Mission 'Don't get killed'

Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

The next morning, my father directs me to the living room immediately after breakfast. There I find a woman who introduces herself as Alicia. She's a distant woman, probably in her midthirties. We both sit down, she on the couch, I on one of the chairs, and she just tells me to start.

I close my eyes and reach out to her mindscape to build my bridge. Just as my father had told me, I notice that her defenses are very strong. I don't know what kind of mindscaper she is, but these barriers are pretty skilled. I start prying my way through the walls. She might have a thick barrier around her mindscape, but it's not keeping me out. She's not fighting me, so I guess she's not a destroyer, unless she's really that willing to let me in. Before I know it, I'm inside her mindscape, standing in the centre of the dome. Her current thoughts are mostly about how she hates my father for letting his daughter violate her privacy. I feel bad, I could have known that she didn't agree to do this willingly. I dig a bit around in her memories because that was my job: prove that I've done this. And the only way to prove it is by telling something about Alicia.

'She's a thirty-six-year-old reader and she used to live in one of the rich neighborhoods.' I tell my father about an hour later while I'm sitting in his office.

'She didn't have a job or children but she lived with her husband, who was a scouter in service of the government, he worked in the night patrol.' I pause. 'He helped her with keeping her ability hidden, but then the night guard invaded their house, they had suspected her husband of treason. He was taken away and she managed to escape.' I end the story here. She was found by my father's scouters five months ago and that's it.

I look at my father, who doesn't say anything for a while.

'Good job.' He says then. 'I had an idea that you might be able to break her, but you did well, I had thought you would need to sleep right away but you don't show any signs of exhaustion.' He seems to be very pleased with this.

'Not yet.' I say quickly. He mustn't overestimate me or suspect that I'm stronger than he thinks I am. 'But I can feel it coming.'

'Well, if you need to, you can lie down. You're free to do what you want for the rest of the day.' He answers. 'I'll try and find some other candidates to train on.' He adds. 'I want you to be ready when Shelley and her staff have managed to patch that manipulator up.'

'Okay.' I just say. 'I'll try and train as much as I can.' I get up and leave when my father doesn't say anything else and spend the rest of the day in the living room.

At night I can't sleep. The thoughts and worries about Sara and Zac keep going around in my mind again. I try to not think about them so I can get some sleep, but they find their way back into my head every time. I need to know how they are doing. I don't care about Matt's stupid assignment anymore, which might not be very smart, but I just want to get them out of here. I sigh and get up. I'll just take a look in the infirmary. The last time I was there, there were only three patients and I heard that two of them have already been released after my visit. Let's just hope that there are no supervisors tonight and otherwise I'll fake an incident.

Luckily for me the hallways and the infirmary are empty, except for Sara and Zac, who are lying in seperate beds, as far away from each other as possible and restrained. It doesn't surprise me. Zac is sleeping, his arm hooked up to an IV. Sara is still unconcious but I sit down on her bed and talk to her in a whisper.

'I'll get you out.' I tell her. 'No matter what.' After a while of sitting in silence I yawn and decide to leave again, even though I haven't even stayed there for more than five minutes. If I fall asleep on Sara's bed, I'm in trouble and if someone finds me here right now, I have a problem as well. It was stupid to come here. Suddenly I regret my decision and curse myself for being so impulsive. What if someone had seen me here? They would have seen how interested I was in people that I'm not supposed to know and that would have gotten me in trouble. I quickly make my way out of the infirmary and go back to my room where I immediately crawl into my bed, thanking the gods for the fact that I didn't run into anyone on my way back. Tomorrow I really need to focus on that other part of my mission, I tell myself. It's high time I did that.