The Psionic Thief

by Dave Renol

  “What kind of steps?” he asked, sounding suspicious but looking like a pissed off pit viper.

  “As a gesture of goodwill, I’ll let you know that all the computer files you managed to acquire were all garbage. Any sensitive information from Mr. Hennessey was either altered or deleted, and the files off my laptop were all completely bogus. I considered letting you keep the false info so you could bankrupt yourself, but I’m too nice of a guy for that.”

  “Gee, thanks. Of course, you probably shouldn’t have said that, since now I know not to act on it and you just pissed away your trump card.”

  “Oh, that was just a pair of deuces; I kept the aces up my sleeve.”

  “Go on.”

  “I should probably compliment you on the neat little package you put together on your thumb drive, but did it never occur to you to protect your own computer from an attack like that?”

  I almost giggled at the stunned look on his face.

  Carl put his feet up on the desk before continuing. “Before you ask, I’ll tell you we got full copies of the files on both your home and office computers. Some of them were very interesting.”

  “You bastard,” he said, his face starting to turn red. “If you think this’ll make me lie down and roll over, then you’ve got another thing coming. I’ll wreck you and see you rot in jail.”

  “I doubt it,” Carl yawned. “First you would have to prove we had anything to do with it. Second, you would be opening a big can of worms by bringing attention to some files of yours that you really shouldn’t have kept. Third…”

  “Yes?”

  “Third, you would have to explain to the sheriff how you came to be in possession of the hardcopy files hidden in your home that belong to both Henry and me.”

  “You broke into my home and planted evidence for the sheriff to find?” he sputtered. “That’s blackmail!”

  “Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer to use … umm … well, blackmail. Why don’t you take a look out your window?”

  He turned to the window after a few seconds, and I went to take a look myself since this wasn’t a part of the plan. Sitting on the bench out front was Sheriff Baker and his friend Maria. Mark and Linda were there with them as well, chatting amiably.

  “So now that we understand each other, are you going to live up to your part of the deal with Claire?”

  He was silent and still for a minute. With no expression on his face he sat at his desk and scribbled something on a piece of paper.

  “Here are the directions for finding your friend,” he quietly said, folding the paper in half and holding it out.

  I quickly snatched it before he could change his mind. “We’re even and done now.”

  “I’ll keep my word, but I expect you to keep yours as well; I expect you to leave town tonight and never come back.”

  “I’ll keep my promise and leave town, but not tonight.”

  “If not tonight, then when?”

  “I’m not quite sure, but I can promise I’ll leave sometime in the next hundred years or so.”

  He was silent for another minute and I thought he was gonna argue the point. “Just go,” he finally said.

  We did.

  Chapter 26

  Mark: Understanding

  I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw them walk out of Murphy’s office. We had been listening in on the whole thing and I knew things went according to plan, but I was still expecting some sort of last minute hitch.

  “So this is our troublesome little thief, is it?” Sheriff Baker asked, as they came up to where we were sitting.

  “I’m the one,” Claire admitted. “How much trouble am I in?”

  “Well,” he drawled. “That’s what we need to discuss.”

  “In my talks with Sheriff Baker, I told him I knew who the thief was and that I could convince you to give it up,” I said.

  “I wasn’t exactly happy about not knowing who you were, so we finally came to a compromise. I’m told that Mr. Murphy knows it was you who was stealing from him, but unless he decides to press charges, I won’t be arresting you. You have three friends here, and they’re all sticking their necks out by vouching for you. Don’t screw them over.”

  “So I really won’t be going to jail?”

  “Not today, anyway,” he nodded. “I agreed to let things slide on the condition that we meet face to face. Now that I know who you are and what you can do, I’ll be watching you like a hawk. This is a one-time only deal and if I ever catch you stepping over the line I’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks. Do we understand each other?”

  “Yeah, I promise I won’t be doing any of that stuff ever again.”

  “Good, then we’re done here and I have lots of work I need to get to. Have a nice day, but remember I’ll be watching you.”

  “Y’all take care,” Maria said, as they drove off.

  “I can’t believe he’s just letting me go.”

  “I promised you could trust me,” I said, gesturing toward my truck. “Now we still have to go rescue your friend so let’s not waste any more time.”

  “Here’s where she is,” she said, thrusting a sheet of paper into my hand.

  “It’ll take us about an hour to drive there, but I know where it is. Everyone pile in and let’s hit the highway.”

  Once we got on the road, I found myself going over all the possible offensive and defensive actions I might need to take. I didn’t know what we’d be getting into, but I was grimly determined we would be leaving with Claire’s friend.

  It wasn’t going to be pretty, but our previous fights with Sid, Sara, and Dawn had given us plenty of experience. I had doubts about Carl and Claire being able to shield properly if it came down to a firefight, so I planned to boost their protection.

  It would be best if they hung back and let me take the lead, but I also knew they would probably argue the point. Maybe I could get Claire to use her extra telepathic abilities to scout the place out and even make contact with Sue and see if we could get some inside info.

  That had potential. It would keep Claire behind the lines and also let us know what we were getting into. Carl could watch her back and Linda could watch mine. In addition to keeping them all a little safer, it would also give me first crack at these bastards.

  Forced prostitution was one of the worst businesses I could imagine and I wanted to get my licks in almost as much as I wanted to get Sue and the rest out of there. When I broached the subject, they all agreed with my plan and I wondered where this sudden burst of common sense came from. I didn’t argue.

  I had a little difficulty finding the address once we got close, since it wasn’t a part of town I would expect to find it in. It was an old but well maintained area with all the houses bordering on being mansions; this must be one high end establishment.

  We decided to simply drive by normally at first to see what things looked like. It was an opulent Colonial style house and nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Things looked peaceful, but looks could be deceiving so we parked around the corner to let Claire take a shot at reaching Sue.

  “I got her,” she whispered after trying for several minutes. “She’s in the back yard and… she’s coming out front to meet us!” she finished in an excited voice.

  I slammed the truck back into drive and punched it, thinking we might be able to make a fast getaway with her. I came to a screeching stop in front of the house and had to do a rapid shift of mental gears as I saw her walking sedately down the side path, pushing along an old lady in a wheelchair.

  “Sue,” Claire said, rushing out of the truck. “Are you ok? What’s going on?”

  “I’ve never been better. One sec and I’ll tell you everything.” Turning from Claire, she squatted in front of the lady in the wheelchair. “I need to talk to my friend for a moment, so why don’t you enjoy the day and the nice flowers.”

  She wheeled her into the shade underneath a large dogwood and made sure she was comfortable before returning to Clair
e. “From the look on your face, I’m guessing Murphy’s been playing you for a fool.”

  “What’s going on,” Claire demanded. “Are you in trouble, or what?”

  “No, not at all. Actually things have never been better. I’m guessing he technically kept his promise to tell you where I was, but didn’t include all the details. Is that right?”

  “I don’t know nothing about any promise, but he made me do things for him to buy your freedom!”

  It didn’t look like we were about to go into battle so I let my power levels taper off. Looking at Carl and Linda, it appeared they were just as confused as I was. I turned my attention back to the girls, not wanting to miss a single word of her explanation.

  “Calm down and let me explain what happened.”

  “I’m all ears, but you better hurry up or you or you really will be in trouble… with me!”

  “Well, you know I got picked up by the sheriff when he thought I was you. I don’t think it took him long to figure out I wasn’t the real thief, but I never pressed him to let me go or anything.”

  “Yeah, we all knew you were staying in jail so you wouldn’t get a beating like the one Sammy took.”

  “That was my short term plan,” she agreed. “I was safe, warm, and well fed, so why demand my release? Well, one night the sheriff decided he couldn’t keep me there any longer so he gave me the boot.”

  “You had to know it was coming sooner or later.”

  “Of course, but I was hoping for later. Anyway, I barely made it down the block before I was picked up by Murphy and his goons. I’ll admit I was scared, but he treated me like a real person and offered me a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “You see that lady over there? Mrs. Murphy is very old, sick, and has Alzheimer’s. Apparently I’m the spitting image of her long dead granddaughter, and I was hired on to help take care of her.”

  “You mean that’s…”

  “Yup, that’s Murphy’s mom. He offered to pay for my training so I could be one of her caregivers, opened up a bank account for me with a hefty ‘signing bonus’ he called it, and promised me a job for as long as his mom needed me.”

  “We thought you were forced into the nasty business so we came here to rescue you!”

  “You try and rescue me from here and I’ll bop you on the nose. I have my own private room with a lock on the door. I have a closet full of brand new clothes, and I get three meals a day plus snacks any time I want them.”

  Claire looked flabbergasted at her vehemence, and the rest of us were no better.

  “I get paid a stupid amount of money every week and the sweetest little lady you’ll ever meet absolutely loves me. She’s like the granny I never had, and there’s no way I would ever abandon her,” she vehemently finished, placing her hands on her hips.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” a new voice said. Striding onto the lawn carrying a gift box and a bundle of flowers was Tom Murphy. “I thought you people would have been here and gone by now. Pardon me for not staying to chat, but I must say hello to mother.”

  This was now officially the weirdest day of my life, and that was saying a lot.

  “It seems like we’re not needed for a rescue mission at the moment, so let’s give them all time for proper conversations before we clobber them for an explanation,” Linda said, breaking the silence.

  We retired to a cozy little gazebo where Sue brought us some lemonade before scuttling off again with Claire. Still halfway expecting a fight, I tried to keep an eye out, but the tranquility of our setting soon had me lowering my guard. I even kept probing the area for trouble with my surveillance field, but the only sign of danger I found was a chipmunk that got on the wrong end of a cat’s pounce.

  Murphy eventually started our way, wheeling his mother in front of him. “Susan, it’s time for mother’s lunch. Can you please take her inside?”

  “Coming,” she called back.

  As Sue took over and pushed her inside, Murphy sat down on an empty seat next to us.

  “I’m not the sum of all evils, you know,” he began. Turning to Claire he continued. “In fact, before you strong-armed me into submission, the ‘one last task’ I had for you was to deliver my gifts to my mother. I assumed I would be too busy with Mr. Hagar to have the time to come visit today, and I knew you would be coming here.”

  “I’ll admit you might just be a human being underneath all that butt-headedness you normally display, but how was I to know? I wasn’t about to give you the benefit of the doubt after you had Sammy beaten so badly.”

  “As a matter of fact, I never ordered, knew about, nor condoned that particular beating. You might be interested to know that once I did find out about the extent in which my employees overstepped their boundaries, I had them incarcerated.”

  “Huh?”

  “They were assholes,” he bluntly said. “They had no right to do what they did so I fired them and turned them over to our esteemed Sheriff Baker. Not only that, but I also made sure that all of your friend’s medical bills are fully covered. He’ll have nothing but the best of care until he’s at one hundred percent capacity.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

  “You never asked, and I wanted to get something out of all the grief you piled on me. You may have thought you were acting honorably, but from my end you were just pissing me off with your petty antics.”

  “You’re not who I thought you were,” Claire admitted. “I’m still pissed off at you closing the shelter, but I guess you’re not the complete butthead I figured you for.”

  “If it matters, I was the primary benefactor for the shelter in town, but decided I could do better by adding my funding to the one in Asheville. It was never a matter of closing it in order to be cruel, but in consolidating efforts to better reach those in need.”

  “I had you all wrong myself,” Carl admitted. “I’m glad I didn’t let our bogus deal bankrupt you.”

  “It may have been bogus to you, but I hired a top end market analyst to look over the project, and he gave it two thumbs up, plus his pecker. I’m still going through with it and expect to make cash by the fistful. Good day.”

  I started looking up at the sky to see if I could spot a flying pig; it would be more credible to see one than to believe the revelations we just had dumped on us.

  Before Carl could say it, I decided to steal his line.

  “After all this, I think I need a beer.”

  Chapter 27

  Linda: Back on track

  What a day. I would almost have preferred a battle earlier, rather than the mixed emotions we were now dealing with. Almost, but not quite, since things were better than we had any reason to expect. Everything except the problem with my home and the node, that is.

  We would have to get back to working on that soon. While it wasn’t the pressing issue we first thought, we didn’t know how long it would take to complete the merging process. Sooner would be better than later, but it could wait one more day. Tonight was going to be for relaxing, feasting, and fun.

  The four of us had a special bond now and I was pretty sure Claire trusted us after everything that had happened. I knew we could trust Claire as well. She was rough around the edges and might sometimes act without thinking things through, but she had a big heart.

  We all ate way too much, but it was worth every bite. Claire built up a nice fire and we all gathered around to relax and digest. We spent a while catching everyone up on the things they might have missed while on our separate jobs, and then Carl finally asked the question I was waiting for.

  “So now that Claire’s problems are all taken care of, how about you tell us what was in the codex?”

  “I thought you would never ask,” I said, sitting up a little straighter in my chair.

  “First off, let me say that the ancient Mayans believed that everything happened as a result of actions from the many gods they knew to exist. The gods were constantly battling each other, and only the act
ions of the god-touched priesthood could help good triumph over evil.”

  “Pretty much every culture has a variant of good versus evil, even if the names and places are different,” Mark added.

  “With the Mayans, their psionic shamans had one main tool at their disposal that helped combat evil and allow their people to prosper.”

  “Nodes.”

  “Yes, they believed that the power of the nodes was a gift from the gods, but it had to be handled properly. Just like fire, if you mishandle a node you’ll get burned. One of the things that had to be handled carefully above all else was the creation of a new node. If done right, it became a wellspring, overflowing with the power of the gods and allowing the priesthood to keep their village prosperous.”

  “And if it wasn’t done right?”

  “Death, destruction, famine, pestilence, war… you get the idea. One of the main things to avoid during the creation ritual was having more than one potential psionic in the area. It would split the node into fragments that would eventually cause great ruin.”

  “So our node was split into three, just because there were three of us in range that night?”

  “That’s the theory. Now, when a node is fractured, they begin to resonate with each other. Slowly at first, but eventually with greater and stronger waves that will start tearing things apart.”

  “We knew that already,” Carl said.

  “Yes, that part is just confirmation of what the elder told you. Now, there’s more than one way to fix the problem, but each has their own drawbacks. The first way is the one we know of, which is to move and merge the nodes together. This is one of the more difficult ways, but probably the safest.”

  “What other options are there?”

  “They can be destroyed or they can be moved far enough apart that they can’t resonate. By far enough apart, I mean at least a hundred miles or more.”

  “At two or three yards per attempt, that shouldn’t take us more than a couple of lifetimes,” Mark said. “I’ll pass on that.”