“I…”
That had been a long time ago. Find a purpose, Sandra had taught me. Do something with the voices. Make them serve you.
“Hey,” J.C. interrupted, “I’m gonna go grab some jerky or something at that gas station. Anyone want anything?”
“Wait!” I said, spinning away from the fish tank. “I might need you.”
“What?” J.C. said, hand on the doorknob. “Need me to be the butt of more jokes? I’m sure you’ll live.”
He stepped out, then pulled the door closed. I stood, speechless. He’d actually left. Usually when J.C. disobeyed, it was because I tried to leave him behind—or because I didn’t want him practicing with his guns. He disobeyed to protect me. He didn’t just … just walk away.
Ivy ran to the door and peeked after him. “Want me to go after him?”
“No,” I whispered.
“So,” Jenny said. “We were talking about you getting worse?”
I … I …
“That’s an Achilles tang,” Tobias said, stepping up to me and nodding toward the little red and black fish. “It looks black, but it’s actually dark brown, sometimes even a dark purple. A beautiful, but difficult fish to keep; that spot on the tail is the origin of its name—as it looks a little like a bleeding wound on the heel.”
I took a deep breath. J.C. was just being J.C. We were talking too much about aspects—and he hated being reminded he wasn’t real. That was why he’d left.
“I’ve had some rough patches lately, perhaps,” I said to Jenny. “I need something to focus my aspects and my mind.”
“A case?” Jenny said, pulling a few sheets out from behind her notepad. “I might be able to help with that.” She set the sheets on the coffee table in front of her.
“Ah…” Ivy said, walking over to me. “That’s her angle, Steve. This is all preamble. She wants to hire you.”
“She was pushing you off balance,” Tobias said with a nod. “Perhaps to get herself into a better bargaining position?”
This was familiar ground. I relaxed, then walked over and settled down in the seat across from Jenny. “All this to offer me a case? You people. You realize that you can just ask.”
“You have a tendency to return letters unopened, Leeds,” the reporter said, but she did have the decency to blush.
“What is this…” I said, skimming. “Machine that can use big data to predict a person’s exact wants, updated minute by minute, incorporating brain chemistry with historic decisions, removing the need for most choices…”
“Kind of interesting,” Ivy said, reading over my shoulder. “I guess it will depend on what she’s willing to pay, and what exactly she wants us to do.”
“What do you need from me?” I asked Jenny.
“I need you to steal a—”
My pocket buzzed. I absently glanced at the phone, expecting a text from J.C. He’d probably sent me a picture of himself trying to drink straight from the soda machine at the gas station, or some similar nonsense.
But the text wasn’t from J.C. It was from Sandra. The woman who originally taught me to use my aspects; the woman who had brought me sanity. The woman who had vanished soon after.
The text read, simply, HELP.
TWO
I tore from the room, followed by Ivy and Tobias. Out on the street, Wilson and his niece saw something was up, and he alertly opened the car door for me. I waved Ivy and Tobias in. J.C.? Where was J.C.?
No time. I climbed into the back seat of the limo.
“Wait!” Jenny shouted from the door of the building. “What about my interview! I was promised a full session!”
“I’ll start it up again another time!”
“But the case!” she said, holding up her papers. “I need to see how your aspects respond to this situation. Aren’t you intrigued by—”
I slammed the door shut. On a normal day, perhaps I would have been intrigued. Not today. I held up the phone for Ivy and Tobias.
“You’re sure it’s from her?” Ivy asked.
“It’s from the number she left on the table that morning,” I said. “I’ve kept it in my contacts list on every phone I’ve had since.” We’d tried tracing it in the past, but phone records always listed it as unassigned.
Wilson climbed into the passenger-side front door, and his grandniece pulled on her coachman’s cap and took the driver’s seat. The car rumbled to life. “Where to, sir?” she asked.
I looked from Tobias to Ivy.
“It could be someone else spoofing the number,” Ivy said. “Be careful.”
Is it really you? I typed to her.
Destiny Place, she typed back. It was her nickname for Cramrid Hotel, the place where we’d first met. Another text soon followed: a sequence of numbers and nonsense characters.
What? I typed to her.
No reply.
“Sir?” Wilson asked from the front. “We’re leaving?”
“Take us home,” I said to Wilson.
His niece pulled us out onto the street and made a U-turn, heading back the way we’d come.
“What are those numbers?” Ivy asked, looking toward Tobias. “Do you recognize them?”
He shook his head.
“Sandra is worried that I might not be the one who has the phone,” I said. “It’s a cipher. She often did this sort of thing.”
The other two shared a look. Both of them had been around when I’d known Sandra—or at least they’d been among the many shadows and apparitions I’d seen back then. But they hadn’t been completely themselves until Sandra taught me to create aspects. Focusing my attention, meditating, compartmentalizing my mind. They’d transformed naturally from shadows and whispered voices into distinct individuals.
“We should ignore it,” Ivy said. “She’s playing with you again, Steve. If that’s really her.”
“If he ignores it, Ivy,” Tobias said softly, “it will haunt him for the rest of his life. You know he needs to pursue this.”
Ivy sat back, folding her arms. With her blonde hair in a tight bun and her no-nonsense pantsuit, you might easily think her cold. But when she looked away out the window, there were tears in the corners of her eyes.
Tobias placed his hand on her shoulder.
Oddly, I felt out of place. I should have offered her comfort, reassured her I wasn’t looking for a cure, or a way to be rid of her. I’d always promised Ivy that wasn’t the point of finding Sandra.
I did none of this. Instead, I stared at the phone screen. HELP. Twelve years ago, Sandra had saved me from the nightmare my life had become. Dared I hope that I’d be able to be with her again? Dared I hope that she’d be able to do something about the way I was sliding, my aspects getting worse, my—
The image on my screen was obscured as a new text popped up.
Dude. DUDE! Tell me I didn’t just see you drive off.
We’re heading home, I wrote to J.C. Grab an Uber or something.
I got you a doughnut and everything. With sprinkles.
And you haven’t eaten it yet?
Sure I did, he wrote back. But I knew I probably would, so I bought two. Can’t promise the second will survive the trip home. These are dangerous times, Skinny, and it’s a rough neighborhood for a tasty doughnut to be wandering about on its own.