It had been ages since he’d eaten chocolate. He took one and sat down.
Schmitt surveyed Enzo. “You’ve recovered nicely from the shrapnel. You’re lucky you were looking down when the explosion happened. Completely missed your face.”
“I was lucky not to be shot down by a tank.”
“And I was lucky not to have to explain your death to your mother.” He steepled his fingers together in a philosophical manner. “But you know what’s at stake when we deal with Empowereds, and you know the risks. The mutants are bombs waiting to go off, and we’ve got to disarm them any way we can. I wouldn’t have made the same call Lt. Johansen made, but I understand why he made it. Despite that, you handled the situation impressively.”
Done with that assessment, Schmitt took a folder from his drawer and set it on the top of his desk. “Do you know why I called you here?”
“I assumed to assign me a new partner.”
Schmitt shook his head in disappointment. “You didn’t come up with a better guess than that? I could’ve assigned you a partner without bringing you here.”
Enzo took the wax paper off the candy. His grandmother had told him they used to come wrapped in gold-colored foil. It was hard to imagine using metal on something people threw away. “I assumed there was a problem with my partner that required personal instruction from you. You know, something along the lines of, ‘He’s a great guy and an ace shooter, except when he drinks, so it’s your job to make sure he stays off the bottle.”
Schmitt smiled. “No, something better.”
“Something better than an alcoholic partner? That’s good news.” Enzo bit the candy in half. Chocolate tasted as delicious as he remembered.
“I’ve got a solo mission for you. I want you to go undercover to locate a psychic.”
Enzo finished chewing. “I don’t think you understand the concept of ‘something better’.” Catching psychics was best done in groups. You needed a large team that closed in and continued to shrink the psychic’s options until you cornered and trapped them. “What is one person supposed to do against someone who can predict the future?”
Schmitt reached into the candy bowl and took a piece for himself. “Initially we had a lot of success fighting psychics with large special ops units. If the mutant avoided or deflected one section, ten more threats came their way. Their visions are sporadic, so they can’t plan for everything.” He popped the chocolate into his mouth. “But that method isn’t working anymore. Do you know how long it’s been since we brought in a psychic?”
Enzo wasn’t sure if that was a rhetorical question. “Two years,” he said.
“Nearly three.”
“The media thinks we got them all.”
One would’ve thought the psychics would be the hardest to eradicate, but they had a fatal flaw. Whenever they had a vision, their eyes glowed white. Since they didn’t control when their visions came, people discovered their identities sooner or later. Usually sooner.
“How do you know there’s another one out there?” Enzo hadn’t heard any chatter in the special forces unit that a psychic might be manipulating markets or peddling classified intel.
“At least one of them was clever enough to go undercover and not try any heists for a while. I’ve received some informationfrom the farming sector that’s concerning.” He opened the folder on his desk. Apparently, the information was so confidential, he wouldn’t risk logging it into a computer.
“These are reports of the last alfalfa harvest in Christian County.” He pointed to a list of data and a calendar. “All the alfalfa farmers in the area planned to cut the crop around the same time because the weather forecast was clear that week. Mr. Ramirez cut his early. Turned out, the forecast was wrong, and a storm drenched the ground, destroying the surrounding crops. Ramirez sold his alfalfa for a record-high price.”
“That doesn’t make him a psychic. Some farmers are better at predicting the weather than the meteorologists.”
Schmitt flipped a paper over. “Here’s a tomato crop in a nearby area. Mr. Napier harvested his crop the day before a hailstorm ruined his neighbors’ fields. Different farmer but same phenomena.”
Not much of a connection. “So the weather is unpredictable, and some farmers get lucky.”
Schmitt pulled out another paper. “Pay attention, Junior. We’re not talking about the weather.” He pointed to the numbers on the paper. “This rancher moved all his cattle to high ground hours before a flash flood turned the bottom part of his ranch into a river.”
“Are you sure we’re not talking about the weather? Because it seems like we are.”
“People talked about how lucky Ramirez, Napier, and the rancher were. Word gets around. We started checking into it. All three people employed the same land workers: the Sunshine Co-Op.” Schmitt leaned back in his chair with an air of triumph. “Turns out the farmers didn’t instruct the group to harvest when they did. The Co-Op leader claimed it was a miscommunication, and after the storms, the farmers were so happy that insteadof withholding pay for botched instruction, they gave the harvesters bonuses.
“The rancher didn’t order the group to move the cattle. The co-op just moved them. All three men told us how grateful they were because, otherwise, they wouldn’t have had money to pay their bills, let alone their workers.”
Enzo considered this. “So you’re saying a psychic is working as a harvester?” That didn’t fit their usual MO. The Empowereds figured out ways to game systems and take wealth. They didn’t do manual labor. “And nobody has seen their eyes glow white and reported them?”
The reward money for turning in an Empowered was more than most people made in a year.
“If the psychic is working outside,” Schmitt continued, “no one would question if he or she wore sunglasses. I think this psychic is hiding, biding their time. Maybe we’re even looking at somebody who is patient enough to wait until the government gets rid of the other Empowereds and disbands the Empowered Affairs Department.”