Excerpt: Visionary

Dust swirled around and through the city of Maresh, carried on the hot winds of summer's last gasp. Watchtowers ringed the city, guarding against distant enemies; the soldiers who manned them wore goggles and face masks to stop the dust. Stunted plants struggled in the alien soil, but it would be many years before the land surrounding Maresh was anything other than a desert. Majestic spires rose from the city center, marking for miles around the location of the city, in the middle of a land that barely supported life.

Maresh, the jewel of the East, city of unparalleled opportunities - or so it would have its visitors believe. But every city had its dark side, and it was there that Ryan Morgan walked today. The slums were thickest around the road to the mines, choked with low buildings made of whatever could be scavenged. None here wore goggles, and only a few held scraps of cloth over their noses and mouths.

Ryan, too, went without goggles; combined with his eyepatch, they made him uncomfortable. Sweat and grit seeped under the patch, irritating what remained of his left eye. His facemask, little more than a rag tied around his head, kept the worst of the dust out of his lungs. Still, dust permeated him, just as it did Maresh. It turned his reddish hair a muddy brown, stained his clothes, and collected in his shoes.

The people of the slum kept their distance from Ryan. It was a simple thing, an aura of "you don't want to bother me," that held them back. Anyone with the proper training could detect it, of course, but none of those would be here in the slums. He walked slowly, his single eye roving over the street, the buildings, and the people.

The street was dirt pounded flat by the feet of thousands, baked into dust by the summer's heat. Simple huts made of stone, sheets of metal, broken concrete, and the occasional steel pole crowded close to the street and around crude wells. The inhabitants kept their garbage far away from the wells, fearing to foul the water, but Ryan could still smell it and worse things.

The people watched him pass with wary eyes. His aura kept them from calling out to him, but still they watched, if only to see if they could why he had come. He was young, and tall, unbowed by a life spent in the mines. Even in the simple clothes he wore, he was dressed more richly than most of them could hope to be, in colors that had not yet turned brown. They blended together to Ryan's eye, a mass of brown that faded into the dusty cityscape.

Something flickered at the edge of his senses. Ryan paused, closing his eye, but a mental sweep of the area turned up nothing. Probably a latent, he decided, moving on. He could sense no other latent psychics, thought there could have been a number of different reasons for it, one of the foremost being that any psychic with ability could easily escape the slums. Besides, sniffing out latents had never been his job.

Ryan turned down a side street, skirting around a well. A small child, by her uncut hair, a girl, stared at him with wide blue eyes. "Eye!" she chortled, pointing at him. Her mother pulled her close, shushing her. Ryan ignored them both; he had not come here to gawk at little children.

He passed another well, and the street narrowed, becoming little more than a path. The people here shied away from him under the pressure of his aura, some nearly breaking and running. Sparing a thought for regrets, Ryan reduced the intensity of his aura, but did not let it completely disappear.

As he neared the third well, his steps slowed. He could sense no threats from the people ahead, but that was no reason to be careless. No one he could see carried a weapon, and no one tried too hard to hide from him. One last check, this one with his psychic abilities, revealed nothing. Satisfied, Ryan approached the well, damping his keep-away aura down further.

"You came." A cloaked figure stepped out of a hut's shadow, a short-barreled gun in one hand. At the sight of it, everyone in the area drew back, except for Ryan. He subtly changed his aura - leave here, it suggested to those it touched. "I didn't think you would," the cloaked man continued. He shoved back his hood, revealing green goggles and a stained membrane mask.

"I'm here to make a deal," Ryan said, stalling for time. Some of the people who lived here had slipped away, but not all of them, and Ryan dared not strengthen his aura. "Are your superiors still interested?"

The man in the green goggles waited a long moment before replying. "That's the problem. They aren't." He raised his gun, pointing it at Ryan. "They don't like you much."

Ryan reached out with his senses, toward the gunman's mind, but found a shield instead. Another telepath was nearby, cloaking the man's mind and protecting him from anything Ryan could do. He backed away, around the well. "This is rather sudden," he said. "I thought your superiors were pleased with me." A sheet of metal sat propped against a small pile of rocks to Ryan's left - flimsy, but there was nothing better.

"They were. Now they're not." The gunman advanced, his finger tightening on the trigger.

"You'll kill me here and spoil the well?" Ryan asked, taking a step backwards and a little to the left. A girl crouched in the hut on his left, clutching a ragged blanket to her. You should have run away, girl. Beside her lay an old woman, he white hair streaked brown with years of dust.

"Fuck the well," the gunman said. If it weren't for the the mask, he would have spat. "When I'm done with you, I'll shit in that fucking well."

Ryan dove for cover just before the gunman pulled the trigger, spraying bullets in a short arc through where Ryan had been standing. "No!" someone cried out, as a bullet clipped Ryan's leg; the gunamn strafed Ryan's hiding place, bullets raking through the sheet of metal that hid him.

Nothing hit him. Ryan sensed something curving over him, guiding bullets and shrapnel from the metal sheet away; fading footsteps marked the gunman's hasty retreat. He sat up, ignoring his leg for the moment. "Are you all right?" he asked the girl whose home he had invaded.

"I - I'm fine." She let the blanket drop, covering the old woman's feet. "I have to get out of here - the militia will..."

Ryan glanced at the old woman; he'd missed it earlier, but her skin was too pale, and she had not moved during his confrontation with the gunman. "The militia comes out here?" he asked.

"They'll come. I have to leave! They'll take me!" She stood, ready to run.

"Wait." Ryan put as much force as he could into that word; the girl turned to look at him, uncertainty written on her face. "I can help you." He could sense it, clear as day: the girl was a latent. He got to his feet. "Come on. Wouldn't want to get caught here."

The girl looked down, dark hair shading her face. "Nana?" She knelt, touching the old woman's face. "Nana, wake up..."

"She's dead." No time for pointless euphemisms or empty platitudes. "Do you want my help or not?"

She stepped back, pressing herself against a fragile wall. "No... she can't be dead..." Tears fell from her eyes, streaking the dust on her face.

Ryan nudged her mind, hoping to clear it. "Last chance. Coming?"

"I - I guess. Who are you?" She asked as she wiped the tears from her face. All she did was smear the dust on her cheeks, making her look even dirtier.

"My name's Ryan. Come on. He led the girl away fromt he well, back the way he had come. The made it to the main street without speaking; taking her hand, Ryan pulled her toward the city center.

The images came, of course. Ryan pushed them away - he wanted nothing to do with whatever demons this girl had. Still, he got an image of men in dark uniforms and goggles dragging something away - a child's limp body - before his vision cleared. He blinked dust out of his eye. Did she see anything?

"What's wrong?" the girl asked. They had stopped in the middle of the street; she glanced around, her fearful eyes searching for enemies.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong." Ryan started walking again. "What's your name?"

"...Cara," she said, following him. "Cara Shamal."

Ryan nodded. "Cara," he said, "I might have a job for you."