Archon's Queen (26 page)

ree of the sickness of withdrawal, she seemed at rights when she had met Mr. Carroll at the chippery. He paid her as promised and hinted he might have more work coming up. Lying was something she had gotten rather good at when she had her faculties about her, and she left him thinking all was well. He would give her a ring when the time came.

As fate would have it, the art class was on the other end of the same campus where Mardling worked. Having spent the night in the city proper, she did not need to cross the police line and went directly to the university on the London Orbital maglev. Petrified of running into more Crossmen, she kept her head down, scurried through the platform, and hopped a shuttle to the campus.

Surrounded by people a year or three her junior, she felt uncomfortable even breathing the same air as the Propers. They were all students with promising lives ahead of them, and she was dirty trash.

No.
The voice in her head protested. The shout echoed through her thoughts. She was trash, but she would not be
dirty
trash any more. Her hand rubbed the legs of her nylon pants. Her dignity lay in a tatter, but what little she found, she would cling to. An evil little smile curled onto her lips as she daydreamed about electrocuting Constable Brown if he tried to take his tax again. The smile faded. In all probability, she would let him do it. Killing a policeman would bring far too much heat down on her, and probably the rest of Coventry, but it was fun to think about on the ride.

Pale yellow walls surrounded the tiniest waiting room she had ever seen. Old fake leather chairs lined up against three walls, crowding around a little table full of e-magazines like herd animals looking for water. A lilting metal desk in one corner held an overweight elderly woman more interested in what lived under her fingernails than anything going on in the world beyond.

Anna stood at the edge of the desk, glancing at thirty years of collected kitsch from various vacations and office supply vendors, as well as awards for long-term service.

Didn’t know they gave office trophies for nail maintenance.

The file stopped sliding back and forth, the woman looked up with an angry glare. Anna glanced to the right.

“What’s that?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

The old woman squinted through her. Anna’s lips had not moved, but perhaps her frustration had let one leak on a strand of telepathy. Her eyes flicked back to the turquoise claws, striated with white and blue. The file scratched back and forth like a master violinist.

“Is Doctor Mardling in?”

Without looking up, the secretary answered in a begrudging moan. “What class are you in?”

“No class. I’m here…” She squeezed the little box again, looking at the text to the right of the apparitional head. “About his Horizons project… I wanted to talk to him about volunteering.”

“The Doctor isn’t seein’ anyone today ‘bout that. ‘E’s quite busy with his class schedule.”

Anna’s gaze hit the floor with a thud she almost heard. She stood there, silent as furniture, trying not to let her disappointment leak out of her eyes. A few minutes later, the nail file came to a halt again, but the old woman did not look up.

“You still ‘ere?”

Anna hooked her thumbs in her pants pockets, slouching. A wisp of cool air caressed her waist.

The secretary suppressed a snarl and shot her a glare. She opened her mouth to speak, but paused. “‘Old on a minute. Wot’s that?”

Leaning forward, the woman used the nail file to point at the two blue spots where the tattooed pixie’s antennae protruded over Anna’s belt line.

“A tattoo.”

She frowned with a protruding lower lip. “What of?”

Anna pushed her pants down over her hip far enough to show the tattoo without revealing anything too rude. She was thankful she had not gone with the original design.

“Cute.” The file resumed sawing at her nails. “That one of them faeries or what have you?”

“Yeah… It’s a Pixie. It’s kind of my nickname.”

The fiddle scratched to a stop as the woman’s gaze flicked up to lock with hers. “‘Ave a seat, luv.”

She twirled the file over her fingers, and poked it through a holographic button. The presence of an open audio channel made the room feel larger.

“Doctor Jim. That faerie, pixie, whatever you were talking about’s ‘ere. Shall I send ‘er in?”

Something heavy hit the ground in the back room. Anna jumped as the impact came through the floor. Blinds parted at the behest of two fingers, and a pair of brown eyes stared at her. A woozy feeling spread through her mind for a moment before the blinds snapped closed.

“Send her in straight away.”

Following the pointing file, Anna stepped through a self-opening grey door into an office not much larger than the pitiful waiting area. The man on the other side of the desk seemed in a tizzy, spiraling about the space in his attempt to collect the contents of a dropped box. Pants the color of over-creamed coffee matched the tweed blazer draped over the back of a steel chair painted hospital green. His hair looked more disheveled than the portrait let on, as if he had been up all night. Shimmering clear boards glowed with squiggles of blue and green writing and sketches of brains, and more math than she had ever seen in her life.

With the whoosh of the closing door, he spun to face her and smiled over an armload of datapads. His shirt hung open two buttons and he wore the anticipatory grin of someone going
to
a job interview, not giving one.

He extended a hand, leaning to the side to retain his bundle. “Hello there. I’m Doctor Mardling.”

She returned a pleasant handshake and sat in a battered brown excuse for a chair on wheels. He tromped to the side of the room and dropped the mass of electronics into a thin plastisteel box all at once. The order with which he kept them seemed to fit his general disheveled state. Anna stifled a giggle, having expected some sort of pompous ass from the look on the face of his hologram.

“I’m Anna.”

He fell into his seat, sending the belabored squeak of decades-old rusty springs crawling through the air. Feet up, then down, he rubbed his chin and leaned forward. The look on his face made her think he found the one nugget of gold in an entire mine. Pulsing strangeness swam through her head; she couldn’t tell if it was the zoom or lack of sleep.

“Are you all right, guv’na? You seem a bit edgy.”

“It’s a pleasure you meet you, Anna.” He at last settled upon leaning back in the chair with feet down and hands tapping the desk. “Blinds… Lights…”

The room darkened as the window blinds rotated closed and the lights dimmed almost all the way off.

Anna crossed her arms through her lap and leaned forward. “So what’s this all about then?”

“It’s about basic human rights. You are here because of the Horizons project, correct? About a certain sort of individual the crown isn’t too fond of?”

One finger picked idly at his cheek. His lips twitched as if he wanted to grin, but was too nervous. She swallowed hard. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person could create a whirlwind of shit in short order.

“I suppose. You’re not with them?”

“Certainly not.” Insecurity faded for a moment to perfect confidence. “You seem a bit of a mess, luv.”

Shame reddened her cheeks. Doctor Mardling’s expression changed in reaction to the images of self-degradation in her thoughts. Anna fidgeted, unable to look at him anymore, afraid he would see a dirty drugged-out whore and not the charcoal seraph she longed to be.

“I…” Her hand covered the red mark on her left arm, kneading at it. “I’m…”

The cumbersome metal beast of a chair creaked as he leaned forward and sprang to his feet. He ducked around the desk, sat on the corner, and took her cheek in his hand.

“My dear, you are greater than you could ever have imagined. You need to stop abusing yourself.”

Eyes blurred with tears, she shied away as he touched the red spot on her wrist. The drug had a few hours of effect left in it, not enough to keep her high, but enough to keep away the need for more. The sense of his fingers on the tender spot was as embarrassing as if he had ripped her clothes off.

He knows I’m a piece of shit.

“You’re not a piece of shit, Anna.” His hand forced her to look at him. “Those grotty bastards do not possess even the slightest inkling of what you are. No, girl, you are capable of great and wondrous things. Your dignity is in there… somewhere.” He patted her atop the head. “I would love to help you find it.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “Sorry, guv’na, but…”

Dr. Mardling smiled. His voice entered her mind.
All things are not as they appear to be.

“You…” Anna swallowed, unable to breathe at the realization there were other psionics. Of course, she knew there were, but she’d never met one before who wasn’t either running, on the leash, or dead. Overwhelmed, she flung herself onto him, clinging to his shirt. “You’re psionic?”

He gathered her hands from his shoulders and eased her into her seat. “It would do well to keep it down, my dear.” He rushed to the window and looked out. “The fools think I’m some boffin in tweed.”

Anna giggled.

“Let me have a look at you then.” Dr. Mardling leaned on the near side of his desk, staring dizziness through her mind. Minutes passed that left her feeling rushes of hot, cold, floating, and abject terror. He stopped when she trembled. “Easy, luv.”

“What did you do?” She clamped her arms over her chest in an effort to stop shaking.

“Electrokinesis is a very rare gift. Not many can exert control over electricity. Little telepathy as well, but I get the sense you do not avail yourself of it much.”

“No, sir. I’ve been too scared of the CSB. Haven’t done much of anything for a while.”

“Hmm.” Mardling rubbed his goatee, eyes hardening. “Those blighters are a bit of a nuisance, are they not? Granted, they are much tougher when they are detaining children. Those dimwits can scarcely contend with ordinary psionics. They have no idea about us.”

“Ordinary psionics?” Anna blinked. “That’s a bit of a contradiction, innit?”

“I will explain more as we go.” He grabbed his coat and rushed to the door. “Come on then. Let’s get you scrubbed up.”