Invisible Touch Read online

  People stepping back from Kai catch our attention. We walk to face him and see what is causing the disturbance. Kai’s face forward with his eyes glowing golden and unblinking. Spoke too soon. I guess they will learn about his FarSight. He holds up the pictures he has drawn as he begins to speak.

  “This is the woods. This is path in the woods. This is the river in the woods. This is the tree beside the river in the woods. This is the barrow near the base of the tree beside the river in the woods. This is the blight that dwells in the barrow near the base of the tree beside the river in the woods. The blight has traveled and spread. It is in the land, in the plants, in the trees, in the water, in the insects, in the animals.”

  I feel a shroud cover my head. I can only see the images that race across my eyes, I can only hear the voices and noises beneath the shroud. A corner of my mind realizes that my eyes begin to glow golden and knows I will be compelled to speak.

  “Over three hundred years ago, a tribe was in conflict with the Iroquois. They were in conflict with the Delaware. They fought with the English, with the Swedish, with the Dutch. They were decimated by disease, war, hunger. Their holy man foresaw their end. He spoke with the chief, with the council, with the tribe. They swore that when the last of them fell, they would seek their revenge from beyond. It came to pass that the end arrived soon after the oath giving. I hear their cries, I see their deaths, I know their despair. Their bones merged with the earth, their blood soaked the soil. Their bodies were carried by the river to riverbeds and river bottoms, their blood mingled with the water. They became a forgotten tribe. No one remembers their names, no one knows their stories, no one can speak their tongue, no one can call on their gods. Their revenge did not occur upon their death, but darkness is drawn to the area. Thus, they wait.

  “Many miles away, an insidious entity was abruptly awoken. It dwelled dormant in the river for centuries. Once awake and aware, it escaped upriver then fled on land to sink deep in the roots and the earth and lay quiet once again. However, nothing sleeps forever, and it has woken and now roams the forest, disturbing the living and riling up the restless dead. The entity unbalances nature and causes the blight.”

  I distantly hear Tommie begin to speak beside me. Great, our audience is getting the full experience.

  “Take your people to the barrow. Eliminate the blight but be careful, life will fight for survival. Once the blight is gone, the area must be cleansed. The water, the land, the bacteria and fungi, the plants and trees, the insects, the animals, the people. And the restless dead no longer cry for blood, they give warning. Now they only wish for peace and to be remembered.”

  Kai walks to stand between Tommie and me. It was time for us to end the Triad Seeing.

  “I have FormerSight. I see the past and speak the truth.”

  “I have FarSight. I see the now and offer explanation.”

  “I have ForeSight. I see the future and provide warning.”

  “We are the Triad. Our visions have culminated in a True Seeing. Harken our words.”

  We’re released from our vision once we speak the final phrase. Our lids remain open when we See, but once we deliver our words, my eyes let me know how uncomfortable they are. I begin to blink rapidly. I also turn away from our audience, I don’t want to see their expressions.

  With my touch clairvoyant ability, I’ve always felt different. Being clothed to protect myself and others serves to highlight my oddity. I’ve lived here for fifteen years and I am among friends, but I never wanted them to know about our weirdo proclivity for Seeing. It’s something that rarely happens to Tommie and me, and Kai’s Sight is usually less formal and better able to be disguised.

  “That was a bit…different.” I imagine Wendy looking at the people beside her as she speaks and all the nods she receives in response.

  “Yep, doesn’t happen often and when it does, we’re together.” Kai recovers first, as usual. He can continue to speak for us.

  “Whiskey tango foxtrot. How about an explanation?”

  “Well, Sully, there really isn’t one. Occasionally something will trigger a Seeing that we all experience. Once we say our piece the Seeing ends. It’s rare, and we don’t control it. The Seeing is something that just happens to us.”

  “We would appreciate if you don’t tell anyone. I think the last time it happened was several years ago when Gray met up with us in Yuma. A few times in a dozen years is not something we delve deep into,” Tommie jumps in.

  “Anyway, you heard the information we conveyed. My drawings provide the origination of the wrongness that Wendy felt, and you know what to do. I have a headache now. Gray, do you have any of Wendy’s ‘Headache Be Gone’ charms, they work wonders.”

  “Yes, here you go. We need to leave now as we’re exhausted and need to sleep before leaving early tomorrow. Wendy, no dinner for me tomorrow, which you already know. Sully and Dani, I’ll see you at work Tuesday. MacGillivrays and Wendy, I’ll see you Saturday. Sheriff Helki, I’ll see you whenever and Lowell, we’ll see you at the airport in the morning. Bye.”

  “Yes, thanks for seeing us off, everyone. We look forward to our next visit.”

  “What Tommie said. Also, good luck in Pennsylvania. See you on the flip side.” We head back to my place to sleep as we’re exhausted and need to be up extremely early in the morning for cleaning and packing.

  The next morning, after Tommie and Kai’s coffee consumption, our industrious cleaning commences. Their sheets are thrown in the washer and are now drying out on the clothesline. They each have a set of disposable personal protective equipment, PPE, which consists of coveralls, booties, caps, masks, and gloves. They wear the PPE as they clean their area. I wear my PPE as I clean the kitchen and living room. The ritual clothes we wore Wednesday night were washed, wrapped in their plastic garment bags, and hung back in their respective closets prior to our Mesa Verde trip, so one less task to complete this morning. Soon, everyone is packed, rooms clean, and we’re ready to leave. I drive to the airport return the rental car. However, a surprise awaits us. Sheriff Helki, not Lowell, is there to secure our weapons, wand us, and inspect the belongings we bring aboard. We’re the only passengers on the plane, which makes sense as it’s a special flight request, and we can settle into whatever seats we want to. Sheriff Helki and I choose seats facing each other while Tommie and Kai sit in the side-by-side seats behind Sheriff Helki.

  “Why are you here rather than Liaison Lowell? I arranged today’s trip with him.”

  “Why don’t you want anyone to know that they aren’t returning to the US? And with Lowell now solely over PCSS, he can no longer serve as police escort.” Well, either Helki knew all along, figured it out, or was informed in the past couple of days.

  “Once we were alerted to the issue with traveling through Canada, we began to suspect Kai and Tommie would have difficulty traveling back and forth from the US to the GT. We spoke amongst ourselves and they decided to make a permanent move to the GT, which I support. They applied for emergency consideration for asylum residency which was granted only two weeks ago.

  “We’ll let people know after Tommie and Kai have settled in at Council Bluffs. We didn’t want to tip anyone off that Tommie had a bad feeling about them returning to the US. Recently, she became aware of shadowy government people asking questions of her employer, a predictive think tank. They have many government contracts, thus why it’s located in D.C. Plus Kai’s been consulted on police cases more these past six months than he has in the nine years he’s been an adult. He thinks his abilities are being tested and monitored.”

  “I would have thought the GT would have allowed them to move to Albuquerque, we’re getting new residents next year. Did the GT explain why they’re assigned to Southern Plains?”

  “We didn’t want them to move to SWACon. Kai was twelve and Tommie ten when I moved to Albuquerque. They’ve lived together as siblings long after we three did, so they should stay together. Plus, I’ve been here for fifteen years and
neither they nor I want them to be considered my younger siblings. They’re their own people who deserve friends and work that isn’t associated with me.”

  “Plus, we’ve all just seen what can happen when the three of you are together.”

  “That too. It’s honestly one of the major considerations. As to why SoPlains, they could accept two Psycept residents. Auraria is saying they are full up as is North Platte Station in the Central Plains.”

  “The GT is going to have to do something about the Psycept settlements. I think we anticipated only point zero one percent of Americans would apply for residency in total. We figured that most Psycepts would want to stay in their country of birth and only a few would be driven to leave. We also anticipated a large initial wave of applicants, then very few in the ensuing years as things settled. In fact, twice that number initially applied, just from the US, and the new application submissions lasted for several years. Plus, Psycepts from other countries applied too. We’re now seeing a recent uptick of residency requests from Canada and Mexico and a second surge from the US. Also, most applicants want to bring their families with them.”

  “What do you think the GT is going to do?”

  “I think that the larger settlements, ABQ, Auraria, Council Bluffs, and Edmonton, are going to have about 70,000 Psycept and family residents each. PsyTown-ABQ is the city stepping up first, I think you’ll at least double in size by the end of the next year. I also think that we’re going to have to increase the administrative charge for petitions, maybe staggering it over the next year until it reaches thirty dollars. And realize the residency contracts for the new arrivals will be different from the old ones. The other issue is jobs. Many current Psycepts are coming to the end of their residency contracts and will be joining the workforce full-time. These are things the Psycept Council will have to consider.”

  “Yet another reason I hope I’m not elected.”

  Tommie and Kai join our conversation about an hour into the flight. I give them a crash course on Psycept cases, the history of the GT, and how community contributions work. I also explain how to open a GT bank account. Sheriff Helki speaks about the tribes found on SoPlains and the history and layout of Council Bluffs, a river-town that straddles the Mighty Missouri.

  We land in Council Bluffs almost three hours after takeoff, though again an hour ahead in time zones. For now, Tommie and Kai will be housed in a duplex, one on either side. A Psycept welcome committee meets us at the duplex and helps them get settled. Apparently, they’re lucky to arrive now. First snowfall is expected next week. Right now, it’s just a little rain and will not get cold enough to freeze. Good to know.

  Sheriff Helki and I wish them well, then return to the plane for the flight home. Both of us sleep for most of the way back, waking up as we begin our descent. Sheriff Helki kindly takes me to the Ngo house so I can pick Echo up, then he drops us off at my house.

  I’ll return to work tomorrow and expect to have quite a workload to make up for my days off. I have two large projects to complete, three consultations to read, and four meetings on Saturday. Though I’m exhausted just thinking about the upcoming week, I’m also happy to be busy. It makes it plausible to avoid speaking about the Seeing that my friends and coworkers experienced. Oh, crud. I still need to write my election speech. C’est la vie.

  EPILOGUE

  I can’t believe that I’m slightly nervous about giving my election speech. It’s not like I expect nor wish to be elected to the Psycept Council. Maybe I’m intimidated by the venue. We’re at the convention center as it’s the only place large enough for all of us. Or, I should say, those of us of voting age are here at the convention center. We’re remotely set up to broadcast to the PsyTown Civic Center for anyone who wishes to see the speeches but is ineligible to vote. Ages ten to sixteen are there participating in supervised athletic, academic, or art activities. The enterprising fauna PsySapient children set up a pet watching station, Echo is there now. Younger children are being watched at the Psycept library.

  The other candidates and I are on the mainstage floor seated behind the current council seated at their designated bench desks. There is a podium to the side of the council seats on the stage facing the ten thousand main floor audience members. Several cameras are strategically placed in front of the stage, to capture both the council meeting and candidate speeches. Another nine thousand attendees are scattered upstairs with live projections of the entire stage on screens in various large meetings rooms.

  After the council meeting and all the speeches are concluded, everyone seventeen years and older must vote. Part of our residency contracts stipulate that regional voting is compulsory as is having a Psycept Council. Until speaking with Lt. Alawa, I didn’t realize this was specific to SWACon. Originally, we signed letters of intent during the final part of the residency process. The full contract was to be signed when we arrived in Auraria, which turned out to be ABQ for several of us. The LOIs didn’t have detailed conservatorship governance stipulations listed, just the general GT information of our contracted number of cases per week and the length of contract in exchange for free housing, food, and limited funds.

  So, according to our full SWACon contracts, we must have a council and we must vote for the members of the council. We also vote twice a year in non-Psycept elections and propositions, once for Albuquerque and once for Bosque. Psycepts hold our elections until almost the absolute latest we can. Our elections are after Albuquerque, which was five weeks ago, and before the first of the new year. The election time was already written into our PsyTown residency charter, I think because we were initially scheduled to begin arriving in Albuquerque just after their elections. They wanted us to have a few weeks to settle in before we formed our first council. So, even though we arrived months ahead of schedule, other things were of more concern and our election period was not corrected the first year. In the ensuing years, the PsyTown charter was never amended, and we’ve continued to hold our elections about two weeks before the new year.

  This is the second to last council meeting of the year, so tradition is that the current council does a year-end review to discuss projects, tasks, rules, and other issues that were completed during their term. Our next council meeting will be a transitional meeting with both current council and newly elected council in attendance to discuss open items that are to be carried forward to the next year. The two meetings can be a bit cumbersome, but the objective is to be transparent and accountable with the Psycept community that the council represents. The actual work of the council is left for the remaining twenty-four meetings of the year.

  “…and this concludes our year-end general council meeting. We will have a fifteen-minute break, then election speeches will begin. After the speeches, voting booths will open. The program guide has the locations of the booths throughout the center as well as space for you to take notes on the speeches. The guides are available on our website and our app, and for those that prefer print, we have a limited number of copies available in stands next to all the restrooms. Thank you.”

  Wendy is the first to speak when we return from break. She’s followed by the PsySentient, Variegated, and PreCog candidates. They all keep their speeches short as they’re the only candidate for their category. After the single nominees finish, the two PsyMovers speak, then Kyle and Maddie from the PsySapients. Finally, it’s the TouchVoyants turn.

  Tracy’s speech is first. She obviously decided to focus on why I am a poor choice and the years of experience she has from serving on the council. I calmly listen to her speech. She’s correct in that I’ve not been a very active member of the community, but I think her implying that I’m a gorgon is a bit harsh. Tracy’s speech is over twelve minutes long, exceeding our ten-minute speech limit. Mine is a tight eight minutes and I feel no need to add any last-minute rebuttals to fill my extra time. She mentioned a few things that my speech addresses, so some of her concerns are to be accounted for as it is. Now it’s podium time.

  �
�Good afternoon, I am Gray Graham and I’m running for Psycept Council. I, like Ms. Fischer, have lived in PsyTown Albuquerque for fifteen years and was amongst the first group placed in SWACon. This is not to say that I’ve been here longest, and my way is correct. Most of us have been here at least a dozen years, what’s a year or two difference? Plus, we’re all residents of SWACon and thus permanent guests in another’s house. To the point, we’re all in the same boat.

  “I, also like Ms. Fischer, am a TouchVoyant and mainly handle police Psycept cases. This can skew my perspective of Psycepts in Albuquerque, I admit. The number of Police Psycept consultants are about a thousand but we tend to think of ourselves as the standard Psycept experience, not the exception. I’ll continue to strive to keep an open mind of the entire Psycept community. However, if elected, I will represent our viewpoint to the council at large.

  “Yes, I acknowledge I’m a member of PAPPA, the PsyTown-Albuquerque Police Psycept Association. We’ve had four general meetings and one group meeting. All four general meetings were recorded and are available to view through the library if anyone is interested. Our next general meeting is in exactly two weeks and the recording of that will be available shortly thereafter. We’re not trying to be exclusive of civilian Psycepts, we are trying to be supportive of our small numbers. And I can confirm that Ms. Fischer hasn’t attended any of the PAPPA meetings.

  “As for being involved more in the community, I agree. Participating in PAPPA is one way I became involved. In addition, I’m currently working with Liaison Lowell’s office to plan our first Psycept and Psycept Civilian Support Services get together. This will be for all Psycepts, police and civilian consultants, as well as the two thousand PCSS, along with an invite to the ABQ community at large. This is not contingent upon obtaining a council position, this is something I have undertaken at the request of Liaison Lowell as it’s the PCSS that is spearheading this event. Look for additional information upcoming in the new year.