While A.J. was still making up his mind, Mindi got a signal from Lina. "We're almost ready to move Brian. Can you fake the 911 call for us?"
"911? This is a no-service area."
"The bus doesn't have a radio?"
Mindi groaned. Of course the bus had a radio. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"Of what?" A.J. asked. Mindi looked at him. Not only was A.J. going to learn about psychics tonight, he was going to learn about one of their most complicated group manoeuvres.
"Well... Nick asked me to explain things. I may as well. C'mon." She stood up and pulled A.J. up with her. "But everything I say from here on in... pretend Nick swore you to secrecy on whatever the deepest Backstreet oath is. 'Cause he will once he gets out of that mess."
"He's honestly going to get out of there?"
Mindi sighed. She had a pretty good idea what Nick was doing, and knew from the looks of the bus that he couldn't possibly be one hundred percent. "He's going to get the others out." It was all the truth she could muster. "Brian's first on the list."
"Brian's ok?"
"Brian's alive." A.J. looked pained. Mindi sighed, grabbed the flashlight from him, and began to lead the way back into the bus. "First rule. Psychics don't lie to each other. It's impossible in telepathy, so we don't waste time with it face-to-face either. And no, you're not a psychic, but Nick's told me to explain things to you. Non-psychic members of the community are treated like... disabled members of the community. So it applies to you too."
"Is there a rule book?" Mindi snickered, mainly with relief. He was beginning to calm down a little. If nothing else, she was distracting him.
"Yes Alex. It's in the library, entitled "So You Want to be a Psychic?""
"Huh?"
"Inside joke." They reached the bus and climbed in. "Are you better at the radio on this thing than I am?"
"Maybe? What do you want me to do?"
"Call in the accident. We need there to be official records... and for whatever the nearest hospital is to be ready to receive the guys."
"Receive them?"
"Psychics have day jobs, if you hadn't noticed. There are paramedics down there, ready and waiting. An ambulance or two will take a little longer to get here, but they're on their way."
"I'm confused."
"Just turn that thing on and call it in."
Nick sighed with relief as teleports used him to connect to Brian and remove him from the bus. Brian was going to be okay. Still channelling Brian's pain away from him, Nick slowly reached out for Howie and Kevin. Who was worst hurt? They were both pretty badly off, he discovered. All four of them had been in their bunks when whatever had happened, happened... which meant... Lina had said 'up there' on the road. That meant that the bus had probably rolled...so they'd been trapped in their bunks and banged around worse than if they'd been near a window. At least one of them would probably have been thrown free if they'd been up at the front, with all the windows.
"Don't dwell on it. At least we don't have to extract glass from anyone." Lina cut into his thoughts. "Now hurry it up. You're not in any shape to be carrying Brian's pain on top of your own."
He made no reply, but began centring himself again, a little harder to do this time, while having to deal with Brian as well, but possible. He decided to try for Howie next. If nothing else, it would make A.J. feel better. Getting through to him took quite a while, but Nick's knowledge that Howie was definitely not dead spurred him to greater efforts.
The inside joke refers to "So You Want to be a Wizard?" by Diane Duane