Bug Park by James P. Hogan

“Oh, really? Can’t say I’ve noticed many lately.” Kevin cocked an inquiring eyebrow at Taki. Taki shook his head. “Neither has Taki,” Kevin interpreted.

“Well, of course you wouldn’t,” Janna said. “They don’t want us to know, so they stay out of sight.”

“Not doing a very good job, then, are they?” Taki commented.

“You’re supposed to be open minded. That’s what the whole thing is about. But people don’t know how to be, see. That’s why everything’s like it is.”

Taki nodded knowingly. “Oh.”

Avril was studying Kevin’s face. “Why don’t you buy it?” she asked.

He sighed and gave an easygoing grin, at the same time ruffling his hair with his fingers. He didn’t want to argue—it never achieved anything. In any case, why should it matter to him what somebody else chose to believe? It was their right, wasn’t it? “Oh . . . I just figure that if we’d been discovered by anybody who’s come all that way, we’d know. It’d be like some island in the Pacific or wherever when the Navy showed up on its way to somewhere in World War Two. I mean, you’ve got juke boxes and Coca Cola machines, guys with tractors building airstrips. You know you’ve been found. There isn’t any doubt about it.”

Avril’s gaze flickered over his face keenly. Something seemed to tell her that she could find herself outgunned here if she pressed the point. “I don’t buy it either,” she declared, opting for safety, and at the same time shooting up several points in Kevin’s estimation for astuteness at least. Janna seemed confused by the sudden desertion. Avril looked around for a way to change the subject and saw Eric talking with Michelle a few yards away. “Isn’t that your dad over there?” she said to Kevin.

“That’s right.”

“I was listening to somebody talking about him,” Avril went on. He owns some company around here, right?”

“A bit closer to Tacoma.”

“They make these little robot guys that you control like VR, except it goes straight into your brain. You can make them walk around and do all this stuff, and you feel like you’re really inside them.”

“Hey, cool,” Janna pronounced.

“That’s close enough, I guess,” Kevin agreed.

“Kinda like ESP,” Janna said.

“And is that your mom too?” Avril asked Kevin.

“No, just a friend. My mom’s at a seminar in Seattle this weekend.”

“She’s my uncle’s business lawyer,” Taki said.

“Who, his mom?”

“No, her.”

“Oh, okay.”

Janna was giving Kevin a quizzical look. “They have ESP and stuff like that on Open Minds sometimes as well. Don’t you go for that either?”

Kevin started to answer; but almost at once, felt as if he was about to start lecturing, and checked himself. This was supposed to be a party, after all. . . . He stole a glance at Taki and winked. Taki returned a faint nod.

“Well, of course, ESP’s different,” Kevin said. “I can show you that’s real. Has either of you got a quarter?” The two girls frowned at each other. “Or it could be anything, really.”

“Oh, I dunno. Lemme see . . .” Avril unsnapped the flap of her purse and rummaged inside.

“Here.” Janna produced a handful of coins from a pocket of her shorts.

“Look away,” Kevin told Taki. Taki turned his back on them and surveyed the activity by the pool. Kevin faced the two girls, using his body to screen the coins displayed in Janna’s hand. “Pick one,” he invited Avril.

“What is this?” she asked suspiciously.

“Just point to one.”

“Okay. . . .” Avril studied the mix of coins for a second. “That one.” It was a quarter.

Kevin peered at it and addressed Taki’s back over his shoulder. “How about this, Taki? Now, what is it?”

“It’s a . . . quarter.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, my God!” Janna exclaimed.

“And the date on it is? . . .”

“I’m concentrating . . .” Taki’s voice trailed off. They waited. “1982.”

In fact, Kevin had already told him by wording the question in the form of a magician’s code that they played with. Taki turned back, beaming. Janna gaped in astonishment.

“I don’t believe he did that,” she stammered. “How did he know?”

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