The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Chapter 2: Enter the Psionic

*reader warning: heavy use of jargon and medical style terminology.  Please resist the urge to fall asleep, eyes glazed over in confusion and shock

As the man named Preacher sent his associate scurrying off on an impossible mission, the subject of their concern was checking in at the Alec Arms, a local hotel whose name he had snatched from the cab driver's mind.  Somewhat refueled from his stop at the small cafe just across the street, he was now ready to get down to business.

"If you could sign your registry card, we'll get you settled in as quickly as possible!" the pretty, young desk clerk chirped, her eyes sparkling as she passed the small card over to the powerful stranger, along with a pen.  Leaning against the polished marble front of the large reception desk, the big man took the card and pen, not even noticing the bright and hopeful smile the clerk directed at him.  As he signed an alias name with a flourish, the clerk reached under the desk and retrieved a computer access card in a plastic envelope.  When he was finished, she placed it into his outstretched hand.

"And here is your door key, Mr. O'Hara.  Your room number is 5001 and if you need anything, anything at all, my name is Marcie and it would be my pleasure to get it for you!"

The big man paused at the sensual tone added to the last sentence and looked up at the clerk.  Seeing that she had finally been noticed, Marcie almost unconsciously rearranged her dark, shoulder length hair and tugged her uniform straighter and tighter across her bust.  At this distance, the man in black couldn't help but catch the hopeful, sexual thoughts that were spilling out of the woman's mind despite his tight psionic shielding.  He smiled.

"Thank you, Marcie.  I'll keep that in mind," he answered softly then turned smoothly from the desk to walk quickly to the elevators at the eastern end of the lobby area.  When he turned around after stopping inside, he noticed her staring after him.  As the big man's eyes met Marcie's, they dropped and he could see her blushing.  Smiling in light amusement, the powerful stranger hit the key for the fifth floor.

By the time the elevator had reached the fifth floor, however, any trace of a smile was gone and the cold, almost emotionless mask he had worn at the airport before the assault on the telepath, had returned.  Moving smoothly and with the grace of a hunting tiger, he strode down the hallway towards the door marked '5001'.  The card key was quickly swiped through the electronic lock then the man in black carefully and cautiously opened the door, sweeping the room before him with telepathy to ensure he was alone.  Satisfied after a quick search, he continued inside, quickly closing the heavy metal door behind him and making sure it was locked with a jerk on the handle.  His bag then went onto the queen-sized bed, his heavy leather jacket swiftly following.

Unlike the trench coats he had run into at the airport, the man in black didn't need to generate an active telepathic pulse wave to scan a physical location.  Senses highly tuned by his abilities, he could've merely closed his eyes, letting his senses passively stretch out of his body to fill the room.  However, after tripping the ward in the corridor and triggering an attack from those self-same trench coats, he wasn't taking any chances.  Focusing his mind, the stranger began an intensive search of the room and any connecting chambers with several psionic abilities, including telepathy.

The simple chamber that was the primary sleeping area, quickly resolved itself into a blank cube within the man's mind, a featureless set of six planed surfaces with nothing to distinguish them from each other except their differing orientations and geometries.  Shifting shades of gray colored the surfaces, rippling with a life of their own as the man's senses washed over them again and again.

Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, the stranger then extended his senses into the two rooms attached to this one, a TV room and the washroom, quickly discovering they too held nothing of interest.  It was only when he began bringing his senses back to his body that he caught sight of it: a glowing mote of light slowly making its way across the northern wall.