Vacant (16 page)

Not to mention, forward motion felt good.

“You wanted me to teach you stuff,” I said.
About telepathy,
I added.

“Yeah,” Tommy said. His voice was disengaged, but he was interested. He'd sat up and was paying a lot more attention.

I'd watched him in action, and he didn't seem to have any gift other than the common send-receive of telepathy. He hadn't been able to light a fire, teleport, lift things with his mind, or any of the other less common Abilities, not that I could see. And there was no way to test for precognition; it was something that developed in your teens, that woke you up in the middle of the night shivering in terror, or it wasn't. The brain had had thousands of years to develop a warning sense of danger, and some minds took that to the extreme.

So Tommy was a regular, plain, unleavened telepath. But from everything I could sense, he'd be a strong one—and strength made up for a lot of limitations, if you trained it right. And for whatever reason, his brain was still settling, still working itself into consistent telepathy. Otherwise he'd have been recruited by the Guild already. I had no doubt that would happen soon, though, and the more I could give him in the meantime, the better. Not to mention the more we'd have to work with if something really did go horribly wrong.

“You serious about the lesson?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, but he wasn't. He was tired, and distracted, and mad at me and everyone else a little. And I wasn't exactly at my best either.

“We'll do it another time,” I said.

“You promised tonight,” he said. He was slouched on a chair, and that wasn't a terrible position. You wanted to be comfortable, more than anything. But he wasn't taking it seriously right now, and sometimes posture led to a change in attitude. If we were going to do this, we would do it correctly.

“Fine. Grab a pillow and come sit down on the floor with me,” I said, pulling a folded blanket to the floor. “You might try cross-legged. You want a straight back, though. That's the important part.” I sat down, legs outstretched awkwardly in front of me. Cross-legged hurt my knees on a bad day, and I'd long since come to terms with that. I opened up my mind enough to let him read the information if he wanted to.

“Now, let's talk about what I do when I Mind,” I said. It was as good a place to start as any, and he'd had plenty of opportunity to watch the action so far. It would also ground me in this job and this reality strongly, which I needed right now. “I keep track of the minds and the emotions in the surroundings. My range is maybe half a mile in all directions, more if the emotions are strong. I've seen folks with larger ranges, and I've seen folks with shorter ones. It has to do with how sensitive your brain is to the fluctuations in Mindspace.”

I shifted and straightened my back, and Tommy settled himself across from me. He was cross-legged, of course, no pain. Kids were like that.

“What's Mindspace?” he asked.

“Mindspace is the space in which minds interact with the world, through a medium no one really understands.”
Tommy made a face, not getting it, so I switched to “Imagine water, right? If you're in the bathtub and you move your hand through the water, the water makes these waves that run into the side of the tub, right? You move your hand faster, the waves hit the tub harder. There's more energy. Well, telepaths are like your hand—well, let's say they're goldfish in the water.”

“Ew, goldfish?” Tommy made a face, picturing a bathtub full of him and goldfish equally.

“Let's say an aquarium full of goldfish and we're standing outside,” I said.

“Okay . . .” The word dragged out of him. I was starting to lose his attention. Crap, it had been a long time since I'd worked with the younger ones.

“Okay,” I said. “Imagine you're a goldfish, I'm a goldfish, your mom's a goldfish, and Special Agent Jarrod is a goldfish.”

“Why are we all goldfish?”

“Because we're swimming around and the water moves,” I said, holding back annoyance. “Like in the tub example. When you see in Mindspace, you feel the waters move and it tells you a lot about the mind whose emotions are moving things. When you're a telepath, you make stronger waves. Usually you're also more sensitive to the movements.”

“I'm confused,” he said, frowning.

I sighed. “Let me show you an example.”

He looked at me. I looked at him.

You going to let me show you?
I asked quietly, mind-
to-mind.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Remember the sliding door I showed you how to make earlier? You'll need to push that aside for now.”

“Oh. How do I do that?”

“Just think about pushing it aside and letting me walk into your foyer for a moment. Don't think too hard about it—it should happen on its own.”

He frowned and did it.

“Good. Very good.”

“Now what?” he asked, the words echoing in the foyer of his mind.

I knocked.

He told me to come in, which I did.

I stepped in and worked on increasing the detail of our shared house-picture. This wasn't a bad image for him to start with, and while it had its limitations, it wouldn't teach him too many bad habits. I solidified the walls, giving them texture and paint and wainscoting, adding pictures and a low table with flowers to the space. The entryway would be a dark wooden floor.

Tommy insisted it should be carpet.

Fine, carpet. I had him add some layers and texture to that, until it felt real. Until he could smell the space, which was always daytime, and be comfortable and happy here. And then I cheated.

I formed a thought the size and shape of a marble, or at least it would look like that from the outside. I showed him the thought, a shining marble sphere of light.

You ready?
I asked.

He settled in, bringing a picture of his own body into the space as a stand-in for his mental self. Good, very good. Having a strong sense of self was everything, and he was already ahead of the game.

I dropped the shining marble, and it fell, slower than you'd expect from gravity, falling, falling until it hit the carpeted floor. It sank in, like a rock in a pond.

The carpeted floor fell too, then rebounded like the surface of that pond. Ripples spread out through the floor,
hitting our feet and shifting shape, hitting the walls and making the walls ripple too like the smoke in a mirage, like the world with waves.

Cool,
Tommy said.
Cool!
The projection he had of his body rippled and shimmered too, before disappearing. He was still here, just more diffuse.
Do it again.

Come on back,
I said.
Get yourself nice and present here, and go stand at the far side of the room.

He struggled with that for a moment and then complied, an approximation of his body appearing again, until he walked over to the other side of the room. He was standing in front of the small table. The flowers, I noticed, had lost all their color, fading out once his and my attention had moved from them. I put some attention back and the petals sharpened, the color brightening. I re-added some detail to the shared world.

Now this time I want you to focus on what you feel in the corner, at that particular point in the room.
I held up a “hand” to forestall his objection.
Yes, it's all in your head here. But if you can stay really conscious of that one spot in particular, it will make it easier to understand what I'm talking about. You can do it. I have faith.

I formed a thought again, this one a little bigger, a shining sphere with internal moving clouds. Tommy was ready in his corner.

I dropped the marble, and it fell even slower, its mind-mass picking up momentum very slowly.

It hit the carpet, a larger stone in a smaller pond, and the world rippled. Deep waves emanated from the meet point, along the carpet, at the table, through the walls. Tommy's self rippled too, but he stayed present enough to feel the shape of the world moving through him.

I gave him a minute to be excited and to think about what he'd felt; then I said:

It's different when you're looking at the whole of the world. I'll show you that in a minute. But we started here, where you can feel the energy moving, on purpose. Most everything in the world moves in waves—like that—and while your brain tends to read the waves like listening to sound—you aren't always aware of the shapes of the information coming at you—it's always there. This is how Mindspace and the world in your mind and other people's minds really works. Knowing that can let you manipulate things to get some cool effects.

The room around us was slowly diffusing, slipping away into more and more vague pictures. It would disappear in a minute; Tommy was focused on what he'd just experienced and I wasn't spending a lot of energy to maintain the picture either. I kept just enough for the feeling of a three-dimensional room with carpet, and let the rest go.

Can you surf the Mindspace thing?

I laughed, startled. What an incredible image.
Maybe,
I said. My old mentor, Jamie, could move Mindspace in a virtual tsunami, could make the world crash in on you. Mindspace moved just that big, and if you could ride that energy somehow . . .
Maybe one day you'll figure out how,
I said.
Telepathy and all the rest are still young sciences. There's still a lot of corners to explore and things to figure out from scratch.

He thought about that, and the edges of the room moved away still farther, until we stood in a white box with diffuse light.

Not everybody can see Mindspace for themselves, and it's probably too early to know for sure whether you can or not,
I said.
We can try to build you up to that later. But for now, want to see what I see when I Mind?

Sure!

I let the projection go, and settled him in an observer
position, strapping him in like the second seat on an impossibly big hang glider. I went slow, letting us transition out of his mind, out of him in control, and back to the wider world with me driving. Then, once he and I were both comfortable, I opened up my mental eyes and drifted down into Mindspace.

The world became the depths, a place where light did not exist and was not needed. But I could still see, still perceive like a bat echolocating through the night. His mind was behind mine, tucked up on my back like a set of wings, blind and unaware.

I invited him in to see with my eyes, feel with my senses. I was slow, and awkward, not having done this in years. There had been a time when I could do it with an entire classful of students at once, a gift that had made me rare and valuable beyond price to the Guild. I couldn't anymore, and that hurt. But there wasn't time for guilt, or regret, or anything else in the moment. This moment was for teaching.

Where are we?
Tommy's voice came as he stared through my eyes.

Mindspace,
I said.
Mindspace at your house. This can be dangerous, realize that. But it's wondrous too. Don't go looking on your own; promise? And I'll show you what I see.

Sure.

I got the impression he'd have agreed to anything at that point, just to see more.

I broke down the world into its eddies and swirls, and surfaced enough to see the minds around us. Loyola, asleep in a chair at the front of the house, his mind like a rock in a lake, largely weight and no interaction. Mendez, like a water bug skimming along the surface, very aware of her surroundings as she paced the property line outside, hand
on her gun, looking for an excuse to use it. Jarrod, deep in structured thought like lists of numerical values in some color-coded chart, as he weighed pros and cons of some decision.

The judge upstairs, worrying about the FBI and the situation she was in. I skimmed over her quickly, making a mental note to return later, to ask her the questions that had been brewing awhile. But now was not for that. Now was to show Tommy what was possible.

I moved out, to the street, to the edge of my range, careful to go slow and not to lose him or disorient him in this new space.

There are so many of them,
Tommy said.
So many.

Minds dotted the street, up and down in the houses, some sleeping, some not. A cluster of school-aged girls in the closer house, watching some kind of scary movie as a group. A couple having an argument farther down the road. Mind after mind lined up like eggs in an endless carton, disappearing at the edge of my range. And closer, a man walking his dog, the dog's simple thought shapes popping off him like cartoon bubbles.

Maybe Tommy could see Mindspace after all; those cartoon bubbles certainly weren't how my mind interpreted the world.

I could feel him tiring, already; you worked for years to develop the endurance to stay here long, to control your telepathy for any length of time, and I'd had to work like heck to get mine back when I'd lost it. I may never get it all back. But what I had I was grateful for.

I'd have to tell Swartz that, at our next meeting. I was grateful for the control I was getting back.

Ready to go back?
I asked Tommy.

Yeah.

I left slowly, quietly, pulling us both back to the real
world and our bodies with the utmost of gentleness. His wonder and sorrow at leaving mixed with all the emotions bubbling up inside me, until we surfaced, and I let him go.

He took a minute to wake up, and yawned.

“Let's get you ready for bed,” I said.

I'd forgotten how much I'd missed teaching. I'd forgotten . . . Tommy was going to be special one day, and I wouldn't be here to see him grow into it.

Not that it would matter if Sibley got ahold of him.

*   *   *

A few minutes later I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water and found Judge Parson sitting there, in a thick robe over flannel pajamas buttoned all the way up to her neck. Her hands circled a chunky mug full of tea on the kitchen table. She looked at me when I came in, like she was daring me to challenge her right to pajamas in her own house. I declined.