The Star 4

"Did you take my advice, screw up or start cracking?" the dull eyed man asked as he led the boy to another part of the facility.

"All three and not in that order, I think," Sonny replied earnestly.

The man looked at the boy and said, "Start with the screw-up."

Sonny cleared his throat and said, "Well, 'hot hands' broke an antique weather forecasting thing and got himself poisoned from breathing in mercury fumes... hot hands... His buddy broke my bunk mate's collar bone when he 'accidentally' threw my bunk mate across the room over a minor protest to leave my stuff alone. So, I ground up the glass from the broken thermometer part and 'accidentally' put it in the lemon square I gave to the thug... I took the blame for both.

"The screw-up was misjudging how far I could get away with 'fighting back'. Apparently, our principle or whatever he's called, clearly favors physical kids. What am I supposed to do, put my brain in a sock and beat them with it!?"

The dull eyed man had a far away look as he said, "My Gen Pop incubator had a crafting station. I used a knit beanie and bracelet beads but I hear soap works pretty good for keeping the bruising down."

Sonny's disturbing faint smile came back. "My step brother liked using bars of lye soap. I stopped trying to hide my mom's care package gifts then too."

The man chuckled. "It sounds like our research team didn't do a very good job on your background study. Either that, or recreating it for quicker results... Ah, right. You know you were being 'tested' but not why... They were adding measured levels of stress to induce any possible secondary or latent mutations."

The boy stared off into space as he began reordering everything he knew. It took a few snaps from the dull eyed man to bring him back.

"I think I'm going to send you to the counselor first," the man said with a frown.

"I've been doing that for as long as I can remember. It's how I... put things together. It's a choice, not something that just happens," the boy explained and then wondered why he did.

He suddenly looked at the dull eyed man suspiciously. A moment later, the man staggered and looked at Sunny with a smile far more disturbing than anything the boy could produce.

"Mental shielding... just like that, huh? You really are a treasure. I can't wait til they finish cutting on you. You're going to be a pretty little gem," the dull eyed man said.

Sonny stopped walking. "What's this all really for? It all seems so... expensive and takes so much time. And, everything seems so ordered. It's like an assembly line... And for what, a few neat people and a whole lot of ones with abilities that aren't any more useful than having a gadget capable of doing the same thing?"

The dull eyed man's grin grew even wider. "Nope... Can't answer that. Buuut, let me ask you a question. What do most of us freaks have in common? When you start subtracting all the mostly worthless party tricks and think about the greater universe, what sounds like the most valuable thing to come out of what we SEEM to be doing here?... Don't answer and don't ask me anything else."

Sonny couldn't quite figure out the guy or the offered riddle but he realized that he was missing a piece of it. Once he got that piece, everything he wanted to know would probably become clear then. One thing was already clear, though.

His mysterious mentor was a rule bender but not a rule breaker. The man probably had a few screws loose too. But, Sonny didn't feel like anyone spit out by the process he had found himself being cranked through would leave anyone mentally healthy or even whole.

As they entered another open area, Sunny packed away his tangled ball of thoughts, suddenly jumping back to near the beginning of their conversation. "Measured levels of stress, what a joke. Like anyone can measure broken bones or a head injury before they happen."

Deciding to play along and pretend like they'd been chatting casual the whole time, Dull Eyes said, "There is a certain amount of acceptable 'collateral damage' but we do care about keeping that to a minimum. It may not look that way but our goal isn't to break or even damage you, mentally or physically. If you can't trust in our methods, trust what you can figure out of our motivation."

The man approaching was the scariest of the the personnel Sonny had yet to see that actually had the eclipse badge. "Sir, I heard we were getting a transfer from the incubator. Is this the lucky b*****d to get eight weeks of induction shoved into a week?"

As the two conversed, the boy 'observed' his new instructor, looking for leverage and clues to what disturbed him about the man. There was no doubt that the instructor was combat proficient but there weren't any visible signs of odd mutations. He seemed extra healthy and even friendly looking at a glance. Then it hit Sonny like a ton of bricks.

He knew he was taking a risk by doing what he was about to do but what he saw, he would rather just be swiftly killed than endure. In fact, a couple of other people in the stage two 'hatchery' had been enduring whatever it was the man could do and were going to be on the verge of death themselves. It flew in the face of what Dull Eyes had told him and he had to know.

Before Dull Eyes walked away after handing over Sonny's files, he said, "So, eating us is even allowed?"

Both of the men looked at him strangely.

"He's eating two of the, uh, chicks?- I mean, I'm just running with your terms here.- It's slow but he's eaten... a lot. One's really weak and sick inside where it's hard to see." Sonny said, unsure if he was explaining things right or in an understandable way.

Cool as a cucumber, the new instructor said, "It sounds like he needs to go to a counselor, sir."

Dull Eyes nodded and said, "Probably but I want to hear what he has to say first."

Pretending to be as accepting as he could be, terrified that they knew and allowed it, he explained about the lines he saw that ran from the instructor to the two 'meals'. It took a little time with the instructor laying out logical road blocks every step of the way but Dull Eyes was determined to see this act through to the end and got the clearances he needed. And the more Dull eyes saw, the more difficult it became for the instructor to keep playing cool.

A ten year old in the infirmary was supposedly suffering from a mysterious allergic reaction. Sonny did his best to describe the line connected to the boy's lower spine that led to the instructor's chest. The doctor didn't buy it. Sonny couldn't blame the lady. He wasn't exactly able to produce evidence and he didn't know how to describe what it was that the man was eating.

What got both the doctor and Dull Eyes on edge and questioning was when Sonny led them right to a seven year old in R&D who was being studied for a supposed fatal rejection of mutation. From their perspective, it was another case of auto-immune but in a far more aggressive state. The observed boy's active factors were dropping at an observable rate until seconds before Sonny led them into the room.

In fact, the closer Sonny got to the boy, the less observable decline was. He could feel the other boy drawing something from him but it didn't hurt. Temporarily ignoring a strong sense of familiarity he had with the dying kid, he focused on following what was transferring from him to the sick boy and into the instructor. He could see very clearly after that.

"It's happening a lot slower now and the lines are getting thinner. But, he has something in his chest and head that are taking something from them and storing it inside of him. It doesn't feel like a part of-" Sonny was interrupted by the instructor giving calm explanations of his augmentations and what they did.

Seeing some questioning looks, the instructor said, "It's possible that he's seeing some kind of monitor function of my sensory booster."

Seeing looks of understanding starting to form, Sonny said, "Is that the thing sending out weak pond ripples from you? It only goes out like this far."

He illustrated by pointing at the floor and walking about thirty or so feet.

Dull Eyes gave what Sonny assumed was a reassuring smile that was anything but. "It might just be the wild imagination of a child who doesn't know what he's seeing but a quick deep scan will clear this misunderstanding right up."

"The lines are disconnecting," Sonny said.

The instructor narrowed his eyes angrily at the boy. "How convenient for that to be happening now that someone's willing to debunk your crack pot accusations."

The boy hadn't been passively waiting for the situation to resolve, he'd been trying to understand the connection within himself, the sick boy and the disappearing line to the instructor.

Ignoring the instructor, he asked the scientists, "Can I touch him? I'm giving him something that he needs and it isn't hurting me."

Despite protests from Dull Eyes, the head scientist cleared it as the instructor asked to get the scan over with so he could return to his duties. Unwilling to walk away and more than a little curious himself, he told the man to stay put. The instructor mean mugged Sonny for all that he was worth.

The boy had no attention to spare. As the tank solution was lowered and a panel opened, Sonny's hand gravitated to a point on the sick boy's chest. As soon as he made contact, his knees buckled from a momentary sense of weakness but quickly assured everyone that he was fine.

As monitors and other sensors buzzed with surges of activity, He reached through the sick boy. Whatever subconscious reflex was working inside the kid, Sonny couldn't really understand but could feel it reaching back out to the instructor as if it wanted to reestablish the link. He didn't know if it was a good thing or not but felt like if it succeeded, at least the instructor had a better chance of being caught.

Since some of Sonny was now in the man too, he tried to add his own theft protesting instinct but with a different purpose. He was going to take back what belonged to him or at least pull it into the sick kid. It ended up being a lot more dramatic than he thought it would.

As soon as he helped carry the sick boy's feeble intent to the instructor, forcefully reestablishing the link, he added some of his own after seeing an example of how to do it. Spreading his intent out over what was his and reconnecting what belonged to the sick boy back to the feeble intent the kid was instinctually producing, he wrapped his around it all and pulled as hard as he could towards them.

There was a strong will threatening to crush that intent and its connection. The mixture of the instructor having compromised his own mental ward with whatever the thing was in his head and Sonny's ability to anchor himself on the 'stuff' the man had stolen made it doable. With a sudden but swiftly cut off protest, the instructor dropped dead as a crystalline formation of metal erupted from the front of his skull.

Before Dull Eyes' or the scientists' curiosity could overcome caution, the crystal disintegrated and flowed back into the sick kid. Suddenly in possession of a slightly larger surplus than he could contain, the overflow slipped from the boy back to Sonny. Whatever the strange energy was, it left a metallic taste in Sonny's mouth and had a catalyzing affect on something in him that he couldn't see.

Lost in trying to sense what he could, he had been spared the gory details. But when he reached the inner block that kept him from seeing deeper within and focused back out again, he didn't miss Dull Eyes digging through the dead instructor's head with an almost gleeful expression. Moments later, the man pulled out a ruptured marble sized ball of flexible black material that covered a smaller, shinier ball within it.

Dull Eyes laughed in a perverse, low voice. "Black market tech. For a few times, it can steal a manifestor's material and claim a portion for another manifestor to get a little something out of it. The victim has to die or the material will dissipate, possibly return to its owner if they're close enough.

"It's quite expensive and not THAT helpful, really. If the goal was to push another breakthrough, assuming they were close to one, or get a little extra time... He was an orange. I'm guessing he was close to yellow but lacked enough potential to make it before he was too old for it to do him much good."

Sonny geared up to ask some questions. But, as if he just remembered that the boy was there, he called one of the scientists to send the boy through another round of scans. Eager ghouls that they were, they would have likely done much more but an authoritative voice contacted them, warning them in no uncertain terms to keep it thorough but routine.

With one last look back at the weak but recovering boy, Sonny was pulled away for another round of blood work and tests. To his surprise, he heard one of the scientists say that his second pheresis had been canceled nearly a week prior. Whatever factors were in his plasma, they dissipated too quickly for them to do anyone any good.

For giggles, they gave it to Vincent anyway. There was a weak and sluggish response. But where the factors had failed to stay active, their lingering presence was enough to produce a sign that his little brother was latent.

Sonny had proven 'interesting' enough that they were going to go out of their way to stimulate the toddler with some of their limited supplements. The boy had mixed feelings about it but thought being an aware piece of property within the system was better than being an ignorant potential breeder in the 'pig pen'. At least, that's what he hoped.

Two days later, Dull Eyes showed up to escort him. "The only thing they've managed to uncover was that your readings are extraordinarily steady. I can't explain but I can tell you that's very good."

Making a weak attempt at humor, Sunny said, "No sudden extra limbs or organs, then?"

With a grave face, Dull Eyes said, "Well..."

Seeing the dramatic pause put a worried frown on the boy, he gave Sonny a manic smile and added, "That's exactly what it means. Avoid black market enhancers in the future and it'll stay that way... If you have the freedom to choose, that is.

"Aaand on that depressing note, let me tell you a good piece of news. You've been cleared for a face to face visit. I don't have to remind you not to leak guess work or other privileged information YOU don't even have a right to, do I?"

Excited but acting sullen, the boy said, "Consider it delivered."

Meeting his mom and his little brother for possibly the last time, he wished that he could push all the uncertainty over his future aside to make the most of the moment but he couldn't. With Cassandra being the mother of two confirmed assets, the family was pulling up stakes and being transported to the colony hub that acted as a satellite HQ for the Eclipse private security company's presence on the planet. It insured access to better resources and education but that did little to ease Sonny's mind.

The heart wrenching parting was almost unbearable but two positive things did come from it on top of the precious scraps of familial warmth. The first was a little blue diamond added to his tin. The second was a handful more clues to untangling the mystery of his situation.

Until he could verify and check it against something more than just some words, he wasn't willing to waste time trying to sift through half truths and misleading information. He packed his thoughts away, along with a seven shaped candle from his one month early birthday cupcake and put his game face back on. It would take a little time to do it completely but he planned on following Dull Eye's advice.

He couldn't afford to be distracted. He was still an under-educated child with very little personal power. But the one thing that made following such a cold piece of wisdom possible for him, was a simple truth. You didn't have to give up to let go.