Outlier: One mistake can destroy everything. (9 page)

As Jay pushed the same broom down the same hall, as he’d done for years, he had a much different attitude. He was smiling to himself. Today was the day. He would be able to do things, and never be caught. Now he no longer wanted to be fired. He wanted to stay here as long as he could, because he could
do
things now.

He could scare people, even hurt people if he wanted to, and nobody would ever know it was him. He looked up, away from the floor, for the first time he could recall. He looked at their faces and smiled as he did so. Those who made eye contact quickly broke it off.
That’s OK,
he thought.
You don’t need to notice me. I notice you. I see you. I am watching you. All of you. I’ll choose one of you, and you’ll never know it’s me.

He pushed the broom like this for several minutes, thinking of his first experiment. His first test. Back at home, he had been able to lift up most things off the table and get them to splash down into the glass. Or at least get them close. Then he was able to tip the glass over. That was easy. Easier than shooting at a target. Just getting stuff to move was simple.

He figured the more he practiced, the heavier things he’d be able to lift up. He let his imagination run wild. Cars. Buses. People. The fun he could have!
Take your time, Jay,
he told himself.
Go slow. You don’t want to hurt yourself. Most important, you don’t want to get caught.
When he was moving small objects around that morning, he had to stare hard at them.

He wanted to be able to glance at something, then only think about it, and make it move. He was smart enough to know that if somebody saw him staring at something while he moved it, they would know it was him. Then they’d think he was a witch or something. Like that girl. Chi. He’d find her and he’d make sure she didn’t tell anybody else.

He kept pushing his broom, picking up the dust and carrying it to his dustbin. Then he emptied the trash cans in the empty rooms like he was supposed to. He checked the bathrooms during class, just like it said in the schedule they made him carry around with him. They didn’t trust him. That’s why they made him swipe his card in all those places, just to prove he was there. If they trusted him, they wouldn’t make him do that. He would get them for that, too. He kept thinking and smiling.

The bell rang, startling him. He was having so much fun watching his mind run wild, he’d lost track of time. The kids came out, chattering, laughing and smiling like they always do. Then he saw her. That girl who thought he was a witch. His anger overcame him. She was standing in front of a locker, talking to her friend.

Her friend was really pretty, which meant she was probably mean—and stupid. All pretty girls were stupid and mean. He kept staring at her friend, not realizing that Chi was watching him. Right when Chi’s pretty friend noticed that Chi had stopped paying attention to her, but before she could turn her head to see what she was staring at, a book was flung from the open locker, hitting her in her pretty face. Smashing her pretty nose. Jay reflexively smiled while the blood started streaming. Chi screamed, pointing at Jay.

“OH MY GOD! Did you see what he did?!”

Nobody saw, but they all heard her cry. And then they saw the blood and understood. The fact that Jay was standing at least three yards from Chi’s bloodied friend made no difference. A group of boys grabbed Jay and pinned him against a set of lockers.

“Somebody call the police! Somebody call 911!” one of them shouted.

Three teachers heard the commotion and rushed outside to see a bloody fifteen-year-old and a janitor being pinned against the wall by four football players.

“I didn’t touch her; I swear! I didn’t touch her! I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do anything!” Jay screamed to anybody who would hear.

Mr. Jimenez took control of the situation. He glared at Chi. “Somebody call 911?” Chi nodded. “Get her to the nurse’s office, NOW!” Then he turned away, addressing the boys.

“Let go of him; let go. Step back, step back. Jay, what happened?” He pushed the boys out of the way and stood between Jay and the four boys, who looked ready to beat Jay to death.

“Nothing. Nothing! I was just sweeping; I don’t know what happened!”

Mr. Jimenez snapped his head back at the boys and said loudly enough so everybody could hear.

“Everybody! Get to class. NOW!”

He then looked back at Jay, keeping hold of his upper arm.

“Come with me and we’ll sort this out,” he said, leading Jay away.

Three minutes later, Jay was in Vice Principal Jackson’s office. Mr. Jimenez had left him with her.

“Don’t worry, Jay; we’ll sort this out,” she said, her voice flat.

She reviewed the security footage three times.

“You said you were standing near them when this happened?” she asked, already knowing the answer. The video had verified Jay’s lack of involvement.

“Yeah, I was just standing there. Somebody punched her or something; I don’t know!”

She reviewed the tape one last time. It made absolutely zero sense.

“OK, Jay, this is what we’re going to do. You need to go home for the rest of the day just to let everybody cool off. You’ll still get paid. It looks like that girl’s nose is broken, so her parents are going to want to know what happened. I’m going to let the police sort this out. Anytime there is an injury on campus, we have to notify the authorities for insurance purposes.”

That last bit wasn’t exactly true, but there was no way she was going to deal with this. How could she?

“So, you mean, go home now?” Jay asked, a little dejected. He wanted to watch the aftermath, but those boys had surprised him.

“Yes, Jay. Go home.” She didn’t smile, just looked at him as he got up and left.

“Mr. Bancroft for Ms. Weismann.”

“One moment, please.”

“Go ahead,” Susan commanded.

“Two new developments. One, subject has demonstrated both increased telekinetic skill and zero reluctance to direct collateral damage,” Bancroft said.

“Excellent. We’d always thought something like that was years away. I hope Diamond can tell us why. And can repeat this. That would be extremely helpful. What else?”

“It seems he’s starting to attract attention. A Detective Lovac searched his home this morning, presumably without a warrant, and Vice Principal Jackson will request police involvement.”

There was a pause.

“I’ll send somebody to keep the detective away from our subject. I’d also like to encourage the subject to proceed as far as he can before eventual termination. We want to let this experiment run as long as possible. The school is a perfect location. An abundance of potential. I want data collected 24/7 while maintaining complete sterility. This is turning out to be very valuable.”

The call ended.

He had eyes at the school and at Jay’s home. Now he had to tail and record him in all other areas. So much for working from his hotel room. He may see some interesting things. So long as he stayed undetected, he’d avoid becoming collateral damage.

He wondered how far Hutchins would get before being terminated.

The chief was puzzled. Sean was out, as were the two other officers. He’d received a call from Vice Principal Jackson about some incident at Rockport-Fulton. She’d sent an email with the incident. He was watching it for the fifth time.

It looked like a regular scene: two girls talking near an open locker. Other kids walking by. It appeared that Jay was indeed staring at the white girl, who was talking to the Asian girl closest to the locker. The Asian girl was sure that Jay had somehow caused this. He watched the book come out of the locker and hit the white girl in the face.
How the fuck did that happen?
He wondered if it was some kind of trick, but he’d called the hospital and verified that the girl had been admitted. Broken nose. Blunt force trauma.

Jay stood in the same place the entire time. Nobody threw the book. It didn’t fall on her; she was at least three feet from the locker. He pulled out his calculator and some scratch paper. He reviewed the recording frame by frame. He counted the frames between seeing the book outside of the locker and hitting her face. Three frames. Most security video was not high quality, likely about 30 frames per second. That meant three frames was one-tenth of a second. One yard in one-tenth of a second. Ten yards a second. What could propel a book out of a locker like that? Spring loaded? The locker was sitting open the whole time. Time release? Who the fuck is going to set up a time-released, spring-loaded device inside a locker?

He watched again. The Asian girl, Chi, appeared to be staring at Jay before the book came flying out. Jay certainly would have access. Would he be that stupid? Good of the V.P. to send him home.

They’d need to inspect the locker soon, question all the kids, and check the last 24 to 48 of the video feed.
Fuck. What a nightmare.
He looked at the victim’s name, called to mind her parents’ occupations. He wondered who they were going to try to sue. The police had better be thorough. Rather, Sean had better be thorough. He could barely stand up, let alone go poking around a goddamn high school.

What the fuck was up with this Jay character all of a sudden?

Friday, 7 p.m.

Sean sat at the back of The Whistler. After leaving Jay’s, he’d driven to San Antonio and killed time. He hadn’t checked in with his chief and hadn’t gotten any priority messages. He sipped his second G&T, passively waiting for Bethany to come on stage. The crowd was already pretty big. There were a few couples, but mostly groups. Maybe Bethany had some regulars. He didn’t really mind one way or another. It would be a good way to get his head away from the high crimes in Rockport.

Bethany didn’t know he was coming. He’d just made a couple of assumptions. He didn’t want her thinking he was trying to start anything. He wondered how long before she realized that. This was new territory for him. He’d checked his phone again, and there were no messages from Dr. Nguyen. He’d left a couple messages earlier asking about BioGyn and LoZiet. He was pretty sure that these types of studies were kept pretty close to the chest due to the proprietary formula. He’d swing by Jay’s house tomorrow morning if he was up early enough, but more likely Saturday afternoon. He was pretty certain Jay only worked a half day this coming Saturday. Ideally, he’d want information from Nguyen about LoZiet, so he could slip that into the conversation with Jay.

He did get a message from the mayor, Winnie Rodriquez. She wanted to talk to him. Likely offer her official condolences. They didn’t really speak much in any official capacity—at least not after university. They had been a lot closer when Sean was younger, before he went away. He’d get back to her after the weekend.

He smiled in Bethany’s direction when she came on stage; this time, she had a full band behind her. They were all wired up. Keyboard player, drummer, bass player, the whole works. Because the lights were a bit brighter, he watched them play for a full ninety minutes before she recognized him. He was halfway through his fourth G&T when she noticed him. Shortly after their set, she ran up and threw her arms around him.

“Why don’t you call before you come over? You don’t have to sit all the way back here!” she said, pressing her breasts against him.

“I don’t want to be a bother,” he said, shrugging off her concern. She pulled back, looking at him for a beat.

“Slow down, tiger!” she playfully admonished, judging his intoxication level. “Or at least let me catch up with you!”

He sipped his fourth, then drank a fifth while she did a few shots and drank a draft. At closing time, they stumbled to a cab and headed for her place.

No way I’m going to make Jay’s before he leaves
, Sean vaguely thought to himself. He also wondered how deep he was going to get with Bethany, and how he was going to get out when he needed to.