by P. S. Power
Which was probably why the first one that had really, where she could act on it, had gotten more attention than he’d bargained for. Though, it occurred to her that Omegon was a bit better with the ladies in his books than Tom was in real life. Not that his clever super hero shtick hadn’t worked on her. Still, that he’d gotten past her without her picking up on who he really was kind of galled her.
Bethany wouldn’t have made that mistake.
Then, Gwen was pretty sure that all of the Westmorlands memorized the faces, names and telestator numbers of every member of the nobility. Meaning that Beth had known who Duke Morten was the first time they’d met.
Her friend hadn’t ratted the man out, either. Which just showed the power of their training. It was a horror or at least had been. Now new methods were being used for things. Not that it was enough. Rifters still had to blow themselves up to make it happen. It was a promise that she needed to keep, Gwen knew.
Which was why she’d made the door chime.
Not because a real bell or an old fashioned knocker wasn’t enough. They both worked pretty well, to be honest. It was due to the fact that she needed to be able to construct teletransport spheres. The problem there wasn’t that they were too hard to make even. Really, it should have been possible to put together a device that would rift, mechanically, already. In fact, she was nearly certain of it.
The big issue was that the devices had to have specific controls on them to be worth anything.
A large power pack as well. Really, she needed to be more clever than just handing over what was essentially nukes to these people. Things that could be set in one location, then carefully triggered, with a multi-stage process that would send them to a specific destination for the explosion.
It was complex, but by making them that way lives, the ones she cared about, could potentially be saved. Except that they were at war and having more super weapons didn’t sound like the best plan in the world.
She’d promised though.
The much harder thing to build was the real issue for her. Shields. Ones that prevented Rifting. They had training protocols for that now. Including people that could actually do it. The problem was that they didn’t and probably couldn’t, cover a large enough area. Now, if she could make devices for that, then most major cities could be totally covered, all the time.
Gwen wasn’t fixing that one in a day however. Which was a shame, since it was clear that Europa was planning to attack soon. There had been fighting going on already. A real war having been going on for several years. It was a big deal at the palace. There too, no doubt, even if it hadn’t been mentioned yet.
Almost as if the idea had floated from her head into the room, Tomas spoke, his voice gentle.
“Yes. I’d heard about you being in the Special Service, Gwen. Is that where you learned to use combat magics? I should think about that kind of thing. The military, perhaps? It’s a bit cowardly to sit back and send boys off to die on one of the fronts, while I draw pictures and play in caves.”
She hadn’t really been thinking of it that way, but there was a bit of common sense to the idea. He did some good things, but there was more to do. Even if he was a bit more of an artist than a fighter. Then, he wasn’t a coward or anything. Not from what she’d seen.
Even if the curse spreading shopkeeper wasn’t real. After all, the Baron could just have had the man taken in, without any proof at all.
Everyone seemed tense for some reason, except Gwen, who made a bit of a face. Trying to consider things.
“Really? I got most of those tricks in other training. If you don’t mind some pain, the Westmorlands will probably be willing to help with that kind of thing. As for the military… Well, that’s pretty much a horrible plan, unless you’re going in under an assumed name? Otherwise the enemy will have to try and capture you to use as a hostage.” No one moved at the table, except for Groundling.
He smiled. Grimly.
“That’s correct. Though… If you can set up that kind of training, even a light version, it would help, I bet. Then if you do go off to the front, you might survive, Tom. You should look into it. Better, get Gwen to do it for you.” He chuckled a little, then shook his head slowly. “Not that it’s a kindness if she does it.”
Robert sighed, gently, but nodded a bit.
“Too true. I was told, by a man who was there, about the first time that Gwen found out that Katherine still lived inside of her. Do you know how she responded to that?”
Gwen hadn’t really figured that the man would remember that part. She did of course. To her it seemed like it had happened about a year and a half before, instead of the nearly four and a half it truly was.
Ethyl looked down at her plate, tearing up. Tomas just looked concerned.
“No. It never occurred to me that anything in particular would have happened at that point. I can see how it might, now that it’s mentioned. What did she say?”
Duke Morten cleared his throat then.
“It wasn’t what she said, Tomas. It was what she did.” He took a sip of wine then and stared at the younger man. “When she found out that Katherine Vernor was hiding inside of her head, she ordered the Westmorlands to torture her, while reading her mind, to flush the girl out. It worked, too.”
Tomas winced, then nodded.
“I see. Well, then, I’d be honored if you’d put together such a program for me, to aid in my learning, Gwen. If you have time?”
She nodded.
“For you? Of course I do.”
The trick would be in doing it all the best way. That was actually harder than it sounded, but not exactly impossible. In fact, she could get things started the next day, she was willing to bet.
Chapter five
Tomas allowed himself to suffer being manhandled, or at least Gwen handled, back to his place. Seeing it, at least after she stopped huffing like she’d been doing sprints while carrying a grown man, she nodded. It made some sense as to why they hadn’t had dinner at his house. She even got the whole thing where they’d gone for a walk in the park, rather than there.
It was nice. Not Park Street grand, but even the king barely had that. The Vernors were freaking rich after all. On a level that meant they had all the nice things. Gwen had never been to any of them, but it wouldn’t shock her to find out that their fifth or six house was actually a bit nicer than where Baron Harrison lived. The thing with that was simple though. The place was still a mansion.
That meant her boyfriend had kept her away from his real home. So that fake Gwen Farris, the trampy woods slut wouldn’t know that he was more than a cute guy with a strange habit of playing super hero in the forest. Probably because he actually liked her. Or at least the things she was doing with him. Smiling, she glanced around and nodded in his general direction.
“Not bad. So… You do know that I don’t care if you’re nobility or not, right? I mean, a little, since I don’t think of it as a real thing. You’re also a masked good doer, which is at least entertaining.” She meant it, though didn’t know if he was going to respond poorly to that idea or not.
Cutely, the man grinned at her.
“Eh… I suppose I should explain? I can see this all being a bit mysterious. I’m rather good at that, I hear.” He locked eyes with her, seeming a bit nervous about the idea.
Gwen let him off the hook, not needing to get everything all at once.
“Which part? The gold digger defense strategy of not telling me you had lucre? I get that one. Um… Gold digger. We call women that when they-” She didn’t get through it all.
He took a small breath then, hissing a bit as he exhaled.
“Right. We have that one, too. Women that seek to better their lives by marrying the wealthiest man they can find. It’s happened to me. My girlfriend in college only wanted me for a title and funds. It took me a while to learn about it. I should have seen it sooner. She was older than I was by a few years. Attractive enough, but pushy. Also, she moved from man to man,
each wealthier than the last. I knew about it on some level, but it still hurt when it was disclosed. My father had hired a man to follow her, which uncovered that she was plotting against me with another fellow.” There was no pleasure in his words about dodging that bullet.
Gwen shook her head then, a bit of pressure on the right side of her brain casing. Which she didn’t get, since it was strange. That was her sign that she was picking up data from the future. Only there was no signal of what was coming. Nothing at all. Just an idea that didn’t make a lot of sense to her.
“That reminds me a bit of Regina Botstein.” Gwen was going to explain that one, since it was just a woman that she’d run into in a hallucination once.
Tomas frowned.
“Indeed. Exactly her, in fact. You’ve had a pleasure?”
That told her a lot about things that hadn’t come up yet. For instance, Tomas had gone to Western University. It was one of the major front gate colleges. Basically that meant Ivy League, there. Western was, as far as she could tell, something like going to Harvard or Yale. A large place that had a lot of students and faculty.
Plus, one Regina Botstein. She was said to be clever, even brilliant in her own way. Except that her name also kept coming up in regards to bad things taking place. This was the third or fourth time that Gwen knew of.
“You know, we’ve never actually met. Her name popped up a few years ago in an investigation I was on. For the kingdom. She’d dumped a man, to move on to a richer one. That had set some things in motion that probably helped set some human sacrifices into action. A plot to hold all the radiatives in the world still? It would have shut down magic, more or less. I heard the idea was originally hers?”
The shield against rifting was, more or less, based on that. In a lot of ways it was close to a direct rip off.
Some other things as well, but that was where the idea had come from. In fact, the entire idea for the plot had been Regina’s, if Carter Palmer, her ex-boyfriend, had been honest about where he’d stolen the idea from.
Tomas went slightly wide eyed.
“Truly? I think I know of the episode. That took place before we met, of course. I only left school last year, but that was… about three years ago? It seems odd. She was charming in her way. Willing to do things. More advanced than I was in worldly things. I fear that I was kept rather sheltered as a child.” Then he stopped, dead in his tracks.
Not that they’d been walking. He was standing next to the sofa that she was on. So Gwen waved for him to sit down next to her. Close. In fact she pressed the side of her leg against his, so that he’d get that she wasn’t that concerned about the fact that a man his age had managed to get some before. Even if it was from a woman that seemed a bit like a problem in the making.
Erin Debussey junior, no doubt.
She grinned and reached out to touch her new friend on the arm.
“That’s another thing to look into then? The first time I saw her… It was in a hallucination. The one where I learned how to fly, actually. It was an extreme mesmerism thing. Anyway, I’m not worried that you had a girlfriend before.”
The words got him to make a face and shake his head while looking away.
“It isn’t that. A man my age should be thinking marriage. I chose poorly that time. It happens. No, it’s… I was kept away from the world, because I’m strange.”
Gwen smiled then, which was probably the wrong thing to do. Here strange meant that he had some kind of mental problem. She was just happy that she got the reference.
“How so?” She sounded far too pleased about it, to be fair.
Her boyfriend, or at least the guy who had done nifty sex stuff with her, made a face.
“I… You know, the Omegon thing? That… I’m not just playing at it. Part of me wants to be that. A hero that helps others. I wasn’t pretending in the caves. I was trying to… Be that.” There was real shame in his words.
“Okay. I don’t think that’s a big issue. Even pretending that you weren’t you makes some sense. You do the comic books too, which is a great cover for that kind of thing. If anyone sees you, then you just whip the mask out, point at the graphic novels and roll your eyes at how silly they’re being. Then, when no one thinks it can be real, you can fight crime and help people.” She took his hand then. Just because she wondered if he was going to pull away from her in horror.
He simply nodded at her, making a lot of direct eye contact.
“That is what I’ve been thinking. Still, my father thought that it was a bit too bizarre for a Baron, or a future one, to be doing. When he passed away, well, then I was rather put in place, regardless. That was… I think Duke Morten was hinting at that. It’s a known thing in some circles. More than a few of my peers would love to see me nobly die, off in a war. I’m considered a bit unstable.” The downcast eyes told of long held and deep pain over it all.
For play acting and pretending to be interesting. Not that he wasn’t. Then, Gwen didn’t really care that much what other people thought. No, to her mind the real question was if the man knew enough to get by most of the time. There were levels of crazy. So far he seemed fine that way. Which meant he wasn’t insane, just imaginative. Like an artist. Which he was.
A very eccentric one.
She took several deep breaths then, getting his attention. He seemed worried.
Her voice was smooth however, when she spoke.
“I’m Gwen Farris. The woman from another world. I don’t know what you’ve heard about that? It might be a little different than you think. We talked about Katherine? How she’s still in my head. I get that you didn’t know I was really me though. If you don’t want to be associated with me, I understand.” It wasn’t what she wanted, but she got the idea.
Instead of rejection, she was kissed. Hard. With a bit of friendly groping that would have gotten him beaten if anyone else was around. Or not, since he was nobility and they could get away with almost anything. Crime fighting was better than what a lot of people of his station might have gotten up to.
Which got her to nod.
“Fine. We can keep going out? You’ll need to change some things though, if we’re doing that.”
There was a slow nod and closed eyes.
“I understand. Playing at being a hero is a bit juvenile. I’ll stop. I promise.”
That let her shake her head and snort at him.
“Nope. Why should you? It’s goofy, but not bad or evil. No, I just think you need to do a better job of it. Like that shop keeper who’s cursing people? There is no way you shouldn’t have reported him immediately once you found him. Tom Moore might not be able to do that, or Omegon, but you can. Leaving that kind of power on the table in a real situation is… Stupid.” She didn’t let her face move, as he got what she was saying.
“I see. That’s not wrong, I suppose. It’s just harder to do that with a mask on. I need to protect my identity. To guard the family name. That’s why I gave you a false name to start with.”
Gwen got the idea there at least. So she nodded.
“Right. That can be worked out. It isn’t the only thing you need to be doing. I’ll get with people for that training. Not what the Westmorlands use. I have some ideas, but it might take a few weeks to put together. In the meantime, we should work on your public image.” She stopped, not really knowing how to get that kind of thing done. “Um… Okay, how about… Are you really willing to do the military thing? It will probably be less than fun, but there have to be a lot of jobs that can be done where you won’t go overseas. That will still seem brave enough. It’s the perception that really counts on that one.”
She locked eyes with him then, shrugging.
“You are brave. That’s plain to see. What we can’t do is hand a prisoner of war to the Europans. Ferdinand would have my hide if we let that happen. Especially after I…” She took a deep breath and coughed a bit. “Fudge. I just worked something out that I need to be doing. Crud. I’ll get on that… My own little bit of su
per hero work?”
She didn’t mention what, Tomas smiling in a slightly baffled manner.
“I lost the thread here, I think?”
There was nodding then.
“Um… I can teletransport. But I can also grab people from a distance and bring them to me. So prisoners of war, if I can get a picture, or even a name…”
That got wide eyes.
“You can do that? It’s impossible. Isn’t it? Flight, action at a distance, teletransport in all forms? Also fighting hand to hand… I heard that one. You’re rather famous for it. How do you do all of that?”
The answer was easy enough.
“Oh, I’m insane. I mean the real kind. It doesn’t show a lot, since you all take what I’m doing as being odd since I’m from a different reality, which is part of it. But I live in a fantasy world, or did most of my life. That left me… Kind of open, as far as magic goes. Really, you might be able to… I can’t promise that of course.” There were tricks that might help, if they were clever about it all.
She sat up however and nodded.
“How about getting a job on a merchant air-ship for a few weeks? It’s hard, unpleasant and probably a waste of time, but we can float that as you being useful in public. The Peregrine has a personnel shortage. If you’re willing to actually do the work we can use that…” Possibly. Unless he sucked at it. That could still work, as long as he wasn’t whiney in public on the topic.
Referencing sucking got her to think for a moment. About sex. Not that she’d been doing that kind of thing, but being close to other people was incredible. Now that she’d gotten to try a bit of it she had to wonder how normal people didn’t just sit around touching each other all the time. Not her, of course, but a regular person like Katherine. She was even kind of pretty, or so people had told her.
That meant she was in a place to get all the cuddles.
Instead of begging off, since hard work was, by definition, hard, Tomas seemed slightly excited.