Page 57 of Border Control

“Law-rah.” Dom's spoken voice resonates up my back. A whisper of reassurance and solidarity, like someone placing a cup of strong coffee next to me while I'm in the middle of a three hour meeting.

I take a deep inhale, breathing in his grassy fresh scent. My voice comes out muffled against my hands when I ask, “I also need to stay calm for Nevare, right?”

“Yes. That is deeply important.” Dom’s arms tighten around me. “Nevare can't regulate his emotions easily, and Arik and I as his Bases help him. Strong feelings should be contained where possible. They will… disturb Nevare.”

An image forms in my mind of the purple alien holding his head like I am, tugging at his short hair and rocking. Poor guy.

I have to stay in complete control, even when my world is falling apart.

Well. I’ve done it once, I can do it again. I shut my eyes, pulling my feelings deep inside. I am in charge.

I am.

FIFTEEN

DOM

My consciousness thrumswith the new bond. How it came to be is not as wondrous as the fact it exists. Law-rah’s thoughts rest closer to mine than ever before, an enticing exotic new planet to explore. I've experienced the honor of seeing her pleasure, and I could find so much more about her in the vaults of her mind.

“I’ll guide you,” I say. “I can teach you how to use mind syncs, and we’ll do our best to examine them to discover how you were entangled and pull you free again. Use me as your Base. I will assist with your regulation?—”

“No, I’ve got it. You focus on Nevare, and stay out of my head, please,” she tells me, leaning away from me and out of my arms.

The quivery excited feeling dies. Crashing into a plasglass wall would be preferable. Why does she feel the need to withdraw?

I will not go looking in her mind for the answer. I’m a strong Base; I have discipline and fortitude, even though resisting the pull to delve into her is pure torture.

She picks up her small device where it landed on the wooden floor, and my scales turn hard at the indignity I was witness to.The man talking to her like that needs to die. My fingers itch to wrap a wire around his throat myself, throttling the life out of him for daring to talk to Law-rah that way.

She glances at me, face paling. I pull myself back in, small, as I was taught to protect my Apex from my own emotional outbursts. Perhaps this mind sync goes deeper than I expected if she can hear me, an experienced Base.

As I watch her, devastation wreaks through her like the chain reaction of an imploding star: first a drawn inhale, then all her energies whirring in place, grinding into her. She's as scared as a clone being marched to the Euthanization chambers, but the cold blue spikes of her aura are pointing inward at herself.‘STUPID. IDIOT.’

I want to snarl that she's none of these things, but I'm not supposed to be listening in on her broadcasts. Not that I can help it, because not only is she practically using an amplifier inside my head, but every time she speaks my attention swings to her.

I can’t let her become my whole focus. Nevare was very nearly redirected into kill mode by the emotion charging through the mind sync, and that would have disastrous consequences.

Law-rah’s discomfort becomes my own as she races to her folding screen, tapping at it in a frenzy, a headache pounding in her already terrified mind.‘I NEED COFFEE I CAN’T STOP FOR COFFEE.’

An image of a machine flashes across to me, similar to the one she had me carry into El-len’s farmhouse for her. I have my next mission: Law-rah told me she needed coffee to live, so that is priority one. I head to the galley area to scout for it.

There it is, sleek yet squat, with a bitter-burnt aroma wafting from the crest. Analyzing it for a few moments, I can guess the hard brown seeds in the funnel on top will deliver Law-rah what she needs.

I grab a mug, pure white and perfect rather than the chipped ceramic in El-len’s farmhouse, and work the machine controls until a stream of spitting, brown froth streams out from a nozzle. It looks like rocket fuel.

‘COFFEE I SMELL COFFEE,’Law-rah broadcasts, before she calls, “Are you making coffee?”

“Yes, Law-rah.” Once the machine has finished, I take the mug between both hands and walk carefully back to Law-rah’s office.

“I would like?—”

I place the mug next to her. “Here, Law-rah.” Bowing my head, I retreat to the corner of the room and kneel, head lowered. I don’t know if this will please her, but I want to be close by in case she asks something else of me.

“Thanks.” She snags the mug and takes a long, drawn in sip, her tension unraveling slightly.‘PERFECT COFFEE, PERFECT. HE'S—’She quickly cuts the thought off.

Those fearsome spikes remain, pressing into her. There’s a flower on a desert planet we visited, the one on which we found Shade, and the pod grew thorns internally. Ilia said it was to protect against invading parasites, and Law-rah’s psychological state reminds me of that now: a thick outer shell which, once cracked open, hides hundreds of barbs.

It’s causing her suffering. I would gladly accept her agony, but this is mental pain, not physical. I can't remove it for her.