Chapter 29: Friday, August 13, 2010

Friday, August 13, 2010

“In the Matter of the Marriage of DeRizzo,” the judge called. Leanne and her attorney shuffled up to the bench, followed by Gus and his attorney.

Gus didn’t need to be there, Leanne’s attorney had explained. The terms of the divorce were contained in an agreement filed with the divorce decree that he had already signed. When Jake scanned him, he saw that Gus regretted letting Leanne and the children get away. He had been told it wouldn’t do any good, but he had wanted to show up anyway.

Jake sat in the back of the courtroom. The judge, Leanne, and her attorney were talking too quietly for him to hear. He could have eavesdropped but didn’t bother. Gus had glared at Jake, but the conditioning Jake had installed earlier ensured that there would be no trouble.

Jake filtered out everything but Leanne’s emotions. She was unmoved by Gus’s forlorn face. Gus had killed the tender feelings that Leanne had once felt for him. Instead, she focused only on what her lawyer and the judge were saying, and her anticipation of becoming more fully Jake’s that weekend. Jake sent her a wave of affection and desire. She made no outward show of response, but she did send a burst of similar emotions back to him.

After a couple minutes of testimony by Leanne, and without Gus having spoken, the judge approved the decree and ordered the marriage dissolved. The parties filed out of the courtroom. Jake followed. Gus and his attorney were already gone by the time Jake got to the hallway. Leanne thanked her lawyer and said goodbye. She cocked an eyebrow at Jake. She was ready to leave.

Jake nodded and she turned to go. Jake followed her down the escalator to the lobby and out the front doors. At the car, Jake opened the passenger door and handed her in.

“Are you ready to get on with your life?” Jake asked her when he was seated behind the wheel.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Leanne said.

“Our flight isn’t until 2:30. Would you help me with something?”

“Of course.”

Jake started the car and headed for the farmhouse.

“I need to practice taking control of mind readers,” he said. “I’m going to start today with my father. I’m pretty sure that I can do it easily, but I was hoping you would go with me, sort of as back up.”

“What do you need me to do?”

Jake explained what he had learned from Harris about using loyalty to take control of people.

“He’s the first mind reader that I’m going to do it on. I’ll install the loyalty control and remove the others that are already in place. I expect him to be less dangerous when I’m done, but he is very cunning. If he has me fooled and thinks he can use the circumstances to take control of me, I want you to intervene.”

“It could be dangerous.”

“If something is going on that I don’t see, yes. But I really expect it to go smoothly. If he does try something, he won’t know that you’re there, so you’ll have the jump on him.”

“What should I do if he attacks you?”

“Probably put him to sleep,” Jake said. “Or you could ring the nerve to his transmitter.”

“Ring it before you go in. That way if he tries something, we’ll be able to deal with him safely.”

“Ohhh, smart,” he said, giving her a smile. “That will show us exactly what he thought he could get away with.”

Jake turned onto the driveway and drove up to the front door. He parked pointing away from the house so that the tinted windows hid him and Leanne. He could sense Harris sitting in the kitchen, waiting for Jake to come into the house. Jake didn’t sense anything unusual in his attitudes or emotions. He installed the loyalty control. He put the strength about halfway between the high and low levels he had experimented with on Cox the previous day. It should be more than enough. Then he ringed the transmitter nerve and removed the various controls he had installed over the months Harris had been in custody.

Jake got out of the car and approached the front door, observing Harris carefully. Harris was aware of the changes. He felt his newfound loyalty to Jake and accepted it. Jake saw that he had been expecting it ever since Harris had shown Jake how to install the loyalty control in Cox.

Jake entered the house and sat at the table.

“I should start stocking Cokes so that I can join you without having to drink coffee.”

“Sure, that’s a great idea. I’ll make sure no one else drinks them.”

“Forget all the commands I’ve ever given you. We’ll start again with just a couple of new ones. First, don’t leave here or to contact anyone but me.”

“Okay.”

“Second, don’t do anything to hurt me or my loved ones. Don’t try to take control of us.”

“Of course not.”

“Third. Continue to oversee the Coxes and keep doing your writing assignments.”

“Yes, Jake.”

“Last, don’t tell anyone anything about me or my loved ones.”

“Not a word. Can I ask you a question? How did you install that control from outside?”

“My range is farther than you probably expect.”

Jake watched Harris look through his mind. Harris’s eyebrows shot up.

“It turns out that recruiting other mind readers has been very productive,” Jake said.

“That’s amazing what you’ve done with each other’s ranges. But I still have to be concerned. What if one of them turns against you?”

“I’ve been very careful who I changed.”

Harris shook his head. “I wasn’t lying when I said that things are inherently unstable when there’s more than one mind reader. I hope you don’t get hurt.”

“We’ll consider this a grand experiment.”

Saturday, August 14, 2010.

Jake sat in front of a nice but unassuming home in a stately neighborhood near the Tulane campus. Jake could sense his grandmother inside. His grandfather was also there. No one else was home.

Leanne was at the wheel of their rental car. They had slept in and then had a leisurely brunch at their bed and breakfast in the Garden District before driving over to his grandmother’s.

Jake hoped he could pull this off without hurting her. Or her him, for that matter. He was feeling benign after spending the night with Leanne.

When he first planned the trip, he had thought that it would be a chance to cheer Leanne up after her divorce. It turned out that she needed no consolation. In fact, what had happened, away from the bustle of Jake’s busy life and the unremittingly-intrusive presence of the other mind readers, had been a chance for them to focus on each other, and to bond more completely than they had before.

He hadn’t really thought they could become more intimate. After all, Jake already knew all about Leanne and her life. He had been feeling her emotions and hearing her thoughts for months. And yet, once they were alone, they had transcended their previous relationship. It wasn’t just that they were learning more about each other, they were sharing themselves more deeply, voluntarily, and without fear or shame. Jake had never felt acceptance like that. It was too bad that they only had the weekend before they had to go back.

Jake forced himself to take the confrontation with his grandmother seriously. This really was a dangerous situation. He didn’t want to put Leanne at even more risk because he was being lax.

He studied his grandmother’s mind, found the hooks he needed to install the loyalty control, and inserted all the parts, except the last one — the link to him as the object of her loyalty. That would have to wait until she had a concept of him. He doubted that Harris had mentioned him to her.

He pulled out his cell phone. He suddenly felt nervous.

Leanne reached over to him and squeezed his hand. “It’s not every day you meet someone as important to you as your grandmother, Jake. You have good reason to feel anxious. When people have the power that mind reading gives them and there is nothing to restrain it, a lot of them turn into monsters. You can’t know what she is like or how she will react to you.”

Jake smiled at her. She could read his mind more incisively than he could see it himself. She was becoming an essential sounding board for him, helping him to clarify his thoughts.

Jake punched in the phone number and initiated the call. He sensed his grandmother’s irritation at the ringing of the phone.

“Hello?”

“May I speak to Lydia Harris, please?”

“Speaking.”

“Mrs. Harris, my name is Jake Fielding. My father is Glen Harris. I believe that you are my grandmother.”

“Lord have mercy. Are you sure? That Glen is your father, I mean. Because if he is then I am certainly your maw-maw. As much as I’d like to, I can’t deny that that scalawag is my boy.”

“No, there is no question. For one thing, we share an ability that I inherited from him and, he tells me, from you.”

“Then you have my sympathies, mon cheri. Ain’t nobody happy who has this curse.”

“I’d like to talk to you if I can, grandmother. There is much I need to learn.”

She hissed. “Child, that’s a very bad idea and I won’t permit it. Hasn’t your father told you anything?”

Jake slid the last part of the loyalty control into place. It wasn’t quite as strong as what he had done to his father.

“Oh, my,” she said softly. “You be a very dangerous child. How did you do that?”

“I’m parked in front of your house. May I come in? We can talk.”

“The damage is done, cheri. Come on up.”

Jake disconnected the call. He opened Leanne’s door, escorted her to the front door, and knocked. It was opened by a heavy, elderly woman in a housecoat.

“You’re a handsome lad, more so than your father,” she said. “Come in. Have a seat in the parlor. I’ll get some refreshments for you and your pretty lady.”

Jake sat on a sofa and Leanne sat next to him. Jake sensed his grandfather lying in bed further back in the house.

“The strength of the control seems to be adequate,” Leanne said.

“I want to find the minimum strength that I can get away with.”

“Careful, my love. If you try to get by with too little, it could be tragic.”

His grandmother returned with a tray. She set it down and served them coffee and a doughnut-like pastry.

“Here is cream and sugar, if you like it regular,” she said. “And have a few of these beignets. They’re a bit of a specialty of mine.”

She seated herself close to them. She did so, Jake noted, so that she had them easily within her range. That was okay with him. He did not see any reason to keep secrets from her as long as he had her loyalty.

“You and your woman have something special, don’t ya,” she said. Then her eyes opened wide. “No wonder. She’s a reader, too. Which one of you controls the other?”

“Neither, Mrs. Harris,” Leanne said.

“Grandmother, let me introduce you to Leanne DeRizzo. She is, indeed, special to me.”

She scanned Leanne and him quickly.

“How can that be? It would be simple for one of you to snatch up the other.” She turned to Leanne with a knowing smile. “ Ma cherie, you could solve a lot of arguments that way.”

“I’ve never liked the kind of man my father is,” Jake said. “Leanne and I are trying to do it differently. So far it’s worked for us. I think that we value what we have too much to be tempted to take control of one another. I’ll be glad to tell you more about it when we have more time to just talk, but I have some important questions to ask.”

“Fire away, shoog.”

“I’ve managed to get the Council mad at me. I’m afraid it’s turned into a shooting war. I need you to tell me everything you can about them.”

“Oh, that’s very bad, Jake. You need to swallow your pride and make nice with them. You can’t expect to stand up against them. Not even with two of you. They are too strong.”

“It’s a little late for that, Grandmother,” Jake said and told her about the assassination attempt.

“Then you see how they are ruthless,” she said. “I can try to intercede for you.”

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary. You see, there are more than just the two of us. And we have other advantages, too.”

She scanned him again. She raised her eyebrows when she learned about his range.”

“No! So that’s how you took control of me without even being in my house.”

“And I hope it will work with the members of the Council. There are 12 of us, Grandmother. That should be enough to take down the entire Council, all at once.”

“Lord have mercy. Twelve! All in one place. I have to tell you, young man, that there isn’t a mind reader out there who wouldn’t expect one of you to take over the others.”

“My father says the same thing. We’ll find out, won’t we?”

“I don’t like the Council. None of us do, but those of us who have been around for a while do like the fact that we don’t have to watch our backs. At least not until you came along.”

Jake nodded. “I won’t bother justifying what I’m doing. I don’t see that I have any choice but to strike back at the Council. If I’m successful, I’m going to replace it with something better. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.”

“But better for who, shoog? Giving up one council of despots for another, or for a king, would not be an improvement.”

“We’ll see, Grandmother. None of my people are particularly ambitious. That’s why I selected them. I’m much more interested in mind readers being able to coexist than I am in using them to get more power.”

“That sounds very nice, Jake. I hope that your good intentions prevail. I’ve been around long enough to know that it doesn’t always work like that.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Well, let me tell you about the Council. When I was a girl, most of us mind readers were concentrated in the northeast — Boston, New York, Jersey and Philly.

“For the most part, we believed in live and let live. At least officially. Behind the scenes, there was a lot of envy. If someone was able to parlay his talent into money, it seemed there was always someone who came along behind to take it away, usually by taking control of the successful mind reader. And some of the people who were snatched ended up being degraded in the worst ways.

“To escape all that, my family moved away. My father settled here in New Orleans when I was still a little girl. He started a construction company. He was an indifferent manager, but he had a knack for bidding. He always seemed to bid just the right amount. Eventually he teamed up with other builders. He handled the contracts. They did the actual construction. He made a comfortable living without having to work hard.

“It was just after Daddy died and I had taken over his business that the Council formed. It was in the early sixties. They organized the Atlantic seaboard from New England down to D.C. They did two things that put them on top. First, they expelled other mind readers from their cities. Second, they hunted down and crushed any who challenged them. They made sure that everybody realized that they were the strongest telepaths and that they would take down anyone who stood in their way. It only took a couple of years before they had everybody organized and were exacting tribute.

“You didn’t fight them?” Jake asked.

“No. Once Daddy was gone, I was the only mind reader here. I knew I couldn’t stand against them alone. Because I wasn’t making huge amounts of money, my assessment wasn’t very high. In fact, I think because my operation is so modest, they mostly forgot about me, and that was just fine with me. I was never very enterprising. I just wanted to live here quietly without interference.”

“What happens when a member of the Council dies?”

“You’re asking about how they handle succession. The answer is I don’t know. Nobody really does except them. Lord Boston died in 2002. Another mind reader, not a relative, mind, rose up and claimed Boston’s seat on the Council. I figure that the Council decided among themselves who they wanted, but that’s just an educated guess. Everything took place behind the scenes until the announcement was made.”

“Have you ever been to one of the Council cities?”

“Lord, no, not since we moved away. These days nobody would even think of such a thing.”

“So you don’t know about where they live?”

“I’ve never been there, but the locations of their offices are hardly secret.”

“But if I wanted to find out their home addresses?”

“That may be the same place for a couple of them, but most of them have too many employees to run their affairs out of their homes. Except maybe New York. He lives in a big office building. He might have enough room for living space.”