Cindy Psi: Spy In Training
Chapter 11: Assessment

“Um, thanks,” Cindy managed to stammer in reply as she gathered her wits after the transport. As she gathered them, she used her mind-clearing trick … and thought of something: Should I be trying to talk to you like this? she asked, silently.

Dave raised an eyebrow. “Impressive. But no, there will be plenty of time for that later, and there’s things you need to know about mindspeak, as we discussed in your classroom.”

“Oh. Yes. That’s right. Sorry.”

“That’s fine. Come along with me – you can ask questions as I show you around the facility.”

The transport portal room exited into a long corridor. As they walked down this and turned into what looked like a common room of some sort – trestle tables, featureless walls, a bench at one end – Cindy noted how, well, drab everything was. Maybe Dave’s skills in interior design matched his skills in graphics. “Everything is grey,” she commented.

“Yes. We have found that keeping things as minimalist as we can when it comes to the surroundings increases the speed in which people can be trained. Limiting the mental clutter if you like.”

“Oh.” All of a sudden she remembered she’d seen the common room before, when she was deciding whether or not to sign up for this training. “Dave …” she began.

“Yes?”

“I’ve seen that room before.”

“What do you mean?”

“That room – the one with the tables we just went through. I’ve seen it. Or I’ve – ” she broke off, cleared her mind …

seen

… “– it, if you know what I mean.”

“You’ve remote viewed it?”

“I don’t know. You’ve mentioned that before – what does it mean again?”

“Oh yes, sorry, using jargon when you’ve only just got here. Remote viewing is seeing things taking place elsewhere psychically, like when you came here during the test and later that day.” Dave looked at her intently. “Is that what happened do you think?”

Cindy thought. It didn’t seem right. “No,” she said, “It wasn’t that. It felt more like I was seeing it because I was there. Like it was sometime in the future.” She still held back about the other visions of an older her.

“Precog!” Dave exclaimed. He looked genuinely stunned for a moment, then visibly steadied himself and took a breath.

“Look,” he said, “we need to do things in the right order. I’m going to show you to your quarters. You’ll have an hour or so to yourself to gather your wits, and then we put you into an assessment. And maybe after that you’ll stop catching me off guard by being able to do things that, frankly, you shouldn’t be able to do. Certainly not at your age, and certainly not untrained.”

“Ok. Is the assessment with you? Where are all the other people?”

“No, there’s a team who do it, but I’m not one of them this time, I have other things to do. There are a few of us here, but pre assessment we prevent a new recruit from seeing anyone – it muddies things. After you’ve been assessed you’ll meet some of the trainers and other agents, and some of your fellow new recruits. Then we’ll have an orientation.”

Cindy had been wondering about that. “So there are others. How many of us are there?”

“It’s a reasonable class this semester. Seven.”

“Only seven?!?”

“Sometimes there have only been two. We’ve never had more than nine. The talent is pretty rare at the level we need it.” And rarer still at the level you seem to have it he added silently.

Cindy wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to pick up Dave’s thought or not, so she let it pass – she didn’t want to seem rude. There was a whole lot of etiquette involved in this psychic thing that she was going to have to learn.

As they’d been speaking Dave had led her through the compound, out of the front gate and down the road. Cindy had been getting a strange sense of déjà vu, having been here before in her visions. Dave stopped at one of the featureless buildings in the ‘town’.

“Here you go. This is your quarters for the next six months,” he said, and opened the door to let her in. Cindy was unsurprised to replace it was a featureless grey room identical to the one in which she’d found the monitor. There was a simple armchair against one wall, and she could see a chemi-dispensary unit in a small side room. Dave stood silently as she had a quick look about – it didn’t take long. The main room with the adjoining food nook – it seemed too grand a word to call it a kitchen – and then a medium sized bedroom with a large single bed and an en suite shower room.

“So I’m living here by myself?”

“Yes. There’s no risk – there’s nothing to harm you on this whole planet, everything is monitored, and as your mindspeak develops you can always be in contact with others when you want – or need – to be.”

“Can I use my PCD?”

“As you see fit – but although you can get streams and books all comms are blocked except on specified times. We need to monitor any comms with family and so forth to maintain the PEEP cover.”

Yes, of course, thought Cindy. And protect the secrecy of this place.

“Yes, that’s right.” Dave said aloud, startling Cindy. “I’ll be back to escort you to your assessment shortly – but just remember where you are and what the people around you may be capable of, you’re not the only one who can sometimes read thoughts that haven’t been deliberately sent.” He gave her a pointed look. “The sooner we start teaching you some control, the better.” And with that, Dave left her alone in her room and headed back up the road toward the facility.

Cindy sat in the armchair in the room, took out her PCD, then put it down again in her lap. She spent the next half hour sitting quietly, thinking about where she was and what she was about to embark on, and even though she missed her dad already terribly, the excitement was growing sharply about events to come. What would she learn? Where would she end up? She was lost in this reverie imagining distant worlds and nameless wonders when there was a knock on the door; it was Dave, ready to escort her back for her assessment.

Cindy was sat behind a glass screen with a table in front of her. There was a sliding trapdoor on its top covering an alcove the size of a small but deep drawer. She was feeling a bit self-conscious as she knew she was being observed by the three trainers she had been introduced to from behind the glass screen. They had seemed nice enough – two women, one older and one younger, and one man, the three all in white coats. They had smiled and been pleasant, but they were also very business-like in their manner and Cindy was struck with how serious the whole affair seemed. Also, when she was introduced, Dave told them her name, but he didn’t tell her theirs, and they didn’t volunteer them.

A voice came over the loudspeaker in the room, clearly from one of the nameless assessors: “Your assessment will now commence. In a moment the table trapdoor will close, and an object will be moved into the table compartment. You will not be able to see it, but you will have up to a minute to identify what it is. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Then we shall begin.”

The door slid shut, then a small red light appeared to one side of it. Within a couple of seconds this light turned green, and Cindy knew something was in the table. She tried to envisage what it could be.

Nothing.

Ah – wait, she realised what she had forgotten. She cleared her mind, and let her thoughts surround the space in the table. As she focussed, it took on the sharpened quality she’d seen in the classroom. And something else. Realisation struck as the shape suddenly became clear.

“It’s an apple.”

“Next.”

Red light … green light … and this time it was much quicker.

“Top hat.”

“Next.”

“Book.”

“Next.”

“Ball”

“What kind?”

Cindy focussed harder. Wait, it’s not a ball, it’s a …

“It’s a small globe.”

“Of where?”

Cindy didn’t know. It seemed like it should be Adriá, but she wanted to be sure. What was the trick?

Cindy let her thoughts stream through the globe; it almost felt like she was consuming it with her mind. As she did so, she detected something in its middle – glowing, was it words?

Yes. A word. A label. Clever.

“It’s Torrode.”

“Yes. We will move on to the next test,” came the tannoy voice. “One of us has left the room. Which one is it?”

Cindy – still in what she was now thinking of as her psychic mindspace – cast her thoughts behind the glass screen. This seemed almost too easy. “The lady with the dark hair.”

“And what is her name?”

Ah, so that’s why they didn’t tell me. Cindy focussed on the remaining woman. She tried to see if she could get an image of the younger woman with a name attached to it. Nothing – and she felt pushed back, much like when she had tried to read Ms Primp’s thoughts. She looked at the man instead. Ah, this was more like it. Receptive and open, Cindy found he was thinking about the missing assessor – and there it was.

“Rebecca”

“That’s correct. Where is Rebecca now?”

This was tricky. Cindy knew that she could pinpoint her father easily when she was on her home planet, but this was someone she’d only just met on a planet she’d only just arrived on (in person, at least). She tried to cast her mind out to replace this Rebecca, with no success.

Ok, so … clear … spread … search …

Nothing.

Cover … encompass … FIND …

Still nothing.

Cindy paused. Wait, she thought, this was an assessment of her ability for the Spy Corp, right? So it wasn’t going to just be about psychic power. Her ability to think on her feet was being tested as well. Cindy considered for a moment.

Ah ha! She knew what to do. She let her thoughts focus back on the male assessor, and she could see that he was still thinking about Rebecca. Piggy-backing on his thoughts of her, she pushed her focus in and, sure enough, a trail of that glowing silver light formed stretching from his mind. She followed it out of the observation room, through a series of corridors, down a flight of stairs, and to a heavy steel door. Cindy could see the sign on the door said ‘Dry Store’. She let her mind drift through the door and there, at the end of the trail of light, was Rebecca. She was standing amongst various tins, boxes and pots. She had it.

Just as she started to surface from her mindspace Cindy noticed a brief smile flicker across Rebecca’s face. That was interesting.

“Rebecca is in the dry storeroom, down a flight of stairs and about 200 meters away. She knows I’ve found her so she’s about to come back.”

Cindy sensed rather than heard or saw the hubbub her words caused in the observation room.

“Excellent, excellent,” came the loudspeaker voice, “just a couple more tests. You will note in the desk cavity that the apple is back and the trapdoor is open.”

Cindy duly noted.

“We’d like you to lift the apple. Without touching it.”

Cindy was briefly surprised at the request but then this was quickly squashed by the sheer volume of extraordinary events that had been occurring for the last week or so. Well, why shouldn’t she be able to move things with her mind? She thought. That just sounded perfectly reasonable.

Still, there was nothing for it but to try.

Cindy took a deep breath, and cleared her mind once more. She focussed on the apple, and, as the veil of her mindspace descended, it came in to sharp, vivid focus. It felt like she could see the skin, the yellowy flesh, the pips, and the darker flesh around the core all at the same time, like she was somehow seeing through it. She tried to lift it. It remained resolutely immobile.

Ok, first let’s try this: focus … surround … lift …

Just like when she tried to locate Rebecca, this achieved absolutely nothing. So again, Cindy pondered over the problem. She kept her focus on the apple, assessed it from all sides, both inside and out. She felt the texture of the stem, zoomed in on it and saw the rough surface, it was as if she was looking through a microscope but even clearer. She could almost smell the sweet flesh of the fruit, felt cooled by the glossy skin. And yet, despite feeling she now knew this apple better than anyone had any right to know any piece of fruit, any effort she made to move it had no effect whatsoever.

Then she had an idea. She considered where she wanted the apple to go – let’s say about 30cm above where it was now. That seemed a reasonable target. So, keeping the apple in her focus, Cindy started also drawing in the air space above it and the place where she wanted it to be. She created an oval ring in her mind with the apple at the bottom and where she wanted it to be at the top. Now, that silver light thing. Was it just a matter of thinking about that? She remembered back to the monitor in the room from ages ago, the trail that the Turg had linked to her that she’d traced back on, the trail that led to Rebecca. She imagined a ring of that silver light around the oval she was picturing. Then, slowly, carefully, she mentally pinched the oval in from the bottom.

And slowly, carefully, the apple began to rise.

Too focused to be shocked Cindy kept squeezing in the oval of light from the bottom. Slightly faster now. The apple kept rising until it was nearly at the top of the silver oval; at some level the part of Cindy outside the mindspace knew that this was just an apple, floating in mid-air. She kept squeezing the space. And now the apple was at the top, where she wanted it, surrounded by a glowing silver ring.

What would happen if I keep squeezing? She thought. She applied more pressure to the silver ring.

The apple seemed to distort, like a slowly boiling pan of thick soup, lumping out in different places as the pressure of the mental force fought with its own internal consistency. Something had to give.

The apple exploded.

Cindy gave a shout, and flinched as chunks of pulped apple hit her face and body, the table, the walls of the room. The door opened, and Dave strode in.

“Are you ok?” he asked, concern in his voice.

Cindy did a quick self-check. “Yes,” she said, “just shocked. Did I really do that?”

“Yes. Yes, you really did.” Dave turned to the observation window. “I think you’ve got enough for your assessment, yes?”

“Yes, that will be fine,” came the tannoy voice. “Dave, if we could see you after you escort Cindy back to her quarters?”

“Of course. Come on, Cindy, the assessment is over. Let’s take you back.”