Free Vortex by Ray Garton Page A

kind of, um... what’s the word? It merges with someone else’s mind. It’s like that. Once I do that, I can read everything about that person. All their feelings and memories and thoughts. Nothing is hidden. I did that with Pyk and I told them what he could do. Once they were aware of it, they weren’t so, um... sus... suscept—”
    “Susceptible to it?”
    “Yeah,” Penny said, nodding. “They also give him mild sedatives to keep him... well, sedate.”
    Once again, Gavin was impressed by how articulate and confident Penny was. He had to keep reminding himself that she was thirteen.
    “Also,” Penny went on, “they’ve been keeping him happy, treating him like... well, like a king. They give him anything he wants.”
    Karen said, “I still don’t understand what it is they want from him.”
    “They want to understand him. They’ve been running all kinds of tests on him, trying to figure out how he works, how he does what he does. They’re hoping if they can, they’ll be able to make other people like him.”
    “Like him? You mean, with his abilities?”
    Penny nodded. “They’d like to make others like Pyk. Like the students at Aquino. We’re already... gifted. They think if they can figure out what makes Pyk the way he is, maybe they can make one of us the way he is. Or more of us.”
    “Are you talking about Km Services?” Karen said.
    “Yes. And the people they work for.”
    “Who would that be?”
    Penny shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. He thinks of them as ‘the people in charge.’”
    “The government?” Gavin asked.
    “I’m not sure. Some of them, I think. Maybe.”
    Karen turned to him and said, “We can’t expect her to have all the answers.”
    “I know they’re all very rich and very powerful,” Penny said. “And they own... well... just about everything.”
    “And they want an army of telepathic soldiers who can make people do things with their minds?” Karen said.
    Penny nodded. “Mr. Ryker thinks... well, he’s thought to himself a few times that they can do pretty much whatever they want. Now they need to be able to make other people do whatever they want. He and the other people he works with think Pyk can help them do that.” She looked down at the tabletop. “He doesn’t really know what he’s doing here. Pyk, I mean. He’s afraid, and angry. We were going to escape together. But he didn’t make it. They still have him. I could feel his fear when Gertie took me into her house.” She put her elbows on the table and her face in her hands.
    Gertie stared open-mouthed at Penny.
    “How much do you know about this, Gertie?” Karen said.
    The question seemed to startle Gertie. “I-I-I didn’t know about any of this. All I knew was that they were there, behind our house, doing... something. I knew it involved that... that thing that bit me, but... I didn’t know how. Then I saw them bringing Penny here to the shed.”
    “Shed?” Karen said.
    “I call it a shed, but—” She shrugged. “—it’s their lab. They built it behind our house. People come and go, especially at night. I saw them bringing Penny there. And then children. Little children. Penny came and went, but the children... I only saw them coming in, never going out. That bothered me a lot. The whole thing bothered me, but the kids...” A deep frown wrinkled her brow as she stared down at the table and seemed to see through it. She placed her hands flat on the tabletop and slowly closed them into loose fists again and again, dragging the tips of her nail-bitten fingers over the wood. “I couldn’t get that out of my head. The image of those little kids being led from the SUV that had brought them and into that ugly white building. I didn’t know what was going on in there but I knew... well, I felt that... it couldn’t be anything good. Kids that little... they shouldn’t be out that late by themselves.”
    “Sometimes people from town are drawn to the lab,” Penny said. “That was