Chapter 85
A shock of psychic energy had washed up against Alja's shields and shocked her awake at once. What had happened? She'd been gone… Now she came back to the scent of thunderstorm and darkness, Kaleb's scent. But it was too heavy, the darkness in it too strong, the electric tension discharging violently. Something terrible was happening. And his powers were the cause. She had instinctively closed her shields and let them absorb the violent energy, the moment she regained consciousness. Now she looked up at him for long seconds, lifted a hand to the side of his unresponsive face.
Then she turned to the people who had arrived on the scene: Judd Lauren, a young woman with cardinal eyes and dark red hair, the black clad soldiers who were approaching from the edges of the chaos in the park. Arrows. Of course they had come as well.
"You need to leave. All of you," Alja said. Her voice sounded a little raspy but firm. Her eyes were no longer empty black pits. They held the starry sky of a cardinal again and were glowing even stronger, warmer. Not even her Silent comrades could hide their surprise.
They just stared at the woman who had apparently achieved the impossible: to return from rehabilitation.
When no one moved she pulled a glass blade from her sleeve. "I'll end this – one way or another. But this is my task. Mine alone. So please leave."
No one even argued. Whether it was out of surprise, respect or something else Alja couldn't tell. But she saw them all vanish out of the corner of her eyes.
She let the blade drop, the moment they were out of sight. She wouldn't lose him. Not again.
But when she turned back to Kaleb, he seemed to look right through her, his gaze still pure black ripped apart by flashes of lightning. She felt his power surge inside her shields on the physical and the psychic plane alike. Not long and she wouldn't be able to hold it. Inside her shields the chaotic storm of his uncontrolled powers, would build until it crushed her. She had to get through to him.
"I will not let you die. You deserve to live, to know happiness." She put her other hand on his face, too, pressed gently. No reaction. Instead she felt a strange kind of power, she couldn't block entirely. Something moved against her shields. It didn't harm them but it somehow pushed through.
"Do you hear me? Dying is not an option. Sacrificing myself was a mistake, one I do not intend to repeat with you." Carefully she let herself slip out on the psychic plane.
And when she opened her mental eyes, shock hit her: The oily black tentacles of the DarkMind were writhing around his mind, pushing through the holes in his damaged shields. She had steered clear of its creepy presence whenever she could, knowing it held all the fear, hate and desperation that also lay inside the dark part of herself. But her own fear didn't matter now. So she prepared for the onslaught of darkness, when she started to push past the twin of the NetMind, just hoping she was strong enough. The reaction was nothing she had expected. The moment she touched the black tentacles, they started to pull out of Kaleb's mind and dart toward hers. And then the strangest thing happened: When the slimy darkness touched her, she could feel it brush over her mind like she always had felt the NetMind. But the tendrils didn't hurt her. The moment they came close to her, they became soft, almost transparent, just gently stroking her mind.
And then it started to talk. It communicated just like the NetMind. It used the same pictures. I was looking for you. You help. You were with sister.
Alja hadn't had much time to consider what had happened. She had stopped to exist some time ago. And then she had begun to exist again as she was pushed back inside her body. First there had only been excruciating pain. Then she had just reacted to the situation, to Kaleb being in danger, to the whole world seeming to fall apart. But now that the DarkMind spoke to her, she remembered fragments. Yes, it was true, she hadn't entirely stopped to exist, she'd been with the NetMind, been a part of the vast, incorporeal neosentience.
You not empty. Your darkness stays with you. Not with me. You not desperate. You help. The DarkMind continued.
Alja was sure she felt pretty desperate right now. She was there again with no idea how to fulfill that request for help, the NetMind had presented her so often and the DarkMind renewed now. But no, that was not the only thing she felt. Her love for Kaleb and for every living creature, that was still inside her too and it inspired a courage she never had expected in the face of terror and death. Always there had been hope inside her. Even as she had decided to sacrifice herself it had been in the hope of giving Kaleb and the rest of her race a chance. And she understood the DarkMind: It didn't have that hope. It was scared and alone. It had no love or courage. It had just all this darkness to contain.
And this darkness reflected a part of her like a mirror. But she didn't only see herself. She saw Kaleb too and all the other Psy, all those who had been alone with their darkness for a century. And she knew what to do.
She reached out with her empathy and answered. I know your pain. I feel sorry for you. Almost without conscious thought she transmitted a wave of compassion alongside the message. And I want to help you. But I need him for that. You have to let him go. Only when she said it, she realized it was true. She needed Kaleb to help. But how? She felt as if she knew everything but it still was out of her conscious reach.
But he dark. So much dark. He like me. The DarkMind still had some of its tentacles drilled into Kaleb's mind.
We all are a little like you. We just tried to forget. But you can't have him. He's mine. There is someone who is yours. Your sister. You can go to her.
Slowly and to Alja's utter surprise the Twin of the NetMind retreated fully, letting her close her shields around Kaleb.
The moment the darkness retreated the extent of damage became visible. Kaleb's shields were torn to shreds, the gates into his mind wide open. And Alja couldn't sense any mental presence. She opened another layer of shields to let it flow around both their minds. This should block out the telepathic noise from the Net. And it gave her a possibility to step inside.
Her heart clenched at the sight: What had once been one of the clearest, sharpest minds in the world lay in ruins. Shards of memories littered the entire space. It was dangerous enough to enter a functioning mind like she did now, not only with telepathic skills but with her entire own mental presence. And this wasteland – she could easily lose herself in it. But there was no other way but to go even deeper until she found him.
She waded through the chaos, moving carefully to not cause any more disturbances. It was futile. Wherever she moved, splinters of thoughts and memories whirled up like leaves in fall. There was barely any structure left to contain them and no one who might build such a structure. Where was Kaleb? Had the DarkMind taken him, like the NetMind had her? Deeper into the core of his mind she could make out a structure that seemed to have withstood. She moved toward it, trying to keep her orientation in the unfamiliar mind.
But then she noticed something that drew her attention among the cluttered contents of his brain. This shouldn't be here. It was just a fragment of a picture, unrecognizable but for its color, a color that was unique in the Net: a warm glowing gold. No, it couldn't be! Kaleb couldn't have that memory! Reason warned her not to lose herself in a disordered mind, but she had to know for sure. Frantically she searched through the debris, trying to find other pieces of the picture. Two more shards and the beginning of a mental connection were enough to identify the image with complete certainty. It was a picture of a mind – a mind Kaleb should never have seen.
She followed the connection, only half hoping it still led somewhere, after everything seemed to be torn to pieces. But she found a single word. She. And then to her surprise she felt an emotion connected to it: Hope. This was the one the NetMind had told him to save, his only hope, Her, the one he'd always been looking for.
"What have I done? – I didn't know," Alja whispered into the silence, horrified. Then she started running through the scene of destruction that Kaleb's mind had become, the golden shards dropping behind her. She ignored all the other fragments of memories, of mental constructs, her only goal getting deeper and deeper towards the core of his mind. She had to find him, or anything that was left of him, she had to make it right!
The deeper she went inside the denser the structures got: Layer upon layer of mental barriers, constructs to protect or to contain something. And with every layer the barriers got less abstract. Until they looked like they were made of real stone and concrete. She slowed her speed as she realized her steps were echoing between the walls. It was compulsory to touch them. She winced away when she saw her hand touch the rough surface of the stone. She could see her hand as if it was there in the flesh. Her own roaming mind no longer just a mental image but taking a make believe physical form. That was why it was so dangerous to enter so deep into another's mind: you couldn't hold your distance once you submerged this deep. The mind you entered set the rules. She brushed her fingers across the wall again. She felt a full sensory impression of a solid wall under her fingertips. No adult Psy had that kind of construct in his mind, even less a Silent Psy. A mental representation of something physical was usually only used by very young minds, before they'd learned to abstract, before they even learned to speak. Kaleb had begun to build this when he was an infant.
She had never seen such a maze of corridors. She had to actively remind herself that all of this was just a mental construct or she'd get lost. Whenever she came to a door, the impulse to open it with her make-believe hands that seemed all too physical in here was there. Everything looked so real in this part of his mind. It was easy to confuse with the physical world. Only when she concentrated she could perceive the mental constructs for what they were. As she went deeper concrete walls gave way to clean, white hallways.
Something flickered across the white paint, but when she looked closer it vanished. Then it happened again. A shadow at first, then it took the shape of a delicate face. Although she had never seen the face before, Alja knew it was the Swan girl, her memory connected to a crushing amount of guilt. By now the connections in Kaleb's mind were as open to her as if it were her own. At least there still were functioning connections. That meant his mind hadn't disintegrated completely. But no one seemed to control the memories that began to unfold on the walls more frequently the further she got. There were short scenes, like video projections: Councilor Enrique talking to her - no not to her - to Kaleb. He was disproportionately big and younger than in most of the pictures Alja found in her own memory. All of these were childhood memories.
Behind the next door Alja reached, she heard voices. She stopped for a moment to listen, but couldn't understand the continuous whispering. So she carefully disabled the lock and stepped through guardedly.
She had to blink for a moment, the light in here was so blinding. Then Alja remembered her eyes couldn't react like that on the mental plane. All of this was not real. But in here it was even harder to remember that. The memories she witnessed weren't confined to the cold, white glowing walls. Passing scenes seemed to take place right in the room, the few colors among the white too bright, too vivid. Councilor Enrique stood beside a hospital bed doing something she didn't understand. She only understood that it hurt the woman on the bed. It hurt her so bad she screamed, not only with her voice but also with her mind. She couldn't shut it out so it hurt her too. Made it hard to think, hard to remember what her teacher wanted from her.
"Come on Kaleb, I know you can do better. Keep them up!" The Councilor's voice was taunting as he spoke to her. No! Not to her! Alja shook her head, distanced herself again from the scene she saw. Only then she noticed the other person in the room. Not person, 'monster' Kaleb's mind insisted. This was the monster that had to stay locked up. But when Alja looked at the small creature, everything in her refused the word, his mind tried to force on her. Instead what she saw, broke her heart: In a corner of the room a small boy cowered, all of his short limbs tensed up, pressing his fisted hands over his ears and endlessly mumbling a little rhyme:
Stop the blood, stop the heart,
Or just tear them apart.
Make them mute, make them cease.
When they're dead, they're at peace.
But he couldn't drown out the screams of the Councilor's victim. Suddenly his eyes widened, staring horrified at the woman on the bed. A second later her body simply exploded. Blood and tissue sprayed the sheets, the walls, everything in the room, except Santano Enrique, who didn't even flinch as it happened. For a moment everything glowed in a sickly bright red. Alja felt the surge of psychic energy the boy had emitted, felt it pushing against her shields. That part was obviously not confined to the memory.
"Ah Kaleb, an interesting solution, but not good enough. You were supposed to keep your shields up. Now I'll have to find a new one for your next practice." The Councilor's voice echoed through the room. Then everything turned white again. And another woman appeared on the bed. But apart from that the scene stayed the same. The recollection simply went on, as if there was no one to stop the flow of memories replaying in an endless loop.
Alja forced her concentration away from the horror in the room and on the boy again. His age was hard to tell. His appearance seemed to be fluctuating constantly. Sometimes he seemed as young as three, sometimes older, but never older than six or seven. He had been a child when he'd decided he was a monster that needed to be locked away and never see the outside world again.
"You left him in here! You never let him grow up!" she whispered horrified, her heart breaking all over again.
When she spoke, the scene in the room flickered for a moment, turned paler.
"Kaleb?" she asked, stepping closer. This was not the man she'd known, but this was what he had retreated to. This was the core of his mind, she had to save at all costs.
His eyes flicked to her, the memory his mind played on repeat fading entirely for a moment, the pressure on her shields easing at the same time. Then he shook his head at her. "You're not real." And the scene switched back on. The woman on the bed started to scream.
Alja stepped into his line of sight, going down on her haunches in front of him, but careful not to crowd him. "Why would you think that I'm not real?" she asked softly. The scene behind her dimmed again, the sound stopped fading too, as she drew his attention once more.
"I know you. You were in my dream, the one where I dream that I'm all grown up and strong. But I always wake up in here again. And you're gone." Slowly he lowered his hands from his ears, but still kept them fisted tightly. "Did you make the screaming stop?"
"It was just a memory, Kaleb. It stopped, when you focused on something else." She tried to explain.
"No, the screaming from outside," he clarified. At least she had his full attention now. The gruesome memory vanished completely.
"Yes, I stopped that. I shielded you. But you can build your own shields back up. You need to remember. You really were grown up. You just retreated inside your mind."
"Oh, then I'm dreaming again." He sounded far too resigned for such a young child. "I remember that dream. I was grown up but I still wasn't strong enough. You went away. It hurt. It always hurts, whatever I do. When I'm here, he's too. He wants me to go cold like him, but even when I'm cold I have no peace. But I can make peace for all of them. I can make true Silence. I can stop their screaming. Stopthebloodstoptheheartorjusttearthemapart…" He started mumbling again. Then he moved his fists as if he was pulling at something. The pressure on her shields increased again. And the strange energy she'd felt getting through them before strengthened. He did something to the Net, something not even her shields were able to stop completely.
"Kaleb wait! What are you doing?" she called out desperately.
"I'm pulling the strings of the Net. Can't you see?" He held out his little fists, as if she should actually see him holding something. "If I tear them all apart they will all go Silent, really silent, forever. They will never have to feel pain again."
Alja remembered the broken dataflow, the devastation Kaleb had caused when he'd saved her from the other Councilors. If he did that to the entire Net, it would truly silence their people forever. "No wait! You don't have to tear them apart. I can help you!" she pleaded.
"No you can't. You're just a dream." He said it as if he wished otherwise, his face still that of a child but his expression much older. Then he started to tear at the invisible threads again.
Without thinking Alja reached out and closed her own hands around the child's small fists. "Stop! Please!" When she touched him, something like recognition flickered over his face and his wary eyes filled with hope for a moment.
The monster was confused. It remembered all the grown-up dreams, the woman. In its dreams she had been different from anyone else and she felt even more different now. Her touch, it felt real. Something tingled inside its hands, making the strings it was holding cut a little less. Maybe, just maybe, it could find a way to escape. Maybe it could even go to that dream place, where the woman had come from. Maybe it could stay there this time. It stopped tearing at the strings and looked at her again.
"Please, can you make me see them?" Alja asked. She felt something from within his hands, something that called to her, but she couldn't make out what it was.
"You can't see them?" He pushed his fists that were still in her hands closer towards her face.
She shook her head. "No, I can't. It seems this is your very special ability. But I am in your mind – or your dream. You can make me see, what you see. Or even better you can help me touch them. Maybe I can take some from you, so you don't have to hold all of them alone."
For a moment he looked as if he concentrated really hard. Then a bundle of blackened, dried-up vines appeared protruding from his fisted hands and fanning out in all directions, passing through the mental constructs of his mind like they did through her shields. They weren't hindered by anything. How should they, if this was the Net itself?
And suddenly she knew. She had seen those vines before, when she was with the NetMind – no not vines – veins. – Those were the veins she'd been looking for ever since the NetMind first spoke to her. They were just dried up, shriveled to wiry, black ropes.
Her hands that should just have been mental representations of her physical form began to shake as if they were real. A chaotic mix of emotions rushed through her at the realization: Surprise, joy, the fear, that it might not be real, and even a little sadness and anger, that she hadn't seen it sooner hadn't been able to spare them so much loss and pain. But above all there was the hope that finally she had found a way to do what she'd been born to do. She couldn't have held it in, if she wanted so she just let it all flow out – right into Kaleb's small hands.
The monster gasped. It had never seen or felt something so beautiful, not even when it had dreamt of the woman before. It was as if all of her started to glow from inside, like an angel of light. And then she poured all of that light into its hands. It made the strings go soft and easy to hold and then it flowed inside them, shimmering in all colors like water that reflected a million rainbows in each wave, each ripple. It simply made them come alive.
Alja felt the pressure inside and outside her shields lessen as the wave of her projective empathy flowed out into the Net. More and more hope gushed into the mix of emotions that felt like it had waited all her life to be released from inside her – and it probably had. It was instinct to keep the connection, to continue a constant flow. And even though she couldn't see the effect outside yet, she knew this was the way she was supposed to heal the Net. The boy Kaleb's mind still insisted to call the monster just stared at her, eyes wide with wonder.
"You need to remember Kaleb! You're no monster!" She closed her hands even tighter around his. "You're no monster at all. You're the other half of the cure!" That was what the NetMind had been trying to tell her all the time. Trust him. Trust him so much that she dared to submerge herself inside his mind with her own unshielded so they could discover that unique ability that only worked with both of them connected on the deepest level.
He kept looking up at her for long moments still not moving from his crouched position. "I'm scared that this is not real. I'm scared that you go away again." So open, so vulnerable.
"I won't. I will fight until my last breath to stay by your side," she promised, her heart pierced by his innocent admission. "I won't lie to you. It will hurt – a lot, if you come back out there with me. There'll be pain and guilt. But there's also beauty, strength and life. So much life that is worth protecting. And I can't do that without you. I need you back."
"And if I don't want to remember?"
But he did. Just for a moment his mental representation had flashed from boy to man. He was still there. He just didn't want to be. Who could blame him, after everything I put him through? Alja thought. "Then I'll stay. I'll stay in here with you. I will never leave you alone again. Never." And she wouldn't, even if this frightened little boy, who believed she was just a dream, was all that was left of the man she loved more than her life.
"You could make me feel good. Make me want to go with you." He remembered how strong her empathic projection could be, overriding even his deepest fears and impulses.
"I will never do that to you again. I swear I won't." The echo of horror in the face of what she'd done to him, vibrated in that vow.
"I'll go with you," he said finally. And when he stood, his mental appearance changed, grew, until he towered over her. He seemed a little less substantial, less physical, his adult mind not yet fully restored. It would take some time for him to heal, to integrate that part he had shut off for so long. But he seemed to remember who he was.
He easily gathered the softened strings of the Net in one hand while he held the contact to one of hers allowing that strange connection, that combined his ability to touch the Net and hers to fill it with emotion, to continue. The psychic action seemed to come to him as natural as it did to her. Then he let Alja lead him out of the ruins of what had once been his mind.
Some of the structures repaired themselves automatically as they passed. Others he would have to reconstruct consciously later… Consciously… Memories of his adult life brushed by, reintegrated to form a coherent story. Slowly he began to realize what was happening. He still wasn't sure if this wasn't just another dream. But he never had been able to resist Alja anyway…
Alja.
She was here.
Impossible.
But he felt her through that new intense connection, that didn't break as they both stepped out onto the psychic plane and she went on to return to the star of her own mind that was still located close to his. But she wasn't shielded like he knew her anymore, her shields wrapped around his own star too to protect them both inside.
So when he saw that star, he knew he was still dreaming. All of this was just another beautiful dream that would be torn from him as soon as he opened his eyes. He knew it with absolute certainty, because what he saw couldn't be true: Instead of the small light Alja's mind had been after the rehabilitation or one of her ordinary camouflage minds from before, there was Her. The sun-mind, golden, glowing, exuding warmth like a real sun. His mind must have just picked up all the positive images in his memory and created a new dream to torment him with. But where should he escape to now? If that dream had found him even in the vault of the monster. You're no monster at all. You're the other half of the cure! How absurd! Of course, this couldn't be true. All of this was just too good, and he was not good enough, he had never been good enough.
"Open your eyes, Kaleb!" He heard the plea from the physical world. Alja's voice. But it wasn't real. Couldn't be.
No, I don't want to wake up! I can't! he answered. It was the man who spoke the words of the frightened boy. He wasn't ready to let go of that dream. He would never be ready to face that harsh reality without Alja again.
"This is no dream. I'm standing right in front of you. You feel my hands on your face, don't you?" her voice insisted.
And he did feel her. Gentle and warm, her hands pressed against his face. Then something touched his forehead. Warm breath brushed over his skin as she continued to entreat him to return to the outside world.
"Please Kaleb! Remember when I told you the Net wouldn't let me die? It really didn't." Although she still had a hard time believing it herself. "The NetMind saved me."
But you're not Her. How can you be Her?
"I didn't know it was me. I didn't know it was always me. If you had let me open my shields that one day, you would've seen. This is what I was hiding inside my shields all the time. You have to understand that." Alja just kept talking, partly because she tried to explain to herself how all of this could have happened and partly because she didn't know what else to do to convince him, for she would not use her projection. "The NetMind didn't tell you, because it respects the secrets we protect within our shields." Don't tell minds about mind's secrets. That was why it also hadn't told her that Kaleb was the Ghost. Alja was frantically searching for an explanation how they could have been so close to the truth all the time. She had been raised in the world of Silence. So it was instinct to grab for logic now that emotion threatened to overwhelm her in spite of her empathic talents. "We were not used to trust each other on that level." And it had not only almost destroyed them, but their people too, their relationship a mirror of the problems of their entire race.
Kaleb looked at those shields she was talking of, waterfalls that rippled all around them, creating an impenetrable wall that encompassed both their mental stars. But there was more: The darkness that lived inside Alja too, the darkness she had never rejected like the rest of them, it reflected in a layer of protection that let none of her blazing light filter through into the Net.
And he knew she was right: It was logical. It was the most logical thing in the world: The sun-mind could only belong to Alja, a mind so warm and beautiful could only belong to a cardinal empath. And who else could have hidden from him for years, if not Alja with her layers upon layers of protective shielding, disguises and camouflage?
He dared to fully slip back into the physical world, still too doubtful to open his eyes. Soft lips pressed on his, their touch urgent, demanding. The smell of rain that surrounded him mixed with a heady note of flowers. Yes, this could only be Alja, the one person who never ran from his darkness, his cruelty. The one who would hold him, kiss him, even when he was literally bathed in the blood of his enemies.
Finally he opened his eyes.
Alja felt the moment Kaleb gave in. Without letting go of his face, she broke the kiss to look into his eyes. The night-sky of a cardinal gazed back at her, all traces of the lightning storm gone.
"Alja!" Her name flowed from his lips like a revelation, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper, as if he still couldn't believe it. His hands came up to clutch her face needing to touch, to feel. "Alja, you're here. You're real."
"Forgive me, Kaleb! Please forgive me. I thought it was the only way to protect you and the Net. But I didn't know it was always me," she repeated then, voice breaking, tears mingling with the rain on her face.
He didn't move. He just touched her, stared at her not daring to move lest she should fade again.
"Kaleb, say something!"
He couldn't.
All that time he had functioned. He hadn't broken, when she was taken from him. He had still fought Ming, when he was certain he'd never see her again. Even tumbling into insanity in the monster's prison he'd still been able to react somehow. Hurt, loss and catastrophe were things he knew, things he always expected. But getting Alja back finally did it: It was too much. He broke right there in front of her.
The strongest, most dangerous man in the PsyNet dropped to his knees in front of the woman he loved so much, her loss had devastated him to the very core of his soul. His arms locked around her, his face pressing into her middle. "You're there. You're alive." It was all he managed to get out, his voice raw, broken with emotion. His Tk and Tp spun out of control once again, but Alja's shields absorbed every bit of them, almost as if that too was part of her nature. And then the sobs just tore from his throat. Deep, desperate sounds.
Alja felt as if her insides would tear apart at that sound. What had she done? Would there ever be a chance to make this right again? "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know it was always me," she repeated over and over, her hands stroking his shoulders, his nape, his rain-wet hair, because words would never be enough, even touch wasn't. But it was all she had. She struggled in his arms until she was down on her knees herself, cradled his face in her hands again. "I didn't understand. Oh Kaleb, I never meant to break you so! Forgive me." It was only a whisper now.
At last Kaleb lifted his eyes to meet hers. "It doesn't matter." He said simply. "None of it matters. This is not about me forgiving you. This is me begging for my life, because if you leave again, I won't survive."
"I understand that now. If I had only known…" she began.
"No, you don't understand. It's not because you're Her. I should have seen that myself long ago. Because it was you the moment you first knocked on my office door. You always were my only hope." It was the one truth he needed her to understand. He had thought she did, had thought her empathy would have shown her. But if she had truly understood, she'd have never even gotten the idea to sacrifice herself for him. So he had to tell her. He had to lay bare whatever his cruel life had left of his soul: "You do not only have my heart. You have all of me. Without you I cannot exist. I don't know if that's what love is meant to be, but it is for me. And it is all I have to offer – even if it is never good enough."
Those words ripped her apart and reformed her anew at the same time.
She wanted to speak, tell him how much she felt the same. Wanted to tell him how much he was 'good enough'. Wanted to wash away once and for all those last words, that shadow his 'teacher' still cast on his beautiful soul – not good enough. If only she could tell him how happy it made her just to be able to hold him again, how she could burst with delight at the realization that she had always been his hope and now had the chance to be forever. But the words, words that would never suffice anyway, wouldn't come. Emotion locked up her throat. So she just held him through the shivers that still rocked his powerful body. Held him as tight as she could. And then she remembered she didn't need words to show him how she felt. And she didn't have to project at him either. Not anymore. She could share that beauty inside her with the whole world.
She felt for the new connection they shared, that conduit in him that allowed her to feed emotion right into the Net. And then she simply let go. Relief washed through her body, her powers flaring up beyond what she ever believed possible. For the first time she didn't have to halt them, didn't have to hide any longer. Because this was who she was, a healer who shared every bit of good she had in her.
And then the incandescent joy of an empath swept through the Net. A joy that was infused with hope so bright, even the finest strings of the Net – now turned to vessels of its lifeblood – became visible with it. Glittering, fracturing rainbows rippled along veins long dried up.
Millions of minds were touched by that joy and hope where they'd been struggling for life minutes ago. They watched in awe as Alja's black shields fell away, revealing the brightness and warmth of the twin star she and Kaleb had become. And the sun rose for the first time in the vast darkness that had been the Net for over a hundred years. Silver and gold. Soothing waters and warming light.
It didn't reach the darkest corners yet. It would take far more than a single outburst of joy and hope to truly heal the Net. But it gave the Psy a chance that they hadn't had for a long time.
Kaleb had barely come to believe Alja was truly with him again, when the full range of her powers rushed through him. It would have brought him through his knees, if he hadn't already been there. The sheer warmth of her filled a part of him that he had thought would always stay empty. The cold cutting abilities, he had always believed to be destined for destruction only, had merged with hers to reveal their true purpose: to open up pathways for life, to restore them, to enable healing.
To enable healing sometimes life needs to be taken, sometimes things need to be destroyed first. He'd had to tear up the Net, had to open those veins, so they could begin to accept her nurturing energy of life. Even in his most desperate moment he hadn't been the monster he always believed to be. That's why you're important, not only to me but to the whole Net. Alja had seen it from the start. And it had almost taken the annihilation of their world to make him believe it. At that moment Kaleb swore a silent oath to never forget again, to always live up to Alja's belief in him.
Enraptured by the iridescent beauty of the Net slowly coming back to life, Alja almost missed the telepathic knock on her shields.
Alja!
Aden?, she replied.
We can't keep the people away much longer. The Arrow's telepathic voice held utter wonder, but he still stuck to his role as an Arrow, alerting a teammate of possible danger.
They were still in a very public place after all. And ever since the threat of destruction had stopped, people tried to return to find out what in hell had happened. You stayed?
As close as we could. We don't abandon one of our own. Now more than ever. And along the telepathic transmission Alja felt something feeding back through the newly revealed veins. It was a faint emotional imprint: gratitude, hope, devotion.
Just as Alja thought she couldn't get any more happy, she saw hope for the only family she ever had: Now more than ever. Those four words no longer only held the cold loyalty of the assassin squad. With those four words Aden gave the Arrows a new purpose.