“Do you think people do that because it confirms some sense of inadequacy in them?” Sadie asked, thinking of Ford.
“Absolutely,” Naomi said, and Sadie sensed she was more interested in impressing Miranda than doing any debriefing.
“That’s a bit clichéd,” Miranda countered. Naomi looked chastened. “I’d say it’s because taking blame is more comfortable than admitting we might be powerless. That’s our flaw: our fear of not knowing. As I get older, though, I find the unknown much more interesting. Nice to have surprises sometimes.” She leaned back. “Of course, he could actually be guilty of something.”
Sadie felt like her mind was bending in new directions. “If my Subject’s anger is the result of a guilty conscience, should I help him get past it?”
“You can’t,” Johann said. “That’s not what you are there to do, and you’d need to get into the subconscious. No one can do that.”
“That’s B.S., Johann,” Naomi snapped. “It’s rare, but it’s been done.”
“Only a handful of very gifted Minders have ever seen a subconscious, let alone gotten in,” Curtis explained. “It’s hard to find the door and even trickier to get past it. You need to thoroughly understand the Subject’s defense mechanisms.”
“What about dreams?” Sadie asked, wondering if she should admit that she hadn’t yet been able to access Ford’s. “Couldn’t you get in that way?”
“It’s not possible to enter dreams while in Syncopy,” Johann said, and Sadie was flooded with relief. “The dreaming mind is the closest to stasis state, so it doesn’t trigger the relay the same way.”
Naomi rushed to add, “But every Minder who’s gotten into the subconscious has done it when their Subject is asleep. Maybe minds are structured that way on purpose.”
Sadie took that in. “Are there big differences between minds?”
That made everyone at the table laugh. “Vast differences,” Miranda said. “I’ve been in minds that use sounds to generate holograms, minds like prisms, minds where there was only scent.”
“I had one that was like rocks, heavy and hard to get through,” Naomi said.
“That’s what I always imagined my ex-husband’s mind was like,” Miranda said drily, giving Naomi a nod of approval.
Johann said, “Once I was in the mind of a boy who went blind when he was twelve. It was like a picnic on a huge green lawn. Groups of people all around in clusters, talking. Some of them were real people, and some of them represented projects he was working on. There was a band, and it played songs that went with his emotions. And there was a tent, because when he got upset or angry it rained.”
“Wow,” Sadie breathed. She looked at Curtis. “What about you?”
He shook his head. “My claustrophobia prevents me from entering Syncopy.”
There was one of the threadbare silences around the table that you get when someone asks after the health of an aunt who died years earlier. “I’m sorry,” Sadie said, “I had no idea.”
“That’s okay. Our technology is always changing, and I’m still hoping for a shot one day.” He gave her a nice smile, then shifted back to the interview. “Let’s get back to your Subject. Would you say his life is stable or unstable?”
Sadie thought about it. “Stable. For the most part it has just been going to work and going home.”
“For the most part?” Curtis repeated, cocking his head.
“One afternoon he got a file anonymously. It was the Serenity Services file about his brother’s murder.”
Naomi said, “It came in the mail? We can trace that.”
Sadie shook her head. “He has a makeshift workshop in an abandoned building, and one day it just appeared there, in his desk.”
Naomi asked, “Did he know who it was from?”
“He suspected someone named Bucky, a friend who disappeared a few years ago, but he doesn’t even know where Bucky is.”
Curtis looked at Johann. “Check your Off Grid files for a Bucky when you get downstairs.” He turned to Sadie. “How did he react to the file?”
“He was glad to get it.” Sadie thought about the havoc he wreaked afterward. “But disappointed by its content.”
Naomi started typing on a tablet. “His brother’s name was James Winter?”
Sadie nodded, and within a minute Naomi had downloaded the file to her computer and circulated it to the others. Sadie was struck by how easy it was for her, and yet how hard for Ford, whose requests for the file had been repeatedly denied.
Everyone but Miranda scanned it. She sat looking into the distance like she was bored.
Naomi set her tablet back on the table. “There doesn’t seem to be anything suggestive here. What was the issue?”
“He was struggling with the idea of his brother as a drug addict,” Sadie explained.
“The coroner’s report seems to be pretty definitive,” Johann said.
Sadie said, “His brother’s girlfriend made it sound like he didn’t use drugs at all. I know there were drugs in his system, but what if they were forced on him? Or introduced after he was killed to make it look—”
Every pair of eyes at the table was wide, staring at her, and she realized she’d made a mistake. Trying to solve your Subject’s brother’s murder was probably a little more objectionable than objective. “Sorry, I think maybe spending so much time in my head has made my imagination…” She let that taper off as it dawned on her that “imagination” wasn’t much better.
Miranda’s fingers tapped the tabletop again. “So he is undertaking a private inquiry of his own.” Her eyes made a circuit of the others. “I’ve heard enough. I think we can—”
Johann said apologetically, “I’ve got one more quick question. You mentioned a workshop in an abandoned building. Can you tell us where? We keep a register of alternative building uses. We’re trying to see what creates communities versus what creates crime.”
Sadie felt herself hesitate for a split second as though she was violating a friend’s confidence. What is wrong with you? “It’s the Detroit Wire Company,” she said. “But I don’t know where it is exactly. My sense of direction is—”
“Legendary,” Curtis put in with a wry smile.
“I haven’t heard of anyone using that before.” Johann typed the name into his tablet. His expression changed. “It looks like the building was pulled down three years ago.”
Sadie sat forward. “That’s impossible.”
“I should remind you, Sadie, that we expect full disclosure about the activities of your Subject,” Curtis said, no smile now. “Our project can only proceed with complete trust and candor.” He wore a polite, somewhat perplexed expression, and his voice was mild but his eyes had hardened.
The gazes of the others at the table became reptilian, cool and appraising, as though looking for a crack to explore.
“That’s what the sign said,” Sadie told them. “It might be what he and his friend Bucky call camouflage, hiding things like entrances in plain sight by disguising them. All I saw—”
Naomi pounced. “I thought ‘Bucky’ disappeared. When did you hear them discuss this?”
“I didn’t. It was written on an old note For—Subject Nine had in a box.” Sadie felt panicky, desperate for them to believe her. “And there was a map of other secret hangouts where he and Bucky spent time. He visited three of them.”
Johann said, “Where were they?”