by I. T. Lucas
As she’d expected, the room fell silent, and everyone was kind of gaping at her.
The director put his hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Jin.” He pulled out a chair for her and put it in front of the semi-circle. “You can sit down.” Turning back to the class, he waved his hand. “Let’s continue with the introductions. Jeremy, you are next.”
She looked at the guy the director had pointed at. He was sitting with his elbows propped on his knees, and his head cradled in his hand, and as he lifted his eyes to hers, Jin’s breath caught in her throat.
It wasn’t that he was handsome. Jeremy’s face was too thin, and his nose was too long, but he had the most amazing eyes she’d ever seen. The irises were turquoise, rimmed with dark blue, and his lashes were so long that they looked fake. In fact, if she’d seen him on the street, Jin would have thought that he was wearing contact lenses and glued-on lashes.
Perhaps he was?
“Hi, I am Jeremy, I’m twenty-four, and I am a remote viewer like James but with a slight twist. While James can remote view in the present, I can remote view in the future. Regrettably, my ability is much less useful than James’s because there are many possible futures. What I see may or may not happen.”
The director waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t sell yourself short, Jeremy. Your talent has been proved to work.”
Jin rubbed her chin. “Forgive my ignorance, but what is the difference between a clairvoyant and a future remote viewer? Isn’t it the same thing?”
Jeremy shook his head. “Jacki sees what’s going to happen. She might not know when and where, but there is a high probability of her visions being true, and it’s mostly about major events. I see snapshots. Sometimes they are of future technology that doesn’t exist yet, or cities of the future, bridges, dams, futuristic buildings.” He chuckled. “I think of myself as a modern Jules Verne but without the writing talent or Leonardo without the artistic ability. I rarely see people or events in my future viewing. It’s more about things.”
Fascinating. So far, it was the only talent Jin wished she had. To foresee what would be invented and where humanity was going technology-wise could be very useful. “It’s a shame that you can’t write about it or draw it. I would have loved to see what you see.”
Jeremy seemed pleased. “Can you draw or write?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“That’s a real shame. I could have described to you what I saw, and you could’ve translated it into words or pictures.”
Was that a pick-up line?
Jin wasn’t sure, but provided that Jeremy passed the height test, she hoped that it was. He seemed like a nice guy, was her age, and his eyes were gorgeous.
The director walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “The way technology is advancing, you’ll soon be able to describe your visions to a computer, and it will create a story or a drawing from it.” He turned to the girl sitting next to Jeremy. “Wendy, it’s your turn.”
“Hi, I’m Wendy, and I’m nineteen. I’m an empath.”
And so it went.
“I’m Abigail, I’m thirty-two, and I’m an energy healer.”
“Naomi, I’m twenty-one. I have psychometry. I can get information from objects.” She smiled shyly. “Sometimes.”
That sounded similar to what Mey could do, and Jin made a mental note to ask Naomi later what exactly she could learn from objects. Was it visual, auditory, or both?
“Spencer at your service, ma’am. I’m seventeen, and I can read auras. Yours is very strong. You are driven, resourceful, and you don’t take crap from anyone.”
Jin laughed. “Thank you, Spencer. That’s a great conversation starter. I bet you have no trouble with pick-up lines.”
He grimaced. “Most auras are not as flattering. So, unless I lie, I can’t use my talent for that.”
The director pointed to the girl sitting next to Spencer. “Sofia, your turn.”
“I’m eighteen, and I have a tiny bit of telekinetic power. If someone flips a coin, I can make it fall in a particular way, and the same is true for dice. But I can’t move them unless they are already in motion.”
“Thank you, Sofia.” The director pointed to the woman sitting next to her. “Mollie.”
She nodded. “I’m forty-six, and I’m post-cognizant. I see past events.”
“I’m Dylan,” said the last member of the group. “I’m thirty, and I have claircognizance, which basically means that I get good hunches. Personally, I count myself lucky for having this ability, but it’s not very useful for others.”
He was right. Although fascinating, half of the talents were useless for spying, and Jin wondered why they had been recruited. Perhaps the program wasn’t exclusively about that?
Still, everyone seemed to be okay with being there, and it didn’t seem as though anything nefarious was going on.
Smiling, she looked at her new teammates. “Thank you for sharing your talents with me. I have to admit that I’ve never heard of some of them. I’ll do my best to remember all of your names and who does what, but if I don’t, please don’t get offended. I have a sucky memory for names.”
“I have a question,” Jeremy said. “Do the people you touch feel when you create the connection?”
Mey had, but Jin wasn’t going to mention that. In fact, she was going to say as little as possible about her sister. Maybe she could even lie and say that they weren’t close.
“I don’t think so. But the last time I tethered to someone, I was fourteen, and I haven’t followed that thread in years.”
That wasn’t a lie, just not the entire truth.
None of the team members had said anything about detecting lies, so she might get away with that. Except, perhaps the two empaths could feel when a person lied, especially if said person felt guilty about it.
Why should she feel guilty, though? She was protecting a loved one, and that was a good thing.
But why did she feel such a fierce need to protect Mey?
Everyone seemed nice, including the director, and she’d accepted the offer out of her own free will.
Still, somewhere in the back of her mind, suspicion lurked, prompting Jin to keep her guard up.
8
Jin
Marisol sat on the couch, crossed her legs, and lifted the cup of coffee Jin put on the side table for her. “So, tell me, how are you acclimating?”
Jin hadn’t expected house calls from her recruiter, but it seemed like Marisol wanted to stay in touch.
“I’m good.” Jin sat next to the recruiter, but not too close. Marisol still wouldn’t shake her hand or touch her in any other way. “I was bummed about missing the weekly outing, but Director Simmons said that I needed to catch up to the group and has had me studying my ass off since day one.” She sighed. “I thought I was done with school, at least for several years, but here I am, doing homework again.”
She’d also discovered that each group member was assigned different study material, and they had instructors come in and work with them individually. In her case, she was studying Mandarin, which made the director’s future plans for her quite obvious.
Jin was going to spy either on Chinese officials or business people. Not a big surprise there. She was perfect for the job.
Theoretically.
Mandarin was damn hard to learn, and Jin doubted she would ever get fluent in it or master the proper accent. Except, maybe it wasn’t necessary. It was enough that she understood what the people she was spying on were saying.
Marisol leaned forward. “Is there anyone in the group who has caught your eye?”
That was unexpected. Suddenly they were BFFs?
Jin shrugged. “Jeremy is cute, and he has the most amazing eyes, but he is too short for me. Besides, he and Naomi seem to have a thing going on.”
“How about Richard?” Marisol asked. “He is handsome, and he is tall.”
Jin waved a hand. “Too old for me.”
Marisol chuckled. “A t
en-year difference might seem like a lot to you now, but it really isn’t. And your talents overlap. It’s much easier to have a relationship with someone similar to you.”
“I guess. He is okay, but I’m not attracted to him.”
“That’s because you’ve got it in your head that he is too old. Give the guy a chance. He might surprise you.”
For some reason, Marisol’s suggestion suddenly seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t as if there were a lot of guys to choose from.
Only Richard and Spencer passed the height test, but Spencer was still a kid. James was in his fifties, Andy was fourteen, and Dylan and Jeremy were too short, and both had eyes for someone else.
“He doesn’t seem interested in me.”
Marisol snorted. “You are so naive. Every guy in that group, including the fourteen-year-old boy, is stealing glances at you. They are just afraid to approach you because you are such a badass.”
“Why would they think that? I’m polite to everyone, doing my work and helping others whenever I can, and I don’t argue with anyone.”
Uncrossing her legs, Marisol smoothed a hand over her slacks. “It might be because of what Spencer said about your aura. Or, they are just intimidated by you. You’re very tall, beautiful, and you are smart. Most guys would hesitate to approach a girl like you. I’m sure Richard just needs a little encouragement.” She waved a hand in a circle. “Flirt with him a little. You don’t strike me like the shy type.”
“I’m not.”
Jin was still stuck on the aura reading. Marisol hadn’t been in the room when Spencer had read it.
“How did you know about the aura reading?”
“The director told me.”
Jin narrowed her eyes at the recruiter. “What else did he tell you about me? And why? Isn’t your job with me done?”
Marisol smiled, but as always, the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “My job is never done. For now, I’m like the homeroom teacher, making sure that everyone is getting along with everyone else. Once the group gets significantly larger, Director Simmons may hire someone else to take over this part of my job.”
Jin leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “I hope that you’ll get many more people into the program so we can be divided into teams according to talents. It makes no sense for an energy healer to learn the same things as I do. In fact, I shouldn’t be here at all. They should have assigned me to a spy unit. That’s all my talent is good for.”
“That’s the long-term plan. Except, it’s not easy to find talent. Most of what the bots flag is nonsense. They have a team of twenty-five people working in that department, sifting through all the garbage that the bots are throwing at them.”
“That must be a very frustrating job.”
“It is. But at the rate artificial intelligence is advancing, I expect that the entire department will be replaced by a supercomputer soon.”
“You really think so? I think it will take several decades before computers can understand human conversations and analyze them in depth.”
Marisol’s eyes sparkled with excitement, which was quite jarring since they looked kind of deadened most of the time. “You’re wrong. It’s going to happen much sooner than that. And when it does, it’s going to be done at amazing speed. I’ll be hopping from city to city, collecting the talents.”
Jin laughed. “You will need a team of assistants.”
“No way. I’m not splitting my commission. Do you have any idea how much I get per head?”
Jin had heard somewhere that headhunters were paid ten percent of the recruit’s first-year salary, which meant that Marisol had pocketed twenty-five thousand for bringing Jin in. It was a lot of money, but it wasn’t a fortune. Still, given that the thirteen people in the program had all arrived in the last three months, that added up to quite a lot. At that rate, Marisol would be making more than a million a year.
Not bad at all.
“If everyone’s pay is similar to mine, I assume that you are getting twenty-five thousand per head.”
“Good guess.” Smirking, Marisol leaned forward. “But I get double that, and all my expenses are paid. I’m going to retire a wealthy woman.”
Jin whistled. “Can I have your job? I mean once you retire?”
The recruiter chuckled. “You don’t have the necessary qualifications.” She pushed to her feet. “Promise me that you will give Richard some serious thought. Flirt with him, show him that you are interested.”
Jin didn’t want to promise anything, but for some reason, it was impossible to refuse Marisol.
“I promise.”
“Good girl.” The recruiter smiled. “Oh, I almost forgot the main reason for my visit.” She pulled Jin’s phone out of her purse. “Since you missed the outing, you didn’t get a chance to send a message to your loved ones, and I promised you that you could.” She handed her the phone. “Type it, and as soon as I’m in an area that has reception, I’ll send it out for you.”
That was nice of her. Or maybe not.
Jin typed the most generic message to Mey, saying that she missed her, was very busy with work, and would send another message next week.
“Thank you for doing this for me.” She handed Marisol the phone. “I’m sure my sister and my parents are worried because they haven’t heard from me.”
“We can’t have that.” Marisol dropped the phone into her purse and smiled. “My job is to keep everyone happy.”
It seemed like the woman had many responsibilities, but with what she was getting paid, it was only fair that her bosses expected a lot in return.
9
Jin
“That will be all for today,” the fitness instructor announced. “Good work, everyone.”
“Thank God.” Jin huffed out a breath. “I don’t think I could have lasted another minute. Who do they think we are, special ops commandos?”
“Yep, I guess they do.” Jacki wiped the sweat off the back of her neck with a towel. “It makes sense for you because you are training to become a spy, but why do I have to suffer?”
“Or I,” Mollie groaned. “I’m way too old for this.”
Over the past two weeks, the three of them had become good friends, spending their free time together, or rather what was left of it after classes, homework, and dates.
Homework took at least an hour a day, Mollie was dating James, and Jin was dating Richard. Only Jacki was adamant about remaining single despite Dylan’s desperate flirting attempts, and he wasn’t the only one. Jacki was getting covetous looks from all the other male team members, the instructors, and even from Director Simmons, who wore a wedding ring.
The girl was hot, and it wasn’t only because of the waist-long corn-blond hair, or the enviable cleavage and long legs. She seemed mysterious and unapproachable, and that was enough to drive any guy nuts. It was good that Jin had no self-esteem issues and believed herself to be just as hot, or she might have developed an inferiority complex.
Jacki didn’t act like a queen bee, though, and she treated her looks more as a hindrance than an asset. She wore no makeup, her clothes were baggy, and her gorgeous hair was usually hanging in a messy braid down her back.
“I still didn’t show you the turbines,” Jacki said.
Jacki found the inner workings of the enormous mountain cavity they were living in fascinating. For days, she’d been nagging Jin to come see the heavy machinery that made life underground possible.
The problem was that Jin was only mildly interested, and between dating Richard and studying her ass off, she had no time for sightseeing. Still, she couldn’t keep coming up with excuses and disappointing Jacki. It was best to get it over with instead of getting reproachful looks from her new BFF.
“Do you want to do it now?”
Jacki’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe that you actually said yes. Sure, ready when you are.”
“Then let’s go.” Jin wrapped the towel around her neck. “I don’t need to shower and change first, righ
t? We are just going to see some dusty, noisy turbines.”
“They are noisy, but they are not dusty. Maintaining them in perfect working condition is crucial. Without them, we would have no fresh air coming in.”
Jin glanced at Mollie. “Do you want to come?”
“Some other time. Right now, all I want to do is go home, shower, put my PJs on, and collapse in front of the dumb box. I’m exhausted.”
For some reason, Jacki seemed relieved that Mollie had declined the invitation. Perhaps the walk to see the turbines was an excuse to have a heart-to-heart conversation.
Except, there had been plenty of opportunities for them to have girl talk when Jacki had come over to Jin’s place or vice versa.
“How are things going with Richard?” Jacki asked a few minutes into the walk, confirming Jin’s suspicion.
“Okay, I guess. We both keep running hot and cold.” She shrugged. “I’ve never dated a guy for longer than a couple of weeks, so it might be my fault. One day I think that he is the sexiest guy on the planet, and the next, I wonder what I see in him.”
Jacki nodded solemnly as if it made perfect sense to her.
“Did you ever experience that before with a guy?”
“I didn’t date much, not even before I got here.”
“Why not? You are seriously gorgeous and a swell human being.”
Jacki smiled. “Thank you. I don’t like having to keep secrets, that’s one reason. The other is that when I get close to people, I start seeing glimpses from their future.” She shook her head. “Imagine having to keep that a secret.”
They were getting closer to the turbines, and Jin had to raise her voice to be heard. “Yeah, I can see how that could be a relationship killer. On the other hand, it can save you heartache. Take my sister, for example. She came home from a photoshoot, and right away smelled another woman all over the bedding. If she could have foreseen that her boyfriend was a cheating scumbag, she wouldn’t have started dating him in the first place.”
