James Knapp - The Silent Army

The problem was that the chemicals took only the physical edge off. They couldn’t change the fact that being sober was horrible.

My phone vibrated in my hand—a text from Karen, my downstairs neighbor. I opened the chat portal and read her message:

Missed you this morning.

I typed back a response: Sorry, had to run. Work needed me early.

That was partly true. I was supposed to meet Nico and he did have something he wanted me to do, but I didn’t even know what that was yet. I could have stopped by, but I’d kind of been avoiding her in the morning because I knew Ted was back. Her eyes had that look they got whenever her on-again, off-again asshole boyfriend was back on again. She didn’t want to say it because she knew I’d be pissed, and she was right.

Want to meet for lunch? She asked.

Sure.

We made a point of getting together to do that at least once a week, but that had tapered off a little too. Ted didn’t like me, and so he didn’t like her hanging around with me.

Sorry I’ve been MIA , she said.

I sighed, and decided to cut to the chase. I know he’s back.

She went idle for a long time.

You don’t have to say anything. I know.

He’s a complete jerk.

You don’t understand.

She had that right. Whatever she saw in that guy, I totally did not understand. Whatever it was, though, she was really stuck on him. She actually got mad when I insulted him.

It’s none of my business , I said. There wasn’t anything I could do, not really. From the sound of it down there, at least she was seeing some action, which was more than I could say for myself.

Let’s not talk about that , she said.

Fine.

Meet in Federal Square at noon?

Noon.

She signed off. I put my phone away and looked back out the window.

Ted is bad news. I should just make her dump him. I’d thought about that, but honestly, I was a little afraid of what he might do if she did. I could make him dump her instead, but then she might know I had something to do with that, and she’d never forgive me for it.

I could make her forget, though….

I’d thought that before too, but I wasn’t ready to do that. Not yet.

The train stopped at the Federal Square station and I followed the rest of the bodies out into the rain, then down off the platform. It was a cold, windy walk to the Federal Building, and by the time I got there, my jacket was soaked. In the smoked glass at the entrance, I saw my hair had frizzed.

When I went through the guard post, I was surprised to see Nico across the lobby. He stepped out of the elevator and started crossing the big seal imprinted in the marble floor, heading for the front entrance. I was supposed to be meeting him there, but he had his coat on. He was leaving.

He almost blew right past me before he saw me, and I didn’t need any special ability to know he’d already forgotten our meeting.

“Zoe,” he said. I sensed something from him, something that came off him like a high-pitched whine.

I focused on him, and the room grew brighter as a swirl of colors phased in over the crowd of heads moving through the lobby. I concentrated, letting the rest fade into the background while bringing Nico’s forward. There were red and orange there, arcing and spiking under a shell of calm. Something was wrong.

I couldn’t control Nico anymore…. Two years back something happened to him, and I never found out what, but it left a sort of hole in him. When I focused on him, I could still see his colors and I could still read them, but that was all. When I tried to push him or change those colors, it didn’t work. He tricked me a couple times when he knew it was coming, but he couldn’t hide everything, at least not from me. When I really burrowed down, it was like behind the moving lights there was a dark hole, and if I pushed too hard, I would push through into nothing but darkness. No matter what I tried or how gently I approached him, I always ended up in that dark spot where I couldn’t change anything.

It didn’t work on him anymore, but he could tell when I was trying to do it. He raised his eyebrows and I backed off, letting the colors disappear and the light go back to normal. I got a good look at his face for the first time, then. He looked like he’d been in a fight.

“What happened?” I asked.

“It’s a long story, Zoe, and I’m sorry, but I’ve got to run. I need you to do me a favor while I’m gone.”

Whenever Nico said “favor” he really meant he wanted me to use my ability on someone. He usually wanted to keep that quiet. I was getting annoyed.

“Yeah, I kept it ‘under my hat,’ just like you said. What kind of favor?”

“We uncovered something in a raid last night,” he said. “Something big.”

“What favor?” I asked again, raising my voice a little.

“There were two surviving witnesses,” he said. “I need you to talk to both of them—”

“Two?” There went my lunch date with Karen.

“The first one is happening now,” he said. “You’ll need to get up there. We’ve got a suspect shot in a raid who’s about to be questioned. He could know something vital to—”

“Now?”

“Yes. Vesco and the others know you might be coming, so just go in—”

“You’re not going to be there?” The whole thing was starting to stress me out. Vesco hated me; he thought I was a joke. They all thought I was a joke. Nico always kept the rest of them off me, and even then sometimes I was so nervous I could barely do anything. Working for him at the FBI was his idea in the first place. Now he was just ditching me?

“Zoe, please,” he said, pulling me aside. “This is very important. I had meant to be with you, but I think a friend of mine is in trouble and I have to check it out. Please do this for me.”

I could tell something was really bothering him. He didn’t say who the friend was or what kind of trouble he was in, but something was really bothering him.

“Fine,” I said.

“Thank you. They’re upstairs now. Here.”

He handed me a folded piece of paper with a series of questions on it. He usually did that, so I could include them in my “notes” and it didn’t look like he was telling me what to ask once we got inside. To me, though, they had started to look like grocery lists, things I was supposed to pick up for him and bring back.

I didn’t say that. I just folded the paper in my hands.

“The second part might be trickier,” he said, “but get it if you can.”

“Fine.”

“I have to go.”

“Fine.”

I watched his mind shift gears as he walked past me and out through the glass door. He shielded himself from the rain as a gust of wind made his overcoat flap around him.

I checked the paper he’d given me and got the name of the interrogation room, then took the elevator up.

It was true; they were expecting me, sort of. I could hear Vesco talking as I approached the doorway, and a couple other people inside with him.

“…that creepy redhead,” I heard him say. Someone chuckled.

“I don’t know why Noakes allows this shit,” someone else said. “There’s more to that story, I’ll bet.”

“You think Wachalowski hits that?” Vesco asked, and two men laughed. My face got hot.

“Can it, you two,” I heard a woman’s voice say. And then I was through the door, and everyone shut up.

There were three people in the room, and through a one-way glass panel I could see a fourth sitting in the interrogation room. Vesco was there, a smirk still on his obnoxious face, and some other guy I’d never seen who had to be the one who laughed.