Carol Clarence couldn’t keep her distance any longer. It would have been needlessly cruel to continue exploring the details of the trauma at that moment. What her client needed was reassurance, something to make her understand that this office was a safe place to explore her emotions. The therapist leaned to pluck a tissue from the box on the table, then offered it to Chris.
The offering shattered the girl’s tentative confidence. She pushed the tissue aside and jumped to her feet. She was already halfway to the door before Mrs. Clarence could react. “You can’t keep running, Chris,” she said evenly. “Emily needs your support during the upcoming Wardens assignment.”
Carol Clarence was well aware that she’d just pulled out her trump card. It almost felt like cheating. It had been the Wardens’ young Empath, Emily, who gave her the crucial hint: Chris displayed strong reactions to some Guardian classification role patterns, despite struggling against them. In particular, she had a special weak spot for children possibly related to the loss of her baby brother.
The counselor played the Emily card with mixed feelings, wishing that she had the time she needed to properly support the girl through conventional methods. But the tight feeling in her chest didn’t change the fact that she was working within a very tight time frame. She didn’t know the reasons, but Mr. Turner’s face had told her more than his words when he’d given her the instructions. “This girl is to be ready for active service by the end of the month,” he’d demanded.
Chris stopped dead in the doorway, her fingers balled into clenched fists at her sides. “Why me? I never wanted powers. I’m just going to screw up.” She kept her back turned to the counselor as she spoke.
I wish I could promise you that everything will turn out all right, Mrs. Clarence thought. But I can’t.
The therapist reached for her pen, just to have something to hold. She was good at her job because she could relate to her clients, but sometimes she found it hard to distance herself. “Do you remember what I told you a few minutes ago? Failing is all right. It happens. As long as you do what you can manage, there’s no reason to feel like you’ve failed.”
“I failed my sister, too,” Chris murmured, as if talking to herself. “And most of those men at the mall.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Mrs. Clarence said gently. “Please, come sit down. We don’t have to talk about your brother any more if you don’t want to.”
This appeared to appease Chris because she returned to her armchair by the window, her arms crossed over her chest. “So what do you want to talk about? The weather?” She glared out the window.
“How about we talk a little bit more about your powers and how they work? There’s still a lot I’d like to ask you.”
Chris uncrossed her arms but didn’t take her stare from the window. “Like what?”
Mrs. Clarence took the opening. “Could you describe your relationship with your sister, Helen? Anything that seems significant.”
Chris winced at the question. “How is that supposed to explain my powers, exactly?”
“Helen was a big part of your transition, wasn’t she?”
Chris rubbed her temples with small circular motions. “Yeah, I guess,” she sighed. “But it’s, um, complicated.” She didn’t lower her hands, partially obstructing her face.
Fear of being judged? Mrs. Clarence mused.
“Just try. I won’t judge you, Chris. I want to help you because I believe in you.” She didn’t dare pick up the ballpoint pen.
The girl slowly lowered her hands. “Fine. We used to be … pretty close, I guess. Back when we were kids. But when we got older … I dunno. She was the princess. She just did everything right. Everyone adored her. I wanted to be like her, but…”
Mrs. Clarence waited. She wouldn’t interrupt this time.
“But every time I tried, it turned out all wrong,” Chris finally concluded.
Feelings of being misunderstood. Self-isolation.
“There’s nothing wrong with being different.” The therapist’s tone was gentle. “You can’t try to be someone you’re not. That never works out.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Another long pause.
“I didn’t hate her or anything. I just wish she’d stayed on the other side of the country. That’s probably a shitty thing to say, but it’s true.”
“I appreciate your candor, Chris. It’s very refreshing,” Mrs. Clarence offered. It was true. The clients who tried to figure out what she wanted to hear always frustrated her the most.
“Whenever she came home, everything was just … I don’t know, worse somehow. Everything I did was worse in comparison. And Ryan … it’s like he suddenly joined her team, too.”
“And by Ryan, you mean Helen’s boyfriend, correct? The one you saved from the accident?”
Chris nodded, chewing at a hangnail.
A clear indication of self-reprisal and residual guilt.
Mrs. Clarence decided to follow a hunch. “That hoodie you’re wearing. Was it a gift from Ryan?”
“Yeah,” Chris admitted, her face noticeably closing off.
“What was your relationship with Ryan?”
“He’s, like, my best friend. Or was my best friend. He’s pretty cool,” Chris said, lowering her gaze.
You don’t have to say anything else. I can see it in your face, the counselor noted.
“I have a theory about your powers. Would you like to hear it?”
Chris shrugged. “Sure,” she muttered, trying awfully hard to feign disinterest.
“You see, it’s uncommon, but not unheard of, for powers to be affected by emotions. Sometimes in ways that their user can’t consciously control. Nato, a Transmuter who joined the Wardens just before you, is a good example. His material altering ability was wholly dependent on his mood. And, for another example, Dreaming Rose’s visions were clearer when they were about people she was attached to.”
Chris looked up now, meeting Mrs. Clarence’s eyes. “So?” she challenged, but the word held a note of genuine curiosity.
“So, I believe what happened during your transition may have been very similar. You felt connected to Ryan and you saved him, right? I think the same holds true for those men in the mall. I’m sure you meant them no harm, but you didn’t feel connected enough to them for your force fields to protect them all from the initial hail of bullets. Your shields were only strong enough to stop the one-off shots after the Golem shifted gears.”
Chris frowned at the suggestion. There was a distant look on her face.
Mrs. Clarence spoke her next words carefully. “I don’t believe you failed your sister, Chris. Your perception was distorted during the transition. You don’t remember that you tried to protect Helen, but you did. Her force field wasn’t strong enough to survive the car’s enormous impact because you felt more attached to Ryan.”
Chris’s frown deepened.
“I’m sure you loved Helen,” Mrs. Clarence continued, tone gentle. “The bond you described earlier doesn’t just go away. It changes maybe, but it’s still there.”
Chris’s eyes remained glued to the window, her thoughts unreadable. When she finally spoke, her tone indicated that maybe she’d opened up to the suggestion. “It was all so crazy and … well, pretty shitty. How can I be sure what happened?”
“You don’t need to be sure, Chris. Maybe the memory will come back to you someday, maybe not, but I’m convinced you did try to save your sister. In fact, I’d be willing to speak to your parents about it. Ryan as well, if you’d like.”
The girl perked up at that, straightening in her seat, but, as if trying to hide her interest, she immediately sagged back into the armchair.
The flicker of reaction warmed the therapist’s heart, reminding her of why she put up with the less pleasant aspects of her job every day.
Mrs. Clarence smiled. “I think that’s enough for today. The next time we meet, maybe we can address the pain feedback you experience through your senses. I beli
eve it’s a psychological effect—something you do to yourself by locking all your feelings away. We should be able to reduce its impact over time.”
The girl looked doubtful, but nodded nonetheless. “Okay.”
“So I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
Chris nodded again as she got to her feet, halfway to the door when she stopped. “And, um, thanks,” she mumbled. There was a twist to her lips that could almost be interpreted as a smile.
3.1 Radiant
Covenant Headquarters in New York, USA
Wednesday, the 6th of June, 2012
2:00 a.m.
“In the beginning, there was light. In the end, darkness consumed the world, but those who had been called found their way within the dream.”
Andrey Luvkov pressed the replay button one more time before closing his eyes, and focused his attention on the female voice transmitted by the audio file. He didn’t know Palestinian Arabic since he never studied a word of it. But he had access to every possible translation, and he’d listened to the recording so often that he understood every word by now.
This wasn’t about the meaning of the words. He’d spent hours trying to identify missed details—changes in the Oracle’s inflection or anything else that might help him decipher the prediction. This particular audio file contained one of her last known statements, recorded ten days ago. None of her prophecies had ever been proven wrong. For that reason and others, every word the comatose woman whispered was immediately recorded and translated into eight different languages.
As far as he knew, only a handful of people were aware of the most recent predictions. More than a week ago the Covenant’s overseer, Vega, and the Small Assembly of emergency UNEOA representatives, had decided to evacuate the Oracle to a secret location. The media hadn’t been informed of it. Not even Andrey, the Covenant’s Evolved leader, knew the Visionary’s current whereabouts. That alone told him more about the political leaders’ growing sense of paranoia than he cared to know.
He kept his finger on the replay button, but didn’t press it. He needed a moment of silence to dwell on the Oracle’s statement. The first part is similar to the Book of Genesis, but not quite the same, he mused wearily. And why was it in past tense? According to the various translations, the experts disagreed over the exact English equivalents of a few words. Nuances, but not enough to doubt the statement as a whole.
Failing to draw any new conclusions, Andrey settled back on his designer leather couch and rubbed his face. He’d barely slept in the past five days so his thought processes were less and less coherent by the hour.
Across the room, the oversized plasma TV which adorned one wall of his apartment-like quarters showed scenes of a soccer game. The sound was on mute because Andrey didn't want anything to distract him from the Oracle’s words. He knew he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be working, but he had to distract himself somehow. And since the UNEOA had stopped flying in special brand vodka for his sake, he needed something to keep his mind from wandering too far in the wrong direction.
It would be nice just to hear someone talk about something trivial for a change. It was less like a coherent thought and more like a feeling he had tried to ignore.
Andrey turned on the TV’s sound to hear the sports commentator ramble on about the upcoming game. The players’ names sounded vaguely familiar, but he didn’t recognize their faces. For a minute he simply sat, letting the sound of the human voice sink in.
He couldn’t recall exactly when he had last seen another person, but he suspected it must have been about a week ago. Alexandra had stopped by on occasion, trying her luck at his locked apartment door. It was a sweet gesture, but he didn’t want to deal with female empathy right now. At least the sports commentator was considerate enough not to ask how Andrey was doing.
Remembering that he had work to get done, he looked down at his tablet. His fingers fumbled around with the touch controls until he discovered the notes he had prepared some time ago. When, exactly, he couldn’t say. That morning, maybe? Yes. It had been that morning, after word came in that the Swiss girl had gone off the grid. Or had it been yesterday? The British boy was gone now. No, not a boy. A young man. Twenty-one, the document reminded him. Went by the handle DJ. Queenie was upset about his disappearance since they were fellow countrymen and all.
These disappearances are getting out of hand.
Andrey realized his thoughts were fraying, and he had to regain his focus. He had a strong responsibility to his teammates, the UNEOA, and the rest of the world. Keeping his mind in order was part of it.
Skimming the lines of text reminded him that these two off-grid cases were related. Dancer and DJ. Sarina Baumann and Jasper Davis. Their disappearances had happened in quick succession, and the UNEOA’s IT team knew that the two Evolved in question had chatted online up until the day before. All suspicions had been confirmed by one last text message Sarina had sent to her brother.
Andrey couldn’t piece the rest of the details together yet, he’d need more information first. Luckily, overseer Vega had a full team to analyze everything about Dancer’s goodbye message. Did it hint at coercion? They couldn’t rule it out, except they had focused their investigation on kidnapping scenarios rather than on murder.
Another glance over the open document reminded Andrey of how he already tried to connect Dancer and DJ to previous off-grid disappearances in Europe. The lack of meaningful notes indicated that he hadn’t been very successful in that area, either. As he stared at the list, the words blurred together. He blinked hard, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
He read from the top, beginning with the title European off-grid cases.
Monday, April 3, 2012: Patrick Callahan, age 13, and Teresa Mullen, age 25. Enhanced senses, object modifications. Wildcard classification and Technician classification, respectively. Last seen together in Galway, Ireland.
Friday, April 13, 2012: Emilia Ramos, age 19. Spontaneous combustion of nearby objects. Evoker classification. Last seen in the village of Castril, Spain. Some evidence suggests possible homicide, but insufficient proof.
Saturday, April 28, 2012: Jacob Wilson, age 26. Probability manipulation, Wildcard classification. Australian citizen working in München, Germany. Divorced with one child, age 6. Last seen in Paris, France.
Friday, May 11, 2012: Iza Pawlack, age 53. Changes emotional bonds between people. Wildcard classification. Last seen in Krakóv, Poland.
These cases were irksome because they were the only ones in Europe that had managed to avoid Queenie’s tracking capabilities. Sure, there had been a few newly Evolved who had died before they became known, and maybe a couple of transitions had slipped through the cracks without ever drawing Queenie’s attention. And who knew what was going on in China? But everyone listed here had been firmly on Queenie’s radar before they had disappeared without the slightest trace. The Spanish girl, who had grown up in a strict catholic rural area, may have been a homicide victim. But nothing about the other disappearances hinted that anyone had come to harm.
The Swiss girl’s disappearance had caused such political uproar that it was stuck in the forefront of Andrey’s mind regardless of the headache and insomnia. Interest in her was high enough that Swiss government representatives had been flown to New York to make an official statement in regards to their security lapse.
Andrey had seen the lists in the Covenant’s database. Sarina Baumann was right at the top, a priority target to be kept secure, healthy, and under observation at all costs. And it was no wonder. Hers was the only unique power set to have ever been reported apart from Shanti’s.
He had taken notes on the subject somewhere. But where? Maybe he had scribbled them in one of his tattered notepads. As he searched through his papers, his thought process dissolved again, and soon he forgot what he was looking for. The pull of doubt which had eroded his sense of identity over the past few days cast its shadow over him, and he knew it would claim him completely if he continue
d to brood over it.
Over her.
A change in the colors on the TV screen drew his attention away from the tablet. The program had changed to a tennis match with more grunting than commentary between serves.
Andrey reached for the remote, and flipped through channels until he found a station full of commercials. Commercials were good. Cheerful people radiating happiness.
Just as long as it wasn’t the news. If he was confronted with the headlines, he might do something he would regret later. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
A toilet cleaner commercial reminded him that he had ignored his need to visit the bathroom so he set the remote and tablet aside before pushing to his feet.
As Andrey trod down the dark hallway to the bathroom, his footsteps were accompanied by the faint buzz of the camera they installed in the hallway on the day he moved in. Even in his current mental state, he understood why the UNEOA had done it. He was theirs now, and his powers were dangerous enough that he was kept under surveillance. Still, there was something irritating about the way the camera realigned itself to keep track of his movements.
The lack of sleep had taken its toll on his body coordination. The world’s most famous superhero nearly crashed into the hallway table beside the bathroom door, disturbing the marble archangel statuette perched on top of it.
Andrey paused just long enough to steady the figurine with one hand. It had been a gift from his mother. As such, it was something he treasured, even though it felt like a particularly ironic choice today.
You placed your trust in the wrong son, Mama.
He heard a commercial actress laugh in the living room, secure in her TV world. He pushed the bathroom door open and stepped inside, feeling his way along the wall to find the switch. When he flipped it on, the room was awash in brightness. If only every problem had such a simple solution.
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