Mental
by Sam Bourne
The parking lot of Floston County's police station was a minefield of weeds and shrubs. Nearby, a derelict lawn mower lay on its side, exposing a badly bent and rusting blade. The police station itself hid behind an overgrown wall of vegetation as though embarrassed to show itself. It had every reason to be embarrassed; together with the hardware store and post office on either side, this made up almost a quarter of downtown Floston. Locals were great fans of the word "quaint."
A sleek white car, all curves and gloss, pulled into the parking lot and came to rest beside a sorry lineup of clunky municipal vehicles. The faint hum of its engine clicked off. Emmett Kranz and his partner, Percy "Rhubarb" McDaniels, stepped out of the car wearing the tricorner mortarboard caps of the Wichita PD. Rhubarb smacked loudly on a well-worn nub of chewing gum as he took stock of their surroundings.
"Yeesh."
A mass of dried plants very much like tumbleweed skittered past them across the pavement. Emmett frowned at it behind his bushy moustache, letting out one of his trademark low, rumbling sighs.
They watched as the wad of weeds ambled away from them. Emmett had the odd thought that the little bugger was trying to escape civilization; a notion made more bizarre by the idea that this strip mall of a town actually fell into that category. He watched as the wind swept the plants away from the stony abomination of Floston and across the road towards a wide-open plain, radiant in the sunlight. Then a bus hit it.
"Whoa!" Rhubarb shouted. He grinned. "Hey Emmett, let's ticket 'em for disturbing the atmosphere."
"What's to disturb?" Emmett grumbled. He turned back to the small, one-story police station. "Let's go, we're not sightseeing."
They grabbed some equipment from inside their vehicle and strapped it on as they walked towards the station. Rhubarb squinted through twin barren landscapes reflected in his sunglasses.
"You know, Emmett, this might just be the single most desolate place in the country. Seems like a good place to hide." A tang of worry slipped into his voice. "You don't think these mentals actually know what they're doing, do you?"
"Nope." Emmett gave one final tug to a strap around his forearm. "They never do."
The door clacked behind them as they disappeared into the station.
A pretty young receptionist sat at the front desk. She smiled too much for Emmett's taste. Not that he had anything against smiles‹he even performed the feat himself on occasion‹but there was a line somewhere that should not be crossed. He could see that line, about a centimeter past her gums.
"Good morning!" she piped.
Rhubarb frowned and checked his watch, prompting a frantic glance from the receptionist at a clock on the back wall.
"Oh, afternoon then! Wow." She whacked herself on the side of her head, momentarily dislodging her headset.
"We're here to see Sheriff Unkambe." Emmett's voice was gruff, but not unfriendly. He flipped open his badge. Rhubarb did the same.
"Of course, Detective Kranz. She's expecting you. Oh, and I'm Veronica."
Veronica pressed a button on the desk. They heard a chime from somewhere farther back in the office followed by a muffled "Yes?"
"Those guys from the WPD are here. Shall I send them back?"
A muffled response.
"Okay." Veronica's smile took aim at Emmett and Rhubarb. "She'll be with you in two shakes."
"Thank you," replied Emmett.
Rhubarb took off his sunglasses and set them on the desk. "Yeah, thanks, Veronica. I'm Detective McDaniels." He actually tipped his hat.
"Yeah, I read your badge."
Emmett turned away, absently sizing up the lime green waiting area that pulsed dimly under the fitful fluorescent lighting. The room consisted of two worn plastic chairs, a small table with some specialty magazines, and a linoleum floor that had seen smoother days. A muted screen on the wall displayed the local news channel. How this county filled twenty-four hours of programming with local news was anyone's guess. Lots of cats stuck on roofs and crop circle exposés, probably. The anchors were bantering now, smiling too much. Must be a Floston disease, thought Emmett.
"I'm kinda surprised you all don't have those fancy electronic badges," Veronica chirped. "I thought everybody in Wichta had those. We've got them on order. Finally catching up with you big city types."
"We had to bring our old fashioned version this time," Rhubarb said, absently flipping his badge open and shut. "Because of the, uhŠ" He looked to Emmett and got a quick shake of the head. "Šthe situation."
"Oh." Veronica's smile dropped. "Oh, am I not supposed to know about that? I know about that. Everybody at the station does. I mean, with Gene making all that racket when he found 'em a couple days ago... and anyway, you're here, so obviously something's up."
Emmett tugged at his moustache. "Well, it's policy to keep it quiet. Don't want to upset anyone."
Her smile came back in full force. "Oh, I'm not upset. I'm sure you guys'll take care of it. And don't worry, it's not like I went around blabbing to everyone. I know I sound like a chatterbox, but it actually makes me even better at keeping secrets. People only think I tell them everything." She raised an eyebrow mysteriously, then winked.
Emmett set himself down on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and fiddled with the device strapped onto his left sleeve between his elbow and wrist. Veronica stared openly.
"Hey, umŠ" She looked unsure of herself. "I guess it's probably against policy or something, but there's no chance you could, like, I don't knowŠ do a trick? Is there?"
"Sorry." Emmett didn't even look up.
"Yeah." Veronica slumped. "That's okay. I actually saw one a couple months ago. This little cripple boy who came through town had one. I didn't really see him do anything though. Except for moving his wheelchair, I guess. My grandma wouldn't even look at him. 'Unnatural,' she says. 'it's bad enough he's crippled, now he's going to hell, too.' She's cantankerous."
Rhubarb leaned on Veronica's desk, giving her a good look at his shiny black plastic armband. "Unnatural? Come on. This?" The armband let out a harsh electric buzz; Rhubarb hit it on the desk and it stopped. "These Frescas can be pretty dangerous, though. Those models they give to handicapped people have a million and a half failsafes, but the police version you can't play around with. If you ever come down to Wichita, let me know. I'll arrange a little demo for you."
Emmett shot him a glance. "Rube."
"And just who are you calling a rube?" Sheriff Unkambe was standing in the doorway at the other end of the room.
Rhubarb raised his hand. "That would be me, Sheriff. Rube here."
Emmett stood and offered his hand. "That's Detective McDaniels, nickname of Rhubarb. I'm detective Emmett Kranz. Sorry about that."
"Believe me, I've been called worse. Come on back to my office."
Rhubarb fell in beside Emmett.
"You know what that buzzing was?" he asked.
"New battery."
"Right."
As Rhubarb passed through the door, he turned towards Veronica. The sunglasses on her desk flew across the room and into Rube's hand. He winked. Veronica squealed, shocked and delighted.
Sheriff Unkambe's office was spare and efficient. Its wood-paneled walls were decorated with a pair of maps and an old desk sat in the center of the room, propped up in one corner by a pile of old hardcovers. The sole departure from the Spartan décor was the cozy leather armchair parked behind her desk. Emmett suspected she spent a lot of time sitting there, wondering how to keep herself busy. This week being a notable exception to that, of course.
She handed them a loose-leaf folder across her desk. "When I talked to your commissioner he said that what we've got is textbook mentals-on-the-run."
"Mmm. Looks like it." said Emmett as he looked over a report.
The Sheriff pursed her lips. "They don't give us that textbook out here in hicksville, Detective."
"You're not missing much," Rhubarb offered.
She looked doubtful. "At any rate, it looks like we've got two or three of them camped out in an abandoned house a few miles down the road. Don't really know where they came from or how long they've been there. We assume not very long, or we would've found them earlier. It's that purple X on the map there."
"Purple." Emmett nodded, shuffling through the papers.
"They haven't bothered anyone?" Rhubarb asked. "Caused any trouble?"
"As far as we know, nobody's even seen them. All we've got is the reading Officer Yothers took two days ago when he drove past the house. It's definitely a match, though. Those Fresca sensors are supposed to be ninety-nine percent reliable, right?"
"That's what they say," said Rhubarb.
Unkambe raised her eyebrows at him.
"A-and they're right, yes," he stammered. "Yes, they're very reliable. If you got a positive reading, they're there."
She watched Emmett examine the papers. "Yeah, that's what your guys said on the phone."
Emmett nodded, still glued to the reports.
"This house, it's a ways off the main road, a bit into the hills. Really run down, abandoned a decade or so. Yothers was driving by and he noticed a weak signal on his box, so he went back and drove up the driveway as far as he had to go to get a sure reading. Then he got out of there fast as his wheels would take him." She chuckled. "Gene comes in here white as half a cow and says, 'Sheriff, I don't get paid enough to mess with no, goddamn mentals!' Pardon his French."
"That's okay, I'm fluent," Rhubarb grinned. "Although I'm not so sure we get paid enough, either, despite the fact that it's our job."
Sheriff Unkambe pursed her lips, then leaned forward, clasping her hands in front of her. "Look, I can't say I'm thrilled with how your department seems intent on keeping us country yokels in the dark about these mentals. I know there's a lot of need-to-know going on here, but if we did know a little more about what they're capable of, I'd be a lot more comfortable."
Rhubarb looked at her with something like envy. "Trust me, you wouldn't."
She blinked at them a few times and leaned back in her chair. "Alright. Well, regardless, we do appreciate you guys coming out to help us. Is there anything else you need before you head out?"
From back in the office, a sudden "Oh my God!"
The intercom chimed.
"Veronica?"
"I'm so sorry. Could you please apologize to them for me? Geez, they must think I'm such a fleck. I never offered them coffee. Oh, for God's sake, it's lunchtime! I should've ordered sandwiches."
Unkambe gave them a weary look. "I'm sure there's no hard feelings?"
Rhubarb grinned.
Emmett finally looked up. "Lunch?"
As they drove down the long and curiously well-maintained road, a careful observer might have noticed the occasional particle of Emmett's recent meal take a sudden leap from his moustache, down around his upper lip, and into his mouth. Picking crumbs out of his moustache was one of Emmett's little pleasures. It was also surprisingly useful practice for precision psychokinesis. It would not go over well with his superiors if they found out he was using their most controversial equipment to groom his beard, but, as they had proven numerous times in the past, they were far from careful observers.
Emmett gave his moustache a final lick as they neared the turnoff to the old house. He was glad it was in such an out-of-the way area. The last thing they needed was a bunch of gawkers, and even the boy taking their orders at Burrito Burger in town seemed to have a pretty good idea of who they were, despite Veronica's assurances of confidentiality. With his Level Five Fresca license, he could easily have found out for certain how much the kid knew, along with what kind of music he listened to and which of the town's half-dozen girls he secretly harbored crushes towards, but that was the worst kind of privacy invasion, and penalties for abusing a Fresca in that way were beyond severe. Disabling the circuitry that blocked the wearer's capacity for telepathy was typically the first thing a mental did when they got their hands on a Fresca; it made deception and stealth practically effortless. At any rate, even if it was the most interesting thing to happen in their town in decades, Floston's populace was unlikely to venture out this far just to see a couple of mind-junkies get arrested.
He wished Rhubarb would say something. Usually he made no attempt to hide his general annoyance with Rube's inappropriate and poorly-timed verbiage, but it was unnerving the way his normally inexhaustible well of conversation always ran dry just before a raid. Emmett briefly considered saying something himself, but he couldn't remember the last time he had begun a conversation, and he wasn't about to start now. So they sat quietly as the long driveway stretching between their car and the house grew steadily shorter, listening to leaves crunch beneath their tires and the raspy, nervous rustle of their uniforms.
The drive wound its way up the side of a small mountain, cutting shallow valleys through the hilly landscape. Short, black trees dotted the slopes from time to time, bare branches reaching towards a cloudless white sky. Emmett noticed scorch marks beneath several of the trees, or limbs cracked off in odd places. If Rhubarb noticed, it certainly did nothing to encourage conversation.
The house came at them suddenly from behind a final, sharp turn of the road that led to a shady recess in the mountainside. From the apparent antiquity of the house and the strange way in which the mountain curved around it, the house seemed by far the older thing: a once-solitary presence on an ancient plain to which the hills had no choice but give way in some long ago tectonic upheaval. Large, leafless trees stood guard on either side of the house, their sharp, dark branches like spears stained with the ichor of fallen foes.
Emmett shook the image from his head. Such errant streams of thought and rampant anthropomorphizing were some of the chief side effects that came while using a Fresca device. He stopped the car fifty yards from the house, then tapped a button on his armband to clear his mind of its hallucinatory ramblings and snap it into focus. He saw Rhubarb do the same.
"Have your blocking up?" Emmett asked.
Rhubarb nodded. The blocking failsafes had been up before they had even turned off the main road, but it was a way to break the silence, and it never hurt to double-check. Once the mentals knew they were there, it would be too late to keep them out of their heads.
A console on their dashboard lit up with the image of the house in front of them as Rhubarb tapped at the keyboard. On the screen, three red points of light appeared, two on the upper level of the house, one on the first floor.
"Two up top, one on the ground." Emmett said.
A red haze was slowly fading in over the point on the lower floor.
"What the hell is that? That blob." Rhubarb's voice was calm and controlled, but just barely.
"Never seen that before."
"Never?"
Emmett shook his head.
"You don't think they broke through, do you? Bypassed the limiters? Is that would it would look like? That's impossible."
"Yes, definitely."
Rube's eyes widened. "Definitely? They broke through, are you kidding me?"
"No!" Emmett whispered, tersely. "No, definitely impossible."
Rhubarb exhaled. "Try answering in a complete sentence next time, will ya? Geez." He leaned in, squinting at the screen. "So are there four of them in there. Supposed to be three. She said two or three. Where'd the other one come from? You think there's more out there somewhere? Farther from the road?"
"I don't think so." Emmett's eyes never left the house.
"Emmett, we need to back off. We shouldn't do four on our own. They probably know we're here by now."
"I'm not so sure there are four."
"What?"
Emmett opened his door and left the vehicle. Rhubarb opened his mouth to shout after him, then grabbed the radio from his shoulder instead and whispered, "Emmett, what are you doing?"
He saw Emmett reach up to his own radio. "We do this just like usual."
In any other situation, Rhubarb would have argued ceaselessly, but he left the car to join Emmett as he approached the house, slowly and deliberately. Halfway to the front door, they both stopped. Emmett tapped a button on his Fresca and concentrated.
"Still the same configuration, two on the second floor, two on the first."
"Two on first?" asked Rube. "Are you sure? You're sure it's four."
Emmett nodded, but his brow showed more creasing that usual. Rhubarb noticed.
"What is it? Should we advance?"
"Must be one of 'em's got a broken Fresca or something. Let's stay here, give 'em a wider berth than usual."
"No argument here." Rhubarb took a deep breath. "Call them out?"
A single nod from Emmett.
Rhubarb spoke through a small amplifier he pulled off his belt: "This is the Wichita PD. We have confirmation of illegal Fresca usage in this building and are prepared to take any means necessary to confiscate them. Please shut off and remove your Fresca devices before exiting the building with your arms in the air. Anyone seen wearing a device will be considered armed and dangerous, and treated accordingly."
A branch on one of the trees by the house snapped off and landed, kicking up a cloud of dust. Then everything was silent. They waited. A bee buzzed past Emmett's head and landed on his arm. It imploded and fell to the ground. Emmett brushed off the residue, never taking his gaze from the house.
"Any movement?" Rhubarb asked.
Emmett shook his head. "Call them out one more time."
Rhubarb lifted the amplifier. "This is your final warning. Exit the building or we will‹"
The front of the house exploded. Emmett and Rhubarb dove to the ground as a fireless maelstrom of splintering wood blasted towards them. Arcs of dirt spread out away from Emmett as he shot an invisible shield between him and the house, repelling most of the debris in front of them. Errant shingles flew over the shield and landed behind them as smaller particles of shattered lumber fell onto their backs.
Emmett glanced over at his partner. "Rube! You okay?"
"They're suicidal," he said, spitting dirt. "How did they manage that?"
Emmett looked up at a giant's dollhouse. It was nicely arranged: Father and son were upstairs, staring wide-eyed and opened-mouthed, and mother was downstairs in the living room, sitting in a chair and cradling her newborn baby. For all its detail and craftsmanship, the dollhouse was sparsely furnished and dreary. The young girl to whom it belonged must be of a singularly dark and morose disposition to have commissioned such a‹
Emmett slapped his Fresca, ejecting the thought. Someone was screaming.
Inside the house, on the first floor, the mother was shrieking at them, clutching a bundle of rags to her breast, a black Fresca device visible as the sleeve bunched up on her arm. Her cries were so violent as to be nearly unintelligible, except for a single word.
"Baby." Rhubarb said. "Emmett, she has a baby."
The teenage son hit his own armband and jumped down from the second story even as his father tried to hold him back. He slowed just before hitting the ground and ran at them, shouting. "You could have killed us!"
"Whoa! We didn't do anything!" Rhubarb shouted.
"Calm down, son!" Emmett reached out to the boy's mind, trying to turn its rage.
The boy fell to the ground, shaking his head violently and then pounding on his armband. He stopped, suddenly, and looked up with a calm stillness in his eyes. The look vanished as quickly as it came and he fell back down, hitting his head hard on the dirt. He writhed, jerking in quick flickers of motion, slowly crawling towards them.
The mother and father shouted after their son, telling him to stop fighting, to give in and come back to them. He stopped a few yards from Rube and Emmett and stood up. Emmett released his mental influence and let the boy turn back to his parents with dark, dirty streaks running from his eyes.
"We can't let them! They'll kill us!" he yelled.
"Stop, Francis," his mother pleaded. "It wasn't them." She pressed her face into the blankets in her arms. She said something then, muffled past recognition.
"What?" Francis screamed.
A deep percussion shook the house. The father, standing at the edge of the second floor, slipped off and fell. Three invisible cushions caught him and he floated to the ground, immediately scrambling back into the house to his wife.
Francis turned back to Emmett and Rube, red-faced and trembling. "Stop it!" He let out a blast of kinetic energy, thrusting his hands towards them. The blocking field surrounding them absorbed the attack, but a gust of air continued on, powerful enough to push them back a step. The effort was too much for Francis, and he collapsed, clutching at his head.
"Francis! Stop it! It wasn't them, Francis," the woman yelled, sobbing.
Francis bent back to look at her.
His mother looked down at the baby in her arms. "It was your sister!" The agony in her voice was absolute. She knew what it meant, saw events unfolding before her mind's wide eye, and let out a spontaneous, animal wail.
Emmett saw the same thing, the same result of this encounter, and he knew the role he would play. It had happened. Someone had broken through, here on the outskirts of nowhere. Someone small, and innocent, and unknowing. And it had to stay here.
Emmett walked past the boy slowly, approaching the parents and their little daughter. Rhubarb came behind, subduing the boy and removing his armband. Emmett continued forward as though moving through water, looking into the sad eyes of the parents as they stared back. They looked deep, each feeling the other's pain and regret, fading and swirling into one another until they coalesced into one. The parents' eyes grew into saucers, great parodies of grief and sorrow. As the mother cried, her tears swelled into pints and gallons and fell, soaking the baby, drowning it. She gasped, grasping uselessly at tears as they dropped, flowing through her fingers. The father watched her, knowing he could not help, and hugged her close, leaning his head on hers, sinking into it a little. Emmett climbed up onto the floor of the room. He had two pistols holstered on his belt, and the hat on his head was heavy, large and round. The mother looked down towards him, and he realized he was very short and his moustache was dragging on the ground. She laughed at the little cowboy, a short stab of laughter cut off by a sob. The baby looked up at her laugh and smiled. She was a cute little girl. Her eyes met with her mother's, who stopped crying and smiled at her daughter. Daddy bent over mother's shoulder and tickled the baby's belly. The girl giggled, her squeaky voice echoing and reverberating through the house. Her parents looked at her, lovingly, and as she continued to laugh, she rose up from the swaddling clothes, rising up and away, and she grew. She was as large as an adult, still giggling and burbling nonsense. Mother and father looked at her questioningly, as though asking where she could possibly be off to on those little baby legs of hers. She continued to grow. One story. Two stories. Four.
The baby's face was all they could see now. Every pore, every little hair. Each expression was a seismic event, muscles rippling and rolling across the fleshy expanse. Giggles filling the air were a piercing alarm.
"Young lady, stop this right now!" her mother demanded.
The baby stopped laughing. They heard the squelching sound of the baby's eyes moving against their lids as she turned her massive gaze down towards her parents.
"Do you hear me?" mother said. "That's enough!"
The face contorted, twisting, folding in on itself, and then sprang back out, erupting into a fierce wail. Everything shook beneath the sound and she was small again, back in her mother's arms, falling. Emmett and her parents hit the floor as the house cracked and moaned, the floorboards rippling and vibrating. Rhubarb grabbed Emmett and jumped out of the house as the mother and father scrambled to do the same. Rube nudged the house as it swayed, pushing at it with his mind to keep it intact long enough for the parents to get out with their child. As soon as they hit the ground, the house toppled, crushed under its own weight against the tree.
After tapping the button for clarity on his armband, Emmett looked at Rube and gave him a nod. It was tough to read, but Rube knew it was a thank you. They went to the mother and father, huddling nearby around the shrieking baby.
The mother raised up her head as Emmett stopped in front of her. They stared at each other, neither searching the other's thoughts, just looking.
"Her name was Shania," she whispered.
"She's six days old," said the father. They looked at their baby with an uneasy mix of pride, fear and torment.
Emmett crouched down next to her. "She's a lovely child." He looked into the mother's eyes. Already red and swollen, they filled again with tears.
"I can't do it. You know I can't." She did her best to keep her voice from shaking. Her hand grabbed Emmett's and held it with an ardent grip. "Please."
Emmett nodded, and looked up at her husband. He turned and put his hands over his face, but his head fell in assent. Mother closed her eyes and squeezed them tight.
Emmett looked down at the child with a look of wonder in his eyes, and he smiled, just a bit. In his warm, gravelly voice, Emmet spoke to the child. "You're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. Goodbye, little one."
The baby's crying came to an abrupt stop.