by Britt Ringel
Tempered
By Britt Ringel
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2019 by Britt Ringel
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art by Yvonne Less at Art4Artists: http://www.art4artists.com.au/
Contents
Sunthetic Union Territories
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Author’s Acknowledgments
K—My Love, Always
If you had told me back in 2013 when I published my first book, This Corner of the Universe, that I’d be sharing my tenth book with readers just six years later, I wouldn’t have believed you. I’m having a blast telling these stories, and I hope you’re enjoying each new set of characters and the different scifi settings they inhabit. Thank you for reading, and if you have sent me emails offering ideas or have left positive reviews for my books, your support is greatly appreciated.
As with every book, there is another cast of characters helping me put the best product I can out into the world. Two veteran beta readers, Carol and Lawrence, smoothed my rough edges in Tempered and added real insights to Kat’s story. The new covers for the Scorched trilogy are the fine work of Yvonne Less at Art4Artists: http://www.art4artists.com.au/
My wife, Karen, continues to be part editor, marketer, formatter, and so much more. Thank you, K. My love always.
For more information regarding my books, please visit http://www.thiscorneroftheuniverse.com.
Sunthetic Union Territories
Prologue
Masculine hands glided around the swell of her hips, caressing smooth, naked flesh. It was a study in contrast. Rough and calloused hands, bronzed to a deep brown and scarred from years of manual labor, floated to the porcelain waist of the woman straddling him. His thumb stroked a tattoo of a dainty silver spoon before his hands ceased their lingering and began a hungry search lower. Rough thumbs over soft skin, a striking distinction lost in the moment as both lovers moaned in pleasure.
The woman gazed down at him with eyes the color of the desert sky. “I love you, Sadler.” It was the last sentiment spoken as Tabitha Carter reached delicate hands to cradle the man’s face and lowered her parted lips to his.
Chapter 1
Kat’s gasp filled the room and her body jerked upright in the darkness. A muffled groan followed as a sharp jolt rocketed through her injured ribs. She found herself drenched in sweat and panting despite the cold air blowing from the bedroom’s vent. She was in her room at the Pelletier’s Society campus. No, it wasn’t her room. The air flowed upward from the floor instead of descending from the ceiling.
Last night’s events flooded back to her in fragments to form a grim mosaic. The Society’s disposal team at Rat’s alley, her friend’s torn body lying in the water reservoir and Kat’s cold execution of the Society agent who’d killed him. Her encounter with the strange man called Peecho—and Lolz! The psychotic telepath had declared that Kat’s former employer, an organization that stole infants, would never stop hunting its rogue operative to safeguard its secrets.
Kat pushed away the suffocating sensation welling in her chest and focused on those secrets. Nothing. Her memory was still an unfinished painting; a wide, blank canvas with only dabs of color in the corners and no more connected than before she had tumbled into bed with Sadler five hours ago.
She twisted gingerly, shifting her weight on the luxurious mattress. Sadler was asleep, his face angelic, his lips slightly parted in the inky gloom of the room. They were neither thin nor full. A small scar nicked his upper lip near the right corner of his mouth—a souvenir from confronting Porter Mining’s management outside Waytown’s hospital weeks ago. The day Kat had met him. She winced as her mind’s eye recalled her dream, or rather her vision, of Tabitha Carter’s full, scarlet lips pressing against his. A sharp spike of jealousy quickly turned to something even uglier… anger.
Heedless of her sore ribs, Kat was out of the bed in a heartbeat and halfway to the door before realizing she was completely nude. She scanned the floor for her garments. The couple had nearly ripped each other’s clothes off the night before, tossing them to the carpet, lost in urgent passion and a desperate need to quench their desire. Standing in the gloom of predawn, actions that had felt certain now seemed impulsive.
Kat’s dark brown eyes continued their scan until coming to rest on the only dresser in the room. Her hessian pants and oversized shirt lay neatly folded on top of the synthetic wood. She took in the greater meaning behind the attentively placed clothing. Sometime during the night, Sadler got up and carefully folded my clothes so I wouldn’t have to pick them off the floor like a tramp. The anger inside her receded like the tide as more details came into view. On the nightstand next to her side of the bed, a solitary glass of water waited. Moisture collected along the base of the tumbler, creating a circle of sweat beading on the dark table’s surface. In the narrow bed, Sadler’s head rested upon his interlaced hands. His only pillow lay on Kat’s side of the mattress.
The collection of simple, thoughtful gestures warmed her heart and she found herself staring at him. The depth of emotion he evoked despite their brief time together startled her. But was it love? How could she know? I’ve been trying to answer “Who am I?” ever since I woke up in that Shantytown alley. I barely have an answer. How can I possibly know how I feel?
She’d at least made strides in learning her identity over the last forty-eight hours. She was born Kallista Pendleton, stolen from her family as a newborn because a medical test foretold unique abilities, and raised by a soulless organization for the singular purpose of advancing its parent corporation’s agenda. She wasn’t clear whether the Pelletier’s Society served Sunthetic Union Mega-Corp or controlled it.
A highly talented infiltration operative at best, she was afraid to think the worst of who she might have been and what she might have done. She only knew she had escaped the Society’s campus after scorching her own memory and was now hunted by the same people who trained her.
Despite learning these chilling facts, Kat realized the information offered nothing useful to her current predicament.
Maybe I’ve been going at this all wrong, she considered in the dark. Maybe “Who am I?” isn’t the right question. Instead of questioning at all, maybe I should be trying to decide who I am now. The difference was subtle but represented a colossal shift in perspective, away from her past and to her present. She quietly lifted her cl
othes off the dresser and slipped from the room.
A short hallway led from Sadler’s bedroom, past a small bathroom and to a modest kitchen with a half wall dividing it from the living room. After a detour to the bathroom, Kat padded lightly through the kitchen, unsure of her next move.
“Kat?” The voice calling from the living room quickly resolved itself into Maggie Reynolds.
“Maggie. That’s right,” Kat answered. She and Sadler had left the semiconscious doctor on the couch to sleep off the drugs administered by Lolz’s team. “How are you feeling?”
The older, heavyset woman rose stiffly and took unsteady steps to the opposite side of the half wall before coming to rest upon a stool. “Very confused.” She looked around Sadler’s apartment, taking in a tapestry of shades of cream with simple yet tasteful décor. “Where are we?” Dark eyebrows knitted together in concern. “Did we spend the night in Waytown?”
Kat raised a hand. “Yes, but don’t worry. We’re in Sadler’s apartment and nobody else knows we’re here.”
“Kat!” Reynolds spluttered. “We don’t have a visa to spend the night in Waytown. If we’re caught, we’ll be arrested. I’ll lose my day pass!” The doctor’s head swiveled to look around the room with greater urgency, as if corp-sec officers might burst out from the pantry.
Kat retrieved a glass from the same cupboard Sadler used the night before and filled it with water from the tap. She pushed the glass across the counter. “We’ll get you back to Shantytown safely, Maggie. I promise.”
Reynolds lifted the water to dry lips and drank greedily. When finished, she set the empty glass back on the counter. “How did I get here anyway?”
It’s time for total truth. The words echoed in Kat’s mind. “What do you remember?”
Heavy shoulders slumped and the doctor touched a hand to her forehead. “Not much. I left you asleep in the back room of my clinic and went out to the fires with other vendors in the Beggar’s Market…” Her eyebrows creased again as she struggled for recollection. “Uh… a small group of people approached us… Oh! It was the woman in red I warned you about! Then…” Her mouth hung open as if her next words had been pilfered. She massaged her temples. “Pain. I remember pain. It was like…”
Sadler’s rich voice rang out from behind Kat. “Like your mind was put into a blender?”
Reynolds pursed her lips but nodded. “That’s as good a description as any. It really was just a swirl of color and then agony everywhere. After that, I think I was in an aircar. I had to have been. Then… I woke up here.”
Sadler moved behind Kat and gave her a chaste peck on her cheek. He grinned like a schoolboy and greeted her shyly, “Good morning.”
Kat felt her insides twist into delightful knots. Her cheek turned to fire and her eyelids suddenly became far too heavy. She heard herself mumble, “Hi, Sadler.” Instead of forcing her gaze to the object of her affection, she focused on a smirking Reynolds.
“I told you it was best if you took a job in the mine.” Reynolds folded her arms under her ample bosom before turning her attention to Sadler. “Well, since I’m violating half a dozen laws by being here, I may as well get a nice breakfast out of it.” She uncrossed her arms and pushed her bulk off the stool. Walking to the refrigeration unit, she asked, “Do you mind if a couple of Trodden raid your kitchen, Mr. Wess?” She opened the unit and sorted through a stack of packaged food containers. After a quick snort, she added, “As a physician, I’d like to remind you that fresh vegetables are an essential part of a balanced diet.”
Sadler tugged at the collar of his t-shirt. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting company last night.” He circled around Kat and moved for the hallway before coming to an abrupt stop. A quick turn revealed his devilish smile. “Uh, Kat, I’m going to hop into the shower.” He reached out and brushed the fingers of her right hand suggestively.
She felt her body take a step toward him. The thought of a more intimate setting with him was intoxicating and irresistible before her mind changed the subject.
“I love you, Sadler.” Tabitha cradles Sadler’s face. Their lips crush together.
Kat exhaled as if she’d been punched in the gut. The wave of anger she’d felt in the bedroom began to surge anew. If I join Sadler in the shower, will I have visions of their past in there too? I don’t know what triggers my postcognitive ability. The mere thought of seeing Sadler writhing with Tabitha under a spray of water made her want to collapse and explode simultaneously. And it wouldn’t be just a dream… not some sick delusion preying on my insecurities. It will have happened. If I see it, he did it. She withdrew her hand and offered the only excuse she could think of. “I need to talk to Maggie. Catch her up on current events.” Her heart tumbled at Sadler’s flash of disappointment.
“Yeah. Sure. I understand.” A smile replaced the nervous twitching of his lips but the wounded look in his green eyes remained.
Kat watched him retreat, urging herself to follow but failing. A cold realization washed over her. These visions will drive us apart. Or drive me crazy.
Reynolds placed two packages inside the reheater sitting on the counter. “I hope you like scrambled eggs.” The woman’s head swept in a wide arc, searching. “There it is!” She moved quickly toward a coffee machine. “Oh, Kat, have you ever had coffee? My gosh, maybe it’s better if I don’t introduce you to it,” she mused delightedly as practiced fingers worked the machine’s controls and deployed two mugs from a stand on the counter to catch the brew. “Vendors charge as much as three smalls for good coffee in the Beggar’s Market. It’s absolutely criminal.” She rocked on her feet as she waited and then snatched the steaming mugs as soon as the cycle finished. The kindly woman’s face held an enormous grin as she turned to Kat. She offered a mug and waited with eager anticipation. “Caffeine, the only drug I regularly prescribe.”
Kat took the mug and inhaled the familiar aroma. She leaned against the half wall and confessed, “Maggie, I’ve had coffee before. I learned a lot about my past last night while you were unconscious.”
The doctor aborted the run at her own coffee mug and pressed her lips together to form a thin line. She considered Kat carefully. “Perhaps we should have breakfast first. The look on your face tells me I’m not going to like what you have to say.”
Chapter 2
They began their breakfast in silence. Uncomfortable silence. The quiet between them grew until it was a tangible itch crawling over Kat’s skin. She swallowed another bite of eggs before succumbing only halfway through her plate. “I can’t take it anymore, Maggie. You saved my life when I first woke up in Shantytown. You trusted and befriended me when you had no reason to…” She grimaced as tears stung her eyes.
Reynolds placed a reassuring hand over Kat’s and smiled. “Breathe, sweetie. It can’t be as bad as you think.”
“They were going to kill you.” Kat used her free hand to wipe at her eyes. “You almost died because of me, because I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
“Well, now’s your chance. I already told you that I was done being scared.” Reynolds made insistent eye contact with her friend and continued to rub her hand. “Tell me everything and I bet I’ll still be sitting here when you’re finished.”
Kat nodded and blew out an unsteady breath. She opened her mouth but no words came, unsure how to start. Finally, her hand lifted the corner of her shirt, exposing the scar splashed across the right side of her waist. The ugly but healed wound had been festering when Reynolds first examined it weeks ago in her clinic inside the Beggar’s Market. “You were right, Maggie. ‘Piss-poor’ salabrasion caused this. My own. I took a medical dremel and ground out a luminous subdermal wafer.”
Reynolds cringed. “Honey, they insert those things deep!”
“Apparently, I really wanted it out of my body,” Kat drolled.
“What did it say?” Reynolds smirked slightly. “Tell me it was ‘Mother.’”
A corner of Kat’s mouth quirked upward at the joke. “No. It read
P-C-A-T, dash two.”
Reynolds stabbed at her eggs and stuffed them into her mouth. Around her food, she uttered, “Well, that’s weird but still better than Mother.”
“It stood for precognition, apportation. The number two meant I was only the second child ever categorized as precognitive by the Pelletier’s Society.”
“Society?” Reynolds paused before taking a long swig of coffee. “Kat, we talked about this. Pelletier’s Syndrome is a fatal disease that strikes down infants. They test every newborn citizen for it.”
Kat shook her head. “No, it’s not,” she insisted. “That’s a cover story concocted so they can test for and find people who have psionic potential. If they find a psi-positive baby, they confiscate the infant under the guise of Pelletier’s Syndrome and then raise it inside the Society.”
“Kat.” Reynolds’ voice held a deep skepticism. “There is a Pelletier’s disease. There’s documented research on it. I’ve read it.”
“Have you ever examined a baby with Pelletier’s? Ever seen one?”
“Well…” The doctor dipped a shoulder in concession. “It’s incredibly rare, thank God. That doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
“But Lolz told me it was a cover story.” Kat sighed loudly, reluctant to admit that she had not considered the woman might have lied. “Fine, maybe Pelletier’s is a real disease but I’m telling you that Sunthetic Union tests for it to find subjects that have psi-potential.”
Reynolds’ eyes cast to Kat’s waist. “So, you’re telling me that you really are Kallista Pendleton, that poor baby who died from Pelletier’s Syndrome twenty-five years ago? But, you actually didn’t die, you were taken, and you’re, what? Psychic?”
“Psionic.”
Reynolds shook her head slowly and forced a smile. “Honey, there are other, more plausible explanations. I’m not a psychologist but when a person finds out that they aren’t as exceptional as they wish to be, the mind can invent—”
