Winters Family Psi Chronicles 2: Project Onyx (11 page)

“I didn’t think about that,” Brian said.

“The FBI will have people watching over you but you will need to remain diligent,” Teresa cautioned.

“I will,” Brian said.

When he reported for treatments, the doctors went through the regular routine. His favorite part was his session with Melissa as he was interested in mastering his connectivity psi. Today, she wore a dark gray sweater with a large, turquoise pendant and brown pants. She smiled in greeting.

“Good morning, Brian,” she said.

“Good morning, that’s a beautiful pendant,” Brian said.

“You flatterer, you.” Melissa’s smile widened and she chuckled as she sat down in the chair facing him.

She reached over and gently grasped his arm. After administering his treatment, she withdrew her hand and straightened in her chair.

“We have some practice today,” she said. “There are the beginnings of two links from energy transference psi attached to you. You have two people in your life who don’t want to give up on your energy. This is a good training opportunity. It will be easy for you to remove the links using your connectivity psi.”

“Okay.”

Brian closed his eyes and almost immediately the energy around him became visible. He focused on his own indigo sphere that flared bright. He carefully scrutinized the myriad of blue links until he spotted two thin, muddy orange energy beams intersecting with him. One of them had tendrils of red running along it that reminded him of veins. Melissa had shared many memories of the act of terminating links. He reached out with his mind and grasped one of the orange links. He focused on destabilizing it until the link weakened enough that it shattered into smaller fragments that continued to shrink as they exploded farther away and disintegrated completely. He lost his vision of the psychic links and waited for several moments to get it back. He waited awhile longer then the energy snapped back into focus again. All the many spheres of luminescence and the links of energy between them was beautiful. He took a moment to admire the myriad of colors before focusing on his own matrix.

He quickly found the orange link and began destabilizing it. It took considerably longer to destroy than the first one. When he finally succeeded, he opened his eyes to find Melissa’s troubled gaze watching him intently.

“That was unexpected,” she said.

“That I have two links that came back so quickly?” Brian asked.

“No, it’s common to have links reestablish themselves. It will be necessary for you to check daily and destroy any energy transference links. The reason I’m concerned is because the second one took you quite awhile to get rid of and it wasn’t because you’re weak. The individual responsible is extremely powerful. You have at least two individuals who have been draining your energy for years. Can you think of anyone that you interact with who makes you feel uneasy or tired? It may not even be readily apparent for one of them,” Melissa said.

“There are lots of kids that give me a hard time at school. I had a severe psychic burnout when practicing with Zack last week in my psychic control and attunement class,” Brian said.

“He’s probably the stronger one,” Melissa said. “I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as you detect and get rid of any links from psychic vampires right before you go to bed.”

“Couldn’t I do it first thing in the morning instead?” Brian asked.

“You can but it’s more effective in the evening because you’ve finished interacting with everyone and your body regenerates overnight. If you wait until the morning to sever unwanted connections, you’ll be drained while your body is replenishing its energy reserves,” Melissa explained.

“That makes sense,” Brian said.

“Did your Mom say anything about her link with the Zen Network yesterday?” Melissa asked.

“She’s very tight lipped about it. She hardly said a word except for this morning. It made an impact on her. She said she’s thinking about joining Phoenix Enterprises but hasn’t made up her mind,” Brian said. “Personally, I don’t understand what there is to think about.”

“Your mother is a very independent person. She doesn’t like all the rules which she fears may impose on her personal freedoms,” Melissa said. “Or at least, that’s what I’m guessing.”

“I think you’re right,” Brian said. “Too bad I can’t join.”

“You can join but you just have to wait a few more years,” Melissa said encouragingly. “Don’t worry. You’ll be graduated from high school before you know it.”

“I hope so. Things seem to be dragging lately,” Brian said.

“I remember my last two years in high school. It seemed to take forever but then afterwards, I wished I could go back and live it again.”

“Why do you feel that way?” he asked curiously.

“I don’t feel that way anymore. I used to. My life wasn’t very comfortable at first and I had wanted to go back and redo things. Sometimes, when you look at your past and the decisions you made, you can drive yourself crazy wishing that you’d done things differently. I finally felt at peace again once I started work at Phoenix Enterprises. I’ve been here for over twenty years now and have never regretted it,” Melissa said.

“That sounds like a perfect endorsement if I’ve ever heard one,” Brian said.

Chapter 11

Dick clutched the steering wheel in a tight, vise-like grip that caused his knuckles to bulge as panic churned in his mind and his car sped down the freeway toward Lynnwood. He had feared he wouldn’t have the strength to make it through an entire day of work. Exhaustion had seeped into his body late this morning. The psychic hunger in his mind and body raged furiously like a wild, predatory beast. The energy that he consumed on a constant basis via the connections to various individuals helped to sustain him but sometimes it wasn’t quite enough. Now that he’d lost the link with his brother, Jason, it had gotten a lot worse. Dick hadn’t realized how much support he’d acquired from him until just recently. Dick had felt the loss of energy immediately as a sharp jab in his mind and body. He’d also felt the same thing when Brian’s connection was severed. For some reason, high level empaths always provided a lot more sustenance than other psychics. Brian and Jason were tremendous losses.

After receiving Brian’s call this morning, Dick knew it was too risky to reestablish a link to him. Brian’s connectivity psi ability would show him the truth that Dick had worked painstakingly his entire life to conceal. Dick had discovered at an early age that he possessed energy transference psi and had immediately researched anecdotal facts online about this ability that the vast majority of individuals chose to keep under wraps. He’d refrained from using his ability on family for many months until he’d accidentally linked with his younger brother, Jason. That was when he’d discovered he was unable to sever connections that he’d created. Jason began to suffer from nightmares of Dick attacking him. At that point, Dick had spent countless hours and days trying to figure out how to conceal his ability. If the nightmares continued, it was only a matter of time before Jason figured out the truth or told someone who would figure it out. Dick discovered by reading an obscure blog entry that a level ten psychometrist had learned to direct an individual’s thoughts via psychic stimuli from objects.

Dick spent all of his free time practicing his psychometry until he learned to achieve similar results. It had taken him half a year to develop his talent to the point that he could manipulate those he targeted. He imbued a bunch of Jason’s personal belongings with powerful unconscious directives that would prevent him from considering the possibility that Dick was siphoning a constant supply of his energy and consequently, causing psychic burnouts. The unconscious directives made Jason’s nightmares only show him a mysterious man in shadows rather than Dick. It also created a compulsion that Jason would believe the nightmares warned he was suffering from psychic burnout. Dick had to constantly force the flow of energy that he stole from his younger brother to a mere trickle because his body craved more and unconsciously increased the flow of power. Jason suffered from more and more psychic burnouts and the nightmares increased.

Dick had become increasingly fearful of discovery so he created compulsions for everyone in his family as Jason’s condition was examined by specialists. Dick’s energy transference psi swiftly became stronger. Before he’d known what was happening, he’d developed links to his parents, cousins, and friends. Anyone he spent time with on a regular basis, he would unknowingly link to. It took years before he learned how to prevent a psychic connection but it was too late for those that already existed. Dick had sometimes wondered if he should have never experimented with his energy transference psi by tapping into the energy of his classmates. If it hadn’t been for that, he may have never become reliant on others’ power which had resulted in accidentally linking with his brother and family.

When Dick arrived in Lynnwood, he pulled into the parking lot of a local bar. He ordered a drink and chose an unoccupied booth near the corner where he would remain inconspicuous. It was early evening so the establishment only boasted a sparse number of customers. He fervently hoped that someone here would suffice. If Dick tried to feed during the late hours, he often ran into other energy transference psi who sometimes tried to drain him. Usually, others of his kind ignored each other but he didn’t like to take the chance of being fed on or identified.

Dick took a sip of his cold beer and closed his eyes for a moment. He reached out with a questing tendril until he found the richest source of energy which was a thin, middle-aged man hunched over a drink at the bar. Dick formed a temporary link to the target and pulled greedily at his energy. Instantly, the horrible clawing hunger abated to a manageable level. Dick continued to draw on the target until all too soon, the supplemental energy was gone. At this point, he could only drain a trickle. It was time to move onto the next target. The hunger was swiftly intensifying and becoming painful again. The next strongest target didn’t provide enough to abate the hunger much at all. What Dick needed was a high level talent with a weak psionic shield or a strong empath. The current establishment didn’t provide this option for him. It didn’t take long for him to exhaust the supplemental energy of those around him and the hunger had become agonizing. He moved on to another bar.

Dick focused on his first target who was hitting on a pretty blond sitting a couple seats away from him. Dick fastened the tendril into the man’s energy and burrowed deeper. He couldn’t create a permanent link after just one interaction but he could draw from their core energy if he tried hard enough. His hunger was intensifying so he dug persistently and forcefully at his target’s psionic barrier. Dick clutched his bottle of beer tight as he furiously struggled to overcome the protection. This process could take more than half an hour and if the shielding was too strong, it still wouldn’t work. Dick’s body trembled with exertion as his hunger clawed painfully at his insides. As time dragged by, he feared he’d made a mistake. The protection was weakening but he may not be strong enough to break through. Exhaustion seeped into Dick’s body and he was about to give up when his tendril slipped past the psionic barrier and burrowed deep into the man.

Dick’s body tingled with pleasure as he siphoned large quantities of the target’s energy. Dick’s shoulders slumped with relief and his psychic hunger eased. Now that he was hooked in, it required no effort on his part as the tendril drew greedily on the victim’s energy. Dick closed his eyes and relished the rush of power. He didn’t immediately notice when the flow stopped but was startled when a crash sounded across the room. Dick opened his eyes and turned to see the man had collapsed onto the floor. Two of the customers were standing over him to help. The man was barely conscious as they pulled him to his feet. One of them made the sardonic remark that he’d drank enough for one night. This was the perfect cover for energy transference psi to feed because if they drained excessively from the core energy of their victims and caused them to pass out, people automatically assumed those individuals had imbibed too much alcohol.

Dick had spent a great deal of time at the bar so it had gotten later and busier. He sent out another questing tendril and found several more targets who had a good portion of supplementary energy to draw from. He finished his beer and departed even though he had never gotten the chance to locate an empath. He couldn’t risk staying any later and meeting another energy transference psi because those with the same talent could easily drain each other. Dick had been on the losing end of several struggles with his own kind and it had left him seriously depleted. He’d only been in his early twenties during those encounters so he had a lot more experience now but he also had a lot more to lose. He had almost reached his car when a female voice called out behind him.

“That was an impressive display of power,” she said.

Dick slowly turned to face a short woman wearing jeans and a green blouse. Her black hair was trimmed in a page cut and dimples formed in her cheeks as she smiled widely at him. Standing so close, he could clearly sense that she was an energy transference psi. He swallowed nervously and strengthened his psionic shielding.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I want to know how you tapped into that man’s core energy so deeply. I propose a trade. I have something I’m sure you will want to bargain for,” she said smoothly.

“I don’t work with other energy transference psi,” Dick said dismissively.

He didn’t turn his back on her as he knew how dangerous she could be. Her power pulsed wildly as she drew on a myriad of connections. Her green eyes fixed on him with predatory intent. Dick braced himself for an attack.

“Why haven’t I seen you here before?” she asked.

“I don’t come to bars very often. I generally don’t need to,” he said.

“But you’ve recently lost one or more connections,” she said.

“How do you know that?” he asked suspiciously.

“I can feel it,” she said. “You have that imbalance that we tend to get when we’ve lost a high level empath. They’re hard to come by. Luckily, in my line of work I happen to meet a large number of them.”

“What do you do?” Dick asked.

“That’s none of your concern. I’m proposing a business transaction. If we become friends then I’ll share more. I’m willing to give you information on what I know of energy transference psi and the names and addresses of empaths. In return, you will supply me with information and the first thing I want are memories of how you bypass psionic protection.”

“I don’t really have a specific technique. I had lots of practice. Its like any other muscle that gets stronger the more you use. There isn’t anything to teach you.”

“You may not be consciously aware but if you share the memory and demonstrate your technique, I will start out by giving you the names and addresses of three empaths. My name is Lorraine, by the way.”

She pulled out a slip of paper and handed it over to him. Dick reluctantly reached out and accepted it. He kept expecting an attack but it hadn’t yet come.

“What’s your name?” she asked conversationally.

“Dick,” he said.

“It’s good to meet you.”

“You already had a list of people ready in case you met another energy transference psi?” Dick asked suspiciously.

Lorraine laughed and her green eyes twinkled with mirth.

“I meet our kind all the time and I’ve benefited from many exchanges of information. There are five of us who hang out together,” she said.

“But they’re not with you tonight?” Dick asked.

“Not tonight. We meet up a couple of times a month,” Lorraine said. “I left my name and phone number on that list. I can give you a lot more empaths. If you’re interested in getting together, give me a call.”

Lorraine turned and walked back into the bar. Dick warily checked his surroundings to ensure that no one was sneaking up behind him. He had never seen energy transference psi hanging out together. He wished he had empathic ability so he could detect whether or not she’d been telling him the truth. He slipped inside his car and locked the doors before opening the paper and confirming there was a list of three names and addresses. It could be a trap but he would be careful. He needed more empathic connections now that he’d lost Brian and Jason.