“Good to see you back here in one piece,” he said. “Now we need to make sure that you stay that way.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that, for a change,” I said.
We all went inside. The farm had a spacious living room with rustic furniture, and we sat in a circle. The director acknowledged Tom and Liv with a nod, took the cup of coffee that Mary handed him, and then turned to me, speaking in his customary toneless, low voice.
“You must be wondering what is going on, after everything you have seen,” he said. “I’m sure that you have a question or two.”
“Yeah, sure. Knowing that the government is out there, looking for me with intent to kill, I do have a few questions in mind.”
“I appreciate the reason for your sarcasm, and I don’t blame you, but you’ll understand after I tell you more. Now you all are in this together,” he added, gazing first at Tom and then at Liv, “so you need to hear this as well. Everything you are going to hear is top secret, so keep it in mind, but since it potentially also puts you in danger, you have a right to get the whole picture.”
We all nodded gravely. I had never seen ESA15 look as tense as he did now, which to me left no doubt that we were in deep shit.
“When we told you that you are one of a kind, Tessa, we were lying. There is at least one more who has skills similar to yours. I don’t know if he’s as good as you are, but he’s pretty damn close to that. This would not have happened, had I been as vigilant as I should have, so I take the blame for this entangled situation.”
“Wow, that’s a new one!” I said, still sarcastic.
“Yes, it never happened before. But here’s how this situation developed, and after you have the whole picture, you will agree that it was almost impossible to anticipate. After the long-distance experiment in which you participated failed, we looked for alternatives. During a single week we tested many subjects in the equipment—what you like to call ‘the slipper’—and we did see one or two subjects who developed some telepathic capability, although their ability was limited and did not extend beyond a short distance.”
“So those are obviously not the person you’re talking about,” I pointed out.
“You’re right. They have some innate telepathic ability, and perhaps with time and patience they may become useful, at least at short range, but they will never get even close to your ability. Their limited success, however, told us one thing: it is possible that other persons may develop into full telepaths by exercising powers that they possess but are not aware of having. Someone saw those results and understood the potential, and without my knowing, tested the equipment on himself afterhours. Can you guess who that was?”
“Quinn!” I shouted.
“Right, Quinn. What he didn’t know was that the so-called ‘slipper’ is connected to a range of control systems and data recording, which back up the results that you see in the lab computer, so data are never lost. He deleted the data from the lab computer, but didn’t know about the copy buried deep in the backup system. At one point, I got a red flag alert about the integrity of the lab data from our security system that compares them with the remote backup, so I went to check, and that’s when I found out.”
“But that means that Doctor Alexander is in on it,” I said.
“He knew that Quinn had tested the system but thought that he was just being thorough and wanted to learn personally how the equipment operates, as befits a good manager. He didn’t realize that Quinn himself was developing skills as a result. Alexander is not a bright guy outside the laboratory, in spite of his technical ability.”
“But why would Quinn want me dead?”
“I’m coming to that. Tests that we ran on rats show that exposure to the equipment for long intervals, without periods of rest, causes damage to brain cells. That’s why I made sure to devise tests for you that would require short exposures and would not put you in danger. I got that plan from our medical team, but I didn’t share the reasons for it with Alexander. Somehow I thought it best to keep it my thoughts to myself.”
“That’s because you never share anything with anybody,” I pointed out.
“Perhaps. As we know now—I wasn’t aware of it until Mary here explained it to me—that training plan fortuitously caused some changes in your brain structure, allowing you to function without an external stimulus, but didn’t damage you beyond repair. When the rats were exposed for longer intervals, however, they started to behave differently, even after only two or three experiments. They acted aggressively against other rats or kept away from them. They developed an asocial behavior and, after a while, a psychopathic one. Looking at their brains, it was easy to see that changes had occurred in areas responsible for those behaviors. So you see what that means?”
“Quinn has become a sociopath and psychopath like the rats? He’s being unkind to his co-workers? He wants to kill them?”
“That, and worse. He has disappeared, and with him disappeared the only other portable prototype that Alexander had made and left at the base. That can only mean that he is planning to do something really dangerous.”
“Like taking possession of the president’s body and ruling in his stead? I remember him giving that as a reason to get rid of me.”
“Yes, and that gives away his line of thought, doesn’t it? But he’s done more than that—he has sent a team to dismantle the equipment at the base, so nobody but he can acquire the same ability. And on my way here I got word that an ‘accident’ has happened to Doctor Alexander in Switzerland. He fell down the stairs and broke his neck. He was holding the two sets of portable equipment he had brought to Flims in his hands, so they smashed in the fall. Do you see now?”
“If he manages to kill me as well, he will be unique! He has the only portable copy of the pisspot left. That’s diabolic!”
I paused for a second to see if the news of Doctor Alexander’s death saddened me, but it didn’t, although the reason for it enraged me.
“He must be stopped!” said Mary, who until then had remained silent.
“But how?” I asked. “We don’t know where he is or what he’s up to. Who can stop a ghost?”
“You can,” said Mary.
CHAPTER 22
“So you say that I must kill him? I never killed anybody in cold blood before,” I said.
“That’s not completely accurate, Tessa. You did kill a couple of bad guys, back in Switzerland, and we all owe you for it,” Mary pointed out.
It felt as if I was in a movie, following somebody else’s life, and it was somebody else that they were asking to go and kill someone in premeditated, cold blood. True, I was responsible for pulling the trigger that had killed two, but that was different—it was self-defense, not a planned kill.
“You need to make peace with that, Tessa,” said Mary. “He’s a bad, dangerous man, and don’t forget that he wants to kill you.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms about him getting killed. You’re welcome to him, if you can, but the problem is that I have to do it myself, and I’m not a trained assassin. I don’t know how to go and kill someone who’s not pointing a gun at me.”
“You’ll have to improvise and learn on the job,” said ESA15. “It’s him, or you … and us, and God knows how many others.”
Yes, sure. I knew that it looked easy. Simple: take possession of his body, and make him jump out of the window or something. But it was more easily said than done.
“If Quinn has the same powers as I do, what will stop him from taking possession of my body and doing the same to me? And why hasn’t he done that already? I need some intelligence before I can even start to think what to do.”
“We don’t know enough, and we have no idea where he is and how to find him. Don’t forget that he is a specialist at this game, and if he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be. The only one who can find out what he’s up to, is you,” Mary said.
Tom and Liv kept quiet, obviously at a loss to offer anything useful
and not wishing to interfere, but that was when I needed support more than anything else. Liv seemed to feel it, and she took my hand and squeezed it.
“Listen,” I said at last. “First I need to try to get into Quinn’s head, to see if I can learn anything of value. I’ll do it now, but you all stay here with me. If I start acting strange, like perhaps Quinn got into my head, and I’m about to kill you all, please stop me.”
“If I could make a suggestion …” Tom intervened. I had almost forgotten that he was there, he usually spoke so little.
“Yes, go ahead,” said Mary.
“I have these handcuffs here. Wouldn’t it be safer if I were to put them on you and through the frame of the couch? So if anything goes wrong and Quinn gets control of you, you won’t be able to move.” He was dangling the handcuffs before my eyes.
“Why, that’s a great idea, Tom,” I said. “Just make sure to keep those handcuffs earmarked for me afterwards. They may come in handy when this is all over,” I added, offering my wrists and smiling.
Tom blushed full force, nodded and put one cuff on my left wrist, then through the frame of the couch that ended in a metal armrest, and finally on my right wrist. ESA15 nodded appreciatively and so did Mary. I made myself as comfortable as possible under the circumstances and closed my eyes.
The room was in complete silence, almost as if the others were not breathing. I brought up Quinn’s face before my eyes and concentrated. It took me a minute to locate him, but when I got into his head, the images flickered. I couldn’t keep them stable and certainly couldn’t read his thoughts. This was all new to me, and I had no idea what was happening—then I understood: he was concentrating on somebody else. I had made contact right when he was about to do the same to another target, and the result was a collision. I hoped that the same was happening to him. Through the flickers, I had seen the photograph on his desk, the one he was looking at, and it was the president’s. I had made contact just in time. After a few seconds, Quinn stopped his attempts to make contact, and I withdrew as much as possible in the background.
“What’s happening?” a voice said. Quinn raised his head away from the president’s picture, and I saw a man I had never seen before.
“I don’t know, Jim. There was a disturbance. My head is aching really bad. I need to rest before I try again,” said Quinn.
That was when my previous experience with head hopping paid off. I concentrated on this other man and hopped out of Quinn’s head and into his.
“Okay,” said the man named Jim. “Do you want me to get you something?”
“A soda. Get me a soda.”
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” said Jim.
I decided to stay in Jim’s head. He was thinking, I hope that Quinn can make it. If he’s not capable of taking possession from this distance, it may all have been for nothing.
I opened my eyes for a moment, to deliver a quick update.
“Quinn is targeting the president. I stopped him, this time, but he’s going to try again soon. There is a man with him, named Jim. I don’t know him. I’m in his head now. I’ll update,” I said. I closed my eyes and concentrated again. Jim was standing by a dispensing machine in what looked like an office building. He collected a can and walked back in, opened a door with a key card, and there was Quinn, lying back in his chair with his eyes closed, the pisspot on the desk before him, like the crown of a tragic king.
“I brought you a soda,” said Jim, handing it to him.
Quinn took a few noisy sips before placing the can on the table. “That was good,” he said.
“Try again now?” Jim asked.
Quinn nodded, placed the pisspot on his head, turned it on, and lowered his gaze to look at the picture on his desk again. That gave me some satisfaction, because I realized that he wasn’t as good as me, even with the help of the pisspot. I didn’t need to keep looking at a target’s photo, but apparently he couldn’t make it without one. Perhaps he didn’t have a picture of me, and that was why I was still breathing.
At last, Quinn smiled and nodded—he had obviously made contact with the president. It was time for me to act, but how? Jumping into his head again might have disrupted his current attempt, but it wasn’t a permanent solution. I would have welcomed a syringe with a good anesthetic to knock him out, but the bad guys had no such useful implement with them. Quinn kept smiling, and his expression became more and more concentrated, a sure sign that he was digging deep into the president’s mind, perhaps getting prepared to take full possession of his body.
I could wait no longer. On the desk behind which Quinn sat was a beautiful paperweight, a small rock with a vug exposing lilac-colored crystals. I took control of the other man’s body. At first, he let out a little strangled sound as he tried in vain to speak, and his muscles became rigid as he tried to fight it, but I soon took over completely. Quinn’s eyes were closed, and I made the man pick up the small rock silently and walk behind Quinn’s back. I sensed the horror in the man’s mind as he understood what was happening without knowing how it was happening. But Quinn sensed something. He opened his eyes and jumped up from his chair.
“Jim. What the …”
He paused and his eyes became a slit. He moved around and put the table between Jim and himself.
“It’s okay, Quinn,” I said with Jim’s voice. A stupid thing to say, of course.
“Who is that? Is that you, Tessa?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t think of a good response. By then we were circling around the table with me, in Jim’s body, chasing Quinn, who had taken the pisspot from his head and was keeping if close to his chest, as if to protect it from harm. I realized that smashing it would be a good first step, but then Quinn put it on his head again and turned it on. God knows what he was thinking. It couldn’t last forever. Quinn eventually tripped on his chair’s foot and went down on his knee. I knew that this was the moment—it was now, or maybe never. I made Jim raise the rock and then bring it down with all strength onto the pisspot on Quinn’s head. Pieces of plastic and metal flew through the room, and Quinn gave a cry of rage. By then, I had gone berserk. I forced Jim to hit Quinn again and again. The pisspot, now broken almost in half, fell to the floor, and blood spurted from a gash on Quinn’s head. But I needed to make sure. I made him hit Quinn’s head again and again until it became a pulp. I acted as if I, myself, were possessed. Then I let go of his body but remained in his head.
The man screamed a silent scream in his mind, driven to madness by what I had made him do, and ran out of the room, downstairs, and out on the street. I fought the impulse to get the hell out of his screwed-up brain. I couldn’t leave loose ends. As he ran to cross the street, I took possession of his body again and made him stand there, until a bus that was coming at him was close enough to assure that he would not be able to escape, and then I broke contact.
“It’s done,” I said, opening my eyes.
CHAPTER 23
With Quinn’s sad and premature departure (due to one of his associates going amok and brutally assaulting and killing him before killing himself, or so the official record says), Mary had become ESA15’s boss and mine, which is swell since we get along so well. After all, I saved her from the Uglies, didn’t I? She’s a tough lady, and I don’t think that she’ll give me everything I want—I have a long list—but for starters, she did meet my demand for paid leave, with Liv and Tom in tow. She agreed that we had earned it, and graciously declined the offer to come along and join us.
I had selected a nice beach resort, where we planned to have a quiet and uneventful vacation. The beach was lovely, with beautiful, clean golden sand; the water was limpid and inviting, and the Mai Tai that the beach bar delivered was mixed to perfection. Mary had booked three good rooms for us, although I would have managed with two, or even with a single one. Liv was being very understanding, and didn’t mind that my need to thank Tom sometimes clashed with our time together.
Tom, on his part, was a dear. He had got over
the juvenile crush that he had had on me at first, and our relationship was growing daily on a more mature, and mostly physical, plane. I liked it that way.
It was the third day of our vacation, and we were working on our tan in a secluded part of the hotel beach, when Liv brought up “tomorrow.” I knew that it was coming, because I did take a peek at her thoughts, every now and then. She knew that I might peep and didn’t mind. I told her that it made me feel closer to her, which it did.
“What happens when this week is over?” she asked.
“We are going back to business as usual, and you know that Mary has agreed to assign you to my unit as my ‘personal trainer’ … in all senses, and to study my brain, which, after all, is what you have been trained to do,” I said, smiling.
“That’s not what I meant. Are you going to keep killing people?”
“Not as a job description, I won’t.”
“Are you okay with what happened?”
“I am. Quinn was a bad one, and he was out to kill me and seize power by taking control of the president. I can’t think of a better excuse for doing away with him. And if you wonder, I’m not a soft, young woman who eats herself up with remorse.”
“Hmm … maybe.”
“Yeah, Doctor Freud! If you don’t stop being all profound and serious, I’ll know what to do about it.”
“What?”
I closed my eyes and got into her head. I took possession of her body and made her get up from her deck chair and come lie beside me on mine.
“This,” I said, and kissed her.
“I worry about you,” she said with a furrowed brow when I let go of her.
“You shouldn’t. I’m fine. And stop worrying; if you keep thinking too much, you’re courting wrinkles at your young age.”
Tessa (Tessa Extra-Sensory Agent Book 1) Page 12