The Embers Of My Heart (39 page)

"It said download!" Drew looked over at me. "What's up, Kev? Max is bitching at me for clicking the wrong thing. I mean, come on, there's like five different places that say download, so I just guessed."

"You picked the one that was part of a banner!"

"So? It could have been it!"

I rolled my eyes and hung my coat up while they argued. "Glad that you two are back on speaking terms."

They both shut up and turned to look at me. "Well, yeah, we're friends," Max said. "I've been living with this guy for almost three years now. I like him."

"Whoa, now," Drew said.

"Shut up." Max's face fell. "Though you do need to apologize to Jess."

"She needs to apologize to me!"

"You both need to cool off and apologize." Max shook his head at me. "They got into a shouting match right after you left. Some shit goes deep."

"I know she's your girlfriend, man, but she was being an absolute bitch right then." Drew held his hands up as Max turned to him. "Look, I know, I'm just saying. I know I was in the wrong too, but I'm still pissed at her for saying those things."

"Yeah. I'll talk to her later. I'm sure she's taking it out on her computer right now."

Drew sighed and stood up. "I've got a study group. Can you make sure that thing downloads for later?"

Max rolled his eyes. "Sure. Study group for your one class? Hardcore."

"Shut up, Max."

After Drew left, I sat at my own computer and contemplated going to PSInet even though Max was in the room. I looked over to see him furiously typing a message. I assumed it was to Jess. "So what were they shouting about?"

He didn't stop typing. "Lisa."

"Makes sense."

"What did you have to run out for? You were barely gone a half hour."

"My mom wanted to see me. Plus my mentor."

"Anything interesting?"

I turned in my chair to face him. "I learned how many psions there are in the world, roughly."

He stopped typing and looked over his shoulder. "How many?"

"About a hundred and forty thousand."

"Does that count me?"

I frowned. Max was latent and untrained, but that didn't mean he was untrainable. "Well, about half a percent of the world's population is like you, but no, you don't count. You don't know how to manifest your power."

"I've been meaning to ask you." He turned back to his computer, typed something out, smacked the enter key, and turned back to me. "Can't you show me how to do some stuff? I mean, train me and shit. At least the basics?"

"I've thought about it," I said. "I didn't think it was needed before, and I didn't want to expose you to more danger. That changed. I'll give it a shot, but I want to make sure you know a couple of things first." He nodded.

"First, you might not be able to do anything. Some people can't figure it out. No promises. Second, the basics are just that, the basics. You won't be able to fight anyone off, so don't even bother. Just run and scream."

"Run and scream," he repeated. "Sounds like the story of my life."

"I'm serious. Even a first year trainee is going to be better equipped to deal with trouble. I'll get you started on communication and defense ideas first. The third big one is not to use it publicly, openly, all that. As far as I know, the Establishment can tell where powers are used and how strong they are. If you use them for too long, they can trace it back to you. I've done that myself. We don't want to deal with the questions if they find out you're manifesting."

"Establishment?"

"Shit. Yeah. That's my group."

"Establishment sounds dumb. Is that the full name?"

"The Establishment for Psionic Order."

He snorted. "That's even worse. Sounds like a super villain organization. Vaguely threatening if you read it the wrong way."

"I said something similar when I heard it."

"So, I agree to all three of those points. Show me something, master."

"Master?"

"Sensei?"

"Don't," I said. "Just stop. Look. There's no going back, Max."

"No big deal."

His relaxed attitude tipped my annoyance into anger. "Stop being a smartass. Let me make it clear. There's no going back. You won't be normal anymore. You'll never be able to have a normal life. You'll be separate from the majority of humanity for the rest of your life. Some people won't even consider you human.

"Eventually, a faction's going to find out you have powers. They'll train you. You're not going to get a choice. Rogue psions don't live long. You don't have any protection. They might offer you a deal, they might force you, or they might blackmail you. They'll force you to do things. You'll have to cover those things up from your friends and family. You'll have to learn to lie a lot. You'll have to learn to change memories.

"And you know what, Max? You might have to kill." I paused to see if his expression changed. His lips twitched, but otherwise, nothing. "I had to. It was in defense of another. You might have to do horrible things to people. You might have to destroy lives. You might have to hurt people you love. Look at Star. She had to fake her own death just to make sure her family wasn't used against her."

"I understand this better than you think I do," he said.

I leaned forward. "Max. You might have to leave Jess. You might have to erase yourself from her memory. Tell me, are you ok with that?"

He took a deep breath and sat up straight. "Yeah, you're right, down the line it might turn out worse. All that shit might happen. But right now, she's in danger, just like the rest of us, and I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life if I don't learn something now. I need to protect her now. I'll take possible future regrets, because I'd never be able to live with myself if something happened to her now and I was powerless to prevent it!" His voice rose at the end and I leaned back away from him. He leaned in. "Kev. I want to learn this. Teach me."

I couldn't say no to that. "All right. Sit back and relax. I'm going to try and awaken you." He didn't question me, simply leaned back and closed his eyes. I tapped into my power, keeping it level and controlled. I'd read about potential techniques to awaken latents. There wasn't any consistency to the reports. My only experience had been Shade hammering my mind from time to time. That seemed inefficient.

Still, it was a starting point. I traced lines of potential into Max's mind with my Sight and pushed. Mental defenses snapped into place, an automatic response. His blocks were strong. I pushed harder and they didn't give one bit. "Can you feel anything?" I asked.

"Not a thing."

I whispered into his mind with telepathy. His defenses didn't react. "Can you feel anything when I use telepathy?"

"Only the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. It's still creepy."

I reconsidered my options. Some research said that frequent mental assaults would provoke a latent's mind to awaken in self-defense. That was probably what Shade had done. Others said that one heavy hit could be enough to jar someone's potential to life. Other techniques were heavy on the biokinetic parts, involving direct stimulation of portions of the brain that were associated with psionic powers. All those techniques had potential side effects. Some of them were outright dangerous.

"I'm going to give you one good hard hit," I said.

"Physically?"

"No." I turned my power up high and pooled it into one heavy strike, then slammed into Max's defenses. The block withstood the blow without even quivering. Mental assaults were such a waste of time. "Did you feel anything there?"

"Not really, but I feel a headache coming on."

That was some sort of progress, but I didn't want to take any risks. If I smashed through his defenses with too heavy a blow, it could cause actual damage. There had to be a safer way. I had all sorts of power ready to go, but I couldn't figure something as simple as this out? Using the second tier would unleash all sorts of hell upon me. I knew I could slip around his mental defenses in no time that way, but that would have to be my last resort.

What if I could simulate the potential attacks without actually forcing my way through? I divided my mind into a dozen threads, similar to how I had during Star's exercise, and then shoved one toward Max's mind. The defenses reacted. Each individual thread was weak, but they were strong enough to provoke the reaction I wanted. "All right, I've got an idea. Let me know if you feel anything, even a headache."

"Whatever you say."

I clenched my teeth and concentrated. Keeping the threads controlled was difficult, and keeping them at the proper strength to hit his defenses without causing any damage made it even more difficult. Once I had them controlled, I started hitting him. The defenses reacted to each strike. I shifted the attack to be sequential, hitting him with each thread in turn, forcing the defense to shift with every move.

"Ouch." He shook his head. "Definite headache coming on now. I'm afraid to ask what you're doing."

"Hitting you."

"It's really starting to hurt."

"It hurt for me too."

"I don't think." He took a sharp breath. "Shit. Kev, stop. This is more than just a headache."

I didn't stop. I could feel something stirring behind his defenses. "Make me."

"Stop!"

"Use what you've got and make me."

His defenses split and reformed, reinforced, a glittering trail of energy connecting them to the power now surging through his mind. I hit him one more time and he hit back, pushing me out of his mind with enough force to make me rock back in my chair. "I said stop!"

I cut my power off. "Open your eyes."

He winced as he cracked his eyes open. Blue-green light, the same shade as mine, glowed dimly in the whites of his eyes. He looked down at his hands, closed one eye, closed the other eye, and then looked up at me. "I guess it worked. This hurts a lot more than I thought it would."

"It's not fun at first."

"You should have warned me about that part of it."

"Would it have mattered?"

"I guess not." He looked around the room. "So. Stupid question, but how do I shut it off?"

I shrugged. "It's different for each person. At least you're not learning to do it while your power is out of control. I always envision it like turning on and off a water tap."

He made a face and closed his eyes for a minute. When he opened them again, the glow was gone. "Well. That took a bit of work. I figure now you're going to tell me that turning it back on is the same way?" I nodded and his eyes started to glow. "Not so bad. It hurts though. You didn't break something, did you?"

"Never got through your defenses," I said.

"So I can turn it on and off and pretend to be a flashlight. What's next?"

I grinned. "You turn it on and off until you can do it without triggering headaches, overloads, or anything else. You didn't think we'd get to telekinesis on day one, right?"

Chapter Twenty Six

"Professor, give me a break! One of my closest friends died in a car accident earlier this trimester. I know I missed a couple of tests, but can't I do something to make up for it?" I clenched my fists. Two days after finals, my GPA took another vicious beating. I had to do something to shore it up or I'd have to take additional courses every trimester to graduate on time.

The professor looked across his desk at me and rolled his eyes. "Mr. Parker, you never told me what happened, you never asked for extensions, you never asked for assistance. I can't help you if you fail to communicate your supposed problems."

"Supposed?" My fingernails left marks on my palms. "That's uncalled for."

"I've heard a litany of excuses in my career. Unless you have proof, it's just another excuse, albeit a more creative one than I usually hear." He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands on his desk. "Your grade will stand. As the syllabus states, I drop your lowest quiz and test scores. You missed two quizzes and one test. Missing those wouldn't drastically affect your final grade unless you were already in danger of failing. You passed your final exam by only two points, which wasn't enough to bump your grade to a pass. That was your chance for redemption, Mr. Parker. I'm sorry."

His apology sounded completely insincere. "Look, I can get you the papers and all the reports about it. My roommate was her boyfriend. I can give you the proof if you want it."

He shook his head. "You're missing the point. You didn't explain the situation until it became a crisis. You've never been to my office hours. Hell, I don't remember seeing you in class half the time. If you had talked to me ahead of time, if you had even tried to address this before now, I would have given you the benefit of the doubt. You're a responsible young adult. Act like it."

"But-"

"You're wasting my time now, Mr. Parker. And yours."

"There's nothing I can do?"

"Nothing at all."

I swallowed hard. "Professor, do you know my mother?"

He leaned forward. "No, why should I? You can't have your mother fight your battles for you. Do you seriously think that sort of threat will have any effect on me? Please leave my office."

"I wasn't making a threat," I said. "It's just for my conscience."

He frowned. I tapped my power, letting it rush through my mind and body. He jumped up from his chair and backed away as the sea-green light illuminated his office, the chair clattering to the floor. His reflexes were excellent, though. I slapped his hand away from the phone just before he could grab it. "What the hell is this?" he demanded. "Some sort of trick?"

"I'm not a liar," I said. A light touch to his mind found his surface thoughts. He didn't care. He didn't care one bit about me. In fact, he found my situation amusing. My temper spiked. Who the fuck did he think he was? How could he enjoy failing one of his students? "But I am enjoying your fear, just like you enjoyed failing me."

He grabbed for the phone again and I smacked his hands away, hard enough to sting. "I didn't enjoy failing you," he snapped. "You put no effort in. You deserved the grade you received."

His words stung. "You're lying. I'm better than you." With that, I dove into his mind, brushing aside his defenses and plunging into his memories. I prepared to wipe away the memories of my office visit and replace them with a memory of agreeing to pass me. A small voice in the back of my mind screamed at me to stop. I was being selfish. I was using my powers for personal gain. I was enjoying it.