"What you did was wrong. You don't get to go in my head. Nobody does." I'm glaring at Carly, but as she is telling me this I'm becoming less confused, and less angry. "That's messed up. What telepaths do,” I start into a new rant, then realize, “Even the professor was doing it!"
"That's the way it is here. This is a university for ‘higher learning.’ How do you think telepaths learn? They can do whatever they want here and nobody will say a thing. Because nobody has anything they can do about it except another telepath. It's become a game to them and most baselines don't even know they're being messed with or even outright controlled." Carly is getting annoyed and starts pacing in front of me, "And, it’s dangerous. Out in the real world the only way telepaths stay safe is to be anonymous and don't attract attention. They claim to be all neutral and above the petty existence of the rest of the world. They claim to not meddle with other’s heads. But, that’s not true. They don’t have to limit themselves here as far as they are concerned. No one dies, no one gets turned into a pet human — at least not for more than a few weeks at a time. And, no one is going to hold them accountable. Not when they control as much as they do here.”
I’m doing fish face motions, not quite knowing what to say.
Carly turns to me, "I'm sorry. I really am. But, I can't let that happen to one of my friends. So I have to be careful who I let be my friend. It's sad, but that's the way it is."
She's looking at me and I'm not seeing red any more. I'm seeing someone who wants to be my friend and has the brass balls to take a shot at me to test my powers. But now she is afraid she may have screwed it up? I’m not sure, so I leave it alone and instead ask, "So tell me what you did to my head and how you got around my defenses." The whole time we've been talking I've been giving half my attention to trying to detect if she's trying to get into my head again. I don't feel anything, but until I'm able to sit down and focus, I won't know for sure.
"My telepathy works a little different from most people because of a recessive gene that activated before I was born. Only about one in six million telepaths have it."
"Okay, and…."
"And, it lets me see mental walls and defenses… All mental defenses, like I have a blue print. That lets me find ways in that a normal telepath can't usually see."
"You mean I have a hole in my head you can just walk right through?"
Carly looks away and sucks on her bottom lip, almost laughing, but also nervous, "No, I mean you have a very tiny hole that I was able get through just enough to set the trigger that amped up your endorphins when you thought about meeting me tonight. Your mental defenses are phenomenal.”
I'm trying to process everything she's just told me and every time I try to think about what she did, I start thinking about all the other telepaths on this campus that are messing with people's minds and it's scary as hell. "How do I close the hole?" I ask her.
Perking up, Carly says, "Oh, that's easy! I can teach you in about thirty minutes how to fix it and even make you stronger!"
I'm still pissed but it's quickly being redirected toward what telepaths are doing to the other students. If it's true, Nova Academy is not the place I think it is.
"I can prove it. I can prove what they're doing,” she says, seemingly reading my mind, “I won't be able to show you what I see as they're doing it, but I can take you someplace that inside of five minutes a hundred telepaths will be pounding on your mental barriers and you can feel that."
This morning I was confident enough in my mental defenses that the idea of a hundred telepaths trying to break into my head would have made me laugh. "Not until I close that hole, you won't."
"Okay. Do you forgive me? I'm really sorry." She’s sincere when she says it, but I can see a hardness in her that won’t be hurt if I don’t.
"Yeah, I forgive you. For now. This better not be a bunch of bullcrap, though. If I find out it's not true…." I let the rest remain unsaid because I frankly don't know what I'll do if she's lying to me other than stay the hell away from her. "I'm gonna be pissed."
Putting my hands in my pockets, I look around at anyone but Carly. I need a reset from this whole conversation if I want to let this go and get back to the fun I had talking to her in class this morning.
Is that what I want to do? She’s like a double edged sword. One edge cuts with the grain. That was this morning. She’s a telepathic Maria.
I finally look back at her and we're both feeling a little uncomfortable after what just happened. I smile to try and change the mood, "I'm starving. Are you hungry?"
Carly gets a big smile and we head for the food court in the Commons.
Chapter 15
As we walk through the entrance area and over to the food court, neither of us is so much as brushed past by another person. No one runs into me, over me, or through me, which has been the norm for me in the Atlas Commons since the first night I came here with Carlos three days ago. It's a little creepy that people are flowing around us without even taking notice we're here. I swear the Welcoming Committee apes that were playing Nerf football started all moving to the other side of the entrance area as soon as we came in the door.
"Are you doing this?" I ask Carly.
The only answer I get is she looks back at me with a quick smile. I could get used to this if it weren't so incredibly creepy. Looking around at all the super strong and fast students in the room are just a small portion of the hundreds that make up the population of Atlas Quad, I realize that all the alpha males may as well all be sheep. Until now I have looked at these same people as being the apex predators of humanity. Hercules incarnate. But, nearly all of them are completely vulnerable to being controlled by a telepath. Carly could tell the strongest person in the Quad to pound me into powder and I bet they would do it.
So, why did Carly just let me see this? Is this her peace offering? I’ve never even heard a whisper of telepaths being able to control people like she is doing. Tess has some ability, but nothing like this. And I could never see her doing this. She would think it is an abuse of her powers.
I wasn't paying even half attention to getting my food or going to sit down and it wasn't until Carly spoke to me again when I realized we had sat down in the back corner of the seating area of the food court. No one was within two tables of us even though the place was pretty crowded. I'm guessing she is responsible for that as well.
"Theo?" Sorry, Theo is currently on another planet. "Hey, Theo!"
Finally resurfacing from my thoughts, I look down, "I ordered a tuna sandwich? How did I get a tuna sandwich for dinner?"
"Uh, well, you didn't really order it,” she tells me, “You just took someone else’s order from the counter when the cook put it up. I started to say something, but you were kind of lost there for a bit and you looked right at it when you took it. So, I thought it was what you wanted."
"What level telepath are you? What class I mean?"
"Telepaths don't really fit into the class system. Our powers are so diverse and a telepath is really only as good as they practice. Unlike all the muscle in here, telepaths have to seriously train their minds to control their powers. A well trained telepath is much more powerful than what the class system says they are. At least up to a point. Raw power can be hard to deal with too.”
I can relate to that, “That applies to the people here, too. Don't sell the “muscle” as you call them short on the need to train. Most of them just don’t know how much difference it would make. It's easy to not work on your skills when you're already stronger than everyone else in your school and a lot of these guys have never worked out a day in their lives outside of gym class. But the ones that do train up in martial arts or have done fighting leagues can sometimes beat a guy a full class above them if they haven't been training. There are just too many weak points on the human body to take advantage of. If you don't know how to protect them, you’re going to be in trouble."
"Have you trained to fight?"
"Yeah, I was in an under-18 fre
e form fight league for almost ten years and then learned to really put it together working for a couple years with a pretty serious mixed martial arts instructor. I still have a lot to learn though. I'm going to look into joining a fight gym here if I can find one."
"So are you a badass?" She asks, teasing me with a smile.
I'm not quite ready to fall into the witty banter, but this makes me laugh, "No, more like a running shoes wearing survivor. I never seem to meet up against guys my own strength and you seriously want to be careful grappling with a guy ten times stronger than you if you can help it."
"Running shoes wearing survivor, huh. So you're fast? What class are you?"
"I'm pretty fast." I've got a goofy grin on my face, "It's about the only thing that keeps me out of trouble."
"You're cute. Funny, but I'd bet your smarts are what keep you out of trouble more than your speed. I can't read your thoughts like everyone else in this place and that alone tells me you have a pretty well developed mind, but I also watch your eyes. They never stop moving. It's like you need to know everything that's going on around you."
Just like I didn't tell her my speed class, I'm not going to tell her that I have the brains to be a mad scientist. "Yeah, well, Atlas Quad can be a dangerous place if you're not paying attention."
Carly and I start eating our dinner. She wouldn't trade me plates, so I'm stuck eating the tuna, which wouldn't be bad if I had made it at home - using real mayo, and not this salad-dressing-mayo-wannabe-dressing crap, with pickle relish in it. Instead of being a big baby and giving away how little I like this sandwich, I keep it to myself and just pick at it.
"So where are you from?" I ask, wanting to shift the conversation to her.
"I was born in Boston, but we moved to Richmond when I was little. My dad worked for the Corp of Engineers and they have a big installation outside of Richmond he worked at until he retired a few years ago."
"What about your mom, did she work?" I ask. Both my parents worked and I spent a lot of time after school hanging out with friends.
"Yeah, but only part time. She's a telepath too and a psychologist. She actually is a therapist who works with other telepaths. She told me once she could do an entire day of therapy without anyone ever saying a word out loud." Carly laughs, but for me it is just adding to my very limited understanding of telepaths.
Neither of my parents were telepaths, but both are in the top one-tenth of one percent of intelligence in the country and both have some telepath like abilities. My mom can block out telepaths from being able to read her mind or control her. Which is where I got the ability. My dad can't shut a telepath out, but could feel when he was being probed and had my ability to organize and inventory his mind. I also get my eidetic memory from mom. But they had never warned me about telepaths.
A shadow appears over my plate and I look up. Standing next to our table is a mousy looking girl with stringy hair done up in pigtails. She looks at me for a second and frowns, then looks at Carly, "Would you mind turning it down a bit?"
Carly sits up straight and looks around the seating area, "Oh, sorry. Sure."
"Thanks." Mousy Girl looks at me again and stares long enough to make me want to ask her who she is staring at. Instead I raise my eyebrows at her and stare back until she finally tilts her head to one side, then spins around and walks away.
"What was that about?"
"Oh, nothing. I was affecting her boyfriend and she didn't like it." We look back over Carly's shoulder and Mousy Girl is holding hands with a blond haired, beach bum, looking Ken Doll who is wearing a wife beater tank top. He's totally ripped and has muscles everywhere and her hands are all over him.
"Is she a telepath too?"
"Yeah. I don’t think she was able to sense it was me, but it was pretty obvious with everyone flowing around us like running water. That, and no one is sitting within three tables of us. Did you notice how she looked at you?"
"Yeah, I could feel her. What was that about?"
"She was trying to read your mind. I don't think she's ever been totally blocked before."
"Wow, is it that big a deal?"
"For you, yeah. You're like looking at a wall. Even most telepaths can be read, unless they are actively trying to block you out. But they have a spongier feel. Like looking through a fogged mirror. You, you're just a solid wall and you just don't see that."
"Cool. Wait, my hole is gone now, right? No one can sneak in my head again?"
“No, it’s still there. But I wouldn’t worry about anyone else being able to get through it. Not many have my ability.”
“Okay. Good. Will you help me close the hole?”
“Sure. It won’t take long to fix. But, do you have a couple hours to sit around and let me try to crack open your head afterwards?”
"No, not right now. But, I might take you up on it sometime." Letting her try to crack open my head doesn’t sound like something I want to do, but how else am I going to learn to protect myself?
Carly’s finished eating, and I'm not going to try to eat any more of that tuna sandwich. It would make me barf all over Carly if I did. "Hey, you want to get out of here? Go for a walk around the quad?"
She gets a big smile like she’s surprised I asked her, "Sure."
I grab both of our trays and dump them on the way out. Once again people just seem to flow around us as we make our way out of the Commons. It's after seven and the sun is low on the horizon and is lighting up the underside of some high clouds, giving them an orange color backed by the first stars starting to come out. It's still warm out as the sidewalk is bleeding off heat from the day, but there is a light cool breeze that feels really good. Carly and I start heading across the quad to the outer walkway that runs between the parking lots and dorms and loops around the entire quad. Other than the occasional student walking across our path from their car to the dorms, there is no one around us. All the hormone induced activities that seem to dominate Atlas Quad socializing tends to happen back at the Commons, so there is very little going on out here.
"Thanks for clueing me in on telepaths." I'm still a little stunned about it and don't know what else to say.
"You deserve to know. I wish everyone could know."
We walk around the quad making small talk, getting to know each other like a normal guy and girl would do when they first meet. I'm feeling that great feeling you get when meeting a girl that rings all your bells and my anger from earlier is gone. She's got everything Tess has for smarts and strength of personality. And, she's got everything Maria has for being powerful and brazen, but she's doesn’t seem full of anger. At least that’s how I’m choosing to read her. Right now she's the perfect girl and I'm feeling pretty good about the unexpected opportunity for a new girlfriend. We'll see how long it lasts.
Chapter 16
Classes in the first week are easy with the exception of all the reading that has been assigned for the second week. Nova Academy has some of the best advanced sciences instructors and none of them disappoint, at least academically. Professor Blake is a telepath, so I really don’t think of him as one of my instructors like I do my science professors. And there is no way I would consider him “one of the best.” We’re doing a lot of case studies, which are pretty wild. And, he seems to have stopped trying to break into my skull. He has started digging into the minutiae of super powers, how the super power classes really break down over different types of powers, and especially that relying on a power ranking to judge how dangerous someone is will get you killed. He's also an arrogant prig, but I can live with that as long as he's teaching me stuff I want to know. Even so I still think he’s phoning in his lectures. Maybe I’m biased against him because he tried to get into my mind.
All of my science and math classes are tough, but I've taken less intense versions of some of this stuff before. It seems the Academy feels like the only people who will take science and math classes are borderline or better geniuses anyway, so the classes need to be challenging on a whole o
ther level from the classes you find at a traditional college. I've almost bitten off more than I can chew with all the classes I'm taking and it's cutting into my time in the student lab. I’m going to have to work on making an efficiency plan for getting all my work done because use of the student labs is half the reason I came to Nova.
Advanced Engineering starts out with teaching us to calculate the structural integrity requirements for devices we'll be making later in the semester. The last thing you want is for something to fall apart from its own stresses while you're using it. I've studied machine structural engineering on my own for the devices I have built and sold, but mostly I just over-engineered projects and let whoever I sold the devices to make any changes they wanted to save weight. This is way cooler.
Carly and I get dinner together every night. We visit a different quad commons each time for variety and entertainment. Last night was the elemental commons at Tesla Quad. Those guys are pretty cool, except it's not really safe to go out on the open areas around the quad as there are people all over the place causing the earth to move, animating golems, or what one girl did when she made an armor outfit out of grass, roots and all. Carly said she wasn't really controlling the grass so much as the top layer of soil the grass was growing in. There were also lightning strikes hitting these towering lightning rods that were placed all around the quad. It's scary, but really cool, so we're going back there again next week.
Tonight I'm going to beg off dinner with Carly so I can spend as long as I can in the student lab and start work on the subsystems of my Big Project. I've been working on plans to make a combat super armored suit for four years and never had access to the equipment I need to make one. The student labs have tons of equipment. Carly seemed like she had other things to do, too, so I don't think she was upset about my taking a night off. She’s not the needy type.
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