The Aberration

TRIPLICATE

#9: The Aberration

"Nine months ago today, on January 14^th, something strange happened about thirty five miles east of this small town of Ely, Nevada. In the middle of the night, a strange visitor from the stars plummeted to Earth, slamming into the side of Mount Moriah, part of the Humboldt National Forest. The destruction was unbelievable.

"This visitor, which many witnesses describe as an orange fireball, came in from the west, flying in a straight path until it hit the side of the mountain, leaving a crater almost 1500 feet deep and almost a mile in diameter.

"Experts are at a loss to explain how a crater this size could have been created without more catastrophic consequences. Minor tremors were felt as far away as Goldfield, Nevada, which is about two hundred miles away, but nothing more than a 3 or 4 on the Richter Scale.

"'The size of this crater indicates that whatever it was that created this was very large and traveling at an very high speed. The results go against everything we know and would expect. This entire Wilderness should be decimated,' explains Dr. Martin, a physicist at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. 'We would expect much more collateral damage to surrounding areas, something on the level of Tunguska. But yet, the only damage is in the immediate area. In the end, though, there is a hole in the ground and a mystery that has yet to be solved.'

"No bodies were found in the rubble, however pieces of metal were found, leading investigators to believe that there were mines in the immediate vicinity. Scientists theorize that the presence of a series of tunneled out mine shafts could have contributed to the abnormal size of the crater left by the impact.

"Others, though, pose differing opinions. The National Academy of Extra-Terrestrial Activity, a newly formed research consortium, suggests that something out of this world occurred here.

"'There are multiple eyewitnesses that claim to have seen a strange oval-shaped craft hovering in the general vicinity days before the explosion. This craft was glowing orange and completely silent. These same witnesses gave testimony in a court of law that there were people, uniformed people, working near the site of this explosion. Our position is that this incident probably will never be explained, but the evidence points in a direction that I fear no one is willing to look in, except us.'

"That was Mr. David Winters from NAETA. Whatever it was, thankfully, there were no deaths and minimal damage to this beautiful area of Nevada. It has been nine months since this happened, but the mystery will seemingly live forever."

She sat alone on the back porch of the cabin, a cup of hot chocolate cooling in the chilly October air. She was sitting on an oak bench, covered with a afghan, looking into the back woods, into the night.

She wasn't sure why she always felt the urge to sit alone after the witching hour each and every night, but she found a bit of inner peace with the dense evergreen trees back there. She could smell the refreshing aroma of pine mixed with the beautiful decay of autumn. Tonight, like every night for the past week, was crystal clear. She wasn't remotely near a city that could damage the view with it's lights. She had a perfect view of Heaven.

She had been on the run most of her adult life, so these moments of peace meant more than life itself. She was thankful that she and her friends had been able to string almost nine months of them together. She knew it couldn't last forever. She had this night, though, and she planned on making the most of it.

She took in slow, deep breaths of the clean air, feeling it's chill touch her chest as it entered her lungs. She didn't dare close her eyes, she didn't want to miss a thing.

From behind, she heard a snap of a floorboard. Someone was approaching. She reached out with her mind, trying to discover who her company was. Heather and Darian were asleep, she was sure of that. Maybe they had woken up and decided to join her.

All she felt was emptiness, and that concerned her. Her abilities, her psychic abilities, they were as much a part of her as walking, or breathing. The constant awareness of everything around her, every mind, every living force around, it was comforting for her. Finding a pocket of nothingness was on par as someone entering a dark room, she didn't know exactly how to handle it at first.

Something was different about this pocket of emptiness, it was artificially created somehow. That concerned her even more. She didn't know anyone who could do such a thing, not to her.

The screen door creaked and then began to swing open. She tried to hide her anxiety, but she couldn't. Her head shot to the right to see who it was.

It was a man, a little over six feet tall. He had black hair speckled with gray. He had a scar on the left side of his face, near the corner of his eye up to his hairline. She looked at him strangely at first, but then she recognized who it was.

He took a few steps out the door and let it close behind him. He was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, a black sweatshirt and a long, flowing black overcoat. He also had on black leather gloves. He felt more comfortable this way, giving an appearance of power and of fear.

"Where am I?" he asked softly, loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to ruin the moment.

"I am not permitted to tell you that."

"Why not?"

She was looking back into the woods again, concentrating on him, but not giving it away with her eyes. "We still haven't determined if you are a threat or not."

"How could I be a threat? I hardly even remember who I am."

"I think you just answered your own question."

Silence swept over the both of them. He looked into the back, in the direction she was. Ahead of him was nothing but nature, trees, living creatures, peace and quiet.

"What is you name?"

She shifted a bit in her seat. She was a bit frightened by his sudden appearance. She wasn't sure exactly how she should handle it. She had a feeling, though, a little voice in the back of her head trying to convince her that things were okay. "Jeska," she said softly.

"Jessica?" he repeated.

"No, Jeska. J-E-S-K-A."

"Oh, I see. Jeska. That's a lovely name."

"Thank you."

He finally got a good look at her, bundled on the oak bench. He could see her hair. It wasn't very long, maybe four or five inches. It was bright red, though, a color only achieved by dyeing it. He smiled when he realized it, mainly because for some reason, it looked perfect on her, like that was the color it was supposed to be.

She had powerful green eyes, the kind that can burn through steel. He could see a hoop nose-ring and three more hoops in her earlobe.

"What's yours?"

"It's Gabriel." He stood there with his arms crossed in front of him. She turned to him and looked him over. He didn't return the glance.

"Like the archangel, right?"

"In name only."

"Ah." She scooted over to the side because the little voice in her head told her to. "Do you want to sit down?"

He turned his head, looking at the room she had made on the bench. He took a few steps close to her and sat down. She offered him some of her afghan, but he refused.

"How did I get here?"

"What do you mean?"

"I remember where I was. I was in Nevada, but this isn't Nevada. The stars aren't right."

"The stars?"

"The constellations."

"Oh, yes, the constellations."

"How?" he asked again.

"We brought you here, Gabriel."

"Who is we?"

"Me and my friends."

"Are they here?"

"Yes, they are. They're sleeping right now, though. I can go wake them up if you want me to."

"No," he said softly. "Let them sleep." He looked up at the stars, trying to figure out where he was by there position. For sure, he knew he wasn't in Nevada. He couldn't figure it out. "How bad was it?"

She looked away, back into the night. "Pretty bad."

"Why did you save me?"

"Because we were asked to."

"By who?"

"By your friend. When she died, she asked us to."

"You mean Aphrodite, don't you?"

"Yes."

"So she is dead."

"You don't remember?"

"I dreamt of her death. I guess that wasn't a dream after all. But no, I don't remember, not all of it. I was in Nevada, I remember that. Something happened, something terrible. She died, I didn't."

"I'm sorry you lost her."

"So am I." Gabriel wasn't sad, not like he thought that he should be. It was almost like his grieving had already run its course, and he was only left with the memory, but he was at peace with it. He was relieved about that. "I don't remember you, though."

"That's okay. You're well again. That's the most important thing. The other stuff will take care of itself."

"Everything feels so strange. I feel out of place, out of time."

"You have been out of it for a long time. It's only natural for you to be a bit disorientated."

"How long is long?"

"Do you really want to know?" He nodded. "The explosion happened nine months ago today. It's October 14^th."

"Nine months?" he whispered in amazement. "How could I be out that long?"

"You should feel lucky that you weren't dead. Your body had sustained third degree burns that covered everything. You could hardly breathe, you couldn't eat. You couldn't see. In fact, you didn't have any eyes. You seemed almost a skeleton with just a few scraps of flesh on it."

"I couldn't have survived that."

"Yet here you are."

He was scared at what she was saying. He didn't remember any of it, not one second. He was thankful for that. If what she said were true, than there was absolutely no way he could have lived. Yet, like she said, here he was.

"Do you know how I made it?"

"Protein."

"Protein?"
"The only time you were conscious, that is what you said. When we found you and brought you here, we bought pounds and pounds of protein supplements. We kept putting a spoonful in your moth every couple of minutes or so at first. We were amazed at how fast you were able to absorb it."

It was starting to make sense to him.

"One time, Darian was getting ready to feed you when the container fell all over your chest. In seconds, it was absorbed into your skin. From then on, we couldn't give you enough of it. With all the protein we gave you, we saw gradual healing to your body. Your muscles reformed, your eyes were growing again, your skin was starting to take shape. It was amazing to watch."

Gabriel remembered why. His memory seemed to need a little prodding. When she reminded him of his abilities to heal himself, more of the whole came back to him. He didn't say anything, though.

"So, are you better, now?"

"I feel better. Everything seems strange, though."

She nodded and when back to looking out into the back yard. "How do you mean?"

"It doesn't seem right, like I'm not supposed to be here. It is kind of like my perception of everything is skewed or something like that. It's like I'm watching a movie, or a television show, or something being acted out for me and me alone, only I'm a participant."

"That makes a bit of sense. You haven't been participating in the real world for a long, long time. You've been in that room, on that bed, your eyes closed, the lights out, hardly any sounds. You are probably overwhelmed."

"You might be right." Gabriel looked up to the sky again, marveling at the stars. After a few seconds of silence, he began to talk again. "When I was a kid, I would sit outside at night, just like this. I would look up into the night sky, overwhelmed by the magnitude and beauty of the sights it had to offer me. Something about the fantastic mystery of outer space drew me to it, something that I could never explain. I can't even explain it now.

"I always thought that I would go out there, amongst the stars, amongst the planets. What I would do, well, I don't know, but I would be out there. That was the important thing. I spent so much time looking skyward, looking for something and never really appreciating what was there all along."

"Who can tell what the future will bring?"

Gabriel smiled to himself. If she only knew. They sat there in silence for almost ten minutes. Finally, Gabriel gave out a long yawn. "I think I've hit the wall for tonight. I should probably go get some sleep." He stood up and opened the screen door.

"You know, Gabriel," she started before Gabriel could get into the cabin, "I almost wish that you hadn't woken up tonight."

"Why is that?"

"Because now things are going to start getting complicated again. I'm used to the simple life, I don't know if I could go back to the way it was."

"How was it, was it that bad?"

She didn't say anything.

"You need to start talking to me, Jeska. I won't be of any use to you or your friends if you don't open up to me at least a little bit."

"It's not my decision. Maybe tomorrow, when the others are up. Not tonight."

"Fine." He turned to walk inside.

"One thing, though. Lose the jacket. That look went out years ago."

Gabriel let out a sigh and reabsorbed the jacket. He was sure that she didn't notice. He left her sitting on that porch, looking into the forest, into the night sky. He didn’t get five steps in when he heard her gasp. He immediately turned and was on the back porch in a second. "What is it?"

"So now you're my guardian angel?"

"Something like that. What was it?"

"I saw a shooting star." Gabriel looked up into the sky, but didn't see anything.

"Oh, okay." He turned to walk inside, but saw she was pointing at something in the sky. He turned and looked in the direction she was pointing.

"There it is," she said softly. Gabriel saw an orange point of light traveling east to west across the sky.

"Is that the shooting star?" She nodded. "Then it isn't a shooting star at all." She shook her head.

"It seems that things have already gotten complicated all by themselves." They watched the point of light slowly arc across the sky.

"It could be a satellite, or a spy plane."

"It's not," she said. "The good thing, though, is that it isn't here for us." Gabriel took her word for it. "It will be leaving soon." Sure enough, within a few seconds, it took a right turn to the north, away from them, and promptly disappeared into the night.

"Good night, Jeska," Gabriel said as he walked back through the door.

"Good night, Gabriel."

There were five of them, a standard number for an eradication unit. They were nameless, answering only to number designations. They had a mission to do, and didn't need the added distractions of getting friendly with each other.

They had taken up posts around the building's exists where their prey was employed. They would wait as long as it was necessary to gain the trail. Once someone was in their sights, in the sights of any of the members of the Order of the Hunters, they were as good as dead. The Hunters were cold, calculating and ruthless. They had one mission in life, and that was to serve the Order. Serving the Order meant they had to kill, usually many times. They were happy to do it, they were proud to do it.

The man they were stalking was named Bret Giles, and he was classified as an "Unconfirmed." That meant that Bret Giles had psychic potential but hadn't developed the power yet.

It was the Hunter's responsibility to search for them and kill them. It was the Hunter's only responsibility, their only mission. Nothing else mattered to them.

Bret Giles was discovered during a down period Eradication Unit 103. During this time, the unit would wander through cities, neighborhoods, any place where humans were gathered and conduct passive searches for the Marks or for the Unconfirmed.

The Marks could be identified in two ways. The first way was a diamond-shaped mark on the right side of their neck. This mark was red and looked like a rash or a birthmark to the ignorant. The Hunters knew what that mark signified. The second way was a passive psychic search by the Psi-Hunter, the leader of the Eradication Unit.

A Psi-Hunter was genetically altered to unlock something that every human on the planet had, psychic potential. The Psi-Hunter was nothing more than a listening device, however. A Psi-Hunter had very limited psychic abilities of their own, usually nothing more than the basic ability to detect emotions and minimal mind reading.

The leader of Eradication Unit 103 had been genetically altered when he was a child, over thirty-five years before. His designation was One, and he was the only Psi-Hunter in the unit. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, there were multiple Psi-Hunters on a unit, but rarely so.

The rest of the team, Two, Three, Four and Five, they were finely honed killing machines. They would follow One's orders to their death if need be to achieve their objectives.

Their objective today was to pick up the trail of Bret Giles and follow him to his place of residence. Once there, they would determine the psychic potential of the family. If it was above tolerance levels, they would kill every member of the family. If not, they would wait until the next day to eliminate Bret Giles. Either way, his time was running out.

Most of the Unconfirmed didn't even realize that they had the abilities that marked them for death. That made them pathetically easy targets. If they had been contacted by the Marks, though, they sometimes posed a threat. As far as they could tell, Bret Giles was ignorant of his abilities and would be no more difficult than a training exercise.

They waited in their stations for hours while Giles put in his day of work. Finally, at around six in the afternoon, Giles emerged from the building and made his way across the street to the parking lot where his car was parked. The Hunters knew what to do. They split up into their subunits, two, two and one, and began following Giles as he made his way home.

One was by himself, mentally observing the exercise. He sensed nothing alarming from Giles. This one would be a very easy task.

Giles' commute was a little over a half hour. He lived in a nice, middle class neighborhood that was stocked with colonials. Giles lived in a corner house.

He parked the car and shut the garage gate that enclosed his property. He finally made his way into the house.

One sat in the car, parked across the street. He was conducting a remote passive search of the house. He would pick up on any signs of psychic activity, any signs at all. If he did, everyone in that house would die.

It was already dusk with the darkness of night rapidly enveloping the area. He was patient, he had to be. He had to be certain, absolutely certain, of the activity in the household. Where there was one, there were often others.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. Then he felt a small tickle in the back of his brain, a small pinpoint of energy. He opened his eyes and looked at the house. Three lights were one, two upstairs and the living room. He could sense four people in the house, two adults and two children.

He had picked up something emanating from one of the children. The course of action had been decided. He activated the radio in his collar. "Four in the house. Confirmed multiple targets. Rendezvous at rally point delta upon completion." The rally point for the area was a motel room on the outskirts of town. That was all he had to say, his unit would enter the house and do their life's work.

One watched his men's shadowy figures take up position around the house. He waited a few seconds, then saw the lights in the house suddenly turn off. There were a few flashed of white light and then nothing. He started the engine and proceeded to the rendezvous point.

They arrived at rallying point delta thirty minutes later. They had not been followed. The mission had been a success, the four member family were dead. One sat in a chair as his men came in and fell into ranks.

"Report, Two." The four of them were dressed normally, wearing jeans, T-shirts and jackets. They had no uniform. That made it easier for them to blend into crowds without standing out at all. One look at any of them wouldn’t cause a bit of concern at all.

"Sir, we encountered no resistance. Five shots were fired, two for the father, one in the head and one in the heard. One shot for each other target in the residence, each in the head. No psychic noise was detected. We were able to leave the scene before any detection."

"Excellent. You all did outstanding tonight." They didn't respond. "Stand at ease while I report in. I have a feeling that our evening is not over."

He took out a cellular phone and hit a button. He waited for it to be picked up. Finally, the connection was made. "Unit 103 accomplished. Request follow-on orders."

"Orders are to proceed to safe zone Alpha-Gamma-Echo and await further orders. Possible cell detection in vicinity."

"I will report any contacts immediately upon arrival at Alpha-Gamma-Echo."

"Understood." The line went dead. One replaced the phone in his pocket and looked at his unit.

"We're heading to Traverse City men. Prepare to move out in thirty minutes." He stood up and left the room.

It was early in the morning; the sun was just starting to shine brightly through the trees. The cabin was filled with the comforting aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Gabriel was still in bed, and he had no intention of getting up just yet.

The cabin wasn't terribly big. It was two levels, with a kitchen, a living room and a bedroom on the bottom floor and three bedrooms on the top floor. The bathroom was in the back yard.

Gabriel's room had a bed and a dresser in it, nothing more. He had a window, but he hadn't looked out of it. On the floor were some containers of protein supplements, empty, and some cellophane. He was tired, he didn't want to get out of bed just yet. Besides, he heard talking coming from one of the other rooms. He wasn't sure where he was, or who he was with, although that Jeska woman he met the night before seemed very, very familiar. He might as well listen for a while and hopefully get some information.

He could make out three voices. One was definitely Jeska's. There was a second voice, a male voice. The third voice was familiar, too, a female voice. He laid back down and listened to the conversation.

"I don't know what to make of all this." It was Jeska. "I don't want to start running again, but I know it's going to start all over."

"We have to run," said the man. "If we don't, they'll find us. We've been lucky so far that we've gotten away with it for this long. Our luck is not going to last." It was a heated discussion, that much was for sure. "And do you know what? I started dreaming again. I never dream, you know that." That seemed to quiet everyone up.

"What did you dream of, Darian?" It was the third person, the other woman's voice.

"I dreamt that I was being chased, not only physically, but also mentally. Something powerful was after me and I couldn't get away from it. If I hid, it would find me psychically. If I was able to block it out, I wasn't able to do anything else. I was caught no matter what."

"What was following you?" asked Jeska.

"A shadow, that's all I could see. It was a shadow."

"No form?"

"No, no form at all."

The room was quiet. The third voice began to talk again. "I had that same dream last night, Darian. It was chasing me and I couldn't get away."

"This isn't good at all," said Darian, his voice a bit more anxious now. "I've had the dream, Heather has had the dream, what about you, Jeska? Did you dream last night?"

"I didn't sleep last night. You know I never sleep."

"I thought you grew out of that phase."

"No, I haven't."

"Are you still meditating?"

"Every once in a while, whenever I really need to. I just don't want to sleep anymore."

"Those dreams never stopped for you, did they?"

"It was more than that, more than just dreams. They were real, it was like I was reliving history, only I was an active part in it. They were so real."

"They were dreams, you know that. They were your subconscious playing out your fears for you, so you can confront them."

"No, Heather, it wasn't that. It has never been that. They're visions, not dreams. You know I'm right."

There was no response. Gabriel stayed in bed, listening to them talk. This was getting interesting.

"You know that there is no way to confirm if they were visions or a dream."

"Darian, do you think that what you experienced last night was a dream?" More silence. "Well, do you?"

"No." He sounded very reluctant to say that.

"It was a warning, right? It was a message."

"yeah, but that's different."

"Different only because it happened to you, right? My God, Darian, you've been in this thing for a long time, and still you can't accept that strange things go on with us every single day. You know it's true, but you won't accept it at all."

"It's hard, because almost every part of my being is telling me that it was real, but it was a dream."

"It wasn't a dream. It was a message. You got the message, Heather got the message. If I slept, I would have got the message as well. It's starting again, and we're going to have to leave soon."

"It's all because of that thing in the room, it's all his fault." Darian seemed rather upset at me.

"How can it be his fault?"

"He's the Aberration. He's dangerous, he'll get us all killed. We should have never picked him out of that wreckage. We should have let him die."

"Come on, Darian." This was Heather. "He was dying, we had to help him, we owed it to her."

"Owed it to her? We didn't even know her. If we followed every distress call out there, we'd have a cabin full of useless rejects. That man, that thing, in the bedroom is a waste of our time. He's probably one of them."

"That's not fair, and you know it. Hell, it's not even true."

"It's true enough for me."

"You aren't being fair to him. We don't know who he is, or why we were drawn to him. This happened for a reason, everything happens for a reason. You know that as well as I do, as well as anyone. Hear his story and then make up your mind."

"Jeska, it doesn’t matter. He's not one of us, so he can't be trusted."

"It's not us against everyone."

"It is for me."

"You have to get over it. It wasn't their fault. Nobody knew the truth."

"It doesn't matter. I can't afford to take that risk anymore. I don't want to end up like dead because of him."

"Why would you end up dead because of me?" Gabriel was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking tired and week, in his jeans and black sweatshirt, with his black leather gloves and no jacket this time. He had given that up at the request of Jeska the night before.

The three of them turned, shocked to see Gabriel standing before them. Jeska knew he would show himself to the others today, but she wasn't sure when. She couldn't feel his presence again, which concerned her. She was sure the others couldn't feel Gabriel either.

"Why am I such a threat to you?"

"You won't understand."

"Try me." Jeska stood up and pulled out a chair at the table.

"Gabriel, come sit down with us. I think we all need to talk things through." Heather and Darian were staring at Jeska, and she knew why. How could she know him?

"You know his name, Jeska? When were you going to tell us?"

"Today," she said with a smile. "He woke up in the middle of the night last night. We had a small chat on the back porch."

"I see." Gabriel was looking at Heather. He knew her from somewhere. Heather had the same feeling as well. They couldn't pinpoint where they knew each other from. Darian was unconvinced so far.

Gabriel sat down at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee. "So, Darian, why am I such a threat?"

"Everyone's a threat to us. We're on the run, we can't trust anybody out there. We can't be sure who is who."
Gabriel noticed Darian's neck. On the right side he had a diamonded-shaped mark, almost like a birthmark, on his night. He looked at Heather, she had the same thing. So did Jeska. "You can be sure who your people are, though, right?"

Darian started to rub his neck. "Yeah, we can tell, but not just from this mark on our neck. We have other ways."

Jeska took over from there. "We're psychics, Gabriel."

"Jeska!" protested Darian.

"Can it, Darian. I know what I'm doing."

"You better, because I don't want to die for him," he spit out, pointing at Gabriel. "He's not worth it."

Jeska rolled her eyes. "Forgive him, Gabriel, he's had a tough couple of years."

"Tell me about it."

"Anyway, like I started to say, we're psychics. No one knows how it happened, but each of us here, we all have the abilities. We all learned about it the same way, too.

"With me, I was about sixteen years old. I was in high school, not really getting along with anyone or any of the crowds. I would read, do my homework, get good grades, do all that stuff. Then I got this mark on my neck.

"I didn't know how I got it. Most people thought it was a hicky or something like that. You know how it is in high school, everyone had them. Mine wouldn't go away, though. I couldn't make it go away.

"Things started to happen, strange things. I began hearing voices in my head. I thought I was going out of my mind or something, but I wasn't. What I was hearing was other people's voices, other people's thoughts. I could hear what people were thinking if they were close to me, but I also noticed that the range was starting to increase.

"For me, the next couple days after that was very intense and very terrifying. I couldn't make the voices stop, they kept hammering at me every second of every minute of every hour. I tried to shut them out, but I couldn't. The mark on my neck was getting redder and redder. It started to hurt, it started to burn. I couldn't stop any of it.

"I stayed home from school complaining of a headache. It wasn't false, my head hurt from what was going on. I could hear the thoughts of my parents, of my friends, of my teachers, of total strangers. I would hear them, but I couldn't understand them at all. It was just a cacophony of voices in my head and nothing I could do would make them stop.

"When I was home sick, I was watching television, hoping that focusing on something external would help my mind control what was going on. It didn't help, but I noticed something else. I was seeing images, flashes of the show, parts that didn't happen yet. Soon, though, they would happen and I was left wondering just what the hell was happening to me.

"I was alone in my house, hundreds of voices speaking at me all at the same time, scared that I was losing my mind, seeing visions of the future. I didn't dare tell anyone, who would believe me? My parents wouldn't have, that was for sure. We weren't exactly getting along that well as it was. I had to suffer in silence.

"Then, in my head, I heard a voice, stronger than all the others. It was talking to me, directly to me. 'Focus on my voice,' it said to me, and I did. I closed my eyes and thought only of that voice. It was a strong voice, a soothing voice. I felt like I could lose myself listening to it speak to me.

"'Image yourself surrounded by light,' it said next, and I thought of that light surrounding me. It was like hundreds of those hand held sparklers all around me, the sparks landing on every inch of my body, only it didn't hurt or burn, it soothed me, calmed me. With every hit, a voice seemed to disappear from my head. Slowly, things began to quiet, the many voices became only a few voices and then one voice.

"'I will give you the ability to listen only when you want to hear,' the voice told me after all the voices had left my mind. 'I will show you the way that you must embrace in order to control your new abilities.' Almost instantly, my head was artificially filled with knowledge about what had happened to me and how I could control it. I wasn't told what happened, I just knew what happened."

"What happened?"

Jeska took a sip of her coffee. "I was initiated right then and there into something magical, something wonderful. I was told that this was completely natural, that there were others like me who have taken the next step."

"What next step is that?"

"The next step in human evolution, Gabriel. We're the future of humanity."

Gabriel was smiling, but not because he was happy. "So what you are telling me is that whatever happened to you was an evolutionary leap ahead?"

"Why does it sound so strange?"

"Actually, it doesn't. I'm just a very skeptical person by nature."

"I understand. Listen to me, though, this makes perfect sense. Just think, what is the single fastest growing thing in the world right now?"

Gabriel didn't answer, he had no idea.

"Knowledge, Gabriel. What we know today will be doubled by next month, and so on and so on. It makes sense that the human brain would evolve in order to control this monumental jump in knowledge. We have to be able to gather the information, store it and manipulate it. If we have a computer that couldn't handle it all, we'd upgrade, wouldn't we?"

"Yeah, I would upgrade it. In a heart beat."

"Nature is taking care of that for us, Gabriel, by enhancing out mind, unlocking previously locked spaces, opening us up to tremendous possibilities never before imagined."

"Okay, Jeska," Darian interrupted, "that's enough."

Gabriel looked at him hard and disapprovingly. "I want to hear everything," he said sharply. Darian flashed him a stern frown.

"We have our secrets, we need to keep them secrets."

"What about you, Gabriel? You have a story to tell, that much is certain. Why don't you tell us that story? After all, we have done so much for you already."

"Honestly," Gabriel started, "I'm having a hard time remembering. I feel like my head has been scrambled. One thing that I'm sure of, though, is that I am not a threat to you, to any of you. If I were a threat, don't you think that something would have happened already? You've had me here for nine months and no one has come looking for me."

"They probably think you died in that explosion," Darian said matter-of-factly.

Gabriel looked at him with a blank expression on his face. "I don't remember the explosion. I hardly remember any of it. I remember pain, and then I remember waking up."

"What about your past?"

"What about it?"

"Who are you, Gabriel? How did you end up where you were, in the condition you were in? What could have possibly happened that caused those things to you?"

Gabriel was frustrated, he couldn't remember anything. Bits and pieces, yeah, but other than that, nothing. He remembered Aphrodite, being killed, but he couldn't remember by whom. There was someone else there, too, someone he cared about deeply, but he couldn't remember a name or face. "I can't remember. I'm sorry."

"We can help you remember," Jeska said, drawing more anger from Darian. "We have the power to unlock your thoughts."

Gabriel was a bit suspicious. "Why haven't you done it already? You've had nine months with me."

"God knows we've tried," Darian said, his eyes still burning holes in Jeska. "We haven't been able to do it with you."

"Oh, I see."
"It's not that simple, Gabriel. Nothing is simple."

"Life's not supposed to be simple."

"You know what I mean."

"Maybe I do." The room was filled with silence for a couple of minutes, each of them sizing the other up. "Tell me about the Aberration."

Darian's jaw dropped. Heather gasped. Jeska laughed. "How do you know of that?"

"Just tell me, okay? I don't want to play any games. I'm not in the mood for a pissing contest. I'm not your enemy, that much I know. I don't need my full memory to know that. So please, just tell me what the hell you are talking about."

"No, Gabriel. We've already given you so much information, more than we should have. You say that you aren't our enemy, but what assurances can you give us? What proof that you mean what you say? We even told you that we can't read your mind. That's our big advantage, that knowledge. It's what keeps us alive, it's what keeps us safe. You don't understand the danger that we face every single day of our lives. We're being hunted down and slaughtered like animals. Do you know what that is like, Gabriel, to not be safe anywhere you go, to constantly be looking over your shoulder, wondering if the guy behind you is getting ready to take a shot at you.

"With all of our fancy parlor tricks, we're still being killed, being exterminated. So excuse me if someone who exhibits the same traits as our executioners isn't totally embraced with open arms. We're scared and we're tired. That means we have to work extra hard to maintain our lines of defense. We can't afford not to."

"I can help you," Gabriel said, his voice becoming very serious. "I may be having some memory problems, but do you honestly think that I came into your company on accident? Whatever is out there that is hunting you, I think it's hunting me as well. My friend, Aphrodite, she called to you, with her mind. You all have the mark, the same mark that she did. She was my friend and she died because of me. I might not remember the details, but I remember that much.

"Whether you believe me or not, we're on the same side. I might be your best bet for survival."

"We can't take that chance," Darian said.

"Fine." Gabriel stood up and turned for the front door.

"No, Gabriel, wait!" Jeska said, walking after him.

"Don't do it, Jeska," Darian warned. "He isn't worth it."

"He is, Darian. I know he is."

"He's the Aberration. We all know it. To have him around us is suicide!"

"You don't know that at all," Heather said.

"Oh, not you, too!"

"You need to keep an open mind. He's been here for nine months and no one had come looking for him. Can you remember such a long, peaceful stretch like this before? I can't."

"That means nothing."

"He was dead, Darian. He was left behind. They don't do that, they don't leave anyone behind."

Darian threw his hands up in frustration and left the kitchen, kicking open the back door and walking out into the backyard. Heather just shook her head and drank more of her coffee.

Jeska had caught up to Gabriel, who was out of the cabin already, walking down the gravel driveway to the dirt road that led away from this place. "Don't leave, Gabriel. Darian needs time, that's all."

Gabriel stopped and turned to her. "Time isn't a luxury that we all have. He doesn't want me to stay. I'll respect his wishes."

"I want you to stay." She looked at him with her green eyes, her sad, green eyes. "I don't want you to leave."

"Why? There's something you aren't telling me, isn't there?"

She didn't say anything. In fact, she took a step back from him.

"You are, I can tell. I'm not like you, like any of you. He may be right, I shouldn't be here."

"We need you."

He shrugged. "Tell me what the Aberration is."

"I can't."

He smiled. "There you have it. What I need isn't here."

"Don't go."

Gabriel turned and walked down the road. In a last-ditch effort, Jeska reached out with all her energy, focusing on Gabriel, on his mind, on the barrier he had in place. The force hit him like a sledgehammer. He lost his balance, but didn't fall. She couldn't crack his shell, though. He turned to her, after he regained himself. She stood there pleadingly, but he shook his head and turned away.

Heather came running out of the cabin. "What the hell just happened?"

"I tried to break down Gabriel's wall," she said, never taking her eyes off of Gabriel as he walked out of their lives as suddenly as he came into them.

Darian arrived next. "I knew it, what did he do to you?"

"I did it, Darian. I tried to reach him, to convince him to stay."

"Your outburst was too strong. Let's hope there aren't any Hunters around here."

Safe Zone Alpha-Gamma-Echo was nothing more than a safe house in Traverse City, Michigan. The Order of the Hunters had many of them throughout the world, there was never more than three hundred miles between a safe house of some kind.

This particular safe house was on the Grand Traverse Bay, a very scenic, almost resort-like house. The eradication squad wasn’t there for a vacation, they had work to do.

One observed as his eradication squad quickly set up the house as their base of operations. They were a well-trained, competent bunch and were done with that phase of the operation in no time at all. One was pleased.

Since if any passive contact would be made, it would be made by One himself, he decided to head into town alone. He was never more than a cell call away from his squad, but he wouldn't be able to concentrate enough to detect any kind of psychic signature if he remained with them. He walked the streets, taking in the sights, carefully judging the psychic potential of the pedestrians walking on the streets with him. All of them fell within acceptable, normal parameters. If there was a cell of the Failures here, they weren't on the streets.

When Jeska's outburst hit him, he almost fell over. It was strong, and he had a fix on it's position almost immediately. After recovering from the initial shock at the power, he grabbed his cell phone and pressed a button. "Contact made," he said once the connection was made. "Source approximately twenty miles east of current location. Please advise."

"Seek and destroy, 103."

"Affirmative."

He hung up and then dialed the number to the phone in the safe house. "Contact has been made. I will be returning shortly. Action to commence in two hours."

Darian was furious with Jeska for letting loose her powers like that. He hadn't spoken to her since, for almost two hours. He cut his thoughts off from her as well, which was a drastic measure for a member of the Marks.

Jeska, to her credit, didn't force the issue because he knew she was wrong. They couldn't afford to have outbursts like that, lest they attract the attention of the Order, and to do that was most likely death.

She would for him to calm down, which he would eventually, and then she would apologize. She had packed her things, the would be moving out in a little bit. She was sitting on the back porch, watching the sun start to set over the trees. It was her favorite time of the day, and it was so beautiful here that she needed to see it one last time.

She sat on the porch alone, watching her sun fall behind the forest and the horizon. She kept on taking in deep breaths of the clean, crisp autumn air, knowing that she wouldn't know peace like this for a while, maybe never again. Every moment was to be savored when it could possibly be her last. If there was a benefit to the life she had, it was that she knew exactly how sacred life was and she knew that to waste it would be the most heinous crime of all.

She heard the screen door open. Heather walked out and sat next to her on the bench. "How's it going?" she asked.

"I don't know what I was thinking," Jeska said quietly. "I know better than to do something like that, something so reckless and dangerous."

Heather put her arm around Jeska's shoulders. "You're the strongest of all of us, Jeska, we've known that since the first time we came across you. Controlling that power, it can't be easy."

"It wasn't a matter of control, though. I directed that burst at him, at his mind. I wanted in, I wanted to convince him to stay, no matter what Darian said."

"Did I ever tell you that I knew him?"

"Who?"

"Gabriel? I met him before all of this happened, right around New Year's. I was flying to Minnesota to catch up with you two, and I had a drink with him at the airport."

"You did?"

"Yes, I did. He told me he was going to Las Vegas, to Nevada, to do a little sinning. I could tell that there was something about him, something magnetic, something very, very powerful. He didn't have the mental block in place that he has now, and I got a chance to learn something about him, at least in passing."

"What did you learn?"

"He's a very troubled man, Jeska. When I saw him, he had just suffered a tremendous loss, and even though he was putting up a good front, even to himself, he had darkness inside that was slowly consuming him. I could feel it when I was just sitting next to him. There was something else to him, something strange, almost alien. He was different, everything about him was different. It wasn't like scanning a normal person, everything was a bit off."

"He is," she said softly.

"The Aberration?"

Jeska nodded.

"That may be, but it still doesn't change anything. He was one of us, he was human, but everything was out of kilter. It was like he didn't belong here, in this time, with us."

"That is the Aberration, a being that is out of place and out of time. He has his block up, but I've felt his soul, too. When we were called, when his friend, Aphrodite, when she died, when she called to us, I was there, sucked into it, and I felt him, but only for a second. I lived his life in a second, I felt his pain and I took it from him and destroyed it."

"You erased his memory?"

"No, I took the pain away. You've been there, haven't you?"

"Only once. I'm more of a functioning psychic, not a abstract like you and Darian."

"His soul came to that place, and it was black with grief, with pain. He was dying as much from that than the injuries he has sustained. When Aphrodite died, she opened the gateway and his soul took that journey because of it's pain and sorrow. It was drawn to me because I was closest, because I was powerful enough to withstand it all."

"Withstand what?"

"The negativity. The hurt. The betrayal. The anger. Most souls would have been engulfed, but his wasn't."

"Because he is the Aberration?"

"No, because he's different. There is something extraordinary about him, something that makes him unique."

"That's what makes him an aberration, maybe not the Aberration, though."

"I'm sure he is, though."

"I think so, too."

"What does that mean, though?"

"I don't know. I've heard references to the Aberration, but nothing beyond that. I doubt it can be good."

"It has to be better than the way we live, though."

"Anything is better than this."

"Yeah." The two of them sat watching the soft pinks and oranges of the sunset fill the sky. They sat in silence, experiencing everything they could in an almost trance-like state.

Then something happened. Jeska snapped back to reality quickly and was on her feet before she even knew why. Heather followed quickly after. "Someone's here," Jeska said, trying to see into the woods.

"Hunters, I think," Heather said, taking a defensive posture. "Did you feel the ripple?"

"Yeah, I did." That was the best way that anyone could describe what it was like to sense one of the genetically altered Psi-Hunter. The Order believed that through only passive means the Psi-Hunter couldn't be detected. They were wrong. It was their only chance at an early warning system, when a Psi-Hunter was close enough, their genetically altered psychic ability rippled reality just a bit. No one except the Marks would be able to detect it, but it was there.

Within seconds, Darian came out on the back, his anger at Jeska replaced by something more primitive, the instinct for survival. "It's a Eradication squad, I felt all five of them. They've already go this place surrounded. We've got to get out of here!" The two women followed him back into the cabin.

"We can fight them," Jeska said. "We don't have to run!"

"No, we're getting out of here. A fight won't do us any good at all."

"But we don't have to run, we can make a stand, right here, right now!"

"No, we can't. We're not even a full cell. We'd be killed."

"We can fight them!"

"No, Jeska! Not here, not now!" He went to the nearest window and saw someone moving in the dark. "Damn, they've got this place surrounded."

"We can force our way through them, Darian. We can do this!"

"We aren't prepared to fight," he said, calmer now. "We aren't ready to do it yet, not as a team. We wouldn't work together."

"We exist with our minds linked to a certain extent. We can use that connection to coordinate attacks."

"When we get out of this, we'll work on it, alright?" He was being as diplomatic as he could, but Jeska knew that it was a promise he wouldn't keep. Darian was so used to running that it was all he knew, all he was confident in doing. Running is life, to fight is certain death.

That hadn't been tested in a long while, however. The Marks always ran.

"I can sense four of them," Heather said, her eyes closed. "They are on each side of the house, waiting while their leader makes his move."

"Can you pinpoint the location of the Psi-Hunter?"

"I have a faint trace, to the north, in the back yard."

"He was looking right at us the whole time, Heather," Jeska snorted. "That bastard."

"It won't do you any good to get angry, Jeska. Stay focused and we'll get out of here."

Heather opened her eyes. "I heard his thoughts. He's going to smoke us out!"

"Damn," Darian exclaimed, thinking of what to do next. He didn't have any thoughts.

"Here it comes," Heather said loudly, but they could hear the whistle of the incoming projectile. With a loud explosion it crashed into the roof, spreading it's flaming gel over most of it, instantly catching it on fire.

"They're going to burn the cabin down!" Jeska started to get up, to do something, when the front wall of the cabin erupted in gunfire. The hunter out there must have had two automatic assault weapons to be doing that much damage. Jeska dove for the ground, glass and wood splinters spraying her and her partners. She let out a small scream.

"They're forcing us into the backyard, where we'll be easy targets," Heather exclaimed, screaming over the reports of the gunfire. "The two flanked hunters are repositioning themselves in the back with the Psi-Hunter and the third!"

"We can make an escape to the east or west, then."

"No, they have them both wired. We'll set off anti-personnel ground mines. They'll tear us apart."

"To the south," Jeska said sternly, "we can fight past one guard."

Darian shook his head. "I, uh, we can't do it."

One watched as the to hunters to the flank rapidly made their way back to his position. Without hesitation, the leapt to the prone position, their weapons trained on the back of the cabin, waiting for their prey to emerge from the soon to be inferno.

"They are all cowards," One said to his three hunters, "they never fight, they always run. Just once, I want the fight to be fair. I am starting to feel badly about slaughtering so many weaklings."

He bent over one of the guards. "Are the mines set?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Excellent. And the timers are set for ten minutes, correct?"

"Exactly as ordered, Sir."

One nodded and took a small remote control from a pocket in his utilities. He pressed the button, activating the timers on the mines. One way or another, they would go off in ten minutes now, effectively covering their tracks.

"Four, come in, please," One spoke into his headpiece.

"Four here, Sir," the hunter responded instantly.

"How goes it?"

"I'm continuing my bombardment of the front wall. I haven't detected any movement from within the cabin, but they would be fools to come this way."

"Very well, continue with your operations."

"Affir-" The radio went dead.

"Four!" yelled One into his headpiece. As the last echoes of the bullets that had just been raining on the front of cabin faded away, he heard the echo of his own scream.

Four never saw it coming, and if he did, he couldn't be sure what it was. The small, round projectile struck him in the side of the head so hard the that impact exploded the opposite side of his head before it had a chance to penetrate the skull. He was dead instantly.

One felt the death of Four, even if it was for just a split second. For the next second, he wasn't sure what to do. He hadn't been in a real fight, a two-sided fight, for as long as he could remember. "Hold your positions," he said softly, buying a few more seconds to think the situation over.

The roof was ablaze. The fire had already spread to the front porch, and was dripping through the holes that it had just made. Looking out, Jeska knew it was only a matter of moments before the roof would give way and they would be dead. They had to do something.

"Oh my God," Heather said just as the onslaught on the front of the cabin ceased. "He's dead!"

"Who's dead?" Darian asked.

"The hunter to the south, someone killed him."

"Can you sense him?"

"No!"

"Can you sense anyone?" she shook her head, and Jeska smiled.

"It's him!" She pointed to the front of the cabin. A shadowy figure was walking towards them, dressed completely in a black one piece coverall that only left his head exposed. If they didn't know better, they would have thought that they were gazing upon a ninja.

He stepped up onto the porch, the golden glow from the blaze lit him like an angel. His new, shoulder-length black and gray, more black now than gray, hair flowing in the wind, a powerful, serious stern look on his face. In his right hand was a strange contraption that resembled a gun, but not exactly. A second later, it was gone.

"The Aberration," Darian mumbled in awe. Jeska jumped out, and decidedly out of character, ran up to him and jumped in his arms, grabbing him in a bear hug.

"Gabriel," she said softly, "you remember?"

"I remember," he said, returning the hug with force. He released her quickly, though. "You have to leave now, there are still four of them."

"The Hunters will not stop," Heather said. "It's not in their nature to stop."

"Do they continue the hunt in the afterlife?" Gabriel responded, much to the amazement of the three of them. "I'll make sure your escape is successful on this end."

"Come with us, Gabriel," Jeska pleaded. "We can help each other."

He shook his head. "Not now, Jeska, I can't risk it. There are things I need to do, things that can only get you and your friends killed."

Jeska was disappointed, more than that, really. She wanted the time to get to know Gabriel better, at least in a different way than she already did. She knew his true self, his soul, but not his secrets. She had bonded with him when she found him near death, when she bathed him in purity, in her purity. She washed away his pain and replaced it with her being. Now they were as close as two souls could be. She didn't want to be separated from him, now that he remembered, that he knew. She was smart enough to understand what was going on and for all of her life she had been used to making personal sacrifices. This was just another one of those. "At least open yourself to me once in a while, so I can know you are well."

"No promises, at least not yet," Gabriel responded, caressing her cheek. "Perhaps soon. No go, and make it loud!" They knew exactly what he meant, and unleashed enough psychic force to wake the dead.

"They're on the move," The Psi-Hunter said, feeling their retreat, their fear. "They're terrified."

"Should we pursue?"

"Yes, follow them!" The three hunters rose to their feet and started running through the backyard in pursuit of their prey, the Marks. As they approached the cabin, billowing smoke into the air, illuminating the entire area in an eerie gold glow, a figure stepped out onto the back porch.

"What the hell?" Two said, seeing the dark figure run across the porch and dive towards the closest hunter. The hunter went down in a heap, a loud thud was heard by everyone.

Gabriel knew what was going to come next. He was on top of the hunter, who was almost unconscious from the combination tackle and landing, but not completely there. Gabriel grabbed the hunter's collar and rolled him over just in time to catch the first volley of bullets from the other two hunters. These men were trained well, Gabriel thought to himself. He decided to play dead, that he was in fact hit by the bullets.

The two hunters approached carefully, examining their handiwork, swearing to themselves at the second death on their team. They knew that tonight was a history night for the Order of the Hunters, it was the first time in over two hundred years that they had lost a hunter in battle. It was a thing of pride for them, but now that pride was shattered and all they could do was try to pick up the pieces.

The two were now standing next to the bodies, poking them with their gun barrels, making sure they didn't react, that they were, in fact, dead.

They didn't see Gabriel grab the barrels of their weapons, but they felt it. Gabriel pulled violently on them, bringing the two hunters together in a massive collision. Gabriel heard one of their noses break, but they wouldn't be in pain for long.

Two quick punches to the head of one of the hunters sent him down for good. Gabriel had shattered the orbital bone with the first punch, the second punch shoved the shattered bone fragments into his brain. That left one more hunter, the one with the broken nose. One more punch to his nose finished him.

He heard rapid footsteps in two directions, from the front of the cabin and from the woods. He looked to the front, they were closer, potentially the first threat he would encounter. He saw Jeska running into the backyard towards him.

"No, go back! There's another one!" She stopped, a look of surprise moved across her face. He knew what she saw, the last hunter, the leader of the group, the most dangerous hunter of these five, he was less than ten feet from Gabriel.

Gabriel dropped to the ground and rolled towards the oncoming Psi-Hunter. He saw the knife in One's hand and knew exactly where it was headed. Gabriel spun his body around, whipping his legs towards One's. One fell, but he regained himself quickly.

Gabriel jumped to his feet, and so did One. They stood only five feet from each other, staring each other down, sizing each other up. "I can sense something from every living being on this planet," One said in a very professional voice, "I can sense their psychic energies, their life force. From you, though, I sense nothing." He glanced over towards Jeska, who was looking to the front of the cabin for her friends. One took this opportunity and threw his knife at her in a single motion that was so fast that Gabriel couldn't react in enough time.

Except in one way. He dropped the mental barrier that he had up, opened his mind to Jeska, warning her about the incoming knife with his thoughts. He instantly sensed what he needed to, and closed his mind again.

The knife seemed to slow in air, then unnaturally took a hard left turn in the direction of the cabin. The knife imbedded itself harmlessly into the wall, leaving Jeska unharmed.

"Hmm," One said, seemingly impressed. "In all of my life, I had never seen the Marks actually use their gifts. Perhaps she is representative of a new breed of adversaries."

Gabriel didn’t respond at all, he stood there, in front of the Psi-Hunter, ready for action of any kind.

"You, though, you are something different, but I think I know who you are, and if you are he, then you, and your friends, are extremely lucky tonight."

One lowered his physical defenses, Gabriel could tell from his body language. "If you don't mind, stranger, I wish to talk with you and your friend."

"I thought all you did was kill."

"Such a small interpretation of my function. It is not merely killing, it is restoring order to nature. Now, please, I wish to talk." He looked down at his wrist, and then grabbed the remote. He pressed a button, then tossed it to Gabriel. "There is my peace offering, stranger."

"What is it?"

"That is a remote trigger for mines that we have placed to the east and west of this house. They would have exploded in three minutes, but I disarmed them. I do not wish for this historic moment to be blown apart before it can be completed. I ask that you remove any weapons that you have on you as well."

"I don't carry weapons."

One considered that for a second, then nodded. "I shall believe you because you have an honest face. Now, please tell that woman to come over here so we can talk like civilized humans."

Gabriel snorted at that, but One didn't respond. Gabriel turned to Jeska, and beckoned her forth. "It's alright, Jeska, trust me." She was hesitant, but she started walking towards the two of them.

"I suggest that we retire to the woods, I fear that emergency vehicles will be approaching shortly, and we shouldn't be interrupted, or heaven forbid, detained."

"I agree," Gabriel said, extremely interested, all of a sudden, at what this man had to say, especially to the man that had killed everyone in his squad with relative ease.

Jeska walked up next to Gabriel and took his hand. Gabriel smiled at her, it was a nice feeling, having someone in the world, someone who knew him on a level that no other living being could…except one.

The three of them walked into the woods, deep into the woods. Even though it was October, and most of the trees had lost their leaves, the massive branches, even without the layer of leaves, were still dense enough to block out most of the moonlight. It was almost pitch black where they were walking. Finally, after about ten minutes, One stopped and turned to his two guests.

"This is a most strange evening, to say the least." He looked Gabriel over, and then Jeska. "I never thought that it would happen to me."

"What are you talking about?" Gabriel asked him.

"May I ask what your name is, good Sir?"

"You may not, hunter."

"Please, call me Jean Paul, it is my given name."

"Fine, Jean Paul, but you will not learn my name."

"Fair enough, because I already know your title, and that is enough for me."

Gabriel looked at him skeptically, but evenly. "My title? I didn't know I had one."

"Perhaps you do not even know what it is that you are, and what you mean to us, to everyone."

Jeska nodded, and Jean Paul picked up on it. "Even your woman knows what I am talking about."

"The Aberration?" Gabriel asked.

"See, you are not as dumb as you would like me to believe. You may not know the significance yet, but you know what you are."

"Why do you think I am the Aberration? Do you even know what the Aberration is?"

"Oh yeah, I know for a fact what the Aberration is."

"How about enlightening me?"

"When I was young," Jean Paul started, "my parents told me a bed time story, only it wasn't a story, it was a prophecy, one that me and my people hold close to our hearts, hoping and praying that it would never, ever come true."

"A story? You think that because you heard a bed time story once upon a time that it's actually real?"

"I told you, it was not a bed time story, it is a prophecy, it's a revelation, it's one of the most sacred truths that we hold."

"What is it?" asked Jeska, obviously interested.

"The story was a very simple one. It is of the Order of the Hunters, of which I am a member, as you both already know. My family has been associated with the Order from the beginning, we are one of the founders, if you would. The story is about one lone hunter alone in the forest, after suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of an unseen enemy. This enemy was something special, though, because he was much more than just an enemy. He was an Aberration, there was absolutely no way in nature that this person could exist. This hunter who was lucky enough to confront this man in battle would be able to identify him in several different ways. First, he would walk through the inferno unscarred. I saw you emerge from the cabin, through the fire, withough even the soot from the ash dirtying your face."

"So what?"

"Please, let me continue. Next, there would be another with him, a female, one of the enemy. She would have the mark, and she would deflect the undeflectable deathblow from the glorious Hunter with the aid of the Aberration. I clearly saw you warn her with your mind."

"Maybe she's just that good."

"I know what you did, good Sir, and that brings me to the next point. The Hunter would be of the specials, a group of Hunters with abilities to track the Marks. I am a Psi-Hunter, I have the ability to sense any psychic emission within a certain range. I will not, however, tell you what that range is."

"That doesn't matter, though."

"You are right, it doesn't matter. I know you warned her with your mind, and I am tuned to sense all psychic energies from living beings, yet I cannot sense anything from you, nothing at all. It is like you are a walking void, nothingness in a sea of stimuli.

"The story tells of this Hunter, who is escaping after losing his team to the Aberration, running back to tell of a being that shouldn't exist, but does. The Hunter fights through his adversaries to reach his home, only to find the news very grim."

"And?"

"And that is the story."

"That is a terrible story."

"It is still one of our most honored myths. It was a dream given to one of the first. He felt it so significant that he wrote it down. This Hunter would lose his entire squad and encounter a being that defies everything he knows to be true in nature. Surely, you do not defy everything, but there is enough about you to convince me."

"I'm not convinced," Gabriel said, looking at Jeska.

"We told you earlier. You are the only one that has been able to successfully block our psychic probes."

"You helped me create those defenses, though."

"No, I didn't. I just told you to use them. They were always there."

Gabriel didn't say a word.

"You don't belong here, not in this place, in this time, good Sir. I know this much. You are the Aberration, good Sir."

"Is that why you didn't want to fight me?"

"Partly, yes. I knew that I couldn’t defeat you in battle, the stories have told us that. One on one, you are nearly unbeatable." If that were only the truth, Gabriel thought to himself.

"Stories? I thought you said there was only one."

"No, I only told you one. There are many more stories, stories of what is to come. They are mostly symbolic, but still, they are specific in their symbology. The Order is forbidden to engage the Aberration, even if it means their own death."

"Forbidden?"

"Yes, it is a standing order, one that was never thought to ever be used. For reasons unknown to me, the Aberration will not be destroyed. Also, they must know that you exist, and you exist here and now. This changes everything."

"Changes what?"

Jean Paul smiled. "You will not get all of my secrets for free, good Sir. I put an end to the fight when I realized what was going on and who you were. I don't want to die at all, let alone here. I have a family that I can get back to, that I want to get back to, before it's all gone."

"Before what's all gone?"

Jean Paul looked around and raised his arms. "All of this, the trees, the bushed, the birds, the grass, the air, the stars. If you don't get it, I am referring to the entire planet."

"What?"

"There is one quote from that time that they still tell us. I thought it was to instill a certain level of fear in us, so we would always perform our best, lest the Aberration grace us with his presence."

"What are you saying?"

"The quote goes something like 'With the Aberration soon comes the end of all things.'"