The Elders (Mind Dimensions #4)(48)

Again I know his words are truthful, and this time, I attempt to figure out why I’m so certain of that. Then it hits me: it’s the emotions. Our emotions seep through with every word. In this strange state, we’ve become empaths. When you can feel someone’s true emotions, figuring out whether they’re telling the truth is easy. It follows the same principles as a lie detector. If Frederick lies, his emotions will betray it. Unlike real lie-detecting machines, which can be duped, this doesn’t have any loopholes that I can think of.

“So you’re going to ask me stuff?” I project. “And based on my emotions, you’ll know if I’m telling the truth?”

“You’re a quick study,” he projects, his emotions validating his sincerity. “Indeed, that’s the plan.”

“Okay then, but I also want to ask you a few things.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he responds.

“Did you make my friends attack me?”

“What?” His response is associated with genuine befuddlement.

“Mira, my girlfriend, and Thomas, my adoptive brother,” I clarify. “Did you Guide them to attack me at Kyle Grant’s funeral?”

“I did not,” he projects, and I know he’s telling the truth, but there’s also deep confusion in his reply, as I would expect from someone who knows nothing about the attack. “Can I ask my follow-up question now?”

“Go.”

“Did you ever intend to harm us, the Elders?” This is accompanied by hope.

“No.”

“You’re lying.” Fear and anger permeate the thought. The weird sensation of being gobbled up begins anew, giving me a very bad feeling.

“Let me explain,” I quickly project. “I didn’t intend to harm the Elders per se. As a group, I like you guys. I simply expected to discover that one of you tried to hurt me by using those close to me. I would harm that person if I could.”

“That is the truth,” he replies, and the pressure of the mental violence subsides. “I accept this.”

What the hell did he just do to me? I could ask him, but I’d be wasting a question, and I have something more important I need to ask, something that, if he confirms it, will remove a huge number of people from my list of suspects. Besides, I instinctively know what he did. He tried to ‘envelop’ me—what I’d do if I wanted to Read someone.

“Do the Elders really never leave the Island?” I ask.

“Never.”

“But—”

“It’s my turn,” his projection intrudes.

“You’re right. Go.”

“Will you unite our people once you’re done with your short-term trivia? Do you want Guides and Readers to have peace?”

Ignoring the insult of calling the kidnapping of my friends and family ‘short-term trivia,’ I think about his question. This is the first time I’ve genuinely considered it. Hillary once said that as a hybrid, I embody a shift in the age-long hostilities and could make a difference. She thinks someone like me could change the usual tribal thinking that’s so prevalent in the Pusher versus Leacher strife, since within me, the tribes are united. I never gave her words much thought because I didn’t have to, but I consider them now, and I don’t see anything but good things coming from such a peace.

“In theory, I would like to see the problems between Guides and Readers go away,” I project. “I want peace, but I don’t want to be killed in the process.”

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” he says. “Now we can—”

“How do I get back into Nirvana?” I project. “That’s my next question.”

“Just because I have to tell the truth doesn’t mean I will answer every question you ask.” His projected thought is mixed with feelings of amusement and slight annoyance.

“I will pick and choose which of your questions to answer then,” I reply.

“It’s not necessary. I was saying that we don’t need to continue with this Assimilation. Let’s slowly disengage.”

As his words register, so does a shift in the arrangement of our patterns. The foreign tension of the Assimilation eases slightly, but doesn’t go away.

He seems to be waiting for me to do something. I try to let go of his pattern, to get away.

The tension eases further.

After repeating the same process a few times, we disengage and I can once again ‘see’ his pattern ‘in the distance.’ He’s absorbing his static pattern, and soon after, I’m back in the Quiet, in my physical body.





*





For a few moments, all the sensory input disorients me.

“That was something else,” I say to Frederick, and it feels great to be saying things out loud, with my voice echoing off the room’s walls.

He nods. “It’s something few people ever get to experience.”

“How did you manage to have us come back here?” I ask, realizing this is the second time his Nirvana-phasing worked differently from mine. “How come we didn’t end up in the real world?”

“It’s part of those Nirvana arts you’ll learn if you come back and accept the offer we’ve made.” He gives me a smug wink.