Body Swappers 17
Perhaps another interview will help...
The problem with realizing the murderer was a survivor was it just wasn’t helpful. Over 450,000 people live in the greater Spokane area and as high as one in seven of them might have experienced abuse. That left a suspect pool of over 64,000. Even if it were easy to identify who was a survivor from the outside, that was a uselessly large number of people.
Which was why Maya and Robert were back to interviewing inmates. Murder suspects, this time, as opposed to murder convicts. So far the difference seemed to be the guards were less timely in making the interviews happen. And inmates awaiting trial might have their own attorneys.
“Min Taylor,” Robert said, nodding at the well-dressed woman who stood to meet him. “This is my associate, Maya Cote, a Crisis Management Agent.” She and Maya exchanged hellos before sitting down.
There was a young woman wringing her hands and staring at her two small children in between glances to the clock and the unmoving doors. Green and pink sweated off her. She’s probably a victim, Maya thought, a knot in her throat. Not a survivor, though, if her partner’s in here. So we can eliminate her as a suspect. Maya unlocked her phone and scrolled to the news.
Bethany seemed to be right about the initiative. Though only 63% of Congressman Rivera’s constituents believed in magic, it was more like 75% of Washington as a whole. Initiative 1511 was polling at 60% in favor.
A text notification popped up.
Hi Buttercup. I know you don’t want to talk to me…
Maya cleared the notification, her heart thumping. No, she didn’t want to talk to the person who’d broken her face.
“Did something happen?” Robert asked.
She almost said no, but she knew he’d know that was a lie. “It’s private,” she said instead. Robert nodded and averted his eyes.
Well now I have no distraction, Maya thought. She didn’t want to look at her phone again, didn’t want to think about what other new messages could be piling up. Please come home or I never meant to hurt you or Don’t be so selfish. She held the power button down as if doing so could silence her parent’s voices in her head.
A prison guard opened the door. The young mother half rose, but the guard gestured at Maya, Robert, and Min. “You can come back now.”
This hallway was not surprisingly light–it was exactly the kind of place television had made jail out to be. Bad fluorescent lights jarred Maya’s senses.
Soon enough they were seated in a small room across from a man whose ankle was chained to the floor. And yet he didn’t give off creep vibes–his demeanor was that of a straight-laced, white collar worker.
“Hello, Wood,” Robert said, then gave the whole introduction Maya had heard three times over. Wood was a lot more interested than the convicts had been.
“So you can prove magic was used on me?” he asked.
“No, not in a legal sense.”
“Not yet,” Min said. “I will keep stalling this case until the initiative has had a chance to pass. If it does, then Maya here could be called as an expert witness. And from what I’ve heard of what Robert’s working on, it would be great to use his findings.”
“Alright,” Wood said, “how do I sign up?”
*
This time, Maya knew what to expect when transferring into someone using their pumping blood as a tether. She imagined herself as a duck, paddling upstream in order to stay in place. She kept this image private, telling the part of herself that faced Wood’s conscious I’m ready. What happened?
Wood felt like he was fainting, and then he was in a dark, quiet place. The quality of the dark and the quiet struck Maya as being very similar to that of what Davis had shown her. Wood’s reaction to being transported here was to stand up. Before he was much higher than a crouch he banged his head against something. It sounded a bit like he was in a drum, but only for a moment. The reverberations died quickly. More careful the second time, Wood stretched his arms overhead as he stood slowly. He found a low, curved ceiling, low enough he couldn’t stand. He ran his hands along the ceiling until he found a handle. He pulled at it, then pushed. Nothing. He tried pulling it sideways in either direction, to no avail. Maybe there’s two handles that work together? he thought. He searched for another one, but came up blank. He kept trying the handle every way he could. Not a budge. He tired quickly. Why am I so weak? he wondered. Then he transferred back to his own body.
Wait, Maya thought at him. When you stood up, was there maybe another noise?
Um… Wood thought. Maybe? It was a long time ago.
The scene started over, with Wood standing and banging his head, and the drum noise, but this time there was something else. At first it was just a quiet shushing, but then it became clear. Sloshing.
Water? Wood thought. I didn’t feel water, but I heard water.
*
“That helps explain things,” Maya said.
“Oh?” Robert asked.
“When he was transferred? The dark, quiet place he went to? He was in a sensory deprivation tank.”
Robert opened his mouth to respond. That’s when the alarm started wailing.