“Isn't that a given?” I asked, taking a long step to the side, out of her line of travel. “I mean, I am a guy, after all.”
“Yes. You are,” she said. Her gaze dropped significantly and her smile widened. I felt heat rise to my face, and it had nothing to do with psionics or anger this time.
“You're insatiable,” I said.
She laughed, that same carefree laugh that I had almost forgotten. “I prefer irresistible, personally. Insatiable sounds vulgar. Rude.”
“Fitting,” I said, sidestepping again.
Her laugh floated through the air again. “I like you, Kevin. You've got what it takes. We're going to work well together.”
“Hold on there. I don't remember agreeing to work with you on anything,” I said. “First of all, on the personal level, I've got a girlfriend. Second, on the professional level, I'm part of the Establishment.”
She turned and stepped toward me. “Neither of those matter to me. I wanted to come up here and talk to you. You agreed. I'm here. Remember?”
“I remember, but things change!”
She stepped up to me and put a hand on my chest. “Things do change,” she said quietly. “I knew that when I came here, things might be different. You might be more involved with your Establishment. I might be in danger when I came to meet you. Am I, Kevin? Are you going to call for help? Turn me in?”
I shook my head. “No! Of course not. I did ask you to come here. I do want to hear what you have to say. That hasn't changed.”
“Good! I didn't want to have to twist you.” She smiled, then stepped around me and took my arm before I could protest. “Let's go for a walk. We can chat. Maybe you can show me around your school.”
“I don't think it's a good idea if we get too close to the campus,” I said.
“Think your girlfriend will catch us?” She squeezed my arm and led me across the park, away from the school.
“No, I just think it's dangerous if any of the Establishment people find you here,” I said. “My old trainer is already pissed off at me. If he catches me with you, he'll kill me. That's enough motivation for me to stay far away.”
“They'll find out I'm here soon enough,” she said. “You were using your powers. They'll be watching and trying to figure out who you're with. Once they figure it out, I'll have to run. We have twenty minutes, a half hour at most. That doesn't give me enough time to do any of the things I really want to do to you. I'm disappointed. I bet you are too.”
I placed the back of my free hand to my forehead. “How will I ever survive?”
She laughed again. “Tease. So, Kevin, what have you learned lately?”
I glanced over at her. She was leading me somewhere, not looking right at me. “I learned how it feels to kill someone,” I said.
“You get used to it,” she said.
I flinched at her cavalier tone. “I don't know about that. It was six weeks ago and I haven't stopped having nightmares about it.”
She glanced at me, met my gaze for a moment, and smiled. “The first time is the worst. I had nightmares too. The next time wasn't as bad. It gets easier. That's the worst part about it. At some point it gets too easy.”
“You've killed people,” I said.
“Yes.”
“A lot of people?”
She shrugged and huddled closer to me. “It's cold here. Really cold.”
“It gets easier?”
“The more you do anything, the easier it gets, and the better you get at it. You're still hung up on it.” She stopped dead and pulled on my arm until I looked her in the eye. “Why?” she asked.
I told her the story, in full, not leaving anything out. I told her more than I had told Alistair Ripley. She listened, and when I ran out of words, placed her hands on my cheeks, just like Nikki had. “I don't know what else I could have done,” I said.
“And that's why you're going to be ok,” she said. “Because you have feelings. Because you're a good person. Kevin, you're going to kill again. That's something that happens with us, with who we are and what we do. Sometimes there'll be accidents. Sometimes you'll have to decide to kill someone. I don't think you'll do it unless it's the last resort.” She smiled and let her hands drift down to my shoulders. “You're a better person than I am, Kevin. Maybe I'm crazy, thinking I have a chance with someone like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you're a good guy at heart, and I'm not a good girl. You don't know the things I've done.” She shivered again, and I didn't think it was from the cold.
“Why? What have you done that's so terrible?”
“I'm not going to tell you the stories now. There's not enough time, and I don't think they'll make you feel any better about your own situation. Trust me on that.”
“Fine, but answer me this question, at least.” Her eyes narrowed and her grip on my shoulders tightened. “Do you remember them?”
“The people I've killed? Somewhat. I remember. I don't dwell.” She shook her head and her grip loosened. “Dwelling on it, obsessing over it, that's just going to make you crazy. I don't have the time to go crazy over something like that. I barely have enough time to go crazy over you.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Why not you?” she countered. “I like your eyes. I like the way you look, the way you act, the way you carry yourself. What you've told me tonight tells me that you're a decent person, someone who can learn from their mistakes, someone who can make a difference.”
“Is that all?” She let go of my shoulders and smiled, but didn't say anything. “Is that all?” I repeated.
“No,” she said. “I won't lie to you. You're powerful. I want you on my side. I want you at my side, just like I want to be at your side.”
“You just want to use me,” I said.
“Use you? Is that what your people said?” she asked. “Or is that just what you think?”
“Both,” I said. “I know they're using me. I'm using them. That much is out in the open. I'm ok with that. Is that the sort of deal you're offering me?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, then grinned at me. “I'm holding back, here. I really am.”
“You know what I'm talking about!”
“I know.” She took my arm again and we started walking away from the park, into the streets of Troy. I didn't know the area, but it wasn't too dangerous, and who in their right mind would be out in this sort of cold? Just us. “So, you're both using each other. What are you using them for, Kevin?”
“To learn how to use my power,” I said. “I had an accident before I started my training. I almost killed someone. The Establishment saved her. I don't want to have that sort of thing happen again. That's why I joined them. It's funny. Even with the training, it still happened again, even worse than before. I don't know if I learned anything at all.”
“Don't dwell!” she snapped. I flinched again. I had never heard her get angry before. “Sorry,” she apologized, and kissed my cheek before I could pull away. “Don't dwell on it. You've learned, and you're still learning, and no matter how much you learn, sometimes you're going to screw up. You're not perfect. But I still like you. So does your girlfriend, I suspect.”
“I wonder about that,” I said.
She let that pass without comment, which surprised me. “So, you're using them for learning. What are they using you for, Kevin?”
“They'll get service out of me in exchange for training,” I said.
“That's not using you.”
“What do you mean?”
“That's standard, just a contract. But they're using you for something. They're training you to be strong, ridiculously strong. You're easily an order of magnitude stronger than you were when I met you. That much development in just a couple of months? Either your training is world class, or you have intrinsic talent. No one gets that strong, that quickly. No one, Kevin.”
I let that sink in. Shade's training was short, intense, and emphasized strength and brut
e force. Absynthe had continued to emphasize those qualities, though less than Shade. Her training was more varied. More to the point, she had been training me for much of the time since I had met Star in Washington. “I don't think it's the training,” I said.
“So they're taking advantage of a unique talent you have, then.”
“I don't know about unique,” I said. “Even so, assuming that's the truth, that's just them using me for that talent. So what?”
“What are they going to use it for?”
I blinked. “I never thought about that.”
“Psions don't normally need your level of strength. There's a level where we consider it 'good enough'. You're already there. You're beyond it. And you're not even a third of the way through their training program, right? What are they planning on doing with you?” She squeezed my arm.
“I don't know! I've never thought about it!”
“I have,” she said. “I've done a lot of thinking about it.”
“And?”
“Start from the basics.” She let go of my arm and held three fingers up. “Three branches of psionics. Telekinesis, telepathy, metasensory. The stronger you are, the more energy you can direct with telekinetic techniques. The more you can communicate with telepathic power. The more you can sense with metasensory filters. But if you don't have fine control, you'll only be able to use brute force, like using a jackhammer on a nail.”
“That's a bizarre mental image.”
“I know. But it's true, right? You have all this power, but not much in the way of finesse. Have they ever done the egg test with you?”
“The egg test?”
She threw her arms up. “You're kidding! They've never had you juggle eggs with telekinesis? It's a method to train fine control. You would break them. No question about it. Can you see it? Egg all over the room, all over your face, all over my face.”
“That's another bizarre mental image,” I said.
She smirked. “But you like it, don't you?”
“You're perverted.”
“I know. Back to the point. You don't have that sort of fine control. Why not? Why would they train you like this?”
“They aren't, not anymore at least,” I said. “Actually, since last we met, my original trainer was replaced with another one. She's been teaching me finer control. The old one beat the shit out of me to prove a point about self-control.”
“What?” Her smirk vanished and she stepped up to me. “He did what?”
I told her how he had broken my nose, my face, my jaw. Her face reddened and she looked simply furious. “I'll kill him,” she said. “I swear to you, I'll kill him for you. I'm surprised you didn't kill him on the spot.”
“Like I could. He's fully trained, experienced, and fights much dirtier.”
“You think that makes a difference?” she asked.
“It does when I'm fighting!”
“Poor Kevin.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek again. “You're not having much luck with this place, are you?”
“It's been getting better ever since he got replaced,” I said. “My new trainer's been working on things like fine control, new techniques, endurance, all that.”
“How long has she been working with you?”
“She's been helping with joint training for a while, but only directly with me for the past month or so.”
Star stepped away and tilted her head. Her lips moved as if she was saying something to herself, then her eyes went wide. “So you haven't been doing strength training for the past month?”
“Not as much as I used to,” I said.
She whistled. “Damn. Damn, Kevin!”
“Damn what?”
“They really are making a weapon out of you,” she said. “First, the strength, and then they start showing you how to control it, but only after your strength starts to develop on its own. That's suspicious. Very suspicious.”
“In what way?” I demanded. “Stop teasing me, just tell me what you're thinking!”
“Sorry,” she said, stepping back to my side and taking my arm again. “I'm mostly thinking out loud. Let's go back to the beginning again. Three branches, right? There are also the various classifications of how strong you are. You know about those, right?”
“I know about normal people, latents, and psions,” I said. “Is that what you're referring to?”
“No, there are levels of psionic ability. Most of us find something we're good at and focus on it. Some people specialize in certain things like biokinesis, or telepathy, or psychometry. Others are more generally skilled at all sorts of telekinesis, for example. Some people are better than others. A very few people are much better than others. Certain techniques require a rather obscene level of power. It's not something that can be trained. It takes a certain innate talent.”
Ripley's words from long ago came to mind. “Your abilities are strong, almost absurdly so.” Shade had also mentioned it early on. Even Absynthe had said it. “Your boyfriend here has all the subtlety of a tank. That shield of yours is impressive, Kevin. Throwing rocks at a tank is exactly what it felt like.”
I laughed. “They've been doing it since the very beginning, haven't they?”
“Sorry?” Star asked.
“I'm just realizing that they weren't kidding when they said I was strong,” I said. “You’re right. They've been working on my strength since the beginning. That was their goal all along.”
“You're more powerful than you think,” she said. “And, if I'm guessing right, they're training you to be a brute force weapon. You’re definitely going to break into the second tier. You're still latent for it right now, but I don't think it'll be long before you can actively manifest it.”
“Second tier?” I asked.
She hugged my arm. “Powers well beyond the ability of a normal psion.”
“Like what?”
“I can't tell you,” she said. “I'm sorry. All organizations classify that sort of thing, and we're no exception. Unless you've decided you want to join us?”
I ignored the bait. “What can you tell me about it?”
“Off the record, the most common manifestation of second tier power is that your perception will be drastically heightened. You know how when you fight someone, you can see their attacks coming as they make them?” I nodded. “Think of that, but slowed down to the point where you can basically sidestep them.”
I took a deep breath. “Are you telling me I can dodge bullets?”
She laughed and stepped into me, knocking me off balance, then pulled on my arm. “I didn't know you were a geek, too. That makes you even cuter.”
“It sounds ridiculously powerful.”
“Of course it does. It doesn't make you invincible,” she said. “Any psion can be overwhelmed, worn down, or surprised. Second tier power means that overwhelming you is pretty hard, but you can still be worn down over time or taken by surprise. Not to mention, you'd actually have to be manifesting at that level of power. That's easier said than done, wouldn't you agree?”
“Definitely,” I agreed. “So you seem to be under the impression that I have this talent?”
“Yes,” she said. “That's one of the things I came here to determine.”
“Why?”
She stopped dead, then let go of my arm. The evening was already cold. It was colder now. She walked around me, eyes searching my face as she passed in front of me, then I lost sight of her as she stepped behind me. I kept very still. There was an extraordinary sense of danger in the way she stalked around me. “I told you, Kevin,” she said from behind me. “They're creating a weapon out of you. Who are they planning to use you against? How are they going to control you?”
“Is that another thing you're here to determine?” I asked.
“Yes.” Her voice was flat and level, all the playfulness from before gone. “You wouldn't know, would you? You wouldn't tell me if you did, would you?”
“I thought you trusted me,” I said.
“I
do, Kevin,” she said. “I trust what you tell me. I don't assume you tell me everything, or that you know everything.”
“Do you want me to?” I asked.
“Yes. I do.”
“Then believe me when I tell you that I have no idea what they're planning. If they're making me a weapon, they aren't telling me where they're going to point me, or what they expect me to do.”
She didn't say anything. I felt her fingertips brush the back of my neck. “I believe you. Do you trust me, Kevin?”
“I trust you, Star,” I said, remaining completely still. Her fingertips were warm, far warmer than they had any right to be. I was sure that if I turned around, I'd see her eyes glowing blue. If she was manifesting power, she'd be calling Establishment agents right to us. What was she thinking?
“Then believe me when I tell you that I want to make sure you aren't a threat to me or my organization. You told me what your organization does with you. What your trainer did to you. They think you're dangerous. So do we. I don't want to have to kill you, Kevin, but if they're aiming you at us, I'll have to.” Her fingertips grew even warmer. “But, you do have a choice. You can join us.”
“And what do you offer?” I asked.
“Freedom.”
“From what?” She didn't say anything. “What does your organization do?” Silence. “What are they called? Why are you threatening to kill me, Star?”
The warmth from her fingertips faded. “Shit. I don't want to kill you, Kevin. I wasn't trying to threaten you. I'm sorry.”
I slowly turned until I was facing her. I could see a dim flicker of blue in her eyes as she met my gaze. “I'm not going to jump ship, Star,” I said. “Not when they're threatening me. I won't deal with people who treat me like that. Not even you.”
She dropped her gaze. “I'm sorry,” she repeated. “I deserve that.”
“But,” I said, and her eyes snapped back up to mine. “But, Star, I swear to you that I'm not going to let them just point and shoot me like a loaded gun. If they try to force me to do something wrong, if they point me at you? I'm not going to do what they want. If they do that, ask me again. You might get a different answer.”
The Fire In My Eyes Page 34