Foreseen (The Rothston Series)

by Smiles, Terri-Lynne

  He studied me for a moment, before nodding, almost regretfully. “Yes, had we acted earlier, before the situation had reached a crisis point. Lives may still have been lost but we’re talking about thousands, or less, instead of half a million.”

  The silence of those unnecessary deaths hung in the air. “So what does this have to do with Mel teaching me?” I asked, now uncertain that I wanted to learn from her.

  “I am certain she will do an excellent job covering the basic materials with you, Kinzie. You need not worry about that. But you should always remember, whether learning from Mel, or me, or anyone else here, to think critically about what they are saying. To think about what best accomplishes our mission. How we can be most effective in protecting humanity.” He sat back in his chair, and broke the somber tone with a smile. “I am impressed with you, though. You have a good head on your shoulders. And I expect you will be a great help on Rothston’s path into the future. And I am always here for you to talk to. In fact, I think I’ll take on your hands-on training myself.”

  ψ

  My body hurt. Mel had been wrong in October when she’d said there wouldn’t be much poking and prodding. From the small lump on the inside of my elbow where vial after vial of blood had been removed from my body, to the meat of both shoulders where vaccine boosters I’d apparently missed had been administered, to the parts of my body I’d never imagined could hurt – where I’d been split open by the speculum, my cervix scraped, and the shooting cramps from whatever else they’d done inside. The doctor, Tanya Sharma according to the name embroidered on her white coat, stood at the head of the table during that part, assuring me it was necessary to make sure I was completely healthy, and trying to distract me. If only that had worked.

  But worse than the ache over my entire body was the fatigue. Maybe it was just from the thoroughness of the physical exam, but I had a feeling it had more to do with what came after. The full-body MRI hadn’t been bad, although one of the technicians kept asking me if I was afraid of small spaces, making it sound like I was about to be put in a coffin. But that hadn’t bothered me. I just lay in the tube of the white machine with my eyes covered, listening to the mellow music piped into me. My head had stabbed twice – quick winces of my headache. But then they were gone. And apparently the MRI showed nothing abnormal about me at all.

  I would have thought that would have been worse than EEG that came after, but I’d been wrong. One technician, Josh, I think his name was, meticulously sorted through my hair to the place sticky leads on my scalp, with others on my face, chest and arms. When he’d finished, he was joined by three others, also in pale yellow scrubs, who huddled around me, asking question after question after question. Had I ever been treated for anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and a host of other mental illnesses that I’d already answered “no” to on the form I had filled out. But they kept going, interrogating me, one after the other, with question after question to drill into my answers. What did I think anxiety would feel like? Had I ever had a panic attack? Had I ever passed out? What scared me? Heights? Spiders? Drowning? On the last one, I pointed out that no one should like drowning, but neither Josh nor the other two laughed at my joke. Instead, they just kept badgering me, checking off boxes on their tablets as they came closer and closer and closer. And my head began to throb, and my heart pounded in my ears.

  “Crowds,” I finally spit out. “I don’t like being in groups of people. So, if you could back up a little.” The last part came out as a desperate plea. They froze at my words for a moment, then two of them bent over me to examine the leads on my chest, and poke through my hair again. Then, they called another person in. And another. I closed my eyes, and tried to pretend they weren’t there, but even when they weren’t touching me, I could still feel the heat from their bodies hovering over me, and see their turbula contorting the space around us.

  Dr. Sharma had apologized as I got dressed, explaining that Rothston needed complete physical and psychological profiles on every adept, to avoid placing them in situations where their performance might be compromised. It made sense, but all I had wanted to do at that point, was to get out of the medical clinic and be left alone.

  I’d spent the evening in my room, chatting with Greg on my laptop for a bit, and trying to regroup, but the cramping and pain kept intruding. Even this morning, it had been hard to listen to Mel as she went over the history of the Omnisapia Ducere, the ancient adept organization that governed all the others. I was pretty sure everything she told me was in one of the large stack of books I’d been given, anyway. And after all, it was just history.

  Now, I trudged down the hall, steeling myself for my next class. I found the brass sign that read “Orchid Room,” and peeked inside to find a utilitarian space with a black Formica table and plastic stacking chairs. The plaque referred to some dead guy, obviously not the flower. I took a deep breath and entered, knowing I’d rather see Mr. Orchid’s ghost than the current occupant of the room.

  I hadn’t spoken to Rex Brolie since the Gala, and from the set of his pointed jaw, he wasn’t any more pleased to see me. “We thought I should start you with a translocation lesson,” Rex stated imperiously from his perch on the table as I walked in.

  “We? I believe Mr. Jamison is in charge of my training. Not you,” I pointed out.

  Rex stared flatly for a moment. “You’re an idiot, Kinzie. I am in charge and always will be in charge, and you should start accepting that.” The way he said it made me think of Curtis Mechenbaum cowering by the bonfire and the standoff with Greg at the Gala. I suspected Rex was in charge only because he bullied people, and that wouldn’t work on me unless I let him intimidate me, and I wasn’t in any mood today to let that happen.

  “Fine. Translocation. Let’s do it,” I said, meeting Rex’s gray eyes. He stared back, waiting for me to look away, but I didn’t.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, Kinzie,” he finally said, rising to pace once around the table. He stopped to bounce a piece of chalk in his hand as if to weigh it, then set it back down.

  I leaned casually against the doorframe. “If my teacher is any good, then I’m sure I’ll catch on.”

  “Have it your way.” Rex picked up a paper clip, and hopped back up on the black table to begin the lesson. “Let’s start with the principle.” He waved his hand for me to have a seat in one of the student chairs, so I could listen at the feet of the master.

  I moved further into the room, but declined to sit down. “I’m pretty sure I understand the principle,” I informed him, remembering the transporter discussions I’d had with Greg. “In translocation, the adept examines an object down into its smallest parts in one time-space sequence – or I guess that’s one place in the turbula – and reassembles it in another. It’s just an information problem. Taking it apart isn’t the trick, nor is putting it back together. Most adepts just can’t keep track of the data.”

  “Yes, but it is more complicated than that,” he objected, trying to solidify his role as teacher.

  “No, it isn’t more complicated than that,” I corrected him. “But it is complicated. It’s a matter of keeping track, but of everything – every particle – and its relation to the others.”

  Rex paused, unable to dispute my statement. “Exactly. It’s a giant jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces fit in more than one place. And even when you get them in place for one section, then you must put all the sections together correctly. Building from the smallest segment up. If you get any of it wrong …” He let the ramifications hang in the air, and I remembered the mangled horseshoe, as well as the stick that disintegrated into vanishing goo.

  “Transposition errors,” I filled in.

  “Yes. Most people who can translocate have very high error rates – like Mechenbaum. What a loser.” He gave a demeaning laugh. “Of course I’ve perfected the skill so that my transposition errors are negligible.”

  “You mean attribute.”

  “What?”

&n
bsp; “You called it a skill. Translocation is an attribute,” I smirked, correcting him just as he had done to me two months ago. “And you make transposition errors as well. That flaming stick you made look like a UFO? It disintegrated at the end. That was due to transposition errors, correct?”

  Rex’s steely eyes grew cold. “You don’t get it. Do you have any clue how difficult it is to make something hover, let alone spin in the air?” he challenged.

  “I’ve been thinking about that since I saw it. I assume you were translocating the stick repeatedly, first into the same place in midair, and then to the same height, but rotating it slightly each time.”

  “Not an easy thing to do.”

  “It was quite impressive,” I conceded. “And I imagine it wasn’t easy. But I won’t know that until I learn to do it myself.”

  A laugh blasted out of him at that. “You will never be able to translocate like that, Kinzie. Most adepts can’t do it at all. But what you saw at the bonfire was child’s play for me. I’ve translocated dump truck-sized boulders.”

  “Also impressive,” I conceded again. “But boulders don’t move like say, a tree or a field of wheat on a windy day. And transposition errors wouldn’t show up as much.”

  Rex’s face reddened in anger. I probably shouldn’t taunt him, but I had to admit it was fun, and it forced information out of him that confirmed my theories on exactly how this worked.

  “Boulders are easy. I’ve translocated earthworms,” he spat. “In fact, I can get the outside of the worm correct.”

  “The outside? Doesn’t sound like the earthworm enjoyed the experience,” I jabbed. But my eyes narrowed as my mind pictured an unfortunate rearranged worm. I remembered Curtis saying translocating animals wasn’t permitted. Maybe a worm didn’t count. Still – the thought of turning an animal into that vanishing silvery powder was chilling.

  We moved on to a number of exercises that taught me to focus my adept perception on two precise locations simultaneously. Of course, I didn’t tell Rex, but I was a lot further ahead than he could have known. Greg and I had been talking about his transporter for over a month now, and in some ways, I think I understood the principles better than Rex did. With Greg’s help, I already knew it was about collapsing a quantum wave function through the act of observation. And that the object needed to enter into a kind of simultaneous pseudo-existence in both places in which the act of observing caused the wave function to collapse, bringing one or the other into existence. It was similar to a faster-than-light communication device being toyed with in labs around the world, Greg had told me. I loved watching him talk about this stuff. His eyes would gleam and he’d get a look on his face like a kid at Christmas.

  Once I’d gotten the hang of the exercises, Rex placed the paper clip on the table in front of me. “Try this,” he ordered. “See if you can examine the paperclip with your adept sense, Kinzie.”

  If I could examine it? Of course, I could. But I ignored his slight and closed my eyes to allow my mind to find the paperclip lying on the table. I nodded to let him know I had it.

  “Good. Now, isolate one point on it, then focus on another point just above the surface of the table at the other end. Picture the first point being there, instead of where it is in the paper clip.” He paused as I concentrated. “Then move it back.”

  “I think I did it,” I said, opening my eyes. The paper clip looked the same.

  “Right,” Rex said dismissively. “So, go ahead. Let’s see you do the whole thing. You’ll have to map it out slowly, and move it all at once.”

  I sucked my lip between my teeth and closed my eyes again. I could do this, I told myself. I needed to do this, just to get Rex off my back. I bit my lip harder and concentrated. Slowly, I began to perceive each particle of the clip where it sat on the table. Okay. Now to move it to the other end. I could feel Rex’s eyes boring into me, waiting for me to screw up. But I was determined not to. I rubbed my forehead from the pain of concentrating so hard and prepared. One, two, three … I did it. In my head, the particles moved … No. Somehow, I’d dropped half of them, and when I tried to collapse them into the new spot, they coalesced back where they’d started.

  Rex laughed at me. “Like I said, most adepts can’t do it.”

  “Go away!” I spat, wanting to smack him. For a second, I was sure I had it. I couldn’t believe I’d failed. Rex hopped off the table with an annoying cackle, and sauntered out of the room. This wasn’t right.

  I picked up the wire clip and could read it easily. Translocating it shouldn’t be that much harder, regardless of what the others thought. The idea was hard, but I understood exactly what I was doing. How had I messed up? It was as if I just gave up too soon. Maybe moving it all at once was bigger than my mind could hold at this point. There had to be a trick to it. I thought back over Rex’s words, searching for any clue. What was it he had said about the complexity? Building from the smallest segment up. Maybe I didn’t need to do it at precisely the same moment. Maybe there was lag that I could build on sequentially. It was worth a try.

  I placed the paperclip on the table in front of me, my heart beating with anticipation. After watching it for a moment to prepare myself, I closed my eyes and held my breath, capturing the paperclip with my adept senses. I exhaled to clear my mind of everything except the piece of metal – easier to do without Rex looming over me. I concentrated on each point of the wire structure, and repeated it over and over. And then I brought it into existence at the other end of the table. It was fuzzy at first, but the quantum foam parted and suddenly there were two paper clips – and at the same time, no paper clips. When both were clear in my mind, I let go of the first and brought all of my concentration on the ‘new’ location like a hammer, forcing the wave functions to collapse. I opened my eyes slowly and there it was – on the other side of the table!

  A thrill shot through my veins. Every hair on my body, from the deep roots of the thick stuff on my head to the peach fuzz on my arms, stood on end and coursed with an electric-like buzz. I’d just done the impossible. Translocation. Teleportation. I was a transporter. The words “Beam me up, Scotty,” flashed through my mind, and I wished Greg were here with me to see it. Then, the tingling was replaced with horror – I wasn’t sure if I was entirely in control of what I did. I mean, the rats in the maze. And Greg at the Gala. I’d influenced him without meaning to. What if I accidentally translocated something? What if it was a person!?!

  I reached down and lifted the paperclip with trembling fingers, as I sank into the chair. It seemed whole. A slight bend but no more. But what would that slight bend do to a person? Sasha with a slight bend. Or Greg. I felt nauseas. And what did the inside look like? Even Rex could get only the outside of an earthworm to look right. I remembered the stick turning to quantum goo, and my vision started to turn gray. Still holding the paperclip in my fingers, I put my head down on the table. My God. Nobody should do this … and certainly not me.

  ψ

  A hand shook my shoulder. “Kinzie?”

  My head came up and concerned, brown eyes peered into my face through shiny glasses. I blinked to clear my vision. “Curtis?” I asked, as the curly-haired boy came into focus. I wiped the corner of my mouth. Where was I? And why?

  “Are you okay? I got worried when you didn’t make it to dinner.”

  “Dinner? What time is it?” The fog was slowly clearing from my brain as I remembered were I was – the Orchid Room. I’d been meeting with Rex and … “The paperclip!” I exclaimed, sitting up quickly. There it was, slightly bent but still intact. “Rex showed me how to translocate …” I started.

  “I know. He was at dinner gloating about …” Curtis stopped mid-sentence, and he fidgeted nervously.

  My eyes narrowed. “What has he saying?”

  Curtis leaned back against the table, not looking at me as he answered. “He was telling everybody you failed completely. Laughing about it.”

  “Figures.” I picked up the paperclip and showed it
to Curtis. “But he’s wrong. I did it.”

  Curtis’s eyes went wide as he took the wire from me. He bounced it in his hand, then laughed. “You’ve never done this before?”

  I stood up from the chair and stretched. “Translocated something? No.”

  Curtis whistled at that. “No wonder you fell asleep. It gets better, but it can really drain you. You are amazing,” he beamed.

  I didn’t feel very amazing, as versions of Greg with different limbs mangled or his intestines spilling out his side fought their way into my head. I seriously needed to learn to control what I did – and thought. I forced a laugh, to try to push the images away. “Tell that to Rex. I can’t wait to show him. Make him a little less smug.” But Curtis bolted up from the table at that, turning quickly to face me.

  “Don’t!” he said urgently. “It won’t work and … and …”

  “And what?” I asked as Curtis seemed to shrink inside himself, just like he’d done at the bonfire. It was as if he was trying to be invisible. He turned away, and I placed my hand on his arm to stop him. “You’re afraid of him, aren’t you? Everyone else seems to think he’s some sort of rock star, but you …”

  Curtis’s eyes dropped to the floor and he shifted his feet. “Sounds like such a wuss,” he mumbled. I was about to tell him not to let Rex get to him, when his eyes lifted, filled with an intensity I wouldn’t have imagined from him. “Don’t tell him, Kinzie. Don’t let Rex or anyone know you can translocate. It doesn’t help with what Rothston’s supposed to do anyway, and it’ll just …” He paused for a moment, looking away again before he continued. “He picks on me. Does things to me to make me look bad. To hurt me. He had to show me up and keep showing me up because I learned to translocate the same time he did. I’m four years younger and I was better at first. I don’t want him to hurt you, Kinzie. I won’t …” He paused again, searching my face this time. “Promise you won’t tell him, Kinzie. Him or anyone else. Promise.”