Out of Touch

by Leia Howard

  From the t-shirt, months farther along in Jamie’s memory timeline, I gathered details of his captivity. -Jamie was held captive in a room that was locked. The room was decorated traditionally for a boy, with light blue walls with dinosaurs and superheroes stenciled on the walls, and a small bed with racecar sheets. He was fed and hydrated, and had a small toilet, sink, and tub built into one corner of his room, but there was no screen for privacy. He used the top sheet as a shield when he went to the bathroom and he bathed in his underwear. The door had a small slot at the bottom that he received his food and water from, but he had to eat and drink from plastic plates, cups, and bowls and his only utensil was a rubber spoon. He had to place all plastic and rubber dinnerware back on the food tray or he would get in trouble. Jamie never saw his captors, but there was a camera in one corner of the room and he heard voices sometimes. The person that he heard most was the lady from the first vision, but he still could not place where he knew her from before. There was a second voice, male, but Jamie never recognized the man’s voice prior to his captivity and he did not want to think about the ‘Bad Man’. He seems to be in a basement, or maybe just a soundproof room, there were no windows and he did not hear any outside noises.

  The stuffed hammer impression was different, because it was an end of Jamie’s life memory. -See details of Jamie’s captivity gleaned from the t-shirt. His last memory was seeing a tray coming through the slot, hearing the lady captor tell him to sleep tight, eating some food, then falling asleep; he never woke up. The other mounds I saw are probably previously buried bodies.

  After Jamie’s last memory, I was able to stay with his body to see where he was placed. That is how I provided his grandmother and law enforcement with what I saw of the surrounding area. With regular readings, I am limited to memory holder’s perceptions. End of life memories are different.

  Once a person dies, I can dwell in the person’s body after their spirit vacates and await further information. I can also interact with the environment around the body. I can roam a limited area around the body to gain further information, but I cannot return to dwell inside the body after I leave it to roam. And I could only roam for a limited time, I must return to my own mind before too long or risk my mind being shorn from my body.

  Initially, I could not imagine inhabiting the body after death, it seemed wrong. But soon I could tolerate dwelling in the body if I stayed respectful of the recently departed spirit. This self-imposed criterion allowed me to appease my conscience and use my abilities to a fuller extent. My wider perception is tied to the person’s spirit being free of their body. I can’t interact with the spirit, but if the spirit was present for any amount of time after their death and they allow me to, I can use their body as an anchor for my expanded perceptions. I believe that the ability to roam is based on the spirit itself roaming around, but staying near their body, at least for a bit. The spirit does not have to be currently on our world. If they stuck around for any time after their death, then my perception is extended. If the spirit fled our realm immediately after death, I can enter the body but cannot perceive anything. Some bodies I cannot inhabit at all if the spirit is unwilling.

  When I first started memory reading, I was not able to last through the end of the final memory often, no matter how peaceful the passing may have been. I had a mental block that made me fear becoming lost to the memories. Other times, I would try to read the heavy rope too far back from the knot, then be too exhausted to last through the death memory. As I gained experience, the block dissolved, my endurance increased, and now, only the most violent of deaths prevent me from seeing the memory to the end. My gauging how long I can last through the knot has improved and I can usually read the timeline within a couple of days before death.

  Time between death and my readings does not diminish this. I’ve performed readings of people that have been dead for decades, even centuries. However, I do not do many of these readings as the petitioner may not have many sentimental objects to aid in my endeavor, nor a personal connection to the deceased. While I can do a reading of a deceased body by touching a body part, I prefer not to. With a long-deceased person, I get very little of their day-to-day life, but their substantial memories are still strong. The petitioners that wish me to read bones are usually anthropologists or historians and want more information than just how the person died, which is all I can usually give them. Since they only want to satisfy their own curiosity, it is not worth it for me to take their case.

  I leave those requests to PsyChometrists that can read objects found around bodies. Bone Sages are the best option, but the scientists are reluctant to give up a bone shard for the reading. Bone Sages can use bones in a variety of ways, but to read a specific person from their bones, they must consume the bone. A different type of sage, Blood Sages, use blood in many rituals like general divination and prophecy. They too, can read a person, but they must consume the blood. Drinking blood or eating bones can cause the sage to be subsumed by the reading, and I have met a couple of sages that have gone far down that path. Secretly, I wonder if Blood Sages are where the myth of vampires come from.

  To avoid being swallowed or drowned in memories, I pose limits such as linear time frames. I also carefully avoid reading live people through direct touch. I get full access to their memories, which can be overwhelming. Also, I have no object to buffer me from these more intense memories. While I can handle this, the person I’m reading is far more affected than I am. Best to avoid the whole thing.

  I’m a plain PsyMemore, a type of TouchVoyant, and I wish to remain that way. My siblings are also what used to be called clairvoyants. Kai is a rhabdomancer, seeker of lost objects and falls under the Variegated category of Psycepts. Tommie is a PreCog and can see possible futures, the nearer to present the clearer the vision. We get our abilities from both sides of the family. Our mother knew our abilities at birth and named us accordingly, albeit mostly in Greek or French. Which is odd as we are from neither heritage that we know of. Both of our parents were orphans, Mom was adopted as a baby and Dad grew up in foster care.

  Mom knew to home school me from the start as it would be easier in the future, though she did not know specifics. She was also good at the stock market and made most of the family money from that. Dad was always aware of our general location and condition. When Kai broke his wrist several years ago, Dad called him immediately after it happened and told Kai it was a break, not a sprain, and to get to the clinic. Dad also told us that just because he knew how we were in general, it didn’t mean that we could avoid calling to check in. Mom and Dad were killed in a car accident three years ago, when I was thirty. Kai was twenty-four and Tommie was twenty-two, and it had been almost a year since I last saw my family in person. I obtained a three-day visitor’s pass to attend the funeral in Texas. Kai sent some of Mom and Dad’s things home with me, but I’ve not touched them. I don’t want to stir up any memories.

  After typing up the report on Jamie, I watched the recording. Everything checked out, so I submitted the report and uploaded the video to the Psycept case database. The Psycept Police are alerted when I mark the case as Subject: Deceased-Notification Pending. This means the petitioner will need to be contacted in person to receive the news, rather than receiving an impersonal return package in response. Either Albuquerque Psycept police will contact Mrs. Michard themselves, or they will reach out to the local police to provide the personal notification. The package will be posted later this week.

  Hopefully, between the video recording and the written report, the US police will locate the remains of Jamie as well as the other bodies. Unfortunately, the person that buried Jamie’s body kept his face hidden with a scarf and hat so I could not describe him. So, I placed a mental touchmarker on the person that moved Jamie. I have faith that the forensics left at the site plus any information Jamie and I provided would lead to the culprits. Just in case, I added this petition number to my list to be followed-up on. If the police are unable to solve this ca
se, I’ll call in my marker. For now, I was finished with Jamie Michard’s case.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After earning an associate degree thirteen years ago, Sheriff Lowell helped me obtain a part-time job at the Bosque Regional Police department archiving old case files. When I achieved my bachelor’s degree two years later, I expanded to other police regions on SWACon, and even some other conservatorships. Eight years ago, I established my virtual assistance company and now have clients in the US, Canada, and Mexico. I would not have the opportunities I did if I stayed in America.

  When I first began to work for Sheriff Lowell, my main task was to organize and archive paper case files into the computer system. My Info Management associate degree aided my work in some areas, namely database processing and network administration. However, I had to learn most tasks on the job. It was repetitive work, recreating the case, typing and tagging everything, and scanning documents. It took two years of part-time work to get through the hundred plus years of police work of Bosque region alone. I completed the project and obtained my bachelor’s degree just in time for Sheriff Lowell to recommend me to the other police sheriffs of the remaining three regions of SWACon. Technology improved, my efficiency increased, and paired with working full-time, I completed archiving all regions two years later. When asked, I set up the archival database system in neighboring conservatorships, though thank goodness, someone else did the scanning and tagging grunt work.

  SWACon shares borders with three other conservatorships and to the west, Canada. Directly to our south is Cochise Conservatorship and they share a border with Mexico. To our east is the smallest conservatorship, Llano Estacado, which separates SWACon from Texas. To the north is the Great Basin Conservatorship. SWACon is divided into four regions. From the Rio Grande area east is the Bosque region. Stretched along the northern border is the Mesa Verde. The central area of SWACon, west of Albuquerque, is Chaco. The far western region is Hohokam which contains the awesome Kaibab Canyon.

  The paramount seat of the conservatorship, Wir-Kiva, is in the Chaco region. Wir-Kiva is where all SWACon agencies are headquartered. All conservatorship police officers and detectives are trained at our central headquarters in Wir-Kiva. Near the town of Wir-Kiva is the sacred meeting place of the Southwestern Alliance, Great Kiva. Traditionally, a kiva is an underground room used for ceremonies or meetings, however the SWACon Great Kiva is not completely underground. It’s partially subterranean and has an amphitheater setup. It was built near the base of Tsé Bit’a’í, a large elevated rock that rises from the flat land around it. Visualize Edoras, the Rohan capital from the second Lord of the Rings movie.

  When the Southwestern Alliance Conservatorship was first established, Tsé Bit’a’í was agreed to be the central landmark and called by its Navajo name. Great Kiva, a Puebloan concept, is the actual meeting room and has access limited to high SWACon officials and only during the annual government meetings and ceremonies. There are no vehicles or aircraft allowed, you can only get there by horseback, mule or donkey, or just walking. Since Great Kiva is on sacred ground, the town of Wir-Kiva was built nearby to allow greater ease of access to the SWACon government.

  Wir-Kiva houses the accessible government buildings where citizens can interact with the SWACon Head Chief, Chief Healer, Spiritual Chief, War Chief, Chief of Police, Fire Chief, Chief-of-Civilians, Chief-of-Residents, the SWACon Elders Council, and all their respective departments. While I’ve been to Wir-Kiva a few times, I’m thankful I’ve never brought enough attention to myself to be called before the Great Kiva assembly, nor to meet any of the chiefs in person.

  While I appreciated Sheriff Lowell hiring me with no job experience and only an associate degree, and I enjoyed working with the police, archiving was not my passion. After completing the archiving project, I asked if I could stay on as a central police contract employee, helping with other projects or administrative tasks. The Chief of Police’s administrative assistant recently retired, so the central police agreed and the first task I had was organizing the SWACon Police Cadet graduation. My next task was compiling the annual police report and helping to set the police agenda for the annual SWACon governance meeting at Great Kiva. The SWACon Chief of Police also meets with the police heads of other conservatorships of the Greater Tribe, so I organized his travel and accommodations for those trips. Finally, I implemented a minimum standard of central police procedures for all divisions to follow when working with civilians. Honestly, I just formalized the minimum protocols and procedures that each sheriff was already following. It finally being written down and notarized just made it easier for tracking and reporting.

  I was a contract employee for a little over a year when Sheriff Lowell decided to retire as sub-chief. Each police region has a sub-chief, titled Sheriff. Sheriff Lowell wanted to focus on being police liaison for all Psycept consultative work and asked if he could hire me to help set up his office. I quit working for the central SWACon police and became self-employed, with Liaison Lowell as my first, and only, client. From there, my client list expanded, and I hired others to work as virtual assistants.

  When I began working directly for Liaison Lowell, I realized the petitions for Psycepts had grown exponentially in the seven years of my residency. However, the underlying framework and organization did not grow in turn. Frankly, the various conservatorship police divisions that housed Psycept communities were overwhelmed and barely treading water. Luckily for the GT, there are only seven Psycept communities, so the chaos was removed from regular GT citizens and regions. Liaison Lowell, as he is now called, was tasked with organizing the consultative work of our Psycept community in Albuquerque. He also continued to oversee the Psycept police unit of Bosque division, which is headquartered in Albuquerque. This keeps the police that work Psycept cases in proximity to the Psycepts.

  Presently, I work mainly as an event organizer and small project manager, and I still handle assistant work for a couple long-term clients. My first hire, Soon Yee Ngo, has worked here for five years and handles most of our long-term clients. Rhea Morningsong has been here for three years and deals with limited-term clients or those that just need a one-time or fill-in assistant. Dani is our office manager and recruits new business, but we are almost beyond capacity to accept new clients. Business is great, I need to hire a third assistant soon. Dani may want the job and I need to reconfigure their office space to accommodate a third assistant. My office not only held my desk, consultative tables and equipment set up, but it also housed employee files and client contracts, and my gun safe, so I need to keep my space. Plus, I’m the boss and I want the big office. I’ll deal with this at our weekly office meeting Thursday.

  I walk to my desk and jiggle my mouse to wake my desktop computer. My calendar and master project files are open to upcoming items. Unexpectedly, I am slightly ahead of schedule, so can begin my next big event early. I groan when I clicked the next day’s task calendar. The next project was preparing Sheriff Helki for next month’s semi-annual SWACon Police meeting at Wir-Kiva. The groan was for the client, not the work. Sheriff Helki does not like Psycepts, so working with him is an endurance race. Luckily, I deal very little with him and mostly work with his assistant, O’ke.

  It may be too harsh to say that Sheriff Helki doesn’t like Psycepts. He likes us fine as individuals, it was more that he does not agree that the Greater Tribe should offer residency to Psycepts. Sanctuary yes, but residency conveyed the ability to participate in regional politics merely due to an ability that was an accident of birth. He viewed being a denizen of the Greater Tribe as a wonderful privilege and was not sure that Psycepts truly appreciated being allowed to live here. I can see where he’s coming from, but feeling persecuted in my country of birth, I believe that I immensely appreciate what the GT offers. I’m still sad that I had to give up my citizenship in The United States to be a resident of GT. A permanent resident is not eligible to become a full member of the Greater Tribe nation, but I understand the reasoning. Sucks fo
r him that he was promoted to the sub-chief of the Bosque region, which houses Albuquerque, or ABQ, and is thus responsible for the Psycept Police unit and Psycept community along with the rest of the members of our region.

  Liaison Lowell is a full member of SWACon as were his parents and grandparents. His family was descended from settlers who originally chose to remain in the Tribal Collaboration nation. After national borders were redrawn in the 1870s, there was a great relocation of peoples. Tribes who were in the US, Canada, or Mexico could either remain and become citizens of those countries, or they could migrate to The Tribal Collaboration lands. In contrast, non-native settlers suddenly found themselves in a new country created around them. They either chose to remain and renounce their country of origin, or the settlers could move back to the US, Canada, or Mexico. Both sides of Liaison Lowell’s family chose to stay in ABQ. From the in-depth history lesson I took to emigrate to the GT, I knew that it took over fifty years to allow non-native settlers and their descendants to become full members of the GT nation. Maybe I can become a full member during my lifetime.

  Sheriff Helki was descended from a Miwok tribe on his mother’s side, originally of Northern California. Since California became its own province in the newly formed Canada, his mother’s tribe chose to relocate to The Tribal Collaboration lands rather than remain in California. How a tribe from the redwood forested areas of California came to be relocated to SWACon was not clear to me. I would think that the tribe would have preferred either Plateau or Great Basin conservatorships which were closer to their original lands. Maybe there were just too many tribes relocating from the Pacific coastal lands and space was limited. At least the tribe moved to the Mesa Verde region of SWACon, so there were plenty of forests for their wood dwellings. Sheriff Helki’s father is Ute, which is the predominate tribe of the Mesa Verde region.