We park in a Costco lot in Sunset Park.

According to Google Maps, the place where they’re keeping Mira is an industrial warehouse. What these guys are doing so far from Brighton Beach, none of us have a clue. Brighton Beach is where the Russian Mafia is supposed to be headquartered, according to Eugene. I hope that this actually plays to our advantage. If they do call for reinforcements, it’s a twenty-minute drive without traffic, according to Julia’s phone. Of course, that assumes the reinforcements are on Brighton Beach, and—this is a big one—that they’re going to need reinforcements against the four of us.

Caleb jumps out of his seat and starts rummaging through the trunk of the Hummer.

“Are we shopping for supplies?” I ask, looking in the direction of the huge store. I’m only half-joking.

“I have everything I need,” Julia says, hanging a messenger bag over her shoulder.

“They don’t sell the type of stuff I need in Costco,” Caleb responds, putting what has to be a rifle in a special carry case over his shoulder. “At least not in New York.”

He puts on a vest with special pockets and straps the huge knife I saw previously to it, along with a couple of handguns.

“This is for you,” Caleb says, handing me a gun.

The seriousness of the situation hits me again. We’re going against armed criminals. Just the four of us. A scientist, a girl whose toughness I haven’t fully determined yet, and, let’s face it, a financial analyst. Caleb is the only person even remotely qualified for this rescue. Despite his unshakable confidence, the odds don’t seem right to me.

Not to mention, the people holding Mira have an ace up their sleeve: a hostage.

All we have is our unusual skill set.

Caleb clearly has a plan, though. He leads us to an abandoned warehouse located a short distance from where we parked.

We walk up to the top floor, and Caleb methodically unzips his gun case and starts setting up. The gun is huge and looks very professional—complete with scope and silencer. I wonder if this is what he used to gun down our pursuers earlier. Eugene and Julia, who have been silent for some time, exchange impressed looks. Eugene seems grimly determined, while Julia looks thoughtful.

I gaze around the room we’ve found ourselves in. It’s dusty and dark, despite large, floor-to-ceiling windows—probably because said windows are yellow and covered with grime. Caleb opens one of those windows, lies down on the floor, and aims the huge gun at the industrial warehouse across the street. Then he says curtly, “All right, Darren, pull us in.”

I leverage my natural anxiety over what’s about to happen and quickly phase into the Quiet. Then I touch everyone in turn, pulling them in.

Once we’re all in, we walk down the stairs and cross the road. This part of Brooklyn is so abandoned that being in the Quiet doesn’t seem like much of a change. At least not until we cross the road, and Caleb breaks the door with a series of kicks. Even in a scarcely populated area like this, such bold breaking and entering might’ve gotten us noticed and reported, if it took place in the real world.

“You know, I could’ve picked that lock,” Julia says, looking at what’s left of the door on the ground.

“You’ll get your chance,” Caleb tells her as he walks into the building.

We walk through the door and find ourselves in a large open space. There are a bunch of guys frozen in the process of walking around. They all have guns. Caleb walks between the guys and the windows, looking intently at the building we came from.

His plan is beginning to dawn on me.

He’s figuring out how to shoot them from our location across the street. He’s triangulating his shots; as soon as we phase back out, he’ll shoot.

I’ll have to remember to never piss off Caleb.

“Where’s Mira?” Eugene asks after examining the hangar.

“Try Reading them,” Caleb says without turning. “We need to figure that out, because once we get back to the real world, the information will be lost.”

Right. Because you can’t Read dead men. A chill skitters across my spine. Caleb is too calm about it. Too poised. His coldness makes me uneasy. I wonder if I, personally, am capable of killing. Even if it’s an enemy. Even in self-defense. I don’t know, and I hope I don’t find out today.

For my Reading target, I choose a big guy near one of the columns. He must be on steroids or growth hormones—or both. Though he’s my height, he must be at least two hundred pounds heavier than I am. Being that he’s Russian, I wonder if he’s trying to look like a bear. He’s closer to a gorilla. I catch myself hoping that Caleb doesn’t miss this specific dude with his rifle. We wouldn’t want to face him in anything but a gunfight.

Putting my hand on his gigantic forehead, I jump in a few hours ago.

We see Mira playing cards with Vasiliy. There is one other guy in the room with her.

“Na huy ti s ney igrayesh?” we say. As usual I, Darren, marvel at understanding this. He, Lenya, was asking a question about why his idiot bro is playing cards with the hostage. Playing cards with a girl who is a renowned card cheat.

He, Lenya, is picturing what he would do with the hostage. We see images of Mira tied up and abused. I, Darren, distance myself almost instantly and nearly puke—though this is not easy to do in my current position. Can you vomit mentally? This almost makes me want to jump out of this asshole’s head, it’s so sick. I also feel an instinctive need to protect Mira from ever coming near this guy. I feel dirty. The best way to describe the experience is it’s as if I’m dreaming of being this scumbag. I am rethinking my earlier squeamishness toward killing.

I shouldn’t jump out, however, as he’s about to give me key information. I try to focus on what the guy’s body is experiencing—an ache from yesterday’s workout, soreness in the knuckles from punching someone, anything except those sick rape fantasies. This approach is flawed, though, because focusing on his body makes me realize he’s getting turned on from these disgusting thoughts. Thankfully, before I’m forced out of his head from sheer horror, he refocuses on what he should be doing. And that is locking the door in front of him from the outside.

We lock the door, mentally praising Tolik, who is also in the room. At least he has his gun next to him, and isn’t letting the bitch distract him. He also forbade untying her legs from the chair. Tolik will keep Vasiliy in check.

We walk out into the corridor and through a maze of concrete hallways until we reach the stairs. Then we go down to the main hall, where the rest of the guards are.

I, Darren, now know where Mira is being held.

I almost jump out, but I decide to try to go even deeper. I want to know who told this guy to lock the door from the outside. That’s very specific. Whoever came up with that could’ve been trying to limit Mira’s range of motion in the Quiet—and thus might be the Pusher fuck behind all this.

I jump further.

We’re sitting in a banya. I, Darren, learn that a banya is a Russian spa—a bit like a sauna, but much hotter. Given how we, I mean he, feels when in there, it sounds like something I should check out.

I go further still, jumping around scenes from this goon’s life.

Aha.

“Keep those doors closed,” Piotr says. We look at Piotr and wonder who the fuck he is to be giving orders around here.

I, Darren, realize with disappointment that Piotr is another Russian I saw in the very room we’re in now.

I jump out of Lenya’s head.

“Darren, let’s go,” Caleb says as soon as I’m conscious of being myself again.

“Give me a minute,” I respond. “I need to check that guy.” I point at Piotr, sitting at a desk.

“Hurry,” Caleb says.

I walk up to the guy. He looks a tiny bit more intelligent than the one whose mind I was in a moment ago. I place my hand on his forehead.

I’m in, but I don’t know where to start. Intuitively I jump around scenes from this guy’s life until I find it.

We’re watching boxing on TV when another mind enters. Time stops; now there are more of us in his head.

I understand that the guy himself wouldn’t have felt the Pusher enter his mind. Apparently people don’t consciously notice either us or them when we do our thing. But I am very much aware of it. It’s like a ghostly presence. And as I keep Reading, the Pusher begins to give instructions.

‘Instructions’ is a poor word for it, but I can’t think of a better one. In reality, they’re almost like experiences the Pusher inserts into the guy’s mind. Like the reverse of Reading. The Pusher inserts experiences and reactions to them. How this will ensure the guy does what he’s supposed to, I don’t know, but it must work. To me, it feels a little bit like a very detailed story of what Piotr should experience when the time is right.

The experience in this case is pretty simple. ‘Pick up the phone’ is the first step. The Pusher seems to almost play out a fake memory for his target. Every detail of how it would be to pick up the phone is considered: which hand, the weight of the phone in his hand, and so on.

Next comes the instruction: ‘Text all the trusted people with a request to meet at Tatyana Restaurant in an hour.’

Finally, Piotr is instructed to get up and go there himself.

After that, the Pusher’s presence disappears. Based purely on the person’s presence in this mind, I can’t tell whether it was male or female. To my disappointment, whoever it was never came into physical contact with Piotr.

I Read Piotr’s mind a little longer. I’m curious what he’ll recall of the Pusher influence. As I expected, he remembers nothing. He arrives at the restaurant, slightly amused. Isn’t it strange how sometimes you drive someplace, but don’t even remember the driving process? he thinks.

It seems like the Pusher’s influence has caused a mild memory lapse in the target’s mind, but overall Piotr acts as though of his own volition. It’s interesting to watch how he rationalizes his actions as happening of his own choosing and his memory lapse as one of those times when the conscious mind goes on autopilot and the subconscious takes over. The illusion of free will at its finest. It comes to me all over again how dangerous these Pushers are. Whatever they need done, all they need to do is plant the seed in someone’s mind.

Mind-rape, Eugene called it. Now I understand why.

Knowing I won’t get any more than this, I decide to jump out of Piotr’s mind. People are waiting for me.

When I’m conscious again, Caleb is standing next to me looking like he’s about to say something snide. I just head for the exit, explaining where Mira is as I move. The group follows.

“That’s perfect,” Caleb says when I finish my explanation. “If they’re that far inside the building, they definitely won’t hear my shots.”

“Did any one of you Read a guy whose name was Arkady in there?” I ask. No one responds, so I assume they haven’t.

We return to the room across the street, on the top floor near the window. Our frozen bodies are hunched near Caleb, who’s lying on the floor with his eye to the scope of his rifle. I touch my forehead.

As soon as the phase-out process is complete, Caleb fires the first shot.

Then another.

Then another.

I lose count of the shots, as I’m more focused on plugging my ears. In the movies, silencers work much better than in real life. Despite the elongated device on the end of the barrel of Caleb’s rifle, the noise is deafening in this room. I hope the area is abandoned enough that no one hears the shots—or if they do and call the cops, we’re out of here before they arrive.

His shooting done, Caleb pushes off the floor to a standing position.

“Now things should go more smoothly in there,” he says, picking up his gun. Wiping down his prints, he leaves the rifle behind and heads for the stairs.

We follow him all the way down to the ground level of the building we’ve just fired the shots from.

“Darren, take us into the Mind Dimension again,” Caleb orders before we exit to the street. “We need to assess the situation.”

“Okay, Sergeant,” Julia says sarcastically. “Before we go running around again, can you please tell us the plan?”

“The plan will become clearer after we reconnoiter,” Caleb says curtly. “The only thing I can tell you now is that with two armed guards in the room with Mira, stealth is of utmost importance. If I were them, I’d shoot the hostage as soon as I caught wind that some shit was going down.”

Eugene looks pale, and a shudder runs through me. Without further ado, I phase into the Quiet once again and get everyone to join me.

We cross the street. I’m getting a sense of déjà vu. The door is locked again, which of course makes sense, but is no less annoying.

“Now you can practice picking the lock,” Caleb says to Julia. “We want to be in as quickly as we can.”

She goes inside her messenger bag and takes out what I assume are the instruments of a professional burglar. I wonder where she learned to do this. Her people seem too ritzy for thieving.

She struggles with the door for only a minute before we’re in.

“Will you be able to do this faster when we actually get here?” Caleb asks.

“Yes. I can get it down to twenty seconds,” she says.

We enter the hangar we inspected before. Though I’m not surprised by what I see, my gag reflex kicks in, and I barely hold back vomit.

They’re all dead. Shot in the head, every single one of them. There’s blood, lots of blood everywhere. Though it’s my second time seeing a scene like this today, it’s not in any way less disturbing.

Julia looks green too, making me feel a bit better about my own sorry state.

Caleb steps over the bodies in his way and just waltzes to the stairs. We gingerly follow, trying to keep our eyes off the dead people.

After a few flights of stairs, we reach a floor that appears to be the one we’re searching for. We follow Caleb into the maze of corridors, which, according to Lenya’s—the disgusting gorilla’s—memories, leads to the room where Mira is held.

There’s a guy standing with his back to us at a bend in the corridor, looking toward the door. Another is standing by the door, looking at the hallway. This means there’s no way for Mira to come out of the room, nor for us to turn the corner without one of these men raising an alarm. Not good.

“Okay,” Caleb says. “We’ll need to take these two guards out. Darren, Eugene, this one is yours,” he says, pointing at the guy with his back toward us.

“Ours?” Eugene appears confused.

“You need to overpower him,” Caleb explains with a sharp smile. “Silently, so the two guards with Mira don’t hear us coming.”

Caleb is enjoying this, I realize. Eugene must’ve acted arrogantly toward him in the past, or maybe Caleb is just a sadistic prick. Whatever the case, Caleb is clearly trying to shock the guy. Or is it my buttons he’s trying to push?

“I can turn the corner and quickly grab the guy. When he can’t move, you stab him,” I propose, looking at Eugene.

“Good plan,” Caleb says, glancing at me with approval. “I have some extra knives for you gentlemen.”

Eugene doesn’t seem as hesitant as I would expect at the prospect of stabbing someone. Have I misjudged him? After all, just because someone is a little geeky doesn’t mean he can’t be tough. Or score a hottie like Julia, I remind myself.

“What are you going to do?” Julia challenges Caleb.

“I’ll take care of that one,” Caleb responds, nodding toward the guy facing us.

“Wait—won’t he shoot you as soon as you turn this corner?” Eugene asks. I know he’s walking into some sort of smart-ass remark from Caleb.

Instead of answering, Caleb walks back into the hall leading to this turn. Then he pointedly turns the corner. In a blur of motion, the knife is in his hand; the next moment, after a lightning-fast throw, it’s in the second guy’s chest.

Show-off.

“Any more questions?” Caleb asks. No one responds. “In that case, Julia, see how fast and how quietly you can pick that lock.”

Julia takes out her tools and does her thing. It takes her about a minute.

“That won’t work,” Caleb says when she’s done. “But we’ll get back to that in a moment.”

Without waiting for an invitation, we all barge into the room.

The room still looks like I remember it. Or more accurately, how the now-dead Lenya—the gorilla—remembered it.

It was originally meant to be some kind of storage room. There are no windows, and the walls are painted a dull white color. In some places, the paint is chipping away.

Just like in the memory I obtained, there’s a guy with a gun near him, though now he seems to be playing with his phone. It’s a little odd, since his phone has a pink case. Just like before, there is Mira, tied to the chair, playing cards with another guard. Only unlike before, they’re all frozen in the midst of their activities.

I walk up to Mira and touch her forehead.

As soon as she phases in, her eyes look like they’re about to jump out of their sockets. She has an expression on her face I don’t recognize. Then I get it—I’ve never seen her this genuinely happy to see me before. Her eyes scan the room, and she sees Eugene. Her face lights up.

“You did it,” she says, turning toward me, and I hear the joy and disbelief in her voice. “You saved him. I don’t know how I can thank you.”

“I said I would,” I say, trying not to think of all the ways I’d want Mira to express her gratitude. For the first time in my life, I understand the motivations of those hero types. For a fleeting moment, I feel like I really did something important. Something impressive. It’s a great feeling.

“But what are you doing here?” she says, her expression changing as she fully registers the situation.

“What does it look like?” Caleb says. “We’re rescuing you.”

“In that case, why did you bring Eugene?” She looks at me like I’m an idiot, and all my heroic feelings deflate. Like I could’ve stopped a brother from trying to save his little sister?

“It’s too dangerous,” she says, turning toward Eugene. “You shouldn’t have come.” She looks from Caleb to Julia to me. Then at the corridor through the open door. “This is all of you?” she asks, her shoulders slumping.

“It’s going to be enough,” Caleb says.

She shakes her head. “This is going to be impossible.” She doesn’t wait for anyone to respond before she walks out of the room. She must not realize that we—well, Caleb—already took out the lion’s share of her captors.

“As friendly as ever,” Caleb says, giving me a wink. “Julia, go out and then lock and unlock this door again. Try to do it quicker and quieter this time.”

We stay in the room to judge Julia’s work. After the initial click of the lock, the rest of the stuff she does is pretty subtle, but still audible if you know what to listen for. She seems to finish faster this time.

Caleb waves at us to follow him and walks out of the room—to follow Mira, I presume.

“Do it ten more times,” he says to Julia on the way out.

The three of us try to find Mira. We walk a couple of floors up. Everything seems abandoned. We find Mira on the seventh floor, punching the wall in frustration.

“What is it?” Eugene asks her.

“That fuck isn’t here,” she says, punching the wall again.

“Who?” Eugene says.

“The Pusher. The one behind all this. That chicken shit’s not here. That was my main hope, the only silver lining to this. I thought he’d be overseeing the whole thing.”

“I Read a mind earlier,” I say. “The Pusher who influenced that mind was very careful to avoid revealing himself to his target.”

“Then this is pointless. You guys should go back and wait. Maybe he’ll show up eventually,” she says.

“That’s not happening,” Caleb says, standing between her and the wall she’s been punching. “Here is what is happening. You’ll try to be as loud as possible as soon as you hear any funny sounds coming from outside your door. Talk loudly, ask questions—or even better, fall from your chair. That would distract them and get you out of harm’s way.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t try to teach a fish how to swim,” she mutters. Then she takes a deep breath and glances at Eugene before turning her attention back to Caleb. “Look, even with those dead bodies I just saw downstairs, busting in here is going to be dangerous,” she says in a more even tone. “Promise me that Eugene won’t take part in this. They took me to smoke him out in the first place, so if you bring him, you’ll be playing right into their hands.”

“Yes, so he told us. We have a deal,” Caleb says before Eugene starts protesting. “I won’t force Eugene to come with us.”

Mira gives him a disbelieving look, but seems a bit calmer as we make our way back to the room. I get the feeling that there’s definite history between Mira and Caleb. I don’t like it, not one bit. Though it can’t be romantic, can it? He’s a little too old for her, and he called her ‘kid.’ Maybe it’s a bond between two kindred, sarcastic, pain-in-the-ass spirits?

When we rejoin her, Julia is still diligently practicing unlocking that lock.

Upon Caleb’s request, she does a final run, which is extremely quick. She’s way faster and much quieter than she was before. For the first time, I’m beginning to think we can pull this off.

“So what’s the exact plan?” I ask.

“While Julia works on the door, Mira falls on the floor with her chair. Then I shoot these two,” Caleb says, pointing his index finger in a gun motion at the two frozen guards.

“I’m not sure I can fall like that,” Mira says, looking at her frozen self. Her hands are free, but her legs are duct-taped to her chair.

“We’ll just have to practice that part as well,” Caleb says, his eyes crinkling in the corners. I get the feeling he’s going to enjoy this part, too.

“You want to tie me to a chair so I practice falling?” Mira says. She doesn’t look happy.

“Exactly.” Caleb grins. “See, Eugene, you’re not the smartest one in the family.”

Eugene and I free the frozen Mira from the chair and place her limp body gently in the corner of the room. I accidentally touch her exposed skin, but nothing happens. I guess once we pulled one Mira into the Quiet, touching her frozen self doesn’t produce more Miras. It would have been kind of cool if it did.

Mira sits down in the chair and, muttering something in Russian under her breath, grudgingly allows us to tape up her legs with the duct tape her guards left lying around. She’s now set up exactly as her frozen self was a few minutes ago.

She leans her body to the right, but the chair doesn’t fall. She shakes it back and forth, and slowly, almost grudgingly, the chair falls over.

“Are you okay, sis?” Eugene asks her.

“Yes. Pick me up,” she says, trying to push herself off the floor. Her position looks extremely uncomfortable.

“That was too slow,” Caleb says. “Try again.”

I get up and walk over to a dingy couch standing in the furthest corner of the room. I take the cushions from it, and lay them on either side of Mira. No point for this to hurt more than it already must.

“Thanks, Darren,” she says before she begins shaking the chair again.

The cushions help, but it’s clearly an unpleasant practice. She does it again and again over the course of about twenty minutes. We try to give tips—which are usually met with disdain.

Eventually Caleb decides she won’t be able to improve further.

About five seconds to fall over is the best she can do.

“We need a different strategy to distract them,” I say. “Besides falling, I think you should also start yelling. Scream ‘mouse’ or ‘spider’ at the critical moment and start waving your arms, acting like you’re freaking out right before you fall.”

Julia chuckles. Mira gives me a deadly glare. Caleb is about to say something, but Eugene shakes his head at him behind Mira’s back. He must actually think it’s a good idea.

“Just do it, sis,” Eugene tells Mira. “It won’t be the first time. Remember when you jumped on the table—”

“Don’t say another fucking word,” Mira interrupts him. “I’ll do it.”

And before her brother has a chance to say anything more, she quickly walks up to her own frozen body—which is now lying on the floor—and touches that version of herself on the cheek. That makes her phase out, and she’s no longer in our company.

Only the Mira on the floor remains.

“But I was about to ask her to practice the new strategy,” Caleb says with visible disappointment.

I can’t help myself. I burst out laughing.

“This is a pretty serious situation, guys,” Eugene says, but I can tell he’s trying his best to suppress a smile. Despite the danger we’re in—or maybe because of it—everyone finds the idea of Mira freaking out like that hilarious. Then again, Eugene implied that she’s acted like this before. Maybe when she was little? It’s hard to picture it now. I wish I could Read Eugene’s or Mira’s mind.

We exit the room. Caleb holds the door for everyone, making me wonder why he’s being such a gentlemen all of a sudden. As soon as we’re all out of the room, I find out.

He’s decided to do a little practice on his own.

All I hear is a quiet rustling of clothing, and the next moment Caleb is holding two guns, one in each hand. Two shots fire at the same time. Two men in the room each have a bullet in their head.

I begin to feel even more confident about the success of this mission.

We walk back to our bodies and phase out.

“Any last words?” Caleb says to us all.

“I’m coming with you,” Eugene says, his voice filled with determination.

“Of course,” Caleb says. “I said I wouldn’t force you. But if you volunteer, well, that’s a different matter.” He hands Eugene a knife. "You’re in charge of stabbing the