Awakened: Book One of the Mind Agents series

Awakened: Book One of the Mind Agents series, Chapter 17

Late in the night, after another day of tests, which the doctor and the other instructors call "training," Jack, Chris, Maya and Sabine relax in the lounge. Chris slumps in the couch throwing a small rubber ball straight up to the ceiling and then catching it with one hand. Jack is draped over another couch. Maya and Sabine sit on the floor next to each other.

"Maybe we're going to be spies," Maya says to everyone, rifling around in a game drawer under the coffee table.

"You think we're in the CIA?" Chris asks, as if it couldn't possibly be true.

"Why not?" she says hopefully. "I've heard they recruit secret agents from schools. Maybe even with IQ tests."

"Not a chance."

Maya fishes out a little box of ping-pong balls from the drawer and starts lobbing them at Chris's rubber ball, trying to hit it out of the air.

"Cut it out," Chris says, amused.

Maya giggles and lobs more balls.

Sabine giggles along with her. She ups the ante and finds throw pillows from the corners of each couch and starts lobbing those at Chris's ball, mostly missing wildly, but getting close to it once or twice, and getting big laughs out of it, too.

"I'm getting ganged up on here!" Chris says.

Jack watches them play, feeling a little left out, especially when Maya begins crawling over Chris to try to grab the ball out of his hands. Everyone else is having a grand old time, but he's not sure how to engage. He decides to ask Chris to toss him the ball, and it becomes a game of monkey in the middle, boys against girls. They don't always catch the ball. Sometimes it bounces off walls and across the room and everyone scampers around for it.

Sabine is enraptured, and starts making up impromptu rules for the game.

Outside, their silhouettes dance in front of a bright first-floor window, a flickering lamp on a dark night. A figure moves through the trees in a small clearing across the two-lane street in front of their townhouse, which is part of a row of military housing. The figure stands in the shadow of an oak tree just a few feet from the street, watching.

He can hear the occasional yelp and fit of laughter from the window. A car passes, drowning out the frivolous sounds for a moment.

He looks up to the second floor, and trains his focus on the inside. He closes his eyes, intensifying his inner gaze. He moves through the dark kitchen, and through the adjoining room. He moves out into the hall to the left, stretching to the limit of his range, as far into the structure as he can reach. He finds nothing.

He reaches back, searching each room in the building's rear, and then explores to the right, pushing his boundary as far as he can.

He finds someone. A housekeeper. She's just far enough away that a strong command is difficult to plant. But he can send a suggestion. He latches onto her, and feeds her a simple idea.

Come this way.

The idea takes hold, and she drops what she's doing and walks down a hallway toward the room above the children. She enters with a key, goes to the kitchen, and turns on the lights. Standing there, she's unaware of her master in the shadows.

Closer now, her mind is much easier to penetrate, and with a more complicated set of instructions.

Unscrew the line.

She reaches behind the stove and unscrews the gas connector hose.

He sends her to the cupboards to look for an aerosol can. She finds several. He directs her to place them in a metal bowl. She looks for cooking oil, and finds a bottle in a cupboard next to the refrigerator.