Sam stood there, staring blankly at Christian. It felt as though he'd just gushed his life story to her. She had suspected his ability had to focus on some kind of positional acquisition, but had no idea it was telekinetic in nature. The battle in her mind between curiosity about the telekinetic side of things and surprise at the levy of Personal Disclosure which had just burst was ultimately lost when a third contender showed up: His question about her ability.

It had been a little over a week since she had escaped from the facility, and just a day since her liberation from the TSP holding cell. She hadn't had much time to make sense of it. On top of that, disclosure was not something which defined Samantha Cole as a person; she much preferred secrecy and guile. But Christian had spilled his guts to her, and he really did look helpless now. Something inside her felt...wrong. It was as if her primary instinct -the knee-jerk reaction to bail on him and leave him for dead- was somehow a bad thing. It wasn't pity; that would have required an emotional connection. This was something far worse than pity. It was something which made her feel partly responsible for what happened to him. Her mind just couldn't conjure the word 'ethical' at the moment.

And there was another voice which now made itself the solo in this little mental orchestra. He had described himself to her on a level which resonated in a way she didn't like. Samantha Cole was unique, different, rare. To hear that somebody else was having similar difficulties shot that egocentric viewpoint completely to hell.

"It's a lot to take in, isn't it?" Sam ventured. "You're deaf and dumb for so long, and then you have that moment where it all becomes clear. You can't contain it all. It overwhelms you."

She toed a pile of discarded wiring absently, trying to formulate her next words. Even she did not fully understand what had happened to her when she touched the lamp. But she did know that the memory of its design and function had stayed with her. She couldn't shake the image, even now.

"I guess we're not a whole lot different in what we do. It's just how it's done that's different." She paused again, trying to find the right way to explain her ordeal. "You say you can see with your mind. Well..so can I. But it's...different. You see people, places, things... I see what those things are made of. I see how they work, and why."

"At first, I didn't really believe we had been changed. If figured it was all some kind of experiment to see how much pressure it would take to get us to crack. But...after the thing with the lamp..." She trailed off, trying to force herself to maintain control. Her voice betrayed her concern about the incident, wavering slightly in just the way one would expect from a traumatic memory.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to instantly know [i]everything[/i] about an object? I remember every detail about that damned thing. I know its frequency cycle, the parts-per-million concentration of halogen inside the tube...I even know the purity of the tungsten element. Wilson's right: I'm different, and this has got to be my thing."

There was an uncomfortable silence during the time it took for Sam to utter the words: "I really can read tech."