I haven’t seen or spoken with Sheriff Helki since my embarrassing breakdown Friday evening. I sent him a quick thank you text for getting me out of the social, but nothing since. I’m going to put off contacting him for as long as possible, namely Thursday at our next scheduled meeting. Ugh.
I’ve got a busy few weeks ahead of me between my office move, establishing Tommie’s office, whatever the second phase Sheriff Helki has planned, plus the Shindig. And after the Shindig, maybe a meeting with Alasiteh to find out more about my abilities. I mean, I’m not even sure I passed whatever the test was.
Meathead and his cronies weren’t an anomaly. The group’s primary mission was to bed down, observe, and report their findings weekly to a secure website. They all had some Psycept abilities, though four of them were very weak and Mental Guard was only moderate. The reason they broke rank was due to all the blood tests and continued screening at their arrival. Their cover was good but not great and it lacked depth. If we looked too closely or went too far back, we would find discrepancies. And they worried that if we analyzed their blood and saw how weak the abilities were, we might have questioned their request for expedited asylum. The plan was to hold hostages and negotiate an exit for the group, no harm no foul. I don’t know what Chief Quanah and the other War Chiefs will decide.
All I know is that lurking amongst all the activities I’m involved in is a feeling of approaching a precipice of fate. For good or ill, things are happening in the shadows and they’ll eventually be brought to light. Good thing I’m not expected to deal with the threat. I mean, can you imagine?
More stories set in the World of Touch of Gray
the Sisters Wyrd have a mystery to solve in
-Blood Song-
coming Fall 2020
Gray will return in
-Keep in Touch-
coming Winter 2021
WORLD OF TOUCH OF GRAY
CHARACTERS
Psycept Council:
Gray Graham - TouchVoyant / Mind Sage. Police consultant.
Wednesday (Wendy) Randolph - PsyWitch. Gray’s best friend and Sully’s twin sister.
Kyle Ngo - PsySapient / fauna. Husband to Soon Yee
Jamison Mitchell - PreCog
Vito Mata – Variegated / Asomatous
Emily Carsonne - PsySentient
Gloria Escudero - Weather Guide and Chair of the Psycept Council
Bailiff Dichali
Clerk Miss Sonia
PAPPA members:
Sisters Wyrd and Brother Bone - TouchVoyant / Blood Sages and Bone Sage
aka MacGillivray siblings: Libby, Vic, and Jay = sisters; Tiko = brother
Professor Philip Biobaku - TouchVoyant / PsyChometrist, co-founder of PAPPA
Imital Qureshi – PCSS Director in IT, co-founder of PAPPA
Police:
Sheriff Helki - sub-chief of Bosque regional police. Head of all police in Bosque
Lt. Setimika – new lieutenant of the Psycept Division. The sergeants report to him
Sully Randolph - Wendy’s twin brother. Detective Sergeant, head of US cases
Sgt. Alicia Tamez – Detective Sergeant, head of cases from Mexico
Sgt. Catori – new Detective Sergeant, head of Canadian cases
Chief Yanaba - Chief of Police of SWACon. Sheriff Helki’s boss
Detective Bodaway – works with Gray on a petition
Lt. Alawa – Auraria head of the Psycept police unit
Mark - assistant to Psycept police Sgts.
Gray’s Agency: Gray’s virtual assistant business
Sheridan (Dani) - office manager and client development, daughter of Liaison Lowell
Soon Yee Ngo - virtual assistant, worked with Gray for five years, married to Kyle Ngo
Rhea Morningsong - virtual assistant, worked with Gray for three years
Eladio (Dio) - virtual assistant, newly hired
Noah – virtual assistant, even newer than Dio
Other Psycepts:
Tommie - sister of Gray, PreCog
Kai - brother of Gray, Seeker (rhabdomancer)
Matthias Fischer - PsyPorter, oppose sages as an evil force
Tracy Fischer - PsyChometrist. Daughter of Matthias and opponent of Gray
Granny Luna Mae Willodee – PreCog, grandmotherly figure to the MacGillivrays
Healer Minki – a citizen of SWACon that chose to be identified as Psycept
Others:
Liaison Lowell - supervisor of the Psycept Civilian Support Services (PCSS)
Annabeth - assistant to Liaison Lowell
Araceli - girlfriend of Dani
Nakan’oa – visiting vukirev (truth sayer) from GB
Alasiteh – youngest memory keeper, from GB
Coronel Kino – visiting military leader from Cochise Conservatorship
Chief Quanah - War Chief of SWACon
Head Chief Tala - senior leader of SWACon
PSYCEPT CATEGORIES
PsyMovers = able to manipulate objects
PsyKinetics = telekinetics
PsyPorters = transport objects
Weather Guides = move weather
PsySapients = communicators
Flora = plant, tree, flower
Fauna = animal
Terra = land, minerals
PsyWitch = body and spirit influencer
PsySentients = mind perception
PsyPath = telepath or empath
PsyMemori = memory path
Variegated = miscellaneous
Seekers, Asomatous, etc
PreCog = precognition, prophecy
Touch Clairvoyant = tactile sensor
PsyChometrist = object reader
Bone Sage = read bones, cast wards
Blood Sage = read blood, divination
Mind Sage = read memories
TIMELINE OF WORLD
This story takes place in the mid-to-late 2010s. I am deliberately vague with the exact year as the calendars do not exactly mesh. Leap Year is not observed on the GT, they have a different way from the Gregorian calendar to observe lunar astronomy. Between the 150 years since the GT inception and the two hundred years when both the Augustine and the Gregorian calendars were used by various people, the dates have been muddled. Just know Gray was born in the mid-1980s and moved to SWACon in the early aughts.
GEOGRAPHY
Neighboring countries – Canada, Mexico, and the US redrew national lines to carve out GT nation lands. A crude map can be found on the author's website.
US = eastern North America, population 290 million
from Texas/Arkansas east to Atlantic at a diagonal slant
added Quebec, Newfoundland, and part of Ontario
gave up Pacific central and Pacific coast territories
Canada = Pacific Coast North America, population 68 million
BC and Yukon portion
added Washington/Oregon (Cascadia province)
added Nevada / California (Sierra province, California province)
added Baja California peninsula
Hawaii added after new territory
Mexico = Mexico and much of Central America, population 162 million
Gave up northern Mexico and Baja California territories
much of Central America and Puerto Rico remain with Mexico
The Greater Tribal Council of the Americas (the GT) is divided into eleven conservatorships. As each conservatorship houses multiple
