In my head I was expecting some intentionally foreboding or robotic-looking agent type, some men-in-black sort of figure that would’ve taken themselves far too seriously. This looked more like a tourist visiting some in-laws on the island of Manhattan. She had dark brunette medium-long hair, combed and clean neatly. She must’ve been half East Asian descent, my guess was Korean maybe. In terms of cleanliness, she was definitely going to win the battle of grooming by a long shot — compared to me, rugged and gritty, like those cracked old bricks on the outer walls had a hand in shaping my looks. The lack of sleep probably didn’t help.
	I scrambled in my head over what I should be doing. I considered reading her, just skipping ahead and figuring out every intention before she’d even attempt to speak another word. But I was frozen, like for once in my life since I was able to sense how others felt I was actually surprised at what I didn’t feel. She was calm, composed, as if this was just some casual meeting between average people and nothing more. I questioned how much she actually knew about me, if she was just some in-between, not much different from the letters sent to me but with a human face instead. Or if she was really just that assured in meeting. I was struggling to make eye contact after the initial shock.
	She could probably feel my mixed emotions just by looking at me, how exposed I felt just being here, being known. “I’m sorry for all the theatrics. It’s not how I advised them to go about this. But they can never be too careful.” She hinted back at the slightly threatening way I’d been contacted so far, playing up the mystery and maybe even attempt at making me fearful. I hated admitting how much it might’ve actually worked. “I wanted to start like this, for the most part. Just a meetup and conversation, about us trying to understand some things about you. I didn’t want to scare you.”
	I looked at her with defensive light jolt. “I wasn’t scared.” Which was a boldface lie, but I wanted to keep at least a bit of dignity. “Were you in my apartment?” I said in a directly accusatory tone. I knew ‘they’ were, and whatever she was clearly associated with, but I needed someone to answer to me feeling violated. She rose her hand up slightly to temper my frustration, but not in a dismissive way. “I took the liberty of doing that bit myself, we would’ve left the note under the door but it wouldn’t slide under. I actually had to have an agent come up to meet me back on the second floor while I waited since I didn’t know how to pick locks.” She tells it like it was a funny little happenstance, maybe trying to disarm and make it feel like something they didn’t mean to feel creepy doing, but it wasn’t working much. She picks up a bit on how little I was phased from how I was already feeling. “Regardless, I apologize. That note was all I had originally planned on leaving, but people ahead of me insisted on dropping you the photos, which I’m guessing may have unsettled you some.”
	Some unsettling was downplaying it. I wanted to cackle out sarcastically and tell her “You don’t say?” but I held my tongue. It wasn’t as important as what this was all really about. “So, who, or what are you, and what do you want from me?” Straight to the point. There was a tiny bit of venom in how I put it, not anger exactly, but enough of me feeling like I was at the center of something I didn’t want to be the focus of. She nodded her head, likely understanding how I felt in this. “Of course, you have a lot of questions. We also have many questions for you that we’d appreciate you helping us with.” 
	That somewhat confirmed she, or ‘they’ didn’t know everything yet. But maybe a lot more than I was comfortable with. “Who’s ‘we’?” I chirp back, catching the obvious bigger people at play than her. She smirks a bit. “The people I work with, the ones who found you.” She vaguely referred to. I quipped back immediately at the somewhat non-answer. “What people? Like, government or something?” She looks off to the side, thinking of how to phrase. “...Not exactly. We—I work for a group referred to as The Foundation. In short, what we do is investigate, what we can refer to as anomalous events. People, things, places, things that fall outside the veil of what most people would consider ‘normal’.”

-23-

	She attempts at holding back from meaning any offense. “I think we might agree you fall outside of what the average person would consider ‘normal’.” I can’t really argue that, I’d been mystified about why I’m able to do what I do for a long time now. I knew early on that what I could sense from everyone else was completely outside of normal. “You can do some rather abnormal things, can’t you Samuel?” She asks, in a slightly patronizing way, speaking to me as if I just found out what I can do a couple days ago. I respond with a bit of a tight lipped bite. “And, what exactly is it that you think I can do?” I didn’t have to read her mind to play this game. Letting it all hang and telling everything about me wasn’t what I planned on doing yet. I wanted to test the waters and see exactly what they even believe about me before I just open up.
	As I spoke out, she reaches for her booklet and opens it up. As she splays it out, inside are a bundle of a few pictures on the page she skips ahead to. Pulling them out, they’re repeats of the pictures they’d already sent me, but with a few more of the same locations. A couple more at the bank showing different moments with the robbers in different positions and me in the same spot back against the wall, me in the subway with the purse snatcher running away, and the next scene his leg twisted upwards as if it had been pulled, and the scene in the park.
	She lays it all out like a sequence of events, and me the character in the background connecting them all. “You’ve had a little bit of a history, since you moved to the city.” She starts with the subway photographs. “In September, two years ago, you were witness to this man, Connery Davis, robbing Mrs. Savannah Kyle.” She alternates between the three photographs, in order, showing the sequence of events, with highlights on me as well as the action of his leg being pulled upwards. “In the process of him running away with her purse, he suddenly found himself after 20 meters or so, tripping over nothing while his leg was pulled out from under him and lifted high above where his waist would’ve been.” The scene almost looks comic in nature, like a hysterical fall. “The man when arrested later, claimed that a ghost had grabbed him by the leg. Which is probably the only reason why the event was logged at all, beyond any other arrest.”
	She shifts over to the Central park photographs, depicting an escalating fight between the two men, pre-fight, during, and post, me in the background looking at them during the fight and looking away after it was suddenly over. “Around 9 months later, you were witness to another event in Central Park. This, maybe a little bit less impressive to anyone looking from the outside, a fight that ended as suddenly as it started. No biggie, it’s a big city, I’m sure you’ve seen all kinds of things between people happen.” She then pulls out two separate folded pieces of paper with notes sketched along them. “What’s interesting about this, isn’t what’s on camera, it’s what isn’t. Both of these men were charged with public disorderly conduct when they were reported to by law enforcement. The fascinating part of it is however, neither man knew what the fight was over. Not the faintest clue, as if, neither could think of a reason as to why they even would fight.”
	She speaks and motions as if explaining a mysterious event that I had zero clue about, like this was all new information to me. But I knew she’s just playing along and guiding me along with what they already know. “Both men were independently interviewed by a medical and criminal psychologist, thinking there might have been some kind of neurological issue, but both men were shown to have no serious injuries, no concussions or memory loss, aside from the reasoning of the fight itself. It’s as if they simply forgot why they were fighting.” She smiles, almost a little proud of pointing out these connecting dots. I don’t know if it was for me or for her more. “But this isn’t nearly the worst you’ve witnessed in recent days.”
	She then pushes those photos aside, focusing on the bank robbery, along with the photographs of all three identified men. There are notes paper-clipped to the photographs, highlighting details of my eyes being shut, of a change in expression in the men in question, like commentary on the things they noticed that were abnormal. “The worst might’ve been being part of this, a rather violent armed robbery at Chase bank, this past Monday a little after 4 in the evening. A very dangerous situation, given the criminal background and history of the men involved.”

-24-

	She motioned over to the photograph where Kevin, the first man ran out. “Luckily, it didn’t take long for it to fall apart, when this man according to witnesses claimed to hear police sirens, and ran out the door. Which led to the other accomplice following suit.” She points at Thomas, the ringleader of the three. “All, except this one, who has the most violent history on record. According to witnesses, he was going to kill that woman, in front of all of you, when he was unable to get into the vault. Miraculously, according to your statement and many others, he suffered from some kind of ‘mental break’, that made him seem to not remember how he got there, changing his outlook from pissed to petrified.” She reaches into her notes, far more detailed than what she had before, and what looked like possible interview logs.
	There’s an almost proud look she gives, reading her bullet point notes she laid out for herself. I had been keeping my reactions to a minimum, almost feigning ignorance in my head like all this meant nothing and was just coincidence, despite how it absolutely wasn’t. But some of it was still flaky, so far. “What was truly fascinating, was what happened long after he was arrested. Apparently, Thomas Jules, who had a history of gun violence and owned several illegal firearms, was suddenly mortally terrified of guns. Even the sight of guns holstered on police that arrested him caused sudden spurts of panic, even when nothing aggressive was happening.”
	She pulls out another sheet of police logs that she’s referencing. “According to his arresting officers, he was so panicked, he would move himself to the corner away from rooms, cowering in fear whenever a gun was present in the room.” She pulls out a picture of herself, in the same police interrogation room as him, one on one, holding a sheet of paper up to him. He was sitting with his seat pushed back to the edge of the wall, covering his face and looking like a scared child at the sight of whatever she was holding. “When I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Jules myself, I presented a printed picture of a handgun to Thomas, which made him back away from me and start sobbing. This behavior baffled the criminal psychologists at the station, who indicated that he was not faking or fabricating these fears, but the behavior didn’t seem to make any sense. He’s also still adamant that he had no clue of the robbery, where he was when police arrived, or anything in the last few months.”
	In my head I was thinking “Shit… I really fucked up more than I thought.” Not with the memory wipe alone, but not undoing or specifying the details to the quick little fear I implemented. It was meant to be something just for that moment, to get him to drop the gun and surrender when the cops arrived. But in the moment I must’ve changed things too broadly, not being specific enough with the memory I implanted. I was showing the regret and fuckup all over my face, and she could tell. There wasn’t any point in hiding it with how it was all laid out, but I still couldn’t find the words to admit anything.
	She doesn’t comment on my easily read guilt, and instead moves onto another picture which she didn’t have before, this time printed on a piece of paper as if hastily added to the pile. “Now, I think anyone given this evidence would find this all quite strange, Samuel. A lot of coincidences lining up around you. There was certainly the question among us if you might have even been aware of what was happening around you. Maybe, this all being some kind of, automatic defense response of sorts. We got a definitive answer for that question yesterday.” She slides over a printed picture of 3 frames in security footage, from the WTC Station. It was that purse snatcher and that woman on the phone, the frames showing his approach, the purse falling on the floor from nothing visible, and her picking it up and the man walking onward. All three photos with me in the crowd, visible, staring at the whole event directly as it unfolded. On its own it showed almost nothing, but to eyes watching me with my every action, it meant a lot. “When this little event occurred, what appeared like a potential purse snatching, suddenly never happened. In what appears to be an unseen force pushing over her purse over, drawing her attention to it, all while you stand in silence, watching it all happen. Now, everything else, there was a danger present, some crime or violent act already occurring. But this? This was stopped before it ever happened, in a tastefully subtle way.”

-25-

	Locke is grinning in an almost admiring expression, like she’s not only proud of cracking this ‘case’, but of explaining it all to prime suspect number one. It must’ve been hard for her to hide her excitement, likely the type to pride herself in a job well done, solving the mystery. Meanwhile I looked like a kid caught sneaking out at night, with the door cam footage to prove it. I didn’t have a response, I was so thoroughly caught and boxed in, that anybody paying close attention would’ve been able to figure out what I did if they connected the pieces. I cursed myself in my head for being as sloppy as I was, thinking everything I did couldn’t have been tied to me like this. Her expression diminished from passion, into sympathetic understanding at my pale white ghostly face. “Samuel, I think it’s obvious that you exhibit some extraordinary abilities. Based on our observations, you’ve demonstrated both advanced psychic and telekinetic capabilities, and we have every reason to believe you are fully aware—and have higher levels of control of these abilities.”
	I was sinking deeper into that cheap and uncomfortable restaurant seating, the thin cushioning like knives I was forcing my lower half into deeper cuts. I wanted the minor inconvenient pain to take me out of the moment, distract me from the dread I was feeling. I hated this. My secret, the thing I’ve always kept hidden away, laid bare in front of me in some food diner. In my mind I wanted to run away, curl up in a ball somewhere and pretend none of this was happening. I didn’t get to do any of this on my own terms, decide when if ever that I wanted to be known. It was just taken from me. I know she felt it, the visible uncomfortableness. My arms were tight into my sides, holding onto myself, the protective barriers and putting body parts between the two of us a display of my momentary insecurity. She moved the pictures out of the way and back into her booklet, moving her hand closer to me across the table. “Samuel, it’s alright…”
	I looked down at the table, probably like I wanted to cover my face and cry, but more so just dissociating. That wall got shattered like with a sudden jolt when the waiter finally decided to pay a moment of attention to us. “Are you two ready to order?” I pulled myself out of the moment like I woke up from a bad dream, looking up at her with a flabbergasted tweaked out expression. I froze for a moment not even registering how to put the moment together, and before I was confronted further, Locke stepped in. “In a minute, we’ll just get drinks first. I’ll have a coffee, two creams and two sugars. What do you want Sam?” They both look onto me expecting an answer. I find the will to just come up with something. “I’ll just have… a mocha, that’d be fine.” She nods at us, giving us an okay, walking off with our order.
	The moment got confused on me, but Locke carried me through it somehow. “We can just get something to eat first, Samuel. I imagine you’re probably hungry, yes? I could go for something. We don’t have to get into everything right this moment.” I probably should’ve been thanking her for pausing the scene of my whole life unraveling in front of me, but I also couldn’t help but wonder if she only knew I hadn’t eaten anything because they bugged my room or something. “...Yea, sure.” I utter out weakly.
	A few moments pass while the thoughts swirl around in my head. Eventually I find the will to say something. “...I haven’t told anyone—any of this. About me.” She looks intently at me with sympathy and concern, as if trying to convey that she understands how terrifying this all is for me, that whatever this was, would be a threshold crossed for the rest of my life. “I knew I fucked up with that guy, he was just going to kill her, I had to think of something. I didn’t think it was… that broad.” I started to unfurl a bit. “I didn’t have much time, I just… I’m sorry, I can undo it, if you need me to, it’s really not hard, I just didn’t realize…” She pauses my momentary panic apology before I go on. “It’s alright, Samuel. We administered him amnestics, and whatever effects he had seemed to dissipate once he lost memory of whatever you changed. Of course it creates an interesting situation of, not remembering anything of the crime he committed or even why he’s in jail, but another team will look into dealing with that. You don’t have to worry about that.”
	There was some relief in knowing that, at least whatever I did was undone, at least so far in that he wouldn’t have some overblown hysterical fear of weaponry, even if he might’ve deserved it. But I understood very well how something like that was akin to playing God with people’s minds, even if the circumstance permitted leniency for it. I quietly rubbed my eyes a bit, not crying but there was likely a bit of a swelling in my eyes by now. Or maybe I just needed an excuse to close my eyes and be less present.

-26-

	The waiter came back with our drinks after the pause, setting them down in front of us with steam rising hot out of them. “So are ya’ll ready to order now?” Locke looks over to me, probably to gauge my current composure, and without looking directly I give a quiet nod that I’m alright. “I’ll have the, breakfast sandwich I think.” They turn back to me, and while I haven’t given it much thought, it does still feel like a breakfast diner, so I go with something safe. “I’ll do… three pancakes and syrup.” She nods and carries on, us not having any clue how long she’ll take to come back with food, but I also didn’t know how long this would go on here anyway.
	I didn’t say anything. I just sat quiet, looking down, trying to piece together my thoughts. Eventually she decided to speak out, maybe thinking that the complete silence wasn’t the best option for me in that moment. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?” She asked with a slight hesitation of how ready I was at this moment. “It’s alright if you’re not ready, I’ll try to keep them basic for now.”
	There wasn’t much point in hiding at this point, I was out and known, by at least her and whatever the hell ‘Foundation’ she worked for. I shook my head, my own fears holding me back from saying anything, but I swallowed them with a painfully sore gulp and looked up at her, taking a breath. It was time to just say fuck it, and deal with them. “...What do you want to know?” I say, looking her down in my best composure that I could muster.
	She smirks a bit, nodding as she flips open her booklet to a different page. I assumed on the page was some kind of list of questions or details. “Alright Samuel, well first just baseline formalities. Your name is Samuel Paul Alwyn, yes?” I lightly nod my head. “Yea.” She dots down a little check or mark of some kind. “And you live at 447 West 48th Street, in Hell’s Kitchen, yes?” I nod yes, though with a bit of a twinge of a perplexed expression, as if to say no shit, you were already in my apartment you know where I live. “You work at Cygnatech Solutions on 200 Liberty Street, yes?” I nod again.
	She marks her little checks and moves down the page. “Your mother and father are Judith and Peter Alwyn, and they live upstate, correct?” I twitched a bit at that. I mean sure, they know me so of course they know my parents, it’s basic lookup. But them being mentioned like this, I didn’t like all that much, wanting their names to stay completely out of this. “...Yea.” She marks down a few more boxes before flipping over to a different page. “Alright Samuel, you can answer whatever you’re comfortable with, I won’t try to start so hard hitting. I know all of this is a lot.”
	This was more than a lot. This felt like, everything. Everything I’d been holding onto, everything I’d kept secret. My life was changing every minute I sat here. “So, these abilities you have… I’d like to understand more about them if you don’t mind. If my prior understanding is correct, you have the ability to read and control minds, yes?” She’s really looking at me now with focus and intrigue, like I was a case she’d spent this week getting to the bottom of. I shyly nod my head again. “Yea.” I knew she wanted more than the meek answers I was giving her. “Could you explain, in your own words, how that works exactly?”
	Well there was a big and open ended question. Where would I even begin answering that? “Like.. how I’m able to do it?” She nods herself, pen ready to jot down any and every little detail I say. “Well.. I mean, I don’t know exactly what ‘gives me’ the ability to do it, it’s just something I’ve been able to do for a long time. But I guess I could explain how it works, from my point of view.” A few more nods in-between her scribbling down, in full listen mode.
	“So, you know like, computers right? The way I can describe it is.. imagine everyone’s mind is like a computer. It’s running an operating system, it has a folder structure, memories, currently running programs, and all that. And, when I go into someone’s mind, it’s like I’m an admin with full control of that computer. I can read whatever files I want, rewrite whatever I want, delete whatever I want, all remotely. I just have to think about it, focus on it. Every mind is different but, there is a structure to it.” As I say all this, she seems enthralled by the details I’m giving her, jotting everything down. I don’t know whether I should be worried, or if it somehow feels like I’m boasting about what I can do. It’s a weird situation that I’ve never really felt.

-27-

	She looks back up at me asking for clarity. “So, would you say when you’re going through someone’s mind, that it’s something you are choosing to do, or is it something passive that you can’t turn off?” No doubt wondering if her thoughts were being compromised right this very moment. Then again, I suppose with what she assumed prior that would’ve already been something she’d considered. I hadn’t peered inside yet, but it did make me wonder why she’d be confident enough to be her as vulnerable as the armed robbers were around me, knowing some idea of what I could do. Then again, I supposed we were both vulnerable in a way.
	I shook my head. “No it’s… I have to actively choose to go into someone’s mind. It’s not like something I can accidentally do. If I wanted to know what someone was consciously thinking, it’s a decision I’d have to make. But, the only barrier to that decision is myself.” She bobs her head in contemplation. “So, when you were at the subway station yesterday, and you saw the man about to steal that woman’s purse, you were, actively searching everyone around you?” Seems she was catching on to the contradiction. “Well, no… not exactly.” I think about how to phrase it for a moment. “...I can sort of—feel emotions around me. Strong emotions. It’s… a part that’s more passive. I can tell if someone around me is sad, scared, angry, happy, strong emotions like that.”
	She seems more interested as she jots down more details in her booklet, almost proud of herself like she had guessed this already and was merely confirming it. “So, you could almost say you’re able to sense certain dangers around you… like at the bank?” I nod my head. She then comes in with what I’m sure had been on her mind since she sat down. “Are you reading my mind right now, Samuel?” I’m a bit frozen stiff, not sure how I should answer back. The answer was of course no, but how would anyone actually know that? “...No.” I reply back. She watches my expression carefully. “It’s okay if you’re lying. You don’t know me at all, and this all must put you in a rather frightening position.” That would certainly be underselling it. I look at her trying to convey that I meant it. “I’m not lying.” She tilts her head away a bit, a bit of a smirk and still looking at me. “And why’s that?” She questioned. I couldn’t tell if this was—some kind of test? Or what this was all getting at.
	“I don’t… feel like I should.” I respond back. To be honest, I felt like I’d be violating some thin veil of trust by just skipping ahead and getting all the answers myself. In theory I could just read through her in a manner of moments and leave, making her forget I was ever here. But I felt like if I did that, I’d be carving out an entirely different path… something I’d perhaps regret more than just letting this play out. “Interesting.” She muttered as she checked a few things in her booklet. It was hard to read how she was feeling unless I were to look, but the expression I could best pick up on was a kind of morbid curiosity. It was strange being on the receiving end of it.
	After a few moments of her going over what I assume were questions she was deciding whether or not to ask, I felt as though I should try to get some kind of answers myself, being that I still didn’t really know fully what this was. “Can I ask... I still don’t really understand. Like.. what is it exactly that you want from me.” I don’t try to sound accusatory but I’m sure it sounded defensive on some level. “Like alright, fine, you want answers about me, what I can do. Some of which you already seem to know. But I’m still not seeing where this is headed.” She adjusts her glasses a bit, the curiosity fading just a smidge and more into contemplative thought, as if thinking on what she’s able to reveal. “That depends.” She replies as I narrow my brow a bit at the vagueness. “...On?” I question her directly.
	She takes a moment to breathe, now looking the most serious she’s looked since this whole thing has started. “Samuel… Would you consider your abilities dangerous?” I look down a bit, choked up on how to answer. The real answer was yes, I very much did consider myself dangerous, and being afraid of myself wasn’t a feeling I was unfamiliar to. Sensing the pause and what it meant, she turned her question into something more rhetorical. “From the outside looking in, what you did in these instances, many would likely consider heroic. Noble, even. But the implications of what you can do, even from what you’ve been willing to tell me, I’m sure you can picture how dangerous someone with your abilities could be.”

-28-

	There wasn’t much to argue. I’ve never met anyone or anything like me, but with how I felt in the heads of so many others, it was easy to picture the existential horror that kind of scenario would conjure up. Even the petty simple wants, and how easy it was to play God in my head. Most people wouldn’t have any respect for it. “I’m not saying you’re a dangerous person Samuel, but the people I work with, they don’t take something like that on faith. I’m sure you would understand why.” I quietly nodded, still unsure as to the implications of where this was ultimately headed. I look at her again, not angrily but still pushing for an answer. “So what will that mean then? What happens to me if that’s the case?”
	She almost backs off in a shrug, at first seeing it like she really doesn’t know the answer, but I quickly piece together it’s more of a sarcastic gesture. “That’s… really all going to depend on you. I personally believe you’re well meaning, and if that proves itself to be true, for now all that’s going to mean is some talks, some questions, maybe some experimentation.” I pull back at the last bit. “Experiments?” Of course slight fear of being a lab rat come to mind. She maybe realizes the implication and corrects. “Tests and demonstrations, would be more accurate. If you’d be willing to participate. Don’t worry, we’re not interested in dissecting you. Believe it or not, we know more about psionics than you might think.”
	That piqued my interest a bit. Terms like ‘Psychic’ and ‘Telepathic’ I already knew, but psionic wasn’t really something I heard all that much. But it seems she already had me pegged under that classification. “So there’s more like me then?” She tilts her head slightly in her responding gesture. “Some, though usually it’s either strictly empathics, mind readers, or telekinetics. You’ve seem to have hit the whole trifecta, which is admittedly more uncommon.” So I wasn’t the first they knew about, which I didn’t know if that was reassuring or not. “But the uncommon, or even strange, is not something we’re unfamiliar with. To be frank, you’re probably a lot more straightforward of an anomaly than some of the things the Foundation has encountered.” I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
	Interrupting the most nerve-wracking and strange conversation I’d had in my life up until now, was our food served from the same woman as earlier, blissfully ignorant to what was being discussed. When she sat the pancakes on the table it took me out of the moment, a strange culture shock of life happening as normal, and not whatever this all was. “Here ya’ll are, let me know if you need anything else.” Locke nods a thank-you, and I awkwardly nod along with. I sat still looking at it a little confused, not by what was in front of me but by the moment. She seemed to swap out of her last personality and into a more casual one on a dime, and started eating her sandwich, at which point she pointed at mine. “You should eat, we got time.” As she continued digging in.
	It took a few seconds for me to catch up, but my stomach carried more than just unease… I was starving quite a bit. I must’ve looked like a kid again, fumbling around uncomfortable in my body and unsure of myself, looking for the syrup bottle at the table, cutting into the fluffy and sweetened batter. I hadn’t had a proper breakfast in months, probably years if I’m being honest, but it was as good as I’d remembered, and a long time coming. It did manage to take my mind off of everything and distract myself with taste.
	Somewhere between half-way through eating, as the silence between us continued while I mostly bounced around in my own head, she decided to break the silence. “So, what made you decide to get a job in software development?” I looked up mid bite, a bit lost at the sudden conversation turn. She picked up on it right away, and waved her hand in a friendly dismissive manner. “I think we’ve covered a lot of the heavy hitters for now, we don’t have to talk about just the strange stuff.” I swallowed and tried to switch gears along with her. “Oh, well I guess… I was just always into computers, growing up. Taught myself how to code and all.” She looked at me with mild curiosity as I continued. “Went to school, found a job in the city, paid decent enough.”

-29-

	Taking another bite, she gives a look like she’s coming up with a clever thought or scheme. With a grin she starts pitching it. “You know, you probably could’ve made for a hell of a professional poker player.” For the first time since what felt like days or weeks, I gave out a smirk and a slight chuckle under my breath, most of the tension gone with that. “I think that’d be cheating a bit?” I retort as she smirks back. “Perhaps. Though, I’m surprised someone in your position wouldn’t pick a more human interacting job… something you’d have maybe a bit more insight into.” I partly shrug it off, but give it a bit of thought as the food settles. “I mean sure, knowing people, reading people is easy for me and all. But I always liked the challenge of something I can’t just read with my head. Where people were always easy, computers are a challenge. Can’t just cheat so easily.”
	Her eyebrows open up with consideration, head bobbing the smallest bit side to side as if supposing she could see where I’m coming from. I was curious if this might’ve been part of a character test of sorts, but had it been, she wasn’t making it obvious. “Working with people wouldn’t always be cheating… psychology, teaching—there’s a lot of use in knowing what other people are thinking in occupations like that, and truthfully I don’t think most people would view it as inherently unfair.” I swallow another bite, getting down to the last pancake on my plate, me being perhaps blissfully ignorant to how I must’ve looked scarfing it down as quickly as I have. “Maybe, I guess. I don’t know… I mean I can read people but, maybe that’s part of why I prefer just working on my own.”
	I look down at the table just a little more somberly, reflecting on how I felt about my social situation a bit, or lack thereof. “I guess when you know what people are really thinking, it can be harder to get to know them. I mean I don’t read anyone I plan on knowing, so that limits my interactions further beyond that point, but even if it didn’t I don’t see anybody being much different than the hundreds I’ve read before. At some point it’s just kind of, patterns?” I probably sounded nihilist as all hell. Usually these would just be my own internal thoughts kept in my own head, but even I had to admit to myself saying it out loud just made me down depressed. There didn’t seem to be much concern in her retort, however. “I don’t imagine you have a lot of friends, do you?”
	I shot up from my slouched look staring right at her face. It wasn’t quite a squint I was giving, but it conveyed the minor rudeness that I felt. It’s not that she was wrong, but being pointed out so flagrantly stung at least a little bit. She was definitely getting comfortable pushing me once I got past fear, onto irritation. Maybe that was a test too, or maybe it was just poking fun. Either way, I scoffed at it and went to finish off my plate. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.” She returns with a mostly light-hearted and grinning expression, like she was holding back the humor of her verbal savagery from what she just said. Eventually she composed herself. “You just, make it seem awfully lonely.”
	I shrugged, not having much pushback. “It can be.” I said through swallowing the last of my syrupy brunch, at which point in time she seemed to be done with her food as well. She pulled out something from her booklet before closing it up, holding the slip of some paper in her hand. “Well.. I think we’ve covered a lot today. I’m glad you were willing to meet, and I’m sorry for spooking you with everything earlier.” I look at her, before shrugging and playing the whole thing off, not in a ‘cool’ way but in a much more meek and timid fashion. “It’s fine.” She slides the piece of paper over to me, that same logo I kept seeing on the corner of it, with her name and number in plain black ink. It wrote: “Dr. Claire S. Locke”, along with her phone number and some staff ID number. “This is my private number, you can contact me directly. I’d like, if you’d be willing to Saturday or Sunday, to meet with another colleague of mine, and maybe you’d be willing to do some testing and demonstration?” I pick up the card, eyeing it up until I look back at her, unable to give an answer. I just kept thinking of what all that could actually mean. “Or, we can just sit and talk some more. It’s up to you. If you can’t do this weekend we can reschedule.”

-30-

	She signals over to the waiter that we’re ready to pay, me still thinking of how this was all going to work from this point on. This had been the stepping off point to whatever this was, and I was still clueless as to where I was headed. The waiter came over with our bill. “Alright, here you are.” She spoke pleasantly while handing off the overly inflated breakfast, even by New York standards. As she walked away, Locke just hand waved it as I was reaching for my wallet. “You’re fine, Samuel, I’ll take care of it.” I still pull my wallet out, but instead to put this business card of sorts inside. “Just call me tonight, or tomorrow, whenever you decide what you want to do, alright?” She stands up out of her seat, as I follow suit, a bit slower. She extends her hand out with a shake, and I match with it in kind. “It was good talking with you Samuel, I hope to see you soon.”
	As I break away from the shake, I awkwardly nod my head as I start heading for the exit slowly. “Thanks… um, you too.” I give a shy wave as I receive one back on my way out. I was able to catch her heading over to pay at the register before I walk out onto the sidewalk. The air outside was stale with concrete and pollution, and yet somehow it felt like a breath of fresh air walking out from that entire experience. Something changed, something was taking me in a path I never expected to be in. This quirk of mine that I had, this thing that probably changed the whole course of my life seemed to be doing it again. I wasn’t able to tell if that was a curse or a blessing, and it was too early to make that call.
	All I knew for sure, was this week was starting to feel like a month crammed into a couple days. I didn’t look back as I kept walking, heading back to my apartment. I thought if maybe I should check her head on my way out, but it felt even more wrong now. I was involved with this, like it or not. I walked forward and ahead, my eyes shut and my mind open to the path in front of me. I’d breathe that carbonated air deeply as I felt my way home.

-31-