Open Minds

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  And then he was gone.

  I sank to the floor. When the front door banged shut, I wrapped my arms around my chest to keep the sobs from shaking me apart. My mom appeared and her arms lifted me like I was a child. She nearly carried me to the bed, where we huddled and I cried until there were no tears left. Then I only shook. Mom held me and asked no questions, which was just as well.

  I had no more lies in me.

  Eventually night came.

  I was the worst friend that had ever lived. All Raf got from me was lies and insults to his face. I resembled that sludge, the green stuff that forms a slimy coating on the outside of cheese that was so old it had become hazardous waste.

  That was me: toxic green ooze.

  There was nothing to do with cheese like that but throw it out. And Raf had done exactly that. Good for him. He deserved much better than I gave him today.

  Maybe he would find a decent girl now, like Taylor. Sure, she was a yippy dog, but at least dogs were loyal. You could count on them. They didn’t lie, and they licked your face because they were so happy to see you.

  I pressed my face into the pillow. I felt like throwing up.

  Raf should find someone better than Taylor. Maybe now that I had pushed him away, he would find a girl who wouldn’t lie and wouldn’t yip. One who would stick by him and not insult him to his face. The tears came back and rolled down my nose and off the tip, adding to the growing stain on the pillow.

  Eventually, the well of my ridiculous self-pity ran dry. I burrowed under the covers, still dressed in my clothes. Sometime later, Mom switched off the light. I wished I could call Seamus, but I’d have to tell more lies, and I couldn’t stomach the idea.

  A jittery buzzing sound started and then ceased. I wondered if a fly had somehow been trapped in my room. My head cleared enough to realize it was my phone. I dragged myself out of bed and retrieved the dancing phone from my backpack. Its blue glow lit the room. Simon.

  Look out your window.

  My head whipped around to the darkened window above my desk. I stumbled across the room and dialed the window up to clear. Simon stood in the grassy space between our house and the neighbor behind us.

  What are you doing? I scrit him.

  Come down and find out.

  I was debating a nice retort, when the floorboards creaked upstairs, giving me a great excuse. My mom’s still awake.

  So jack her to look the other way.

  It was a dare. I glared at the dark form below, his face lit up by the blue glow of his phone. I didn’t want Simon to know I still wasn’t jacking my mom. He seemed like a wild thing I should keep as far away from my family as possible.

  I could probably sneak out without my mom hearing. I had never done that before, but this week was full of firsts. Besides, sitting in my room and crying over Raf wasn’t making my life any better.

  I tiptoed past the stairs to my parents’ bedroom level and stole down the two flights to the ground level. Picking up my shoes on the way, I crept out the front door. Simon’s black panther car waited at the curb. The interior light came on, and I dropped into the passenger seat without a word. As the light faded, Simon’s eyebrows pulled together.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. My eyes must have still been red from the crying.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” He didn’t press, just pulled up the mindware interface for the car and set an autopath. We slid noiselessly away from the curb. A block from my house, Simon mentally commanded on the headlights.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “We’re meeting my crew, but I have a stop to make first.”

  We drove a while in silence, streetlights pulsing by. I suspected that we had left Gurnee. It was hard to tell in Chicago New Metro. One town was the same as the next, a seamless flow of spindly houses as closely packed as range ordinances would allow. We passed the Great Lakes Naval Station where my dad worked and pulled up to a convenience store. It was just this side of dangerous and definitely shady.

  Simon climbed out of the car, forcing me to follow or be left behind. It seemed safer to go with him. Plasma lights harshly lit the inside of the store. As we stepped through the door, I linked into the head of the attendant. Even though we were out past curfew on the praver side of town, he barely noticed us, instead watching a late night tru-cast whispering from his hand-held screen.

  Simon draped his arm over my shoulder and steered us through aisles of ancient snacks and dusty bags of diapers. The only things not coated in dust were emergency boost canisters of hydrogen for hydro cars on empty and an impressive display of beef jerky. We stopped at a refrigerated case. Simon used a mental command to open it and pulled out a four-pack case of green beer bottles.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed under my breath and checked the attendant’s thoughts. He was watching Magnum Magistrate interrogate two neighbors in a range infringement dispute.

  “Don’t worry, there aren’t any security cameras here,” said Simon.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. The frosted glass door swung closed. Simon steered us back toward the front and set the beers down with a clinking of glass on glass. The attendant still clutched his screen in his gnarled hands. He let out an elaborate sigh, muted the screen, and set it aside as Magnum Magistrate took a break to consider his judgment.

  Simon’s command echoed through the attendant’s mind. We’re going to buy this.

  Well, sure you’re going to buy that. But you need some money, friend.

  From the tired sound of his thoughts, this wasn’t the first time Simon had jacked him to illegally sell beer. I nervously checked the parking lot. With my luck, one of my dad’s Navy buddies would stroll in to find his friend’s daughter buying alcohol.

  Simon handed the man two pieces of white plastic, both small and square. The attendant took the cards and held one up, examining it as if it wasn’t completely blank. In his mind, the card appeared to be a driver’s license with Simon’s picture. He handed that one back to Simon and scanned the other one—which appeared to be a tally card—through the register. It beeped its complaint about swiping a useless bit of plastic, but in the attendant’s mind, a dozen unos were deducted from Simon’s account. He returned the fake tally card to Simon.

  Do you want a bag? the attendant thought.

  No, thanks. Simon grinned as he picked up the beers and walked me out of the store.

  When we were back in the car, I crossed my arms. “I am not drinking that.” If Simon’s grand plan was to take me out for a night of drinking, he was sadly mistaken.

  “Neither am I,” he said. “I’m not interested in fuzzing up my mind with beer.”

  Sometimes the boy was simply demens. “You committed a misdemeanor to buy beer you’re not going to drink?”

  “The beer’s for Martin. We’re just going for the fun.”

  I was sure Simon’s idea of fun and mine were not the same.

  I held my complaints as we wove though a ramshackle suburb that resembled downtown Chicago. People wandered outside ancient apartments that hadn’t been rehabbed to range codes, fuzzed out on obscura or beer, trying to escape their crowded living conditions with distance or intoxication. I breathed a little easier when we left the slums and drove past a forest preserve turned black by the night. It was closed after dark, but keeping with our law-breaking activities for the evening, Simon pulled into the entrance. The car’s beams sliced white blades through the ash trees lining the forest drive.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Suffering in my room would be better than getting arrested tonight.

  “Kira, relax. We’re just meeting some friends to do some dipping.”

  “Dipping?”

  He didn’t answer and pulled to the side of the main road. About fifty feet from the road, pinpricks of light danced in the meadow. Simon shut off the car, and the moonlight painted his face silver.

  “Dipping is something readers do,” he said. “One person does
the drinking while the rest dip into their fuzz by touching them somewhere on their bare skin.” He demonstrated by tapping my cheek with his fingertips. “They feel all the effects without the actual intoxication or hangover. Except for the drinker. They’re pretty messed up the next day.”

  “I thought… you couldn’t, you know, touch without…”

  His smile folded into a smirk. “Without getting a little too close for comfort?”

  This entire situation was making me uncomfortable.

  “That’s why they only dip for a second,” he said. “Only long enough for the effects to be felt, without all the uncomfortable closeness. Believe me, nobody wants to get that close to Martin.”

  Now that my eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, I could see figures attached to the flashlights in the dancing light show. “I don’t know about this.”

  “Don’t worry.” He stroked my cheek where he had tapped. “You won’t feel it. You’re not a reader, remember?”

  Like I could forget that.

  “That’s why you have to fake it.”

  I looked askance at him. “Right. Why are we doing this, again?”

  He leaned back. “You’re a changeling now. Time to be part of the crowd. Blending in makes you seem less suspicious.” His voice grew serious. “The worst thing is for people to know what we are, Kira. You have to keep the code of silence.”

  My eyebrows flew up. “Code of silence?”

  “That’s just what I call it. The vow of perpetual silence,” he intoned with mock solemnity. “Trust me; you don’t want people to know what you can do.”

  I didn’t trust Simon, but I knew he was right about that. If people knew we could control them, life would be a whole lot worse. In ways I didn’t even want to think about.

  The lights in the field had settled low to the ground. Pretending to party with Simon’s friends wouldn’t be my worst lie of the day. Simon retrieved the case of beer, and we tromped through the grassy field, chirping insects falling silent as we invaded their territory. Simon’s merry band huddled on a blanket thrown over the weeds.

  I hesitantly linked to them once we were within range. Their chatter roared to life, clamoring in my mind, and I stumbled over a rock hidden in the grass. Their thoughts and mind-scents blended together. Bald curiosity rippled through their minds.

  The mental volume stepped down as Simon introduced me. This is Kira. His thoughts echoed in their minds.

  The girl put a flashlight under her chin and made a face. Hi Kira, I’m Katie. Her dark wiry hair was pulled into a ponytail, which exploded into a puff.

  Hi, I linked the thought to her. She looked me up and down and pictured a girl that wouldn’t be happy about how pretty I was. Before I had a chance to respond, the muscle-bound blond who sat next to her rumbled in with, Hey, Kira. His name was Zach and his shirt sleeve was rolled up to reveal pale skin darkened by tattoos. A third boy, Miguel, lounged at the very edge of the blanket, a blade of grass hanging from his mouth. He chimed in with a subdued, Hey. I probed and found he was the artist behind Zach’s tattoos.

  In the dead center sat a boy that must be Martin, the designated drinker. His gangly arms seemed too long for his body, and his legs were folded up like a floppy doll.

  His eyes were on Simon. Did you get it?

  Simon handed him the pack of beers, and Martin tore the paper binding apart. The glass bottles spilled out and clanked together on the blanket. He opened a beer and chugged the entire thing in a long series of gulps. Simon gestured for me to sit near Martin, then sat next to me. He shifted close, nearly touching my leg and earning a raised eyebrow from Katie. An image of Simon pinning me against the lockers flashed through Katie’s mind, and my tangle of emotions flared again. She must have seen the whole thing or caught it in the thought-speed rumor mill. The image of a blond girl stomping off pulsed through her mind. I put two and two together. Simon avoided my gaze.

  So, Kira, what are you, a freshman? Zach asked. He thought he was very funny.

  I linked my thoughts to all of them at once. No. What are you, a second-year senior?

  Then I heard the most amazing thing. Mental laughter. It sounded like tinkling bells and soft sizzling and little breathy snorts. I was pretty sure the last one came from Miguel. None of them laughed out loud.

  I see why you like her, Katie thought. Then Simon’s voice rang loud through all their minds, She’s all right. They all echoed it back. She’s all right. All right. Right.

  Simon finally met my gaze and gave me a crooked smile.

  Martin pitched the empty beer bottle into the darkness, and it landed with a soft swish of prairie grass. He cracked open another and flung the bottle cap after the first.

  The five of us mindtalked about nothing: the bugs; the blessed event that was the weekend; the lack of true art in tattooing today. I struggled to keep up with the four simultaneous conversations. Their thoughts were lightning fast and played over each other, like strings on a guitar, harmonizing yet separate. Simon’s linked thoughts played along, subdued in the harmony and not echoing through their minds, unlike his jacked in command before. It was difficult to keep up, and I wondered how readers managed it all day, every day.

  As Martin finished the second beer, Katie and Zach shuffled nearer to him, and even Miguel sidled closer. Martin sent the second bottle sailing and cracked open a third, giving a tremendous belch that sent twitters of mental laughter ringing around the blanket. As he chugged the third one, I leaned away from him. If Martin’s stomach rebelled against the onslaught of alcohol, I didn’t want to be in spewing distance. No one else was concerned, so I tried to relax.

  Martin burst out singing in his head, some bawdy song I didn’t recognize.

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Miguel thought. If you’re going to sing, man, I’m leaving.

  No one’s making you stay. Martin sent the third empty flying. With a crash of glass, the bottle met its mates in the weeds. A mental grumble went around the blanket, but no one moved to leave. In fact, they edged closer to Martin, who let his hands fall by his sides. His head flopped forward and his lips moved slightly, as if he’d forgotten that he didn’t need to use them.

  Good beer, Simon.

  Miguel tapped his finger on Martin’s bare foot, exposed as he sat cross-legged on the blanket. Martin flinched at his touch and then stilled. Katie and Zach rhythmically touched the outstretched fingers of one hand. Simon gestured to Martin’s other hand, a pale silver fish flopped on the blanket. Simon and I each took a different finger. Martin’s skin was as clammy as it looked. As for faking the effect of the beer, I wasn’t sure what to do. Martin was breathing heavily, and Miguel’s eyes were closed. Their thoughts were jumbled.

  I glanced at Katie and Zach and was shocked to see them holding tight to each other and kissing. Katie’s dark skin mashed against Zach’s pale face mesmerized me until the brush of Simon’s lips near my ear made me jump.

  “This is the fun part.” His whisper sent a shudder down to the spot where his hand pressed the small of my back. I jerked away. He gave me a measured look, then pulled me up from the blanket and led me across the meadow, away from his heavily fuzzed friends.

  Halfway to the car, he veered to a glistening boulder sitting lonely in the meadow. He leaned against it and laced his fingers with mine. The moon glazed half his face with light, and his hair fell loose in a frame of darkness.

  “Still mad at me?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I pulled my hand away and rubbed my eyes, even more tired than when I juggled thirty minds in math. At least in class they weren’t all talking to me at the same time.

  “Is it always this hard?” I asked. “This jacking thing is wiping me out.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  I wondered how long it would take for me to pass for a reader easily, like Simon. I gazed at the partiers who were still linked and kissing and drinking. “Did I do okay?”

  “You did great.”

  I peered up into his dark eyes. �
��When did you know? That you could mindjack?”

  He studied the weeds in the distance. “When I put my sister in a coma over a fight about… something. I can’t really remember what it was. I was twelve.”

  I held my breath, not sure what to say. “Simon, I’m sorry…”

  He shrugged and leaned back on the rock. “It took me three weeks to figure out I could wake her up again.”

  “You were just a kid.” I remembered my panic that first day, when I had knocked Raf out and thought I might slay the whole school if I went to class. What if I hadn’t inadvertently woken Raf up? I placed a hand on Simon’s shoulder, but his face stayed blank.

  “You didn’t have anyone to help you,” I said. “You couldn’t have known.”

  He ducked his head, examining the prairie grass at our feet. His hair fell forward, masking his face in shadow. I wanted to brush it back.

  “Well, she’s off to college now,” he said. “So I guess there was no permanent damage.”

  I swallowed. “I’m lucky to have you to help me.” He looked up, and a smile ghosted across his face. He smoothed down some tendrils of my hair floating in the breeze and stopped with his hand behind my head.

  He pulled me closer and his kiss was gentle, but the hot liquid feel of it still made my body sing.

  When he broke the kiss, he whispered, “What are you thinking?”

  I was thinking that I would rather be kissing than talking, but those words were not going to come out of my mouth, if I could help it. I just shook my head.

  “Well, that’s new for me,” he added. I didn’t understand. “Usually, I know what a girl thinks about when I kiss her.”

  Oh. His smirk drove me to look back to the partiers. Simon had probably kissed a lot of girls before me. Girls that knew what they were doing in the kissing department. I ordered the blood out of my cheeks. Somehow my mind powers didn’t extend to controlling my own bodily reactions.

  “Hey. What?” He tipped his head to try to catch my eye.

  “I don’t think I blend very well.”