Perfect Wishes
By Billy_Ray77
Chapter 14: Found
The school year spun by in a blur. Except for the nights Melody spent at home because her mother wasn’t working she slept at our house. So did Jason. Most days I woke up snuggling with Melody and shortly after, she and Jason would switch rooms. We would all get dressed and have breakfast with the folks.
I found a private detective who had connections back home. After a little ‘persuasion’ he was willing to work for me. Once a month I would show up at his office, collect a report on how Maria and the boys were doing and pay him cash in advance for next month’s report.
The boys were doing well. Craig was interning with a good engineering firm with good job prospects for after graduation. He had set a date to be married to what sounded like a wonderful girl and it tugged at my heartstrings that I would miss it.
Tim was pulling a 4.0 but hadn’t decided on a major yet. No big deal, he had another year at least before he would really have to worry about that.
Maria was dating. She was seeing a guy I knew. He was the brother-in-law to one of her friends. A real nice guy, though the last time I had talked to him he had been going through a messy divorce brought about by his ex-wife’s infidelity (it wasn’t me—I swear). It hurt a bit, reading about that, but I was glad for her at the same time. Like I said, he was a good guy and would treat her right.
I had no more problems with any football players and I even wound up on pretty friendly terms with Kevin (the guy who apologized to me on that first day.)
April hooked us up with three other girls. One, while sexy and pleasant enough hadn’t worked out real well but that left us with April, Theresa, Miriam and Jackie.
Miriam was a slim blonde hottie with short hair and smallish titties. Jackie was a beautiful brunette with ‘D’ cup tits and a very adventurous spirit.
Miriam was a gymnast like April but not quite as well built. Her face had a Meryl Streep quality to it. She was limber, playful, had a rock hard ass and a tasty, tight, talented pussy.
Jackie had known April through some other lesbian friends. Thick wavy brown hair fell to mid waist. She had a classic hourglass figure, which included those nice big tits, flat, toned stomach and a beautiful hip/ass combination. She was a freshman in college and always brought along her copy of the Kama Sutra. Very entertaining.
At least once a week we would get together with one of the other girls. We enjoyed all of them and they had a good time (they came back for more anyway). But, April was always our favorite. Besides her talent, she shared a bond with Melody and I that went beyond sexual. She even showed up a few times on nights we were with one of the other girls. All welcomed her and those were nights to remember. Let me tell you, that having Melody, April and Theresa in bed is an experience that I will remember no matter how many lives I live. They probably heard it a block away.
But in the end it was always Melody and I. Sex for fun was fantastic. But making love with Melody took me to another world. Just like when I made love with... well... you know.
I had also returned to fighting crime. After school I had a few hours while Melody and Sarah did the cheerleading thing and Jason was tutoring. Two nights a week, Melody stayed with her mother and I was free to cruise. Jason helped out too. When he was available he would drive so I could make faster getaways.
Plenty of thugs in the LA basin let me assure you. I didn’t need money this time around but I still liked to liberate as much as I could. I kept some of it, for incidentals, nice things for Melody, but most of it I would bag up and drop off at some church, homeless shelter or soup kitchen. Nice thing about being a mind reader is knowing which charity administrators will spend it where it is supposed to be spent and which ones will blow it on hookers—in which case I’ll probably end up with it again right after the hooker spends it on crack.
I was using telekinesis a little more too. Once you get the hang of it, keeping your car in neutral and pushing it with your mind while the engine idles is a real gas saver.
But in general I was back to the same old modus operandi. Sensing fear, showing up and stopping the bad guy. False descriptions all around and I was off to save another (but, you can bet I was checking for dogs now).
I was trying to keep a low profile because a few times I felt that tickly feeling like you’re being watched. But a broad scan never turned up anything. I finally found out what it was about two weeks before graduation.
Jason and I were sitting in the living room watching and old rerun of saved by the bell when Sam walked in and tossed me an envelope.
The return address was a firm with an office in Torrance. I opened it up and my gut froze.
It was a single sheet of letterhead.
It had two sentences with no signature.
It said, “Please come to our office on Saturday at 10 AM. We would like to talk to you about your telepathy.
“Dude,” said Jason with concern in his voice, “you look horrible. What is that?”
Putting my finger to my lips, I motioned for him to follow me and we went to my room where I let him read it.
“Shit.”
My sentiments exactly. I wondered where I fucked up.
“What are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to meet them.”
“You can’t just walk in there, what if it’s a trap or something.”
“If they wanted to hurt me, they wouldn’t have sent an invitation. The question is, what will they do if I don’t show. I’ve got the feeling that whoever this is, they are used to people doing what they ask them to.”
“I guess...” he still didn’t like it.
“Besides, look right here, in the letter... they said ‘please’.”
He punched my shoulder. Those weights were making a difference. “I should go with you. To watch your back.”
“No can do buddy, I don’t think they want any one else along, and if it does turn shitty It may be all I can do to get myself out.”
I sent the letter to my top shelf, behind a book, folding it up along the way.
“My main concern right now is how am I going to get out of here Saturday without making Sarah and Melody suspicious.”
“We’ll just go plinking varmints again.” That was the excuse we had used to get out into the dessert to practice my telekinesis. It would work again.
So that Saturday we loaded a couple 22’s into the trunk of my car. I dropped Jason off at a mall in Redondo Beach and headed to the office.
I wondered who these people were. The Government? Those behind the Government?
It took me a while to find a parking spot. The building was fairly good sized and one of a dozen others just like it. Not an obvious Government building. CIA?
The office I was looking for was on the top floor and when I entered I was awed by the opulence. A very voluptuous and attractive blonde woman was seated behind a desk.
“May I help you?” she asked seductively, her eyes doing split second darts to my crotch.
“I guess so,” I said, “I received a letter saying someone from this office wanted to speak to me. I don’t really know anything else.”
“That’s fine,” she purred, “you just have a seat over there,” indicating some comfortable seats off to one side, “and I’ll get someone to take care of you.”
As I found a seat I scanned her to see if she knew why I was here. She didn’t know anything. Really. She had been instructed that should anyone show up with a story like mine she was to notify Mr. Hall. Other than that she really didn’t know much. She knew how to answer the phone and direct the calls, she knew how to greet those walking in and notify the appropriate parties. There was no personal history. Her name was Cherry, but that was it. No family, no home. She left her desk when instructed, went with whoever she was told to go with. She ate and slept where and when she was instructed. The only other thing in her mind was a vast library of sexual techniques. She was a living fuck doll with basic clerical skills.
I had to pull out of her mind before I threw up. Sure it was intriguing, even tempting considering her looks, but at one time she was a person with likes, dislikes, hopes and dreams like anyone else. She was a sister, a daughter maybe even a wife and a mother. And now...
I didn’t have long to wait before a distinguished looking man of about fifty came out of an office and greeted me. He led me back to the office he came from. It was a large office. A deck outside had a view that overlooked the rest of the city.
“Sit Down, Danny” he said cheerfully. “My name is Stuart Hall. I wanted to meet you and explain a few things. I didn’t want to leave you out in the lobby, but I have to finish this, I won’t be a moment.” He picked up a pen and started writing on a piece of paper.
I guess I was impatient. I didn’t feel like listening to some long prepared talk. The woman outside had shortened my patience with these folks. I wanted to know who they were right now.
I tried to scan him... Nothing. I sent my eye out to Cherry and found her mind right away. I tried to read Stuart again... Nothing. I pushed harder into his brain... There... a whisper...
“What The Fuck Are You Doing?” He Roared. “You Lousy Little SHIT!”
Suddenly I was on fire. My skin blistered and peeled off. The marrow in my bones boiled, incinerating me from within. I drew a breath to scream but the searing air turned my lungs to useless lumps of charred flesh.
Then as quickly as it started. It was over. I was curled up on the floor, panting and sweating. I looked at my hands and arms. There were no burns... nothing... I could breath fine.
The man, Stuart, stood over me.
“That was about one second.” He stated flatly. “One minute and you would either be a dribbling, mindless lump of flesh—completely catatonic. Longer than that and you would be dead. Wanna know how I know these things?”
I didn’t. He helped me back into my chair.
“That’s gratitude for you.” He said as he walked back around his desk and sat down. “I invite you here to explain the rules and within the first minute you break the most cardinal one.”
He pointed a pencil at me. “Boy, you NEVER try to read another telepath. Especially if your shields are for shit.”
As soon as he had started yelling I knew he was another mind reader. So that part wasn’t a big shock. But he said something about shields.
“Shields?” I asked weakly.
“Oh for the love of Christ! You haven’t even toyed with protecting your mind from others like you?”
“I’m gonna do you a favor, boy. I’m gonna throw another of those blasts at you in ten seconds. All you have to do is put up something to block me.”
I tried to envision some sort of shield. The Jinni hadn’t let me down yet. If I tried it, it should work. I envisioned a globe around my head. It was like a one-way mirror. Only instead of reflecting light it reflected mental energy.
I felt a split second of pressure on my shield. Then, he nodded.
“Better. At least you’re a quick study. You may even survive.”
“Now for the rules—before you break another one and I have to kill you.”
“Wait a minute.” I interjected, “Who are you people?”
He looked impatient. “Listen, Son, I’m trying to do you another favor. You may be a big fish in a small pond in your little corner of the world. But, here you ain’t shit. You shut the fuck up. Let me explain the rules. Then we can talk about whatever you want to talk about.”
I shut the fuck up.
“First: You never try to read another telepath. A lot of them won’t be as nice about as I was. If you try to read someone and you hit a shield, that’s a telepath. Back the fuck off. Try introducing yourself the old fashioned way.”
“Second: We don’t give a shit what you do to, or with, the dead heads. But whatever you do, don’t attract attention, and don’t seek public positions of power.”
“Third: If a dead head has been claimed by another telepath, leave it alone unless invited. We can be territorial about our property.”
“Fourth: When you travel to another Territory, you report your presence to the nearest office. If you are asked to leave a territory by that Territory’s Chief, you get out. Don’t argue or ask why. Just do it.”
“Fifth: If you run into any other telepath breaking any of these rules you report it to the Territorial Chief before you do anything else. Don’t even take a leak before hitting a phone. Rogues can be dangerous and if he is going to kill you we would like to find out about him first.”
“You got those?” He asked pointedly.
“Yes, but some of them confuse me.”
“Then ask.”
“Okay, Who are you? The Second Rule tells me you probably aren’t the Government.”
“Hell no we aren’t the Government, and before you ask, we aren’t even the power behind the throne. We don’t give a diddly-damn what the Government does. Doesn’t mean anything to us.”
He sat back, “We are Telepaths. There are only a few thousand in the whole world. These rules were devised a long time ago to help us live in peace. According to our history, it used to be anarchy. Telepaths subjugating hundreds of dead heads and trying to destroy the others. After we almost wiped each other out, we learned. The rules are what help us thrive. Any violations are taken seriously. If you really fuck up, we take you out. The most important thing is peace among the telepaths. Second most important is that we stay a ‘secret’ society. You do anything that threatens our secrecy—we take you out.”
“You divided up territories?”
“Yes. I’ll get you a map along with contact information for each territorial office. We are actually formed as Multinational Syndicate. Basically a Chief is in charge of telepath activity in his area. In this area there are eight Territories in the United States, six in Canada and five in Mexico. Each Territory has branch offices in every major city. The map I’ll get you has every territory and office in the world identified. It’s pretty easy. Like I said, we really don’t care what you do as long as you don’t break The Rules. The Rules are what let us coexist peacefully. Basically, don’t fuck with another telepath and don’t attract attention. Break the rules and you could very well end up dead.”
“But, apparently I attracted attention. How did you find me?”
“You attracted OUR attention. That’s not a problem unless you make it one. We don’t want you attracting the attention of the non-telepathic power structure. You know, police, FBI, CIA, that kind of shit. As for how we found you. We pay attention to odd patterns.”
He opened a file and glanced at it, “In your case, it was spotted by one of our staff that a fairly small mediocre high school suddenly started scoring much higher on standardized tests and its teams were winning games they usually didn’t win. So we looked closer and we found that one particular student, who had previously been a loser with poor grades, got kicked in the head one day and suddenly he is getting straight A’s and dating the prettiest girl in school. It ain’t rocket science.”
“I guess I was pretty obvious, huh?” Well, they knew about the telepathy, but not how I got it.
“Only to those who know what to look for.” He looked back down at the file in front of him. “Great taste, boy. That is one sweet piece of meat you got there. I see you have a small occasional harem.” He looked at some other sheets. “Hmm... Left you sister alone though... what a waste... Let me know if you ever decide to farm her out... okay... Hmm... looks like over all you’re some kind of Boy Scout aren’t you?” Before I could answer, he raised his hand, “Its not a problem. Like I said, we don’t care what you do.”
This guy was starting to piss me off. But I needed to learn more.
“Maybe we can use that though.” He said thoughtfully.
“So do all telepaths get kicked in the head?”
“No. Some are born that way. Telepaths can have children. About one in twenty five develop powers. They usually manifest at adolescence though there are indications before that. They start their training early so by the time the powers are fully manifested they have a pretty good handle on them. Most naturals are pretty powerful. I’m a natural. Those like you, who probably had a natural somewhere in your family tree, had the power lying latent. About a third of the population does. Once in a while, one of you gets a head injury that seems to knock loose whatever was blocking you. Occasionally a kid will be what we call a super-latent. Someone who hasn’t had and active telepath in his known family history but come adolescence—boom. No head trauma necessary”
“Are we all male? You keep saying ‘his’?”
“No, about fifteen percent of us are female. All of the ones I know about are naturals though. Common thought is that any trauma strong enough to release the power is too much for the more fragile female body to survive. Every one of you who got the power your way almost died getting it.”
“Are you the Chief?”
“No, not yet anyway. Each Chief has a staff of several telepaths and a few hundred dead heads. The dead heads analyze data and bring odd patterns to our attention. The telepaths are then responsible for observing, contacting and controlling the other telepaths in our territory.”
How do you do that? I mean, no offense, but you aren’t that big, and now that I can put up a shield, well, what if I came over that desk?”
“Let me guess,” He said with a sneer, “You know Karate. Bet you learned it the easy way too. We all did. And other stuff too. And unless you have practiced, it’s hard to both fight and maintain a shield. So if you’re feeling froggy... jump.”
“No, thanks... I was just asking.”
He looked at me thoughtfully. “I would like you to get that practice though. You got up a pretty good shield on your first try. That makes me think you got a strong talent. You are also a good-sized boy and look like you can handle yourself. But, mainly, like I said before, you’re a Boy Scout.”
“So? What do you mean by that?”
“You don’t like to hurt people. You don’t like people who do hurt people. Our biggest problem is with rogue talents who won’t play by the rules.”
“I’m still not following you.”
“Idiots, usually new to their power who go a bit crazy, who plow through the dead heads like mental bulldozers. Often they are super-latents. No slow discovery and development of the power while recovering in the hospital, or, like a natural, no one to warn him and prepare him for what’s coming. They get their power overnight and go nuts. They think they are God. They don’t have any skill, no finesse. You met our receptionist. She’s one we salvaged from a rogue super-latent. He took over a mansion and filled it with fifty just like her. He was going out every day and grabbing one or two off the street. It’s that kind of shit we can’t ignore. We tracked him down and took him out. We found the homeowner a drooling mess just wandering the halls. The women had their minds shredded. Nothing left but how to screw. Most of them couldn’t even talk. We had to put down all but four.”
Put down? Was he talking about people?
“The ones we didn’t put down ended up bimbos like Cherry. We were able to program in skill sets and make her useful. She, the ones we salvaged with her and some others are also used as incentives for the other dead heads on our staff. Anyone bringing us a promising pattern gets to take one of them home and keep her for a week. Great for morale.”
“Anyway, I’d like you to get some training and be on call for when we have to go after the occasional rogue. That will put you on our payroll, we set you up with an office here that you can use to manage whatever enterprises have going, we have a gym downstairs and you even get an apartment right here in the building for you to use for... whatever.”
I hadn’t said much. I was remembering that in a strange situation it was best to keep my mouth closed and my ears open. I was also reminded of a proverb that said I should keep my friends close but my enemies even closer. I didn’t like these guys but guessed I would be safer as an insider.
“Sure, I guess I could do that.”
“Fine, now, tell me something. When you put up your shield, what were you thinking about?”
I told him, then added, “Why? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, not at all. I liked it. I’ve never had a shield bounce fire back at me before. That’s the pitfalls of formal training... no imagination... remember that my boy. Follow me for a little tour and we’ll get you set up.”
As we walked down the hall he stayed a few steps ahead of me and kept looking back to talk.
“You’re in luck, its Friday. Been fucked today?”
He opened the door to a large conference room.
Men were lined up across the room. They were entering through a side door. One of them was just leaving through the same door.
Their attention was on the other side of the room. A large wooden ‘X’ was propped up against the wall. Shackled to the ‘X’ was a beautiful redhead with an incredible figure. She was naked and straining at her bonds. The next guy in line had just donned a condom and dipped his fingers in a jar, rubbed, whatever it was over his sheathed prick, stepped up to the woman and plunged his dick into her pussy. Grabbing at her breasts he fucked her for several minutes, shuddered in orgasm, stepped back, stripped off the condom, dropped it in a garbage bag, zipped up his pants and left. The process was repeating itself with the next one before he got two steps away.
The woman was straining, but not to escape. She was trying to get at the men. They weren’t coming fast enough for her.
“Come on big boy! Let’s go! Fill me up! Whaddaya got for me! Come on!”
As the men entered her she would shriek with delight, gyrating her pelvis and screaming in orgasm.
“Yeessss! Give it to me! Yeeeeeesssssss! ”
Stuart watched me in amusement. “If the staff does a good job all week, then on Fridays they all get a turn fucking a bimbo. Like I said, it is great for moral.”
It was reprehensible is what it was. But I would follow my instinct and play along as long as my conscience could bear it. “What is it they are doing before the take their turn.”
He laughed, “You ever see a pussy that has been fucked by several hundred cocks over the span of a few hours? I have and it ain’t pretty. Hell, you can kill a woman that way. The condoms are to keep the mess to a minimum and the KY jelly is so her pussy doesn’t get ripped to shreds.”
“She seems like she is enjoying it... why is she tied up?”
“That’s for her protection. The rogue that programmed her set it up so that she would orgasm whenever there is a cock inside her. She’s addicted to it. Without one she goes into withdrawal. We’ve seen it a hundred times. We can alter the program enough so that a dildo will keep the withdrawals away but won’t induce an orgasm. Best we could do to keep them stable. Cherry has one in her right now. Anyway, the men, we call them drones by the way, are conditioned to get what they want and to not let anything stop them. They aren’t programmed to be nice about how they go about it. In this case, they are told to fuck her and get back to work. She would likely try to stop them from pulling out and they would hurt her. So this is the best way. Hell of a show eh?”
He slapped me on the back. “You want to take a turn? She’s a great fuck.”
“No. I don’t think so.” I was about to puke on his shoes.
“Suit yourself.” We left the room and moved deeper into the maze of hallways and cubicles. People, all men, were busy at computer terminals and gathered around dry erase boards with circles and arrows all over them.
“In case you ever decide to go rogue yourself and try something in here,” he said in warning, “just know that behind these walls are several remotely operated machine guns. A team in a different office is watching everything that goes on over closed circuit video. They control the guns. Anything fucked up starts happening and they open up. We hate that, we lose a lot of drones and spend months rebuilding the staff.”
We stopped in front of a desk occupied by a man in his thirties.
“Henry,” said Stuart
Henry immediately turned away from his computer terminal, Faced Stuart, folded his hands in his lap and bowed his head.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Henry, this is Danny.” Henry looked up at me for a second then put his head back down. " I want you to get him an access code for the main office, a private office, the gym and one of the apartments. Also set him up with a phone and pager.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “Henry will take care of you, when he is done come back to my office and we’ll go see Tex. He’s the Chief.” He added with a wink.
“Before you go,” I said, stopping him, “do you mind if I just read some of these guys? I would like to see what you have done to them, you know, maybe pick up some pointers.” I decided I better ask first. People as arrogant as Stuart usually got that way for a reason. The way he had been prattling on about everything led me to believe that I needed to be careful around here. At least until I had it figured out.
He paused, “Sure,” he nodded, “go ahead, but no fucking around. We got things running smooth and I don’t have time for a bunch of reprogramming.”
When he was gone, Henry turned back to his computer and called up a spreadsheet.
He tapped at the keys for a bit and while he was doing that I looked into his mind.
At least he hadn’t been shredded. He still knew who he was and where he came from. He wasn’t married but did have parents and siblings. None of it mattered. He knew he had family but wouldn’t recognize them during office hours and didn’t care. In his mind, he was insignificant. All that mattered was his job. Tex, Stuart and the other telepaths were giants. They ruled his every thought and deed. He was completely subservient to them. If he did a good job and was efficient in running the office they would reward him with one of the bimbo’s for a few days a month. But more importantly they would be happy which in turn made him very happy. I looked around the room and guessed that all the other drones were just like him. A few spot checks confirmed that. They were the perfect office staff. Dedicated, loyal, efficient and would gladly lay down their very lives to make the boss happy. It was pathetic. I thought back to the grocery magnate Mr. Martin and thought how he had achieved almost the same thing with decent pay, benefits, fair treatment and open communication.
Henry grabbed something off the printer and stood up, “Please follow me, Sir.”
I followed. In his mind I wasn’t a giant but I was pretty big. The introduction from Stuart and the access codes he retrieved for me told him that much.
He took me to an office, showed me how to open the coded lock and let me look around a bit. Then he took me past Cherry and showed me how to operate the keypad at the front door. Leaving the office we went down one floor to another door with a keypad. Same code, same procedure and we were in a well-stocked gymnasium complete with racquetball court, basketball court, sauna, steam room, showers and locker room. Back out to the hall. Around to the other side of the building and there were rows of doors with coded locks just like the offices. He showed me to a door, the same code as the office and were in a nicely furnished two-bedroom apartment. He let me look around for a minute then asked (very politely) if I needed anything else. I didn’t and followed him back upstairs.
One last stop to pick up a cell phone and a pager and I was back in Stuart’s office.
I sat down in the same seat I occupied before.
“What about money?” I asked him.
He smiled. “Don’t worry about that. We don’t need much.”
Huh?
He continued, “We put you down as one of the corporate officers. You kick up five percent of whatever you take in. At the end of the year you let us know how much you want us to report to the IRS. Those numbers go to them as your salary and you pay the tax. You are an honest taxpaying citizen with no worries from that direction.”
“You mean you don’t pay me?”
He laughed. “Shit, boy, if you haven’t learned how to make money with your talent maybe I should take back my offer. You are taking in cash aren’t you?” He quickly leafed through my file again. “I see, man you are a Boy Scout. Well, we don’t pay, so maybe you should start thinking about keeping some more of that.”
“One more thing,” He said seriously, “Tex is the Chief because he is more powerful than I am. Naturals like Tex and I can do things you latents generally can’t.”
He tried to look nonchalant, but the stiffness in his face gave away that he was concentrating. The pen on the corner of his desk rose up in the air and quickly floated to his hand. “What do you think about that? You practice and try hard and maybe someday you could do that.”
With Herculean effort I kept from laughing. I wondered what he would think if I snatched the pens from the holder on his desk and signed my name with both of them at the same time while holding his desk three feet off the ground. But it is always best to have an ace up the sleeve.
“Wow!” I said with enthusiasm, “that’s wild!”
He smiled smugly and got up. “Let’s go meet the boss.”
We entered Tex’s office, he and Stuart looked at each other silently for a few minutes. Tex looked at me, without opening his mouth and a loud voice thundered from nowhere, <So, Stuart tells me you have promise.> Jason was right, without volume control that did hurt a bit. I looked around and they both laughed.
I hoped I looked suitably impressed.
I won’t bore you with the details of the rest of the meeting. Tex was just like Stuart. He told me the same things, told me to mind my P’s and Q’s and sent me on my way.
Stuart escorted me back to his office. “I’ll be in touch about your training. You’ll be meeting our other resident telepaths. There are a few more in the area that don’t work for us.” He handed me a slim folder, “I recommend you steer clear until you have a bit more experience. Some of them are real assholes.”
My head spun on the drive back to pick up Jason. I couldn’t believe that those guys could be so amoral. But the more I thought about it, the more it started to make sense.
These guys all got an incredible power as adolescents. I was forty-five years old when I got mine and I still used it to stick my dick into anything I could. It was only because I had spent so much time among my fellow human beings that had made me aware that everyone I came in contact with had hopes, dreams and lives of their own. I wondered what I would have been like if I had my powers as a teenager. I was a real shit as a teenager. I also remembered Jason’s excitement and how his first thoughts were to use the powers for revenge.
The telepaths, while continuing to age, hadn’t matured at all. Even the ‘naturals’ who had received guidance before full manifestation of their powers had received that guidance from thirty and forty year old adolescents.
I realized that many of the limits to my powers had really been reluctance on my part to go further. I could have easily forced people to do things that they would find repugnant. If that caused trauma I could have wiped out the memory completely but at what cost. Memories are an odd sort of thing. They link with other memories almost randomly. By wiping out an afternoon tryst I may destroy a woman’s memory of her puppy when she was ten, or her senior prom. And there would be that gap in her memory that would likely worry her a bit.
These guys didn’t care. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. They felt their superiority over normal human beings meant that they could do whatever they wanted. Their only concern was that they not get found out. Or start a war with other telepaths - which would likely end up in them getting found out.
I thought of the millions who go missing every year and wondered how many of them really ended up as drones or bimbos.
I picked up Jason and we headed home.
“So? How did it go?”
“They’re bad news buddy. I think we should just stay away. We leave them alone and they will leave us alone.” Another lie. With their disregard for any non-telepath, I want to keep Jason far away from them.