by Jaye McKenna
“He has.” Cameron regarded him intently. “So you’re like Miko? You can follow the threads, see the future?”
Draven let out a bark of tired laughter. “I wish. No. I can see brief glimpses of the threads, but that’s about all. I can never see them enough to follow them or make sense of them. But I’m aware of the Pattern. Not like Miko. Not enough to see how broken he says it is. But it’s there in everything I do, every place I look. It’s… enough to drive a man to distraction.”
Cameron nodded slowly, looking almost pleased, as if a piece of a puzzle he’d been struggling with had finally fallen into place. “Hence the rituals,” he said. “Something solid to hang onto. Something to give you a sense of control, when everything is shifting and changing.”
He liked that about Cameron. The man was sharp. Didn’t have to be told twice. “Yes,” he whispered. “Control.”
* * *
Miko ran the final tests on the spider-bots he’d built and sent them off to hunt down all references to Rafe Azziani. It would take weeks for the bots to crawl the entire data-net, but using the mythe to jump from data core to data core, they could move through the system much faster than even the most sophisticated bots Federation technology could come up with.
Incorporating an awareness of the mythe into their programming made the bots’ activities invisible to even the most sophisticated AI defense systems. With the data being accessed and rewritten via the mythe, no alarms would be tripped, and no suspicious activities would be flagged or logged.
By the time the bots completed the job and returned home, it would be as if Rafe Azziani had never been born.
Nothing on the net was safe from Miko. Every data core in the Federation was made of shaalinite, a mineral that existed partly in the physical world and partly in the mythe. Which meant every data core on the net could be accessed through the mythe, in ways Federation science couldn’t even detect.
With a satisfied smile, Miko moved on to his next task: building a self-consistent web of lies that would stand up to the scrutiny of the FedSec AI. He’d decided that Rafe’s new name was Rafael Garretti, although he wasn’t sure how much good the new identity was going to do him. Rafe had the same unforgettable face Miko did. No matter how solid Miko could make his new profile, Rafe would still need to stay well clear of any Romani-owned organizations. By his own account, he’d done tracking work for Sergei Romani all over the Federation, and if avoiding Alan was his goal, staying at the Institute and working as an instructor was by far the safest course.
Miko was torn about whether he wanted Rafe to stay or not. Rafe’s mere presence was acid burning through Miko’s mythe-shadow, disturbing the fragile peace he’d achieved with his past. Long ago, he’d come to terms with not remembering the early years of his life, but Rafe’s appearance had pried open a door Miko had thought safely shut.
Even with Damon’s confirmation, it felt odd to think of Rafe as his brother. If there had ever been anyone he’d have considered a brother — someone who understood him and accepted him without asking him for things he couldn’t give — it was Draven.
Diri, he called himself deep inside, where nobody else could hear or know or touch. Draven protected that name like a precious jewel, sharing it with only a few select people. People he trusted not to hurt him. Miko suspected it reminded him that he hadn’t always been property, that once, he’d been free, with his own name and his own life.
It had been a huge relief to see Draven on his feet the other day, when Cameron had finally been able to arrange for him to visit. Draven’s mythe-shadow had tasted strongly of exhaustion, and memories of the agony he’d endured still stained it with their dark, spiky colors. He’d still been weak and vulnerable, though he’d never admit it.
Cameron would keep him safe, though. Miko trusted Cameron to—
Something oily and dark seeped into his awareness, and Miko realized that Rafe was moving toward him. Annoyance flashed through him until he recalled sending Rafe a message earlier, asking him to stop by when he had time.
When Rafe arrived, Miko let him in immediately.
“You wanted to see me?” Rafe’s mythe-shadow flared with hope that was both poignant and painful to Miko.
“I need to take some biometric readings. For your new identity.”
The colors of disappointment rippled through Rafe. Maybe he’d hoped this was a social visit? Miko thought back to the message he’d sent. Had it not been professional enough?
He took the readings he needed in cool silence. Once he had the data, he put Rafe’s picture and the few sketchy background details he’d come up with on the big data screen on the wall.
“Rafael Garretti,” he said through the voice synth. “That way you can still call yourself Rafe.”
A flare of interest came from Rafe, and Miko flinched and pulled his mythe-shadow in closer. Even a neutral emotion like interest hurt when Rafe was its source.
“That’s good,” Rafe said with a nod. “It’s hard to get used to a new first name.”
“Cameron says it’s the easiest place to trip up and blow your cover,” Miko agreed.
Rafe studied the screen with narrowed black eyes. “There’s not much here.”
“I’m just starting to build it,” Miko told him. “Before I go any further, I wanted to ask you if there’s anything specific we need to include. Something that’s so much a part of you that it’s impossible to forget. You were raised in a lab, without parents. So it’ll probably be easiest if Rafael Garretti was raised in a downside orphanage.”
“Are we making up a story?” Rafe flashed him a grin. “We used to do that. Make up stories about our parents finding us. They’d take us out of that place and bring us home. There would be toys and games and all our favorite foods…”
Miko had no memory of anything like that. His eyes burned as he called up the data entry screen. “It’s… sort of like a story, yes.”
“So I could be anything,” Rafe said, eyes taking on a distant look.
“No, not anything. Some things would be too easy to check up on, especially if they involve people who would remember that you weren’t actually where the records place you. We don’t want to make up anything that won’t hold together under scrutiny. Best to keep your education and employment history to downside areas. They’re notorious for losing records or not updating them, and the chances of someone who would actually remember you still working at those kinds of places are a lot lower.”
“The bad boy with the tragic, but sketchy past. I can work with that.” Rafe glanced from Miko to the data screen and back. “How are you even doing that? I don’t see a keyboard. And you’re not using voice commands. I don’t even know how you’re operating the voice synth. Psi?”
Miko pressed his lips together. Rafe’s presence had rattled him enough that he’d forgotten to grab a keyboard or a slate to use as a prop.
“It is, isn’t it?” Rafe’s eyes glittered. “You used to do stuff like that when we were little… opening locked doors so we could explore places we weren’t supposed to go, overriding the nutrition orders so we could get our favorite foods for dinner… sometimes you even got us chocolate cake…”
So much for keeping his abilities hidden from Rafe. Learning to access anything deeper than the surface layers of the net had been such a struggle for Miko, he’d never have guessed it was something he’d been able to do Before.
“We should probably make your home world someplace you’ve never been,” Miko said, hoping to steer Rafe away from any more awkward questions about himself. “You’re pretty, like me. People will remember your face. So you’re going to have to avoid anyplace you’ve worked where Romani’s people might recognize you.”
Rafe scowled. “I already thought of that,” he said. “Aurora’s safe — I’ve never been here before — but you probably don’t want me this close.”
Miko choked down the wave of regret that washed over him. “I don’t know how close is too close. When you were in th
e city, I sensed you, but you were far enough away that I could mostly shut it out. It doesn’t hurt unless you’re really close. Like in this building. You could… you could stay on Aurora.”
“Might not be a bad idea to make Aurora my home world, then. Alpha might work, too. I’ve only been there once, and that was just before I came here. Tracking you down, actually. One of Sergei’s people on Earth — a guy named Draven — recognized me, but I’d never seen him before. I thought maybe that meant he’d seen you someplace. When we both got sent to the research center on Lyra, I tried to get him to open up about where he thought he’d seen me before, but he wouldn’t tell me. When Alan sent him to Alpha after the accident, I went after him as soon as I could get away, but it was months before Alan had a job for me, and by the time I got to Alpha, Draven was already gone.”
Miko’s gut twisted and he felt the blood drain from his face.
“Hey… you okay, Miko? You don’t look so good.”
“Draven was sent to Alpha?” Miko asked.
“Yeah, that’s where he’s from, originally. He worked for Sergei’s cousin, Nikolai DeMira, before he worked for Sergei. His psi was damaged in the accident on Lyra. Alan thought he just needed a hospital. He was all set to have him sent to some fancy medical center on Earth, but I told him he couldn’t shield, and a hospital would probably kill him, so Alan sent him back to Alpha. Said DeMira had a psionic healer on staff who might be able to help him.”
That explained a lot. No wonder Draven had refused to tell him what happened to him since he’d left Aion. If DeMira blamed Draven for Sergei’s death, Draven would have paid the price.
“Why do you care what happens to Draven?” Rafe asked. “The guy’s a nut job.”
“He’s not crazy. Not the way you mean.” Miko considered trying to defend Draven further, but Rafe couldn’t touch the mythe deeply enough to understand the lengths both Miko and Draven had to go to in order to make sense of a world that no one else could see. He settled, instead, for an explanation Rafe would understand: “He took care of me. He was my… my protector when I was…” Miko stared down at the ground. “You were Romani’s slave. I was… I was DeMira’s.”
“His pet psion.” Rafe nodded his understanding.
“No. DeMira never knew I was a psion.”
“Then what—?”
“What do you think?”
When Rafe still looked puzzled, Miko said, “DeMira liked boys in his bed. Pretty ones.”
The color drained from Rafe’s face. “Oh, Miko. No. That’s not…” He wrapped his arms about himself and made a small choking noise in his throat. The pain in Rafe’s mythe-shadow was almost unbearable, magnified as it was by the regret that he couldn’t even touch Miko without hurting him.
“I’m sorry,” Miko said, backing away slowly. “I wish…”
“Yeah,” Rafe whispered. “Me, too.” He drew in a deep breath and swallowed hard, then focused on the data screen. “Okay. Rafael Garretti. Let’s breathe some life into this guy.”
* * *
“Holy shit.”
Draven jerked awake from a mid-morning nap he hadn’t meant to take and looked around, blinking. Kyn sat at the kitchen table, staring at his slate, face pale, eyes wide.
“What?” Draven asked in a flat tone that conveyed no interest, no emotion.
“Have you seen what happened on Indigo?”
He rubbed his eyes, then glanced about the cabin, uncertain as to whether Kyn was really talking to him. When he saw no sign of anyone else, he got to his feet and ambled over. “What happened?”
Kyn set the slate flat on the table, and Draven stared down at the chaos on the screen.
“What is this?”
“Riot,” Kyn said. “Started out as a peaceful protest. Ended up with three people dead. They were accused of being psions. The rioters burned them alive.”
Draven tensed as a bolt of anxiety — not his own — hit him hard.
“Happened right after word of the Aion Incident hit Indigo.”
“Is there anyone else here?” Draven asked.
Irritation flashed through the space between them, there and gone so fast Draven couldn’t be sure he’d felt it. “Jesus Christ, Draven, you’re as bad as Miko, with the random comments.”
“Is there?”
Kyn scowled, but said, “Here, on the island?”
Draven nodded.
“No, just you and me.”
“I sense fear. And more than a bit of annoyance.” Draven cocked his head as he adjusted his shielding pattern and swept his awareness over the island, just to be sure. “Yours?”
“Can’t be,” Kyn said flatly. “I’m psi null. Nobody can sense me.” He frowned. “Wait… are you saying you’re getting something psionic from me?”
“Something,” Draven agreed. Curiosity overwhelmed caution, and he took a seat across the table from Kyn. “What, exactly, does psi null mean to you?”
Kyn leaned back in his chair and gave him a sober look. “Means I can’t sense you and you can’t sense me. Least, I thought that’s what it meant.”
“But I can sense you. Not as clearly as I do most people, but… You said you can’t sense me. That wasn’t always the case?”
“No.” Kyn stared down at the table. A wave of pain and loss swelled, but cut off completely before he spoke. “There was a training accident. I made the mistake of waking one of my students out of a flashback nightmare. He thought I was going for him, and he struck back. Hard.”
“And left you with what?”
“I don’t know. There’s a shield of some kind that keeps me in and everyone else out. I don’t even know if there’s anything left of my psi-centers. Jaana’s never been able to get through that shield to take a look.”
Draven hesitated. Cameron hadn’t specifically told him not to use psi, only that it wouldn’t work on Kyn. “Can I… may I have a look?”
“At what?”
“Your shield.”
Kyn shrugged. “Go ahead. There’s nothing to see. Everyone else says it’s like I’m invisible to psi.”
“Oh, no, you’re not invisible. Not to me.” Draven adjusted his own shield once more, then shifted his vision so he could examine the psionic structure protecting Kyn’s mind. It was a shield, yes, but far more intricate than any he’d ever encountered before. He drew in his breath sharply and whispered, “Oh… that’s beautiful.”
“What is?”
Draven didn’t answer. The constantly shifting shapes and colors were fascinating, and he itched to get in there and see how it worked.
“Draven.” The sharp tone of Kyn’s voice pulled him out. “What do you see?”
With effort, Draven forced himself to meet Kyn’s eyes. “I’ve never seen one that moves and changes like that before.”
“Moves? I don’t… what are you talking about?”
“Shields are like puzzles,” Draven explained. “Patterns. Most of them are easy to get into. Most psions use minor variations on the same basic pattern. The pattern doesn’t move or change, so it’s easy enough to make a counter-pattern, a key, and I’m in, just like it wasn’t there. But yours… it isn’t static. It’s constantly moving and changing… like a kaleidoscope. It requires a dynamic key. Designing that key would be a true challenge.”
Arctic blue eyes fixed on him, and Draven sensed the briefest flash of hope.
“Could you?” Kyn whispered.
“Could I what?”
“Make a key. Break it down.”
Draven licked his lips as he considered that. “I could try. I would need to study it first, and… no guarantees. I’ve never tried to build a dynamic key before. It would be… an interesting game, certainly.”
“Do it. Please.”
Doubt filled him. “Cameron won’t like it.” Even if Cameron hadn’t specifically forbidden him to use psi, he was fairly certain that if he asked, the answer would be an unequivocal no. And if anything went wrong…
Draven had already gathered t
hat Kyn was involved with Pat Cottrell, and given some of the conversations he’d overheard between Kyn and Cameron, he guessed that Cottrell was just waiting for an excuse to turn him in.
“Cam doesn’t have to know. Draven… please. I’ve lived in the dark for so long. If you see something, anything that might give me some hope that it might someday come back… I’d really like to know.”
In the end, it wasn’t Kyn’s plea that convinced him to throw caution to the wind, but his own curiosity. Kyn’s shield was so close and so tight that Draven had to be right next to him to see it. The moment he focused on it, a shifting mosaic of colors and shapes filled his mind. It was mesmerizing, and he could understand why no one had been able to get through it. To anyone who couldn’t see the mythe, it would look like an impenetrable wall.
It would be a fascinating challenge. And Kyn was giving him permission; was practically begging him.
“All right,” Draven said finally. “I’ll try. But you might want to sit on the couch. Sometimes people don’t do well when I go through their shields.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Sometimes they fight me.”
“I want this,” Kyn said. “I won’t fight you.”
“You might not have a choice.”
Kyn didn’t answer. He moved to the couch and settled back, saying, “Go ahead.”
“Do you want me to just get through? Or do you want me to take it down?”
“Get in there and have a look. If there’s any chance I might be psi-active, take the damn thing down.”
“If I take it down, I may not be able to put it back,” Draven warned. “If you’re still too damaged to shield by yourself…”
“Then either Jaana heals me or I spend the rest of my life in isolation or on drugs. I’m aware of the risks. Do it.” The look in Kyn’s eyes was almost feverish, and tiny, bright shards of hope prickled at Draven’s mythe-shadow. “Please?”
Draven dragged one of the kitchen chairs close, and sat directly in front of Kyn. “Relax,” he whispered.