topic. “How did you get in?” He looked back at the door that still bore a trace of the glossy black word that should have planted the suggestion in Jackson’s head that he did not want to enter the room. He should have been plagued with sadness, loneliness, insecurity, disconsolate grief. He should have been inured with the feelings of despair just by nearing the door. The further away from it he stood, the less he would feel the suggestion. Jackson had braved it anyway.
* * * *
Jackson walked over to the dusty chess set and began to study the pieces. He picked up the queen, still impressed with her heaviness. The pieces were made of solid pewter. The queen was the heaviest, the most ornate. He put her down gingerly but didn’t take his eyes off her. “I would like to say that I was able to identify the suggestion from my years of training, but I didn’t. In fact, the suggestion was so strong I was shaking even while I reached for the door, but I needed to talk to you.”
Jackson turned to see Rush raise his eyebrows. Jackson assumed this was an indication of shock and incredulity. Though his brother looked slightly different, his lack of expression was the same. “You wanted to talk to me enough to plow through a very, very, very nasty suggestion?”
Jackson shrugged again, remembering a feeling of intense misery descending on him at the thought of going to his brother for advice. He’d started to sweat and felt bile pooling in his mouth. He also remembered the feeling that Rush was the only one in the world who could help him. When he weighed both emotions, his need to seek Rush out overrode the suggestion, the High Energy Shift used to create it. Jackson knew his brother would tell him the right thing to do.
The fact that he sought guidance from his brother more than anyone else probably had a lot to do with the fact that Rush was older by nearly five years. Boys usually looked up to their older brothers and wanted to emulate them, didn’t they?
When they were little, Rush had always steered Jackson away from trouble. He taught him from an early age not to lord his extraordinary abilities over others. It was Rush who had urged Jackson to protect smaller kids, to cooperate with the incessant battery of tests to which the Service subjected Jackson. It was Rush who told Jackson constantly that their parents loved him, and that they understood and respected his unique gifts, though Jackson had never, even as a boy, completely believed it.
Rush warned him that he needed to comprehend the difference between asserting and aggressing. In all things, Rush had never failed him. He had been an unwavering and unmoving guiding star for Jackson through subtlety and nuance when necessary or relentless, persistent emotionally dealt discipline when necessary. Even despite his Talent. Amazing to Jackson, he didn’t know why, but his Talent had never had an impact on Rush. He had always considered Rush to be his teacher, and Jackson had never, not once in his life, considered using his power on him. Deep down, Jackson had known in the way only a soul can know, that his Energy could not affect… could never conquer Rush. It was only at this moment, this very moment that he knew why. Rush had power of his own.
“Well,” Rush prompted.
“Well what?”
“What did you want?” Rush asked patiently.
“I don’t remember,” Jackson admitted, sure that before Rush asked him the question, he had known. He ran a hand over his bristly dark blond hair and changed the subject. “You should be trained.”
“I’m an adult. They don’t train adults.”
“They don’t train adults because they get everybody when they’re kids. We live in the nation’s capital, not because our parents loved it here, but because they’ve been studying and training me since before I could walk. It’s amazing you have this kind of Talent and have managed to fly under the radar. Energy has a way of making itself known to the Service. They have satellites, Rush, that pick up traces of High Energy. They can identify Talent from outer space. You have to be tested. You have to be protected. You have to be trained, Rush.”
“No, Jackson, I don’t have to be, and I won’t be.” His words were final. Jackson wouldn’t argue. At least not then. “I can tell this isn’t going to work. You and your desire to do what you think is the right thing to do… No, you won’t be able to leave well enough alone. For that reason, I have to do something I don’t want to do.” Rush ran a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, Jackson.”
* * * *
“Hey, man, I must have just zoned out. I didn’t realize what time it was. You mind if I cut out early and we play some tomorrow? I gotta figure out what’s going on at the center.” Jackson pulled off the wireless virtual reality gloves. He briefly checked his score on the gaming console and handed the gloves to Rush.
“No problem, Jack.” Rush, now transformed back into the sullen introvert, answered with a nearly believable smile. “Tell Ronald I said hi.” The gloves were warm to the touch. The Shift had been precise, instantaneous, and perfect. He slid them into the console drawer.
When Jackson walked out of his room, Rush sighed and closed his eyes. That was the seventh time in as many months he had removed the knowledge of his unique Talent from his brother’s memory. Seven Shifts in seven months, Rush tried to cheat destiny. Too frequently, this Talent he had been careful to hide since adolescence, seemed to want to bare itself to his brother… maybe to more than just his brother.
He did it even though he knew it was useless. Rush had always known that he could not cheat destiny.
* * * *
When Jackson Rush swiped his badge at the west lobby of the Service, he waved at the older woman in uniform behind the desk. The pleasant looking woman graced him with a huge smile. Her smooth skin was the color of fresh garlic and her eyes looked like half moons as she grinned. Her salt and pepper hair was very short and bristly. She was tall, definitely taller than he was, and plump. She wore starched navy pants and a button-down with yellow chevrons on the sleeve that looked like it could have represented any security company in the country, but of course, her uniform was not only bulletproof but also psychic-proof. All of Melita’s Talent was based in self preservation. She couldn’t do anything to anyone else, but they couldn’t do anything to her either, including get past her. Great for security in the only place on the planet where everyone commanded High Energy of a sort.
Jackson walked through a sensor that looked strikingly like an airport security pass-through, then started down a hall. The floor was old terrazzo but gleaming clean. The walls were a governmental off-white and only interrupted by doors and windows with metal blinds blocking the view inside. He took an elevator then, down sixteen floors. Stepping out, he passed through another security booth nodding at a young, skinny man he’d never met before.
“You’re new?” he asked with a smile, putting his hand out.
“Yes, Mr. Rush, sir.”
“Jackson.”
“Oh I don’t know—”
“Nahh, it’s cool. I give you permission to call me Jackson. What’s your name?”
“Banks.”
“Nice to meet you, Banks. You had to have done really well to be on this detail.”
“Yes, sir, um… Jackson.”
“And what’s your…”
The young man put his hands out waist high with his palms facing downward. A bronze light, a dark brown flame almost, seemed to leap out of his palms and form a wall in front of his body. He raised his hands higher, and up the force field went. Jackson stepped closer and put a finger into the High Energy barrier. A faint buzz let him know how strong the Energy was.
“That hurts,” he said with a slow smile.
“Well,” Banks toed the tile at his feet, “It does for other people, y’understand. I wouldn’t expect…”
“And you shouldn’t. Really, I could feel how strong and controlled the field was.”
The younger man beamed at