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"You still letting old Cyrus fuck around with your brain?" Rob asked, poking Dagen's head with a thick forefinger to get his point across. "You don't know what he's doing up there, buddy. Probably turning you into a killer cyborg with a secret activation word."

Sam looked disgusted. "He can't be a cyborg. You've gotta be part machine to be a cyborg, and he's not augmented."

Rob ignored the correction. "One of these days, somebody's gonna say something totally random and you're gonna go apeshit. Code word...Frankenpussy!" he shouted, drawing the attention of everyone else in the small cafeteria. He then ran around the room acting very much like a three year old who'd just eaten an entire chocolate bunny.

"Do you know what the hell he's talking about?" Dagen asked his best friend, as his other best friend ran around making a fool of himself.

"No idea," the gorilla varius said, looking mildly perplexed at his friend's behavior. "What are you doing with Master Cyrus, anyway?"

"I dunno," Dagen admitted. "It's weird. It's just like my regular meditations, but it feels like something's about to happen, like a pressure's building up, or...something."

"You think it's some kind of test?" Sam asked, looking concerned. The look changed to anger when Rob danced close to them and whacked Sam on the back of the head. Lightning fast, Sam's arm whipped out and grabbed Rob's wrist before it could withdraw. Rob might have forty kilos of muscle mass on the gorilla, but Sam had at least six inches of reach on him. "Sit down," he commanded, quietly.

"Yeah, yeah," Rob said, taking his seat as he rubbed circulation back into his wrist. "Don't worry about it, Dag. The old fuck doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. They just keep him on because he's related to somebody important. Crazy as a shithouse rat, that one."

Dagen rather liked Master Cyrus and he directed the conversation to other topics. For once he was thankful that Rob was so easily distracted.

An hour later he was in the lotus position, seated across from "crazy" Master Cyrus in a meditation cell. "Empty your mind," the master requested, in his tremulous voice. "Let's try some contemplations today. You are the universe," he suggested. "Let's see if we get traction with that one."

What an odd way to put it, Dagen thought. But he cleared his mind as instructed and brought the object of his contemplation into view in his mind's eye. First he thought about the actual words, how each one sounded as he paraded them across his consciousness. Next, when the words were firmly in place, he thought about what they meant, both individually and as a group. Last, he thought about what the concept meant to him. How could one person be the entire universe? he wondered, how could an entire reality be inside me?

The unidentifiable *something* was building in his head, again. Strangely, it felt akin to the sensation preceding his first orgasm. It wasn't a specific feeling so much as it was a sense of urgency, of need, of fullness, of...

Dagen's eyes popped open to see crazy Master Cyrus, staring at him across the vast, eighteen-inch gulf of space separating them, only he suddenly didn't look so crazy. "Hello!"

In fact, Dagen thought, he just might be the most sane man he'd ever seen.

"It feels odd, doesn't it?" Master Cyrus asked, smiling at Dagen's confusion. "The human mind is capable of so many astonishing things, even as it comes from the factory. You'll be amazed to learn what you can do with yours, now that your blinders have been removed!"

***

"Clear your mind," Dagen said, his voice a comforting balm to the stresses of everyday life. "Let loose the tensions you are holding."

Victus closed his eyes and relaxed; meditation was hardly something new to the boy. A thousand days spent sitting on meditation cushions had inured him to minor physical discomforts and he quickly relaxed into the welcoming, quiet space of his own mind. With each breath, he visualized himself accepting the evil in the world, catalyzing it within his body, then expelling clean, pure energy. After a few moments, his father's voice penetrated his bubble of tranquility.

"Let's try again," he said, calmly. It was the same thing he'd said before every other failed attempt to... to do what? Victus honestly didn't know. They'd been going through these same motions for over a month, and he felt no different now than he had on that first day. But his father was nothing if not patient and today they would try again.

Dagen silently reached out and took Victus' arms, grasping them around the wrists in a centurian grip that allowed them both to remain as relaxed as possible while still maintaining the physical contact required by this exercise. "Just relax, Vic, and think about reaching out to the world."

Dagen had rarely felt as utterly inadequate as he did at that moment. As the man in charge of mental discipline and development, it was his job to assist the students in discovering the inner recesses of their own minds, to guide them in finding their inner sparks of consciousness and help them to channel those sparks in useful directions. It had all sounded impossibly hippy-dippy to Dagen when he was Victus' age; the spiritual rantings of a washed-up old charlatan who wasn't in touch with the real world.

The only thing was, that washed-up old man had known far more about the real world than Dagen or any of his pimple-faced compatriots would ever have guessed. Like every Kenzine, he vividly remembered the moment his eyes had closed and his mind had opened. He'd heard it said that the mental arts could be taught to anyone, but would be learned by few. He'd chalked that particular aphorism up as just another example of Kenzine inscrutability, until he'd forgotten his pubescent cynicism long enough to understand what his meditations teacher had been trying to teach him. One moment, he'd been trapped in his own skull, and the next... poof! Everything was different.

Now, thirty-odd years later, Dagen was hoping to have a similarly transcendental experience with his son - only it wasn't working. Top, bottom, left, right, inside, outside...all avenues had been explored. He wasn't being actively rejected, he just continually hit what felt like a solid wall of polished marble. He was positive that Victus was active behind that wall, he simply couldn't find a passage through it.

All of the sapiens children Dagen had shepherded who had been as ripe with potential as Victus had made the transition without fuss and had been welcomed into the ranks as Acolytes. Those who had the desire but not the ability could serve in other capacities, but would never be a Kenzine. Dagen had never encountered someone with as much talent as Victus who had no affinity for the mental realm. He'd even attempted to hand his son's development over to another instructor whom he'd felt was more qualified, but Abbot Wesley had refused to hear of it. Dagen and Dagen alone was to bring Victus in.

Most of Victus' mental arts teachers agreed that he made an admirable candidate. All who had been involved in his psychic upbringing were absolutely certain of it. Yet for some reason, Dagen could not ... break through? No, that was too strong a word, too aggressive. The process of opening a mind was as passive as sitting on a hill and watching the sun rise and Dagen had been absolutely unsuccessful.

After half an hour spent exploring every nook and cranny of his son's psychic wall and making no progress, Dagen abandoned the effort and took Victus out for ice cream. "I'm sorry," he said, as they rolled into town, "I know it's boring as hell to just sit there while I poke and prod."

"It's all right," Victus shrugged the apology off. "It gets me out of my contemplation exercises a half hour early." To Victus, Contemplations were the unwelcome bastard child of Analysis and Meditations, two other disciplines which he truly enjoyed. In Meditations, you cleared your mind and thought about nothing, which was refreshing. In Analysis, you discovered the hows and whys of the world, which was enlightening. In Contemplations, you pondered how you felt about things, which seemed very much to him like pointless mental masturbation.

Stepping out of the groundcar into the city's afternoon heat felt very much like stepping out of a spaceship into an alien world. Victus and Dagen would have passed unnoticed had they been wearing coveralls or work shirts like the local miners, but the fact that they wore Kenzine robes made them different. Different, in their case, was not synonymous with interesting and exciting. To this population, different meant alarming and maybe even dangerous.

Utterly unaffected by the curious stares of the people around them, Dagen stepped up to the counter and began poring over the buckets of ice cream behind the glass. Abashed, he smiled at the girl behind the counter. "I'm sorry," he apologized, "making a decision always takes far too long for me." Thankfully, the fact that they were the only ones in line reduced the pressure somewhat. Dagen's eyes wandered over the colorful variety as he read off the labels on each, nearly paralyzed with delicious indecision. Fudge ripple, or pistachio? Chocolate-cherry, or caramel-cream? Or perhaps a sorbet?

Agonizing minutes later, and only after motioning several other customers to be served ahead of him, he placed his order. Then, as if there were any doubt what the answer would be, he afforded his son the courtesy of asking, "What would you like?"

As he had a hundred times before, Victus said, "Vanilla, please," to the serving girl, "in a white cone." He enjoyed the pure simplicity of vanilla ice cream, and truth be told, he would have preferred it to be served in a cup. But the disappointed look on his father's face whenever he asked for that made him opt for the least intrusive cone instead.

Dagen mentally shrugged, wishing that his son would be a little more adventurous in life. There was so much out there to see, so much to do, that always making the safe choice seemed like anathema to him. Occasionally making a bad choice - to eat avocado fudge ripple, for instance - was a small burden when compared to the thought of never getting to taste chocolate-almond or salted caramel! Unfortunately, going out on a limb to experience new sensations wasn't his son's strong suit. He handed Victus his cone. "Would you like sprinkles this time?"

Dagen's question was full of such happy anticipation that Victus could not deny him. "Sure," he said, enjoying the feeling brought on by his capitulation. He would have preferred to have it plain, but if putting a few bits of candy on the top of his ice cream made his father happy, then it certainly wouldn't damage him to do so. Moving to the selection of toppings, he made his choice based on what could most easily be picked out and eaten separately. Using the small, stainless steel spoon to remove the smallest permissible portion of cookie crumbles, he distributed them evenly over his scoop and withdrew, watching as his father covered his fudge ripple in marshmallow goo and peanut butter chips.

As soon as Dagen had moved out of the way, a young boy reached up and grabbed the small spoon that Victus had just put back, wide-eyed in his intent to blanket his own ice cream under a cover of crushed cookies. "No, Martin!" his mother snapped. "Don't touch that!" She pulled a scoop from the neighboring pile of jimmies and shoved it into his hand. "Here," she said, "use this one instead."

Abruptly, Dagen moved between Victus and the assortment of toppings. "Come on," he said, a bit louder than necessary, hoping to distract his son from the woman, who was muttering something under her breath about dirty animals. "Let's find a spot outside where we can sit in the sun and watch the world go by." He hoped he'd moved in time to keep Victus from seeing or hearing the woman scolding her child for picking up the spoon that Victus had just touched. Sometimes, he thought to himself, the world is best enjoyed by ignoring it.

Once settled in the sunshine, Victus asked, "What is it we're trying to do? With our meditations, I mean."

Dagen sighed quietly. Questions like this almost never came up. One or two innocuous sessions were usually all that was needed to introduce someone to their mental capabilities, at which point the reason for their sessions became patently obvious. If the person was non-responsive, the sessions were terminated before the question could be asked. He didn't want to put his son under undue pressure that would hinder the process, but nothing he'd tried seemed to be working...

"Am I doing something wrong?" Victus asked, misinterpreting his father's reticence. His ears folded to the side as if he'd inadvertently done something shameful.

"No, no, my boy," Dagen said, immediately. "You are doing exactly what you should." He sighed. "If there is a failure, it is entirely my doing." Not getting through to his son was one thing, but leading Victus to believe he was failing was another. Making a tactical decision, he looked around to see that no one was within earshot, then broke every rule in the Kenzine manual by spelling out the basics of initiating mental contact, and about his attempts to guide Victus into an enlightened state.

"Why me?" Victus asked, once Dagen was finished. To Dagen's relief, the boy didn't look as angry as he'd feared at not being made aware of what they were doing.

"It's not just you," Dagen explained. "Every Kenzine acolyte has expanded their mind to see beyond their own limitations." He shrugged. "It's part of the process, but we certainly don't have the patent on it. A great many people could be far more than they currently are, if they could only surmount a few minor obstacles."

Victus seemed to accept the explanation, and if he seemed quieter than usual that evening, Dagen attributed it to the large amount of knowledge he'd been asked to assimilate. Their day ended with Dagen reading a chapter of a boy's adventure book aloud to his son, then sending him off to bed with a hug and a kiss on the forehead.

As usual, Dagen remained for several more hours after Victus retired, catching up on long overdue correspondence with friends across the galaxy. When the Kenzine finally collapsed onto his sleeping mat, his exhaustion was so complete that he did not wake when Victus slipped out of their bedroom and shut the door between them.

Creeping over to the desk that he and his father shared, he ignored his student terminal and headed straight for Dagen's. Certain lessons which had been assigned to him had been beyond the abilities of his student terminal and he'd needed to use Dagen's machine to complete them. He punched in the access codes he remembered his father using and once the machine was fully powered up he activated the communication gateway.

The tiny, red light inside the terminal's camera blinked to life. The gateway was active, but...how to dial? Having nobody to call he'd never had occasion to do it himself, but he must have watched his father do it a hundred times. Still, now that he was the one operating the controls, he wasn't entirely certain he was doing it right. He wished that he could activate the voice response system so he could ask the computer to make the connection for him, but without Dagen's authorization it wouldn't work.

There were six prominent speed-dial buttons at the bottom of the screen. Dagen spoke to the abbot nearly every night, and Victus thought that it seemed logical for the abbot's address to occupy the first preset. That left five buttons and he was certain that the person he sought would be behind one of them. One of Master Uhlu's pet sayings came back to him; "If faced with an impossible scenario, take the first path you come to. Then you have more energy left if you must later change your mind."

It annoyed him that anything Master Uhlu said would come in handy, but even a broken clock was right twice a day. Shrugging, Victus pressed preset number two and hoped for the best. At the last instant before the call connected, the boy thought that it might be prudent to duck beneath the desk and see who answered the comm before revealing himself. If it was a stranger, he could just pull the data cable out of the wall and terminate the connection without revealing himself. He was out of view and congratulating himself on his ingenuity mere seconds before the person on the other end of the line picked up.

"What the hell do you...." the gruff voice began, but then fell silent. Only then did Victus realize the error of his ways. It had been years since he'd spoken to the person he was calling, and that had been in passing. Since his father tended to call his friends late in the night after Victus had gone to bed, he had no idea what they sounded like. He would never know who had answered the phone unless he looked, and looking up past the edge of the desk would immediately reveal his identity. If he'd called the wrong person in the middle of the night and they were angry, he definitely wanted to remain anonymous.

"Victus?" the voice asked, suddenly sounding less crotchety.

"How do you know?" Vic asked, from beneath the desk.

"I can see your ears," the voice said, sounding amused, "and there's only one person I know who keeps a wall hanging of mating woodchucks displayed behind him. There's a wolf in Dagen's apartment, and if you're not Victus, I'll eat my hat."

Victus shot a glance at the piece of art hanging on the wall behind him. "It's two beavers," he said, indignantly, "and they're dancing."

"Dancing beavers?" Sam asked, disbelievingly. "Why the hell would they be dancing?"

"It was supposed to be dogs," Victus said, sounding injured, "but the tails bled through the wax and I had to make them into beavers."

"Oh," Sam said, feeling a little lost. "Of course." He shook his head to regain his focus. "What are you doing? Does Dag know you're calling me?"

"No," Victus admitted, "but I thought it would be easier to ask his forgiveness than obtain his permission."

Sam grinned. "I'm starting to like you, kid!" He sobered. "So what's up?"

"I hope I didn't wake you," Victus started. "Maybe I can call back if it's too late."

Sam shrugged. "It's the middle of the afternoon here. Are you okay?" he asked, looking concerned.

"Yeah," Victus said, then immediately contradicted himself. "No! It's..." he sighed. "It's complicated."

"It usually is," Sam agreed. He was standing in front of a rack containing glassware of all shapes and sizes. "Just start talking and see what comes out."

Vic took a deep breath and tried again. "Dad told me that if I ever needed another varius to talk to, I could call you."

"Sure, kid," Sam said. "Is something wrong?"

"That's just it," Victus said, "I'm not sure." Reaching behind him, he pulled Dagen's chair closer and sat on the edge of the cushion, leaning forward so the microphone was closer to his mouth. "May I speak to you about...sensitive matters?"

Sam picked up on Vic's use of the formal mode and put down the glass he was polishing. "Yes," he replied. "I'm here alone." Victus did not seem inclined to speak, so he prompted, "Do you wish to speak to me about varius matters?"

"Yes," he said, sounding relieved, "but I don't know where to start."

"It's okay," Sam assured him, his nostrils flaring slightly with concern. "How about I ask you some questions to start with, until you get warmed up? Are you hurt?"

"No," Victus answered, shaking his head.

"Then is Dagen hurt? or anyone else?"

"No, everyone's fine," Victus said, with a nervous glance toward the bedroom door, "but father has been poking around up here," he said, tapping the side of his head with a finger, "He's getting close to things he doesn't need to see, and I don't know what to do about it!"

The shrug of Sam's massive shoulders suggested that Victus was being silly. "Let him. He's your father."

"But he's a sapiens!" Victus hissed. "They can't know what's going on!"

"No," Sam corrected him, "he's Kenzine, and that's a whole 'nother ball of wax."

"I don't know what that has to do with it," VIctus said, shaking his head doubtfully. "This is all making my head hurt. I can't tell Master Dagen about this, I can't tell you about that..." He grabbed the shaggy fur on top of his head and tugged at it in frustration. "All these damned secrets! I don't know who to trust any more!"

"Victus." Sam's voice was strong and calm, and it gave the boy an anchor to hold onto. "I've been where you are today," he said, sympathetically. "I've walked a mile in those orthopedic shoes, and I know it's not fun." he thought for a moment and said, "I think I know how I can help, but you'll have to trust me." He looked at the monitor, and Victus got the impression that even across the vastness of space Sam could see into his eyes. "Do you?"

Victus sniffled. He hadn't realized it, but somewhere along the line his eyes had been watering. He knew that his father trusted Sam, so he thought that he could, too. He nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay," Sam said, sounding relieved. "I'm going to hang up and call you back in a few minutes. Don't go away, okay?"

Vic nodded again, and the line went dead. Sam hadn't given him any idea what he was planning or how long it would take, so he turned to his student terminal to get a head start on the next week's material. It had hardly had time to activate before Dagen's terminal announced an incoming connection. Did Sam need something else from him?

He activated the line, then sat up straighter when the image cleared to reveal the concerned face of Abbot Wesley.

"Oh, bother," Wesley said, rolling his eyes at his own foolishness. "I've done it wrong again. I didn't mean to startle you," he apologized, "This was supposed to connect to Sam first, and then to you."

"I'm here, Wes," Sam's voice chimed in. "Pull up my screen by flicking up from the bottom."

Wesley did as he was instructed, and Sam's image slid onto their screens. "There!" the abbot said, triumphantly "Take it away, old bean."

Sam cleared his throat. He seemed less casual, now that Abbot Wesley had joined them. "The way I see it," he said, speaking to Victus, "nobody around you knows what secrets the others are holding, so you have a right to be suspicious. By getting the abbot involved, it's going to save a lot of time. Do you trust him?"

Victus nodded, feeling very odd to be talking like this to a man he'd never met in real life, in front of one of the most powerful men in the universe. "Yeah," he said, weakly.

"Good," the abbot said, pulling his personal comm closer to him. He punched in a code and held it up to his ear. "Remember," he told Victus while he waited, "you trust me." A few moments later Victus heard Dagen's comm start going off in the bedroom they shared.

"Yes?" Victus heard Dagen's muffled, sleepy voice coming from the other side of their bedroom door.

"This is Abbot Wesley," the abbot said, formally. "I need you to come to your terminal. Quickly, please."

"What's wrong?" Dagen said, and Victus could hear him shuffling towards the door. "Is it one of the boys?"

"You might say that," the abbot responded, the hint of a smile on his face.

When the bedroom door opened and Dagen saw Victus engaged in a three way intergalactic call with his best friends, his mouth dropped open. Personal long distance calls were horrifically expensive, and conference calls were downright obscene. He rushed for his computer to terminate the call while he still had some money left to retire on, but was stopped by Wesley. "Don't worry, Max. Victus called Sam, Sam called me, and I initiated this call."

Dagen stopped in his tracks, looking perplexed. "Who died?" he finally asked.

"Nobody died, you silly goose," the abbot answered, "but we've managed to mess up, again."

Dagen rubbed his eyes with his hand in a vain attempt to clear away the confusion he was feeling. "What? How?"

"By treating Victus as if he were any of the sapiens boys," Wesley answered, patiently. "He's not, and now he's caught between two worlds."

"Oh." Dagen suddenly felt phenomenally foolish.

"It's not as if it's all your fault," Wesley grumbled. "I should have seen this coming from a mile off. Victus," he said, speaking directly to the boy, "You trust Sam, do you not?"

"Yes," Victus confirmed.

Wasting no time, the abbot turned to the gorilla varius. "Sam, under my authority, please tell Victus what we know about varius abilities."

"As far as I know, they know everything," Sam told Victus. "The abbot told me that he's given your father access to everything there is to know about us, so if there's anything you've been keeping from him, there's really no point. I think he's going to know it all pretty soon soon anyway," he added, cryptically.

The abbot shifted his gaze. "Victus. What Dagen has been doing is a time-honored method of allowing the psychic abilities of sapiens to emerge. It doesn't cause anything," he emphasized, "We merely hold a light so that others can see the way out of the cave they're trapped inside. There is absolutely no possibility that he could have harmed you using these techniques," he spared a stern glance at Dagen, "now that they have been properly learned.

"An important part of this delicate process is to not inform the subject what we are doing, lest they become overly introspective and poison the process," he explained, turning his attention back to Victus. "An individual who is under pressure almost never becomes enlightened to their potential. Once it happens the first time it comes far more easily, but the first time must happen naturally.

"You need to understand, this is why Dagen was poking around without telling you what he was doing. It's what we do with every potential acolyte, and we did it to you because it was all we knew to do. But," he said, acknowledging their error with obvious regret, "we were wrong." He spread his hands imploringly. "None of us knew."

"One of us did," Sam interjected, tersely. "I'd have been happy to clue you in, if you'd bothered to ask." Both Dagen and Wesley had the good grace to look embarrassed that they hadn't thought to bring Sam in on this issue.

Wesley cleared his throat, sidestepping Sam's comment. "Dagen. You have led dozens to enlightenment over the past few years, and I find no fault with your actions in this case. I authorize you to speak with Victus about anything you deem appropriate for a child his age. File this under the heading of 'education' and consider it a fulfillment of your vows."

"There!" he said, clapping his palms against the top of his desk. "No more secrets about this. Are we through? Is anyone angry or annoyed at anyone else?"

Sam and Victus immediately shook their heads. Dagen's hesitation was momentary, but sufficient that three sets of eyes rotated to look at him expectantly. He felt unconscious pressure to capitulate, but refused to bow to it. As always, he would give an honest answer rather than the easy one. "I am not angry," he said, "and my annoyance is rightly at myself for not having the foresight to consult with Sam about this sooner."

The abbot stared at him. "How old is Victus?"

"Eleven," Dagen answered, immediately.

"And how old are most children when they become acolytes?

"Thirteen,"

"And at what age did you become an acolyte?"

Dagen flushed with embarrassed. "Fourteen."

"Then this was an issue which should not have come up for another couple of years, yet another way in which this situation was unique." The abbot looked satisfied. "All I can say is, think more about consulting Sam where Victus is concerned.

"You are absolved. You may be angry or impatient with yourself for as long as you feel necessary, but the rest of us are going back to bed. Good night, my three friends," he said pointedly, favoring Victus with a playful wink before signing off.

Dagen said his goodbyes to Sam and promised to catch up with him in the morning. Settling back into the couch, he motioned Victus to come sit near him.

"I hope you're not angry," the varius said, his eyes cast downward.

"Heavens no," Dagen said. "I wish it could have been different, but I do understand why you couldn't talk to me."

"He's never fully honest with you, is he?" Victus asked, after a moment.

Dagen knew his son was talking about the abbot, and he raised an eyebrow at his son's temerity. "That's not quite true," he said. "You may rest assured that whenever Abbot Wesley opens his mouth, he will speak only the truth. But that's not to say that you'll always get the entire story."

"He's keeping you in the dark. Isn't that the same thing?"

Dagen shook his head. "Only if you've been lying to me by not telling me about your mental abilities."

"That's different," Victus protested.

"How?" Dagen asked, calmly.

Victus paused, unsure how to reply.

"If you have no answer, there is still an acceptable response," Dagen reminded him.

"I don't know," Victus said, then added, "It feels different, but I don't know why."

Dagen smiled. This was going to be a good lesson to teach. "It feels different because, as far as you are concerned, you have all the information. From where the abbot is sitting, you remain ignorant of a great many things. It is easy for the uneducated mind to believe that others are engaging in deception when it doesn't have all the facts.

"I have seen the encrypted files," Dagen went on, "so I can say with authority that what the abbot is doing is sensible, logical, and is the most ethical choice possible. You don't have all the facts, so the most logical thing for you to do is to withhold judgment until you are sufficiently educated."

"And when will that be?" Victus asked, sounding as frustrated as any other young man who has been told he didn't know what he was talking about.

"Possibly soon," Dagen said, "but possibly never. That's why it's rarely logical to feel as if you are in a position to render judgment on anyone." He blinked his eyes, sleepily. "I will benefit from some hot chocolate," he said, getting up from the couch and moving towards their small kitchen. "Do you want some?"

"Yes, please." Feeling lonely on the couch, Victus followed his father, seating himself in a chair nearer to where the man was working.

"I understand about...your people...needing to keep their special abilities hidden from sapiens." Saying that hurt a little. Dagen had very much wanted to think of Victus as being one of "his people" now that he had been adopted, but that had never really been true. First and always, Victus was varius. Perhaps that's why he'd been so excited that Victus was about to awaken and pass another of the hurdles to Kenzine membership sooner than any of his classmates, because it would be symbolic of their growing connection.

Dagen allowed none of what he was feeling to cloud his features as he continued. "What I wish were different - and I understand that this is my wish and not reality - is that I could be varius so we could share these things." He measured milk, sugar, vanilla and cocoa into a pan and began to stir. "There are secrets that the order wants me keep and you've got secrets that your culture wants you to keep." He shrugged helplessly. "I know what reality is, I just wish it were different."

Victus moved to join his father in front of the hot plate and put an arm around his shoulders. He noticed with surprise that he had grown almost as tall as his father. Resting the side of his head against Dagen's shoulder, he rubbed the side of his face against the warm terry cloth of the man's bath robe. The nap of the fabric almost felt like short fur to him. "It would go faster if you turned on the heat."

Dagen grunted in disgust and turned on the hotplate. "Sometimes I actually forget that we're not related. But it's times like this that I'm reminded that I'll never really be your dad."

The husky quality of Dagen's voice made Victus turn his head and look at his father's face. A solitary tear was working its way down Dagen's cheek. Like the man had done to him a hundred times before, Victus reached a handpaw to the back of his father's neck and squeezed gently. And, for the very first time, he withdrew the polished glass wall that stood between them and reached out, searching for his father's spark of intelligence.

When Dagen felt his son's consciousness brush against his own, he dropped the spoon into the cocoa he was stirring. Victus was not only there, he was more there than anyone he'd ever known. And when he felt the quality of the spirit behind that intellect, he knew the truth.

"You are my dad," Victus said, as he pulled Dagen to face him then hugged him tight. "Every bit as much as Targa was."