Passing out is definitely not on the symptom list.
Marshall gives me a look like I should clear out. And for once, I agree.
“I have to get to class.” My voice sounds wooden. My feet aren’t moving yet—I’m still staring wide-eyed at Sarah as she clutches her pretty brown hair and cries softly. I’m afraid she might fall over again if I take my eyes off her.
“Go, Zeph,” Marshall says, not unkindly. I think he’s speaking softly for Sarah’s sake. “But I want you back here after school. I’ve got another job for you.”
Somehow that punches me in the gut even harder than watching Sarah cry. I’m sure I’m making some kind of horrified face, but Marshall is back to looking at Sarah and doesn’t see it. My gut twists in a soup of emotion.
What did I just do to this girl?
Sarah. Her name is Sarah.
I swallow and force my feet to move. I grab my backpack on my way out the door.
I cruise into Fremd High School just as the whisper-soft bell signals the start of class, but it’s like walking into another world. The real world, where everyone reads minds and is perfectly normal with normal lives and normal problems. Like which prom dress to buy. Or who to have on your synchronized mindware team at the gameplex. Or how to pass Latin, the dead language that’s not dead anymore, because mindreaders are weird. The students in the halls of Fremd don’t know anything about the hidden underworld of mindjackers I belong to.
And keeping it that way is job one when I’m here.
Now that the bell’s rung, the halls are deathly quiet. Of course, they were silent before that, too, and the complete lack of audible sounds other than the occasional sneeze will continue all day long. As much as Marshall is a thug and a thief and a person I generally don’t like—just like most jackers, because really, none of us are to be trusted, not when we lie about everything we are and everything we do—even with all that, at least with him I can talk out loud. Here, in the regular mindreading world, the silence is oppressive. Unless I’m linked into their minds, pretending to be one of them. But now, since everyone’s gone to class, and the neatly carpeted halls are empty, the silence reigns.
I hurry to first period Latin just so I don’t have to linger in the creepy vacuum of sound. Mrs. Holt has already started her lesson, because she thinks all students are terminally slow and she has to use every second to save us from being left behind.
Now that I’m in thought-range, I link into her mind. Sorry I’m late, Mrs. Holt. I keep the linking light, so she thinks she’s just receiving my mind waves, like the rest of her twenty-three students. At the same time, I link a weaker echo of that thought to the rest of the class, so no one’s the wiser to the jacker in their midst.
Take a seat, Mr. MacKay. She doesn’t even turn from the board.
A twitter of laughter flits through the minds of the class, but they barely look up from their scribepads, already working on the lesson sheet Mrs. Holt has cast to them. I try to be easy to ignore. Just background noise in the cacophony of thoughts rippling through the classroom. If they had any idea they weren’t just sensing my thoughts, that I was actually jacking into their heads… well, they wouldn’t be quite so focused on their Latin. Linking thoughts is the weakest form of jacking—not much different than mindreading—but it’s still jacking. I could just as easily make them all stand up, strip down, and dance naked around the classroom.
Not that I’ve actually considered that.
Often.
When you’re done with the worksheet, cast it back to me. Mrs. Holt’s mindwaves wash over the classroom. Even Eddy Jenkins in the back can hear her thoughts, but that’s about as far as they’ll reach. I can jack a lot farther, but I only worry about linking within the standard mindreading range. I grip my backpack and work my way past the rows of chairs. Then I see an open seat behind Tessa McIntyre. She doesn’t notice as I slide into it; she’s bent over her worksheet, her left-handed scribblings wandering all over her scribepad. A quick brush of her mind tells me she’s doing those doodles she likes to make. She probably finished the worksheet before most of the class even sat down. She’s just that smart and fast.
I know a lot about Tessa. More than I probably should.
I dig out my scribepad and attempt to catch up.
Since thought waves have a sort of universal translator built in, language isn’t a barrier for the in-person stuff. And once people got used to that, they started moving toward a common written language, too. Latin is increasingly winning out as the most-used. Why Latin? Again, mindreaders are strange. But it’s required for college, so that’s all I need to know. Marshall’s just waiting for me to get out of school so he can set me up as a full-time hoodlum, but I’ve always thought of college as the best way to go. Forget jackers. Immerse myself in the mindreading world. Full-scale, full-time pretending. See if I can stand to make a life that way. It wouldn’t be bad with someone like Tessa.
I’m still working on the finer points of that plan.
I try to focus on the worksheet.
Veto, vetare, vetui, vetitus. To forbid. To prohibit.
We’re just conjugating for warmups, but it’s like the universe is reminding me to stay out of Tessa McIntyre’s head. Most readers’ thoughts are boring synchronized drivel or rumor-mongering group-think, but Tessa is… different. It’s not just that she’s cute, although she’s definitely that, too. Long reddish-brown hair. Big brown doe eyes that have this crazy mix of intelligence and innocence. She stares off into space a lot, which gives me a chance to check her out. And her skin is this amazing ivory-pale-white with a hint of color in her cheeks… like she’s perpetually blushing, only I know she doesn’t wear makeup. She thinks a lot about how the beauty of a thing is more about the unique form of that thing, and how makeup is stupid and pointless because it just covers that up that unique quality.
I definitely linger in Tessa’s head way more than I should.
I finish my worksheet and cast it up front to Mrs. Holt. We’ve moved on to translating Julius Caesar’s Commentaries. Mrs. Holt is giving her usual play-by-play historical sim, recreating the scene in her mind as she imagines Caesar would have lived it, complete with visuals and emotional subtext. She’s pretty good at it, better than most teachers, and her students are captivated by the experience. And Mrs. Holt’s version of Caesar is pretty hot, if the sighs and thoughts of the girls in class are any indication. She clearly enjoys her source material.
I tune out Mrs. Holt and check out what Tessa’s working on so hard.
She’s drawing fairies with delicate wings in some Japanese art style. I like it when she draws. What comes out on the pad isn’t always connected to the thoughts roaming around in her head. In fact, sometimes it’s wildly different, like a little window into her soul. I keep that thought to myself, broadcasting only the expected thoughts about Mrs. Holt’s breathless reenactment of Caesar’s war campaign.
It’s not like Tessa’s the cutest girl in school. There are all kinds of hot girls in my classes, and I could date any one of them I wished… if I were the kind of guy who thought “mind control” was the same as “dating.” This is why kissing readers is just wrong: even if I’m not jacking a girl explicitly, at a minimum I’m linking into her head and lying to her about it. Lying about who I am and what I am. Solid relationship material there.
This is also why I keep to myself as best as a guy can in a high school where everyone reads minds. Usually there’s not much temptation to get involved with readers—most of them are far too into that synchronized group-think thing that sends shivers up my back. But, once in a while… there’s a girl like Tessa.
An image of Sarah-the-mindjacker pops into my head. She’s the only girl I’ve ever actually held in my arms—and it was because she passed out. Worse, it was something I did to her. I still don’t understand what happened. I’ve locked a dozen people before. Unlocked them, too. Nothing like this ever happened. The whole thing gives me a sick feeling inside, like when I first
discovered I was a jacker. I was just a kid, hoping for the adolescent change into a mindreader to happen, just like I hoped Stacey Jenkins would kiss me sometime before seventh grade ended. One minute, my mom is interrupting my holo game to yell at me about setting the table for dinner, and the next… she’s passed out on the floor. At first, I didn’t even know I did it. I was crying over her—a blubbering, freaking-out mess—and then she woke up. Only that time I felt it. Like a wish come true, only with more electrical brain activity. A storm in my brain had blown out my mother’s lights… until I turned them back on.
It was out of control and scared me witless, just like with Sarah today. I thought I might be one of the demens—those people who go through the change into mindreaders and end up crazy on the other side. But a few days later, I got scouted by a Clan leader, and I quickly learned all about being a mindjacker. Donovan taught me things. Like how to reach into a man’s mind and slow down his heart until it simply stopped. And how to erase a woman’s memory so she doesn’t even know her own family. Who teaches a kid stuff like that? Donovan’s more ruthless than Marshall could ever dream of being. He made me do things I’d rather forget, but it was during one of his more brutal lessons that I finally discovered I could lock. And that was my ticket out. I locked him into his own head and got as far away as possible.
The end-of-period tone breaks the classroom’s thoughts from their translation work, and the normal chaos of closely held mental conversations takes over—random thoughts about lunch or plans later in the day or panicked attempts at finishing the work. I pull back because they won’t notice me gone from their minds now, and I like focusing on Tessa. I don’t link anything in particular to her—don’t want to draw her attention by standing out from the crowd—but she’s slow to pack up her stuff, and I’m in no hurry to get to my next class.
English next, she thinks. No time to draw. Maybe in third period. That golden-scaled dragon with feathers was so pretty, but I don’t do well with feathers— She glances my way and catches me staring at her.
Hi! I link the spastic thought to her quickly. Because being caught obviously thinking something that the person next to you can’t hear? That’s how jackers get found out. Man, I’ve got to be more careful. I really like your pictures. I mean, drawings. Your art. Sweet mercy, I’m ramble-linking.
She stares at me, unblinking. You were looking at my art?
Well, yeah, I mean—
But you weren’t thinking about it.
Uh-oh. Yeah, I was. I try for the bald-faced lie. Readers don’t lie, so she should buy it. I was thinking how great—
No you weren’t. Her stare is cool.
Oh man.
I can tell, she thinks.
I try not to look panicked.
When people look at my art, she thinks, I can tell. You weren’t. She’s giving me this stone-cold stare. She knows something is wrong.
No, no, no. Please don’t make me jack you. But I keep that thought to myself and take a breath. I… um… Man, I’m totally scrambling. Well, this is kind of embarrassing. But I sort of wait until you’re not here to peek at your work. I could jack her if I had to. I can erase all of it from her memories. No one else is paying attention to us, so it would just be her. But this is the closest thing to a conversation I’ve had with her, and… I don’t really want her to forget it.
She frowns, and it’s cute. Really cute. Strangely, she doesn’t think I’m stalking her, she just thinks my words don’t make sense. Which of course they don’t.
How can you peek at my work when I always have my scribepad with me? She frowns as she tucks the scribepad into her satchel.
It’s true. She doesn’t let it out of her grasp. I go big with an epic lie. You do sometimes. Probably don’t remember is all. Like last week in math you left your seat for a minute. And a couple weeks ago in Latin, Mrs. Holt called you up for something.
You’re in my math class?
I am, indeed, although clearly she’s never noticed. I have three classes with her: first period Latin, fifth period math, and… Yeah. I’m in your biology class, too.
She cocks her head to the side. Eighth period?
Uh huh. I’m not really stalking her, I tell myself. She’s just… different. And I notice different. Because no one really notices me, and I have to keep it that way, but it gets pretty freaking boring sometimes.
You’re kind of strange. Her thoughts aren’t mean. There’s no sour aftertaste in her mind-scent to indicate fear. In fact, her steady wildflower field mind-scent is calming to me somehow. It ratchets down my panic. Not least because she seems to have bought the lie.
Yeah, I’m a little weird. There’s a twitch in my shoulders that I hope she doesn’t notice. All I can think is, You have no idea, Tessa-the-wildflower-girl. But I keep that thought to myself, too.
Do you want to walk with me to my locker? she thinks in that straightforward way that mindreaders do. Unlike jackers, there’s no secrecy with readers. No lies. All the embarrassing stuff is right out there, along with the honest heartfelt things. They’re like kittens that way, all innocent and vulnerable. Well, the nice ones, anyway. Like Tessa. The evil ones are like Satan with a side order of nasty.
Sure. Sounds good, I link back. Somehow agreeing to walk with her makes heat rise up in my face. I stuff my scribepad in my backpack and scramble to follow her. It occurs to me that I’ve never actually done this before: walked with a girl between classes. I shake my head at myself when Tessa’s back is turned. What am I doing?
Do you like fairies? Tessa’s thoughts are back to that random rumble I like. I draw a lot of fairies. I like the way they’re human but not quite. Maybe that’s why you like my art?
I follow her out into the hall, careful to link an echo of my thoughts to everyone nearby. Don’t want to get caught again. Well, no, I’m not really into them, but the way you draw them is… mesh.
Mesh? She frowns at me over her shoulder, like I’ve morphed into something even stranger than she originally thought.
Yeah, mesh. How can she not know what mesh is? Nice. Cool? I like it.
She squints at me. I know what mesh means.
My pulse picks up again. Well, sure. Of course. It’s the style of your art, I think. It’s different. What do you call it?
She smiles and relaxes. It’s a pre-Change Japanese style. You’ve probably never heard of it.
The Change was almost a hundred years ago, when pharmaceuticals in the water flipped everyone into being mindreaders. I don’t know if there were mindjackers in the beginning, but somewhere along the way, we started popping up in the population, too.
See? I link to her. Pre-Change art. How mesh is that?
She gives me a small smile, and it makes my heart do this weird convulsing thing. She’s always got a serious or daydreamy look on her face—I’ve never seen her smile before.
Man, am I in trouble here.
I bite my lip as we reach her locker. I should just make up some excuse and walk away now. Before I get any more entangled in Tessa and her art and her life. She opens the door of her locker, and it’s papered with her drawings. They’re mostly bright and pretty, except for one on the door. It’s a picture of her with wings—I can tell by the reddish hair and the dark-brown oversized eyes. She’s crying in the picture, and there’s a ring of glaring faces all around her.
I recognize the scene: it’s what readers do when they want to harass someone. They circle around and beat them up with their vile, Satan-like thoughts. I cringe just looking at it—it conjures a pain that worms deep inside me. Tessa catches my expression, then gets a strange look on her face. I quickly realize I’m busted again, my expression not matching my blank-to-her thoughts.
I flick a look to the picture, trying to cover for it. Did they hurt you?
She frowns, but lets it go. No. She pulls a paper doodle pad out of her locker and closes it. I was just a changeling. They thought they could drive me demens. I keep the drawing as a reminder that it didn’t wo
rk.
The ache in my chest stabs a little deeper.
That’s messed up, I link to her. Do they still do it? Harass you, I mean? I want to scour her memories, find the pravers who hurt her, and jack them into vandalizing the school’s office, or some other crime that will get them tossed out. Only I don’t want to go digging through Tessa’s memories—I’d be no better than the guys who hurt her in the first place. The anger inside me is… unexpectedly fierce. I take a breath and let it out.
It’s always a mistake to get involved with mindreaders, Zeph.
Reminding myself of this doesn’t actually help.
Tessa hikes her satchel up higher on her shoulder. No, they don’t bother me anymore. I ignore them, mostly, and they just kind of ignore me back. Guess I’m not worth the trouble.
We start walking toward her next class.
Why can’t all mindreaders be sons and daughters of evil? Why do some of them, like Tessa, have to be cute? And brave. And different.
She’s worth the trouble, something deep inside my chest tells me. But it’s wrong. Starting something with her would be… just too hard. And dangerous. I can still feel Sarah’s body in my arms like a lead weight—and she’s a jacker. A reader like Tessa would be utterly defenseless against any jackers who decided they wanted to come after me, for any multitude of grievances. Plus, hanging with Tessa would mean lying to her constantly. I might be able to live with that—I do it all the time—but she doesn’t need a hidden underworld of criminals in her life. I shake my head. I don’t want people like Donovan, or even Marshall, anywhere near someone like Tessa.
We reach her English class. She smiles at me again. Thanks for the walk. See you in math?
Her smile twists up my insides. Yeah, I link back. But I’ve already decided: when I get to math, I’m not sitting next to her. I’m going to ignore her, just like everyone else does, and sit as far away from her as I can. And keep out of her head as much as possible.
She smiles her goodbye, and I stand there, watching her go.
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