Lifting itself into the air, a chair put itself on a collision course with the man called Mr. Slate. Other nearby pieces of furniture were rumbling, getting ready to follow suit.

In a blur of motion, Slate whipped his leg into position, his foot placed perfectly at the chair’s weakest point, where the back connected to the seat. The chair splintered apart gloriously, largely from its own force, although the American seemed to have quite strong legs as well.

Another chair flew up, quickly taking the place of its fallen comrade. This time, it gyrated around in the air, attempting to club Slate over the head, rather than reattempting the first one’s kamikaze dive. He deflected the assault with a few blocking strikes with his forearms, managing to push it back a ways.

“Are all American agents black belts?” Riko mused aloud, trying to distract herself from her rising dread, as more and more household objects began to lift themselves in the air.

Mr. Slate sent the chair flying backwards with a fierce elbow slam. “Muay thai has no belt system,” he replied, “and it’s really more of a personal hobby.” He turned towards them as a rumble started to build. “I’d stand up if I were you three.”

Riko felt the couch beneath her shaking, and started to lift itself up in the air. Compared to the train station bench that hoisted her into the sky, this seating implement came across as actively hostile, and preparing itself to dump her off. Acting as swiftly as she could, she grabbed hold of Kyo and Chiyoko, and lurched forward into a dive.

They managed to hit the floor just as the couch crashed back to the floor, upside down. A moment earlier, and they might have been crushed beneath it. 

It wasn’t the best time for conversation, but there were some urgent things RIko still needed to figure out, so she spoke up loudly.

“Was it like this last time? Three months ago, when you met Aimi?” Riko asked, managing to flip herself over and look up at Mr. Slate. The rest of the chairs had decided to gang up on him, each of them trying to smash itself into an unguarded flank. The coffee pot threw itself into the fray as well, and might have cracked its glass over his skull and poured steaming hot liquid over his face, had Slate lacked the foresight to grab one of the chairs to use as a shield. Shards of glass and hot coffee blossomed out in numerous directions.

Catching his breath, Mr. Slate replied, “No. Aimi’s not herself right now.”

“Um. I guessed that much,” Riko said, clambering up to her feet, and then helping the other two girls up. She put up her fists, in case she was getting dragged into the inanimate object melee as well.

“No. I mean she’s not just herself. She’s an amalgamation of every mind she’s ever studied in any detail. You, me, your friends, her family, her neighbors. WIth eidetic memory, their thoughts are as clear as her own. All of their anger, fear, anxiety, and vices, all bleeding together, beyond her capacity to control and mentally filter.” Mr. Slate finished his soliloquy by body slamming a chair into chunks and toothpicks beneath him, as he ducked out of the way of another one.

“Is that you or her talking?” RIko turned to look at the couch. It shuddered, and started to rise upwards again, appearing even more menacing than before..

“Does it matter? Does a baby think about photons when they see themselves in a mirror? Or do they go, ‘Hey, that’s me in there! Awesome!’ That’s how it is for me right now. Cogito, ergo sum, or something like that.” Slate seemed to have picked up a chair leg like a club, and switched to escrima, Riko noticed, beating down the rest of the attacking furniture like drums.

“Cogito what? Nevermind… if we’re all in Aimi’s head, then does that mean there are no rules? Can we make guns by imagining them really hard?”

Mr. Slate shook his head. “Already tried it. Doesn’t work like that. This is a memory palace. The creator sets the rules.”

Riko turned towards Kyo. She was clutching Chiyoko protectively, as a lamp menaced them, whipping its power cord at their backs, Kyo grunting softly as it hit her. No time to teach the poor girls how to fight, Riko thought, she’d just have to do something about this jerk. Dashing forward, and made a grab for their luminous assailant.

Wrapping her fingers around the power cord, Riko swung the aggressive appliance around a few times to build up momentum. “Don’t mess with the parapsychology club!” Riko yelled out as her kiai as she whipped the lamp into the floor, and then sent her foot crashing down into the lamp’s metal body. She wasn’t a large, fully grown man with an oddly comprehensive knowledge of martial arts, but she delivered more than enough power to bend it up into a disfigured mess.

Mr. Slate let out an ‘oof’ as one piece of flying furniture managed to catch him in the solar plexus, sending him flying backwards onto the coffee table, obliterating it. Well, that was one less thing that could attack them, but the girls were on their own for the moment.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the couch was also beginning to rise up, this time taking its aim at the three girls, and at the stunned man on the floor. Riko stomped on the lamp a few more times to make sure it learned its lesson, before she took notice of the couch. Kyo might be the only one able to do something about this, Riko realized. It’d be hard to kung fu a couch.

“Hey Kyo?” Riko murmured.

“Ah, yes?” she replied, nervously watching the couch prepare itself.

“Do you have any control over this place? Can you create things, or use psychic abilities you’ve witnessed?”

“I, um, can try to recall memories. It’s a simulation of known physical law, with exceptions for observed psychic anomalies.”

Riko hastily tried to work out the technobabble in her head. “So only stuff you or Aimi have seen happen. Got it. Listen to me. I need you to hug Chiyoko really tight.”

Kyo looked at Riko in confusion, although she was already holding onto the smaller girl anyway. It was beginning to pitch forward in place along its lengthwise axis, building momentum.

“Just do it. Hold her really tight, and think of a heart-shaped barrier Aimi used it to guard us when we were shot at by the firestarter. You can do it, Kyo! Think about guarding Chiyo-chan, and make a barrier!” 

Riko grabbed onto Kyo’s shoulder just as the couch came crashing forward. Kyo squeezed tightly onto Chiyoko’s body, and her eyes clenched shut. A familiar brightness filled the living room as the prismatic heart-shaped force field manifested, and the couch bounced harmlessly off of it, rebounding into the wall behind it and smashing a large hole right through the drywall.

There goes the safety deposit, Riko thought. Good thing this was just a simulation. A possibly deadly one, granted, but property damage probably wasn’t much of a concern.

Riko felt a sudden onset of fatigue, held at bay for the moment only by her pumping adrenaline. It seemed as though the Brinsfield Effect drew upon her own reserves of stamina, whether the effect was imaginary or otherwise. They couldn’t go on much longer staying on the defensive, especially with Slate down.

“C’mon, we need to get to Aimi’s room,” Riko shouted, and bent down to grab Slate by his shoulders. He chose his rock-themed name well, Riko realized, when she found herself attempting to drag 105 kilograms of muscle and bone with her. Still, she managed to pull forward a few inches, dragging him little by little to the hallway where the bedrooms were. The two other girls followed warily, watching the remaining floating furniture.

Suddenly, there was a loud slam against one of the doors. All of the girls jumped in fright, though Riko, always thinking with some optimism, realized that they probably wouldn’t need to guess more than once at which room was Aimi’s. The slam had another benefit in that it finally awoken Mr. Slate from his stupor, who clambored to his feet, looking over at the couch-shaped hole in the wall.

“Did you girls do that? Impressive. Sorry about the sudden nap. I don’t often spar with chairs, much as I enjoy Johnny Chan movies.”

The four of them were now approaching the bedroom door, which was starting to thump loudly, as if something was being slammed against it

“What happens if we get hurt in here, anyway?” Riko asked Slate, moving guardedly into arms reach of the doorknob.

“Your brain accepts the injury as real. If you pass out or die, you leave yourself in a psychosomatic coma that may as well be real. After about a month, the doctors recommend taking you off of life support, as bodily functions begin to break down.” He drew a pneumatic injector from his pocket, and loaded a vial of a sinister, greenish-looking fluid into it.

“I thought you said you-” Riko started.

“I had this with me before I came here.” It was easy enough to read their next question on their faces, so Slate continued, “The substance is codenamed Psych-Out. It’s a neural inhibitor. I brought it with me in case Aimi got violent. It looks like Aimi got violent.”

Kyo stared at the vial, “Is that… genetic material extracted from…”

“I can neither confirm nor deny how Psych-Out was ma-” Slate began to reply, but Riko had figured something out.

“If Kyo knows how it works, that means everything that it’s supposed to do, Aimi’s brain will do to itself. You can’t use it! You’ll seal away Aimi’s special gift! Or turn her into a vegetable!” She made a grab for the jet gun, and attempted to yank it away from Mr. Slate. Try as she might, she wasn’t getting it out of his iron grip. But she didn’t have to.

She just had to get him to waste it.

There was a sudden click and hiss, as the needle pushed to Riko’s skin, while she forced Slate’s finger down on the trigger, the green stuff flowing into her. It didn’t feel bad at all. In fact, Riko felt somewhat invigorated. As if being pumped full of her own essence.

“That stuff was made from my sister, you government creep! Were you gonna pump Aimi full of it if she didn’t agree to play nice? Turn her brain into mush?” Riko poured all of her newfound energy into that emotional outburst.

“It’s just a failsafe! And it should only have damped her abilities! She’d still have more than enough telepathy for a lucrative career in law enforcement, insurance, or a whole host of novel industries just waiting for capable psy-”

It was then that the door to Aimi’s room threw itself open, revealing its darkened interior. With closed blinds and no other lighting of note, it was only just possible to make out Aimi’s glowering figure in the back. She was hovering in the air, her hair splayed out in every direction as it floated alongside her body.

Mr. Slate suddenly felt his feet fly out from beneath him, as Aimi’s telekinetic force attempted to drag him inside. Reacting swiftly, he grabbed hold of the doorframe, digging his fingers in for dear life, as if dangling from a cliff. Riko had no idea how much good that was doing, but guys like him did everything they could to maintain control of the situation, she guessed.

“You showed me the vial,” Aimi crooned, floating closer, her eyes positively fiery. “You told me I could take the Psych-Out, or I could try to go to school without it, but that me and grandma would never be left ourselves.” A dirty sock floated out of Aimi’s hamper, and began to wrap itself around Slate’s neck.

“There is no… leaving… a telepath alone,” Mr. Slate choked out at the sock pressed against his windpipe. “They wear a leash… or they live a public life… or someone in power… does something about them.”

A large CRT computer monitor picked itself up, and floated over towards Mr. Slate. Riko did not want to see what would happen if Mr. Slate was hit over the head with that thing. Aimi might hurt herself. Riko decided she gave American diplomacy enough of a shot, and ran in.

“Aimi! Stop this! He’s not real! He’s part of you! He won’t hurt you if you don’t let him.”

Riko stared boldly into the face of her one-way crush. Even at her best, Aimi didn’t return her feelings, at least not openly, and now, she was a crazed mixture of countless thoughts and emotions. Riko didn’t give Aimi her usual teasing proclaiments of affection, but she did look directly into her eyes with every ounce of love she had to muster, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she could put a crack in her shell.

There was a lot of passion in her expression, fueled by a bubbling mixture of mental strain, adrenaline, and whatever chemicals the vial had alongside what Riko had guessed were her clone’s genes. She felt her heart beating for a moment as nothing changed, the monitor continuing to dangle threateningly in the air, as Mr. Slate held fast onto the doorframe, which was starting to crack under the strain.

Suddenly, there was a thump.

Mr. Slate had been allowed to fall to his knees, the psychokinetic grip released, the large man catching himself. Only… the monitor was still being held up, ready to become a cannonball at a moment’s notice. Aimi had turned her attention to Riko, and was now brandishing the screen towards her.

“Why did you bring me here? What was the point of this?” Aimi usually muttered or spoke softly, but she was yelling now.

“Because we’re a team, Aoki-san,” Riko said, watching the bulky screen hover out of her peripheral vision, but keeping her sight centered on Aimi’s eyes. “We face challenges together, and grow together. Even now I can see you getting stronger. Can’t you feel it?”

“I feel worse than ever. Everyone’s memories… abusive spouses, abused children, people who torture animals for fun, it’s like they’re all me, having their thoughts and feelngs. Do you know what that’s like, Nomura? Do any of you? I can’t shut any of it out now!”

Behind them, there was the loud thumping noise, like the stomping of massive feet. Riko, Kyo, and Aimi turned back and saw something unexpected: a hulking, golem-like figure; consisting of crunched-up chunks of couch, chairs, and tables formed into a humanoid shape, with large pieces of the wall for fists, and the support studs for fingers. Appropriately enough, it had one of grandma Aoki’s old oni masks, where a head might have gone. It was slowly, but surely, approaching them.

“I know what it’s like, Miss Aoki,” said Mr. Slate slowly, tossing away the sock on his neck.

Riko turned to see what he was doing. Slate was ignoring the furniture ogre entirely. Words hadn’t worked on Aimi yet, but she had more faith in his words than her chances in a melee with a metric ton of detritus with no weak points.

“Every time I look at someone’s face, I feel what they feel. I can watch a veteran’s eyes as they shoot a rifle, and hear the screams of every man he’s killed. I talk to the victims of every sick, perverted crime you can imagine, in order to profile the perp, and you know what? It works. I’ve learned the inner workings of the minds of murderers, rapists, and every other kind of scum. I hate it, knowing all that crap just by looking at people, sometimes even just from the words they type on the Internet. One time, I tried to kill myself, in order to quiet it all down.”

Slate held up an arm, showing a scar on his forearm. “‘Down the tracks, not across the road’ was a phrase I was yet to learn as a young lad. Because of that stunt, however, I did get to meet some buddies of Uncle Sam’s. They taught me how I could use my abilities for good. I could solve crimes. Take down all sorts of powerful scumbags. Help people with their problems.”

Tilting his head left and right to crack his neck, he continued. “They showed me all sorts of other neat things, too. I learned I could aim a gun just as well as an expert, by watching the expert, turning his muscle memory into my muscle memory. Martial arts. Musical instruments. I could absorb years of training in minutes, if I applied myself. Learning Japanese was a breeze, once I had the chance to watch some native speakers’ eyes as they moved their lips. I bet you have all sorts of untapped potential too, Miss Aoki.”

There was a pause in the tension as the crazed Aimi stopped to listen, but all too soon, the thumping of the furniture ogre’s approach resumed.

Just then, Riko’s toe hit upon something. A Shogi board. She remembered Aimi was interested in the Shogi Club, the day they met. That her father used to play, and taught Aimi the game. She looked over towards Mr. Slate, and considered him as well.

Riko had a gamble to make before it got to them. Someone who could learn a martial art with little time invested could probably learn Shogi just as quickly. And might be inclined to, if they were planning on approaching a fan of the game.

Riko gave the board beside her foot a good shove, trying to give it just enough force to reach Mr. Slate, without kicking it so hard the pieces flew everywhere. Luck was with her this time, it seemed. It landed in front of Slate, all of the pieces where Aimi had left them.

Slate looked down. “The ishida opener Ryo Aoki managed to trap Daniel Weizmann from the United States with, during an international college circuit match. Dan really should have known better than to let himself get set up like that, and most players would have gone for a slower ishida about three moves in, but Ryo Aoki liked risk.”

Aimi stared at him for a moment longer. Riko looked back, the furniture ogre now having almost reached Kyo and Chiyoko, who were cowering against the wall. It was just about looking poised to grab at them when it began to creak and waver. Finally, the entire assemblage crumbled into a large pile of scrap on the floor.

Aimi let her feet touch the floor, and walked over to the Shogi board, as the monitor drifted back down and wired itself back into the nearby PC. Kneeling down before it, she slid a pawn forward. “You’d quick ishida in Weizmann’s place too. So I’m going to keep countering.”

With some of the building dread defused, Riko felt herself welling up with idle curiosity. “Who are you, anyway? CIA? NSA?” Riko sat down besides the board to watch.

“The CIA is full of psychopaths, and the NSA is full of voyeuristic nerds,” Slate replied, continuing to do his best to combat telepathy with empathy.

“And you?”

“I’m worse than both of them,” he chuckled. “Truth is, people like me don’t really have an agency. Or national loyalties, when it comes down to it. We go where we’re needed.”

“What about Phantasm?”

Mr. Slate stood up, stepping aside from the Shogi board and gesturing towards Riko. “Why don’t you teach Miss Nomura how to play?”

Aimi looked up at the gray-clad man. “But she’s-”

“-quite adaptable to any challenge,” Mr. Slate interrupted, and the two of them began to go over the basics.

Aimi flipped over one of the rooks. “This one’s called a dragon.”

“Oooh!” Riko almost forgot why she was here for a moment, but finally, turned her attention back up to Mr. Slate.

“Oh yes, Phantasm,” Slate said as he looked wistfully into the darkness. “To put it bluntly, they’re my fault. I had a puzzle that needed solving,” He took out the jet gun from his pocket, and detached the empty vial. “I managed to acquire this from an arms dealer connected with the US Army. I wanted to find out who was making it, and how.”

“So what did you do?” Riko asked, trying to make sense of all of the various ways the Shogi pieces were supposed to move.

“I found myself the perfect infiltrator. An Italian mercenary medic, working out of war-torn Libya. A man who would patch anyone up, regardless of their political allegiance, faith, or ethnicity. Had a lot of talent too. He could fix many physical problems with the human body that he lacked the training and/or the equipment to treat normally.”

“So you had him pretend to be an oncologist?” asked Kyo. She wandered over to watch Riko and Aimi play, Chiyoko moving in to huddle back up against her.

“And I taught him everything I know about being a super spy. Which is mostly a set of basic rules. Forget your name. Pick a color. Let your reputation be your service record. He chose black. ‘Nero' was the name he chose. Pun on the Latin name. Should’ve taken that as a warning sign, I suppose. Whatever he found in that lab, it drove him to jihad against the world. Thanks to me, he knows how to avoid being found, too. At least, by an empath.”

“Maybe he found my sister…” Riko mused. “What about a telepath? Could they find him?”

“With that kind of range? Why, I can only think of one candidate.”

Riko turned again, to look at the vial. “You weren’t threatening her, you were showing her what the government was capable of. You wanted her to help put a stop to whoever’s making Psych-Out. But you’re not the kind of guy that likes to ask people for favors, are you? You open all talks from a position of strength if you can help it.”

Mr. Slate smiled. ”Are you sure you’re not an empath?”

Riko thought about it. “Um, I’m just assuming that most people are good.”

He chuckled. “Nope, you’re definitely not an empath then. You stop making those kinds of assumptions pretty quickly.”

“What about my sister? The clone?”

Slate’s expressions turned a bit more humble “To tell the truth, I simply read your face. You thought I knew something, but didn’t expect me to talk. So I didn’t. I bluffed. I was, as we say in America, yanking your chain. I was keeping you talking so I could estimate what you knew.”

"He’s not lying," Aimi suddenly chimed in, not looking away from the Shogi board. “I can see, now that I’ve calmed down. He suspected they harvested genetic material from a latent potential F, nothing more. Professor Brinsfield was his primary suspect, but he had nagging doubts. Talking to you, he now believes it's more likely to be your genes they used to make Psych-Out. All he has in his head is a word from the last message he was sent by Nero: ‘Prism’.”

“That’s right,” Slate confirmed. “I thought it was a military project codename, but I’m now 95% sure it’s a name Nero gave to a girl. Let me ask you this, Riko Nomura. Do you have faith that your sister is out there somewhere?”

Riko had to think on that question, but not for long. “Yes. Yes I do.”

“Then follow the signs. God sheds his grace on those who act out of love for family. If she’s out there, coincidences will keep on mounting, and all you’ll have to do is stay on the path set before you.”

Riko nodded, and suddenly reached forward, grabbing Aimi’s hand. Not knowing if she’d pull away soon, or send her flying, Riko jumped on the moment, looking into Aimi’s eyes.

“We’ll find my sister together. We’ll find your dad’s killer together. We’re all here for you now. Especially me.”

Riko didn’t give her a chance to reply. Aimi’s moment of calm wouldn’t last.

Mr. Slate had turned his back on the two of them. For once, he had used his empathic powers to be less of a voyeuristic creep. Riko had to give him, or at least his dreamstuff homunculus, credit for that. With a few hand gestures, he managed to get Kyo and Chiyoko to turn away as well.

With Riko’s free hand, she swiftly took hold of the back of Aimi’s head. With a tug, she drew their heads close. With her last ounce of seized initiative, RIko tilted her head and pushed their lips together. Even for a dream, Aimi’s lips were wonderfully soft, and the moment was everything she had dreamt of since she began courting the telepath’s attention. Unsure of how to respond, Aimi shut her eyes, and let out a soft murmur. It was close enough to a coo to encourage Riko further.

Sadly, as all pleasant dreams do, the moment ended just as it was starting to get good.

RIko opened her eyes. She looked up to see Nana watching over her and the others. They were also rousing themselves, slowly getting themselves up off the floor where they had laid down.

“You were passed out for over fifteen minutes,” Nana said. “I had to pull your hands away from each other.”

Riko looked over to Chiyoko, who was rushing over to grab her sketchpad. She must have missed it, being in the dream so long without it. Suddenly, it hit her. Something she should have thought of a lot sooner.

“Hey Chiyo-chan?”

The diminutive girl looked over towards Riko inquisitively as she opened up the pad to the nearest available blank page.

“If I really am destined to meet my sister… do you think you could draw me a clue as to where?”

Chiyoko thought about it, and tapped her pencil to the blank page, but she did not draw. Instead, she began to flip through her previous sketches. To the drawing of Riko and Aimi, holding hands on the beach.

“Is this it?” Riko looked closer at the page. She could see the small creases where the drawing had been reassembled.

Chiyoko nodded, and detached the sketch from the pad, handing it over to her.

“I can have this? You never give away your personal sketches though.”

Chiyoko offered the drawing again, this time pushing it towards Riko a bit more insistently. With the first refusal out of the way, Riko obligingly took it. She looked closer. She noticed the trees looked… tropical. Like what she saw when she visited Hawaii, which had no cold winters, unlike Japan.

There was a funny looking ship too. It had a military style to it. It looked out of place in the otherwise idyllic setting.

Was her sister hidden away on an island? Somewhere only accessible by boat?

Riko made her way over towards Kyo. As much as it pained her, she couldn’t take the drawing home and frame it just yet. “Kyo?”

“Yes, Riko?” Kyo seemed to finally be getting her bearings after the strange experience.

“See if you can find out where this is. From the clouds, from the plant life, from the minerals in the sand, whatever it takes.” As Riko handed the drawing over, she added, “And take good care of the drawing, I want it back the way it is now, creases and all.”

Kyo nodded slowly, and found a safe place to store it in her bookbag.

With that, Riko went and sat herself down next to Aimi, who was still seated on the floor, staring away from everyone.”

“Are you feeling alright, Aoki-san?”

Aimi didn’t pull away. She didn’t even seem bothered. She simply looked at Riko.

“Yeah.”

Nana walked over to the both of them, and offered them some cups of instant noodles. They had spent most of the lunch period on this dream quest, so it’d have to suffice.

Riko couldn’t be sure if everyone had imagined the same things while they were out of it. Whether the kiss was real, whether Aimi not pounding her into mochi with a large couch in response was real. But she did learn two words that might help verify what she envisioned.

“Hey Nana. Send our friend Mr. Slate a message. Tell him, we’ll help him find Nero, if he helps us find Prism.”