The Time Stoppe(3)

To distract myself, I think of how strangely I experience emotions in the Mind Dimension. For example, if I cry there, because my face is dry once I get out, I don’t feel as sad anymore. Sometimes things work the other way. I can be terrified when I get into the Mind Dimension, but once there, I’m much calmer. Probably because there I’m safe. So if I get any tears now, they would be gone when I’m back at that table. And tears should be falling down my face right now, but none come. Just like on that day. The worst one of my life—

I have to stop thinking about that day.

So I try to picture talking to my brother about emotions in and out of the Mind Dimension. He would want to study this phenomenon, as he—ever the scientist—would call it. It makes me feel somewhat better. Thinking of Eugene always helps take me out of the darkness, if only for a moment.

“I do take care of him. The poor bastard would’ve starved long ago without me, Dad.” I’d say that to my father if I believed he was listening to me from Heaven. Of course, my father is not in Heaven or Hell—those are just constructs people make up to dull the pain of losing their loved ones. I know that, in reality, he’s just gone, and nothing I say can reach him.

And that means I need to stop dwelling on what might’ve been and focus on the task at hand.

The f*cker who put the explosive under my family’s car might be in this very room right now.

I take a deep breath, finding comfort in anger and the violent fantasies of what I plan to do to him.

“It’s time,” I say out loud—though, of course, the frozen people can’t hear it. “Let’s see if any of you f*ckers are thinking of explosions.”





Chapter 2


I’m hoping the guy I’m looking for, the guy who deals with bombs, will be primed by my words and think of setting up one specific explosion. I’ll be the first to admit that this tactic is a long shot, but it’s the only option I have since my Depth allows me to go back only a few minutes into their memories.

Not for the first time, I envy more powerful Readers. Those like the legendary Enlightened, the most powerful Readers of all, who have enough Depth to relive whole months, if not years, of someone’s life. Someone like that would get the answer directly without any gimmicks, but I can’t. There are no shortcuts for Readers like me. Given that Depth is spent at twice the speed when you Read, I have to be careful about running out of my measly half hour.

Whatever Depth I spend on Reading is going to be worth it in this case, though. Trying to learn the truth is why I come to these games. Well, that and the money from the wins—but there are better ways to make money gambling than coming here. Safer ways.

My strategy for today is to spend only seconds of my Depth on people I think as unlikely candidates, leaving extra time—even if it’s just a few minutes—for the others.

One such unlikely candidate is Shkillet, the guy who’s staring at me in the real world.

Shkillet is not his real name, but a street alias. Probably has something to do with his too-thin pasty-looking face. He resembles one of those skeletons we had in science class before I dropped out of school. The Russian word for skeleton sounds a lot like the word skillet, only with a yet sound at the end. Shkillet’s lisp could be the reason for the sh sound at the beginning.

Or I could be completely wrong. I was pretty young when we left the Motherland, and I do get some of these little ethnic things confused now and then—which drives my brother nuts.

I look at Shkillet’s cards. He’s not holding anything I need to worry about. But he is staring at me—the real-world me. In fact, if I drew a line from his pupils to that me, it would land directly on her/my boobs. Boobs that are nicely displayed in my red strapless dress, thanks to the Victoria’s Secret pushup bra.

I intended that effect, but I’m still annoyed. Fucking men.

Stepping around him, I take off his shirt.

I know it seems weird that I’d undress someone, especially someone this unattractive, but I do have a purpose. I’m looking for tattoos. Over the course of my investigation, I’ve learned that a man’s tattoos in the Russian criminal underworld reveal a lot about him. Well, only for the ones who’ve been in Russian prisons, but those are the ones I’m looking for. The most dangerous. The ones without souls.

Those who’d plant bombs on innocent families.

Shkillet is what I call skinny-fat. His body is gaunt with his ribcage sticking out, but at the same time, his stomach is flabby. I don’t care about his looks, though. All that matters is that he has no tattoos. He does have a large birthmark, however, that reminds me of a Rorschach inkblot test. A counselor showed it to me during the one and only time I tried therapy. Most of her inkblots reminded me of people’s brains blowing up—understandable, given the reason I went to see her in the first place—but this guy’s birthmark looks like an exploding heart.

Okay, so Shkillet either hadn’t been to prison back home or nobody bothered to put any ink on him while he was there. Either way, he’s not likely to be a high-status criminal and thus probably isn’t the person I’m looking for. Therefore, he’s good for a measly five-second jump into his head.

I put my hand on his neck as though trying to measure his pulse. Where I touch people in the Mind Dimension never seems to matter, so I go for the least disgusting place. I clear my mind for Reading. The faster this part is, the more Depth I save. Eugene had figured out some techno-widgety new practice for me to improve how quickly I can do this, and I’m grateful for it with situations like this.