A Midnight Mind

Chapter 33: Mister Westbrook, Stay Here

The trouble with fadeblades was that they themselves faded away if their user stopped projecting into the Worldmind. Since Ethan didn't want to lose the weapon he worked so hard to get, he couldn't return to the real world.

All he could do was hide far enough from Stafford's house that she wouldn't hear him calling out Violet's name. But since they parked so stupidly close to the house they were going to rob, the loudest he felt comfortable making his voice was a stage whisper.

As he later found out, Violet had solved the proximity problem just after Ethan projected into the Worldmind. She actually moved the car around a corner into a cul-de-sac, still maintaining a line of sight to Stafford's house.

When she had seen Stafford pull into her driveway and that Ethan still wasn't back in his physical body, she pretended to go for a run (still dressed in her leather jacket, dress, and tights) and struck up an awkward conversation with the woman who wasn't even her teacher in the hopes of buying Ethan time. Somehow it worked, as far as Ethan could tell, since Stafford hadn't found him out.

When Violet got back to her car, Ethan's body was still drooling in her passenger seat. So she managed to eventually project herself into the Worldmind to go looking for him. It wasn't long before she heard him pathetically calling her name like a lost child. (Yes, she made fun of him for that.)

She caught him up on all this as they walked back to the car. That was when the problem of the fadeblade came to Ethan's mind. Since Ethan couldn't go back to his physical body without losing the fadeblade, he would have to stay in the Worldmind until the confrontation with Westbrook. He explained this to Violet.

"Guess we'll have to leave our bodies napping in the car for a while," she said. "It'll take a while for us to walk to Westbrook's place. We could project ourselves to the school; that would be closer."

"My place is even closer," Ethan said, remembering the location on Google Maps.

Violet smirked. "Inviting me over, eh? Well quench your mind, bud. I don't know your place well enough to teleport there."

Ethan chuckled but his heart quickened. Except the sensation was just in his mind, of course.

"Yeah, fair enough." His face straightened. "I wish I could be in both the Worldmind and the real world at the same time."

"Can that be done?"

He shrugged. "Neil could do it, I think. I'm worried we'll go to Westbrook's house in the Worldmind and find nothing. Especially if Westbrook is in a coma. Might be he just projects himself where his victims are and never goes near his physical body. I would have liked to ask the caretaker some questions about him too."

"Well, Ms. Stafford is home now, so we can't drop the fadeblade and hope to sneak in and get it again later."

"Right. Plus we only have so much time before midnight." He shook his head. "The only way we can do this all in one night is if one of us goes in the Worldmind and one of us goes in the real world."

Violet bit her lip. "Sounds risky. If one of us gets in trouble, the other won't be able to quickly come to the rescue. We'd have to either jump into the Worldmind, or if we're the one in the car we'd have to leave the Worldmind and get into the house from outside. Like, no way. We should both do the Worldmind today, and both do the real world tomorrow."

"And what if Westbrook kills someone tonight?" Ethan asked seriously.

"Come on, you don't know that'll happen for sure."

"But it might."

"Well... we might be able to handle him from the Worldmind tonight and won't have to worry about tomorrow?"