Robert Crane - Untouched

“Fine.” She tried to smile but it was so fake that it fell apart after about two seconds. “We have a forensics lab that can analyze the personal items from your mother that you found in the warehouse.”

“I’m not hearing the ‘something else.’” I leaned back in her chair with exaggerated casualness.

“Very well.” She rested her hands on the desk between us, folding them, for some reason bringing to my mind the idea that she must have been a goody-goody in school. “I’ve been ordered not to have them analyzed unless you agree to see our on-site psychologist.”

“Beg pardon?” My tone carried more frozen bite than the worst wind I’d experienced thus far.

“The Director would like you to see our counselor,” she said. “Understanding you’ve been through something of a ringer lately—”

“He wants me to submit to headshrinking?” My eyes were so narrow that I was surprised I could see anything out of them. “If he thinks I’m gonna do that, I submit to you that his head has been in the icebox for too damned long.”

One of Ariadne’s eyelids fluttered at my remark as she suppressed whatever her first response would have been. “He thinks,” she said, pacing herself, “and I agree with him, that you’ve been under a great deal of stress and strain—”

“Most of which seems to be the fault of your Directorate.”

“—and we are concerned with your long term health, mental as well as physical,” she finished without stopping to answer my accusation. “We are willing to help you in the search for your mother, but we feel that you’ve been through a high level of trauma in the last few weeks, more than is healthy for anyone,” she held up a hand and I restrained my sarcastic response, “let alone someone as young as yourself. This is not a negotiation. If you want our help, see our counselor.” Her hands went back to being folded on her desk as she awaited my response.

I caught movement from Zack out of the corner of my eye. “It’s not a bad idea.” I turned to look at him, and I’m pretty sure my glare was more potent than any flame Aleksandr Gavrikov could have tossed out. “You’ve been through a lot—gaining powers, your mom disappearing, being locked in a metal box as punishment, being stalked by a psychopath, beaten, injured, watching a ton of people die and blaming yourself,” he listed them as if he were ticking off points from a list. “It might not be a bad idea to talk to a professional about it.”

“What will they tell me?” I felt the rage, but I leashed it. Wolfe was cackling, but I bade him shut up. “That it’s normal to be stressed over being stalked by a psycho, imprisoned in your own house for over a decade, and finding out that you have superpowers?” I let the sarcasm fly. “I don’t care what kind of shrink you’ve got, he’s not qualified to deal with the crap I’d lay on him. I’d probably make him run screaming from the room, some of the stuff I could tell him.”

Ariadne raised an eyebrow. “So you feel you should deal with these things on your own?”

I bit back an angry reply. Even with Wolfe circling in the back of my head, I knew there was truth to what she and Zack were saying. I had been through a lot, more than most people went through in their lives, I suspected. I’d been near death twice in the last week or so, had Mom vanish on me, and had a variety of other things, great and small, on my mind. I blinked. Actually, it was amazing I wasn’t in pieces already, mentally. Maybe I was. I was hearing the voice of my greatest nemesis, after all, and he was dead.

“Fine,” I conceded. “I will…talk to this…person.” I said every word through gritted teeth. “When can you start looking over my mom’s purse?”

“We’ve already started,” Ariadne said. “Kurt had it delivered to the lab when he went to the medical unit. You’ll get the results after the first session.”

“Fine.” I wasn’t pouting, exactly. But close. “When can I meet with your psycho…analyzer?”

Ariadne’s mouth was a thin line. “Right now. He’s cleared his schedule to meet with you. He’s in a different building.” She looked to Zack. “Show her the way?” He nodded.

“What did you want to talk about regarding the warehouse?” I was in a little bit of a huff, but I wanted to get this over with so I could get the next thing over with. Actually, I just wanted to get the whole day over with at this point.

“Your friend Reed. And the new threat.” Ariadne had turned wary again, like she was tiptoeing around what she wanted to say so as not to set me off.

“I’ve only met Reed twice,” I said. Kind of sad, but that made him my oldest friend. “And I have no idea who this new guy is. Just for the record, I’m calling him ‘Full Metal Jackass’ because he’s a sucker-punching douchebag, and I hope you’ll join me in that by putting it on his official file or threat designator or whatever you use to keep track of metas that cross you.”

“Duly noted. We have concerns.” She folded her hands again.

“So do I,” I agreed. “Most of them involve your fashion sense, with a few left to spare for the armor-clad whackjob that bitch slapped me around a parking lot this morning.”

She sighed, bowing her head in utter resignation. “We’d like to know who Reed works for.”

“So would I. But I’d also like to know who Wolfe worked for, who this new metal man is, who funds the Directorate, exactly how many factions are out there involved in this dustup over metas, what all their goals are…” I shrugged. “I asked him some of these questions, and he didn’t answer, so I’m not sure how I can help you.”

Ariadne hesitated. “You could tag him for us.”

“Tag him?” I felt a laugh rising from within and I let it slip. “Is that a crude aphorism for sex? Because I think that would kill him before he could answer any of your questions.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at Zack after I said it. I wouldn’t have gone there, but as conservatively as Ariadne dressed, I had a feeling the reaction would be worth it.

It was. She reddened, her face turning roughly the same shade as her hair. “I mean with a tracer bug, if you should run into him again.” She reached into her top desk drawer and her hand emerged with a small wooden case. She snapped it open, revealing a pen. “When you hold the clicker, it launches a tracking beacon that only we can follow.” She slid it across the desk. “It has a range of about twenty feet when it fires, so make sure you’re aiming the pen properly. It will cling to almost any surface, and it has ten tracers within it.”

“Tricky,” I said. “Reed would be pissed if he found out I was tracking him. I think he’d be less offended if I tagged him the other, more lethal way.”

“I think he knows how to find those,” Zack said from beside me. I didn’t dare look at him yet. We’d faced death together, but I didn’t want to see his reaction to my references to sex for some reason. Dammit. “Kurt used one of those to tag the bumper of his car outside your house the day we met, and it went offline after he left us behind at the supermarket.”

I stared at the pen, picking it up and cradling it in my fingers. It was small, black, and slightly rounded. Looked fancy. “I always wondered how you guys had found us there.” I held it up. “I’m not going to promise that I’ll use this because I still don’t work for you guys. But I’ll consider it.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “What will it take to get you to trust us?”

“I notice you didn’t answer any of the questions I asked a minute ago about who the players are in this meta conflict.” I stared her down, making her uncomfortable.

“You want answers,” she said with a nod. “I think we can accommodate that request. Let me talk with the Director. It will be a long conversation though, so let’s plan for it to happen tomorrow morning. There might be other things we can discuss by then.”