Mind's Eye

by Douglas E. Richards

  Hall passed maybe twelve more offices, feeling with his mind for occupants in each case, until he finally found one that was empty; a corner office with a neighbor on one side of it and a tiny kitchen alcove on the other. Hopefully, whoever was renting this office was gone for the day.

  Hall thrust open the door, backed into the office, and closed it gently behind him.

  He heard a loud intake of air, as though he had just startled someone half senseless, and spun around to face a petite young woman sitting at a desk.

  She opened her mouth and prepared to scream.

  6

  “Don’t scream!” said Hall in desperation. “I’m a friend.”

  It was a ridiculous thing to say, but it was all he could think of. How had he failed to read her presence here?

  The woman at the desk was taken aback by the sheer audacity and incongruity of the statement, which had the desired effect. She held her scream as surprise and panic gave way to rationality, and she reflexively tried to make sense of what Hall had just said.

  She was about five foot five and very petite, with raven hair, cut short, a flawless complexion, and an alertness and energy that seemed to gush out of her. Hall judged her to be in her mid to late twenties. She could best be described as cute, but not beautiful. The type who could end up being appealing to a man, or not so much at all, depending on if her personality enhanced her appearance or detracted from it.

  And he was still unable to read her, despite the considerable effort he was now making. Thoughts from hundreds of minds in the building were swirling in his head, but hers failed to register in any way.

  “A friend?” she repeated in confusion, taking in Hall’s sordid appearance and being far from reassured by it. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  Hall’s eyes widened. He couldn’t read her mind while she was silent, but when she had spoken he had “heard” the familiar, just-discernible echo of her words. This indicated that he could read words from her mind, but only when she focused them enough for imminent speech.

  “Well, yeah . . .” replied Hall. “What I meant was that I’m, um . . . friendly. You know. Not a danger. That sort of thing. Wrong office. I’ll just leave now.”

  She nodded, a visible look of relief on her face. He didn’t doubt she was relieved. It wasn’t every day that a man who looked like he had been through a war barged into her office. Who could blame her for being happy to see him go?

  And then her hopeful look changed to one of horror, as if she had seen a ghost, but only for an instant. She quickly flashed him an awkward smile to cover up her reaction, but he had caught the movement of her eyes just before her expression had changed.

  She had seen the handle of the Glock sticking out of his waistband.

  What incredibly bad luck! Not only had this freaked her out—and rightly so—it also ensured she would call the police the second he left her office.

  “You saw my gun, didn’t you?” he said with a sigh, and this had the effect of ratcheting up the girl’s fear even higher. She shook her head no, looking as though she was certain she was about to be killed by a psychopath.

  “Look, I promise you that you won’t get hurt. Really. I’ll leave, and it’ll be like I was never here. But before I do, I need you to promise not to try to make my life more difficult after I’m gone.” He rolled his eyes. As if it’s even possible for my life to get more difficult, he thought.

  “I won’t,” she assured him. “I promise. Absolutely!” she added emphatically.

  Hall decided he needed to level with her. It was the only way. He reached over and locked the door. He could no longer rely a hundred percent on his psi ability to warn him of approaching minds. The woman in front of him was living proof of that. She shrank back in ill-disguised terror. Hall shook his head. Locking the door before he tried to win her over wasn’t exactly putting her at ease.

  “Let me explain what’s going on. And then I’ll leave. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  He took a deep breath, knowing that honesty in this case would only make things worse, since no more ridiculous story had ever been told. If he was fast enough on his feet to think of a plausible lie that could win her trust, he would have tried it, although he suspected the entire point about winning trust was actually telling the truth. Besides, his mind reading, limited though it was in her case, should be able to turn skepticism into belief in a hurry.

  “I woke up about two hours ago in a . . .” He paused for several seconds. Finally, wincing, he came out with it. “Okay. I woke up in a dumpster. Which doesn’t exactly make me James Bond, I guess.”

  She tried to keep her face impassive, but a hint of disbelief and disgust flashed over her features.

  “Wait,” he continued, as though even he was having trouble believing what he was saying, “it gets worse. I returned to consciousness without any memory of how I came to be there.” He sighed heavily. “Actually, without any memory of who I am at all. Total amnesia.”

  She studied him closely, as though if she stared at him intensely enough, she could somehow peel back any deceit.

  “I managed to wash myself pretty well and get a change of clothes,” he continued, nodding toward his outfit. “Which obviously don’t fit all that well.” He smiled. “But trust me, anything beats clothing that has spent time in a dumpster.”

  She faked a smile back at him as he continued. “And somebody—who hired a group of somebodies—wants me dead. They don’t want to rob me, or talk to me. They simply want to kill me. And as soon as possible. I took the gun you saw from one of the people after me. I came in here to lie low, since I stupidly forgot to take the cell phone from the last guy I stopped from killing me, and he called in my position.”

  “That’s terrible,” said the girl, trying to sound sincere but failing miserably. Hall wasn’t sure of her occupation, but it wasn’t acting. “I can’t even imagine what you must be going through.”

  Hall shook his head. “Look, I know you don’t believe me. How could you? You’re sure to think I’m insane. Believe me, I thought the same thing. I want an open exchange. I promise not to hurt you, but I want you to be skeptical until I can convince you. I won’t hold it against you. So let’s have a dialogue. Ask questions so I can satisfy you that I’m being honest.”

  “Okay,” she said guardedly, trying to figure out how best to play this invitation. “Any idea why they’re trying to kill you? And how is it that you’ve been able to survive against trained killers?”

  “The answer is the same to both of these questions. I discovered when I came to in the dumpster that I can . . . well, I can read minds. I’m sure it’s something I couldn’t do before.”

  “Uh-huh. So you’re reading my mind right now?”

  Hall frowned. “Actually, no. You’re the exception to the rule. The one person out of hundreds whose mind is closed to me. I don’t know why.”

  She tried to keep her expression neutral, but failed.

  “I don’t need to be a mind reader to know you’re thinking something like, that’s convenient. I claim to be able to read minds and you just happen to be the one I can’t read. So I can’t prove it to you. But the fact that you’re the rare person I can’t read is why I’m in your office in the first place. I could tell that every other office was occupied. Since I couldn’t read you, I chose this one, thinking it was empty. I was just as surprised as you were when I barged in here.”

  She opened her mouth to reply when he rushed ahead. “But I think I can still prove it to you. I have no idea how this ESP, or psionic power, or whatever you want to call it, works. But I think I can read you. But only when you’re formulating words in your mind and just on the cusp of speaking. I don’t know why. So do this. I’ll ask you a question, and you think the answer to me in words. Projecting them as firmly as you can. As if you’re speaking them—just don’t move your lips. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “What is your name?”

  She tilted her
head and stared at him.

  He grinned. As expected, he had heard her name clearly. “Megan,” he said triumphantly. “Megan Emerson.”

  Her eyes widened, but then her shock seemed to fade and she glanced down at her desk, at a business card holder next to a picture of her and several girlfriends in parkas on a ski lift. The outermost business card of the stack was clearly visible, with her name prominently displayed.

  “Yeah, I didn’t see the business cards when I asked the question, so yeah, I could have cheated on that one . . . Megan. So let’s try again. Think anything you want, but again, project it to me as though it were speech.”

  “Okay, psycho, do I pretend your guess is right?” she thought, words Hall picked up as clearly as though she had spoken them. “Will humoring you keep me alive or get me killed?”

  “You won’t have to pretend,” said Hall calmly. “Because my guess will be right. I may be crazy,” he added as an aside. “I can’t entirely rule it out. But no matter what, I have no interest in hurting you—whether you humor me or not,” he finished, raising his eyebrows.

  Megan gasped. This time, an intrigued look spread over her face, and he guessed she was about to think at him again. “That was uncanny,” she thought. “But maybe you’ve just got some kind of psycho gift for reading body language. The question is, can you read my words when I project at you and you’re not prepared?”

  “Apparently, yes,” he replied smoothly. “And I’m not just reading body language. Like I said, I can read everyone else’s words and thoughts and . . . everything . . . all of the time, projected or not. To be honest, it’s like having a hornet buzzing around your ear all the time.”

  He paused. “I have no idea what makes you different.” He thought the words, Do you have an unusually weak mind? but decided not to voice them, since the question was a bit insulting.

  Megan’s jaw dropped open. “Did you just think, ‘Do you have an unusually weak mind?’”

  7

  This time it was Hall’s turn to startle.

  He could send words as well as receive? Or was it only just with her?

  “I didn’t know I could send until just now,” he thought at her. “Very, very cool,” he added. “Do you mind if I sit?”

  “Not at all,” she said with a giddy smile. “Un-fricking-believable,” she added. “That came through loud and clear.”

  She gestured to the one chair facing her as she sat behind her desk, surrounded by an expensive computer and two large monitors. The fear that had hung over her like a cloud since he had entered vanished, to be replaced by utter fascination.

  “I take it my ridiculous story is becoming a little less ridiculous?”

  “Yeah. Or your insanity is infectious,” she replied.

  Hall laughed. The way things had been going, he hadn’t been sure if he would ever laugh again. “Do you get some kind of echo when I speak out loud?” he asked, serious once again. “Like a millisecond after each word starts it’s repeated again?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Hall tilted his head in thought. This effect may have been slight, but it was also unmistakable. The fact that she wasn’t experiencing it meant that when he was speaking aloud, she couldn’t read his words. Only when he was concentrating on amplifying pure thought in her direction did her ability to receive his words kick in. Which wasn’t the case going the other direction. But since he was the epicenter of the effect, he wasn’t surprised it wasn’t symmetrical.

  The vast majority of people he could read at all times—in fact, could not stop reading. As simply and thoroughly as if their minds were his own. They didn’t know they were being read, and they couldn’t read him.

  As for this Megan, her thoughts were completely unreadable. But he could read words from her mind. As long as she was either speaking them out loud, or consciously broadcasting them to him. And he could transmit words to her as well, telepathically. But only when he amplified them somehow through pure thought, which didn’t happen forcefully enough for her to pick up when he was merely speaking.

  He wondered what other categories of people might exist. Could he transmit words telepathically to anyone? Or was she special in this regard as well? If he stayed alive long enough, perhaps he’d find out.

  “So you really did wake up in a dumpster a few hours ago, didn’t you?” said Megan.

  Hall smiled sheepishly. “Believe me, it’s not something I’d make up. It wasn’t my proudest moment.” He paused, and then out of the blue added, “Do you have any food in here?”

  She opened a drawer and removed a Kit Kat, handing it to him. He tore it open gratefully and devoured it in seconds.

  “Not much of a meal,” she commented.

  He smiled. “Well, when the last thing you’ve seen that resembled food was in a dumpster, this is heaven.”

  Megan returned his smile. Even though they had discovered they could communicate telepathically, they had both fallen back into lifelong patterns of speaking aloud. “So you don’t have any idea who you are? None?”

  “I think my name is Nick Hall. At least that’s what the guys trying to kill me think it is.” He paused. “I hesitate to bring this up, but there’s more.”

  “More?”

  “I seem to be able to access the Internet inside my brain, using my thoughts alone.” He explained to her how the visual and auditory aspect worked.

  Megan shrugged. “Why not? Just as plausible as reading minds, I guess. More plausible, actually.”

  “Hold on a few seconds,” said Hall. “I want to try something.”

  He used his internal Internet connection to call up G-mail and establish an account. The username and password information he needed to fill text boxes was typed in magically as soon as he thought the words. “What’s your e-mail address?” he asked.

  She told him.

  “Check it now,” he said.

  “Cassidy,” she said, addressing the Personal Digital Assistant, or PDA, function of her computer using the name she had given it. “Any new messages?”

  “One new message from Nick Hall,” replied the soothing feminine voice.

  “Read it.”

  “Nice to meet you, Megan,” said the PDA. “Sorry for dragging you into this.”

  “Awesome,” said Hall excitedly. “Do me a favor and reply.”

  This time she ignored her PDA and typed in the message herself. Seconds later Hall scanned the inbox to his new account and her reply was there.

  Got any other tricks? she had written

  Hall read this back to her to confirm he had received it, and then, just to satisfy his curiosity, he went on her Facebook page. He found it instantly. He focused his thoughts on her name and Bakersfield, and quickly found her from among the twelve results Facebook returned.

  Megan Emerson was twenty-seven and had been born in Keokuk, Iowa. She had graduated from UCLA, and now worked as a graphic designer. Hall may have been fighting for his life, and his psi ability was a nuisance as well as a blessing, but instant access to trillions of pages of information was intoxicating. He decided not to tell Megan he was scanning her public-access information on Facebook. He wouldn’t blame her for finding that a bit creepy.

  “How’s your arm?” she asked, nodding toward his blood-soaked shirt. “We should probably get that looked at.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “We?”

  “Yes. We,” she repeated. “Maybe it’s the Florence Nightingale syndrome. Or maybe it’s just the joy of being alive when I was sure you were going to kill me. Or maybe meeting someone with ESP is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. But I want to help. You need to figure out who you are. Two minds are better than one. Even if one of them is, um, apparently so weak you can’t even read it.”

  Hall winced. “It was a stupid hypothesis. You’re obviously very bright. I was just trying to figure out why you’re different. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

&n
bsp; “I can’t tell you how appealing your offer is to me. How disorienting and terrible it is not to know who you are. It’s a state of aloneness that’s unimaginable. I don’t have any friends in the world, at least none that I’m aware of, and I don’t even have a sense of self to anchor me.” He sighed. “But as much as I would love your help, I have to refuse. Trust me when I say that my odds of living out the day aren’t all that great. I won’t put you in that kind of danger.”

  Megan considered, and he could tell she was struggling with how much she wanted to persist. The most exciting and intriguing thing that ever happened to her was also the deadliest. In the end, it was obvious he was right, no matter how eager she was to help and become a part of the inexplicable phenomenon that was Nick Hall. “Okay,” she said with a nod. “You’re right.” She paused. “You may not know who you are, but at least you’re a decent man.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Well, taking me up on my offer would have been good for you. But you refused to put me in jeopardy.”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t prove I’m a decent guy. Just that I’m not a raving psychopath. Believe me, no one being hunted like this would be willing to put an innocent bystander in the line of fire, just because she happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Megan laughed. “Yeah, who knew that the wrong place at the wrong time would be my own office during regular work hours.”

  Hall liked her already, and her help really could prove invaluable in understanding what was going on. Two heads really were better than one. And even if not, the boost to his psychological well-being would be enormous. She could be the eye of the hurricane raging around him. She was already closer to him than anyone in the world—anyone he could remember, at least. And she shared his secret. Validated his sanity.

  Leaving her now to face his predicament utterly alone seemed as daunting as willing his fingers to let go of a rope hanging hundreds of feet above jagged rocks. But he had to do it. The longer he stayed here, the more he endangered her.