love lost sense

“Nearly silent,” Rain agreed, nodding.  “She was law enforcement.  Detective, I’m pretty sure.  I saw a flashback where she won an award, her daughter was in the audience.  So I think she was a pretty good one.  I remember, uh, another flashback, she had a child, but her child died.  Was killed.  Senselessly.”

*

The building was something of a hybrid: a dining hall, library, social area, and market all in one.  At this end of the greater building, the smells and noise of the food court were muted by an intervening bottleneck.  On the floors above, I could see the bookshelves of the library.  Individual chairs, beanbags, and study nooks were up there, away from the light conversation of the lounge floor.

Twenty-five tables on the ground floor, a crowd, and then two floors of library on three sides, a wall of thick glass on the fourth side.  Circular lights high above us glowed blue, pumping out the UV light.

This was Lyme Center.  When the last winter had rolled around, things had been bad.  Suicides had peaked as the winter went long, and isolation had been a part of that.  Being cold and hungry was one thing.  Being cold, hungry, and alone?  The inorganic way that so much of the Megalopolis had sprung up had led to whole groups and clusters of people in isolated pockets being left with no contact with other people.  There had been places where people could gather that had been crammed with those seeking human contact from dawn until well after dark, and there had been places where there just hadn’t been anywhere to go and talk to other human beings that weren’t neighbors.

Lyme had been a tent city a month ago, and past the big windows of Lyme Center the construction was continuing well past sundown.  Snow, bright yellow construction vehicles, and dark skeletons of pre-fabricated buildings being put together.  No plumbing, not in the original sense, just fat tubes set into ditches just deep enough that gravel and dirt could be piled over top and packed down.

*

The lights in the Lyme Center flickered and dimmed for a moment.  The laptop we’d been using went black.  From the look of Lookout’s reaction, she’d just lost her phone.

She’d have lost her last good flying camera, too.

People were still reacting to the sudden motion and the sound.  Slowly, they settled, looking a little less at ease than before.  Heads periodically looked skyward, as if assuming that some wire or cable had ripped loose and then been reeled in.

*

"Relax," I said. "Take it easy. We draw more attention to ourselves by freaking out."

Lookout, on the stairs, was clearly upset, all but stamping her feet in impotent anger.

"She has an emotion sense," Rain said. "If she comes here, she'll sense our emotions."

"All the more reason to relax, take it easy," I said. "Everyone here is a bit emotional."

*

Love Lost, Colt, and Nailbiter were weaving their way across the floor. Love Lost whispered something to Nailbiter, with Colt in earshot. Immediately, the other two started peering over the crowd more intently.

They knew we were here. They'd planned for the camera- no doubt because they knew how we'd operated in Cedar Point. She'd studied what we brought to the table and recruited a counter to Lookout.

Does a detective's awareness of their environment and an emotion-senser's ability let her pick us out from a crowd with any effectiveness?

I was trusting no, extrapolating from how Dean had described things. I was trusting that if it came down to it and she did see us, then they wouldn't try too hard to get us. This was their territory, and as much as they seemed willing to shit where they ate, I had to assume that they wouldn't slaughter the people in their own neck of the woods.

"Why is this working?" Rain asked.

"Emotional soup. There might be enough people here that feel just as awful as you do."

"Really."

I looked out over the crowd. "Only takes five or six."

*

Love Lost was reacting to something. She shook her head, then put her arms out, draping them along the back of the couch. With her coat off, she wore a long-sleeved sweater, and I could see the equipment along her arms, beneath the sleeves. It looked like the blonde braid-cornrow woman did too. Her head rested against the back of the couch for a moment, and she looked up.

Tristan, Kenzie, and Ashley were doing their best to look nonchalant. Love Lost didn't seem to pick up on anything, turning her attention to Colt instead.

Colt sat on the corner of the couch, one foot on the ground. She was doing the talking, but with her position relative to ours, and the fact the couch was a quarter-circle in shape, her back was to us. I could only hope the others were following what she was doing.

Love Lost turned her head the other way, apparently distracted, and looked at Nailbiter. The outstretched hand to her right moved, fingers curling like she was making a claw-shape with each, simultaneously cracking her knuckles.

Or making a beckoning gesture.

"She saw them," I said.

- Polarize 10.8