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Egg Hunter: Cluster Headache

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Chapter 9: Probably Not An Interrogation…

 

“So~ Robbie~! We’re going to be taking you to the library in just a bit, but before then, is there anything that you’d like to eat~?” Mamata asked while trying her hardest not to coo at the child.

 

Eternity~! Illusion up some toys for her to play with~! 

 

“Mam- Erm… Hunter? Can you come over here for a sec?” Mark asked, stepping a bit away from Robbie. Based on their tone of voice, it only took Hunter a moment to remember that Karen was the one controlling their body for the time being. 

 

As Mamata approached, Karen whispered, “You just did your girl-voice in front of Francene!” 

 

“Oh~? I guess I did~” Mamata responded in an even more sing-song voice than she usually did. She turned back to Robbie with a broad grin, but before she could say anything else, Karen grabbed her by the shoulder.

 

“Are you being serious right now!? ‘Hunter’ doesn’t sound or act like that! Acting out like this is going to draw in a lot of awkward questions for him,” Karen chastised in a hushed tone.

 

“Excuse me~ but I think I know how Hunter should act better than anyone!” Mamata said curtly, “And what we should be doing at this moment~ is showering this adorable little girl in more affection than she knows what to do with~!”

 

Mamata tried walking away but Karen’s grip on their shoulder clamped down even tighter.

 

“Stop that! Robbie’s just a kindergartener. He’s too young for you to be playing these kinds of gender games with!”

 

“Shows how much you know~! It could not be more clear to me that she is a girl in desperate need of some validation~ She needs someone who will be supportive and show her that she is allowed to be her true self~!”

 

“No! She’s too young- I mean he’s too young for this kind of stuff to be encouraged.” Karen’s voice was starting to raise but she caught herself and lowered it back to just above a whisper. “If you try to teach him that it’s okay to act girly, that’s just dooming him to being bullied and abused!”

 

“Do you even realize how much of a hypocrite you’re being~? If not~ I could tell you-”

 

“Hunter!” Karen called out, her voice reverberating through the entire apartment as she raised her voice.

 

From within headspace, Hunter was at a loss about what to do. The only time that he had forcibly kicked Mamata from the driver’s seat of their body had been by complete accident. Ever since Francene had dropped off Robbie, Hunter had been trying to pull the halo-headset off of Mamata, but to no effect. That had been how she had pulled him out of their body but the fact that he wasn’t able to do the same to her was making him anxious.

 

“Can’t you all keep it down, up here?” Eternity asked as he stepped out of the elevator and onto the bridge.

 

“Mamata is acting out of control… How do we get her out of my body?” Hunter asked.

 

“Why not just let her have her fun?” Eternity asked with a yawn as he approached one of the two side stations, but suddenly paused. “Hey! What happened to the Virtuality headset!?”

 

Hunter rolled his eyes as he said, “I got rid of that ugly thing and replaced it with something a bit nicer looking.”

 

“Well then… there’s no guarantee this will work anymore…” Eternity said lazily as he pushed a button on the side console. Immediately, the view from their body froze and the halo over Mamata’s avatar began lifting up.

 

“Hey~!” Mamata pouted, “Robbie just got here and I wanted to play with her~!?”

 

“You should listen to Karen and not go too far with h-” Hunter’s brain suddenly froze on him. He was about to call Robbie a ‘her’ but suddenly realized that he didn’t even know if the child was an egg or not. They were clearly born a male but ever since the Easter egg hunt on Friday, Hunter just somehow knew that the kid was a girl… he didn’t know why he knew that though. He had never tried to read her mind.

 

“What makes you so sure that Robbie is a girl?” Hunter asked cautiously, somewhat worried about the answer that he would get.

 

“I can see it in her aura~ Duh~!” Mamata responded, “Same way you do, right~?”

 

“I-” Hunter couldn’t see people’s auras. The most he could do was to kinda feel them out, but the knowledge that he could glean from that was vague at best. The fact that Mamata could see them was a bit worrying. “I can’t see people’s auras…”

 

“How did you know that Emmie was an egg then~?” Mamata asked, “You didn’t read that in her aura~?”

 

“No… What I do is more like…” Hunter needed a moment to figure out how to explain it. “It’s like I’m scanning their thoughts and emotions. Certain thoughts and feelings that recur a lot have more weight to them. Normally, when I scan someone’s mind, I can sort out the stuff that was thought most recently but I can also tell which thoughts have the most weight to them. With trans people, the feeling of gender dysphoria is extremely weighty… it’s more noticeable to me than even current thoughts. Mark was like that but their thoughts were also more… dense? …or compressed? ... I don’t know how to describe it. It’s different from the weight that I talked about…”

 

As Hunter explained, Mamata and Eternity both listened to him intently.

 

“Cool~! I’ll hafta try reading a mind like that sometime~!”

 

“...Maybe later.” Hunter responded and he moved to the captain’s chair and readied himself to return to controlling their body.

 

Mamata was causing him a lot of anxiety recently. She shouldn’t have been anything more than just an autopilot program, but apparently she had psychic powers of her own that were different from Hunter’s. And she’d been using those powers before Hunter was even aware that she was self-conscious…

 

The halo that hovered above the captain’s chair slowly descended over his head and suddenly he was out of the headspace and back in his body.

 

***

 

The group didn’t stay at the apartment for long after Robbie was dropped off. Hunter was anxious to get going and Karen didn’t have a reason for them not to leave yet. Hunter worried a bit that Robbie might be a bit of a handful, but the kid was surprisingly well behaved. That combined with how adorable she was as she stared in apparent awe at just about everything they passed, he easily saw why Mamata wanted to dote on her so much.

 

It took them a little longer than normal to get to the place where they were going to meet up with Hunter’s mentor, which was also the place where she worked, a public library in the center of the city. Normally, Hunter would have just taken the bus to get here, but with Robbie coming along, Karen insisted on driving which meant needing to take quite a while to find parking.

 

Hunter knew where his mentor lived of course, but she had an extremely strict policy of not discussing any psychic business at her home. As much as he wished he could have taken care of this stuff yesterday evening, he wasn’t going to risk pushing any of her buttons

 

He stiffened as the large building loomed over them and it took him a moment to brace himself before entering. A few moments actually… moments in which Karen gave him a scrutinizing stare. Hunter didn’t want her to stress out about the imminent meeting so he forced himself to man up and walk through the threshold into the building. The last time he had come, his mentor had to drag him inside… not that anyone would have realized that that was what happened.

 

To be perfectly honest, this wasn’t a particularly large library and was actually pretty modestly sized for the location. A much nicer one had been opened in the city about a decade before and this one had been neglected ever since. His mentor’s insistence on not moving from this location, and her apparent political ties, were the only reason why this library was even still operating.

 

The first floor of the library had audiobooks on cassettes and CDs as well as the adult fiction and nonfiction sections. Above that on the second floor was the young adult and kids sections along with the librarians’ private offices and a collection of old newspapers and magazines. Finally, the third floor had an extremely small selection of DVDs and a handful of blurays next to a few computer stations, plenty of seating and tables for reading at, and some small rooms which could be reserved for private use.

 

Hunter knew where his mentor’s office was, but for reasons beyond his knowledge, she insisted on him not just coming up. Instead, he did what he always had to do and approached the check out desk.

 

“Oh, hello! Do you need help finding a book?” the librarian asked. She didn’t look familiar so Hunter assumed that she must have been a new hire… relatively speaking of course. Hunter had managed to avoid coming by for the better part of a year.

 

“No, I’m actually here to see Gráinne, one of the other librarians. She asked me to come by,” he told the librarian. She was named Doris, at least according to her nametag.

 

Out of habit, Hunter let his mind scan hers and was shocked to find a great deal of gender dysphoria was present in her mind. Not just in her past memories either… he could tell that her dysphoria had been acting up all morning long. 

 

What was she feeling so dysphoric about even? If you were being extremely scrutinizing, you could say that her jaw was a bit wide and her eyebrows a bit bushy, but both of those things were well within range for what a cis girl would look like. Whoever had done her facial feminization surgery had done an amazing job, and there wasn’t even the slightest clue that she hadn’t been born female. She even had a very high pitched voice and her curves were well developed, so what would she have to even feel dysphoric about?

 

“Oh! Grainy! Sure, gimme a moment and I’ll get her for you. Who should I tell her is here to see her?” Doris asked.

 

“Hunter Kaur.”

 

“Right! Be back in a moment, Hunter.” She chirped in a convincingly real-sounding upbeat tone.

 

As she turned to leave, Hunter couldn’t help but mutter under his breath, “It’s pronounced grawn-yuh… not grain-ey. Does everyone always get it wrong?”

 

Next to him, Karen repeated the name over and over under her breath, trying to perfect the pronunciation, “Grawn-yuh… Grawn-yuh… Grawn-yuh… Gráinne… Gráinne.”

 

Hunter gently put his hand on Karen’s arm to get her attention, while trying to not let the act feel too intimate. “How about you take Robbie over to the kids section and I’ll come get you when she’s ready to see you?”

 

Karen nodded in agreement so Hunter led them all up to the second floor. He knew his mentor would come and find him easily when she was ready to speak so he wandered over to the collection of periodicals that weren’t too far away.

 

There was a certain topic that Hunter needed to research but since he didn’t want certain people in his head knowing that he was looking for it, he had come up with a roundabout way of doing it during the drive over. There was a rough date in his head, so he started by pulling some newspapers from around then and skimming the headlines.

 

He started by browsing through papers from a couple of weeks earlier than was really necessary, so it took him a bit of time to find what he was actually looking for. He acted as casually as he could, making sure not to switch to the next day’s paper too quickly. The moment he spotted the headline, he threw his thought acceleration to full power.

 

He had practiced doing this a few times on the drive over. Carefully, so that he wasn't extending it to Mamata and Eternity, he'd made sure that when activating his thought acceleration, he was the only one who would perceive time moving at a fiftieth its normal speed. 

 

Hunter quickly read through the article titled: Stellaris Apprehends Serial Kidnapper! He didn’t see what he was looking for in the article though so he canceled the thought acceleration and made a point of skimming the rest of the headlines on that day’s paper. The entire action didn’t even make a dent in his already depleted reserves of psychic energy.

 

For the next few days’ newspapers, Hunter repeated the process of reading any articles related to that incident with thought acceleration, so that no one would notice that he was doing anything more than just skimming headlines. As reporters had dug up and published more and more information, the situation began looking more grim to Hunter.

 

The kidnapper had been given the villain title of “The Lich”. Several different witnesses had reported different last words from him during the arrest but they were all fairly similar…  ‘I will make myself eternal!’, ‘I have already made myself eternal!’, ‘My will will last an eternity!’

 

Locations of the known kidnapping victims ranged across several states, including theirs which had the second largest number of victims. His real name was never disclosed but he had been reported to have used multiple aliases… ‘Mr. Dorsett’, ‘Mr. Hyde’, ‘Mr. Durden’, ‘Mr. Challis’, ‘Mr. Harvey’... ‘Mr. Jones’.

 

Too many things were lining up for this to just be a coincidence, wasn’t it? The fact that some questions could just make Eternity freeze up and the appearance of that “Uncle Marv” in the memories being hidden under a costume also messed up any chance of getting some plausible deniability out of him to put Hunter’s worries to rest. He couldn’t help but let out a sigh, despite the risk of Eternity connecting the dots to his disappointment and the newspapers that he had just been looking at.

 

“You can never just wait for me downstairs, can you Hunter?” A woman’s voice startled him out of his stupor. “Come along!” She ordered as she started leading him over to the staff access area without even waiting for an acknowledgement from him.

 

Hunter hurriedly put the newspapers back where he found them and rushed to follow her, giving a quick glance over to see if Karen noticed that he was moving on. She was too busy focusing on Robbie to notice, so Hunter typed out a quick message and sent it to Mark’s phone to let them know he was going to her office now.

 

This woman, his mentor, led Hunter to her office on the second floor of the library and entered without waiting for him. As she sat down at her desk, she locked eyes with Hunter who had caught up but was frozen right at the threshold of the office. He stood right in front of her doorway and wanted to go in but his body wasn’t listening to his orders.

 

Mamata must be fighting me… just like the first time I returned from Mark’s head. I couldn’t move right then either…

 

“Hunter…” The woman’s voice growled out in impatience.

 

She was going to get upset at him if he kept her waiting like this. He needed to walk into her office and sit down across from her but his damn legs refused to take that final step through the doorway. Hunter’s heart started racing as he begged mentally.

 

Please stop fighting me on this! We need to go in!

 

 I’m not doing anyth~ Hunter!? Hunter you need to breathe!

 

You have to be! Or Eternity is!? One of you is doing something to paralyze me…

 

Breathe!!!

 

Hunter hadn’t even realized that he had stopped breathing at some point. He tried to gasp for breath but his lungs were just as paralyzed as his legs were. Fire started burning through his chest and he started becoming light headed as he tried to force his body to do anything at all.

 

A sigh echoed out and suddenly Hunter was breathing again. The lump in his throat vanished and the light-headedness faded slowly as he stood in front of the office doorway.

 

No! No no no!

 

Hunter’s panic hadn’t faded though. He tried commanding his body to back away, to run, but it just stood there in place taking deep breaths. The edges of his vision began fading to black as he tried harder and harder to force his body to move.

 

With the feeling of a sudden snapping, Hunter was ripped away from his body. 

 

He was formless and floated in a black void with nothing else but two round screens showing what each of his eyes saw. Slowly, Hunter saw as his body stepped across the threshold into the office and what felt like a ripple of electricity ran through him, reaching his mind all the way here in this void.

 

His body ignored that feeling and walked, pausing in front of the chair across from the woman’s desk. He could see his arms trembling as his body fought not to sit down in that chair.

 

“Sit Down Hunter!” The woman’s voice echoed with authority all around him.

 

On the screen, his eyes looked directly at hers and Hunter was shocked to see her eyes were glowing with a faint silvery light. His eyes flicked downwards and he could see three silver lines that connected her fingers to his body. Two of the lines went to his legs, while the last was attached to the center of his chest. The two lines attached to his legs pulsed with a slightly stronger silver light and then…

 

Augh~!!!!

 

The silver light disappeared. The woman’s eyes went back to normal. His body stopped trembling. He sat down in the chair.

 

Without even realizing it, Hunter was out of that void and back in his body. He felt like he should be hyperventilating but his body simply continued taking slow, deep breaths.

 

The woman stood up from her chair and walked over to a small desk on the side of the room. The desk was covered in stacks of papers and books, but there was also an electric kettle that had been whistling for who knows how long.

 

Hunter~! What was that!?

 

Seriously!!! Who the hell is this woman!? Me and Mamata were both trying to fight it but your body was just moving on its own!

 

“Aintín Gráinne…” Hunter choked out in response to Eternity’s question.

 

The woman perked up at the mention of her name and briefly turned to look at him as she poured water from the kettle into two teacups. “Just sit still and let yourself breathe, Hunter.”

 

The entire room went quiet as Gráinne turned her attention back to what she was doing. Mamata and Eternity stopped talking and Hunter didn’t dare to speak. They all just watched as Gráinne moved to another desk and rummaged around through a stack of papers, looking for something.

 

Is she your mom?

 

Eternity’s sudden question almost made Hunter want to laugh, but he supposed it made a bit of sense. Eternity had seen a brief memory of his mother together with Zoey and Karen, before she became Karen. 

 

The family resemblance was pretty strong, as both his mother and Gráinne shared similar facial shapes… a shape that Mamata had also given to herself as well. The most noticeable difference between the two of them though was that Gráinne was a good 20 years older than his mother. She had the wrinkles to prove it and her bright red hair was streaked with gray that Gráinne didn’t care to dye away like his mother did.

 

She’s my mother’s aunt… Hunter responded mentally to Eternity.

 

Things went quiet in his mind again and after a few minutes, Gráinne went back to the teacups and grabbed them, before she sat back in her chair and slid one of the cups over to Hunter. Her glare at Hunter was piercing as she waited for him to take his cup.

 

“How are you doing, Hunter?” She asked him. “I made you some desi chai since you were clearly wound up, even over the phone…”

 

When Hunter didn’t immediately respond or take the cup, she continued, “I know how you love your father’s way of making it, so I’ve been trying to make it myself.” She gently blew on her own teacup before taking a sip,  “I think I’ve gotten pretty close…”

 

It took Hunter a while to even realize that the smell of chai had been diffusing throughout the small office ever since Gráinne had begun making the tea. It really did smell just like how his father made it, but his father hadn’t made it. It had been made by that ruthless and cold wo-

 

“Dear god, has your dissociation gotten worse?” Gráinne came around the desk to squat in front of Hunter and get a good look at him. Gently she reached out, grabbing his hands and pulling him out of the chair before leading him over to a plush, well loved armchair in another corner of the office. Hunter didn’t fight her as she guided him to sit down in the other chair. She came back to him a moment later and pushed a teacup into his hands.

 

“Please just sit, get comfortable, Relax. You really are wound up, aren't you? Have some of the tea… it should help…” She said in the most soothing voice that she could. Tension that was building in Hunter’s neck started dissipating and his hands stopped shaking.

 

Does- did she mind-control you just now?

 

No~ It’s more like~ body control rather than mind control~

 

Is that any better?

 

It’s actually quite a significant difference when it comes to the ethics of using…

 

Hunter tuned out the conversation that Eternity and Mamata had started up. He hated when his mentor used her power on him. It always felt so… so violating. Having another person in control of his body, without him being able to do anything about it… it made him feel pathetic and weak. It was only a slight blessing that it took her a bit longer these days to become so impatient that she would resort to it.

 

Slowly the office started coming into focus around him and Hunter was startled to find that he was in a completely different chair than he had been in earlier. There was a cup of lukewarm tea in his hands and a couple of damp spots on them where his skin had been scalded without even realizing it. Gráinne was sitting back at her desk doing something on the laptop there. She noticed that he was back to normal before he even had a chance to speak up.

 

“Are you feeling better now, dear?” She asked.

 

“Yeah, I…” Hunter took a sip of tea as he tried to organize his thoughts. It was too cold to enjoy. “It, um… It’s been a bit of a stressful morning and I’m kinda exhausted… do you think you could brew up some of the… ummm…”

 

“Mentali-tea or Vitali-tea?” Gráinne asked as she moved over to a cabinet and began digging sound through it.

 

“Mentali-tea…” Hunter hated the names of those things. The Mentali-tea was the stuff that he would use whenever he needed to restore his psychic energy. It was pricey, but effective. 

 

The Vitali-tea on the other hand… that stuff was basically like caffeine on crack. It could give an incredible energy boost and keep you awake for weeks on end, but Hunter suspected it was just a cute name someone had come up with for some kind of amphetamine. Hunter didn’t have a license to buy that stuff, and he wouldn’t want one either. His mentor had given him an extremely small dose of Vitali-tea once during his training and while he didn’t remember the experience, he knew he didn’t want to go through that again.

 

The Mentali-tea was ready before he even knew it. Hunter filled a fresh cup with it and drained the entire thing in one go. It had a rich, earthy taste along with a crisp undertone. The difference between properly brewed tea and chewing on the leaves like he had done earlier that morning was like night and day. Almost instantly, Hunter felt completely refreshed and aware… and ready to talk with his mentor.

 

“So… are you ready to talk now?” Gráinne asked as Hunter sat down in front of her desk.

 

“Yes. But first… did you find out anything at all about the psychic named Marvin Jones?” He asked.

 

Gráinne shrugged and responded, “As I told you on the phone, there aren't any registered psychics with that name.” She would definitely know if there had been. “I asked around a bit, but haven’t heard of anyone who knows them.” 

 

She leaned forward with a dangerous glint in her eyes as she examined Hunter closely, “Why are you asking about him?”

 

Hunter took a deep breath and readied himself to explain everything. If it hadn’t been for that tea, he wasn’t sure he would be able to do it. “I have a few people that I need you to meet…”

 

“The big guy and the kid you came in with.” Gráinne’s comment was met with a raised eyebrow from Hunter, “Doris told me that you didn’t come alone and you also mentioned you were bringing some people on the phone.”

 

“Speaking of Doris, I think she might be trans-”

 

“You’re avoiding the topic again, Hunter…” Gráinne said with a sigh, “And what have I told you about casually invading people’s privacy? Do it to the wrong person and you’ll end up in a lot of trouble.”

 

“Sorry…” He wasn’t quite as ready to talk as he assumed he was a moment ago. Another deep breath in. 

 

“I’m guessing the big guy is Marvin?”

 

“No… they’re my roommate, Mark, and the kid is just someone that we’re babysitting.”

 

“They?”

 

“It’s um… a bit of a story and it all started with me trying to read Mark’s mind…” Hunter started.

 

Hunter started going over everything beginning with the two of them becoming roommates, him identifying Mark’s dysphoria and the odd denseness to their mind. When it came to Friday’s dive into Mark’s mind during the Easter Egg hunt, he glossed over a lot of the detail but made sure to explain about how odd it felt to come across someone with something purposefully constructed inside their mind, how many people were in there, and Eternity’s theory about Mark’s head being a psychic nexus.

 

“That isn’t possible.” Gráinne interrupted the story. “Psychic nexuses can’t exist inside a person, only in physical spaces.”

 

She has to be wrong!

 

“Are you sure about that?” Hunter asked. He was answered with a blank face that basically screamed that this wasn't a question worth answering.

 

How else can you explain that I couldn’t use my powers in their head but I can in yours?

 

“There is something that makes me think that Eternity might have been onto something. Even if it isn’t a psychic nexus, there’s something strange about their head…” Hunter skipped ahead to tell Gráinne about the strange pyramid that he had come across in the fog on his second dive into Mark’s head. “...when I tried creating a psychic marker to be able to find it again, the energy that I tried laying down kept dissipating on its own. If that isn’t because of a nexus, what else could it be?”

 

Gráinne listened intently before responding, “I don’t know. I’d have to see him first, but most likely, your talents are better suited for figuring out what it is than mine. Why don’t you fetch Mark and we’ll see if we can’t bring this Eternity fellow out for a conversation.”

 

“Actually… Eternity isn’t in Mark’s head anymore…” Hunter looked away awkwardly as he added, “He’s in my head… and there’s one more person that is in here as well…”

 

Gráinne let out a sigh and listened as Hunter continued his story from after his first dive into Mark’s mind. Hunter started telling her about how he had created an autopilot to control his body during that first dive, the hole that he had accidentally created in Mark’s aura when he escaped and his subsequent repair attempts on Saturday morning.

 

“...and when I had left their head the first time, I noticed that the autopilot had been acting kinda funny so when I finished plugging that hole, I started reprogramming her but apparently fell asleep halfway through…”

 

“Her?”

 

“Yes, her. Mamata is the name that she chose for herself…”

 

Gráinne had already poured herself a fresh cup of desi chai as she listened to Hunter’s story and she took a long, slow drink from it before addressing Hunter once again. “Are you telling me that you let it become self-aware?” She sounded upset.

 

I’m not an it~!!!

 

“She doesn’t like being called an ‘it’”

 

“Is she listening to us right now?” Gráinne asked. Her voice was terse and chills started crawling down Hunter’s spine. He nodded in response.

 

“And this Eternity guy as well?” Hunter nodded once again in response.

 

Gráinne stood up suddenly, nearly knocking her cup off the desk as she did. She swept her arm outward and Hunter felt a ripple of energy pass through him. A brief moment of dizziness was all that he felt before Gráinne dropped her arm back down and sat once again.

 

“How many times have I told you that a construct cannot be allowed to think for itself?” She definitely was upset, “Four days at the most!” Her voice was raised and she practically shouted that at him, “NEVER more than a week!”

 

“It- it was only a day and a half! I wasn’t planning on keeping her around past Sunday. It would have only been two days at the most before I was going to dissipate her. It has barely even been three days since I made her...” Hunter tried to defend himself.

 

Gráinne slammed a fist down on her desk, “What did you just say that you did Saturday morning!?”

 

“I plugged the hole that I had made in Mark’s mental defenses?” Hunter was unsure about his answer. Gráinne motioning for him to continue was enough to tell him that she wasn’t satisfied with that. “I spend three hours in time dilation while fixing the hole?”

 

“And you went through a full cup of Mentali-tea every half hour?”

 

“Yes?” He wasn’t sure where she was going with this.

 

“Are your reserves really so shallow that you can’t maintain time dilation for more than a half hour?” Gráinne’s tone was practically mocking as she asked that.

 

“I- I usually can manage about an hour and a half if I’m not tired…”

 

Gráinne’s look was practically begging him to put the pieces together, but he still wasn’t sure what… A pit formed in his stomach as he realized the conclusion that his mentor was leading him to.

 

“... but extending time dilation to extra people increases the energy drain exponentially…” Hunter sighed as he voiced his thought, “I didn’t exclude Mamata from the time dilation while I was fixing that hole, did I?”

 

“How long, subjectively, did you spend like that?” Gráinne asked with a small smile of satisfaction on her face.

 

“At least a week…” Hunter hated when she used the Socratic Method on him. “She wasn’t only a day old when she gained self-awareness… She was eight days old.”  

 

“Good boy…” Gráinne purred out with a hint of pride in her voice. She would call him that whenever she was happy with his progress in training. It only ever made him feel a bit awkward to hear though. “That is likely the reason for it becoming self-aware.”

 

“So, what do I do about her then? How do I get rid of her?” Hunter asked.

 

Gráinne gave a playful shrug, “You do nothing. You live with it from now on. To dissipate it at this point of development would be extremely unethical, if it even allowed you to.”

 

“She’s not an ‘it’...” Hunter muttered under his breath.

 

“Odd that it would consider itself to be female if it was supposed to be an imitation of yourself…” Gráinne mused, “This is exactly why I stressed so much not to let constructs become self-aware. It’s something that you’ll probably have to live with for the rest of your life. It’s basically given you Multiple Personality Disorder-”

 

“Dissociative Identity Disorder…”

 

“What?” Gráinne seemed surprised to be talked back to.

 

Hunter let out a sigh as he explained, “Multiple Personality Disorder only exists on TV. In real life the diagnosis would be either Dissociative Identity Disorder or OSDD… I think… Zoey and I did a bit of research on it…”

 

“Regardless of terminology, you might as well treat yourself as having that.” Hunter was visibly deflating at this news so Gráinne added, “At least you can be reassured that neither of them are the result of possession by a ghost or minor daemon. If they had been, my Psi-wave would have expelled them from your body rather than just knocking them unconscious.”

 

She thought on that for a bit longer, “That also means that Eternity can’t possibly have been a psychic stuck in another person’s head… at least when they were still in Mark’s head."

 

Hunter wasn’t sure what she meant and was dreading another round of Socratic questioning but to his surprise Gráinne just explained her thoughts to him.

 

“You should be more familiar with this than I am, considering your specialization. You are aware that there are time limits on how long a person can astrally project their soul, right?” She asked.

 

“Anything more than two to three hours is dangerous to the average person. That limit doesn’t apply to me because Astral Projection is my specialty.”

 

Gráinne nodded in satisfaction, “For anyone else, three hours is the safe limit. After five hours without a soul, the body will almost certainly have gone into a coma. Anything more than 12 hours and the body will undergo complete brain death. If the brain dies, the psychic dies with it.”

 

She had walked around the desk as she explained and placed a reassuring arm on Hunter’s shoulder, “Unless ‘Marvin Jones’ already had multiple personalities, Eternity would be a ghost by now if he was truly a foreign psychic who was stuck in your roommate’s head.”

 

“Then what is he?” Hunter asked. He was dreading the answer to that question.

 

“I don’t know. He could be an imaginary friend of Mark’s or another psychic construct that gained self-awareness. It might not even be possible to know where he came from.”

 

“And what should I do about him?” It felt weird to be having this conversation about him without Eternity popping in to comment, but he supposed that it made sense that he couldn’t if Gráinne’s psychic pulse knocked him out. Actually, they were both unconscious weren't they? It had only been a bit more than a day since they both arrived in his head, but knowing that they couldn’t see or hear what he was doing made Hunter feel a bit lonely. 

 

It also meant that he didn’t need to be cautious about them overhearing anything…

 

“We’ll figure out a way to send him back to Mark’s head.” Gráinne reassured him, “He isn’t your responsibility…”

 

“Hav- have you ever heard of The Lich?” Hunter suddenly asked.

 

“The villain?”

 

“Yes… One of the aliases that he was known to use was ‘Mr. Jones’... and most of the witnesses to his arrest claim that he mentioned something about becoming ‘Eternal’.”

 

“You think that Eternity could be one of The Lich’s brainwashed clones?” Hunter nodded at the question, “That is probably unlikely… but we can always ask the expert to take a look at him.”

 

“The expert?”

 

“Stellaris… The superhero who arrested him.” Gráinne explained, “She’s in town right now showing that newbie the ropes of the superhero-ing business.”

 

Her expression suddenly turned into a glare, “If you had listened to my instruction to see me in person the other day, you could have met her already. She and Alley Cat came by Saturday evening. They’re making sure to introduce the newbie to the local players in the supernatural community.”

 

That… actually could have been pretty cool. Hunter wasn’t one of those nerds that obsessed about heroes or cared about meeting celebrities, but it still would have been cool. There were only, what… a few hundred real empowered worldwide at any given time?

 

Mamata and Mark were already planning on going to Alley Cat’s official debut at city hall on Saturday. For a moment, Hunter fantasized about what it could have been like if he could be the one taking Mark to see her in person. Not just standing in a crowd a hundred feet away, but practically face to face with not only one, but possibly two superheroes. Would that give him an edge over Mamata?

 

“D- do you think you’d be able to arrange a meeting with them anytime soon?” Hunter asked while trying to keep from sounding too eager. “I could bring Mark and she could take a look at him to see if there are any signs that his mind was tampered with by The Lich?”

 

“They are pretty busy, so I doubt I can arrange anything in private.” Gráinne answered, “The best that I can do is probably squeeze you into her schedule at another event.”

 

She began glaring at him once again, “But if I do this, you need to be on your best behavior! No mind reading the superheroes or anyone around them!” The glare intensified, “I mean it! They’re likely immune, but don’t test it! Their patrons would likely retaliate against you for trying.”

 

“I-” Hunter wanted to act indignant at the suggestion that he would be so reckless but he knew doing so would likely be enough reason for his mentor to turn down his request. This whole fiasco started with him casually invading Mark’s privacy and she had also already reprimanded him for mind scanning that librarian earlier too.

 

He wasn’t actually stupid enough to try that with one of the empowered though. He knew better than that. There were orders of magnitude of powers in the supernatural communities and psychics were generally only a step above baseline people. That step encompassed a lot of things, but the patrons that empowered heroes, the kind that could actually give superpowers were countless steps above that. They were the kinds of beings that would take offense at a lesser being even looking at them the wrong way.

 

The celestial that empowered Stellaris might be a bit more lenient, but there was no telling who or what Alley Cat’s patron was. It would probably be years before that info became public knowledge. If it was a greater daemon or a dragon they would likely do something dramatic as a warning to others… 

 

Only an empowered would actually risk offending another empowered. Hunter wasn’t that dumb!

 

“I promise. I won’t use any powers in front of the superheroes” He swore.

 

Gráinne studied Hunter’s face for a bit before saying, “Okay then. Like I said, I can’t get you any private time with Stellaris, but there’s an event on Thursday evening. That last thing was a private meeting with me, but this is going to be a meet and greet with all the professional psychics in the city. Basically a way for everyone to say ‘if you see me using my powers, I’m not a bad guy, please don’t attack me straight away’.” 

 

She giggled a bit at her own nasally impression. Hunter assumed she was doing an impression of someone specific since he’d heard her do it before, but he hadn’t a clue who she was mocking.

 

“It’s supposed to be for professionals only… but since you’re at least registered, I can get you in on nepotism. We’ll just not tell anyone that your plus one isn’t a psychic too.”

 

“Actually,” Hunter interrupted, “There's something else that I need to tell you about Mark…”

 

Gráinne did not seem too happy to hear Hunter explain about Zoey’s newfound telepathic talents. “Have you already talked to him… them… about registering themselves?” She asked as he finished telling her about their accidental conversation during his dive yesterday and her being able to continue doing it when fronting in Mark’s body.

 

“I haven’t yet…” he responded.

 

“I am obligated to remind you that while registration is not mandatory, as a registered psychic yourself, you are required to recommend any unregistered psychic to register themselves.” She also leaned in a bit closer as she added, “And you are forbidden from providing training to someone who is unregistered…”

 

Hunter should have expected this conversation, after all his mentor was the highest ranking professional psychic in this city. It was the reason why she was respected enough to warrant a visit from the city’s new hero. It was also why he had hoped that she’d be able to have more answers for him.

 

Gráinne continued looking at him for a moment before saying, “Psychic powers rarely manifest in adulthood… What is his full name?” She asked as she turned her attention to her laptop.

 

“Mark Crawford”

 

“Is Mark short for anything?”

 

“Not that I know…”

 

“No psychic registered under that name yet… I’ll recommend it when I speak to him.” She continued tapping away at her laptop for another minute before adding, “No arrest records either.”

 

She stared him down as if she was trying to read him. He didn’t feel any psychic energy coming off her though. “Is there anything else important that you should be telling me?”

 

Hunter racked his brain trying to think of anything that she needed to know. She probably didn’t need to know about Karen’s transformation from being The Admin or the details of the headspace that Eternity had made in his head.

 

Crap… I shouldn’t have started jumping around in the story. I can barely remember what I’ve already told her…

 

“I… can’t think of anything that important?” He answered. “I learned this morning that Eternity can create psychic illusions and him doing that drains my energy.” He added with a shrug, although that hardly seemed important.

 

“Okay. Then if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to your autopilot construct and Eternity.”

 

“Oh… sure. I’ll wake Mamata up and let her control our body.”

 

“Actually, I’ll wake her up. I’d rather have a bit of privacy with her.” She stated as she stared at Hunter expectantly. “Alone… without you here…”

 

Hunter wasn’t sure quite what she wanted if she didn't want him waking her up.

 

Gráinne let out a sigh and her eyes turned sharp as she said, “Hunter… would you rather step out of your body and walk around the library for a bit, or would you prefer for me to knock you unconscious like I had done to them?”

 

“Oh…” That’s what she meant. He really didn’t want to be knocked out. She’d done it to him before and while the psi blast didn’t really hurt, being that vulnerable around her was never comfortable for him.

 

He took a deep breath before stepping out of his body. Gráinne was already by the office door and opened it as he approached. Her eyes traveled up and down his ethereal form and he could tell that she was judging him for his choice of avatar. He resisted the urge to bounce nervously on the balls of his feet as he looked up at her. She loomed over him as he walked closer. It was hard not to think back to the last time he was this small compared to her… when he was much younger and still going through training.

 

He turned his gaze to the floor as he walked past her and through the doorway. As he crossed the threshold, he could feel that strange ripple of energy pass through him again.

 

He took one last look back as Gráinne closed the door on him. It was just enough for him to see that his body had already stood up under her control, but whatever she was making it do was lost on him as the door shut.

 

***

 

Mamata found herself waking up, still sitting at her station on the bridge, just to the left of the captain’s chair. It hadn’t felt like anything had actually happened to her though. It just felt like she had blinked and suddenly Eternity was sprawled out of the floor and the captain’s seat was suddenly empty.

 

H’s great-aunt wasn’t in front of them anymore and their body wasn’t even sitting in the same chair it had been in either. They were back in that plush armchair that H had been led to while she had been going through her panic attack… Wait! Where was H!? Did she have another attack!?

 

Mamata got up from where she was sitting and rushed over to Eternity who was still lying on the floor despite being awake.

 

“Why am I on the floor?” He asked as she stood over him and offered him a hand standing up.

 

“I don’t know. Where is H!?” Normally Mamata liked putting on a sing~song voice, playing around with her cadence as she spoke, but at the moment she couldn’t bother putting on that act. Her sister was missing.

 

“Chair?” Eternity said stupidly as his head lolled over in the direction of where the fronter should have been sitting, “Or not… I dunno…”

 

God, this boy was worthless. Well, maybe not completely worthless. Mamata certainly appreciated that he had turned their headspace into something more interesting than a gray void with stars overhead, but the fact that he had come into their head uninvited and did all of that when she and H had both been asleep wasn’t something that she appreciated.

 

If he wasn’t so… 

 

Mamata couldn’t think of the word, but there were things about him that she didn’t like. She would almost prefer being lonely than having him around. His presence was too confusing for H. Mamata had been putting in so much effort to help develop a relationship with H’s crush since H was too shy to make a move herself but at those times when she should have been continuing where Mamata left off, she was instead letting this parasite distract her instead.

 

Since Eternity was being too dumb to grab her hand and get off the floor, Mamata decided that she wouldn’t waste her time waiting on him. Instead she walked over to the captain’s chair and sat down on it.

 

“I’ll see if our aunt knows anything. While I do that, how about you look around the spaceship for H!” It was more of an order than a question that she let out as the halo lowered itself over her eyes.

 

Excuse me, but it is a satellite, not a spaceship!

 

Mamata blinked a few times and felt their eyes tear up as she took control over their body. She wasn’t sure how long it had just sat there unblinking but now that she was in the body, she could feel just how dry and sore their eyes had become.

 

It took her a moment for her hearing to kick in and notice that Gráinne was just to the side of her, out of sight. She turned to look at their aunt and noticed just how slow and sluggishly their head was moving.

 

“Don’t force it.” The other woman’s voice said, “Just relax and look forward. You should still be able to speak without any problems.”

 

That wasn’t reassuring at all. Mamata tried to struggle to stand, but their body wouldn’t budge in the slightest. The moment she relaxed the tension in their body just the slightest bit, their head turned on its own to face forward once again. Mamata decided to stop struggling for now.

 

“So… Which one of them are you?” Gráinne asked as she moved to stand in view.

 

This was H’s great-aunt… Mamata’s great-aunt too. The first family member other than her ‘sister’ that she’s met. She needed to make a good impression.Mamata stared into Gráinne’s glowing silver eyes and tried to ignore the silver strings that extended from her hands to connect all over their body. What did H call her again? 

 

“Aintín Gráinne~ my name is Mamata~. It is a pleasure to me-”

 

“I am not your aunt.” Gráinne interrupted her, “You are not my nephew, even if you are sharing a body with him.”

 

“I…” This wasn’t a good start. Not at all.

 

“Right now the two of you are parasites that have latched onto someone who I am very protective of. You’ll get a chance to make your case, just make sure you know that for the next hour or so, I will be your judge, jury, and if necessary, executioner!” 

 

Those silver eyes seemed to drill holes into Mamata. She could see now why H was dreading having to see her again.

 

“Wh-where is H~?” Mamata asked, dreading that this woman could have done something to her sister during her lapse in awareness.

 

“Hunter,” Gráinne emphasized the name as she spoke, “should currently be wandering the library with his spirit body.”

 

She leaned in close as she added, “Just because you share a body with him for now, do not make the mistake of thinking that you are him or that you have any right to share his name.”

 

“What?” Mamata was a bit dumbfounded. Terrified but also dumbfounded, “I don’t want-”

 

“I’ve known a psychic who developed multiple personalities before. I do not share his alters’ opinion that his name should apply to all of them. You will not take Hunter’s name from him as if it was some kind of community property!”

 

“That’s not why I call her H!” Mamata cried out.

 

“...” Gráinne was staring at her as if offended that Mamata was talking back to her.

 

“I- mean no disrespect, ma’am?” 

 

“Her?” Gráinne backed off to where she had been before and the silver glow left her eyes.

 

Did I just out H?

 

Shit! Mamata had just outed her sister to a family member that she was very much not comfortable around. She tried to think if she should try to play it off as a mistake or not.

 

Their great-aunt just watched and waited for her to respond.

 

Fuck it!

 

H was never going to have the confidence to be herself if she was allowed to go at her own pace. She needed a push and if her secret was out, then there would be no need to keep hiding it.

 

“Yes~ Her~!” Mamata proclaimed boldly. She wasn’t going to keep acting meek in front of their aunt. She needed to project confidence if she was going to make Gráinne believe that she was telling the truth. “I call her H instead of Hunter~ because she hasn’t picked a name for herself yet~ and I don’t want to make her dysphoric~!”

 

Mamata sincerely hoped that their aunt wasn’t a bigot that was about to make H’s life harder on her…

 

“Mamata… I’d like to ask you to switch out with Eternity, please,” Gráinne asked, her voice betraying no emotion.

 

Mamata gulped and stepped back into their headspace. Eternity was already waiting for her there. He’d come back after hearing that H wasn’t in their body anymore.

 

“She seems terrifying… Do I have to go out there?” he asked.

 

Mamata just nodded and watched as Eternity switched places with her to sit down in the captain’s chair. She sat back at the side console that she had been at earlier and watched what happened on the monitor.

 

“Hel-” Eternity suddenly stopped in the middle of speaking. “Why can’t I move?”

 

He looked over at Gráinne then said, “Is this some kinda bondage thing with a sexy older librarian?” Half of the screen suddenly going black led Mamata to assume that he was winking at her.

 

Gráinne for her part seemed genuinely surprised at Eternity’s sudden switch in. “I… I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone get whitewashed in real time before.”

 

She leaned inward and appeared to reach out towards their shoulder. Whatever she did was just out of view for Mamata.

 

“Ouch! Don’t pinch me lady!”

 

“Interesting… Solid illusions. That is quite a strange ability you have there. Did it feel like I was actually pinching your cheek?”

 

“Yes, and it fucking hurt too!”

 

“The orange hair is… a choice… and boy are you pasty…” It only took a bit of teasing before Gráinne’s eyes turned from playful to a glare again. “Is what the autopilot said about Hunter true?”

 

“What did she say about him?” Eternity asked back without even pretending to show her any respect or fear.

 

“I suppose it was implying that he is transgender…”

 

“Oh! Yeah, Hunter is totally a girl!” Eternity responded flippantly, “I mean she spends half of her time in the satellite in a girl's body and the other half is in a girl’s body, except without any boobies.”

 

Gráinne let out an exasperated sigh. “Go back and send Mamata back out!”

 

“Aye aye!” Eternity took off the halo and stood out of the captain’s seat then exhaled heavily, “That woman is intense!”

 

“Then why~ are you acting like that and antagonizing her!?”

 

“Eh,” Eternity shrugged, “we’re in Hunter’s body. It’s not like she’s going to hurt her own student.”

 

“You… were you even paying attention to her threatening to execute us earlier!?” Mamata demanded.

 

“If you mean while I was searching the satellite for Hunter… then no, I didn’t,” he responded. “Do you think she was serious, or just trying to scare you?”

 

Mamata ignored the idiot and returned to the captain’s chair. She hoped that if she was on her best behavior, she wouldn’t need to do too much damage control for him.

 

Returning to the front, Mamata could see Gráinne’s eyes widen slightly as the periphery of her vision was suddenly blocked by dark red hair. It seemed Eternity was using his illusion on her again. Hopefully it lasted longer this time than when she was trying to show off for Emmie…

 

Gráinne’s eyes glowed once more and a ripple of silver energy emanated from her body and suddenly the hair in the periphery of Mamata’s vision vanished.

 

“Oh… Sorry about that Mamata,” Gráinne said with what sounded like genuine regret. “I didn’t think about the possibility that knocking Eternity out with a psi wave would cancel out your transformation.” 

 

There was a brief glow from her and suddenly the silver threads that connected the two of them began vanishing from sight. Instantly, Mamata could feel the ability to move return to her.

 

“Don’t stand up yet,” Gráinne warned and a brief glance down explained why. Surrounding the chair that Mamata was sitting in was some sort of circle of runes that glowed with a faint silvery-blue light.

 

Gráinne stepped away to go over to one of the side tables in the office and returned to Mamata a minute later to offer her a cup of tea. “Now… let's have a real conversation. Just the two of us.”

 

With the silver light gone from her eyes and what seemed like a genuine smile on her face, she actually looked like a friendly older lady. Mamata wasn’t sure though if this was some kind of test.

 

“Heat from fire~ fire from heat~” Mamata muttered under her breath, making sure her voice was just right. Gráinne had seen her real form already and Mamata didn’t want to risk letting her forget that she was a girl too! She needed to make the best impression that she possibly could. “I would love to have a conversation~”