Seers had been around since the early 1900s, in one way or another...ever since they first found them living in those snowy caves in Asia. I'd read about them in high school and college. History mainly. Studying the wars, of course, but also the history of SCARB, the World Court, organic machines, sight ownership, the trade wars in the East and in Europe. And learning about Syrimne, of course, the seer who led the one and only rebellion against humans. He'd been telekinetic, and scary as hell, from all accounts.
But that was pretty rare, telekinesis. In fact, Syrimne was the only documented case of verified telekinesis in any seer...at least officially. Meaning according to anyone who didn't read the same nutty conspiracy theories espoused by my brother, Jon.
Lately, everyone with money seemed to have one. I used to think of that as a New York thing, but it had spread to San Francisco faster than I would have imagined. Sex and fetish shops specializing in seers were popping up all over town. If the laws changed or SCARB was loosening its controls, no one bothered to say so on the feeds.
I did wonder that some of them wouldn't be smart enough to figure out how to get the collars off.
I almost understood the driver not being thrilled with the sudden influx all over the city. Heck, maybe Jon's conspiracy theory stuff was true, about how the government was in secret collaboration with seers to mind-warp the rest of us. He was convinced we all might wake up one day inside a dream created by a bunch of seers to keep us all docile.
Looking at that seer though, I had trouble seeing her as colluding with anyone, much less a bunch of guys in suits who wanted to feed us all mental straightjackets.
No, she looked like she'd rather just shoot me in the head.
***
The cabbie dropped me off on Fell Street. He pulled up in front of the familiar, purple Victorian, and I transferred money to his cab number from my headset as I was sliding off the back seat. Trying to hurry, I slammed the door and promptly tripped over a dented juice bottle. Bending down to pick it up, I tossed it in my mother's neighbor's yellow recycling carton, then noticed that the neighbor's bin was empty, along with my mother's section of curb.
Great. Another week of week-old garbage.
Digging my keys from my red vinyl jacket, I righted them to insert in the dead bolt lock...but the door was already open. A prickle of nerves ran up my spine. Had she been out today already? Or had the front door really been open all night?