Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Auden’s eyelids came down, rose up again. The streamers of her thoughts attempted to fly away. But, for the first time in…an endless nothingness of being, when she extended her psychic hand and gripped at the streamers, she managed to keep hold of them.
The transport issue: that could be a good thing.
Before the fogged brain and the broken thoughts, she’d done something. What had she done?
Congratulations on your graduation from flight school. To have passed the testing at fourteen, that brings great honor to the family.
Controls under her hands, the sensation of lifting off the earth.
Fly. She could fly things. Small things. A private jet-chopper. Her father had given her one, she was sure of it. A sleek black machine, a present on her graduation. Shoshanna hadn’t been pleased, she remembered, had said Auden was too young.
“As for the changeling pack,” Charisma said, her gaze once more on the organizer that was an extension of her body, “they have next to no footprint on the Internet. Some packs work hard to achieve that, so we can’t assume they’re small or weak.
“I believe I have the name at least—RainFire. I was able to find it in a search of property records. The pack purchased the block of land against our border outright just over three and a half years ago now; they also have changeling rights to land in public ownership. But the main chunk of their private territory comes out of the Peace Accord Land Trust.”
Auden stared at the older woman, her brain struggling to comprehend the shape of Charisma’s words. “What?”
“I don’t know what that is, either.” Charisma’s rounded eyes had a tilt at the very corners, and now it seemed as if those corners twitched in frustration.
Auden knew that was her own imagination—or a glitch in her mental processing of the image. Charisma’s Silence was without flaw.
“I’ll run a quick search on the PsyNet,” Charisma said.
Auden knew she should be able to run her own identical search but she couldn’t figure out how to enter the PsyNet, her brain refusing to give up that knowledge. It was right there, just beyond her grasp, a thing so basic that it should’ve been second nature. It was like forgetting how to walk.
“Ah,” Charisma said, “the trust was set up in the aftermath of the Territorial Wars in the eighteenth century. It holds the lands of dead packs in trust until they can be passed on to a living pack that meets the criteria.”
None of that meant anything to Auden, the streamers of her thoughts sliding out of her suddenly slack grip. She swayed back and forth.
Gripping her shoulder, Charisma spoke to someone other than Auden, her tone clipped. “Teleport us to the medical facility.”
Auden didn’t feel the teleport, but she was soon standing in a crisp white room that held a white examination chair covered in leather-synth, along with countless monitors hooked up to computronic machinery.
The air smelled sterile, no damp green, no ozone in every breath.
She’d been here before. Many times. When Charisma nudged her into the chair with wide arms and a clear top part that came down over her face and head while the body of the chair reclined so that she lay supine on it, she didn’t resist.
“Charisma.” A male voice, movement at the door. “Show me the equation you had her solve.”
Dr. Verhoeven, Auden’s brain supplied, putting a face to the name, the voice. Pink-tinged skin with scars from childhood acne outbreaks that had either been left untreated or not treated well, brownish-red hair he kept short and combed in neat lines, and a compact body on a frame shorter and stockier than Charisma’s.
“Yes,” he murmured. “An encouraging sign.”
Screens lit up around Auden as the doctor started the…scan. Yes, that’s what this was, a scan.
She faded into her mind, her thoughts filled with the most fascinating thing she’d seen today: the changeling who moved like a cat. But what kind of cat? Not a house cat. She didn’t think any changelings shifted into house cats.
A jungle cat then.
Leopard. Tiger. Jaguar. Lynx. Puma.
Were there others?
The lights flickered around her, bringing her back to the present day.
“…working.” The doctor’s voice was higher than usual. “Intensification of neural activity to levels we haven’t seen since the initial failure.”
“I wonder why today. I’ve been taking her on various site inspections and other low-risk private business matters for the past two months, ever since you advised that she was beginning to show signs of neural regeneration. Shoshanna is intrigued by the change and wants to see if the external stimulation will progress it further.”
“It’s possible it’s just time. Despite what we like to think, there’s still a lot we don’t know about how Psy brains work.”
“How will this impact the other medical situation?”
“I can’t predict it. Is she even aware that she’s pregnant?”