Part 17
You feel terror flood through you but you master it with a stern effort.
You jaunt, deliberately, into hyperspace.
Around you the psychadelic shimmerings bring back memories you have been trying to surpress. You feel yourself falling, terrified and afraid. You fall lost and without focus, just as you were so recently.
[Jay!] John's voice reaches you urgently.
It steadies you and reminds you of the one thing that will give you focus. Frankie floats in hyperspacen not far away in this dimension without space or time. His eyes are open and he looks at you with a kind of dreamy incomprehension.
[It's quiet here.] The little boy says. [The other place is so noisy. There were so many people all shouting and talking.]
[It's quiet here.] You agree. [But you can't stay here, Frankie. This place will kill you is you stay. Just as your own powers will kill you if you don't accept them. Frankie, we have to leave this place but you have to stay open to me, like this. I can help you but only if you trust me.]
The boy looks at you thoughtfully.
[I trust you, Jay.]
*
You jaunt back to the boy's bedroom together and from the moment he opens his eyes you know Frankie is a true Tomorrow Person now. His time in hyperspace has given his mind time to adjust, to accept the new senses bombarding it.
[Thank you.] He whispers in your head and even the whisper is louder than any thought you'd shared before. Then he looks tiredly at his parents. "Mamma?"
Frankie's break out adds complications to the dynamics among the Tomorrow People but it brings a lot of joy too. John has dealt with very young Tomorrow People before and he know how to reach the right balance between bringing the boy into his responsibilities and allowing him to lead a close to normal life as possible. Frankie's parents at least seem to be reasonable people. Having lost their elder two children to unexpected mental trauma, Frankie's continued survival is all they had hoped and worked for. You're not there when John explains gently that their elder children almost certainly died in the throes of unassisted breakouts but you know that he has impressed on them the importance of young Frankie beging correctly trained.
You find yourself responsible for that and accept the responsibility gladly. It gives you a role in life, something you had thought you lost. It takes you time to adjust to life on Earth in the 21st century but helping Frankie with his own adjustment has been the therapy you needed. You settle back into life slowly, accepting TIM's tuition, trying to decide what to do with your life. One day, perhaps you might go to the Trig and do what you can to aid the struggle going on that protects this planet from a threat it doesn't realise it faces. Or you might just stay here with John, Paul, Elena and TIM and fight the small fights of everyday life that the Federation's larger battles are protecting.
Either way, you realise just a couple of weeks after you arive in this new Lab, you know what you are and where your home is more clearly than you have ever known anything before.
Your home is here among your friends - people you can love and trust.
You are a Tomorrow Person.
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