"Mostly," I said. "We disagree on some points."

  "You aren't being completely truthful."

  I wondered how she could tell. "No, but I'm not comfortable saying anything more than that."

  "Very well. What is your role within the Establishment?"

  "I'm a trainee."

  "Who is your mentor?"

  "I call her Absynthe. It's a code name, I don't know her real name."

  Anika tapped a finger on the table. "I see. What about your prior mentor?"

  "Shade. Another code name."

  "What happened to him?"

  "He was mindtwisted in a fight with a rogue agent. An agent of the Resistance, oddly enough."

  She seemed to accept that lie. "Are you seeking information on the Resistance to avenge him? Or heal him?"

  "Hardly," I said. "He was an asshole."

  Again, she almost smiled. I wished I could get a full smile out of her. "Did Nikki like him?"

  "I don't know, but I'd suspect she doesn't."

  "Do you use protection?"

  "I'm sorry?"

  "Do you know of the Only Child Theorem? Or the Twin Theorem?"

  "Wait, what?"

  Her eyes glazed again, but then cleared and locked onto mine. "Do you understand how to use the second tier of power yet?"

  "That's not something I feel comfortable answering either."

  "You have used it, though."

  "That's a statement, not a question."

  Anika fell silent for at least half a minute. Her eyes remained fixed on mine. I tried not to look away. "How does Star feel about Shade?"

  I opened and closed my mouth. "Why don't you ask her? Apparently you already know."

  "You are evasive," she said. "And you are less than truthful. Do you want to know about the Resistance or not?"

  "I do, but I don't know if I can trust you."

  She tapped her fingers on the table. "Mr. Parker, information transactions are our business. We have information your organization doesn't want you to know. We can provide you that information, but you have to answer my questions in full. I'm sorry, but we know we're the only way you're going to get this information. If you aren't willing to meet our price, then we can consider this matter closed."

  I rubbed my eyes. "Can I have some sort of assurance that you'll keep this private? I mean, between your organization and me."

  "The price of exclusivity is more information," she said.

  "Fine. Ask away."

  "Have you used the second tier of power?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  I hesitated. This was something that could get me killed. "I used it to defend myself against Shade when he tried to kill me. I used it to mindtwist him as hard as I possibly could."

  "Why did he try to kill you?"

  "Because he thought I was betraying the Establishment."

  She tilted her head slightly. "Were you?"

  "I know this sounds evasive, but it depends on your point of view. He thought talking with a member of the Resistance was enough to make me a traitor. I disagreed. We fought."

  "Are you going to betray the Establishment?"

  "I don't know. I don't think so."

  "Don't think so?"

  I ground my teeth and shook my head. "I can't predict the future. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know if I'll agree with it when I find out."

  "Do you truly want to live as a normal person?" Her tone shifted into something I could only read as sympathy. "I am authorized to offer a solution to you. We will remove your memories of the university, suppress your psionic powers, alter your identity, and let you live freely in any country in Europe. All your needs will be taken care of."

  "How do you- no, I forget, you know everything."

  "Please consider it."

  "I can't do that." It didn't take much consideration. Even if they were telling the truth, there had to be a catch somewhere. "I really can't. I've come to accept my role."

  "What do you know of your true role?"

  "My true role?"

  Anika studied me and nodded. "I see. I understand."

  "That makes one of us."

  She finally smiled and it was as brilliant as I had imagined. "Knowledge is power, Mr. Parker. Remember that. I would ask you to remember me, but you won't. Your burdens are too heavy to leave this room."

  "I may not remember you, but I'll remember your smile," I said.

  Her smile widened and she looked down. "I hope we can meet some day. Contact us if you ever find yourself in Europe."

  "Wait, that's it?"

  She nodded and rose to her feet. "Your access is granted. I hope you find what you seek." Without warning, the telepresence link snapped. I shook my head and felt fuzzy for a moment. The page reloaded for some reason, showing a wiki page filled with links and documents. There were categories and summaries available, a page that described the history of the Resistance, one exploring the links between the Establishment and the Resistance, another one promising information about known agents, and more. My eyes snapped to the link about their Establishment ties. That was something I didn't know anything about.

  Before I could click it, someone opened our door. I immediately clicked to close the page and pushed the laptop closed. "Christ, Kev," Max said as he walked in. "You've been getting it on six times a day and you're still watching porn? Where do you find the energy?"

  "Don't judge me," I said.

  He snorted and jerked his thumb toward the door. "Glad I caught you. In here, not in the act, I mean. We're all over at the Norse Wonderboy's room, and we want to talk with you."

  I shrugged and got up. "All right, I guess. How'd you figure I was here?"

  "Who do you think set this shit up?" He grinned at me. "Drew talked to Lisa, Lisa talked to Kaitlyn."

  "This sounds more serious than I thought."

  His grin faded. "Yeah, well. Sometimes life is serious, Kev."

  "Did you really say that?"

  "Afraid I did."

  We walked down the hall and into Andreas's room without knocking. Max shut the door behind us. Drew looked at me from the couch as we walked in. I couldn't tell where Andreas was. "What's up, Kev," Drew said. "Have a seat."

  "Is this some sort of intervention?" I asked as I sat. "Or have you guys just missed me too much?"

  They looked at each other. "Well, we do miss hanging out with you," Drew said. "But the girlfriend thing, it's cool, we get it. That's not really the reason we're here, though."

  "We've been talking to Andreas," Max said. "Helping him out with a few things."

  "Did he tell you about the thing he's making?"

  "Do you mean this?" Andreas appeared in the doorway to the other room and pointed something at me. Unlike the hodgepodge of parts the kid at RPI had produced, Andreas's version was sleek and pointed. When the business end pointed at me, the vial on the back of the machine threw off a spark or two of light. Andreas looked down at what looked like a smartphone plugged into the device. "Ah," he said. "As I suspected."

  My stomach fell. "Suspected what?"

  He pointed the device away from me and the sparks of light went out. When he pointed it at Max and Drew, nothing happened. As soon as it pointed back at me, it lit up again. "This indicates there are distortions in your vicinity."

  "Could it be detecting something in that general direction?" I asked. Andreas circled around my chair to stand behind me. The device continued chirping. "I guess not."

  "Let's talk about some things," Drew said. "Like how you jumped over that car last year. I wasn't just seeing things, right?"

  "Or when you spilled the pills the night you moved in," Max said. "I swear, Kev, I thought it was just a trick of the light, or how tired I was. That bottle was floating."

  "You told me this device was dangerous," Andreas said. "You told me it was dangerous to build, dangerous to even know about. Kevin, are you the danger?"

  "No. I'm not the danger," I said.

  "If you are not the danger, what are you, then?"

  Everything came crashing down in that one question. My friends suspected me. While they didn't know about psionics, it was bound to come out eventually. If I denied everything, they'd never trust me again. Losing my friends wasn't an option. That left me with two reasonable choices. I could knock them out, destroy the device, and ask Nikki or Absynthe for help with the extensive memory changes. If I did that, Absynthe would find out I lied to the Establishment and kept a copy of the device's schematics for my own purposes. If Alistair found out in turn, I'd lose his trust at the very least. That option tempted me. I could protect my friends and take all the blame.

  I shook my head and rejected that option. There were no guarantees of safety for anyone in that direction. "I'm going to let you make your own choices about this."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You're going to see something unbelievable," I said. "Each of you, after you see it, gets to choose whether you want to remember it or not. It's dangerous to know about it. You're not supposed to know. I'm not supposed to tell you. But I'm not going to make your choice for you."

  "How can you choose whether we remember something, Kev?" Drew sounded honestly confused. "You're talking crazy talk." Andreas and Max simply watched me.

  "You'll see. Max, give me a cigarette?"

  He frowned but pulled one out and offered it to me. "Hell of a time to take up the habit."

  "Sometimes, you just need something to burn." I took a deep breath and tapped my power. Psionic energy flowed through my mind, a shaky trickle into a stream into a torrent, throwing green light from my eyes. The device in Andreas's hands lit up, vibrated, and chirped. Drew leaned back and swore at length while Max's jaw simply dropped.

  I took the cigarette Max had handed to me and flicked it into the air, then lit it with a simple touch of energy. I held it in the air for a moment before stripping it, letting the ash and paper trail in a circle over our heads. Once I was done stripping it, I pulled it back together into a wad of paper, tobacco, and ash, then sent another flash of energy into it. The wad exploded into a puff of smoke, leaving ashes floating down to the floor. I swirled them around into a spiral leading to Andreas's trashcan.

  "The fuck was that?" Drew asked.

  "You did that?" Andreas asked. His voice was as shaken as I'd ever heard it. "That is impossible. Literally impossible."

  I shrugged and pointed to the device in his hands. "That's telling you something impossible is happening, right? Just how impossible am I?"

  "Beyond the limits this device can measure," he said. "What are you, Kevin?"

  "Psionic."

  "What, mental powers and shit?" Max asked. "I always thought you were mental, but this is too much."

  "Telekinesis has never been proven," Andreas said. "All claims to date have been proven fraudulent."

  "Shit," Drew said. "This is fucking amazing!" He jumped to his feet and paced around the couch. "Dude, you could be the best basketball player of all time. Shit, you could be the best sports player of all time!"

  I shook my head. "Sure, if they could get past the glow."

  "Could you do it again?" Andreas asked. "Levitate this?" I lifted a pen from Andreas's hand. He leaned in close to look at my eyes. "Fascinating. I wonder what medical scans would show while you use your power."

  "You can't turn off that shine from your eyes?" Drew asked.

  "I don't know how to," I said. Alistair and Burke were able to hide it somehow. I didn't know how and they weren't sharing.

  "Can you change the color?"

  "The color's based on your training." I tried remembering Shade's explanation. "The initial color is based on who awakens your power, and then training makes it stick. It gets brighter as you use more power."

  "Does it hurt?" Andreas asked.

  "Hurt? No, it's just some sort of excess energy bleeding off. I don't even notice it anymore."

  "Has the cause ever been established?"

  "No one's ever volunteered to have their eyes sliced open while using their powers, as far as I know. I don't know if we can regenerate that sort of thing."

  "Regenerate?" Andreas held a hand up and Drew whistled. "Please, wait. I would like to take some notes."

  For the next twenty minutes, I gave a primer on basic psionics for the uninitiated. Telekinesis let me manipulate matter and energy at a distance. Another branch of that discipline gave me the ability to manipulate my own body, allowing me to increase my own strength or speed. I demonstrated some of those abilities for their amusement. Afterwards, I moved on to the telepathic disciplines I had learned, from the simple telepathic messages, to the more involved telepresence. Of course, they were interested in my brief mentions of mind reading and memory manipulation. I dismissed those topics as telepathy wasn't my strong point. That was Nikki's forte. I also didn't want to explain memory modification in too much detail. They'd had their memories tweaked before and I didn't want them to realize the extent of that ability.

  The third primary discipline of metasensory powers was even more difficult to explain. I called my Sight and tried to describe what I saw, but I didn't think any of them could understand. It was more than just seeing the connections between people and energy and objects, I understood those connections on some sort of intuitive level. That was something that could only come with practice. I could see Drew's excitement on the connection between us, and Andreas's fascination and interest. When I looked to Max, I realized that he had fallen silent and the line between us was vibrating with tension and maybe fear. I let my power fade and faced him. "Max, I can tell you're on edge about this."

  "Yeah, you could say that," he snapped. "What are you, Kev? You're not exactly human anymore, are you?"

  I held up a hand. "Prick me and see if I bleed. Hell, do a genetic test on me."

  "That's not what I mean and you know it. You have these super magic brain powers and you're not the only one out there. Maybe we can trust you. Maybe we can't. Maybe you're just going to wipe out our memories of this shit once you're done talking."

  "I'm going to give you the choice," I said. If they chose to forget about it, I'd have to call in Nikki. That wouldn't be a fun conversation. We'd probably have to involve Absynthe. "But I'll tell you this, you can trust me."

  Max lit up in open defiance of university policies. "We can trust you. Sure. You didn't tell us until now. You've been learning all about this shit for a while, right? So, why now? Why not sooner?"

  "I'm not supposed to be telling you at all," I said.

  "Why not? Let me guess. There's some secret organization in the shadows trying to take over the fucking world. They don't want us normal people knowing about your superiority and shit, they're afraid of what'll happen if us poor slobs find out there are super powered dorks like you walking around among us."

  "Actually, yeah," I said. Max flinched and drew hard on his cigarette. "The organization I'm part of isn't trying to take over, as far as I know, but there are a few groups out there who are much more open about that sort of thing. They see normal people as tools, children, or subjects. Personally, I'd rather live and let live."

  "Yeah, well, that's awfully nice of you," Max said. "At least until you can get what you want out of life by using your powers and shit. Fuck the normal guys then, right?"

  "Are you going down the 'power corrupts' path, Max?" Drew asked. "Because I think that's bullshit in this case. We know Kev and we know he's a good guy."

  Max nodded and flicked some ash away. "Sure. No offense intended, Kev, but I can't believe that people with your sort of power aren't going to use it for their own personal gain."

  I had to laugh. "Well, I do sometimes use it to enhance my memory when I'm studying."

  "See?" Max stubbed his cigarette out on Andreas's coffee table. "Even the good guy uses it for his own benefit."

  Andreas cleared his throat. "Please respect my furniture, Max. The argument applies to all of those who have some sort of advantage over another. I use my superior intellect to gain advantage. Drew uses his physical condition. You use your natural charm and financial situation. How are these so different?"

  "I can get smarter, ripped, and richer. I can't get psionic powers."

  "As far as we know," Andreas said. We all turned to him. "Perhaps a normal person can gain powers in some fashion. There may be genetic therapy in the future that could provide access to those powers."

  "Don't think I'd want it," Drew said. "I like myself the way I am, you know?"

  "I don't think they'd want people to get powers. The haves never want the have-nots to rise to their level. They'd probably crush the hell out of anyone who tried it." Max snorted. "What a load of bullshit. So what does your organization actually want, Kev?"

  "Hell if I know," I said. "Not to take over the world, according to them. They want to make sure no crazy assholes do that. Of course, that might make them the crazy assholes. I don't trust them. I don't trust anyone, to be honest."

  Max finally cracked a grin. "Smartest thing I've heard from you all day."

  "Sometimes I'm not a complete dumbass."

  "So there's totally a shadow war going on in the background," Drew said. "That sort of shit is exciting. Scary, but exciting. What can we do to help you?"

  "Help me?"

  "Yeah, of course." I looked between all three of them. "Kev, we're on your side here. We're not going to choose to forget. What are you, nuts?" Andreas nodded as I met his gaze.

  Max looked away for a moment as I caught his gaze. "I'm with you Kev, but this shit is scary as fuck. If you're part of the good guys and you don't really believe they're good, what are the bad guys like? Are we going to come down with a seriously terminal case of dead if they find out we know about you?"

  I nodded. "They've already threatened that."

  "Say what?"

  I told them the abridged version of my traineeship with Shade. I left out the parts involving what actually happened on our trip through Washington. No one needed to know about Star. I wanted to forget all about her myself.

  "Kev?" Max asked. I blinked and realized I had stopped talking. "You ok, man?"

  "Yeah, just lost my train of thought," I said. "But to end the story, he tried to kill me. It was a straight no holds barred fight. He had me beat and tried to force me to surrender. If I didn't, he'd take control of me, make me into a puppet, and force me to kill or torture all my friends and family."

 

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