Chapter Sixteen

Speaking to packed crowds today, Senator Thomas Wallis, a front-runner for Republican Party candidate for President in the 2016 elections, demanded that the government place immediate controls on telepaths to prevent a repeat of the Harvard Stampede and other disasters. This comes on the heels of a growing series of telepath and telepathy-related criminal offences against non-telepaths. Wallis stated that if he were elected, all telepaths would be registered, their powers would be brought under control and they would be transferred to a place well away from non-telepaths.

In further news, the Reverend Joshua Peterson, the founder of the controversial Church of the Rapturous Awakening, claimed today that telepaths were hearing the voices and temptations of the devil and were therefore sinners. He called on all good Christians to refuse to have anything to do with telepaths. The Church, which is infamous for its refusal to accept feminism, homosexuality and multiculturalism, demanded that the government ban telepaths from operating on American soil.

-AP News Report, 2015

The President looked down at the folder in his hand and scowled. The Presidency conveyed many blessing as well as curses, but everyone took the President so damn seriously. In his first week in the White House, he had requested – and then forgotten about – information on an obscure topic relating to military readiness. A week later, he had been presented with a massive report on the subject and discovered, much to his alarm, that the entire Pentagon was waiting on tenterhooks to discover what the new President thought of their report. He had learned, quickly, not to make any requests that others would take seriously, at least unless he actually wanted the data.

He scowled as he opened the report. After the first public announcement of telepathy, he’d ordered the Attorney General and the Department of Justice to research telepathy and produce a legal framework for using – or rejecting – telepathy in criminal cases. Their report now lay in front of him and the President found himself unwilling to read it, even though he’d cleared a couple of hours to go through it and then compose a statement for the nation. If the truth be told, he didn’t want to know.

The thought wasn’t reassuring. Outside his office, a telepath had been added to the Secret Service officers guarding his life. The telepath – one of the first to be discovered – had orders to check that no one intended to do him harm, but the President knew that the other Secret Service personnel were uneasy with having a telepath near them. Anyone who complained about ‘need to know’ and how they had been deemed as not ‘needing to know’ was either ignorant about OPSEC or a self-obsessed and therefore untrustworthy idiot, yet having a telepath made a joke out of mental privacy. Did the President have a right to order a person’s mental privacy violated because they might pose a threat to his person? He could imagine no more alienating activity. People who had been completely trustworthy might become untrustworthy because their mental privacy had been violated.

Shaking his head, he opened the report and turned at once to the executive summary. President Reagan had once remarked that he wanted all reports and proposals put before him to be no larger than a single sheet of paper and his successors had tried to do the same, although as the government had expanded even further, it was hard to convince the various departments not to produce reams of paper – or its electronic equivalent – every year. If the President made a point of reading all of the reports, he would never have any time to actually do his job.

The writer – an up-and-coming young lawyer on the Attorney General’s staff – knew his stuff, at least. Telepathic evidence was unlikely to be admissible under the current rules even though it was not specifically banned. The writer had noted – and the President smiled at the evidence of a wry sense of humour – that it was not banned because no one had considered it possible, not unlike having God come down from heaven and decree a suspect innocent of all charges. The authors of the rules of evidence had never considered it as a possibility.

Furthermore, telepathic evidence could reasonably be construed as hearsay. A court would not be keen on accepting evidence based on hearsay – a person who heard something from someone, rather than directly witnessing it themselves – and a telepath might be unable to prove that he was speaking the truth. The President turned to the expanded section of the report, which noted that there were several ways to make the system workable, but he doubted that the courts would be eager to accept it. The court system tended to be highly conservative. The writer did mention that Spectral Evidence – evidence based around dreams and visions – would never stand up in a modern courtroom. The last time it had been generally accepted was back during the Salem Witch Trials. The President remembered the preacher who had castigated telepaths as witches and shuddered.

Turning back to the executive summary, it quickly became apparent that telepathic evidence ran into a number of other problems. The Constitution itself could be read as banning telepathic evidence. The Fourth Amendment – which banned unreasonable searches and seizures – could be cited; a good lawyer could probably argue that peeking into a person’s mind was an unreasonable search. The Fifth Amendment – which prohibited self-incrimination, among other things – could be cited, as could the Sixth Amendment, which allowed the accused to confront his accuser. Judges, the writer had started, could draw a parallel between coerced evidence – such as evidence obtained through torture – and telepathic evidence, which could be used to throw the telepathic evidence out of court. The President suspected that it could shatter the traditional lines between liberals and conservatives.

It was possible, of course, to rewrite the rules to allow telepathic evidence to be considered in court, but that would open up a whole new can of worms. The President knew that very few people would be keen on the idea of giving telepaths free rein, which would leave their testimony as nothing more than hearsay – except that, without telepathy, New York would be experiencing the after effects of a dirty bomb explosion. Certainly, telepathic evidence could be used to point the police towards a terrorist, but a competent lawyer could turn that upside down.

The writer had cited a case from Massachusetts to prove his point. The police had been directed to a suspected criminal by a member of the public and they’d obtained a warrant to search his house on those grounds. They’d found evidence suitable to convict the suspect, but his lawyer had argued that the search was carried out on poor grounds and had been able to get most of the evidence thrown out of court. The President flipped to the back and read the latest update on the New York Dirty Bomber trial. Their lawyers were stalling for all that they were worth, knowing that the case would eventually go to the Supreme Court.

And then there was the issue of telepathic crime.

The writer had admitted that while reading someone’s mind wasn’t a crime – again, because it had simply never been an issue before – it could certainly be counted as invasion of privacy and charges could be brought on those grounds. However, how could someone prove that their mind had been read? The mere belief that something had happened proved nothing. Another telepath could, presumably, look into the first’s mind and discover the truth, but that raised other questions. And then there was the minor issue that stronger telepaths, when their talent blossomed into life, ended up reading the minds of everyone around them by accident. Could they reasonably be held accountable for that?

And then there was the issue of mind control.

The incident at Harvard – if one could call a riot that had killed around seven hundred people and injured well over a thousand an ‘incident’ – had been an accident, but what if there were telepaths who developed the ability to influence or control minds? Could ‘a telepath made me do it’ serve as a defence? The writer noted that it was possible to draw parallels between involuntary intoxication – where a victim was drugged without his knowledge or consent – and telepathic mind control. The victim would not be held accountable for what he or she did … except, of course, one would have to prove that they were the victim of mind control, which raised the old issue of hearsay evidence again. Although, of course, a telepathic scan could reveal the truth, if a victim was willing to be scanned by another telepath.

On the other hand, mind-controlling someone into doing one’s bidding could easily be defined as a crime. A person who made someone act under duress – either though naked force or more subtle intimidation – was already committing a criminal offence. If it could be proven that someone had used mind control techniques, charging them with a crime would be easy.

“Enough,” the President said, finally. The writer had gone into too much detail and his head was hurting. “What do we do now?”

He put the report to one side and picked up a different report. As a young candidate, he had hired the services of Boyd and Marshall, one of the most reputable and capable polling firms in the United States. Their firm grasp of the public pulse had helped push him to victory, although he was honest enough to admit that luck – and a damaging sexual scandal that had blown his opponent’s career out of the water – had played a major role. He had continued to retain their services while in office. He wasn’t entirely sure he trusted the polling figures produced by the Washington bureaucracy.

Boyd and Marshall, after conducting a hastily-organised and extensive survey, had concluded that public feeling was turning rapidly against telepaths. It had never been favourable – the news about the New York bombers, they’d added, should have been put out quicker – but what had happened at Harvard had scared most of the population shitless. They noted that over sixty percent of the population favoured laws intended to deal with telepaths, while a small minority actually wanted to exterminate telepaths or segregate them from the mainstream of public life. It was already having an effect on public policy. Las Vegas’s ban on telepaths was of questionable legality – it smacked of discrimination based on an inherent trait, like gender or skin colour – but it was unlikely that it would be overturned by the State Court. The Supreme Court would probably wind up tying itself in legal knots … and, of course, it was perfectly legal for shops and stores to ban known shoplifters. The casinos in Las Vegas could probably get away with banning known telepaths.

The report went on to say that political figures who loudly demanded action against telepaths were already seeing an upswing in their poll numbers – but then, the President had never needed a polling agency to tell him that. Political figures who jumped on the public bandwagon, for any issue, always saw a rise in their popularity, at least until they got into office and discovered that the real world defied quick and easy solutions. Making speeches was easy; actually crafting political steps and putting them into action was hard. The President had learned that in his first week on the job.

He looked up at the painting he’d placed on one wall. It was traditional that the incoming President had to redecorate the Oval Office and he’d added a painting of all of the American Presidents from Washington to his predecessor, as if they’d remained alive so that they could share their advice and impressions with their successors. There was George Washington, who was dressed in traditional clothes, rubbing shoulders with Abe Lincoln and Richard Nixon, while John Kennedy stood next to Franklin Roosevelt and George Bush II. They had all been great men, in their way, and how they had conducted themselves had reflected on America. How would any of them have dealt with telepathy?

President Franklin Roosevelt’s beaming face seemed to mock him. In the darkest days following Pearl Harbour, the United States had rounded up and interned hundreds of thousands of ethnic Japanese civilians, for fear of what they might do. It had been a shameful act, one of the worst in American history, yet many people wanted to do the same to telepaths. The President hated the thought, but at the same time he knew that telepaths had to be brought under control. If the public lost faith in the government’s ability to administer justice, they would start taking matters into their own hands.

He ran his hands through his hair as he stood up and closed the report. There was work to be done.

***

It had taken several telephone calls to assemble both his Cabinet and a number of prominent figures from the other party. The President wasn’t fond of bipartisanship – it had always struck him as a way for the other party to force concessions or to stall long enough for the idea to be scrapped – but this was important. Besides, with the public eye fixed so firmly upon Washington, no political figure could afford to stall for long. It would reflect badly upon them at the polls and at the coming elections.

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming,” the President said. He had taken the liberty of distributing copies of both reports to his guests and insisting that they read them prior to the meeting. “Our country stands on the brink of anarchy. History will judge us on how we react to this crisis.”

No one spoke as his words echoed in the air. They knew that he was right. The riot in Harvard had been the worst, but there had been other riots and over a hundred people had been lynched – often people who were not and probably never would have been telepathic. Matters weren’t helped by growing fears about what other countries might be doing with their telepaths. Iran and Saudi Arabia had publicly proclaimed that telepaths were the spawn of the devil and therefore to be stoned to death, but Russia and China were maintaining a cold silence on the subject. The CIA had stated, in a report meant for the President’s eyes only, that both countries were looking for telepaths who might have been awakened by the Harvard Blast.

It seemed that telepaths were flowering into existence everywhere. The Looking Glass Project had found seventeen telepaths before the Harvard Blast; Professor Zeller’s civilian project had found only fifteen. Now there seemed to be hundreds of telepaths appearing out of nowhere, their telepathy shocked into existence. The crisis was rapidly growing out of hand. The extremists – the ones who believed that telepaths were a colossal threat – were growing louder. The President knew that violence – more violence – could not be far behind.

“We have to act now,” the President said. “This is what I propose.

“We will start a Telepath Corps that will have jurisdiction over telepaths and telepathic crimes committed within our borders. This corps will have the telepathic resources that were scattered out over the different agencies, with a mandate for registering telepaths and dealing with telepathic criminals. Telepaths who work legally – in the courts, for example – will have to go through a training session and accept an ethical framework.”

He smiled inwardly at their reactions. They knew that the political firepower assembled in the room could push it through Congress and the Senate, but the various agencies wouldn’t want to give up any control, particularly to a new organisation. The unwillingness of intelligence agencies to cooperate had led to 9/11, the President knew, and neither Bush nor Obama had been able to do much to improve it. No one wanted to give up any power or influence.

“We will insist that all telepaths register themselves with the government, just as we insist on young men registering themselves for possible drafting,” he continued. “Being an unregistered telepath will be treated as a federal offence, with a mandatory prison sentence, as will harbouring an unregistered telepath. We will open up accommodation in Alaska for registered telepaths who wish to live apart from non-telepaths. Registered telepaths who wish to work as telepaths will be allowed to do so – telepaths who do not want to work as telepaths will be forbidden to use their powers in public life and doing so will be an offence.

“We will continue research into telepathy, particularly into finding a way to block telepathy and to suppress telepathic powers. If telepaths are unable to control their powers, we may be able to find a way to prevent their powers from driving them insane – or prevent criminals from using them for criminal activities.”

He paused. “There will be considerable debate over these measures,” he added. It was the understatement of the century. “There will be those who will claim that we are discriminating against telepaths – and yes, to some extent, that is exactly what we will be doing. We cannot avoid it. We must remember, however, that human rights are important and must be honoured, even for – perhaps especially for – telepaths as well as non-telepaths. If the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, we have to draw out and neutralise the fear. I ask you all to support me in this.”

There was a long chilling pause. He knew what he was asking them to support and knew that, for some of them, it would cost them votes, perhaps even their positions. None of them had risen so high without an ability to keep their finger on the public pulse and they knew that the public would be behind them … as long as their actions didn’t lead to a disaster. They all knew that Harvard might be only the beginning…

One by one, they all pledged their assent. The President felt sick. He was under no illusions as to what they were doing, or where it would all lead. He just knew that there was no other choice. Telepaths had to be controlled.

The only alternative was anarchy.