white skin had more liver spots than a leopard and enough spider veins for an army of tarantulas. I read the tag on his coat and froze.
Dr. Alvin Thomas, BSI head of Analysis. Meeting Dr. Thomas was like meeting Elvis, the president, and Albert Einstein all at once. Dr. Thomas turned out to be depressingly short, making my six feet feel like eight.
He peered up at me through thick glasses, and the wiry white mustache on his face spread as he smiled. “Grace Roberts. So good to finally meet you, after reading so many of your papers.”
I froze.
My papers? I’d jotted down theories on the BSI contributor net, more rambling rants than proper papers. “Which rants—I mean, what subjects did you find—”
“Your theory on viral susceptibility for Re-Animus control. Your field protocol for proper assessment of control violation.” He nodded. “And of course, your rebuttal to Operative Kingman’s protocol for dispersal of evil. While I could have requested almost any translator, I would prefer the assistance of another skeptic.”
The field teams carried iron crucifixes and wooden crosses, garlic and a million other herbs. Relics, they called them. Yet behind every one of these, a principal surely lurked. Herbs, for instance, might interfere with communication pathways in hosts. Iron impurities might disrupt communication. Wood could (and did) cause allergic reactions.
Even the Re-Animus, or controlling mind, was more likely a composite organism than an evil entity. Such opinions did not earn me many drinks from my coworkers. My aversion to mixing business and pleasure earned me fewer invitations to drink at all.
“I’m definitely skeptical.” I reached out, and he shook my hand in a weak grip.
With that, Dr. Thomas turned and opened the door, leading me into the lion’s den. Inside, the mauling had already begun, delivered by the BSI director herself, Margret Bismuth. Meeting Dr. Thomas fulfilled one check box on my bucket list. I’d imagined meeting Ms. Bismuth, but in my mind, it involved power lunch at “Women of BSI” and trading stories, not getting glared at on entry.
An average-height African American woman with mottled brown skin, she radiated power. From her crossed arms to the way she looked over her bifocals, everything about her gave off an essence of pure authority. Her silver hair and sharp features made it easy for men to distort her into a caricature, judging from the notes I’d seen posted on Analysis message boards. I stood, smiling, as she roasted the older man across the table, her tone a blast of napalm. “Dale, I believe it’s time for you to explain why you’d wake me up at midnight for something like this.”
Her victim stammered, then sat up. When he spoke, his voice was a machine, mechanical, but broken in gasps. “We found another spell, ma’am, in Greece.”
Dr. Thomas and I snorted in unison. A spell? Hardly. The field teams labeled anything that disrupted a Re-Animus a “holy relic,” even the most disjointed vocalizations became “a curse,” and in the rare occasion that a corpse so much as stumbled into a wall, the resulting marks got called “a spell.”
Director Bismuth clicked a key on the presentation screen, bringing up a picture.
Taken by a drunk on a cheap cell phone by the light of the moon, the image was less writing and more a jumble of incoherent glyphs. My training kicked in. Like any writing, the key was to pull out distinct terms and break them from pictures to concepts. The tension that had built up in my shoulders drained out as I fell into a comfortable pattern.
I walked around the table, entranced by the images.
Before I ever became interested in pathology or radio waves, before I developed my first composite theories, I’d had a solid job reading hieroglyphics. But this writing looked like the scrawlings of a syphilitic maniac.
I pointed to one image, the sign of a pintail duck. “What made this? What was the writing implement?”
Blank faces stared back at me, until Director Bismuth cleared her throat. “Ms.—”
“Roberts.” Dr. Thomas answered before I could. “Grace Roberts, senior analyst. Her theories on co-organisms . . .” He trailed off under her withering gaze.
“Ms. Roberts, did I invite you to speak?” Her eyes shifted to Dr. Thomas. “Or to this meeting at all?”
I took a seat across from the field team, beside Dr. Thomas. He waved a hand, as if it were an explanation. “Ms. Roberts is here at my request. Our normal translator came down with an unfortunate case of maternity leave.”