The Thought Readers Read online

  As soon as the phase-out process is complete, Caleb fires the first shot.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  I lose count of the shots, as I’m more focused on plugging my ears. In the movies, silencers work much better than in real life. Despite the elongated device on the end of the barrel of Caleb’s rifle, the noise is deafening in this room. I hope the area is abandoned enough that no one hears the shots—or if they do and call the cops, we’re out of here before they arrive.

  His shooting done, Caleb pushes off the floor to a standing position.

  “Now things should go more smoothly in there,” he says, picking up his gun. Wiping down his prints, he leaves the rifle behind and heads for the stairs.

  We follow him all the way down to the ground level of the building we’ve just fired the shots from.

  “Darren, take us into the Mind Dimension again,” Caleb orders before we exit to the street. “We need to assess the situation.”

  “Okay, Sergeant,” Julia says sarcastically. “Before we go running around again, can you please tell us the plan?”

  “The plan will become clearer after we reconnoiter,” Caleb says curtly. “The only thing I can tell you now is that with two armed guards in the room with Mira, stealth is of utmost importance. If I were them, I’d shoot the hostage as soon as I caught wind that some shit was going down.”

  Eugene looks pale, and a shudder runs through me. Without further ado, I phase into the Quiet once again and get everyone to join me.

  We cross the street. I’m getting a sense of déjà vu. The door is locked again, which of course makes sense, but is no less annoying.

  “Now you can practice picking the lock,” Caleb says to Julia. “We want to be in as quickly as we can.”

  She goes inside her messenger bag and takes out what I assume are the instruments of a professional burglar. I wonder where she learned to do this. Her people seem too ritzy for thieving.

  She struggles with the door for only a minute before we’re in.

  “Will you be able to do this faster when we actually get here?” Caleb asks.

  “Yes. I can get it down to twenty seconds,” she says.

  We enter the hangar we inspected before. Though I’m not surprised by what I see, my gag reflex kicks in, and I barely hold back vomit.

  They’re all dead. Shot in the head, every single one of them. There’s blood, lots of blood everywhere. Though it’s my second time seeing a scene like this today, it’s not in any way less disturbing.

  Julia looks green too, making me feel a bit better about my own sorry state.

  Caleb steps over the bodies in his way and just waltzes to the stairs. We gingerly follow, trying to keep our eyes off the dead people.

  After a few flights of stairs, we reach a floor that appears to be the one we’re searching for. We follow Caleb into the maze of corridors, which, according to Lenya’s—the disgusting gorilla’s—memories, leads to the room where Mira is held.

  There’s a guy standing with his back to us at a bend in the corridor, looking toward the door. Another is standing by the door, looking at the hallway. This means there’s no way for Mira to come out of the room, nor for us to turn the corner without one of these men raising an alarm. Not good.

  “Okay,” Caleb says. “We’ll need to take these two guards out. Darren, Eugene, this one is yours,” he says, pointing at the guy with his back toward us.

  “Ours?” Eugene appears confused.

  “You need to overpower him,” Caleb explains with a sharp smile. “Silently, so the two guards with Mira don’t hear us coming.”

  Caleb is enjoying this, I realize. Eugene must’ve acted arrogantly toward him in the past, or maybe Caleb is just a sadistic prick. Whatever the case, Caleb is clearly trying to shock the guy. Or is it my buttons he’s trying to push?

  “I can turn the corner and quickly grab the guy. When he can’t move, you stab him,” I propose, looking at Eugene.

  “Good plan,” Caleb says, glancing at me with approval. “I have some extra knives for you gentlemen.”

  Eugene doesn’t seem as hesitant as I would expect at the prospect of stabbing someone. Have I misjudged him? After all, just because someone is a little geeky doesn’t mean he can’t be tough. Or score a hottie like Julia, I remind myself.

  “What are you going to do?” Julia challenges Caleb.

  “I’ll take care of that one,” Caleb responds, nodding toward the guy facing us.

  “Wait—won’t he shoot you as soon as you turn this corner?” Eugene asks. I know he’s walking into some sort of smart-ass remark from Caleb.

  Instead of answering, Caleb walks back into the hall leading to this turn. Then he pointedly turns the corner. In a blur of motion, the knife is in his hand; the next moment, after a lightning-fast throw, it’s in the second guy’s chest.

  Show-off.

  “Any more questions?” Caleb asks. No one responds. “In that case, Julia, see how fast and how quietly you can pick that lock.”

  Julia takes out her tools and does her thing. It takes her about a minute.

  “That won’t work,” Caleb says when she’s done. “But we’ll get back to that in a moment.”

  Without waiting for an invitation, we all barge into the room.

  The room still looks like I remember it. Or more accurately, how the now-dead Lenya—the gorilla—remembered it.

  It was originally meant to be some kind of storage room. There are no windows, and the walls are painted a dull white color. In some places, the paint is chipping away.

  Just like in the memory I obtained, there’s a guy with a gun near him, though now he seems to be playing with his phone. It’s a little odd, since his phone has a pink case. Just like before, there is Mira, tied to the chair, playing cards with another guard. Only unlike before, they’re all frozen in the midst of their activities.

  I walk up to Mira and touch her forehead.

  As soon as she phases in, her eyes look like they’re about to jump out of their sockets. She has an expression on her face I don’t recognize. Then I get it—I’ve never seen her this genuinely happy to see me before. Her eyes scan the room, and she sees Eugene. Her face lights up.

  “You did it,” she says, turning toward me, and I hear the joy and disbelief in her voice. “You saved him. I don’t know how I can thank you.”

  “I said I would,” I say, trying not to think of all the ways I’d want Mira to express her gratitude. For the first time in my life, I understand the motivations of those hero types. For a fleeting moment, I feel like I really did something important. Something impressive. It’s a great feeling.

  “But what are you doing here?” she says, her expression changing as she fully registers the situation.

  “What does it look like?” Caleb says. “We’re rescuing you.”

  “In that case, why did you bring Eugene?” She looks at me like I’m an idiot, and all my heroic feelings deflate. Like I could’ve stopped a brother from trying to save his little sister?

  “It’s too dangerous,” she says, turning toward Eugene. “You shouldn’t have come.” She looks from Caleb to Julia to me. Then at the corridor through the open door. “This is all of you?” she asks, her shoulders slumping.

  “It’s going to be enough,” Caleb says.

  She shakes her head. “This is going to be impossible.” She doesn’t wait for anyone to respond before she walks out of the room. She must not realize that we—well, Caleb—already took out the lion’s share of her captors.

  “As friendly as ever,” Caleb says, giving me a wink. “Julia, go out and then lock and unlock this door again. Try to do it quicker and quieter this time.”

  We stay in the room to judge Julia’s work. After the initial click of the lock, the rest of the stuff she does is pretty subtle, but still audible if you know what to listen for. She seems to finish faster this time.

  Caleb waves at us to follow him and walks out of the room—to follow Mir
a, I presume.

  “Do it ten more times,” he says to Julia on the way out.

  The three of us try to find Mira. We walk a couple of floors up. Everything seems abandoned. We find Mira on the seventh floor, punching the wall in frustration.

  “What is it?” Eugene asks her.

  “That fuck isn’t here,” she says, punching the wall again.

  “Who?” Eugene says.

  “The Pusher. The one behind all this. That chicken shit’s not here. That was my main hope, the only silver lining to this. I thought he’d be overseeing the whole thing.”

  “I Read a mind earlier,” I say. “The Pusher who influenced that mind was very careful to avoid revealing himself to his target.”

  “Then this is pointless. You guys should go back and wait. Maybe he’ll show up eventually,” she says.

  “That’s not happening,” Caleb says, standing between her and the wall she’s been punching. “Here is what is happening. You’ll try to be as loud as possible as soon as you hear any funny sounds coming from outside your door. Talk loudly, ask questions—or even better, fall from your chair. That would distract them and get you out of harm’s way.”

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t try to teach a fish how to swim,” she mutters. Then she takes a deep breath and glances at Eugene before turning her attention back to Caleb. “Look, even with those dead bodies I just saw downstairs, busting in here is going to be dangerous,” she says in a more even tone. “Promise me that Eugene won’t take part in this. They took me to smoke him out in the first place, so if you bring him, you’ll be playing right into their hands.”

  “Yes, so he told us. We have a deal,” Caleb says before Eugene starts protesting. “I won’t force Eugene to come with us.”

  Mira gives him a disbelieving look, but seems a bit calmer as we make our way back to the room. I get the feeling that there’s definite history between Mira and Caleb. I don’t like it, not one bit. Though it can’t be romantic, can it? He’s a little too old for her, and he called her ‘kid.’ Maybe it’s a bond between two kindred, sarcastic, pain-in-the-ass spirits?

  When we rejoin her, Julia is still diligently practicing unlocking that lock.

  Upon Caleb’s request, she does a final run, which is extremely quick. She’s way faster and much quieter than she was before. For the first time, I’m beginning to think we can pull this off.

  “So what’s the exact plan?” I ask.

  “While Julia works on the door, Mira falls on the floor with her chair. Then I shoot these two,” Caleb says, pointing his index finger in a gun motion at the two frozen guards.

  “I’m not sure I can fall like that,” Mira says, looking at her frozen self. Her hands are free, but her legs are duct-taped to her chair.

  “We’ll just have to practice that part as well,” Caleb says, his eyes crinkling in the corners. I get the feeling he’s going to enjoy this part, too.

  “You want to tie me to a chair so I practice falling?” Mira says. She doesn’t look happy.

  “Exactly.” Caleb grins. “See, Eugene, you’re not the smartest one in the family.”

  Eugene and I free the frozen Mira from the chair and place her limp body gently in the corner of the room. I accidentally touch her exposed skin, but nothing happens. I guess once we pulled one Mira into the Quiet, touching her frozen self doesn’t produce more Miras. It would have been kind of cool if it did.

  Mira sits down in the chair and, muttering something in Russian under her breath, grudgingly allows us to tape up her legs with the duct tape her guards left lying around. She’s now set up exactly as her frozen self was a few minutes ago.

  She leans her body to the right, but the chair doesn’t fall. She shakes it back and forth, and slowly, almost grudgingly, the chair falls over.

  “Are you okay, sis?” Eugene asks her.

  “Yes. Pick me up,” she says, trying to push herself off the floor. Her position looks extremely uncomfortable.

  “That was too slow,” Caleb says. “Try again.”

  I get up and walk over to a dingy couch standing in the furthest corner of the room. I take the cushions from it, and lay them on either side of Mira. No point for this to hurt more than it already must.

  “Thanks, Darren,” she says before she begins shaking the chair again.

  The cushions help, but it’s clearly an unpleasant practice. She does it again and again over the course of about twenty minutes. We try to give tips—which are usually met with disdain.

  Eventually Caleb decides she won’t be able to improve further.

  About five seconds to fall over is the best she can do.

  “We need a different strategy to distract them,” I say. “Besides falling, I think you should also start yelling. Scream ‘mouse’ or ‘spider’ at the critical moment and start waving your arms, acting like you’re freaking out right before you fall.”

  Julia chuckles. Mira gives me a deadly glare. Caleb is about to say something, but Eugene shakes his head at him behind Mira’s back. He must actually think it’s a good idea.

  “Just do it, sis,” Eugene tells Mira. “It won’t be the first time. Remember when you jumped on the table—”

  “Don’t say another fucking word,” Mira interrupts him. “I’ll do it.”

  And before her brother has a chance to say anything more, she quickly walks up to her own frozen body—which is now lying on the floor—and touches that version of herself on the cheek. That makes her phase out, and she’s no longer in our company.

  Only the Mira on the floor remains.

  “But I was about to ask her to practice the new strategy,” Caleb says with visible disappointment.

  I can’t help myself. I burst out laughing.

  “This is a pretty serious situation, guys,” Eugene says, but I can tell he’s trying his best to suppress a smile. Despite the danger we’re in—or maybe because of it—everyone finds the idea of Mira freaking out like that hilarious. Then again, Eugene implied that she’s acted like this before. Maybe when she was little? It’s hard to picture it now. I wish I could Read Eugene’s or Mira’s mind.

  We exit the room. Caleb holds the door for everyone, making me wonder why he’s being such a gentlemen all of a sudden. As soon as we’re all out of the room, I find out.

  He’s decided to do a little practice on his own.

  All I hear is a quiet rustling of clothing, and the next moment Caleb is holding two guns, one in each hand. Two shots fire at the same time. Two men in the room each have a bullet in their head.

  I begin to feel even more confident about the success of this mission.

  We walk back to our bodies and phase out.

  “Any last words?” Caleb says to us all.

  “I’m coming with you,” Eugene says, his voice filled with determination.

  “Of course,” Caleb says. “I said I wouldn’t force you. But if you volunteer, well, that’s a different matter.” He hands Eugene a knife. "You’re in charge of stabbing the guy in the corridor, remember?”

  I get a knife as well. Great. As though the gun I was given earlier wasn’t bad enough.

  We cross the street, for real now. The area is pretty dead, yet it seems infinitely more alive now than when we crossed this road in the Quiet—mainly because all the ambient noises of Brooklyn are back. With the increase in noise, my adrenaline levels go up as well.

  Julia picks the lock on the front door in twenty seconds—just as she said she would. So far, so good. We walk through the hangar. My heart rate becomes a tiny bit calmer. This part isn’t all that different from the version in the Quiet. The heavy walls block most of the sounds of the city. The dead men are just as frozen in death here as they were in the Quiet.

  “Situation check,” Caleb whispers when we’re near the stairs.

  I phase in, and pull everyone else in with me. We walk up the stairs until we get to the corridor and turn the corner again. In the few minutes it took us to walk across the street and through the hangar, the men h
ave not moved; they stand in pretty much the same positions.

  “Good,” Caleb says. “We’ll do another check, right before turning the corner. This will be my signal.” He gives us a thumbs-up sign. Not the most imaginative signal, but it gets the point across.

  We walk back and phase out. Now we finally get to make the trip up the stairs in the real world.

  We all try to make our walk stealthy, but only Caleb succeeds. We get to the corner, and he does his thumbs-up sign. I phase in and pull them all in again. The men are still standing as they were.

  “Are you ready?” Caleb says, looking from me to Eugene.

  “Ready,” I say.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Eugene says.

  I notice Caleb never asked to rehearse this part. I bet I know why: he realizes that if given enough information, Eugene might lose his nerve. Or maybe he thinks I’ll lose mine.

  We phase out. Everyone looks at me expectantly. I take a deep breath and turn the corner.

  My heart is racing a hundred miles per hour, but I ignore it and grab the now-very-familiar Russian as soon as I turn the corner, placing my hand over his mouth to muffle his scream. I hold him as tightly as I can, but he struggles and I know there’s very little time.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Caleb make his move. I can’t afford to pay attention to him, though.

  I rotate my body, and Eugene is there with the knife. It’s unclear if he jams the guy with it, or if I push the guy onto the knife myself. However, it’s quickly clear that it’s done—the knife is there, in the man’s stomach.

  He makes a horrible grunting sound. My own stomach heaves, but I hang tight.

  The grunt is echoed by the sounds of another wounded guard—the one Caleb must’ve thrown the knife at.

  The guy I’m holding stops struggling, and I feel him going limp. I don’t want to think about what that implies as I let him slide to the floor. Eugene looks pale as he steps back, dropping his knife on the ground.

  Caleb is next to the guy by the door already and is holding the man’s throat in a tight grip, blocking off air and preventing further sounds.