My punk is Tattoopunk (tattoos give the energy powering Natasha's world) and I offer it here. Thanks so much for taking a look.
The Incredible Thaumaturge
Natasha touched her palm to the base of the
thaumaturge device. With a whine it clicked on; she counted the seconds as it
booted up and the screen flickered to show the familiar visage of Nix, her best
friend. The machine was running by the time she counted to nine – five counts
faster than a day earlier.
Her ink strengthened at an alarming rate.
Colors, lines, and strange symbols swirled within
the tattoo. At thirteen she was taken to the Energy Artist, and after several
hours of thirst, hunger, and having to pee, she had her tat.
Officially she was an adult as a result, and thus
she and Nix could enter a courtship ritual if they desired. Neither of them
willed it: he was in love with the dark-eyed machinist on the second level, and
Natasha had no thought for romance. She was too busy in a search.
Her thaumaturge was old, but she knew how to boot
in memory and power from surrounding devices. As she twiddled the knobs and
plucked the strings, keyed in words and numbers, her palm flamed as the
energy surged within the tat. She hated to admit it, but the sensation was incredibly pleasurable.
Natasha’s search led her back in time. A desire
for knowledge, a thirst to discover what happened before consumed her, and she
searched the recorded stories beyond what was taught in her
schoolroom at the side of her governess. The manuscript she found a day earlier
looked promising; its kodachromed pages ('graphed before they crumbled to dust)
hinted of forbidden secrets and an age no one remembered any longer.
‘There were those whose ignorance had no bounds,
and they discharged voltage will-nilly, with no thought of their children.
Although we know little about them, it is said they were able to harness their
inner power through use of graphics, numbers, and colors, and amplify it…’
“Child.” A slim hand, framed with hand-sewn
frills, slid over hers and stopped the frantic search. Her governess was silent
as she walked through the manse, and often she had surprised Natasha thus.
A turn of the wrist and the thaumaturge clicked
Off. Natasha wrestled down her frustration and forced a bland smile of
compliance onto her face. She had come so close! Still, now she had a promising
lead, and she could return to it easily.
“Child, you radiate too much. Temper your power,
or Senator Flux himself will knock on our doors.” The governess smoothed
Natasha’s black braids with her frilled hand. “Mind me, now. I want no midnight
abductions – you deserve a dull life.”
Natasha nodded again, and with a heave of the
bosom her governess withdrew her fingers and slipped out of the room.
The thaumaturge blinked with an incoming message
from Nix: “Let’s meet at the greenhouses after midnight.”
“Very well,” she wrote, and sent her response with a
careful surge of energy from her palm.
*****
“How was Willa?” Natasha handed Nix a cucumber
sandwich stolen from the kitchens earlier.
He bit into the stale bread with a slight wince.
“Uninterested. She knows I’m infatuated, but there are several others after her
kisses. Bloody sons of diplomats and earls!” With a burst of fury, he hurled
his sandwich into the dead plants inside the dark building.
Natasha put her head on his shoulder. “She’ll see
your loyalty and vision in the end – I’m sure of it.”
Nix blurted a rude word, tucked his arm around
her, and they nestled together for warmth in the ruined glass. “And your
search?”
“Getting closer. And…” She was
uncertain whether to tell him about her tat. “I – I powered the Thaumaturge in
nine counts today.”
His arm dropped and Nix withdrew. “Nine seconds!
It takes my father three-quarters of an hour to get the screen to flicker, and
he thinks he’s brilliant when it does. Nine?”
“Puffy is worried the Senator will discover it.”
That was their name for her governess, due to the woman’s leg-of-mutton
sleeves.
“Gosh.” Nix rose and helped Natasha to her feet.
“I must go to bed, and you must as well. Tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
*****
‘Once the connection between hypothalamus and ink
is made, power increases exponentially to the point of giving the user any
ability, even when contact is not established…’
Natasha’s reading was interrupted again by a
frantic message from Nix. “Willa said Yes!” he enthused. “Dancing and dinner
tomorrow under the stars. I won’t be able to meet at the greenhouse, though.”
No,
I suppose not, she thought with a grin. Her search had yielded
ripe fruit, and it looked as though Nix found his as well.
Those musings were cut off as the door burst
open. A man with silver hair and eyes strode in, seized her wrist, and pulled
Natasha to her feet. “This is the wench?” he snarled.
Puffy shook her
head; the governess's chipped nails plucked at her starched frills. “Senator Flux, please do not hurt her!”
“Hurt? Why, Madam, this little slice will be the star
of my collection.” The silver man held Natasha’s palm to his nose, sniffed her
skin, and licked it.
“What?” Natasha was bewildered.
“Nine seconds. Is it true?” His silver eyes
flashed, and white dents appeared beside his flared nostrils.
Nix.
Willa. Nine seconds. With a heart full of lead, Natasha
realized why her friend was able to secure Willa’s hand for dinner and dancing,
and how he was able to fund his pursuit. “I found a way for everyone to harness
my powers!” she screamed. “Give me three days – we will all have that conduit for the asking!”
The Senator snorted. “And do you think I would
allow such knowledge to be freely given? No, small one. You will be mine.”
No arguments would serve, then. Natasha held up
her tattooed palm and closed her eyes. With an inner click, her nerves and the
colors in her skin combined as she called up the energy galloping within and spent it in a long, furious blast.
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