Chapter One
Piper
Monday
Piper Phillips sat on the edge of the wooden chair in her front hallway, one leg crossed over the other in the shape of a number four.
She’d rubbed a hole into the toe of her white sock, and chose to ignore it.
With one tennis shoe laced on her foot, and the other dangling from her hand, Piper had stalled mid-task, staring at her front door in a haze.
She’d found herself doing that a lot lately, drifting off mid-task.
It felt like a Neverland space, like a weird in-between place where she simultaneously existed and didn’t—a mini-hibernation, perhaps?
Perhaps.
It felt like something lurked on the other side. A vague, nebulous danger that was about to upend her world.
So maybe this experience was more like the freeze part of “fight, flight, or freeze.” Like if she were very, very still, she’d survive.
Piper blinked herself out of her state and slid the tennis shoe onto her socked foot, stomping down to press her heel into place.
With her chest resting on her lap, Piper reached for the laces, twisting them into a bow.
The doctor said she was fine—well, that all her test results came back “within range.”
That was good, right?
The practical explanation she gave herself for this weird little quirk she’d picked up was that in the years after her dad died, Piper had wrapped herself in the crush of grief, and recently the pain was shifting and losing some of its heaviness.
Maybe, in the absence of that familiar weight, this was what she’d be left with.
It wasn’t bad.
It was kind of cottony and soft.
Besides, when her body hit pause, there didn’t seem to be a lot she could do about it.
Just last week, Chanti Gupta—Piper’s ride-or-die friend since their “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” years—had brought over her tarot deck to look for cosmic answers to this new sensation Piper was experiencing.
It was a given that Chanti would end up sitting at Piper’s kitchen table fanning the cards out.
After all, Chanti seemed to have her fingers on the universal pulse in an uncanny, often disturbingly accurate, kind of way.
Always had.
Way back in eighth grade, Chanti had been an aficionado of the Ouija board, making her a high-demand guest at every sleepover.
And Chanti would only go to the sleepover if Piper was there, too.
Being established besties with Chanti meant Piper had a ticket to a social life that would otherwise exclude her.
True then, same now: Chanti was the extrovert and Piper was content to stay home and read.
Back in the summer before high school something spooked the shit out of Chanti, and she refused to tell Piper about it or to be anywhere near a Ouija board again.
Tarot took its place.
“More effective,” Chanti said, “less invitational to the unknown realm.”
After that, when weird patterns emerged in Piper’s life, Chanti showed up with her cards and her interpretations—it was just over twenty years that she’d been doing that.
Wow. That was an unsettling thought. Twenty years?
Seemed like forever ago and just yesterday.
Piper re-ran the calculations. Yes, freshman year of high school was that far back in her rearview mirror.
While Piper wasn’t into tarot herself, she liked that Chanti was. It meant Piper could keep her scientific, practical thoughts while still looking over Chanti’s shoulder and seeing what someone skilled in intuition could do with a handful of cards.
In some ways, even scientifically, it made sense. The human brain took in so much, but it only made the smallest little bit available to the conscious mind. If the tarot pictures allowed the inner machinations of the brain to express what it already knew, then the cards could supply a visual vocabulary—a key, of sorts, to unlock new ideas.
And while Piper usually paid little attention to Chanti’s esoteric life, in this instance, with this weird zoning-out stuff going on, there was no harm in letting Chanti look.
Chanti leaned over her tarot cards, expectantly. “Okay, pick one. Let’s figure out what’s going on with you.”
Piper reached over and tapped a card toward the end of the fan with her fingernail, then slid her hands under the table and waited for the verdict.
Moving the chosen card in front of her, Chanti turned it picture-side up to find the Star. “Oooh, Major Arcana.”
“What does that mean?” Piper was surprised by how her ribs had tightened, and her breath had become shallow. After all, she held a PhD in biomedical sciences; she was a facts-and-data kind of gal. A card shouldn’t have any impact on her autonomic system.
“Major Arcana,” Chanti said, “is big picture stuff. Since we were pulling just one card for this question, it’s good that we got something from the Major Arcana. And honestly, it could be worse.”
“Worse?” Piper leaned in and looked at the picture. There was a woman with one knee on land, one foot in the water, unabashedly naked with a vase in each hand, pouring water out. A big star was over her head and smaller stars scattered across the sky.
“You’re afraid there’s something wrong with your body, right? This card isn’t about being sick.” Chanti pointed. “See this?”
Piper looked down, but she wasn’t sure what “this” Chanti wanted her to see.
“This card makes sense; this is both creativity and pragmatism—the duality of action and thought. That the figure is naked means she’s got nothing to hide.”
Piper looked at the naked figure, and she saw vulnerability. “So I can sit and stare, and it’s fine?”
“Just looking at this card, it feels like you’re preparing for something that’s coming down the pike. You have a question, and you’re looking for the answer. You’re going to have to make some decisions once the options are revealed. Unfortunately, each option has its pros and cons.”
“Knee on the land, foot in the water?” Piper asked.
“Exactly. Right now, I’d think of yourself as the caterpillar inside the cocoon doing a switcheroo. It’s not passive.”
“Feels passive,” Piper said. “But ‘cocoon’ also feels like a good way to explain the sensation.”
“I get that. But it’s an important part of the journey. You’re going still because your brain is busy.”
Piper laced her fingers in her lap and squeezed her hands tight. “More like a void.”
“Profound thoughts. This,” Chanti pointed at the water, “isn’t a puddle. It’s very deep.”
“And dark and cold?” Piper asked rhetorically.
That was Piper’s tarot experience last week.
A bright, excited knock on her door startled Piper.
Chanti had arrived, and it was time for this week’s venture into the woo-woo.
Piper stood up and shook herself like a wet dog.
It didn’t help; she still felt a little off.
The knock sounded again.
“Yeah, yeah,” Piper called, forcing a smile onto her lips to warm her tone. “I’m coming. Hold your horses.”
Chanti had been looking forward to tonight for weeks. And when Piper pulled the door open, Chanti was bouncing her heels off the hall carpet with her hands clasped under her chin, grinning from ear to ear. “Ready?”
“Grabbing my stuff and we’re off,” Piper said, reaching behind her, snagging her coat from the hook, her phone from the floor, and her key lanyard from the bowl on her entrance table.
Chanti had shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and was dancing foot to foot like a boxer as Piper locked up.
They started down the stairs, out the main door, and down the road.
It was a fifteen-minute walk to the comedy club where Chanti had tickets to see a comedian/tarot reader do his thing, answering questions from the audience.
The last time Chanti had bought them tickets to one of these gigs, it was a clairvoyant, and that woman was so precise that those people she was “reading” had to be plants. Had to be. The plants were damned good at their acting, but yeah, that whole thing was impossible.
The air smelled damp and a bit dead-fishy as they walked through Georgetown from the top of Pennsylvania Avenue, chatting about everything and nothing.
“Last night I dreamed I was a panini,” Chanti said as the building came into view.
“Interesting. Which part of the sandwich life-cycle did you experience?”
“When I was aware of my dreams, I already had my meats and cheeses. My dream picked up when someone put my top bread on, then put me in the press to squish me.”
“Oh?” Piper pulled her brows tightly together.
“It was hotter than I expected, and I was sweating. I ended up having to throw off my covers.”
“Early menopause,” Piper said.
“Shut up.” Chanti laughed as she trotted down the sidewalk to join the line at the entrance.
The ticket takers were efficient, and the venue was intimate enough that they had no trouble finding their two-top right in front.
They ordered drinks and Piper glanced around. Everyone looked very work-a-day. No one arrived wearing flowing robes bedecked with gemstones or pointy hats.
With an introduction from offstage, the tarot reader guy walked out to face his audience hand raised in greeting. Dressed in rumpled jeans and a tie-dyed shirt, his beard hung down to his overly large belt buckle.
He looked like he’d just woken up from a nap.
Piper didn’t get a very good first impression.
But this was Chanti’s night. Piper would sip her cocktail, sit back, and just take it in.
“I’m John. Big crowd. Thanks for coming out tonight.”
With the audience clapping, John ducked past the enormous magnifying mirror that tilted to reflect the table surface so the audience could see the cards, too.
John started shuffling his cards as his gaze slid over the audience. His focus held on a man at the table to Piper’s left. “What’s your first name and your question?”
A stagehand hustled over to hand the guy a mic.
“I’m Mack. My question for you tonight is: If I ask her to marry me, will she say yes?”
“Will she say yes?” John repeated as he flipped over three cards.
“Four of Rods, that’s the marriage card. This is going to be a good reading,” Chanti whispered. “Three of Cups, that’s celebrations. Nine of Cups is the happiness card.”
The audience clapped for Mack’s good fortune.
John looked up at them. “A yes is easy. A wedding is easy. That’s not your question, is it, Mack?”
“No.”
“No,” John repeated. “What you want to know is, does she truly love you, and will this work out?”
“Yes,” Mack said with a quiver in his voice.
John laid out more cards.
The audience gasped.
Chanti leaned in. “The Five of Swords is betrayal, the Tower is things crashing down, Three of Swords is heartache. That last one that he set to the side by itself, that one’s the Two of Cups. In this reading, it means love built solidly on friendship.” She squeezed Piper’s shoulder and sat up.
“Mack, man-to-man here, the one you’re about to ask to marry you, it looks like it starts great and ends up in the crapper. But there’s this relationship just over there getting ready to move into the picture. This is the kind of relationship that will see you through old age together.” He tapped the cards. “Now, I’m not telling you to go home and break up with anyone or accuse anyone of anything. This could damned well be you shitting on the relationship and not her at all. What I am saying is maybe slow down a bit and see if this is an infatuation that runs hot, then turns toxic. You just met, and it's been a whirlwind?”
“Yes,” Mack whispered.
“Enjoy it. But give it lots of time to mature. If it’s what you think it is, there’s no rush.”
“Thanks.”
Mack looked like he took a punch to the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
The crowd clapped as the stagehand with the microphone turned and handed the mic to Piper.
Piper pressed it into Chanti’s hands.
Chanti leaned into Piper and whispered, “I’m going to ask him about my panini dream.”
Piper laughed. “Perfect. Do it.”
Chanti’s grin fell off when she focused on the reader. “Hi, John. I’m Chanti, and I want to know if I continue doing my job, will I end up in prison?”
“Are you serious?” John asked.
“A little, maybe.” She licked her lips. “Yes, actually.”
“I hate to ask. This is Washington after all.” John waited for the audience's laughter to die before diving in. “What do you do? Rob banks?”
“On occasion, I try to,” Chanti said. “I look for security holes that allow for breaches using AI.”
“To exploit them?” John asked as he shuffled his cards. “Out of personal curiosity, do you find the holes when you go looking for them?”
“All the time and without much effort,” Chanti said.
The crowd rustled in their seats uncomfortably.
John paused, stared. “But you’re doing this for legitimate clients, right? Or are these people you met in a back alley somewhere, and they’re asking you to hack into companies?” John began shuffling again.
“It’s my legit paid job with taxes, medical, and dental,” Chanti said. “Companies hire me to find flaws in their security. They were safe. Now, AI is finding ways in, and they need to make sure all their corporate information, including banking data, is unhackable.”
“What do they call that? A white hat?” John asked.
“I don’t put that on my business card. But in essence,” Chanti said.
“Okay. Let’s see here.”
This time, Chanti didn’t lean over to offer helpful explanations to Piper. She stayed hard focused as John laid down the cards one at a time. There were a lot more cards this go-around, where the marriage-in-the-crapper guy only got seven in total, and Chanti looked like she’d get the whole deck.
“This is what I see,” John started, and Chanti reached over and squeezed Piper’s hand under the table.
John pursed his lips and sighed heavily into his mic. “Yeah, it looks like you’ve got a lot of anxiety stemming from your job. I think your biggest fear is that you’ll be working for someone, and they’ll accuse you of something—something bad—while fulfilling your contract. Are those the kind of fearful thoughts you’re asking me about? Whether they’re founded or not?”
“Or that I’ll have the laws changed on me and put me, retroactively, in the wrong.”
John looked up from the cards. “Because there are no AI laws now, or not really any AI laws that would come to bear against you? You’re not personally doing anything—you’re sending your little AI agent off, and that agent is doing the bad thing—bidden or unbidden--and the agent can’t be held responsible because it’s a machine, right?”
“More or less, yeah.” Chanti was now squeezing Piper's fingers so hard that Piper’s knuckles ground against each other.
“Oh well, that’s not good.” John refocused on the cards. “My last sentence was for humanity in general, not for you specifically. Okay, let me see here. There’s a woman involved in your next steps. This isn’t a boss. It isn’t someone paying you. It isn’t a love interest. There’s a whole lot of chaos around her. She’s the one going to jail.” John looked up as the crowd gasped. “No, I’m just kidding. I didn’t pull cards for her. I was trying to be funny. It is true, though, Chanti, that there’s a woman who is close to you who’s involved somehow with your job. Do you know who I’m talking about?”
“No. This is kind of a boys’ club kind of position. I’m the only female.”
“Oh, okay. Huh.” John looked back at the cards. “There’s a woman who is the chaos agent. She’s here with this eight of swords. She doesn’t know what to do, but she’s a goody-two-shoes, isn’t she?”
“A goody …” Chanti said and looked over to Piper. “I don’t know what that means, do you?”
“Yeah, okay – generational phrase there.” John laughed. “She’s a person who doesn’t like to break the rules. Do you know who she is?”
“With work? No.”
“Okay. Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you. I think. I think … Now, don’t come back and ask me to be a witness for your trial. This isn’t legal advice. No, ‘Hey, John told me I wasn’t going to jail, so you should drop charges,’ right? That wouldn’t work out for you.” He stroked his hand down his beard. “Yeah, Chanti, there’s something here. It’s not jail. It’s something else. He held up the Tower card. Things could go boom.” John looked Chanti dead in the eye. “In this layout—I know this isn’t going to feel like a satisfying answer—but things can go very badly or brilliantly, and it all depends on this guy here. This knight. See him? See his sword?”
“I’m a lesbian,” Chanti said, though she wasn’t at all. “I’m not interested in any man’s sword.”
“Okay, good. Well. He doesn’t have anything to do with your paid work. But he is pivotal. And there is that chaos woman. And I’d say, yeah … Work looks fine for not going to jail or prison—I don’t know the difference, but I don’t think they’re synonyms. Let me put it this way: I don’t see incarceration, but I do see that you’ve got some friends that are kind of iffy. I’d start culling my contacts list if I were you. There. That’s about it.”
“Okay, thanks. What about her?” Chanti asked, tipping her head toward Piper.
Piper’s cheeks flamed red.
“Her?” John asked. “Like, is she an iffy friend from your spread you need to cull?”
“No, I’m not culling her under any circumstances. Just in general,” Chanti said. “She’s not going to ask a question, so that’s her question. One question per ticket, right?”
As John gathered up the cards and gave them a quick shuffle, three cards flew out of the deck: the Devil, the Tower, the Eight of Swords, reflected down from the mirror for everyone to see.
Piper felt like she’d just walked into her living room naked only to find that a surprise party of strangers had gathered there.
Piper was pretty much hating every second of this.
She didn’t know the specific meanings of those cards, but she did know they weren’t happy, judging by the iconography and hearing the gasps and groans from the audience.
“Oh, lady, I’m sorry.” John looked her dead in the eye. “Should I keep going to see what this pertains to?” he asked with a deep frown.
“No, thank you.” Piper waved her hand as if she were erasing all of it. Since she hadn’t asked a question and she hadn’t said her name, Piper wasn’t going to take those cards personally. She’d hold on to the card she’d chosen with Chanti, the Star: she was figuring things out. “I think that’s about all I can handle.”
“But this is your friend?” John asked Chanti with raised brows.
The audience swiveled in Piper’s direction.
Piper felt the whole room of tarot aficionados drawing a conclusion.
Were they right? Was it her?
Was she, Piper Phillips, Chanti’s chaos agent?
Now, wouldn’t that just all kinds of suck?
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