Page 96 of Stardusted
At any rate, that had to be what he’d meant by our evolutions taking similar paths. Pladians and humans had a lot in common. At least where physiology was concerned.
Fascinating.
And sonotwhat I needed to be concentrating on right now.
“So, if yourhypothesis,” I arched a brow at him, “is correct and I really did absorb some energy from that crystal, what’s that mean for me?”
The marks on my palm gleamed faintly under the lamplight. Pladian writing. That’s what those little shapes and marks were. A cosmichowdy.
When I looked up, I found Sky watching me with a tight expression.
“What?” I asked, tensing.
“It’s hard to explain the nexus tech, but the halix was designed to impart information, Rae. So when I say you absorbed the energy, I mean…”
My heart thumped hard, a shocked thud against my breastbone. “You think I absorbed something more than just these marks.”
“I think you absorbed the message the halix contained.”
He said it gently, but the words rocked me to the core. Rooted me to the floor. I stared at him. He stared back, dead serious.
That couldn’t be true. I wasn’t some kind of human flash drive. I hadn’t downloaded an alien info cache. I’d remember. I’d be…I’d be speaking Pladian and doing advanced physics equations or something, right? There’d be signs.
No, he had to be wrong. I hadn’t unlocked any secrets of the universe just because I had some new artwork on my hand.
I scoffed, shaking my head. Everything had been normal. Ish. As normal as my life was right now.
“Sorry,” I said, giving him a tight smile, even as my stomach did a little dive roll. “I hate to tell you this, but I think I’d know if I got zapped with alien info.”
“You emitted a burst of Pladian energy at Oasis,” Sky said flatly.
“What?” I jerked back. “How do you?—”
“I ran a scan, and there was a residual signal.”
“What kind of scan? How?—”
“Not important,” he said, slashing a hand through the air. “You’ll have to trust me.”
“Trustyou?” I gawked at him. “You tried to wipe my memories and now you’re saying I’ve got some kind of…some kind of otherworldly download in my brain! What message do you think I got zapped with?”
His jaw tightened. “Rae, I can’t tell you everything. You’ll have to trust me. I’m right about this.”
“About my brain being stuffed with new information from an alien crystal info cache that exploded.” Words I’d never imagined uttering. “I think I know my own mind.”
“Be that as it may,” Sky said, still in that calm, sure tone, “that’s got to be why you remember what happened at the university and nobody else does. The halix…it changed something in you. Nullified the neural manipulation.” I reeled a little at the termneural manipulation, but he plowed forward. “Maybe the ancient Pladians messed up and our tech interacts with human brains differently than anticipated. I don’t know. There’s no way to know without digging into this more?—”
“Digging into mybrain?”I whisper-yelled hoarsely.
“No, I—” Sky broke off on a curse and pinched the bridge of his nose for a second before letting his arm drop and pinning me with an intense look. I’d busted through the calm, it seemed. “Rae, you’re in danger. You’ve got to at least believe me thatsomethinghappened.”
“Yeah, I nearly got annihilated by a murder robot!”
He didn’t bat an eye. “You haven’t had any symptoms at all? Nothing’s different?”
I snapped my mouth closed and glared instead. It couldn’t be true. I’dknow,right? I fisted my marked hand tightly. “So is this why I’m in danger, then?”
He didn’t answer right away, and when he looked away, I read the conflict in his tense profile. He was struggling againwith his damn conscience. That stupid Creed. Annoyance rose beneath the shock and rising fear.
