Jax squirmed uncomfortably in his desk chair. Not a day went by when he didn’t regret how his so-called gift had brought all this down on his family. “How does learning about people who died hundreds of years ago keep me safe from Mako?”
“Studying what has gone before is the only way to prepare yourself for what is yet to come.”
“Yeah, but a five-thousand-year-old obelisk?” Jax challenged.
“We were able to prevent your parents from jumping in front of a subway train,” the old man explained seriously, “because we understood Mako’s utilization of a trigger word for a post-hypnotic suggestion. Sandmen have employed many trigger words over the centuries, like Abraham Lincoln’s use of fourscore. If I hadn’t studied, your mother and father might well have died that day.”
Jax knew all too well how close he had come to tragedy in New York. “All right, I get it. I have to learn hypnotic history. But while you’re teaching, you might want to stay away from the window. You know that girl, Felicity, who lives across the way? She reads lips.”
“I’m sure a pretty young thing like her has better things to do than mind our business.”
Jax shook his head. “Apparently not. She knows your exercise routine and exactly what Mom thinks of it. And she sort of senses that we’re all uptight about something. It’s not good.”
Braintree nodded gravely. “If she picks up something about hypnotism, she’ll probably assume she’s mistaken. But just to be on the safe side, stay friendly with her. If she comes to any dangerous conclusions, we may have to convince her otherwise.”
Jax made a face. “I thought the Sandman’s Guild had a rule about that.”
“We’re not asking for her father’s credit-card number. We’re just protecting ourselves. And remember to keep your dark glasses on at school.”
“I will,” Jax promised. “But we’ve started this new chess program, and they won’t let me wear shades. Mr. Isaacs says it’s an unfair advantage if your opponent can’t see your eyes scanning the board.”
“Quit,” the old man decided without hesitation. “The chance of unintentional hypnotism is too great.”
“No can do. Chess is mandatory for everybody. It’s supposed to promote logic and reasoning. And you know what? Turns out I’m pretty good at it. I haven’t lost a match yet.”
Braintree looked worried. “I’ll have to step up your lessons. Sometimes it’s harder to avoid a mesmeric connection than to establish one.”
“Hey!” Jax was offended. “I’m not bending anybody. I’m winning fair and square.”
“Perhaps,” the old man agreed without much conviction. “You’ve always been a smart kid. A sandman needs a canny understanding of the world around him.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, frowning. “What does your mother have against my exercise routine? A healthy body is important to maintaining a powerful mind.”
Jax laughed, but stopped abruptly when he glanced out the window and spied a face in the upstairs window of the house across the way. Felicity.
He kept his lips shut.
At the FBI’s Cyber Crimes division in Washington, DC, Special Agent Gil Frobisher was staring at carpet samples when his assistant appeared in the doorway.
“Got a minute, Gil?”
Frobisher motioned her inside, but his concentration remained on the samples. “It’s supposed to be moss, loden, and asparagus. All I see is green, green, and green.”
“The loden is more of an olive shade,” Agent Wendy Lee said helpfully.
“Olive — that’s another one!” Frobisher began rummaging through the box on the floor next to his desk. In truth, he’d had very little interest in this home renovation until his wife had told him what it was going to cost. For that kind of money, he was interested — even if he couldn’t tell smoky topaz from burnt sienna.
Lee cleared her throat. “There’s been a development.”
Her boss didn’t look up from the carton. “The cyber-attack in the Balkans?”
“No, the Vote Whisperer.”
That got Frobisher’s attention. Of all the cases on his plate, he was certain that the Vote Whisperer was destined for the bureau’s File 27 — the collection of bizarre and ridiculous complaints that found their way into the folder that came after the Zs. The reports had been trickling in since just before the New York primary election — people complaining about a boy’s voice coming from computers, tablets, and phones, commanding them to vote for candidate Trey Douglas. The peculiar part was that no one could recall any video accompanying this audio. Stranger still, the Internet users themselves vehemently denied that any such message had been broadcast. The “witnesses” had all been within earshot, but not in sight of the screen.
It was probably nothing, but even if there turned out to be some substance to it, there was no crime involved. Campaign ads were 100 percent legal.
He sighed. “What’s up? Another earwitness?”
Lee nodded. “But this one heard something none of the others did. Apparently, before the order to vote for Douglas, the voice said, ‘You will remember nothing of me or this message.’ ”
“The plot thickens,” Frobisher said without much enthusiasm.
“You know, when I quit smoking,” his assistant mused, “I saw a psychologist who specialized in hypnosis. Before he put me under, he walked me through the process. Part of it was commanding the subject to remember nothing.”
Her boss sat forward in his chair. “So what are you saying? You think some kid tried to rig an election by hypnotizing people over the Internet? Is that even possible?”
“I just got off the phone with the head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. He says no.”
“Well, there you go.” Frobisher was relieved. “I think we can safely file the Vote Whisperer under 27 along with the Yeti sightings and the tomato that looks like Elvis Presley. Good riddance, too. I’ve got carpets to pick.”
Agent Lee frowned. “But how do you explain so many people reporting the same thing?”
“Because people report things. Like UFOs. And Elvis. And baby stegosauruses digging up their vegetable gardens. If the Johns Hopkins guy says it’s impossible, that’s good enough for me.”
“I guess. Unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless we’re dealing with something different,” Lee suggested. “You know, something we’ve never seen before. That happens every now and then, doesn’t it?”
Frobisher glared at the Vote Whisperer folder on his desk. It was thin, and he didn’t want it to get any thicker. If he took this to his superiors and it turned out to be a whole lot of nothing, he would be going into File 27 right along with it. They would demote him down to paper shredder. And on a paper shredder’s salary, he’d never be able to afford asparagus-colored carpets.
On the other hand, if he swept this under the rug and it turned out to be big, that would be even worse. And tampering with a free and fair election was about as big as things could get.
“What happened to Trey Douglas in the New York primary? Did he win?”
“You remember,” she told him. “He won huge. And then he dropped out in the middle of his own victory party. Nobody knows why. Even he can’t really explain it — just that he’s sticking with his decision.”
So the Vote Whisperer’s candidate had won big. Did that mean anything? Not according to the expert from Johns Hopkins. Yet if Wendy was right, and these were new and uncharted waters, there were no experts.
Campaign ads were perfectly legal, but what if this went a step beyond that? Two words gnawed at the back of his throat, scary words: mind control.
One element had to be the key. How had the mysterious message managed to target listeners in the next room while somehow missing people looking directly at their screens?
His FBI instinct told him that he had to have the answer to that question before he could decide the future of the Vote Whisperer case.
“Keep the file open,” he said at last.
 
; Felicity Green was the world’s first chess cheerleader.
It started on the school bus home. Jax was in his usual position — wedged in a spot near the rear, his sneakers propped against the seat in front of him, hiding behind his sunglasses and his own knees — when Felicity flopped down beside him.
“Hi, Jack! Congrats on your big win!”
He honestly didn’t know what she was talking about. “Big win?”
“You pinned Newsome’s queen and checkmated him six moves later,” she enthused. “You owned!”
“Oh — right.”
“You’ve got Mulaly next, table sixteen in the cafeteria. How are you feeling?”
“Uh, pretty good,” Jax replied. “I’ve got kind of a sniffle, but it’s probably just allergies.”
“Hey!” she announced loudly to the entire bus. “Jack’s playing Mulaly tomorrow. I say he takes him down!”
A confused murmur greeted this bold prediction, and a few strange looks were tossed their way. Jax tried to shrink into the corner of the seat.
“I guess chess isn’t as rah-rah as football or basketball,” he offered lamely.
“Well, it should be. It takes intelligence, skill, and a killer instinct. Everybody’s going to see that when you wreck Mulaly.”
“What if he wrecks me?” Jax offered.
She snorted. “That guy? He eats jelly sandwiches for lunch. That’s not brain food.”
She didn’t know a rook from third base, and she called the pawns “ponds.” Yet she turned out to be right. He did wreck Mulaly the next day, and DiStefano after that. Kerry DiStefano was known as one of the best players in the school.
“We’re really proud, honey,” his mother told him after the second week, when Jax found himself at the top of the standings with a perfect record of 8 and 0. “You never took much of an interest in chess before.”
Jax shrugged. “Well, I learned the different moves a long time ago. But this is the first time I’ve played seriously. I guess I’ve got kind of a knack.”
Braintree had a different theory. “I might have an explanation for this ‘knack’ of yours,” the old man said when he and Jax were alone in the attic room.
Jax looked at him sharply. “Don’t tell me I’m bending my opponents, because I’m not. I would know.”
“There are different levels of mental connection,” Braintree lectured. “I’m not talking about a full mesmeric link with a view of yourself back across the chessboard. This would be more like a series of hypnotic hiccups. Your talents are growing by leaps and bounds every day. It’s impossible to measure your power based on the abilities of ordinary sandmen.”
“You think I’m telling people to lose?” Jax demanded. “I don’t open my mouth during these games. Nobody does. You get to say ‘check’ or ‘checkmate’ or ‘I have to go to the bathroom.’ That’s all. Even if I’m bending them by accident, I’m not giving them any instructions.”
“It’s possible that your eyes alone are enough to break their concentration. Or perhaps your gift is so strong that you somehow communicate your desire to win even without speaking the words.”
Jax reddened. “You can’t stand to let me be good at something, can you?”
“On the contrary,” Braintree countered blandly, “you’re very good at something. It just doesn’t happen to be chess. You are the nexus —”
“I don’t want to hear about the Opuses and the Sparkses!” Jax exploded angrily. “They were amazing mind-benders — so what? That doesn’t mean a couple of them couldn’t have been good at chess, too! That great-great-granduncle who convinced Gustave Eiffel to build a big tower in Paris — how do you know it was hypnotism? Maybe it was a bet over a friendly chess match.”
“I see you’re upset, so we’ll drop the subject for now. But it’s not wise to draw attention to yourself. I think it’s time for you to lose the occasional game.”
Jax was appalled. “You’re asking me to throw a match? I can’t do that. We get graded on chess. And besides — it wouldn’t look right. I have fans. One fan, anyway.”
“Ah, yes. The Green girl. All the more reason to make it happen.”
It was impossible to argue with that. On Monday, when Jax went into battle against Tess Hargrove, he was determined to go down in flames. He left his king unprotected, squandered half his pawns, and put his pieces in danger again and again. Tess didn’t notice any of it. There was no PIP image — no mesmeric connection. But the girl was working the board like this was Chutes and Ladders.
“You’re a beast,” Felicity told him, eyes shining with admiration.
Mr. Isaacs had a slightly different take on the situation. “I can’t argue with your record, but I’d be lying if I said you were playing great. It’s almost as if you’re lucky enough to draw every opponent on an off day.”
“You said there’s no luck in chess,” Jax protested.
The teacher looked uncomfortable. “Well, maybe you’ve got me rethinking my position on that.”
Jax was forced to face the fact that Braintree was right. He wasn’t bending his opponents in the usual sense. Yet, somehow, he was exerting a kind of mesmeric influence over them. It proved that he was no chess master, but it also meant something more sinister: There was nothing he could do, no game he could play, no activity he could turn his hand to, that wouldn’t be tainted by this so-called gift.
If I took up stamp collecting, I’d hypnotize the glue off the stamps.
His one consolation was that the chess program was coming to an end, building up to an inevitable showdown between Jax and perennial champion Seth Vanderboom. Felicity assured Jax that the kids of Haywood had been watching Seth annihilate the competition since first grade.
“I can’t wait to see you mop the floor with him,” she said with relish.
Jax sighed. He had long since given up trying to tone down her enthusiasm. She was determined to cheer him all the way to the pinnacle of middle-school chess-dom. And after leaving his entire life behind him in New York, he had to admit that it was nice to have a pretty girl think he was special — even if she thought it for the wrong reason.
“Listen, Felicity, I really appreciate your — uh — support. But I don’t want to make a big deal out of this game with Seth.”
“I got you,” she said conspiratorially. “You don’t want to psych yourself out, thinking the championship of the whole school is on the line.”
For Jax, who had recently faced nothing less than his own death and the deaths of his parents at the hands of Dr. Mako, the coming match hardly qualified as high stakes. But he could never explain that to Felicity, so he just agreed with her. He was starting to see that life was a whole lot easier when you did.
In Spanish class, he was shocked when a girl he didn’t even know clucked disapprovingly at him. “Yeah, you’re working hard now, but you’re not going to be prepared for the big game with Seth.”
Jax stared at her. “How could you know that?”
“Felicity said you watched TV for three solid hours last night!”
“Yeah, man,” added Randy Cruz. “You’re not going to take down Seth like that.”
Jax could feel his precious low profile rising. He couldn’t seem to lose at chess, and he couldn’t seem to prevent Felicity from making a big deal out of his winning. He was destined to be famous against his will. The only way to avoid the championship would be to quit. And at this point, walking away would create more of a brouhaha than victory. His sole hope was that Seth, who was a shy loner, would keep his attention on the board and escape the hypnotic effect of Jax’s eyes.
As soon as Jax sat down opposite Seth, he knew it was already over.
The boy appeared glazed and preoccupied, and his opening moves seemed random, if not outright dumb. Jax actually toyed with the idea of bending him for real and commanding him to concentrate and play like the champion he was. But he couldn’t figure out a way to deliver these instructions with so many people watching. Thanks to his press agent, Felicity, ha
lf the school was there, packed onto basketball bleachers, watching and listening. This thing was turning into the Silent Super Bowl. He tried a few pointless moves and a couple of outright blunders, but Seth wasn’t taking the bait. With a sigh, he realized that the merciful thing to do was just to win it quickly and take it like a man. At least then chess “season” would be over and the students of Haywood Middle School could find something else to be obsessed with.
It turned out to be not quite so simple. At the word “checkmate,” Felicity leaped from the first row of bleachers, threw her arms around Jax, and screamed, “Victory parade!” It wasn’t exactly that, but enough kids stormed the court to create a decent amount of chaos. Jax barely got his sunglasses on before the yearbook photographer started snapping pictures.
Axel’s not going to be happy about this, Jax thought. But at least it’ll all blow over in a day or two.
“Congratulations on a well-played game,” Mr. Isaacs said without much conviction. “I thought you were done for when you left your queen open to that knight fork. But I guess Seth didn’t see it.”
“I was surprised by that, too,” Jax agreed, deadpan. “I’m just happy it’s all over and I can hang up my — uh — pawns.”
“What are you talking about, Magnus?” the teacher queried, frowning. “Our champion goes on to the tri-county tournament. I was assuming it would be Seth, but now it’s you.”
Jax experienced a brief dizzy spell. “I don’t have to, right? I can drop out and Seth can take my place.”
“This isn’t the Miss America pageant. The runner-up doesn’t perform your duties if you can’t make it.”
“But he’s better than me,” Jax pleaded.
“Then he would have beaten you,” the teacher said curtly.
Jax’s face twisted. “I just think he’d do better against those other kids than he played against me.” It sounded lame and he knew it.
“It’s you or nobody, Magnus. The tournament’s next weekend. I suggest you do some studying — especially your endgames. Please take this seriously. You’ll be facing some of the stiffest competition in the state.”