Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

nervous.
    “Testing your theories, and mine,” I said. I aimed the gun at her—or rather, I tried to. I couldn’t do it. My arm refused to obey. I recalled the last time I’d invaded her office. I’d flashed the pistol and aimed it confidently at the ceiling. I’d thought at the time I was in charge. But I never had been. I hadn’t aimed it at Meng because I couldn’t do it.
    It was a very strange thing to order your hand to obey you and have it steadfastly refuse. It wasn’t as if it were numb, or as if another mind controlled it. My arm simply didn’t get the message I was sending. The muscles didn’t contract or loosen. Nothing happened.
    I turned back to Meng, my face white. “I can’t do it.”
    “No, you can’t. Now, give me your report.”
    My eyes narrowed.
    Meng frowned. “I said, give me your report,” she repeated. This time, I thought I saw the metal statuette glitter—but it could have been my imagination.
    I caught on then. She was trying to exert her dominance over me. But I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel any urge to obey her at all. My mind raced. What had she said? That she was able to write new thoughts into a person’s mind. Right now, it wasn’t working.
    I sat down then and forced my face not to grin. It was difficult.
    “After I left, I wandered the streets…” I began, recounting my adventures for her.
    While I spoke, she relaxed again. Everything was as it should be—but it wasn’t. I was free to do anything but harm her. I paused now and then while I told my tale to think about my situation. Soon, I had a plan.
    I bided my time, talking for about half an hour. There was a lot to tell. I learned a little from her by the questions Dr. Meng asked—what interested her and what didn’t. She wasparticularly interested in the cultists. She didn’t know much about them. I told her all about Gilling and his crew. I left out, naturally, everything about the finger that was hanging around my neck. She didn’t need to know I could resist her magic.
    The part she liked best, oddly enough, was when I told her about placing the photo against McKesson’s shoulder and firing a bullet into it. She laughed aloud, saying that she wished she could have been there to see that. I gathered that the Community members all relied on McKesson—he was something like a shared Igor for them all—but none of them liked him.
    At one point she turned and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee. I paused.
    “Continue,” she said, glancing back at me.
    That imperious order left me with a flash of anger. I don’t know why that particular moment caused me to feel such rage. Maybe it was the arrogance, the automatic assumption I was her plaything, her puppet.
    I struggled to continue my story in an even tone of voice. While I did so, I reached up and ripped loose my talisman. The strap didn’t break, but the weak metal clasp we’d attached to the bottle did. I slipped the thing down into my lap and held it there in my fist.
    Next, I quietly popped the magazine out of my .32 automatic, letting it clatter onto the floor. Before she could turn around, I quickly took the photo of my supposed family and threw it on the desk between us. When she turned back, she noticed it. Her eyes slid up to me, and once again she was frowning.
    “Where did this come from?” she asked.
    “From my pocket,” I said.
    Dr. Meng stared. “I didn’t tell you to put it here. Is it part of your report?”
    Finally, at long last, I allowed myself to smile. In fact, I grinned broadly. The grin turned into something feral, the kind of grin the wolf must have had when it ate good old Granny.
    “No, it’s not,” I said. I slowly lifted my gun and aimed it right at her. The look on her face was worth a year’s pay to me. “I’m sorry, but I have a confession to make. I’m not in your power. I haven’t been since I walked in.”
    She stared at the gun in absolute horror. That single expression made my day. I could aim the gun at her now because it was unloaded—but she didn’t know that.
    “But how?” she said.
    I shrugged. “New objects,” I explained.
    “Why would you pretend?”
    “To see what you asked about. How much you knew.”
    “So, your stories were real?”
    “With a few omissions, yes. Now I want to know some things. Let’s call it
your
report.”
    “I’ll grant you one question for initiative,” she said.
    I eyed her. She still sounded self-confident, but that could have been an act. I