Meg’s Thinking About Dead Babies

Meg sits at the defense table trying not to think about dead babies. She’s been trying not to think about dead babies for several hours. But already halfway into trial, grainy ultrasounds are slotting into her thoughts, and she’s losing focus of the testifying suit she’s supposed to be wefting. What helps is to think about the money. It doesn’t clean out the thoughts. But it at least reminds her of the stakes. And that corks them long enough to allow Meg to concentrate on what matters this instant: wefting the bejesus out of plaintiff’s witness, the one Jackson’s tearing to shreds on cross.

“Bang up job on that witness, by the way,” Jackson says after the judge calls recess.

They’re outside the courthouse now, strutting through the Denver rain back to the firm. Meg's trying to keep up in the skirt and blazer number the paralegal stuffed her into this morning (her “courtroom camouflage”), but it’s been a hot minute since she’s worn heels. Doesn’t help that she’s still trying to keep a professional composure.

“What I like about you, Meg, is that you’re an artist,” Jackson says. “You keep it subtle. A forgotten detail here. A mispronounced word there. All natural like. Like he just got frayed nerves on the stand. It’s art.”

It’s not art, Meg wants to add. It’s survival. It’s keeping a low enough profile that no one suspects any psionic intrusion worthy of tipping off the CBI hot sharks. But Jackson’s probably too busy thinking about himself to care about Meg’s well-being. That’s the kind of guy Jackson is, a prick so arrogant that even with the anti-psi patch below his perm, Meg can still feel the smugness radiating off him.

She watches with some disgust as he pulls the tiny ripcord on his Self-Lite cig, glanding out the carcinogens from the filter bulb tucked under his throat as implanted bulbs of hormonal nootropics quiver to juice him that extra mile that’s carried him since trial started. Meg wonders what it’s like to have your mind so hormonally fine-tuned. She wonders if it might’ve helped her gland a little compassion when she’d slammed the door in Chase's sobbing face after he’d come to beg last week.

“You ready for the big one tomorrow?” Jackson grins. “Mr. Shen?”

Meg shrugs. “Do you even need to ask?”

But the glare behind his retinals tells her he does.

“He’ll have a T89 patch, like we guessed,” Jackson says between puffs. “Type C. At least, that’s what we got from the bugs. You can crack a C, right?”

“Like cracking an egg.”

Though busting an anti-psi patch isn’t kid stuff. But Meg likes to give an air of bravado to her work. Keeps Jackson happy. Which keeps her happy. Mostly.

“Just remember,” Jackson says. “You deliver tomorrow, and I’ll have it wired to your account by that evening. Every penny.”

He makes it sound all carrot when Meg knows it’s all stick, an implied or else lurking behind his teeth. This is Jackson’s white whale, after all. He’s up for equity partner. Name on the sign. Pulling in those shares. The climax of years of litigating, of glanding up the ladder from young associate to newbie partner. And now he’s got the mega-case. The whale has breached. He just needs his harpoon. And he’s honing it. God almighty, is he honing it.

“You know the prick’s using you, right,” says Chase as Meg plays the recording in her left retinal. In the retinal’s view window, she can see Chase lying next to her on the bed, his own retinal’s glittering yellow in the dark. He looks so real in the retinal’s display that she almost reaches out to touch him.

“So what?” her recorded self says. “He’s paying me for it. Plus you weft for corpos all the time.”

“But I’m all counter measure. I’m out there stopping people like you.”

“I’m just doing what’s best for us. For our family.”

Silence on the recording. A minute. Maybe two. Meg knows this is where it starts. It’s not on the recording, but she can still feel him ever so subtly reaching out. Not into her mind to soothe the anger. But to that other mind, the one forming just below her waist.

“Stop, Chase,” she says.

“It doesn’t do anything.”

“You don’t know that. No one knows what that shit does. So cut it out.”

He grumbles under his breath as he turns up his retinal’s opaqueness. And for a long while the recording just shows silence. But Meg knows when that recording goes off, hours later, she’ll wake up to the field rippling and Chase reaching out again with his own umbilical.

Meg blinks the recording away. They’re back at the firm now, her and Jackson taking the express elevator to the top. They exit into a large lobby, then hook down the hall and enter a boardroom. There’s a whole cadre of suits already stuffed inside, tapping fingers around the granite table, partners and associates and paralegals all flashing anti-psi patches that numb the fields around them. Most of them stare at her with morbid curiosity, like they’re watching a horror movie they can’t look away from. Meg’s gotten used to it.

It's common to think wefts are essentially souped-up telepaths who can, if there’s no patch to block them, rearrange the entire architecture of a mind with a single glance. But Meg doesn’t have the patience to explain that her rare genetic mutation doesn’t let her dig into just any mind. She has to get to know a target. Their history. Their family. Their tastes and interests.

Prejudices are prejudices, though. Hence why they have her sit in a corner chair, not the table, a necessary evil they’d rather not acknowledge. She guesses most in this room, if they had their way, would be on the phone with the hot sharks right now. But she’s their secret sauce. And that’s all that matters at the end of the day. Especially to Jackson.

“Tomorrow’s Shen,” Jackson says, taking his seat at the table. “I’ll be doing the cross. We strip him down, we win this case. Plain and simple. It’s all hands on deck until then.”

Then Jackson launches into his usual decrees, ordering tasks about like a general. Meg’s already got her marching orders—has had them for a few months, ever since Jackson first sat her down in his office and explained about Mr. Shen, the expert engineer who’s supposed to make plaintiff’s patent infringement case look like a slam dunk.

With a few finger flicks, Meg flips through the various retinal recordings she’s taken over the weeks: her walking just outside Mr. Shen’s office, her eating at Mr. Shen’s favorite lunch spot, her a few cars behind Mr. Shen’s on the road, her sitting in her parked car on the street just outside his house and reaching out through the fields to weft her way through the maze of his sleeping mind.

By the end of last month, she had known the books he read, the way he spread his butter on his toast, the discrete way he picked his nose in his office, even the way he made love to his wife with his socks on, all the little proclivities piling atop until she had the twist and turns of his mind mapped out into a perfect profile. And more importantly, she knew the personalized code he’d used to secure the patch he was expected to wear for trial.

“I don’t like this,” Chase says in the next recording Meg plays. “This is worse than what you told me. Why are you doing this job?”

The recording is taken from the couch. Meg’s sitting while Chase paces in front of her, the yellow light from his retinals glaring at her. It’s not apparent in the recording, but Meg’s exhausted, her mind hollowed, her womb filling. She remembers she had an answer for him, but she didn’t know how to say it. Because she wanted to provide a good life for them. Because they had a child coming and this would be the nest egg to provide the birth of a brand-new life together. But the recorded Meg doesn’t say any of that. Instead, she just brushes his concerns off with a wave.

“Look, you’re freaking out way too much,” she says. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“And what if CBI runs a random circle through the courtroom that day? What if the hot sharks pick up on your scent? You want to give birth in prison?”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“You’re being irresponsible. You need to think about the kid.”

The rest of the recording is hard to watch, but Meg forces herself to relive the fight. It’s a nasty one. But it ends pleasantly enough with them on the bed together, naked, tangled up in one another, wefting into each other’s minds to deepen the connection. Meg remembers feeling something like fear inside Chase that night, fear that maybe he was losing her, that she was slipping into something too deep. And maybe that was why he’d wefted into the baby again when they’d finished. Because he wanted some connection to some normal part of their life together. Even if she kept warning him about the dangers.

Back in the boardroom, Jackson finishes his speech. Meeting over. The troops file out, everyone snatching their umbrellas as they prepare to brave the rain. Jackson asks Meg to hold up a minute. When the last suit finally leaves, it’s just her and him. The empty room is still as a tomb.

“This is important,” Jackson tells her. His retinals are off. Just his eyes looking at her. Glaring. “Don’t. Screw. Up.”

The anger almost scorches her. If she’d had the time and data to study his patch, this would be the moment she’d crack into his mind to see just what he was thinking.

“Don’t worry,” Meg says. “I’m ready.”

“You better be.”

Then Jackson turns and leaves.

An escort walks her out. She takes an auto back to her condo. The place is a mess: dishes in the sink, clothes piled in the bedroom, the toilet bowl ringed with grime. Chase always did the cleaning. She squeezes the heat pack of an insta-noodle and two minutes later peels off the plastic film to let the steam out as her retinal feeds her content. She zones out for an hour, just riding the algorithm. In the corner of her mind, she can feel the thoughts of her condo neighbors splashing in the field lines. The elderly Marie worried about her cat. Robby still trying to write that novel he thinks is going to be his next big break. She shuts them all off. She needs to concentrate on Mr. Shen.

A hot bath and a dermal cure the headache from the earlier weft. Across the bath water, she stares at the toilet where three weeks ago she’d flushed the baby down. If she closes her eyes, she can still see the grainy ultrasound. The doctor shaking her head. No heartbeat in the first trimester. Chase had been there in the doctor’s office holding her hand, a blank look on his face. The ride back had been silent. Almost within the first minute of walking through the condo door, she’d felt the first spasm of pain. She’d locked herself in the bathroom. Hours later, when it was over, she’d opened the bathroom door to see Chase standing there, his retinals still glowing, his mind trying to weft into her. She’d hit him so hard his retinals had flung out. Then she’d told him to get the fuck out. After he’d left, she’d gone back to the toilet and flushed the last of the bloody mess down, crying until she collapsed into sleep, crying like she’s crying now as she drags herself dripping out of the bath and lays herself down on the bed.

No sleep. Just staring up at the dark for hours until it’s not worth it to even try anymore. She makes coffee and tries not to think about Chase. To her credit, she stops herself from playing that very last recording, the one where he’d come back and knocked on the condo door and stood out in the rain, begging to be forgiven until she’d shut the door in his face. She simply doesn’t have the energy for it. Or the time. She has a job to do.

Quick breakfast. Premium auto-ride. She’s at the courtroom an hour early, thinking she’ll be the only one. But Jackson’s already at the defense table. His usual tense smile is gone. He's all hard lines and harder stares. He doesn’t talk to her when she takes her seat at the defense table. He’s in the zone, she figures. Laser focused. Like a tiger pacing its cage.

Slowly, as the hour draws close, the suits file inside. A few of the opposing counsel give her strange looks. Meg breaks into a cold sweat. Do they know? Could they know? Did the CBI get tipped? She thinks of all those faces staring at her in that boardroom last night. All it would take was one disgruntled associate and a phone call.

No, no. Just paranoia. That’s all it is. Just keep focused. Eyes on the prize, Meg.

But what is the prize anymore? The nice car? The big house? Without Chase, without the baby, what’s the point?

Doesn't matter. She’s too far down the path. Can’t quit now.

The clerks and jury file inside the courtroom. The jury’s personalized anti-psi field goes up along with the judge’s. The judge goes through the usual preliminaries. Finally, Mr. Shen is called up to the stand.

Meg closes her eyes. The field crackles with patches. But through them she can see Shen’s mind. She takes all that hollowness inside her and forges it into the ice pick she needs to crack through Shen’s patch. It’s a T-89, just like Jackson told her. Before he even has time to raise his right hand, she’s already cracked it.

“Don’t mess with the direct too much,” Jackson had warned her. “You don’t want to tip your hat. They’ve polished their direct for months now. If it crumbles too quickly, that’ll look suspicious. And we don’t want to draw too much attention. Wait till I step up. Then go to town.”

Plaintiff’s counsel goes through the usual motions. Lays out the foundation. All those credentials and histories and papers that Meg knows by heart. All his opinions about why defendant clearly infringed. Then, when the direct is finally finished, Jackson stands up, chest puffed out like he’s about to enter the gladiator ring. He’s vibrating. Meg doesn’t need to weft into him to know he’s as focused as he’s ever been, every gland pumping a slurry of hormonal uppers and nootropics to give him the sharpness of a knife.

Meg goes to work.

She makes it seem natural. Like he’s just tripping up over little details at first. Then she ups the heat. Each time Jackson asks Mr. Shen a question, she diverts the prepared answer and replaces it with something shoddy. She can feel Mr. Shen disintegrating on the stand. But it’s not enough for him to crumble. She wants him to implode. He’s responsible, somehow. For Chase. For the baby. It’s all his fault. Through the fields, she lunges at him, impaling him with every last ounce of ugliness inside her. It’s her best work yet. When it’s over, she breathes a sigh of relief. She opens her eyes to see the smile on Jackson’s face.

Only he’s not smiling. He’s frowning.

No, not frowning. Snarling.

The judge calls recess. Jackson doesn’t say anything, just marches out. She follows him. Out in the rain, he stands under his umbrella with the Self-Lite already smoking between his teeth. He’s so livid he’s shaking.

“What the fuck was that!” he screams.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“What do I mean? That was the worst cross I’ve had in my entire life. And you blew it. You blew it! Deal’s off, Meg.”

He doesn’t finish the Self-Lite, just chucks it into the rain and storms back into the courtroom. Meg stands there staring at her feet. Has she gone crazy? She replays back in her retinals the recording of the trial to see where she went wrong. But it’s nothing what she remembers. Where before she’d heard Mr. Shen stumbling over his words, he’s now elegant. Where she remembered him losing all command of the case facts, he’s now masterful. It's like she didn’t even do her job.

Then she notices the yellow retinals across the rain and the slouched figure in the rain jacket, the same jacket he’d worn when he came to beg that night. Ever so slightly, the cool iciness of Chase’s wefted countermeasures dissipate as he extracts his mind from hers.

“No,” she says. “No, no, no.”

She’s about to yell at him, scream, when from the corner of her eye she spots the black uniforms exit the courthouse, CBI insignia emblazoned on their shoulders. The hot sharks try not to stare at her, but she can feel a weft trying to pick up any unusual tremors on the fields. But there’s nothing to register. Not with Chase nullifying her entire output.

“I’m sorry,” Chase says. “I’m so sorry.

He’s closer to her now. His retinals are off. He’s stopped wefting completely. It’s just him now, standing in the rain. No flashing lenses. No countermeasures. Nothing but the real Chase. It’s the first time she’s seen his eyes like this since she hit him.

“I didn’t want to lose you,” he says.

She wants to be angry. She wants to blame everything on him. It’s another miscarriage to stack atop the other. But the blue eyes stop her.

“Meg,” he says.

“It was supposed to be the start of something,” she starts to cry.

Part of her thinks she’s talking about the money. Most of her knows she’s not.

“We can have another start,” he says. “There’s always another start.”

Then he reaches out and holds her.

Meg’s thinking about dead babies. She’s thinking about dead dreams and deader marriages. About destroying people’s minds. Her own mind is all over the place, playing catch up from all the detritus she’s kept tamped down that’s now come spilling out. She doesn’t move. Just stands there, the rain hitting her hair, her tears coming now, pouring out and into the street as Chase holds her. After a while, she holds him back.