The Ashes of My Soul, page 7
“Jesus.” Drew looked at Andreas. “I need a drink. You got anything?” Andreas didn’t reply, simply stepped away and returned a minute later with three glasses. Drew downed half of his like a shot. I tasted it first and decided it was a little strong to follow suit.
Andreas took a sip of his as well and kept his pale blue eyes on me. “I will not lie, Kevin, this disturbs me. The sheer amount of violence was not reported. Only the fire, and there were no deaths.”
“And from what you told us, those would be suspicious as hell, dude.” Drew swirled the drink around and lifted it to his lips again, leaving only a few drops. “Fuck, man. I’ve seen some shit, but nothing like what you said.”
“How often are accidents and disasters cover stories? How often are memories modified to smooth things over? I find myself growing paranoid.”
“Memory modification isn’t easy or reliable,” I said. My temples throbbed again. I knew I’d told them about this sort of thing before. “Do you want an example? I’ll change something in your memories, nothing important.”
“I am curious. Yes, please do so.”
“Me too,” Drew said. “Been wondering myself.”
I nodded and thought back to a time when they were both present, then tapped into my power. I reached out into both of their minds, bypassing their defenses, and tweaked a single detail. “All right. Think back to our end of trimester get-together before break.”
“Got it.”
“What color was the drink you poured for Kaitlyn?” I asked.
Andreas frowned. “It was green.”
Drew shook his head. “No, dude, it was red. Wasn’t it?”
“It was blue,” I said.
Confusion crawled across their faces. Andreas finally nodded. “I understand now. A challenge to a false memory can break it.”
“Fucking trippy as hell, dude. It was like I was remembering the same thing twice.” Drew rubbed his head and then finished his drink. “I could force myself to remember it both ways. Dude. I still can. It’s like one of those optical illusions.”
“You are not remembering the actual event incorrectly,” Andreas said. “You are remembering when you remembered the false memory.”
“Shit. Now it’s getting deep in here.”
My temples had taken to throbbing again. “Does that make you feel any better?”
“Somewhat.” Andreas stood up and walked to his work area, returning with both the psionic sensor he’d cobbled together months ago and a new device. “While we are on the topic, I would like to test this, if possible.”
“What is it?”
“A device designed to disrupt psionic phenomena.”
I stared at it. “How the hell does it work?”
“It would be difficult to explain in detail. When I analyzed the records of your power usage, there were certain consistencies among the distortions. This device analyzes the scanner’s output and attempts to emit audio and visual harmonics to neutralize or disrupt those patterns.” He picked up the scanner portion and aimed it at me. “If you would?”
I shrugged and tapped into my power again, only calling up my Sight. The glow from my eyes shifted shadows around and gave everything a distinct blue-green tint. “Want me to do anything special? Nothing crazy. I’m not supposed to be using my power at all.”
“Telekinesis,” Andreas said. “Move something around.”
I picked up Drew’s empty glass and made it hover, sweeping it back and forth. Andreas nodded and stared at his screen while Drew appeared to have dozed off. “Are you ready?”
“Sure, let’s try this.”
He pressed a button and the new device lit up. A set of colored lights slowly shifted in color and I realized they were getting closer and closer to the color of my eye glow. I couldn’t hear anything audible, but that didn’t mean anything. There were plenty of frequencies we couldn’t hear. Once the lights matched me, they started to pulse. “It has latched on to your frequency and is calculating,” Andreas said. “Have you noticed anything yet?”
“Nope.”
“All right. Calculations are complete. The next stage is automatic.”
I nodded and kept my eyes on the lights. They stopped pulsing and went dark, then came back on. There was a subtle flicker, barely noticeable at first, but then the lights started flickering faster than I could see with my normal vision. My Sight burned out in less than a second and a pattern of light burned my eyes. I shut them reflexively. With my eyes closed, I could hear the pattern in my head, buzzing noise and silence vibrating painfully within my skull.
I heard a thump as the glass fell to the floor. “Did you stop using your power?”
“Not intentionally,” I said. My jaw clenched as the back of my head throbbed. “I’m not sure if this thing rattled my brain or what, but it’s giving me one hell of a headache.”
“You can hear it?”
“Yes, I can hear it. Shut it off, please?” The buzzing was getting worse and worse and the spikes of pain in my eyes hadn’t faded at all. When he shut it off, the echoes faded, but the headache remained. “Congratulations. I have a splitting headache. Is that how it’s supposed to work?”
“I did not know what the effects would be, hence the testing.”
I sighed and opened my eyes. I was not prepared for what I saw. “Uh, you didn’t just lose power or blindfold me, right?”
“No?”
I looked down at where my hands were. Nothing changed. There was only a velvet sea of darkness. “Well. This isn’t good.”
“Kevin, what is wrong?”
“I’m blind.” I couldn’t tell if I was panicking or not. “I mean, I can’t see. It burned my psionic Sight out and then my normal sight.”
“That was unexpected.”
“I figured. Now fix me.”
Andreas was silent. “If I knew what had happened, I would. I suspect this is a neurological defense mechanism. Your brain has stopped interpreting visual data to prevent damage.”
I waved my hands around. It seemed like there were faint swirls in the darkness, but it could simply be my brain making more shit up. “If I knew more biokinesis, I might be able to fix myself. But I’m not good enough and if I go to the infirmary, they’ll ask questions.”
“I believe it is temporary,” Andreas said. “You were not exposed to the light for long. I do not believe it was enough time for permanent physiological damage.”
“How long do you think it’ll be before I can see again?”
“I could not say.”
“So I’m stuck like this for who knows how long?” I sighed. There had to be some way to get this taken care of without Absynthe finding out. Grace could probably fix it, but I’d have to get off the campus while blind, without being caught, and without involving Star. The pain in my head was starting to recede and I leaned back. “I’m going to say you might have some work to do, but this could be a weapon against psions. But maybe don’t blind people.”
“I will do so.”
Out of frustration, I tapped into my power and called my Sight. It took a moment, but then the white lines of connection and definition appeared before me. I refined it more so I could see at least outlines of objects. It would give me a low grade headache, but at least I could navigate in private. “At least my psionic Sight still works.”
“Are you using your powers right now?” Andreas’s tone held surprise.
“Yeah, why?”
“Kevin, your eyes are not glowing.”
I looked down at my hands. They looked like an amateur artist had sketched them, then inverted colors. I was absolutely using my power. What was going on? “Interesting. Can you use the sensor part and see what it says?”
“One moment.” I looked toward Andreas and his sketch coalesced into what I could only think of as a stick figure in three dimensions. “I am not sensing your power usage.”
“Maybe it’s because my Sight is passive.” I looked down at the glass I had dropped before. As I used telekinesis to lift it, I could see the lines of psionic force connecting it to me, almost as if I had another limb. “How’s that?”
“Odd.” Andreas sounded confused. “You are using your powers to levitate the glass, yes? The sensor is not reading anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps elevated, but I would need to calculate if it is statistically significant.”
“Try pointing it at the glass?”
“Still nothing.”
I set the glass back down and cut my Sight. “How about now?”
“Again, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“I wasn’t manifesting anything there. Last test. Keep the sensor on me and tell me when I start using my powers.”
“All right.” I counted eleven seconds and called up my Sight. After another few more seconds, Andreas spoke up. “I believe you just started. No. Spurious readings. Never mind.”
“I’ve been using my Sight for a few seconds now.”
He sighed and put the sensor down. “What does this mean, Kevin?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ll have to do some research.” I knew powerful psions like Alistair and Burke could manifest their power without the glow, to some extent, but it wasn’t as if I could ask them to let me scan them. That being said, it wasn’t as if I had to ask. “How difficult would it be to build that into something I could hide? Like, into a watch or a phone?”
“You are not James Bond and I am not Q.” Andreas sounded amused. “I could build a smaller one, perhaps one you could put in a pocket or sleeve, but I would need to order more advanced sensors, which are commensurately more expensive.”
“Price isn’t an issue.” I had an effectively unlimited line of credit, after all. “You think about it and let me know. Send me a list of whatever you need and I’ll get it for you.”
“I shall do so. This is somewhat exciting.”
“What’s exciting?” Drew spoke up. “Think I crashed. Long day.”
“Kevin is blind, but now can use his powers without being detected,” Andreas announced.
Drew seemed to turn to face me. I tried to power up my Sight to make out more details, but the throbbing in the back of my head reminded me not all of my problems could be solved with brute force. “Sounds like a bad trade,” he said. “Are you going to be all right? Being blind and all.”
“Yeah, I can get around with my powers.”
“That might be a little obvious, dude.”
“Not like that. I mean, I can see, sort of.”
“Oh.” He leaned back. “So what’s the plan?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got a reason for this, right?”
I turned toward Andreas. “No, it was an accident.”
“My disruptor was effective, but with unexpected side effects.”
Drew grunted. “Well, if it makes them blind but able to use their powers without being obvious about it, I wouldn’t call it effective. I mean, maybe on the short term while they try and get their shit together, but if one of the bad dudes was like this, they’d get us fast.”
“I did not consider that possibility.”
“Wait, before you get too carried away, you can’t assume it would affect everyone the same way.” I held my hands up in front of me. “You can’t extrapolate from a sample of one. Granted, you don’t have much of a sample pool available, but maybe you can talk Max into this.”
“Speaking of Max, think they’re done fighting yet?” Drew asked.
“I hope so. I don’t think it was anything too serious.”
“Well, I need to crash, so I’ll see you gentlemen later. Shit, sorry, Kev. I didn’t mean it like that.”
I chuckled and stood up. The world rotated around my head. It was going to take a lot of getting used to. “If I don’t recover soon, I know a guy who knows a guy. Andreas, you’ll get me the list, right? I can order it, or reimburse you, whatever’s easier.”
“I will let you know.”
Chapter Six
It took less than half a day to realize I couldn’t function with only my Sight. If I didn’t concentrate, the bounding edges of objects didn’t match their actual dimensions. Rapid movement was almost impossible to keep track of. Crossing the street had given me the shakes. Worst of all, I couldn’t read. Words on paper or on screen, neither showed up to my psionic vision. I blew off afternoon classes and made my way back to the dorm.
I almost had to ask someone to dial a phone number for me. Luckily, I still had an older burner phone with physical buttons and was able to peck out the number. Of course, it went to voice mail. I cleared my throat. “Hey, Grace? This is Kevin. Different phone. I need your help. Can you call me back?”
My phone rang less than a minute later. “Kevin who?”
“Kevin who’s seeing your roommate.”
“Oh, that guy. You know, you should call her if you want to work things out, not me.”
“That’s not the help I’m looking for.”
Her deep sigh filled my ear with static. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“I’m sort of blind at the moment.”
“Blind. You can’t see?”
“That is the definition of the word, yes. It’s a long and interesting story which I can’t do justice to over the phone. Can we meet somewhere so you can take a look at my brain and see if there’s anything you can do?”
“Something you don’t want the Establishment to find out about? Interesting. You know I can’t come to the campus, and if you’re blind, how are you going to get down here?”
“I have my ways.”
“How mysterious. All right. Can you meet me at the Chinese place near our apartment?”
“Yeah, when?”
“I’m free all evening so give me a call when you’re close. You’re buying, by the way.”
“Thank you, Grace. I really appreciate your help.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk to Star?”
“Not yet.”
She sighed again. “Fine. See you later, then.”
I put the phone in my pocket and stood up. I wasn’t sure what time it was, and I couldn’t read any of the clocks in the room, but my best guess was mid-afternoon. If there was anyone who’d be around at this time of day, it’d be Andreas. I shuffled down the hall and knocked on his door. If I could talk him into giving me a ride downtown, it’d make life so much easier.
“Kevin.” The voice answering my knock was not Andreas. My Sight showed me a sketch of Kaitlyn standing in his doorway, arms crossed over her chest. “He’s not here.”
“Damn. Is he going to be back any time soon?”
“Maybe.”
“Could you let him know I was looking for him?”
“Maybe.” Her tone said no.
I sighed and stepped back. “Thanks, Kait. See you later.”
“Is it anything I can help with?”
Her tone was so fake it stung. I still didn’t know why she’d flipped from friendly to hating my guts. “Not unless you have a car and want to give me a ride.”
“Oh, setting up a rendezvous? Sorry. Not supporting your cheating ways.”
“Give it a rest, would you? You know Nikki lied to you about a lot of things, right? At least I admitted I did something wrong. Shit, you might have been the first person I told. You weren’t so pissed off then. You even told me you’d make me feel better if I wanted.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
“So what changed?”
She didn’t respond for a moment. I wished I could see her actual face and try to read her expression. My Sight couldn’t give me quite the same insight, unless I used it to invade her privacy. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that. No. Go away.”
The door closed in my face before I could respond. The lock clicked just to drive the point home. I turned away and headed back to my room to grab a coat. I could walk to the Chinese place to meet Grace, though it would be terrifying and potentially fatal.
As I turned to leave, the door opened, nearly hitting me in the face. “Shit! You scared me!”
“Sorry, Kev, I’ll try to open the door better next time.” Max stepped past me.
“Hey, before you sit down, can I ask you for a massive favor?”
“I’m not sending you any pictures of Jess for comparison.”
“Never crossed my mind. Wait. You have pictures?”
“I never said that. What’s up?”
“I need to meet someone downtown and I don’t have a way to get there that doesn’t involve getting hit by cars. I was hoping you could give me a ride. There’s Chinese food in it for you.”
His sketch figure turned around. “I suppose I can, but I get the feeling there’s something going on here I don’t know about.”
“I’ll tell you in the car.”
It took me a bit longer to get to the car than I’d like. Max didn’t say anything about my hesitant steps or movements until I sat down. I wiped sweat off my forehead and turned my head to face him. “You’re not ok,” he said. “Something wrong with your eyes?”
“Yeah, they don’t work.” I gave him the story while we drove away from campus. “I know of someone who can check me out without letting too many people know about this. I don’t want Andreas to get in trouble, otherwise I’d go to Absynthe.”
“Weird as shit. Nothing I could check out, right?”
“Not unless you’re some sort of prodigy with biokinesis.”
“Maybe I am. There’s only one way to find out.”
“Not on me, please.”
He laughed. “So, where are we going? There’s a Chinese place every other block.”
I gave him the cross streets to the best of my memory, then pulled my phone out and called Grace. She gave me the name of the place, Max found it, and we walked in less than ten minutes later. I remembered it as a hole in the wall like most cheap Chinese places with only a couple of tables. “This place is not going to pass their next health inspection,” Max muttered.
“That’s probably why it’s so good.”
The door opened behind us and I turned to see who I thought was Grace. “You brought a friend,” she said.
