The Changelings Part 5

"When you try? Tony, have you tried to get into my head?" I looked at him suspiciously, the laughter fading quickly.

He started to squirm a little. "No, not really. Well, okay, I did try a couple times ... but not to invade your privacy!" He could see I was getting cranky, so he tried quickly to calm me down. "I just wanted to see if I could turn it on, because I figured if I could turn it on, I could learn how to turn it off, see?" He looked at me hopefully, a little bit of desperation in his eyes.

"Fine." I sighed. It made sense. I know for sure I wouldn't want to be floating around in his head. I love the guy, but I preferred to keep a little mystery in our relations.h.i.+p. "So, you don't know what I'm thinking right now?"

"No. I just get the slight feeling that you're not so mad anymore. You were mad earlier."

"Right. You're right a I was mad, but I'm not anymore. I know you wouldn't do anything to hurt me on purpose."

"Never in a million years," said Tony, earnestly.

I grabbed my backpack off the sand. "Well, n.o.body ever said life with me was going to be dull."

Tony grabbed his bag too. "Nope. Never has been, so I don't expect it will be anytime soon."

We stood on the beach smiling at each other. That lasted a full two seconds before Tony had to go ruin it with his persistence again. I think maybe he learned a little of that from me.

"So, about your mother's boyfriend ... "

"Leave it!" I said forcefully, turning and walking away.

"I just wanted to ask you what you did. I know you did something that made you very happy." He was walking at my elbow now, refusing to be left behind. "You kicked his a.s.s, didn't you?" He was smiling, like he already knew the answer.

"You were there, you tell me," I challenged, still miffed at him that he wouldn't let it drop.

"I told you, it doesn't work like that. I don't see anything; I hear and feel ... that's it. I felt ... triumph. That's the only way to describe it."

I smiled in bitter memory of that night. "Yep, you could call it 'triumph'."

"Tell me, Jayne; stop playing with me."

"Fine, you really want to know? I'll tell you. That night, the third night he came, after I found out the b.a.s.t.a.r.d could pick my lock, I was waiting for him. I had my softball bat in bed with me. When he came over and tried to touch me, I pulled the bat out and jabbed him in the nuts with it a and then when he was down on the floor, I took my dad's old electric hair razor, and I buzzed off one of his eyebrows and shaved a strip down the side of his head."

Tony's eyes nearly fell out of his head; he was unable to speak for a full five seconds. Then he said in a whisper, "No?!"

"Yep." I stared straight ahead, no expression on my face. "Why do you think he left town that night, not even saying goodbye to my mom? No way was he going to be able to explain that s.h.i.+t away."

"Holy c.r.a.p, Jayne." He was smiling. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

"Yeah, well, don't ever try to put your grubby hands on me in the middle of the night and you won't have anything to worry about."

He looked at me, a little concerned, before he caught my smile. We both started laughing at the same time. I was thinking about what that perv had looked like when he hobbled out the door that night minus one eyebrow and a strip shaved from his head. Tony was probably laughing because he felt sorry for me, but what the h.e.l.l a it felt good.

"I'm so glad you're my friend, Jayne." Tony put his arm around my shoulders.

He still loved me, even though that slimy douche had tried to put his hands on me.

"Me too, Tones, me too. Want to go back to the warehouse? See what everyone else is doing?"

"Nah, let's go to the library a use their computers to go on the Internet and see what we can find out about that company doing the fitness study."

I nodded in appreciation of his brilliance. "Excellent idea. We can also look up 'psychic phenomenon', see what we can do about this gift of yours a or curse, depending on how you look at it." We reached the seawall that ran the length of the beach, bordered on one side by the sand and the other by a wide sidewalk, now empty. It was still too early for many people to be out. We climbed over the wall and stood there, looking up and down the street that was about ten feet away. "So where's the library?" I asked.

"I have no idea."

I rolled my eyes. "Tony, Tony, Tony ... what am I going to do with you?"

"What? ... We're not lost ... we have a map, remember?" He smiled at me with a c.o.c.ky grin. I wasn't used to seeing that on his face, but I liked it. I liked it a lot.

"You'd better be careful, Tones. I think I'm being a bad influence a rubbing off on you."

"Yeah, well, I don't think that's so bad," he said, dropping his bag off his shoulder and bending down to retrieve the map from inside.

I looked out across the distant ocean while he figured out where we needed to go. The same waves were cras.h.i.+ng on the sh.o.r.e, over and over. The seagulls were still screeching. I was still surrounded by millions of pieces of crushed up rock and seash.e.l.l. Everything was the same, and yet, everything had changed too. Funny how change can sneak up on you when you least expect it.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

We found nothing of use on the Internet. There was no record of a One Eleven company being registered as a business in Florida. After searching around for an hour and then browsing through some books and magazines for another two, we decided to head over to the area where the informational meeting was being held. It was only about five blocks away. The sun wasn't s.h.i.+ning as brightly as it had been earlier. The temperature had dropped a little too. It wasn't too unusual for this time of year in Florida. In Spring, the weather tended to be a little fickle.

We stopped at a sandwich shop and got a sub and a soda, sharing it on our way to the hotel meeting room. I told the guy making our sandwich to hold the onions but he'd obviously ignored me. I was hoping to see Spike again soon but now I was worried that I'd breathe my horrid onion breath on him and he'd never want to talk to me up close again ... or do other stuff. Hey ... a girl can dream, right?

"Whatever you're thinking about right now, stop," said Tony, as he pushed on the revolving door at the hotel entrance. I walked next to him in a slow circle towards the hotel's interior.

"What's the matter, getting you nervous?"

"No, you're feeling all warm and stuff, and it makes me feel funny," he said, not meeting my eyes.

"Wow. This does complicate things, doesn't it?" I didn't want to think of all the ramifications this had. "I thought it only happened when you were going to sleep."

"I think when you're close to me, it's easier to fall into that state of connectedness. When you're far, it has to be a stronger emotion or I have to be in some sort of sleep-like state. That's my theory right now. Don't hold me to it though; it could change."

Our Internet search on psychic reading abilities had spewed out so much garbage, it was hard to filter through it all to come up with something that made sense. There were so many kooks out there claiming to be psychics and vampires and G.o.d knows what else. It was frustrating trying to find real information. We decided to go back another time and look again. We'd run out of time and mojo to do it any longer today.

We got directions from someone at the front desk to the meeting room. We arrived at the door and saw Chase, Finn, Samantha and Becky waiting out front.

"Hey, guys!" said Becky, cheerfully. "You made it!"

"Yeah. What's going on? You guys going in?" I asked.

"We're waiting for Jared and Spike," said Finn.

"Anyone else here?" asked Tony.

"Yeah, there's a couple people already in there ... some ole lady, an ole guy too. Can't tell if the person runnin' the show is here or not ... don't look like it." Apparently, Finn had been a.s.signed the mission of scoping out the room ahead of time.

"I guess we'll see you guys in there then," I said, nudging Tony's arm. He was busy acting like he wasn't staring at Samantha again. She was looking in the opposite direction, down the hall, oblivious to his crush.

We went in and took seats in the middle a not all the way in front and not in the back. It wasn't in my nature to be an eager beaver but I also didn't want to look like a total slacker a there was five hundred bucks on the line, after all. The middle was the best place. I could tell, though, that Tony wanted to be in the front row; he was a front row, note-taking kind of guy. Two years of me still hadn't broken him of that. It was probably for the better.

Soon enough, Jared and Spike arrived. The rest of their crew came in, taking seats in various places. They didn't sit right next to each other, with the exception of Chase and Becky who sat together on the right side of the room. I wondered about that, a.s.suming they would all want to be together and present a united front. I also wondered if Chase and Becky had something going on. That would be an odd couple. I would have expected her to be with Finn before Chase. For some reason I was pairing Chase and Samantha up in my mind; but what did I know? Tony would say that I suck at matchmaking. He had the scars to prove it, too.

Spike flashed Tony and me a smile as he moved across the room. I tried to keep my blood pressure under control, but it was hard. I kicked Tony under the table in case he was creeping around in my head. I didn't need him knowing I was getting all hot and bothered over a stupid smile. But d.a.m.n, Spike had the coolest teeth!

At one o'clock on the dot, the door opened and a man walked in. He was old. I don't know how old exactly because I'm terrible at guessing ages, but he had silver hair. It was thick and kind of wavy. Not long, but not military short either. He wore a silver-gray suit. Not quite s.h.i.+ny but not a dull material either. His eyes were the most striking thing about him a they were icy gray. They matched his suit very well, actually. I never thought about matching my eyes to my clothes, which is probably a good thing, since my eyes were a mottled combination of mostly green, with brown and gold a a hazel mix that looked a lot like camouflage. I don't look good in army gear.

When the old guy smiled, I noticed that he had movie star teeth; they were perfectly straight and dazzling white. But they weren't nearly as interesting as Spike's choppers.

"h.e.l.lo, and welcome to the informational meeting sponsored by One Eleven Group. I a.s.sume you have all read the advertis.e.m.e.nt and know that we are seeking some very special candidates to partic.i.p.ate in a study we are conducting. This is a fitness type of study, so it does have some basic physical and mental health requirements. The purpose of today's meeting is to give you information about the study and, for those of you who are interested in partic.i.p.ating, a battery of tests to determine your suitability." He looked out over the group of us, resting his eyes on no one in particular. I was waiting to hear clues about the test or about this One Eleven company while also sneaking glances at Spike. I could only see the back of his head and part of his face. Dammit.

"The test will commence tomorrow; we are truly sorry about the short notice. We had some scheduling conflicts, so it couldn't be avoided. Hopefully this will not interfere with your ability to partic.i.p.ate." He stopped to share a smile with us. It was very cool and professional, not reaching his eyes.

"The test itself lasts three full days and then there will be one day after for our ... ahem ... focus group." He reached down to take a sip of water from the gla.s.s on the table next to him. He seemed to have a bit of a frog in his throat. He continued, "You will be provided transportation from the Miami Executive Airport to the test location. After the test is complete, you will be brought back to the same airport. For those who finish the test successfully, you will be paid five hundred dollars in cash upon arrival at the airport. For those of you who do not finish the test, but who do complete parts of it, you will receive compensation based on how much of the test you do complete." He clasped his hands together and gave one of those million dollar smiles again. "Does anyone have any questions?"

I saw the crew look around at each other and then at Jared. He just stared at the guy in gray. Tony leaned in towards me and said, "Do we have any questions?"

I decided not to wait for anyone else to break the ice. "Where is your company from and what is the purpose of this test?" There. That'll get the ball rolling.

"And your name is, Miss ... ?"

"Jayne."

"Thank you, Jayne, for your question. One Eleven Group is a think tank of sorts, located overseas, mainly in France, but we have locations elsewhere as well. Its purpose is to study humans ... people ... in their environments and through our tests we seek to identify those who have certain qualities so that we can better understand our possible futures."

Well that's about as clear as mud. "Thank you, mister ... sorry, I don't remember your name."

"Oh, no, my apologies, Jayne, I should have introduced myself already. My name is Anton Dardennes." He said it with some kind of accent ... maybe French, I don't know. It sounded cool though. I don't think I could ever learn to say it the way he did a there was something going on with that 'r' of his. It almost sounded like he said 'Doll-den'.

I noticed Finn and Becky looking over at me. I caught their eyes and they both nodded slightly. I guess I had done well with my questions. I waited to see who else was going to get to the bottom of this mysterious test.

Chase leaned over to whisper in Becky's ear. As soon as he sat back up straight, she raised her hand.

Mr. Dardennes gestured to her raised hand. "Yes?"

"I ... I mean, we ... we were wondering, where is the test location?"

"The test location is confidential. We will bring you there and back, but we cannot reveal its exact location because we do not wish to compromise the validity of our test results."

Another clear as mud answer. Normally when someone doesn't give me information I think I should have, I am instantly on my guard. But for some reason this particular secret didn't seem like that big of a deal to me. I couldn't see how it would hurt us not knowing where we were going. I decided to let that one slide. I looked at Tony and he gave me a slight nod, as if he agreed. Maybe this mind reading stuff isn't all bad, I thought.

"If there are no more questions, we can commence with the battery of tests. For those of you not interested in partic.i.p.ating, we ask that you leave now. The next phase of this meeting will take approximately one hour. There will be a written exam and then an interview."

We waited to see if anyone was going to get up, but everyone stayed. I guess no one else was feeling too concerned about the lack of specific information either.

The door opened and another man came in, carrying a stack of papers. I almost laughed when I saw him because this guy was the last person you'd expect to see being some kind of secretary. He was super buff a even with a suit on you could see it. His neck was thick, his hair short. He looked like a combat guy dressed up in his Sunday best. He spoke quietly with Mr. Dardennes for a minute before Mr. Dardennes left the room.

The buff guy walked past our tables, giving each of us a packet of papers. He didn't look at anyone, keeping his eyes focused on the papers in his hand and where he was walking.

On the top of the papers he handed us was a basic application form, asking for our name, address, phone number and other similar stuff. There were also some health questions like you'd answer on a doctor's office form.

Buff guy stood at the front of the room and began speaking in a deep, gravelly voice that was slightly accented. He had a different type of accent than Mr. Dardennes did a possibly Slavic or Russian or something. "Please fill out the forms on top. After you have completed your papers, put them on the table up here. When everyone has finished that part, we will begin the written test. It will be timed a you will have thirty minutes to complete it." He turned and left the room.

Everyone began filling out the forms. I looked at Tony and gestured towards the name and address section. He gave a very slight shake of his head, agreeing with me that we shouldn't put our real information down. I remembered the ad said we had to be eighteen to partic.i.p.ate. Tony and I are both still seventeen. I nudged him and pointed to the birthday question on the form. I subtracted a year off my date to qualify myself, watching as Tony did the same. For our addresses, we both used a street near our high school. It was more like a fib than an outright lie a I mean, it was in the same neighborhood anyway. If they asked me for identification, I decided I'd say that I didn't have any. It's not so strange to not have a driver's license in Miami ... the public transportation was pretty good. Hopefully, since the One Eleven guys weren't from Florida, they wouldn't know any better about West Palm. Without a driver's license there, you would be stranded most of the time. It's not that the city doesn't have public transportation, it's just that I normally wouldn't be caught dead on it. There are some serious weirdoes on those buses, which Tony and I found out firsthand when we took the bus to the Tri-Rail station just yesterday. One guy was sitting in his seat, yelling at no one in particular. He seemed to be hearing an invisible person talking back, too, the way he was one minute shouting and the next minute listening to a response that neither Tony nor I could hear. It seemed like a lot more time than just one day had pa.s.sed since Tony and I had been on that weird little adventure.

Tony elbowed me out of my daydream. "You done?" he asked me, standing to go up to the front with his form.

I signed at the bottom of the form, under some disclaimer I didn't bother reading. "Yep. Here ... " I gave him my paper, and he left to deliver both of our forms to the table in front. My dad is a lawyer and would have flipped his wig over me signing a form before reading the legal stuff. That's part of the reason why I made it a policy not to. My dad's a real d.i.c.kwad, so doing things that get under his skin makes me happy.

After just a few more seconds, everyone else finished their forms and stacked them on the table in the front of the room. I wondered what Jared's crew was going to use as addresses and birthdays. I'd bet Becky wasn't eighteen yet ... probably not Finn either. The others probably were, though. They looked older, especially Jared.

Mr. Dardennes walked back into the meeting room with Buff Guy. "Anyone need more time?" Mr. Dardennes asked, looking around. "Good, then let's begin with the timed test." He picked up the forms we had just completed from the table and handed them to his a.s.sistant, who turned and left the room.

"Please break the seal on your packet. You will find an answer sheet under the first page. Please take it out and fill in your names at the top. Don't bother filling out the other information." He waited two minutes while we did that. I felt like I was getting ready to take the pre-S.A.T. test in school again.

"This test is timed. You will have thirty minutes to complete it. Please read the instructions carefully before answering the questions. Good luck ... you may now begin."

I turned the page on the test to reach the first question. 'How many hours per day do you sleep?' Hmmm. That's a tough one. It depends on whether there's anything interesting going on. I marked an answer and moved on.

'Do you ever have a sense of deja vu?' Of course, doesn't everyone? Next question ... 'Do you ever hear voices telling you to do things?' Oh, come on ... who's going to say yes to that? Next ... 'If you were going to take a vacation of your choice, would you go to: (a) the mountains, (b) the plains, (c) the desert, (d) the ocean.

Hmmm. That one was harder. Definitely 'no' for the desert and ocean options; I live in Florida because I'm forced to, not because it's my choice. Maybe if I lived somewhere else, I'd pick '(d) ocean', but living in Florida, the ocean was no big deal to me. I chose '(a) Mountains'. I loved the mountains, especially the forest part. I'd only gone to the mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, but they were magically awesome. It was a long time ago, but I still remembered it fondly. I had to shake my head to get it back into the test.

The next section was similar to one I'd seen in school before. There were a series of shapes and I had to pick the next shape in the sequence. I was good at those.

The last section was weird as h.e.l.l. I'd never seen anything like it before. The instructions said specifically that we were not to guess answers, and each question had the same letter (d) response: 'I don't know.'

I looked over at Tony who was already on that section. He had a lost look on his face, so I knew he was thinking the same thing as me. The first question was 'What color are Mr. Dardennes' eyes?' (c) Gray, but what the ... ? The next question was 'What is the weather outside like right now?'

We were in a windowless room on the inside of a hotel, on the bottom floor. Chances are it was sunny outside a it was Miami after all. But what the heck kind of question was that? The instructions said I wasn't supposed to guess, so I was getting ready to answer with letter (d), but then I thought about it for a second, looking over my answer choices: (a) It is sunny and dry; (b) It is rainy and warm; (c) It is snowing; (d) I don't know. Snowing? Ha. That's funny. I was thinking about marking it just for the h.e.l.l of it, but I stopped, reminding myself that we really needed this money. This wasn't school where I would mark '(c)' without thinking about it. Memories of the hard concrete floor of the warehouse trickled through my mind.

I inhaled deeply, thinking about the outside of the hotel. As I inhaled, I smelled something funny. What is that smell? I'd smelled it before, I know I had. I couldn't put my finger on it though. Oh well, no time to ponder. I wanted to get the test over with. I marked (d) on the weather question. It felt wrong, but I was running out of time.

I continued taking the strange test, answering more strange questions. The last one was my favorite though. It wasn't a multiple choice; it was an essay question with ten blank lines under it. The question was: 'If you could be a superhero, which one would you be and why? Fill in the lines below with your answer.'

Superhero? Good guy or bad guy? Did I have to stick to female superheroes or could I pick a male one? So far, their instructions had been pretty specific. I decided there were no limits since they didn't give any. I looked at the clock; I had five minutes left. I gazed around the room and saw that some people had already started filling out their answer and some still hadn't gotten there yet. Tony was already done. He was always faster than me on tests.

My favorite superheroes were of the X-Men variety. I loved the one with wings, but only because I'd always wondered what it would be like to fly. I'm not sure that having wings would be very useful or practical in reality, so I scratched that one off my mental list. The laser vision thing would be cool a until you accidentally lasered your house or your best friend. I thought about several other superpowers and it seemed like most of them had super s.h.i.+tty side effects that I would never want to have to deal with. What powers would I like? Hmmmm ... I liked the ability to control the minds of others; that would be cool. I think I would like to see through things, like with x-ray vision. Superhuman strength would come in handy, no matter where I was. The problem is, none of these powers added up to one particular superhero, man or woman. Did Superman have x-ray vision? I couldn't remember. He was kind of old-school anyway, plus he had to wear tights and a cape. I sure wasn't going to be any superhero wearing tights or some trampy negligee like Wonderwoman did. Who made those costumes anyway? They were totally impractical for fighting crime.

I looked up at the clock and realized I only had two minutes left. Dammit, I was running out of time. I really wanted to pick a superhero for some reason. I tapped my pencil on the side of my head. Think, think ... come on, think! Wait ... yes! I had something. I quickly scribbled it down and gave the accompanying explanation. As I put my last period on the paper, Mr. Dardennes walked in the door and began speaking.

"Your time is up. Thank you for pa.s.sing your tests to the front of the room."