Katya couldn't help but smile. "You're doing some kind of yoga."
"It's one of the more athletic versions." Spinning in a slow curve, her leg held out like a dancer's, she smiled. "Want to join me?"
Being stronger, Katya thought, would only help in her escape. "Can I do it in these clothes?"
Tiara ran a critical eye over her jeans and sweatshirt. "No, you need lighter gear. You can borrow something of mine."
"You're about a foot taller than I am," Katya pointed out.
"And more than a few pounds heavier." Tiara grinned, one hand on a curvy hip.
She was, Katya thought, the embodiment of the female ideal so many of the human artists liked to draw. All ripe curves and height and an almost electric kind of beauty.
"Right," Tiara said with a nod. "I know what we'll do. Strip off the sweatshirt, and get rid of the jeans. Sun's still out, so the T-shirt will do with some leggings I bought last week."
Katya walked back inside to do as ordered. Tiara threw in a pair of leggings a minute later. Though they were loose enough on her thin frame that she had to use a pin to hold them up, they were otherwise fine, reaching to midcalf - which meant they were likely knee-high on Tiara. Sweeping her own hair into a ponytail, she walked back out to the lawn in her bare feet.
As Tiara began to show her the basic stretches, Katya felt her body flow into the rhythm almost without thought. A few minutes later, the other woman gave her a considering look and said, "Let's try something else."
Katya watched as Tiara demonstrated, then copied the deceptively slow move.
Tiara nodded. "You've done this before."
"Yes." Katya flowed into another move. "My body remembers, even if my mind doesn't." Her brain supplied the information that yoga was considered a valuable form of exercise in the Net, as it meant training the mind as well as the body.
"Awesome. That means we can skip the baby stuff."
"I don't think so." Rubbing at her quivering calf muscles, Katya shook her head. "My body might be willing, but it's not as able as it should be."
Tiara smiled that megawatt grin. "If you're tough enough to mouth off to Dev, you're tough enough for Tiara's Yoga Class."
"How do you know I mouth off to Dev?" Getting into position, she ran her body through a slow, basic routine.
Beside her, Tiara did a much more complex set of moves. "Call it feminine intuition."
"You know," Katya said, feeling sweat roll down her back, "there's a theory that the first Psy were simply humans with a highly developed sense of intuition."
"Well, they do say we originated from the same primordial ooze."
Katya searched the foggy banks of her memory, came up with more data. "If the Council succeeds in maintaining Silence," she said, aligning her body until every muscle was in perfect tune, "and the majority of Psy mate only with other Psy, there's a possibility they'll evolve in a completely different direction."
"That kind of evolution would take a helluva long time. Personally, I don't think it'll happen." An easy shrug as she watched Katya complete her set. "I think the humanity in Psy will rise to the surface."
As Katya's feet came down on the grass, rooting her to the earth, she shook her head. "That assumes there's some humanity still present in them." And after her endless hours with Ming, she knew there wasn't.
Dev was on his way to talk to Katya later that evening when he got a call from Maggie. As a result, he ended up spending over two hours on a conference call with a number of people high up in Shine - all of whom were starting to panic about the rising rate of incidents.
For once, however, the meeting didn't degenerate into an argument - despite the fact that Dev's cousin Jack was pushing for a solution Dev refused to accept. When he finally hung up, it was with a feeling of exhaustion weighing down his shoulders. He wanted to go to Katya, to be with her, even if he couldn't share the fears that threatened to splinter the Forgotten, but the hour was well past eleven, and according to Tiara, both Tag and Katya had gone to bed around ten, after the two women chatted over a late dinner. Dev wasn't sure quite what to make of that. Tiara got along with almost everyone, but she was also fiercely loyal to Shine.
Reaching back to pull off his T-shirt in preparation for catching a few hours' sleep, he froze at the sound of a short, sharp scream, cut off almost before it began.
By the time he slammed into Katya's room, she was sitting up in bed, staring at the sheets.
"What happened?" he asked, sensing Tiara return to her watch in the front.
"The boy," she whispered, "he was such a beautiful boy." Her hand shook as she raised it to her face. She dropped it midway, as if she'd forgotten what she meant to do. "I couldn't help him."
He didn't interrupt, realizing he was hearing an inner nightmare.