by Dave Renol
The Science of Psionics
Book 4: The Psionic Thief
© 2013, Dave Renol
All Rights Reserved
For Joyce: 1931 – 2013
I knew you for too short a time and you are missed but never forgotten.
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Table of Contents
1 – On the Run
2 – Homecoming
3 – A Dream Come True
4 – Southern Research
5 – Back in the Saddle
6 – Homeless Help
7 – Strange Things Afoot
8 – Unexpected Complications
9 – Disaster
10 – A Better Plan
11 – Retribution
12 – Ancient Wisdom
13 – The Secret Codex
14 – Hit and Run
15 – First Contact
16 – Friend or Foe?
17 – The Trustworthy One
18 – Unexplored Territory
19 – Caught In the Act
20 – In Sync
21 – Dirty Work
22 – Forward Progress
23 – A Helping Hand
24 – Bait
25 – Bait and Switch
26 – Understanding
27 – Back on Track
28 – Epilogue
29 – Authors Notes
30 – The Psionic Series
Chapter 1
Claire: On the Run
I swore under my breath as brambles caught on my clothes yet again. I could normally weave my way through the woods with ease, but being forced to detour around the construction site sent me deeper into the brush than normal.
I probably could’ve stayed on the road and been ignored by everyone there, but it wasn’t worth the risk while trying to lay low. Going on the run was never fun, but it looked like winter was finally over so hiding out wouldn’t be the hardship it would’ve been last month.
In all the years I had been going to the nameless mountain lake, I had yet to see anyone else even close to my hiding spot. It was a little lonely sometimes, but it was a place I knew I was safe. I usually preferred to go there on my own terms, though.
It was a stupid little mistake that sent me running for the hills, but no matter how much I might curse my luck, I knew it was my fault. For two years I had spent my winters in a variety of empty summer houses. It was bad luck that this year the owners came back early, but stupidity on my part for not getting out in time.
Still, it wasn’t all bad; they couldn’t have gotten a good look at me so if I stayed out of sight for a week or two, all should be good. I didn’t have much in the way of food, but my secret cave had all the gear I would need to take care of that.
There was an endless supply of fish in the lake, and I was also pretty good with a slingshot for the occasional squirrel or rabbit. It was too early for strawberries, but wild onions and sparrowgrass should be plentiful, which was always a nice addition. It wasn’t very fancy, but I absolutely loved fresh trout cooked with wild onions.
If all else failed I could make it back to town in a day, but I had always been able to provide for myself in the past. There were advantages to being raised as a back-woods hillbilly redneck and even though I normally hung around town these days, I took pride in my ability to live off of the land.
Now well past the construction, I looked around to get my bearings and swore again. I had been woolgathering and missed noticing a deer trail not five feet away that I had been walking beside. I moved over to it and started making better time again.
I may have missed noticing the trail, but at least I was still heading the right direction. I would like to see some of my friends on the street try to make their way through woods like this. Sam or Billy would probably get lost a dozen feet from the road, and Susan wouldn’t make it past the first critter that rustled some leaves.
‘Smart’ Charlie was actually pretty dumb in some areas, and I would put money on ‘Dumb’ Charlie making a better go at it. I reckon Tim or Joey might be able to hack it if they had a guide to keep them from doing something stupid like getting lost or eating poisonous berries, but they would be the only ones.
Trying to imagine my friends handling these woods was a fun way to kill time as I plodded onward to my camp. The trail was running more to the west than the one I usually took, but I must have been getting close since it was getting steeper mighty fast.
I had to make a tricky little climb and then a detour around a thick blackberry patch, but then I broke free and made it onto the upland plateau barely a half mile from my camp. Now that I knew exactly where I was, I shrugged the pack off my shoulders and dug out a bag so I could do some foraging.
There was a nice patch of sparrowgrass not twenty yards ahead, and sure enough, they were just perfect. Later on they would get too big and be kinda woody, but right now they would be a downright treat. I grabbed a couple handfuls and headed to where I knew the onions would be.
This patch was looking a little scrawny, but I was still able to get enough for tonight. On the plus side, there were tons of rabbits around this year and I wish I had my slingshot on me. No matter… they would still be here tomorrow.
It wouldn’t be long before it was dark, so I started hoofing it to my cave. I still needed to get a line into the lake and get my camp set up or it wouldn’t be a good night. As I got closer, I saw the little runnel of spring water I used for drinking wasn’t following its old path. It had somehow diverted itself and was now falling right over where I normally climbed up.
It looked like I would get a bit wet climbing up and some of the rocks might be slippery, but it shouldn’t be too bad if I was careful. Maybe tomorrow I could try and fix things so the water went back to its old path. If not, I would have to see about stealing me some rope to make the climb safer.
Once up top, I quickly ditched my pack and grabbed my fishing line, hatchet, and good knife. I didn’t want to be forced to make the climb in the dark, so I needed to move fast. Going back down was always harder, but I made it with only one little slip.
Ten minutes later I had my line on the end of a willow branch with the hook in the water. I propped my pole up with some rocks and left it so I could gather some wood. It was still warm right now, but I knew the night would be cold and I would need a good fire.
I wound up doing some laps on a circular path. Into the brush for deadwood, over to the cave to toss it up, and then back to the lake to check my line. I was still trying to hurry, so by the fourth time around I was getting a mite winded.
Luckily, I saw the end of my pole twitching on this pass and I managed to land a fairly big trout. A fish this size would be plenty for tonight so I quickly gutted it, cleaned up a bit, and went to get my fire started.
I got myself wetter climbing up this time, but soon had a good fire going so it wasn’t too uncomfortable. I swapped my wet shirt for my dry jacket and after warming up for a few minutes, went and got my most prized item: an old metal cookie tin where I kept the few spices I had filched from my various ‘winter hosts’.
Most people would steal jewelry or other valuable items after breaking into a house. Most people were stupid. I only took things that made my life easier and nobody would miss. A bit of salt or a few yards of tin foil would never be missed, and as long as I didn’t get greedy or make a mess, they would never know and I could g
o back another time.
As I wrapped up my fish and onions in foil, I wished I had some butter to go with it. A bit of butter would turn plain food into something even an uppity city slicker would call a feast. It wasn’t that big of a deal, though, since food was food when you were starving, and by now I was almost hungry enough to eat the damn foil itself.
I set it to cooking and dug a large plastic cup out of my poke. One nice thing about the diverted water was I had an easy place to fill it from. I wrapped myself in my blanket and sipped the sweet cold water while the fish cooked.
With hot flames and no coals to bury it in I wound up scorching things a bit (including my fingers since I didn’t wait for things to cool off). I still devoured every single bite. After refilling my water glass I put more wood on the fire and got ready for bed. I had a lot of work to do tomorrow if I was to hole-up here for any length of time.
***
I would’ve preferred to sleep in a bit since I was out of shape after a winter of lazing around, but the freezing morning air was a strong motivator. Still, the bright sun was quickly countering the cold of the night, and just getting moving was warming me up fast.
Without a cloud in the sky, I figured the sun would dry out the damp grass soon so there was no sense soaking my feet going back and forth for firewood. Instead, I dug up a few worms and went back to my fishing pole from last night.
I found a nice sunny place that was also sheltered from the wind where I could lay back and keep an eye on it. Yes, this was much better than plodding through damp grass, even if the fish weren’t biting too good.
It was getting close to noon before I got my first fish of the day, so I figured it was time to get off my butt and get my chores done. I threaded a string through his mouth, out the gills and staked the free end firmly in the ground so he could stay alive in a little pool without getting away.
I re-baited my hook and tossed it back in while I got going on gathering firewood. The climb up and down from my cave really sucked with the water flowing like it was, so I really wanted to minimize the number of trips I took.
I kept at it all day, pausing only now and then to take a fish off the line or replace lost bait. I figured I had enough to keep me going for a couple of days, so I made one more trip to get some fresh greens before I headed back up.
The string of fish and bag of greens bouncing around on my back made the climb a little awkward, and I was kinda wore out from hauling wood all day. I should have known I needed to be more careful, but overconfidence bit me in the ass as I got almost to the top.
I had fallen before while only a few feet off the ground and I felt those bruises for a week. As my hand slipped off my handhold about eighteen feet off the ground, I knew this would hurt a whole lot more… if it didn’t kill me outright.
I yelled as I started to fall and closed my eyes, as if that would keep me from getting splatted. Time seemed to slow down and it felt like I was falling forever. Panic was messing up my brain, but as my lungs emptied, it really did seem like I should have hit the ground by now.
Confused, I opened my eyes and found myself floating about three feet above the ground.
Chapter 2
Linda: Homecoming
Dorothy wasn’t just whistling Dixie when she said her famous line in The Wizard of Oz; there really was no place like home. Even if said home had to be rebuilt after being blown up and burnt down by a psychopath, it was still home.
Not only that, but for the first time I was able to call it our home, since I was now married. I really, really liked the sound of our home. It still needed to be decorated and furnished, plus the yard looked like a mud bog due to all the heavy construction equipment, but Mark and I were back.
My shiny new office currently consisted of a cheap folding table and a crappy office chair, but that was soon to change. ‘Two more days’ was my current mantra… just two more days, and the bulk of my new furniture would arrive.
I could barely wait.
Ever since that night when the bizarre storm gave us psionic powers, our lives have been pure hell. If I was put on the rack, I would have to admit that some of it was fun, like being able to fly, but for the most part it was more trouble than it was worth.
I used to think that having my house destroyed was about the worst thing that could happen to me, but I was soon given a reality check on that thought. In a blind frenzy to obtain psionics of her own, my best friend Sara kidnapped me and nearly killed me in order to try and steal my psi powers.
Any sane person would think our troubles would have been over at that point, but no… trouble followed us everywhere we went. Hop on a plane? Hello terrorists. Get married? Oh look, here’s some organized crime. Go on a honeymoon? Meet the friendly members of a drug growing cartel.
It even got worse on our last trip up to Canada when all we wanted to do was figure out how our powers worked. Mark’s crazy old girlfriend was worse than all the rest combined, and she came damn close to killing all of us when she acquired the power.
Our luck sucked more than the yearly output of a vacuum cleaner factory.
“I thought you were cleaning up our latest manuscript? George is going to be pissed if it’s even a second past our deadline after all our delays,” Mark said, as he walked into the office and broke my reverie.
“I’m already done, no thanks to you. We were supposed to sit down together on this.”
“Sorry, but I wanted to talk to the concrete guy before he left for the day. We came to an agreement on adding the extra slab for a carport next to the garage.”
“Oh, sweet,” I said, perking up at the news. “What about the driveway?”
“He doesn’t do asphalt, but gave me the name and number of someone he recommends.”
“Awesome.”
“I thought you’d like that. Even better is that he might be able to pour the carport slab tomorrow, since that side of the garage is already flat, dry, and well packed down.”
“Ok, with that kind of news I’m willing to forgive you for playing hooky while I did all the editing work.”
“I thought you would see it my way and besides… I already did my run-through this morning while you were snoring in bed.”
“I don’t snore, and why didn’t you tell me you already did it?”
“We’re both a little rusty after taking so much time off from writing, so I wanted to be able to compare our revisions and make sure we’re both on the same page.”
I was a little miffed, but what he said made sense. We had spent so much time on our hair-brained psionic adventures that our writing work was almost a year behind schedule, and saying we were rusty was an understatement.
“Have you heard from Carl yet?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Yeah, he’ll be here tomorrow night. I guess I should go pick up some beer before he gets here.”
“I don’t know about that. If he gets used to us buying his beer, then we’ll be broke before summer.”
“No doubt,” he snorted. “But just this once I think it would be appropriate. It’s almost an unwritten rule that when you get someone to help you move furniture, you buy them beer and pizza.”
I thought back to all the times I helped someone move and reluctantly agreed he was right. It was almost tradition.
“Fine, but he better not sit on his ass while we do all the work.”
“The guys delivering the furniture will actually be doing most of the work, but I’m in full agreement with you.”
“They’ll unload everything and set things up, but I’m not quite sure how I want the living room arranged. There’ll still be lots of heavy lifting to do, and I don’t want you boys shrugging off the work so you can talk about psionic research or hockey.”
“No worries… we both value too much what you would cut off if we ditched our job before it was finished.”
“As long as you both know what the priorities are, I guess it’ll be ok.”
“Relax… what could go wrong?”
>
***
“You bloody dipshit!” I screamed. “Are you blind as well as dumb? That was freshly poured concrete, you hoser!”
Twenty seconds. Twenty damn seconds is all it took for Carl to mess something up. Since he was planning on staying for a while, he bought a new truck to leave here and the first thing he did was park it in the new carport.
It might have been fine if the concrete wasn’t freshly poured and he could have parked on the new carport rather than in it, but the damage was already done. I couldn’t handle this right now, so I went back inside and let Mark deal with it.
After pacing back and forth for a few minutes I began to calm down. I realized it shouldn’t be too hard to fix, and if that was the big thing that was going to go wrong this time, I could handle it. Not only that, but it would give me good fodder to tease him with for years to come.
I poured myself a glass of wine and after a brief internal debate, grabbed a couple of beers for the boys. I went back outside and found them washing concrete off of the truck wheels. Glancing at the carport slab, I had to do a double take, as I saw the surface was completely perfect and unbroken.
“Sorry about that,” Carl said. “It’s getting dark, and I couldn’t see that it was still wet.”
Still staring at the concrete, I handed them their bottles before replying. “How did you manage to fix it so fast?”
“How do you think?” he answered telepathically.
“I figured if the cement was soft enough to move that easy when he drove on it, we could force it back where it belonged with a little psionic help,” Mark added.
