Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
With great reluctance, Aiden finally released Evelyn from his embrace.
He had offered to take the plants to Cairn for a while, see if he could get them into better shape than they had been after being banged around in the box on their journey to the ship.
Aiden loaded plants into his arms and left her to her research.
Possible applications for her siphoning ability had pinged through his mind as he’d watched her demonstration.
First, the obvious: She would be a total ringer in a thievery operation.
A little power suck here, a touch of an overload there, and systems Lillian had been unable to crack would be absolute putty in their hands.
But energy was energy. And if Evelyn could suck the power from an old audio playing device with such effortlessness, surely that could be directed to anything with energy to burn.
Anyone.
The idea of that knowledge weighing heavily on her broke Aiden’s heart a little, and the shame that radiated off of her in waves twisted the knife that much further.
That she’d suffered largely alone, not being able to share herself with anyone, living in fear of one little slip-up.
. . It must have been horrendously stressful.
No wonder she loves a book so much. Aiden understood wanting to escape, but his choice of distraction had been planning his departure from the Dawn.
He had been planning for months, waiting for the time to be right and for the burdens his loved ones carried to be lessened before he could implement his plan.
All of which now felt like a colossal waste of time.
At least his credit accounts were looking healthy. The condo could stay empty a while longer. He had absolutely no intention of fucking off to Florida to reassess his options and determine the course of his life now. He knew where it was hurtling at terrifying speed.
As he made his way to the bridge, he could hear Cairn and Veronique chatting.
“What do you think she’s doing in there?” he heard Cairn ask.
“If she hasn’t cracked the boxes? Organizing her movie collection. If she has? Having a panic attack,” Veronique replied.
He heard Cairn snort just before he stepped onto the bridge.
“Assuming she’s past the panic attack stage,” Cairn said.
Aiden unceremoniously plopped the plants on the floor in front of Cairn.
The view screen had a small square of a newsfeed playing on mute in the corner, the captions at the bottom scrolled the host’s thoughts on Bauder’s increased military presence in the sector — he felt it was a gross overreach and wanted GPC sanctions.
Fat chance.
Turning, Aiden noticed a spot of soil on his sleeve and tried to rub it off to no avail. Leaves were tangled in his beard. I probably could have made more than one trip. Or tried to float some of them down the hall.
“Oi! What are you doing with innocent flora?” Cairn asked, bending to caress the leaves at his feet.
“It’s part of Evelyn’s training. Can you keep these alive for a few days?”
“I am hurt you’d even ask that.”
“Rephrasing. Will you keep these alive for a few days?”
Cairn started organizing the plants on the portion of his desk he usually propped his feet on while navigating the ship.
“I mean, obviously. I wouldn’t let these poor plants be tended by the likes of you.”
Aiden ran a hand through his beard, dislodging the last clinging leaf. “Much appreciated. Do we have anything that approximates this sort of level of plant growth? Or can you. . . make more?” He was always sort of baffled when Cairn started talking about horticulture and just tended to nod.
Veronique snorted from the floor and scribbled in a notebook Aiden assumed was full of strategies for her video project.
“I have a propagation station set up in our quarters. What does she need the plants for?”
Aiden’s eyes gleamed. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
Evelyn sat at her card table with her tablet. After Aiden had left with the plants, she had asked L.I.N.D.A. for all the information it could gather on training her type of martial talents.
The results were both more and less illuminating than she’d expected.
While the type of abilities that had manifested in the people of Tanalia were by no means unique across the universe, the ways that the scattered societies had chosen to train them were.
This shouldn’t have surprised her. Every planet would have its own social mores and traditions, each would value different skills in its own social hierarchy.
Some planets identified children with her type of skills and spirited them away to be trained as soon as the ability was identified, turning them into celebrities or mercenaries. Sometimes both.
Some planets identified those children and killed them.
The societies that seemed more balanced seemed to train their children in the use of control before anything else was attempted. Knowing when to employ a dangerous weapon was the first step to making sure one could use it successfully, after all.
So step one, mastered.
Now that she was actually thinking about the implications of her abilities, she was realizing how irresponsible it had been to learn control and nothing else.
No matter how unappealing the prospect was to her.
Locking up a blaster was all well and good, but it was just as important to know how it was used in case you ever needed to use the damn thing.
The next steps were hazier. Some schools of thought seemed to be aligned with Corvinia’s advice — mess about with your abilities in a controlled environment and see what happens.
Others championed repetition, changing as few variables as possible until results were consistent.
Still others thought the inverse a better way to train, as few things in life would ever be as cookie-cutter as the controlled environment.
Chaos would always reign in the universe. Best to get used to it.
Evelyn switched off the tablet. She stood, shook out her limbs, and eyed the spread of electronics on the table.
The neat line of devices sat there, an energy buffet for her to plow her way through.
Her stomach churned at the idea. What if she lost control?
What if she sucked the energy from all these little doodads, and the energy went to her head?
What if it made her want more, and more, and more until she couldn’t stop herself and had to go after something bigger? More lively?
She shouldn’t do this alone.
Her first thought was to get Aiden, but she knew he was a bad choice.
She needed someone who would be willing to knock her on her ass if she lost it.
She shoved up the sleeves of her cardigan and left her hidden research nook to find Nannette.
Surely she would be the one most willing to knock her into next Tuesday if she posed a threat.
After a bit of exploring — she had refused to ask L.I.N.D.A.
in a futile attempt to put off the inevitable — Evelyn found Nannette in the kitchen with Veselko and Tariel.
They were playing a card game, something with brightly colored hexagons of paste board.
It didn’t seem too heated an exchange, but they all had fairly even quantities of chips in front of them, so Evelyn assumed they were near the start of the game.
She paused for a moment, let her eyes unfocus, and peeked at the vibrations that emanated from them.
She slowed her breathing and focused on the information flowing towards her.
There was a wave of steady, vibrant cheer flowing from Veselko.
Tariel was a whirl of colorful expression.
Nannette was like a thunderstorm, a cleansing destruction that could both save and shatter.
Evelyn blinked and refocused her eyes before she stepped further into the kitchen. She headed to the refrigeration unit and found a bottle of lemonade. “Penny for your thoughts when you’re done here?”
“Was this a penny for each of us, or a penny between us? Because our consultation rates are usually a bit steeper,” Veselko said, grinning as he threw down a card.
“I’m going to insist on my own penny,” Tariel said. “I have bills to pay.”
“I’m flush. You can have my share,” Nannette said, throwing down cards and shooting Veselko a look that said “take that.” He scowled and looked at the cards in his hand.
“I need training advice,” Evelyn said, smiling in spite of herself. “Nannette gets the penny. You two are free to be the peanut gallery.”
Nannette placed her cards face down in front of her and gave Evelyn her full attention. “You mean we get to finally find out about this secret second ability you have?”
Tariel took advantage of her distraction to try and slip a card out of the hand she’d placed on the table. He was halfway across the table with it when Nannette’s palm slapped down on his. He swore and shook his hand out.
“That’s what you get for trying to cheat,” Veselko said. “So, do we get to see? What’s with all the secrecy anyway? Do you shoot like, poisoned darts out of your nipples or something?” This time Nannette’s hand hit the back of his skull. Tariel laughed as Veselko rubbed his head.
Evelyn almost choked on her lemonade. “If I could do that I would have set up a traveling show. Come see Evelyn, the Lethal Tit Princess!”
“Now that’s a commemorative T-shirt I would buy,” Nannette said, pointing her finger at Evelyn.
“Duly noted. No, it’s nothing that . . . showy. Do you have your communicator on you?” Evelyn reached her hand to Veselko. He reached into his pocket to get the device.
“What are you going to do?”
She bit her lower lip, second-guessing herself.
The idea of blatantly showing off her siphoning abilities made her want to vomit.
She had spent years hiding, deflecting, being a super Amplifier to distract from the fact that she should be exhibiting other signs of psychic talent.
The exposure felt raw, like new shoes not yet broken in.
They like you. They won’t freak out. Aiden didn’t.