" she said with a wink and a wicked smile, and started reaching for the disconnect button. "Fure! Get in here! I need-" and then she ended the call.

Calling Eleri was _such_ a good idea, even if she couldn't resist ogling him a little bit.

That was the good one, now it was time for the _bad_ one. He punched up Jyslin's number, and waited both anxiously and nervously. It had been nearly a week since he talked to her, just that last day, so he wasn't sure if she was still angry or not. He waited... and waited... and waited some more. Almost a minute went by, and no Jyslin, and what was odd, no answering machine. He was about to end it and call Maya before she finally picked up the line. It was audio only, only showing a still picture of her and her name. "Hello," she called shortly.

"Jyslin?" he called.

The picture of her was quickly replaced with a live image. She was wearing a simple black tee shirt, sitting at her vidlink console. "It's about time," she told him. "Are you alright? Are things well?"

"I'm alright," he said carefully. "My vacation's gone rather well so far. I had a few run-ins with some unfriendly residents, but nothing I couldn't handle. Are things going alright over there?"

She nodded. "Fairly well. Oh, two things. First, your physical is on _Friday_," she said strongly. "I highly suggest you get everything ready before then. You don't want to miss it. Second, you need to call in to traffic control. They lost contact with your skimmer, and they don't know where you are. They thought you crashed until they brought in a space-based sensor array and searched the area, and saw nothing wrong."

He could have kissed her. That meant that they weren't _actively_ looking for him yet. That gave him two days of relative freedom. She also managed to tell him that he had in fact managed to get his skimmer down and hidden from sensors without them knowing where he was. That bridge was doing its job, hiding his skimmer from detection. "I understand," he said with a slow nod.

"Tim's really missed you." She pursed her lips. "We need to talk about him, Jason."

"What about?"

She glanced around, then looked at him with a grim expression. "I'm starting to think that he has _the same problem you do_," she said intensely.

Jason was taken aback. Tim? Tim might have _talent_? "Why do you think that?" he asked.

"He's showing some of the same symptoms you did," she answered evenly. "Now that I saw you come down with this condition, I'm starting to pay more attention to some other people. Tim certainly seems to be showing some symptoms, but hasn't come down with a full-blown case of it. I'm not entirely sure he will yet, but I'm starting to think that he might. The symptoms haven't abated yet."

Jason swore. "How long?"

"Days. Weeks. Months. It's impossible to tell. If he does have it at all, it might never show up. If it does, there's no telling how bad of a case it's going to be."

"Is he going to be alright?"

"As long as he doesn't have too much outside interference, he should be just fine. It's nothing that someone like me can't fix, and it's certainly not something that he'd want bandied about. That kind of embarrassment, I think he'd prefer to avoid. If it turns out that he does have too much outside interference, though, he might have to take a little vacation too, to settle his nerves."

Jason looked down. If it was true, if Tim _was_ expressing talent, then he fully understood what she meant. If that really was the case, then she and Symone would train him, the same way Jyslin trained Jason. She'd be a hell of a lot better at it than Jason ever would be. But, if the situation with the Faey got too sticky, she'd have to pack him up and send him off to Jason, to live away from the Faey and away from danger. It would be much more dangerous to train Tim than it had been to train him, because nobody would even conceive that a human could have talent when Jyslin trained him. But since that girl expressed and they knew that humans weren't completely devoid of telepaths, it would make training Tim a bit more dangerous. Jyslin would probably have to really clamp down on him if it really happened, or have Symone stay with him nearly at all times to prevent an accident like the one that got that other girl discovered.

"I understand. Does Symone know?"

She nodded. "We decided not to say anything to Tim. We want to see how this plays out. We don't want to worry him. If it turns out to be nothing, then he'll never have had to worry about anything at all."

"That's a good idea. Tim's a bit high strung."

"I noticed," she said with a slight smile. "I also found out that Symone knows _you_ suffer from this condition. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it was between me and her," he answered simply. "She wanted to let me know it didn't bother her," he said carefully.

"I'm a bit cross that you didn't tell me, but I guess it's alright," she said with a slight snort. "I've been wondering, Jason, and thinking a little bit. I think there's a common denominator here."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, first you get this condition. Then someone else we know does," she said pointedly without referring to that girl who expressed during finals. "Now it looks like Tim _might_. The common thread here is _us_. For you, me. For Tim, Symone. And I found out that other one also had a _friend_, an Army regular. Seems like some humans might be _allergic_ to Faey or something. It's the only reason I can think of."

Jason scratched his cheek, pondering her unspoken words. She might be right, maybe exposure to the Faey was causing telepathic ability in humans. First Jason, who gets probed every day for years, then this girl, who, if Jyslin was right, had a Faey lover. And now Tim, who had extensive, _deep_ telepathic contact with a Faey. That had to be a connection. Maybe... maybe the Faey themselves were causing this, causing humans to express, by exposing them to their telepathic power. He wasn't sure, but from what he had in front of him, he could see a clear connection to link the fact that he had talent, and this girl had talent, and Tim _might_ have talent, and all of them had a history of extensive exposure to Faey telepathy. Jason in small periods of exposure over the years, Tim and that girl though intense exposure over a short amount of time... at least he was speculating in that regard about that other girl.

Maybe not _every_ human was going to express, because they certainly would have by now. Some humans served in the Faey Imperium as liaisons or governmental officials, and they'd been exposed to the Faey and their telepathy on a daily basis for years. Perhaps it was like what he remembered Jyslin and Symone saying about other races and telepathic power. Maybe the humans too had some telepathic ability, but only a very small portion of the population. So far, most of that portion of the population hadn't been exposed to the Faey, exposed to their power, because only a very tiny fraction of the human population of Earth had any extensive, continual contact with the Faey. Most people saw a Faey only once a week or so, maybe got probed once a month. Jason got probed _daily_, for _years_. And Tim, though he'd only known Symone for a couple of months, they had shared an intensely deep telepathic communion. She joined their minds when they made love, and he was certain she sent to him quite a bit, and kept a link with him so she could hear his thoughts in return.

It could be that telepathic contact was triggering it in humans, could be making humans become telepathic. Almost like it was showing them the way.

Jason found that it did make a certain kind of sense. If only _some_ humans had the potential to be telepathic, it explained why it was taking so long for it to show up, since only now was there more and more extensive contact between the Faey and humans. Or who knew, maybe _every_ human had the potential, but some were more sensitive than others, more susceptible to whatever it was the Faey were doing to them to make it come out. People like Jason and Tim and that other girl, maybe they'd been not far from expressing true telepathic ability even if the Faey weren't here, and the Faey's presence just nudged them in the right direction.

"Jyslin... that is one hell of a point," he agreed with slow words. "You might be right. You very well might be right. It might be rare because perhaps not every human is susceptible to this condition, that only a few humans with the potential to come down with it don't come into enough contact to develop the condition. Or maybe we all do, but some of us have much lower resistance to it than others, so we started suffering from it first."

"Hmm, that's a good point," she said after thinking a moment. "So, you're okay with me watching Tim?"

He nodded. "You're the best one to deal with it if it turns out he has it," he assured her. "Just like you said, you can fix it if it happens, like you did with me. He wouldn't like having to take a vacation. You couldn't drag him away from Symone."

"That's Trelle's own truth," Jyslin grunted. "Sometimes I think they'll have to be surgically removed from each other."

Jason chuckled. "Listen, it's getting dark here, and I have to hike back to my camp. I'll do what you asked me to do when I get back. I'll _see _you on _Friday_, okay?"

"Friday it is," she said with a slow nod. "I'll meet you at the regular place."

"I'll be there. I'm sorry to cut it short."

"Hey, hon, that's not a problem. I know you're busy relaxing out there," she said with a sly smile. "See you on Friday."

"Be good."

"Be careful," she returned, and then she cut the connection.

Jason sighed, standing up, then he shut down the panel and started back towards the airbike. Tim, having talent. That idea scared him, not because he didn't think Tim could handle it, but for what it meant. He had the sneaking suspicion that Jyslin was right on the money with her reasoning. He'd bet that extensive telepathic contact between humans and Faey was inciting telepathic ability in humans, or at least _some_ humans. The link between Jason and Jyslin, and Tim and Symone, and now that other girl and her Faey lover, it was a very strong piece of circumstantial evidence supporting Jyslin's theory.

Oh, God... if that was true, then there were going to be more. And more. And even more. The Faey were going to have _dozens_ of human telepaths on their hands, maybe _hundreds_, and that was going to force them to respond. If it was indeed the Faey causing this telepathic expression, and they discovered the link that was causing humans to develop talent, then they were in a serious quandary. They really relied on the food from Earth to feed the Imperium, for they didn't have very many planets that had the right climate for food production. They couldn't leave Earth, they _needed_ the food, but if they were causing humans to express telepathy, then their remaining here was creating a group of natives that had the power to oppose them. But what would they do?

Well, odds were, they were going to do to them what they did to that girl. Get them off the planet, reprogram them for loyalty to the Imperium, then either send them back to work for the Imperium on Earth, maybe hunting down other human telepaths, or employ them as spies for the Imperium. They would start _really_ looking for humans on the verge of expression, start monitoring medical records, using telepaths to start digging for memories or information that would hint that that human had some latent talent that was about to awaken. They would try to find them and pacify them _before_ they expressed, _before_ they became a threat. The expression of telepathic power was not an issue so long as they remained in control, and was able to nullify the potential threat it posed before it _became_ a threat.

And they would do that for as long as they were able to keep finding them faster than they could express. But if they couldn't... he had no idea.

One thing they would certainly do would be to outlaw "social interaction" between humans and Faey. That would slow down the number of new telepaths. But Jason wasn't sure that it required a human and Faey to be lovers for one to express talent... after all, Jason really hadn't. He would have expressed no matter what, Jyslin said so herself. That other girl may also have expressed no matter what, it just would have taken longer for it to happen. And if Tim really did have talent, the same might apply to him as well. In that scenario, it severely limited the fundamental way the Faey kept control of the human population, by using telepathy to prevent any kind of resistance from forming before it had a chance to start. If the Faey were forced to restrict how they used telepathy against the native population, given the fact that humans would rebel the _instant_ they thought they could get away with it, it would _really_ stick the Faey in a bind. They used telepathy to quell resistance, but using telepathy was potentially creating human telepaths capable of defeating that primary weapon. It was the proverbial catch-22. In that situation, their reaction might be rash, swift, and _very_ ugly for the humans under Faey domination.

And he really didn't want to think about it.

The ride back to his house was uneventful, if not a little nervewracking. He had to rely on the airbike's rather rudimentary collision avoidance system as radar, since it was after dark and he wasn't about to turn on the bike's lights. He navigated by compass and maps, and they faithfully got him back home without him missing the mark by more than a mile west of his destination. He swept the area with his power and found no one around, so he shut down the hypersonic emitter and landed under the bridge. He stowed the airbike and locked up the skimmer, then made his way home, mentally adding a few items to the shopping list for Eleri-Kumi. For Kumi. An all-weather riding suit would be nice, and a spare pair of night-vision goggles, maybe one that was in the visor shape. He was _sorely_ tempted to ask to see if she could find a replicator, but that was infeasible. They were huge, and they drew so much power that they'd be a beacon on a sensor array, shining out here in the unpowered lawless zone. There were some components and assemblies that he should see if she could get, general components to act as spare parts and a pool of available components if he had the need to build anything else. Yes, that was only smart. He'd have to make a list.

Now there was something he _should_ ask for. Maya said that if he wanted to power up his skimmer, it had to be covered by a very heavy metal, one of the ones that didn't appear on the human table of elements, like carbidium. Well, he had that PPG-powered generator down in the basement, and a PPG was powering his hypersonic emitter. He needed to ask for a few cubic _shakra_ of carbidium sheet metal, so he could fashion some covers for his power systems.

Tim. He hoped, he really hoped, that Tim really didn't have talent. But, something told him that that wasn't the case. Jyslin was usually very sharp about things like that, and Jyslin was more or less convinced that he did. He knew it wasn't going to be easy for Tim. Tim really was high-strung, even though it didn't show that much. It was going to be tremendous pressure on him to learn how to control his power in an actively hostile environment. Jason sighed, and reminded himself that he was in very good hands. Jyslin and Symone would take very good care of him, and do everything they could to teach him how to control that power without giving himself away. Jyslin was _good_. She could have been in the Secret Police, she was _that strong_, and she was _very_ skilled in her talent. After all, she had years more experience than other people her age in it, since she expressed so early. But she had managed to avoid that, going instead to the Marines. Jyslin would protect Tim, of that he was absolutely certain. She did like him, and it was doing Jason a favor. And Jason and Jyslin were willing to put their necks on the lines for each other.

He sat down in his new favorite chair down in the basement and turned on the television. All he could get out here was satellite broadcasts, and that meant he had a wide variety of choices between "native" programming and Faey programming. The Faey had left the entertainment sector intact when they took over the planet, giving the natives something to occupy their minds when not working. They had even gone in and upgraded all the networks and local television stations with Faey equipment, then trained the workers in how to operate it. He had some 632 channels to choose from, local stations that broadcast globally from all over the world, global networks like CNN or HBO, Faey networks that were considered local, and Faey networks beamed in from the Imperium. He surfed for a few minutes, stopping for a moment when he found a French channel doing news. Jason could speak French, thanks to his mother. He listened for a moment, then moved on when he found the story to be rather boring. He finally settled on an old movie called _Groundhog Day_, which was showing on one of the movie channels, about a vain, egotistical man cursed to relive the same day over and over. He'd always loved this movie, because it was a unique concept, wasn't the same old assembly-line kind of movie. He'd always wondered what he would do if he was in a similar situation, living the same day over and over.

He sighed. Well, now he guessed he was going to find out. Living out here was kind of living the same day over and over, because there was only one thing he had to do. Live to see the next day. Over and over again.

He hoped Tim would be alright.

He hoped that Kumi wouldn't get in trouble, and he really was grateful that she was willing to help.

He sighed and leaned the recliner back, watching the movie through half-open eyes, then, the day catching up with him, he drifted off to sleep.


Chapter 7

_Giira, 27 Oraa, 4392, Orthodox Calendar_
_Thursday, 14 July 2007, Native Regional Reckoning_
_Huntington, West Virginia (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector_

As promised, Temika returned early that morning, as Jason was taking some measurements to study the feasibility of installing an external water tank at that location. The work kept his mind off worrying about Tim, and besides, it really needed to be done. He'd woke up before dawn, unable to sleep and with a sore neck from falling asleep in the recliner, then made the plans for it while waiting for the sun to come up. He needed to pick a location along the path of the original water line, which he could only guess at given he had no ground-penetrating portable sensors. He'd found the water shutoff valve down by the sidewalk, and could only assume that the water pipe was going to go in a generally straight line to the house. If he didn't want to dig up his yard, he'd have to install the tank's connection to the house's piping inside, and run the pipe into the house from the tank outside. That was probably what he was going to do, for digging up his hard with a shovel was going to be a very long and exhausting proposition. This location, by the house in the back yard, was a possible tank location if he hooked the tank into the plumbing inside the house. He'd already surveyed a few possible locations if he decided to hook the tank into the plumbing outside. Either way he went, he had to make sure that the tank was connected so it could fill the hot water heater. He looked at that and saw that it was electric, so that wasn't an issue. It had shut itself off when he got the electricity back up, because the water tank was empty. The fact that this house was all electric was a lucky coincidence, given that most other houses around used natural gas appliances.

He was in the back yard when he heard her Harley rumble in the distance, then steadily get louder and louder as she approached. He finished writing on his little note pad, then closed it and walked around front just as she turned the corner, still wearing the same clothes she'd had on the day before. She parked her bike in front of his house, then turned it off and raised her goggles as he walked out to her. Jason made sure he wasn't listening to her thoughts as he approached her. He would respect her privacy. "Mornin', sugah," she greeted. "Y'all have a good night?"

"Well enough," he answered. "There's been a change in plans."

"What?"

"You'll get the bike in a couple of days," he told her. "I made contact with a friend on the outside last night, and she told me that the space-based sensors _can_ pick up an airbike."

"Shit," she grunted.

"So she's going to trade me the two bikes I have with two bikes that _won't_ get picked up, ones that have special signature maskers."

"Sounds like quite a friend."

"Not _precisely_ a friend," he chuckled. "I'm paying for them, believe me. This friend has the soul of a robber baron. But she has some connections and can get her hands on what I need, and she'll help me despite the danger of it."

"She must be a blueskin."

"She is. I have a few Faey friends, I'll admit it. But they'll help me even with me being out here, so that means that they really _are_ friends."

She grunted, then chuckled herself. "Ah can't argue with that, sugah. Ah never really got tah know any of them. Ah was too busy thinkin' up ways to make life hell for them."

"Some of them aren't that bad," he told her. "I've always had a towering hatred of the Faey and their system, and I guess I still do. But I've met a few Faey who-" he chuckled ruefully. "Well, a few Faey who weren't about to take that as an excuse not to get to know me. One was quite militant about it, and in a way, I guess she managed to make me see that not _all_ Faey are bad. There are some good ones out there, it's just hard to see them, I guess."

"Girlfriend?"

"After a fashion," he admitted. "She certainly had that kind of interest, but no matter how much I liked her, I couldn't justify that kind of a relationship with her. Because she _is_ Faey. She got me to accept her as a person, and I do care for her, but she's still part of a system I can't live with. When I started getting too close to her, I realized that getting into a relationship was going against everything I believed in. It also made me see that I was becoming a part of their system, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if that happened. And well, here I am."

"Sorry tah heah that, sugah," she told him. "So, when do you want me tah take you across the border?"

"Next week, probably," he said. "This friend who's going to swap bikes will need me to meet her when we do it, and I'll have to take the bikes there. So I might need your help with that."

"Sure, sugah. After all, one of them is mine."

"Yeah," he agreed. "So I'm kinda stuck 'til I find out when and where that's going to be. Want some breakfast?"

"Hell, why not? Ah don't never turn down a free meal. You got that AC fixed yet?"

"Nope."

"Then Ah ain't stayin' long," she grinned. "It's gonna be hot today. Ah'd rather be out on the road with the wind coolin' me off than sittin' in a swelterin' house."

"Yeah, I noticed it was a bit warm, and it's still early. Maybe I should get the AC going. I _hate_ heat."

She laughed. "Get that AC goin', and Ah might move in," she teased.

"And give up being able to wander around the house naked? I don't think so," he said dryly.

Temika broke up in laughter.

He fed her a breakfast of frozen pancakes and eggs, then said his goodbyes and let her get on her way. According to her, the Josephsons back in Lavalette called her in, and they probably wanted her to deliver some mail to Abe's son over in Gallipolis. She also got a call from the Parkers down near Williamson, who probably had some chickens they wanted sent to someone. Jason was curious how she carried anything big, given she was on a motorcycle and all he could see on it were the admittedly voluminous saddlebags. But then he remembered that that model of Harley could tow a bike trailer, and he'd bet she had a couple of them sitting here and there.

He gave over on the water for right now, because a look out at the thermometer he had hanging from the post of the porch showed him it was already 85 degrees, and it was only 10:00am. He took his toolkit outside to the air conditioning unit, then started working on it. He really _would_ like some air conditioning, he had no idea why he waited this long to deal with it. He guessed because though it was July, they'd had a few pleasantly cool nights, and he'd been outside most of the day.

An hour into the operation, he discovered that the problem with it was just a simple case of rusted fuses and a decayed set of belts. The unit was designed to sit outside and endure the elements, and had fared very well in the years since it had last operated. He rode a bike down to the Lowe's a few miles away and scavenged for the parts, and found what he needed. Without electricity, materials that dealt with repairing electrical equipment was still laying around. The belts he found weren't in all that good of a shape, but they'd do until he found something better to use as a replacement. Three years of sitting without climate control had done some dryrot damage to the rubber, but they were still strong enough to do their job for now.

He rode back to his house and installed the parts, regreased the axles, and then cleaned everything up, then went in and turned it on. The smell coming out of the AC ducts was pretty stale and acrid, but after a few minutes, he felt cold air flowing against his palm.

It was working.

Jason sighed in relief and closed the front door, then cranked the temperature down to a nice 60 degrees, both to cool it off and to suck out all the humidity and moisture that had permeated the house for over two years. That would help clear out that dank smell that still lurked in some rooms. He meant to go out and continue working on the running water, but decided that he was just going to sit in his nice cool house and enjoy it for a while. There were things he could do inside.

He did get back out there around two o'clock, after having finally decided on installing the tank near the house in the backyard and hooking it into the plumbing inside the house. He went out and shut off the water valve that connected the house to the rest of the unused city water system, then marked where he was going to drill the hole through the wall to connect the pipe. He made a list of the things he was going to need to make it work. The external tank for sure, and he'd have to install a water pump, filtration, and purification system in the basement, probably beside the water heater. The tank would feed water to that system, which would clean it and pump it out to the house. He could connect it into the main incoming water pipe, which he'd found coming through the basement wall in the same room as the water heater. By cutting that pipe and connecting the pump there, it was just as if the water was coming from the old city system. He'd have to install a smaller pump on the external tank, and the best thing to do would be to run a pipe down to the Ohio River, draw water directly from there. He'd also need a filter on that one, or the external tank would quickly fill with sediment from the muddy water of the Ohio.

Those pumps were added to the list he was preparing for Kumi.

The tank itself wasn't an issue. If he couldn't find one that suited him, he could just make one. There was plenty of sheet metal to be had, and designing and building a water holding tank was child's play.

He ranged out that afternoon to look for a good water tank, but after finding none, he used the airbike to drag a couple of abandoned cars back close to his house. Their sheet metal would be good for the tank. After that was done, he saw it was about time to go back to the border, so he locked up the house, pulled out an airbike-remembering his night goggles this time-then activated his intrusion deterrent system after getting a safe distance away. He returned to the same place he had called her from the day before, then sat down and dialed her number. He got the very same operator when the line was answered, who took one look at him and glanced down. "One moment," he said before Jason could say anything. He was put on hold, and seconds later, Kumi appeared on his panel display. She was wearing a very elegant gown, made of what looked like black silk with a low neckline. There was red material gored into her voluminous sleeves, and a necklace of glittering crystals, probably diamonds, graced her sleek neck. Her gown was both simple yet elegant, without elaborate embroidery anywhere but along the upper edge of the bodice, what looked like birds with twigs in their mouths taking flight along the edge of her neckline, flying towards her shoulders. "Wow," Jason said in appreciation.

"You like?" she asked girlishly, stepping back and turning a circle for him.

"It's very pretty on you, Kumi," he said honestly.

"Thanks, babe," she grinned, sitting down in front of her panel. "When I told my mom I was going to go to Terra to inspect the house holdings, she decided to throw me a party. She thinks I'm starting to get all respectable and shit."

Jason laughed. "If she only knew."

"She'd burst a blood vessel for sure," Kumi said with a wolfish grin.

"At least you'll be the best dressed girl there."

"Flatterer," she accused. "So, hit me with your new list. I know it's coming."

He laughed. "You scare me sometimes, Kumi."

"Hey, I'm young, but I'm not stupid," she told him bluntly. "I'm sure you thought of several things you need after we hung up yesterday."

"You're right. Let me send you the file." He did so with a few presses of keys.

"Got it. Hmm, I don't even know what some of this stuff is, but I'm sure Fure can find it. What do you want carbidium for?" she asked, looking at him.

"To shield the PPGs I'm using to power some stuff I have in my house. It should be dense enough to shield the PPG signatures from sensor sweeps."

"Oh. Shit, babe, that's a good idea. I didn't think
 of that. Raw carbidium ain't too expensive, either." She wrote a few lines down on that little notepad by her desk. "Ok, here's the deal. I'm leaving after the party, in about six