314 Book 2 (9 page)

“No, no,” said Oliver. “Don’t say that until you hear what we have to offer. Please, just hear me out. If you came here for money, I can end all of your financial concerns just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “For both of you. For your whole family if that’s what it takes.”

“Nia, babe,” said Mindy. “Let’s hear the dude out.”

Oliver smiled and raised his eyebrows, feigning trustworthiness. Despite her growing discomfort, Nia needed the cash.

“Make it quick.” Nia walked into Oliver’s office where Mindy was waiting. It was a simple room, with white walls devoid of pictures. There was a desk in the center of the square room with scant papers beside a laptop whose
power cord stretched to a socket on the wall. There were two simple chairs in front of the desk, similar to the type you might see at a table in a pub, with plastic cushions and metal legs.

“Have a seat,” said Oliver. “I know it’s nothing special, but we’re only here for a couple days, then it’s off to Detroit to see if we have any luck there. Although,” he spoke as he walked around to the other side of the table, “hopefully I can cancel the trip.”

“Your pen and ledger,” said Leopold from behind Nia.

“Yes, yes,” said Oliver. “Put them on the desk. And…” Oliver paused and squinted at Nia, as if making certain he discerned her properly. It was an uncomfortable inspection, and made Nia even more nervous than she was already. “
Mitchell, why don’t you introduce yourself properly to these two?”

“Begging your pardon, sir?” asked Leopold.

“Quit the act,” said Oliver.

Leopold hesitated. “Are we certain?”

“Yes.”

Nia looked over her shoulder at the odd little man. He shrugged and then gripped his front teeth. He grimaced as he pulled out a set of dentures, revealing that his yellowed teeth had been fake. “Ladies, my name’s
Mitchell, and I’m not nearly as scary as you thought.”

“What?” asked Mindy with comical shock.

“Mitchell’s an actor,” said Oliver. “He’s dressed like this as part of the testing.”

“What testing?” asked Nia.

Oliver sat back in his chair, an ergonomic office seat that looked far more comfortable than what Nia was sitting in. He pointed in the direction of the other room, where the pen and ledger had been. “The blood in the hall, the room with the pen, all of it is part of the test. It’s just a way to provide the proper atmosphere to initiate a psychometric transference.”

“A manipulation,” said Nia, allowing the negative connotation of the word to reveal her distrust.

“A motivation,” Oliver countered her choice of words. “In our studies, we kept running into examples of subjects performing better when in duress. We obviously didn’t want to cause anyone harm, but by playing on certain long-held beliefs about fear, we hoped to influence the abilities of any subjects. All harmless, of course.”

Mindy got out of her chair to inspect
Mitchell as the thin man started to peel off the plastic that clung to his skin, as if he’d pasted rubber cement to his face. “Whoa,” said Mindy as she peered at the laughing man. “That’s bonkers. You had me going, for sure. I thought you were some old homeless, eastern bloc immigrant or something.” She looked back at Oliver, appearing almost jubilant with the deception. “So everything in there was a set up?”

“Just about,” said Oliver. “We fabricated the pictures.”

“And the pig-mole above the door?” asked Mindy.

“Fiberglass and neoprene,” said Oliver, enjoying Mindy’s fascination. “Although he serves a purpose.” He spun his laptop around to reveal a video feed from cameras that had been hidden in the sign-in room. “We watch what people react to in the room. After they sign in, we allow the subjects to linger in there for a bit, and see what they get interested in. Then I go in there and interview them about the
things in the room, asking which objects they have any sort of connection to. It’s all faked though. We manufactured everything in there, except this.” He reached across the table and picked up the black, Bic pen.

Nia winced.

Oliver saw her reaction and sat back, intrigued and oddly appreciative of the girl across the table from him. “This pen came…”

“Out of the throat of a woman named Amelia Reven,” said Nia.

Oliver was quick to speak after Nia’s revelation. “Mitchell, let me get you your check so you can head home.” He opened the drawer of his desk and produced a white envelope that he handed to the actor.

“It was nice meeting you ladies,” said Mitchell to Mindy and Nia before walking to the door.

“Please close the door behind you,” said Oliver. Just as Mitchell was about to close the door, Oliver added, “And send Lee in, please.” Then he looked at Nia and explained, “Lee is a personal assistant I had to hire to help me keep track of everything we’re doing. Every year it seems like it gets harder and harder to keep everything straight up here.” He tapped his temple and Nia smiled and nodded as if she knew what he meant.

“So, was Nia
right about the pen or what?” asked Mindy.

Oliver nodded.

“So that means you owe us five hundred bucks,” said Nia. “Or five fifty, if you add in what you owe my friend.”

“Money’s not an issue,” said Oliver. “In fact, I’ll write you a check for ten times that amount, if you’ll help us.”

The door of the office opened and the man that entered acted humble and apologetic, like a student showing up late for class. He was Asian, and very thin. His black hair was cut in a bowl shape, but was styled well, and he was wearing black pants and a button up, white dress shirt. “Hello,” he said meekly.

“Ladies, this is Lee.”

Mindy ignored Oliver’s assistant and focused on the money that had been offered. “Ten times that amount? Are you for real?”

“Not interested,” said Nia.

“Yes we are,” said Mindy. “Are you out of your gourd?” She looked back at Oliver. “What do you need help with?”

“I’m serious, Mindy,” said Nia. “I just want to get the money and go. I’m not comfortable with any of this.”

“That’s our fault,” said Oliver. “We designed that room to screw with your head. I’m sorry for that. It’s just a technique to stir up your absolutely stunning ability.” He spoke as if complimenting her beauty. He couldn’t stop from smiling and staring. “I’m flummoxed, truly. You have completely blown me away.”

Mindy elbowed Nia in the side
as they sat beside one another in front of Oliver’s desk. “I knew you were something special, babe.”

Nia still had her hands in her pockets an
d murmured, almost to herself, “Lies.”

“What’s that?” asked Mindy.

Oliver spoke before Nia could respond. “We’re looking for help with what could very well be the most significant discovery in human history. And you, my dear, are the final key we need. The corporation I work with is willing to pay whatever it takes for someone with your talent.”

“Like, what are we talking here?” asked Mindy. “How much?”

“How much do you need?” Oliver kept his eyes on Nia when he spoke.

Nia just shook her head.

Mindy waited for her friend to answer, and then rolled her eyes and spoke up for her. “How much time do you need?”

“That’s really hard to say,” said Oliver, still focused on Nia.

“Ten grand a week,” said Mindy as a joke.

“Done,” said Oliver.

“Holy fuck!” Mindy nearly leapt from her seat. “Are you
serious?”

“Yes,” said Oliver.

“Ten grand for her, and ten grand for me,” said Mindy. “Or no deal.”

Oliver chuckled,
and then grimaced. “Sorry, but we need her, not you.”

“How are you sure?” asked Mindy. “How do you know if maybe she can’t do shit without me around? For all you know, we only work as a team. Isn’t that right, Nia?”

Nia stayed silent.

“I’m sure
Vess would approve,” said Lee. “He said you didn’t have to get this sort of expense approved. You can approve that amount without even contacting corporate.”

Oliver rocked his seat and chewed on his lower lip as he watched Nia. “Does that sound good to you, Nia? You could make more in a m
onth than most people make in a year.”

Ten thousand dollars a week. Nia wasn’t a greedy person, but that was an awful lot of money. She looked at her friend, and saw Mindy staring back at her, wide-eyed and hopeful.

“Don’t you dare say no,” said Mindy.

Nia closed her eyes, sighed, and then said, “Tell me more.”

In the late 1970’s, researchers theorized that it might be possible to influence psychokinetic abilities in children that were raised to believe such things were not only possible, but as much a part of the human experience as learning to walk. The researchers proposed an experiment where a baby would be raised in a controlled environment, devoid of any interaction with the outside world. In this environment, the researches would use simple illusions and projected images to make it seem as if the child’s parents were gifted with psychokinetic powers. They would treat these abilities as if they were mundane;
just a regular part of the human experience.

The researchers hypothesized that an environment such as this might propel the child to unlock abilities that humans formerly hadn’t tapped into. It was a bold theory, but not without merit. It has been proven that the human mind is capable of altering perception based on what it believes should be true.

A rather controversial example of this is the idea that ancient humans had a vastly more muted visual spectrum than we do today. The color blue, for instance, was not something that ancient man could distinguish from other colors. Only a select few people were born with the ability to identify the color spectrum that we all accept today, but it wasn’t until the written word was developed that this became startlingly apparent. In ancient texts, oceans are referred to as great black or green swathes of liquid, not because the author took artistic liberties, but because they simply couldn’t see a difference. Then, when people with a wider color spectrum began to describe the color blue, and differentiate it, the rest of the world took notice. It wasn’t an evolutionary change, but a societal one. The human race altered their perception of a color based solely on the desire to experience what others knew as a truth.

The next time you look at the blue sky above, realize that it is colored by your adherence to what you think is true. Truth and lies do more than simply guide us through our social lives; they literally shape the world around us.

I wonder if those researchers ever got funding for their experiment.

Lost in Widowsfield

Rachel Knight walked into her home after a long day at work. Her feet were killing her, a side effect of wearing pumps in an attempt to be taller on camera, and she pulled them off with a sigh of relief. She tossed the shoes to the side of the door where they tumbled over other shoes that had been neatly lined up.

“Hard day at work?” asked her father, who was sitting on the sofa, reading a newspaper. He looked dapper, dressed in a pinstriped suit like a gangster from the
1940’s. His bowler hat had a silver ribbon around it, and he tipped it in her direction when she smiled at him. Then he folded his newspaper and dropped it on the coffee table.

“You can say that again,” said Rachel as she looked around.

This wasn’t her house.

“I wanted to call you,” said her father. “But I didn’t want him to hear me.”

Her father looked taller than usual, and younger. There was no grey in his short beard, and his eyes were blue instead of brown. He grinned, but his teeth chattered as if he were cold.

“Daddy?” asked Rachel. “What did you do to my house?”

“She redecorated,” said Rachel’s father as he pointed up the stairs.

Rachel and Stephen lived on the first floor of a duplex, yet now she was in a home where the bedrooms were up the stairs. The kitchen was to the right of the entrance instead of the left, and there was a simple, small tube television in the den instead of the obscenely large flat screen that Stephen
had bought. This was not her home, yet she was too confused to admit it.

“Who redecorated?”

“The little blonde girl, with the tattoos,” said Rachel’s father.

The house smelled like burned plastic.

“What’s her name?” asked Rachel’s father as he came to stand behind his daughter. He put his hands on her shoulders and kneaded them, his teeth chattering in her ear. His fingers carried a chill with them. “I guess it doesn’t matter. She’s the same as all the others. He always loved those little blonde girls.”

“Is something burning?” asked Rachel, trying to hide the tears in her eyes as she walked to the kitchen. There was a pot of boiling water on the stove and she put her face into the steam, but it felt cold to her. “I think something’s burning.”

“Aren’t you going to confront him?” asked her father, still shadowing her.