“I guess…” She shrugged. “There’s so much I still don’t understand—like how the energy really works and what it can do and how. And the martial arts, too. Seriously? I didn’t think of it at the time, but how is it possible that I could hold my own against six grown men when the only training I had—if you can actually call it training—was a night plugged into a cube? None of it makes any sense at all.”

  Ms. E smiled. “No, it doesn’t. But it’s real, Steph. The truth is that we don’t have the answers either. The best we can do is to create a safe environment in which you can learn—and that includes teaching you how to defend yourself using all your abilities. Honestly, we’re learning as we go, like you are. But at least with us, you have a say in what happens. You can trust us to not force you beyond what you’re comfortable with. We see the potential in you to make a difference, and we want you to reach your full potential—for your own sake as much as for all those people out there whose lives you could impact down the line.” She smiled and squeezed her hand. “Do you trust us?”

  Despite the sudden rush of questions and the sense of disquiet that still hovered, Stephanie looked at her companion and nodded. Instinct, if not common sense, told her that the people who had stepped up and who now surrounded her were possibly the ones she could trust.

  Ms. E opened the door and let Stephanie in, smiled again as she closed it, and left her to herself. The whole room was painted in purple and black, the colors she couldn’t seem to get away from. She didn’t mind, though. It looked nice and felt familiar. She picked a tablet up from a small round table by the door and started to press buttons randomly. What she thought were solid painted walls were actually holographic and shifted to various scenes from all over the galaxy. From floating in deep space to laying in a field on Meligorn, she could choose to be anywhere.

  Stephanie stopped on a nighttime scene from Meligorn and stared at the Towers and the planets in the distance. She put the tablet down and walked to the closet, opened it, and grinned at all her clothes hung neatly in a row. Her suitcases were stored in the bottom and the rest of her belongings were placed either on the carved wooden dresser with vines etched on all sides, in the bathroom—also holographic and similar to the one in the hotel—or in her drawers.

  She wandered back into the room and froze as a sudden fear knifed through her—the book. With a sharp surge of panic, she whirled toward her king-sized four-poster bed and puffed out a relieved breath. She had tried to secure it with magic but honestly hadn’t been all that reassured. The energy might have protected it from harm, but there was no way to know if it would have kept it safe from curious fingers. The thought that it might have been stolen—although why would anyone want it, anyway?—left her with a real sense of loss.

  A long sigh of relief started her breathing again. The book rested there on the end of the bed, wrapped in the purple velvet. She sat slowly beside it and rubbed her hand over the fabric. While she knew there were things combat-related she needed to take care of, she didn’t want to focus as much on the military side of the esoteric.

  One thing that she had learned—and she had kept this to herself up to that point—was that Earth already had the energy that she needed. The problem was, humanity had lost the abilities and genetics, for the most part, to handle it. Therefore, in their minds, it simply didn’t exist. Her focus now would need to be to learn more of that.

  But in that moment, there was nothing more she could really do. She did find it nice that she had a place that was at least semi-permanent to lay her head at night. As much as she liked the hotel, it was still simply that—a hotel. The only two people she would really miss were Rufus and her AI, Sarah. Stephanie stuck her bottom lip out when she thought about her companion Sarah. She was only a computer, but nonetheless, she was a good listener.

  “Well, I guess I’ll have to go it alone. Thanks for all your companionship, Sarah,” she said out loud and pulled her book into her lap.

  “You’re welcome,” Sarah replied. “Although I don’t think you will have to go it alone. I was brought over in the system to stay with you. My laugh was permanently disabled.”

  Stephanie giggled and suddenly felt a whole lot more cheerful. “That is great news. It definitely feels better like that.”

  The AI paused. “Enjoy your reading and let me know when you are ready for dinner. I believe the kitchen is down the hall.”

  She nodded. “Will do.”

  Carefully, she unwound the fabric from the book, opened it, and placed her fingers on the paper. She had enough energy in her to draw the words into her mind. It was a journal from an ancestor many centuries in the past.

  This diary will give the reader an understanding of what I believe happened to the family from the first Morgana, from whom we trace our lineage.

  Stephanie settled in, pulled her legs up, and crossed them. She continued reading. As she was a child born out of wedlock, we find lineage to another child born of her. This child was also born out of wedlock and not inscribed in the annals of time except to our own books. We are the ones who bear witness to protect the Earth as Morgana might have, had her family not betrayed her first.”

  Her eyes opened and she sat motionless for several moments, thinking about those words. Morgana was a first name, apparently, not a last name, or had been so at the beginning. She still didn’t have enough information on who Morgana was so she put the book down carefully on the bed and retrieved her personal tablet from the desk. Once she’d placed it in the center of the bed, she pressed the button to bring the screen into interactive mode. The image popped up from the display like a hologram.

  “Tell me more about Morgana,” she said.

  The avatar on the screen pretended to wander around and search for information until it finally stuck one finger in the air and yelled, “Eureka!” It tossed a bunch of papers into the air that became the pages for her to scroll through. One by one, she swiped through and read bits and pieces of information from folklore and legend. After a few of these, she came to a darker site—one that required her thumbprint to enter. Assuming it wouldn’t work since she had never been to it, she hovered her thumb over the reader. The print flittered on the screen and then turned gold and the site opened immediately. Stephanie stared at it for a moment, astonished that it had worked, but decided not to question the thumbprint issue too deeply. Information was more important at this point.

  She read through the trials and the tribulations of the Morgana children and the hatred and anger toward them. They were bastards, born out of wedlock, their fathers usually far away and their lives torturous. Stephanie, although she had never met her father, had never been treated poorly. Mark had been in her life since she was old enough to remember and her parents loved her with everything in them. But she still bore the name and the powers that seemed to go along with it.

  Soon after, she came to a picture of a woman. She was dressed in a black calf-length dress with a white collar, a white jacket that looked almost like a man’s sports coat, white slim-looking lace-up leather shoes, stockings, and a wide-brimmed hat. Her hair cascaded in large wavy curls, pinned back behind her ears. She had a beautiful smile, and her eyes looked amazingly familiar.

  Stephanie continued to read. “Maddalena Morgana, born in 1919, no father on record. In history books, for humans without the gift, Maddalena was known to have helped the Allies in WWII by creating a spy craft that assisted in infiltrating the enemy. To this day, the non-gifted cannot explain the spycraft, nor did they ever retrieve it from enemy lines. The truth was, Maddalena was the next gifted Morgana to be born on this earth. Her powers were strong in precognition. It wasn’t a spycraft that aided the allies, but instead, it was her dreams of the future which helped the Allies, especially on D-Day. Maddalena was more gifted than anyone in that time would have ever understood, and after WWII ended, she disappeared from the public eye, never to be seen again.”

  Stephanie swiped the screen away, chewed on her lip, and twirled her finger around the end of her ponytail. So, Morgana had gone from being the first name of the original one to the last name. It made sense. She was born illegitimately and her mother’s maiden name was Morgana, which Stephanie still kept legally, so she could be considered the next Morgana in line.

  Her thoughts now rampant, she stood, set the tablet aside, and began to pace the room. A number of things began to crystallize within her. She loved her last name but because of the sound of it, not because of a previously child-like need to be different. She had always felt a strange attachment to it. It would only make sense, then, that her mother had pushed her to take Mark’s last name to hide the Morgana last name. Mark had been in her life since she was a baby but had not married her mother for many years due to adoption policies and issues with marriage qualifications during a particularly troubling time in Federation history.

  By the time he did, she was given the choice, and she kept Morgana without a thought. All those times that her mother had begged her, snapped at her, and fought with her over the name was not for Mark’s sake, it was for hers. It was not to hurt her stepdad’s feelings. He always understood. It had been for her mother because she knew the history—or at least tales of it—and it frightened her, as it would any mother. So she tried to shadow it out, put the past in the past, change the name, and move on from it, but it wasn’t something that Stephanie could run from. It was who she was, last name or not.

  Then again, there was a part of her mother that, no matter how much she might fear something, she pushed herself to not believe it. It was like not believing in the superstition of the number thirteen but then building a hotel and leaving floor thirteen out of the plans. When Stephanie started fooling with magic and revealed that she had the gift, her mother hadn’t actually seemed all that shocked. If she were anyone else, her mother would have lost it, but she was calm and even seemed to know what to do in the first circumstance when she saved that woman’s life.

  Stephanie walked to the wall and stood there to stare out into the virtual space. Part of her wished she could leap out, float down to Meligorn, and find more answers. At the same time, the Earth had all the answers that she would need. She merely had to figure them out without completely blowing herself up in the process. Before that day, she would have thought of that as an easy request, but it wasn’t in the least. In fact, it was more of a warning now that she had done it in the Virtual World without even thinking. Things constantly became more and more complicated as the days passed but brought very few answers in the meantime. Answers were exactly what she needed, and time seemed determined to make the power inside her stronger and stronger. It would only be a matter of time before she or someone she loved got hurt.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  The next day came all too quickly, and Stephanie hadn’t slept much at all. It was a good thing then, that both BURT and Elizabeth had decided that she should have some lessons on how to act around other people. It wasn’t only how to act around dignitaries, species from other planets, or people she revealed her magic to, but people in general.

  She was no longer the young Stephanie Morgana who kept as low a profile as possible and everyone looked right past her. She had already been hounded by so many different people, from the media to companies that wanted her to be a part of something they had going on. As she progressed and her reputation grew, as it inevitably would, she would come under increasing pressure. As tempting as it might be, she couldn’t simply shock every single person who tried to talk her into leaving ONE R&D. She had to learn how to handle herself in high society as well as on the street.

  The class only lasted for about six earth hours, three in the pod. When she came out, Elizabeth held her robe out for her with a smile on her face. “I’m glad to see you didn’t fall out of the pod this time.”

  Stephanie put her arms in the robe and wrapped it around herself before she turned to face her. “Thank you for helping me. I don’t remember it but thank you.”

  The woman tapped her on the shoulder. “That’s my job, sister. Can’t have you stroking out on the first day. It would look bad on my resume.”

  She laughed as they wandered to the door, exited, and locked the pod room behind them. Lars and Frog stood guard outside the room and both glanced away when she emerged in her robe. She chuckled and put up her hand to give Lars a high-five.

  When she reached her room, Elizabeth glanced toward the kitchen. “I’ll make lunch soon. Why don’t you call and check in with your family and friends and center yourself a little today? If you’re hungry, food will be there. I’ll have Sarah tell you when it’s done.”

  Stephanie nodded, entered her room, and closed the door behind her. She walked to the bed and lay down before she set her tablet up in front of her. Once she’d checked that her robe was tied tightly, she called her parents. Her mom’s face came up on the screen and she smiled warmly. “Hi, honey!”

  A warmth flooded her chest and flushed on her cheeks. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad!”

  Her dad stuck his head into the camera view. “Hey, kiddo. Love you!”

  “Love you.” She giggled.

  Her mom smiled. “We are right in the middle of training additional staff for the new client’s building. I have to admit that to get it exactly how they want it, with as many floors as there are, is extremely challenging, and we have definitely had to bring additional people on. But we are so excited to work with them. I spoke to Mr. Martelle and he couldn’t say enough good things about you.”

  Stephanie laughed. “Yeah, he got to see a whole bunch of different sides of me that day. The assertive, the business, and the magical. I let him see it all, good and bad. I guess it worked.”

  “Because you’re adorable and you know how to talk to people.” Her mom grinned. “So, how is everything there? Are you in a new room?”

  She looked around. “Oh, yeah. I moved from the hotel into the compound. They have a really nice private room for me. My own pod that I can use anytime I like, and security staff as well. It’s easiest if I stay here and I actually like it. This is somewhere I can feel comfortable instead of that constant hotel feeling, no matter how nice it is. Oh, and they brought the AI from my hotel room over because I liked her so much.”

  Her mother laughed. “That’s what I’m talking about. Take care of my baby girl. I want you to be happy and safe, that’s all.”

  Stephanie nodded. “And I am both of those things. But Mom, I actually hoped I could talk to you about something. It has to do with the book you gave me.”

  After a short silence, her mother cleared her throat and stepped away from whoever she was close to. “You want to talk about your name.”

  “Yeah.”

  Cindy’s gaze shifted back and forth and the forced smile on her lips twitched. “There are things which we discuss in person only. I cannot read the diary, but I realize you can. When we see each other, I will chat to you about it.”

  She knew she wouldn’t say any more and that she had been as clear as she could be in that moment. This was a huge deal—a huge secret—and they couldn’t risk a discussion about it over the phone or video in case someone had tapped the lines or transmitted the video somewhere else. Although disappointed, Stephanie simply nodded, gave her mom a wink, and changed the subject.

  “I forgot, I haven’t talked to you in a couple of days,” she said excitedly. “I had a real glass of champagne the other day. Well, a quarter of a glass because I had to leave, but champagne nonetheless.”

  Her mother’s eyes glistened. “Oh, champagne. We miss that bubbly wonderfulness. I’ve always wanted to pop a bottle and celebrate…well, anything really. That’s wonderful, darling. I hope that one day, your father and I will have the chance to do such exciting things.”

  Stephanie’s eyes went soft and she breathed out a heavy breath. “You will. I’ll make sure you have the chance to. What is life for if you don’t get to experience all of it, right? Not only the struggles, that’s no fair.”

  Cindy nodded, pressed her lips together, and cleared her throat. Her eyes glistened as she nodded at Stephanie’s father off-screen. “Sweetie, oh, I miss talking to you so much, but unfortunately, until we get this building business taken care of, we are pushing against the clock. When I’m not there, I’m hiring people, putting them through training, getting our equipment cleaned, the whole nine yards. We’re using some of our daytime sites to train extra staff as well to speed things up a little, which is why there are others here with us. It’s a crazy train here at home.”

  “I’ll let you go then. I can call you some other time in the evening,” Stephanie offered. “I just finished my morning session and didn’t even think of the time. Although with a night shift as well now, I’m not sure how you and Dad have scheduled your off time.”

  Her mother waved her hands. “Nor should you ever worry about that. Never hesitate to call me when you have a few minutes to do it. I would rather talk while cleaning then miss you altogether because you have such a busy schedule too. Once we have the logistics ironed out, things will be better all round.”

  “I want to come back home very soon so I can see you guys. Or maybe, when you get a break, bring you out here to DC so you can see all of the historical sites and all the flying cars and craziness over here. Chicago will be like that eventually.”

  Her mother shook her head. “That would be lovely. And sweetheart, I want you to know how much I love you. You were meant to be special, you just didn’t know it.”

  Stephanie waved goodbye to her father and they ended the call. Her mother, no matter how scared or worried she was, always had the ability to make her feel better. She always knew the right thing to say in any situation. Comfortably cross-legged on the bed, she thought about home and all her nice walks to school and home each day. How simple her life had been only a year before when taking the Federation Exams was nothing more than a blip in her future. Things got so crazy so fast, but that was okay because she would slowly figure out who she was.