Whether it was my spike of emotions or just the look on my face, Evelyn quickly sensed my hesitation.
“It’s totally off the record. But my time in Chicago is so limited. And it would really speed things along in this preliminary fact-finding phase if I knew that Bethany wasn’t the only Medium who sensed no distortions in this location.”
I knew the yoga room was clean—and not just because Bethany went around barefoot and would feel even the smallest fleck of crud. I psychically scrubbed every inch of the FPMP building on a regular basis. And aside from the repeaters upstairs left over from the organization’s old regime, the building was metaphysically spotless.
Still…it couldn’t hurt to make sure no habit demons had crept into the yoga studio. I didn’t think anyone was addicted to sun salutations. But weirder things had happened.
As I reached for the SPECs, though, my phone rang. I gave it a quick glance, hoping it was someone I could ignore, but dreading the probability that it wasn’t. The name that popped up made me wince: my new paranoid buddy, Noah Boswell.
Given how hard I’d been chasing him down, I supposed I couldn’t let him go to voicemail.
“Yeah,” I said drily.
“So you really did give me your card! I thought this whole agent thing might be a cover for something else.”
A spy disguised as…a spy? Not a bad idea. “You can’t be too careful. So did you have any additional info on the apartment, or…?”
“I think you knowexactlywhat I’ve got.”
I did not have the patience for this. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
“Not until you come down here and look me in the eye.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you at your old apartment.”
“Oh no. I’m not giving you time to construct a cover story. I’m here. Now. And I’m not leaving until you see me.”
Just then, a text came through from security stating I had a visitor. “I’ll be right down.”
“Is it Mr. Boswell?” Evelyn guessed.
“Yeah…and the call is coming from inside the building.”
The FPMP main floor lobby was mainly for show, as most of the agents come and go through the parking ramp elevator bank. But the street-level guards knew me from my periodic forays to exorcise the building’s perimeter. They never seemed particularly grateful for my efforts to keep the place ghost-free. But they shot me a look of relief when I came down to handle Boswell.
I was surprised to see Jacob had beat me to the punch and was already there…but not surprised that he’d made no headway, as Boswell ranted and raved in his face. Jacob is normally great at defusing situations. But Boswell was anything but normal.
“I know my rights,” Boswell was saying. “You can’t implant without consent. Even prisoners have bodily autonomy. Look it up:Washington v. Harper.So if I say no to biometric tracking, that means no. My heartbeat, my breath, my brainwaves—they’re mine. Not for research, not for ‘wellness apps,’ notfor predictive profiling. I’m not fooling around—I demand the device be removed this instant, or I swear, you’ll have a raft of attorneys at your door—and more publicity than you ever hoped for.”
Evelyn followed me off the elevator. “He’s truly upset.”
Ya think? I did my best to hurry to Jacob’s side without startling anyone by breaking into a jog. “What’s going on?” I asked in my most neutral voice.
“Finally,” Boswell snapped. “Someone who’s willing to admit exactly what this place is all about.”
“He knows,” I told Jacob, so he could drop whatever “nothing to see here” act he might’ve been playing. It’s not like the title of the organization played coy with a name like Project Wingnut. For anyone who’d actually heard of the Federal Psychic Monitoring Program, the standard operating procedure was right in the name.
I joined the two of them and tried to pivot the conversation deeper into the lobby, so as not to make the place seem too interesting to a random passerby. Then I lowered my voice and said, “What’s all this about an implant?”
I was hoping he’d have some story about alien abduction at the ready—something implausible—but instead Boswell narrowed his eyes. “As if you don’t know. You’re the one who planted it on me!”
“Me?” I said. “I’m incapable of planting anything. Just ask the yellow spot on my lawn where the grass seed goes to die.”
“Oh, really?” He shoved his thumb in my face in an accusatory A-Okay. “Then what’s this?”
I scowled. “It’s…a splinter.”
“Yeah, right. That I just so happened to pick up while you were questioning me.”
