Boucher's World: Emergent Read online

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  The precog looked down at the sleeping faces of her children and prayed silently to the gods of the universe. She would have done anything in her power to protect them, and all the probability strands except one led to their destruction. She’d had to make sure of that strand being the one that came about.

  She had seen the way to make that happen three months ago and had set it into motion even though she’d known doing so would cause him to inflict terrible pain on her.

  It hadn’t been enough for him to use her more violently than usual, no, for punishment, he utilized implements on her also, because he loved seeing her in pain and his pain/pleasure esa didn’t work on her: she only got a brief itchiness in her hands from the pain and if he’d ever used the pleasure on her, she hadn’t noticed.

  He’d had Charles bring the disgraced Healer in to attend her and keep her alive to be used another day.

  As usual, her heart wept when she thought of Charles.

  As she prepared herself for bed, she remembered how his Healer had looked at her afterwards, with shame in his eyes.

  He had been aghast at the extent of her wounds this time. They were the worse he had inflicted on her, to date. When he had stepped away to check on something with Charles, the Healer had hurriedly handed her some small yellow pills whispering to her of their use.

  She’d looked at him, eyes flat, unsmiling.

  Had he given them to her before she conceived and gave birth to her first child, she would’ve taken them. Gladly. Happily. Now, she couldn’t. She had seen a strand in which she had done so and saw her children perish in a most horrific manner.

  She’d handed the pills back, shaking her head.

  Now, as she slipped into her night-gown and climbed into the bed she shared with her two children, she re-checked this strand she had steered them to, and smiled. Her children would survive and have a good future. She wouldn’t survive, but that didn’t matter.

  There were no strands in which she did.

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