The Talented (8 page)

“I do not share Kate’s trust in strangers. Apparently you’re doing this without asking for anything in return. Altruism does not exist, in my experience. So what is it that you really want from us?”

A sense of pressure began to build on my forehead, which must be Stu here trying to gauge my reaction. I used my vault door image again to block him out, this time remembering not to slam the door so forcefully this time. As soon as the imaginary door was shut the pressure instantly evaporated.

Stuart’s eyes grew wide for a moment, then narrowed with a sinister smile.

“Very impressive, Mr. Sharpe. A good introductory test of your skills. Let’s see what happens when someone with experience and training cracks the combination on that vault of yours.” For some reason all I could think about is how hungry I was, then I looked up and saw how ravishing Kate looked all of a sudden. And I felt like taking a nap. And I had to pee. Stuart was attacking my mind in a dozen different ways all at the same time. His assault didn’t feel all that powerful, but it was so elegant and fast that I found myself drawn into his distractions despite myself. The image of the vault door in my head began to fade, so in a panic I bit my lip and readied myself to counterattack with everything I had in me.

“Enough!” Kate interjected, wedging her way between us, and placed her palms on Stuart’s chest. Same move she used on me at my place. So much for being special. “Adam is on our side, Stu. Well…my side anyway. He opened his mind to me completely and definitely is not deceiving us.“ She let the hint of a sweet smile show at the corner of her lips, looking back to me, “He wants to save me…be my hero. That’s his only motive.”

Stuart let up on his assault and over Kate’s shoulder he gave me an appraising look. “Fine,” he reluctantly agreed, “I will take Katherine’s recommendation at face value. No hard feelings?”

“Sure, why not,” I answered, “With that out of the way, maybe we should get back to the reason that I’m here. You know, the whole sniper thing?”

“Quite right. But that we should discuss as a team. Follow me.”

Stuart led us through the tasteful opulence of his house to stairs leading to a wine cellar that was larger than my condo. Past the wine cellar was a spacious conference room. At the center of the room sat a large, round table carved entirely from speckled black and green granite. Surrounding the table were twelve chairs, three of which were currently occupied. A rather sloppy-looking man wearing khaki pants and a half untucked polo shirt kept running his fingers through his greasy black hair. His constant fidgeting made me nervous just looking at him. Surprisingly, his mind was not nearly as well protected as the others, and traces of his thoughts were out in the open. His name was Travis, and his barely contained fear was not so much for himself, but for someone else at the table. A twin sister named Ashley. I shut out the rest of his thoughts to avoid being accused of prying. This psionic etiquette still baffles me, but I had better learn quickly. Sitting a few seats apart from him was the young woman who must be Ashley. She was on the petite side, and shared the dark hair and eyes of her twin. The oxford men’s shirt that she wore was a size too large and made her appear small and vulnerable. Before her was a stack of yellow legal pads and a cup of sharpened pencils. Looking up as we approached, she put down the pencil and attempted a wan smile.

Seated apart from them was the last person at the table. Based on their body language, this woman was clearly in charge. Her sandy blonde hair was pulled back into a single large braid that almost reached her waistline. The black, rectangular frames of her glasses and her immaculate white business suit gave her a severe, no nonsense appearance. Just by looking at her it was obvious that she was a beautiful woman, but somehow unattractive at the same time; a cold, austere beauty. At our approach she rose and approached me directly.

“Mr. Sharpe, I am Stuart’s wife, Tracy, and these are the twins, Travis and Ashley…”

“Adam,” I interjected, “Please call me Adam, everybody. It’s nice to meet all of you.”

My greeting merited a quick nod of the head from Travis, while Ashley squinted out a pained smile. I tried to remember that they are probably scared to death, which most likely explained their rude behavior. Probably. Most likely.

Tracy continued, “Adam. Very well. Since we’re are all Talented here, this would be the time to share our specialties, find a way to best combine our Talents to maximum effect. Travis there is an excellent remote viewer. He can see into the past, present and future, anywhere on earth with unusual clarity. His sister has a particular gift for clairvoyant drawing of future events. She can reproduce images of her visions with almost photographic detail. Kate and I are telepaths and empaths, primarily. Our remote viewing is limited to present events. Stuart can do all of these with ease and much more.” Her pride for Stuart showed through her otherwise stoic exterior. “He was without question the star pupil at the Program academy.”

She took a breath then asked, “So, Adam, what Talents have you developed? I understand that you have received no formal training or guidance, so feel free to describe it in colloquial terms.”

This was it, the moment when I would truly reveal the extent of my abilities—my Psionic Talents, to use their expression. Gus always warned me never to show my hand, under any circumstances. Perhaps I can be vague and honest at the same time. Doing my best to keep my apprehension at bay, I answered, “When I use my, uh, talents, I approach it very differently from what you describe as your experience. It’s always felt to me that there’s no barrier between my nervous system and the world around me. While I have a great deal of control over my body, you know, like making temporary changes to my physical self, or slowing down my perception of time, even greater control extends into the world around me, including people.” I paused to collect my thoughts, then continued, “Remote viewing of the past and present is pretty reliable for me, but the future contains so many alternate paths that I seldom attempt to see it. That’s pretty much everything.”

Dead silence filled the conference room, and everyone there was looking at me with an empty expression, looking unimpressed.

“He can stop bullets,” Kate added. That raised some eyebrows.

At this time I noticed the bulletin board behind them covered in black and white photographs. Looking more closely I could see that these were not photographs, they were penciled sketches, mostly of me. Me entering the casino. Me sitting on a rock in the woods. Me lying in a pool of blood. Okay, I really didn’t like that one.

“Those are mine,” Ashley said in her monotone, perpetually bored voice, “I’ve been seeing you a lot. It’s a real problem. I can’t get myself to draw anything else.”

At that point Tracy went over much of what Kate already told me about the shooting. There seemed to be no decent physical evidence.

“The worst part about it, “ Travis complained, “is that none of us can remotely view what is going to happen. When we try, all we get is an image of…well…of you.”

“But,” Kate quickly interrupted, “It’s a fact that Adam is not responsible, that I know for sure. He was in Detroit the entire time.”

“Yes,” Stuart added, “That appears to be true. So can anyone explain it? Why we see Adam when we try to see the future attacks?”

Kate spoke up again. “My theory is that Adam is somehow central to all of this, and some kind of decision that he will make is going to change everything. Until that decision is made and acted upon, images of Adam will continue to block our remote viewing.”

Speaking up for the first time, I suggested, “So remote viewing is out. So what? We know that the rifle was a military style assault rifle. Is there any reason why the government might want you dead?”

“No.” Stuart said, a little too quickly, as Travis and Ashley looked at each other a bit uncertainly. “Why would you suggest that?”

“The Program!” I kind of shouted, “Don’t you see? You are the only survivors of the fire. Someone is trying to remove all remaining traces of the Program!”

My brilliant exclamation drew only a lackluster reaction from the group. Sighs all around. Eye-rolls.

“Possible,“ Kate conceded, “but we all considered that possibility, and found it unlikely. Why wait all this time?”

I stood and gestured all around me, “Look at this place. It’s obvious now that the surviving children of the Program, you guys, have developed some serious Talents of your own. Someone decided that they didn’t want that to continue.” Taking a breath, I continued, “This is all guesswork, I know, but it feels very right, and we are psychic, after all.”

“Psionic,” Stuart corrected.

“Whatever,” I replied. “True or not, whoever is doing this knows about your abilities and apparently can block them. We have got to follow up on this angle.”

“How about,” Tracy offered coolly, “you and Kate go do that. The rest of us will stay here and focus on the possibility that our corporate enemies are behind it,” and under her breath, added, “which is our prevailing theory, anyway.” That drew a few chuckles from the rest of them.

That was fine to me. We were getting nowhere standing around doing nothing.

As I walked out the front door into the amber light of dusk, Kate gently grabbed my arm and as I turned she took a step in so I could hear her whispering, “Adam, I’m so sorry for that. Tracy is…well, I guess we are just used to her. She is not that bad most of the time. It’s just that we are all so stressed out about this. To make matters worse, several clients have already found out and have dropped the company in order to distance themselves from scandal.”

Giving her my most reassuring look, I soothed, “Don’t worry about me, it takes more than that to chase me away.” Taking a deep breath, I went back to what was really on my mind. “The Program, Kate, think. Did anyone survive the fire other than your friends?”

Grimacing, Kate shook her head and replied, “We were kids, Adam. They told us no one survived, but it was a secret Program, so if anyone did survive, no one told us about it. It was a running joke how secretive and paranoid Dr. Kildare was.”

Finally a name. “Who was Dr. Kildare?”

“He was in charge of everything. I only saw him in the morning sometimes, driving up in his big, black Mercedes-Benz.”

“Hey,” I blurted out, “Didn’t you say that the fire happened at night when everyone was asleep?”

Kate saw where I was going with this and excitedly answered, “Yes, so why would he drive if he lived there with everyone else? So, he didn’t live there. He drove there in the morning from his home. It makes sense that some of the leadership would not live in the compound. I remember my daddy pointing out that the compound was like its own town, and that there was an entire wing just to house apartments for the families of staff members. It was hard for me to accept why I had to live in the boarding school while the children of the staff got to live with their parents.”

“Right, but the big boss, Kildare…he didn’t have to live on campus because an important guy like that would have lived in a house. We can track that… um, right?”

Kate took out her mobile and started tapping away at the screen. My thoughts began to drift to Alicia. She had been gone awhile on her shopping spree. Hope she didn’t get any bad ideas about skipping town.

“Got it. Ocean View Avenue in Norfolk, Virginia. He still lives there, too. That’s less than ten miles from the former Program compound.”

She looked as if she was planning to say more when I felt a sense of pressure from all around me and time began to slow. Something very, very bad was about to happen. My mind expanded over the whole estate and settled on the short flagstone wall. There were five people on the other side of the wall and they were preparing to act. Their minds were detectable, but clouded with random images. Hmm. That’s a new one. Then one of them rose up for a moment, aimed and fired before ducking down again. Frantically, I pushed my metabolism to dangerous levels, forcing my perceptions to slow, increasing my reflexes and reaction time. The projectile that was speeding directly toward us was much larger than a bullet, and a bit slower. It seemed self-propelled, like a miniature missile. Worried that the missile would just explode if direct force were used to stop it, I took control of it and diverted it into a curve. Kate appeared to be frozen in time as the tiny missile cruised past her ear toward the house behind us. My legs felt leaden as I raced towards Kate. Three of the attackers stood and fired more of the bizarre projectiles. They were so much faster than me, and I strained to get to Kate first. In the slow motion world of my senses, I saw Kate begin to turn as I tackled her at a full sprint. Her muscular legs flew up comically as missiles passed us from above and below. One by one, the explosives struck the front of the house, followed immediately by flashes of brilliant light and an intense wave of heat. I landed with Kate crumpled under me as the concussive force of the blasts crashed over us. The world seemed to rush back to a normal speed as my concentration was shattered by the explosions. Stinging shrapnel peppered my back, cutting and burning through my favorite blazer.

The next few moments were fuzzy as soldiers clad in camouflage gray and black pulled me off Kate, one on each arm. A third soldier pointed an assault rifle at Kate’s unconscious form. They all wore funny helmets that covered their ears. The random mental images were being projected from the helmets. Unable to concentrate or move my arms, I watched helplessly and heard someone screaming “No!” before I realized that the screams came from me. Then a silent command covered the area like a poisonous gas.

stop breathing

The three soldiers instantly clutched their throats, dropping their weapons in their desperation. Their faces turned pink, then purple, on their way to blue. Stuart ran to Kate without giving the dying men a second thought.

“You…you,” I stammered, “You penetrated through those helmets somehow and are killing those men.”

Stuart ignored me and held Kate’s unconscious form concentrating intensely. I turned my focus to the men and felt their lives slipping away. Their minds, souls, psyches, whatever you call it, still flickered weakly. Without thinking of the consequences I grabbed onto those three minds and gave them one, simple command.