“You really have to start calling me Elliot. I’m pretty sure we’re on a first-name basis by now, at least in your dreams. And okay, being a smartass obviously isn’t helping. Why don’t you slow down and just breathe.” Elliot stood up, too. “Come on, Stephen—I’m not offended. I’m flattered. I’m more than flattered. I’m—”
“Freaked out,” Diaz finished for him.
“Yeah,” Elliot said, “but—for the record—I’m not freaked out because you apparently want to do me, every chance you get. As far as that goes, I’m mentally running laps around the room and giving myself high fives and fist bumps. When I said I was freaked out it was because I know how seriously you take your training, and I respect both you and that, even though I haven’t found even the slightest hint of scientific evidence backing your belief about your celibacy’s impact on your mental skills.” Diaz started to speak—no doubt to disagree—but Elliot held up his hand and stopped him. “And please, I don’t want to argue about that right now. Can we focus on your elevated integration levels? Let’s start with the scientific facts—with what we already know, what we can prove.”
Diaz didn’t say anything, didn’t move, but he seemed to be breathing again, so Elliot sat back down in front of the computer, calling up the research he’d done over the past few hours. He focused on keeping breathing, too. There’d be plenty of time, later, for him to hyperventilate over the fact that Stephen Diaz chose to dream about having sex with him. With him. Holy crap.
“I’ve gone back and looked closely at the history of fluctuation in your integration levels,” Elliot said, somehow managing to sound calm and in control. “And there’s definitely a correlation between a slight rise in those levels and my presence in the room. I appear to give you a mental hard-on.” He looked up at Diaz, who’d closed his eyes again. “Okay, not funny. But remember that. You’re not the inappropriate one. I am, got it? But back to the facts—we’re talking about the relatively insignificant difference between your being a Forty-Eight when I’m not in the room, or a Forty-Nine or true Fifty when I am. But then suddenly, today, you soar up to fifty-eight and then sixty. Both of those numbers were after …” He cleared his throat. “There was physical contact. Between us.” He resisted the instinct to clear his throat again. “That’s easy enough to test, to see if it happens again. Although, I don’t think I remember ever coming into contact with you. Before this. Even casually, like … shaking hands when we first met.”
Diaz nodded. “That was intentional. When you first came to work at OI, I was early in the process of controlling my ability to deliver an electrical current. The no touching was for your protection.”
“Ah,” Elliot said. “Of course.”
“You thought I had a problem with your being gay.”
“I did think that,” Elliot admitted.
“I didn’t.”
Elliot looked up from the computer at that, and chose his next words carefully. “Do you have a problem with your being gay?”
Diaz shook his head. “No.”
“I mean, I know I just said I didn’t want to get into a conversation about the factual value of your celibacy, but … Is it possible that you’ve embraced abstinence so fiercely because of—”
“No.”
“So it doesn’t bother you—the idea of going into that meeting with Dr. Bach in a few hours, and being outed—”
Maybe Diaz hadn’t really been breathing that well after all, because he exhaled a large burst of air. It was almost a laugh. Almost. He started pacing again. “You seriously think I care about that?”
“Don’t you?” Elliot asked.
“I’ve known that I was gay since I was five, okay?” Diaz turned and told him. “I’ve always been gay. I don’t have a problem with being gay. What I have a problem with is putting you in this incredibly awkward position. And that was before I even knew I was invading your dreams with my broadcasts or thought projections or whatever the fuck it is that I’m doing to you when I sleep!”
“Whoa,” Elliot said. “All right, okay. Let’s talk about this dream-invasion thing, or so you call it. I’ll go first and say that since those dreams are the highlight of my sex life—and I’m talking past, present, and future—you need to be aware that I do not object to them, whatsoever. As a matter of fact, as long as we’re discussing it, I’d like to put in a request that next time? Since you get to control what happens, can you at least let me get off? I mean, it’s kind of clear that you’ve been consciously stopping the dreams before—”
“Don’t,” Diaz said, his voice low. “Don’t mock me.”
“What?” Elliot said. “Wait, no, I’m not—”
“I get that it’s just not that big of a deal for you,” Diaz said roughly. “But it’s huge for me.”
“I’m sorry,” Elliot apologized. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”
“You honestly don’t think that my celibacy has anything to do with my integration levels?” Diaz forced himself to sit down in the chair, but he was on the very edge of his seat as he looked at Elliot with the same intensity. “You think I should just say to hell with it?”
“Okay, now I think we’re moving into radically inappropriate territory,” Elliot said. “How am I supposed to answer that question?”
“Honestly.”
“As a scientist,” Elliot asked him, “or as a man who is dying to stage a reenactment of that dream from your grandmother’s house?”
Diaz was silent, the muscle jumping in the side of his jaw.
“It’s hard for me to separate the two,” Elliot continued. “Sure, the scientist seems pretty adamant that your sudden surprise sixty wasn’t merely the result of your putting your arms around me this morning, but that it came from … more intimate contact—and I know you know exactly what I’m referring to. But I’m human, Stephen—which means I’m biased. Are there ways to fight that bias? Of course. But do I really want to fight it? Good question.”
Diaz still didn’t say a word, but he was clearly listening, so Elliot kept going.
“Completely aside from that, here’s the thing about testing whether celibacy increases your integration levels. We can’t really test the impact of your doing nothing—although you’ve been doing that nothing for … how long now?”
Diaz exhaled again—just a little puff of air this time. “Fifteen fucking years.”
Jesus, really? Elliot’s years of being a researcher allowed him to hide his surprise, but he turned his attention to the computer, because he couldn’t look at the other man. Especially since he had the urge to correct him and say that those had been, more accurately, fifteen non-fucking years. Instead, he clicked his way into and then through Diaz’s file. And he found out … “That’s exactly how long you’ve been here, at OI.”
“That’s correct.”
From out of the corner of his eye, Elliot saw Diaz reach for his tea mug and take a fortifying sip.
“You came in as a Thirty,” Elliot saw as he reviewed the file. A few quick clicks and the computer organized the data into a simple graph, showing Diaz’s obvious and swift improvement in the first year he’d spent at OI. Within days of arrival, he was up to thirty-five; after eight months he was a Forty-two. After that, his increase in neural integration was slow and steady, leading to his current near-fifty.
Those facts made today’s bump to sixty a major event.
“I was training out in California,” Diaz volunteered, “and not getting anywhere. I came to OI for a workshop with Dr. Bach. A cleanse. I had a breakthrough, so … I stayed.”
“I can see that.” Elliot turned the computer so that Diaz could see the graph, too. “You know, as a researcher, I would look at this and be unable to come to any absolute conclusions about the cause of your abrupt improvement at that time. Yes, I can assume that as part of Dr. Bach’s workshop, you embraced his no-sex suggestion. So that was probably different for you. But your diet—while you were here? That was different, too.”
“No, it re
ally wasn’t,” Diaz said.
“We buy locally grown fruits and vegetables,” Elliot corrected him gently. “Your diet was different—assuming your training center in California didn’t ship their produce in from Massachusetts, and I think we can assume that. It’s certainly easy enough to check. Other potential reasons: Our tap water is different. Even if you drink bottled water, you’re still showering and brushing your teeth with the stuff that comes out of our reservoirs. You were at a different longitude and latitude—the sun hit your body at a slightly different angle. Sunrise and sunset were at different times of the day versus what you were used to in California. You probably experienced some form of jet lag upon arrival—that might have kick-started something. Oh yeah, and you were working with a new teacher—that’s the Occam’s Razor reason for your sudden improvement—you know, the best explanation for an event is usually the simplest? Did refraining from sex help you in your work with your new teacher? Yes, probably at first, it may absolutely have helped you to focus and make those initial great strides, but … For most of this time period, Stephen, your gains have been unremarkable. Until now.”
Elliot pulled the computer back toward himself. “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to request a jot scan from the OI mainframe,” he continued. “Check your integration level. See where you are right this moment.”
Diaz nodded, exhaling hard again as he set his mug back on the coaster.
“Here,” Elliot told him. “Come over here. Because we’re in your apartment, and you’ve got privacy shields in place …” Not everyone at OI opted for that feature. Elliot knew for a fact that Mac didn’t give a crap, and actually preferred having standard med scans performed on her while she slept. But Stephen Diaz had had privacy shields installed. “You’ll need to be closer to the computer, and I need access to the keyboard and monitor in order to …” With Diaz next to him, if he moved the computer slightly, the laptop’s sensor could scan Diaz even as Elliot controlled the keyboard.
Of course, it also meant that Diaz needed to sit beside him on the couch.
Diaz slowly did just that as Elliot told him nothing he didn’t already know. “Of course, with this kind of scan, done via your laptop, we’re not able to be all that accurate. We’ll have to go into the lab for precise to-the-decimal-point integration levels, but this will give us a rough sense of where you are, and what happens when we, um, change things up a bit.”
“Change things up?” Diaz repeated as the jot scan was completed, and Elliot squinted at the screen.
“Whoa, okay, you’re already up to fifty-five,” Elliot reported. “Again, roughly. But that’s still a marked increase in your normal …” He turned to look at Diaz. “How are you feeling? Any new abilities—can you belch fire or reanimate your dust bunnies—strike that, you have no dust bunnies.” This was, quite possibly, the cleanest apartment he’d ever been in, in his life.
Diaz managed to laugh—just a little bit—as he shook his head. “Nothing I’ve identified. I mean, the world seems to be a little more in focus—colors are brighter, sounds are sharper.”
“An increase in visual and aural acuity, okay. That’s interesting.” Elliot reset the computer to jot scan Diaz continuously. “How about telepathic abilities? Where are you with those?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you try to read my mind?”
Diaz nodded, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
And Elliot felt the Greater-Than at the edge of his consciousness—felt a slight bump that quickly faded. Another, but it, too, was rapidly gone. On the monitor, Diaz’s integration level dropped like a stone to fifty-four. That was interesting. Perhaps a reaction to failure …?
“No,” Diaz said, frowning as he shook his head. “Sorry. I’m not able to …”
“No worries,” Elliot said. “Keep breathing. You’re doing great. And okay, so now is when we’re going to, you know, change things up. Because before, your telepathy with me was dependent on contact. And that wasn’t the first time I made note of that. Remember what happened in the hall? After Mac plowed into you? I, um, kind of got a brainful when I tried to help you up.”
Diaz closed his eyes again. “You must think that all I do is walk around thinking about …”
Elliot kept his eyes on the screen, watching as Diaz’s integration level rose again to fifty-five. Wasn’t that interesting? But it wasn’t just the scientist in him who wanted to push Diaz outside of his comfort zone. It was the man who filled in Diaz’s unfinished sentence with the words he’d said earlier, half in jest. “Doing me?”
It was that same guy who turned and looked directly at Stephen, with enough heat simmering in his eyes to let him know that such a possibility was more than okay with him.
Because it sure as hell would be.
And sure enough, when Elliot glanced back at the computer, Diaz was up to fifty-six this time. Fascinating. And they hadn’t even touched.
But Diaz didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked extremely grim.
“That is what you think, isn’t it?” he said quietly. “That it’s all about the sex, but … it’s not. I’ve been in love with you, Elliot, for the past seven years.”
FOURTEEN
Mac nose-dived back to fifty pretty freaking fast after leaving Shane in his third-floor suite in the barracks.
She went into her own apartment, just a floor above his, but on the other side of the building, showered, lay down, and with the help of some heavy-duty self-hypnosis, she slipped into body-healing REM sleep.
Elliot had been right about that, anyway—she’d needed it.
But forty minutes was plenty for emergency conditions and she woke up easily, without needing to set an alarm. The computer in her quarters was permanently set on voice recognition—she hated to type whether with her fingers or thumbs, she never invited anyone over, and she’d programmed the thing to recognize her ringtone so that it knew when she was on the phone. Except for those rare phone calls, anything she said while at home was directed to the computer. So even before she got out of bed, before she opened her eyes, she issued the order, “Activate full medical scan. CC the report to Elliot Zerkowski. Vocal confirmation when scan is complete, announce anything outside of personal normal with the exception of integration level. Give me that, regardless.”
She waited, holding still, until the computer responded with, “Scan complete,” and then she got out of bed and rummaged through her underwear drawer, looking for … Damn, all she had left were the wedgie-makers. Served her right for her failure to do her laundry.
She slipped them on along with a sports bra, and found—of course—no clean cargo pants in her closet. That left her with the choice of wearing motorcycle leathers or fishing through the dirty laundry for a pair of BDUs that weren’t too gross. And since the leathers wouldn’t do for what she had in mind …
“Current integration level fifty-point-two-four percent,” the computer informed her.
“Hah!” she said. “See?”
“Command unclear,” the computer chastised her mildly. “Please repeat.”
“CC that report to Dr. Joseph Bach as well,” Mac ordered as she found a pair of olive drabs that managed to not smell, at the bottom of the laundry pile. She pulled them on. “With an e-mail cover to him only, in a small font, reading, quote, Unless otherwise directed will see you at fourteen hundred.”
She put sneakers, instead of boots, on her feet.
Her usual black tank would work just fine—although, she was going to need some kind of sweater or …
She took a clingy red blouse—lightweight, made of a nearly filmy, gossamer fabric that she would never willingly be caught dead wearing—from the back of the closet. She’d bought it for a situation just like this one, and it would, absolutely, do the trick. She tossed it on the back of the kitchen stool where she’d draped her jacket earlier.
“Any response from either Zerkowski or Bach?” she asked her computer as she went into the bathroom.
<
br /> “Negative,” the computer told her.
Good. Even though it had only been a few minutes since the e-mail about her scan had been sent, it was likely that if either Bach or Elliot was awake, alert, and/or near his phone or computer, Mac would have been zapped an immediate WTF response.
Mac looked at herself in the mirror as she splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth, and as she did so, she adjusted, making her breasts even smaller than they normally were. She couldn’t make them completely disappear, but she could certainly look more like a pubescent thirteen-year-old.
She put most of her excess body fat into her arms and shoulders, taking away their definition.
She changed her face, making it rounder, smoother, putting just enough baby fat back into her cheeks, around her eyes, and beneath her chin. She changed her underarms, too—smoothing and tightening her skin—because that was one of the telltale giveaway places where most women failed, when trying to hide their true age. Unless, of course, they had a skilled plastic surgeon—or Mac’s particular talents.
Or unless they were a Destiny addict.
As she put her toothbrush back into the mug that she kept on the sink counter, she adjusted again. Back to her regular body shape and features. It was easy to do so without thinking—it was her own personal reset or default. But then she turned her back on the mirror and adjusted again, this time without looking—just by memory.
And when she turned and faced the mirror, that petulant tweenager gazed back at her again.
And for a half a second, it was weird. It was like she’d somehow traveled back in time to when she was fourteen and her brother Billy and her mom had died, and she’d moved into the shitty apartment that Janice and her son, Tim, shared with Mac’s father. From the get-go, Janice had hated Mac, who’d never quite understood why.
But as Mac now stared into the surly uncommunicativeness of her adolescent eyes, she felt—for the first time—a twinge of sympathy for her father’s third wife, who’d been dealing with financial stresses for years, and whose own son, Tim, was no huge prize. Janice’s relationship with William Mackenzie was going south, too, and then Mac showed up, with a barge-load of attitude.
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