It wasn’t much to go by, but it at least convinced me I should try to understand how to create the effect I wanted before trying to decipher how his runes were doing it. Not that the first part was necessarily going to be any easier.
I meditated quietly for a good while, thinking back to how I’d felt the first time I’d tapped into what Carlisle had called Expression and grown a stone flower for Elise straight from the floor of Franco’s old home. I had a feeling Expression was the answer to what I was about to try, though I was still admittedly unclear on exactly what Expression was.
In the beginning, when I’d been learning to use my abilities, it had required painstaking specificity and focus. I’d needed a plan for each action. Tap energy from point A, channel it into my body, focus on how and where I wanted to apply it to point B, and let loose.
Expression, in my mind, was kind of like doing the same thing when there was a complicated process between points A and B that I only vaguely understood in the most abstract of terms. I hadn’t understood the micromechanics of how I’d influenced each atom of that stone floor to swell and form into a new shape, nor had I possessed the mental control to organize that many moving pieces so neatly all at once.
What I’d had was Elise’s blue eyes watching me, a stallion’s kick of feelings in my chest for her, and an untamable desire to please her. I’d pictured the thing. Believed with all my heart and mind that it was possible, that is was right. That it simply was. Then I’d let the energy flow.
What I’d lacked in control and understanding, I’d made up for with a sheer force of will and, unless I was mistaken, a significantly higher amount of channeled energy than what was actually required by the physical act. Almost like I’d offered the universe a side payment of energy to do the thinking for me.
At the time, Expression had seemed like a wild beast of its own. But the more I practiced—and the less I found myself thinking about the details of where and how I was channeling energy to do things like yank Edwards away from a lunging hybrid—the more I was starting to think Expression might not be so different from “normal” Shaping. Really, they might be one and the same, outside the lens of the Shaper’s perspective.
I wasn’t sure the distinction even mattered. But it made me feel a bit more confident as I started clearing my mind, holding only to the idea that my mind was an island, at rest and perfectly alone in the world. Eyes closed. Breathing deep, easy breaths. I drew a bubble in my mind’s eye. Inside, I was on the island. Outside, there was nothing. Silence. The world was gone.
Electric tingles spread up my torso. Across my shoulders. Into my head. I’d opened myself to the energy cell in my hand—started the channeling. I’d barely even noticed.
But was it working?
“Elise,” I whispered. “Can you still feel me?”
It was no good.
As soon as I said the words—as soon as I acknowledged that something else existed outside my little island bubble—I knew I’d broken the sanctity of the illusion. A moment later, the light, curious brush of Elise’s mind confirmed as much.
“I’m assuming this is a bad sign,” came her voice.
“This might take some practice,” I sent back. “And if I’m doing it right, I don’t think I’ll be able to ask you to check again without breaking my focus.”
“You want me to give you a poke every few minutes?”
I smiled. “You bet I do.”
A flicker of amusement.
“What would you do without me?” she asked.
“Guess I’d just be poking myself all day.”
“You think you’re sooo clever.” She began to withdraw, returning to her own practice. “I’ll talk to you in a few.”
“Not if I do my job right.”
I didn’t do my job right.
Not on the second try, and not on the third. Time and time again, I pictured my bubble, retreated to my island. And each time, Elise’s presence came scooting in minutes later to give me a telepathic kiss on the brain and tell me to keep at it.
Each iteration, I sank deeper and deeper into the island, adding small details to the construct until I felt as if I were actually physically there. I’d only ever been to a real beach once, several years ago, but the metaphor felt right, so I did my best. Some scrub trees here, a few sun-baked rocks there. Warm sand between my toes. A gentle, salty breeze on my face.
Nothing but empty blue all around…
“Hal?”
I snapped back to the living room of my Haven quarters with an upright jolt.
Elise was there, hands held up in peace. “You all good?”
“Yeah, fine. I was just pretty deep in there, I guess.”
“Well, the good news is that I didn’t feel a thing just now.” She wrinkled her brow thoughtfully. “Hmm. There’s probably a joke in there somewhere.”
I laughed. It felt good. I’d been so immersed in my illusion that I’d forgotten what it was I was even trying to do.
“So, nothing?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“All right.” I looked at the deactivated cloaking rune on the floor in front of me. “Well that’s a start. Now I just have to figure out what these runes mean, and how the scud I’m supposed to make something stick to them long enough to—Holy scud…” I stared in shock at the palmlight display I’d just awoken. “Have we really been at it for four hours?”
Elise smiled. “Was wondering if you’d noticed. Haven’t I been a good little student?”
Something about the way she said it…
“The best,” I agreed, my eyes tracing along her body.
“Hey, don’t go getting any ideas, mister teacher man.” She stood with a graceful motion and looked down at me. “I’ll have you know I’m spoken for.”
“Oh yeah?”
She gave a very studious nod, and I let her haul me to my feet.
“Maybe just a brief repast, then?” I murmured, cradling her close.
She smiled and pecked a kiss on my cheek. “Such a goodfellow, my teacher.”
In no mood to brave the crowd at the mess halls, we stayed inside, taking a light repast of fabbed bread and cheese while we chatted over small things and played telekinetically with Elise’s orbs.
As encouraging as my early success with conjuring a kind of cloaking field should’ve been, something told me I’d only just scratched the surface of the task at hand. The Shaping—or the Expression or whatever you wanted to call it—was probably the easy part. Unlocking the secrets of the runes, and perfecting this new technique enough to translate it into a new medium…
If I hadn’t been wearing the physical proof that such a thing was possible, I’m not sure I ever would have thought to even try it.
For the moment, though, I tried to push the thoughts aside and simply enjoy some time with Elise. It was the first time in weeks that training—or spending time together, for that matter—was actually fun for both of us. I’d needed it more than I’d realized. And so it came as little surprise when fate saw fit to interrupt us.
We were trying to transfer one of the floating orbs from my control to Elise’s when my palmlight started buzzing.
My stomach tightened momentarily at Johnny’s name, but I answered the call.
“Hal, you might wanna get over to the shipping yard.”
He didn’t sound as angry as I’d expected he might, but his voice was tense. This wasn’t just a friendly notification.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“They’re not sure yet, but it looks like we’ve got a package from Alton Parker.”
I dropped the floating orbs, too shocked to focus. One hit the carpet with a light thump.
Elise, apparently so focused on her task that she hadn’t properly heard Johnny’s words, managed to catch the other one. Then her eyes flicked open in surprise, and her gaze snapped to my palmlight. “Wait, what?”
Her orb thumped to the carpet, punctuating the question.
“We don
’t have details yet,” Johnny said. “They called in the bomb squad, though. I just happened to be with Glenbark when she got the message. She told me I didn’t have to bother you until they knew more, but I thought you’d wanna know.”
“I—yeah…” I glanced at Elise. “We’ll be right over. Thanks, buddy.”
“Just look before you leap this time, flyboy,” Johnny said.
“Yeah,” I grunted through the pain of standing. “Alpha, I really hope it’s not another bomb.”
“That’d be a pretty crappy plan,” Elise said as she went to grab our boots. “Especially for Alton Parker.”
She tossed my boots over. I caught them with a wince and pulled them on with another.
“Maybe that’s exactly what he wants us to think. So stupid, it’s brilliant.”
“Seriously?” she said.
At first, I thought she was refuting my joke. Then I looked up and saw her staring incredulously at my boots.
“What?” came Johnny’s voice from the palmlight.
“He’s lacing his boots with telekinesis.”
“I’m in pain,” I said, starting for the next eyelet with my mind. “Did I mention the part where I was blown off a ten-floor building yesterday?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, sinking to a knee in front of me and shooing away my telekinetic grasp. “Drop ’em, flyboy.”
“Nice one, Lise,” Johnny chimed in. “You tell that flyboy.”
I surrendered my telekinetic grip with a sigh. “So that’s gonna be a thing, huh? Great.”
She smiled and started lacing my boots. “Hey, you need someone to keep you grounded to the planet.”
“Who, him?” Johnny added.
I scowled at the palmlight. “We’ll be over soon, buddy.”
“Wait a second,” Elise said, just before I flicked the call close. Her fingers had paused on my laces. “Why did Glenbark say not to bother us until you knew more? Why was she even thinking of us at all?”
“Ah, yeah,” Johnny said. “Probably shoulda led with that part.”
“What part?” I asked.
“Parker’s package,” he said. “It’s got your name on it.”
11
Sweeper
Outside, Haven was bristling with the ever-present abundance of precise activity typical of a Legion base. Some legionnaires patrolled the wide traffic ways between the blocky, no-frills buildings that covered the compound. Most hustled about to drills or meetings or shifts at their various stations. Passing a training lot where doceres were barking strings of insults thinly disguised as instructions at their assembled tyros, I felt a strange combination of nostalgia and dread. I thought of Mathis, which in turn dredged up a whole host of memories—a few fond, most painful.
By the time we made it to Haven’s main shipping facility, a small crowd had gathered outside, spaced a respectful distance from a high square of the translucent panels I’d seen bomb disposal teams use to cordon off areas as they worked.
A few heads turned our way as we approached, then there were a few murmurs, and several more heads followed.
“Citizen Raish,” Glenbark’s voice called from the front of the pack.
The crowd parted to give us a clear path to her. She looked as starkly commanding as ever. I strode into the crowd, trying to give friendly—or at least non-demonly—smiles to anyone willing to meet my eyes and wondering if, behind me, Elise was as embarrassed as I was by the sudden influx of attention.
“I told Wingard there was no need to bother you until we knew more,” Glenbark said as we drew up to her. She glanced at Johnny, who suddenly appeared to be riveted with something far in the distant sky, before turning back at me. “How are you feeling?”
She spoke in a muted tone, and we were several paces from the nearest soldiers, but I could practically feel them craning their necks to catch any juicy base gossip, so I stuck with, “Fine, sir.”
I was too busy studying the scene ahead anyway.
Inside the square of blast panels sat what looked like a plain polymer shipping crate, no larger than the tray Elise had brought me that morning, and less than a foot thick. It looked almost comically small and non-threatening sitting there behind an array of blast panels, but then again, maybe that was the point. Right outside the square, two men in exceptionally bulky suits of armor were fiddling with their instruments, preparing to go in.
“Citizen Fields,” Glenbark said, leaning past me to give Elise a polite acknowledgment. “A pleasure to see you again. I hope you’ve felt welcome with our accommodations.”
“Oh yeah,” Elise said. “Everyone’s been thrilled to see me.”
There might have been an undercurrent in her tone, but I was too distracted to decipher it, focused as I was on extending my senses to scan our mystery package.
Polymer strips, full of empty air. Packing supports? And at the center of those, a thin polymer rectangle with a duraglass pane on one side. I narrowed my focus, looking for any dense blips of energy like I’d felt in Alton’s rooftop bomb, but all I felt was a small energy cell.
“So what are we dealing with here?” came Elise’s voice at the distant edge of my physical senses.
I drew my senses back. “It’s not a bomb.”
They looked at me, awaiting an explanation.
“It’s a tablet, as far as I can tell.”
“Told you,” Johnny muttered to Glenbark. Then, with much more reverence, “High General, sir.”
Someone whispered something behind us, and it seemed to spread through the gathered crowd.
Glenbark was watching me with her usual composure, but I swear she almost looked surprised for the first time.
“That is indeed what the arrival scan showed,” she finally said. “But those can be faked with sufficient motivation and resources.” She looked toward the blast panels. “Precautions seemed prudent, considering the source.”
The two figures in their bulky blast armor were watching Glenbark now. She gestured for them to proceed.
Everyone fell silent as the two brave specialists slid between the blast panels and closed the gap behind them. Elise’s hand found mine. She looked apprehensive.
“It’s okay,” I sent.
“You’re sure?”
I hesitated. I was pretty sure I’d felt a tablet—or at least an absence of high-powered explosives—but the silent tension hanging in the air now was contagious.
I gave her hand a squeeze and forced myself to breathe. “Pretty sure.”
The two men worked with understandably excruciating precision and attention to detail. The anticipation of the crowd grew steadily for the first few minutes, then began to wane as the inspection stretched. Finally, one of the men raised a bulky arm and shot a thumbs-up, and the tension dispersed like a puff of smoke in the wind. A few seconds later, his partner pulled a small rectangle that looked an awful lot like a tablet from the package.
Glenbark touched her earpiece, then turned to look at me with renewed interest. “It’s a tablet.”
“Looks like you missed your calling as a bomb sweeper, broto,” Johnny said.
I watched Glenbark. “So do I get to see what’s on the tablet addressed to me?”
“Normally, I’d say that this is a matter of Enochian security and that you’d have to wait until we’ve assessed the potential risk of whatever information the device contains.”
“But?” I said.
“But if Alton Parker actually had the gall to send you a tablet here,” Elise said, “you can bet gilders to goja fruit he keyed it so that you’ll be the one who can unlock it.”
Johnny and I looked at Elise in surprise.
“What?” She shrugged. “It’s what I would do if I were a maniacal alien mastermind.”
Johnny bobbed his head, turning to Glenbark. “Lady’s got a point, si—”
Glenbark silenced him with a twitch of her fingers. “Of course she has a point, Wingard.”
Her eyes were crinkled with that composed micro-frown
, her gaze fixed ahead, where one of the bomb specialists had slipped out of the blast panels and was lumbering toward us. Back in the square, his partner was still tinkering with the tablet.
It felt like forever, waiting for the encumbered legionnaire to cross the twenty-some yards between us, but finally, he drew up and favored Glenbark with a crisp salute.
She returned it. “Report, specialist.”
“Yes, sir. Contents of the package include six standard packing supports and one Rade Tech tablet, sir. The tablet appears to be untampered with, though it is locked, and…”
“Yes, specialist?”
His eyes flicked to me before returning to Glenbark. “The lock display has Raish’s name on it, sir.”
Glenbark nodded, unsurprised. “Anything else?”
The specialist shook his head.
“Very well,” Glenbark said. “Bring the device to me, please. Thank you, specialist.”
He gave a crisp salute and hurried off. Behind us, the crowd was aflutter with speculative whispers. Glenbark swiped a few commands on her palmlight before turning to me.
“I think you’d better come to my office, Citizen Raish.”
The air felt oddly cool, rushing through the bandages to my salved face as we sped toward Haven’s main operations building in an open ground shuttle. Every soldier we passed stopped to salute Glenbark, who sat at the wheel, steering us through the base and acknowledging her people with a nod here, a slight wave there.
Irked as I still was by her treatment yesterday, I liked that she saw fit to drive herself. Most generals didn’t.
I liked less that with each salute to her came a follow up look at me and Elise in the back seat of the shuttle. The looks ranged from pinched-brow suspicion to open-mouthed confusion, but without fail, there was a look. It almost started to be fun after we got over the uncomfortable hump. Almost.
At operations, we disembarked. Johnny launched out of the front passenger seat and attempted to get Glenbark’s door, but she waved off his attempt at respectful boot licking before he was halfway around the shuttle.
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