The Liminal People (17 page)

“I don't have time for your religion.”

“It is not religion, Taggert. It is the reason we exist. We are the liminal ones. We can be poison or prophylactic to the human race.” I stop trying to leave and look at her. She's got tears in her eyes. “A battle is coming. A war of gods in which humans' only roles will be casualties. But those like us, liminal ones, we can change the tide. We can make humanity a factor in the war of the gods. Some of them respect us and will speak to us. We can petition on the behalf of humanity. People like Nordeen only wish to throw in their lot with one god or another. Or even worse, pit them against each other, figuring he'll end up on top. He's a spiritual profiteer making gain from the gifts of others. But you don't have to live as he—”

“Enough!” I shout. “This is so far above my head you might as well be speaking another language. I have enough on my plate right now! I have to save a little girl. I have to deliver another one to Nordeen. I have to kill another one! And don't give me that shit about ‘it's not in my nature to kill.' I savaged my own brother into a vegetative state with my own two hands before I had my first wet dream!”

“But you didn't kill him,” she says, softly touching my face. “And you didn't use the thing inside of you to do it.”

“How do you know?”

“I learned along time ago to assess the eyes of a killer. That's not what you have. You'll kill if it means saving others. And Nordeen has forced you to kill when you didn't want to. But you are no gratuitous spiller of blood. You are only disconnected. You have no true idea as to your name and your function. You play the role of grunt when in truth you are a surgeon.”

“I can't leave Nordeen.” She nods. “I've got to finish what I'm here for.” Again with the nod. “This is all too much for me. Will you quit it with the nodding and say something?”

“Come back.” She holds me tightly. I can feel my body giving in to hers. It's remembering what we did before. How we did it, how much I fought giving in for the final time, and how much she wanted me to. In her scent I remember it all.

“When it's all over.” She keeps talking. “If you've failed or if you've won or if you've done something in between. If you're broken or whole. If you believe me insane, or Nordeen just too powerful to ignore, come back to me just one more time. You will be welcomed into this house again, and you will not be harmed.” When she's done she lets me go. I don't move.

“If I caused you any pain or if I insulted your beliefs . . . ,” I offer.

“You've done more than I thought possible from someone in that man's thrall. You spoke honestly and acted in what you thought was the best interest of the both of us.”

“I appreciate what you did for me.” Again with the nodding. “I don't mean with Nordeen. I haven't . . . It's been a long time since a woman invited me into her bed.” I do believe she's blushing. I leave before I have a chance to confirm it.

“I'm staying.”

“If you stay, there's going to be blood on your hands. Most likely blood from using your powers. It changes you. I'd never wish that on anyone.”

“The bitch killed my parents.” She stops me cold. I realize she hasn't eaten the food she bought, hasn't showered in days, has passed out more than slept since her parents died. I've met the psychotic compromise of Tamara, and not the real girl. I wonder if her parents would recognize her. “Rajesh, he scares me. I'd take him, but I won't lie. He scares me. That means he'll have the advantage since we both have to think to use our power. But Alia. I was thinking after you left. I never put it together before. She's weak, scared. And she ordered Rajesh to . . . I want her blood on my conscious.”

“It's
conscience
.”

“I know what I said and I know what I meant. I want her blood on my conscious. Every morning I wake up, I want to know that I killed the murderer of my mother and father.”

“So long as it's a decision you're making.” I have an odd feeling of pride. “But if you're down, we've got to work on your skills.”

“Mind your gap,” she snaps. “I pushed you out a window.”

“And still didn't take me out,” I snap back. “You squandered that drop on me because you couldn't finesse the move. If you had pushed fifty paperclips through my brain, you would've used less energy and actually achieved something. Instead, you blew your wad on your opening shot and got a mouthful of toilet water in return because you were too weak to defend yourself.

“We've got one shot at this, Tamara. We can't afford any mistakes. These people are like you, not very skilled but extremely powerful. One wrong move and we're out of the game.”

“Then teach me what you can. Please.”

I feed her first. Chicken vindaloo with some naan and poppadoms at a no-name curry spot with bad service and the best booth we can find. We don't speak as we eat. It's a chore for her. I'm seeing the depression in her for the first time. Insanely spicy hot food gets no reaction.

We're aboveground. and she's got her back to the door of the curry shack. Any of her enemies could come in, see her first and take a chunk out of the girl's back before she had a chance to respond. I try and point it out to her.

“My hair is usually lighter than this. I dyed it. I'm wearing makeup. I never do that. This is not my style. Before I was in skirts, hippy like. Plus, in case you forgot, I'm psychic. I've got stray thoughts from everyone in here.”

“Me included?” I ask. Her brow turns down when she realizes she can't read me. “You're what we call a passive reader. Norms have no defense against you, but our type, we can defend against you if we know you're coming.”

“How?”

“Different ways. Hard-core telepaths, the ones that only read thoughts, they'd just offer thought confusion for you like ‘What color does the sea sound like at dawn?' Or ‘Math as the sense-making tool of the universe minus zeroes.' Shit that's confusing and intriguing at the same time. Hard-core telepaths find you peeking around their heads and get you interested in one of their thought puzzles.” I slap my hands together quick in front of her face. “They've trapped you. They can keep your mind in a vise for as long as they've got the energy to.” She nods, not wanting to refute me, just wanting to learn. As I am with Nordeen. The thought makes my stomach burn again. I think I'm angry with Nordeen.

“Me, I think of a white sheet. Then I imagine totally pure milk poured on that white sheet. Soon I've got nothing in my mind but . . .”

“A blank screen.” She nods her head. “It's like meditation with a purpose.”

“Exactly. So don't always rely on what you can do. There's ways around everything. Best to do what you can as a norm, and kick up the power only when necessary.”

Tamara takes a few more bites of her food before she speaks again. “I knew you wouldn't let anyone move on me anyway,” she says. I smile, then stop myself. I'm about to give her the semi-brushoff talk. The “I can help you but I'm not your friend” lecture. But she gives me a blow to the belly first.

“Tell me about my mother.”

“That's not going to help us get done what we need to—”

“It would help me,” she says softly. “I'm beginning to forget what her voice sounded like, what she smelled like.”

“Rose petals dipped in lemon,” I say on instinct. Tamara stares at me as I try to ignore my own commentary.

“My mother never told me much about you, aside from the fact that you were friends.”

“Smart woman, your mother.”

“You realize I'm a psychic, right?”

“And you realize my white sheet is up, I'm sure.” I can feel her trying to pierce through my defenses. With proper training and time she'd be able to, if I didn't try to stop her.

“But surely that says something, right? What don't you want me to know about my mother?”

“Nothing.” I put my fork down. “Your mother was . . . a kindness to me when I didn't know what kindness was.”

“Where did you meet?”

“This isn't the time.”

“Bloody wrong about that, you are. Way I see it, we're about to go into what some might call war, yeah? Well, then, this is the part where I get to figure out who's got my back and why.”

“Not a chance you can just take it at face value that I'm here for you?”

“That seem like the move of a smart girl, mate?”

“I was at university.”

“Which one?” She seems suspicious of the idea I was ever young, let alone a student.

“George Washington University.”

“Where the bloody hell is that?”

“Washington, D.C. The States.”

“If you're going to take the piss, come up with something better than George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Why not Timothy Leary Academy in Berkeley, California?” I wait for her to stop mocking me. “Why the bloody hell did you go to university there?”

“I'm an American.” Tamara sits back a little and smiles. “My family, my home life . . . My brother was a lot like this Rajesh guy. He had powers and was a bully with them.”

“Rapist?” she says, not caring who hears her.

“No. Maybe. Truth be told, I don't know. I . . . stopped him. Stopped him cold. But my family still didn't trust me. Couldn't understand what their boys had become, and why one was so different from the other. I was the good one, I guess. But they still couldn't trust me. We barely spoke between the time I stopped my brother and when I went off to G.W.”

I slurp down my mango lassi and start working on the soda when I realize I still haven't answered her question. She pulls gently at the sleeves of her hoodie, containing her impatience the best way she can.

“Because my brother was like me, and older, he taught me a lot about my powers early. I knew I was different before I was even your age. By the time I hit college, I was eager to learn everything I could about the body, how it worked. But I also knew I couldn't have a lot of friends, or close friends anyway.”

“Hold on, why's that?” I hear concern for her own well-being in her heartbeat.

“What do you think would happen if the norms of the world caught wind of what we can do? Do you think people like us would be worshipped, helped along, given a bit of a boost? Or do you think we'd get stuck in labs to be poked and prodded at until we die by norms we could take apart with a toothpick? At best, we'd be considered nothing more than freaks.” I sip on my soda, hard. When I'm done, the teenager takes the cup from me and sips some herself, nodding slowly. It makes it easier to continue.

“I kept to myself for the most part. Took a lot of anatomy and physiology classes, neurochemistry, that kind of stuff. Learned early on how to be a paramedic. Figured it was a good way to earn money and practice my skills. One night we responded to a typical call, alcohol poisoning on campus. This guy is seizing, I mean the shakes and everything. He's about to convulse so hard that he'll snap his own back, but I'm not seeing him.”

“You slipped.” Tamara smiles.

“What?”

“Your white screen. I just caught your first image of my mother.”

“Watch that now,” I snap.

“It wasn't me. I mean not really. It was just so strong in your mind, when you look at me, you're looking for her . . .” She stops speaking, looking away from the image in her mind and at me. “My God, you loved her from the first second you saw her.” Tamara states it for what it is, a fact.

“For all the good it did me, yes. I loved her from the second I saw her shivering and scared, with a green beer bottle in her hand, wondering what was happening to her boyfriend. I almost blew my cover. I was looking at her for so long that her boyfriend died.”

“What?”

“For like a minute. Alcohol poisoning is no joke. But I got his heart pumping again. She thanked me, everybody at that party did, but that was it. I went my way and she went hers. I'd think about her. What she smelled like, how her fingers curved at an almost forty-five-degree angle, the sound of her pulse. These are the things people who can hear bodies listen for.”