Mindwalker (2 page)

I stare at him. Is he joking? “I'm not in a partying mood.”

“It might do you some good.”

“I just saw a man killed, Ian,” I blurt out.

His expression softens. “I'm sorry,” he says quietly. “I know it's not easy to forget about something like that. But if you let it get to you, you'll burn out. You need to learn how to put that stuff aside once the session is over. Just think about it, okay?”

I rub the bridge of my nose. Maybe he's right. “Okay.” I pause. “Are you going home now, or …”

He shakes his head. “I've got another session later today.” He lowers his voice. “Sexual assault victim.”

I wince. They usually assign those to Ian now, since I didn't respond well to the last one. I feel a twinge of guilt. “Will you be all right?”

He smiles. “Don't worry about me.”

I give a small, uncertain nod.

He waves and walks away, disappearing around a corner.

I continue down the hallway. Beyond lies an enormous
lobby with a floor of white marble, so polished I can see hazy reflections in the surface. A set of towering glass double doors part automatically for me as I approach. Outside, I stand in the vast parking lot, looking at rows of neatly pruned trees on islands of vivid green grass. The sky is clear and blue. Everything looks bright, sharp, unreal, like a photograph run through a filter.

IFEN headquarters itself is a monolithic pyramid. Its silver walls reflect the azure sky, the slowly drifting clouds. Behind it stands a backdrop of high-rises and skyscrapers. Aura, the largest city in the United Republic of America.

It's surreal to think that the war—the one my client fought in—occurred when we were still the United States. For most people, the long, ugly conflict between the Blackcoats and the military is something to be studied in history classes. But for that man and for so many others, it's a living, breathing nightmare. War makes monsters of ordinary men, then leaves them broken. I've seen it before. No wonder he wants the memories erased.

What happens when everything dark and dirty can be wiped away, like clearing a touch screen? Should a man be allowed to forget someone he killed, no matter the circumstance?

I push the thoughts away. My client has already been approved for the therapy. It's not my place to decide what should or shouldn't be forgotten. Ian's words echo in my head:
Remember all the people you've helped.

Just last month, I treated a woman whose apartment building burned down in an electrical fire. After barely escaping with her life, she suffered through weeks of hospitalization
and slow, painful recovery. Her burns healed, but the nightmares and flashbacks persisted. The standard psychiatric treatments had no effect. After a mental breakdown, she lost her job, and her whole life started to unravel. In desperation, she came to IFEN. Once the memory of that night was gone, her life returned to normal, as if by magic. And there are so many others like her—people who've suffered terribly, through no fault of their own, and lost so much as a result. People who can become whole and healthy again with our help. Surely, that's worth any amount of hardship on my part.

I strengthen my resolve. This is who I am. This is what I was born to do.

The classrooms in Greenborough High School are enormous, made of steel and concrete, the desks crammed wall to wall. Cameras watch us from the ceiling like unblinking black eyes. A guard stands near the door, hands interlaced behind his back, a neural disrupter resting in a holster at his hip. A sign glares at us from above the door.

THESE PREMISES ARE MONITORED
FOR YOUR OWN PROTECTION.

The intercom crackles, and the superintendent's voice says, “All rise for the pledge.”

The students stand, as we do at the beginning of every school day. I recite the lines automatically, along with everyone else.

I pledge to do my part to keep our school and our country safe: to remain alert; to report any signs of mental unwellness in those around me; to be respectful,
compassionate, and cooperative at all times; and to keep my own mind healthy and free from negative thoughts so that the atrocities of the past will never be repeated.

With a rustle of clothing, everybody sits.

All these precautions are necessary, I know. But at times, it feels like overkill. I could, of course, afford a private school if I wanted—a school without guards and metal detectors and mandatory neural scans. I go to Greenborough as a matter of conscience. If other teenagers have to endure this, it doesn't seem right that I should have the luxury of avoiding it.

At the front of the room, Ms. Biddles drones out a lecture, pointing to equations on a huge, dim wall screen. She's tiny and ancient, her back hunched under a knitted pink sweater. A dull ache of fatigue pulses through my head. My vision keeps blurring as I take notes.

Normally, I enjoy math. It's a language of its own, intricate and beautiful. The more you learn, the more there is to learn, like a flower unfolding to reveal ever more complex and delicate blossoms nestled inside. But today, the numbers are meaningless squiggles on my desk screen.

I rub my eyelids and glance down at my school uniform—white blouse, plaid skirt, gray stockings. I open my compact and look at my reflection in the mirror. Brown eyes. Squirrel-brown hair done up in pigtails. Me. Lain Fisher, a student in my third year of high school. I repeat the words to myself silently, like a prayer. They have a name for this in Mindwalker training:
identity affirmation exercises.

It's not working. I keep seeing my boot ram into the man's face. I rise to my feet, and heads turn toward me. “Excuse me,” I mutter.

The guard accompanies me to the nearest bathroom, and I dash inside just as the nausea overwhelms me.

A few minutes later, I rinse out my mouth in the sink and wipe it clean with a paper towel.

On the wall is a small advertising screen, one of those designed to change every few minutes. Now it displays a slowly rotating image of a pink pill with the word

SOMNAZOL

imprinted on both sides. Underneath it is the tagline

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS.

Ugh. Usually, I don't even notice drug ads— they're so commonplace in schools and public areas, they fade into the background. But this is appalling. There ought to be a law against promoting Somnazol to minors.

A girl with wavy black hair emerges from a stall, washes her hands in the sink next to me, and begins applying shiny pink lipstick. I watch her from the corner of my eye, then softly clear my throat. “It's horrible, isn't it?” I ask, waving a hand toward the screen.

She gives a start, then stares at me blankly. I look at the screen and see that the image has shifted to an ad for shoes. “I mean— ” Heat rises into my cheeks. “Somnazol.” I clear my throat. “It was different a few seconds ago.”

“Whatever.” She walks out of the bathroom, leaving me standing alone. The image on the screen fades, shifting to an ad for Lucid memory enhancers. I swallow, trying to
Banish The Sudden Tightness In My Throat, And Leave The Bathroom.

I don't have any trouble talking to my clients or the other trainees at IFEN headquarters. Why can't I seem to strike up a conversation with anyone at school?

Back at my desk, I try to focus. Behind me, I hear voices. I glance over my shoulder and see the girl with the wavy dark hair whispering something to the redhead beside her. They notice me watching, and their expressions harden.

I turn back toward the front of the room, face burning. A slight tremor creeps into my hands, and I tuck them under my armpits.

My cell phone vibrates in my pocket, and I wince.

We aren't supposed to have cell phones in class. Normally, I leave mine in the car, but I've been so muddled today, I forgot I was carrying it.

Discreetly, I fish the phone out.

YOU HAVE ONE MESSAGE.

My first thought is that it must be from Ian, but when I glance at the number, I don't recognize it. I open it anyway. There's a short, simple message, the words crisp and black against the white screen:

I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.

I text back:

TO WHOM AM I SPEAKING?

LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER.

There's a boy sitting six rows back, in the corner of the room—a boy with shaggy white-blond hair and a silver collar around his neck, looking straight at me.

Steven Bent.

I've never really spoken to him. He's quiet and keeps to himself, but rumors float around him like clouds of dark mist. Voices drift through my memory, snippets of overheard whispers.

He's a Type Four. See the collar?

No way! They're letting Type Fours go to school with the rest of us now?

I heard they made him go through Conditioning twelve times.

I heard he was expelled from his last school for biting a chunk of skin from another guy's face.

And now, apparently, he wants to talk to me.

Ms. Biddles barely glances at the students as she lectures in her nasally monotone. I don't think she notices my silent conversation with Steven, and the guard seems preoccupied with something on his sleeve—a stain?—but I hunch over my phone and curl my arm around it. I pretend to type notes into my desk screen as I text:

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO TALK ABOUT?

NEED TO ASK YOU SOMETHING. IN PERSON.
MEET ME IN THE PARKING LOT AFTER SCHOOL.

I bite my lower lip, unease stirring within me.

AND IF I SAY NO?

He stares across the room. His eyes drill into mine. My palms are damp with sweat, and my pulse flutters in my throat, but I don't drop my gaze.

At last, he replies.

YOUR CHOICE.

The guard's head turns toward me. I quickly slip my phone into my pocket and focus on the front of the room.

If Steven won't even tell me what he wants, it can't be anything good, can it? Or do I only think that because I've heard so many unpleasant rumors about him?

In my head, I see him sitting alone at lunch, picking at a bag of potato chips and staring into space. I don't know what his life is like outside of school, but I don't think he has any friends. No one seems willing to give him a chance.

When the guard isn't looking, I slip my phone out and rapidly text:

OK.

At the very least, I want to find out what this is about. The parking lot is a safe place to meet, isn't it? There'll probably be other students around, and of course, the area's monitored by security cameras.

The rest of the school day goes by in a blur. After the last class is dismissed, I linger outside the main doors, staring at
the parking lot, a sea of pavement surrounding the enormous gray block that is Greenborough. A cement wall encircles the lot, and there's a gate at the far end with a camera mounted overhead. I look around but don't see Steven.

As other students walk past me toward the bus, a few cast uncertain glances in my direction. We're not supposed to loiter. At school, the way to avoid getting taken in for a scan is to keep walking, keep your head down, and move in groups. Loners are likely to get reported, no matter what they're doing. When a passing guard squints at me suspiciously, I smile and say, “I'm just waiting for someone.”

A cold, sleety rain hammers the ground, and the sky overhead is thick with charcoal clouds. I wind a scarf around my neck and pull up the hood of my white button-down coat, shivering. Maybe Steven changed his mind about meeting me. Maybe I should just go home.

Then I spot the tall, thin figure standing next to a streetlight at the far end of the lot. He's facing away from me, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders hunched.

I trudge across the parking lot, slush squishing beneath my boots. “Steven?” I call.

He turns toward me.

In the harsh glare of the streetlight, his white-blond hair nearly glows. He's wearing a faded brown jacket that looks like it's been gnawed by wild dogs, and the circles around his eyes are so pronounced that for a moment, I wonder if he's wearing eyeliner. But no—I recognize the effects of insomnia. I've seen the same dark circles in the mirror.

I walk a few steps closer and stop.

“You're a Mindwalker, right?” His voice sounds different than I expected—younger, not as deep—but there's a scratchy roughness to it, as if he has a sore throat.

I shift my weight, gripping the straps of my backpack, wondering how he knows. I don't usually talk about my training at school, but it's not exactly a secret, either. “Yes,” I say. “I am. What did you want to ask me about?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it, crossing his arms over his chest. His fingers clench his sleeves, knuckles white. “Hang on,” he mutters. He turns partially away from me, fishes something tiny and round from his pocket—a pill?—and pops it into his mouth.

I feel a twinge of nervous impatience. Then I notice the tremor in his hands, the way he won't quite meet my gaze.

He's afraid. Of me? No, probably not. I'm about as intimidating as a hamster.