One

Jack Stein swung his feet off the desk and leaned forward to run his hands over the flat surface. It was a good height, a good build. It had taken a full night to remove the old desk and grow the new one in its place, but he was happy with the results. The Yorkstone programs weren't quite as sophisticated as those he'd known back in the Locality, but then Yorkstone wasn't as big a residence.

He sighed and turned his chair to look out the window. Windows were good. That was one thing he didn't miss about the Locality—blank featureless walls. Of course, back in the Locality, Scenics made up for the lack of windows, but they didn't have Scenics in Yorkstone. Semiclear ceiling panels looked out onto sky, real sky, instead of some designer simulation meant to distract the populace from what was going on inside and help them pretend that they lived in a real environment. Yorkstone took a far more subtle approach to things. He could almost believe they lived in a normal, old-style city. It had been almost two years since he and Billie had left the Locality, but there were still things about the place that he missed, despite the many shortcomings. There was just something about daily normality that didn't sit well with Jack.

One of the traps of the programmable residences like the Locality, like Yorkstone, was that you could get caught up for hours growing furniture in new positions, changing the layout of a room. It was just another time sink helping him to avoid facing what was really going on here with his and Billie's existence.

"Diary," he said, and the opposite wall's surface bled lines and shapes until a simulacrum of his handipad's date page sharpened in front of him. He had it set to WEEK, and as he turned to face it, the blank empty page stared back at him accusingly. "Month," he said. A couple of pissant jobs in the last few weeks and that's all he had to show. He stood and crossed back to the window, looking down across a city that at least functioned, and maybe that was the problem. Things worked in Yorkstone. It was a clean city. Clean and ordered. People had less need of the services of the likes of Jack Stein, psychic investigator. Well, he needed to do something about it soon, or he and Billie would be forced into the sort of place that Jack could have put up with if he was on his own, but with her around . . .

He shook his head and made a low sound of displeasure in his throat. It was about time fate started throwing something his way. It had been too long since his inner senses had prodded him into anything that really meant something. His dreams were still full, but the problem was, they were full of crap. The missing relative. The lost object. He'd even had one or two pets crop up in his inner landscape. In the past, even if his dreams had been barren, he'd been able to rely in part upon his other senses, his innate sense of knowing. He didn't even feel anything in his gut, or he hadn't for some time now, and that was unusual. Jack had spent most of his life teetering on the edge of an inner chasm—or at least that's what it felt like—but even that reassuring discomfort was nowhere to be felt. If something didn't happen soon, he'd have to start thinking about a "proper" job. He had a quick thought.

"Change the window display. Read JACK STEIN, INVESTIGATOR."

The word PSYCHIC bled away and INVESTIGATOR slipped into position beneath the curved arch of his name. Not that people could really see it from the street, but it was something. The letters cast lengthening shadows in reverse across the new, pale desk. Anybody coming into the office would get the right feeling. It was important to convey the proper image, after all.

"Jack, what are you doing? Are you rearranging the office again?" There was a sound of exasperation in Billie's voice, but then that wasn't unusual.

He turned to look at her. Billie had shot up since they'd arrived in Yorkstone. She'd also let her hair grow out, but tended to wear it in a tangle of unkempt waves. She stood leaning in the doorway looking at him disapprovingly, her smooth, pale features marked with a frown. She was still slim, almost too slim, but her face had started to gain marks of maturity—slightly longer, less rounded at the cheeks—that sat more comfortably with her attitude. It was almost as if she had started to grow into the sense of age that she already possessed. Damn her. Sometimes, there was no doubt who she believed was the real child in their relationship. The kid was trying to run him again.

"Well, it gives me something to do, doesn't it?" he said.

"Uh-huh," she said, nodding slowly, sternly unimpressed. "And what else are you going to do, Jack?"

He sighed. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You can sit here playing with your furniture or flipping through your diary, but that isn't going to get us anything to eat, is it?" She crossed her arms.

He turned away from her and looked out the window. "All right, you suggest something."

"Nuh-uh," she said. "Not me. It's your turn. You just want to sit here waiting for stuff to happen. I always end up making the suggestions. Why don't you try doing something? Really doing something. How did you get work before? You know, back there."

He spun the chair back and forth with one hand. She was referring to the Locality. She still didn't like talking about the place. "I dunno. Talking to people. Bars. Stuff like that. I knew some old contacts back there. Referrals. The Locality was different, Billie. This place, well, it's just too clean. You know that. You've seen what I'm talking about. We've been here long enough to know what it's like. Things just don't work the same way here. Everything's too normal. Back in the Locality you knew stuff was going to happen. Here, even looking for it doesn't seem to do any good."

"Yeah, right." She shook her head, her mouth set into a thin line, then disappeared into the other room to continue whatever she was doing. No doubt she was immersed in one of her numerous learning programs. Her capacity to absorb knowledge was just unbelievable sometimes. She liked challenges too. Not that he'd had anything to give her in that regard for a while. She'd be asking—no, demanding—to go out and get something to eat soon. The inevitable accusatory prompt. They were the two things that seemed to drive her: information and food. Ultimately, he guessed that there was more than one sort of hunger.

She was right though; he was just avoiding things. Okay, they'd picked Yorkstone pretty much at random when they'd left the Locality, and normally Jack would have trusted his gut to lead him somewhere that made sense. The right place at the right time. It had always worked that way in the past. Maybe it had been right, as far as Billie was concerned, for what she needed. It had given her a chance to escape the memories of her life back in Old, the tainted existence she'd been forced to lead among the sleaze and the lowlifes who made that part of the city their own. Now and again they talked about it, but her answers were always clipped and reserved. She carried the marks of that life around with her still. For the most part, the subject was strictly out of bounds. Jack had learned that, to both their displeasure, more than once. Two years, and the details were as sketchy as they'd ever been. And as for her family . . . well, there was a limit to the amount of Billie's wrath he wanted to face. He frowned at that thought. Jesus. Who exactly was the kid here? He gave a quick snort to himself.

And they were stuck with Yorkstone too. It had gotten to the point now where they couldn't afford to move anywhere else even if Jack had wanted to. He needed a job. One big job and they'd have some choices again. With a sigh, he ran his fingers back through his hair and wandered out into the living room. It was times like these that he missed having a separate office away from the place he lived, but with Billie and the extra expense, that was yet another dream, and not a particularly useful one at that. Dreams. Well, it had been a while since his dreams had given him anything particularly useful anyway.

"Hey, Billie."

She looked away from the wallscreen and gave him a blank look, waiting for him to say something.

"Okay. All right. I get the message." He shrugged. "Do something for me, will you?"

It was Billie's turn to sigh. "What is it?"

Copyright © 2004 by James A. Hartley