[[Written on the phone again!]]
They were about two minutes down the road before Fate's surprised blush subsided. Jack could sense her rationalizing away his behavior, tucking it into a neat little compartment where it didn't mean anything more than an absent minded gesture.
He made sure to scoff at that where she could feel it.
However, now was not the time to dwell on it. His own nervousness was bubbling up as they got closer to the service road. This was by no means his first crime scene, but it was his first with Fate.
He'd started helping his father as a teenager, just like the kids following Elliot on his rounds. Sentinels were unilaterally hands-on learners, and couldn't be taught with simulations or staged scenes. He started with simple things, a robbery scene or an arson investigation that the elder sentinels had already combed over. After he got food enough, he was put on-call with every other young sentinel in the region. Whenever his particular skills were needed, he'd be contacted.
As he grew older and his senses sharpened, he would work with a public service guide whenever he went out for a 'consultation'. Public service guides were often bondmates of other sentinels in that line of work, or had a weak enough pull that they weren't at risk to assist sentinels in dangerous or high stakes situations. It was a tough and oftentimes thankless job. A firefighter sentinel hearing heartbeats over flames and saving unconscious children made a far better headline than the guide who helped him focus.
It wasn't until only two years prior that his senses tipped out of his complete control. He'd been a strong sentinel for as long as he could remember, ranking high from a very young age in all five senses. Most sentinels didn't reach their peak until they were in their mid-twenties. Jack was reaching his father's peak as a teenager.
It was teenage invincibility that made him stop monitoring his senses. If he had known that they were still developing, he may have been able to maintain control for longer. His abilities continued to slowly increase until they reached a dangerous level. He remembers clear as day, getting into a cab while on tour with MMA. The cab hadn't been sentinel friendly and he'd smelled something that clogged his entire brain as he tried to focus and isolate it.
The doctor told him that he'd had a nearly fatal "zone". He was experiencing late-stage Finchausen's syndrome.
Complications from Finchausen's syndrome is the first leading cause of death in unbonded sentinels worldwide. Prior to international right-to-choose laws for guides it had been second only to deaths during bond fights. It was a peculiar affliction of sentinels that increased in risk the more senses a sentinel had that were enhanced. For Jack, a prime with all five senses operating at extremely high levels, it was only a matter of time before it hit him. In fact it had been a miracle that he even made it through his early twenties without a tragedy.
Finchausen's syndrome, or "Zoning" isn't caused by anything being wrong with the senses, but rather the senses being too high functioning for the body to adjust. Sentinels who suffer from taste-based Finchausen can't eat anything, and tend to die of dehydration because even the trace minerals in water are too off-putting. Touch-based Finchausen often shows up in full-body rashes from the slightest contact to allergens or sun. Sight-based sentinels have made themselves blind from hyperfocusing on single specks of dust in the light.
The two most dangerous types of Finchausen were the types that were hardest to notice from the outside, and the main reason that guides have always played an important role in sentinel society.
Hearing and smell are two of the most common sentinel abilities. Most sentinels with at least one ability have one of these senses. However, human society doesn't particularly rely on either of these to function. There are a lot of stray scents and sounds that color a day in society, and each one is a potential death trap for a sentinel.
In ancient times, when everyone was still runnign around with rocks and furs, most of these sounds were either familiar or easily identifiable. Now, in big cities full of millions of people flowing in and out, a strange new scent that couldn't be identified made Jack's entire world stop.
His pupils dilated as the world around him whited out. His ears filled with static and he could neither taste nor feel. All of his faculties centered on his nose, taking too-deep breaths to try to identify what it was. He'd never smelled it before. The driver had only heard the thump as Jack's head smashed into the safety barrier.
He had focused too directly, trying to hold the scent in his nose, he stopped breathing and his heart slowed, causing a cascade. It took two hospital guides to draw him back out of the zone.
The day he stepped out of the hospital he was told strictly that he would need to stop using his senses until he could find a bond. He could still enter the ring, but he couldn't help with his clan until he could safely focus again.
So of couse, Jack was a bit nervous. This was his first investigation since his 'big zone', and he had no idea how Fate would handle it. She wasn't squeamish around blood, this he knew, but a murder scene was quite different.
There was also one other major thing to worry about.
"Sentinel."
"Sentinel..."
"Jack."