Chapter 8

Dallas followed the others into Tristan’s office. The other young man had taken Tristan’s leather chair, leaving the two wooden chairs for the five of them.

 “I don’t usually have so many people in here,” Tristan said, “We may need to find a new meeting spot now that we’re more people.”

“I think I’ll just stand,” Ara said, “It’s probably more comfortable than sitting in those chairs anyways.” He walked over to the far side of the room, and leaned casually against the window. Dallas joined him, remembering how uncomfortable the chairs had been during his last visit.

Paolo and the other girl eventually took the two chairs, leaving Tristan standing against his desk.

“So,” Ara said, “My name is Ara. That’s Tristan,” He gestured to Dr. Davies, “And that’s Andor.” He gestured to the purple haired man sitting at Tristan’s desk. “Just in case anyone didn’t know. Now, you’re probably wondering why we’ve worked so hard to bring you all together.”

“You know, they’re probably not,” Andor said, “There’s literally one person in this room who can’t read minds and he knows exactly why he’s here.”

Ara glared at him. “What my friends and I have been trying to figure out,” He continued, “Is why we can do the thing that can do? Why us, and not some other person? We’re hoping that by having more of us here, we’ll be able to figure out some answers. We’re working in a limited time frame. We have three weeks until Kaitlyn has to go back home,” He nodded towards the Chinese girl, “Maybe more, if we can work out an arrangement where she can stay longer.”

Dallas was hanging on to Ara’s every word. It was almost surreal to finally see the man who had been talking to him in his mind in real life. He felt more at peace knowing that there were more people like him. It was hard to believe that only last week he was questioning his own sanity. He felt much better knowing that he wasn’t going insane. Ara was very real, and there were five other people who could back that up.

“But anyways,” Ara continued, “We’re here now, so we may as well get started. Basically, we have some theories as to why this may be happening. Hopefully, now that there’s more of us, we’ll be able to look at thing more closely and figure this out once and for all.” He looked to Tristan and the other man, who now had his feet up on the desk. “Did we cover everything?” Ara asked.

“No,” Tristan said, “The rules.”

“There’s not a lot,” Ara said, “But we do have one main one. All that we ask of you, is that you keep a low profile. We have reason to believe that there are people who want to hurt us. Even if we’re wrong about that, who knows what would happen to us if people found out about what we can do? It’s not asking much, so we’re hoping that you’ll all be able to comply. Basically, just don’t do anything that would raise suspicion, or don’t tell anyone about what we can do.”

“Unless you want the government to come and kidnap you in the middle of the night so that they can dissect your brain,” Andor said, “You know, for science, or whatever.”

Dallas looked him, wide eyed. The sentence came out of his mouth so effortlessly, it made Dallas wonder how many times Andor  had actually thought about that. It was strange to think of it now, but Dallas had never really thought about what would happen if he exposed his powers. It never occurred to him how serious the repercussions could be.

Ara sighed. “No one is getting kidnapped by the government,” He said, “And especially no one is getting their brains dissected for scientific reasons.”

“As long as you obey the rule,” Andor whispered ominously.

Ara pointed at him. “Your imagination is almost too active for your own good,” He said firmly, “You need to stop watching those conspiracy theory videos on YouTube.”

“What do you think would happen if anyone were to find out?” Paolo asked, “Do you think that maybe they would kidnap us?”

“You know,” Ara said, “No one here really knows. And do you know why? Because none of us have tried to find out. If you don’t mind, we’d like to keep it that way.”

“They’ve looked at a few possibilities of what might happen,” Tristan said, “None of them are really that good.”

“Think of it like this,” Andor said, “Society can barely handle two dudes holding hands in public. What are they going to think of five people who can lift cars with their mind?”

“That’s actually a really good point,” Ara said, “Anyways, I think we’ve covered everything for now. Unless there’s anything that anyone wants to add.”

“I think we’ve covered the basics,” Tristan said, “If we think of anything else, we can just bring it up next time.”

“Speaking of next time,” Ara said, “I think we should try to meet more frequently than once a week. Hopefully we can all find a time that works between now and next Saturday. I’ll keep you all updated. Also, I’m thinking that maybe we should meet somewhere that isn’t Tristan’s office.”

“You’ll keep up updated on that too though, right?” Andor said.

“I’ll try,” Ara said, “But for now, just try to remember everything we’ve talked about. I don’t want to hear any news reports about the government dissecting people’s brains for science.”