“Did you really think I would let it drop that easily? I see patterns, Rebecca, the overall fabric of events; you know that. Do I need to spell things out for you? How many times have you had individual sessions with Alex?”
“Once a week for the last couple months,” Rebecca said, fidgeting and tapping her cigarette against the desk more than was necessary. “Once a week, when he first came here. The kid is all kinds of fucked up, Gaul. Keeping him functioning is half of my job around here.”
“Then the scope of your responsibilities has diminished greatly. How often do you use his catalytic abilities? How often is the feedback effect part of the therapy?”
“Every time,” Rebecca admitted hollowly, then added in an even quieter voice. “Pretty much.”
“Then I think it is safe to assume your protocols have grown more powerful with each session. You were always an amazing empath, Rebecca, but you were never much of a telepath. Disappearing? Probing a Changeling? Tampering with your boss’s mind, when your boss is a precognitive, and knew about your plan a week before you decided to put into action? None of that is normal behavior for you. The increase in your abilities doesn’t completely fade when you break contact, does it?”
Rebecca smoked quietly for a moment, assessing.
“The immediate boost drops off pretty fast. However, a subtle, lasting effect persists for days. At first, I didn’t even really notice it. And there is… something else.”
“Yes?”
“I figured it out a week or two after the first time we did a session. The more I operate a protocol under Alex’s influence, even one beyond the normal limits of my ability, the greater chance that I will be able to use it later, on my own,” Rebecca admitted with the air of one confessing a sin. “I wanted to tell you. But…”
“I understand the telepathy, now,” Gaul said dryly. “But you were right. This needs to be kept quiet. From Mitsuru Aoki above all. You are clear on this, right?”
Rebecca nodded, obviously feeling guilty. Gaul pushed aside his malaise with effort.
“How many times have they come into contact?”
“Only once, on that first night. They’ve interacted since, of course, because she’s running Alex through the Program, but his protocol hasn’t been involved.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m fairly sure,” Rebecca hedged, biting her lip.
“I want to be certain. Have Mitsuru in for a session as soon as possible. Pull her from the Program, and try to limit her contact with Alex Warner. Have Alistair shift her back into the field rotation, full-time, and monitor Mitsuru yourself for any changes in behavior or ability, anything to indicate that she might have been affected.”
“We are short-handed already,” Rebecca protested. “Who’s going to run the Program? Me? Alex won’t ever trust me again if I even show my face near that building. Michael? You know he objects to the entire idea on,” Rebecca gestured, making a vague, indecipherable figure in the air with her cigarette, “moral grounds, or whatever. Moreover, Alice is still up there in her diary room. You don’t even have enough field agents.”
Gaul tried to imagine how she had possibly drawn something resembling ‘moral grounds’ in the air, but the idea made his head hurt, so he stopped trying. He turned his mind back to more practical matters.
“I’m promoting Margot Feld to provisional status. She’ll be an Auditor in three months, maybe less. Her combat potential is staggering.”
Rebecca started swearing, and he briefly worried that she was going to kick his file cabinets again, but she restrained herself this time.
“Gaul, Margot hasn’t even completed the Academy yet…”
“A formality. Michael is already using her as a student teacher. The rest she can pick up as she goes.”
“A lot of people get killed out there, before they can figure it out. Nevertheless, it’s your call. Are you sure you can get the votes from the Committee?”
Gaul nodded, feeling a twinge of discomfort.
“I’m certain of it. Anastasia Martynova will support her promotion. She will bring the Black Sun in line. Her candidacy should pass easily.”
“I bet Anastasia will support her — you know she’s had her hooks in Margot for years now. That vampire is as close as you can get to recruiting a Black Sun member in good standing into the Auditors. But you know that, so I’m going to assume you also know what you are doing.”
“Don’t I always?”
“Sometimes. What about the Program? We’ll need a new instructor.”
“We can have Alice do it, at least for the time being. She needs something to do. And she could run the Program in her sleep.”
“Gaul! She’s barely even recovered physically! I’m not sure she’s ready for this sort of thing yet…”
“We don’t have the luxury of waiting for Alice to feel better. We need to accelerate the process. Working with the students will help her. Nothing like a return to where she started to jog the memory, eh?”
“Cut the crap. You don’t know where Alice started anymore than I do. Moreover, you know she’s unstable right now. So, why do this?”
Gaul tossed his pen down in frustration, and then they both froze and stared at it, the only concrete evidence of him losing his temper. He didn’t really know what to make of it, except that it had been an exceptionally long day, in what seemed like a whole lifetime of long days.
“Manpower, Rebecca, what do you think? On a good day, I have three Auditors available for fieldwork, since I need you here. The job was difficult enough when I had six,” he said, speaking deliberately. For some reason, it felt important that Rebecca understand him. “I need the bodies, Rebecca. I need soldiers.”
“And you still think I should be here?”
“I think you are the only reason this school doesn’t fall apart. Moreover, I need Alex Warner combat-ready as soon as possible, and I need him to turn out like Alice Gallow, not like Mitsuru Aoki. I’ve already arranged for the appropriate training for Alex, but I need him to stay in one piece during the process. In lieu of better options, you are the woman for the job,” Gaul explained, seeing no use in sugarcoating. “Though I have to admit that it was interesting, watching you in the field again. Time and working with children have done nothing to mellow you, I see.”
“Triage is bloody work,” Rebecca said, stubbing out her cigarette. “To the issue at hand. What about Eerie?”
“Well, I was thinking of suspending her, but since she lives at the Academy, I suppose that field study would be a more appropriate — what? What is it?”
Rebecca looked at him, eyes wide.
“I’m serious… what about Eerie? Where is she?”
“I sent her outside to wait with Mrs. Bennett. What do you mean?”
Rebecca opened the door to the outer office, spoke a few cheerful, urgent words to his secretary (who, for no reason he could understand, took Rebecca’s side in everything), then thanked her, and returned, looking glum.
“Eerie told her we were finished, and that she had to go back to class,” Rebecca said, clearly exasperated. “She left as soon as we sent her out there. Obviously, she figured out what was going on. You, on the other hand, are a terrible precognitive.”
“Why would she do that? And where would she go?”
“I don’t know. Use that fancy computer in your brain,” Rebecca said without a trace of humor in her voice. “Check today’s lecture schedule. Where is Alex right now? And please tell me that he’s in class…”
Gaul reached without moving, taking hold of the Etheric Uplink that followed him everywhere he went, a lattice of information, a psychic fishhook embedded in his brain. The data he wanted spilled out from the Academy servers like waking to a bright light, his mind flinching reflexively at the flood of data.
“Alex used his keycard fifteen minutes ago at the main gym,” Gaul said woodenly, his voice simply another tool to be manipulated, rather than an organ operated by instinct. Speaking was always challenging when he was a node on the Etheric Network. “Conditioning, per his normal schedule. Michael should have finished his rounds two-and-a-half minutes ago.”