The Enlightened (Mind Dimensions #3)(58)

“Darren, no,” Thomas says. “Remember the plan.”

As he says this, I realize my hands are clenched into fists so tightly that my palms hurt where my nails are digging into them.

Unclenching my hands, I audibly exhale. “Don’t worry. I’ll stick to the plan,” I say, feigning matter-of-factness.

In truth, I’m grateful for Thomas’s reminder. There’s a chance I could’ve done something impulsive, like pull Kyle into the Quiet and start pounding on him. Punching Kyle is something I’m still itching to do, but now that I’m more centered, I resist it. Thomas is right. We need to position ourselves in the conference hall outside of the Quiet before we make Kyle Inert. We need to be close to him, as close as we can get, before we alert the f*cker to our presence.

Thomas’s exact quote was: “Our chances of neutralizing him from a close, physical proximity increase as the distance between us and the target decreases.”

In normal-people speak, that means the closer we are to Kyle when he’s Inert, the less chance he has of escaping. Even if we fail to kill him in the Quiet, the closer we are to him in the real world, the better our chances are of catching up with him. Once we pull Kyle in, the element of surprise will be gone, so it makes perfect sense for us to position ourselves as optimally as possible before crossing that line. Despite rationally understanding all of this, part of me still wants his blood now—

“The hallway behind him is a problem,” Thomas says, interrupting my thoughts. “We need to close it off. It’s the likeliest escape route.”

I nod, and we walk along the hallway. It’s narrow, twisty, and poorly lit. The path widens into a little alcove that has better lighting. I notice an old painting of wine bottles in a heavyset frame. The picture confirms my impression that this whole place feels more like an old, musty wine cellar than something that leads to the stage of a modern-day conference hall. The painting must’ve been left over from the early days when the hall was a theater, or maybe it was someone’s strange idea for an interesting hallway design.

“There,” Thomas says, pointing at the security guard at the end of the hall. “Guide him to exit through that door and lock it.”

Before I Guide the man, I Read him and mentally thank all the stars for the job I have. Had I ended up working as a security guard, I probably would’ve shot myself out of sheer boredom. All the poor guy does is sit or stand in one place for hours.

“Let’s go,” Thomas says when he sees me take my hand away from the security guard.

We make our way past Kyle and back onto the stage. Thomas finds another path that leads to and from the stage on the opposite side from where Kyle is standing. This looks to be the side that the presenters will use. This side also has a winding hallway with another guard standing at the end of it. I block off the exit by Guiding the guard in the same fashion as the other one.

Got to hand it to Thomas. He’s fully aware of his surroundings and always thinking a few steps ahead when it comes to executing the plan.

We return to the stage, and I look around.

“There.” Thomas points to a man wearing a long trench coat. “Let’s start with the patsy.”

I make my way to him and touch the shifty little man on the back of his head. He has a bald spot there, which makes his noggin look like a bowling ball. Before I concentrate on getting inside his mind, I rub the spot in a circular motion.

“For luck,” I say defensively when I catch Thomas’s incredulous look. Then I concentrate and enter a state of Coherence.





*





We enter the conference hall and look around. We’re confused. We forget why we came here and even how we got here. This is bad. Lost time. This has never happened before. Maybe it’s the new meds?

At this point, Kyle’s telltale presence enters his mind.

Rejoice. You did it. You made your place in history. You’ll remember shooting many people. You’ll take the guns when they are handed to you. They are your guns. You’ll shoot each gun into the air to make sure your prints are on them, and then use the last one to shoot yourself in the head.

Then the presence is gone.

So I’m finally doing it, we think. I will be remembered forever. Everyone at school will wish they had paid me more attention.

I, Darren, disassociate from the patsy’s stream of megalomaniacal thoughts. The thoughts are partly his own and partly inspired by what Kyle made him believe.

Bert was spot-on with his theory. Kyle set this guy up to take the blame for the shooting. It’s also clear this individual had fantasized about doing something like this long before Kyle got to him. That’s what’s so clever about what Kyle is doing. When this guy is later investigated as the shooter, nothing will look out of place because he fits the profile.

But I also see this guy wouldn’t have acted on his fantasies, not without the right nudge—which Kyle provided.

It’s interesting to observe someone in the midst of being Pushed. There’s a certain feel to it. The Pushed mind has a certainty about its course of action that I’ve never seen in an unaltered mind. This is what the mind of a zealot must be like. The man has absolute conviction in the actions he’s about to carry out. Distractions don’t exist. All that exists is the Push that Kyle gave the man. When I’m done with my revenge, I think I might Guide some people and then Read them afterwards. It would be nice to better understand how the mind of the Guided works.