Tina touched her sister’s hand, the feeling intensified. Tina almost didn’t want to believe it; she was actually telepathically hearing her sister. Elation warred with a sympathetic terror, Tina was a telepath, but Miranda felt so alone. Tina reached her mind out tentatively to reassure her sister. There was great pain. Tina’s touch caused agony all through the raw edges of her sister’s mind, but there was contact, and relief. Miranda, filled with not-aloneness, sank into a sleep beyond dreams or nightmares. Tina smiled, that was better.
Now, back to bed? Tina shook her head. She wasn’t really tired, more worried, about . . . Nick of course. He had been badly wounded. He could have died, but he was okay. Everyone had told Tina he was okay. Miranda had told her. Tina trusted Miranda, but had she told the truth? Tina internally tried to change the subject, of course Nick was fine, wasn’t it a fine thing to be a telepath. She could touch other peoples’ minds and they could touch hers.
All of her life-long, pent-up curiosity came to one thing, she wondered what it would be like to touch Nick’s mind. He was alright wasn’t he? It wouldn’t hurt him if she stopped by for a little visit. He was still in the medical complex, very near her own observation room. The only real objection from Gene would be that she wasn’t physically up to it.
Tina mentally checked herself. Her mind felt sound. Her body felt, hungry. It wasn’t quite the hunger with a triple underlined capital “H”, like earlier, but it was starting to build. Tina checked the back of her hand, the IV must’ve come loose while she slept, or maybe as she woke. It wasn’t too surprising. The disposable trans-dermal interface on the tip of the tube, that they used in Sanctuary instead of those medieval needles they used on Earth, usually lost adhesion after being removed once. Tina knew it wouldn’t stick again. Her doctor-in-training self pointed out that she would need to get another tip to reapply it. Tina weighed the hunger against the bother and decided to eat something instead, to see if that would help.
Food, then Nick, Tina thought, then she quietly began ordering a small meal from the delivery cupboard. At least it started out small, three cheeseburgers into her order she decided to cancel it and order a portable IV unit to deliver the nutrient prescription Gene had placed her on. It was a little larger than the simple tip she would need to hook back up to the tube, more a heavy glove with an electronic adhesion function, but at least she wouldn’t have to trail a tube to visit with Nick.
Tina put it on and adjusted it for comfort. That done, Tina ordered a robe and put it on. Then she quietly snuck to the door. When it opened the dim light from the hall painfully lanced Tina’s dark adapted eyes. Several teary blinks later she finally managed to keep her eyes open. The intensity of the light was her first surprise. She also noticed the way in which all the colors in the hall seemed to have changed. As a medical student she had the book knowledge of the various changes that Briaunti went through during a metamorphosis, but the experience was different. Before Tina could fully analyze the experience her eyesight returned to normal.
“I will attempt to key the monogamy instinct to both pheromones and visual cues, perhaps visual thermal signatures. . .” Tina heard the voice, not quite real not quite imagined, “Yes, both to trigger on the massive release of hormones in the post-pubescent individual.” Tina’s vision blurred, coming into focus on a daytime scene somewhere in some kind of lab. A hand, it seemed like her own, pushed through a doorway, into the room where the man was talking.
“Mr. Doctor, I want more juice,” Tina felt the words come from her mouth, but not her mouth. It belonged to someone else.
“Penny! You shouldn’t be in here! Go back to your room! It is very dangerous here!” The man who had been speaking yelled. He was big, tall, with a billowing lab coat and a face scarred by past disease which would terrify a grown man let alone a child.
Tina felt fear and shrank back from the vision into the door to her hospital room before it could reopen behind her. The impact jarred her vision back to reality. She shook her head, confused and disoriented. After a few slow breaths to still the pounding of her heart Tina realized what had happened. Memories, she had read about them, and been told about them all her life. Now she knew what was meant by Briaunti memories.
Tina explored the memory. Penny had to have been her mother, and from some loose association Tina knew that the terrifying man had been Dr. Marcus Briaunt. Briaunt had engineered the Briaunti from donated human genetic material, and he also made a mistake while trying to correct a genetic defect in Tina’s mother. Somehow Penelope had received serum meant only for his experimental subjects. That serum not only cured her mental retardation it changed her into one of the first Briaunti.
Tina’s mind filled with medical thoughts and questions. How much had her mother accidentally witnessed? There was so much potential knowledge about the origins of their race. Tina felt a strange sensation as the hallway began to blur again. This time the vision took no coherent form just jumbled swirls of images, and random words in a multitude of voices. Vertigo almost drove Tina to her knees. She fought the sensation, and the vision forcing it back.
That taught Tina another important thing about the memories. They could be dangerous. Her parents, teachers, and especially Gene had warned her of the dangers. She had even flippantly told Ben about how the memories could drive a person insane. Now Tina took it seriously.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Miranda woke up alone, in the dark. The status lights at the head of Tina’s bed were out and there was no illumination. No light, no telepathic contact, no sounds except for her own breathing. Panicked, Miranda leapt up from the chair, just to prove to herself that she wasn’t restrained. The blanket clung to her, restricting her movement. She wrestled it and flung it off into the darkened room. Fear quickened Miranda’s breath and heart. The sensitivity of her hearing rose, she could hear her blood flowing. Slowly, Miranda became aware of a soft glow emanating from her own skin. She raised her hand to examine it and left a faintly glowing trail through the air. It was heat, and somehow her eyes were picking it up.
Miranda’s fascination with it overrode her terror only briefly. In the end her panic returned, intensified by her suddenly alien vision. Eventually she defrosted from her fear long enough to run to the door, and out of it when it opened on its own.
The light in the corridor was comparatively blinding to normal vision, but unseen by Miranda’s adjusted eyes. She saw only added heat radiating down from the ceiling fixtures. What Miranda did see was a faint purplish trail leading down the hall to a reddish Tina shaped blob. Miranda ran to Tina as quickly as she could without letting her panic show.
“Tina?” Miranda asked, not sure that her altered vision had allowed for proper recognition.
“Oh, Miranda, did I wake you up when I left? I’m sorry, I just wanted to see Nick. I promise to go back to bed. I just want to see for myself that he’s okay. I had such a strange vision. I think it was a memory, one of mother’s from when she was little. I wonder are yours as strange as the one I had?” Tina’s words flooded out faster than Miranda could keep up with, along a train that was even harder to follow.
Miranda didn’t have even a fragment of an idea how to respond. All she wanted to know was how to get her vision to return to normal.
“. . . And my eyes went all screwy. That’s what started the memory. It was of Dr. Briaunt talking about a monogamy instinct, that could be what he called pairbonding. Isn’t it exciting.” Tina gestured animatedly, leaving heat trails in the air.
Miranda caught the comment about Tina’s vision and latched on to it, “Terrifying is, more like.”
The Tina shaped heat source grabbed Miranda’s shoulders, “Are you okay? You look kind of funny.”
“My eyes aren’t working right.” The heat trails began to fade, and the reality of the corridor began to bleed through. Tina frowned, and Miranda recognized it as such, a clear victory on the visual front.
“Maybe I should take a look at them,” Tina’s n
ow flesh toned face turned to face a cupboard.
Miranda blinked as her vision blurred momentarily before fully returning to normal. “No, it’s okay now,” She said. Her panic abated some, “One more time for the sake of the freaked out, what are you doing out of bed?”
“I wanted to visit Nick,” Tina answered the moment before the lights in the hall flashed blue for an instant before raising themselves to full day time levels. “Oh crud, code blue in room 52!” Tina hollered, racing for the front desk and Gene’s office.
Miranda followed, before Tina had a chance to leave her alone again. By the time they arrived at the front desk so had Gene. He was in close conversation with the night nurse that had been manning the desk in case of emergencies. Gene looked like someone who had fallen asleep while reading at his desk. One cheek was flattened, red, and moist, and there was a welt from a pen or stylus on his forehead on that side.
When Gene saw Tina and Miranda, his already sour expression turned even angrier. “Get back in bed young woman, you are definitely not on duty tonight!”
“I can help!” Tina replied.
Gene turned an angry glare on her, and by extension Miranda, “You Martins are all alike, whether it’s your mother, your cousin or your sister, you all want out of here before it’s medically advisable!” Gene grunted almost under his breath.
“But it was only a normal metamorphosis,” Tina argued.
“There is nothing normal about a metamorphosis. Most of the first Briaunti died during theirs. I’ll discharge you as soon as your metabolic readings stay stable for a two hour stretch,” Gene insisted, then he held out his hand to the night nurse for the pop-pad reporting the patient’s condition.
“That’s fine, except that the emergency is now!” Tina growled. Then grabbing the outstretched pad, before Gene could, she strode into one of the emergency transport booths. Miranda watched in shock as Tina slammed her fist into one of the controls and promptly disappeared.
Miranda turned back to a slightly pale Gene. He swallowed hard and forced a smile, “Perhaps, you should call your mother and have her join us in room 52.”
Miranda eyed Gene for a moment, “Why?”
“Because, that booth is offline.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ben opened eyes, he hadn’t intended to close, to the bright white safety of room 52. Given the drama of the past few minutes, Ben hadn’t been at all sure he could manage it. A success, and with a glance back to check for Yllera, Ben reassured himself it was complete. The room was slightly rearranged, with a folding divider between them and examination tables. Beneath the edge of the divider he saw Daniel’s shoes.
“Where’s the other man? And my gram?” Yllera asked in a trembling voice. Her thoughts tumbled randomly around in her mind, echoing into Ben’s.
“Calm down, they’re just over there,” Ben pointed to the divider. When Yllera made a move towards it, he gently grabbed her arm, “No, it would be better for her if Gene had some space to work.
“Where is this Gene person?” Yllera grumbled.
“On his way. It might take a moment for word to get to him about your. . .” Ben began but trailed off as a woman he could almost mistake for Miranda, appeared in the room wearing a hospital gown and a robe. She glanced at Ben then shoved past the divider.
“Him? That looked like a her to me. Does she know what she’s doing?” Yllera pulled away from Ben only to turn and glare at him.
“I don’t know for sure just who she is,” Ben answered trying to figure it out himself. Ben vaguely heard Daniel think something softly.
“Daniel, don’t give me that! I know what I’m doing! And at least I’m here!” The woman’s voice blared in response. Devices began to float in from the supply cupboard in the hall, while Ben watched in fascination. He was so intrigued by it that he almost didn’t notice Yllera’s fear and confusion growing to a full panic.
Daniel came out from behind the divider, with an odd smile on his face, shaking his head and mumbling, “She heard me? I barely heard me! At least that answers one question.”
“Daniel?” Ben asked, placing all his questions and confusion in his tone!
“Tina heard what I thought!” Daniel thumbed back towards the divider.
Ben’s eyes widened, he momentarily wavered between shock at Tina’s appearance and mixed emotions over her new found abilities, “That’s Tina?”
“Okay, you two keystone cops better tell me something to revive my confidence in your doctors or I’m gonna have to get really Cranky!” Yllera finally shouted in their faces, pointing at a priest who was looking around the room as though he were as shocked to be there as Ben was to see him. Daniel immediately went to talk to the priest leaving Ben to calm Yllera.
“I’m sure Tina’s doing what she can,” Ben began, “The truth is that your grandmother’s wound was very serious.” Angela, Penelope, Miranda and Gene arrived suddenly. Ben sighed, “Yllera, I need to talk to Gene, can you wait here just one minute.”
Yllera glared a >no’ at him, but said, “Sure, why not, at least nobody seems to be shooting at me here!”
"Gene, what's going on?" Ben asked.
Gene raised an eyebrow, "You're asking me? You're the one that's been here, and I'm not mistaken you have a better idea than I do."
Ben rolled his eyes, and ran his fingers through his hair. He shook his head and sighed, "Never mind that, what’s up with >super’ Tina?”
Ben felt Miranda gently probing at the edges of his mind, then a brief touch of shock as she came across the image of Yllera’s grandmother. Miranda spoke up, “Gene, I’ll take care of this. The woman is badly injured.” The look she exchanged with Gene sent him sprinting behind the barrier.
Angela spoke up next, before Miranda could pull herself back together. “What happened?”
Ben quickly summarized everything in his head then rushed it all out before he could be interrupted, “The dark was lying in wait. We arrived for the girl and had barely enough time to start to discuss the problem with Yllera’s grandmother when they opened fire on us with a green particle beam weapon. Mrs. Vllett was hit. Then Daniel attempted an emergency transport, but we were bounced back by a massive energy surge. Finally we teleported ourselves in.”
Angela’s expression went blank and she stood silently for a moment, “Things are so, wrong on so many levels. Green used to be loaded with a particle source specifically designed to kill Agurians, but it’s not been in use since the plague because it’s no longer any more or less effective than any other source and cannot be re-tuned in the field to kill us. The only thing that I know of that could cause a power surge large enough to disrupt the emergency transport system is the destruction of an entire dimension, so far I haven’t received any reports of that.” The pocket of Angela’s robe began tweeting, she reached in and pulled out her ever present pop-pad, tapped it, and glanced at the message. “Never mind that,” Angela mumbled popping the pad back into her pocket and pretending to ignore it, “Why are they so interested in Yllera, and her family?”
Ben’s attention was diverted as the noise level rose behind the divider, intense medical jargon had been flowing back and forth between Gene and Tina for some time, but it had reached a level of desperate urgency.
“What good do you think a crazy idea like that will do! Her species has been incapable of it for generations. Besides that, the woman is nearly brain dead!” Gene shouted over Tina’s technical protests. Ben flinched, and glanced at Yllera in time to see the girl collapse in tears. Finally the priest seemed to see his purpose, he rushed to the distraught girl and began to comfort her.
“You can confirm my scans later, we do it now and the woman might just survive this!” Tina growled with more authority than Ben had thought the shy, neurotic girl possessed. Ben heard an affirmative grunt, which he was fairly certain belonged to Gene. Then they fell silent except for the sounds of passing instruments.
“She seems much more certain of herself,” Pene
lope inserted, clearly trying to change the subject and the mood.
“She’s positively aggressive,” Angela concurred.
“She said something about a memory of a Dr. Briaunt,” Miranda offered. Ben could feel Miranda’s confusion and fear. He wanted reach out a hand to comfort and protect her, but knew it would have the opposite effect.
“Makes sense, that old bear always thought he knew what was best. He could scare the daylights out of me in full daylight,” Penelope mused, “Still does, when he asserts himself.” Penelope tapped her head.
Ben felt like an outsider intruding, as both the telepathic and vocal tones slipped in the direction of family gossip. He sensed Miranda felt the same way, though she was drawn to it, born into it even. Ben glanced around the room, searching for a retreat. There was the activity behind the divider; where he would be no more than an irritant. There was the conversational group where he stood. There was Yllera and the priest, in a soft discussion on the floor. Daniel stood alone in the corner, tapping away at his pop-pad.
Ben chose to join Daniel, who didn’t even glance up at his approach. “Finding out anything?”
“Wha-, huh, yeah,” Daniel grunted looking up, “Oh hi, Ben.”
“Figured out just which dimension went supernova yet?” Ben asked.
“Dimension? Oh! That is the answer! How did you?” Daniel cocked his head and raised his eyebrow at Ben.
“I did the sensible thing. I made a report to your wife,” Ben smirked, “Smart woman.”
Daniel nodded, tucking the pop-pad back in a pocket, “So, how’s she doing?”
Ben wondered at the way Daniel could’ve been so distracted as to miss the medical exchange, “Bad, and from the sounds of things worse if Tina’s wrong.”
Eyes Love & Water Page 41
