starbound - scomiche

006. genetics

Her face crumpled for less than a second, and Mitch laughed humorlessly through his nose. He guessed she really was lying, then, huh? She knew she was caught red-handed. "I just want someone to tell me the truth," he sighed, too exhausted to sound more serious. "Please."

She opened her mouth to speak again, but Kevin sighed from the cockpit, and he forgot the other two were even there, listening in on their conversation like they didn't even exist. "Just tell him, Kirst," the android said flatly, and Mitch remembered why he loved Kevin so much. "He deserves to know."

Her shoulders slumped in defeat, and she hung her head when she realized she'd been caught. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just... I don't want to scare you."

Rage crawled under his skin, and he bit his lip to defuse it. They were treating him like a child again, and he needed it to stop, immediately. "I can handle it. Cut to the chase." They couldn't expect him to win their war against a galactic empire and treat him like a child, could they? No. Not at all.

She folded her hands together and leaned in, and Mitch knew he was in for another one of her lengthy explanations. He wasn't sure if he really cared -- he wanted answers, after all, didn't he? Words were good for him at a time like this.

"The powers you wield aren't 'magic', Mitch," she said quietly, staring down at the space between her feet. "It takes the right genes. A mutation in your DNA that lets you control your magnetic bioelectricity, and in turn, the subatomic particles and energies around you."

His eyes widened and he unclenched his fists to stare at the palms of his hands. That's what his powers were? Just the manipulation of energy and subatomic particles? His heart leaped in his chest -- he's been waiting for an answer to that question for 24 years.

"Scott and I have never gotten along," she continued after a sad pause. His stomach dropped -- she just confirmed his suspicions that Scott tried to use her like he was trying to use Mitch, and his heart ached for what she must've been through. "Our powers are on the same wavelength, which isn't a good thing, like you'd think. Our magnetic charge is the same, and you know what happens when you try to push two negative charges together." She cleared her throat, and Mitch was sure she was about to cry. "We've always repelled against each other," she said, voice strained. "Never wanting to be close, feeling repulsed when we were... It didn't take him long to figure out I could never be what he needed."

She snapped her wide and teary eyes up to stare at Mitch so quickly that his breath caught in his throat. But she just scanned his face with a look of admiration, and a tiny smile twitched onto her lips when her eyes met Mitch. "And then you came along."

His heart felt like a lump in his throat, and he cleared it nervously. "Me?"

"You," she agreed softly, and her eyes drifted away again when her smile became sad. "He was... obsessed. He could barely even think about anything else, he could barely keep himself from kidnapping you and brainwashing you before your powers were finished developing. All he ever did was talk about you, about the power you held, about the destruction you would wreak, about how you would bow to him and worship him like he was your god, like I never would."

Mitch felt sick. If Scott had gotten to him before Avi did, would he have been the emperor's apprentice? Would he have followed him to the ends of the universe, following his every command without question? Would he be blissfully unaware that Scott was the enemy here? Would he never have to fight against the pull his powers had towards his enemy, because the enemy was the rebellion?