As the car hummed along the quiet streets, its engine providing a soothing backdrop to their thoughts, Reid found himself engrossed in the artifice Ellen had gifted him. The piece was fascinating: a small, intricately designed gadget that incorporated the latest advancements in psychotronic shielding. Its core was a nano-engineered crystalline matrix, fine-tuned to prevent Reid from drawing too much energy from the ambient ether which can cause his Ability to activate a second slower. It was a technological marvel and, if it worked as Ellen claimed, a godsend for someone with a passive Ability like Reid's.
Archer glanced over from the driver's seat, eyes narrowed but with a trace of admiration. "Ellen really outdid herself with that one, didn't she?"
Reid looked up, his eyes meeting Archer's. "Yeah, she's a genius."
Silence settled between them again, each man retreating into his own thoughts. But it was Archer who broke it, his words imbued with a note of concern. "If you're still hurting, I can swing by the hospital."
Reid rolled his eyes, amused but touched. "Archer, I've had this Ability since I was twelve. It's not like I'm not used to this. I've learned how to compartmentalize, to separate the emotions and sensations I pull from others from my own."
Archer scoffed, "I wasn't talking about your physical traumas. I'm talking about the mental after-effects."
Indeed, Reid's Ability comes with a dangerous Limit. It was to be expected since Reid's Ability was naturally a Supreme class. He could feel everything the other person felt. Basically, instead of simply retrieving or sieving through memories, Reid's Ability copies and 'reprints' the same neural network from the Giver to his own. It was basically a direct neural imprint. This meant that all sensations were replicated and the brain sometimes didn't distinguish between the suffering of others and one's own. If Kirby was badly injured in the confrontation, then Reid would be 'badly injured' too. After all, the mind could only take so much before it tricks the body into thinking it's actually injured.
Reid's face grew serious. "I'm well aware of that, but I've learned to work around it. It's not as if—"
Before he could finish his sentence, Reid noticed that his breath had started to appear in front of him, like tiny puffs of cloud, even though they were inside a car with closed windows. A sudden drop in temperature cut him off, causing the words to catch in his throat.
A thin layer of frost began to form on the car windows, and the temperature inside dropped rapidly, like someone had cranked a thermostat to 'Arctic Winter.' The chill escalated, causing the dashboard indicators to flash warnings and finally, with an audible groan, the car's engine stalled.
Reid sighed, not needing to ask what happened; he knew Archer's Ability well. Archer's emotional state had caused an unconscious triggering of his elemental Ability—"to take away heat", or coined "Thermal Conductor" by Archer. This was a rare occurrence and usually happened only when Archer felt strong, mostly negative, emotions.
Archer blinked, his eyes widening as he took stock of the frost that had crept up the windows and the dashboard alerts that were now sounding like an electronic symphony of discontent. He visibly reigned in his Ability, and the chill retreated as if pulled back by an invisible hand. However, Archer couldn't 'give back' the heat that he had conducted away. Hence, the car remained chilly.
Reid sneezed.
"Damn, I'm sorry," Archer said, his voice tinged with genuine remorse. "I didn't mean to let it get out of control." Archer reached to the back and handed Reid a blanket who had quickly wrapped it around himself.
"But you did, because you were worried," Reid said, his voice soft but unyielding. "I get it, you're concerned about the side-effects my Ability can have. But trust me when I say, I've learned how to manage it."
Archer sighed, the car's heating system now struggling to bring the cabin back to a habitable temperature. "I know you have, but I also know that 'managing' is not the same as 'nullifying.' I can't help but worry, especially when I remember that for all the neural and psychological control you have, the human brain is still a fragile thing. Emotional trauma, sensory overload—they can have physical consequences."
Reid paused, considering Archer's words. They both knew the science behind it—the psychosomatic effects of extreme sensory and emotional stress could induce conditions ranging from migraines to more serious neural fatigue. In the worst-case scenario, it could even lead to a temporary or permanent shutdown of certain brain functions.
"You're not wrong," Reid finally said, his hand idly flipping the artifice between his fingers. "Which is why I'm glad I have this now," he lifted the artifice slightly, "and why I'm even more glad I have you looking out for me."
Archer smiled weakly, restarting the car, its engine coughing back to life with a certain reluctance, as if chastened by its recent frosty experience. As they resumed their drive, Reid couldn't help but reflect on the complexities of their Abilities—both a gift and a curse, tools and weapons, facets of their selves that could neither be entirely controlled nor fully understood.
***
Reid awoke to find Jill's furry derrière planted unceremoniously inches from his nose. Jill, a feline matriarch with the finesse of a freight train, clearly had no notion of personal space. With a half-hearted groan and a stifled laugh, Reid gently nudged his exotic shorthair cat off the bed.
Shuffling into his morning routine, Reid's mind began to sync with the world outside his sleep fog. He splashed cold water onto his face, ran his fingers through his perpetually disheveled hair, and made a mental note to stock up on coffee as he drained the last dregs from his French press. Finally, he reached for his communicator, its smooth surface peppered with microscopic transceivers optimized for encrypted communication.
As he swiped through the clutter of unread messages and missed calls, one message caught his eye — a hasty text from Ellen: "Cracked the cube. Come. ASAP." Ellen had a particular brevity when it came to text messages, but her meaning was always crystal clear. And given her recent project of rewiring the Rubik's cube-like communicator, Reid had a gut feeling that 'urgent' might be an understatement.
The quantum mechanics underpinning Ellen's Ability allowed her to manipulate and perceive information at the molecular level. She could literally "see" electronic flows and disruptions, making her one of the best hackers and engineers on the planet. However, with every Ability presents a Limit. The higher class the Ability was when it manifested in the being, the more debilitating the Limit would be. Ellen's Ability had manifested as an Excellent class which made her Limit dangerous. She loses all senses when she activates and if danger was present, Ellen would not be able to defend for herself.
Reid speculated that her urgency probably had less to do with any looming danger and more to do with Ellen being, well, Ellen. Curiosity was her kryptonite, but Reid knew that curiosity killed more than just the cat; it could unleash proverbial pandemonium if not kept in check.
Just as Reid was about to reach for his coat, the door to his apartment swung open. In waltzed Archer, completely at ease, like he was stepping into his own penthouse suite. It prompted Reid to run a quick legal calculus. Sure, he owned the apartment, but Archer owned the entire damn building. Wait, but the land it was built on was also Archer's, so who really owned what here?
It was a mental labyrinth he decided to abandon for now.
Archer, ever the astute observer, read the whirlpool of thoughts on Reid's face and raised his hands defensively. "Peace offering," he announced, revealing a breakfast platter overflowing with everything from avocado toast to Belgian waffles, the scents mingling and wafting through the air.
Jill, generally the most curious of creatures, took one discerning look at Archer and then, as if concluding that this human was simply too perplexing, retreated back to her food dish with an air of feline indifference.
Reid sighed, his internal monologue of whether to strangle Archer for his home invasion instantly dissipating. "Alright, you win," Reid said, his voice tinged with amusement as he caught a whiff of freshly brewed coffee among Archer's peace offerings. "But only because you brought breakfast, and good coffee at that."
As Reid took a seat at his dining table and Archer began to unload the feast onto dishes, Reid couldn't help but reflect on the perplexing string of events that had unfolded. From Ellen's encrypted mysteries to Archer's infuriatingly endearing antics, life was anything but mundane. And as he prepared to dig into his breakfast, communicator momentarily forgotten but certainly not out of mind. Whatever message Ellen had unearthed, they would face it. After breakfast, of course.
***
The scent of oil, soldering iron smoke, and machinery hung heavy in Ellen's workshop, a sanctuary of tinkering and invention. It was a place where arcane arts met the modern technology, where every gadget told a story, and where the laws of physics were more like guidelines. Today, however, there was no acrid bite of alcohol fumes in the air, despite Ellen's notorious penchant for liquid courage. What Reid did detect, however, was a distinct aroma of human exertion—likely due to Ellen's relentless focus on the task at hand: decoding the mystery of the communicator.
Basically, Reid meant that Ellen stank. And Archer was crinkling his nose in obvious disgust.
While Reid was oddly grateful for Ellen's sobriety, Archer looked visibly irked. Maybe it was the absence of Ellen's usual disarming, drunken charm, or perhaps the palpable tension in the room had struck a nerve. Either way, Archer's countenance was one of guarded concern, a marked departure from his usual cool demeanor.
"Yo, we are -"
Upon their entry, Ellen sprang to life like a mechatronic puppet, snapping into action with uncanny speed. She pressed a finger quickly on Reid's lips - or attempted to - because Archer had pulled Reid back. Then, she rushed around, her fingers danced across an array of biometric scanners and magical seals, deactivating traps and counter-spells that guarded her inner sanctum. Once satisfied with their security level, she activated a myriad of protective artifices that hummed to life around them, creating barriers both seen and unseen.
This rang warning bells in Reid and Archer. It wasn't common for Ellen to be so uptight on security since her workshop was probably a minefield for those who didn't know better.
A fusion of quantum locks and thaumaturgical wards protected against everything from physical intrusion to telepathic snooping. Ellen's arrangement was nothing short of an architectonic latticework of interlocking protections—a fortress in the truest sense.
If Reid was curious before, he was near ravenous now for the knowledge that awaited them. The two men gave questioning glances to each other before Ellen beckoned them to step closer to the table where the communicator lay.
It was no ordinary device. Even to the untrained eye, its complex lattice of circuitry and runic inscriptions suggested a design that had leaped across the bounds of normal engineering. The rewiring that Kirby had done to it basically had upgraded it from a simple 2-in-1 communicator to a security device that aimed to destroy itself. The communicator itself seemed to be special - if someone had gone through such lengths to have this communicator rewired instead of destroyed, it meant it couldn't be easily destroyed.
Ellen, her eyes tinged with what could only be described as scientific mania, directed Reid and Archer to a pair of specially designed earphones. "You'll want to listen to this," she said, her tone heavy with an enigmatic mix of triumph and foreboding.
The headphones were not simple acoustic devices; they were intricate pieces of technology designed to pick up even sub-audible frequencies. Built into their frame were noise-canceling features based on the principles of destructive interference, where sound waves of equal and opposite amplitudes would effectively cancel each other out. They also incorporated several safety measures, both magical and technological, to prevent any sort of psychic or electromagnetic interference. It was a laudable feat of electrical engineering, but coming from Ellen, it was almost expected.
Reid donned the headphones with a palpable sense of expectation, each beat of his heart punctuated by the soft, subliminal hum of the room's artifices. Archer, always one to eye a situation warily before diving in, finally seemed satisfied with the layers of protections and placed his own set of headphones snugly over his ears.
Ellen leaned over her console, her fingers lightly gracing its touch-sensitive surface as she pulled up the enigmatic message they had all been waiting for. Here, surrounded by barriers of science and magic, enveloped in an atmosphere of almost oppressive anticipation, they prepared to unlock a message that could very well change the course of their lives.
And then, with a final touch, Ellen played the audio.
The world outside ceased to exist. All that remained was the message, the room, and the unspoken understanding that something monumental was unfurling before them. It was a moment suspended in time, each second dripping away like molasses, heavy with the gravitas of revelation.
"I… want to die."