The Ethereal Vision

  ***

  Morris took Jane on a tour of the facility after breakfast. It was smaller than she had expected. The central corridor that Jane could see from her room was at the front of the facility, and it stretched in either direction, leading to sections behind locked doors, beyond their reach. Jane watched people in white lab coats coming and going from the doors at the left end of this main corridor. Morris informed her that the rooms beyond it contained a laboratory of some kind, but he didn’t know what work was done there.

  In front of that main corridor, behind a glass wall, was the enormous arboretum that towered up to the second story, which could be looked out on from the cafeteria on the second floor. There was a smaller corridor leading off the main corridor that connected to their bedrooms on the left, and stairs that led to the cafeteria on their right. Beyond that, there was a sliding glass door leading to another corridor. This connected to a second cross section, which led to the recreation and reading rooms on the left and the gymnasium and sports facility on the right.

  Morris showed Jane everything. The reading rooms had comfortable sofas and a coffee machine. There was a room primarily used for other kinds of digital entertainment, with video games and large flat-screen televisions. Besides that, there was something of a small theatre, with another television.

  On the other side of the corridor, Jane saw that the gymnasium was small, with several pieces of cardiovascular equipment and weights. She doubted she would be using it. There was also a court that one could use for various games, such as basketball. Of more interest to her than anything else was the metallic door she saw down the final corridor, which led away from this section of the facility.

  Jane looked at it. “What’s down there?” she asked.

  “It’s the main employee area,” Morris replied. “I’ve never seen through it. I’ve seen people come and go from there, but I don’t know anything about what’s beyond the door.”

  “Did you ever try to…see?”

  “Psychically? No. It never really occurred to me, I guess,” he said, then looked at her comically. “Wouldn’t be able to, anyway.”

  Jane looked at it and wondered. Without the dampening field, she might have been able to look through it. Once again, she felt frustrated that her abilities were locked away from her. Before, she had suppressed them herself. Now she would give almost anything to have them back.

  She and Morris elected to spend the afternoon watching films, so they went into the windowless room, which was about fifty square feet and lined with comfortable, expensive-looking sofas. Bookshelves adorned the walls. She briefly glanced at the selections, then sat on the sofa next to Morris as he flipped through the channels. She left a good foot of space between them. She did not understand the nervous energy that ran through her body the more time she spent with him: a flutter in her chest that grew in intensity quite quickly.

  “Doesn’t this life make you lazy?” she asked him.

  “Yep,” he responded.

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “Yes,” he said, not taking his eyes off the large television screen. “So what are we going to watch?”

  “You pick,” Jane replied as the endless selection of films appeared on the screen. “Just as long as it’s a comedy. I need a comedy right now.”

  “Classic or contemporary?”

  “I don’t mind. Anything from the late nineties on will do fine.”

  Morris swiped his hand sideways and the selections whizzed past in a blur. Jane didn’t pay attention to the selection he made. A moment later, the film began.

  Jane hadn’t talked to a peer this much in years. She was acutely aware of this, but all of her self-consciousness had vanished. She had never felt more comfortable with a person. Even when the conversation turned to her father, she found she hesitated only briefly before talking about him. She told Morris how she had blocked out her psionic abilities for a long time after the accident.

  “What made you start using them again?” he asked.

  She thought about the snowy night when she had first used the faculty again and told him about it. “Then I started using it more,” she said, “and it became…” She hesitated; unbeknownst to her, her brow furrowed before she continued. “A little addictive. Whenever my mom wasn’t around, I was testing myself with small things. I nearly broke a lamp once.”

  Morris laughed at this.

  After a ten-minute silence during which they watched the movie and laughed—a laugh that was nourishing, but also somewhat forced, even awkward—Jane spoke again.

  “Why aren’t reports about us getting into the news or onto the internet?” she asked. “I mean, surely your parents told somebody.”

  “Like who, the police? What would they do? It’s inside governmental rule, and who knows where operatives like the ones down here fall on the spectrum of things. We’ve been apprehended, Jane, not kidnapped. Aside from that, I think they’ve scared off most of the journalists. There are some talking about it cryptically, if you know where to look. The information is there probably if they dig deep enough and ask enough questions, but I think they’re disinclined.”

  He looked at her. “You do realise we’re at the centre of a global phenomenon, don’t you? Possibly even a cosmic phenomenon. The last thing they want is for it to be democratized, I would imagine, the way everything else has been the last twenty years. The emerging psychokinetic function is like a galaxy you can hold in the palm of your hand. You and I and the others here and whoever they’ve got in the other facilities—we’re priceless to them. And if they can capture us like this, don’t you think they can pull the plug on a few news reports? Maybe they’re even trying to replicate our ability somehow.”

  She looked at him, the scepticism on her face obvious.

  “Yeah, I know, that’s not it. But something’s happened around here in the last few months, I know that.” He looked back at the television for a moment. “You know,” he said, looking over at her again, “there is one thing I’d like to know, Jane.”

  “What?”

  “How did you know Lucas was coming? The first time, I mean.”

  She gasped, just a little.

  He turned back to the television for a moment. Then he met her gaze again. “It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he said.

  She decided to tell him. What harm could it do at this point? So he might think she was crazy…what difference would it make?

  “Well, there’s this man…” She found herself struggling immensely, trying to describe Max to him. Morris looked around the room as she hesitated, and she suddenly felt like she was in a circus.

  “Who is he?” Morris asked.

  “Well,” she began, “he’s not human. His name is Max. He’s some kind of…entity. He first came to me in my dreams when I was young, and he warned me about Lucas. Those dreams took place on an alien world somewhere. He showed up again, for the first time in ten years, just when my mother and friend were in danger. Then he warned me again before Lucas found me in Dublin. He stayed with me right up until the point they caught me, but now…I can’t contact him. He seems to be gone.” As she said this last sentence, her brow furrowed into an expression of anguish.

  “It’s because of the dampening field, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Bastards.”

  “What?”

  “Just when it sounds like you’ve got something helpful on your side, it’s gone.”

  “Well, he’s not gone. He won’t leave me, I know that. I just can’t contact him, or he can’t contact me.”

  He nodded his head from side to side. “I have no intention of staying here, do you?” Morris said, his voice now dripping with a serious tone.

  “No. Besides, I’ve never been to New York City. I really want to see it.”

  He smiled at her, and she felt that same electricity again. She managed to smile back this time.

  “This guy, Max…” Morri
s said, his brow furrowing as he said the name aloud. “Do you think he can help us?”

  “I don’t know, to be honest. I think he definitely will if he can. But he seems to be quite limited in what actions he can take in the physical world.”

  “Makes sense, I suppose.” A look of defeat came across his face for a moment, but it was gone in an instant and replaced with an expression of steel. It was the usual face of the young man she was getting to know. “We’ll find a way out, even without his help.”

  She wanted to take his hand then, but fear overcame her, even though she could feel an energy building between them—an energy she had never really felt in her life. They watched the rest of the movie in silence. Jane thought it odd that she had come so far, through such peril, to find this moment of peace. She lay back against the sofa and relaxed.

  “You know,” Morris said after a long silence, “my family has Irish roots. I’m gonna have to ask you about that, Jane.”

  “I’d expect nothing less,” she responded.

  When the film was over, they left. Jane watched Morris play basketball in the small court in the secondary section. She joined in for a few moments, and even beat him in a couple of rounds. She had never liked sports much, but found that in this sterile environment, with the bright fluorescent lights shining down on them and with just the two of them on the court, it was actually good fun.

  After that, they left for lunch. They hadn’t yet visited the place Jane wanted to see most: the arboretum.