Open Minds

Lexi liked her phone as an alarm clock. It woke her at eight every morning with birdsong, just lively enough to keep her up. When she hit the button and did her morning business, it shut up. When she hit the button and continued to sleep for a while, it shut up. It did not yell or hit back.

She did not, however, like Diana Mocoras as an alarm clock. Diana, as opposed to lively birdsong, pounded on Lexi’s door, yelled, opened it, and rolled her out of bed. Oh, and yelled some more.

“Get up, Bitchlet, there’s a job for you,” Diana snapped. “Some mission from… Pule.” She whispered the old man’s name and sneered at Lexi.

Lexi patted her bedside table, looking for her contacts case. “No time. It’s urgent.” Diana delicately picked up a pair of rectangular glasses and placed them on Lexi’s unwashed, un made-up, freckled face. “Lets go,” she snapped. As the two walked down the many flights of stairs to get to the Centre Room, Diana explained the mission. Kind of. “Someone submitted a report of a big Tipped after some Spig over in Oregon. Pule and your special brother and his special girlfriend want the world’s most mediocre child on the case, I guess.” Diana sneered and flipped her perfect black hair. Lexi tugged her own, which was curly, brown, and short, self consciously.

Diana and Lexi trotted into the Centre Room. It was big, an entire floor of a Seattle Skyscraper, full of cubicles and rows leading to an open space in the middle. There, an old man by the name of Dr. Pule, pale and bald stood supported by a silver cane. Beside him were two taller, younger individuals. One was Lexi’s half-brother, Cambridge. He was thin and blond, with rectangular lenses and a know-it-all air about him. He failed to notice Lexi and her companion, being deep in conversation with Dr. Pule. The other was the leader of Lexi’s regiment and Cambridge’s girlfriend of long standing, Allison Haunch. She was of average height, black, and generous in her feminine traits. Her enormous afro was loose today, out of its usual cornrows or headband.

“Lexi!” She smiled. “You’re finally here! I assume Diana told you everything?” Diana shuffled awkwardly. “We were busy. With stairs. No time.”

Allison frowned and Cambridge looked up from his conversation. “What?” They said in unison. “All that time and…?” “You took the stairs and…?” Allison massaged her temples. “Diana, just go. We can forget this, just go.” Diana blanched. “But I thought I might-”

Allison glared at her, face suddenly forbidding, like a librarian who’s caught you yelling. “Diana...” She warned. Diana left without dwadling.

Lexi watched Diana leave and turned back towards Allison and her still conversing companions. “What’s the mission?” She asked, eager to be out working again for the first time in months. Lexi had come to SAEPTA’s headquarters in Seattle at only six, and been entered into the mission pool at ten. Now nearly fourteen, Lexi still didn’t have a team to work with like almost everyone else. She hoped that doing missions as well as possible might win her that privilege. Lexi was a Finder, her ability was to see and feel energy from spirits and projections. This meant she would be an essential part of any basic team, if only she had one.

“In a town outside Portland, some powerful Projection is being tailed by a Tipped. All we need is for the Projection to be kept safe and brought to the Portland building. Remember: This mission does not need any violence towards the spirit, but it looks powerful, so...” Allison trailed off, waiting for Lexi to catch her drift.

“A team!” Lexi squealed.

Allison frowned. “No, Hon, not yet. You can choose two types of Projections to take with you though, temporarily.” Lexi wilted visibly. “Well,” Allison said, leaning in conspiratorially, “If you can do this well, I’ll pull some strings and get you a small team as soon as possible.” She straightened and continued, “So, this is just a reconnaissance mission. You’ll want...”

Lexi smiled confidently. “A Cancel, easy. And Cambridge for a Port. The Cancel can neutralize the Tipped, and the Port can get us all out ASAP. I’ll find the Spig-I mean Projection and the Tipped.” Allison shook her head. “Lexi, if I’m gonna make this a test mission to get you something big like a team, I can’t let you have any cheats or the easy way out. Also, all of the Cancels are busy.” She glanced at her clipboard. “I can get you a Port, not your brother. He’s a Flier, and his name it Taylor Davis, he’s about your age, and his team...” She hesitated . “He doesn’t have one. The important part it he’s a flier, he’s free, and I think you’ll take him, so he’s in the van already. ”

Lexi tilted her head to one side. “Wow, uh, thanks, Alli, I’ll take him.”

“Perfect,” Said Dr. Pule, looking up for the first time from the readings he and Cambridge had been discussing. “Now, my little mouse, I have the last person ready for you. Miss Haunch will be your Mechanic and make weapons for you soldiers to make up for your lack or fighting powers.” He waved his cane at Allison and turned back to Cambridge. “Now, when we last checked...” He and Cambridge relapse into muttering and pointing and their computers.

Lexi gaped at Allison. “I thought you were a Florai? Why did Pule-Dr. Pule say Mech?” Cambridge looked up again and pushed up his glasses. “She is a Florai, but she wants to expand her area of expertise as Regiment Major.”

She nodded. “Right-oh. I just want to try something new.” She swept her hand towards the door Lexi and Diana had entered. “If we may, Taylor and Mr. M and the van are waiting in the garage across the street.”

The van was not a van. It was a trailer hooked up to blue Civic. The trailer and backseat of the car were cleared out of trailer-y-type things and full instead of screens, equipment, a mechanics table, tools, and two leather benches. Lexi plopped down on one in the trailer and looked at the boy on the one opposite as the car started. He was tallish, thin, and his hair was probably brown, but at the moment it was fading-hair-dye blue. He grinned at her like a little kid.

“Miss Alexis! Hi, thanks so much for having me! Are you really related to Gary Cambridge? Did Dr. Pule really take care of you personally when he found you?” He gushed. His accent was subtle and hard to place. He kept talking and sparkling and pulling at his bowtie and kicking his sneakers like a little kid. Lexi looked over at Allison, at her table. “This is him?”

Allison nodded. When he’d quieted down and sat staring wide-eyed at the two of them, she said, “Yeah, Hon, this is Taylor. He came to SAEPTA at a young age too, only he was in Canada. Ontario, I think. They transferred him here a month or so ago.” The trailer lapsed into silence as the driver navigated his way out of Seattle. Lexi picked up a book on Lihe signature recognition, Taylor got out his phone and began texting excitedly, Allison worked on something on her table.

Somewhere just after Puyallup, Allison got up and walked to the front of a trailer. She pushed a button on the largest screen on the wall. It powered on and showed the man driving. He was wearing a dark suit and bowler hat, and you couldn’t see his eyes. Allison held a machine like a walkie-talkie wired to the screen to her mouth.

“Mr. M, where are we?”

The man spoke in a slow, deep, rich voice. “One quarter of the way there, Miss Haunch.”

“Thank you, Mr. M,” she said and turned the screen off again. She sat back down and continued her work.

Nearly another hour passed uneventfully.

In a little town called Eatonville, they stopped for gas and Taylor switched seats to beside Lexi. It was just past nine in the morning. He was no longer texting, he was, instead, reading a comic featuring a large, red dragon. Lexi fell asleep.

Someone shook her awake and poked a Subway sandwich under her nose. “Wake up, Miss Alexis,” stage whispered Taylor. “We’re crossing the Columbia and Miss Allison was withholding sandwiches.”

“Lexi, please,” mumbled Lexi, taking the sandwich. She scooted to face Allison. “Are we almost there?”

Allison looked up. The thing she had been working on was now a gauntlet on her own hand, complete with gears and buttons and a screwdriver sticking up like a little radio tower. She spat a few golden pins out onto her table. “Yeah, yeah, the school is just on the other side of Portland, we’ll be there in a few.”

Lexi nibbled her sandwich and waited. She returned to the dull book of Lihe signatures. It was explaining the difference between a Dark Elemental spirit’s signature and those of many significant Tippeds.

Taylor awoke Lexi once more. “We’re in the town, wake up, wake up!” He pushed her to standing and over to one of the many screens in the trailer. Allison pointed to it. It showed a map of a town, the one they were in, Lexi assumed, with coloured blotches in certain areas. Lexi knew they indicated Lihe. She squinted at some moving, glitchy spots.

Allison put the mouse over them. “These are probably our targets,” she explained. “Our machines aren’t powerful or accurate enough to who or what they are, but...you are, Hon.” She smiled. “We’re near, wanna give it a shot?”

Lexi closed her eyes and then opened them. Really opened them. She saw, or maybe it was felt, the Lihe around and in Taylor and Allison. There it was, in Mr. M, too. Her...vision, or whatever you called the Finder ability, was fading put around the edges, but then a bus passed them. Lezi’s limbs went stiff and she inhaled too sharply. Choking on air, she pointed towards the back of the trailer. The presence on the bus was huge. There was strong Lihe, the Spig, like clay and flint. It was cramped by something big. The big thing had left a signature all over the street and invaded Lexi’s mind.. Tipped. Definitely Tipped.

She pointed again. “It passed us. Going the other way. Huge. They were both on it,” She said, still gasping from the strength of the Tipped.

Allison turned on the screen to the car. “Mr. M, what just passed us?”

Mr. M didn’t look up. “School bus,” He said.

Allison grinned. “Kids, you’re going to public school again!”

Glossary:

Cancel- A Spig who can Turn off Spig or Spirit Lihe

Finder: A Spig who can sense or see Lihe from spirits, Emptors, Opens, and Spigs

Florai/Fanai/Lifer- A Spig who can control, commune with, use, etc plants, animals, both

Lihe- Spirit Energy (pronounced: Lee)

Mech- An Open low in spig powers, able to handle spiritual materials and build spiritual devices

Port- A Spig who can move things or people or selves. (Teleport or Speed or Flier. There are many kinds of Ports)

Projection/Spiritually Gifted: The official word for someone who has a piece of spirit in them, whether given, taken, summoned, or passed down.

Spig- The generally used slang term for Spiritually gifted or Projection

Tipped- A spirit from the Fog that can (should?) no longer project its energy or even have energy, having the yin-yang balance off.