Writing Advice Needed (Patreon)

I'm having trouble concentrating right now (thank you meds), but I was rereading some fanfic.  Sentinel was one of my great loves, and I adored Guidelines. It had hints of fated mates, but toned down so I didn't feel like it violated free will--and it focused on individual needs versus society. I just like the plot.

But people don't read Sentinel fanfic much anymore, so I was wondering if this was a story that could convert to profic.  Can you read the first three chapters and tell me if this works as a novel?

Chapter One

“So, how’d it go?” Charlie asked.

Doug glared as Charlie slipped into a chair across from him. 

“That good, huh?” Charlie asked as he signaled for the waitress who was currently trying to escape three drunks at the pool table. 

Doug continued his death glare over a glass of beer. His day had been layer after layer of academic shit, and he didn’t have the energy for Charlie’s fucked up version of support. “They have no imagination,” 

Charlie snorted. “They’re a dissertation committee; they had their humor surgically removed.”

“No joke. The vibes in that room...” Doug shivered. He didn’t believe in demons, but the people in that room needed a good exorcism. Doug knew his dissertation could help people—could save people—but all they cared about was the politics and the feasibility. Pick another topic, they said as if Doug could turn off his passion and just ignore the reality he’d seen.

“I adore the cuddly optimism you project,” Charlie said. Doug flipped him off, but Charlie continued. “You’re never going to get them to sign off on the whole biological aegis theory you got going.” The waitress appeared with Charlie’s beer and Doug shook his head in amusement as his blond haired, blue eyed friend gave her his best “come up and see me some time” expression. The waitress audibly snorted before heading back to the bar area.

“No appreciation for what she’s missing.” Charlie huffed.

“You mean a meal at a taco truck and you kicking her out of bed so you can roll over and go to sleep?” Doug asked with a sweet smile. The bastard deserved the truth, especially when he was being less than helpful. Doug’s research into Antecognates had the potential to change the course of human fucking history. Some people saw Antecognates as Supermen gifted with precognition, enhanced senses or superior memories. A few even believed the group was the next step in human evolution, but most of these supermen couldn’t function past their thirties. A minority had long, full lives, but that was such a minority that most people felt sympathy for the group rather than the sort of fear that power usually inspired. 

“Whatever.” Charlie threw a chip at him.

“Dr. Peters hates me,” Doug said miserably as he rested his chin on his hand. 

“She does.” 

Doug had been looking around the dim bar, but at his friend’s harsh words, his gaze snapped back to Charlie who continued his long distance “come hither” looks to the waitress. 

“Whoa, don’t get your undies in a bunch over it,” Charlie defended himself once he noticed Doug’s expression. “She hates everyone.”

Doug hated that he was running his head into a wall. He knew his research was solid. Knew it. Sure, the military hid as much data as they could, but there were Antecognates who had failed out of the military, and those records were easier to get, at least if a researcher didn’t mind digging through tomes of useless statistics to find the right numbers. “Did you know that 337 people who have all the aegis training have been removed from the candidate list because they’ve never been able to work with an Antecognate. How do you explain that?”

“Body odor?” Charlie guessed. “Seriously, how did you get that? Aegis are military officers. No way did the military give you shit.”

“A friend helped,” Doug confessed, but he wouldn’t trust Charlie with that name. The military would not appreciate her decision to slip him data, but she was as worried as he was. The government was mishandling these people. Boy that was an understatement. The government was killing them. Aegis were trained to project calm and use their mighty powers of meditation to help an Antecognate find an island of calm in a chaotic world, but the system was so flawed that it didn’t even count as a system. 

Since they perceived and infinite number of patterns and details a mundane couldn’t perceive, many of them suffered migraines and stress disorders, and the government was hiding the true horror. They were dying. Fifty years after science had proved the existence of people with precognitive abilities and supernatural senses, they whole group was dying out like a failed evolutionary experiment.

“Very funny. Okay, explain the six Antecognates in the last fifty years who haven’t been able to work with any aegis no matter how much training and education the aegis have. And three of the six have been within the last decade or so.”

“It’s a tragedy.” Charlie’s flat sarcastic tone made it clear that the young archeology student shared none of Doug’s outrage.

“And did you know that forty-seven percent of aegis who successfully work with the same Antecognate for more than five years have a family member who is also a successful aegis?”

“I have two sisters and an uncle who are teachers. Are you going to prove that I have a teaching gene because I have to tell you that one semester of TA’ing for Archeology 105 proved I’m a big old failure in the that department.”

“You are being a shithead, Charlie.”

“Dude, I am just trying to keep you from tanking your academic career on this bizarre little theory of yours. Antecognates are born; aegis are trained. And I know you. You get overexcited by numbers, and I bet you have a sample size smaller than your…” Charlie looked down toward Doug’s crotch. “Yeah. Smaller than that.  Besides, I thought you were going to do your dis on Antecognate adaptation outside the military. You had some Antecognate cop you were going to work with and everything, didn’t you? A week ago you were all excited about working with your Superman-hero.”

Best friends got to cast aspersions on each other’s genitals, but today was not the day. “Kopel , Lewis, and Monvil have all done adaptation to the civilian world.” The topic was less interesting because the only Antecognates who left the military were so weak that they couldn’t use their gifts. He didn’t want to work with a homicide cop who got kicked out of the Army because he couldn’t foretell a rainstorm when the clouds were on the horizon or smell a pile of cow shit two feet away. Maybe he should just throw caution to the wind and get good and drunk.

“Kopel and Monvil both focused primarily on military settings and Lewis’s work is a good thirty years old,” Charlie pointed out. “Adaptation is an important field, especially now that Antecognates are becoming more common. And really, if the rumors about their lack of prowess is true, you have to wonder how they are managing to reproduce at all.”

“You try focusing on sex when you’re getting pounded with other people’s thoughts,” Doug said.

“Hey, I love getting pounded by other people. It’s just as much fun as having a beautiful girl in my bed, and if I can get pounded and have a girl at the same time… Score!”

“You’re a pig,” Doug said.

“Oink, oink.”

The anger started to fade and Doug felt like a pastel watercolor of himself. “I have something more important to contribute with my research on aegis.” Doug knew he was going to have to spend some time this week really clearing his mind and mediating on his motives. Did he really feel this passion because he’d found his path or did he just want to recapture the glory of being the campus wunderkind? 

As he went from being noticed by everyone for being the youngest student on campus to being a faceless, average student, he found himself experiencing moments where he wondered if he was still good enough. Everyone had made such a fuss over his abilities when he was young, but now… now professors treated him like the troll they couldn’t get rid of fast enough.

“You’re never going to get a grant to research aegis,” Charlie said.

“I know.”

“Not in today’s world.”

“True enough.”

“The military does not want some wonder-kid coming along and throwing out a hundred years of tradition.”

“I’m not a kid. I’m older than you, and the status quo never likes to be challenged. That’s why we’ve got to push sometimes.”

“Doug.” Surprised by the serious tone, Doug looked at his friend who, for the first time that evening, totally focused on Doug. “I’m a kid. We’re not even twenty six, which means our frontal cortex is not complete, hence with the kid. And people are worried and scared and depending on Antecognates to keep them safe. If you had brought this up before the Valentine’s Day bombings, people might have listened. But right now, people don’t want you coming in saying Antecognates aren’t completely effective against terrorism because a half-century’s worth of research on aegis is all wrong.”

“But if I’m right…”

“We’re all in danger of getting bombed because the Antecognates guarding the airports don’t have an effective aegis. The military doesn’t want to hear that and neither does the average Joe or Joedette on the street.”

“Closing our eyes isn’t a solution.”

“Sure it is. It’s not a good solution, but it is a solution.” Charlie returned to making lewd expressions at a woman by the pay phone, and Doug struggled to come up with an argument against that kind of self-deceptive logic.

“We have a chance to be even safer. Everyone who has studied the population knows they’re dying too young and missing too much. And the more powerful the Antecognate, the sooner they burn out or suffer a stroke,” Doug pointed out. Part of him—the tiny little practical part—suggested that Charlie was right about people not wanting to change in the middle of such an uncertain world. The terror attack on the space port had scared people.  He’d taken enough psychology classes to understand that. It still sucked. If the damn separatists had waited a few years, Doug could have gotten someone to listen to him. “No wonder I can’t convince Dr. Peters when I can’t even get you to believe me.”

“Oh, I’m convinced. I learned a long time ago that you were one of those really scary people who are always right. I just don’t think anyone else wants to hear it. There are days I really wish I didn’t know,” he said quietly, “because if you’re right, our planet’s first line of defense is being systematically broken, one sad soldier at a time. I really want to feel safe and your research just isn’t making that easy.”

“You think Dr. Peters is in denial.” Doug was shocked. A scientist was trained to evaluate the truth without prejudice or personal interest, but Doug was suggesting that the head of the sociology department was shutting him down out of pure fear.

“Sometimes you expect people to be better than they are. For example, I bet you’re expecting I’m going to sit here and commiserate with you when really I’m going to go see if I can’t get with that red head in the pink top.” Doug laughed at the sudden shift in topic, but that’s what Charlie did best, make people laugh. His people skills were much sharper than his archeological tools.

“You okay here alone?” Charlie asked, and Doug had no doubt that he would stay if Doug said the word.

“I’m fine, man. You go on.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Charlie said with a lecherous grin and a lewd waggle of his eyebrows. Doug laughed again as he finished his own beer and went to see if his beat up, old Tesla felt like starting tonight.

Near the back of the bar a middle aged man with an average build and an average face of an average height stood and stretched while watching his target in the mirror behind the bar. He listened as his partner gave him a set of directions through the tiny ear piece implanted into the cartilage. Without rushing, he threaded his way through the round tables and the small groups of college students standing with drinks in hand. He pushed open the heavy front door and the hot muggy Yakama air slapped at him as he stepped onto the sidewalk. As expected, the Tesla was gone and he reached the curb just as a black van drove up, the side panel door sliding open before the van even stopped. He entered the darkness and the van door closed behind him with the sound of dragging metal and a heavy thud.

Chapter Two

A crash woke Doug from a dream where Dr. Peters was trying to wrestle Dr. Smith to keep him from giving Doug a diploma in some sort of nudist graduation ceremony in the middle of a field of yellow flowers. Doug didn’t have time to analyze the meaning, not that it took a whole lot of analyzing to figure that one out. Instead he grabbed the phone and dialed 911 as the first man charged into his bedroom with a drawn gun.

Doug knew a fight he couldn’t win, so he quickly dropped the phone behind the end table hoping it stayed connected as he raised his hands in surrender. Two, three, four, five men dressed in black and carrying handguns spread out around his bedroom opening doors and checking every corner with frightening precision.

“Whoa, there. Um, I really think you guys have the wrong place.”

“Doug Tuggle?” A buzz cut brunet with a New York accent asked. Okay, there went that hope.

“Doug lives two buildings south. I’m Tom Flack,” Doug answered immediately and Doug started praying like he’d never prayed before. The invaders ignored his lie.

“Campbell, secure the signal,” the shortest one ordered. One of the nameless figures took a device from him and walked around the bed swinging it in slow arcs. When he reached the side table he pulled it out from the wall and retrieved the phone in a gloved hand. Doug really hoped the police had tracked that call, but his phone had privacy locks on it, and boy didn’t he regret that now.

The shortest invader yanked Doug’s wrist.

“Hey now, you can’t just come in here and…” Doug yelped and pulled the sheet with him.

“Shut up,” the man ordered. Doug barely managed to get his legs under him as the asshole shoved Doug face first into the bedroom wall. The remaining intruders dumped out his drawers and pushed books onto the floor.

“Okay, look, just tell me what you’re looking for and we can make some sort of deal.” Doug’s words dried up as the sheet was pulled from him and he was professionally and humiliatingly frisked, the gloved hand exploring parts Doug really didn’t want explored.

“Getting a little personal there,” Doug complained. He needed to keep calm. Strong hands gripped his wrists and pulled his hands behind his back where cold steel clicked in place. The clawing, tight feeling running up his spine was fear. Cold, brutal, heart ripping fear that made him struggle to hold on to his wits. A push sent him into the living room and Doug just went without complaining. In fact his throat felt glued shut.

Soon enough the man pushed him down at his own kitchen table. The plastic chair clung to his naked flesh and Doug just stared at the fake wood veneer on the cheap round table. Even in the hot Yakama summer, Doug felt cold because he couldn’t think of anything to offer these people. Whatever they wanted, Doug didn’t have it, which left him on the short end of any negotiations.

“Look at this, Captain.” One of the goons dropped a baggie onto the table in front of Doug. Doug recognized the blue and white pills from the time he’d helped a fellow student get clean.

“Those are not mine. I do not do that shit,” Doug loudly protested.

“And here’s something interesting.” Another brought over a baggie of anticholinergic and quetiapine large enough to keep the entire sociology department mellow and seeing visions for a solid week.

“No fucking way. You did not find that in my house.” Doug pulled against the handcuffs, but neither the handcuffs nor the goons yielded.

“Seems like I got his business records.” The short man who had guarded Doug from the beginning pulled a small dog eared notebook out of his back pocket. The man laid it on the table, and Doug looked down to see his friends, students, girlfriends listed in his own handwriting. The stained and dirty pages listed them in random order with numbers after each name.

“What do you want?” Doug’s mouth had gone dry at the depth of the set up. He could barely form words.

“He’ll get fifteen to twenty for dealing in this quantity.” One of the men laughed.

“That’s okay, he’ll have company,” the short one added with a tap on the notebook.

“Enough, just tell me what you want,” Doug demanded in his strongest voice which was far shakier than he had wanted. He waited for some sort of bizarre demand, something that would make sense because blackmailing a sociology doctoral student seemed pointless. The only thing he owned was a mountain of student debt and a shitty relationship with his sperm donor. And even his failure of a father wouldn’t send goons to set him up.

“Doug Tuggle, student of sociology, Mt. Hood University,” a deep voice from behind. Doug tried to twist around and see the owner of the voice, but the short goon grabbed his jaw in a gloved hand and held him in place. The voice continued. “You started Mt. Hood University at twelve, but your mother insisted that the first year you only audited classes. You didn’t start earning credits until you were thirteen, and within a year, your mother had died of cancer.”

“You bastard.” Doug struggled against the hands holding him. Rage replaced the nameless fears that had controlled his limbs.

“Since your father is in prison for fraud and conspiracy to commit murder, Mt. Hood took custody of you with Dr. Karl Smith taking primary custodial guardianship. You abandoned your early talent with math and studied psychology and sociology, and the counselor’s reports suggest you were trying to understand yourself either as a prodigy or as the child of a felon.”

“Hey, why not try and figure them both out? That’s me. Always swinging for the fences,” Doug snapped. “What’s your point, other than proving you have access to psychology records you have no fucking right to see?”

“You completed a double major in psychology and sociology by sixteen, but you then took four years to complete your master’s and you still have not completed your doctorate at twenty five.”

“Yes, I’m just a failure,” Doug said sarcastically when the voice paused, tacitly asking for some sort of involvement.

“You owe $129,580 in student loans, your current bank balance is $810, and you have rent of $930 due in one week.”

Doug let his eyes fall closed and sagged against the metal back on the chair. This was bad, very bad. And since he was handcuffed and naked at the kitchen table, he couldn’t even pretend to have any control over the situation. Hell, with all the drugs on the table, he wasn’t sure if he wanted the police to show up right now. Not with that notebook that seemed to implicate all his friends sitting there mocking him. The voice ignored his capitulation and continued.

“Two arrests, both as a juvenile: one for disorderly conduct during your father’s sentencing and one for shoplifting. However given the current evidence, I’m sure that your previous lack of a record will be chalked up to you being an intelligent drug dealer. Those are rarer than you think.” The voice stopped and Doug opened his eyes to glare at the man who now stood in his vision. The short goon backed up.

Doug nearly dropped his jaw to the table when he saw the uniform. A green patch proudly displayed USAP in gold thread. Okay, now he was officially confused.

“Why the fuck would the U.S. Antecognate Program feel a need to set me up?”

The officer gave him an annoyingly sympathetic smile. “Doug…”

“Mr. Tuggle,” Doug sharply corrected the man. The man’s smile disappeared.

“Mr. Tuggle,” he started again. “You have done some interesting work on Antecognates that has caught our attention. We are offering you a chance to work with real Antecognate pairs in an attempt to either prove or disprove your theory about aegis.”

“You’re offering?” Outrage made Doug’s voice crack. “I’ve never been offered a grant quite so forcefully before.”

“I don’t think you understand.”

“Obviously.”

“We’re inviting you to come back to California and work at the USAP facilities.”

“And if I don’t, you’re going to concoct false drug charges? I think it’s safe to say I’m still not understanding your offer.”

The officer—because this guy leaked command attitude—sat across from Doug. “Mr. Tuggle, these are difficult times. Thousands of our citizens have died on our own soil. The people of the United States put a lot of faith in our program to keep key targets safe from terrorists.” Doug had been accused of many things in his life, but never stupidity. The pieces fell into place with a nearly audible snap.

“You don’t want people to know you’ve screwed the pooch. If I can convince people that aegis are born and not trained, you’re going to look like the biggest fools on the face of the planet,” Doug announced smugly two seconds before he realized that a naked and handcuffed man sitting at his kitchen table with enough evidence to turn him into a jailhouse whore really shouldn’t antagonize armed intruders. Sometimes he was an idiot.

“Our guidelines are based on a half-century of work with the largest group of Antecognates in the world.”

“And you don’t want people to think that you’re anything other than perfect,” Doug finished for him.

“Mr. Tuggle,” he said in an aggravated tone, “if our enemies believe that there’s a weakness in the Antecognate force protecting our most vital security areas, they will be encouraged to try more suicide bombs. The Mars separatists will step up their efforts and the Terran terror groups will double down on the violence. So, if you continue to publicly undermine the efficacy of the program, you are aiding terrorists. Under the US Patriot and Terrorism Risk Protection Act, that makes you an enemy of the state.”

“That’s so not how that law was meant to…”

“Meaning is irrelevant. You will either cooperate or we have orders to discredit you so that anything you may claim from prison will be utterly ignored.”

Doug sat at his chair and felt the sweat gathering at his backbone begin to trickle down his skin. Oh yeah, they had him by his short and curlies and they knew it. Assholes. When Doug had whispered prayers to the universe asking for a chance to work with Antecognates, this had not been his intent. He should have known better than to tempt fate. After all, as a kid he had begged God to find him another home. He’d had fantasies about having his real parents show up and announce that the Tuggles had kidnapped him at birth, and look what the universe had done with that prayer.

“California. I hear it’s nice this time of year,” Doug tried for a joke, but the words came out far too grim.

“Captain, get our new advisor dressed and a bag packed.” The uniformed man turned to the room. “The rest of you have two hours to sanitize this place.” Doug felt a hand pulling him to his feet and then the short guard was pushing him back towards his bedroom.

Doug grunted as a push sent him face first into a wall before someone unlocked the handcuffs. Right, priority one—clothes. If he was going to be kidnapped by the military he at least wanted to be dressed for the event.

Chapter Three

Ajax pulled up to the scene, surprised when he saw only the captain’s car and a lone patrol officer.  This was a bad neighborhood, on that even the classier criminals avoided because it was one step above homeless with microapartments and badly converted warehouses.  Ajax normally worked high-profile cases; after all, the military had tried him to work counter-terrorism before they’d kicked him to the curb for being difficult to work with.

And he was. Ajax reveled in the reputation, and he liked working for Shawn because the other man respected Ajax’s space and let him work cases the way he needed to. Part of that was the fact that Ajax was the only Antecognate in the police force. The military didn’t release their assets from service until they were sure they had wrung every bit of useful service out of them. Sometimes Ajax assumed that the USAP had only released him because they feared he would follow his namesake and fall on his own sword to avoid any more humiliation. Having an Antecognate suicide would look bad on the paperwork.

No, they would rather release him and then let him die of a stroke or seizure when his brain failed.  Ajax headed toward the first floor apartment door. “Shawn, why exactly am I here?” Ajax asked. “I don’t work missing persons.”  Missing people had families that put off a blend of fear and sour scents that were impossible to work around.

“Last I checked, you work for me, detective.”

Ajax narrowed his eyes, his gut-level hatred of orders conflicting with his deep respect for the captain. 

Shawn softened his tone. “Something’s wrong here, Ajax.” 

Most of the time, Shawn was calm, more than most of the aegis he’d been asked to work with. His mind was a cool pool of water in a storm, but as feelings and the environment started to register in the deeper parts of Ajax’s mind, he caught the paternal worry, the confusion and the first stirrings of anger. They were as real as the smell of Shawn’s beloved morning coffee. “What’s wrong?” Ajax asked.

“You remember that kid who wanted to do the work on Antecognates?” The paternal feelings grew stronger, and they brought with them worry. Ajax hated the name Antecognate because it suggested he could see the future, and the first registered talents claimed exactly that. But it wasn’t that easy. He could sense feelings and experience more of the environment, and with more information, he could make better predictions. Right now he assumed Shawn was about to do something that danced with breaking protocol if not regulations. He’d made it to captain by knowing when to break the rules, but Ajax didn’t want him risking his reputation for a college students.

“I remember a full-grown man who asked to study my adaptation to civilian life.”

Shawn snorted. “He’s twenty-five. I have shoes that are older and he can’t even sign long-term contracts without legal consult.”

Ajax frowned. “I’m only thirty.”

Shawn didn’t outwardly show any reaction, but Ajax felt the jolt of surprise. While Ajax’s age was listed in his official jacket, Shawn clearly thought of his as older.  Antecognates joined the military at an age when most people couldn’t sign long-term contracts, and that aged them. 

“This kid has been at Mt. Hood University since he was twelve. He’s a baby,” Shawn said.

“Shawn,” Ajax said wearily. He didn’t know how to explain his aversion to being researched without getting into issues that he didn’t want to discuss and the military had made him sign papers agreeing to keep confidential.  “I’m not comfortable being a lab rat.” If Shawn had gotten him here under false premises to meet Tuggle, he was going to lose his temper. Tuggle. Shawn had found the one person in the universe with a stupider name than Ajax’s own.

“He’s gone missing, and none of the pieces are adding up.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Shawn started into the building, and Ajax followed. “The university said he has no commitments and left a message with a secretary about taking a summer job out of town,” Shawn said. “The landlord says that Doug paid out his lease and moved, but the kid had an appointment with me this morning and when I cross checked his cell phone records he made a 911 call last night that got registered as untraceable. I have the lab working on trying to recover any sound from that call.”

“Maybe he just got a better offer,” Ajax said, but he had the same gut-level discomfort that Shawn was projecting out into the universe. This is why Ajax avoided getting to know people too well—it wasn’t fair that he could sense so much, and the better he knew someone, the more he sensed. 

Ajax whistled as he got a good look at the apartment. “He was one hell of a clean tenant.” Every surface was spotless. Even the corners had been swept clean. Ajax walked farther into the room and his unpredictable sense of smell kicked on as he caught the odor of disinfectant.

“Okay, I know that expression,” Shawn said. “That’s the look of an Antecognate who is smelling something particularly unpleasant.”

Ajax didn’t answer. His brain was screaming that he recognized one of the odors buried at the bottom of the scent pile, but like usual, his brain refused to come up with a specific identifier. His skin grew more sensitive, and the feelings of people out on the street started to batter at him. Curiousity. Alarm. Fear. Hate. The toxic blend swirled around Ajax.

“Look, something doesn’t add up here: the 911 call, the missed appointment, the perfectly clean apartment,” Shawn said, utterly unaware of the storm Ajax was enduring.

“Not cleaned, sanitized,” Ajax corrected softly. Shawn fell silent as Ajax closed his eyes and tilted his head back just slightly in concentration.

Usually Ajax’s abilities were so weak that they gave him general impressions or a nudge in one direction or another, but when they raged to life they were as much trouble as they were a help.  But right now, his senses screamed at him that he needed to find something. Something vital was missing, and he had the same bone-deep revulsion he’d felt when he’d come to a murder scene to find a victim with gaping holes where his heart and genitals had once been.

“Anderson!” Shawn snapped as he closed a large hand around Ajax’s upper arm.

“Damn it,” Anderson swore bitterly. “I almost had it.”

“You almost had a major seizure,” Shawn snapped back. “Do you have anything on whoever took Tuggle?”

“The place has been sanitized using solvent that contaminates trace evidence,” Ajax said. He didn’t tell his captain that the last time he’d smelled this shit, he’d been on a USAP base.

“Good, that’s a solid lead. Who has access to those sorts of anti-Antecognate measures?” Ajax wandered the room, trying to find that thread of something familiar. He headed into the tiny kitchen and then finally to the bedroom. The back of his head pounded in time with his heart, and he felt the fizzy threat of a seizure teasing the edge of his senses.

“Shit. Anderson, take deep breaths and come back,” Shawn said as he again put his large hand on Ajax’s arm. 

“Ajax, you’ve gone too deep. Focus on me and get your sorry ass back here so you can get your work done,” Shawn snapped. The cool of his thoughts vanished under a flurry of worry and aggravation. “Anderson!” Shawn shouted. Ajax felt the world through effervescent bubbles that floated up and burst, each carrying a flash of emotion or sensory detail that washed out Ajax’s own thoughts and made it impossible to think. He knew in some distant part of his brain that he was trapped within a seizure, but he was helpless to escape. Another bubble burst, and the scent of a strange man’s terror washed over Ajax, and he staggered backwards as the seizure broke.

Shawn grabbed his arm, barely keeping Ajax from falling on his ass. He wasn’t a small man, but luckily Shawn worked out enough to hold Ajax’s weight until he caught his balance.

“You alright?” Shawn asked. That was a stupid question. He was dying. Every Antecognate was; however, he wasn’t going to drop dead in the next few minutes.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Shawn’s disbelief assaulted Ajax. “Is it the sanitizing agent?” Shawn asked.

“No.” Ajax walked the space. “It’s something under the sanitizer. I can almost smell it. Something’s very wrong here.” 

“I’m pretty sure I told you that. So I take it you’re willing to go looking for Tuggle?” Shawn asked.

“Yeah.” 

Now Shawn’s relief filled the room. Most of the time Ajax barely noticed emotions—his talent had always lay in his senses, but now he couldn’t shut off a hyperawareness that was driving him insane. He didn’t like his own emotions, much less anyone else’s. His aegis had always told him that his emotional constipation caused his inability to control his gifts, but now he was accessing more than he had since his teen years, and he was still fully blocked, emotionally-speaking. 

“I’ll get you the full file,” Shawn said, “his supervisor’s name at the university, his classes, the information he’s sent me on his theories about Antecognate adjustment.” Ajax let the words wash over him without paying attention. He paced the apartment, prowling from one room to another in search of that scent, the tingle of a budding seizure following him every step of the way. 

“I’ll find him,” Ajax said with confidence. He didn’t need precognitive abilities to know that. He’d succeeded in every goal he’d ever set for himself, even when he’d been intent on sabotaging himself. He didn’t quit and he never gave in.

“I hope so.” The storm of emotions Shawn had been feeling was quieted by hope. Ajax had always felt like hope was a sticky feeling, clinging to every negative emotion and weighing it down. “Doug was a bit like mold, growing on me when I weren’t paying attention,” Shawn said with a laugh. “He’s got passion and an utter willingness to piss off the universe. You have to admire that.”

“Yeah, you do,” Ajax agreed. He knew the sort, and they usually did get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. But whatever shit had landed on Doug Tuggle’s head, Ajax was determined to make sure that he stole the universe’s thunder this time. For once, the shit-stirrer was going to get his happy ending. Shawn was still talking when Ajax walked away. The file would be in his tablet by now, and he wanted to know every detail he could about Doug’s life.