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Jesse felt bad. She felt tired, weak, and she was having a hard time focusing. She was drinking coffee in the board room in Central Executive. Not many people actually went in there, and most who did would try to avoid her. She wasn’t sure if they found her intimidating, or just didn’t feel like they knew her well enough to engage in conversation, but either way it suited her.
“Hey Jesse.”
Of course, there was an exception to every rule, and Emily was nothing if not exceptional.
“Yeah, hey,” Jesse said halfheartedly. She stared at her coffee, and took another swig.
“You don’t look so great,” Emily said, concern lacing her voice. “Are you feeling okay?”
Jesse considered lying. She felt like she should lie. She was just tired, and she wanted to present a front that inspired confidence. “Not really,” she said. Had anyone else asked Jesse was sure she would have lied, but again, Emily was the exception. “I’m tired, and it’s making me… emotional.”
Emily scooted closer to Jesse. “Anything you want to talk about?”
Jesse shrugged. “It’s just that being tired makes everything feel harder. Nothing specific is bothering me more than anything else. Still, that leaves the Hiss, looking for Dylan, worrying about what it means to be director, trying to protect everyone, and the stress that comes with the lockdown and having not seen the sky in who knows how long now.” She sighed, and forced herself not to cry. “It’s just all piling up in my mind.”
“Have you been sleeping?”
Jesse shook her head. “Not well. I try, and I get some sleep, but it’s hard to stay asleep.”
Emily nodded. “Well, you’re not used to sleeping in the Oldest House, and sleeping somewhere new is always a bit rough. On top of that, all the stress of the situation can’t make for a restful night’s sleep.”
Jesse frowned. “It’s actually weird. When I first slept here I slept like a baby. I mean, admittedly it was a long time before I was willing to admit that I needed sleep and this whole thing wouldn’t be taken care of in a day or two. I feel like I was more stressed at that time, but maybe I was just so tired that sleeping wasn’t an issue.”
Emily looked down at Jesse’s coffee cup. “Were you drinking as much coffee at that time?”
Jesse felt herself go a bit red. “No. I’ve been upping my coffee intake. I just seem to be getting worn out quicker now than when I first arrived.”
Emily took the information in, and wrote something down on her clipboard.
“Are you taking notes on me?” Jesse asked, a small smirk gracing her features.
“Always,” Emily said, not sounding the least bit ashamed about this. “You’re an enigma, and my boss, and I want to be the best employee I possibly can be.” She looked back up from her notes, and Jesse found herself staring into Emily’s eyes. “Besides that, you’re my friend. If there’s anything I can do to help you, I want to do it. And I find that keeping notes helps me recognize patterns. Even in everyday life. It’s why I keep a sleep journal, a mood journal, and a journal journal myself.”
“Taking notes on your own life,” Jesse said, shaking her head.
“Well,” Emily smiled, “got to make sure they have enough material for when they turn my life into an epic bio movie, right?”
“That would require the things you do in life becoming declassified.”
Emily shrugged. “Maybe one day.”
Jesse sucked down the last of her coffee. “Well, I’d better get back out there.”
“You sure?” Emily asked. “You still look a little out of it. Maybe you should take a nap?”
Jesse shook her head. “I just finished coffee, and only woke up a couple hours ago anyway. I can get more done before I have to rest.”
“If you say so,” Emily said. “Just don’t push yourself too hard. Remember, you put your life on the line every time you go out and face the Hiss. The last thing any of us need is you getting yourself killed just because you felt like you hadn’t put in enough hours.”
Jesse smiled. “I’ll be careful. Promise.”
-- 1 Hour Later --
Jesse collapsed against a wall, waiting for her energy to recover. Machine gun fire sent shards of concrete flying. With a deep breath, Jesse leapt from her cover, flying into the air and grabbing a bench with her telekinesis to throw at the Hiss. It knocked down his shield, and she followed up with a ground pound and melee strike. He staggered back, and she pulled the Service Weapon and fired two rounds from Grip into his head, finally knocking him to the ground whereupon he dissolved into the air as Hiss did when killed.
She made her way back to the Control Point. She felt battered and bruised and exhausted as hell. Accessing Control Points always seemed to help with a lot of her physical complaints. Emily had said something about how she might be using Polaris to tap into the paranatural energy of the Oldest House to promote rapid healing. So rapid it was almost instantaneous. Unfortunately, there were some things that even Control Points didn’t fix. Her overall fatigue, for one. It always gave her the energy she needed to use the abilities her Objects of Power gave her, but not necessarily the energy to keep walking, running, dodging, and generally doing all of the physically demanding things she had to do.
She basked in the Control Point for a moment, feeling her cuts and bruises heal, only to suddenly feel lightheaded and watch the world drain of color. She wondered for a moment if some Altered Item in the area was responsible, but gradually her head cleared and color came back, although now she saw colorful spots filling her vision. Not enough to keep her from seeing the world around her, but enough to leave her disoriented. She remembered having a similar experience once when she had allowed herself to get incredibly dehydrated during a previous job. While she hadn’t been out long, she sighed, and forced herself to appear in Central Executive once more.
Again her head spun and she almost fell over from dizziness. She could barely see, and while she could hear she couldn’t make sense of anything she was hearing. The next thing she knew she was sat down in a chair, a cup of cold water forced into her hand. She drank from it, and slowly her head and senses cleared and she was able to take note of what was going on.
She wasn’t far from the Control Point. It seemed like someone had dragged a chair to her, rather than the other way around. She realized that Emily was the one who had given her the cup of water, and was even now helping her to hold it steady, as her hands shook more than she could ever remember before. Emily looked concerned, but the others in Central Executive also looked on with worried expressions.
“Sorry,” Jesse said. “Just… came out a bit dizzy.”
She wasn’t sure why, but tears started to roll down her face. She wasn’t even feeling as emotional as she had been earlier.
“It’s okay, Jesse,” Emily said reassuringly, the hand that wasn’t helping her hold the cup rubbed her back comfortingly. “You look sick. Just take your time. Breath, and drink the water.”
Jesse nodded, and took another grateful gulp of the cold water.
“Whenever you’re ready you can tell me what happened.”
Jesse looked around at all the other faces looking at them. Everyone had stopped what they were doing.
“Don’t pay attention to them,” Emily said, reading her look. She turned to face the rest of the room. “Back to work everyone! Nothing to see here!”
Everyone turned to at least pretend to get back to their previous tasks.
“When you’re feeling up to walking we can go somewhere private to talk.”
Jesse nodded. She took another drink of water, finishing off the relatively small cup, and took a few calming breaths. “Help me to my office.”
Emily nodded, and gently put Jesse’s arm around her shoulders, her own going around Jesse’s waist. Slowly, Jesse stood up. There were fewer colored spots, but Jesse didn’t like that she saw any.
“You good?”
Jesse gave a hum to indicate she was, deciding that with her dizziness nodding her head might be a bad idea, and the two women set off for the Director’s Office.
Jesse was pleased that, at least with Emily’s help, she seemed fairly steady on the way there. The walk felt longer than it should’ve been. Jesse would’ve blamed a house shift lengthening the hallway, but knew it was probably just her.
Emily sat her gently on the couch, sitting next to her and handing her another cup of cold water she had somehow gotten along their way.
“You feel like telling me what happened?”
Jesse spared a glance down. “No clipboard?”
“I’ll make notes later. First I have to make sure you’re okay.”
Jesse was touched by how concerned Emily was. “I got in a fight.”
“Bad one?”
“Not particularly,” she said. “I mean, it wasn’t a cakewalk, but it was far from the hardest I’ve had. Still, I was roughed up and even more exhausted than when I spoke to you earlier.” She shook her head. “So, I went back to the Control Point, and I almost passed out when it healed me. I took a moment to let the dizziness pass before warping back to Central Executive. And, well, I almost passed out again.”
Emily nodded. “So, you had two dizzy episodes. First when you used the control point to heal, and second when you used it to warp. Is that right?”
“Yeah,” Jesse said. “That about covers it. You don’t think the Control Points are compromised somehow do you?”
Emily frowned. “Well, I suppose I can’t rule that out yet. But it wouldn’t be my first guess.”
“So, what’s your hypothesis?”
Emily hesitated a moment. “Jesse, I hate to ask this of you, because it might trigger another bout of dizziness, but it could also confirm something for me.”
“You want me to use the Control Point again?”
“No, not that,” Emily said. “I’m almost certain warping would cause the same reaction again. We wouldn’t learn anything new. No, instead could you just use one of your powers? Maybe your shield?”
Jesse shrugged, and lifted her hands. The floor tore itself up to yield shards of concrete to place a shield in front of Jesse. Jesse didn’t notice anything unusual.
“Okay, you can release the shield,” Emily said.
Jesse did so. She didn’t know what Emily was looking for. After a brief moment, however, the feeling came back, and she put her head in her hands. It wasn’t as bad, but her head began to spin and colored spots lit up her vision.
“Dizzy?” Emily asked.
“Seeing spots,” Jesse said. “I feel, just, out of it.”
Emily nodded. “Well, it’s still just a hypothesis. Neither of the previous directors really allowed much study of how their bodies reacted to using Objects of Power. Furthermore, neither of them had nearly as many bound to them as you do. Nor did they have to use them as much as you have. And they certainly didn’t have your power with Control Points. That seems to be completely unique to you and-”
“Emily,” Jesse interrupted. “I love to hear you babble, really I do, but could you get to the point?”
“Right, sorry,” Emily said, looking a bit sheepish. “Everyone assumed that the power you were using was somehow being channeled from the Astral Plane. You were just a conduit. But now, looking at the way your body is reacting, it seems like despite the connection between the Objects of Power and the Astral Plane that the energy used to fuel these powers come from you.”
Jesse blinked. “Come from me how?”
“As in same as anything else you do in your day to day life. You walk, you run, you jump, you’re using up your body’s energy. You float, you shield, you dash, you use telekinesis, you still use your body’s energy. Now, the Objects of Power do drastically reduce the power requirements. I mean, the amount of energy it would take to throw a desk thirty feet across a room at high speed mechanically is way more than the energy you seem to be using to do it with telekinesis. Otherwise you would have passed out from exhaustion way before now. Still, using your powers is a physical drain on you. The Control Points aren’t even using an Object of Power, and they heal you and warp you around the building. They’re probably the most draining of all.”
Jesse shook her head. “But I can use my powers even when I feel exhausted. And I can use up the energy for my powers and get that restored by Control Points, or just waiting.”
“I don’t think it’s like you’re directly burning calories to use your powers,” Emily said. “It’s like you’ve got a pool of parautilitarian power. Using that doesn’t tire you, but filling up that pool does.” Emily frowned. “And this could be dangerous. It’s possible that if you’re really weak and try to use a control point it will restore your parautilitarian power reserve, regardless of the physical effects on you. It could suck you dry and leave you dead trying to give you that power.”
Jesse frowned. “But I can’t give these things up. I need these powers to find Dylan. To stop the Hiss.”
“I know, I know,” Emily said. “But if we know what’s wrong we can help you manage it. Mitigate the danger.”
Jesse sighed. “You mean take things easy. Rest a lot. Just resign myself to doing things way slower.”
“Not entirely. Pacing yourself will be very important, yes, but there’s more we can do.”
Jesse looked up, still feeling very hopeless. “Such as?”
“When people are doing intense workout regimens, or any intense physical effort, like training for a marathon, they have to eat differently. Similarly, you can’t get by eating what you ate as an office temp while you’re draining yourself being a parautilitarian extraordinaire.”
Jesse felt like her brain was too foggy to fully process Emily’s words. “So, what you’re saying…” she trailed off.
“I’m saying with this change in lifestyle we give you a change in diet. If all goes well, you should be golden. I mean, we’ll still want to be cautious. But as long as we keep you from reaching this point again, it should be fine.”
It seemed too simple a solution to be true. Still, it couldn’t hurt. “Okay. Let’s try it.”
Emily smiled brightly. “Okay. You might want to take a day off while you recover and let your body catch up, and then be careful while we work out what you actually need, nutritionally. And of course this is all subject to change if you bind another Object of Power, or learn a new power with what you already have, and after the Hiss are dealt with I doubt you’ll be using your Objects of Power as much so we’ll need to reexamine things again then, and I would love to test how many calories your power pool burns and what-”
“Emily,” Jesse interrupted again.
“Sorry,” Emily said. “It’s just that we’ve never been able to study Objects of Power like this.”
Jesse smiled. “I’ll let you run all the studies you want. For now, just help me to feel less like shit.”
Emily gave a dry chuckle. “I can do that. I think.”
-- Months Later --
“Ma’am?”
“Did she stutter?” Emily asked.
The nervous looking server shook his head. “No, of course not. It’s just that both of those items are entrees. We pride ourselves on our generous portion size so perhaps-”
“I have a fast metabolism, and it’s none of your business,” Jesse said. “You have our orders.”
“Of course, ma’am,” the server said, nodding and heading off towards the kitchen.
Jesse smiled at her date. Emily looked gorgeous. It had taken some time after the Hiss ordeal was over and done with before Jesse finally got up the courage to ask out her crush, but Emily and her were now going strong and celebrating the two month anniversary of their first date.
“Thanks for always standing up for me in these situations,” Jesse said. She still felt awkward going to a restaurant knowing how much food she’d be ordering just for herself. Even when she didn’t need to spend all day fighting Hiss, her metabolism was still faster than she ever would’ve expected before just by virtue of being bound to Objects of Power.
“Anyone should be able to do whatever they need to when it comes to food without being judged,” Emily said. “Besides, between our salaries as high paying government officials we can afford nice things.”
Jesse looked around. “Nice things? Em, this is a steakhouse.”
“You’d be miserable at a five star restaurant. Besides, this is a nice steakhouse.”
It was a nice steakhouse, but nothing fancy. Still, to them everything was perfect, especially each other.