by Tim Tigner
Stolen Thoughts
Tim Tigner
“I think it will be technologically possible to invade people’s thoughts, but it’s our societal obligation to make sure that never happens.”
—Professor Marcel Just, Director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University, speaking on 60 Minutes (CBS News) September 6, 2020.
This novel is dedicated to Lydia Alexandra Tigner, the Tiniest Tig. She’s clearly destined to be the hero of a beautiful story – one I am truly blessed to help write.
1
The Job
Las Vegas, Nevada
VANCE PANZER was feeling lucky as he stepped from the casino’s ornate shopping esplanade into the psychic’s stylish studio. Thanks to Cassandra, he’d be leaving Las Vegas six-figures richer than when he’d arrived.
As a guy in possession of all his marbles, Vance had never visited a fortune teller before today. Therefore, Hollywood had framed his expectations for the office. He’d pictured black velvet curtains, astrology symbols, artificial candles, and tarot cards. Perhaps a bit of incense in the air and some mystical music softly setting the mood. What he found looked more like an exclusive resort. Fine furniture, gurgling fountains, tasteful artwork, and warm lighting.
The illusion that this was a five-star spa lasted only a few seconds. It collapsed when the receptionist stepped through an archway to greet him. The man looked like Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies. A super-sized guy in desperate need of a barber. Vance’s first thought was that Cassandra had chosen “Hagrid” for security reasons, but a quick appraisal dispelled that notion. Despite his dimensions and wild, reddish-brown hair, the kind, thoughtful look in his eyes made it clear that this guy was more Bambi than bear.
“You must be Walter White,” the receptionist said, extending a large hand. “I’m Chewie. Welcome to Consultations by Cassandra. Please follow me.”
“Like the Star Wars character?” Vance couldn’t help but ask as they rounded the corner into an intimate lounge.
“My given name is Quinten Bacca, which quickly evolved to Q-Bacca, then Chewbacca, and inevitably Chewie. Would you care for a drink?” He gestured toward a bar boasting top-shelf brands.
Vance was about to request a club soda when a gleaming automatic machine caught his eye. “I’d love an espresso.”
“Coming right up. Meanwhile, you can pick a number.” Chewie nodded toward an antique table covered with assorted carved hardwood boxes, colorful notepads, and fancy pens. The sign above it read Your session will be free if Cassandra can’t name the three-digit number you pen and place in the box of your choice.
Given that a twenty-five-minute session with Cassandra went for $1,000, that was quite an offer. Vance noted that the sign and display were positioned near the archway, making them visible from the Bellagio’s esplanade. A creative marketing gimmick, to be sure.
“How often does Cassandra guess wrong?” Vance asked while inspecting the small boxes.
“She doesn’t guess, so never.”
“Surely someone has outsmarted her? Perhaps by slipping in a piece of paper they prepared at home?”
Chewie grew a knowing smile. “Believe me, we’ve seen it all, and nothing matters. She reads your mind, not your paper.”
Vance knew that was not true. Nobody could genuinely read minds. Victoria Pixler, aka Cassandra, probably used advanced imaging technology to scan the box while the client was seated behind her crystal ball. Some system originally designed for airport screenings, he guessed.
Before replying, Vance studied the receptionist’s expression. Chewie appeared sincere, but that merely meant he wasn’t in on the trick. Cassandra had used her charm and cunning to bamboozle him the same way she did her customers—and Vance’s anonymous employer. “Trust me, she really can read your mind,” were the last words the man had spoken before slipping an envelope stuffed with money under the hotel suite door.
Vance had gone along, of course. His employer’s misguided conviction was undoubtedly what accounted for an offer that was exceedingly generous—given that Cassandra was deaf, a woman, and she accepted private appointments with strangers.
He nodded to Chewie. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Vance positioned himself in a concealing position, then penciled three light, minuscule parallel lines on a slip of paper such that they were barely visible. He folded the note in quarters and slid it into a rosewood box.
“You look determined,” Chewie said, handing over a steaming espresso.
“I play to win.”
“Well, you came to the best place in Vegas for that. Cassandra’s clients all leave as winners.”
As if on cue, the door to the studio swung open, making an ongoing conversation audible. “…can’t thank you enough. You’ve been incredibly helpful.”
“Absolutely my pleasure, June.”
“I feel like I should give you a hug. Would that be okay?”
“Of course.”
A moment later, Vance watched an ebullient woman emerge from the reading room, walk out onto the casino’s colorful carpet, and disappear into the passing crowd. The spectacle was so perfect that it had to be an act. A routine performed prior to every initial reading to prime the emotional pump.
Vance turned to Chewie. “That happen often?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Nope. Clients rarely request a hug,” Chewie said deadpan before winking. “If there’s nothing else I can get you, I’m going to head back out front. Try to look directly at Cassandra when you speak so she can read your lips. She uses a voice-to-text app, but prefers to go old-school during readings. She’ll summon you in a minute.”
Cassandra emerged almost exactly sixty seconds later wearing a dark reddish-brown evening gown that gave her a simultaneously sexy yet sophisticated appearance. While striking, the formalwear seemed overkill until he remembered that she also did a daily show in one of the Bellagio’s theaters.
His focus shifted quickly from her outfit to her face, where it stuck for a second too long. She was a beautiful brunette, with lively hazel eyes framed by large stylish glasses, but it was her lips that drew his gaze. They were so plump and perfect yet innocent that he found himself transfixed.
“Mr. White. Welcome, please come in. Did you pick a number?”
“I did.”
“And you’re happy with it?”
Bewitched though he might be, Vance wasn’t about to fall for that trick and change it now with her watching. “I am.”
The reading room was considerably dimmer than the lounge, so the glowing crystal ball on the center of the round table drew his eyes as if they were magnetized. He took the designated seat and, with an inward grin, said, “Please, call me Walter.”
“You don’t prefer Vance?”
For a second, he froze like arctic ice as a chill shot down his spine. He had used a courier to pay in cash when booking his appointment, and now he was in deep disguise, with a wig, mustache, eyebrows, and makeup.
The explanation struck as he exhaled. A cutting-edge biometric recognition system! Probably one combining facial features with other inputs like skeletal dimensions and gait analysis. All tied to a computer that would rival those at NASA and the NSA. One that had crunched away while he sipped espresso in Cassandra’s lounge.
From that data point, Vance leapfrogged to the next obvious conclusion and the explanation for the psychic’s reputation. Her entire studio was an illusion. An intelligence hub camouflaged to resemble a five-star spa. A pit bull in poodle’s clothing.
“It’s okay,” Cassandra continued. “A lot of people give me pseudonyms—invented or borrowed. I understand and respect the desire for privacy in these circumstances, given the sti
gma surrounding my profession. But since my goal is to maximize the benefit you get from your session, I want to encourage honesty and acceptance. The sooner you shed your skepticism, the more time we’ll have to explore meaningful issues.”
Despite the allure of those lips, there was no chance of any genuine shedding or sharing taking place. Zero. Vance wasn’t one to ascribe seemingly unexplainable situations to supernatural causes. He was a science and technology guy—among other things. “I appreciate your understanding. I take my privacy very seriously. Speaking of which, are you recording this consultation?”
Cassandra’s reply was swift and sincere. “No. I would never do anything to violate the privacy of my customers or the bond of trust I consider sacred. Besides, reputation is everything in this business, so I’d be torpedoing my career if I did.”
“I’m pleased to hear that,” he said, studying her, the tablecloth between them, and the small soundproof studio.
“How may I help you, Vance? What brings you here today?” she asked, her gaze going to the crystal ball, as her hands gesticulated an invitation.
For a few seconds, he toyed with the idea of giving her an honest answer. Simply laying it on the line for pure shock value and the thrill of seeing that special look in her eyes and the quiver of those lips. I’ve come to slit your throat.
2
The Tragedy
VICTORIA PIXLER’S LIFE had been shaped, shifted, and defined by tragedies and triumphs. Two tragedies and two triumphs, to be precise.
Until today.
Until a few seconds ago—when the shocking thoughts of the burly client now seated at her consultation table ticked the tragedy score up to three. Vance Panzer had not paid $1,000 to be amazed, advised, and guided. He had come to kill her.
Initially, Vicky harbored hope that I’m here to slit your throat was simply the fanciful musing of a sick mind. While her steep fee tended to fend off the mentally ill, it was far from a foolproof filter. But Vance quickly dispelled that idea.
During their introductory discussion, he began rehearsing her murder in his mind like an athlete psyching himself up before an Olympic performance. …slip the punch-knife from my shoe the first time she looks away, then, when the moment is right, use a left chin sweep to expose her throat to quick jabs from the right…
Vicky had suffered countless shocks since cracking the mind-reading code nine months earlier in her bioengineering lab at Caltech. Most were depressing. She’d never forget the first day she walked around in public wearing the thick-framed Prada glasses that concealed her invention. While discovering that inner dialogues varied considerably from spoken words came as no surprise, she found the size and frequency of the gaps to be shocking. Concealed sexual urges, self-aggrandizing comparisons, and advantage-seeking deceptions were far more commonplace than she’d anticipated. No prior experience with reading thoughts, however, had stunned Vicky like this one.
Fortunately, she wasn’t completely unprepared. To cope with the typical mental transgressions that were integral to her new profession, Vicky had mastered the art of masking her emotions. She’d learned to appear engrossed when repulsed, sympathetic when sickened, and delighted when insulted. Learning of her own imminent execution, however, was both a first and a jolt unlike any other. Staring at the man whose mind was set on her murder, Vicky prayed that the shock had not cracked her mask.
Her life likely depended on it.
Rather than wait for Vance to verbalize a response to her “How may I help you?” session-opening question, Vicky served up a quick distraction. “I sense that you’re more skeptical than most of my clients, so rather than wait until the end of our time together, let’s begin with your box. Please take it from your pocket.” So I can see your hands.
Vance complied, but instead of setting the hand-crafted rosewood artifact on the table, he put it on the floor.
Vicky had seen that move before. People got creative when $1,000 was on the line. “You suspect my table of being more than it appears?”
“Am I wrong?”
“You wrote one hundred eleven. One one one.”
Vance cocked his head and raised his eyebrows. “Impressive. But, like all illusions, staged. I won’t claim to know how you did it. But I do know this: if I asked you or any other trickster to perform a stunt from your show on the street, rather than on your stage, you couldn’t do it.”
“As a rule, you’re probably right, and I admire both your candor and the clarity of your thought. But my stunt, as you call it, is an exception, so you’re mistaken.” Vicky gesticulated with her right hand while her left felt for the pocket beneath the front corner of her chair, and her mind raced ahead.
She had to keep Vance intrigued. Riveted. She needed more time to think.
A recent, rough mugging in Reno aside, she’d never been in a physical fight before. She was a nerd, not a warrior. Chewie, however, had recognized the danger inherent in her private consultation setup. He’d equipped her to fend off assaults of all types—although she was sure he had robbers and rapists rather than assassins in mind. Regardless, thanks to the guilt he felt regarding the Reno incident, she now had pepper spray and a Taser strapped beneath her seat, and she’d studied the instructions for their proper use.
Alas, she had not practiced with those tools any more than she had with the fire extinguisher in her kitchen. Vance, on the other hand, was clearly an experienced professional. He had every advantage—except surprise. Would getting the jump on him be enough? Had he been trained to ignore non-lethal assaults? With his size, strength, speed, and experience, he could probably slash her throat in seconds.
Vicky needed to choreograph her moves in advance. To mentally rehearse. How could she intrigue and distract him while she did so?
With skeptical clients, she’d normally say, “I know why you’ve come to me today,” at which point their thoughts would provide her the answer, just as they revealed their number when asked if they were happy with it. But that would clearly be a bad idea under the present circumstances.
She decided to gamble. “You could have asked for more money.”
“What?”
Forcing her eyes to the crystal ball rather than his hands, she said, “You recently got a job. A consulting assignment of sorts. You were offered a lot of money.” She spoke softly and slowly, acting as if drawing the information from the ether while literally reading her client’s thoughts. “You could have asked for twice as much.”
The sensors embedded in her eyeglasses transmitted her clients’ streams of thought to her crystal ball and to a screen on the wall, as well as to her phone and watch. The setup mimicked the voice-to-text system she had been using since losing her hearing a decade earlier—except that the thought crawler was invisible to everyone else, thanks to a custom polarizing filter in her eyeglass lenses.
$200,000 for this job? No way. No break-in, no bodyguards. I would have done it for $20,000. Hold on. This is a psychic trick. She said “recently” and “a job” and “twice as much.” Those sound specific but are actually vague enough that most people could make some experience fit her story. Still, that’s quite a coincidence. “Can you be more specific?”
“Of course. You thought $100,000 was a great deal, but they’d have paid $200,000.”
Whoa! How did she guess that? More importantly, did she have any idea what—
Vicky pressed a button under her table.
The door to her reading room swung open.
Vance reflexively turned toward the commotion behind him.
As the assassin shifted his attention, she sprang from her seat, aimed the pepper spray she’d palmed, and squeezed the trigger.
Vance erupted out of his chair, bringing his hands to his face while somehow resisting the urge to scream.
Vicky had harbored hope that he’d punch himself with his own knife, but he was clawing at the chemicals with his palms, so the wicked T-shaped punch-blade protruding between his middle and ring fingers did him no harm
. To her horror, she realized that the handy weapon would now allow the professional assassin to quickly dispatch anyone running to her aid. Specifically, Chewie.
She could not let that happen.
Moving fast while thinking faster, Vicky drew the Taser from beneath the right side of her chair, screamed, “Chewie, call security!” then pressed the button beneath her table for a second time—shutting herself inside the studio with her would-be killer.
3
The Surprise
VICKY’S READING ROOM DOOR did not lock, it just latched. She had closed it to create a speed bump. A momentary barrier to both the assassin’s exit and Chewie’s entrance. She hoped that delay would allow her trembling hands to accurately aim and fire her only Taser shot—before Vance completed his mission.
In the seconds since she’d screamed for help and pepper sprayed Vance’s face, Vicky had watched the killer bumble about looking for the door while wiping wildly at his eyes. Although she wanted nothing more than to see the assassin leave, the punch-blade protruding from his right fist made it all too easy to envision a trail of bloody bodies in his wake—beginning with Chewie’s.
The big, goofy-looking guy wasn’t just her business partner. With her mother now gone, he was the only significant person in her life. She loved him. So before Vance could find the door lever through the fog of tears, she pointed the Taser’s twin lasers at his torso and pulled the trigger.
The gun bucked as the air cartridge popped, propelling two thinly wired barbs to the red dots’ locations. Vance seized up the second they punctured his flesh. He had essentially been struck by lightning, and that was exactly what it looked like. Her assailant fought to remain on his feet, but the muscular spasms quickly got the better of him.
As he dropped to his knees and then the floor, Chewie burst into the room, smacking Vance with the edge of the door.