“Can’t you see what I see on your screen? I thought that was the point.”
She shook her head before he finished talking. “No. I can see what aspects the test is administering. For example, if it’s presenting you with a particular neural signature to determine whether you can detect it, I can see which ability it’s putting forth and where it is. When you observe one of them, we know you have the ability. But I don’t see what you see. Every human brain perceives the universe differently. You’ve told me you’re seeing color spectrums, so I’m talking to you about it using that paradigm. Not all people see that.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “So, talk to me, even if you have a hard time describing what you’re sensing. Hash it out. It doesn’t have to make sense. Even the nonsensical will give me some idea of what you’re experiencing, which I can correlate with what the test is doing. It will help us figure out what this is.”
“You want to turn me into a babbling idiot, don’t you?” he muttered. She didn’t turn from the screen, but the corners of her mouth rose. She had a vaguely petulant smile. Jonah kinda liked it.
“Beginning now.”
The same color spectrum formed in front of Jonah’s eyes, the colors ranging from black on the left to white on the right. This time, he shifted his attention to the left side, where he’d felt the hovering before.
“What do you see?” Lila prompted.
“The colors. They’re coming toward me.” He studied the spectrum so fiercely he thought he might give himself a headache this time. Then he saw it.
“There it is. It’s coming from a pale gray color.”
“What is?” Lila asked.
“The same sense—like a hovering. Focusing on it, it looks different than the others.”
“How so? Bring it toward you, Jonah. To observe it properly, you need it front and center.”
Doing as she’d suggested before, he willed it toward him, repeating the words she’d suggested in his head. To his surprise, it came. The gray bar of light wiggled out of its place in the spectrum and somehow placed itself in front of the rest of the colors, though all continued moving toward him. “It looks…solid, somehow. Like a solid bar of color.”
Lila didn’t answer.
The gray bar…flickered was the word that came to mind. It appeared back in the spectral line, reminding him of a digital video clip with a skip in it. Jonah let out a soft gasp.
“What?” Lila asked, not turning from her computer.
“It’s like it’s trying to get away from me. It went back into the line.”
“What?” Lila’s voice dripped skepticism. “It wouldn’t do that.”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t do it,” Jonah said irritably. “It moved on its own.”
“It’s not trying to get away from you Jonah,” she said firmly. “This is your ability. It’s happening in your mind. Maybe you lost control of it. Try again.”
Tamping down annoyance at her condescending tone, Jonah obeyed. The gray bar of color came, seeming even more reluctant than the first time. He managed to force it out in front of the other colors again, but couldn’t tell anything more about it. He felt the hovering sensation from it, as though it had more substance than the other colors, but…
Flicker.
The bar moved back into the spectrum.
“Lila, it happened ag—”
The colors reached him, evaporating as before. The pain that lanced through his head felt exponentially worse. Grabbing his head again, he cried out involuntarily.
Something slammed into his knees, causing a sharp pain to lance up his thigh. A lesser pressure pressed against his shoulders.
He felt an unmistakable lessening of the pain. It remained, but his mind became more conscious of his surroundings. His hearing and sensation came back before the pain receded this time. He’d fallen from dentist’s chair and onto his knees on the stone floor. The lesser pressure on his shoulders felt like a pair of hands, he thought, and the voice in his ear sounded feminine.
“Jonah? Talk to me. Are you okay? Jonah!”
Jonah opened his eyes to find himself doubled over, fists balled so tightly on the sides of his head, his short fingernails cut into his palms. His jaw clenched so tightly, he feared he might crack his teeth. Try as he might, he couldn’t unclench any of his muscles.
“Relax, Jonah,” Lila’s voice dropped, only a step above a whisper. “Allow yourself to feel the pain. That will give you power over it. Then choose to let it go.”
It still hurt so much, Jonah would try anything. He opened himself to the pain, rather than shying away from it. White light filled his vision. Miraculously, the pain began to recede.
Slowly, his fists, along with his other muscles, began to unclench. He felt like a cerebral palsy patient, unable to make his body do as he wanted it to. Still, he breathed easier, and the pain slid away quickly now, like a receding tsunami.
His forehead now rested against Lila’s shoulder. The slight pressure on his shoulders had been her hands, steadying him. A good thing, too. If she hadn’t caught him, he’d have fallen flat on his face.
After what felt like a millennium, he raised himself upright, his back cracking loudly as he straightened it. Lila no longer looked concerned. Her brown eyes held terror. Her straight hair, bobbed at the chin, just like her mother’s, fell into her eyes. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Jonah? You all right?” Her voice sounded hesitant and scared.
Tiny beads of sweat had broken out over the entire surface of his skin, and his muscles felt weak, like he’d completed a particularly grueling weight-training session. The twinge of pain he’d felt earlier in his leg was no longer a twinge. It had turned into a deep, searing agony. It receded quickly, now, and he managed a jerky nod. He pushed his sweat-drenched auburn hair off his forehead.
“What happened?” His voice came out a hoarse whisper.
“I don’t know. I’m so sorry I made you do it again, Jonah. I didn’t think that would happen. Honestly. In my experience, when someone has discomfort when trying to hone an ability, it’s a matter of working through the pain. Breaking it down so you can access the ability. The more you know about the ability, the more you work with it, the less pain there is. I’ve never seen it take more than two or three tries to get rid of the pain entirely. I certainly didn’t think it would get worse.” She passed a hand across her face, looking upset. “I’m so sorry, Jonah.”
He felt a pang of regret at her reaction. “First,” he panted, feeling like he’d run a marathon, “the pain was so intense, I thought I was dying.”
Her face tightened farther.
“Right before I heard you speak, it lessened a lot. It didn’t go away but it became…manageable.”
A strange look came into her face.
“What?”
“Just a lot of strange occurrences. When you fell to your knees, I caught you and felt for the pain centers in your brain. The places radiating negative energy you perceive as pain. I wanted to neutralize them. Heal them. The instant my energy touched your brain, the energy from your brain folded over mine. I think it lessened your pain, but I have no idea why.”
Jonah sat back on his heels, feeling weak. “Wouldn’t that qualify as you Healing me?”
Lila shook her head. “I didn’t Heal you Jonah. I didn’t direct the energy. It’s like the two energies acted on their own, which isn’t even possible. I think it must have come from your brain. It snatched my energy up and used it somehow. To Heal itself, maybe. I’ve never seen anything like it. You were in pain, not consciously directing it, so…”
She trailed off and Jonah arched an eyebrow. “So…what?”
“I don’t know. It must have been unconscious on your part.” She appeared as confused as he felt. “I don’t understand how that can be. Something about your brain is different.”
Jonah frowned, wondering whether he ought to feel offended.
Lila straightened, a determined look on her f
ace. She put her hands on the tops of his shoulders, and he became aware of a low hum. A vibration that felt like it came from inside his body. He felt it deep in his ear canal, in his throat, in his knees, vibrating against the stone floor.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Looking for any injuries.”
Jonah cleared his throat, willing his voice to come more strongly. “I thought you could only Heal bone.”
“Yes,” Lila said absently. “But I can still feel an injury, even if I can’t Heal it. Mostly I’m looking for whatever caused this. I don’t know if I’ll be able to Heal…”
She trailed off and he didn’t question her further. She stared straight ahead at his chest, not truly seeing it. Her eyes relaxed as she concentrated on what she felt.
After several minutes, the humming ceased, and Lila gazed up at him, expression unreadable.
“Well?” he asked.
“I don’t feel anything. No injuries. Your cells expended a lot of energy when all your muscles contracted, trying to deal with the pain. But I can’t figure out where the pain came from. There’s no source.”
“I felt the pain in my leg again,” he said. “Much worse the second time.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
The humming began again as she ran another scan.
When it ceased, she shook her head. “I don’t feel anything Jonah. Just scar tissue.”
“Scar—” Then Jonah remembered. He’d all but forgotten about the scar on his inner thigh. It was so small, he rarely saw or noticed it. “The scar from Vegas,” he murmured.
Lila’s eyebrows climbed higher. “You got that in Vegas?”
Jonah nodded. “It appeared out of nowhere. I’ve never figured out where it came from.”
Lila sat back on her heels, looking troubled. “Does it hurt now?”
He shook his head. “No, not anymore.”
“From what I can sense, it doesn’t seem to be the source of your pain—the pain in your leg or your head.
“So maybe it was the test.”
Lila shook her head. “No. I keep telling you, Jonah. The test doesn’t work like that. Whatever the explanation for the bar of color, it must be something in your mind. I just don’t know why it would…” she sighed in frustration.
“Do I have a brain injury?” he made himself ask, though he dreaded her answer.
She shook her head. “Not that I can feel.” She stared at the floor, thinking, for another moment, before shaking herself. “You’re exhausted. Stay here. I’m going to get Doc.”
She started to rise. Jonah lanced a hand out to grab her wrist, and gently pulled her back down to kneel in front of him. She let him pull her, a questioning frown on her face.
“I want to know what you think,” Jonah said quietly. “What did the test tell you?”
The tension left her shoulders. “You have the ability to detect neurochemical signatures. You can tell what abilities have been used in a certain area soon after they are used, so you may have some talent as a Tracker. You also may be able to tell what abilities any person you come upon has. It’s a rare talent, and valuable. Especially when meeting strangers or enemies. Nat can do it, but he has to be close to the person he’s trying to read. Within ten feet, I think. Your ability is bigger. You may be able to sense a person’s abilities from a great distance.” She sat back on her heels, looking more comfortable as she continued. “You have a small ability with Concealment—probably enough to Conceal yourself and perhaps one other person. Nothing vast. And you have the ability to learn to manipulate Constructive energy.”
“What does that mean?”
“You can build physical things from constructive energy. You know, actual structures, weapons, shields against physical attacks. Then there’s this.” She made a vague motion toward his head, and he assumed she meant whatever caused his headache.
“And what do you think this is?”
“I honestly don’t know, Jonah. Which is why we need Doc. I don’t dare move ahead with the test. It’s becoming dangerous.”
“But if you had to guess…?”
“I don’t have the authority,” she objected.
He nodded. “I understand, but I want to know what you think.” He put a hand on her upper arm, wrapping his fingers around it with enough pressure for a soft squeeze.
She met his eyes and, though a torrent of reluctance remained on her face, finally nodded. “If I had to guess—and it is only a guess, Jonah—I’d say this is some neurochemical ability trying to emerge. It’s like you’re…fighting yourself on it. Like a jam or a…I don’t know. I’ve never heard of this with any neurochemical ability.” She sighed, and put a hand on his arm. “I don’t know what it is. You’re going to need someone with more knowledge and experience than me to work through it. Okay?”
Swallowing, he nodded.
“I’m going to go and get him. Wait here,” she rose for real this time. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
He watched her disappear into the corridor with the fleeting thought that the room suddenly felt…lonely.
Chapter 10: To Make a Man Feel Safe
“Does David’s dream disturb you so much, Maggie?”
“Hmm?”
Maggie reclined on a bed in one of Interchron’s many rooms. Beside her, Doc calibrated a machine he would use to monitor her brain activity while they attempted to safely recover her memory of B and the round room.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You seem far away. Disturbed.”
Maggie supposed she had been staring silently off into space for a long time. “Sorry. Guess I spaced out. I’m not thinking about his dream.”
“No?”
“Not only that.” She sighed. “It’s everything. My head is spinning with it all.”
Doc nodded, flashing a knowing smile without taking his eyes of the screen of the machine he tinkered with. “I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.”
She glanced toward him self-consciously. “What…do you think of his dream.” She felt her cheeks heat.
His smile deepened, and he did look at her this time. “What you said about him super-imposing you into his dream? I think it’s an interesting idea.” He went back to punching buttons on the computer. “Whatever the explanation is, I’m sure it’s rooted in emotion.”
Maggie swallowed, not sure she wanted to know the answer to the question she felt too curious not to ask. “How so?”
“Everything is rooted in emotion, Maggie. Absolutely everything. Emotion is the power that drives the universe.” Doc turned to face her. “Haven’t you ever had a conversation with someone, when they suddenly express a strong emotion? Get excited about something, perhaps, or the opposite. Maybe while telling a story, they start to cry? The conversation goes from casual to intense in a millisecond. Suddenly you’re focused on them with pinpoint precision because of the strong emotion they’re exerting.”
Maggie nodded. If someone in a room full of people began to cry, everything went instantly silent. If they told a funny joke, everyone leaned forward, listening for the next comical sentence. “It’s true of romance too,” she offered. “Getting caught up in the moment’s connection. Suddenly focusing intently on one another.”
“Exactly,” Doc said happily. “Those are single emotions from single individuals. Strong as iron and compelling as dopamine. Imagine what the emotions of a nation or an entire planet could do. Powerful emotions suck people in. Like gravity.”
“People can choose whether to be affected by an emotion, though, can’t they? Like the collectives choosing not to feel?”
“Yes,” Doc nodded. “I agree, but I think there’s a threshold. Let’s return to your romance example. It’s like falling in love. In the beginning of a relationship, I think you choose. But that choice isn’t truly about the other person, it’s about whether you’re open to the relationship or not. Whether you’re willing to feel emotions for them or not. If you are, you reach, shal
l we say, an event horizon. A point of no return. Once you’ve crossed it, you no longer have much choice in feeling what the emotion has in store for you.”
Maggie swallowed, thinking of Marcus and their strange bond. She cleared her throat. “What’s this got to do with David’s dream?
“It doesn’t surprise me that his mind would bring a version of you into his dream, Maggie. You make him feel safe.”
“Safe?” she asked skeptically.
Doc nodded. “He believes you drew him to Interchron. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. I don’t know. I think it might have been all the individuals in Interchron together.”
“Wait. What do you mean?”
“David is a unique man. He’s extremely sensitive to emotion, which I believe may be what compelled him to enter the collectives to begin with. He couldn’t deal with the raw emotion he constantly felt. Once he left the collectives, once they no longer mediated his emotions, he felt immediately drawn to our little mountain. We’re probably the largest concentrated group of individuals left on the planet. All of our emotions are bundled together in this one place. I don’t think David being drawn here can be a coincidence.”
Maggie frowned. “If that’s the case, shouldn’t the collectives be able to find us by our emotions too?”
Doc shook his head. “No. They’ve purposely closed themselves off from individual emotions. They don’t have the depth or ability to locate us that way. But even most individuals don’t. This is something specific to David. I think it’s possible he unconsciously picked up on the concentration of individual emotions here at Interchron, and that’s what drew him here.”
Maggie nodded. “Thanks for telling me that, Doc. It makes me feel better. Can I tell David this? That it was probably everyone, and not only me.”
Doc hesitated. “You may, but Maggie, once he got here, he did home in on you, rather than anyone else, including Marcus.”
Maggie’s shoulders slumped. Back to square one. “But why is that?”
“I have no idea. It may be simply a construct of his mind, Maggie. We may never know for sure. Now, he sees you in his dream, in what I felt was a very motherly capacity.” He shrugged in an off handed way. “Something about you makes him feel safe.”
Dark Matter (Interchron Book 3) Page 15