Mad Powers (Tapped In) by Mark Wayne McGinnis Page B

other men had given me a wide berth, with the exception of Marco, who brought out a deck of cards and schooled me on the intricacies of Conquian ‬, a Mexican card game he’d played since he was a child. It seemed to be more a game of chance than of skill, such as poker or even black jack. We ended up about even when Malinda made her rounds, letting us know it was lights out in five minutes.
    The large room was dark; someone was snoring several rows over. I stared up at the ceiling above me, in thought. I made two mental columns for positives and negatives. On the negative side, I still had virtually no memory of my life prior to the accident. I also discovered someone, or even some organization, might be trying to kill me. I was hampered by continual headaches and quickly moving toward a strange addiction to getting tapped-in to high-voltage power lines. On the positive side, I had a new ability that was nothing short of incredible, if not unbelievable. An ability to look into people’s minds and influence their decision-making processes.
    As I lay there, I thought about future implications. How others could manipulate circumstances with this same ability, my ability. I needed to be careful. And what about me? I obviously had ties to a military background, perhaps a special forces unit—martial arts seemed second nature to me. Also, I was educated, apparently, and had a good range of diverse knowledge at my disposal. Speaking one, perhaps several foreign languages, electrical engineering know-how, and analytically-inclined enough to break down the factors that had contributed to a major traffic accident. But none of it brought me any closer to my identity. I rubbed my eyes. My head throbbed—it had been too long since I lasttapped in. So I got up, found my shoes and headed off towards the bathroom. I’d done a quick check earlier and discovered there was a sliding window high up on a wall in the ladies’ bathroom. Since this seemed to be a men-only shelter, with the exception of Malinda and a few younger volunteers, I felt fairly confident I’d be able to get in and out without being noticed.
    Now, looking up at the window, I wondered if I could even squeeze through it. It would be a tight fit. I took several running steps, jumped up and caught the edge of the window sill. Precariously perched there, I reached over and slid open the window—then, with a bit of squirming, I was able to crawl through and jump down to the parking lot behind the mission. I could see several cars, probably Ken’s and Malinda’s, or perhaps those of the volunteers. My first impulse was to simply climb up one of the utility poles I’d spotted earlier, but, upon closer scrutiny, rungs for hand-climbing the pole, if they were there at all, rarely went above the lower hanging cables provided for basic telephone company maintenance.
    Reaching the top of a pole for the more dangerous high-voltage cables typically required a special cherry picker-type utility truck. But an idea was forming in my head. I headed east, crossed over Sycamore Avenue, and thirty yards later was in the back parking lot of a Motel 6. The good thing about motels is that they’re always open. The other good thing is they need ample electricity to power hundreds of TV sets, coffee makers, industrial-sized water heaters, and high-capacity kitchen equipment. No light industrial or residential connection for this building. No, they’d need a full 30,000-volt utility hook up.
    I barely made it to the motel’s back entrance. Halfway across the parking lot, more intense withdrawal symptoms descended on me—headache, nausea, and a case of the shakes so bad walking became problematic. I needed to tap in, and quickly. What was it now, 28 hours? Other than being unconscious in the hospital, I hadn’t gone this long without tapping in since the accident. Even my vision was beginning to fail. Somewhat relieved, I made it to the back door. It was locked. Crap! Walking away, I