The Whole Truth (The Supercharged Files Book 1) (8 page)

“Are you jealous of him and
Samantha? He’s doing his job as a recruiter, but you’re reacting like it’s
personal.” If John secretly loved his coworker, it would explain how he could
tell me he was single last night but not hit on me today.

Not being interested in me would
explain it as well.

John huffed. “Cleo, I’m not
comfortable with this line of questioning. I’d appreciate it if you don’t use
your powers on me.”

“I’m sorry.” I sank into my seat
like a deflating balloon. It hadn’t been intentional—exactly. It was so
automatic to go digging for whatever I wanted. I’d have to learn to refrain
with my new friends.

With superhuman, I mean,
suprahuman effort, I stared out the opposite window all the way to Merlin’s.
John didn’t even pretend to make small talk. Instead of joining me for a meal,
he excused himself to place business calls. There was no one to people-watch at
this hour, so I ate in lonely silence.

I felt lower than a worm. He
couldn’t bear to share the booth with me after I’d tried to con personal
information out of him. Maybe he’d get over it, and maybe he wouldn’t. All I
could do was behave myself in the future.

And pray this wasn’t a precursor
to life in the supra world, because being shunned might be worse than being
alone.

Chapter 6

Can a Chameleon
Change His Spots?

I presented myself at YuriCorp’s
gym bright and early Monday morning to hand in my paperwork and begin testing
and training. I hoped they didn’t want me to train
in
the gym and turn
me into some lean, mean, kick-boxing secret agent, because no.

The whole area smelled like
fruit-flavored gelatin snacks. Aromatherapy piped in to cover less pleasant
bodily odors? A few people grunted with free weights, and several sweated on
the treadmills in front of a bank of television sets. I was unfamiliar with
gyms, which would be obvious to anyone around me more than five minutes, but
this one seemed small.

I spotted John near the back.
Looking far too awake for this hour of the day, he shook my hand when I reached
him, his grasp warm.

“Good morning, Cleo,” he said, as
if he hadn’t been peeved at me last night. “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough.”

After my early dinner, I’d been
alone the rest of the day, except when Alfonso stocked my fridge and offered to
take me to church (yes to food, no to Jesus). I called Dan and told him I’d
been headhunted for a job in Nashville, then spent the evening flicking between
the three channels on the small television and wishing my day with John had
gone differently. Wishing I had my laptop so I could update my blog. Wishing I
had something to wear besides the T-shirt and flowered capris John had seen
yesterday. I didn’t want to pinch myself into the black suit again after its
jaunt on the beer joint floor Saturday night.

Besides, I had tests today. Tests
for becoming a secret agent management consultant might include physical
activity, though they could also be sitting around a conference table pointing
out fibbers or attempting to blend in with the furniture.

“If you haven’t had breakfast,
there are doughnuts in the break room.” John, of course, wore a nice suit with
a cartoon tie.

Feeling underdressed, I followed
him out the back of the gym. None of the patrons paid attention to us—either
they weren’t YuriCorpers or there was more to being a chameleon than I
realized. Next we descended the stairs under the dumpsters. He went first.
Never one to waste a good opportunity to objectify a man, I checked out his
backside, but his suit jacket covered anything interesting.

“Is this the only way in and out?”
I asked, glad he couldn’t see my ogling.

“It’s the main one.” John stopped
at the front desk, staffed by a man I didn’t recognize, and I handed over my
forms for HR. Then we were off through the cubicles and into a section of the
building I hadn’t been shown Saturday. We took stairs to another level of the
facility. This level was bunker-like, down to the concrete walls and floor.

I lowered my voice. “Am I
supposed to be doing my other...you know...when I’m being tested? Or are you
and Samantha going to test me?”

And would John’s test involve
kissing my DNA? My brain revisited that notion for the umpteenth time. I
couldn’t help myself. The man smelled good, looked better, and had that nice
guy demeanor that usually translated to eager to please in bed.

He guided me around a trolley
full of paper, almost touching my arm. “For now you’ll be tested and trained by
our top chameleon.”

Damn.

“His name is Beau Walker. But
yes, you should always be alert.”

We halted by a door marked
Laboratory, and I smiled up at him alertly. “I can do that.”

“Remember you can’t discuss it,
not with anyone.”

“Not even with you?” Whatever
would we talk about instead?

“Not unless you know you’re in a
secure area or you’ve got a blanket.”

“Ohhhh-kay.” I nodded as if I
knew what the hell he meant. I didn’t think it had anything to do with the
green, fuzzy thing on the bed in my wee cell.

John slid his card through a
reader, and the laboratory door clicked open with a stale hiss. He glanced at
me with a frown. “A blanket is a device that creates a supersonic noise to
prevent someone like Al from listening in. Our tech guys invented them in the
eighties.”

Inside was a room with benches,
lockers, shelves, and hooks on the walls that held white coats and jumpsuits.
There was also a giant metal sink, a water fountain, and a potted plant.
Several doors led out of the room.

“I assume my teacher isn’t
supposed to
know
,” I commented, emphasizing the last word.

“Correct.” John pointed me to a
locker, silencing me for the time being. “Leave your things here.”

I eyed the jumpsuits warily. Were
we going into a sterile area? “Do I have to undress?”

“No, of course not!” he
exclaimed, as if the thought appalled him.

Well, gee. One more tick on the
“he’s just not that into you” chart.

“Leave your satchel. I’ll issue
you a coat and pair of shoe covers. Our DNA guy doesn’t mind if you wear street
clothes, but he gets finicky if you bring in electronic or metal objects.”

“Jewelry?” I had on little gold
hoops.

“If it’s small.” John opened a
cabinet and withdrew a coat and pair of blue elasticized bags meant to go over
my tennies. He took out a marker and wrote my name on the pocket of the jacket.

“Very chic.” I shrugged into the
sleeves and did up the buttons.

He found his own coat and put it
on. “Saves money.”

I was beginning to realize they
did a lot of things economically. The coat hung like a Granny house dress. I’d
rather have worn the house dress, because they come in pretty fabrics. White
was not my color.

Once we were shed of extraneous
metallic objects, John slid his card through a reader beside one of the doors
and it clunked open. We entered a small lab that was a mess of machines, cups,
test tubes, papers, books and half-eaten sandwiches so old I wondered if the
experiment was on Wonder Bread instead of people.

This was a semi-sterile
environment?

A shortish black man in a white
coat rattled a centrifuge, clicked the switch, and stepped back when it whirred
into action. No one else was in the lab.

“Cheap piece of crap,” he
muttered.

I hadn’t known what to expect
from the person they said was their top chameleon, but it wasn’t this guy. His
hair stood up from his head in mini dreads that had seen tidier days, and
bright blue hiking sandals squeaked on the tile when he pivoted.

“Beau,” John said. “We’re here.
Are you ready for Cleo?”

He glanced up. His face was
angular, dominated by horn-rimmed glasses with tape on one side and that messy
head of hair. Unlike most everyone at YuriCorp, Beau was not wearing a suit. It
was possible he wasn’t wearing pants. His dark, muscular legs were bare, which
took business casual to a whole new level.

No matter one’s preferences, this
was not the type of guy you’d fail to notice. Either his scientist ‘n scruff
combination would confuse you or you’d be dying to know whether he was naked
under the lab coat.

A chameleon? Someone who’d be
ignored? I think not.

He grabbed a nearby clipboard and
walked toward us, shoes cheeping and coat flapping open to reveal khaki shorts
and a dark T-shirt.

Ok, not naked. Not that I’d been
dying to know.

He appeared to be annoyed and
distant at the same time, as if his brain were preoccupied by something much
loftier than a trainee. A part of my experience in the suprasensor world that
had been missing clicked into place.

Here was the mad scientist.

I nodded instead of holding out
my hand. “I’m Cleo. Nice to meet you.”

“Cleo. Cleo.” Beau raked me up
and down with his magnified eyes, seemingly displeased by my appearance. Darn
this ugly coat. “Am I supposed to know who this is, Arlin?”

How rude!

“Cleopatra Giancarlo. The new
hire. You’re assigned to train her.”

“The boss’s new pet. Now I
remember. Lousy timing. He won’t reconsider?”

“No,” John said.

Beau took off his glasses, stuck
them in his breast pocket, and handed me the clipboard. “This data needs to be
entered into the computer. You do know how to use a computer?”

The sheet on the clipboard was
covered in nonsensical flowcharts, numbers, and mathematical equations with a
lot of letters. Physics? Calculus? Crazy scribblings of a demented man? “I can
use a computer, but I don’t know what this means.”

John gave my shoulder a quick,
sexless pat before admonishing Beau. “She’s a chameleon, not a lab assistant.
We need her in the field in a month.”

“A month?” Beau gave me another
once over, found me further below par than the first time, and puffed. “Not
gonna happen, man.”

“Three months?”

Beau just shook his head.

“I’m a fast learner,” I
protested. Of course my boast had no bearing because I didn’t know what
chameleon training entailed. Coordinating my attire with the wallpaper?

“You obviously don’t understand
the first thing about your nature.” Beau shoved his hands in his coat pockets.
“We’ll have to start from scratch, and I don’t have time to baby a noob.”

Noob rhymed with boob and sounded
as if it had the same meaning. Plus, he wasn’t lying.

Jerk.

“I know more than you think,” I
muttered.

Beau turned to John. “Tell Yuri
someone else will have to do it.”

The man was blunt. I could
respect that. But here’s the thing about blunt people, the ones who pride
themselves on honesty, on giving it to you straight? They’re not. Honest, I
mean—straight is another story. Mostly they’re just shitheads.

“That’s a good idea,” I said to
John. If Beau was one of those toxic, faux-honest types, I’d pass. Wouldn’t it
be better if someone who knew what I could do was my teacher? “You must have
more than one person who can train me. Why can’t—”

“Beau will be training you,” John
repeated.

“Won’t,” Beau said.

“You’ll have to take it up with
Yuri,” John said. “Good luck, Cleo. I’ll come get you for lunch.” And the
schizophrenic man who flirted with me Saturday and got miffed at me Sunday
stalked out of the lab, leaving me alone with Beau the Noob Hater.

Wasn’t this awkward? John had
lost major chivalry points deserting me in hostile territory.

Beau, who’d yet to gain chivalry
points, leaned against a waist-high lab table and crossed his arms. “You
weren’t even aware you had suprasenses before they found you, were you?”

I offered what I hoped was a clever
misdirection. “I didn’t realize I was a chameleon.”

“How they find you noobs when you
don’t know what you can do, I’ll never know. Well, our trackers are the best.”

I remained silent, watching him
think. I guess he had to make up his mind whether to kick me out of the lab. I
doubted I’d have a say in the matter unless I stormed out, but I didn’t want to
storm out. My not particularly alter ego, Miss Curiosity, had reared her head,
and I liked to give her what she wanted or she drove me nuts.

“Do you have any idea what a
chameleon can do?” he asked me.

“Eat bugs, hang upside down on a
branch, and swivel its eyeballs almost 360 degrees.”

His expression remained stoic. I
sighed and gave him a serious answer. “Samantha said we blend in. Using our,
um, suprasense of touch.” If we didn’t come into contact, how could my touch
force someone to ignore me? Samantha had to touch me to do her thing. Her power
made sense, but ‘ignore me’ vibes didn’t.

“Sort of.” He advanced on me,
only to tug the clipboard out of my hands and put it on the counter. “There are
various reasons why one human takes note of another. What do you see when you
look at me?”

“A...man.” This had to be a trick
question. When he didn’t respond, I added, “A man in a lab coat.”

“Huh.”

Was that a good huh or a bad huh?
I must be failing the “powers of observation” test. Damned if I failed my first
test at YuriCorp!

I gave him the works. “A man with
dark skin, brown eyes, black hair. Lab coat, sandals, khaki shorts, GAP plain
front with frayed hems, old black T-shirt. Really old. I mean, U2’s Zoo TV tour
had to be twenty years ago. You’re about five eight, give or take your hair,
and have both ears pierced, but it looks like the holes grew in. Youthful
indiscretion you thought better of, some girlfriend or boyfriend didn’t like
them, no offense. I never assume which way someone’s bent. Oh, maybe you were
allergic to silver. You wouldn’t look right in gold. Your dreads, incidentally,
resemble the scrubby thing in my sink and—”

“Okay, okay!”

“Did I see what I was supposed to
see?”

He touched his head. “I disagree
about the dreads.”

He didn’t answer directly. Had he
tried to use his powers on me and failed—or succeeded?

“If you’re a chameleon,” I asked,
“why is your appearance conspicuous? Shouldn’t you wear beige so you can blend
into cubicle walls?”

“That’s not how it works.” Beau
ran a hand over his nubby dreads and gave the side of his head a scritch. “I
really don’t have time for this.”

“Yuri said you were top dog. No,
top lizard.”

Like John, the man was incapable
of smiling. I shouldn’t have to beg him to do what his boss told him to do. “If
you don’t have time to train me, how can you do site visits?”

“I don’t do many, and they’re
planned into my schedule. You’re not.”

“John says I’ll be powerful once
I’m trained.” Powerful at being so insignificant nobody noticed me. Wasn’t that
anti-powerful? “If you do a good job with me, that’s one more chameleon to make
site visits so you can stay here and work on math and chemistry.”

“Oh, I’ll do a good job.” Beau
sighed. “I know I’m going to regret this.”

My new teacher, instead of being
merely mean, was a freak of human nature who didn’t tell lies. What kind of
person was like that? He really thought he’d regret spending the time to train
me.