Minders

CHAPTER 3

A decade earlier Miranda Roque had built the finest research facility in the country, staffed it with the top scientists and academics in the world, and buried it beneath the ground. Each of the twenty subbasement floors was headed by a different researcher and dedicated to cutting-edge specialties like geocorporation, cipherlogistics, and infodemiology.

Syncopy, which grew out of late-night coffees on several different floors, now took up all of subbasement fourteen with fifty-three staff members, four state-of-the-art laboratories, and the most advanced nanochip research facility in the world.

The Fellows’ tour guide, Catrina Devi, told them this as they walked from one cream-on-cream corridor into another. Catrina had dark hair styled in a pixie cut, high cheekbones, luminous brown eyes, and almond skin. She was what Decca would have called “one of those,” meaning one of those women who are so naturally beautiful they could wear a piñata—or in this case an ankle-skimming lab coat and no jewelry except a single gold bracelet—and make it look like they were dressed for a chic party.

Curtis had introduced her as soon as they got off the elevator. “Catrina was one of our first Mind Corps Fellows five years ago,” he told them. “Now she oversees our Stasis Center. She’ll be doing this next part of the tour. For the six weeks you’re in stasis, your life is in her hands.”

A smattering of nervous laughter. Sadie watched Curtis give Catrina a warm smile and wondered if their relationship was more than just professional. If she’d been a Mind Corps Fellow five years earlier, she would have to be twenty-one or -two, Sadie calculated.

A tight cluster of Fellows peppered Catrina with questions as she led them down the long hallway, most of which Sadie thought were designed more to get attention than answers.

The guy with the southern accent asked, “Could stasis be used to perform surgeries without anesthesia?”

“That isn’t something we’ve explored yet,” Catrina told him.

A girl with dark hair to her waist: “How old will our subjects be?”

“They’ve all been out of high school for at least a year, so usually between nineteen and twenty-two. Never older than twenty-five.”

The walls of the corridor curved gently, the floors absorbed the sound of their footsteps, and the light was buttery, shadowless. Everyone’s voice sounded slightly more pleasant, their movements more graceful, and Sadie was struck by the tranquility of the place. It reminded her of her home, but even more calm and orderly. It was, she felt, a place where nothing bad could happen.

They passed departments of bioethics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and chemical engineering, things she’d expect, but there were also unfamiliar specialties like neuronutrition, chronogeography, and bricolage.

As far as Sadie could tell, almost no one involved with Syncopy or Mind Corps was even close to thirty. Which made more sense when the boy with the perfect part asked, “How do you get a job here?” and Catrina answered, “By being the best in your field or by being a former Fellow. Usually, of course, those are the same thing.”

A few Fellows laughed, but Catrina’s tone made it clear she wasn’t joking.

Sadie wondered if she ever laughed.

They turned into another corridor, and Sadie was surprised to see an old-fashioned painting hanging on one wall. It was a portrait of a striking man dressed in nineteenth-century attire. Pausing, Sadie saw that a little metal plaque screwed into the frame identified the man as Judge Montgomery Prester Roque. It would have fit in perfectly upstairs, but down here it seemed strange, almost jarring.

When she looked at it more closely, she saw there were four round holes in it, right over the figure’s heart.

“They’re bullet holes,” Curtis Pinter’s voice said from just behind her. “Most people don’t notice.” He came and stood next to her. “It’s nice to see you again, Sadie.”

“You too, Mr. Pinter.”

“Call me Curtis,” he suggested. “I want you to feel relaxed around me.”

There’s little chance of that, Sadie thought as her cheeks flushed. “Curtis, then.” He was looking at her as if he was genuinely interested in what she had to say, but she found her mind had gone completely blank. Finally, unable to think of anything smart to say, she stammered, “How did the bullet holes get there?”

“It happened almost twenty years ago. After Miranda’s first major philanthropic project—”

“The Perfect Garden,” Sadie broke in, trying to look like less of a moron.

“I see someone overprepared for their interview.”

Sadie’s cheeks flamed. “I—I just didn’t want to miss anything.” She found herself strangely aware of his proximity. Forcing her attention away from the spicy citrus scent of his cologne, she recalled details from the articles she’d read. “The Perfect Garden was a home for underprivileged orphans, wasn’t it? But there was some controversy around it.”

“Gold star to Miss Ames.” Curtis nodded. “Miranda swore she could take children no one wanted and educate them in such a way that each of them would become a success. The curriculum was basically an intensive study of Shakespeare and weapons training. And it worked. They were creative, aggressive, and disciplined. Every student in the first class—the only class to graduate—had made at least a million dollars by the time they were twenty-four.”

“That’s amazing,” Sadie said reverently.

“Yes. Unfortunately, a few of them turned the same traits toward less-than-legal pursuits—and excelled at those as well. A state commission was convened and ruled that Miranda had perverted the natures of those in her care by pumping up their drive to succeed and giving them the skills to be excellent criminals.”

Sadie frowned. “But they were the same drive and skills that made them successful.”

“Exactly what Miranda told the commissioners.” Curtis grinned at her, and she found herself thinking how nice his teeth were. “With a few mentions about looking at themselves in the mirror. None of which went over well, and the state ordered the program shut down immediately. Miranda was furious, of course. The head of the commission reminded her of Judge Monty, so…” Curtis cocked his finger into a gun and aimed it at the painting.

Sadie gaped at him. “Ms. Roque shot the painting?”

Curtis laughed. “Not what you’d expect, is it?”

“No.” Sadie shook her head slowly. “But that just makes her seem even more wonderful.”

“Wonderful or dangerous,” Curtis said. His eyes sought Sadie’s, and held them. “Of course,” he went on, his voice low, intimate, “the two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

There was an intensity to his gaze that made Sadie’s pulse jump and gave her the feeling of playing out of her league. “No?” she breathed, unable to move her eyes from his.

“No,” he said. A twinkle appeared in his eyes, and his lips curved into a sly smile. “After all, Miranda is a very good shot.”

In her most earnest tone she said to Curtis, “Statistically, Miranda being a good shot makes her less dangerous.”

Curtis glanced at her quickly and laughed when he realized she was joking. “Too true.”

He gestured her around a corner into a wider corridor where the rest of the Fellows were gathered. One wall was lined with offices; the other was made of panels of frosted glass. Curtis excused himself, and Sadie rejoined the group clustered around Catrina.

Catrina was standing with her back to the frosted glass, saying, “The technology that enables interperception—the ability of individuals to see inside one another’s minds—has been in existence and use for nearly three decades,” she said, “but it was restricted, uncomfortable, and hard to control. Until six years ago, when scientists here made a stunning breakthrough.”

As she spoke, the entire wall of glass behind her sank into the floor, revealing a massive oval chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Radiating out from the center of the oval were four concentric widening circles of what looked like bathtubs, each with a number from one to thirty. A thick shank of cables and wires was coiled inside of each of them. Lab technicians in spotless cream-colored coats moved silently along the perimeter, like acolytes of a very modern cult.

“Six years ago we invented stasis,” Catrina said, leading them into the room. She stepped toward one of the tubs, her face showing its first hint of emotion as she patted the tub lovingly. “This changed everything. It’s officially known as the DCSS3 Dynamic Corporeal Suspension System, but around here we call it the Stas-Case. Take a good look at it, because it will be your home for six weeks.”

The Fellows all pressed closer, glancing shyly into the vessels, everyone apparently apprehensive to touch too much, as though the tubs were alive. Sadie wondered if anyone else was unnerved by the thought of lying there for six weeks surrounded by twenty-nine other motionless bodies.

Catrina’s voice broke the eerie silence. “Curtis gave you the philosophical overview, but I’ve been tasked with explaining the science behind what we do here, and I’m going to start at the beginning so there’s no confusion.” She pointed a finger in a semicircle at the group. “You are Minders. That means you enter stasis and go into the mind of another person. That person is called your Subject. Sometime between birth and the age of thirteen, a neuronano relay was placed at the base of your Subject’s skull, where it meets the spinal cord. This is the gateway to the brain, and every thought or action originates here as a set of bioelectrical impulses. The microscopic relay collects and forwards all that brain activity in real time. Using sensors, that activity is mirrored onto your mind, letting you experience it exactly the way the Subject does. That is called interperception.”

Sadie was so entranced she had to remind herself to breathe.

“If you’d done that fifteen years ago, you wouldn’t have been able to keep both your thoughts and your Subject’s in your mind at once during interperception. Theirs would have overridden yours, which means any kind of research or evaluation could only have happened later. But stasis changes that.” Catrina’s eyes lit up. “By freeing the mind from responsibility for your body, stasis increases your mental capacity enough so that all those impulses can be mirrored onto your brain with adequate space left over for your normal thought processes to occur simultaneously. You can not only observe, you can evaluate, and because you can remain in stasis safely for a long time, you can keep an uninterrupted link with your Subject for an extended period. Thus Syncopy—extended, conscious sessions of interperception—was born. We have only begun to explore the implications of this incredible process, but I’m among those who think it will be hailed as the most significant advance in a century.”

A boy with dark hair spiked straight up said, “Have you ever been a Subject?”

Catrina shook her head. “To be a Subject you must have a neuronano transmitter implanted. But Minders can’t have transmitters because they interfere with the ability to enter Syncopy. So you can either be a Subject or a Minder, but not both.”

“Has anyone ever died during Syncopy?” the girl with the tight bun asked.

Catrina frowned, as though the question was in poor taste, then said, “No Minder has ever died.”

“What about—” the girl began to ask but was interrupted by Curtis’s return.

There was something about him, Sadie thought, that made the air feel more electric. He smiled and said, “Did you explain everything, Cat?”

Catrina gave him a look Sadie couldn’t quite fathom. It wasn’t flirtatious, although her ears had gone pink at the sound of his voice. It looked more like… relief. She said, “Yes. We’re all done with the preliminaries.”

Curtis smiled, crooked a finger at the group, and said, “Then it must be time to get naked. Follow me.”

After the tour, orientation became a mix between summer camp and the most invasive physical Sadie could imagine. When Curtis had said they were going to get naked he hadn’t been joking, although Sadie learned with relief it was more the kind of nakedness that involved baring your soul rather than your skin.

Sadie spent the next two days immersed in CAT scans, MRIs, fMRIs, electrocardiograms, radiocardiograms, blood tests, hearing tests, vision tests, and tests for strength, endurance, and respiratory health. There had also been basic self-hypnosis tips and a course on “Maintaining a Mental Notebook,” since they would have to memorize all their observations while in stasis. Sadie and Flora had been assigned as a team in an exercise the second morning of orientation, and their tension from the first day had been overpowered by the shared goal of winning.

“Three o’clock,” Flora said as they walked away from the coffee cart near the stasis chamber. “Only an hour left of orientation.”

Sadie blew on her coffee. “I wish we could start Syncopy tonight, without going home.”

Flora raised an eyebrow. “Come on, don’t you want one more good makeout session with Pete?” She stopped herself. “Sorry, I forgot you only have eyes for Hot Curtis now.”

Sadie laughed. “Speak for yourself.”

Flora shook her head. “Catrina is more my type.”

“I’m afraid you might not be hers,” Sadie said apologetically. “I think she and Curtis are a couple.”

Flora waved that away. “For expediency, maybe, but not really. Trust me.”

Sadie wasn’t sure. She’d gotten lost the previous night on her way to dinner and ended up in the oval room with the Stas-Cases. She’d been walking the perimeter looking for corridor G when she heard voices and realized it was Curtis and Catrina talking.

As she came up Curtis was saying, “I’m simply suggesting we consider protection.”

“Protection,” Catrina sniffed.

Sadie stood rooted to the floor, unable to move.

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Curtis said emphatically, “but we need to be careful. Minimize the risks. I want to make sure we’re safe.”

“I understand. It just feels like you’re pushing me away.” Catrina’s tone was measured and cool, but obviously it didn’t mean she didn’t care, just that she was thoughtful. Sadie wished Pete or her father could hear her. Maybe then they’d understand that not everyone oozed emotion.

Curtis was soothing. “You know that’s not what is going on. I’m doing this for us. And it’s only temporary.”

Snapping back into her conversation with Flora, Sadie said, “I overheard them talking, and they definitely seemed to be involved.”

“Maybe for now,” Flora said with a shrug. “Nothing lasts forever.”

Sadie laughed. “I’ll concede if you’ll tell me how to get to office D-210.”

Flora turned Sadie so she was facing the direction opposite the one she’d been about to walk in and said, “Go straight past three corridors and turn left. I’ll see you in the Survaillab for closing remarks.”

“If I find it,” Sadie said.

Flora’s instructions were perfect, and Sadie was pressing the admittance bell next to D-210 at exactly three o’clock.

The appointment had appeared on her TrackUPad that morning with no explanation, so she didn’t know what to expect. She felt a surge of pleasure when the door slid open and she saw Curtis sitting with his feet on a desk, in the middle of what sounded like a personal call.

“Just steer clear, that’s all I’m asking.” He motioned Sadie into his office. “This isn’t the time for one of your little games.”

His desk was sleek and modern in dark wood, the two low chairs facing it at precise right angles covered in buff suede. Three brightly colored old-fashioned tin wind-up toys in the shape of a tiger, an elephant, and a bear playing the cymbals sat on one corner of the desk, and a computer sat on the other. Behind it hung a framed vintage poster from the movie Metropolis. The space felt warm with a hint of edge, just like Curtis himself.

He gestured Sadie into a chair facing him as he got off the phone, then smiled an apology. “Sorry, family drama. How has orientation been? I don’t think I’ve been lucky enough to catch sight of you since that first day.”

Sadie willed herself not to blush and said, “Orientation has been somewhat disorienting, actually.”

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “That sounds about right. And I’m afraid I’m only going to exacerbate that.” His feet came off the desk, and he leaned across it toward her.

“Why?” Sadie asked, trying not to get distracted by the pleasantly subtle scent of his cologne.

“We don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll cut right to it. I’ve decided to start an elite program within Mind Corps, and I want you to be part of it.”

Sadie suddenly had no trouble focusing. “Elite in what way?”

“We’re selecting a few Fellows to be Minders for Subjects who have been tagged as high risk. Either they’ve been arrested and served time, or they’ve come close. By targeting them, we want to understand how crime can spread from an individual to blight an entire neighborhood. But Syncopy with these Subjects exposes Minders to strains others don’t face. So we’re only picking the best of the best.”

Sadie’s heart thudded against her ribs. “What kinds of strains?”

“These Subjects are more likely to repress their feelings and memories than deal with them. Repression is like a magician, using smoke screens and big spectacles to distract you from its secrets. That takes a lot of work, so these minds may be more unstable, more like living in a minefield.” He paused. “The other difference is that instead of being posted in an unfamiliar community, your Subject would be here in City Center. Only a half hour from your home. Which means we would need to rely even more heavily on your maturity and integrity.” He leaned back. “What do you think? Would you be comfortable with that?”

City Center.

Impressions from her photography class trip flooded Sadie’s mind. She remembered passing houses, stores, and skyscrapers that had been completely abandoned, whole neighborhoods silent except for ghostly wind; other streets so densely packed with people that the sidewalks spilled into traffic and the intersections became a matted knot of cars and people, the air thick with curses and honking.

Their bus had gotten caught in one of those intersections, and Sadie was staring out the window when a fight broke out between two guys. A clot of people formed around the fighters, and between the heads of the crowd, Sadie watched them pound each other. Raw, visceral energy came off them in waves so potent that she’d felt them even through the double-paned window of the bus, making every sensation, every color, more intense.

What would it be like to experience that firsthand? she asked herself now. The sensation of knuckles cracking against bone, of fury overriding all reason, of being filled with so much powerful emotion.

She remembered the beautiful ruin of the building they’d photographed earlier that same day. Remembered standing on the edge of the seventeenth floor and forcing herself to look down, fingers of panic closing around her throat, making her struggle for breath, petrified with fear.

Not, as she’d told Curtis in her interview, because she was afraid of falling. That was a lie.

It was jumping she was afraid of. Becoming so numb she didn’t care any longer.

Now, sitting in Curtis’s office, she realized she was nodding. She said, “Yes. If you’re asking would I be willing to go through Syncopy inside the mind of a criminal, the answer is yes.”

Curtis held up a hand. “A potential criminal. Not hardened, not yet, but still the kind of person I’d tell you to steer clear of if you were my sister. I want to be certain you really understand what I’m asking. This person will be almost your exact opposite. Someone with no respect for rules or laws, possibly no code of conduct or loyalty, and very likely a disordered internal landscape. There’s a high probability of violence. Are you sure you’re prepared for that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Details will be crucial. To understand the hidden power dynamics of City Center, we’ll need you to pay close attention not only to your Subject’s internal Mindscape but also the external landscape. Associates, friends, enemies, the strengths and weakness of alliances.”

“Of course,” Sadie said. She hesitated for a moment, then blurted, “Why me?”

Curtis tented his fingers on his desk and locked his eyes on hers. “Because your father is wrong. You’re not too serious. You have a gravity about you, but that’s different. It’s what sets you apart. And why you are going to be so very good at this.”

Sadie was speechless. She would have laid down her life for Curtis at that moment.

“Come on,” he said, pushing back his chair and standing, “Let me walk you to the Survaillab. You’re far too valuable to risk losing, and from what I hear it’s statistically unlikely you’d find it on your own.”

She laughed and said, “Thank you,” and from the smile he gave her in return she was fairly sure he knew she wasn’t just talking about the directions.

The Survaillab was a wide, raked room terraced with long tables partitioned every two feet into a series of linked cubicles. A Mind Corps technician greeted Sadie at the door, looked at her badge, and said, “You’re number nine. Second row at the end.”

Sadie waved at Flora and took her seat. Inside her personal cubicle was a screen that was blank except for the number nine.

When all the cubicles were filled, Curtis appeared at the front of the room. “Congratulations. You’ve done the hard part. Now all that’s left is for you to lie around for six weeks.”

There was a collective chuckle.

“Several of you have asked for information about your Subject: their name, age, basic things. I told you to wait. This is not the moment you’re waiting for.”

A few nervous laughs. “We’ve learned it’s better for all of that to come out organically during Syncopy. But there is one thing you can’t learn while you’re on the inside.” The lights dimmed, and the individual screen in front of Sadie popped to life.

She was looking at a busy city street clogged with cars and buses. An elevated train ran above it, making a clatter, and on the ground horns honked incessantly. The street was a jumble of stores, crammed together like too many teeth in a mouth—Huang’s PawnIt, DollarDollarDollar, Your Neighborhood Drug—with a fenced-in playground on the corner.

“These are CCTV feeds of each of your subjects from the past week. It is the only time you’ll see them from the outside.”

Sadie scanned the image. The playground was empty, but the sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians and vendors selling sunglasses and toys. She was wondering how she was supposed to tell who to look at, when the camera angle began changing, pulling in and focusing on one figure. He was wearing a blue jacket and had broad shoulders, but that’s all she could see because he was standing with his back to the camera, staring into the empty playground.

He’d been there all along, Sadie realized, but she hadn’t noticed him because, unlike everyone else, he was standing still. Now his head came around, as though in response to someone calling his name, and the camera pulled in on his face. Almost as if he sensed it, sensed her, he looked right into the lens, and Sadie’s breath caught in her throat. He had dark hair, the faintest trace of stubble on his cheeks and chin, and eyes that were incredibly blue.

And incredibly angry.

The image cut out, but the eyes seemed to hover in front of her, burned into the monitor.

As she pulled out of Mind Corps and turned toward home, Sadie kept seeing Subject 9’s eyes in front of her.

“There’s a high probability of violence,” Curtis had said during their meeting. “Are you sure you’re prepared for that?”

She’d thought she’d known what she was agreeing to. But now, having seen those eyes, she realized she had no idea. The darkness behind them was unfathomable.

And by this time tomorrow, she would be at the center of it.