The Elders (Mind Dimensions #4)(25)

A group of about a dozen people are approaching us, though they’re currently frozen in the Quiet.

“Some kind of welcoming committee?” George asks.

“That’s strange.” Kate frowns in their direction. “Why not just pull us in?”

“Let’s find out,” George says and walks over to his frozen self.

The sounds come back, and the three of us wait for the approaching people to reach us. They’re wearing the same grayish potato-sack garments as George. They all appear to be mostly in their mid-thirties, except for one older guy who might be fifty or so. Even with that guy, they all seem too young to be dubbed the Elders. Considering they’re walking barefoot, their pace is brisk.

“Martin,” George says when the people are within earshot, “to what do we owe this warm welcome?”

The balding, white-haired big man takes out a gun and unceremoniously aims it at me. A woman to his right also takes out a weapon and points it at me, and then another does the same and another, until finally, the entire crew is aiming weapons at me.

“I am sorry to interrupt your breakfast,” the guy—Martin—says. “We are here on the behest of the Elders.”





Chapter 8





“Before you get any ideas,” Martin says calmly, looking at me, “there are snipers hidden in the trees. You will be shot if you show us any hostility. Trying to Split to make anyone here Inert will be interpreted as hostile.”

Ignoring the hammering of my heart, I stay quiet while Kate just stands there, tapping her foot on the grass as though she’s bored.

George says, “Martin, this is overkill. With Kate beside him, our unarmed guest poses no threat.”

“You think I have nothing better to do than to be here?” Martin says. “I have my orders.”

What the hell is going on? George seems to understand what these people want, and their presence doesn’t seem to concern him, which is reassuring. So why am I being treated as though I’m dangerous?

Before I can analyze this further, I find myself about ten feet away from our belligerent hosts, who are now frozen in place. Someone pulled me into the Quiet, and I guess due to my recent training, I showed up at a random location farther away than normal.

I look at where my frozen body is. Kate and George are standing near their frozen selves. I must have been pulled in last.

I look at the new person on the scene as I close the distance.

The guy is only slightly older than me. Instead of the hippie outfit, he’s shirtless and dressed in a pair of swim trunks. He’s wearing a pair of those ‘barefoot’ shoes in lieu of actually walking barefoot, as everyone else seems to be doing. I’ve seen this specific brand of shoes, Vibram’s Five Fingers, on Bert’s feet the one and only time we ever went to the gym together during lunch.

It’s not the guy’s clothes or his lean muscular frame that catch my attention, though. It’s his eyes. As I approach him, I hold his gaze for a moment. His eyes make George’s seem like those of an infant’s.

“You must be Darren,” the strange guy says, his voice too melodious for his buff body.

“Hi,” I say unimaginatively.

“I noticed you Teleported when I pulled you in. That was unexpected.”

“I’m sure it was a knee-jerk reaction,” George says, giving me a look that says, Don’t worry, I’ll cover for you.

“I desperately hope what George says is true,” the guy says, “and that you’re not considering violence. They will shoot you if something happens to me. That wasn’t a bluff.”

“Darren,” Kate says, “this is Frederick, and I assure you he isn’t bluffing.”

“Great,” I say. “Nice to meet you, Fred. I wasn’t thinking of doing anything violent just yet. But keep threatening me, and we’ll see about the future.”

Kate cringes at my words. Maybe I could’ve been more diplomatic. I think Mira’s rubbed off on me. There goes my promise to be all charming.

To my surprise, Frederick doesn’t look mad. If anything, a subtle smile touches his weird eyes. After a pause, he says, “If I insist you call me Frederick, it will just make you want to call me Fred that much more. So please, call me Fred.”

“What are you, a shrink?” I ask.

My shrink, Liz, has never tried anything like this to deal with my love of pushing buttons. Grudgingly, I notice my desire to call him Fred has lessened. Then I decide to do it anyway; I bet he’s double-bluffing me.

“I wonder whether I was like you once,” Frederick says to no one in particular. “So carefree, almost a blank slate.”

“Are you high?” I look him over. “Is smoking grass part of the shtick? It sure would match these outfits.”

“Frederick is one of the Elders,” George says. “He really means it when he says he can’t remember the time when he was your age.”

“I know I look as though I’m your peer, but looks can be deceiving,” Frederick says. “For each day of Unencumbered existence, I receive at least a century of experience in the Mind Dimension.”

I’m not sure why, but I believe him. My head spins when I try to imagine it. A hundred years in a single day? I know it’s theoretically possible. I could, at any given moment, phase into the Quiet and, in theory, spend a long time there. By my last estimate, that time is at least twice my age, so forty-two years. Of course, I never reached the true limit of my Reach, so that time estimate could be anywhere from two to ten times greater. But let’s just go with forty years. I’ve been alive for twenty-one years, and it feels like a long time to have existed. What would I be like in forty years? I have no clue. What would someone be like after a hundred years? I have no idea either. But here’s the kicker: a century is a single day for this guy.