Ben shook his head at the new information, digested it briefly and had to ask, “She's fifteen?”
“Yes, she's a Briaunti, like Daniel and Angela.” Niri answered as though it were information Ben should already possess.
“Okay, so what's a Briaunti, and a metamorphosis?” Ben asked, despite the fact last night’s experiences told him a -long- lecture would be forthcoming.
Ben fought to hold back a grimace as, Niri sighed the sigh he now took as her way of switching into lecture mode, “The Briaunti are a hominid offshoot race from the ordinary humans such as yourself. They were engineered on one of the alternate Earths by a geneticist named Marcus Briaunt. They don't age or mature quite like you humans, instead they have metamorphoses.
“The primary metamorphosis combines hormonal changes, growth, and neural changes similar to those which occur during the years of puberty in humans with additional maturation features. The whole process usually occurs within less than a month. It begins with minor hormonal changes. Then it snowballs into a growth spurt which can last from minutes to hours, after which a few more hormonal changes taper off into full physical and sexual maturity. That is a simplified description, and it leaves out some of the real fun parts like the chemical secretion glands and the part where they encounter their racial memories. The usual age for onset of metamorphosis is around twelve to fourteen, it tends to occur within days before or after the onset of menstruation in girls. Tina had her first period a year and a half ago. Gene detected some of the first hormonal signs last month at her athletic participation physical.”
Ben wrinkled his nose at the vivid detail of the explanation, and fought down a flinch when Niri went into details he would have preferred to be ignorant of. In the end he did feel better knowing that Tina's raging hormonal imbalances were probably to blame, and not him. “So, uh, where is breakfast?”
Niri let out a surprised chuckle. “I'll take you to the cafeteria this morning. If you want you can have Aunt Bea wake you earlier and you can have it in your quarters before the morning run. After breakfast I'll take you to the PK range where you can start training your Talent on an amplifier.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Miranda awoke with sand in her mouth and waves lapping at her toes. She blinked a few times to bring her vision into focus on the broken shell of a smallish starfish. Her brain felt fuzzy, and her arms and legs vibrated with each heart beat remembering yesterday's exertions. She vaguely remembered a need to flee. As she examined that memory her narrow escape leapt sharply into focus. Miranda pushed herself up into a sitting position, invoking muscle spasms in her arms.
She had to leave, now. Quickly she sent her mind searching for a world that would fit her needs, and found it. It was a trade planet so clogged with teleportation traces that the gravity of their pattern was almost enough to pull her there. She leaned herself into the fabric of space-time and let its current pull her there. She sat on that world for less than a blink before reaching out to pull herself away along another trace. She chose one that felt almost like Ben's world, it was probably an alternate but she could get lucky.
Miranda plunged, suddenly, feet first into ice cold water. From the mouthfuls she ended up gulping in, she could tell the water was at least fresh. Belatedly she vowed that the next time she would double check that her arrival coordinates existed on dry land. Automatically she scooped her hands back and forth in the water, kicking occasionally. Miranda debated her options, and her next move. She couldn't really afford the risk of drawing her pursuers to her by teleporting to dry land now. So her only option was to swim to shore. First she needed to locate the shore.
Miranda could only hope that she was near the shore. The body of water had to be fairly large, because it possessed windswept waves in large quantity. They weren't high waves, but they did disrupt Miranda's rhythm of strokes. She turned to see what lay behind her. With relief Miranda saw that the shore lay less than a quarter mile away. She didn't really want to swim any more after yesterday, but in her situation swimming wasn't exactly optional.
Miranda took in a deep breath and began swimming towards shore. Her arms started the task in a state beyond exhaustion. She was less than enthusiastic about discovering how they would feel after another lengthy swim. Shoving that thought away, she swam. Her arms stroked. Her legs kicked, and her stomach growled. It had been a long time and a lot of swimming since that hot-dog on the boardwalk. While she could understand its insistence, Miranda resented her stomach for reminding her of just how long. Miranda wondered which was the better idea; focusing on the swim to forget the hunger, or focusing on the hunger to forget the swim. Despite the obvious futility Miranda tried forgetting both, and failed when the wake of a boat caught her. It dunked her head under water in the middle of a breath.
Sputtering, she briefly cursed the boat before realizing that if she could get their attention they might be willing to save her the swim. “Hey! Over here in the water!” She screamed with mind and mouth. She was rewarded when the boat made a return approach.
“No, I'm sure I heard someone. It was coming from that direction.” Miranda barely heard the male voice over the roar of the out board motor.
The motor cut out and Miranda heard a second male voice, softer than the first, “Billy, how can there possibly be anyone out here? I don't see any boats in distress and the water is far too cold for someone to have swum this far out.” To Miranda the second man seemed sensible, especially since he was absolutely correct about the water.
The boat drifted into view and Miranda was presented with the view of both men. One was taller, rounder, and wearing a ridiculous caricature of a fishing outfit. The other man had his back turned to her and was wearing a more sensible version of the same. When he turned to face her, Miranda was stricken with recognition. At first appearance the man looked quite like Ben, to the point that Miranda lost several strokes and swallowed about a quart of water. A second closer look revealed several subtle differences. Suddenly, the comment the old woman had slipped in sideways about alternate Ben’s made sense.
She was still gagging and sputtering when the big man with the first voice locked eyes with her. “There she is! My god, it looks like she's drowning.”
The Ben look-alike immediately leapt to Miranda's aid. He swam swiftly and had her in a lifeguard's hold before she could protest that she was not drowning. He and the other man had her aboard the small boat before Miranda found her voice. By the time she found her voice, her teeth were chattering so badly that all she could manage was a half intelligible mumble.
“She's half frozen. I'll get her a blanket.” The first man said. He then proceeded to stand immobile, staring at Miranda. Once again the not-Ben had to move to the action. He was the one who retrieved a blanket from a chest. He looked at the first man and shook his head. Then he wrapped the blanket around Miranda.
“My name is Ben and this ineffectual lout is my cousin Billy.” Ben, but not Ben, said.
“My name is Miranda, and I wasn't drowning. I was just surprised.” Miranda argued around the less than encouraging chatter of her teeth.
The un-Ben's ensuing chuckle matched Miranda's imaginings of the real Ben's. “All right, I'll accept that you weren't drowning, but you do look as though you were practicing for a case of hypothermia.” He flashed Miranda a quick smile and fetched a thermos from where it was stowed. He presented the thermos to her as though it were a supreme act of chivalry, “Drink some of this. It should still be warm.”
“Thank you,” Miranda said while fumbling off the lid. A tentative taste revealed it to be hot chocolate and still very warm. She took another precautionary taste, checking for any added chemical surprises. When it proved safe she then took a long gulp and let the drink warm her.
Both of the men watched Miranda drinking and shivering. The two men exchanged silent looks while she drank the cocoa They remained silent even after she handed the empty thermos back to un-Ben.
Miranda
borrowed the silence to examine the un-Ben even more closely, hoping that he would turn out to be her Ben under close inspection. She climbed him with her eyes, up his khaki pants and dull green life vest to his face. The lines of memory drawn there were different, too different. She didn't even bother with his eyes. This alternate of her Ben was missing some of what was in her Ben. He had a harder set to his jaw and already possessed the beginnings of worry lines on his brow. His gaze was just as sharp as her Ben's but there were just too many, “but"s. No amount of mental alchemy with her memory would turn this stranger into the man she was looking for.
“So do we throw her back?” Un-Ben asked. For a moment Miranda actually believed he was serious.
Miranda figured out that un-Ben was kidding from Billy's reaction. He smiled at her and then protested with a look of mock horror, “Oh no! We can't throw this one back! Nobody would believe a fish story like this!” Both men laughed at each other. Miranda only managed a barely strangled giggle.
Shortly un-Ben started up the boat's motor. From then until they reached the dock conversation was pretty much out of the question. Miranda followed un-Ben's every move with her eyes. He practiced an economy of motion. Each move was deliberate and obviously practiced, down to the toss he used to lasso the landing to tie the boat off.
“So, can we walk you to your campsite? Or maybe give you a ride?” un-Ben asked leaping to the dock then offering his arm to help her balance her way off of the boat.
“No, thanks, I think I've got everything under control now.” Miranda answered with a residual shiver.
“And I suppose a self sufficient girl like you had everything under control back there on the lake,” Billy teased from the boat.
Miranda gave him a blank look and turned to make her retreat. Un-Ben laid his hand lightly on her shoulder to stop her. “Miranda, please, let us drive you back to your camp. I'd feel a lot better about it,” He gave her a limp shrug of a smile, “After all you almost started to drown. And your hypothermia practice was really close to perfect.”
Miranda turned sharply back to face un-Ben. There was worry in his eyes. She shoved him away from her thoughts; he wasn't her Ben. “Thanks but no thanks.” Miranda shrugged off the blanket, folded it and handed it to un-Ben. He stood there holding the folded blanket in his out stretched arms, and watched her leave. Miranda forced herself not to look back at him, and walked off into the woods surrounding the lake.
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Chapter 5
Time Zoned
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The contacts itched and Ben felt a buzzing in his head, but he still couldn't get the test target to move. He spent half of his time thinking the machine was defective and the other half worrying he was. Rapidly his emotions swirled out of control and suddenly the test target exploded. Ben whipped off the headset before anymore damage could be done. He was tired, and sick of hearing about talent with a capital 't'. He wasn't prepared for any of this in the police academy.
“Use the force Luke,” an eerie whisper at his ear caused Ben to turn swiftly. He was startled slightly cranky to find Daniel's wide sarcastic grin partially hidden behind an unruly beard.
“As if I'd take advice from an over-grown ewok,” Ben growled, “You should take that thing off. It looks ridiculous.”
“Hey man! This is one-hundred-percent real Daniel fur!” Daniel exclaimed rubbing his beard affectionately.
“When did you have time to grow that thing?”
“For your information, I have been in the field, actually kicking bad guy butt. They were trying to pull a fast one on an alternate of your Earth. They were trying to get a treasonous sack of sperm elected president. Fortunately for them we convinced him to leave politics before he got the chance to nuke the planet.”
“Still not getting how you had time to grow That beard.”
“Ahh, that's simple. Time isn't a constant. It doesn't always move at the same rate in two different dimensions, sometimes two realities move backwards relative to each other. Even beyond that fact, Sanctuary is a special case being an artificial dimension. Time passes at a much slower rate here than out in the rest of the universe, with a precious few exceptions. So while I left only this morning Sanctuary time, I've been gone four and a half years mission time.”
“If that's true, how long have I been here relative to my Earth?”
“Only a handful of years.”
“What! Why didn't somebody tell me? What about my goldfish, my stuff, my apartment, my job?” Ben leapt to his feet.
“Shh, Everything's fine. I personally placed your fish into a stasis field; they are exactly as you left them. Angie authorized your rent and utilities from our accounts. I arranged some emotional leave from the force on account of the whole cult thing, and Erin's been house sitting for you, and by the way he's taken better care of that spider plant than you ever did, it begot a family of twelve very healthy offspring.”
“By the way Daniel, where is my gun?”
“Huh, oh, yeah, I appropriated it and your badge to turn it in at the beginning of your personal leave. I realize I should probably discussed the matter with you sooner, but you've been here a day and I think you are beginning to understand how hectic it gets around here. Given a couple more days you will come to realize that it is literally possible to meet yourself coming and going, in more ways than one. Now, what seems to be your problem.” Daniel indicated the amplifier headset hanging limply from Ben's hand.
“It doesn't work, or I don't!”
“No, you work, or else you wouldn't have pulverized that thing. It looks like maybe you are working too hard,” Daniel picked up a fresh clay pot and walked it out to the target zone. He came back and stood next to Ben, “You can't let yourself loose it when you are trying to use the amplifier, but you do have to loosen up. Telekinesis doesn't work like you think, at least not with the amplifier on.”
Daniel stared at the jar, and it lifted from its place on the shelf, did a brief floating figure eight and lowered back to the target stand. Daniel then took the headset from Ben and seated it properly on Ben's head. Ben felt a slight zap as Daniel turned it on.
“Now Ben, what do you want to do?”
“I want to get that, that- thing to move!” Ben growled, with his words the pot lifted from the stand and slammed itself into the back wall.
“Now see, it was not anywhere near as hard as you thought. All you have to do now is refine your technique. Sometimes it helps to use your hand to point to where you want the thing to move.” Daniel illustrated by pointing at another target then pointing to the shelf where he wanted it to go. The pot obediently lifted and set itself on the target stand. “Visually processing the command in your brain helps when you want to see it done.”
Ben lifted his hand to point at the pot. He raised and lowered his hand and was relieved to see the pot follow suit. “Good, now practice that a hundred more times and maybe you'll be ready to try the next exercise.” Niri said coming up suddenly from behind. Ben removed the head set for fear of what a stray thought might cause, and the pot came crashing back down to the stand.
“He's not doing too bad Niri,” Daniel patted Ben on the shoulder, “Ben, I'll catch you for dinner.” Daniel disappeared, teleporting away.
Ben blinked, and flinched away from Daniel’s sudden absence. If it was possible, watching someone else teleport away was almost stranger than being a passenger.
“He is right. You are doing really well, even better than would be expected from your level of Talent. The cafeteria is serving pizza and salad bar today for lunch, would you like to join me?”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Miranda awoke in confusion, partly from the strange surroundings, partly from a vague sense that she didn't mean to be wherever she was. The light was dim, and her vision blurred, but her senses of smell and touch were in clear focus. She smelled blood, and felt it on her hands. Her hands told
her blood became sticky as it dried, and that shrinks and tightens, making fingers and hands stiff. Those were two things clear to Miranda. What she had trouble grasping was how her hands had become covered in the sticky substance. A look at her surroundings in no way answered the question. There was no bloody corpse, and she didn't think she was wounded. The only possible clue to the origin of the blood was a skid mark through the thick layer of dust on the cavern floor. The trail began at her feet and retreated into the darkness.
Obviously it had to be the path she had taken in getting here, but still the blood made no sense, because the trail lacked signs of blood. Ahead, somewhere, there was a light source. It must be strong to illuminate this far into the cavern. The luminosity existed as Miranda's only clue to an escape from wherever the blood came from, unless the light was the source. With no memory of anything, Miranda knew it was all too easy to fall prey to second guessing herself. So, she decided to go out into the far more inviting light.
Dizziness countered her every attempt to stand. In the end she settled for a dragging half crawl towards the light. Within her first few sluggish tries at locomotion, Miranda discovered that the blood was from a deep head wound. Exploratively she lifted her hand to her scalp to examine the source of a nagging ache. When it returned to her visual frame there was fresh blood. An examination of her trail led her to the disturbing question of how many times she had awakened to her predicament anew.
She pulled herself along. Her head pounded in time with the beating of her heart. Woozily she wished it would stop just so it wouldn't hurt. The fine dusty silt covering the cave floor hid sharp grit below. The grit ground into her tender palms when she dug into it for traction. Shortly Miranda ran out of steam and collapsed to the cave floor.
Eyes Love & Water Page 8
