Minds of Men

by Kacey Ezell

  “They’re our rough men, Mary! Or they will be, very shortly. Didn’t you see those aircraft come limping back? Didn’t you feel what they felt?” Evelyn felt a thread of anger pulse through her.

  “You know I did!” Mary said, whipping her head up angrily, her own temper flashing in her beautiful blue eyes. “I was right there with you the whole time, Evie! I know everything you know about them...which, when you get right down to it, isn’t very much! Yes, they were hurting, but damn it, you need to protect yourself as well! This is a war. You can’t afford to be the trusting backwoods South Dakota rube here!”

  Evelyn jerked backward, stung.

  “Fine,” she said, nearly spitting out the word. “Don’t be late for the meeting.” She turned and walked back out of the hut, ignoring Mary’s calls to wait, to come back.

  * * *

  The 1800 Officer’s Call meeting took place in Operations. Evelyn found her seat early and waited while the rest of her unit and the various crews filed in. Something twinged in her consciousness, and she looked up to see Captain Peters walk in. He, too, felt something because his eyes immediately found hers, and Evelyn felt the echo of the intimate net bond tug at her. She gave him a smile and a polite nod, and he did the same, but she could see it startled him. He turned, though, said something to the lieutenant next to him, and the two of them walked to their seats near the front.

  Evelyn felt Mary walk in, too, of course, but she wouldn’t have needed the experience of past bondings to tell her that the shapely blonde had arrived. The collective intake of breath from the men in the room would have done just as well. Still, Evelyn didn’t look up until Mary had slipped into the seat beside her.

  “Evie,” Mary whispered softly. Evelyn shifted slightly but kept her head down. Mary’s hand slipped into hers. “Evie, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean it.”

  “I know.” She squeezed Mary’s hand as she whispered back. “I’m sorry, too.” She would have said more, something along the lines of agreeing to disagree, but Colonel Rizer chose that moment to walk into the room, and everyone came to their feet in a rush.

  “Please be seated,” he said. There was a general rumble of movement as everyone got settled, then turned expectant eyes up to him. The Wing Commander took a deep breath and beckoned to the side of the room. Captain Ledoux walked forward, saluted, and then came to parade rest next to him. Beside her, Evelyn heard Mary snort softly.

  “Gentlemen...and ladies. This is Captain Jeanne Ledoux. She’s the commanding officer of the Women’s Army Corps unit that has recently joined us. Her presence here, and that of her WACs, is not classified, but who and what they are is.” He took a deep breath and then plunged on.

  “The truth is, boys, these ladies are psychic technicians. That means that they can establish a kind of link, mind to mind, with other people. Now, I know how that sounds. Bedtime stories and fairy tales, right? But these gals are the real deal. They can help us communicate faster and more completely than radios and can help us avoid some of the disasters that have plagued us in the past when bad weather crops up unexpectedly along the route.”

  Evelyn heard a rustle from somewhere in the back of the room, but she refused to turn around. She was very uncomfortably aware of the surreptitious looks coming their way from all of the men in the room. Some of them might have been interested...they were women, after all. But Evelyn knew that the vast majority of them were probably more distrustful than anything. Psychics were rare enough that few people really knew how they worked, or what they could do.

  Not to mention, most people who claimed psychic power were frauds, which was a good thing, when one was trying to keep one’s power hidden. It was much easier to scoff and pretend that someone was crazy when they accused you of reading their mind if you could claim that psychic abilities were a myth.

  But she supposed that path to anonymity was closed to her now. Now and probably forever.

  She hoped this venture would be worth it.

  Despite her best efforts at maintaining a disciplined military bearing, Evelyn could feel her neck and cheeks heating up in a blush as a wave of cynical skepticism swept over her from the assembled crewmen. She heard Mary suck in a quiet breath next to her as they both reinforced their mental barriers and waited for the colonel to finish.

  Captain Ledoux got up next.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, looking right past her girls to the men. Her demeanor was calm and cool as her Louisiana Bayou accent filled the space. Despite her appearance, however, Evelyn thought that if she reached out, she’d find the captain just as nervous as the rest of them. “The ladies have each been assigned to a pilot as an additional member of his crew. We were expecting a bit of time for spin-up, but Colonel Rizer informs me that won’t be possible. So, the best thing would be for you to get together this evening and spend some time getting to know one another. That will allow for the most effective net in the limited time we have available.”

  One of the men in the back raised a hand. Captain Ledoux held up a hand of her own and inclined her head slightly in his direction.

  “I know that you all have questions. Please believe me when I tell you that the best way for you to get them answered will be for you to ask your assigned psychic. The roster is posted at the back of the room. Thank you.”

  With that, Captain Ledoux took a step backward just as Colonel Rizer came to his feet. Somebody called a sharp “ten-HUT!” and everyone rumbled up to the position of attention.

  “Gentlemen, ladies, you have your instructions. I will leave you to get acquainted. Carry on,” Colonel Rizer said, and then gesturing for Captain Ledoux to precede him, left the room.

  The noise level in the room rose as the occupants all let out a collective breath and relaxed, at least physically.

  “Well,” Mary said brightly but softly, “if this isn’t cute. It’s like a mixer! Though they could have at least provided some punch!”

  “Mary,” Evelyn said softly, giving her a quelling look. “Please, this isn’t a social occasion.”

  “Someone should have told Ledoux that,” the blonde shot back. Then she sighed. “I suppose I’d better find my own pilot. I’ll bet a dollar that he’s not nearly as handsome as yours, lucky girl.”

  “What does it matter if you’re not going to make whoopee to strengthen the bond?” Evelyn asked in her own dry undertone. Mary responded with a brilliant smile.

  “I’m not, but there isn’t a thing wrong with a little eye candy now and again,” she said with a wink. Then she leaned in and caught Evelyn in a hard hug.

  “I’m sorry again,” Mary whispered in her ear. “I’m so glad we’re friends. I’m not sure I could handle all this without you.”

  “You won’t have to,” Evelyn promised as she hugged her friend back. Mary squeezed her one more time before stepping away. With a last smile, she turned toward the back of the room, only to come nose to chest with Captain Carl Peters.

  “Oh!” the blonde said, giving a startled little laugh. “Captain Peters, pardon me. I didn’t mean to...well...”

  The pilot smiled and stepped back, letting Mary pass in front of him in the narrow aisle between the briefing room seats. She smiled up at him, flashing her California girl dimples, and Evelyn bit the inside of her cheek to keep her own smile from manifesting. Captain Peters wasn’t quite poleaxed, but his eyes certainly followed Mary’s retreating figure for a moment or two before he turned back to Evelyn and cleared his throat.

  “Ah,” he said. “Hello again, Technician Adamsen.”

  “Hello, Captain Peters,” she said gravely. This close to him, the memory of their connection tugged at her, like a puppy eager for play. She deflected it easily enough, but the urge to reestablish the link was there.

  “I...This is awkward,” Captain Peters said, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “I’m happy to see you again, but I feel...I want to...”

  Evelyn nodded.

  “That’s the link. Once we’ve been connected,
it’s easier to link again. The effect is intensified because you’re a man. Our minds want to fit together. Have you ever known a married couple who have been together so long that they can finish each other’s sentences?”

  “My grandparents are like that,” Captain Peters said with a little smile. “But my grandmother isn’t a wi—psychic.”

  “No, but all humans have a bit of latent talent. Psychics just have ours more fully realized. In any case, close relationships will build an actual psychic link. It’s just that most people don’t have the ability to fully utilize it. But when you find yourself attracted to a woman, part of what attracts you is the fact that her mental landscape is compatible with yours. To a certain extent, we crave that connection.”

  “But what about...” Captain Peters said, then abruptly cut himself off and closed his mouth with a snap.

  “I know what you were about to say,” Evelyn said softly, her lips curving in a tiny smile. “My good friend back home...well, we are as close as siblings, but it was always harder to create a link with him. His mental landscape is too much like my own. It was a bit like two magnets turned the wrong way ‘round so that they pushed apart.”

  “Hmm. Well, shall we go meet the crew?” Captain Peters asked and moved as if to offer his arm. Then he froze halfway through, as if realizing that she was a WAC in uniform, which rendered his gentlemanly gesture technically incorrect. Evelyn’s smile grew, and with a soft, “Yes, please, sir,” she fell in behind him.

  * * *

  Evelyn didn’t have to go far to meet the copilot, navigator, and bombardier. All of the officers had been invited to the briefing, and the three of them stood in a tight knot against the side wall. The rest of the room echoed with chaos as crews and psychics tried to find one another and figure everything out all at once.

  “Gentlemen,” Captain Peters said as they approached. The three of them separated enough to allow first him and then, at his gesture, her into the circle of their conversation. “This is the WAC I was telling you about. Allow me to introduce Technician Evelyn Adamsen, our psychic. Technician Adamsen, this is First Lieutenant Bob Becket, copilot; First Lieutenant Abram Portman, navigator; and Second Lieutenant Paul Rutherford, bombardier.”

  The men all gave Evelyn a polite nod, though she could see varying levels of skepticism from them. She smiled back and murmured a soft “gentlemen” in acknowledgment.

  Lieutenant Becket, the copilot, wasn’t quite as tall as Captain Peters, but he had hair bleached blond from the sun and the remnants of a tan that spoke of life on a beach somewhere. His smile wasn’t nearly as warm as his complexion, and he jerked his chin pugnaciously at her as he spoke.

  “So you’re gonna read our minds, huh?” he asked, sounding just this side of surly.

  “Not exactly, sir,” she said, pleased that her voice remained steady, though his tone set her nerves to quaking. “It’s more that I’m going to link you all into a net so that you can read each other’s minds.”

  Lieutenant Becket snorted and rolled his eyes, but then glanced at Captain Peters and declined to say more.

  Lieutenant Portman, the navigator, was fully half a head shorter than Lieutenant Becket, but he was muscled all over, like a prizefighter. He had a nose like a prizefighter’s, too, Evelyn decided. He stuck his hand out immediately.

  “Abram Portman,” he said with a distinct Brooklyn accent. “This guy gives you any trouble, you let me know,” he said, elbowing Becket.

  “I doubt that will be necessary, sir,” she said softly and with a mental sigh. Of course, it was only to be expected that there would be some among her crew who wouldn’t welcome her presence...but that didn’t make it any easier. She looked at the third officer, the bombardier, Lieutenant Rutherford. He refused to meet her eyes. For a moment, she thought perhaps he was another skeptic, but that wasn’t what she got from him. In fact, she wasn’t getting anything from him, which was telling in and of itself. Apparently, she wasn’t the first psychic of Lieutenant Paul Rutherford’s acquaintance.

  “Technician Adamsen, do you want to start working here? Or...” Captain Peters was saying. Evelyn pulled herself from her reverie and looked up at him.

  “Actually, sir, is there any way I could meet the rest of the crew? It would be good to build a full net as soon as possible,” she said.

  “We can get our regular guys,” Captain Peters said, “but you should know that there are substitutions made on a pretty frequent basis.”

  “That will be all right, sir,” she said. “It won’t be hard to make adjustments once the basic net is built.”

  “All right,” he said. “Then let’s go find the boys.”

  * * *

  The “boys” turned out to be a bit harder to find, perhaps, than Captain Peters had anticipated. They eventually tracked them down in one of the maintenance sheds not far from the flight line. Several of the enlisted crewmen had set up a little gambling hall there, complete with dice, cards, and booze they’d found somewhere.

  When Captain Peters knocked on the door of the shed, the officers and Evelyn heard a mad scramble punctuated by multiple swear words coming from the inside. Eventually, the shed door opened, and a freckled kid with spiky red hair poked his head out.

  “Yessir?” he asked, sounding slightly suspicious.

  “I need to speak with the crew, please, Sergeant,” Captain Peters said. Evelyn noticed that while his words were polite, his tone made it clear that this was not a request.

  “One moment, sir,” the redhead said, and ducked back inside. A moment later, he came back out, followed by five others. Captain Peters introduced them one by one. Evelyn felt as if the names went in one ear and out the other, so fast did they come. It wouldn’t matter much, though. She would know their names and so much more about them in just a few minutes, anyway.

  “It’s nice to meet all of you,” Evelyn said, after Captain Peters had told them her name and what she was doing there. Like the officers, the enlisted aircrewmen looked at her with varying levels of skepticism and suspicion. A flutter of nerves skittered over her skin, and she took a deep breath to calm herself before she began.

  “I don’t know how many of you have experience with psychics, but I’m happy to answer any questions or concerns you may have. However, as Captain Peters said, we have been asked to establish a connection tonight, as the leadership wants us to start flying as soon as possible. So, for now, I’ll ask you to trust me and put your hands out in front of you.”

  Captain Peters was the first to comply, and his gimlet stare around the rough circle had the others following his lead, even Lieutenant Rutherford. Evelyn smiled and reached out to touch Captain Peters’ hand, even though she didn’t need to do so at this point. The connection snapped into place easily, and she blinked away Carl’s vision before continuing. The redhead was next, and Evelyn reached out to touch her fingertips to the back of his knuckles.

  Sean Carrol was younger than Carl. Younger, even, than Evelyn herself, and she sighed with pleasure at the sharp zing of youth that raced through her mind. She felt him start to stumble, reached out, caught at his hands before he could fall, and wrapped herself around his mind.

  You’re safe, Sean, she thought. I have you. I will never hurt you.

  Sir? Sean asked, his mind voice halting and shaky.

  Here, Sean, Carl replied. It’s weird at first. But you’ll get used to it. Evelyn’s good.

  Thank you, Evelyn said modestly. Let me pull the others in, she added, rather than face Carl’s flustered realization that he hadn’t meant to share that thought.

  After a few moments, they were all tied in. There was the dizzying kaleidoscope of images seen through ten sets of eyes, but that was nothing compared to the confusing onslaught of emotions. It took Evelyn a few moments to sort through it all. The suspicion of her; the bored skepticism of this latest scheme of the leadership; the instant, instinctive awareness of her female body; the animal desire that went with that; the aching longing for sweethearts
at home...and the fear.

  Under it all, each of them had it. The cold, choking fear the next time they went up, they wouldn’t be fast enough at spotting the fighters, they wouldn’t shoot well enough to protect each other, they wouldn’t be able to fly close enough formation to keep everyone safe, they’d get lost in the soupy weather over the Channel...

  ...the fears went on and on, reaching up with icy fingers to wrap around Evelyn’s throat and squeeze, freezing her in place, unable to move, unable to act, unable to do anything but feel the scream building within...growing...

  Breathe.

  Evelyn never knew who said it. But she opened her eyes and separated out the images to see Sean, the redhead flight engineer/gunner standing in front of her with his fingertips on her face.

  In fact, they were all touching her. Whether of their own volition or in response to her sudden need, the entire crew had drawn tightly around her. They’d reached out for the skin-to-skin contact that acted as an anchor to the real world. Her hands and wrists were held by four different men. Captain Peters had one hand on the back of her neck, his fingers buried in her hair.

  Evelyn took a breath and let her barriers drop even further. The fear receded, replaced by all the various mechanisms that each man used to fight it back for himself. There was Carl’s awareness of duty and Sean’s laughing devil-may-care thrill-seeking. Bobby Fritsche, one of the waist gunners, had a deep trust in this group of men. Abram, the navigator, relied on his extensive training and a deep well of religious faith. Logan “Yum Yum” Ayala, the short, stocky ball turret gunner, felt his own youthful invulnerability and coupled that with a fatalistic sense that when it was his time, it was his time, and he’d meet death with both barrels blazing. Les Norton, the other waist gunner, prayed the Rosary daily and used his faith to push back the fear. Paul, the bombardier, pushed it back with thoughts of his family back home. Bob Becket, the copilot, also thought of home and a girl he’d left behind. She looked a lot like Evelyn, which would doubtless cause some embarrassment later, but in the net, it was just too intimate to be embarrassed. Rico Martinez, the tail gunner, had some of all of these devices at work, but mostly he just let the fear pass through him and concentrated on the here and now.