Not yet a complete story and it gets a bit info dumpy at the end but I like the world that I'm building.

 

The Ouija Paradigm

 

Bubba pushed his way in front of me. "Do your trick and I'll buy the next round."

Bubba was six foot six and two hundred fifty pounds. When he wanted to be somewhere he got there. Actually a good talent for a defensive back and a major reason he had just signed with the Dallas Cowboys. "Forgot your name again?"

"Not me. Her." He pointed to a good looking blond at a nearby table. He dropped a bill on the bar and gently, for Bubba, guided me toward the woman.

I grabbed a bowl of peanuts as we walked and told the bar tender to pour us a pitcher. "Hi," I said to the blond. "My friend, Bubba, here would like to meet you. Let me introduce you."

"You don't know me," she said with a smirk that indicated she wasn't totally uninterested.

"Not a problem." I dumped the bowl of peanuts on the table and pushed them into a thin row. "Now think of your name but don't tell me." I spread my fingers so the peanuts could pass between them and slowly ran my hand down the row of nuts. Usually it took two or three passes. After the first pass the nuts had arranged themselves into blocks of letters. "A short name, only four letters." Another pass and some letters became obvious. "Jean, or Joan." I waved my hand over the peanuts and smiled. "Jane, I'd like you to meet Bubba. Bubba meet Jane."

Jane stared at the nuts on the bar. "How did you do that? Who told you my name?"

"Magic," I said. The bartender held up a pitcher and nodded to me. I held up three fingers and started toward him. "I'll be back," I said over my shoulder.

I picked up the three glasses and went back to the table. Bubba was quite charming once he got started. His problem was in the first steps. It was hard to tell who was picking up whom. I put the glasses down and started to pour.

Jane looked up at me, "How do you two know each other?"

"I tutored Bubba in his science classes. Astronomy mostly." I slid the glass toward her and started on the glass in front of Bubba.

She walked into the bar and I stared. Unfortunately I didn't stop pouring. The beer filled the glass and flowed over the side and onto Bubba. He was in a good mood but beer dripping off his brand new Dallas jersey was changing that. He had three classifications of people, team mate, official/coach, and other team. The look on his face was putting me in the "other" category. Not a good place to be.

Jane giggled and grabbed his hand. "You're all wet. We have to change your clothes. Do you live near here?" I backed away and into a group.

"That was stupid," Joe said. "You're lucky Bubba is in a good mood."

"She would make the Pope stupid." I looked around. "Did you see where she went?"

"Who? The girl leaving with Bubba?"

"No. The most beautiful girl I've ever seen. Tall, thin, tiny mini skirt, rack like – Oh, there she is." I looked at the table. The pitcher was gone. "Where's the pitcher I just bought?"

"Bubba gave it to some team mates so they wouldn't pound you into the floor. That girl? Bit of a cougar don't you think?"

I walked over to where she was standing against the wall. "Hi, Drink you want." I stopped talking and tried to clear my head. Then I noticed she had green eyes just like me. "Green eyes," I mumbled. I'm no smooth talked but this was reaching a new low even for me.

She giggled and my knees nearly buckled. I looked down from her eyes but that brought into view a new pair of distractions. I looked at her red hair. "Could I buy you a drink?"

"I was looking for someone and I think I found him."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone."

"No, it's you silly. But I didn't come in here for a drink. I'm looking to hire someone. You did just graduate didn't you?"

"Yeah, finals ended yesterday. But I'm going to grad school. I'm not looking for a job."

"I think you'll take this one. You want to know how the universe works don't you?"

I nodded and she gave me a follow me sign with her finger. We walked out of the bar and toward a van.

"What's my name?" She asked.

"Ah," I shook my head and tried to clear it. I did this all the time. Not sure how I did it but it was easy. "Scarlett, your name is Scarlett."

She fingered her hair, "Too easy even for you. Open the van."

It was an order not a request. I grabbed the handle and pulled. It was locked.

"You have to unlock it first."

"I don't have the keys."

"We can't go anywhere until you unlock it."

I looked at the door again and put my hand on the window next to the lock. I heard it click and when I pulled on the handle it opened.

"Telepathic and telekinetic. Two abilities together are rare but those two together are very rare." She slid between me and the van and into the drivers seat. "Get in. I'm driving."

I ran to the passenger side and pulled the door. It was locked. I put my hand on the window but I could see her press the button to unlock it.

"Audition's over. Buckle up. I'm with a government agency. What I'm going to tell you is top secret. Not that anyone would believe you if you told them but if you do things get difficult for you."

She looked different in the dash lights. A bit older and not so stunning. "But I haven't agreed to--"

"You will. You majored in Astronomy to find aliens. You spent one summer down at Arecibo to maintain the SETI equipment. Your senior thesis was on signal processing to extract PCM signals in the radio signals. You passed up a full ride to Cornell to got to Berkeley to be closer to the SETI project. You're not the only one who can read minds."

"But that doesn't mean--"

"We're in contact with aliens and want, need you to help."

"I'll sign anything."

She pulled a file from nowhere and handed it to me. "It says that what you are about to hear is top top secret and if you disclose any of it you are liable to be held without a hearing or trial for an indefinite period of time."

A pen was clipped to the folder. I opened it and Scarlett flipped on the interior lights. I had signed non-disclosures before and they normally were ten or so pages long. This was almost verbatim what Scarlett had said. "Simple." I signed and handed it back.

In the bar she had looked like a cross between Molly Quinn and Kate Upton. She still looked great but more mature and less likely to cause a traffic accident.

She turned the interior lights off . "A few more minutes before we're at the office."

"Would you really lock me up forever?" She looked at me and smiled. It was more a smile like a cat would give its next meal.

"No, course not. Like you can read minds we have someone who can write them."

We turned into a parking garage. She accelerated to fast to make the turn at the end of the row. "FYI, if you aren't doing thirty mph it won't open."

"That's a cement wall. It won't--" It opened and we passed into another garage. This one had a few cars in it. We pulled into a spot with a large reserved sign.

"Time to meet your boss." She slipped out of the van and grabbed the folder.

"You're not my boss?"

"Don't be silly. I'm a field agent. This way." She walked toward an elevator. "Don't get more than ten feet from me. Not until you get your own ID of course."

I walked behind her to the elevator. She looked very different. Her heels were now flats, her mid-back hair, still red, was now off her shoulders. The miniskirt was at her knees. "You're different."

"Yea, disappointed I bet."

"No. At least now I can think."

She giggled. At least that was the same.

"My talent is masquerading with a bit of mesmerizing." The door opened and she stepped out. "Jack, this is the Director. He'll brief you on what we do here." She handed him the folder. See you later."

"Come into my office Jack." He walked through the door way.

I followed and looked to see if Scarlett was coming. She was walking away and for a second she looked like she had in the bar. I walked into the door jamb. "Sorry sir. I--"

"No need to explain. Scarlett likes to flex her talent with the new people. I caught her lecturing the break room looking like me. That's why she drives the van and not the Vette."

 

 

The next day I walked into the building and found my way to the office.

A receptionist looked up. "You're new. I've been expecting you. Through there." She pointed to a door. "They'll process you so you can use the private entrance and give you a tour."

The processing was a lot of biometric scanning and signing papers. I think if I talk in my sleep I'll be on the next plane to North Korea. The director walked in and took me to the lunch room.

"It's like the beginning of MIB when Tommy Lee is explaining the world to Will Smith."

"Let me guess. Everything I know is wrong and if I speak of it you neralize me and I forget everything."

"Not wrong just incomplete. And we can't erase your memories, well n all of them only the most recent twenty four hours. We put you in prison."

"Incomplete. We physicists know that we don't know everything."

"It's worse than missing a few ideas. It's like physics before quantum mechanics. What we know is less than a half of reality. There's a whole 'nother field we call magic. The name reading and peanut moving you do is a small part of it. You saw what Scarlett can do."

"She said something about aliens?"

"Getting there. We started this after WWII. The Soviets were investigating ESP so we had to counter. Nothing much came of it but there was always enough positive results that we kept going. Turns out that we were trying to listen to each other but no one was talking. What we heard didn't make sense. Finally after computers and functional brain scans got developed someone put a telepath in a scanner and ran the result into a translator. Mostly garbage came out but again enough to keep going. Finally, with enough tweaking, we got a signal that could only come from an alien intelligence."