The Enlightened (Mind Dimensions #3)(30)

“Let me guess,” he says excitedly. “You and Mira are getting married?”

“What?” I say, taken off-guard. “When I said it was crazy, I didn’t mean it that literally. I meant in the sense that you’ll think I’m crazy, which I guess I would be if I were getting married—”

“So out with it then.”

I draw in a deep breath, unsure how to proceed. “You know how I sort of know things sometimes? Things I shouldn’t know?”

“Sometimes?” Bert snorts. “You mean all the time, don’t you?”

“Yes, well, there’s an explanation for how I do this stuff, but it’s hard to believe,” I say.

“And you’re going to take as long as you can, building it up before you tell me, aren’t you? Because you’re sadistic like that.”

“Fine. Here goes. I can stop time. Sort of.”

“Huh?” Bert looks at me like I grew a second head. “What?”

“I can make it so that the world is frozen, and I can walk around and look at things that I otherwise wouldn’t be allowed to see. And more importantly, I can do this without people knowing, since they’re frozen in time.”

“You’re right. That does sound crazy.”

“I know, which is why I’ll prove it to you,” I say.

I walk over to a store redundantly called Books & Books, with Bert following behind.

“There’s no way you can prove something like that to me,” Bert says. “But I’m curious to see how you’d even try.”

“I can and I will,” I say. “And if this doesn’t work, there’s some even crazier stuff I plan on telling you about, which, ironically, might be easier to prove.”

“Crazier? Like you’re the Napoleon, or Mother Teresa maybe?”

“Just play along.” I buy a pad of paper and pencil and hand it to Bert. “Here. Write something I wouldn’t have any idea about and then put the paper, or even the entire pad if you want, in your pocket. I’ll turn around.”

“This is stupid,” Bert mumbles, but I hear the sound of pencil on paper.

“Don’t write so loudly. I don’t want you to think I deduced what you wrote by the sound of the pencil,” I say. “Let me know when you’re done.”

“Done,” he says.

I phase into the Quiet, walk over to frozen Bert, and gingerly reach into his pocket, trying not to touch anything other than the paper. I take out his note and read it: 42. I walk over to my body and phase out.

“Very funny,” I say without turning around. “You wrote forty-two, the answer to life, the universe, and everything.”

“Oh, that’s a good one,” Bert says. “Even better than the card thing you do. But that whole patter about stopping time—”

“This wasn’t a f*cking magic trick,” I say, turning around. “Nor was the card thing, actually, but—”

“Oh, come on. If you know me well enough—and you do—you could’ve just guessed.”

“You know what? I’ll move on to something that might sound harder to believe, but will be easier for me to prove. I’ll read your mind.”

Before Bert can say anything skeptical, I phase out again. I walk up to him and put my hand on his forehead. Then I even out my breathing. I didn’t realize how annoyed I was by failing to convince him, or by his stubbornness. The Coherence state comes very quickly and with it, entry into Bert’s mind. As I fall in, I make sure to fall deep. Best to learn something that happened before we met, or else he’ll just say I have a good memory and keen observational skills.





*





We’re sitting alone at a dingy, gray cafeteria table, looking at the big greasy clock hanging on the white wall. Another half hour before the bell rings, signaling the end of our lunch break. Our bladder will explode if we wait that long, so we decide, unfortunately, to go to the dreaded bathroom.

We get up and walk, doing our best not to drag our feet. All the while, we mentally curse the principal or whoever came up with the idea of not letting kids out of the cafeteria during lunch.

Maybe it’ll be okay today, we think as we walk. It doesn’t happen all the time. Just sometimes. And besides, at least we already had our lunch.

We open the door and see a shadow. Our heart sinks, and we back out of the room. Hands grab our shirt and pull us in.

Fuck. It’s him.

Roger.

“You know the drill, Dookie,” Roger says. “Give me the cash.”

Rationally, we know the guy is not as giant as he seems. But at five-eleven and one-hundred-and-eighty pounds, he seems truly enormous to us, whose weight is only in the double digits.

“I’ve spent it,” we say, trying to keep our voice steady.

Roger’s response comes in the form of a punch to our stomach. Air escapes our lungs, and we fall to the floor, glad about one thing—we didn’t empty our bladder.

He goes through our pockets and finds the leftover five bucks from our lunch. He usually takes the ten Mom gives us.

“Tomorrow, you owe me double,” the guy says and spits on the floor, missing us by a hair.

To keep from crying, we run some numbers through our head. He’s taken a total of $465 from us. Some part of our mind is keeping count. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll get every dollar back. Maybe with interest.