Chapter 35: Coming to Grips

Jaime and Keira and Trayce and Emerson

“WHAT HAPPENED back there?” Emerson asked as the four teens drove out of Astoria and headed toward Portland. “I mean what really happened?”

“We linked our minds together and sent Schwartz packing!” Keira said. “We didn’t know we could project our head voice like that.” She sat in the back seat with Trayce and handed Jaime his computer so he could use the text to speech engine. Jaime launched the app, but didn’t type anything.

“Who were those other people?” Emerson continued.

“Angus is a detective,” Keira said. “The two strippers are his sidekicks. The other woman is Dr. Rose. In addition to being a psychiatrist, she’s my pseudo-aunt. Not really related, but I’ve called her ‘Aunt Rose’ ever since I started talking.”

“And they just happened to show up? How convenient,” Emerson said. She wasn’t sure just how much of everything that just happened she was buying. She couldn’t hear anyone’s thoughts now. She was trying to guard her own thoughts so no one else could read them.

Jaime reached across the console to touch her hand on the steering wheel.

«Just like you happened to be with us, » Jaime said to Emerson. «They all had a purpose.»

«Fuck! Stop talking in my head! And stop mindreading me!»

Jaime withdrew his hand and things went silent for Emerson again. She couldn’t tell if he was still reading her mind. She focused on the road instead of the conversation in the car. It was just Keira talking to Trayce, so Emerson decided to work on her color scheme software design. If she could.

“Dr. Schwartz theorized about needing a number of people tied together in order to control other people’s minds. I guess, in a way, we just proved him right. We linked minds and gave him a command to retire and quit pursuing head talkers. It took all four of us linked together, though,” Keira said.

“I still can’t believe it,” Trayce said. “I’m hearing a complete muddle of you three in my head. I need to go back to a doctor. My mother has started hearing voices in her head and her doctor gave her some pills that help her. I don’t want to be schizophrenic. When I was there, at the inn, everything was quiet and peaceful.”

“Schwartz was drugging you and hypnotizing you. Have you forgotten that?” Keira asked.

“I can’t think straight,” Trayce said. Emerson was feeling some empathy for the girl.

Jaime reached into his computer bag and pulled out a folded-up sheet of aluminum foil which he handed to Keira.

«Wrap it around Trayce’s head. She’ll get a little relief, » he said to Keira.

Keira told Trayce what she was going to do and then proceeded to wrap the top of Trayce’s head in the foil, crimping it down so it would stay in place, then smoothing it out against her scalp.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Emerson laughed at the image in her rearview mirror. “An honest-to-God tinfoil hat?”

“Jaime has a closet lined with aluminum foil,” Keira explained. “It’s the same principle that Schwartz used in the walls of the inn to block microwave, RF, and brainwave transmission. This isn’t as effective as that, but it should help to lower the volume for Trayce.”

Trayce snorted.

“Now I really feel like a lunatic.”

“Imagine you’re getting a perm. Is that better?”

“Kinda. I still hear voices, but not as loud.”

Keira reached over to take Trayce’s hand and helped to guide her into a quiet space, blocking out the voices she heard. Keira was surprised to find that the only voices she seemed to be receiving were hers and Jaime’s. Emerson was not actually in Trayce’s head.

“Are we going to have sex now?” Trayce asked sleepily.

“I don’t think we’re quite ready for that, do you?” Keira responded.

“But you already had sex with Jaime. Without me.”

“We wished you were with us. And then, all of a sudden you were. Except you were crying for help. So, we came to find you.”

“Thank you, I think,” Trayce said, squeezing Keira’s hand. She was flooded with calm and reassurance. “I’m going to sleep for a while now. I just want to go home to Mommy.”

“We’re on our way, love,” Keira said.

«Are you okay, love?» Keira whispered in her mind to Jaime. «You’re awful quiet.»

«I used my out-loud voice, » Jaime whispered back. «I’m afraid someone will die.»

«Oh, honey. There isn’t a correlation between those two things. You don’t cause people to die with your out-loud voice.»

«I know that in my head. But my inside voice was so loud people obeyed me. I could have killed Schwartz. Or made him kill himself.»

«It was all of us together. We don’t know how powerful you actually are, » Keira said. «We need to run a lot of experiments.»

«No!» Jaime shouted. Trayce jumped in her sleep and Keira quickly comforted her back to sleep.

«Honey? What’s wrong.»

«I don’t want to know what we can do. You and I are strong enough to see the entire world in our heads, » Jaime said. «What will happen if we make love to Trayce? I mean really. Physically as well as mentally. She has no discipline and I had to fight off the commands Schwartz put in her. It could blow up any time.»

«Is she that strong?» Keira asked.

«No. She’s that weak. She truly is a satellite. She gets drawn into people’s orbit for a while and then wanders off. We are apparently the strongest gravitational pull she’s encountered. Think about it. The characters she says she’s written about are all people we connected her to. Angus and the strippers. The woman and her daughter in the theatre. The depressed woman who felt she was ugly and unloved, even though she was beautiful and her fiancé adored her. They were all people we showed her. I don’t think she is actively hearing anyone else.»

«Oh no! What are we going to do?» Keira cried. Jaime sighed.

«Continue to love her and provide the channel for her. All we’ve done is provide characters, not stories. No matter what Schwartz said, she’s a very talented author.»

They both calmed themselves and the car continued to be quiet for a while. Emerson glanced over at Jaime with a raised eyebrow, but Jaime didn’t try to respond.

«What about Emerson?» Keira asked. «Is she part of our family?»

«Emerson is a catalyst. That’s the only way I can think to describe her. When she was brought into our link, she was like glue that stuck us together. She has no innate head talk ability. But I don’t think we could have commanded Schwartz without her.»

«Aunt Rose... »

«I didn’t tell her. I don’t think we should. Right now, that’s something that only you and I know. If Emerson leaves us, we’ll no longer have the command voice, » Jaime said. «At least, not like we just did.»

“Um ... Could you talk to me a little?” Emerson said just then. “I mean with your TTS. I think the adrenaline has left my veins and I’m having trouble focusing on the road.”

“Of course,” Jaime typed into the TTS. “I understand what you mean. Trayce is asleep and Keira is nodding. I feel pretty drained, too. I was thinking that the color scheme tool part of your app could be a standalone and would have a wide range of uses. Take house paint, for instance.”

“You’re actually thinking about my color picker?” Emerson asked.

“Yeah. I still think it’s the coolest thing in our class. Imagine picking a paint color for your bedroom and having an accent and trim color suggested. Or three or four options for a scheme.”

“That would be pretty cool. And it’s a more slowly changing environment than fashion. Do you think I could actually scan an entire paint company’s color palette? Then I could plot all the colors on the HVC scale and interpret the color schemes with the company’s paint names or numbers,” Emerson said. She glanced over at Jaime. “You really are a great computer lab partner. It’s not just your sex appeal.”

“Well, you know the old Amish saying,” Jaime typed. “Kissin’ wears out. Cookin’ don’t.”

“Okay. I’ll make the stretch to apply that to what I said,” Emerson laughed. “Um ... I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue with the fantasy. I mean, it all sounds so neat when I think it, but when I say it out loud, it doesn’t seem as practical.”

“I think we’re all going to be evaluating our place with each other in the next few days and weeks,” Jaime typed.

“Some of that is going on right now,” Emerson said.

She nodded toward her rearview mirror and Jaime turned to look at Keira and Trayce. They were leaned toward each other across the empty center seat. Trayce had her head on Keira’s shoulder with Keira’s head leaning against her. They each had a hand clasping the other. Both girls had beatific smiles on their faces.

Trayce and Lanie

“Mommy!” Trayce cried out when they got her home. “Mommy, hold me!”

Lanie ran to the door and wrapped her daughter in her arms. Susan stood across the room and smiled at them. Keira and Jaime stood in the doorway. Emerson had chosen to stay in the car.

“You’re back! Oh, thank God, you’re home,” Lanie said.

“I didn’t want to go, Mommy. I didn’t want to leave you,” Trayce said. Lanie looked up at Keira and Jaime.

“Thank you,” she said. “Whatever you did to find her and bring her home, thank you.”

“Mom, this is my boyfriend and girlfriend, Jaime and Keira. I know that isn’t a usual kind of situation, but I think I love both of them,” Trayce said. “We’ve got a lot of things to work out yet, but you’ll probably be seeing them around.”

“They found you and brought you home,” Lanie said. “I’ll reserve judgment on anything else.”