Zero Power Signature

by Olivette Devaux

  “Good. And now you have a chore to do. I need help picking apples, and I need someone to climb into the tree to get them for me. Your cousin Jared will be visiting. Will you two pick the apples for me?”

  The excited nod told her everything. Jared and Cooper were thick as thieves, the way boys should be when planning secret adventures. Jared’s arrival was supposed to be a surprise, but Cooper’s bright smile made the breaking of a secret worth it.

  The day after Cooper and Jared picked apples, the rain came, but of course Olga had know it would. And the day after the rain left, her cousin Owen arrived in his fancy new pick-up truck. He was closer to Annabelle’s age, but she had always felt an uncanny affinity to him, because he, too, could see the obvious, to which the others were blind.

  “Olga, you old hag,” he laughed as he picked her up into a hug. “Look at your gray hair, flying around like the mists! They’ll take you for one of those old crones and burn you at stake, if you don’t find a better disguise!”

  She slapped the back of his head in an affectionate gesture. “I am one of those old crones, you young whipper-snapper! I’ll teach you proper respect one of these days.”

  They hugged.

  “Why did you bring that godawful truck? I know how much fuel that thing uses. Don’t you read? The global warming thing seems to be for real.”

  He tugged her hand, beckoning her to follow. “Come see what I got for you and Harry.” He loosened the tarp that was stretched over the bed of the F-150. Inside, she saw shrink-wrapped bottles of water, boxes of, wait, canned food? And a large, plywood crate with a machine in it.”

  “Owen, you didn’t!”

  “I did. I got you two lovebirds a proper generator. I don’t want you to go without power as soon as the new millenium rolls over!” He raised his bushy eyebrows so high, they tried to catch up with his receding hairline. “If you get to lecture me on global warming, I get to make sure you’re okay for the Y2K.”

  She pressed her lips together. The Y2K craze was a fine marketing ploy for flooding stores with all kinds of survival supplies, including the generator that sat on Owen’s truckbed.

  He noticed her expression. “What, you’ve Seen something?”

  She shook her head in that dismissive, regretful manner her whole family already knew. The one where she wouldn’t share her insights into the future, because knowing too much would do more harm than good.

  “Oh okay. Whatever, I know your ways. But tell me, where’s the boy? You wanted me to see if I can feel anything, right?”

  “With Jared, naturally.” She led him inside, luring him with a promise of a meatloaf dinner and apple pie for dessert, while in the back of her mind a battle waged on.

  She couldn’t tell Annabelle, but could she tell Owen? And if she could, should she?

  One of the futures came to her in the middle of a living dream. The earth-shattering revelation of what could be, complete with layers of heaving soil and the strata of fractured rocks grinding against each other. Sirens blaring, blue and red lights flashing, and a geyser of lava carving through an urban intersection right under a traffic light, shooting up and up into the nighttime sky, then falling like solid rocks.

  Shattering roof tiles and windshields joined the vision of pictures falling off the walls, and the unearthly screech of large, antique glass panes of store windows vibrating, until they cracked into angry, jagged blades.

  This future didn’t seem very probable – but what level of risk was acceptable? There was no telling Cooper had been the cause of it all, only that if this future came to pass, he’d be in the middle of it all.

  “Olga.” Owen gave her that knowing look. “Look, I ain’t stupid. I’ll keep it to myself.”

  Another flash, one of Owen’s entirely bald head in that nighttime town, ducking sprays of lava.

  Evading.

  Hoping to save someone – or something. Someone close to him, a boy he had once trained.

  Owen was the keystone to this whole mystery. If Owen got involved, the possibility of Cooper coming to some dire and inconvenient “gift” would increase exponentially. She already knew she could never afford Annabelle the slimmest shred of hope that Cooper was anything but ordinary.

  Now she had to keep it away from Owen as well.

  She shook her head. “It’s not like that,” she lied. “I think the weather might be changing again, and I have a bit of a headache. If you’d be a dear, you could put up water for tea.”

  Owen gave her a searching look. “You sure you don’t need some reishi mushroom extract instead?”

  She shook her head, but now that he’d mentioned it, she’d sneak some reishi later. There was nothing better for a backlash headache, and she’d been exercising her Foresight with this level vigor for the first time in many years.

  “No,” she said with a wan smile, hating that she had to lie at all. “Just chamomile, please. With honey. I’ll go close my eyes on the porch. You can bring the cookies out, if you’d care to join me.”

  She settled into her rocking chair, hoping Harry would be home from his errands soon. He’d be thrilled over the generator, and he and Owen and Nikko would go and set it up, and forget all about her.

  The sound of rain against the apple trees not far away soothed her, filling her mind with a white noise that kept the visions away.

  Just as well.

  “Here, with honey. Watch out, it’s hot.” Owen’s voice didn’t disrupt her white noise meditation.

  She opened her eyes, and smiled. “Thank you.”

  “So where’s Cooper?”

  Olga pointed to the orchard. “See that thing? They found a tarp while they were exploring the attic, and some other old things, and they built themselves a tent. Now they’re inside it with some books and snacks.” They couldn’t see the boys, just the green tarp that kept the rain off his shoulders. “They built it all by themselves, too.” She didn’t see a reason to hide her pride.

  Owen settled into the porch chair, centered himself, and closed his eyes on an exhale. Olga had seen him do it on many occasions, and she knew what it spelled.

  Quiet, barefoot footsteps threatened to break the silence. Olga raised her hand in warning, but didn’t turn around. Her daughter squeezed her hand gently, and put her other hand on her shoulder.

  She, too, knew that Owen could see what was hidden. Not the same way, perhaps – he saw only what was there at the moment – but if Cooper had anything, anything at all...

  Owen stirred and opened his eyes. “Well that’s the strangest thing. That tent might as well have only Jared in it. I don’t feel Cooper’s power signature at all!”

  Olga nodded just to hide her relief. “Cooper!” she called out. “Jared! Boys, uncle Owen is here!”

  Cooper poked his head out of the tent first. His vibrant, auburn hair was brown with rain now, a sure testament to the fact that he’d been out recently and that even though he feared the lake, the rainwater was no problem whatsoever. “Coming!” he called out.

  “Zero power signature?” Annabelle’s voice came from behind her, wistful, as though she had wanted Owen to deny the obvious.

  “Yeah, zero power signature.” He flashed her a sympathetic look. “That’s tough, I know. My friend has a kid like that. But he’ll be okay, as long as he doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

  Cooper’s little figure got bigger as he ran for it, splashing through a puddle with Jared on his heels, with both of them laughing.

  “He’s a fine boy, Annabelle. You should be proud of him.”

  “But Mutti.”

  “I know.” She knew, but for Cooper’s sake, she would never tell. Her silence was necessary to ensure his safety. It was also his best chance to be what passed, in most circles of their society, as “normal.”

  THE END

  Thank you for reading ZERO POWER SIGNATURE! If you enjoyed this story, please leave a review at your favorite book site. If you would like to find out more about Cooper’s future, check out t
he sample from LIKE A ROCK, book 1 of the Disorderly Elements, below!

  OTHER TITLES:

  Writing as Olivette Devaux:

  LIKE A ROCK (Book 1 of Disorderly Elements)

  LIKE A TORRENT (Book 2 of Disorderly Elements)

  LIKE A SURGE (Book 3 of Disorderly Elements, coming out in October 2017)

  LIKE A PHOENIX (Book 4 of Disorderly Elements, coming out in December 2017)

  Zero Power signature (Disorderly Elements Short Story, prequel to Like a Rock)

  Within a Crowded Blade (Disorderly Elements Short Story, sequel to Like a Torrent, coming out in August 2017)

  Three Solstice Gifts (Disorderly Elements Short Story, winter holidays, coming out December 2017)

  RELATIVISTIC PHENOMENA

  LUCKY STARFLOWERS

  FLUX

  HORSEPLAY (short story from the Wild Horses world, below)

  Writing as Kate Pavelle – LGBT romance:

  WILD HORSES

  BROKEN GAIT

  SIRE

  ZIPPER FALL

  BREAKFALL

  SWORDFALL

  LANDFALL

  TREADING WATER

  HARD CLIMB

  FINAL DASH

  STRAWBERRIES IN THE SNOW

  ADRENALINE RUSH (M/F romance)

  Writing as Kate Pavelle – genres other than romance:

  CANCELLED CZECH FILES

  NAKED GUN

  JUST BLOW IT UP

  RAISIN RAID

  THE CRONE WHO LEANED ON A SWORD CANE

  SAMPLE READ - LIKE A ROCK

  Chapter 1

  Cooper Anneveinen tossed in his bed again. He cracked his eyes open and embraced the darkness. What woke him? It wasn’t the baby crying upstairs, nor was it a flush of a toilet. Sound carried in this modest Victorian duplex, even though his two-room apartment wasn’t connected to the lush five-bedroom palace upstairs. Then again, he didn’t need more than his two rooms.

  And he was up and alert at four in the morning.

  Alert, and worried, because he had received the diploma in the mail. The one that stated he was a licensed architect, with all the tedious work it had required, although he was still tending bar at Roland’s.

  He muttered a curse under his breath, knowing he wouldn’t fall asleep again. Not with all that adrenaline coursing through his veins. The top architecture firms in Pittsburgh had taken a careful look at his resume, and posed uncomfortable questions about his transcript. One where the grades didn’t do much to represent his true ability.

  Because not many professors took his “... but this part of the Earth just feels wrong for this type of a project” seriously.

  The less exalted outfits weren’t hiring. Times were still hard.

  Cooper rolled off his second-hand bed, clicked the light on, and padded through the living room and into the kitchen, where he hung a left to use the toilet.

  That was the thing with old, turn-of-last-century remodels in Pittsburgh: the plumbing was weird. A house like this had been designed for a big family, and chopping it up into two apartments meant improvising and adding toilets and showers in the oddest places.

  He clicked on the kitchen light, then opened the door to the basement. He turned on the basement light, too, knowing that the high-tech, super-efficient LED light bulbs let him bask in a sunny glow with very little guilt attached.

  The basement stairs were made of wood, and Cooper hunched his six-foot frame so as not to hit his head on the wooden beam overhead. He caressed the stone wall on the way down, relishing in its familiar coolness. The landlords always made a fuss over patching up the plaster that covered the fieldstone foundation, and they kept the basement painted in a light shade of gray. “Just so it doesn’t look too scary,” Mrs. Klein had said with an apologetic smile. “I do wish the ceiling was taller to make it more comfortable for fellows like you!”

  He didn’t tell Mrs. Klein he liked basements. He loved the old, solid, field-stone walls and he relished the feel of concrete under his bare feet. Cool and comforting, and leading to the earth. Just like now.

  Cooper pulled a clean towel out of a reed basket and tossed it on top of the dryer, which sat next to the two water heaters, which in turn sat next to the washing machine. Yet again, an oddity of an old house remodel where he got to hold the hot water hostage in his part of the basement, whereas his upstairs neighbors held his furnace and electrical breaker panel under their benevolent control on their entirely separate side.

  Well, there was a door, but still. Cooper was glad he got along with Mark and Amy upstairs. Then again, he got along with just about anyone.

  He then entered this little house-within-a-house, a bathroom enclosure with its own heat vent and light and steam exhaust.

  The water ran cool while he brushed his teeth, and when it warmed up, he rinsed the sink and stepped into the fiberglass bathtub. He hunched a bit, a habit borne of the last year’s numerous whacks of his head against the low ceiling. The shower was a hand-held that hung on its hook so low, the water hit just his chest. By now, Cooper knew that kneeling to wash his hair and shave was the way to go.

  Despite his morning contortions, he smiled as he felt the earth underneath the bathtub, underneath the concrete floor. He felt it spread, stretching into the hill up Mary Street, all the way past the six neighboring houses before the turn-around, past which the ruins of old houses still marred the hillside, and where the woods moved in to reclaim their territory. Down the hillside, toward the church and North Street, he could clearly visualize the strata of topsoil riddled with sewers and house foundations and roads, and the layers of shale bedrock underneath. And deeper yet, what remained of the coal seams, and a vague impression of emptiness where the coal used to be.

  It seemed so real. Cooper had flunked a class based on impressions like these. Information the professor insisted he couldn’t possess, not unless he had used sources unavailable to his classmates.

  Which was cheating.

  And cheating had gotten him kicked out of the best, most prestigious architecture program in the country.

  Except he had always felt these things and didn’t know why, and down here, in this

  well-maintained little basement, Cooper felt them a lot better than when he was upstairs, in the bedroom.

  His landlady had thought that the cramped, basement bathtub was a strike against the place. She even dropped the rent a bit to make up for the inconvenience.

  What she couldn’t have known was that one man’s inconvenience was another man’s selling point.

  BARELY April, and the windows were still dark at the early, nervous hour when Cooper’s fretful mind roused him out of bed. Two months had passed since he got his diploma. Two months of tending bar at night, sleeping for three hours, then waking in a nervous sweat of pressing need.

  A need to do something, to push on. To build.

  Because slinging whiskey sours didn’t keep him in touch with the rocks underfoot.

  He even considered joining a road construction crew. The starting wage would’ve earned him what he was making at Roland’s, true, plus benefits, but their full-time schedule and long commutes meant he’d do nothing else. He’d be pouring asphalt or driving a steam roller, and there would be no time for making his dream come true.

  Half an hour later, he was dressed in the usual jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. The coffee was made, and Cooper was settled in what used to be the dining room for the whole family, back when the house was new.

  It used to serve as a living room to the previous tenant, with a sofa and a television, but Cooper had little use for all that.

  An L-shaped computer desk stood in the corner by the window. He got it cheap, in a used office supply warehouse in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, much like the old, leather-padded office chair he was now sitting in.

  And unlike the three-screen computer system that took up most of the desk space. That had been expensive. Processing units like that cost money, money he didn’t have. He had sold his ca
r to get it, and he bought a bicycle to get to Roland’s and around town. His skills with stone translated into a smooth touch for landscaping, and Joe and Maureen Hatalsky across the street had been only too happy to let him – occasionally – use their old Dodge Charger in exchange for a yard clean-up job that turned into him building a retaining wall and putting in a new, flag-stone patio.

  Which meant he could avoid using the bus when he went shopping. It also meant he could go visit a work site for a new client.

  When he got one, that is.

  For now, getting his hoped-for architectural client occupied the time he didn’t spend tending bar, or landscaping, or going for the occasional run by the river. For now, it was all constructing websites and creating a presence on the right job search sites, and offering almost-free consulting services on Outsource and Helpdesk and other online services that connected customers and freelance workers.

  He had two hours. Two hours of single-minded focus, undisturbed by e-mail or his dinky old flip-phone, during which hoped uploading all his old school projects onto his very own website would show what his work was all about.

  Cooper Anneveinen, Architect.

  It sounded great and it sounded like not much, both at the same time. Everything was up to him now. He was the maker of his own luck, of his own opportunities. If he started remodeling garages, designing garden gazebos, and adding windows to outdated additions, so be it. Architectural work built his portfolio, and he wasn’t going to turn anything away.

  No matter how humble.

  No matter how strange.

  If you’d like to join Cooper on his journey, find LIKE A ROCK at your favorite online ebook retailer! Paper and audio versions are also available. Enjoy!