The Embers Of My Heart (4 page)

"You're a college guy and you're telling me you're in bed this early?"

I shook my head. "It's Wednesday night, I have a class at eight tomorrow, and who the hell is this?"

"Seriously, Kevin? I told you I'd keep in touch."

It finally clicked. "Oh. Star."

"Nice way to greet your lover."

I hung my head and felt needles crawl up the back of my neck. "Yeah. How'd you get this number?"

Her tone was far more upbeat and playful than I could tolerate. "I have my ways. So you actually were asleep? Sorry. How's school?"

"It sucks," I said.

"You sound kind of annoyed."

I sighed. "I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. I actually got to bed early tonight and then started having bad dreams again. Feels like I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since I got back here."

"What are the bad dreams about?"

"You."

There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line. "Me? What about me?"

"It's stupid."

"Tell me."

I rubbed my forehead. "Look, it's all about you teasing me and mocking me, then you turn into Nikki or she comes out of nowhere and then I wake up in a cold sweat."

"Sounds like you've got a guilty conscience."

"Says the one who seduced me."

"Takes two to tango, tiger."

"You're not helping."

"Hey, if you want me to help you get some sleep, I can fly there and tire you out."

"That's not it."

"Or you can fly out here. I'm in Seattle now. Much nicer than New York, I tell you. Plus, I live by myself now, no need to worry about the legbreakers walking in on us like that one time. You should visit. We can spend some more quality time together."

"You're something, you know that?"

"I know." She sounded inordinately pleased with herself. "So, when are you going to tell her?"

"Tell who what?"

"Tell Nikki about us."

"Us?"

"You and me."

I shook my head. "Us? Star, there isn't any us. I'm not going to tell her that we slept together."

"You're letting it eat you up inside. The sooner you tell her, the sooner you can get over it. Throw all the blame on me if you want, I'm used to it."

"She'll dump me!"

"So? If she does, it wasn't meant to be in the first place."

"What the hell, come on, she's my girlfriend!"

"You cheated on her."

My temper finally woke up. I cupped the mouthpiece with my palm. "Yeah, I cheated on her with you. Maybe I should fix that."

"Wait-"

"No, don't start this shit with me. Better yet, don't call me again. I don't want to have anything to do with you or your Resistance. Just leave me alone. I just wanted a normal life, but since I can't have that, at least let me have what little normality I can! Let me have my girlfriend, my future, and whatever I can make of it. Just leave me alone."

"Kevin. You're tired and you're upset. I'm sorry for pushing so hard. I thought we were on the same page."

"Just leave me alone," I repeated.

"Please, calm down, I'm sorry."

"No, I'm not going to calm down," I said. "Stop fucking with my life. Goodbye."

"Kev-" Her voice cut off as I hung up the receiver. After a moment of contemplation, I unplugged the cord as well. She wouldn't be disturbing us for the rest of the night at least. I cracked the door open and slid the phone in, but stayed sitting in the hallway. There was no way I could fall asleep again right now.

I started walking down the hall to see if Jess was awake, as she was the only one I could think of who'd still be up at this hour, but Andreas's door was slightly open. I stood outside and listened. It took a moment, but then I heard the tapping of fingers on a keyboard and a sigh. I knocked on his door and he answered almost immediately. "Kevin? I am surprised to see you up this late." Even past one in the morning, Andreas still managed to look more put together than anyone else I knew. A tie hung loose around his neck and he was wearing a button up shirt. "Please, come in."

"Sorry to bother you so late at night," I said.

"It is not a problem," he said. "In fact, I am glad to see you. There is something I wanted to talk to you about since your return to campus, but the timing has never been ideal."

"What's that?"

"The research data you gave me at the end of last trimester."

My sleep fog cleared in an instant. I had given Andreas a copy of data from a student researcher at RPI. He had been working on some sort of device that could sense psionic manifestations and very nearly died for his discovery. We had shared that data with the Japanese faction, the Kaze, and given a copy to our own superiors in the Establishment, but I kept a copy for myself. Before I went home for the winter break, I gave the data to Andreas. He had the technical background to make sense of it. "Did you look into it? I did tell you it was dangerous."

He nodded and gestured toward the back of his room. His tabletop display was humming along, a slowly spinning representation of a molecule dominating the display. "It is intriguing more than dangerous." He tapped some commands into the system, banishing the molecule in favor of a command line, and pulled up a few pages of the research report. One was a schematic, one was a project summary, the others had no real meaning to me. Annotations in Norwegian dotted the margins. "Kevin, were you told what this device was designed to do?"

"Somewhat," I said. "I thought you'd understand it more than I would."

Andreas tapped twice on the schematic and zoomed in, sliding the display around to point out various parts. "This is a simple device, Kevin, far simpler than I originally presumed. This sensor senses minute changes to barometric pressure. This is effectively a range finder. This small piece is a level, just a simple level. This is a very crude ionization sensor. There are some other sensors as well, but you get the idea."

"Sounds like a bunch of simple sensors all hooked together," I said.

"Exactly. It is not particularly sensitive in any one regard." Andreas dragged a finger across the screen, bringing us to another page of the project. "This is the documentation for the device interface. As you can see, a simple USB interface transmits data from the sensor device to a computer. This program interprets the data."

"So what's it supposed to interpret?"

"What is curious about it is that it seems to aggregate the changes in all the sensors on a very rapid polling basis. The program alerts the user if the aggregate changes are more than a certain level. This level is configurable on a per-sensor basis. I browsed the entire project documentation to determine why such small changes would trigger the alert. Do you know if there were additional files?"

I shook my head. "Not that I know of."

Andreas nodded and flicked the screen back to the beginning of the project summary. "In that case, my only conjecture is that this device is a crude attempt to sense localized changes to natural phenomena. I cannot call it anything except a way to sense minute shifts in, well, reality."

"What?"

He shrugged. "The documentation is vague at best. It does not clearly state any cause for the phenomena that it attempts to detect. Normally I would expect a statement of purpose, or a proposed hypothesis that the device design supports. This seems to be nothing of the sort. If part of a thesis, I would not grade it highly. If independent research and construction, I would find it interesting but ultimately worthless."

"So you're not really interested in it?"

Andreas frowned at me. "Of course I am interested in it, Kevin. Academically, it is worthless. However, it is designed to detect something, and I do not know what or why. I am intensely curious. What more can you tell me?"

"Nothing yet, I'm still working on it from my end," I said. "But I would say you should try and build one. Or did you do it already?"

"I have started," he said. "Several of the sensors were less than ideal, so I have worked to widen or refine their parameters. I have also rewritten the software to run on a smartphone rather than require a connection to a computer. I expect to be able to complete a prototype within two weeks."

"That's good news. I'm looking forward to seeing what it comes up with."

Andreas stood upright and fixed me with his gaze. He wasn't much taller, but his stance made him seem to reach for the ceiling. "Kevin, I know you are hiding something from me," he said. "You say that this device is dangerous. This is a harmless device, which detects harmless effects. The only case in which it could be dangerous is when the distortions it is designed to detect are common effects of more dangerous phenomena."

"Just how common would those distortions be?" I asked.

"Non-existent."

"Completely?"

He shook his head. "Perhaps not completely, but uncommon enough that I can find no reasonable conjecture on how they could occur. The device is not as sensitive as our most sensitive instruments, but the designer evidently wanted to check a large variety of events as rapidly as possible and struck a balance between sensitivity, speed, and comprehensiveness."

"And price, probably."

"Indeed. If localized distortions to reality exist, it could potentially throw the Standard Model into disarray. If I did not know better, I would simply assume that this is a multi-sensor device designed to act as a simple multi-tool. However, the documentation leads me otherwise. Your warning leads me otherwise. Your evasiveness leads me otherwise. Where, in fact, am I being led, Kevin?"

I tried not to panic. "I'm not trying to lead you anywhere."

"Please do not play dumb with me. I have been a TA for some time. My bullshit detectors are highly calibrated and effective."

"I'm not playing dumb. There are a lot of factors I need to consider."

"Consider them, and also consider the factor that I will not betray your trust." His pale blue eyes fixed on mine. "You are a friend and I consider you a good man."

I flinched and hoped he didn't notice. "You're a friend of mine as well. All right. Once you're done with the device, I'll fill you in. It's pointless until you have it done." I knew that telling normal people about my powers wasn't a great idea, but Andreas wasn't the worst choice. He was smart enough to keep it secret.

"Very well." He didn't sound convinced.

"Also, on a completely different topic, have you heard of the Student Council Subcommittee for Gifted Students?"

Once again, Andreas frowned, this time even more deeply than before. "I have not, and it seems that I should have. Why?"

"I was invited to join it and you're the only one I know who might know of it." The fact that Andreas didn't know about it confirmed to me that it was part of the Establishment's presence at the school.

"Do you want me to look into it?"

"No, I was just curious."

"You have brought me an interesting mystery, Kevin. I wonder what secrets you hide."

I cleared my throat. "So, what happened between you and Kaitlyn the other night, after I left?"

He also cleared his throat and looked away. "I am not certain how to describe it."

"Did you get lucky?"

"Not in the way you mean, but in another way, I believe I did." He smiled. "Perhaps a turning point."

"Just curious," I said. "Thanks for the chat, I feel like I can get back to sleep now."

"Any time. Please, let me know about the student council meeting after you attend. I would be very interested in the topics of discussion."

"Sure thing."

The next day passed in a haze of exhaustion. After normal classes, I made it to the scheduled meeting with plenty of time to spare. To my complete lack of surprise, most of the students I saw there were from the class I had with Alistair Ripley. Several of them seemed to be upperclassmen, but I didn't see anyone who seemed to be in their first year. There were around fifteen people in all. I took a seat near the back of the room and waited for the mysterious Austin Burke.

He entered the room precisely on time and walked to the front, holding nothing in his hands but a single sheet of paper. His presence seemed completely unassuming at first glance. He was average height, moderately overweight, receding brown hair, wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. His appearance didn't fool me. I didn't look special either.

His eyes gave him away. Piercing. They reminded me of Shade and I repressed a shudder. When his gaze met mine, his eyes narrowed and I could feel the tension in the room rise. It seemed like my reputation traveled quickly. His eyes slid past me, then down to his paper. "This is the first meeting of the Subcommittee for Gifted Students for this academic year," he said. His voice was sharp and nasal. "As is our custom, we have invited a selection of students to join us. This year's new members consist of a wide range of abilities." He read off a series of names, finishing with mine. His gaze lingered on mine again and I noticed several of the older students looking in my direction as well.

"I am Dr. Austin Burke. You may call me Doctor, or Professor. This is a formal setting and I will not tolerate familiarity. Our purpose here is to recommend courses of action to benefit students. My role is to serve as the intermediary between administration and the student population. Your role is to listen to the proposals I bring from administration, and to propose ideas that I will bring to administration, assuming they are reasonable or workable."

I cleared my throat and raised my hand. He glanced at me and nodded. "Excuse me, Professor, but why can't we just talk to administration directly? Is an intermediary actually necessary?"

"The administration enforces an intermediary to reduce the number of unreasonable requests, Mr. Parker. Students tend to have unrealistic ideas about what administration can accomplish."

I shrugged and let it go. To me, it sounded like a way to trash whatever they didn't want to hear. Burke waited for the murmurs to die down, then waved his hand toward a girl in the front row. "This is Rachel Anderson, the president of this subcommittee, having won last year's election unanimously. Ms. Anderson, if you will introduce yourself."