Martin glanced toward the stairs, then whispered two words. “Trust me.”
“What’s going on?” Flinch asked. He sat up and rubbed his face, then looked around. “Where are we?”
“In deep trouble,” I said.
while trash begins to lose
hope, cheater meets a
misinformed man …
“HELLO, DENNIS.” The man pulled the curtain around the bed and sat in the chair. “Your friend Martin tells me you can see the future.”
“No, I can read minds.” That’s what Cheater would have blurted out if he hadn’t been trying to avoid moving his jaw so much. As he bit back the words, his brain went from high gear to overdrive.
Obviously, Martin had spilled their secret. But he’d spilled the wrong information. Why? Because Martin must have wanted to bring the two of them together. But why would Martin mention psychic powers? He would never reveal their secret. Which meant it wasn’t a secret. So the man knew something. But not the right thing. And he definitely didn’t know anything about mind-reading.
Cheater felt like he was holding a weak hand in a game he had to win. He couldn’t fold. He had to play it out. Barely moving his lips, he whispered, “I can only see blurry stuff.”
“What?” the man asked.
Cheater whispered again, even more quietly, making sure he slurred his words.
The man leaned over so his ear was directly above Cheater’s mouth. Cheater opened his mind to the man’s thoughts.
This time, it was even harder to keep from blurting anything out. The man had taken Martin, Flinch, and Trash to a building somewhere and locked them up. He was on a mission to find anyone with useful psi talents.
“Where’s Martin?” Cheater asked.
“Just tell me about your power,” the man said. But the address ran through his mind.
“Sometimes, I can see how TV shows will end,” Cheater said.
“What?”
“TV shows. I know what’s going to happen before it happens. Five minutes before the ending, it will just come to me in a flash. Even sooner if it’s a rerun.”
The man straightened up. “That’s it?”
“Yeah—that’s my special talent. It’s spooky. I just know what the future will bring. I guess I’m psychic.” Cheater’s face was killing him, but he knew he needed to keep talking until the man lost interest in him. “Yup, TV is pretty awesome when you think about everything that’s involved. You know, a guy named Philo Farnsworth got the original idea. It came to him when he looked at a cornfield. Amazing, huh? He stares at rows of corn and changes our lives forever.”
“Anything else?” the man asked. “Can you see things in the real world?”
“Nope. Just TV shows. But my friends think I’m a genius when we watch mysteries. I’ve got a TV. Wanna watch something with me? That way, you can see me in action. It’ll be fun.”
The man shook his head and left the room.
“Bluffed you,” Cheater said after the footsteps had faded down the hall. He felt like he’d just won a huge pot with a busted flush. Now all he had to do was figure out how to rescue his friends.
what’s gotten into you?
I’D MOVED AWAY from Martin to the other side of the cell. But Flinch stayed with him. Martin groaned and rubbed his stomach.
“What happened to you?” Flinch asked.
“I got kicked.”
“I’d have seen it coming.”
“Then maybe you can try to jump him next time while I take a nap.” Martin flicked a jab at Flinch’s face.
Flinch blinked, but didn’t make any move to block the punch. “Do that again.”
Martin threw another jab.
“I didn’t see it coming,” Flinch said.
“Of course not,” I said. “There’s a disrupter hidden in here somewhere.”
“Maybe the field doesn’t cover the whole area.” Flinch got up and walked to the far corner of the cell, diagonally opposite from where I sat.
Martin got up and joined him. “Yeah, let’s check it out.”
“Slap me,” Flinch said.
Martin took a shot at him, but Flinch blocked it easily enough. “I definitely saw that coming.”
Flinch took a tiny step toward me, then nodded at Martin, who tried to slap him again. They repeated the process a couple times, until they were several feet from where they’d started. Then, the slap landed.
“Ow!” Flinch said.
“Sorry. You didn’t see it coming?” Martin asked.
“Obviously not,” Flinch said, rubbing his cheek.
“So the disrupter is on my side of the cell,” I said. “If you can get out of the field, I can, too. It looks like Bowdler isn’t as smart as he thought.”