November 2009

When Sonia took up the watch at command and control, it was 3 a.m. and NOA headquarters was quiet enough to hear the hum of the climate controls in the walls. Her cybernetic body did require daily rest, but three or four hours were enough, and she liked these quiet times as a chance to reflect. At first she had seized that chance with the hope that in searching her own mind she might find some clue to the memories she had lost. As months went by, that hope had grown so faded and tattered that it ached even to look at it, but by that time these early morning hours had taken on a sweetness of their own. They were a chance to watch over all her comrades in peace, to look toward a future, not a past, and perhaps that was a finer thing.

After all, that was what she had said to Keith.

Again and again she'd seen it in his eyes, that he felt for her what she felt for him, but again and again when she reached toward him with love, he'd turned away. It wasn't like this between us before, he had said; you might have someone waiting for you; you might regret it if your memories return, and you can't give up hope.

Finally she'd had enough and cried, How long am I supposed to throw away the life I have now, the memories I want to make now, for whatever it was that might never come back?

And then he had finally, finally smiled at her, and apologized for trying to decide that for her, and let her draw closer to his face with her hands in his hair, his hands sliding around behind her waist, until their lips met…

It hadn't been any mere excuse to get through to him, and she still believed it.

Still, she couldn't help longing for some other puzzle piece to interlock with the gift Keith had given her when she first woke in this cybernetic body: his memories of the few weeks he had known her before it happened.

She had a different face in those memories, and a different voice, with an Australian accent that Wong had failed to preserve and that she had too much dignity to affect. It had made her uncomfortable at first, like looking into a mirror and seeing the wrong image looking back, but she'd pursued it anyway. She wouldn't feel that way if it meant nothing to her, and that in itself had told her that those memories were real.

Sometimes she even felt as if she could reach just barely through those secondhand memories and catch a trace of them from other side. Beyond Keith's memory of waking in a hospital bed after an accident in the lab, that other face and voice whispering to him, I'm Sonia; I'm going to get you out of here because I'm like you, in a fleeting glimmer she could see the fear in his eyes relax toward fascination, feel the familiar buzz in her fingers as she arced electricity between them to prove that she was a Psychiccer, too. He had remembered her sitting by his bed teaching him the finer points of telepathy over hands of poker — how to spy on your opponent's cards, how to shut out their spying or feed them false images — and if she dwelt on that memory, there were moments she could almost read the cards she'd had, even where he remembered being shut out of them.

But when that other voice remarked I had to get good at this, I have a little sister, cruelly bare of any other clues, suddenly it was just out of reach. In the moments when those other eyes drifted off into the distance of a nervous, melancholy distraction that she hadn't allowed Keith to see inside of, whatever thoughts she had been looking to then floated just beyond her fingertips now, even after months of straining to reach them.

Sonia shook off the mournful reverie; for now she had work to do. She re-checked all of the security sensors and cameras, set the computers to all the daily diagnostic routines, and began activating the automatic cleaning systems level by level, holding her mind open to anyone who might be disturbed. As she approached the top floor of the residential sector, she braced herself for the response she was trying not to expect…

Go right ahead, Keith answered.

Sonia slumped back in her chair. You're still awake.

I'm not… sleepy yet.

She felt him snag on the quibble between "sleepy" and "tired." The latter was obvious; his telepathic voice, stronger and clearer than anyone else's when he was well-rested, now felt muffled in a way that she had long since learned to recognize, and it resisted her vision like a fine mist as she reached out a bit more to see where he was.

When she came through it, she found that he was at least in bed this time, sitting up and reading a book — a prod at it revealed an adventure novel, which didn't even surprise her, although one would almost think that he was trying to keep himself awake.

You really must take better care of yourself, she told him.

I know, he admitted. That haze refracted things he would normally make certain to hide, and she also caught an echo of I'm not doing this because it's fun.

Or maybe she only knew that already. He covered up anything more than shreds of what it was that kept him awake at night so often, but the shreds were enough. She even knew already that it was worst on a night like this, the second after a mission, when those images were still fresh and no longer outbalanced by fatigue — and Keith didn't have Sonia's advantage of a recharge cycle that began at the flip of a switch. Sometimes he couldn't take better care of himself. At those times, for all her scolding, she knew that she would always be there for him, and in this case, she had an idea.

This is unacceptable, she said firmly. You're in the wrong posture, and you're reading the wrong book. Please put it away.

Keith resisted for a moment, but Sonia only maintaining a quiet presence with him was enough to coax him into marking his place and laying the book aside.

Now, lie down.

He patiently leaned back and settled his head on his pillow.

Relax. I will read to you.

She felt a small throb of anticipation from him and carefully concealed her own answering curl of mischief. Pulling her attention back to herself, she picked up the perfect book for the occasion from the shelf in C&C where it had sat untouched for longer than she could remember.

Listen closely…

"Aaron, Charlotte: five five five four eight nine four. Aaron, Harold and Juanita: five five five seven three six four—"

That's a phone book! he objected.

Listen. Firm but gentle, she touched him with her mind and drew his attention, like a light hand on his chin turning his face toward her. "Abbett, John S.: five five five nine three two two. Abrams, Daniel: five five five zero five six zero…"

Keith gave her a pleading feeling like he might give her a look, but it was the kind meant to make her smile, not relent — and she did smile at this side of him that so few others ever saw. Underneath NOA's leader with his determined strength and dignity, deeper even than the terrorized creature she had helped to rescue from that lab, there was a young man in whom one could still catch glimpses of a child.

"Ackerman, T.: five five five three three nine eight. Ackerman-Jones, Rebecca: five five five, five five five two…"

His long-suffering annoyance, with however facetious a twist, faded into grudging respect for her approach and finally pliant acceptance. He did listen, only unintentionally let his mind wander, and responded readily to that light touch bringing him back to her voice as, in this telepathic space, she watched over his bed, much as she had in those first borrowed memories.

It took longer than she expected, but at last, halfway though the Andersons, she felt him slip away into slumber.