The Thought Pushers (Mind Dimensions #2)(64)

I notice Mira’s eyes gleam dangerously every time Hillary says something along those lines, but I keep quiet. There isn’t much to be said.

We all walk with Hillary to where her body is. She’s the one whose version of the Quiet we’re all in.

“How are we going to get there?” I ask as Hillary is about to take us out of the Quiet.

“It’s walkable,” says Thomas. “But I’d rather drive there. If the plan goes south, we might need a ride nearby.”

Everyone agrees, and Thomas convinces all of us that his car should be the one we take.

As soon as we get out of the Quiet, we walk to his car—a black minivan half a block away.

“How did you not get your car towed, parking there?” Eugene asks, impressed. “Or at least not get a ticket?”

“I have special plates,” Thomas says, opening the side door. “I can park wherever I want.”

Inside the car, behind the second seat, is a whole arsenal of weapons. No wonder Thomas wanted to take this car.

“I’m not touching a gun,” Hillary says as soon as she sees Thomas’s stockpile. “Don’t even try to convince me.”

“You’re staying in the car anyway, so you should be okay.” Thomas smirks. “Besides, I bet that if you needed a gun, you’d forget all about your pacifist principles. Just like if you were starving, you’d eat bacon. How about you guys? Can I interest you in a weapon, just in case?”

“I have my own,” I say, tapping the back of my pants where I have the gun Caleb gave me.

“Same here.” Mira mirrors my tap.

“Me too,” Eugene echoes.

“Okay,” Thomas says. “Then it’s just me.” He straps on a holster and puts a gun in it. He also puts a huge hunting knife in a scabbard on his belt.

“There’s really no need for this,” Hillary objects. “My plan doesn’t require any guns.”

“It’s just for contingency,” he says. “Now, everyone, please get in. We have to go.”

“I call shotgun,” I say and get into the front seat.

Mira, Eugene, and Hillary climb in the back.

“Buckle up,” Thomas says and starts the car.

It takes us two or three minutes to get to the spot where the traffic is turning onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Here,” Thomas says. “Darren, since you insisted, Split, now.”

I find that the pre-plan jitters aid me in phasing.

That’s part one of the plan.

I now need to pull everyone into the Quiet with me.

Originally, Hillary wanted to do this herself, saying she’s the most logical choice as one with the most Reach. I insisted that it be me. I explained to her that I have previously spent hours in the Quiet, so the relatively short amount of time the plan requires should be a snap for me.

I’m not sure why I did it. Probably to show off in front of Mira. But there was a practical side to it, too. Hillary needs to worry about bigger, more important aspects of the plan.

I phase and end up outside the car. That’s interesting. Usually, I would show up in the back seat. Because the seat is taken by my friends, however, it seems that my body chose to show up outside. I wonder how this works. The Pusher in Caleb’s memory was able to control this process. Maybe I can figure out a way to do the same? Then I remind myself that maybe it’s bad luck to want to be like that Pusher at a time like this. After all, Caleb killed him.

The cars around us are standing still. No honking or sounds of any kind. The silence seems foreboding all of a sudden.

Okay, I need to snap out of this funk. The plan is simple and easy. No danger.

To bring the rest of the crew into the Quiet with me, I touch them, one by one, through the car window.

“We walk from here,” Thomas says when he shows up.

We cross in front of the frozen cars and walk away from the road. Right over on the other side is the pedestrian portion of the Brooklyn Bridge.

As expected on a nice Saturday afternoon, the place is extremely congested, but the plan allowed for this eventuality.

“As we agreed, I’ll go ahead,” says Thomas. “My job is to recognize the Guide. Otherwise, you risk pulling him into the Mind Dimension with us, and that wouldn’t be smart.”

“I’m still not sure about this part. It’s actually one of the weaker points of the plan,” Eugene says.

“How so?” Hillary says, looking up at him.

“How do you know that you’ll recognize him?” Eugene says to Thomas.

“Well,” Thomas says, “from what all of you have told me, it seems a near certainty that this Guide lives in New York. I mean, there’s no way someone from out of town would be able to Guide so many people here and over such a length of time. And if he’s indeed local, I will know him.”

“I guess it could work,” Eugene concedes, “if you have a good memory.”

“There aren’t that many of us,” Hillary says. “Even I could do it, and I’m a bit of a recluse. Thomas is new, so he’s recently been explicitly introduced to everyone by his girlfriend, who’s our official social butterfly.”

“Who’s the girlfriend?” I ask, although I already suspect the answer.

“Liz, of course.” Hillary smiles. “You didn’t figure that out?”