Convergence - The Last Science #2.1 - In Plain Sight

Interlude IV - Secrets - I

  Cinza reverently removed the Scrap from the metal tube they'd stored it inside. She handed it over to Nikki, who took a few cautious steps into the center of the circle. The rest of the Greycloaks—the only family she had left—sat around her in a wide circle, watching intently. She felt every eye on her, the weight of anticipation in the air over what would happen, but she knew they were all there to support her no matter the outcome. Behind them standing at the edge of the treeline were Josh Miller and Hailey Winscombe, the only two present not wearing the cloaks. Nikki took a deep breath, then slowly started to unroll the ancient burnt piece of torn parchment. She'd been anticipating this moment for weeks, ever since the destruction of Rallsburg that had made them all ghosts. They'd put it off while Cinza recovered enough to walk around without constant support, but finally—it was time.

  Nicole Winifred Parsons was about to awaken.

  She looked down at the parchment and let her eyes drift over the first few words. No one had described what the feeling would be like. She'd resisted asking Josh or Hailey, because she wanted to go into it totally blind. She wanted to experience the revelation herself, unfiltered and unbiased, that which Cinza and Ruby talked of with such feverish passion. Nikki began to read it aloud, though she had no idea what she was speaking. She knew the words, as if whispered to her in a dream that she couldn't quite recall. It was emotion more than it was conscious thought.

  "For the good of us all," she heard faintly, as if from behind a thick curtain and infinitely far away. Ruby had spoken the words, and a moment later the rest of her family echoed them. Nikki held onto those words like a lifeline as her vision plunged away, color and detail draining out of the world as she fell into darkness. As the forest fell out of sight, Nikki felt her mind opening up. Her brain seemed like it was ten times its usual size. She could sense every tiny synapse, every burst of nerves and every connection as they grew and changed and formed new pathways. It was a beautiful, perpetually shifting and self-altering machine, and Nikki could feel every piece of it and how it all fit together.

  At the same time, she felt something wholly different. It was a stranger feeling, like the sudden burst of inspiration upon solving a puzzle, but perpetual. It felt like she were solving a problem without knowing the situation, with the answers simply thrust upon her out of the black. It was exhilarating—until it suddenly snapped away, like a light flickering out.

  She'd run out of words to speak. Her mouth kept moving and her throat kept trying to utter sounds, but nothing would spring forth. She was choking on her own breath. She was going to suffocate.

  Nikki Parsons was about to die.

  "No," she heard, a chiming bell in the void that pressed upon her ears. Like twin stars, a pair of silver-grey orbs appeared in the sky, slowly resolving into the eyes of their goddess. She started speaking the words to save Nikki's life, words Nikki echoed in perfect unison until she had stumbled her way back into the world of light.

  Grey-eyes sat on her knees in front of her. Nikki had fallen back against the simple rest Cinza had prepared and set into the center. In sharp contrast to the grey robes worn by the circle, their goddess wore only a plain jacket and jeans, with a faded t-shirt for a band she'd never heard of. Nikki looked past her plain trappings to the immense power contained within the girl's striking eyes, and she felt afraid.

  "Thank you," she whispered.

  Grey-eyes nodded, looking as she always did—lonely and a little sad. Nikki wished she could do something for her, but it didn't matter. A moment later, Grey-eyes vanished, as she always did.