Said the Liar by A. Swift (free ebook reader for ipad txt) 📖

some sage advice from the bible. I think I'd just shattered his previous assumptions about my ability to shoplift, and my willingness to do so. He was taking it really well.

I was in the clear.

Not that I'd been worried about it. I was completely unsurprised that he believed my rather obvious lie. There wasn't even a shadow of doubt in my mind that he thought I was being truthful.

That was what made me a unique teenager, even amongst the entire warehouse crew, even more than the Devious group, even more than any kid you could ever find at any high school in America. Maybe even the world.

I, Kolt Darriga, was a Liar.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Chapter 2

 

            When I was six my parents brought me to an amusement park west of Carson. Not Disneyland or anything, it was in Las Vegas and was definitely still big enough to draw a good crowd and to be real popular during the summers. It had a bunch of rides, the spinning ones, the ones that drop you, popcorn stands, cotton candy, even the silly carnival games where you knock the bottles down and win a stuffed cartoon character. There was some kind of carnival clown show, too. All that.

            The three of us, mom, dad and I, spent the morning going to the biggest rides that they'd let me on. We explored gift shops, paid too much for French fries, and took a lot of photographs so we could remember how much fun we'd had years later. When the afternoon rolled around we were tired from walking and needed to stop and take a break, so we paused at a show they had going on. It was a magic show, with lights and a stage and everything. A big banner was across the stage with something that said 'So and so the magnificent' or something cheesy like that.

            We sat down somewhere in the middle of the plastic chairs that were set up and decided to watch while we rested our feet. The show had already started, but that didn't matter. We didn't need tickets and we hadn't missed much. There were maybe sixty people sitting in the audience, and a few more, like us, were filing in to see what was going on and to take the chance to sit. People were eating popcorn and hot dogs and snacks while they watched the show.

            A man with dark wavy hair and a top-hat was on the stage with a big sparkly box that was about seven feet tall. He'd just finished some kind of amazing magic display with it, and now he was watching it get taken away by a lady in a dress that was also shiny. The magician put his hand above his eyes and peered into the audience in search of a volunteer for the next part of the show. He made a big display of it, using big sweeping gestures and squinting hard to find what he was looking for.

            "You there, beautiful young lady, please come up here!" He said jovially, pointing at a woman on the second row. She hesitated at first, but then the crowd cheered and shouted encouragement and she walked up onto the stage. Thinking back, she was sort of pretty, maybe in her mid twenties or something, light brown hair and so on. She left her boyfriend sitting next to her and went over to the magician guy and they shook hands. She told him her name, he made some kind of little joke when he told her his. There was nothing particularly notable so far.

            The magician had her sit on a chair in the middle of the stage and then asked her if it was okay if he hypnotized her.

            What happened next stuck in my memory and still sticks there today.

            The magician did this whole dramatic bit with an old fashioned silver pocket watch and he started swinging it in front of her face slowly, asking her to be calm and listen closely to what he was about to say.

            "You will be receptive to my suggestions..." He told her, deepening his voice while he spoke.

            The woman looked all relaxed and calm-as if she were half asleep, really. She was completely entranced.

            "I want you to stand up and walk into the audience." The magician ordered.

            The woman obeyed. The entire time the look of relaxation stayed on her face and didn't change.

            "Someone in the audience smells like your very favorite scent. I want you to find that person and stand next to them."

            The brown haired woman walked around for a little while and then came and stood by this random fifty year old guy. She still had the dreamy look on her face. While everyone watched she started sniffing and looking all happy. Several people laughed. The older guy looked uncomfortable and baffled and glanced around at everyone.

            "I see you found them. What do they smell like?" The magician inquired, he was still on the stage directing her.

            The woman drew in a deep breath. "Fresh cut grass." She murmured.

            A minute later the magician guy broke the spell by saying some magic word and then sent her back to her seat, where her boyfriend laughed and explained what she'd done. She didn't even believe him, she didn't remember any of it. Her face got really red, though.

            I scarcely remember the other stuff I did with my parents that day, but I remember that particular half hour very clearly. What impressed me wasn't the fancy special effects or the disappearing Ruses, which were mediocre and easily done by anyone with a few hours of practice. What I saw was a man who had convinced a woman that someone else smelled like something. That stuck me hard. I realized that the magician had lied to that woman. I realized that he had deceived her, and then made it so that she didn't even recall the event.

            I recognized that there was something disturbing about that power, and something dangerous. Maybe the magician had set it up with the girl beforehand, maybe not. A lot of 'magic' is fake and has people in on the Ruse playing along. I know that now, but back then I didn't. I thought this magician guy was using mind control.

            More importantly, I thought I might have found someone else like me. Even back then I knew about my power. I used to use it all the time to get what I wanted.

            I thought that the magician, like me, could say anything and people always believed him. Whether or not it was true, everyone thought it was. That woman actually thought that the random person in the audience smelled like grass. She truly believed that. I thought that the magician must be like me, that I wasn't alone.

            That thought got shattered, though. I begged my parents to let me meet the guy after the show and I asked him if he was a real wizard.

            He said yes.

            And I knew that he was lying. Just another perk to having my power, anytime someone is being deliberately deceitful, I can tell.

            Sometimes I wondered if anyone else in the world is really able to relate to how I feel. Being able to tell anyone anything...and have them really believe you... Think of the implications for a moment.

            I walked slowly from the warehouse around the tracks, taking a longer than necessary route to get back on route home to the apartment. I did that because I didn't want to mix my warehouse life with my home life and it made me less likely to be followed by someone like Ruse. The more separate my night life and my home life were, the better.

            It was pretty dark in some spots near the tracks, but I was so familiar with the path that it didn't bother me a bit. I suppose it might be considered dangerous, but I'd walked it over a hundred times and never had an accident, so I figure it's actually pretty safe. Shadows aren't scary when you've been wandering in them for years and years. I know the entire area around my apartment building like the back of my hand, night or day. And I should, I've lived there for more than five years now.

            For a while I followed the old train tracks. They split off from behind the warehouse and one set goes off under a bridge, the other just heads west to nowhere in particular. I followed that one a ways and then took a right turn to a disused road. It's lines with a few empty buildings and gradually turns into a regular street full of shops. Before that the road comes close to a big copse of trees next to a big ditch. That's where I got off.

            At one point there had been water in the ditch, but there hadn't been a real river there for years. It was a pretty steep drop if you weren't prepared for it, but I had a good way down. An enormous dead pine tree was sunk into the side of the ditch. By using it as a handhold and then sliding your foot to a rock embedded nearby, you could then hop down into the bottom of the empty riverbed. Easy as pie.

            I think, like the river used to exist, there were once trains that used the tracks by the warehouse. There must have been, right? Nobody would have built tracks if they were never going to use them. In all my time visiting the warehouse though I'd never seen or heard a train. If one actually did come by on the tracks it would give everyone a heart attack. Years and years had gone by since trains had consistently used those tracks, or that warehouse. Another reason why it made a good hang-out. It was quiet and derelict.

            I thought about this because I was trying not to think about Apex's offer. I'd been really worried that he'd figured out my ability to Lie and wanted me to use it to help with something big. Yes, it was a relief that he was just curious about my little stunt with the six pack, but still it got me pondering.

            Robbing a store one time because you desperately wanted to be accepted into a group was one thing, especially when the thing you were stealing was a six pack of crummy beer. Being asked to tag along on an enormous convenience store heist, that was a hundred times worse.

            I thought sourly of the photo Fish had taken. That complicated things a little.

            You see, when I Lie to someone, it works better if it's more believable. I could go tell someone that they're on fire, and it would last all of half a second, if I'm lucky. Obviously they can tell right away whether they're on fire or not. It's also risky trying to get someone to believe you when you're talking about something they have strong feelings about. For example, if someone really was against a new law that was being passed, and I were