The Enlightened (Mind Dimensions #3)(57)

“I bet that was also your plan for the police department,” Thomas says, and I shrug.

“It’s a good strategy when dealing with people like us.”

“It is, but the devil’s in the details,” he says as he takes an exit off the highway. “Do you have experience securing a public place such as a conference? Are you sure you can manage to kill a seasoned cop?”

“I don’t have experience in securing anything,” I admit. ”Though I can fight, thanks to my training with Caleb.”

“Still, you must see the wisdom in working with someone who has experience in securing—”

“Someone from the Secret Service, perhaps?” I see where he’s going with this from a mile away. “You don’t need to sell me on you joining this operation. It’s why I called you in the first place.”

“Ah,” he says. “I thought you were so overcome with revenge that you wanted to carry out this mission on your own.”

“No,” I say. “As tempting as it is, I’m not crazy. I’m more interested in the practicality of getting this done.”

“Good. Because if you were to pull a ‘Mira’ on me—”

“I won’t be a liability,” I say grimly.

“Then this has a good chance of succeeding,” Thomas says, turning onto Broadway.

During the rest of the way to Columbia University, Thomas gives me the bare bones of how he’d go about doing what we need to do. As he speaks, I understand how lucky I am to have him with me.

“Do we do the disguise thing first, or the reconnaissance?” I ask once he’s parked the car.

“Recon,” he says. “Pull me in.”

I phase in and bring Thomas in with me. We walk briskly, and I only vaguely register the surrounding campus. I conclude we had much nicer trees at Harvard.

“This could get messy,” Thomas says when we enter our destination, a giant conference hall. “I was hoping there’d be fewer people since the conference hasn’t started yet.”

“The conference keynote speaker must be someone famous.”

“Some guy named Craig Venter, according to your friend’s printout.”

“Some guy?” I say. “That’s the synthetic genome guy. No wonder the place is packed.”

“We’ll just have to deal with it,” Thomas says, confidently making his way through the crowd of mannequin-like scientists gathered at the hall’s entrance.

“The two pathways are bad,” he says as he looks around. “We’ll have to cover both of them.” He’s referring to the fact that this hall has three sections of seats broken up by two walkthroughs, like a movie theater. Both paths lead all the way to the large stage. Both have frozen people on their way to their seats and can be used as a way out of the room.

“We’ll have to split up,” I say. “I’ll take the left pathway.”

“Yes, but before we decide which one you’ll take, let’s see where Kyle is. You should take whichever path he’s least likely to use.”

I can’t tell whether Thomas is testing me to see if I’ll go ‘Mira’ on his ass. If I say what I really feel—that Kyle is mine and that I want to choke him with my bare hands—I have a feeling Thomas will pull out of the mission. So I force myself to nod in agreement, mumbling, “That’s logical, Thomas, sure.”

I follow him as he starts combing through the crowd. As I look at all the innocent people, I’m glad I’m here to stop the slaughter. I was so focused on my revenge that I didn’t think about any other aspect of Kyle’s plan, such as Kyle deciding to cover his tracks with mass murder. I wonder how many shootings in the past were the byproducts of Pushers like Kyle. When we spoke earlier, Bert was about to spout that as his latest conspiracy theory. I should probably listen to my friend’s theories more carefully in the future, since he might well be right about this one. I had never been able to imagine how someone could wake up one day and decide to shoot a group of strangers. It’s just unfathomable to me. Now I’m wondering whether those shooters might’ve been compelled by someone with Guiding powers and a more rational—in a psychopathic kind of way—purpose.

“I located all our suspects and targets—everyone but Kyle,” Thomas says, interrupting my musings. What he says is so incomprehensible that I just stare at him for a second. Could he really be joking at a time like this? He looks completely serious.

“You know where all those people are?” I clarify. “The mafia, the crazy guy who’s going to take the fall, and all the scientists?”

“Yes,” he says and jumps onto the stage. “There, there, and there.”

Even as he points, I have a hard time locating them in the crowd. I’ve never been as impressed with Secret Service training as I am now. Maybe I should do a stint in some elite force, like Thomas and Caleb have. For the first time in my life, such an idea doesn’t sound completely crazy.

“We’ll deal with them after we’ve located our primary target,” Thomas says.

It takes Thomas a few more minutes to find said target.

The painfully familiar figure is standing furtively near the right backstage exit.

I look at Kyle as though it’s the first time I’ve seen him. Here’s a person I want to erase off the face of the planet. The person I’ve known for years, but didn’t know at all. I step toward him.