Out of Touch (17 page)

“Is it only China, the U.S., and Thailand using telepaths as spies and such?”

“Oh no, but they’re the three main players. Some of it’s genetic. Most telepaths are of Chinese descent, though there may be a separate line in the U.S.. It’s unclear.”

“Hmm. I’m such a mongrel it would be hard to know,” Sarah offered.

“Were your parents telekinetic?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know much about my dad, but my mom certainly never let on.” She didn’t feel obliged to mention her other relatives yet.

“So how did you discover it?”

Now it wasn’t a matter of protecting others. These were her own secrets she wanted to lie for. A stab of alienation pierced Sarah’s chest. “I was just looking at something, and it moved. So I tried it again, and again, until I believed it.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No, not until I met those telepaths a few weeks ago.”

“No one?”

“I can’t explain it. I just knew it would cause trouble.”

“Well now you have an audience. With all I’ve gone through for you, don’t I deserve some kind of demonstration? What’s your best trick? Can you ruffle my hair? Run an illusory hand down my back?”

“I can thread a needle in mid-air.”

“No needle, and it’s dark. Come on. It doesn’t have to be sex, but something personal.”

Sarah tensed with discomfort, but decided they really did owe Tom a lot. Streaks of moonlight around the curtains were enough to show Tom lying on his side, head propped up by an elbow. His black hair glistened, and she mentally smoothed it back as if she were petting a cat.

There was a moment of silence.

“Wow, that gives me goose bumps even knowing what you are.”

Sarah felt a cold lump in her stomach. She expected Reggie to ask what she’d done, but he didn’t. She wondered if he felt left out. But if she reached out to him that way, wouldn’t it seem secondary? Besides, if it startled him into thoughts that Tom could hear, he’d feel doubly indignant.

“So what’s your hang-up about sex anyway?” Tom asked. “You both seem pretty sporting. Is it about threesomes, homophobia, me?”

Reggie answered, “Contrary to popular beliefs, being open-minded does not require open-relationships.”

“Your control is really good now. Earlier in the day, your thoughts would have screamed at that.”

Sarah was glad her thoughts only screamed in her head. She’d just realized that telekinesis was very much like sex to her. She wanted to keep
it private, choose when to share it, trust who she shared it with. But should she feel that way?

She asked, “Don’t you think it’s part of human nature to feel sort of ashamed of anything we keep secret?”

“I’m not ashamed of anything,” Tom drawled theatrically.

“I don’t mean really ashamed. Just having some little corner of yourself that feels something must be bad or else you wouldn’t have to hide it.”

“Is this about being a teek? Do you have any idea how lucky you are? I can’t tell you any numbers, but teeks are rare. So rare I’ve never managed to bed one, and believe me, that’s saying something.”

Sarah shook her head in frustration. “That doesn’t change the feeling.”

“I could help you work through those feelings, no slapping involved, unless you’re into that.”

Somehow, by voice alone, Tom could make that line sound like a come-on. Sarah wondered if he was really that focused on sex or just didn’t want to deal with other issues. Either way, she didn’t want to deal with him right now.

“Not tonight. I have a headache.”

With that, the three of them settled down to try to sleep. After a moment, Sarah felt Reggie reach out a hand to rest on her side. If Tom hadn’t been in the room, she would have scrambled to Reggie for comfort and whatever came next. As it was, she felt her bad feelings drain away through the warmth of his touch. She slid her hand on top of his. What if she had been telepathic and able to hear people’s thoughts all these years? Could she enjoy that touch so well? Could she believe in Reggie or anyone the way she did? Or was she just trying to rationalize about not being a telepath? And how would all the non-telekinetic non-telepaths feel if they knew what they had missed?

The next morning they were all up early. Sun beating through the windows promised a hot day ahead. Each of them washed and dressed without much conversation.

As Sarah combed her hair Tom told Reggie, “I think you’re done. Nothing came out of your mind while you slept. Bit fast, but some people are like that.”

“So now we go to Thailand?” asked Reggie.

“Sure,” said Tom.

“No,” said Sarah. Both men looked at her. “I have to go back to the states and tell the telepaths captured with me that they have a choice.”

Reggie glared at her and half turned his palms up. She guessed he was flashing back to his plan for going public, but now that his mind was unreadable, that hardly seemed necessary.

Tom cocked his head, raised an eyebrow, and asked, “How?”

“I’m thinking I’ll turn myself in on the condition that they let me meet with all my friends to ask if they’ve been treated well.”

“And you’ll believe what your friends say?”

“No, I’ll ask if they want to escape with me.”

“How will you ask privately if you don’t have telepathy?”

“I solved that problem yesterday while you two were busy. Did you ever write notes on your arm?” Sarah displayed the underside of her arm where the skin was pale and almost paper white. By imagining little lines of suction on her skin, she brought up red letters saying, “Want to escape?”

Tom’s head pulled back, but his eyes stared intently. “And your plan for escaping, with or without your friends?”

“I’ll think of something. Any useful suggestions?”

“Suggestions? You’re talking about letting them catch you, breaking out of an area they control, maybe flying out of a U.S. airport?
You don’t need suggestions, you need therapy.”

“Yesterday morning, I had little hope for myself, let alone my friends. Now, I have hope, and I have debts to pay. I realize I owe you too, but you said you’d be happy for anyone taken away from the other side. And you can take Reggie with you; so you know I’ll do my best to get out.”

“I may not have any . . . powers,” Reggie cut in, “But I’m going with you, not with him.”

“It’s not safe—“

“If I wanted to be safe, I would have stayed in the states to begin with. You’re the one who invited me on this adventure.”

“I could show you adventure,” Tom said, with a melodramatic flick of his wrist, “Besides, you’re still just a liability, even if you’ve closed your mind. They can threaten you to keep her in check.”

Sarah’s mouth fell open, “Ick.”

“I will never be ‘just a liability.’ I’m an innovator. I find ways to make things happen. If Sarah feels strongly about this, then I’ll help her find the means to deal or a way to work without those means.”

“If you tried to escape and take others with you that could be called treason.” Tom leaned against the wall, unusually still. “We’re not just people, you know. Were assets, state secrets.”

“You really want this, Sarah?” Reggie asked.

“Yes.”

“Fine, then I’m coming with you. Tom, thanks for your help. We’ll try to make it worth your while. Here are the two devices you left on my clothes in Jamaica.” Reggie pulled two small black burs from his pocket and handed them to Tom.

Tom glanced at them and said, “Well, I’d better take the rest if you’re really going to hand yourselves in. They don’t need to know you contacted anyone.” Tom gently removed small devices from Sarah’s waistband, Reggie’s shirt pocket, and clothing in both of their packs. Sarah knew she should be annoyed, but the tenderness of Tom’s movements captivated her. She could only feel indebted to him.

“I’m really glad you found us, Tom. And we’ll do our best to get to Thailand. I’ve never been to Southeast Asia, and I want to see Chiang Mai and Ankor Wat.”

“Visit exotic Thailand,” Tom pressed his palms together mimicking a travel ad.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I assume you’ll want to be someplace else before you call your government, a few hours at least?”

Sarah nodded.

April 11, 2025 – Geneva, Switzerland

James sat in the back of a large conference “glade” at the Hotel Geneva. The light was a bit bright and the acoustics carried coughs and chair creaks better than spoken language.  He pushed his feet in small, simultaneous circles along the floor beneath his chair. The livegrass™ carpet was designed to be as even as traditional flooring, but James was sure he detected lumps. Maybe there was just enough give to let him notice differences in how he moved his feet. Either way, he wasn’t in favor of this fad for bringing the outside in. What about people who liked being inside?

The luncheon speaker was an older French geneticist. He leaned against the wooden podium and wheezed a bit when he spoke. It was clear from his words that he hadn’t kept up with recent advances in the field. It was clear from his thoughts that he’d never lived up to his reputation and had “fixed” some of his data. James considered, not for the first time, how teep peer review might improve the level of academic discourse. But that wasn’t likely to happen, at least not on a large scale, any time soon.

Were there other teeps in this room? Were others listening as this esteemed researcher’s thoughts exposed his duplicity? James surveyed the anonymous suit jackets and long-sleeved shirts in front of him, the shoulders that slumped away a bit from the straight-backed chairs. He listened for thoughts from the man seated just in front of him until he caught a surprised,
“Is that Jackson over there?”

James skipped to the next mind, two chairs left and one row forward. There was a long silence before the words,
“Expense it, maybe,”
drifted past. The next man up emitted a mental muttering in German deriding the speaker that James understood just well enough to make it hard to ignore. But the mind nearest to the mutterer remained silent for quite a while.

From experience James knew about twenty percent of attendees at such a prestigious Swiss conference would have closed minds, much higher than population norms and almost certainly induced by teeps working with their governments. The U.S. and Thailand wove it into their security clearance protocols. It was easy to stage training sessions involving mild electric shock, supposedly to build resistance to interrogation or torture. Whatever the “trainee” thought was being trained, there was really just a telepath sitting in the next room applying shock whenever thoughts leaked. It worked eventually, even if the person seeking clearance had no idea what was going on. Heck of a job for a telepath though.

James gazed at the fuller rows toward the front of the room. A stray thought of,
“Oh, heartburn,”
reached him, but he was not inclined to focus person by person. There were a few familiar faces that he knew from past interactions would emit no thoughts. But there was no way to query about telepathy without exposing himself first, which of course he didn’t do, and neither did they.

That afternoon, James went to listen to Nigel Radford, his idealistic non-collaborator. He was prepared not to approach him, and he knew there was no way to follow up on the three near matches for telepathy. Still, he owed the postdoc some show of respect. The man was bright and probably deserved a fuller audience than he would get. Besides, James might pick up useful side information from either Radford’s words, if he knew nothing, or what he didn’t say, if he suspected.

The talk was in one of the smaller conference rooms. The floor was solid, though the wallpaper was leafy. Radford was not there when James chose a seat.

An older, rounder man soon shuffled to the front of the room. “Good afternoon, I’m Dr. Philip Sanders. I’m here on behalf of my colleague, Dr. Radford, who was unable to attend.”

Sanders mind was unnaturally silent for a man introducing himself
before an audience. James doubted this was a coincidence. Was Radford now forbidden from attending Swiss conferences? Was this just for associating with James, or had someone else identified the three predecessor samples he’d found? Had the Americans told the Brits something about the bipolar sequence that was also prominent in the sample?

James wondered if they would have checked Radford’s subjects independently, or if they’d only looked when someone realized James had British samples. If so, they might not have noticed the other new sequence shared by fifteen of their subjects. That might still be publishable in relation to schizophrenia. Or maybe it had other significance. Either way, the Brits and he were looking at the same data; he might still reach answers first.  Checking around the room, he found no one who might barter samples with him. He ducked out into the hall.