Devour

Chapter 3 - Cora

The children eat lunch in noisy anticipation of their trip to town. Errol reminds them every so often that if they don't behave, specifically for me, then they shan't be going again anytime soon.

"I'll be good I swear," Pasch says, basically bouncing at his dad's feet. I'm aware that we're not supposed to refer to Errol as their dad. But. Seriously. He's the only father Pasch, Dax, or Jules will have, poor scraps. Well, Pasch might have a step father at some point. I've met his mother, for follow up interviews and letters and such. The council sent me back a few times. Wanted me to get information on who his father is. They seemed to think the mom knew. He has so many mutations in his DNA, they suspect his father was one of the psychics. The mother adamantly denies that.

 I'd really like to believe her, I mean it doesn't make an actual difference whether or not her son is with her or in the program. Also, the council only wants to know because they want to see if they lost track of one of the psychics. I think that's sort of a petty reason considering so long as all was consensual it's really not our business especially as the child is here now. His mother says it wasn't even an ex boyfriend. She was at a college party. Got really drunk doesn't remember much of the night. She figures it was about then. She told me that eventually, hoping she'd get to see her baby. 

At that point I hadn't even met Pasch. When I did meet him, he was----listless. He just lay there in his crib, hardly playing, just staring at the wall. Errol would take him out, levitate balls to amuse him, anything. He would just stare blankly. I was concerned for him for a while there. In a way it dampens his antics, knowing that when he was a baby he pined so much for home he went so far as to refuse food.

It makes sense she would know who the father is-----and even drunk or whatever you'd be generally aware one would think whether or not you were sleeping with a complete stranger. Also wouldn't at least one of her friends known? Surely one of them would have said if she'd wandered off with some random dude with a star on his neck. That was the not at all creative way that the psychics were identified up till the past fifteen years or so. Star tattoos in the middle of their neck. They also wear tracer bracelets that they can't remove, which deliver a powerful electric shock if their handler chooses.

The kids have the bracelets, though the shock isn't enabled we can just track them. The kids won't get the tattoos because that was deemed a little wrong. Instead they will have to wear ID necklaces which can be concealed by clothing but not removed. It's a step.

Errol wears a bracelet, as well as an anklet. The first time he met me, he advised me that nothing save the highest setting on my stun gun would affect him. I laughed, which was probably the wrong response based off of his expression. Then I explained to him that if he was telling me how to disable him, I was never going to need to. He shrugged and didn't say anything and that was the moment I realized the gravity of the essential brain washing he'd endured to convince him he was a monster that needed to be locked up. 

He wears a heavy anklet, and the bracelet, which track his movements and can shock him if necessary. I've only seen him be shocked once. The kids were little, and I was staying over with the night nurses because Jules had a pretty high fever, in case I needed to run him to the hospital. And there was a thunderstorm. Pasch decided he wanted to go outside and sneaked out to go do whatever his four year old brain figured he'd do. Errol woke me up to help look and we followed the GPS tracer down the drive to the main road where he was running. Well, the computers or whoever was monitoring Errol's didn't catch he was following a child and I turned around to see him almost doubled over in pain.

"What's wrong?" it didn't even occur to me what might be going on I thought it was a complication from his injuries or a heart attack.

"They're----fucking---shocking me dammit," he said, stopping in his tracks.