Chapter 18

Alja didn't see Kaleb for days. But she was sure he was watching her from the shadows. More than once she had the sense of someone following her, although her telepathic scans never revealed anyone. But that meant nothing. Her telepathy was not very strong and his was on cardinal level – just like his Tk. That was one of the very few pieces of information she hadn't learned from her friend in the Net but from Aden just before she left for Moscow. He and Vasic had found out about it not long ago: Kaleb was a dual cardinal.

Extremely rare but not impossible.

He could rip people apart with his Tk without even coming close to them. He could teleport to any location on the planet in the blink of an eye, could even teleport to people without knowing where they were. He could telepathically attack minds without them ever seeing it come, could cause the most hideous forms of insanity. And he had done so to a considerable number of people on his quest for power. No one would ever be able to prove it, but it was easy to conclude if you knew where to look for the clues. He was lethal to anyone who got in his way – except to her.

To her he was just as dangerous as any other Psy, because he couldn't affect her with his powers. Was that why the NetMind had chosen her to find out if there was anything left in him but the ruthless, power-hungry Councilor?

She didn't question why the neosentience believed so. She knew it worked in ways she'd never understand but she trusted it like no other being. And she'd do as it asked, because it was her duty to the Net and to a friend who had never let her down, had given her comfort and guidance when Marino had only taught her to survive by hiding, by denying everything she was. But even he had seen more in her, had seen something to be protected by all means even if it meant harming other parts of her. And in the end he had died for it – just like anyone else who got too close to her.

It caused a strange mix of feelings in her: There was the well-known guilt, the desperate anger and also a deep sense of loss although she hadn't been in touch with the man for years. That mixture was very dangerous. It triggered a part of her that she liked to forget most of the time. The part that had turned dark over the years of acting against her nature and that spoke to her with an angry little voice inside her head. And it got harder to silence that voice the more negative emotions built up inside her. And on top of it all came her ever growing attraction towards a man who seemed to be made of ice and stone. Which was something that dark part of her seemed particularly fond of picking on.

She tried to release some of the tension in the gym, meditated for hours and threw herself into the shield-counseling work with a deep motivation to distract herself. But she was past fooling herself that it would work for long. She'd just have to deal with it. Or ask for permission to go out for human contact at last. But she couldn't admit such weakness. At least not yet.

She was sitting in her office, lost in those thoughts, when Kaleb finally requested her attention again. Without warning he appeared right in front of her desk stating that he had something to do for her. In his ever flawless suit he looked just as gorgeous and inapproachable as always.

"You could've knocked, you know." Pow! The annoyed words came out without her conscious consent – again. He answered without visibly reacting to the provocation – like always.

"I checked if you were counseling before I entered. I guessed you weren't occupied when I found you alone."

And since I am a tool completely at your disposal now, it didn't even occur to you to announce your coming, she thought. But this time the right words came out. "I am not. What's the matter?"

Kaleb was more pleased than he should be to get an annoyed reaction from her. It was when he caught her off guard that she didn't have time to pull up her façade of Silence. That hint of a steely spine, of angry stubbornness, it was – tempting. It shouldn't have been. It was a lack of control, a flaw. "I want you to do another demonstration of your projective empathy."

"Of course. What's the subjects race?" So fast she was all back-to-business – the perfect Psy once again.

"Is that important?"

"Yes. Psy are the easiest to influence, then humans. Changelings are hardest."

"Psy are easiest? What about our shields?"

"These days, shields are telepathic or telekinetic, not empathic. And most Psy are Silent. If they have anything like emotional shielding, it is to prevent emotions from getting out. They are immune to their own feelings but they have never had the need to shield against projection from the outside. They probably wouldn't have needed it before Silence. My kind weren't weapons back then." The faintest hint of regret had entered her voice at the last words.

The projection had once been used to heal the soul, as well as any other empathic quality. It had been the only way that could cure the people who were so hurt or sick they'd forgotten how to feel anything good. Projecting empaths had been able to give it back to them; make them remember happiness, trust or even love. She had learned that from the NetMind, who remembered all of the Nets history. But her race had long forgotten, maybe too long.

"Humans and changelings can counteract the projection with their own emotions. They know when a feeling is not their own and they have learned not to act on what they feel every time. But devoid of feelings Psy are as susceptible to it as a rehabilitated mind is to telepathy. If you no longer think yourself, it's easy to place thoughts in your mind. If you don't feel, it's easy to do the same with emotion."

So that was why the effect of what she had shown him seemed so strong. And she'd practically told him that there was nothing he could do against it. "Could a Psy learn to recognize the projection?"

Alja knew at once that this was a dangerous topic. He wouldn't take it well to learn that he was completely helpless against her powers. So she'd give him what she could. It wasn't much. "You may have noticed that your conditioning won't warn you when I project. That is because projected emotions are not your own. You feel them, but the Protocol doesn't recognize them. It will not react in any way at all. So as long as you are fully Silent you'd just need to realize that you are feeling at all, that would be your indicator for a projection. Then you try not to act on it. But as Psy generally have no experience with that, never needing to reign in emotions, they are very sensible to the influence of projected emotions."

Yes, the night in the gym he'd learned enough to believe that. Still there was the question, why she triggered dissonance in him ever since he'd met her. But then again, his conditioning was not like the usual Protocol, especially not the dissonance parts. When he had removed his initial conditioning he had realized that his trainers had installed fail-safes that would short circuit his powers if he ever felt too strongly. And not only that, his powers would turn against him. They would physically and psychically hurt him or even kill him if he fully gave in to emotion. He had removed all those traps and blocks and relied on the pain and on a very exceptional addition constructed by himself to keep him in check. They would warn him and remind him to stay in control of any emotional impulse that might ever arise, but he would not tolerate to be constricted or even crippled by his conditioning. He had however set the threshold for the pain reaction as strict as possible. Maybe he had inadvertently built in a detection mechanism for projection.

"Alright. Then we should start the demonstration so I can get a better idea of it. Would you allow a teleport to my office? I haven't had practice with your physical shields so far."

"Of course. Just try. I'll flex the shields." She rose and stepped around her desk. He sensed the liquid consistence of her outer shields as she came closer and found himself captivated by the sensation: Water flowing in various directions, soft, soothing.

Another improper reaction. He should have been used to it since their sparring match.

He reached out with his Tk to include her into the teleport. The liquid texture of her shields shifted the instant he touched them. It was just enough to do exactly the teleport but nothing more. It was as if she'd only opened a channel for the specific action, while her shields stayed otherwise airtight.

"So what about the subjects race?" she asked again when they stood in the middle of his office a moment later.

"Psy."

"Then it shouldn't be too hard. Is he or she coming here?" She looked around the empty room, hoping she wouldn't have to harm whoever he had chosen for the experiment.

"He is already here." Kaleb realized he shouldn't be so keen to discountenance her. It was supposed to be a systematic strategy to get behind her cool façade. Yet his conditioning seemed ready to slash out once more.

"You?!" He didn't seem to grab the concept of her powers at all. She'd just told him how dangerous she was to Silent Psy, afraid of how he might react to the threat of being exposed to her using her powers on him. And now he wanted her to do exactly that. He obviously didn't believe anyone could get to him. God, how arrogant could someone be? Maybe she wouldn't mind to harm the subject a little after all.

"It's the logical way to proceed – the only way to get unbiased information about your skills."

She tried to reason one last time. "This may compromise your conditioning."

"My conditioning is absolutely intact." At least it had been until the moment he had met this mysterious Arrow. "And you said it won't react anyway. In what way should it impair the Protocol?"

How many inconvenient facts did she have to reveal until he let it go? "It won't react, but there is a paradox effect: On prolonged exposure the Protocol will fail, because your mind gets used to not reacting to emotions. We learned that when some of my trainers had trouble with their conditioning after working with me as a child. My ability doesn't break Silence; it melts it away, very slowly but barely reversible once it's done."

His voice turned even icier as usual, when he answered. And his words sent a chill creeping up her spine. "You don't want to melt mine. There is nothing that could be called 'good' left of me. I am one of the monsters Silence was created to cage. – So take care not to 'prolong' the exposure."

With that he shrugged out of his jacket, threw it over a nearby chair and leaned back against his desk. His arms came up to cross before his chest in a gesture of presumptuous relaxation. He'd never show that he wasn't a hundred percent sure of what he was doing right now. So he focused a dominant gaze on her.

He was just impossible, Alja thought. Had he felt, she'd have diagnosed him a thrill-seeker. Probably that kind of arrogance came with so much power.

Maybe you should take a leaf out of his book then. The wicked little voice of temptation again. But she couldn't afford to get instable just now. She checked her behavioral controls. Most of them were holding – yet. Still she would rather not have given another demonstration of her ability. This was only going to lead to more trouble, especially since she was increasingly instable and additionally imbalanced by his presence yet again. She knew the urge to provoke him came from the visceral need to make him react emotionally to her, as she did to him. But that primitive part of her didn't understand that his reaction – if she ever got one – wasn't going to be anything she wanted to face. Even if she couldn't bring herself to believe what he'd said about being a monster underneath his Silence.

She took a deep breath, focusing every ounce of her control to get her tone as businesslike as possible. "Alright, what would you like me to project?"

"You're the expert. I am sure you'll pick something interesting."

He was mocking her.

He even gave her a slow sarcastic smile. It was fake for sure. But hell, he looked gorgeous. She felt liquid heat flare up low in her abdomen, closely followed by angry frustration about his insolent behavior and her irrational response to it. She was Psy, a powerful one and in full control of her abilities. And he had pressured her, tried to stress her out the whole time as if she was a bloody apprentice. She'd do a projection as asked and let him deal with the consequences. She reached out with her psychic senses to direct the projection more precise than the last time. Then she realized there was not a single mind in the range of her perception. Probably Kaleb had ordered them away via Tp before attempting the experiment. Playing it safe after all.

When he raised an eyebrow as if to ask, whether she had already started, it struck her that she hadn't even chosen what she wanted to project.

Something interesting.

Well, she knew an interesting sensation that had come easy enough to her during the last days: sexual attraction.

I bet you're not used to falling for female charms, she thought with wicked anticipation.

She closed the distance between them until she stood just one step away from him and looked right into those oh-so-Silent eyes that were watching her expectantly. Then she let the sensations come: The pull in her chest whenever she was close to him, the need to touch the smooth planes of his face and the wish that formed when her eyes traced the sensual curve of his lips. Keeping the feelings superficial at first, she started to project.

No reaction.

Of course a man of his power and self-control would not be influenced that easily in his behavior, no matter how receptive his Silent self was to her skills.

Frustrating.

She strengthened the projection just a small bit to see if she could elicit at least a little change in his expression. Finally his eyes seemed to widen just a fraction.

Then he moved so fast and unexpected, she had no time to react. In a split second he had closed the last bit of distance between them. His hands were at the sides of her head, pulling her close, his lips pressing on hers.

A flood of sensation washed over her, draining away every chance of coherent thought. He was all heat and intensity to her senses, even better than she could have dreamt it. It was instinct to inhale his scent of electrified air and darkness, let herself drown in it.

Then she felt his tongue brush against the seam of her lips and she opened up instinctively. The taste of him was exhilarating; she'd never experienced anything like it. The sensation shot through her nerves sizzling like an electric shock, igniting every cell in her body, including those neurons that had been reluctant to react to any touch on an emotional level. For a moment, time seemed to have stopped. Then reason kicked in and she could pull away.

He let her go the same instant and his expression could be described as nothing but surprise. No, she had seen something else sweep across his face, but it was gone before she could figure out what it had been.

She looked at him in shock, speechless for a second. But she wouldn't have made it through the Arrow training if she wasn't able to catch herself just as fast as she had lost it.

"I am sorry. That effect was not intended. – It was only a minor projection. This should not have happened." The intended phrases formed but her voice cracked.

He just stared at her, incapable of processing what he'd just done. His heart was racing in spite of not having done anything physically challenging.

"It is possible that I am a little instable after the stress of the last days. The fine-tuning of the projection might have been slightly off." She stammered the words out and only when she heard them, did she notice that this explanation only made her situation worse. So she went mute. The only sound was her heart pounding a jagged drumbeat in her ears.

Mere seconds that felt like hours passed before Kaleb cleared his throat and his own face iced over completely again. When he spoke, his voice was icily calm and polite with only the faintest hint of huskiness.

"That was actually impressive. Thank you. I think this is enough for now. I will think about the implications and let you know, when I have further need of your abilities."

The dismissal was as clear as it was welcome. She turned on her heel and pulled the tattered scraps of her control together hard, not to storm out of the room.