The time had come.
Peter pressed his hands against the thick glass of the Space Viewing Deck’s window as he stared into the surface of Styx. In just a few minutes he would descend into one of those tanks filled with pink liquid. He had no idea how the whole thing would work. He just trusted that it would.
He’d enter a tank, the Psychics would enter theirs, he’d have probes plugged into his temples, and then the tanks would be lowered out into space, interconnected by the Anchor. It was creepy to think he’d be trapped in a glass capsule filled with liquid, floating in the middle of nothingness. He wished he could talk to Latvia first. He always did, over the phone, before he embarked on dangerous missions. But his restriction continued. Whether on the Space Disk or in the Starship Platinum, Peter was not allowed contact with anyone on Coralende. And he still wasn’t told why.
“You miss her, don’t you?” said Maia, approaching Peter’s side.
Peter frowned. “Got in my head, did you?”
Maia shook her head. “Doesn’t take a Psychic to tell your expression is one of longing,” she said, looking over his face. Peter kept his eyes fixed on Styx.
“Yeah, well. I’m not allowed to speak with anyone on Coralende anyway, so what does it matter.”
Maia exhaled, placing her hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter sensed her sympathy. “Jagesic has his reasons,” she said. “The more closely you work with him, the more you’ll learn to trust him.”
Peter felt uneasy. Was it just the jitters before he plunged into the tank? He did genuinely miss Latvia. It felt like forever since he saw her last, though it had actually been only a few weeks. Still, that was the longest he had gone without speaking to her, and he still felt the weight of having lost the quilaire bearing down on his shoulders. The weight wouldn’t be removed until he told Latvia what happened.
“Jagesic is a pretty mysterious guy, huh,” said Peter.
Maia nodded, shifting her eyes from Peter to the surface of Styx. “Yes, he is. But he’s got his reasons. Some say he’s paranoid. I think he’s cautious—and wise. I have great respect for him.”
Peter looked at his hands. He was feeling every one of Maia’s emotions. Sympathy… Curiosity… Respect… She evidently wasn’t making any effort to mask what she felt. “Could you control it? At the beginning? Your ability?” Peter said.
Maia smiled. She was remembering something. A childhood memory, Peter supposed. “It was like a broken radio, at first,” Maia said. “I’d pick up flashes. Only of strong thoughts, at first.” She paused, looked back at Peter. Peter met her gaze. “Then I started picking up on the small things. It was like hearing. I couldn’t close it out. If you thought something, I’d hear it. No way around it.”
“And then?”
“Well then it became insufferable. People's thoughts—their fears, their wishes, their curses—all in high definition, running at once through my brain. That was when I was forced to learn to control it.”
“And in the end, you did.”
“In the end, I did.”
Peter felt Maia’s concern for him. She wanted to help him learn to control his empathic abilities. She felt that she had been there once, too. Yet Peter wasn’t precisely concerned with the control part, just yet. He was concerned with how his, and Maia’s, ability could be completely misused if in the wrong hands. How did Jagesic know Peter wouldn’t just start taking advantage of the fact that he knew how any one, at any moment, felt? Could Peter trust himself with an ability like this?
Peter shifted his weight. Yes, he trusted himself. But he still felt like a voyeur. Like it was indecent of him to be picking up on people’s feelings. Like he was seeing through people’s clothes—catching them naked against their will.
He tried to control the degree to which he was picking up on Maia’s emotions, to no avail. “If it’s control you’re worried out,” continued Maia, “don’t worry. It comes with time.”
“I’m more concerned about violating people’s personal emotional space, if that makes any sense.”
Maia smiled. “That means you’re the man for the job, Peter. Let’s go. It’s time we went into those tanks.”
As soon as Peter walked into the huge room he now called “the Egg,” he felt a whir of excitement and anticipation that was not his own. He must have been picking up on the emotions of the other Psychics, as they were lowered into their tanks… though none of them seemed to have very excited expressions. If anything, they seemed somewhat bored. They must have already done this several dozen times.
“That one’s yours,” said Maia, pointing to the central tank that should have belonged to the Chief Psychic Officer.
“But isn’t that—”
Maia shook her head. “We’ve tried that enough times, with no results. We’ve decided to switch things up. If it is at all possible to pick up on emotions on the surface of Styx, then we’re thinking we Psychics should be able to sharpen or enhance your ability. Which means, you go in the middle.”
Peter, though hesitant, did not object.
He let himself get plugged into the central tank, placed the mouthpiece with the oxygen supply securely in his mouth, pulled his goggles over his eyes and descended into the pink fluid. It was warm. He floated easily in it, as if it were heavily salted water. As he adjusted to what would soon be near-absolute sensory deprivation, the pill-shaped tank sealed above him. He was trapped.
He looked around him, out the capsule at the other Psychics in their tanks. They were all in place, eyes closed, floating placidly. Then the vault of the Egg began to slide open. Peter figured he should imitate the other Psychics, chill out and close his eyes, but the sight of the ceiling opening up above him was too spectacular.
It was nothing short of surreal. The Egg became an empty, gravity-free vacuum. The capsules, amidst the tangle of multicolored cables and tubes linking them to the Spaceship, drifted slowly out into space, and through the murky pink liquid of his capsule Peter could see the brightly glowing stars of the Vespian Galaxy. A second later he felt woozy. The focusing drugs must be kicking in.
He blacked out, as his mind broke free from his body. Suddenly, he felt he could see everything—or not quite see, but feel everything. He tried to focus. Collaborate with the drugs… with the other Psychics. He knew they were all concentrating their abilities to enhance his. He let himself float… let himself get pointed to the right direction.
He eventually realized he felt more or less like a blind man, scanning a surface with his hands. Except the surface was being brought before him, and he couldn’t choose what to touch. He could just felt what was presented to him—what was placed right in front of him. And he was being presented with the surface of Styx.
At first he felt nothing. Then something. Then nothing again. Like he was running his hands over a smooth stone, searching for cracks and irregularities. And then, without warning, a burst of emotion. Anticipation. Excitement. Something was about to happen. They were about to do something. The time had come. The Klauken had made an announcement. The Klauken had foretold it. Foggistan had found a way to break through their silence. They could no longer wait.
Peter jerked in his pink floating capsule. He could feel everything now. The Psychics had detected where he was picking up emotion, and had locked him in. It was overwhelming. He couldn’t turn it off. There was fear. Nervousness. Excitement. Hatred. Impatience. All rushing through his veins, coming from every direction, from everyone at once.
They had launched. They were coming. Their ships were getting closer every second. The war had begun. The war had begun. The war had begun. Peter kicked. Jerked. Burst his eyes open with the pain of a million emotions roaring through his skull.
“LET ME OUT!” he screamed. But nothing came out. Only bubbles, spilling around the mouthpiece with his oxygen supply. He pounded on the glass capsule. Struggled in the pink fluid that was unreasonably calm given the wildness of his emotions. “LET ME OUT!” The calmness of space looked back at him, mocking.
The war had begun, and he was up in a bubble in the middle of space.
Helpless.
