The stupid sunrise wakes me up, and is followed by a diffuse sense of panic. I release the buttock I am still holding, and gently crawl from under Timo's head, trying not to wake him up. There are only three of us in the house, Timo and me and Katie. Where the hell is everyone?

Trying not to panic too much I extend my Sight to look for everyone. The first thing I notice is that both cars are gone, ours and Dana's. The second thing I notice is Jamie at the bottom of a nearby lake. Naked. Reading some magazine about online computer games by the light of his own extremely glowing eyes, drinking something that appears to be a cup of tea and in total violation of the laws of physics is not mixing with the water all around it, and absent-mindedly shooing away the curious fish. He doesn't appear to be bothered by the lack of air, or by the fact that the water is just above freezing. Usually Jamie dislikes cold water with about the same intensity with which Saddam disliked the American invasion of Iraq. He seems to be breathing, too, or at least his ribcage is going through the motions.

I am not sure what it's all about, but I think I need to yell at him for unseemly behavior. It's hard to define in which way it's unseemly but I am quite sure it is.

There are no clothes or towel on the wooden pier by the lake, so I put my clothes on, take a towel with me, and slip out of the house. On the way to the lake I scan more area for the rest of them. Rudy and Dana are about 60 km away and driving towards Helsinki. The way they are kissing in a car, they will never make it, and it looks quite disturbing, now that Dana looks like a man to the Sight.

Tarja is about 30 km behind them, in hot pursuit.

I take out my phone to call her, and then notice a Sight-free spot about 600 meters from me, moving closer and closer towards the lake and Jamie. Shit! And I don't have a gun or anything, and Jamie is out of my mind-sense range. Screaming a mind-sense alarm to everyone who can hear, and hitting sleeping Katie's mind back in the cottage with my mind-sense as violently as possible, I start running towards the lake, trying not to be easily perceived by the regular human senses of whoever might be watching. The mind-violence has paid off, and back in the cottage Katie and Timo are scrambling for clothes and weapons.

The Sight-free spot appears on the road, centered around a man, whom I can now see with my own two eyes. He is tall and broad-shouldered, very tanned, brown hair and light eyes - the exact color is hard to make out at that distance. Mid-forties, maybe, hard to say. He is smiling and going down to the lake.

Jamie comes up from the bottom and sits on water in the pose of Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue. The impression is somewhat spoiled by the fact that he has a cup of tea in his hand, but the pose is surprisingly feminine and seductive.

The stranger - Michael? - comes to the pier and recoils.

"That's not nice," he says. I get closer to make sure I hear everything. Jamie acknowledges my presense. The stranger doesn't, and I don't feel him touch my mind in any way. Katie and Timo are way behind me, and I signal them to stop.

"Could you, hmm, be yourself again?" the man asks. Jamie nods and sits up in a much less pornographic pose. I can't see what kind of illusion he showed to the man.

"That's better," the man smiles. "I am Michael Hamilton. You have probably heard about me. Nice to meet you." He extends his hand.
"Jamie Hallgrimsson. Yes, I've heard about you, nice to meet you too," Jamie shakes his hand.

Jamie, Michael and the lake disappear into thin air, leaving the empty lakebed. Shit. I start running towards the place where the lake used to be, I don't know why.

A few seconds later the lake reappears, pouring down from nowhere at an altitude of about two meters above its normal surface, causing a tiny lake tsunami. From the same hole in the fabric of reality falls out Jamie, ass-first and screaming "fucking moron", something black-and-white attached to his stomach. He is followed by Michael who falls right on top of him with an "oops", and seven penguins who are screeching whatever sounds of outrage a penguin is capable of producing. The black-and-white thing riding on Jamie turns out to be another penguin.

This all happens very fast. The last thing to come through is a huge piece of ice. It's coming down right on Michael's neck in the manner of a guillotine, but Jamie waves a hand at it and it melts instantaneously in midair, showering Michael with icy water.

"Fucking moron!" Jamie repeats himself. "What the fuck do you think you are doing?"
"Ugh," says Michael sheepishly. "You have my apologies. I did not mean to... What are we gonna do about the penguins?"
"Not my problem." Unfortunately just at that moment a penguin tries to climb on him, making it his problem.

"Mira, what the hell is going on?" asks Elina's voice in my head.
"What can you See?"
"Part of that lake is hidden from the Sight, but I just saw the lake disappear and reappear. You are sitting on the ground in the bushes very close to the blind spot. Katie and Timo have assumed what they think are good shooting positions some 100 meters from the blind spot on higher ground. Jamie is probably in the blind spot. Rudy and Matthew are approaching Kouvola and doing unheterosexual things in the car. Tarja is driving in the same direction, behind them."
"A man just came, and he introduced himself to Jamie as Michael Hamilton. The Sight-blind spot is centered on him. He disappeared together with Jamie and the lake. They came back a few seconds later, and eight penguins with them. Any good advice?" I am not sure I should have told her all of this, or any of this, but right now I don't really care.
"I'll be there after eleven and sort everything out. Be careful and try not to kill anyone."
"Would never have figured that out by myself."
"No need to be sarcastic."
"Makes me feel better."

Michael has managed to climb onto the pier, where he stands up, spreads his legs and arms and concentrates for a second. His clothes and hair become instantly dry. Jamie is standing right on the surface of the lake in front of the pier. He bends down, grabs some water, and it instantly solidifies into an ice sword. He would look very cool, standing there on the water with an ice sword, but the perfect coolness of this sight is much spoiled by the fact that a penguin is standing on the water right behind him and is trying to peck him on the bottom. He sighs and waves his sword behind him to scare the bird off.

"Faye was right," says Michael. "You are a bit ridiculous. She did not mean it in a bad way, and neither do I."

"I came to talk to you," he adds after a pause. Jamie looks at him questioningly. I crawl up much closer, keeping my mind firmly closed. If anyone notices me, they don't let on.

"It's great to see you alive, in a manner of speaking. I've always wondered what happened to you afterwards..." starts Michael.
"'In a manner of speaking?' In any case, we have that thing called Google, you could have satisfied your curiosity long ago."
"You are aware that you are really dead, right?"
"No, it's news to me. Man, I've dropped some acid myself when I was young... but you have sure overdone it."
"You don't believe me?"
"That much acid I haven't dropped."
"You have died on May 24, thirteen years ago, in Nepal, while trying to get down from Mount Everest." The date gets some kind of a reaction from Jamie, and is vaguely familiar to me too, but I can't place it.
"On May 24th thirteen years ago I was in El Paso, Texas, checking out the local museums and tex-mex food." Now that Jamie said it, I remember that trip to El Paso and recognize the date. That was when two of his friends really did die climbing Everest. He had stopped climbing two years before that.
"No, Jamie, you were on Mount Everest and died there. That's why you need to feed on other people and don't need to breathe. You are dead."
"I am breathing, and I am standing here arguing with you. I think the technical term you are looking for is 'alive'. But I am sure you didn't come here to argue metaphysics."
"No, I just need to ask you some things. Can you tell me what happened on the summit of McKinley when you were there?"
"Err, no." Jamie is clearly surprised by the question. "I wasn't there, either."
"What do you mean you weren't there?"
"I mean I wasn't there. Physically."
"Why? Where were you?"
"At a camp at about 4500 meters. Not everyone who goes climbing a mountain reaches the summit. I didn't."
"Do you know anything that happened up there? How did the whole trip go?"
"It sucked from the beginning to the end. Everyone was fighting, I was in no condition to climb, and it was bloody cold."
"Tell me everything from the beginning to the end."
"We were rather ill-prepared, and there was a lot of badly compatible personal chemistry involved. I think the whole thing would have fallen apart before starting if I hadn't kept it together with the Skills. And then I didn't pass the medical clearance, so I figured it was a bright idea to do some blood-doping and make Molly think she cleared me. The result was that I needed suplementary oxygen at 4500 meters, and they had to leave me in a camp. They left Ang and Meiko in the next camp, and continued climbing. I got some rest, joined Ang and Meiko, and together we waited for the rest of the team to come down."
"Go on."
"That's pretty much it. They had some fight on the summit, split up, then there was some freak storm. Ang and I went out in the storm and found half-frozen Brian. After that we had to call the park rangers to the rescue because we couldn't get him down by ourselves. Faye, Sean and Molly were above the storm and got down safely by themselves."
"OK, I'll tell you what I am getting at: could Faye cause storms at will?"
"I don't know. I've wondered myself. I think you'd be in a better position to know."
"I knew she was a potential."
"She never told me."
"I never told her." Michael looks like he regrets it now.
"Why do you wanna know it now?"
"I think we can find whoever killed her."
"Some Angolan gangsters."
"It wasn't random violence. It was a contract murder. Of Faye, specifically. The rest of you were collateral damage."
"Have you talked to the police, then?"
"Don't you want to find the killer yourself? Or rather ourselves?"
"No."

Michael clearly didn't expect this answer.

"Don't you want to avenge her death?"
"I do, and that's what the courts and the police are for."
"We have enough power between the two of us to go after him ourselves."
"You'll have to do it without me, then. Personal revenge is not my thing."
"Why? Don't give me any bullshit about being a good citizen."
"A lot of people find personal revenge satisfying. It gives them some sense of closure. Me, it just makes me feel hollow and sick. What's the point of committing murder if you get nothing useful from it, and no satisfaction?"
"Punishment has a very useful social function."
"Yeah, I am all for punishment when inflicted by somebody else."
"All right," sighs Michael. "I see. I'll find myself another avenger," he adds meaningfully.
"If you approach her with that idea, I'll eat you."
"Says the man who doesn't believe in revenge."
"I am not doing it as revenge. I am just making a credible threat."
"In light of our conversation it's not very credible."
"Do you know what happened to the last guy who threatened my wife and friends?"
"But I am not threatening anyone! I am sure that your wife and some of your friends would be overjoyed to hear my suggestions."

Michael is right, too. The thought of catching the people who killed Faye doesn't feel half bad.

"Jamie," says Michael softly. "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing," answers Jamie, still standing on water and shooing the penguins away with an ice sword.
"You have so much power, why don't you use it?"
"I use it all the time."
"I mean for something real."
"This conversation is so deja vu."
"You know that enlightened despotism is the best form of government."
"I know no such thing, but feel free to try."
"What about you?"
"Me? I don't feel particularly enlightened."
"This can be fixed."
"By you? I am sure."
"You could have anything you want."
"I already have everything I want."
"I can't believe it," sighs Michael. "I though they only have people like that in the movies. You know, the ones who get the most amazing superpowers and then all they do is whine 'I just wanna have a normal life!'."

The illusion that Jamie conjures in response to that is of himself about four times the natural size, glowing impossibly brightly, with some complicated even-brighter symbols on his skin, probably copied from some of the cooler supplementary Exalted books.

"I don't just wanna have a normal life. I do have a normal life, I want it to remain so, and I have enough power to enforce that!" His ice sword, now also four times its real size, glows blue.

"Ok, ok, point taken," says Michael.

The illusion disappears and Jamie returns to whatever he considers his normal life, standing naked on the lake's surface and threatening a penguin with an ice sword.

"Seriously, Michael. I have a life, a wife and a butt, and I am just trying to live the life in such a way that the wife wouldn't kick the butt too often."
"I see. I respect that."
"Would you like some teaaaargh!" Jamie asks, as the penguin behind him finally manages to peck him.
"Yes, thanks."

Jamie throws away the sword, summons his teacup and his magazine, and grabs the penguin, no small feat considering that the huge bird weighs at least half as much as him.

"Now who is gonna be penguin curry?"

The penguin screeches and puts up a good fight.

They start walking up the road towards the house, Jamie whistling a song that Faye used to whistle all the time. This is some kind of a challenge, just to rub Michael the wrong way. His nudity is also some kind of a challenge, although at this point he doesn't have much choice except an illusion of clothes. He chooses not to bother with illusory clothes and just sort of radiates the unshakeable conviction that his body is a lot better than that of the other guy.

This is not in fact the case, at least if Michael's body looks half as good naked as it does dressed. It's not that he is very handsome, but he is the kind of man you notice, and he does have a really great body. The face is not bad either, but not my type, and his skin is too damaged by age and sun.

As they come closer to where I am sitting I step out of the bushes.

"Good morning. Would you like a towel?"
"Yes, thanks, good thinking." Jamie makes himself instantly dry and reaches for the towel, trying not to let the penguin go or peck him.
"Let me hold your bird," Michael takes hold of the penguin and is rewarded with a mighty peck in the shoulder.
"My apologies, ma'am," he tells me. "Didn't mean to scare you yesterday. Didn't mean to escalate the violence, either."
"But of course you didn't. I did." I think, but decide not to say.

I touch Jamie's shoulder, and it feels unnaturally warm, or rather what would have been naturally warm for a person in a room, but not for a person who just got out from a cold lake. Whatever was keeping him warm in the lake isn't working anymore, though, and for all his naked bravado he is getting cold and wishing for warm clothes. His mind is mostly shielded, but the uppermost thing leaking from it is the excitement at the idea of diving without the scuba gear, using his new Skill, and plans of a possible diving vacation in Thailand. Fucking Jamie, can't think of anything serious at all. Come the end of the world, hellfire and brimstone, and he'll show up late, and with a bag of marshmallows.

He is wearing an illusion of brown eyes. His real eyes are glowing blue under it, very strongly, but the glow is subsiding.

Ahead of us Katie and Timo step out of a bush, pistols in their hands. Jamie starts shielding their minds from Michael's prying.

"What the hell are you doing with the penguin?" asks Katie.
"Penguin curry."
"Don't be a moron."
"It pecked me on the ass."
"It shits on the floor, you are cleaning it up."

Jamie considers this for a second.

"OK, let it go." Michael releases the penguin and it buggers off in the wrong direction.

"Hi everybody, this is Michael," says Jamie in the way of introduction. "Don't shake his hand, he teleports people to some dungeon dimension that's cold and full of penguins. I had to take some of his power to teleport us back."
"It's called Antarctica," Michael smiles, "and I didn't mean to do it." He holds out his hand.
"Hi, I am Timo," says Timo in a friendly tone, but doesn't take the hand.
"Let me make one thing clear," says Katie. "Jamie here is a daft bugger who is too soft for his own good. If you try the teleporting thing with me, I will set you on fire, even if it means that I have to fly all the way back across the world on Qantas in the economy class."

She shakes Michael's hand, simultaneously exhaling a five-meter tongue of flame away from us, setting on fire a nearby tree and nearly hitting the penguin. "Oops," she says.
"Whoa, whoa," says Michael. "The tree is quite innocent and didn't try to teleport you anywhere."
"Where is everybody else?" asks Timo. "Tarja and Rudy and Matt?"
"They are not in the house? They were there when I went for a swim." Jamie looks surprised. Michael looks even more surprised.
"Rudy and Matt," I say a bit more sourly than I meant to, "are making out in a hotel in Kouvola. Tarja is still driving there."
"Oh."

"Tea or coffee?" asks Jamie when we reach the cottage, pulling his clothes on.
"Coffee, please. You really are very nice."
"What do you want?" asks Katie.
"To avenge Faye's death, to find out whether she had Skills, and to rule the world," answers Jamie for him.
"I wouldn't put it that way," says Michael, somewhat taken aback.
"To become a global leader?" grins Timo, who has played company meeting bingo too many times. "Do you also have a mission and a vision?"
"I am serious."
"Me too," says Jamie. "But I seriously don't know whether she had Skills. Bad weather did seem to happen when she was angry, but then we did live in Edinburgh and London."
"Would you let me see your memories of her death?"
"Yes, but you'll be disappointed. I don't remember much."

Jamie carefully opens one segment of his memory. I gotta ask him how to do that. Like the rest of his memories, this one is very precise and vivid. Eighteen people sitting around a campfire, tents around them, the grilling, the beer, the laughter, the plans for the next day. Empty space. Static. Hospital in London.

"You don't remember a shit!"
"No."
"How did they manage to overpower you?"
"Good question."
"Do you know who those attackers were and where to find them?" asks Katie.
"Katie, I need to talk to you in private," says Jamie and takes her to the bedroom. I take over shielding Timo's mind.

"Those two probably won't go with you," I say. "But I will. I have no problems with revenge."

Michael looks disappointed.

"Not good enough, am I? Why does everyone want Jamie?" I ask him.
"Some people obviously want Rudy," he thinks, clearly taking that personally. "He is very powerful," he answers.
"He has a very powerful mind-sense, but how much do you need against normal people? I have enough, and for that matter so do you. The point is, Jamie doesn't want to do it, and I do. But by all means, try to convince him. I am coming with you, whether he is coming or not."
"I am not taking you with us. I don't want you to get hurt."
"What did you want from me yesterday?"
"To talk with you in private."
"Here's your chance."
"In private." Michael points at Timo with his eyes.
"I'll tell him anything you'd tell me, so you can just as well talk in his presense."
"Even if I told you that somebody might want to kill him for knowing it?"
"Especially if you told me that somebody might want to kill him for knowing it."
"Even if I told you how to get Jamie back?" Michael switches to telepathic communication.
"Back where?"
"Back together with you. You could get Timo to stop fucking women on the side, too."
"Read up something on open relationships, will you? And if I wanted to be with Jamie I wouldn't have broken up with him in the first place."
"Don't the Skills make him sexier?"
"Not unless he uses his newfound healing Skill to grow more muscle in some places."
"Women are strange."
"Have you had one of a non-inflatable kind?"
"I used to date a coworker. Why are you so hostile?"
"Because I don't understand what you want from us, because you are looking for fault lines in our relationships, and because you have already found the one fault line that existed. You sent that girl here."
"I did not send her here for that! It was her own idea!"
"What did you send her here for? And how do you pay her?"
"To help me be persuasive when I get here. I don't pay her, I just told her it's very important for my research, and promised to share the results".
"And is it?"
"Is it what?"
"Important for your research."
"Yes. Very."
"Excuse me. I need to make a phone call."

"I gotta make a phone call," I tell Timo. "Come outside with me, I can't leave you here with Faust."
"You surely meant Mephistopheles," laughs Michael.
"No, I am pretty sure I meant Faust."

We go outside and I start dialing Tarja's number, then try to See Rudy and Dana, who are in bed, and doing the kinds of things that can only be described as unimaginable. I send Rudy an SMS saying "conjure a better illusion, guys, your sex antics look horrible", and then call Tarja.

"Hi."
"Hi, what are you doing?"
"Following Rudy and Matt."
"Don't do anything stupid, it's not worth it."
"I just wanna talk with him."
"Not sure it's a good idea."
"It might be. Remember how it was when you broke up with my brother?"

I didn't break up with her brother, I didn't date her brother, and she doesn't even have a brother, but I am not sure what she is trying to say except "something is not as it seems".

"Is there any way I can help you?" I ask.
"Not right now, no. But I might ask for help."
"Be careful. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. And especially don't do anything I would do."
"Heh. Bye."

Michael appears in the doorway.

"There is something else really important I gotta tell you," he says.
"I am all ears."
"Jamie is very dangerous."
"Not really, but he will be if you keep getting on his nerves."
"You don't realize how powerful he is, and how unstable. He is our world's equivalent of a madman with a nuke."
"'Our world' like 'Community'?"
"Yeah."
"No, he is your world's equivalent of a madman with the world's only nuke, and you just want the nuke for yourself."
"Madman. Nuke. Pissing off. Bad idea. Just a thought," contributes Timo.
"I can see the future," says Michael.
"Good for you." Can he? Wiki says that nobody can, but he probably wrote that entry himself.
"Jamie will kill you. Next week."
"How well can you see it?" Shit, this can't possibly be true.
"Well enough."
"I mean, how much of the future do you see, and is it changeable or not?"

The sound of a pistol slide chambering a round.

"Have you predicted your death today?" asks Timo, pointing a pistol at Michael's head. I don't know whether he'd shoot, and neither does he.
"No," says Michael, and Timo flies about fifteen meters into a tree, somehow managing not to discharge the gun in the process. I hear the sound of breaking bones and run there, ordering Michael to kill himself and meaning it.

"You are pretty good, but not good enough," he laughs from behind me. "And don't get so worked up, he can heal almost instantaneously, just like me."

Timo is indeed getting up and swearing. After a few seconds he seems no worse for the wear.

"Shouldn't have tried to shoot him," I tell him. "I shot him four times in the center of mass yesterday, and here he is."
"Oh. Yeah. Shit."
"Word of advice, Mira," says Michael. "If you want to shoot a man my size in the center of mass, you gotta aim higher than yesterday."
"Did I shoot you in the nuts? Heh. Thanks, I'll keep this in mind."

"Hey", says Jamie from the doorway. I did not notice when he and Katie appeared there. "Do you realize that if my wife decides to set you on fire, they only thing I'd be able to do is waving my hands and screaming 'honey, please don't!'? I am pretty good at it but it won't help much."
"Don't worry, I'll be OK."
"Could you stop being an asshole? In an hour you've told us more bullshit than the British government since New Labor got elected."
"Jamie is a fairly nice guy, but every person has a beast inside just waiting to be unleashed," says Timo, deliberately overdramatic.

Michael shows us a telepathic image of the beast he thinks Jamie has inside him. It's a white and fluffy samoyed puppy with cute pointy ears, and I must say he has a point. Jamie laughs, and responds with a telepathic image of the puppy morphing into a huge and furry gray wolf, who chases Michael comically around the house.

"Seriously. Stop throwing my friends around. Did you see all the things I did in the lake? If this is indeed what the water elemental Skill looks like, then I am for all effects and purposes the god of water. You, on the other hand, are water. Be nice."
"OK. He is no worse for the wear, and he did try to shoot me in the head," Michael points at Timo. "Besides, water Skill or not, you can't kill me. I can't be killed, and neither can he," Michael points at Timo again.

This is enough to shock even Timo.

"You mean we are... immortal?"
"No, just invulnerable.We can die from old age eventually. Not from injury or disease, though. Mind you, I don't know what happens if you stand in the center of a nuclear explosion or something like that, but regular things like bullets, knives, falls, burns, etc., can't kill you. Or any person with the high healing Skill."
"Sunlight? Garlic?" asks Katie hopefully.
"I surf all the time," Michael runs a finger along his tanned forearm, "hasn't killed me yet."
"What about them?" asks Timo, pointing at the three of us with his eyes.
"Oh, they can heal their own diseases, but it takes a lot more time and conscious effort than for us. They are perfectly killable though. They have a little edge on the normals, a couple more minutes to bring them to a hospital, that sort of thing. But not much." I am not sure if I am hearing a threat in his words.
"No, you aren't. He doesn't mean to threaten right now," comments Jamie telepathically.
"Have I been thinking out loud? Did he hear me?"
"No."
"Do you think the coffee is ready?" asks Michael.

"Tell me more about the McKinley summit," he asks Jamie while stirring sugar into his black coffee.
"I don't know anything else. Out of the people who were there only Brian MacDonald is alive, you might want to ask him."
"I tried. Mr. MacDonald told me he was gonna shoot me with a shotgun if I come anywhere near him."
"What a coincidence. That's exactly what he told me, too."
"How many people know about you, Jamie?"
"You mean apart from the Community and everyone who picked a fight with us during the last two days?"
"Yeah."
"Quite a few, now that I think about it."
"How could you let that happen?"
"When you have one teammate freezing to death 200 meters from you and another whom you need to convince that you really can find the way there and back in spite of zero visibility, privacy is not the first thing on your mind."
"And you didn't wipe their minds?"
"Didn't know how to do it."
"Damn teenagers."
"What is it all about?" asks Katie.
"Just trying to teach Jamie the ethics of dealing with the normals."

Timo snorts and inhales his coffee.

"Anyway - would you guys help us with the research? I just need to ask you some questions. Could have asked by IRC, but since I am here already..."
"Depends on the questions," asks Katie, takes Jamie's laptop and boots it.
"Just the kind that we ask from everyone. I am trying to find out how Skills happen to people, and why. Where were you born, where did you grow up?"
"New York," I say.
"Edinburgh," says Katie. "Jamie, Rudy and me."
"Born in Espoo," says Timo. "Grew up in Helsinki. You look disappointed."
"I am. Almost everyone with the Skills is born and raised within 50 km of some sea coast. An exception would have been exciting, but no such luck."
"How rare are the exceptions?" asks Katie, scientific interest rising.
"There were 26 in all recorded history. 17 of them born in eastern Switzerland or western Austria, 9 in the Baghdad area."
"Interesting."
"Tell me about your families. You first," Michael nods at Timo.
"Family? I am an only child, and my mom is a meteoroligst and my dad..."
"I wouldn't tell him about the living relatives," growls Katie suspiciously.
"I meant genealogy," says Michael.
"Huh! How am I supposed to know? My father's father was from Viipuri and his last name was Nurminen and my father's mother was also from Viipuri and her last name was Laine, and my mother's father was from Helsinki, his last name was Lehtola, I think his family came from around Kuopio but I am not sure, and my mother's mother was from Rauma and I have no idea what her maiden name was. I don't know much about the greatgrandparents."
"Pity."

Katie is looking at the Community's wiki, Michael's own page. There is indeed quite a lot about his ancestry and family here (mostly Scottish and English with a bit of Irish, some of those with long roots in Australia, some recent immigrants). She looks through a few more. Elina Lindroos, a long list of ancestors from various parts of Pohjanmaa and Lapland. So probably Michael's questions are legitimate, although I wish he were asking them from Australia on IRC. In any case with his powers he can probably find all the living relatives just by watching us.

I look at his page again. There is a mention of Faye there, her mother was his father's sister. Probably still is. Haven't seen her since Faye's funeral, which is probably bad of me.

"She is all right," says Michael. "Still living in Edinburgh."

Argh, have I forgotten to shield my mind?

"You?" asks me Michael.
"Me what? Why are you asking this? Do the Skills run in families or something?"
"Not very much, but the Skilled are distantly related to each other every once in a while. More often than randomly taken people, anyway."
"How distantly?" Katie is curious.
"Usually very distantly, 5th or 7th cousins or something. Jamie and his grandmother are the closest related pair that we know of. Or rather were until yesterday, now of course we also have you and your brother. Where is he, by the way?"
"Out in the world," shrugs Katie, "following the call of his dick. You should know better, you sent that girl here to lure him away."
"I didn't! I already told Mira! It was her own idea!"
"He just wanted her to be here to help him against us," says Jamie.
"That's what I told her," says Michael. "Really I sent her here for you," he means Jamie.
"Why, thanks, but it did not work. I am too old for the teenage silliness and too young for midlife silliness, and she is not my type. Should she gain extra thirty or so centimeters of height, please send her again."
"I didn't mean for sex! I meant... to feed on."
"What the fuck are you taking me for?" Jamie is horrified.
"A man who feeds on others' energy and Skills?"
"Yeah, but I don't eat people!"
"I didn't mean for you to eat her completely! I just wanted to see you feed a bit on her Skills - it doesn't leave any permanent damage, right?" He is lying. I know it and Jamie knows it. Katie and Timo at least suspect it.
"Michael," says Jamie. "Have you at least considered becoming an honest man?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"If I were as bad at lying as you are, I would certainly at least give honesty a try."
"You are as bad at lying as he is," Katie points out disloyally.
"No, I am not! You are just accustommed to me."
"How bad am I?" asks Michael, smiling.
"Very. First of all, telling people that they are dead does not inspire much trust. What on earth has posessed you to do that?"
"I figured that with your psychological profile, your fondness of fantasy and the amount of stress on you now you are bound to be quite superstitious."
"Very few people are that superstitious. I mostly just felt like calling a psychiatrist."

Michael's face darkens a bit, mind-shield thickens.

"Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Call a psychiatrist?"
"No. Should I have?"

Michael gets up and pours himself some coffee.

"In addition to trying to convince me that I was dead, you also asked me to join you in hunting down the people whom you have killed 14 years ago. I guess there would be some fantasy logic to that, if I were really dead and were able to hunt them down in the underworld..."
"How did you know?"
"I went there to do it myself a year later, and found out that the job was already done. And by who."
"I thought you didn't believe in revenge?"
"The relief that I felt upon finding out that I wouldn't have to do it myself made me think I shouldn't believe in revenge. By the way - thanks."
"Anytime," Michael smiles.
"I also know that I am not the first person with the Skills and without the Sight that you have seen."
"How do you know that?" Michael smiles even wider. "Did the villagers in Angola tell that to you too?"
"No, you are just leaking."
"What happened to that person?" asks Timo.
"Whatever would have happened to me if Michael had managed to drag me to wherever he was trying to drag me," suggests Jamie.
"Not at all," says Michael. "Of course I wanted to get you to my lab. You are very special. Most of my measurement equipment requires a willing subject, though."
"Which is hard to get with your natural power of persuasion."
"I was thinking of offering you a trip to the Great Barrier Reef."
"Mmm, Great Barrier Reef. Should have started with that..."

Michael is still blocking the Sight, and I get up to go outside.

"Wouldn't you share your genealogy with us?" stops me Michael.
"I need to make some calls. Katie can do it for me, our mothers are sisters. My father's last name is Levy, and his father's family lived in Paris for many generations. His mother's last name was Eisenberg, and she was from Antwerp. Her own mom was from somewhere in Poland, I have no idea."
"Eisenberg from Antwrep? Not a descendant of the rabbi Eisenberg?"
"She was his granddaughter, why?"

Michael looks at me like a cat that has just found a mouse. I resolve to look up who else on the Community's list is the descendant of the rabbi Eisenberg and go outside.

It is a relief to get my Sight back. I try to contact Elina, who is sitting in an airplane and giving a nasty look to a sandwich that has seen better days and possibly weeks.

"Hey, Mira!" She greets me first.
"Hi. Michael is still in our cottage and full of shit."
"Don't believe a word he says."
"He is asking about our ancestry."
"This is a standard operating procedure. He probably wants something else, though. By the way - he really means all he says about science, even though he is full of manure otherwise."
"Elina, how do I find a person? With the Sight, I mean. What are those idents wiki is talking about? It's not clear."
"If you have seen them in person, you can home in on them with the Sight as long as they are in range, as you have probably already noticed. If they have the Sight, you can home in on them in any case. Ident is a part of the aura that the Sight sees, even in normals, big enough to be a unique identifier. It's just a convention - you can home in on any part of the aura, but if you use an ident you can also show the other people what to look for." She demonstrates it to me, showing me an ident. I try to search for it with the Sight and find a thin blond girl whose trousers are falling off.
"Who's that?"
"Hanne from the IRC channel."
"Cool. Thanks. Can I home in on someone I have seen before I got the Sight?"
"No. Sorry. You can search for them if you know even approximately where they are."
"Thanks. See you."

I try to home in on Sinikka and find her at home with some papers and coffee.

I take my phone out and look for Rudy and Dana. Rudy is naked, gathering up his clothes and obviously preparing to sneak out of his hotel room. Dana is asleep and still pretending to be a guy (how does she manage it while asleep?). I figure it would be a bad moment to call Rudy.

He gets into the bathroom, gets dressed, and gets out. Downstairs he pays for the last night and the next, and tells them not to disturb her under any circumstances.

Tarja is waiting for him outside, flipping the car keys impatiently, and they get into the car. Now might be a good moment to call.

"What the fuck!" I start politely.
"And how are you this morning?" he smiles.
"What were you doing there with, err, Matt?"
"I needed to lure him away."
"And what a great bait you used..."
"Stop it, please! We are coming back to the cottage now. Is everything OK?"
"This Michael guy is here. He is totally fucked in the head, but seems to have calmed down."
"Cool."
"What do you think will happen when Matt wakes up?"
"Don't know. We'll see." Rudy hangs up.

I go back inside. Everyone except Michael has moved to the sofa. Katie, who does genealogy for a hobby, has just finished torturing Michael with the endless tale of her ancestors and mine, and is brushing Jamie's hair. Timo is having a beer.

"Your turn," Michael tells Jamie.
"There is a long list of ancestors on my mother's side, but I have never bothered to read it..."
"Your maternal ancestry is well known to us. What about your father? Why is your last name Hallgrimsson if his name is Asgeir? Can Icelandic people use any of their father's given names?"
"As a matter of fact, they can, and any of their mother's given names, too. But in our case they just gave my father's patronymic to the kids like it were a normal British last name. Grandpa was Hallgrimur."
"Icelandic gelealogy is such a pain in the ass. Did anyone in your family have a real last name?"
"My father's mother's mother was from Sweden, and must have had some sort of a last name, but I don't know it. I just knew her as Eva."
"Damn. Where did all these people come from?"

In response Michael gets a short list of Icelandic fishing villages with unpronounceable names. He looks at his watch.

"I think I should go now. Are you guys sure you don't want to visit my lab? You can see some of Australia while we are at it."
"Some other time," says Katie.
"Sorry I've been such a pain in the ass. I think you better not tell anyone about teleporting."
"Dana doesn't know?" asks Katie.
"No. Can I at least visit and talk some more sometime later?"
"If you behave yourself," says Jamie. Timo looks like he wants to say "no".
"I think I should round up the penguins first, and teleport them to Antarctica. Can you guys give me a hand?"

Outside, Katie just concentrates and four penguins come running. The rest is out of her range and Michael goes deeper into the forest to look for them.