Chapter 475 - Far Future Ch. 185 – The Sound of Silence (1/2)

”Oh, no, no.” I waved my hand. ”Forsaken aren't Psions. They are just like the rest of you and I, can't send out psionic power at all. And you know most Forsaken are Nulls, just like me. Got all the psychic presence of a rock.”

They looked at one another behind me.

”Your Null,” she barely hesitated with the word, ”is very strong. I cannot feel your presence at all.”

”Wind over stone,” I waved airily, completely ignoring the fact they didn't have a clue what I was talking about. ”Vortices draw in energy continuously. Voids filter and pass through. Nulls sit there like rocks, and Sources radiate.”

I also ignored them tensing behind me. Obviously, they had never heard any of this before.

”I confess to never having a met a Source, or even a Null before today,” the eldest of them filled in smoothly.

”Hah! You've probably met millions. The average person is a Null if Awakened. The average exceptional Forsaken is a Source. So, if you've met any person, you've met a potential Null who wasn't Awakened. We're as common as dirt.”

I could tell that the fact alarmed them. ”I... was not told this...” the elder admitted, almost despite herself.

”Well, who would tell you? Psions loathe all the Forsaken, and Nulls are, generally speaking, the most useless of all of them to a psion. All we do is sit there and Not Take It when psions get their knickers in a kadoodle. We are extremely annoying. At least Sources are big, strong, and easy to get along with.” I leaned closer to her conspiratorially. ”You sure you've never met a Source before?”

”Quite,” she answered softly.

”Well, then you Vortices are in for a real treat.” We walked out of the building, everyone giving us a wide berth. ”That armor rated for high drops?”

”It is,” she informed me.

”Perfect! We're going to take a dive into Downspire about twenty klicks away.” The jets on my greaves extended out from Compression with a click as I strolled right toward the edge of the walkway and landing area. ”I've already got clearance from Traffic Control,” I said, hopping weightlessly up on the eight-foot railing as they looked up at me. ”You ladies ready for a short jaunt?”

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Their maneuvering wings were golden memory gossamer-metal, unfolding from the plates on their backs as their jets kicked in. Given I looked like I was flying on flaming wings, I couldn't fault them for their glittery golden pinions in return, and they obviously had flying experience with how easily they shadowed me as we literally headed downtown.

Traffic Control has us marked, so there was no problem with the airborne traffic or switching lanes as we descended... and the Sisters very much had priority over other traffic.

The twenty kliks went by in a manner of minutes at our speed, altitude gradually lowering as we drew closer to the multi-level factory that was both a production center and a G&G training area. The nearest three bloks had already been cleared and claimed, and a few thousand zwilniks had died in the doing so. The kids were aggressively claiming more territory, the current holders of those territories were aggressively fighting back, and there was a fun time Downspire in old Kolosti.

We zipped over one of the firefights going on, as G&G people led by Trish Rantha and Tobias Briggs were making a push into the Razor Eaters' territory, complete with flashes of lasers, some autofire, and a few explosions. I saw her, she waved up at us as she shot a 'borg between the eyes and chopped the arm off another one, and some sniper had the ill-wit to shoot at us. I whipped out Paten and put ten las-shots into him in strobing disapproval of his life choices, and nobody tried another one.

”Free entertainment!” I called back to the Sisters, who remained scrupulously quiet, and probably mindful of the fact I'd just picked off a man shooting from a window from a hundred yards off while flying at 200 mph or something.

And I was using a Humanbane Weapon, too. No mistaking that bloody red flame, nosirree.

It was only a couple miles further to the gates. I phoned ahead and told them we were coming, and so nobody shot us as we swooped on in towards the landing deck on the roof of the administration building. We still hadn't totally fixed the hole in the roof next door where a tanker load of flammable toxic waste had come down and fallen on the factory... and strangely not combusted since we'd seen it coming, and our psions had suppressed flames around it and controlled the chemicals straight into the flushes, only losing a couple people.

A few people in Traffic Control, a shipping clerk, and three Mekkers who thought they were clever had all died within a day. It helped when the local mastermind was dumping his activities to your hackers and you knew all their dirty schemes ahead of time...

I pulled up, drifted down two inches smoothly, and skated ahead, turning to watch them come in with control, if not quite so much grace as I had. Power armor was more about soaking the impact then being smooth, after all.

”Come and follow me, Sisters.” I led the way to the stairs, waved the doors there open, and they followed only a little warily down into a bright wide corridor, leading to a waiting room below.

Jonah and his brothers Elias and Noah were there waiting. The Sisters walked into the room, right into their Source Auras, and their heads whipped around in tandem, and then tilted back to look up at the lads waiting there.

”Hey, Sama!” Jonah spoke up cheerfully, biceps as big as my waist folded across his chest, and his deep voice almost making the floor vibrate. He very carefully didn't call me Mom, although he was dying to, just to see how the Sisters would react. ”Are these the girls you were talking about?”

He took a long, looming step forward, extending out a very big hand to them as they gawked up at seven feet of Ancient towering over them, his Source Aura massive, overwhelming... and completely shutting out any other feeling but of him. Warm, fuzzy, shiny him.

Despite themselves and all their arrogance and training, they swallowed at his big beaming smile, radiating so much cheerful manliness that they found it difficult to respond, despite themselves.