Monday March 17, 2008. 9:30 a.m.:

Nova "Flicker" Madigan was only two hours into her first day of suspension from school, and already she was bored. Her mother was away at her day job, and her friends were at school. Her bedroom felt intolerably small and limiting to her, and she craved escape.

"What's a nova to do," she mumbled, surfing the OpNet on her outdated desktop PC. Her wealthier friends had laptops or PDAs, but she had to make do with what she and her mother could afford. Into this opportunity, the post-hypnotic suggeston Rena Morgan had implanted in her mind two days earlier surfaced, and without knowing why, Nova considered slipping out to visit her nova attorney in New York.

"Dear Morgan," she typed, initiating an email to the nova attorney. "I am still suspended from school as you know, and find myself at loose ends. I'd love to visit you and discuss how that matter is going."

Nova clicked SEND and shook her head once, as if bothered by a fly. She could not imagine why it was she wanted to visit Rena today, but the urge was there nonetheless. Puzzled, she decided to follow that urge to see where it lead. Perhaps, she reasoned, she would learn more there. If nothing else, it would be pleasant to be in the company of such a beautiful and charismatic woman.

The e-mail pinged back ten minutes later, with a flag noting it had been sent from a telephone.

"Flicker,

Of course. I know exactly what you mean, about having time to fill. Have attached cam-photos of my location. Why don't you come on over?

Rena"

Attached were six digital photographs fully laying out what looked like a modestly large library whose balcony, currently sunlit with a decanter of iced tea sitting in the center of it, was open on a view of the long street and a flash of green that might have been a park. Oak writing table, floor to ceiling book-shelves, a long mirror that gave a glimpse of brown hair.

"That was quick," Nova mused.

After reading the reply and studying the photos, Nova stood in the center of her room, to prepare to teleport to New York. She reconfigured her Eufiber outfit from its current shape--warm pajamas with attached slippers--into the outfit her mother had vetoed two days earlier. She wore a black and red leather corset with entirely too many buckles and a matching skirt--similarly festooned--over a fishnet bodystocking that reached to her knuckles, and a pair of shiny black platform knee boots which were also covered in red straps and buckles. An excessive array of necklaces, bracelets, bangles, and bits of ribbon completed the ensemble.

Without hesitation, Nova threw herself across the hundreds of miles separating Cleveland from Manhattan and materialized soundlessly in the sunlit library.

"Well, well. I must say, you are prompt." Rena's smooth, warm voice caught her like a finger under her chin, turning her toward the open windows and the table of intricate white metal at which her lawyer was seated, her reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose and her face caught in the shadow of her unbound hair. "And stylishly so, at that." She glanced down at her own casual, perfectly fitted khakis and halter top with a rueful smile. "I feel positively underdressed. Would you care for some tea?"

"This old thing?" Nova joked nervously. "Just something I threw on." Nova had only been in Rena's presence for a moment, and already she felt her control of the situation dissipating. There was some indescribable force in Rena's bearing and presence which seemed to reach through the air and into her nervous system, pulling on them like a marionette's strings.

"Tea would be great," Nova said after hesitating for a moment. She took three steps across the hardwood floor to the table, her boots clicking precisely as she went. Nova put one hand on the back of a vacant wooden chair, then stopped.

She didn't ask me to sit, Nova thought, without wondering why it was that she was suddenly expecting to be told what to dy by the older nova.

"Sit down and enjoy the morning and the tea. I think it's rather lovely, personally." Reaching out for her own glass, Rena took a long sip and leaned her head back against the chair in studied nonchalance; the sunlight caught in the lenses of her glasses, refracting into her gray and green eyes a gleaming rainbow of fractured light. "Nothing quite so enjoyable as a morning spent relaxing with a friend, is there, Flicker?"

Nova found herself sitting elegantly in the straight-backed chair before she realized she'd taken a seat. Momentarily mesmerized by Rena's appearance--even the sun seemed to conspire to make her more attractive--Nova barely noticed that Rena always called her "Flicker" and not by her given name. She filed that away for later consideration as she poured a glass of iced tea for herself.

"Thank you," Nova said simply. "You're right, there isn't."

What the? Nova thought, her mind racing. She preferred more excitement than sitting and talking. Why did I just say that? That's not even true.

Rena cocked her head slightly, her smile turning gently, endearingly conspiratorial. "Oh, I'm sure you'd rather be off doing something that gets your heart rate up a bit more. Bit early for dancing, of course... what else excites you, Flicker?"

Rena's conspiratorial look set Nova off-balance, since it was not what she had expected at all. She'd come to discuss the matter of her suspension from school, but the reception she'd gotten was that of a social visit, perhaps a social visit with a deeper intent. At a momentary loss for words, Nova replied unsteadily.

"Well, I like DDR," Nova said, sticking to safe topics. "And I run track and cross-country, and I enjoy manga, and video games, and sci-fi."

Wow, that sounds kind of lame, she realized.

The soft, cloying silence lingered as Rena took another sip of her tea, studying with Nova with eyes that seemed to look right into her, the air tingling with anticipation. You didn't really answer the question. The words hung in the air, unspoken and unnecessary, the gentle tug of Rena's smile over the rim of her glass as soothing as it was demanding.

Nova could not escape the sensation that she was being pulled inexorably into some kind of spider's lair. Despite the morning sun beaming in through the windows, she suddenly felt as if it were night. Despite her anxiety, she could not look away from Rena's accusing eyes.

"I," Nova said, hesitating, "I don't know what you mean."

The warm, reassuring thrum of Rena's laugh brushed the moment aside as though it were less than a spiderweb. "Oh, I was just curious. Forgive me if the question was too intimate; it's a bit silly of me to presume so much on both of us being novas, after all." She spreads her hands gently, a self-effacing smile on her lips. "The truth is that I've been positively starved for company, and now I go and bore you with trivial getting to know you questions when I should be entertaining you."

As quickly as Nova had thought she was being pulled through the looking glass, now it seemed to her that she'd only imagined it. So relieved was she, that it did not occur to her that the game Rena played with her had simply entered the next phase.

Entertaining? I thought I'd come to discuss school, Nova thought, again. As aware as she was of her intent in coming, she seemed to be powerless to actually steer the discussion in that direction. Every step of the way, Rena kept her off-balance. Remarkably, she was still not aware that this was by design.

"Entertain me?" Nova said uncertainly.

"You came because you were bored, didn't you?" Her eyes held the younger woman's with a kind of gentle bemusement, her slim fingers cradling the tea against her palms, and Rena let her smile grow warmer and more private. "Of course I could tell you that I've formally served your school on the matter of your suspension and they sounded appropriately terrified on the phone an hour ago, but that's not really what you came all this way to discuss. After all, you knew I had that under control already."

The topic of Nova's legal trouble came and went so quickly that Nova never had a chance to grasp it and cling to it. As the topic receded into the distance, she was left only with the agenda which Rena was relentlessly pushing onto her. Nova really wasn't sure what had compelled her to come to New York, and the knowledge that Rena had planted that compulsion in her mind two days earlier was certainly not hers to have.

In the absence of certainty and still reeling from Rena's manipulation, Nova almost believed it when she replied.

"Bored, right. So what is there to do?"

"Well, since you like dancing, you should take me; I haven't been dancing properly since I was a freshman at Harvard. You'd enjoy that, wouldn't you?" The earnest, friendly warmth in Rena's voice was disarming, almost lulling in its soothing comfort.

"Um, actually, no," Nova replied, getting the upper hand for the first time in the conversation. "I like Dance Dance Revolution. It's a video game. I don't actually know anything about dancing." The two novas weren't far enough apart in age for there to be a generation gap, but there was clearly a cultural one.

This time her laughter was rueful, and Rena shook her head slightly befire downing the last of her tea. "Well, now I've just dated myself thoroughly. If you do ever decide you'd like to try dancing, I'd be glad to take you." She folded her hands together and rested her chin on them, looking across her glasses into Nova's eyes with just a slight smile curving her lips. Well, aren't you just a perfect little puzzle box? Let's try something a bit more direct then. A flicker of quantum energy touched the girl's mind, playing lightly across her the neural transmitters responsible for emotion. "I really don't see why your classmates complain about your quantum display, by the way. It's quite flattering."

Completely ignorant of the fact that she'd just had her emotional state directly altered by the nova sitting across from her, Nova brightened significantly and noticeably.

"Well, nobody was really complaining," Nova said, attributing her relief to the topic actually turning to the one she had come to New York to discuss and not to her perception of reality being forcibly altered. "But the school has this ridiculous zero-tolerance view of any violation of any rule." After a pause, Nova mentally rewound the conversation and discovered that she'd overlooked a compliment.

"Oh, and thank you," she said, watching her own hands blink in and out of complete transparency. "I'm glad you like it."

"I do. And as for the school, I think we'll take care of their re-education properly between the two of us." 'Allowing' herself an almost shy smile, Rena reached up and slid her glasses off and laid them in front of her in a gesture that made her look years younger. "I confess, you quite charmed me the first time we met. I wasn't expecting to enjoy myself nearly as much as I did."

Her mood still artificially boosted, Nova blushed deeply. Out of sudden shyness, she found it difficult to maintain eye contact with Rena. She looked down at her iced tea, from which she had scarcely sipped. She considered the newfound love growing in her heart, and the pleasant feelings that coursed through her body.

"Really?" Nova squeaked.

"Of course." Rena's soft, almost reluctant confession was full of artfully tender vulnerability. "I probably shouldn't tell you so... I wouldn't want you to feel awkward around me. But I was entirely thrilled when you wanted to see me again."

The world turned upside down, and Nova fell into the chasm. She'd come because she'd been compelled to, and she fell in love because she'd been compelled to, and now she was told it was her idea in the first place. To resolve the subconscious conflict, her imagination raced to fill in the gap between reality as she had known it and the way it now appeared.

"Well," Nova said equally reluctantly. "I was really looking forward to this too. I haven't stopped thinking about you since Saturday morning."

She believed it.

Breathing a soft sigh of surprise, Rena hid a flash of triumph behind an expression of pleased yet concerned affection. "I was afraid it was just me. I wouldn't want you to feel I was taking advantage... but it would be wonderful if we could find ways to spend more time together, don't you think?"

It was always an art, to bring these things together. Once they began to weave their own explanations, it wasn't unlike Japanese gardening: a little snip here, a little push there, and the plant grew just how you wanted it. The little thrill of enjoyment curled its way up Rena's spine, and she kept it out of her eyes with the ease of long practice.

"That shouldn't be too hard," Nova said, smiling. "I can go pretty much anywhere I want." Already she was looking forward to the next visit. Her imagination flashed exotic destinations across her mind's eye. Nova leaned forward.

"What do you like to do?" she asked. "I know so little about you."

Rena allowed herself to relax, a hint of genuine amusement in her smile. "Truthfully, I'm a recovering workaholic. I ate, breathed and slept the law until the day I erupted, and went on trying to do so right up until the moment I stopped being able to practice. Since then, I've been trying to find new ways to fill the time: catching up on reading I've meant to do for years, looking up bands I used to enjoy, finding interesting people to know and places to go. I've been exploring sculpture and art, too, when I find the time." Shaking her head, she gave the younger woman an affectionate smile. "I'm quite open to suggestions, if you want to put some thought into things I might enjoy."

For all her artificially-contrived enthusiasm, Nova slammed head-first into a wall. Aside from a chromosome and a node, she and Rena had very little in common, and no amount of false cheer could bludgeon through the barrier of their dissimilarity.

"I--" Nova faltered. "I don't know. What do you like to read? I enjoy science fiction a lot, especially the classics like Heinlein, before he went crazy I mean, and Clarke, and then stuff from the so-called Young Turks of the 60's and early 70's, like Ellison and Niven and Moorcock."

It was not, as such things went, much of an opening. But it was probably the best she was going to get, and with a mental sigh Rena dredged up her reading habits of years ago, dusted them off and set them out to work. "I've always enjoyed Asimov a great deal, personally, though Clarke certainly has his moments. And Moorcock, of course, depending on which of his work you have in mind? Do you have a favorite of his books?"

Contemplating more of this awkward conversation, Rena felt a certain impatient tightness coil itself up her spine. You could just wipe her mind and make her like it. She slapped the thought down sharply; it would hardly be safe to risk exposing herself that way over a novelty trinket, no matter how interesting.

For two hours, Nova did her best. Under the emotional compulsion to be happy and and to be attracted to Rena, she eagerly discussed science fiction literature at excruciating length as the two of them toured Rena's Manhattan townhouse. The works of art which Rena displayed which normally would have bored young Nova to tears seemed as enthralling as blockbuster cinema.

As an antique grandfather clock chimed noon in sonorous tones, they embraced somewhat awkwardly in the foyer as they prepared to say their good-byes for the day.

This was not, on the whole, one of my more successful efforts. Looking the younger woman over with a carefully shy affection, Rena had to bite down on the urge to kick her quantum powers into high gear and reduce the girl to simpering and groveling in compensation for two hours of mind-numbing impatience. Nobody to blame for that one but yourself, Miss Morgan. She hid a rueful smile in Nova's hair, then squeezed the girl's arm gently. "Thank you for coming over, Nova. It was a real pleasure." It was almost a relief to let herself reach into the girl's head and flick it open, pressing a simple suggestion into her subconscious. "Perhaps you'd like to do something more exciting next time?"

"I think I'd like that," Nova said automatically. Rena's hand on her arm felt strangely sensual, and the teenager wondered briefly what Rena had in mind.

"So, thank you for everything," Nova said, politely summing up the visit. "It was nice of you to show me your place. It's really classy. If you hear anything from the school board. . ?"

"Oh, I'll give you a call at once." Her benevolent smile carried a world of reassurance. "I wouldn't worry too much about, though, except to be ready to head back to school the day after tomorrow with an apology in your pocket."

"Awesome, awesome," Nova said with enthusiasm, punctuating each word with a bounce on her toes. "So, until next time?"

"Until next time." Rena gave her hand a squeeze, then stepped back with a smile. "Enjoy your time off, and think about what we ought to do then."

Nova smiled, and then was gone.

Epilogue: Rena

Pouring herself a fresh glass of tea, Rena looked out over the city and allowed herself a momentary spat of frustration. Of all the simple, foolish things to trip over... She shook her head, shaply, putting the thought out of her mind. A better plan, next time, or a better toy. Letting a cool sip of the tea slide past her lips and savoring it for a moment, she laid the whole matter to rest for now. Another game for another day. For now, I need a bit of stress relief.

Plucking her cell-phone off the table, she hit one of the speed-dial buttons and waiting two rings before a familiar woman's voice came over the line. "Sullivan and Cromwell, Dana Morrison speaking. That you, Rena?"

"In the flesh. Busy at the moment?"

"Oh, just the usual. Prepping the Varnix case for court again."

"That crops up every spring about this time like some sort of obnoxious flower, doesn't it? Puts me in mind of something from Freud I was reading yesterday. 'Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.'" Rena heard the other woman's breathing drop to a smooth, steady cadence at once, and she could almost imagine Dana's lovely brown eyes taking the slightly glassy sheen they often did at moments like this. "Why don't you come over for lunch, say noon, and we can have a nice long chat. Let you relax a little bit."

"Yes, Rena. Of course. I'd love to come at noon." Dana's voice was smooth, friendly and peaceful as an upstate lake. "I'll leave right away."

"Wonderful." Rena leaned back in her chair, half-closed her eyes, and allowed herself a wicked little smile for the sky alone to see. "Why don't you bring the Varnix papers with you. We'll make it a working lunch."