The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(62)
CALIX: “Just about. Wolf got me some sleeping pills, but they don’t help . . . if you write a word of this down, I’m leaving.”
Gleeson puts down the pen.
GLEESON: “What are the dreams about?”
CALIX: “No, it’s my turn. You made the rules, remember?”
GLEESON: “By all means.”
CALIX: “Have you met any other telepaths?”
Gleeson pauses for several seconds, perhaps considering if he intends to lie.
GLEESON: “Yes. But it was not their presenting power.”
Calix’s strange eyes are too bright now, fixed on Gleeson.
Gleeson shifts in his seat, uncomfortable.
GLEESON: “My turn. What are the dreams about, Calix?”
CALIX: “They’re about what happened to me in the hospitals.” (pause) “They tortured me to inspire new powers. They thought if they put my body under enough stress, it would be forced to defend itself. It worked. I was useful because I was powerful, and the more powerful they made me, the more useful I became. If they could suppress me, they could suppress anyone.”
Calix pauses, then shrugs.
CALIX: “They were trying to invent a vaccine for the virus when I was liberated.”
GLEESON: “Did they succeed?”
CALIX (shaking his head): “They were able to make suppression work on me, though, if only for an hour per dose. My question, now.”
GLEESON: “Not so fast. You still haven’t said what the dreams were about. Not specifically.”
CALIX: “I told you, they’re about what happened to me in—”
GLEESON: “They tortured you, yes. So you said. But how?”
Calix’s hands clutch the sofa cushions. When he swallows, his throat bobs visibly.
CALIX: “They . . . anything they could think of to induce pain. Cutting into me, breaking bones. Capsaicin injections. They . . .”
Calix shudders, eyes fluttering shut.
GLEESON (gently): “It’s all right, Calix. That’s enough.”
Calix doesn’t appear to hear. He drops his head back, his voice thin and shaking.
CALIX: “They had me gagged. I couldn’t . . .”
GLEESON (urgent, his expression nauseated): “I know.”
At last Calix opens his eyes. He’s pale. Gleeson removes his spectacles with trembling fingers and scrubs the heel of his other hand against his face.
GLEESON: “Go ahead and ask what you were going to ask me.”
A long moment passes. Gleeson puts his glasses back on.
CALIX: “Can you learn telepathy?”
GLEESON: “I don’t know. It would seem so, although the only other telepath I knew could never quite define how she acquired the ability. But she couldn’t read every mind, as I can. Her ability was limited, perhaps because it wasn’t her presenting power. She could only read the minds of people she had a close, personal connection to. She spent years trying to cultivate telepathy but never got past this limitation. She could read the minds of people she understood on a deep and intimate level, and only if they felt a close connection to her in return. But no one else.”
Calix says nothing.
GLEESON: “I advise against it. Telepathy is a curse as much as a blessing. Far worse when you use it on a loved one and realize all the nasty things they think about you but would never say out loud.”
CALIX: “I want to help him.”
GLEESON: “I know you do.” (He drags his hand through his hair again.) “I know, Calix. But reading Adalwolf’s mind won’t help you help him. Believe me.”
CALIX: “You think I could learn, though.”
GLEESON: “I think . . . I think that would be a very bad idea.”
Calix is still looking at him, his face lean and hungry. He opens his mouth to speak again.
The video ends here.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Noam was sprawled across his bed on Friday afternoon, halfway through Oryx and Crake, chewing on one of Taye’s red lollipops, when Dara and Ames cornered him with demands that Noam attend some dinner party Ames’s dad was throwing. It wasn’t the kind of thing Noam was into, hanging out with old rich people and playing sycophant. He was about to make his excuses, but then Dara said, “You should come.”
And that decided it, really.
That night, Dara and Noam took a cab out of downtown toward Forest Hills and the massive mansions belonging to the rich and famous and government employed. Noam watched the houses slide past, each more ostentatious than the last. Some were larger than the entire training wing. Dara, smiling down at something on his phone, didn’t seem to notice.
“So glad you could make it,” Ames said. She met them at the door to the home secretary’s residence, drabs replaced by tight black trousers and a well-fitted men’s blazer. A glass of brandy dangled from one hand. “Go home, Dara; I’m sure Noam and I can find some way to entertain ourselves without you here.”
Dara laughed. “Consider me his chaperone.” He plucked the brandy out of Ames’s hand, finishing the rest of it in a single long swallow. “I’m here to make sure you don’t take advantage.”
“Me? Take advantage? Never.”
They followed her into the mansion—and it was exactly that: a mansion, with a white board fa?ade and an interior constructed of hardwood floors and fleur-de-lis patterned wallpaper, fine art framed on the walls or featured as centerpieces. Noam had read in the bookstore history section that traditional Carolinian architecture was considered unpretentious by contemporaries. Still, he couldn’t help comparing it to what he’d seen of Lehrer’s apartment. Here there were no faded rugs or worn-down upholstery. Everything was restored and polished to gleaming perfection, down to the silver candlesticks.