Grady awakens just after sunrise and from a deep sleep. His father stands directly over him and he jolts fully awake. His head is throbbing but he is surprisingly awake.

“Good morning, Grady. It’s time.”

“Where do we do this?”

“There’s a room in the house where we can start. In fact, it may even look familiar to you.”

“You are so good at being cryptic. OK, hang on, just let me get some clothes on.”

His father leaves the room and Grady dresses. He doesn’t wear anything fancy because he thinks he will be rather busy and maybe even sweating before this day is over. At the very least if he has one of his attacks the spasms will leave him sweaty and breathless just as if he has been running a marathon.

His father is out in the hallway. Grady doesn’t do more than nod and then his father walks away expecting him to follow. He does. He thinks that the house has changed a lot since he was here but he knows that cannot possibly be. He just hasn’t been here in so long things feel different. He also believes he knows every room in this house and cannot imagine where his father is going.

They head down into the basement. This is his father’s office. He spent many days down here as a child crawling around on the thick carpet and hiding underneath the desk. Behind the desk is a bookcase that goes from floor to ceiling. He remembers, as a child, standing at the base of this bookcase and thinking about how tall it was.

His father walks to the bookcase and he appears to be studying the books. Grady doesn’t say anything although his mind is full of questions. He watches as his father pulls a book out from the shelf and he looks at it. There is a soft rumbling and to Grady’s surprise the bookshelf pushes outward and then slides to their left. Beyond appears to be a white room. Grady gasps.

He slowly walks past his father and enters the room. There is nothing else in the room except for deep padded walls and floors and ceilings. The place is eerily quiet. Obviously this room has been utterly sound-proofed.

“This is what I see in my mind when I use my powers.”

“Yes, I figured that. You can manipulate that, you know, once you know how. I see a green field.”

“Really?”

“You have a lot to learn Grady and not much time to learn it. Your powers appear to be growing much faster than anticipated. I figured you would be gone for years before you had to come back here. Deep in this room creates an effect much like that isolation tank. There are things embedded in the walls here that blocks out the thoughts of others. It’s also a great place to train.”

Grady watches his father as he walks around the room. The room is not particularly big. He can hear his father breathing.

“How do we do this?”

“Well, first you need to learn to concentrate. You need to learn to filter. You have to learn to ignore the extraneous things going on and to focus on death. You need to learn to control your emotions. Powerful emotions from you and other people can trigger your abilities.”

“All right. As I said, how do we do this?”

“There is a lot about the people I work for that you don’t understand. There are others with abilities. There are others who can do amazing things and they all have a role within our organization.”

“I understand. Why are you telling me this?”

“In addition to the people who have mental abilities similar or in the same vein as you and I there are those who have studied things going back to the very first men who ever walked on this planet. They study things that most of us have forgotten over the years. They study chemicals and medicines that can do things scientists and doctors today only wish they could do.”

Grady is starting to get nervous. He had no idea part of his training would be ingesting ancient hallucinogens.

“These are more than just drugs. These are things that can bring two minds together.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“I don’t expect you to. Just try to think of things like your brain is a broken faucet. I can’t exactly fix the faucet unless I can get to it. I can’t exactly fix your brain unless I can get inside it.”

Without another word Grady’s father raises his right hand. Grady has enough time to see there is some kid of gun with a needle at the end of it clutched in his fingers. Before he can protest this needle is presses against his neck and there is a faint buzzing noise. A burning sensation floods his neck. He chokes and coughs. Grady staggers against the padded wall.

“Christ, dad! What the hell did you do?”

Grady’s father says nothing. He walks up to his son and places his hands on either side of his head. He forces Grady to look into his eyes.

“The dizziness will pass. Now relax. I took the drug earlier. I need you to focus. This is all about focus. Focus past the feelings. Focus past it and concentrate on me.”

Grady coughs and then forces himself to straighten. He looks into his father’s eyes. The room feels like it is spinning. He focuses on his the eyes. It seems like his eyes are growing bigger and larger than his head. He feels like he is falling right into the pupils and into the darkness beyond.
Then, he is in the white room. This time it is not the white room beneath the house he grew up in. He is within the white room that exists in his mind. Normally he is there alone unless the darkness is rushing toward him. His only moments of feeling like he is not alone are when the cleansed soul is standing before him. This time he turns and sees his father standing right there in front of him.

“See how it works, Grady?”

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“You’ve seen souls in person and experienced the sins of other and this is the thing you have trouble believing? I have to wonder about your sense of scale, Grady.”

“Well, I never dreamed you could actually enter someone’s mind.”

“I’ve met telepaths, Grady. You really do have a lot to learn. I suppose I should blame myself. Perhaps I’ve sheltered you for too long. If that’s the case, it all ends here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you see this whole thing can be a two-way street. You see I can enter your mind but I can also show you what’s inside my mind.”

There’s a bright flash of light. Suddenly Grady’s mind is overwhelmed with images. Pain rocks through him. He feels like someone has smashed into the base of his skull with a baseball bat. His fingers tingle. His knees get weak.

“Now, focus.”