Persist (Discipline Book 3)

by P. S. Power

  The thing with Eric Wiese was that he really was trim enough for a normal person. The sense of things coming off of him as he sat in the miniature studio that Beth and Dave had built in the back of the rec center was cautiously optimistic. Not that he didn’t understand what Lis was planning. He really did, or thought so. It would be blaming him for the crimes of the woman that had harmed her. Because, as a man, he hadn’t had the legal power to overrule the government in regards to his own child.

  That no one really did wasn’t a thing that his daughter had ever truly internalized however. At least before. Now she seemed different. Calmer and more focused, as well as very different looking. Younger than he would have figured, but that wasn’t a big shock to him. A lot of stars had work done to prevent aging like that.

  Ben waved, then smiled at the fellow, who had makeup on, since Beth was trying to pretend their little back room was a real operation. Like she should. The vid would be seen. That was a thing that Ben was nearly certain of.

  “Hi! Are you Eric? Lissa told me all about you.” It was true, even if it didn’t happen in words. That counted though, at least for the day.

  The older man nodded subtly, feeling a little odd then. The man in front of him, Ben, seemed familiar to him. Not in a way that really registered, but of a type. Decent looking, but not getting by on that. The kind of capable person that he used to be, years ago, and had let go of.

  In short, the man wondered if Ben was the replacement for him, that Casandra needed. A father figure that would manage the things that Eric hadn’t been able to for all those years.

  How the guy was thinking showed too much insight really, which annoyed Ben for a bit. The man was… Fine, really. A bit kinky in his past, but that had been a game for him, not weakness. A lot of the early work done with Cassie had been his. Getting her into the business, and keeping her there, even though her mother had taken the credit for it later. After that he’d slowly stopped trying and had moved into selling real estate.

  It took a lot of effort for Ben to break out of his thoughts, but there was no sense that he was about to relive anything.

  There was a slow smile however, and a rather cool and appraising look in his direction.

  “Is any of it good? What Cassie told you?”

  Ben shook his head, and moved into the room, not bothering to lie. That would make everything harder, later.

  “Not really. Um… I’m here for the psychic part later, so I know the truth. Lis can too, if she tries. It was never what you thought. You should get to the interview however? That way we can get the scene with you breaking down and begging forgiveness, Lissa. Dave, do you have any extra cameras for reaction shots?” There were three of them set up, all on Eric at the moment. There were others available, so even though she didn’t seem to love hearing what Ben said, the silver haired actress put up with having a bit of makeup applied, so that the tears would run appropriately, and to have several video pick-ups trained on her. It was a lot for one person to handle, but Dave had started to get pretty good at that kind of thing, over the last month or so, and didn’t complain, even if he did feel like he was trying to juggle six things at once.

  As soon as they started and Eric went over things, Casandra Banks started to look horribly confused. After all, she knew that what her father was saying was true, or at least as close as a human memory could get at, over that kind of time frame, and that what she’d figured had been happening wasn’t reality at all. The man even went over the slightly kinky love life part of things. In which he wasn’t really being abused at all. It was just a game, and always had been.

  “Lacy… She wasn’t a good person, by the end. I’d heard some rumors about what was happening to Cassie, and tried to step in, but the courts wouldn’t hear about it. Casandra Banks was too successful at the time, so a blind eye was turned toward the whole thing. No one wanted to take out the world’s sweetheart. They should have. I tried to kidnap her at one point, but was caught before it happened and slapped around by the police. They’d believed me, which is why they’d let me go, instead of having me tossed in prison for it. After that… I was a bit broken for a while. There was nothing I could do to help my daughter. I nearly killed myself. I… Attempted it once.” It was a flat statement, meant only to show the fact.

  He shook his head, and seemed so sad that Beth started to tear up. Ben as well, since his empathy had been kicked up so much that it would be nearly impossible for him not to, at that point.

  There was a bald and raw honesty about the whole thing, as the man spoke, and by the end of it Lissa was bawling her eyes out. It was all she could do to keep herself quiet while it happened, her father getting up slowly at one point, and moving to her. Holding his arms out for a hug. There was a long pause, and finally Lissa, or more correctly, Cassie, stood up and grabbed the man. It was done fast enough that for a half second no one seemed certain if it was going to end in a dramatic reunion, or death.

  Ben knew however. It was pouring off of both of them.

  “I’m so sorry. I really did everything that I could.” Eric looked horrible as he said it, tears coming from him as well.

  “I know. I… Shouldn’t have blamed you. I was… I was just so hurt. For so long.”

  Ben sighed, and sat back, wiping his own tears away for a while. They ended the whole thing about twenty minutes later, not asking Eric more questions, and stuck Ben in the hot seat, his face being smeared with things in order to make him look a little better. What they wanted from him didn’t take him by surprise or anything, since it was just hitting things from Casandra’s life. Including what various people had been thinking, and the death of her mother, Lacy.

  Eric was confused on that part, but simply nodded along, his face being captured while Ben spoke. It was clear that he thought the psychic things were real enough. Even coming from the green eyed fellow in the chair at the moment. He’d seen him on the news after all, and knew that he had powers. Not what they all were, but it had been impressive, how he’d used his mind to knock the insects out of the air.

  The thoughts were distracting. Mainly because the man was wrong about that part. Ben had done a similar thing, but further way. What this guy thought of as him having used mind powers to take out the Swarm was the shot of them falling directly in front of him. Which Clark had actually done.

  The words that came up, which were pretty much constant anymore, cautioned him not to lose focus. Instead he got to live parts of Casandra Banks’ life. The near torture that she’d had around food, to keep her thin enough. All the men, and women, that she’d had to service when she was ten. It was surprising, but there had been a lot more women than men involved.

  When he looked into their minds, what he saw was very different than he would have guessed as well. The men were just as sleazy and creepy as he would have thought, but knew they were in the wrong. The women, in the main, didn’t see it that way. They were attracted to her youth and beauty, and forced her to do things with them, but couldn’t understand that what they were doing was really abuse. To them it seemed like they were just playing a game. A thing that a lot of them had done before, and that, even if they were caught, they’d never be punished over, because no one really cared to stop them.

  That left Ben blinking, since it was a part of almost all of their thoughts at the time.

  When Ben was done, his face was covered with tears and streaked makeup as well, even though for a lot of it he hadn’t felt like he’d been in the rec center at all. In the corner Lissa had stopped crying, and seemed a bit upset, as in angry. Everyone else held different thoughts on the matter. Bethany for instance, couldn’t really see a woman doing something with a girl as rape, for instance.

  The larger woman had been part of that kind of thing several times growing up herself, and it didn’t seem wrong to her, even though she’d never really liked that part of things. That her own mother had done some things that would have had a man locked up in prison for better than a decade just totally
escaped her thoughts. It was there, and as bad as anything Casandra had been put through, however.

  Dave felt a bit awkward, having been molested as a boy too. By a babysitter. The woman had been older, and he’d told, like he was supposed to, but no one had believed him. The woman taking twenty minutes to wash his no-no areas, and sticking fingers up his behind didn’t count for some reason.

  Oddly enough, only Ben and Eric were free of that kind of thing, out of the people in the room with them. No one had ever abused him as a child. David had done most of the job of raising him alone. There had been a few babysitters, but they’d all been robots, and no one was sexually harmed by one of those. It just didn’t happen.

  For Ben the data collection went on for a long time, and unlike Lissa, he had no particular problem naming the people that had done things. Even if it was for a show, Beth ran him through finding evidence of wrong doing where they could. A lot of it didn’t have anything, but a few people had kept vid of things, which were hidden, but still in places that could be reached via the web. There were only five of them, but they clearly showed a much too young Casandra Banks being molested by several celebrities. Or at least people of import in the virt business.

  Beth had to call in help to get at it all, which was Ali, as it turned out. The woman was ruthless about it, too. Committing felonies in order to find the information. Dave was smart about it however.

  “We can’t use her face, or the police will be able to find out who stole the data. Let me get a shot of the projection, over your shoulder… Move left a bit?”

  Ben blinked a bit, and came up for air, then shook his head.

  “We’re breaking some laws here… We don’t even have anything as good as stopping a terrorist attack as a reason.”

  Eric, who was up on the law, as far as that kind of thing went, smiled a bit wickedly, refusing to look at the projections at all.

  “What are they going to do? Protest their systems being broken into and their stash of illegal child abuse pornography was taken? No one will say anything about it, and if they do, we can use it as a way to punish them for it legally. This won’t hold up in court, unless they admit that it’s their personal property. The same holds for libel. They could sue, but if they do, they have to admit that this belongs to them. Most of them will wipe their drives, of course, once this goes public, but… No one here will be touched for it. We can even openly use their names. The ones we get evidence on. The rest… Well, that’s going to be more difficult. They could sue and win, if we can’t prove things well enough.” The man looked at Beth, oddly, who shook her head.

  “There really isn’t anything to find for most…” She looked at the projection and then went wide eyed as something new played. “Oh, my, god… Is that Mrs. Bunny?”

  Lis had to look at the projection, but nodded.

  “That’s her. I… This ruined part of my childhood. I don’t really need to see it.”

  Most likely it wasn’t about the abuse, but the betrayal, on that one. Even Ben had watched Mrs. Bunny as a child. She read stories to kids, and was a kindly old matron that wore big, old fashioned dresses and spoke in a delightful accent. Half of how he thought about women, and most of the good parts, had come from watching her as a child.

  At that moment, on the screen, her face was buried in ten or eleven-year-old Casandra Banks in a fashion that nearly made Ben get sick. Then, as she changed what she was doing, he actually lost it, and had to rush to a trash can, retching, even if, thankfully, nothing came out. When he recovered a minute later, Dave had a camera watching him.

  The whole thing was horrible. Enough so that Ben would have probably made sure that a lot of people died for it, if he were able to do that kind of thing. Not that he couldn’t make it happen. It was that if he’d ever really been a killer, that part of him had faded away as the changes were made to his brain. Probably related to his ability to read faces and body language like he could.

  It was nearly useless to him, but had created vast chemical alterations to him to get done.

  “Right. I… Don’t know what to do now.” Ben felt that way, and no helpful blue floating words came at him. Lissa, looking slightly fierce, nodded however, having an idea.

  “You mentioned trying to get this on a network? I think we can do that, now. We’ll have to be careful. There are some people that are still pretty powerful here. I…” For a moment the woman looked very young, and lost.

  Ben nodded.

  “Right. I’ll handle that part. I need a web connection. It might take a few hours.”

  It really didn’t. Ben moved to the main office, in the underground steel tube bunker, and borrowed Kyle’s computer for it. The man didn’t ask what was going on even, just moving to the side, standing while Ben settled into his chair. It was hard, with only very thin padding on it. Because when the man had been young, nearly two centuries before, cushions were a sign of weakness, and for the old. That had carried through to the present day for him.

  A set of numbers came up, along with a script for Ben to read off. When the line clicked, there was an older lady sitting there, her face professional, with deep lines around her mouth. If it was real, which Ben didn’t care to check on in the moment, she was wearing a green suit jacket, too much makeup, and big pearl earrings that were rimmed with gold. Probably real, not that he cared about that.

  “Hello? Wendy Mountebank. What may I do for you today?” She seemed questioning, and Ben, not meaning to, ended up looking from behind her eyes, at the screen. It was a dimensional player, but not one that projected into the air. She was at her home office, and didn’t need that kind of thing for herself. It was high quality, but just enough so that no one would think that she was too far behind the times, even if she was slipping, badly, in her old age.

  To her the man on the screen was identifiable however. She even knew the name, but managed to hide her shock. It was one of the psychics that worked with Casandra. A person that she knew fairly well, having produced several of her shows, back nearly twenty years before.

  Ben got that it was more than that, but the woman wasn’t lying, as much as choosing to see reality as a little bit different.

  “Hello! Ben Epson, as you guessed. I have access to a biography of Casandra Banks. It has a discussion of the abuse she underwent as a child, along with actual vid of it happening. Names are named, but only the ones with proof. You can get this on your network. If you want it, we can have it ready in five days. Our best bet will be to ambush people. If you do this… Well, no one will be able to touch you. It will trash several people you know. All child abusers, but I can get it if you don’t want to. There are other people I can try for this. Using blackmail. You’re just the only shot we have at it without doing anything illegal.”

  The great part with Wendy was that she had the needed power to get things done, as well as enough honor left that taking down people for what they’d actually done in life didn’t seem unfair to her. Even if they’d been her friends for a long time.

  There was a real silence however, and then a slow nod, with very tight lips.

  “How much are you asking for the rights to this?”

  Ben nearly sat back, not having considered that portion of things. It took work not to act shocked, but he didn’t speak for a while. Finally, Kyle leaned in, smiling hugely. Getting that Ben wasn’t going to speak in time to look professional about it all.

  “Twenty-five, as a flat fee. Two percent of the gross on replay. Additional content rights belong to my clients, but we can give you first refusal?”

  Ben barely understood what was being said, but the woman on the other side of the projection felt pretty good about those terms, which were slightly too kind, if the program were well done. Enough so that she didn’t play hardball with it.

  “Done, as long as I can see it first. We’ll need to ambush people with this. Have you shopped it yet?”

  Ben understood that one, if from her mind, and shook his head.

  �
�One direct call, to you. Other than the NSA, no one has this other than you and I. They won’t talk about this one. Most of them aren’t that big on child abusers, surprisingly.” It was true enough, Ben could tell.

  There was a pause, and then the older lady smiled. It wasn’t a happy thing at all.

  “Agreed then. I’ll have a contract drawn up and sent to you. Ben Epsonstein?” She’d heard him, and picked up the difference, but figured he’d shortened his name for professional reasons. It wasn’t what the news had been using, including her networks.

  “Epson. It’s not Benjamin or anything either. Just Ben. That’s my given name.”

  “Got it. All right, I should have that out to you in… Twenty minutes?”

  Kyle nodded, and leaned in again.

  “That will be fine, Wendy. We can have a viewing copy to you in five days.” Then he broke the line, and took a deep breath.

  “Well! That isn’t exactly fighting terrorists, is it?” There was a bit of rebuke in the tone, and a harder look to go with it than Ben would have expected, but inside… The man was fine. He barely registered the events having taken place, and was really just reminding Ben where his efforts would be most useful at the moment.

  So instead of getting in a snit or state, he nodded.

  “True. If I can’t take a few hours to help a friend though, then what kind of person am I? Anyway, I’m going to try and figure out the bomb situation tonight. Clark said he’s got the AI. Glenda told you about the other me? I got some data on that from Winston Mills. I mean, I talked to him, in person. I don’t think he’s planning on coming back here. That could change of course.”

  The much older man nodded, his face going almost kindly for some reason.

  “That’s got to be difficult for you. Remember, you and the versions of you from alternate worlds are different. Some of them will be vastly so. This doesn’t reflect on you.” There was a hard, searching look directed down into Ben’s eyes. After a moment, the man nodded.