Twinepathy (Part 20): Hacking Skills

Hullo, everyone! Happy Monday, the first one of 2016! A very happy, wonderful post today, so I’ll let you get to it! 😉 Enjoy, friends, and if you’re new, check out the first part here.

Two people? Fighting? In my sister’s head? Jen leans forward, looking very interested, and places her hand on Brooklyn’s arm. I get the weird feeling that she’s looking at something, but not something visible. If that makes any sense at all.

Jen pulls away and heads over to her desk. She begins typing away on her computer. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“I just looked at Brooklyn’s memories of what happened. Apparently two telepaths were fighting in her brain. That’s what made Brooklyn scream, and why she’s in so much pain. She was, essentially, their mental battlefield. One of them had almost a physical presence in Brooklyn’s brain and left enough of an image, however vague, that I could probably recognize—” She growls, glaring at her computer. “If only I could hack into the CIA database. Where’s Com when I need him?”

“Too bad Denver’s not here,” I half-joke. I’m so relieved that Brooklyn doesn’t have amnesia, but I feel a growing anger at whoever did this to her.

Jen sighs. “Blaze, can you get Volt? We need her hacking skills.” Blaze gives her a short nod and then disappears.

“How are you feeling?” I ask Brooklyn.

She gives me a half-hearted smile. “You remember when you dared me to climb the neighbor’s tree and I fell and had to get half a dozen stitches?” I nod, grimacing. I cried after that for ages because it was my fault, even though Brooklyn didn’t blame me. “It’s about ten times worse than that,” she finishes. I wince.

Jen comes over to us. “What about your telepathic connection?” she asks.

I completely forgot about that! I feel for it in my head and slump in relief when I realize that our connection is back.

“That’s right,” Brooklyn says, remembering. “When I felt someone in my head, I broke off the connection as best I could. I remembered how Jen got to me through you, and I didn’t want us both to end up with amnesia.”

Jen nods. “Good thinking. It’s a good thing the connection wasn’t lost forever.”

Brooklyn’s face pales at the thought. We keep the connection a secret and try to use it as little as possible, but it’s still our special connection. It would be terrible for us to lose it. “I think your connection must be pretty strong if it can withstand being disconnected like you did,” Jen says. She heads back over to her desk.

Suddenly, Blaze appears, alone. “She’s in the middle of something really important. What do I tell her?”

Jen groans. “Tell her she gets to hack into the CIA’s system. She won’t be able to pass that up.”

Blaze grins. “Of course.” He disappears, and Jen glares at the computer again.

Maddie scoots over next to Brooklyn, who smiles as soon as she spots the little girl. “Do you need anything?” Maddie asks, her voice soft.

Brooklyn shakes her head. “Were you having fun with J – Data?”

Maddie nods. “She already taught me a lot. And she’s going to get someone named Push to help me work on my powers.”

Push. Appropriate, I guess, if the person has telekinesis-whatever like Maddie does. I really need to check and see if that’s actually what it’s called.

“What’s taking so long?” Jen growls impatiently. “This is import… Ah, there you are! Finally!”

I turn around, curious about the person who earned the code name Volt. My jaw drops. Same height, same awkward expression, same purple hair…

Volt is none other than Denver’s genius girlfriend, Ezra.

Next Part –>

Twinepathy (Part 12): Girlfriends And Garage Doors

Hullo, everyone! How’re you? I hope you had a great Thanksgiving… and I hope you didn’t miss this post last week. I completely forgot to pre-schedule a post! Whoops! Anyway, I hope you enjoy… Check out Part One if you’re new!

Brooklyn loves to chat with everybody. Everybody. So it’s a miracle that we actually get out of the store in less than half an hour. It’s a momentous occasion I will look back on with fondness and longing.

We hurry home, arriving almost exactly an hour after we left. Mom and Dad aren’t home, thank goodness. Denver’s in the kitchen, and we re-introduce him to Maddie with our added “rescue” story. He seems pretty confused, but he’s also very distracted because of his date. Apparently Ezra, his girlfriend, is coming to pick him up, since she wants the date to be a surprise. Or something like that. So he’s pacing around the kitchen wearing the dreaded flannel shirt. Brooklyn drags him upstairs so she can pick out his outfit. Because, as she says, he needs help.

I dig around in the fridge and find sandwich ingredients. I make one for Maddie and one for me – because I need nourishment, too! – and we finish them off quickly.

Then the doorbell rings.

My heart stops as I consider the possibilities. Is it Jen, with an emergency? Or is it another surprise-random-amnesia victim. But then Brooklyn appears at the top of the stairs. “It’s Ezra! Can you hold her off? Denver’s still a mess.” She rolls her eyes and then disappears.

I go to the front door and open it, revealing Denver’s girlfriend of about three months. She gives me an awkward smile. “Hi, um… yeah. Is Denver here?”

Yeah, she can’t tell Brooklyn and me apart yet, unless we’re right next to each other and doing things the other would obviously never do. “Yes, he’ll be ready in a minute. Come on in. I’d offer you a bacon cookie, but I burned them.”

Her face lightens a little bit. That was enough of a hint that she knows which one I am now. I lead her into the kitchen without thinking. Maddie’s eyes grow to the size of golf balls when we walk in. Ezra is a bit of a sight, in her dressy clothes that set off her purple hair. But she’s even more of a sight when she’s not dressed up.

Ezra looks at Maddie, brow crinkled in a confused expression. “Who’s this?”

I wave a hand in the air, dismissing the subject. “Maddie. It’s a long story. Maddie, this is Ezra, Denver’s girlfriend.”

Maddie’s wide-eyed, nervous expression doesn’t change, and Ezra shifts nervously. “Um, hi?” she says.

Poor Ezra. She’s smart, not social. I’m about to rescue her when Brooklyn and Denver come downstairs. I have to give Brooklyn credit; Denver looks much better now. Not too fancy, but not too casual either. He and Ezra look so cute together. Brooklyn doesn’t agree, but that’s just because she doesn’t want to share Denver.

Ezra’s face lights up when she sees Denver, and he gets a dorky grin on his face. They both completely forget about Maddie and Brooklyn and me as they head out to Ezra’s car, talking about some computer problem Denver is having.

Brooklyn sighs. “We’ve still got an hour or two before Mom and Dad get home. What are we going to do while we wait?”

“We could let Maddie get cleaned up and changed,” I suggest.

Brooklyn tilts her head, considering it. “She might look more sad and stuff if we don’t, but Mom would wonder why we hadn’t already cleaned her up. Might as well,” she finally agrees.

We show Maddie how the shower works and leave her to get cleaned up. In the meantime, we pick up the Go Fish game – finally – and work on tidying up the house. Brownie points, of course.

Maddie gets done quickly, and Brooklyn sits her down on the couch so she can braid Maddie’s damp hair. I have to admit that Maddie looks really cute with pigtail braids, especially with the dress Brooklyn found for her. We manage to find enough to do to keep us kind of occupied, but Brooklyn and I still go to the front windows every five minutes to check for Mom and Dad.

We’re in the middle of teaching Maddie how to hula hoop when we hear the garage door go up. My eyes lock with Brooklyn’s. Time for the show to start.

Yay for hula-hooping! And cleaning house! And Ezra! *fist pump* Sounds like there’s a storm coming… *listens to thunder (or a garage door opening)* What think you?

Next Part –>

Twinepathy (Part 3): An Erased Whatchamacallit

Hullo, everyone! Are you enjoying this so far? Are you excited about yet another post? Are you even reading this, or are you just skipping to the part already? *laughs awkwardly* For those who are reading this, I’ve set the cover reveal for November 1st!!! Eeek! I’m so excited! Well, I’ll let you get to reading now… (Need to catch up? Check out the first part here.)

It’s weird how much things can change in only a few minutes. With those three words, “I don’t remember,” our entire futures were changed. Not just for me and Brooklyn, but for the little girl, and Denver, and Jenna and Blaze and – darn, I’m getting ahead of myself again. So much for trying to be dramatic.

Brooklyn suggests to Denver that he go and get ready for his date. Knowing how nervous he gets, he’ll probably try on every piece of clothing he owns. He’ll be up there a while. Brooklyn gets the little girl to drink some more water, still asking her about random things to check her memory, like her name, age, what she was doing here. But she can’t remember anything.

Read her thoughts. A telepathic message from Brooklyn. It’s understandable why she didn’t say it out loud. The girl would freak out. And, come to think of it, we probably need to find something to call her other than “the girl.” I place a hand encouragingly on the girl’s knee and use that to strengthen my connection to her thoughts. They go something like What’s going on? Who are these people? Can I trust them? Who am I? What am I doing here? Oh boy, I’m so scared. Where’d that guy go? Is it safe here? What happened to me? Why can’t I remember anything? I look past those surface thoughts and… nothing. It’s blank, like a newborn baby’s brain. Not completely blank, though – there are a few memories there, but only ones since she woke up on our couch.

Confused, I pull out of her thoughts. I’ve never been in the head of an amnesia victim before. It’s both intriguing and, to put it bluntly, scary. What would it be like to not remember anything? With my connection with Brooklyn, I’m guessing we could restore each others’ memories, or send our own memories to the other person. But this… true amnesia? Absolutely, positively frightening.

Anything?

I shake my head in answer to Brooklyn’s telepathic question, still a little shaken by the insider view. Brooklyn pulls me into the kitchen. “What are we going to do?” she asks me in a low voice when we’re out of earshot.

“We should probably give her a temporary name,” I suggest. “Like Sydney. Or Madison. We should stick with Mom and Dad’s city name theme. Maybe we can convince them she’s our long lost sister.”

Brooklyn rolls her eyes. “Focus, Al. We need to figure out what to do before Mom and Dad get back.” She pauses. “We can’t keep her here.”

“You make her sound like a pet,” I say, leaning against the counter. “Have you thought about asking her what she wants to do?”

She gives me a withering glare. “She’s just a kid, and she’s a kid that has amnesia. What about her memories?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. It’s like an empty warehouse in her brain, except for the new thoughts and stuff that are coming in since she woke up. It’s like all her memories just disappeared.”

Brooklyn frowns at the table. “So it’s not like she just can’t get to them. They’re not there.”

“Like an erased whatchamacallit.” I wave my hand in the air vaguely. “Those computer things Ezra and Denver go nuts over.”

A frown flits across Brooklyn’s face at the mention of Ezra, but she moves on. “No clue what you’re talking about. But you need to focus.”

I throw my hands in the air. “I am focused! I’m trying to figure out if there’s any way we can fix her memory. It it’s like the computer thingamabob, then Denver might know how to fix it.”

“That’s not our main problem right now,” Brooklyn insists, putting her hands on her hips. “We need to figure out what to do n—” Her eyes pop wide open as she stares over my shoulder.

“What?” I ask, turning around and looking out the window. Panic rises in me. It’s too early, too soon…

Mom and Dad are home.

Duh-duh-duuuuhh… Sounds like they’re in a bit of trouble! What’s going to happen next? Guess we’ll have to wait until next week…

Next Post –>

*cough cough* Whoops…

No, I didn’t get frozen in ice.

Sorry.

*laughs at self*

Yes, it’s been a while since I posted. Thanks to my computer shutting down while updating, I have been stranded from the internet for… I’m not sure how long it’s been. Since the last time I posted. 😉

So, that is my apology. And a joke (because jokes always make things better…)

A computer operator received this error message:

THREE THINGS IN LIFE ARE GUARANTEED: TAXES, DEATH, AND COMPUTER CRASHES

GUESS WHICH ONE JUST HAPPNED.