Free Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps by J. Gregory Keyes Page B

What little use I get from my talent has only made me unhappy. Even with you guys. It’s best.”
    They argued more, but Mercy was firm. Mercy came back the next day like a dead woman. When Blood tried to touch her mind, she had to run for the toilet, and there she vomited for half an hour. Mercy curled on the couch, her normally lively eyes blank. She watched the vid with only sluggish interest. Tentatively, Blood scanned her again. She was reminded of Novocain , and also of heroin. It was as if Mercy only remembered being alive. She locked Mercy in her room the next day, called her boss, and told him that the injection had made her sick. That would put them off for a day, maybe, but then they would come hunting for her. And when they came for her, they would find them all. But no one would do this to one of hers, ever again.
    “I’m going to the school to get James,” she told Teal and Smoke. “When Monkey gets back, don’t let him wander. We leave tonight.”
    Outside, the thin air was fragile with autumn, Arizona’s San Francisco Peaks challenging the clear, dark sky with their sun-dazzled starkness, and she struggled to see beauty, slow her breathing, still the desire to find Mercy’s boss, rip open his mind, find out who had injected her friend. Mercy, the one who painted pictures, who wrote poetry, whose mind opened like a flower to beauty. Blood was their heart, sometimes fist; Teal, their intellect; Monkey, their passion and lunacy; Smoke, their quiet strength-but Mercy, Mercy was their soul. Now she was embalmed alive. She should kill them. They knew what they were doing. If the drug had lasting effects, she would. She swore she would. The secretary smiled briskly when Blood got to the office.
    “Hello, I’m Ms. Nogales,” she said. “I’ve come for my nephew, James. We’ve had a family emergency.”
    The secretary aimed her sharp nose at Blood.
    “Which grade is he in?” she asked, pleasantly.
    “First. In the special class.”
    “Oh yes-I think they’re being tested now.”
    “Tested?”
    “Telepath screening.”
    Blood blinked.
    “Without my permission?”
    “It’s the law, Ms. Nogales. It’s a painless procedure.”
    “Where?”
    “The lunchroom. But you can’t–’
    Blood left her explaining what she couldn’t do. She knew where the lunchroom was. They were all lined up, as if for inoculations. Two competent-looking women in white coats were doing something to their arms with a steel cylinder, then inserting the cylinder into a black box. Blood scanned the line frantically, looking for James. She finally found him on the other side, absently munching on a cookie. Milk and cookies for the good little children at the other end of the line. She hurried over to him.
    “Ms. Nogales?” She turned to see Mr. Craig, James’ teacher. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.
    “Compulsory testing. There’s nothing to worry about.”
    “James is delicate,” she said heatedly.
    “He did fine. Didn’t you James? And you’ll be happy to know, Ms. Nogales-he came up perfectly normal.”
    She touched Craig lightly. It was the truth.
    “Well, thank God,” she said.
    “Most kids are normal. Only one in ten thousand tests out as a telepath. I doubt we’ll even find one here today.”
    She nodded. “Well, I’m relieved. I came by to pick James up.”
    “Oh?” Suspicion leaked out under his words.
    “Yes. His grandfather, I’m afraid.”
    “I’m terribly sorry to hear that. How long will he be out?”
    “Only a few days, l hope. We have to go to Houston.”
    “Well, we’ll miss you, James,” he said to the boy. James kept nibbling on the cookie. When she took his hand, Blood tasted the chocolate chips. “Come on, James, we have to take a little trip.”
    Outside, in the car, she managed to relax a little. Thirty percent , she thought. Thirty percent will get through. You’re a lucky boy, James. But that was probably as much luck as her little family could count on. It was