The Mind's Eye

Chapter Thirty-Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

We have just received word that the President is going to speak from the White House Lawn to the nation. It is expected that the President will address the recent catastrophe in Washington and announce new anti-telepath legislation...

...In other news, Israel has been condemned for deploying telepaths to checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The UN High Commission on Palestine has already condemned Israel for insisting that all aid workers in Gaza undergo a telepathic scan before being allowed to work within the area. Israel, however, has stated that bomb attacks have fallen off since the telepaths were brought in and is determined to maintain the telepaths in position. Islamic Jihad, a spin-off of Hamas, has warned that it possesses telepaths of its own ad intends to deploy them against Israel...
-AP News Report, 2015

The President paced the room, staring up at the clock. He’d banished his family to a secure facility on the other side of the country and, after the make-up artist had finished, he’d asked her to leave him alone. He always felt slightly unwell after she worked her magic on his face, even though he knew that it was necessary. Modern-day politics wanted – demanded – that the President be a handsome man, even though the President was wise enough to know that looks weren't everything. The American public had never known, until his death, that President Roosevelt had been in a wheelchair while in office. Perhaps it was for the best. The greatest Presidents in American history could not have been elected in the modern age.

He scowled, wondering how the soldiers he commanded – the President was the Commander-in Chief of the American Armed Forces – tolerated the countdown to action. The Secret Service had objected, strongly, to the plan, going so far as to enlist the support of most of the Cabinet in their objections. Only the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff had dissented, pointing out that the logic was sound – and besides, the Vice President was waiting in the wings, ready to take over if the worst came to the worst. The Secret Service still weren't happy about it, or about the fact that they’d been forced to accept a joint command in Washington. The President told himself not to think about it. Outside of the Telepath Corps, the only people who knew the full details of the plan were far from Washington.

His predecessor, in their private talk before he handed over the Oval Office and wished him luck, had told him that the President was sometimes the sacrificial goat. When things went wrong, the President was blamed, even though most Presidents ended up dealing with problems caused by their predecessors. When things went right, on the other hand, the President would suddenly find thousands of people lining up to claim a share in the credit. The President had laughed at the comment, but somehow – knowing that he was about to step into a pair of crosshairs – it no longer seemed funny. If the plan failed, or if the rogue telepaths struck faster than anyone believed possible, he would be the first President in the new century to be assassinated. He would be the first President ever to die for his country. Even George Washington, the father of the nation, hadn't led troops in battle while he was President.

The Secret Service had told him, in what the President felt was unnecessary detail, just how much could go wrong. He could be attacked mentally, like Curtis Hughes, or he could be attacked physically by a telepathically-controlled thrall. Too many things could go wrong, risking his life and sanity on a desperate gamble; they’d told him that, if he wanted, the whole press conference could be cancelled at the last minute. The President could still back out.

He shook his head at the thought. The unsigned paper still lay on his desk, legislation that harkened back to a far less civilised time. Most telepaths were loyal, or chose to remain out of public life; the actions of a mere handful could not be allowed to condemn the remaining telepaths, or the nature of American society would be undermined completely. The President had promised himself that he would sooner die than sign that bill into law and if it took his death to make it unnecessary, he could cheerfully accept it. His lips quirked in sardonic amusement; maybe cheerfully was the wrong word. The President had, as a child, wrestled with the issue of God – as most humans did as they grew up – but he had come to no good answers. If he died today, he would discover the truth.

The intercom pinged. “Mr President,” a voice said, “it’s time to prepare for the speech.”

“Thank you,” the President said. Everything he did these days was choreographed, unless there was an emergency to deal with, and his schedule was plotted out weeks in advance. There was an entire team of secretaries charged with keeping the President’s appointments calendar. “I'm on my way.”

When he stepped out of his office, he was met by four armed soldiers, two of whom were telepaths who had donned their old uniform for the duration of the emergency. The President hadn't liked the thought of being escorted by soldiers – it sent entirely the wrong message to the world – but the Secret Service had insisted. Besides, as they’d pointed out, with Washington under martial law, the world would expect the President to be escorted by soldiers. He nodded to the leader and allowed them to escort him down the corridor, ignoring the shocked looks from some of the White House staff. They had been in the building since before his predecessor had taken office and would be there long after he had departed. They, too, would not have expected to see the President escorted by soldiers.

The President fought hard to keep his face impassive, even though he knew that his inner turmoil had to be obvious to the telepaths. Was this how soldiers felt before they went off to battle, or sat in place waiting for the enemy to attack? How did they stand it?

***​

I should never have agreed to this, Alice thought, as she stared at the bank of monitors that had been arranged in front of her. The Situation Team, a fancy term for the team of operators who would run the entire operation, had been united in their horror at the whole proposal. Even the ones who admired the President for even considering it had been horrified, knowing that far too much could go wrong. Alice had ruthlessly weeded out the timid and the incompetent and those that remained were not shy about sharing their opinions.

Alice watched the screens and shivered. No one knew it – they hoped – but the White House was surrounded by remotely-controlled sensors and security measures. High overhead, four UAVs, so high that they couldn't be seen with the naked eye, were tracking everyone who moved in the open, while tiny robots designed to look like birds or insects provided ground-level coverage. The designers had boasted that nothing, not even an insect, could move without being noted and logged by the system; indeed, they’d had to dial the sensitivity back a little after discovering that it also tracked birds and insects. The testers had had the fright of their lives when, during the early testing period, they had turned the machine on, only to have it scream a warning about incoming missiles and enemy ground forces. It had taken several days of careful experimentation before they discovered the truth.

“You’re a madman,” she’d said, when Art had finally told her what he had in mind. The argument hadn't destroyed their relationship – at least, she hoped it hadn't destroyed their relationship – but it had certainly damaged it. It wasn't just Art’s career and the President’s life that was at stake, not here; it was the future of the Telepath Corps itself. She knew that the new kid on the intelligence block had enemies, from the older more established institutions to the politicians who feared and distrusted all telepaths. A failure might lead to the Telepath Corps being dissolved before it had even a chance to become established.

“There isn't a choice,” Art had countered. “We have to take them all out now, before they have a chance to regroup.”

Alice had been forced to concede, reluctantly. The police spies and informers within the underground had been rooted out and killed – apparently, the only one spared had been the one Elizabeth Tyler had moved to save – but the FBI was still picking up rumours of weapons being shipped into Washington and whispers of grand plans against the military forces in the city. They would have to be insane to try anything, yet she knew, better than anyone else, that a telepath could manipulate someone until they no longer knew the difference between black and right, or right and wrong. And, even after the riot, the military presence on the streets was unpopular. If it hadn't been for the last disaster, half of Washington would be on the streets, demanding an end to military occupation.

She looked up at one particular screen. The tiny robot was watching the recovery effort outside the White House, where the riot had taken place. She knew that the bodies had been recovered, some mutilated in ways that had made hardened police and emergency service workers sick, and taken away, but the remainder of the scene was still horrifying. She’d seen nightmarish sights when despotic rulers had turned on their people, when the people had stood up to demand a better way of life, yet this was far worse, for it had taken place in America. How could it have come to this?

***​

Check in, Art ordered, silently. There were twenty-seven telepaths, wearing civilian clothes, within the approaches to the White House. No one knew it, outside the security services, but everyone who should have been in the area had been tagged and was being monitored by the security network. The whole system had some pretty dire civil liberties implications, yet Art found it hard to care. They would have to deal with it later, once Leo and his band of rogue telepaths were captured or exterminated.

The mental link between the Telepath Corps members had grown stronger after the riot in Washington, as if they were taking refuge in one another. That had implications of its own, but there was no time to investigate, at least not until the plan had succeeded – or failed. Art knew that few junior officers would have called their superiors idiots to their faces – at least not if they wanted to keep their careers – yet telepathic rapport made it impossible to hide what one person thought of another. They had been united in their horror at the whole plan, just like everyone else, and Art had been their target. He’d been called everything under the sun.

He listened as - one by one - the telepaths acknowledged that they were in position and ready to act. With no way to know how Leo would choose to attack, or what weapon he would use, Art had spread his men out to cover all of the approaches. They were backed up by an astonishing array of firepower and surveillance devices, including some that Art wished he’d had in Iraq or Afghanistan. They would have made fighting the insurgency much easier. Now, of course, there was nothing Leo could do to affect them, or the minds of the men behind them. Most of them were actually hundreds of miles away, safe in military bases and guarded by other telepaths.

The reporter bastards are coming, one of the other telepaths sent. Art couldn't blame him for the disdain – reporters were rarely friends to the military, greeting their statements with artful disbelief while accepting enemy propaganda without question – but it wasn't helpful, at least not at the moment. The media was still reeling from a scandal caused by a reporter who had developed telepathic abilities and used them to reveal secrets many celebrities would have preferred to remain buried. It reminded Art of Senator Walker and his blackmailer, a matter Art had had to put aside until after Leo was captured. At least they could be fairly certain that Leo had nothing to do with that. He hadn't escaped the Zeller Institute until after the blackmailer had already got his hooks into the victim.

Keep an eye on them, Art sent back. Telepathic communication, even between trained telepaths, always carried an undertone of underlying thoughts and feelings. The Telepath Corps would probably end up as an association of equals, something that could never be tolerated in the regular armed forces or even in the intelligence services. There are few places for Leo and his band of scumbags to operate here.

He smiled. The government, in the name of public safety, had evacuated most of the area after the riot, although a handful of citizens had insisted on remaining in their homes and defying the terrorists. The entire area was seeded with remote drones and sensor platforms. He doubted that Leo could get close without being detected, no matter how good he was at being invisible. There was no way to fool a mechanical device.

***​

Roger shivered as he walked towards the White House with a handful of other reporters, those brave – or foolish – enough to return to the scene of the crime. He’d spent several hours lying on a friend’s sofa, feeling as if his body was going to shake itself to death as it slowly burned out all the fear and panic he'd felt. The memories of what had happened during the riot had faded slightly, much to his relief. He didn't want to confront it, even though the company psychologist had offered to schedule free sessions. Besides, the company’s psychologist kept talking about man’s inner child and how to release it. For Roger, whose childhood held nothing he wanted to remember, that was enough to put him of psychologists for life.

“I heard that the President is going to order all telepaths executed,” another reporter whispered, as if he was sharing a dark secret. Roger shrugged. That ‘secret’ had been out in the open for days, just another rumour slipping out of emergency sessions in both Congress and the Senate. Roger wasn't impressed. It seemed to him that even if every telepath in the world was to be killed, there would just be a second crop of telepaths soon afterwards – and they would know what had happened to their predecessors. There would be a second, far less merciful, war. “No one likes it, but they see no other choice.”

“I doubt it,” another reporter added. “They couldn't do that, not with the logjam in the House. I heard that the GOP is planning to introduce a bill banning all telepaths from every state, but Alaska. They’re all going to be going north.”

“I heard that the representatives from Alaska are fighting against it,” a third reporter said. Roger wasn't amused. Like the rest of the world, the reporters knew nothing, but rumours and innuendo. “They don't want to be known as the telepath state. Come to Alaska, the PR dudes will say, and have your mind read. The tourist trade will be ****ed up six ways from Sunday.”

“That might not happen,” the first reporter pointed out. “There’s that weird little trend from the S&M scene for having a telepath take control of some idiot submissive. Perhaps they’ll end up turning Alaska into a paradise for weird mental games and activities.”

Roger snorted. “I wouldn't say that near anyone from Alaska,” he warned. “They won’t see the funny side.”

***​

The President felt cold as he stepped out into the open air. After being elected President, he had received more than a million death threats in the period between his election and his inauguration alone. He had known that he had made himself a target for every weirdo with a grudge, from the used car salesmen who couldn't make a profit to the fringe groups that believed that all a man needed to live was religion and a gun. And every terrorist in the world would be gunning for him. His mind felt empty, as if he were watching himself from a far distance, the words of his speech long forgotten.

He was barely aware of the reporters in front of him, just behind the line of Marines. They weren't Marines, even though a carefully-worded news report claimed that they were Marine reservists, who had been called up after the disaster in Washington. They were telepaths, wearing ill-fitting Marine uniforms, ready to act to protect the President if necessary. He’d wanted real Marines, but it had been pointed out that having armed men with no mental defences around him was asking for disaster. The President stepped up onto the stage, knowing that the entire world could see him now. How many of them, he wondered, were about to watch a President die?

“My fellow Americans,” he began...

***​

Art wasn't listening to the speech. His combat instincts, instincts he’d honed in Afghanistan, were sounding the alert, warning him that something was badly wrong. He could see nothing wrong and there was no sign of trouble, yet something was definitely out of kilter. Frowning, he keyed his radio and sent an alert through the network to Alice, even as he started to look for trouble. Something was definitely wrong...

A moment later, he felt it, a mental field that was trying to interfere with his own. It was powerful, yet strangely sloppy, as if the designer was so confident in his own abilities that he had missed a few vital components. Art knew, instantly, who had designed the field and united the minds of his fellow telepaths to produce it. He knew who it had to be.

General alert, he broadcast. Every friendly telepath in the area would hear it. They’re here!

 

Comments?

Chapter Thirty-Three<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Iranian telepaths were the spearhead of a successful coup against the Mullahs, who had declared telepathy immoral and ordered that all telepaths be put to death by the religious police. The new regime promised to open its borders, develop democratic institutes and eventually a rule of law. Unconfirmed reports from Tehran claim that former regime loyalists, radical mullahs and corrupt government officials are being ruthlessly purged by the new regime. Thousands are attempting to flee to Iraq or Pakistan, fearing for their lives and – in some cases – their foreign bank accounts.
-AP News Report, 2015

“Mt President, get down!”

The President had no time to react before he was tackled by one of the telepaths, who knocked him to the ground and lay on top of him. He’d gone through emergency drills before, where the Secret Service had tried to prepare him for the day an assassin got through the perimeter and tried to kill him, but it was still a terrible shock. He hit the ground hard enough to stun, yet part of his mind kept calm and active. It was pure self-preservation. Losing his grasp on what was going on might get him killed. It might even end his political career.

“Stay down,” his bodyguard whispered. “They’re closing in on us.”

***​

“I can’t find them,” one of the operators said. Alice sensed the desperation in his voice and shared it. The President’s life and the future of the Telepath Corps – the future of America itself – was at stake, yet they couldn't locate the threat. “They’re hiding themselves somehow...”

“Got them,” another operator said. “Three of the reporters are not the people they were claiming to be.”

Alice cursed. They’d taken every precaution, or so she’d thought, and the enemy had still managed to get into the perimeter. How the hell had they done it? She shook her head, putting the thought aside for the moment. They would solve that mystery once Leo and his gang were safely in custody, or dead.

“Art, it’s Alice,” she said. “I’m uploading the details to your terminal now. Go get them, tiger.”

“Understood,” the reply came. “We’re moving in now.”

***​

Roger blinked in surprise as the President was knocked to the ground by a hulking bodyguard in an ill-fitting uniform. A moment later, the fake Marines – if they were real Marines he would have been astonished, for he was sure that no one who had ever been through Marine training would ever slouch while on duty – turned and lifted their weapons, pointing towards the reporters. Others came running from all over the place, carrying their own weapons, even though there was no apparent threat. Roger stared, unsure what was going on, or of what he should do. It almost seemed as though the journalists were about to be shot down on the spot.

“Hands in the air,” the leader bellowed. Roger, shocked beyond words, complied with the shouted command. The Marines looked nervous, with itchy trigger fingers. It dawned on him that he could get shot and he concentrated on looking as harmless as possible, even though he was terrified. He’d been at Harvard and the Washington riot, but this looked even more threatening. “Spread out and - no, don’t move!”

Three of the reporters were moving suddenly. Roger saw one of them and froze as a chill ran down his spine. He had thought that he had known the reporters, but he saw now that they hadn't been who they claimed to be. They’d been telepaths posing as reporters, using a low-level mental field to convince the reporters to accept them naturally, without panicking or trying to sound the alarm. He sensed, somehow, a sudden wave of mental force directed at the Marines, which was effortlessly dispelled by a second wave of mental force. The Marines, he saw now, were telepaths themselves. The Telepath Corps had used Roger and his fellow reporters – and the President himself – as bait in a trap.

He tried to move, to lash out at the rogue telepaths, but he was unable to even twitch. The mental battle held him and the other reporters frozen; the rogue telepaths, he realised with an involuntary shudder, were using him as a human shield. They had to know that they couldn't escape, but somehow they seemed unwilling to give up and just surrender. The mental pressure in Roger’s head grew stronger. How long would it be before he felt mental whispers reaching into his mind, turning him against the Telepath Corps and turning him into yet another mental slave?

“Give up,” one of the telepaths said. “You can’t escape.”

“You should be with us,” one of the rogues countered. He sounded as if it was a struggle to breathe, let alone to speak, but then there were only three rogues against nearly thirty telepaths from the Telepath Corps. “You could join us and...”

“No,” the telepath said. “You need to give up, now.”

***​

Art held back from the mental gestalt, watching as the rogue telepaths were trapped in a web of mental force. He wondered if Leo – if it was Leo there – appreciated the irony. He and his fellow terrorists had pioneered the technique, which allowed a number of weaker telepaths to ally their mental powers and crush the opposition. Now, the Telepath Corps used it to hold the rogues in place. The rogues were tough – and confident in their own superiority, which made them tougher – but they couldn't stand up forever.

He scowled. Intentionally or otherwise, the rogues had taken the reporters hostage. Art wasn't immune to the common military belief that the only good reporter was a dead one, but dead reporters would make for bad press. The reporters had almost no mental defences at all, leaving them caught in the mental crossfire, which might lead to mental damage. The whole battle had to be ended soon.

“Snipers; take aim,” he ordered. It was an unnecessary order, yet it had to be spoken aloud, just to confirm that the snipers were in place. The USMC had placed forty snipers in Washington, waiting patiently for their chance to shoot a few terrorists. Art hadn't been blind to the dangers of including snipers in the defence plans, but there had been no other choice. “Prepare to open fire.”

The rogues sensed the snipers taking aim and reacted, precisely as he had hoped. They pushed out a wave of mental force, hoping to overwhelm the gestalt by sheer power. It wasn't enough; the gestalt pushed back with all the force of thirty telepaths working in concert. The rogues couldn't pull their own gestalt back into place before it was too late and powerful mental commands froze them solid. The reporters collapsed as the mental crossfire came to an end, several leaking blood from their noses and ears. Art keyed his radio and issued a quick order. The reporters would need medical attention as soon as possible.

He ran over to the three telepaths, who had been quickly bound and secured by their captors, and pulled away the hats they’d worn to add to their disguise. They’d been lucky, he realised sourly, using their clothing to help make their disguise believable. The Secret Service would go ballistic when they realised what had happened. Everyone who came near the President was going to require a deep telepathic peek just to make sure that he wasn't an assassin concealed under a mental shield.

“Leo isn't among them, sir,” one of the other telepaths reported. Art scowled. A brief glance revealed no sign of Alvin Greenwood either. “The bastard is probably watching events from a distance.”

Art keyed his radio, nodding thoughtfully. The entire area was blanketed in sensors. It would be interesting to see who bolted, or if someone was somewhere they shouldn't be. The telepaths shouldn't be able to fool the machines, even if they could fog the minds behind the machines. The operators should be safe from mental interference, although Art warned himself to be careful. Leo had shown a remarkable talent for pushing his telepathy into the fields of the ‘impossible.’

He reached down for one of the captives and pulled him into a sitting position. “I don't have time to bandy words with you,” he said, sharply. The rogue telepath looked stunned. Art suspected that he, like Elizabeth, might have been having doubts about the terrorist vocation, although it was clear that he had been a willing participant in an assassination plot. “You either tell us what we need to know, or we form a new gestalt and rip it out of your mind. If that happens, your mind will be destroyed and you’ll spend the rest of your life with the mental ability of a baby. It’s your choice.”

Art leaned closer. “You just tried to kill the President,” he said, seeing objections and protests forming on the rogue’s face. “No one is going to complain if we rough you up a little before sucking everything worthwhile out of your mind. You’re going to go into a secure facility and be used as a test subject for all kinds of dubious experiments, unless you tell us what we want to know.”

He watched the rogue struggling for words. Art felt little guilt, or shame; the rogue had decided to join a terrorist group and commit acts of terrorism. Whatever justification he thought he had was hardly important compared to the lives lost – or ruined – at Washington, let alone the economic damage the rogues had caused. And it helped that the rogue had gone to a very liberal college. He probably believed all kinds of lies about the military, including the ones about soldiers being willing to use torture at the drop of a hat and eating babies for breakfast. Art had seen too many self-assured young men come up against a hard dose of reality. He’d break.

“Leo was watching from our base,” the rogue finally stammered. His entire body was shaking; Art could pick up a constant refrain of don’t hurt me running through his mind as his mental shields began to collapse under sheer panic. “He said that he wanted to deploy the others to cause maximum havoc. He said...”

He broke off. “He knows,” he added. “My God, he knows...”

Art stumbled backwards as the rogue convulsed, his entire body twisting unnaturally and then falling to the ground, stunned. It didn't take more than a tiny mental probe to realise that Leo, somehow, had reached into his former comrade’s mind and scrambled it. Art cursed under his breath and looked at the other two captives, who had also collapsed. They’d all been mentally disrupted and it would be hours before they recovered, if at all.

“Damn it,” he swore. “Where is the bastard?”

“You may be in luck,” Alice said, through his earpiece. “One of the UAVs is tracking two figures heading away from the White House, heading downtown.”

Art knew then, with a certainly that refused to brook any contradiction. “Keep tracking them,” he ordered. “I’m going after them.”

He sprinted down the streets, ignoring the policemen and Marines who had gathered at the edge of the inner perimeter. Art hadn't managed to keep up with his daily run since he’d developed telepathy, but it was still a fair bet that he was quicker than Leo, if not Alvin Greenwood. The earpiece kept whispering in his ear, telling him that the two fugitives were attempting to avoid the ring of steel that made up the outer security zone, yet they couldn't do that as long as they were being tracked. Two more telepaths popped up outside the zone, using their telepathy to spark off a riot, only to be shot down by weapons mounted on one of the UAVs. Their bodies would be picked up later for identification.

“They’re ahead of you,” Alice said. Art turned the corner and saw them. Leo looked desperate, thinner than he’d been the last time they’d met, but Greenwood looked...amused. A moment later, they formed a gestalt and lashed out at Art, slamming into his mental shields and sending him staggering backwards. “Art?”

Art nodded, congratulating himself on having the foresight to push the limits on practice duels after the encounter with the mind controller. Leo was powerful, all right; perhaps one of the most powerful telepaths in the country, but Art had drilled with telepaths who had originated in rival organisations. The Marine in him had refused to be beaten by a Ranger and vice versa and both of them had risked mental damage while fighting each other. Two untrained telepaths couldn't overwhelm him, even if he couldn't overwhelm them.

“Hold the drones back,” he ordered, steadying himself. The two rogues had slowed their assault, perhaps realising that it wasn't going to succeed. Or, he warned himself, perhaps preparing for a more subtle assault. Art raised his voice, hoping to talk some sanity into their heads before it was too late. “You have to know that you’re not getting out of here.”

“And we won't let you take us in,” Leo said. His voice sounded high-pitched, as if he was on the verge of panic. Art felt no sympathy. He’d looked into Leo’s background and while he might have felt some sympathy for the young Leo, he felt nothing for the man who had used mundane men and women as tools and victims. Terrorists ruined their own cause when they became telepaths. “You’re on the wrong side. How can you fight for a government that intends to exterminate us all?”

Art scowled at him. “There are remote drones orbiting high overhead, controlled from a remote bunker,” he said. “If the two of you manage to overwhelm me, they will drop bombs on your head. No telepath ever born has been able to survive a bullet though the head, young man, so tell me – what do you think a bomb will do to you?”

“You’re bluffing,” Leo said, desperately. “No one would allow you to drop missiles on Washington and...”

“Read my emotions,” Art said, dryly. There was nothing worse than a person who forgot what he was and besides, Art was making no attempt to conceal his inner feelings. “You can tell for yourself that I am not lying. Your mad crusade ends now. The only question is if you live long enough to stand trial, or...”

“And you will die as well,” Leo said, wildly. “You’ll die...”

“Occupational hazard,” Art snarled, feeling genuine anger for the first time. “I knew the day that I enlisted in the Corps that I might die in the service of my country. I knew that my ass would be put in danger, I knew that enemies out there might be trying to kill me, I knew that I had sworn to put my life between my country and war’s desolation...and silly ****s like you, back home in peace and prosperity, bitch and moan about what we have to do to preserve your peace and prosperity.”

He allowed some of the anger to leak into his voice. “Don’t you dare talk to me about death,” he snapped. He pulled memories out of his head and blasted them towards the two rogues. “I saw the bodies at Washington, the bodies you left in your wake. Now give up or die. I don't have time any longer.”

Greenwood moved quickly, almost as quickly as Art himself. He’d been holding a pistol within his coat pocket, an old trick. Before Art could stop him, he turned and fired – at Leo. The rogue telepath leader looked surprised as the bullet blasted through his head, a second before Art drew his own pistol and put a round through Greenwood’s arm, sending his pistol clattering to the ground. Greenwood fell backwards, laughing. Art had no time for laughs.

“Why?” He demanded. A nasty thought crossed his mind, but he buried it. “Why did you...?”

Greenwood hit the ground with a gurgle. Art realised in horror that he’d cracked a poison tooth, one that had released poison into his mouth. The rogue operative was dying right in front of him, taking his secrets to the grave.

“So you will never know,” Greenwood gurgled. He was starting to foam at the mouth. “You can take your ****ing feelings and...”

Art ran forwards, forgetting his safety. He pressed his hands against the dying man’s temples and plunged into his mind. The poison was already sending Greenwood into an uneasy slumber from which he would never awaken, weakening his mental shields and leaving him defenceless. Even so, Art had the uneasy feeling that Greenwood’s mind was shattering around him and that he couldn't stay long, or he would be dragged down into darkness with the former terrorist.

Memories flared up around him in a blinding jumble. Greenwood’s life was flashing in front of his eyes. The early days at school, the decision to join the army, Ranger School, his recruitment by the CIA, his activities in Iraq, a Kurdish girl who had won his heart, the bitterness of knowing that he’d been betrayed by his own country...and that the betrayal had claimed the life of his girl. And then...a name flashed across his mind. A name that Art recognised, someone very important and dangerous...

And then Greenwood’s mind shattered.

He came to several hours later, lying on a hospital bed. Alice was sitting beside him, looking down at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Art felt a sudden surge of love for her and reached for her hand, even though he felt too weak to do anything else.

“You idiot,” Alice said, after they'd kissed. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Art shrugged, although – if the truth were to be told – he’d never been so badly scared in his life. “We had to know what he knew before he died,” he said. “We had to know the truth.”

He pulled himself to his feet, feeling his head spinning. “And I have to go,” he said, ignoring her objections. “I have to do see a man about a dog.”

 

Chapter Thirty-Four<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The President is reported to be unharmed today after an assassination attempt was carried out by the rogue telepaths. The telepaths, who were either captured or killed by the Telepath Corps, are believed to be the last of the telepathic terrorists who fled the burning ruins of the Zeller Institute. The results of their terrorism will, unfortunately, linger on. The President is expected to address the Telepath Crisis in a speech before Congress in two days, although twelve states have already enacted anti-telepath legislation.
-AP News Report, 2015

Senator Wallis was a tall handsome man, wearing a suit that cost more than Art’s annual salary and a smile that made people want to trust him. Art disliked him on sight, not least because he could tell that the smile was faked, even without telepathy. A few years of dealing with citizens who saw and heard nothing while terrorists were operating near their homes gave soldiers a strong nose for ********. He could see why Senator Wallis was popular, although he did wonder what his supporters would have thought if they’d realised that the anti-telepath senator had a very low-level telepathic gift himself. His mind was a closed book.

“I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice,” Art said. It had been easy, if slightly unethical. He’d rang the doorbell, used a mental compulsion field to convince the senator’s bodyguards that they were looking at an FBI pass and then to convince the senator’s personal assistant that he needed to see the senator instantly. The senator had accepted the word of his PA, even though Art suspected that she served him in ways that weren’t normally included on a job description. Her breasts, too large and shapely to be natural, revealed too much about the senator’s preferences. “It is quite important.”

“Not at all,” Wallis said, genially. “It is always a pleasure to help a man from the FBI.”

Art smiled. “And it is always a pleasure to meet an elected representative of the people,” he said. “They always reflect so well upon their constituents.”

Wallis narrowed his eyes, as if he suspected that he was being mocked. “You will understand, of course, that there are many demands on my time,” he said, coldly. “I’m afraid that I can only spare you a few minutes without you making a proper appointment.”

“Minutes are all I need,” Art said. He checked the device in his pocket – an NSA-designed hacking terminal that had deactivated all of the surveillance gear in the room – and looked up at Wallis. “It’s about Alvin Greenwood, and Leo Davidson, and Professor Zeller, and Senator Walker...and how they all interact.”

The senator, he noted, seemed unmoved by the list of names, but his mental shields had tightened. “I’m afraid that I have little to contribute to your investigation,” Wallis said, stiffly. “I know Walker professionally, of course, and I saw Professor Zeller when he addressed Congress on the subject of active civilian telepaths, but the other two are strangers to me.”

“Oh, I think otherwise,” Art said. He smiled inwardly at the senator’s reaction. Even his tough mental shields couldn't keep a hint of fear from leaking through into the open. “You see, from the start things didn't seem to quite make sense. How could Leo, a naive student who mistook intellect for capability, manage to hide so long from us? What was Alvin Greenwood doing posing as Cyrus Valentine? How could the Church of the Rapturous Awakening obtain the illegal assault rifles and other surplus military equipment that they used to attack the Zeller Institute? And why, if Senator Walker was being blackmailed, did his blackmailer shift from demanding money to demanding political favours.”

“I am not here to be your Watson,” Wallis said, calmly. “I think you had better leave now, while you still have your career.”

“I think not,” Art said, sharply. “We have so much more to discuss.”

“Unless you want to be cleaning the director’s toilets tomorrow,” Wallis snapped, “I suggest that you leave...”

Art ignored him. “As long as Leo was in charge of the rogue telepaths, no explanation seemed to make sense,” he said. “But if we factor in Greenwood – a former CIA operative who had gone rogue – we see the signs of an alliance that transformed Leo from a student to someone who could be very dangerous, someone with a brain and a cause. And yet, what did Leo actually accomplish? Very little, in real terms; all he really did was to convince most of the public that telepaths were dangerous and unsafe to have around. I know that terrorists are hardly the most intelligent people in the world, but it was unusually stupid.

“And even if Leo was dumb enough to believe that wanton destruction would get him what he wanted, Greenwood would know better,” Art continued. “They would have to move from an insurgency force to one that actually took and held ground, except they didn't...”

“Because they were wiped out by the Telepath Corps,” Wallis pointed out.

“Their actions in Washington were foolish,” Art countered, smiling inwardly. Wallis was being drawn into the discussion now, rather than screaming for his bodyguards to evict the unwanted intruder. “They accomplished the exact opposite of what they were meant to accomplish. And a suspicious mind like me might start wondering what they really meant to accomplish.

“And then there’s the question of Greenwood himself. How was he able to operate in America without being caught? Answer; someone politically powerful, with clients at all levels, was able to smooth the way for him. And Greenwood has been in the arms smuggling trade for a long time. It would be easy for him to get those weapons to the Church of the Rapturous Awakening. And, in exchange, the Church would be willing to do anything for him. He was, after all, the one bringing them the weapons they would need to resist the godless liberals when they came to burn the churches and destroy all religion.”

Wallis scowled at the mockery, but said nothing.

“It must have been a real stroke of luck,” Art continued, “when Greenwood developed telepathy. All of a sudden, he was able to help root out the FBI’s operatives within the Church and isolate them, quite without them realising what had happened. And, a little later on, it was Greenwood who scanned Senator Walker and discovered that the Senator could be blackmailed. That was a second stroke of luck, because Walker had been appointed to the Telepath Corps Commission.”

He grinned. “I traced back the payments made to the blackmailer,” he added. “They were all electronic – and they were all bootstrapped through a dozen different sites and banks until they all arrived in a charity donation box. Most blackmailers want money, yet this one seemed content merely to torment the poor senator. Until, at least, the time came to demand a political favour, to insist that a certain vote went a certain way. Why would that be, I wonder?”

“I am not here to do your job for you,” Wallis said, icily. Art could sense the fear underlying his words. “Why do you think it would be?”

“The blackmailer wanted a vote on telepaths to go a certain way,” Art said. “Leo and his gang of rogue telepaths created all the public horror and anger anyone could want if they wanted to create new anti-telepath legislation. Most people act according to their own self-interest, but neither Leo nor Greenwood did – or did they? Who were they working for that made it so important to convince the world that telepaths weren't to be trusted?”

He leaned forward. “Who benefits, Senator? Who profits from everything that happened over the last few months? Who comes out ahead in the political struggle over telepaths and the Telepath Corps?

“You do.”

Wallis stood up, so quickly that he almost knocked his chair over backwards. “Are you telling me,” he demanded, “that you have come into my house with a cock and bull story about me being the only one who benefits from suppressing telepathic terrorists?”

“Sit down,” Art snapped. “You want to be President. Right from the start, you have been advocating and demanding tougher laws to put telepaths under government control. You called in every favour you were owed to ensure that you got one of the coveted seats on the Telepath Corps Commission – and Senator Walker, who was your political rival, was under your thumb. That gave you two votes out of three, enough to dominate and control the Telepath Corps. And your stance on anti-telepath legislation is well known and very popular. You could look forward to becoming President, after having solved the crisis you decided to create.”

“I have never heard such nonsense in my life,” Wallis said. “Do you really believe that anyone will actually believe such a...stupid story? I would be throwing away my political career if even a whiff of such a dumbass stunt got out into the media. Your director will be hearing from me...”

“I think that that is unlikely,” Art said. He dropped the telepathic haze he'd generated to prevent the senator from recognising him. “You see, I peeked into Greenwood’s skull before he died. You met him just after the disaster in Iraq; you promised him help and support...what would you have done, I wonder, if telepaths had never come into existence?”

“And such evidence is hardly actionable,” Wallis hissed. “The laws I designed myself will make it impossible to bring it before a court.”

“Maybe,” Art conceded. It was a telling point. “Why?”

Wallis blinked. “What do you mean – why?”

“Why did you do it?” Art asked, honestly curious. “Why did you create the crisis in the first place? Did you want power, or...what?”

Wallis scowled at him, and then clearly decided to be honest. “You must realise that the world is the way it is because of a complex interlocking of factors,” he said. “If you introduce something new, for whatever reason, the world changes – and you might not like the result. Think about what might happen if the oil companies were suddenly forced out of business by the discovery of a kind of substitute oil. Millions would be forced out of work and there would be a massive economic crash.

“And telepaths are something new! The human mind is the last true refuge of privacy in the world. Until you and your kind came along, even the lowest prisoner in a foreign jail could be comforted by the privacy of his own mind. The mere introduction of telepaths reshapes the world – telepaths would start using their powers for their own advantage, while non-telepaths would fear and hate them because of what they can do. Do you understand that?

“Any new change must be controlled and guided smoothly towards integration into human society,” Wallis added, sharply. “I wanted a strong governmental project to control telepaths to prevent them from tearing our society apart.”

“You seem to have failed,” Art observed archly. “Your stooges have wrecked vast economic and social damage...”

“The damage can be repaired,” Wallis said. “This is a great country. We survived the British, the French, and the Native Americans, the Mexicans, the Germans, the Japanese and even ourselves in the Civil War. We’ll survive telepaths too.”

“And you wanted to be President,” Art said. “I’m sure that the prospects for personal advancement suggested themselves to you.”

Wallis shrugged. “What other ambition does everyone elected into power have?”

“I imagine the thought of doing your duty by your country never crossed your mind,” Art observed. “You know, back when I was a kid, my teacher used to tell me that in America anyone could grow up to be a Senator. Looking at you, I’m starting to worry that the old bag was right.”

Wallis flushed. “So what are you going to do now?” He demanded. “There is no way that you can prove any of this...”

Art allowed himself a smile as the trap was sprung. “Every telepath in the Telepath Corps has been watching through my eyes,” he lied. Wallis stared at him in disbelief. “Do you know how many witnesses to your confession that is? Enough to convince even the most hardened judge and bribed jury that you’re guilty. Not that it will get that far, I imagine, not once Senator Walker discovers who was blackmailing him and why.”

Wallis cut his losses with a single sharp movement. “What do you want?”

“I’d like nothing better than for you to stand trial for what you have done,” Art said. “I know that that won’t happen, so...I want you to resign your office, retire back to your hometown and stay out of politics. I want you to be completely out of politics. You will be watched for the rest of your life and - well, let’s just say that if you step back into politics, a small brown envelope will be delivered to the right journalist.”

He smiled. “Do you understand me?”

“You asshole,” Wallis said. Oddly, Art had the sense that it was the first completely honest thing the Senator had said. “You're undermining the Constitution with this ********...”

“Perhaps,” Art said, tiredly. “Or perhaps I am repairing it. I doubt that the Founding Fathers ever envisaged a day when one of the country’s foremost senators would commit an act of treason that would make Benedict Arnold look like a rank amateur.”

He shrugged. “The choice is yours,” he said. “I’ll show myself out.”

***​

“My Fellow Americans,” the President said. He was speaking to a packed Congress, but he knew that television cameras were broadcasting his speech live to the American people. He just wished that he had better news for them. “It has been a tragic few months. We have seen telepathic powers used for great evil, causing the deaths of thousands of innocents and wrecking economic havoc on the whole country. It is easy for us to take refuge in rage, to lash out at telepaths – all telepaths – in the hope that it will satisfy our desire for bloody revenge. We have seen scenes across the country where a few of our citizens, motivated by fear or rage or even bloodlust, have attempted to take matters into their own hands. We all understand, even if we don’t want to admit it, where such feelings come from. We all understand the darkness that lies within the human soul.

“But telepaths were also responsible for ending the career of a telepath who believed that he and those who followed him were superior to everyone else,” the President continued. “Fifteen telepaths gave their lives to stop Leo Davidson and his rogue telepaths. Others have served their country in their own way. I have seen young men and women risk their lives to save others, to stop terrorists or to find missing or trapped children, or to plunge into the minds of traumatised patients and help bring them back to themselves. Telepaths have had many positive effects on our lives, as well as negative effects.

“I could tell you about the young medical telepath who helps doctors with children. I could tell you how hard it is to know where a child is in pain. A baby cannot explain to us, in words we can understand, where he is in pain, but a telepath can. I could tell you about the telepaths who work with the fire departments to watch for people trapped in a burning building. I could tell you about the telepaths who work in business, helping to keep the business world honest, or the telepaths who help couples to reconcile. I could tell you so many positive stories...

“And yet,” he said, “all of those stories would not stop the fear. Fear corrodes; it wears away at what we are, stripping us down to base humanity. It is the fear that tells us to lash out at the telepath, be they friendly and patriotic or evil terrorists intent on bringing down the world. We fear, with good reason, the prospect of a mental police, of having our minds ransacked and used against us, or being turned into the puppets of mentally-superior people. Cold logic is no defence against such fear.

“The introduction of telepaths has caused this fear; we can only deal with it on those terms.

“The bill passed through Congress yesterday and ratified by the Senate is a step down a very dangerous path. It singles out telepaths as having been born bad, as being inherently wrong; as such, it is a gross offence against everything our country stands for. It should never have been proposed, or considered, let alone signed. In an ideal world, it would have been thrown out without debate, yet it passed. There was no choice, but to pass it. It is a terrible thing that we are doing, but there is no choice, not if we wish to preserve our country.

“We will make telepath testing mandatory for every person in the United States,” the President said. He looked for Senator Wallis, who had pushed for such measures from the start, but saw no sign of him. “The telepaths we discover will be given the choice between moving to Alaska or taking drugs designed to suppress telepathic ability. All telepaths who wish to work in the country will be trained to follow regulations designed to prevent abuse of their talent. We will ensure that Alaska is developed; we will ensure that it is fair more than a prison, but telepaths will have to live there. Violators will be treated harshly.

“I don't want to do this,” he concluded. “It is a violation of everything we believe in, everything that we stand for, and yet we have no choice. Perhaps, in the future, we will come to terms with telepaths and what telepathy implies for us all, but until then...”

He shook his head. “We have no choice, but to do a terrible thing,” he concluded. “The Founding Fathers would spit on us.”

 

Epilogue<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

One year after the establishment of Bester Towns – the name has, alas, stuck – we can safely say that matters have cooled down in the Lower 48. There has been a marked reduction in the number of telepathic crimes, although it is believed that a small number of rogue telepaths have escaped detection and remain active. While Alaska may mourn the arrival of so many telepaths – and civil liberties campaigners may attack legislation specifically focused on telepaths – it appears that the Bester Towns have succeeded in their aim – limiting contact between telepaths and non-telepaths.
-AP News Report, 2015

“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1lace>Elizabeth</st1lace></st1:City> said, sadly. “I wish I could tell you what happened to your wonderful dream.”

Professor Zeller didn’t move, but then he hadn’t moved since the day of the attack on the Zeller Institute. He lay on a bed, surrounded by medical instruments that were monitoring his brain patterns – or lack of them. The coma had swallowed him up and nothing anyone, even a pair of mind healers, had done had been able to free him. His breathing – light, regular patterns – filled the room, yet there was no mind inside the body. Professor Zeller was, to all intents and purposes, dead.

<st1:City><st1lace>Elizabeth</st1lace></st1:City> shook her head sadly. Most of the active American telepaths lived in the Bester Towns, the telepathic communities established in <st1:State><st1lace>Alaska</st1lace></st1:State>, an isolated region of the <st1lace><st1laceName>Nevada</st1laceName> <st1laceType>Desert</st1laceType></st1lace> or an island out on the coast. There were even a handful of non-telepaths, the parents of telepathic children who had chosen to follow their children to <st1:State><st1lace>Alaska</st1lace></st1:State>, rather than let them be drugged or put them into the care of foster parents. It wasn't as if the Telepathic Corps was poor – the Corps hired out telepaths to military and business interests and used the money to fund the Bester Towns – yet there was something depressing about the accommodation. Perhaps it was the fact that, no matter what the President had said, they were prisons. The alternative was being drugged and, it was clear, the drugs sometimes had dangerous side effects.

And she was the greatest prisoner of all.

In the chaos that followed Leo’s death, she had half-hoped that she would slip through the net and find a quiet life somewhere away from the rest of the world. Whatever had happened to her powers to invert them had proven impossible to fix, leaving her the only leper among the other telepaths. <st1:City><st1lace>Elizabeth</st1lace></st1:City> had no privacy, even among non-telepaths, and had chosen to live away from the Bester Towns. She still wasn't sure if the tolerance granted to her was a reward for turning against Leo or one final twist of the knife. The Telepath Corps regarded her as an embarrassment. The mundane population, had they known who she was, would have wanted her tried for terrorism.

“I wish I’d never met you,” she told the silent Zeller. “I wish I’d never even heard about your program, even if it meant a lifetime spent flipping burgers at a fast-food chain. I wish…”

But there was no point in wishing. It never changed the world.

The Bester Towns had defused most of the anti-telepath violence in the remainder of the <st1:country-region><st1lace>United States</st1lace></st1:country-region>, but even <st1:City><st1lace>Elizabeth</st1lace></st1:City> could sense the dull resentment flickering through the telepathic community. In a town where everyone knew what everyone else was feeling – if not thinking – there was little point in trying to hide anything. The telepaths resented what had been done to them in the name of public safety, even though the President had had little choice. His successor, the one who inherited his position, would have to come up with a better solution. <st1:City><st1lace>Elizabeth</st1lace></st1:City> knew that there was no better solution, none that would please everyone. How could there be when there was no trust?

She took one last look at Zeller and walked away, knowing that the handful of nurses in the building would sense her depression when they saw her. By now, she was used to it, even though it felt too much like walking though town naked. It left her caught between two worlds; understanding the hatred and fear of non-telepaths, while resenting the treatment of telepaths to make non-telepaths feel safer. She was the only one of her kind.

Behind her, the machines continued their silent vigil.

The End​

 

Wow.....what a great read. Thank you for posting your story.

 

Good story but it leaves a bunch of unanswered questions.

 

I know - room for the sequal.

Chris

 

But is there room for a stylish cyborg ??? Funny running into YOU here. . .

 

Hi!

In the next book, there will be cyborgs, but they will be evil bastards so perhaps not...

Chris

 

I finally had time to sit and read the rest of this story. I really liked it and am ready to read the sequel! Great job!

 

Didn't have time to read it, but took it anyway.
Good story, Chris. Waiting on sequel.

 

Thanks - I have to think hard about the sequal.

Chris

 

I've just started this one after being completely absorbed into Uninvited. Great stuff!

Are you this prolific and speedy as the post dates indicate? Or do you write them first and then post them later.

Just curious, because if you really are this fast at creating such complete stories, you'd make Stephen King shrivel up in envy of such talent. Seriously. Not even blowing smoke.

 

I generally write around 6000 words a day and post after writing. When I get more feedback and comments, I get more enthusiastic and write more.

Chris

 

Really enjoyed reading this. Great job!

 

i really liked that great story - i will read it again because i may have missed what happened to the gambler who went to work for the capper. thank you again for a great great read.

 

Very well written!You should really sit down with a major publisher,and have a talk.Your stories have NYT best seller list all over them.Thank You for sharing your works with us.Matt

 

Thanks guys - Shifting Sands is still ongoing.

Chris

 

and here i thought "sands" was awesome, this kicks its ass

 

Thank you - comments and feedback would be welcome.

Chris