The Whole Truth (The Supercharged Files Book 1) (33 page)

“Bad aim!” I dropped the shovel
and lunged for the pistol.

Rachel and I bonked heads like
two pumpkins. Pain nearly fractured my face and skull. God, I couldn’t see.
Lights flashed across my field of vision, and I figured I’d come to with a gun
jammed against my temple and Rachel in control of the whole situation.

In the only stroke of luck I’d
had today, Rachel’s handcuffed arm reached its limit before she reached her
goal. I backed toward the gun, rubbing my head. Without taking my woozy gaze
off her, I fumbled behind me.

A foot smashed my fingers into
the handle, and I cried out. I looked up just as Lou looked down, her hair
askew. Then Alex smashed into her linebacker style.

“You okay, Cleo?” John called
from the tack room.

“No!” I yelled back, dragging the
gun toward me with aching fingers. No bones showing, no obvious breaks. Just
gut-wrenching pain. Was there any part of me that wasn’t bruised, banged or
burned out?

I crawled to the ladder, dragged
myself erect, and aimed the gun in the general direction of Alex and Lou, both
trying to get the advantage with little success. Lou fought seriously dirty,
and Alex didn’t seem to have the stomach to return the favor. Shocked the hell
out of me. He should have subdued her in under a minute if you considered their
comparative size and strength.

“Reach for the sky!” I yelled,
anxious to put an end to this debacle. They both ignored me.

Rachel stretched toward the first
twin but couldn’t reach him, either. She threw a handful of hay in his
direction. “Wake up, Junior. You’re hopeless.”

A cane bounced off my arm, and I
dropped the pistol.

“Stupid girl,” Herman said from
above me. A set of headphones followed.

I sidled away from the loft
ladder and picked up the gun again. Inching forward until I couldn’t miss, I
pointed the gun at Lou. If I nicked Alex in the process, it was for his own
good.

My hands trembled and I said in
my firmest voice, “Lou, I have the gun. Stop.”

Lou and Alex froze and stared at
me.

“Put that down before you kill
somebody,” Lou said.

“Like you were going to do?” I
backed up three steps. “I saw your face, Lou. I saw what you didn’t say.”

“I would never kill anybody.
You’re amped, cookie. You might have had a little stroke, too. Anything you saw
can’t be trusted.” Lou had no mask, confirming that my ability was gone, gone,
gone—because I knew what I’d seen, and it had been deadly.

“I believe Cleo.” Alex eased
behind Lou. Away from stray bullets or for another purpose?

“That’s sweet, Berkley, but she
doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t trust any of you.” Lou held out a hand. “Cleo, I
know you agree with me. Some supras are bad. They need to be controlled. The
way they used you, the way they’ll continue to use you? I never, ever tried to
use you, Cleo. If you don’t want to be part of that cycle, end it now. Help me
work for the greater good.”

She was right. I didn’t want to
be a part of that cycle. Luckily I was as human as the next clown now.

“I’ve got nothing left to help
anybody with now that Herman’s machine has done its work.” My hand steadied. “But
before it did, I saw that lie, too. You don’t care about the greater good, and
you absolutely meant to use me.”

Lou, her gaze as sober and
lacking in crazy as ever, shook her head. “The world needs protection. Yes,
even from people like me. You remember the stories I told you.”

I did. Something needed to be
done, but not this way. “It’s not your place to decide who deserves suprasenses
and who doesn’t. Who deserves to live and who doesn’t.”

“I don’t plan to be the only
decision-maker. But since we do have an effective counter-measure now, there’s
no more excuse not to form a police unit.” Lou’s voice rose. We’d all heard it
before but nobody realized she’d go a lot further than a semi-annual petition
to see her will be done. “We have to control the perverts and the morally
corrupt. The liars and the cheaters. The rapists and the murderers. You know it.
Yet all you worry about is how much money you can make or who you’re going to
screw next. We have these skills and we use them to better our lives, nothing
else. There are criminals out there and nobody cares.”

“Oh, we care, Lou. We care what
you did.” Samantha hobbled up beside me using a hoe as a cane. “I can’t believe
you did this to us. To Cleo. What did she ever do to anybody? She didn’t want to
be messed up in this crap, and we forced her into it, all because of you.”

My throat tightened. “And you
would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for—”

“It had to be done!” Lou
interrupted with a snarl. “We can’t be unprotected. Our children can’t be
unprotected. We can’t be at the mercy of lowlifes and scum when we can do so
much more.”

Quick as a cobra, Lou lashed out
at me. Alex caught her.

She screamed and attacked him
like a wildcat. I thought I might actually have to shoot her, but I didn’t get
to switch from damsel to hero that day. Al and an army of large, strapping YuriCorpers
screeched up in the back of the hay truck, ending the final scuffle.

Beau returned, no Clint in tow.
Invisibility was useful, but it wouldn’t help chase down a larger man who had
an excellent reason to run faster than he’d ever run in his life.

To escape the consequences of his
bad choices. Samantha included.

I had to say, Al and his team
were more effective than any of us had been, but then again, we weren’t spies.
Not Alex, not John, not Beau, not Samantha, and certainly not me. We weren’t
soldiers or athletes or trained guards handling a violent situation.

We were management consultants.
Nothing more.

Chapter 23

Back To Never
Normal Land

I got two weeks off, with pay and
prescription strength pain relievers, while Yuri and Al handled the fall-out
from the Lampey situation, as it came to be known.

Lou and her team had obtained
most of their information by having Clint push it out of people before she
erased their memories. And sold them magazines, candy and wrapping paper, on behalf
of the many Lampey grade-schoolers. Proving Lou wasn’t a complete monster, the
kids themselves had never been involved in data retrieval missions. Their
fundraisers had just been the front. Yuri and Al had ordered a lot of doughnuts
and magazines but couldn’t remember seeing many Lampey offspring.

Yuri and Al were pretty pissed at
themselves. And the Lampeys.

Lou had converted many, but not
all, of her extended family over the years, with a combination of personal
charisma, common sense and their mutual exposure to supra crimes through the PI
agency.

Persuasion and blackmail, when
that failed. I wondered how she’d gotten Clint involved, considering his hatred
of the whole set-up. Since he’d vanished without a trace, we’d probably never
know.

Jolene and a few others had
tested innocent, which proved YuriCorp and the other big dogs were perfectly
capable of handling supra interview without my abilities. The companies pooled
their resources to bring in specialists. If Yuri had done that in the first
place, how much of this mess could have been prevented?

Of course, he’d tried to do that—he’d
recruited me. But I’d come so close to failure, I sure as heck didn’t feel like
a success.

I hadn’t had a stroke, thank God,
but every test I’d been given since the big fight displayed a complete burnout.
Any babies I had could be supras, but my personal prognosis was grim. Herman’s
machine could be set to cause everything from temporary power loss to brain
death, or so Herman claimed.

All the scientists—everyone
really—was tizzed over the ramifications.

I still had a job at YuriCorp if
I wanted it, working anywhere in the strip mall I wanted. Yuri acted like he
was doing me a favor with the offer. I’d keep my benefits, but not the cushy
salary. He said it was only until my abilities returned, but I hadn’t needed my
ability to translate his lack of faith in that happening.

Was it true? Was my lie sight the
only thing I’d had to offer YuriCorp? Without it, I was under qualified, but
that didn’t mean I couldn’t learn. Like the norms at the downtown office, I
could get a business degree.

If that’s what I wanted out of
life.

Who knew normal would be so bleak
and unexciting?

As for the conspirators, the
Lampey situation was a landmark event in supra history. Most of the time,
supras committed crimes that could be prosecuted by norms. Crime was crime, and
traditional law had sufficed. But how to explain the Lampeys’ wrongdoings to
the courts in a way that would ensure the perpetrators got what they deserved?
How to keep Herman’s invention, and knowledge of supras, concealed from the
rest of the world?

Experts from all walks of supra
life converged in an emergency “consulting conference”. Would Lou finally get
her wish for a supra police squad?

I didn’t think this was how she’d
planned to force everyone’s hand, but it’s not like I could ask her. Or
anybody.

The only reason I knew anything
was Samantha’s gossip. I longed for peace, quiet and ice cream, but she
insisted on visiting me. Over and over again. Beau dragged me into the lab
twice to assess my condition, and half of YuriCorp called or emailed to offer
their sympathies. Most knew only that I’d been a victim of the saboteurs at the
end.

I was touched, but I was still
burned as toast. Crispy as bacon. Which tastes terrible on canned spaghetti, in
case your reluctance to leave your apartment overcomes your common sense as
much as mine did those two desolate weeks.

The only person who didn’t reach
out to me was John. Unsurprising. He was in his own sickbed with a bit of a
bullet situation. The one time I’d dragged my ass to see him, wondering how to
break up with a man who’d been shot on my behalf, I hadn’t stayed long.

I hadn’t had to break up with
him, either, because he’d dumped me within the first three minutes. I hadn’t
argued. John was in a bind. He’d been told we knew about him. Had known about
him. He’d lied to us, betrayed us, and even though we’d lied, too, it didn’t
matter. His own guilt consumed him. He’d submitted his resignation to YuriCorp
and wouldn’t discuss what he was going to do about his other employer.

Not with me, anyway. Without my
skill I couldn’t do a darn thing about it.

All I could do was sit around,
nurse my inner darkness, and procrastinate all decisions about my future beyond
what I was going to eat next.

I was regretting my refusal of
all the Lampey children’s doughnuts and cookies one afternoon when someone
knocked on my door. Normally, visitors called ahead, since I appreciated a
couple minutes to change out of the clothes I’d been wearing the past two days.

I did a quick stain check,
confirmed several major ones on the shirt, and opened the door anyway, ice
cream container in hand.

“You look like hell.” It was
Beau, unaccompanied by any testing equipment. He must have been running his
fade because I had no urge to jump his bones.

“Thanks so much.” I wasn’t going
to let him in, but he advanced, and I retreated. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t answer your cell
phone.”

“I think it’s dead.” I’d
neglected to recharge it as a way of halting the sympathy calls. “What’s so important
it couldn’t wait?”

“Wait for what, Cleo? For you to
come back to work?” Beau stuck his hands on his hips and eyed my apartment like
it was a toxic waste dump. Which it was. I hadn’t cleaned since before the
incident, and here it was two shut-in weeks later. “We both know you’re not
going to do that.”

“Yes, I am,” I said, though I had
no idea if it were true. “I’ll have you know I’ve been offered a prime position
at the dollar store. My first move is going to be increasing prices to two
dollars. We’re going upscale.”

“You don’t have be satisfied with
Yuri’s hand-out.” Beau wandered into my kitchenette and leaned against the
counter. It was cleaner than the rest of the house since I’d been taking my
meals on the couch or in bed. “It’s his fault this happened to you. He owes you
a lot more than a crappy job at a dime store.”

As it had done too many times
lately, my throat tightened at the show of support, however unexpected it was,
coming from Beau. I cleared it. “A lot of supras lost their abilities while Lou
was on her rampage. Several lost more than that. None of us got hazard pay.”

“None of the others were asked to
do Yuri and Al’s jobs for them, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re not internal
affairs, Cleo. What did you do before you came here, work in advertising?”

I nodded, and he continued.
“Expecting you to crack a conspiracy like that was ludicrous. Even considering
what you could do. I don’t know what the hell they were thinking.”

I glared at him. “In case you
missed the memo, I cracked it wide open. I did my part. Now it’s being taken
care of.”

“Too late for you.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

Beau held out a hand, and I
wasn’t sure if he wanted ice cream or a quick shake. I didn’t give him either.
“I finished my simulations. Your suprasenses aren’t going to heal.”

“No shit.” I hated the squeaky
quiver of my voice. “Is that supposed to shock me?”

His hand remained extended.
“You’re lucky you didn’t stroke out.”

I inhaled quickly, the cloying
vanilla scent of the ice cream not as appetizing as it had been when I’d opened
the full container an hour ago. “Hey, if I’d had a stroke, I could have gotten
brand new abilities.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”
Beau’s expression, for the first time since I’d met him, was compassionate.
“Give me the carton.”

“I’m not done with it.” Even
though he was only confirming what I’d known in my heart, my eyes stung with
incipient tears. I grabbed a fresh spoon and pretended fascination with the
dregs of my ice cream to keep him from knowing how upset I was.

It was never coming back. Part of
me, part of who I was, was lost to me, and I didn’t know who I’d be without it.

I’d be nobody.

Instead of breathing, I
shuddered.

I hurt.

I couldn’t swallow the ice cream.

“Cleo, I have to tell you—”

Whatever Beau intended to confess
was interrupted by the cats. Natasha and Boris fell into a hissing match over a
pizza crust Boris had found under the kitchen rug. They tumbled across the
floor, biting and scratching. Natasha’s yowls were so loud you’d think Boris
was ripping her apart, but the opposite was more likely.

I welcomed the feline
distraction. “Cut it out, cats, there’s more pizza where that came from. Check
beside the couch.” I booted them into the living room, a little embarrassed by
my near breakdown.

I’d expected this, I’d seen worse
in Lou’s face, so why get emotional? Norms lived fulfilling lives every day. I
could be one of them.

Only, I didn’t want to be normal.
I wanted to be...myself.

I scraped at the ice cream carton
without eating anything, and Beau crossed his arms. The only sound was the
scuff of my spoon and Boris and Natasha in the other room, knocking things
over. Glass tinkled. Neither of us went to check.

“What are you going to do?” he
finally asked me. “Eat your life away?”

I couldn’t help my churlishness.
Everyone else had been kind. Sympathetic. Why was he so mean when he alone knew
the whole truth about what I’d been able to do? “What do you care?”

For a moment, he looked like he
might tell me why he cared, but instead he said, “I can see you’ve got a lot going
on. I just have one question.”

I paddled in my melting ice cream
and refused to meet his eyes. “What?”

“Do you want it back?” he asked.
“Because I can make it happen.”

“My job?”

“Your abilities.”

I put down the ice cream
container and looked him full in the face for the first time since he’d walked
through my door. His deep brown eyes pierced through me.

“How?”

“I have access to...” He cut
himself off and began again. “When Lou and everyone assumed the supra world had
no oversight, she was wrong.”

“What do you mean?” I asked for
the second time today. Of course we had oversight. We spied on one another
constantly, and everyone knew it. Even so, the shake-up in the community once
they’d started tracing the tendrils of the Lampey infestation continued to be
intense.

“There is oversight. There are
people.”

He was worse than Samantha at her
most coy. “I thought scientists were precise.” And more nerdy than he was
today. Without the glasses and white coat—even with the fade I assumed he was
running—he looked more like a musician than a lab rat. He wore the earrings
today, the hippie necklace, the shirt that showed off his tattoo. And muscles.

“I can’t be more specific yet.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

“Because you haven’t answered my
question.” He crossed his arms, not taking his eyes off me.

“What if I say no? You’ve already
admitted these people are out there watching us.”

“You aren’t going to say no.”

How could he be so sure? In case
he hadn’t noticed, my natural inclination was to say no to anything he asked.
“We’ll come back to that, “ I said. “What if I say yes?”

“Then I can be specific, but
there are conditions.”

I didn’t like the Jaws tuba
beginning to toll in my head. Where had I encountered this need to know spiel
before? Several months ago. When I’d been introduced to the supra community,
Yuri had said, “We’ll tell you, but first sign this confidentiality agreement.”

However, I didn’t doubt Beau, not
for a minute. According to Lou, Herman and Rachel, he was supposed to have been
a permanent burnout, like me. Hell, they’d wanted him to be a coma. Yet he’d regrouped
after a week, a much shorter time frame than the natural recovery process. I suspected
he’d even remembered what happened in Atlanta.

He knew something the rest of us
didn’t, and he’d managed to hide it from me for months when I’d had my ability.

“No one at work seemed to notice
when you got your groove back. Why is that?”

“I’ve always been a quick
healer.” He smiled without teeth.

Yeah, right. “And you can fix
me?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t people get suspicious?”
Yet not even I had wondered about his recovery after my initial surprise. In
fact, when I’d been bemoaning my fate the past two weeks, I hadn’t given a
single thought to the fact Beau had recovered his full abilities.

“Only I know your condition is
permanent at this juncture.”

“But everyone knows Herman’s
machine—”

“I made sure your true condition
was up in the air.”

I had a non-supra feeling he was
lying about something through his straight, white teeth. People usually were.
Damn, I wished I could be myself again. “If your miracle cure involves detoxing
with cabbage juice, count me out.”

“Nothing that simple, I’m
afraid.”

Conditions and consequences. I’d
been juggling both since the day I found out I could see lies. What was another
layer to add to everything else? “Tell me about these overseers. You’re saying
there’s a secret society within the supra community—which is, by the way, a
secret society?”

He gazed at me without reacting.

I ticced the secrets off on my
fingers. “Is there another secret society within that secret society, and then
another within that one, and then another and another, until you get down to
the secret society of a single person who knows all? That would be the
Highlander, of course.”