“And you were recently shot in the face and had to be brought here for reconstructive surgery.”
Tanaka touched the bandage that covered half of her face. “That in my file too? Or are you just stunningly observant?”
Ahmadi didn’t take the bait. She smiled and touched something on the datapad that sat on her lap as if it were just coincidence and not her taking notes.
“You have led a life of more or less constant trauma.”
“Thank you for the flattery, but we can skip this part.”
“I’m not flattering you,” Ahmadi said. “I’m holding up a little mirror and asking you to look in it. You’ve been living in fight-or-flight mode essentially since you were a child. Everything a child is supposed to be able to rely on was ripped away from you without warning.”
“I’m not here to talk about my parents.”
“We can start anywhere you like. It’s all connected.”
“You sound like you already have me pegged.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but…” She shrugged. “I’m good at what I do. Most of your file is classified, but what’s available to me tells a compelling story. No long-term relationships. You’ve never lived anywhere longer than a year. You refused an advanced scholarship in order to enlist. You’ve repeatedly refused promotion so that you could stay a field officer. You’ve been on the run for a long time.”
Tanaka felt her hands curl into fists. “Running from what?”
“I don’t know,” Ahmadi said. “But this seems to be the first time you’ve ever sought out counseling.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you here?” Ahmadi said, making another note on her pad. The way she wrote without ever breaking eye contact with her subject seemed like a skill she must have spent a lot of time practicing. It was a little creepy.
The need to move in her overly soft chair was finally too much, and Tanaka stood up. Her legs tingled like there was a low-level electric current running through the muscles, so she walked across the room and pretended to examine a painting on the far wall. It was a neo-impressionist rendering of Laconia’s capital city at night, done in thick oil paints. The painter had studied Imogene Batia or someone in her school. The way it was painted made it seem like the observer was looking out through a window in the pouring rain. She wondered if Ahmadi had painted it herself, or if she’d had it shipped out from Laconia when she’d taken the assignment on Gewitter Base. I used to paint, said a voice in her head.
Ahmadi cleared her throat, and Tanaka realized the doctor had asked a question that had never been answered.
“Did you paint this yourself?” Tanaka asked.
“Why are you here?” Ahmadi repeated.
Tanaka turned to face her again, throwing her full focus at the counselor and waiting for the flinch. Tristan had once told her that when she was annoyed, she radiated Don’t fuck with me. Most people took a subconscious step back.
Ahmadi smiled and rested her hand on the datapad. Tanaka had a vague and uneasy sense of having been outplayed.
“I was present at… something,” Tanaka finally said. “It is part of my mission to understand it.”
“And you don’t?”
Tanaka turned back to the painting. If Aunt Akari had let her study art history instead of enlisting in active service, where would she be right now? And who would be tracking down the high consul? What else—how many thousands of other things—would be different?
A flash of a woman very like Ahmadi blinking at her with sleepy eyes on a bed covered with white sheets. God, I used to love waking up next to her, someone thought in Tanaka’s head.
“Something happened,” Tanaka said, surprised to hear her own voice saying the words.
Ahmadi nodded. She looked… not sympathetic. Not pitying. She looked like she was weary too. Like she’d led a life of having the rug pulled out from under her, and she knew how much it hurt. She gestured toward the chair in invitation. “Tell me about it.”
Tanaka sat. Don’t tell her, she’s mean. Tell her, she always loved you, competed in her head.
“There was an incident in the ring space,” Tanaka said, softly. “I was there. You can’t know this.”
“Colonel,” Ahmadi said, “because of the nature of my work I have very high-level classified clearance. The empire has to be able to trust me with state secrets a patient might reveal during a counseling session. I take this aspect of my job very seriously.”
“If you didn’t, they’d send you to the Pen. Would have. I guess now they’d just shoot you.”
Ahmadi nodded and set her datapad aside. The canny operative in Tanaka recognized the theater in all of it, but she could feel it working anyway. Ahmadi wanted to listen. It made Tanaka want to talk.
“There was an incursion. There were cognitive effects. Like when everyone lost consciousness, only not that. The people who were there… connected. Mind to mind. Memory to memory. I was in other people’s minds.”
“It’s not an uncommon hallucination—”
“I checked it out. It was true. Everyone I could confirm played out. We were in each other’s heads. It was real.” She was trembling. She didn’t know why she was trembling. Ahmadi was very still. “Do you believe me?”
“I do.”
Tanaka nodded slowly. “I can’t have anyone inside my head.”
“Because that’s yours,” Ahmadi said. “That’s the only place that’s yours.”
“I have… outlets.”
“Outlets?”
“I have secrets. That are… mine. It’s the way I make room for myself in the world. By having secrets, I can still exist. I love Laconia because if I got caught, it would matter.”
“Do you want to tell me what those secrets are?”
Tanaka shook her head.
“Since the incident, I have been having… experiences.”
“Experiences,” Ahmadi echoed.
“Voices, but not like command hallucinations. Images from lives I haven’t lived, faces of people I’ve never met. Feelings. Deep, overwhelming feelings from situations I’ve never been in. And I am afraid that somewhere out there, someone is having that same experience… of me.”
Ahmadi took in a long, deep breath, and let it out slowly. Her expression was somber.
“I’m going to ask you if I can use your name,” Ahmadi said. Then, “May I call you by your given name?”
Tanaka nodded. For some reason it was difficult to talk. Something was wrong with her throat.
“Aliana? I am going to ask you if I can take your hand. May I take your hand?”
“Yes,” Tanaka said, but it was barely a whisper.
The thick, matronly woman leaned forward. Her fingers were strong, her skin was dry. Tanaka shuddered.
“Aliana, I feel that you are describing intimate assault.”
“No one touched me.”
“You have a very important, very private personal boundary. It was violated without your permission or consent. Is that right? Please, if I’m wrong, say. I want to understand.”
“They’re in my mind. I can’t keep them out. They’re going to know things that they can’t know.” She thought that her voice sounded very calm, all things considered. Ahmadi nodded.
“And you’re telling me that this… thing. It’s ongoing? It’s still happening right now?”
Tanaka felt herself still. Ahmadi let go of her hand and walked smoothly backward until her desk was between them. The psychiatrist’s eyes were wide and her cheeks were flushed. Prey response. Whatever training the woman had gone through, it had made her sensitive enough to recognize danger. For a moment, Tanaka considered all the ways that she could kill the woman. There were several. None of them would put her in any physical danger, and two of them would be cathartic.