Kyle attempts to clear his head.
(02Jan08)

(Previous chapter: Pain)

Chapter 20:
Thresholds

Kyle tried to settle back into his tub, but too many disturbing thoughts were racing around in his mind. He was frightened of losing Amanda, but he couldn't call her. Foss had made him destroy his cell phone and the house phone's two handsets were temporarily out of reach, one being in Lori's room, the other in Nicole and Stephen's. He thought about borrowing Declan's cell, but didn't want to wake him; his friend had been through a lot and needed the release of sleep.

Kyle tried reaching out to Amanda with his mind, but his usual control was disrupted. His feelings were all over the place. Why couldn't he do what he usually found easy? All he wanted to do was fall asleep listening to her heartbeat like he normally did. He tried to focus on the memory of Amanda's energy and reached out again towards where he thought it would be. All that he met with was an image of Jessi. He recoiled and tried again. The same thing happened. And again. Each time he tried to link with Amanda, he came up against a memory of Jessi. There had to be some significance to that.

Kyle ran his holographic memory of the strange encounter with Jessi, looking for something he'd missed, something he could understand. Jessi had told him that he had crossed his pain threshold. What did that mean? It seemed logical that the body would have a shut-off valve for pain, but did Jessi mean that he had simply passed out and was dreaming? Or hallucinating? His memory told him that he had not been dreaming; he had been aware of himself and his surroundings, like he had been in the woods when Foss had drugged him. Then he remembered his odd encounter with the Adam Baylin who was really a part of his own mind – that had also happened when he'd been in extreme pain. How were these events linked? His mind was sluggish – the drugs, lack of sleep, emotional and physical taxation – all had taken a toll on his mental agility. Why couldn't he think?

He rolled onto his side and shut his eyes. The closing action of his eyelids squeezed out more tears that he hadn't even realized were there, and he felt the tickle as they coursed down the side of his nose and into the crease of his mouth. He raised a hand and wiped some away with his fingertips then rubbed the wet fingers against his thumb absently and felt the moisture. He licked his lips. Salt water. Something moved in his mind. He opened his eyes and sat up, staring at his wet fingers. Something was hovering on the periphery of his psychic sense. It was frustrating him that he couldn't 'see' it, but he knew it was there. Another tear ran down his face and splashed onto his hand like a…

"Drop of rain," he murmured to himself.

He blinked and leaned back in his tub staring into the dimness of the room. Something about that phrase woke recognition in him and he tried to flick back through his memories, searching for…he didn't know what. His brain was on fire, every synapse throbbing as he passed from memory to memory, reaching all the way back to the beginning. As he raced through his first memories of Kern and Foss in the forest, he came across the ZZYZX information. That surprised him. If the files he had downloaded were still here in his head, then Jessi hadn't taken the information; she had presumably only copied it. He rushed towards it and just as his immensely powerful mind tried to process billions of pieces of information simultaneously and bring them into consciousness, he suddenly tripped on a knot in his deepest neural pathway. Most of the information was seemingly accessible, but when he tried to process it, it threw him out and his mind slammed into his own firewall. The shock almost made him cry out. He knew that the answers to his questions lay on the other side of that barrier.

He hammered his mental fists against the wall inside his mind and probed it for cracks or weaknesses. For the first time, Kyle could sense the real presence of the thing that had caused so much trouble for so many people. Something else inside him fell into place as it dawned on him that this was somehow connected with whatever had caused Professor Kern to order his termination at ZZYZX. Had they known what lay beyond it deep inside his mind? Had they put it there? Had Jessi known too? Is that why she had thrown herself into the falls…so Madacorp couldn't take that knowledge from her? Suddenly his memory scored a hit and Jessi's words came up: They want something important that I learned about you, Kyle…and so far I haven't given it to them.

His heart rate picked up as he realized there was an unspoken message there: Jessi was alive! She had cloaked the message, which meant Madacorp was still a danger. He pushed himself up in the tub and tried to control his breathing, as panic threatened to snatch it. Jessi could get into his mind when his guard was down. That made her very dangerous and him very nervous, because his mind was doing things he couldn't understand or control. What am I? That, and a hundred more questions, began to surface on the back of his realization, but he willed them all away. There were only two things he wanted to know the answers to right now: one was whether Amanda would ever trust him again, and the other was how to break through the barrier in his mind. It seemed that there was more to be learned about the mystery of his creation. What was so important that he would keep it locked away so securely, even from himself? Now that he knew it was there it tantalized him like an itch he couldn't scratch. He probed and worried at it looking for a way to remove it, to step over this mysterious threshold in his mind. It frightened him to think that Jessi may have already got past it.

Kyle needed air. He needed to think, but his mind was jumbled and sore. The constant pressure in his head caused by the guilt he felt about Amanda had never truly eased since he'd overheard the conversation between her and Lori earlier. He had to talk to her. The decision gave him a welcome focus. He eased himself from the tub and hurriedly sneaked out of his window. He knew that Stephen would have set the burglar alarm on all the other possible exits, but Kyle had disabled the one on his own window weeks ago to allow himself to sneak in and out for Foss' training sessions.

He crept around the side of the house and down the driveway on shaky legs, his bare feet making no sound at all. The rain had indeed stopped and the pre-dawn air was chilly, just as he'd predicted earlier. At least that ability still seemed to be working, he thought wryly. His mind was focused on Amanda as he exited the Tragers' property and entered the Blooms'. He stopped for a moment remembering the first time he'd ever walked this path, the time he'd entered the house and watched Amanda playing the piano; the music had almost broken his heart as it elicited his very first… "Tears," he said out loud. That feeling swooped back again, but the thought was just out of reach. He shook it away, not wanting any more distractions; he was finding it hard enough to concentrate as it was.

He padded up towards the front of the house, stopped at the bottom of the porch steps and stared up at Amanda's window. How was he going to get her attention? He could easily climb up, but he didn't want to frighten her. She'd not long got over the experience of being burgled, and he didn't want to traumatize her further. His shoulders sagged. What was he doing? He couldn't wake Amanda up in the middle of the night and tell her the truth about himself; she'd never believe him, or she'd think she was dreaming…or worse, she would think he was a monster.

That thought killed his confidence.

Kyle turned and was about to return home when he heard the Blooms' front door open quietly. He turned back towards the house and his eyes widened as he saw Amanda emerge onto the porch. He froze, suddenly unsure of himself.

"Kyle! What are you doing?" Amanda said in a loud whisper, looking down the stairs at him, taking in his bare feet and thin nightclothes.

"I…I…" he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

Amanda looked like an angel, her long white dressing gown billowing gently in the chilly breeze. She shivered slightly and drew it tightly around herself, holding it in place and revealing her slender figure. Kyle noticed how her hair moved like satin and her eyes shone in the dim porch lighting. He didn't think she had ever looked so beautiful. Her porcelain skin cried out to be touched and he longed to run his fingers along her perfect collarbone. He didn't have the words to describe how he felt about Amanda, and his heart ached like he hadn't seen her for a million years.

"Kyle?" Amanda eyed him suspiciously.

He remained silent, unable to utter the words he needed to say. Then he realized why he was scared: he didn't want her to hurt him with her anger and disappointment. He didn't think he could take any more; he'd had enough of that from Lori and he didn't want anything to trigger the uncontrollable force inside. Amanda's expression changed from suspicion to concern as she descended a couple of steps towards him. He took a couple of paces backwards in response, remembering how Lori had tried to physically slap him. Amanda stopped.

"Kyle, what's wrong with you?" she asked, genuinely puzzled and concerned. He didn't look right. What came out of his mouth took them both completely by surprise.

"Amanda, I'm sorry, I know you're upset with me, but I promise you there was nothing inappropriate going on between Jessi and me, I found things out about her, she and I are from the same place, she was troubled, like I was, I just wanted to help her, I thought we could help each other, but I couldn't stop her, she jumped from the cliff…she jumped into Victor Falls," he blurted in one breathless sentence, stumbling over his words as they tumbled from his mouth. He gasped when he realized that at some point during his tirade he had sunk to his knees. He stared up at Amanda standing halfway down the steps, glowing with the backlighting from the porch. He felt like a sinner in one of her Bible stories cowering before Judgment. "I couldn't stop her," he repeated mostly to himself and he pushed down with every scrap of his mental might as the pain of it all threatened to surface again.

Amanda clapped both hands over her mouth, then she pushed them out in front of her, palms toward Kyle, gesturing him to be quiet as she frantically looked behind her into the house. "Sssh! You'll wake my mom!" she whispered desperately as she quickly descended the rest of the steps and dropped down in front of Kyle. She put her hands on his shoulders and dipped her head slightly, forcing eye contact. She noticed he was trembling.

"Kyle, did you just say that Jessi jumped into Victor Falls?" Kyle nodded sadly. "You saw that?" Amanda asked, afraid of the answer. Kyle's eyes filled with tears as he nodded again. Amanda frowned. "And you came here in the middle of the night, after seeing that, to apologize to me because you thought I was upset with you over Jessi?"

Kyle gazed into the horrified eyes of the girl that was more precious to him than any other. "Yes," was his simple answer; it was the truth, and he was beyond embarrassment.

Amanda shook her head in disbelief, but remained silent.

Kyle spoke instead, quietly. "Amanda, there's something else. It's really important."

Amanda thought for a moment then stood, pulling Kyle up with her. "Come on; let's get inside before we both freeze. I only came downstairs for a drink when I saw you through the lounge window!"

She took his hand and started to lead him up the steps, but he stopped on the third one. "What about your mom?" he asked nervously.

Amanda rolled her eyes. "Nobody's rules can cover every situation, Kyle. You should know that, otherwise you wouldn't be here in your pajamas."

It disturbed her that he didn't even smile. She continued to watch him as they approached the house. There was something different about Kyle that she couldn't quite put her finger on, and as he crossed the threshold, he had the look in his eyes of someone about to face his worst fear.

(Next chapter: Thresholds)