The Psionic Thief

by Dave Renol

  If it was hot, it was summer, winter if it was cold, and spring or fall in between to keep them from running over each other. Other than the feel of an evening rain shower in the air, I would call it a mighty fine summer day.

  Peaceful too; I had been sitting quiet for so long that the local wildlife had gotten used to me. The squirrels were out in full force today and I considered using my new powers to bag a few for dinner when I was ready to leave. Even a deer limped right by me on his way to the lake for a drink.

  Limped? Hmm… it was tough to see from my angle, but it looked like the young buck had busted up one of his legs pretty bad. A wound like that meant he was dead already and just didn’t know it yet. No way would he survive for long with yearling bobcats, coyotes and wolves beginning to hunt.

  “I wonder if I could take him,” I breathed.

  A plan came to light in short order. I would take a rock the size of my head, float it up high, and bring it down fast to knock him on the skull. Once broken down, I could easily fly him back to the cave, and I could use the new shielding thing to keep bugs and stuff off it.

  Heck… if I could make a good enough bubble shield, maybe I could stuff the meat underwater so it would stay fresher longer. That would be best so none of it rotted and went to waste. What the heck… it would be good practice if it failed, and good eating if it worked.

  It worked.

  It was rather scrawny, as far as deer went, but it was still a handful for me. I decided to head to the cave and recruit the ‘fine minds’ of my friends for the task of hanging it up and dressing it. I just hoped it wouldn’t make the city slickers lose their appetites.

  Billy and Joey looked a little green around the gills, but Charlie followed directions without flinching and soon had the trick of it figured out. With all the help he’d been out here, I was determined that we would have to strike the ‘dumb’ part of his name off the record.

  In my book, he’d shown far more brains and guts than Smart Charlie… he even wanted to learn how to treat the hide and make it into a sleeping rug. I was more than happy to show him how to properly handle it so it would last without smelling, and all of us got a chuckle out of him finally getting squeamish when I told him to harvest the brains for use in tanning it.

  In the end, we had way more meat than the four of us could eat before it started going bad unless we turned it into jerky. I was never that fond of smoked meat so I planned on bringing a few big steaks to Miss Linda and the others. None of the others seemed interested, so I kept the heart and liver for myself. I savored each and every bite after frying it up with a good heap of wild onions and garlic, and I was sure it was the best meal I ever had.

  The food was great, but the best part of the day was when I built up a shield around the rest of the meat and sunk it under the lake. For some reason, they thought it was absolutely amazing and they all took turns diving down and looking at my ‘meat bubble’ floating there like nothing.

  “That shielding stuff is totally awesome, Claire,” Joey said, enthusiastically. “How did you come up with the idea?”

  “Well, I thought about what I do when I go to lift something. I kinda grab it with my mind and there it goes, but I started to wonder what would happen if I tried that when there was nothing there to grab. I tried it and it came out like a kind of force-field.”

  “That’s brilliant… absolutely brilliant.”

  “Thanks,” I said, a bit embarrassed that I was taking credit for the idea. “I bet there are all kinds of stuff I can do with this … stuff. It’s just a matter of thinking about how to do stuff.”

  “You’re really getting the hang of it,” he said, thumping me on the back a little harder than necessary. “Just don’t forget about all us little guys once you’re all rich and powerful.”

  “Never,” I reassured him. “Y’all helped me out with the learning of these powers, and I’ll always remember that.”

  “When do you think it’ll be safe for us to go back to town?” Billy asked.

  “What? You getting tired of three meals a day, a private lake to swim and fish in, and a warm place to sleep?” I teased.

  “It’s not that, it’s just I miss the city. I like news and music and noise… and I liked what we were doing to help the others.”

  “I can see where you’re coming from and I’ll take you back anytime you want, but you might wanna hold off a little bit yet. I got a whole pile of new ideas to make that bastard pay for what he did to Sam, so he might be a bit tetchy for the next little while.”

  “That’s fine, but I’m sure there are tons of people who hate the old guy so you need to make sure that he knows why it’s happening.”

  “Good point. I should probably leave a message each time so he knows it’s not just random crap.”

  “Exactly… and once he knows what it’s all about, you tell him how to make it stop. Sammy needs to be taken care of and the butthead who beat him up needs to be locked up.”

  “Alrighty… we have ourselves a plan.”

  ***

  Even with some super-sized steaks for breakfast and a few slabs to take to Miss Linda, there was a lot of meat left. My underwater bubble wouldn’t do my friends much good once I went back to town, so I changed my plan and wound up showing them how to smoke the rest.

  They all thought the idea of handmade jerky was cool, so I left them at it and got going on my flight to town before it got too hot. As I got near the house, I saw Carl and Mark sitting around the table on their deck. I wanted to give the steaks to Miss Linda, but the guys would work.

  I came down just inside the tree line and stepped into their yard, whistling a little tune so they would hear me coming; I’ve always found it’s best to not startle people if you can help it. I waved as I came up the steps and dropped my bag of steaks on the table as a way to say hello.

  “I thought y’all might like some deer meat. There was way too much for us to eat before it went bad.”

  “I love venison,” Carl said, opening the bag and examining the steaks. “Thanks, Claire. I’ll grill this up into a nice treat for dinner.”

  “Thanks,” Mark added. “That was very thoughtful of you. It’s been quite a while since I had a good piece of deer.”

  “Welcome.” I said, pulling up a chair.

  “Are you planning on being around for lunch? We’re having clubhouse sandwiches.”

  “Naw, I can’t stay today. I just wanted to say howdy and drop off them steaks.”

  “We’ll put them to good use, but there must be at least ten pounds of meat here… surely you’ll be coming back for dinner?”

  “Maybe, I dunno.”

  “You wouldn’t be planning any more thefts, would you?”

  “Naw, I just have a pressing need to leave somebody a message.”

  I saw they were staring at me with interest, but they didn’t seem to be judging me, so I went for broke.

  “That bastard Murphy closed our shelter, beat my friend Sammy almost to death, and had my best friend Susan arrested. He’s the bugger who should be arrested, not my friend… him and the goons what did the beating.”

  “I had a little talk with the sheriff,” Mark began, shifting awkwardly in his chair. “I think he’s willing to let things slide if you agree to stop stealing. I promise I didn’t give him your name or anything, and I also guaranteed him that your friend is completely innocent and should be let go.”

  I had a moment of panic when he started talking about the sheriff, but relaxed a bit when he promised that he’d kept things secret.

  “If you need to leave him a message,” Carl piped up. “I sure hope you don’t do anything drastic like write the message in his front lawn with weed killer. Especially not with something like that five gallon pail of industrial strength weed killer that’s sitting out in the carport next to the garage.”

  I saw Mark give him a dirty look, and I had to work to keep the smile off my face. The smile disappeared in an instant once what he said sunk in.


  “You told him to let Sue go?”

  “Well, yeah… we know she’s innocent.”

  “Dammit, she wanted to be in jail so she could stay safe from his goons.”

  I needed to get to town fast to make sure she was ok. I didn’t even take the time to grab the pail of weed killer, I simply bolted and took to the air. Flying would be risky in the middle of the day, but I didn’t care. How could they be so damn stupid?

  I gave in to a little bit of caution as I got closer to town in that I ducked below the treetops. I wound my way through the trees until I got close to his house and then paused to gather my thoughts. I tried making contact with Sue, but no luck; she was either sleeping or out of range.

  Things looked quiet here and there were no cars in the driveway, so I figured I might be able to get away with leaving a message for him to not mess with us. He had an ash pit next to his garage and I figured I could use the contents to smear a message on his garage door.

  My new shield abilities came in handy for this, and I made a good blob of charcoal from the debris in his pit. I kept to the trees and worked my way around to where I could see the garage door better. I was trying to figure out what I was gonna write when all of a sudden the door started to rise up.

  I threw myself to the ground and burrowed deeper into the bushes. The door finished opening and with his hands clasped behind his back, Murphy stepped out into view. He looked in my direction for a moment and then laughed.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he taunted. “Not only do I know you’re out there, I also know you’ll want to start talking with me. One of my associates met your friend when she was released from jail. If you ever want to see her again, you better show your face.”

  This was not good.

  “Now,” he barked.

  I sighed, cursed, punched the ground, and rose to my feet… this was bad. I rose to my feet and stepped out of the brush.

  “You now work for me,” he said, chuckling as I came into view.

  “The hell I do!”

  “Oh really? Sue is now in the employ of a business associate of mine who can fully appreciate the services provided from a young girl of her… talents.”

  “You bastard!”

  “Now, now… you want to be careful what you say. A word from me could make her training period a nightmare instead of the simply difficult time it currently is. The bottom line is that she’s nowhere you’ll ever find her, and if you don’t do as I say…”

  “Ok, ok… I get the picture. I would rather sit on a pinecone dipped in hot sauce before helping you with anything, but it seems like I ain’t got a choice… I’ll do what you want.”

  “I’m glad you can see reason when beaten over the head with it. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  I doubted it, but I had no choice.

  Chapter 20

  Carl: In Sync

  Claire looked pissed as she flew off. Really, really pissed.

  “That could have gone better,” I said with a sigh.

  “I thought she would’ve been happy… how was I supposed to know?”

  “Don’t sweat it. It’s just another case of bad info leading to bad results. I’m sure things will work out fine in the end.”

  “I think she’s overreacting, but it doesn’t bode well for getting her to trust us.”

  “She’ll come around. Youth lives in the moment, and the moment is always changing.”

  “True enough,” he said, grabbing the steaks. “I’ll put these in the fridge… want anything while I’m up?”

  “More coffee would be good, thanks.”

  I hoped Claire wasn’t going to do something rash. I began to regret giving her all those ideas, but at least I didn’t share any of the really nasty ones I thought of last night. Maybe we could check up on her later and make sure everything was ok. I was lost in thought about it and didn’t hear Mark come back outside.

  “I’d offer you a penny for your thoughts, but I hate overpaying,” he said as he topped off our mugs.

  “I was having an internal debate about going to town once the rain starts and shuts down our containment tests. I was trying to decide if it would show friendship or nosiness, and if checking up on her would be better than giving her space.”

  “I think giving her some space for a day or two would be the smart thing to do, but you got to know her a bit better than I did, so it’s your call. I’ll back you up either way.”

  “I’ll think about it, but that’s a decision that can wait until later. After you finish making us some breakfast, we should get back to our node work. The forecast for the week is still calling for rain every day.”

  “I had an epiphany about that this morning: what does rain matter to people who can make a shield? We just make a big one above us and it’ll be like we’re under a tent.”

  I shook my head in disgust for not thinking of that myself. “Ok, rain won’t be a problem, but considering how all this stuff started I would suggest we don’t play with power if it turns into a lightning storm.”

  “You might be right,” he replied with a chuckle. “Power tends to attract power and I don’t think I’m ready to try playing with lightning bolts.”

  “Since I’ll most likely be within a few feet of you, I think it’s a smart thing to avoid right now. If we have to follow the ritual in the vision then we’ll probably have to experiment with it sooner or later, but trying to do more than one thing at a time will only wind up getting us in trouble.”

  “Agreed. We made pretty good progress yesterday and I want to keep working on it. Now that I have the construction part figured out I want to try expanding it further.”

  “You still have a ways to go before it’ll be big enough to contain one of the node fragments, but don’t push too hard and overload yourself.”

  “I won’t,” he promised. “It was hard to figure out and then tough to activate, but that was because I poured a ton of power into it in a short time. I think I can easily make it bigger if I add the power slowly so I don’t exhaust myself right at the start.”

  “What about the entropy? If you add the power slowly, won’t most of it dissipate before you can ignite it?”

  “I don’t know… that’s why they call this experimentation.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, rising to my feet and draining the last of my coffee. “I’m gonna hop in the shower while you get cooking. I’ll take my eggs over easy and my bacon nice and crispy.”

  I was smiling as I walked inside until I realized the other side of the coin; if he cooked, then I would have to clean up… and I was willing to bet he wouldn’t be especially neat after I hooked him into cleaning up last time. Karma could be a bitch.

  ***

  I slowly floated the thermometer across the yard until it bumped into his outer containment shield. Using the meat thermometer from the grill wasn’t exactly state of the art measurement technology, but it would work to see if we were getting heat leaking from the pyro section.

  I started scraping it around the perimeter and also zigzagged up and down so I could cover most of the surface area. After completing a circuit I brought it back quickly to check the reading; it was at just under a hundred degrees.

  “Not bad,” I said. “It’s only about fifteen degrees above ambient.”

  “That went even better than expected,” he said, letting it collapse. “Building it up slowly let me get it almost twice the size with only half the work.”

  “I would call that a successful test. What’s next?”

  “Eventually we’ll have to be inside, so we’ll need to make sure it’s completely safe. Got any ideas?”

  “Hmm… it’s a little crude, but what if we built something like a scarecrow and put it inside? We could wrap some old newspaper around a stick frame and see if it becomes a crispy critter.”

  “How about a long horizontal board along the top of a stand so we can check that things are safe close to the shield wall as well as in the
middle?”

  “Yeah, we can just tack paper along the whole length of the board and if any of them catch fire, we’ll know it’s not safe to be that close to the edge.”

  “The saw-horses we used to make the table for reading the codex should make a good stand, but I don’t think I have any long boards and I would rather not risk burning up the plywood if we can help it.”

  I shrugged and pointed to the forest beside us. “Pick a tree, any tree.”

  He shook his head in disgust; I think he felt stupid for literally not being able to see the forest for all the trees. He picked a dead sapling about twenty-five feet long and brought it over the fence.

  “If you want to get this part set up, I’ll go find some paper and my staple gun.”

  He was still shaking his head and mumbling to himself as he walked off to get the stuff we needed. Turning to my part of the job, I moved the tree across the middle of the pit and marked off where we needed to trim it at. I figured if he was going to build his shield at the full twenty foot mark, then we should leave about six inches of space at each end.

  I grabbed the axe from the woodpile and made short work of both the excess length and a few branches I felt would be in the way. Mark came back just in time to help me haul the saw-horses and set everything up.

  “You might be a redneck if…” I mumbled at how crude this all looked.

  “It might not be as shiny as the toys you use in your lab, but it’ll work and that’s the important thing.”

  “It makes me feel like a Neanderthal.”

  “If you really feel strongly about it we could skip this test and just have you stand inside.”

  “I’ll pass, although I was planning on going next if this works.”

  “Well then… let us see.”

  Knowing Mark would be building the power for a while before activating things, I took the time to go inside and let Linda know what we were planning. I would definitely want her available for fire suppression duty when I put my nuts in the fire.