External Influence (Short Story)

Scraps of paper and stark images littered the pegboard in the meeting room, complete with newspaper clippings and handwritten notation. A few strands of coloured thread linked various elements, and post-it notes cluttered up what little space wasn’t yet claimed by other evidence.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how you work,” Shiro commented as he looked over the pegboard’s chaos from his work station, dark brown eyes moving purposefully between articles and crime scene photos. The whole thing simply looked like a mess to the psionic Titan, and he gave his head a slow shake before looking down to his tablet.

“It helps me think,” retorted Taiga with a note of annoyance in her voice, “I can see the evidence links better this way.” The slight woman gave one of the blue strings a twang of one finger before she moved to tack a new high-relief photo onto the board. It was soon accompanied by a post-it note with a name jotted down alongside it, marking the individual as a person of interest.

“It’s chaos,” came the psion leader’s curt reply, “I can’t even piece together what it means.”

“Well, then stick with your tablet. It’s as sterile as cold as you are.” The note of irritation in her voice gained a sharper edge as she stretched a red string from the new picture toward an image of a local museum, a note below it reading ‘theft of priceless oni vase, suspected organized crime link.’

“I don’t see why you’re making this personal. I’m just saying that I don’t understand your thought process.” A faintly defensive note entered the young man’s voice as he traced his fingers over the screen before him. “And I will, thanks.”

While Taiga had called it a tablet, it was really much more, a piece of hardware designed by Hideki, with software that worked on the premise of linked database tables. Connection points populated by virtue of some incredibly advanced algorithms, while still allowing the user to draw manual ones. It took up most of the table’s top, mounted at a comfortable viewing angle that all but eliminated glare from the glass surface.

Shiro’s own work was comparable to the tumult Taiga’s board held, the two worked on the same cases, by and large. The dichotomy of perspective allowed them to pick up elements the other might overlook, making them an efficient, if discordant, team of aspiring leaders. The fundamentals of the case layout were the same, only organized with the young man’s usual precise organization.

“Mine, or any other woman’s,” murmured the speedster with a roll of her brown eyes, her fingers tracing along a green strand of thread between the museum and a picture of the missing vase, a piece that was a yellowed hue with striking red paint applied in the visage of a demonic face.

“No. Just you,” Shiro retorted brusquely, his hand swiping over the surface as he continued his own study of the base materials. “Did you mark the connection between the theft location and the proximity to Shinjuku Chuo Park?” The large flea markets in Tokyo were often a haven for would-be sellers of stolen articles, and often saw larger criminal operations at play.

“Yes, though I’ve also flagged the Yoyogi Park market, since we’ve been tracking a few low-level criminals around the area. If they’re looking to pass off the vase to a local buyer, it might show up there.”

Shiro grunted an affirmative, drawing a manual link and typing out a couple of quick, precise notes before responding, “Good catch. I put some flags out online too, if anything related on the internet shows up, we’ll see it.” His fingers tapped off the article he was perusing, “Any movement on Akira Yamata that I should make note of?”

Taiga shook her head as she traced another line of thread up to an image of a middle-aged Japanese man, “Not yet. He’s underground as far as anyone knows. We’re still sweeping the markets every few days.” Her finger trailed slowly down again, “Oh, though Kenshin mentioned that he’d cracked banking records.”

“So I heard, I have a few links there I can tap. If we see any significant motion, we can trace the sources. Hideki told me that Kenshin updated the interface to let us flag transactions that look out of place.” The empathic mind-reader inclined his head a little, “The fact that they’ve figured out how to automatically follow daisy chain accounts is pretty impressive.”

“Definitely,” Taiga replied, a flash of pride in her voice, “They’re catching developments pretty quickly now.” She stared at her board a moment, then squinted her eyes thoughtfully.

Shiro slipped into another link with a few passes of his fingers, though paused as he felt a vague trickle of sentiment. Certainly not his, and definitely not Taiga’s. The tall meta-human looked from side to side with a knit of his brows. It wasn’t one of the team, it felt different. He focused a moment on that trace element, narrowing focus onto the thread. What was that? It was like seeing something out of the corner of his eye only to have it vanish.

“Shiro,” Taiga called, pulling the psion from his pursuit, “I said, do you know if we’ve swept those old warehouses along the river?”

“What?” Shiro answered, blinking a couple of times before registering the question, “Oh. Of course. Yasu’s been patrolling the area a few times each day, different faces so as not to alarm anyone. Varying his times too.”

The speedster woman loosed a firm affirmative hum as her head canted, fingers tapping a couple of the photos she had up, “Good. Wouldn’t want to be predictable or alert anyone.”

Taiga continued speaking, but Shiro felt another pulse of that pressure against his empathic senses, and wound up distracted as he focused on it again. This time it resolved a bit further, and Shiro received the direct impression of heat and quickening pulse. His own answered, rising in response to the feedback. Was someone hurt? His brows knit as he closed his eyes, mind trailing that glimpse of feeling as he fixed his palms onto the table’s frame.

“Oh for- Shiro!” Taiga snapped, her voice raising in volume, “Are you even listening to me?”

He bristled in response and opened his eyes, his gaze moving onto the impulsive woman with a note of irritation, “As much as ever. Sorry.” The shot was mild, all things considered, “What were you saying?”

“I was suggesting we wait until the warehouses close for the night and send Aoi in to look around. What do you think?”

Shiro gave his head a momentary shake, clearing the mental impression before he responded, “Not a bad plan, but maybe have Kenshin or Hideki run lookout to remotely disable any cameras.” He tried to refocus his attention again.

Of course, as soon as Taiga spoke, another of those pulses pulled at his attention, heavy and heated, with weight and new intensity. He blinked, then interrupted the fiery young woman, “Sorry, just a minute, Taiga. I’m picking up something odd.”

Taiga huffed and folded her arms, her toes tapping on the ground impatiently as she watched the psionic young man lean forward again, features bowed. Shiro’s pausing conversations to handle impressions wasn’t new. Annoying, but not new.

His features bowed as his hands landed on the edge of the table, brows knitting as he opened his senses. What had that been? Would it happen again? This was foreign, this signature, and he wanted to know where it was coming from. It was now a point of growing interest.

It was a minute or so before he felt that stir again. Warm, inviting, almost stifling in the generation of heat produced. He welcomed it, leaned into the sensation, and embraced the remote impression. Shiro’s grip tightened on the edge of the table, almost making it creak. His breath deepened, slowly working into something of a pant, each intake contributing to a hunch of his shoulders and a hang of his head.

It was exhilarating. And he chased it, brow and formidable musculature flexing as new waves of it rolled through his mind. Rhythmic, rough, laden with some depth of intense emotional bond he felt thrill against his mind, it raced through the psionic man’s head and sent warmth to spread through the power of his frame. Some reasoning pooled that foreign heat in the pit of his stomach and small of his back, though it rolled up in lapping waves into his chest as though encouraging some patterned movement. Without realizing he was doing so, the tall man began to rock on his feet, the sensory input guiding him into a quick, powerful motion, something announced most through his muscular shoulders and arms as they flexed.

As Shiro moved under the response from his empathic senses, Taiga watched, her dark eyes lingering in mild irritation on the psionic Titan. That mentioned, her irritation shifted as she pieced together the nature of the impulse Shiro was experiencing. The implication was pretty obvious from her end. Well, clearly someone in the tower was having a good night. She cleared her throat lightly and leaned a shoulder to the wall. Oh, this could be entertaining once Shiro came out of the trance state. For the moment, she simply savoured the view, seeing the man unguarded was fairly uncommon. He was usually so professional, so upright, this was certainly a change. Her gaze followed the tense and flex of his musculature, finding herself unable to deny the intrigue in seeing him rock forward in that lean.

Sensation rippled and crackled through his body, and his breath grew rougher, slipping into a huskier register as he dove empathically into that delectable presence. Intensity only ramped as he hung his head, a few locks of his dark hair coming to fall over his brow. He could feel the thrill of exertion on his limbs, the pulse of his heart hastening. Heaviness and warmth mounted sharply between his legs as he reeled under the feeling pushed through his body. Pressure announced itself, some abrupt, engulfing pressure, and the psion let loose a grunt from the input. All too late, Shiro recognized the significance and nature of the empathic energy, doing what he could to extract himself from the vicarious impression.

A shudder worked through the man’s broad shoulders as his fingers gripped to the table’s edge, his head lifting in a roll as he tried to close down the link he’d forged to the individual experiencing the sensory input. Taiga saw his tall frame tense and shift, and her smirk only deepened as she waited for his recovery. This was certainly a first, admittedly.

While several of the team members had significant others on the outside, there was something of an unspoken rule that partners weren’t to be brought into headquarters. Security was an ongoing concern, and with their identities securely guarded, access to the tower was heavily restricted. Perhaps that was some contributing factor to the matter, the reason the impulse received had been so striking. With a clear of his throat, Shiro pulled away from that decidedly intimate connection. It took surprising resolve to tug himself away from that engaging ardor.

Thankfully his own response to the matter had slipped down one of his pant legs, out of sight unless one decided to look for it. Shiro swallowed and lifted his head, something vague and unfocused written in his eyes.

“Have a nice time?” Taiga’s voice met the man’s senses with a sharp amusement in it, her dark brown eyes landing on the empathic man.

He felt the mockery twofold as the fire-starter spoke and reacted with an uneasy roll of his shoulders and neck, allowing some of that vicarious tension and thrill to creep through his limbs. It took a moment, but he soon had himself composed. Shiro cleared his throat and slowly straightened, his dark eyes moving away from Taiga as he replied in a rough-edged murmur. There was no denying the sudden dash of colour in his cheeks.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”