Payoff by Alex Hughes Page A

hard part, when I had to keep from pushing, when I had to keep from setting myself back.
    I could read a lot of people at surface level now, if the waves of their minds transmitted through Mindspace strongly enough, if they had Ability even the barest touch above the normal population. The new detective had to be as normal as they came, her mind not “speaking up” enough for me to hear, even though it was early in the day. Either that or we had poor valence, the waves of our minds syncing up badly. Either way it was disturbing, like meeting someone blindfolded with cotton balls in your ears.
    I put the cigarette out, reluctantly, since she’d asked.
    “Who are you again?” she asked. “I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Lisa Morris.”
    “I’m Adam, the telepath consultant.” I was a Level Eight, or had been; incredibly strong, and trained very well by the Telepath’s Guild, who’d kicked me out years ago. But I wouldn’t tell her; normals were nervous enough around weaker telepaths. And neither she nor the rest of the department could know I’d hurt my brain. I needed this job.
    She stuck out a hand, but I didn’t take it. “Sorry. Telepath rules, right?”
    I nodded, tried a sheepish smile.
    “I’m the new detective,” she said to cover the awkwardness. “New transfer from South DeKalb. Working under Bransen’s detective division. Primarily Robbery, though I pick up the occasional armed assault.”
    “Nice to meet you. So, what’s the situation?” I clarified: “With the guy on the other side of that glass.”
    “Ah. Thomas Hunter. He drives a truck for a company on Lawrenceville Highway. Seems an upstanding guy, salt of the earth, or at least as much as you’d care about. His record’s clean. But his truck was hijacked by armed robbers this morning, and his supervisor says it’s the second time.” She shrugged. “Plus he’s lying.” A good cop has an instinct for liars.
    “You want to know what’s going on.”
    “Sure. I want to know what’s going on. I also want to fill out the paperwork to the TCO on time and get a day off this week. Right now none of that looks likely, but they say you’re the best.”
    I shifted my shoulders. “No pressure or anything.”
    The technician stifled a laugh. Morris shrugged.
    “Why Tech Control Organization forms?” I asked. Since the Tech Wars sixty years ago, since a madman had taken control of the semisentient computers and destroyed a good third of the world, since people had died, rotting in their houses and cars, their implants turned into computer-virus transmission platforms, since people had died in the millions in horrible ways, well, the world was afraid of Tech. Even now, with the smaller stuff—the oven timers and basic chips of the world—let out, cautiously, on a leash. Even now the stronger, more powerful stuff was forbidden, tracked, and shut down.
    “The company Hunter works for manufactures capacitors, resistors, basic glucose and carbon-based circuits for use in artificial organs, and copper wire.” At my blank look, she added, “Components for electronics. Add in the biologic support systems . . .”
    “And you get Tech,” I said. “Basic Tech, with the potential for more. A lot more.”
    “Yeah, the scary stuff. The components themselves aren’t illegal, but . . .”
    “Yeah.” I swallowed. “Like shipments of fertilizer, you watch them. And when they disappear, you react. Let me go get my files.”
    * * *
    A hijacking victimwasn’t my usual shtick. Usually I got the difficult cases, suspects who wouldn’t talk and witnesses who wouldn’t talk about anything useful—anyone who’d gone through another interrogator and survived unscathed. But I was open to new challenges, and with any luck I wouldn’t need the telepathy too much.
    I carried the stack of files under one arm and a couple of bad coffees in the other. Bellury was today’s babysitter, a semiretired cop who didn’t mind me in his head