Out of Touch (47 page)

Then she returned the passport saying, “No, I think it’s a fine picture.”

They hastily said goodbye before he passed behind the barrier, and Sarah found herself walking through a strange airport with a mysterious bag of stuff. There were cameras everywhere, not attempting to camouflage amidst the mostly smooth and new walls. As she entered an older section, one not renovated for some reason, she figured the only logical thing to do was to visit the bathroom. Surely they wouldn’t spy on people in the stalls.

Once there she read the note and realized she needn’t don her disguise until she exited the tube station nearest the man’s flat. Turned out his name was Leonard. She’d been left his real passport along with instruction to his home. She was to be there by ten o’clock tonight, ignore the retinal scanner on the front door (he’d faked an eye infection to be excused from it), use the palm locks at both the street entrance and his apartment door, and leave between six and seven the next morning. Someone would be alerted if he wasn’t in his apartment between ten and six. There was a postscript detailing video cameras in the tube station and in front of his building that probably weren’t monitored, but she might want to keep her head down.  There was a post postscript suggesting she find a place to catch the news after she’d left his place the next morning.

Sarah thought Reggie would have loved this adventure. He liked to read spy stories and imagine himself as one of the operatives.

Noting her own energy and alertness, Sarah wondered if she didn’t enjoy these exploits more than she wanted to admit. But her hands were also frozen with tension, and the thought of Reggie made her want to give up and cry. Last night she’d realized she trusted him, heart and mind. In her dreams she’d imagined sailing to be with him, but something always blocked her from getting through.

Her overnight things were packed in a small bag over her shoulder. She’d brought the PAD. Did that mean she meant to use it?

Twenty minutes later, Sarah sat on a park bench by an artificial pond. Instead of exploring London, she was staring at the phone again. Just holding it sapped her strength and dragged that hand down to her knee. Brits walked politely by without a glance in her direction. A few stray ducks waddled over, but left when she didn’t produce any food. The park was dimming peacefully and Sarah’s stomach gave a rumble. Finally, she dialed Reggie’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Reggie.”

“Sarah! Are you okay?”

“I don’t like phones.”

“You never answered my calls.”

“You didn’t leave a message.”

“They could have captured your phone.”

“So then they’d know you called me?”

There was a pause. Sarah’s stomach felt like ice.

“You’ll never guess who’s here,” Reggie said more softly.

“Howard?”

“No, he came with me.”

“What?”

“Tom. He just showed up a few minutes ago.”

“No way.”

“I’ll have to warn Phil about him.”

“Does Phil know anything?”

“It’s been weird. He gave my parents a trip abroad. He’s taking me scuba diving this afternoon.”

“Don’t!”

“You’re telling me what to do now?”

Reggie sounded annoyed. Sarah kicked at the gravel with her toes and wondered what she could say on the phone.

“Just wait on the scuba. You might lose something you value, or it might just change. When I see you I can explain—“

“Are you coming—“

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll call back soon.”

“You sure?”

“You’re so patient.”

“Is there a choice? I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Sarah put the phone away and buried her face in her hands. The palms felt like cold glass on her burning cheeks. No wonder she hadn’t called Reggie before. Every molecule in her body wanted to tunnel through the planet to be with him right now. But she had promises to keep and information she had to retrieve.

Rising from the bench, she set off across the park. She’d pick up bread and sandwich meat at a grocery store and see what Leonard had left her on the computer. Then she’d know if there was more she had to do for herself or “the community.” Then she’d know if she was free to be with Reggie.

That night Sarah lay awake in a strange man’s bed. He really was strange, too. His overcoat and hat were bottle green. His apartment looked generic, like it had come furnished. But green blankets had been thrown over the sofa, the armchair, and the bed. The digital clock in the bedroom was a green, imitation cuckoo clock. The background screen on the computer was a field of grass.

But Leonard had left her files explaining all the genetics she had asked about and more. He’d even left her an index translating his abbreviations into plain English. All of the “unusual abilities” seemed to require tiny, microscopic creatures called zootochloro pasuritni which seemed to cover almost every surface, including every creature, on the face of the earth. For humans to interact with the zoots, they had to inherit certain nervous system genetics from both parents.

Leonard believed that those genetics had been selected for up until two to four thousand years ago when the new zoots, or zootochloro interferoid, started colonizing humans and other mammals. The new zoots didn’t replace the old zoots, but they joined them in their favorite niche, at the base of mammalian hairs, and somehow altered the frequencies of some energy transmitted and received along the hairs. This muted the old abilities.

Sarah imagined the new zoots spreading like a plague, leaving a community of mind readers silent. Would that be worse than a disease that left everyone partially deaf? Or had mind reading been a rare gift, its loss like retribution from the gods? She stared at the silent computer screen.

Had there been people who celebrated when their thoughts could no longer be heard? She remembered Doug leading his household through the burying ceremony. How quickly had such rituals evolved, and had everyone submitted willingly?

Without discussing history, Leonard’s files went on to explain how the new zoots couldn’t withstand high pressure, but would recolonize within a few weeks of eradication. Meanwhile, a few hundred years ago, a genetic mutation in the sequence that allowed mind reading had created some humans who could hear and transmit thoughts using the new zoot frequencies. If someone inherited that mutation from both parents as well as the original nervous system coding, they could read minds without using pressure to kill off their new zoots and without any other genetic factors.

Although they couldn’t read the mind of anyone without new zoots, these new mind readers created two problems. First, there were several diseases linked to the new zoots, such as colitis, Crohn’s disease, and some forms of arthritis. Leonard thought there might be others, but the new zoot “teeps” as they liked to call themselves, wanted the information suppressed and no research done. Also, because the older “unusual abilities” all required at least one other genetic sequence to activate them, they were not likely to breed true as often as the “teep” ability. Leonard said the older abilities might lose in the war of natural selection unless something changed.

As the clock approached midnight, Sarah waited to see if the cuckoo bird might pop out of the digital imitation cuckoo clock. She didn’t really expect it too. It hadn’t on the previous hour. Meanwhile, she imagined old zoots, like fuzzy brown caterpillars, crawling all over her, the bed, the floor, the pencil she could easily teek from across the room. She also imagined new zoots. She wanted to be fair, but instead kept picturing them as spiky black caterpillars that snobbishly chose their homes on warm mammals, where they walked all over the fuzzy old zoots and left them cowering in fear at the base of hair follicles.

At twelve o’ one, not having sighted a cuckoo bird, Sarah climbed out of bed and went back to look at the chart Leonard had left her explaining the genetics behind each of the abilities.

“teep”:
                           

BB
                                                        11

mind reader:
             

AA
                                                        11               2 or 3

animal person:
             

AC or BC
                                          11              3

spotter
:                           

not AA, not BB, not AB
              11              S

mover:
                           

AA, BB, or AB
                                          11              2 or 3, M

She’d already figured out she must be BB, which made James say she was genetically a teep. But somehow she’d wiped out the new zoots before she’d ever really known about telepathy, and, if what Oliver said was true, that probably allowed her to be a stronger teek. She pieced together the various combinations, like that one person could be both spotter and animal person the way mover could combine with either form of mind reading, but an animal person couldn’t also be a teek or teep. So had her mother been BC113? Had she carried the M that let Sarah be a mover?

Sarah woke to a faint “cuckoo, cuckoo.” She was curled up on the sofa near the computer. Light came in around the drawn curtains. Sarah jumped up and was in the bedroom looking at the clock before her mind really started thinking. It was six o’clock. Leonard must have set the cuckoo as an alarm. She was supposed to leave between six and seven. So she went to the bathroom and quickly cleaned up. Then she shut down the computer, carefully gathered all her things into the shopping bag, and put on the green coat and hat.

Outside the morning mist was just burning off. Soon it would be too warm for an overcoat, but all she had to do was make it to the tube station. Then she’d change and leave this stuff in a locker. She’d find some breakfast, listen to the news, and decide how to join up with Reggie. It felt good to finally know what she wanted. She felt lighter. Her new understanding filled her like helium in a balloon. Some string was still tying her down, but she felt very close to flying away.

Then a man approached her.

“Excuse me, are you Leonard Knockham?”

Sarah coughed into her arm, hiding her face in the stiff green fabric and buying herself a moment to think. The man speaking to her was Chinese. Was this some covert contact? But he didn’t seem sure of her identity.

She coughed a rough, “No,” and shook her head. Attempting what she hoped was a brisk walk, Sarah tried to reach the tube station. As she passed a clump of bushes at the end of the road something jabbed her from behind and the voice said, “I know you.”

In that moment Sarah realized the accent was Thai and that she’d just been tranquilized.

July 28 - 29, 2025 – PAD Island

“There you are,” Howard gasped, “Beach?”

Reggie swallowed the bite of fish in his mouth. Spending most of July on an island could cause some to tire of fish, but not Reggie. Tonight he was eating mahi, caught an hour ago, grilled before his eyes as he sat by the pool. His workplace had briefly seemed like the tropical dream resort it was designed to imitate. Now the fish lay limp on his plate and the diners around the pool looked like computer geeks and technicians. Reggie set his napkin on the table and followed Howard out to the sand.

“Did you know someone was coming?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Reggie sat down on a low shelf of rock and dumped sand out of leather shoes.

“Cass whisked him away while supplies were being unloaded from the plane. Looked to be in his forties, classic British face, short brown hair. Unreadable, of course.”

Reggie’s PAD rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Reggie. You busy? Could you meet me in the small conference room?”

“Sure, be there in a minute.”

He hung up and turned to Howard, “There. Bet I’m going to find out who your mystery man is.”

Howard did not look appeased.

Reggie broke stride as he entered the conference room. Phil was sitting there with Tom. Maybe this wasn’t about the mystery man.

“Come on in, Reggie. We’re going to need Howard here too. You want to call him, or should I?”

“I can call him,” Reggie said as he dialed. “What’s up?”

He thought he heard Howard’s PAD ringing down the hall. What a great spy. The noise receded before Howard answered and agreed to come.

Phil said, “I wanted to ask the three of you to monitor the all company meeting from here. It’ll be on the monitor in about ten minutes.”

Reggie glanced at his PAD for the time. It was ten ‘til eight on July twenty-eighth. He had left himself a reminder about the meeting, but he hadn’t thought it was that important.

“What do you want the THREE of us to monitor for?” Reggie glanced pointedly at Tom, whom he’d explained to Phil as an uninvited and possibly dangerous guest.