The Rush by Carolyn McCray, Ben Hopkin Page A

her belly was unoccupied, and well, her doctoral thesis had hit a
sticky patch.
    “Excusez-moi, mademoiselle,” a kindly voice murmured as the
woman tried to move past Mia.
    “Ce n’est pas un problème,” Mia replied, grateful for her
undergraduate minor in French. She scooted to the side, the brief encounter
bringing her back to her purpose here. Yes, her thesis had basically been blown
out of the water, but that was before the modifications to the scanner. Now?
She could smell the job offers once she published the results.
    Time to get some baseline scans. Mia felt the familiar rush
of adrenaline as she pulled the device out of her purse and passed it across
the head of a man trailing along at the back of the pack. She made the pass
quickly, pulling the scanner down by her side as soon as she could.
    Mia peered down at the reading. Impatience. Irritation.
Exhaustion. Probably dragged along to the museum by his wife. He certainly was
no art lover. Mia scanned another, this one an older woman. Excitement.
Anticipation. Exhaustion. Well, they certainly had one thing in common. Perhaps
it was the tour guide. The buttoned-down young lady at the front of the group
did seem to be…determined.
    As Mia studied her device, the group slowed and she almost
bumped into her subjects. She stowed her scanner with some trepidation,
glancing around to make sure no one had seen. She really didn’t want to get
kicked out of the Louvre, too.
    She circumvented the group, giving the tour guide a
surreptitious scan as she passed. Aggression. Wait. Could that be right? Mia
checked the scanner again. Definitely aggression, with little or nothing else.
Mia stared at the guide, taking her in more fully. Tallish, blonde hair that
was almost platinum, ice blue eyes, and a lean profile. What an odd thing. But
so far the scanner had been precise in not just picking up brain waves, but
quantifying them. Giving Mia an insight into not exactly what people were
thinking, but how they were feeling. Sometimes a much more valuable measure of
a person.
    Leaving the group and its odd readings behind, Mia took the
next set of stairs at a brisk pace. The morning would soon be over and she
wanted to have at least a little bit of research to show for it.
    As she exited the stairwell, she barely missed running into
a large man in an army green coat. So much for her martial art skills keeping
her out of trouble. Mia really needed to pay better attention. She turned to
apologize to the man, but found his jaw clenched and his fists balled. She took
a step back, then as quickly as the fury had risen, it faded away, leaving a
look of apparent bewilderment.
    “I to apologize, miss. I was not to know I standing in way.”
The man’s heavy accent sounded French, with a hint of something else. Belgian,
perhaps? His smile was strained, but at least he was trying to be polite. More
evidence that he was Belgian.
    “It was completely my fault,” Mia said, inching away. “I
wasn’t watching where I was going.” As soon as she passed the man, she swiped
her scanner past his head, then kept moving.
    Not until Mia rounded a corner and headed down the long
walkway, passing by the Spanish paintings, did she stop to read the scan.
Anger. Worry. Determination. Each one of those results was completely contrary
to his words. But she was so new at this. Maybe that’s just how one acted in
polite society. You were pissed off on the inside but kind on the outside?
    Shrugging off the inconsistencies and deciding to scan only
art patrons from now on—she did not want to explain these anomalous readings to
her Ph.D. advisor—Mia continued down the long passageway filled with the
Italian paintings, working her way from most recent to oldest. Rounding the
next corner, Mia found herself in front of Véronèse’s The Wedding Feast at
Cana. As luck would have it, there was a couple standing there holding hands,
their backs to her.
    Perfect. These were her kind of subjects.
    Mia