Chương 13: Chapter 12 - The Demonstration

When I wandered into the old gym that afternoon, Darius and Conrad were already there. There was a table set up close to the bleachers. Darius's laptop and notes were taking up over half the table. He was off to the side, helping a man set up the last video camera. The four machines flanked the table like cyclopic watchmen. I made a mental note not to trip on their cords. They might turn to glower at me.

Conrad was standing close to the door, but a few feet further into the room, watching Darius and the unknown man work. I walked up to the wolfman's side.

"Hey," I said. Conrad didn't turn. He didn't need to. No doubt, he had smelled me coming when I was out in the hall.

"Hey."

"What's with all the cameras?" I asked.

"Didn't the other Torr teams already prove the abilities were real?"

"The school records all their sessions. It adds to the body of evidence, and they can use it to track the boys' abilities." I did my best to hide my grimace. Maybe the boys didn't mind being recorded. Wes sure seemed to like showing off.

"Is that the gym teacher?" I nodded to the man helping set up the cameras. I knew that gym teachers were territorial. It wouldn't surprise me if he was still protective of this gym, even if he did have a brand-new sports complex next to the dorms.

"That's Aaron Reisig," Conrad said." That's Reisig? The psychic consultant?" Conrad tilted his head so he could look down at me.

"Yeah?"

"Huh." When Darius had mentioned a psychic consultant, I had imagined a skinny, dark-haired woman in a long, sweepy skirt, loose shirt, and shawl, but the name Aaron didn't fit too well with that stereotype. My brain had hastily sketched in a few alterations. Unfortunately, the best it could present me with was the idea of a skinny, dark-haired guy who wore baggy khakis with pleats in the front—which, I guess, is the bifurcated equivalent to a sweepy skirt. I dunno. The Aaron Reisig in front of me was not skinny.

It looked like he worked out regularly. He had short, curly, blond hair and a full beard. He wore a checkered dress shirt, nice slacks, and black, thick-rimmed glasses, but he also had gauged ear plugs, and his cuffed-up sleeves revealed half-sleeve tattoos on both forearms. I spotted a few religious symbols in them. He looked like a guy who could give you an impromptu lecture on the various Buddhist schools after knocking out the idiot who tried to pick a fight with him in a dark alley.

Since Conrad was still eyeing me, I tried to come up with some excuse for my surprise.

"He's, uh, a lot…taller…than I expected." The edge of Conrad's lips lifted. I huffed.

"Sure. Everyone seems short to you." The wolfman went back to watching Darius and Reisig.

"You disappeared this morning."

"Darius asked me to look around the school."

"I know. He asked me to do that too." Conrad paused.

"Where did you go?"

"The grounds. Mostly." That was technically accurate and sounded much better than "I wasted over a half-hour getting mad at a wall for existing."

"Did you find anything?" Conrad asked.

"Nothing that could explain the psychic powers. What about you? Where did you go?"

"I went over the third floor of the main building." Dang it! If I'd known Conrad was going to be up there, I could have gone with him! It's hard to be scared of shadows and whispers when your companion can take down a bear, and he was enough of a professional, he could tolerate me for a few hours if it was to get a job done. That last thought stabbed my stomach with a bit of sadness.

"Did you find anything?" I asked. Conrad shook his head.

"It's hard when I don't know what I'm searching for."

"I hear ya." I thought for a second, then said, "Conrad, do you ever get creeped out? Like, do you ever get really nervous for no reason?"

"Hackles. It's when the fur on the back of your neck stands on end and you don't know why." I smiled.

"Humans don't have hackles."

"That's what you say." He shrugged.

"Call it what you want. It happens to everyone. But it's not for no reason. It's when your nose gets ahead of your brain."

"Huh?"

"You sense something. You know it's there. It trips your nerves, but your brain doesn't know what it is yet. Your hackles rise to warn you there might be danger."

"Okay. Did you get that while you were going over the third floor?" He looked at me again—with both eyes this time.

"No. Why?" Before I could answer, the door behind us opened. Wuller came in, followed by five boys and Miller, who was pushing a cart loaded with a series of flat, round weights. One of the five boys was Wes. He grinned when he saw me and waved like the dork he was. I grinned and waved back—a fellow dork. Beside me, I felt Conrad move away. He walked over to the table they had set up for us. When I turned back to the boys, I noticed that most of them, including Wes, were staring at Conrad.

Miller whistled for the boys' attention and directed them over to the bleachers. I didn't bother going over to the table. I wanted to get a closer look at the boys' powers, and since I was acting as the eyes of death, I didn't think anyone would stop me. Davis was our first performer. He was a telekinetic. They put a weight at the end of a line of tape on the floor. The line was broken into red and white blocks to mark distance.

The goal, I understood, was to get the weight from that end of the tape, to the taped square at the other end, but Davis seemed to be having trouble, and all of Reisig's "in your own time" only seemed to make him more nervous.

"Could…could you stand back," he whispered. Since he whispered, I was the only one he could have been talking to.

"I'm sorry," I whispered back.

"I'm trying to see what you're doing."

"You mean failing?" I shrugged.

"From what I hear, the fact you could even do it once on command means you're already ahead of the pack. Isn't that good enough? Do you really have to be perfect?" Davis got a funny look on his face, then, scowling, he looked down at the weight. It flew across the room and slammed into the far wall, cracking it. I stared at the kid. His hands were on his knees. He was pale, sweating, trembling, and staring back at me with wide eyes.

"Dude!" I cried. Davis must not have been expecting such an articulate response. An uneasy smile quaked its way onto his face. We both laughed. When I was done laughing, I tried to tack on an extra thought or two.

"Dude," I said, "that was fantastic!" He finished chuckling and stood up straight.

"Yeah, but I think I missed the target."

"You threw a ten-pound weight with your mind! We can move the freaking target!" He shaded his eyes, squinted toward the crack in the wall, and pointed with his other hand.

"Right about there, if you please." I turned to the table.

"Anybody got some red paint?" After that, my role as a cheerleader was pretty firmly established. The next telekinetic was Evans, the boy who'd brought up my luggage. He had better control, but not as much power. I urged his weight to scoot along as if it were the tortoise I had bet my last dollar on, and the hare was coming up fast. Payson was an ergokinetic—a boy who could manipulate electric fields.

He shook my hand at the end of his demonstration and laughed when I jumped after receiving what felt like the world's worst static shock. The first pyro, a boy named Jones, took off his blazer and shirt before beginning. On his second try, he was able to call up some flames. They rolled along his bare arms. Reisig put him through his paces: higher, lower, hotter, cooler. When Jones was done, he wormed his arms around in a flashy hip-hop dance move as I gave him an enthusiastic standing ovation.

Wes called from the bleachers, "Now that's my peasant!" That earned him a look from Wuller, Reisig, and Miller. When Jones had taken his seat, Wes came down and stood on the mats. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Reisig said, "Do you need to remove your jacket and shirt, Osborn?"

"No, sir." He smiled.

"I'm feeling optimistic today." The psychic consultant watched him for a moment.

"Uh-huh." He leaned forward, pulled over the last file, and opened it. It was thicker than the others. He said, "For the sake of your modesty, I hope your focus is as impressive as your optimism." Wes's cheeks filled with a pink haze, and he let out a quiet cough.

"Middle of the mats, please," Reisig said. Wes took two large steps back. Then he looked at me and made a weird face, like he was trying to get me to do something I should have already done. I countered with a confused look. He motioned for me to back off. Wow. Cocky much? With a wry smile, I stepped back.

"Full body, Osborn," Reisig said.

"Whenever you're ready." Wes burst into flame. It engulfed every inch of him, rippling and whipping off his head and shoulders by more than a foot. Wes Osborn, the psychic inferno. Reisig droned, "Higher." I stepped back further this time. The fire roared, reaching four feet above his head—five. I couldn't cheer. I couldn't even move my tongue. The awe weighed down my whole body. Reisig led Wes through a routine that was familiar to both of them.

There were no dance moves in this routine, no floating flames, nothing but pure control. But that didn't make it any less impressive than last night's impromptu performance. When Reisig called for Wes to stop, the flames receded, then vanished. Wes stood there for a second, smoking and beating on various parts of his blazer and slacks.

"Osborn?" Reisig said.

"Just a bit singed, sir. That's what I get for bragging."

"Try to remember that for next time, Master Osborn," Wuller called. He sounded like a proud father.

"Yes, sir." Wes turned to me, smiling. This was no grin of mischief or humor; this was pure confidence.

"Well?" My mouth moved up and down. The delayed words showed up sometime after that.

"I'm speechless." He raised his hand. I dived in for a high five. When our hands met, I expected his to be hot. Nope. It was nothing but a normal hand…that had been on fire less than a minute ago. Miller herded him out with the other boys while I walked over to the table to pick up my phone (Payson had warned me I wouldn't want to have it too close while he was showing off). As I approached, Wuller said to me, "I feel almost guilty sending them back to class. You seemed to be enjoying yourself, Miss Cole."

"Well, their powers are amazing!"

"But you must have seen something like it before."

"Wes Osborn showed me his powers last night. That's it. You do remember that psychic powers are rare, right?" The headmaster smiled.

"I've been told that, certainly." Darius was already deep in conversation with Aaron Reisig. The consultant's voice was casual and assured.

"Even among older, more talented psychics, their powers aren't always dependable. These boys are new to their powers. They're clumsy. They haven't had time to understand and develop their abilities. And not all abilities can be controlled. The majority of clairvoyants can never activate their ability at will. Psychics tend to have more control over the less complex abilities—" Darius broke in: "You're talking about the relative theory of psychic complexity?"

"Yes," Reisig said.

"Pyrokinesis is the simplest of all psychic abilities, so it makes sense that it would be the easiest to control. Next comes ergokinesis, then telekinesis." He motioned to the now empty mats.

"Those are the boys you saw today. But even their control is imperfect."

"Mr. Osborn seemed to do fairly well."

"Osborn was one of the first psychics we discovered, and he's still one of the most powerful."

"Is it true that most of the boys that have manifested a power have only manifested it once?" Darius's voice was deceptively soft, but there was a subtle emphasis that made his words feel like glass beads being dropped into sand. Reisig frowned. Wuller, on the other hand, smiled his big, bold smile. He leaned toward the vampire.

"That is, only once… so far, Mr. Vasil. We're still working with them. We hope, given time and practice, they might find it easier to use their powers." The vampire shifted his notes to get to a specific piece of paper.

"One hundred and three psychics…but only twenty-five of them have demonstrated their ability more than once." He raised his eyes to the psychic consultant.

"How long have you been working with them?"

"I've been focusing on increasing their control and expanding their basic knowledge of psychic abilities," Reisig said.

"By choice?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You don't seem to be able to increase the number of times they can use their ability. Are you choosing to focus on control, or is it the only thing you can influence?"

"I'm choosing to focus on control. It's important for the safety of the students." Darius hummed noncommittally.

"How do you find the psychics?"

"By a manifestation of their power," Wuller said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I kind of agreed with him. How did Darius expect them to find the psychics? Reisig elaborated, "The pyros, of course, are the easiest to find and verify. The ergokinetics took more time to figure out, but once we found one, we were able to pick out a few signs of the ability. When we told the boys to look for them, the other ergokinetics knew to come forward."

"What kind of signs?" Darius asked.

"Like if their alarm clocks stopped working."

"Does that mean that the ergo-ability also first manifests in their sleep?" Reisig shook his head.

"It's not that easy to say. Whenever an ergo's power is active, it interferes with the electricity flowing around them, but what other small electronic device is around them for eight hours at a time?" Geez. When did our train pull in to State the Obvious Central?

"Um," I said, "their phones?" Wuller let out a huh! of laughter.

"Not at this school!" Darius said, "How did you find the first ergokinetic?" He pulled his notepad toward him and glanced down.

"Mr. Truhurst?"

"Truhurst got upset and blew out several lights," Reisig said.

"Is that normal?" I asked. The psychic consultant turned to me with a wry smile.

"Which part? The part about a young man getting upset, or the part about him blowing out a series of lights?"

"I read that most psychic abilities appear when the psychic is a teenager. Is it because there's more emotional upheaval?" Reisig watched me for a second. The way his eyes moved over my face made me feel like he was trying to place me. Good luck, buster, I thought. He said, "That might be true for certain talents, but not all of them. People who tend toward claircognitive abilities often show signs of their sensitive natures as children." Claircognitive.

That's when you know something you shouldn't know, usually because the knowledge is divorced from the psychic by either space or time. It covered things like clairauditory and clairvoyant abilities. I really needed to send Iset a thank you text.

"But the provable abilities—" Darius started.

"We don't like that term here," Reisig said. Darius's eyebrows lowered and his eyes narrowed before he could control his reaction. By timing the silence that followed, I could tell exactly how irritated he was by Reisig's blunt interruption. And, boy, was he irritated. But when Darius spoke, his voice was calm.

"You mean the term 'provable?'""We're talking about a subjective experience that can't be seen, measured, or recorded. To call it into question because it doesn't match your life's sensory experience is no different than telling someone they aren't in pain because 'it seems unlikely.' Do you know how many doctors do that? Do you know how many people suffer, needlessly, because they do?"

"Then what term do you use?"

"We don't. Psychics are psychics. We don't differentiate between the boys with powers that we can record and the boys whose powers are imperceptible."

"You may find that a useful sentiment, Mr. Reisig, but I'm an investigator. I need to differentiate between them. Would you prefer it if we use the terms empirical and subjective?"

"If you must. If you find that sentiment useful." Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Conrad's ears start to flatten. Yeesh. Wasn't someone supposed to offer us tea about now? I drew their attention by stepping closer to the table.

"Do most of the empirical talents show up when they're teenagers?" Reisig leaned back in his chair.

"Most of them, but they occasionally show up early or late, usually in conjunction with stress or traumatic events." Wuller did his bit to defuse the situation by saying, in his bluff voice, "That's why I chose to put together a school. These are the prime years, when the students are full of energy. They're starting to ask questions and challenge the world around them. They're more open-minded and willing to explore what's possible. At any rate, I hope you're satisfied the abilities are real?"

"That wasn't seriously in question," Darius said.

"The three other teams all confirmed they were real, but I hope you understand why we wanted to check for ourselves." What a well-constructed phrase. It didn't say why we wanted to check—which was to give me and Conrad a chance to look and sniff around—instead it left the polite suggestion that Wuller already knew, thus allowing the headmaster to fill in the blanks with whatever excuse would satisfy him. Wuller wasted no time picking up a metaphorical crayon and coloring in those awkward white spaces.

"Of course," he said.

"Checking the authenticity of the powers should always be the first step. Phony psychics are as much of a concern to us as they are to you. More so! —as it's our credibility they're compromising." Darius put his hand over his notes. The tips of his fingers pressed down on the papers. He watched his fingertips as he said, "I understand that approximately half of your psychics are noted as having subjective powers."

"That's correct."

"How did you check their authenticity?"

"You can't —" Reisig started.

"Reisig," Wuller said. The consultant fell silent. Wuller said to Darius, "I understand your concerns—I do. But consider our situation. We're trying to cultivate a supportive environment where psychics are respected for their abilities. If we challenged our boys whenever they claimed to have subjective abilities, that would only cow them into hiding their talents."

"You simply take their word for it?" Darius asked.

"Mr. Vasil, there are no advantages to claiming you have a power. In fact, our psychics lose part of their free time. They have an extra class where they work with Mr. Reisig to develop their abilities. But if it's proof you want, I might have some for you. It isn't conclusive, but it's compelling."

"Please, go on."

"We keep all of the automatic writing and automatic drawings that our students produce. Of course, we can't draw any conclusions about the sketches or the writings in English, but one of our students wrote in fluent German when he had no previous exposure to the language." Darius rubbed his jaw.

"You know that he didn't know German?"

"For certain? No. But we looked into his background, his family life, and the history of his schooling—no German."

"That would be compelling. May I look at these writings?" Wuller stood up.

"Certainly! We're eager to prove ourselves, Mr. Vasil. It's the first step to being taken seriously." Darius and Wuller left together. Conrad left a few seconds later. I almost called out to him, but a flash of fear and shame hauled my voice back into my chest. There was plenty of room for it, since my whole chest cavity felt empty. Stupid witch. Yeah.

'Cause it's Olivia's fault for pointing out the problem. Stupid brain. To try to make up for its brutal realism, my brain scraped up a useful observation: if I didn't want to cause Conrad any extra trouble, I could check out the third floor on my own, then join him on the other floors. Reisig stood up, went over to the first of the cameras, and started taking down the equipment. I wandered over.

"Would you like some help?" I asked. His eyes moved to me for a second, then returned to the equipment.

"No, but thank you. You're Miss Cole, is that right?"

"Yeah."

"And who was that guy? Is he a paid skeptic?"

"You mean Darius?" I thought about it.

"That's… not actually a terrible description. We were sent here to investigate the situation. If he didn't challenge what was being presented, it wouldn't be much of an investigation." Reisig's only answer was a derisive grunt. He hefted the camera from its stand and carefully walked it over to the table. After he put it down, he said, "The man watched five boys use their powers right in front of him.

We have slow-motion cameras, infrared cameras, standard cameras, a multimeter—he knows that psychic powers are real, but because he can't see the other powers, he assumes the boys must be lying?" I looked down at the floor and scuffed my sneaker over the warped wood slats. During Reisig's conversation with Darius, I had felt like someone was slowly twisting me up the same way they'd wring out a dishrag. I could see things that other people couldn't. Why did Darius believe me?

Was it only because of what Jacky had told him? How many other people would think I was lying?

"Are you a psychic, Mr. Reisig?" I asked. Reisig bent over the camera.

"That's why Wuller hired me. There are lots of people who know about psychics, but I know about them on a personal level."

"What kind of powers do you have?" He straightened up.

"You don't know?" I shook my head.

"Are you going to call me a liar?" The challenge in his voice was clear. Maybe that's what he wanted—a challenge. He certainly seemed combative.

"Would you like me to?" I asked. He looked at me for a second, then he lowered his head and chuckled.

"No, I suppose not." He walked over to the next camera.

"It's involuntary astral projection. I've been able to do it a few times on purpose, but it isn't reliable." Astral projection. When the psychic's soul becomes detached from their body.

"That's…" I faltered, then tried again.

"That's one of the subjective ones, isn't it?"

"Yes. Which is why my sympathy is more with the boys than with Mr. Vasil."