Sister Ella - Chapter Three

When Ellen came home, the TV was blaring as Clara was slung over the couch with laptop perched on her lap and Anabelle was spread out on the floor with a pile of textbooks in front of her that garnered only marginal interest from her.
“Hey guys,” Ellen said, letting her backpack fall to the carpet and going into the kitchen for a glass of water. Houston was always hot it seemed. She returned to the living room, taking long gulps from her glass. “So, is your big test-?”
She stopped mid-sentence as a face flashed on-screen. She swore she knew the face.
“And that’s what makes him the world’s sixth most eligible bachelor,” the TV declared in a flurry of pink hearts. “We’ll be back with the world’s fifth most eligible bachelor after a word from our sponsors.”
“Tomorrow,” Anabelle groaned, flipping away from the TV. “There’s too much to know. I-”
“Who was that?” Ellen asked, still staring intensely at the screen as if in hopes that the face would reappear. However, there was only an advertisement about toilet bowl cleaners.
“Huh?” Anabelle asked, looking at the TV screen in confusion.
“The last guy. The last bachelor or whatever. Who was he?” Ellen asked.
“I, I dunno. I forget,” Anabelle said, looking to Clara who shrugged her shoulders. “Why do you care, Ellen?”
“He was some prince guy from some island nation,” Clara said. “I don’t remember his name, something foreign. It started with an A.”
“Atamai?” Ellen asked.
“Yeah, that’s it. How did you know?” Clara asked.
Ellen sat down on the arm of the couch. A strange sort of numbness and nausea overcame her. “Look him up, Clara, please. Can you google him for me?”
“Um, okay. Why are you curious about him? He wasn’t even the most attractive they have on here,” Clara said, looking at Ellen dubiously.
“Just, please,” Ellen said tonelessly. Clara handed over her computer to the Wikipedia article on Prince Atamai.
It was him.
There was no mistaking. Everything looked exactly as she had seen him two days ago, the same smile, the same hair, the same eyes. Ellen leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
“Are you alright, Sister Ella?” Anabelle asked. “What’s so bad about this prince guy?”
“Nothing.” Ellen shook her head, trying to clear her mind. “Nothing at all. I’m going to go do homework now.”
Ellen decided she was the biggest idiot to ever walk the planet. Of course he wasn’t being facetious. He was a real prince, born and raised. She had fed him a false name and put on airs of being fancy when she was just another poor, college student. She had lied to a prince and pretended to be someone else. He was probably attempting to retain connections to the French elite, not trading banter with some college girl. She’d been so incredibly stupid.
Ellen put her head on the desk, closing her eyes and grimacing. What was she going to do? What could she do? Go out and email him, saying, “Whoopsies, when I said I was a daughter of a French diplomat, what I really meant is that I’m a daughter of a dead plumber. I even got my name wrong. How silly of me. Can I still crush on you in my deranged pseudo-intellectual way of political sparring?”
Stupid, stupid, stupid. She had to say something. She had to. She owed it to him if he wasted all that time talking to her and reading her emails under a false notion. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want him to not like her, or Joelle, or whoever he thought she was, as stupid as the concept seemed upon critical thinking. The banter they had shared, well, it still felt special. It almost made her believe in idea of love and communal affection beyond the bonds of family.
No. No, no, no. Ellen Metcalf did not fall in love. Ellen knew better than that. Besides, he had never felt the same way about her back. He didn’t even know who she was, so Ellen’s ponderings on love were inane. She was being so stupid about this. And silly. That’s not who Ellen was.
She opened her laptop us. She needed to do this quickly before her damn repressed emotions reared their ugly, snively head. She was not emotional. She was logical. And logically she knew she must set Atamai in the right, apologize for her misconduct, and then escape from the situation before she could do anything stupid.
There was an email from him in her inbox. She could see the abbreviated first line of his email. It began with Hello the waxless Joelle, It took me a moment-.
Part of her wanted to open it.

No. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t live this lie.

She deleted the email and began a new one.

Prince Iona,

I haven’t been honest with you. I’m not who you think I am. Joelle isn’t even my name. I’m sorry for leading you astray, but I never meant it.

I’m sorry. Please don’t respond to this email or try to contact me.

She sent it without looking at it again. She quickly closed her laptop.

There. Done. She did it.
If she did what was right, why did she feel so awful? She groaned, leaning her head on her desk once more. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did she have to be so stupid? You’d think with all this college, she learned to be a little smarter. Dakota and Patricia were right. She was a preteen adolescent when it came to emotions.
Ellen decided she wanted to become very small and crawl into a dark hole where there were no princes or diplomats or emails. Where there was nothing. Where she wouldn’t have to think and embarrass herself.
Ellens throat narrowed as something that felt like emotion was trying to worm its way up, pressing bile into her mouth and attempting to activate lacrimal ducts.
“Sister Ella, can you help me with anatomy thing? They keep using words like caudal and dorsal and foramen and articulation I have no idea what they’re talking about,” Anabelle said, coming into Ellen’s room with a review sheet. “Wait, are you alright?”
“Um, yeah,” Ellen said hastily, rubbing her face vigorously as she rose. “I just-, well, it’s just been a long day.”
“Hey, you haven’t been studying all day,” Anabelle declared pugnaciously.
“If you call watching TV studying,” Clara put in from the living room. Anabelle scowled and offered Clara a retort. It gave Ellen enough time to collect her thoughts and straighten her priorities. She did not need romance, but Anabelle needed her. She had to put Anabelle first, even if she wasn’t exactly well-versed in anatomy. She would help her sister and forget about herself. That’s what Ellen did. That’s who she was. Not some fancy French diplomat. Ellen was Sister Ella.

Ellen slept but fitfully. Thoughts swirled and festered in her head. The Joelle fiasco was a scabbed wound, and she had the insatiable desire to pick at it. It was done. It was over. She must move on and forget about Atamai and how she felt about him. She was being stupid. And silly. And now, very, very tired.
When she arose. Atamai had left her an email. An odd surge of emotion met her. There was anger. There was confusion. There was hope.
She squashed them all, deleting the email before she could read its first sentence. Ellen was not emotional, she had learned a very long time ago how to be empty, and Atamai was awakening all sorts of emotions that needed to be put to rest. She went about her day, distracted and tired. She doubted she absorbed anything through any of her lectures, she mis-measured in her experiment during her quantitative chemistry lab, she wrote faulty code that made no sense, and overall she felt as if she had been pulled very thin and tight, only to be released to make a puddle of stretched-out, wrinkly Ellen.
When she came home. The email from Atamai stared at her from her recycle bin.  She closed her laptop and fell on her bed. Was this what normal people felt like in romances? If so, then why in the world did people pursue them? Feeling nothing was much, much superior to this. She needed dreamless sleep, when she knew she couldn’t get any such thing. A time machine would also work, although then she risked breaking the space-time continuum if she stopped herself from ever getting in that dress. Maybe it would mean that there would be a zombie apocalypse or robots would take over the world.
She groaned. Was even her favorite sci-fi motif ruined for her now? Her father once told her that every struggle taught a lesson. She supposed this one was never to let her emotions get the best of her. They had leaked out in the emails. She needed to stopper them more securely. She needed critical reasoning and science. That’s what drove the world. Emotions made you weak and would always ultimately hurt you.
She pulled herself up and finished her homework and helped her sisters. Enough numbers and figures would drive out the weakness in her. It had to.
Still, she could not sleep that night. Or the next. Or the next. She could not check her email either. Atamai was still wrote her two more emails. She could not face them. She could barely face her laptop.
When the weekend hit, she knew she had to get away. This madness had to end. She needed to find someplace where she could find no trace of him and do something else for awhile. Ellen Metcalf was not this girl who was internally fretting over some guy she met at a party. Ellen Metcalf was a scientist who needed to study for a physical chemistry test. After spending an hour or two in her research lab, she packed up her books and went to the diner across from campus.
The bell tinkled as she walked in. The diner was close to empty, which meant she didn’t feel as evil if she lingered while studying instead of just eating and leaving. She ordered a large cup of coffee and a plain bagel. She didn’t think she could stomach much more and she needed as much caffeine as possible to maintain the inertia to keep moving despite her exhaustion.
She spread her books out on the table, gulping coffee as she began to skim through her notes and reference back to her textbook. She was actually focusing, for the first time in a long time. All the wave functions and quantum equations were enough to drive the drivel from her mind. For a while, she forgot.
“Prince Atamai Iona,” the title vibrated in her skull as she looked up sharply. The soft murmur of voices from the diner’s customers had droned into inconsequence with Schrodinger’s equations to think of, but those three words rang out as clearly as a bell. Who had spoken them? Why were they speaking them?
She looked around quickly, examining every face. The waitress was handing an older couple their sandwiches and fries. Another college student sat with earbuds in, facing a laptop. Parents sat with a gaggle of children, one of whom was blowing bubbles in his milk. A group of high-schoolers were laughing.
Then she looked up at the TV screen and saw him. He was smiling politely at some jest while a man who deeply resembled him sat on his left, gesturing wildly. The host sat across from them was laughing. Ellen found she could not help herself from watching.
“So, other than that incident at the hotel, are you and and your brother enjoying Houston,” the host asked.
“Oh, yes. Of course,” the other man said with a smile. “It has a really similar climate to Nuan. There’s the heat that could grill meat and the humidity enough to swim in. I’ve really grown attached to that feeling of being poached. It really allows me to bond with my breakfast eggs,” he joked glibly.
It raised chortles.
“What my younger brother means to say is that we have found the people of Houston to be most hospitable and kind,” Atamai said curtly.
The brother elbowed him. “Don’t be so stiff, Atamai. Being stiff is only suitable for corpses, and the last time I checked, you still had a pulse. Besides, you know I have to balance you out, so however proper and formal you are, that means I have to be that much more impassioned and free. If you become any more dull, I might have skin down to my birthday suit.”
The women in the audience of the show catcalled and whistled.
“It seems the ladies of Houston are much infatuated with the idea.” the host observed.
“Yes, yes, but I am only enough for one woman, and she has already found my heart,” he said, sighing. A chorus “Aww”s met this declaration. The man smiled, and continued. “My brother, on the other hand could use a lady love after this week.”
Atamai’s mouth tightened as he was met with throes of affection from the crowd. His cheeks burned red, and he whispered something to his brother who only laughed.
“What happened?” the host asked.
“Oh, the usual love story. A damsel whisked him off his feet at the UNICEF Gala but all for naught. I guess they were emailing or something since he’s been pacing around the computer for the last few days. She’s disappeared though. He’s been trying to find mention of her anywhere since I guess he has her shoe, which he needs to return. She told him her name was Joelle de Lafayette, but that’s not her real name, right?” the brother said. Atamai looked to be in extreme pain. He refused to raise his head as the story was met with sympathetic noises.
“Hey, how about we help my brother out? I got a picture of her when I decided I needed evidence of my brother chatting up some girl. It’s somewhere on my phone,” the man pulled out his phone  and was fiddling with the buttons. Atamai made a grab at the phone, but the brother arms were longer so that he could effectively hold Atamai at bay. “Oh, here it is.”  He shoved the phone out to the camera, and Ellen stopped breathing.
There she was, for millions to see. It was a bad angle. Part of her face had been cut off by someone’s shoulder, but her nose, her eyes, and her lips were still there. Ellen Metcalf stood in a fancy, golden dress frozen in mid-laugh. It must have been just after she broke the heel of the shoe, as she was barefoot and a strappy thing dangled from her hand.
Everyone was going to know she was a fraud. Everyone was going to know she was a liar. Everything was going to fall apart.
Ellen looked around hesitantly, readying herself to face the glares of everyone, but no one was looking at her. The only one that had even glanced at the television was the waitress. She approached Ellen, but only refilled her coffee cup and walked away.
Ellen needed to get home before anyone recognized her. She needed to get away.
She stuffed all her books in her backpack and hastily paid the tab.

“Hey, Sister Ella! I thought you said you were going to be in the lab all day. Anyway, could you-. Wait, where are you going?” Clara asked as Ellen made a beeline to her bedroom from the front door.
“Uh, bathroom,” she said, altering her path slightly. She quickly locked herself inside, breathing heavily. She shrugged off her backpack and stared at herself in the mirror. It didn’t look like the picture on TV, she realized. Marie had dressed and dolled her up, making her look halfway presentable. Now, without any make-up, a ponytail spewing fly-away hairs, and an overly large t-shirt she got for free at orientation to UT Houston, there was little resemblance to the girl on screen. Maybe no one would recognize her. All of her friends claimed they barely could.
What would they say? They would know it was her, but they would probably keep quiet if she asked them too, although she would hear no end of it from Dakota and Patricia. Marie would probably be nice about it though.
As if summoned by her thoughts, her phone rang.
Ellen fumbled through her backpack to find the device. “Hello?”
“Ellen?” Marie said. “The guy you were talking to, you didn’t give him your real name, did you?”
“No.” Ellen sighed. She rubbed her temples with one hand. “I didn’t. I thought we were joking around. I didn’t know he was actually a prince. I thought he was just playing. And now, I don’t know Marie. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, you could tell him the truth,” Marie started.
“I did! Well, sort of. I emailed him and said I wasn’t who I said I was, once I realized he was exactly who he said he was. I even mentioned the name thing. I said I was sorry, and that I didn’t think we should talk anymore. I haven’t looked at any of the other messages he’s sent since then. I tried to cut it off, Marie,” Ellen said, groaning. “I don’t want any attention. I don’t want any drama. I didn’t want this.”
“Have you been watching any talk shows this morning?” she asked.
“I saw.”
“So did my sister. She recognized the dress. She wants to call in and tell them that’s her dress and that someone stole it from her. I’ve been stopping her, but you know how she is. I don’t know how long I can convince her not to,” Marie said.
“Can you bribe her? Anything? I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Ellen said.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Ellen,” Marie said. “You can come over, if you want, and we can talk about it.”

“I don’t think I want to talk about it. I just want it to go away. Is this was having emotions is like?” Ellen asked glibbly.

“Kinda sucks, doesn’t it?” Marie asked. Ellen could almost hear Marie’s quiet, sad smile over the phone.

“No kidding,” Ellen said. She pressed her head against the cold tile wall of the bathroom. She could feel her face throbbing and flushing. Maybe, if she just closed her eyes, it would all go away, at least for a moment.

“I’ll sort out my sister, Ellen. I’ll figure out something. I’ll call Pat and Dakota and tell them not to say anything. Give this a week or two, and it will all blow over. I’m here for you, if you need me,” she said.

Ellen wasn’t supposed to need anyone. She was supposed to be the one to provide the succor and help in times of need. She was supposed to be the strong one. Where had everything gone wrong? “Yeah, thanks, Marie. Thanks a lot,” Ellen said.

“Anytime, Ellen.”

“I’ll see you later.”

“See you Monday.”

Ellen clicked off her phone. Marie, Pat, and Dakota wouldn’t tell then. She just hoped no one else would recognize her from the photo. She just had to hope.

Ellen flushed the toilet and washed her hands in case Clara was waiting at the door when she came out.

“Hey, Sister Ella, the internet’s out of whack. Could you look at it?” Clara asked.

“Let me put my backpack down, and then I’ll look at the router. Is it just on your laptop or on Anabelle’s too? Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?” Ellen asked. The prosaic problems were a reassuring pressure of normality. Everything would go back to the way it was; all she had to do was wait.

“Anabelle’s with Jeremy at the library, and which one’s the router again?” Clara asked.

Ellen restarted the router and was met with a cheer from Clara who promptly collapsed onto the couch with her laptop to check her Facebook. “Also, you need to go to the store because we’re almost out of toilet paper and we need cereal,” Clara said, matching her spine to the curvature of the armrest.

“We have cereal,” Ellen started.

“We have your cereal, but I don’t like it. It has too many calories and tastes bad. I like the flakes one,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“They are healthy calories!” Ellen declared, “But alright, is there anything else you need?”

“I dunno, food? Oh, and maybe some hair dye!” Clara said excitedly.

“Why?” Ellen asked.

“Oh this princey guy is looking for someone he met at a party whose disappeared. Since so many people have called in claiming to be her, this TV station is hosting an audition sort of thing. All my friends are going. The name’s Joelle de Lafayette. Here’s the picture they have of her,” Clara explained, handing her laptop over.

It was the same picture Atamai’s brother had taken, but it was now inserted in a website asking “Are you Joelle de Lafayette?” There was a link for various user-submitted photos claiming to be from Joelle de Lafayette. It had been less than a couple of hours since the brother had shown the photo on TV, but there were already dozens of photos of girls claiming to be her. Ellen handed the laptop back to Clara as calmly as she could.

“So far, Natalie, Rachel, and Piper are going for sure, but Katie and Wendy are thinking about it. John wants to go too, just for fun. Hey, she kinda looks like you. You should come with us!” Clara said.

“No,” Ellen said sharply. “I have, um, stuff to do. For lab and everything.”

“I was just trying to be nice,” Clara said quietly, making Ellen regret her harshness. “I guess I will have to text Anabelle and see if she wants to go.” Clara pulled out her cellphone.

Ellen walked numbly back to her room. This didn’t seem to be blowing over rather quickly. Instead, it was expanding with the force of a mushroom cloud. Would it leave long-lasting radiation in its wake which would render the soil infertile for years and the lifeforms mutated or dead? Ellen decided that the analogy comparing this situation to a nuclear bomb was incredibly apropos.

She flipped open her textbook, so she would have something to stare at in her room. A wall of text glared back at her as she looked on, unseeing. Clara didn’t recognize her. Clara was her sister and probably spent as much time with her as anyone, and she didn’t recognize her. It wasn’t a good picture. Ellen had been ridiculously dolled up in makeup and a dress. It was quite possible no one would recognize her.

Then, they would just go through this farce where many young women claimed to be her, but Atamai would probably not be fooled. Then, everyone would forget and move on, and this hullabaloo would be gone forever. Her embarrassment will be hidden deep within the depths of her memory, and probably Marie’s, Pat’s, and Dakota’s as well, but it wouldn’t be public knowledge. Life would go on.

Ellen’s phone rang. Perhaps her positive affirmations had been misplaced. She looked at it with a certain sort of dread, wondering if she should answer. But, she had to. Whatever happened, she had to face it. She fumbled to answer it. Somehow, she managed to drop it and kick it across the room as her extreme discomfort made her clumsy. However, with her mind made up, she dutifully ran after it.

“Hello?” Ellen said breathlessly.

“Hi Sister Ella!” her stepmother said.

“Oh, hey, Susan,” Ellen said.

“How’s school?” she asked.

Ellen sat down heavily at her desk, still feeling uneasy. “Uh, fine, fine. Everything’s fine. Clara and Anabelle are doing well. Anabelle had an anatomy test earlier this week that she felt alright about, but the scores haven’t come in yet.” Ellen noted her voice came out higher than normal, despite her attempts to stay calm.

“Oh, that’s great, honey. Anyway, I don’t suppose you’ve been watching all the talk shows, have you?” Susan asked.

Ellen’s stomach dropped. “Why?”

“There’s a prince in Houston! He’s looking for some girl, and she has brown hair, you have brown hair. She has olive skin, you have olive skin,” Susan said.

“And?” Ellen said carefully.

“Well, I don’t know,” Susan started.

Ellen thought her heart stopped as she waited to see what her stepmother would say next. Did she know? Did she suspect? Has she said anything? “You haven’t been attending any galas recently, have you?”

“Why would I attend a gala?” Ellen asked, deliberately hurdling the question.

“Oh, don’t be so serious, Sister Ella. There was just a resemblance, that’s all. Are your sisters doing anything about it? I hear they are having all the girls claiming to be the mystery girl go on a show or something,” Susan said.

Ellen breathed again. “Yeah, Clara is planning on going down with her friends. I’m not sure about Anabelle.”

“Well, make sure they stay safe, Sister Ella. I’m sure there’s many people down there just waiting to take advantage of this commotion.  They need their older sister watching over them,” Susan said.

“You know I always do,” Ellen said.

“Alright. Love you all bunches!” Susan said. “Talk to you later.”

“Bye.” Ellen hung up.

It was another reason she had to make sure no one knew she was the girl in the photo. It would affect Clara and Anabelle too. She couldn’t let anything harm her sisters. She had to protect them. If the media was attacking this story with such ferocity when they didn’t know who the girl was, what would happen if they did?

Very bad things. She had to keep quiet. It was blow over. Eventually. It had to. She just had to make sure no one recognized her. She just had to stay quiet.

She went to the store, as requested by Clara, but kept her head down and wore sunglasses, feeling more than faintly ridiculous. No one gave her a second look. She was just one among a hundred people grabbing up groceries. Nothing distinguished her. How many young women had brown hair and olive skin? It had to be millions. Her stepmother and sisters didn’t recognize her, so no one else would. It would blow over. It had to.

There was another email from Atamai when she got back. She wanted to open it. She had a million things she needed to say to him, but she couldn’t. Her stomach clenched and her heart thudded at the mere notion. Answering the email would only throw oil on the flame. She had to ignore it and ignore everything. Then, it would be alright. Then everything would go back to normal. Then Ellen could forget about silly things like romance and princes. She could be Sister Ella again.

She deleted the email.

Monday and Tuesday came and passed slowly. Her physical chemistry test did not go as well as she would have liked. Equations and concepts fled as her brain refused to concentrate on anything. It did nothing to improve her mood, which had quietly soured as Clara and Anabelle excitedly discussed how they were planning to make themselves look more like the girl in the photo. Both had rummaged through their closets to find the closest thing to the golden dress in the photo and suddenly, the knot of hair upheld by a pen was all the rage. Ellen made a note to avoid yellow and gold colors and wear her hair down as much as possible.

Marie said this would blow over. Marie said she just needed to wait. No one had recognized her. Not her sisters, not Susan, no one at school. If she stayed quiet, everything would quiet down after this ruckus with the audition for Joelle. She had to believe it, or she did not know what she would do.

As Ellen pretended to sleep, she thought about the consequences of trying to contact Atamai again. Would he even believe who she was when there were all these people pretending to be her? No one else knew her email, but someone could probably hack it to take control. After all, her birth date wasn’t a ridiculously difficult password. Maybe he was aware of the lack of security in personal email and treat any contact as dubious.  And, what would she say even if she did?

Would he even recognize her if he saw her? Clara and Anabelle both seemed incapable of connecting the girl in the golden dress to her, so the other way around would probably be just as difficult. That is, unless, he truly saw her. If those sparkling eyes were sparkling for her. If he had felt that selfsame odd rush that allowed her to memorize his features and burn them into her cerebrum. Then, he would know. If he didn’t see her as a meme like Sister Ella, but saw through it all to the things she tried to keep hidden, he would know.

Tomorrow would be Wednesday. If she survived the UNICEF meeting and getting her sisters home safe from pretending to be her, then there would be nothing more. No one could track her. It would all die down. It had to. She just had to forget.

Amethyst - Part Three - Chapter Three

Therese looked up from the sudoku puzzle she had been considering as a knock resounded on her door. She had thought they would wait a day before contacting her again at least, considering the glacial pace at which her future had been decided before. Perhaps the decision of her future had simply been a particularly onerous problem to deal with, and now dealt with, their plan would proceed at some steady velocity.

“Hello?” she asked, laying down her sudoku puzzle. She looked down at the helmet, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“Miss Evans, your presence is requested for training,” an altogether unfamiliar voice called out curtly. “If you would please put on your helmet, my colleagues and I will escort you.”

Therese examined her helmet on the floor, attempting to gather up her courage and self-control. It was okay. She could withstand the helmet a bit longer as she was actually going to get to do something with her brain soon. Then, she could prove to her id that there was nothing to worry about, and all would be well.

She just had to but on the helmet.

She took a deep breath and placed it quickly on her head, feeling as if a plastic bag had been stuck over her face. She could barely see, barely breath. This definitely didn’t get any easier with time. She slipped on her shoes carefully, attempting to maintain control as her brain was smooshed smaller and smaller.

“I got the helmet on. I’m ready,” she said tightly.

The door opened. There were three people in white coats she didn’t recognize and whose faces were obscured by ridiculous helmets like her own. They weren’t taking any risks, were they?

“Please follow us, Miss Evans,” one of the white-coats said. She followed, examining only their feet as she tried to reign in her mind, afraid any unexpected movement would push her into the void.

She didn’t know how long they traveled before they ushered her into a small room. She only knew that she felt distinctly nauseous afterward. She held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the command to remove the blasted helmet.

“Miss Evans?” one of the white-coats called.

“Hmm?” Therese asked turning to face the three white-coats, she moved too quickly. The tendrils of her brain brushed again the helmet. A wash of deep, blackness covered her mind as she fought to find ground once more. She blinked after a moment, finding herself on her knees. She stood up unsteadily. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

“To avoid any unnecessary conflicts, we would like to attach a device through which an anesthetic can be administered in case of unforeseen issues,” a white-coat said.

“Um, okay. That’s fine. Attach away,” she said.

“Please sit down on that chair, Miss Evans,” a different white-coat said, stepping forward and gesturing to a chair that Therese had not taken the energy to notice before. She did as bid as the white-coat sat across from her behind a desk.

“Please place your arm on the desk, Miss Evans,” Dr. Brown said.

Therese did as ordered. He attached a tourniquet, swabbed an area below her elbow, and quickly inserted an IV, which he attached to a silver device slightly smaller than a deck of cards and attached it to her arm. He removed the tourniquet and applied several lengths of surgical tape to secure the IV to her arm.

He released her arm quickly as she examined the apparatus. She supposed that the silvery thing would deliver some anesthetic into her blood supply if they felt an “unforeseen issue” arises.

“You may remove your helmet, Miss Evans.”

She flung it ten feet to her right, gasping as if she was a fish flung back into the water. However, as her mind met the boundaries of the room, she found something that had grown almost unfamiliar with her months of isolation, another mind. It was a cold, concentrated mind firmly thinking of nothing on the outer level of consciousness of which she skimmed across. She looked up, trying to find out the source of the mind. It had to be close, but the room was empty beside the white-coats and the desk which she was sitting in front of.

“Is there someone nearby you want me to talk to?” Therese asked, looking from white-coat to white-coat.

“Yes. Please follow us, Miss Evans,” one white-coat said.

They led her through the other door in the room, the one they had not entered through. At the far end sat a man in handcuffs looking determinedly at a metal desk.

She felt a small jump from the man when they entered, but he settled into his cold concentration once more.

“Uh, is there something you want me to do?” Therese asked.

“Find out what he knows about October 23rd, please,” a white-coat said. Therese nodded and walked down the room to meet the man at the desk.

“Hello. My name is Therese Evans,” she said quietly. The man did not look up. He did not stir. His mind remained a stone. There was a seat across from him at the desk. She sat.

He did not look up at her. He examined the desk with a ferocity. He was very, very tense. Slowly, Therese directed a small flow of calm, contentment at the man. His shoulders relaxed a little and he looked up for the first time as his mind grew a little louder and thoughts bubbled upward. He had a little daughter. Her name was Asma and she loved to dance. Therese gave him a reassuring smile and decided she would ask him first before trying to bury into his mind. It seemed kinder that way as she didn’t like people messing with her mind.

“Do you want to tell me about October 23rd?” she asked.

Walls and blockades were immediately summoned as the man looked at the desk again fiercely. His mind gave a few blips of negative emotions before being silenced by his force of will.

Therese fed him more ease, but to release the tension from his brain took a considerable amount of force. Something inside Therese felt unsettled. It usually wasn’t this difficult to get people to calm. Why was he so resistant? What was he hiding? Should she be trying to calm him? Calm never hurt anyone.

The man was breathing slowly, staring at Therese blankly. His mind was active again. He felt he must not tell her the secret. He couldn’t tell anyone the secret or there would be pain and death. He thought of his daughter again. He couldn’t tell anyone. If he said a word, she would be hurt.

Therese felt his anxiety stir within her own frame. She felt the protectiveness for the young Asma, only eight years old. It made her not want to know the secret.

But she had to.

The white-coats had asked her for it, so it must be important. She was trying to do good.

Therese let the tendrils of her mind dip deeper into the man’s consciousness. It was dark and twisted. There were many painful memories he had stored and hidden away so that he would not have to see them. There were strange, precipitous pathways that felt strange to tread down. It wasn’t like Agent Necker’s mind and it wasn’t like Dr. Henderson’s either or even Greg Owen’s mind. The secret wasn’t easy to see. She needed to dig deep and absorb all of him to find the information.

There was a part of her that didn’t want to, that loathed every second she descended, but she couldn’t listen to that part. She had to retrieve the information.

She sat back, disoriented and ambivalent. She placed her hands to her temples, feeling a strange headache.

“Thank you, Abdul,” Therese said, straining a smile, before standing from her chair. She felt his worry surface strongly as his brow creased in confusion, wondering if he had given away critical information that would hurt his daughter.
“She’ll be okay, Abdul. I’ll make sure of it,” Therese said, issuing a tsunami of easiness as the man settled down slightly.
After walking back to the white-coats, they gestured her into the previous room.
She followed and said firmly, “You have to protect his daughter, Asma, okay? You have to protect her before I tell you anything.”
“Motions would never be taken against an innocent, Miss Evans,” a white-coat said.
“That’s not what I’m asking. I’m saying that you’ll have to protect her, take positive action to protect her, not just a promise of inaction against her.  Will you do that?” Therese said emphatically, looking from white-coat to white-coat.
“None of us is part of the action committee responding to the information presented, but we will write a formal request to such an effort,” a white-coat said.
Therese bit her lip, thinking. “Can I talk to whoever is on the action committee?”
“We’re not at liberty to disclose the persons on the committee,” said a white-coat.
“But I told him that his daughter would be okay,” Therese said.
The white-coats said nothing.
“I don’t know what his memories and all this information means, but he thinks that if he tells anyone, his daughter will be hurt. I can’t let that happen,” Therese said.
“Would you please put your helmet back on, Miss Evans?” a white-coat asked.
“Can we get this settled first? I can’t think clearly with it on. I need to know if you will protect Asma,” Therese said. She felt deeply uneasy, almost sick and had the headache that refused to budge. She didn’t want to put on the stupid helmet again and compound the effect.
“Put the helmet on, Miss Evans,” a white-coat commanded coolly. She could see his hand rest on a rectangular object in his pocket as his fingers twitched restlessly. She looked down at her arm and remembered the anesthetic-delivering device. He probably had the remote control and was considering using it.
Therese did not want to be anesthetized. It was complete lack of control when she could do absolutely nothing, object to absolutely nothing. It would be better to put on the helmet. She leaned down to pick up the helmet. It sucked her into darkness in a gasp. The world faded from view with an all-consuming blackness. She was twisting into a void as she placed it on her head.
She breathed deeply, trying to find solid ground as her brain struggled and railed against the barrier. She had to stay calm. It wasn’t forever. She could expand her mind soon. She just had to stay calm.
She found her fingertips pressing against the floor. It was okay. She had found her ground. She stood up slowly, trying to keep collected and subdue her frustration.

“I want to know Asma will be safe before I say anything. That’s all I want,” she whispered, staring at the floor. “She’s just a little girl who misses her father.”

The white-coats said nothing for a while. “We’ll escort you back to your room, Miss Evans, and inform the committee of your concern.”

“Um, aren’t you going to take this thing off my arm?” she asked.

“Not right now, Miss Evans,” a white-coat said.

She was led back to her room.

Once inside, Therese threw off her helmet and sat on her bed, head in hands. If she was doing good, why did she feel so bad?

She looked down at the device attached to her arm that no one bothered to remove. Why hadn’t they? It itched, so she pulled it off herself. Her arm immediately began bleeding where they had inserted the tubing, but she staunched the flow with her sheets.

Her head hurt like it hadn’t hurt in months. She massaged her temples irritably. She lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling. They would protect Asma. They had to. If they didn’t, then she wouldn’t tell them what Abdul knew. She couldn’t say what he knew meant, but she could tell that at least he felt it was a matter of large importance.

“Miss Evans?” It was Dr. Ott.

Therese sat up. “Hello, Dr. Ott,” she said. What did Dr. Ott want with her?

“We are requesting that you write a report on what you found out from the person you met with earlier,” he said formally through the door.

“What about Asma?” Therese asked.

“I hope you know this is a grave matter of national security,” Dr. Ott said seriously.

“Yes, but is it that hard to protect a little girl?” Therese asked.

“They would have to locate her and isolate her before much action could be taken,” Dr. Ott said. “That takes time, money, and resources, and there is no guarantee that it is even possible.”

“But you have to try. You have to. She’s just a little girl,” Therese said. “I’ll start writing up everything I saw if you make sure they try to find and save her, okay? They just have to try.”

Therese sighed, “Listen, I’m not trying to be unreasonable, but I don’t want to steal information from a father trying to protect his daughter. It’s not right. But, if you protect his daughter and can use it to help other people, then its morally okay, I think.”

There was a long pause. “I will ensure that they will try to find her, Miss Evans. Please begin writing your report, as this is a time-sensitive matter,” Dr. Ott said.

“Okay, thanks, Dr. Ott,” Therese said.

She stretched her arms. A dull pain emanated grouchily from her shoulder. It took her mind off the ache in her head, so she stretched a little longer before she sat down at her desk, scattered with books, pencils, pens, and a couple of notebooks.

She tore several pages out of the nearest notebook and began writing all that she could remember.

The Cobra (Abdul al-Fadl does not know his name) was the one who contacted Abdul in Islamabad. Abdul had been concerned about creating a better world for his daughter, Asma al-Fadl. After Asma’s mother, Muna, died in childbirth, Abdul felt Asma was all he had. As a restorer of old books, he was not rich enough to give her all he felt she deserved. He could only give her his life, so he has made its his life goal to give all he can to Asma. He could only work so much and his job paid so little, so he hoped by trying to change the world, Asma may be more prosperous.

He heard the teachings of Ayman al-Zawahiri. Like many young men with a burning desire to change the world, each word he heard resounded in his heart. Through this cause, he could do more for Asma than any rich man. He could make the world a better place for her.

Sometime after, the Cobra contacted him. The Cobra is a thin man of medium height. He has a very thin nose that has been broken prominently to the right. He had thin, squinty brown eyes. He has suprisingly full lips with a vertical scar cutting across the right side. His hands have been burned lightly. He has long dark hair and a beard peppered with gray. He said they required his service to help build this better world. He described a plan to destroy the US by targeting the nuclear power plants with commercial planes. They would need Abdul’s careful eye at masterful forgery to create documents allowing them into the cockpit.

He agreed and set to work in his shop, in the northwest area of Rawalpindi, next to a potter and a weaver. It turned out to be more difficult than planned. He was not allowed to contact the man who was working on digital forgeries, which made his work more complicated. It interfered with his work as a restorer, and soon he could not find food to give his daughter.

The Cobra took his daughter somewhere (Abdul doesn’t know where), telling him that he would feed her and keep her safe while Abdul worked. However, he soon realized she was also being used against him. The Cobra came to his house one night when Abdul felt like giving up and returning to his normal job. The Cobra had a bloody knife and told him there had been a deceiver who betrayed their plans. The Cobra then described how he took apart the deceiver and his wife, piece by piece.

The plans changed, but the Cobra did not tell Abdul how. Instead, he only let him see one tiny part of the plan, so that if he was caught, he could not tell everything, but also so that if a piece of information was found to be held by the US, they would know who had spilt it. He told him to wait for the code word October 23rd. The weather used to describe that date would tell him how to proceed. Rainy would mean go ahead as planned. Cloudy would mean there had been a security breach, but that they should continue with caution. Sunny means wait for further instructions and make no movements forward. Windy would mean that people were coming for them, so that they should proceed quickly to see if they might outrun them.

The fake papers and various documents the Cobra gave Abdul are hidden in the wall of the hallway to his bedroom in his shop, three paces inward on the right at just above head level. They might still be there. In there, you’ll find pilot licenses for Paul Garret, Kaanan Wali Patil, Jose Riviera, Frances Prince, Joshua Ezekiel Snow, and Luis Sanchez. I will delineate below all the particular of their cards. Portraits were not included at this time so Abudl does not know what these men looked like.

As she put down her pencil, she felt deeply uneasy. It was more than just a headache but an intense need to do anything besides think about what she had just done. She retreated from it like a mouse from a cat, but she didn’t know where she could run that the thoughts couldn’t follow.

She began working on a scarf she had been crocheting before giving up on the exercise to begin a crossword. Then, she began to pace across her room, back and forth. It was about 12 and a quarter paces across. She lengthened her stride slightly to make it an even 12.

It was her id, that had to be it. Her id was making her head hurt so much and controlling every emotion. It was the one that had been all upset since Director Schultz first suggested the plan. So what did her id want? Should she try meditating again? It hadn’t work the first time, but the pain and unease was getting increasingly intense with each passing moment. She felt she was about to vomit.

She threw herself down on her bed. However, something surprisingly wet tickled her arm. She looked up.

It was the device they had attached to her arm earlier. It was now spitting a clear fluid onto her bedspread. It was to anesthetize her. Why would they anesthetize her now? It made no sense. She was causing no one trouble? Did they see she was upset or something.

Therese looked suspiciously around the room as if to find a hidden camera she had been ignoring for last month or two. However, another moment’s consideration told her that idea was ridiculous. If they had cameras, they would have seen that she pulled it off. They must have tried to anesthetize her for a different reason.

There was part of her, however, that was not so surprised at this development. Her id seemed to have been expected it.

“You know something that you’re not telling me, don’t you,” she whispered under her breath, attempting to look into her skull to stare down her id.

Her id, as expected, had no verbal response, but she swore the feelings of unease triplicated.

“Fine, have it your way,” she whispered, lowering herself on to the towel in the corner. “But I don’t want to see anything about doorknobs.”

She closed her eyes and let go.

Amethyst - Part Two - Chapter Three

“Dr. Henderson, please provide a summary of today’s finding,” Director Schultz asked.

“As I stated yesterday, I had a hypothesis that the headaches of Miss Evans had a physiological basis. Acting on my hypothesis, I did a simple ophthalmoscopy and saw presence of intracranial pressure. From there, I had an MRI taken, which Miss Evans had a previous one a month ago. By comparing these too images, you can see that Miss Evans’ brain has increased in volume from approximately 1200 cc’s to 1400, an increase of 17%. Which, I assure you, is incredibly substantial for an adult.

“Beyond that, I instructed Miss Evans to attempt to reach out to my mind, while she was in the MRI, as she did the day before with Agent Necker. I did not expect anything from it, but wished to see what effect it had on her brain.

“Not only did I get a clear image of the region of the brain activated, which is very localized to an aberrant region that we have not seen in other humans and  appears highly engorged, as you see here. I believe I trained Miss Evans as well. She told me she could hear people’s thoughts without trying anymore.

“She actually brought up the idea we could remove the portion of her brain where this activity is coming from. However, she said she didn’t know if she would want that or not,” Dr. Henderson concluded.

“She will want it,” Dr. Ott said.

“How so?” Dr. Henderson asked.

“Right now, she feels deprived of the normal human experiences. As a child, she was taught not to connect with other humans, in hopes of preventing what we see here. When she has finally been allowed to emotionally connect, she has nobody to emotionally connect with,” Dr. Ott said.

“If I might interject, we were successful in locating a genetically-modified individual. His creators had meshed human DNA with fish, looking for a way to create a super-intelligent aquatic drone for use in espionage. They weren’t entirely successful in that aim with their subject. They did not create very good records of their activities, and the subject, Mr. Greer, did not know his age. However, I think it similar to the age of Miss Evans,” Agent Swanson said.

“I still think she will ultimately decide in favor of removing that part of her brain,” Dr. Ott said.

“If she does, we will not have to worry about her increasingly worrisome abilities. We will lose a great asset, but a greater risk. Does your suggestion regarding introducing Miss Evans still stand?” Director Schultz asked.

“It can do no harm. It might be good, so that she won’t regret her decision later,” Dr. Ott said.

“We will introduce the two then. While Miss Evans still has her abilities, I want you to continue your exercises with her, Agent Necker. Focus on control,” Agent Schultz instructed.

“Go easy with her. I think practicing is a catalyst for growth, almost like a muscle,” Dr. Henderson added.

“Your previous hypotheses have proven incredibly accurate, Dr. Henderson. I will keep your recommendation in mind. As Dr. Ott suggested, I was going to divert her attention in asking her about one of our suspects. Is that to still to be attempted with the new developments?” asked Agent Necker.

“As I said before, it can do no harm. It will ensure less regrets on her part later,” Dr. Ott said, waving a hand.

“It is settled. It appears Miss Evans is going to be busy tomorrow,” Director Schultz said sardonically.

Therese was lying in her bed. She had given up sleep long ago. Now she was carefully attempting to feel out the minds around her. She discovered a clerk a couple halls down that was typing at a computer and a guard patrolling the perimeter. She tried not to pry, but her curiosity egged her into skimming the tops of their minds, finding out their names, where they had gone to school, what they were planning to eat for breakfast.

She detected a new mind approaching, Dr. Ott. She immediately retracted into herself with a shudder. She glanced at her clock. It was six already? She dressed quickly and opened the door as Dr. Ott arrived. No doubt he would have many uncomfortable questions for her today.

“Good Morning, Miss Evans.”

“Good Morning, Dr. Ott.”

“How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Same,” she replied shortly as they walked to his office, wondering when he would start asking her how she felt about the upcoming surgery.

“Headaches?”

“They’ll be better on Monday.”

He wrote something down on his clipboard. “So, tell me how you feel about that?”

“No more headaches would be nice,” she said.
“It would. But how do you feel about the surgery itself? Many people are nervous about surgery, especially neurosurgery. It’s a dangerous procedure.” Dr. Ott prompted.
“I know, but it can’t possibly be more dangerous than being kidnapped, wrestling a guy with a gun, or being shot in a burning building.” She knew she had spoken too long as his pen zoomed back and forth excitedly.
They arrived at his office and both sat down. She took a bite out of an apple waiting for her. She couldn’t help but think she could be a much better psychiatrist than Dr. Ott was if she could see into people’s minds.
“And, did Dr. Henderson discuss the possibility of the other surgery?” Dr. Ott asked.
“To remove the chunk of my brain that lets me read minds? Yeah,” Therese said, looking down distractedly. Talking to him would not help her make the decision.
“How do you feel about that?” he asked.
“I dunno,” she answered truthfully.
“Do you feel scared? Hopeful? How does having this make you feel? What about now when you don’t have to touch? I heard heard you don’t even have to try,” he said. She noted the slightly quaver in his voice. Was he afraid of her? Did he want to use her?
She looked up at him carefully. It was difficult to read his expression, but it would be rude to go digging through his mind. She certainly didn’t like it when he attempted to do it her. So, she would be the better man and refrain from doing so. “You heard correctly.”
“What do you feel when you touch another’s mind?” he asked.
“Him or her,” she said concisely. She’d been over this before.
“But now, when you can touch without touching, when you feel all those around you. What does it make you feel, Miss Evans?” he asked.
“Like them. Then, I remember I am Therese,” she said, attempting to downplay how excruciating it was to find yourself when you were losing control.
“Do you not remember who you are all the time, Miss Evans?” he asked, affecting a countenance of concern.
“I know myself, but I know everyone else too. As long as I don’t lose track of myself, I can pull myself back,” she said as he wrote rapidly.
“And how does that make you feel, Miss Evans?” he asked.
She attempted to figure out something she could say without lying that wouldn’t let him into how frightening and disorienting the experience was, how it brought her back to her amethyst, deathly dreams, how it made her think she may never get back, how the cacophony of thoughts pulled her forward into their irresistible mists.
“A little uneasy,” she said slowly, watching his pen as he gleefully wrote.
“Please take me inside your mind, Miss Evans. Describe to me how it feels, moment by moment, when you almost lose control,” he said.
It was a difficult experience to express, and she especially didn’t want to try expressing it to him who would be judging her word choice and impressions intently. He would probably connect it all somehow to issues she had with her father as a kid or something about teenage angst. She reached her mind out to the corridor, feeling desperately for Agent Necker. He was there.
“I think Agent Necker is supposed to be here soon,” she said quickly, rubbing her temple as her head throbbed from the now consistent headache.
He raised his eyebrows, writing something down. She thought about how happy she would be when there were no more clipboards. Then, she realized she had no idea when that would be. If she had them remove her abilities, would they stop keeping her here? If she didn’t, would every morning and night be stuck here for psychoanalysis until she died?

Agent Necker knocked on the door, and Therese jumped up to retrieve it.

“Good morning, Miss Evans,” he said.

“Good morning, Agent Necker,” she returned.

They left quickly as Therese could make them without the appearance of hurrying. “You don’t look terribly happy today, Miss Evans,” Agent Necker said slowly.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I can’t sleep, I have a bad headache because my brain’s growing out of skull, and an irksome psychiatrist is trying to get me to explain to him how it feels to read minds,” she groaned slightly, rubbing at her skull.

“Irksome? Good word use,” he smiled lightly. That is why she liked Agent Necker.

“Well, annoying seemed a little childish, so I figured I would step it up a notch,” she shrugged.

“If you’re feeling up to it, I was going to ask for your help on something,” he said.

“Wait, you want my help? You mean, I can do something for you guys?” she exclaimed, suddenly forgetting everything.

“Yes. A man has proven reticent in cooperating with our interrogators. We were hoping you could provide some information on who he works for and what they are planning,” he said simply.

“I’ll help. I want to help,” Therese bobbed her head eagerly. It hurt her brain, but she didn’t care.

“Excellent. Please follow me, Miss Evans,” they walked down a different hall, through several security locks, past a corridor, and into another building. Therese was looking eagerly around her, attempting to take in the new surroundings at once. As they stepped inside, however, Therese was forced to go on the defensive. A swarm of minds descended on hers.

Her name was Therese Evans. She used to live in Houston, Texas, where she went to college. She was almost nineteen years old. She disliked the color purple and psychiatrists.

“Are you alright, Miss Evans?” Agent Necker asked, bringing her up short.

“Yes,” she said slowly, attempting to keep herself in one. “It’s just, there’s a lot of people here.”

“And you can hear them?” he guessed.

She nodded.

“You don’t have to do this, Miss Evans” he said.

“I want to,” she said shortly. Her name was Therese Evans. She pulled herself back. “I’m ready, just don’t walk too quickly.”

They walked slowly through a few more halls with many security locks. Therese felt the flux of people entering and leaving her range of consciousness. Every so often, a very clear thought would break from the roiling mass. Someone had stubbed their toe. Some was calling their little girl on the phone. Someone was very frustrated with solitaire.

She fought back from these intrusions. Her name was Therese Evans. She used to have a lucky pen she would take with her to tests. In second grade, she got the nickname, ‘Leather,’ because she played on the monkey bars so much, her hands felt like leather. She was almost nineteen years old.

They walked into a small room off the hall.

“Miss Evans, may I introduce you?” Agent Necker asked, gesturing to a few men in the crowded room. They looked down on her, sharply, eyes glaring into her with a ferocity. They had loud minds too. Her name was Therese Evans. She nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Miss Evans, this is Agent Jorge, Agent White, Agent Harold, and Agent Strait. He gestured to a dark man, a light man, an old man, and a younger man respectively. Therese nodded a greeting to the men. She wished she could tell them to think more softly.

“Miss Evans, they have all been given clearance in observing you. The subject is in the next room. There is a window, if you wish to view him,” Agent Necker informed her.

She didn’t like how they all stared at her, thinking things without any regard to courtesy. Her name was Therese Evans. She won the school science fair in fifth grade.

She looked out of the window and saw a man, head in hands, staring at a table in front of him. He looked distressed. His knee was jumping and jittering underneath the table. She attempted to reach out to him.

Immediately, she was bombarded by the static of the people around her. It was like stepping out in a sandstorm to find a single speck of dirt. She retreated back before she lost herself. She rubbed her temples, focusing her energy. She inched it out slightly, probing forward towards the man, but she was blind in the fury. She could not sense him in particular and the effort of going out into the storm left her weary.

She broke off, and turned to Agent Necker. “There’s too many people. I can’t focus in on him,” she said quietly, feeling sick to her stomach. She hated failing. She could see Agent Necker’s disappointment.

“That’s quite alrig-” he started.

“Wait, can I go in there with him? If I could touch him, then I wouldn’t have to worry about finding him. I could do it then!” she said excitedly.

Agent Necker looked at the men. “Is he restrained?” Necker asked.

“Yes,” Agent Jorge answered.

“Do any of you have objections?” Necker asked. They shook their heads. He turned back to her. “Miss Evans, you have permission. Do you wish to proceed alone?”

She nodded. He showed her to the door, and she walked inside.

The man looked up at her, confused. She supposed not a lot of teenage females were interrogators.

“Who are you?” he croaked miserably, edging into anger. He scowled at her.

Instinctively, she reached out to him. She still couldn’t find him in the storm, but she realized she didn’t need to. Slowly, she found calm complacency within herself, and pressed it outward towards the hoard of minds buzzing outside her.

They settled down obediently. They weren’t so loud, weren’t so harsh. Why hadn’t she tried this before? The man was no longer frowning.

“My name is Therese Evans,” she told him, while reaffirming it to herself. “Would you mind if I held your hand?” She walked slowly towards the table.

If he was startled by the request, he didn’t show it. Instead, he reached his hands outward, chained together by handcuffs. She put hers gently in his.

His name was Greg Sanders. He was thirty-three years old and liked fishing. He grew up in Brooklyn with two sisters. He attended the same public school his parents did. They had been high school sweethearts. He secretly wished he had had a high school sweetheart. He worked as a electrician at a local electronics supercenter. That was when it happened.

She broke off, staring at the man as he blinked slowly with very dark eyelashes. “Thank you, Mr. Sanders,” she said kindly.

She left the room and found the agents strangely dazed when she walked in. She suddenly realized there was a reason she didn’t calm everyone indiscriminately. They would resolve into their normal emotions soon. There was nothing Therese could do about it now besides make them feel a different emotion, but she wasn’t a believer in that two wrongs make a right.

“Agent Necker?” she asked, elbowing him as to avoid accidentally making contact with his skin.

“Oh, yes, Miss Evans?” he shook himself lightly, as if waking up from a dream. “That was you, wasn’t it?” he asked, examining the still benumbed agents.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it,” she blushed, feeling a little like a truculent child.

He tapped each man on the shoulder as they roused themselves. He whispered a word of explanation to each before turning back to Therese. “What did you learn?” he asked.

“He’s innocent,” she said simply.

“That’s impossible,” Agent Strait was glaring at her.

“I know what happened and how you found him, but he had nothing to do with it. His manager told him he needed to look at the electric circuitry underneath between a couple of buildings in his complex. He found the wiring for the bomb and was trying to figure out what do with it. He heard something. He got scared and ran. He had the blueprints of the Empire State Building because he was curious about architecture,” Therese said evenly, examining the incredulous faces. “Why don’t you believe me?” She felt distinctly off-balance.

She felt herself slipping. Her name was Therese Evans. She sang in the shower sometimes when no one was listening. Her father’s name was Daniel Nathaniel Evans.

“Are you telling the truth?” Agent White asked her.

“Yes, of course. I swear,” she replied nervously. It was overwhelming. The glares and their angry minds digging into hers. She felt as if there was no room for her. No room for her brain. Her head hurt.

“Miss Evans, is that your final report?” Agent Necker inquired without emotion.

“Yes. If you have any specific questions, I’ll answer them,” she said quickly, looking down at the floor. Her name was Therese Evans. She was almost nineteen. Her childhood home in Idaho had a blue door and a yard with a tree you could see from the office window. She found her father dead in that office when she was thirteen.

“That is all that is required of you, Miss Evans,” Agent Harold said dismissively.

Agent Necker and her left quickly. She kept her hands on her temples. It felt like claws were grabbing at her brain. She was afraid in some nonsensical way that if she removed them, she would leave her body and never returned.

It was only after they returned to the near deserted corridors of her own building that she removed her own hands. She could sense Agent Necker beside her and some janitor up a level, but it was so much calmer than the hubbub before.

“Ouch,” she breathed, attempting to quiet her breathing and center herself.

“Does it hurt when there are so many people?” he asked.

“Well, they don’t hurt. It’s more like I have to staple myself in so that I don’t get lost in hive of thoughts. What are they going to do with Mr. Sanders?” she asked.

“The man has acted very guiltily and there is much evidence against him,” he said. She felt her stomach drop. She knew how it felt to be in an interrogation room where no one believes that you didn’t do anything wrong.

“If you’re not too tired, Miss Evans, there is one thing I wanted to test,” he gestured to the door of the training room.

“I’m fine,” she said, attempting to ignore her headache and summon energy she did not have. Sometime she wondered if one day she would just die of exhaustion. Could a person die of exhaustion, or would they collapse into sleep first?

He led her into the room. He gestured her to sit on the floor as he did likewise. “How do you keep yourself you when you meet all the other minds?” he asked. “You seemed to be concentrating quite intently on something.”

“I just repeat stuff like my name, age, memories, and stuff like that,” she shrugged a little bashfully. It wasn’t like there was magic to it or complicated rituals.

“I wonder if you could do that so you could touch people too, without feeling their minds,” he said slowly.

“I don’t know if I could. I seem to be becoming more sensitive to others now. I used to be able to be in crowds before without a problem...” she trailed off. She used to be able touch people too. She used to be normal. No, she had the appearance of being normal. She hadn’t been normal since she was a fertilized egg.

“Are there many people you can feel right now?” he asked.

“Well, there’s you.  A janitor is upstairs. I think Dr. Ott’s in his office. I think Dr. Henderson is in her lab,” as she stretched her mind to reach into each prick of consciousness, a headache exploded near her temples.

She rushed to keep herself as she felt Agent Necker closing in around her. She fought back. Her name was Therese Evans. When she was fifteen, she took Missy and Jackson, her neighbor’s kids, trick-or-treating. Missy was a pirate. Jackson was a baker.

She slowly sat up again. “I don’t think I should try that again right now,” she whispered. Every muscle was shaking with an intense pressure she did not know the source of.

“That’s alright, Miss Evans. We won’t try to expand your mind until your mind has room to expand,” he said. She smiled slightly at his cutesy phrasing.

“Yeah, Monday.” She paused for a moment, debating whether to ask him or not. She had felt his mind so many times in their training, although she tried to conserve his privacy. She felt as if she knew a lot of him. Of course, there was much more that she did not know. However, she knew for certain he was honest, kind, and actually cared for her.

“Agent Necker?” she said finally.

“Yes, Miss Evans?”

“You know, they can take a piece of my brain out, and they think I’ll be normal again. I won’t have other people’s thoughts attacking my head. I won’t have the dreams. But, my brain won’t be the same. I wouldn’t be me. What do you think I should do?” she asked.

“I’m afraid, Miss Evans, only you can make that decision. I will respect it no matter what it is,” he said gravely.

She nodded. She was half-expecting such an answer.

“There was one other thing I was curious of. I’ve seen you control people’s emotions, encourage them into certain tasks, make them feel tired.  I’ve felt it myself, but there’s always gentle and positive. Are you capable of pressing negative emotions?” he asked, almost reluctantly.

“I made my mom angry once,” Therese shrugged, surprised at the question.

“Could you make me feel pain?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried. Why do you ask?” she suddenly felt very nervous. What was he talking about? Were the government people going to try and use her to torture people.

“Miss Evans, you’ve said you give other people your feelings. So, if you gave me your pain, would you feel less?” he asked.

“Agent Necker, I’m really not comfortable with this,” she said, standing up shakily. Sure, her head felt like it was being crushed, but she didn’t want to make someone else feel it, much less Agent Necker. It didn’t seem right.

“Miss Evans, I’m afraid I must insist.” He stood also.

“Well, I don’t always transfer feelings. Like I really don’t feel that much less tired if I make someone else tired,” she said, backing up a bit. “I’m really not comfortable with this.”

“Miss Evans, I order you to,” he said harshly. “You’re pain is affecting your actions and limiting your abilities.”

She was frightened by this suddenly personality change and by the way he was ordering her. Why was it so important? Were they going to make her try? Could she lie and say she tried when she didn’t? But she was such a horrible liar. She would just do a little bit of pain. Then, he would stop demanding.

“Do you really want me to?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she said. It was easy to gather the pain in her. It was everywhere from her aching shoulder, to her pounding head, to her sore feet she had been on all day. She just pressed into a tight ball that made every nerve she possessed burn in fire. Then, she found Agent Necker and pressed it slightly towards him.

Apparently things did not go by degrees. All at once, the bundle of pain left her and encountered Agent Necker. She broke off immediately after she realized what had happened, fighting to return to herself.

“Agent Necker,” she called, running forward to the man lying senseless on the floor. His limbs were twitching and he clutched at his head. Murmuring something.

She pressed her hand onto his forehead. She could not take his pain away again. She didn’t know how to remove something. But she could give him peaceful sleep.

She felt a great throughput of emotion. She hadn’t been careful in controlling herself. She flew through memories. She saw herself two months ago, in pajamas at her dorm, when the agents had picked her up. She saw herself in the interrogation room. She saw herself lying in a hospital bed. She saw her rushed transformation from tired college student to anguished, exhausted, war-torn, lab experiment. She saw that Agent Necker was sad it happened, but the terror he had now at the pain she experienced overcame all. She spread over his emotions with calm sleep.

Her arm was shaking as she removed it and the man relaxed.

Already, her pain had regenerated. Her head hurt and now; her chest ached. What had she done to Agent Necker? He needed help. Was he breathing? Was his heart still beating? She couldn’t touch him to physically figure it out, but she didn’t want to reach towards his mind again.

Realizing this, she rose to unsteady feet and ran towards the door. She yanked it open and called out into the hall. “Help! Someone help!”

She heard footsteps and she ran back to Agent Necker, hovering around, struck with terror that she did not know how to help him. She felt the urgent attentiveness of the guards bursting through the room. It almost over came her.

Her name was Therese Evans. She played the violin for two years and hated it. She really, really hated the color purple. She wanted to never hurt people again.

A guard was barking questions at her as another pounded at Agent Necker’s chest. It was hard to keep herself centered. Her name was Therese Evans. Her mother and father were murdered because of the actions of her grandfather in creating her. She was a key player of the murders of sixteen young women. Death and pain followed her.

“Miss Evans,” the voice that shook her out of her reverie was not the one she would’ve like to hear.

“Yes, Dr. Ott?” she asked. She noticed she had crouched into a ball, her arms covering her head with her chin tucked into her chest. Agent Necker was gone, and Dr. Ott was standing next to her, clipboard in hand.

“What happened, Miss Evans?” he asked.

What happened. She didn’t want to say. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to curl up into that ball again and wait until Monday, when everything would be over. But no, she owed it to Agent Necker.

“Is Agent Necker okay?” she asked hesitantly, attempting keep a firm grip on herself. Dr. Ott had a very loud brain, she realized, not like Agent Necker. Her name was Therese Evans.

“We’re not sure, Miss Evans,” Dr. Ott said. “Perhaps we would be better equipped to handle him if we knew what happened.” Her name was Therese Evans.

“Well, we were talking. We’d gone to see this guy, Greg Sanders, some agents were interrogating. It was hard to concentrate with all the minds. I had a bad headache. Agent Necker asked if I could transfer some pain to him. I told him I didn’t know and I didn’t want to, but he insisted. So, I did. Then, he was on the floor, writhing. I made him go to sleep, and I got help,” she whispered quickly. She could sense Dr. Ott’s disbelief and could just make out the devious scratch of his pen.

“Alright, Miss Evans. How about you come to my office so we can discuss this?” he said slowly, as if he thought her insane. She supposed she must be. Why had she been talked into that?

Obediently, she stood up and followed Dr. Ott. Her name was Therese Evans. She was almost nineteen. She was E-VET. Her creation was financed by murderers. She had watched her mother die when they had tried to run away.

“Please, sit down, Miss Evans,” Dr. Ott indicated her normal chair. She sat.

“Where is Agent Necker? Can I see him?” she asked.

“I think that inadvisable at this point,” he said slowly. “Please calm down, Miss Evans.”

She could sense people milling about the halls. The place had been empty minutes before, now there were lots of people. It was hard to concentrate. Her name was Therese Evans.

“There’s just a lot of people around,” she returned. “It hurts.”

“How does it make you feel when there is a lot of people around, Miss Evans? Does it make you angry?” he asked.

“Not angry,” she shook her head. “Lost.”

He was writing quickly on his clipboard. It would be so easy to figure out what, but she didn’t. No, she wouldn’t. She would not go into people’s minds at random if she could help it. Her name was Therese Evans, and she was trying to be a good person. And failing.

She kept thinking back to Agent Necker. Her mind had been inured to the pain, but his had been fresh. She bundled it all up and gave it to him. She couldn’t imagine it.

“How do you feel when you’re lost?”

“I dunno. Lost.” She pulled her legs up to her chin and hugged them.

“If you have the other surgery, you’ll never hurt someone like that again.” The starkness of the comment shocked her. She looked up to find Dr. Ott staring her down carefully.

“That’s true.” She whispered the words, feeling their intensity resonate in her chest. Maybe she needed to have part of her brain removed. It would remove the bad parts. She wouldn’t have to deal with keeping her identity or hurting people or controlling people.

“Dr. Ott, Miss Evans,” someone walked through the door without knocking.

“You are interrupting our discussion, Agent Swanson,” Dr. Ott said tightly.

“I was told I could find Miss Evans here. She is supposed to be meeting Mr. Greer now. I was instructed to lead her down,” he explained.

“I think extenuating circumstances has altered the plan, Agent Swanson,” Dr. Ott responded.

“Dr. Ott, you met Mr. Greer. You know how he is. I think it would be better that he at least had proof of her existence. He was very interested in meeting you, Miss Evans.” Therese perked up at mention of her name. Who was this Mr. Greer, and why was he interested in meeting her? If Dr. Ott didn’t want her to meet him, than she should probably want to meet him.

“Very well, I will accompany you,” Dr. Ott said after a long moment.

The pair got up and walked through the crowded hall and into an elevator. They descended several stories. It was difficult being so close to people. Her name was Therese Evans. She was almost nineteen. She had a growing brain. She was friends with Agent Necker. She had hurt him.

The got off at the bottom floor, which smelled like standing water and was very damp. They turned to first door on the right. Whatever Therese had been expecting, it had not been this.

A giant tank the size of a swimming pool sat in the middle of a colossal room. A few people in white coats scurried back and forth, eyes on the object in the tank: a boy shucking oysters.

His hands and feet were webbed. He had a fin arching from his brow to behind and down his back. His skin was a cold, blue-gray and he had the strangest, bulging green eyes. Noticing her, he dropped the oyster and his knife. He waved.

Therese walked forward towards the tank. This was Mr. Greer. She waved back to him. It was hard to forget the scurry of scientists behind her, but she did her best. Her name was Therese Evans. She was not alone.

He paused at a keyboard she had just noticed was in his tank. He quickly typed something, which appeared on a screen attached to the tank. “My name is Neptune. Are you the other freak?”

She nodded, then rubbed at her head. Why did people have to think so loudly?

“Do you have a headache?” he typed.

She nodded. She noticed a keyboard opposite  to his own and typed, “I always do.”

“That’s strange,” he responded.

“Not really. I guess my brain is weird and decided it wanted to keep growing although my skull disagreed. A side effect of being a mutant, I guess,” she typed.

“You look so normal. Is the only weird thing inside your head? They wouldn’t tell me much about you,” he wrote. “Can you tell me?”

She looked back at Dr. Ott and Agent Swanson, who were conversing with some of the scientists. If they didn’t want her to say something, they would’ve told her.

“My name is Therese Evans. My grandfather made me from an fertilized egg. My father felt bad for me, so he stole me and raised me far away from my grandfather. I didn’t know I was a mutant. He kept it secret, even from me.

“Then, he died, and my abilities became apparent. I can hear people’s thoughts. I can make them feel certain emotions. I didn’t know it for a long time. I just had strange dreams where my friends died that came true. Eventually, the FBI interrogated me. Then I was kidnapped by some of the people who financed my creation. They murdered my mother when we were escaping. I found my grandfather, who tried to force me to work for him. I shot him. Now, I’m here,” it felt strange to type it out like that. But it was reassuring at the same time to have that press of identity.

“That’s awesome, Therese.” It was not the response she was expecting. It felt strange to have someone call her Therese again. For so long now, everyone called her ‘Miss Evans.’ “I never got parents, even fake ones. I’ve been in a lab my whole life as they were trying to make me into a weapon or a spy or something. Then, the FBI people came in, guns blazing. They said they had you, and I didn’t want to just hang around with scientists. No offense to anyone, but they’re just a bunch of boring jerks. So, what’s your favorite food? I like oysters.”

“Mr. Greer, Miss Evans and I must really be going,” Dr. Ott said as he appeared suddenly behind her.

“Come on. You lure me here with a promise of another mutant, then you just want to whisk her away? Really? And you call yourself the good guys?” He stuck out a serpentine tongue at Dr. Ott.

Therese laughed, honestly laughed. She wouldn’t have minded doing that Dr. Ott herself, who appeared to be very flustered as he wrote on his clipboard. She couldn’t help but wonder at the remarkable bravado of her new friend. How could he keep so upbeat?

She felt the need to warn him, so she typed quickly, “Dr. Ott’s a psychiatrist. You might want to be careful or he’ll diagnose you as bipolar or ADHD or something.”

“And why would I care?” Neptune asked. He swam in a loop the loop lazily. “I’m king of the ocean!”

“Miss Evans, please follow me,” he said.

“Can’t I talk to Neptune a bit longer, Dr. Ott?” she asked. Strangely enough, talking with a mutant made her feel normal despite all that had happened. She felt like the Therese she used to know.

“You heard the lady. Let her talk, Dr. Big Nose!” Neptune declared. Apparently he could read lips, at least to some extent. Therese glanced back at Dr. Ott, who was quite furiously writing on a pad of paper.

“I think it best that we leave now, Miss Evans,” he said pointedly, glaring.

His glare brought her back to her real world, not the fun, carefree one that Neptune had created. “I’ll come back later, okay Neptune?” she typed.

“Fine. ASAP,” he typed back.

Therese waved good-bye to Neptune and then walked with Dr. Ott back to his office. Dr. Ott was so consumed in writing down things about Neptune, he didn’t even ask her any questions. The halls were emptying of their previous activity again. Therese didn’t need to stress as much. Besides from the persistent headache and fatigue, she felt almost normal. Well, fatigue had been so normal for so long, she didn’t even need to get rid of that.

“How do you feel about Neptune?” Dr. Ott  asked as Therese sat down in his office.

“He’s funny,” she said shortly. By his expression, Dr. Ott didn’t seemed to think Neptune was funny.

“How so?” he asked.

“He doesn’t care. Nothing limits him. He’s just, happy,” she said. How did he manage to do it?

“Do you care? What limits you? Are you not happy?” he asked.

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, becoming immediately sober. “Yes. I care. If I don’t, I accidentally hurt people.”

“Do you feel your ability is a responsibility? A burden?” he asked.

“No. My life has been my choice.” She liked that. She had chosen her life. She’d been given many opportunities for her life to play out differently. She could’ve never gone after her grandfather. She could’ve decided to work for him instead. She could walk out the building right now, calming everyone she met so that they wouldn’t try and stop her. But she didn’t, because she chose not to.

And her brain would squash itself if she did. She rubbed her temple. It was just until Monday.

“And what choice have you made regarding keeping your ability?” he asked.

“I want to keep it.”

She was as surprised at the words as he was, but she knew they were true. Talking with Neptune, even just that little bit, let her know that it was okay to be different, strange, and be able to do impossible things. It was a lot to handle, but she could handle it. It was her choice.

“Did I hear you correctly, Miss Evans? You do not wish for the surgeon to remove this responsibility?”

“Dr. Ott, this responsibility, as you call it, is me. It’s my brain. It’s how I’ve come to define myself. It can be difficult, but I will learn to work with it. I don’t think I can ever go back to normal. I don’t think I ever was normal. I don’t want to be stuck in the world in between. I want to be me, which includes a chunk of my brain that makes me hear voices,” she said. The pen seemed to be beside itself in glee as it glided across the page.

“So do you feel you are only your ability?” he asked. She remembered the game again.

“No.”

“Then you would be yourself without it?”

“No.”

He raised his eyebrows. Therese said nothing.

“Can I see Agent Necker and Neptune tomorrow?” she asked after a long moment.

“That will depend on his condition and no,” Dr. Ott said.

“Wait, why can’t I see Neptune?” she asked.

“He is at a very fragile emotional state. He has been stuck in an illegal research lab for a very long time. He’ll need to be slowly acclimated to real life,” he said condescendingly.

“He seemed fine to me,” Therese retorted.

“You are not trained to perceive the warning signs of mental instability as I am, Miss Evans. I assure you, several were present. Besides, it would probably be best to wait until after the surgery when you are more stable,” he said delicately.

“I feel I am stable right now.”

“I am sure Agent Necker would disagree.” She felt as if he had punched her in the stomach. She was nauseous. Her mind swirled. She felt herself leaving into the ocean of minds.

Her name was Therese Evans. She was friends with Neptune Greer and Agent Necker. Her brain was growing too big for her skull. She sometimes couldn’t tell which mind was hers.

“Miss Evans, you’ve had a long day. I will retrieve you a quick dinner and we’ll talk again tomorrow,” Dr. Ott said, with some mockery of kindness.

“I’m not hungry. Can I go to my room, Dr. Ott?” she asked.

“Your body needs food, Miss Evans. Especially after a day such as this.”

“I really don’t think I could eat right now. I just want to sleep,” she replied.

“But-” he started.

“Please,” she said quietly, looking down. She could hear the quiet scratch of his pen.

“Alright, Miss Evans,” he said.

He walked to her room where she immediately fell down on her bed. Dusk was filtering a bit of light into her room. Her head hurt. There was a few buzzing minds around the building that threatened to draw her off course, but there was much to think about.

She thought about the surprise Dr. Ott had expressed to her decision to keep her ability. It seemed oddly foreboding to her. She knew he had pull in deciding what they would do with her. Had he expected her to want it pulled out of her head? Did he want it pulled out of her head? Why would they want that?

Because they were afraid. The answer came surprisingly easily. If she was afraid of what she could do when she was the one controlling it, she could only imagine how they felt. They didn’t believe she was telling the truth about Greg Sanders and now with the horrible mistake with Agent Necker.

What would they do, if they were afraid? She must get surgery. The sharp pain in her head constantly reminded her of that. Would they stop only at expanding her skull? Or, when she was anesthetized and helpless, would they take the part of her brain that made her who she was? Would she even wake up? What if it was too much of her brain, and it simply killed her? If they were so afraid of her, would they just kill her? They were the good guys though. Even frightened good guys didn’t kill good people. She would have to trust them.

She still felt uneasy. She needed to talk to someone that understood what it was like to be powerfully different. She needed to talk to Neptune again. He would understand.

There was no one in the hall or in the elevator shaft. She could go see him. If they caught her, she would just tell the truth and probably be scolded back to her room. It wouldn’t do much harm.

She slipped out of bed silently. She slithered through the door, closing it softly behind her. She tiptoed down the hallway and waited restlessly at the elevator. No one was coming, she knew, but it still felt like she was doing something really bad. All she was doing is going to talk to someone though. Then, she would go back to bed.

The murky bottom floor was just as empty as her own. She opened the door to Neptune’s room and snuck in.

“Hello, Therese,” Neptune wrote. He was waving happily.

His smile put Therese at ease. She smiled and waved back. “Hey, Neptune.”
“It sucks that all the scientists already declared it my bedtime. I would’ve liked to see you in action. So how many guards did you have to knock out with your brain to get down here?” Neptune asked. He turned in excited twisted-eights wickedly.
“None. There were none in the hall when I came out,” she replied.
“They’re afraid of you, Therese. I mean scared. But, I guess no one likes their brain messed with. You’re not making me like you, are you?” he scowled at Therese angrily.
Therese shook her head violently, rattling her brain. “No, of course not. You like me?”
“You’re fun and unexpected. Like, they didn’t expect you to sneak down here so they didn’t post guards. It makes you dangerous and them afraid. I like that,” he smiled.
“You like that?” she asked.
“I mean, people created us as monsters to do their will. I like it when they realize we aren’t their pets, but ourselves. One day, I’ll leave them all behind and go to the ocean,” he typed.
“Won’t you be lonely?” she asked.
He swam up to the glass plate of the tank, pressing his hand to hers through the glass. For a long moment they stared at each other. Therese thought she could see in his eyes a certain sadness. He had never known freedom. She had.
He moved to the keyboard. “I will, but I need freedom. They fear me too, so they won’t give it to me if they can stop me. I will have to go far away.”
“They fear you?” she typed.
“They fear those that are different, stronger than them. I could shock them to death if they try to touch me. I could hear their discussions from far away. I could poison them. I’m not quite as awesome as you are, but hey. I guess my scientists were weren’t as cool as your scientists.” he smiled, twisting in the water after he typed.
“We could help them too,” she typed hesitantly. “I think they’re good.”
“Good people don’t imprison others. Ask if you can leave. You’ll see how ‘good’ they are then. Society sucks. We should escape, just the two of us. We can live on the beach, far away from anyone else.”
He reached out across the glass to her again. She didn’t want to get into his mind, so she drew her hand back slightly. “I don’t know. I mean, we are unique. Shouldn’t we do some unique good?”
“Society had trampled you, and you want to help them? You’re a bleeding heart, Therese. But the sad thing is they don’t see it. You’ll always be a dangerous freak to them. If they find out a way to destroy you, they won’t hesitate. It doesn’t matter you’re innocent.”
Her response was automatic. “I’m not innocent. I’ve hurt people, killed them.”
“Did you mean to?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then, you’re innocent.” Therese looked at him. It was one of the kindest things anyone had ever said to her.
“Thanks, Neptune, for saying that.”
“It’s only the truth. Hey, Therese, do you want to come up to the top of the tank? I want to see you face-to-face. I want to hold your hand. My eyesight isn’t very good,” he typed. He knew what is was to feel lost and alone, to not know who you were, to not trust yourself.
“If I touch your hand, then I’ll touch your mind too. I can’t really stop it.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Therese.”
He held his hand out through the glass.
“Okay.” She went to the side of the tank and climbed up a ladder slick with condensation. Her shoulder was stiff, but she worked through it. The cool air was actually kinda nice on her headache.
The top of the tank had to be twenty feet up. She sat down on a small swim platform as Neptune surfaced. He waved excitedly.
She did likewise.
He motioned her into the water. She shook her head. “It’s much too cold and I don’t have a swimsuit.”
She wasn’t sure if he understood, but his response was an impersonation of a chicken in the water beneath. As soon as she realized what he was doing, she laughed at his silliness. Still, she shook her head, rubbing her arms to signify her aversion to the temperature.

Suddenly, he splashed several waves of salty, freezing water on her. She gasped and laughed, now soaked. He gave her a smug look as if to say, “Now out there isn’t any colder than in here.”

“Fine,” she said, mostly to herself. “I guess I didn’t do any laps with Lawrence today anyway.” She scooched to the end of the swim platform and slid into the freezing water. It felt like daggers into chest, but it took her mind off her headache. She surfaced again, throwing back her wet hair.

She saw Neptune swimming below her in jubilant circles. She smiled and swam across the tank, practicing her strokes from her physical therapy. He was still swimming beneath her, even as she reached the opposite edge of the pool. He motioned her downward, holding out his hand to her.

She took a deep breath and swam down.

It felt as if she had jammed a fork into an electrical outlet. None of her muscles could move. Her brain went into a spasm. She couldn’t see.

She felt her back hit against something, then her head. Then she felt something tearing at her clothes with sharp claws.

She had to move. She had to stop the clammy flesh clutching hers. She forced her arm awkwardly forward and tried to push the attacker off. She couldn’t muster the strength, and it thrust her downward, hands on her chest, suctioning out any air that might have remained in her lungs.

She couldn’t breathe. She had to get out. She was going to die. If she couldn’t physically outmatch her attacker, there was only one way. She balled up her pain into an excruciating, throbbing bundle, and she reached out quickly to her attacker.

It was hard to make contact. The mind didn’t feel quite right. It felt broken, disjointed, and slippery as a fish. It was full of quick, unmeaningful connections and dark desires. She kept trying to grab at it, but it resisted her efforts, giving almost a shield of electricity.

She threw all she could at the black, whirling mass.

There were more minds than his. Even as she broke off from it, she was overwhelmed by the multitude. She was lost in the ocean.

Her name was Therese Evans, and she was drowning.

He was still clinging to her. She couldn’t swim up. She found something sharp at the bottom of the tank. She grabbed it instinctively and thrust in into the mass of flesh on top of her. It released her.

She swam up quickly and took gasps of air. She couldn’t make sense of anything beside her desperately beating heart and the minds around her. One was fading. One was leaving.

Her name was Therese Evans, and she had to pull herself out of the pool.

She found the swim platform and pulled herself up, coughing saline water. The salt burned in deep scratches she now realized littered her body. And very red water clung to her tattered clothes.