In the cabbagino bay, Sam harvested the genetically modified vegetables under the baleful eyes of Darla, who seemed convinced Sam had faked her illness the previous day to get out of work. She did her best to hide the rebellious spirit struggling to break free. She couldn't recall how much the mind control had impacted her previous behavior. There had been some sullen snark happening in the previous days, to be sure, but Sam suspected even that might have been curtailed.

 

While toiling with the vegetation, Sam fooled around with the hole in her mind. Fear of the horror that had plagued her the previous night prevented an aggressive approach. It no longer caused pain, but the memory clung to her, whispering caution in her mind. The hole proved more active than she first thought, dribbling a pittance of chaotic something into the surrounding mindscape. She let the tiny portion of substance go and over time it partially faded, leaving behind only an anxiously buzzing residue.

 

It wanted to be used. Remembered nausea begged her not to have anything to do with the strange energy. The experience felt similar to the time she got sick after eating leftovers from her favorite Chinese restaurant. She hadn't been able to touch General Tso's for almost a year after the experience.

 

Lunch time arrived. True to her word, Ayla had cooked up some eggplant in a rich sauce for them. The other women forgot their determination to avoid the food when they smelled the aroma filling the fifth floor. Sam consumed several bowls, frowning when Jess arrived with her group and proceeded to ignore Sam. Of all the things to possibly end a friendship, mind control had never occurred to her.

 

Ayla swooped in when Sam returned her bowl to the sink. "Come, Sam!" When they were standing in the hall with the sleeping berths, Ayla leaned in close. "What talents did you get?"

 

"I don't know," she responded.

 

"What does it feel like?"

 

"Ayla, I am exhausted from staying up all night. Darla has been up my ass all morning, too. I don't even know if I want to play around with powers today based on how I'm feeling."

 

The girl bobbed her head around in thought. "Just try something right now. Aunt Cassandane needs to know what you are."

 

"After what she did to me, I'm not in the mood to help her."

 

Ayla looked to her feet. "Sorry, Sam. That was not a good thing to do to you. Sometimes . . . you just need to do this for Aunt Cassandane."

 

"I'm pissed at Aunt Cassandane."

 

"Then please do it for me?"

 

Sam squeezed her eyes shut. "Fine. Just the tiniest bit, though. This stuff gave me the worst hours of my life."

 

For a moment, nothing happened. The hole in her mind remained there, dribbling infinitesimal amounts of precursor, most of which decayed in some fashion. Then the bit of anxious energy seemed to sense her willingness and it leapt forth. For a brief moment, an invisible sphere reached out around her. It popped like a bubble, its energy expired in the blink of an eye, but not before filling Sam with a giddy excitement. "I had something come out of me," she said.

 

"Animas! You're a kinetic!"

 

Heartened by the lack of pain from her first experiment, Sam opened herself to the hole in her mind. It trembled for a moment, then vomited a small packet into her. What Ayla had identified as animas fueled another bubble around her without any action on her part, as if it knew where it wanted to go. An inky, sticky darkness stuck itself to her in an uncomfortable fashion. "And something else. It's like being covered in motor oil."

 

"You have animas and gravitas. That makes you a brute! Very good, Sam, very, very good."

 

Like a key unlocking, Sam's mind grew vast. She put it all together in a moment. "Actually, Ayla, I think I'm a paragon. You should probably let your aunt know that as soon as possible."

 

Ayla seized Sam in one of her trademark hugs. "Happy!" She pulled herself back. "Oh! No more using talents. It has to be secret until Aunt Cassandane says it is safe."

 

As the girl slipped away, Sam found a place to sit by herself. The exhaustion from her late night still haunted her, but she could overcome that with the nous boosting her brain like a non-jittery caffeine substitute. Sam smiled as she realized she could stop drinking the lukewarm non-coffee drink in the mornings. She almost got up to talk to Jess, then realized her best friend would not like this kind of talk.

 

Darla put a stop to her moment of rest by rounding up the workers on her shift. For the rest of the afternoon, Sam worked at a fast pace with the encouragement of an ornery supervisor. She didn't get a moment of freedom until dinner. After dinner, truthfully, because hispanic taskmaster Alicia put Sam to work. She couldn't even bring herself to complain after how nice Alicia had been to her while she was "sick" earlier.

 

When everything had been cleaned up, Sam grabbed a shower and climbed into her sleeping berth. She had intended to play around with her new talents, but her sleep deficit made itself known. Sam turned out the lights and snuggled up with her blanket. The hole in her mind trickled cursor free while she drifted off to sleep.