“Well, lunchtime is over for me. I’ll see you Thursday at the staff meeting or sooner. Enjoy the rest of your lunch.” Echo and I swing by Dani’s desk to pick up my three consultations for the week, then proceed to my office. I read my Psycept consultations after lunch and being out yesterday, I have two to complete today. A tired Echo lays down in his doggie bed while I clean up from eating lunch, then walk back to where I laid the packages.
A section of my office is set aside for police Psycept consultations. I have a long table in one corner with a camera setup to film the top of the table and two microphones clipped around the area to capture what I say in the readings. I also have a separate laptop used just for Psycept cases with my audio and video editing program and the full software Psycept database program. A short table is tucked perpendicular to the Psycept table and houses a small printer, an external drive to burn DVDs, and several folded cloths I use to drape across the long table.
I accept receipt of all three cases in the Psycept database, then mark them as pending Psycept reading. As I log each case, I look at the timeline, any linked cases, and the petition notes, just to make sure nothing jumps out. A couple of months ago, I received a routine consultation linked to another case. My case wasn’t marked priority, but the linked case was a priority. Not reviewing the link upon receipt, I didn’t read the case for several days. Luckily, the person was still alive when rescued, but if I waited longer, the likelihood of continued survival was doubtful. Since then, I have increased my diligence when I log receipt of my weekly packages.
Most TouchVoyants handle police Psycept cases at least half the time, I handle criminal consultations almost exclusively, whether they come from police or family or friends. About half of the cases Sages read are police cases. Sages can do more, but there is a reluctance to send blood and bone samples in knowing that they would be consumed in the reading. PsyChometrists and I read objects which are returned, and it seems more sanitary to outside police and petitioners. Squeamishness is still alive and well in murder investigations, I suppose. Though PsyChometrists and I have different abilities, I am categorized as a PsyChometrist when it comes to Psycept cases. Therefore, I must thoroughly review a petition before I accept it to make sure my differing abilities will be of use.
I divide my time equally between missing persons, homicides, and cold cases. Homicides, while important, are not given precedence to missing persons, which are further divided based on time since last seen. Near-now cases are within a week of missing, near-close is within three months, and near-far is anything older than that. If a near-now case comes in, it jumps to the top of the queue to be accepted; when the materials arrive the TouchVoyant is contacted to expect a priority package; and it’s read as soon as it arrives. Near-close missing persons and homicides are of equal importance, and near-far and cold cases are the lowest priority. We also receive requests from archaeologists and anthropologists regarding long buried excavation sites. I rarely accept petitions for these cases, leaving them for PsyChometrists and Bone Sages, they seem to appreciate a change in pace.
Missing person petitions from police tend to be children for whom abduction is suspected. Family members often submit petitions for adult missing persons or children who may have run away, which are of lower priority to their local police. While I don’t distinguish between possible abductions and probable runaways, other PsyChometrists give priority to police cases. My cases this week are a police request for assistance with a homicide, a family petition for a near-close missing person, and a request for assistance with a cold case from the victim’s childhood friend. I’ll read the missing person case first as there’s still a chance the person is alive.
PsyChometrists directly read an object. They obtain spoken words, images, and noises imprinted on the object. For brevity’s sake and to discourage in-depth questioning of my abilities, I say that I read an object, but this is not accurate. In truth, I use an object to link to an individual’s memories, the more sentimental the object, the better the connection and the deeper access to memories. Every person has a vast and terrible mindscape which I perceive as a memory lake. My innate ability allows me to impose a linear order on the memories, I call it a memory thread, which stretches above the surface of the lake. The more fleeting and less weighty memories make up a wispy memory ribbon, solid memories form a quicksilver memory lash, and the most substantial of memories coalesce into a thick memory rope.
The memory lake has waves, which is a person’s protective feature. I say person and not mind for a reason. I don’t read active minds or current thoughts, I read memories of the living or dead. Each object I use to link to the memory lake also serves as a buffer to the waves. Flimsy memories have only small waves, but they are enough for me to ride the object underneath the memory ribbon and reach up and grip around the time I need to read. I can read ribbons the longest and without exhaustion. The most substantial memories have the biggest and toughest waves and the rope can be difficult to grasp and keep ahold of. As such, I cannot stay with those memories very long and am tired after reading. Therefore, my process is to read the least sentimental first and the most sentimental last. As the years have gone by, I’m much less susceptible to exhaustion and rarely am unable to read a substantial memory rope whether it’s first or last read. I just got into the habit
