“You are going to have it so good, kid. Lucky bastard.”
It wasn’t for her. There was no way he was going out of his way for her. It was for him.
Cord had known too many kids that had started off like Jonah. Some of them had been his friends when he was a kid himself, his brothers on the street. Most of them were dead now, and many that weren’t...were in bad shape.
That was it. No big plan, or whatever. No grand gesture. Definitely not trying to make the world a better place. Give a kid a home that wanted him. Just that.
-----------
Ian pulled up the next file and began to scan it. Everyone but Lena had been working nonstop for over a week going through the information that Mercy had brought home, pulling out for their own growing database any information that was unusual or interesting. The research from Chromatic Technologies and the university was fascinating; they had already begun applying what they learned by experimenting with their powers, especially with control and focus.
Faith had been particularly interested in Mercy’s ideas about the nature of their visions.
“I don’t think I’ll be having any more, at least about other people,” Mercy had explained the first night that she was back. “Instead, I see little ones all the time, now. My power connects to people, like I told you before, totally subconsciously, and those thin threads pull a little bit of power. If the power doesn’t move, which in the past it didn’t, it just builds up there over the person’s energy well until it can't hold any more. Then a big chunk of it would shoot back to me, causing a vision. If I move away from the person, it disappears, I guess it gets reabsorbed by them. It won’t start building up again until I get close enough to that person for a while.
“But, the way I am now, I’m siphoning a portion of the power all the time, so it doesn’t build up. If it doesn’t build up, I shouldn’t have the large visions from the backlash. That’s the theory, anyway. I’m working right now on controlling the tiny threads so I’m not connecting that way at all, because I just can’t stand the idea of sucking on people’s power, and because it’s always feeding me stuff about them, which is uncomfortable for us both. But, it’s tough. After all these years, it just happens automatically.
“The only visions I should still have are the ones about myself, and I guess I don’t really know how those work, since there's no backlash or anything. The ones I’ve had about myself have lately been about large, important events, so I have a hypothesis that, when my self is moving very purposefully in a certain direction, my power forms it into a vision sometimes.”
They had studied the research on the way powered individuals interfered with each other’s fields, strong and otherwise, and were particularly interested to find that Chromatic’s researchers had already come to some of the same conclusions that Alan’s team had. They had been able to reduce the effects of interference with specially shielded rooms, the use of sedatives, and, experimentally, a new body harness which, according to the reports, had a limited ability to affect a user’s control and power levels. They were very interested in learning more about the harness, but Mercy couldn't give any more information about it; she didn’t have any recollection of a device like that, since she had started having uncontrollable visions from the moment she entered the facility.
The Youngs had done some of their own small tests, trying to determine to what extent they interfered with each other’s control and power levels, but found that they had a much lower level of interference on average than what the research had found. They concluded that they had acclimatized: over years of exposure to each other’s fields, their powers had nearly ceased to interfere with each other.
Mercy had shared with Ian her own theory on this. However, it only applied to her, as it relied directly on her personal, instinctive need to connect with others; the others didn’t share that particular habit, at least not to the same degree that she did.
“When I am here at home, I hardly ever have visions, so I think that when I am connected to you, or mom, anyone here, I guess I just get what I need through normal interaction and through connecting with them with my primary power. I think that my talent doesn’t need to pull from them so much, because it is always getting fed, or whatever you want to call it, through the other channels. On the other hand, maybe it’s because you guys are so strong.”
Neither Faith, nor any of the other powerful adults, namely Ian, Lena and Harmony, could detect the delicate strings that she unconsciously attached to those around her, even when walked through the process by Mercy’s thoughts. She couldn’t see theirs either, if they even existed, so there was no way to tell if it was specific to Mercy’s talent. However, with the help of a few of the simpler tests in the research, they had been able, to detect some interference, and they concluded that there might have been a similar process going on with all of them.
Spurred by each new discovery and the excitement of understanding their own powers better, they had been working overtime to get as much from the data as they could. They also knew that they would need the information later to help Lena's children and Will who, though still young and so far untalented, had a high probability of developing at least some abilities.
The hours of research also kept them occupied while they waited impatiently to hear news about Scythe. Each day that went by, Ian's daughter became more agitated and harder to distract. The one thing that kept her from running off to look for him was the fact that they hadn’t given up the search yet. Lena was the only person not dedicated to the review of the research. Instead, she continued to search for Scythe. She was hunting in the dark, however, because they had run out of leads and ideas weeks ago. They only had the one message, that he had taken a job, but they didn’t know where he had gone to accept it or even for whom he was working. Their methods for communicating without being tracked in this case had worked against them, because they couldn’t determine where he had sent the message from.
They had contacted their sources from his previous errand and had been told that he had already finished and left. By studying the dates, they determined that he had departed the area and gone to at least one undisclosed location before sending his message. The amount of time between the two, just under a week, left them with an immense area to search, nearly half the width of the continent. There were dozens of cities and more than three times as many smaller settlements that had to be considered as plausible locations. None of them stood out as particularly likely points to start looking, since they had no idea what the job could have entailed.
There was only one place they could conceivably eliminate from suspicion, and that was the Capital, Quo Ire. Even though it was a huge city, and easy to get lost in, public areas were highly monitored, which made things difficult for Scythe, a person who was wanted throughout the Kin dominion. Because the warrant came from the King, the Kin government was still anxious to find him, despite the fact that it had been five years since his escape. On the other hand, he did have contacts there, so, while it was the last spot they suspected, it was still on the list of possible places to research.
All in all, it was a nearly hopeless task, which was why Lena had taken charge of it. She was good at pushing forward in the face of daunting obstacles. In addition to monitoring the law enforcement threads, she had taken to scouring the network for possible events or bits of news that might be related to their search in some way.
They tried to keep optimistic, mostly due to Smoke and Anora’s implacable confidence in Scythe’s abilities and ingenuity. Ian and his family wanted to believe that Scythe was completing his job and would return as soon as he could. The difficulty, however was with his completely atypical lack of communication. He always contacted them, and required anyone who was out on an assignment to contact him at least once a week.
Any lack of contact was considered a red flag, which they had set procedures for. However, this was a situation in which they couldn’t follow their own guidelines, because they couldn’t asse
ss the status of the late member. The only reasons they could come up with for a break in the standard routine were either that secure communication had somehow become impossible, or that something had happened to Scythe to keep him from contacting them. They had their hopes on the former, because they were powerless to do anything about the latter. Meanwhile, Lena continued to search and Mercy continued to fret.
Mercy. Ian was extremely worried about his eldest child. At the end of her break, she had left them slightly gloomy for having missed Scythe, but still enthusiastic about her studies. She had returned to them injured in a way they all struggled to heal, with very little success. She surprised and alarmed them by giving a confession to the murder of the five unfortunate people at Chromatic Technologies, and, despite their assurances that it wasn’t her fault and that sin required intent, she continued to deteriorate.
She wouldn’t listen to reason on the topic, and wouldn’t agree to any attempts by Lena to help her cope with it through self-examination. They all felt that she would benefit from Lena’s guidance; by letting her see the good, wholesome person that she was inside, she might be able to rid herself of the idea that she had somehow willfully killed those poor people. However, she stoutly refused, insisting that she had to keep vigilant in order to keep from abusing her power again. She was sure that she needed to feel the pain of her actions constantly in order to protect those around her. She even used Lena’s own arguments to justify her position.
“Aunt Lena held on as long as she could, when she used her power to kill. She didn’t want to forget how monstrous it was. I am doing the same thing.”
“But, Mercy, this is different. The unfortunate accident which led to those deaths is over now. You shouldn’t relive the suffering. I never did that,” Lena insisted.
“You never killed in cold blood, either. You only did it for self defense.”
“You didn’t kill in cold blood either, Mercy…”
But no amount of reasoning could convince her, so they all felt the pain with her, because it hurt them to watch her suffer. Even this did not deter her, although it did add another guilt to her list of burdens. In an attempt to keep her resolve, and keep them from feeling her pain, she had limited her use of power to communicate mind to mind, something that had been a part of their family dynamic since before she was born. That left another hole that couldn’t be filled. Ian was sure that the sharing of good, positive feelings in that intimate and pure way would have been helpful and healing for her. Instead, she pulled herself out of reach more and more each day.
He had a few other strategies he was implementing: having her mind the children for hours, one on one time with each of the adults at least once a day, tutoring her brother Will, and, something he knew Scythe would approve of, a renewal of the physical and mental training routines that he had set up for her before she had gone off to college. Ian realized as time went by and her condition worsened, that what she really needed was the one thing that was absent from their home.
Ian thought again that it was really hard to be a father.
“This is interesting,” Faith said, turning her screen so that Ian could see. Since Ian had read the last paragraph three times without comprehending a single word, he was glad to give her his attention. “I’ve been looking over the early records from one of the first Kin investigations into Human powers. Here it lists the individual physicals that they gave to each of the powered Humans they were studying. Ok, wait, let me scroll to the important part...Here, one doctor listed in his notes, ‘An uncommon odor seems to emanate from him when he is taxed.’ Taxed means they practically tortured them to death, by the way. Anyhow, a similar note is on three more of his patients, but not on any of the other patients overseen by other doctors.”
“Okay, so his patients smell but the others don’t?”
“Maybe, or maybe the others didn’t think to include it in their notes. Or maybe he was really sensitive to smell.”
“So?”
“Well, you read the Gibbs letter, right?”
“Yeah.”
“There was something about a dog I think…”
“Wait, you’re right. Let me pull it up.” He found the scanned letter that Alan’s brother had written him. “Yeah, here it is.”
...In short, there is a reference to a hound that was used to detect what was then referred to as ‘creepers’ in the bordertowns in the Southern Sun region some thirty years back, when the taboo on powers was particularly strong in that area. Apparently, the dog could tell by the scent if someone was powered. Of course, if that were true, the Kin, whose senses are easily as strong, would not need the Human assistance they currently require to detect EF manipulators. Maybe you could help in a little debunking here…?
“It seems a little strange. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that we smell different from other Humans. I think Scythe would have mentioned something somewhere along the line, don’t you?” Ian asked.
“Maybe, but I’m going to check and see if anyone has come across anything like this. Keep an eye out will you?”
“Sure, honey.” He looked back at the letter. “I wonder if the hound...I wonder if it was a dog at all. The Kin use all kinds of words that get translated badly. Many Kin expressions and words are figurative. Maybe it was a person?”
“I’ll make a note of it. I’m going to cross reference it with what we have here…” She pulled up her search engine and leaned forward intently.
Ian looked back at his screen and sighed, “I think I’m done for tonight. I’ve read this already over and over and it still doesn’t make sense.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the data on birthrates in the bordertowns. According to the newest data, the power trait was being passed down through women…”
“We’ve already seen that. There are indications that it is an x-linked recessive trait.”
“Actually, this says that that was true only for the first and second generations, but it shows a jump here in numbers of teens diagnosed in the next two generations, with a higher than statistically predicted number of girls affected. It says here that according to the third and fourth generations, the distribution indicates an x-linked dominant trait.”
“Well, which is it, dominant or recessive?
“That’s the question. Here they are citing the lack of credible data in the early years, based on the attitudes toward powered individuals in the bordertowns–which we already knew about–and it says that it was probably x-dominant all along, which means that the numbers should continue to rise in the next generation.”
“But if it is x-dominant, it would have already been well established in the population for...well, for hundreds of years at least, right?”
“Unless it was a mutation that recently appeared. A recent dominant mutation.”
“That only appeared in the bordertowns, and not in the city? The city rates are still significantly lower, right? Even though the cities get infused with bordertowners each generation?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t adding up, or maybe it was and he was just too tired to see it. Ian marked his page and leaned back, shutting off the computer. “I’m leaving it for tomorrow, when I can hopefully think straight again.”
“I’ll be along in a bit. I’m going to program a search so it is going overnight.” She tilted her head to receive his kiss. “Ten minutes, max.”
“Alright. I’m going to check on the kid.” He stubbornly called her a kid even though Mercy was a young woman and far beyond the stage when the title fit her. She would always be his kid, even when she was fifty.
“Okay. Tell her it’s time to call it a night.”
“That’s the plan.” One more kiss, and then he was out of the library and turning right down the hall. The next room on the left opened up to a large family room, one of the two in the large home that, true to traditional Kin design, was the location for most of the activity of the residents. With several couches and numerous tables and chairs arranged in sma
ll groupings, it was easy to appreciate how much the Kin emphasized the importance of family gatherings. Without exception, the other rooms were much smaller, and sparsely decorated, to the point of being almost minimalist. Bedrooms were where you slept, dining rooms were for eating, studies were for work, but the family room was where you lived. The house almost funneled people into the room.
Their house was more of a mansion...it was enormous by Human standards...which was why it had two family rooms instead of the one found in most Kin homes. It was fortunate for them, since their “family” was a large one. When all of them gathered in one room–usually in the one he had just passed because it was the more spacious of the two–for special occasions, it was a very tight fit. While it made the Humans feel claustrophobic, such events always pleased those members of their household who were Kin, especially the Poinsea Kin who had left behind their own large families.
Ian went directly to a room that closely resembled the one he had just left, a small study that looked like it had more books lining its walls than the library. It was one of the few places with a light on this late at night, which wasn’t unusual for this particular room when Scythe was at home. Lately it had been dark at night and unused; it was even a little stuffy inside, so he went to the window and opened it to let in the cool night breeze.
“It’s late, Mercy. You should head to bed.”
“I will soon,” she answered from the desk. She had decided to do her portion of the research review in Scythe’s study by herself, which meant she was spending almost all her time there. She even took most of her meals there, when she couldn’t be coaxed out to eat with the family. Although she sat in front of the display, it didn’t appear that she was reading. Ian got the feeling that she had been sitting there motionless for a while.
“You look tired, honey,” he said, coming around and hugging her from behind. “What are you looking at?”
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