The Mind's Eye, page 9
“Of course, of course,” Zeller said. He smiled as he passed her the first set of cards. “Shall we play a game or two first to lighten the mood, or should we get straight on with the program?”
Elizabeth hesitated, and then nodded. She hadn’t played Snap since she’d been a little girl, but playing with Professor Zeller was surprisingly fun – and challenging. The professor had no sense of chivalry when it came to playing games and never let her win. It was an attitude she wished, sometimes, that her boyfriend shared. Ron would take her bowling, or playing pool, and then throw the game, allowing her to win easily. It just wasn’t challenging.
The Professor dealt out the cards and chattered away about nothing as he sorted them out into two piles. He’d actually altered the rules of the game slightly, providing no less than four different ways of calling snap, although Elizabeth wasn’t sure if it added anything to the game. She tried to push the headache to the back of her mind as she bent over her cards, watching as he placed his first card down gently, but it refused to fade. It only grew stronger as she put down her own cards, watching carefully for the first matched set. The shout, when it finally came, was loud enough to send new shivers of pain through her head.
“I win,” Professor Zeller said. Elizabeth was tempted to remind him that she had a headache and therefore couldn’t be expected to win, yet such excuses never worked with Zeller. He’d pointed out, to one of his other students, that life not only wasn’t fair, but also never gave second chances. One couldn’t expect to come back from the grave just because one had had a headache when crossing the road and therefore missed the bus barrelling towards a fatal impact. “Shall we move on to the other tests now?”
Elizabeth rubbed her forehead, hoping that the pain would fade soon. “All right,” she said. A sudden stab of pain through her head made her feel as if she was going to be sick, all of a sudden. “Let’s get on with it.”
Professor Zeller brought out the big table and waved for her to sit in one of the chairs. There was no way to see what his hands were doing on the other side, or the cards he was studying, forcing her to try to guess at what card was in his hand. The test confused her at times, but then...it was his money and it sure beat flipping burgers for a living, or selling her body on the streets.
“So tell me,” he said, after a moment. “What card am I holding?”
Elizabeth took a wild guess. “The four of hearts,” she said. She allowed some of her anger and pain to slip into her voice. “What card are you holding?”
Professor Zeller didn’t answer, but then he never did. They ran through all fifty-two cards, the Professor keeping score on a sheet of paper, and then repeated the process, by which time Elizabeth’s headache had grown to alarming proportions. She found herself slurring the words, her vision fading in and out ... and he barely caught her before she slid off her chair and hit the floor. For a moment, she was sure that she had blacked out, as she awoke lying on the couch, a nervous face peering down at her.
“You fainted for a moment,” the Professor said. Somehow, she didn’t doubt his words. “How are you feeling now?”
Elizabeth stared up at him. The pain in her head had faded away, but it had been replaced by an odd background noise, like millions of voices murmuring away just quietly enough to be heard yet too low for her to pick out individual words. She tried to stand up and discovered that her legs were threatening to fail her. It took two tries before she managed to stand upright and push away his helping hand.
“Tired,” she said, honestly. She hadn’t felt so tired since she’d run a marathon for charity back at school, back when she hadn’t been able to wait to go to college. How long ago that seemed now. “Can I...would you mind if we finished the tests another day?”
Zeller gave her a calculating look, and then nodded once, shortly. “I dare say that we can pick up again next week,” he said. He frowned to himself. “You can always come again tomorrow to complete the tests, or...”
He shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “You’ll get the payment for this set of tests anyway, without worrying about the rest of the tests we should have conducted. You have a nice evening and don’t worry about a thing.”
“Thanks,” Elizabeth said, giving him a quick hug. The Professor was nicer than he had to be, but then he could afford it. If she’d been working in a burger bar, she would probably have been sacked for daring to suggest that she needed time off work, if only to recover from a headache. “I’ll see you soon, all right?”
She was smiling as she ran down the stairs and out into the open air. It was summer and so there were hundreds of students enjoying the warm air. Harvard University – her father kept muttering about the People’s Republic of Massachusetts whenever she asked for an additional loan – wasn’t a bad place to study, but it did have its problems. One of them was the fact that it cost far too much – her parents were paying most of it – and that degrees counted for less and less these days. At least Harvard had a good reputation still; several of her friends from school had had to go to inferior colleges and wouldn’t be able to find a high-paying job when they graduated.
The walk back to her student housing took only a few minutes normally, but this time it took longer, much longer. The noise in her head had grown louder the moment she stepped outside, as if it was ringing in her ears. She scratched at her ears in the hope that the sound would fade away, but it remained there, mocking her. Her legs kept shaking and it took an effort of will to keep walking back to her flat, one shared with four other students. It wasn’t a bad arrangement, even if they were living in each other’s pockets. She envied the students whose parents obtained houses and even single flats for their use. They were the luckiest people on campus.
Her head was spinning when she reached the flat and it took several tries to remember her PIN code to get through the security gate and enter the lobby. Oddly, the sound at the back of her head faded away the moment the gate was closed behind her, falling back to a background murmur. She was alone. Puzzled, but grateful, Elizabeth took the stairs two at a time and ran into her flat. As she had hoped, her roommates were all out, allowing her to make herself a cup of coffee and settle down in front of the television. She had intended to take a short nap before her boyfriend arrived, but she ended up being shaken awake by one of her roommates.
“Your boyfriend is here,” Lilly said. Elizabeth almost fainted again. Lilly’s words were calm and dispassionate, but she sensed an outpouring of emotion behind them. She had known that Lilly didn’t like Ron, yet she hadn’t realised just how much scorn lay behind her feelings. The background noise seemed to be growing louder. “Can I kick him out or should I send him in to see you?”
Elizabeth felt her head spinning. “Please show him in,” she said, grandly. Lilly made a face at her and headed back to the door. By agreement, the roommates weren’t allowed to show anyone in without the permission of the person they’d come to visit. It was a safety issue more than anything else. A university campus wasn’t always the safest place in the world. “I may not look my best, but...”
She’d liked Ron from the moment she’d seen him on the football field. He was tall, beefy and handsome, even though Lilly had told her that there was nothing between his ears. She suspected that Lilly had dated Ron at one point and the relationship had ended badly. It wasn’t something she could hold against either of them. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had any relationships before she’d started dating Ron. She looked up, smiled at his red hair, met his eyes...and knew. Elizabeth couldn’t have said how she knew, or what told her the truth, but she knew to the deepest fibre of her being that he was cheating on her. She stared at his face, looking for the lipstick she was sure was there, yet she saw nothing. It was all she could do not to scream in rage and frustration. She’d been looking forward to their night out, damn it!
“Ron,” she said. Her voice was shaking and she had to swallow hard before she could speak again. It was more of an effort than she had expected and she wondered, dimly, if she had suffered a stroke. “Why did you cheat on me?”
He was staring at her in complete disbelief, but answers roared into her head, somehow. She saw a dark-skinned girl with brown eyes and large breasts, someone who was willing to do something for him that she had refused to consider. Memories – Ron’s memories – flared through her mind. The girl and he had kissed, and made love, and done everything together ... while she’d thought that he was in love with her. Elizabeth felt hot anger boiling through her mind and tried to stand up, intent on murder. How dare he treat her in such a manner? She wanted to kill him.
“I didn’t cheat on you,” Ron said. It would have been convincing if every word hadn’t dripped with insincerity. His thoughts were spinning madly through her head. He was thinking that he could charm her back into his bed, perhaps for just one more time, perhaps forever ... and she’d forget about the other girl. “Who’s been telling lies to you?”
“They’re not lies,” Elizabeth ground out. The boiling rage in her mind was making it hard to think. “Who is she?”
A name flashed through her mind. Janelle. Ron’s memories of her were tinged with lust and admiration; lovely breasts, long dark legs and skilful lips. Elizabeth shuddered as the memories played out in her mind. Her mother had told her that all men were animals. She hadn’t realised that her mother had meant it literally.
“But there is no other girl,” Ron pleaded. Elizabeth knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was lying. He reached out a hand for her and she pushed him back. “Elizabeth, I love you...”
He reached out for her again and this time bare skin touched bare skin. Elizabeth screamed as more memories roared into her mind, each one stronger than the last. She was barely aware of Lilly running back into the room, followed by Gayle – another flatmate – and her boyfriend. Ron’s life was pouring into her. She saw his earliest memories, his first kiss, his first sexual experience ... everything. Lilly had been right. Ron was a bastard who had hurt too many people for his own amusement.
But what was happening to her?
“Get out,” she said, as Ron let go of her. Impossible as it seemed, the more people there were in the room, the louder the noise in her head. What was happening to her? “Just get out! I never want to see you again, you...”
Ron looked as if he wanted to say something sharp and cutting – she heard it in her head before he could speak – but Gayle’s boyfriend took him by the arm and pushed him towards the door. Ron was a bigger boy, yet he offered no resistance. He seemed to be in shock. Elizabeth shouted after him, in anger, that she would speak to Janelle and then he would have neither of them, feeling his shock blasting through her mind. She could see the question – how the hell had she known – blaring through his mind...
Understanding clicked. She had read his mind.
Lilly touched her skin gently and Elizabeth recoiled as Lilly’s memories flared through her mind. She had never realised how desperately lonely her friend was, although she was amused to realise that Lilly had never dated Ron. She had thought that she’d seen Lilly in Ron’s memories...what was happening to her? What had she become that she was willing to probe her friend’s mind? A thought occurred to her and she smiled. She could ask the lectures what questions they intended to use in the exams and study for them, once she’d read the answers out of their minds. And, perhaps, she could check any future boyfriend to avoid dating another cheating asshole.
“Elizabeth,” Lilly was saying. In Elizabeth’s dazed state, it was hard to separate what her friend was saying from what she was thinking. She fought to overcome the confusion in her mind, but every time she managed to control it the background noise rose up and overwhelmed her. It dawned on her that the background noise was the massed thoughts of everyone within range. “Do you need a doctor?”
“No,” Elizabeth said, flatly. She knew who she had to take it to, the only person who might believe her and be able to help. She’d wondered why Professor Zeller had chosen her for his experiments – none of the explanations seemed to fit – but now she understood why. “I need you to help me get back to Professor Zeller.”
Lilly frowned. “You really ought to rest,” she said. She didn’t understand what was going on, for which Elizabeth was eternally grateful. She knew how she would have reacted if Lilly had told her that she could read her mind and she suspected that her friend would react in the same way. Her little brother’s friend had once peeked on her while she was changing and she’d kicked the little asshole so hard that he’d gone home bruised. Her mother had understood even if her father had given her a lecture on holding her temper under control. “I can get you a drink and...”
“No,” Elizabeth said, again. Now that Ron was gone, it was easier – somehow – to stand up. Perhaps with practice she would be able to block out the feeling – the thoughts of everyone within range – completely. Professor Zeller had been teaching her mental exercises and one of them, at least, came in handy for the situation. It was weird. Had he known, in advance, what was going to happen? “Please ... help me get back to the Professor.”
Chapter Ten
The reports that telepaths have been used in military and intelligence operations have been impossible to prove and have therefore been relegated to the same level as UFOs and ghostly encounters...
-AP News Report, 2015
Roger Erickson silently cursed his superiors under his breath as he made his way up the stairs to Professor Zeller’s study. Sending him here was probably their idea of a joke. It wasn’t his fault that the last interview he’d undertaken had turned out so disastrously; after all, no one had warned him that the interviewee was so difficult to interview. He’d been told – after the fact – that he should have watched her prior interviews, but then it had been far too late. The disaster had turned him into the laughing stock of the newsroom and while the union had kept his superiors from firing him, they hadn’t been able to help him to maintain his position. Instead, he got all of the shit jobs, including interviewing a professor whose only real claim to fame was once having worked for the CIA.
It wasn’t, in Roger’s view, a particularly good item to have on one’s CV. He’d checked, of course, with Head Officer and he’d been assured that Professor Zeller’s ex-CIA qualifications were impeccable, even if he had left the CIA ten years ago. The details hadn’t been clear on just how willingly he’d left the organisation, but – this time – Roger had taken the precaution of skimming through three of the professor’s published books and he was starting to think that Zeller had been sacked for delusions of grandeur. Or perhaps he’d developed them after he’d retired. He would hardly be the first ex-CIA officer to publish largely fictitious memoirs and retire on the proceeds.
Harvard University clearly didn’t think that much of Zeller either. There was no clear explanation as to why Zeller was allowed to live and work at the university, although there was a vague suggestion that he’d actually donated a sizable part of the family legacy to the college It would have explained quite a few things about him, not least the fact that he didn’t seem to have any official duties or responsibilities. The most strenuous thing he’d done for his official employers had been to give a lecture on the CIA from time to time. He had no secretary, no young intern or even a modern office. They’d given him an office that probably served as his apartment as well.
He knocked on the door and it opened, revealing a comfortable lounge with a pair of sofas and a single comfortable chair – and a roaring fire in the grate. It was a warm day outside so he was surprised to see the fire, unless it was meant to make him feel comfortable. There were three people in the room; an elderly gentleman he assumed was Professor Zeller, a younger Indian man and a brown-haired student. He gave her a quick once-over, wondering absently what she would be like in bed, and was surprised when she flushed dark red. Her clothing was surprisingly conservative for a university student.
“Thank you for coming,” Professor Zeller said. “This is Kareem Ganchi, my legal representative and Elizabeth Tyler, one of my students.”
Roger eyed Ganchi with new respect. Ganchi had been involved in several legal trials that Roger had covered, back before his fall from grace, and had won them all. He tended to take on cases involving civil liberties and was a known opponent of the Patriot Act, even taking on cases without pay if he felt that human rights were being violated. It hadn’t made him popular in all places, but it was an impressive history. He was also known for winning vast damages from various corporations for all kinds of misconduct.
“Charmed,” Roger said, slowly. He’d assumed that Zeller had intended to waste his time – or his superiors had intended to send him on a wild goose chase – but he doubted it if a lawyer was involved. “Might I ask what is going on here?”
Zeller smiled. “What do you think is going on here?”
Roger scowled at him. His tolerance for games was limited. He saw the girl – Elizabeth – cringe back as he looked at her, something that puzzled him. Unless ... had she been raped and they intended to blame it on him? No, that couldn’t be the answer. Proving his innocence would be simple enough and then three careers would be ruined. His uncertainty made him disinclined to try to guess.
“I don’t know,” he said, finally. “What is going on here?”
Zeller indicated the girl with a wave of his hand. “After ten years of trying, my experiments have finally produced a result,” he said. “Yesterday, Elizabeth developed telepathic powers. You’re looking at the first human telepath to come into existence.”
Roger’s first inclination was to laugh. Back when he’d been a very junior reporter, he’d been sent to report on mediums and magicians and all kinds of confidence tricksters – people who, by and large, had fooled people who wanted to be fooled. It didn’t take much effort to come up with a convincing trick, one that might even stand up to careful scrutiny. But then...what if?
