“Yeah-they’ve got drones and shooters. Drones send out messages and don’t remember a thing after. Shooters are Volkov’s strike force. There’s not many of them but they’re dirty tricks mindbenders-and killers.”
“That’s what they wanted Stargate to move to,” Max said. “That’s what Dave objected to.”
“A lot of us objected. Dave did it out loud, to senior officers.”
“So now they’ve outsourced it.”
“Anyway, they’re deadly. We’ve got to get going.”
“We’ve got a little time,” Max said, “Right now, they’re scouring the highway to Shenandoah National Park for us. I’ve told them that’s where we’re going.”
“They’re not going to buy that they’ve tapped into you. They know you’re not that sloppy.”
“They think they’re tapping Greg,” Max said. “I’m sending out his memories.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Your memories are cleaner than mine-mine are always mixed up with the rest of the neighborhood. And you’re more nostalgic for that place-with good reason-than I am.”
“And they’ll believe,” Tauber said, giving me a thoughtful look, “they’re intercepting your thoughts.”
“Well, that’s okay,” I said. “Couldn’t you ask before you just share my head with other people?”
“Excuse me,” Max said immediately. “Would you like to live? Or shall I stop?” Theatrical pause. “That’s the choice.”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re not my type,” he said. “If they know we’re here, they’ll be on us in minutes. And we have to stay in the neighborhood for another half hour or so. So we need your memories. Sorry.”
“As long as you’re sorry…”
“And remember this,” he ordered me. “This is what it feels like to send out a message or a suggestion. I’m doing it but it’s your head-so learn what it feels like. If you can recapture the feeling later, you’ll be able to start doing it yourself.” He pulled into a parking lot alongside a warehouse, nestled between several locked-up trucks. Looking around, I realized it was a good strategic location-we would be hard to see from the nearby streets but we had a good view out.
“Why are we hangin’ around?” Tauber asked. “What’s the objective?”
“Low-hanging fruit,” Max said, looking across the street at an apartment complex glinting in the light of the setting sun. “Strategic information.” He looked Tauber up and down. “Are you in shape to block yourself?”
“I’m okay,” Tauber allowed. “Gettin’ the shit beat outta me lit the ol’ fuse.” He croaked out a laugh. “Nostalgia’ll kill ya,” he added and Max smiled.
“Okay, we’re going across the street as soon as the sun goes down. Our subject is not powerful but she is alert. She’ll be able to read us so block yourself till we get into the apartment. You too, Greg. You know the feeling now.”
“So concentrate,” I said, furrowing my forehead.
“No,” Max said. “ Don’t concentrate.”
“Why not?”
“Concentration is a conscious mind trick,” Tauber drawled. “If ye’re concentrating on being powerful, you’re reminding yourself that ya feel weak. The more ya concentrate on something, the more you feel the opposite.”
“When you were with Tess, were you concentrating on anything?” Max asked.
“You bet.”
“That’s not concentrating,” he said and they both laughed. “Moments like that, you’re just soaking up the feeling. So just get back to that. Find the feeling in your fingertips and the tip of your tongue and the rest will come back to you.”
We sat in the parking lot for about 45 minutes, while the darkness gathered and it began to drizzle. Cars came and went, a truck pulled into the lot, idled ominously for about seven minutes and then pulled out. Police cars flew by, lights flashing and sirens bleating.
I was working on getting back to the house on the hill and I thought I did okay but it was more fun to work on Tess. At one point, Max turned to me and said, “You’re trying too hard. You’re working memory.”
“Memory is useless,” Tauber sniped. “It’s shorthand for the conscious mind. It’s eating soup with a fork,” he spat. “Don’t remember; just feel it again. The feeling’s still inside ya, in places the conscious mind don’t rule. Feeling ain’t part o’the past-it’s alive right now. Get inside it, get one detail real clear, so it’s alive right now and POW! You’ll be back there.”
“Where?”
“ There. In the middle of it. With her again, like it’s happening again right now.”
I was probably looking at him cockeyed. “However you do it,” Max said, “what matters is, you won’t be here.” He opened the car door. “It’s time.”
We crossed the road-it was a main drag and we were forced to rush across between tractor-trailers like elephants stampeding along the river. We were left in a thicket of trees and shrubs that seemed to have grown out of a bed of garbage-supermarket circulars, handouts for car washes and a traveling circus, beer bottles and water jugs, several cans of motor oil and two pairs of panties in the nook of a tree trunk. Stepping carefully took us over a low fence to the service entrance of the apartment building, where suddenly everything was pristine. In through the wide truck-delivery door and up a ramp we went, to a wide-mouth elevator. Max hit the button for the sixth floor.
In my mind, I was trying to hold Tess’ hand, trying to pull the feeling of it out of the air. I couldn’t figure out how I was supposed to do this without remembering. As I got frantic, Tauber suddenly shot me a look, leaned over my shoulder and cackled, “Pretend you’re holding her tit, son” and that I could feel right away. Which unlocked the door-once I felt her breast in my hand, other feelings…came to me.
By the time we reached the sixth floor, I really wasn’t there at all-I was in the backseat of her car, feeling the sticky leather of the seats and the blast of the air conditioning turned all the way up and her scent and the way my hands and mouth were all over her and…well, that’s as much as I feel like sharing. I got out of the elevator but it felt like that was the dream, like I was just watching it happen, like I was along for the ride but somebody else was driving.
Max rang the bell to the corner apartment, the one that overlooked the river. It took a few rings before a woman’s voice answered, approaching but still a few feet inside the door. “Hello? Who’s there?” Max motioned us against the wall away from the door. Tauber pushed me over where Max wanted-I wasn’t paying attention-and we heard the voice say “Hello? Hello?” and then the metal door gave a little groan as she leaned against it on the inside. As soon as she did, Max touched a finger to the surface of the door and whispered, “Open” and, an instant later, we heard the locks unbolting from the inside.
It was Sam the blonde, the aide from L Corp headquarters, the one who seemed so chummy with Avery. She seemed to be holding her eyes open wide as we filed past her across the threshold-she wasn’t blinking. Apparently she was getting ready to go out-she wore a light blouse and panties but the rest of her clothes were laid out on the bed a few yards away. As we came inside, Max touched her forehead and her whole body relaxed. It was like she was standing out of habit. She followed Max’s finger on her forehead into the living room like she was stuck to it. He led her to a high-backed wooden chair and she sat without being prompted.
“Hello Sam,” Max said.
“Hello,” she replied like reciting off a page.
“Tell me about your day,” Max said in the blandest of tones.
“It was a mess,” she replied. “We had to evacuate because of you and Pietr was furious. He wants to know how you did that trick with the air, because he thought he knew all your tricks but he doesn’t know that one. He was ranting about it for like twenty minutes non-stop when we got back inside. Like we should have known air was a security hazard. And you stole his car which really pissed him off. It had Lo-Jak and the cops got it back but they didn’t get you and they’re trying to figure out what kind of car is missing from the long-term lot but all they have on the records is blue Nissan and the plate number but the plate number wasn’t written clear on the tag so they’re trying to find the guy who wrote it to see if he can read it or remember what it was but they think he’s on a bender because tomorrow’s his day off and that’s what he does when he has tomorrow off.”
“This is called a brain dump,” Tauber groaned, “for obvious reasons.”
“She hasn’t had a chance to organize her thoughts,” Max explained, pausing every few seconds to monitor whatever Sam was spouting. “By tomorrow morning, she’ll have everything capsulized but all the details will be
