Jaded by Viola Grace Page B

and was clearing her mind.
    “Humans, Terrans, Earthers, whatever you end up calling yourselves, you have the potential to reach beyond your current bodies, your psychic limits and your physical restrictions. You can literally choose to be anything you want.”
    She smiled and lay back a moment before the seizures began again. Her mind reached out for a moment before everything went dark.
    Lightning fired all around her as they restarted her heart. Pain screamed through her and her mind opened up, looking for help while her jaw was locked by agony.
    Her thoughts touched everyone around her, and she was able to relax on the exam bed. Tenenlor was not worried about her arrest. He had handled many in the past. She was in good hands.
     
    * * * *
     
    Jayd sat up in the confines of her small room and scowled at the sweat on her body. She sighed and headed for her lav to grab a shower. Knowing you were in a dream was almost as bad as having lived it the first time.
    Her alarm was going off when she exited the lav, and she said. “I am awake.”
    It went silent, but her com was flashing and a quick check showed five messages. She might be between partners, but it seemed that she was just as popular as ever. Yay.
     

Chapter Two
     
     
    With her suit on and her hair off her face, exposing her favourite feature, she wrinkled her nose at the strange dichotomy of her pearl-silver skin and Hispanic features. No matter what the Ontex genes took, they couldn’t remove her heritage. Even her now-silver hair still had its natural wave.
    She was still Jayd, no matter what her freaky biology was doing.
    She touched the outline of the waning moon on her forehead as she always did before leaving for her day. It was the last place that Dora had touched her, and that light kiss had kept a tiny patch of skin human. It was the centre point for the moon and the mark twisted around it. Being in Nyal space and a genetic accident meant she wasn’t fully human but that one small part of her was, and she was going to hang onto it.
    Jayd listened to the messages and made notes on the briefings she was supposed to attend. True seers were scarce. Sitting in judgement on capital cases was just part of the fun of her position.
    She was waiting for her executioner to join her, which was something she never thought she would consider to be a normal working environment.
    For now, she needed breakfast.
    Jayd took in a calming breath before she opened the door to the rest of the outpost. Inside her quarters, she could feel the others near her as if she were listening to a round of bongos three doors down. The noise was audible but it could be ignored. Out of her shielded quarters, she was a walking raw nerve who was having a good-hair day.
    With her credit chit in hand, she cruised through the food court and picked a few foods that she was confident would not cause her any trouble later in the day. She generally stuck to things in the deep-fried starch range. That included legumes. Her mother would have been so proud.
    She took her tray to one of the myriad sculptures that dotted the eating space and took her favourite perch on the endless stone loops. They got her above the standard head level and gave her a fractionally more peaceful meal.
    Jayd looked around absently as she ate the deep-fried dumplings filled with a combination of meat and sweet. Climbing was something that had come with the alteration, and she wasn’t upset by the change to her habits at all.
    The occupants of the food court were planning their days, watching attractive members of the crowd pass by. It wasn’t fun to listen to the thoughts of a crowd, but she remembered days when it had been.
    She finished her meal and breathed in and out, calibrating her senses to the mood of the crowd. It was an exercise that her instructors had drilled into her whenever she went out. The importance of setting her senses to the ambient mood meant that she would be able to pick up on any changes. It