Read Online Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn - Free Book Online

geraniums.”
    “Maybe he and Sheila can be subversive together.”
    My eyes popped open at his lowered tone. “What are you saying, Simon Zagan?”
    “I’m saying no one will notice them kissing in the paper book pod.”
    I leaned away. “You’re not serious.” Jacking two strangers into lip-locking in the library didn’t have much appeal to me.
    “I am.” His eyes glinted like obsidian, and I narrowed mine.
    “Come on,” Simon said. “Jacking two people to write the same nursery rhyme isn’t much of a stretch. Handling a true interaction between two minds takes more control. I want to see if you can do it.”
    “Can’t they just hold hands?” Considering how intimate touching was for readers, even that seemed a bit much.
    Simon huffed. “Fine.”
    I jacked Sheila to go check out the paper book pod. After getting another passkey and a furrowed look from the librarian, Sheila stepped into the tiny room. She hesitated as the door sealed behind her. I jacked her to make eye contact with Anthony. He flushed, having been caught rearranging the ancient books, and he wondered what possessed him to do such a thing.
    Jacking both at once was like seeing double. Plus the commands were reverberating through their minds. With some difficulty, I twisted Anthony’s embarrassment into attraction, while at the same time jacking Sheila to admire Anthony’s soccer physique. Once their mutual appeal took hold, they found their way to each other. It took some additional jacking to get them to breach their personal space and hold hands. As soon as they touched, their thoughts twined together, which helped with the double vision.
    “See. Nothing to it.” Then I realized the emotions resonating between Anthony and Sheila were getting out of hand. There would be kissing, if I didn’t stop it. I ordered them to return to their workpods.
    “Yes. Just like a pro.” Simon barely kept his laughter from carrying through the open library door. When I resumed my mind control experiments, I stuck to less intrusive things like dropping styli or making unnecessary visits to a different learning pod.
    After a while, Simon’s voice interrupted my focused efforts. “Kira.” His touch on my shoulder made my eyes fly open again. “It’s not only about making them do what you want. You need to link your thoughts to theirs.”
    “Huh?”
    He ran the back of his fingers down my cheek, which completely distracted me. “The only way you can escape being a zero is by convincing them they can read your mind.”
    “But, they can’t, right?”
    “No.”
    “So, how do you…?” This was the one thing I didn’t understand. I knew that Simon could control other people’s thoughts. But the people around him weren’t all puppets on strings.
Were they?
How did he convince them he was a reader?
    “Instead of jacking in to control them, just link in and tell them your thoughts,” he said. “It’s a small difference. You can do it, you just have to practice.”
    “But how?” The students in the library were packing up to leave.
    “Practice,” he said, standing and moving away. I scrambled to my feet and wondered why he was leaving. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said quietly. He leaned casually against the locker wall and gazed down the hall as if we hadn’t spent the last hour hunkered on the floor together.
    The final bell rang, and students flowed into the hallway, a silent stream of faces glad for the end of the day. I pressed flat to the wall, trying not to let my heart contract simply because Simon was acting like I didn’t exist. A dark-haired boy greeted him with a head nod, and Simon turned to walk with him. Two steps later, a pretty blonde sidled up to Simon. Close, but not touching, like Raf’s Pekingese fangirl. Simon left me standing outside the library without another glance.
    Tears pricked my eyes, and I told myself not to be an idiot. Of course Simon couldn’t admit we had been together. As far as anyone knew, I