Chapter 15 Dom
FIFTEEN
DOM
My consciousness thrums with the new bond.
How it came to be is not as wondrous as the fact it exists.
Law-rah’s thoughts rest closer to mine than ever before, an enticing exotic new planet to explore.
I've experienced the honor of seeing her pleasure, and I could find so much more about her in the vaults of her mind.
“I’ll guide you,” I say. “I can teach you how to use mind syncs, and we’ll do our best to examine them to discover how you were entangled and pull you free again. Use me as your Base. I will assist with your regulation—”
“No, I’ve got it. You focus on Nevare, and stay out of my head, please,” she tells me, leaning away from me and out of my arms.
The quivery excited feeling dies. Crashing into a plasglass wall would be preferable. Why does she feel the need to withdraw?
I will not go looking in her mind for the answer. I’m a strong Base; I have discipline and fortitude, even though resisting the pull to delve into her is pure torture.
She picks up her small device where it landed on the wooden floor, and my scales turn hard at the indignity I was witness to.
The man talking to her like that needs to die.
My fingers itch to wrap a wire around his throat myself, throttling the life out of him for daring to talk to Law-rah that way.
She glances at me, face paling. I pull myself back in, small, as I was taught to protect my Apex from my own emotional outbursts. Perhaps this mind sync goes deeper than I expected if she can hear me, an experienced Base.
As I watch her, devastation wreaks through her like the chain reaction of an imploding star: first a drawn inhale, then all her energies whirring in place, grinding into her.
She's as scared as a clone being marched to the Euthanization chambers, but the cold blue spikes of her aura are pointing inward at herself. ‘STUPID. IDIOT.’
I want to snarl that she's none of these things, but I'm not supposed to be listening in on her broadcasts. Not that I can help it, because not only is she practically using an amplifier inside my head, but every time she speaks my attention swings to her.
I can’t let her become my whole focus. Nevare was very nearly redirected into kill mode by the emotion charging through the mind sync, and that would have disastrous consequences.
Law-rah’s discomfort becomes my own as she races to her folding screen, tapping at it in a frenzy, a headache pounding in her already terrified mind. ‘I NEED COFFEE I CAN’T STOP FOR COFFEE.’
An image of a machine flashes across to me, similar to the one she had me carry into El-len’s farmhouse for her. I have my next mission: Law-rah told me she needed coffee to live, so that is priority one. I head to the galley area to scout for it.
There it is, sleek yet squat, with a bitter-burnt aroma wafting from the crest. Analyzing it for a few moments, I can guess the hard brown seeds in the funnel on top will deliver Law-rah what she needs.
I grab a mug, pure white and perfect rather than the chipped ceramic in El-len’s farmhouse, and work the machine controls until a stream of spitting, brown froth streams out from a nozzle. It looks like rocket fuel.
‘COFFEE I SMELL COFFEE,’ Law-rah broadcasts, before she calls, “Are you making coffee?”
“Yes, Law-rah.” Once the machine has finished, I take the mug between both hands and walk carefully back to Law-rah’s office.
“I would like—”
I place the mug next to her. “Here, Law-rah.” Bowing my head, I retreat to the corner of the room and kneel, head lowered. I don’t know if this will please her, but I want to be close by in case she asks something else of me.
“Thanks.” She snags the mug and takes a long, drawn in sip, her tension unraveling slightly. ‘PERFECT COFFEE, PERFECT. HE'S—’ She quickly cuts the thought off.
Those fearsome spikes remain, pressing into her.
There’s a flower on a desert planet we visited, the one on which we found Shade, and the pod grew thorns internally.
Ilia said it was to protect against invading parasites, and Law-rah’s psychological state reminds me of that now: a thick outer shell which, once cracked open, hides hundreds of barbs.
It’s causing her suffering. I would gladly accept her agony, but this is mental pain, not physical. I can't remove it for her.
“Dom,” she says, putting down her communication device, and I jolt to alertness. I was almost in a meditative trance, studying what she broadcasts.
“How can I serve?”
She shoots me a small smile, but it’s tight under tension, not her usual perfectly crooked grin, the sparkle gone from her eyes. “We need to get you back to the farm and untangle this mental mind-web thing.”
Drok na, I wasn’t thinking about that at all. “I have no idea how to reverse a mind sync.”
Shaking her head, she mutters, “Well, come up with a few things to try by tonight, please. I’ll work overtime to make up for my late start as it is, and I have to take more to get you back to Ellen’s.”
She drops her head in her hands, and a wave of despair sucks at me, threatening to pull me under with it and, with me, Nevare and Arik.
I block the link between me and the others, snapping it shut like slamming a vault door.
Then I brace myself, feet planted wide in my mind’s landscape, spine rigid, shoulders squared.
The weight of her hopelessness crashes into me like a black wave, thick and cold, swallowing light and breath alike.
It claws at me, seeping into my joints, whispering that nothing matters, that I should just let go.
But I don’t.
I hold Law-rah above it, over my head, steady in my thoughts.
I build a wall around her image: her clever mind, her quick words, the glint in her eye that I hope indicates she's thinking of me. Despair swirls around me, trying to sink or drag away that spark, but I won’t allow it reach her.
I won’t permit it touch Nevare or Arik either.
Every breath is an effort. My knees buckle in the psychic plane, but I dig in, grip harder, narrow my focus to a single truth: protect her.
The tide begins to ebb. The darkness recedes like fog pulling back from shore, and the feeling eases, then passes.
Law-rah takes a deep breath. “Suddenly I don’t feel so bad.”
I wipe my forehead, sweat rolling down my hand. “Good.”
She spins in place in her seat, blue eyes sharp. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
It’s my turn to hang my head, this time in shame for seeming to break my oath to her already. “I cannot help reacting to emotions that come at me. It’s what a Base does.”
“No, it’s okay, you’re not in trouble.” Law-rah stands up and paces over to me.
Without her weaponized shoes, she's smaller, more delicate. She gently rests her hand on my arm and my hearts leap. The golden color of her aura flickers to life again, reaching out to caress my scales. I blink and it’s gone, and then she turns away from me, back to the demands of her screen.
“Welcome back,” Arik says to her as I get out of Law-rah’s car.
“Hi, Arik.” She keeps her dark sunglasses on as she exits smoothly.
I rush around to take the bag containing her screen but she gets there first, holding it by her side with a white-knuckled grip. “Can’t stop to chat, I have to continue working.”
“Can we assist?” he asks, but I shake my head.
‘I’ve tried offering,’ I explain, dropping in a memory of me asking Law-rah if I can help multiple times in the car. She refused each one, except when I offered to bring her coffee.
Law-rah lowers her voice. “You can help by figuring out how to untangle this mess, and quickly.”
Arik glances at me. “Dom could try shielding you.”
My hopes leap, scales softening, but I shake my head behind Law-rah’s. I’ve already discounted the idea.
“What does that involve?” Hope ripples through the mind sync, and I hate to disappoint her.
“When Nevare gets too… busy, over focused, over stimulated, I can pull myself over him and block out further stimuli. Like a barrier shield for an interstellar hopper.” I drop her an image of one.
‘brIGHT BLUE BLOCKY SPACESHIP BIG AS SKYSCRAPER, ORANGE-RED TINGE SURROUNDING IT LIKE HEATWAVE.’
I mentally point to the orange-red. ‘That’s the barrier shield, and it’s similar to how a mental shield works. It would cut you off from Nevare and Arik, but, to do it, I need to… get close to you.’
She immediately goes pale as if her scales drained of color. “Like, physically close?”
‘And mentally.’ I wince in anticipation of her reaction.
‘NO WAY, WANT HIM OUT OF MY HEAD, NOT DEEPER INSIDE IT.’
Nausea lurches through me, and I try not to let her feel how her revulsion dashes my hopes like waste cargo dropped from a hopper.
I haven’t proven myself enough. Perhaps if I work harder, I might be found worthy.
“In that case, I don’t know what to do next apart from teaching you to modify your broadcasts to protect Nevare. ”
She rubs her temples, and I gently check to see if there’s any pain. There isn’t, just a tight knitted needle of frustration lancing into her. ‘CAN’T HANDLE ALL THIS.’
‘You can,’ I send to her, putting her on my mental shoulders again to stand above the sea of anger and fear. It’s like an acidic lake, eating away at me, but at least Law-rah is safe from it.
The spike recedes and she breathes more easily.
“Fine. Okay. Decision time. I need to reach out to all the affected persons to smooth over my mistake this morning, and tonight we’ll think of how this happened so we can undo it.
If we don’t have any good ideas, I’m going to learn about this broadcasting shit, but that’s a short term fix.
Priority one is stopping this entirely, clear? ”
Arik and I nod, pressing our fists to our chests.
With a brief wave she strides into the farmhouse, and I admire her crisp suit tight over her rounded hips.
‘Focus, Dom.’ Arik’s mental voice is smiling but tinged with gray exhaustion. He’s had to wrangle Nevare on his own, and the thought of abandoning him for my night of pleasure gives the experience a sharper edge.
‘It’s not that, we work together easily, we’ve been doing it for long enough,’ Arik says with a flare of purple indignation. ‘It was having to deal with Law-rah’s sudden appearance and the sheer amount of emotion she pushed down the sync. How did that happen, Dom?’
I know I should tell him everything, but the urge to shield Law-rah’s vulnerabilities is strong. It’s clear she guards them carefully, and having her come undone in my arms was such a raw and beautiful experience she shared only with me.
It’s… mine. A Base shouldn’t have many experiences outside of the Parthiastocks he’s mind sync’d with, but still. That night belongs to me and Law-rah only.
My wave brother stares at my shoulder, and I glance down. I’d completely forgotten the damaged scales, which will fall off naturally in a human week. They’re striped pink and black and stuck as thick defensive plate, unable to relax to anything softer.
‘She didn’t do this,’ I send to him hurriedly.
Arik’s eyes flash with yellow relief. ‘Good. I wondered if she was handling you roughly.’
‘No, far from it.’ She actually cared for me last night, letting me into her private quarters and making sure I was covered, I assume for warmth given the humans lose heat through their skin easily.
It was the equivalent of protecting me from the elements, and just as remarkable that a female would care for a clone in any way.
Arik sighs. ‘Keep your secrets, then, but I won’t be able to suggest anything of use.’
‘That’s acceptable.’ I’ll handle everything to do with Law-rah on my own. ‘Did Ilia notice I was missing?’
Arik’s snort is answer enough. Clearly, our leader is busy, and previously that would have made me concerned about a clear chain of command, but now it's as if I have a second guiding point in my life. Just as long as it doesn’t distract me from my Apex, perhaps I can smuggle a little bit of her light to myself.
Throughout the day, Arik, Nevare and I finish the far wall of the barn.
The structure takes shape faster and faster every cycle, becoming more familiar as a storage unit while at the same time being alien.
At first, I’d thought the stone we were told to use was a mismatched mess but, while it is harder to work with than uniform printed bricks used for clone quarters, it almost feels like it has an aura all of its own.
The surface is molded by the elements, forged and shaped by hands of generations past.
I pass my palm over the gritty wall. Clones don’t have previous generations; we have only the All-Mother, who sacrificed all her eggs to create us but remains as distant as the stars twinkling above us.
‘SAD, DOM.’ Law-rah’s thoughts startle me.
‘I didn’t realize I was broadcasting,’ I send to everyone.
“You weren’t,” Arik mutters aloud. “She’s thinking about you. She wanders up and down the sync with images of you.”
The idea makes my chest swell, but I quickly push that thought away, dropping my hand from the wall. I can’t fail Law-rah and Nevare; I have to figure out how to break this connection, tonight. How was it formed in the first place? Did it have something to do with Law-rah’s secret gold aura?
Slowly, I turn to face the main farmhouse where Law-rah works.
I have an idea.