High Energy, Joy, Dara [books to read this summer .txt] 📗

In his mid-thirties, his persona

conveyed a man possessed of alluring, esoteric knowledge.

The man was captivating.

Zanita swallowed, reassessing her original impression. He wasn't just sinfully

handsome; he was outrageously sexy.

"Who is he?" she whispered to Stan.

Stan looked up from a manual he was reading. "Who?"

Who? As if she would be asking about anyone else in the room! "The tall guy in

the center!"

Stan pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. "That's him!"

"Who?" Zanita gritted out.

"Tyberius Augustus Evans."

The name tickled the back of her mind, but she couldn't quite place it.

"Wait till you hear him speak!"

Zanita was surprised. So this was the psychic guru Stan had been gushing about.

Her mouth parted slightly. Of course, charisma was an important part of his

profession, so Zanita shouldn't have been so affected by his appearance. But she

was. She hadn't been expecting someone that looked like… him.

This was going much better than she could have hoped for. Even if his talk was

boring, she could wile away the time just staring at him. She relaxed in her

chair.

Wait until she told Mills about this!

"So, who wants to define Chaos?" Appreciative laughter echoed across the room.

Tyberius Augustus Evans rested against the desk in a casual pose, arms crossed

over his chest.

His question was the first thing Zanita had understood in the fifteen minutes

the man had been talking. He had begun giving her strange looks when he drew

something on the board to illustrate a point he was making, and she crossed her

eyes. Since then, his glance had strayed her way every now and then, his

expression not unlike Mills' earlier in the day. The mysterious face of Mars

look.

She had never realized that psychic healing was so… obtuse. At last something

she could understand. Who would have thought the man would ask a trivia

question? She tentatively raised her hand.

Tyber's eyebrows rose as the small hand went up. It had been a rhetorical

question. He did not expect anyone to try an answer. More to the point, phrased

that way, no one could answer it. He looked warily at the young woman with the

remarkable violet eyes in the third row. "Yes?"

"KAOS were the bad guys who went against CONTROL on the TV show Get Smart."

Dead silence followed her comment.

A rich, deep laugh broke through the silence, echoing in a room which had gone

as still as a tomb.

Tyber, still laughing, grinned up at her. "You're right, Ms.—?"

"Masterson, Zanita."

"Named after the manzanita tree, no doubt."

Zanita's mouth dropped open. "How did you—"

He turned back to the class. "Along with Ms. Masterson's definition, Chaos is

also a behavior. This behavior has three properties: It is ergodic; it occurs in

systems with a few degrees of freedom; and it displays sensitive dependence on

initial conditions."

"Excuse me." Zanita spoke up. "But what does this have to do with healing?"

Tyber stared at her, speechless for a moment. He couldn't recall that ever

happening to him before. "Nothing."

He was giving her that look again. "Oh." She thought about it a moment. "Are you

talking about crystals?" Psychics seemed to be enamored of crystals.

The man suddenly became very interested. "In what manner?"

"Well… I hear the vibrations…"

He jumped on her words. "You mean the resonance? I hadn't thought about that

before. Go on," he urged her.

"I—I—" She threw up her hands, at a loss. "They transmit energy?"

He looked at her, astonished. "That's brilliant!"

Zanita scrunched her shoulders and warily glanced around the room. She had no

idea what he had been talking about, and now she had no idea what she had been

talking about. But he thought he knew what she was talking about.

The man was a kook.

She peeked at him. A gorgeous kook, but a kook. Time to leave.

She started to stand, adjusting the shoulder strap on her bag. "Look, I—"

He walked purposely towards her, his glance briefly flicking to her legs. At

least he noticed; the thought danced at the back of her mind. At the forefront

of her mind was getting away from this nutcake pronto.

"You realize that pendulum action is quite different, even when—why are you

backing up the stairs?"

"I really, really have to go. You see, I didn't realize psychic healing was so

intense, and I—"

"Psychic healing?" There it was again. That speechless sensation. He focused on

her with interest now. "This is a physics seminar."

She looked totally confused, and, he had to admit, rather adorable.

"How did you—" His eyes twinkled in sudden amusement as he correctly assessed

the situation. "Ahh. Not much of a speller, are you?"

Zanita blanched. "Physics?" she mouthed.

"Physics," he affirmed.

"Yuck!" She quickly looked at him. "I'm sorry, that just sort of—slipped out,

Mr. Evans. I mean, Mr. Doctor—I mean, Dr. Evans." God, she sounded like a total

jerk! Now the man was laughing at her!

He grinned, flashing her a dimple. "Tyber will do."

The whole class started laughing. Zanita wanted to crawl up the stairs and out

the door. She started backing up the stairs again, feeling like a complete

idiot. Tyber Evans just kept on advancing, totally enjoying the situation.

"You, Ms. Masterson, are unpredictable—what we physicists would call a random

element. Very interesting…"

"Random element! Thanks a lot. You make me sound like some—some—"

Tyber raised an eyebrow as if daring her to complete the sentence accurately.

Arrogant kook. She raised her chin in the air. "If you'll excuse me?"

"Not so fast." He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall.

"Not much on physics, are you?"

She stopped a moment to get her bearings. The sight of him leaning against the

wall, smiling devilishly at her, had unnerved her. Jeez, he was gorgeous. She

twisted a curl of her hair, a habit she had when nervous. "Well…"

"Hmm… as I suspected." He tapped his chin with a forefinger. "You know, I could

open up a whole new universe for you. Why don't you stay for the course? I

realize much of this won't mean anything to you, but you might pick up some

intriguing ideas along the way. Much better than psychic healing classes. Of

course, I'm prejudiced."

The man was asking her to stay in the class. Physics… bor-r-ring. How was she

going to politely refuse this paragon in front of all these people? She decided

to hedge and give him a way out. "I don't know.