Star Force: Cascade (SF73) (3 page)

“I’ll manage, thanks.”

“Is there more to the message or did you just want to
play cheer leader?”

“Can I?”

Paul smirked. “What is it that Rio wants?”

“He said something about wanting to get to your
memories while they were fresh. Wouldn’t get into it when I asked anything
further.”

“How long until he’s finished with his challenge?”

“A little less than 3 hours to go.”

“I’ll meet him when he’s done then.”

Synthia nodded, then walked over and leaned against
the wall, still staring at Paul. “Don’t let me hold you up. What exactly are
you doing anyway? I know
it’s
Jumat related, but…”

“Trying to get a feel for the damn triggering
sensation,” Paul said, with a bit of frustration in his voice. “It feels like
goosebumps, and I’m only able to do it about a third of the time I try. Once it
starts I’m also having trouble sustaining it, and when I can it blows off me
almost immediately. I have almost no control at all and ripped my shirt
earlier, so I ditched the clothes. Until I can at least confine it to my arms
and legs I’m better off naked.”

“Makes sense,” Synthia agreed. “Is it really
invisible?”

“Save for a slight distortion, yes. Hold on…let me try
again,” the titan said, closing his eyes and trying to make himself get
goosebumps. It wasn’t something that he knew how to do, so he just tried to
imagine himself in places of cold or excitement previously that had rendered
the skin pucker. He had to run through four different memories before he got
one to catch and a tingle manifested itself at the base of his neck.

He tried to latch onto it, which was like grabbing for
a wet bar of soap under water, and managed to increase the volume a bit before
it traveled down his back and mushroomed out into the air behind him.

Synthia laughed, covering her mouth with her hand
before she said anything.

Paul frowned. “You saw the distortion?”

“Yeah,” she said, giggling.

“No, it didn’t come off my butt,” he clarified.
“Started in my neck and went down my back before releasing.”

“Took you a while.”

“It’s getting harder and harder to get goosebumps. My
bag of tricks is wearing thin, but I’m not that close to finding a way to
manually do it yet. This may sound odd, but it’s like getting a third arm that
you’ve never used before that’s twitching around all over the place whenever
you send a mental signal to it and…yeah, ok, bad metaphor. I don’t know how to
explain it.”

“Kind of like the bioshield?”

“Somewhat, but that’s a direct activation. This energy
has to be generated, then released. Two step process that makes it a whole lot
more trickier
.”

“Are you ticklish?”

“Um…not sure, actually.”

“May I?” she asked, raising her eyebrows in an unsure
gesture.

“Is this training related or are you flirting back?”

“Both,” she said honestly.

“That’s the best kind. Go ahead.”

The padawan walked over to him and stepped behind
where he couldn’t see. “Don’t use your Pefbar. A blind reaction should be
better.”

“Ok,” he said a moment before he felt her run her
finger down his spine slowly.

The next thing Synthia knew the air in front of her
face suddenly blossomed and kicked her hair back. “Worked?”

“Guess I am ticklish,” Paul admitted.

“Being naked is probably part of it. I’m guessing
here, but as far as I know most Archons might get naked without flinching, but
we are hardly ever touched when we are.”

“Good point,” Paul admitted.

“And since we don’t usually get laid, you should be
really ticklish right now,” she said, running her finger across the left side
of his waist and seeing/feeling another distortion manifest from his skin.

“Am I to take this to mean you’re wanting to help with
my training?”

“Whatever keeps me here and you
naked.
”

Paul reached out telekinetically and hit the door
controls, lowering a very wide door down and closing off the hallway from view.

“Alright then, I’ll indulge you in the name of more
goosebumps. I figure I’ll numb up to your touch eventually, but do what you can
now and hopefully I’ll hop the learning curve before that happens.”

“Why’d you shut the door?”

“Just in case someone else walks by.”

“Think they’d get the wrong idea?”

“No, but your touch is having a secondary effect and
I’m a little bit shy regarding volume increases in public.”

Synthia couldn’t help but laugh, not at him but the
idea that she could do that to him with just a finger brush on his back. “But
you’re ok with me seeing it?”

“You’re standing behind me.”

“I have Pefbar,” she reminded him.

“Just shut up and poke,” he said, trying to keep from
peeking himself to know when and where she was going to tickle him, for that
would definitely lessen the effect. “But don’t mention this to your master.”

“Embarrassed?”

“Just don’t want to make him jealous.”

“I will admit…he’s not as hot as you,” she said,
stroking his neck with two fingertips this time and giving Paul easy access to
another wave of goosebumps.

“That’s working fine,” he said, trying to focus the
slippery energy inside his body and redirect it even a nudge before it
automatically released. “You don’t have to add innuendo.”

“Waste not, want not,” she said, touching his waist
and running her finger laterally across the small of his back.

3

Paul was waiting outside the training chamber in the
sanctum when Rio walked out, drenched in sweat but not looking overly fatigued.
The trailblazer pointed in the direction of the equipment room and Paul walked
with him, getting the feeling that there was something he wanted to discuss in
private. There weren’t many other Archons in the sanctum, but he sensed
something was up so he went along quietly until they got into the equipment
room and Rio still wouldn’t say anything.

What?
he
asked telepathically, almost shouting it as the other
titan began to pull a set of fresh clothes from a rack on the wall.

Rio didn’t say anything, but he did stop picking out
clothes and turned around to look at him.

Paul crossed his arms over his chest and stared back,
wondering what the hell he was up to and deciding to wait him out. After a few
minutes he got a battlemeld prompt from Rio and accepted it, then a series of
images/thoughts flashed into his mind.

Rio immediately pointed a finger at him when he felt a
twitch in his fellow Archon. “So you do recognize them?”

“I don’t know…what are you showing me?”

“You tell me.”

“I just said I…”

Rio raised his eyebrows, waiting for a response.

“Those aren’t sensory. Where did you get them?”

“A dream. A repetitive dream that is very illusive.
You’ve had it too, otherwise you wouldn’t have reacted that way.”

“What way?”

“That flinch of recognition.”

“Dude, I really don’t know what this stuff is. I can’t
remember ever seeing it before, and I don’t typically recall dreams so…”

“Well I do,” Rio said, dropping the battlemeld link.
“I always have. Maybe not for long, but a few minutes after waking up they
stick around…this one, however, is very elusive. What I just shared with you is
fragments I’ve pieced together, and is probably half crap. It’s familiar to your
subconscious mind, I sensed it in you, even if you can’t remember. That’s why I
didn’t say anything coming over here. I wanted a raw response.”

“What is it you just showed me? For some reason I
can’t picture it again.”

Rio shook his head in dismay. “Son of a bitch, they’re
at it again.”

“They?”

“V’kit’no’sat, dragons…whoever wrote this part of the
psionics. I’ve been having these dreams ever since Ubven, and I think I might
have been having them even before that and the ascension just kicked them up a little
higher into my consciousness. I’m wildly guessing here, Paul, but I think they
might have started with
Sav
.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “Show me again.”

“This is pretty much fiction I’ve compiled, like
notes, because I can’t pull up the actual images when I’m awake,” he said,
reestablishing the battlemeld and sending Paul a series of flashes of…

“The architecture looks V’kit’no’sat.”

“Yeah it does. I don’t know if that’s legit or my mind
is just filling in the blanks with what I know, but that’s not the point. The
glowy
thing is.”

“Why do I see a whip and hat?”

“Again, filler from my memories. Focus on the
context.”

“This is so muddled that…”

“You reacted to something in there. Try to find it,”
Rio insisted.

Paul sighed and tried to go passive, feeling what he
was ‘seeing’ and trying to get a sense of it. “Run it through a few times more
quickly.”

Rio did as asked, but Paul couldn’t come up with
anything definitive.

“I got nothing.”

“Focus on what’s missing.”

“Meaning?”

“Compare a moment ago when you didn’t know it was
coming. Like a scary movie that you jump out of your seat at.”

“For the record, I’ve never done that.”

“Quit fighting me on this, it’s important,” Rio
underscored. “Before your memory fades, compare the now to the then and see if
anything is missing. A scary movie you don’t react to still has the memory of
when you should be jumpy and don’t until you’ve seen it a lot of times.”

“Run it again,” Paul said, taking Rio at his word and
trying to focus. It took seven more play-throughs of the collage of images and
flashes of emotion before he finally spotted a tiny discrepancy.

“I don’t know if this is my imagination or not, but
there feels like a dead spot.”

“Where?”

“Run it through slowly and I’ll stop you.”

Rio did as asked then Paul mentally pinged him when he
hit the spot. It was an image of a forest landscape viewed from just above the
treetops.

“This it?” Rio said, focusing and pausing that bit of
the sequence.

“Yes, but I don’t know why.”

“Every time I run this through my head I think it degrades
even more,” Rio admitted. “I get the dream again and if I can hang onto a piece
of it, it realigns. Sharing it with you might be causing the degradation to
snowball.”

“So what now?”

“Now I try and focus on that bit the next time I have
the dream.”

“You mean when you wake up for those first few
minutes?”

“That’s my note taking time, but I think I’m still
active in the dream. Just a hunch, because I’ve got nothing to back it up
with.”

“So you think this is psionic related?”

“I thought I was being stupid earlier but couldn’t let
it go. Now I know I’m not because you’ve seen the same thing whether you
remember it now or not.”

“Why did you say
Sav
?”

Rio cringed.

“Just spit it out already.”

“This is so without merit that I’m afraid I’m going to
bias you going forward.”

“Bias me then. I want to know what you’re thinking.”

Rio held up his left hand and extended two fingers out
in a ‘V’ then pointed them up to his eyes in the old school hand signal for
‘keep your eyes open.’ It took a moment for Paul to realize that wasn’t what he
was doing. Rather, he was just pointing at his eyes…

His twinkling grey eyes.

“There’s no mention in the database for the color
change,” Rio reminded him. “And if I’m guessing right, the dream started when I
got them.”

“Tier 3,” Paul echoed, his mind racing with the
possible implications…which were numerous considering they had so little data
to rule anything out with. “To what end?”

“I don’t know, but I doubt it’s there without a
reason.”

Paul glared at him. “And this was the first you thought
about mentioning it to us?”

“Do you mention every whiff of thought that passes
through your head? The only thing I have to go on is corroboration from you.
Beyond that it’s just a daydream.”

“Oh no, you’re not getting away with that, buddy.
You’ve been suspecting this a while, confirmation or no. You should have said
something.”

“There are only four of us that have a pair of Tier
3s, and you’re the only addition since me. Your ascension is fresh, so I
thought I’d try out this stupid theory and probably get made fun of for
it…which is also why I wasn’t going to tell you if you didn’t respond to the
images I sent you.”

Paul rolled his eyes. “Just because we make fun of you
doesn’t mean we don’t care,” he said with a touch of sarcasm.

“Have you ever tried to put meaning to your dreams?”

“Not when I’m awake, no. I figure they’re just
incoherent nonsense that’s the result of thinking with only a piece of your
brain active.”

“Well, I’ve always thought there was a little bit more
to that and I wanted to explore those stupid notions in private.”

Paul held up a hand. “Alright, alright. You win. I
have side projects that I’m working on and haven’t told you guys about, and
won’t, unless they pan out, so I can see what you mean.”

Rio frowned. “What kind of side projects?”

“The kind that keep Clan Saber ahead of you morons.
Don’t change the subject.”

The titan pointed an accusing finger at him. “Sharing
is caring…especially when it involves new toys.”

“Like I said, I don’t share until I have something
worth sharing…which basically means I’m arguing against myself as of two
minutes ago. Fine, you kept these dreams to yourself but now we know a bit
more. Where do you want to go from here?”

“I got more conscious access to the dreams after my
second Tier 3. We need to confer with Jason and Morgan.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“I sense another stupid idea you’re holding back.”

Rio frowned. “The dreams are random. I can’t predict
when they will happen, but it seems to be, on average, every two weeks or so,
but with wide fluctuations. The stupid idea would be you trying to peek on my
dreams and consciously see what I can’t.”

Paul sighed. “Yeah that is stupid…but it makes sense.”

“Except that we can’t realistically do that.”

“Oh can’t we?”

“You can’t lose hours staying awake watching me in the
hopes of catching something.”

“Me, no. I’m in too heavy of training and I’ve got
this brand new psionic to work out…but we can always recruit a few dozen other
Archons to take shifts with you at night holding your hand.”

Rio cringed at the thought of having someone in his
room and head while he tried to relax and rest. He wondered why that was,
because he could sleep in the middle of a crowded, noisy room if he wanted to.
His quarters, however, had become something of a sanctuary. A place he’d
trained himself to let his guard down so he could more fully heal. If he was
going to be watched he’d need to do it elsewhere so he didn’t break the habit.

“They can be hot chicks, right?”

“Is there an Archon girl that’s not hot?”

Rio considered that, rifling through his memories.
“You’ve got a point there.”

“I’m sure you’ll get a fair amount of volunteers. Have
each take a 1 or 2-hour shift and see if they come up with anything.”

“Why didn’t I think of doing that before?”

“Because it’s stupid,” Paul explained pithily. “But
sometimes stupid works.”

“Do your conversations with Jason go like this?”

“No, ours are more intelligent. I only pick up the
stupid vibe around you and a few others.”

Rio nodded. “Thought so. Thanks for the suggestion,”
he said, brushing past Paul and heading for one of the shower booths. “I’ll
comm
you the results.”

“No problem,” Paul said, heading for the door and back
to his quarters to do a little database digging before he dove back into his
training regimen that had already been disrupted by the past day’s events. Something
about what Rio told him felt…significant, and he really wished he’d mentioned
it sooner so Paul and the others could have been on the look for it in their
own sleep sessions.

Ielia-521993 pulled up a chair next to Rio’s bed in an
empty set of generic quarters as he
layed
down, head
hitting the pillow and wondering which posture he should choose, which she
could guess by his awkwardness.

“Toss and turn all you want,” the striker said
agreeably, “I’ll adjust to you. If you’re stiff, odds are you won’t enter dream
state, so try and relax.”

“Thank you,” Rio said, rolling over on his right side
as she slid her chair closer and put a hand gently on his neck. “If you see
anything weird bouncing around my head I’m pleading ignorant.”

“I’m just a passive observer unless we hit pay dirt.
Don’t want you kicking me out of the Clan for snooping around inside your head,
now do I?”

“Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about that.”

“I’m here for the mission,” she said quickly. “I’ll
stick to it, curiosity or not. Trust me or you’ll never get to sleep.”

“I can trust once…but not twice.”

“You won’t need twice.
Me
and
the others have already discussed this. No prying, pranks, or anything other
than business. If there’s a V’kit’no’sat secret buried in your dreams we want
you to find it so you can pass it on to us down the road.”

“Kiss goodnight?”

Ielia
leaned forward and
gave him a peck on the side of his head. “Goodnight. Dream of superpowers.”

“Would if I could,” Rio said, closing his eyes. “But
I’m afraid this is going to be totally random. Go ahead and knock me out, then
let me surf on my own.”

“Alright,”
Ielia
said, using
her touch to bypass the Ikrid blocks and Rio’s own defenses, which he had
lowered, and force him into unconsciousness. He went down into a sleep state
without a fight, then she released her influence and just became the passive
observer. When she let go he didn’t push his way back to consciousness, meaning
that he really had trusted her and was now in a fairly deep sleep that was
sliding even further. She didn’t know when the dreams would start, so she kept
a link to the tiny piece of his conscious mind that was functioning, watching
the blank ‘movie screen’ for about 20 minutes until bits and pieces of random
stuff started popping up…all of which was skewed due to the lack of full brain
power being applied.

Ielia
had never looked at
someone’s dreams before, and these looked like an artistic attempt at a
stylistic cartoon that didn’t care for physics. Rio’s dreams held that
semblance for a while until they crystalized a bit when Mario and Luigi got
into a pie flinging fight with the Three Stooges…who had telekinesis and
bioshields.

Halfway during that fight, which was in far more
detail than the rest of his dreams,
Ielia’s
relief
quietly snuck into the quarters through the unlocked door. The mage had a brief
telepathic conversation with her so as not to wake Rio, then she lightly
grabbed his wrist and they both watched another minute of the odd fight before
Ielia
let go of his neck and the mental feed shut off. She
snuck out of the room ninja quiet and got halfway down the hallway before she
busted out laughing, no longer needing to hold it in.