Except I had this to focus on first.
He was gesturing at his mouth, moving his hand as he talked. he pointed to me, then to one of his underlings. He repeated the three gestures, speech, me, underling.
I wasn’t stupid. I grasped his meaning. I could see others around the circle relaxing.
But they weren’t relaxing entirely. But they were relaxing, tension leaving their shoulders and hands. Weapons, poised at the ready, dropped a fraction.
He was saying he had a means of communicating with me? But it, or he, couldn’t be trusted a hundred percent, judging by my own gut and the reactions of the others.
He sent one of his underlings into my reach. A boy with a shaved head and thick eyebrows.
I felt the underling’s body and powers unfold before me, and I could tell right away that there was something wrong.
My eyes told me one thing, my power told me another.
My eyes told me the man was just beyond the reach of my power, the boy following his orders.
My power told me that whatever the boy looked like, he was a half-foot taller, he had a beard, and he was loaded down with trinkets and tidbits. I recognized him by his power. He made thinkers and tinkers, granted powers.
He had three more, hanging back, watching. No doubt to help facilitate this ruse, whatever it was. To watch for people who could see through it, to watch his back.
He was putting himself in my power. Whatever he’d had his other self, his disguised underling or his clone say, he was making his offer plain and clear to me. He’d let me use his power on myself.
A chance to communicate, to fix something.
I sensed my bugs moving, shifting position without even moving a limb or wing. Before I even grasped what was happening, I was moving. I cut out with my knife, feeling like I was swinging madly into open air.
A girl materialized, shouting or saying something. She’d appeared just a little in front of me, her back initially to me as I continued cutting, the actions jerky and stiff, uncoordinated and continuing long past the moment there was any point. I could feel her body appear in my mind’s eye, and I asserted control over her.
At my command, her hand moved up to her mask, raising it enough that she could press her own knife’s point to the roof of her mouth. One good push, suppressing reflexes, and she’d impale her brain. It was a good place to keep her, keeping any of her allies at bay.
I was left panting, my knife-hand trembling. Someone had moved to get a bead on me with their gun, but boys in white had intervened to block the shot with their bodies. The girl… she’d been materializing, been making herself known, and I’d caught on a second before anyone else had become aware.
The man had stopped in his tracks in front of me. Still in my control.
Was it a trap? Probably. People didn’t like being controlled. He’d have measures in place. Maybe his underlings, maybe a device he wore.
Was the offer still tempting? Yes.
I had him extend his hands, offering them to me.
Sometimes there was a need for making a point. He wanted to manipulate me? He could bleed.
I cut.
The blade of my knife found the flesh of his palms twice in quick succession. The slashes were as wild and frenzied as before. My aim was good, but my control wasn’t. A cut found the back of his forearm, tore deep through cloth, skin and muscle.
My next cut was comparatively feeble, though it hardly mattered. A barrier appeared, a crystalline wall, and the knife bounced off.
All around me, people reacted. My swarm shifted position, and were summarily buried in prisms of that same transparent, floating crystal.
I had that one member of my swarm start singing again and she was shot an instant later, electricity arcing around her armor as she collapsed, unconscious.
I had my bugs, but-
I stopped. The reactions, the calls of alarm and the occasional shriek, they extended beyond the ring of people that surrounded me.
It wasn’t right. The chaos beyond this one group, it should have left people blind to what was going on here. They shouldn’t have been able to turn their backs on the others.
I was- it was parsing wrong. Didn’t connect.
In that riot, that mob, there was no blood. The girl I’d cut wasn’t bleeding, the people in the crowd weren’t dying… only the hands and arm, held out for the knife to slash, were weeping with blood, only the older injuries, from a short time ago.
People wrapped their arms around one another, but bones weren’t broken, limbs weren’t disjointed. The shouting and screaming wasn’t directed at anyone in particular, nor were the powers that were actively being thrown around. There were tears, but those same people were smiling.
I hadn’t counted on having to deal with this many people.
Too many with powers I wasn’t familiar with. The ones closest to me? The ones I’d just been controlling? I had a grip on them. But the mob beyond was something else.
I felt a moment of trepidation.
My senses… I was more disabled than I’d thought. I couldn’t make sense of what was going on beyond my swarm, could barely make sense of what was happening here.
I moved, relying on two individuals to support me where my one leg wasn’t working properly. Not that the other was in great shape. Two individuals, the clairvoyant walking behind, hand strapped to my shoulder-
I saw the forcefield woman in the crowd. Taller than most, a curved, crystalline horn on her forehead.
The people surrounding my swarm were working to get back as I approached, but the press of bodies only had a limited amount of give.
A forcefield materialized just in front of me as my power reached the very front of the crowd. I turned the newest additions to my swarm around, focusing them on the people who were looking to stop me.
My bugs got in her eyes, blocking her sight, crawled into her ears.
I felt as she bisected them with forcefields. I was already using the device on my back to move over the forcefield, getting a boost from the two who’d been supporting me to heave the clairvoyant up with me.
He came down on top of me, and we landed hard, but we landed on the opposite side of the forcefield. Close enough, taking advantage of the woman’s momentary blindness.
I lowered forcefields and set them in circles around me before pushing out. Separating the crowd to give myself room to maneuver.
I needed to escape, I needed time and resources to analyze what I was up against, frame it all. I’d stabilized, I’d stopped degrading, now I could start building- rebuilding my knowledge base. Put everything into a context that I could grasp, with my mind working in a different way, with different priorities.
Then I could take control. Then I could eliminate the problematic elements.
Then everything would be peaceful.
A mission. I functioned best with a mission. My thoughts and actions had always processed best when I had a mission, a task.
I moved my swarm. Half of the original sixteen, they’d serve as bodyguards, protection, tools…
I saw faces in the crowd. Young women riding a monster, blocking my path. More than any of the others, they were strangers in the manner I’d identified the rest of the crowd before. People I had some connection to, all the more strange because of the lack of recognition.
People kept getting in my fucking way.
I could have gone through, but I felt a moment’s trepidation. The strangeness, the strength of the connection. They were enemies, friends, something, but they held an importance.
I couldn’t trivialize that. Couldn’t dismiss them. If they were that important, they couldn’t be weak, and that meant they were potential threats.
She had a hand extended. Something dangled from one hand. A short chain, a black tube with a red button.
That trepidation got worse. I couldn’t put my finger on why.
The uneasiness reached a peak. I gave them one final look, watching for any trouble, then took to the
air, crouching on a forcefield. The members of my swarm followed, flying around any barriers I erected. A man in blue and white who zig-zagged around anything I put up. A regal woman in blue.
Too many unknowns.
I changed my course, and I saw the woman with countless wings standing, the wings spreading, a weapon at her side.
My pursuers were backing off, keeping a certain distance or circling around, giving her a wide berth. Was this a way through? If I leveraged enough strength, could I force my way past her?
I was scared, but it wasn’t the usual kind of fear. Almost the opposite. I was used to being able to hold things together, with only the outward signs. To channel fear into concrete purpose. This was different, the outward signs limited at best, the underlying fear simultaneously affecting me more. Like so many things, it felt alien, like I wasn’t certain of what I was doing, and it threatened to throw me off course.
That fear reached a crescendo as I closed the distance.
She aimed the little gun, and I changed course at the last second.
There was a small army after me now. Some were in the lead, and I made a point of blocking them, stalling with forcefields and directing ranged fire their way. The man in blue and white was chief among them, as was the blue woman in a regal costume.
More were moving to follow. Enemies from every corner.
Not a surprise. To be expected.
A man, flying with great skeletal bat wings, a kind of lace or filigree of bone stretched between segments, rose into the air to intercept me.
No, to intercept a member of my swarm.
My swarm worked to cut him off, but he was agile, persistent. As massive and bulky as those wings seemed, they shapeshifted in the process of each flap, the lattice of bone opening up to let air pass through, then closing when he wanted the air resistance to bear himself higher, or to one side.
In the end, a forcefield appeared through one wing, and he dropped a solid thirty feet before he managed to catch himself. It gave me a window of opportunity.
The path of least resistance… There was another space with only one person in the way. A gap in the defensive line.
It was a young girl that was barring my path. Her blond hair stirred in the wind of this upper atmosphere, and her great green-black costume seemed more decorative than anything else, with ribbons and loops of cloth flowing in a manner that made her look like a living work of art.
She wasn’t living art, though. As remote as my understanding of humans was, I could understand what her tears meant. There was no smile accompanying them.
Others had stopped, a distance away. Not wanting to interfere, even afraid.
She met my eyes, and there was something in her expression that I couldn’t quite place.
The man in white and blue was calling out, not orders, but something in that vein. Urging.
I looked at the blond girl, and I saw three shadows form around her.
My own swarm gathered, rising behind me on the floating shards of crystal. Some crouching, some standing, others sitting with legs dangling, as they preferred, running on autopilot.
She approached me, and I held her gaze.
She passed into my range, and -again- I felt the connection deviate. I maintained my awareness of her and her spirits, but my control over her slipped to one of her shadows instead. A shadow of a robed man with a blindfold and nails through his hands, wrists and upper arms.
The other two – I recognized their powers. A man with access to many powers at once, a fluctuating, flexible thing, and an thin, plain looking man with no costume, head hanging, with the power to make doorways.
She closed the distance, and her hand touched my cheek. I flinched away.
I had my knife. If I couldn’t control her-
She bowed, stepping away.
I felt a moment’s fear. Except ‘fear’ was the wrong word. The symptoms were right, if muted, the shakiness, the feeling in my gut, my thoughts being more fractured, a touch of queasiness. But it didn’t fit the scene, this meeting.
Why would I be afraid?
No, it was something else, and I was realizing what it was.
I was familiar with my power acting of its own volition. This was something in that vein. My power had a firmer grip on the whole of me, and other things were on shakier ground, acting the way they pleased. Feelings. My body.
Passenger.
No, why would it care about any of this? Why would it care about the winged woman? The two individuals who’d been riding the monster?
But it was the closest feeling I could manage.
She spoke, and I couldn’t understand the words.
When she saw that, she smiled a little, glancing over my swarm.
A doorway opened beside her. She floated away a touch, as if inviting me through.
I hesitated, at first, because of suspicion. I had worlds filled with enemies, worlds I needed to bring under my thumb if I was going to be able to relax for even a moment.
I forced the worries aside.
I felt another stab of that not-fear sensation. That balking on the part of my passenger.
The others around us were moving closer. There were angry shouts from some corners. There was a degree of attachment between some of them and my swarm. I raised forcefields. The man in white and blue promptly shattered them with a massive laser.
We were left staring at one another. I couldn’t move forward, couldn’t move back.
Contradictions, opposing forces. Some threatening me to stay, others threatening me if I stayed. Contradictions in equal measure inside me. That odd dissonance.
I stared at the portal. A point of no return. I could pass through, and I’d be able to take steps to get control, to carry out my plan.
-Again, that dissonance.
It was uncomfortable, distracting. I wanted to be able to pursue my goals unmolested.
I started to move towards the portal, and again I felt the trepidation, halting me, threatening to take my control altogether.
I closed my eyes, and despite every instinct telling me to do the opposite, I relaxed.
Forgetting about the mission, about the goal.
I could feel the shakiness returning, the unsteadiness.
W-wwha- ddo y-y-you wwwant?
My control was slipping, the others descending as the forcefields lost altitude. The forcefield woman nearly slipped out of my range altogether.
I reasserted control.
Again, I tried to let my passenger take control, to set things on autopilot.
Again, the others began to descend. This time, the forcefield woman remained where she was.
I let things continue, watched as they drifted away, back to the ground. The others gathered around me, the man with the blue and white costume, the man with bone wings, they backed off a little. I could see the latent aggression dissipating.
Some were still angry, still looking for revenge. The woman in blue seemed more angry than protective, furious at me, silent as she was. But she had less backup now.
It was a good move, for the short term. A puzzling one, but a good move.
I’d have a harder time taking control of things in the long term, but I was okay with survival.
I watched the individual members of the swarm touch ground. The girl with healing powers had been placed deliberately next to a living pool of flesh with multiple heads of golden hair. The healer’s hands were covering her face, but she didn’t step away.
Her hands slowly lowered, and she laid her eyes on the monster, which was actively, ineffectually reaching out for her.
Others were placed indiscriminately in the crowd below me. My swarm, returned to the place they came from.
I turned to go, and there was far less resistance.
The autopilot took control of the clairvoyant’s focus. It turned my attention to faces. A blond girl. A girl with brown-red hair. The girl with the horned mask that I’d attacked so ineffectually with the knife.
Others. A
red haired girl in another world, shouting to people as she ordered them through a building project, a girl who was standing outside in the rain, in another world, kids peering through the window behind her.
Before it could go any further, I wrested control for myself. Easier. It was like it was weaker with every set of actions.
I passed through the threshold.
Again, that discomfort.
This would be a learning process, adjusting, adapting. I was learning what it wanted.
It kept wanting sacrifices in the short term. Responding to its desires had left me feeling more secure, made the ensuing resistance weaker. The implicit promise was that acquiescing would be rewarded with a surer footing. Footing that I could use. There were doors open to every world. If I could take time to heal, to build my strength. Eating well, resting… I could move on, carry out my plan.
The question was whether the cost was too high.
It was a gamble. I was risking myself, setting myself back. People would come after me.
But it meant more control, and it all came down to control in the end.
I let the clairvoyant step through the portal, onto the shard I’d just abandoned. The forcefield woman held on to him, steadying him.
I broke contact.
The last thing I saw before I passed out was the door closing.
■
I opened my eyes. The moon was too bright, the stars like little shards of glass piercing my eyes. When I sat up, I felt muscles in my neck, back and shoulders seizing up, cramping. The world swayed around me like I was on a boat, even though I was on a hill in the middle of a forest.
I was hungry. It had been a day, maybe two.
I heard the cocking of a gun.
My eyes shut.
Long seconds passed. I took the time to get my bearings, to catch my breath and let the world stop rocking around me.
When minutes had passed and things were bearable, I turned to give my attacker a sidelong glance.
Twenty feet away, sitting on a rock with a little messenger bag beside her, was a woman in a white dress shirt and suit pants. Her gun was in hand, a little revolver, resting on her knee, her suit jacket draped over that same knee.
Strangely, I felt none of that odd fear from my passenger. Just the opposite, if anything.
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