Chapter 51
Alja stood in the middle of Kaleb's kitchen, dressed in her usual Arrow gear. She was demolishing a few of the cardboard like nutrition bars while she stretched out her muscles making up at least a little for the training she'd missed due to the recent events, that had destroyed her usual schedule. She'd been surprised when she'd finally gotten a closer look at the entire house: The kitchen was fully furnished though empty except for some boxes of nutrition bars and mineral drinks. The other rooms were sparsely furnished like any Psy would have them, but the design and architecture was human. There were thick soft carpets, high ceilings and ornate window frames. It made a strange contrast. Kaleb had explained that he'd only bought the villa because no one would expect him to settle in such a human environment. But Alja liked it. In here she didn't feel as trapped as in the dull gray boxes the Psy usually called their homes.
Now she was waiting for Kaleb to return from some business that had called him away. She understood he couldn't afford to be away from his duties as a Councilor and businessman all the time. Still right now she was anxious and nervous to get to work on her projection. She hadn't had that much hope in a long time. And she desperately wanted to know if Kaleb could help her solve the task.
When Kaleb teleported back in and pulled her into his arms, she let him but only for a moment. "We have so much more to do. And you need to get some food into you first!" She grabbed a plate from the counter where she'd put on some nutrition bars she'd already unwrapped. "I made dinner honey!" Even tensed up as she was she tried to smile. It just felt so good now she could let that side of her out to play.
He gave a startled chuckle, heart warmed by her joke and the mischievous smile she gave him. And started inhaling the bars after pressing a quick but demanding kiss in her lips. "Delicious," he stated sarcastically in between the bites. "My information on intimate relationships must be wrong. I thought it took women longer to get so – what's the word – wifey."
She laughed shortly but turned serious again. "I know Tks burn a lot of energy. And I was nervous. – The NetMind asked me about healing the Net again. I think it gets impatient, if that's possible at all." She also related what else they had 'talked' about.
Kaleb thought for a moment. Should he tell her that the NetMind had come to him, too? It hadn't done that for a while, but yes now it seemed to get impatient. "You're probably right about us not understanding as much about the NetMind as I thought." He remembered the pictures it had shown him. The image of the Sun-Mind still had an overwhelming impact on what he now knew to be his conscience. Then it had shown him a sequence of a hand reaching out, interlinking with another, the silhouette of a man carrying a woman across a star strewn, dark field. Another request to save Her. He felt the guilt about failing his task now. But his conscience was no longer bound only to Her, the Sun-Mind. Alja held a part of it as well. And she was there – reachable, touchable, real. He didn't want to burden her with his failures, not when she was struggling so hard avoid her own. "Don't worry about it now. I think we should start working on your empathy."
Alja thought for a moment. "Could we take a walk outside?" Nature always made things easier for her. And there was an extensive stretch of it around the house. Alja hadn't seen any other houses from any of the windows.
"I avoid being visible around the house. Would my mountain cabin suffice as well?"
Her face lit up. "Of course! I love that place. But doesn't it take too much energy to teleport around half the globe all the time?"
He grabbed the last nutrition bar and gave her a very arrogant smile in response. "I'm a cardinal." Then he wrapped his energy around her shields, demanding of her to flex them. He was getting pushy. She liked it.
"I'm a cardinal too," She retorted once they were in the middle of the beautiful flower field. "and if I had a crowd of people in front of me, I'm sure I could control all their emotions." She had even practiced it a few times with changelings and humans, when she was near a protest or a conflict between larger groups of people. "But in the Net I shouldn't need the physical closeness. It should transport the empathic energy just like it does telepathy."
Kaleb imagined the silver strands of data flowing in flawless streams along the threads of the Net. He couldn't imagine emotion would work like this. Not when it felt so unpredictable and wild inside him. He tried to pull Alja close once more. She came willingly to his side, but started walking once she had slipped her arm around his waist. "Do you know the mechanism of how it should work?"
"The NetMind showed me there should be veins. At least that's how it looked, a network of larger and finer vessels made to carry emotional energy. But there aren't. The Net can't hold my power. Every time I project it just dissipates into the void. I'm afraid the Net lost that quality due to Silence somehow. I'm also afraid that the damage is irreversible." There it was again the darkness creeping in on her from that hopeless place inside her even Kaleb couldn't reach. She wouldn't let it win this time. "Maybe we need to allow emotion first, before I can start working with it. But it makes no sense the NetMind said I would bring emotion to the Net."
"Show me what the NetMind showed you. How it should look."
She sent him the image and he was stunned by its beauty. If this was what the Net looked like with emotion he wondered how his race could have ever given it up. This had nothing to do with the cold data-highways of the Net as it was now. There were rivers and streams parting into the smallest trickles and then joining again, living an ever changing. It seemed they were made of liquid that was glowing with a magnificent golden light from within, that refracted into all the colors of the rainbow on its surface. It was like nothing he had ever seen. Or was it? The base structure resembled vaguely that of the Net as he saw it. But the strings he saw when he opened his mental eyes to the Net were steel cables and wires tautened by an invisible force. They were far more rigid, more like bones.
Suddenly that reminded him of how his own energy had started to seep out of the Net unable to seal it back together where the deadly rot hat taken root. Maybe Alja was right. Maybe the veins were gone. Maybe life had already left the Net. And all he'd been doing was trying to keep the naked bones from turning to dust.
Alja felt Kaleb go darker with every second. The prospect in front of her was only underlining that feeling: Unconsciously they had walked toward the steep wall of the canyon. But damn the man had it with abysses close to his living places. He had an even scarier gorge right next to his home. She'd seen it earlier looking out of the bathroom window after showering. Now she felt the urge to pull Kaleb closer to her, unsure if he'd stop walking when they reached the edge. Just as she wanted to start scalding herself for such a stupid irrational thought he did stop abruptly and kissed her. Hard. His hand wrapped around her nape in a hold that was more than proprietary. It demanded. His thunderstorm energy crashed inside her, igniting her body and soul. She gave into it without hesitation, her defenses against him long gone.
After a few seconds he pulled back allowing her to breathe, but not releasing his steel hold of her.
"Wow! What was that about?" she asked panting. She wasn't even sure what hit her. Kaleb had been passionate before, but this was different. And she wanted more.
"I needed it," was all he said, his voice was pitched dangerously low.
Then his hand on her relaxed and he looked a little confused, a little embarrassed even. And then Alja understood: He'd lost control again. And he wasn't used to it. She by contrast couldn't get enough of that. She wasn't scared by his intensity. But that it had happened after she showed him the image of the veins made her uneasy. It could mean something very good or something very bad. And she had an inkling it was the latter. "Okay. And what made that come on?"
"I'm not sure." Inside he was still trying to shake the images of death from his mind. Images of a death far worse than any even he had witnessed. He needed something more. Hope. A straw to hold on to. "I think I may have gotten a glimpse of what you're afraid of. Of the Net truly dying."
Alja's eyes filled with tears she had no hope of holding back. It was one thing to have that imagination inside her head. Having Kaleb say it out aloud was quite something else. Desperation rushed inside her with a staggering force.
Kaleb wished at once he'd kept his mouth shut. Contrary to his belief, Alja was obviously not capable of taking everything her threw at her. She might be forgiving about him, but she clearly wasn't about herself and her own duties. Her eyes swam and the stars in them started that falling motion again. "Hey! Calm down!" he tried. "We've only just started working on this together. There are a million options to explore, before we give up." He didn't even know how he knew what to say. It just came from a part that wanted Alja to be well again, to see the stars in her eyes glow with peace again. It wasn't enough however, but at least she opened up to him.
"What if it's me?" she whispered, her voice broken by fear. "There is a possibility that I lost the ability to heal the Net, because of what I did. I went against my nature so badly it might have damaged my empathy permanently. We have to face it: There's a good chance I'm a spoiled cure, broken beyond repair."
"That is a possibility we won't explore then," he stated calmly. She had been so strong for him given in so often, when he knew she'd have wanted – needed more from him. Now he could give her something back: Logic, reason and clear thinking, when she couldn't rely on them in her despair.
Alja couldn't believe her ears. "What? You want to ignore it? Just like that?"
"It's logical. If you – what I do not believe in the least – really have lost that ability, there's no use thinking about it. We'll be dead anyway then. I might not be as good as you in handing out hope, but I can rule out all the instances that would take it away from you."
"That's… that's almost sweet." Her attempt at a smile failed miserably. "But you don't see… I don't need the biofeedback as much as any other Psy. When the Net collapses I will have several hours to live while my whole race is vanishing off the face of the planet." A tear choked pause before she forced out more words that burned like bile in her throat. "In my worst nightmares I even see the changelings and humans celebrate that day." Probably not openly. The economy would suffer a severe shock after all, but it would also recover. "No one will shed a tear over us. And with good reason. We were a strong and proud people once. But we became a nightmare. We turned our healers into weapons."
Her words hit him hard. He couldn't fight the upcoming image he wished he could burn from his mind as soon as he'd glimpsed it: Alja, clad in Arrow black, standing alone in a sea of dead Psy bodies that stretched from beneath her feet towards the horizon. But the sight of those millions of bodies wasn't even the worst. It was the look on her face: Her eyes empty, her beautiful features drawn into bitter lines of utter desperation and defeat. It had an uncanny resemblance with the Swan girl's face just before he'd ended her life. It made him feel sick accompanied by a sense of guilt and deepest betrayal. But when he felt the emotional signature that came with the image he knew it wasn't his. Alja was upset or trusting enough to let one of her own horrors slip out and he'd caught the image and the accompanying feeling. And while he had never known what it meant to care for their race, he could see it now through her. "I won't let that happen. I will help you save every single one of them. Do you trust me?" He didn't care if he made a promise he wasn't sure he could keep. He'd do a lot worse than that if it meant she'd be better.
Alja felt the warmth of Kaleb's words seep into her blood, fueling her determination, her own strength. Yes, this wouldn't be easy. But she was no longer alone. She just had to learn to rely on that. She had to learn to truly trust too. "Yes." The single word sounded no longer broken and her smile worked this time.
"Alright then. Can you show me how you've been trying to do it?"
"Of course. In a secluded area where no one else can see it. I can generate one with my shields. At least they work well enough inside the Net." She looked up at him, caught his gaze and then she let herself go soft.
All the tension left her muscles, her body and her face. She looked incredibly vulnerable except for the determination in her eyes that never let his out of focus. Again Kaleb felt as if she was pulling him inside with those sky-fall eyes. A second later he felt her shields expand under his psychic senses, inviting him to slip in. He did. He already knew it was just the first layer. Behind it she had hidden both their minds when she mimicked the other mind. But this time she let him pass the first layer, then another. For a moment he was stunned by the complexity of those shields. Every layer looked, felt slightly different: flowing waterfalls, rippling currents, liquid mirrors. In that third layer he saw his own mental presence reflected, realized he'd never been this close to her. "Alja what are you doing?"
"Showing you what you wanted to see. – Inside."
What? "No you mustn't. You can't let me inside your shields. It's not safe!" he exclaimed, trying to pull back out. But the entrance he'd come in through had already closed, and before him another layer parted to encompass his mental presence with gentle warmth.
"No it's ok. I never had shields against you anyway. You're under my skin, in my blood. You're in my every heartbeat." She told him on the mental plane. She wanted him there now. As close as possible, where no other mind had ever been before.
Kaleb's reaction however couldn't have been further from what she'd expected at laying herself bare before him.
He broke the physical contact but he wasn't kicked out as he'd expected. She'd let him in too deep already. She hadn't just expanded her shields around him. She'd truly let him in. And his only way back was if she let him or if he tore his way out. "Stop it! Stop right now!" he shouted at her. All he could think of were screaming minds, cracking bones and imploding heads, blurred memories of blood and terror taking over his mind. He couldn't be here, couldn't be trusted around a mind without shields. That was all he knew.
"Ok. Calm down." She let him slip out at once, taken aback by his intense rejection. "I thought you would like to…"
"You can never ever let me inside your shields." He cupped her face in his hands tenderly but forcing her to hold his gaze. He looked troubled, almost terrified. "I could hurt you."
"That's not how my shields work. I have to consciously allow you in. They'll instinctively snap shut the moment something hurts me. And I could still make you run for your life with my projection. I'm not scared of you," she countered stubbornly.
"But I am." The admission cost him but Alja had to understand. "I know this is something you just don't want to comprehend, but there is a part of me you can't trust. A part even I don't trust. The only reason I can be with you, the only reason I can let down my guard enough to feel, is that you have those shields. Promise me you'll never try this again."
Although he tried to keep his voice and his hold on her gentle his words slashed through her like razorblades laced with poison. She had gone against her nature for so long. Now all she wanted was to be able to let everything out, share it. And she was pushed to do it even harder by the invisible clock that was ticking inside her, telling her she had to hurry if she wanted to fulfill what she believed was her destiny. But of course she was going too fast. She kept forgetting that Kaleb hadn't felt until a few days, maybe weeks ago. And he was more than ambivalent about it. She couldn't push him as hard as she would herself. So she went for the compromise again. But she knew she couldn't do this forever. Someday soon she wouldn't be able to give in, too desperate herself to be close to him. "Ok. I understand. One day we will know all of each other's secrets. But it doesn't have to be… no – I see that it can't be now."
Kaleb wanted to object again, but there was such security, such trust in her words that even the thought of having her know his deadliest secrets one day suddenly held hope. He just wished he had the words to tell her how much her understanding nature her openness meant to him, even if he couldn't give her everything she wanted right now. But he would fight for a way to give it to her, he would fight for a way to keep her.
They spent the next two days trying to balance both their duties in Kaleb's business and working on Alja's projection, and the nights in each other's arms trying to forget that their progress was excruciatingly slow. The whole Psy world was destabilizing further: The violent outbursts in the Psy population that were caused by the malicious, ever spreading rot, had slowly reached a point where it was impossible to hide them from the populace. One of the very few goals all former Councilors had shared up until then.
Now Shoshanna shamelessly used the numbers in her propaganda machine. NewsNet broadcasted daily reports illustrated with so called scientific proof and expert ratings about how the incidents of violence were linked to the anti-Silence-policy of some of the Councilors.
To their luck that didn't target Kaleb alone. Nikita and Anthony were considered at least neutral on the subject of Silence. The history of both their daughters was fueling hope within rebel circles as well as in those who were only just starting to question the Protocol.
But all that deepened the rift that went through the Psy population: One part was desperately holding on to the Silence Protocol that had given them superiority over the other races and safety from the monsters inside for a hundred years. The other part realized that Silence may have been a false hope from the start and began looking for alternatives that were still suppressed rigidly by the Council superstructure even in the areas controlled by the more liberal Councilors. None of them was ready to give up any of their power to the populace.
Kaleb was caught in some sort of political limbo: He couldn't take any action that would tip the balance even more. Not before they had figured out how to use Alja's skills to stop the disintegration of the Net. So he had to stall Nikita's requests for a meeting and find excuses for Anthony as to why the Ghost didn't use that perfect opportunity to take the rebellion into the open. Worse, if things went on like that Anthony might very well take matters into his own hands. He was intelligent enough to have realized the fate of the Net hung in the balance. But the older Councilor couldn't know how fragile their future had become already. Or could he? After all, his daughter was probably the best foreseer in the world.
Their last hope might be to take a leap of faith and start to trust another party in this dangerous game. But it was a step he couldn't take yet. Not with so much sudden insecurity. He'd told Alja his goals hadn't changed. But that wasn't entirely true, because all his reasons had. Everything seemed to revolve around her now, when it had been for cold power and revenge mere weeks ago. Yes, he still wanted the Net, but for her. And he found himself unable to fully trust the suggestions of his mind. Although he knew by now his feelings weren't caused by her projection, the sheer intensity of them made him pause. The emotions she had brought to him were the best thing that had ever happened in his life, but he wished he could think as cold and logical as he once had, because he had to make the right decisions for her. She was suddenly so much more important than the rebellion and even if their goals aligned now more than ever, he wasn't sure whom to trust. That was why he had also ignored Judd's urgent requests for a meeting. So he couldn't ask the only man who might have gone through a similar change for advice. Worse he couldn't access the only source that remained on empathy – Alice Eldridge. And even Alja hadn't urged him to contact Judd after they had talked about the political situation and after he'd explained that the scientist probably didn't have any more insights in Alja's abilities than he had already discovered from the excerpt in her book that Judd had given him. Because Alja was as wary as he was, having fought most of her life alone as well.
"We need more time to figure all of this out," she'd said. "Sadly that's the one thing we haven't got."
Even with all her cautious fear she couldn't have guessed how right she was about that.
