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  She smiled. “Good luck with that. Since your heart and memory seem intact, a nurse will bring you discharge papers after lunch.” She grimaced. “Your partner can bring you lunch from the outside, if you’d rather avoid the hospital food. It’s rather... plain.” Her nose crinkled, making Ash chuckle.

  Cooper smiled and nodded. “Thanks. I’m on it.”

  “And I’m on it too,” Ash rumbled from behind Dr. Cook. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t overdo it.” Ash had, apparently, made an effort to glower, but his strict face fizzled when faced with the prone Cooper in his hospital bed.

  As soon as Dr. Cook left, he asked Ash: “Are we alone?”

  Ash nodded. “For now.”

  “There’s something I need to tell you, and it’s as weird as all get-out.” He paused, summoning his thoughts. He didn’t want to come off as crazy. His history with antipsychotic drugs still weighed upon him. He now knew that there was no way to block out the visual effects of his gift, because his earth-sense always translated underground structures into a tidy, three-dimensional map.

  This was different.

  He wasn’t seeing just the underground anymore.

  A nimbus of light surrounded Ash, and that nimbus was bluer and brighter than Dr. Cook’s subdued green had been. Ash was now growing agitated and doing his best to hide it, which caused his aura to flare in and out.

  “I think I can see your aura, Ash. It’s a beautiful blue, like the water in a tropical lagoon. And it’s flickering.” He didn’t mention his theory on the nature of Ash’s emotions. He didn’t want to come across as a mind-reader and have Ash try to avoid him. The colors were there, though, and Cooper had a premonition that this interesting visual effect might be there to stay.

  CHAPTER 6

  This time, Paul arrived at the PittTech Institute with Hank in tow. They veered into their available parking spaces, which were few and far between on this Friday afternoon. The grass looked as desolate and brown as it had few days ago, and the asphalt parking lot smelled of recent tar patches.

  Paul let go of the reassuring solidity of his Harley’s handlebars, dismounted, and headed for the entrance. After last time, he wanted to be out of a direct line of sight from curiosity seekers that might be lurking in the huge windows of the vast, three-story building which sprawled in both directions. Even so, his stomach twisted with nerves, and the coffee he had earlier made an unwelcome passage to the back of his throat.

  “Hey,” Hank said in a deep rumble. “You’ve got this. You’ll be all right.”

  A sudden flash of inspiration sparkled in Paul’s mind. “Would you like to come up and meet the guy? Like, to... to get an excuse to shake his hand? I want to know if you’ll get anything from him.

  Hank nodded. “Don’t expect too much. You know how I am.”

  They touched hands so casually, an outside observer would have taken them for classmates, or for good friends.

  Nothing more.

  A casual observer would not have known that Hank had just drained all of Paul’s excess electrical charge and had sent it to that mysterious place he always called the Void. Nor would the casual observer notice the relief Paul experienced, and had learned to hide so well over the years. His early methods of getting rid of power were, by and large, destructive of property and disturbing to even his Talented family. Showing relief and glee in the wake of such events would not have gone over well.

  “Lead on,” Hank said. Few minutes and two flights of steel-and-stone stairs later, they took their seats on a wooden bench outside Dr. Yantar’s office. “Where is he?” Hank asked.

  “Teaching class. He told me his schedule, and he told me not to be late.”

  RUSS STILL DIDN’T know why he had agreed to see Paul Sorensen between classes on the busiest day of his teaching week. Friday afternoon class ended at 4:30, his evening class started at six sharp, and Russ was pathologically protective of his time to do his run around the sprawling campus, rinse off in the chemistry lab’s emergency shower, and eat his sandwich and apple afterward.

  He was giving up more than Paul Sorensen realized. He yielded some of his rigidly held routine that kept him sane. Balanced. Able to teach high-voltage line-worker techniques in the evening, where his class consisted mostly of adults who were upgrading their skill set after their regular day jobs and when his teaching ability could mean the difference between his students’ life or death.

  To his surprise, Paul was already sitting on the repurposed church pew bench by his locked office door. He was not alone. A burly guy who seemed to be more Russ’s age than Paul’s was sitting next to him. A friend?

  He saw their hands touch as they stood up.

  Ah, a boyfriend. That was... not too bad, no. That was good, fortunate even. If the handsome, bike-riding Paul had a bruiser of a boyfriend, Russ would be doubly careful to keep his distance and limit their interactions to the strictly professional contact between a teacher and his student.

  Not that he had ever dated a student before.

  He had been tempted, but... but the consequences would’ve been unpleasant for both of them.

  Russ forced himself to halt his randy train of thought and coughed gently as he approached them at a fast clip. His rubber-soled shoes, a necessity in his profession, squeaked against the shined-up vinyl floors. “You’re early, I see. Good to see you again, Paul. Are you okay after that fire hydrant cap hit your head?” He squinted, peering at the black stitches that stood in sharp contrast with Paul’s sun-kissed forehead.

  They shook hands.

  “It was just the cap,” Paul said, clearly embarrassed by the incident. “I’m fine, thanks for asking. And thank you for squeezing me into your schedule.” Paul let go of his hand and nodded to the big man at his side. “This is my cousin, Hank. He’s just keeping me company for a bit.”

  The giant rumbled a greeting and extended a paw. Russ shook it, pumping hard.

  Cousins. Interesting.

  As soon as he touched Hank’s hand, Russ got that upside-down feeling, the one he always tried to keep at bay. This was the sensation that drove him to jog even on the hottest day, or in pouring rain, or go snow-shoeing when the streets were too slick to welcome running shoes.

  And he had not run today.

  The way Hank’s eyes focused, Russ thought that he just, maybe, felt a bit of his strangeness, a piece of that which made Russ suitable for high-voltage work, and entirely unlike any other person he had ever met.

  A freak.

  He shuddered and pulled his hand back, half fearing the taunts would begin.

  “Nice to meet you,” Hank said in his deep, quiet voice. “I’m glad to see my little cuz will be in good hands with you.” Unlike before, he took the care to enunciate clearly, and his voice rang with warmth and conviction.

  Maybe he had felt, or seen, something unusual – and maybe, unlike many others Russ had met over the years, he actually liked it. Russ rallied, trying not to focus on the strangeness that had plagued him ever since he could remember. His mental illness, where he imagined things where none existed. Isn’t that what the doctor had told him? Except the pills made him too dizzy to function, and Russ had learned, slowly and painfully, to ignore the weird mirages that plagued his life.

  He kicked them to the curb along with his psychiatrist.

  He tried not to think about them.

  Until now.

  THAT FRIDAY EVENING culminated with a welcome-back party for Cooper, who had, in fact, returned from the hospital after only a one-night stay, and who was recovering under Ash’s well-organized care.

  They all sprawled at Hank’s place, mostly because Hank lived alone and the downstairs of his house was furnished more for partying and less for anything that resembled family life. Both the dining room and the living room were stocked with comfortable sofas, low tables, and indirect lighting. Despite getting most of his furniture for free from Craigslist and on OfferUp, Hank had managed to combine neutral earth-tones, and tied them together with
brick red throw pillows accents. They matched the decorative brick fireplace. Now that he looked closer, he saw the same colors run through the throw-rug and show up in the casual artwork on the walls.

  Paul looked around, taking mental notes. Maybe he should ask Hank for decorating advice, especially if Mark and Ellen started a family someday and he had to move out. The idea, which had been far-fetched only few weeks ago, now looked like a highly probable outcome.

  “Here,” Ash pushed an empty glass into his hand. “I got two growlers of beer, an IPA and a brown ale. They won’t last well until tomorrow, and there’s pizza in the kitchen.”

  “And cake!” Ellen shouted from the other room.

  Paul smiled. Of course, Ellen had to bake a cake. An apt student of Grandma Olga’s, who had embraced her as though Ellen had been one of her own grandchildren, she could do no less.

  COOPER UNBUTTONED HIS oversized, long-sleeved shirt of soft-spun microfiber. It was printed all over with blue and green leaf shapes and highlighted with jaunty pink flamingoes.

  The monstrosity looked awful on him. Ash had bought it for him with little time to spare, because as soon as the loose gauze came off his healing blisters, Cooper needed to wear tops that were not too tight, nor too coarse.

  “High fashion,” Hank said with a grin and a wink.

  “Shaddap,” Cooper pushed back, sliding the garment off his shoulders. “Ash was lucky to find this on clearance. It’s hard to find a light shirt right when summer’s ended!”

  He spread his arms wide – careful not to stretch the paper-thin scar tissue – and turned around slowly so everyone could see his naked torso.

  “Wow,” Mark exclaimed. “So that’s what a lightning scar looks like!”

  “Like a lightning,” Ash confirmed. “A fractal pattern. They called it a Lichtenberg figure. I looked it up.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he heard Paul say for what must have been the hundredth time.

  “You know,” Cooper said, turning to Paul, “they also say to drop your fishing rods and golf clubs when you hear thunder, and that’s even when there are no clouds in sight. I saw that lightning ball in your hands – and I kept my sword up! I even batted at it, as though you were on the pitching mound!” Suddenly, the situation was hilarious, and the branching of his unusual scar added exotic flair to the whole event. “Look at it this way, Paul. When this heals up, I’ll end up with a tree up the left side of my back, with a lovely branch reaching up my left arm. It’s lightning art! You should charge good money for it. A tattoo artist would ask a few grand for a cool bit of body art like that!”

  Hank’s living room filled up with the hum of their voices. Opinions varied as to the interpretation. Ellen claimed she saw a Chinese dragon in the negative space shaped by the lightning tree’s branches, whereas Ash was adamant that the patterns looked like a cherry branch with buds ready to pop open. Hank voiced a surprise that Ash managed to see something other than a river drainage pattern – and then Paul dropped his bomb.

  “Wait, wait!” Paul shouted as he stood up and waved his hands in an effort to settle them down. “Guys. Guys! This is serious!”

  Cooper turned to him, and the others held their snarky comments for later. “Yeah? What?” Cooper had to prompt him.

  “You said you saw my lightning, Cooper. It wasn’t visible yet. Not really. It didn’t arc until I waved hello at you guys.”

  Oh. Oh.

  The silence pounded in Cooper’s ears. He had seen the lightning ball, all aglow, with energies swirling. He was sure of it. Unless...

  “Maybe I just imagined it,” he said as his heart sank. Now he felt dumb, and maybe a bit crazy. The sickly, upside-down butterflies in his stomach threatened to lift him up and dump him on his head. This was like back in college, when he started to see subterranean structures, and was sure he was hallucinating.

  The antipsychotics had done him exactly zero good, and their side-effects had thrown him into a depression back then.

  Shit. Not... that.

  “Cooper?” Ash appeared by his right side, careful to avoid the thin, fast-healing lightning scar. “Cooper, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s happening again.” His voice came out as a faint whisper, intended only for Ash’s hears, but which bounced around the room like a shock-wave. “I’m going crazy.”

  The stillness of the others, the alarm in their eyes – all that told him that he was right, that seeing things was a terrible sign that preceded an almost certain lapse of reason.

  “Cooper –” Mark cut in, but Cooper shook his head.

  “No, no. You don’t understand. I can’t see power patterns except for what’s underground. I never could.” He drew a deep, panicked breath, but when Ash stroked the healthy side of his back, he let the air go in one long, determined exhale. “I... I’d been seeing things once I woke up at the hospital. Like, auras, and shit. And... And then it went away.”

  “Lots of people see auras,” Ash interjected.

  “I know,” Cooper bit off. “And that’s cool, and I thought it was just a visual effect after the lightning strike, right? One of those neurological anomalies, like Dr. Cook said I should report. Except... except if I’d seen Paul’s lightning before it hit me, then it’s not just having been zapped. That’s different.” He hesitated. “And before that,” he said, standing before them half-naked, with his face twisted with sorrow, as though he was confessing his sins, “I thought I kept feeling Jared looking at me. Or just being around. Or... or something.”

  More silence.

  Speaking in a thin, hesitant voice, Ellen dropped a bomb of her own. “But, Cooper. Wasn’t Jared the only one who could see all power signatures and power lines?”

  CHAPTER 7

  Dark gray clouds roiled in the sky behind the firmly shut windows. Paul looked away from the potential source of lightning that tugged on the inside of his soul and focused on Dr. Yantar again. This Friday concluded the fourth week of his classes at the PittTech Institute and on this murky October day, his head was full to bursting with facts.

  Facts.

  Finally, after all these years, he had the opportunity to learn how electricity worked. He also had ample opportunities to curse his parents for homeschooling him, because it soon became clear that he was woefully behind everyone else in the class.

  Wet rain splatters began to drum on window. Bright light illuminated the sky for a split-second, immediately chased by a sharp crack of thunder and Paul knew with uncanny familiarity that the air outside was bright with the exciting smell of ozone.

  “And this, ladies and gentlemen, are the weather conditions we avoid at all costs when doing line work,” Dr. Yantar said in an acid tone. “Not unless you want to get struck. You might survive, as nine out of ten lightning victims do, but a lightning strike isn’t without potentially devastating consequences. No job is worth the risk of second or third degree burns, nerve damage, personality disorders, and other forms of injury which can last for a long time, if not forever. For instance, has anyone ever seen a lightning scar in real life?” He looked around the class, as though he did not expect an answer.

  Except this was pretty much the only time Paul could contribute something to the discussion. Hesitantly, he raised his hand.

  “Yes!” Dr. Yantar’s expression brightened. “Paul Sorensen, right? So, Paul. What did that lightning scar look like?”

  Paul took a deep breath and looked around. His parents had not prepared him for a classroom situation. Then again, he was here voluntarily. He, a sheltered and home-schooled kid with a dangerous and poorly controlled gift, was spending his hard-earned landscaping income for the privilege of standing before this class and participating in his first classroom discussion ever. “It’s a fractal pattern,” he said, trying to speak as though he had been casually informing his twin brother, and not a teacher with a doctorate, as his fellow students watched on. “The surge gets in through first point of contact, travels along the nervous system, and exits through the second
point of contact.” He ran out of breath, sucked in a dignified little bit of air, and looked around.

  Nobody looked surprised. They all knew it, just like he did, because it was in the book they all got to read.

  “Correct,” Dr. Yantar said with a sharp nod and not a little bit of excitement. “That’s exactly right.” He turned his penetrating, utterly fascinated gaze at Paul. “Have you seen a scar like that in real life? For yourself?”

  He felt pinned into the chair by his professor’s pointed attention. Dr. Russ Yantar had dark, blazing eyes and arched eyebrows, which were separated by a sharp beak of a nose. Now he pursed his lips.

  Kissable.

  Paul didn’t know where that word came from, exactly, but he didn’t question it because as long as he had Dr.Yantar’s attention focused on him, he couldn’t move any more than a pin-skewered bug could skitter off the display case.

  “Well? Did you?”

  Paul shook off the haze of sexual frustration, which seemed to swirl around him and Dr. Yantar like a cloud. “Yeah. My cousin, he’s got one.” He didn’t have the heart to go into the details. It wasn’t his place to talk about Cooper and the tingling in his left side, which had grown into agonizing pain akin to being stung by wasps within hours. He wouldn’t want to draw the attention of the class to the way the prickly, red heat of branching lines had begun to show on Cooper’s skin, manifesting in red burns the next day, as though he had touched his arm to the edge of a hot pasta pot. And he sure wouldn’t entertain the class with a second-hand account of Cooper’s pain-filled nights and cold compresses. His classmates would have, no doubt, found the power-raising Mark and Ellen had done to feed power to Ash scandalous. They would have never believed that Ash could have then laid his hands on Cooper and countered a lot of that gut-wrenching pain as the rest of them watched with no small amount of wonder and reverence.