Impact

by Steven Whibley

  “It’s a tooth!” I slapped the tooth off my hand and wiped my palm on my T-shirt to get the ick off it. “That’s someone’s tooth. Why on earth do you have a box of teeth?”

  Becky huffed out a breath. “This is a serious comparative study of bone density and …”

  She started yakking on and on about stuff. She’s eleven and talks like she should be in college already. I jerked around to look at my dad, who was sitting in a chair across the room. “Are you seriously going to tell me this is normal?” I pointed at my sister. “C’mon, Dad, if this isn’t a warning sign that she’ll grow up to be a psychopath, I don’t know what is.”

  My dad placed the magazine he was reading on his lap and folded his hands on top of it. He fixed me with his professional psychologist look, the one that’s way too patient and understanding. “It’s entirely normal, Dean.” He smiled at Becky. “It’s an imaginative collection, sweetheart. It’s also very interesting you were able to get so many pieces from online auction sites.”

  Imaginative?

  To be fair, my dad started out working with criminals who probably collected human heads. His idea of “normal” might have been seriously skewed.

  But Mom chimed in, sounding all too cheerful. “Not many people have collections like that.”

  I shook my head. “Yeah, there’s a reason for that. She has a box of teeth. Human teeth!”

  “They’re not all human,” Becky said, sticking out her chin.

  I sucked in a lungful of air and kept my stare on my folks. “Do you know who else collects stuff that weird? People who make suits out of human skin! And cannibals. Cannibal serial killers.”

  Mom’s mouth tightened. “That’s enough, Dean. You know I don’t like that kind of talk.”

  “I said they’re not all human,” Becky repeated. She reached into the box and pulled out a tooth as long as my finger. It had a silver wire twisted around it that held a tag. “This is from a Kodiak bear. Besides, all the homo sapiens examples are from celebrities.” She pulled out another tooth that might have been a molar. “This is Justin Bieber’s. If I ever meet him, I’m going to get him to sign the tag. It’ll be worth millions.”

  “Oh, and just how do you know that’s really his? And what do you think Justin Bieber’s going to do when some frizzy-haired little girl wanders up to him and asks him to sign one of his teeth?”

  Becky glowered at me. She shoved a curl away from her face. “I do not have frizzy hair! It’s flyaway. Isn’t that right, Mom?”

  Mom looked up from her book again. “Yes, dear. Dean, be nicer to your sister.”

  Mom gave me a stern look and then nodded to the floor where half of Becky’s collection lay scattered. The place looked like a dentist’s office had exploded. Becky narrowed her eyes and stared at me. I groaned and crouched to pick up the disgusting bits and muttered, “I didn’t mean to knock them out of the box.” Dropping the last tooth in, I wiped my hands on my jeans. “Do you have to get shots for handling this kind of germy junk?”

  Becky dangled a triangular tooth that even I knew belonged to a shark. “My collections are unique. One of a kind.”

  I leaned closer. “And they’ll all be on display someday. They’ll be Exhibit A in your trial after they find the bodies you buried.”

  “I heard that, Dean,” Dad said. “I think you could learn something from Becky. Hobbies like collecting items are terrific outlets for stress. You could use an outlet for stress.”

  Becky stuck her tongue out at me. But she didn’t say anything. She knew about my visions—sort of. She also knew I’d saved her life once. But she didn’t know about the secret society.

  A jet engine roared overhead, and Becky pointed at the ceiling. “That’s where I’m going today.”

  “Somewhere far away in a plane?” I asked. I gave her my nicest smile.

  Becky turned away from me and looked at Mom. “Jasmine and I are going to the fairgrounds. Some of the pilots are signing autographs today.”

  Abbotsford has one real claim to fame—the annual air show. The idea of bumping into thousands of people at the showgrounds made me shiver and want to hide under my bed. Touch set off my visions, and I didn’t want to know how many of those strangers might need me to save them. I remembered the first time that had happened after being trampled during the Gadget Emporium sale. I was bumped, shoved, and generally knocked around by who knows how many people. Those first few visions were forever seared into my mind. I had no idea who the people were, which made the visions even more freakish; the only thing I knew about them was they’d died.

  I knew what was coming. Mom or Dad would ask me to go with Becky and keep an eye on her. I could feel it. Before they could say anything, I said, “I’m meeting Lisa and Colin.”

  Dad stared at me. “Oh? What are you three up to today?”

  “We’re going into the city to hang out. Maybe the mall. Air-conditioning, you know”

  “Bor-ing,” Becky muttered.

  I grabbed my windbreaker from the closet, opened the door, and glanced out. Lisa and Colin were walking down the street. Perfect timing.

  “Keep your phone handy,” Dad called out. “Just in case we need to reach you, or if you … need … anything.”

  Like a new brain, maybe. He didn’t say the words, but I could just about hear him thinking it.

  I waved and rushed out, catching up to them just about a block from my house. I’d barely had a chance to say hi when tires screeched up ahead. A black Honda Accord roared off a side street and onto ours. Lisa gripped my arm with one hand and Colin’s with her other. I instantly had a flashback to the black BMW I’d jumped in front of to save my sister and cringed away from that painful memory of weeks and weeks in casts. The engine roar vibrated across my skin as the car raced toward us.

  The three of us stood there as the vehicle squealed to a stop next to us, the tires smoking.

  Morning sunlight glinted off the windshield and made it impossible to see the driver, but the passenger-side window rolled down. Archer Astley—our Society contact—leaned over, his sandy hair ruffled, a worried look tugging on his narrow, lean face. “Get in. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “What’s going on?” Lisa asked. She blinked, and under her summer tan, her face turned pale. “Is someone going to die?”

  A blank look descended over Archer’s face. My stomach knotted.

  Voice urgent, Archer said, “I’ll explain everything on the way.”

  CHAPTER 3

  We scrambled into Archer’s car, Colin first, then Lisa, and finally me. Colin and Lisa took the back, leaving me to ride shotgun. Archer tore off before we could get our seat belts fastened.

  “Something’s wrong, right?” I asked, struggling to get the buckle to click. “What is it?”

  “One guess,” he said. The car squealed around a corner, and I wondered how Archer could drive like this without getting tickets. Or hitting someone.

  “Someone’s going to die,” Lisa said.

  “Yeah, us,” Colin muttered. I glanced back and saw him hanging on to the strap of his seat belt.

  Archer smiled and glanced into his rearview mirror. “Actually, Lisa, someone is scheduled to have an accident. But the dying part shouldn’t happen. The four of us are going to see if we can help fix things.”

  The knot in my stomach tightened. I hated this part, knowing someone’s life depended on me—on us. “I haven’t had any visions. How long do we have?”

  “Two hours. But this case is a little unusual. One of our members in Japan had this vision.”

  From the backseat, Colin leaned forward. “We’re obviously not going to Japan. I don’t even have my passport, and I promised my mom I wouldn’t be back too late.”

  Archer laughed.

  “He’s right, though,” Lisa said. “What’s this about?”

  “And why only two hours?” I said. “What went wrong? The visions come twenty-four hours in advance of someone’s possible death. Why didn’t someone get to
this person sooner?” I knew how hard it was to keep track of people you were meant to save. I’d have understood if Archer said he’d lost them. In fact, it would be nice to hear that someone else had the same problems I’d had.

  Archer accelerated past a UPS truck and jerked the wheel toward a highway on-ramp. “In general, CS members cover their own territory. We’re handling this one because the Society member who had the vision is in Japan, and the person they had a vision of came here for the air show. There’s another local team meeting us to help. So this is also a chance for you three to see firsthand how the CS functions. We still have to hurry. These last-minute saves are always a bit tricky, but we do have these.” Leaning forward, Archer pulled out a plastic bag with phones. He gave one to me and tossed the other two in back.

  The phone lay cool and slick in my hand, wrapped in a purple protective case. I flipped it over and tapped the screen. The front side lit, and the initials DC glowed at me in bright yellow. I shivered. It seemed like a chill fog had wrapped around me. DC. Obviously they were my initials. But I couldn’t help but think about the letters Mr. Vidmar—the man who’d given me the gift of visions—had written on the stopwatch he’d used to count down the end of my life. It reminded me that I was alive because of someone in the Society, and if I could be saved, so could everyone else. I tapped the stopwatch app and saw the numbers count down. Did I really want a phone that kept me better connected to people who were going to die?

  From the backseat, I heard Lisa say, “These are incredible. They’re ours? Really?”

  Archer sped up a little faster. “You can access the CS database as needed. You’ll receive mission alerts, video messages, and—” Archer sighed as he heard Colin’s phone beeping and squawking. “And yes, I believe they have the latest version of Angry Birds, as well as some actual helpful apps.”

  Colin quickly turned off the game. “Sorry.”

  Glancing at me, Archer reached over and tapped a protruding part on my phone. “That piece at the top edge. Slide it out. It’s a wireless earbud.” I pulled it out and pressed it into my ear. I glanced back to see Colin and Lisa doing the same thing. Archer pointed to my phone again. “Now tap the globe application.”

  I tapped the image of the spinning world. The phone chimed, and a list of names appeared. White highlighted the top name.

  YAMADA.

  “Tap the first name … and pay attention. You’ll see the call from one of the Japanese districts.”

  Fingers cold and palms sweating, I pressed the name. The screen flashed. A video started, showing some kind of conference room with people sitting around a large wooden table. I recognized Archer. He looked up when a woman wearing jeans and a tank top, with short, dark hair, entered the room.

  “We have a priority message from Japan.” The woman turned and pointed something at the large screen over her shoulder. The image I was watching flashed, and the conference room vanished, replaced by a split-screen image of the dark-haired woman on one side and a Japanese man in a business suit and glasses on the other. He gave a small bow. “Good to see you again, Sarah Pickett.”

  Sarah gave a small bow too. “Mr. Hayashi. It’s been too long.”

  “We have a most urgent matter,” Mr. Hayashi said. He held up a blurred photo of what looked like a middle-aged Japanese woman. I could see only short, dark hair and a blurry face. “Mrs. Noriko Yamada from Yokkaichi, central Japan. It took us a very long time to track her down, and this is our only photo. Can you reach her in time? We know she is staying at Harrison Hot Springs. The vision showed her wet, wearing a bathing suit and a …” He glanced off screen and said something in Japanese that sounded like yogi boshi.

  Another voice answered him, saying, “Suimu hatto.”

  “Ah, yes, a swim hat,” Mr. Hayashi said. “With a floral print. Very distinctive.”

  “Send us everything you have,” Sarah Pickett said.

  Hayashi nodded. The screen flashed again, back to the conference room. The woman named Sarah looked at Archer. He stood up and said, “I want to pick up Dean’s team for this. They’re not far from those hot springs.”

  Dean’s team? Was it my team? Did that make me a leader or something? Just who was this Sarah that she could order Archer around? And what did Lisa and Colin think about being on my team? I didn’t want to turn around to see if they were happy about this or not.

  On the screen, a man in his early twenties with shaggy brown hair stepped forward so he stood close to Sarah. “We’ll be primary, and Archer can be the secondary.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Archer said. He didn’t sound or look too happy when he stared at the other guy.

  Sarah shook her head. “Nathan’s right. We need to move fast. Now go.”

  The video cut out, and the display flashed back to the list of names.

  From the backseat, Lisa asked, “So that’s how it works? You have divisions of the CS all over the world and you contact each other for help?”

  “Pretty much,” Archer said. “We call them zones and districts. You three are part of the Lower Mainland district. Sarah is our zone leader. But your team reports first to me—I’m your mentor.”

  “Our team,” Colin said. He sounded smug about it.

  “Dean’s team,” Lisa said, nudging my shoulder from behind.

  I glanced back, and Colin threw me a sloppy salute. “What will you have me do, mon capitaine?”

  “Oh, give me a break,” I muttered.

  The car swerved as Archer took the next exit off the highway. A sign pointed left to Harrison Hot Springs. “There’s never been a better time to be part of the CS. The tech, and the prevalence of social media, makes it possible to identify and track down the people in our visions like never before. Identification is always the first step to saving someone who shouldn’t have to die.”

  “And you record all your meetings?” Colin asked.

  Archer nodded. “There are cameras in all the conference rooms. Meetings there are always recorded.” He tapped my phone. “And speaking of recordings, whenever circumstances permit, carry your phone with the camera lens clear. There’s a video app that you can set to record continuously. It’s all uploaded to our database. If you ever have a vision of someone you don’t recognize, you can use the composite application to create a rough image. We use that to scan our database first before expanding the search online. Once we have an ID from any image, we can track down schedules, credit card transactions, and just about anything else.”

  “That sounds … intrusive,” Lisa said.

  Colin gave a snort. “Give me a break. What’s intrusive about tracking someone down to save their life?”

  I agreed with Colin and activated the application on my phone. I wasn’t sure how often I’d have the phone out of my pocket, but when I did, I wanted it recording. The more help, the better, as far as I was concerned.

  “Lisa has a point,” Archer said. “The choice is always up to the individual CS member about how to approach an identification. There have been instances where members have misused resources. I was part of a district in Texas where one member faked a vision about a girl just to acquire her name, address, and personal details so he could ask her out.”

  Colin laughed. “Maybe Dean could do that with Rylee.”

  Before Archer could ask who Rylee was, I said, “It’s too bad the Japan office didn’t have better information, so maybe we could avoid a rush right now.”

  “Oh, they have just as much tech as we do. The problem here was that the member who had the vision knew Mrs. Yamada and tried to track her down on her own. She waited too long to ask for help. By the time she reported the vision, Mrs. Yamada was already on a plane to Abbotsford.” Archer glanced at me. “It’s a good lesson for us all. We work better in teams.”

  I sank down in my seat. I did feel sometimes like it was all on me. I had the visions, so it was up to me to figure out who might die. However, I couldn’t always figure out what the visions meant. And sometim
es they were just too weird. I wondered if Archer was going to say anything else, but he turned the car down a road and in to an area that looked like a type of resort. I saw a lake, a lot of grass and flowers, and little shops and restaurants wherever I looked. He turned down another street and we approached a big hotel that looked like it had been constructed of wood and stone. Archer pulled up right in front, got out, and tossed the keys to the valet. I scrambled out after him, and Lisa and Colin climbed out of the car too.

  Glancing at the crowds coming and going—a lot of them Japanese—I turned to Archer and asked, “Where do we start?”

  CHAPTER 4

  Archer glanced around. He looked as worried as I felt. This place was big—really big. “The woman in the vision was wet. That means she probably has an accident in a pool.”

  “Or the lake,” Colin said, glancing around.

  Lisa pushed strands of hair from her face. “Or the hot springs, even. What about the other team? That younger guy in the video. Are they here? Is he the leader of another team?”

  “Nathan?” Archer frowned and shook his head. “He’s an apprentice. A lot like you guys, only … well, I won’t go into that right now. We’re actually ahead of them. I’ve already texted them to cover the lake and come in from that side of the resort. Whoever finds Mrs. Yamada first will call for backup.” He hesitated for a second and then added, “And … well, Nathan … Dean, you want to be careful there. Arsney Vidmar, the man you received your gift from, was Nathan’s mentor. I’m pretty sure Nathan figured he’d get Vidmar’s gift. Obviously he didn’t and he really wishes someone would give it to him already.”

  “Ouch,” Colin said. “That would suck getting cheated like that.”

  “I’m sure he’d agree with you. But let’s focus on keeping Mrs. Yamada out of the pools until after we know she’s safe. That would be ideal. Any of you know Japanese?”

  I turned around to stare at Colin just as Lisa nudged him. He glanced from her to me and held up a hand, shaking his head. “It was one semester. I hardly remember any of it except maybe how to ask for a check or the bathroom.”