Crimson (5 page)

Cara and I follow the hall way along to the next room. The door opens smaller studio; bed, kitchen & living room cramped into one room. A woman sits on the bed reading a paperback. On a tiny small couch a young man is reading a small novel. Neither is older than 25. Both look up from their books and watch us as we come through the door.

“Two… Only two people made it out?” Cara says devastated.

The woman’s face reflects Cara’s despair.

“There may have been more. We’re the only ones that came here. Perhaps others went elsewhere. I’m not sure,” the woman says.

“But this is the closest safe-house to the bar. Only two people…” she says lowering herself to the edge of the bed in shock.

I sit down beside her on the bed and wrap an arm around here, pulling her close.

“You’re not responsible for what happened,” I try to reassure her. It doesn’t seem to help much.

“Hey, at least you got out,” the man says.

On the bed, the woman’s eyes light up in panic. She shakes her head, to say that that was the wrong thing to say.

I take hold of Cara’s wrist and lift her chin up softly with the back of my hand so that I can look her in the eyes. “There’s nothing more you could have done. We don’t have long before we have to leave again and I still have lots of questions. I still have no idea how I even work. Hell, I such a bare idea of what the veil really is I just don’t understand how it could be so important to what I am.”

She nods slowly, composing herself somewhat.

The man gets up from the couch, leaving the book open. “We can probably help with that a little more than she will be able to. Cara’s talent is just a little too innate for her to be able to teach properly,” he says. “It happens or it doesn’t, as she is unfortunately aware. We’re a little different.”

He grabs a pair of soft drink cans from a small bar bridge. He gives me one and tries to offer Cara another. When she doesn’t respond, he just shrugs and keeps it himself.

“Theo.” He holds out his hand to shake.

Reluctantly I return the greeting. As our hands touch I feel snakes of energy wrap themselves up my arm. I recoil in horror. He laughs at my reaction.

“Behave yourself Theo. She’s clearly new to this,” the woman says.

“Oh, don’t be so sour,” he counters.

She just gives him a scolding look in return.

“And my name is Melita, and it’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” she says with a smile.

“You know who I am?”

“When Uri came to the bar with the news that Sari and Michael’s daughter had been captured that day word spread pretty quickly,” she says. “If you couldn’t tell, Theo here manipulates energy and builds constructs. And is more than willing to remind you how rare his talent is. Though,” she looks at him and says, “I think she might have you beat. I, on other hand, am a telepath. Between us we should be able to fill in a few of those gaps in your understanding. Maybe, if what Uri said of you is true, we might even be able to teach you a few things. And, despite his other faults, when it comes to energy constructs, Theo is a very good teacher.”

Theo drags a small arm chair in front of the end of the bed.

“Cool, energy constructs 101, abridged edition,” he says with an unnatural exuberance.

He holds out his hand to me, palm up with fingers spread as if he were holding a bowl up.

“I want you to wave your hand over mine and tell me what you feel.”

As my hand moves over his, the air starts to feel thicker, my skin tingles as if moving through cool fog.

“You feel it?” he asks. “Your basic energy ball. You can’t see it, it has no mass of its own, but your body still reacts to it in the only way it knows how, tactility. That’s how your body will react and feedback a lot of the information it needs to when working with energy. Eventually it becomes like another limb with the same sensations you’d get from any other limb.”

I nod. That’s exactly what the entity made me experience before.

“Now, it’s all well and good to get basic feedback, of the sort, but to actually manipulate it with any level of complexity, it needs to be something a little more visual.”

Melita interrupts, “Not everyone one is visual.”

“True, but most people are. Let’s assume she is and go from there,” he says. “Now like I said, energy is invisible to the naked eye, but,” he leans over and taps me a little too hard on the side of my head, “our minds can compensate for that too. I hope you have a good imagination. The next bit draws a fine line between imagination and reality, so the better the imagination – the better people tend to be at this.”

I assure him my imagination is just fine.

“Ok, I want you to close your eyes but I want you to keep a visual of the room around you in your mind, as if your eyes where still open. As you turn your head around the picture in your mind should show you what you’d expect to see. Got it? It’s important that the visual is first person, yeah. Don’t go wandering off around the room. That’s another lesson.”

I nod. “It’s dark but I think I have it pictured.”

“Yeah, of course it’s dark. Your eyes are closed silly. Now, look down to where my hand is.”

Strange, despite the fact that his hand has moved, I can see an outline of it easily in my head.

“Good, now watch.”

It’s faint, difficult to see at first in the darkness of my mind, but in his hand an orb appears. It starts first as tendrils of fluorescent light of indescribable colour that slowly spin out of his palm, forming a small bowl shape before growing upwards until they complete the sphere. It’s difficult to describe what it looks like. There simply aren’t sufficient words. I open my eyes in amazement.

“I take it from your reaction that you can see what I’m talking about. Good. You’ve experienced something that only other energy manipulators get to, something Melita and Cara here can’t.” He seems to be smiling at me in genuine pleasure.

“The easiest way I’ve found to manipulate energy is to picture the world around you in your head, overlay what you want to happen in that picture and with a little extra push your mind fills in the rest.

“Now it’s your turn. Before we start, one thing that is important to be aware of. When you ‘look’ at somebody like you are doing with me at the moment, when you connect with another person, called scanning, it’s considered quite invasive. While a light touch is often used as a greeting, anything more than that is kind of like having somebody watch you in the shower, except for the fact that it’s quite obvious.”

A sentence forms in my head. A voice, Melita’s, reads them out, “Of course, that doesn’t stop them.”

“I saw that. Ironically, a telepath transmitting directly to a person without permission is considered much worse,” Theo bites back.

“Bah, we’re teaching here,” Melita says.

“Hmm, speaking of scanning, perhaps we should have done it sooner. Did you know that there’s somebody else is connected to you? We all tend to have faint but constant bonds to the people most important to us. It’s an empathic link. For instance, you have the beginnings of a bond forming between you and Cara. This, however, is a much more solid. But I thought though that your parents were, ah, dead,” he says awkwardly. “Do you have any other family or a love interest perhaps?”

Cara finally breaks her silence. “She only just found out yesterday that she might have a sister somewhere that she didn’t know about. They haven’t been together for at least fifteen years.”

“Hmm, maybe. It’s possible, but it seems like a bit of stretch. Anybody else close, a lover perhaps?” he asks.

I shake my head. “No lovers.” I don’t know who he might be referring to.

“Then I’m not sure, it’s doesn’t look like a trace, definitely has the feeling of old familiar bond. It could very well be your sister. Probably best to keep an eye on it but we can come back to it. It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere,” Theo says. “Ok, back to energy constructs 101. First we need to teach you how to draw on energy from across the veil, then how to control and condense it into something usable. Close your eyes again and relax your arms. As you practice, the next steps will come quicker and with less thought, but for the first time, we do things the hard way. When moving energy, you need to become both a storage container and a conduit for it. I want you to imagine yourself as a hollow glass statue; picture it such that if you were to look down at your hands right now, all you’d see is glass. It’s a simple enough image for your mind to imply a storage container. The next bit is part instinctual, so we’ll have to see how we go. Don’t worry if you don’t get it at first.  Are you with me so far?”

I nod, eyes closed.

“Ok, then now is a good time to talk about what the veil is. We live here, in this physical…” He pauses to search for a word. “…reality, I suppose. Yeah?”

“I guess so,” I answer.

“Well, overlaid over this reality are an infinite number of other, pure energy dimensions, I guess, dimension isn’t the right word for it, but it’s a difficult concept to describe. It is an infinite number of pure energy universes that are overlaid over our reality. They also hold an infinite memory of everything that has ever happened or will ever happen, as it is at least from the energy side of the equation. That’s how Cara’s precognition talent works. Her talent peels the layers back to get to a memory of a universe to be, and her mind converts this into something she can interpret, a memory or vision.

“The veil is the barrier between this reality and those other dimensions. It keeps us separated. Though, people tend to refer to both the barrier and the universes it separates collectively as the veil. When we use energy, we make small tears through this barrier and tap into the energy on the other side, pulling it through the barrier for our use. At least, that’s the mechanics of it. In practice, it’s a lot more instinctual and a lot less dramatic.

“Do you still have the glass statue pictured in your mind?”

I nod. It’s a lie. I quickly reimagine it.

“Good, being able to hold onto an idea, a plan, in your head during distractions is important. Now, I want you to picture yourself, as this hollow glass statue, filling up with fluid. It should pour into you; concentrate on the colour, focus on the texture of it.”

As he talks, I can picture in my mind my body filling with this liquid, a velvety thickness. It’s dark, blacker than darkness of my mind. A dark fog leaches from me. Where it pools in the statue of my mind, in my hands and my feet, my body reciprocates. It weighs heavy inside me. My skin tingles with it. My heart races with the sensation.

“Wow. Are you seeing this?” Theo exclaims.

“I’ve… never seen anything like it before,” Melita is just as excited.

I open my eyes to all three staring at me, three pairs of wide eyes. The feeling is lost. It’s unnerving.

“What?” I wonder what’s going on.

“That was…” he struggles for his words, “none of us have ever seen anything like it.”

“What?” I ask again, more insistently. Their attention has made me suddenly very nervous.

“Come on, focus. Eyes closed,” Theo says. “Let’s try this again.”

I close my eyes again. “Glass statue, fluid filling it up, got it.”

I feel velvet fluid pour through me again, sensation filling every limb. Before long I’m struggling to picture myself through the fog in my mind, my body, my statue unclear as it fills completely. My heart is racing.

“Hold it, hold onto that feeling. Don’t open your eyes just yet,” Theo says rapidly. “Hell, that’s frickin cool.”

“I think I’m full,” I say unsure.

“We can tell,” Cara says, from further away than expected.

“Ok, ok, now to condense it,” Theo says. “It’s not particularly useful in the form it’s in at the moment. The liquid, the fluid is just that, fluid. It flows easily but it’s too difficult to shape in that form and that’s what we’re trying to achieve.”

I’m struggling to maintain myself, my body tense with the sensation.

“Keep concentrating. It gets easier,” Theo assures me. “Left or right handed?”

“Left,” Cara answers for me. I didn’t realise she’d noticed.

“Ok. The next step is to take all that fluid in your body and picture it flowing up into your left arm. You want to squish it all in there as best as it will fit. It’ll condense.”

The weight leaves my body and grows in my arm. My arm feels heaver still. The sensation as the fluid flows into my arm is electrifying. It’s intoxicating.

“Good,” he says, “you’re starting to get more control, even this quickly. You’re a quick learner. Now we condense it again. With a little bit of practice, you’ll be able to skip straight to this step. Take the fluid from before and compress it further until it’s only filling your hand. And keep those eyes closed. You’re doing well.”

As the fluid condenses in my hand, the sensation over my skin goes beyond just tingling. My hand feels like it’s coursing with electricity. The weight grows further still. It’s difficult to resist the temptation to open my eyes though. I can tell Melita has shifted on the bed, her attention completely on me now. Theo feels closer too.

“Now for the most important step, forming it. Remember the energy orb I created before? You’re going to do the same. Hold your hand up like I did, palm up, fingers stretched. This time, rather than use the same glass statue metaphor, just picture the sphere in your mind, then flow all the fluid to fill it. Metaphors like the hollow glass statue help lay the framework to build, to construct something, to teach your mind what it needs to do, but they aren’t entirely necessary. Hold onto the memory of what you’re feeling right now.”