Davison was
lying
. Lying about ...
something
. Of that Michael was now absolutely, positively certain. But about what? His
eye injury
?
"Anything
else
?" Davison asked, now sounding irritated.
"It’s nothing, just an error in our files probably," Michael commented nonchalantly. "We had you listed as ‘hazel eyes,’ but I was just noticing that yours are very
blue
."
Davison froze, not even breathing for several seconds. When he spoke, he sounded like a robot. "Probably because of my driver’s license ... they got it wrong years ago, I just never bothered to correct it."
"Ah."
Liar.
"Well, have a good day, Mister Davison."
"You, too."
PCA
"Woah. You think the guy helped McLane slaughter his family?"
Michael quickly and adamantly shook his head. It was certainly an interesting leap for Westmore to make, but Michael hadn’t picked up on anything
that
extreme. Part of the problem was, now that he was out of Davison’s suspicious presence, he was even
less
sure than he had been about what was bothering him. He and Westmore were in their agency car and just leaving the grounds as Michael shared his thoughts with his partner. Rather than let things go any further in such a nefarious direction, he further clarified. "No, I don’t think it’s anything quite so
heinous
. But
something
is definitely going on that he wasn’t sharing."
Westmore considered things further. "You think maybe he’s going after McLane
himself
?"
Michael mused. "Now
that’s
certainly possible. His family’s got enough money, he could pick up a few mercenaries ... or even a
paranormal
soldier-of-fortune if he knew where to look. But we don’t know about any of this for sure, so not a word to Brase, okay?"
Westmore snorted. "I’m insulted you’d even
suggest
I’d talk to that dumbass."
"I wish you’d been there with me. I’d like to have gotten your impression as well."
"Wanna insist on some kinda follow-up?"
Michael sighed. "No. Now that I’ve put the idea in your head, you might see things that aren’t there. Anyway, since you
weren’t
with me, you might as well fill me in on what you learned."
Westmore glanced out the window at the retreating property. "Company covers a large area. A guard told me that the most sensitive buildings are on the west side. I can
maybe
cover that much with a force field, but it’d be pretty weak. And there’s no way I could protect the whole ground. If McLane makes a conventional air strike, there won’t be much we can do about it."
"Luckily, we don’t believe he could have access to those kinds of resources. We suspect all his cash goes into his
rogue
gallery
."
Westmore groaned at the corny phrase. "Boo, hiss."
"Thank you, thank you. Want an encore?"
"Want a shockwave up your ass?"
Michael smiled.
PCA
Ace of Clubs ... Four of Diamonds ...
"Hey ... back again, I see!"
It took Michael just a moment to absorb the fact that the female voice was directed at
him
. He glanced up into the waitress’ —
Christine’s
— smiling face.
"Oh ... hello."
"Wow," she marveled with a smirk, "you really get into your card-playing, huh?"
He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. Yeah, I sort of use it as a test."
" ‘Test?’ "
He waved it away. "Long story. Are you taking over for my waiter now?"
"Nah, but I just hauled my butt all the way down here to find that Noreen changed the schedule again without telling me." She pouted, "Now it’s too late to make other plans, and I’m not even going to make any
money
in the meantime."
Michael thought about it for all of two seconds before asking, "Would you like to join me?"
Christine’s smile lit up the little diner far more than the hanging incandescents. "I’d
love
to." Then she slipped on a mask of mock-severity. "But I’m afraid you haven’t even told me your
name
, sir."
Michael grinned broadly. "A thousand pardons, milady." He offered his hand, "Allow me to introduce myself: I am Ensign Michael Akira Takayasu of the Paranormal Control Agency."
She took his hand in delicate, feminine fashion — basically just slipping her fingertips into his grasp. "And I am Christine Lynne White of Mae’s Café."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance. Now sit down before ‘Noreen’ decides to put you to work after all."
Christine giggled and slipped into the booth across from him...
PCA
"... so what do you think this guy is up to?"
Michael shrugged. "I can’t be sure. But, I know," he stabbed the tabletop with his finger for emphasis, "I
know
that he was hiding something when we spoke. It wasn’t just nerves. All I came there for was to get a better idea of the kind of opposition Shockwave and I might run into. Hell, the guy has five family members dead, and his brother is missing and
presumed
dead — you think he’d
want
to help out."
Christine nodded. "Totally."
"Except I could tell that my mere
presence
was freaking him out. Shockwave might be right — he might be planning to go after McLane himself. I can’t figure out what
else
he could possibly have to hide from me."
Christine mused for a moment, then ventured, "Maybe he’s involved with something
illegal
, something he’s afraid the cops’ll find out about."
Michael considered it, "I guess that’s possible ..." but ultimately shook his head. "I don’t think so. The guy has no history of drug use or theft or—"
"Maybe he just hasn’t gotten
caught
yet?"
"I don’t think so, Christine." It was nice to be sharing his thoughts with someone like this. Mark was okay, but ... well, he wasn’t an
attractive
woman
. He reached across and gently touched her hand. "I appreciate the suggestion, though," he told her, and he meant it.
She smiled again, this time with less peppy energy and more warmth. She touched his hand in turn ... then looked down at its scarred flesh. "Michael ... how did you get burned?" He stiffened and almost pulled his hand away before he stopped himself. "You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to."
He took a deep breath before responding. "No, it’s ... it’s all right. I haven’t talked about it for a while now. And I don’t want to start up any bad habits now, right?"
She nodded, but said nothing.
He hadn’t even started yet, and already his heart was pounding. He took another deep breath, this time holding it for several seconds before exhaling.
"It happened my first year at school. Not the Academy — this was before that. This was at college, when I was still going to be an engineer. A long-time friend and I had gotten together at the Student Union for lunch. Jason was an English major, see, so we didn’t have any classes together but History. It was just our ritual, our way of staying in touch ... Anyway, there we were, just eating and talking. And ... as near as we can tell, the girl at the table behind us went
paranormal
. Right there, on the spot."
"Wow."
Michael continued without a pause. "See, the thing you have to understand is, almost all paranormals transform with the instincts to
control
their new abilities. This girl ... it seems she was one of those unlucky few who
didn’t
. She screamed, or moaned ... I don’t know, it’s hard to describe, but it wasn’t pleasant. She started to stand. Her chair bumped into Jason’s, who was already turning around to see what was going on ..."
His throat suddenly dry, he took a moment to swallow some water. Christine made no comments, made no movements. She simply waited for him to carry on at his own pace, and for that, he felt himself fall just a little bit in love with her.
Almost a minute passed before he finally said, "The girl burst into flames, and she took her table, both chairs ... and
Jason
with her. Everyone panicked and started running. Jason fell onto the floor — I think he was trying to, you know, ‘stop, drop, and roll.’ But the area was crammed with chairs, tables, backpacks ... all kinds of crap, so he couldn’t really move once he hit the floor. Not that it would have mattered, anyway.
"I grabbed my jacket and shoved our table aside. Kneeling over him, ignoring his screams, I
attempted
to smother the flames. But that was the problem — they weren’t just
flames
. The girl, she hadn’t simply set him on
fire
, it was sort of like
napalm
. It burned through my jacket in seconds, and after that, I tried to beat it out with my bare hands. It didn’t work. Jason died right there in front of me."
Another long silence passed without either speaking. This time, Michael was almost
hoping
she would jump in, but she didn’t.
Finally, he pushed through the end of it. "By now, the stuff was sticking to my hands and forearms. When it finally sank through my thick skull that he was gone, I realized that I might be right behind him if I didn’t do something about it. I shoved my arms into the display fountain. The stuff reignited every time I tried to pull them back out, so I was pretty much
stuck
until the fire department and the PCA arrived. They had to
scrape
the stuff off of me — it took a lot of my skin with it. I had to endure several skin grafts and a lot of physical therapy — it was almost a year before I got any real use of them." He forced a smile. "Made writing reports at the Academy a real bitch."
When she barely smiled in kind, he allowed his to become a little more genuine. "So that’s it. That’s why I joined the PCA. It took me forever and a day to convince the admittance board that I wasn’t doing it as a vendetta, which I
wasn’t
. I don’t blame the girl — I know it was an accident. But there are plenty of
rogues
out there who inflict harm intentionally, and they are the ones I will
not
tolerate."
"What happened to the girl?" she whispered, her voice a touch hoarse.
Michael shook his head sadly. "I’m afraid she died, too. The plasma didn’t hurt her, of course — very rarely can paranormals harm themselves with their new abilities, at least not directly. But, like I said, she was one of the few unfortunates who could not control herself. She couldn’t get any
oxygen
past the conflagration. She suffocated."
"That’s— I mean ..."
"You can say it: ‘That’s terrible.’ Remember, I don’t blame her for Jason’s death. They were both victims."
She touched his hand again. "You’re a very forgiving man, Michael."
"Just a realist."
"Don’t sell yourself short," she scolded. "There’s a
reason
it took you ‘forever and a day’ to convince the PCA you weren’t out to kill every paranormal in the world. That would have been an understandable reaction."
"I still have anger about it," he admitted, "but I’m only going to expend that where it’s warranted."