KNOW, page 1
Story copyright 2016 by Hollis Shiloh.
All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission from the author. All characters and events are fictitious, and any similarity to real people or events is coincidental.
Cover art by Cormar Covers. Image content is being used for illustrative purposes only and any people depicted in the content are models.
Proofreading by Carol Davis (http://caroldavisauthor.com/a-better-look-editing-services/
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About the story:
Hugh and Jem work together as a team for the ESRB. Hugh's just a regular ex-cop, but Jem always knows the odds — of anything — and he's always right. It certainly hasn't made his life any easier.
Working for the ESRB has its challenges, such as when trying to track down Martin, a powerful empath who doesn't want to be found. Martin also happens to be the one person who might just make Hugh and Jem face the suppressed attraction between them.
Knowing the odds can't always protect two men from danger, though — and their fledgling relationship will be soon put to a terrible test.
A Men of the ESRB story
50,000 words
Heat: low
KNOW
by Hollis Shiloh
My phone rang at the worst possible time. I was in the middle of kissing a guy at a party. Hot guy, too.
But the phone kept ringing, and it was Jem's ringtone. He wouldn't call me for no reason.
He'd better not call me for no reason. A picture of his serious face flashed through my head. No, he was always so professional. He wouldn't waste my time. Especially since he knew I had a party to attend tonight.
"Sorry, man. I have to take this." I extricated myself from Hot Guy with an apologetic expression and moved away, answering the phone. I had to shout over the loud music.
My partner, Jem Braithwaite, said something over the phone, but I couldn't hear.
"What?" I raised my voice again, then shook my head. "Never mind. Let me move away from the music."
I went past dancers, drinkers, and people making out till I finally found a back door and slipped out. "Okay, say again?"
The night was young, but it was still dark out — dark and chilly. I shivered in my thin silk shirt. Great for partying and looking hot, not great for keeping warm.
"I was about to suggest you move somewhere more quiet so you could hear me." Jem's voice held something like dry amusement.
"Yeah, I can hear you now. What is it?" I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice, but it was difficult. It would be nice to have Jem crack a smile sometime that wasn't at my expense. Or perhaps even if it was at my expense — if I at least got to see it.
"We have a lead on Martin," said Jem, all business now.
"Martin? Really?"
We were looking for a lead for Martin, had been for some time. He was big game. We didn't even know his last name. The man had intense powers, able to not just read emotions empathically — a normal, if valuable, skill here at the ESRB — but also to hear thoughts and to influence people. All the big guns, basically.
The man had been working in private, corporate industry. He'd used his powers for his employers, but he'd used all his powers to keep himself safe — and to avoid the ESRB.
He'd never been certified, tested, or trained. We had no bead on him.
Jem and I worked together to find untrained extrasensorily gifted individuals, to bring them to the Extra Sensory Regulatory Bureau for rating, testing, training, and help finding jobs.
Frankly, most of the people we found needed all the help they could get, whether that was psychiatric care, therapy, medical care, or just the assurance that there were other people like them in the world, that they weren't really insane. Some of them were never able to do anything in the outside world, but at least they could finally get some help.
Most people with talents — or at least a very high percentage of them — had spent a lifetime being different, being considered insane, or, if they were believed, being mistreated or taken advantage of for their skills. A few had successfully hidden their differences; many hadn't been able to, and had paid for it dearly.
Jem had been one of them.
Now he worked with me, finding other talented individuals. Sometimes we convinced them we could help, that they might be able to find work and better their lives; sometimes we actually performed rescue missions to get people out of bad situations.
Martin was a fish of a different stripe. He was so powerful that he had been able to control his own life, avoid the ESRB, and probably compile quite a fortune with the money he'd earned used his skills.
From all reports, he was a fairly decent person. He'd recently walked away from work totally because he no longer believed any organization was good or even could be, and he didn't want to help them in any way.
Reports from his friend and a trusted talented individual, Peter Durphy (a 3.5 rated empath), said that he was taking a break from everything and thinking things through till he could find a way to make a difference in the world — or at least not cause any harm.
We needed to find out what, if anything, he'd done that needed to be fixed. We needed to find out if he could be convinced to work with the ESRB. The eggheads could probably learn a lot from him, and he was almost certainly the highest-rated individual Jem and I had ever gone after.
Jem was pretty big guns himself. Not because he had such a high ranking, but because his ability was so extremely useful.
He could tell you the odds. Of anything.
And he was always right.
"We have a lead," repeated Jem impatiently. I could almost hear him rolling his eyes at me and see his prim mouth tightening further. He was always so...clenched. It could get annoying. However, he was the best partner I'd ever worked with, here or anywhere, bar none. He got the job done.
"And it's better if I come in and help?" I guessed.
"Odds increase almost ten percent."
"Wow." My eyebrows rose. That was a pretty big jump. We'd been hunting for Martin for ages now — well, okay, six months — and we'd never gotten a higher percentage from Jem than seventeen percent all told.
"What are we looking at?"
"Twenty-one point five right now. Thirty-two if you get here. And hurry." He hung up on me.
Never liked to let me have the last word.
I shoved my phone in my pocket and headed out. No party for me after all.
#
I drove fast and got to HQ in half an hour. I didn't bother to change; I always kept some spare clothes in my locker at the office, and there was no need anyway. I left my jacket on when I went inside, so no one would have to see my unsightly nipples through my silken purple shirt. The jacket made me look almost professional, although I suppose the ripped black jeans and dark eyeliner didn't. You win some, you lose some.
A couple people did a double-take when they saw me, but they were newer agents. More than one person had seen me rush in at odd hours in party clothes before.
Jem barely glanced up from the war room table, tiny frown lines in his forehead. Then he looked back at what he was doing.
It was a large, well-lit table with technological capabilities. A place to brainstorm, share data, and analyze things. Lots of eggheads here. And my boy, Jem.
I strode up to the table, clapping a hand on Agent Black's back as I passed him. "What'd I miss?"
Jem didn't look at me again, just at the table. "Analysis of trading patterns from two years ago, for the company we're almost certain he worked for at that time. There was a slight anomaly, enough to track down further."
He glanced up at our boss, Agent Claudia Upchurch, who nodded and took the reins of the conversation. "There exist old surveillance photos from the time. The company was being investigated; we got access to the photos. One reveals a previously unidentified individual who matches Martin's description. He worked there."
It was warm in the war room. I shrugged off my jacket and slung it over the back of a chair. "So, it was him?"
Upchurch nodded. "We just received confirmation from several sources, people who can identify Martin on sight. Peter Durphy among them."
Great! He could alter people's memories of what he looked like, but multiple confirmations, and especially one from Peter, who had gotten to know him better than anyone else we currently knew of, was a great sign.
"We have a visual record," I said aloud. It was a big step. He was remarkably hard to pin down, even on that simple issue.
"Yes," confirmed Upchurch.
"What does this have to do with contacting him?"
Jem rubbed the cramped lines between his eyes. "Maybe if you'd stop asking stupid questions and help, we could find out."
Everybody looked at Jem. The lines between his eyes were marked; he glared at me.
I just grinned. "That's what I'm here for, isn't it? Asking the stupid questions."
He rolled his eyes and clamped his jaw shut harder.
I rubbed my palms together briskly. "Okay! So, step one, we talk to people who worked there at the time, right?"
"We're pulling together a list now," Upchurch informed me, keeping her eyes on my face, not my chest. I don't think it was actually any special effort for her, to be honest.
"So, we need to interview all of them, right? Or is there something I'm missing?"
"Isn't there always?" muttered Jem, but
"Just keep asking questions, Chapman. I'll let you know when we have something for you to do."
That made it sound like I was a mascot, which made me pull back a little and blink, offended.
I mean, I do work, too. I'm not just the shit who asks too many questions and gets a rise out of Jem Braithwaite. I'm a qualified agent, damn it.
"Oh, and Chapman?" She didn't look up from the lines she was scanning on an embedded screen.
"Yes, ma'am?" I straightened.
"Put a shirt on?"
Behind me, Jem stifled a guffaw. But not well enough, damn it. I shot him a dirty look as I passed him and headed to my locker.
A moment later, I heard his footsteps skittering after me as he hurried to catch up.
Now, I'm not the tallest guy in the world, but I've got Jem beat by several inches. He's five-three. Barely. If he wears the right shoes, he can make himself a little taller. But the man is never going to be an intimidating, beefy presence.
He's slight, slim, and frankly, he's short.
He has dark hair and dark eyes that are great for glowering, and he can be somewhat intimidating when he tries. He has a gruff, gravelly sort of voice which he rarely uses when he doesn't have to, and he has large, watchful eyes in a bony, tight-lipped face.
His mop of dark hair is thin and often in disarray, although I know for a fact he combs it multiple times a day to keep it in line. It's very soft-looking, though I've never touched it. He has skinny wrists and pale skin, but he tans well, when he lets himself see the sun. I think there's a touch of Mediterranean or something in his blood, although I'd never ask him, because I just know I'd say it wrong and get him mad at me for weeks.
Jem is very touchy, at least where I'm concerned.
It may be part of why we work well together; I'm not always sure. We definitely goad each other into working hard. When push comes to shove, all the bickering is swept aside like so much noise pollution, and we're like a well-oiled machine, me popping out questions faster than you'd think possible, him answering them quick as a snap of the fingers. On top of that, I used to be a police officer, so I have that training, along with a concealed carry permit for when we're in dangerous situations. His skills help us identify danger, and mine help neutralize it whenever possible. Between the two of us, we have a good recovery rate for endangered talented individuals.
"What?" I asked now, striding up to my locker and taking off my shirt without looking back at him. I knew him well enough to know he was averting his gaze, embarrassed. I stripped down quickly and opened my locker, then grabbed out a plain blue golf shirt. I glanced back at him as I pulled it on.
He was bouncing a little on the heels of his shiny dress shoes, looking uncomfortable, his gaze aimed away from me. He always wears suits, always.
I dress as informally as circumstances allow at all times and places. There's more leeway than you'd expect in a job like this. I can often run around in shorts and sunglasses. He gets embarrassed when I don't wear a shirt, though, and I get reprimands from Upchurch.
"Something," said Jem, still avoiding my gaze (and my chest).
"I'm dressed now. You can look," I told him, a hint of laughter in my voice.
He did, but just briefly, his gaze skittering away from me quickly. Jem has some issues with people: interacting, getting along, trusting anyone. Hell, we've all got issues; I'm not here to judge. We work, and that's fine. But sometimes we do get on each other's nerves. His perpetual coldness is very irritating to me, and sometimes I can't resist trying to get a rise out of him.
I can understand at least some of it, though. He never really learned how to be a normal human being. His abilities manifested themselves early, when he was just a toddler and his father taught him to play cards.
Before long, Jem could always tell which card he was going to pull. He could count cards before he could count to a hundred. He just always knew.
He passed through the hands of several gamblers from a very young age.
His father had been the first.
Jem hates cards to this day. I've seen his lip curl if he so much as glimpses a pack, and a shudder runs down his back, like it repulses him that such things exist.
Before he was old enough for his first day of school, his father had taught him some rudimentary tricks to help him con people. Magic tricks, gambling cheats, you name it. His dad was always on the shady side, anyway, and a son like this was perfect for him.
Jem's mother had had her own issues, but she didn't like seeing her son used. When Daddy Dearest wanted to keep the kid out of school so he could "help" more, it was the last straw for her. She filed for divorce and sought custody of the kid.
Daddy responded by kidnapping Jem and disappearing.
For the next few years, he lived a life of a gambler on the road, never settling anywhere for long. He raised Jem in the life, using his son's ability mercilessly. Although there's no telling whether, on some level, he loved his son or not, the question is academic. He never put Jem first. Never. The boy was there to work, and any affection, food, or rest he got was an afterthought.
He lost the boy in a poker game when Jem was nearly ten and his father had been drinking heavily. He'd grown careless enough that someone had figured things out and worked him into betting the boy.
Maybe he'd done it before, and just hadn't lost.
Even knowing the odds didn't mean the old man always won, especially when his senses and judgment were impaired.
After that, Jem moved from hand to hand quickly in the underworld, from seedy gambler to gangster to loan shark. He answered questions about odds for all kinds of horrible people and for all kinds of shudder-worthy reasons.
Needless to say, he doesn't like to talk about all of that very much, if at all. I've read some of the files they have on him, though. I feel gross about it now, but at the time, it was important for me to know his past before choosing to work with him on a daily basis.
At sixteen, he had enough of a scope on his abilities to work out a way to get free. He worked the odds, picked the best time, and ran. He was on the street for a while till he found somewhere safe.
The safe place he found was the ESRB. He's been here ever since.
Ten years later, he's a reasonably functional adult with a severe lack of trust for the world and a very competent skill he uses to help track down and rescue other people with abilities and no one to stick up for them.
He categorically refused all entreaties from other branches of the government — military, espionage, secret service, police, diplomatic, and probably more — but he would and does help the ESRB.
"What?" I asked again, looking at him closely now, and not to laugh at his discomfort.
He shook his head, a hint of distress clouding his gaze. His breathing was slightly fast, and he seemed jittery. The shake of his head meant something was wrong, but he didn't know what. He was running probabilities in his head now, of course, but without the right question, he couldn't get answers.
It must be a uniquely frustrating sort of precognition to have, I sometimes thought. There was definitely something more to it, in my opinion. He got restless and upset if something was wrong but he didn't have the answers to what. It was like a weird sense of déjà vu, a feeling that...something was off. A gut feeling or hunch, but completely useless without more information.
"You're safe with me," I told him. It wasn't a question, but he answered it like it was.
"One hundred percent."
I saw him start to relax a little as we settled into the questions. Both of us running them at once was always going to be better.
"Is it about Martin?"
"Ten percent," he answered automatically.
"Is he in danger?"
"Nineteen percent." He blinked, looked at me. "Twenty-one percent now."
What had changed in the last two seconds? "Related to ESRB?"
"Fifty-four percent."
"What we're discovering?"
"Thirty-three percent."
I blinked. "One third our questions, two thirds something else? Is he coming here?"
"One hundred percent," said Jem immediately.
We looked at each other, astonished. That was a quick result, even for us! I'd been thinking aloud, not believing the question had any merit or sense to it. But sometimes those questions help the best of all.
