Free Eat, Brains, Love by Jeff Hart Page A

worse for the mind on the receiving end. You have to be subtle: peek in the windows, press your ear up to the door, and pick up whatever stray thoughts you can. It was a lot easier when a person was scared or tired, like Victoria. When you’re that way—unfocused—thoughts have a way of just shooting off your brain like sparks.
    It was just like the psychometric test they gave me back in school. I didn’t know what shapes were printed on the military recruiters’ cards, but the recruiters did, and they were thinking about them. Thoughts close to the surface like that are easy to pick up on.
    Going deeper than that top layer of thoughts, or staying linked to someone like I was with Jake, that was harder. Physical contact helped, or an object like The House of Mirth . Something to focus on. And I couldn’t keep up that contact for long. I could still feel Jake out there, in the back of my mind, but that link would grow fainter soon. It’s why we tried to track down the zombies as quickly as possible.
    But for now, we had to deal with Victoria and the rest. Incident Management was tonight’s top priority.
    â€œI’m sorry to keep you here so late on such a horrible day,” Harlene said to Victoria, her voice gently authoritative. “We’ve just got to talk to every student about the shooting.”
    â€œShooting?” asked Victoria, her eyes widening.
    Harlene laid out the story. Frustrated popular girl and her secret, unpopular boy-toy hatch a plan to get revenge on a school that never took them seriously. Guns purchased on the internet, a cold-blooded killing spree, a cowardly escape. Honestly, it’s not something that would pass the smell test. It sounded like the plot from a bad after-school special.
    That’s why I was there.
    I closed my eyes and slipped up against Victoria’s mind, being as gentle as possible. It was sort of like playing Operation on the astral plane. Don’t push too hard or the alarm buzzes and everyone gets a migraine.
    As Harlene laid out the details, I nudged Victoria toward believing them.
    Imagine every piece of information you hear entering the labyrinth of your mind via one of two doors: “truth” and “bullshit.” (It’s actually a lot more complicated than that; there are doors for “things I want to believe” and “things I believe to make myself feel better”—hundreds of doors, really.) Anyway, my job was to make sure our cover story entered Victoria’s mind the right way.
    When I was satisfied that Victoria had accepted Harlene’s version of events, I opened my eyes and gave Harlene a subtle nod. She smiled and dismissed Victoria.
    I rubbed my temples. Even though I liked to think of myself as some kind of telepathic prodigy, massaging Victoria’s psyche was harder than I expected after such a nutso day. Tracking Jake and now this . . . I was definitely going to need a fistful of Advil in the morning.
    Harlene watched me. “You let me know when you’re tired, hon. Linda’s here and we’ve got the rest of the telepaths in from Washington too—you’ll work in shifts.”
    â€œI’m cool,” I said, not wanting to get shown up by any B-teamers. “Getting tired of telling that shooting story yet?”
    Harlene looked mournfully at an empty paper coffee cup. “You’ve got no idea.”
    â€œHey.” I hummed a few bars of the song that was still stuck in my head. “That sound familiar?”
    Harlene shook her head. “Not a good time for that, Sweet Pea.”
    The next kid Jamison showed in was nearly as big as him: he was the kind of guy who looked like he’d gotten his first gym membership sometime around kindergarten. Someone had thrown a blanket around his shoulders, probably to hide his blood-spattered white T-shirt.
    â€œChazz Slade,” said Harlene. “Have a seat.”
    Chazz squeezed his