Ben slipped back down the hall quietly, when he reached the common room the two women were deep in conversation in the lounge corner. Trinny looked up at him briefly then reluctantly turned back to Mona. Ben got the message and went directly to the transport booth. He keyed in the med-center as his destination and arrived in the transport closet before he could blink.
The door opened before Ben could reach the pad to key it open. Ben was greeted by an annoyed frown on Gene's face. “Bout time lad, I hope you aren't one who gets smashed often.”
Ben squirmed in his own skin and silently cursed his tattletale computer aid. “Not without a reason.”
Gene waved Ben into the clinic towards a waiting chair. “A good one I hope. Now, I need to run a diagnostic on your suppresser, and recalibrate it slightly. Has it helped?”
“Yeah, it shut the voices right on up.” Ben replied. Then he placed the necklace in Gene's outstretched hand.
Gene grunted gutturally at Ben's flippant response and dropped the necklace into a small slot on the counter. Then Gene plopped his butt on the counter top and turned back to Ben, “I've finally finished analyzing your gene scan. I've got good news and some not so good news. The good news is you are pure blue-blooded human, of a family line most Galactics will defer to as their aristocratic betters. Which, if you have met many Galactics, is a major concession. As far as most are concerned Earth-humans are the inbred hillbilly cousins no one mentions in polite company, not here in Sanctuary mind you but out in the rest of the universes. The not so good news is that you are a pure blue-blooded human, of a family line with natural and innate telepathic abilities. You have the unfortunate distinction of bearing the best of those genes in the most fortuitous combination. You my dear fellow are the rarest of the rare from an Earth like yours, or any really.” Gene blathered on until the necklace slot beeped.
Gene retrieved the necklace, and glanced at the display screen related to the slot. He cleared his throat and passed the necklace back to Ben. By that time Ben had begun to stir in his chair from a combination of confused boredom and morning-after thick headedness.
“Ben, what that all means in short is that your abilities are going to increase in an environment such as this. Back on your world they had remained inert from lack of proper stimulation or training and subconscious suppression for your own self preservation. Here you are bound to suffer over stimulation if you aren't careful.”
Ben digested Gene's words. Despite comprehension on a purely semantic level, Ben couldn't process them. It all seemed so unreal, his inner self rebelled. After all what could such suppositions have to do with him. Ben shook it off and filed it under never-mind.
“I don't have many examples of individuals like yourself, but oddly enough they are ones with which you might be familiar. There is a bestselling fantasy author on your world by the name of Charlie Goldbrook, he's famous for a character named Cecilina Morgan. While he wrote about her as fiction, she was actually a real woman. Her early Everett ratings are estimated to have been in the low thirties, but at her death she had reached somewhere in the realm of seven thousand. I could give you more examples, but my point is roughly that you are in for a bad time of it. While your genes wire your brain not to go crazy from the expanding nature of your abilities, they don't necessarily protect you from the growing pains.”
Ben sat listening without comprehending, “Charlie Goldbrook, no, I don't think I've heard of him.”
Gene pushed forward, “I would recommend a course of hormonal treatments to stabilize your rating. The diagnostic I just ran indicates that your rating has nearly doubled since the first test I ran. I can begin right now, all I need is your consent.”
Ben burrowed his face into his hands, as the meaning of Gene's words began to sink in. “Tell me one thing, if I hadn't gotten involved with this mess would this be happening?” Ben didn't wait for Gene's answer he began slapping at his forehead, trying to pound at his deviant brain.
Gene caught Ben's hand, “It could have spontaneously switched itself on after a bump on the head or never presented itself, or it might not have happened, if Daniel had waited on giving you an amplifier until after I had run the genescan. I can't say for certain.”
Ben shook his head from side to side. He remembered how absentminded Gene seemed and compared himself to that memory. Right now Ben knew he was being more erratic. What the heck should anybody expect, after all he'd just been told he was abnormal. At least Gene hadn't tried to convince Ben of the debatable idea that this was all some kind of gift. “That hormone therapy thing, will it help?”
“Most likely yes,” Gene went to a cupboard and removed a small zippered pouch, “do you want to give it a try?”
Ben shook his head, “Sure.”
Gene pressed the intercom button, “Tina, could you please come assist me.” After releasing the button Gene turned back to Ben, “I hope you don't mind. I don't really need her help but I would like to teach her the procedure.”
Ben answered with a shrug, as Tina entered with a smile. Her smile faded when she saw the drawn expression on Ben's face. Worry lines formed on Tina's face, while Gene briefed her on the situation and warned her strictly about doctor patient confidentiality.
Tina threw an arm around Ben in a brief half hug, “I'm sorry for you Ben, but I can't help wishing I was in your place. I am sort of, were both freak specimens of our respective races. At least you get powers to show for it.”
Gene walked around Ben, “This is best administered in the back of the neck, and it may hurt quite a bit the first time.”
Ben turned to Tina. “Trade you,” he said with a forced half smile, before bending his head forward at the urging of Gene's hand. Tina took Ben's hands firmly in her own in a gesture of support. “Okay Gene I'm ready.”
Ben heard a hydraulic hiss and felt the prickling of the treatment being forced through his skin. Then nothing new for a time. Ben had almost begun to think that absentminded Gene had been mistaken about the pain part when a wave of agony seared through his brain. Ben wrestled against it only peripherally aware of Tina's hands on his own. The pain began to fade, replaced by a nausea that was only relieved after he had vomited on Tina.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Miranda had reached out for the foulest darkest world she could sense. In her first fifteen seconds she formed the assessment that she had found it. Miranda was almost overpowered by the telepathic sense analog of the smell of a startled skunk. She recognized it from her years in the dark compound. Inside she knew it had to be much stronger there but growing up she hadn't noticed it. Slowly the sensation faded and she began to assess her situation.
Her arrival in the alley had gone undetected, but one peek out onto the street told her she needed to change her wardrobe if she wanted to move around freely. There were only two types of outfit; the typical dark uniform in shades of gray, and the grime-stained, muck-colored rags of the subjugated population. The enslaved populace had only nominally free movement, with the eyes of their dark overseers constantly on watch, but Miranda couldn't even move from her hiding place in the alley without giving herself away. Her outfit with its lovingly embroidered flowers was too clean and new for her to pass as a slave.
Miranda dug through her bag for something more appropriate, but was interrupted from behind. "Weeeell, what have I found here?” The man twisted his voice as he gloated, making it sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. From the barrel shape being pressed into her back, Miranda judged he wielded a particle beam rifle.
“Who me? I'm just a lost and helpless traveler.”
“Helpless my ass! Nobody can just break through the shielding we have on this world. You must be one of the scraggling rebels. And here I thought we'd taken down your last cell months ago! I am in for a big bonus!” The man relaxed his posture at the thought of his immanent reward.
Miranda felt the barrel of the rifle tilt down and away from her back. In a rapid chain of near reflexive motion, M
iranda immediately dropped her bag and spun into a high kick which she planted squarely in the man's gut. His lungs emptied with a rapid huffing sound and he dropped his weapon. Miranda snatched up the rifle and had it trained on the man before his butt had made contact with the pavement. Miranda felt no shock to see that the man's uniform was of one of the paler shades of gray. In a sequence of thought faster than that of her action, Miranda realized that the man's uniform would be an even better disguise. Too bad for the dark that their uniforms were one size fit any humanoid.
“Strip!” Miranda gave the order with a light smile on her face. When the man didn't comply with her verbal instructions she probed his mental defenses. Her mind slid right in with no resistance. Controlling his body for him she made him remove the uniform. Once it lay in front of her another idea came to her. She would take his uniform and leave him with the memory of an indiscreet dalliance with a nondescript slave. He daren't report that she stole his uniform, because then he'd have to explain taking it off to knock boots while on duty. Even if he did report it he wouldn't have a clear memory of the slave that took it.
Miranda watched a stupid smile form on the man's lips as she planted the memory. When she was finished he stood up and slunk off towards his quarters, dressed in nothing more than his boxer shorts. She chuckled and ducked into the deepest sheltered shadow the alley provided to change. Once dressed she tucked her flowered outfit into her knapsack, and hid that by teleporting it to the cavity within the brick wall of the building on her right.
Miranda stood at the mouth of the alley, berating herself. That fool of a soldier should never have gotten the jump on her. She tried to trace the source of his brief success, and found it. The ambient evil of this world had been unpleasant almost to the point of pain when she arrived on this world, but she had allowed it to fade from her thoughts, effectively turning a blind eye to the movements of her enemy. She opened her mind back up to its fullest sensitivity and then forced her face not to display her disgust.
Miranda focused on keeping her nose from crinkling up to meet her forehead and bent down to pick up the rifle. Dressed and armed for the part, Miranda stepped out onto the street and took up a guard position near the door of a small grocery which seemed only to serve the drab-dressed slave population. They passed her warily. Few made eye contact. Those who did had eyes that burned with an anger tempered in fear. Their gazes made Miranda's stomach turn and reminded her why she was here.
Before Miranda could strike back against the dark she needed information. The particularly venomous glare of an almost familiar face told her where to find it. “You, come with me!” Miranda growled attempting to twist her voice like the idiot's from the alley.
The man stiffened and turned his steel blue eyes back to the ground, leaving only his dirty blond hair facing Miranda, “Who me?”
Miranda almost laughed at the un-Ben's response, so like her Ben. Instead she steeled herself against melting the facade of her disguise by embracing him. “Yes you. Your name is Benjamin is it not.”
“If you say so.” He flicked his face back up at her and she saw his fear, and something else.
Miranda tried to dig deeper, to see more of his mind behind those eyes, and came upon an unexpected resistance. His mind was stronger than any she had ever before tried to penetrate. Her eyes opened almost as wide as saucers in surprise when she felt him reach out to touch her mind. She let him, to a point, deftly and easily swatting him back away before he got deep enough to sense her thoughts and memories of Ben.
Un-Ben's eyes widened in turn, and began to reflect confusion. “Why is someone like you wearing that uniform?” Un-Ben asked, mind to mind.
“Come with me,” Miranda reiterated her verbal order in a louder bellowing voice, followed by a silent telepathic, “and I will tell you.” Un-Ben slumped dramatically and stepped out of line to join her. Miranda motioned with her gun for him to walk first. “You lead, I don't know of any safe places for us to talk,” She thought to him.
Un-Ben started off through the streets leading Miranda. Occasionally he gave her telepathic instructions as to where they were going so that she could gruffly order him to change course as if she were the one in charge of their direction. Together they made a good show of a soldier running in a troublemaker. After several minutes the decrepit buildings thinned to ruins and rubble. Un-Ben led them unwatched down an unsafe looking subway entrance. Ben fetched a flashlight from beneath a pile of rubble and continued to lead Miranda through the tunnels.
“You can call me Ben if you like,” Un-Ben said after several more minutes walk and a brief conduit crawl brought them to a secure room.
“My name is Miranda.”
Un-Ben pressed his lips together, “Yeah, I kind of got that, poking around in your head. You are a strange woman Miranda. You don't appear to be dark, yet you know an awful lot about them. You seem to be open about wanting to help me, but you knocked me a good one when I tried to get too close to something. So, tell me true, who are you?”
“Miranda. That's about all I really know, and all I want to share. I am here to help drive the dark ones off this world, or at least give them a shiner they'll remember. I'm friend not foe,” Miranda answered while driving back a more concerted effort on un-Ben's part to dig deeper into her mind.
Un-Ben reeled at the force of her defense. “I guess I'll have to take your word for it, and complement you on your strength and skill. I haven't been at this long, but without a doubt you have the strongest mind I have ever sensed.”
“Your attempts do resemble a two year old trying to take down a cookie jar with a hydraulic crane. For my information, how long have you been a telepath, and how did you come about it?” Miranda said gently with a hint of an apologetic smile. Un-Ben crossed the dark room, taking the flashlight with him leaving Miranda in the dark without an answer. She stood patiently in place and listened to metallic grinding and clanking.
After a while Un-Ben let out a grunt of success. “Now let me enlighten you,” he toned cheerfully as the room's lights came on, “I wasn't born this way, never even had a hint of it. It wasn't until the invasion that I began to feel the first twinges, whispers when all the others were asleep, sometimes pictures. It really hammered me after they released us from the camps. About once a week I'd wake up and the noise was blinding. It just kept getting worse. I thought the dark ones had done something to me. I thought I was going insane.” Un-Ben came back and sat on a mattress near Miranda.
“I was working in the factory when I first realized what was going on. I couldn't believe it, but the only real explanation was that somehow I had become a telepath. Anyway I started paying attention to the voices. I knew about the rebels, and helped when I could but I didn't put my neck out. Not after I read from one of the guard's minds what would happen if they found me out. I don't know precisely what a Djheen is, but I do know I don't want to end up as a mindless stud for them.” He shook his head and slumped backwards onto the bed, “That's about the sum of it. Your turn, Why do you think of me as un-Ben?”
Miranda blushed uncontrollably, caught between the image of Ben laying in a bed waiting for her and the idea of telling Un-Ben about her history as an almost-Djheen that almost ended in killing one of un-Ben's alternate selves. She shook herself and swatted back his fresh attempt at probing her mind while she was off guard, “I knew an alternate you on a parallel Earth, several actually, but I think of the first one as Ben and the rest of you as un-Bens.”
“Hmm, and what exactly makes me so un-Ben-like? I feel perfectly Ben-like to me.” Un-Ben leapt to his feet and took two steps towards Miranda.
“You just aren't him,” Miranda answered flat voiced.
“You fell for him didn't you? I guess that makes two reasons I wish I were in his place,” Un-Ben reached a hand out to touch Miranda gently.
She recoiled in shame and surprise from the thrill un-Ben's touch sent through her. “I shouldn't. I can't.”
“You can't what?”
“Think when you do that,” Miranda answered despite herself. Making contact with this un-Ben had been a mistake. Why had she done so? “I need some information from you.”
“What kind?” Un-Ben slid backwards and sat on the mattress again to give Miranda room to think.
“I need a strategic overview. Where is the main dark compound on this world? What kind of numbers are we talking about? What is the percentage of higher echelon operatives?”
“Whoa, one question at a time. The main dark base is located in the sub-basement of Meyers Tower. On the corner of Fifth and Grimson, you head inward towards the undamaged buildings. As to numbers that's difficult, at least one gray-coat for every twenty people. The darker the uniform the higher the rank right, well in that case you've got mostly light to mid-tones from what I've seen.” Un-Ben answered and flopped back supporting his head on his hands. “Okay, next question.”
“Any Djheens?”
“I told you I didn't know what they were.”
“Women wearing jet black uniforms with a red diamond tattoo on their foreheads.” Miranda indicated the position by pointing to her own head.
“I haven't seen any, but I also try to avoid snooping around in the darker areas of town. It's safer.” He sat up and crossed his arms defying her to challenge him on that.
Miranda started to open her mouth with a new question but froze. She felt a distinct dark presence not far down the tunnel. She looked at un-Ben and was relieved to see she didn't need to warn him of it. He slunk back and cut off the lights, silently. Miranda expanded all of her remaining senses to track the progress of the invader. As they came closer Miranda realized they were plural. She began to pick out each soldier's distinct footfall. There were nine of them. Their minds were weak. Miranda was sure with very little help from un-Ben she could drive them back, but searching with her mind, Miranda couldn't find him.
Miranda started to panic, like an inexperienced fool. She locked down on her emotions and blanked out her mind, like un-Ben must have done, but not before one of the dark soldiers sensed her.
Eyes Love & Water Page 15
