6: Humans, Being


"Not revising, Damon?"

"I've just finished revising German, I thought I would get myself a drink of tea before I started on the Physics."

"Sensible thing to do, I imagine revising hard makes you quite thirsty. Just don't have too many cups, I'm sure that wouldn't be good for you."

"I won't. Anyway, I need an early night tonight. I have to be up early tomorrow morning to take the train to school."

"I'm starting to worry about this train idea. It was all very well last term when it was only the odd day that you were taking the train, but this is every day now. And I know they have the extra security on there, but that hasn't really helped very much so far has it. I mean, it isn't as if it's helped them catch anyone, or stop the abductions, and the murderer is still out there. Three weeks, Damon, three week it's been. People start getting complacent, letting their guard down, but mark my words, that is when they get sloppy, and that is exactly when the killer strikes again."

"I still make sure I'm as careful as I was three weeks ago."

"Of course, I know you're sensible. But you are in the middle of exams, and don't forget these are very important exams and you have to do well in them if you hope to go to university. Don't ever forget that. I just think that perhaps if we switched back to driving you to school it might might make your schedule a little more flexible and that would benefit your studies."

"It's okay, I understand dad's new job is very important to us, and that it isn't as easy for him to have the flexibility to drive me to school. Don't worry, I can find other ways to make up the study work. Which, I'd better get back to."

"Of course. I won't keep you. And thank you for understanding the sacrifice your father is making for us."

He headed for the stairs holding his breath. He still frequently felt like screaming after talking to his mother. But he had his escape planned. Two more years. Then he could rebel, and shit did he intend to rebel.

Actually, it wasn't quite so bad as all that. Things had improved drastically in the week that had passed since half term, despite the pressure of the exams he was now in the middle of. For one thing his dad had got this new job. Prestigious promotion, and his mother seemed to have taken personal credit for having pushed him into getting the promotion. That had helped ease her pressure on Damon a little.

Then there was the fact that the hysteria over the missing kids had abated a little, people just seemed to be getting a little victim fatigue. It wasn't much, but he had a tiny little more freedom than before.

He'd had his sixteenth birthday over the half term, he'd gotten a bunch of things, but the most curious was that his mother had given him money to buy clothes. He wasn't exactly sure what that meant, it seemed almost too much to hope that for the first time in his life it was looking like she was saying that he could go and freely choose what he wanted to buy rather than be forced to choose what she wanted him to buy. Sure, it had taken years, but maybe his mother was finally treating him like he was over eight years old. Not that he was going to find time to take advantage of the opportunity to go shopping until after the exams were over, or how his mother would react when he came back with something she didn't approve of, but that was something now he was actually looking forward to.

At school things had been going great. Nick still spoke to him occasionally, and it was shallow the way it made a difference, but it had improved the way he was treated generally by everyone else at school. It made school a lot more tolerable, anyway.

Most of all, his dad's new job meant he had to take the train to school every morning. And in just five days that had turned out to be the best fucking thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life, ever, without exception.


He reached the relative sanctuary of his room and hunted out his history books. He had to keep up the illusion in case his mother came up to check in on him. He didn't particularly need to revise, his mother would never believe that though. He arranged the books on his desk to make it look like he was busy.

The weather outside looked enticingly good, but for Damon it was just another boring Sunday afternoon stuck indoors. Half way through the exams, and no chance he would be able to get out and enjoy any of the summer weather until then. Although, once the exams were over, then he could start making some plans. He smiled, serious plans.

He needed to stop smiling so much. If his mother walked in and saw him smiling that much about history homework even she would get worried. Damon tried to calm himself and return to his books. Right now he had something way more important to study than history. He opened his biology folder and pulled out a bunch of some printed and some hand written notes. That was another part of how he was dealing better with his life in general; he'd worked out that his school books were the one place his mother never bothered checking through. He was starting to learn he could hide pretty much anything there.

The front page had a list of scribbled items on it. Damon had started trying to write down anything and everything he could remember from the visions. The details he had managed to capture had already given him a lot of insight into what he was seeing. Well, had been seeing. The visions had unfortunately gone away, nothing since the vision of the closet guy Jake being hit by the car. That had freaked him for days, wondering if Jake had been killed in the accident and if that was the reason that the vision had stopped so abruptly. But he now knew Jake was very much still alive.

The pub, 'The Pheasant Plucker's Arms' had been the key to working it all out. It wasn't just an unusual pub name, it was almost unique. He'd quickly found only a couple referenced on the internet and only one of those near enough to a school to be the one in his last vision. He really hadn't expected it to be that easy to locate, but he had managed to find a photograph of the place, and was sure that was what he had seen. That had really helped convince him it was something paranormal rather than something delusional he was experiencing. Once he'd identified where the pub had been located, he'd been able to search the local newspapers online and had indeed found a small story about the incident. Jake hadn't been named explicitly in the article, but the details all matched exactly; the exact time, the place, the make of the car which Damon had managed to note down as well. That had also helped him to establish that the visions were of things that were happening pretty much in real time as he saw them unfold. The article had also confirmed that the schoolboy who had been hit by the car was in a bad way, but his condition was stable and he was expected to survive.

Not bad progress from just a couple of internet searches. Despite what people might think, the internet was useful for more than just pornography.

The rest of the notes on the list, though, those had him stuck much more in the dark. Some were definitely about Jake, but a significant number appeared to be about completely different people. It didn't make sense that it would be random, there was some connection between those people, there had to be. He still found himself drawn back to the list, forever hoping that each fresh viewing would unlock some pattern that he hadn't spotted before. Fear and confusion seemed to be the only common theme, he only seemed to have visions of people in situations where things were generally fucked up.

He'd wondered about doing something more to try and track Jake down. A search on the name and the locality came back with too many hits to be able to narrow anything down usefully. But Damon figured he would love to have the chance to talk to this Jake. Throughout all the visions one constant had been that he was just observing, seeing things that were happening, never actually physically connecting with the events in any way. He'd been convinced that it was like like looking through a one way mirror, that the people he saw couldn't see back. But there was no doubt in his mind that in the last moment of the last vision, just before the car had hit, Jake had been aware some that weird guy was watching him. That connection at least had to have been two way.

But today the list wasn't giving him any inspiration. Damon figured he might as well get back to his revision. Anything that would make the time pass more quickly so that he could get Sunday over with, and get to the point on Monday where he headed for the train.


Damon was torn between being keen to get the week over to be done with the exams, and not wanting to waste the precious moments he would get to spend on the train each day.

One the week was over things would be better for sure, there would still be another four weeks of school left before the summer holidays, but those would be a pretty easy four weeks. Until then he had to focus on getting through the final few exams without his mother totally stressing out. Which would be tough, as she was far more stressed than Damon was. Damon was confident he could handle the exams, and on top of that, he couldn't give a toss. He'd found out there were much more important things in life.

The train pulled in to the station. The train that was the best fucking thing that had ever happened to him in his life, and that was without any exaggeration. His twelve minutes of life between the lifeless existence of home, and the mostly lifeless existence of school. And, more to the point, twelve minutes with Anna. And that alone was what made everything he had to suffer in the rest of his life so much easier to bear.

"And then my dad is like, right, but that's MY weekend. And I can't believe he'd actually mess up the shopping trip just because of that, but he'd do it just to piss my mum off, and I actually think he wouldn't remember it wasn't just about that, and that he might just piss me off as well, and then what would be the point?"

"They totally forget you're stuck in the middle at times."

"And mum is just as bad. But, at least she's like trying with this shopping trip, because that's about more than just buying things. But my dad won't see it that way, and he'll just buy me things to try and match the value of whatever I spend on the shopping trip. And I don't get it, I really don't see how on earth they ever got on long enough to get married in the first place."

"Incredible sex?"

"Not according to my mum."

"Okay, she talks to you about that?"

"Well, yes."

"I just realized my mother could actually be worse than she already is."

"That is why I like you, always ready to show me how much more your life sucks than mine."

"I try to provide a service,"

"Good. So, Damon Jackson. You been having inappropriate thoughts about me over the weekend."

"Yes, I guess." He confessed somewhat reluctantly.

"Very good. Just checking. Want a snog?"

She had a way with words. That was part of the reason he liked her so much. The rest, she made him feel normal. Something that as a sad geek he had figured was previously conspicuously missing from his life.

They'd met on the train the previous week. The train was always busy and on this occasion they had both been forced to stand the whole way. Damon had been walking down the train from one end looking for somewhere to sit when he'd encountered her coming from the other direction. He'd been able to see from her thoughts that she had been doing the exact same thing, and Damon had politely let her know that she wouldn't have any luck up the other end of the train. He had been impressed with himself, only a couple of months earlier he wouldn't have had the courage to talk to a complete stranger like that.

Then he'd asked if this was the normal state of affairs on this service, as he had only just started riding this train, and the conversation had gone on from there. By the end of the twelve minutes he had established that she had been catching this train for years, he had told her all about his dad's new job and that being why he was taking the train now, and Damon had been getting this really weird feeling that she had spent the whole time they were talking thinking about what he would look like without any clothes on. He didn't quite understand her attraction to someone like him, but then she didn't go to the same school as Damon, so she had no clue about his former existence as a sad geek. Which was great.

Twelve minutes a day, five days a week, one week. In that time they had spent a grand total of one hour together, and Damon should probably have been disturbed at how well he felt he had gotten to know her in such a short amount of time, except that he was so infatuated with her that he didn't care. She made him feel like any other sixteen year old kid in the world. Made him feel human. And nothing in the world was more important to him than feeling for a moment that he really could be just like everyone else.

So she knew how frustrated he got dealing with his parents, and he knew how frustrated she got dealing with her parents who had a whole different set of problems. They were the archetypal absent parents who tried to buy her love with material rewards when all she really wanted was their attention. It was kind of a clichéd background, but it explained her whole attraction to the way he could immediately empathize with whatever she was feeling and thinking.

Although increasingly what she was thinking was about what inappropriate thing she would like to do with him given half a chance. And by Friday those thoughts were starting to get downright explicit. Damon really wasn't sure he should be tuning in quite so freely to what she was feeling, but it wasn't exactly something he had any clue how to control. Plus, he'd had more fun over the weekend prognosticating about her dishonorable intentions than he could get from any amount of watching 'Hairy Plodger' and it's sequels.

Friday she had kissed him. Today they had spent half of their twelve minutes making out. Damon had to admit, his train ride to school had become an unexpectedly life changing event.

But once again, all too soon, their time together was drawing to an end. Twelve minutes daily on a public train was never going to be quite enough, especially when it was difficult to entirely forget he was on the train heading to sit exams. Anyway, there were only four days left before things became much more relaxed.

"So, tell me this, as insatiable as you seem to be, how is it you managed to survive the entire weekend without me?" Damon asked provocatively.

"I didn't. I had to resort to lesbianism."

She hadn't, Damon could easily see, but the thought of it was enough to make the pants he was wearing seem to feel a touch too small. "How about maybe, next weekend, you want to go, I don't know, hang out at the mall? Just, as an option, in case you get bored of the lesbianism."

"I can think of more fun things than that."

"Right. Okay, I, no big deal." So, he'd fucked up there. Hanging out at the mall was totally not her scene and she was kind of blunt pointing that out. Okay, that wasn't such a bad thing, he preferred it when people were blunt.

"But the more fun things I was thinking of we'd probably get arrested for doing in public though. So, I suppose I could meet you at the mall."

Damon headed to his history exam feeling somewhat speechless. Was that a date?


It was on Wednesday that things had gone wrong.

What happened was that some twat called Daniel Walker had let himself get abducted. What the fuck was wrong with these kids? How they could they be that stupid? Damon hated to agree with his mother on the matter, but he had to feel there was an element of truth to thinking a large part of it had to be their own bloody fault. But that didn't help. His mother was still going to overreact, and Damon found himself forbidden to go to the mall on Saturday. She was just so fucking unreasonable. Like he would be stupid enough to get himself kidnapped as well. But then really, despite the hints of some kind of relaxation after his sixteenth birthday, she had now totally reverted to treating him like he was eight years old. And Damon Jackson had fucking had enough. Grounded on his first date, like the fucking sad geek he was.

He'd come bloody close to telling his mother to go stick her head in a pig. Even knowing it would just make things an order of magnitude worse he had still been tempted. Except there was nothing he could do about it. Just two years, just two years he reminded himself. Then there wasn't a fucking thing she could do about it. Drink, drugs, sex, he was going to do the lot, and then some.

So Saturday he had spent on his own in the house, playing computer games. The fucking exams were over, he should have been out there fucking enjoying himself, and he was stuck in his fucking bedroom playing fucking computer games. And however much bad language he used in contemplation of his situation, it didn't feel like he was using enough.

Anna had acted like she understood when he called to tell her. He wasn't sure, people were always so much harder to read over the telephone. She hadn't much wanted to go to the mall anyway, so she wasn't going to be devastated. But that wasn't the point.

Oh, and on top of all that he had spent most of the week having stupidly vague visions at awkward moments. None of which seemed to be anything to do with Jake, but he just didn't have the time to focus on what they actually had been about because he was still very much stuck in the middle of having to worry about exams. It was fair to say that Damon Jackson was not a happy bunny.

Monday came and he discovered that while Anna genuinely hadn't been too bothered not getting to the mall, she'd been planning to try and embarrass him by dragging him into lingerie shops looking for underwear for her. Damon would have killed to have been able to spend his Saturday being embarrassed by that, in a masochistic kind of way, so he was even more pissed off that it hadn't worked out.

Then, school after the exams was boring as crap. And on top of it all he only managed to get to see Anna four mornings that week because she was off the Friday for her weekend shopping in New York with her mother, which meant he had to suffer three days without seeing her over the weekend. Life, he figured, could not get any more unfair than this.


But then another Monday morning had arrived, he was back on the train talking to Anna, and things distinctly seemed to be changing for the better again.

"How's the torture going. They keep you locked in your bedroom again this weekend?" She taunted him, jokingly.

"I am starting to realize they have no power any more. Every moment I spend apart from you is torture, they can't make that any worse."

"Screw your soppy love talk, Jackson. I want your tongue in my mouth now."

The conversation part didn't last long on that Monday's train ride. Maybe she really was as frustrated by not seeing him for three days as she had claimed. She certainly wasn't all that anxious to take the time out to talk about her weekend, however much she had clearly enjoyed her shopping trip.

"This coming weekend, how about we forget about the mall. My mum is out for the day on Sunday. You could come over to my house, we could, you know, play. If your mummy will let you come out to play, that is."

Damon wasn't exactly sure how he had responded. He was in something of a state of shock working out what she had just said. It was four days at least before he could get the silly grin off of his face.


Damon continued the planning over the next few days. Trying to work out every intricate detail, trying to make sure nothing was overlooked. He couldn't screw up, not this time.

His intention was to reuse the scheme that had worked so well to get him to Josh's birthday party. Nick had been more than willing to help, and had fixed it up perfectly, calling after he knew Damon would be in bed, calling to confirm the study group for next Sunday, last one of the term, really important and all that. Apologizing for calling late. Saying he would try and catch Damon at school before the weekend, but could she pass on the message that unless he called to say otherwise, the study group was definitely on. She'd have seen through it instantly if Damon had tried saying to her. Now he wouldn't have to. She'd found out her own way, and wouldn't question that.

Anna, an empty house, and six hours of freedom. This was the definitive purpose of being sixteen years old. This was it, he could officially stop being a geek, and start being a real human being.

The week had been torture. Going over the plans, over and over again. He couldn't really focus on anything else. Wasn't really interested in focussing on anything else. Although he figured he had to go easy on that, didn't want himself too worn out before he even got there.


Life, being life, nothing quite went according to plan. To start with he'd been nearly two hours late. Some problem with the train it turned out. Anna had done this whole picnic by candlelight lunch for him, but they wound up having to reheat half of it in the microwave. It didn't any of it work out exactly tasting right. And she was the one always telling him that the sappy romance stuff was way over the top. But he could see it through her eyes, for all her protestations she loved this sappy stuff.

She even liked the candles, quite apart from the fact that they looked pretty redundant sat out in the garden in the heat of the middle of the afternoon. And then just as they had finally sat down to eat, a storm had come over and it had started pissing down with rain.

It the two minutes it had then taken to get everything inside they had gotten soaked. Which, actually, had been the best thing that could have happened. Wet, skin tight clothes that had to be completely removed so that they could get them dried. Helped avoid the awkwardness of negotiating exactly when to cross that line.

They'd set the picnic back up on the kitchen floor. Damon was finding it very distracting though, trying to eat, while at the same time very self consciously staring at Anna. She in turn was staring back at him squirming and getting visibly over excited. Damon found this was a moment he wasn't sure he appreciated being able to read minds, because he could see exactly what part of him she was staring at, and more to the point he could tell she was comparing him to the only other guy she'd actually seen like that.

The kitchen floor wasn't exactly where he had planned that things would finally happen either. But by that point he wasn't worrying too much about what the plan had been. Even if the reality of the moment had turned out to be mostly clumsy and fumbled, and brief, he was too busy enjoying himself.

Actually, Damon had to admit that he had kind of enjoyed the sappy part as well. Sitting curled up with her on the kitchen rug afterwards, just talking, and talking, and talking. He was starting to get a sense of her wicked sense of humor that had been so constrained by circumstance on the train. Even the part where she chased him once round the garden naked in the rain, although Damon was pretty sure the garden couldn't easily be seen from the neighbor's house, he would never have believed anyone could push him into being quite that daring. He was acting a little dazed by the experience, his normal rational inhibitions did seem to have deserted him.

Finally she had stood up and he had watched her get dressed, savoring the last opportunity he would have to enjoy that particular view of her for who knew how long. Then he lay back as she picked a handful of petals from what was left of the flowers Damon had used to decorate the picnic blanket with, dropped them in a straight line headed from his chest downwards towards where he was starting to get excited again, smiled, and pointed out her mother would be back in less than an hour.

Damon could only grin. The truth was that the experience had left him somewhat in a state of uncontrollably grinning altogether too much. And he had no clue how he was going to avoid still having a stupid silly grin on his face when he made it home as well.

He had laid there for several minutes then finally he got up. He pulled his clothes on, concerned just how creased they were looking after coming straight out of the dryer, he had no clue how he was going to explain that one when he got home either. And he absolutely didn't care. He finally felt alive.


Thankfully his parents hadn't insisted on picking him up. Not by consequence of any trust they had in him, but rather because they'd had to go to some office function to do with his dad's new job, and his mother hadn't really had the option of saying no to that, as she was the one had pushed him into that role. Damon got to ride the bus home, he was hoping that would give him enough time to come far enough down from the high he was on that he would get away with telling his mother how productive his day of studying biology had been.

The bus took a long route, all around the houses, he had about twenty minutes more sat there before he would be home. Twenty minutes wondering how obvious it was to look at him to know what he'd just been doing. Could people work that out just by looking? He desperately hoped not.

Damon's eyes blinked. He was leaving a shopping mall, there was a girl there, sixteen maybe. Struggling with more bags than she was really capable of carrying. She was somewhat focussed on wondering how she was going to get them all on the bus without causing a scene.

He opened his eyes, he was looking out the window of the bus into a street where it was still thundery and raining, but he was feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He surrendered to the fact he wasn't going to get a choice in the matter, he couldn't quit a vision before the vision ended, it would happen whether he liked it or not. Normally he liked visions, this one just, well, the timing sucked. Hey, that was unquestionably a common factor to all the visions... without exception the timing always sucked.

Reluctantly he closed his eyes again.

The girl had cut through along the side of the mall to get to the bus stop. It didn't seem like a particularly dangerous thing to do, but Damon figured she had to be in danger. The people in his visions were always in trouble, it made no sense this time would be any different.

'Stay where people can see you.' He tried calling out to her, and kept on repeating that in his mind, but it didn't seem like she could hear him. What had he done differently that had meant Jake could hear?

Damon tried to evaluate the situation, it didn't seem all that bad. There were people only a short distance in front of her waiting for the bus, and others headed in and out of the mall entrance not far behind her. There were a couple of the mall service doors open, but, she was hardly likely in danger from mall staff. Damon was puzzled, why was he so certain she was in shit serious trouble?

He could see her pause as she passed one of the open doors. He could sense an intense curiosity... just what really did happen behind the scenes at a shopping mall? She was peering into the darkness to see what she could see. And what she could see was a man pointing a gun at her. Damon could sense disbelief, and amusement, she figured it was all just a stunt, a joke. This was not good, Damon tried to scream at her to run, but if she could hear him then she wasn't listening. She'd seen the gun, but she had no clue there was anything wrong. And it was already too late, there wasn't any time left for her to turn and run even if she did figure out what was going on.

Damon found himself entranced. The visions were usually vague, this was the clearest one he could remember. And he really wasn't sure what was going on. He had assumed danger, but she wasn't aware of any of that, and despite seeing the gun, Damon wasn't so sure any more either.

There was a noise, he couldn't hear it, just knew there had been some kind of a noise. A gun being fired? He couldn't tell, but it didn't seem like that. There had been some kind of impact though, something had hit her, except there was no pain, and she still appeared to be conscious. It didn't make immediate sense. Then Damon saw the bags drop to the ground as she stumbled forwards, and then the darkness. Darkness, always it ended in darkness.

He blinked. He was back on the bus again. The visions had always been a puzzle in the past, this time it was slightly different. This time he had the beginning of an understanding of the mechanism, he knew that he was watching events unfolding exactly as they were happening. Ridiculous as it sounded, he was fairly sure that what he had just seen had really happened. Only, he wasn't exactly sure what it was that had happened, he wasn't exactly sure what he had seen. The events just hadn't made much sense.


There was no silly grin getting home. His mood was deadly serious. He headed quickly for his bedroom, pulled out his page of notes from the biology folder and started trying to write everything down, every detail of the vision, as much as he could remember. She'd been headed for a bus, he had images of bus company names, bus route numbers, that might help place the location. He had a very distinct memory of her face, but that wasn't so useful, he was no artist, no sketch he drew would be of any use identifying her.

He kept writing until there was nothing more he could write, until he was exhausted. Then he sat back to try and work out what it all meant. It didn't make sense that she was dead, but he really wasn't sure what did make sense as an alternate explanation of apparently getting shot.

He glanced back at the rest of what was written on the page he was holding. But there were no particular clues, nothing to enlighten him.

Every note on the list was meticulously dated. Two weeks, three days and five hours since the previous vision. That was long enough that he'd actually started to miss the experience. But this wasn't what he had in mind when he wished he had them back. Why the fuck had he wished for something like that? Just when he had felt like he had finally achieved his ultimate goal of normality, this had come along to fuck things up. Having visions was not exactly normal. The fact he had visions at all meant he would never really be able to consider himself normal. But then, if he wasn't a normal human being, then what the fuck was he?

At least he was sure it was paranormal rather than delusional, sure he was a freak, but at least he could take solace in knowing that he wasn't a mad freak.


There was silence at the breakfast table the next morning when he finally made it downstairs. At first he was freaked he was going to get into trouble for being late down for breakfast on a school day. His mother was looking particularly stony faced, it had to be something worse than that. For a moment he had started to panic, convinced that somehow she must have found out what he had been up to the day before. Then he saw the newspaper on the table and realized it was something much less scary. Another abduction.

Reluctantly he unfolded the paper to read the full story, and nearly choked on the cup of tea he was trying to drink. Sally Ann Drake, victim number ten, the headline said. The name meant nothing to him, but the photograph that was printed with it, that was all too familiar. It was the face he hadn't been able to sketch the day before. The girl in his vision had been Sally Ann Drake.

Damon sat silently in contemplation. Things, he considered, just couldn't get much more fucked up than this. It explained everything, she hadn't been killed, she'd been abducted. Damon had managed to have a vision of an abduction actually taking place.

The day had been such a perfect day. Now he was going to remember it for all the wrong reasons.


7: Woolly Thinking


"Curfew, what the hell use is that?" Jake threw the newspaper down angrily.

"Jacob Templeton Laris, you will not use language like that at the breakfast table. I realize you had plans to go to this festival next week, and your camping trip is only a week or two away, but this is serious. Ten now. Ten. And the curfew isn't certain, just one of the options they're considering, it might never happen, you know how it is, stupid politicians, not anything to do with them, the police are meant to be the ones solving crimes, but the politicians think they have to be seen to be doing something or no one will remember they're there and remember to vote for them next time, so they have to come up with these panic responses regardless of the sense or practicality of it all. And things have gotten bad, they're saying this is the worst since that time fifteen years ago, nine disappeared that time, and oddly enough those were the same weird mix of boys and girls of all different backgrounds, very little in common other than their age, and of course the police aren't saying anything, but you know the newspapers they love their conspiracies, and no one was ever caught last time, and people are obviously bound to question the connections, and I'm sorry, but I don't for one minute believe the police being able to dismiss the parallels quite so readily, although I accept they know more about the case than we do and clearly are not telling us everything they do no, but I have already made my opinions on that subject quite clear."

"Sorry, I was just, looking forward to the camping trip." His mother had twisted the conversation several degrees away from his incautious expletive, but he was aware an apology was still expected. He couldn't see it quite as clearly in her thoughts as he had been able to in the past, but he didn't need to see it, he knew the precedent.

"Well, I don't like the idea of you going away on either of those trips, I don't exactly like the idea that your sister went off to university three years ago and I have no idea what dangerous things she gets up to. But I suppose you have to go out on your own at some point. We will discuss the camping trip again nearer the time, and really I can't see those incompetent politicians getting any kind of curfew in place that fast. And honestly Jacob, I think you could do with the fresh air, I mean I know you are trying hard not to work so much at school, but honestly Jacob I'm not entirely convinced you don't go up to your room and just pretend to listen to music while secretly you're up there studying for your exams."

Jake could rarely understand his mother's logic. He liked it, just, didn't understand it.

It was the middle of the exams, so Jake would have another few days before he had to confront the school over the festival trip. He wasn't so worried about that, it was seriously unlikely any curfew that was introduced would happen in time to screw that little scheme up, and he was completely sure of his ability to convince them to go ahead with it regardless. It was the risk of something screwing up the camping trip that bothered him. His mother was right though, politics didn't work that fast.

The camping excursion had been long planned. They'd been talking about it since the previous summer. Jake, Dean and Mike, four days hiking and camping the first week of the summer holiday, which was exactly two weeks away now. He'd figured it would prove a useful escape from having had to think responsibly for so long, a chance for some serious decompression after the exam term. For a moment, back when he was getting the headaches, he'd seriously considered that it might have to be called off, and that prospect hadn't pleased him. Now the idea of not being able to go because of some stupid curfew had him seriously pissed off. He couldn't accept the thought that there was nothing he could do about it. He was Jake Laris, there was always something he could fucking do about it. He had two weeks to make sure that nothing went wrong.

Right now the summer term at school was drawing rapidly to a close. It didn't feel too much like summer yet, warm weather but with frequent intermittent storms. Forecast to be a scorcher of a summer ahead though.

It had been nearly six weeks already since the accident, four weeks since he'd been on the medication. Since then no more voices, no more blackouts, no more headaches. He was starting to enjoy life again, the worst of his problems were fading into nothing more than an unpleasant memory. The medication was proving to be completely effective, it had given him back his life. And though he outwardly would refused to admit it, he had even started to enjoy school. Apart from the part where he was having to behave himself, though that had more to do with the teachers having changed. Somehow they seemed to have found a way to mess up his instinct for working out what they wanted to hear. He half figured they had been taking lessons from Ms Hinton in his absence.

Although his friends as well, Dean and Mike, there were moments he was feeling disconnected from them as well. But that was probably all just how they were dealing with the pressure of their exams, for once all of them starting to figure they had to focus a greater part of their attention on the future, on their next steps in life. Only Kath didn't seem to have changed at all, not that he'd spent that much time with her at all to have much opportunity to notice.

The whole idea of a curfew though, that was just going to make life miserable. Just when he thought he had really started to get everything together again.


The week passed, the exams finished. Saturday came, and it was time to go out and celebrate. It was proving more difficult to celebrate than they had anticipated.

Jake and Mike had gone on ahead to buy something to drink, and planned to meet the others for a picnic in the park. Provided it didn't rain, which would make it the first time this week it hadn't. Jake conceded the whole day was intrinsically dependent on wild optimism to work, but then generally that tended to work for him. Good reason for not making plans, plans never worked out anyway.

"Fake ID?" Mike seemed doubtful.

Jake didn't really want to be having this conversation, but he was stuck with it, and it was his own fault, so there was no point getting defensive. Mike's doubts were well founded. At the same time he didn't want Mike to know that. "You have a better idea?"

"We might be lucky."

"Right, Harry Potter might turn up and magic us up a couple of six packs in return for you giving him a blow job."

"Last Sunday was just a fluke, it never took you more than fifteen minutes to find someone who would go in an buy the drink for us before."

"And I want to go out and get pissed. Not spend two hours trying to get something to drink again."

"Didn't think you could drink on your psycho meds."

"Probably shouldn't. Mostly I like being sane, sometimes I wish I wasn't on them though."

"Sometime I wish you weren't. What happened? I mean, what really happened? There was way more going on than one panic attack, you think we're all stupid, but we had actually worked out something was wrong even before the accident. You never talk about it do you?"

Jake was frustrated, Mike kept on bringing that same question up. Jake had tried a dozen different ways of answering, but he had no clue what Mike was looking for. Nor was this the best time to have the conversation dragged off course. But, he had to give some kind of response. "I don't remember much, there's nothing much to say."

"I don't know, just, everything seemed easier back then. In those days you got the booze, we got pissed on it. Now you don't drink like that, and nobody seems to want to buy the drink for us any more."

Bizarrely Mike had managed to segue back on track. Jake wasn't sure how that had worked, but he was happy that it had. "I told you, people are getting scared, and another abduction is just going to make it worse." Jake was lying, well, partly. He figured it was possible the statement was coincidentally true, but really he had no clue. The real reason it had taken two hours was because he was struggling to spot people who would be sympathetic to breaking the law and buying a bunch of underage teenagers some drink. Mike's new found insightfulness was getting irritating. There certainly had been a time he could just look at people and instantly tell if there was any point even asking, but it just didn't seem as obvious to him these days as it had in the past. So, if the fake ID worked it was a much better option altogether.

Plus he was reasonably sure the ID would work, it wasn't perfect, it was very unlikely to fool anyone who looked to closely, but he wasn't expecting anyone to check too closely. The shops weren't really looking for proof of age so much as plausible deniability in court. They could easily get away with claiming the ID looked convincing, and that was all he needed it to achieve. Mike, however, was shitting bricks. He'd already concluded the scheme wouldn't work, and Mike was not all that good at blundering through with the right amount of obliviousness to just let things happen. And while Jake was aware he had developed definite issues with his own people judging skills, he was comfortable that he could still act obliviously enough to get away with almost anything.

The two of them had also noted that people were looking at them a lot. Not staring, just glancing disapprovingly. Two teenage kids out alone, it was becoming a more and more rare sight these days. And Jake had noted that today particularly, they did indeed seem to be the only unaccompanied children around. Not really surprising, the mornings papers had still been full of the latest abduction story, even though that had happened five days earlier. It pissed Jake off though, for all the curfew and restrictions on unaccompanied children were only being discussed, everybody seemed to be acting like it was a done deal already and that Mike and him were in violation. It did little to challenge Jake's low opinion of the paranoid sheep mentality of the general population.

They had reached town, and Mike had not been cheered up any by the circumstances they found themselves walking into. Police everywhere. Bloody typical. They managed to find a seedy looking off-license that looked promising. Mike remained outside while Jake went in and did the deed.

Jake came out smiling, the scheme had worked perfectly. That would show Mike.

"You two on your own?"

"Yes." He stopped, turning, having already worked out exactly what he would see; a police officer looming over them for a friendly chat. Thankfully that would render Mike so terrified that he wouldn't say a word, and Jake knew he wouldn't have to worry about Mike saying anything and screwing their chances of walking away from this unscathed.

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen." He knew the officer wouldn't believe he looked eighteen. He had to think of some excuse. Stopped by police, of all the bloody bad luck.

"You don't look eighteen."

Jake offered the ID card to the police officer. It was a bluff; the shop might have been convinced, the police would spot the fake easily if the guy bothered to check. Jake was praying the police had other reasons to have stopped them than underage drinking. "No, I don't look eighteen. That's why I always carry ID when I go to buy drink."

"Live around here?"

The guy had glanced at the card, Jake couldn't work out if the guy had spotted the fake or not. That frustrated him, he would have preferred to know for sure. "Live on campus, at the university." Pretending to a student was usually a safe bet, and Jake could easily fake enough local knowledge to sound like he knew the campus.

"You know this girl?" The officer handed him a crude photocopy of some holiday snap. A girl, maybe his age, hard to tell. Not the same picture that had been in the paper that morning, but definitely the same girl.

"No."

"Well, she's missing. May have run away, or may be in trouble. All over the news."

Jake nodded politely, wondering why it was police officers always took such pride in stating the bleeding obvious.

"You have a telephone?" The police officer continued.

"Yes."

"Well, if you see her, or you even think you see her, call. And take care of yourself. Right now we're worried about any kids at all out on their own."

"Thanks, I'll be careful. If I see anything I'll call."

"I suggest you stay closer to your campus while the kidnapper is still out there."

Jake remained silent, knowing police officers also always liked to have the last word, however stupid. He watched the guy depart and head off to bother someone else.

Jake felt a little shaken. He'd gotten away with it, just like he always did. This had been a lot more effort that it usually was. But, they had the booze. And Mike hadn't completely fallen apart watching the exchange, Jake nodded silently at him.

"Chill, try and put this out of your mind and focus on more pleasant thoughts, like getting this to the park and drinking it."


The rain hadn't stayed off, but in the event that had worked to their advantage. There was an area in the park where there were picnic tables under a canopy. The rain meant that there was no one else around and they had been able to enjoy their afternoon eating and drinking in peace. It had definitely been a lot better that way.

They had tried to avoid discussion of the abductions, and of the police state that the country now appeared to be turning into. They kept their focus on much more fun things, like their upcoming plans to ditch school for a day and go spend that time at the summer street festival that was held every year to celebrate, well, something or other. It was a festival, who cared what the excuse was. They'd been before, but always in the evening. The best time to go was supposed to be during the day on the day of the feast of St. James, when the student crowd descended on proceedings to get rat-arsed, turning the festival into an orgy of sin and debauchery. Okay, it probably wasn't going to be that much fun. But it would certainly beat spending the day at school.


Monday came, and Jake arrived at school to discover his presence was requested at an audience with Vader. He'd kind of been expecting that part. He hadn't been expecting that it was going to turn out to be the start of just one of those fuck awful days on which nothing went right.

"Laris."

"Yes, Doctor Vader?"

"In light of the current climate, and with the possible imposition of a general curfew, I'm afraid that as admirable as your proposal for a group from this school to attend the 'Future of Computers in Society Exposition", and as much as I supported the endeavor, the governors have taken it upon themselves to cancel the trip."

Jake looked at Vader's eyes, trying to see what was going on. Nothing obvious was the answer. "I thought they approved of the trip?"

"Yes they did, and please don't feel there's anything personal, or indeed any way in which they disapprove of your excellent idea. But they have chose to vet all such activities, they feel the timing is just not appropriate. I understand your disappointment, but, until the police show a touch more intellectual prowess and get this case solved, I'm afraid disappointment could well become the order of the day."

There had to be something he could say. Something that would make Vader reconsider, go back to the governors with a recommendation as to why this trip should have been an exception. Work out a compromise at least. Jake stared and stared at Vader trying to see what might work, but he couldn't think of anything. Fucking useless. He was forced to concede: "Yes sir. Understood."


"They fucking what?" Mike was incensed.

"They're vetting all trips." Jake replied slowly.

"Sounds like what you do to a cat." Dean mused.

"Not much difference, really." Jake conceded.

Mike wasn't about to let go. "Shit. And you couldn't talk him out of it?"

Jake was a little exasperated. "It wasn't Vader, it was the school governors."

"Right, and you let that stop you? What the fuck went wrong Jake, when did you ever let something as trivial as impossibility stop you before? What the fuck happened to you?"

Jake was frustrated. Mike was being completely unreasonable, unfortunately he was also completely right. There should have been a way of making Vader see sense regardless of what the governors said. Jake knew he should been able to come up with a plan, something, anything, that would have meant they could still go. No question, this disaster was the result of a serious fuck up on Jake's part.

The original plan should have been perfect. Now it was a completely wasted effort. Jake had organized a big trip to a computer exposition that the school had agreed to sponsor. The exposition was being held across town from the annual street festival, and of course they had only been intending to put in a token appearance at the exposition before heading across town. It had seemed like a great plan at the time. Would have been a great plan, had they not gotten themselves vetted. Jake could understand their anger. He was angry with himself as well, but that wasn't going to help.

He wasn't even sure why he was finding it so difficult to have this conversation with Dean and Mike. They seemed to be acting unusually densely. Normally Jake could explain things and they would get it, he could tell they understood what he was saying. Right now they didn't seem to be getting any of it. Worse still they were blaming him, and he had no clue how to answer them back. It really was turning out to be one of those days.

"Come on, guys, give him a break. You act like he's perfect when you both know as well as anyone that the only thing special about him is that he can break wind at both ends at the same time." Kath, unusually, came to his defense.

"Oh, thanks." Jake told her.

"But you fuck up my trip to go see Foo Fighters in two months time, and I'll vet you, personally, with a carving knife."

Jake smiled, although he wasn't entirely sure if she was kidding or not. That whole deal was so far off in the future that he hadn't even started thinking about how he was going to pull it off yet. And he was sure of one thing; this wasn't the day to start trying.

"So what about the camping trip, if they do go ahead with this stupid curfew idea. We just giving up on that as well?" Dean turned to the conversation to ask the other question Jake would rather have avoided right now.

"You think I should call up, talk the government out of the idea? I mean, I should be able to do that, right?"

Jake was fairly sure that had gotten through to Mike. Actually, it was kind of an under the belt blow. He would have rather come up with a much more subtle way of making Mike feel like an idiot, but he was struggling so much with the conversation, he had to take the opportunities that were presented, however cheap.

"You think the twats in government really will impose a curfew?" Kath asked.

"I think they will if the police don't start making some progress pretty damn fast. If the abductions keep up at this rate, they'll figure they have to be seen to be doing something. Even if it's something that totally isn't going to work. Anyway, isn't going to affect them, is it. None of those government fuckers are under eighteen."

The bell rang, pretty much terminating the conversation.

Mike grabbed Jake by the shoulder and held him back momentarily as they headed out to class.

"Look, sorry, I know, I was just really looking forward to the street festival. I know it isn't your fault. Just. I'm fucking pissed off. I'm not even allowed to go over to France with my brother and his wife on Saturday, and I mean, no abductions in France, but, what the fuck is this place coming to. And camping would have been fucking mental."

"You don't think that's going to happen?"

"If they won't let me go to France, what the fuck is the chance they'll let me go camping. I mean, I was relying on you to do your Jedi mind trick on them. Look Jake, if anyone can pull it off, it's you, sure, just, I'm trying to be realistic up front. Then maybe I'll be more reasonable about blaming you when it all goes totally tits up."

"Yeah, I think. You know, I'm pretty pissed off as well, I'm not used to failing. And I don't like it. Let me talk to them, give it a go. I guess we've got nothing to lose now. Because if you don't go, it isn't happening. But not today, because, today just really isn't working."


8: Taking Liberties


"Party?" Damon questioned.

Nick looked back at him like he was kind of stupid. "Yeah, party. Music, drink, drugs, snogging. Party."

"Me?"

"Yeah. And that girlfriend of yours, the one you pretend is real, what was her name, Anna, if she can make it. You're both invited."

"Why?"

"So you have someone to snog at the party. Because I won't snog you."

"Right."

"Look, kid, this is my last school party. I'm going off to university in a few months whether I like it or not. I just want to do something to say thanks to a bunch of people that, you know, made the last couple of years at school just a little bit more tolerable."

Damon wasn't sure what level of sarcasm it was that he was sensing from Nick. He was never very sure with Nick. "Very funny."

"Thursday 6th then?" Nick pushed.

Damon desperately wanted to answer yes, the problem was that he just wasn't sure there was any chance of coming up with any plan that would convince his mother to let him go, not after the latest abduction.

The hesitation lasted too long for Nick. "Little boy, I'm going to teach you something about life. One day you'll get caught. Sooner or later it happens to everyone. There are only two things you need to consider: What it costs you if you do get caught, never underestimate the consequences, and whether what you were doing was worth it, never overestimate the benefits. Get the balance right, and life will be sweet."

"Consequences; pissed off mom."

"But no actual direct risk to life or limb."

"Benefits; party."

"Fucking good party."

"Okay, I'll be there. Somehow. I'll work it out."

"You're learning, little boy."

"So you know this all from hard experience?"

"No, I've never been caught. However hard I've tried."


Damon was frustrated. Very frustrated. It was only the first day of the summer holidays and he was wasn't dealing with it very well. Anna off on holiday with her father for a week, and he already wasn't sure how he was going to make it that length of time without her. Sure she could turn to lesbianism, Damon wasn't going to be so lucky, lesbianism wasn't really an option for him. His cunning plan was to try and keep himself so busy for the week that he didn't notice her absence. And his plan was mostly falling apart already.

Still, he was done with exams, he was free from school, and though he had likely not done as well as he knew he was capable, he figured he'd done well enough to match expectations. Now he had six weeks of freedom ahead. And despite the continuing paranoia, he actually was enjoying a lot more freedom that he had expected to be given. Although the police hadn't made any more progress, the immediate threat of curfews and other restrictions on the movement of all teenagers had receded, and the government wasn't feeling the pressure for any knee-jerk responses for now. Added to that, it was the summer holidays and his mother was out at work every day, and it just wasn't practical for her to confine him to the house the whole time, much as he figured that would have been her preferred option. It was even impossible for her to push him to spend his whole time on school work. His exams were over and this time there really wasn't any school work for him to do. So today he had announced to her that he planned to go to the library for the day and it had faced her with an interesting conflict of concerns. She was delighted that he was doing something productive with his time of course, but she was not so sure if he was safe to be going there on his own. Damon hadn't been worried, he had known she would gravitate towards him doing something positive with his time. Of course, if she had known what he planned to do at the library, she likely would have had a very different opinion.

He liked the library. Especially downstairs in the reference section, back where they hid all the books on parapsychology. Not the most popular part of the library, and on a nice sunny summer day, there was no one there except for him. Which wasn't a bad thing, as he couldn't stop thinking about Anna, and he was sure his pants weren't doing a great job of concealing the outline of his ardor. He tried to turn his attention back to the books he had out on the study desk.

He'd eliminated precognition and retrocognition from his enquiries, the visions had been very much of events as they had occurred. That left him looking at remote viewing or telepathy. The fundamental difference was that telepathy meant actual mental contact with the people he was seeing, which was certainly at least to Damon the more interesting concept of the two. The problem was that the people in the visions had never shown much evidence that they could hear anything Damon shouted at them, or had any concept of any connection with him, which would have meant that remote viewing was very much the more likely explanation, except for that one moment that Jake had looked up and appeared to recognize him. Sure, it was possible Damon had just imagined that, but it left him with a sufficient level of doubt that he wasn't about to rule out the possibility of it being telepathy entirely.

What he needed was a way of testing the hypothesis. If he had another vision of Jake then maybe what he had to do was to actually try and communicate directly with. Wherein lay the fundamental problem with his investigation. The visions were random and beyond his control, and although Jake had turned up more often in visions than any of the others, he'd also been silent since the car accident. The one newspaper article Damon had found had indicated a probable recovery, but the news media never bothered following up on stories like that, and Damon had to accept that anything could have happened. But, if Jake did turn up again, then he had to figure on trying very hard to talk to him. Assuming that did any good. Even if Jake somehow might have been able to hear, that didn't automatically mean he was exactly going to listen. Indeed, Damon accepted, Jake might not exactly be too pleased if he though he was hearing things that weren't there.

Damon's other objective for the day had seemed much more realistic. He was trying to see if he could plot any other connection between his list of notes about visions, and the disappearances of the kids the press were now calling the tomorrow people, a phrase the police had thrown out on one occasion in a press conference a month or two earlier and that the press had now pretty much latched on to. Anyway, after he'd realized the connection between his last vision and the kidnappings he'd gone back to add that fact to the notes. He'd come fresh from reading the newspaper report, which had listed names of other victims, and had realized that his list of notes already contained one of those names, he just hadn't made the connection before. If there were two separate links there back to the abductions then it was either some statistically wild coincidence, or there was something way more sinister going on.

So, he'd taken advantage of the internet connection in the library, and pulled up the news reports for each of the abductions and noted down the date, time, location, name, any specific information that the articles had mentioned. Then he plotted that information against his own schedule of visions. To say that process had spooked him was an understatement. The overall correlation had been downright disturbing. He'd had visions relating to five of the nine disappearances for sure. And there was no way he could write that off as coincidence. With the exception of the visions about Jake, the overwhelming majority had been connected with abductions.

Damon had been creeped out at the revelation. Alone in the basement of the library he had found himself nervously looking around the stacks, and had been completely cured, for the time being at least, of his uncontrollable horniness. He had decided to abandon his research for the time being, and go get some fresh air.

He was puzzled though. Why was Jake so much of an exception to the general pattern of the visions? He had no answer. And really, he didn't want to think about the other obvious question, why the fuck was he having all these visions about the tomorrow people?


In the days that followed he found his mind preyed upon equally by his uncontrollable urges to think long and hard and inappropriately about Anna, and his wish that he hadn't found about what was connecting his visions. He really had no clue what he could do about that. Thursday he was happy to be spending the best part of the next three days at a lan party tournament. Okay, he was by now half way towards being a cool kid, but old geek instincts died hard. Someone had managed to resurrect an old World of Warcraft server, so they were in for a serious retro gaming orgy. Someone even managed to get a bunch of old Windows XP PCs to complete the experience. No one was quite sure where Stephen had managed to dig up those old fossils, but it was certainly going to make for some total fuck off fun.


The plan had been simple. Each of them had started out the first day with completely new characters, names based on famous former players from the game's heyday picked out of a hat, and the objective was to play through and see who had progressed his character the furthest by the end of the tournament. Damon had picked the name Dudefella out of the hat, which he really wasn't sure about because it sounded totally gay, but he was stuck with it. Anyway, he quickly immersed himself in the game and by the end of the first day had established himself as one of the two characters who were already in the lead by a sufficient margin that for the ultimate glory it was going to be a straight two way fight. Of course now the others were banding into teams to support them, and the gameplay was getting much more interesting.

The second morning they had opted to convert the ad hoc teams into guilds, and had spent the first hour or so working though the configuration and plans for that. Then the first quest of the day had begun for real.

Damon blinked.

Why did this always fucking happen at the least bloody convenient time?

Jake again, it was Jake. Damon rocked back in the seat. He had to concentrate, as sacrilegious as it might be to not pay attention to the game in progress, this was more important. He had to try and find out whatever he could, anything, everything that might help him break through and make contact.

The vision was very vague though. What images there were very indistinct, it was more about sensations than anything. A sensation of carefree pleasure rapidly shifting to one of fear. Fear was always the stronger emotion, the one he could receive more accurately. The one he could understand.

But then it had changed again. Abruptly the fear had vanished to be replaced by confusion and nothingness. Damon couldn't understand what was happening. It had to be the most half arsed vision he had ever experienced.

He blinked. That was it. That was fucking useless. Reluctantly, and with an intense sense of disappointment he returned to the game. He resigned himself to having to wait another who knows how many weeks before contact could be reestablished. He had pretty much given up trying to understand any pattern in the timing of the visions.

The wait turned out to be no more than about half an hour. That was really unprecedented, Damon couldn't remember anything like it. Both in terms of the fact it had only been half an hour, and also in the intensity of the experience, there was nothing vague this time around. This was no normal vision, or at least, no vision of someone in a normal state of mind. First the the fear returned. Then a confused fear, a mind babbling.

Damon had grabbed a notepad that was on the desk beside him and tried to scribble down everything he could make out. Words, not just feelings, actual words, none of it made sense, none of it was exactly coherent, but Damon figured he would worry about what it meant later. For now he just copied it down verbatim. There was an address in there, definitely an address, numbers, maybe a telephone number. And images of a face. An older face, looming down over him, distorted, frightening, almost unreal. Threatening, very, very threatening.

Then the images started getting really weird, beyond weird, disjointed, surreal. Owls, something about owls. Eden, a wasteland and a big mess. A voice in the wilderness, calling. The bizarre and twisted images were tearing into his thoughts with a ferocity that was hurting his mind. Images of getting stoned while watching a sunrise, a body lying wounded and broken in the woods. Someone diving naked off a rooftop. The depths of anguish over being betrayed by a friend. A nuclear explosion not happening, a terror hiding in the darkness. A choice, the fate of the world hanging on a single choice, and a hundred million minds burning as one. Image after image pounding into him, like someone else's life was flashing before his eyes. Damon was sufficiently freaked by the intensity of it all that he desperately wanted it to stop, but he knew there was no way to escape this one.

The vision had already lasted several orders of magnitude longer than any other vision he'd had before. Finally it seemed to return to some level of sanity. Jake lying on the ground in the sunshine, by a stone wall somewhere, desperately needing to pee but not having the energy. And there was someone else there watching, definitely not the same guy as before, this one was a little younger and had very distinctive red hair. He was staring at Jake lying there as if he was searching for something, then he reached down and took the watch off of Jake's wrist, whispering something about owls as he did so. And then the darkness came. Just darkness again.

Damon blinked. Whoever the fuck Jake was, he didn't exactly seem to lead the most cheerful and carefree of lives. And as for the weird as weird shit stuff Jake was seeing, the guy had to be on drugs or something. But that in itself was interesting, answered a question. The images wouldn't be distorted or so heavily overpowered by the emotions of whoever it was he was seeing if it was just remote viewing. So, conclusion, it had to be telepathy.

Damon smiled. Fucking neat, he was telepathic.


The weekend ended and Damon couldn't exactly say he had a conflict of interest with himself, because the battle was entirely one sided, There was no question that he was going to spend his Monday with Anna now that she was back from holidays, but he was aware that he did need to get back to the library with at least some urgency to work through looking up the some of the stuff he had managed to scribble down from the last Jake vision. Right now he couldn't work out when he was going to fit that in. He still hadn't exactly worked out when he was going to go shopping for some new clothes either, he still had a bunch of money for that left over from his birthday, and he had figured going with Anna was the surefire way to make sure he didn't pressure himself into buying anything his mother would approve of just for the sake of it. He had maybe wondered if that was something they could do on the Monday.

Unfortunately there was no doing what he really wanted to spend the day doing on the Monday. Anna's mother was going to be home, so there was going to be no opportunity to go back there, which Damon had been hoping might be an option. Not that he was desperately feeling... well, okay he was desperately feeling. But he would have to control his desperation.

So they had met up in the park, and it had been about half an hour before they had really taken enough breath to have anything approaching a meaningful conversation.

"This Thursday?" Anna peered intensely into his eyes.

Damon could see she was interested. He was having fun experimenting. He'd always been aware of having an insight into what people were thinking, the empathy he'd chatted to Dr Roger Elvyn about, but he was starting to wonder if there was some element of telepathy there as well. Empathy was all about non-verbal clues, Damon was trying to work out if there were things he was able to work out about the conversation that couldn't be so easily explained away as just being that or intuition. And whether he could really read Anna's mind or not, it was interesting to speculate. "You don't believe I have any real friends who aren't geeks."

"I'm sure they're very real to you."

"Well those real friends don't believe in you either."

"I'm just a wild fantasy of your imaginings."

Damon really hadn't a clue how to respond to that one. "So you are interested then?"

"Yeah, go on. If it gets boring we can sneak upstairs and find some quiet and secluded corner to misbehave atrociously in."

She meant it, but it wasn't telepathy that told him that, it was the evil and seductive glint in her eye as she said it, combined with the fact he knew that was exactly the kind of thing she really would do. "It feels distinctly like you're still after my body."

"Your feelings would be right. Come on Damon, why do you keep putting yourself down. You're fun, I really do like you." Anna quit her joking around and looked seriously at him.

Damon hadn't said anything about his self confidence issues, but she'd worked it out. Intuition there, probably. Damon began to wonder if he was overanalyzing the conversation. He loved just talking to her, but he had it in the back of his mind that this could be so much more intimate a moment if she could somehow connect with what he was thinking the way he found it so easy to connect with her. If she'd been able to read his mind she would have known what his issue was. She couldn't, so he figured he was going to have to say it. "But you've been there, done that. I can see it in your mind, you need things to be new all the time, different."

"It can be different and still be with you. Where's your imagination? You really don't believe you're good enough, that someone actually might really like you."

"Alright, so, why did you really do it?"

"Fortune and glory. I had a camera rigged up, figured I could sell it to an online porn site."

Damon frowned momentarily, for a moment he hadn't been sure if she was joking or not. "All the time I was getting undressed you were looking at me and comparing me to that other guy you slept with once."

"How the fuck did you know that? I never told anyone about that. Ever."

"You were thinking about it."

"What, and you can just read thoughts?"

"Sometimes."

"So, how come then you didn't read the part where you really got me going and I thought how much better you were than him?"

"I think I had other things on my mind at that point."

"I like you Damon Jackson. Even if it does scare the crap out of me how you know what I'm thinking like that. So what is it, some kind of magic occult power like on TV?"

"How would I know, I'm not allowed to watch TV shows like that. Anyway, the occult is a bunch of bullshit."

"So, why do I feel like you watch anyway?"

"I wouldn't bother watching if they didn't disapprove so much."

"You like doing things just for the disapproval, disapproval that you never get because you never get caught anyway?"

"Er, yeah. I guess. Doesn't make much sense, right."

"No, but I think it's cute."

He wasn't convinced. "You think the freckles on my willy are cute."

"The freckles on your willy ARE cute. I'm afraid we're just going to have to agree to differ on that point."

"What drugs are you on?"

"What've you got?"

Damon relented and started laughing. As much as he struggled to understand why anyone liked him, there was no denying she meant everything she was saying. She really did care. "So, okay then, you go for new experiences so much, you ever tried anything mind altering?"

"Thought you could read my mind?"

"Just things you're thinking about."

"But now I'm thinking about it."

"Kind of. You have, but, that's all I can see."

"Yeah I have. So?"

"I guess I'm just curious. Seen people taking stuff before. Wondered what it was like."

"So you haven't?"

"Me, kept prisoner in my own home by overprotective parents?"

"For the disapproval?"

"I would be tempted."

"I think I like the way you think, Damon Jackson."

Jake almost maybe smiled. the moment was surreal, but... No, it was just surreal. This was the way every conversation with her ended up going, and that was why he found himself so seduced by her. He loved this.

"When are you going to start breaking some rules, Damon?"

Damon contemplated. Getting stoned at Nick's party would be a good start. Assuming there were things there to get stoned on, he wasn't sure, but it seemed a realistic possibility. Then, maybe see if he was up to letting Anna get to trying the sex with the danger of getting caught thing that she seemed obsessed with.

"What's that?" Anna asked.

"What's what?"

"That devious, calculating, three steps ahead of me smugness thing? I don't need to read minds to see that."

"So what am I thinking?"

"I have no clue. But, I'll bet it involves being naked."

Damon half smiled. It did, but she was just guessing, she didn't really know.


9: Paranoid Awakening


The journey North had been pretty cramped. Jake, Mike and Dean along with all the necessary stuff they would need for the camping trip packed in Mike's brother's car, which wasn't exactly oversized. Then there was the unnecessary stuff they had sneaked in. Twelve cans of beer, two bottles of vodka, and an eighth of an ounce of something much more interesting to get wasted on. Importantly for Jake this was a chance to try and get back on the same wavelength as his friends, even if it was only for a few days. He wasn't yet sure if it seemed to be working, they had spent most of the two hour journey talking, and he actually still felt a little distant. Meaningless and trivial talk, but, he still enjoyed it, Jake had been missing that.

The plan was they would be dropped off in a small village in the borders, they would be away three nights, and would be picked up in another small village thirty miles North on the fourth day. Jake wasn't exactly sure how he had managed it, but he had managed to convince Mike's parents that there wasn't any need to cancel despite the abductions and the threats of curfews. Jake had no clue why, but for some crazy reason Mike's parents still seemed to trust him. Playing on the car accident and coma sympathy thing what what had really helped swing it. It frustrated Jake that he was having to rely on such clumsy and unrefined tactics though.

Jake's mother had been delighted - no work on this trip, no distractions, plenty of fresh air and relaxation. Of course she didn't know about the booze and other stuff that they had concealed in their gear.

They had made good time on that first afternoon. It was moderately warm, fortunately very dry. They had set off around two and were well ahead of schedule by the time twilight started to give way to darkness. It was completely black by the time the had the tents up and the camp fire going. Perfect timing to break open the booze. Jake pulled out another can of beer and tossed it across to Mike.

Jake had come on this trip without much expectation of getting too pissed. That had been the one down side to the medication, it didn't mix well with alcohol. Of course, that was before he realized he had left his medication in the seat pocket of the car on their way there. It was inevitable he was going to forget something, but he wished it could have been something slightly less important. Still, if things really did start getting bad he could always telephone for help. And, just maybe, it did allow him the chance of getting really, really pissed after all. Which was great, better than great, because it really wouldn't have been much fun being the only sober one on this trip.

Indeed, after only a few drinks, Mike was already sounding more than slightly slurred. Once again going back to the same old question Jake had repeatedly failed to satisfy his need for an answer to. "Come on, quit the crap, tell us what happened to you."

Jake had to concede though, the bugger was persistent. "You two never fucking shut up about it, do you?"

"You never fucking talk about it."

"There's nothing to tell."

"Look at me, I'm a teapot. I'm a teapot." Mike mimed being a teapot.

Jake laughed and propped himself up against a tree. He understood, they wanted to know, well, something. He wanted to tell them, he just didn't know what it was they wanted to hear and that made it tough. If that was the only thing he worked out on this trip, it would be worth it.

"I always knew you guys really valued me as a human being. It's just, tough to describe totally irrational paranoia, because it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make any sense, and that's the point. I don't even know what I was running from."

"So what is so difficult about saying that?."

"I don't know. Everything just seemed so much more complicated than it should have been."

The conversation drifted on, his mind wandered. It required only a fraction of his attention to maintain the conversation, watching them becoming increasingly pissed. This was what life was meant to be about. Almost boring, almost mundane. Only the fact he couldn't get the feeling out of his mind that there was someone out there watching them from the forest kept complete normality tantalizingly out of reach.

His mind wandered, in time he drifted off to sleep.


He awoke sharply, momentarily alert. There was silence, well, there was about as much silence as he could expect given the situation. It was no longer dark out, but not yet light. What had woken him?

He felt uncomfortable, lying there bloated, maybe that was all it was. And they were out camping, no surprise to hear movement outside. Screw the paranoia, he needed to take a walk. He seriously needed a slash.

Movement outside?

He got nervous. He glanced at his watch; 6:00 AM. The others would be asleep for ages considering the amount they had had to drink. He could easily expect another two hours before there was any movement from them. So what was it?

He had heard voices that weren't there and now he was being followed by people who weren't there. Perhaps the voices belonged to the people, perhaps they had learned to shut up. Perhaps he really was mad. At least he had been able to tell the voices to fuck off.

He pulled his shorts on and hesitated before unzipping the tent door. Told himself not to be so stupid, and then stopped. There was no one there, he could see Mike and Dean in the other tent, that was it, he was sure of it. His courage returned and he stuck his head outside. It looked a little misty, but the sky was cloudless. It had the feeling it would be a very hot day.

He had walked further than he needed to in order to find somewhere to relieve himself, enjoying the early morning solitude. He felt so alive, so clear-headed. And so far no sign of any headache, despite having been off the medication longer than he should have been. He shook himself off and glanced at his watch, he had only been gone for ten minutes, it was still early. He decided to go back and go back to bed. He would feel better for it.


"Hey Jake you lazy sod. What time were you thinking of getting up?"

'Stuff you,' he thought. Still, better that they didn't know. He dressed for a second time and stepped out into the morning. It was getting warm, at this rate it would be too hot for exertion within a couple of hours. Walking all day might well turn out to be impractical. Only one thing remained unsettled.

"We standing here slagging each other off or are we going?"


They had abandoned the pathway long before it reached the foot of the hills. Turning off, they had pushed through the wooded glade to the grassland on the far side. Then down the steep rocky incline to the gushing stream. The hot sun glared down on them through the cloudless sky; it would have been unbearable but for a constantly blowing cool breeze.

Jake threw the heavy rucksack down beside him. He and Mike had been carrying one each. He sat uncomfortably on an upturned rock for a few moments while he pulled off his heavy walking boots, then he carefully negotiated his way down to the water itself. He plunged his feet into the fast moving torrent, savoring the cold.

The others just stood on the bank, unmoving. They had been walking for about an hour. It was hard work.

Jake unbuttoned his shirt. "We can't go on much longer in this heat. Hell knows what it'll be like by midday."

Mike nodded, 'Yeah, but we can't stop here. There's a lake about two miles downstream. I think we can make it before eleven. We can spend the afternoon there."

Dean pulled out the map he had pushed into his side pocket. He unfolded it and knelt down to study it. "This is the middle of nowhere, there can't be another living sole for miles around."

Jake stood up. He wasn't so sure they really were all that alone. On and off, just an awareness of presence in the distance. Never getting closer, never straying too far. Nope, he smiled to himself, it wasn't paranoia. Statistically not all that improbable that there would be other people in the area even if they were too far away to see or hear. It only got to be paranoia if he started thinking they were out to get him. And that would be crazy. "Peaceful, and safe. Your turn to carry the pack for a while, Dean." Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed his boots and began to make his way downstream, stepping from one stone to the next.

Dean reluctantly heaved up the rucksack, and he and Mike followed along the bank.


It was just after eleven that they arrived at the lake. The river had widened, and Jake had joined the others on the bank some distance back. They had chosen to follow along the eastern shore; the other side was far more densely wooded and there seemed fewer places where it was possible to get down to the water. There was also a reasonable sized island in the distance, they decided to find somewhere nearer the island that was sheltered by the trees. They pushed on through the bracken and bushes, coming to what was almost a pebble cove. It was here they decided to park themselves for the afternoon. Jake threw a rug down and collapsed onto it. Dean pulled a couple of cans from the bag and passed them round.

Mike sat down on a rock, threw his head back and took a long drink. "Anyone fancy a swim? We could go out to that island, it's not that far."

"Yeah right", Dean sounded defensive, "Only I didn't bloody bring a swimming costume, did I."

"You twat, you knew we were hiking along a lake. What, can't you swim or something?"

"Of course I bloody can. I just didn't think we would have time to stop anywhere."

"Well, we're stopped."

Jake watched the exchange in amused silence. Bloody typical conversation for them. He realized he'd kind of missed those. Mike trying to wind up Dean, looking for any weakness, Dean getting so defensive that he winds up backing himself into a corner, then Mike gives him an out, lets Dean concede defeat gracefully. They were so predictable.

"No one around, don't see we need swimming costumes really." Mike went for the wind up.

Jake looked up at him. You bastard, Mike, he thought. Good wind up, but totally unfair. Dean will back down, but you're the one more scared. Good poker face, but behind those eyes, you're terrified that this once, just this once he won't back down, and you screwed yourself totally. It would be se funny to see Dean win, just for once. Jake glanced across at Dean. Okay, no chance, the guy was trying to put on a decent poker face as well, but he was already ready to cave in, the only question was when. He might still manage to prolong the fight a little further, but the battle was already lost.

"We could do that." Dean concealed the fear well in his response, Jake had to give it to him, it was a good performance. Good enough he had Mike half believing, had Mike totally freaked out. It was wonderfully amusing, and it was a pity the outcome was already a certainty, because this time Dean really deserved to win, he was so close. If he just had the balls to call Mike's bluff one more time, but no, Jake could see it, Dean's nerve was gone, he was about to back down.

Jake had every nuance of the situation worked out, for the first time in what seemed like months he was feeling totally in control. Fuck it. If he wanted to hand victory to Dean, he could, he had that power. Jake smiled.

"Race to the Island then. Last one there cleans up after we eat." Jake pulled his pants of and jumped into the water. He didn't stop to witness the chaos he left behind. He didn't need to. He knew what was going to happen. And it felt great. This was what he loved doing. Screwing the odds and making things happen. He hadn't done anything like this in months. Hadn't been sure enough of himself to take the risk. Hadn't felt like he had really known what anyone was thinking in that long. This was great, this was fantastic, this was fucking incredible. He felt alive.


They swam out around the island, as they saw it closer the impracticality of making it ashore had become very apparent; The island had been overgrown, too many nettles and thorns. So they had played around in the water a while before heading back to eat lunch.

There hadn't been any more tension after they had gone in swimming, although Mike had grabbed a towel to cover himself almost immediately they had made it back to shore. An act that hadn't gone unnoticed by Dean who proceeded to avoid doing the same and make sure a slightly uncomfortable Mike could see exactly who had won the face off. But Dean, being Dean, didn't labor the point. Beyond that the afternoon had been good humored pretty much, and they had made a decent effort hiking around to the far side of the lake where they planned to camp for the night. Jake had noted though, Mike hadn't tried to wind Dean up quite so much after the morning's entertainment.

They had pitched camp, eaten a traditional camp meal of sausage and beans, and had crashed a little earlier than planned. They had drunk their way through most of the alcohol on the first night, so the second night they had quickly finished off what was left, and then switched to getting stoned instead. It made for a mellow change of pace after a long day of exertion. Dean had not held out all that long, and he had stumbled off to bed, his night to enjoy the single tent on his own.

Jake had watched him crawl in and zip up the tent. He could sense Mike just waiting to let rip with what he'd been wanting to say all day.

"You bastard, Jake." Not much doubt Mike was still just a little pissed off at him. No points for guessing why.

"Me bastard? You bastard for starting it."

"I was just winding him up"

"I was just winding you up."

"Alright, so maybe I deserved it. You enjoyed it didn't you, handing out justice like that."

"Not as much as you enjoyed me doing it."

"You knew exactly what you were doing didn't you."

"I don't play unless I'm going to win."

"Fuck you. I've missed that. Thought you'd lost it."

That was it. Jake stared into the camp fire, trying to get his head around the realization. How could he have been so blind? It was so fucking obvious. "That's what you wanted to know, isn't it? All those times you asked about what happened to me in the crash, that's what you were really asking. What happened to me that meant I'd lost it."

"I guess you didn't lose it completely." Mike conceded.

"Yes I did. I fucked up getting us to the festival, I only got us on this camping trip with some pretty rough sledgehammer tactics. I'm still working on getting it back. I wouldn't even describe today as exactly me being on form."

"This is you on a bad day? You're fucking dangerous."

"Count on it."

"You figure you can get us to the concert then?"

"I know that if it's possible, I'll find a way. I promise you that."

"Remind me never ever to cross you again." Mike laughed nervously.

Jake grinned back at him. "Relax. I was only winding you up. And you know, it is mostly funny how you wind Dean up."

"Just not if I haven't got the balls to follow through."

"You got balls, two of them, I saw."

"I know." Mike conceded reluctantly.

Jake still hadn't quite worked out that part, why Mike had gotten himself so worked up. "So, you want to go skinny dipping again tomorrow?"

Mike had laughed nervously, then gone a little quiet, although that was the fact that he was tired more than it was that he was embarrassed.

Jake waited. Mike hadn't answered immediately, and the silence had lingered long enough that somehow Mike had managed to fall asleep right where he was lying beside the embers of the dying camp fire.

Jake lay awake by the lake. Trying to figure how he could have been so stupid, how he hadn't seen it earlier. That was the reason they'd been acting so distant, they'd figured it out, they knew that somehow he'd lost his edge, they just had no clue how to tell him. And they were right. If he had missed something that obvious, they were totally right.


Day three took them close to a small town. Strategically planned to give them a chance to stock up on booze. Of course Jake had ended up drawing the short straw for having to walk into the town to look for an off license that would sell him enough booze to last them the next couple of days. He wasn't particularly pleased about the situation, but told himself it was his own fault for being the only one of the three who had the balls to be able to talk his way out of trouble if anyone started asking awkward questions about his age.

He left shortly after breakfast. It wouldn't be quite so hot if he could get away that early in the morning, the walk there would hopefully be a little more bearable. It was walking back he wasn't looking forward to. He was meeting the others for lunch at an old youth hostel there they had stayed at before. Chance for a shower and a decent meal before they set out for their final night of camping out.


The walk had taken about forty minutes. He hadn't exactly been pushing the pace, he had been looking forward to the opportunity to enjoy the time hiking alone. Only that hadn't quite worked out. At no point had he ever felt completely alone. There really was someone following him.

The guy had been pretty effective, stayed well out of sight. What gave him away was his consistency. Not a hunter, not playing by instinct, playing by training. Nobody would randomly happen to follow the exact route into town that Jake had chosen to follow. He'd deliberately chosen one that kind of twisted and turned a little, kept him off the beaten track. It was unlikely enough anyone would pick the same path, to keep the same speed as Jake had randomly dallied along the trail, well, it might have been coincidence, but statistically speaking that was exceedingly unlikely.

What Jake couldn't figure was why anyone would find him interesting enough to follow. It was tough to be sure, but it didn't feel like the guy following him had the motivation to be doing so of his own accord, he just followed orders, followed Jake. So who was giving the orders? Jake wasn't sure he really wanted to find out. He wondered if they had any idea that he knew about them.

It seemed so pointless. The guy was following, watching, waiting. Waiting for what? Watching for what? Jake smiled, smugly, there was a strange validation he felt that anyone would consider him important enough to expend all this effort on. Following him couldn't be fun, in fact must be a hell of a boring job. Jake had to admit, it would have driven him to banging his head against a brick wall. He couldn't have done it. He would have told them to shove it. He had never considered a career that involved him being ordered what to do. He probably wouldn't have failed the intelligence tests anyway.

Anyway, at least now he was sure it wasn't all paranoia. He wondered if maybe it ought to have made him feel frightened, concerned at the very least, but it didn't. Honestly it was difficult enough as it was to take the idea of being followed seriously. And if the worst came to the worst, if he got caught, well, he figured he could always talk his way out of it. That had always worked in the past.

He reached town and quickly found a seedy looking off-license that looked promising. He flashed cash, no questions were asked. He headed back along the street loaded down with vodka and tequila. The thought had momentarily crossed his mind to try and shake off his pursuer, but that really wasn't going to be practical weighed down with booze.

Someone was definitely still watching him. Two of them now it seemed. He had to cross the road heading out of town, it gave him a great chance to look around and see if he could spot them. He was kind of curious just to get a glimpse of them, reassure himself it really wasn't just paranoia. The traffic was heavy, very heavy. Morning rush hour, bad time. He picked his moment and darted across.

He looked back, caught a glimpse of them, and laughed. They were stuck on the wrong side of the road, he probably hadn't lost them, but they would have problems catching up. If he waited they would get suspicious.

Something had changed. Something was wrong. They were already suspicious. Fuck it, they were running. Jake was momentarily panicked, but trying desperately to think rationally. Trying to run was a bad idea, they could easily outrun him. His best chance was just to try and slip out of sight. That made sense right? In the movies it always looked easy to work out how to escape. In reality he only had about three seconds to weigh up his options.

He dodged into an alleyway, hoping to double back. It was a dead end. Shit. No way forward, no way back. Could he fight his way out, or was there anywhere to hide? An old van, nothing more. Wire fence beyond with barbed wire on top, he stood no chance climbing over it. Dead fucking end.

They were coming. He could feel panic building up. He pleaded desperately with himself not to piss his trousers. What the hell would they do with him. Could he fight his way out? He wasn't sure he wanted to try, whoever these guys were, they were probably well trained in gratuitous violence. He ran to the van, hide under it? They would look. In it? He grabbed the handle, it was padlocked.

No way out, he turned to face the one way in. Opposite him he saw a man pointing a gun with what appeared to be a large silencer at him. He sniggered, maybe that was inappropriate to the situation, but it was how he felt. This was totally surreal. This had to be some kind of delusion. This kind of shit didn't happen in real life. Alright, he knew what was happening; he'd gone cold turkey on his medication, he was hallucinating, seeing things again. This was a paranoid fantasy caused by a neurochemical imbalance in his brain. All he had to do was ignore anything that seemed at all improbable, like the man standing in front of him, and get back to the youth hostel, drink himself into a stupor, and tomorrow he could start taking the happy drugs again.

He heard a sudden short noise, like an aerosol only quicker. Air gun, dart gun, he saw the dart protruding from his upper arm. He hadn't felt it. He couldn't feel his arm. He felt his legs beginning to go. He was angry, the attack was totally unprovoked. And the pain didn't feel particularly as delusional as he had been hoping for.

His thoughts felt irrational. As consciousness slipped away he wondered what his friends would do when he failed to return. And as the blackness hit him, his final thought involved a hope that he wouldn't be tortured.

He didn't hit the ground, the two figures had reached him and broken his fall.


He was in a cave, deep underground. Crawling along. It was getting narrower and narrower. He couldn't go back, there was nothing to go back to. As he crawled further along, the rock behind him faded into black nothingness. It was getting harder to move as the floor moved upwards to meet the ceiling, harder and harder, slower and slower.

But there was no other way out. Above him there was just rock, miles and miles of it. The concept of a planet surface above seemed like some wild fantasy. It was so far away, and he was down here. Cut off from reality, isolated, alone. Totally alone. There was no point in screaming, shouting pleading, there was nobody there to hear him. Just rock and more rock.

And as the caverns became narrower and he tried harder to push his way through, so the rock began to cut into him. His clothes were already cut, ruined, now stained with the blood seeping from his wounds. And still he pushed onwards, he couldn't give up.

Then he felt panic, he was wet. Not just blood, water. Rising water, rising through the tunnels. Rising to drown him. He coughed, spluttered, choked as the level reached his mouth, he couldn't twist round, there was no room to maneuver. He was completely trapped. No way out. No one to help him, nowhere to go. And yet still he could not give up. The water filled the tunnel. He could not breathe, seconds, minutes. He could feel his lungs crying out for oxygen. The pain was beyond coping. He twisted and thrashed, and then abruptly floated freely.

He was out, in open water, he could feel himself being pulled towards the surface. Faster and faster, he knew if he could just hang on a few moments more. He could see the brightness above him. So close.

And as he broke the surface he glanced back. That fucking weird geek again, reaching out to him. He could see the lips moving, forming his name. But in silence - he heard nothing. And then the guy started to fade, leaving him once more alone, floating in water. And then the water began to fade, and he became vaguely aware he was in a place, and not a dream. He could also hear a voice. Real voice, not another one of his imaginary ones. Talking to him, or talking at him. And he could make out what this voice was saying.

"Blood test is positive. Showing the genome variations. So why is your neurology so indistinct?"

Jake wasn't sure how to answer.

"You could be a latent. Could be this calibration is fucked up. I haven't had a reliable reading in two months. Could be a false positive. I can't afford to make mistakes like this. You think?"

Jake kind of shook his head, no one could afford to make mistakes, that was certain. He wasn't sure how many double negatives made shaking his head the right thing to do, or exactly what he was agreeing with, but it seemed polite to respond in some way.

"Blood test positive. That's certain. So, I guess I'll add you to the list. Shoot you up with 10mg midozolam to make you forget our little conversation, tag you, and dump you. And do it fast."

There was another needle being shoved in his arm, it hurt, it was still tender from being hit by a dart. This was bloody silly. He twisted and thrashed, he tried to scream out, but his body didn't respond. He tried to scream out with his mind, but his mind wasn't working. There were strange images flashing through his head, like memories, only memories of things he couldn't remember, places he hadn't been, things he hadn't done, like his mind was working backwards. He wanted to remember, if that guy wanted him to forget then he wanted to remember, anything, everything he could. License plate of the van, telephone number of the phone the guy was holding, the address written on the envelope he was holding. Anything that might help. But the memories were leaking away faster than he could think them. He felt disjoint from reality. He had to be insane, he was imagining it all. This was all a problem of his fucked up neurological imbalance.

But he kept on fighting and fighting to remember, until the darkness consumed him.


Jake had a splitting headache, his stomach felt twisted. The ground beneath him was cold and hard, and there was a faint stench in the air. He tried to open his eyes, but the intense brightness forced him to close them again almost immediately. He tried to rationalize the situation, at least work out where he was; the effort was too great. He slumped resignedly against the stone wall he was sitting beside. He knew he had been there some time, his last vague memories were of darkness. Where or when or why?

He was shivering, the day was still hot, he certainly wasn't shivering from being cold. He had no jacket on, his shirt was ripped, most of the buttons gone. One shoe was missing and his trousers were wet. His memory reluctantly admitted to a vague recollection of his desperately needing a piss, but lacking the energy to stand up and drop his trousers first. He blinked an eye gradually wider until he could see his surroundings vaguely.

It looked quite a pleasant day.

He appeared to be back behind some disused, tumbled down old farm building, lounging in the shadows. The place was overgrown. He looked down at his watch to find he no longer had one. He dejectedly estimated it to be about midday, give or take an hour or three. The sun was looking pretty high in the sky, his instinct was to start out immediately, try and get back before his absence was noticed. Some fucking chance after this long. He should have been back hours ago.

It might help to know where he was. He pulled himself into what could vaguely be described as a standing position. He pulled off his other shoe and dumped it in an old oil drum by the gate, it wasn't worth keeping. He pulled off the shirt. It was hot, he didn't need it. His wallet was lying a few feet away. He took a couple of unsteady steps towards it. A thirty minute walk suddenly started to look like something of a challenge.

His right arm was hurting, stiff. The vodka and tequila bottles had rolled across the dried mud track, fortunately the carrier bag was still in one piece. He went to pick up the bottles and get them back in the bag. There didn't seem to be any grip left in the fingers on his right hand, but at least his left hand was working.

He started to look around for the missing watch, trying to spot where he might have dropped it. Nowhere around here appeared to be the answer. He did manage to find his cellphone, smashed case, didn't look like it would be working again any time soon, so he couldn't even call for help. He continued to search for the watch, but there wasn't anywhere on the dry mud that the silver strap wouldn't have been sparkling like crazy in the midday sun. He must have dropped it earlier, he would have to retrace his steps. He glanced around, realizing the hopelessness of that idea. He had no fucking clue how he'd gotten there, which direction he'd come from. The watch was a lost cause.

He knew there was something else missing as well, he tried to think what. The throbbing in his head increased in objection to his sustained thought. It was a warning sign that he had gone too long without taking medication, he desperately needed that right now. Some fucking chance when he had left it in Mike's brother's car. For now he would just have to cope, it would only be another twenty-four hours, he would survive. Reluctantly he had to give up on hunting for the watch, first priority had to be getting back to the youth hostel. Fortunately he couldn't have wandered too far off base. If he could just get to the main road. He tried taking a few deep breaths to try and clear his head. At least the walk would be good for him.


By the time he found himself on vaguely familiar ground, he knew only that he had taken slightly longer than thirty minutes. It was also extremely hot. He had kept under the shade of trees for the most part, but was still sweating. He was carrying his shirt in his hand, wishing he had dumped it along with his shoe. It was ruined, but he was stuck with it for now. He felt dehydrated, and his trousers were really beginning to smell. His memory was still somewhat clouded. He remembered leaving the off license, he remembered crossing the road on the way out of town. He had been alright then. At that point the memories stopped. Then he had ended up in the alleyway.

It didn't make any sense. Alright, no, it did make sense. Just not any sense that he wanted to have to face. It was another blackout. He was off his medication and he was not safe to be out on his own. He also felt particularly upset at having lost his watch, but he could worry about that later. For now he was desperate for a shower and a cold drink, and the only way he was going to get that was to push on.


No keys. That was the other think he was missing. Fortunately the front door of the hostel seemed to be unlocked. Careless of the other guys, but he let the observation pass. They were sat out the back asleep. He ignored them for now. He tried to make his way quietly through to the bathroom and poured himself a large cup of water. The drink gave him a certain feeling of decency, more importantly it started to help ease the headache. Getting his pants off felt even better. He dumped them in the sink to soak. He dragged himself in the direction of the shower.

There was a full length mirror right next to the shower cubicle, he avoided looking. In his consideration he would look bad enough when he came out, no sense depressing himself.

The water felt beautiful. And his arm was beginning to work again.


He stepped out of the shower to find he had company.

"Where the fucking fuck did you get to? You know what fucking time it is? You had us out of our fucking minds. And what the fuck happened to your arm?" Mike sounded a little angry.

"What's your problem? Me, I blacked out. Don't know what happened. Forgot to take my happy drugs."

Dean was staring with some concern at the state Jake was in. "Shit, you're a mess."

Jake glanced in the mirror, the arm was very heavily bruised. Apart from that he looked pretty much in one piece. Heavily bruised arm, clothes torn badly, watch missing. No memories, shock. It could have been worse.

"Well, on the bright side, this is a hell of a lot better shape than I was left in after the last time I spazzed out."

Mike was struggling to see the joke. "That's not funny Jake. You could have died. Seriously, could have died. This is totally out of hand. Look, I'll call and get us picked up."

"No, I'll be okay. I'm not letting this beat me. I just..."

"Just what? What if it happens again?"

"You just need to make sure I wander off alone. I just need you guys to look out for me."

"You're crazy." Dean sounded exasperated.

"I have a bottle of vodka says I am getting drunk tonight. There's another bottle here with your name on it. You want to walk away from that? Exactly which one of us would that make the totally fucking crazy one? I've got mental problems, yes. But I'm not stupid."


The hike out to the final camping site was subdued.

Jake was actually feeling better than he had expected. The headache was vaguely under control, a couple of aspirin had seen to that, and even the paranoia of the previous couple of days had receded. His arm was still tender and bruised where he had done, well, whatever it was that had happened to it, but that was all. Emotionally he felt fine. Dean and Mike were the ones who were more freaked out at this point.

For a moment he considered winding them up, pretending to go psychotic on them... but he could see the joke wouldn't be appreciated. Plus he needed them. Until he could get back on his medication he needed them looking out for him. That was a cold realization for him, understanding his dependance on the medication. It hadn't really been something that he had spent any time thinking about before, the long term prospect of being stuck taking happy drugs the rest of his life. He had blindly convinced himself he was cured, now he could see it was more a choice between being permanently drugged up the rest of his life, or being locked up in a padded cell. He didn't feel angry, just resigned to the inevitability of it all. It didn't make for such a bad life, there weren't any real negative side effects. He just had to be more careful, careful not to do anything stupid like forget to bring his medication with him when he went off on a camping trip in future.

First he had to deal with Mike and Dean. He had an idea. "I get paranoid. Really paranoid. Convinced like I'm being followed, like there's someone after me..." He started to explain.

They didn't respond, but they were listening. He knew he had to figure some way to edge them back from being quite so freaked out or the evening was going to be a disaster. They were freaked because it was the safe option, because they had no clue whether they needed to be freaked out right this minute or not, it was a defensive reaction. He had to give them something to latch on to, some criteria that they could use to judge for themselves whether the risk was immediate or not. And he had to give them some belief there was something they could do about it if the worst really did happen.

"I'm not feeling paranoid right now." Jake continued. "Not like I was this morning. It comes on slowly, takes hours. Once I get paranoid I start to get agitated, confused. Pretty incoherent I would imagine to anyone around me."

"Dude, you're always incoherent. How the hell are we supposed to spot the difference?" Dean asked bluntly.

Jake relaxed a little, having engaged them in the conversation he had already half won the battle. He could afford to push them a little now. "Normally I'm just more intelligent than your ability to understand. I realize that isn't difficult, but, you guys have to work with me on this one. I don't get violent or dangerous or anything like that, I just get overpoweringly scared. At some point my nerve breaks and I run. That seems to be when I black out, I don't know. I never remember much past that. All you need to do, if I start to freak, is make sure I don't run. There's rope, tie my legs up. Seriously, I'm giving you permission, I'm asking you as friends to promise me you won't let me run. I mean, as fine as I feel, I don't think it's going to happen. But that's what I need you do do."

"So, you're saying, if we can't understand what you're talking about at any point between now and tomorrow morning, we get to tie you up?" Mike had quickly grasped the consequences of the concept.

Jake smiled. "Don't even fucking think about it!"

"Hey, I kind of like this idea." Dean chimed in.

That was it. They needed control, they had it. Jake could sense that the tension was dissipating already. He wasn't totally certain they could go through with tying him up, which he figured was probably a good thing, but they weren't thinking about that. What they were thinking about was ways they could use this to wind him up, they were so easy to read at times. Jake had really missed being able to connect with them like this the last few months.


If there was a downside to living permanently on medication, it was the no drinking part. Jake couldn't remember the last time he had been able to get this drunk. And, he conceded, this could be his last opportunity for a while. With that restriction the next five weeks could turn into being a very boring summer. Every reason to make the most of it now.

Time to have some fun. Dinner was over and it was the most perfect cloudless evening, a cool breeze blowing just enough to keep it from being too hot to sit around the camp fire and chill out. He poured himself another tequila.

Mike and Dean were already totally drunk. Not so guarded. Usually all he could sense were vague emotions, generalized impressions, but when they were drunk, or, maybe it was when he was drunk, there were moments he looked at them and it felt almost like he could hear exactly what they were thinking. And when they were drunk, what they were thinking was freeform, always slightly incoherent and often embarrassingly amusing. And normally Jake would respect that... unless of course he was totally drunk as well.

"You and Kath what... you and Kath actually did what? Come on, you honestly thought no one knew."

Dean did think that no one knew, in fact he'd been certain of it. He'd also been totally wrong, Mike had obviously been aware for weeks that something had been going on. On this occasion Jake was the one left feeling like he was out of the loop. He really couldn't work out how he'd missed it, but it looked like he had missed a whole bunch of stuff the last couple of months. What irritated Jake more was that he'd failed to spot something that even Mike had managed to work out, and that was just sad.

"Look, it wasn't a big deal. It was, just..." Dean tried to explain, and quickly got himself tongue tied.

"You and her passionately snogging, that isn't a big deal?"

"It wasn't like that..."

"You had your tongue in her mouth, exactly what's the difference? You claiming on a technicality that she just licked and didn't suck."

"It is rumored that she didn't actually inhale." Mike stated with a mock innocence. Jake smiled, that level of subtlety was not bad for Mike.

"Will you two shut the fuck up. Alright, you know, yes. It happened, satisfied?" Dean was defensive.

"Hey, relax, you're so up tight. It's more than I've ever done. It's cool. I'm happy for you." Jake tried to diffuse the tension.

Dean was unconvinced. "Now you're just taking the piss."

"No, honestly. Dean. I don't take the piss out of you for shit like that. I take the piss out of you for the size of your ears. I take the piss out of you for being scared shitless of going skinny dipping. I take the piss out of you for still having that same transformers pencil case you got when you were ten. I take the piss out of you for your dress sense. I take the piss out of you for..."

"Fucking shut up." Dean shouted somewhat indignantly, Jake was finally interrupted. Meanwhile Mike was cracking up laughing on the ground.

"But I don't take the piss out of you for actually having done something cool for once. Good on you."

"I was worried, I mean, sometimes the way you and Kath talk, I just." Dean was struggling to get the words out.

"You just thought I liked her. She's intelligent, I like talking to her. But I knew you had the fucking hots for her. What kind of friend do you think I am?"

"I don't know. I never know what you're thinking."

"I never said I liked her." Jake pointed out.

Mike finally interjected into the conversation. "I would point out that you never ever admitted you liked anyone, you act like you don't care if you ever get shagged. But no one exactly has you pegged as a virgin."

"I care. Just, never met a girl got me excited enough to want to do something about it."

"You saying you are a virgin?" Mike actually sounded astonished. He really hadn't considered that a possibility.

"Yeah, basically, for now, I guess so. What is this, the fucking Spanish Inquisition?" Jake replied.

"No one..." Dean started.

Mike groaned. "No, not that fucking tired old joke!"

"So what about you then, Mike? Dean closing in on Kath, I freely confess I never got any, you got any secrets you want to share?" Jake already knew the answer, or rather the lack of one, but he figured it would help Mike to have the opportunity to own up.

"I don't get you, Jake. There are half a dozen girls at school would throw themselves at you, and you say you don't even want it. Me, I want it. I'm fucking desperate for it. But even Dean's had more luck than me, how sad it that? Er, no offense, Dean"

"Right, none taken." Dean stated, not quite sure how else to react to the insult.

"Maybe there's a lesson here, Mike. You act too desperate. Try what I do, treat women as if you don't care. You'll give of waves of disinterest, and seriously, for some girls that can be like a red rag to a bull. Of course, whether those are the kind of girls you ever want to get anywhere with is another matter."

"Seriously, I'm not picky."

"What about Kath's friend Lisa?" Dean asked.

Mike stared back at him, it took him a moment to get the joke. "Okay, I have my limits. She has to be some kind of ape-woman. I'm only into humans."

"The problem is, no humans are in to you." Dean retorted. Jake was impressed, that was about the first time he could remember Dean getting snarky with Mike.

"Fuck off, Dean." Mike didn't have a good comeback, so he switched tactics. "So what about you Jake, saying you never found a girl exciting enough to do anything about it. You explored the option you might be a screaming poofter?"

"Not actively. Honestly Mike, if any guy was going to float my boat, it would have been you, and you don't, so, probably not gay. I just, I don't know. Sex doesn't interest me that much."

Dean was laughing, more at Mike than Jake. "Shit Mike, he was making sense when he said you were so ugly that even he wouldn't shag you, then he starts talking about sex not being interesting. I don't know about that."

Mike ignored the insult and joined in the counter attack; "Yeah I don't know, Jake, sex not interesting, sounds, well, incoherent. What do you think Dean, we need to think about tying him up?"

"Sounds fun. Oh, sorry, you mean in case he has one of his freak outs, I was thinking of something totally different." Dean's humor was unusually eloquent, getting pissed out of his head really helped loosen him up that way.

Jake was happy, this was exactly the kind of conversation he had hoped the evening would degenerate to.


They'd finished off the booze and then lit herbal joints to smoke by the light of the camp fire. The evening had given way to twilight, and then darkness. Dean had disappeared to go take a piss in the woods, and had been gone so long that Mike and Jake had almost been ready to break out the flashlights and go look for him. Finally he turned up admitting he had fallen asleep stood there with his cock hanging out, and figured it was more than past time he got to bed.

Mike and Jake weren't exactly sure how much longer they would last, but it seemed only decent to stick around while they still had a buzz.

"Shit, in all the excitement about me going crazy, we didn't get to go skinny dipping again today." Jake was determined not to allow the slowing of the evening to allow the conversation to get too philosophically high brow.

"I am so disappointed." Mike responded sarcastically.

"It bothers you that much?"

"Well, not any more. It's like. Alright, it's like I figured if you saw it you would work out I was still a virgin somehow, and I was figuring Dean was, and you weren't and I just didn't want to be as sad as Dean, alright."

"Always alright with the truth, even if it is a bit nuts." Jake was trying to reassure Mike, he wasn't sure if it was helping much.

Mike was more chilled out than he had been, though. "Bit of a revelation, Dean and Kath. And I really thought you..."

"I never said."

"I know, I just, everyone just assumed. Someone as cool as you."

"So hey, virgin boy, you like being more like the cool guy than Dean is?"

"No. I'd rather be sad and laid. You honestly not interested?"

"I didn't mean it quite like that. I mean, sure I'm interested. Very interested. Fucking interested. Just, it's got to be the right girl and for the right reason."

"How do you handle the, just not getting it part."

"I just handle it." Jake wasn't figuring to be subtle with the humor at this point in the evening.

"Fuck off." Mike didn't want to know.

"You don't?"

"Fuck off."

"So you do."

"Fuck off."

"You forget, I can read your mind."

"I'm bloody glad that isn't possible."

"Because you're thinking about Kath?"

"What?" Mike was getting uncomfortable again.

"Horny thoughts about Kath, which you know are completely inappropriate, but you figure as long as no one ever knows." Jake figured he shouldn't be saying it, but he was too stoned to have much restraint.

"No way, there's no fucking way you could know that."

"Don't worry about it, I know way worse secrets about you than that."

"I'm not thinking about Kath."

"You are, and kinky thoughts they are and you are so frustrated you can't wait to get back to your tent, alone, to have some fun, alone, with those kinky thoughts."

"You are so totally wrong."

"Right."

"No thoughts about Kath, no kinky thoughts at all."

"Right."

"Yes, right."

"So, how come you got yourself a bit excited there then."

"No I'm not."

"Oh yes you are."

"Not.

"Prove it then, go on."

"What?"

"Simple to prove. Show me."

"Show you my..."

"Hey, nothing I didn't see yesterday. Unless you have got something to hide."

"I've got nothing to hide."

"Then when you drop your pants and prove me wrong, I'm going to look pretty stupid, right? You'd love that, wouldn't you, just once, me looking like a bit of a tit."

"It would be pretty cool."

"Would, but isn't going to happen. Because you aren't going to drop your pants, because you totally are just a little over excited."

"So sure of yourself?"

"Twenty quid says you won't drop your pants."

"Only twenty? Piss off."

"Fifty. Alright, a hundred. Hey, I mean it. I don't joke about shit like that."

"Fuck it. Alright. Look." Mike pulled himself unsteadily to his feet and dropped his pants.

"I was right." For a moment Jake wondered if Mike was so stoned he wasn't aware of his exact physiological condition.

"Yeah, you were right about that. But 'A hundred quid says you won't drop your pants' you said. Well my pants are dropped. You were wrong about that part, and you owe me a hundred. Or are you going to try and weasel out?"

Jake hesitated, it didn't happen often but he actually had been outmaneuvered. He started to laugh, then mock millitary saluted. "For the win."

Mike hurriedly pulled his shorts back up. "Right. That was the stupidest thing I think I've ever done in my life." He grabbed the towel he had been lying on to shake it off, he was tired and needed to be turning in anyway, but his real motivation for picking things up before headed to sleep was just that he didn't much feel comfortable with the situation any more.

"That was the most obstinately bloody minded thing I think I ever saw anyone do. When it comes down to the line, maybe you have got the balls to follow through. Not many people can do that. And that's the kind of friend I need backing me up when things get tough, like right now. So don't feel bad about it."

Mike hesitated, Jake always seemed to know what to say to make people feel better about themselves, and it did help. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, I think so. Go sleep, or, whatever else it is you plan to do in there."

"Fucking, fuck off." Mike laughed, half kind of embarrassed, and half kind of past the point of caring.

Jake sat and stared into the dying flames of the camp fire as Mike departed. He hadn't wanted the night to end, he was having too much fun. He wasn't sure when he would get a chance to have this much fun again, to be this relaxed again, to be this alive again. He'd missed that so much. Maybe life had been too balanced, maybe he needed the kind of crazy roller coaster ups and downs that the last few days had given him in order to appreciate the good times.

And this moment at least, he contemplated, was the best of the best of times.


He awoke still lying by the remains of the camp fire. He had fallen asleep before he had managed to make it over to the tent. And he awoke with a bad headache. Well, if he had to have a headache, he figured it was great to feel like for once he had a legitimate reason.

He could also hear voices murmuring in the background. He felt kind of detached about that. Not quite so afraid. It wasn't exactly an entirely unexpected development. In a way it was kind of weird, he had largely forgotten what the constant chatter in the back of his mind had been like. Knowing it was all a chemical imbalance in his brain made him somewhat more objective in how he was able to ignore it. But he was quite happy as they packed up camp and headed out for the final hour of hiking to where they were getting picked up, knowing that he had the power to make this all stop very soon.

The car was a little late arriving. They had sat in the sunshine in the parking lot on the edge of town, talking quietly. The mood was a little subdued, all of them were still feeling more than a little hung over. Mike in particular also seemed a bit uncomfortable over where the conversation had gone the night before, but, that wasn't surprising really.

Mike's brother had finally turned up and they loaded up the car. The bottle of tablets was still in the back of the seat of the car, exactly where Jake had left it four days earlier. He took one almost as soon as they had set off on the six hour drive home. He counted, it was about fifteen to twenty minutes later that the voices had started to subside, to get fainter and fainter until he couldn't hear them any more even if he tried to listen. Cool, now he could focus properly on the conversation with Mike and Dean...

Only, something else was fading as well. It was really disconcerting. Dean and Mike were talking about fish food, it was a stupid and meaningless conversation, but that wasn't the point. It was like he couldn't hear Mike and Dean at all any more. All he could hear were their words. Empty words, devoid of feeling. Like he was watching them on TV, like they weren't even there.

Distracted from the conversation he found himself trying to check how long before they would get back, and he was also reminded that he was still very much pissed off at having lost his watch.


The weekend passed and Jake spent it mostly in bed asleep, or sat out in the garden watching videos on his phone. The one thing he had managed to do Saturday was to get out and get a replacement cellphone. He figured he probably could have patched the other one together with tape and glue, but he'd been saving up for one that gave him internet access as well, and it seemed like the right time to go ahead and buy that. He'd kept the old one for now, stuck it in his desk drawer, it might be of some use one day in case of emergency.

Jake hadn't seen the others since the car journey back had ended. Dean was off on holiday with his parents for a couple of weeks, Mike was around some but the weekend back he had to go to some cousin's wedding, and after that he was going to be working a summer job most days to help pay for a car he was planning on buying, although Jake couldn't see how Mike could possibly earn enough money to buy anything that wouldn't be totally scary. Kath was off spending time with other friends of hers that he knew existed, but that was about it. He hung out with her at school a lot, but not quite so much over the summer.

Jake had to admit, the summer was actually looking like it was going to be disgustingly boring. At least until the final couple of weeks when it was time to start making plans to go see the Foo Fighters concert. Assuming of course that he still had the ability to pull off something as audacious as getting them all out of school to see the concert. On current form, he had to concede, the chances seemed slim.


Sunday afternoon Mike stopped by to drop off some of Jake's tent pegs that had gotten mixed up when they'd broke camp that final day. It also looked like he had something on his mind he needed to talk about.

"Look. About..." Mike stopped as he headed to leave. And the silence went on momentarily too long.

"Just say it." Jake finally prompted. Nothing. Mike was still blank. Something was getting him really wound up, but Jake couldn't see what it was. It should have been obvious, it should have been screaming at him. But all he sensed was nothingness. Which made it impossible to know exactly what he needed to say. Somehow he had to let Mike fill in that part.

"Had a great time. Did some pretty stupid things, you know." Mike was struggling.

"We all did some pretty stupid things, look at me." Jake gestured at the bruising on his arm that was only just starting to fade. But the observation didn't help progress the conversation, Mike was still stuck, and Jake wasn't sure he could help.

"I know I was drunk, but..." Mike couldn't finish the sentence.

Was this about Kath? Jake didn't like guessing. He'd been so used to knowing what people were thinking for so long that, really he hadn't ever learned how to guess. He didn't like risks. He didn't like to play unless he knew he was going to win. And right now he had no clue whatsoever. But, that wasn't going to help Mike get past this. "Don't, I mean, you don't have to say it." Jake started, wondering how generic he could make the response while keeping it heartfelt and convincing. "You were there for me. Look, I got myself, way over the line, I screwed up big time. And, I just want you to know, I owe you for that. I, really, what you did, that was a big deal. I am not going to forget that. I am not going to forget that. So..."

Mike exhaled... probably with some equally strong emotion attached, which might logically be guessed to be relief, but Jake had no clue. Then Mike managed to stammer out; "I won't forget this either. Thanks."

Jake watched Mike head off. He'd just agreed something with Mike, and he would have felt a little more confident if he had half a clue what the hell it was he had just agreed to.

Could he learn to live like this? He didn't like the realization he'd come to while he was away on the camping trip that there was something missing from his general level of awareness of the world around him. All the time doped up on the medication and he hadn't really noticed. Well, not quite true, he had noticed something wasn't right, just never figured the connection to the medication. He'd wondered why he hadn't known what the teachers were thinking, why he didn't seem able to connect with Dean and Mike.

Now he had some kind of understanding. There was something missing, something missing when they spoke, something missing when they didn't speak. It wasn't just an impression, it was real, there really had been a time he could sense what they were thinking. That was gone now, and it was something to do with the medication, because when he'd started taking that, everything had changed. No voices, no blackouts, no headaches, but living in a world in which it was like he could only see in black and white any more. All the colors had gone. The medication killed everything. That gave him the security he needed to have some kind of normal life, sure. The drugs were necessary for the here and now, but, it was frustrating to imagine living like this for the rest of his life. Okay, if his future was a choice between living in a drug induced stupor, or embracing insanity, he would chose the drug induced stupor. But maybe now he was starting to understand the price.

Assuming he was right about the medication. It made sense, sure, but, he was guessing again. Guessing wasn't good enough, he had to know for certain. So, the answer was easy, all he had to do was stop taking the tablets again and see what happened. Yeah, really easy.

But that would have to be another day.