All-Patron Reward: Demons of the Past Old Draft: Baptism of Fire, Chapter 7

This short chapter again shows the similarities, and drastic differences, between the old and final drafts. Varan recovers and the same nurse is present, but his experiences that make him realize the treatment worked are very different.

The main reason for the change is that I felt it was better to have him simply awaken WITH the psionic powers obviously extant and have to fight for control. Also, the "inhibitor" bands didn't fit the technology I was coming up with, where dimensional tech was generally extremely power hungry.

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vii.

Darkness lightened slowly into a gray redness. I opened my eyes. White walls and instrumentation. There was the sound of footsteps approaching, and a nurse in isolation whites appeared in the doorway. "How are you feeling, Captain?"

I cursed to myself. After what I'd just been through I needed some time alone. "Tired, Nurse..." I squinted at her nametag, "... Vanya. I have a headache and I'm hungry enough to eat ice."

She smiled. "We thought that's about how you'd feel. I'll bring you something to eat in a while; you should stay awake a while first. But for the headache you can use the neural inhibitor. If you need anything else, just call; there's a microphone in the room that goes straight to my station." 

"Ill remember that." I said, giving her the best smile I could manage.

She smiled back and swayed out, a motion I could appreciate even in my present condition.

The headache was something fierce, so I grabbed the headband of the inhibitor and settled it about my temples. It would generate a field that reduced the response and firing of pain receptors, and, to a certain extent, others. This made muscles relax, reducing tension, and dulled the pain directly as well. I switched it on.

Lightning blasted through my brain. I felt like the top of my head was going to explode; the pain was so all-encompassing that I couldn't even scream. The pain mounted like sledgehammer blows, crushing my skull with every heartbeat. Somehow I managed to tear the headband off.

The pain vanished like it had never existed; only the original headache remained, augmented I'll admit by my shaking, sick body's shock. I was pale as snow, I could see that in the mirror across the room, and my skin was covered with a thin film of sweat. Why? How could a simple inhibitor cause such pain?

Suddenly two memories burst through into my consciousness. The first of Vick, speaking of psionics opening and controlling their own Dimensional Taps. And the other of the engine room of the Emissary, its Dimensional Tap generator subjected, in collision, to an inhibiting magnetic field; the power building, heating, towards critical implosion.

I looked at the inhibitor like it had suddenly turned to a Doradan. If I hadn't gotten it off in time...

But what was the headache, then? It wasn't really like any headache I'd had before... no, that's wrong, it was. I remembered a day spent in a region of volcanoes and whistling steam springs in the "exotic terrain" Survival course, and the headache that came from the constant abuse of the ears... and the headache of snowblindness that almost every Borealan experiences once. It was a headache of sensory exhaustion. But what sense? Unless -- 

As the idea occurred to me, a switch seemed to be thrown. The headache resolved itself into hundreds of voices, all speaking at once, gabbling on a hundred subjects at ultraspeed. But all the voices were inside my head.

I was a psionic.