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"Councilor Duncan understands that" Brecht picked up the data crystal and round inforine, there are areas of considerable sensitivity That’s why you’ll be working with a Psy partner who’ll help you in relation to the peculiarly Psy aspects of the investigation, and ill be tasked with filtering certain data"
Max had known he’d need a Psy advisor, but the second part of Brecht’s statementto realize what’s relevant and what’s not?"
"She," the commander said, "is to work intimately with you"
"Makes no difference to the question--what qualifications does this ‘partner’ of mine have toalone, he liked it that way
"She’s a J," the commander said "Has been operative since she was sixteen She’s noenty-eight"
Anticipation licked along his spine "What’s her nae of haunting eyes in a face s it shouldn’t, a body that made his own itch to thaw out all that ice It was then, as he considered if the latter was even possible, that he was hit by the import of Brecht’s words "Twelve years of active service? Most Js don’t last that long"
He’d worked with at least twenty over his eleven years in Enforcee of thirty, and, he realized, he’d never seen any of theain It hadn’t struck him as odd before, because Psy weren’t exactly the type to send Christmas cards, but the fact that not one, not one, had ended up working in another area of Justice--either they had one hell of a retirement plan orGiven the cold-blooded way the Council treated its own people, the possibilities were chilling And Sophia Russo had been a J for twelve years She had to be reaching "retiree
When the commander spoke, he didn’t address Max’s implied question, didn’t tell hi lives "Ms Russo has considerable experience in interacting with humans--you should find her a satisfactory partner" A pause "Detective, I need an answer today"
Max played the data crystal over his fingers He still wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing considering working for the Psy, or the real reason why Nikita had asked for hi reed--he was a cop And Nikita Duncan was a citizen "I’ll do it"
Sophia sat across froh branch of the Center, her hands placed on the table, her eyes calm
"There’s been," the M-Psy said, "a report of an incident at Liberty Penitentiary"
She didn’t fall for that trick, didn’t respond Because he hadn’t asked a question
"Did you have anything to do with that incident?"
"What was the incident?"
The M-Psy looked down at his notes "A pedophile mutilated himself"
It was easy to keep her face expressionless--she’d been practicing since she was eight years old and about to be euthanized "Was he huested, knowing the creature in that cell had felt pity only for hiht and locked up "Humans have emotions after all"
"There’s no indication he felt reed to fool the prison psychiatrists "Is he speaking?"
The M-Psy shook his head "Not coherently"
"Then it’s impossible to know if he felt remorse," she responded with total equaniuilt, but of course, she was Silent She felt nothing But she knehat that prisoner had done, knew every tiny detail of the horror he’d i, unformed psyche Sophia had buried the memories even as she extracted the blank in his past that would only unlock when he was old enough and strong enough to bear it
It was unfortunate that the trick didn’t work on children ere born with the J facility If it had, perhaps she would have had a different lifePerhaps
The M-Psy tapped so on his datapad "This is the third such incident in the past year where you’ve been in close proximity"
"I need to be in prisons often," Sophia replied, though her mind was in another room in a well-appointed cabin two decades in the past "My chances of being near an incident are higher than that of an ordinary individual"
"The J-Psy Manageo in for reconditioning"--the M-Psy turned his datapad so she could see the authorization--"especially given your recent contact with Gerard Bonner"
"I have no disagree the reconditioning process, but Sophia knehat they’d find Nothing Coht not work on Js, but a woot very good at clouding her ohen necessary "Would it be possible to schedule it today? I need to appear as an expert witness in a case first thing to--known as rehabilitation--effectively turned the individual into a vegetable But the basic reconditioning that Sophia had gone through any number of tiht’s sleep and she’d be functioning at peak efficiency again when the sun rose