by Sarah Noffke
“I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “It’s different skills, I guess. Writing is more controlled. Whereas drawing is fluid, a letting go. It’s a choice.” Each of her sentences grows more confident as the answer comes to her.
“And right now you are making the choice to let your power flow out of you. You’re drawing everything, but the things you say need to be written. How’s that? Does that make sense?” I say.
She stares down at the pencil in her hand and nods, a slight dawning growing on her face.
“Now stab yourself with that pencil,” I say calmly.
“What? No! Are you insane?” she says, revulsion written on her expression.
“Probably. Now draw a circle,” I say, pointing to the pad and putting a strong force behind the words, a solid intention.
Her eyes morph into a look of confusion and then awe as she takes the pencil to the pad and draws a perfect circle. Then Adelaide looks at me. “Wait. You made me do that,” she says, sounding half offended, half fascinated.
“Of course I did,” I say, my hands behind my back now.
“Even though I tried to resist I couldn’t,” she says in astonishment.
“That’s how it is with everyone you’ve told to do something since you came of dream travel age,” I say.
“They were forced….” Each word is drawn out as the realization hits her. “Even though they knew it wasn’t what they wanted to do, they had no choice but to follow my orders,” she says in disbelief.
“Exactly,” I say, firing a finger gun at her.
“So the first order you gave me, when you told me to stab myself, that was when your switch was off?” she says.
“Catching on now,” I say, rocking forward on my toes and then back again.
“But then you flipped the switch on the second order, didn’t you?” she says, her eyes looking without seeing as everything pieces together in her mind.
“And tomorrow I’ll teach you how to give orders so you’re not detected in someone’s mind. This will make it so people think what you told them to do is of their own free will. Although no one really has free will around me. Well, I’ve met one or two,” I say, thinking of Dahlia. It brings a subtle pressure to my chest. A sensation I’m not used to. I cover my sudden discomfort by strolling for my chair, which puts my back to Adelaide.
“So our lesson is over? What am I supposed to do now?” she says.
“You should play the quiet game,” I say, grabbing the file on the side table that I stole from John’s office.
Chapter Fourteen
“Don’t you have a telly?” Adelaide says. She’s been fidgeting for the better part of a half hour.
“You’re bloody awful at the quiet game,” I say, lowering the file and glaring at Adelaide. “You’ve lost like a dozen times.”
She throws herself back on the sofa. I’d go to my room to review the files I stole from the Institute but I prefer the light in the den for reading. This was never an issue before my spawn crawled out of the pits of hell.
“Errr,” she says with a growl. “Who doesn’t have a television?”
“Me,” I say simply. “Well, and the other one percent of the population who like to think for themselves and not pollute their brains with rubbish.”
“You can’t be serious. Are you hiding the telly in a bookcase or something?” she says.
“Yes,” I say, dropping the file in my lap. “There’s a secret latch somewhere in that case,” I say, pointing to the bookshelves lined with leather-bound classics. “I forget where it is. Check around and you’ll find it. I’m sure of it.”
She pulls off her arm draped across her forehead and glares at me. “I’m not falling for your stupid trick.”
I shrug. “Then have it your own way. No mind-stabbing TV for you.”
“And there isn’t one in your room, either,” she says, like this was part of the discussion.
“Excuse me,” I say, lifting the file and slapping it down on my lap.
She doesn’t look guilty. “I went in there while you were at work,” she says with air quotes. “Where were you? Did you go out the window? Is your other gift that you can fly?”
“Yes, I can fly and I can even become invisible,” I say.
“That’s impossible,” she says, but she doesn’t sound like she completely believes her statement.
I then narrow my eyes at her, a heat burning in my stare. “And don’t ever go into my room. That’s my space. Well, this whole flat used to be my space until you decided to show up and throw a wrench into everything,” I say.
“You’re making it sound like I ruined your secretive and strange life,” Adelaide says.
I tilt my head at her and give her a long telling look.
“Errr,” she grunts again, balling up her fists and slamming then into the sofa.
I pick up the file I’ve tried reading over a dozen times.
“You don’t have to be so rude, you know. I didn’t ask to be born,” she says.
First, I pick a piece of lint off my trousers. Then I flick it in Adelaide’s direction. It doesn’t even come close to her, but that wasn’t the point. “I do, in fact, have to be rude. It’s hardwired into my DNA. And, on your second point, I didn’t ask for you to be born either. Wish I had been given a choice on the matter.”
“You can’t be serious?” she says, her voice low, hurt flaking it. “How can you be so heartless?”
“I’m obviously a genetic phenomenon. I operate perfectly fine without the pesky organ,” I say. Actually, I know from too many emotional tragedies that I in fact do have the organ beating in my chest. It just happens that I was born with a broken heart.
She stares around, exasperated. “Well, what do you expect me to do? You locked me in this flat and all I have are a bunch of books.”
“I know, I’m quite the villain. I gave you, a homeless and diabolical pain in the ass, a roof over your head, food, stuff,” I say, motioning to the room where the clothes and products I had bought were left. “And now I’m weighing down my schedule teaching you how to control your power. Call the authorities on me. I’m a bloody scoundrel who needs to be stopped.”
She pushes herself to a standing position, and immediately sets off stomping back and forth. “Well, what am I supposed to do all day long when you disappear?”
“Read a book,” I say simply.
“I have already read most of these,” she says, angling her head at the nearest case of books.
“There’s over a thousand volumes in this flat,” I say, throwing my arms at the bookshelves crammed with books. They are my most prized possessions. Most objects are a convenience or hold no real purpose for me. But books have meaning. They have depth. They are alive.
She shrugs and continues pacing. “I like to read. I do. But these are all classics. Catch-22, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Invisible Man. Really? Who hasn’t read these?”
“Most of the bloody population,” I say, impressed but unwilling to show it.
She strolls over to the shelf, her hands in her pockets, her eyes wondering. “And they’re first or early editions. All of these.”
I shrug, disinterested in this observation. Maybe she’s talked herself out now. Maybe she’ll give me some peace.
“You want to hear something funny?” Adelaide says.
Or maybe not. “If it starts with ‘there’s this YouTube video’ then I don’t care.” I then look up at her, mock sincerity written on my face. “Actually no matter what it is, I don’t bloody care.”
She throws me a seething glare over her shoulder before returning to studying the volumes in front of her. “How do you even know what YouTube is? Have you ever even been on the World Wide Web?”
“I don’t pollute my brain with trash but that doesn’t mean I live in a bloody hole. It may surprise you but I know about a lot of useless shit. It’s part of my job to know what sources the dumbasses are using to promote evil,” I say.
“And this job? What
is it?” she says.
“Oh, since you asked so nicely, let me just tell you,” I say and pause. Lower my chin and stare at her until she turns around and looks at me, an expression of surprise on her face.
“You will?”
“No, of course not. Fuck off,” I say.
The eye roll she gives me looks like it will make her eyes stick in the top of her head. “And you don’t know as much as you think. You don’t know shit about me,” she says.
I tap my finger on the file sitting in my lap. “You were born May 15th, 1997. You went to Saint Angus’s Academy until age twelve, when you were kicked out after a series of incidents. From there you were expelled from sixteen different schools until you dropped out at the age of fifteen. You then became a full-time resident of Terrill Mental Institute where your therapist classified you as a schizophrenic. After six months you were quarantined to solitary confinement for most of your days because although not a danger to yourself, the residents and your care givers were worried for their own safety when in your presence. They reported sensing you were in their head and blacking out when forced to interact with you. In hopes of finding a more life-sustaining option for you, you were moved to three different institutes over the next three years. However, it was the same ol’ issue at each. At age eighteen you signed off on your own release. Since then I can deduce that you’ve been a drain on our government in other ways.” I say all this while staring at my fingernails, no emotion in my voice.
“You…” she says with a hiss, her face an awful shade of red. “You read my files. Those are personal and private. How did you even get access to those?”
I huff arrogantly. “Nothing is classified for me. And now you realize that I truly do know everything.”
“Well, you may be able to read a report about my screwed up life, which by the way is all your fault. But you still don’t know much about me,” she says, sounding proud like she’s one-upped me.
I know enough about the human psyche to realize Adelaide is going to blame me for her screwed up life no matter what. If she had it easy then she’d hate me for not being a part of it. If Adelaide had minor upsets in her life then she’d loathe me for not being there to help. And since she obviously had it rough due to economics and mental confusion, well, I’m absolutely going to be blamed for the troubles. The person who is absent is always accused. Neglect is really the easiest thing to not forgive.
“No,” I say casually. “I don’t know your favorite color, your preferred flavor of ice cream, or what you like to do when you aren’t terrorizing an innocent school girl.”
And I didn’t think it possible but her face deepens to an almost purplish shade of red which makes her freckles almost disappear. “She fucking deserved that!”
“I’m sure sweet little Sally did. But really, in front of the whole school yard,” I say, almost breaking my neutral expression.
“Well, she didn’t end up shoving anything anywhere because the headmistress intervened,” she says.
“And then alarmed and confused by the whole thing, Sally made up the story that you blackmailed her into doing it, is that right?” I say, having pieced this together ages ago after reading about it in Adelaide’s file.
She nods, shame covering her face.
“Yes, I’m brilliant at reading between the lines on reports. They never tell the real story,” I say, staring at the file in my hands. The one from the Lucidite Institute that definitely doesn’t tell the real story.
“Do you want to know what I like to do in my spare time or anything of an actual personal nature about me?” There’s hope in Adelaide’s voice. It’s sad really. She’s got false expectations about us, ones I’m continuously trying to fix for her.
“No, I don’t, but deep down you already knew that, didn’t you?” I say plainly.
She actually nods as she turns back to the case, to pretend to browse books. Adelaide is hiding her expression and that’s fine by me. I don’t like sharing in people’s pity. “But you went and looked up my history, why?”
“Because my job is to know as much as I can about someone’s personal history. The person who holds the most information is always at an advantage,” I say.
“You make it sound like we’re playing a bloody game of chess,” she says.
“Yes, that’s exactly right. We are. And here’s a little tip for you. You’re always playing chess with everyone in your life. Everything is about power, about outmaneuvering the other person. There’s no relationship where someone isn’t trying to checkmate you. Spouses, friends, coworkers, neighbors, it’s all a competition in one regard or another,” I say.
“You know how cynical you sound?” she says, turning around and quirking an eyebrow at me.
Adelaide hasn’t seen the thousands of cases that I have. Some were natural disasters, but all the rest were triggered by greed, stupidity, and deceit. The repairman who was responsible for a jetliner of people falling out of the sky was distracted by a fight he had with his wife. She wanted to take out a second mortgage. He, of course, didn’t want to. The bombing I stopped last year was a retaliation on a celebrity who fired her agent. The high-speed chase on the motorway I had an agent prevent was the result of an irate student who was acting out against an instructor who didn’t recommend him for the honors program. Everything is a power game. People don’t get along. They fucking play games with each other. And the loser is usually the one who doesn’t realize he just left his king wide open for an attack. Know the people around you. Know what they’re capable of. And watch your fucking back when you piss them off.
“I happen to pride myself on my cynicism,” I say.
“So you don’t trust anyone, do you?”
Without hesitating I nod. “That’s right.”
“What about Dahlia? Did you trust her?”
“What do you think?” I say.
“Yeah, I guess she did kick you out for breeding,” she says, seeming to understand immediately how dumb a question it was.
“What about friends or family? Haven’t you ever trusted any of them?” she says.
My mind immediately thinks of my sister. The person I grew up with and was forced to bond with since day one. Last year Lyza had me abducted and tortured, and if her plan had worked then I’d be dead right now. Then I think of Trey, my only real friend. He withheld my medical records from me, not telling me for months that I had high blood pressure. And then there’s my pops. He loves me unconditionally, but had always voiced his disappointment over my lifestyle when I was younger. “I trusted my mum,” I finally say.
“Well, at least you had her. I can’t think of a single person I’ve ever trusted,” Adelaide says, that repulsive pity in her tone again.
“Well, who’s the cynic now?” I say.
She shrugs noncommittally at my statement.
“Well, when you can hear the revolting thoughts in people’s heads, it is difficult to trust the buffoons on this planets,” I say, and oddly hope that makes her feel better. Or at least act less pitiful.
“Yeah, you’d think that would make it easier to trust people, but…” She trails away, a dark expression in her eyes.
“Actually, I know exactly how untrustworthy people are from being in their heads,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says, turning back to the case like she has no more to say on the subject. However, I think she’s actually been swept away by a thought or accosted by a long ago memory. Maybe a thought she heard but back then didn’t know was from the person’s head. She’s probably having a lot of hindsight moments lately. Maybe her reflection will offer me some peace.
The first page of the file I’ve reread a dozen times sits staring back at me. It’s still the same rubbish as before. A record of an event that will happen sometime in the future. No dates. No names. No places. Someone is blocking the intelligence field. Obviously. But why? And who? Are they aware that the Lucidites are watching them? That we have that capability? The news reporters pick up on events of int
erest. Events that have strong psychic energy, heightened emotions, or are connected to the consciousness of thousands. For this last reason things like sporting, political, and other massive events make the Lucidites news feed. As well as lottery numbers and stocks that rise or fall suddenly. But in this particular case there’s no clue to what’s caused it to be picked up by a reporter. There’s hardly any real information. Person E is catching a plane. They don’t get on it. They are intersected by Person F. They go without a struggle. It’s baffling. But the reporter who made the report is a level five. Her reports have never been wrong and they are always of significance. The cosmic force delivered these clairvoyant visions to the reporter for a reason. And level five cases are only picked up by a few and they are insistent until the event comes to pass. This event is still being retrieved by the news reporter, which means it hasn’t happened yet. With so much ambiguity surrounding this case, it can’t be ignored but it also makes no sense. There has to be a way to figure out the timeline. The location will be even more difficult to determine. But I think I have a way to do it.
Chapter Fifteen
I throw the file down on Trey’s desk. He flips his head up, not having heard me come in. His eyes touch down on the file and then crinkle at the edges with disapproval.
“Ren what are you doing with that?” he asks, his forehead wrinkling.
