Chapter 71: A Conversation

“Get up, Mr. Hughes,” the Fed policeman said.

Jack's eyes opened. He rolled over and felt the wool in his mouth and groaned. He was not a morning person. He kept rolling and landed on the floor. It rippled and absorbed the impact, mostly.

He focused on the Fed standing outside the cell.

He groaned again.

The Fed said, “Somebody wants to talk to you.”

“Little early in the morning for that, don't you think?” Jack muttered. But he stood, more alert than he let on.

He couldn't imagine anyone but Ellie wanting to talk to him.

He couldn't imagine not wanting to oblige her.

He straightened up and stretched. He spared Otto a glance. The oligarch had one eye open, but his only acknowledgment was an almost imperceptible shrug.

“I'm ready,” Jack said.

“Come on, then.” There was only one Fed this time, which seemed odd to Jack. Although he sometimes he wondered why they used guards at all. The Feds could have moved half his cell through Etemenos to get him where they wanted him.

Instead, he marched to the elevator-like construct and leaned against its wall. The Fed joined him. The guy walked stiffly, and his bare palms were sweaty.

The hell?

“Hey, buddy,” Jack said. “You look a little tense.”

The Fed didn't respond.

“You should relax more.” Jack forced a grin; it was reflected in the mirror-sheen surface of the moving chamber's closed 'door.' “Take yours truly, for instance. Here I'm on death row, and I still know how to stay loose.”

The Fed shifted further away from him.

Jack didn't blame the guy. He supposed he sounded more than a little crazy, on account of he was. Stir-crazy, to be precise. You couldn't be a spacer and a claustrophobe. It just didn't work. For Jack, it was the staying in one place too long that ate at him. That and his family being in danger, of course.

Still, he wondered what had the Fed so wound up. Maybe the guy had a phobia of his own. About hybrids. If so, if he thought Jack was crazy for jumping out of bed to see Ellie, then the Fed was the crazy one and he deserved to be uncomfortable.

The elevator-construct stopped.

“Get out,” the Fed said tightly.

“You could ask a little nicer,” Jack said. But he went.

Why not? Antagonizing the Fed wouldn’t help, and anyway, Jack had better company to look forward to.

Then he realized he wasn't in the same room he'd been allowed to see Ellie in, or that the room had changed. Most of the outlines were the same, but at the far end, a huge chair rose, grew from the floor. The silvery metal had blackened, as if it had been burned. Could the nanopaste of Etemenos's core even catch fire?

Why bring him to a burned room?

Why the ostentatious chair, for that matter?

The elevator shut behind Jack. He spun around. “Hey, what the hell's going on here?”

“You’ve been summoned, Mr. Hughes.” The voice was deep and strangely flat.

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And familiar.

Jack and the chair turned at the same time.

He found himself face to face with Animus Hunter Errard Zelph.

The Animus Hunter was taller than Jack, who wasn't short, and his bulky, organic-looking black armor made him seem taller still. He would have been twice as ominous if he'd worn the weird horned helmet he had tucked under his arm, because his face, unlike the rest of him, still looked pinched and drab and bureaucratic.

He said, “Have a seat, Mr. Hughes. We have a great deal to talk about.”

“There's only one...” Jack had been about to say 'chair,' but a second rose from the floor beneath him. He'd seen Etemenos meld and shape itself before, and it hadn't looked so... organic. Like Zelph's armor.

He sat, because the chair rising under him didn't give him any choice.

It carried him forward until he hovered about a meter from Zelph.

“What do you want?” Jack tried to sound brave, or at least foolhardy. It wasn't easy with the Animus Hunter.

“You already know the answer to that question,” Zelph said.

“Chloe.”

The Animus Hunter didn't so much as nod.

Jack felt a lump in his throat. This guy had been a lot easier to talk to with a couple thousand kilometers of space between them. “You figure I'll help you?”

“Of course.”

Jack's eyes narrowed. “Then, buddy, you got another thing coming.”

“Have I, Mr. Hughes?” One side of Zelph's stony mouth rose into something approaching a smile. “What is that?”

“You can kiss my ass,” Jack said. He stood and started to march back to the elevator. The Feds had every right to interrogate him, but he had every right to tell them where to shove it, too.

He sat back down.

He didn't understand why he'd done it at first. Then he saw Zelph's smile grow.

Oh. Crap.

The telepathic attack had been so smooth and automatic, Jack hadn't realized it was anything but his body's own command until his conscious mind got involved.

“As you can see, Mr. Hughes, I most certainly could,” Zelph said, “'kiss your ass,' were I so inclined. I can do whatever I choose with you.”

“When the hell did the Senate throw in with a psychic goon like you? You do this to me and you can kiss a conviction goodbye, too.”

“But Mr. Hughes,” Zelph said, “for that to happen, you would have to tell someone. That is not going to happen.”

“You need me –”

“I am not threatening you. I am attempting to have a conversation with you.”

“So read my mind already,” Jack said. “'Cause I don't actually know where Chloe is, thank the Principle, and if I did, you'd sure as hell have to drag it out of me.”

Zelph nodded. “Of course. However, I am also not seeking information.”

“What do you want, then?”

“Simply to... talk.”

“Hard up for conversation, huh?” Jack thought, but very much did not add, and you with such a charming personality!

“It is not necessary for someone in my position to be a man of the people, Mr. Hughes,” Zelph said.

He might have answered that way in response to what Jack had actually spoken aloud. The smirk on his face said otherwise.

If you're in my mind, you son of a bitch, Jack thought, go to hell.

Zelph chuckled. “If such an afterlife exists, Mr. Hughes, a place in it is undoubtedly already earmarked for me. In other words, yes, I am reading your thoughts and will continue to do so. I made the mistake of listening only to your spoken words once, to the misfortune of all. It is not a mistake I intend to make a second time.”

Jack tried to hide the next thought that popped into his head, but he was too late.

“Unfortunately,” Zelph said, “this will not constitute grounds for a mistrial in your case, as you will not tell anyone about our meeting.”

“The hell I won't,” Jack said. No point in trying to lie to the bastard if he could pluck the truth out of thin air and didn't give a damn about the laws that were supposed to stop him. So much for Rhetta Ferrill's legalistic rhetoric.

Or did Zelph want to make it seem pointless to lie? Could Jack slip something past him if he concentrated hard enough? He tried to remember the anti-telepathy training he'd received during the Civil War.

“Don't make this more tiresome than it has to be, Mr. Hughes,” Zelph said. “We can have a pleasant and productive conversation if –”

The Animus Hunter's expression froze. His eyebrow slowly raised and he glanced at the empty air at Jack's left.

He dipped his head like he was acknowledging something. Had somebody piped information to a hidden or cybernetic receiver inside him? Had another Animus Hunter contacted him telepathically?

He turned back to Jack. “You see, Mr. Hughes, our dialogue has already been fruitful and we have barely begun.”

Jack stared at him.

“Imagine,” Zelph said, “how informative the rest of the conversation is going to be.”