16. Here You Have Strength, Here You Are Safe from Harm

Miss Autumnson stared at him as if he’d spoken the most frightening blasphemy she’d ever heard, then abruptly dropped onto the chaise. Tiny bits of paper ash floated dizzily over her. Vonken wasn’t concerned about the books; he’d noted before that only outdated encyclopediae occupied that shelf. “You...you did something to me. Nothing like this ever happened before!”

Vonken stopped his automatic protest, and considered it seriously. What if I did? If she never previously manifested any hint of the power she possesses, what if reaching into her to use it somehow acted as a catalyst? His own abilities were a direct result of exposure to a flash of pure Dust when that fatal meteorite burst in the sky above Silver Spring, but he’d seen children born long after the Cataclysm whose Coldspark identity wasn’t immediately obvious. Over the years he’d honed his senses, and had learned to pick up that whiff of energy, that strange spiritual feel that all ‘sparks had in common, no matter their individual skills. Holly felt nothing like that. If anything...now that he was truly studying her...she felt like a locus. A concentration of force, of potential, brimming full. And like a chemical battery, liable to shock the unwary user.

Her voice sounded full of barely controlled anger: “Would you please stop stroking your damned moustache.”

“It helps me think,” he snapped, but  let go of the waxed curl. “You truly never exercised your defensive powers before?”

“I didn’t know I had any!” She thumped the padded side of the chaise with a fist. “You must have affected me somehow! Or else it’s that...” She jerked her chin at the ceiling.

“Krakenpilots absorb Dust-energy from their mounts. To the best of my knowledge, they don’t distribute it elsewhere.” She put her hands over her eyes, elbows on knees. He saw her shoulders trembling. Vonken offered, “But I think it may be possible that my interacting with your core did serve as a catalyst...although I’ve never heard the like before.”

She slowly straightened, gazing right at him. The anxiety plain in her eyes softened Vonken’s edge; he couldn’t bear anyone looking at him with such distress. It was one of the reasons he’d become a surgeon in the first place, little knowing as a young man how much horror he’d be in for when the war came. “Am I going to change?” she whispered. “Am I going to die?”

Oh, hell... He really couldn’t bear that. “I honestly don’t know,” he said.

She clapped one hand over her mouth. Her fingers looked white, bloodless. He moved the few steps between them, and knelt on the soot-dusted carpet. “Let me look,” he said softly. She met his gaze, searching his eyes for reassurance, or for truth. He reached for her hands, pausing before he touched them, and then carefully removed his gloves. Holly looked at his long fingers, and he spared them a glance: he’d feared the skin might peel, as it had on his first attempt to replicate his flesh, but thus far all seemed well with this body. As well as can be expected, at least. Holly took a deep breath, grasped his bare hands in hers, and nodded at him.

Vonken let his eyes unfocus, feeling more than seeing. He gently lifted her hands, then with them lightly traced the outline of her form, carefully opening himself to the sensation of the energy coiled within her. He’d thought to find her power spread throughout her body, coursing along her veins; or else shining forth from her mind. To his surprise, the core of this well of pulsing, deeply red-glowing energy seemed to be behind the corseted bosom which strained in breath as he brushed the air around it. Her heart? Is it possible her ability to see my heartlink isn’t coincidental? Another Coldspark would have had to specifically be looking for such a tenuous cord to even have a chance at sensing it, yet she’d grabbed at it the way a kitten goes after a twitch of yarn. Frowning, he continued his examination, reminding himself to relax and allow the impressions to project themselves to him. Although every smooth inch of her body appeared to have soft waves of crimson radiating from it, her heart was definitely the source. He returned to it, moving her hands to rest over it, feeling heat coursing through her into his flesh, tingling with such strength it raised the delicate hairs on his arms and down a line on his chest.

Gently, gently, he removed her hands, letting them drop by her sides. He glanced in her eyes, assuring himself she wasn’t about to shock him with another jolt of fearful energy, then laid his hands over her heart. The lace-frothed edge of her dress collar was in his way. He carefully unbuttoned it, slipped his fingers underneath, then pulled it down until the heels of his palms rested against the top of her corset. She held herself still, but he felt her breath tightening into shallow bursts. The waves of red pulsed more strongly; he could feel each one hitting him as though he stood chest-deep in the ocean. Careful. Don’t want to scare her. He remained motionless, simply taking in the feel of that magmatic core, allowing its heat to wash him. The tips of his hair stirred over his brow as though brushed by a breeze. This is impossible. She feels like one of the meteors. A blazing comet, embodied in a compact feminine body. Yet there’s no feel of wrongness about her. Vonken had seen more than his share of people twisted and changed by overexposure to Dust. Even if their alterations were internal, not obvious on the skin, he could still sense them. She’s whole. She’s fine. She’s definitely not a construct, but this burns in her like a coalfire...and when she decides to blow off steam...holy demons of the pit. Can I teach her to use this? Is she some new variety of Coldspark? Too hot for that... Wait. What is she doing?

Holly brought her hands up, trembling, and felt the heartlink. Vonken tensed, not daring to move, greenfire sparking in his fingers out of instinctual self-preservation. Holly blinked at the brightness of it, and hesitated, then closed her hand around the shining cord. Vonken braced himself for an ugly explosion, fear rising, but then she slid her hand along the cord and reached into him.

He gasped, stiffening all over, rendered immobile. She ignored his panicked stare. The tip of her tongue slipped between her lips, a child working out some troublesome puzzle, as she slowly reached through his flesh and the cold-iron ribs he’d ‘spark-welded, as if he were suddenly become liquid, to touch the machine cranking and pumping in his chest. She stared at it a long moment, then seemed to register his eyes upon her. When she met his stare, her own eyes wide, she suddenly sat back, releasing him. Vonken let out a frightened grunt, jerking away from her, touching his perfectly solid chest, patting his tunic with shaking hands. Everything felt ordinary, though the heat from her hands lingered inside him. He gaped at her, speech impossible amidst the swirl of fear in his mind.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding fearful as well. She clasped her hands together tightly, worrying her fingers as though shocked at their power. “I only wanted to see...”

“You...how...” Vonken gulped, throat hoarse, and collapsed on the rug. He pressed one hand to his chest, felt the Dust-engine within chugging away as steadily as ever, although the heartlink throbbed with an intensity close to pain. He stared up at her. “How did you...” He began coughing.

Holly leaned over, hands patting the air, not quite daring to touch him again. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean...here, wait...” She bounded over him in a swirl of black skirts. He heard her slippers thumping on the carpet, crystal clinking sounds, then suddenly she dropped to her knees beside him, offering a snifter of amber liquid. “Here. I’m so sorry.”

Vonken blinked at her, then tried to sit up. His body felt stiff, awkward. She placed a hand between his shoulderblades to help, and the warmth of her touch eased his muscles immediately. He rolled himself to a sitting position, never taking his eyes from her. Sherry, too sweet for his taste, wafted from the glass to his nose. Wait. I can smell that. How...? A loss of that particular sense had been one of the weaknesses of this body, but continuing to live had seemed a fair bargain. He accepted the glass and drank deeply, then coughed again. When Holly started to speak, he held up a finger for silence, finished the glass, and gave it back to her. “Do you think I might have tea instead, Miss Autumnson?” he rasped.

He didn’t move from the carpet while she hurried downstairs to fetch the teapot. He rested his arms on his knees, drawn up akimbo, thinking a thousand things as the sensation of having been touched more intimately than a lover slowly faded from his chest. Right into me. Like it was nothing, it was easy. Wholly focused on her curiosity. Dear God, think what damage she could do. When she handed him a fresh teacup, he nodded thanks, and sipped slowly, brain churning.

Her voice was soft, full of wonder. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

He looked up at her. She perched on the edge of the chair where he’d been sitting, knees together, holding a cup and saucer. The china rattled. She set it upon a tea-table, and looked everywhere but at him. “How did you do it?” he asked.

She shrugged, shook her head. “I tell you, I don’t know! I just...I wanted to see what it was. What it was for. Why it’s so important to you.” Finally, those wide eyes met his again; troubled pools of water in a dark forest. “Are you a construct?”

“No.”

“But your heart...it’s...”

“A Dust-engine. I built it.”

“And your body...something’s not...”

“It is as much flesh of my flesh as a child would be. Moreso, as it’s only mine, without a second parent.”

She shook her head. “Darius...I don’t understand.” He didn’t object, though it felt odd for her to use his given name after looking into him, as though they’d suddenly jumped into bed together. No...that was more powerful than intercourse. As though we’d fallen into a flooded river together. Her eyes swept over his face, down his frame. “It...it’s not just a prosthesis, is it? It’s something about your whole being. Something different. What are you?”

Vonken stared back. An absurd chuckle welled up. He let it out, too overwhelmed. “My dear, I asked you first!”

A nervous giggle escaped her. She bit her lower lip, took a sip of tea to calm herself, and tried to appear composed. There was nothing feigned about the earnestness in her voice. “Are you...a flesh golem? I’ve read about those...”

He snorted. “Those are stories. Myths.”

“Your heart is mechanical,” she said, puzzling through it aloud. “Your bones are...metal, yes? Yet you have blood...skin...breath...”

Vonken sighed. “Suffice it to say my very existence is predicated on the ignorance of the Surgeon General. Let’s return to the problem of your completely impossible energy.”

Holly frowned. “Why is it impossible?”

“Because there are three kinds of human existence since the Cataclysm: ordinary, Coldspark, or dead. You are none of the above.”

“What did you see?” She seemed to be recovering from her fear, her voice stronger.

Vonken drank more of the wonderfully bitter, smooth tea. He might have to ask her for a tin of this to take back to the lab. “Imagine a sea of red, with tides regularly surging to and fro, pulled by your heart.” He wrinkled his brow, realizing something else. “You’re not conscious of it? You can’t feel the energy in you?”

She fell silent, eyes downcast. After a minute she admitted, “I don’t feel anything unusual. I did when I...when I touched you.” She looked up at him, hesitant. “There was a...a membrane? Fragile, like a soap bubble...and I realized I could just push through it...”

Vonken swallowed hard. “That was my flesh and bone. Not to mention my own energy. Yet you didn’t cause any harm...at least, so far as I’ve been able to determine...” He shook his head. “Do you understand what this could mean?”

She simply looked at him, impatient for explanation, for quantification. She wants to categorize it. Categorize herself, as though she were something she was reading in a book, he thought. He tried to gentle his voice. “Holly, no one in all of Columbia Pacifica has ever encountered anything like you. You may be a new form of human life, further evolution of homo sapiens sapiens post-Cataclysm, or you may be completely unique. Scientists will certainly want to examine your abilities further.”

Holly snorted rudely, then picked up her teacup with all the daintiness of a princess. At that instant, Vonken realized in surprise that he genuinely liked her. “Then I shall thank you to keep your mouth shut, Doctor.”

“I think perhaps we each have things we’d prefer the world not discover,” he agreed. She smiled. Just a small smile, but it encouraged him. “Would you consent to allow me to perform some tests on you? I have a number of instruments at my laboratory intended for testing the limits of Coldspark ability, which I myself designed. I’ve used them to coax young ‘sparks to explore their powers, learn control. Duplicates of them have been sent to San Diego, Yakima, Vancouver...” He grinned at her dubious expression. “You didn’t think I only worked with Dust-powered false limbs, did you? Nurturing young persons cursed as I am is a quest of inexpressible importance.”

“Cursed,” Holly mused. “Is that what I am?”

“Not until you have people either stoning you out of town or begging you to cure all their woes, no, I don’t think so.”

“Is that why you came west?...Those things happened to you?”

Vonken couldn’t answer that. “Please. Come to my lab tomorrow. Let’s see what you’re made of.” She drew back uncertainly, and he pressed his argument. “If Villard is intending what I believe he is, your resistance to Dust-energy may prove extremely useful!”

“I can’t...I can’t leave the house! Aren’t I under quarantine? And who would look after Betsy?”

“I can send Ratchet by for a few hours. My nurse. And as to quarantine...” He pushed off the carpet, and strode quickly but quietly into the turret bedroom. He rummaged through his bag, and happily produced the item he’d wanted. “This will serve. You’re not in the least infected, but this will certainly grant you safe passage to my lab; no one will dare molest someone wearing a portable quarantine field!” He turned, dangling the tiny Dust-engine on a soft leather belt, but Holly hadn’t followed him. Annoyed, he went back into the hallway. “Did you hear me?”

She wasn’t paying him any attention, struck motionless in the library doorway. He tracked her gaze to the attic door. Ridley the Krakenpilot slithered a disturbingly long, lithe tentacle out of the keyhole, and blinked at them with black onyx eyes. Vonken shot a look at Holly; she understood at once, and nodded permission. He curled one hand in her direction, siphoning out that crimson energy, readying himself for a serious wrestling match. Ridley reached under the squirming mass of limbs in his midsection and brought out something. Something small, that glittered even though no light fell upon it. He held it out, offering it to Holly.

“Mikael...sisser Mikael...Dearie says this yours,” the gurgling, somehow timid voice said from under a writhing line of wormy cilia. Holly didn’t move an inch. Vonken felt his insides swelling, taking in the power she offered, charging as though his very innards were copper-plated transformers. He took a deep breath, and raised his hands.

Ridley turned that black gaze to him, and blinked. “You too,” he said. “Sssshare.” The word was clearly an effort to get out. Vonken was shocked at how much more changed the Pilot appeared; had his legs shortened as well? Glancing down uneasily, Vonken’s gaze was instead caught by a sparkle of the rock that Ridley held. A crystalline mass of cubes roughly piled together. And then something best described as a scent, though not one his nose would ever perceive, slammed into him: vast distances and screaming fire and whole galaxies burning, ripped asunder.

The scent came from the crystal. From the element.

Vonken felt his knees give way right before everything went dark.