Free Department 57: Rubies of Fire by Lynne Connolly Page B

and they aren’t prepared to learn by asking,” the dragon rumbled, voicing what they were all thinking. “So why should our communities continue to operate here? If someone is betraying us, wouldn’t the sensible option be to retreat from human society, as we have done before?”
    Cristos showed no emotion on his features, but Roz felt a tightening in the atmosphere. She agreed with the dragon. Maybe this time Talents should withdraw cooperation with governments, go back to the insular ways that had served them well for so long.
    Cristos sighed. “It isn’t as easy as it used to be before the age of computers and instant information. How do you open a special wing of a hospital ostensibly devoted to research, but in reality for the special needs of Talents, without government aid to smooth the way? How do you move Talents around the world, give them new identities, fake their deaths? It used to be easy, but it’s highly complex now, and if we tried to do it on our own, we’d be found out. The choices are, as they have always been, to expose ourselves completely, come out of the Talent closet, to withdraw from society and fight our corner on our own, or continue to live secretly alongside mortals.”
    “Those always worked up till now,” Fabrice commented. But Fabrice was young. He’d never known life in an age before computers, before the telephone, even. Roz remembered.
    Cristos nodded his agreement. “Using the agency’s help to move identities from one life to the next works well, and has for the past thirty years. But we’ve always faced this threat, that government investigators would discover more about us than we wanted them to know. None of the mortals who know about us have betrayed us. The first thing we did was check them out.” Roz wondered how, but also realized she might never know. “I’ve always been against withdrawal. It would engender the kind of hatred and bigotry we have seen for centuries. To reveal ourselves would lead to the same, plus the kind of hero-worship most Talents abhor. We are not better than mortals. We are merely different. And most Talents alive today don’t know how to live any differently. We have decided to continue as we are until it becomes impossible. We have unearthed this threat before it got out of control, and we have this chance to plug the leak.”
    Cristos sighed and lifted his hand, forking his fingers as if he meant to run them through his immaculately coiffed silver hair, but dropped it before he made contact. “You have my word, you and all the Talents you represent, that I will withdraw before anyone exposes us completely. If there is a leak of such proportions that I feel we cannot cope, we will go into semiwithdrawal mode.”
    Roz felt comfortable enough to ask, “And that means…?”
    Cristos met her eyes with a cold, bleak stare. She would get no comfort or easy answers here, and that, perversely, made her feel better. “Obliterating memories, using Compulsion to make politicians and officials forget about us, and starting again as independent contractors. Destroying all official records wherever we find them, killing to protect ourselves if we have to. It’s a drastic step, but one we may have to take. Not a step I’d happily take.”
    Roz thought of all the people she’d known, Talents and mortals alike: all the shape-shifters she wouldn’t have met if she hadn’t been able to move around freely, all the mortals who had lit up her life. One in particular. Pain hit her, the familiar wave sweeping through her mind. She suppressed it almost automatically. For all the pain his death had caused her, Roz counted herself blessed to have known and loved John Templeton. Other Talents should have that opportunity. The chance to make a free choice.
    For the first time she was totally convinced where her loyalty must lie, at least until this crisis was resolved. “I’m with you. I’ll do whatever I have to to stop the leak.” She paused. “Some