"I've heard about One Bird. She took in a lot of city Skins during the Killing Times. Made a village. It's still going, right?"
"That's right. My mother was born there. So was I."
He nodded, as if he knew all about that, and more. "Well, he was a good man, your grandfather. His vision helped us get through the bad times. He had lots of power."
Yes, she thought. He did. In Manhattan, he'd put her on his shoulders and stride the city streets as easily as he did the mesas, stepping out with such ease that the crowds seemed to part before him. She thought he was one of the spirits. A thunder being, striding the sky.
"Mm," Leonard said, keeping a careful eye on her. "Sometimes it still hurts."
"Sometimes," she agreed, "it does."
"He talked about you. That's how I know about your name. He must've been around right after you were born, because people were talking, said he shouldn't give you such a big name. But he said you'd need it, with the trouble you'd find. He said you were gonna be a real beauty, too." Leonard nodded at her. "Guess he was right on both counts."
"Maybe," she said, "about the trouble part, anyway."
"Both," he insisted, then asked casually, "Finding any trouble here?"
She saw the quiet in his eyes that masked concern. Empath, she thought. An empath who knows a lot about me.
"Not so far," she said. "Should I expect any?"
Leonard shrugged. "There's the usual cyberdrug thing. See a student looking a little too happy in class and hugging his computer, you gotta report it. And there's Private Sanction, the group that's making all the noise about the Empathic Arts course. You got a couple in your class."
That was no surprise. "Steve," she guessed, "and Katia."
"Steve," he agreed. "Katia's trying to figure it out, but Steve's her boyfriend."
He lifted his large shoulders and let them fall. Jaguar understood. Katia was caught between the search for love and the search for truth. As if the two were ever separate. She sighed. She was glad she wasn't eighteen anymore. The age had too many questions and not near enough answers.
"She's a smart girl," she said. "She'll catch on."
"Probably," Leonard said. "Maybe she could use a little help with that."
What did that mean? His face stayed quiet, but he was asking her for something. Making assumptions that they were of one mind. And she supposed he was right. After all, she recognized his name when nobody else did. And if he was an empath, they would seek each other out. Share ritual with each other in a world that didn't necessarily make space for them. That's what she and Alex had always done on the Planetoid. Intertribal, Interempath unity.
But not here. She was here against her wishes and she wouldn't do anything beyond the letter of her contract, much less be an empath for a student involved in Private Sanctions. If Alex or the Board had an agenda for her other than that, she wouldn't fulfill it. And if Leonard was asking her to get involved with a student's emotional dilemma, he was going to be very disappointed. Starting now.
"I don't know what I can help her with, Leonard," she said. "Besides her papers."
He rubbed at the back of his neck, then pointed at her screen. "It's open," he said.
"What?"
He tipped a nod at her computer. "Your bytelock. It's open. You can send your message."
"Oh," she said, turning to the screen. "Thanks." She punched in the command and watched it go. While her back was still to him, he spoke, his voice so subtle an intrusion she couldn't tell at first if he was speaking empathically or not.
"If you're really your grandfather's girl," he said, "you'll find out what you can do for her."
She felt her back stiffen. That was direct enough. But what the hell right did he have? She turned and raised her eyes to his, looking deep enough to read him, but not enough to be read. As she did so, she was flooded with sensation. Something tingling in her hands, behind her eyes, and pressure at the base of her neck. Tingling in her skin.
The sense of being touched, reached for, wanted. The sweetness of it, and the fear.
Close down, she told herself. Close down, and don't let him see.
She turned away and fumbled with her papers, gathered them up, and stood. She opened her mouth to say something neutral. Look at the time. Gotta go. Nice to meet you. We'll talk again. But no words would come out.
He put a hand on her shoulder. It was warm, and warmth spread through her shoulder, her neck, her face. Warmth like a hotpack on sore muscles.
As it spread through her, he made words she didn't know. Whatever they were, her jaw opened up again. His hand slid off her shoulder.
"Well," she said, "look at the time. I gotta go, but it's nice to meet you. Let's talk again."
She clutched her papers to her and left.
He continued standing at the computer, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back again.
Jaguar made her way back to her rooms, stumbling and still shaken as she climbed the three flights up and closed herself in.
She leaned against the door as if to block out whoever was waiting, though she knew no one was. She stayed there and breathed until she could find a way out of the fear. Breathed it out of her. Let it go. Whatever the hell it was, let it go. She let it run out of her with her breath, and shook it out of her arms and legs.
Then she got out of her coat and flung her papers down on the bed and ran her fingers through her hair. Every muscle in her body suddenly ached, as if she'd run five miles with rocks on her back. Maybe she was catching one of the ubiquitous flus the students passed around like answers to exams. Maybe that would explain what she felt, what she was feeling.
"A bath," she said to herself. "I need a long hot bath."
Her rooms at the top floor of this old Victorian house were small. She had to be careful not to knock her head against the slanted ceiling of what had once been an attic. When she cooked in her dinette, she kept slamming her hip into the corner of the cupboard as she turned from stove to table. And her sitting room fit a small love seat, a small table, a small lamp, and nothing else.
But the tub was a bonus and she used it as often as she could.
She ran water and poured oils into it, stripped quickly, and lowered herself into the steamy scent of rosemary and mint. Already she was better, muscles untying themselves from the knots they'd gotten themselves into. Though she wasn't sure from what, because she wasn't sure what happened. Had Leonard made a subtle empathic contact, and was she feeling the residue of his presence?
No. This was more than just presence. It felt intrusive, and he didn't seem intrusive. She let the hot water flow over her skin and empty it out of her, whatever it was. Maybe something to do with being in a room full of computers. Sometimes she had a funny reaction to the energy that technology emitted.
She watched steam rise from the water, clouding the window at the side of the tub. She could see a thin crescent moon riding high in the night, seeming to cup a dark sphere within its own belly. It would set soon, dipping under the surrounding pine trees where crows sat and talked to each other, dropping feathers for her to collect and stick in her hair and shock the students with. She lowered herself in the water and gave herself a better view.
Under this moon, she had only to be Jaguar.
A Teacher. A cloaked empath. A woman on her own, which is where she was most comfortable, thank you very much. In the Mertec tradition, she was a traveler, bringing her gifts to where they might be needed. And in the Mertec tradition, she sought sacred space wherever she went and, if she couldn't find it, relied on what was within her.
She ran her hands along her neck, across her breasts and belly. Right now this was her sacred space, her only grace contained here, in this skin, which was warm and smooth under her hands. It was a good body. She knew, from seeing Ethan's eyes gather her in, from Leonard's studied perusal, from Alex's approving glances, that others found it beautiful. For herself, she approved its capacity to endure, as well as its ability to respon
d to pleasure.
Alex once told her she had animal grace. Animal grace, and animal tact. Going directly for the jugular whenever possible. She'd corrected him, saying that jaguars bit through the back of the skull, not the jugular. It wasn't as messy, and it was safer.
She pulled a washcloth from the ring on the wall to her left and soaked it in warm water, pressed it against the back of her own neck, and rubbed, letting the muscles loosen and let go of the job of hiding. Since she got here she had remained adamantly closed against any empathic contact. She didn't want Alex poking at her, trying to explain, apologize, manipulate her into cooperation with the current scheme. She didn't want involvement in any of the currents of emotions she might pick up in her students or the faculty. But staying closed as tightly as she was took effort, and she was feeling the strain of it. Maybe that's what was wrong with her. Too much holding on. Too much hiding. Maybe she should let the walls down some and relax.
She would take a surface read of her environment. Nothing too deep. Just a scan of campus energy. She flexed her hands, stretched long fingers out in front of her, and let herself open.
First she felt small, vibratory movements under the earth. The motion of little thoughts, little actions, smooth and without tension. Just a feeling. Just a feeling of hearts beating, and whispered thought like eddies of water in the streets after rain.
She opened further, and let her thoughts travel to a specific place. Her students. Their faces in front of her, becoming less guarded, less indifferent as class progressed. Nervousness, shaded with interest. Glen. Jesse. Selica. Katia. Steve.
Katia's face, staring at her with large, dark eyes. Leonard said she needed help, as if he knew something. As if she should know something, should do something. She could go into those eyes, searching her. Into them and through them, because they were like tunnels, leading her somewhere. Long tunnels into unfamiliar rooms. All she had to do was search them.
She pulled back. Nothing too deep. Just a scan. She swirled her hand in the water, making spirals in the bath oil that coated the surface, and asked her thoughts to move away from her students, and to continue searching the place. The tunnels, going underground from building to building. Those would be good to know. Ethan said they led to her own house, to other faculty housing, to the dorms, though those corridors were locked after one too many parties held there, one too many incidents reported after the parties.
Easy. Easy to slide through the tunnels and sniff the dead air, the presence of many anonymous people she didn't have to know or care about. She let her thoughts follow the sloping paths up and down, circle the buildings, sniff at the old equipment left to molder, the new equipment being transported, the strangely curling paths leading to black doors that went nowhere.
Vision began in pulsing white shaded into gray, taking slow form.
She wasn't alone.
Someone walked with her. No face. Just the rhythm of breath and Hands.
White hands, reaching.
Hands white and cool, glowing like ice.
This was—what? Memory?
There was a gun. She saw a gun, and surgical gloves on the hands that held the gun. The gun that killed her grandfather. The gun held to her head while those hands stripped her and held her down and raped her. The hands smeared with her blood, the bleeding of a little girl, at eleven too small for penetration but these hands didn't care. Hands and her blood and her grandfather's blood.
Memory—now? Why?
Her heart pounded in rhythm to the old fear, not a current fear, not a now fear. She stilled herself and brought the image to focus. Hands. She saw hands. Memory shifted, but she still saw hands.
Not memory.
Hands, but these hands held no gun. They weren't encased in surgical gloves. They were silky cool. Smooth as laughter. Not memory. Not past. These hands were now, and they wanted her.
Wanted to touch her, know her, explore her.
Hands moving over her body. Hands wanted her.
Desire pierced her, skin tingling with longing. Desire growing like a jungle in very deep places.
What do you want?
With her question, desire moved into pain deep inside her chest, squeezing at her heart. Who? Who was it walking with her who knew her, could contact memory desire and pain without pause.
She sought a face to go with the hands. Peered through the glow of white ice and looked for Saw.
Who?
Alex? Alex? Is that you?
Her hand slapped down into water and she sat up hard, pulled herself out of contact fast.
"Jesus Christ," she snapped, "cut it out."
She deliberately slowed her breathing as she reentered the space of her room in this time. No more opening, she told herself. Something was wrong.
She pulled up a handful of water from the tub and poured it onto her face, which was tingling uncomfortably. Her hands tingled, too. Odd. She lifted them from the water, letting them drip and steam and tingle.
It was Alex's face, Alex's voice inside her, but the touch she felt wasn't his. She'd had enough empathic contact with him to know the shape and texture of his touch. Besides, he was too busy running away from his guilt over betraying her, and she was too busy making him feel worse about it for contact between them to have anything in it except confusion, defensiveness, and fear.
She pulled herself up out of the tub and grabbed a towel, wrapped herself in it. Steam rose from her skin like mist in the morning. She walked to the window and looked out, pressed her warm hand against the cool glass.
Someone had pulled memory and desire and pain and his face from her and made her feel them as connected.
So who was it, and how the hell did they manage that when she was only scanning the surface of her environment? Contacting and combining many points at once was an advanced sort of empathic trick. She knew how, but not many empaths did. Alex did, but it wasn't his touch.
This felt... alien seemed like the right word to her. It lacked the warmth she associated with empathic contact. It lacked the pull of Adept space, and the fiery stroking tongues of a chant-shape. There was something cool in the touch. Something detached, but highly charged.
But Alex was the only man she knew who could find her that easily, and that deeply. He'd followed her into the land of the dead, pulling her out of a Death Walk when she'd gone too far. She ran a finger across her lips, remembering the feel of his lips on hers when he'd given her the kiss of life, transfer of empathic energy from him to her, an infusion of his life. He'd done that, and now he'd thrown her into the academic boxing ring out of foolishness and fear.
And what about your own foolishness and fear? she asked herself. Memory and desire and pain, all wrapped up in his face.
No. That was a connection someone was trying to force on her. It was Alex's burden, not hers. She wanted nothing except to go on as they had, without emotional entanglements, without the heat that could be so potentially explosive. She wanted no involvement.
She went to the bed, lay down, and stared at the young moon resting in the sky, cradling her own darkness within a silver crescent of light. There were no answers in that lady tonight. Nor could she currently find any where her only power was hidden, kept safe, within the confines of her own body, her own thoughts, her own heart.
Planetoid Three, Toronto Replica
Alex sat at his desk in his apartment, staring at his computer screen and scowling. It was late at night, and tomorrow he had to go back to work.
In the past three weeks he'd taken a lot of walks. Gone and looked at Jupiter through the telescope situated at the top of the weather tower. Walked some more, and read a lot. Rachel called him a few times, tried to get him to go to dinner with her, but he politely declined. He spent some time sitting at the Silver Bay with some whiskey and Gerry, techno-poet and guitarist for the band Moon Illusion that Jaguar sometimes sang with. Used to sing with.
Gerry missed her, he said. Where the hell can you find someone who can howl in three octave
s the way she can, he wanted to know. Alex couldn't tell him, but he decided he'd take his whiskey at home after that.
The last two days he'd spent at Ecosystem 4, a tropical environment where they lowered the deflection screen once a week for people who wanted to view the earth's phases. But when he stared at that beautiful blue planet spinning in space, something in his chest went hollow and indeterminate. He found his eyes seeking only one spot on that great globe, as if he could see. As if seeing would bring him understanding. As if understanding would chase that hollowness away.
He came back to his apartment, determined to read and sleep and do nothing else. He still wasn't sure why he was sitting here at his computer, surfing the University Webs, looking for news of a certain campus in upstate New York.
He was angry at himself for doing so, and angry that so far he'd found nothing of value. The lines were crowded with students trying to make cyberlove within the safety of electronic air, but there was nothing about the antiempath movement other than a few bad jokes.
What do empath's call sex?
A real mind fuck.
How many empaths does it take to change a lightbulb?
None. They just wait for the bulb to see its own light.
The topic must be hot or else there wouldn't be jokes, but that didn't tell him how Jaguar was coping.
He had telecommed her twice, and left messages, but she'd only responded via computer with two words.
Back off.
Apparently, she was still angry.
Alex flipped to the student interpersonal network, which at least had the advantage of occasionally being interesting reading.
"But do you think Hanifin's bisexuality is reflected in her bitextuality?" Burhasa asked Jamie.
"How could it not, and aren't we all bisexual/bitextual? Wish I was bilingual, though. In a literal kind of way," Jamie replied.
"Sounds like fun to me, too. Want to have dinner?"
He scrolled rapidly forward.
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