Everwild

Justicing involved skinjacking the incarcerated. There was a penitentiary halfway between Lebanon and Nashville, and that's where Milos took her.

"I know it is not a romantic place for a date," he had joked.

"Good thing it's not a date," she reminded him.

While the electrified gate of a high-security prison kept the living from escaping, it was little more than an a

Once inside the prison, they proceeded to skinjack various prisoners, with the specific goal of determining if they were guilty of the crime they were imprisoned for.

"That's impossible," Allie had told him before they began. "Sure, we can hear their thoughts, but only the things they happen to be thinking about--and if we get too close, they know we're there, and they freak out."

"Ah, but we can control the direction of their thoughts," Milos had told her, "without them ever knowing we are there." Then he told her to skinjack one of the milder looking prisoners, and at the same time, think of something that made her feel guilty. Her thoughts immediately went to Mikey, and how bad she felt that he was left alone while the rest of them were out skinjacking--and as those thoughts filled her, she suddenly got flashes from the prisoner. His own guilty conscience told her that, yes, he did steal all those social-security checks from helpless elderly men and women.

The moment the confession hit her, Allie peeled herself out, stu

"Yes," Milos told her. "Guilt is easy, i

"But what's the point of it?" Allie asked. "They're already in prison--what's the point in us knowing they're guilty?"

Milos gri

Allie thought about it, and found the idea both compelling and disturbing. "Do you mean diving into random people, and searching their thoughts for crimes?"

"Not necessarily," said Milos. "We could search the minds of people awaiting trial, or perhaps people who are suspected of getting away with the perfect crime. We can find the truth within them, and then make them confess. Have you ever seen a criminal confess to something they might have otherwise gotten away with? Well, maybe they were justiced by a skinjacker."

"But isn't that ... invasion of privacy?"

Milos shrugged. "No more so than a search warrant, and that is perfectly legal. We just search a little deeper."

Although Allie felt conflicted, she had to admit that it could be ethical, if there were strict guidelines--such as only searching those who are already under official suspicion. But then, who would decide what the guidelines should be? Every skinjacker would make up their own rules, and not all of them would be as honorable as her.

"This is a good skill to know," Milos explained. "You see, there are those here in Everlost who will pay well to have their killers brought to justice." "I don't want to be paid."

"Fair enough," Milos said. "Sometimes a good deed is payment enough."

Which led them to the second lesson of the day. Terminizing. For this he took her to a hospital in the outskirts of Nashville. Once there, they found several terminally ill patients. Milos amazed Allie by skinjacking one of them-- not to take over the patient's body, but simply to make himself known. By the time Milos peeled away, the man had a look on his face like he had been visited by an angel.

"We tell them the truth," Milos explained. "We tell them that there is something more. That after their last heartbeat, the tu

"But we don't know what's in the light."

"It does not matter," said Milos. "Most people just want to know that there is something, whatever that something is."

As they went searching for another patient, Allie dared to ask, "So, what's in it for you?"

Milos looked down. "I see," he said sadly. "Everything Milos does must serve Milos."

Allie immediately felt bad she had said anything.

Milos held his pout for a moment more, then it became a mischievous grin. "I ask them to put in a good word for me when they reach the light."

Allie slapped his arm, and he laughed. "Shut up! You do not!" But she was never quite sure if he was joking or serious.

Following Milos's lead, Allie entered a patient, and revealed her presence slowly, so as not to frighten the woman. Then she spoke of the tu

Allie must have communed with a dozen patients before she felt so exhausted by it, and filled with their gratitude, that she had to stop.

It was getting dark as they left the hospital, and as her mind ran through the miraculous things they did today, she couldn't help but reel from the sheer awe of it. Since the first day she discovered she could skinjack, she had lived in fear of the idea--she had treated it like a nasty little secret, to be used only when absolutely necessary. It kept her from seeing the possibilities!

"Do you realize what we could do?" she told Milos. "Solve the world's greatest crimes, bring peace to the most troubled places on earth. Why, through skinjacking, we could actually change the world!"

Milos found this very amusing. "You wag a finger at me for playing with fleshies, and here you want to change the world!"

"I didn't say I wanted to, just that we could."

Then his gaze changed. He was no longer laughing. Now he looked a bit bemused, instead of amused--as if looking at Allie was like looking at a wonder. The gaze made her feel awkward and she had to look away.

"Perhaps I am too small-minded," Milos said. "This has always been my problem--but now, thanks to you, I will change. I will try to think more ... globally."

At the time Allie thought he was just humoring her.

Skinjacking can change the world.

Only much later would her own words come back to haunt her. In her book You Don't Know Jack, Allie the Outlaw makes the following observations:

"Unlike other Afterlights, we have an unfailing memory, and we don't change, since we don't forget who we were. What's more important to remember is that we are more like other Afterlights than we are different--and we must help nonjackers to see this. We straddle two worlds--Everlost and the world of the living. If we wish to be respected and not feared, we must be good ambassadors to both."

CHAPTER 12 Of Monsters and Mullets

There was no question that Nashville slowed them down, what with so many skinjacking opportunities. Mikey was the only one a