Mind Games (Mindjack Origins)

  Mind Games

  (a mindjack origins short story)

  Susan Kaye Quinn

  Text copyright © 2012 by Susan Kaye Quinn

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved.

  www.susankayequinn.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  For information visit http://www.mindjacktrilogy.com/

  SHORT STORY

  Mind Games is a short prequel to the first novel in the Mindjack Trilogy, Open Minds.

  Summary: Raf, a regular mindreader, wants to take Kira—the only girl in school who doesn’t read minds—to the mindware Games, but his friends have other plans.

  May, 2012 Edition

  Every time I see her, she surprises me.

  Not in a charming or tantalizing way, although there’s no question she captivates me. She surprises me because there’s no whisper warning of her presence like with everyone else in Warren Township High, where the dull roar of thoughts from the throng of students in the hallway practically drowns out my own. Sometimes she’ll appear by my side without warning. Or like today, I catch a glimpse of her retreating down the hall. But I never hear her thoughts first. Even if she and I were the only two people in the entire school, I still wouldn’t be able to read her mind. And she can’t read mine either.

  And that’s exactly the problem.

  Her chocolate brown hair sweeps along her back as she darts between students hurrying to first period. She hesitates as she moves between them, pulling her arms close to her side and trying not to touch anyone. She’s walking away from me, so I tilt my head and let my eyes linger as she clutches her backpack and weaves through the crowd, head down, not looking back. She’s wearing shorts today, and I thank the fickle gods of spring weather for making it unseasonably warm.

  Man, you have got to stop thinking about that zero. Tony’s thoughts break through the background din, and I don’t have to glance behind me to know he’s coming up fast.

  Her name is Kira. I stab the grimy buttons for my locker code and the door springs open. I shove my gym bag inside, burying the muddy soccer cleats I forgot from the day before.

  Tony leans against the paint-chipped locker next to mine, wearing his Blue Devils jersey. Yeah, well, people are starting to think you’re a praver.

  Now that I’m paying attention, I catch the sideways thoughts from a trio of girls gliding past with their synchronized steps and identical band shirts. Praver. Ew. Get a real girlfriend, sicko.

  Tony throws a glare at the girls. Raf’s not a praver, freaks. What are you? Triplets gone bad?

  Their thoughts slither over each other and mix together. In your dreams, Tony ... Stop hanging with boys that prey on little girls ... And maybe you’ll find out. Then their thoughts synchronize for greater mental volume. Praver. Praver. Praver. The chant keeps up until they drift out of range.

  Man, it’s getting worse. Tony scrubs his short-cropped hair with one hand. I know you practically grew up with the girl, but that really doesn’t make it any better.

  Thanks for the reminder. I crane to look down the hallway again, but Kira is gone. Next time you need a punch in the face, let me know.

  Tony shakes his head. He’s my teammate and co-captain and we spend a lot of time in each other’s thoughts, running plays and devising new psych strategies. He’s always got my back.

  Sorry. I quietly shut the cool metal door of my locker so it won’t crash through the cacophony of thoughts filling the hall. I know you’re only looking out for me. I just wish… My mind flits over the things I wish for Kira and me, a rapid slideshow of kisses, my hands skimming her back, and an image of her in a slinky formal dress after the mindware Games. I quickly shut it down, not wanting that private longing made public, but it’s too late. Mental snickers click from two guys in tight collar jackets across the hall as they echo back an exaggerated picture of Kira in an even more revealing dress. Then they shuffle along, more concerned about making plans for the weekend than harassing me.

  Tony lets out a long, low breath. Man, you’ve got it bad. I know. I get it. She’s seriously hot. His sympathy is a shallow pool. But you’ve got to get a grip. Mentally, she’s just a kid, not to mention that you’ll never know what she’s thinking. How can you trust someone like that?

  Kira could still go through the change. She’s not even sixteen yet. There’ve been others that have changed late ... But my thoughts drift past Tony as he eyes a blonde with mile long legs and short shorts skittering down the hall. She’s barely in range and her name pops into my head. Jessica. She’s a cheerleader from last year’s championship games.

  There are plenty of other girls. Tony’s thoughts grab her attention and she tosses her long hair back to get a look at us. Proper ones that have gone through the change and that would be happy to share more than thoughts with you.

  Jessica pictures herself in my arms, fingers tangled in my hair. Anytime, Raf. Anytime. Then she bounces out of range.

  Tony sends me a smile, and I shiver.

  I don’t know this girl, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting to entwine emotions with me in the way that only touching brings. If it were just the physical part, that would be ... acceptable. But the idea of sharing emotions with a girl I barely know: it chills a spot deep inside me. While the possibility of doing that with Kira makes my skin feel like it’s scorching the air.

  Tony whacks the back of my head, careful to avoid any skin-on-skin contact. Man, I mean it! His thoughts are cut with frustration. It’s not mesh to think about her that way. If you keep it up, people will think you’re actually doing those things, not just fantasizing. The rumor mill is already whispering. He points at me as he backs down the hall. You’ve got a good thing going, Raf. Don’t ruin it.

  He’s talking about the popularity that follows me around like a stray I can’t shake, still lingering from last year’s championship win. Girls like Jessica think openly about me and they’re not shy about the things they’d like to do. The first few times I stumbled across their blatant fantasies, I was flattered, and not a little intrigued. But that was before I knew what touching really meant; how deep the sharing went inside my head; the hollow feeling it left behind with girls I didn’t care for. Now I do my best to ignore the offers. If having a reputation as a praver would keep that at bay, it might be worth considering.

  I sigh and lumber toward first period. No matter what the mindreaders of Warren Township High think of me, it still won’t change the fact that Kira considers me her best friend. And she would never cross the line to something more unless—until, I tell myself—she changes.

  ~*~

  Mr. Friedman’s booming recitation of the opening line of The Iliad crashes over the thought chaos of my first period class. His words are Latin, but his thoughts, which aren’t a language at all, beam the buried meaning of the ancient language directly to our minds. The students’ minds quickly synchronize with Mr. Friedman’s and beat a perfect mental cadence of the poem. Next year, they’ll only mind-teach, but for now, I’m glad for the verbal drumbeat that helps train our minds. It draws my thoughts to Achilles’ anger and away from Kira.

  At least until Latin zooms by and the class breaks apart into disparate thoughts again. Then I realize that English is next, my one class of the day with her. I sweep my scribepad off my desk and shove it into my pack. Coach’s dexterity drills do double duty as I zip through the halls, ignoring stray thoughts.

  I reach English early and pause in the doorway. The bustle of minds in the hall g
ives way to scattered thought conversations around the room and Mr. Hampton mind-talking to students up front. Kira scribbles on her scribepad, hair hanging down and hiding her face. A buffer zone surrounds her, an empty seat in every direction. The other students don’t want to partner with the only girl in class—in the whole school, actually—who doesn’t read minds. It’s been going on all year, but it still makes me cringe. She doesn’t have to read thoughts to notice the ring of space around her.

  I think of them all as saved seats for me.

  I sail down the aisle, ignoring the gaze of two girls in the next row and willing Kira to look up. The metal chair creaks when I drop into the seat behind her, and Kira peeks over her shoulder, giving me a wide smile that sends my heart soaring.

  The stocky guy behind me mentally chuckles and his name—Dennis—pops into my head along with his mocking thoughts. I focus on Kira’s clear blue eyes and the tiny freckle on the side of her cheek, like a morning star that only shows up at certain times of the day. The familiar scent of soap and lavender hangs in the air near her, beating back the over baked sneaker smell coming from Dennis.

  “Hi.” I hope my whispered voice won’t attract more attention than my thoughts already have. I stow my gear under my seat.

  “Hey,” she says, not quite softly enough. The two girls in the next row start thinking about her.

  I can’t wait until school is over.

  It’s so creepy having her around all the time.

  I know, right? You never know what evil things she’s thinking.

  I hear she runs through the neighborhoods and peeps in people’s windows. Snooping.

  I resist the urge to glare at them, but they hear even that. One scowls at me. Loser.

  Praver, thinks the other. Maybe you help her snoop.

  Shut up. I focus on Kira, hoping the girls’ thoughts don’t show on my face, where Kira can see them. “Just two more days,” I say. “Then a whole summer of freedom.”

  She sighs and glances at the two girls. For a wild moment, I’m afraid she can actually hear their thoughts, but her face settles into a mask of patience. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m in serious need of a break from all the fun, you know? The weekend can’t get here soon enough.”

  “Do you have any plans?” I ask. “For the summer, I mean.”

  She lifts an eyebrow. I spend a lot of weekends at Kira’s house, when the team isn’t travelling or competing in tournaments, but this Saturday everyone’s going to the Fuse Games. Everyone except Kira, because she wouldn’t exactly fit in at a mindware tournament. Although I would love to see her in one of the Game suits that the girls wear, all skin-tight silver interface cloth and not much else. I squelch that image and focus on Kira’s lips.

  They’re moving—she’s said something and I missed it. “Sorry?” I ask.

  “You okay, there, soccer stud?” She pretends to inspect my head. “One too many headers in practice yesterday?”

  Mental laughter from Dennis rings in my head and I’m glad Kira can’t hear it. “Sorry, just ... a lot on my mind.” Which is true. Because I want to ask her to the Gamesdance, but I can’t imagine any way of asking without bringing a look of horror to her face. “So, what are you doing this summer?”

  “Hanging out at home, most likely,” she says. “Trying to keep Seamus out of trouble and taking care of Gram.” She traces the non-slip pattern of her desk. “I have a lot of reading to catch up on. How about you? I’ve got some old sim-casts I want to watch. Maybe you can help me get through the backlog?”

  She smiles up at me, and I’d like nothing more than to spend the summer with Kira watching old sim-casts. Or pretty much anything else she’d like to do. But I’m leaving, which makes my chest pull tight. “Actually, I’m going away to a camp in Indiana for the summer. I’ll have a chance to practice with the Twisters, and…” I swallow. The fading smile on Kira’s face is ripping me up inside.

  “Oh,” she says. “Um, wow. That’s ... great. The Twisters, huh? Is that one of your new synchrony bands?”

  I laugh, a strangled release of breath. The Twisters are World Cup champions three years in a row. She knows this. “Yeah, they’re an amazing band and they’re letting me play. They heard what a great guitar player I am.”

  “Right,” she says. “Like you could actually play a musical instrument.”

  Her slim fingers are well-practiced in playing the saxophone, nothing like my clumsy mitts. “Hey, I’m not bad at the Sync Rock Games.” I regret it as soon as her face shadows. I had to mention the Games. What is wrong with me?

  She puts on a fake smile, the kind I can see right through. “Wow,” she says, grinning. “Rock hero and soccer champion. Must be hard being you. I bet you have to beat the fans off with a stick these days.”

  Before I can say anything, Mr. Hampton’s voice reaches over the mind-noise of the room and yanks everyone’s attention to the front. “Take out your e-slates, class. I’m casting the instructions for your final. Remember, you’ll need your parents to sign off on your isolation while taking the test. No mindreading partners, no friends, no cheating.”

  He starts to review the final, talking loudly to focus our mental chatter while drawing notes on the wireless board. The class synchronizes to his voice, and with everyone focusing on him, my stray thoughts aren’t noticed as much.

  I study the sliver of Kira’s face that I can still see. Small lines radiate from the corners of her eyes as she studies the sheet Mr. Hampton has cast to our e-slates. Her shoulders cave in, making her slender frame take up even less space in her chair. Her legs pull forward, hiding her bare knees under the desk.

  She’s drawing in on herself, as if hiding from the world inside her own skin.

  Learning how to read Kira Moore has become a full time occupation for me. I want to know her thoughts, even if they are still trapped inside her head, hidden from the rest of the world. It started last fall when I realized that the girl I’d been friends with since Kindergarten made my heart beat like a crazed monkey whenever she came near. She started to disappear inside herself about the same time, after a pack of girls cornered her in the bathroom and inked a red zero on her cheek with a synth tattoo that took two months to wear off. A sour taste rises up in my throat at the memory. She laughed it off, but I couldn’t miss the red blotches on her face and the tear streaks down it. The need to hug her then was a crazy ache inside me, but I didn’t have the nerve to try.

  I run my hands over my face and try to focus on my e-slate.

  Of all the girls in school, why did she have to be the one who didn’t change? There’s usually a kid every other year who never changes, whose brain never flips the switch from childhood to adolescence. But why did it have to be her? Every once in a while, Kira lashes out and slices someone to ribbons with that wicked wit of hers. But mostly it’s wearing her down, bit by bit, like a glittering stone made dull by an endless flow of water.

  Suddenly, my reasons for spending the entire summer in Indiana sound hollow in my head. A chance to run around a field, kicking a ball? Even with the best kickers in the world, it pales next to watching old sim-casts with Kira and convincing her that she’s important. That she has a place in the world.

  A sharp thought from Mr. Hampton pulls me out of my day-dreaming. He doesn’t speak aloud, thank god. Are you so familiar with Lord of the Flies, Mr. Lobos Santos, that you don’t need to review it? It pulls mental twitters from the rest of the class.

  My face heats up and I focus on his voice. He doesn’t miss a beat and continues to outline the contents of the final. We spend the rest of the period locked in a point by point review of Othello, which was torturous the first time I read it, as well as several poems I’m certain we never covered in class. Mental muttering around the room tells me I’m not the only one.

  Why do we still read stories that predate the mindreading world, anyway? Othello is completely implausible. Everything in that story is built on lies and deception, something that wouldn’t last two minu
tes now. I can hardly keep my own thoughts private in a high school hallway, much less orchestrate the fall of an important leader. Besides, everyone knows politicians are the most trusted people on the planet—how could they possibly hide anything, being in constant contact with so many people?

  While I mull the serious possibility that I will fail my English final, the soft tone of the bell breaks into Mr. Hampton’s review. As I dig my backpack out from under my chair, Kira is up and fleeing the classroom before I can say a word to her. By the time I manage to get my e-slate stuffed in my pack, she’s gone.

  I search for her at lunch, but the swirling thoughts in the cafeteria make it difficult to concentrate. Veering between mind-numbing banality and heart-wrenching angst, it’s a rugby scrum of thoughts all tangled with one another, dancing through my head. I decide she’s skipped lunch to take a run, like she often does.

  I grit my way through the rest of school, waiting for the final bell. Sprinting through the hall, I inadvertently bump a gangly kid with my bare arm, receiving a nasty mental curse in return. I think an apology, but don’t slow down, determined to reach Kira’s locker before she does. When I turn the corner, she’s there, digging around and pulling out her gym bag.

  I stop to take a breath and try to calm my heart, not wanting to look like I sprinted across the school to see her. A cluster of students stand on the opposite side of the hall from her, and a couple of rich kids stroll past, holding hands through their Second Skin gloves. I have a flash of envy that draws a smirk from the boy. I wonder what it would be like to hold hands with Kira like that. I could, even without the Second Skin, since she’s not a mindreader yet. There wouldn’t be any rush of intimate emotion sharing, no mingling of hearts. Kira doesn’t have that emotional suit of armor to protect her from the pravers of the world who might want to take advantage of her. She won’t have it unless—until—she changes. Until then, she’s vulnerable to anyone who might want to run their hands over her. Suddenly, I’m rooted to the carpet, realizing that’s exactly what I want to do.