Bright Star. Grayson Reyes-Cole

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СКАЧАТЬ problem, Jack.” Rush, now transformed back into the sullen introvert, answered with a nearly believable smile. “Tell Ronald I said hi.” The gloves were warm to the touch. The Shift had been precise, instantaneous, and perfect. He slid them into the console drawer.

      When Jackson walked out of his room, Rush sighed and closed his eyes. That was the seventh time in as many months he had removed the knowledge of his unique Talent from his brother’s memory. Seven Shifts in seven months, Rush tried to cheat destiny. Too frequently, this Talent he had been careful to hide since adolescence, seemed to want to bare itself to his brother… maybe to more than just his brother.

      He did it even though he knew it was useless. Rush had always known that he could not cheat destiny.

      * * * *

      When Jackson Rush swiped his badge at the west lobby of the Service, he waved at the older woman in uniform behind the desk. The pleasant looking woman graced him with a huge smile. Her smooth skin was the color of fresh garlic and her eyes looked like half moons as she grinned. Her salt and pepper hair was very short and bristly. She was tall, definitely taller than he was, and plump. She wore starched navy pants and a button-down with yellow chevrons on the sleeve that looked like it could have represented any security company in the country, but of course, her uniform was not only bulletproof but also psychic-proof. All of Melita’s Talent was based in self preservation. She couldn’t do anything to anyone else, but they couldn’t do anything to her either, including get past her. Great for security in the only place on the planet where everyone commanded High Energy of a sort.

      Jackson walked through a sensor that looked strikingly like an airport security pass-through, then started down a hall. The floor was old terrazzo but gleaming clean. The walls were a governmental off-white and only interrupted by doors and windows with metal blinds blocking the view inside. He took an elevator then, down sixteen floors. Stepping out, he passed through another security booth nodding at a young, skinny man he’d never met before.

      “You’re new?” he asked with a smile, putting his hand out.

      “Yes, Mr. Rush, sir.”

      “Jackson.”

      “Oh I don’t know—”

      “Nahh, it’s cool. I give you permission to call me Jackson. What’s your name?”

      “Banks.”

      “Nice to meet you, Banks. You had to have done really well to be on this detail.”

      “Yes, sir, um… Jackson.”

      “And what’s your…”

      The young man put his hands out waist high with his palms facing downward. A bronze light, a dark brown flame almost, seemed to leap out of his palms and form a wall in front of his body. He raised his hands higher, and up the force field went. Jackson stepped closer and put a finger into the High Energy barrier. A faint buzz let him know how strong the Energy was.

      “That hurts,” he said with a slow smile.

      “Well,” Banks toed the tile at his feet, “It does for other people, y’understand. I wouldn’t expect…”

      “And you shouldn’t. Really, I could feel how strong and controlled the field was.”

      The younger man beamed at that. “I have to tell you, sir. It’s amazing meeting you. Amazing. We had like a whole chapter on you.”

      Jackson gave a faint nod of his head. He’d heard this before and was glad that no such course had existed when he was in training. Jackson proceeded through the double doors behind Banks. He took a right then entered the room to his immediate left.

      There was a tall, almost sickly slim man in a white lab coat, a pale blue button-down and khakis in the room. “What is it, Ronald?” Jackson skipped a greeting.

      The other man with pale yellow hair narrowed his light green eyes. “Tell your brother I said hi.”

      “Damn, Randall, sorry.” If Jackson didn’t know any better, he’d figure that a suggestion was causing him to call his co-worker by the wrong name. “What’s—” Jackson didn’t finish the question. For the first time he realized that the metal blinds covering the giant window dividing this room from the next were pulled up. He took a step back as a pair of huge, hot black eyes stared at him intently.

      “Why is he in holding?” Jackson snapped at Randall.

      “He got the rock and went ape shit.”

      “Nice,” Jackson scowled. “Leave it to you to put it in clinical terms.” He turned back to the window and looked in at the man who seemed to be staring directly at him, venom glazing his eyes. It was a man he had considered a friend, Thaddeus Okwenuba.

      “Well, I could get into the details, but as I recall, you’re not much interested in those.”

      “Sometimes,” Jackson conceded with a shrug as he continued to watch Thad, who seemed to be watching him back. He shouldn’t have been able to see Jackson through the glass. Jackson was quite sure that he could, though. High Energy sight was just one of Thaddeus’ Talents.

      “We need you to get the rock.” There was almost a play of a smile across Randall’s thin lips.

      Of course they needed Jackson to get the rock. Thad wasn’t even dangerous without it. He wasn’t typically dangerous with it either, but that was only after an initial release of stored High Energy. An astonishingly violent release.

      “Wasn’t it in containment?”

      “Yeah,” Randall answered. “It’s not now.”

      Jackson gritted his teeth then demanded, “Did you ask him for it?”

      “Um, no.” Randall responded with derision.

      “You can reason with him, you know.”

      “Um, no.” Randall repeated. “What I know is that you can’t reason with him, at least not yet.” Before Jackson could interject, he went on to explain, “Sure you can reason with him and everything’s fine once he releases that initial bout of aggression. He hasn’t done that yet. He was about to do that. Don’t know how he even made it all the way here.”

      That was indeed a feat.

      What amazed everyone at the Service was that Thaddeus couldn’t seem to access his High Energy at all without the pebble. There had been no other cases, truly, where High Energy could only be tapped by use of an inanimate object. There had been plenty of cases where Shifters used inanimate objects—prisms, pools of water, seeds, even other people—as a focal point to enhance their Talents. Some naturally occurring objects had been found to have special properties that helped in that aspect. Yet hematite had not been established as one of those materials. There was absolutely nothing special about it. Nothing at all. That’s why it and its owner had been transferred into Dr. Sandoval’s care. The lab had tested it with every method they could and found nothing out of the ordinary. Heat, cold, elemental interactions, impact testing, microscopes and particle beams. Later in life, Thad, a Doctor of Physics in his own right, had even recommended half the tests. He had been as eager as anyone to discover the power the rock held over him. They’d even given it the ultimate test. They’d given it to the СКАЧАТЬ