Once upon a time
« Greyhound 3 to Greyhound 1 reporting – all quiet on the Western front, Ma'am"
"Received – Greyhound 1, out"
Kate put back her radio and sighed. Osgood looked at her, surprised. For once, it had been a slow couple of days at the Tower, and she was deep into an astrophysics book she'd been wanting to read for some time. Kate had been distractedly toying with her pocket chessboard while watching the various screens in the room.
"What's wrong, Ma'am? Bad news from the Colonel?"
"No – that's why I'm worried…"
Osgood frowned: "People tend to say that no news is good news…"
"My father used to say that it was the calm before the storm…I don't like it when nothing's happening – it means that someone somewhere is up to no good."
Osgood smirked: "And I'm supposed to be the pessimist." Kate gave her one of her famous dark looks and she immediately plunged her nose back in her book.
When the red phone rang a little later, Osgood almost jumped out of her skin as Kate answered:
"General?
- Kate – can you tell me why you're not already on it?
- I'm sorry, General, I don't quite follow – on what?
- The auras! Do I really need to spell it out for you?
- No need, General – I can manage that A-U-R-A-S, I believe – but you might want to explain what you're talking about.
- We don't have time for games, Kate – the reports are very clear – these people are a threat.
- People?
- These women, really – we've had several reports here at headquarters of women claiming they could see auras around people – colours, you know, and noises, and …
- I thought we dealt with aliens, General – not with mystics.
- These women also claim they're able to feel what other people are feeling, and to read their thoughts.
- I repeat, General, I thought we were concerned with more important things than fortune tellers and circus acts.
- For God's sake, Kate – can you stop being flippant and listen? Four of these women have already killed people, claiming they had a brown aura, which meant they were future criminals. And we know that hundreds of "aura women", maybe thousands, have appeared all over Europe. Now can you see the problem?
- Yes Sir – I get it – if we don't investigate, we may have hundreds, if not thousands of killers on our hands.
- I'm counting on you to do something about it, Kate, and presto! You should already be on it, as I said before
- Yes Sir. "
On that, he hung up, and Kate swore under her breath – if there was one thing she hated, it was to be found at fault. She turned towards the rest of her team, repeated what the General had said and snapped: "Well? Ideas, anyone?"
Osgood answered tentatively: "It sounds like synaesthesia, Ma'am."
"I'm well aware of that, Osgood, thank you – but as far as I know, synaesthesia doesn't target only women, and doesn't turn them into killers."
"Of course, Ma'am – I remember, I had an uncle who…"
Josh Carter was listening intently, but he couldn't see what the two women were talking about. He decided to risk Kate's wrath and to ask: "Sorry, but …synaesthesia?"
Osgood took pity on him and explained: "Synaesthesia is a neurological condition in which a person experiences "crossed" responses to stimuli. It occurs when stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. About 5 percent of the population has synaesthesia, and over 60 types have been reported. The most common form of synaesthesia is grapheme-colour synaesthesia, in which people perceive individual letters of the alphabet and numbers to be shaded with a colour. Other synesthetes commingle sounds with scents, sounds with shapes, or shapes with flavours."
"Err ?"
Kate looked at Josh exasperatedly: "It means that if you're a synesthete, you can, for instance see the letter A as yellow and smelling of cherries. Or the number 6 as green and smelling of peas. Or, sometimes, seeing someone with a colour."
"Shouldn't that be "yellow and smelling of banana, Ma'am"
Kate turned towards Osgood: "I give up! Can you make him understand? And I need to know exactly where these women have been spotted, and everything about them."
"Understood, Ma'am."
A few hours later, they were all looking at a map of the locations of the Aura women. There seemed to be no particular logic to their geographical repartition. A hundred or so of them were in England, about the same in France, Germany and Italy, and others were in the other European countries.
"At least we're talking about hundreds, and not thousands, as the General said, Ma'am." Osgood was trying to lift Kate's mood, which had been definitely black since the General's phone call.
"Oh, so we're looking at hundreds of potential killers, and that's supposed to be a good thing? Thanks, Osgood."
"Sorry, Ma'am."
"Time to act – Osgood, Josh, you're coming with me- we're going to pay some calls."
Soon they were zooming around the countryside, on their way to the nearest sightings. Josh drove and Kate gave her instructions. She would go and call on the women with Osgood, posing as a journalist and her photographer. Josh would stay in the car, not so much as back-up as in order not to waste to much time. She hoped to get a feel of the situation and information.
They covered hundreds of miles in the night, going as far as possible, so as to make their way down to London in the next day. At the end of the next day, they'd visited sixteen of the women – some of them had not been at home, but those who had had been very willing, eager, even, to talk to Kate. They all had a similar story to tell. Nearly all of them had been synesthetic all their lives, but recently they'd begun to see auras around people too. They all said they could tell the nature of the individuals by the colours. When Kate asked how they knew, they answered that "She" had told them. None of the women would, or could explain who that She was, or how She had told them, although they gladly gave examples. They explained that if someone was sick, they would usually see them as green; or someone with bad manners as yellow. No one mentioned brown. At the end of the interview, Kate asked them what colour they saw her in. Some of them demurred, and others answered, that they saw her as red. When Kate probed a little further, they admitted that red was the colour they usually attributed to sexually attractive people… The first two times she heard that, Kate blushed – after that, she gave herself a stern talking to, and told herself she was interrogating potential suspects, not meeting a first potential date.