Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) by Dave Renol (sad books to read .txt) 📗

“Thanks,” Sara said before taking a big bite.“We needed something in our guts other than the battery acid thatMark calls coffee.”

“Any luck spotting them yet?” I asked, takinga bite from my own sandwich.

“Not yet. It’s like a needle in a haystackright now.”

“Is there anything that we can do tohelp?”

She thought for a long moment beforereplying. “Maybe there is. Look for a small beige box inside myduffle. Inside are a compass and a protractor. Find some string andmake a line from the bullet hole in a window to the impact point onthe floor. Use the compass and protractor to get the direction andangle of elevation of each shot. If you can match up the rightholes and get me a good measurement, then that’ll be a big helpnarrowing down my search area.”

“I think I can manage that. Is there anythingelse I can do?”

“Yeah, don’t get shot. You can also bring meanother sandwich.”

“Here, you can have my second one. I wouldrather keep busy than choke it down.”

Accepting my offering absently, she turnedback to her scope and resumed scanning the hillside in betweenbites. I grabbed the beige box from her duffel and a ball of bindertwine from the garage shelf. I made my way past the boys in thehallway where they were still going at it, and decided that theliving room might be the best place to start.

I hung one end of the string at thefirst bullet hole and unrolled it through the air back toward me.There were several bullet holes in my nice hardwood floor and itwasn’t very easy matching them up. I struggled with it for a whileand finally just had to guess. I moved on to the office, hopingthat there might be an easier match in there.

I was a little bit more confident with mypairings in there, but decided to check my bedroom in order to bethorough. Once finished, I stood in the doorway and looked out atthe string lines in the living room. There was definitely apattern, and I could see where the most dangerous places were.

Taking my notes back to Sara I almost laughedout loud at Carl, sitting in the hall and straining to use histelepathy. It looked like he was constipated.

“Here ya go,” I said to Sara, waving my notesas I entered the garage.

“That was quick.”

“Well, you might say that I’ve got a bit ofan advantage. I should tell you though, that I’m not quite sure onthe pairings from the living room.”

Sara studied my notes for several longminutes before replying, “I think you’re right, some of these looka little strange. Let’s go check it out.”

Sara gave Carl an odd look as we passed themin the hallway. When we reached the living room she whispered to me“Why does Carl look like he’s trying to take a dump on yourfloor?”

I giggled, “I think he’s trying tosend something to Mark. Ever since he heard our mentalcomments, he’s been obsessed with figuring it out.”

“I can’t blame him,” she wistfully replied.Turning back to the task at hand she studied the string paths forseveral minutes, often getting down on the floor and putting hereye right next to a hole.

“No, no, no … this one goes here, and thatone goes there.” She finally said, pointing out my error.

Nodding, I quickly moved the offendingstrings to the new locations and took the measurements again. OnceI was finished, Sara took her own measurements and checked themagainst mine.

“Looks perfect now,” she said happily. “I’llneed to do some figuring with these now. Do you have acalculator?”

“I’ll find something for you.”

As Sara made her way back to the garage, Itried to think of where my old pocket calculator would be. Ratherthan waste time, I decided that the laptop would probably be best,especially since the garage was so dark. I set it up for her andthen stepped back to the hallway door so as to not disturb her.

For the next hour she worked on hercalculations, occasionally mumbling about stuff like ‘wind speed’or ‘inclination’. I wasn’t quite sure if she was getting anywhere,but at least she was doing something. I felt a bit useless, and Ihad to admit to myself that I didn’t like the feeling. Sara wassearching for our assailants, Carl learned how to use one of ourabilities, and Mark figured out how to keep watch efficiently. AllI did was make some food and play with a ball of string.

“Think girl, think,” I mumbled to myself.Suddenly it hit me. About six months ago, a truck driver took awrong turn and ended up at my dead end road. While he was trying toturn his rig around, he took out two sections of my fence as hebacked into the driveway. He never stopped after he did the damage,but I saw what he did and managed to snap a pic of his truck withmy phone camera before he drove away. The sheriff who came out toinvestigate my complaint sent the pic from my phone to his asevidence. His number should still be in my phones memory!

The phone service was out, but if I queued upa text message then it might go through whenever Sid turned it onto send us something. Excited, I quickly grabbed my phone and beganthumbing through my history. Yes, it was still there. I composed mythoughts for a moment and began typing.

911 SOMEONE SHOOTING AT US NEED HELPASAP

I added my name and address to the messageand sent it. Thinking for a moment, I queued up another one to lethim know that phone service was sporadic. Feeling better, I went totell the others what I did. The boys thought it was a brilliantidea. They talked about it enthusiastically for a whole fiveminutes before going back to their telepathy discussion.

Bored with their discussion that was goingnowhere, I went to see if Sara needed anything else. She seemed tobe concentrating on her scope fully now so I quietly sat andwaited, not wanting to disturb her. About fifteen minutes later,she sat back, rubbed her eyes and jotted down some notes on thelaptop.

“I think I’ve identified and located twoseparate firing positions,” she began. “I