Before she walked into the cabin, she reached out for Kevin’s mind. She had a slot open, having dropped off Rose with Keeper. Didn’t seem like a good idea to bring a wild animal into a situation where she’d go temporarily blind, no matter how sweet of a baby she was.

  The kid’s mind was a jumble of nerves, but he was holding together pretty well all things considered. She felt a pang of sympathy pain. Her transition to AEGIS life hadn’t been easy either.

  Immune to his powers through the link, Kennedy entered the cottage. She saw her mother sitting at a table, holding one of Kevin’s hands. Holding the other was a pretty blonde woman in her late thirties. Context clues: Kevin’s mom.

  Huh, I thought Cait was just fucking with him, but nope. Mama Peach has got it goin’ on.

  The woman had big soccer mom energy. She clearly took care of herself, and was dressed head to toe in high quality athleisure wear. She had also clearly been crying, but she had the same set-jawed expression Kennedy had seen on her own mother during emergencies. The parallel meant she found she immediately liked Mama Peach.

  “Hey Kev!” She waved, smiling warmly at the teenager. He was the only one that could see her, and while her mother smiled back at her, Kevin’s jumped at her voice. Kennedy’s mom squeezed her hand, which Kennedy hadn’t realized she was holding.

  “Don’t worry, Brittney,” she said soothingly. “This is my daughter, Kennedy. You might know her as Sonder. She’s going to help us get a handle on Kevin’s abilities.”

  “Hey Sonder!” greeted Kevin, excited to have someone that could meet his eyes. “Amaranthine said she just had to save you from getting stabbed, is that true?”

  “Hah!” Kennedy barked, caught completely off guard. “No, I’m pretty if she had her way I would’ve been stabbed plenty.”

  Her mother quirked an eyebrow, and Kennedy blushed. The innuendo hadn’t clicked with her until it had left her mouth.

  “Uh, joking, obviously,” she stammered, taking the last open seat at the table. Then another incongruity caught up with her. “Wait, how did Cait text you?”

  Kevin beamed, presenting his phone and pointing at the icon that indicated full bars.

  “Given your early success with Kevin in that vein, it was the first avenue of control we explored,” Kennedy’s mother explained, and while most people wouldn’t have noticed the pride in her expression, it washed over Kennedy like a full body hug. “Kevin has proven very adept at exercising control over most aspects of his abilities. He’s actually able to make himself visible from outside of his rejection radius now, which is an enormous step towards getting him ready to re-enter society.”

  Kevin’s mother squeezed his hand, looking in his direction with pride, but no small amount of worry. Given the fact she wasn’t looking directly at him despite clearly wanting to, Kennedy surmised Kevin hadn’t quite gotten a hold of the blindness field yet.

  “Miss Peach?” Kennedy asked, and the woman’s head turned towards her. She had the wide eyed look of someone stumbling through pitch black woods in a horror movie, her pupils thirsty for light that simply wasn’t there. At least, not according to her senses.

  “Yes?” the woman answered. She was doing a good job staying calm, but Kennedy assumed she’d been doing that since yesterday, and could tell she was beginning to fray. Sighing, Kennedy dropped her link with Cait, her mood immediately falling alongside it. She extended her mind to Mama Peach, linking her to her son using herself as a bridge.

  The woman gasped when she realized what had happened, then immediately broke down, sobbing as she pulled her surprised son close. Kennedy’s own mother gave her a tight smile, putting two and two together. This would be good for Mama Peach, but it was still hard to see, even if the tears were largely grateful.

  “Its going to be okay, Miss Peach,” Kennedy continued, once the waterworks had died down. “I know this seems huge, and it is, but for AEGIS, this is just another Friday. We’ll get it figured out.”

  The woman sniffed and nodded, composing herself. Kennedy turned her attention back on Kevin.

  “So, you’ve tried the whole ‘focused acceptance’ that’s worked on everything else?” she asked, and the teen nodded. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be that easy, but Kennedy needed to stall somehow. She explored the power she had on loan from him as best she could.

  The ‘rejection field’ she felt was weird. Neither she or Kevin had any real analogue for the things being ‘rejected’, and it wasn’t a conscious action to make it happen. It also wasn’t a purely physical effect, since if he was really somehow absorbing light she wouldn’t be able to see him, immune to his powers or not.

  She shook herself. She was thinking about these powers like they’d make sense, but they called them Bullshit waves for a reason. Time to experiment.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Kevin, do you feel anything when someone passes into your radius?” she asked. She hadn’t noticed anything herself, but she hadn’t been looking.

  “Maybe,” answered Kevin, scrunching up his forehead. “I’ve thought I felt a twinge once or twice, but its less consistent than I’d expect.”

  “Did you feel it when I walked in?”

  “No, nothing from you, except this weird mind meld thing we have going on.”

  “Hmmmm….” She snapped her fingers. “Alright, I’m gonna head outside, drop the link, then come back in. Pay. Attention. It could be important if you feel something, we gotta figure out what the difference is when people get close to you.”

  She stood, walking out of the cottage. Dropping the link, she took a deep breath, steeled herself for the blindness, and headed back inside.

  “Hey!” she heard Kevin exclaim as her vision went dark. “I did feel something! It was like sort of a pop in your general direction. Hard to explain.”

  “I’m betting whatever it is, its mental, so I get it,” Kennedy said, nodding. She found the back of a chair and steadied herself. “Mom, I’m gonna link back up to Kevin. Would you help us out by doing what I just did?”

  “Of course honey,” she heard her mother say. A chair scraped against the floor, and she saw the woman getting up as Kennedy reestablished her link to Kevin. Her mom left, and they waited. A moment later, Kennedy felt the slightest pop, like a single piece of fizzy candy going off in your mouth, but near her temple.

  Fuck, I always thought that was what an aneurysm would feel like, she thought, shivering.

  Still, it was important she had felt something. Like Kevin had said, it was pretty difficult to define, but it was almost like her mom had slipped through a bubble.

  “Okay,” she said, and her vision went black as she dropped her link to Kevin. “I have an idea. Kevin, focus really really hard on accepting Director Swan specifically, same way you’ve worked on for the more general signals.”

  “Okay,” Kevin replied, but He didn’t sound hopeful. A minute later, he cursed. “Fuck! Nothing? I definitely felt like I had you in the same headspace Director Swan.”

  “Nothing, Kevin,” she replied, her voice low and soothing. “I’m sorry, this might not be the key.”

  Damn, would have been nice to nail it first try.

  “Wait, its more general for everything else right?” she said. “Like, the cell signal comes back for everyone right?”

  “Uhhh…” said Director Swan and Mama Peach in unison.

  “Right, probably tough to check when you can’t see. Comin’ in Kev!” Kennedy walked back in and gestured at her phone. The kid scrunched his face back up, and he clapped excitedly as her signal indicator filled up.

  “Okay! Great!” she said, clapping in excitement. “This time, I want you to try a more general acceptance, of people, or consciousness, or perception. I know that’s pretty broad, but I bet you’re blocking something we hadn’t thought of in a radius close to you.”

  “I’ll try!” Kevin said, a little of Kennedy’s excitement echoed in his voice. She dropped the link so if anything changed, they’d actually be able to tell.Again, they waited. After a couple minutes, when a bead of sweat was actually starting to form on Kevin’s forehead, his mother gasped. The next instant, Kennedy could see the others and the small dining room they were sat in.

  “Hell yeah Kev!” she applauded at the boy, who was still concentrating his little heart out as his mother hugged him tight. “We can all see you! What’d you land on?”

  Kevin opened his eyes, and Kennedy had just enough time to see him smile before things went black again.

  “Shit! Lost it!” cursed Kevin.

  “Don’t worry man! What was it?” Kennedy pressed.

  “Uh, kinda like…. Presence, is the best way I can describe it. Like a Here-ness, an acceptance of other’s existence around me.”

  “Damn, you got there on your own?” Kennedy said, legitimately impressed. Maybe not the deepest philosophical concept, but one she definitely wouldn’t expect a 15 year old boy to stumble upon during random pondering.

  “He’s always been a smart boy!” said Mama Peach, her voice glowing with pride. She continued to praise her son as he became increasingly bashful.

  “Hey, Sonder, thank you,” Kevin said when his mom had calmed down. “This has sucked, but you and Amaranthine have made it a lot less scary. I legit feel like I might be able to get this under control now.”

  “Heh, yeah, Cait does that,” Kennedy agreed, ignoring her own role in things. “Like I said, for AEGIS, this is Friday. We’ll get you back to school in no time.”

  “Perhaps not no time,” interjected Director Swan, as the room became perceptible again. It immediately winked back out into blackness. “This ability could be extremely disruptive in civilian life, Kevin. You will need to have a tight rein on things before we can let you get back to life as you knew it. But, this has definitely shown that a return to normal life is at least possible.”

  “I understand,” sighed Kevin over his mother’s protests. “Can’t exactly have people going blind driving down the street.”

  His voice did perk up a bit though.

  “When I do get it under control, does that mean I get to be a Guardian!?” he exclaimed.

  Kennedy’s mom chuckled.

  “We’re pretty far from that, Kevin. I won’t tell you it isn’t an option, if you truly get these abilities under control, learn to wield them selectively and precisely, I can’t deny they would be extremely useful. However, it is not my policy to allow Guardians under 18, so you have, what, at least 3 years?”

  “At least!” cried Mama Peach. The room came back into being as she pulled her son to her chest, clearly not entirely on board with the career path being discussed.

  “We will see what the future holds,” said Director Swan, rising from the table. “I believe we’ve made excellent progress for today, and I have business elsewhere. Brittney, you are welcome to stay here with your son as long as you like, Kennedy or I will check back in tomorrow.”

  Welp, no real way to get out of being voluntold when your mom’s the boss, thought Kennedy, rising to follow her mother out. She braced herself, and ruffled Kevin’s curly blonde hair as she left. He seemed like a good kid, no need to be scared of him.

  “That was extremely impressive, Kennedy,” her mother praised, giving Kennedy her warmest smile. “I don’t think you would’ve done that a month ago.”

  “Don’t think you’re slipping that ‘would’ past me instead of ‘could’. What do you mean?”

  Her mother chuckled in an annoyingly patronizing way that she’d never heard from anyone else. At least not that she hadn’t immediately wanted to punch, then executed on that want.

  “You’re just coming out of your shell, baby,” she teased, winking at her. Kennedy crossed her arms and scowled at her mother as she followed her back towards the Flatiron.

  No child in history had ever liked it when their parent was right.

  by BooksByMandiMay

  THE LAST TECHNOMANCER

  tutorial

  Maura Everhart was having a bad Wednesday. Keys down a storm drain, a failing game shop, and a locksmith who charged like a surgeon. Then the sky split open, and every adult on Earth was yanked into a tutorial dimension for 30-days alongside initiates from 61 other planets.

  Choose a class. Level up. Don't die. Simple enough. Right?

  Except Maura chose Technomancer, an ancient class so rare the multiverse considered it extinct. Before vanishing the only other Technomancer reshaped the entire systems of reality. Now cosmic powers are watching, and not all of them want to see another one rise.

  Armed with an energy sword she barely knows how to swing, a mechanical robot companion with more attitude than a house cat on a Monday, and an INT stat that's growing faster than her ability to stay out of trouble, Maura has to do more than survive. She has to build. Innovate. Forge alliances with species she didn't know existed yesterday. And figure out why powerful beings are breaking the rules of the tutorial just to get close to her.

  In a world where death is permanent, magic is real, and morals are a thing of the past, the only thing more dangerous than the monsters in the forest is the secret Maura carries: she's not just a player in this game. She might be the reason it exists.

  

  Whattoexpect:

  - LitRPGprogression

  - Craftingandinnovation

  - Foundfamily

  - Morallycomplexencounters

  - Asarcastic,self-awareprotagonist

  - MultiplePOVs

  - Aslow-burnmystery

  Updates every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. First-person POV. Progression fantasy with heart, humor, and the occasional existential crisis.

  ?? Read Now!