Kate laughed and wept at the same time.
Ahmed opened a belt case, taking out two stimpaks, which he pressed into her shoulder and arm one after the other. Cold seeped under her flesh, setting off pins and needles wherever blades had touched. Bloody foam exuded from the puncture wounds. When the oozing ceased, he wiped a towel past the mess, revealing clean, new skin.
“How do you feel?”
“Dizzy,” she whispered.
“The wounds look pretty superficial. Worst part was the blood loss.” He pulled her arm around his neck and stood with her. “You need something to eat and a long nap.”
She had the strength to walk on her own, but found it nicer to let him support her. Her awkward smile faded as the C-Branch man stepped in front of them.
“Do we have a situation?” asked Ashford.
“There is one small matter regarding asset retention.” The man in the brown coat stared at Kate with a look equally capable of protecting or killing her.
Ashford pulled down his dark glasses. “She is not a military asset.”
Tension rendered Officer Ahmed into a man-shaped board. He stared at the confrontation.
“I’m not referring to the woman.” The agent returned his intense stare to Kate. A second later, the stun collar chirped, hissed, and popped open, setting off a wave in her skull as though her brain had crushed into a tiny speck and snapped back to full size. “This device is proprietary technology. Classified. Even to you people.” He snatched it out of midair before it hit the ground. “You fools want to juggle a live grenade, by all means do so. Don’t blame us if you get burned.”
Mr. C-Branch edged around Lieutenant Commander Ashford and strolled out in a flutter of brown coat. Ashford gave a simple nod to Ahmed before he walked outside to a waiting unmarked hovercar.
“Thanks,” she whispered, her free left hand clutching her tenderized throat.
He helped her walk out the breach in the wall and guided her toward a different hovercar―plain black and bearing transparent police bar lights flickering with rapid snaps of blinding azure light.
“It wasn’t me that found you.” He stopped at the side of the car, letting her lean against the door. “We just followed the chaos.”
“No… I mean for stopping me from…” She looked down. “I’ve never been much for crying before. I think I’ve cried more this week than in my entire life.”
“I can’t even begin to guess at what you’ve been through, but I’d like to help you deal with it.”
Kate looked up, her legs weakened as they made eye contact. “I was afraid of being used again.”
He lifted the gull-wing door. “We can keep C-Branch away from you.”
“But I have to join Division 0?” She glanced at the car seat. “Am I being arrested or escorted?”
“You kill anyone recently?” He chuckled. “And, technically, you’ve already joined.”
“Yes, three men.”
His face went flat. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah.” She explained what happened.
“Oh.” He mimed wiping sweat off his forehead. “That was self-defense. No, Kate, you’re not being arrested. The brass is interested in learning about you. The only thing that would be required is to consent to a little testing. We’re not going to force you out on tactical duty. As far as your duties go, you can fly a desk in the admin section if you want. Maybe sort history books or babysit dorm brats if you pass the psych board.”
She crawled into the seat and let him close the door. The scent of technology enveloped her; for a moment, she felt like a child with a new―expensive―toy as she tried to make sense of all the displays and controls on the dashboard.
Ahmed climbed into the driver’s seat and winked at her. “Somehow, I don’t think you’re the type to be happy sitting behind a desk.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve had enough violence already.” Gazing into his eyes sent strange tingles down her body. Perhaps he had been looking at her that way back in Querq. Was his concern for her personal? “Are you doing that to me or am I just pathetic?”
He pulled on the control stick, sending them straight up. Kate forgot about the dancing butterflies in her stomach and grabbed the ‘oh-shit’ handle above her window.
“I’m not manipulating your emotions now. I’m only authorized to do that in emergencies.” The smile he tried to give her became a concerned stare. “Need a jolt of calm?”
“Heights.” She almost lifted herself out of the seat. “I’m not good with heights. Wait, I take that back. I’m fucking terrified of heights.”
“Really? You’ve never once been in a hovercar before?” He blinked.
“It’s a long story.”
Her terror melted away.
“We’ve got about an hour’s ride.”
“That was you.” She watched buildings go by below, knowing deep in her gut she should be shaking. “You’re keeping me calm.”
“You’ll get used to flying. Fear is the mind’s natural reaction to the unknown and to things which appear dangerous.”
Absent her usual reaction to being this high off the ground, she reached over and put a hand on his arm. “What about other things I find unknown and dangerous?”
“Your long story first.” He winked.
ate sat on the edge of a heated Comforgel pad. A woman in a white coat caused little chirping noises to emanate from a nearby holo-terminal each time she poked the screen. A snug white sports bra and clingy spandex shorts left her feeling exposed and cold everywhere except where her rear end met the heated pad.
“I’m almost done with your medical scan; we shouldn’t be too much longer.” The woman in the coat glanced at her with a pleasant smile that verged on patronizing. “Oh, how did they forget that? Kate, what’s your last name?”
“Umm.” Kate swung her feet back and forth. “I don’t have one. The government made me in a lab, remember?”
The Medtech pinched her nose and let off a sigh. “Well, make one up then.”
Kate thought. At first, she considered ‘Althea’ but that sounded odd, strange, and a touch sycophantic. After a moment of pondering, amid increasingly loud tapping from the medic, she remembered the old doctor who had tried to save her.
“What about Solomon?”
“Sounds peachy to me. Okay, make sure you remember it.” Kate cringed at the way the woman emphasized the t. “From here on out, you’re Kate Solomon, unless you’d rather Katherine.”
“No, Kate’s fine.” She squinted. “Doc?”
“What is it, dear?”
Kate lowered her voice to a whisper. “Since when are you British?”
The medic smiled and leaned close to check her eyes. “As of a few moments ago, luv.”
“Aurora?”
“You’re sharp as a bag of wet rats, aren’t you?”
“You knew?” Kate blinked.
“Why aye!” She stuck something metal and cold in Kate’s ear. “I’ll let Anna know you’re grateful for the bailout. She’s okay by the way.”
Kate cringed at the device invading her head. “Ouch, fuck. Do you know what you’re doing? She’s not like him.”
“No bloody clue,” whispered Aurora. “I’m no medtech. I’m just sticking metal bits in random holes that seem to be the right size.” She rummaged about a tray on a nearby cart for a few seconds. “Ooh, this is a nice thick one! Bend over, please. And yes, I know. She’ll be all right when the dust settles.”
Kate glared until the woman giggled. “You knew I was―”
“Going to naff off? Yes, of course. And I know you’re going to ask why I didn’t stop you or warn them.” The medtech put her hands on her hips and shifted her weight. “Future’s not always a guarantee, and sometimes what I see doesn’t happen. He’s a bit full of ‘imself, and sometimes takes my advice and tosses it. For one thing, I didn’t want the argument, and for two things―I find it amusing to watch him throw tantrums.”
“You’re strange.”
/>
“Thank you, luv.” The medic glanced at the door. “Right, about time I sod off then.”
“But, what about…”
The medic blinked, shivered, and leaned on the equipment table. “What about what?” No trace of British accent remained. She gave a bewildered look at the light pen sticking out of Kate’s ear.
Kate smirked at the lack of accent. “Nothing. Is the scan done yet? Can I get dressed?”
“Not yet,” said an older man in a white coat, as he walked into the room. “We’d like you to come with us.”
Behind him waited two people in Division 0 uniforms: an Asian woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, and an even older man, balding, with a fringe of white hair around the back of his head. He had a permanent grumpy look to him, as if irritated at the world for existing.
The medtech pulled the wand out of her ear, still making a face suggesting she had no idea how that got there.
“Like this?” Kate waved a hand over her underwear-clad body.
“Might as well. No sense ruining anything nice,” said the scientist. “I’m Doctor Talbot. Behind me is Division 0 Deputy Director Johannes Burckhardt, and Officer Yuki Kurosawa.”
Kate met Burckhardt’s appraising squint without fear. He looked at her the same way Ramesh had, wondering how useful she would be. “Why do I have a feeling this is going to hurt?” She slid from the table, wincing at the cold floor.
“It shouldn’t,” said Dr. Talbot. “Though, if something unforeseen does occur, you are already in the medical facility.”
Talbot took the lead, walking past Kate deeper into the room and past a pair of automatic glass doors, the lower half frosted. She padded along after him, uncomfortable at the way people seemed to drop whatever they were doing to stare at her; some even followed.
He stopped at a door marked ‘Testing C’ and swiped an empty hand past the panel. A chirp emanated from the wall and the door opened. Inside, a featureless white room held a few machines, one of which looked like something out of a targeting range. Most of the area was empty.
“Okay, Kate. What we’re doing here is an evaluation of your psionic talent.”
“I did this same exact routine two days ago with Doctor Rama…something.”
“Ramachandran?” asked Talbot.
“Yeah, that’s it. She was very thorough. Apparently”―Kate faked a shocked expression―“I’m a pyrokinetic. I’m also a little telepathic, and she said I’ve got some potential at self-healing, though I’ve never consciously used it.” That explains why my hair survived, I guess. “I always thought I never got sick because I was too hot for germs.”
“Oh, yes.” Talbot crossed his arms over a datapad, bowing at her. “That’s not what we’re evaluating. We need to see the extent of your pyrokinesis. As you may or may not know, pyrokinetics create fire that looks like… well, fire.”
Kate blinked. “Wow, that’s impressive. You have a doctorate?”
Burckhardt made no effort to hide his smile.
“What I mean is…” Talbot’s face reddened. “Other pyrokinetics we have studied have created red or orange flames.”
“Oh, and because mine are blue… Yeah, okay. I guess C-Branch didn’t want to share what they did? Tell me again why I had to stay in my underwear for this?”
“The report indicates your skin temperature―”
“It doesn’t do that anymore. Look, just tell me what you want me to do and let’s get this over with.”
He pointed at the long wall, which appeared to be made of blunt-cornered cubes stacked on top of each other. “A series of target drones will come out and fly around. Use your weakest ability on them.”
Great. I’m seven again in the ‘game room.’ “I can’t kill machines. It’s hot, but not hot enough to melt bots.”
“No, we’re testing accuracy. You don’t need to destroy them.”
Yuki frowned.
Kate indicated the woman with her thumb. “What’s her problem?”
“He is asking you to start fires on a moving target. That is extremely difficult.” Yuki gestured at Talbot. “Pyrokinetics cause materials to combust by concentrating on them; we are not firearms.”
“You can’t make fireballs?” Kate blinked.
Yuki stared at her with an unreadable expression.
“That is why you are here,” said Burckhardt. “Please, humor us.”
Talbot raised his hand and a terminal screen appeared in hologram to his left. When he poked a button, a head-sized orb bot exited a port on the wall and zoomed around in a semi-random pattern. Kate watched it for a moment, held her hand up, and whipped a small fireball at it. She felt like it missed, but the drone chirped to indicate a hit, likely due to the heat of the blue flame.
Yuki gasped. “How did you do that?”
“Like this.” Kate nailed the second, slower orb with another one.
For a few minutes, Yuki made faces at her empty hand while Kate shot fist-sized fireballs at a series of orbs of various speeds. Some moved in circles while others zipped about in random patterns. Behind her, Talbot and Burckhardt commented on her accuracy.
“Okay, that’s the end of that test.” Talbot smiled and hit another button. A single orb bot floated into the center of the target area with a silver square dangling on a cable below it. “Try to inflict as much heat on that plate as you can. While you do that, Officer Kurosawa is going to attempt to interfere.”
“Interfere?”
“Two psionics with the same gift can attempt to counteract each other. I am not gifted myself, though I have heard it described as a battle of wills.”
Yuki looked up from her still-empty hand. The woman’s ‘I want fireballs too’ pout made Kate chuckle as she walked closer to the swaying target. She gathered the essence of heat around her body and thrust one arm out, creating a swaying serpent of fire that shifted from red to orange to blue within a second.
Again, Yuki looked despondent.
Tingling crept over her brain, a nagging resistance to her psionic energy. Kate powered past it, concentrating on the point at which the stream of fire met the sensor. She pictured the head of the C-Branch man who’d put the stunner on her hanging in place of the sensor panel. The fire splash turned from blue to yellow and teased at becoming white for seconds at a time. Exertion manifested as sweat. Yuki’s grunting swam somewhere in the indistinct morass of sensory input containing everything that wasn’t the torrent of flames gushing from Kate’s hand.
She felt the fire burn through the sensor and stretch to eighteen feet. The distraction of the sudden change in length lapsed her focus back to ‘just making fire’ as opposed to ‘as hot as you can get it.’
“Kate!” Talbot’s scream pierced the fog of concentration. “You can stop.”
A bit out of breath, she stumbled backward and wiped perspiration from her face. “How’d I do?”
“You destroyed the sensor,” said Talbot, sounding annoyed. “It’s rated to three thousand degrees.”
“Sorry… guess I got a bit angry.”
Yuki shifted, taking a step back. “I… I couldn’t. It’s like she didn’t even notice me try to stop her. I held up an umbrella to stop a crashing starship.”
“I felt a tingle,” said Kate.
The woman glared at the floor.
“It’s not as fun as it looks.” She fanned herself. “That British guy said something about ‘order of magnitude.’ I guess that means I’m unusually strong or something.”
Officer Ahmed entered with another man, who went to Burckhardt’s side.
David walked up to her. “Looks like they’re making you work already.”
She shrugged, accepting a bottle of cold water from a lab assistant. “They want to see how hot I can burn. I guess I’m doing better than they expected.”
He handed her a towel, which she hung around her neck unused until she had sucked down three-quarters of the bottle. She wiped herself off, dabbing at her face and forehead. Noting her hesitance at
touching her neck, David offered to help.
“There’s no deep tissue damage.”
“I know. It’s mental.” She turned her back on the room, finding she didn’t mind when he stood closer. “They told me they used that thing because the inhibitor is cruel. I don’t want to know what the hell one of those is like if it’s worse than the stunner.”
“It’s not as painful, not even close. The inhibitor disrupts psionic activity by injecting an endless stream of random stimuli into the brain. It feels like whispers and strange hallucinations, smells, and feelings.”
“Sounds like being high.” Kate leaned until her back touched his chest. “That doesn’t seem cruel.”
“If left on someone too long, it’s been known to cause insanity. If you decide to accept an assignment with a tactical squad, you’ll be required to suffer through wearing one for about twenty minutes to get certified to use them. If you decide to stay in admin on a desk or working at the dorm, it’s not an issue.”
“That’s stupid,” she muttered. Why isn’t he putting his arm around me? Am I that bad? No, I’m just doing the same thing I did with Esteban all over again, mistaking ‘nice’ for interest. After pouring the rest of the water down her throat, she chucked the bottle over her shoulder and glared at Talbot. “We done yet?”
Ahmed gave her a ‘calm down’ look, but did nothing telempathic. She softened the expression she aimed at the scientist from ‘die in a fire’ to ‘you suck.’
“One more test.” Talbot mumbled at the console, shying away from eye contact. “If you’d be so kind as to stand on the green dot.”
A holographic circle appeared out in the middle of the target area. She chucked the towel to Ahmed and trudged over to it. Fourteen orb bots emerged from portals in the ceiling, surrounding her in a spiral pattern of increasing distance from two feet away to about fifteen meters. Sensor modules dangled on cables from each.
“You mentioned a radiant thermal event to Dr. Ramachandran. Would you be so kind as to recreate that?”
Kate laughed as though he’d told a joke of genuine humor. “Sorry. I can’t.”
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