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I
have to tell you, they’re the same thing?"
    "No. I’m not seeing zombies, awake or asleep.
Just regular old dead people."
    Mort pushed his plate back and leaned
forward. "Oh, really? Regular old dead people? Then why the hell
are they up and walking around? Huh? You’ve had dreams where these
regular old dead people attack living people and eat them! That’s
not normal, Bradley! That’s not regular ."
    The kitchen fell into silence. Brad was
taking a breath to apologize when Mort dropped his fork on his
plate.
    "Brad, it doesn’t matter what you believe.
Not really. You don’t have to believe in a group of suit-wearing
evil geniuses planning the apocalypse, or in the Book Club, or even
in me."
    "Mort—"
    "No." Mort held up a hand. "Let me finish.
You don’t have to believe in any of those things. But you have to believe in yourself. You, Brad." Mort jabbed a
finger at him. "Look at your track record. Things that happened
when you were growing up. Hell, in just the past ten years you’ve
prevented I don’t know how many incidents. Why? Because of the
things you saw beforehand. You were right . What about all
those times you weren’t able to stop shit from happening? Your mom
and dad’s accident? That was more about you being too slow than
your premonitions being wrong, and you know it."
    Brad sat back. "If you’ve got a point, you
better get to it."
    "My point is this: your prems are right
ninety-five percent of the time. So I don’t give a damn whether you
believe any of the things you’ve been seeing lately, and it doesn’t
make a difference whether they’re metaphors or not. What I do give a damn about is the fact that, as scary as this is,
it’s going to happen . What we need to be doing
now is pulling together to find a way to stop this. The Club and I
can only do so much. We need you to commit, to involve yourself.
Help us, Brad." Mort scooted his chair back. "Help us."
    He left Brad stewing in the kitchen, locking
the door on his way out.
     
    * * *
     
    Mort and a red-haired woman sat at his dining
room table. Mort’s laptop was open and off to his right, facing
them. Counting the Skypers, there were five attending the meeting.
Brad would have made six, but he brooded in the corner by the
window. His back was to the group, his eyes once again on the
Henderson’s house across the street. Something kept drawing his
attention there. He hadn’t tried bringing up the radar and using
his danger sense for fear of what might happen. He didn’t want to
look like an ass by passing out in Mort’s dining room.
    "I think the first thing we need to do is
make a list, write down every event we think is relevant, and then
find out as much about each one as we can. See if we can find a
common denominator," Mort explained.
    "How far back should we start?" a voice asked
from the computer.
    "Yeah, and what exactly is relevant?" asked
the woman sitting next to Mort. "What might seem important to me
might not to you. I think we need a set of parameters. Try not to
leave anything out just because we feel it’s not important."
    "You’re right, Laura. Great idea." Mort
jotted down a few notes. "Hey, Bob? Can you hear me?"
    "For the last time, it’s Counselor Troi ," answered the same Skyper from before.
    "Christ’s sake," Mort mumbled. "I’m not
calling you that. For one, you’re not a woman."
    "I just don’t feel comfortable with you using
my real name in your little book," said Bob. "Someone could do a
lot of damage with that thing. What if someone wanted to lock us
all up or something?"
    "Bob, no one is going to try to—"
    "Don’t use my real name! It’s Troi,
goddammit, Troi !"
    "Okay, okay. Jesus." Mort wiped his forehead.
"To answer your question, Counselor Troi, I think we should at
least look back as far as when the precogs started having those
dreams." Mort looked at Izzy, the young girl whose pretty face
graced the upper left-hand corner of the screen. After Izzy voiced
her agreement, Mort nodded.