Mind's Eye (31 page)

“Oh yeah,
that
makes me comfortable,” said Hall sarcastically. “Let’s turn cyberspace into Skynet.”

“Skynet?” said Fyfe, raising his eyebrows.

“You’ve never seen the Terminator movies?”

Cameron Fyfe shook his head no, and Hall decided not to elaborate.

“Look . . . Nick,” continued Fyfe. “Adjustments will certainly have to be made. And who knows. You may be right,” he added in a way that suggested he didn’t believe this for an instant. “But once we’ve had our press conference and the investigation is wrapped up, it’ll be out of our hands. Society will either accept this technology, tainted and potentially dangerous though it may be, or it won’t. Simple as that.”

Hall nodded. Fyfe’s arguments were better than his own. If he was forced to bet who would end up being right, it was the jaded, street savvy investor for sure.

“Either way,” continued Fyfe. “There is one thing I’m certain of. As the first man to ever use this particular technology, voluntarily or not, you’re about to become a key figure in history.”

35

“So Hall has ESP,” said Colonel Justin Girdler to his second-in-command. “But can it be beaten? Any chance someone who knew Hall was out there could find a way to mask their thoughts? Mask their intent?” He paused for a moment in thought. “You know, like thinking about your tax return while having sex,” he added, with just a hint of a smile.

Girdler hadn’t needed to resort to this strategy for decades, but almost all young men in their prime had used it at one time or another. If a nineteen-year-old male having sex allowed his mind to become fully consumed by the experience, he would find it to be very short-lived. Embarrassingly so. The only way to beat a hair-trigger response was to think of
anything
but the allure of your partner and what you were doing: baseball, math problems, grocery lists, and in extreme cases, images that were sexually repulsive. At certain times, if you wanted to last more than a few minutes, it was the only way.

“It’s been too long since that was necessary,” said Campbell in amusement. “But I get what you’re saying. Could the man we send to kill Hall do his job by rote? While forcing himself to concentrate on his favorite cars, favorite movies, whatever?”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t see this as viable,” replied Campbell after a few seconds of silence. “First, we’d have to tell whomever we send about Hall’s ability. You can’t just ask someone to kill Hall by habit, while trying their damnedest not to focus on what they’re doing, without telling them
why
. And even if you did, it wouldn’t work. Remember the guy at the warehouse that Hall read, Billie Peterson? Hall could read far more than just what Peterson was thinking at the time. He has
perfect
ESP. He’d be able to cut through any deceptive surface thoughts to our man’s underlying intent with ease.”

“Both excellent points,” conceded Girdler. He was annoyed with himself. He knew the  implications of Hall’s deep ESP far too well to have raised such an obviously flawed idea. He had little patience for stupidity, especially when this stupidity was his own.

The colonel pursed his lips in thought, searching for another angle of attack. “So Hall estimates his ability has a range of about six miles,” he continued. “But thousands and thousands of people could be within that kind of range. And he can’t read them
all
. Right? So if we were five miles away, it isn’t likely he’d have any idea we were important to read.”

“Which would suggest we could take him out with a sniper at long range. He’d never know to read the mind of the sniper. No way to see it coming.”

“Maybe. God only knows neither of us has any clue how this works. But we do know a very impressive and capable group of people are trying to kill him—who may well know about his ability by now—and he’s still alive. And some of
them
aren’t. So I wouldn’t bank on him missing the mind of the sniper.” He paused. “But it isn’t a bad idea to try out if we can’t come up with anything better.”

“What about taking him out with a missile or a drone strike?” said the major. “We just make sure we’re more than six miles away when we pull the trigger.”

“I see two problems. First, six miles was just his guesstimate. We should assume twelve in our thinking to be on the safe side. That’s assuming his range hasn’t increased as he’s learning to use this new ability.”

Campbell shrugged. “Well, even if it has, this just increases the number of minds that are thrown at him. Which makes finding ours even more of a needle-in-a-haystack problem for him.”

“That’s a good point as well.”

“So what’s the second problem?”

“Presuming we find him in mainland USA,” replied Girdler, “this isn’t something I’m prepared to authorize. Yet. Unless we find him hiding out in an massive cornfield somewhere in Indiana. Regardless, it’ll be awfully hard to convince Sobol that we were trying to capture him alive as ordered, when we blow him off the face of the earth with a drone or a missile.”

Campbell frowned. “There is that,” he conceded. After further thought, he added, “Okay, so the two of us can’t get near this guy without him reading our intent. And anyone sent to kill him can’t get near him either. Either he can magically sense when he’s in danger, or the closer they get the more likely he reads them coming. Either way, you make a great point about the failures of the other group trying to kill him.”

Girdler’s jaw tightened at being reminded, yet again, of the group of psychopathic assholes with whom they were now allied, at least with respect to their mutual interest in seeing Nick Hall dead. If the murder of twenty-six human beings wasn’t enough to ensure Girdler wouldn’t rest until he had these men’s heads on a spike, the fact that they were forcing him to target an innocent man heightened his rage even more.

“So our only option is to play our own people,” said Campbell.

“You mean
play
as in
mislead?
”

“Yes.”

“I agree. Given we’re disobeying direct orders, we’d need to do that anyway. But I get where you’re going with this. Since Hall will read the minds of whomever we send, we should make sure they think we’re after him to pin a good citizenship medal on his shirt.”

Campbell was about to reply when his computer PDA came to life.
“Major Campbell,”
said the soft, feminine voice.
“You asked me to alert you if significant new information was discovered on the Hall case. Please check your incoming messages.”

Campbell checked his computer and his face brightened.

“Did we find him?” asked Girdler.

“Not yet,” said the major. “But we have picked up his trail again,” he added enthusiastically. “We forgot to tell Adams to stop checking footage near the area where the cab dropped them. Good thing. A camera in a nearby Vons spotted Nick Hall and Megan Emerson buying a few hats and sunglasses.”

Campbell threw the footage on the big screen in the room. The store cameras were pointing down at an aisle which included a vertical sunglass rack, which could be rotated around to access sunglasses on all four of its sides.

Megan Emerson slowly turned the rack, stopping when she found the most oversized pair of women’s sunglasses they had. She put them on, looked into the tiny mirror at the top of the display, and shook her head, obviously knowing how bad they looked on her. Hall laughed, leaned forward, and kissed her warmly on the lips; a kiss that was returned—with
interest
. Their body language suggested this wasn’t the first time.

“You’ve really got to hand it to this guy,” said Girdler dryly. “He’s running for his life and he still manages to score with a girl he picks up along the way.”

“Well, sure,” said Campbell. “But he has an unfair advantage. When you can read a girl’s mind, you always know the right thing to say.”

Girdler laughed. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m convinced I wouldn’t be able to understand any woman. Even if I
did
know her every thought.” The colonel’s brief smile vanished. “When was this taken?”

The major checked the time stamp on his computer. “Shit! Five minutes ago,” he said excitedly.

“Incredible! I can’t believe they’re still in Bakersfield.”

“Me either.”

Campbell checked some notes on his monitor. “Unfortunately, the cameras lost them when they left the store. Adams is checking other cameras in the area, but we’ll still need some luck to find them.”

Girdler picked up a phone and began barking orders, deploying a number of human resources in the area to descend on this particular Vons. He instructed them to look for people who might have seen Hall and Emerson, inside the store and out—especially anyone who might have seen the couple enter a car in the lot. He also made sure all video footage from all cameras anywhere nearby would be channeled through Nessie.

 When he was through, he rose from his chair and turned to his second-in-command. “I’m going to scramble a jet and accelerate my travel plans. It’s your baby until I land. You’re a better field manager than I am anyway. Make sure it counts. We may not get another chance this good for a long time.”

Campbell nodded grimly.

“Call me with updates when I’m in the air. And I’d like to keep brainstorming on ways to kill Hall when we find him.”

Girdler looked at his watch and did a quick calculation. “I should be wheels down at Edwards in two hours,” he said. “Have a helo waiting to take me to Bakersfield the second it lands—or within fifteen miles of Hall and Emerson if they’ve been located, wherever they are.”

 “Roger that,” said Campbell.

36

With the conference call finished, Hall asked Altschuler if he could have some time alone with Megan. The bespectacled computer scientist was happy to oblige, offering to bring in Chinese for dinner, and even though Hall and Megan had both had a sandwich before they had set out for Fresno, they hadn’t eaten much all day and welcomed the prospect of having the suite to themselves.

Altschuler studied the two of them before he left. They weren’t touching, but Hall could read in the scientist’s mind that their body language was still somehow giving them away. Altschuler had already come to suspect they had become more than just two people thrown together by fate, fighting for their lives. They had become friends.
More
than friends . . .

Hall read that Altschuler was wondering if he had asked for time alone with Megan just to get laid. Under normal circumstances, the computer scientist was thinking, he couldn’t blame Hall for this. Altschuler was as horny as the next guy, and Megan Emerson was cute. But there was a lot going on here, so it would have been nice if Nick Hall could manage to keep it in his pants a while longer.

The possibility of barging in on them in the middle of this activity wasn’t something Altschuler was relishing either. “Um, the Chinese place is close by,” he said, “and they’re fast. So I’ll be back real soon,” he added, hoping this would ensure they kept their clothes on. “I’m guessing twenty minutes.”

“Thanks, Alex,” said Hall. He wished there was a graceful way to reassure the man that they were only going to be talking while he was gone. At least for the most part.

The moment Alex left, Hall drew Megan into his arms. He could now remember his past, baseline behavior, and the level of affection he typically required, and knew that his current need was many times greater than normal. He wasn’t sure if their ordeal had caused this, or if this was the Megan Emerson effect—or a little of both. But there was no doubt that his lips sought Megan’s out as eagerly as if he were still in high school.

He motioned for her to sit on a kitchen chair while he jumped up and sat across from her on a stretch of the tan granite island in the middle of the suite’s kitchen.

Hall began by telling her the good news. He hadn’t mentioned it earlier, but he had been making more of a concerted effort to identify others he couldn’t read. This required sighting hundreds of people and carefully trying to read each one, matching a visual identification with a mental one. Once inside Vons, and twice during the drive to Fresno, he had seen someone with his eyes who he couldn’t
see
with this mind. Two men and a woman. It was an encouraging development to verify that Megan wasn’t the only one. He had known in his heart this would have to be the case, but it was a relief to at least know there were others out there with whom he could have a normal relationship. Well, normal-ish.

Megan was thrilled by the news, and even resisted making another Neanderthal joke.

With this out of the way, Hall knew it was time to broach more difficult topics. There was no easy way for him to tell her what she needed to know, so he just did. He told her that his ordeal had changed his perspective, had allowed him to assess his previous personality and behavior almost as an outsider. To see himself as others might see him. And he wasn’t thrilled with what he saw. He described his past arrogance, superficiality, and selfishness, and vowed to do everything in his power to stay changed forever.