Kinesis

by Irene Wendy Wode

  There was a chirp from the door as David walked in. Waverly braced himself.

  David Miller was the same cutie he'd been when he and Waverly had first met, dark brown hair with that hint of bright copper shining in it, cheeks dusted with freckles and just overall geeky and lanky and amazing. The years and the familiarity hadn't taken away any of it. Now that David knew how to dress himself to best advantage, it was even more devastating. It hit Waverly all over again every single time.

  Even more so when David was annoyed. He was annoyed now. As with everything, it was clear on his face.

  It always made Waverly want to heckle him, to see more of that lively emotion. But they'd established some ground rules, over the years, and that was absolutely out of bounds.

  Remembering that fact killed the last of Waverly's happy buzz from what should have been a really satisfying dance interlude. Waverly pinched the bridge of his nose.

  "Ugh, I hate it when you bring that face in here, now that I'm not allowed to poke it."

  "If you'd act even vaguely professional, maybe you could avoid this face."

  Waverly turned wide, innocent eyes on his HR director. "I don't recall doing anything particularly unprofessional recently, Davey. I mean that honestly. Cross my heart. I have no idea what you're talking about." He really didn't.

  "Your interns?" David prompted.

  "I recall them," Waverly said.

  "You fired all of them!"

  "I also recall that," he admitted.

  "What the hell was the problem this time, Waverly?"

  "All these interns are trying to be me. But badly. Nothing that's original. Nothing that's them. They're of no use to me. Go out and find me someone trying to be themselves."

  David sighed. "All of them, though?"

  Waverly shrugged.

  "What about Chuck? He had ideas. Opinions. He wasn't worried about ingratiating himself."

  "Chuck? Really? His go-to insults were… hideously uncreative."

  "You're judging him by the creativity of his insults?"

  "His default put-down was 'fag'."

  David was quiet for a moment. "Okay, I'll give you that one," he conceded. "But Pete! Pete was perfectly polite. Clearly he didn't want to be you."

  Waverly shook his head, looking at his computer. "Didn't trust him. He was too polite. I couldn't piss him off, and that pissed me off. Anyone that polite is hiding something."

  "Some people are just nice!" David exclaimed, exasperated. "I thought Pete was nice. Waverly. You cannot fire someone for being nice."

  Waverly rolled his eyes. "I didn't fire him. I just… transferred him. Away from me."

  David stepped close to Waverly and tugged his chin until their gazes crossed. "At a certain point this stopped being about the interns and started being about you."

  Waverly pulled away and stomped across the room. "That's ridiculous. I reserve the right to enjoy the company of the people I work with. I'm the boss. Is that too much for the boss to ask?"

  "Listen to me," David said more quietly, not trying to approach him. "Listen to what I'm saying. I'm trying to help you. This isn't about what you need from your interns, professionally speaking. I don't even think it's about whether you like them or not. You're perfectly capable of getting along with people when it suits you. I think this has gotten personal."

  Waverly was well and confused now. "What are you even talking about?"

  David bit his lip, looking across the room at Waverly before speaking again. "Waverly… you're trying to find another me. You're trying to find someone who has that same dynamic with you that I had back in the beginning. Even if that's something you can find? That's not going to work any better than people trying to be you."

  That… might have been a little true. Waverly missed those days. He missed David. What they'd had, or what Waverly had thought they'd had. He wanted work to be like that again. "Why not?" he asked.

  David took a breath, and his eyebrows went down. "Because sooner or later everyone realizes they deserve better than someone who treats people the way you do!"

  "Then why are you still around?" Waverly spat. He turned away. He hated when things got like this. David was a friend. The best head of Human Resources Waverly could ever ask for. Waverly didn't know what he'd do if he lost David the rest of the way.

  "Waverly," David said, low and concerned, "I know you. I care about you. You're my friend. I know you've come to respect me professionally. But what we had to go through to get here? It was not a good scene. It hurt both of us a lot." He sighed. "Sometimes you have to adapt to people instead of making people adapt to you."

  For once, Waverly was left without words. His emotions were too big to fit into such limited containers.

  Okay, yes, but how?

  How do I treat people? What do I do wrong?

  How do I do better?

  Chapter Two

  It occurred to Okka—Myrdu—that perhaps Myrdu was dreaming.

  He'd had vivid dreams before. Nightmares. Reality warped past recognition, nonsense come to life. Often when he was studying the strangest, most dangerous things in the galaxy. And he'd been studying Mimica. The Cewri. Those things that lay so far outside the scope of the Protectorates that they may as well have inhabited dark, smudged areas of their maps, marked only with guesses.

  The part of him that knew xemself to be Okka retreated. Xe would rather wake up and realize that xe was merely Myrdu. Xe would rather be Myrdu, with his few yet precious connections, than to have truly lost so much.

  He took comfort in that possibility for a while. But the night wore on, and there was no such awakening.

  It was late enough in the Avlan capital that no one came through the courtyard to disturb Okka's mourning. No one came, but there were signs of life, once Okka came back to this world, this body, enough to listen.

  The Collective was still, lifeless. But here, life went on at least in some way. Myrdu's mammal heart still beat in Okka's chest. The insects still chittered in the courtyard. And, quieter even than those… a weak, small chirp.

  Curious, Okka roused xemself enough to move nearer to the corner of the arcade, next to the door. A fola, a chubby flightless ball with black-and-grey furlike feathers in patches and little more than a blunt indication of a beak, lay whimpering in distress. Poisoned, probably, by the bait the servants set below the kitchens.

  The fola's chirps grew weaker, and after a few minutes, ceased altogether.

  Okka didn't know why xe was still here, watching the creature die, but then xe wondered where else xe would go right now that would be better. What else was there to do?

  Okka picked the fola up, held it in xir hands. Its breathing was shallow, hard to sense, but there.

  A fola was a simple thing, not sapient, but alive, feeling and hurting.

  Okka's people were so far away. Not just in star systems, light-increments, but also so far beyond any help Okka knew how to muster. This fola was the only life in reach of Okka's help.

  Okka could give comfort. Could heal—perhaps, if xe was careful. Xe could take another creature into xemself and remake it. Not a sapient one, not without tempting xemself irresistibly to breach the very carefully maintained barriers that held xem away from the Collective and its fate, but this was a fola, with so little self-awareness. Xe could probably manage that.

  It almost felt like if xe failed, if xe reached out and fell in with the Collective, xir fate would be no worse. To be separated from the Collective was to be without life.

  Xe had to be able to connect to something in some way. Even something so small and simple as this creature.

  It did not matter. It was insignificant. An annoyance. Or so Myrdu would have thought. But right now, for Okka, if this tiny creature didn't matter, then nothing did. If xe was to survive, then xe needed to defy what Myrdu had been taught all his life—that worth lay only in the humanoid shape, that life in the galaxy had a natural hierarchy.

  This small life had worth.

&
nbsp; Okka touched the fola, letting xir fingers brush over its feathers, then through them, to touch its perceptions.

  It was in so much pain.

  To heal a being, Mimica needed to accept everything that being was, and everything the Mimica was. After that, they could work to change what they were.

  Okka let it into xemself, accepted it, comforted it, let it know all it could understand of xem. Xe was a vague and fuzzy god to it, a giver of the impossible. All it knew was that it could rest soon.

  But Okka was reeling. The truth had finally hit. This was no Avlan's complex and vivid nightmare; xir abilities were real. This was real. And using those tools to heal had forced xem to accept those abilities.

  That meant that the Collective was also real. Xe hadn't realized how much Myrdu's denial was still shielding xem from the pain of it. The Collective was real, and they had fallen. Okka had lost them all, likely forever.

  Okka barely, just barely, stopped xemself from reaching out for the oblivion that had taken the Collective's place.

  Xir misery and the fola's pain blended, mixed, and echoed with each other until it was all that the combined being was feeling. But they accepted it, though it was a bitter pill to swallow, and turned to the ways in which they could end it.

  The fola's pain was simple. Okka took the fola into xemself entirely and immediately began the painstaking process of remaking its body. Preserving the small spark of life that was within Okka's power to save. But having accepted xir own pain, having taken in a creature for the express purpose of healing, Okka was now finally in a state where it seemed possible to look for solutions to xir own problem.

  The fola had no thoughts to offer on the subject, or really any thoughts at all, but the warm point of life keeping company with xir own was still a comfort.

  Okka had very few thoughts xemself. But xe went over what xe knew, the bleak facts and the infinitesimally small silver linings.

  There were so many unknowns. But Okka knew at least two things: Okka, xemself, was free. For the moment. But xe could not stay on Avla.

  Okka heard the scuff of one of the palace guards' boots on a nearby stairwell.

  It was jarring, being Mimica, and being here, in the heart of Myrdu's experience. The guards were familiar to Myrdu, and he to them, but Okka was something else again.

  Mimica. The very thing they were told to look out for most, second only to Cewri foot soldiers.

  Okka dove behind one of the shrubs in the courtyard, cowering. It was paranoia—or was it? Could they somehow tell by looking at xem that xe was no longer quite who he'd been?

  Xe really did wish xe could go back under. Unknow all that xe had learned. But to unknow a thing, Mimica needed another Mimica to merge with them and seal that knowledge away or take that knowledge with them when they left. Now, there were no other Mimica. Okka could not escape what was in xir own mind.

  The guards were wary, good at their jobs. It was a chance Okka didn't want to take. Xe stayed as still as xe could while their footsteps passed by in the arcade.

  I need to move. I need to get away from here. I need to find a way to help. Or at least a place to start.

  I need to get off Avla.

  Xir mind raced. A ship would be missed, and could be traced, no matter how careful Okka was. Xe'd need to take the Paths—

  Xe'd need to go to Nifu. The thought was steadying. Myrdu's daughter was always there for those who needed help, those who needed escape.

  Well, provided they were members of the Avlan Protectorates. Myrdu was. Had been? Okka was not. She trusted Myrdu, at least. Whether she would trust Okka remained to be seen.

  But then, Myrdu would never have put her in danger like this. Myrdu would never have asked her to hide and aid Mimica. Myrdu would never have asked her to keep secrets from the Avlan nobles. Was Okka worthy of her trust, even if she saw fit to give it? Did it matter, if Okka needed to survive?

  Myrdu's memories were the ones that swamped xem then. Nifu as a child, delicate and fitful but with rare smiles worth everything. Shared moments of laughter, joy, and pain. All the incredible things that Nifu had brought to Myrdu's life. Nifu was his/xir daughter. Of course it mattered. Okka would never put xir daughter in unnecessary danger.

  Xe was Mimica. Xe was not Myrdu. Xe was dangerous to her just by existing. And xe had so many memories from so many lifetimes before she was even the spark of a wish. But no amount of freshly revealed memories could ever stop xem from thinking of her as a daughter. Okka reconsidered xir plan to go to her for help, but she was an adult. She deserved to know. She could make her own choices.

  She would want to know what had happened to the man who was her father. She would want to know if her father needed help.

  Okka was fairly certain that Nifu's mother would never need to know. On Avla, people started households together and had children together for all kinds of reasons. Nifu's mother had been a social climber more than anything, and her close association with Avlan nobility had been all she really wanted. All Myrdu had wanted was Nifu. It had been mutually beneficial, but it had no reason to last.

  The nearest glass large enough to traverse was the still pond in the center of the courtyard. He called her with so-familiar words. The pond didn't ripple as she rose up from it, and nor was her hair and clothing wet.

  "Father? Is that you?" she asked, concern in her bright eyes as her gaze fell on xem.

  Xe hadn't changed xir appearance from Myrdu's tall, slim frame, but the new knowledge certainly felt like it lay heavy on xir face.

  It was so good to see her. But there was an urgent need, and so little time.

  "In a way. Let me in, so I can explain?"

  She knew her domain as no one else did. Okka watched as she weighed the risks. Then she took xir hand and pulled xem through the glass.

  Gravity changed at the surface, their steps pivoting ninety degrees to come to rest on the stone floor of her home. Okka felt as though a weight had lifted from xir shoulders, just being here.

  The space inside the Paths was… odd. Okka had long been accustomed to it in xir life as Myrdu, but it still had the capacity to disorient xem. Made up of many planes, windows, and mirrors, and walls that never seemed to keep existing if you looked at them too long, it hurt xir head if xe focused on those parts rather than the parts of the place Nifu had shaped for her own use.

  She had two or three rooms that seemed to have a more or less constant existence, or at least the floors and the furnishings she'd placed on them did. Okka recognized this parlor, its soft chairs and couches and crystalline rock formations that formed arches and windows through which those shifting surfaces revealing many different worlds could be seen. Xe'd spent hours here, just watching. Xe felt comfortable here.

  At least until xir attention was drawn back to Nifu, and the demand and concern stamped clearly across her face.

  "Now. Are you my father or aren't you?" she said, pinning xem with a glare. She could be dangerous, xe knew, to those who tried to take advantage of her. Her gaze was razor-sharp, awaiting xir answer.

  Okka took a deep breath, bracing xemself. "Yes, and no," xe said. "My name is Okka. I'm Mimica."

  "Mimica?" Her eyes narrowed. "You're a copy, then. A pretense."

  "Not a copy." Xe shook xir head. "There has never been another Myrdu Pandrach. I have always been Mimica. Your father has always been Mimica. But he didn't know."

  "He didn't know?" She sounded skeptical, challenging, but at least she was listening.

  "I didn't know," xe corrected. "I just remembered. I just woke up. Remembered my other lives. Hundreds of them. All me. I have had many names. Your father was one of my lifetimes. I lived that life, just as much as I have lived any other. If anyone is your father, it is me." He met her eyes, pleading with her to understand. "And you will always be my daughter."

  Okka saw the tipping point where Nifu's frown turned from mostly wary and on edge to a little more curious and sad.

  "But you're not… him?" she asked. />
  Okka took a breath. "I am, and I am not," xe said. "I am Myrdu, as I am a thousand others, but above all, in the beginning and in the end, I am Okka."

  Nifu's face crumpled in an expression of confusion and despair. "But what does that mean?"

  Okka reached out but stopped before xe touched her hand. "I wish I could tell you," xe said. "I can tell you that I remember being there for so many of those moments of your life. I can tell you that I'm different than the man who raised you. I can tell you that I don't love you any less than he did."

  Nifu closed that last bit of distance between them, taking Okka's hand in hers. "Father," she began, and then stopped. "Can I still call you Father?"

  "Of course," xe said, curling their fingers together.

  "Father, I'm tempted to think that this is the aftermath of one of your most vivid dreams, or some fanciful theory made too real by your working your brain to exhaustion. But I can tell how different you are. Not just from how you act, how you speak. And when you talk about being Mimica… about how it feels… something in me recognizes that. Somehow I know you're telling truths." Her frown was lost now, her gaze a little distant as she thought too hard. "How do I know?"

  Okka gripped her hand, and xe thought about what xe knew of her conception. Myrdu had been fully Avlan, except for that seed at his core that held everything that was Okka. But Myrdu had also been infertile, as all unknowing Mimica identities were.

  Myrdu had been rather unhappy about that, when he'd realized. He'd consulted with healers, studied his own body, and eventually found a way to undo it.

  Myrdu had changed himself. Perhaps, he'd tapped into some of that Mimica core. Nifu didn't have the full Mimica ancestral memory, clearly, but perhaps she had some echo, at least, that could recognize the broad strokes of the Mimica experience.

  "You're Avlan," Okka told her, "mostly. But you're also my child, and there might be a few pieces of the Mimica in your makeup as well. I wouldn't have thought they'd be passed on, but you're unique. It's possible."

  Nifu smiled, tears in her eyes. "I've always known I was different," she said. "I suppose now I just have a better idea where my gifts came from."