by Lauren Sabel
“What are you looking at?” I ask instead.
I float toward him, noticing how my long silver cord, which is much thicker than his, spirals down to earth. Beside mine, Indigo’s cord looks like a fragile thread the wind could tear apart at any moment, and I know that the longer these people are in his mind, the more cut off from his body he is going to be. I know I have to find them and kick them out of our heads.
“Hold on,” I say as I float sideways toward him. “I’m not going to let you die up here.”
Indigo finally looks over at me, and something passes between us. I’m not sure what it is, but when he gazes back at his cord swaying down to Earth, I understand that he’s trying to communicate something without words. “Ignore what people say,” I remember him telling me during my first training session. “Listen to their bodies speak.”
I follow Indigo’s gaze down through the sky, past the stars, until I reach the EarthScape satellite floating above the atmosphere. I stare at the satellite as it turns slowly in circles, and then I see the refracting telescope attached to it. This is where all the lasers come together to make a super laser: a laser that can deflect an asteroid.
I look up at Indigo, but he’s staring past me, toward Earth. I glance back at the satellite and then I follow Indigo’s gaze through the ozone layer and the drifting white clouds, and into Shady Hills Treatment Center.
In the circular TV room, thousands of miles below me, my mom is sitting on the floor beside Michael. He’s tapping his hands against his shoes and muttering.
“What is my mom doing there?” I say aloud.
“Open your mind,” I hear Indigo say, as if he’s speaking right into my ear.
I imagine my mind opening like a set of French doors. I feel the breeze come through and lift the dust from all the crevices in my brain. The cool touch of the wind relaxes my mind, and then the drifting light illuminates what I was unwilling to see.
My father.
If there were a core for an astral body to be shaken to, I would be trembling like a tree limb in a harsh wind right now. Instead, since my body is cut off from me, my mind reacts by racing through everything I know about Michael: how he was a powerful psychic whose his mind was broken years ago, and how he has been in Shady Hills ever since, except when Indigo takes him out for crucial viewing sessions. Then I remember how my mom told me that my father went missing fifteen years ago, and it seemed like all of the public information about him had been erased.
Although I don’t have a headache anymore, my head pounds with uncertainty, and though there are no voices in my mind, I hear questions racing back and forth: If it’s true, then why didn’t Indigo tell me? And did my mom always know where he was, and if so, why did she keep him from me?
Below me, in the TV room in Shady Hills, Michael is rocking faster, his hands skipping off the soles of his sneakers. “Need paper,” he says to Mom.
“What?” Mom asks.
“PAPER!” he yells.
Two women in wheelchairs glare at him for interrupting their television show, and though he doesn’t seem to notice, Mom does. She digs through her purse and pulls out a pen and her grade book. “Okay, I have some here,” she says, handing them over.
On the grade book cover, Michael starts sketching something. Below his fingers, machine parts take shape: it looks like some sort of pump, or like the black light in Charlie’s bedroom. Then he draws arrows from one part to the next, and when he looks up, it feels as if he can see me.
“What are you drawing?” Mom asks gently.
Michael doesn’t respond, but starts drawing faster, with increased intensity. I see a circle emerge from a rectangle, and then he labels the parts with the numbers one through six. I stare at the drawings, willing myself to understand what they are. Eventually they start to blend into a series of steps, like watching the flip-through action in a flipbook.
I realize that when seen individually, it looks like just a tube and a couple of circles, but when looked at step by step, it is an instruction manual for how to break the telescope that’s attached to the satellite. “The objective in a refracting telescope is to bend light, which causes parallel light rays to converge at a focal point,” I remember the reporter saying when I was watching my neighbor’s television from the roof. The asteroid is the focal point.
Suddenly, all the pieces fall into place. If I bend the telescope’s parts even slightly, the lasers won’t come together to make a super laser; they’ll shoot harmlessly into space, instead of hitting the focal point, the asteroid.
I look at the steps again and try to memorize them, knowing that I’ve got to get inside the telescope first. But even if my astral body can get inside the telescope, how will I follow the steps without a physical body? Before I even ask myself the question, I already know the answer: metal bending.
My heart sinks. It’s impossible to bend metal during an astral projection. To alter physical substances, I have to access my body, but I can’t get back into my body because of the people in my mind. If I could only disrupt the people breaking into my head long enough to get back into my body, I could attempt metal bending again. But how would I do that? I don’t even know where they are.
“Callie!” a voice calls, and somebody is shaking my shoulders back and forth. “Wake up!”
The re-entry to my body is sudden and hard, like diving into a pool covered with ice.
When I open my eyes, Monty’s face is inches from mine. His spiky silver collar brushes my cheek when I try to move my head. “What do you know?”
“Besides that your necklace looks like something out of a freak show?” I ask. “Or that this whole punk thing you have going on isn’t hiding the scared nerd underneath?”
“Shut up!” Monty yells, and then he takes a deep breath and lowers his voice. “Just tell me what you know.”
I press on my temples, trying to get rid of the headache and the voices, which have come back with more intensity than before. “I won’t tell you anything until you get these people out of my mind,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Not going to happen.”
“Then you’ll never find out what I know.”
“Oh, I will,” Monty says. He gazes at me for a second, and his angry glare softens. “Do you think I want to do this to you? Like my father did to your dad?” He puts his fists together and turns them in opposite directions, like he is snapping a twig. A despondent look crosses his face, and he shakes his head. “I don’t.”
My father. I know who my father is. I force the thought out of my head, willing myself not to react. Just focus on getting out of here.
“But I don’t have a choice anymore,” Monty continues. Sweat breaks out on his forehead, and as he wipes it away with the back of his fist, I see his hands are trembling. “Not after this.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through a list of news headlines, and then holds it out to me like a kid doing show-and-tell for his class. The headline says: Real Cooper Will Discovered: Fortune to be Donated to Charity.
“See, I will get nothing,” Monty insists. “He’s finally done it.”
“Done what?”
“Fully humiliated me.” There are tears in his eyes. “Callie, I need this.” He sits on the floor beside me and pulls his knees up to his chest like a scared kid. “I’m sorry you’re caught up in all this. If I could find another way to do it, I would.”
His lower lip trembles and pouts out, and his jaw comes up: all classic signs of sadness, the hardest micro expression to fake. I almost feel sorry for him. “It takes money to make money,” he adds. “Once it’s all gone, I won’t have a chance to make it back. I’ll be as useless as Dad always said.” He shakes his head. “It’s all Dad’s fault, you see? If he wasn’t taking it away, I wouldn’t have to do this.” Monty climbs to his feet and peers down at me. “I have one more chance to prove to the world that I’m worth something. And when I make billions in thulium from the asteroid, I’ll prove to everyone I’m worthy. Better than my father.�
�� Monty’s eyes narrow to an angry squint. “I’m going to make the bastard sorry he ever put me down.”
“But he’s dead,” I remind him. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“He already has. And as long as his name is on buildings, he used to say, he’ll be immortal,” Monty says. “And now I will be.”
My legs feel too weak to get up, and my head is pounding with the echo of voices jabbering inside of it, but I make myself sit up anyway. “You believe in what money can do, not buy. Isn’t that what you said?” I ask. “At the time, I thought that was an inspiring thing to say.”
Monty holds my eyes for a second, then tears his gaze away. “You inspired me, not the other way around.”
This is seriously the last thing I was expecting to hear. “What?”
“You became what you are despite being the daughter of a famous scientist.”
“She’s actually not that famous,” I counter.
“You told me once that I’m not that bad,” Monty continues as if he didn’t hear me. He paces across the room, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “And when I thought about it, I realized you were right. I’m not bad at all. I can do this.”
“Glad I could help?”
Monty pauses in front of the soda machine, his frown reflecting in the machine’s glass. He shifts his wig an inch across his skull and then paces back to me. “Callie, don’t you get it? This metal will change the world, and it will be me, not my dad, to do it.”
“I thought you were all into protecting Mother Earth?”
“I am. I am not digging this out of Mother Earth,” he says. “Do you know what this metal can do? Its medical technology can save lives. It can improve how we communicate. It can change the world!” he says. “I’m a frickin’ hero for getting it off an asteroid.”
I sigh. “Some hero.”
“Shut up.”
This is how I imagine talking to a brother would be. A demented, definitely insane brother. “You’re not a murderer,” I say. “I know you’re not.”
He rolls his eyes at me. “The asteroid is gonna land in the ocean, duh. You told me that.” He walks over to Indigo, leans over, and lifts up one eyelid with his index finger.
“Leave him alone.”
Monty drops Indigo’s eyelid back into place and then glances up at me. “What am I going to do, crush some sharks?”
“For someone who says he’s very smart, you’re very dense sometimes,” I say. “It’s going to cause a tidal wave. It’s going to kill people.”
His eyebrows raise and curve into two small question marks as alarm flees through his eyes.
“People are going to die,” I repeat.
His forehead creases into horizontal worry lines, and then he shoves both hands over his ears. “I’m not listening. I’m not listening.”
“Monty, please listen to me.” I reach toward him, but he shrinks away.
“Nobody touches me,” he shrieks. “Not without my permission.”
“May I?”
He nods. I place my hand on his left wrist and slowly remove his hand from his ear, and then I take hold of his right wrist. He closes his eyes, as if no one has touched him in years. “Please stop the lasers,” I say.
Monty’s eyes pop open, and his cheeks flush an angry crimson color. He jerks his hand away. “You’re just like everyone else,” he says. “You just want to use me for what I can give you. ‘Stop the lasers, Monty. Don’t hit the asteroid, Monty,’ he mimics in a high voice that’s supposed to be mine. ‘Give me your last chance, Monty. Be better and stronger, Monty.’ His voice deepens into his father’s voice. ‘Don’t be weak, Junior!’” He slams his fist against the table, and Indigo’s soda falls off and spills at our feet. “But you know what? I have nothing left to give!” Monty laughs weakly. It’s a desperate tinkling sound, as if all of the safety pins have popped off his jeans at once and he’s splitting apart at the seams.
I put my hand gently on his arm, and he doesn’t pull away this time. “Monty. Why are you doing this to us?” He shakes his head. “To me?”
“I don’t want to,” Monty whines. “I hated it when my dad did this to yours. I thought it was awful seeing your dad crying and drooling, like him.” Monty gestures to Indigo. “But what your dad knew made my dad rich. Which if my dad let him go and he told everyone else?”
“But I wouldn’t—”
“Shhh.” He places his finger against my lips. “I now I see it’s necessary if I want to make a difference in this world. You have to crack a few eggs to make a dozen.”
“I don’t think that’s actually an expression.”
“It’s genius, actually,” he continues. “Only smart thing that son of a bitch ever taught me. Murder leaves too many questions unanswered. But nobody gets blamed when someone goes crazy.”
Stand up, I command my body. When my muscles and bones obey my orders and lift me to a standing position above the table, I’m relieved I at least have that much of my mind left. “Even if the pressure drives me out of my mind,” I say, rocking back and forth unsteadily. “I’ll still tell people what I know.”
“Nobody believes the crazies,” Monty says.
“So you’re not just a nerd,” I say, pressing my fingernail into my thumb as hard as I can to distract me from the pain in my head. “You’re an evil nerd.”
“Evil nerds will take over the world,” Monty says. He rotates the collar around his neck several times, as if he’s winding himself up for battle. “Now, stop distracting me and tell me what you know, and why I should believe you.”
I take an unsteady step toward him, but my head pounds so hard I have to stop and lean on the table. “I found the location of the asteroid in the ocean, didn’t I?”
Monty studies me for several seconds, and I wonder if he knows how to read micro-expressions. If so, I’m screwed: my face spells out the fact that I know absolutely nothing he needs to know. He taps his bottom lip with his pinkie finger. “If I were psychic, what would I know that I needed to know?”
He briefly looks confused by his own question, but I don’t say anything. I just turn my face away from Monty and examine the doorway, trying to figuring out exactly how I’ll slip past him before he shuts the door—and whether I can get Indigo out at the same time, or if I’ll need to come back for him.
“I don’t think you know anything,” Monty finally says. “I think you’re lying.”
“But I do,” I reply quickly. If I can just find out what information he still needs to know, and leak a bit of it, he’ll need to keep my mind intact to get the rest of the information. But to find out that information, I have to read his mind.
I take a deep breath and slow my heartbeat, and then I focus on Monty’s breathing, trying to find a gap to get into his mind. It’s difficult to ignore the distracting voices yelling full-force in my head, but I push them aside for a second as I find a gap and force my way in—only to run straight into an invisible barrier. I glance up at him, surprised to see him smirking at me.
“Do you think I’m stupid enough not to have psychic protection?” Monty brags. “I’ve got your buddy Jasper watching over me. No one can get into this baby.” He taps his temple. “Think of it as Jasper’s higher-paying job,” he adds. “With a half-dozen other mind-breakers backing him up.”
So there’s seven of them. I squeeze the soft pad of skin between my thumb and index finger until pain jolts through my body, narrowing my focus. Where could seven enemy psychics be? Attempting to ignore the chatter that now burns like fire through my brain, I try to recall their comments in my mind from back when I could pick out their individual words, but nothing comes to me.
“Thinking’s getting painful for you,” Monty says. “That’s the stress of your brain breaking down.” His lips curve down on the edges, but he abruptly forces his mouth into a cheerless grin. “But the good news is,” he says brightly, “it means the fight’s almost over.”
“But what if I have crucial intel that you never find
out?”
“And I never retrieve the thulium from the ocean floor, you mean?” He shakes his head. “Won’t happen. But if it did, then your charming mother will go to prison for stealing the NASA codes,” he says, “and the information I gave her about your missing father in exchange? It will be for nothing.”
So Monty did coerce Mom into giving him that code. “She wouldn’t become a traitor to the US for him,” I retort.
“No, she wouldn’t,” Monty says. “Did I forget to mention that your life was part of the bargain too?”
No wonder Mom did it. She works too much, and she doesn’t hug, and she loses everything not physically attached to her, but she’ll do anything to protect me. Rage fuels every muscle in my body, and I let go of the table and stand firmly before him. “Part of the bargain?” I press forward until my face is inches from his, and he has to back up a step to keep standing. “Will you be able to live with yourself if your actions destroy an entire country?”
“Then EarthScape will be a hero for coming to the rescue,” Monty responds. “I will be a hero.”
My heart sinks to my feet. He’s right: the public will honor him for coming to the rescue of the disaster he caused.
“Now I’m done wasting time. Tell me what you know.”
“I know that you’re a pathetic little boy who will never live up to his father.”
Monty raises his fist to hit me, anger flashing through his eyes, but then he slowly lowers his hand. “You don’t know anything,” he says, and forces his clenched fist into his pocket. “And nobody will make me into my father.”
I glance at him hopefully. Monty knows that what he’s doing to me is exactly what his father did to mine. Maybe he’ll stop the chain right now, because he knows that somewhere inside his battered exterior is a kind and generous person. “Then don’t be him,” I say.
“I won’t be,” he responds. “I will be better than him: Richer. More successful. More admired. My name will grace every building. I will be like a god.” Monty glances at the time on his phone. The glowing numbers say 8:50 p.m. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to check on my mind-breakers, make sure they’re doing their jobs.” He smiles. “And if they are, you might not know who I am the next time we meet. But don’t worry; I’ll remember you.”
