by Dima Zales
“Exactly,” she says, ignoring my hint. “And who would be more afraid of it than the people who know the full extent of that power?”
“Especially anyone who’s ever abused what they can do.”
“Have you ever tried to Split while in the Mind Dimension?” When I shake my head, she asks, “Can you try?”
I examine myself. I’m so excited that, were this the real world, I could’ve easily phased into the Quiet. But this is the Quiet, and I’m not sure how phasing works here. I try to phase in, though ‘try’ isn’t the best word to describe it. I can’t pinpoint what it is that I actually do to phase in. I consciously control it only to a very small degree. Phasing is more of an instinctual process, like blocking a punch became after Reading Haim. Yes, I knew how to block a punch before, but while practicing with Caleb, I was relying on instinct rather than conscious thought. And because I was relying on instinct, there were many times when I couldn’t block his punches. This is similar to the result I’m getting now as I try to phase into an alternate level of the Quiet. Because I don’t consciously know how phasing works, I hit a mental wall and nothing happens.
“No luck,” I say.
“Are you sufficiently stressed?” Hillary asks.
“Well, no.” Then I remember something. “You know that time on the bridge, when Sam was basically murdering us all? I did feel something.”
She looks excited. “What did you feel, Darren?”
“Well, it was a lot like what I feel before I phase out, or Split as you call it. Time slowed down, but then it felt as though I was hitting a brick wall.”
“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” she says. “So that has to be good news.”
“But it still didn’t work.”
“Have you ever tried the Bellows Breath technique?”
“The what?” I stare at her.
“It’s a breathing exercise that puts your mind in an excited state. We teach it to our young people to aid in the Splitting process,” she explains.
“I never learned anything like that. I learned to Split the old-fashioned way, by nearly dying a few times.”
“Damn,” Hillary says. “I’m still amazed by your story. That you managed to tap into your power on your own is incredible.”
“You flatter me,” I say. “But didn’t Thomas do the same thing?”
“I’m just as impressed with Thomas. I had a lot of trouble with Splitting in the beginning, even when I was told about it explicitly and taught how to bring it about.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize.”
“Yeah, so that’s actually good news for you. Just because you haven’t already Split from the Mind Dimension—and we need to call that something else, by the way—doesn’t mean you never will. And the breathing technique is how I learned, so it’s worth a shot.”
“Okay, tell me what to do,” I say. “And what do you think of ‘Level 2’ for phasing in a second time?”
“I hate it,” Hillary says. “But we can come back to that later. For now, let me show you how to do the Bellows Breath.”
She proceeds to teach me the technique, which derives from yoga, though she made it sound as if the ancient yogis learned it from the Guides. The short version is that it’s a lot like purposefully hyperventilating by pretending to have a panic attack. You’re supposed to take very quick ‘in’ breaths and release them just as quickly. This is how I imagine the big bad wolf exercised his lungs before he confronted the three little pigs.
When I think I have the hang of it, I say, “Okay, let me try.”
I start breathing, in-out, in-out, as quickly as my diaphragm will allow. It’s an odd thing to do and reminds me of how I’d breathe after getting chased around the schoolyard by bullies.
“Is it working?” Hillary asks.
“I feel a little more awake and energized, but no, nothing. Not even that almost-phasing-in feeling I got on the bridge.”
“Oh well. Maybe I’ll need to scare you shitless one day while we’re in the Mind Dimension.”
“Please don’t,” I say, unsure whether she’s kidding.
“Let’s continue this later,” she says, and I notice how she completely skirted around my request for her to not ‘scare me shitless’ one day. “There are a couple of other things I can teach you. Like I said, Splitting didn’t come easy to me at all, which now has the benefit of making me an expert on different techniques we can try with you.”
“Deal. But later, after I sort out this thing with my mom.”
“Sure,” she says. “Though strictly speaking, you might be more conducive to phasing while worried about your mom and all.”
“I hear ya, and as much as I want to figure out how to phase while in the Quiet, I first want to get to New York and make sure my mom is okay."
“It must be nice having a mom who’s not a nutcase,” she says and reaches for her frozen body.
“Wait,” I say. “I just remembered. On the subject of weird powers, can Guides control where they—I mean, we—appear in the Quiet? I’ve seen someone do it in Caleb’s memory.”
“Many rumors about this also exist. Someone always knows someone whose cousin can choose where he or she appears in the Quiet. I can’t do it myself, nor do I personally know anyone who can, but my parents claimed to know a number of people who could. I thought it was an urban myth, to be honest.”
“Oh well,” I say. “Would’ve been cool to be in New York and then appear in the Quiet on some Caribbean island.”
“Even in the tales I heard, I’ve never heard of anyone having such a long range,” she says. “But who knows? Ready to talk to Bert?”
“Let’s do it,” I say, walking over to my body to phase out.
When the sounds of the streets are back, I look at Bert and say, “Dude, my mom isn’t feeling well. I’ve been on the phone with her doctors this whole time.” I give him a onceover. He looks as if he’s buying it, which can only mean that Hillary’s juju is working. “I need your help getting back to New York. Do you think you can get us on the next flight out?”
A confused expression flashes across Bert’s face. I guess he’s switching from a ‘believe any bullshit’ mode to using his brain.
“Sure, Darren,” he says. “Let me go do my thing.”
He turns on his heels and walks in the direction of the hotel.
“You overdid it,” I say to Hillary.
“You might be right,” she admits.
“At least get him some food to go,” I say.
“Of course,” Hillary says. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”
Instead of answering, I, Twix-commercial-style, stuff my mouth with pizza.
Chapter 11
“Why are we here so early?” Mira asks after we’ve gone through Miami airport security. We were the first to go through, but the rest of the gang isn’t far behind.
“I needed to be somewhere that wasn’t our hotel,” I tell her. “Since Caleb abducted me from the beach right next to our hotel, it’s safe to say if he tries to find me again, that’ll be the first place he looks.”
“There are nicer places to hide,” Mira says. “Especially in Miami.”
“I didn’t know the cab ride and check-in would be so quick. They say you have to arrive at the airport a couple of hours early anyway. According to that logic, we’re right on schedule.” I try not to sound too defensive, wanting to stay on Mira’s good side.
She’s upset about my kidnapping, and her way of handling it is to blame me for it. Or to pick a fight. Anything to create a grievance to match her emotional state without actually dealing with her feelings. Then again, it’s feasible that I am overthinking Mira’s current prickliness. She doesn’t have the sunniest of personalities, even on good days. It’s just that sometimes my inner shrink starts talking with a voice that sounds suspiciously like my therapist, Liz.
“Of course it’s quick,” Bert says, joining us after having just cleared security. “You didn’t even let us take
any luggage. Dude, having the hotel ship us all our stuff is going to be very expensive.”
“I’m good for it.” I tap my pocket. “Getting to my mom is my top priority and if paying to have our shit shipped speeds things up—which it clearly did—it’ll be more than worth it.”
“Sure, leaving our stuff behind helped, but not as much as I did,” Bert says. “If I hadn’t gotten us those last-minute tickets, there’s no way—”
“Listen, Bert. We should take a walk. I need to talk to you about something,” I say. “Mira, you mind if we meet you guys by the gate?”
“You’re going to tell him now?” she says incredulously.
“Tell me what?” Bert looks puzzled.
“You said it yourself.” I ignore Bert to focus on Mira. “We’re early, so we have some time to kill.” What I leave unsaid is that I’d rather reveal the world of Readers and Guides to Bert than deal with Mira in her current mood.
“What do you need to tell me?” Bert repeats.
“Let’s walk,” I say and head in a random direction. Once we’re out of Mira’s earshot, I stop walking and say, “Okay, dude. I’m about to tell you the craziest thing you’ve ever heard. In fact, I doubt you’ll even believe me, seeing that if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t believe me.”
“Let me guess,” he says excitedly. “You and Mira are getting married?”
“What?” I say, taken off-guard. “When I said it was crazy, I didn’t mean it that literally. I meant in the sense that you’ll think I’m crazy, which I guess I would be if I were getting married—”
“So out with it then.”
I draw in a deep breath, unsure how to proceed. “You know how I sort of know things sometimes? Things I shouldn’t know?”
“Sometimes?” Bert snorts. “You mean all the time, don’t you?”
“Yes, well, there’s an explanation for how I do this stuff, but it’s hard to believe,” I say.
“And you’re going to take as long as you can, building it up before you tell me, aren’t you? Because you’re sadistic like that.”
“Fine. Here goes. I can stop time. Sort of.”
“Huh?” Bert looks at me like I grew a second head. “What?”
“I can make it so that the world is frozen, and I can walk around and look at things that I otherwise wouldn’t be allowed to see. And more importantly, I can do this without people knowing, since they’re frozen in time.”
“You’re right. That does sound crazy.”
“I know, which is why I’ll prove it to you,” I say.
I walk over to a store redundantly called Books & Books, with Bert following behind.
“There’s no way you can prove something like that to me,” Bert says. “But I’m curious to see how you’d even try.”
“I can and I will,” I say. “And if this doesn’t work, there’s some even crazier stuff I plan on telling you about, which, ironically, might be easier to prove.”
“Crazier? Like you’re the Napoleon, or Mother Teresa maybe?”
“Just play along.” I buy a pad of paper and pencil and hand it to Bert. “Here. Write something I wouldn’t have any idea about and then put the paper, or even the entire pad if you want, in your pocket. I’ll turn around.”
“This is stupid,” Bert mumbles, but I hear the sound of pencil on paper.
“Don’t write so loudly. I don’t want you to think I deduced what you wrote by the sound of the pencil,” I say. “Let me know when you’re done.”
“Done,” he says.
I phase into the Quiet, walk over to frozen Bert, and gingerly reach into his pocket, trying not to touch anything other than the paper. I take out his note and read it: 42. I walk over to my body and phase out.
“Very funny,” I say without turning around. “You wrote forty-two, the answer to life, the universe, and everything.”
“Oh, that’s a good one,” Bert says. “Even better than the card thing you do. But that whole patter about stopping time—”
“This wasn’t a fucking magic trick,” I say, turning around. “Nor was the card thing, actually, but—”
“Oh, come on. If you know me well enough—and you do—you could’ve just guessed.”
“You know what? I’ll move on to something that might sound harder to believe, but will be easier for me to prove. I’ll read your mind.”
Before Bert can say anything skeptical, I phase out again. I walk up to him and put my hand on his forehead. Then I even out my breathing. I didn’t realize how annoyed I was by failing to convince him, or by his stubbornness. The Coherence state comes very quickly and with it, entry into Bert’s mind. As I fall in, I make sure to fall deep. Best to learn something that happened before we met, or else he’ll just say I have a good memory and keen observational skills.
* * *
We’re sitting alone at a dingy, gray cafeteria table, looking at the big greasy clock hanging on the white wall. Another half hour before the bell rings, signaling the end of our lunch break. Our bladder will explode if we wait that long, so we decide, unfortunately, to go to the dreaded bathroom.
We get up and walk, doing our best not to drag our feet. All the while, we mentally curse the principal or whoever came up with the idea of not letting kids out of the cafeteria during lunch.
Maybe it’ll be okay today, we think as we walk. It doesn’t happen all the time. Just sometimes. And besides, at least we already had our lunch.
We open the door and see a shadow. Our heart sinks, and we back out of the room. Hands grab our shirt and pull us in.
Fuck. It’s him.
Roger.
“You know the drill, Dookie,” Roger says. “Give me the cash.”
Rationally, we know the guy is not as giant as he seems. But at five-eleven and one-hundred-and-eighty pounds, he seems truly enormous to us, whose weight is only in the double digits.
“I’ve spent it,” we say, trying to keep our voice steady.
Roger’s response comes in the form of a punch to our stomach. Air escapes our lungs, and we fall to the floor, glad about one thing—we didn’t empty our bladder.
He goes through our pockets and finds the leftover five bucks from our lunch. He usually takes the ten Mom gives us.
“Tomorrow, you owe me double,” the guy says and spits on the floor, missing us by a hair.
To keep from crying, we run some numbers through our head. He’s taken a total of $465 from us. Some part of our mind is keeping count. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll get every dollar back. Maybe with interest.
I, Darren, disassociate.
Poor Bert. I’ve had my own run-ins with bullies, but never this bad. For starters, no one could ambush me since I always scouted things out in the Quiet. Plus, there was no way the school could’ve kept me in the cafeteria during the entire lunch break. I always had a way of weaseling my way out of this type of situation. I would’ve gotten my doctor to give me a note of some kind, or I would have convinced my shrink, Liz, that I had the first known case of cafeteria anxiety. Still, I totally relate and sympathize with my friend’s experience. Bullying is a hazard that even befalls kids who haven’t skipped grades like Bert and I did. For kids who do skip grades, the chances of being preyed upon increase drastically, since they’re likely to be much smaller than the would-be bullies.
Did Bert deal with this fucker at some point? If he didn’t, I will, as soon as this thing with my mom blows over. This Roger guy might find himself naked and using his boss’s office as a bathroom, or something worse.
I focus on Bert’s recollections that deal with revenge. As I do, I feel the heaviness I associate with fast-forwarding through memories.
We get an invitation to our high school reunion in our inbox, and it reminds us of that scum, Roger Blistro. It’s funny how memory works sometimes. We haven’t thought of that fucker in years. Now that we have thought of him, though, Roger’s luck has just run out. We’re getting a very strong urge for some payback.
We look around.
Everyone is at lunch. We wonder whether our work computer at the FBI is the best place to do this. Then again, why not? It’s unlikely anyone is tracking our computer, and besides, we’ve taken a number of counter measures, which the FBI would require an expert of our caliber to defeat. Good luck with that.
It takes us only a few dozen keystrokes to look up the creep, and a few more to find some useful details.
Interesting. Looks like someone has expensed a trip to Aspen, claiming it was a professional conference. Given the honeymoon suite, the flower deliveries, and the room service for two, it sure looks more like someone took his mistress on a getaway. If true, this is borderline embezzlement, or at least that’s how his employer will see it. Furthermore, he wrote off that same trip on his taxes, claiming, in this case, that it was for his consulting firm, which has nothing to do with his day job. We know these things are probably lies. We wonder what the IRS would think of double-dip accounting. Yes, the IRS might indeed be interested in this. We see this trip is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our old pal Roger’s tax-dodging activities.
The keyboard sings its little song as our fingers dance around it. We get into the IRS’s system and flag Roger for an audit. That should be plenty of fun for him, but we’re just getting started.
After a few more keystrokes, we locate his wife’s email and anonymously inform her of the trip, making it clear that if she wasn’t with Roger on his Aspen vacation, he was cheating on her. We try to sound like a disgruntled mistress. We’d bet good money that the wife wasn’t on the trip.
Next, we hack into his employer’s intranet. Aha! His secretary was away during that same week. Bingo. We’d now put double the money on his wife being upset. We look around some more and locate a nifty ‘see something, report anonymously’ program on the HR part of the website. We write a memo about the Aspen trip and how Roger is having indecent relations with his secretary (even if the second part is false, the first one will get him in deep shit).
That was mere karma. Now for the real payback. This last part would be harder to pull off if Roger hadn’t trusted his banking needs to Citibank. It just so happens that Citibank is the very bank we found a back door into a year ago. We haven’t used it, since we knew we’d be treading on extremely dangerous ground, but we decide to push aside our concern over such minor details for this important task.