by Jenn Nixon
Chapter Sixteen
After a compromise with Liam, Dina sat at the hub making sure Aime was recording everything in the base and their medical scanner was set for human psychics so they could get a read on his heart rate. Though Caelum could be a substitute for all of them, he saw just about anything he wanted to.
Dina blinked, shook her head. Tried to remember how she knew that and hit a wall. She frowned and rubbed her forehead, forgoing a second attempt because she understood what the wall was. Instead, she brought up the Phoenix file, going through the list, checking out the websites or documents with the name, crossing off three more, watching the list shorten, stripping away the hope of finding Gardner.
Before she had a chance to dwell, the base doors opened. The men were chuckling as they walked in.
“Well, this is it, the MIND base,” Duncan said, stepping back.
Connor, the kid she once knocked out with her old sleep trick, walked in gaping as most people did when they saw the impressive set up. His red hair was darker, long and wavy and he no longer had a baby face, rather a squared jaw and sharp eyes. Dina sensed a guard around his mind, but his emotions were wide open and currently reflecting his facial features of awe and curiosity.
“Dina? Hey, I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Hi, yep. Usually am. I live here.” She smiled, got up from the hub and since she didn’t remember off the top of her head if he’d seen her teleport or not, she climbed down the hub stairs and headed to her station.
“Great place, gotta say,” Connor said, shaking his head at Duncan.
Liam winked at her as she neared. Bates was whispering in Theo’s ear, giving her a chance to smile at them both quickly.
“I can see why you left, Captain.”
“Just Duncan,” her brother replied and motioned to the stations explaining the set up quickly. “Everything’s networked to the hub.”
The group congregated in the middle of the computers. Theo and Bates broke off and sat at the back row while Duncan shared a look with Liam. He shook his head. Dina smirked, showing Connor the AI would blow his mind. She didn’t think he was ready for that either.
The hanging monitors filled with Marjorie’s information and picture. Dina took her seat while Liam, Duncan, and Connor turned to the screen. Bates and Theo continued to mumble softly in the background, but she kept her focus on Connor. Like Duncan, she was monitoring his responses, thoughts if possible and his emotions.
“A friend of ours asked us to look into a missing person’s case, thought the girl might be a psychic,” Liam said. “Turns out she doesn’t have the gene, but we noticed you had her DNA on file.”
“Why am I not surprised you’re still in our system?” Connor scratched the back of his neck and shook his head. “She seems familiar. I vet so many people these days, they’re really taking us seriously now. We hear it’s only a matter of months now.”
“Really?” Duncan said, lifting his brow at Liam. Dina was already asking Aime to look for anything related to a public announcement of the psionic gene in humans, making sure she took extra precautions and didn’t hack anything without asking Liam.
“That is good news,” Liam added as he blanked his face along with his emotions.
“Hope so, there’s going to be backlash of course, but I think we’ll be ready,” Connor said while his eyes roved around the room again.
“If someone like Marjorie came to your attention, how do you start the vetting?” Bates asked from his station, moving the conversation along to the important issue of the day. Dina smirked at him.
“Depends on how and where we find them.” He shrugged. “Who is she?”
“College kid, twenty-one, she was known to visit the deepnet message boards for psychics,” Duncan relayed.
“Hold up, you just said she’s not psychic,” Connor said.
“Maybe she’s an ally, knows one. Either way, she’s missing, her mother is worried sick, and we just want to help our friend,” Dina added, going right for the heartstrings.
“Yes, I get that,” Connor said, moving toward the screen and staring at the DNA results a little too long.
“What?” Duncan asked.
“I remember this screenname. Nothing specific, but why would she go through all the trouble of finding a local group on the deepnet if she’s not psychic?” Connor rubbed the side of his temple.
“Good question. Perhaps she was doing research for a friend or believed she was psychic due to mental illness,” Liam said, shrugging at Duncan. They were trying to decide whether or not to bring yet another person into their confidence. Dina wasn’t sure they’d thought through all the consequences of the truth. She needed the steer the conversation back.
“Do you have a file on her we can see?” Dina said. “The tiniest bit of information can crack a case wide open.”
“At least our secure server is secure,” Connor chuckled as he nodded his head, pulling a Satphone out of his belt clip. Duncan seemingly as impressed to see the new device already in unit hands, eyed Bates and jerked his head to the kid. Usually she was the one impressed with gadgets. Dina rolled her eyes, and blinked when her station and the hub beeped. “There, should have it.”
“Thanks,” Duncan said. “Appreciate you helping us out.”
“Oh, you come on, that’s it? You don’t give me enough credit, Captain,” Connor glanced back to Theo and Bates then to Dina who was already smiling at him, dying to hear what he was going to say. “I may not be a meta-psi, but I’m stronger now and I know you’re all trying to get into my head. So, why? What’s up?”
Dina frowned and shook her head, knowing she had to stay out of this and masked her worry by keeping her head down.
“There is something we may need your help with, Connor, but we’re still in the early planning stages, we don’t have all the pieces yet,” Duncan said, cautiously.
Liam nodded. “Besides, offering more information presently may inadvertently interfere with our search for Marjorie and that is the priority.”
Duncan added: “Once we figure out where we stand, you’ll be the first to know.”
“One hundred and ten,” Connor said.
“Or jump out of the pen,” Bates and Duncan replied.
“Always have your backs, and I still owe you one,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “And if you wrangled Struck, here, well, you must be doing something amazing…I hope you’ll invite me back soon.”
Theo chuckled, drawing her gaze. When he winked at her, like he often did before things got awkward, her heart warmed. Maybe, just maybe everything was heading back to normal.
“You’ll always be welcome,” Liam said, shaking his hand and promptly going to the hub while Bates got up and joined Duncan.
Dina knew better than to hug the kid in her current state and offered a friendly wave as they walked by her station. “Nice to see you again.”
“Take it easy, Dina.”
The base grew intensely silent after the door shut. Not more than five minutes passed before Theo got up from his seat.
“Thanks for breakfast, let me know if you want my input after you view her file,” he said, taking the long way around to the exit.
“Very well,” Liam said, solemnly, brushing the back of her mind.
Dina wasn’t ready to talk to him yet, not with some much going on. She shook her head slightly and continued reading Marjorie’s slim unit file.
After finding her on the deepnet and following her in town, a unit agent had swiped a coffee cup from the trash to run her DNA. She understood the covert tactics. Going right up to someone and asking if they were psychic elicited two responses: humor or fear. Anyone one who didn’t have psionic abilities would think the person asking was crazy. Those who did would fear being uncovered, possibly as a visitor, or more frightening a clueless human or descendant with no idea what they were.
Having the US Government bring the psionic abilities to the public seemed to be the only response to the gro
wing population. Eventually, their science would catch up to what the visitors on Earth had and they’d see the genetic differences between the classes. Unless they already knew.
Maybe that was Project Phoenix.
Setting her overactive imagination aside, Dina worked a few of her theories into the late afternoon, hoping one of them was close. Liam was right about one thing, she’d never give in. Since her counterpart chose this moment to return, Dina would never give up, not until she changed the future.
When Liam broke into her thoughts a couple of hours later, she glanced up to see Duncan, Kim, and her father sitting behind her. It was near three in the afternoon and they’d yet to find a single piece of new information to help them find Marjorie. Find Gardner. Stop Project Phoenix.
Duncan sighed. She knew immediately he was feeling the same.
“What are we going to do now?” Kim asked softly, her voice pained.
“Call it a night, eat and rest and start again tomorrow with fresh eyes,” Duncan said.
“We’re getting nowhere. Maybe—” Dina attempted.
“No,” her brother and Liam spat together.
Liam continued: “Team meeting. We need to work through it, as a group.”
“That’s not a bad idea, especially if we can get Caelum to join,” Valtor nodded, joining the conversation.
“I’ll send out a text to the loop,” Liam said, tapping away at his station. “How about dinner at the Marriot? They’re having a prime rib buffet tonight.”
“Count me in,” Kim said, rubbing her hands together as Duncan nodded and turned to Valtor.
Dina, knowing she couldn’t say no despite wanting more quiet time with Liam, shrugged and then met her father’s eyes and bobbed her head when he smiled. The one good thing about dining out was they couldn’t talk about MIND business.
Thinking her overstuffed brain could use a little quiet, she shut down her station, wondering what to wear, and suddenly looking forward to spending time with her family.
Chapter Seventeen
After a fantastic night’s sleep and a sweet dream that she didn’t remember, Sanjeeta floated into the pet shop, pausing in the kitchen to set down the two dozen donuts she picked up from the bakery. She said good morning to Billy and Ming on her way to her office and dove right in, forgoing another cup of coffee, just so she could get to work.
About an hour later, she heard a gaggle of giggling girls echo through the shop. As she reviewed the purchase orders and entered the delivery dates into her spreadsheet, the gaggle chortled again. When it happened a third time, Sanjeeta shook her head, got up, and walked out of the back offices to see what was going on.
As she approached the large customer service desk in the middle, the girls laughed yet again, some sighing as Ming neared the group who turned out to be two associates and two customers. Jasmine and Karley blushed as they rushed back to their registers, and the two customers fanned their faces.
Caelum sat in the middle of the puppy pen, his lap full of the Labradors they were spotlighting today, and holding one to his face as it licked his nose. Sanjeeta thought her heart might explode from the sight.
He glanced across the shop, grinned.
Her whole body trembled as she lifted her hand.
Caelum kissed the top of the lab’s head before gently setting it down and exiting the pen. He nodded to Ming at the desk and walked directly toward her.
“Good morning, Sanjeeta.”
She loved the way he said her name. “Hi.”
“I wanted to…see you before heading to New York, the team has an update after their meeting this morning.” Caelum’s eyes flashed quickly to silver.
Sanjeeta nodded, unable to form words suddenly or stop the blush on her face and motioned to the back office, feeling the eyes of everyone in the shop on her.
He made no attempt to cover his deep chuckle as she paused in front of her office. “I enjoy seeing you blush.”
“You’re responsible,” she said, gazing up as she walked passed and entered the tiny office.
He stayed in the doorway, watching her with his silver eyes as she leaned back against her desk. “If you are free after your work is over, I’d like to see you again, Sanjeeta.”
“Okay. How about I cook you dinner?”
“I’d be delighted.”
“Do you like Italian? It’s a specialty of mine,” she said, rattling off a mental list of what she wanted to make so she would stop thinking about everything she was feeling right now staring at him.
“Yes, I do,” he said.
“Seven o’clock, barring any emergencies?”
“It’s a date.” He grinned again, taking a single step into the office and making her pulse spike. Like magic, a small thumb drive appeared in his hand. He offered it to her. “This is basic information from the collector. Some of the complex data requires direct access by a Conduit, but that is a matter we can discuss at another time.”
Sanjeeta took the drive, taking a quick look at it so she could breathe. “Okay, thanks.”
“I’m unsure which to pursue more, Sanjeeta, I pray you can be both,” Caelum said cryptically before dipping his head and blipping from sight.
She fell into her chair and released the air she’d been holding. The whirlwind in her head was nothing compared to the charge to her body…her heart. The more time she spent around him, the more she wanted him. Her gaze went to the thumb drive. Sanjeeta shook her head. She had actual work to do, the kind that paid her bills.
Having something to look forward to helped the morning zoom by. Midafternoon, she received a text from the MIND team loop. Team Meeting, tomorrow, 8 A.M. – everyone.
As she wondered who she’d ask to pick her up, Karely knocked on her door. Sanjeeta turned around to see her holding a folder in her hand.
“Hey.”
“I know it’s usually not allowed, but Mrs. Allen’s here and wanted to use the copier. She has a new poster.”
“Of course, anything she needs. Let me know how many copies when she’s done,” Sanjeeta said, smiling.
“He’s really hot, by the way,” she said, blushing again. “Boyfriend?”
“Not yet.”
Karely laughed. “You get ‘em, Sandee.”
Sanjeeta blinked, realizing what she’d said and chuckled as she got back to work, not stopping until she was done. Near five she had everything done and anxiously attached the drive to her computer. The drive contained two folders, one labeled Enhancers the other Conduit. She picked Conduit, started with the basic information she already knew from Caelum, stating what she’d be able to do and how she’d change. The longer the read, the more excited she got at the prospects of bonding with an Enhancer.
The document ended with explicit details regarding Enhancer stasis and the role of the Conduit in protecting his stasis pod, collecting thoughts, and waking him when through. The information stated her main task: to ensure he slept and purged when his mind filled. The Conduit ensured the long life and sanity of an Enhancer.
She shivered. This was only the basic information. What else could there possibly be?
Knowing it did no good worrying about it now and that she had much more to think about, Sanjeeta took out the drive, shoved it in her purse and shut down her station. She gathered her things and went to the customer service desk to find Jones her other shift supervisor on duty for the evening.
“Hi, Sandee,” he said politely as he lifted his hand.
“Evening,” she replied, approaching the desk. “Looks like a slow night.”
“I’ll do some social media, maybe some kittens.”
“The internet loves kittens,” she said, waving as she passed. “Good night.”
“See ya tomorrow.”
Sanjeeta smiled at a customer on her way out and made her way to the grocery store up the block to get everything she needed for dinner. Since she had another bottle of wine, she bypassed the liquor store and decided to hop on the bus instead of walking all the wa
y home.
As she carried the bags into her studio, she debated making red or vodka sauce to go with her homemade ravioli, and settled on making a small batch of both. Variety was the spice of life after all.
While the sauce cooked and ravioli boiled, she showered and changed into a pair of leggings and off the shoulder shirt, giving her hair a bit of a spike to finish the look. By six thirty, she was pacing the kitchen, eyeing her wine.
At six forty, she lowered the air conditioner to cool down the studio and her own temperature. When the clock ticked to six fifty, Sanjeeta pulled the garlic bread out of the oven, trying to ignore her racing pulse. Six fifty nine, every question she wanted to ask him plagued her mind. The knock at seven o’clock, pushed them all away.
Sanjeeta opened the door and came face to face with her favorite flowers, lilacs, carefully tied together and sitting in a dark purple vase. She took the gift, pressed her nose into the bunch, and inhaled, relaxing slightly. “They’re lovely, thank you.”
Caelum smiled down at her with his baby blues eyes, dressed casually in jeans and a green polo. “I took a guess, based on one of the posters in your living room.”
“Good guess.”
“Hello, Sanjeeta.”
Her knees weakened. “Hi, Caelum. Please come in.”
She motioned to table stools as she dashed back to the kitchen, set the flowers down, and retrieved the wine from the fridge. After pouring two half glasses and putting them on the table, she spun around and turned off the burners.
“Are you hungry?”
“Usually,” he replied, lifting the glass and taking a sip.
Sanjeeta filled two plates with ravioli and set bread on the edge, and glanced back. “Red or Vodka?”
“I’ll start with the red,” he said, flashing his eyes at her again.
“You’re doing it on purpose now,” she chuckled and shook her head.
“Not exactly.” Caelum’s mouth dipped slightly. Sanjeeta set both plates on the table and sat down. She dipped her head to catch his gaze. “My natural state is the silver, when blue, it has to be maintained, thought about so to speak, within my mind. At times, near you, I lack focus.”
