Unforeseen Dives – 9 – Defusing

<< II – A Spoonful of Hate

Though I had never seen a bomb, much less its insides, I knew every nook and cranny of the dozen in front of me.
Each hive member had managed to get the tools they needed from their respective bomb squad. The humans had now hesitantly walked back. Their worries crippled some of my colleagues but I wouldn’t let it take over.
I beamed all the strength I could muster into the minds of my hive. I felt their shoulders roll back and their arms shake off the stress.
“Sync up.” I thought.
I wouldn’t be able to defuse twelve bombs, with four necessary hands by bomb, if I had to manage the 24 brains separately. I could pull off two. I had too.
“Puppet master, puppet master, ensure I don’t cause a disaster.” I singsonged in my head. I shouldn’t have but I guess my level of fatigue paved the way for a temporary lapse of judgement. Luckily, the team took it with a smile.
I tested the responsiveness of my long-distance limbs. I lifted my first arm. The right arms of half the telepaths rose. Bingo! I moved on to the next and so on. Then, I quickly checked my ability to control all arms independently. It needed to be fine-tuned or the bombs would blast my coworkers away.
I was always good at patting my head with one hand while rubbing my belly with the other. Classic coordination challenge. However, doing that with four hands through a hive mind demanded practice. Which, thankfully, I had.
As I went through the ridiculous – but necessary – steps, the telepaths gained in confidence and so did I. We were synchronized perfectly and I could work with four limbs at a time. We were good to go.
I did a quick dive ahead to see if we were on the right path. Then, I shot out the Ocean, keeping only the snippet of the past that told me how to turn off the bombs. 

Once we all knew we would succeed, defusing the bomb hadn’t been that hard. The process was complicated but the stress washed away and took jitteriness along with it. We sweated our way to safety but we got there one colourful wire at a time. We finished 20 minutes before blow off.  
“Defused” 24 telepaths said, sharing the words and the sigh of relief. The bomb squad secured the explosive charges and took the ensembles of their wall. Congratulations flew around in my brain. Some telepaths wondered if it was the time to log off but stop mid-thought.
“There is still one loose end.” I beamed, opening up my mind to the Ocean once again. The waves of dead people were gone and with them, all the pain and heartbreaks death always leaves in its wake. The future was clearer.
I focused on the criminal’s signature. After spending so much time in her past, present and future, she wasn’t that hard to spot. I melted into her brain.
I sip iced peppermint white chocolate mocha. My favourite. In my left pocket, my tweaked cell phone awaits the moment when he’ll blow up the square. I take another sip. Life is perfect.
“She’s at Starbucks.” I thought.
“Which one?” echoed the voice of the commanding officer’s telepath.
I beamed images to the telepaths. Since I wasn’t from New York, visual cues couldn’t help me.
“I recognize it. It’s hmm… Forty-Second Street between 7^th and 8^th.”  Blessed be the hive mind.
The commanding officer sent a group to the coffee shop. I scouted ahead in time to see how it would unfold. Gray matter blotched my vision.
“She has a gun.” I yelped. I had just seen it all go wrong. How an agent tips her off, how the manhunt turns into a hostage situation, how she’s finally gunned down after taking a few citizens with her. She was a dangerous woman.
“We’ll need a face.” The officer said.
I was trying my damnedest to get it. The Starbucks was fairly small – compared to the whole vicinity of Times Square – but cross-referencing the movement and point of view of the criminal with the faint, non-stressed, observations of the people around her wasn’t easy. Without heavy emotional weight nothing really printed in the Ocean.
Then, her future showed me the way. As she tries to blow up the bomb, she realizes it doesn’t work… and she slams her phone on the table before walking out the front door. Her action surprises enough clients for me to get a clear snapshot of her face.
I broadcasted it to the team. They changed their plan accordingly. They would cuff her. No doubts were left. We had won.

As I resurfaced following Daniel’s gentle pull, the backlash hit me hard. Reality crushed me deep against my chair and I had problem breathing. The machine plugged to my heart beeped ferociously. The sound sent my head spinning. That was so much worst than waking up after a night on the town.
Daniel bowed over me and pressed his cold hand against my face.
“You’re alright, Cassidy. It’s over. Breathe with me.” He said it all with a smooth tone, pumping soothing imagery in my brain. He breathed slowly and I matched my hyperventilation to his pace. I was okay. I was home.
Sweating and panting, I slowly stretched. Every muscle complained. If Daniel’s purple-circled eyes and disarrayed hair served any indication, I probably looked barely human. I felt that way.
I finally found the strength to peel myself off the chair. I sat on its corner while the doctors unplugged me. The FBI agents were patting each other’s back. As if they had a big role to play in today’s success…
Some agents nodded at me. I nodded back. No one was comfortable enough to congratulate me directly. Not in the state I was in. They were tired and worked around the clock. I was broken.
I pulled myself up and grabbed my clothes where I had left them what seemed like ages ago. Daniel was stuck talking with Aaron. I escaped in the hallway. After I turned one corner of the corridor, I folded my body against the wall.
Out of sight, thousands of near-death experience streamed out of my eyes.

10a – Coping >>