by K. A. Excell
CRYSTAL
CHOICE
The Second Novel in the Projector War Saga
Other books by K. A. Excell
Crystal Choice
Crystal Truth
CRYSTAL
CHOICE
The Second Novel in the Projector War Saga
K. A. Excell
CRYSTAL choice
Copyright © 2020 Katerina Ann Excell
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-952856-03-7 (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-952856-04-4 (Hardcover)
LCCN: 2020911950
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Front cover image by Jesh Art Studios.
First printing edition 2020.
Katerina Ann Excell
Hurricane, UT
www.KAExcell.com
For Angie, who helped me keep going.
Chapter One
I strode down the hallway of Martial Academy fast enough that Eugene Berry would have no-doubt given me detention had he been around. It wouldn’t be the first time. I could still see his lips curled into a smirk as he formed my name.
“Crystal Farina. Detention—again.”
After that incident, I’d taken extra care to use my new Psionic abilities to make sure that neither Berry nor any other Prefects had the satisfaction of giving me detention. Of course, detention wouldn’t change a thing. I was already going to be here all weekend for a team training exercise that started on Friday. They’d been happening more and more often—which was probably good, given how tensions were rising. The Agency and the Company were at each other’s throats. I was still so junior that Ms. King only smiled and told me not to worry when I asked her about it, but I couldn’t ignore the way she hurried off to meetings, or the way she scanned us when she thought we weren’t looking. Something was afoot, and she was worried we wouldn’t be ready in time.
I arrived outside Mr. West’s old Krav Maga classroom—it was a semester after his death, and they still hadn’t taken his name off the door—and took a breath. Four minutes late. I opened the door and slipped into line.
“Detention, Ms. Farina,” Ms. King said from the head of the class.
Vera Hunt, the Prefect who was leading the beginning of class stretches, shook her head with exasperated amusement. Her surface thoughts drifted outside her mind like colorful, lazy clouds. If this keeps up, Crystal will be here two weeks after everyone else gets out for the end of the year.
I concealed a grin. “Yes, Ms. King.”
I changed positions with the rest of the class. It was hard to believe that these stretches had once left me in a puddle on the floor. Now they were second nature. Most of it was Neal Black’s training—he’d pushed me beyond my limits, watched me puke, then told me to get off the ground and try it again. If not for that, I probably wouldn’t have survived a full semester here; let alone a full semester with secret meetings, trainings, and missions on top of my full school load. The only reason I had any free time to myself was because my blue lines let me keep up in academic classes. All the time that was supposed to be for homework had turned into design time for my inventions in R&D. Ms. King had appropriated both my Fridays and Saturdays to go over everything I should have learned before I was assigned to Tactical Team 47, which meant that the only day I had to myself was Sunday, when I finally got to go home.
It wasn’t all bad. I could almost hold my own in hand-to-hand against Black, and the newer engineers in R&D spent so much time ogling at my work that it was easy to forget that ninety-eight percent of them had college degrees. Already, I was consulting with a team tasked with creating a new line of energy weapons equipped with limiters that restricted the electrical pulse—turning the device into a stunner. The designs were still preliminary, but working with that team had given me the idea to combine some of their basic membrane technology with my pulser to create a sort of energy shielding module. It was the opposite of an energy weapon—and much more my speed. Unfortunately, processing space was at a premium, so I’d only just started on the calculations. There was no sense in adding a processing-headache to the mix when I was only getting four hours of sleep a night.
I jotted down a quick mental note as another idea occurred to me. Perhaps I could persuade Ms. King to give me extra credit for my new developments in R&D. I couldn’t ask now—applying for extra credit immediately after getting detention would probably make me lose points in class because it wasn’t strategic. Of course, if I could engineer a situation to apply more of the things I’d learned in Social History while I asked about it, then I might get double the extra credit. Ms. King liked it when we tried to incorporate the manipulation techniques into our everyday lives.
I watched Ms. King out of the corner of my vision as she paced up and down the rows of students with a critical gaze. It was amazing how far she’d helped me come. I’d shown up on Martial Academy’s doorstep terrified, clueless, and with abilities I didn’t understand. Now, I was one of five projector telepaths on base, and fully capable of protecting myself.
She wasn’t the only one who had helped me through my first semester. Thanks to Vera Hunt, memories of Zach were few and far between. I was more in control of myself than I’d ever been. I was tired, too, but it was a wonderful kind of tired.
I concealed a yawn as Hunt finished leading the stretches and dismissed us to grab a drink of water.
Perhaps I could ask them to delay the next briefing a bit. Fifteen extra minutes of sleep would go a long way—but it would also mean I was late to class more often. Today there had been a twenty minute buffer zone between when the briefing was supposed to end, and when class was supposed to start. Tolden hadn’t let us go until three minutes before I was supposed to be in class. Even running, I had only made the rotunda before the gong rang.
Suddenly, Hunt stiffened. Her surface thoughts pulled back behind her walls, until they were well guarded enough that it would take some effort to break through.
“Uh, Ma’am?” she hurried up to Ms. King. Their voices were low enough that only someone like Tabitha Smith—Tac 47’s Auditory Analyst—would have been able to hear them. I merely detailed a few of my blue lines to watch their faces and translate what they were saying into text I could read off of my vision. That was one skill I’d developed in the Social History class. As long as I could see their faces, I could read their lips.
“Something just came up. I need to go.” Hunt said.
Ms. King’s eyes narrowed. “Fine.”
Hunt hurried out.
Ms. King paired everyone up and demonstrated the first drill. Soon we were all breathing hard again. As I worked, I wondered what Hunt had left to do. She had remarkable control over her surface thoughts, to be able to shield them like that. While her walls weren’t much of an obstacle for someone with my projection strength, it was impolite to drill inside someone’s mind. Ms. King had been quite clear on that fact.
I wondered, for a moment, if Hunt knew about the Agency. She’d been at Martial Academy for four years, and she was observant. She had to have noticed something—though she might not have pursued it. I’d never seen her around the Agency
’s compound, and no one in Social History had ever mentioned her.
I pulled up an image of Hunt handing Mr. West a letter on the first day of school, last semester. Could she be working with the Company? That was one explanation, but it could have just as easily been a note about something else. She was a Prefect, after all. There were plenty of things non-Company related that could have been in that note. Short of asking, I really had no way to know.
The way Ms. King had let her go without asking any questions—verbal questions, anyway—made it seem like Hunt was working with the Agency but, if that was the case, why hadn’t I heard about it? She’d been helping Ms. King teach Mr. West’s class for a few weeks and, before that, she’d been teaching Ms. King’s advanced classes. That meant Ms. King had to trust her, right? If Hunt was working for the Company, why would Ms. King be using her as an assistant teacher?
Or, maybe what Hunt was doing to help Ms. King didn’t require much trust. It wasn’t like Advanced Krav Maga was Social History, the class Ms. King used to vet new Agency recruits. Ms. King had mentioned something before about keeping enemies in sight and busy so they didn’t do anything unexpected. This could be one of those cases.
::Farina, keep your mind on the fight,:: Ms. King snapped. I jerked my thoughts back to the present and managed to keep moving with the lines weaving around my vision. We were non-contact sparring, which didn’t require much attention. I could tell my partner’s intentions before he moved, so there was plenty of time to move out of the way and counterstrike. Unfortunately, Ms. King was the only person I’d met with a high enough PS rating to read my mind. Her touch was gentle, so I didn’t usually notice it until she projected something to me.
::You can’t always count on reading your opponent’s mind to mean you are fast enough.::
She called a halt and moved partners around so I was paired with Briggs. He was with Mr. Mccoy’s military group—recruited almost the moment he set foot on campus. He was good, but still not nearly as fast as Houston had been. When I was focused, keeping pace with him was easy. When I was distracted, I started lagging behind, which was no-doubt Ms. King’s intention. I couldn’t be sure if she knew that the two of us were friends. We’d met on my first day of school at Martial Academy when he and Tabitha Smith invited me to sit with them at lunch. Regardless, Briggs didn’t slow down for anyone; not even a friend.
I refocused on Briggs, and made note of how he moved. His strength and speed were improving at a fantastic pace—his strength slightly more than his speed. It was probably due to all his extra weekend assignments with the military. I wasn’t sure what sort of ringer Mr. Mccoy was putting his class through, but it must have been similar to what Black was doing with me. I was glad, though. Briggs was one of my friends here. He and Tabitha Smith were the first people to reach out and be friendly with me.
Five minutes before the gong rang, Ms. King froze. The door opened to show a larger woman with black hair like mine, cut at her chin. She scanned the room as she stepped inside with Hunt on her heels. Hunt’s eyes were wider than usual, and a touch of anxiety hovered outside her walls. She took a deep breath as she came all the way into the room, and the anxiety disappeared. She was as calm and collected as ever.
I signalled to Briggs to stop the exercise and watched the newcomer carefully. Around me, the other drills slowed to a halt. The newcomer was scanning the room, so I took the opportunity to brush up against her mind. My eyes widened as I realized what she was doing—sorting us into groups. Ms. King and I went into the Beta-One category, while Hunt, and some of the less timid newbies, went into the Alpha-Niner category. I took note of those with a frown. If this woman knew about Neurodivergents, she would know that Ms. King, at least, was a Projector Telepath. Why sort her people into groups without taking precautions to shield her surface thoughts?
I examined her walls. They wouldn’t be difficult to get through. The frequency shifted a lot, but the range was relatively small, and even the highest frequencies were set at half my capacity. If this newcomer was a telepath, I would eat my tactical suit.
She finished her inventory, then wrenched those thoughts back inside her walls. Her eyes locked on Ms. King, and she began to advance. Her thoughts whipped into a frenzy of accusation and hurt, only partially covered by a weak attempt at oozing false congeniality. She stopped inside Ms. King’s personal space, and looked up at her with bared teeth. “I understand you’ve been substituting my class while I made arrangements to relocate here. Your services are no longer required.”
Ms. King nodded and draped the room in soothing thoughts to try and calm the woman down, but it only enraged the storm of half-formed accusations whipping around the new teacher’s mind.
Ms. King gestured to the students watching all around them. “Of course, anytime. I have a capable student instructor, so I would be more than happy to continue to assist you while you’re settling in.”
I tried to dive inside the new teacher’s surface thoughts to see if I could find a single coherent word inside the storm, but the hatred clawed at my mind. These weren’t just surface thoughts, these were raw emotions with such a low frequency that the newcomer couldn’t shield them if she tried. Stepping inside would be like standing in front of a speeding semi truck.
The newcomer’s eyes narrowed. “No, that won’t be necessary. I understand that Ms. Hunt is here as my teacher aide today. Plus, it would be far below your pay grade, don’t you think?”
Pay grade? It was a well known fact inside the Agency—and, apparently the Company, too—that Ms. King was the second most powerful person in the Agency’s hierarchy. The only one with more clout was Ms. Green, the Agency’s Director and the Administrator of Martial Academy. I concealed a smile. Both of them knew who the other worked for. If there hadn’t been students here, this encounter might have left them both with some nasty bruises. Then I caught images drifting from the new teacher’s thoughts and revised my estimation. If this had happened anywhere but this classroom, then one of them would be dead.
::Yes, my thoughts as well,:: Ms. King projected to me. ::You may not want to spend any time alone with her until she learns to control her hate. She is a powerful telekinetic—much more powerful than Houston—and she would be rated as far more dangerous if our analysts knew she was incapable of controlling herself. Once I’ve made my report, her danger rating will be revised.::
I nodded and Ms. King excused herself—leaving the rest of us with the new teacher, who introduced herself as Ms. Graff.
The rest of the week, classes with Elaine Graff were...interesting. She was aware that I could read her mind and solved the problem by making me her personal go-for. If I wasn’t in the room, I couldn’t cause problems for her and the Company. I couldn’t tell whether she was amused at that fact, or exasperated by it. She could only come up with so many errands before what she was trying to do became obvious. When she couldn’t find an excuse to keep me out of the room, she paired me with Hunt. I soon learned that Vera Hunt was a moderately powerful telekinetic—with instructions to use her abilities to compensate for mine. When I tried to put my brain on autopilot and direct my attention elsewhere, I ended up with my face on the mat and bruised ribs. She was always careful to make sure I didn’t actually get hurt, but she didn’t feel badly about it either. Her surface thoughts revealed that she really was doing her best to help me with my combat skills. As part of the Agency, I was going to need them.
I couldn’t help but wonder how long Hunt had known I was working for the Agency. Would she have helped me those first few days of school if she had known I would be recruited by Ms. King? She had certainly become more distant after I was recruited. I had attributed it to the fact that I knew my way around the school now. I didn’t need her help to figure out where I was supposed to go, but what if it was because she couldn’t risk me accidentally reading her mind? She didn’t seem to be that concerned about it while we were sparring, though. From
what I could tell, she was genuinely focused on helping me improve my combat skills—and that meant knocking me on my butt every opportunity she could get.
I didn’t dare complain. Ms. King would only use it as an illustration of what happened when I didn’t keep my mind on the fight. After all, these were the people I had to learn to police. If a junior telekinetic could cause this many problems, what would happen when I did battle with an experienced one? What would happen when I came against a telepath more powerful than I was?
It was a possibility I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on. After all, I wasn’t on Tactical Team 47 as a Hitter. My job was to play comms, analyze data, and use my projection abilities to convince people to surrender without violence. Hurting people still turned my stomach.
At the end of the week, I was bruised, exhausted, and frustrated. This was the teacher the Company had sent to replace Earl West?
An image of his face—carefully blank as always—flashed through my head. He had worked for the Company, so the rest of my team dismissed his death as a tragic occurrence and left it at that. Every time I walked through Martial Academy’s halls, I couldn’t help but miss him. He had come to mean a lot to me in a short amount of time. While he hadn’t always been forthcoming with information, he had always given sound advice. I missed that. Now he was being replaced by this naturally angry woman determined to keep me bruised on the mat or out of the room. She wasn’t teaching, she was punishing.
Chapter two
I didn’t say much during dinner with Briggs and Smith—which wasn’t that strange. Smith kept up enough conversation to cover and, by the end of the meal, I had decided to skip tonight’s Tournament. I’d gone every other day that week, which meant I could afford to miss. Maybe I would be able to catch up on some of my calculations—or maybe even some sleep. By the time the bell signalling our twenty minutes of homework rang, I had mustered some energy. Every bone in my body still groaned when I shifted, but I was going to have a whole hour to myself tonight, and that had to count for something.
