The Darkness Within Us

Chapter 1

***This work is meant for mature audiences only. There is strong language and adult content (including graphic/triggering violence and sexual content).

Without a pop, or a crack, or even a satisfying hiss, the material scanner in my hand flickered off. A soft puff of acrid smoke stung my nose. I cursed under my breath but, having the hearing of a fox, Jackson heard and chuckled. Two weeks into my internship on the Academy station and I'd already burned up three of those things. If Dr. Nakamura found out, I'd be on the first transport back down to the surface and nobody in their right mind wanted to be on that stinking planet for long, especially me. This place was my ticket out from under my father's shadow and I couldn't fuck it up now.

"Did you kill another one, Princess?" Jackson shook his head, still grinning, and pushed off the wall he perched against.

"Don't call me that! You know I hate nicknames. Especially that one."

"You're going to have to figure out what you're doing, Anais. If someone finds out about these...powers...they'll turn you into their own lab experiment." He reached out, crooking his fingers toward the dead scanner. I pushed the two ends together and dropped it in his waiting hand.

"Believe me, I've tried. You know I have. I don't know how to control it. I even wore gloves this time." I held up my hands to prove it and watched helplessly as he sat down at one of the long lab tables. He pulled the two ends of the material scanner apart, exposing the thin display filaments that had been working about a minute ago. Then he tapped on the right-hand options panel, but nothing happened. Sighing, he pulled out the mini tool set he kept in his utility pants and got to work. He was, unfortunately, getting used to this.

"We could blame this on the external shielding around the lab, but I don't know if anyone would believe that. Considering nothing else is fucking up. Did it spark this time?"

"No, nothing. I felt the current run through my body and then it just went dead. There was a little smoke, though."

"Were you stressing out about anything?"

"Aside from worrying I'd do it again? No. I didn't get much sleep last night, though, because of that paper I had to write. I might have been thinking about that."

"Hmm." He worked quietly for a few minutes, which made me nervous. All I had left to do was analyze a few mineral samples and I couldn't do that without the scanner. Whatever this was, it had a very bad habit of happening at the worst times. I paced back and forth in the small space until Jackson's exacerbated sigh made me look up. I held up my hands in surrender and he turned his narrowed eyes back to the scanner.

I looked around the lab for something else to do. It was all white and spotlessly clean as Dr. Nakamura expected it to be. The microscopes hummed off to the side while the dedicated cooling system clicked on. The combined ambient noise was enough to put me to sleep on a normal day. I folded my arms in front of my chest and tried not to huff, my anxious energy about to drive me crazy. Turning to face the pano screen behind me, I zoomed in on the Fanau Mai star forming nebula with a sweep of my hands and tapped the ultraviolet filtering option. The blues and greens of the gas were brilliant through the upgraded TechGlass. I couldn't get clarity like that from any window or lens on the surface.

"Has anything happened in your room lately?" Jackson asked.

"No. What about yours?" I answered sarcastically.

He chuckled. It was a deep, lovely sound. "You know what I mean. Have you blown anything else up lately?"

"Not since the comm unit last week." I needed to change the subject. "How are you doing with the dreams?" The sounds of tools on metal stopped abruptly. Looking behind me, I immediately regretted bringing up the subject.