"Yeah, I guess so. You can't see into their heads, right? I mean—know what they were thinking at the time?"
"Only by reference to their actions or words," Sophia said. "If those actions or words contain any hint of ambiguity, the field is thrown wide open."
"And, of course, the defense always argues that things weren't as they appear." Snorting, the warden stepped out into the crisp light of the late winter's day. Sophia blinked as she, too, exited. The light seemed too bright today, too intense, cutting across her retinas like broken glass.
Odess watched as she blinked. "Guess it's time for you to go in."
Most people didn't know that Js only worked one-month rotations before returning to the nearest branch of the Center to have their Silence checked. But Odess had been part of the prison system for over a decade. "How do you always know?" she asked, having worked with him sporadically over those ten years.
"That question is your answer."
She tipped her head a little to the side.
"You begin to act more human," he told her, his dark eyes holding a concern she'd never understood. "At the start, when you've just returned from wherever it is you go, your responses are short, distant. Now . . . we actually had a conversation."
"An astute observation," she said, realizing the tilt of her head for what it was—a sign of disintegration. "Perhaps we can have another conversation in a month's time." That was how long it would take for the conditioning to begin to fragment again.
"I'll see you then."
Sophia walked to the waiting jet-chopper with an easy, unhurried stride. She was in Manhattan proper by the time they discovered the prisoner bleeding in his cell.
Max had spent the night going over the Bonner case files, on the slim chance that the bastard would actually give up a body at some stage. In truth, every single detail of the Butcher's crimes was already engraved on his memory banks, never to be erased, but he'd wanted to be absolutely certain of his recall. All that death, the pain, coupled with the smug arrogance of the man who'd ended so many lives—it hadn't exactly left him in the best frame of mind for what had to be some kind of a Psy joke.
"Commander," he said, staring into the aristocratic face of the Psy who ran New York Enforcement, "if I can speak bluntly—"
"You rarely do otherwise, Detective Shannon."
In most humans and changelings, Max would've heard in that statement a wry humor. But Commander Brecht was Psy. He'd look at a rape victim with the same dispassionate gaze as he would a drive-by-shooter.
"So," Max said, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose, "you'll understand where I'm coming from when I ask you why the hell you'd put me on this. The Psy hate me."
"Hate is an emotion," Commander Brecht said from his standing position by an old-fashioned filing cabinet that had somehow survived all attempts at modernization. "You are more of an inconvenience."
Max felt his lips curve up in a humorless smile. At least you could never accuse Brecht of not cutting to the heart of the matter. "Exactly." He folded his arms over the crisp white shirt he'd put on in preparation for a court appearance. "Why would you want an inconvenience running an investigation into a Psy situation?" Psy were insular to the nth degree. They kept their secrets even as they stole those of others without pause or conscience. It pissed Max off, but all he could do was keep on doing his job. Sometimes, he won in spite of their interference—and that made it all worth it.
"You have a natural mental shield." Commander Brecht's tone was straightforward. "The fact that you're immune to Psy mental interference may have been a stumbling block when it comes to your career—"
Max snorted. Fact was, with his solve rate and aptitude tests, he should've made lieutenant by now. But he knew he never would—Psy controlled Enforcement, and his ability to withstand their attempts at coercion, to run his cases as he saw fit, made him an unacceptable risk in any position of power.
"As I was saying," the commander continued, his hair solid gilt under the streak of light coming in through the tiny window to his left. "While it may have been an obstacle in your path to a higher position within Enforcement, it is also an advantage."
"I'm not going to argue with that." Unlike so many humans, Max had never had to worry about whether he'd closed a case or looked the other way as a result of subtle mental pressure—many a good cop had broken because of that simmering kernel of doubt, that niggling concern that he'd been led to a particular conclusion. He said as much to Brecht. "I would've gone into private investigation if I didn't have the shield—staying here to get mind-fucked wouldn't have been at the top of my list."
The commander walked over to his desk. "It's beneficial for New York Enforcement that you decided to stay—you have the best solve-rate in the city. And you're also, as the humans would say, mule stubborn."
Max had been called a rottweiler once in a while. He took it as a compliment. "Still doesn't answer the question of why you'd want me on a Psy case." Command always assigned those to Psy detectives.
Max didn't have a problem with that—so long as it was only Psy who were involved. But it angered the hell out of him when humans and changelings got shortchanged because a member of the cold psychic race was part of the equation. "The Bonner situation—"
"Is currently at an impasse according to the report you turned in last night. You're going to wait him out, correct?"
Unfolding his arms, Max shoved a hand through his hair. "I still need to be able to respond quickly if he does decide to talk—I know this case like no one else." And though he'd run the Butcher to ground, his task wasn't yet over—wouldn't be over until he'd brought each and every girl home, giving their grieving families the peace of being able to bury their babies in proper graves.
To this day, he could feel the slight weight of Carissa White's mother as she collapsed into his arms—it had been a snowy winter's night when he'd gone to their pristine little villa, a villa Carissa had decorated with twinkling Christmas lights two weeks earlier. Mrs. White had opened the door with a laugh. Later, she'd gripped his jacket and begged him to tell her that it wasn't true, that Carissa was still alive.
And then she'd made him promise. Find him. Find the monster who did this.
He'd fulfilled that promise. But he'd made other promises to other parents.