Overload Flux (42 page)

When he’d first visited the bar after moving into his hotel suite, he wasn’t sure he liked the music, which was billed as “preflight British traditional,” even though whoever selected it had a rather elastic definition of the style. It had grown on him in subsequent visits, to the point that he looked forward to the live musician scheduled to perform the next week. It was… odd to be able to plan things like that. Usually his job kept him constantly traveling.

The lowlight of his already
zhào chū
day had been being stuck in the metro station while the city figured out how to reroute the skytrams because of an accident. A ground hauler had crashed into the pillars of the passenger platform, killing at least thirty people outright and flooding the area trauma centers with the injured. If he hadn’t stopped to help an older couple with toppled packages and wayward grandchildren, he might have been back in the trauma center again himself, and back to waking hallucinations of falling. He was glad he didn’t have to go anywhere near the gruesome ground levels where the victims had landed.

After the nightmare had terminated his too-short nap, Lièrén had been too irritable, thirsty, and unsettled to stay in his hotel room another minute, so he’d gone to the bar. It had been surprisingly crowded for an early weeknight, and he’d retreated to a back corner booth to get away from the pressure of the unknowingly broadcasting patrons. He was only a low-level telepath, so their actual thoughts didn’t bother him, but his high-level sifter talent meant he couldn’t avoid feeling the ebb and flow of them. Without the CPS enhancement drugs helping him control his talent, the active minds around him felt like constant raindrops on a sunburn.

The usually boisterous server, Rayle Leviso, who chatted with and teased everyone, had thankfully left him alone that evening. Once the bar emptied, Rayle had slid out early, too, leaving only Bartender Sesay… Imara, she’d invited him to call her, to deal with the few remaining customers. She was cheerfully competent and wasn’t given to idle chatter, and it didn’t hurt that she was easy on the eyes. Even her outgoing son, Derrit, was thankfully quiet tonight.

In the earlier crush, Imara had asked if Derrit could sit with him to do his homework. Lièrén had nodded and said less than was polite, but his pounding headache made it difficult to do anything more. The medics and healers had done admirable jobs in repairing his ribs, diaphragm, lung, and liver, but they couldn’t do anything about the withdrawal symptoms, owing to his sifter talent that made most chemical painkillers useless. His choices had been to stay in the rehab unit for another three weeks with the constant company of a healer, or deal with the pain and discomfort on his own. He valued his privacy more than his comfort, although it was hard to remember why on nights like this one. At least he wasn’t having to regrow teeth—he’d heard from other rehab patients that it took months for the new ones to feel like they belonged in their mouths.

Tonight was the first time Lièrén had spent much time with Derrit, and he’d been relieved that the boy’s mind was blessedly quiet. Once Lièrén had considered it, he realized Derrit was a natural shielder. Talent detection hadn’t ever been one of Lièrén’s strong suits, so the boy was probably at least mid-level, if not better. When the crowd had thinned and more booths opened up, Lièrén could have asked Derrit to move, but he’d left the kid alone. He looked busy and productive, and that kind of concentration was hard to achieve for eleven-year-old boys.

Hell, it was hard to achieve for thirty-two-year-old men. He’d been given part-time CPS desk duty in a local field office while his flitter accident was being investigated. In an odd quirk of fate, though his field unit was officially based out of the main office in High Spires, this was the first time he’d ever been on Capet Dedrum itself, more commonly known as Concordance Prime, or visited its galaxy-renowned showcase capitol city.

Repeated interviews with the staff from the CPS Office of Internal Inquiry suggested they thought there was something questionable about the accident. Since his assignment for the last twelve years had been conducting covert field interrogations, it was easy for him to identify the agenda behind their questions. He’d already requested an advocate to look out for his interests, as was his right as a de facto member of the military. He knew he was innocent of any wrongdoing, but the OII investigators might take some convincing.

So far, his desk duty had been to catch the field office up on its neglected data cubes—cross-referencing, prioritizing, tagging, and threading—which wasn’t helping his headaches. He liked administrative work, and took pride in creating and keeping order, but it was mind-numbingly boring after a while.

Because of his “trade office” experience and training, he was supposed to be available to the field office for occasional tasks suited to his talents, but they hadn’t asked, probably preferring to use sifters they knew and trusted. It was just as well, since he still had little stamina, and his talent continued to feel different and unreliable while on the latest temporary drug protocol. The local field-office supervisor, Tom Yamazaki, was new to Con Prime. Despite his Japanese last name, he didn’t speak the language, and precious little Mandarin, which he’d need if he planned to make a career in Spires. Lièrén had only met Yamazaki once in person and hadn’t been introduced to the other agents in the new office, who all must have gone to the same conservative autotailor to get the group rate. They acknowledged his presence from time to time, but mostly, they ignored him.

It had been disheartening to realize that with the death of his partner, his only friends now were Rayle and Imara. They’d shown more concern and care than people he’d known for years. Only his supervisor had sent a generic “get well soon” ping. To the overworked medical and therapy personnel, he was a CPS auth code and a barely remembered name. To everyone else, he was just another tourist on the metro.

And now, it looked like the capstone to this particularly lousy day was the bald man at the bar who’d been heavy-handedly hitting on Imara and getting nowhere. He was probably drawn by her pretty face and wide smile that invited laughter, and her crazy, coiled hair that always looked like it was on the verge of breaking free from its restraint. To Lièrén’s chagrin, he’d only noticed the situation because young Derrit had seen the trouble and was watching them like a hawk. Lièrén had a sinking feeling it would be more trouble than Derrit could handle.

Rule number one in covert field units like his was not to draw attention to himself or the unit, and rule number two was to follow rule number one. Lièrén had led anyone who asked to believe that his title of “field agent” was CPS-speak for “office twonk,” and that his unit’s mission had to do with trade support. Procedure said he should leave now, or conveniently fall asleep and see nothing, but the bald man’s haze of violent discord was slicing through Lièrén’s talent like a fistful of knives.

Derrit abruptly stood and began sidling toward the bar, focusing on his mother with the intensity of a laser beam. Lièrén’s headache flared, and second later, the bald man grabbed Imara’s hand. Lièrén sat, frozen in indecision.

In the blink of an eye, the bald man muttered something in what sounded like German, then stood and tried to drag Imara from behind the bar.

“Leave her alone!” shouted Derrit, closing in fast and latching onto the man’s arm.

The bald man snarled and backhanded the boy, sending him flying a meter or more into some chairs.

Read more:
Minder Rising (Central Galactic Concordance Book 2)