“Pair up.” The command was barked across the room by an SSA officer. Gray and brown uniforms scrambled to pair up with each other. Liza merely stood still, watching the activity around her, scanning the faces of different people. In her mind, she kept catching snippets of conversations being sent from mind to mind.
meet for lunch
hate this guy
don’t think I’ll make it
Liza closed her eyes and tried to block out the sounds.
“Hey.” She opened her eyes to see a brown uniform standing in front of her. He was older, maybe in his 40s. Liza eyed him, and the man sighed. “Everyone has to have a partner.” Liza shrugged and looked around, wanting to mimic what everyone else was doing. For now, the gray uniforms faced the brown uniforms, and the chatter in the room died down as an SSA officer moved forward into the middle of the room.
“You have one hour. Begin.”
Before Liza could form another coherent thought, she was knocked down by a blast. She flew off her feet and slid across the smooth floor. When her vision cleared, she saw her brown uniform standing over her, grinning. Liza scowled up at him.
“You must be new,” he said. Liza growled and pushed herself into a sitting position. As she moved, she felt herself lift off the ground and set roughly back on her feet. The brown uniform stepped closer. Liza growled low in her throat and marched forward,one arm outstretched. Her body erupted with power. She could feel it crawling up and down her skin, intensifying as her anger grew. Her senses became overwhelmed by smells.
The brown uniform stepped backwards, holding up his hands, trying to shield himself from her. She quickened her pace, passed through a weak defense barrier with little effort, and wrapped one hand around his neck. For a moment, she stared into his gray eyes, then released the force of her anger.
Liza hadn’t really thought about what she expected to happen, but what did happen caught the attention of everyone in the room.
As the blast directed into the man’s body, something on the back of his neck exploded, followed by skin and blood. His eyes closed, and Liza released his neck and dropped him to the floor. The room fell silent. Blood seeped from the man’s neck, maring the bright white of the floor tiles. A siren blared, and two men dressed in white uniforms with red crosses on their chests burst into the room and attended to the brown uniform. Liza just stared down at him, unfeeling. Someone grabbed her arm roughly and dragged her out into the hallway and dorn a corridor, until they reached a door. The brown uniform that brought her to the door pulled something from his pocket and shoved it in her hands.
She stood before Lieutenant Morre. He was seated behind his desk, his fingers laced together, staring at her. Liza opened her hands and saw a small piece of metal, coated in blood, and wrapped partially in a white rag. Liza shifted her weight, waiting for him to speak. Morre stared at her, and she tossed the thing onto his desk.
“You are not the most powerful Katho, Miss Strange,” he said, his eyes darkening as he spoke. Liza shrugged. He reached his hand toward the metal chip and picked it up, examining it in the light.
“I never claimed to be. I only just found out about it recently,” she said. But he went on as if he didn’t hear her. He dropped the chip onto the desk.
“I can sense the limits of your power, and it’s mediocre. I’ve killed Kathos in my day who could have destroyed entire planets if they wanted to!” Liza stared at him, unsure of what he expected from her. “If you are not the most powerful, then how did this happen?” He gestured towards the tiny piece of metal in the rag. Liza shrugged.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Morre picked up the metal piece and thrust it at Liza's face.
“How did you manage to blow this implant out of that man’s neck?” he shouted. “It was attached to his spine!” Liza lifted an eyebrow, gazing half-interested in the chip.
“I grabbed his neck and threw my power into him,” she said, ending with another shrug. Morre stared at her, a deep frown still on his face. Finally, he sat back down in his chair and tossed the chip on the rag.
“You’re lucky he’ll live. I don’t tolerate killing of trainees,” he mumbled.
“Maybe someone should have explained the exercise to me, instead of tossing me in blind,” Liza retorted. Morre’s face contorted into a sneer for just a moment, until it melted away into a grin.
“Perhaps,” he said, tapping his fingers together at the tips. Finally, he leaned back into his chair. “Return to your schedule,” he said, and shooed her out of his office.
Back in Liza’s room, Gwen was waiting for her, along with several other Kathos, and a few people in yellow and blue uniforms. Her exotic looking roommate held out a hand for Liza to shake after she entered the room. Gwen stared at her with interest.
“Who are you?” Liza asked the group that gathered around her.
“Some saw you in Test, and the rest of us want to hear the story,” Gwen said. She sat down on the bed and patted the place beside her. Liza sat down, noticing that Gwen’s voice was not as raspy as it was before; it had a more feminine lilt to it now.
“I don’t know why everyone was so interested. Why’d he have a piece of metal in his spine anyway?” Those gathered around her exchanged glances. One of the blue uniforms spoke up.
“You don’t know?” Liza shook her head. “Those implants give people without powers the ability to use our powers. They pair the Fakes against us to test the implants.”
“Fakes? The brown uniforms?” Liza asked. Gwen nodded.
“The SSA calls them ‘synthegens.’ You just set back their research several years,” someone said, and the others laughed. Liza frowned.
“That’s never happened before?” she asked.
“No,” most of the Kathos muttered. “We don’t usually… touch each other.” Liza glanced at Gwen to confirm this, and the other woman nodded.
“The SSA discourages it, actually. They want us to be able to fight over long distances, perhaps even from one planet or colony, attacking a ship or a person who is nearby,” she said, her eyes narrowing. Liza frowned and shrugged her shoulders.
“Like I told Morre, no one explained anything to me. The guy knocked me down, so I got him back,” Liza said. The group around her chuckled, then shifted as the group dissolved and began to leave the room. Liza and Gwen remained, sitting side by side on the lower bunk.
“Keep your guard up,” Gwen said. “They’re not going to want everyone knowing that Kathos can blow a chip out of someone’s body, or there will be a riot or something. You don’t need to be a martyr.” Liza raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t even know what ‘martyr’ means.”
A message passed around that the rest of everyone's schedules would be cancelled for the day, and all trainees would have to attend a mandatory meeting. It was scheduled for after the late meal.
Gwen took Liza to the mess hall, along with the others who filled the halls from their rooms. Over the heads of the others, Liza spotted Cedrick, slouching along beside another male. Instead of gray uniforms, he and the boy beside him wore a pale-yellow color. And the third group in pale blue must be the Tranquils. Liza was not surprised by the dulled faces passing by her, how they all slouched in a uniform way. Some trainees held their heads high, including Gwen. Liza mimicked her. There must be a pecking order here, and she was determined to stay on top. Her goal would always be to escape and find her way back to the Gypsy Star and Vely, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t cause trouble for the SSA while she was there.
As she walked, her ears caught whispers passing between the uniformed psychogens that surged around her on their way to the mess hall. They were talking about her.
“I heard she blew his head apart.”
“She trained on the Sun Stations.”
“She might be more powerful than Morre.”
Liza glanced up at Gwen, who nodded her head. Liza opened her mouth to speak, but Gwen shook her head.
“Let them have
their rumors,” she whispered to Liza, leaning over quite a bit to reach Liza’s ear.
The group passed through an open doorway into the mess hall. Tables with attached benches filled most of the room, while a line formed at the counters where the food was served. Something Liza noticed since she arrived was that most of the people appeared to be well fed, so perhaps they had real food in this place. Hopefully when she returned to The Star, she wouldn’t look like an emaciated waif. Though she’d been proven wrong several times already, she couldn’t stop thinking that she was in a prison, not a training facility.
Gwen prodded her into the line and they waited, slowly inching their way up to the food counters. “Where’d you get picked up?” Gwen asked once they picked up their trays.
“The Cove.”
“The what?”
Liza glanced up at her roommate. “The Cove- where the Galactic Syndicate meets,” she replied. Gwen’s eyebrows rose.
“You’re a pirate?” Gwen asked, clearly astonished. Liza shrugged her shoulders.
“I guess. I was kidnapped from the Moon by one of the crew, so I worked on the ship to keep from being jettisoned. When we went to the Cove for a meeting, I was caught and hauled off here,” Liza explained, picking through unfamiliar plates of food while scowling cafeteria works watched from the other side of the counter.
“That’s amazing,” Gwen said. They passed the end of the counter, and Gwen led the two of them to a table where other Kathos were sitting. There was a general shift, until there was enough room for Liza and Gwen to sit down.
“I’m not sure ‘amazing’ is the word I’d use,” Liza mumbled. “I only just found out about this Katho stuff recently, and by accident. Turns out my sister’s been keeping me in check all these years.” The other Kathos at the table stopped eating and stared at her.
“You’re part of a Dyad?” one of them asked. Liza nodded. Sounds of awe washed over the table.
“Dyads can be very powerful, if you know what you’re doing,” Gwen said, picking through her food. “It’s more than just balancing each other’s powers. You can amplify your powers and work together to accomplish anything. And two people with abilities can’t just work with anyone. These people here try to get us to find our match among the blue uniforms, but the majority of us never find someone we’re compatible with.”
“How do you know so much?” Liza asked her. Gwen smiled sadly.
“I’ve been here for a long time,” she said, then released a long sigh. “A very long time.”
32
After the mealtime was over, all the trainees were herded into a small auditorium, where they were segregated by uniform color. With everyone grouped together, Liza estimated about twenty people in gray colored uniforms and maybe sixty in brown uniforms with the colored stripes on their arms. There were about as many Tranqs as Kathos. Gwen guided Liza to the correct seats for gray uniforms, and from her vantage point, she could see that Augurs greatly outnumbered the other abilities. Those in brown uniforms were evenly divided by colored stripes on their sleeves, either gray or blue, denoting their synthetic abilities.
As she sat down with her fellow Kathos, she noticed a small group of people in black uniforms on the other side of the auditorium. Looking at them gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Gwen,” she whispered, nudging the woman with her elbow. “Who are they?” Gwen turned to look and grimaced.
“Bloodhounds. They don’t often join the rest of the group, as it messes with their senses,” Gwen said. Liza frowned.
“Cedrick mentioned those to me, but he didn’t explain what they do.”
“If they smell someone’s blood, they can find that person, particularly psychos,” Gwen replied. “Most of them end up working for the SSA or as bounty hunters. Some are powerful enough to tell if someone is a Psycho just by smelling their body odor.” Liza shivered, goosebumps prickling her skin. A hazy memory resurfaced in her mind, something about Zimir. She managed to tear her gaze away from the Bloodhounds when Colonel Morre stepped up to the podium below. The lights dimmed and a spotlight appeared on Morre.
“I’m sure the rumors have swept through you all today about an incident during the Kathokinesis testing session today. I want to dispel those rumors before they get out of hand. A trainee’s Implant was violently rejected from his body due to a malfunction. The trainee will be fine, and we have determined that this was a fluke, and the rest of the Synthegens should not worry about their own chips,” Morre said. Liza’s stomach twisted. Beside her, she could hear the other Kathos whispering to each other. “Whatever the rumors you’ve heard thus far are just that-- rumors. Now if you’ll all direct your attention to the screen.”
Liza saw that a holoscreen had appeared over Morre’s head. It flickered once before something began to play on it, accompanied by strange, disjointed music. Before she could acknowledge what she was seeing and hearing, she was forced forward in her seat, until her forehead was touching her knees. Looking through the corner of her eye, she saw that Gwen had pressed her hands over Liza’s ears and was the one forcing her down. Gwen had her own eyes squeezed shut and her teeth were clenched and bared. Now, the only thing Liza could hear was muffled noises.
The ordeal lasted several minutes. Finally, the lights in the auditorium brightened once more, and the sounds stopped. Gwen pulled her hands from Liza’s ears and allowed her to sit up.
“What was that about?” Liza whispered to Gwen, but the woman just shook her head. She pulled Liza to her feet and pushed her forward out of the row of seats.
“Just copy the others,” she hissed in Liza’s ear. She was about to ask what Gwen was talking about, but her question was answered before she could speak.
The other trainees were moving in sync with each other, their eyes forward and glazed. No one was talking. Liza stared ahead and tried to follow the lead of the others, marching down the hall and back to the rooms. Finally, once inside, Gwen closed the door and leaned against it, breathing heavily.
“What the hell was that?” Liza asked, her hands on her hips. Gwen looked up at her.
“Brainwashing,” she replied, her voice low. Liza blinked.
“What?”
“Brainwashing. The music and video are full of subliminal messages, and they’re so powerful that one session can last weeks, or even months. The other Kathos won’t be quite as friendly anymore,” Gwen explained. “I didn’t want you to hear it. That’s why I grabbed you.” Liza dropped her arms to her sides and stared at Gwen, her mouth hanging open. “I was afraid you’d get sucked in during this one, but I think you’ll be fine from now on.”
“I don’t-”
Gwen pushed herself off the door and flew at Liza, her hands clapping on Liza’s shoulders. “I know you are strong. I can feel it. You’ll escape this place, and I don’t need to be an Augur to see that.” Liza smiled, wondering where Gwen’s original brusqueness had disappeared to.
“You’ll escape with me,” Liza said, but Gwen only smiled sadly.
“I doubt that. I’ve been here so long because I won’t give in to their brainwashing tactics. I should have been sent into the field by now. But there’s no way I’ll help the SSA. They’ll probably have me killed any day now.” Liza reached up and gripped Gwen’s shoulder.
“Not gonna happen,” Liza said, feeling a fire well up inside of her. She grinned wickedly. “My sister can’t be the only one of us who stirs up trouble.”
33
Vely fell easily into a routine working with Corbin and Doctor D. On the Moon, she’d never had a job; her parents insisted that she stay in school, like they’d made Liza. Vely flourished in an academic setting, however, so she didn’t mind. But working with the two men, learning about cooking and foods other than soybeans, and studying science and medical care was so much more interesting than anything Vely would have gotten stuck doing on the Moon. She knew that Corbin and Dr. D liked her help as well. They were often complementing her, after all.
> However, these praises didn’t do much to make Vely feel better once she was alone. In the room that had once been inhabited by her sister, Vely fell into her sad thoughts about Liza, Cedrick, and Denny. The brief moment that she and Liza were reunited, something in her mind clicked into place. For a moment, Vely had no longer felt the disjointed, disconnected feeling that had persisted during the adventure of trying to find her sister. And once Liza was taken away, that little piece came out again, and now Vely felt more lost than before. She mused on this, wondering if it had something to do with their dyad.
And Cedrick? Liza made it clear that she didn’t trust Cedrick, though Vely hadn’t gotten a clear answer why.
Denny. His death played in her mind on repeat whenever she closed her eyes.
During the early meal a few days later, Captain rose up from the table and cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention.
“Captain Lezal has summoned us back to the Cove. It has been swept for traitors and SSA, and he has deemed it safe to return to have our ship repaired. He also mentioned upgrading some of our weapons and our FTL drive. While there, we’ll be developing a solid plan for our resistance efforts against the SSA and Walnad. Our discussions were, of course, interrupted by that raid.”
Vely leaned towards Becce. “Does that happen often?” she whispered. Becce shrugged.
“Every so often, I suppose.”
Captain had heard Vely’s question, and he looked grim. “The raid was certainly troublesome, which is why, after we’ve docked, the Cove will be relocating.”
Whispers broke out among the rest of the crew.
“So it’s true?” Corbin asked. “They really can move The Cove?” Captain snorted.
“Of course. The last time they had to move it was thirty years ago.” Captain shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose we got a little complacent in this last location, since the SSA only bothered us every once in a while. But with Walnad funding the SSA now, it is possible that raids will become more frequent and more violent.”
Psychogen (Galactic Syndicate Cycle Book 1) Page 19