The Thought Readers (Mind Dimensions #1)(24)

Whatever the answers, I will not find them anytime soon. I have no intention of letting Mira know I learned any of this.

If she knew I snooped like this, it would kill whatever little trust she has in me—if she has any, that is.





Chapter 11


I re-enter the restaurant and find my way back to our little room. Then I touch myself on the forehead.

I’m back in my body. The sounds return.

“I must admit I love these places,” I say, making small talk to cover any weirdness in my demeanor. “It’s like a little piece of Japan in the middle of Brooklyn. This one isn’t as hardcore as some I’ve seen. At least we’re allowed to keep our shoes on.”

Mira and Eugene comment on how some places in Brooklyn are more like that. Some do make you take your shoes off, and their servers wear kimonos.

I breathe easier. I officially got away with the little bit of snooping.

We all examine the menus.

“So, Darren, how long can you stay in the Mind Dimension?” Mira says nonchalantly, resuming the conversation.

“Mira,” Eugene says, reddening as he looks up at his sister. “That’s not very polite.”

“Why is that not polite?” I ask, surprised. “Isn’t Mind Dimension what she calls the place you guys ‘Split’ into? The place I call the Quiet?”

“The Quiet? How cute,” Mira says, making me wonder if sarcasm is just the way she normally talks.

“Yes, Darren, that’s what she’s talking about,” Eugene says, still looking embarrassed. “But what you don’t know—and what Mira wants to take advantage of—is that this question is very personal in Reader society.”

“Well, we’re not in Reader society,” Mira counters. “We’re outcasts, so anything goes.”

“Why is it such a big deal?” I ask, looking from brother to sister.

“In the Reader society proper, it’s like asking someone how much money he’s worth, or the size of his penis,” Eugene explains as Mira chuckles derisively. “The time she asked you about is the measure of our power. It determines Reading Depth, for example, which is how far you can see into your target’s memories. It also determines how long you can keep someone else in there. I’m surprised you even ask this, Darren. It seems self-evident how important this time is, since even without knowing about Reading Depth, there’s the simple matter of longer subjective life experience.”

“Of what?” I almost choke on my green tea. “What do you mean ‘longer subjective life experience’?”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Mira says, downing a shot of her hot sake. “Don’t you know anything? I feel educated all of a sudden, and this is coming from a high school dropout.”

I don’t even question the dropout comment. I’m still on the life experience thing.

“You don’t age while in the Mind Dimension,” Eugene says. “So the longer you can stay there, the more you can experience.”

“You don’t age?” I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself. If you don’t eat or sleep, why am I surprised that you don’t age?

“No, there’s no aging that anyone’s ever noticed,” Eugene says. “And some of the Enlightened, the most powerful among us, can and do spend a long time in there.”

I just sit there trying to readjust my whole world, which is becoming a common occurrence today.

When the waiter comes back, I order my usual Japanese favorite on autopilot. Eugene and Mira order as well.

“It’s not that strange, if you think about it,” Mira says when the waiter is out of earshot. “Time stands still there, or seems to.”

“We don’t know that,” Eugene says. “It could also be that we’re not there in a real, physical sense. Only our minds, or more specifically, our consciousness.”

Mira rolls her eyes at him, but my mind is blown. “I was always bored when I spent too much time in there. I only used it when I was under some time crunch,” I tell them, realizing all the opportunities I missed so far. “If I had only known . . . Are you saying that with every book I read in the physical world, I was literally wasting my life away—since I could’ve done it in the Quiet and not aged by those hours?”

“Yes,” Mira says unkindly. “You were wasting your life away, as you are wasting ours right now.”

She uses sarcasm so much that I’ve already become accustomed to it. It barely registers now. I’m more caught up in thinking about all the times I wasted hours of my life and the many millions of things I could’ve done in the Quiet. If only I had known that it would add more time to my life—or rather, not take time away from it. All this time, I thought I was just taking shortcuts.

“Well, I’m so glad I met you guys,” I say finally. “Just knowing this one thing alone will literally change my life.”

“Oh, and Reading wouldn’t have?” Eugene winks.

I grin at him. “For that too, I’m forever in your debt and all that.”

“Why don’t you repay that debt a little by answering my question,” Mira says, looking at me.

“Will you tell me yours if I tell you mine?” I joke.

“See how quickly his gratitude dissipates and turns into the usual tit for tat?” Mira says snarkily to Eugene.