Post by Dr. Sean Neville on Dec 2, 2019 21:15:23 GMT -5
2011. While in the hospital.
The telepath’s current state of unconsciousness wasn’t entirely physically-induced. The concussion was cause for alarm, but it was also a relatively minor injury at the end of the day. He was unconscious because he was in a fortress.
The fortress was familiar to him. He had come here of his own volition before and unwittingly once when he was a boy and like Icarus had flown too close to the sun, his mind stretched out to the farthest reaches of his range when he was too young to cope with the intensity. If he looked around, he could probably find the echoes of himself as that boy.
The question became: what was he doing here?
He was too old to have flown too close to the sun again. He could reach out to his limits without being hurt these days. He remembered searing pain regardless, as well as guilt, stress, anxiety, grief, and overwhelming relief and victory.
He remembered the hospital parking lot.
He listened for the sounds of a parking lot, but there were none. He was too deep within the fortress to hear those. He had to leave.
He knew how to do so. The first time he’d come here, when he hadn’t intended to, he’d had to explore each and every door in the fortress before finding the path to the exit. He’d committed the route to memory since then.
But the mind was tricky. Even though the path remained the same, what he encountered on the route wouldn’t be; that was the effect of new memories with each day of life. Resigning himself to the task and preparing for the onslaught, he opened the first mental door. And all was laid bare before him in memory.
********************************************
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession. Since then I...” His voice faltered. He clasped his hands harder and bit his lip, willing himself to continue. “I’ve had impure thought and I-I,” he trembled. “I’ve had other thoughts because I’m-I’m not strong enough for this.”
“Not strong enough for what, my son?”
“For everything.” And then he began to weep.
********************************************
Of course Colin had to be in a conference all day, which was why Sean had received a frantic call from his sister. He’d dropped everything to rush over to her house, had picked her up, and then had driven her to the hospital. After she was checked in, he’d left about twenty messages from the pay phone in the lobby to get the other man there now. He even contemplated threatening to have his son named after him if Colin didn’t arrive in time, but that was needlessly cruel, even if Sean’s primary interest was making sure Kathleen had her husband there by her side.
Between telephone calls, he stood in her hospital room and made sure she did her breathing exercises. He knew enough about Lamaze to help her should she need him, but for the moment she, the doctor, and the nurse had everything under control. While Kathleen had a lot of work ahead of her, for Sean it was a waiting game.
****************************************************
Her hair smelled like strawberries.
It was the first thing he had noticed about her, and even though it sounded silly when he thought about it, he loved her for it.
He also loved her because she wasn’t afraid of him, and because she smiled whenever she caught him looking at her in class or in the hallways.
So she was the only choice.
“Maggie, I was wondering if you wanted to go with me to the dance on Saturday?”
**********************************************
“You do know I weigh about 200 pounds?”
“I work out, remember? It’ll be fine.”
Sean eyed him warily. “Are you sure?”
“If you’re afraid, you can just say that. I won’t judge you for it.”
“Did you just try to use reverse psychology on me?”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“Ah well.” Alex smiled at him. “I wanted to do something special for your birthday, and I promise that if you don’t like it we can stop.”
Sean heard the sincerity in the other man’s voice and mind and after a moment, held his hands up in surrender. “Just go slow.”
Alex’s smile widened and he held his arms out to the telepath. Sean stepped into the embrace and found himself hefted with remarkable ease. Then Alex stepped off the rooftop, while Sean held on for dear life. And they were flying.
*************************************************
His cadaver’s name was Clarence McKinney, from Brooklyn. A Caucasian male. He had died at the age of 72 from a heart attack. He’d had no family, and his will had expressly provided that he wanted to donate his body to medical science. He was non-meta. He hadn’t been a pharmacist but he had worked at a pharmacy nonetheless, before that he had fought in WWII in the navy. Aside from the heart-attack, he had been in good health. He hadn’t been a smoker.
He knew all of this because the medical school emphasized the necessity of treating cadavers as people, because they had once been alive, and they had made a noble gift: allowing medical students to use them to become doctors. Sean was grateful to Clarence McKinney for his sacrifice. And as he lifted his scalpel for the first time, he vowed to honor the man’s memory.
**************************************************
They had been dancing around each other for months. Sean felt so tense around him that he thought he would explode every time they were close. Now with the music and the beer and the dimmed lights...his head was foggy. Not knowing what else to do, he wrapped an arm around Josh’s shoulders and kissed him.
************************************************
His roommate at Hammel was a particularly gifted telekinetic, which might be why Sean had come to admire telekinesis as a power. Perhaps it was because telekinesis was a mental power that had a physical effect on the world and didn’t make his roommate think that he was losing his mind. Whatever the reason, Sean far preferred his roommate’s powers to his own.
His roommate also preferred his powers to Sean’s. While only a year older than the telepath, he had far greater control over his telekinesis than the latter did over his telepathy. His migraines didn’t even seem as bad as Sean’s were, and so he constantly experimented with his powers when not in class.
He liked to juggle without using his hands; he used anything he could find: rocks, baseballs, books, silverware he took out of the cafeteria, anything. When juggling grew too easy for him, he moved on to other parlor tricks.
One day Sean came back to the room after a grueling session with Robert and in great pain; his roommate seemed to be asleep, and the telepath went about changing. Then a brick came out of nowhere and nearly hit him in the head. Nearly. It stopped two inches from his face.
His roommate sat up in his bed with a wide smile on his face. “Neat, isn’t it?”
Sean didn’t like the other boy’s new parlor tricks.
************************************************
There was a jackhammer in his skull, pounding relentlessly. He knew that in the past, priests would cleanse themselves through pain. He hoped that he was cleansed soon.
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“We’ve never seen anything like it, and that’s why we’re concerned.”
“Nonsense. You’ve had me for thirty years.”
“You were self-taught; you don’t count. And you know what we mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean, and we’re not going to inhibit him. He’ll learn how to control his powers, and he’ll be better off for it.”
“And when he surpasses you?”
“That’s why we need to teach him ethics, so we never need to worry about when happens when he surpasses me. I’m perfectly content to hand over my title to someone more deserving.”
“So your opinion is that we hope for the best with uncharted esper levels jammed into a twelve-year-old?
“Yes, and since I’m the expert, you should heed my advice. He’ll grow into it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I am. And he’s waking up.”
A gentle hand touched his forehead. “You over-extended yourself again, Son. You need to be careful.”
*****************************************************
He sat alone in the waiting room, pretending to read a magazine. This was his first time ever at this clinic, and while it wasn’t his medical matter, he was still worried. He hoped that she was all right. He’d been surprised when she had sought him out for help, and then touched when she told him he was trustworthy and she knew he wouldn’t tell anyone else. So he took her and sat here now, waiting on the news.
A few minutes later she stepped out of the room with a smile on her face. “I’m fine,” she said, and then she hugged him tightly.
********************************************************
“Do you like it?”
He looked down at the package in his hands, tearing away the paper. It was a silver picture frame, and the photo was of himself, with a look of utter serenity on his features. With the age lines and the sunlight and the beard he almost looked like Robert.
If he ignored the fact that he wasn’t wearing pants.
He remembered that vacation, propped up against the rocks on the beach, using them as an informal armchair; far away from all of the other vacationers in this isolated part of the beach. It had been a beautiful day.
Looking over at her, he smiled. “I love it.”
He simply couldn’t bring it to his office.
********************************************************
“It’s only a blood test,” the doctor told him with a gentle smile. “Just a little prick and we’re done.”
Because he wanted to be brave, he kept a stiff upper lip and held out his arm.
***********************************************************
There had been posters all over the city, and radio stations had hyped the concert nonstop. Sean hadn’t needed the hype; the minute he’d found out about the concert, he’d cleared his schedule for that night. There was no way he would miss this.
Central Park was crowded beyond belief; it felt like there were a half-million people here. As much as he wanted to try and hear what Paul and Art were thinking, for his own sanity he needed to keep his mental shields up for now. So many different thoughts at once would ruin his night. But the concert would make it easier, because people’s thoughts tended to echo music they listened to, and then the background noise harmonized and became negligible.
They’d packed a picnic and had set up a blanket as close as they could get. The music was phenomenal. And as they listened to Bridge Over Troubled Water, his hand sought out Josh’s and their eyes met. That was what they had come to be for each other, and it was all he wanted out of life.
****************************************************
“So what do you do?”
Prior to coming to Hammel, nobody had asked him that question. It was an adult question, something he heard at block parties to ask what someone’s job was. But people asked it all the time here, and it was only the other kids. None of the teachers ever asked that.
He was shy about it, because he hated what he could do. Nothing good ever came of it.
But his downcast eyes weren’t enough to make this other kid get the point. So finally he admitted quietly, “I’m, um, a telepath.”
He didn’t like what he could do, but he liked that word. It was better than “mind reader” because that wasn’t even all that accurate. More often than not he heard instead of saw, and so it didn’t make sense to call it “mind reading.”
“Like Professor X?”
“I guess.” He’d read a few comics back in grade school but he hadn’t looked at any since he’d started getting the headaches that had snowballed to him having to be here. His parents hadn’t liked them even when he’d been normal. And then after...well, they didn’t want to give him anymore ideas.
The other kid then looked as uncomfortable as Sean felt. Because now he was worried that Sean would know all of his secrets. He kept looking at his lap, because he didn’t know what to say. The other kid spared him the awkwardness because he just left him alone in the middle of the cafeteria.
But he heard him warn all his friends about the new kid.
*********************************************
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
“We could get arrested.”
“No we won’t. Nixon isn’t in the White House anymore.” Greg laughed and then handed him the joint.
Here goes nothing, he thought before taking a puff.
**********************************************
They didn’t talk to one another after seeing the movie. It wasn’t even the clarity of hindsight which told him this had been a bad idea; he should have known beforehand but the movie had been highly recommended and Josh had actually seemed interested in going to a movie. It had helped that the other man paid no attention to entertainment news and hadn’t heard of it.
The theater had been filled entirely with gay men and straight women. There had been weeping at the end, and he knew that several of the couples had joined hands for reassurance during some of the more difficult emotional scenes.
And now he and Josh could barely look at each other. It was too early to call it a night, and since Josh was visiting, they would have to go back to the house together anyway which would only have increased the awkwardness. So he had suggested coffee in not so many words. The café was almost deserted due to the hour and sat at a table near the back where they wouldn’t be disturbed. Josh didn’t try to make eye contact and the telepath spent most of his time looking out the window and sipping coffee that wasn’t sweet enough.
Although he knew better, because Josh wasn’t Kathleen, he couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that yet another movie would ruin the most important relationship he had in his life.
********************************************
He sat by the window, his tiny hands clutching at the curtains while he tried to get a good look. He was too short and so he couldn’t see much of anything. His grandmother picked him up and set him back on the floor. “They’ll be home soon.”
Soon had no meaning to him. It was one of those grownup words he heard only when he couldn’t do something he wanted to do. But he obeyed and went over to his blocks to play.
An eternity later the front door opened and he went running into the foyer. Sure enough, his parents were home. His mother looked like he remembered her, even though it had been a couple of days, and she was smiling. Both of his parents were smiling big smiles.
His mother had a pink blanket in her arms. And after his father had hung up their coats, he picked the three-year-old up into his arms and showed him that in the blanket there was a tiny sleeping person.
“Meet your baby sister; her name is Kathleen.”
“Kathleen,” he repeated, testing the letters and sounds together for the first time. And he smiled a big smile too.
*********************************************
“Why do you hate animals?”
“I don’t hate animals.”
“You act like you do.”
“Because I don’t want to get a dog? I don’t have time for a dog; they’re clingy and they need to stick to a schedule that I can’t keep.”
“But a dog would keep you company, so that you aren’t alone.”
He smiled sadly. “I’m never alone.”
************************************************
He knew that he was officially “in” with the rest of the faculty when he’d been invited to the poker game on Thursday night. He had been excited, particularly because he could count on one hand the people who were willing to play cards with him. He was skilled at most card games, but after he won too many hands in a row, his partners invariably accused him of cheating. He didn’t argue about it because it wasn’t worth it. He was a telepath, ergo he cheated at cards; there was no way to defeat those biases without deliberately losing, and then the game stopped being fun.
But as he sat around Claude’s dining room table with Claude, Ben Waxman, Aaron Chambers, and Sam Risman, having a few drinks and eating sandwiches, there were no such concerns.
Claude was wiping the floor with all of them, much to Sean’s surprise. As the older man dealt a new hand, he reminded him, “I always have luck on my side.”
****************************************************
As he wrote the check, a thought occurred to him. Checking his financial statements and finding confirmation, he smiled. The house was finally his.
**********************************************
It had been a slow burn through all of college, and even before that if he thought about it. But one Sunday morning, he’d woken early as always. He’d showered, shaved, and dressed quietly, careful as always not to wake Josh who liked to sleep in. While he sipped his coffee and ate his toast, he kept his eye on the clock as always, so he could be out on time. And then...he didn’t go. He heard the church bells ring up the block, and he didn’t feel that panic about being late. He felt nothing.
It didn’t matter.
Not because he could go to evening services or make it up another day. It didn’t matter because he didn’t believe and he’d only been going through the motions. He realized that now.
He’d always thought losing his faith would come like a lightning strike. But he didn’t feel all that different, and so he must never have needed it.
**********************************************
As the executor read off the assets as they’d been divided, Sean felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. He’d done nothing to earn those bequests, and everyone at the table knew it.
Meeting his sister’s eyes, he mouthed, “I’m sorry,” but she turned away from him.
************************************************
“Are you sure about this?”
“I want my life back, Doctor. And if this will work-”
“It will work, but it can’t be undone.” It could be undone, but he was absolutely unwilling to inflict that on another person. “You couldn’t go back.”
“I don’t want to go back. Please, I need this.”
“If you’re sure, sign this form. Then make yourself comfortable on the sofa.”
************************************************
Since the breakup and returning from Pilot Ridge, he had spent more time at museums. He didn’t want to be around his friends because he couldn’t stand the questions and keeping up appearances was impossible. But he could be alone with his thoughts at museums, surrounded by the beauty of spirits more artistic than his could ever hope to be.
The MoMA was in the middle of an exchange with the Netherlands, with much of Van Gogh’s work on loan to the City. Because it was a weekday and not during the lunch hour, the exhibit was relatively empty.
He’d made progress, he thought, because he had seen The Starry Night without feeling overcome by a sense of cosmic loss.
But at the end of the exhibit, he came across the painting of the old man weeping into his hands by the fireplace. Without reading the information, he knew it was Van Gogh’s last self-portrait, right before he shot himself.
He knew because he saw himself reflected in that painting.
*******************************************
He didn’t know how he knew but it made sense. Everyone knew Tim Flannigan’s father had a temper. And that was why Tim had started keeping his sleeves down, even though it was hot and the priests let them roll their sleeves up in class. And why he didn’t let anyone come over after school.
Sean thought it was horrible. And not knowing what else to do as a sixth grader, he went up to the other boy and asked if he could do anything for him.
“Why?” Tim had been suspicious.
“Because of your dad.”
“What about my dad?” Sean didn’t notice, but Tim had started getting defensive.
“Well…about what he does when he hits you.”
Sean hadn’t known what to expect with his offer, but he’d been sincere. There wasn’t much he could do as a kid, but he’d wanted to help. He liked Tim.
The punch in the nose came quickly, and it hurt a lot. Tim was big for his age and strong. “Don’t ever talk about my old man again,” he threatened, before he walked away, leaving Sean there bleeding.
********************************************
He liked sitting on the hill, because he could see the entire town from up there. Sometimes he wondered if this was what God saw.
********************************************
The wedding had been beautiful. Sean had been to a number of weddings over the years; there were about a hundred cousins on both his mother and his father’s sides. And his friends, his heterosexual friends, had begun to settle down. Still, it was strange to think that this baby sister was getting married while he was still a “bachelor.”
Although he’d left the Church years ago, he could still appreciate the pomp and circumstance of a good old-fashioned Catholic wedding. Besides, Kathleen had been all smiles, so happy to be here. What did it matter that her husband was a bit of a tool? Colin genuinely loved her. For all his faults, Sean knew that, and that was all that mattered.
Like most gatherings that involved his family, the wedding reception had quickly dissolved into a drinking contest between every person who had reached the legal age, and some of the older teenagers while the adults turned a blind eye. The food was delicious; the catering company had gone above and beyond the call of duty. In fact, the food was the only reason that Sean retained any sobriety because he, like the rest of his family, had drunk his fill for the celebration.
It hadn’t taken much to get him into the line with the other single men, watching the absurd game where Colin had to remove Kathleen’s garter belt. Even the fact that her brand-new husband was doing so with his teeth didn’t bother him, because he’d seen worse. Knowing what his parents did had largely desensitized him.
But because he was the tallest man standing there, when Colin tossed the belt up into the air behind him, it had landed in Sean’s hands. Everyone laughed, but he quickly dropped it to the floor, cheeks reddening.
That was more involved than he needed to be.
*******************************************
“…yes, thank you for telling me. Goodbye.”
He hung up the phone and immediately retreated to the living room. Almost on autopilot, he began playing Moonlight Sonata, and he didn’t stop until his fingers were covered in blisters.
******************************************
“Hand me a lighter.”
“What? Why?”
“Just hand me a lighter.”
Greg fished around in his pocket and pulled out the cheap Zippo he carried around with him. The telepath snatched it from his hand. He was operating mainly on autopilot, so incensed by the speeches being made and riled on by the crowd. Some more rational part of him knew that he was responding to the angry thoughts around him. But at the moment, he needed to do this.
He made a spark, he lifted the flag that he’d bought on his way here, and then he let the cloth. The flag began to burn, and the tall man waved it above his head, so those around him could see. “This,” he said, gesturing at the flames, “is what these men on the stage want to do to our country. Are we going to let them do it?”
The crowd gave a resounding “NO!” and the chants began again.
**************************************
The epidemic had begun after he and Josh had begun living together, after he and Josh had begun dating. They had been monogamous before, and careful, but they had doubled down all the more after the first announcements. Two years into the epidemic and everyone in the community knew someone who was positive.
Public sentiment was unkind. He saw that firsthand, not merely overhearing thoughts and seeing debates on the news, but at the hospital where he did his training rounds.
Some of the developments were for the best: people were taking greater care with the blood supply and everyone wore gloves n case of comingling bodily fluids.
Other developments brought out the worst in people. Such as the patient in Room 34b.
He was positive and also suffered from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. There was no patient in 34a because nobody wanted to be in the same environment as a man with the plague. Most of the nurses and doctors were reluctant to visit him more than absolutely necessary. He didn’t have any family that he spoke to; they’d severed ties long ago.
On his lunch break, Sean had stopped in the gift shop and then came up, entering Room 34b with a balloon in each hand. “How do you feel?”
The man looked surprised, unsure of what to say while the doctor-in-training tied the balloons to either side of the foot of his bed. “Like yesterday.” The patient wet his lips. “What are those for?”
“To cheer you up,” Sean told him. He pulled over a chair and sat beside the bed.
“Aren’t you afraid?” The question was interrupted by a cough.
He shook his head. “No.”
***************************************
The other kids were glaring at him, and he was looking down at his lap. He hadn’t meant to ruin the game for everyone. But the teachers had asked each of them to say who they thought the killer was. It wasn’t his fault that he knew.
***************************************
He had always wanted to own a boat; ever since he was a boy and his father would rent one at the marina in the summer. That was the one benefit of being single; he was flush with disposable income. It had taken a while to find one that he wanted, but then he had. It was blue and white and big enough for four. Everything that he could have ever wanted.
He needed to name it properly, and so he had a bag filled with stencils, paint, and a bottle of champagne.
It took an hour, but he finally got the letters on straight. Someone more skilled could have done it better, surely, but it was important to do it for himself, because this was his boat.
Looking it over with a smile, he pulled the bottle of champagne out. Gripping it by the neck, he crashed it against the side of the boat. Champagne flew everywhere, and he smiled. “I christen thee the Gnothi Seauton.”
***************************************
“How do you stand it?”
The elder telepath sat across from him in an armchair. Sean had his hands wrapped around a mug of tea, alternating between sipping and doing the breathing exercises that his trainer had taught him.
Robert smiled patiently at him. “You get used to it.”
“How?”
“One day you’ll find that it is no longer difficult.”
Either his thoughts or his expression betrayed his disbelief.
“It takes practice, but you are capable of doing everything I can do. One day, Son, you’ll be able to flick it off and on like a light switch. All of it.”
He shook his head, careful not to spill his tea since it had been close to his lips. “I’m not as strong as you.”
“No, but one day you will be.”
****************************************
Something had been on his nephew’s mind all day, but he hadn’t said what. To give him privacy, he hadn’t probed; instead he’d waited for him to bring it up. When nothing had come, he had taken him to the park and tracked down the ice cream truck. Seated on a bench, the young teenager ate his Spiderman ice pop in silence.
He followed suit, eating his cone and looking at the passersby, enjoying the unseasonable warmth.
Finally, Ryan broke the silence. “I’m too old to be meta, aren’t I?”
So that’s what it was. “We don’t know for sure. Sometimes powers don’t manifest until high school age.”
“Mom and Dad are happy, but I always thought it would be cool. Then I could go to school with you.”
“You don’t have to be meta to spend time with me, Buddy. You know that.”
“Yeah, but think how awesome it would be if I could fly.”
He chuckled, “Well, there you have me...”
******************************************
“And just what are you supposed to be?”
He gestured at his Kucinich shirt, peace medallion, and the fake microphone in his hand. “I’m the liberal media.”
Over the howls of laughter, someone offered him a beer.
********************************************
He liked Christmas even more than he liked his birthday. While his birthday was a special day just for him, Christmas was a day that everyone shared in. He loved going to Church and smelling the incense, listening to the stories, singing the songs, and seeing the procession. It was like a carnival. And he got to stay up extra late to go.
When they got home from mass, Kathleen had looked longingly at the Christmas tree, willing Santa to come and leave them presents. He knew the feeling, because he was just as excited. But he was older and he knew the routine. “We need to go to bed, Pepper.”
“Why?”
“Because if we don’t, Santa will skip our house.”
Her eyes widened, absolutely horrified. “But we left him cookies!”
“I know, but that’s the rule.” He smiled and took her hand, dragging her up the stairs. “We can sneak down early tomorrow and see what he left us.”
********************************************
Dear Uncle Sean:
I know that you don’t read comics but I saw this at a convention and thought you might find it interesting. You need to give it a chance because the subject matter hits a little close to home, but it’s really a masterpiece. This one is a first edition and I got the author to sign it for you.
I’ll call you soon, and I hope you can come up to visit me this semester.
Love,
Ryan
He looked down at the book preserved carefully behind a cardboard skeleton. Pulling it out, he ran his fingers over the cover. God Loves Man Kills. It was in mint condition, as though it had never been read; he had never understood why someone would keep a book for collector’s value without reading it first. But that was why he wasn’t a collector.
He needed to speak to his nephew about spending too much money on these sorts of presents, but Ryan was an adult now, and he could spend as he wished, even if he thought that the money would be better used elsewhere.
Cracking up the book, he gave a cursory examination. The artwork was darker than any comic he remembered seeing recently, but he had no reason to keep up with the genre. As he read, he understood what Ryan meant; it became evident that this was what that movie had been based on.
But the book was better; if nothing else, it was more true to life.
******************************************
The worst part was looking into his eyes and not seeing even a spark of recognition.
*******************************************
The interview was more uncomfortable than he had expected or wanted to admit. While he’d received updates about Hammel from Robert, which was how he’d learned of the job opening in the first place, it was a wholly different experience actually sitting in the Headmistress’s office engaged in an interview.
He knew that Eliza Harding had taken over the position a couple of years back, but he was unprepared to have to face her. This was the woman whose English class he had ruined when he’d accidentally caused the rest of the students to forget their reading assignment. This was the woman whose tests he would miss because of intense migraines.
And she still looked like a vampire.
You’re a grown man, now act like it.
His internal pep talks weren’t always as effective as the ones he gave to patients.
“Robert wrote you a letter of recommendation.”
Sean had expected that, but he remained touched by his mentor’s persistent faith in him.
“You’re more than qualified on paper. The question is do you think that you can handle someone who was as much trouble as you were?”
“I’m sure of it.” That was why he had applied, because he wanted to be a resource to someone who needed him as much as he had needed Hammel.
“Then you’re hired.”
*****************************************
The article was his magnum opus, the sum total of his research and his experience into psychic powers. He could never publish it, of course, because the Academy had yet to accept telepathy as a means of conducting research, even consensual telepathic probing. The legal system had adopted court telepaths years ago for verification, but this was one area that had managed to move slower than even the American justice system.
Still, he took pride in finishing it. Perhaps before he died, it could see the light of day.
******************************************
Gabriel Underwood was dead, and the women who had nearly killed Josh had just shoved Chase out an open window. The anger rose within him, and he could have lashed out. Instead, he dodged out the door and shoved the chair he’d been clutching under the knob to barricade. He had to get to Chase before it was too late.
***********************************************
After Morgan had come to his office to explain what had happened with Jake, and with Levi, Sean’s hands were tied. He had promised the younger man that he would take care of it, and he had to live up to that promise. Escalation would come; that was foretold. All they could do was be as prepared as possible for when that escalation occurred.
He sat in his office preparing his list. Claude wouldn’t be consulted, couldn’t be consulted. Not with what was at stake; Claude was older than he was, and he needed to be there for the children in case there was another attack on Hammel. Besides, the older man knew that this was a possibility; that was why there were combat drills with security and all staff members with offensive powers.
This awareness was only another form of preparedness.
When he finished with his list, he sat down and wrote all of the invitations by hand. Then he dropped them off one-by-one.
************************************************
The drive to James and Chase’s house was quick but not reckless. Sean couldn’t take the risk of being pulled over for speeding (not severe speeding), not with the errand ahead of him. He also couldn’t drive as slow as he preferred on the roads because he’d made Chase promise to wait for him, and he knew how impulsive the younger man was. He couldn’t fault him, considering the stakes. He conceded that they needed to get to Gabriel’s mansion as soon as possible, because they had kidnapped two people, one of whom was a mere child. An innocent child.
Whatever strikes there were against Chase, and himself by extension, none of them legitimized kidnapping a child and holding him at gunpoint. They had no choice; they had to succeed in this rescue.
And as he drove, he continued to make his telephone calls, ending with a familiar number. When there was no answer, he left a five word message, with the intent of calling him back when this was all over.
***************************************
There was a blinding flash and Morgan was on the ground, screaming in pain. Sean kept his calm as he coordinated, and then the man with the violin was dead.
There were gunshots and he had to make sure they all left together, and safely. His hope of them being uninjured – even if he knew that wasn’t probable – was dashed. But he would be damned if he would let any of his coworkers and friends lose their lives.
**************************************
The knife came out of nowhere. Then there was pain in his head, and panic from a head injury and then he was prepared to lash out. There wasn’t time to calm himself the way he had with the twins the last time; instead his shields came crashing down and with no other options, he turned his power on himself, letting the mental energy bounce around his enclosed mind, without hurting anyone else: Delilah or Clarisse or any of the other Hammelites.
******************************************
That explained how he’d gotten here. There was the guilt, his powers’ need to protect him unconsciously, and the head injury. He pushed on.
*****************************************
He was getting close; he knew that. Even though he didn’t have the key ring he usually took with him when in this fortress, he knew the maze like the back of his hand, and he was near the exit. He knew that; he could feel it. He could hear it. While there had been nothing but the echo chamber of his thoughts when he’d began – that blessed silence he so rarely experience – now there were sounds.
There was a voice near him. It wasn’t speaking to him, but he recognized it regardless: Josh. He wanted to call out, but he wasn’t quite there yet, wasn’t quite able to.
He pushed himself beyond the walls, beyond his shields, into the waking world, into consciousness.
There was work to be done.
The telepath’s current state of unconsciousness wasn’t entirely physically-induced. The concussion was cause for alarm, but it was also a relatively minor injury at the end of the day. He was unconscious because he was in a fortress.
The fortress was familiar to him. He had come here of his own volition before and unwittingly once when he was a boy and like Icarus had flown too close to the sun, his mind stretched out to the farthest reaches of his range when he was too young to cope with the intensity. If he looked around, he could probably find the echoes of himself as that boy.
The question became: what was he doing here?
He was too old to have flown too close to the sun again. He could reach out to his limits without being hurt these days. He remembered searing pain regardless, as well as guilt, stress, anxiety, grief, and overwhelming relief and victory.
He remembered the hospital parking lot.
He listened for the sounds of a parking lot, but there were none. He was too deep within the fortress to hear those. He had to leave.
He knew how to do so. The first time he’d come here, when he hadn’t intended to, he’d had to explore each and every door in the fortress before finding the path to the exit. He’d committed the route to memory since then.
But the mind was tricky. Even though the path remained the same, what he encountered on the route wouldn’t be; that was the effect of new memories with each day of life. Resigning himself to the task and preparing for the onslaught, he opened the first mental door. And all was laid bare before him in memory.
********************************************
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession. Since then I...” His voice faltered. He clasped his hands harder and bit his lip, willing himself to continue. “I’ve had impure thought and I-I,” he trembled. “I’ve had other thoughts because I’m-I’m not strong enough for this.”
“Not strong enough for what, my son?”
“For everything.” And then he began to weep.
********************************************
Of course Colin had to be in a conference all day, which was why Sean had received a frantic call from his sister. He’d dropped everything to rush over to her house, had picked her up, and then had driven her to the hospital. After she was checked in, he’d left about twenty messages from the pay phone in the lobby to get the other man there now. He even contemplated threatening to have his son named after him if Colin didn’t arrive in time, but that was needlessly cruel, even if Sean’s primary interest was making sure Kathleen had her husband there by her side.
Between telephone calls, he stood in her hospital room and made sure she did her breathing exercises. He knew enough about Lamaze to help her should she need him, but for the moment she, the doctor, and the nurse had everything under control. While Kathleen had a lot of work ahead of her, for Sean it was a waiting game.
****************************************************
Her hair smelled like strawberries.
It was the first thing he had noticed about her, and even though it sounded silly when he thought about it, he loved her for it.
He also loved her because she wasn’t afraid of him, and because she smiled whenever she caught him looking at her in class or in the hallways.
So she was the only choice.
“Maggie, I was wondering if you wanted to go with me to the dance on Saturday?”
**********************************************
“You do know I weigh about 200 pounds?”
“I work out, remember? It’ll be fine.”
Sean eyed him warily. “Are you sure?”
“If you’re afraid, you can just say that. I won’t judge you for it.”
“Did you just try to use reverse psychology on me?”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“Ah well.” Alex smiled at him. “I wanted to do something special for your birthday, and I promise that if you don’t like it we can stop.”
Sean heard the sincerity in the other man’s voice and mind and after a moment, held his hands up in surrender. “Just go slow.”
Alex’s smile widened and he held his arms out to the telepath. Sean stepped into the embrace and found himself hefted with remarkable ease. Then Alex stepped off the rooftop, while Sean held on for dear life. And they were flying.
*************************************************
His cadaver’s name was Clarence McKinney, from Brooklyn. A Caucasian male. He had died at the age of 72 from a heart attack. He’d had no family, and his will had expressly provided that he wanted to donate his body to medical science. He was non-meta. He hadn’t been a pharmacist but he had worked at a pharmacy nonetheless, before that he had fought in WWII in the navy. Aside from the heart-attack, he had been in good health. He hadn’t been a smoker.
He knew all of this because the medical school emphasized the necessity of treating cadavers as people, because they had once been alive, and they had made a noble gift: allowing medical students to use them to become doctors. Sean was grateful to Clarence McKinney for his sacrifice. And as he lifted his scalpel for the first time, he vowed to honor the man’s memory.
**************************************************
They had been dancing around each other for months. Sean felt so tense around him that he thought he would explode every time they were close. Now with the music and the beer and the dimmed lights...his head was foggy. Not knowing what else to do, he wrapped an arm around Josh’s shoulders and kissed him.
************************************************
His roommate at Hammel was a particularly gifted telekinetic, which might be why Sean had come to admire telekinesis as a power. Perhaps it was because telekinesis was a mental power that had a physical effect on the world and didn’t make his roommate think that he was losing his mind. Whatever the reason, Sean far preferred his roommate’s powers to his own.
His roommate also preferred his powers to Sean’s. While only a year older than the telepath, he had far greater control over his telekinesis than the latter did over his telepathy. His migraines didn’t even seem as bad as Sean’s were, and so he constantly experimented with his powers when not in class.
He liked to juggle without using his hands; he used anything he could find: rocks, baseballs, books, silverware he took out of the cafeteria, anything. When juggling grew too easy for him, he moved on to other parlor tricks.
One day Sean came back to the room after a grueling session with Robert and in great pain; his roommate seemed to be asleep, and the telepath went about changing. Then a brick came out of nowhere and nearly hit him in the head. Nearly. It stopped two inches from his face.
His roommate sat up in his bed with a wide smile on his face. “Neat, isn’t it?”
Sean didn’t like the other boy’s new parlor tricks.
************************************************
There was a jackhammer in his skull, pounding relentlessly. He knew that in the past, priests would cleanse themselves through pain. He hoped that he was cleansed soon.
**********************************************
“We’ve never seen anything like it, and that’s why we’re concerned.”
“Nonsense. You’ve had me for thirty years.”
“You were self-taught; you don’t count. And you know what we mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean, and we’re not going to inhibit him. He’ll learn how to control his powers, and he’ll be better off for it.”
“And when he surpasses you?”
“That’s why we need to teach him ethics, so we never need to worry about when happens when he surpasses me. I’m perfectly content to hand over my title to someone more deserving.”
“So your opinion is that we hope for the best with uncharted esper levels jammed into a twelve-year-old?
“Yes, and since I’m the expert, you should heed my advice. He’ll grow into it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I am. And he’s waking up.”
A gentle hand touched his forehead. “You over-extended yourself again, Son. You need to be careful.”
*****************************************************
He sat alone in the waiting room, pretending to read a magazine. This was his first time ever at this clinic, and while it wasn’t his medical matter, he was still worried. He hoped that she was all right. He’d been surprised when she had sought him out for help, and then touched when she told him he was trustworthy and she knew he wouldn’t tell anyone else. So he took her and sat here now, waiting on the news.
A few minutes later she stepped out of the room with a smile on her face. “I’m fine,” she said, and then she hugged him tightly.
********************************************************
“Do you like it?”
He looked down at the package in his hands, tearing away the paper. It was a silver picture frame, and the photo was of himself, with a look of utter serenity on his features. With the age lines and the sunlight and the beard he almost looked like Robert.
If he ignored the fact that he wasn’t wearing pants.
He remembered that vacation, propped up against the rocks on the beach, using them as an informal armchair; far away from all of the other vacationers in this isolated part of the beach. It had been a beautiful day.
Looking over at her, he smiled. “I love it.”
He simply couldn’t bring it to his office.
********************************************************
“It’s only a blood test,” the doctor told him with a gentle smile. “Just a little prick and we’re done.”
Because he wanted to be brave, he kept a stiff upper lip and held out his arm.
***********************************************************
There had been posters all over the city, and radio stations had hyped the concert nonstop. Sean hadn’t needed the hype; the minute he’d found out about the concert, he’d cleared his schedule for that night. There was no way he would miss this.
Central Park was crowded beyond belief; it felt like there were a half-million people here. As much as he wanted to try and hear what Paul and Art were thinking, for his own sanity he needed to keep his mental shields up for now. So many different thoughts at once would ruin his night. But the concert would make it easier, because people’s thoughts tended to echo music they listened to, and then the background noise harmonized and became negligible.
They’d packed a picnic and had set up a blanket as close as they could get. The music was phenomenal. And as they listened to Bridge Over Troubled Water, his hand sought out Josh’s and their eyes met. That was what they had come to be for each other, and it was all he wanted out of life.
****************************************************
“So what do you do?”
Prior to coming to Hammel, nobody had asked him that question. It was an adult question, something he heard at block parties to ask what someone’s job was. But people asked it all the time here, and it was only the other kids. None of the teachers ever asked that.
He was shy about it, because he hated what he could do. Nothing good ever came of it.
But his downcast eyes weren’t enough to make this other kid get the point. So finally he admitted quietly, “I’m, um, a telepath.”
He didn’t like what he could do, but he liked that word. It was better than “mind reader” because that wasn’t even all that accurate. More often than not he heard instead of saw, and so it didn’t make sense to call it “mind reading.”
“Like Professor X?”
“I guess.” He’d read a few comics back in grade school but he hadn’t looked at any since he’d started getting the headaches that had snowballed to him having to be here. His parents hadn’t liked them even when he’d been normal. And then after...well, they didn’t want to give him anymore ideas.
The other kid then looked as uncomfortable as Sean felt. Because now he was worried that Sean would know all of his secrets. He kept looking at his lap, because he didn’t know what to say. The other kid spared him the awkwardness because he just left him alone in the middle of the cafeteria.
But he heard him warn all his friends about the new kid.
*********************************************
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
“We could get arrested.”
“No we won’t. Nixon isn’t in the White House anymore.” Greg laughed and then handed him the joint.
Here goes nothing, he thought before taking a puff.
**********************************************
They didn’t talk to one another after seeing the movie. It wasn’t even the clarity of hindsight which told him this had been a bad idea; he should have known beforehand but the movie had been highly recommended and Josh had actually seemed interested in going to a movie. It had helped that the other man paid no attention to entertainment news and hadn’t heard of it.
The theater had been filled entirely with gay men and straight women. There had been weeping at the end, and he knew that several of the couples had joined hands for reassurance during some of the more difficult emotional scenes.
And now he and Josh could barely look at each other. It was too early to call it a night, and since Josh was visiting, they would have to go back to the house together anyway which would only have increased the awkwardness. So he had suggested coffee in not so many words. The café was almost deserted due to the hour and sat at a table near the back where they wouldn’t be disturbed. Josh didn’t try to make eye contact and the telepath spent most of his time looking out the window and sipping coffee that wasn’t sweet enough.
Although he knew better, because Josh wasn’t Kathleen, he couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that yet another movie would ruin the most important relationship he had in his life.
********************************************
He sat by the window, his tiny hands clutching at the curtains while he tried to get a good look. He was too short and so he couldn’t see much of anything. His grandmother picked him up and set him back on the floor. “They’ll be home soon.”
Soon had no meaning to him. It was one of those grownup words he heard only when he couldn’t do something he wanted to do. But he obeyed and went over to his blocks to play.
An eternity later the front door opened and he went running into the foyer. Sure enough, his parents were home. His mother looked like he remembered her, even though it had been a couple of days, and she was smiling. Both of his parents were smiling big smiles.
His mother had a pink blanket in her arms. And after his father had hung up their coats, he picked the three-year-old up into his arms and showed him that in the blanket there was a tiny sleeping person.
“Meet your baby sister; her name is Kathleen.”
“Kathleen,” he repeated, testing the letters and sounds together for the first time. And he smiled a big smile too.
*********************************************
“Why do you hate animals?”
“I don’t hate animals.”
“You act like you do.”
“Because I don’t want to get a dog? I don’t have time for a dog; they’re clingy and they need to stick to a schedule that I can’t keep.”
“But a dog would keep you company, so that you aren’t alone.”
He smiled sadly. “I’m never alone.”
************************************************
He knew that he was officially “in” with the rest of the faculty when he’d been invited to the poker game on Thursday night. He had been excited, particularly because he could count on one hand the people who were willing to play cards with him. He was skilled at most card games, but after he won too many hands in a row, his partners invariably accused him of cheating. He didn’t argue about it because it wasn’t worth it. He was a telepath, ergo he cheated at cards; there was no way to defeat those biases without deliberately losing, and then the game stopped being fun.
But as he sat around Claude’s dining room table with Claude, Ben Waxman, Aaron Chambers, and Sam Risman, having a few drinks and eating sandwiches, there were no such concerns.
Claude was wiping the floor with all of them, much to Sean’s surprise. As the older man dealt a new hand, he reminded him, “I always have luck on my side.”
****************************************************
As he wrote the check, a thought occurred to him. Checking his financial statements and finding confirmation, he smiled. The house was finally his.
**********************************************
It had been a slow burn through all of college, and even before that if he thought about it. But one Sunday morning, he’d woken early as always. He’d showered, shaved, and dressed quietly, careful as always not to wake Josh who liked to sleep in. While he sipped his coffee and ate his toast, he kept his eye on the clock as always, so he could be out on time. And then...he didn’t go. He heard the church bells ring up the block, and he didn’t feel that panic about being late. He felt nothing.
It didn’t matter.
Not because he could go to evening services or make it up another day. It didn’t matter because he didn’t believe and he’d only been going through the motions. He realized that now.
He’d always thought losing his faith would come like a lightning strike. But he didn’t feel all that different, and so he must never have needed it.
**********************************************
As the executor read off the assets as they’d been divided, Sean felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. He’d done nothing to earn those bequests, and everyone at the table knew it.
Meeting his sister’s eyes, he mouthed, “I’m sorry,” but she turned away from him.
************************************************
“Are you sure about this?”
“I want my life back, Doctor. And if this will work-”
“It will work, but it can’t be undone.” It could be undone, but he was absolutely unwilling to inflict that on another person. “You couldn’t go back.”
“I don’t want to go back. Please, I need this.”
“If you’re sure, sign this form. Then make yourself comfortable on the sofa.”
************************************************
Since the breakup and returning from Pilot Ridge, he had spent more time at museums. He didn’t want to be around his friends because he couldn’t stand the questions and keeping up appearances was impossible. But he could be alone with his thoughts at museums, surrounded by the beauty of spirits more artistic than his could ever hope to be.
The MoMA was in the middle of an exchange with the Netherlands, with much of Van Gogh’s work on loan to the City. Because it was a weekday and not during the lunch hour, the exhibit was relatively empty.
He’d made progress, he thought, because he had seen The Starry Night without feeling overcome by a sense of cosmic loss.
But at the end of the exhibit, he came across the painting of the old man weeping into his hands by the fireplace. Without reading the information, he knew it was Van Gogh’s last self-portrait, right before he shot himself.
He knew because he saw himself reflected in that painting.
*******************************************
He didn’t know how he knew but it made sense. Everyone knew Tim Flannigan’s father had a temper. And that was why Tim had started keeping his sleeves down, even though it was hot and the priests let them roll their sleeves up in class. And why he didn’t let anyone come over after school.
Sean thought it was horrible. And not knowing what else to do as a sixth grader, he went up to the other boy and asked if he could do anything for him.
“Why?” Tim had been suspicious.
“Because of your dad.”
“What about my dad?” Sean didn’t notice, but Tim had started getting defensive.
“Well…about what he does when he hits you.”
Sean hadn’t known what to expect with his offer, but he’d been sincere. There wasn’t much he could do as a kid, but he’d wanted to help. He liked Tim.
The punch in the nose came quickly, and it hurt a lot. Tim was big for his age and strong. “Don’t ever talk about my old man again,” he threatened, before he walked away, leaving Sean there bleeding.
********************************************
He liked sitting on the hill, because he could see the entire town from up there. Sometimes he wondered if this was what God saw.
********************************************
The wedding had been beautiful. Sean had been to a number of weddings over the years; there were about a hundred cousins on both his mother and his father’s sides. And his friends, his heterosexual friends, had begun to settle down. Still, it was strange to think that this baby sister was getting married while he was still a “bachelor.”
Although he’d left the Church years ago, he could still appreciate the pomp and circumstance of a good old-fashioned Catholic wedding. Besides, Kathleen had been all smiles, so happy to be here. What did it matter that her husband was a bit of a tool? Colin genuinely loved her. For all his faults, Sean knew that, and that was all that mattered.
Like most gatherings that involved his family, the wedding reception had quickly dissolved into a drinking contest between every person who had reached the legal age, and some of the older teenagers while the adults turned a blind eye. The food was delicious; the catering company had gone above and beyond the call of duty. In fact, the food was the only reason that Sean retained any sobriety because he, like the rest of his family, had drunk his fill for the celebration.
It hadn’t taken much to get him into the line with the other single men, watching the absurd game where Colin had to remove Kathleen’s garter belt. Even the fact that her brand-new husband was doing so with his teeth didn’t bother him, because he’d seen worse. Knowing what his parents did had largely desensitized him.
But because he was the tallest man standing there, when Colin tossed the belt up into the air behind him, it had landed in Sean’s hands. Everyone laughed, but he quickly dropped it to the floor, cheeks reddening.
That was more involved than he needed to be.
*******************************************
“…yes, thank you for telling me. Goodbye.”
He hung up the phone and immediately retreated to the living room. Almost on autopilot, he began playing Moonlight Sonata, and he didn’t stop until his fingers were covered in blisters.
******************************************
“Hand me a lighter.”
“What? Why?”
“Just hand me a lighter.”
Greg fished around in his pocket and pulled out the cheap Zippo he carried around with him. The telepath snatched it from his hand. He was operating mainly on autopilot, so incensed by the speeches being made and riled on by the crowd. Some more rational part of him knew that he was responding to the angry thoughts around him. But at the moment, he needed to do this.
He made a spark, he lifted the flag that he’d bought on his way here, and then he let the cloth. The flag began to burn, and the tall man waved it above his head, so those around him could see. “This,” he said, gesturing at the flames, “is what these men on the stage want to do to our country. Are we going to let them do it?”
The crowd gave a resounding “NO!” and the chants began again.
**************************************
The epidemic had begun after he and Josh had begun living together, after he and Josh had begun dating. They had been monogamous before, and careful, but they had doubled down all the more after the first announcements. Two years into the epidemic and everyone in the community knew someone who was positive.
Public sentiment was unkind. He saw that firsthand, not merely overhearing thoughts and seeing debates on the news, but at the hospital where he did his training rounds.
Some of the developments were for the best: people were taking greater care with the blood supply and everyone wore gloves n case of comingling bodily fluids.
Other developments brought out the worst in people. Such as the patient in Room 34b.
He was positive and also suffered from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. There was no patient in 34a because nobody wanted to be in the same environment as a man with the plague. Most of the nurses and doctors were reluctant to visit him more than absolutely necessary. He didn’t have any family that he spoke to; they’d severed ties long ago.
On his lunch break, Sean had stopped in the gift shop and then came up, entering Room 34b with a balloon in each hand. “How do you feel?”
The man looked surprised, unsure of what to say while the doctor-in-training tied the balloons to either side of the foot of his bed. “Like yesterday.” The patient wet his lips. “What are those for?”
“To cheer you up,” Sean told him. He pulled over a chair and sat beside the bed.
“Aren’t you afraid?” The question was interrupted by a cough.
He shook his head. “No.”
***************************************
The other kids were glaring at him, and he was looking down at his lap. He hadn’t meant to ruin the game for everyone. But the teachers had asked each of them to say who they thought the killer was. It wasn’t his fault that he knew.
***************************************
He had always wanted to own a boat; ever since he was a boy and his father would rent one at the marina in the summer. That was the one benefit of being single; he was flush with disposable income. It had taken a while to find one that he wanted, but then he had. It was blue and white and big enough for four. Everything that he could have ever wanted.
He needed to name it properly, and so he had a bag filled with stencils, paint, and a bottle of champagne.
It took an hour, but he finally got the letters on straight. Someone more skilled could have done it better, surely, but it was important to do it for himself, because this was his boat.
Looking it over with a smile, he pulled the bottle of champagne out. Gripping it by the neck, he crashed it against the side of the boat. Champagne flew everywhere, and he smiled. “I christen thee the Gnothi Seauton.”
***************************************
“How do you stand it?”
The elder telepath sat across from him in an armchair. Sean had his hands wrapped around a mug of tea, alternating between sipping and doing the breathing exercises that his trainer had taught him.
Robert smiled patiently at him. “You get used to it.”
“How?”
“One day you’ll find that it is no longer difficult.”
Either his thoughts or his expression betrayed his disbelief.
“It takes practice, but you are capable of doing everything I can do. One day, Son, you’ll be able to flick it off and on like a light switch. All of it.”
He shook his head, careful not to spill his tea since it had been close to his lips. “I’m not as strong as you.”
“No, but one day you will be.”
****************************************
Something had been on his nephew’s mind all day, but he hadn’t said what. To give him privacy, he hadn’t probed; instead he’d waited for him to bring it up. When nothing had come, he had taken him to the park and tracked down the ice cream truck. Seated on a bench, the young teenager ate his Spiderman ice pop in silence.
He followed suit, eating his cone and looking at the passersby, enjoying the unseasonable warmth.
Finally, Ryan broke the silence. “I’m too old to be meta, aren’t I?”
So that’s what it was. “We don’t know for sure. Sometimes powers don’t manifest until high school age.”
“Mom and Dad are happy, but I always thought it would be cool. Then I could go to school with you.”
“You don’t have to be meta to spend time with me, Buddy. You know that.”
“Yeah, but think how awesome it would be if I could fly.”
He chuckled, “Well, there you have me...”
******************************************
“And just what are you supposed to be?”
He gestured at his Kucinich shirt, peace medallion, and the fake microphone in his hand. “I’m the liberal media.”
Over the howls of laughter, someone offered him a beer.
********************************************
He liked Christmas even more than he liked his birthday. While his birthday was a special day just for him, Christmas was a day that everyone shared in. He loved going to Church and smelling the incense, listening to the stories, singing the songs, and seeing the procession. It was like a carnival. And he got to stay up extra late to go.
When they got home from mass, Kathleen had looked longingly at the Christmas tree, willing Santa to come and leave them presents. He knew the feeling, because he was just as excited. But he was older and he knew the routine. “We need to go to bed, Pepper.”
“Why?”
“Because if we don’t, Santa will skip our house.”
Her eyes widened, absolutely horrified. “But we left him cookies!”
“I know, but that’s the rule.” He smiled and took her hand, dragging her up the stairs. “We can sneak down early tomorrow and see what he left us.”
********************************************
Dear Uncle Sean:
I know that you don’t read comics but I saw this at a convention and thought you might find it interesting. You need to give it a chance because the subject matter hits a little close to home, but it’s really a masterpiece. This one is a first edition and I got the author to sign it for you.
I’ll call you soon, and I hope you can come up to visit me this semester.
Love,
Ryan
He looked down at the book preserved carefully behind a cardboard skeleton. Pulling it out, he ran his fingers over the cover. God Loves Man Kills. It was in mint condition, as though it had never been read; he had never understood why someone would keep a book for collector’s value without reading it first. But that was why he wasn’t a collector.
He needed to speak to his nephew about spending too much money on these sorts of presents, but Ryan was an adult now, and he could spend as he wished, even if he thought that the money would be better used elsewhere.
Cracking up the book, he gave a cursory examination. The artwork was darker than any comic he remembered seeing recently, but he had no reason to keep up with the genre. As he read, he understood what Ryan meant; it became evident that this was what that movie had been based on.
But the book was better; if nothing else, it was more true to life.
******************************************
The worst part was looking into his eyes and not seeing even a spark of recognition.
*******************************************
The interview was more uncomfortable than he had expected or wanted to admit. While he’d received updates about Hammel from Robert, which was how he’d learned of the job opening in the first place, it was a wholly different experience actually sitting in the Headmistress’s office engaged in an interview.
He knew that Eliza Harding had taken over the position a couple of years back, but he was unprepared to have to face her. This was the woman whose English class he had ruined when he’d accidentally caused the rest of the students to forget their reading assignment. This was the woman whose tests he would miss because of intense migraines.
And she still looked like a vampire.
You’re a grown man, now act like it.
His internal pep talks weren’t always as effective as the ones he gave to patients.
“Robert wrote you a letter of recommendation.”
Sean had expected that, but he remained touched by his mentor’s persistent faith in him.
“You’re more than qualified on paper. The question is do you think that you can handle someone who was as much trouble as you were?”
“I’m sure of it.” That was why he had applied, because he wanted to be a resource to someone who needed him as much as he had needed Hammel.
“Then you’re hired.”
*****************************************
The article was his magnum opus, the sum total of his research and his experience into psychic powers. He could never publish it, of course, because the Academy had yet to accept telepathy as a means of conducting research, even consensual telepathic probing. The legal system had adopted court telepaths years ago for verification, but this was one area that had managed to move slower than even the American justice system.
Still, he took pride in finishing it. Perhaps before he died, it could see the light of day.
******************************************
Gabriel Underwood was dead, and the women who had nearly killed Josh had just shoved Chase out an open window. The anger rose within him, and he could have lashed out. Instead, he dodged out the door and shoved the chair he’d been clutching under the knob to barricade. He had to get to Chase before it was too late.
***********************************************
After Morgan had come to his office to explain what had happened with Jake, and with Levi, Sean’s hands were tied. He had promised the younger man that he would take care of it, and he had to live up to that promise. Escalation would come; that was foretold. All they could do was be as prepared as possible for when that escalation occurred.
He sat in his office preparing his list. Claude wouldn’t be consulted, couldn’t be consulted. Not with what was at stake; Claude was older than he was, and he needed to be there for the children in case there was another attack on Hammel. Besides, the older man knew that this was a possibility; that was why there were combat drills with security and all staff members with offensive powers.
This awareness was only another form of preparedness.
When he finished with his list, he sat down and wrote all of the invitations by hand. Then he dropped them off one-by-one.
************************************************
The drive to James and Chase’s house was quick but not reckless. Sean couldn’t take the risk of being pulled over for speeding (not severe speeding), not with the errand ahead of him. He also couldn’t drive as slow as he preferred on the roads because he’d made Chase promise to wait for him, and he knew how impulsive the younger man was. He couldn’t fault him, considering the stakes. He conceded that they needed to get to Gabriel’s mansion as soon as possible, because they had kidnapped two people, one of whom was a mere child. An innocent child.
Whatever strikes there were against Chase, and himself by extension, none of them legitimized kidnapping a child and holding him at gunpoint. They had no choice; they had to succeed in this rescue.
And as he drove, he continued to make his telephone calls, ending with a familiar number. When there was no answer, he left a five word message, with the intent of calling him back when this was all over.
***************************************
There was a blinding flash and Morgan was on the ground, screaming in pain. Sean kept his calm as he coordinated, and then the man with the violin was dead.
There were gunshots and he had to make sure they all left together, and safely. His hope of them being uninjured – even if he knew that wasn’t probable – was dashed. But he would be damned if he would let any of his coworkers and friends lose their lives.
**************************************
The knife came out of nowhere. Then there was pain in his head, and panic from a head injury and then he was prepared to lash out. There wasn’t time to calm himself the way he had with the twins the last time; instead his shields came crashing down and with no other options, he turned his power on himself, letting the mental energy bounce around his enclosed mind, without hurting anyone else: Delilah or Clarisse or any of the other Hammelites.
******************************************
That explained how he’d gotten here. There was the guilt, his powers’ need to protect him unconsciously, and the head injury. He pushed on.
*****************************************
He was getting close; he knew that. Even though he didn’t have the key ring he usually took with him when in this fortress, he knew the maze like the back of his hand, and he was near the exit. He knew that; he could feel it. He could hear it. While there had been nothing but the echo chamber of his thoughts when he’d began – that blessed silence he so rarely experience – now there were sounds.
There was a voice near him. It wasn’t speaking to him, but he recognized it regardless: Josh. He wanted to call out, but he wasn’t quite there yet, wasn’t quite able to.
He pushed himself beyond the walls, beyond his shields, into the waking world, into consciousness.
There was work to be done.
