You know what's kind of funny?

Well, not funny, but...okay, for lack of a better word, we're sticking with funny.

Where was I?

Right. What's funny?

When you're faced with death, sometimes you make some pretty odd observations.

Like how you can see directly under the gun pressed to your forehead at the bronze Celtic knot ring your potential murderer is wearing. Or that the underside of the gun barrel looks just like the top. And you wonder just how the gun got from pointing towards his head and you looking over it to vice versa.

"What do you know?"

I shrug.

The ring of the gun barrel presses deeper. If I survive, which I will, I assure you, one way or another, I'll have a circular ring on my forehead, just above the end of my left eyebrow, over my nose, for about ten minutes or so. If not, I'll have a perfect hole for a few seconds, before I bleed out.

Graphic?

Sorry.

Back to now.

"I asked you what you knew!"

"Not much."

"Tell me what you know."

I raise my right eyebrow, since the gun is constraining the left, and say, "All I know is your name."

But I can know so much more.

Just a quick pry and I could know everything he doesn't want me to know.

Some call it telepathy. Witchcraft. Superpowers. Or mind reading. Use whatever you prefer. Except witchcraft.

But first, let's get a few things straight.

I can't read thoughts, per say. It's more like watching a movie.

But those movies don't make a lot of sense without dialogue, so I can only watch the thoughts of English speakers. Unfortunately, there aren't any subtitles. I'm trying to learn more languages, but it's hard for me. It's not in my skill set, multilingualism.

I also can't watch the thoughts of really little kids, like under a year old. Let me rephrase that. I can, but I won't get anything out of it. They mainly think in what they see around them, so it's like looking in a mirror.

Now that you know a few things, I'll continue.

Another figure arrives in the door. The pressure above my eyebrow is lifted temporarily as my potential murderer looks to see who it is.

Faster than lightning, I reach up and wrench the gun towards the ceiling. The gun fires, hitting a pipe running through the popcorn plaster.

Then I whip it around and aim it at him.

The newcomer does the same.

The man, who is no longer a threat, lifts his hands slowly.

"Could you have come any slower?" I ask, tucking the gun into my waistband and shoving the man into a chair.

"You were handling yourself, weren't you, Cerebra?" he responds, tossing me the rope.

I make quick work of tying up the man, who blinks at me in surprise. "You're Cerebra?"

I step back to admire my handiwork. "Took you this long, George Isaiah 'G. I. Joe' Sanguinetti?" At his astonished look, I laugh. "Don't worry, that's all I gathered."

My partner steps out and I follow him. I stop at the door, holding the handle. "Though, you know, I am known to be a good liar."

His cry of frustration makes for a nice sound track as we walk down the carpeted hall to the exit of the hotel.

"So, Telly, did you find anything out?"

"Don't call me that, Jones. And no." I hold up a finger as he opens his mouth. "But. But, I can still watch his thoughts from the car in the lot."

He smiles, his white teeth flashing against his dark skin. "Great."

So we climbed into the purple, or black if you're Jones, 1997 Subaru Legacy, and I began to watch.

The man's thoughts were clouded, not the normal type of clouded like when someone's asleep or from filtering through a building, but the drugged kind of clouded. Maybe he got himself untied and decided to have a joint, or whatever it's called. I may run around getting guns pressed to my forehead, but I'm not stupid enough to do drugs in between missions.

I sifted through his thoughts and gathered any useful information as to why he suspected me in the first place. We weren't originally targeting him, but Jones has a nose for the illegal. So we followed him, he got suspicious, and ended up following me into my hotel room while Jones was off getting ice cream at the mini mart in the hotel.

Useless twat.

Turns out, G. I. Joe, as he likes to call himself, is part of an elaborate gun smuggling chain. So elaborate, in fact, that all he knows is that he's part of it, who he gets the weapons from, and who he hands them off to. Who knows how many links are in the chain?

But I get the name of the link before him. Helen van Blaricom.

A quick Google search, and Jones has found her. She appears to be a stereotypical soccer mom, from her Facebook photos, and lives about an hour away from where we are right now.

Jones pulls out of the parking lot and heads down the road, pulling up google maps as he goes to find her address.

I lean back in my seat and wrap my hands around the headrest. "You know, for a technology genius, you'd think you wouldn't need a map."

"I don't need a map for places I already know. I've never been to..." he checks the app, "I've never been to Gopher."

I bark a laugh. "Is that what it's called?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"I'm taking a nap. Wake me up when we get there."

"It's only an hour."

"Being held at gun point really takes it out of a girl."