Cindy Psi: Spy In Training

“It’s the thing we know least about,” Dave was saying to Cindy as they walked down the corridor towards the infirmary wing. It was the next day. The others were doing some gentle training with Christof in the training room – mainly light, more fun things to try and help everyone relax. Cindy hadn’t had time to talk to anyone other than a brief exchange with Jane (she was fine) before Dave and a much-refreshed looking Louise came to get her and take her to see Rebecca and George.

He continued. “We know it exists, but we’ve only ever seen snatches of it in bits and pieces. Mainly, what we’ve seen is what we call precog.”

“You mentioned that when I first came here,” Cindy remembered out loud.

“Yes, I did. You described something that sounded like a vision of the future. Is that the only time you’ve had one of those?”

Cindy paused a moment. “No.”

Dave slowed and looked thoughtfully at her. “I see. And am I right that you don’t want to tell me about the other time or times?”

Cindy felt awkward, but her instincts were strongly steering her away from mentioning the first vision she had of herself on the spaceship. Her instincts … or something. “Um, yes, kind of. Is that ok?”

Dave’s tone was slightly terse. “I guess it’s fine. It’s up to you. But I think you need to be sure you know who to trust … and when to trust them. Anyway, the thing is, we know that some degree of time interaction is possible with the talent. What we call precog, which is short for ‘precognisance’, refers to the phenomena of premonitions. Anecdotally, this sort of thing has been around for as long as mankind has, but as we’ve developed the GCCSC and studied it we have a handful of documented cases. It can happen.”

Louise joined in. “And there are other things we’ve seen. Things that are hard to describe but seem to involve kind of wiggling views in time. That’s why when Dave explained your idea to me it sounded so, well, right.”

“Which makes it the more likely that it is right,” Dave added. “We’ve discussed this at length this morning. One thing we’ve noticed about time-based talents is they draw other circumstances to themselves in a funny sort of way. It’s very hard to put into words, but, put simply, knowing that time is involved in the solution means you get a very strong sense that it will work, because the problem that is solved in the future is trying to make itself seen to you now. You see it done. Do you follow me?”

“I’m not sure …” Cindy was hesitant, puzzled.

Stop for a second. Now think about it. Think about whether this will work. Sent Louise.

Cindy thought. And, sure enough, she had a very strong sense that this approach was going to work. She could almost see the scene of Rebecca, waking up, looking around, relieved. Almost, but not quite, but the sense of it was achingly tangible.

“Oh, I get it!” She exclaimed. “We use time and time knows it is being used so it shows us what will happen afterwards!”

“Pretty much, yes. Which is why, when you said it yesterday, I just knew it was going to work.”

Cindy was getting excited, but then stopped herself short. She paused, thought a moment …

“I’m not seeing it the same with George.”

Dave and Louise exchanged a glance. “Neither are we,” Dave said, “but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Just relax. Whenever you’re ready. It’s probably best if you start the mindshare on this occasion. The three of them were sat around the end of Rebecca’s bed. Dave had pulled it out from the wall and sat on the seat on that side. Cindy sat between him and Louise, directly behind Rebecca’s head. Louise was the third point of the triangle from which she was spinging Cindy with these instructions.

Ok, sent Cindy, and let herself drop into mindspace. The other two quickly joined, and the formed the silver circle. Cindy let it fill out as before, and steered them into Rebecca’s mind. She let the combined consciousness flow out across the wall as before, and nestled down. She took a moment, then:

I think I’m ready. What should I do?

See if you can start a gentle thrumming first; like the last time, but very gentle and measured, sent Louise.

Ok, sent Cindy, slightly hesitant, I’ll try.

Just go with your instincts, sent Dave with a reassuring tone, we’re with you.

Cindy briefly mused on how the spinging seemed deeper, more solid, when they were joined up like this. Then she focused on the job at hand. She considered the wall, let her thoughts flow a little deeper into it, and set off a gentle but steady thrumming through it. It started to warm slightly, but was otherwise impassive.

Right, Cindy thought to herself in her innermost mind, now how did it go again? It was kind of a …

And the memory came back instantly, although, strangely, it sort of converged on her, like she was remembering it from the confrontation the previous day, but also somehow remembering it from after having done it today. It was weird.

Focus. Ok, it kicked off, or it does kick off, with a kind of …

ZZZTTT … and it was like a mild electric shock reverberating through the mindshare, and through the wall itself. The steady vibration absorbed it so no resistance came back, but suddenly Cindy felt like she had yet another dimension of perception. It was like she’d flicked an antique stream into high definition when she went into the mindspace, but this, this was like flicking it into 3D. She felt she had a whole other level of control to draw on … But how to draw on it?

I need to see it done, she thought, and thought back to a few moments earlier when she had a sense of Rebecca waking up.

And she was there, like an invisible presence flying overhead watching herself, Dave, Louise sat around Rebecca as her eyes flickered and open, relief and gratitude written large upon them, Louise reaching to take her hand …

Then it was the wall, but Cindy kept focused. Then the wall was vibrating still, but flickering, It was there, then, for an instant, it wasn’t … then there it was again, but this time almost blurry, then solid, then gone, and this instant was slightly longer and in the space a tiny voice …

Controller?

It was Rebecca. Focus. Deeper. Cindy let the essence of the three of them spread even more intrinsically through the wall. See it done. Flicker. Solid. Gone again

Controller? Is that you? Dave?

See the room outside. See Rebecca awake. See the wall gone. Flickering, now here, now not, now here … a last push – capture the future like hitting the snap button on the PCD in camera mode …

Is that … Cindy?!??

See it done … the wall is gone …

NOW!

And with that, there was a kind of silent explosion as the blockade crumbled almost instantly into nothingness. Cindy lifted the mindspace veil immediately.

They were in the room. And Rebecca was opening her eyes.

She was back.

A massive surge of relief flowed through all of them, and they all shared in it, the biggest part coming of course from Rebecca. As Cindy had seen, Louise reached over and took her hand.

“I … cough … cough ...” went Rebecca as she tried to speak. Dave handed her some water – clearly the weeks of no speech had left her throat unaccustomed to it. I don’t know what to say, she continued in mindspeak to the three of them, Thank you. Thank you so much. I thought I was trapped forever. It was … horrible … And she started to cry at the memory of it.

“There, there,” said Louise, taking the younger woman in her arms in a comforting embrace, “You’re back now. You’re safe.”

After a moment gathering her wits, Rebecca sat up slowly and looked around to where Cindy sat behind her. Um, I see your training is going well then? She sent.

This broke the tension, and the four of them laughed out loud. After a moment Dave spoke up:

“We’ll fill you in on everything when you’ve had a chance to recover a little. For now though, we’ve got another job to do, and there’s someone going to be here any second who’s quite keen to see you.”

And just as Dave finished speaking the door flew open and Christof came in, almost running. Louise just had time to get out of the way as he threw his arms around Rebecca and nearly lifted her off the bed in his joy. She hugged him tightly back. “I’m so glad to see you,” he cried, “I thought we’d lost you. I was tearing my hair out!”

“I’m back, darling, I’m ok,” she said, relief and happiness in her voice.

At a sping signal from Louise, she, Cindy and Dave stood to leave the room. Louise said, “We’ll leave you two to catch up. We’ll talk to you later.” And they left.

“Right,” said Dave, clapping his hands sharply once, “George.”

As she stepped into the room next door Cindy involuntarily caught her breath. He just looked so helpless and … small … lying there. Poor George. Without words Dave organised the room as they had been with Rebecca and the three of them sat down. Cindy sent out her mindline and the three of them went in.

It was when Cindy had set the vibration going and was trying to fire the spark that sent the wall wavering in time that she became aware that George’s wall was somehow different. Or confirmed it in a way, as she had earlier sensed it was different from the lack of that pre-knowledge of success that she’d had with Rebecca.

So, she thought, what is it? She tried to see it done as she had with Rebecca (and indeed herself), but nothing came. She sunk in a little deeper.

What was this?

She let the three of them slide and flow around the surface of the gently pulsating wall. There was something familiar in its essence.

George! It was as if part of George himself was knitted into the wall. How had that horrible woman done this? Cindy was concerned now that breaking the wall would need a surgeon’s precision or she might somehow hurt George.

She kept the steady vibration going. Louise ‘spoke’ up: is there some kind of key to unravelling it we can find? Some way to decouple it from the poor boy?

I’m not sure. I’ll keep looking, Cindy sent back. She let their combined mental essence flow around and over the surface of the wall, probing, searching, looking for clues. The block where the wall was tied to George somehow prevented sparking the forward-in-time process, and no matter where they looked there was no way to disconnect it.

Remember what the voice told you, Dave sent, and Cindy sensed surprise from Louise. So Dave hadn’t shared that with her – that was good to know. You need to see it done.

Yes, thought Cindy in her deepest, private mind, I need to see it done. That’s what the voice said.

Wait on … What was that other thing?

“It is yours to break”

Cindy puzzled on that below the surface of the mindshare. What could it mean? It was hers to break? It was hers to break? How? The woman put it here, and tied it to George somehow, so what did Cindy have to do with it? She kept thinking. Then, even though she was already deep in mindspace, she tried to clear her inner mind to see if anything came.

Something … something bright … a spark?

An idea. The parting shot! The splinters – the dagger of force – almost felt like it was taking a splinter off Cindy’s mind …

She came back to the mindshare. I have an idea. Stay with me, stay on the wall, but focus on me as well.

Cindy started assessing the wall again as she felt the other two sending assent. She kept the thrumming up, and started trying to focus on seeing it done, seeing where she would be after. There she was in the room. As the image came into view the mindshare started to glow – it was as if it had a huge, iridescent, jigsaw-like pattern in it. She saw the wall threading through George’s mind, but in the middle, wedged like a key, was a shard of … of her somehow. The woman had taken some essence of Cindy herself and used it to tie George up in the wall. She needed to see that gone.

Well, she thought, it is mine to break, and with a surge down a spyline she knocked the shard of herself out of the jigsaw.

The spark fired. She saw the wall start to unravel – the anchors tying it to George’s mind flicking off one by one. Something was still fighting against it, but the cohesion was gone, and Cindy started seeing images of the room, George waking up, them stood around him – she started getting that sense this would work.

She didn’t get any sense of elation though.

Still, focus, vibrate, oscillate in time. See it done.

Something was fighting her. Fighting to hold the wall in place. She drew on the combined strength and pushed back, kept it flicking into nothingness to make the future real. Whatever was holding it back was strong, but not strong enough to overpower all three of them, and the wall started to flash more on being gone.

At the last, as the wall had one last instant of being, one, sharp, silver mindline was released, and a thought came unbidden to Cindy’s mind.

And so you release him Cindy Parker. So you find the key. As I knew you would. Know now that I will outwit you in the end. Know it when you see this boy, your friend, and how he feels.

One more time we will meet, Cindy Parker. And I will destroy you.

And then the message that had been left threaded into the wall in George’s mind was gone, and the wall was gone, and they were back in the room, and George was waking up.

Dave and Louise were relieved and confused. Cindy was shocked at the art of the woman’s message – how did she do that? And what did she mean?

She didn’t have long to wait.

You smashed the wall. It was George.

Yes. Don’t thank me – you’d do the same for …

Thank you?!? Thank you? I hate you!

What …? Cindy was confused, but felt the anger radiating from George.

Oh, wonderful Cindy, always doing the right thing. You don’t get it, do you?

I don’t! What don’t I get? What do you mean?

I liked it there. I was safe there. I was away from all of this. Away from Natalie and that prize idiot Milton. Away from that frightening woman and her alien friends. Away from this whole stupid place and this whole stupid … me. Away from everything. I was alone. I was safe. That’s why I was holding it in place. And you wrecked it.

But … Cindy didn’t know what to say, what to think. But you can’t just stay locked up in your own head!

Why? Why not? We’re not all you Cindy. We’re not all little miss perfect. Some of us haven’t had all the sweetness and light. So thanks for “setting me free” Cind. Thanks a bunch. Now leave me alone. Forever.

And with that he closed himself off to her, and turned over and faced the wall, ignoring the three of them.