Chapter Twenty-Eight

The President’s decision to draft telepaths has been met by mixed responses from the public. Many have applauded the President’s decision, but both civil liberties and privacy advocates have questioned the use of the draft – the first since Vietnam – for recruiting telepaths to the government’s side. Public opinion is, in fact, divided on the so-called telepathic terrorists – they have a surprising level of support from many on the internet, including those who used to work for Curtis Hughes. Others say that forcing him to confess in public was cruel and a foretaste of what humanity might expect in a world dominated by terrorists...

-AP News Report, 2015

“Welcome to the lair of the revolution,” Valentine said, as he waved Leo and Elizabeth into the warehouse. “A third of the anti-government activity in Washington passes through this warehouse, from smuggled guns to propaganda leaflets that the feds would snatch and destroy if they got their hands on them. Your presence here is a sign of trust from the leadership.”

Elizabeth frowned. Valentine talked a good game, but the warehouse just wasn’t that impressive. On the outside, it looked as if it was permanently on the verge of falling down, with a handful of homeless people gathered around it. On the inside, it was dark and grimy, with hardly any lighting worth the name. It struck her as more of a hideout for junior criminals than the heart of the resistance that Valentine kept talking about.

“Of course it’s not that impressive,” Valentine said when her doubts began leaking out of her mind. “What were you expecting? Perhaps you wanted bright lights and a sign reading SECRET MEETING HERE?”

Elizabeth realised with a start that Valentine’s telepathy was growing stronger, but then they were all growing stronger. Being on the run forced them to develop stronger telepathy; God knew it was their only advantage. In the two days since they had launched their first offensive – as Leo had, rather grandly, called it – they had come alarmingly close to being captured twice. If the policemen had had a telepath with them, the game would have been up.

Elizabeth flushed at his tone. “The underground knows that the only way to remain alive and free is to keep operating on the down low,” Valentine added, dryly. “They cannot risk being detected by the feds, or they’d come down on their heads like a ton of bricks. They know what they’re doing.”

“Fine, good, glad to hear it,” Leo said, tartly. They stepped into the main warehouse and stopped. There was no one there. Elizabeth reached out with her mind and sensed nothing. “Why did we come here?”

“The feds have been desperate to locate us ever since we embarrassed them,” Valentine explained. “We’re here because they need us to check out the loyalty of some of their people. The government is offering ten million dollars for our heads – preferably without the bodies attached – and they are worried that some of their people will take the shot at instant wealth.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth said. “I thought you trusted these people?”

“I trust the leadership, even if we don’t always agree,” Valentine admitted, “but what about the others? The junior members, the ones who might only be playing at being rebels who want to smash the system; the ones who have questionable periods in their past; the ones who may have ulterior motives of their own...we cannot trust them all.”

He grinned. “There’s an old military saying that says the largest trustworthy group is around fifty men,” he added. “After that...there are going to be divided loyalties, whatever else happens. You don’t get old in this business by taking chances.”

Elizabeth frowned. “But how can they trust us?”

“The government has put a massive price on our heads,” Leo pointed out, sharply. He sounded tense and Elizabeth wondered if Valentine had told him something more about the meeting than he’d told her. “They can trust us not to want to betray ourselves to the government, not after they started drafting telepaths into their army...”

Valentine looked up as a noise echoed through the warehouse. “You two go into that room and get ready,” he said, pointing to a dusty door. Elizabeth stepped over to it and discovered that the room inside was surprisingly clean and untouched. It had no windows and so they could turn on the lights. The person who had originally owned the room had a fondness for an Indian model, one with long brown legs and dark eyes to die for. Elizabeth ripped the calendar down and dumped it in the waste bin.

Twenty minutes passed slowly. Elizabeth could hear chatter outside, but it was impossible to read thoughts at that distance, at least without being able to see the person. She strained her mind and caught flickers of emotion – nervous eagerness mixed with trepidation – but sensed nothing else. Leo took a chair and sat down on it, his mental shields drawn tightly around him. She couldn’t read anything from his mind at all.

The door finally opened and Valentine came in. “They have agreed to come in one at a time and be interviewed,” he said. “We didn’t tell them that they were having their minds read – it would only have upset them. If one of them is a bad apple, someone working for the feds, freeze them and hold them. We can deal with them in a manner that will terrify anyone else who is even thinking about infiltrating our organisation.”

“Of course,” Leo said, too loudly. “When do you want to start?”

Elizabeth took one of the other chairs as Valentine went back outside. A moment later, he came in with a young man who was clearly determined to shock. He had shaved all of his head, apart from a single shock of hair in the exact centre of his skull, which he had dyed bright green. He had so many rings on his fingers that Elizabeth shivered, knowing that she would have been nervous around him if she’d seen him before she became a telepath. The sudden flush of lust through his mind as he saw her shocked and repelled her, even though she had thought she was used to such involuntary male thoughts. Men, particularly young men, couldn’t help themselves when they saw a pretty girl.

Leo winked at her and reached out with his mind. Elizabeth followed him a second later, suddenly becoming aware of the young man’s puzzlement. He didn’t understand what was going on, or why he was there and part of him was worried about it. His memories rose up in front of them and they swam through them, realising how the boy had grown up with an abusive mother and no father. He had no idea who his father had actually been, something that had nagged at him as he grew older. He’d drifted into the movement by accident, but had been an enthusiastic participant, once he realised that he was allowed to cause as much trouble as possible. He’d thrown stones at policemen, turned protests into riots and much more. Darker memories flared around them and Elizabeth looked away. She didn’t want to probe too closely.

“Loyal,” Leo said, finally. He touched the young man’s mind, blurring it so that he wouldn’t recall what had happened. “Send in the next one.”

The second person was a girl who didn’t seem to have a single cell in her brain. Elizabeth had cracked jokes about dumb blondes before, but this one really was dumb – and, for some reason, she had dyed her hair blonde. She was possibly the stupidest person that Elizabeth had encountered, someone so caught up in the romance of being part of an underground movement that it honestly hadn’t occurred to her to question it – or, for that matter, to develop any politics of her own. She could have been a fascist or a communist, a socialist or a libertarian – she just didn’t have any convictions at all. Elizabeth rolled her eyes as other memories rose up and knew, somehow, that Cholula would burn herself out before too long.

But she was loyal, if only because she didn’t have the imagination to be anything else.

The night wore on as seven more people were paraded before the telepaths. Elizabeth had sometimes wondered what pushed a person into the underground; now she knew, in so many ways. Some had the conviction that they were doing the right thing and that they had to fight against the system; some believed that it was the gateway to future power and position for themselves. A handful just liked the free drugs and even freer love. The parts of the movement that connected to the colleges and college students encouraged throwing away old taboos, helping the ones who would become true anarchists to lose their inhibitions, just so they could rebel against society and strive to bring it down.

The eighth person was different. She looked like a teenager, complete with tight jeans, short top without a bra and a weird hairstyle, but her thoughts were too ordered to be real. Elizabeth and Leo shared a glance and then reached out, realising in a moment of shared horror that they were looking at an undercover police officer. The policewoman wasn’t a telepath – or else the game would have been over at once when she sent for help – but she recognised them. Elizabeth tore through her memories in a panic, feeling the cool contempt the policewoman felt for the people in the movement and her certainty that the movement was being exploited by enemies of America. Elizabeth saw the movement as the policewoman saw it and recoiled. It was nothing more than a group of silly children playing games.

FREEZE, Leo sent. The policewoman shivered and froze, unable to resist the telepathic command pouring into her mind. Valentine leapt up at once, heading out to warn the others that they had caught a spy and that their bases would be compromised. YOUR MIND IS OURS.

Elizabeth watched as he dug into the policewoman’s mind, pulling out everything she knew about them. The policewoman – her name was Cheryl, it seemed – had been placed within the movement a year ago and she was looking forward to leaving when her time was up, as she hated the movement. Elizabeth ignored that and pressed onwards; she’d been warned to watch for the telepaths, Valentine in particular. She hadn’t been told why, much to Elizabeth’s frustration, which suggested that someone knew that she might encounter the telepaths in the future.

Leo had been more practical. He checked through her mind for any radios or other emergency supplies, and then carefully removed them from her clothes. A tiny button, it seemed, was a distress bleeper, something that would have had the Washington PD crashing in on the meeting within minutes. Another device was a tiny recorder that wouldn’t have been fooled by any telepathic illusions. A third was a device that, after some prodding, her mind finally admitted was a portable DNA sampler kit. Elizabeth was horrified and yet relieved. At least they’d caught the spy before she could get a word out to her superiors.

True, Leo sent. Elizabeth didn’t like the sense of grim resolve echoing through his mind, followed rapidly by a darker feeling she really didn’t like. Leo seemed to be considering extreme options for dealing with the spy. On the other hand, they will suspect something when she fails to report back after the meeting...

Valentine returned to the room. “We have gotten the others out of here,” he said, grimly. “They know about the danger now, but we’ll have to act quickly. This bitch may not be the only one inside the movement.”

“She’s the only one she knows about,” Leo said, calmly. His mind started to slip into the policewoman’s mind, issuing new commands. Elizabeth felt the policewoman’s horror as her body went limp, no longer responsive to her commands. “I think that we can have some fun with her before we wipe her mind and dump her.”

Elizabeth stared at him in horror. “What are you...?”

Leo ignored her, concentrating on the policewoman, who stood up at his mental command. A moment later, her body started swaying in time to an imaginary beat, while her hands reached under her shirt and clasped her breasts. Elizabeth recoiled as the policewoman’s hands started to remove her shirt, leaving her breasts bobbing in the open air. Leo’s mind was pushing against hers now, causing all kinds of reactions; the woman’s mind was suddenly torn between a sickening arousal and outright terror. She started to cry silently as her hands reached down to her jeans and pushed them down, stepping out of them and then reaching for her panties. The thin silk was already stained with her unwilling arousal.

“No,” Elizabeth said, flatly. She reached out with her own mind, only to discover that both Leo and Valentine were controlling the girl. She couldn’t free her from her sudden enslavement. “I won’t let you do this, not to anyone.”

She touched Leo’s mind for a second and was nearly sick. She had never realised just how deep his contempt for mere mundane humans truly ran, even though he’d been prepared to kill to achieve his goals. He thought he had the right to take the policewoman – to rape her – because he was superior – and because he’d been denied it when he’d been a mundane human himself. If he cared about the policewoman’s horror and terror, her own thoughts and feelings, it was only to enjoy her forced submission to his will. Elizabeth saw – and cursed herself for not seeing it earlier – just how far gone he truly was. A world dominated by Leo, or people who thought as he did, would be a nightmare.

“She would have betrayed us,” Leo said. The policewoman was still moving at his command, removing her panties and then bending over the chair, ready to be raped. Tears were still dripping from her eyes, but she was allowed no other movement. “You know that – she would have sentenced us all to death without a second thought. It is right that we punish her before...”

“And we are the superior beings,” Valentine added. His mocking voice echoed in the still air. “Why should the inferior not submit to us?”

Elizabeth stared at him, finally understanding why the policewoman had been warned to watch for Valentine in particular. He’d been carefully manipulating Leo ever since they had first met at the Zeller Institute, wearing away at what remained of his humanity until nothing was left, but the broken man convinced of his own superiority. And Elizabeth had helped; she’d helped them flee the Institute and helped them to carry out acts of terrorism against the country. And all of it had been meant to do nothing more than spread chaos. The fact that it made it impossible for Leo and his allies to expect mercy was only icing on the cake.

“I thought we were supposed to be better than them,” Elizabeth said. She gathered herself, knowing that if they both decided to attack her, she’d lose quickly. At least Leo had stopped fumbling with his pants. The frustrated rage was bubbling up within him, threatening to overwhelm his mind and what remained of his rationality. “How are we superior if we force them to have sex with us?”

Leo looked up at her and she recoiled, transfixed by the wave of emotion pouring out of his mind. A mixture of lust, anger and even misogyny, memories of a life spent knowing that he was smarter than most of his contemporaries, yet also knowing that his contemporaries rejected him and the girls he lusted for chose to go with the dumbass jocks rather than smart boys who wouldn’t harm them. Elizabeth had never known just how deep his feelings ran, or how well Valentine had played on them. There was no hope of appealing to reason now. He wouldn’t listen to her...

She lashed out with her mind, aiming at the policewoman and hoping to shatter the bonds Leo had placed on her mind. A second later, a wave of mental force from Leo sent her stumbling backwards to the floor, while Valentine leapt at the naked policewoman and knocked her down himself. Leo was on top of Elizabeth a second later, his mind boring down into hers and trying to knock her out; Elizabeth, suddenly thinking that he might want to rape her, found new strength and lashed back. Leo seemed to recoil from her mental blast, but before Elizabeth could capitalise on her success she felt Valentine behind her. A moment later, a blow landed on her head and she fell back to the ground. Strong arms gripped her, rolled her over and started to tie her hands behind her back.

“I told you,” a voice said, as if it was echoing from a far distance. She heard an ominous click, but she couldn’t identify it through the pain in her mind. It seemed impossible to focus her mind on anything. She wasn’t even sure what had happened. No, she knew that; someone had hit her from behind. She was trapped and helpless. “I told you that she didn’t have what it took.”

“I thought she would come around,” a second voice said. The hands were working on her legs now, tying them together. She could barely feel anything through the roaring in her mind. It dawned on her, suddenly, that her telepathy had gone wonky. She was reading far too many minds at extreme range. “I liked her.”

“There’s no time for that in a revolution,” the first voice said. It sounded ruthlessly practical. “You’re going to have to be much more ruthless than that if you want to win.”

A moment later, Elizabeth felt another searing pain on her forehead...and then there was nothing but darkness.