“Afraid not. I noticed it after the blackout. They’ve just vanished.”
“Are you sure you haven’t exhausted them? Did you try anything difficult before you noticed the issue?”
“I haven’t used my powers since yesterday,” he reported. “And not on anything too strenuous.”Just silencing a woman obsessed with me, who might be an enemy. No big deal.
“You’re positive that they’re gone?”
Cal nodded. “There’s just nothing there. It makes no sense.” He ran a hand through his hair. “There has never been any reported cases of a Vartik losing his powers. This leads me to believe that it’s no coincidence. Someone in RPS has taken them from me.”
Juston frowned. “Walk me through the events since the last time you used your powers.”
Cal started, being sure to edit his recitation carefully. “I left RPS. I came back here, talked to Nojan, took a shower…” Then what?
He didn’t remember anything except waking up in the morning. “Fell asleep, woke up, checked in on Vartik, got dressed, headed back to RPS. Encountered the catatonic girl again, then the blackout. I discovered I couldn’t use my powers. And then I found you.”
Juston’s expression said he detected that Cal might be leaving something out, but he didn’t press him. “And who were you trying to use your powers on?”
Cal wasn’t sure how to respond. He didn’t want to lie to his brother, but the situation with Gemmaline was complicated. Still, now that he suspected her, it was time to bring his brother in on the situation. “Gemmaline, the girl that’s been following me around.”
“She likes you,” his brother said. “Her friend, Charlie, thinks she has a crush on you.”
Cal nodded. “That might be true. Or it could be something more. She could be one of the Seekers.” He didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t discount the possibility. “She’s the last one I used my powers on, and when I tried to access them again, I couldn’t.”
“What did you use them for?”
How to answer that question? “She’d been pursuing me, asking me to kiss her. I couldn’t have her following me around, attracting attention. Since her condition is marked by the inability to speak, I commanded her not to talk to me again.”
“Harsh,” Juston said. “If she’s just a human with a crush, that was certainly cruel.”
Cal didn’t need the guilt his brother was laying on him. He had enough on his conscience already. “I know. But I couldn’t risk the mission because some crazy person was acting strange.”
He turned back to his brother. “And that’s another thing. Apparently, before we showed up, she could barely talk. But around me, she can’t shut up. It could be an indication that she’s not who she says she is.”
Juston nodded. “Or it could be something else. There are just too many unknowns.”
Cal threw up his hands in frustration. “We’ve got to start figuring shit out and fast. And we’ve got to get my powers back and keep yours from being stolen.”
The console let out a beep and Juston stood, checking the results of the scan. “This is surprising,” he said. “Although today’s blackout didn’t affect anything, according to these results, there was a power interruption last night.”
Cal joined him at the controls. “That’s ridiculous. I was here last night. That was around the time I was in the shower. I think I would have noticed a power interruption.”
“You sure?” his brother asked. “Remember, there is a Seeker who can make you forget things. They did it to me. They did it to Dawn and to Zelup. Or the Seeker who can make you hallucinate.”
“Are you saying they infiltrated the ship last night and I don’t remember it?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Anger filled him. “Right,” Cal said. “Let’s go find these fuckers and get my powers back.”
