Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) Page 4

  I’ll give it a try,” she said, throwing me a dirty look for the ‘Snow White’ comment.

  I waited a couple of minutes for some form of mental communication, and when nothing seemed to be forthcoming, turned myself to my own task. I immediately encountered the difficulties she mentioned, but soon learned to pick up that echo of the objects centered on my search. It took me a minute or two longer, but I finally managed to bring us the bottles. Objective complete, I turned to Linda and asked her how she was making out.

  “Apparently, not so well,” she said with some frustration. “I’ve been trying all sorts of things, but without much luck so far.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” I said. “We can figure it out later if need be. I just thought it would be something nice to know.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed glumly. “What else did you want to do?”

  “Let’s put the tests aside for a bit. I wanted to talk to you about who you think we can trust with this. I was thinking that Carl Hagar could have some valuable insights, and I know him well enough to feel that he’s trustworthy. He was my physics lab partner in grad school, and we’ve done a lot of work together since we both graduated. He’s got one of the best scientific minds out there, next to me, of course. He also owes me a big favor right now since I just helped him set up his new test lab in Edmonton.”

  “Carl might not be bad,” she agreed. “If I had to trust anyone else with this, I would probably pick my best friend Sara Jensen and her husband Sid. I’ve known them for ages, and they certainly proved their courage with tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  I thought about what I knew of her friends. Sid was the epitome of what you thought of when someone said the word warrior. Six foot four and about two hundred and twenty pounds, he seemed easier to picture as a medieval barbarian swinging a battle axe than as a soldier with a rifle. However, he was a soldier in the truest sense of the word. Fiercely loyal to his country and friends, he would never consider letting any secrets entrusted to him slip out. I felt that Linda was right and he would never be one to run to the press with a juicy story like this, as long as he gave us his word.

  If Sid was the textbook warrior, Sara would be better described as a killer. Cold and calculated, I could easily picture her shooting down her enemies with a sniper rifle, then calmly talking about her slaughter over breakfast. Of the two of them, she would scare me more to have as an enemy.

  I didn’t know her as well as Sid, but as they both lived by the same creed, I could probably trust her as well. Decided, I said “Ok, let’s get hold of them and see who’s willing to come down here. We’ll tell them all that it’s just to get together though, and then feel them out before springing the news.”

  “That works for me,” she said with a satisfied nod. “I was trying to think of how to approach the subject on the phone and was coming up blank.”

  Laughing, I replied “That’s the kind of phone call that would get them to send the friendly folks with the butterfly nets to come and take us away to a nice comfy padded room. Let’s set it up like a casual little party and take it from there.” In agreement, we both went inside to get the ball rolling.

  Chapter 7

  Linda: Party Surprises

  We had gotten lucky with our invites. Carl was at loose ends until his next project began in a month, and was looking for something to do. The Jensen’s were just finishing their lectures for the latest class at the Ranger Training school in Fort Benning, GA. They had all agreed that a little gathering at my place would be a nice change of pace, and everyone would be available starting next Monday.

  We spent the time until they arrived getting the house ready for guests. We cleaned all of the common areas, put fresh linens on the spare beds, and laid in an extra stock of food and drink. Some work we did by hand, and some we did the other way. When the day finally arrived we were both nervous, but willing to see things through. Carl arrived at the airport first, and we both drove out there to pick him up. Mark was going to lend Carl his truck for the duration of his stay, but Sid was planning to rent a vehicle, so they would simply come down to my house when their flight arrived later tonight.

  We had a big steak dinner planned for tonight, but stopped off for a quick snack on the way back since Carl had just spent the last eight hours in various airports and was starving. With a couple of beers and a few dozen hot wings under our belts, we arrived back home in good spirits. Mark and Carl immediately claimed spots around the patio table and began swapping stories and news. Men liked to claim that women spent all of their time gossiping, but here were these two chattering away as if had been years since they had talked, rather than weeks.

  Knowing that Mark would return the favor later when my friends arrived, I made myself busy preparing a small tray of snacks for us and brought it out with some drinks. Deep in a conversation too technical for me to easily follow, I went and laid out some wood in the fire pit. Getting that started occupied me for a few minutes, and once I had a cheerful fire going, I called the boys over to join me. Abandoning the remains of the food tray, they quickly complied.

  Settling down into the canvas chairs around the fire, they continued their technobabble geek speak, only occasionally remembering to throw me a conversational bone. After about an hour of nodding my head to discussions like ‘friction loss effects on mass flow ratios’, I was glad to hear the sound of tires rolling up the gravel of my driveway. It sounded like Sid and Sara had finally arrived and I quickly got up so I could greet them.

  The rest of the evening was much more enjoyable, as I now had people around me who knew how to talk outside of a lab. After dinner, stuffed full of steak, lobster and all of the fixings, we gravitated back to the fire pit with fresh drinks and resumed our friendly banter. I was at a loss at how to introduce our little ‘surprise’ into the conversation, and waited for Mark to make the first move. Hopefully he would wait until tomorrow so I could just relax tonight and enjoy both company and conversation without the fear of someone having a heart attack.

  Several hours and several drinks later, we mutually agreed that it was time to crash for the night and dispersed throughout the house. Once the guests were all settled, I went back to our bedroom and gratefully shed my clothes. Mark, being clueless on the etiquette of proper hospitality, was already in bed, figuring that a vague wave saying, “Rooms over there. Night.” was good enough.

  I crawled into bed and snuggled up until we were spooning, relaxing for a few moments before asking when he thought would be a good time to broach the subject.

  “Tomorrow,” he replied groggily. “We need to pick the perfect moment, as we’ll only have one shot at this. If we blow it, they’ll either run away, burn us at the stake, or head straight for an interview with the tabloids.”

  “Alright, I’ll trust you on this to make the first move, but if I see you chickening out and passing on good opportunities, all bets are off and I’m taking lead.”

  “Fair enough,” he replied. “But give me a bit of slack before jumping in with both feet. We’ll have all week to scare the crap out of them, so planning the proper time is not something we need to rush into.”

  With Mark in my arms, and those words in my ear, I gave myself up to sleep, confidant that everything would go according to plan.

  ***

  I woke up suddenly in the morning, foregoing my usual lazy ritual. For one of the few times over the last couple of years, I was out of bed before Mark. With guests in the house and Mark sawing logs in here, I decided to postpone my morning shower and slipped into a sweat suit so I could go make some coffee.

  Quietly making my way to the kitchen, I was surprised to see that someone had already started a pot. I glanced out onto the deck and saw Sara sitting there with a book in one hand and a steaming mug in the other. Fixing up my own cup of coffee I stepped outside, shivering slightly in the cool morning air.

  “Morning,” I said to her.

  “Morning,” she replied, looking up from her book. “I tho
ught I was the only one who got up at a normal hour of the day.”

  “If one solitary retard gets up at some stupid hour, said person could hardly claim normality,” I shot back.

  “In that case, welcome to the stupid hour, retard!” she retorted.

  “Love you too, hon,” I replied with a grin as I sat down in the chair across from her and took a sip of coffee. “How have you been these days?” I asked, “The men were shoveling their stories too fast and furious last night for us to get properly caught up.”

  “We’ve been doing pretty good I guess, although I still have the impulse to kill some idiot driver every time I need to go into the city proper. Atlanta has too many assholes for my liking.”

  “I know what you mean,” I laughed, “Sometimes I think they follow me since I run into them everywhere.”

  “So tell me, what’s the reason for suddenly calling us here?” She asked, throwing me a sharp stare.

  “Do we really need a reason?” I evaded. “Can’t people just get the urge to want to meet with friends once in a while so they don’t become strangers?”

  “Some people maybe, but not you and Mark. You two do nothing without six months of planning.”

  “We’re not quite that bad,” I replied, injured.

  “Almost,” she riposted. “I can wait I guess, but you should know that Sid and I have a bet going.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I bet that he’s going to propose, and Sid figures that you got knocked up. So whatever the big announcement is going to be, don’t drag it out too long before spilling it.”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” I said with a wink.

  We made small talk for a while, catching each other up on current news, and then decided it was time to get the others up and have some breakfast. I simply turned the bedroom light on as I passed by on the way to my shower. Mark could never easily sleep with the light on, so I was confident that he would be up by the time I was finished.

  Toweling my hair dry, I stepped past Mark who had just finished shaving and gave him a peck on the cheek on my way out of the bathroom. Once dressed, I headed to the kitchen to get started on breakfast for us all. As everyone else finished getting ready, they slowly trickled into the kitchen to lend a hand. With all of the extra help, breakfast came together surprisingly fast and we were soon sitting around the table devouring our feast.

  Finished, Sara and I both volunteered to do the cleanup so the boys could head out to the golf course where they had a morning tee time booked. We didn’t mind, knowing that the boys would take their turn cleaning up after dinner. Waving goodbye to the guys, we made short work of the cleanup and settled down back outside on a couple of lounge chairs. I tried to keep our conversation generic, but had to evade tricky little questions periodically as Sara tried to pump me for information. I smiled at her attempts. She was good, but all I had to do was to keep ignoring them and continue on with inane chatter.

  Shortly past noon we went inside to change. We planned to meet the boys after their golf round for lunch at the clubhouse. They were still out on the course when we arrived, so we grabbed a couple of drinks from the lounge and picked a table outside. Shortly thereafter we saw them heading our way, talking animatedly about their game.

  Mark and Sid sat down with us after giving us our respective hello kisses, while Carl detoured to the bar to grab a round of drinks. The loser after eighteen holes always had to buy the first round of drinks at the nineteenth hole.

  Returning, Carl passed out the drinks and said, “You should have seen Mark today. I swear he has horseshoes up his butt.”

  “Yeah,” Sid agreed, “Every time he sliced into the woods, he managed to get a lucky bounce back to the fairway. Not to mention the fact that his putter was on fire today. He totally kicked our asses.”

  I threw a sharp glance up at Mark, who looked back at me for only a split second before turning his eyes down guiltily. “The little bugger,” I thought to myself. “He cheated and used his new ability!” They chatted amiably about highlights from their game until our table was ready in the dining room and we moved inside. After a nice lunch, we all headed back to the house. Mark and the boys went to take a quick shower while Sara and I went to change into bathing suits. We had planned to relax in the hot tub so the boys could soak their muscles out from their morning outing.

  I made a pitcher of iced tea, another of lemonade, and brought them both out to the tub where Sara was already soaking. I slipped into the water across from her, sighing as the hot water started to relax my own tense muscles. I was nervous about the big reveal tonight and had to curb my impatience, wishing that it was over already.

  As we all chatted and gossiped, I noticed that Sid kept prodding at Mark in the same manner as Sara had done with me earlier, trying to get a hint about our big announcement. I felt that Mark was a bit better at his evasions than I was. Carl kept mostly silent, but paid careful attention, hoping to garner a clue of his own.

  When we had all felt sufficiently soaked, we gravitated over to the patio table to let the afternoon sun dry us out. After about an hour, the sun had left us in shadow and we decided to move inside for a while. Mark went into the kitchen to get some things ready for dinner later, Sid and Carl went to the living room to watch a football game, and Sara challenged me to a game of cribbage.

  By the time it was getting close to dinner, I was down three games to one. I was normally a better player than Sara, but had trouble concentrating today. By mutual agreement, we all helped haul our dinner supplies outside. Carl drew the short straw and pulled grill duty. While he got things ready to cook our burgers and shrimp skewers, the rest of us laid out our condiments and side dishes.

  After dinner, the boys did the cleanup while Sara and I relaxed with a drink. Finished with their chores they rejoined us outside, Mark bringing the game box for our Risk set with him. Things went smoothly for a while as we all focused on our strategies. After a good round where I knocked Carl off of Australia and took it for my own, Mark turned to me and said, “Well played. Why don’t you fetch us all a round of beers while waiting for your next turn.”

  Gulping at his slight emphasis on the word ‘fetch’, I looked up at Mark and saw him give me a slight nod.

  It was time.

  Chapter 8

  Mark: The Secret Revealed

  All through the day I was nervous and unsure on how to let the cat out of the bag. I kept throwing furtive glances over to Linda, and was a little jealous at how calm and composed she appeared. I was close to blurting out the truth when she figured out that I had used little psionic nudges to assist my golf game this morning, but restrained myself in time when she appeared to let it slide.

  Even as we all soaked in the hot tub, I found myself unable to fully relax as I ran multiple scenarios through my head on the best way to broach the subject. It was almost a relief to get out of the tub and I eagerly jumped on the chance to get some time to myself doing prep work in the kitchen.

  I found myself stretching out the time the work took. I would stand around the table where Linda and Sara were playing cards or watch some of the Raiders game with the guys before retreating back to the kitchen to think … anything to delay having to take the plunge.

  I heard Sara claim victory on the latest crib match just as the football game ended. Figuring that this was as good a time as any, I called everyone together for dinner and played a quick game of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ with Carl and Sid to see who would be tonight’s BBQ master. Carl lost. While Carl set up the grill, the rest of us hauled our supplies outside and set up the table.

  Dinner went well, but because I was so distracted, I couldn’t have said if I ate burgers or boogers. It was the boy’s turn for cleanup duty, but since I had spent most of the afternoon doing prep work, the other guys took pity and did the bulk of the work. For once, I wished that cleanup would have taken longer. Five or six years might have been good.

  Despite my wishes to the contrary, our work wa
s finished in short order, and we were free to rejoin the ladies outside. To give me a bit more time to think, I grabbed our Risk game on my way out and threw down the gauntlet, which was eagerly accepted by all. We soon had a heated game in the works, with Sid and me battling over the Americas, Sara and Carl duking it out in Europe/Asia, and Linda gaining strongholds in both Africa and Australia.

  Strengthening my resolve, I watched Linda trounce Carl and gain complete control over Australia and decided that with her turn over, she would have the perfect chance to introduce our little surprise. I turned to her and said, “Well played. Why don’t you fetch us all a round of beers while waiting for your next turn.”

  She gulped at the slight emphasis I put on the word ‘fetch’ and looked up at me. I gave her a slight nod: this was it.

  Sara started to stare at Linda as she acquiesced to my request but didn’t make a move to get up. To distract her for a few moments and give Linda the time she needed, I attacked her in Europe, making her roll the dice in defense. Less than a minute later I saw the patio doors slide open and so I put down the dice, focusing my gaze on the six-pack floating toward us out of the house and thereby drawing everyone else’s eyes.

  Time seemed to stand still. Sid had paused with his drink halfway to his mouth, Sara held her dice up in mid roll, and Carl simply gaped at the sight of the beer floating steadily toward us in complete silence. Linda placed the box down on the table next to the game board with only the slightest of thumps and then looked up at me expectantly. “Who needs a drink?” I asked upon the deathly silent table of friends.

  “That’s a neat trick,” Carl finally said into the silence. “I didn’t even see any wires.”

  “No wires, no tricks,” I replied. To emphasize the point I popped the cap off of a bottle and floated it over to Carl, letting it hang in the air above him. Linda did the same for Sid and Sara and almost as an afterthought, gave us our own. “We’re not sure on how it happened, or why, but Linda and I can both do this now.”