When she was done reading, she flipped the folder closed and slid it back across the desk to him.
“What did you read, Dr. Addams?” he asked.
As was their custom, she fed him back the information she’d picked up from the file, in lucid and succinct form.
“We’ve got three new female prisoners, from the same Connecticut town. Three homicides, all bizarre enough that the women are being called the Death Sisters. They have no previous criminal record, and their testing routines show none of the core complex of fears usually associated with their crimes. And their cortical scans show a positive slewing of beta weights.”
“What’s that tell you?” he asked.
“Long version, or cut to the chase?”
“Cut to the chase, by all means. Then we’ll go back and fill in the gaps.”
She turned her gaze fully up to him. He felt the pull of her eyes, as she drew him into subvocal conversation, where it would be more difficult for him to evade or hide.
You plan on handing me the ticking bomb?
She’d already leaped ahead of him by six or seven steps. No surprise there. She knew what this was.
Not quite yet, Jaguar.
A moment of silence while she made deeper empathic contact, probing his words, his tone, the shape and texture of his mind, sniffing out hidden agendas or dangers.
Empathic contact was different than simple telepathic communication. The empath shared experience directly with the person they were in contact with. It could be uncomfortable, like running through a rainstorm skinless, or a dream where you’re not sure if you’re falling or flying. Your emotions and thoughts and soul were not your own during the interaction. At such times, your only control was your capacity to block, or your willingness to consent to an absence of control. Alex believed that was why most people didn’t practice the arts, though they could be learned with varying levels of skill by anyone who made the effort. But the necessary trust, the fearless relinquishment of control, and the quiet discipline it took to practice them well took too much time, patience, and moral courage for most people to bother with.
Jaguar was the most skilled empath he’d ever met, and this made contact with her easier, but sometimes she stalked him the way a cat stalked new territory, measuring all of him against the blade edge of her suspicions. He was willing to let her, but the feel of her investigation was pretty damn intense. As if an angel raked his face with taloned fingers and asked him if it hurt. Can pleasure hurt? Is desire painful? He’d withstand both her inner and outer gaze, but she had to know it was a form of exquisite torture to him.
Jaguar, is licking my soul really necessary?
The motion of her investigation ceased. Her brief laughter moved through him and exited smoothly. She sat across from him, looking all business except for the shadow of a grin that disappeared before it could be remarked on.
“The women have phase psychosis,” she said out loud. “Exogenous. They’ve been exposed to Artemis compounds. Nothing else explains both the beta weight anomalies and their crimes.”
Alex rubbed at his chin. Okay, he thought. She read it just like he did. Now he’d take it for a test run.
“Manufacture or possession of Artemis compounds is illegal except in restricted research settings,” he said judiciously.
“Right,” she replied. “And I know a lot of pigs with little pink wings, too.”
He bit back on a smile. “Even if someone is manufacturing Artemis, there’s no absolute proof that it causes Phase Psychosis.”
“You need to hear me say it, Alex? I’ll oblige. When moon mining was legal, crime rates for women who lived near the processing plants went up almost 20 percent. Most of them used the same defense these three women did – exigent PMS or post-partum depression - and the medical tests proved them right. The term Phase Psychosis means maxxed out trouble in hormonal phases, and we haven’t seen anything like these women since they banned lunar mining.”
“And that’s your proof?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But you are.”
He folded his hands. Waited.
“Why take me off training exercises if you don’t think it’s Artemis?”
“Maybe because I count on you to tell me when I’m wrong.”
“I won’t,” she said. “Not this time.”
He felt the muscles at the back of his neck tighten. Someone was moon mining and processing the products into Artemis compounds. They both thought so. If they were right, they’d be in for it.
The Hague had imposed a moratorium on moon mining two years ago, after lots of trouble on many fronts. Their ruling was up for either repeal or extension in six months and corporations were lobbying hard to lift the ban, already lining up to stake claims on the lunar resources they wanted to exploit.
That was the word they used. Exploit. Alex heard it on the news, saw it on the net, had been in rooms where actual humans said it without hesitation or shame. Every time he heard it, he winced. Given that exploitation of natural resources almost brought the planet and the human species to its knees more than once, how could anyone use the word so cheerfully, as if it was a good idea. More than a few hundred years ago, Lakota leader Black Elk said that white men came to find the yellow metal they worshiped, which made them insane. Moon mining was the new lunacy, quite literally.
And it was also big money.
Lunar dust contained minerals readily available on the home planet, but the refining process had unexpectedly created a new grouping of synthetic chemicals with the high molecular charge useful in shuttle fuels, and some unique electrochemical qualities associated with laser memory bank systems. There was speculation about its use in regenerative medicine, too. Artemis compounds, the byproducts were called, and they were hailed as the next techno-savior of the world. Research and production plants were up and running with the speed of light.
But female workers in the plants and women who lived around the plants began miscarrying, hemorrhaging to death. A few went on mad killing sprees. One woman burned her home with her family in it. Another set fire to the plant she worked in. A third took a gun to a grocery store and opened fire. Workers and Unions lodged complaints. Neighborhood coalitions formed to keep plants out.
Corporations, backed by their own researchers, claimed there was absolutely no connection between the women’s problems and Artemis. The numbers weren’t statistically significant, and other variables could have caused the trouble. Many were survivors of the Killing Times and suspect for PTSD. And, as the scientists pointed out repeatedly, none of the men had any problems.
Then, scientists from environmental groups appealed for a moratorium on moon mining while unbiased researchers studied the issue. That wouldn’t have gotten far, but the Pagan and Indigenous People’s Coalition appealed for preservation of the moon as a sacred site. A Coalition spokesperson was murdered, and politicians threw themselves into the fray.
Finally, the Hague imposed a two year moratorium on moon mining while independent investigations were conducted. At the end of the first year, there were no conclusions either way. Though the ban continued, watch-dogging on dive-and-carry pirating of lunar surface material grew lax, and the corporations who wanted to be ahead of the game when the moratorium ended took advantage of that. With only six months to go before a decision was reached, illegal processing plants were bound to start cropping up.
Alex assumed any Artemis exposure would come from such plants, more than likely run by powerful companies, supported by their powerful political sidekicks. If he and Jaguar made a connection between these new prisoners and illegal mining, none of them