Switch

Thousands of years in the future the human species is still headstrong and reckless. A controversial attempt of population control brands even children in the flesh with the noh. Ravno learns to switch—to see through other people’s eyes. He sees the assaults of thieves as if they are his own; he sees pain and naked emotion; he experiences grief and fear and love and sadness. Ravno keeps his strange skill secret while the surge of horrific punishment crushes the Wawasen archipelago.

Excerpt:

He raced again for thicket’s edge. But again he slowed then stopped, turning the way he had come. He knew she trailed him directly. He switched to pinpoint her advance. As his eyes slid into place and he watched the branches brush by her face, he realized how automatic switching had become. Deliberate, usually, and still hard to control once there, but such as detecting a flash of firelight or shivering in the cold, the process had matured into an extension of his senses. He smiled. The hinge of his mind on his forehead diminished in the face of saturated concern and stress that dripped from his temples.