Epiphany

I didn’t immediately believe her. I didn’t want to believe her. As a matter of fact – as with all of my post-field training encounters with the Lieutenant General – my first instinct upon hearing those words involved finding an inconspicuous location to hide.

Amy squeezed my hand. “Come on,” she whispered. “We can finish this later. Sarah knows you just got back. Maybe we can convince her to give you some time to settle.”

I knew we didn’t really have the luxury of time for me to get settled right now. I’m sure Amy did as well. And there was enough pride in me to resent beating a hasty retreat after so little time. But the woman regarded me with such scorn, and with such delight, that I couldn’t help it – I let Amy pull me out of the room.

“I need to talk to Sarah,” I said. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

“She’ll be busy,” Amy said. “We were only here about two hours before you showed up, and most of that time was spent rounding up our attackers and getting an idea of the condition of the facility.”

It suddenly occurred to me that I really had no idea whatsoever of the overall condition of the facility. It had simply never really come up. I told Amy as much, and she seemed as surprised as I was to realize that no one had bothered to update me. I could kind of understand this negligence from her, Adrian, and Kara. This was a shocking and stressful development for everyone. But Sarah Bentley? Cool as a cucumber (where the hell did that expression even come from?) Mission Commander Sarah Bentley?

So I went and hunted her down. Sure enough, she was locked away in the security office, and it is only my supreme lack of knowledge about what, exactly, Sarah was required to do as a Mission Commander that prevents me from relaying to you precisely what it is she was doing. I can only say that it involved three computers, four filing cabinets, and a stack of manila envelops that all but obstructed her from my penetrating gaze.

Of course, my penetrating gaze wouldn’t have phased her in the slightest anyway.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“I disagree,” she returned. “What we need to do is get the hell out of here and leave me alone. And I’m using the royal ‘we’ here. Also, the royal ‘we’ is you.”

It was this casual dismissal that always infuriated me about her. I’m sure she knew that by now, and more than likely she was hoping that it would piss me off and make me march out in a huff, or something. So I took a deep breath to remain calm. “What the hell is going on with the training facility?”

“I already told you. The senior staff is gone, and all the cadets are missing. Right now I’m trying to figure out who specifically is—”

“You didn’t tell me anything!”

Once again, she was too preoccupied to react to my outburst, and that only made me more upset. “Kara was the only one to bother to update me on anything! Kara, for God’s sake!” I took a few more deep breaths, and tried to bring my tone down to something more even and (hopefully) more menacing. I was upset, after all, and wanted to her understand that. “Now, I do get it. I really do. I’m not on Alpha Team Alpha anymore. But the very least you could do, since you were so willing to use my telepathy to get some answers, is indulge me by treating me with enough respect to at least tell me what’s going on!”

“We don’t even know what’s going on! Haven’t you been able to figure that out yet?! I don’t have a goddamned clue!”

Before I even had time to react, the sudden flash of anger passed and she was the same person she had always been. “I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes and began wearily massaging her temples. “I guess I’m just a little—” She stopped abruptly.

I cocked my head. Something was wrong. Sarah had never apologized to me before. No – really. I know it’s hard to believe, but take a look back on what you’ve read so far. Trust me. I keep track of that kind of stuff. “—Stressed, maybe?” I finished.

The smile she gave me in reply was one of the most sincere, open expressions I would ever receive from her. Her entire demeanor appeared suddenly more relaxed, and for the briefest of moments I caught a glimpse of something that I hadn’t seen in years, and something that went a long way toward reminding me that, yes, Sarah Bentley really was a human being after all. This was Sarah Bentley from the very first day we arrived at the Omega Training Facility, a scared and wide-eyed fifteen-year-old just like everyone else. Of course, a few years later she would be on the Alpha Teams, but still – it was a pleasant reminder of old times.

It all passed in an instant, of course. She took a deep breath, and when she regarded me again it was the same Sarah Bentley who had dismissed me with a “No” upon seeing me for the first time all those months ago. “The truth is,” she said, “the Lieutenant General represents the best chance we have for finally figuring out what exactly is going on. Adrian, Amy, and Kara have plenty to keep them occupied, but the sad truth is, we’re all rely—” She suddenly swallowed hard. “We’re all, um – re—” She gagged; finally, with Herculean effort she spoke: “We’re all relying on you.”

Her face went a sickly shade of white, and it was clear she needed a glass of water. The chivalrous gentleman within me might have thought to go fetch one for her, but oddly enough, I suddenly found I wasn’t in the mood. “No, stop, please,” I said sourly. “I’m not used to all this praise.”

Once back in the hallway and alone with my thoughts, the full weight of what had happened to me this day began to sink in. I let myself take a deep, shuddering breath. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the image of the Lieutenant General’s leering face as she had informed me I was an Epsilon. And now that I knew I would be spending extended time with that same face, I suddenly felt a bit nauseous. I was glad Kara wasn’t around; she would be having a field day now that she knew I was no longer a Delta. I tried saying the word “Epsilon” a few times out loud, just to prepare myself for my new nickname, but it just doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as “Delta.”

Go on, give it a try. I’ll wait.

See?

Kara was off on her own mission right now. All possible communication between the facility and the rest of the world had been severed, but there was still the Psi Preparatory Facility about fifteen miles down the road, and she had set off for it some hours ago. That left the four of us to have a late dinner and try to keep ourselves busy until she came back – hopefully with some news. We had plenty of food in the various pantries and freezers, but no one around to prepare them, and we sure as hell weren’t in the mood. So we grabbed some fruit, slapped some lunchmeat between two slices of bread, and sat down for a depressing little meal, but halfway through Sarah excused herself from our miserable group and told us not to disturb her.

“She’s never been like this before,” Amy said softly, looking after her as the door closed.

I chewed thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything.

Adrian had bought my Christmas present with her, and she was into her third bottle of beer. If she was aware of our worried expressions, she didn’t let it get to her. “So far the Russian brew is beating out the Irish lager,” she said, punctuating her pleasure with a very loud belch. “Even the Canadian didn’t disappoint.”

“Well I’m glad to hear it.” I let a bit of derision slip into my voice. Adrian was Sarah’s best friend, after all. She should be showing at least some concern.

“I’ve been impressed so far, and it’s pretty difficult to impress me.” She took a drink. “As far as Christmas presents go, it’s not quite on the same level as a tiara, but it’ll do.” She winked. “I don’t mind though. I don’t have the hairline for a tiara anyway.”

I glared at her. Despite the current state of affairs, old suspicions were nevertheless springing up. “Speaking of tiara…”

“Yup!” I could tell she knew exactly what I was going to ask. “Mike and I started planning it about two weeks into your coma. And you played your part perfectly.”

Of course she was referring to my confession at the Eidenberg Center. I felt a flash of anger as I recalled how awkward and humiliated I had been that morning, but Adrian just seemed to find my expression humorous, because she chuckled. “In case you’re wondering, Sarah hasn’t said a word about it to me since.”

Adrian had a sixth sense when it came to reading people, and I’d be damned if I was going to appear as transparently readable as I had been before. Knowing what kind of reaction she was hoping for, I kept my face blank. Still, the truth was I’d been wondering that very same thing a number of times over the past couple days. And now that I knew Sarah apparently couldn’t care less about it, I found to my surprise that I suddenly felt very miserable. I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything less, but hope absolutely thrives on uncertainty, and now that I was getting some hard facts, that old hopefulness – which had been haunting me since Christmastime – was already starting to die out.

And something that soul-crushing isn’t exactly easy to hide. I expected a smartass comment or two, but instead Adrian was looking at me with something approaching pity, and I dare say pity was an emotion that was in short supply on Alpha Team Alpha (especially towards yours truly). “Look,” she said, getting up. I could detect a distinct discomfort in her body language, and I began to wonder just how unaccustomed Adrian Sake was to the idea of feeling pity for another human being. “If it makes you feel better – and part of me honestly kind of hopes it does,” she added, surprised – “I’m usually the first person she turns to when it comes to rejecting the advances of another cadet. So, um…” She hesitated. “The fact that Sarah hasn’t said a word to me, well – you might want to take that as a good sign. I don’t know.” She crossed the room and quickly made for the door.

Maybe I’m imaging things, or maybe it was a latent telepathic response, but I could tell she suddenly found the situation rather awkward. And the fact that Adrian usually absolutely revels in awkwardness told me that this was something unique.

Well, there she was.

I was back with the Lieutenant General, who sat there with an expression that plainly told me that she regarded me with the kind of contempt one might regard the stuff that builds up around the inside edge of a toilet bowl. Not to be outdone, I tried to regard her with the very same level of contempt, but I suspect it came off a little less effective; say, something more on the order of complete and abject terror.

“Well, you’ve certainly got your work cut out for you, haven’t you?” she asked. “The whole mission is resting on you right now, isn’t it?”

I took a few mental deep breaths, and forced myself to regard her evenly. “You could make this a lot easier by just telling me what Andrew Schauer is up to.”

“Do you honestly think I’d be privy to that kind of information? I had a very specific purpose in all of this, and the rest wasn’t necessary for me to know about.”

“What was the purpose?”

I was pretty much obligated to ask that question, but of course she wasn’t going to answer. We’ve been training for interrogation since we were twelve years old, and there were any number of effective techniques I had at my disposal, but this was the second-in-command of the Omega Training Facility – of course she knew each and every one. She’d been undergoing rigorous anti-interrogation schooling since she was in her late twenties. The fact that she was now in her late fifties meant that she had been trained to resist far longer than I’d been training to attempt. The biological angle would have been worthless, as she had built up a resistance to any drugs I may have used. Furthermore (and this is where it gets kind of neat), the government had been putting small chips into the brains of their personnel since 2032, impossible to remove without killing them and programmed to release endorphins and other happy-making chemicals at the first sign of trouble. I guess what I’m saying is that there was no way that any cadet would have been qualified to interrogate her, and the only thing that made me special was my telepathy. Unfortunately, she knew as well as I did that I wasn’t any good at it.

Nevertheless, I put in a good couple of hours trying to read her mind. At first it was an exercise in futility, since she would not keep her mouth shut, and spent all the time laughing at my efforts. Amy eventually suggested that I try a good, old-fashioned low-tech solution and adopt some earmuffs, which made things a bit better, although I did look absolutely ridiculous. Still, having the Lieutenant General laughing at me for making an ass of myself was a lot easier to handle than what she had been doing before. After all, I’d been making an ass of myself my entire life. I was used to this.

To make a long story short, as evening passed into night I had made no progress. Amy provided all sorts of encouragement; otherwise, I probably would have quit hours ago. That still didn’t change the fact that I had nothing new to report, but it kept me from beating a hasty retreat. Sarah hadn’t been seen since dinner, but since she had ordered me to report every encounter with the Lieutenant General to her directly, I figured that trumped her obvious desire to be left alone. With a deep breath, I gingerly knocked on the door to her office.

Okay, so she didn’t really have an “office” the way the other officers at the facility did. Still, she had her own private room that had been set aside for her to maintain her paperwork, and her position on the one of the Alpha Teams did require a lot of pencil-pushing. From what I could gather from hearsay around the facility, most of the Mission Commanders (with the exception, obviously, of Derek Powers) were extremely approachable to members of their own team, which is why it was all the more troubling to see her door closed and locked when I came up to knock.

“Is that you, Adrian? Get your ass in here!” came a loud voice from the other side.

I narrowed my eyes. Although she was yelling, she didn’t sound particularly upset. “Um, I can’t,” I said. “The door’s locked.”

“Well, that’s a hell of a thing.” A few seconds later the door flung open with such violence that it caught me off guard, to the point where the edge managed to catch me squarely in the nose.

“Jesus H Christ!” I bellowed, staggering back and grabbing my nose with both fists. “What the hell!” I looked up at Sarah through teary eyes, and to my surprise she was struggling not to laugh. “Oh, so this is funny to you.” As I looked closer, I became aware that her face was flushed, and I also became aware of a distinct odor lingering about her general location. My eyes narrowed. “Are you drunk?”

She appeared thoughtful. “It’s possible,” she remarked. “I have been drinking excessively.” She held up a fifth of whiskey that was over halfway empty as proof. “The first few shots are the most difficult, but after awhile your mouth kind of goes numb.” She could see the amazement on my face; she was either too drunk to notice or too drunk to care, because she went right on talking. “Well, now that I’ve got you here alone, I’ve gotta know: did you really mean it when you told me you loved me?”

Where the hell did that come from?

She stood there with one hand on her hip and her head cocked to one side, watching me expectantly. “I don’t really know if I want to talk about this when you’re drunk,” I said slowly, choosing my words carefully.

“Why not? You said it to me when you were drunk. Why can’t I talk about it when I’m drunk? I mean – seriously, Jacob. Come on. Who hopes to impress a girl by getting drunk and confessing their love to her?” She laughed and shook her head. “Did you think that through at all?”

“Maybe it wasn’t until after I got drunk that I decided to.” I was not a fan of the direction this conversation was taking. “It’s kind of hard to think things through when you’re drunk.”

“Since when have you needed alcohol as an excuse for not thinking things through?”

“Oh, very nice! Thanks.”

“You gave it to me. You’ve no one to blame but yourself.” She folded her arms. “So? Do you love me?”

I took a few steps back. “You’re not going to let me go without answering, are you?”

She gave me a wide grin.

“Well, that answers that, I guess. Alright then. To hell with it. Yeah, I think I do.”

“Wait, you think you do? What kind of weak response is that?” She shook her head. “That’s your problem, Jacob. That’s always been your problem. Right there. Believe it or not, I’ve been watching you all these years. And” – she held up a hand suddenly – “before you read too much into that, understand that, as the best cadet in the history of the HEP, the trials and tribulations of the worst cadet would naturally provide some amusement. But I’ve watched you. You had your place at the Omega Training Facility, didn’t you? Your own comfortable little world, with your comfortable little friends and your comfortable little dirt-poor grades.

“And that was part of the problem. You were too damned comfortable where you were, toiling in relative obscurity, telling yourself at least you were doing the best you could. Like you somehow thought that was good enough. Well to hell with that! I’m telling you now that’s not good enough, not on this team. I’ll be damned if I’m going to put up with that kind of soft, weak-minded self-justification. ‘Oh, at least I’m trying my best.’ BULLSHIT.”

“Oh, so you were really helping me by acting the way you did? Is that what you were telling yourself all that time?”

“Shut up and quit bitching. Who really cares how I treated you? Sure, I admit it: I didn’t want you on my team. No one did. It was an insult to all of us having a Delta-level forced into our ranks. None of that matters! It shouldn’t have changed anything! You know, the only time you showed any backbone, any sign that you still had the ability to do more throughout all of this, is when you made decisions on your own. And I don’t mean do more as in getting better grades. That’s never going to happen. I mean stepping outside your comfort zone and really scaring the shit out of yourself when you realize just what you can do. Like running around behind our backs and going after Tiffany Paris yourself. I wanted to strangle you to death, even as I finally knew that you had some fight in you.

“Too bad you never did that around us. You moped about and told yourself that we were being unfair. Why the hell can’t you see just how much you have to offer? Why don’t you have more confidence in yourself? Nothing pisses me off more, Jacob. You’re too complacent. You know what you’re capable of. Now you just have to learn to believe that others might know it, too.

“Anyway…” She took a deep breath. I think, looking into her eyes, that she was a little surprised at what she had just found herself saying. “Don’t you owe me a bunch of laps around the facility for what happened at the Yule Ball?”

My jaw dropped. “You’re kidding, right? After all that, and then you’re going to make me run?”

“I said my piece.”

“You know, five days ago I was kind of in a coma.”

“Exactly! When was the last time you did any physical training? A little jog will do you good.”

“A little jog—”

“Oh, you’ll live. It won’t be the end of the world.” Then she said something that, in a day that already contained several more shocks and turns of event than I would have thought possible, somehow managed to top them all:

“Come on. I’ll run with you.”

We did the first ten laps in silence. Neither of us were in the best condition to run: she was intoxicated, and I hadn’t done any real, extensive physical exercise in over a month. But we plugged along, slowly knocking off the laps one at a time. Neither of us expected to finish off all one-hundred fifty in this one night, but it was so relaxing, so different from what our lives had become since this damned field training mission, that we kept going. The indoor track runs all along the perimeter of the building, and for the most part is sealed off. You’d never know, for example, that behind the Assembly Hall was the 2-mile marker and a drinking fountain. Whoever designed the Omega Training Facility definitely had some fun with the layout. It was a two-story track, too, not because we had a twenty foot high ceiling over our heads or anything, but because the track also contained hills and valleys and other uneven surfaces designed to exercise our stabilizer muscles as well. It was well-lit and well-ventilated, and there were exits every eighth of a mile, but knowing as we did that the facility was completely abandoned, I found during the long stretches that it was strangely haunting. The track is never completely empty, since there is always a class or two using it. But in this whole massive state-of-the-art facility, we were almost completely alone. Adrian and Amy were off doing their own things, but seeing this track completely abandoned reminded us of the true state of the facility, and even though the run was releasing a lot of anxiety, our real situation was always right there, looking us in the face.

I glanced sidelong at Sarah. From the way she was gazing ahead, I knew that she was probably thinking the same thing. Besides out own breathing it was dead quiet.

“Okay,” she said suddenly, and slowed to a stop. She bent over and rested her hands on her knees, breathing hard. “I’m not even going to swear to God with this one, Jacob. Instead I’m going to swear to the Dark Lord Satan himself, that if you repeat to anyone anywhere EVER what I’m about to say that I am going to murder you. Seriously. No – and not just murder you. I’m going to take your precious medallion and shove up your chocolate starfish, and crucify you by your testicles. Then I’m going to mail pictures of it to your mother. Am I making myself absolutely clear?”

“You know, you just sounded a lot like someone I know.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. I said am I making myself clear?”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard to it referred to as a ‘chocolate starfish’ before, but okay. Yes, I’m with you.”

Her voice dropped to something barely above a whisper. “I’m not sure I can handle this.”

“What?”

A little louder – “I’m not sure I can handle this, Jacob. This is too much.” She took a deep breath, and I saw that her shoulders were shaking. Her voice suddenly cracked. “I’m not – I don’t know what to do.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and I saw tears brimming.

“Hey,” I said, trying to sound calm. Inside, however, I might have been panicking just a little. After all, Sarah was the one we were relying on to keep a cool head through all of this. “It’s okay. No one expected you to have this much responsibility. I don’t even think General Grant could handle something like this.”

“But I’ve let everyone down! This whole thing is a goddamned disaster! It’s all fallen apart. Everyone’s gone! They could be dead for all we know. We were supposed to protect Tiffany Paris, and she was kidnapped! And who knows what they’re doing to her! And all that equipment you found monitoring us and the White House and who knows what else? Whoever these people are and whatever they’re planning, we haven’t done a damned thing to stop them! They’re doing whatever the hell they want!”

“But we never really stood a chance against them, Sarah. Realistically? Who knows how long they’ve been planning it. And they equipment they’ve got? Hell, even the Eidenberg Center doesn’t compare! And, apparently quite a few of them are telepathic! We never would have stopped them! And we weren’t supposed to stop them! The whole point of this field training was to provide General Grant and the others with some clues about what Andrew Schauer was up to! That’s obvious.” I knelt down beside her. “I would even argue that it’s a testament to just how good you are at your job that they would send Alpha Team Alpha out to investigate. Think about how valuable you are to the HEP, and what a gamble it was, and how dangerous they must have known it was going to be. I mean – they were so desperate for answers that they put me on their team because they thought there was a slim chance I could do something!” I hesitated a moment, then put my hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t expect to actually stop this, did you?” I looked up into her eyes. “Did you? You are only human.”

“No we’re not,” she said, sniffling. “We’re supposed to be better than human.”

I laughed. “That’s a load of bull. Trust me on this. I spent enough time with Gary, Steve, and especially Mike to learn that we’ve got nothing on the rest of mankind. Sure, we’re smarter and stronger and all that, but we’re still just kids. All of us. We’re still jealous, moody, stubborn, selfish, and everything else that we’re supposed to be above. I know I am at least.”

“Oh, you are,” she said, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes, and I almost saw a smile.

“The thing is, you’ve got to stop trying to shoulder all of this yourself. It’s something the Major used to tell me. When I used to be teased for being a Delta, I would keep it all bottled up. I never even told Matt, Aaron, and Eric, and they were my closest friends at the facility. Major Kleff practically had to twist my arm before I confided in him. Then one day I worked up the guts to sit down and talk to my friends, and it was one of the best things I ever did.” I smiled at the memory. “Anyway, that’s what you need to do. It’s not going to hurt your status as the cool, aloof mission commander of Alpha Team Alpha if you opened up a bit to someone you trust. Like Adrian. Talk to her. Or there’s, um…” I straightened up. “Now that I think about it, besides her, who are your closest friends? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you train or hang out with anyone other than the Yellow Team. Who else do you really trust?”

“I trust you.”

“Thanks, but we both know I’m not the best person to talk to about this. I’ve never really been in a position of command.”

Sarah looked up. “Huh?”

“Come on. Delta-levels don’t get put in positions very often where they have to make command decisions the way you guys do. You know that. I probably couldn’t relate very well.”

Slowly, Sarah stood up. She was watching me very carefully. “Jacob, I didn’t say anything.”

“Wait – what?”

“Just now. I didn’t say anything.”

“You said you trusted me.”

She blushed. It was kind of a marvel that I could tell, since she was already flushed from running and from the booze, but I would have put money on it. She was blushing!

Then her eyes widened. “Wait. Do you realize what just happened? You read my mind! You read a person’s mind!”

My temporary shock and excitement was immediately replaced by confusion. Why now though? What was new about this?

Sarah rubbed her chin thoughtfully, clearly thinking the same thing. As I watched, she suddenly crinkled her nose, and looked down at her hand with disgust. Then a thought struck her, and she cupped her hand over her mouth and nose and exhaled slowly into it.

Then she looked up at me.

As it dawned on me what she was thinking, and what it meant, my heart sank.

“You ready, Jacob?”

“Oh, sure. Absolutely. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I finally figured out what I want on my tombstone. ‘Here Lies Jacob Rupert, Beloved Son. What The HELL Was He Thinking?’”

“Relax, you’re not going to die. She’s restrained.”

How Adrian managed to force that much alcohol down the Lieutenant General’s throat, I’ll never find out. All I know is that she disappeared into the room with a full fifth, and when she emerged five minutes later a third of it was gone, having gone directly down the throat of Denise Anne Wakefield. She hadn’t required any assistance. There was no sign of a struggle. Just a slightly intoxicated Lieutenant General. And from the way her face was a bit red, I suspect Adrian might have enjoyed a bit or two as well. I now stood before the Lieutenant General, flanked on either side by Alpha Team Alpha, as she regarded me with the same contempt I’d grown so accustomed to. She had just finished one of her patented threats to my manhood, and as we waited for her to get to full-fledged drunk her steady stream of chatter continued to go south. It wasn’t particularly vulgar, and it wasn’t particularly mean-spirited. It was almost conversational in tone:

“I knew from the very first moment that I set eyes on your scrawny little ass that you were going to be an embarrassment to the Human Enhancement Project. I’ve always marveled at how you just barely managed to hold on all these years, coming so close to being kicked out, but always pulling an eleventh-hour comeback. It’s rather spectacular. Do you know that if I had my way, we’d have upped the drop-off grade to 70? Then I’d be rid of all of you Deltas. Just think of all the money we could save on food, supplies, and training? I calculated it out once. Nearly 1.2 million annually. And I was playing it safe when it came to food.

“It wouldn’t have been without its sacrifices though – even I’ll admit there are a couple who had a bit of potential, and it’s too bad their abilities weren’t up to par. They could have had their uses. But there was never any doubt in my mind about you, Jacob. Never a one. You understand that I hope?”

“Um, perfectly,” I replied.

“That’s good then. That’s what’s important after all. Everyone needs to know their place.”

Sarah nudged me. “Are you picking up anything?”

“Not really. She’s pretty much saying everything she’s thinking.”

“And besides, it’s nothing we don’t already know,” Adrian added. When she saw me glaring at her, she shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

I pulled up a chair and sat down, facing Denise. “Oh, we’re going to try this again, are we?” she asked. “Are you hoping that a little alcohol will loosen my lips? Make me say things that I shouldn’t?”

“Whoa.” I leaned back.

I felt Sarah’s hand on my shoulder. “Did you get something?”

I leaned in closer, and tried to concentrate. “I almost did, I think. For a second.”

I could hear Amy’s voice nearby. “You can do it, Jacob.”

It was odd getting such a sense of support from them. Sarah’s hand was still on my shoulder, and out of the corner of my eye I saw that even Adrian moved alongside me, clearly interested herself. The Lieutenant General had gone quiet; she was gazing back into my eyes with a look I couldn’t read. As I closed my eyes and waited I began to hear something. A voice. A very distant, indistinct voice. Holy crap, I could hear a voice! I tried to listen, while conscious of the fact that I didn’t really even know how I was supposed to try to listen. My heart was beating a little faster, and even through my own uncertainty I could feel excitement growing. I was doing it! I was establishing a connection with another human being! But what was she saying? I leaned in closer still, directing everything I had toward concentrating on the presence of the woman seated in front of me.

It was her voice. The Lieutenant General’s. Or rather it was a collection of her voices. They were all talking at once, weaving in and out of each other. I could only make out snatches of what was being said, and there was so much anger, joy, excitement, bemusement, and any possible combination of emotions in between, all coming at me at once, that I was on the verge of being overwhelmed. I could feel myself shaking, but I was past the point of no return. A connection had been made, on a level I’d never accomplished before, and I was both excited and scared. How was I doing this? I knew didn’t have this kind of skill.

“Just a little help.”

This new voice, which should have made me jump, instead felt so natural that I felt no surprise whatsoever. Neither did the sensation of a warm, friendly hand sliding into mine, nor the fact that Tiffany Paris was now standing next to me. She gave me the same warm smile I remembered, and squeezed my hand gently. I was overwhelmingly relieved to see that she looked pretty much the same, but I couldn’t help but notice that she seemed a bit frailer than I remembered, and as I peered more closer I saw that she was somewhat paler than before. “Are you – are you doing okay?” I asked hesitantly. My last memories of her – being forced into that van in the middle of an abandoned parking lot in the late evening – came rushing back, as well as the terrified look in her eyes.

Although she replied with a reassuring “Yes, I’m doing fine” and another hand squeeze, there was no mistaking it: a shadow had momentarily crossed her face, and I’ll be honest: it scared me. “So it was you doing all of this,” I said. “I guess I should have known.”

“Not all of it,” she replied. “But I’m always going to be up here.” She reached up with her free hand and pointed to my head. “No matter what happens or where you go.”

“So then are we talking to each other? I mean – is this how it works? Is this what you guys go through when you’re communicating with one another?”

“Oh no,” she said, shaking her head. “This goes so much beyond that. You’re my Avatar, Jacob. My place of refuge. I’ve chosen to give myself to you, completely. Now we share everything between us.”

I opened my mouth to say something; specifically, to ask what they’d done to her since her kidnapping, but she held a finger up. “Another time. Now we’ve got work to do.”

“You mean you can’t tell me what’s happening?”

“I’m afraid not. They’ve been very clever at keeping me away from anyone who might know.”

“Of course. Otherwise this would have been easy.”

You’ve probably noticed by now that I’m being kind of vague about what’s really happening around me. About where I am, whether I’m dreaming, what it is I’m seeing while I talk to Tiffany, etc. Well, there’s a reason for that. See, I can’t really explain any of it. Seriously. It’s not like I sort of floated away to some big, black void or anything. I could still feel Sarah’s hand on my shoulder. I was still sitting in that uncomfortable wooden chair, and my ass was starting to get sore. At the same time, I was also standing up, talking to Tiffany, and I could feel her hand holding mine. And somehow those two separate perceptions didn’t seem to contradict each other in any way. They were simply happening at the same time. Both were equally real to me.

She’s drunk,” Tiffany said, listening to the voices in the background and smiling. “That was a stroke of genius.”

“I can’t take credit for it. It was Sarah’s idea.”

“It makes things a lot easier. Now I need you to listen to them. Try to understand what they’re saying.”

“Are you kidding me? There are hundreds of them! How can I be expected to hear each one?”

“Oh, but I didn’t ask you to hear. I asked you to understand.”

“You’re worse than Alex was.”

“You’ll never learn to use your gifts if you don’t start understanding the difference between hearing and understanding. Right now you’re hearing what she is thinking, but you’re not able to understand her. Reading her thoughts is easy,” Tiffany stressed. “It’s learning to sift through the clutter of an unorganized and undisciplined mind to discern what she’s thinking, and what it means. That’s why I’m here to help.”

“The Lieutenant General told me Andrew didn’t reveal any information to her.”

“You should know better than to trust memory by now. And don’t try to apply logic to this. I know it’s going to be difficult, especially with a lifetime of such strict military training. This gift of ours – it’s all about forging an emotional connection. You can’t trust what they say, or even what they think. Ignore the voices and tell me what Denise is feeling – above all else. We’ll go from there.”

I closed my eyes, and instead of trying to focus on all of the rambling, I just sort of stepped back and let it all wash over me. And then something strange began to happen. Well, okay – stranger. The voices continued to swirl around me, and suddenly they began to become less distinct. I felt a rush of panic – I was afraid I was losing my connection to Denise – but then another squeeze of my hand told me to relax and let it happen. So I let the voices fade and blur together, and instead of sounds I could feel a wave of emotions. There was happiness, and with it came a rush of memories – not my own – that told me I was now experiencing someone else’s life. It was gone in a flash, and I was overcome with sadness, and a lifetime of loss, and jealousy, pride, misery, joy – they all came at me, faster, and if Tiffany hadn’t been there guiding me and tempering the flow I don’t know what would have happened. There was so much, so fast, that they all blurred together, and I couldn’t distinguish one from the other.

But through it all I felt anger. A quiet, simmering rage, of the kind that I could never imagine coming from a woman as strong as the Lieutenant General. She was notorious for her quick temper, impatience with other peoples’ faults, and a fiery sense of personal pride, and you got the impression that she had rarely experienced failure herself. But that’s what I was feeling: anger and wounded pride. “She’s angry,” I said, surprised at how sure I was of what I was sensing. “She failed herself.”

“That’s good,” Tiffany said gently. “How did she fail herself?”

I wasn’t trying to focus, since I knew that would only take me out of the moment, but somehow I naturally zeroed in on the sense of wounded pride. She was such a powerful woman, and to have been tricked so completely had really been a blow to her. Being brainwashed – “She failed herself because she was brainwashed!” I exclaimed – by one of the evil telepaths – that’s why she was angry. I couldn’t help it, I was becoming excited. It was coming faster now, and I knew I was close. “And she’s feeling helpless. She’s angry because she’s feeling helpless, and she’s never felt that way before.”

“Why does she feel helpless?”

“She knows what’s going on! She knows what Andrew is up to, and there’s nothing she can do about it. In fact, she’s helping him. She’s furious with herself about that.”

It was all coming together. Why she was so angry. Angry and helpless. She was being forced to betray everything she stood for and obviously held so dear. But how? How was she betraying us? What the hell was the master plan? “I can feel it,” I said, letting frustration slip into my voice. “I’m almost there.” But nothing was coming. I was hovering right on the edge, and I knew something big waited for me on the other side. But something was keeping me out. Try as I might, I couldn’t go any further.

“But we can. Together.” Tiffany’s voice was confident, and although I wanted to believe her, privately I wasn’t so sure. “Now none of that,” she said, in reply to my unspoken reservations. “You can’t keep that stuff to yourself.”

I felt her gently pushing me on, forcing me to continue fighting against this sudden resistance. The harder I tried, the stronger the resistance grew. This wasn’t the Lieutenant General fighting me, but a defense that the attackers had left behind, just in case. Although I knew first-hand that the plan had been to kill me and the others back at the Eidenberg Center, Andrew wasn’t an idiot, and had probably left this behind just in case.

It kind of shocked me to realize that this was his personal work. My limited experience with his tactical strategies told me he tended to send his lackeys out to do the dirty work for him, but since I had apparently acquired a reputation as something of a wild card even to him, he was taking no chances. And let’s be honest here: if it had just been me, or – hell, let’s face it – me, Alex, and any number of my other fellow telepaths, it wouldn’t have worked. Hands down. None of us could have gotten this far inside the Lieutenant General’s head. But he hadn’t counted on Tiffany helping me, and it was kind of amazing how the two of us together, and the relationship we shared, represented a far stronger force than even he had imagined.

And suddenly, with a violent lurch, I was back in the chair, with the Lieutenant General’s face mere inches from my own. I looked around, dazed, until I glanced up into Sarah’s eyes. “What happened?” she asked. “Did it work?”

“Y – yeah,” I said. “I think it did.”

“What did you see?”

“Everything,” I murmured. “I saw everything. Son of a bitch!”

“What?” she cried, alarmed.

“I’m going to pass out again. You know, I’m really getting sick of passing out.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “Um, you’re joking, right? Tell me you’re joking.”

“Three hours. Four, tops. Do me a favor and make sure I don’t strike my head on anything hard, okay?”

Thud.