Spectral Vibrations

by Mercy DeSimone

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jasper

  Stomping down the hallway, I can’t stop shaking my head in disbelief at the sheer naiveté. What the hell had Amet been teaching her all this time? Despite her yarns, she was like a young offshoot who still had no idea how the universe worked. Here she was, embedded in the game of the century, and she didn’t even realize what part she was playing. It was obvious that she was going to be shattered in the process and we needed to do something to help her.

  Stopping outside the Yellow wing, I realize my glower is intimidating everyone I pass. While I’m normally fierce by nature, usually I try to make the effort to school my features to a more genial expression in general society. I try to lift the corners of my mouth into what I believe is the approximation of a smile, but, judging by the unnerved expression of the Yellow femme who skirts quickly by me, I assume that was not the expression I was going for.

  Zirc! It’s so much easier living out among the warriors patrolling the boundaries. I might as well give up the pretense of civility if I can’t keep up the charade. Now, before the Counsil, that’s an easier game. I revel in the exercise when it involves so much more strategy and I know what’s at stake.

  Punching the release on the door, I sweep into the room and glower at Titan, who lounges in a chair with a glass in his hand.

  “She’s going to get herself killed,” I say bluntly before crossing to the side table to pour myself a bracing shot of amber intoxicant.

  “What do you mean?” Titan’s amused expression quickly turns concerned as he sits forward, elbows braced on his knees.

  “I mean, she has no clue what she’s getting herself into. She doesn’t know her history, she doesn’t know anything about the experiments. How can she protect herself when she doesn’t know what the Ash she’s up against? And what was Amet thinking by not letting her know that she was going to be an instrument of power or destruction one day?” Blowing out a deep huff, I down the rest of my drink and pour another.

  “That’s why we’re here, Jasper,” Titan reminds me in exasperation laced with concern. “Can we stay focused on our purpose?”

  “Zirc! What did I ever do to deserve this?” I mutter, irritated by the hand the universe has dealt me. “It would be so much easier to just live on Marzz, and find a nice, nubile little breeder who wants to stroke me all night and fight with me all day.”

  Titan’s laugh skitters abrasively across my scales in derision as he reminds me, “And give up the chance to ever conquer your obsession with our Gemma? Is that what you really want? Because feel free to walk away, and I’ll pull Laz into the fold to make sure that she stays safe.”

  “Laz…” the pure derision in my voice is evident. “That boy has no concept of how to fight, let alone protect someone like Tanzy.” My lips twist in disgust. “How he ever ended up as her bondmate is beyond my comprehension. It’s like the universe deliberately put her in the weakest hands to stack the fates against her, despite all the others who would willingly fight for her.”

  “All the more reason why she needs us,” Titan says again with emphasis. “If my sources are correct, things are going to start escalating soon. The watchers are getting impatient and they want to make their move. It’s obvious we are not going to slow down the appetite for power, and all of that hunger is going to be directed at our femme. She’s been coddled enough, it’s time we help her get with the program. We’re in the unique position of being in the right place at the right time, and Vishna knows, she is going to need our help.”

  Swallowing his own drink, Titan slips to his feet, slapping me on the shoulder before heading for the door. “Let’s see what we can do to ensure our Gemma makes it through the next test without any problems. You know they’re going to try to throw a curve into her precisely ordered algorithms. Let’s see how quickly she can shift direction.”

  Following him from the room, I wonder what he is plotting now. I know the next test involves healing, which should be simple enough for a healer. How can they make that test an impossible mess, unless she’s not a very good healer? Titan must know something that I don’t.

  Realizing that I’ve stopped in contemplation, my strides eat up the tiled walkway as I reach him again, and question what he knows.

  “What problems are you anticipating?”

  “I believe they’re going to try to trigger some traumatic memories for our femme. She may think she doesn’t know what happened back then, but I suspect she has some very deep memories that have been buried. They’re going to try to find out how much she knows, or at least suspects. If she’s truly as innocent as you believe, then she’ll be much easier to manipulate. They need to figure out if she’s actually playing the game and trying to throw them off the scent.”

  “She seemed damn innocent to me,” I say grumpily, not liking where this whole conversation is going.

  “So you’ve said,” Titan replies. “My conversations have led me to similar conclusions. But she is an empath; maybe she’s been feeding us emotions. Or, maybe she’s about to wake up some memories she didn’t know existed. Either scenario is going to be dangerous for her, so we have to be prepared for whatever comes next.”

  Slanting some side-eye my way, I find myself wondering what he’s up to. “Just think, the next time you get injured, maybe she’ll be the one to heal you,” he says teasingly, and I find myself wanting to strangle him.

  “The next time I get injured will probably be my death,” I say dryly. “No one has beaten me in combat for yarns, you know that.”

  “Well, maybe you’ve gotten soft hanging out with the Counsil for the last couple yarns.” Titan laughs. “Wouldn’t you like to show her what you’re capable of? Give her frequency something to buzz over?”

  “Well, what about you, Titan?” I ask watching his face carefully, “I seem to sense a bit of jealousy every time she mentions Laz’s name.”

  Watching his eyes darken, I smirk. “It’s not like you’re indifferent to our Diamond Girl. What’s on your agenda? I can tell by the way she looks at you… you tried testing her energy didn’t you? What happened? Did she reject you or just shut you down?”

  Titan’s eyes darken as he looks at me broodingly. “She shut me down. But I don’t think she gave it a chance; I felt something. I bet she could, too, if she’d just give it a chance.”

  I feel his frustration seeping through my scales and I sympathize, although I’ll never let him know that. It’s not like either one of us ever expect to match frequency with her, but we’d both definitely be interested in rubbing against her vibration for a while to see how it feels. Vishna, what I wouldn’t give to drag her to another planet, to anchor her body and plunge my own into hers in the old way. I know Titan feels the same.

  Her reliance on her bond with Laz is important, it’s what gives her strength in this world. But, so many more of us would love to lend her that strength. It’s so frustrating the way our world has evolved, knowing that before our Krystalin forms, we would have been able to share energy more viscerally, and in so many more pleasant ways. The irony is that on planets where we can explore the more physical pleasures, we can’t harness the energy to bond. And while that pleasure is intense in its own right, it does nothing to advance our power or our bonds.

  The elders of the Counsil know what it was like to have the benefit of all that wrapped into one. I can fully understand and appreciate what it must have meant to live in that world, and then have to reject the ones you once shared power with, when you were no longer able to access that bond physically. That’s what makes the world so dangerous now.

  How can we find a way to make our society more equal in power, knowing that only a fraction of the population can access the highest frequencies? Or, is it important for us to allow the most powerful to lead, knowing that they give us strength, but that same strength insures we have no future because we can’t procreate? I used to think these were purely philosophical questions. Now, I know that they are actually life and
death.

  The hunger of those who feel the inequity in the power structure know what it could be like if they could only break the bonds of the Krystalin form to regain some essence of their own power again. The real tragedy is that most of our inhabitants don’t even have a clue that their entire existence is on the line either way. As pleasure seekers, we become mortally weak. As strong Krystalin bodies, we remain dominant but endangered. Where is the line? What does evolution demand?

  And when did I become so damn philosophical?

  It’s time to take a stand and decide, because lives are about to be shattered and sacrificed on either side, depending upon who wins and who loses. For my part, I protect what’s mine, and whether Tanzy knows it or not, she has become part of my clan. In a different world, I would try to make her more.

  I continue to follow Titan down twisted halls and corridors until we finally arrive in the Red section of the building. Wondering why we are heading to my chambers, I glance at him as we stop at my suite.

  “What are we doing here?” I ask, hitting the airlock to open my chamber, and striding inside before turning to look back at Titan, who is now raising a weapon in my direction.

  ”What the Zirc, Titan?!” I ask as he raises his hand and fires his laser directly at my thigh, causing a distinct hole in my silica.

  “I’m sorry, partner, but I need you to take one for the team today,” he says. I suddenly feel my energy begin to bleed from the fissure, while my scales immediately begin to thicken and collapse together, trying to form a protective shield.

  “You Fractal!” I rumble furiously, leaning on the table and searching for something to bind the wound. “What the Ash are you doing with a laser in here, and why the Zirc did you shoot me?”

  Despite my anger, I’m confident that Titan isn’t trying to kill me. All appearances to the contrary, I trust him with my life, and if he was trying to kill me he would have aimed for an important organ. But still…

  “We need her to test her skills on one of us, and you seemed the more valiant sacrifice,” he smirks. “After all, with your scales, you’ll still be in fairly good shape until she reaches you for healing; while I on the other hand…”

  Titan gestures to his body, and I realize a significant wound that cracks his silica would be more devastating. He doesn’t have the secondary armor of scales as derma. “We know I can’t truly afford to be out of commission. And it will cause less questions if you are the one injured, so you best start thinking up a good story for how you were shot.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jasper

  “So now what?” I glower at Titan as I limp over to the sleeping platform and ease myself down, searching for something to bind the fissure in my ruptured silica. It hurts like hell, like a fire burning under my derma. My Marzzian nature solves the issue of fractures by internalizing our inner temperature to encourage our silica to reseal. The bitch of it is that only works on cracks. With fissures of this size, only a Healer can seal the hole, and until that happens, I’ll be burning up with fever.

  “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing here, Titan, because until she heals me, I’m going to be useless,” I say through gritted teeth, fire burning through my nervous system like acid coursing through my veins. I suddenly realize that I’m getting light-headed in the process and glower at Titan, whose form is beginning to waver before my eyes, as he stares at me clinically from across the room.

  “How are you going to explain this to the Counsil?” I ask, trying to focus on anything other than the burning in my veins. I faintly hear his reply as I focus on regulating my breathing.

  “Oh, I think we may have had our first attempt at someone trying to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the Counsil,” I hear him say as my vision blinks in and out. “It’s a shame that they shot you so unexpectedly. Unfortunately, my immediate concern for you allowed them to escape, as I was distracted by your injury.”

  I want to smack the satisfied grin from Titan’s face as his expression suddenly becomes more concerned. “Jas, you’re not looking too good, my friend. You shouldn’t be looking so depleted from a simple laser shot.”

  “Fractal! You hit my seminal vein.” I grit out, trying to hold onto consciousness. This was a really bad idea. “You’re going to have to watch her even more carefully now until I’m back to full strengthhhhhhh….” I slur, finally losing the fight with consciousness.

  Titan

  Jasper and I have been friends and allies since we were young offshoots. It was somewhat inevitable since we were of similar age and living in the tight restrictions of the Counsilary. There aren’t many offshoots of the Counsil members, so you would expect most of us to be tight allies, but there’s always the exception.

  Lian has been an asshole from the day he was born. The fact that he was coddled and indulged by Hesson certainly didn’t help. Ever since his father was put aside, he became the star of Hesson’s entire world. Her ambition to see him join the Counsil one day has been a secret to no one. I’m not certain anyone is really certain who Lian’s father is. It’s believed that he was a Red, and that he was powerful, but not powerful enough to bond with the Counsil. The sheer fact that Hesson put him aside is indicative of her general spirit. She doesn’t care much about individual beings, only about the power they can bring her, a philosophy she clearly passed down to her offshoot.

  Considerably younger than Jasper and me, Hesson had Lian educated in the elite school. Titan and I believe it was a deliberate strategy to enable him to test energy with the widest group of potential bondmates, whereas Jasper and I were educated within the confines of the Counsilary. Who knows? Maybe Hesson had it right, and Jasper and I would have been more successful at finding bondmates had we cast a wider net when our energies were primed to connect.

  It’s no secret that both of us have grown jaded throughout the yarns at our lack of connectivity. And not just for the power; neither of us ever particularly craved status, except as a reflection of the honor shown to our fathers.

  No, at the end of the day, like so many, we crave the sexual connectivity that comes with a true bondmate. Tapping frequencies for pleasure with any compatible energy will get you through the lunar cycles. But, especially after experiencing physical pleasure on other planets, it becomes more obvious what we’re missing here.

  My understanding is that there is a similar intensity, even without physical touch, when you match frequency with a bondmate. For those of us who have never felt that, it’s hard to settle for the general flare of compatible energy that we are forced to use as a substitute. It may stimulate the pleasure centers momentarily, but it is nothing like feeling the full equivalent of bodies sliding roughly against one another, or the differences in temperature, or the softness of a femme’s skin, or the heat of her mouth.

  I’ve experienced some very creative sexual practices on other planets; as an Ambassador, it was my responsibility to travel and ingratiate myself into a culture’s people and customs. At times, I know I would prefer to spend my life on another planet, to be able to experience that type of fulfillment for the rest of my days if given the choice, which is precisely why Jasper and I are stuck here now catering to the Counsil’s whims.

  Both of our fathers realize how close we are to abandoning this world in pursuit of something we can’t have here. It’s why they’ve bound us so closely to this place, because they understand. They were able to experience that kind of pleasure and fulfillment here on this planet - they’ve experienced what it means to have that kind of regular release, and they are not unsympathetic to our needs.

  They just believe that we can find a way to break the chains of our current reality here, and to bring this planet back to that state of corporeal fulfillment either permanently, or in a way that would stop further defection of our able-bodied young from leaving for a more satisfying life elsewhere.

  For me and Jasper, that dream may come true, but we’re not ready to wait multiple centons for it. We’ve had a taste o
f the universe now, and we want to spend our yarns experiencing it fully. Especially, when we’ve come to crave connection with someone like Tanzy. Watching her match frequency with someone like Laz is a perpetual burn in my heart, not that I harbor any particular animosity toward him other than for having something that I crave.

  I’m sure Laz is a good male, and he seems to care for, and take care of, Tanzy. But it’s hard to watch someone else have something that you viscerally crave every time you’re near it. I can understand how the Obsidian junkies become so strung out on their carnal cravings, always wanting more. The worst of it is knowing that Tanzy and Laz have never experienced that burning, they don’t even know what it is that they’re missing. Maybe they have been lucky enough to experience something similar, but I can’t help envision Tanzy’s face locked in ecstasy, as she is laid before me like a buffet in our corporeal forms. Just once in my life, I’d like to fulfill that fantasy.

  “What the Ash!” I jump toward Jasper as he slumps on the bed. Maybe I miscalculated: I guess I should have brushed up on my Marzzian anatomy a little more. Zirc!

  Grasping Jasper’s shoulders, I try to pull him further up onto the sleeping platform, but he’s like a dead weight. Grabbing the makeshift bandage he wrapped around his thigh, I see the fissure cracking and crazing further across the surface. Activating my ComLink, I immediately call Jasper’s Security Chief on a secure line.

  “Rubis! I need you in Jasper’s suite immediately! Oh, and be discreet!” I bark before disconnecting, ensuring there is no chance to ask questions. I’m going to have to send him on a wild goose chase for an ‘unknown intruder’ after I get him to help me transport Jasper to the Healing Center. I just need to make sure that we take him to the private Healer’s bay, and not the general bay for the rest of the population. I hope Tanzy has already been set up for the next round because it looks like I’m going to need her to jump in more quickly than anticipated. I sure hope that Amet’s faith in her is justified. Ruefully, I rub my hand across my chin as I stare at my friend; he’s never going to let me live this down.