Asa
The ESA escort didn't give me time to grab my coat, and the chill of the facility is already beginning to settle into my joints, a cold that has nothing to do with the thermostat and everything to do with the heavy, lead-lined walls.
I focus on the rhythm of my shoes against the tile. I’m a professor of applied mathematics. I understand systems, variables, and predictable outcomes. But as the heavy security doors hiss shut behind me, the variables are spinning out of my control.
"This way, Professor Renwick," the orderly says. He doesn't look at me. He looks at a point three inches above my left shoulder, his hand hovering near the mag-lock key on his belt.
I try for a dry, academic tone, the one I use when a student asks a particularly redundant question about design theory. "I assume the 'request' for my presence involves more than a tour of the HVAC system."
The orderly doesn't even blink. "Director Mercer is waiting in Lab Four."
Lab Four is a sterile expanse of white tile and brushed steel, dominated by a reinforced glass partition that bisects the room.
On the other side of that glass, Jorak is sitting on a low bench.
He looks like a caged god. His shoulders are tense, his head bowed, the dark energy of the Black Current flickering around his fingertips like dying embers.
The moment I step into the room, he snaps his head up.
His eyes lock onto mine, and the air in the room suddenly feels three shades thicker.
"Asa," he says, my name vibrating in the floorboards.
"Stay where you are, Jorak," Mercer’s voice cuts through the tension. He’s standing by a console, his suit perfectly pressed, looking like a man who just invited me over for tea rather than kidnapped me from my workplace.
"Professor Renwick, thank you for coming.
We have a few questions regarding your... unique synchronization with our asset."
I look at the glass. It’s at least three inches thick, reinforced with a shimmering suppression mesh. "You have my blood work, Director. You have the Vesper House data. I’m an F-Class Guide. Statistically speaking, I shouldn't even be able to stand in this room without suffering a migraine."
Mercer tilts his head, a gesture of feigned curiosity. "And yet, here you are. No tremors. No nosebleed. In fact, your vitals are remarkably stable. Dr. Rue?"
The doctor steps out from the shadows of the tech bay, looking smaller and more tired than he did earlier. He won't meet my eyes either. "We need to establish a baseline, Asa. Scent swabs, output resonance, and a small blood draw. It’s for safety. Yours and his."
Safety. It’s the word they use to justify the cage.
I walk toward the medical chair, my skin crawling.
Every step away from the glass feels like pulling a limb through cold molasses.
My body is already screaming for the proximity we established in my office, that tether that defies the F-Class label.
The first swab is cold against my neck. The doctor works with clinical efficiency, but his hands are shaking.
I can see Jorak on the other side of the glass, his fingers curling into fists.
The Black Current is no longer flickering; it’s beginning to coil around his arms like smoke.
He looks like he wants to tear the room apart.
"It’s fine, Jorak," I say, my voice more steady than I feel. "It’s just a swab."
"He's touching you," Jorak rumbles.
"The asset is reacting to the separation," Mercer notes, tapping a command into his tablet. "Increase the suppression levels in Chamber A. Let's see how the Guide’s output compensates."
The hum in the walls intensifies. It’s a high-pitched whine that sets my teeth on edge.
Suddenly, the air in my lungs feels thin.
My pulse spikes, a frantic drumbeat against my ribs.
I can feel the heat rising inside of me, a jagged, sickly fever.
My skin goes slick with sweat. The hollow ache in my chest turns into a physical vacuum, a localized collapse of my own internal pressure.
I grip the armrests of the chair. "What are you doing?"
"Testing the bond," Mercer says, his eyes fixed on the monitors. "Dr. Rue, introduce the Class-A trace. Let's see if the Professor can stabilize a direct entropic load."
"Director, he’s not trained for this," Dr. Rue protests, but he’s already reaching for the dial.
A vent in the ceiling opens, and a thin, dark mist of energy drifts down. It’s a controlled leak of Jorak’s power, the entropic weight of the Black Current. In any other Guide, it would cause immediate neural shock. It would burn through the synapses. I wait for the pain but it doesn’t come.
Instead, the patterns start to form. In my mind’s eye, the dark mist isn't chaos; it’s a series of interlocking equations, a fluid dynamics problem that requires a specific solution.
My body stops shaking. The fever doesn't break, but it settles into a localized heat, a focal point where I can meet the energy.
I don't drain it. I don't push it away. I simply... hold it.
I find the seam in the energy, the place where the entropy is most concentrated, and I apply the mental weight of a prime number. The mist thins. The pressure in the room levels out. I’m breathing hard, my vision blurring at the edges, but I’m still upright.
I look at the glass. Jorak is standing now, his palms pressed against the reinforced surface. He looks terrified and I can feel him through the bond, a frantic, jagged pulse of protection and rage. He’s trying to reach out, to pull the entropy back into himself so it doesn't touch me.
"Stop it," I rasp, looking at Mercer. "You have your data. I’m not burning out."
Mercer’s expression is unreadable. He looks at the screens, where my output levels are presumably breaking every rule in the ESA handbook. "F-Class. Remarkable. You're not a drain, Professor. You're a dampener. A structural stabilizer."
"I'm a person," I say, though my voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a well. "And I’m done."
I try to stand but my knees feel like they’re made of wet paper. The world tilts, the white tiles of Lab Four suddenly rushing up to meet me. The exhaustion hits all at once, a physical blow that resets my nervous system. I didn't realize how much I was holding until the release came.
The glass partition shatters, broad, powerful arms catching me before I can fully collapse.
Jorak pulls me against his chest, his heat radiating through my clothes, grounding the frantic static in my nerves.
"Stay back," Jorak snarls. The sound isn't human. It’s the Black Current given a voice.
The orderlies draw their batons, their faces pale.
Mercer stands his ground, but he doesn't move closer.
"He needs medical attention, Jorak," Mercer says, his voice still terrifyingly calm. "Take him to the wing."
"He's coming with me," Jorak states. "If any of you touch him again, I will level this entire floor. I don't care about the suppression nodes. I don't care about the city. I will tear it all down."
Jorak doesn't wait for permission as he lifts me into his arms, carrying me like I weigh nothing. My head falls against his shoulder, my nose pressed into the crook of his neck. The scent of him is a balm, a literal cure for the sickness crawling under my skin. I’m too tired to be embarrassed.
I’m too tired to care that I’m being carried through a government facility by a living weapon.
He walks through the corridors, every person we pass flattening themselves against the wall, their eyes wide with terror. They see the Enigma. They see the disaster. I just see the man who caught me.
We reach a heavy steel door at the end of a restricted wing.
Jorak punches a code into the keypad, and the door thuds open.
He sets me down on the bed with a gentleness that seems impossible for someone of his size as I take in the sterile room, gray walls, a single desk, and a bed with military-pressed sheets.
There are no photos, no personal items, nothing that suggests a life lived outside of assignments.
It’s a room built for a tool, not a man.
"Water," he says, moving to a small kitchenette in the corner. His movements are jerky, his control slipping. The Black Current is still coiling around his wrists, hungry and dark.
He brings me a glass of water, his hand brushing mine as he hands it over. The touch is electric, a surge of grounding energy that makes my lungs expand. I drink it down, the cool liquid helping to settle the nausea.
"I'm okay, Jorak," I say, setting the glass on the nightstand. "I just got lightheaded."
He sits on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. "They shouldn't have done that. They shouldn't have used you. I told them... I told them I’d kill anyone who tried to categorize you."
I reach out, my fingers trembling as I touch his forearm. The power humming beneath his skin is immense, a roar of entropic force that should be terrifying. To me, it just feels like home. "They know now. They know I'm more than an F-Class. I just don’t know what that is."
He looks up at me, his eyes dark with a grief he doesn't know how to name. "Do you know what they do to things that are useful, Asa? They don't let them go. They build bigger cages. They build better locks."
He stands up and walks to the door, pointing to the heavy mag-locks and the camera mounted in the corner.
"They watch everything. They record my heart rate, my power output, my sleep cycles.
They treat me like a reactor that might melt down at any second.
And they're right. I am." He turns back to me, his expression grim.
"Even if I walked out of here today, Asa, I wouldn't be free. The Black Current... it isn't just a power. It’s a leak. Without the suppression nodes, without a Guide who can handle the backlash, I’m a walking catastrophe. I’d burn out every civilian in a three-block radius just by breathing. "