Unity and Destiny Pt. 06

Esther sighed, taking Mark's hand. He smiled uncertainly.

"She loves you too, so she thinks the most important thing is that you're happy. If Nicola and I had sex, would you want to be part of it as well? Or maybe you'd like to have sex with just me?"

Mark didn't look at her for a while.

"I love you," he said eventually. "But it would be strange to have sex just with you. When Nicola was away and you needed me to help you that way, I kept thinking of Nicola. Maybe that's how it was for her and Javier. That must have been how it felt."

"Maybe," Esther said. She was pretty sure it was a lot more than that.

In that way of his, Mark seemed to think the conversation had concluded satisfactorily. He smiled at her, squeezing her hand.

"You are very good to talk to about relationships," he said. "It's something I know I need to practice. Just as you need to keep yourself active."

The trip back was every bit as brutal as she expected. And she still wasn't quite sure how she should talk to Nicola.

* * *

Javier and Selena finally met at the center of the beam. They put down their sanding blocks and waited for the dust to settle.

"Well, that was exhausting," Javier said through his mask. "I hope we got the moldy bits."

"I suspect there's still more somewhere," Selena said. "But it all helps."

They swept the dust away carefully, and then flopped down in the kitchen with some lukewarm water. Raj and Nicola were out shopping, so they were alone the rest of the morning. Javier found something oddly exciting about that, which mostly showed the predictable way his imagination went wild at any excuse. Now that Kat and Grace were gone, it had expanded like a gas to fill the available space. Nicola of course, and now Selena.

She looked happy. Older than Nicola, hair lighter and cut shorter, figure both slimmer and stronger-looking. But as far as he knew, Nicola was still easily the stronger of them. For a moment he was distracted by imagining them wrestling. Pissed off, pulling each other's pants down. It was almost hilariously plausible. A lot more than any other kind of intimate interaction.

Selena was giving him an odd look, and he was suddenly sure she could read the entire scene from his mind. But that was stupid. As she said, she didn't read minds. Just body language. Maybe she'd noticed he'd gotten aroused by the weird scenario. He glanced back at Selena, and suddenly he figured out what looked a little different about her.

"Yeah," Selena said. "I stopped wearing my contacts."

It was far more subtle in Selena, but he was so used to looking into Esther's different-colored eyes.

"They're beautiful," he said without thinking carefully enough.

Selena looked away. "Thank you," she said. But Javier had a sense he should have kept his mouth shut.

"You did that for yourself, didn't you," he finally said. "I shouldn't have said anything."

She sighed and looked back at him. "Remember once, I told you I didn't mind if you looked at me? I still don't. I can't help but know things I don't want to know about other people, so here's something for you, whether you want it or not. I'm feeling horny. I think that's what it is, anyway. Like I'm a teenager again. Except we all know I'm not."

Javier swallowed uncomfortably. Clearly Selena was in an odd mood. He couldn't see why she was telling him any of this. But who else would she tell? Not Nicola or Mark, of course. Esther. But Esther already took the entire world's problems on her shoulders.

"I have no idea what it's been like," he finally said. "But you can talk to me if it would help."

She gave him a sad smile. "And you mean that, too. I think I liked it more when you were looking at me as though my body interested you. Now I just feel pathetic."

"Would talking make you feel more pathetic?" he asked.

She laughed. "You should be a therapist," she said. "I was a nightmare client, though. Never told them even a fraction of the truth."

"You could tell me," he said. "Any of us. But you don't have to. Everyone gets to have secrets."

"Secrets," agreed Selena, sighing. "Javier, do you know what it means to be asexual?"

Not like bacteria, of course. "I can guess," he said.

"Of course you can. But as it happens, there are a lot of ways to be asexual. I've tried several of them. I even invented one: cryptosexual, I called it. Sexuality a secret, even to myself."

Javier nodded.

"The last ten years or so, it's been moot," she said. "The vague desires that I never acted on disappeared entirely. What was left was the echo. A kind of intellectual appreciation, if that makes sense."

"It does," Javier said.

"And truly, I was perfectly comfortable with that," she said. "With the noise driving me crazy, the last thing I needed was more distraction. But it seems the noise was affecting the way my body functioned a lot more than I realized."

Javier could do the math. "That must have been quite a shock," he said.

"More than you might realize. You understand the way Esther can block most of the noise for me, to allow me to concentrate? It took me a long time to sort out what I was feeling every time she did that. I like Esther fine, but it's always been men for me, when there was anything to feel. Sometimes lately it doesn't even seem very choosy."

Javier nodded. "Thus the teenager. Well, I feel like that sometimes too."

Selena started laughing, as he'd meant. He'd only been twenty for a few months. But she didn't stop laughing for a long time.

"Javier," she finally said. "You may have noticed I hate being pushed around by anyone. I want to be in control."

"Huh," he said. "Can't say I had."

She smiled again. "Well, I hate being pushed around by my hormones as well, and I like you independent of any of that. So I'm going to show you something of myself, if you don't mind. Something I've successfully hidden from the whole world until recently. Mark, Nicola, Esther, and Diana know about it, more or less, without me ever giving my permission. The idea of intentionally showing someone scares the shit out of me. But I think it's better than this slow leak, out of my control."

Javier swallowed. "You can show me," he said.

She stood up. He expected her to maybe pull up her shirt a little. Maybe she had beautiful freckles there, the way Nicola had implied. But instead she unsnapped her pants. He opened his mouth.

"Don't say anything, Javier. Just look." Her hands were shaking as the unzipped her fly. Looking somewhere over his head, she yanked down her pants and underwear together, all the way to her knees.

She was like Esther. That was the first thought that leapt into his mind. But of course, she wasn't really. She was either naturally hairless, or more likely she'd shaved everything carefully. The reddish spots extending down from her shirt line could almost have been a rash, but they swirled around her vulva. Actually, they seemed to extend right across—he looked away.

"Keep looking," Selena muttered.

She wasn't really like Esther. But there was a resemblance. Her outer lips were nearly smooth, almost a continuation of the surrounding skin. The dark pink coloration extended out beyond them, especially to the sides, confusing his eye into thinking she was shaped more like Esther. And the spots did cross the vulva. Right over her clitoral hood, if that's what he was seeing. Everything else seemed pretty much normal, though maybe a little small. Probably he was projecting. She was gorgeous, and he could only imagine how sensitive all that must be. He looked back up, and she quickly reassembled herself.

"You can't help but think of Esther," she said. "It's all right. There can't be too many like us running around."

"Of course I think of her," Javier said. "But you're who you are. Truly beautiful. Thank you for letting me see."

Selena sighed. "I guess I needed a little something for my ego, as well. Thanks for playing along. I know I just took advantage of you in a dozen ways."

To his embarrassment, Javier couldn't stop thinking about what he'd just seen. And the more he tried to think of Esther instead, the more his dick grew. How much of it could Selena already see? She'd said her abilities were only growing.

"I, uh," she mumbled, standing up. Then she turned and ran right out the door.

It was too much for her, obviously. But there had been something so unexpected in the air, as though anything could happen. Anything at all.

He sat down with a glass of water, trying to think what he could say to her when he saw her again. Nothing really came to mind.

Ten minutes later she came in, sweating slightly, breathing hard enough to tell him it must have been a hell of a run.

"Sorry, Javier. Give me a second. I'll try to explain."

She got herself some water and sat across from him at the table.

"Those spots are sensitive for everyone with Changes, I assume," she said.

"As far as I know," Javier agreed. He started to guess even as Selena explained.

"My skin has always been sensitive to the point of discomfort," Selena said. "Just like all my other senses. Part of the noise. And those spots go through places that are extremely sensitive for ordinary women as well."

"I'm sorry," Javier said.

"Sorry for what? The way I am?" She shook her head. "No, I have to figure out what the hell I'm even looking for, Javier. I think I've blundered around enough for the time being."

* * *

Javier was starting to love the new place. He and Raj had finally installed a similar system to the old place, splicing into an existing phone line miles below, combined with microwave relays and some highly illegal equipment. This was thanks to Kat, who had explained how they could get phone service as well. It was terrible quality, practically unlistenable with all the noise, but better than nothing. And the data rate was no worse than before. They were connected to the outside world again.

The new wood stove was a joy, and heated the house pretty well, if unevenly. Raj had moved the bed well away from it, and the big glass front made it feel more like a fireplace than Javier expected. And the next time it snowed, they finally had the hot water heater installed.

"We're using it all up," Esther said.

"I know," Javier said, massaging her back in the tub. "Everyone else is asleep. There will be more. Such luxury."

They were lower elevation here, and the storm only dropped a few inches. Probably there was another foot or two at the old camp. Javier still missed it, and that evening he discovered wasn't alone.

"Skiing's a bust here compared to the old place," Selena said. "I wonder if it would be safe to go back."

"I want to wait until it's all done," Esther said. "Until the FBI thinks they have everyone who caused Black Christmas."

"In other words, never," Nicola said morosely. Esther had told Javier some of Nicola's problems, and Mark's simple, or not-so-simple solution. Javier found to his surprise he wasn't much bothered by Esther and Nicola having sex, even without him. But Nicola hadn't taken Esther up on it. Still, she seemed to be making progress again with her abilities. Lately she'd been showing off the way she could control a small transistor switch.

On, off, on, off. The LED winked in Morse code, and Javier laughed at the obscene message. Nicola smiled, and for a moment they were back in Oregon, Nicola giving him secret messages. Or maybe not. Esther watched the demonstration with a rare envy, and Javier realized something else: Esther might be able to learn this, if only Nicola shared senses with her. She didn't have Nicola's fine control, but from the description Nicola wasn't really using such a tight focus. It was something that sounded extremely clever about using vibrations to excite thermal solitons, or something like that. Esther seemed to understand, anyway, though her attempts to duplicate it didn't work.

Esther kept reporting to them her discoveries in otherspace. It was sobering. The news claimed there had been dozens arrested in America, suspected in one attack or another. Esther said it was well more than two thousand, and that several hundred were in a new high-security prison in Arizona. Only a minority had Changes, though more than the general population. They didn't know if this was a good sign or a bad one. Esther couldn't go back in time to see whether the ones in prison had actually been involved. And she had no idea if it was even her place to interfere, if she thought she knew that.

Still, the American response was looking incredibly restrained compared to many other countries. Britain was terrible, of course, but a dozen nations seemed to be even worse, and that was just based on the news and the faint information Esther gathered from otherspace. There had been a revolution in Egypt, and no one knew how that fit into the picture.

The Chosen in Oregon had gone through a schism. Most of them, including all but two of the children, had returned to the ancient place, even though it still echoed slightly of the vision. Twelve of them had remained at the farm, apparently for good. Diana, Samuel, Henry, and Peter were among them. Esther hoped to meet Diana eventually to find out more.

"There's something in Mexico," Esther told them one evening, as they sat in their usual loose circle around the fireplace. "It's unnerving. At first I wondered if it's a large group of Chosen in another ancient place. But it's not that I can't see into it. Everything seems ordinary. It's as though there's something large I should be seeing, but can't. Don't worry, I stopped looking right away. More and more I'm realizing how careful others are not to attract notice. The chatter I hear at long distances is very focused, and I don't think they believe anyone can eavesdrop. Others are hiding the way Diana hides, the way I used to hide, before Diana showed me I needed to be even more careful, so that others didn't notice the absent spot. I have a bad feeling the place in Mexico is being hidden by someone as skilled as I am, but in a different fashion."

Javier felt his stomach flip. Esther was so nonchalant about what she was doing, and he knew how careful she was trying to be. But she was trying to catch up with an unknown number of older, dangerous players.

Selena had similar thoughts.

"Esther," she said carefully. "I know Abuela suspected you might be the strongest one of your type in the world. And you've obviously exceeded her basic sensitivity already, from everything you've said. But it took Abuela many decades to reach her full potential, and she built other skills you say remain far beyond yours. Others have had those decades, and I'm sorry to say some would have minds that are far more devious than yours will ever be. Can you be sure that your explorations aren't attracting attention?"

"No, of course I can't," Esther said with annoyance. "I'm taking every precaution I can. I take comfort from my glimpses of those who are clearly much older than me, who believe they themselves are taking careful precautions. They have survived this long on such precautions, as Abuela did herself. But I can never prove there isn't another out there, with a sensitivity and subtlety likewise much greater than my own."

"Like the one who sent the vision," Nicola said.

"Perhaps," she said. "Certainly the strength of effect was far beyond anything I could produce. But I've started to think that the Japanese ancient place also played a role. The Utah canyon resonated with that vision, just as the one in Oregon did. I suspect he understood how to use those places to amplify his signal."

Javier started. She'd been very careful not to make assumptions about the sender of the vision before.

"Do you know it was a man, then?"

"Yes," she said. "I think so. There's something on the very edge of my perception. A remembered feature of the vision, or maybe I glimpsed the sender himself. Little beyond that, though. Japan is still very distant for me to sense non-Changed people, or someone who is hiding well."

"And still no sign of Lukas," Raj said.

"No," Esther agreed. "He was always good at hiding. I suspect he's gotten better. But I think Nicola was correct about his meddling in the search for Mark. There have been other confusing reversals, bureaucratic mistakes I've heard. The workings of the secret agencies are all new to me, but it feels like Lukas. Things that look like accidents. Efficient, as Nicola said."

"The opposite of Aaron's murder," said Nicola, nodding. "Maybe we're learning something about the factions. Maybe Lukas really is trying to do something like what he did in America. Keep the existence of the Changed contained, as best he can. Try to direct attention elsewhere. Or at least there's someone doing that, and I'd rather it be Lukas than imagine him joined up with the death cultists."

* * *

Javier was helping Nicola on the new front staircase when Esther opened the door, squinting into the light.

"We've got mail," she said. "At the PO box in Sierra City."

"Junk mail again?" Javier asked, but he knew the answer.

"No," she said. "I think it might be handwritten. I can't read it from here, though. I need to work on that."

Javier smiled. As if it wasn't astonishing that she could sense it at all.

It was hard to think who would have sent mail. Javier and Raj had done that, in a desperate attempt back when they weren't even sure where Esther was. They'd only connected the PO box to a mysterious old woman from Raj's past, who turned out to be Abuela. Maybe this mail had been sent by one of Abuela's old colleagues, Mei Li or Jeffrey. Esther wasn't sure either.

"Well, we could head over there," said Javier. "Keep getting closer until you think you can read it. Or we could just go pick it up, if you think it's safe."

Esther thought she might as well practice her senses. And sure enough, a few miles after they turned onto highway 49, she'd gathered enough glimpses to read the whole message.

To the old woman, or her apprentice.

Please contact me as soon as you can, at the number below. Leave your phone number and I will reply. Do not delay, please.

"Huh," Javier said. "Anything about the writing? Anything else you could guess?"

"It's a Las Vegas phone number," she said. "But with an extension. An office building? Postmarked in Las Vegas as well. They aren't really trying to hide where they are. Geoff's sister lives there, I guess, but that's about all I can think of. It's a big city. And I think a woman wrote it, but that's just guessing from handwriting."

"Let's send the phone number to Kat," he said. "She'll get more information on it quickly. And if we do give a number, let's use one of the cellular phones. We can always throw it away afterwards, if we're worried about it."

They were more than halfway to Reno, so they decided to visit Jacob, where they knew they'd have cellular reception.

"Someone who doesn't know for sure Abuela has passed on," said Jacob. "And who either knows of you, or is else is just guessing that she had an apprentice. Now, that's a mystery. I can't think of anyone who'd have addressed a letter that way. Perhaps it was one of those who stayed with her for a time, but Abuela didn't trust enough to stay in touch with. Maybe this address is all they remember."

Less than twenty minutes later, they got an e-mail back from Kat.

It's a messaging service, she wrote. Based in Las Vegas. Mostly used by people staying at the casinos, so people can find each other during their drunken ramblings. They should all just get cellular phones. Much easier. But for the letter writer, it was a clever choice. Hard to trace, and no reason they even have to be in Las Vegas.

"Well," Javier said. "Half clever, or really clever. They say time was of the essence, but the only way they knew to contact us was postal mail, to a box they could hardly expect us to check so quickly. And then they could have sent it from outside Las Vegas, to confuse the issue. Driving a while would hardly matter if they were going to mail it anyway. So either they're desperate enough not to really hide where they're from, or they really want us to think they're in Las Vegas for some reason."