The morning sun beat down on the i-10 highway. Vast swathes of brown scrubland raced by, pockmarked by scrawny green bushes and multitudes of grassy patches that every now and then grew dramatically tall, then fell short. The trees were sparse in places, but still green, keeping their distance from one another for the most part.
With the distant mountains resting on the horizon, it made for a very pretty picture that made Taz thirst for the whining strings of a good country song.
Melodica seemed to agree, as she’d traded in her fishscale jacket for a leather one, chewed a piece of hay, and lifted the brim of her stetson to get a better ‘view’ out the window.
“I hate this road.” Anna said apropos of nothing, white-knuckling the wheel as she tried to match the fast speed of the other citybound vehicles. “I hate this road.”
“Mom, can I change the music?”
“Sure, honey.” Anna answered, then muttered under her breath: “Hate hate hate…”
Taz switched the station from classic orchestral to something more appropriate for her mood, and she and Melodica grooved while Anna glowered at the road ahead of her.
“This is why I live in a small town. ‘Oh Anna, there’s so many opportunities in Phoenix! Oh Anna, there’s so many nice places to eat and shows to see in Phoenix!’ Phoenix has traffic. You know what Petersburg doesn’t have?”
“Traffic?” Melodica ventured.
“Not like this!” Anna gestured to the stream of cars speeding ahead, getting passed by, weaving in and out of lanes as Anna grumbled to herself. “I hate this road.”
“Want some water, mom?” Taz offered.
“I would love some, hon. Pop the cap for me?”
Taz opened the water bottle for her mom so she could drink and glare in silence, and Taz started strumming air guitar along with the music. She was so glad Robbie introduced her to so much different music; it was nice having stuff that fit the mood and the atmosphere, and Taz thought cowboys in the western countryside were cool.
“I really want a slide guitar now…”
“I hate this road.” Anna whispered under her breath.
“Mom?”
“We’ll talk about it for your birthday next year, hon.” Anna mumbled.
Melodica leaned forward between the front two seats. “Mom, can we talk about Phoenix Academy?”
Taz glanced back at her tulpa in pale-faced alarm while Anna stopped growling under her breath. The song also ended at that exact moment, giving them a whole five seconds of silent, anxiety-riddled sounds of traffic, and Anna breathed sharply out through her nose.
“Can it wait?” She asked, her eyes flicking over towards her daughter, barely missing Taz trying to strangle her own imaginary friend. Melodica rolled her eyes, unimpressed and untouched by the hands grasping at her illusory throat.
“It’s not like we don’t have the time.” Melodica pointed out, and after another moment of uncomfortable silence, Anna worked her jaw and sighed.
“Fine, but I don’t want to spend the rest of the hour talking about it. I’d like to get out of the car in a better mood.” She explained.
Melodica gave Taz an encouraging nod, and Taz wanted nothing more to turn the mermaid into an unimaginary friend, but they were stuck together.
“Erm…” Taz began. “I talked about it with Mr. Cole yesterday.”
“I had a feeling that’s why you asked about him.” Anna said, keeping her eyes forward while Taz nodded.
“I did research, and asked people about it. Not a lot of people or anything, but some.” Taz tapped her fingers against her knees, shooting a glance out the window to distract her nerves. “I don’t think there’s any jobs out there for me; err, that would make you happy, I mean.”
“Then you know how I’ll answer.”
“Yeah.” Taz relented, and Anna felt her cheek twitch. “I still want to go. I know it’s probably the last place you want me to go with Brain Scythe around, I know you don’t think it’ll give me much of a future…” Taz twisted her fingers together tightly. “Which is why I think being a musician is the right idea.”
Anna eased her grip on the steering wheel for a moment, and had to keep herself from closing her eyes to calm her storming mind as she listened.
“But, I think going would help me with my music.” Taz chanced a quick look at her mother, watching her posture. “Maybe I can’t help America, or the world, or just… people in general as, like, a doctor or something, but I use my powers when I play my music. I use my powers to learn more. Even if it seems weird, PA can show me a lot of new stuff to do with my powers to incorporate in my music, or in just living and stuff, and that’s what I want: I want to learn what I can do with my powers to make my life and my career better. Maybe I won’t make it my whole life, but I want it to be a part of it! And… if I have to wait for Brain Scythe to get got that so I’m safe to go, I’m okay with that. I’ll wait.”
She fully looked at her mother, her green eyes wide and full of emotion; admitting it hadn’t been easy, but she still hoped it was enough. Her mother wasn’t usually one to change her mind easily, and that stubbornness was something Taz dealt with enough to know that most of her prospects were losing ones, but…
“That…” Anna trailed off for a moment, looking like she was swallowing a lump in her throat, “is a very mature way to think about it, Tasha.”
Taz tightened her lips, holding her breath.
“I’ll think about it.”
It wasn’t a no, but it was still far from a yes, and she released the breath with as gentle of a sound as she could so as to not disturb her mother’s precarious mood.
“Thank you.” Taz said, and twitched when a hand settled on her knee and squeezed it, clutching her so tightly that it seemed like her mother was afraid she’d suddenly slip away if she let go, so tightly that it began to ache…
But then her mom let her go, and held onto the wheel with a stern look forward.
“Nice blinker, asshole…” She grumbled under her breath.
Taz and Melodica shared a quick look, with Melodica shrugged and Taz silently threatening retribution, and then turned up the music to fill the aftermath with some soothing noise.
----------------------------------------
Petersburg was a pretty simple town. A little spread-out overall, but it had a few connected major roads that kept traffic moving from one end of town to the other in a timely manner.
It wasn’t a major sprawl like Phoenix was. Dense spiderwebs of streets framed by an impressive variety of buildings, some old and worn and wearing their age with a sense of pride and nostalgia; others tall, glimmering towers of windows and efficient, but stylish architecture that invited its visitors to the modern world.
It was also much more… sparkly than usual. Tassels and lights hung across various buildings and alleyways, sometimes over whole streets; big wreaths decorated most doors, and Christmas trees covered in blinking multi-colored lights stood on certain sidewalks and in front of some of the buildings.
If it wasn’t for the decorations and the tolerable heat, it was hard to tell it was even Christmas. Sometimes, Taz wished it would snow so she could go clomp around in it, even if her mother told her the novelty wore off quickly...
The distant mountains providing hard boundaries for the city made for a unique backdrop against the skyscrapers that made up some of the busiest, most densely packed parts of the city, and Taz couldn’t help but wonder where Aunt Zi was amidst all this bustle.
Melodica hung on the back of Anna’s seat, watching the roads ahead as Taz beckoned some water out of her bottle, and concentrated on guiding it around as a small sphere, before squinting and pressing her fingertip to the surface of the ball.
Slowly the water sphere unraveled, travelling down the digit as she spread that idea of a sponge; instead of a single, round object, she created a ring around her finger. Her brow began to ache as the image she created came out fuzzy and obscure, forcing her to concentrate more on an unpolished, half-baked idea. The ring of water wasn’t smooth at all, and she sucked in her lips as it spat a drop onto her lap, but before her concentration could worsen from the strain, she froze the water, and held her finger up to briefly admire the little ice ring she’d made for herself.
“We’re almost there.” Anna said, and Taz glanced over at her mom, then at their surroundings to try and figure out their destination. The streets were packed with cars, wherever they were, forcing Anna to drive more aggressively to get into the lanes she wanted and leaving her cursing quietly under her breath.
The buildings around them rose up like concrete colossi, while the sidewalks were broken up by tall, skinny trees with big, fan-like leaves, giving the whole place a sort of luxurious, touristy feel. Combined with the sudden cancellation of school, Taz almost felt like she was on vacation, and sucking on the ice ring certainly helped with that exotic feeling.
“Oh, look!” Melodica pointed. Taz followed her finger to the car they’d just pulled behind, and she was drawn to the bumper sticker, which prominently featured a large, open eye on it.
‘My child can see the future!’ The bumper sticker claimed around the eye, with smaller text referencing the Baptist Psychic Youths Camp. Taz hadn’t heard of them, but was instantly staring through the back window of the car to see multiple figures sitting inside.
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Glancing over at her mother, who was busy looking for an exit off the road, Taz pursed her lips thoughtfully, and with a silent glance forward, concentrated, and let her thoughts stretch outwards and poke into the car. She felt the stirring of a few thoughts, mostly focused on the drive and excited about… a convention of sorts, though she didn’t dig further out of politeness, but then she felt a curious impulse tickle at her own.
The difference between a regular, human brain and a psychic brain… Taz thought of it like some sort of complex computer system. She could connect with and interact with both, but regular, normal brains couldn’t create complex connections and send wholesale personality through a psionic bridge; psychic brains were capable of initiating conversations with more depth than physical speaking, filled with the sometimes missable nuances of sarcasm, along with full on memories and fully readable emotions.
The regular people in the car didn’t react to her curious scanning, but two others did. Thoughts wove with each other, mutual curiosity tugging and prodding invisibly between the three of them, though one was tinged with confusion, and a little fear.
{Hi!} A young lady’s voice spoke into her head.
{Hello! I saw your bumper sticker!} Taz responded, smiling to herself.
There was a sudden deluge in delight and excitement, and the girl’s voice squeaked in her head: {Omigosh another girl! HI!}
{Hello!} Taz hid a snicker at the girl’s excitement.
From the other mind, however, came a thought… well, a jumble of thoughts; incoherent mumblings, disconnected ideas, but then a more coherent, more powerful, more… visible thought filled Taz’s head. It wasn’t painfully inserted, but she felt the image take form in their psychic link, and she allowed it to appear.
It was… the color purple. A purple swatch, like she’d downloaded a picture of a puddle of paint.
{It’s okay James, don’t be scared.} The girl’s voice consoled, and the purple swatch faded, James’ thoughts weakly grasping at the girl’s, his voice soft and, while not forming legible words, pleading. Taz could feel their connection starting to fade. {No James, it’s okay! She’s like us!}
Taz got another image of a brunette girl with freckles on her cheeks, sitting in the back of a car on the driver’s side. She was young, Taz guessed tweenaged, and she was staring at her… no, not her, James, who stared up at the brunette from his seat.
{Yeah, like me! You’re nice, right miss?}
{Totally! I just wanted to say hi; there aren’t a lot of other psychics where I’m from!}
{There’s a lot in Phoenix, but we don’t get to talk like this much because we have to wear our privacy bands when we go out. Around the PA convention you can use your psychic powers, though.}
{Oh that’s really nice!} Taz smiled. Then, the psychic connection between them was muddled with shock and surprise, and the girl gave her a worried mental poke.
{Is everything okay, miss?}
{The PA convention?}
{Yeah, it’s right around the corner! My family’s taking me to register for next year!}
Taz suddenly twisted in her seat to stare at Anna, who glanced back with surprise.
“Tasha?”
“Mom-are-we-going-to-the-PA-convention?!” Taz gasped.
“Err…” Anna looked honestly taken aback, glancing around the street for signs or something before giving Taz a short, hesitant nod. “We are.”
The car, and the psychic conversation, filled with excited shrieking, not helped by Melodica suddenly swimming circles in the back, leaving Anna hunched in the driver’s seat with a growing expression of regret on her face.
{Are you sure you’re okay, miss?} The girl ahead of them asked, and Taz could only whimper.
{YES! Maybe?!}
James responded with purple again.
“Wait, why?” Taz stopped her excitement, staring at her mother in open confusion, and Anna just puttered her lips and looked like she wanted to go home. “Mom?”
“To save us a trip in the future, hon.” Anna finally answered, not looking at her daughter as she did.
“But—”
“No more questions, please.”
Taz gave her mother a mystified stare as they followed the car ahead of them towards the Phoenix Convention Center, and into the jam-packed parking garage. It was with some luck they managed to find a spot somewhere on the third floor, and Taz exited the car with a strange energy flooding her body.
“Why do you think we’re here?” Melodica popped in front of her eyes, and Taz could only shrug.
“I-I wanna say I’ve got my hopes up, but…” She glanced at her mom again, who slid out of the car much more lethargically, staring down at her phone. “Mom’s… acting weird.”
“Has been all day…” Melodica sighed.
“Mel?” Anna suddenly piped up, and both girls looked her way. “I’d like it if you walked with us while we’re here. You draw plenty of attention even without the fin.” She ordered.
“Do I have to?” Melodica whined, swimming over to Anna, only to earn a small glare. “Oh, alright. Stupid bipeds… Ugh, I think I’d rather just watch from inside. Feet are stupid.” Melodica huffed, disappearing on the spot into Taz’s mind, while Anna gave an exasperated look.
A prod to Taz’s thoughts gave her pause, and she glanced around curiously, settling on a group of people exiting a familiar car with a familiar bumper sticker, and a brunette girl with freckled cheeks suddenly charged across the driving path towards Taz, a man—her father, Taz surmised—springing into action to chase after.
“Miss miss miss miss miss!” The girl yelped at the top of her lungs, drawing Anna’s attention, but the girl ran straight up to Taz, who glanced down with a smile as the girl skid to a halt in front of her. “Hi!” The girl panted, and Taz gave a small laugh.
“Hello, again!” She didn’t know what to do when the girl grabbed her hand to drag her over to the approaching man, who slowed down and gave Taz a curious, if uncertain grin underneath a pair of rimless glasses.
“Dad, this is the girl I was talking to in the car!” The girl said, and the man gave her an evaluating look.
“Good lord, Danielle, don’t go running off from me like that.” He sighed thickly, moving a step closer, pausing when Anna rounded the back of the vehicle, fixing him with an unblinking, unhappy look that left him stepping back. “Oh, um, hello, ma’am; sorry about this, I’m here for the convention with my daughter.” He gestured to Danielle, who beamed and bounced in place.
“I’m sure. Tasha, were you bothering these people?” Anna asked, and Taz gave a weak grin, tapping her fingers together nervously.
“I just wanted to say hi…” Her answer didn’t impress her mother, who turned back on the man with a sigh.
“I’m sorry about this, the psychics she knows back home are practically family, she’s not used to restraining herself in the city.”
“It’s alright, just scared the hell outta me seeing my daughter bolt towards a stranger.” The man rubbed his short brown hair in embarrassment, his eyes lingering on Anna maybe a few seconds too long, making him flinch when she cleared her throat. “Trevor.” He suddenly said, holding his hand out. “Trevor Michaels. This is my daughter, Danielle, and my wife is getting our son out of the car.”
Anna did not take his hand, and instead gave him a quiet scowl before turning to Taz. “Aunt Zi is waiting for us in the food court, Tasha. We should get going.”
Taz glanced from her mother to the small family awkwardly, and Trevor just winced at his failed introduction. Danielle, however…
“Can we come with you?!” She pleaded, bouncing over to Anna with big, brown eyes. Anna’s hand twitched, but before she could even think of shooting the idea down, Danielle babbled on. “There’s only one other girl psychic at my school, the rest are all boys and they’re gross!” Danielle made a face at that. “The other girl’s even worse; she’s a scion so she’s all snooty and bleh. And-and miss Tasha is nice!” Danielle pointed vaguely in Taz’s direction.
Taz didn’t see her mother’s face, but Anna was quiet long enough for the younger girl’s mother to arrive, holding the hand of a young, wide-eyed boy wearing a big privacy helmet, his eyes glancing rapidly between the new people and his own family.
“Is everything okay, Trev?” The other mother asked, her brown hair short and her face nicely made up, giving her a youthful look despite her actual age. Still, when she stared at Anna, Taz could feel a strong twinge of jealousy as she glanced over her mother’s favorable shape.
“Fine, just… Danielle’s making friends.” Trevor answered, and Anna gave a sigh as she looked back at Taz.
“I suppose they can come with us.” She settled a hand on Danielle’s head, petting her with an almost fondness before turning to the two parents. “We’re meeting with somebody in the food court, and from there, we’ll part our ways.” She stated, and Trevor and his wife glanced at one another curiously, then back at her.
“Alright.” Trevor said, and Danielle gave a happy yell before running over to grab James’ hand, but the boy hesitated to let go of his mother. Still, under his sister’s encouraging smile, he allowed her to take him over to Taz, who knelt down to his level to meet his eyes.
“Hi, James, I’m Taz.” She greeted him. He sank away from her, stepping behind his sister with eyes full of uncertainty. She considered him for a moment, but then remembered the images he’d shared while they were in their respective cars, and she looked up at Danielle thoughtfully. “Is he autistic?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t like to talk, but he’s really good at mimicry.” Danielle nodded, and Taz thought for a moment, her arms crossed, her face screwed up in thought, and both sets of parents watching a short distance away as Taz concentrated.
“Does he have a favorite animal?”
“Stegosauruses!” Danielle answered, watching in fascination as Taz rested her hands on the concrete floor.
She didn’t have to affect physics or anything like that, she just needed to create an image. Mimicry was much easier for her, it was a fairly simple exercise of imagination; there was nothing to grasp and manipulate like with telekinesis, though the pamphlet mentioned something about manipulating light.
She needed to picture green first, because stegosauruses were green, right? Green arch shapes, four stumpy legs, a pointy face with a dopey look, brown, diamond-shaped ridges on their backs, and big ol’ spikes on their tail…
A brief headache passed through her as she held onto that image of a lazy-looking stegosaurus trundling through the grass, then in front of her hands on the concrete floor.
It was only about a foot tall, and nowhere near as elaborate as the effects used for Jurassic Park, but she managed to give it a few artistic patches of scales on its broad hide, and even got it to walk forward a few steps with the same, waddling gait of a particularly fat cat.
Danielle’s jaw dropped, but she stayed quiet as James stepped around her, his little face bright and pink with warmth and curiosity. Little fingers reached towards the illusory dinosaur, and it lifted its head towards his hand, but in the end, the shrunken beast was just a trick of the light.
Still, James groomed the air that the projection filled, cooing when Taz directed it to bray like a weird, tiny horse. He didn’t say anything, but he eventually looked up at the stegosaurus’ creator to hold his hand out to her, which Taz took, standing up in full, and sighing in relief when she dismissed the little mirage.
“Okay James, wanna go see the convention?” Taz asked. He only answered with a short, quick nod, and Danielle took his other hand. “Okay, let’s go!”
The three children walked ahead of the watching adults, who started after them. The woman turned to Anna as they walked, James’ bag over her shoulder, and held out a hand.
“I’m Lindsey, by the way, Lindsey Michaels.”
Anna took her hand, giving her only a quick look before watching after her daughter with a softened expression.
“Anna Cooper.”