by K. T. Hanna
The bed is huge and dark, covered in crisp white sheets. Tangled amidst them is Bastian, tossing and turning, sweat beading his brow.
“How on earth could he tell me to come back tomorrow?” Sai murmurs as she drops her backpack and rushes to the bed, momentarily forgetting her awe and the fear the majority of people hold for its occupant. All she sees is her teacher, sick, needing someone. Anyone.
“He deals with this every quarter, Sai.” Dom is already behind her, standing back, clear of both her and Bastian. “You don’t want to be here if he wakes up.”
“Why on earth not? What could possibly happen every three months?” She reaches out to brush his forehead with her hand and recoils from what she finds. “No...” She stumbles back, tripping and falling, her graceful balance lost for a few moments. “Why would he do that?”
“He has the GNW physical every quarter, Sai...” Dom says quietly. “I didn’t think. He’s not to be disturbed for a few days around this time.”
“There’s no physical in any of the codes that require him to dose up!” She’s angry at everything, but most of all for allowing herself to care. The powder and the childhood that paid for it flash through her memories.
“Dose up? He...” Dom pauses for a moment and touches his fingers to his ear, pressing in a short, precise rhythm. The gleam in his eyes changes to silver, bleeding out of the pupils and irises to become one with the sclera. “He doses down, Sai. Don’t you understand?”
“No...” Bastian’s voice is hoarse and unexpected. “She doesn’t understand because all she’s ever known is the abuse of Shine by people it was never intended for.” He moves in bed, wincing, until he’s sitting up against the headboard. His tan face is sallow and sweat beads his forehead, but his eyes are frighteningly bright when they meet hers. “I’m sorry, Sai.”
“You asked me to trust you,” she accuses him, pointing a finger as if it will help release her anger. “I... How could you?” The tears in her eyes can’t be real. She never cries.
“I’m not your parents,” he says quietly, his voice strong with conviction. “I’m not going to wallow in my own imagination and leave you to fend for yourself. I won’t sell the food supplies for money to get a bit of stash. And I won’t whore myself, or you, out on street corners so I can spend just five more minutes wishing I was nowhere near you.”
A sob escapes Sai, and she covers her mouth with both hands.
“Am I next?” she whispers, unable to keep her voice steady.
“No. Sai...” Bastian tries to move and sags with lack of energy.
But she shakes her head as her past assaults her memories, and she raises her voice to drown out the sounds in her head. “Did you do this to me? Save me when I should have died? Gave me a chance when I didn’t deserve to live? Gave me hope that I could redeem myself and eventually be free of some of this guilt—all to trick me and make me like them? I won’t do it! I won’t! It’s everything I hate. You’re everything I hate!”
“You don’t mean that, Sai.” Dom tries to reach out for her, but the silver of his eyes, so much like her own, scares her even more.
“The hell I don’t!” Decorative tiles splinter against the walls, some crashing to the marble floors. “What’s the silver, Dom, huh? Is that how you react to that dust? Is that a domino hyped up on Shine, number twelve?”
Dom’s gaze hardens; the silver turns to steel. “That substance is caustic to my internal workings, but you know that because you’ve studied it.”
Sai glares at him, fists clenched to her sides. “You’re not supposed to act human either, and you do. How the hell do I know what you can and can’t ingest?”
“Sai, it’s not how it appears.”
“It’s not?” She laughs and puts her hands on her hips, tears ignored as they stream down her face.
“No, it’s not.” Bastian still sounds weary. “I power down for a reason, but I don’t think you’re up to listening to it tonight.”
Even his eyes look tired, but Sai dismisses it. It’s even easier for Shined-out people to lie. “You’ll be lucky if I ever feel like listening.”
“We’ll continue your training tomorrow.” His facial expressions close off in a clear dismissal, and Sai grabs the opportunity.
“Yes, sir.” She snaps before turning to leave the room, yelling over her shoulder. “Don’t follow me. I no longer require an escort.”
The thoughts in her head won’t leave her a moment of peace. All those childhood memories she thought were buried come catapulting back. Her mother and father spread out on the floor, each with a partner of their own, Shine as payment. Scrounging on the streets for food. Begging, borrowing, and stealing. Clothing herself in whatever rags she could find.
As she leaves, she screams. Her mind reaches out, lending her strength, and pulls the twin steel doors behind her as she goes. The loud bang, followed by the buckling of the wall, startles her. She can’t help feeling vindicated.
The aftermarket street brand of the drug harms every human it touches. How did she ever think GNW could be a home? She’s a prisoner here, indentured to serve them until she pays off her debt, unless they tire of her beforehand.
Redemption is a stupid goal. With as many people as she killed, no matter how inadvertently, she’ll be stuck with these Shine-mongers for life.
“Let her go, Dom.” Bastian pushes himself up against the headboard and winces. “She’s not ready to listen.”
Dom glances at Bastian and back to the door. His shoulders sag.
Bastian hears his office doors boom loudly, followed by the sound of rending metal. He groans. “That’s going to be expensive. Good to know what triggers her destructive abilities.”
Dom turns and squints at Bastian. “You did a number on yourself this time.”
“Heavy psi-eval today. Had to make things convincing. It’s not meant to be my strength.” Bastian gestures to Dom’s silver eyes. “You shouldn’t tap offline for too long. They’ll notice if you keep doing that.”
Dom shrugs. “It’s okay. We had a few whiteouts today.”
“You know what they’ll do if they realize what you’re capable of, right?” Bastian looks at his friend, concern furrowing his brow. When Shine hits his abilities hard, he doesn’t bother wasting energy on maintaining a stony facade. The muddiness of his brain. The strange mist that tries to invade his vision. And the weird constriction of his psionic access, like a chokehold that tightens the more he’s dosed.
“I know what they’ll try to do and what I can do. And I’m pretty sure who’ll win.” Dom’s tone of voice is grimmer than Bastian’s used to. “I’m not the concern, though. You are. How hard a hit did you take?”
Bastian grimaces, fully aware of the lecture he’s about to receive. “A full third.”
“You dulled a full third?” Dom’s tone is flat.
Reluctantly, Bastian nods.
“A third isn’t as bad as a half. But you’re going to regret this one for days.” Dom sits on the bed and pulls the reader out of the backpack. “You realize that’s why they don’t usually take a psionic off the drug once they put them on it, right? The backlash is dangerous. I’ve seen you do a quarter and go out drinking the next day. I wouldn’t expect a third to lay you this flat. So what aren’t you telling me?”
Bastian sighs. “Fine. Forty-five percent. Okay? I dulled down forty-five percent. Zach was my testing partner. There’s no way he wouldn’t notice. They only run these compulsory psi-evals every two years. I don’t have to be this drastic for the next test. Besides, they won’t throw me into the grids. I’m far too valuable.”
Dom crosses his arms and taps his foot. “You’ve been doing this to yourself far too long. I worry about you. I can’t babysit you both.”
“You know why.” Bastian smiles despite his tiredness.
“Your father’s logic made sense. Disguise your power level and make sure you were there to take over once Mason left.”
Bastian scowls. “One of the few time
s my father made any sense. Let’s not bring Mason up. What’s done is done.”
Dom shrugs, his movements a bit more liquid than a human. “I may have helped you with this initially, but it doesn’t mean I can’t caution you.”
“You’re like an old woman, Dom.” Bastian laughs and cringes at the pain in his head.
“That’s the second time I’ve been told that today,” the domino mutters, and a muted sheen passes briefly through his form.
“Second?” Bastian laughs again, and this time ignores the pain, watching his friend carefully. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. Hopefully, she’ll listen.”
“She’ll listen,” Dom states with certainty. “You realize she has nightmares constantly, don’t you?”
Bastian can’t bring himself to meet Dom’s eyes.
“You shouldn’t bait her like this. She’s not ready for the brunt of it yet. Right now, you can’t tell her everything she’ll want to know. You have less than a day to come up with a valid excuse she’ll accept for now.”
“How astute of you.”
Dom scowls. “Make sure you book me into that meeting. I won’t want to miss this.”
Bastian pulls the sheets tighter to fend off the sudden chill and wonders if his friend realizes his speech patterns are humanizing. “Enough about me, Dom. When’s your bi-yearly? It has to be coming up.”
“Several weeks. It’s okay. I can seal my mind off easily enough. You just need to snap me out of it when they’re done.” Dom smiles tightly. The expression never sits quite right on his face. “Don’t worry—I’ll give you plenty of notice.”
“Not sure what I’d do without you anymore.”
Dom shrugs and throws the reader at Bastian. “Good thing you should never have to figure it out.”
He touches his fingers to the side of his ear again and presses a short sequence. His eyes glaze momentarily, and then the gold bleeds back in. As he leaves the room, he tries to smile again.
This time Bastian can see the inherent sadness in it.
When the alarm sounds, Bastian twists instinctively to turn it off, groaning in pain at his aching body. It takes him longer than usual to get out of bed and dressed for the day, and his head still feels muddled, which means recovery from this dose of Shine is going to take longer than he anticipated.
His thoughts are so foggy it’s a wonder he makes it into clothes at all, and he shambles toward his office, a cup of coffee clutched in his hand like a lifeline.
Bastian gasps involuntarily at the sight of his office doors. Sai’s reaction had been pushed to the back of his mind in order to allow any type of sleep at all. Placing a hand on the wall, he grimaces. She didn’t just damage the doors, but the walls as well. Quite a feat, given that it took a team of dominos and psionic-masons to fuse them into place.
Not that Bastian blames her for being pissed off, but he needs to figure out a way to contain and channel that anger or Block 63 might happen again.
Aside from the doors, which pose a huge gap in his otherwise perfect shielding, every other aspect of his psionic defenses appear to be intact. A good thing considering his vulnerability when he’s not at full strength. He’s grateful he stored enough to tide him over.
The one thing he can’t afford is an accidental overdose. Ending up in the testing facility isn’t an option. Just the thought of numbly fueling the psionic suggestion grids is enough to make him shiver.
“Lost in thought?” Dom gingerly picks his way past the debris of the door.
“Never lost.” Bastian walks over to his desk and picks up the reader on it before collapsing into his chair and continuing to mutter. “Perhaps sometimes partially misdirected, but never truly lost.”
“Semantics.”
Bastian raises an eyebrow at Dom. “Droll, definitely droll.”
Dom ignores the quip and leans a hand against one of the doors. He frowns a bit as he concentrates. Bastian watches in fascination, and the adrium in Dom’s form shimmers briefly as the parasitic and psionic components merge. Their almost flawless marriage validates the theory that the meteors of the Disaster Era caused the psionic gene to emerge. There’s a subtle hum in the air, so soft and vibrant it sounds alive. Bastian shivers before he can suppress it, uncomfortable with the intimacy of the repair. The dominos affinity with metal makes a strange sense, but he’s never seen any of the others singly exhibit this type of power.
The hum stops.
Dom squares his shoulders and studies the door. “Stop trying to analyze me. You know it doesn’t work,” he murmurs as he touches the steel once more. A resounding metallic clang reverberates through the room as the huge hunk of metal shifts back to the way it was before. Satisfied, Dom stands back. “There you go. Give me a day or so, and I’ll be able to take care of the other one too. But you’ll have to get a mason to repair the walls.”
“You never cease to amaze me,” Bastian says, fingering the report he’s yet to read in his hands.
“You and me both.”
Bastian glances at the reader again, filled out perfectly with meticulous phrasing and care. Dom probably wrote most of it for her. “Do you think you could fill me in on everything in the report—and those things not in the report?”
“That lazy?” But Dom heads over to the desk anyway. “You realize your office is extraordinarily large?” He glances over at the training area. “Was it necessary to have that in here?”
Bastian shrugs. “Means I have to move around less. And no, I’m not lazy. Today, I’m tired.”
Dom seems a little embarrassed, the iridescent shades of his skin working in tandem with the sparks in his eyes to produce an oddly red hue. “About last night. I apologize. I wasn’t thinking.”
“She was bound to find out eventually anyway. Nosy little bugger. It may have been preferable at a later time, but it is what it is.” He points at the report. “Summarize.”
“They wasted our time by not using their own enforcement psionic to scan the accused’s memory. He was telling the truth when he said he’d seen a valid ID. Valid in appearance anyway. From the record Sai made, it appeared to be one of the rehab facilities.”
Bastian motions Dom to continue.
“He made the trade following guidelines. Artold didn’t believe it because he didn’t see anyone on his list and assumed the trader was lying. Sai reimbursed the trader for the inconvenience to his work, as well as for the injuries caused to him by the enforcers in UC 8. Then she reclaimed the money from Artold’s future bonuses until that amount was paid back.”
Bastian smiles as a small shot of relief briefly lessens his pain. “And she handled this all without help?”
“You know they don’t give my kind the time of day, Bastian. Did you really have to ask?”
“I suppose not.” He glances at the recorded image Sai plucked from the trader’s mind and frowns. The Exiled are getting sloppy. That operative wasn’t half as professional as he should be. “She held up under their scrutiny? Maintained a professional attitude?”
“She imitated you.”
“Oh?” Bastian is flattered and wary at the same time. Imitating him isn’t making her own persona. Imitations fall apart under pressure. “Might have to break her of that habit sooner than later. The quality of the render she plucked from his mind is almost as clear as what I get.” Everything would be so much easier if there was a psionic ability handbook. Poking through her head full of tricks was beginning to feel like Russian roulette. He hopes the gun points at the intended target before she goes off.
Sai is more volatile than he realized. Bastian can’t lie to her, not when he needs her to trust him. He needs her to believe him and want to work with him, instead of rebelling against anything he has to say because of her views on Shine usage.
“It’s early. She’s excused from classes today due to her late return last night?”
Dom nods.
“Let me know when she’s in her rooms and we’ll deal with it then.”
Dom raises an
eyebrow, mimicking one of Bastian’s bad habits. He’s getting better at it. “When she’s in her rooms? You want to talk to her there?”
“If we leave her alone, she’ll wallow. There’s no way she’ll end up coming here of her own accord.” He stands up and starts pacing around his office.
Dom follows silently. After a few steps, he nudges Bastian’s arm. “What are you doing?”
“I need to move.”
“How’re you going to talk to her about this?”
Bastian sighs. “I haven’t a clue.”
“You could tell her about you?”
“It’s too long, far too convoluted, and almost too fantastical to believe.” Bastian pushes his hair out of his eyes and makes a mental note to trim it as time allows. “She doesn’t need to know a lot about me. What she needs to know is that I have valid reasons for using Shine and I’m not about to abandon her.”
“Makes sense.”
“Of course it does.”
It’s not even possible to explain the whole situation. He needs her allegiance to GNW to carry over until he can give her enough leeway to question things for herself.
“I can’t tell her everything. But by the time we see her this evening, I can guarantee I’ll have figured out some way to get her to listen to me and give me a chance. I have to.”
“I know you have to.” Dom’s voice is soft. “You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you convince her, right?”
“Yes.” Scenarios war in Bastian’s head. “You know, there might just be something you can do, but it’ll require a disconnect for you...”
Dom pauses for a moment, and a ghosting of colors ripple underneath his appearance. “Consider it done.”
The knock on the half-repaired doors takes Bastian by surprise, and he refrains from pulling on his coat. Dom isn’t due to arrive for another half hour.
“Deign.” Bastian doesn’t look up from tying his boots. He’s long since preferred the antiquated footwear style. The modern ones that seal like a vacuum around his calves are far too confining.
