by K. T. Hanna
I still hadn’t mustered the energy to move by the time that Jacob emerged from his room. My back hurt. Coach Marth was going to kill me. Hell, I was going to kill me for not remembering to stretch first. Warm up. It was the key to avoiding injury, pounded into my head since I was about six and had first discovered that my love of running wasn’t just a kid’s desire to never stop moving. Mom enrolled me in track and field, and the rest was history.
“Hey, Dare. You okay?” The concern in Jacob’s voice was real.
Shit. Was I supposed to do something and hadn’t? I couldn’t think of what it might be.
“Yeah. Just tired. Hurt my back being an idiot last night.” I was just being honest.
Jacob grimaced. “Coach is going to kill you.”
“Shut up.” I grumbled at him. “I know.”
“If you know, can you both shut up so I can continue to drool on myself in my sleep, thanks?” Orion didn’t move, nor did he open his eyes. It made the comment all the more comical.
I laughed, and then I laughed some more. So much that I had to lean forward, causing my back to flare with pain, which lead to gasping, and also more laughing. It was one of those tired mornings, and I felt closer to Orion than I had since discovering he was also a part of the program. I’d missed my chance to separate a portion of his brain for him so he could think for himself and to himself, but as tired as I’d been last night, it was probably better for me not to go messing around in people’s brains. They were sort of an important organ.
Orion stood up and stretched, his shirt hitching up to reveal his belly button. I could see some of the people we went to high-school with drooling over him, probably even on him. His mother was a scientist from Scandinavia; his dad was an artist from Japan. Devastatingly handsome was a term used by everyone who’d ever encountered him. He knew it, yet he didn’t play on it. He never once used his appearance to influence anyone. His brain made him more beautiful than any outward revelation could ever be.
He looked over at me and winked. “Yep, you got it, buddy. Time to get you up.”
I groaned and shook my head, but he grabbed my hands and tugged me up to standing. After one excruciating second of pain, it felt good to stand. “Torturer.”
“That’s me. Gotta do what’s best for you.” He crossed his arms to stand a few feet in front of me. “Now. Walk. Prove you can.”
Shit. He knew me way too well. I took a deep breath and stepped forward. Funnily enough, it didn’t hurt. I tested it around the living area and into the kitchen. No pain while walking was good. And then I realized I really had to pee and ran to the bathroom.
Or I should say I tried to run. Because two strides into it, and I yelped in pain.
This was not good. Not good at all.
I lay on the examination table, on my stomach with my head through this really weird sort of hole. It was odd to be studying the carpet at the school’s physical therapist’s office. I wondered if anyone had bled on it, vomited on it...or anything.
Basically, I was trying desperately hard to focus on anything but what they were talking about over my back. It wasn’t working.
How had I done that thing for Adam and Orion? How had I sped up their healing process? My scans had come in, so they were standing at the computer looking at my results. I didn’t need to see their faces to know they were frowning.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on finding the initiation point of my electrical ability. It sparked from everywhere. Alive all at once through every fiber of my body. How did I heal with it? Accessing the database of my tutorials, I looked through the brain section again. That was where electricity played the largest role. Little synapses firing off their tiny electrical charges, keeping the body moving, healing, functioning.
It wasn’t a thought about anything in particular that I’d used. I ran through the memory of that night. It was burned into my mind, the explosion, the air bubble pushing me over that wall. The necessity of making it to the car or we were all screwed.
I’d wanted to help them, to heal them, to make them move faster. In order to do that, I’d had to will power into them, boosting their natural abilities.
That was it!
Slowly, I allowed a trickle of power to seep through me. Similar to how I made myself run faster, this was directed differently. I needed to boost my natural abilities. Healing above all. The pain needed to go, and my spine had to lose some of the swelling I’d given it last night. Concentrating and careful, I released the power to flow through my body uninhibited.
I could feel it race through the channels, light up my brain so much that for a brief moment I felt like I could calculate anything, be anything. It was like all of my brain cells had come alive and were available to me.
The second passed quickly, but it was enough to make the ache in my back stop. Just in time for the physio to come back over.
“I’m going to push around the problem disc, okay, Dare?” Dr. Owen said, his voice gentle.
“Sure thing.” There was nothing else I could do for now. So I waited, hoping.
“That’s odd.” He murmured. I could feel his fingers pressing around the discs, but there was no pain. He pressed down a little harder, and still nothing.
“What’s odd?” Coach Marth’s voice was filled with disappointment. Perhaps it was more resigned than disappointed.
“The disc. It’s not inflamed from what I can see. Not anymore. Like, it suddenly went down.” There was wonder in Dr. Owen’s tone. Like a miracle had occurred. Or, you know, a boost to my body’s healing activation.
“It’s not?” Hope crept in, and I knew Coach Marth was standing a bit straighter now, not daring to believe the doctor.
“No. I’d have to run another scan to double check, but this is extraordinary. Not half an hour ago it was slightly bruised and inflamed to the touch. Now...well, take a look for yourself.” Dr. Owen moved away, making room for the coach.
“I swear—” He seemed very confused.
In hindsight, I probably should have done this before practice this morning, but I’ve never really been good at thinking ahead. Living in the moment. That’s me.
“Sit up, please.” The doctor was frowning when I did. “I’m not sure what’s happened, but I’m going to send you for another scan, just to be sure. Then I suggest rest for the next day or two so it doesn’t flare again. You can start training again on Wednesday.”
Coach Marth’s relief was palpable. To be honest, so was my own. I didn’t want my back to hurt, and I definitely didn’t want to be sidelined for regionals.
“Thanks, Dr. Owen,” I said as I hopped down from the table.
He nodded at me and ushered his assistant to help me go get the scan. Again.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” Orion said accusatorially as I sat watching the livestream of the lecture I was missing.
“Yes, and I’m also supposed to be maintaining appearances, which includes keeping my jobs.” I didn’t look up at him as he stood in my bedroom doorway.
And I was technically in bed, just not sleeping.
“So what did you do?” he asked, crossing his arms and staring pointedly at me.
“Do to what?” I feigned innocence at his question, knowing he’d caught on to what I’d done. Maybe if I hadn’t used it on him previously, he wouldn’t have noticed.
“You healed yourself.” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. Even though Jacob should be sound asleep.
“Well, technically, I guess.” I didn’t want to reveal all my cards, but it was probably safer for Orion to know.
“You figured it out?” His eyes sparkled in a way I hadn’t seen them do since this whole debacle began.
“Yeah, I think I did. At least, I’m pretty sure I now know what I’m doing. It’s a bit more complicated than I realized, and all things considered, I can’t believe I pulled it off th
at night. But with a few tweaks, I should be able to make a usable skill.” So many words. They just poured out of me. Maybe I’d been wanting him to quiz me. But more to the point, I think I wanted to show off, and Orion was the only one who’d understand.
“This is awesome.” He walked in and sat on the edge of my bed. Luckily, the lecture had just finished, and I didn’t think the timing was coincidental. Orion was, when being himself, generally observant.
“Well, I’m glad you’re happy, but I think there’s more to it, and I’d like you to tell me why you seem over the moon?” Better to be direct. Being subtle hadn’t got me anywhere with anything or anyone in this program.
Speaking of which, it hadn’t spoken to me since Saturday night. That was almost two whole days without an intruder in my head.
“Just. I don’t even know if they’ll send us on more tasks together. But we do seem to work well as a unit, so maybe they will. And if you know how to heal now, there’s less of a chance of me dying for real. That’s something I’ve never had. Every time I go out there, I know I could die. I’ve lost enough people, seen enough people injured that it’s just a part of the job. The injuries, the deaths—it’s a part I despise.” He was being honest, and the fear rolled off him in waves I could almost visualize.
“Having you there will make avoiding death much easier than it has been.” He continued, studying his nails in great detail. “I don’t want to die. And if I play my cards right, I can graduate, I can live a life of sorts, and just juggle missions as I receive them.”
“Do you want to move up in the organization?” I couldn’t help myself. I had to know how loyal he was, how attached he was to the very thing I was having huge reservations about. Technologically, something just wasn’t adding up for me.
He laughed, a bit self-deprecatingly. “No. I’ll just do the grunt work they assign me and nothing more. I don’t want to be a tool for whatever this is. If it’s going to take my thoughts and never let me have ones of my own, then I’m just going to be myself and not aim for success within the system. Head down. Don’t make waves.”
Something about his wording made me wonder what it was he’d done earlier on in his SC experience. Because making a difference involved making waves, and it was something Orion lived to do.
“We’re not given a choice in this. You can’t say no to any task set. All of them have to be completed. You can be fined or punished if you don’t complete something or else complete it outside their expectations.” He stopped abruptly, and I realized he’d probably been pulled up by the system. Or he was being reprimanded. One of the two.
“We’re just pawns,” I continued the train of thought. “But it doesn’t make sense, and I need more information.”
Orion cringed, and I watched his eyes glaze over for a second. Once they were back to normal, the light had gone out of them. “Sorry, Dare. Apparently this wasn’t the right subject to talk about. I’ve been informed that we’re not permitted to have such discussions between operatives.”
He stood up, his shoulders deflated, and his eyes sad. I had to deny the urge to hug him and tell him it was all going to be okay. That I’d figured out a way to circumvent the constant policing, to let us think for ourselves. But the expression on his face held me back. He was resigned to this fate, even if he’d had a spark of interest in another kind only a few minutes ago.
Well, then. If I couldn’t talk to him about it. I’d just have to show him what I meant.
Night fell heavily that Monday. Rain clouds began to gather, holding onto their rain like the baby they wanted to keep safe. The clouds blotted out the stars, and any sign of the moon, causing the house to be unusually dark when I crept from my bedroom toward Orion’s.
I had to be careful, so I avoided the creaking floorboard I knew was to the left of the hall we walked down to get to my room. Just outside the bathroom, against the wall opposite the doorway. No creaks meant there was no suddenly waking up Orion.
Jacob worked. Luckily. And my talk with Davin had taken all of three minutes.
Orion’s door wasn’t entirely closed. Sometimes, in rainy weather like what we had incoming, his door would stick. That hadn’t been fun the first time we noticed. He’d been stuck in there for about twenty minutes. At least it wasn’t that small a space. His room was bigger than mine, though not by much.
I pushed the door open and tiptoed into his room. The floorboards under his rug at the end of the bed squeaked, so I avoided them as best I could, stepping around them to kneel on the floor at the head of his bed. Shadows milled around the walls of the room, watching me like they knew I was about to do something important. It was almost like they’d been waiting for it.
Their red eyes didn’t gleam at me this time. So, I was more inclined to believe they were figments of my imagination. Or maybe that was me hoping.
Owen’s black hair fanned out on the pillow, and I raised my hand to put my fingers at his temple so I could separate his thoughts when it dawned on me. I knew he wished his thoughts were private, though he’d gotten used to them not being. But was doing this without his permission truly the best thing for him? I thought it was, but I wasn’t him.
I sighed and rocked back on my heels trying to deal with my conundrum.
If I asked him and he said no, he didn’t want it, I’d respect that, wouldn’t I? I’d definitely be surprised if he didn’t want the chance to think on his own. Also, I couldn’t be sure that it worked the same way on someone else as it had on my head. Nor could I be certain I’d know how to transfer the process to another individual.
“Why are you sitting there?”
His voice was so loud in the darkness that I almost jumped three feet high. Considering I was on my butt, that was quite an accomplishment.
“I was thinking.”
“Sure.” I could hear him shift in the bed, probably turning to glare at my shadow. Which was odd. How he could tell mine from the plethora of others in the room, I wasn’t sure.
“Sure, you came in here to think because it’s so much easier to do in my room than in your own.” I could hear the impatience he was biting back. “Now tell me why you’re really here, and try not to lie too much.”
It took me a couple of seconds that seemed like a lifetime as they ticked by. “I wanted to let you think for yourself.”
I was wrong. The next few seconds took a lot longer while Orion processed what I’d said. “How?”
He uttered the word so softly I barley heard it. Maybe he was trying to keep it from his own SC, I wasn’t sure, but it was all the opening I needed.
I had to pick terms that wouldn’t flag his SC. “Brains run with electricity.”
“Really? Who’d have thought that?”
“Shut up with the sarcasm.” I took another breath and continued. “I think I’ve figured out how to partition a portion of the brain into a vault, so the thoughts directed there will remain private.”
“That’s awesome.”
My eyes were getting used to the dark, and I could vaguely see his face. Because of the lack of lighting though, I couldn’t get a read on his mood. At least not until his next words.
“Okay. Do it.”
I heaved a sigh of relief, letting out the breath I’d been holding. Reaching forward, I touched his temples lightly and closed my eyes.
It had been a few days. Enough that I was back to track practice, and enough that Orion had managed to experiment with the partition some. I’d been right. Putting the partition into someone else’s head was a lot more complicated than tweaking my own brain. Doing it required us to meet in the dead of the night. Our systems appeared to be less likely to overhear us at those times when we should have been sleeping.
Overall, I wasn’t sure it led to an improvement in Orion’s demeanor. Instead, he seemed a little more preoccupied, and I again found myself sometimes wondering what it was he wasn’
t telling me.
However, it made talking about subjects that might otherwise be taboo with less worry and frustration. While I was marginally concerned about what might happen if they realized what I’d done and was capable of doing, that was a problem for future me.
Come to think of it, I probably lumped a heap of stuff off onto future me. It was only fair, after all.
Friday night was the first night in a long time we were actually having our card games and/or D&D night. To be honest, I’d mostly forgotten what my character was like or where we even were in the campaign. The usual monthly Saturday night tabletop game wasn’t going to work this month, so we moved to our Friday which meant everyone could attend.
The more I thought about it, I now knew why Sam was the DM.
I threw my backpack onto the couch and myself shortly thereafter.
“You’re not going to help me prep for the night in?” Orion asked as he lugged grocery bags into the kitchen.
“Nope. I’m not a gourmet. You’ve got everything covered.” We’d both decided to make sure we were audible in our thoughts unless they were precisely against the system. Like unless we were trying to figure out how to regain autonomy.
Pretty much like most of my thoughts.
He was grumbling to himself in the kitchen.
“I can’t hear you!” I yelled out, lying my ass off.
My SC was still missing in action. Frankly, I was starting to get worried. Had I really annoyed it, or made it angry?
I’m not angry. I’ve been busy relaying your information to the rest of the network and discussing the impact of such sentiments and statements.
Oh. I tried to digest that. Has no one else ever brought it up?
Not as vehemently as you did. We’ve heard grumblings before of course, but you were more… direct with your criticism.
Consider this me reinforcing that criticism.
We do.
And the presence was gone again. Maybe that’s just how they hid themselves really well.