Nightlife: Sleepless

         Ebon lay awake, the sheets tangled around his legs. From down the hall he could hear Tor typing away, but that wasn't what was keeping him up. Ebon wasn't really sure what was keeping him up. Turning his head, Ebon stared at his hair. In the dim light, it resembled moonlight, strands of moonlight draped over his pillow and arm.

         "Can't sleep?"

         Ebon didn't recognize the voice, but for some reason he felt no need to find the source. "Hm, no." he whispered.

         "I'm sorry." the voice was soft, it belonged to a woman.

         Ebon rolled onto his side and propped his head on his hand, "Why? It's nothing to you." his telepathic powers were picking up on a presence on the room, but he couldn't probe it.

         "I suppose not. Do I disturb you?"

         In that light, Ebon realized that the three weeks that he had been sleepless the same presence had been about. "Maybe." He didn't feel the need to remove the bodiless voice.

         "I want." the presence vanished suddenly, startling Ebon.

         "What do you want?" Ebon waited for several moments, but no answer came. Not bothering to pull on any clothes, Ebon climbed from his bed. "Who are you?" the presence flickered back into Ebon's conscious for a second.

         "I need." the voice sounded desperate now.

         The frantic desperation seemed contagious, "What do you want? What do you need? Tell me!" Ebon could feel himself losing control on his own sanity. The world seemed to be moving much too fast.

         The doors to his room creaked open and Laelin poked her head in, "I heard you shout, sir. Is anything wrong?"

         Ebon felt like he was snapping back into his body. "Yes. There is something terribly wrong."

.::.::.::.

         Fallen - if she were capable of it - would have had the most wonderfully confused look arching her eyebrows. "You mean, turned off things are coming after you?"

         Ebon made a mental note to come out with a software on concepts of life and death for his acolytes, this was getting old. "Yes, turned off things are coming after me."

         "How could they? They are turned off."

         Ebon held up his hand, "Never mind."

         Laelin scratched her knee. "So you've got ghosts. Or so you think. Do ghosts have a conscious to pick at?"

         Ebon shrugged, "That's just it. I couldn't probe it. It didn't feel like nothing was there though, it felt more like a -"

         "Wall," Laelin finished for him. She curled her legs next to her, revealing her thong under her skirt. "Then it is living. Only the living can make walls."

         "Can anything living vanish into thin air? Both physically and mentally?"

         "There is technology that can render one's physical form invisible, you know that, but mask mental patterns? That's like nothing I've seen before."

         Ebon sighed and pushed a stray lock of hair behind his left ear. "Fallen, check the files on ghosts, wraiths, and poltergeists. If you don't find anything on masking mental waves there, move onto technological advances in mental warfare and protection in major and minor companies."

         Fallen nodded, "Initiating search engine."

         Tor, who was conveniently eavesdropping, walked into the room, "Missing mental waves? No physical manifestation? Sounds like a Shader."

         The same lock of hair fell into Ebon's face again and he pushed it back, "A what?"

         Tor shrugged, "A Shader. Something the humans in Taerthin were working on in conjunction with the Psyver Hidden Capitol. I heard they never finished it. Naturally, it being unfinished, slivers of the technology leaked and tech buffs finished it for them. Legally or otherwise."

         Ebon had heard of the Psyver Hidden Capitol. It was a group of Psyvers, who, with powerful heads in Aearth, were planning to overthrow the humans in Taerthin. The cause was lost when a company by the name of Red Soul Military Inc. found them out and marched their robosoldiers on them. A revivalist by the name of Palisa Rayne, took up the name, but put it to a new cause; technological supremacy.

         "So, this Psyver Hidden Capitol might be behind it. Why Ebon?"

         Ebon pushed back the stray lock yet again.

         "Finalsight just came out with new acolyte software, no? Top of the line, best of the best, why wouldn't the Hidden Capitol want it?" Tor said it like it was the only possibility.

         Ebon growled as the lock of hair fell again and out of the corner of her eye Laelin caught the air shimmer behind her master. "Master Ebon! Behind you!"

         In her panic the cloaked woman dropped her invisibility and raised a gun. Ebon rolled out of his chair and crouched on the ground as the back of his chair filled with bullets. "Fallen!" Ebon roared as the woman raced from the room.

         Fallen was incapable of battle, but she did hide an array of Ebon's own weapons. Selecting a gun with special bullets made of orvaflies, Ebon raced after the woman.

         Ebon cornered the woman in a library. She didn't know the layout of Citadel Venompeak, "So, you were in my room?"

         She nodded, and shut her eyes. Fall to me, Telepath. Your might is your downfall. Yield to me, yield.

         Ebon stumbled backwards as the wave of despair washed over him. He fell to his knees, suddenly sapped of strength, "Psyver." he looked at his gun and seriously contemplated putting it to his head and firing it.

         "You shall further the cause of the Psyver Hidden Capitol." the woman whispered as she raised her Uzi.

         Ebon suffered the same sensation that he had in his bedroom, being sucked back into his corpereal shell. He blinked as his mental awareness seeped back into his mind. "Or you shall further mine." He stood and stared directly at the Psyver woman. Shouting, he pushed forward, envisioning a wave sweeping the room. The woman screamed as she slammed into the wall.

         The woman looked at Ebon as she slid down onto her rump, a look that made Ebon feel uneasy. She mouthed the word want and snapped her hand up, bringing the Shader helm back over her eyes; and to Ebon, she blinked out of existence.

         "She got away." Ebon ran a hand through his hair. He had been this shocking white-blond since he was born, but every time a strand of hair fell into his eyes he was startled. The last remnant of being human, he supposed.

         "So? What are you going to do about it?" Laelin whispered, running a lithe finger down Ebon's cheek, "Not even you can track her."

         Ebon shrugged off Laelin’s caress and stood, "Nothing. There is nothing I can do. She didn't take anything, and Tor will keep them from hacking."

         Tor nodded, "She gave up awfully easy though."

         I need. Even as a memory the desperation in the woman's voice was overpowering. Ebon swayed dangerously, but pressed two fingers to his temple and steadied himself, "I don't think she wanted to hurt me."

         Laelin's eyes narrowed, "Some fling?" she was Ebon's slave; he could take on as many mistresses as he wanted and she wasn't allowed to care, but she did.

         "No, no. I've never met her before." Ebon sighed, "I don't know what she wanted."

.::.::.::.

         That night Ebon lay in his bed, head pillowed by his arm. He chewed absently on a strand of stray hair. Something about that woman - no, her presence - seems so familiar Ebon thought. He couldn't get the sensation of familiarity to leave him. It fluttered about his mind like a moth trapped in a jar. She's too familiar. Like a mother. Laughing silently, Ebon dismissed the thought. He had watched his mother die, shot by a government agent. He had been, what? Six years old. Twenty-one years ago. God, it's been that long?

         Where had he spent the rest of his life? That's right, the lab. That's the only reason I can do this. I'm not really a Telepath, I'm an experiment. No, I was. The memories were fresh, too fresh. Being tied to all manner of strange devices, his mind being probed and his genes being twisted to utilize the 90% of the brain humans don't normally use. I had gone mad at one point hadn't I? Or maybe I still am.

         The horrified expression of the leading scientist wavered in his mind's eye. I killed the man, that's right. I laughed, told him to taste the power he had given me, and made his head explode. Ebon turned over and stared at the moon. He couldn't help but wonder if the Psyver woman was laying awake and looking at it, too. They gave me a shot after that. Some orange crap mounted on a gun. Tranquilizers probably. That couldn't be right, they were worried that the drugs endangered my mental stability. Ebon laughed aloud at that.

         Mental stability? Wake up; they screwed me over, double time. Ebon sat up, still staring at the moon. The wind kicked up, blowing through the open bay window. It picked up Ebon's hair fanning it out behind him. Mother always told me to let the four winds kiss my wounds. he remembered, resting his chin on his knees. Maybe they are finally hearing my cries for help.

End--> Nightlife: Sleepless
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