Karl reached out gingerly and took the little girl’s hand. She let him. “You are special, Tenessa. Everyone is.”
The girl’s eyes turned black. The red rimming them compounded until it looked like blood. Dagger-sharp canines grew from her gums, protruding from her mouth and her fingernails lengthened and became sharp. “NO ONE IS SPECIAL WE’RE ALL EQUAL!” Her voice sounded like a shrieking demon, both booming and shrill at the same time. The force of it knocked Karl onto his butt. It did the same thing to Marcus beside him.
The girl turned her back on them, still wailing in a way that turned Karl’s spine cold. As soon as she turned, Karl leaned toward Marcus. “I don’t think I gave the right answer. Any suggestions?”
Marcus’s eyes filled his face, and he swallowed. “Not a one.”
Karl sighed. The sudden change had made his heart pound, but he didn’t truly fear her. This was Tenessa. He’d spent days with her.
“Tenessa, let me through the door.”
The demon-child whirled him again, and Karl stepped back from her viciously feral gaze.
“That’s not our designation,” she snarled.
“Yes, it is,” Karl said firmly. “It’s your name. The only one we know you by. It must be used. You and I must communicate, and to do so, we must have something to call each other by. Logic dictates I must use the name, and you must respond to it.”
The child blinked warily at him. For a wonder, she didn’t argue. Or use the horrible demon voice again. Logic. Even the adult Tenessa responded best to logic. Because she couldn’t argue with it.
“Tenessa,” he said. “We have to go on a vital mission. This mission will help propagate the human species. That’s something you want, isn’t it?”
The child blinked, saying nothing. Karl went on.
“In order to complete this mission, and make sure the human race doesn’t become extinct, I have to get through this door. Logic dictates you must let me through.”
A gamble, to be sure. He wasn’t telling her the whole truth and part of him felt sure it wouldn’t work. Tenessa knew the whole truth, after all, and wasn’t this an embodiment of her? The girl’s eyes had regained some of their pigment, the red rims faded considerably.
The child glanced uncertainly at the door, then back to Karl. “It is forbidden.”
Karl nodded. “It is. But sometimes, we have to do forbidden things.”
“We must never do what is forbidden.” Her voice rose and some of the red came back.
Karl put his hands up. “Sometimes, Tenessa, to appreciate why something is forbidden, we must experience it. If you want humanity to survive, you must let me in. Once the mission is finished, I’ll leave again, and you will understand better why the coll—why the Union forbids such things. You’ll never have to let anything forbidden in again. For now, you must put the survival of the human race above the rules. Logic demands it.”
She still seemed uncertain. Turning dark, suspicious eyes on Marcus, she asked, “I must let both of you pass to propagate the species?”
“No,” Marcus said stepping forward. “Just him. And you don’t have to let him in completely. You need only allow him access to the things having to do with the mission. Other things, more private things, you don’t have to share.”
Karl nodded when the girl shifted her gaze to him.
“But you are not everywhere. I will have no one to instruct me on what to hold back. How will I know?”
Karl studied the girl. Tenessa’s mind. Tenessa’s defense mechanisms. “You will have to choose what to hold back. You must show me everything relevant to the mission. Other than that, what you allow me to access is entirely up to you.”
The girl frowned. “After the mission, you will leave?”
“I will,” Karl nodded, not taking his eyes from the girl’s face.
“And it will help us survive?”
“Yes,” Marcus answered.
The girl heaved a deep breath. “You may go through.”
She stepped to one side and indicated the door.
Karl turned to Marcus. “What happens when I go through?”
“Nothing, I don’t think,” Marcus said. “Us being here is about the wall she put up, not the link itself. Once she lets you in, the link will be complete. It’s something you feel, not something you see or experience in this way.” He indicated the room. “Just go through, and we’ll be done.”
Karl nodded and stepped up to the door. He gazed down at the young girl beside him. She stared up, a mixture of innocence and wisdom beyond the years of her young physical form. Something about her struck him as both compelling and disturbing. Taking a deep breath, Karl pushed through the door.
Karl opened his eyes in Tenessa’s quarters at Interchron. He still held Tenessa’s hand in one of his and clutched the conduit stone with the other. Marcus still gripped Karl’s forearm. It felt like he and Marcus had spent fifteen or twenty minutes in the gray room, but he immediately knew it was closer to a millisecond. He’d only just finished joining the two tethers. He saw the last few strands of energy coming together.
The instant they did, Tenessa bounded to her feet, screaming.
Karl leapt to his feet and grabbed her upper arms. She threw her weight back and forth, trying to escape. Poor Marcus received a much ruder awakening. At least Karl had been looking at Tenessa; saw the reaction coming. Marcus hadn’t opened his eyes yet. When Tenessa screamed, they burst open in alarm. He barely kept from falling backward off his chair.
Marcus took in the situation quickly, though, and rose to help Karl hold Tenessa, who still screamed and thrashed. The two men standing guard outside Tenessa’s door burst in at the commotion.
“Get me a sedative,” Marcus commanded. “Now.” The taller of the two men hurried from the room. The other stepped forward, looking like he wanted to help, but didn’t know how.
“Let’s try to lay her down,” Marcus said.
Karl nodded. Each of them took one of her arms and put a hand under one of her knees. Tenessa was not a heavy woman, yet she thrashed so violently, they had difficulty holding onto her. They lowered her to the ground, but she kicked and screamed there as well.
The tall man reappeared with a syringe. Marcus took it and expertly applied it to Tenessa’s arm. She thrashed for three more seconds before she began to calm. Another ten brought stillness and a glaze to her eyes. Her head rolled heavily to the side and her eyes glared up accusingly at Karl. “Get out of our mind,” she breathed hoarsely.
“I can’t, Tenessa,” Karl said softly. “The link has been established. I will sever it after the mission is completed.”
She jerked her gaze away from him, her eyes on the ceiling, unfocused. “Don’t want…the Separatist…in our mind. Will change us…” she trailed off as her eyes rolled back in her head.
“Only you can do that, Tenessa,” Karl said. “You, and the truth.”
Karl felt a hum of energy and realized Marcus had performed a medical scan. He glanced up to find Marcus looking as disturbed as Karl felt. “What is it?” Karl asked. “Is she okay?”
“Fine,” Marcus said. “I wanted to make sure she didn’t hurt herself, flailing around. She didn’t. Why don’t we move her to the bed and let her sleep it off?”
Karl nodded. Without her resistance, the two of them carried her to the bed with ease. Karl covered her with a blanket.
He stood looking down at her, trying to interpret what he felt. He sensed her emotions, but they were more like vibrations of energy than actual emotions. He could tell the source of her emotional energy lay outside himself. His emotions emanated from his chest or his gut. Hers didn’t. Like warmth emanating from a fire, he felt her, outside of him. Her emotions gave off considerably more heat than he’d expected.
“You all right?” Marcus asked.
Karl nodded absently. “It’s…disconcerting.”
“How so?”
Karl hesitated. “Is Maggie…way more emotional through the link than she sho
ws outwardly?”
Marcus considered a moment before shaking his head. “Not really. I mean, if she’s hurt or angry and is trying to hide it, that’s when I notice the most contrast. Maggie doesn’t usually hide her feelings. It was about what I expected.”
Karl frowned. He hadn’t expected Tenessa to be like Maggie, but even so.
“I’m sure it will be different with Tenessa,” Marcus said quickly, seeing Karl’s face. “She sees you as an enemy, so you’re bound to feel some negativity from her. Didn’t you expect outright hatred?”
“Yes,” Karl answered truthfully. “But I don’t feel hatred.” No, the emotions weren’t vicious enough to be hate. “For someone as stoic as she is, the torrent of emotions underneath…it’s overwhelming. I expected it to be more controlled.”
Marcus gave him a sympathetic look. “It’s the hypocrisy of the collectives, I suppose. They can pretend not to be human all they want. But they can’t truly not be human. Collective drones are still human beings, which means they still emanate emotion. They may not show it, but the energy still has to go somewhere.”
Karl nodded thoughtfully.
“What do you think?” Marcus asked. “Is the link working the way you need it to?”
“Yes,” Karl sighed. “I can already tell I’ll be able to point right to her, wherever she is. I linked the tether to my Traveling, so I can move to her location with a thought if I need to.”
Marcus affected a doubtful frown. “Couldn’t that mess up your Traveling ability if something goes wrong?”
Karl raised an eyebrow at Marcus. “Like what?”
“What if she dies or something?”
Karl’s head snapped toward Marcus. “Why would she die?” he asked in alarm.
Marcus raised his hands in a placating way. “I’m sure she won’t, but…. I mean we lost Clay on a mission. And you remember what I told you, right?”
“Yes,” Karl said grimly. “The farther away she is, the more the link stretches, and it can be painful.”
“Yes, but if she were to—heaven forbid—die, the energy on her end will dissipate. Abruptly.”
Karl frowned. “Okay. Meaning what? Worse pain? Like a rubber band snapping?”
Marcus shook his head. “From what Doc told me, it’s worse than that. I mean, it just isn’t there anymore. It’s one thing to break a bone. If the limb simply disappears, the brain has a harder time processing that than pain. On top of the emotional pain it could cause, might it also mess with your Traveling ability?”
“I don’t know,” Karl glared at Marcus. “You told me it didn’t matter where I based the tether.”
“I told you to put it in your logic center,” Marcus objected. “Or your emotional center. I didn’t think you’d link it to your dominant ability.”
“Okay, okay,” Karl said. “Let me ask you this. When you were linked with Maggie before, she got hurt several times on missions. Even seriously. Did it ever mess with your Healing ability?”
“No,” Marcus admitted. “Again, our link wasn’t based in my Healing center. Which isn’t to say feeling her pain wasn’t distracting. But no, it didn’t interrupt the ability itself.”
Karl nodded. “Well, I don’t think it will interrupt mine either. It’s done now in any case.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I hear you about being distracted, though.”
“We have more preparations to do. If you want to rest a while—”
“No. I’m fine. Besides, the longer I go with the link in the place, the more I’ll get used to it. It’ll be time to leave before we know it.”
Marcus shrugged. Karl followed his best friend from the room.
Chapter 20: Convergence
Doc sat in the dim light of the conference room, waiting for his brother.
He did his best to have confidence the team would obtain the orb—he saw no reason they shouldn't—yet their track record with this kind of thing wasn't good. On the Pacific island, they'd lost Clay before the mission ended. Granted, they’d killed Borna, the collective’s evil Traveler, but the price had been high. That always seemed to be the case.
Therein lay the crux of Doc’s worry. Even if they got the orb without incident, the collective would lash out to protect their assets. Doc didn’t feel confident he could protect his people. The team was his family. Fear of losing one of them in the process kept rearing its head in his chest, threatening to overwhelm him. He batted it back down each time, but couldn’t seem to make it lie still.
A knock came at the door.
"Come in, Nat," Doc raised his voice to be heard in the hallway. He wondered why Nat bothered knocking when they'd already agreed to meet.
The man who stepped in wasn't Nat, though.
"Oh," Doc smiled warmly and rose to his feet. "David, I thought you were Nat. Please, come in."
"Am I interrupting something?" David asked, his eyes wary.
"Not yet." Doc said. "Nat is meeting me here to discuss some things before we leave in a few hours. He must be running late. We can talk until he gets here."
David nodded and took the seat next to Doc’s. When they were both settled, David studied his hands. Doc waited patiently for him to begin.
David hesitated, opened his mouth, closed it, glanced up at Doc self-consciously. "I have a strange question to ask,” he finally said.
"Ask away, David. Don't be shy."
"I want to know how you always remain so stoic."
"Stoic?" Doc asked, confused.
"Yes," David said slowly. "You…always control your emotions. Mine are a constant torrent. I want to know how you keep your feelings so well in check. Can it be learned?"
Doc registered mild sadness as he smiled at David, who’s haunted eyes and flushed cheeks betrayed desperation.
"I think you’ve confusing feeling emotions with managing emotions, David." Doc said. "They aren’t the same thing. You're right that I control what I show. Nobody truly controls what they feel. Only how they react. Controlling emotional reactions comes with age and experience. You’ve recently come out of the collectives and are still learning. Learning comes through practice. It takes time. I still feel emotions deeply, but I simply don’t show it outwardly the same way you do. Do you understand?
David looked frustrated. "Can one learn to feel emotions less keenly?"
Doc sat back in his seat, frowning. The question troubled him. David needed to feel his emotions to grow, not hide from them. "I only know two ways to mitigate emotions, David. Neither of them is desirable. The first is the way the collectives do it. They create bonds between people and siphon the emotional energy away, watering it down and spreading it around so no one person feels too much. You know we disapprove of that."
David nodded. "What is the other way?"
Doc hesitated. "There are individuals, or have been in the past, who feel no true emotion or remorse. In the old world, people termed them psychopaths or sociopaths, though both words are umbrella terms. Do you understand their definitions?”
David nodded slowly. "I've heard the terms before."
"I don't know how one becomes that way, except to consciously choose not to care about anything, until you create enough pathways in your brain to make it reality. None of these things will serve you, as an individual or a collectivist."
Frustration danced across David’s features.
Doc felt for him. He put a hand over David's.
David glanced up at him in surprise.
"I know dealing with your emotions is difficult, David, but you’ve been tremendously helpful to the group. Can I do something to help you?"
David shook his head. "Not unless you can help me detach myself from my emotions somehow."
"I understand why you think that will make things easier," Doc said gently. "But it won't. Emotion is what makes us human. What gives our lives meaning. Showing emotion isn’t a bad thing. Letting out negative emotions like anger, or crying tears of sadness, gives us catharsis. It helps us move forward and deal with diffic
ult situations. It helps us grow. The same is true of positive emotions. When a child jumps up and down and squeals in delight over something, it's a good thing David."
"If showing emotion is such a good thing, why don't you show more?"
Doc opened his mouth, then closed it again, not sure how to answer. "I suppose I don’t have a good reason. People would think it inappropriate for a man my age to show certain emotions. Which isn’t a particularly good answer, of course." He smiled. "Perhaps I'm just an old man, and don't have the energy to show such emotion anymore. To feel deep emotion is to be human. Perhaps to show deep emotion is to be young," he chuckled. "And I am definitely not that anymore."
David didn't smile, but he seemed to consider Doc's words.
"Would anything entice you to show more emotion?" David asked.
Doc smiled at the thought. He could tell David still didn’t entirely understand. "It’s not really a matter of enticing me. Certainly, if something highly emotional happened, I'd be more likely to show that emotion, but I’d show it without thinking about it. Do you remember being on the ship after the group went to the Pacific island? I cried when we realized Clay was lost." Doc paused to swallow. The pain still felt fresh.
David nodded.
"I didn’t sit and think logically about how much emotion to show. My tears were spontaneous. I loved Clay and couldn’t hold them back. Emotion, especially where tragedy is involved, is not logical, David. Often it comes from passion and can't be controlled. As one ages, one learns more efficient control over our reaction, but the emotions aren’t any less present. We gain control over what we show, not what we feel. Do you understand?"
David frowned. "I'm not sure I do."
Doc nodded. "You will in time."
Nat strode through the door. "Sorry, I’m late Johann. I—" His eyes fell on David. "Oh, my apologies. Am I interrupting?"
David rose. "No. I am going."
Doc put a hand on David's arm. "Don't worry so much, David. You're doing fine. I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you. Please let me know if there's anything I can do."
David nodded, then left the room.
Dark Matter (Interchron Book 3) Page 27
