* * *
Five o’clock, and I was in the liminal space of Cassandra Bell.
It was bare. And by bare, I mean that there was literally nothing in it.
This was not the vast expanse of endless space. It was the absolute opposite, a close, tight darkness. It was like being at the bottom of an ocean of black ink. For the first time I understood claustrophobia.
“Most people find my liminal space uncomfortable, Agent Shane,” Bell said. A voice that I could not see and which came from everywhere, although quietly. It was like being inside the head of a very private person. Which, I suppose, was exactly what this was.
“I can understand that,” I said.
“Does it bother you?”
“I’m trying not to let it.”
“I find it comforting,” Bell said. “It reminds me of the womb. They say we don’t remember what it is like to be there, but I don’t believe that. I think deep inside we always know. It’s why children burrow under blankets and cats push their heads into your elbow when they sit beside you. I’ve not had those experiences myself, but I know why they happen. I’ve been told my liminal space is like the dark of the grave. But I think of it as the dark from the other end of life entirely. The dark of everything ahead, not everything behind.”
“I like the way you put that,” I said. “I’m going to try to think of it that way.”
“That’s the way. Better to light a candle than curse the darkness, Agent Shane,” Bell said.
And then she was in front of me, close, a lit candle illuminating her face, the light throwing back the darkness to a breathable distance.
“Thank you,” I said, and felt a shudder of relief.
“You are welcome,” she said, and smiled, looking younger than twenty years old, although of course here she could appear to be any age she wished.
“And thank you for seeing me on short notice,” I said. “I know you are busy.”
“I am always busy,” she said. Not a brag, or a show of pride, just a fact. She smiled at me again. “But of course I know of you, Agent Shane. Chris Shane. The Haden Child. So strange, isn’t it, that we have not met before this.”
“I had that same thought the other day,” I said.
“And why do you suppose that is, that we have only now met.”
“We ran in different circles,” I said.
“Ran in different circles,” she said. “And now the image I have is of you and me moving in separate orbits, centered on different stars.”
“Same metaphor,” I said. “Different description.”
“Yes!” Bell said, and gave a small laugh. “And who was your star? Whom did you orbit?”
“My father, I suppose,” I said.
“He is a good man,” Bell said. Not a question.
“Yes,” I said, and thought of him this morning, in his bathrobe, scotch in his hand, grieving for Bruce Skow.
“I know what happened,” Bell said. “To and by your father. I am sorry for it.”
“Thank you,” I said, strangely touched by her manner of speaking. Formal and yet also intimate. “Who was your star, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I don’t know,” Bell said. “I still don’t know. I am beginning to suspect it’s not a person but is an idea. And that’s why I’m strange, and also gives me my power.”
“Maybe,” I said, as diplomatically as possible.
She caught it, smiled, and laughed at me. “I don’t mean to be obtuse or intentionally bizarre, Agent Shane, honestly I don’t,” she said. “It’s just that I am terribly bad at small talk. The longer it goes on the more I sound like a refugee from a commune.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I live in an intentional community myself.”
“Kind of you to empathize with me,” Cassandra Bell said. “You are better at small talk than I am. That is not always a compliment. This time it is.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You did not come to make small talk with me,” she said. “As well as you make it.”
“No,” I said. “I came to talk to you about your brother.”
“Have you,” she said. “I would like to tell you a story of my brother, if you will hear it.”
“Sure,” I said.
“He was a little boy when I was born and he knew that I was held within myself,” she said. “And so he would come to me, and kiss me on my forehead, and sing to me for hours. Can you imagine. What other seven-year-old boy would do such a thing. You have no sisters or brothers.”
“No,” I said.
“Do you miss them?”
“I can’t miss what I never had,” I said.
“Which is not true at all,” Bell said. “But I have put it poorly. I mean do you feel that you have missed out by not having siblings.”
“I think it would have been interesting to have siblings,” I said.
“Your parents had no more after you.”
“I think they were worried that if they did, they would neglect one or the other of us to focus on the other,” I said. “And that the one who was neglected would have eventually become resentful. It’s hard to have one child be a Haden and one not. I would imagine.” I paused.
“You have a question about me and my brother,” Bell said.
“I wondered if you ever integrated with him,” I said.
“Oh, no,” Bell said. “Altogether too intimate, I should think. I love my brother and he me. But I have no desire to be inside of his head, and I don’t believe he wants me in his. Both of us in the same head at the same time! We would become our parents.”
“That’s an image,” I said.
“I have never integrated. I am enough in my own head. I don’t wish to be in someone else’s as well.”
I smiled at this. “You should meet my partner,” I said. “She was an Integrator who didn’t like people being in her head.”
“We would be like magnets,” Bell said. “Either rushing together or pushing apart.”
“Another interesting image,” I said.
“Tell me about my brother.”
“When was the last time you spoke to him?”
“That’s not telling me of my brother, but I’ll allow it,” Bell said. “We spoke the other day. He wishes to spend time with me Saturday afternoon.”
“And will you?”
“Wouldn’t you make time for your family?” Bell asked. “I know how you would answer so you don’t have to.”
“I would make time for them,” I said, answering anyway. “Will you meet him here?”
“Yes, and also he will be with my body,” Bell said. “He still likes to sing to me, to my ears.”
“Will anyone else be there?”
“He is family.”
“So, no.”
“Agent Shane, now is an excellent time to stop making small talk,” Bell said.
“We believe your brother has had his body taken over by a client,” I said. “This client has considerable technical skill and has been able to change the programming of your brother’s neural network in order to trap him and use the body for his own purposes. We believe he means to use your brother’s body to kill you and then kill your brother as well. It will look like a murder-suicide.”
“And you believe this why?”
“Because he’s taken over other bodies,” I said. “In the same way. He and an associate have both done it. The end result has been three dead Integrators.”
Cassandra Bell looked very solemn, the light from the candle suddenly guttering and flickering before resuming a steady glow. “You believe he is possessed already, then.”
“Possessed,” I said, and I realized that it simply hadn’t occurred to me to think of what happened to Johnny Sani or Bruce Skow or Brenda Kees in that way. “Yes. He is already possessed.”
“For how long?”
“We believe since last Tuesday morning at least.”
“Why has it taken you this long to tell me of it?”
“We didn’t know it was possible until yesterday,” I said. “We didn’t think it affected your brother until today. It shouldn’t have been possible. And because it shouldn’t be possible we didn’t pick up on it until now.”
“Is he dead?”
“Your brother? No.”
“I know his body isn’t dead,” Bell said. “I mean him. My brother’s soul.”
“We don’t think so,” I said. “We believe strongly that he is alive, but locked in. Unable to speak or communicate to the outside world. Like … well, like us. But without a threep or liminal space or an Agora. And with his body at the whim of another, doing things he would not choose to himself.”
“He would not choose to murder me,” Bell agreed. “You say you strongly believe that he is alive.”
“Yes.”
“Describe the strength of that belief.”
“Strong as iron,” I said. “Strong as oak.”
“Iron rusts. Oak burns.”
“We can’t be certain,” I said. “But from what we know, the person possessed still exists. The person I saw possessed like this still existed after her client left.”
“You said they all died.”
“She died,” I said. “Her client pulled the pin on a grenade before he left.”
“Who are these people?” Bell asked.
“We’d rather not say,” I said. “For your own protection.”
Cassandra Bell’s candle brightened immensely even as the darkness sucked in more tightly around me. “Agent Shane,” she said. “Do not confuse me for a child. I am not damaged, nor am I incapable. I am bringing hundreds of thousands of us to announce ourselves to the world. I could not do this if I were a coddled thing. I do not need protection. I need information.”
“It’s Lucas Hubbard,” I said.
“Oh,” Bell said. The candle returned to its original state. “Him.”
“You know him.”
“With the exception of you, Agent Shane, I know almost everyone of importance.” Not a brag, just a fact.
“What is your opinion of him?”
“Now, or before I learned that he’s enslaving my brother in his own body?”
I smiled at this. “Before.”
“Intelligent. Ambitious. Able to speak passionately about Hadens when it is convenient and advantageous for him to do so, and when not, not.”
“Standard-issue billionaire,” I said.
Bell fixed me with a stare. “I would imagine you of all people would know not all billionaires are poor humans,” she said.
“In my experience, there are few much like my father,” I said.
“A pity,” Bell said. “When will you rescue my brother?”
“Soon,” I said.
“There are whole paragraphs lurking behind that single syllable,” Bell said. “Or perhaps you merely meant to say ‘soon, but not yet.’”
“There are complications,” I said.
“I won’t ask you to imagine the terror of being locked in, Agent Shane,” Bell said. “I know you know it all too well. What I would ask you is why you would willingly inflict it on anyone else for a second longer than you had to.”
“To save others from that same fate,” I said. “And to punish Hubbard in a way more complete than mere capture. And to keep your brother safe.”
Bell looked at me, stony. “If we move on him this second, we have enough to charge him for and punish him for,” I said. “But he’s not stupid. He’s almost certainly planned for the contingency of being caught. He’s rich and he’s got more lawyers than some countries have people. He’ll tie things up for years, cut deals, and introduce doubt. And the very first thing he’ll do is cover his tracks however possible. That includes getting rid of the single person who can account for every moment of Hubbard’s movements over the last week.”
“My brother,” Bell said.
“Your brother,” I said. “Hubbard’s smart, but his intelligence and ambition are also his blind spot. He believes he’s covered every angle and every contingency. But we propose that there are a couple of angles he can’t see.”
“Because they are in his blind spot.”
“Yes.”
“Promise me my brother,” Bell said.
“I promise you I will do everything I can to save him,” I said. “I promise we will do everything we can.”
“Now tell me how you plan to capture Hubbard.”
“He intends to kill you,” I said.
“So you say.”
“I think we should let him try.”