Unforeseen Dives – 14b – Conference

<< 14a – Conference

My hands shook like agonizing spiders until I allowed them to crawl into the safety of my pockets. Rebecca stood by my side, bodyguard stance and all. We were still out of the public’s view. Casey wanted to me to make an entrance and he was warming up the crowd. I wished for the thousandth time I didn’t have to do this. I even called Daniel in a moment of weakness; apparently fine prints in my contract say I might be required to do press conference.
Sick of seeing me fidgeting, Rebecca stepped in front of me and grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Phobias are stupid.” She forced the thought straight into my skull and hammered it until it stuck. “Now that we’ve established that, do you remember what Casey told you?”
I drew a blank and cursed myself for it.
“No. That’s fine. You shouldn’t worry about that crap. You’re strong, intelligent and a people person. For crying out loud, you speak what? 10 languages not counting the dead ones? You’re walking on that stage as the person who saved thousands of lives. But more importantly, I live in your head over 40 hours a week so I know you’re an amazing person. Just let it shine through. They have to love you.”
No thoughts crossed my mind. I was completely speechless. Rebecca hugged me, and then stepped back to my left. I resumed my fidgeting with a little less intensity.
Casey called my name and I stiffened. Obviously, stress was okay with me jittering when I shouldn’t and buckling my knees when I should walk. I closed my eyes and tried again. This time, I moved.

I stood behind the lectern and tried not to wobble back and forth. I didn’t want to advertise my level of stress. Journalists might eat me alive if they knew. I didn’t need to present something; Casey had done that. I just needed to survive the next thirty minutes of questioning without humiliating myself or my agency. Piece of cake.
“Good evening,” said a tall man from a news channel. “In the past three years of PSI’s existence, we’ve heard a lot about its potential and its respect for privacy. We’ve barely heard about your actual work. As an agent, can you tell us how you investigate?”
It surprised me that he made such an introduction for so simple a question. As if I didn’t know the history of PSI. Then I realised he was doing it for the benefit of his audience, to frame my comments in a context. I had a lot to learn about this.
My eyes wandered toward Casey, now standing off stage. He nodded and smiled. I placed my hands on the lectern to force them steady and began to talk.
“I’ll try to depict as precise a picture as possible.” My voice quavered a bit. I paused and hoped it would be interpreted as me devising a way to answer the question. “As you might know, we, psychics, perform dives in the Ocean. Basically, we have a special chair that lulls us into a near sleeping state so we can gain access to the roster of possible futures. From there, we browse through the futures in search of a threat.”
“It sounds daunting!” A new reporter, a woman this time, took the second turn for questions. “How exactly do you recognize a threat?”
I doubted I could describe how all the senses worked together to taste, feel and track a crime thread. It all depended on what exactly tipped us first. I wasn’t allowed to talk about the adrenaline sheen; that kind of details could be precious for criminals. Hard waters to sail, those conference.
“I guess the best way to put it is that something doesn’t feel right. Or, as the idiom says, ‘something smells’. Once we find that, we dig deeper to see if there’s any fire behind the smoke.”
“You’re short-sighted, right? What exactly does that mean?” The high-pitch voice of the third reporter ringed in my ear. I instinctively readjusted my glasses before I realised that wasn’t what she was referring to.
“The term we use is ‘near future seer’ or ‘seer’. It means that I concentrate on the events that might happen in the coming week or so.”
“As opposed to what?” The same woman asked.
“As opposed to oracles who use different methods of investigation and focus on long-term predictions. Their work predicts things seer would have never picked up on but, at the same time, it’s less structured and completely unreliable.”
“Sounds to me like you can never guarantee results.” I froze as the man rose from his chair with a mocking smile. This one would push me where it hurts. “I mean, you guys were supposed to revolutionize crime fighting. Studies show the numbers have barely dropped in three years. How do you explain that?”
My jaw tightened. That was a Mount Everest worth slippery slope. If I had been able to think beyond the stress of the conference, that was precisely the question I would have hoped to avoid.
“First, there are not that many of us.” I sounded a bit too harsh. That wasn’t good. My palm sweated and my throat filled with a lump. “Second, as your colleague pointed out, searching for crimes is a strenuous process and it doesn’t necessarily give us an address.” All my muscles contracted to hold me steady. The news guy didn’t like my answer, as I knew he would. “And finally, we don’t violate your privacy and aren’t unconstitutional. We work with a set of rules. We don’t spy on the innocent or convict people for what they might do.”
“Which means that your little exploit is just a stroke of luck.” On the corner of my eyes, I saw Rebecca curl her fists. I had almost gone crazy for my stroke of luck. I couldn’t answer him. I just couldn’t.
“And I think it was good police work,” said a petite woman in a blue ensemble. She turned toward her colleague. “Unless I’m mistaken, readers are people with a peculiar skill set. Not gods.” She nodded in my direction. “On behalf of my whole office, thank you for saving our lives.”
She was from the New York Times.

15a – Interrogation >>