Vision Impossible Read Free

a prototype.”
    “It’s smaller than most of your regular drones, right?” I asked.
    The colonel nodded. “It’s also the latest in whisper technology. It’s powered electrically from a lithium battery, and the drone is virtually silent, which allows it to get within a hundred feet or so of its target without being seen or heard. Because of its advanced technology, this model would be very expensive to replace, and this particular drone was carrying something of great importance, so an extensive search was immediately conducted to retrieve whatever remained of the drone and its cargo.”
    I looked at Dutch; he was focused on Tanner in a way that suggested there might be something more to this missing-drone story. “After combing through the area where the drone was believed to have crashed, no evidence of it could be found, which is why the military began to suspect the pilot’s story.”
    A little way down from me and to the right, the lieutenant colonel who’d come with Gaston to recruit me in Austin shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Into the silence that followed Tanner’s last statement, he said, “I personally requested the pilot come in for a polygraph. But when he failed to show up, we went looking for him. We found him on the floor of his shower, shot through the head at point-blank range.”
    “Suicide?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
    “No,” he told me.
    “Any leads on who pulled the trigger?” Dutch asked.
    “No again,” said the military man.
    “We hope to get Ms. Cooper’s intuitive input on that later,” Director Gaston said, with a meaningful look at me.
    I nodded. I’d do what I could, especially if this was a case of national security.
    Tanner spoke next. “Obviously, we no longer suspect there was an operational issue with the drone. We believe the pilot was coerced or bribed into delivering our drone into enemy hands.”
    I furrowed my brow. Why was one missing drone causing so much concern? I mean, when I looked back at the slide, the thing looked one step above a model airplane you could buy at any hobby shop.
    Gaston seemed to read my mind, because he spoke next. “It’s more than just a missing drone,” he told me. “Agent Tanner, why don’t we allow Professor Steckworth to explain?”
    Gaston’s eyes had settled on a slight man at the end of the table with salt-and-pepper hair and a nose much too big for his small square face. He cleared his throat when all eyes turned to him, and nodded to Tanner, who clicked her remote, and another slide projected onto the screen. It was a photo of a man young enough to be a college student, and somewhat unremarkable in appearance except for the fact that enveloping him on all sides was the most beautiful cloud of color I’d ever seen. “Oh, my God!” I gasped, already understanding what I was looking at.
    “Do you know what you’re seeing?” Professor Steckworth asked, eyeing me keenly.
    I nodded. “You’ve captured the image of his aura.” In my mind’s eye when I focused only on the young man in the photo, I too saw a cloud of color, though it wasn’t nearly as vivid or complete as what I was seeing on the screen.
    Professor Steckworth smiled. “Yes, very good, Ms. Cooper. Your own abilities allow you to see auras, I take it?”
    “Well . . .” I hesitated, not wanting everyone to assume my eyesight was clogged with images of color, color everywhere. “It’s less that I see them and more that I sense them in my mind’s eye. If I close my own eyes and focus, I can imagine, if you will, what someone’s aura looks like. And in case you’re wondering, Professor, yours is mostly deep blue with some wisps of yellow and olive green.”
    Professor Steckworth appeared surprised, and he reached for a folder and pulled out a printout of himself, surrounded by a blue bubble with traces of yellow and some olive green, which he held up for everyone to see.
    I sat back in my chair and grinned at each person who’d given