Open Minds

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  He was still.

  I opened my eyes.

  The warehouse looked like a battlefield littered with jackers as still as corpses. They lay motionless, one on top of another, with limbs bent at odd angles. My feet were riveted to the floor. The jackers weren’t dead, but I had erased their conscious thoughts, like words wiped from a scribepad. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t move again unless I told them to wake up.

  Something banged against my knees, and the floor rushed at me. My hands flew in front of my face to keep it from smacking into the concrete. I stared at the floor, and air wheezed in and out of my lungs. The fallen bodies haunted the edge of my field of view.

  Suddenly hands grabbed my shoulders and lifted me. Raf’s face swam into view. “Kira, are you okay?”

  His thick black brows drew together. I reached up and touched them. Soft like feathers. They moved under my hand when he frowned deeper.

  “I’m getting you out of here,” he said. He reached his arm around my back and hoisted me from the floor. My legs didn’t work right. I tried to walk, but my toes kept catching on the concrete floor.

  Or maybe the bodies.

  Raf hauled me across the endless cavern of the warehouse until we reached the door he had come through. He kicked it open, and we stepped out into the clammy night air. The ground disappeared as Raf hooked his arm under my legs and carried me across the street. He set me down by the passenger side of his car and opened the door. The car light spilled out onto the grass and jump-started my brain. I felt sick and bent over, sucking in gulps of night air to stop the queasiness.

  “Oh god, Kira, are you okay?” Raf rubbed my back. The sickness climbed up in my throat, but I swallowed it down and straightened. A wave of dizziness swept me. I leaned against him and buried my face in his chest.

  “We need to leave,” he said, taking hold of my shoulders and nudging me toward the passenger seat. “Just get in the car, and I’ll get us out of here.” I obeyed, sitting heavily and dragging my legs in after me. He hurried around to the driver’s side, throwing a glance back at the warehouse, as if he expected them to come barreling out at any moment.

  He pulled up the mindware to start the car. I touched his shoulder to stop him.

  “We need to go.” His voice was soft, like he was talking to a child waking from a nightmare.

  “No. Wait. I have to wake them up.” It didn’t seem right to leave them passed out cold on the concrete floor.

  “Wake them up?” He peered at the warehouse, draped in shadows. “What happened in there, Kira? I only remember being here in the car. You went in, but I don’t remember anything else until I woke up inside. Then everyone was falling down.”

  Words came out of my mouth explaining how I jacked into people’s minds, how Molloy had ordered Raf killed, and how Simon was going to do it. And so, of course, I had to stop Simon. And Molloy. And the others. I watched his eyes go wide as saucers and then shrink with horror and finally settle into pure amazement. I walked him through every step, but it felt like a lecture I was giving to students in a tinny hall far away. Today, students, I will explain how I knocked out a battalion of mindjacking Clan members. There will be a quiz at the end.

  Sickness rose up again. I had to stop talking to choke it back down.

  Raf brushed my cheeks, and they seemed wet. I blinked to clear away the blurriness.

  The amazement on Raf’s face had tempered to concern. “What do we do now?”

  “We should call the police,” I said. “No, wait.” I tried to clear the fuzziness in my brain. “If I wake them up while the police are there, they’ll just jack the officers and escape. Or worse. There has to be some way to stop them. Maybe order them to cooperate with the police and turn themselves in?” I wasn’t even sure of that. Somehow I had managed to knock them out, but they weren’t expecting it. I caught them by surprise. If they were all awake… and angry…

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to stay until the police arrive,” Raf said.

  “We can’t let them go free,” I said. “They’ll hurt my family.”

  Raf pulled his phone out of his pocket. “How about I call the police, and we’ll pull over behind those bushes.” He pointed to a row of hedges large enough to obscure his car and out of reading range of the warehouse. “Can you do your, um, jacking from there?”

  “Yes. I think so.” An unreasonable smile broke across my face. Raf gave me a whisper of a smile and then became serious as he focused on his phone. I reached inside the building. The location of each mind was seared into me. They were all still safely unconscious. Raf switched on the car and used the manual joystick to quickly swing the car around and hide us behind the hedge.

  The night was still as we waited.

  The air was thick with things I needed to say to Raf, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I stared at the green twisting branches of the bush, snarled like all the lies I had told, and searched for the right thing to say. From the corner of my eye, I saw Raf staring at me. It all seemed so silly now, in retrospect. The one person I should have trusted all along was the one I had lied to the most.

  “How did you find me?” I asked, stalling while I searched for a way to apologize. Raf gripped the car’s joystick. I wasn’t sure if he was anxious about the police or if he was angry about the insanity that had just occurred. He didn’t look at me.

  “I followed you.” His voice was quiet, like he was embarrassed.

  “From my house?” I asked, not quite putting it all together.

  “No, from the school.” His whisper hung in the air. Heat crept up my neck as I remembered what Simon and I had been doing, for quite some time, in that school parking lot. Had my mom called Raf? Did he just stumble onto that scene? It didn’t matter. Simon’s betrayal just fueled the fire on my cheeks.

  “I was worried about you, Kira,” Raf said, still defending himself.

  “Raf.” I wanted him to look at me, but he kept staring at the bushes. “I was wrong. About a lot of things. I should have told you the truth.” My hands were white from clenching each other in my lap. “I was trying to protect you,” I mumbled.

  His head snapped to me. “Protect me from them?”

  “And from me.” The words came out a whisper.

  He shook his head. “Kira, you wouldn’t hurt me. You saved my life tonight.”

  “I already hurt you once.” My final secret came out before I could stop it.

  “You mean, in chem lab?” Knowing I had cut down a warehouse full of jackers, he had to know that I had done the same thing to him. He took a deep breath and gazed through the bushes to the building where the bodies still lay. “I knew there was something going on with you, Kira, I just didn’t know what. And you wouldn’t talk to me. I wish you had let me help you, instead of turning to that guy, Simon.” The hurt in his eyes was clear, even in the dim parking lot lights, and it stabbed me.

  “Me too,” I whispered. My face burned with embarrassment and anger—at Simon, at myself for lying, at the universe for giving me this cursed ability. I had messed things up pretty good and almost gotten my best friend killed.

  Twice.

  And I had lied to everyone I cared about in the process. There must be something worse than green sludge on cheese, because I had sunk to a new low. I stared at my hands and wondered if Raf could ever trust me again. Then his hand found mine. It was warm and soft, and my fingers automatically sought his and held tight.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he said. But I already knew that from the safe feeling that pulsed from his hands into mine, from the easy forgiveness he gave me with his touch. Although I didn’t deserve his trust, I desperately needed it.

  The right words had abandoned me again.

  As I searched for something to say, a black car careened around the corner of the winding industrial row and screeched to a stop in front of the warehouse. It didn’t appear to be a police car, with no lights, siren, or markings. We heard the doors open and hard soled shoes
clattering on the pavement. I linked into the two newcomer’s minds to see if they were Clan members coming to rescue their fallen crew.

  One pushed me out of his head before I could register a name. The second was distracted, thinking about someone inside the warehouse. His name popped up. Agent Kestrel, FBI. My eyes went wide. Agent Kestrel pushed me out, hard, and kept pushing all the way back to my impenetrable mind. Except maybe it wasn’t. The force of him on my mind was stronger than anything I’d felt before.

  “We have to leave!” I said. Raf jumped in his seat. “Now, now, now!”

  I closed my eyes in concentration. If we stayed any longer, Agent Kestrel might jack into my head, and I was certain that would be a bad thing. I pressed my hands to my temples, as if I could ward Kestrel off that way. Raf threw the car into reverse and flung me forward into the dash. We hurtled backward across the empty parking lot. The pressure on my head lessened. I opened my eyes and braced myself against the dash right as Raf hit the brakes and flung me back into my seat. I struggled with the seat belt as he screeched out of the parking lot.

  A squeal of tires sounded behind us. Even though we were tearing away from the warehouse, the pressure on my mind started to grow again.

  “He’s following us…” I whispered.

  “Who’s following us?” Raf said hoarsely. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re FBI agents. Jacker agents.” The pressure grew stronger. I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. “We have to get farther away, Raf. Go faster!”

  “I am!” he said, but then he started to slow down and pull to the side of the road.

  He had slumped against the dash.

  “Raf!” I grabbed the joystick and tried to keep us from crashing into the trees lining the street, but it wasn’t responding. Agent Kestrel must have jacked into the car’s mindware as well as Raf’s mind. I reached into the mindware controls and wrestled with Kestrel. Somehow he managed to shut down the engine, and our car crawled to a full stop at the curb.

  Raf slumped against the window, too groggy to move. I reached for Kestrel’s mind, but he was ready for me and he was too strong. I couldn’t even slow him down.

  Tires crunched on the road behind us. Kestrel sprang out of his car and stalked toward ours. I shook Raf, trying to get him to move. Too late, I realized I had to run.

  I wrenched the door handle up and stumbled out into the cool night air. The grass was slick under my hands as I caught myself. I got three steps before Agent Kestrel’s hand clamped around my arm. I wrestled with his mind and body in a flurry of hands and feet and thoughts. His bony hand held me fast against him, like a brick wall with an iron claw.

  A sharp pain jabbed my arm, and a haze washed through me. My mind went numb, followed by my limbs, and the wet grass rushed to meet my face.

  Run, Raf. But my thoughts were a jumble of words scattered on the lawn.

  The darkness fell like trap slamming shut.

  Metal support bars dug through the thin, cold mattress, prodding my back as I woke up.

  I forced my parched throat to swallow and propped myself up. The room smelled of stale sweat. Grime caked the edges of the walls. Other than the cot and a cracked toilet without a seat tucked in the far corner, the pale gray room was bare.

  My head was numb, like it had disconnected from my body. I rubbed the heels of my hands on my temples, but it didn’t drive away the fuzziness. An orange aftertaste stung the back of my tongue. I gingerly swung my shaky legs over the edge of the bed and pressed my bare feet to the cold concrete floor. Why don’t I have shoes?

  Pictures flashed through my mind: Raf slumped over the wheel, a pinprick in my arm, my face in the cold grass. Raf! I jerked up from the bed and the room spun. Catching myself on the corner of the mattress, I stumbled toward the metallic door.

  There was no handle, only a small window I could barely see through, even standing on my tiptoes. The upper half of a concrete hallway was all I could see. I pounded on the door.

  “Hey! Let me out!” I fought through the orange haze in my mind. Raf might be in another holding room nearby. I strained my eyes to peer down the featureless corridor. A tall man in a gray uniform lurched into view and strode toward me.

  I backed away from the door before the guard pushed it open. He stood with one hand on the knob and the other on a short black stick attached to his belt.

  “Don’t get testy, princess,” he said. “You’ll be leaving soon enough.”

  I reflexively backed away from him. His dark hair was greasy and slicked to the side, contrasting with his neatly pressed uniform. Something in his sharp blue eyes made it seem like he had seen horrible things and liked it. His lips pulled back in the kind of smile a crocodile gives right before it eats you for lunch.

  The backs of my knees hit the bed and I nearly tumbled onto it. I straightened and took a deep breath. It didn’t matter if Reptile Man was big and frightening and kind of smelly, if I jacked him… I reached toward his mind, but my brain was too fuzzed. I could barely form a coherent thought, much less control his brain from across the room.

  He snorted. “Not so tough when you’re on the juice, now are you?” Then he leered at me and a shiver convulsed me so hard I almost fell on the bare mattress again.

  Abruptly, he swung his head to peer down the hallway. When his eyes returned to me, they had lost their gleam. “Time’s up, princess. Come on.” He stepped back, but I wasn’t so interested in leaving my room anymore.

  “Where are we going?” He didn’t answer my question, and his ugly smile returned, like he wanted an excuse to come in the room after me. My legs twitched as I slipped out the door, keeping as much distance as possible between me and Reptile Man.

  The long gray hallway was lined with doors identical to mine, perhaps twenty of them before a double door at the end. The small high windows kept me from seeing in. My feet pricked with cold from the concrete floor, and the bracing air of the prison soaked into my thin shorts and t-shirt. I hugged myself to keep the shivering to a minimum. The guard stopped just before the end double doors to open a side cell.

  The room was the same size as mine. A battered metal table stood in the center with spindly chairs on either side, facing each other in a silent duel. The guard closed the door with a click that sounded like I would be staying put. My throat was still painfully dry, and a plastic cup of water called to me from the table. I picked it up and sniffed. They had already drugged me with whatever they wanted, so I gulped down the entire cup. The vinyl-cushioned chair clung to my legs when I sat down.

  I sank my face into my hands. What had happened to Raf?

  They must have taken him into custody as well. My brain was so fuzzed that I had to fight to remember what happened. The FBI had found the warehouse with the unconscious Clan members and captured Raf and me. Were we under arrest? It seemed so.

  But we didn’t do anything wrong.

  A bubble of anger boiled through the fog in my mind. Why was I being held prisoner, when Simon and his band of jackers were the real criminals?

  I jerked when the door of the room swung open. Only my legs sticking to the red plastic cushion kept me from falling off the chair. I steadied myself by clutching the table. The agent who captured us—Kestrel—closed the door behind him. He sat carefully in the seat across from me.

  He had seemed like a wall of iron grip and mental force when he wrestled me into custody on the streets of Glenview, but now he was only a man. His piercing blue eyes returned my stare. He appeared about twenty-five, or maybe a little older. His dark hair was cut short, and his cheeks were so hollowed they almost looked scarred. I desperately wished the orange haze would clear from my mind so I could jack into Kestrel’s. For now, I would have to get my answers the old-fashioned way.

  “What have you done with Raf?” I asked.

  Agent Kestrel drew his thin lips into a line and leaned back in his chair. “Your friend is fine. He’s back home, thinking he shouldn’t have drunk so much last night.”r />
  What is Kestrel talking about? “Did you drug him too?”

  “No. We wiped his true memories, and replaced them with a sim of him drowning his sorrows. When he wakes, the last true thing Mr. Lobos Santos will remember is watching you and Mr. Zagan in the parking lot.”

  I gaped. He had wiped Raf’s memory? I supposed it was possible—I had swept clean the conscious thoughts of the minds in the warehouse. If I had reached farther into their minds, I probably could have brushed away their true memories as well. And if Kestrel had erased Raf’s memory of last night, everything—my explanation, Raf’s forgiveness—was gone. All Raf would remember was Simon and me making out in the parking lot. My hands clenched my knees.

  Kestrel’s face had gone icy cold. “It makes it easier to explain why you and Mr. Zagan both disappeared on the same night.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared?”

  Kestrel narrowed his eyes. “Surely you don’t think you’re going home now, Kira.”

  “You can’t… you can’t just…” I swallowed. “You can’t just hold me here forever.”

  “Here?” His eyebrows arched. “No, not here.” His eyes drifted to the empty cup sitting on the table between us. “Are you thirsty? The juice can quickly dehydrate you. Can I get you some more water?”

  I blinked at his conversational tone, as though we were two friends having a nice cup of tea. “Uh, okay,” I said slowly. His smile thinned his lips until they almost disappeared. He snatched the cup, and the door opened for him. A guard exchanged the old cup for a new one filled with water. Kestrel returned to the table and carefully set down the cup.

  “How did you find us last night?” I asked. “The Clan, I mean. Was it because we called the police?”

  “No. We’ve been monitoring the Clan for some time, but they seldom gather all together. They usually launder money for the New Metro mob. This time they had some new corporate espionage scheme in the works. Our agent inside told us they had brought in someone from an international spy ring, to see if their newest recruit was the asset they needed.” He paused. “It was our chance to catch everyone together.”