Out of Touch (31 page)

“You come to our car now.”

Reggie went back in, unbuckled Tom, and maneuvered him out of the helicopter. Since no one offered to help carry him, Reggie hefted the full, limp weight over his shoulder. Sarah climbed down behind them, and they all made their way across the dry ground toward the immigration building. Midway there, the officer who had spoken to Reggie motioned for them to follow his partner to a police car.

Reggie set Tom up in the back seat.

The officer gestured for Reggie and Sarah to ride in back, too.

“With him? He might be dangerous when he wakes up.”

The cop stared at him blankly.

“What about handcuffs?” Reggie asked, trying to sound friendly and miming the action of handcuffing Tom, just in case the man really didn’t understand English.

The cop looked at Reggie like he was a sissy for worrying about an unconscious assailant, but he did handcuff Tom to the door of the car. Then Sarah and Reggie climbed in from the other side.

It was dark by the time Wang Chanthanasai claimed them from the Bangkok police station where they’d been dumped after their cramped and silent drive with the Poipet police. Tom was fully conscious now, but hadn’t spoken.

The silence continued as Wang drove them into Chinatown and led them down concrete steps into a basement room off an alley. Stooping between cloth flaps in the doorway, Reggie wondered if they were safe. This didn’t look like an official government meeting room. There were scattered metal chairs, a faded red rug, and large cardboard boxes stacked against one wall. The overhead light was a bare electric bulb. If someone wanted to quietly do away with a problem, this seemed like just the room for it.

Wang, who had taken charge of Tom, steered him into a chair, then nodded for the others to sit. Reggie sat and went over the day’s events in his mind. But Wang turned instead to Tom and asked, “What’s happened to your mind?”

Tom glared sullenly at Sarah and Reggie, then shook his head. “I don’t know. She did something.”

“I didn’t,” said Sarah. “Maybe those people—“

Wang silenced Sarah with a look, then spoke calmly to Tom, “The police said you were unconscious, drugged. Do you remember what happened?”

“She did something to my mind before that. She froze my whole body and suddenly I couldn’t hear the other teeps.”

“He was trying to drug me,” Sarah hissed. “He’d set me up to be captured by those people, and he was going to drug me unconscious.”

Reggie reached out to cover Sarah’s hand where it rested on her knee. While she seemed resigned and rational, he envisioned lifting Tom up by his shoulders and shaking him.

After a pause Wang asked Tom, “Is it so?”

Tom shrugged and looked at the floor.

Wang watched him with no expression. Then pulling back, like a cobra spreading his hood, he said, “I’ll need to call a few more people.”

May 23, 2025 – Bangkok, Thailand

James paid the driver and stooped out of the taxi at Dr. Yu’s home office. Before he fully unbent, Yu was out the front door and down the stone steps. The cab nosed its way into traffic. People pressed at James. The sidewalks of Chinatown reviled personal space. James flattened his hands against his legs, and tried for stillness if not calm.

“Dr. Morton.”

“Dr. Yu.”

“Shall we walk?”

James nodded and the conversation switched immediately to tight telepathy.

“You know Tom Asawaroengchullaka?”

“Very slightly,”
James replied, remembering to look ahead as he dodged diminutive pedestrians and ignored smells of soup and frying fat, despite his missed dinner.

“Tom’s a playboy, occasional diplomatic staff, the usual government connections. Today, he took a new teek émigré to visit Angkor Wat and supposedly tried to sell her to the Chinese, or someone claiming to represent them.”

“I’m not sure I want to know about this.”

“Ah, but I haven’t told you why we’re being called in. Tom lost his telepathy. He claims the teek did something to him. Wang wants me to examine him, and I thought your laboratory inclinations might be useful.”

“I doubt it’s genetic or even viral if a teek’s involved. But you could have just sent me samples—“

“Perhaps you don’t see. This could threaten us all. You and I may need to stretch ourselves a bit, but we are the community’s best chance for answers.”

“I hardly think—“

“We’re here,”
Yu broadcast loudly, standing in front of an alley-side door.

Wang opened the door,
“Come in. Thank you for hurrying. Be careful what you say aloud. The teek and her boyfriend are not cleared for anything, except scientific information,”
Wang’s glance paused on James,
“And Tom may well be compromised, but I believe his teep is blocked.”
Then aloud, “Tom, the doctors have come to examine you. Can you tell them what happened?”

James was still descending the basement stairs as Tom began to talk. He told about Reggie shouting, Sarah freezing him, the loss of his telepathy, and being forced to tranquilize himself before James pieced together that they’d been visiting temple ruins in Cambodia. How had Tom ended up there with Sarah and Reggie, and why were they all discussing this in a basement storage room?

Then Sarah began talking, filling in for where Tom was unconscious. She told at length about being chased by Chinese agents, hijacking a helicopter, and being driven back to Bangkok by Thai police. James lost track of her words when he realized the mud spattered across her clothes was actually blood from a Cambodian helicopter pilot. Tom and Reggie were also spattered with blood.

Yu interrupted Sarah once to ask, “Are you sure the people chasing you were from China?”

She tilted her chin and looked at him, “No, but Tom didn’t deny it. They looked Chinese, and that’s the other government involved, right?”

James wondered if Yu might have his own connections to China. There were certainly rumors about the Chinatown teeps. Did he want to know? Could he avoid it?

As Sarah finished speaking her eyes were on James. He tried to look elsewhere, but since Dr. Yu was conducting a preliminary examination of Tom and Wang was pacing, blocking most of the room, James felt obliged to nod and look concerned. She’d certainly had a trying day, but James wished he was safely away from the drama. He caught himself beginning to tap the sides of his knees and folded his hands instead.

The silence stretched, both mentally and audibly, and James tried to think of something reassuring to say to Sarah. Then Wang said aloud, “Do you realize how much trouble you’ve caused the Thai government? Teeps, and some teeks, have worked quietly here for over a decade. You’ve hijacked two aircraft and upset two foreign governments in less than a month.”

“Would you rather they caught me?”

“I’d rather you found quieter means!”

“Look, I tried to live peacefully. Then the U.S. came after me, you guys sent Tom to recruit me, which led to the first airplane incident, and when he offered to show me Angkor Wat, I thought it was okay with you, which led to today’s whole mess. It’s not like I steal aircraft for fun.” Sarah’s voice squeaked at the end, making her sound very young.

“Nonetheless, it can’t happen again. Stay inside Thailand. Stay out of trouble. You’re not that important. You’re hardly even useful.”

“Maybe not.” Sarah looked down and away. “As a teenager, I sometimes thought the most useful thing I could do would be to kill myself and destroy any trace of my DNA. Would you prefer that in the future?”

James met Sarah’s eyes without thinking when she looked up. He was torn between her pain, pain he might be partly responsible for if he was her father, and the thought that she’d wanted to destroy her valuable genome.

“Now that I know there are other teeks, I think it’s more useful that I’m alive. There must be others like me, and if so—you might need me after all.”

Was she talking to him? No, it must be to Wang. But she was looking at him, as if he and Wang were on the same side, but he hardly knew Wang.

There was silence for a moment, then Yu broke in abruptly with, “Dr. Morton, I can’t find anything wrong. Do you want to take some samples and run your own tests?” James rushed to do his part and leave.

Shortly after running Tom’s samples, but well before James had bothered to call Yu or Wang, Alak knocked gently at the lab door and showed himself in. He waited in respectful silence as James finished typing in results, but the unscheduled visit made James twitch.

“Good to see you, Alak.”

“We haven’t visited for a while. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” James lied. There was a long pause.

“May I sit down?” Alak gestured toward the one swivel chair. His overloaded briefcase made the gesturing arm droop strangely, and James could see Alak was already sweating, though it was well before noon.

“Of course,” James replied, going to join the man by his desk. This meant he was in for several minutes of small talk. He braced himself to play along. Finally the real subject was broached.

“I hear,”
said Alak,
“That Dr. Yu called you to examine Tanit last night.”

James tapped his foot and crossed the opposite leg in the beat it took to connect “Tanit” to “Tom”.
“Yes, I did some DNA and protein expression blood work on him. Nothing unusual turned up. We should probably arrange a brain scan.”

“Did Tanit seem to be very familiar with Dr. Yu or Wang?”

“Uh, no.”
James answered. Then as his own questions about the Chinatown teeps took hold,
“Anything in particular?”

“No, nothing. You and Dr. Yu, being doctors, must consult occasionally. And perhaps Wang has some connection to Tom?”

“I was surprised that Yu called me, and I was told Reggie called Wang. He still had his card from immigration.”

“Oh, of course. I’m very interested in this whole occurrence. Perhaps you could confer with me from time to time. Keep me informed as to Dr. Yu’s work, as well as your own.”

“Of course.”
James wondered if he was being asked to spy on Wang or if he was under suspicion himself. Probably both, but either way he might as well appear cooperative.
“I have the new offer from Minerva to give you.”

As James handed across the stiff manila envelope, he continued,
“They’ve asked me to reply within two weeks. I hope that will also be enough time to find separate lab space for Robert.”

James hadn’t really expected Alak to show any reaction. The bureaucrat merely raised his eyebrows and waited for James to continue.
“I’m willing to assist as his advisor, of course, but I can’t pursue my own work adequately with him always interrupting.”

“He says you won’t give him passwords for any of your files, so his only access to data is by asking you.”

For Alak the statement was almost confrontational, and it confirmed he was communicating with Robert. Was that an accidental slip? More likely, Alak was acknowledging that James
was watched, which was of course why James wanted Robert out.

“Once Robert has his own secure system, I’ll give him copies of the files he needs.”

             
“He’s cleared for everything you know.”

             
James cringed inwardly. He’d usually enjoyed the lax security among telepaths in Thailand, but now that another teep knew genetics, was almost at a level to help James with his classified investigations, he longed to protect his records. They were like a diary he’d never expected anyone else to read. He wanted to bring points forward for discussion at his own pace, not have someone snoop them out at will.

             
“I offered to work with him, even teach him, but my agreement when I came here promised complete control of my own lab and equipment. The computer system here is part of my equipment. I will properly share data with Robert, as soon as he is separately equipped to study it safely.”

             
Alak did not answer, but with the Minerva envelope in hand and a tight smile fixed on his face, he nodded and left.

             
James knew he hadn’t handled the negotiation as smoothly as possible. In the past he’d had a surprisingly cordial relationship with the Thai government, and with Alak as well. Was it just him, or was there increased tension throughout the teep community? Alak had been asking about Yu and Wang, and it appeared Tom had been working with some outside force.

             
A shiver shook James’ head, neck, shoulder, and on down. The notes, the offers from Minerva, whatever Davies was maneuvering, it was too much like the cocoon of plotting he’d left the United States to escape. Maybe Thailand was too involved after all. Could he work someplace else? If he took a research position well distanced from the intrigues of teeps and teeks would the forces involved let him go? The thought turned his frustration into something colder and closer to fear. He stepped away from all those thought and back to his computer and its analysis.