Jack The path they followed almost certainly had human origins. At least, Jack felt reasonably certain a trace of either pavement or stamped earth ran underneath the grass. But so much had grown back, he could not tell if it had been a footpath or a highway. As they marched in silence, the morning light of what felt like a …

Rogan “Easy, Guardsman,” Rogan counseled, clamping his hand around Jack’s arm to help him back to his feet. “Senses gone a wee bit wild, is it?” “…the hell?” Jack stammered, still trying to find his balance. He compromised by reaching out to lean against the tree whose root had taken him down. With their procession halted, the world steadied for …

Rogan From the moment the guardsman woke, Rogan had watched him experiencing a greatly broadened sensitivity to flux. That tool, whatever it was, had somehow awoken strong flux-sense in the man. He had heard of sudden awakenings, but this was a wee bit over the top. How could sensitivity this great have remained hidden from the man for a full …

Payton She let out a heavy sigh after Mendez left, and her young partner grinned in response. “The man’s pretty fed up, isn’t he?” “I don’t blame him at all,” she said. “It’s lousy, the way we keep secrets from them.” “The more the public knows, the more the opposition can manipulate,” he noted. She looked down at the photo …

Roy They waited, implicitly asking for more. Roy took another sip of coffee to give himself time to think about what to say, then went on. “He was some kind of mystery kid. His mother was a Jane Doe who died in childbirth. His name was picked at random by CPS. He never got adopted, spent a lot of time …

Roy The two met Roy in the diner a block away from the precinct. He’d insisted on having an hour first, to grab a shower and civilian clothes. Once they had their coffee and gave their orders, Payton settled back and looked at him with a meditative frown. “This isn’t going to be a conventional interview, Mendez,” she noted. “If …

Jack He stared at the soot pattern again. He could see no sign of the ethen’s passage through the skin, but he could knew a path had been there. It felt like how he had known the criminal was in the car. He steered away from that thought, and what it implied. He knew it, but he didn’t want to …

Jack Nam got back on subject. “I suspect that most of what we do which looks unfamiliar to you is flux arts. Which you should consider science, not ‘magic’.” He shook his head and looked back to his hand. “Flux is the substance of reality itself,” she explained. “That ethen now inside you is capable of some function or functions …

Jack He stared at his hand with new emotions as he absorbed her words. The memory of that burning pain, that enveloping sensation, echoed in his mind. The pain was faded, but in its place… He became aware again of the new sensations he was picking up. He could feel Rogan’s presence even when not facing his direction, and he …

Jack For a long, unsettled time, Jack felt he ought to be doing something. Unfamiliar sensations nagged him, tugging at the edge of his consciousness. Memories flooded in, scenes from an odd dream featuring a terrible fight with a massive fire-breathing alligator-like monster. By the light and the smell and the sound, he identified a dewy morning, an open window …