Winters Family Psi Chronicles 1: Transformation (9 page)

Kevin smiled at the compliment. Sharon found the idea of being psychically linked with this monster to be completely repulsive. Unfortunately, she couldn’t refuse to participate in the network or she’d lose her position in the company. George shut off the lights and turned on a CD which played a guided meditation that began the linking process. Nervousness flooded through Sharon as doubts over her ability to join the network churned through her mind. She focused on the voice of the instructor that drifted from the speakers in the room and obeyed the commands. She could sense the minds of the participants around her and as time passed, the emotions became clearer. When she finally joined the network, she knew she’d made a wise decision as a flood of power rushed through her, making her giddy. Sharon had never felt quite like this and she could get really used to it.

Chapter 9

Jeremy’s body screamed in agony as something forcefully tore him from sleep. His eyes opened to find Skylar, Julie, and Emily standing over him.  Skylar’s firm grip on his shoulders abruptly released and Jeremy’s back hit the mattress as he’d been held up several inches from the bed. Jeremy knew he should have been angry over this intrusion but was too exhausted to summon any kind of ire.

“What are you doing?” Jeremy said weakly.

“You’ve been asleep for two freaking days,” Skylar said with concern.

Emily’s brown eyes conveyed a near hysteria which hinted at the desperation they all must be feeling.

“We tried waking you up for quite awhile. Emily had a vision which made us realize if we didn’t get you up now, you’d fall into a coma and die. We don’t have any more time to waste. Get up now,” Julie said crisply as though leading a high-powered business meeting.

“I need to take a shower and get dressed,” Jeremy protested.

“There’s no time for that. We need you to get into the living room now,” Julie ordered.

Jeremy realized just how weak he really was as soon as he slid out of bed and almost collapsed onto the floor. Luckily, Skylar was ready and helped to steady him. They all shuffled into the living room and sat down. Jeremy recognized two members of Julie’s new telepathic network seated in the room. Gentle, calming classical music drifted from the entertainment center.

“We’re going to bring you into our network,” Julie said. “First you need to relax.”

Voices flooded Jeremy’s consciousness before he’d even started. Pain lanced through his body and blackness crept along the edges of his vision.

“We don’t have time. It’s happening,” Emily said desperately.

“Okay. We need to bring him in now,” Julie said. “Jeremy, you need to focus on your sister. Tune everything else out.”

Jeremy nodded with understanding but couldn’t block out the thoughts drilling relentlessly at his skull. Something dripped down his mouth and chin. He swiped at it with his hand and flinched in surprise to find his knuckles smeared with blood.

“Focus, Jeremy!” Julie said forcefully. “Focus on Emily! Focus!”

His sister’s thoughts barely registered in the thundering noise that bombarded his mind. He couldn’t tune the other telepathic voices.

“Can you hear me? Focus only on me. Talk to me,” Emily thought loudly.

“I can’t tune out the others,” Jeremy thought back.
He struggled to remain conscious but knew he was losing. He instinctively realized he was dying. When he passed out, he wouldn’t be able to wake up ever again.
“I love you, Emily. I’m glad I got the chance to see you one last time.”

“Don’t give up!” Emily screamed with desperation.

Jeremy’s consciousness was abruptly swept away by the thunderous telepathic stimuli and the blackness consumed his mind. He could no longer feel his body as he floated into oblivion. Memories of his childhood sifted through his mind. Many reports of near death encounters described this experience as a preclude to the crossing over to a new life. Jeremy had never thought too much about that as he’d always seemed to have plenty of time left to ponder his mortality in the future. He was relieved that he’d been able to say goodbye to his sister this time. Another memory flashed through his mind. He could see a small hand reaching for a large, beige, cookie jar. His mother had a penchant for making the most delicious peanut butter blossom cookies. Jeremy didn’t remember this happening but knew he must be only four or five as he watched through the young eyes of this youngster.

Dragging his body on the edge of the counter to reach as far as he possibly could, he finally managed to grab the cookie jar but also slipped backward. His back slammed onto the kitchen floor and the jar flew over his head and shattered. Cookies and fragments of pottery exploded across the room. He sat up feeling shaken as his mother burst into the room.

“Emily Marie Winters!” she snapped.

Jeremy flinched with surprise as he abruptly realized this wasn’t his memory at all but his sister’s. More memories abruptly washed over him of Emily as well as those of Skylar, Julie and others. He abruptly realized he wasn’t dead and awoke to find himself lying on the living room floor. As he slowly sat up, he saw his tee shirt was marred with droplets of blood.

“Don’t worry. You’re fine now. Your nose stopped bleeding,” Emily said as she knelt beside him.

“What happened?” Jeremy asked shakily.

“You’re part of the network now,” Julie announced stridently.

“I am?” Jeremy asked.

He abruptly realized he was aware of the presence of a group whose voices registered at the edge of his mind but didn’t cause pain. They were background noise that he could easily tune out. He focused on them and quickly pinpointed Emily’s presence which felt warm and familiar.

“It looks like you’re going to be with us for a lot longer,” Emily thought.

“Yes, it certainly looks that way,” Jeremy responded.

“Quit being rude and share with the others,” Julie teased them.

“This is unbelievable,” Jeremy said.

“Yes, it’s amazing,” Julie agreed.

Jeremy could sense the network now and with his mind’s eye, realized he could see the energy connections as shimmering colors linking everyone together. Each telepath’s mind looked like a sphere of luminescent light of varying colors. Emily’s was a bright purple, Julie’s and Skylar’s were different shades of turquoise, the other spheres in the network ranged from blue to red to purple. Jeremy abruptly realized he could see his own consciousness in the network which was much brighter than the others and shifted from different shades of blue to purple.

“Jeremy? What’s going on?” Julie asked curiously. “I sense that you’re doing something.”

“You never told me how beautiful the network is to watch,” Jeremy remarked.

“None of us can see it,” Julie said.

Jeremy abruptly let go of the vision so he could focus on Julie. “You can’t see it?”

“No, we just know that we’re linked,” Emily said with surprise. “But I do remember an unusual talent in the future. They called them connectivity psi because they could see the telepathic network and sometimes could bring non-telepaths into their group.”

“How fascinating!” Julie exclaimed. “You never mentioned that.”

“There are a lot of small details I didn’t think of. I saw a lot of things in the future. Fortunately, everything is changed now.”

“Psi-Tech is still a huge threat,” Julie cautioned.

“Yes, but it finally looks like we have a chance to survive,” Emily said.

Jeremy realized his pain was gone except for a very mild headache. He stood up and stretched.

“Maybe you can change into some non-bloody clothes now,” Emily said.

“Good idea.” Jeremy smiled at her before leaving the room to get changed.

Julie thanked the two members of the network for their help and escorted them to the front door. She joined Skylar and Emily in the living room to wait for Jeremy. Emily was giddy with relief over their success at bringing Jeremy into their network. The last two days had been brutal with the agony of waiting for him to regain consciousness. Soon, Jeremy returned and Emily gave him a quick hug.

“We have some stuff to catch you up on,” Julie said in a business-like manner. “Skylar has created blogs on a bunch of different websites with instructions for telepaths to create their own networks. Hopefully, a lot of people will read it and create smaller networks so they can stay safe.  Skylar, Emily, and I worked on creating key words for the blog sites so that telepaths who were surfing the web for articles would come across these sites easily.”

“That’s great,” Jeremy said. “Did you warn people about Psi-Tech?”

“No, we didn’t because we decided that it would make us sound flaky,” Emily said. “Strangers who don’t know us and aren’t talking to us face to face would read the articles and probably dismiss everything out of hand.”

“I suppose it does sound kind of crazy,” Jeremy said.

“Our own network has expanded quite a bit. We’ve got over thirty people with us now,” Emily said. “Every new member usually ends up with two or three friends who are telepathic and decide to join us. Our network is growing exponentially.”

“Sooner or later, someone from our network is going to be next on the list of the targets to be eliminated by Psi-Tech,” Julie said gravely. “I’m concerned over how this will affect our network.”

“Now that we have thirty, our network should be solid enough to withstand a fatality. It will disrupt the link and everyone will feel the loss but we’ll be okay,” Emily said.

“I just hope our telepathic abilities are strong enough at this point to sense any danger from Psi-Tech before any of us are attacked. We have three of us now who are gifted with precognition but none of them are as strong or as skilled as you,” Julie said.

“I’ve been trying to look ahead but can’t really see anything clearly. The future is changing too much and I think it will continue to change. The only way to get a clear picture on events is to choose to view something that is affected by the least amount of people,” Emily said.

“Is there any way I can help with that?” Jeremy asked.

“When your link becomes stable, you should be able to use all of your psychic abilities and I can help you explore them. However, you should give yourself some time to adjust,” Emily said.

“I feel perfectly fine now,” Jeremy said. “And the link seems strong and stable when I look at it.”

“It may be a good idea to take it easy for just a few days,” Julie advised.

Jeremy nodded reluctantly even though his desire to help was strong. He sensed they were all in serious danger and wanted to be sure they could steer out of harm’s way.

“Two precognitives from our network are coming over this afternoon to help foresee any dangers,” Julie said. “Our abilities are stronger than we could have imagined because of how quickly our network is expanding. We’ll be okay.”

Julie had a firm confidence and a strong air of authority that made it difficult to question her. Jeremy decided he would accept her assurances for now but he wouldn’t remain idle for long. He intuitively felt his precognition was a lot stronger than anyone’s in the network and such a tool shouldn’t be squandered by excessive caution. Jeremy sensed a busy activity of thought and planning in Julie’s mind. For some reason, she had the thoughts blanketed so they wouldn’t accidentally transmit along the network to other members. If he wanted to, he could reach out and listen in on her thoughts uninvited but it never occurred to him to do so.

“You’re trying to plan something,” Jeremy said.

Julie’s gaze cut to him with surprise. “Yes, I am. We need a structured organization to ensure our safety.”

“You’ve never mentioned this before,” Emily said.

“You’re the one who saw me as a leader in the future among the telepaths,” Julie pointed out.

“That’s true but you haven’t said anything along those lines.”

“You had a lot on your mind. I didn’t want to burden you with other thoughts. I’ve been thinking of creating a more formal organization for telepaths. Membership would only be extended to those who were willing to be part of our network. It’s like the idea I had of forming a company that would provide psychic consultations. Everyone’s gift within our network is stronger than those outside our network. We would be generating an income and could hire a security detail for protection. Now that Jeremy may have the ability to allow non-telepaths to join our network, the security we hire could become members and their abilities to protect us would be greatly enhanced. Our organization could make a lot of money. We have some talents with strong lucrative potential. We could beat Psi-Tech at its own game. We would gain media attention quickly and Psi-Tech would no longer dare to attack any of us or risk public exposure.”

Skylar, Emily, and Jeremy regarded her with stunned amazement. Julie noticed their expressions and took advantage of their silence to continue her argument.

“I’ve been cataloguing the psychics in our network. We have a couple of people with very powerful offensive capabilities. One member is a strong electrokinetic and another is a telekinetic like Jeremy. That’s already the potential for three security personnel with the natural ability to fend off attackers,” Julie said.

“It’s very risky,” Emily said. “If we all worked in an organization, that would be great but what about when we go home after work? We’d be walking targets.”

“We’d have to buy a large complex with enough room for living quarters,” Julie said.

“That’s crazy,” Skylar said. “Who’d want to do that?”

“People who want to be safe,” Julie said emphatically.

Her husband walked into the room and gauged everyone’s expressions before taking a seat next to her.

“Psi-Tech will continue to hunt down and kill any telepaths who aren’t protected,” Julie said. “It’s the only solution. I didn’t want to tell you about it until you saw the reality.”

“What do you mean?” Emily asked.

“Sooner or later, we’ll be the next telepaths on the Psi-Tech hit list. You have already been hunted but the others don’t really know what if feels like,” Julie said. “I’ve already got my business plan approved at the bank.”