Healer's Touch Ch. 00

Earth, 2093

"Mom, please," Katrina Littlebird protested as her mother dragged her away from the principal's office. When her mother turned away to unlock the car, a couple of young boys ran up to her. One of them threw a rock at her.

"Freak, freak," one of the boys yelled. Katrina cried out in pain as the rock struck her temple and broke the skin. Tears welled up in her eyes as blood trickled down her dirty cheek. She had learned from experience not to let them see that they hurt her. Wiping the blood away with her hand, she automatically reached up to heal the wound herself, as she always did.

"You will not!" her mother exclaimed hotly. "It is not natural."

"Mom, please!" she begged.

"Aren't you already in enough trouble as it is?" her mother said, her voice filled with ice. "I already have to appear in front of the judge and explain why my first grader cannot abide by the "No Power Act."

Katrina cringed. She really hadn't meant to break that stupid law. It had just happened. For as long as Katrina could remember, she had had the ability to heal herself and others with a touch. But in 2081, the congress had passed a "no power" law in public schools, dictating that students that had been gifted with abilities weren't allowed to use them because it would make the majority feel inadequate and cause all kinds of social issues. So, instead, it was the gifted children that suffered. Academically Katrina had been barely passing before she had gotten expelled for her "crime." Socially she wasn't doing even that well. She had only one friend.

Later, Katrina decided, she would have done the same thing all over again. Her best friend, Alice, had fallen off the monkey bars and broken her leg. Katrina couldn't very well let her friend suffer when it was in her power to heal her. Unfortunately a few of the other students had seen her, and, like typical kids, they had gone to the teacher and told on her.

* * * * *

Planet Earth, 2103

"Kitty, over here," called a short, elderly man. Katrina smiled as she walked over to greet her grandfather. She was wearing a cap and gown, and holding her diploma. Behind her stood the Institutional Teaching School. It's drab-colored bricks blending with the dark woods that stood behind it. ITS, as Katrina and the rest of the girls who attended call it, was just as dreary on the inside as the outside. Katrina's mandatory ten year sentence was done. She had been but six years old, when the judge, in his wisdom, had sentenced her to finish her education at ITS.

But what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger, she thought.

"Hi, Gramps," Katrina said and gave the old man a hug. She smiled at him. Even as short as Gramps was, Katrina, who had never grown much taller than five feet high, still had to look up to him. Katrina, or Kat as she was known by her friends, looked around for her mother.

"Where's Mom?" she asked, already knowing the answer. Kat was a realist but the six year old girl inside of her, still longed for her mother's love and understanding.

"Ah, Kitty...." Gramps said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"She didn't come, did she?" Kat asked as the last hope inside of her died.

"No, sweetheart. I tried to convince her to come..."

"Don't worry," Kat replied with a small smile. "I shouldn't have hoped for that. She never once visited me at ITS. I don't know what I was thinking." She gave him another quick hug.

"Well, it's time to take you home," he told her as he picked up her bag.

"Gramps, I'm not going back to the farm with you," she said.

"What! It's your home, girl."

"It hasn't been my home for a long time, Gramps, and I won't live under the same roof with her. Besides, I'll be emancipated in the next few weeks, if she doesn't fight me on it," she explained. "I love you, Gramps, but this is what is best for me."

"But you're so young, Kitty."

"There's nothing that I need to know to live outside that I haven't already learned," she said, her voice calm. She no longer was the impulsive child that she had been. In the last ten years she had grown from that child to become a disciplined young woman. She now kept a tight rein on her feelings and an even tighter one on her abilities. She had fought her normal inclinations to heal herself and allowed herself to heal in the same manner as other children, just to make sure that she would fit in.

* * * * *

Earth, 2108

Katrina was sitting at her table working on paperwork, when her Grandfather came in the front door.

"Hey, Kitty. You hear that King Mica and his advisor have finally made it here?" he asked excitedly.

"Yes, Gramps. I heard about it. It's been on the news for the last week. Its part of their public tour," she said as she looked up from the tax forms. She could tell that he was very excited about it. Sighing, she stacked the papers up neatly. She knew what was coming next, and she had a hard time denying her grandpa anything. Other than the one thing that he wanted most. She still refused to move back to the farm.

"Well, lets go, girl," he ordered. "Time's a wasting."

"I'm coming, Gramps. Just give me a sec," Kat said. The shock had long since worn off. She had seen them on the TV. Other than being taller than the average human, they looked very similar.

The Venusians had come in search of water, salt water to be more precise. With earth being three quarters salt water, they had hoped to establish trade.

"Have you heard that on their planet, magic is widely accepted? That would be the perfect place for you to go."

"Gramps, I've told you before. I'm an accountant. Any abilities I have probably withered away to nothing long ago."

"Nonsense," he said, "you are a born healer."

"Enough," Kat said wearily.

* * * * *

Earth, 2113

"Prince Randall, what's wrong?" Katrina asked the High Prince of Venus as she drove him to the airport. His emergency ejection pod had crashed on Gramps's farm. After she had explained to him that there were no spaceports in rural Iowa, she had told him that she would take him to the closest airport, where he could catch a plane to Chicago.

"My chosen. I can't reach her," he said with a frown.

"You are connected psychically?" Katrina asked.

"Yes. It's happens when chosens bond," Rand explained to her as he rubbed the back of his neck. "But I'm too far away to reach her. Maybe if I had her amulet or mine, but by power alone I can't reach her.

"Can you use any kind of power?" Katrina asked as she pulled the car into the airport parking lot.

"Any kind of psychic or mind power works," Rand answered.

"So, do you take the power from the person or do you just borrow it?"

"I borrow it and it returns after I'm done."

"How important is it that you make contact?" she asked him. She couldn't believe what she was going to offer.

"I would give about anything to reach her."

"Alright. I'm going to open myself up to you, Prince Randall. Use what power you need." She relaxed against the seat and held her hand out.

"Just touching you will work?" he asked. He seemed to be uncertain on how her individual power worked.

"Yes."

* * * * *

Venus, 2113

The High Palace

Katrina walked down the hall to the library. The newness of being on another planet still lingered. She sure loved it. Now, if only she could get her hands on a certain alien. She was hoping to catch him in the library. Charles had been even more skittish since she had played footsie with him in the dining room, and he was keeping his distance.

As she entered the library, she noticed him slipping out the French doors on the other side.

"You can't run forever," she called after him.

"Watch me," he hollered in return.

"You can run, but eventually I'm going to corner you, Charles. Then you're going to be mine," she vowed.