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  © 2017 Matthew S. Cox

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  Cover Art by Eugene Teplitsky

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  ISBN 978-1-62007-023-9 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-1-62007-635-4 (paperback)

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  ontent to follow Evan’s lead, Kirsten let him pull her along a hallway packed with loud children, frustrated chaperones, and glowing holographic displays of technical concepts. His baggy blue jacket rustled as he squeezed his way past the crowd to the console of a three-dimensional depiction of Mars terraforming. He twisted around to look at her, bright green, blue, and pink light from holograms glinting in his awestruck eyes from animated models of machines.

  Each time he got close to a station, the display came alive, demonstrating the workings of each device or scientific process. She kept within arm’s reach behind him, every so often allowing his exuberance to lift her out of her gloom. Whenever her hair tickled at her collarbones where her short, coral-hued dress didn’t cover, she grasped at the spot as if a fly landed on her. Kirsten held her silver purse tight to her hip and stared down bare legs at her pink Nomz, which meowed a few times as she tried to keep up with his rush to the Mars exhibits. Her sneakers’ electronic cat sounds drowned in the din. No matter how much she tried to stretch out their trip to the West City Science Center, the day marched on toward its inevitable end.

  For the first time in her life, she felt like a child on the last day of summer vacation: happy in the now and dreading tomorrow.

  “That’s the machine that makes the air better.” Evan pointed at a processing tower in cutaway view. Oversized ‘molecules’ cycled around an endless animation of converting carbon dioxide to other gases. “It’s gonna take a long time. That’s the bad air coming in, and that’s the catalyst chamber, and that’s where they send it back to the sky.” He grinned up at her. “Most almost all of Mars’ air was carbon dioxide, like ninety-something percent before we started. And that’s bad ‘cause we can’t breathe it.”

  Kirsten smiled, despite feeling ashamed of herself since a nine-year-old knew more about space science than she did. She gestured at a tall, narrow lattice easily the size of a ten-story building, scaled to the little holographic figures at its base. The top consisted of an octagonal array of panels, fanned open like a high-tech flower. “What’s that thing?”

  “That’s one of the field emitters.” He put his finger through it, and a thin blue energy beam shot skyward. “Mars doesn’t have a magnet anymore, so the air will blow away into outer space.” Evan waved at another screen on a panel to the right of the cubby containing the display. “There’s satellites around Mars that focus the force field the tower sends. It won’t stop missiles n’ spaceships, but it’s enough to let the air stick to the planet.”

  “Wow.” Kirsten squeezed his shoulder while staring at all the animated models. Her feelings of inadequacy gave way to pride, in both watching his curiosity run wild, and knowing that if not for her chance call to a little cyberware shop, he’d still be cowering in some filthy locked bedroom. “You, uhh…”―she wiped her eye―“you’re really into that space stuff.”

  He looked up at her again and tilted his head. “What’s wrong? Are you sad ‘cause you gotta go back to work tomorrow?”

  “A bit, yeah.” She brushed his hair off his eyes. “I was just thinking about how happy I am that I found you.”

  Evan spun to face the railing and moved to his right, approaching the next display, which focused on the construction of the first Mars cities underground. Animated drilling machines crawled back and forth like enormous plastisteel moles. “Why do people cry when they’re happy?”

  “I’m not sure, hon. Good question. Maybe when you grow up and become a scientist, that’ll be the first mystery you solve.” She winked.

  He stuck his tongue out. “Scientists have more important things to do.”

  “Oh?” She leaned back with an appraising raised eyebrow. “What’s my little mastermind going to work on then?”

  Evan poked her in the side. “I’m not a mastermind. They do bad things like make big weapons and try to control the world.” He moved on to the next display, a ‘simple’ demonstration of an ion engine that left Kirsten feeling like a dog mesmerized by bright flashing lights. “Imma make a machine that lets everyone talk to ghosts… and see them too.”

  “There’s some things like that. Well, at least the talking-to part, but they’re not reliable.” She smirked. “Most people think of them as toys.”

  “Abernathy said the government has electronics that work with psionics.” He poked a button that made the drilling machine speed up. The animation opened to an ‘X-ray’ view showing how the broken rock flowed within the driller to collection pods in the back. A man’s voice, barely audible over the din, narrated what it had been like for the crews working ten-hour shifts with only eleven hours of breathable air in the tanks.

  Kirsten thought of the rumors surrounding Division 9. Everyone in Zero got the warning not to attempt telepathy on any of them, especially not doll operatives. Rumors about psionic-feedback devices that could turn the most innocent surface thought read into a nosebleed migraine―or worse―ran rampant. Dorian had once mentioned something he’d overheard in a meeting of the Command Council… of course as soon as he said alien life on Mars, a species they’d referred to as Ixylid, Kirsten tuned him out. He had either been messing with her, in which case she refused to bite, or overheard a secret of the sort that caused lifespans to experience sudden shortening.

  “Do you believe him?” Evan glanced back and up at her. “Abernathy knows stuff.”

  “Well, there’s psi inhibitors.” She tried to think of how they worked, if they functioned on a purely technical level, or operated in a way beyond what pure science could explain.

  “They send stuff into the brain so you can’t concentrate. Not the same.” He tapped the side of his head, his orb of mouse brown hair so dense it concealed his entire finger. “They’re cruel ‘cause they can make a person go crazy.” His eyes widened. “I’m gonna make something better someday.”

  Kirsten shivered at the memory of the school’s demonstration of psi inhibitors. At age fourteen, each resident of the dorm headed for a non-Admin role with Division 0 got a brief taste of one as ‘encouragement’ not to abuse their powers. Since the brain had a tendency to interpret the random information based on past experience, the distractions the device forced into her head took the form of her mother’s screaming voice for the thirty seconds they left it turned on. As embarrassing as it had been to have a bad panic attack in front of six of her peers and three adults, at least none of them had ever teased her about it.

  “They didn’t use one on you did they?” Kirsten squeezed her fists, trying to hide the anger leaking from her stare.

  Evan shook his head. “No. ‘Tenant Daniels said we’re too small; not till high school.” He stopped by a hologram model of one of the massive air scrubbers used on Earth to make up for the atmospheric damage caused by plant die-off. “Is it scary? Kira said ‘couple years ago this one girl wound up having a accident right in class when they put one on her.”
<
br />   Kirsten looked at the drilling display, some fifteen feet past them, hoping he didn’t notice how red her face felt. “Inhibitors make you think of the worst things your brain can conjure.”

  He held her hand. “You saw your mom, huh.”

  “Yeah.”

  Evan wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. When he leaned back, his cheeks had lost noticeable color, leaving him pale. “I’ll see Mick, won’t I?”

  She patted him on the back. “Maybe. Depends on how your head works. You might hallucinate a world without any Monwyn stuff.”

  He gasped, feigning horror. She winked and poked him in the ribs until he smiled. They followed the tunnel around past a few more holographic displays devoted to early Mars mining efforts, hydroponic farming, and some of the first-generation ships capable of taking passengers between planets. At a horseshoe end, a life-sized diorama of the Mars landscape (as it existed in 2149 when a joint UCF / Japanese team landed to perform a colonization study) contained sub-sentient synthetic humans dressed in period space suits. They resembled the original thirteen-person crew, and conversed with a large group of kids from part of some organized tour group.

  Four weary adults waited by the railing separating the Mars exhibit from the rest of the museum. Their arrangement, visible fatigue, and demeanor screamed ‘teachers’ to Kirsten. A few feet to their right, a woman with the same general type of ID badge on a lanyard around her neck squatted to chat in harsh whispers with a little dark-skinned girl in a beige dress. Her black hair hung in a shoulder-length bob; she looked about Shani’s age and halfway between terrified and angry enough to hit someone.

  “Ankita, please… you need to calm down,” said the woman.

  “But, Miss Martinez, I wanna go home.” She sniffled. “It’s not fair we have’ta go here after school.”

  “You haven’t even given the Science Center a chance.” The teacher forced a smile past her exhaustion and general sense of ‘so done with this.’ “It’s fun.”

  The child looked around at the crowd. Kirsten’s gut clenched at the fear in the girl’s eyes, and she slowed to watch. Evan looked up at her when she tugged at his arm. He zeroed in on the girl a second later.

  “I don’t like it here. I’m scared.” Ankita glared at the teacher. “Take me home.”

  On the word ‘home,’ the child’s eyes flickered with a hint of amber light.

  “Home,” said Miss Martinez. “I should take you home.”

  Kirsten rushed three steps forward and put her hand on the teacher’s shoulder. “A moment?”

  The woman startled and leaned back with a hand on her chest; they made eye contact. “I’m sorry. I have to take Ankita home.”

  Kirsten dove into the teacher’s thoughts, finding a weak surface-level suggestive implant. The little girl’s face and the concept of home swirled around and around… from the way it felt, the teacher had misinterpreted and was about to take the child back to her own apartment. Kirsten erased the suggestion, leaving the woman blinking and dazed.

  “Ankita?” asked Kirsten. She smiled and took a knee. “Why are you so frightened? Did you do that on purpose?”

  “W-what?” The twig-thin child took a step back, raising her hands. “Who are you? Away.”

  Kirsten braced herself to resist the command, but it brushed over her mind with little strength. I wonder if this is how Renee would’ve felt if I tried to use suggestion on him. “I’m not going away, sweetie. We need to talk.”

  “Who are you?” asked a male teacher in dark blue. He inserted himself between Kirsten and Ankita.

  Evan opened his mouth, but decided to keep quiet.

  Kirsten held up a finger, reached into her purse, and flashed her ID. “Agent Wren, Division 0. I need a moment with this girl.”

  “Oh…” The man’s face exuded perspiration. “Psionics…”

  “Is something wrong?” Kirsten narrowed her eyes.

  “I… Uhh. No. It’s, I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with psionics.” He scratched his head. “I’m not comfortable near them.” His eyes shot open. “I mean it’s great they’re what they are… I just prefer not to be around that sort of thing.”

  She frowned. “I’ll try not to get any on you.”

  “Home!” yelled Ankita.

  “Home,” said the male teacher. “I’m going to go home now.”

  He turned as if to walk away, but Kirsten grabbed his arm. “Stay with the tour. Ignore that command.”

  The white glow from Kirsten’s eyes glimmered back at her from the teacher’s. Ankita gasped. He seemed to forget the past thirty seconds and returned to where he’d been standing with the other three educators. Rather than take off running as Kirsten expected, Ankita flung herself into a trembling hug.

  Evan glanced up at Kirsten. She’s got suggestion, right?

  She nodded. “What’s got you so scared that you’re doing that to people?”

  Ankita made wide puppy eyes at her. I’m sorry. I know it’s bad, but I wanna go home. I’m scared. I don’t like being here.

  Loud telepathic whining in such a tiny voice caused the muscles in Kirsten’s back to lock up for a second. “Of what? Are you having problems with your parents?”

  The girl blinked. “No. My mom and dad are great.” She sniffled. “Yesterday, I was playing an’ a strange man wanted to give me a bear. I started walking away, and he said he wasn’t trying to kidnap me. He put it on the ground and told me I can have it. I looked at his head. It was a bomb. He didn’t like us ‘cause we’re psionic.”

  Kirsten suppressed a growl. “Can I see him in your memory?”

  Ankita nodded and stared into her eyes.

  The child’s surface thoughts contained blurry images of a small park in front of an apartment tower. A pale man, warped by a six-year-old’s fear into the proportions of a giant or troll from the Monwyn movies, shambled over. Gaunt, he had a few days’ worth of beard stubble and a blue ball cap. He held up a small brown teddy bear in pink overalls and smiled. Kirsten dove in a little further. The man set the bear on the plastisteel walkpath and backed away, gesturing at it. Ankita had read his surface thoughts, certain the man meant to kidnap her. When she saw the truth, that the stuffed bear would explode, that this man wanted to send her and her parents to some place called Hell, she ran screaming to where her parents sat on a bench.

  Piece of shit. Kirsten glared.

  Ankita covered her mouth with both hands, looking shocked.

  “Oops. Sorry. Don’t repeat that word.” Kirsten fished her NetMini out of her purse and snapped a picture of Ankita’s face. “You understand that it’s wrong to use that ability on people unless you are protecting your life or the life of a third party?” What am I doing? She’s little. “Ankita, it’s not nice to use your abilities on your teachers like that. You can get in trouble.”

  “Huh? I don’t wanna go to a party.” Ankita scrunched and released her dress with both hands. “I don’t wanna get blowed up.”

  The desire for the safety of home in the girl’s surface thoughts almost made Kirsten want to go hide in her own bedroom. She started a search in the Division 0 archives with the picture, and delved into the girl’s mind a little more while it ran. Modest telepathy, weak suggestion… thankfully no telempathy. Those eyes are bad enough. She couldn’t find anything more than the vague notion that sometimes people did what the girl wanted when she got upset. No conscious awareness of her suggestion ability.

  The NetMini beeped. A fist-sized hologram of the child’s face, a little younger and in a pastel yellow shirt with a daisy-shaped collar smiled at her next to a bank of text.

  Ankita Ravi [CFFE:0A1F]

  Age: 06Y 04M

  Status: Registered

  Completed P-APT Initial Assay Panel 1 - 2417-NOV-02.

  Astral: (negative)

  Clairvoyance: (negative)

  Kinesis Group: (negative)

  Metabolic Group: (negative)

  Precognition: (negative)

  S
uggestion: (latent)

  Telepathy: (Grade 1 / dominant)

  Parent1: Mother (Positive – Record: CFFD:904A)

  Parent2: Father (Positive – Record: CFFD:904B)

  Notes: Parents registered, declined recruitment. Cooperative/friendly.

  Kirsten skimmed over the contact information for the parents as well as the Division 0 Admin liaison handling the family’s case. She clicked on the two file references to check out the parents, both average telepaths. The mother had a modest rating in telekinesis while the father had an eyebrow-raising note of Grade 6 in accelerated healing within the metabolic group. The man could likely recover from a bullet striking anything other than heart or brain in a matter of a minute. Their records looked clean, despite their not wanting to join Division 0, even as Admin, and they were documented as being supportive. The file mentioned their beliefs being incompatible with violence, even violence necessary to deal with criminals.

  They registered her about a year ago… I don’t need to do anything here… except. Kirsten added a note to the girl’s file to trigger a follow up from the Admin rep handling her case. The child needed a little training on how to resist ‘excited manifestations’ happening again, especially in less benign situations.

  “Am I in trouble?” asked Ankita.

  Kirsten bit her lip and took a knee to bring herself closer to eye-level with the girl. She decided to respond telepathically for privacy. No, sweetie. Not this time. Do you know what psionic suggestion is?

  Ankita shook her head.

  You have a psionic skill that can make people do stuff. Using suggestion on purpose can get you into trouble, but I know you weren’t doing it to break the law, and I don’t think you even wanted to use it.

  “No.” The girl looked down. “I just wanted to go home.”

  Kirsten took her hand. I can do it too. That’s why you didn’t make me go away. It’s one of the talents that gets people in trouble when it is used wrong. If you ever use that ability on purpose without a good reason, you can get in a lot of trouble. Even if you use it on your parents to stay up past your bedtime or get out of doing homework.