Open Minds

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  And so I did. All about the horror that was jacker camp and Laney and breaking out. I went light on the details there, so Kestrel wouldn’t learn anything new. I told Raf how Laney had been kidnapped, and they were experimenting on her, and how I hated leaving behind the other changelings like her in the camp. I didn’t tell him how I had vowed to help them, if I could, because I didn’t want Kestrel to know.

  I told him how the guard killed Simon, and he died bleeding in the desert, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Raf’s hand stole over mine when I paused and fought through the tears, not wanting to cry over Simon in front of him. When I had composed myself again, I wondered how I had ever doubted that Raf was the one I could trust.

  I pressed on and told him how I’d been on the run, trying to stay invisible. The less Kestrel knew about the visit to my family, the better, so I left that out. And I didn’t tell him about my extra range or fighting off the gas—nothing that would show me to be different from any other jacker. Although Kestrel already knew some of it.

  Raf was nodding when I finished. I was empty in a good way, like things that I had kept inside too long were finally out.

  It made me light-headed.

  “So, what are you going to do now?” Raf asked, his face wrinkled with concern. I had an urge to touch his forehead and smooth out the worry lines. But I kept my hand in my lap, not sure if he wanted my touch.

  “I’m not sure.” I gave him a sheepish smile. “Actually, I have an idea, but I can’t tell you.” While I was explaining it all to Raf, a plan had slowly formed in my head. I would need some help to get the changelings freed from the camp, but that wasn’t the dangerous part, if you didn’t count the demens idea of going into the city late at night. Finding Laney would be the tricky bit, where things could go south in a hurry.

  The less Raf knew about my plans, the better. For his own safety and to have any hope of pulling it off.

  He refrained from asking me for more. He trusted me to tell him if I could. It was so much more than I deserved, but it was exactly what I needed.

  That, and a change of clothes.

  Raf let me use his shower and borrow his mom’s clothes. Mrs. Santos’s frilly red shirt and black skin-tight pants weren’t exactly my style. But they fit and weren’t caked with Arizona dust. Add in the Cubs hat and the oversized jacket, and I looked ridiculous. At least I was clean.

  We stood at the top of the stairs to the front door, awkwardly wondering how to say goodbye. Mama Santos had gone to bed, never realizing that I had been in her house. Raf pressed a wad of unos into my hand.

  I stuffed the bills in the pocket of his shirt. “I’m good.” There was very little chance I was coming back. Even if all my plans worked out, I couldn’t return home. It was too dangerous—for me and for everyone I loved. After I was through doing what I could for the changelings and Laney, I would go away somewhere. Start over. That was the best possible case—the worst being any number of ways I could get caught and sent back to the camp.

  Besides, I owed Raf too much to take his money as well.

  His face twisted. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

  I decided to smooth away his worry lines this time and hoped he didn’t mind my touch. I wanted to kiss him but was afraid it might be too much. “You’ve already helped me so much.” Just having a plan and spending time with Raf had left me with a strange sense of elation. It was hard to contain my smile.

  “Will you come back soon?” The longing in his eyes made my breath catch.

  I wanted to say yes, but I didn’t want to lie to him anymore. “If it’s possible. If it’s safe.” At least that much was the truth.

  “That’s a lot of ifs.” He gave me an uncertain smile.

  “I want to, Raf.”

  He nodded, but the worried look was back. I reached up to hug him and then scurried out the door before I lost my nerve to leave him at all.

  The vacant T-94 train car reminded me that the city at night was literally for the demens.

  Once I arrived at Union Station, my transfer ticket put me on a bus, but I wished I had taken Raf’s unos so I could pay for an autocab instead. The bus to Tribune Tower was like a Halloween spook ride come to life. It was on autopath, probably because they couldn’t pay anyone to drive it.

  Only impoverished fuzzheads or the demens lived in the crowded slums of the city, where the apartments were seldom up to range codes and people heard their neighbors’ thoughts in their sleep. The fuzzheads were usually harmless—the obscura dulled the part of their minds that received thought waves, but it also fuzzed out any other coherent thought. It was the demens that could be dangerous, with their brain chemistry permanently altered by the barrage of thought waves.

  The scrawny guy with the backward t-shirt and hollowed-out eyes seemed too fuzzed out to be dangerous. The gnarled guy with the tin foil hat and the baggy coat was almost certainly demens. But he stuck to mumbling in the back of the bus, and I stayed up front. It was the lady in the skin-tight pink pants who kept wandering the length of the bus that had me the most worried. She talked out loud to someone named Freddie and had very colorful names to describe his unfaithfulness.

  After about ten minutes, she finally lunged for me, thinking I was her phantom boyfriend, and I had to jack into the craziness inside her head. She dropped to the floor like a stone. The rest of the demens on the bus barely noticed. I pulled out of Pink Pants’s head quickly, but the demens state of her mind left a strange peppermint taste that burned my mouth. I stood up near the door of the bus, as far from the rest of them as I could. I was staying out of their heads, if at all possible.

  I gathered my oversized jacket tight around me, warding off the crisp fall air, and skittered off the bus at my stop. The black glass towers of the city still sparkled with the lights of late-night workers. The Tribune Tower’s limestone blocks loomed above me, a grand building from Chicago’s past, with ornate buttresses lit up and garish at the top. Windows on several floors above the arched entryway shone with promise. My plan would only work if one of those late-night workers was a hard-working reporter looking for a tru-cast.

  Reaching inside, I found a single guard in the lobby. I jacked his attention firmly on the ball game, which wasn’t hard since the game was in extra innings. The revolving brass doors gave way to a flush of warm air that brushed off the cold of the street.

  The guard’s large, black hands clutched a palm screen whispering the game. Security cameras glared at me from three different corners of the lobby. I pulled my cap down as I scurried past the guard, keeping my footfalls quiet through the metal detectors and to the elevators beyond.

  The directory was a maze of names I didn’t recognize, but the reporters all seemed to be on the middle floors, in between the ground-level cast station and the executive suites above the 24th floor. I scanned the floors above me and found a couple of journalists on the fifth floor, some maintenance workers on floors seven and eight, and a lone reporter on the tenth floor, researching an article about pollution in the Chicago River. Dealing with one reporter seemed easier, so I punched the button for floor ten.

  The tenth floor was only half-lit, in energy-saving mode. I wove through several darkened hallways before I found the reporter in a bright castroom with about two dozen workpods crammed together. She hunched in her chair and gazed at her screen, using mindware to sift through the Tribune’s archives.

  I stepped quietly to her desk and skimmed her mind while I waited for her to notice me. Her name was Maria Lopez, and she had been a tru-cast reporter with the Trib for about ten years. When she finally realized I was standing next to her desk, she started so badly that she nearly fell off her chair.

  Sweet Mother, you scared me! she thought, and then eyed me warily. Of course, she couldn’t read my thoughts, which instantly pegged me as a not-to-be-trusted zero. I linked into her mind quickly, because I didn’t want to lose her trust before I even got started.

  I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fri
ghten you.

  Relieved that I wasn’t a zero, she thought, It’s all right. I tasted her sour nervousness. Through her eyes, I looked demens, with my wacky outfit and the Cubs cap. My fellow bus travelers had probably thought I was one of them too. I resisted adding to the effect by laughing and took off my hat instead. Her shoulders relaxed.

  Good. Because I have a tru-cast for you. I held back from jacking into her mind and making it a command. I wanted her to help me out, but only if she was willing. Otherwise, I would need to find someone else. It’s about people who can control minds.

  Her eyebrows arched. She decided I was definitely demens, and she needed to call security. Well, maybe I could use that to make my point.

  I think maybe you should leave, she thought, reaching for her phone.

  You can call the security guard, but it won’t matter.

  She directed her mindware phone to send a scrit to the security guard that she needed help with a guest on the tenth floor. She decided to keep me calm until he arrived.

  Why won’t it matter? If you don’t mind me asking, she thought.

  Because I’m one of the people that can control your mind. Her eyes widened slightly. She tried to keep her thoughts and face a calm mask, but her mind couldn’t help flitting around. Mostly wondering what flavor of demens thought they could control minds, and if that made them more or less dangerous. She shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind, still trying to appear calm. Oh? You can control minds? That’s very interesting.

  More so than you can imagine. The elevator dinged its arrival in the distance. I lifted the name of the security guard from his mind. When George arrives, he won’t be able to see me.

  Are you invisible? She decided I was probably a harmless flavor of demens.

  Only when I want to be. It was one thing to misdirect people’s minds so they didn’t see or hear me, but something different to make myself completely invisible. I had changed my appearance before by jacking in a different image, but never made myself disappear altogether. Yet I was pretty sure I could do it. The mind was good at filling in things it thought it saw—or didn’t.

  Maria smiled indulgently, waiting for George to take this somewhat entertaining demensoff her hands so she could continue her research. As George entered the castroom, I jacked him to ignore me. I stepped to the side, flush against a wall covered with tru-cast awards, hoping that would make it easier for George’s mind to blend me out of existence. I jacked the command to him hard: I was invisible, nothing but air. When he approached the desk, his mind was already compensating for my appearance, like filling in a blind spot.

  Did you need something, Ms. Lopez? His large frame filled the short entrance to the workspace, and his dark face glistened with the slight sweat he had worked up in his hurry.

  Would you please escort my friend back to the lobby? I think we’re done here. Maria gave me that indulgent smile again and hoped that I would go willingly.

  George scanned her workspace quickly. Sure, Ms. Lopez. Where’s your friend?

  Maria’s smile died. She’s right there, George. She pointed and George’s eyes followed her finger and looked right at me. Or rather through me. His mind had decided I didn’t exist, so he only saw a wall filled with tru-cast accolades. He peered over the short workpod wall and scanned the rest of the castroom, looking for the mysterious guest.

  I’m controlling what he can see. She jerked back from her desk as if I’d shocked her. She tentatively stood, hands rigid at her side.

  George, is this a joke? Maria thought, her dark eyebrows pulled tight.

  Joke? George echoed, still looking for the supposed intruder. Maria heard his echoing jacked thoughts, no one here, no one here. She unclenched her fists. George was searching her face now, wondering if she was all right.

  Maria hastily thought, I must just be tired. I thought I saw someone. It’s okay, George, you can go now.

  Are you sure, Ms. Lopez? George was genuinely concerned that she might be working too hard. She smiled in a reassuring way and tried to keep her thoughts focused on her apology.

  I’m sorry to drag you all the way up here, she thought. I’m fine. I’ll be going home soon.

  Okay, George thought. I’m gonna make sure to call you an autocab when you’re ready, Ms. Lopez. You know a nice lady like you shouldn’t be working late in the city. He slowly made his way out of the castroom, looking around to be sure he hadn’t missed something.

  I had Maria’s full attention now. What’s going on? she demanded.

  Can we sit down? This might take some time to explain. She narrowed her eyes, and motioned me to a chair in the corner of her workpod, which I dragged over to her desk. I had started the morning in Arizona, and fatigue was making my legs ache.

  I settled heavily into the chair and started from the beginning. Somewhere partway through, Maria remembered she was a reporter and started taking notes on her computer. Doubts haunted the edges of her mind, but when I told her about the camp, she stopped writing altogether.

  “Do you have any proof this place exists?” We had resorted to spoken language once she realized I was linking thoughts into her head. She didn’t care for that any more than Raf did.

  “I know where it’s located.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Coordinates?”

  “Not exact, but it’s about 15 miles southwest of Rock Point, Arizona.”

  Maria used mindware to pull up the latest satellite images of the area. She gaped at the screen. “There’s nothing 15 miles southwest of Rock Point.”

  “Well, there’s camouflage netting over the camp. Maybe the satellites can’t see it? You should at least see the perimeter fence.”

  She rotated the screen toward me. “No, I mean there’s nothing there.”

  A grayed out area of the screen labeled Information Not Available spanned several miles of the desert southwest of Rock Point. I panicked for a moment, wondering if somehow I had it wrong, but Maria was shaking her head in amazement. “You’ve stepped into something serious here, Kira.”

  “It’s really there! I know it is.”

  “There’s definitely something there,” she said. “This is the satellite blockage that usually pops up over military facilities.”

  I leaned back in the chair. She believed me. And while the camp was blocked from view, she knew that meant there was something to hide. I pictured all the trucks that went in and out of the facility. The Feds must not want any evidence of movement in the area.

  “I’ll have to get someone out there. Maybe Mack could use that crazy new camera of his with the satellite linkage.” She was thinking out loud now. She was all-in.

  “You need to be careful,” I said. “If the Feds find out what you’re doing, they may come in and wipe your mind, not to mention your computer.”

  She blanched and pulled her hands back to her lap. “They can do that?”

  “Yes.” If I linked into her mind, I could see if the hesitation on her face meant she was going to back out. But I’d promised not to do that, unless she asked.

  She nodded to herself. “Then I better make some extra copies.”

  She focused on the computer, making backups and sending files off to someone named Haggerty. I didn’t ask and waited a minute before I said, “I also need you to hold off for a couple days before you go public with this.”

  She paused in her file manipulations. “Why? You said they were abusing kids in this camp? Don’t you want to stop that?”

  I grimaced. “Of course!” The whole point of telling Maria about the camp was so she would blow the Feds’ cover, and they would have to release the changelings trapped inside. “But they’re also experimenting on kids somewhere else, and I need to find out where. That’s where I need your help.” She was still logged in, and I could reach into the mindware to retrieve the information I needed myself. But I didn’t want to abuse Maria’s trust if I didn’t have to.

  “What do you need?” Her shoulders tensed again. She had probably been
waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time we were talking.

  “I need the home address of Agent Kestrel. He works for the FBI in Chicago New Metro. He knows where the experiments are being conducted, and I need to find out where they’re keeping my friend Laney.”

  She bit her lip. “You’re not going to hurt him, are you?”

  “I only want the information.” It was a small lie, and I hoped it didn’t show. I wanted much more than information from Kestrel. Some payback for all he’d done would be nice. Maria didn’t need to know about that, and anyway I didn’t have it in me to kill him.

  She focused on pulling the information from her system. I was probably asking her to break several laws to get it, but I didn’t care. If there was any chance of finding Laney and getting her out, I was taking it.

  “Okay, here it is. He’s in Lincoln Park. Not too far, in fact.” She showed me the address on the screen, and I memorized it, briefly wondering why an FBI agent would live in the city with the demens.

  “Thanks,” I said, getting up from my chair.

  “Wait, you’re leaving?” she asked. “But I have more questions!”

  “I need to go. If you don’t hear back from me in a couple days, it means they caught me. Maybe even sent me back to the camp. Go ahead and cast everything then. If you expose what they’re doing to the jacker kids in the camp, maybe you can even rescue me.” I put on a fake smile. It seemed all too likely that was how things would turn out.

  She pulled a tiny ear-mount camera out of the drawer of her desk and clipped it on. “At least let me get you on camera before you go.” She tapped it and a small green light showed it was filming. “Tell me your name first, and then you can give me your true memories about the camp.”

  I reached over and gently tapped the camera off. “You can’t show my face, Maria. Or mention my name.” I wanted to free the changelings, but what would the Feds would do to my dad if I went public with everything I knew? That was why I needed Maria. Besides, after this was all over, I planned to disappear. If my face was all over the tru-casts, exposing the camp and outing jackers everywhere, there would be nowhere I could hide.