At First Touch

by Dunman, Mattie

  We laughed together a moment and I ignored another twinge of anxiety at the growing intimacy between us. He pulled the door open and led me to an empty booth, waving greetings at a few people. I noticed a number of jealous looks sent my way from the girls at the next table over. I was willing to bet that Carey’s ridiculous good looks, genial manner, and reputation as a local hero made him quite a catch.

  “Are you hungry?” Carey asked and I turned my attention to the laminated menu he was holding out. It sported the usual greasy spoon options and a long list of milkshake flavors.

  “No, not really. Are the milkshakes any good?”

  “Yeah, the best. The ice cream is made locally, and they blend them by hand.” I raised my eyebrows in interest and examined the choices. By the time the waiter attended to us I had selected a vanilla mango shake. Carey ordered chocolate-banana.

  “So do you usually take new girls out for milkshakes on their first day?”

  Carey gave me a teasing smile. “Only the ones that get knocked out. How are you feeling, by the way? It looks like the swelling has gone down.”

  I touched my hand to my temple, surprised to notice that I had forgotten about the blow to my head. It barely hurt, though the skin was still tender.

  “Actually, it feels ok. I think I was just dazed more than anything.”

  A sudden thought struck me and I fished around in my bag for my cell phone. “I gotta call my dad, tell him where I am. I’ll be right back.” Carey nodded and I slid out of the booth and went outside, ignoring the looks thrown my way. Small towns.

  It was crowded and loud outside the diner so I went around the side of the building, out of sight. I speed-dialed Dad’s cell and got his voicemail; he was still at work, so I left him a message saying I was out getting a drink with someone from school and would be home in an hour, not to worry. I hung up and stared at the phone. I’d never left him a message like that before; I wondered what he would make of it.

  I was turning to head back in when I heard a scrape and a shuffle behind me. I swung around just in time to see the hand that covered my mouth and muffled my screams.

  Chapter 4

  I was momentarily stunned by the download, but recovered quickly. All the different martial arts and self-defense techniques I had stolen from the minds of experts came to my aid as I stomped on the man’s foot, elbowed him in the stomach and then twisted around to give him a blow to the Adam’s apple with the side of my hand. Clutching his throat, he went down like a bag of sand and I roundhouse kicked the side of his head, knocking him unconscious.

  I stood over him panting with the effort of my defense and looked around to see if anyone had noticed the attack. Thankfully we were in the shadows at the back of the building and there was no one around.

  “Hell for breakfast,” I mumbled, quoting my mother’s favorite curse. The familiar words eased my panic a little and I was able to think clearly. The man who had attacked me was named Eddie Fitz and he was a mercenary hired to find and capture me.

  My hands started to shake uncontrollably. They knew. They knew where I was, or they at least suspected.

  With a rising sense of panic, I shifted through the contents of Fitz’s brain, ignoring the irrelevant memories of his childhood, his career in the marines, all the other effluvia that makes up a person’s life. What concerned me was who hired him.

  Dad and I had started running almost three years ago. There were a variety of reasons to leave, but the most pertinent was the persistence of Dr. Freich and his colleague, a psychiatrist name Dr. Samuelson. Samuelson had shown up on our doorstep in New York one evening, claiming that he wanted to meet Dr. Freich’s little miracle. He asked a lot of questions, some about the trauma I’d endured, how I felt about losing my mother, but mostly he focused on my “intuition” as he called it. He administered several tests and seemed both surprised and pleased by the results. Finally he told us the real reason for his visit. He belonged to an organization called the Coalition, whose sole purpose was scientific advancement for the betterment of the human race. He wanted me to go with him, to undergo more tests, determine what I was really capable of.

  Skeptical, my father told him we weren’t interested in joining his organization or going through any more tests. Samuelson took the news with good humor, but promised to return the next day to try to convince us to change our minds. It wasn’t until he was gone that I realized he had been very careful not to touch me.

  We started running that night.

  Over the years I had run into agents of the Coalition. That was one of the reasons that we moved every few months; staying in one place too long meant that they would somehow track me down.

  About a year ago they did. I was leaving school one day when a van pulled up and a masked man grabbed me and hauled me in. I was knocked out almost immediately and woke up strapped to a metal table with electrodes attached to my skin and an IV in my hand. There followed the worst week of my life. I tried never to think about it, and I would do anything to prevent being taken by the Coalition again.

  My stomach sank as I looked down at Fitz, the mercenary who very nearly got me this time. I felt sick. We’d only been here for a week. How had he found me so fast?

  Sifting through his most recent thoughts provided me with the answer. He hadn’t tracked me to Pound, he was just passing through on his way to Ohio, where Dad and I had just moved from. Fitz was doing some business on the side for a local chapter of a biker gang, supervising a drug run and then ‘taking care’ of the supplier. Fitz had been in the diner getting lunch when he spotted me, compared me to the picture in his file, and snuck outside to grab me. It was sheer chance that he saw me at all.

  Just my luck.

  With a desperate sense of hope, I examined his thoughts more closely and felt the knots in my stomach unwind. He hadn’t called anyone about seeing me, assuming he would have no trouble nabbing a sixteen year old girl. Thankfully, my reflexes and extensive knowledge of self-defense had kicked in.

  I could have wept with the relief that swept over me. The Coalition didn’t know I was in Pound. I was safe here, for the time being, if I could get rid of Fitz. Now, however, I had to decide what to do with him. I couldn’t let him go, since he would just keep looking for me or lead the Coalition straight to me, but if he simply disappeared someone else would probably be sent to investigate. Besides, it’s not like I could kill him; though from what I had learned about him, he would certainly be no loss to the world.

  I stood there frantically trying to work out a plan of action when I heard a gasp behind me and swung around in a defensive stance, fists at the ready.

  “What the hell?”

  I dropped my hands and relaxed. Carey was standing a few feet away, surprise etched on his face. I had completely forgotten about him. He rushed toward me and clutched my shoulders, searching me for signs of damage. “What happened? Are you alright?” His voice sounded as shaky as I felt.

  “Yes, I’m fine. This guy just attacked me…I think he was trying to mug me or something,” I lied. This was not good.

  Carey released me and went over to stare at the slumped figure on the ground. After a tense moment he turned back to me with an expression of admiration.

  “Wow. Remind me never to sneak up on you in a dark alley.”

  I smiled then stopped abruptly. His presence made everything so much more complicated. He would want to call the police, which I couldn’t have, and I could hardly explain to him that the man was a mercenary with twenty kills under his belt and a cocaine habit that would make George Jung sneeze.

  Right on cue, Carey said, “I guess we’d better call the police. Are you sure you’re ok?”

  I swore under my breath. “Yeah, I’m ok. What are you doing back here anyway?” My voice may have been a little short, but I was thinking as quickly as I’d ever done.

  “Um. You didn’t come back in and I couldn’t see you, so I just came out to see if you were ok.”

  He didn’t meet my ey
es so I opened the link between our minds and found that with his keen hearing, he had heard the sound of a struggle and come to investigate. No wonder he didn’t tell me; hearing the sound of a scuffle through brick walls and the busy sounds of a crowded restaurant wasn’t exactly normal. Closing the connection again, I nodded acceptance. Let him keep his secret. I could certainly understand.

  He had already pulled out his cell phone and was starting to dial when I grabbed his wrist and told him to stop. He looked up at me, puzzled, and I prepared to spin the truth a bit.

  “Can you wait? Listen, this is going to sound weird, but I really don’t want to get involved. It would be…very bad for me to come to the attention of the police just now.” His eyebrows shot up and he gave me a penetrating look. “It’s not what you think. I’m not a criminal or anything, but it’s very important for me to be inconspicuous. Knocking some guy out in an alley is going to put me on someone’s radar. Please,” I pleaded, putting as much feeling into my voice as possible, “my life could be in danger.”

  He stared at me for a moment and I allowed him the privacy of his own thoughts. He glanced over at the prostrate figure on the ground and back at me. Finally, he nodded slowly and put the phone away.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He was winning so many brownie points.

  I wasn’t really sure what to do, but as I stared at Fitz’s sprawled figure, a wild idea presented itself in my mind, one I had toyed with before, but never really put into practice. Since the accident I had been able to download other people’s minds and access their thoughts and memories whenever I wanted. But I have often wondered, what if I could plant new ones, or erase them?

  “Well, I’m going to check on this guy, make sure I didn’t hurt him too badly. Can you keep a lookout?” He nodded and faced the street to watch out for intruders. I approached Fitz with some trepidation; I was about to try something I’d only imagined in theory.

  He was drooped over, his left side leaning against the brick wall, mouth lolling open pathetically. Uncertainly, I closed my eyes and focused on Fitz, opening the connection between us. In a flash, I was inside his head, immersed in the images that floated through his subconscious. With all my focus I pushed further into his mind, thinking as hard as I could about myself, hoping that would bring his memories of me to the surface. For a moment there was nothing different, just the familiar sensation of flowing electricity between our brains and then I saw it, like a file on a hard drive ready for exploration.

  Closing my eyes in concentration, I searched for any information on me, and there it was. As though I had remote access to Fitz’s brain, I was able to sort through the miscellaneous thoughts and isolate his memories about me, almost like a tech support guy would open a file from a distance on a frozen computer. After another moment, satisfied that I had found everything, I apprehensively thought “delete” and it was gone, everything he knew about me had disappeared from his mind. I closed the connection and opened my eyes, putting a hand up to my pounding head. Less than a minute had passed, and I had invaded this man’s mind and altered his memory.

  I felt an overwhelming urge to cry.

  Instead, I turned around and looked at Carey’s straight back, the way his jeans hugged him, how his zip up sweater strained against his broad shoulders. I took a deep breath and told myself that what I had just done was for the best and wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  “I think he’s ok, just out of it.” Carey turned back around and gave me an unreadable look. I sighed, realizing that just because I knew everything about Carey didn’t mean he knew anything about me, nor had any reason to trust me. “Look, I know this is weird, and I promise I will explain all this to you later, but I really, really can’t be connected with this.”

  He considered me a moment and then moved with startling swiftness to stand directly in front of me. He looked at me steadily and I felt certain he could taste my fear.

  “Fine, but I will want an explanation. Soon.” His voice was stern and his eyes were unfriendly for the first time. I felt something inside me crumple.

  So much for making a friend.

  “Of course.”

  “Ok, then I’ll call the police and tell them I saw this man attacking a girl who ran off before I could see who it was. Does that work for you?” He raised his eyebrows inquiringly, but I could tell the prospect of lying was really bothering him. Well, there was nothing for it.

  “Yes. Thank you. You just don’t know what you’re doing for me. Thank you.” My voice was filled with genuine gratitude and I looked at him like he was my hero. At that moment he was.

  “Fine. I’m sorry, I won’t be able to take you home now. I’ll have to go down to the station to make a statement.”

  He didn’t look happy about it, and I couldn’t really blame him. But if he was going to go with this story, I needed to make sure that Fitz remembered attacking someone or it wouldn’t hold water. I sighed resignedly and turned back to the prostrate form on the ground, wearily reopening the connection between our minds. I was beginning to feel like I’d be stuck in Eddie Fitz’s twisted brain forever. I followed my previous procedure, pushing past his surface thoughts and seeking the place where information is stored.

  “You’re a mugger,” I thought at him, waiting to see the information form in his memory.

  Nothing happened.

  I tried several different variations, but it seemed I couldn’t create memories or thoughts out of nothing. I paused, frustrated, for a moment, and then certain images floated to the surface, images I had downloaded from a disgusting man I brushed up against on the subway three years ago, before I learned to cover all my bare skin. That man had been a rapist; he had assaulted four women by the time I had downloaded him, and I had all the hideous details stored in my mind forever. They had been buried deep, since that was not the kind of information I ever wanted to think about, but with my mind on the subject of violent men, the recollections swam to the forefront. Without even realizing what I was doing, I saw the memories flow through the connection between my mind and Fitz’s like water running through a pipe, and I nearly cried out in surprise as the rapist’s memories were implanted in his mind.

  It was as if I had copied and pasted someone else’s memories into Fitz’s brain. I hesitated, wondering if I should just delete the new memories, but self-preservation came to the fore and I let them stay. This man had killed twenty people, he deserved whatever he got. At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself.

  Before I could change my mind, I broke the connection, staggering as my head swam. Feeling slightly nauseous, I glanced back at Carey, who was staring at me like I had just painted myself bright pink and started clucking, and gave him a weak smile.

  “You better get going. If you give me your number, I’ll call you later and tell you what happened.” I repressed the thrill of excitement I felt when he asked for my number, knowing it wasn’t because he wanted a second date. I gave it to him and he quickly programmed it into his phone.

  “Thank you, thank you so much,” I said and then ran off behind the building. Behind me I could hear him talking to the police on his phone. I rounded the corner and pulled out my own cell phone and dialed my father, hoping he would answer this time. I had reached the other side of the building, down by the hardware store when I heard the sirens. Dad still wasn’t picking up and I was beginning to wonder if I would have to wait around until he got off of work when I saw Preston getting into his truck. I swallowed my misgivings and ran forward to catch up to him.

  “Preston, hey!” He paused, half-in, half-out of the truck and turned until he saw me. His scowl turned to a grin as I stopped beside him.

  “Hey, Liz. What are you still doing here?” He was looking past me, obviously searching for his rival. Not seeing him nearby, confidence filled his face with an unattractive smugness. “Carey ditch you?”

  I managed not to tell him he was a rapist weasel and gave him my best fake smile. “No,
apparently some guy was trying to mug someone in the alley and Carey caught him. He has to go with the cops, so I’ve been trying to get hold of my Dad to come pick me up.”

  Preston’s expression darkened for a moment and I could guess his thoughts at hearing Carey was a hero yet again. Finally he seemed to pick up on what I was saying.

  “Do you need a ride?”

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind. Dad must still be at work.”

  He smiled broadly and chuckled. “Hop on in. I was just on my way home myself.”

  He pulled himself the rest of the way into the truck and I climbed clumsily up into the passenger seat; apparently he had monster truck wheels, because I felt like I was about ten feet off the ground. He started the engine and some kind of heavy metal blared out of the speakers. Without making a move to turn down the tuneless shrieking of the lead singer, he started telling me about the addition to his house he and his dad were building and how he had just ordered more wood at the store. I feigned interest and told him where I lived. He exclaimed happily and said that his grandmother was only a mile from my house.

  We kept the conversation light as we motored out of town onto a twisty road shaded by a phalanx of trees. The world seemed compressed into this country road, encased by brightly colored foliage and dappled sunshine. For a moment I forgot my troubles; the unpleasant fact that I had just tampered with someone’s mind without knowing what the long-term effects might be. With an effort, I let go of the worry that I had come so close to being caught by an agent of the Coalition. I looked out the window and took in the scenery as it flew by, letting my mind go blank and give me a brief moment of peace.

  Belatedly, I realized that Preston was asking me a question; I tuned in and found he was asking me which house was mine. I pointed at a small brick ranch house on the corner of the street and he pulled forward and turned into the driveway. We had gotten the house relatively cheaply; it had been foreclosed on and was being rented by the bank for a fraction of its worth. It had two bedrooms, a living room and a family room, as well as a sizable kitchen. The outside was plain except for the lilac bushes planted alongside the walls, and the yard was small, pushed up close to the neighboring houses in the development.