I cranked through the report, probably managing to make myself look even worse than Carl would have. If I gave up now, I could still catch the tail end of lunch, so I shut the laptop with a sigh and headed toward the dining room.
FPMP meals are one of the perks of selling my soul. They’re a bit too healthy for my liking, but scads better than I could come up with if left to my own devices. I expected to find a picked over entree and possibly a salad, but instead discovered Evelyn there, puzzling over a quiche…sans Jacob.
“Broccolini,” she informed me as I eased up beside her. “Asparagus is out of season.”
“How’d you manage to shake my other half?” I asked.
Evelyn winced. “I heard him talking in the hall and slipped out the back of the yoga studio.” So, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed him coveting the SPECs. “Jacob can be a little…intense.”
True enough.
To take the heat off my husband, I turned the conversation back to the food. “Broccolini’s not so bad, though they could stand to be more liberal with the cheese.”
Evelyn lit up. “I’ve been dreaming about that decadent pizza we had!” Hopefully not because she was burping it up all night long. “There are plenty of artisanal wood-fired pizza shops where I live, but sometimes you just want a big, cheesy, gooey indulgence.”
Our gazes both settled on the last dregs of the quiche. Which was now looking shamefully cheese-deprived.
“There’s a place on Chicago Avenue—” I began.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
River West is a funny mix of upscale and utilitarian, and the pizzeria in question was definitely not in line for a Michelin star. But since I’d introduced Evelyn to the joys of deep-dish, I’d be remiss if I didn’t round out her education with a good, local, tavern-style pizza.
The offerings at Mancini’s were everything deep-dish was not. Thin and crispy and easy to lose count of exactly how many slices you’ve inhaled. Especially because—
“They’re square,” Evelyn remarked when our order came.
“It’s a thing.” Tavern-style pies might be round, but they were sliced on the grid just like any school lunch pizza. “The outside pieces are crunchy and the middle ones are soft.” And I’d ordered us an extra-large so we wouldn’t have to fight over the middles.
How did I know she wasn’t an edge-piece weirdo like Jacob? Kindred spirit, I guess.
There was no obscene wait-time associated with a stuffed pizza, so I didn’t have the luxury of beating around the bush. I degreased my fingers with a handful of napkin and pulled up Mood Blaster. “Look, I know the app is a far cry from your original creation, but I just want my alpha waves back. Can you help a guy out?”
“There are other binaural aps, Agent. Scads of them. The main difference with Mood Blaster was that I framed the interface in a way that was more engaging for kids.”
Together, we browsed a few apps and downloaded the most promising alternative. After I blew through all the terms and conditions and accepted them without reading a single word, I scrolled past the instructions, slipped in my earbuds, and called up alpha waves.
A familiar whub-whub-whub sounded. I focused on it. Yeah, I supposed it was the same beat that underlaid my old rocket ship game. But without the music and sound effects—without the game itself to keep my mind busy—it was pretty underwhelming.
“Don’t you have a copy of the old one lying around somewhere?”
“You can’t just drop an unverified app onto a secure device like yours. FPMP’s lockdown would block it before it even installed. I have a prototype version that will run on Windows, but I’m guessing that wouldn’t exactly be convenient.”
Probably not. The odds of me hauling out a laptop, launching a program, and sitting still long enough to “enter a receptive state” hovered somewhere betweenslimanddream on.
“It’s frustrating,” I said. “Other Psychs have all kinds of tools at their disposal. Not me. I’m so freaking ‘special’ I get to write my own rulebook. Literally. But it’s like every day I’m breaking through a knee-high snowfall. For once I’d like to take a breather and walk in someone else’s footsteps.”
Evelyn leaned in. “We’re still in the early days of Psych,” she said. “The tech will catch up to you someday. Probably someday soon, given the amount of attention and funding in the field. I’m not the only one making tools that will be a game changer for all of us.” She meant this—she really did. So much so that her gesticulating hand sent her Pepsi skidding halfway across the table. She caught it in time, but not without some of it slopping over the side. She dammed the flood with our napkin pile and then stood up in search of more. “I mean it,” she said as she went to grab them. “When tech gets traction, it accelerates. Fast.”
Too bad the progress would come at a cost. Right now, no one really knew how mediums ticked. I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready for my talent to be an open book.
The condiment station was a few yards away at the opposite side of the pizzeria. Not far. But far enough that I didn’t see the shifty guy heading for Evelyn until he was practically on top of her.
I was up and out of my seat and halfway across the floor when the guy said, “Lady—spare some change?”
A pretty common question in the neighborhood, unfortunately. But they don’t usually get all up in your personal space. This guy was way too close. A bunch of split-second decisions went down. No weapon—his hands were empty, so drawing on him wasn’t warranted. More likely he was trying to intimidate her, maybe snatch her purse. I used my height, mytraining, and most of all, my instincts. And I was shouldering between the two of them so fast he didn’t know what hit him.
“Is there a problem?” My tone was part boredom, part threat.
