The Thought Readers by Dima Zales Read Free Book Online

answer.
    “I ’ m a friend of Mira’s,”I add. And it’s only when the words leave my mouth that I recall that she lives here under a different name. Ilona or something.
    Before I can kick myself for the slip, the door swings open. A guy who appears to be a few years older than me stands there looking at me with tired, glassy eyes.
    It takes a moment for me to notice one problem. No, make that one huge problem.
    The guy is holding a gun.
    A gun that looks bigger than his head.
    The fear that slams my system is debilitating. I ’ ve never been threatened with a gun before. At least, not directly like this. Sure, the bouncers in Atlantic City had guns, but they weren’t aiming them in my direction at point-blank range. I never imagined it would be this frightening.
    I phase into the Quiet, almost involuntarily.
    Now that I ’ m looking at my frozen self with a gun to his/my face, the panic is diluted. I ’ m still worried, though, since I am facing the gun in the real world.
    I take a deep breath. I need to figure out my plan of action.
    I look at the shooter.
    He’s tall, skinny. He’s wearing glasses and a white coat with a red stain on it.
    The white coat looks odd—and is that red spot blood, or something else? Questions race through my mind. Who is he? What is he doing in there that requires a gun? Is he cooking meth? It is Brooklyn after all.
    At the same time, I can’t shake the feeling that the guy does not look like an average street criminal. There is keen intelligence in his eyes. His uncombed hair and the pens and ruler in the pocket of his white coat paint a strange picture. He almost looks like a scientist — albeit on the mad side.
    Of course, that does not rule out the drug angle. He could be like the character on that show about a teacher who cooks meth. Although, come to think of it, that same show made it clear that you don’t do that in an apartment building. The smell is too strong to keep the operation hidden, or something like that.
    Now that I’ve had some time to calm down in the Quiet, I get bolder. I begin to wonder if the gun is real. Or maybe I’m just hoping it ’ s fake. Gathering my courage, I reach out to take it from the guy’s hand.
    When my fingers touch his, something strange happens. Or stranger, rather.
    There are now two of him.
    I look at the picture, and my jaw proverbially drops.
    There is a second guy in the white coat, right there, and this one is moving. I’m so unaccustomed to the idea of people moving while I’m in the Quiet that I lose my ability to think, so I just stand there and gape at him.
    The guy looks at me with an expression that’s hard to read, a mixture of excitement and fear. As if I were a bear standing in the middle of a Brooklyn apartment building hall.
    “Who are you?” he breathes, staring at me.
    “I’m Darren,” I repeat my earlier introduction, trying to conceal my shock.
    “Are you a Reader, Darren?” the guy asks, recovering some of his composure. “Because if you’re a Pusher, I will unload that gun in your face as soon as we Universe Split, or Astral Project, or Dimension Shift, or whatever it is you people call it. As soon as we’re back to our bodies, you’re dead, Pusher.”
    He has an unusual accent—Russian, I think. That reminds me of Bert’s theory that Mira is a spy. Maybe he was right. Maybe she travels with a whole gang of Russian spies.
    I only understand one thing about what the Russian guy is saying: he knows that I’m at his mercy when we get back. That means that he, like me, understands how the Quiet works.
    The terms he’s using sort of make sense to me. All except ‘Reader’ and ‘Pusher.’ I know that even if I were this ‘Pusher,’ I wouldn’t want to admit it and get shot. He probably realizes that as well.
    “I am sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I admit. “I don’t know what a Reader or a Pusher is.”
    “Right,” the guy sneers. “And you’re not aware of our