Jay dismissed that thought though. It was dishonoring to Kayla, who despite a rocky beginning had proven to be a loyal and hardworking member of Team Jay. It was just that he had personally saved her life two times and she had this weird, almost fanatical devotion to him now.
“Jay, what brings you here?” Abby asked.
“I expect that Trina told you I was coming. I doubt she ever leaves anything to chance.”
Kayla smiled at him. “Of course, but what I think Abby meant is that you needn’t bother yourself with these people. We can keep an eye on them for you.”
“As much as I appreciate anyone who wants to free up some of my time, I should have come and spoken to them before. Have either of you talked to them at all?” Jay asked.
“Why would we. They attacked us. They are the enemy. We protect all of Team Jay,” Kayla said.
But Abby added, “They have tried to talk to us or others who were on guard duty more than once. At first, they demanded to be allowed to leave this part of the ship. Then it was demands to speak to you or as they put it, whoever was in charge. Finally, they started sending some of the women and asking for little things for the children and such.”
“And have we given them everything that they needed?” Jay asked, suddenly worried.
“Of course, Trina insisted that they be provided any basic comforts that they needed. She said that just because they attacked us doesn’t mean that we should try to hurt them,” Abby said.
“Unless they try to escape,” Kayla added a bit more ominously.
“Fair enough. Just remember that not counting the sleepers, there are very few humans left alive. Team Jay or not, we need as many as possible to survive if our race is to survive.” Then more softly he asked, “Is Trina in there meeting with them now?”
“She is with the prime wife and Bong-Cha, Madison, Charlotte, and Samantha,” Abby answered.
“Prime wife?” Jay asked with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s what the boss calls Amelia. She insists that we all do the same,” Kayla said.
He watched her, listened to her tone, and even scanned her surface thoughts briefly to determine if there was any sarcasm intended but all he sensed was respect for Amelia. He got the general impression that Kayla felt that Amelia was responsible for the creation of Team Jay. He shrugged his shoulders. It was sorta true after all.
Jay thanked them and then headed past them. He was shocked that he hadn’t realized that so many of his fuses were in one area. Now that he knew they were there he could sense the six of them but before it had been all distorted, muted almost.
Admittedly the size of the ship combined with the fact that people could be above or below him just as easily as they could be to the left or right had made it a bit harder to track the location of all his fused parts. The larger issue though was that Meikiyo’s grief often seemed to overwhelm the fusion and fill his entire being. He never had to wonder where she was but could always point in a straight line directly to where she was at.
When he walked into what had likely been intended as some sort of storage area, he found Cluster 2 gathered around his six fuses as a heated discussion was ongoing. He activated the Veil ability that he had gained from Daphne which helped him to stay hidden from the others.
“You can’t just hold us here,” yelled a tall, slender Chinese woman.
Trina calmly responded, “We can keep you here for as long as it takes to decide that you aren’t our enemy. Your leader and that one attacked us and tried to kill one of our team.”
“Li Wei paid for his mistakes with his life. I was there. I saw your precious leader murder my husband. I am just grateful that my children were too young to see it happen,” the woman countered.
In that single instant, Jay’s entire plan changed. This was an enemy. No matter how much he might want to protect all of humanity, his first commitment was to Team Jay. Worse, this was a woman aggrieved and her children or any other children that Li Wei had fathered might grow up someday to believe it was their responsibility to get revenge for their father. History was filled with examples of the same.
Still, he didn’t say anything. He did telepathically let all his fuses know he was there. Then he scanned the area more thoroughly. His PSI sight caught tendrils of energy flowing off of one of the women in the back. She was Malaysian if he had to guess, very petite and wiry in her build. Whatever energy he sensed coming off of her kept twisting and turning to his senses as though it was trying to escape detection.
As he had before he combined Hyper Accuracy and PSI Sight to sense more accurately. Then he realized what was going on. This woman was putting off a dampening field of some kind. It seemed to affect sensory skills only but for all that Jay knew it could be used to dampen or even prevent the use of other types of skills. It became clear why he had not immediately detected that his fuses were here. His senses were being dampened.
He scanned around the room more. Now that he was able to pierce the veil, he could tell that
