“You lied to us?” asked Carol’s father through the phone.
“I never lied! I just left some parts out.” Carol could hardly believe that after telling her parents she had recently acquired literal psychic powers, this was what they were concerned about.
“You said you only met the dragon briefly! But it’s your professor? You're a telepath?”
“She’s not just my professor,” said Carol. “I’ve talked with her outside of class, from time to time.”
“You get to observe Rose too?” asked her mother.
“Yes, I get to observe Rose.” Carol hoped her point came across. “I’ve gotten in the habit of waking up early to—”
“Carol, sweetie,” her mother cut her off, apparently uninterested in the most amazing thing that had happened in Carol’s life thus far. “That isn’t important right now. You need to focus on getting far away from that place, as soon as possible.”
“What?” Carol noticed that she had been unconsciously pacing around the quad and stopped herself. “I can’t leave, the school is locked down.”
This bit of news was, apparently, even more distressing to her parents. For a few minutes, Carol mentally isolated herself from the stress emanating from her phone, answering yes-or-no questions every now and again. Yes, she could already talk to Rose with her mind. No, she hadn't noticed any changes to herself (Carol left out the keyword “yet” when answering that particular question.).
The continent her parents lived on may as well have been a different planet, and to Carol, their world was the surreal one. Telepathy had been, in a word, underwhelming. Sure, she could talk with somebody standing miles away, but she could already do that with a cellphone, and the more exciting aspects had yet to reveal themselves. Rose made Carol uneasy, but not that much more than anything else in her life so far. Carol would figure her out one day. Everything seemed to be steadily progressing towards an eventual resolution—even the pressing security issue. Only by talking with her parents did Carol realize how much had changed in the last few weeks.
She checked her telepathic connections for anomalies, careful not to disturb those on the other ends in the process. Each connection rumbled softly within the dimensionless space in the back of her mind, as usual. Would her friends’ parents ask for them to leave too? How many would stay?
“I don’t know much more than you do, dad. I’m sure they’ll open the gates in a few days, when there’s better security.”
“And you’ll leave as soon as you can?”
“You mean drop out?”
“You can just take a gap year or two. I’m sure your professors would understand, given the circumstances.”
“I can’t—” Carol collected herself. “I’m already in Telepathy, so if anyone has my information, it doesn’t matter where I am. I can’t just leave class. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“Why do you need to finish the course if you’re already a telepath? Distance doesn't make a difference, does it?”
“It’s not just about telepathy,” said Carol. “And it actually does count as a foreign language credit, so I’m getting—”
“Carol, you're in danger. You have to come home. I won't let you stay.”
Carol hadn’t expected losing the inevitable argument to really be an option when she had made this phone call, but it was becoming more likely. There weren't any obvious counterpoints to be made. I wish I had Rose's conversational intuition, she realized.
“I can't just leave.”
“Why not? It'd only be a year or two.”
And in a year or two, the exponential explosion would have probably started already, with or without Carol. How different would the world look? She fumbled for excuses.
“I don’t want to.”
The line was silent, so Carol continued: “It's safe here, and my friends are here. I know you don't care, but my boyfriend is here. Dr. Collins and I are studying telepathy, and whatever we do is a guaranteed success; I'll be world famous.”
“It won't be a success if the school gets blown up. And if you're world famous, you're a target.”
“I've already thought this through. The school isn't going to get—” Carol lowered her voice and looked around for the guards. “—blown up. When have they ever—I know it's slightly unsafe, but think about the opportunity.”
“Again, you're already a telepath! Hasn't the opportunity passed?”
“That's one opportunity, but… think about Rose. How many people are ever going to meet her?”
“Can’t you talk to her whenever you like, for the rest of your life—or, maybe her life? How long does she have to live, anyway?”
Maybe sympathy for Rose was a viable angle.
“Everyone Rose has ever met left her, except for William. Think about her family. For whatever reason, she seems to trust me, and I can’t just abandon her.”
“Carol, you don’t need to worry about the alien.” said her father. “I’m sure it doesn’t get attached to humans the way we do.”
“She is a seven year old person. And dragons are social, like us. They probably have similar needs.”
“Fine, I'm sure she has her share of problems,” said Carol’s father, the emphasized word carrying an exaggerated eye roll over the line, “but does it have to be you? You've known her for what, two weeks?”
“If everyone in the class leaves, it will look bad on her, but it's not her fault.”
“I'm sorry Carol, I honestly don't care about Rose Statton. I care about the wellbeing of my daughter.”
If there’s anything I can say that will convince you, I can’t think of it, thought Carol. Unless….
She felt at the line to Rose again, listening to the low, meaningless rumbling. It would be so easy. Only a brief explanation, and the dragon would come up with the perfect argument to save the day. Then again, Carol’s reptilian professor had stressed honesty before, so maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea. It felt like cheating. Was phoning a friend while on the phone with your parents cheating?
“Can I talk to you later?”
“Carol…”
“I need time to think. I'll let you know when I figure something out.”
Carol stared at the mostly empty dorm room before her.
“It's bigger than mine,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Nic, sitting himself down at the foot of the bed.
Well, it had furniture, and Carol had a good portion of his clothes, so it would do for now. The college was going to let Nic stay in a newly-empty room without any trouble. Not only Nic had gotten free board—everyone in Lincoln College had. There was even talk of a new scholarship on top of that, but Carol wasn't sure whether that rumor was based on fact. It was still unclear how many students would weather the storm. Whatever the rector and Rose were going to do, they needed to act fast.
“Isn't Rose supposed to be a master strategist?” Carol asked, pacing around the room.
“Yep,” said Nic.
“Then how did she mess up this badly?”
“You heard her: ‘this is a hiccup,’” he said. “And it's not like she never makes mistakes.”
“Our school just became a target for terrorists and it's just a hiccup?” she asked. “How many have left already?”
“I'm sure it's a hiccup because she already planned for it.”
“How could planning fix this? And isn't she specifically supposed to be good at reading people? Don't you think it's odd that she messed up this badly at a people problem?”
“They clearly have deals with the University that were discussed in advance. More security, free housing, maybe a scholarship?” Nic seemed unsure of himself. “You can't get any of that in a few hours.”
“Maybe Rose could. And besides, those are all things we should have had from the start.”
“My point is we don't know what bargaining went down to get them here in the first place. I bet stuff like that was on the table.”
“You're saying maybe Rose wanted this to happen?” Carol asked.
“I meant she probably knew the possibility and was prepared for it.”
“And that our safety might have been a bargaining chip she held back until today.”
Nic paused. “Are you really that afraid of her? Do you think she would do that?”
“No,” said Carol. “I don't know. Maybe. But what I was trying to say is, what if she does make horrible mistakes because she's an alien? Either way, what if we should get out of here as soon as possible?”
“Not now,” said Nic. “but if anything else happens, if they get our names… Would you leave if they got our names?”
Carol considered it. “At that point it would be too late.”
“I'm afraid it already is too late,” said Nic. “Our names are already somewhere. And if we flew home, right now, wouldn't someone notice?”
“So we're fucked.”
“No, we're not fucked,” Nic argued. “We have security, and a master strategist. They won't get our names. Nothing's gonna happen. And if Rose asks for our help, we'll do our best to give it to her.”
Carol stared out the window at Turl street below. A better view than hers, too.
How did I end up here? she asked herself for maybe the twentieth time that week. The college might have been tiny, but outside the bubble was no longer a place she could ever belong.
“She should have gone to Magdalen College,” said Carol, her mind made up.
“What?” asked Nic.
“Nevermind,” said Carol. “I haven't gotten better at all today.”
“At telepathy? Practice makes perfect, right?”
“We haven't practiced at all,” she said. Her link to Nic wasn't exactly closed, but it wasn't being used to communicate in the slightest. “We have to do this.”
“Oh, God,” said Nic. “I mean, I do want to, but I don't know.” He scratched his head. “We have a whole semester to slide into it.”
“I've made up my mind.”
“On what? Aren't we past the whole decision?”
“No. I'm not just going to eventually pick up telepathy. I'm going to be the best, er, stay the best.”
“Better than Rose and William?”
“Maybe not that good. No,” she shook her head. “Yes, I want to be that good. Better than them, if it's possible. What can't they do?”
Nic shrugged.
“Well,” said Carol, “they can see through each other's eyes, control each other's bodies, and didn't they say they've completely merged when drunk?”
“Carol, you're kinda freaking me out.”
“Doesn't that sound exciting to you?”
“Listen, it's not that it doesn't sound exciting. Did you hear how you said that? They can see through each other's eyes. They merged. I don't want to be a ‘they.’ That's maybe too exciting. Can't we just stick to our things?”
“What things?”
“You're doing some psychology experiments, and you'll obviously become super famous. I'll keep improving this teleporter with their help, and if it works I'll become rich and famous. Then we live happily ever after?”
“There isn't really a psych experiment. There could be, but not yet.” Carol mentally kicked herself for not preparing in the slightest for her meeting with Dr. Collins the next day. “What's more important is studying telepathy. Nobody knows anything about it. And, actually even more important, Rose! If she is shit at decision making, we need to know to be able to help. Don't you want to be friends with her?”
Nic sighed. “And to do that I have to be able to merge? I don't really have any desire to do that. Do you?”
“No, but someone has to,” she sat down in the bed next to Nic and leaned against his side. “Will you at least support my reckless descent into madness?”
“Fine. Just don't drag me down with you. I'm not a they.”
“Do you think the others will be in?”
Carol stood at the base of the small auditorium that, in the daytime, was their telepathy classroom, and waited for Sam to hurry in and take a seat in the front row. They had an hour until dinner, so she wanted to begin as quickly as possible.
“You’re not satisfied with how they’re teaching Telepathy and decided to do it yourself?” asked Gina. “Or are we your new test subjects?”
“I might ask you to be test subjects later,” said Carol. “But this is different. It’s already too late to really study acquisition, so I’m not planning on doing that. Didn’t you read my text?”
Nic didn’t let her answer. “This is just exercise, like we said. If we’re going to be here, putting our lives in danger, we need to make the best of it.”
“Are we really in danger?” asked Sam.
“Yes,” said Carol. “Anyway, we all agreed to do this reckless class. We already signed up to fuck with our brains. Let’s be the best at it.”
“You want the five of us to essentially lose all our privacy?” asked Gina. “I mean, I like you all, but I don’t want you in my head.”
“Did you go into Telepathy without expecting any loss of privacy?” asked Hannah.
“They said you can still keep secrets!” said Gina. “I don’t know, talking is one thing, but sharing feelings, and really getting in each other’s minds? A line needs to be drawn somewhere.”
“You’d like to get good at talking,” Carol began, and then opened four connections and pushed the rest of the words through as she spoke, “but you aren’t even doing it right now.”
Gina crossed her arms. “The point still stands.” She didn’t use telepathy herself, so Carol closed the connection.
“Nic feels the same way,” said Carol. “Er, I mean he told me, out loud.”
“I know this is a slippery slope,” said Nic. “but the whole thing’s a slippery slope. We can all stop whenever we feel uncomfortable.”
“That’s good, actually,” said Carol. “Before we go any further, let’s all agree that if any one of us feels uncomfortable, we won’t try to pressure them into continuing, and they can leave without being shunned by anyone else.”
“And,” Hannah appended, “Breakfast and other times we would normally hang out are officially telepathy-free, so anyone who leaves won’t be unintentionally excluded.”
“What if nobody leaves?” asked Carol.
“Then a would-be leaver might feel guilty for limiting everyone else. No, telepathy time has to be apart from our normal hangouts.”
“Those being?” asked Sam, who didn’t normally spend as much time with the group as the others.
“Breakfast, lunch, usually dinner, and we had study break…” answered Gina. “What about weekends?”
“It would be easier to say just in this classroom,” said Hannah. “We can determine times each day, maybe an hour?”
“Only an hour a day?” asked Carol. “I’m meeting with Rose for more than that every morning. I want to be able to teach you everything she shows me, and she knows what she’s doing!”
“You are our teacher, then?” asked Sam.
“I don’t know, I guess. For now.”
“Couldn't we just meet with you whenever you meet with Rose?” asked Gina.
“I already asked her that, and she said no,” said Carol, realizing that she had told Nic that detail but no one else. “She also wouldn't say why.”
“So you get special treatment for no reason? Did she even ask you if you were okay with it?” Gina prodded.
“Yep, she asked. And yep, it pretty much is for no reason.” Although Carol would like to believe there was a reason, she had yet to find a good answer to that question. Was Rose really lonely and looking for a friend? Was Carol extraordinary somehow, or was it rather that she was completely normal? “I'll ask again, but I don’t want to seem like I’m fishing for compliments.”
“Anyway, I don't really want to go that fast,” said Gina.
“Same,” said Hannah. “At least if it's slow we'll adjust better.”
“Can we also discuss that?” asked Gina. “What do we do if we start having side effects?”
“When we start having side effects,” said Carol. “If there are none, it’s really magic.”
“Yeah, I don't want to end up like Will,” said Gina.
“What's wrong with Will?” asked Nic.
“He's got a case of, er,” Gina began, “space cadet syndrome?”
“He’s just shy!” said Nic.
“People who knew the other telepaths said there were no major personality shifts,” said Carol. “But also I see what you're saying, and it would make sense. It could also just be Rose…”
“You're the expert on Rose,” said Sam. “So you'll be the first to go, then.”
“Am I a space cadet?” she asked.
“Maybe a little more than usual,” Sam answered.
“Hey, I've only talked to her, like, twice!” Carol complained. “And if we're all watching each other for changes we'll become paranoid.”
“Won't we be doing that anyway now that it's been mentioned?” asked Sam.
“How about we all agree that if someone is worried about a side effect, they have to let everyone else know. And then we can make decisions case-by-case,” Carol said, hoping it would resolve the issue.
“And,” said Hannah, “how about we go light, as in an hour a day, for two weeks or so, then reconvene to see if it's working out and if we should change anything.”
“Hold on,” said Carol. “I still don't think that's enough time.”
“An hour for experiments and practice in this room,” said Sam. “But unlimited time to use it otherwise, like normal students would. So we're only adding time.”
“Is that enough time, Carol?” asked Hannah.
“I don't know. How fast will this go?” she asked, trying to extrapolate her progress in her head. “Nic, how long do you think this will take?”
“How long until what?”
“Until we can see and hear stuff, I guess.”
“Rose said she could see the Dragon planet, and she was only connected with Amber for two days,” said Nic. “We've already had it for three.”
“But we haven't been in constant contact,” said Hannah.
“Right. And that’s only an upper bound. Carol, how much time have you been, um, open with Rose?” Nic asked. “We need vocabulary for this. ‘Connected’?”
Carol added up the times. “Probably less than four hours total. But most of that wasn't very open.”
“And Rose doesn't sleep,” Nic added.
“So, at most, we'll need an hour a day for the next month and a half, but probably much less than that,” said Hannah.
“That pace sounds good with me,” said Sam. “I don't want to go too fast anyway.”
“I don't think any of us really want to,” said Carol, looking around wearily. “As long as we're better at it than everyone else.”
“And we get to be elitist about it?” asked Gina.
“And Rose likes us the best,” finished Carol, pretending not to notice Gina’s sarcastic tone. Finally, it seemed like they would move on and begin with the exercises—
“Can we all have specialties?” asked Nic. “I want to study how it works.”
“I'm already doing that!” said Carol, regretting the words as they came out of her mouth.
“We can compare notes, then,” said Nic, “because you're obviously the, uh, xenopsychologist.”
“You know more about dragons than me,” she said.
“Are you kidding? You're already probably one of the top handful in the world.”
“I haven't even done anything.”
“I want to feel what other people feel,” said Sam.
Gina made a point of scooting a few feet away from him. Carol rolled her eyes.
“You know, to help understand and stuff,” he elaborated. “And I could possess people.”
“Well I think if anything, I'd like to get good at not being possessed,” said Gina.
“Hannah?” asked Nic.
“I don't know, I'll probably just do whatever I end up being good at,” she said. “I don't think we should start with specialties in mind when we don't even know what we're in for.”
“I agree,” said Carol. “So are we all doing this or not? What were all the, uh, things?”
“Two weeks, one hour a day outside of what everyone else is doing, anyone can leave, and we have to say if we're noticing any side effects,” said Hannah. “Did I miss anything?”
“Alright, I'm in,” said Gina.
“I feel like I was missing something,” said Hannah, shooting Gina a glare. “We should write it down.”
“It's two weeks, Hannah,” said Nic. “We'll be fine. Maybe then we do a longer term deal when we know what's what.”
“Alright, fine,” said Hannah. “I'm in. As long as Sam isn't weird.”
“It was a joke!” he complained. “Carol, Nic?”
“Yeah,” said Carol.
“We need a name,” said Nic.
“We didn't have a name before,” said Carol, who was thoroughly annoyed at how much time had passed. “Are you in?”
“You know this is going to be famous one day?” Nic continued. “We need a good club name, like the whatever Tolkien's club was. There’ll be an article about this on Wikipedia…”
Carol realized that maybe their club could meet in a pub, too, but held her tongue. No need to bring that up now, especially since alcohol had uncomfortable new connotations.
“The Inklings,” Sam answered. “Will other people be joining?”
“Can't we just decide all this stuff in two weeks, when we write everything down?” Carol begged.
“Fine, fine, I'm in,” said Nic. “Let's go.”
“Now what, Professor Ward?” asked Hannah.
Carol almost wanted to say she hadn't planned that far ahead, but she had a few ideas to try.
“First we need to make sure we're all fluent with each other. Have any of you meditated?”
It was getting late, which meant Carol's parents who were six time zones away would be getting home from work soon.
Her 11:00 alarm rang and, like clockwork, the screen lit up with a new call from Home.
“I haven't changed my mind,” said Carol as soon as she answered the call. She braced herself and uncomfortably spat out the rest of her position: “I would like for you to support my decision to stay.”
“Carol, we both talked all day about this,” said her mother. “We both want to let you know that we're sorry for getting mad at you this morning. If it's really what you want to do, you have our support.”
“Really? You skipped work?”
She felt a brief wave of embarrassment. Did her parents take the decision more seriously than she had? Maybe they didn't need to know that detail.
“Yes, and you saw the scholarship you'll be getting?”
“Ah, so that's what convinced you,” she half-joked. The email had finally come a few hours earlier, while she had been in the Telepathy room with her friends. A relatively hefty sum for everyone, and more for those in Telepathy; the school was apparently begging its students to stay.
“No!” said her mother defensively. “But it is comforting to know that the school is willing to put aside that much for all of you.”
“And a little extra money never hurt anyone,” her father added.
“So I can stay?”
“If anything happens, you're leaving at once,” said her father. “But yes.”
“Honey, you can't say things like that!” said her mother.
“And,” her father added, “you have to call us more often. How many times did we talk this summer?”
Like twice.
“I don't know. Sorry, how about we talk every Sunday?”
“That will work. Do we have a deal?”
“Oh, really?” Carol asked. She had been expecting her parents to put up much more of a fight. “Um, yeah. Thank you.”
“So now, fill us in! What's been really happening the last few weeks?” her mother asked.
“Um,” said Carol.
She paused, trying to figure out how to put anything to words without making herself look like a reckless idiot. Maybe chronological order would be easiest.
“There's some stuff I can't talk about,” she started.
“Has Rose told you any government secrets?”
“Not really, well, maybe. If she did I wouldn't be able to say. But I meant more like I signed an NDA, which was basically just that I can't tell you who is in the class… and I made a pinky promise, which honestly I'm not sure what exactly it covers. Oh, and one minor… other thing. Don't worry about it.”
“You made a pinky promise with… Rose Statton?”
“Yeah,” she said. “And she hugged me once. It was weird.”
A good read. Not too terribly much happening, but it presumably sets up quite a bit for future chapters. Which I will be eagerly looking forward to, by the way.
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