Chapter 2

Friday, January 7th, 2022
Colorado Springs, Colorado

[Hello?]

Ugh ... damn my head still hurts. I didn’t want to open my eyes yet.

[Hey, can you hear me?]

I said, “Yeah, just a second. Damn, my head is killing me.”

I gingerly opened my eyes to find daylight streaming around the edges of the window curtains. Yep, I was still in the hotel room. With a bit of effort, I swung my feet off the bed and onto the floor. One slipper fell off in the process but I wasn’t too worried about it and just kicked the other slipper off too.

[Well I guess that is some sort of consolation. I can’t feel anything. It’s like I’m floating in the dark here.]

The voice sounded like my own thoughts but felt slightly disconnected. Like it was a nearby thought? Slightly removed from me somehow, yet still distinct. Though thinking about it, I wasn’t hearing any of his thoughts. I wonder if he can hear mine?

Instead of speaking out loud, this time I thought to him, [Did you hear any of what I was just thinking?]

[Um ... I don’t think so. Unless some of my thoughts were really your thoughts. How would I know? Shit, this could get confusing.]

I pushed the thought out, [Well don’t freak out just yet. How about an experiment? I’ll concentrate on counting numbers in my head, and you concentrate on the letters of the alphabet. When you get to Z send it to me so I know you are done.]

[Sounds good, starting now.]

I began to count and was relieved when I heard nothing from him until I got into the 20s.

[Z]

[Well that’s a relief, I heard nothing from you except the “Z.” How about on your end?]

[Same here. Nothing until you replied.]

I sent, [Okay, we can work with this.]

[Easy for you to say, I’m literally in limbo here. It’s like sensory deprivation, and it isn’t much fun.]

I felt bad for him and sent, [Shit. Okay, let’s see what we can do about it. Do you have any sense of direction? Any feeling of movement? Any shading of more or less darkness?]

[Come on, man. Of course, I looked around for all of that. I started long before you woke up. I found nothing.]

[Okay, but how about since I’ve been up? I’ll keep talking to you while you try everything you can think of again.]

I started projecting a running commentary of the room, from the poor quality of the carpet, descriptions of the walls, furniture, appliances, stains on the ceiling, etc. as I stood up and took off the sweat-soaked robe I was wearing and made my way to the bathroom. I really had to use the toilet.

[Keep talking, I’m sensing something.]

I did as he asked.

[Okay, this is interesting. I started to be able to differentiate between your voice and every other direction. I was able to focus on your voice and approach it. I’ve managed to settle into a place that just feels more right. It’s almost like it has its own gravity. Like there is a purpose to it, and I would have to put effort into leaving here. Also, it’s almost like I’m surrounded by energy. There is a buzzing ... No, that isn’t right. It’s a feeling of potential action.]

[Awesome. That sounds like progress. There has to be a way for you to sense around us. How else would they have been able to direct the powers?]

[That makes sense. It’s just that you don’t realize how much you rely on your senses, especially sight until you don’t have it. It’s been weirding me out a little.]

I shook my head and sent, [No man I totally get it. Remember when we were in 8th grade and tried to go the whole day blindfolded. That shit was no joke.]

[Yeah, I remember. This is a little worse actually. No smells, no sounds. Even your voice is more thought than sound. There is no sense of touch, nothing is solid. I can’t even touch myself. There is no me here, nothing physical anyway. I’m just saying, it’s pretty weird.]

[I believe that. But as the man said, it looks like we have all the time we need, so let’s not get too worried just yet. Alright?]

[Agreed.]

[Let’s try and think of a way to sync up, or make some kind of connection. Thoughts?]

He paused for a minute, then I heard, [You said something about ugly wallpaper in the bathroom earlier. Can you describe it better? Maybe I can get a better sense of where you are.]

[Sure, it’s dark green. I think maybe it’s Hunter green like a good dark pool table felt. There are these golden symbols laid out in a diamond-shaped pattern on it. They are maybe 6 inches apart from each other. They are about an inch tall and have something like a ribbon on the bottom, then there are two columns forming an oval sitting on top of each ribbon made of little leaves maybe. It kind of reminds me of the shape of the frame around the president’s faces on dollar bills.]

[I can imagine what you are describing, but I can’t “see” it.]

[How about if I try to send you an image instead?]

I focused on pushing a picture of what I was seeing to him.

He sent, [Woah, cool. That worked, for the most part. I definitely saw what you were describing. I can still remember seeing it clearly, even though the image itself is gone now. Let’s try this the other way. Do you remember this?]

I suddenly could see an image from my front-row seat in History class of Mrs. Gonzales wearing knee-high white stockings, a white mini-skirt, and a black sweater as she was standing on tippy-toes writing something as high as she could reach on the chalkboard. Wow, I hadn’t thought about her since leaving high school. She was a substitute teacher that we had for a few months during my sophomore year. Fond memories indeed.

I smiled and said, [Wooh, that is a hell of a picture.]

Something bugged me as being out of place after the image disappeared, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.

[Hey, do that again and keep sending for a while.]

[Sure.]

I told him, [Awesome, I can see the image right in front of me. Almost like it’s projected on a screen. At the same time, I can still see the wall through it, or anywhere else I look. Kind of like you can sometimes choose to see through a pane of glass, or you can choose to see the reflection in the glass instead. When I turn my head the image stays centered in front of me. If I close my eyes, I can see the image much more clearly.]

[Very cool. Okay, how about you try to send me a stream of what you are seeing instead of a single image.]

I focused on doing that, imagining my vision as a movie camera and sending it to him. I started by just staring at the wall in front of me, then looking over to my right.

[That’s great]

Hmm, what about other senses? I was sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, so I put my right hand on the pedestal sink by my side and focused on the feeling of cool porcelain and sent that too.

[Dude, I can feel that, but I don’t know if I was imagining it because I saw your hand on the sink or not. Try something else.]

I kept streaming the view of my right hand on the sink, but I moved my other hand behind my back and rubbed my thumb and pinky finger together, and focused on that sensation.

[Thumb and pinky rubbing.]

I smiled and sent, [Exactly. Now, let’s try some off-the-wall things, like can you smell anything through the image?]

[No, I’m happy to say I can not smell the toxic cloud you’re surely making in there. And thanks for not sending me that feeling either. I appreciate it.]

[Well, it seemed like you were already getting the shitty end of the stick as it were. No need to make it worse. I’ll try actually sending a smell to you sometime later when there’s a good one to send.]

He sent me a grin. I felt a mild tugging of my facial muscles that I could tell came from him, but they weren’t strong enough to make anything happen. It was more of a memory of a grin. I told him about it so we could explore that kind of thing more at a later time. I had something else I wanted to try.

[Does this place have a tub or shower?]

I wasn’t looking in that direction, and as near as I could recall I hadn’t shown him that side of the room yet. I was curious what he would guess.

[It’s both, you asshole. A shower/tub combo. Trying to trick me!]

After another second...

He seemed excited, [Wait. Hell yeah!! Stop sending, I can see now. It’s like I’m looking out the back of your head. I can look all around. I kind of imagined a camera pointing the other way, and it worked.]

[Sweet. So you’re looking through my head? How does that work?]

[Well, I’m not. Actually, I’m a little above your head. I can look down at your hair. Here, watch this.]

I could see his projected view from just above me, focused down onto my head and then moving slowly to the side as he panned around me from about 3 feet away. It was a little unusual as I couldn’t say I recognized the face or anything else about me for that matter. James wasn’t a bad-looking guy when he was young, but we were still carrying way too many extra pounds. If we lost the weight it might not be a bad deal.

The view shifted away from my new self and went to leave the bathroom, but the video cut off just as he passed the doorway. [Crap.]

[What happened?]

[I don’t know, suddenly I couldn’t see anymore. It was like I unplugged something as I moved too far away. It was light but I felt something tug and release. Let me try something.]

A few seconds later I was seeing a view looking at me again from the doorway.

He replied, [Okay, I think I got this. After it “unplugged” the camera for lack of a better term, I could sense where I was from the perspective of the camera. Well, no ... sigh this is hard to explain. I still feel like I’m sitting in the hot seat, but I projected my vision out too far. I kind of told it to turn around and come back to me. I could sense myself from the camera’s perspective, so I knew when it was pointed the right way to come back and started making it move again. When it got back within range I could see through it again and the view was facing us. Ooh, I bet that is the “range” Uncle James was talking about. Hmmm. How do we stretch it?]

[Maybe play with the boundary? You mentioned feeling it unplug, can you try pulling without unplugging? Or find another way to push or pull on the edge somehow?]

I got nothing but silence for a while. I figured he was focused on the task and that I couldn’t be of much help right now. I finished up on the toilet and decided to take a shower and clean up. I got the water to a decent temperature and took advantage of the tiny soap and shampoo samplers. Considering the way this place looked on the outside, I was honestly a little surprised by the little extras that were available. They even smelled okay. The towel was a little thin, but it got the job done, at least I wasn’t dripping everywhere. I wrapped it around my waist as I left the bathroom and turned on the TV.

The on-screen guide/menu showed me that it was Friday and a little after 9 am. I guess I was out of it for two nights as well. No wonder I had to go so bad. I didn’t expect my or James’ deaths to make the news, but I would have to see what I could find about them anyway. Time to take stock of what we have available and work on a plan.

I made my way over to the backpack and propped it up to open it. The first thing I found was a pair of sneakers. They looked old but in good condition. I expected they might fit. James was probably a good judge of something like that for “His” body. There was a balled-up pair of socks in each shoe. Next came a gently used, plain grey sweatshirt and pants. I got a little sidetracked before looking at them too closely, as when the clothes came out I noticed many strapped stacks of crisp new $100 dollar bills filling the bottom of the bag.

[Ummm, Carl? You might want to look at this.]

[Woah. Well, that will come in handy. How much is in there?]

I started pulling them out, counting as I went.

[20 stacks. If we believe the labels on the straps claiming $10,000 each. That’s an even $200,000 dollars.]

There was a note at the bottom of the backpack. It said “This should be more than enough to give you a safe start to your new life. You need to start focusing forward. What are your next steps going to be? Take this week and plan for somewhere new to lay low for another month or so before you get started on any longer-ranging plans. You should give yourself plenty of time to find and understand all of your new options first. This should be your only priority. I wish you good luck in whatever you choose to do.”

[uh huh]

I put the letter down and sent, [Yeah, I’m not sure what to think at the moment.]

[I haven’t been able to figure out why he didn’t give us any choices here. I can’t imagine turning these powers down, even if I knew how much it would hurt to get here.]