The Thought Readers
(Mind
Dimensions #1)
Release
Date: 3/5/14
Mozaika
Publications
Summary from Goodreads
A new
series about mind readers from USA Today bestselling authors...
Everyone
thinks I’m a genius.
Everyone
is wrong.
Sure, I
finished Harvard at eighteen and now make crazy money at a hedge fund. But
that’s not because I’m unusually smart or hard-working.
It’s
because I cheat.
You see,
I have a unique ability. I can go outside time into my own personal version of
reality—the place I call “the Quiet”—where I can explore my surroundings while
the rest of the world stands still.
I thought
I was the only one who could do this—until I met her.
My name
is Darren, and this is how I became entangled with all the Russians and learned
that I’m a Reader.
Buy
Links
Check
out the short story novelette prologue for the Mind Dimensions series, The Time
Stopper, for FREE!
Excerpt
from The Thought Readers
Sometimes
I think I’m crazy. I’m sitting at a casino table in Atlantic City, and everyone
around me is motionless. I call this the Quiet, as though giving it a
name makes it seem more real—as though giving it a name changes the fact that
all the players around me are frozen like statues, and I’m walking among them,
looking at the cards they’ve been dealt.
The
problem with the theory of my being crazy is that when I ‘unfreeze’ the
world, as I just have, the cards the players turn over are the same ones I just
saw in the Quiet. If I were crazy, wouldn’t these cards be different? Unless I’m
so far gone that I’m imagining the cards on the table, too.
But then
I also win. If that’s a delusion—if the pile of chips on my side of the table
is a delusion—then I might as well question everything. Maybe my name isn’t
even Darren.
No. I
can’t think that way. If I’m really that confused, I don’t want to snap out of
it—because if I do, I’ll probably wake up in a mental hospital.
Besides,
I love my life, crazy and all.
My
shrink thinks the Quiet is an inventive way I describe the ‘inner workings
of my genius.’ Now that sounds crazy to me. She also might want me, but
that’s beside the point. Suffice it to say, she’s as far as it gets from my
datable age range, which is currently right around twenty-four. Still young,
still hot, but done with school and pretty much beyond the clubbing phase. I
hate clubbing, almost as much as I hated studying. In any case, my shrink’s
explanation doesn’t work, as it doesn’t account for the way I know things even
a genius wouldn’t know—like the exact value and suit of the other players’ cards.
I watch
as the dealer begins a new round. Besides me, there are three players at the
table: Grandma, the Cowboy, and the Professional, as I call them. I feel that
now-almost-imperceptible fear that accompanies the phasing. That’s what I call
the process: phasing into the Quiet. Worrying about my sanity has always
facilitated phasing; fear seems helpful in this process.
I phase
in, and everything gets quiet. Hence the name for this state.
It’s
eerie to me, even now. Outside the Quiet, this casino is very loud: drunk
people talking, slot machines, ringing of wins, music—the only place louder is
a club or a concert. And yet, right at this moment, I could probably hear a pin
drop. It’s like I’ve gone deaf to the chaos that surrounds me.
Having
so many frozen people around adds to the strangeness of it all. Here is a
waitress stopped mid-step, carrying a tray with drinks. There is a woman about
to pull a slot machine lever. At my own table, the dealer’s hand is raised, the
last card he dealt hanging unnaturally in midair. I walk up to him from the
side of the table and reach for it. It’s a king, meant for the Professional. Once
I let the card go, it falls on the table rather than continuing to float as
before—but I know full well that it will be back in the air, in the exact
position it was when I grabbed it, when I phase out.
The
Professional looks like someone who makes money playing poker, or at least the
way I always imagined someone like that might look. Scruffy, shades on, a
little sketchy-looking. He’s been doing an excellent job with the poker face—basically
not twitching a single muscle throughout the game. His face is so
expressionless that I wonder if he might’ve gotten Botox to help maintain such
a stony countenance. His hand is on the table, protectively covering the cards
dealt to him.
I move
his limp hand away. It feels normal. Well, in a manner of speaking. The hand is
sweaty and hairy, so moving it aside is unpleasant and is admittedly an
abnormal thing to do. The normal part is that the hand is warm, rather than
cold. When I was a kid, I expected people to feel cold in the Quiet, like stone
statues.
With the
Professional’s hand moved away, I pick up his cards. Combined with the king
that was hanging in the air, he has a nice high pair. Good to know.
I walk
over to Grandma. She’s already holding her cards, and she has fanned them
nicely for me. I’m able to avoid touching her wrinkled, spotted hands. This is
a relief, as I’ve recently become conflicted about touching people—or, more
specifically, women—in the Quiet. If I had to, I would rationalize touching
Grandma’s hand as harmless, or at least not creepy, but it’s better to avoid it
if possible.
In any
case, she has a low pair. I feel bad for her. She’s been losing a lot tonight.
Her chips are dwindling. Her losses are due, at least partially, to the fact
that she has a terrible poker face. Even before looking at her cards, I knew
they wouldn’t be good because I could tell she was disappointed as soon as her
hand was dealt. I also caught a gleeful gleam in her eyes a few rounds ago when
she had a winning three of a kind.
This
whole game of poker is, to a large degree, an exercise in reading people—something
I really want to get better at. At my job, I’ve been told I’m great at reading
people. I’m not, though; I’m just good at using the Quiet to make it seem like
I am. I do want to learn how to read people for real, though. It would be nice
to know what everyone is thinking.
What I
don’t care that much about in this poker game is money. I do well enough
financially to not have to depend on hitting it big gambling. I don’t care if I
win or lose, though quintupling my money back at the blackjack table was fun.
This whole trip has been more about going gambling because I finally can,
being twenty-one and all. I was never into fake IDs, so this is an actual
milestone for me.
Leaving
Grandma alone, I move on to the next player—the Cowboy. I can’t resist taking
off his straw hat and trying it on. I wonder if it’s possible for me to get
lice this way. Since I’ve never been able to bring back any inanimate objects
from the Quiet, nor otherwise affect the real world in any lasting way, I
figure I won’t be able to get any living critters to come back with me either.
Dropping
the hat, I look at his cards. He has a pair of aces—a better hand than the
Professional. Maybe the Cowboy is a professional, too. He has a good poker
face, as far as I can tell. It’ll be interesting to watch those two in this
round.
Next, I
walk up to the deck and look at the top cards, memorizing them. I’m not leaving
anything to chance.
When my
task in the Quiet is complete, I walk back to myself. Oh, yes, did I mention
that I see myself sitting there, frozen like the rest of them? That’s the
weirdest part. It’s like having an out-of-body experience.
Approaching
my frozen self, I look at him. I usually avoid doing this, as it’s too
unsettling. No amount of looking in the mirror—or seeing videos of yourself on
YouTube—can prepare you for viewing your own three-dimensional body up close.
It’s not something anyone is meant to experience. Well, aside from identical
twins, I guess.
It’s
hard to believe that this person is me. He looks more like some random guy.
Well, maybe a bit better than that. I do find this guy interesting. He looks
cool. He looks smart. I think women would probably consider him good-looking,
though I know that’s not a modest thing to think.
It’s not
like I’m an expert at gauging how attractive a guy is, but some things are
common sense. I can tell when a dude is ugly, and this frozen me is not. I also
know that generally, being good-looking requires a symmetrical face, and the
statue of me has that. A strong jaw doesn’t hurt either. Check. Having broad
shoulders is a positive, and being tall really helps. All covered. I have blue
eyes—that seems to be a plus. Girls have told me they like my eyes, though
right now, on the frozen me, the eyes look creepy. Glassy. They look like
the eyes of a lifeless wax figure.
Realizing
that I’m dwelling on this subject way too long, I shake my head. I can just
picture my shrink analyzing this moment. Who would imagine admiring themselves
like this as part of their mental illness? I can just picture her scribbling
down Narcissist and underlining it for emphasis.
Enough.
I need to leave the Quiet. Raising my hand, I touch my frozen self on the
forehead, and I hear noise again as I phase out.
Everything
is back to normal.
The card
that I looked at a moment ago—the king that I left on the table—is in the air
again, and from there it follows the trajectory it was always meant to, landing
near the Professional’s hands. Grandma is still eyeing her fanned cards in
disappointment, and the Cowboy has his hat on again, though I took it off him
in the Quiet. Everything is exactly as it was.
On some
level, my brain never ceases to be surprised at the discontinuity of the
experience in the Quiet and outside it. As humans, we’re hardwired to question
reality when such things happen. When I was trying to outwit my shrink early on
in my therapy, I once read an entire psychology textbook during our session.
She, of course, didn’t notice it, as I did it in the Quiet. The book talked
about how babies as young as two months old are surprised if they see something
out of the ordinary, like gravity appearing to work backwards. It’s no wonder
my brain has trouble adapting. Until I was ten, the world behaved normally, but
everything has been weird since then, to put it mildly.
Glancing
down, I realize I’m holding three of a kind. Next time, I’ll look at my cards
before phasing. If I have something this strong, I might take my chances and
play fair.
The game
unfolds predictably because I know everybody’s cards. At the end, Grandma gets
up. She’s clearly lost enough money.
And that’s
when I see the girl for the first time.
She’s
hot. My friend Bert at work claims that I have a ‘type,’ but I reject
that idea. I don’t like to think of myself as shallow or predictable. But I
might actually be a bit of both, because this girl fits Bert’s description of
my type to a T. And my reaction is extreme interest, to say the least.
Large
blue eyes. Well-defined cheekbones on a slender face, with a hint of something
exotic. Long, shapely legs, like those of a dancer. Dark wavy hair in a
ponytail—a hairstyle that I like. And without bangs—even better. I hate bangs—not
sure why girls do that to themselves. Though lack of bangs is not, strictly
speaking, in Bert’s description of my type, it probably should be.
I
continue staring at her as she joins my table. With her high heels and tight
skirt, she’s overdressed for this place. Or maybe I’m underdressed in my jeans
and t-shirt. Either way, I don’t care. I have to try to talk to her.
I debate
phasing into the Quiet and approaching her, so I can do something creepy like
stare at her up close, or maybe even snoop in her pockets. Anything to help me
when I talk to her.
I decide
against it, which is probably the first time that’s ever happened.
I know
that my reasoning for breaking my usual habit is strange. If you can even call
it reasoning. I picture the following chain of events: she agrees to date me,
we go out for a while, we get serious, and because of the deep connection we
have, I come clean about the Quiet. She learns I did something creepy and has a
fit, then dumps me. It’s ridiculous to think this, of course, considering that
we haven’t even spoken yet. Talk about jumping the gun. She might have an IQ
below seventy, or the personality of a piece of wood. There can be twenty
different reasons why I wouldn’t want to date her. And besides, it’s not all up
to me. She might tell me to go fuck myself as soon as I try to talk to her.
Still,
working at a hedge fund has taught me to hedge. As crazy as that reasoning is,
I stick with my decision not to phase because I know it’s the gentlemanly thing
to do. In keeping with this unusually chivalrous me, I also decide not to cheat
at this round of poker.
As the
cards are dealt again, I reflect on how good it feels to have done the
honorable thing—even without anyone knowing. Maybe I should try to respect
people’s privacy more often. Yeah, right. I have to be realistic. I
wouldn’t be where I am today if I’d followed that advice. In fact, if I made a
habit of respecting people’s privacy, I would lose my job within days—and with
it, a lot of the comforts I’ve become accustomed to.
Copying
the Professional’s move, I cover my cards with my hand as soon as I receive
them. I’m about to sneak a peek at what I was dealt when something unusual
happens.
The
world goes quiet, just like it does when I phase in . . . but I
did nothing this time.
And at
that moment, I see her—the girl sitting across the table from me, the girl
I was just thinking about. She’s standing next to me, pulling her hand away
from mine. Or, strictly speaking, from my frozen self’s hand—as I’m standing a
little to the side looking at her.
She’s
also still sitting in front of me at the table, a frozen statue like all the
others.
My mind
goes into overdrive as my heartbeat jumps. I don’t even consider the
possibility of that second girl being a twin sister or something like that. I
know it’s her. She’s doing what I did just a few minutes ago. She’s walking in
the Quiet. The world around us is frozen, but we are not.
A
horrified look crosses her face as she realizes the same thing. Before I can
react, she lunges across the table and touches her own forehead.
The
world becomes normal again.
She
stares at me from across the table, shocked, her eyes huge and her face pale.
She rises to her feet. Without so much as a word, she turns and begins walking
away, then breaks into a run a couple of seconds later.
Getting
over my own shock, I get up and run after her. It’s not exactly smooth. If she
notices a guy she doesn’t know running after her, dating will be the last thing
on her mind. But I’m beyond that now. She’s the only person I’ve met who can do
what I do. She’s proof that I’m not insane. She might have what I want most in
the world.
She
might have answers.
About
the Author
Dima
Zales is a full-time science fiction and fantasy author residing in Palm Coast,
Florida. Prior to becoming a writer, he worked in the software development
industry in New York as both a programmer and an executive. From high-frequency
trading software for big banks to mobile apps for popular magazines, Dima has
done it all. In 2013, he left the software industry in order to concentrate on
his writing career.
Dima
holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from NYU and a dual undergraduate
degree in Computer Science / Psychology from Brooklyn College. He also has a
number of hobbies and interests, the most unusual of which might be
professional-level mentalism. He simulates mind-reading on stage and close-up,
and has done shows for corporations, wealthy individuals, and friends.
He is also
into healthy eating and fitness, so he should live long enough to finish all
the book projects he starts. In fact, he very much hopes to catch the
technological advancements that might let him live forever (biologically or
otherwise). Aside from that, he also enjoys learning about current and future
technologies that might enhance our lives, including artificial intelligence,
biofeedback, brain-to-computer interfaces, and brain-enhancing implants.
In
addition to his own works, Dima has collaborated on a number of romance novels
with his wife, Anna Zaires. The Krinar Chronicles, an erotic science fiction
series, has been a bestseller in its categories and has been recognized by the
likes of Marie Claire and Woman’s Day. If you like erotic romance with a unique
plot, please feel free to check it out, especially since the first book in the
series (Close Liaisons) is available for free everywhere. Keep in mind, though,
Dima Zales's books are going to be much more PG 13 . . . at least that’s the
plan for now.
Anna
Zaires is the love of his life and a huge inspiration in every aspect of his
writing. She definitely adds her magic touch to anything Dima creates, and the
books would not be the same without her. Dima’s fans are strongly encouraged to
learn more about Anna and her work at http://www.annazaires.com/
Author Links
GIVEAWAY
Book Tour Organized by
