Invisible Touch Page 12

  “If elected, another thing I will involve myself in is our residency terms and community. How many of you have or are nearing the completion of your residency contracts? How many have children that have aged up and are eligible to serve as Psycepts? How many have jobs lined up after your term ends? What support do you wish to have regarding these issues? How many of you are non-Psycept family members and wish to have non-Psycept concerns addressed by the council? This includes options for military service, college and university assistance, and more job placement assistance available to you amongst other concerns you have.

  “How many Psycepts want to explore relocation after the residency contract ends? How many know that after the contract ends you will be expected to give community contributions or have a job that contributes on your behalf? How many would like to continue to work Psycept cases even after your contract ends? How many have or would like to marry citizens of SWACon and would like an advocacy service to help navigate the laws associated with this?

  “How many are aware that we’re getting five thousand new residents in the new year because La Loche in SubA-West has recently reached their limit? They were only established to take ten thousand and it was believed they would not hit that number any time soon. There were only a small number of applicants last year, so La Loche was expected to be available as spillover and growth potential for many years. Instead, the GT has received a surge of Psycept applications from the US and increased number of requests from Canada and Mexico in the last eight months. The five thousand that we’re getting is just the first wave and we may eventually double or triple in size.

  “How many of you have ties to other Psycept communities? How many know what the conditions are in other Psycept communities? How many know how other conservatorships operate? How many have met with higher councils, either SWACon or even the Greater Tribal Council?

  “These are all rhetorical questions, but I want to note that we as a community do not know your answers. We’ve not compiled this information nor surveyed you about this. You may not be concerned with any of the points I’ve brought up, or you may dread having to face some upcoming hard decisions. We don’t know your interest because we’ve not gauged it.

  “If I’m elected to Psycept Council, these are the kinds of topics and projects I will champion. We are an advisory council, not a governing council, so I pledge to listen to your concerns and proposals. When it is my opportunity to serve as the Psycept Representative on the Albuquerque Community Council and the Bosque Regional Council, I will advocate for our community. Thank you for your time and attention.”

  As I was the last speaker, when I finish my speech, people begin to either queue to use the voting booths lined up on two opposite sides of the room, or they left for one of the other designated voter areas. Wendy and I just step to the end of the line for the batch of booths closest to us. Last year, it only took ninety minutes to vote and that was with eighty booths in the whole convention center. Now we have a hundred booths, sixty in this room alone, so we may be done in an hour.

  “Gray, I didn’t know you had that speech in you. Good job. I’ll definitely be stealing some of your ideas if you are not elected.”

  “Great. I don’t expect to win the election, but I hope that my speech may make its way to agenda topics or tasks for the upcoming year. So, thank you for taking up the mantle.”

  “Did you hear about Tracy’s glad-handing with other groups over the past couple of weeks? She’s really set on continuing to be on the council.”

  “Sounds like she wants to be a politician more than a council member. Her ambition must be frustrated by the political limits in place for Psycepts.”

  “Must be why back in the US many towns have a mayor, but the city manager or city council are who run the town. Those that like the schmoozing can do the mayor thing, but for those that just want get things done, they can be city managers.”

  “Oh, no, Wendy. Don’t give Tracy any ideas about creating a mayor of PsyTown. I think we’d have grounds to do something horrible to you.”

  “I agree with Gray, we PsySapients would hurt you. So, I hear you’re rounding up a posse to head to Pennsylvania to clean up a forest there. I would like to volunteer if you don’t have a fauna PsySapient yet.”

  “Kyle, did you just legitimately use posse in a sentence? How’s your Canadian heart taking it? As for Pennsylvania, we don’t have participants yet. The area has experienced record high snowfall the past couple of weeks. We were there in the early days of the snow and getting around in the woods was a bit tricky. It’s only gotten worse since then. We’re going to wait a bit before we make our way up there. Or we’ll try to rope a Weather Guide to come with as I’m sure the heavy snow is due to the imbalance in the area. But I’ll add you the interested party list, thanks.”

  “Kyle, how’d you end up so close to us in line? You were way closer to the stage stairs than I was, and poor Wendy waited for me.”

  “I’m thrilled with the opportunity to use posse in a sentence. It reminds me of those old vaquero and settler movies from the 60s. So, thank you for affording me the opportunity, Wendy. Right after you finished speaking, Gray, Tracy elbow checked us and rushed down the stairs. So, there was a slight delay there. Maddie is just a few people ahead of me. I think the rest decided to try the other side of the room.”

  I don’t know why we’re in a hurry to vote. As candidates, we must wait until the votes are tallied by the election officials, results read, then declared official by the registrar before we can leave the convention center. Sully was in the first wave that voted upstairs and left to pick up Echo and bring him to the convention center to wait with Wendy and me. We continue to chat our way to the front of the line, then split up to go to the next available booths.

  It’s interesting, non-Psycept members of our community are still constrained like we are. Most residents are Psycepts, true, but some came to SWACon with non-Psycept spouses, children, or siblings in the case of Wendy. The terms of her residency contract laid out her number of consultations and years of service in exchange for permanent residency, as all adult Psycepts did. However, Sully, while her twin, is not a Psycept. They were seventeen when they arrived thus legally adults according to the GT. Sully could have stayed in the US, but the two did not want to be separated. Sully entered into his own contract with SWACon. He agreed to civil or community service and chose to become a policeman. He had to wait a couple of years before entering the academy. Most police officers have at least two years of military service under their belt prior to joining the peace enforcement. As a resident and not citizens, we’re ineligible for military service. Sully needed to gain experience in college as equivalent to military service as he could get, so obtained a degree in law and peace enforcement.

  I was the last of our group to vote, then we head back up to the stage to await the results. Sully arrives and brings Echo to me just as we settle in. I see Tiko and Vic in seats in front of us and Sully joined them. Voting booths closed and the tallying commenced. More people than I expected are staying to hear the results and there’s a bit of a party atmosphere going on. Finally, the election officials make their way up to the stage and the registrar steps up to the podium.

  “The results are in. PsyWitches: Wednesday Randolph, PsySentients: Emily Carsonne, PreCogs: James Mitchell, and the Variegated: Vito Mata.

  “For the multiple candidate categories, PsyMovers: Gloria Escudero.” She’s the Weather Guide. I voted for the PsyKinetic, but I’m not disappointed in the result.

  “For PsySapients, Kyle Ngo.” Go, Kyle.

  “For TouchVoyants, MT ‘Gray’ Graham.”

  What. The. Fuckery.

  Read the follow-up adventures of

  Wendy’s Pennsylvania Posse in

  -Those Wild and Wicked Ways-

  coming Fall 2019

  Gray will return in

  -Touch Too Much-

  coming Winter 2020

  WORLD OF TOUCH OF GRAY


  CHARACTERS

  Psycepts:

  Gray Graham - TouchVoyant / Mind Sage

  Wednesday (Wendy) Randolph - PsyWitch. Gray’s best friend

  Sisters Wyrd and Brother Bone - TouchVoyant / Blood Sages and Bone Sage

  MacGillivray siblings: Libby, Vic, and Jay = sisters; Tiko = brother

  Professor Philip Biobaku - TouchVoyant / PsyChometrist, co-founder of PAPPA

  Kyle Ngo - PsySapient / fauna. Husband to Soon Yee

  Matthias Fischer - PsyMover / PsyPorter, oppose sages as an evil force

  Tracy Fischer - TouchVoyant / PsyChometrist. Daughter of Matthias and opponent of Gray

  Granny Luna Mae Willodee – PreCog, grandmotherly figure to the MacGillivrays

  Police:

  Sully Randolph - Wendy’s twin brother. Detective Sergeant, co-head Psycept police unit.

  Sgt. Tamez – Detective Sergeant, co-head Psycept police unit

  Sheriff Helki - sub-chief of Bosque police division. Boss of Randolph and Tamez.

  Chief Yanaba - Chief of Police of SWACon. Sheriff Helki’s boss

  Lt. Alawa – Auraria head of the Psycept police unit.

  Gray’s Agency: Gray’s virtual assistant business

  Sheridan (Dani) - office manager, worked with Gray for one year, 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

  Others:

  Liaison Lowell - supervisor of the civilian Psycept Support Services

  Tommie - sister of Gray, PreCog

  Kai - brother of Gray, Seeker

  Mark - assistant to Psycept police Sgts.

  Annabeth - assistant to Liaison Lowell

  Araceli - girlfriend of Dani

  Imital Qureshi - support services, co-founder of PAPPA

  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, casts 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

  The Greater Tribal Council of the Americas (the GT) is divided into eleven conservatorships. As each conservatorship houses multiple tribes, the names of the conservatorship attempt to be as broad as possible. Encompasses much of central and western North America. 37 million

  Southwestern Alliance Conservatorship (SWACon) – area around four corners south

  Bosque region – from Rio Grande east, 750,00 inhabitants

  Albuquerque is largest settlement, population 400,000

  Approved region for Psycept residents, most live in PsyTown-ABQ

  Puebloan and Apache tribes predominate

  Chaco region – central area of SWACon, 650,000 inhabitants

  Conservatorship central headquarters

  Wir-Kiva SWACon municipal seat

  Great Kiva sacred meeting place

  Tsé Bit’a’í sacred landmark (Shiprock)

  Navajo, Puebloans, Zuni major tribes

  Mesa Verde region – northern border, 475,000 inhabitants

  Mesa Verde area is regional seat

  Ute and Puebloans major tribes

  Hohokam region – western area, 600,000 inhabitants

  Kaibab Canyon (Grand Canyon) and Kaibab Forest here

  SWACon military base seat

  Hopi, Apache, Navajo, and Puebloan tribes predominate

  Llano Estacado (Lla-Esta)

  Cochise (CoCon)

  Great Basin (GB)

  Plateau (PlateauCon)

  Southern Plains (SoPlains)

  Central Plains (Central)

  Northern Plains (NoPlains)

  Subarctic East (SubA-East)

  Subarctic West (SubA-West)

  Arctic

  Countries – Canada, Mexico, and the US redrew national lines to carve out GT nation lands

  US = eastern North America, population 291 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 163 million

  Gave up northern Mexico and Baja California territories

  much of Central America and Puerto Rico remain with Mexico

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Leia Howard is a full-time doctor graduate student living in Texas. Touch of Gray is her first Urban Fantasy series.

  She is available through her website: https://authorleia.blogspot.com/ Also feel free to reach her on Twitter @AuthorLeia.