mindjack 04 - origins

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  Xander mustered a focused thought and threw it at them. Why don’t you jack yourself?

  Both jackers pressed deeper, and Xander gagged on their bitter mind-scents—the normal flavor of each jacker’s mind was overwhelmed with a sour bite of anger. A slithering feeling, like a snake crawling down his throat, made his insides twist as they probed through his memories. Searching, searching, replaying his memories like sim-casts on the screen of his mind. He tried throwing up old memories and deflecting the jackers into thoughts about Kira in other places. Not where she is now. Not where she is now.

  But it was no use. He knew that. He could try to fight them, but they would get whatever answers they wanted out of him. There were five of them, and only two were in his head. The other three were menacing Mrs. Moore, probably searching for the same information. Being a mindreader, she was even less able to hold them off than he was. Xander’s body convulsed, and he heard a pathetic-sounding moan escape from his paralyzed lips as they tunneled deeper.

  WHERE IS SHE?

  The command forced an image up from the depths of his memories. Gurnee’s Warren Township High School. Kira at band practice. The band room was crisp and clear in his head: Kira had taken him there, after she had brought him back to live with her family. After she had opened her home to him when his own mother didn’t want him back, once she found out he was a mindjacker. Kira’s family had welcomed him like he was their own son, and here he was, his thoughts betraying Kira with her own kindness.

  Xander dry heaved as they pulled back, leaving him panting on the floor. Feeling slowly seeped back into his limbs. They had what they needed and quickly stomped down the stairs.

  He rolled over on his side, his hands shaking, his fingers barely under his control. He thrust his hand in his pants pocket, the one now free from the floor, and painfully curled his fingers around his phone. Pulling it out, he used both hands to find the power button to switch it on. He didn’t bother using his hands after that, just jacked into the mindware interface on the phone and sent a scrit message as fast as the software would take it.

  Jacker clan. Coming for you. Leave school. Don’t come home.

  He dropped the phone on the carpet and rolled back to look at Kira’s parents. Mr. Moore was still passed out, and Mrs. Moore was crying over his body, probably wondering if he was dead or not. Xander didn’t know if his scrit would arrive in time to save Kira. But if nothing else, he would get her parents out of the house and make sure they were safely hidden away.

  In case the jacker clan decided to come back for more.

  Sometimes all that fantastic worldbuilding done in the course of writing a novel never makes it into the story. Hopefully this happens a lot, because otherwise the novel would be padded with worldbuilding that only peripherally relates to the story and bogs it down.

  In Closed Hearts, I created a slum-like place where displaced mindjackers gathered on the outskirts of Chicago, called Jackertown. It is a society of Clans, in some ways reminiscent of the Camp in Open Minds, and there's a delicate power balance between them. Most are involved in some way in jackwork—the trade of mindjacking favors for cash, often facilitated by a contractor, someone who travels between the two segregated worlds of mindreaders and mindjackers. Jackertown isn't as brutal as the Camp and is more business-oriented. But that doesn't mean it's a safe place to be.

  Here are some slang terms I dreamed up while creating Jackertown. Many of these terms (jackworker, contractor, wetjack) made it into Closed Hearts, but some did not. When creating slang, I usually come up with several variants for a particular term, only settling on the final one in later drafts.

  Someone who does mindjacking for hire, usually jacking mindreaders, but potentially up against mindguards or other jackers. (early version: jobber)

  Someone who facilitates contracts for hiring jackworkers. The contractor "rooks" or passes for a mindreader in the general mindreading society, then dons a mask when traveling to Jackertown, so that his identity is unknown there. (early versions: runners, bonders, jackmailers, bloodrunners—for those who traffic in the deadly jacking arts)

  Mindjackers who pretend to be mindreaders so that they can hold normal jobs in larger mindreading world.

  Mindjackers who kill for money, usually through a contractor. (early version: wetjobbers)

  A mindreader who pays for jackwork.

  A mindreader who still lives in Jackertown, running businesses or convenience stores useful to the jackers. Not directly under mindjacker control, but "owned" by a Clan.

  A mindreader who is captured and turned into a slave in Jackertown. (early version: pawn, puppet)

  A mindjacker who brings in mice (mindreaders) for trade to jackers—either for ransom (they get a cut) or for a puppet. Trades mice for cash or favors.

  The act of kidnapping a mindreader and bringing them to Jackertown for human trafficking.

  Jackwork, or the contracting to exchange mindjack favors for cash.

  A group of jackers working together for particular jackwork jobs.

  A more permanent group of jackers, gathered together for protection and support.

  If you haven't read Closed Hearts, I recommend you read that next.

  Book Two of the Mindjack Trilogy

  When you control minds, only your heart can be used against you.

  Eight months ago, Kira Moore revealed to the mindreading world that mindjackers like herself were hidden in their midst. Now she wonders if telling the truth was the right choice after all. As wild rumors spread, a powerful anti-jacker politician capitalizes on mindreaders' fears and strips jackers of their rights. While some jackers flee to Jackertown—a slum rife with jackworkers who trade mind control favors for cash—Kira and her family hide from the readers who fear her and jackers who hate her. But when a jacker Clan member makes Kira's boyfriend Raf collapse in her arms, Kira is forced to save the people she loves by facing the thing she fears most: FBI agent Kestrel and his experimental torture chamber for jackers.

  In Closed Hearts, Raf (Kira's boyfriend) and Julian (the revolutionary jacker who wants Kira to join the cause), meet briefly. It's not a pleasant encounter, well, not for Julian in any event. A writer friend who helped copyedit Closed Hearts asked me to put Raf and Julian in a room together so that they could discuss which one of them would be better for Kira. Which is an interesting question, given that Kira is completely in love with Raf.

  Raf takes a seat on the couch of the mages' (jacker revolutionaries') warehouse and glances nervously at the mindjackers milling around him. Julian takes a chair from the kitchen table, turns it backwards, and sits facing Raf. Julian temples his fingers and taps his lips.

  Raf: What?

  Julian: I just can't figure it out.

  Raf: (shifts uncomfortably) Don't hurt yourself trying.

  Julian: (smirks) I mean, I can't figure out what she sees in you.

  Raf: That's really none of your business, is it?

  Julian: Why would Kira want to be with someone she can control so utterly? (waves a hand at Raf) You're just a mindreader. She could jack into your head and make you do anything. Feel anything. Believe anything.

  Raf: Kira would never do that.

  Julian: (looks skeptical) How would you know?

  Raf: I trust her. Besides, she knows I would do anything for her anyway. All she has to do is ask. I'm not the one trying to drag her into some kind of crazy war with the world! You and your demens ideas about jackers being the (makes air quote fingers) next evolution of mankind. All you're going to do is get her killed.

  Julian: (narrows his eyes) Oh, and I suppose you can keep her safe? With your vast ability to—what is it you do again? Oh right, read minds. You're like a guppy trying to guard a shark. You can't even keep yourself safe.

  Raf: I'll keep her safe by being smart. By helping her hide. And by letting the world figure out its own mess. To me, Kira is the only thing that matters, and I'll do whatever it takes.

  Julian: You don't even know wh
at she's capable of.

  Raf: (stands) I know better than you ever will.

  Julian: (looks up from his chair) Really? I guess you saw that coming, then? Her performance with the changelings? On the tru-casts?

  Raf: It doesn't surprise me. That's kind of girl Kira is. Brave. Strong. And she's always looking out for people.

  Julian: Which is precisely why she belongs with me. I mean, with us, leading jackers forward, not hiding out in a diner in the suburbs pretending to be a waitress. Wasting her potential. She could be so much more. Will be, as soon as she stops playing mindreader and joins her kind.

  Raf: (clenches fist) You leave her alone!

  Julian: (stands up from chair) Careful, reader. The only reason you're still standing is because Kira cares about you. Don't push it.

  Raf: If you get her hurt, I will kill you.

  Julian: I'm not the one you have to worry about.

  Kira: (strolls from the back) Um, what's going on?

  Julian and Raf eye each other. "Nothing," they both say at once.

  Ok, that was entirely too much fun to write.

  (Also: it never happened. I'm wiping your memory in 3… 2… 1…)

  The Handler takes place in the time period between Open Minds and Closed Hearts, after Kira outs jackers to the world, and just as jackers begin to spontaneously gather in the no-man's-land between downtown Chicago and the New Metro suburbs, in a place soon to be known as Jackertown. Told from Julian's point-of-view, this novella gives insight into his handling ability, as well as a key incident at the beginning of the formation of his revolution.

  Summary: The first recruit in Julian Navarro’s mindjacker revolution threatens to derail his plans to ensure jacker freedom in a mindreading world.

  Century-old dust coated the portable news screen in my hands, as if this crumbling, abandoned factory could keep the future from coming by choking it with the past. I brushed away the grit and sunk into a couch whose spine had long been broken, only to puff up another musty cloud. I cleared the screen again, then mentally nudged the tru-cast recording on it to play. This was at least the twentieth time I’d replayed it. Maybe the thirtieth. I’d lost count.

  The image showed two FBI agents, both mindjackers, in a scene so familiar I had memorized every detail: the agents’ black guns pointed at the camera, glinting from the lobby’s plasma lights; the mindreaders huddled by the receptionist’s desk, trying to keep out of the showdown; even the janitor frozen in his window cleaning at the hospital gift shop, staring at the soon-to-be-famous sixteen-year-old girl wielding the camera phone like a weapon.

  At least that’s how I imagined her holding it—maybe because I was inclined to think of everything as a weapon these days. But my imagination would have to suffice, not having been one of the jackers present, on either side of the camera. In fact, I had no idea that Kira Moore was about to reveal the hidden mindjackers of the world until I saw it on the morning tru-cast two weeks ago, along with the rest of the nation.

  “It’s like the old days when the first readers were discovered,” Kira was saying. She meant the first mindreaders, long before they became the dominant species on the planet and took over everything, as dominant species tend to do. “What did we do?” she asked. “We put them in prison. We tortured them with experiments. Well, we’re doing it again, to these kids, today.”

  The camera phone swept around, the girl’s face dominating the screen and making my heart pound each time I saw it. Not just because I was male and she was undeniably pretty—it was more than that. Her eyes burned electric blue, on fire with a revolutionary fervor. Her pale skin flushed a feverish pink only at the hollows of her cheeks. Was it fear or anger, or the adrenaline rush of the moment? Or was it her instinctual protectiveness of the children sprawled on the floor behind her? She was just a couple of years younger than me, but her youth seemed timeless, radiating an almost otherworldly innocence and determination. I would have given anything to have been there at that moment, dipping into her mind and reading the passions that drove her to this singularly brave act.

  On the screen, she sucked in an audible breath, as if pulling herself up to her full angel-wrath. “My name’s Kira Moore, and I’m just like them. I was kidnapped—”

  The screen went blank.

  “Hey!” My protest bounced off the manufacturing equipment that stood silent and still along the cavernous factory walls. I darted a cold look to my twin sister Anna, working at a nearby wooden table pitted and scarred by a thousand everyday uses. I could mentally flip the tru-cast on again, but I would lose in a mental nudge match over the screen. “I was just getting to the good part.”

  “Julian, you need to stop watching that girl and focus on our work.” Anna’s stare underlined her words. My sister had the same dark-haired Latin beauty of our mother, but like our father, her icy blue-eyed glare could freeze the strongest jackers. Maybe because he taught her to shoot more than just looks. Anna picked up one of the half-assembled weapons spread before her and rubbed an oiled cloth over it with strong, practiced strokes.

  Anna could glare at me all she liked, but I could see the turbulent, protective instinct that roiled at the back of her skull. Like every instinct, it was a relic from our reptilian ancestors, hidden in our DNA until it sprung forth, an invisible compulsion that ruled our actions. The cool, misty waves of Anna’s strong, protective instinct usually crowded out all the others, but this time a wisp of rosy maternal instinct also curled at the edges.

  I sighed. I could change Anna’s instincts, mentally handle them into something not quite so endearing, but manipulating my sister wasn’t just wrong, it was slightly dangerous, given her handiness with a gun and general impatience with me. I could handle that out of her too, but eventually she would make me pay for it. Still, I wished Anna’s protectiveness and attempts to replace our dead parents wasn’t quite so… obvious.

  It would make it easier to remain angry with her.

  “That girl,” I said, putting some arch in my voice, just to needle her, “was the one who thrust our revolution into the light. Or would you rather still be working in secret? Hiding and pretending to simply be mindreaders?”

  Anna hurled my insult back with a sharp glare that found its mark as surely as the black knives she routinely embedded in the factory walls.

  I softened my tone. “All I’m saying is that Kira did us a tremendous favor. She changed everything. And, in the process, made our lovely new home possible.” I gestured grandly to the cobwebbed cabinets of the makeshift kitchen area. Anna had recently cleared them of chipped plates and petrified pests to make room for her weapons: several small caliber pistols, a couple of scoped rifles, and an impressive assortment of electric devices. My flip answer didn’t appease her for my slacking in the cleaning-and-arsenal-stocking department, but I knew the revolution wouldn’t be won with guns alone. In fact, I wished we didn’t need Anna’s arsenal at all. We needed to win hearts to our cause with words, not weapons. Starting with the very first recruits I was currently seeking.

  So I tried the truth instead.

  “Kira’s accomplished more with one act than we could have achieved with an armory packed with weapons,” I said. “She’s just the kind of person we could use in the cause.”

  I wished, for the hundredth time, that I could read my sister’s thoughts. Normally, I could slip in through the instinctual minds of readers and jackers alike, but Anna’s thoughts were locked tight behind an impervious barrier. Not that reading her face was particularly difficult, especially when her blue protective instinct shifted abruptly to the red, smoking aggression that normally wrapped around her head.

  “Kira is unpredictable and reckless,” Anna said. “Who goes in to rescue a bunch of changelings with nothing but a pistol and no apparent backup plan? From what I hear, she left far more changelings behind in Agent Kestrel’s grasp than she’s ever rescued. That makes her untrustworthy and dangerous as well.” Anna pushed up from the table, grabbed a rag from the counter
, and scrubbed at the cabinets, clearing away decades of grit and the earnest work of dozens of spiders. She kept her back to me, like there was nothing more to discuss, but her red-hot fighting instinct, swirling at the back of her mind, gave her away.

  FBI Agent Kestrel was the first target of our revolution, but I felt—I knew—that Kira Moore was meant to join us, despite her mysterious disappearance after the rescue. Kestrel was our enemy, and Kira was our friend. It was important to know the difference: the fight ahead would be worse if we cast aside the people who knew how to win it.

  I heaved up from the depths of the decrepit couch. “You should stop listening to rumors on the chat-casts.” I placed the still-blank screen on the kitchen table next to my sister’s partially assembled guns. “You know, only half of what you hear on the casts is true…”

  “And the other half are twisted lies. The trick is to know which half will kill you.” Anna finished our father’s favorite admonishment with the same look of fervent warning he always wore. “Don’t forget that part, Julian.”

  I peered over her shoulder at the dust-draped cabinet. “I think you missed a spot.”