Dulles International Airport. As in, Washington DC.
As in…holy cripes.
“You’re fromNational?”
* * *
“I just remembered something I’ve gotta do,” I said, hoping to cover whatever spike of panic I’d no doubt just broadcasted for half the agency to pick up on. I’m no stranger to empaths. Hell, my first real boyfriend was strong enough to make a grown man cry. And then break into a fit of laughter.…and then crap himself. Back then, I’d rationalized that his ability to read my inner workings made everything easier. Because then I wouldn’t have to struggle with talking about how I actually felt.
Since that time, life experience has downloaded me a major update. I’ve come to see the advantage of being able to pickand choose what other folks knew about those inner workings of mine.
The only thing I felt around Stefan nowadays was anger. And if he didn’t glean that from his sixth sense, no doubt my face conveyed the emotion loud and clear.
My initial impression of Evelyn had been a good one, though, so she must have felt something shift. I could only hope that the static of my general state of anxiety was enough to blot out my specific fear and loathing of FPMP National.
“If I can watch you use the app,” she was saying, “then at the very least, I should be able to figure out how to step you through the sticking point. But this is a fantastic opportunity to develop an entirely new protocol that actually works for you.”
A little spike of interest betrayed me. Did I want to be able to shift into alpha without the help of a cartoon spaceship? Hell, yeah.
But not under the watchful eye of Big Brother. “I really shouldn’t waste your time.”
Bethany, ever “helpful,” said, “Of course you’re not wasting Evelyn’s time, Victor. She came all the way out here just to see us!”
That was her idea, not mine. I edged toward the door. “Thing is, I’m smack in the middle of a—” I barely stopped myself from sayingmurder investigation. “A case.”
I escaped into the hall. Evelyn fell into step beside me. For an empath, she really wasn’t reading the room. “That’s just perfect. It’s every researcher’s dream to see their work being used the way they meant it to be—not simply repackaged based on whatever’s trending.”
She smiled, a little wistful.
“Mood Blaster wasn’t supposed to trigger a dopamine hit. I built it for stabilization—mostly for the kid I used to be. I was so anxious—some of it was my anxiety, of course, but back then, no one knew about empaths, and how we weren’t only generating our own anxiety, but absorbing it from the world around us. Let’s just say I was a pretty high-strung kid. Anyway, that was the original purpose of the app. To help children self-regulate without pumping them full of pills. But once the app got picked up commercially, it became about stickiness. Retention, color psychology, push notifications.” She shook her head. “I can’t say I was surprised. The moment a thing is effective, someone somewhere wants to monetize the curve. That doesn’t mean it stopped being useful…it just got diluted.”
She sounded sincere. Which made things worse, somehow. I kept my face neutral and hoped she wasn’t scanning me too hard. Then I remembered how confrontational my neutral-face looked and attempted a smile. Which probably came off more like a wince. Hopefully she’d think I’d done it in the spirit of commiseration.
Empaths were so exhausting.
“The readings Mood Blaster uses are rudimentary,” Evelyn went on. “There’s only so much input a smartwatch can track, at least in its current state of development. Think about what you could do with better tech.”
Oh, I thought it plenty. Whenever someone tried to hook me up to an electrode, I thought about the lab cracking open my skull and sticking wires directly into my gray matter.
CHAPTER SIX
ALL THE WAY back to my office, Evelyn waxed eloquent about the wonders of technology. And all the way there, I wondered how I could possibly shake her. Maybe Carl would do the dirty work for me. He was even sterner than I was, and he had a military background. He could neutralize Evelyn. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. But if it did, he’d be the guy.
Pretty sure that if I locked eyes with him and then flicked my gaze to the intruder, Carl would know exactly what I was trying to convey. Now, whether he’d deign to act on that intel remained to be seen. Still. I had to try. As Evelyn talked about how much more the app could do if only the interface were more advanced, I pushed open the office door, expecting to beseech my partner with my eyes…only to have them land squarely on Jacob.
Not quite the partner I’d anticipated.
And to add to the confusion, Carl wasn’t there. But Laura Kim was.
“Well, I see you’ve already met Dr. Hall,” she said pleasantly. “Not every day National sends one of their top researchers to the Midwest.”
Okay, so Laura was there to warn me. Made sense. She’d watched helplessly back when National’s foot soldiers stormed through Con Dreyfuss’ office like a pack of barbarian raiders.
But why was Jacob here?
He met my eyes as if I might read something in his gaze.
Being on the receiving end of a loaded look was a lot harder than I’d anticipated.
