenced by the fact that she wore tactical gear and not a standard black suit like my cronies at HQ. She was Caucasian, with short salt-and-pepper hair, untweezed eyebrows, and not a lick of makeup. Lesbian? Maybe. Or maybe just a badass with no interest in prettying herself up for the shooting range. 

“So,” she said brusquely. “Ex-cop?”

“How’d you know?”

“You flatfoots all go for the G17s. You’d have more impressive stopping power with the PX4 Storm. The shoulder holster’s a dead giveaway, too. Who’re you supposed to be, Barney Miller?” 

She wouldn’t be the first to rib me about the old-school holster, but my fellow cops and I appreciated our reliable Glocks, regardless of how we chose to carry them. Obviously, a higher-caliber weapon would do more damage, but in my opinion, the best gun was the one you knew how to fire. She handed me my FPMP-issue weapon, the same 9mm model I was accustomed to, only a lot less scuffed—then treated me to the newbie tour. From Jacob raving about the place all the time, I knew what to expect. Shooting galleries, simulation rooms, computer analysis. Yeah…it was way better than anything I’d had access to on the force. But as I admired the technology, I pulled down white light and looked with my inner eye, too. No sentient ghosts, not that I could see. And no repeaters, either. That was good. Because I’d hate for anything to startle me while I was blowing holes in targets.

We headed for the standard shooting stalls and waited my turn. I wasn’t exactly nervous—I recertified annually for the force—but I wasn’t eager to undergo the scrutiny, either. I’m weaker than I’d like in the left hand and I overcompensate when I shoot from the hip. I got my bearings. Target. Range. Distinct lack of spirit activity. Nothing was remarkable, other than the guy in the next stall struggling to hit the kill zone on his target. I’m not one to throw stones. My first lesson at the academy, I even managed to miss the target entirely. The shots to my left weren’t just poorly aimed, they were slow too.

Knowing I’d at least do better than that was definitely a confidence boost.

Watts filled me in on each segment of the test—which hand, which position, when I was supposed to reload, and where I should aim. Over the sounds of gunfire and through my protective earphones, she called out the first set. “Three rounds, each hand, fourteen seconds. Shooter ready?”

“Ready.”

Behind my head, the digital stopwatch beeped. I drew, aimed, and fired three times. Switched hands. Repeated. Scanned and holstered.

And so it went. Varying distances, stances and times, and periodic reloads. I put everything else out of my mind and aimed for the body mass. And in the end…well, I wouldn’t take home any marksmanship trophies. But I’d done as well as I had on my last annual qualification at the Fifth.

To say Watts was unimpressed with me would be a gross understatement.

“If your sidearm of choice didn’t tip me off to your last job, your performance would. Qualification standards for the FPMP are 85%. Not 70.”

Uh-oh.

“As a professional courtesy, you’re cleared to carry—with the caveat that you bring your scores up to standard within thirty days. Between now and then, I suggest you sign up for as many training sessions as possible. You’ve got some poor habits to unlearn.”

Story of my life.

“There’s twenty minutes on your current time slot,” Watts told me, “and I’m available to train. If you want to practice, the Program provides the ammo.”

What I wanted was to go grab a bagel, but instead I acted like there was nothing I’d rather do but shoot at that confounding paper man, and with her coaching, took the time to work on my left hand. I don’t think it really helped, but at least I didn’t look like an idiot for turning down the opportunity.

When it was time to make way for the next shooter, I gathered my stuff and headed out—and ran right into Patrick Barley. No wonder the guy in the next stall would be lucky to hit the side of a bus. He was a civilian, carrying his weapon not in a concealed holster, but in its locked case.

“Hey, Vic! Are you heading over to the office? Mind if I hitch a ride?”

Weirdly enough, I decided I wouldn’t mind the company. “Sure. Let me just wash my hands.”

All kinds of crap blows back from a gun when you fire it, from primer to lead to minuscule fragments of metal. And that’s from a single bullet. I’d just emptied several magazines, and I didn’t want my car to smell like a charcoal grill for the rest of the week.

We found a restroom, and Patrick joined me at the next sink as I scrubbed off the stink of the range. “So that was you, right next to me? You’re a really good shot.”

“Evidently not as good as they want me to be.” And I could tell the thirty day window would be a major pain in my ass. Especially with Laura freaking out about those damn repeaters.

He said, “I didn’t realize how heavy a gun can get when you hold it out in front of you like that. And the recoil. I guess there’s really no way to prepare yourself for shooting your first gun.”

Firing handguns was no big deal. It was a motor skill, and it was teachable. Plus, there’d always be someone out there better than you, so you might as well hope they can give you a few pointers. Figuring out mediumship when our experiences differed as much as they did? Now that was a major challenge.

Especially since I was shaping up to be the ultimate authority.

* * *

I must have gone at the problem from every conceivable angle, given how long I turned things over in my mind the night before, waiting for sleep to come, but I came up empty-handed.

“D’you think Laura would be willing to help me brainstorm the whole mediumship test?” I asked Patrick as we pulled into the FPMP underground parking. “She’s one of the smartest people I know. Maybe she’s got a different take on the whole situation.”

“Director Kim?” Patrick gave a low whistle. “She seems awfully busy. Heck, I spend my whole day trying to avoid drawing attention to myself so that she doesn’t have buyer’s remorse about hiring me. But, hey, you know her a lot better than I do.”

“Oh.”

“If there’s anything I can do, though, just ask. I know I’ll never fill The Fixer’s shoes, but whatever’s in my power, I’ll do my best to help.”

Unfortunately, unless there was some newfangled medium detector he could obtain, I couldn’t really think of anything that would further our progress. 

If such a thing did exist, however, I suspected Darla would have already requisitioned it. When I got to my office, I found a third desk had joined mine and Carl’s. Of course, Darla needed somewhere to work, but it was the mismatch that threw me. While Carl and I both had plain wooden work surfaces, Darla had chosen some complicated arrangement of black and chrome, with various levels and compartments, and a pneumatic lift to raise the keyboard and monitor up or down. She was currently standing at the station, arranging a very expensive-looking lamp to shine just so. “I don’t know how you can stand the fluorescents,” she said to me.

“Never gave it any thought.” In fact, I’d never even considered that I might have a preference. Probably because I wasn’t used to having any choice.

“So I’ve been thinking,” she said. “We’ll need a control group. And a room without any energy. And we’ll need to keep immaculate records”

She looked at me defiantly, as if she thought I’d voice some objection to that, but I just nodded and said, “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated curtly, then turned to her computer and typed. Darla might be a disgruntled government employee, and she might have a chip on her shoulder big enough to fend off anyone dumb enough to cross her path, but she wasn’t stupid. It was clear that her time in the FPMP hadn’t been wasted. I watched her coax suggestions out of Carl, brainstorming variables that would affect potential results. Time of day, time of year, presence or absence of psyactives—all of these things and more can throw off a medium’s game. I couldn’t argue with anything she came up with. Even when she looked at me and asked, “Well, Mr. Level Five? Do you have anything to add?”

Again, I could do without the attitude. But since she had it all covered, there was nothing for me to say.

“Then you might as well see about getting us some subjects to help block out a test run.”

Back when Richie was top medium at the FPMP, it was probably Carl who handled those kinds of details. But given that Carl had a tendency to give me a look over his reading glasses that made me feel like I’d been caught cheating on a math test, I decided it wouldn’t hurt for me to stretch my legs.

Patrick was back at his desk, studying a very complicated manual. I stared at it for a few seconds before I even recognized the diagram as a phone. Then again, I never was much good at following blueprints. My one hazy Christmas memory involved a cheap plastic airplane model glued to the tree in pieces. I asked, “How many NPs do you think Lau—uh, Director Kim—could spare?”

“Whatever you need, just say the word.”

Weird. Apparently, I was patently unused to getting my way. “Let’s start with two.”

“You got it.” Patrick opened a piece of unfamiliar-looking software, did some typing, and hit send. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Join me for lunch?”

He looked surprised, but not as surprised as I felt. Because Zigler had been my built-in lunch buddy, so these were entirely uncharted waters for me. It felt so incredibly awkward to ask, it was a wonder I didn’t just leave it to chance and hope for the best.

“Thanks for the invite, but today’s a no-go.”

My face didn’t just fall. Did it? Shit. I think it might have.

“I’ve got half a dozen errands to run,” he said. “But I’ll take a rain check.”

“Right. Cool. So…I’ll just, uh…I’ll wait for those NPs, then.” I gave him a stilted half-wave—such a dork—then retreated to the sanctity of the elevator. 

My heart was palpitating a little. What was up with that? It wasn’t like I was hot for the guy. Totally the opposite. And I didn’t need to stay on his good side to get preferential treatment from Laura. So what difference did it make if he liked me? I wasn’t there to eat and make friends, I was there to spot ghosts and mediums. I headed back to the haunted office to wait for our subjects with Darla.

Our first guinea pig, according to the brief dossier we were given, was a fifteen-year veteran of the FPMP, top of his class at Northern, fluent in German, very good at keeping the servers running, and about as psychic as a doorknob. My plan was to have him walk the grid. Simple, but since I’d seen Laura dodging ghosts, why not? I started him in the far corner. “Go ahead and cross the room,” I said. It must not have been the first time someone at the FPMP had him do something baffling. He strode to the far wall. And brushed right up against Throat Bullet as he did. “Let’s try that again. Slower this time.” He turned, came forward, and walked directly through the repeater.

Darla leaned in and whispered, “Can I see you outside?”

We stepped into the hall, and she said, “You need to act natural. Every time he passes the window, you tense up all over.”

I willed away the impulse to chafe goosebumps off my arms. “Got it. Right.”

“So what’s over there?” she asked.

“A murder.”

She was quiet for a long moment. “Not the foreign guy?”

“No. Different one.”

“Well, I’m surprised the IT guy hasn’t figured that out just by looking at your face. This room is full of cameras, right?”

“Isn’t everything at the FPMP?”

“Then while he’s walking the grid, maybe we don’t need to be in there at all.”

Frankly, if there’s ever a way to achieve my goals without interacting with other people, I’m all for it. We got permission to view the office feed, gave the IT guy instructions to continue walking the room, then retired to our office to watch him on the big screen. He did exactly as he was told, walked back and forth. And while I couldn’t see the repeaters on the screen, I’d spent enough time with them to know where they were—and this guy was just plowing right on through.

“Well, this is a bust,” I said.

Abruptly, Carl stood up and said, “Do you need me? Because I’ve got somewhere to be.”

I glanced at the clock. Five on the nose and he was antsy to leave, and he’d been coming and going all day. 

I didn’t feel like I had the luxury to bail just because the clock was displaying some arbitrary number, but for every habit I’d picked up on the force, Carl would have learned a different strategy from playing Richie’s lackey. And I couldn’t imagine Richie staying at work a minute longer than absolutely necessary when there were TV shows to be watched and wings to be consumed. “Go ahead,” I said. “I don’t expect we’ll figure out what’s going on tonight.”

As the door clicked shut behind him, Darla said, “Most people truly are NP, after all. Maybe we shouldn’t expect much.”

Onscreen, the guy strode directly through the spot where Triple Shot took three bullets in a big, grisly pirouette. I sighed. “Maybe not.”

Carl might’ve been in a hurry to make himself scarce, but Darla had nowhere better to be. Ultimately, we tried the same method on five more FPMP employees in all, and none of them broke pattern around the repeaters. Possibly, they were so well-trained that when we asked them to walk, they simply suppressed the urge to avoid the hotspots. But statistically, it was more likely that they felt no evidence of the repeaters at all. Together, we zoned out to the world’s most boring TV show: a lab tech walking back and forth in precise, measured steps. “How could they not feel anything?” I asked.

“Expectation. Social conditioning. A million other reasons. The question is, why do we?”

I closed my eyes and tried to envision a world in which I didn’t see the spectral blood flying. “Maybe as infants we were dropped on our heads.”

“Speak for yourself.” 

We went back to the haunted office after our last subject had walked their uneventful grid. Darla paused beside Throat Bullet and went very still. 

“He thinks he was set up,” she said. “Whatever that means.”

“Hold on, how do you know that?”

“Earth to Vic. I am a strong level four.”

“I’m not questioning whether or not you know it. I’m asking you how.”

She planted her hands on her hips and faced me. “Because he said so. How do you know he’s there?”

I watched the repeater take yet another bullet to the throat, considered letting on how much I actually saw, then nixed the whole idea. “Just a…strong impression.”

“Well, you know what would impress me?” She looked pointedly at her watch. “Going back to my hotel room, putting my feet up, and letting the FPMP order me the most expensive thing on the room service menu. Unless you’ve got anything more for me, boss, I’m calling it a day.”