Max watched Sophia Russo walk away with the civilian observers, unable to take his attention off her. It had been the eyes that had first slammed into him.
River’s
eyes, he’d thought as she walked in, she had River’s eyes. But he’d been wrong. Sophia’s eyes were darker, more dramatically blue-violet, so vivid he’d almost missed the lush softness of her mouth. Except he hadn’t.
And that was one hell of a kick to the teeth.
Because for all her curves and the tracery of scars that spoke of a violent past, she was Psy. Ice-cold and tied to a Council that had far more blood on its hands than Gerard Bonner ever would. Except . . . Her final words circled in his mind.
We’ll bring them home.
It had held the weight of a vow. Or maybe that’s what he’d wanted to hear.
Wrenching back his attention when she disappeared from view, he turned to Bart Reuben, the only other person who remained. “She wear the gloves all the time?” Thin black leather-synth, they’d covered everything below the cuffs of her shirt and suit jacket. It might have been because she had more serious scars on the backs of her hands—but Sophia Russo didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who’d hide behind such a shield.
“Yes. Every time I’ve seen her.” Frown lines marred the prosecutor’s forehead for a second, before he seemed to shake off whatever was bothering him. “She’s got an excellent record—never fumbled a retraction yet.”
“We saw at the trial that Bonner’s smart enough to fuck with his own memories,” Max said, watching as the prisoner was led from the interrogation room. The blue-eyed Butcher, the media’s murderous darling, stared out at the cameras until the door closed, his smile a silent taunt. “Even if his mind isn’t twisted at the core, he knows his pharmaceuticals—could’ve got his hands on something, deliberately dosed himself.”
“Wouldn’t put it past the bastard,” Bart said, the grooves around his mouth carved deep. “I’ll line up a couple of male Js for Bonner’s next little show.”
“Xiu have that much clout?” The trial of Gerard Bonner, scion of a blue-blooded Boston family and the most sadistic killer the state had seen in decades, would’ve qualified for a J at the trial stage but for the fact that his memories were close to impenetrable.
“Sociopaths,” one J had said to Max after testifying that he couldn’t retrieve anything usable from the accused’s mind, “don’t see the truth as others see it.”
“Give me an example,” Max had asked, frustrated that the killer who’d snuffed out so many young lives had managed to slither through another net.
“According to the memories in Bonner’s surface mind, Carissa White orgasmed as he stabbed her.”
Shaking off that sickening evidence of Bonner’s warped reality, he glanced at Bart, who’d paused to check an e-mail on his cell phone. “Xiu?” he prompted.
“Yeah, looks like he has some ‘friends’ in high-level Psy ranks. His company does a lot of business with them.” Putting away the phone, Bart began to gather up his papers. “But in this, he’s just a shattered father. Daria was his only child.”
“I know.” The face of each and every victim was imprinted on Max’s mind. Twenty-one-year-old Daria’s was a gap-toothed smile, masses of curly black hair, and skin the color of polished mahogany. She didn’t look anything like the other victims—unlike most killers of his pathology, Bonner hadn’t differentiated between white, black, Hispanic, Asian. It had only been age and a certain kind of beauty that drew him.
Which turned his thoughts back to the woman who’d stared unblinking into the face of a killer while Max forced himself to stand back, to watch. “She fits his victim profile—Ms. Russo.” Sophia Russo’s eyes, her scars, made her strikingly unique—a critical aspect of Bonner’s pathology. He’d targeted women who would never blend into a crowd—the violence spoken of by Sophia’s scars would, for him, be the icing on the cake. “Did you arrange that?” His hand tightened on a pen as he helped Bart clear the table.
“Stroke of luck.” The prosecutor put the files in his briefcase. “When Bonner said he’d cooperate with a scan, we requested the closest J. Russo had just completed a job here. She’s on her way to the airport now—heading to our neck of the woods as a matter of fact.”
“Liberty?” Max asked, mentioning the maximum-security penitentiary located on an artificial island off the New York coast.
Bart nodded as they walked out and toward the first security door. “She’s scheduled to meet a prisoner who claims another prisoner confessed to the currently unsolved mutilation murder of a high-profile victim.”
Max thought of what Bonner had done to the only one of his victims they’d ever found, the bloody ruin that had been the once-gamine beauty of Carissa White. And he wondered what Sophia Russo saw when she closed her eyes at night.
CHAPTER 2
Nikita Duncan, Psy Councilor and one of the most powerful women in the world, scanned the biographical data in the confidential file in front of her, pausing for a second on the attached digital image.
The human male had a distinctive face. Sharp cheekbones, skin that spoke of a complex genetic heritage, and eyes that hinted of a parent from central Asia. But it wasn’t Detective Max Shannon’s appearance that interested Nikita.
No, she was interested in something far more important—his mind.
CHAPTER 3
The patient is no longer connected to the PsyNet by a single biofeedback link—her mind survived by anchoring its
entire
consciousness into the fabric of the neural network. Any attempt at separation will lead not only to death, but to the total and complete destruction of her personality.
—PsyMed report on Sophia Russo, minor, age 8
Sophia hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours when she walked into the ironically named Liberty Penitentiary the next morning, but no one could’ve guessed that from the crisp clarity of her tone, the smartness of her dress. She was taken directly to an interview room upon arrival. The assistant district attorney in charge of the case arrived a minute later.
Five minutes after that, she began the memory retrieval. Unlike Bonner’s, this inmate’s mind was full of nothing but forty years of living and violence. Some young Js got lost in the mess, but Sophia had learned to filter very well. She went directly to the memories of the day in question and took no more than the relevant minutes.
Humans tended to be suspicious of telepaths, and Js in particular, afraid the Psy would steal their secrets. The truth was, Sophia already had too many pieces of other people’s lives in her head. She didn’t want any more—especially the kinds of memories she was invariably asked to retrieve. In all her years of service, she’d found only four innocents. “I have it,” she said to the A.D.A.
Asking the prisoner and his attorney to wait, he walked her to the waiting area outside the warden’s office. “Could you project the memories to me?”
Nodding, she did as asked. This little telepathic quirk was what turned a Tp into a J. Most telepaths could transmit words and/or isolated visuals, but Js could not only retract, but transmit the entire memory in a continuous stream. This A.D.A. was human, his shields no barrier. That could have been a handicap in other circumstances—however, given that this case had no associated cost or benefit to the Council, he was safe from Psy coercion.
“Thank you,” he said after she completed the projection. “That does put a different spin on things, doesn’t it?”
She didn’t answer, aware he wasn’t talking to her. And even if he had been, she would’ve made no response. She tried not to “see” the memories anymore. It was a futile effort, but sometimes, she could distance herself a fraction.
The A.D.A. released a breath. “I’d like to go back and chat with the witness and his attorney. The jet-chopper will be arriving to take you back to the mainland soon.”
“Please go ahead.” She saw him looking around for the warden. “This location is tightly guarded. I’ll be safe on my own.”
“You sure?” A concerned look.
“I spend a lot of time in prisons.”
“I guess you must at that. Alright, you’ve got my secretary’s number. Give her a buzz if the chopper doesn’t arrive in the next ten minutes.”
“I will.” Nodding good-bye as he left, she took a seat, outwardly calm. But the truth was, she should’ve never, ever been left alone. As she’d told the A.D.A., it wasn’t because her physical position put her at risk. There were at least four double-keyed electronic security doors, full of bars and steel, between her and the first inmate.
It wasn’t even because she might get scared sitting alone in such a cold, gray place.
She had witnessed thousands of moments of the most depraved violence and pain, but she herself didn’t feel fear. She didn’t feel anything. The Silence Protocol, the conditioning that chilled Psy madnesses as it chilled their emotions, ensured that. However, in Sophia’s case, Silence didn’t work as well as it should. And everybody knew it. Most Psy would have been summarily rehabilitated, but Sophia was a Justice Psy. And Js were rare enough and necessary enough that they were allowed their little . . . peculiarities.
Of course, Js were also never to be left alone in “suggestive” locations.
Evil is hard to define, but it’s sitting in that room.
The reminder of Max Shannon’s grim words stayed her hand for a second. Would he consider this evil? Perhaps. But as her path was unlikely to ever again cross with that of a man who’d made her, for a fleeting instant, wish to be something better, she couldn’t let him guide her actions. Because though what she was about to do wasn’t in any official manual, like all Js, she considered it part of her job description.
The first scream came four minutes later. In spite of its shrill, piercing nature, no one heard it. Because the man who was screaming was doing so soundlessly, his mind locked in a telepathic prison far more invidious than the plascrete and mortar one that surrounded him on every side.
Even as he screamed, he was moving, unzipping his pants, pushing them down to his ankles, shuffling over to pick up a tool he’d hidden in the hollow leg of the desk his attorney had won for him. The inmate was a learned man, his attorney had argued; it constituted cruel and unusual punishment to put him in a place where he couldn’t write, couldn’t keep his research notes. The attorney had never mentioned the tiny, helpless victim his learned client had put in a dog cage devoid of the most basic of human necessities.
However, the amenities he had taken such glee in winning were the furthest things from the inmate’s mind at that moment. His hand clenched on the tool as he blubbered without voice, his will shredded like so much paper. Then the tool touched the flaccid white of his belly and he realized what he was about to do.
Blood dripped onto the floor almost a minute after that—it took time to achieve that kind of damage with nothing but a shiv, a weapon made out of a toothbrush ground against contraband rocks until its edges were as sharp as . . . well, almost a knife.
The act of amputation was excruciatingly painful.
And it was long over by the time a short, compact man with black hair faintly touched with silver walked into the waiting room. “I’m sorry for the delay, Ms. Russo. Your jet-chopper arrived five minutes ago, but I wasn’t immediately able to spare an escort—several prisoners decided to get into a ruckus in the yard.”
Sophia stood, briefcase held loosely in her left hand. “That’s quite alright, Warden.” The otherness in her settled back, its task complete. “I’m still on schedule.”
Warden Odess escorted her through the first set of security doors. “This is what, your third visit here this month?”
“Yes.”
“Things going well on this new case?”
“Yes.” She paused as he cleared them through the second to last checkpoint. “The prosecution team feels certain of success.”
“I guess they’ve got an ace in the hole with you. Pretty hard to argue innocence when you guys can pick the memories out of the accused’s mind.”
“Yes,” Sophia agreed. “However, insanity or diminished responsibility pleas are quite popular in such cases.”
“Yeah, I guess so. You can’t see into their heads, right? I mean—know what they were thinking at the time?”
“Only by reference to their actions or words,” Sophia said. “If those actions or words contain any hint of ambiguity, the field is thrown wide open.”
“And, of course, the defense always argues that things weren’t as they appear.” Snorting, the warden stepped out into the crisp light of the late winter’s day. Sophia blinked as she, too, exited. The light seemed too bright today, too intense, cutting across her retinas like broken glass.
Odess watched as she blinked. “Guess it’s time for you to go in.”
Most people didn’t know that Js only worked one-month rotations before returning to the nearest branch of the Center to have their Silence checked. But Odess had been part of the prison system for over a decade. “How do you always know?” she asked, having worked with him sporadically over those ten years.
“That question is your answer.”
She tipped her head a little to the side.
“You begin to act more human,” he told her, his dark eyes holding a concern she’d never understood. “At the start, when you’ve just returned from wherever it is you go, your responses are short, distant. Now . . . we actually had a conversation.”
“An astute observation,” she said, realizing the tilt of her head for what it was—a sign of disintegration. “Perhaps we can have another conversation in a month’s time.” That was how long it would take for the conditioning to begin to fragment again.
“I’ll see you then.”
Sophia walked to the waiting jet-chopper with an easy, unhurried stride. She was in Manhattan proper by the time they discovered the prisoner bleeding in his cell.
Max had spent the night going over the Bonner case files, on the slim chance that the bastard would actually give up a body at some stage. In truth, every single detail of the Butcher’s crimes was already engraved on his memory banks, never to be erased, but he’d wanted to be absolutely certain of his recall. All that death, the pain, coupled with the smug arrogance of the man who’d ended so many lives—it hadn’t exactly left him in the best frame of mind for what had to be some kind of a Psy joke.