Out of Touch

by Leia Howard

  OUT OF TOUCH

  Touch of Gray, Book One

  Leia Howard

  COPYRIGHT

  Out of Touch (Touch of Gray 01) by Leia Howard

  https://authorleia.blogspot.com

  © 2018 Leia Howard

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Cover By: Melody Pond

  EBook ISBN: B07L6WRB1Y

  DEDICATION

  Thank you to Cole, Veronica, and Jessica for the beta reads. All mistakes are my own, of which there are many, I am sure.

  Contents

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  WORLD OF TOUCH OF GRAY

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Hello, this is Dani from Gray’s Agency. May I please speak with Mr. Richard Whitaker?” I heard Dani say from the main room. Even though it’s been a year since I hired Dani, I still feel a thrill knowing that my business grew enough to support two full-time assistants plus Dani, our office manager. The early days of being a struggling owner and sole-employee have long since passed. I can now step back from the day-to-day services the agency provides and devote more time to my police consultant cases.

  “Mr. Whitaker, I am returning your inquiry for an as-needed virtual assistant. Yes, the motto on our website is correct, Assistants from a Distance. You can thank our owner, Gray, for the pun. She genuinely believes it’s funny. Now…” I hear as I closed my door, cutting off the sounds from the rest of the office. Office was perhaps too refined a word. I converted a three-bedroom mobile trailer into a place of business. The largest bedroom was converted into my personal office and en suite bathroom. The two other bedrooms were adapted to offices for the virtual assistants that worked here. The former living room now housed the deluxe printer / copier / scanner as well as Dani’s spacious guardian of a desk opposite two reception chairs. The business was virtual assistance, emphasis on virtual, so a large visitor reception area did not make sense. My friend, Wendy, designed two four-paneled sliding doors to section off the dining room and turn it into a conference room. Add an enclosed kitchen with a large round break table, plus a large office bathroom, and I thought the set-up was decent.

  Carrying the delivery bag labeled ‘MT Graham’ that contained three packages addressed to Albuquerque Psycept Police Unit, I walked to the section of my office set aside for consultative work. Sully, Wendy’s brother and a detective with the Bosque Division police, dropped the bag off earlier, just after Dani returned from lunch.

  I grumbled for the umpteenth time that the bag was labeled MT Graham, and not Gray, the name I go by. I was the only Gray here that I knew, at least that had packages delivered by a police detective. For the fifteen years I lived on the Southwestern Alliance Conservatorship, or SWACon, my consultation packages were mailed to the police. The delivery bag has been replaced several times and at any point, the name could have been changed to Gray. I’m sure the police speculated what MT stood for, chuckled, then kept the label to irritate me, the jerks.

  Jokes on them, MT Graham is my legal name. It stands for this Greek monstrosity of a name, but my mother only put the two letters on my birth certificate. Even as a baby, I never responded well to my real name nor any derivative, so my dad started calling me Gray, nickname for Graham, when I was a toddler. My younger brother, Kai, always wished he could be eldest, just so he could claim my “cooler” nickname. In retaliation, I sometimes call him Kissie, short for his initials of KS, to get him to back off teasing me. Tommie, our younger sister, just sighs and ignores us both. Her initials are TS and I low-key want to call her Eliot, but she hasn’t done anything bad enough to warrant that. Yet.

  I often wonder why my mother was incapable of naming her children normal names, but I know why only letters were provided on our birth certificates. The nicknames Gray, Kai, and Tommie work just fine, and we know better than to ever refer to each other with our true names. Names hold power, and Mom knew something soon would attempt to take that power from us.

  I am originally from Texas and not a birth member of any of the tribes of the SWACon. When I was a child of eight, a decade-long research and scientific study was published confirming the existence of those with enhanced sensory perception. The scientific authors also developed a genetic test to detect such individuals. The federal government, especially the FBI and Homeland Security, were interested in the applying the test right away.

  Within a year of the study’s publication, my large community was one of a dozen selected by the federal government to undergo secret genetic testing. Many people that were selling themselves as psychics were debunked. But many more people were suddenly exposed as true psychics to fearful neighbors and family members. These people had been quietly living in communities minding their own business. Like me and my family, our ‘gifts’ were discovered and released to the public. Government scientists immediately wanted to begin experimenting on those identified, to determine the extent of our abilities and refine the genetic testing and categorization.

  Federal agencies, citing public safety and national security, petitioned to take the identified to an institutional setting for our ‘protection’, or more accurately, the agencies’ convenience. My parents and others resisted such relocation, and a legal battle played out in the courts over the next several years. While the cases worked their way through the court system, the government sought to separate families and obtain guardianship of the affected children, which added time to the legal fight.

  During this time of uncertainty, those of us identified with enhanced perception, Psycepts, could remain with our families, but we could not go to school nor interact much with the outside community. In the meantime, the government proceeded to screen the rest of the populace, with more and more individuals identified and registered in the national database. We were not yet experimented upon, but we lived in fear of the verdict.

  Ultimately, the courts decided that those designated as Psycepts, whether adult or minor, were their own person with the legal rights afforded to any American citizen. However, the ruling did not prevent the authorities from beginning to issue Writs of Assistance to registered Psycepts to assist with police investigations. Subpoenas were also handed out to Psycepts to appear in court as expert witnesses. Further rulings specified that any assistance, whether voluntarily rendered or legally compelled, had to be financially compensated. In cases of extreme or unusual abilities, the US started to enforce Duty to Rescue or Duty to Render Aid laws in order to deputize or draft a Psycept into service and direct their abilities. All of this while paying a salary with a smug smile.

  Seeing this unfold, the Greater Tribal Council of the Americas recognized an opportunity to both offer asylum and reemerge on the world stage. The Greater Tribe, or GT, is a conglomerate of all the First Nation and Native American tribes of North America. The GT nation is at the forefront of developing and providing Green Energy, as well as land, water, and air conservation specialists. The GT keeps mostly to themselves, though they enjoy a cordial but distant relationship with the bordering nations of the US, Canada, and Mexico.

  In addition to the economic impact of being at the forefront of Green Energy research and development, the GT has manufacturing companies specializing in textiles, electric and solar batteries, and electric vehicles. They are also land r
ich with many minerals, precious metals, oil, and other natural resources. However, protecting the land is of top priority, so mining and drilling are heavily regulated and provide limited economy. They have a small navy to patrol the Arctic and northern Pacific coast. The GT has a large standing army, but its primary purpose is to protect the land from intruders and offer aid to their world allies.

  The GT was last present on world stage during WWII, when they offered asylum to those persecuted by Nazis. Later, the GT honored their pact of mutual aid with Canada and the US. Hawaii, the island province of Canada, was attacked by Japanese forces and Germany sank American ships in the Atlantic. Thus, the three countries joined forces and sent their armies to fight on behalf of the Allies. After the WWII victory, most of the asylum seekers returned to their countries or relocated to Canada and Mexico. Some few chose to stay in GT.

  GT has a small population of approximately 35 million. However, they inhabit a large swath of land. In the years since WWII, the neighboring nations, especially the US, began to resent the Greater Tribe’s unwillingness to spoil the lands and waters for economic gain. The GT now felt the need to step forward and reassert their power in the world and while amassing and reinforcing their alliances against a possible looming threat. The GT saw the perfect opportunity with Psycepts.

  When Psycepts were first exposed and in danger of being exploited by the US, the Greater Tribe began to consider offering permanent residency to Psycepts. While the US courts heard the government arguments to limit the rights of Psycepts, the GT solidified their offer and plans, but waited until the final verdict was read. When the federal, state, and local agencies began their legal conscription of Psycepts, the offer was issued.

  In exchange for permanent residency, Psycepts will anonymously use our abilities to assist those that request it. The agreement is for a set number of cases per week, we can accept or reject requests, we have a contracted number of years to supply aid, but the permanent residency is for life. Thus, the GT offers aid to us, gains a new specialized population to incentivize other nations to strengthen their ties with the GT, and denies a possible opponent the valuable resource of Psycepts. American Psycepts saw this as a more independent way to live than what the US was enacting, so began the wave of residency applications.

  Canada and Mexico were not as aggressive as the US in trying to corral Psycepts, but they followed suit in screening, identifying, and registering their citizens as Psycepts. Their governments were debating whether they should take further action. The Psycepts of Canada and Mexico didn’t want to stick around in case the results were not in their favor, so began petitioning the GT to join American Psycepts. The first few years saw large Psycept groups emigrating from America, and smaller groups from Canada and Mexico, though it has tapered down in the past dozen years. Now, seven of the eleven conservatorships house Psycept communities. Some GT citizens self-identified as Psycepts and chose to move to the immigrant Psycept communities and provide aid to petitioners. The GT never identified their own Psycepts, but statistically we know all countries have less than one percent of Psycepts in their population.

  If I stayed in the United States, my ability guaranteed that I would be deputized, and the rest of my life would be dictated by the government. So, when I was seventeen, I applied for Psycept residency in the GT. By eighteen, I completed the required studies and exams, then signed the negotiated terms set forth by the Greater Tribe. While I need to use my abilities to qualify for residency, I only use them on a limited and anonymous basis and can have a life separate from that. I felt this was a much better bargain than the US demands. Now, I am a permanent resident of SWACon and live in the Psycept section of Albuquerque.

  Albuquerque was once in the New Mexico Territory, before the formation of the GT nation. SWACon houses members of the Navajo, Puebloan, Arapaho, Hopi, Apache, Ute, Mojave, Yuma, Kiowa, Comanche, Wichita, Shawnee, and other tribes of or near the southwest. Not all tribes are on one conservatorship, some bands chose to live in other areas. SWACon is one of eleven conservatorships that make up the Greater Tribal Council of the Americas. As we learned in our lessons, the GT was originally called the Tribal Collaboration.

  More than 150 years ago, the Civil War ended, and the remains of the reformed United States Army restarted their push West. However, they met with a united front of tribal warriors. The US never encountered the tribes united before, they treated with individual tribes and bands for decades. The native peoples of Alaska, Canada, America, and Mexico began forming alliances in the first half of the century at the request of their shamans. The holy people and sages knew that in a short matter of time, possibly within their lifetime, the white settlers would push out or even annihilate all native tribes unless something was done. So, by the early-1850s, most tribes agreed to bury the hatchet to prevent the further decimation of their peoples. They used the time of the Civil War to band together, marshal their forces, and execute their plans.

  The Tribal Collaboration now held territory from central Canada down through west Texas into Mexico and had been successfully fighting settlers, territorial militias, and the limited US Army for several years. Battle-hardened, the Tribal Collaboration continued to hold the lines and expanded east to reclaim territory towards Ontario, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan even after the US army was reinforced with Civil War veterans.

  We were taught that nature seemed to bless their endeavor as the worst natural disasters in memory swept across the west in waves over the following years. These included sandstorms, floods, tornados, blizzards, earthquakes, and droughts. Even the oceans chimed in with violent Atlantic and rare Pacific hurricanes from Alaska down to Mexico that continually battered the coastlines. The hurricanes spawned in two oceans prevented the US and British navies from circumventing the Strait of Magellan, bypassing the tribal land blockade, and sending aid and troops through California via the sea. The natural forces protected the prepared collection of tribes but decimated their opponents. The loss of life and resources from the years of natural disasters took its toll and the three countries began to speak of halting further attempts to reclaim territory.

  Stymied by nature and still paying off the debts incurred from the Civil War, the United States met with British-Canada and Mexico to see what could be agreed to. Canada had just purchased Rupert’s Land from the Hudson Bay Company and did not want to lose their investment, but the continued fighting drained their much-depleted finances. Mexico recently won their war with France, but the previous thirty years of warfare left the nation deeply in debt. All three countries eventually agreed to have their national lines redrawn. In exchange for eastern Canadian provinces, the US gave up California and the Washington and Oregon territories to Canada. Canada and US forgave much of the debt of Mexico, in exchange, Mexico was required to relinquish their northern territory for the Tribal nation and their Baja Peninsula to Canada.

  The redrawing of national lines allowed central and much of western North America to be set aside for the Tribal Collaboration nation. US, Canada, and Mexico then formally met with the Tribal leaders with their proposed new nations. Land agreements and treaties were made and ratified. For protection, the Tribal Collaboration invited representatives from Germany, France, Russia, Great Britain, Scandinavia, and other colonial nations to witness the signing of the formal documents. The Tribal Collaboration relied on the agreements being acknowledged in the open to hold the signees to their word. Many countries would like nothing better than to publicly shame, decry, and otherwise try to destabilize a competing country for reneging on agreements. At the time, the US, Canada, and Mexico could not afford to fight their hidden enemies thus begrudgingly kept their word.

  The land set aside by the US, Canada, and Mexico was signed over to the Tribal Collaboration nation. Internal policy of the Tribal Collaboration was to hold the land, air, and waters in trust. Owning land was not the way of most tribes but protecting the land from voracious encroachers was. Tribes originally from the Eastern and So
utheastern Woodlands and the Pacific Coast chose the conservatorships they would live in. Since it was their original territories that were formally given over to the US and Canada, the Tribal Collaboration nation absorbed as many tribes in the western, central, and northern territories as wished to live in the new nation.

  The Tribal Collaboration changed their name to the Greater Tribal Council of the Americas in the late 19th century. The nation expanded in the mid-20th century when Denmark agreed to turn over Greenland to the Greater Tribe at the behest of a Greenlander vote. Now in modern day, the protected land was divided into eleven conservatorships of various regional tribal allies.

  When I moved to SWACon, my family opted to remain in Texas. My younger siblings have since commercialized their skills after completing university, neither have my restrictive ability. Tommie works for some predictive economic think-tank near Washington D.C. making beaucoup money. As far as the US government knows, her ability works on future monetary possibilities which makes it difficult to be subpoenaed or have a writ issued.

  Kai is a private investigator based out of Dallas-Fort Worth, or DFW, specializing in recovering stolen objects. While robbery is a crime, the police have neither the time nor money to track down stolen objects. It is generally accepted that if something is stolen, you’re out of luck. The municipal police could issue a Writ of Assistance to Kai. But then, they would have to pay him, which they lack the budget for. Instead, the police have my brother on a list Psycepts that may be of assistance to robbery victims, if they were willing to pay for his investigative services. Those are most Kai’s clients, though he does higher paying jobs for some museums. He tailors his fees to meet what his clients can afford to pay. In cases of mass grave robberies, he may choose to work pro bono.

  When I first began consultations, my agreement was for three consultations a week. I expected limited interaction with whatever case handler was assigned by SWACon, but otherwise to be left alone. I was physically reserved as a child, even within my family, and expected to live an isolated and somewhat lonely life on SWACon.