The Pellegrine - A Brother’s Secret 5

Date: 24 May 2675, Monday

The main door buzzer went. Matthew was puzzled. Perhaps it was Mark but Mark had never forgotten to bring his keys before. Anyway, Matthew got up to the apartment’s main terminal and answered. It was Jacques.

“Hi there, Jacques,” said Matthew, smiling. “Just a moment.”

“Are you alone?” Jacques asked.

“Yes,” Matthew answered. Then he looked puzzled. “Wait a moment, shouldn’t Mark be with you?”

“Yes.” replied Jacques, “but your brother and Heath had to run some errands.”

“Sorry,” Matthew said, realising that he should have at least allowed Jacques to come into the apartment before talking. “Number 3 will bring you up.”

Moments later, Jacques was standing in the apartment with a little bag slung over his left shoulder and breathing mask in his right hand.

“Mark is trying to organise a surprise party for me, isn’t he?” Matthew grinned as he closed the front door.

Jacques gave a half-grin and said, “Well, it’s not much of a surprise, is it? … now that you’ve guessed it.”

“Before he left for this last trip, he apologised profusely for not being able to celebrate my eighteenth birthday and he said he was going to make it up to me,” explained Matthew.

Jacques smiled. “How does it feel to be eighteen?”

Matthew gave a shrug. “Well, about the same. I’m in school with sixteen year olds mainly. There isn’t much to do because they can’t go to the more adult places.”

Jacques looked surprised. “I thought Mark say that you’ve kept yourself buried in your books!”

“Well, I need to relax and hang loose once in a while,” retorted Matthew.

“I’ve got a little surprise of my own,” Jacques said. Matthew looked surprised but Jacques just got him to move to the sitting room couch. “Please sit here,” said Jacques as he slid his bag strap from his shoulder and placed the bag in front of him. “Close your eyes and count to ten. Then, open your eyes and I’ll have your surprise for you. Remember, no peeking!”

Matthew did as he was told. He was tempted to open his eyes but he felt that a small surprise was better since the surprise party was no longer a surprise. When he had counted to ten, he opened his eyes. He felt strange. Then he realised that he was no longer in his own apartment.

“Jacques?!” he called out with a hint of panic in his voice.

“I’m here,” said Jacques as he moved into Matthew’s field of view.

Matthew looked a little relieved when he saw Jacques. “This is one surprise! How? Why? …”

Jacques said, “Calm yourself down and listen attentively. Now that you’re eighteen, I need to tell you some things. Some may seem nonsensical but I’ve brought you here so that you may at least attempt to believe what I’m about to tell you. Are you able to listen and understand me?”

Matthew just stared at Jacques and nodded.

Jacques continued, “There’s this secret that has existed since the beginning of humanity. Some of us humans that are born with a psychic ability that allows us to do things beyond normal humans. These humans are called magi. I’m a magus. Only, I wasn’t born a magus. Something happened which made me one. So far so good?”

Matthew remained silent but nodded his head.

“Why am I telling you this? Because I know about your origins. I know that you’re not Mark’s biological brother …” Jacques could see that Matthew was getting a little angry. He put up his hand to tell Matthew to listen, “Don’t blame him. He loves you so much. He needed some help to get you out of that institution and get you here. He had to tell me so that I could get my mother, who is a lecturer in psychology here, to certify that she’d be looking after your psychological well-being. I know that you haven’t seen her yet but I was able to convince her that you were perfectly fine and that if we find any problems surfacing, we’d bring you to her immediately. Mark couldn’t bear to see you living in the state institution. You understand this, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Matthew replied as he nodded, “but what about my origins. You mean he now knows who my biological father and mother are?”

“No. He hasn’t been told,” replied Jacques. “Almost all magi are born with their abilities. The abilities cannot be passed on to someone who is not genetically and psychically a magus. I was different. You see, I was a semi-magus. A cross between a magus and a normal human being. Under normal circumstances, I would be like any normal human being without any psychic ability. However, something happened. I don’t know how it happened but I do know it did. I started to acquire psychic powers, a little, at first. When I first met Heath, we were just friends. It took us a little while before we realised that we were gay and interested in each other. Then, we decided that we needed to be sure of our orientation before really getting together.”

“Why didn’t you just take the gay-gene test?” asked Matthew.

“I know I have the gene,” replied Jacques. “My father has it too and he gave it to me. He got some gene therapy and so he’s happily married. Heath didn’t want some test to classify who he was. Any way, to make a long story short, we finally did get together, after we graduated from the Academy. What we didn’t know was that we were both semi-magi and that my psychic powers activated an exchange process that would make us full magi.”

“What has this got to do with me?” asked Matthew.

“You are also a semi-magus,” Jacques explained. “We’ve managed to trace your genetic files to a woman scientist who had a brief affair with a magus. She managed to hide the fact that she was pregnant from him. She was also a friend of your mother’s gynaecologist.”

Matthew began to understand. “So she implanted her foetus into my mother’s, or should I say that I was implanted into …”

“I only found out about the events when some magi I knew chanced upon her personal diary. Let me try to get the events chronologically laid out. She conceived and she was about one month pregnant. Her gynaecologist friend was telling her about a sad case of a non-viable pregnancy of one of his patients. The couple had been trying for four years after the birth of their first born and this was surely going to break their hearts. Then this woman scientist hit on a brilliant idea. She didn’t want to abort her baby and she did a genetic check on your parents and yourself. All visible characteristics would point to you being their child. So she managed to convince her gynaecologist friend, who was very reluctant, to implant the more viable foetus into the womb of his patient. The patient was really two months pregnant at that point but the gynaecologist was able to come out with a reason for the slight delay in delivery.”

Matthew listened with renewed interest. “Who are my real parents? I must find out! Why didn’t my mother come to claim me, at least?”

“Matthew,” Jacques said in a serious tone, “I’m going to tell you but it is not all good news. Please don’t do anything rash after I tell you. You aren’t going to like what I’m going to say next: your father is a very ambitious and ruthless magus. He’s very careful and powerful both in the magus and human worlds. He found out that your mother became pregnant and that would mean a huge scandal for him. He arranged to have an accident to occur …”

Matthew stood up. He moved about around the living room. “You mean my mother … he killed …”

Jacques nodded his head sadly, “He caused an explosion in the home of your mother. A magus woman was aware of what was happening and tried to save your mother but he was very powerful and became aware of what this woman magus was planning. He broke through the psychic defenses of the magus and allowed the explosion to consume both your mother and the magus. What he didn’t know was that this magus had recorded her findings on a chip and had hidden it. She also discovered your mother’s diary on a chip. She managed to move the chips away from destruction.”

“If my father was so powerful, how come he didn’t find the two chips?”

“He didn’t know about the two chips but he knew that the magus was a member of the magi rescue corps, an organised group of magi whose sole purpose was to help any human person who needed help. Rescue corps members had records. He managed to erase all the records from the magus’ home and from the rescue corps computers as well. He was good. There was a mention of the magus assigned to help your mother, but that was it. The magus didn’t file a report before she was killed in the line of duty. What your father didn’t know was that the chips were sent to a magus teenage girl for safekeeping. The magus had a very good friend whose daughter she loved dearly. This girl hero-worshipped the magus and wanted to be just like her. When she received the two chips, she was warned against reading them until she was able to attend the rescue school. So, she made sure that they were well hidden. Then she found out that her ‘aunt’ had died. Realising the gravity of the situaton, she followed the instructions given her and she hid this knowledge until she went to rescue school. Not even her parents knew of the hidden chips.”

Jacques looked at the angry eyes of Matthew and sighed. “I know you feel angry but you need to hear all of it before reacting. When Mark told me of the problems in your family, I asked a magus friend for help. In the process of helping you, we discovered who your parents were. It was then that the girl who had the two chips came forward with the records.”

“So why can’t you just go and arrest my father for murder?!” asked a livid Matthew.

Jacques shook his head. “Magi work in secret, Matthew. Our job is to help without bringing attention to us. Think for a little while, magi are more powerful than human beings, which would make human beings more afraid of them. If this thing about magi were known, it would cause a great chaos in the whole human civilization. It’s a little like the Inquisition. I’m sure you studied this in History.”

“Yes,” replied Matthew remembering what he had learnt. “People were afraid of witches and they burned suspected witches on the stake.” “In the case of magi,” explained Jacques, “there might be a ‘witch-hunt’ and many innocent people may be harmed in the process.”

Matthew looked thoughtful for a while and said, “You mentioned that my biological father was influential in both magi and human worlds?”

“Yes,“ said Jacques. “Your biological father is Ryan White.”

Matthew’s eyes widened. “You mean the one who has been asked to run for world council president in the next elections? The media mogul?!”

“Yes, can you see why if the magi removed him just like that, there would be a problem? He is one of the most powerful magi in the solar system. Even without his magi powers, he could still command a huge witch-hunt against all magi. The magi council, … yes there is a council … the council has discovered his crimes and are trying to distant themselves from him. This is delicate because we won’t want him to become too suspicious. At the moment, we’re quite safe from him because he’s still on Earth. However, he does have his lackeys around. He doesn’t know about you yet but I’m sure he’ll find out. Once he does, he’ll try to get rid of you.”

Matthew looked very sullen. “You could’ve hidden everything from me. Now that I know, I feel more helpless.”

“There’s something that you could do,” said Jacques, “I’m not going to tell you everything now because Mark would be back soon and I don’t have the time to tell you the details. The magi were endowed their powers by beings from outer space. They discovered that the human gene pool contained something that would delay the next step of human evolution if it didn’t destroy us first. Having magi around was one of the counter measures against this. Another is a set of special genes that were introduced to a few people thousands of years ago. Heath and I have three out of four parts of the set. You have the missing part. We figure that if we’re to fight your father and correct the defect in humanity, then we need that fourth part. There’s only one way to combine all four parts and we’re asking of you to help us.”

Matthew considered for a while and then said, “What do I have to do?”

“The only way that the genes are primed for combination is when they are just released from the gonads …” Jacques replied with hesitation.

Matthew lost his serious demeanour. “You mean sex?!” he exploded.

Jacques looked a little uncomfortable. “I know you’re straight Matthew. Normally, I won’t even consider this but your father grows stronger every moment and …”

“He’s not my father!” Matthew lashed out. Jacques could see that he was close to tears. “He may’ve fathered me biologically but he didn’t want me. But I can’t have sex …”

“Look, there’re two ways that your sperm can be introduced: via the arse, which is the more effective of the two, or the mouth. You could either do me, or Heath, or let one of us give you a blow job.” Looking intently at the expression on Matthew, Jacques continued, “I know that this is really putting you off but I assure you that neither Heath nor I felt good when this was told to us. We’d wanted to stay faithful to each other. If you refuse, we’ll respect your wishes.”

“Then what could you do?” asked Matthew.

Without changing his expression of seriousness, Jacques replied, “We’d have to start looking for someone with the missing gene segment. This is risky because our plans to stop White could easily be discovered.”

“Okay!” said Matthew, “I’ll do it.”

Jacques looked surprised but replied with a soft “Thank you.”

Matthew started unbuckling his belt.

Jacques stood up immediately and asked, “What’re you doing?”

“You did say you needed me to fuck you …” replied Matthew.

“Well, not now!” exclaimed Jacques. “ For one thing, Mark doesn’t know anything about this and he’ll return soon.”

“I’m a teenager, I can get off within a few minutes!’ replied Matthew.

Jacques looked a little embarrassed. “There is one more thing,” he said.

“What?!” said Matthew. He felt overwhelmed.

“Since you’re a semi magi, your limited psychic powers can be activated if you so wish. The snag is this - only I can activate your power. If you choose to do it with me, your powers would be activated. If you don’t wish to activate your powers, you should do it with Heath.”

“Why?”

Jacques blushed. “This is pretty embarrassing. It would seem that when I’m in the height of passion, I can’t control the activation power. This was how I was able to activate Heath unconsciously.” Then he hurriedly added, “but that doesn’t mean that I must be sexed up to activate your power. If you want to activate your power later, I could do it consciously. Only that if I do it with you, your powers would be activated whether you liked it or not.”

Matthew considered the blushing adult in front of him. He first thought that Jacques made up the story so that he could have sex with him. Now he had doubts. The move between apartments was proof that magi did exist. This blushing Jacques convinced Matthew that it was not just a ruse to get under his clothes. Jacques would not have told him to go to Heath if it was just a ruse and if Heath was in on it, a three way would have been suggested. He found himself believing Jacques.

“No, Jacques, I think I don’t want my powers activated.”

Jacques seemed relieved. Matthew took it as further proof that Jacques was not looking for sex. If anything, Jacques would have looked disappointed if it was what he wanted.

“I’ll inform Heath,” Jacques said. “Perhaps you could talk to him quietly during your birthday celebrations and arrange it to be done. I know he’s not looking forward to this.”

“Why?”

“Mark is his friend,” Jacques explained. “Heath helped Mark out of his depression when my sister broke up with Mark. I know he feels that it’s kinda like betraying Mark to do it. He’s also afraid that I may feel betrayed as well.”

“You guys are sure complicated!” Matthew said throwing his hands up. “Sex is sex. It’s nothing to do with love. Mark told me that Stephanie wanted sex and Mark didn’t give it and that was the reason for their breakup. If I were Mark, I’d just give it to her and then still keep her.”

“I’ll forgive you for saying that because it’s my sister you’re talking about and because you’re just an eighteen year-old hormone raging teenager. You’re right, sex is mechanical but when you have sex with one you love, it’s on a different level, a different plane all together. If Mark had slept with my sister just to keep her, then I’d be wondering if it was because of the sex or because of love that Mark was still with her.”

Matthew considered it for a while and then said, “I think you made some sense there. I just have to work that out. I’m not too sure about the reasoning yet.”

“It doesn’t matter … uh …” Jacques said before seeming to be distracted for a few moments. “I just got a reminder from Heath, we’ve got to return to your flat. Your brother and he are on their way back there.”

You’re going to bring me back the same way you brought me here? Cool! Can I keep my eyes open this time?”

Jacques smiled. “Yes. Please sit back at the spot you were at just now.”

Matthew moved back to the original spot. During the conversation, he had walked around a bit. As he got to sitting down, he noticed a family portrait of the Robinson family and he finally noticed someone familiar.

“Does your family know that you’re a magus?” he asked Jacques.

“No. I don’t think it’s wise to inform them yet,” Jacques replied. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Matthew’s vision blurred a little as he saw two images, one of Jacques’ apartment and one of his own. Then he saw Jacques’ apartment fading and his own living room becoming clearer. He realised that he felt the change of the seat as well. It was amazing.