The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

this way. “Sarah suspects, and I’m sure Patrick will put it together. Patrick never liked you.” He plucks the last olive out of his drink and regards it. Avi wonders if Bishop chose martinis as his drink of choice to give himself stage business in conversations like this. Ways to look casual while destroying someone outright.

“Emmeline was there in the lobby when your friends from Homeland showed up,” Bishop says. “Did you know that? Do you realize how lucky we are they came in with their guns holstered? The situation between us and them is a powder keg, and you flicked matches at it.”

The full weight of what he put at risk hits Avi, along with something he’s failed to realize fully. He can’t threaten Bishop, threaten them, without endangering Emmeline. Her fate and well-being are tied to the rest of them more than they’re tethered to him. He never should have stopped fighting for them, not for a second. It meant he stopped fighting for her.

“I’m sorry,” Avi says.

“I have fuck-all time for your sorries,” says Bishop. “I know you’re unhappy, but I’d like to gently remind you that you were unhappy when we found you. At some point, it might be worth admitting the problem is you.” He produces a bill from his wallet and lays it on the bar. Avi expects some sort of good-bye. A handshake or at least a nod of acknowledgment. Bishop walks out without another word.

Once there was a girl who whistled and brought the wolves down. When the wolves came for her father, the girl tried to offer herself up in exchange. She would have fed her body to the wolves to keep his flesh from their mouths. But wolves are choosy. When they have a scent, they stay on it. Their heads won’t be turned by another. Even if the girl confessed she was the one who whistled for them, if she squeezed the words around the press of her mother’s hand, the wolves would have passed her by. You have to distract wolves before the smell is in their nostrils. You have to be their first, best option for blood.

This is her reasoning when she asks Kimani to door her into Louis Hoffman’s house.

The living room is dark, lit by a television’s glow off to the side of where Fahima is standing. Louis is lying on the couch under a blanket. A small head peeks out from under its edge, a boy, sleeping. Louis doesn’t register her at first. He’s nodding off. When he sees her, his hand jumps to his hip, reaching for a gun that thankfully isn’t there.

“It’s okay, Agent Hoffman,” Fahima says, holding up her hands. “I’m here to talk.”

“You don’t have a phone?” he says, a hissing whisper. Things explode on the television. Fahima cranes her neck to see what’s on. It’s one of those prestige movies about World War II, shot with handheld cameras near the actor’s ankles, sprays of mud and blood spattering the lens. Louis mutes it.

“I have an offer to make,” she says. She holds up a thumb drive.

“Unless you have Owen Curry trapped in there, I’m not making any deals.”

“How would you detain him?” Fahima asks. “This is someone who can create black holes. How are you planning to keep him in custody?”

“Maybe we’ll put a bullet in his head,” Louis says.

“You refused to conduct a warrantless search of the school,” she says. “You showed up at our door without kicking it down. I don’t see you summarily executing a suspect. So how will you hold him?”

“No one knows,” he says. “There are fifty-three Resonants in police custody across the country as of close of business today. I get a report on my desk just before I come home. Any one of them could walk out of their cells tonight. Phase through the walls or blow the doors off or mind-wipe the guards.”

Fahima holds up the thumb drive again. “This is how you keep them,” she says. “These are schematics for a modified arbitrary waveform generator and a low red light source. A high schooler could build it with parts from RadioShack. Set the waveform generator to the specs in the documents, and it inhibits abilities within a five-foot radius of the source. More if you build it in a sound-reflective space. I’m a fan of ceramics, myself. You’ll need one generator per cell, definitely. The red light will up melatonin levels, which keeps your guests dopey. Melatonin seems to interfere with abilities. My thinking is that we were set up that way so no one’s ability goes off when they’re dreaming. I’m not a hundred percent on that. Anyway, it works.”

“And you’re going to give me this?”

“I’m going to tell you Avi Hirsch was wrong,” she says. “We don’t have Owen Curry. We have people looking for him, and they will work with you. If they find him before you do, they’ll hand him over.”

“They won’t kill him?”

“Not my department,” Fahima says.

“How long have they been looking for him?” Louis says. “Since he blew up a mall and a church or since we came knocking?”

“Not my department,” Fahima says. “You know the guy in the Bond movies with the gadgets?”

“Q,” says Louis.

Fahima nods. “That’s me,” she says. “I sit in my lab and invent cool gadgets. Other people chase the bad guys.”

“So what do you want?”

“You leave the academy alone,” she says. “You don’t come into my school with guns ever again.” She thinks of the agent’s hand moving toward his weapon as Emmeline ran across the lobby to her mother. “We watch our own. If one goes bad, we’ll hand them over. But you get off our front lawn and you stay off.”

“And if we don’t?”

“I designed this,” Fahima says. “You think I didn’t build a back door?”

“I have guys that can shut it.”

“You don’t.”

“How long?” he asks.

Fahima looks at the drive. Her father used to talk about the