by Jack L Knapp
“I’m wondering now if everyone can’t develop at least some level of Talent. I started thinking about that a couple of days ago, and the thought just keeps on intruding and won’t go away. You had enhanced empathy and the ability to communicate at first, but after you and I melded, you began doing other stuff. And then, when we accidentally melded with Ray, he started communicating too. Until that time he hadn't shown any evidence of Talent, at least as far as we know. If he’d done that, realized that he’d done something strange early on, we’d have noticed it when we melded with him; there aren’t any secrets left between people after that happens.
“Don’t get me wrong. I intend to survive; but I’m wondering if this thing, this Talent, isn’t more important than we are? Is it bigger than our survival? I just don’t know. I have too small a database to generalize much, at least so far. At least, I had a training program to help me get started, even if it didn’t work like the people who designed it thought it would. Maybe everyone is different, and some have more Talent in one area and less in another. In your case, you had something going already and Surfer helped you to make a breakthrough. Ray, well, we don’t yet know what his main Talent might be.”
“T, I wondered about that too, as soon as Ray picked up your thought. But we can’t just go developing the Talent in everyone. What if they’re street gangsters, or druggies? What if they’re murderers or rapists or maybe someone who would try to take over the nation or even the world? Can you imagine a Stalin or a Hitler with our level of Talent? A Hitler who could simply deploy a bubble and be safe from even a cannon shell?”
“Good point, Shezzie. It’s too big an issue to let it die, but at the same time, this is something to be very carefully shared. Or not. How much change will this make in our world? What about politicians? Can they keep lying if people can pick up their emotions? What about presidents, when people in their audience might reach past the Secret Service and just punch them in the chest or stop their heart?”
Her tears had stopped. She was thinking now, not grieving. The grief might come back later, but I thought this was good therapy for her.
“What do we tell Ray? I think we have to share some of this with him.”
“You’re right. How about we meet him for dinner, and let him know what we think?”
I commed Ray and we agreed to meet at the Cattle Baron. I needed the exercise to work off some of the adrenaline effects, so Shezzie and I decided to leave her car and my truck in the parking lot of the Hilton. We crossed the road at a stoplight and then walked the short distance to the restaurant.
The Cattle Baron has a good salad bar and the steaks and seafood aren’t bad. The service at the nearby Applebee’s was better, I thought, but that salad bar at the Cattle Baron was a draw for me. We waited at the entrance for Ray, and when he arrived we went in. For a change, there was no waiting line. Ray gave the hostess his name, and we were soon seated. The waiter showed up and we placed our orders.
Shezzie wanted the salad bar, I wanted the snapper, blackened, and Ray opted for the prime rib. I asked the waiter about their scotch selection and selected the Lagavulin; I find that there’s no better scotch for the first drink, even the second. But no more than that; the taste becomes unpleasantly heavy on my palate after that. But those first two drinks are astonishingly good. Ray decided on beer, a Negra Modelo, and Shezzie had a glass of white wine.
The waiter went off to place our orders and bring the drinks, and we headed for the salad bar. The problem is quantity; if you eat too much, and this is a really good salad bar, then there’s no room for the main course. Still, we’d all been here before, and Ray and I limited our salad selection while Shezzie felt free to fill her plate.
We were eating in silence, but communicating easily. This time, we could share the contact between the three of us. That doesn’t happen often, and I thought it had to do with the fact that Shezzie and I had both melded in that study room with Ray.
We chuckled.
<‘Who will watch the watchers’, T?>
Hey, I’d seen Star Wars. Those Jedi Knights had nothing on me except a light-saber!
He thought that over for a full minute while we worked on our salads and I savored my scotch.
Shezzie had been quiet, just listening, as Ray and I discussed this. The three-way meld we'd undergone meant that we could share communication. Now she entered the conversation.
We finished our meal in silence after that. I had my second scotch and decided I didn’t want another. Ray and Shezzie switched to water after they finished their drinks. I put the tab on my credit card and we left.
As we stood outside, I asked Ray a question. “Where are you parked?”
“I had to park in the back. There was no
place up front when I got here.”
“Let’s head that way. I want to try something before we go back to the hotel.”
We headed for his car. An airliner took off from the airport, and we could have still communicated, but speaking over the noise would have been a problem. We walked, and just kept our thoughts to ourselves.
When we got to the car, I decided to find out if Ray might have picked up my PK Talent.
I reached out and popped the locks on his doors. It was easy enough to do, the locks were electric, and there was a button on the left-side armrest. Depress that twice, and all the locks would open. Ray was standing there with a funny look, holding the remote controller for the car in his hand. I popped the button again, locking the car doors, and then used the button to unlock them again.
I nodded.
Ray backed away from the car and pushed the lock button on his controller. He took a deep breath and looked at the Volvo for a moment and then we watched as the front dipped down on its springs. It stayed down for a moment, and then he lost control and the front bounced up. The car alarm suddenly went off, and Ray quickly pushed the unlock button on the remote. That quieted the alarm, but people near the restaurant were now looking our way.
I had something in mind to try. Did Ray also have the ‘bubble’?
We got settled in, Ray driving, me riding shotgun, Shezzie in the smaller rear seat. It didn’t take that long to navigate across town. The mountain is a part of the city, which is built in a kind of horseshoe shape around the south end of the Franklins range. Houses have been built up into the foothills, but the mountain itself is bare of houses; it’s now a park, with restricted access, and building a house on the slopes isn’t allowed.
Scenic Drive takes you about halfway to the summit of the southern peak, then winds around the shoulder of the mountain. At a spot near the center there’s a good overlook; tourists visit during the day and park here, and others, including locals, come out at night to look at the lights in the valley along the Rio Grande. Across the river is Juarez, but from Scenic it’s just one large city, with the shape revealed by lights from roadways and houses.
The Volvo handled well, better than most American cars would have done. Perhaps it was the full-time all wheel drive. In any case, Ray was an expert and confident driver, and he soon parked at the overlook.
There was already a parked car there, with two people sitting inside. I glanced at the stone wall lining the edge of the overlook, and decided that we could still do this if we stepped over the wall.
I led off, the other two gingerly stepping over the low wall.
The mountainside isn’t steep here. There’s a shallow slope that descends just past the wall, and that’s where I went. The slope becomes much steeper farther along.
I glanced down. I was standing on a loose, but fairly flat, surface. So I simply let my bubble form and held it for a few seconds, my feet floating above the surface, only the bubble in contact with the ground. There was the usual faint reddish flash as the bubble formed, then it faded. I let my bubble swell for a bit until Shezzie and Ray could feel it pushing gently against their bodies, then collapsed it and dropped a few inches to the ground. I landed with knees slightly flexed; this wasn’t my first time, after all.
I watched him concentrate, but nothing happened.
Ray nodded, and I waited for the feeling of resonance that we’d felt before, in the library. It was there, I linked, and thought about the bubble, just let it form. I glanced at Ray and he was floating just above the loose ground, astonishment on his face, the reddish glow from his bubble already fading. I didn’t know if somehow my mind had created his bubble, or if he’d done it himself through the link, using my mind and thoughts. So I let my bubble collapse and watched to see what would happen to Ray’s.
As I landed, Ray slowly tipped forward and tumbled down the slope. He hadn’t been ready for the loss of balance and lack of friction on the gentle slope, and now he was looking horrified at the cactus, ocotillo, and yucca below him as he rolled slowly head-over-heels down the hill.
Suddenly, his bubble popped, while he was just past the point of being head-down, and it left him to drop onto his shoulders. At least he didn’t fall into one of the many prickly-pear growths that spread around the slope; I caught him before he could fall far, gently lifting him back to where we were standing.
Ray stood wild-eyed and caught his balance. “Shit! You could have warned me!”
Shezzie chimed in,
So I formed my own bubble, expanded it just enough, and pushed him over the edge. I dropped my bubble and watched carefully as he fell, and just before he hit the surface, the faint flash of red announced that his bubble was formed.
I sent,
It worked. He rolled downhill in slow motion and I stopped the tumble when he was upright and possibly a hundred feet downhill. There was a relatively flat surface underfoot.
But he dropped his bubble and I brought him back up the slope.
I set him down, and I didn’t even need the PreCog to know what was co
ming. He drew back a fist and I simply formed my bubble and let him punch that. It pushed me back slightly, enraging him even more. I just let myself tumble down the hill and watched where I was falling. I went through an ocotillo, a really thorny, tall, and spiky type of desert plant, and then slid off the side of a yucca. The yucca flexed with the pressure, but was left with only a couple of broken spiky leaves from the brief contact. As soon as I reached a fairly smooth spot, I collapsed my bubble, then began climbing back up the hill.
Ray glowered at me, and Shezzie was clearly pissed too. At least, no one was trying to punch me this time.
She didn’t look like she believed me about the alcohol. As for Ray, he didn’t want to believe me. He was too busy being pissed off.
So that’s what we did. Shezzie drove, Ray got shotgun, I got in the cramped back, and that’s all I got that night. There were two beds in that hotel room. Shezzie got one, I got the other one. And neither of us felt like talking.
It took me a long time to fall asleep.
Chapter Eighteen
Ana Maria stood it as long as she could.
The family didn’t ostracize her, not quite, but their treatment made it clear they resented her attending the norteño university in El Paso. The younger sister who had helped to support Ana Maria’s studies was dead, and her family had a vague feeling that somehow it was Ana Maria’s fault; they reacted by withdrawing from her. The warm family feeling she’d always known was no longer there. Everyone in the family grieved, but Ana Maria’s grief took place in an atmosphere of family disapproval.