C. Omololu - Intuition

I didn’t know this many people could fit into Janine’s office.

That’s my first thought as I open the door to find it full of adults I don’t recognize. “Sorry!” I say, glancing at the clock. I’m sure she said to come at two, but a faculty meeting must have run over or something. I start to back out the door when Janine stops me.

“Cole, come in! We were waiting for you.”

I pause. That doesn’t exactly give me a good feeling. “You were?”

“Yes. Sit down.” Janine indicates an empty chair over by the sofa. Her face is impassive, and I’m getting nothing from her movements about why I’m here. This must be what a trip to the principal’s office feels like.

As I walk into the room I spot Griffon, and the familiar jolt runs through me. I keep thinking it’s going to get better, but it doesn’t—that combination of longing and loss hits me every time. He’s not sitting down, but leaning against the windowsill in the far corner looking tense, like he might get up and leave any minute.

I take my seat and decide not to offer up any guesses about what’s going on here. There’s the guy Christophe who was at Griffon’s house that day, along with Janine’s friend Sue and two other men that I don’t recognize. Giselle is nowhere in sight.

“We’ve been discussing the situation with Veronique and Rayne,” Janine says. “And the others felt that it was time to bring you into our little group. See if there are ways you can help us out.”

“Okay,” I say, in my best noncommittal voice.

The Asian guy with long, dark hair leans forward. “We heard you were invited to a Khered gathering.”

I see Griffon flinch, and Janine tilts her head in irritation. “Tetsuro! Seriously.” She turns to me. “Sometimes even centuries of living can’t force some people to learn manners. Or patience.”

I start to rise out of my chair when I realize what he just said. “You mean Drew’s party? You’ve been watching me?” I suddenly feel creeped out as I look around. How did they do it? I didn’t tell anyone about the invitation.

Janine puts her hands out and tries to calm me down. “It’s okay. Just a little harmless poking around—nobody has a hidden camera on you, I swear. Things are just a little tense right now, and it’s best to keep tabs on everyone’s whereabouts.”

I sit back and fold my arms across my chest. “I don’t like anyone poking around in my business.”

“We’re sorry. It’s as much to keep you safe as anything.”

Suddenly I get what Griffon was saying about time. It feels like in one split second I don’t belong to myself anymore. That whatever I do is part of something bigger. I look at him, but he won’t meet my eyes.

“Let me make some introductions,” Janine says. “You’ve already heard from Tetsuro. He and Christophe have been working on fuel cell technology in Switzerland with Griffon, but just transferred down to South Bay. This is Eric.” A blond guy with glasses gives a little wave from the sofa. “And you’ve met Sue.”

Sue smiles at me. “What Tetsuro was trying not-so-tactfully to say is that your new connections in certain Khered circles, along with what we know are impressive developing empath skills, could be the perfect combination to help us with some research.”

And then I get it. They don’t have any idea who trashed the lab or who killed Veronique. Despite Janine’s assurances, they’ve come up empty, and somehow they think that I can help. “You want me to spy on Drew and his friends?”

“ ‘Spy’ seems a little heavy-handed,” Christophe offers. “We prefer to look at it as observing with a goal.”

I stare at him. “Call it whatever you want, I’m not sure I can spy on anyone, or that it’s going to help you at all.”

Janine leans forward. “Griffon says that when you connected with Rayne, you were able to go much deeper than before.” She watches my face, gauging my reaction to her words. “That you were able to actually see images rather than just feel emotions.”

I nod. “I did. For a few seconds. But I have no idea how. And it made me feel really sick.” I can see an exchange of glances around the room.

“Telempathy is a skill that so far exists only in legends and rumors,” Sue says. “To be able to master it would be something immensely valuable to the Sekhem.”

I remember the feeling of weakness and nausea after I made contact with Rayne. “I’m not in a big hurry to try it again.”

Sue holds up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “No one is asking you to,” she says. “None of us expect you to go that deeply at the Khered gathering. Just poke around a little, see if you can get any information from casual contact with the other guests. We need to find out who did this, and every minute that goes by puts everyone in more and more danger,” Sue says. Her mouth is set into a grim line, and I can feel the intensity in her gaze. “Anything you can give us is valuable at this point.”

“But they killed Veronique,” I say. “So she won’t be able to do something like this again. The worst of it’s over, right?”

I see wary glances flit across the room. “Not exactly,” Janine says.

Christophe clears his throat. “We have reason to believe that they didn’t go to the lab looking for Veronique. Someone got word of what she had been working on and went to get the formula. Veronique was just collateral damage.”

“When we searched the lab after the break-in,” Sue says, “we found evidence that files and samples had been taken. Which ordinarily wouldn’t be of too much concern; ergot fungus in its standard form isn’t going to do much damage. Even if it were spread as an epidemic, once it’s identified, it’s fairly easily treated, as you’ve been able to see. But Veronique was able to somehow synthesize a totally unknown form of ergot, one that has the capabilities of transforming the very essence of a person. As you’ve discovered, Veronique’s research did what nobody through time has been able to do—to create an Akhet from an ordinary Khem.”

“But how is that a threat?” I ask. “I suppose I get why some people would choose to be Akhet—the kind of immortality it brings. But I don’t see the harm.”

Janine smiles. “And I love that you don’t see it.”

“The harm is that the people who now have this knowledge in their possession aren’t good people,” Sue says. “And if you give the formula to the worst of the worst Khem, you can create a group of Akhet who exist not to help the world, but to destroy it in pursuit of their own fortune and power. A group who will get stronger and smarter with each passing lifetime, who will use that immortality to take risks like the world has never seen before.”

Janine leans forward. “Worse than any single rogue Akhet out to settle a score.” I can tell by the way she’s looking at me that she’s thinking of Veronique. “Imagine a Kim Jong-un or a Charles Manson who was given the formula. Think about what they could do with Akhet abilities and memory.” She’s silent for a moment. “Now think about hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Think about what that could do to the balance of world power in a very short time. Think of how much money that knowledge would be worth.”

I’m silent. In a few sentences, this has gone from being something personal with Rayne to having implications far beyond this lifetime. “So what can I do?”

“We think that there were Akhet involved, either people who knew Veronique or who heard about her work through others,” Janine says. “And we think it’s someone with ties to San Francisco, because they were able to get to the lab quickly and seem to know the area.”

“And you think that Khered are immoral enough to pull off something like this?”

I see glances shift around the room again. “Not all Khered,” Eric volunteers. “But the perpetrators are more likely to be Khered than Sekhem.”

“But what would they be doing at Drew’s party?”

“From what we can tell, it’s going to be one of the largest gatherings of Khered in recent weeks,” Sue says. “Not just local Khered, but Akhet from all over the world. And our intelligence has picked up a lot more activity in and around the city in the past few days.”

“We think that whoever was in charge of the break-in at the lab is still local,” Janine says. “We can only hope that they won’t be able to pass up a chance to make some more widespread connections, maybe make some under-the-table deals.”

“And you already have an introduction into that world,” Sue says.

“All we’re asking is that you go to the party and see if you can use your skills to find out if anyone has some inside knowledge of the break-in at the lab, or if anyone has been talking about it who might have more information than is available to ordinary Akhet,” Christophe says.

“We’re not even asking you to make deep contact with the others,” Janine says. “Griffon told me how much it took out of you when you did it with Rayne, and we don’t want you in any danger.”

“We will have some security for you,” Sue says. “Another Sekhem who has ties to the Khered world will be there to make sure nothing happens. She’s one of our top security people, so you don’t have to worry.”

“Why do I need security?”

“Probably you don’t,” Janine says. “But if the people involved in this are at the party and they figure out you’re reading them . . . they might not be too happy about it. Giselle is just a safety net that hopefully we won’t need.”

“Giselle?”

“She’s part of our security team—I think you met her.” Janine says. “She’s one of Griffon’s colleagues.”

Suddenly I’m a little less confident. “I met her,” I confirm. “If Giselle, Christophe, and Tetsuro are supposed to be working on the fuel cell lab, why are they involved in this?”

“Because they’re local now,” Sue says. “And they’re valuable members of the Sekhem.” She glances toward the window. “And Griffon trusts them, which is no small thing. We need to keep this incident as quiet as possible.”

“So you guys are it?” I ask. I look around the room. I don’t know how to put this, but they don’t seem like they can take down a group of rogue Akhet.

Janine grins like she knows what I’m thinking. “No. We’re just the Sekhem you’re going to deal with directly. There are many more sections in place that you don’t need to worry about.”

Everyone waits for me to say something else, to tell them that I’ll go along with the plan. Despite what they’ve said, I’m not really worried about my safety, although I wish the security detail could be someone else. It’s just that the whole thing feels like a betrayal. As much as I don’t want to be with Drew, not the way that Griffon thinks, I feel like going to his party to serve the Sekhem’s agenda is wrong. I look up at Griffon, who’s staring out the window.

“You’re awfully quiet,” I say to him.

“What?” he asks, turning back to the room.

“You haven’t said a word. Everyone else here has their reasons why I should do it, but you’re just sitting there.”

He looks like he’s been caught. “It’s your decision,” he says, his eyes everywhere in the room but on me. “I’m not part of this.”

“Then why are you here?”

There’s a slight pause. “Good question,” he says, getting to his feet and walking out the door.

A few people start to say something, but before I can think, I’m out the door behind him. I want to know why he’s hesitating, why he won’t come straight out and tell me to go.

“Wait a minute,” I call. He’s already to the stairs, but he stops when he hears my voice.

“What? You were right, I shouldn’t have been in there.”

“But you were. You sat there and listened to all of it.” I catch up to him. I want so badly to slide my fingers through his. To have him put his arms around me once more so that this time I’ll know it’s the last time. “Is it the truth?”

“You should be able to figure that out,” he says, staring at the wall. “You’re the one with the empath skills. You can tell when someone is lying from ten feet away.”

“I want to hear it from you.” I force myself to keep going. “You’re the only one I feel like I can really trust.”

His eyes flick toward mine for just a second. “It’s the truth. Everything they said. We’ve never had a situation like this before, and despite appearances, everyone’s running scared.”

“And why Giselle? Why are they having Giselle babysit me at Drew’s apartment?”

“Because she’s the best.” As he says it, a shadow crosses his face, and I know I’m not imagining it. Giselle and Griffon have a past together.