Part 14
"Please," You say quietly and with real sincerity behind the words. "Please, you have to believe me. We would never do anything to hurt Frankie. We couldn't!"
Mrs de Tayne looks at you with a mixture of suspicion and gratitude.
"You saved Frankie's life today, didn't you?" She asks directly, shaking off her husband's arm. You hesitate before you nod.
"Frankie was ...becoming... what I am and what John is. But the process is not easy. I think... I think that that was what killed your other children. We didn't hear them in time. It was pure chance that I heard Frankie."
"And what are you?" Mr de Tayne asks in a sarcastic tone, not as ready to believe as his wife. You leave John to answer that one.
"The next stage of human evolution." The eldest Tomorrow Person tells them solemnly and without any semblance of vanity or pride. He jaunts just a few fet to one side and the lifts a glass of water from the room's small table to his hand. Mr and Mrs de Tayne watch in stunned disbelief.
"How...how did you do that?" Mr de Tayne gasps.
John sighs.
"Psionic energy, telekinetic power." He shakes his head. "The terms have become so cliched they are almost meaningless."
It is his matter of fact tone as much as your earnest agreement that sways Frankie's parents.
"And our son has these...."
"Gifts." You provide. "Yes."
"What...what do we do?"
*
You and John meet regularly with Frankie and his parents in the next few weeks. Gladly you teach the boy to jaunt, to broadcast his thoughts telepathically. You teach him how to keep his abilities concealed and how to use his powers responsibly. There are things you don't teach him though. Although he visits the Lab twice it doesn't become the home away from home for him that it is for the rest of you. Although you stress that he has a responsibility to the rest of you to remain hidden, you don't stress the responsibilities that come with being a Tomorrow Person itself.
John and the de Tayne's have discussed the matter and while you're not sure you agree with their decision you abide by it. Frankie wont join you and the other Tomorrow People until he is rather older. He'll remain in telepathic contact, of course, but John is certain that the environment is just too hostile for a child his age at present. He is better off living as close to a normal life as possible until he is old enough to make decisions on his own. There is something about the way John says these things that leads you to suspect that there are things he hasn't plucked up the courage to tell you yet. Things that are being concealed from you 'for your own good' just as you are conceal things from Frankie.
The thought is disconcerting and vaguely depressing. You are overjoyed of course for the boost that Frankie's break out has brought to all four of you but even as Frankie's basic training nears completion, you feel your frustration and dislocation with this new decade and it's strange ways begins to return. Some days you stay in the Lab, some days go shopping, other days go to college with Paul for the company. They blur into one another and in all you feel the wrongness and anger with yourself for being so slow with the new technologies and new lifestyle you are living. It all seems so pointless at times.
You spend the one month anniversary of your arrival in the college with Paul and spend an hour wrestling with a computer as Paul types up an essay. For the first time you try to find out what happened to your parents but that fount of all knowledge, the internet, throws up so many references to couples of that name that you become completely confused and disorientated.
Frustrated and upset you leave the computer behind and stalk out of the building, ignoring Paul's somewhat concerned telepathic calls.
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