The Mind's Eye, page 3
“We’ll go to KFC,” Dexter said. Art didn’t bother to argue. “They do meal deals for soldiers from the front lines.”
“How respectful of them,” Art said, as they stepped into the building. “You’d better order and…”
He broke off. Coming into the KFC had been a mistake. There were over fifty people in the room, all broadcasting their thoughts and feelings into the air. Art’s head spun and, for a moment, he was on the verge of blacking out again. Dexter didn’t seem to notice, but Art knew…and fought hard to control his mind. It seemed impossible to prevent the thoughts slicing into his mind and tearing his world apart. If he couldn’t learn how to control the ability, he realised bitterly, he would have to live a secluded life. It was the only way he could have any peace.
And then he sensed it. It was another nexus of thoughts and feelings, but one brimming with hatred and deadly intent. His head snapped up and he started to look around, trying to locate the source of the hatred. His eyes settled on a local contractor, one wearing a suspiciously large local robe, who was pressing his way into the middle of the crowd. The anticipation in his mind sparked higher and Art realised, with a shudder of terrifying horror, what was about to happen. He drew his weapon with lightning-quick reflexes and pointed it directly at the contractor.
“Hands in the air,” he shouted. The contractor’s eyes opened wide with anger and then his hands snapped down towards his belt. Art didn’t hesitate. He fired twice, putting two shots right through the man’s head. As his body collapsed to the ground, the robe tore, revealing a suicide belt. Dexter dropped the chicken nuggets on the ground and dived for the bomb, disarming it before it could explode. Art, his mind reeling from the sense of death, stumbled and fell towards the ground.
The MPs arrived and took control of the scene. Art wanted nothing more than to stumble away and think, but he found himself collared by one of the MPs. He was a bluff aggressive man; someone – Art guessed – who had been rejected by the front-line forces. The moment his skin touched Art’s, there was another burst of thoughts and feelings, but they were too jumbled up to make any sense.
“Good work, Marine,” the MP said. “How did you know?”
Art took a breath and confessed. “I read his mind.”
Chapter Three
…An attempted suicide bombing at Bagram Airfield was foiled by the quick reactions of a Marine Lieutenant who had been repatriated to the airfield to recuperate after being injured while on active duty. The bomber was a man who bribed his way onto the base’s workforce and smuggled a suicide belt into the base over the preceding week. The bomber was killed and no one else was hurt.
-AP News Report, 2015
He wasn’t formally under arrest, but it felt very much like prison.
Art looked around the small apartment for what felt like the thousandth time and tried to relax. The MPs hadn’t believed him, of course, so he’d demonstrated his ability to their leader. Their leader had taken him to the base CO, who also hadn’t believed him, but had handed him over to the local CIA officer once Art had finally managed to convince him. The CIA officer, whose mind had lit up with a curious mixture of anticipation and fear, had ordered Art transported home by the shortest possible route. That had turned out to be one of the CIA’s classified rendition flights, which had also been transporting several prisoners the Marines had taken in their recent raids. Art had stayed away from the prisoners – the hatred radiating from their minds had poisoned the atmosphere around them – and tried to sleep. It hadn’t come easily.
He rubbed his rear as he picked up the book and tried to concentrate on it. After arriving in the United States, he’d been transported further inland, towards what he was starting to suspect was a secret CIA installation. In hindsight, it seemed very likely that the CIA would want to make use of a telepath, if they actually managed to get their hands on him. He had found himself seriously considering trying to break out and escape – the CIA might just want to dissect him, just to find out what made his telepathy work – but a quick check had revealed that the door was not only locked, but secure. There was no other way out of the apartment.
The one blessing, as far as he was concerned, was that he was alone. He’d tried hard, but he hadn’t been able to shut down his telepathy; the best he could do was reduce the static that blared through his mind every time someone came close to him. There was no background noise now, thankfully; he couldn’t even sense someone on the other side of the door. He suspected that he was being observed through hidden cameras – he’d searched the apartment on general principles, but found nothing – and he was tempted to do something unspeakably rude just to upset the watchers. Instead, he forced himself to read another chapter of his book. The CIA officer back at the airfield had given him a box of paperbacks a publisher had sent out for the troops, although Art wasn’t sure if they were a gift or a loan. He shook his head at the thought. The books had been sent out to the troops in the field and he’d send them back to the Marines when he had a chance.
They’d taken his watch when he’d entered the compound, along with his cell phone and holstered pistol, but Art had always had a good time sense. He’d been in the apartment for over four hours, just waiting for the CIA to decide what to do with him. Irritated, he looked over at the bed and shower, something that struck him as almost sinfully luxurious after the harsh conditions of Afghanistan. Perhaps he’d take a nap – all soldiers learned to sleep when they had a chance – and wait for something to happen. He wasn’t in any physical danger, or so he told himself. Unfortunately, the paranoid part of his mind refused to believe him.
***
Alice Spencer looked down at the file in front of her and then up at the computer screen, which was showing the live feed from the hidden camera in the observation suite. Lieutenant Russell could hardly be described as handsome, she decided after a moment, not after his face had been rearranged during a bout at Parris Island. On the other hand, there was a certain rugged charm in his features and her last boyfriend, an over-paid pretty boy, had cheated on her twice and then run off with one of her girlfriends. There was something to be said for a man who wasn’t full of himself.
She looked back down at the file and shook her head slowly. Alice had no direct military experience – she’d only graduated from training a year ago and had been assigned to Project Looking Glass because she’d come in near the bottom of the class – but the file was very impressive. Lieutenant Russell had joined the Marines as an enlisted man – whatever that meant – and had been at the top of his class at Parris Island. Deployed to Iraq as part of the Surge, he’d been commended for heroism in the face of the enemy three times and reprimanded for being insubordinate once. The Marine Corps hadn’t worried about the latter; he’d been encouraged to become a commissioned officer after taking command of a mixed platoon when the senior officer had been badly wounded during a battle in downtown Baghdad. The Marine Corps would be sorry to lose him.
It probably wouldn’t matter anyway, she knew. The really interesting part, at least as far as she was concerned, was that Lieutenant Russell had scored highly on the Zeller Test, a test that was administered to everyone who joined the United States Armed Forces, regardless of the branch. He should have been recruited for Project Looking Glass instead of being allowed to deploy, but apparently he’d turned down the offer of stateside duty and his superiors had backed him up. And now he’d turned into a telepath. Alice felt the first stirrings of genuine excitement as she read through the report that the officer in Afghanistan had hastily cobbled together. The CIA had always had its doubts about the Zeller Test, yet it couldn’t be a coincidence that a person who’d scored highly on the test had turned into a telepath. The test had been designed to measure psychic powers, after all.
“Psychic potential,” her superiors had said, when she’d been assigned to Project Looking Glass. Looking Glass was a tiny operation within the CIA, not least because Congress refused to fund it openly, fearing that they would be turned into a laughing stock. Some results had been interesting and terrifying; more often, the project seemed to be permanently on the verge of failure. “A person who scores highly on the test may never develop anything we can actually use.”
Alice sucked in her breath as she stood up, knowing that she was procrastinating. Her superiors had been quite clear as to why it was her, rather than someone more experienced, who would be conducting the first interviews. Alice was new and her only CIA duties had been with Looking Glass. She knew nothing a telepath could extract from her mind. The thought was unpleasant. Like all CIA employees, Alice had been through the verification process – she’d been hooked up to a lie detector and shot full of truth drugs, leaving her sick for hours afterwards – but this was different. Lieutenant Russell could look into her mind. She might have known nothing of interest to an enemy intelligence service, yet she had plenty of embarrassing secrets ...
Taking a breath, she strode towards the door before she lost her nerve completely.
***
Art looked up sharply as the door clicked open, revealing a young woman wearing a casual suit. She had long blonde hair, tied back in a ponytail, and a face that was pretty, rather than beautiful. He didn’t need any telepathy to sense her apprehension; in some ways, she was acting rather like a newcomer to a unit rather than an experienced professional. He couldn’t help but notice how she’d pulled her shirt tighter than it really needed to be, revealing high firm breasts and wide hips. It struck him, a moment later, why she’d dressed in such a manner. She wanted to be both business-like and attractive. His telepathy reached out towards her, but he held it back. He didn’t want to go crawling through her mind.
“Good afternoon,” the girl said. She had a warm voice, one that would have been seductive if she hadn’t sounded so nervous. Art found himself liking her on sight, even though she looked almost as if she was still growing into womanhood. “I’m the CIA officer assigned to your case.”
The emotions underlying her words were complex, too complex for Art to pick apart quickly. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. He held out a hand and she took it. He was instantly aware of her, of the flickering emotions running through her mind. Her handshake was firm, but she didn’t keep the contact open any longer than she had to. “What are you going to do now?”
“Answer me a question first,” the girl said. “What is my name?”
Art blinked, and then understood the test. He reached out with his mind and sensed a name bubbling on top of her mind. It felt right. “Alice,” he said. Her face seemed to freeze with shock. “Your name is Alice Spencer.”
Alice swallowed, hard. “Yes,” she said, finally. “Welcome to Looking Glass, Lieutenant.”
“Hold on a minute,” Art said, quickly. Her emotions were shifting too quickly for him to follow easily, but she seemed to be frightened. “I haven’t agreed to do anything.”
“We...ah, the Company, the CIA, have had a research program into ESP ever since the start of the Cold War,” Alice said. Her emotions seemed to be quietening down as she spoke with increased confidence. “Looking Glass is merely the latest version of that project. As a telepath, we have arranged your transfer to detached duty with us...”
Art felt as if he had been punched in the gut. He should have expected it, he knew, yet it was still a shock. Somehow, he’d thought that there would be a few experiments, perhaps a few medical tests, and then he could head back to his unit and reassume command of the platoon. As a young enlisted man, he knew what he would have thought of any officer who deserted his men...and he felt as if he were deserting them, even though it hadn’t been his choice. Alice was watching him sympathetically, but Art ignored her. How could she understand what they’d done to him?
“Right,” he said, finally. “And how long do I have to wait until I return to my unit?”
He knew the answer before Alice could speak. “You cannot return to your unit,” Alice said, finally. There was genuine sympathy in her mind. “At the moment, Lieutenant, you represent a priceless asset – you are a priceless asset. We cannot simply throw you away and send you back to combat. You might be killed!”
“Occupational hazard,” Art said, dryly. “What makes me so special? Surely, if you have a research program into telepathy, you have more than one telepath.”
Alice started to answer and then stopped herself. “Read my mind,” she said, finally. Art, who could sense the feeling of violation flickering through her mind, shuddered inwardly. Her mind was raging up a storm again, a mixture of a desperate desire to test him thoroughly and fear of what he might find in her mind. “Why don’t you find the answer to your question yourself?”
Art looked at her for a long moment and then extended his mind again. This time, he found himself running into memories of attending a concert – he recognised Midgard Metal, a band that had been quite popular with some of the younger soldiers – as he slipped into her mind. Alice, he realised suddenly, was deliberately thinking of other memories and thoughts, trying to distract him and force him to pull out of her mind. That realisation allowed him to understand that thoughts alone weren’t enough; the emotional shading covering the thoughts was just as important. It seemed impossible to rifle through her mind as easily as one could use an internet search engine. Even a very young person would have hundreds of memories to use to distract him.
Her mind seemed to flare around him and he found himself sitting in a small classroom, where a tutor was lecturing a tiny group of students – no, prospective CIA officers for Looking Glass. As if the mere thought of the project’s classification was enough to draw the memories to his attention, he found himself suddenly swimming through her memories. Her tutor – staring at a man though a woman’s eyes was surprisingly disconcerting – hadn’t pulled any punches. The CIA had only a handful of people with ESP potential and none of them had been telepaths, at least not in the same sense that he was a telepath. The most advanced had been remote viewers, who tended to burn out quickly.
Art pulled out of his mind and sat back, surprised. “You don’t have any other telepaths?”
Alice looked equally surprised. “I couldn’t feel anything,” she admitted. Her words were shaded with undeniable truth. “I knew that you were peeking” – another flicker of violation blazed through her mind, sending a wave of guilt running through Art’s own mind – “but I couldn’t sense anything. What did you find out?”
“You like Midgard Metal,” Art said, with a wink. Alice laughed. “I know soldiers who’d be prepared to date you just for that.”
“I like to think that I bring other attributes to a relationship,” Alice said primly...and then burst into giggles. Art found himself chuckling; the sound of her giggles seemed to blow away all the uncomfortable tension in the room. “My girlfriends and I went to the concert a few years ago, where I met a boy who fucked me right in the stands while we were dancing...”
Art lifted an eyebrow. Her words had been shaded with falsehood. It wasn’t outright malice, as far as he could tell, but she was definitely lying and clearly testing him again. “You’re lying,” he said, with a wink. He couldn’t see the truth without looking into her mind, but he knew that she was lying. “What actually happened there?”
Alice grinned back. “You tell me,” she challenged. “What really happened there?”
Art gathered himself and peeked. A moment later, he felt a shocking rush of emotion as her memories opened up in front of him. For a moment, he teetered on the brink of blacking out, as memories that were uniquely female rose up and roared through his mind. Her first boyfriend had been a daring young man and had danced behind her, slipping up her skirt in the semi-darkness and slipping into her, all the while concealing his activity from everyone else. He was suddenly aware that his penis had swelled and grown hard...
“Art,” Alice was saying. His mind was swimming and it was hard to pull his mind back together. “Art...Lieutenant...are you all right?”
“Just dazed,” he said, shaking his head. At least it didn’t hurt. For a few seconds, he had been female, at least in his mind. The intensity of the emotions had overwhelmed him. “You went with your boyfriend and...”
He found himself smiling at the memory. “Brave bastard,” he said, finally. “What happened to him?”
“He wanted to have a foursome with me, one of my girlfriends and a boy he knew,” Alice said, reluctantly. “I said no and he dumped me.” She shrugged. “I was on the verge of leaving him anyway. He had too many weird demands.”
Art flushed at the emotions that echoed in her words. The young Marines had shared tales about women they’d known openly, including some very strange stories; he’d always suspected that most of them were lies. He’d bullshitted a few times himself back in the barracks, telling stories that sounded as if they came out of Penthouse Letters or Playboy. Perhaps some of the stories had been true after all.
Alice cleared her throat and changed the subject. “What else can you do?” she asked. “Can you pick something up with the power of your mind?”
It had honestly never occurred to Art to try. He pulled a pen out of his pocket, placed it on the table and stared at it, willing it to rise. His eyes felt as if they were going to pop out of his head with the effort, but the pen adamantly refused to move. He concentrated hard, and then tried to defuse his concentration, yet nothing happened. Finally, he gave up and returned the pen to his pocket.
“No,” he said, finally.
Alice nodded. “There were some odd results back in the past,” she said, finally. There was something in her voice that warned him not to push the issue, at least not at once. He could have pulled it out of her mind, yet...that would have left him feeling like a peeping tom. “The Russians claimed to have made staggering advances in mental science. We never managed to acquire any hard data.”
