Maggie shrugged. “I’ve never seen him this down before. But Nat was his brother.” She cast Jonah a significant look.
He nodded. If he lost Maggie, he knew he’d be a basket case. Losing a loved one wasn’t something one simply got over.
"How is Marcus coping with Nat?” Lila asked softly.
Jonah wanted to ask why Marcus wouldn’t cope any better than the rest of them, but the worried look on Maggie’s face kept him silent. He didn’t know Marcus very well yet and no doubt missed nuances that these women, who knew him so well, picked up.
Maggie shrugged. “He just has a lot on his shoulders right now. He feels guilty about not being more help today. I think he sees Nat,” Maggie paused to swallow, “as his fault.”
"That's not his fault," Lila objected.
"Preaching to the choir, Lila,” Maggie smiled sadly. “Marcus still feels that way, though. I wish he would cry.”
Jonah raised an eyebrow. "Cry?" he asked skeptically
Maggie nodded. “He does it so rarely. He lets his emotions get all bottled up. He needs to let them out."
"I’ve seen him cry before," Lila objected, frowning.
Maggie nodded. "He has, but with everything happening, everything we’ve been through these past weeks…” she trailed off, wishing she knew how to help him. “I just haven't seen him do it in a while. In medical today, he got misty eyed, but kept a tight rein on his emotions. It's not healthy."
Jonah’s skepticism must have shown on his face. Maggie glance at him and her expression turned scathing.
“You don’t have to be so macho about it, Jonah. You cry sometimes.”
Jonah’s mouth dropped open. “I…so! Not all men cry, Maggie.”
Maggie rolled her eyes.
"Why would you want your mate to cry?" Tenessa said, her sharp voice breaking into Maggie’s thoughts. “Such a thing is not constructive."
Maggie peered coldly at the collective woman. One thing that had become abundantly clear to Jonah in his observations: there was no love lost between the team and this Tenessa woman.
"I disagree,” Maggie said firmly. “Crying releases pent up emotions and stress. It makes us feel better."
"The Separatists show their failings," Tenessa said coldly. "The Union mediates such emotions. Pain is not a necessary part of existence."
"Maybe we don't want our emotions mediated," Lila snapped. "Every human yearns for raw emotion, whether they admit it or not. It's okay to long for it."
Lila’s words struck Jonah as profound. Before he could comment, Tenessa practically shrieked.
"This is not okay. It is forbidden."
Lila's face and voice remained completely tranquil, though Jonah suspected it was all an act. He envied Lila’s control. "Pain is what makes us human, Tenessa," Lila said. "It tells us we’re alive. That's very constructive."
"And anger?" Tenessa said, her gaze challenging. "Is this emotion constructive as well?"
Lila glared at Tenessa. “Under the proper circumstances—"
Just then Karl walked in and Lila cut off.
The tall black man glanced between the two women, obviously sensing the mood in the room. He’d have to be an idiot not to. Jonah wondered vaguely how much of the argument he’d heard. “Everything…okay in here?” Karl rumbled.
Lila waved a hand dismissively. “Fine. I’m ready to do the test, Jonah.”
“Then we’ll be going,” Karl said, motioning to Tenessa. Throwing one last glare at Lila and Maggie, the collectivist woman followed Karl from the room.
“I don’t like that woman,” Lila muttered, coming to stand in front of Jonah.
“If it helps,” Maggie took Lila’s place in front of the computer, “no one does.”
Jonah didn’t have much of an opinion about the woman either way. She was easy on the eyes, but if Maggie and the others hated her so much, that was good enough for him.
Lila stabbed a finger toward a low bench in the center of the room. “Sit.”
Jonah obeyed. Lila sat beside him and turned to face him, crossing her legs. He copied her stance, so they faced one another.
“Just relax,” she told him, rubbing her hands together briefly. She placed them on the sides of his head, covering the top half of his ears up to his temples. Her hands were cool, but not unpleasantly so. “This will feel like a medical scan.”
She closed her eyes and, moments later, a humming vibration began deep in his ear canals. Unlike a medical scan, he didn’t feel it all over his body. It concentrated in his head and spine. Yet the sensation felt nearly identical.
It took longer, too. The few times Doc had run medical scans on Jonah, it only took twenty seconds. He must have stared at Lila’s closed eyes for four or five minutes.
The humming ceased, and her eyes opened. Jonah realized he’d leaned toward her and slowly straightened his spine, wondering if she’d noticed. Lila turned her head to look at Maggie, her hand dropping to rest lightly on Jonah’s shoulders. Jonah followed her gaze.
“Find anything?” Maggie asked from behind the computer. She smirked for some reason.
“Yes and no. There’s one particularly large pocket of energy. Larger than I would have thought.”
Foreboding settled in Jonah’s stomach. “Meaning what?”
“Oh, nothing in particular,” she said quickly. “Actually, it’s kind of exciting. It may be indicative of some major neurochemical ability.” She grinned at him. “You should be excited to find out what it is.”
He smiled back, feeling better. “How do we do that?”
She hesitated. “Let’s move forward with the test. I can prod the energy and see what happens. I might be able to tell what ability it is. This is the kind of thing Doc is much better at. Let’s see what I can find. Ready Maggie?”
“Go for it,” Maggie said.
Lila laid her hands on the sides of Jonah’s head again and he stared into her deep brown eyes. The humming started again. Then something else. A sensation of touch, somewhere inside his head, as though someone stroked his brain. Yet, it didn’t feel physical. He couldn’t have pointed to the exact location. Rather, he registered it in his mind somehow, as one feels the tiny rush of air in one’s ears during a yawn. Yet that wasn’t quite right either.
“Hmm.” Lila’s eyes remained closed, and she frowned, the little wrinkle appearing again.
“What is it?” he asked quietly, not wanting to startle her.
She opened her eyes, turning to address Maggie. “Do you see anything?”
Maggie arched an eyebrow. “No. Nothing. No neurochemical activity at all.”
Looking somewhat disappointed, Lila studied the floor, frowning. “Okay, let me try again.”
She raised her hands to put them on Jonah’s head again. He caught her wrists gently in his hands. “Talk to me, Lila.” He kept his voice gentle, yet it wasn’t a request.
She dropped her hands, looking chagrined. “Sorry. I’m having a hard time finding anything out. I can’t penetrate the large pocket of energy.”
“Penetrate it?” Maggie said, leaning out from behind the computer. She looked worried. “I thought these were pockets of energy. There shouldn’t be any barriers to penetrate.”
“They are pockets of energy…” Lila trailed off, obviously trying to find words to explain. “Think of them like really thick-skinned balloons. I’m prodding this one, but nothing’s happening. I can’t tell anything about the energy.”
“Are you sure it’s energy and not matter?” Maggie asked.
“I’m sure,” Lila said firmly.
Maggie still frowned uncertainly. “We…don’t want to damage his brain by, you know, popping the balloon.”
Jonah gasped. “Now…what?”
Lila shook her head. “No, no, no. Actually, the balloon is a terrible analogy. This is energy, not air. I’m not trying to pop it. Prodding it should reveal some of its properties. Even if I accidentally dispersed the entire thing, it wouldn’t do damage. The energy wou
ld simply absorb into different parts of your brain, and probably reassemble before long.”
Maggie’s expression smoothed out again. Jonah felt better. A little.
“I’d like to try one more time,” Lila said. “If nothing happens again, we’ll hand you over to Doc.” She smiled.
“Chances are he’ll say we should wait until we return from the mission,” Maggie murmured.
“Which is why I wanted to do this now,” Lila nodded. “I hoped to find something out before we leave….” She shrugged. “Did you feel anything?” she asked him.
He nodded. “I felt you do something.”
“You did?” she seemed surprised.
He raised his eyebrows.
“Uh,” she said, “I mean, most people, especially those who haven’t honed their abilities, can’t. That’s all. What did you feel?”
“Strange sensation. Like someone’s tinkering around in my mind.”
He must have betrayed more nervousness than he’d meant to, because her face went still. “If you’re uncomfortable with this, Jonah, we can stop. Doc truly is the more experienced one. I’d never do anything to hurt you, but he’d definitely have more insight.”
Jonah thought about it for a minute. Doc would make them wait, so they could either try to find out something now, or he might not know for potentially a long time. In the end, his curiosity won out.
“Try one more time, like you said. If nothing happens, we’ll consult Doc. It’s okay. I trust you.”
A small smile played across Lila’s full lips, and when she raised her hands to his head again, she seemed more timid than before.
Minutes passed with only the humming sensation, and the soft rush of air in his ears. Nothing else. The smile slid off Lila’s face as soon as she started. As the minutes stretched, her frown deepened.
Jonah wondered if he could help somehow. The next time the rush of air came in his ears, he focused on it, tried to understand it somehow. It grew louder.
Lila let out a soft gasp. “Something just happened.”
Immediately the rush of air came again. Deciding to explain later, Jonah opened himself to the sensation further. The rush of air now roared in his ears. When Maggie’s voice reached his ears again, it sounded far away, like an echo from a far room.
“Lila, something’s happening to him. What are you—?”
A rush of purple light swallowed everything around him.
Jonah jumped to his feet. He stood alone in a dark room. Maggie, Lila, even the bench he’d sat on disappeared somehow. There didn’t seem to be any light sources in the room, though he saw the entire thing clearly. Oblong in shape, doors were cut into the perimeter of the room every few feet.
“Maggie! Lila!”
No answer. No echo of his voice. Only suffocating silence.
He walked to one of the doors and tried the knob. It turned, but when he pushed forward, nothing happened. The door wasn’t locked. It seemed to be stuck.
He walked to the next door, then the next. All the same. The knobs turned, yet the doors held fast.
Panic mounted in Jonah’s chest. What happened? Where did Maggie and Lila go? Was he in trouble, or were they? Could they be behind one of these doors?
Jonah stopped, telling himself to breathe and be logical. What should he do? If the doors weren’t locked, he should be able to open them somehow. Jonah was no bodybuilder. He wasn’t a weak or particularly small man either. Choosing a door at random, he turned the knob and threw his shoulder into the door. One, two, three times.
On the third time, it burst open, and a woman screamed. It echoed all throughout the room. The scream had no source that Jonah could see. He didn’t get time to do more than register it, though. As soon as he went through the door, the room disappeared entirely.
Jonah stood in a mountainside meadow. Green and yellow grasses decorated the mountain, the air felt dry, and the sky looked overcast. He recognized the slopes of Interchron. Some kind of funeral service appeared to be going on. He stood directly beside a fresh mound of dirt, rimmed with baseball-sized rocks.
In front of him, Joan held the hand of a young, dark-haired girl. Obviously Lila. A young-looking Doc stood nearby. He still sported white hair, but fewer lines decorated his face. Two teenagers stood beside him, one dark-skinned, one Caucasian. The teenaged versions of Marcus and Karl looked entirely too somber for kids their age.
Tears streaked Joan’s young face. “Come on, Honey,” she said, squeezing Lila’s hand. “Time to go back in.”
A look of mulish stubbornness crossed Lila’s face. Jonah knew the look well, even having only known Lila a short time. A wave of unquenchable sadness swept over Jonah as he understood. A funeral. A young Lila. This was her burying her father.
A pulling sensation bloomed at the nape of his neck and worked its way deep into his head. His vision watered and he felt the sensation of movement. Everything went black.
Jonah sucked in a painful breath and grabbed his head. He still sat knee to knee with Lila, feeling like icy water poured down through the middle of his head and would leak out his nose at any moment. Nothing of the sort happened.
The moment Jonah came back to awareness, Lila turned away, falling off the bench and onto her knees. Maggie instantly knelt there, helping her up.
“Jonah! Lila! What’s happening?”
Jonah didn’t know, and wasn’t sure he could have answered anyway. He felt sluggish. Lila looked utterly poleaxed. She managed to get to her feet, leaning on Maggie for support. She stumbled around the room, looking drunk.
“Lila,” Maggie snapped, and Lila blinked, focusing on Maggie. “What happened?”
“I…” Lila blinked again, looking at the floor. She shook herself, as though trying to clear her vision. “I think your brother invaded my mind.”
Thirty minutes later, Jonah watched Doc’s expression carefully, looking for any negative sign. The man had stared at the computer for ten full minutes, his face utterly unreadable.
Finally, Doc sighed. He didn’t look worried. Merely dissatisfied. Lila, also watching Doc, registered the look as well. Her shoulders slumped. That couldn’t be good. She turned and gave Jonah a sympathetic smile. Jonah sighed. This wasn’t getting them anywhere.
“Still nothing?” he asked.
Doc shook his head. “It’s not nothing, Jonah. It’s just not conclusive. We have to leave soon and we simply don’t have time to run all the tests I’d like.”
“But what do you think, Doc?” Lila asked. Maggie, standing beside her, nodded vigorously at Lila’s question. Maggie ran to get Doc after Jonah accidentally saw Lila’s memories.
Doc heaved another deep breath. “You may be correct, Lila. This might be a Deception ability emerging. It could be something else, too.” He turned to fully face Jonah. “It’s not entirely uncommon, especially for young people, to be resistant to their abilities. We call them jams. This may be something simple like a Protection ability you’re resisting.”
“So, you do think he leans toward a Protection ability?” Lila asked. “Not Deception?”
“Protection?” Doc arched an eyebrow. “Most definitely. His skill with shields is proof. Deception? That’s part is what’s inconclusive. Perhaps he’ll have the ability. Perhaps not.” He stood up from Lila’s computer, which he’d sat at while conducting the tests. “For now, I want you to stick with the shields, Jonah. To be an extra layer of protection for Maggie and Lila. Do nothing else until after the eclipse is done. We don’t have time to figure out what this jam is, or why it caused him pain when we tried to work through it before. Once we’ve stopped the assimilation,” Doc continued, “we can focus more fully on helping you work through this problem.”
Doc smiled reassuringly. He showed every indication of believing their triumph and return from the mission a foregone conclusion. A tightness around his eyes and mouth belied it. Everyone worried about this mission, especially with the time crunch. Doc’s pointed lack of mourning when his brother had died on
ly hours ago cheapened his confidence anyway.
Doc rose and crossed the room, resting a hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “Focus hard, Jonah. Learn as much as you can in the next twelve hours. Maggie and Lila are going to need you by their side.”
“No problem, Doc.” Jonah grinned up at Doc, who smiled back, squeezed his shoulder, and strode from the room. The smile slid from his face as he watched Doc disappear.
Maggie came to stand in front of him. “You sure you’re okay, Jonah?”
“I feel fine,” he assured her. “Just exhausted. And hungry.”
She smiled, putting a hand on his arm. “Well, get some food and go to bed. Rest up for tomorrow. You’ll need your strength”
“Yes ma’am,” he said with mock seriousness.
She shook her head and left the room, throwing Lila a quick smile on her way out.
Jonah turned to find Lila looking far away.
“Do you think we’ll succeed tomorrow?” Jonah asked.
“We have to.” Lila’s response came softly, with a quiet confidence Jonah envied.
“It’s a heavy thing,” Jonah said, “to live under this kind of threat. I don’t know how you’ve done it for so long.”
“It’s a way of life for us,” Lila said, shrugging.
“You said before you wanted to be of use to the team. Now you are. How does it feel?”
“Invigorating,” Lila answered, a smile in her voice. “I hope I can prove myself a valuable member, even if I’m not named in the prophecy.”
“You will,” Jonah said softly. “Just because you aren’t named in the prophecy doesn’t mean you’re not...valuable.” Lila didn’t answer. She met Jonah’s gaze levelly. He gazed back at her and felt a pleasant spark of excitement in his stomach. “I’ll be watching your back tomorrow.”
“I know, Jonah,” Lila said softly. “I trust you.”
Jonah smiled. He marveled at her trust—they’d only met days ago—but he wasn’t about to complain. “Why?” Jonah asked. “You hardly know me.”
Dark Matter (Interchron Book 3) Page 37
