“Fascinating,” Kallister murmurs. “That makes…three?” He turns to Teriq for confirmation, and the younger man nods.
“Three what?” I demand.
“Until you, we only knew of two other Mods whose veins don’t react to their abilities,” he explains. “Now it’s three.”
Four,I want to correct, but I’d never betray Cross.
“Have you figured out why?” I ask curiously. “Why some people’s veins are, um, dormant, I mean?”
He shakes his head. “Just another mystery. None of the research has ever produced any concrete answers.”
“How proficient are you in mind reading?” Fiona asks in a clinical voice. She reminds me of the doctor in the village where I grew up, running through a list of symptoms when I went in there with a fever.
“If the mind is unshielded, it comes easily to me.”
“And filtering?” inquires Kallister. “Also easy?”
“Yes.”
Guilt pricks my stomach at the reminder that some Mods can’t filter at all, making mind reading next to impossible for them. But at least those people can shield themselves from the noise, whereas fragmented Mods are incapable of maintaining a shield or severing links correctly. Once they’ve been in another mind, it opens a floodgate. Outside thoughts are constantly rushing back into their heads, drowning out all sense and order, until their brains become a cacophony of voices. A pure, chaotic racket.
It’s enough to drive someone insane, and eventually, it does, completely robbing you of sanity. Like the woman I saw in Ward C. Rocking on the hospital bed, whimpering, covering her ears with her hands as she repeated the same phrase over and over and over again.
Shut up shut up shut up shut up.
I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to never have silence in your own mind.
“If the mind is shielded, how long does it take you to break through the shield?” Kallister asks.
I think it over. “It depends. That’s not always easy.”
“Have you ever encountered a shield you couldn’t break?”
“No.”
Surprise creases his forehead. “Including my brother’s? You were able to penetrate Julian’s shield?”
I nod.
“At what age?”
“Nine.”
Adrienne laughs softly. When I frown at her, she says, “It’s impressive. I never tested Julian’s shield, but if it’s anything like Kallister’s…”
“It happened after countless hours of training, though,” I protest, because I don’t love all the fanfare around my abilities. We haven’t even gotten to my incitement yet. It never occurred to me they’d be so impressed with my mind reading and knack for opening fast paths.
Kallister makes a note in his tablet. “I’d like to train with you. Try you against my shield.”
“Now?”
“No. But it’ll be part of your mandatory training.”
“Let’s move on to your next ability,” Fiona snaps. “You mentioned there’s more than two?”
“I have four,” I say sheepishly.
Adrienne narrows her eyes. “What else can you do?”
