Chapter 71

Double Strike

(Misha Tulley)

Buzzing.

There was an odd buzzing, almost an echo that was seemingly impossible to deny. Yet, with almost everything Misha normally did to prepare for her day, she felt the odd intense buzzing filling her body.

For a moment, she wondered what such a situation meant.

But then, she realized this was a convergence point. At least that was what she often considered such moments.

The last time she felt such odd resonance with the world around her was the day she died. Well not just the day she died, but the day she and her reincarnation chamber on what had been her personal home had been completely destroyed.

At the time, she fought the sensation.

It felt like drowning.

Like she was out on the waves of an ocean in a storm, bobbing up and down and all she could do was wait. It wasn’t until that moment that she remembered her home world, how her planet had been destroyed completely. But for whatever reason, the Matriarch herself had happened to feel the presence of her and the last few survivors of her planet.

Her home planet had water.

Not just water, but endless waves of violent water that would rise up and threaten to destroy everything in their wake if they were allowed to.

Misha realized now why she hated the water. Not only did it make electricity so much more intense, so much easier to fizzle out and harder to control. But it reminded her of home.

Odd.

Especially as she never died on her home world. In fact, it wasn’t until she got to the fleet and was trained to reach her full potential that she was allowed to die without fear.

At first part of her died away with each death. The old parts. The unimportant parts.

Until finally, only the best version of her survived. The part that remembered the sacrifice that the Matriarch had made to protect her and her fellow refugees, despite being at war. Despite having apparently managed to push the invading Bakshee away.

Why would they flood the world?

That was her thought at the time, a thought that had persisted, until death after death and finally century after century stripped that thought from her mind.

Yet, now that she had time to think. Now that she was all but reminded of how important it was to just wait out the storm, and not fight the currents. Now is when she felt the echoes of her past life coming back to her.

Last time she fought the nauseating bobbing of water. The entire sensation was so strange that Misha didn’t realize or remember what those sensations meant.

Those sensations, that was her consciousness becoming one with the universe for a moment.

Pausing she could almost remember the old priestess of her tribe giving a speech about the unrelenting waves.

“When the currents of fate arrive, you will know for they will come first with a ripple. Then a full-on tidal wave. Once they come, do not waste your energy by resisting the minor waves. Instead, prepare yourself for the tidal waves that are sure to come.”

While the words seemed like mumbo jumbo, they had proved to be invaluable her first time she felt them. As not fighting was the exact reason why she managed to survive long enough to be rescued by the Psycher fleet.

Then not listening to the warning, or rather trying to fight the currents were what led her to being too tired to prevent the final death on the fleet. At least that is what she felt happened. It was her fault after all, so many depended upon her, and she let them all down.

Now the currents were once again violently shaking.

Ping.

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Her phone pinged.

This was her second alarm going off, letting her know she had slept well past her intended time and was now late. Also at this point there would be no future alarms going off.

Almost out of reflex she felt the want to reach out for connectivity to the world, to see what was happening. For a moment she almost felt that she could find out why she hadn’t been able to relax at all last night and why even now she felt like she was about to be swept up in events that were far beyond her control.

Holding her mind still, she held off on the intent to use her powers and have her neurons flooded with electrical impulses from the overly loud world around her. With a modicum of her power, she could easily see and predict what was happening all around her, just as she always did.

Not that it changed anything.

In the end, her grandmother still passed away, her mother sought out comfort from an apparent stranger, and worst of all Phil kept pushing himself too hard. It was the last one that Misha paused on.

The idea of losing Phil somehow felt like it would momentarily be too much to bear.

Then almost as if hearing her internal thoughts going on, Phil came in. Normally, at this time Misha would be too absorbed in her digital undertakings to truly notice her maternal grandfather. Yet, getting a second to look at him, it was clear that these past few months had been tough on him.

He had deep bags under his eyes, and if Misha was not mistaken he looks to have lost about ten pounds or so from an already frail frame.

“Oh, you’re still here? I figured you would have left by now,” Phil said conversationally.

6:12 AM.

Her mind flickered for the time and the time instantly came to her.

He was right, she was late, or she should have been late, had this been a normal day.

“I’m not feeling well, would you mind if we just called in sick today?” Misha asked.

Phil just looked at Misha with a quizzical look.

“You want me to call out sick as well?” Phil asked trying to make sure he understood the full comment.

“Yes, we need granddad granddaughter time, no phones, no electronics.” Misha said.

“Oh, wow, it must be big if you are saying no electronics,” Phil replied half-jokingly.

“It is, let’s just turn off the powerlines, lounge around and read. Avoiding anyone and everyone, including mom.” Misha said.

“Especially your mother, and you’ve got a deal.” Phil said, as he left the room.

Whirr.

A few minutes later, Misha heard and then felt the moment the main circuit breaker for the house had been snapped off. Within moments of the act, a million micro transmissions that interacted with Misha’s mind constantly suddenly stopped. Finally, Misha felt like she could just breathe.

No expectations, no electricity, just a moment to stop and appreciate what she had.

Then to seemingly make sure she truly appreciated what she had, Phil called out right there.

“You better come quick, or else all the western survival stories will be claimed,” Phil said, calling out his favorite stories that had their own shelf of shame in the living room. While grandma always pushed for reading, she did admit that while the content of his stories was terrible, at least he was in fact reading.

“Coming,” Misha said, as she went in and went immediately towards her cyber espionage stories, but then paused. Instead, she went for a mystery novel from what had always been grandma’s shelf. Even now looking at the shelf, she saw that a layer of dust had built up. Seeing the dust on grandma’s shelf, Misha just tisked to herself before quickly wiping the dust away with her finger and then grabbing the most well-worn book.

Tingle.

Just touching the book, Misha could swear she almost felt her grandmother’s love pouring out into the pages of the old well-worn novel.

“Now you’re going to read that trash?” Phil asked.

“You’re one to talk,” Misha replied back, using grandma’s own line against him.

Hearing that, Phil just laughed.

“You know, the butler is the one who did it?” Phil shot back, trying to ruin the story. A story that Misha already knew the ending to as grandma read this story to Misha at least three times.

“I know,” Misha replied, but then shot back, “you know the bear dies in the end of your story, right?”

Chuckle.

“I know, but I still want to see him fight to survive that long.” Phil replied.

And like that, Misha had her first sick day since starting going full time to the local high school. Also, for the moment, she didn’t feel quite like she was drowning, or about to drown the same way she had all night.

***

(Ursala Jarnic AKA Ms. Clayton)

Blinking.

One second the world was completely black, a dark canvas that engulfed and surrounded her completely. Then the next minute, her Psycher traits took over and she was fully awake.

“What is happening?” Ms. Clayton found herself asking, or trying to ask. As she felt her mouth moving from her own thoughts, she realized that her mouth was dry.

No, not dry, but coppery and dry.

Odd.

This entire thing was odd? Where was she? How did she get here?

For a moment, she realized something was wrong.

From her training, it was clear that she had been drugged. This was nothing new, in fact she had dealt with this same situation multiple times before. As a Psycher she had multiple options for cleansing a drug fueled binge.

This was not her first rodeo, nor was it the first time that an enemy would get her with drugs. Though again, what happened was still a mystery.

Last she remembered, she had been leaving her office, when something happened.

“Restart.”

Nothing.

“Recycle, refresh.” Ms. Clayton tried all the standard commands needed to get her body to begin hyperactively processing all poisons and impurities from her system. Given how rich her diet had been recently this was going to be a bad thing, but ultimately needed if it gave her a clear mind of what happened.

Still nothing.

Pausing for a moment, Ms. Clayton realized something was drastically wrong. Her mental commands that she had buried into her subconscious to activate on command were missing. Or no, missing wasn’t the right word, they were still there, she could feel the impulses in her mind. Mentally she could drag her senses across the embedded commands, feeling their raised textures that said they were there, but then trying to find the activation grooves turned out to be nearly impossible, as the activation command lines seemed to be coated with a thin layer of skin. Or what Ms. Clayton mentally associated with being skin.

“System,” Ms. Clayton commanded, this time her words clear enough to hear, as she had finally produced enough moisture to make it so at least speaking the commands would be heard.

System was the catch all, the ultimate command that would bring up every command and possibility afforded to her as a Psycher.

This would be more cumbersome, and ultimately more distracting, but right now a few things were slowly registering in her mind. First she was bound to a chair. At least she thought it was a chair, likely metal, smart, with industrial strength handcuffs binding her feet and hands.

Her feet were bare, well sort of. For whatever reason it felt like she was still wearing socks, but there were now holes in them. Also, her clothes fit, but there were multiple tears in them. Mentally she associated this with fighting, but the tears seemed to be in odd places for fighting, as they seemed to go where her thighs were, her feet had socks, but again they had holes. Her shirts had strips of fabric missing.

And worst of all, for the first time in forever, her Psycher status screen was inoperable.

“Ah, you’ve finally awoken,” the voice of an overly cheery female said.

“What did you do to me?” Ms. Clayton said, her mind actually experiencing fear for the first time in centuries due to her not able to actually see her Psycher screen. Before, it had always been there, a constant indicator of her progress. While deaths did reset her overall capabilities, it had still remained even through death.

“Well first, we hit you with our van, but only after you pulled a gun on us. We honestly thought you were going to die, but then we managed to save you by giving you the gift of Lykanthropy, the gift that keeps on giving.” The overly arrogant girl said.

As she spoke, Ms. Clayton remembered who and more importantly where she remembered the girl from, this was Alishia Stone, a target that she had taken on personally for the Mechanic.

And now… well now she didn’t know what was happening.