"If the shoe fits..." Gramps said, whistling tonelessly while we shifted our weight.

"Go!" Gramps said waving us away. "You could have stayed and had junk food and played pool. Now that's a respectable pursuit of one's time."

Usually that sounded good. But I couldn't get Jade out of my mind. She and the other girls were having some Chick Hang Fest where they broke out all the girl accouterments and the guys got scarce. I just wanted to do a quick check.

Gramps called me over as the guys stumbled into the driveway, the rain was a steady drizzle but it'd still soak you to the skin. It was deceptive: rain in Washington was wet.

Hardy har-har.

"Spill it, champ," Gramps said.

I shrugged, jamming my hands in my pocket, I couldn't hide a thing from Gramps. "I just can't shake the feeling of impending doom," I said.

Gramps grinned. "You're such a morose kid, pal."

I smiled. "Yeah."

"You've had so much excitement here lately that you're like Pavlov's dog: conditioned for chaos."

I nodded my head. It was true, Pavlov's dogs had understood that when the bell rang, they'd get their supper. So they'd start drooling at just the chime of that bell.

Well, I'd gotten used to shit going down that was A) always bizarre, B) usually dangerous and C), a personal favorite, life-changing.

Things were calm. Like when I was little and would gaze out the window when pewter clouds formed, pregnant with rain and the oncoming storm. But not a leaf stirred, the wind only a promise.

My life felt like that.

That a storm was coming and I didn't know from which direction.

"Ya gettin' one of those feelings again?" he asked, screwing his eyebrows together.

I nodded. I had a little half-point Precog thing happening. It wasn't enough to really do anything with. It was just enough to make me feel uneasy.

Though it had never been wrong.

"You're economical with words, kid," Gramps said, peering up at me now that I was two inches taller.

I was. I spoke when it mattered.

"Yeah well, that's okay. People can wonder if you're stupid but let's not speak and remove all the doubt."

He clapped me on the shoulder then said quietly, "You know how to get my attention if ya need something, right?"

I did. "Yeah. Thanks Gramps," I said and gave him a fierce hug.

It surprised him and he hugged me back.

I had a hard time saying what I felt but he saw it on my face.

"I love ya too, Caleb."

He so got me.

I turned and walked off feeling worse with my sense of foreboding deepening.

I wanted to see Jade.

Needed to.

I slid into the Camaro, low to the ground, I was practically laying down and Jonesy said, "Come on Minion of Jade, let's go see what the chicks are doing."

Yeah.

John's eyes met mine from the back and he gave a nod.

Tiff had a rainbow of healing going on above her eyes. The knot was gone but the haunted look in her eyes remained.

None of us believed the falling story.

But what was happening? Was there some kind of domestic violence bullshit in the Weller household? That didn't agree with what we knew.

It was confusing as hell.

As my eyes met John's I relaxed my hold on the worry, smoothly handing most of it to John without words. Tiff was someone he wanted to worry about. And he had that look on his face. When we were little kids he'd get that same look on his face, a look of quiet introspection.

He was puzzling through something.

Terran hadn't met a puzzle he couldn't solve.

So whatever Tiff was hiding, it wouldn't be hidden for long.

John's solving wheels were turning and they wouldn't stop spinning until he figured it out.

That time was coming.

Sooner than any of us knew.

CHAPTER 6

now

Jeffrey Parker

"I won't do it," Jeffrey said in a flat voice.

"You've screwed things six ways to Sunday, Parker. Now," Gary Zondorae's eyes drilled Parker to the spot. "I have the word from our boys that steer the helm that you'll cooperate or we'll move against Hart again."

Jeffrey didn't want the boy touched. He knew from their covert surveillance that Caleb's life had actually come to some sort of crazy balance.

Parker answered the question with one of his own, "What about Frazier?"

Joe looked at his brother then again at Parker. "We're not sure but he's managed to go off-grid."

Well wasn't that a clusterfuck, Jeffrey thought. He was beyond rogue. The brothers' little experimental Manipulative was running around, absorbed into the populace.

Or perhaps he was absorbing the populace. Jeffrey raked a hand through his hair, huffing out an exasperated sigh.

"That has to be a level thirteen priority," Jeffrey announced, his eyes shifting between the corrupt sibling pair.

Level Thirteen was a total clean. Elimination. Erasing.

Gone.

Joe nodded. "Oh yes, he is slated for Thirteen." Then he added, "He has to be found first."

Parker sighed again, scrubbing his face. "You're the scientists," he said in exasperation. "Tag a Locator to his dumb ass."

"It's not that easy."

Parker gave a snort. "Let me get this straight: you followed the Dimensional girl back to this world." He raised his eyebrows and was met with sullen regard. "Then that idiot Manipulative that you created somehow escaped into this world? If he'd been left in the Sphere-world we would not have to deal with him. He'd be the fragment's problem. And that brings to mind another horror story." Jeffrey paused for effect. "Those criminals now roam the middle ground of that world, gifted with abilities they shouldn't have. What are you going to do about that?"

Gary looked uncomfortable but that made no difference to Parker. He enjoyed holding these two chumps accountable. "Mark Jones destroyed the pathway with his Electromagnetic interference..." Joe began in a whine.

"Whatever," Parker said dismissively. "I know if you could easily construct another that you would. But you just don't know exactly how you began it, do you boys? You used a ripple in the space/time continuum, snatched DNA from a people you should have never been able to know existed, spliced it all to hell, and injected the nation's children with a cocktail that has now come full circle to bite you in your arrogant asses."

"We will watch you burn, Parker," Gary said in a voice that held promise, his eyes narrowed.

"Sticks and stones, Zondorae... sticks and fucking stones."

Joe looked at him. "Mark our words. They need you now but when your usefulness is no longer necessary you will be expendable."

"Maybe," Parker agreed, "but until that time you have to put up with my thoughts."

"Not if we keep you busy. A busy necromancer is an occupied and distracted C-M."

Jeffrey didn't like those words. What were these jerks cooking up now?

Gary tried to play nice and it came off like a turd soaked in chocolate. He offered the olive branch anyway. "We all want the same thing: Caleb Hart."

Jeffrey knew that they wanted Caleb for a different reason than himself.

Joe held up the glass slide that had the genetic coding that marked the paranormals. "The Key from the sphere-world is all here in this little chunk of crystal. If we can get a molecular sample of Caleb Hart, who holds the code for many of the basic DNA strands, we could establish an antidote. It's never been possible before."

He knew that was a barb at his ineffectiveness in acquiring Hart in the beginning, in that long-ago moment of the cemetery. Jeffrey let his head hang, his hands going to his hips as he breathed deeply through his anger.

"Why did you do it then? Weren't you thinking of all the innocents?"

Gary smiled. "And you cast the first stone?"

Jeffrey flinched and the brothers saw it. "I have done things I'm not proud of. Know this: I was fifteen when I was taken..."

"Out of such a successful domestic circumstance," Joe observed.

Jeffrey nodded. "I know that it was less than ideal. It is true: I am not beaten here, I have no alcoholic caretakers. I am necessary." His hazel eyes met theirs in a glare, "nevertheless, my lack of freedom has come at a high price, it serves as a form of abuse to me."

Gary shrugged then answered, "But you're all grown up now and our masters wish for us to fetch the bone, Parker. There will be some whom escape the net of our antidote, true, but the heat is on. If we can corral the Americans that have been inoculated, the majority would then become mundane again and the ones who slipped through the cracks would eventually be so few in number as to not effect the population at large. A minority population alone."

"Simple," Joe affirmed.

It never was, Jeffrey knew.

"It doesn't give us Frazier. I can take care of him but I'll need... resources." Jeffrey suddenly grinned, an epiphany striking him between the eyes. "You guys have to be in the doghouse if you're using me."

They were silent. Then, "We have our orders: prepare an antidote, using the spliced DNA from the Key and the Hart boy."

"Does the head scientist know that his son's DNA was special?" Parker asked.

Gary shook his head. "We thought it was an excellent 'hide in plain sight' tactic."

Right, Parker thought, inject Hart with the wild card genetic mess because no one would ever think to find it within that host.

What a colossal mess.

Jeffrey Parker knew one thing, Caleb Hart's time of peace was coming to an end.

Parker moved to walk out through the eighteen inch thick stainless containment portal.

"Wait," Gary called out.

Parker turned, his face in profile, sharp angles met their hard stares. The three of them were engaged in an uneasy quest for the same goal.

"There is another powerful five-point that has been identified."

WTF? Jeffrey stuttered in his mind. "What? Frazier isn't the only Manipulative you jackasses created?" he asked, his face a wash of anger mixed with shock.

"She's not a Manipulative," Joe said.

"You're killing me... just spit it out."

"AFTD," Gary said.

"Oh fucking swell." Jeffrey paused then laid it on them, "So let's recap: I need a powerful Locator." He began to tick off his points on his fingers. "I'm definitely going to need a Null for stupid Frazier who can cook my brain with a word... and now there's some girl running around... what? Exhuming entire cemeteries of their wards?"

Joe shifted his weight. "Actually, she's not a stable sort."

Parker barked out a laugh. Could this get any fucking better? he wondered.

"Didn't weed out the whackjobs? She has a bucketful of crazy then, guys?"

Gary scowled. "Psychological testing is effective with the general population."

"What are you saying?"

"She's got a genius IQ," Joe admitted reluctantly.

Fucking superb. "So we have a really smart, loony tune, five-point AFTD."

"Yes, that is about it."

Jeffrey's eyes narrowed on the pair. "What did she do?"

Joe cast his eyes down. "When we tried to contain her, she plowed through ten agents."

"Yes, that is about it."

Jeffrey whistled- nice going, he thought silently to the unknown girl.

He contained his mirth badly and Gary said, "Knock it off, gloating about their deaths isn't helpful."

Parker was not a real big fan of what Caleb affectionately called the Graysheets. They had killed his miserable family, after all. It felt like a bizarre kind of justice to him.

"But it feels fucking fantastic," Jeffrey acknowledged easily.

Joe sighed. "In any event," he began, giving Parker a long-suffering pause, which Jeffrey ignored as per usual, "she has incapacitated her pulse-sensor and is untraceable."

"No shit?" Jeffrey asked, stunned.

"She did self-surgery..." Gary confirmed.

"Wow," Parker breathed. That was impressive as hell.

"That by itself should be part of the identification process."

"That and the smell of rot," Parker quipped unmercifully, a smirk growing unbidden on his face. This was rich. They had a corpse-raising sociopath on the loose with a fat brain.

Parker liked it. The assholes deserved her and more.

"There isn't any amusement in this, Parker," Gary scolded.

"Oh... there's plenty, guys." Parker paused then continued, "So I locate Frazier, net the C-M that is raising the world and get Caleb to give me a sample?"