A.J. took a deep breath and gathered his courage. "Yeah, I called her yesterday afternoon. We needed to talk about a lot, and she didn't pick up on the Nick thing first..."
Two rings and Mindi's voice floated over his cell phone. "Hi Alex. Need some advice huh?"
"Yeah I do, Mins. You knew it was me?"
"Sure. Pick up the phone, get a flash of a goatee, who else could it be?" she teased.
"Even psychics know me by my hair," he pretended to grumble. "Nobody loves me for my mind."
"Y'know that makes sense?" Mindi mused. "In fact it explains a hell of a lot."
"Hey!"
"Sorry, answering thoughts instead of words," she apologized. "When you said "psychics" I picked up on it. You've been wondering if maybe you're a psychic, right?"
"Nick told me I *am* one last night."
"He's got a good track record for calling it," she agreed. "But what are you so worried about?
"Bone?" Howie interrupted.
A.J. ducked his head. "I didn't know how to tell you yesterday, D. I thought it meant you'd be allergic to me, meant you'd be allergic to me, too."
"I'm not?"
"You only have a problem with *contact*. Nick says he doesn't think I can send, just receive."
"Oh brother," Brian joked. "Ok y'all... any other psychics in the group I need to know about?"
The others the others burst into laughter and A.J. rolled his eyes. "Uh guys? The part about Nick?"
"Yeah, yeah. Keep talking, "Brian assured him, still laughing.
"Right. Um, Mindi predicted you guys would be fine with it, and I'd just have to figure out whether or not to tell anyone else later. Then I told her why I was calling."
"Lina left Nick."
"I know. It's been Net gossip for weeks - except when either of them are tuned in."
"Well maybe if someone had been less discreet about it Nick wouldn't be so confused right now!"
"It's hitting him bad, huh?" she asked softly. "I knew that "partnership of convenience" stuff was bullshit."
"Did you know both of them?"
"I knew Lina in passing. Most psychics who knew one knew both and Nick and I did hook up a lot - it's lonely being the only psychic on a tour."
"Do you know why she did it?"
There was a long pause as Mindi thought about the question. A.J. turned left, not really knowing where he was going, just trying to keep this conversation away from Nick.
"I know maybe a little more than most who were there. Her team, ex-team, probably know more but word has it she swore them to silence. Whatever happened, she doesn't want Nick to know about it."
"Why not?"
He could almost see Mindi shrug. "Ask Nick about that. Frankly, if he gets to the point where he can think straight again, he could probably piece it together without anyone telling him, he knows her well enough."
A.J. sighed. He had a bad feeling that thinking straight was the last thing Nick was going to be doing with this problem. "So what can you tell me?"
"I'm not going to ask if you remember that night, cause I know you're never going to forget it. Remember when all the others were out and we were trying to get Nick out?"
Almost instantly he was carried back to that cold, grey morning, hearing the metal of the bus tear as a telekinetic team worked to make it look as if they'd used the Jaws of Life to get Nick out of the bus. Brian was shivering beside him, praying silently.
Lina was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, leaning against her chair. Her eyes never left the bus, a look of almost insane intensity burning from out of her pale, tear-streaked face. Otherwise, she wore the calm mask that most of the psychics assumed, repressing her emotions back to where they couldn't hurt Nick or any of the psychics around her who were straining to work with non-psychics.
Without warning, Lina began to shake. Mindi and three or four others raced towards her. At the time, A.J. had turned away, to concentrate on hugging Brian and keeping the both of them calm. Suddenly, Mindi's point of view took over.
I'm losing him! I'm LOSING HIM! Lina cried into the mind of every psychic in her range. Mindi didn't even realise she was running until she reached the distraught girl. Without hesitation, she fed Lina her energy the most direct way possible - grabbing the nearest exposed skin and opening herself to Lina. She was drawn into the mind-link along with several others. It was all fairly general - Lina was too deep into Nick's psyche, somewhere only she could go, but something was obviously wrong. She was panicked, throwing all the energy she was getting directly into Nick. Some small part of Mindi realised Lina wasn't keeping back even a little for herself.
Somehow it just wasn't enough. Nick wasn't coming any closer to consciousness. Lina's despair filtered back through the link - then something more conscious.
For a moment, Mindi didn't realise it was a direct thought to her, but the image of singing Backstreet Boys couldn't have been meant for anyone else. Hoping against hope that it worked, she pulled out of the mind-link and broadcast as loud as she could to Alex.
SING! For the love of God Alex, sing!
It took both of them a minute to shake off the after-images, then Mindi continued as if sending someone her memories happened every day. "That was harder than it should have been. She shouldn't have needed you guys, she went in there to be a focus point for Nick and was much closer on all levels than you were to him. Something went wrong. I don't know if it's something she did or something Nick did, but she couldn't connect the way she was supposed to."
"Nick could have done something?"
"Well not much," she admitted. "Closed himself off from her, maybe, or just too worried about the other guys to think about getting out of the bus.But honestly, I can't think of anything Lina could have done wrong. She gave it her all, Alex."
"How much of this does Nick know?"
A.J. shrugged.
"He told me he doesn't know what he did," Howie spoke up. "Maybe he can't remember."
"We haven't really talked about the accident with him," Kevin realised. "We should."
"Right now?" A.J. queried, on the verge of nixing the idea. Then he remembered something Nick had said, and backpedalled. "I suppose it couldn't hurt to ask him if he wants to talk about it. But if he says no, we lay off for a few days."
"Huh?"
"We had a talk this morning about the truth rule. He's been putting me off without lying to me all weekend and I asked him how he got so good at it. It's the way they... we do things within the Community." A.J. looked around at the others, ""We" means you guys too, since the accident. We've talked about that, more than we talked about that morning. The way Nick put it, you can't lie, but you don't get pushed to talk either."
"And if it doesn't work?" Brian challenged him. "What then? I'm not going to stand by and watch him fall apart."
"Who said anything about standing by?" A.J. grinned. "He knows we're doing things, he hasn't said no... "
"God," Kevin groaned. "Bone, tell me you don't have one of your famous plans."
"Nooo... not yet."