Actually, Alex thought, that part might be the whole empath thing.
“Okay, that’s good. I’m sure you have a whole bunch of questions, and I promise I’ll do my best to answer them later. But, if you are okay with it, I’d like to move on to our main business.” Rebecca folded her legs underneath her, Indian-style, so that she faced him on the couch, her bare toes pressing against the leg of his jeans. “Michael has told you that you are special, right?”
Alistair made another coughing, choking noise, but neither Alex nor Rebecca acknowledged it.
“I guess so,” Alex said reluctantly. “I’ve got some kind of power, right?”
“More like potential, right now,” Rebecca said, nodding. “And today, I’d like to activate those abilities, Alex. I’d like to wake up that power of yours, and find out what you can do. And I’d like to help make it possible for you to use it. What do you think about that?”
Gaul glanced irritably at his watch, but didn’t dare interrupt. To the best of his knowledge, Rebecca had never lost her temper with anyone at the Academy. But that didn’t keep Gaul, along with the rest of the campus, from treading very lightly when it came to potentially upsetting Rebecca. That was probably a side effect of her empathic abilities, he thought, and not something to actually be worried about. But he didn’t plan to find out by hurrying her.
Not that it seemed as if it mattered, anyway. Rebecca was talking to Alex in a calm, reasonable voice, her face open and reassuring, and her hand resting casually over his own. Neither of them seemed to be aware of the staring onlookers, crowded into the small office.
“I’m a bit scared,” Alex said, surprised and a bit embarrassed by his honesty. “But, I want to know whatever there is to know.”
Rebecca lifted his hand up, and clutched it between her own, smiling beatifically at him.
“I have your permission, then, right?” She asked the boy, his eyes already drooping. “I promise to take good care of you.”
“Okay,” Alex said, his speech a bit slurred, his eyes half-closed, “okay.”
Rebecca smiled and squeezed his hand, then set it neatly down on his thigh. She reached forward and ran one hand across his face, gently closing his eyes.
“Would you like to lie down, Alex?” Rebecca asked, speaking so softly that Gaul had to lean forward to hear it. She patted her crossed legs cheerfully. “You can use my lap.”
Alex obediently lay his head down in her lap, facing up toward the ceiling, his legs bent over the arm of the couch and dangling a few inches off the ground. His eyes were closed, and his face had an almost disturbing calm to it, as if he had been washed unnaturally clean of all concerns, an involuntary Buddha. Rebecca bent over him, her eyes shut, one arm draped across his chest, her other hand pressed against his forehead.
“Okay,” she said, her voice sounding very animated. “Okay, he’s down and I’m in. And, oh my, this is very strange…”
“Rebecca? Is something wrong? Are you alright?”
Rebecca nodded shortly, her face flushed and red, her brow wet with sweat.
“Yeah, I’m okay, but touching this kid, you understand,” she said, breathing heavily. “It’s incandescent, the effect he has. This is a tremendous power. We’re going to need to be very careful about who he comes in contact with, here at the Academy. I can barely manage it.”
Gaul and Michael both shifted in their seats and leaned forward, while Alistair rolled his eyes.
“What’s his story? What makes Alexander tick?”
“Guilt.” Rebecca’s reply was prompt, definite. “Barely contained anger. A tremendous sense of unfairness, resentment of the most general kind. Tremendous guilt.”
“Did he actually kill his family?”
“She’s an empath, Michael,” Alistair said scornfully. “All she knows is how he feels about it. You want to find out something about that kid, ask me.”
Gaul pushed his glasses back up on his brow, glancing over at Alistair disapprovingly.
“That’s enough, Alistair,” Gaul said mildly.
Alistair gave Gaul a challenging glare, but settled back in his chair.
“Did he kill them?”
Michael continued his questions with an almost placid patience.
“Hard to say,” Rebecca admitted, biting her lower lip. “He certainly thinks so, but I can’t find any specific memory of it. Maybe Alistair’s right. Maybe you need a better telepath.”
“Personally, I’m not so much concerned as to what he did or didn’t do,” Gaul said mildly, “but rather how he feels about it now. How likely it is that we are going to have a reoccurrence of that sort of behavior?”
“Well, he only had one family, right?”
“This is weird, guys. I think I’m going to need Alistair’s help after all,” Rebecca said, her brow furrowed with concern. “Because unless I’m reading this wrong, this kid has been tampered with. Extensively.”
Alistair stopped pouting and gave Gaul an inquiring look, getting a small nod in response. Alistair closed his eyes, his hands hanging loosely between his legs, as his entire body went slack. There was a long silence, while Michael and Gaul looked from Rebecca to Alistair and then back.
“She’s right,” Alistair affirmed muddily, his face creased with effort. “This kid’s been manipulated. Tampering doesn’t even begin to describe the extent of it. Every prominent memory has been altered — maybe even manufactured. The manipulation is so widespread, I don’t even know how to make a determination between what’s genuine and what’s been messed with.”
Alistair shook his head and opened his eyes. Gaul looked worried, but Michael had a look of grim satisfaction on his face.
“I thought so,” he said softly, nodding, his dreadlocks shaking with the movement, “From the first time I talked to him, I suspected as much. How could someone have such minimal feeling about such a traumatic event?”
“There is guilt, pathos, rage, all of what you’d expect,” Rebecca allowed, “but not with the depth of feeling that I’d have anticipated. Nor do I see any kind of introspection — he doesn’t return to these memories, not even in dreams. And they are so hazy…”
“They must’ve been damaged by the manipulation,” Alistair agreed, holding one hand to his forehead and wincing. “They are too faded for a kid his age. You’d think these memories were fifty years old. His head is a terrible mess — I already have a headache.”
Gaul leaned forward in his chair to peer at Alex. He appeared to be asleep, his face calm and composed, his brown hair smoothed back from his forehead where Rebecca rested her hand. He didn’t appear to be dangerous, or damaged, but Gaul had worked with children long enough to know that you couldn’t tell the dangerous ones by looking at them.
“Gaul,” Alistair said, his eyes still hidden by his hand, “that night Mitsuru found him — it wasn’t only the circumstances that were manipulated. This kid himself, he was part of the set up, too.”
Gaul nodded, looking at Alex a bit sadly as he did so.
“There is no doubt of it. Whatever trap has been laid for us, and whoever was responsible for it, Alex Warner is a part of that trap.” Gaul shook his head. “This makes his presence in the Academy all the more problematic.”
“He isn’t a kid,” Alistair said gloomily, “he’s a bomb.”
“No,” Michael said quietly, “he’s a child and a bomb.”
“Um, hello? I’m getting a bit tired, here. Do you want me to activate this kid, or what?”
Gaul considered for a moment, ignoring Michael and Alistair’s stares.
“We’ve come this far,” he said, his bloodshot eyes glinting red under the lights, his smile sad and reluctant. “Let’s find out what has been left to us. Even if young Alex is as you say, well, it isn’t only about where the bomb is. It’s about when it goes off, and who’s standing next to it.”