by R. A. Rock
“Glad to be of service,” Kyle said with a warm smile. He really was a good guy, the fact that he had kidnapped us and taken us prisoner, notwithstanding. “I’m a sucker for a couple in love.”
“Of course,” Chad said, looking awkward.
“How about one more kiss?” Kyle said, in a wheedling tone.
“I’m not sure…” Chad said, rubbing his chin and drawing my attention to that fucking beard that I loved so much.
“Oh come on, humour an old man.”
“You’re maybe five years older than us,” I objected.
“Oh, let him kiss you. You’ll get over your fight sooner if you kiss,” he said.
And I remembered that he still had the power in this situation. It wouldn’t do to anger him over something so trivial.
Well, trivial to him.
“Fine,” I said, as if it would be a distasteful experience that I would have to endure.
Chad put his hands on my cheeks and covered my lips with his. This time the kiss was hot, possessive, and desperate. It was filled with a longing for me that I knew he didn’t dare speak. When he let me go, I was stunned, my eyes unfocused, trying to remember where I was.
Kyle laughed again.
He certainly was a jolly fellow.
“Now that’s how it’s done. You’ll forgive him, now, won’t you?” Kyle’s tone was condescending but I didn’t care. I nodded yes. I would forgive Chad anything at this moment.
“If not, just give her what she wants,” he whispered to Chad.
“Yes, sir,” Chad said, his eyes dark with passion again when he met my gaze.
“Good luck to you both,” Kyle said.
“You too, Kyle,” Chad said. “And if there ever comes a day when we could repay the favour, we will, gladly.”
“Good to know,” Kyle said, then he started his motorbike and rode off into The Wastelands, leaving a trail of dust behind him. Finally he disappeared and silence descended again.
My heart was still pounding from the latest kiss that Kyle had once again forced on us but I turned away from the desert that had almost killed us and faced the direction where Winnipeg lay.
“What do we do now?” I said. “How are we going to find Winnipeg? How are we going to find out what happened to the others? Where are we going to sleep tonight? What are we going to eat?”
Chad just looked at me until my babbling ran out. His blue eyes seemed dark in the cloudy early morning light and the beard gave him a rougher look that was somehow reassuring. In that instant, I calmed down. I knew that no matter what was going on between us in our relationship, we were friends first and we would always take care of each other.
At least I could count on that.
“Right. We’ll figure it out,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, trying to erase the feel of his kiss. Again.
“Let’s walk,” he said.
“Let’s walk.” I repeated.
***
Chad
It was quite warm down here. The climate had clearly changed a lot since the solar flare. Before, it would have been below zero at night at this time of year. But now, it stayed at a balmy plus fifteen, I was guessing, even at night.
We gathered some small branches and made a little fire — to keep our spirits warm as much as our bodies.
The two of us had been quiet for most of the day, not really sure what to say to each other, after everything that had happened.
Yumi stared at the fire, poking it with a stick every once in a while. Sitting there, with her arms wrapped around herself and a morose expression on her face, she was as lonely as I had ever seen her.
She looked as lonely as I felt.
“Why are we doing this to each other?” I said, my voice so quiet, I wondered if she would hear me.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, still staring into the flames.
The stars overhead were dazzling and made me feel small. Somehow I needed to tell her the truth because implying that I didn’t want her last night had been a lie.
“You’re the most important person in the world to me,” I said, and she met my eyes then. “And I can’t get you out of my head… or heart… no matter how I try.”
She pressed her lips together and then spoke.
“I guess we aren’t getting back together…” she said, and the realization hit me like a punch in the guts. In that instant I knew that that was how she had seen last night. Not as a chance to sleep together but an attempt at reconciliation.
God fucking damn it but I was an idiot.
“But maybe we could start over in a way,” she went on her voice scratchy as though she were trying not to cry.
“And maybe we could stop hurting each other?” she suggested, tears sparkling in her beautiful eyes, that she refused to let fall.
“That sounds like it would be a good start,” I said, and a little of the pain in my chest lifted. “Come here.”
She was wary — as if wondering whether I was going to hurt her again. But she came over just the same. She couldn’t refuse me.
I knew the feeling well.
I lifted my arm and she sat down beside me, laying her head on my chest with a deep sigh.
And I wondered once more…
If we were so wrong for each other, then why did this feel so right?
Construct of a Construct
Yumi
“Chad, I have an idea,” I said, as we walked in the now empty river bed towards Winnipeg the next morning. The water from Shiv’s storm had run away during the time that we had been in the underground Survivor community and the Red River was the most direct route into Winnipeg. No need to navigate we could just follow it straight into the city.
A soft breeze blew across the prairie, caressing my face — nothing like the harsh winds of The Wastelands. I was surprised by the mild weather, which was warm, more like late spring than late fall.
“An idea?” Chad seemed suspicious.
“Of how to find the others.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, not wanting to hear it.
“I’ve been doing some very safe, very minor testing and my abilities feel in control again.”
I felt him mentally reinforce his shield.
“Yumi, you know I’m very partial to my brain, even if it can’t do what it used to. I really don’t want it melted.”
I huffed out my breath.
“And I haven’t melted it yet, have I?” I said, annoyed that he wouldn’t even hear me out. “I think I could come into your mind safely. And the thing is, if I could fuse the bricks, surely I could un-fuse them?”
I wasn’t sure.
But we had to try something, didn’t we?
We hadn’t seen or heard anything from Grace, Shiv, or Audrey since they had disappeared — right before we had been chased by the Plague Carriers and then kidnapped by Kyle and his friends.
“If their bricks were loosened, then you could contact Grace.”
He had a very reluctant expression on his face, so I worked on him for the next hour or so, explaining in as many ways as possible how in control of my abilities I was. Finally, I jumped over yet another mud puddle in the nearly dry riverbed, as I made my last point. Then realized that Chad wasn’t with me anymore.
I twisted my head back to see why he had stopped.
“Can you prove it to me?” he said, and I blushed thinking of the last time we had been asked to prove something.
He scowled.
“Not like that.”
“How can I prove it without actually going into your mind?”
“What about an external construct?”
“With our powers supposedly still out of control, you want to try something as advanced and difficult as an external mental construct?”
“But it would be outside of both of our minds and if we reinforce the shield on it, even if one or the other of us goes out of control, then we won’t fry either of our minds.”
I thought about that for a
while.
“Maybe you have a point. But how will we protect our bodies while we go into the deep mental trance we need to pull something like this off?”
He appeared stymied by this hurdle.
Our bodies needed to be protected, otherwise we would be vulnerable to any threat and if anything happened to our bodies and we couldn’t get back, then our minds would be forever separated from the rest of us — meaning we would die. The body can’t live without the mind.
We walked another couple hours in silence.
“What’s that?” I said, spotting something on the horizon.
Chad shrugged.
In another fifteen minutes, we arrived at an abandoned farmhouse. The structure was painted a cheerful yellow and was barely peeling. How this one building had withstood the ravages of the past few years without being destroyed, I didn’t know, but I was glad to see it.
This was the answer.
Kyle had been kind enough to give us back our weapons and backpacks. I pulled out my handgun, holding it up. Chad took off the rifle, checking that it was ready, then kicked in the door. It slammed hard against the wall of the entranceway. I went through quickly, pointing the gun into every corner of the living room.
We cleared the entire house, making sure it was empty. There was a bedroom on the second floor that was secure and had a sturdy lock. Chad found a broom and swept it out. The floor was hardwood and seemed clean enough once the dust was gone.
“So, what’s the plan?” I said, wishing Shiv was here. He was the one who always outlined the plan. I missed my slightly anal, big-brained friend.
“We go into a trance, we create a mental construct together without linking minds, then we go there and you come into my mind and try to un-fuse Grace’s brick. If you can free it, then I’ll contact her and find out what the heck is going on.”
“Right,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
“And any sign of trouble, we pull away immediately.”
“Yes, boss,” I said, lying down on the floor. “You take the lead because I know it makes you feel better.”
He gave me a dirty look and then lay down beside me, taking my hand.
I did a focusing exercise, like always. It was the first step in any mental procedure. We had both been trained to create external constructs. Only the most advanced students were able to manage such a feat. It was not easy.
But, then again, we were the best.
Everything went exactly as planned and soon we were standing in front of a Polish style house like the ones we had seen when we had gone to visit Chad’s Tato’s family in Poland the year we turned fifteen. Tato is how they say Dad in Polish.
The house was painted a dark chocolate brown, the roof was steep, and there were balconies on three levels. The stone and concrete that the building was constructed with made the house look solid and safe.
“Is this your Dziadek’s house?” I said, with a smile. His grandfather had been so nice to me when we had visited. He had pinched my cheeks and spoken to me in Polish. We hadn’t been able to talk but we had been good friends, anyway.
“Yes,” he said. “I miss him.”
“Me too.”
We hadn’t ever seen him again because we had gone to the Academy two years after that trip and he had died when we were away training with The Agency.
“But it’ll be my public mind when we go in.”
I nodded.
“Everything’s going well, so far,” I said, trying to comfort him, but he frowned.
“That’s what we thought when we tried to heal Audrey and lost control of the soul bond, too.” There was a sour expression on his face.
That was true.
“Well, there’s no way to find out but to try,” I said, briskly. “We’ve taken as many precautions as we can.”
I followed him as he led the way into his Dziadek’s house. There was an entranceway that reminded me of an apartment building. And one door led into his grandfather’s rooms. The stone stairs went up and curved around to the second floor where we had stayed when we visited.
I could smell pierogi and sauerkraut and I wondered that Chad had added such detail into his construct. Probably it was just part of the memory he had used to make this place.
Chad went up the stairs and opened the door.
I was expecting it to be his public mind, and yet, it surprised me when it wasn’t the room on the second floor of his Dziadek’s house. The two of us stood at the doorway and peered in.
It was a construct of a construct.
The public mind mental construct was how we represented the area of the mind that was open to all Telepaths. But now we had made a construct to represent a construct, which was a total mind fuck.
Literally.
The walls appeared to be breathing, moving in and out and I felt like I wanted to go cross-eyed. My head started to spin a little bit.
“It’s kind of disorienting,” I said.
“That’s the construct of a construct issue. We better be quick or we’ll get too disoriented and have to leave.”
He didn’t mention the other side effects of becoming disoriented in a construct of a construct, such as getting lost in it, similarly to the way a mind could get lost in a memory. Also, if a construct of a construct suddenly dissolved, the minds involved could be damaged. But he was worried enough, I didn’t think he needed more to be concerned about.
“Okay, let’s do it then.” I stepped over the threshold and he followed.
I walked along the wall of bricks with Chad by my side, trailing my fingers along the rough surfaces. You could still see the individual bricks but it was like I had cemented around them and they were stuck tightly.
When I looked over at Chad, his face was unhappy and I vowed to figure out how to fix this. I couldn’t believe that he would be like this forever — unable to use his powers. I wouldn’t allow it.
Chad stopped and tapped a brick.
“Gracie’s?” I said, though I knew it was.
He nodded.
I examined it, realizing that I hadn’t cemented the bricks as I had previously thought. The brick and everything around it had melted and the two substances had mixed and then hardened. So the brick was still there but it didn’t seem to have a distinct edge from the wall around it.
“What do they use in the real world when they want to break up something hard like a brick?”
He grimaced.
“A jackhammer?”
Hm. Jackhammering Chad’s mind. Probably not the best idea.
“What else?”
He thought about it longer but shook his head.
“No, that’s what they use.”
“Okay,” I said. “Jackhammer it is.”
I held out my hand and a tiny cute jackhammer appeared. We can create anything that we can dream up when we’re in a mental construct.
I lined it up with the edge of Gracie’s brick.
“Wait,” Chad said. Safety glasses appeared on both our faces.
“Really? In a construct?”
He gave me a half-smile, then his face got serious.
“If you die in the mind…”
Right. We had in place every safeguard imaginable — including safety glasses, apparently. But there was still real danger here.
I had to remember that.
Especially since we were in a construct of a construct, which increased the risk exponentially.
I put on the safety glasses and set the tiny tool against the edge of Grace’s brick, carefully jackhammering around until there was a slight cracking sound. The jackhammer disappeared and Chad excitedly pulled on the brick. It didn’t slide as well as it had before, but it came out a couple inches.
Grace’s pretty mental voice floated out of the cracks and Chad and I grinned at each other and high-fived with a slap.
We had found them.
Contact
Chad
Yumi and I stood in the middle of a construct of a construct. A mind fuck th
at we had created in order to protect me from her out of control powers. Well, supposedly she was in control now. But I wasn’t taking any chances with my most important asset — my brain.
Time passes differently in the mind because thoughts pass as quickly as… well, as thought. So, though we felt as though we had been in here for hours, it probably wasn’t nearly as long in real life.
“You need to do that neat trick where you crawl through the brick into her mind.”
“Too dangerous,” I said, immediately.
“It’s not too dangerous,” Yumi argued. “Because of the construct of a construct. It’ll protect you from her. You can communicate with her without risking either of your minds.”
And that’s how a few minutes later I crawled out of the brick and into Grace’s mind. It was a huge open loft with skylights and enormous windows. Bright sunshine poured in everywhere. The floors were a shiny light hardwood that made the space seem even bigger and more dazzling. Two comfy looking off-white couches made an L in one corner.
On the walls were pictures of what seemed to be every friend Grace had ever had — even Lily, who she had known as a toddler. On one wall was a large picture of Grace, Shiv, me, Yumi, and Audrey just after we had officially formed The Alliance. We were standing in front of the new sign. Damn, that had been a good day. We all looked so happy.
I took a mental snapshot of the picture with the intention of putting it up in my own public mind. That was a good memory. I wanted to remember it, too.
I inhaled deeply and smelled Grace’s favourite essential oil — lavender. I smiled.
I had never been in Grace’s public mind. But if I would have thought to describe it, this is exactly what I would have said it would look like.
I went to the window and peered out.
“Holy shit, is that Niagara Falls?”
“Chad?” Grace popped into her mind. Her mental construct was impeccably dressed as usual but I caught a glimpse of one of her memories that showed her reflection in the water. Her real self looked a hell of a lot worse for the wear. “How are you here? Did you come to help? We’re stuck here because I teleported us by accident.”