Chapter 78: The New Normal

Chloe sprawled on a reactive gel couch in the Errant Magpie's lounge, her eyes, but not her mind, on a holographic recording of the Crimson Phoenix's greatest hits.

Watching the tournaments had been Milissa's idea, of course. Chloe had power now, so much even she was aware of it. Milissa was trying to teach her to use it. But Milissa couldn't teach her to fight, and Rudy –

Rudy couldn't get too close at all.

He wasn't in the room now, but he surely would be again. They could be in the same room, and it wouldn't be too bad. They could come close, and the erinyes would grow weaker and so would Chloe.

They could touch, and she'd be just another spacer girl. Powerless. Maybe, now that he'd done so much damage to the erinyes and taken so much of its power, Chloe would never be able to be anything else.

She wasn't sure if she was more afraid of that happening, or of how wonderful it sounded.

Milissa didn't know what had happened on the battlecruiser. Thank the Principle, she hadn't heard Rudy and Chloe's exchange. It must have been too distant, or the space too thick with already charged emotions, for her empathy to pick up on the things Chloe had felt.

Chloe once again found herself envying the Kyrillos girl.

She smiled tiredly at Milissa, who sprawled on the couch, hair tangled and loose, looking far more like a spacer girl than a noble one.

Chloe's smile faded fast.

Her gaze drifted to her own hand. When she looked at it, a silver sheen rippled over her skin. She couldn't feel the erinyes's psion-formed substance on her body the way she could her flight suit, but she knew it was there nonetheless.

She had but to call upon it, and it would emerge as a suit of armor or a mecha or, for all she knew, a full-blown capital ship. She had but to use the technique Milissa had showed her for perceiving psychic power and she would sense its looming presence.

She had but to ask it a question, and she would know the answer – albeit, most of the time in a flash of emotion she could barely withstand and information she could barely parse.

Knowledge and power.

It scared her.

Scratch that, it terrified her.

Worst of all, it reminded her.

“Chloe.”

She looked up. Rudy leaned against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, illuminated by the flickering recording of his own matches.

“How you holding up?” he asked quietly.

“Okay. Mostly.”

“The erinyes isn't doing anything to you?”

“I told you,” she said. “It was only trying to answer my questions.”

“It's sentient?”

“Not exactly.” Chloe, of course, understood it only a little better than Rudy did. “It's more like a computer you access in a really weird way. Maybe it's got bits and pieces of sentience. It's made of memories, I think.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Didn't know memories were shiny,” Rudy said.

“You learn something new every day, huh?” Chloe tried hard to laugh. She failed.

At least she drew a chuckle from Rudy, however short-lived. He glanced at the screen between them. “Can I come closer?”

Chloe felt the erinyes stirring on her body just from Rudy's presence. His anti-psion field hadn't grown any more since the battlecruiser, but it would if he approached; the erinyes was bonded to her now, so it couldn't escape. Rudy's power would devour it, along with her only chance to save her parents. “You probably shouldn't.”

“This really sucks, Clo.”

Chloe faked looking down her nose at him. “Are you really that upset we can't hold hands for the next month or so?”

“Hell yeah!” He spoke louder than he probably should have and glanced nervously at Milissa. Fortunately, she'd popped two of the ship's alcohol globes while she watched Rudy's matches. She just mumbled something and settled into a different position, either asleep or pretending to be so she didn't intrude. More quietly, Rudy concluded, “Hell yeah. You have really nice hands.”

“Thanks, Rudy,” Chloe said. She leaned back and closed her eyes. She sighed. “You know what?”

Normally, she would have felt his presence at her side. Probably reaching out to touch her arm or her hair or her face. Instead, he stayed where he was and said, “What, Chloe?”

“This does really suck.”

He laughed. It should have made Chloe happy, but all it seemed to do was make her miss being closer to him. The distance distorted his laugh. It sounded different than she remembered, and she wanted to hear the one from her memories.

It hadn't occurred to her until then just how much time the two of them had spent hand-in-hand, eye-to-eye, back-to-back. She knew how much Rudy liked touching her, even if he didn't get to in the way he would use the term.

She knew, though she wouldn't have admitted it then, how much she liked it, too.

She whispered, “We've been... we've been really close, haven't we, Rudy?”

“Longer than I've had any other girlfriend, that's for sure,” he said. “Not that you've always been much good in that respect.”

She opened her eyes in a mock glare, closed them again.

Quietly, he asked, “Worried about how much mojo you've already lost?”

“No,” she said.

“When we rescue your dad,” Rudy said, “you won't have to worry anymore, right?”

Right. Because the senate and what was left of the oligarchy and aristocracy would believe Chloe Hughes was powerless, right after she used her powers to break her father out of the most secure facility in the entire galaxy.

Chloe had to laugh. Why was she worried about what would happen after she broke her father out of the most secure facility in the entire galaxy?

“It's not going to work,” Chloe said. “The rescue, I mean. Even with the erinyes's power, I can't take on the whole city of Etemenos. Well, maybe I could, at least if I could get inside, but not without hurting an awful lot of people.”

Like my mother did, she thought, and slapped down the rush of memory before it could overwhelm her.

“If it comes down to that–”

“Then it's not going to happen.” Sure, part of Chloe would have blown the whole world-city apart. Avenge the awful fate they visited upon her imperial mother, the betrayal that led to her imperial father's death, all the things they'd done, years ago and now, to her mom, and what they intended to do to her dad. Whatever she did couldn't begin to make up for their crimes.

The greater part of her understood that even the entire senate wasn't guilty of those things, much less the everyday people who worked the Etemenos bureaucracy.

She told herself it was the greater part.

So far, she still believed it.

“You don't have to do this alone, Clo,” Rudy said.

Unthinkingly, automatically, Chloe said, “Don't offer to protect me.”

“I'm offering to help you. There's a difference.”

She knew he was walking closer because the erinyes stirred again. “Rudy. Don't.”

He stepped back to the far edge of the room.

“Don't come closer, or don't help?”

“Neither would probably be safest. But you're right. I can't do it alone. I don't know how you can help, but if somebody doesn't, then my dad's going to die, and Principle alone knows where my mom is, and I'll go down with them and drag you and Mili along. Heck, we don't even have a way in to Etemenos!”

“Actually...” Rudy let the sentence trail off until Chloe opened her eyes and saw the twinkle in his. He grinned his old, familiar cocky grin and made her want to believe so bad that she actually managed it. “I've already made arrangements for that.”