Free Tunnel Vision by Susan Adrian

you safe.”
    I snort. “I’m sorry. You’re not much bigger or older than I am. I don’t see how you and a housekeeper are going to keep me sa—”
    Before I can finish the sentence he whips a gun from his back, cocks it, and trains it on me. It’s dull black, long, with a silencer attached. A foot away. Pointed at my chest.
    I gulp, loud. It echoes in the small space.
    I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before. In video games, yeah. Lots. In games I’ve shot one a hundred times. It’s different when it’s real.
    His expression doesn’t change at all: still, relaxed. He clicks off the gun, and settles it in his back again. “Oh, I think we’ll do fine. You all right, mate? You look a bit pale.”
    I press my palm against the wall. That fast … it could happen that fast … Jesus.
    I can’t believe he has a gun. At school, even. But he has it to point at other people. Other people with access to satellite pictures, who want to get at me. That guy with the pig eyes who followed me last week, maybe with a gun in his pocket. On second thought, that isn’t really better. I swallow. Drop some of the attitude. “Yeah. Okay.”
    “Good. Now, if that’s all the questions you have, I have some work for you to do. All right?”
    “Work?” My voice sounds faint. I clear my throat. “But … I have to do my research. If I really want to go to Stanford, my project has to be perfect.”
    He raises his eyebrows. “I think you have Stanford taken care of, if I understand it right. Plus there’s that full, willing cooperation?” It’s funny how he can sound so easygoing, look like a farm boy, but now I can hear the steel underneath. Like I can sense the gun there, waiting.
    “You can do your research Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Pete’s here,” he continues. “When he’s not here, you’re ours. Plus whatever Ana has for you in the evenings. If we have an object for you, you have to assume it’s a priority. Work comes before everything else. You got it, Jake?”
    I nod, slowly. That phrase— full, willing cooperation —is going to haunt me.
    “Good. We only have one today, to start nice and easy. Tell me about this.” He pulls a Ziploc bag out of his sweatshirt pocket and tosses it to me. This one holds a small silver key. I drop it into my palm, close my eyes.
    Open them again. He has a minicamera out, trained on me. “Wait. What if I get the headache, like before?”
    “Ana and I both have your medicine handy. We know what to do.”
    I guess that’ll have to do. If all goes well, I won’t need it anyway. I’d done a ton of tunnels before it happened last time. I settle my back against the wall, take a deep breath. Let it come, filling me with warmth.
    A man. Fiftyish, small, but powerful. Leathery brown skin, dark hair to his shoulders. Location: Colombia, near the border with Venezuela. Puerto Carreño, in Vichada. An area called Caño Narizón. He’s in a tent, on a patch of high ground in the middle of a vividly green tropical swamp. He sits on a camp chair, reading a report. The bug clicks and bird calls are constant, almost deafening.
    “What does the report say?”
    I open my eyes, snapped out of it. “What?”
    Eric watches me intently. “I need you to read the report he’s looking at. Read it aloud.”
    “It’s in Spanish. And you can’t interrupt me in the middle like that. I may not be able to get back.”
    “Try,” he says dryly.
    I close my eyes. See the guy again, his location.
    He’s reading a report. He turns a page and grunts to himself, pleased. Things are going well.
    Usually I have only a general description of the person, a sense of their surroundings, and what they’re feeling. I try to focus on the page in his hand. It swims, blurred, the words jumping. Then it starts to come clear. The weird thing, though, is I don’t actually read the Spanish words in front of me. I understand what he’s reading.
    Semisubmersible run up the Orinoco River a success. Have