Mind Over Psyche (26 page)

Joshua bit down on his lips and pinched his brows with one hand as he took hold of his temper. “I'm sorry, Taz. We're in this together. But you've got to understand that this is totally new to me—even more than it is to you. I don't know what I
'm doing.”

She looked at him, and he saw the disappointment in her eyes. He tried not to feel resentment. How many times would he have to bail out his friend? Why was this a
ll on him?

Perhaps she sensed his frustration, for she shut her eyes. He imagined her abandoning him there, but instead, the scene changed to a small but well-lit cave with a few large
cushions.

“Thanks,” he muttered as he sank
into one.

“This was one of my hiding places in the last war,” Tasmae explained as she sat in front of him. “Alugiac shouldn't be able to sense us here. You're right about one thing. We need to plan. And we need more information. But I don't know how t
o get it.”

“Let's start with what we know.” Joshua leaned back against the wall and gazed at the ceiling while he thought out loud. “Serling said you have the power to change the world—obviously, he's right there. What else ca
n you do?”

In answer, Tasmae got up and again pulled her dagger from her hair and moved through a few steps of some martial arts form. She attempted a complex high kick, but fell among the cushions. “Anything I can physically do in the waking world, but nothing more,” She said as she stood up, rubbing her elbows. She concentrated on the wall opposite them, and it dissolved then resolved into the weapons wall of the salle. She picked out a sword and a dagger that she strapped to her calf. “And now I
'm armed.”

“Sweet. That's a comfort, though I think we're better off avoiding a physical fight. I'm betting for every minion you bring down, monster or otherwise, Alugiac will think up three more. Can you Call in the cavalry if you
need to?”

She frowned. “Again, I think that would not be the best plan. I don't know if I can, or if there was something special about the Ydrel and Miscria. I have never heard of another Kanaan in the Netherworld. Except Alugiac.” She
shivered.

“Try Salgoud. You know him pretty wel
l, right?”

She sat down, moving the sheathed sword aside with a practiced gesture. “He is like a father to me. And he is our greatest war leader. If we could defeat Alugiac here, now, it would give us a great advantage in the upcoming war.” She closed her eyes and con
centrated.

After a few minutes, she shook her head. “It appears we are on
our own.”

“Not quite. I brought LaTisha, or whatever passes for LaTisha in this wor
ld, here.”

“Yes. Why did you do that? What help was she? She is not your soul-mate—what hold does she hav
e on you?”

Joshua squirmed uncomfortably under her gaze. “None! Like I said, I didn't plan for her to appear—I was just singing a song to get
us a car.”

“But she said that song wasn't about a car, and she seemed to think you'd sung it on purpose to bring
her here.”

“No, she said I had some Freudian alternative motive,” he contradicted, then sighed. “Maybe she's right. Maybe I need to be aware of any subconscious messages or associations I have wit
h a song.”

He tapped his fingers on his lips, rehashing their conversation, then gave a surprised laugh. “You know what else she said? She asked me why I didn't change the words. She always did have a way of seeing the obvious when others didn't. Maybe she helped more than we thought.” He shook his head
ruefully.

“She also tried to distract you,” Tasm
ae warned.

“Right, right. She definitely had her own agenda—which is something else to keep in mind. We're not dealing with au
tomatons…”

“So you can summon people—or perhaps a psychic specter of real people.” She
shuddered.

“What?”

“The Remembrance. Gardianju was in the Netherworld with Deryl. They were attacked by…she called them demon specters. I think they were minds that Deryl could not block. Perhaps it's a huma
n talent?”

“Maybe, but let's neither of us think about demons or anything if we can
help it.”

Tasmae shifted, restless. “Agreed. W
hat else?”

“I don't know. We didn't get a car, but that was my fault. Lattie did offer
her keys.”

“Do we need a car? There is no ‘to' and ‘fr
om' here.”

“‘The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once,'” Joshua quoted. “So the reason for space is so everything doesn't happen in the same spot. Regardless of what you're telling me, my mind insists there is a ‘here' and ‘there,' and Deryl is ‘there.' We have to figure out how to get to him. We need somebody we can ask, somebody I can associate wit
h a song.”

He fell silent again, running songs through his mind. He couldn't believe how hard it was to come up with a song when he knew so many. Meanwhile, Tasmae fidgeted, toyed with her hair, got up and looked over the weapons, sat back down, got
up again—

“I'm trying to concentrate,” he muttered through
his teeth.

“Deryl's falling away from us. I can feel it.” She looked younger and more scared than he'd ever
seen her.

“Can you tele
p to him?”

She shook her head. “I get a kind of angry static. It is Alugiac's doing. It must be! I may be able to push through it, but then he may find us before we are ready for him. We don't have a lot of time,” Tasmae pressed. “He is playing games with Dery
l's mind.”

“Games! That's it.” Despite himself, Joshua broke into a grin. “I have an idea, but it's going to sou
nd weird.”

Deryl stared in askance
at the lovely blond woman in bed beside him. She was looking at him, not in surprise, but with concern, like his being there wasn't unusual, but his behavior was.

“Hon, what is it?” She as
ked again.

He licked his lips, tried to quell his confusion and panic, and asked, “I know this is a weird question, but how did I
get here?”

“Oh, God.” Suddenly, she was up on hands and knees and leaning toward him. “What's the last thing you
remember?”

“I was at SK-Mental, but it was an illusion.
Alugiac—”

“The last
real
thing, Deryl! The last thing you remember that doesn't involve aliens or tim
e travel.”

He wanted to protest that the aliens and time travel were real, but couldn't make himself do it. He couldn't bear to see the fear in her eyes. He dropped his gaze, caught a clear view down her chemise, and quickly turned his head and focused on the dressers in their room. He shook his head—why did he think this was
their
room? “All right, then,” he said, playing the game and buying himself some time. “‘Real world…' SK-Mental. I'd figured out how to teleport—that is real,
Clarissa—”

“I know.”

“All right. Good. Malachai drugged me. I took Joshua hostage. I was desperate. I just wanted a couple of minutes alone.” Holding broken glass against his best friend
's throat…

Anxiety clutched his stomach. He had to make her understand, to not be afraid. “Clari, I never meant to
hurt him!”

“Shhh.” With her right hand, she set her fingers lightly over his lips, and he stilled at her touch. “I know. And you didn't. Now, we're not going to panic, got it? Dr. Acker said if this happened again, just to start from when you last remember and help you remember back to the present.” But her face closed with pain and her hand trembled against
his mouth.

This isn't real! Don't play this game!
His mind screamed protests, and there was an odd ache at the base of his neck, but he found himself filled with the need to reassure her. He gripped her hand in his and spoke gently. “Come on. We'll work this out together. Why don't you tell me about Dr. Acker. He's my new docto
r, right?”

She sniffled and tried to laugh. It came out shallow and breathy, but she seemed to be calming down. Her fingers closed around his thumb as she nodded and explained. “After the fiasco at SK, your aunt and uncle found Dr. Acker. He's a psychiatrist and a neurosurgeon. He believed you, and did some real tests—MRIs and all that—and found there was a certain spot in your brain that was overactive. Any of this ringin
g a bell?”

“I, I don't know.” The pain at the base of his skull made it hard to think. He released her hand and rubbed at the back of his head, stopping as his fingers moved over a long, slightly upraised scar under his hair. “He operat
ed on me?”

She smiled and nodded encouragingly. “Yes! Yes, he did a partial lobotomy. He disconnected the part of your brain that was making you ‘psychic.' I never did understand all the details. He could tell y
ou better.

“The important thing is, it worked. No more voices in your head, no more accidentally breaking things or doing things to people with your mind. You could finally have a nor
mal life.”

A normal life
. The words whispered seductively in his mind, more compelling to him than the lovely woman smiling hesitantly at his side. Could it be real? The pain receded momentarily as he absorbed these new thoughts. He slipped out from under the covers, heedless of the fact that he wore only boxers, and wandered the room, seeking something familiar. He paused at the 8 X 10 photo in an etched glass frame. He looked at himself, clad in a tuxedo, his hair short and his eyes behind glasses, smiling, with his arm around Clarissa. Her old-fashioned bridal gown had a heavily sequined bodice and a six-foot train that curved over their feet. “And twenty-five buttons in the back,” he
murmured.

“You
would
remember that,” clarissa sa
id warmly.

He didn't know how he knew it, or even why he'd imagine it. He resisted the urge to ask the obvious questions about their wedding, and turned instead to a photo of them with Joshua and Sachiko. They were in ski gear, someplace snowy with tall, rugged mountains rising gray in the background. “Colorado?” H
e guessed.

“Uh-huh. Last year. We went skiing in Vail. Joshua promised Sachiko that he'd go sailing with her if she'd do the black slopes with him. He hates t
he water.”

Despite himself, Deryl nodded. “Especially after his bachelor's party,” he said, though he didn't
know why.

But again, it was the right thing to say. “Yes! That's right! You saved his life when he fell off the boat during that stupid prank ‘Ko's cousins set up. Pictures are helping, then?” Without waiting for an answer, she got out of bed and headed to a bookshelf. Her chemise was short, and Deryl couldn't help staring as she bent over to pull out a scrapbook. She had terrific legs and a
very nice—

“Are you checking me out?” She cut across hi
s musings.

“No!” He averted his eyes
guiltily.

She laughed, but let him off the hook. “Well, check this out instead.” She sat on the edge of the bed, and he sat next to her, close so that the book fell open on both their laps. The first pages were of buildings, nondescript and academic-looking with their brick and ivy and large stone signs with subjects and sometimes who the building was
named for.

“I went to
college?”

“Of course you did, silly. How else would we have met again?” She bumped her shoulder against his and smiled playfully. She had a gr
eat smile.

Suddenly he saw her smiling at him, but in a different place—smaller, crowded with books and stuffed animals—and the emotions were different—happy, excited, nervous. He gasped against the intens
ity of it.

“What do you remember?” She asked bre
athlessly.

“I, I don't know,” he stammered. “You smiled at me, and then, I saw you smiling like that, only your hair was shorter, spiky, and you had painted a mask on your face, and whiskers. And you had on this black leotard with orange stripes an
d a tail.”

She turned to face him, her smile brilliant and joyful. “The Halloween party. Our fi
rst date.”

“I wanted you that night.” The words were out of his mouth before he'd realized he was speaking. The feelings were still strong in his mind, amplifying the attraction he was feeling now. He leaned t
oward her.

Stop it! This isn't real! Think
of Tasmae!

A fierce pain lanced the back of his head. He buckled over with a cry. The scrapbook slipped from t
heir laps.

“Did you take your medici
ne today?”

“What medicine?” He c
hoked out.

“Your medicine!” She
repeated.

His head throbbed as the bed moved when she got up. He was dimly aware of her walking out, a second light coming on, and her rummaging through a cabinet. Slowly, each step bringing a new agony, he rose and followed her. He found her in the bathroom, a bottle of pills open and spilled onto the counter. She counted them as she put them back into the bottle. As she spoke numbers under her breath, he forced himself to lift his head and look into t
he mirror.

It was his face, but he was wearing glasses. When did he get glasses? He remembered them on the dresser, but didn't remember putting them on. He didn't recognize his hair, so short and layered. His face was fuller; his chest, too. He was both himself and a stranger. How o
ld was he?

“You took it. You took it,” clarissa muttered. “They're just not working as well. Here. Dr. Acker said if it got worse, you could take o
ne extra.”

Deryl looked at the green pill in her hand. “What
are they?”

“Realitin. A neuro-suppressor. After the surgery, you were fine for a while, then you started having delusions, remember? Nightmares, at first, like tonight. Dreams of being on another planet. Some of your abilities came back, but you couldn't control them. It turned out that in the absence of whatever he cut out, your mind was going overtime trying to make up for it, or re-forge a link or s
omething.”

She'd managed to explain that much calmly, but something in Deryl's look must have unnerved her, for her tone started to grow frantic. “Yeah, I know, I'm not explaining well. I never understood this stuff, Deryl, you know that. The point is, you've been taking these every day for the past three years and you've been all right. Then last week, you started having nightmares about someplace called Canaan and people named Leanad and Tasmay and some evil overlord named Al Lou Jiak. I thought maybe you'd forgotten to take your pills, but Dr. Acker thinks you might be developing a resistance. So please, take this now, and call him
tomorrow?”

He wanted to protest that he didn't even remember Dr. Acker, much less his phone number, but she looked so scared again that he forced a smile and swallowed the pill. If it wasn't real, it couldn't hurt him, anyw
ay, right?

“It worked pretty fast last time,” She told him, though she also seemed to be reassuring herself. “It'll help your headache, too. Shall we look at some more
pictures?”

They settled down on the bed again with the scrapbook. Already, Deryl's headache was receding, though he wasn't sure that comforted him much. He concentrated on the photos. One, of a modern building, drew him, as did the large stone and brick sign that declared “Computer Science Building” in
the front.

“That's where we met, remember?” Clarissa asked. “I was walking by with some friends and you were hanging out by the sign, and you called out, ‘Hey, Clarissa, kissed any crazy psychics
lately?'”

“I planned that line for a week,” he told her. Again, words he didn't know were his came from his mouth, and memories he didn't remember poured into his mind. Other things shifted into place and it was his turn to dash out of the room. Instead of a left to the bathroom, however, he took a right, passed through their living room and went into the study. His study. Breathing fast, he approached the first desk and the computer there. It was large and powerful, top of the line. Beside it waited a stack of paper with computer code. On the opposite wall was another desk with a blue, stylized computer with a glowing red alien face in
the front.

“One for work and one for your games,” clarissa commented from th
e doorway.

“But I can't look at a computer—or television, for that matter. I get
seizures.”

“Not since the surgery. The glasses help, too, I'm told. Something about the way they're ground. They're hideously expensive, I k
now that.”

He flipped through the pages on the desk. “I program c
omputers.”

“You're brilliant at it, too,” clarissa said as she wrapped her arms around him and leaned against his back. “At least according to Mom and Dad. You're the reason they got that NASA contract. I think they were as happy for their business as for me when we got married.” She sighed happily as she snuggled
in closer.

It felt very natural to have her lean against him like that, but his mind was on the papers before him. He shuffled through a few more slowly, saw something, and grabbed a pencil. He felt the silk of her nightgown caress his back as she shifted to peer
past him.

“New subroutine?”
She asked.

“No. I screwed this part up. I need to bone up on orbital mechanics.” How did he
know that?

Her arms tightened around him. “Don't tinker with it too much. You're already late enough that Mom and Dad have come to me about it. It's all coming back, now, isn't it? Oh, thank God. Are you feelin
g better?”

“Some,” he said uncertainly. “The headache's fading, but I feel…
confused.”

“Maybe we should g
o to bed.”

He took her hand and let her guide him back to their bed. He even kissed her softly goodnight. But when she turned the lights out, he rolled with his back to her and stared out at their dark apartment until his eyes would stay open
no longer.

When Deryl woke up, he felt a moment of panic when he didn't know where he was. Then, things snapped back into place and he rolled over and caressed the side of the bed where Clarissa had slept. There was only a note on the pillow now. He grabbed the note with one hand, then pulled the pillow to his face with the other. He breathed deeply, smelling her perfume. For a moment, he saw her in his mind's eye, spraying the air before her then walking into the mist with her head thrown back. He loved watching her put on perfume. Somehow, just laying there with her pillow against his face helped ease the odd, empty feeling that had welled up i
nside him.

He leaned back, happier now, and read the note.
Honey, didn't want to wake you after last night. Tried to get the day off, but I've got pre-school gym plus swim, and Regionals are coming up, so there was no way. I'll be home by 5, promise! In the meantime, relax, take your pill, and Please! Call Dr. Acker. I
love you!

Laughing, he slid out of bed and headed to the bathroom. He showered, dressed, shaved—yes, he needed to shave, even used a straight-razor like Joshua—and ran a comb through his hair. His glasses were dirty, and as he reached into the medicine cabinet for cleaner, he saw the small prescription bottle of Realitin. He started to open it when something made his
hand stop.