The Embers Of My Heart (11 page)

I shook my head and backed out to the main page. I wanted more information on him if groups like the Illuminati considered him so dangerous. I clicked over to the page with information about their founding.

My eyes flicked immediately to a familiar word. Establishment. "Todd Green, having disagreements with the leadership of the Establishment for Psionic Order, withdrew from the organization unexpectedly and remained out of public contact for the next six years." I leaned toward the screen. My first thought had been wrong. He split from the Establishment. Why? What disagreements? I spun around in my chair before opening another window to PSInet and searching for his name. Unsurprisingly, the only links I found led back to the Illuminati data.

The part that interested me was the lack of data from the Establishment. Nothing public, nothing from our internal data stores. Either I didn't have sufficient access, or we held no data on him. I considered those options, then searched for Absynthe. Nothing came up for her, nor for Shade. It didn't give me much to go on. I didn't know if there was a list of active agents I could access. I tapped my fingers lightly on the space bar and tried to come up with another option to find more information.

"Fuck it," I mumbled and went back to the page about the founding of the Resistance. The only new information regarded their recent area of operations, almost exclusively West Coast. They occasionally pushed a cell out east. I knew that part. What was I missing?

The door opened. I tabbed back to my normal browser and looked over my shoulder. Max lurched in and draped himself over his chair. "Kev."

"Max."

"Studying?"

"Yeah. You?"

He laughed. "I wish. I'm done with this shit."

"What do you mean?"

Max hooked his leg over the arm of his chair and leaned back. "I'm failing this shit, Kev. I am fucked in triplicate. They're going to kick my lazy ass out of school and my parents are going to disown me. I don't know what to do. Maybe I should embezzle as much money from my family as possible and get a one way ticket to a third world country. Fuck this shit."

"Hold on. What the hell is going on? Start from the beginning."

He rubbed his face. "This is supposed to be my last year, right?"

"Right." I had been avoiding that thought. Both my roommates could graduate by the end of the year and be gone.

"So, I've flipped through three or four majors since I started. My credits are all over the place. The only way I can graduate this year is by busting ass and passing every single class while overloading, and taking classes over the breaks. I've had it. Fucking shit, Kev, this is fucked up."

"Tell me what actually happened," I said.

"I'm taking five classes right now. Four of them, barely passing but under control. Last one, I can't get it. I don't even need a high grade, just a seventy-five or so on the final. Not too bad, I know, but I can't retain anything about the damn subject. I try to study, it goes in and out. I go for a smoke, come back, it's all gone. I go bother Jess, she tells me to get my shit together, it's even worse. It's the pressure to perform, man. Know what I mean?"

"I don't," I said. "Though there are pills for that."

"I'd be all over those pills but I'm fried. If I fail this class, I can't graduate on time. They might even boot my ass out of the program, maybe the school. Well, that's not likely, but I need to graduate on time. Non-negotiable. Must happen."

"Why?" I asked before answering my own question. "Jess."

"Thank you," he said. "Someone figured it out."

"She's all set, isn't she?"

"She's got informal offers already and she's still a year out. She's got internships if she wants them, while I'm just this giant fuckup." He rubbed his face again and for a moment, I thought he was on the verge of tears. "Look, man, I don't know what to do. I don't suppose you have any magic up your sleeve to help me pass."

"Well, it might be your lucky day."

He looked up at me. "Don't get my hopes up, you fucker."

I told him about how I manipulated my brain functions to enhance my memory. It wasn't perfect, but it let me get away with minimal studying. "I'm not promising anything, but I can try and tweak you a bit and see what happens."

"I'll do anything for you."

"Don't get all sappy on me."

"No, you have no idea." Max pointed at me and then at the ground. "I will drop to my knees right now for you. Assuming this shit works."

"Thanks, but no thanks. Shut up and let me think."

For once, he did shut up. For my own brain, I tweaked some of my neurotransmitters. Shade had shown me the basics, and Absynthe helped me refine it. The basics were the same for everyone, but it took several attempts to learn what affected my brain the most. Using my own parameters as a starting point for Max seemed reasonable. I'd tweak it from there. If anyone found out about this, they'd be royally pissed off at me, at a minimum. "All right. Let's do it."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Close your eyes and relax."

"Think of England?"

"No. Just sit there." He grinned and closed his eyes. I walked over to the door and locked it to make sure no girlfriends walked in. "All right. Tell me if you feel anything."

"Is it in yet?"

"Max, I'm going to be fucking with your brain chemistry. Do you really want to piss me off right now?"

He chuckled and shut up again. I tapped my power with only a twinge of pain and called my Sight, focusing down into his brain until I targeted the right parts of the complex chemical soup. His chemistry was notably different from mine, so I took a moment to recalculate what to do before reaching in to tweak a cluster of cells.

Energy erupted from his mind, malevolent and dangerous. It slapped my psionic touch away. Electricity seemed to rush through the connection between us. I clenched my teeth and shunted the backlash away. As suddenly as it had appeared, the power vanished, but now I could sense it waiting. "Max, you need to relax," I said.

"I am relaxed."

"Right." I tweaked another cluster and the energy lurched to resist me again. "Are you fucking with me?"

"What?" He opened his eyes.

"You're fighting me. Stop it."

"I'm not doing it on purpose!"

That had to be true. Max wasn't a psion, but he had the mental defensive reactions of one. "Just relax." My power quivered as I called it again, but this time I used a lighter touch and tweaked fewer places at a time. The energy in his mind stirred at each touch, but stayed quiet until I finished. It had taken twice as long as I thought and sweat rolled down my sides by the end. "Holy shit. That sucked. How do you feel?"

He shook his head. "Lightheaded, but all right. Did it work?"

"We won't know until you study and tell me how it goes. It only lasts for a day or two at a time for me, so we'll need to go through this a few more times."

"Great. I can't wait to study. God, that sounds lame." He shook his head again, then looked me in the eye. "So what the hell do you mean I was fighting you?"

"Your mind," I said. "Like you were screaming 'bad touch'. Let me try something." I reached out to him with a telepresence link. His mind reached back to me and for a moment, I felt like I was about to link with him. Before the link completed, his mind withdrew and slapped me away. My head rang before I could cut my power off. "Shit, Max, you're an asshole."

"I know, but for once I'm not sure why."

"I think you're latent, Max." It made sense.

"What's that mean?"

"You've got psionic power locked up in your skull," I said. "But you can't use it. Can you?"

"Can't say as I've ever tried." He shifted to rubbing his temples. "And here I was bitching about you being something other than human when I might be on that train myself. So can I learn how to use it?"

"Not without having your power awakened. You need some sort of trigger."

"How do we get that to happen?"

"Beats the hell out of me," I said. "But I'll look it up."

"Ugh." He continued to rub his temples. "I think that brain thing you did is working. When you said that, I just remembered my crazy uncle saying that all the time when I was younger. Beats the hell out of me. Haven't thought of him in years. He actually did try to embezzle money and make for a tropical island. Almost got out of the country clean. Shit, maybe he wasn't so crazy after all."

"Crazy uncle?" I sat and rubbed my own temples. Something about a crazy uncle seemed familiar, something I had heard when I was younger, maybe just in passing? I tried digging through my oldest memories. Christmas. Five years old. My parents were still together. Christmas? They divorced when I was six. I shunted aside those particular memories and hunted through my memories of that Christmas. Toys. Candy. Conversation.

"Is Todd coming this year?" My dad had asked.

"I'm afraid not," my mom said. "I haven't heard from him."

"Your family's hard to pin down."

"It's a Green family tradition."

My eyes snapped open. My mom's maiden name was Green. They'd never talked about her having a brother in front of me when I was older. Was it a coincidence? I looked down at my hands and found them shaking. Did it mean my parents knew about psionics?

"Kev?" I looked up at Max. He had grabbed a book while I waded through my memories. "I'm heading to the library to try and study. If Jess comes looking, tell her I'm studying and trying not to be a pain in her ass."

"Right," I said.

He paused as if expecting something, then waved as he walked out of the room. As soon as he was gone, I called home. My dad picked up after a couple of rings. "Kev? What's up?"

"Hey Dad, just wanted to ask you something."

"That doesn't sound good."

"Nothing too serious, just doing some research and needed to pick your brain."

He grunted. "What sort of research?"

"Family research for a sociology class."

"All right."

I took a breath before asking. "I'm trying to complete a basic family tree, but I don't remember meeting any of Mom's brothers or sisters."

There was a long pause. "Kev, what are you talking about?" Maybe it was a coincidence, or I had made a mistake. "Your mother doesn't have any sisters, and you only met her brother a couple of times when you were little. He, well, left."

"Left?"

"Your mom doesn't like to talk about it."

"What's his name?"

There was another long pause before he answered. "Todd. Todd Green."

"So, Uncle Todd?"

"Kev." Dad dropped into his full serious tone. "Your mother will have my head if she finds out you were asking about this. She doesn't associate with her brother and neither of us wants you in contact with him. I only met him a few times myself, but I always thought he was a sketchy type, maybe a dealer. Not the sort of guy you want to associate with. I don't know what research you're doing, but don't tell your mother you're looking into this, and don't tell her that I told you anything. Got it?"

"Got it. How old is he? Just for references."

He sighed. "He's a year or two older than your mom. He'd be fifty or so if he's still around."

"Ok, that'll work. Thanks, Dad."

"That all you called for?"

"Well, yeah, it's getting close to finals and I'm getting a jump on this project."

"Ah." He sounded almost approving. "Well, keep it up. Coming home for the break?"

"Not sure yet. I'll let you know."

"All right. See you."

I hung up and tried to contain my excitement. That matched the Illuminati timeline. Now, all I had to do was confirm his prior presence in the Establishment. There was a simple, easy, and possibly fun way to do that. I locked the door once again before stretching my mind out to contact Absynthe.

The telepresence kicked in and I grinned at her as soon as the link stabilized. "Kevin," she greeted me. "What's on your mind?"

"Todd Green."

All around me, her mental realm shifted to flat matte black. Her clothing shifted in tone and intensity, deep black and fiery red. Her expression didn't change one bit. "Who?" she asked.

"My uncle."

She sighed. "I knew giving you more access to PSInet was asking for trouble."

"He was purged from Establishment records, wasn't he?"

"Of course." She frowned. "We'd never..."

"Never what?" I asked as she trailed off.

She unfolded herself and stood up. Absynthe wasn't taller than I was, but in her own mental realm, she towered over me. "How did you make that connection?"

"Educated guess," I said. "I knew someone named Todd Green left the Establishment. I knew my uncle's name is Todd Green. It could have been a coincidence, right?"

She sat back down and studied me. "Dangerous territory, Kevin," she said quietly. "I can't say anything. As far as the Establishment is concerned, there was never a Todd Green within our organization."

"You knew him, didn't you?" I asked. "Tell me about him."

"What?"

"He's my uncle. Tell me something about him."

"You're in no place to demand things from me!"

I stepped forward. "Look, he's family. I want to know about my family. If you don't tell me, I'll keep researching and digging around. We'll see what I find. Maybe I can track him down and go right to the source. Bet there's a lot more you don't want me to know."

Her face flushed red. "You are crossing the line."

"I'm fine with that. What did he do, Absynthe? Why'd he leave?" I paused for a moment. "Why'd he found the Resistance?"

She hissed a long breath out between her teeth. "Better people than you have failed to track him down."

"Tell me."

"He opposed Alistair."

"Why would that make him leave?"

She flung her arms wide. "Why do you think? The Establishment was in transition all those years ago. There were multiple factions, ideas, concepts. Were we going to go big? Were we going to specialize? Were we going to change everything? Sure. Some people wanted it all. Like Alistair. His plan was ambitious. Ballsy as fuck, as Shade said. We were younger then. We took risks and we liked it. It'd take years for it to pan out, but the payoff would be tremendous. We were young!" She slapped the arm of her chair. "Todd wanted us to go in a different direction. They were both aiming to be the next director."