Blind Speed Dating #27 (NA)

Title: DOUBLE MINDED

Genre: NA Sci Fi

Word Count: 91,000

Query:

Sydney Reynolds didn’t sign up to be experimented on when she joined the honors society at her new college. But when the head of the program, Professor Davison, invites her to join a confidential research project, she discovers that’s exactly what’s happening. The whole program is one giant experiment in mind reading and mind control, and she’s been chosen as a prime candidate for training.

Sydney learns fast that although mind reading can help people reach their mental and physical potential, it also has a dangerous side, one that’s pursuing her. When it looks as if her memories are being tampered with, Sydney realizes she has no idea who she can trust…including herself.

First 250:

Please don’t let her stop. Please don’t let her stop. Please don’t—

She stopped.

One of my scattered papers settled at her feet and she picked it up. “Here you go.”

I took it, glimpsed at the good-deed-doer and then back down at the jumble of books and notes that had fallen out of my backpack.

Ten more steps. That’s all I’d needed. Then I would’ve passed her and the only witnesses to my poor bag zipping skills would’ve been the handful of students across the quad who were too far away to bother coming to help. But noooo. I gotta dump my stuff directly in front of this non-rushed, thoughtful person who seemed perfectly at ease coming to the rescue of—and possibly wanting to make small talk with—a perfect stranger. Great.

The girl grabbed another stray paper shuffling away in the breeze and knelt beside me, smiling.

“So you have BioPsych,” she said flicking her gaze to my exposed book. “Which professor do you have?”

And there it was. Small talk. The sun seemed to grow twenty degrees hotter and sweat accumulated at my temples. “I—”

Words wouldn’t come. My mind blanked like it always did when faced with a simple social interaction. Give me a few good old-fashioned Euler-Lagrange equation optimization problems to grapple with and I’m your gal, but play meet and greet with a cheery fellow college student? I’d rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick.