Mindwalker (30 page)

The old men watch as we slide onto the padded barstools. I shift, trying to get comfortable. “Hello,” I say. My voice sounds too loud. “Um. We'd like something to eat, please.” I look down at the counter, searching for a screen. “Where's your menu?”

Someone chuckles.

The bartender is a tall, bony man with a somber face and waxy skin. “No menu. We got burgers and fries. That's about it, 'less you want a beer.”

“I'll have a burger, then.”

“Cheese on mine. And pile some bacon on, if you got it,” Steven says.

The burgers arrive in a few minutes. They're thick, buns soggy with grease. I wolf mine down, uncomfortably aware of the locals' eyes on us. They probably don't get visitors very often. They seem … not hostile, exactly, but not welcoming, either. There's something cautious in their expressions, and an unnatural silence hangs over the room, as if they're observing us, waiting to see what we do or say.

“So, where you bound?” the bartender asks.

“None of your business,” Steven replies.

The bartender's gaze sharpens. For a few seconds, the room seems to hold its breath. When he speaks again, his tone is casual, but that alert look never leaves his eyes. “You kids wouldn't happen to be running for the border, would you?”

Steven lurches to his feet and stumbles backward. I see him reach for the ND.

In an instant, the bartender's aiming a huge rifle at him. I let out a strangled gasp. “Put 'er down, son,” he says, not unkindly.

Steven doesn't move. The locals in the corner are watching us with sudden interest, though no alarm. One of them cracks a peanut and eats it.

“Don't misunderstand,” the bartender says. He smiles, the folds in his weathered face deepening. “I'm not your enemy.”

“Then why are you pointing a gun at us?” I ask, my voice shaking.

“Your friend was the one who reached for his weapon. I don't care for having a weapon pointed at me. So let's both put 'em down real slow. All right?”

They measure each other with their eyes for a few seconds, while I sit frozen, heart hammering, wondering what I'll do if this turns into a shoot-out.

“How do we know we can trust you?” Steven asks.

He shrugs. “You're free to get up and walk right out that door. No skin off my ass. But if you want to know what
I
know, you'll put the toy gun down.”

“This is an ND,” Steven says.

“Like I said. The toy gun.”

“Have you ever seen what this toy can do?” With his thumb, Steven slides the switch to the highest setting.

Great. I can practically smell the testosterone leaking into the air, like some kind of explosive chemical that the wrong word will ignite.

I look from the bartender to the door and back again. My heart is beating so hard, it drowns out my thoughts. I struggle to make sense of the situation.
If you want to know what
I
know,
he said. What does he know? Is he offering to help us, or is he planning to kill us and mount our heads on the wall next to that hapless deer's?

One of the customers takes a swig of his beer. They're still watching us, silent as stumps, and I have the odd sense that they've seen this same confrontation play out before.

I meet Steven's gaze. “Let's hear what he has to say.”

Steven narrows his eyes, as if to say,
Are you crazy?
I just hold his gaze, keeping my expression as steady and calm as I can. Finally, he nods and slowly lowers the ND. The bartender lowers his rifle as well. Steven thumbs the safety on the ND and shoves it into his belt, but his hand remains near the grip.

Suddenly, I notice a faded photograph of a smiling little girl tacked to the wall behind the bar. His daughter?

“Go ahead,” I say quietly. “We're listening.”

The bartender studies us with pale eyes. “There's something
you should know about townsfolk,” he says. “Most of us aren't too fond of city authorities. They like to come in here every so often, stick their damned mind-reading gadgets in our faces, and look down their noses at us. I'm not inclined to help them if they're looking for you. None of my patrons will breathe a word to them, either. We never saw you.”

“Well,” Steven says, “that's good to know.” Still, there's a sharpness in his tone.

The bartender rests a hand on the edge of the ancient, scratched bar. “People like us, here in Wolf's Run … we're the last of a dying breed. A dying world. I'm one of the few who remember the time before the war. Of course, I was still a boy then.”

“Is this gonna be a long story? Because we haven't got all night,” Steven says. I kick his shin, hard.

The bartender glances at him, expression unreadable, then continues. “There were people back then who really didn't like the way things were going. People who didn't trust this new system of government. They wanted out. So a few reservations were set aside for folks like us—folks who wanted to live the way we'd always lived, without Types and all that bullshit. But even out here, they won't leave us alone. Government agents poke around and ask questions. Tourists show up to gawk at us. Like we're a museum exhibit. Maybe that's what we are.” He stares at the picture on the wall. “Every year, our population gets a little smaller. Our children are leaving us for the cities. My daughter—she's grown now—skipped town a few years ago. In a way, I can't blame her. Who wants to stay in a place that's dying?” His voice wobbles a little.

“I'm sorry,” I say softly. I don't know what else to say.

He shakes his head. “Never mind. Point is, IFEN is our enemy. So if people come through here on the run from the men in the white coats, I steer them right. It's all I can do.”

I sit up straighter, listening.

“Head down Main Street to the end of town, then keep driving,” he says. “You'll come to a big blue house. That's Gracie Turner's. Go there.”

“Who is she?” I ask.

“That's all I'll say on the matter. If anyone asks you questions, you never talked to me. Got it?”

Steven gives a short, grim nod.

“Good. Finish your burgers.”

I don't feel like eating, but considering that he has a gigantic rifle under the bar, it seems like a good idea to do what he says. I pick up the dripping mass of bread and meat and take another bite. Once we're finished, I fish the credit card out of my pocket and look around. “Where do I pay?”

“Cash only,” he says.

I blink, mystified. “Cash?”

“Never mind.” He smiles, as if I've said something funny. “It's on the house.” He takes our plates.

“Thank you,” I say uncertainly. “And thank you for the information.”

“Remember. You never talked to me.”

Steven and I rise to our feet and walk toward the door. As I reach out to open it, Steven suddenly speaks up: “Did you know Emmett Pike?”

The bartender's face turns stony.

“This is the town where he lived, isn't it?” Steven says. “You ever heard of him?”

“I recognize the name.” The bartender polishes a glass, with a cloth. A long, tense silence passes before he continues. “I know damn near everyone in this town. But this guy they showed on the news, he didn't look familiar at all. I'd remember a face like that. Of course, some folks said they'd seen him lurking around. And who am I to say they were just looking for attention?” He shrugs, then smiles, showing a hint of a gold tooth. “You kids be careful now.”

We walk out of the pub. Steven kicks a brown glass bottle, and it skitters across the pavement.

“So,” I say, “are we going to look for this Gracie Turner?”

He doesn't respond. He stares straight ahead, eyes distant and glassy.

“Steven?”

He gives his head a shake. “Sorry. Just … thinking.” He stops, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders rigid. “I guess it's official, huh? Pike never existed.”

“That's what it sounds like.” Right now, I'm more worried about the future, about how we're going to get out of the country without being caught. But I can see why Steven would latch on to that detail. This is
his
past. His identity. And he's just received confirmation that it's all a lie.

We get into the car. He doesn't drive off immediately—he sits, hands resting on the wheel. “I don't get it.” He doesn't sound angry or scared. Just tired. “It's supposed to be impossible to create new memories, isn't it?”

“Yes. Unless there's some technology that the general public doesn't know about—” I stop as a thought flashes through my head.

“You just thought of something, didn't you?” Steven asks.

I hesitate.

“Tell me,” he urges.

I exhale slowly. “During Conditioning treatments, a patient is extremely suggestible … and memories are more like paintings than photographs, more like dreams than video recordings. The details warp naturally over time. A series of powerful subliminal suggestions could accomplish a lot. Simple Conditioning couldn't manufacture such a traumatic experience out of thin air, but perhaps it
could
distort the nature of that trauma.”

The muscles tighten in his jaw. “So all these treatments they've been giving me through the years …”

“It probably happened before that,” I reply quietly. “While the memories were still relatively fresh. Though the later sessions could have been designed to reinforce the suggestions, I suppose.” I think about the first Lucid dream we shared, about Steven stumbling through the snowy woods, so traumatized and broken that he didn't know his own name. It wouldn't be difficult to take a vulnerable child like that and fine-tune his memories through subliminal suggestions. And I wonder—not for the first time—how anyone could do such awful things.
Why
would anyone do them?

“Lain? You okay?”

“Sure. My mind's wandering, that's all.” I exhale a shaky breath. “So … what now?”

His lower lip disappears under his teeth. “I think we should keep going. We might even be able to reach the border tonight.”

“And then what? Have you ever seen the border stations on the news? There'll be guards and fences, not to mention
cameras everywhere. And obviously, we can't just go through, since we don't have passports.”

“We can ditch the car and find some part of the fence that's
not
guarded, then climb over. They can't put guards along the whole thing.”

“And if the fence is electrified?”

“I don't know.” He rubs his palms over his face.

“I think we should do what the bartender says. We should go to this Gracie Turner and ask for her help.”

“We don't know if we can trust any of these people. For all we know, this woman's going to hand us back to IFEN. Maybe she's got an arrangement with that guy at the bar. He steers people to her, she knocks them out, gets a bounty for them, then he gets a cut—”

“I really don't think that's going to happen. You heard what he said. The people in this town want as little to do with IFEN as possible.”

“And you're just gonna believe him?”

“Well, I don't think he's lying.” The truth is, I don't know what to believe. But without some kind of help, the odds of us escaping the country are pretty low. This is a gamble. But it's a gamble we need to take. “Look. I don't think we have much choice.” My voice softens. “Let's at least talk to her. We're here. We might as well.”

He closes his eyes. After a few seconds, he mutters a curse and starts the car. “You're right. I just … I really want to get out of this country. Like, now.”

“I know the feeling.”

I watch the buildings roll past outside the window, structures of wood and stone. They all have an old, dusty,
disused look that's evident even in the moonlight.
We're the last of a dying breed,
the man said. In another thirty years, small towns like Wolf's Run probably won't exist anymore, and then there'll be nowhere in the country to hide from IFEN. “Are you sure Canada will be any better?”

“It has to be.”

We keep driving, to the outskirts of town, where the houses are spread thin.

On the left, I spot a large house painted a bright robin's-egg blue, surrounded by open fields. Beyond, there's the forest, a dark smudge on the horizon. “That must be Gracie Turner's home,” I say.

We park, and I get out, surveying the area. There's so much empty space, it feels like being on the edge of the world. The last vestige of civilization before the great, dark unknown of the north. There's a barn behind the house, and a grain silo, and a small pen of bleating goats out front. Before this, I'd only seen live goats at the zoo. As we walk past, a black-and-white one sticks its nose through the fence and sniffs. Its eyes are copper, with horizontal slot-shaped pupils. Steven reaches under its chin and scratches, and the goat tilts its head back to give him greater access. The gesture surprises me—I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just that I've never seen Steven interacting with an animal before.

A lantern hangs next to the front door, a gas flame glowing inside. There's no doorbell, so I grab the brass knocker—which looks like a lion's head—and knock three times. We wait. Next to me, Steven stands, his back stiff, his hand on the hilt of the ND. His gaze is fixed on the doorknob like it might jump off and bite him. I wonder if he ever relaxes.

Suddenly, I find myself thinking of that moment in the woods when I kissed him—the way the ND slipped from his hand and all the tension drained out of his body.

A loud click jerks me from my thoughts. The door opens, revealing a plump fortysomething woman clad in an old-fashioned blue-checkered dress. Her brown hair is tied back in a braid, and her gray eyes are clear and striking. They move from me to Steven and linger for a moment on his collar. Then she smiles. “I take it old Bill sent you?”