Dr. Carrillo hobbled over to the table, placed a tiny hand on my arm. Warm and gentle. “It will be okay, Katerina. It will be okay.”
12
Julia
I couldn’t decide which was worse: disappointment and betrayal or being held prisoner by my own aunt.
There wasn’t enough air in the tiny room, and my blouse stuck to my skin in patches. Sweat trickled down my cheek. I wondered if we’d ever be found down here.
“Can I go to the bathroom at least?” I asked, standing from the chair.
After a momentary grumble, the man outside my door agreed to take me to the bathroom. The door swung open to the hallway, and a bit of fresh air poured on me like a sputtering fan. We shuffled down the hallway, further than I expected, and eventually the operation felt less like a cellar and more like an upscale corporate office. “There,” he said with a grunt, pointing to a door to my left. The bathroom.
I strained my neck to see the rest of the place. It was a far nicer laboratory than the Dungeon, with silver walls and painted cement floors. Lights on the wall were caged in metal wire, but they were better than the bare lightbulbs that swung in cells like mine. That is, before I broke mine.
My body tensed when I saw Minnie shuffle across the hallway, head down, wearing some sort of robe and fuzzy slippers, of all things. “Minnie!” I called.
The man next to me shoved me in my ribs, and just as Minnie looked up, he tossed me into the tiny bathroom. I stood in the dim room, which had only enough room for a toilet. Judging by the smell, this didn’t even have plumbing. It must’ve been some sort of horrid outhouse.
Why, I thought, did all these psychic facilities have to be basements or underground labs? What about light, airy towers and lovely grounds with sculptures and water features? That kind of an atmosphere would get anyone’s magic happening.
It was hot in the bathroom, and while it was nice to escape the man’s heavy gaze, I wanted out of there as soon as possible.
As we walked back, I strained to see Minnie again. I got a glimpse of her dark hair and got the impression that she wasn’t being tested like we were at SRI. She was being used. Testing was complete.
A man with dark hair, wearing a crisp white dress shirt, paced in front of her, smacking his hands together. She responded to his questions, and he’d clap his hands to punctuate his terse responses, spoken in broken English. She jumped with each clap.
It didn’t make me afraid. It made me mad. We were a bunch of psychics. We weren’t trained monkeys. Together we could tear this place apart. But how was I going to even communicate with everyone we came to save? I thought of Aunt Sabrina. The one person who apparently didn’t want to be saved. The thought felt like bricks in my chest.
My goon shoved me again. We had to stage an uprising, a riot, like in prison. But I had no idea where everyone was located, how this operation functioned.
“Can you show me around?” I asked, knowing the answer before it left his lips.
“No.”
“Where is everyone? Can you tell me?”
“No.”
I didn’t think so. That meant I’d have to do a little searching on my own.
Hours later, my stomach grumbled. I imagined I was in the cage again at SRI. The feel of the rough metal edges. The flaking yellow paint and the torn plastic covering on the metal bench. I imagined I was there, remembered the way the door yawned in a high-pitched squeal when it opened.
Then I visualized the silver walls of our new prison and concrete painted floors I saw down by the bathroom. I willed myself to be there, to see the man with the white crisp shirt who clapped at Minnie, to see Aunt Sabrina in her little office. I imagined those lights on the walls, the fine detail of the way the wires crisscrossed around them, caging the bulbs inside.
Next arrived that familiar feeling of being adrift, floating and running along the currents of the unseen world. I hovered in complete darkness, a serene feeling wrapping around me. My heart pounded loudly in my ears, my own breath sounding as if it were being played through speakers in the room. Then a rush of white came, and I saw the silver hallway. I stood—no, floated—in the space with concrete walls and stacks of tall metal machines with knobs and cords. Aunt Sabrina spoke in murmured tones to Dr. Strong inside a small room the size of my closet at home. A wooden desk. A bookshelf with dusty books with foreign titles. She leaned against a metal file cabinet, gesturing with her hands. I stayed behind her to ensure she wouldn’t see me.
A loud thud startled me. The beehive-hair woman Annie had slammed a door, and behind her, two men wearing fedora hats and suits carried a limp Henry. His legs dragged behind him, and his head lolled on his neck. Good. That was my one awful reaction to seeing that boy a victim. He drank his own poison.
Feeling weak, I sunk back into my own body. The stifling heat from the cell made me feel as if I were swelling into a balloon. Taking a deep breath, I decided to explore elsewhere.
I imagined Minnie, her sugar-cookie face, plump cheeks, and the dimple beneath her lips. I imagined her molasses drawl, and the way she could tell us things just by touching our handwriting.
The same weightlessness swept through me and after a period of white, I saw her. Minnie. She sat slumped in a chair. A red gash lit up her forehead, and a bruise wrapped around her forearm.
I went to her, touched her arm, or at least tried.
I didn’t know what she felt. A brush of air, as if I were a ghost or a breeze from an open window, perhaps? Or maybe I tickled her skin like a feather. She looked right through me.
“Minnie! It’s Julia. Can you see me?”
She shook her head.
“But you can hear me!”
She nodded, gazing at nothing, as if blind to everything in the room, not just me. Thrilled, the euphoria began to suck me back into my own body. I felt as if I had to practically claw the walls of her room to stay put.
“We’ll figure a way out of here together.”
Over the next few hours, I proceeded to visit everyone in their cells through remote viewing. I was relieved to see that everyone was alive, despite being hot and exhausted. The poor treatment seemed to have had positive effects on Samuel. Instead of desperate, he was pissed. I could see it in the tilt of his jaw and his balled-up hands.
I found Cord alert, though he said there was a terrible buzzing in his ears. He started talking about how this was his fear realized, that days earlier he worried that this would happen, and warned me all along that the Russians were behind this.
“We’re going to get out,” I said.
He squinted at me, and it was clear that he couldn’t hear very well.
“Did Aunt Sabrina burn your ears too?”
He nodded. “We Ayalas don’t go quietly, you know? But she made sure I knew she was serious.” He paused and frowned. “Where’d Charley go? I seen her banging on the glass. She okay?”
“I’m checking on her next. We’re going to get out of here,” I said.
“Yeah, I know that. I had a dream about it. A premonition.”
“Really? What was it?”
“A guard. He sneezes real loud. Then, a minute later, all hell breaks loose.”
He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure he could really see it.
“Your aunt— she argues with someone, screaming real loud. The lights go out. I hear shouting and footsteps.”
I nodded and he continued.
“I hear you shout, Henry! Then I hear three thumps and crashes, like people hitting the floor. I know for sure that somebody uses psychokinesis.”
Henry. He had caused the orbs in Samuel’s room. He had a hand, literally, in my bongo episode at the park. Then there was Dr. Monson’s encounter. That too? Did he cause heart attacks, as well? He was stronger than all of us. That was for sure.
If it was me doing psychokinesis in Cord’s premonition, he would have described some sort of earthquake or tremor happening. That much control had to
have been Henry. No one else had that scary ability except him, and he was here with us.
“Then I smell smoke.”
“Do we escape?” I asked. My heart fluttered.
“Yeah,” he said softly, but then looked at his fingers.
“When?”
“Three days.” He paused and licked his lips. “But somebody dies. I don’t got no idea who. My chest feels all heavy at the end of that dream. I keep hearing that sneeze over and over. It feels stuck in my head.”
His body looked almost transparent, as if he were a picture on a snowy TV screen. Each remote viewing session sapped something in me, dwindling my psychic gas tank.
Hopeful, I went to Charley next. She was curled up in a ball when I came to her room, and she had covered her ears and head as if she’d taken a brutal beating recently. I whispered to her, and she didn’t respond. I touched her, and she didn’t move. For a moment, I worried she was dead or unconscious.
Then she wrinkled her nose and rolled over, as if she smelled my bad breath, and I knew she was okay. She was just sleeping. Maybe she’d hear and see me when she was awake.
But I needed her to practice too. I needed her to use her gifts. Otherwise, Cord’s vision might not become a reality.
13
Sabrina
Over the next couple of days, Julia refused to eat and drink. She sat like a willful child in the corner of the room. When I checked on her, she wouldn’t talk. And it infuriated me. She would see the real truth soon. Like I had.
Dr. Strong underestimated her. She needed a neuroshield too.
That evening, I returned to her cell, delivering a plate of cooked ground beef. I pushed the tin plate toward her, metal scraping the concrete.
She kicked at it, and the beef flew across the floor. She was an ungrateful brat. Angry, I grabbed a handful of meat off the floor, ready to shove it in her face. But I stopped mid-lunge, with my fingers curled around the cold gristly meat. Then I let go of the pieces, dropping them back on the floor. I wiped my fingers on my dress. “You’ll attract rats. And it’ll be your fault.”
I turned to leave the room, but then Julia spoke up.
“You act like you don’t remember anything. Just how horrible your little-rich-girl life was.” Her lips twisted, and she turned away from me.
I stood with my hand on the door, silent, wondering what she knew. After a second, she spoke again. Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Yeah, capitalism was horrible to you! Now, look at you. You’re in some basement prison, feeding me crap off a tin plate.”
Her words boiled my blood again, and I seethed, my chest heaving, watching her.
The bend of her nose. The arch of her eyebrows. She was my blood. With no mirrors in this place, I barely remembered what we looked like as Cavanaughs.
“Do you even remember?” she asked, more softly this time. More like a little girl.
I searched the concrete floor, trying to fish memories out of my mind. I didn’t remember much. Father showing me off at the Debutante Ball. I wore a white lace gown that dropped off my shoulders, and instead of telling me how beautiful I looked, he whispered while we danced that I looked like a whore for exposing my skin like that. I blushed red, at age sixteen, twirling to violin music in front of 160 of his colleagues. The entire thing made me feel like I lived in a false world made of plastic. We wore plastic smiles and we wore plastic perfect clothes. We were dolls for Father to show off, to cut down, to hold.
“I remember,” I said. “Father—your cherished Grandfather—treated us like possessions. We were something to show off, like homes and cars and jewelry.” My voice suddenly felt heavy and unfamiliar. Unexpected, as if it were slipping off my tongue.
“Oh, ha.”
I frowned, confused by her response. I was ready for this little girl to spit more hatred toward me. We stared at each other, and I wished I had Henry’s mind-bending abilities at that moment. I’d turn her in a minute.
“Oh? That’s funny?” I asked, picking a fight.
“Whose possession are you now?”
The question rattled me, and I swallowed hard, unable to answer. I was no one’s possession. I was finally on the right side. I was finally standing up for the common person, quashing all that I hated about my family and using my abilities for good. I think so, right?
I turned on my heel and again left her alone in the room. Behind me, she wailed her demands. She wanted to go home. She wanted to know where Cord and Charley and the others were. She told me I was a giant disappointment to her. “You were the one thing I thought was real in the world!”
Her voice echoed on the walls and then the door slammed shut. Metal on concrete. Her voice on the other side of the door sounded muffled. Was there something else to it? A cry or a wail, maybe? I heard her words clearly enough, though. “You were … the only … one who made me feel loved.”
My heart hurt, and my blood ran cold. I shook it off before striding down the hall, blocking out her words and steeling my resolve for the Party.
14
Henry
It smelled like the cellar, the place Diane kept me. Hot. Mildew. Moist dirt. It took me back to being ten years old. Frantic, I blinked open my eyes. A dark shadow hovered above me where I laid on the hard floor. Beneath a dangling light bulb, Dr. Strong rubbed his chin and gazed at me. The fact that he wasn’t Diane, with that crushed pink velvet bathrobe, leaning over me in the dark, was a relief. Of course, I wasn’t a kid, but this situation didn’t seem any better.
“Henry,” he said. “We saw how helpful you were in getting everyone here. Now the real party will start, and you’ll be one of our prime assets.”
Laying there, I felt ropes binding my hands together behind my back. All the pieces came together. I’d been duped. Instead of getting a pile of cash as promised, I was going to work for Fairmont Industries and the Commies. This time, I’d work for free. They have no idea what they’re in for.
I smirked and scooted to sit upright. Stupid man. I had more powers than any of them.
I concentrated on his heart. I grinned and gazed at it, willing it to speed up to 140 beats per minute, then gradually 190. Maybe even 200.
But Dr. Strong only mirrored my smile. Nothing happened. I didn’t get that bright, colorful vibration that in a way hurt. A bit like the sharp edge of a paperclip scraping along my skin. It was worth that bit of pain to see cocky people suffer.
Instead I felt something tightening around my head. I squinted. What the hell?
“Nice try, kid,” he said. “You are wearing a device designed just for you.”
He tapped on something that wrapped around my head, which hurt like a mother. They must have drilled something into the skull because with that tap, my head ached in a big way and the skin felt raw.
Strong paced in front of me. “Of course, we’d like to have them for everyone, but since you’re the most advanced and, as a result, the biggest threat to this operation, you’ll be the one wearing it. It’s called a neuroshield, made from metamaterial that can manipulate electromagnetic waves by blocking, absorbing, and bending them.”
“What the?” I asked, straining to see the thing on my head.
“We used an earlier version on Sabrina.” He nodded to the young dark-haired fox beside him. She, undoubtedly, was Julia’s aunt, the one who laid the trap. “And it worked quite well years ago. No one has control over their powers like you and her.” He paused for a second, glancing at Sabrina. “There is Julia, but we are trying something different for her. You’re our test case, until we make enough for everyone.”
He reached out and tapped the metal contraption on my head. Again, bolts of pain, and I kicked at him. “A half-a-million-dollar crown you’re wearing there, buddy.”
“I still think Julia at least should have one on,” Sabrina whispered.
Strong shook his head, flashing her a look that told her to shut up. He mumbled something before waving her away.
That whole thing had to be a line of crap. A
neuroshield? Whatever. I tried again to mess with his heart, but nothing came. Is this how the rest of the world feels? I squirmed against the rough edges of the rope.
“Sorry, Henry, without your powers, you’re nothing.” He turned on his heel and left me in that stifling hot room. The light bulb cast a yellow tint on the streaked wall.
His comment hung in front of me like a neon sign. He was right; I was nothing without my abilities. I had never thought much about it, but without psychokinesis, I had no purpose. No identity. It’s why Ma kept me around. It’s what got me what I wanted in life.
No! I kicked my legs wildly.
15
Charley
I couldn’t figure out how Julia had done it, seeing her aunt so clearly in those remote viewing sessions. Because when my dark-haired friend finally appeared in my room, I only got glimpses here and there, as if she was a flickering image, a camera lens coming in and out of focus.
“How is Cord? Is he okay?” My questions strung together.
“He’s fine…”
I nodded.
“But he had a premonition, and I think I know what we all have to do together to survive.”
My sweaty hair stuck to my back, and my breathing became labored. I hadn’t drunk enough water, and this place was a sauna.
“You’re going to work your magic on one of the guards,” Julia said. “You need to find out where the electrical room is so that Samuel can trigger it.”
I laughed and turned away. “That guard out there hates me. He’s not gonna let me touch him.”
“You just have to figure it out. We don’t have time. This thing will blow up tomorrow, according to Cord. But if you don’t do your part, his premonition could be wrong.”
Her voice was hard to hear, and I leaned forward against my sweaty thighs to hear better. It didn’t do any good.
Extraordinary Lies Page 28
