Age of Power 1: Legacy (27 page)

Alan
looked like he was about to shrug her off when Dana grabbed one of his wrists.
She said, “If you jump out of here, or leave us behind, I will find you and
I will hurt you. Am I perfectly clear?”

Alan’s
eyes widened, and his voice was a squeak as he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

I
really wished I could make people listen to me like that. Neither of them had listened
to me, but Dana had said one thing and they gave her instant respect! I
wondered whether her father had taught it to her while she was growing up. The
Sinclair family was definitely fun to be around—in a strange, life-upsetting
sort of way.

I
drank my coffee.

But,
instead of Alan explaining, Angela was the one to do so. “It started on the day
Yama was stopped by Alex.”

Dana
said, “The radiation pulse…”

Memory
of Alex’s flight flashed across my mind’s eye for a second as I said, “That
must’ve been fun. How sick did you two get?”

Alan
mumbled something through the cheesecake in his mouth. At my confused look, he
swallowed and repeated himself. “We never got sick. We just gained
superpowers.”

I
started to make a smart aleck remark when Angela’s eyes narrowed. Alan winced
when she reached up and pinched his ear. She said, “Sometimes, Alan, you’re an
asshole. Stop trying to show off.”

Alan
hesitated for a few moments and, finally, said, “All right. Some people got
sick. But some didn’t. Not right away, anyway. Angela and I did just ‘power
up,’ as you put it. Others like you got sick, and only developed powers once
they received the magnesium-lithium therapy.”

A
sad look crossed Angela’s face. She said, “But yes, people did show power right
away, too. There was a cost, though. We all need the magnesium now. And some
didn’t make it in time.”

I
sighed. “I saw the numbers of how many died. Yeah, that wasn’t a great thing.
So, what, are all the survivors Empowered? That’s one hell of a lot of
superhuman beings running around!”

Angela
eyes widened, and she said, “Good Lord! No, those are mostly people who had a
bad reaction to the burst. Once they got on magnesium, they healed up fairly
well. They don’t even need the therapy now. Limited instructions in the DNA I
suppose.”

Dana
shook her head.
“Some instruction.
So where did you
two enter into this?”

Angela
said, “We were trying to find a way to get out of the immediate blast area when
Yama blew up. We got so excited that we jaunted. It scared our parents until we
showed up again.”

Dana
blinked and muttered the word silently. I had a memory flash and said,
“Jaunted…isn’t that from the old British television show, 
Tomorrow
People
? They called teleportation by that word—jaunt.”

“The
word is defined as a ‘short trip.’ I don’t know anything about a television
show. We started using it because the word ‘teleportation’ takes too long to
say. Besides, ‘jaunt’ sounds better.” Alan said.

That
brought smiles to them, but not to me. I felt sad as I said, “Great, we get
zapped and nearly die, while you two power up and go bouncing all over the
place! Where’s the fairness in that?”

Dana
looked at me and said, "Who do you know besides these two?”

I
blinked. “Um, I meant me. Sorry, I’ve been thinking about Brand. Although he
got sick, it stands to reason that he might have powered up eventually, doesn’t
it?”

Dana
squeezed my shoulder. I gave her a smile. Looking at the twins, I said, “So how
did you go bouncing all over the Canadian countryside to end up here? Um, I
mean to Riverlite, Iowa. And why bug me? Was it to recruit me or something?”

Alan
and Angela didn’t answer. They glanced at each other uncomfortably. Dana took a
bite of her cheesecake and mumbled, “Hurt you…”

Alan’s
eyes widened. “Um, we weren’t really there to recruit. We were keeping an eye
on Kular. She’s one of Yasmine’s friends from the conclave. And honestly, when
you and Brand never showed any powers, we thought you were one of the ninety
percenters.”

“Ninety percenters?”
 Dana asked.

Angela
explained. “Since Paradoxis pulled us together, the conclave has been trying to
understand things. But thanks to the Exodus, we've only managed to get
a rough idea
of how Shaw affected people. We don’t know
everything by any means, but one thing kept turning up. Out of all the victims,
only ten percent showed paranormal abilities, while the rest…”

She
shrugged and Alan said, “The rest are the ‘ninety percenters.’ They have
the physical cell change, but no heavy duty superpowers.”

I
glanced at Dana when she reacted to what Alan said. I asked, “Dana, does that
mean something to you?”

Speculatively,
Dana said, “That’s roughly the same ratio for active to non-active psychic
talents that we’ve found in a given population. At least, that’s what the coven
has found over the years.”

I
nodded and thought about it. It still left a lot to work out. But this was a
start. I’d have to look up properties of magnesium when I got home. It finally
felt like I was on the right path toward understanding the core of my talents.
Ugh, Brand had been right; I was such a geeky doofus.

But
Dana must have been thinking along the same lines because she said, “If the
excess magnesium is somehow turning normal psychics into Empowered humans, then
the ratio would fit.”

Alan
started; looking troubled, and said, “It would? Wow. None of us knew about the
ratio. Shield never said anything about it.”

I
snorted and said, “Gosh, I guess ‘old school’ psychics do have something to
teach you, after all. Who would have thought?”

He
rolled his eyes. “Dude, we thought you were normal! Kular just checked you out
because you were one of the first people Kirksten cured! You were a baseline
control thing. Sorry, we had no interest in you until Paradoxis told us to keep
an eye on you.”

I
stopped eating and looked at him. “Why would she want to do that?”

Alan
sighed. “Shield told us that you had developed your powers on the same night as
your birthday. And Parry told us that you were able to do things with sound. We
did plan to make contact with you to invite you into the conclave. But then
that whole mess with that speed freak came up, and then you found out about us
and Kular, um, the hard way.”

I
started to ask more about that, given how great Rao Kular had been with Brand
and me, but I had to hold off when Dana asked, “Who is Shield?”

Angela
said, “He’s one of the main Empowered in the conclave. He and Paradoxis were
the first to connect over the web. They came up with a way to use the phad
transceiver to make sure we weren’t attacked by—”

Alan
softly interjected, “—attacked by Yasmine.”

I
glanced at Alan. His face looked flushed. And from the way he said Yasmine’s
name, I had the suspicion that he had liked the woman until this craziness
began. I shrugged that off as unimportant and picked up the transceiver. It
felt perfectly normal. I guess I was expecting something weird after being
around computers that looked at me.

I
asked, “How does this manage to keep you safe from Yasmine?”

Pulling
out her transceiver, Angela showed it to me and said, “They’re linked to the
wi-fi network through Paradoxis. That’s her talent—cybernetic telepathy.
Shield has a powerful energy defense that can block telepathic and physical
attacks. He came up with the idea. It has something to do with the q-d chipset
in the transceiver. We didn’t ask specifics.”

Without
thinking, I said, “Maybe it has to do with quantum entanglement. When the modem
is in the phads, they utilize the phenomenon to communicate between the phad’s
hard drive and the modem to work at near instantaneous speeds.”

Dana
looked at me. “I thought you didn’t know anything about science.”

With
a depreciative grin, I said, “What? I have an eidetic memory of what I hear. I
repeated something Alex told me about quantum physics. And Brand couldn’t shut
up about
his phad and what it could do
. Believe me;
I’m not that heavy into science.”

With
a grin, I said, “It’s all just a fad to me.”

Groans
went around the table. “Okay, I can make with the bad jokes.”

Dana
quipped, “Oh, but that’s just so out of vogue.”

Angela
said, “It’s not even a fancy, nowadays!”

Alan
dropped his head, moaning. “I can teleport to the moon if I want. But no, I had
to hang with the bad jokes gang! Have mercy on me, please!”

Angela
grinned. “No, no, horrible jokes are all the rage!”

Dana
snorted at that one, but although she was smiling, she still pushed us on.
“Fine, you have a cyber-path and a powerful psi-shield Empowered. And I’m
taking a guess that Yasmine is a telepath.”

Alan
said, “And a very powerful one, at that. When Yasmine started getting
threatening, we got scared. You don’t know what she’s like. Her mind is so
overpowering.”

He
shuddered. Angela sighed. “We’ve met in person a couple times. Alan being such
a strong jaunter helped that along. Alan isn’t kidding about her power. But if
we keep the transceivers on us, we’re good. At least at a distance; we haven’t
tested them in person.”

I
said, “How’d you two get involved? How did you go from jaunting around Canada
to joining some group of powered up…? Empowered?”

Angela
smiled and said, “Confused are we? But it was easy. We have phads at home. Once
we got used to our abilities, we started to look for others. Paradoxis was
doing the same thing. She can bring people to her as virtual constructs on the
Third Tier Internet.”

As
she talked, I
was reminded
that Paradoxis had kept an
eye on me. I shivered slightly. Suddenly, my paranoia had a basis in fact.

I
said, “Could she do it through normal pre-phad computers, too? And maybe even
cell phones?”

She
nodded. I gulped down some coffee, thinking over what had happened so far. I
took a deep breath. I said, “So, even though I was one of the
‘ninety-percenters,’ she was still interested in me. Why?”

Alan
and Angela glanced at each other. Alan said, “Kular. She started acting
differently with how she talked about you and Brand.”

I
cocked my head to the side and said, “What do you mean? Up until Brand died,
Kular had always been distant toward me.”

They
shrugged. Alan said, “She never went into it. But after you got out of the
hospital, Kular and Yasmine both started watching over the two of you more
closely. Parry noticed and started keeping an eye on you when you were on the
interview circuit. Angela even kept an eye on you for Parry, though I doubt you
saw her.”

I
started and looked at Angela. Her face turned red. So that 
was 
Angela
at the dance clubs! But she hadn’t told Alan about that. Huh. I wondered
why. Well, at least I knew I
wasn’t going insane
.
She wasn't a figment of my imagination! Gods knew I didn’t want to be that
obsessed with her! Except…that I
sort of…
am. I drank
more coffee.

Putting
the mug down, I said, “Uh, wow. That’s weird. So someone was watching me. And
here I thought I was just being paranoid from all the attacks by the
interviewers.”

Dana
snorted and said, “It’s not paranoia if people really are out to get you.”

I
said, “But if I didn’t show any power before my birthday, why keep an eye on me
at all?”

Angela
said, “We don’t know for sure. We just know that things changed around the time
of the memorial.”

I
asked, “Why?”

Dana
eyes widened slightly. She looked at me for a moment, then at the siblings.
“Yasmine is a telepath, right?”

Alan
nodded.
“Yeah, so?”

She
looked at me. “Vaughn, I just remembered that you had some sort of fit last
February. Was it your super-hearing? On the day of Alex’s memorial, did you
start hearing at paranormal levels?”

My
jaw dropped open.
“Um, yeah.
That is why I freaked out
that day. Why do you ask?”

Dana
nodded, hearing something confirmed. She said, “The timing...if Yasmine is a
telepath, then she could be sensitive to other psychic phenomena.”

Alan
looked confused. “But…Vaughn’s abilities are physical. Why would she react to
that?”

Dana
blinked, looking slightly astonished at his words. She said, “Seriously? Do you
honestly think that a human body is physically able to withstand the high
stress of what he does without something to back it up?”

Alan
started to say something to that, but I raised a hand to stop him. “Dude, I
really don’t want to talk about the physics of being psychic right now. We’d
probably be here until next year.”

To
Angela I said, “Fine, that was all last February. Why are they still in
Riverlite? What’s keeping Yasmine interested in us?”