BRAINRUSH, a Thriller by Richard Bard Page A

to spinning a pencil. “Do you know where we are, Ahmed?”
    “Sure, this is our home. Are you going to be my new father? I hope so. I miss having a father.” 
    The little girl, Sarafina, suddenly stopped playing the piano. Jake glanced over and noticed her tilting her head toward them.
     “My father spoke Dari,” Ahmed added. “My mom, too. Do you speak Dari, Jake?”
    “No, only English.”
    “You should learn Dari.  It will be easy for you after they fix you. I used to only speak Dari. Dr. Battista calls it my base tongue. But he says English is important, too.” The spinning pencil picked up speed, matching the cadence of the words spilling from Ahmed. “He wants me to be able to teach his friends that he’s trying to fix. But I prefer Dari. Will you learn it so we can speak Dari together? I speak Italian, too. So are you going to be my father now?”
    Jake saw Sarafina peek up at the mention of father, as if waiting for Jake’s answer. She may not speak English, Jake thought, but it sure seems as though she understands it.
    “Where is your father now, Ahmed?” Jake asked.
    With little evident emotion, the boy said, “He’s dead. And my momma. Sarafina’s mother and father are dead too. So are you going to be my father now?”
    Jake looked over at Sarafina. She glanced away, but kept her ear aimed in their direction, as if desperate to hear Jake’s answer. She clutched her teddy bear against her chest. A small tear ran down one of her pink cheeks. 
    Jake didn’t know what to say. He felt the pain that these children were burying as if it were his own. He had an overwhelming urge to embrace them, to protect them, to save them from whatever was going on here. Jake closed his eyes, struggling to fight back the wave of compassion he felt for them. He wanted to hold them and make their pain go away.
    As though she heard his thoughts, Sarafina stared at him with wonder, capturing his eyes with hers. It reminded him of the look he got from the little baby in the library. She said, “Cosa? Che ha detto?”
    She wiped her eyes and allowed a small smile to brighten her face. Grabbing her bear, she slid off the piano bench and walked over to stand in front of Jake. She placed her little hand on his arm. She struggled to maintain eye contact.
    Jake smiled back at her. He asked Ahmed, “What did she say?”
    Ahmed’s gaze darted back and forth between Jake and Sarafina. His hand hovered motionless above the pencil. “I…I’ve never heard her speak before. Dr. Battista is going to be surprised. How come she can speak even though she hasn’t been fixed yet? Why—”
    “Ahmed,” Jake interrupted, “what—did—she—say?”
    “She wants to know what you said just now when you closed your eyes,” Ahmed said, his voice quivering. “But you didn’t really say anything, did you? I was watching you. Your lips never moved. But I heard it. Like it was inside my head.”
    Is it possible? “What did you hear?”
    But before Ahmed could answer, Sarafina squeezed Jake’s arm and cooed something in Italian. Jake looked over at Ahmed, hoping for a translation. “She says you feel like her papa and her grandpapa, that everything is going to be all right now that you are here, and that…she loves you, too!”
    Jake placed his hand over hers and smiled. That must have been the sign she needed, because she suddenly jumped up onto his lap, threw her arms around him, and buried her cheek in his chest. Her sweetness enveloped him like a cozy blanket. 
    Ahmed’s dark eyebrows pinched in anguish. He lost control of the pencil and it spun off the table. “She never talks to anyone! What’s going on? Are you going to be her father now? What about me?”
    Looking over the top of Sarafina’s head, Jake gave Ahmed a warm smile, extending his arm as an invitation to join in the hug. The young boy took a half step forward. His small frame shook in protest. Jake saw him wrestle with the demons that made the prospect of