by Drew Hayes
“Should I ask why we’re going even though they didn’t mention anything?”
“You just did, and the answer is because it’s what friends do. Take it from someone who listens to thoughts day in and day out: they will be very glad we came to see and reassure them on how good a job they’re doing.”
“Okay, Mary. I do trust you. Let’s go see our friends. Sorry to impose on you like this, Camille.”
“It’s only a few minutes away,” Camille replied. “Besides, you say that like I’m not going there anyway.”
“You are?”
“Now that I know Roy and Alice are starting tonight, of course I am.”
“You hate clubs,” Vince pointed out.
“You aren’t a big fan of them either,” Camille shot back. “But Mary is right: this is something friends do for one another.” Though her voice was confident, inwardly, she was wilting. Camille truly did hate such overtly social gathering places, however, that hate was nothing compared to the feeling of disappointment she’d experience if she let her own awkwardness get in the way of helping someone she cared for.
With a firm twist of the wheel, her small car took a turn to the left, and they were off.
* * *
Roy hadn’t realized how much he had lost touch with his wild partying side until he saw the steadily growing line outside the club as people filtered past the bouncer and paid their cover. He’d thought it would be slow, since this was a Wednesday, after all. Almost immediately on the heels of that thought was the realization that this was a college town, and no one cared if they had a hangover in class the next day. Roy briefly contemplated why that had taken so long to dawn on him, and when he reached the answer, he didn’t know how he felt about it. Roy had thought no one would come out tonight because he wouldn’t have come out tonight. He had training, he needed to be sharp for class, and he just had better things to do with his time. Roy, to put a point on it, cared more about the program than about drinking and getting laid. He couldn’t figure out when that had happened, but there was no denying that it had.
He didn’t dwell on it for long, though, both because Roy could really only dwell on grudges and challenges and because business picked up too much for him to sit around contemplating his own priority changes. He slung beers easily; cocktails and shots took a little longer, though. Roy found himself thankful for the practice pouring; his own skills had gotten a bit rusty, and it was turning out that they needed to be in peak performance to keep up with the growing crowd’s thirst.
Though initially skeptical at how a guy like Chad would handle serving drinks, Roy found himself incredibly grateful for the partner he’d gotten at this bar. Chad’s speed, precision, and efficiency helped minimize the wait for their customers, allowing Roy a little time to chat with some of the more interested women and talk them into pairing some shots with their drinks. Despite being in the club’s smallest bar, they quickly acquired a large amount of customers, Chad’s speed and Roy’s charm creating a quick, happy turnover.
They quickly realized that the barbacks were almost useless to them; the smallest bar was low priority compared to the larger ones drawing in hordes of drinkers. Roy and Chad immediately worked out a rotation system, where one of them would make runs to the back during lulls. Roy took this job more frequently than Chad, if for no other reason than the fact that the blond young man’s speed and coordination meant he could more easily handle an unexpected swell of orders without letting a crowd build up.
The only real challenge Roy had faced so far was limiting himself. He easily could have grabbed three times as much beer per trip as he was lugging, however, doing so would raise too many questions and suspicions. Though he had a bit more wiggle room than the others regarding the issues of his identity, he’d also made it obvious that he had existing friendships with Chad, Angela, and Alice already. Anyone curious about the guy lifting far more than he should with such ease could connect those dots without a whole lot of trouble. Which, strangely enough, Roy also found he now cared about.
As he lifted his last stack of beer boxes for his current restocking run, he decided that maybe he should make a point to go to the bars a little more frequently. All this hanging around the same people every day was making him soft.
23.
Chad wasn’t much of one for mulling. He meditated, anticipated, planned, and exercised logic frequently, but the act of allowing a single thought to putter around his brain endlessly was one he very rarely engaged in. On this night, however, he found himself mulling frequently. Twice, he nearly forgot to garnish a drink properly. The annoying thought buzzing around his head was growing more adamant to be heard and considered, so much so that eventually Chad caved and asked the advice of the nearest person at hand.
“Roy, you are well-experienced in the art of male and female relations, correct?”
Their bar had slowed to near empty, the cooler was stocked with beer, and the counter had been freshly cleaned. If there was ever a chance to talk, this was going to be it.
“Yes indeed, and the way I do it, it is definitely art,” Roy replied, giving a flirtatious wink to the redhead on the other side of the dance floor. She blushed slightly, then turned her back on him. Roy was unbothered; he didn’t mind the shy types. Truthfully, there were exceptionally few types of women Roy minded at all.
“Noted. I have a question for you, but the nature of it is slightly uncomfortable.”
Roy glanced at his fellow bartender with a critical eye. Chad never really showed outward signs of discomfort, but if one knew him long enough, there were small things to look for. He stood up straighter, he kept his eyes right on the person he was talking to, and he kept his feet planted even when it was inconvenient. Basically, he overcompensated and did the opposite of all the things uncomfortable people normally did.
“No need to worry,” Roy replied. “Bartender’s code. Whatever is said behind this bar, stays behind this bar.”
Chad gave a nod and inscribed this rule into his brain. He’d need to see if there were any other caveats to this code at some point. As a fellow bartender, he was now obligated to hold to it just as much as Roy.
“Earlier, when Angela mentioned sleeping with one of the other bartenders, I felt a strange sensation in my stomach. I’ve checked every digestive function, and there is nothing to account for it, but still it persists. This leads me to believe it might be psychological in nature. The part I’m having trouble puzzling out is why my mind would conjure phantom pain at those words.”
Roy stared at Chad for a full minute, long enough that Chad had to pause the conversation and hand a customer a beer. He thought long and hard about his next words, because he had a feeling they were going to be very important.
“I’ve got a theory,” Roy said at last. “But I want to be sure before I tell you anything. You mind if I ask a few follow-up questions?”
“By all means, please be thorough.”
“All right. Just for clarification, your . . . talent, how does it affect your emotions?”
“Most emotions are caused by chemical shifts in the brain,” Chad replied. “A balance of various amounts of dopamine, serotonin, epinephrine, and several others all work together to create what we perceive as feelings. I keep mine regulated to maintain an optimum attitude. You could say that I’m still experiencing the emotions themselves, just not the overpowering effects of them.”
“But sometimes, things get through, right? Like at Camille’s party.”
“I can maintain the balance of what I feel, but that doesn’t dissipate the cause,” Chad explained. “And since it is my brain we are talking about, this is an area where losing control for a moment means it is very hard to regain it. I have to use the organ that is out of control in order to reestablish control.”
“Gotcha. And what is your relationship with Angela?”
“She is the sister of my best friend, something of a student mentor to me, and someone I regard as a good friend as well.”
/> “That’s it?”
“I think I covered everything,” Chad reiterated. They paused again to set up an array of shots for a group of girls that had been working their way around the bar all night. Once that was attended to, the conversation resumed.
“Last question. That emotional chemical-balance stuff, you’re doing it right now, aren’t you?”
“Of course. I always keep myself in check.”
“Stop,” Roy ordered.
“Stop what?”
“Stop holding yourself together,” Roy explained. “I don’t mean go on a psycho killing spree or anything, just stop mandating what you’re feeling. Let whatever happens, happen.”
“I fail to see what good that will do,” Chad protested.
“Give me a little credit here.”
“Very well,” Chad said begrudgingly. He closed his eyes for half of a second; anyone watching would have thought it was just a long blink. “It’s done. For now, my brain will react to stimulus in the same way as anyone else’s.”
“Glad to hear it,” Roy said. “Now, I want you to look over at Angela. She’s leaning on the far wall by the speaker booth.”
Chad obliged, turning his head to take in the girl he’d seen countless times and could have easily mentally reconstructed using his enhanced memory. This seemed like a pointless exercise, and Chad held on to the sentiment for exactly as long as it took for Angela to enter his field of vision.
The twisting feeling in his stomach vanished, replaced by a sense of it dropping away. He dimly remembered going on roller coasters in his youth, before his power blossomed, and that they had given him a similar sensation. His skin felt a touch warmer, but when he assessed it, he found no change in actual temperature. Oddly, he could feel his heartbeat, as though it was striking against his chest more vigorously.
This was not a normal reaction to looking at a person. Chad was sure of it. He began looking back through his memories of Angela, checking for other instances of this happening. As he replayed each though, the strange feelings only grew stronger. He nearly flushed at one memory of sitting atop her after winning a rough grappling session. The emotional piece of Chad, long accustomed to being silenced, seized the opportunity to be heard and roared with all it had. More memories, more strange sensations, a compounding seizure of emotion that had been bubbling under the surface but unable to crest the shore until now.
“Hey, Chad, you okay, man?” Roy asked.
Chad finally yanked his eyes away from Angela and turned them back to his fellow bartender. This helped quell the influx of strange sentiment, but not by as much as he’d hoped it would.
“I . . . I suspect I have feelings for Angela. A very large amount of them.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured too. What you were feeling earlier was jealousy at the idea of another dude tapping the girl you like.”
“Oh,” Chad said, turning back to look at her once more, against his better judgment. She noticed him looking and gave him a wave and a flirty wink. She did that sort of thing all the time, but now Chad found himself almost paralyzed by the innocuous gesture. He mustered up the will to wave back only because of his special ability.
There was no skirting it now; Roy was right. He cared far more for her than he’d realized, than he’d wanted to realize. He admired her, respected her, and desired her. His friend. His mentor.
His best friend’s sister.
“Oh,” Chad repeated, not for the final time that evening.
24.
Vince, Mary, and Camille found the wait to get into Six-Shooter long, but quick-moving. Despite his misgivings about college bars, at least the bouncers understood that every moment the customers spent standing in line was time not spent hurling alcoholic beverages down their throats. Once they reached the front, a large man in a dark t-shirt examined their IDs (some real, some leftover forgeries from Nick and the beach trip), then directed Vince to the closest register to pay the cover fee. This led to a slight bit of confusion, where Mary had to explain to her friend why girls weren’t charged for entry at places like this. Once Vince got the concept, he forked over his five dollars, and all three received wrist bands.
Camille’s first thought upon entering the club was that the insulation in the front area must be fantastic, because the waves of sound hadn’t been this powerful before they crossed through. Then she realized she was standing next to the speaker, and found that, with a little distance, the music dimmed to where conversation was possible. Unlike the club they went to freshman year, this was a place where talking while dancing was an option, though what implications that carried she couldn’t really guess. Instead, she focused on staying close to Vince and Mary while they navigated the sea of bodies in desperate search of a place to sit and set up shop. Despite their roving eyes, the trio was found by someone else before they could spot their friends.
“Hey there!” Angela greeted, clapping a hand on Mary and Camille’s shoulders. “I didn’t expect to see you three tonight.”
“Roy and Alice are working, aren’t they?” Mary asked politely.
“They sure are. Come on, let me get you to a table, and then I’ll let them know you’re here.” Angela’s ability to part crowds wasn’t dulled by even this hectic environment, the forms of fellow college students moving away instinctively at her approach. Camille would have given quite a bit to be able to pull off such a trick; however, she suspected it required something she knew deep down that she didn’t possess. Angela exuded confidence, just as she always had, and the rest of the world seemed to pick up on that.
After a brief walk, Angela deposited them at a high-top table with four stools, then made her way back into the crowd, assuring them she’d fetch their friends for them.
“I didn’t know she worked here,” Vince said, once their escort had departed.
“Alice mentioned it,” Mary replied. “Evidently, she’s a shot girl, and very good at it.”
“What’s a shot girl?” Vince asked.
Mary weighed how much to tell him. Sometimes, explaining things to Vince could lead down a rabbit’s hole of questions, revealing how little he knew of the outside world. She decided to keep it simple and hope he just accepted what he was told.
“A shot girl is someone whose specific job is to walk around giving people shots of liquor,” Mary explained. “Since shots are in high demand, it lets the waitresses and bartenders focus on cocktails, while still giving the customers what they want.”
“Like how ranged combat and close combat specialists can work in tandem to maximize the effectiveness of their attacks,” Camille chimed in.
“Oh, well that makes sense.”
Mary said a prayer of thanks that Camille had tagged along, then turned her attention to the club that surrounded them. Normally, she kept her telepathy suppressed in places like this; the swell of voices wasn’t so bad, but the loud music made it nearly impossible to hear anything useful. Professor Stone had been on her about pushing her limits though, so while there was downtime, she decided to do a little mental eavesdropping.
At first, it was just what she was used to: the cacophony of voices, mixed together with the blasting bass, scrambling everything into a garbled mess. Mary took some deep breaths and sharpened her focus. She sifted through thoughts like a prospector scanning for gold. It was slow going; however, bit by bit, she began finding patterns and putting together cohesive thoughts.
The young man two tables over was trying to work up the courage to ask a redhead at the bar to dance.
Two girls in the corner were wondering if their friend was drunk and needed to be hauled off the dance floor.
A bartender near the front was wondering what the odds were of being able to bang that new blonde shot girl.
Mary pulled away from that last thought; she’d gotten a bit of his sentiment along with the words in his head, and it wasn’t a feeling she much cared for. Sexual attraction was nothing new to Mary, she’d overheard that sort of thing many times a day. Bu
t there was a feeling to this that disturbed her. Something unpleasant in the way the intentions were strung together. Given that Alice was blonde, new, and looked the way she did, it seemed a fair bet that she was the shot girl in question. Mary made a note to give her friend fair warning not to accept dinner invitations from that guy.
She’d almost gotten her telepathy completely turned off again when a nearby thought grabbed her attention. It was an impulse of attraction, but this one lacked the creepy taint of the bartender eyeing Alice. This thought was admiring how cute the short girl with the pale hair sitting at the nearby table was. It wondered whether the muscly guy with the silver hair was her boyfriend, or maybe he was with the girl with the mousy brown hair who was making weird faces.
The last part of that made Mary very conscious of her own expression; she’d probably let more show than she should have. As nonchalantly as possible, she turned around and looked off toward one of the bars, like she was searching for someone. Instead, she allowed her peripheral vision to find the mind she’d been listening to. He was cute, she had to give him that. Dark hair, nice blue plaid shirt, lean frame that would have passed as fit outside of HCP standards. The other men around him were similarly attired, and they all seemed to be talking and laughing and having a good time.
An idea formed instantly.
“Hey, Camille,” Mary said, turning back around. “Looks like someone has an admirer.”
“I do?”
“Yup. That guy over my left shoulder thinks you’re cute. He can barely take his eyes off you.”
25.
Before Camille (or anyone else at the table who might possibly have had a reaction to Mary’s declaration) could say a word, Alice materialized out of the crowd next to their table.
“Well, isn’t this a surprise?” Alice said, though the girls at the table noticed a distinct lack of descriptors, such as “good,” or “pleasant.” Still, she greeted them with a round of hugs that were made awkward by the height of the stools, paired with the relative shortness of Camille and Mary. “What brings you all out?”