by P. S. Power
Part of that didn’t really fit, but he wasn’t reading her mind, just her face. Mags touched his arm, and Lissa did the same, though Clark held back for a bit, watching the whole scene. He wasn’t as great as the others at reading minds, or picking up feelings, but he was about ten times better than the best natural psychic at doing that sort of thing. After a bit he nodded, but didn’t explain what was going on, just patting Ben on the shoulder. Tagging into the group.
The large man looked at Lenore and then Mags, his face calm, and nearly meditative, now that he wasn’t using gamma blocking patterns. That left everyone seeming hyper and a bit like they were on high end street drugs.
This was a lot different that way.
“I need to get to bed. Felicia is already asleep, so who’s sleeping where?” He managed to sound almost like he was suggesting something that way, and glanced not at Mags, but Lissa. The woman was incredible to look at, but the two of them hadn’t really been seeing each other, as far as Ben knew. Not that he couldn’t have missed that starting up. Clark was great, and if he wanted to risk taking on the almost impossible to fulfill mantle of Lissa protector to her mind, Ben was good with that.
She just looked away, probably feeling lonely again, even though she liked Clark enough that even Ben could see it. Mags looked a bit craftier then, and decided that needling her little sis was in order.
“I don’t know. Are you planning to put out, if Ben takes you in?” The direct eye contact was supposed to be intimidating, Ben guessed. Lenore simply cleared her throat, looking to be getting ready for a lecture.
Probably about how her sister wasn’t supposed to make fun of her that way. She hadn’t had much of a life since her early teens, not liking crowds or emotional situations, after all. That had meant no boyfriends really, from what Ben had heard. Ergo, no secret sexual experimentation or anything like that.
Apparently she wasn’t a prude though or easily pushed around, as long as her mind wasn’t bent nearly to the breaking point.
“Yes. The bed will be a tight squeeze, but we’ll manage. Ben?” She put her hand out to be taken, and started to pull him away, playing the whole thing up well enough that her sister made a strangled noise.
“I don’t think so. I might be open minded, but sharing my boyfriend with my sister isn’t happening.”
Ben laughed a little and sighed.
“We’re dating now? I wasn’t aware of that.” They’d slept in the same bed once, and she’d done a few things with him and Lissa that one time, but it wasn’t like they watched virts together, or… Really, did anything, other than eat meals. If that was the main criteria, then he was dating Clark, too.
His hand was rather adroitly plucked from the younger woman’s. She wasn’t that young and while not perfect looking was cute, really. Enough so that Ben felt a little sad that the game was over.
Then everyone laughed, except for him, as if it had been a great joke they were playing. That hurt a bit, which probably showed on his face. Clark winced, anyway. Not that the man had ever really been in the same boat that Ben was. Even when he was younger, the man had been tall, and kind of built. A lot of that was down to constant exercise, and some drugs to keep him lean, but he’d put the effort in, and it had paid off.
For his part, Ben hadn’t even really ever had a woman do more than off-handedly smile at him in public before coming there, three months before or so. It had to be nearly four now, he decided, and was surprised when a calendar actually came up, showing that it was three months and twenty-two days. That was about to change, since it was almost mid-night.
The point was that being played with now was enough to make him feel bad, even if he didn’t understand what was going on that way really. They weren’t trying to be mean to him. He could tell that one. Really, he was even almost certain that Lenore and Mags were both partially serious about what they were saying. Hiding it too, if openly. Not from him, but each other.
The thing there was that Ben was kind of torn, about what to do. He was tired, but it was kind of clear that if he made the wrong choice in that moment, there would be a cost to it later. A flow chart showed up then, floating behind his eyes, of all his possible moves. They cascaded in front of him, with each of the boxes holding the name of a person. To his amusement, Clark was in there as well. So was Dave, even though they were all attracted to the opposite sex. They were his competition however, for some of the names on the list.
It was amusing, and so complicated that he nearly couldn’t trace it all out in his head. Even Micha was listed, though there was a large red x through her name, thankfully. That wasn’t a place he wanted to go, any time soon.
Felicia was on there as well, but if he did anything with her, it would interfere with Dave’s plans that way, it was clear, so he marked that off too. The doctor-slash-spy was attractive and even nice enough seeming, but hadn’t shown any particular interest in Ben other than the academic kind.
Really, in the end there were only three real possibilities out of the women he knew. Well, four, if he wanted Lissa, which would actually have been the easiest to pull off, if the numbers that showed how likely things were had any resemblance to reality. She’d let him go to her room, do pretty much anything he wanted in bed and then be claimed as his, without a fight.
The problem there was that he wasn’t that big of a fan.
So that left Bethany, Mags and Lenore.
There were about eighty problems with that last one, mainly coming from Mags. She wouldn’t put up with that, not easily, and given that they lived in the same house, and had to hang out, regularly, it was going to be a pretty big issue. At least if he picked wrongly. In the end, the woman was going to be leaving anyway, and at best only come to visit on occasion.
So, he needed to pick, between Beth and Mags. One was a psychic that had been under a lot of stress for a long time, who needed him as much as the rest of them did. The other was a wonderful girl who actually seemed to like him a bit. She was a bit large, as in tall, but that wasn’t a thing that Ben would be bothered about. She certainly didn’t seem to have a problem with his size, anyway. He was at least five inches shorter than she was, too.
In the end, he had to pick right then however, if the answer wasn’t going to be Bethany. Because it was clear that Mags didn’t know which way to jump, and leaving her hanging right then might just get her to kind of hate him. Just enough to ruin his chances with her later.
So Ben smiled and nodded.
It probably wouldn’t work out, in the end, but that was fine. In a few months he might not be able to even carry on a conversation over coffee, much less a real relationship. He needed to move fast.
“So, Mags… I’m in with you tonight?”
For once her black eyes lit up, and she nodded.
“Yup. That’s the plan.”
Then they all actually left to get into bed. Lenore looked at him a bit sadly, but she’d live, he decided. They all would, regardless of what he picked. That he had a choice that wasn’t just him being alone was amazing enough to make him feel kind of happy.
Chapter four
Ben wasn’t the most brilliant man on the planet. He’d known that his entire life. He did well enough, intelligence wise, but was nothing to make a big deal about that way. Better than average, but not enough to get him into a good college back when he was younger. The bar was pretty high that way however, and frankly, he’d never put the kind of work in that would have been needed to make that happen, so it wasn’t really a sign that he wasn’t smart enough, as much as having once been lazy.
The only reason that he was busily thinking about that as he sat at the little temporary table in Kyle’s office, was that whoever had sent the files he’d just audited clearly thought that they were all mentally incapable, it was obvious. That all the Cymeds were idiots. They were clearly working very hard to make it seem like the terrorist attacks that had happened were due to Islamic fundamentalists. Because that made any sense.
O
ne of the early groups used by the attackers had been Islamic, true. Another had been a U.S. military unit. That didn’t mean that they were behind it all, at least according to the man who’d put together the file. In fact that had been left out of the thing completely, with only the one group, and Winston Mills being listed by name.
There was footage of him walking out of a federal building in Boston, killing fifteen people as he did it. That number had gone up in the last days, as one of the guards who’d been hanging on faded away. Dead, but of complications that were only loosely related to being beaten about as severely as anyone could take and not die. Ben had been on that side of things a few times in the last months, so felt for the man. For all of them, really.
The words that Winston had said to the small boy as he left weren’t included for some reason. Probably so the guy that put the propaganda piece together could talk about jihad at that point. Instead of the insane sounding words that the Cymeds’ lawyer had actually spoken.
That he would save the boy. That he’d make sure he died.
In his world, those concepts didn’t go hand in hand. It wasn’t hard to see what the people that had made the thing were going for however, since it was an invasion of the Middle East in retaliation. Since that was going to stop a worldwide threat, of course. One that had nothing at all to do with that region as far as Ben could tell. No more than any other.
Still, he bothered to do the psychic research part of things and find out who had gotten the thing put together, and why. It wasn’t that hard to follow the trail, since it led to the Department of Homeland Security directly, to their number three man. He just really disliked people that were Islamists. The whole religion insulted him for some reason and his goal was to wipe them all out. Even if it wasn’t needed for the time being. Ben made a video note of all of this, and passed the data over to Kyle, who was working on something else and had been all day.
It didn’t hit him what was going on until nearly dinner time, when the man stood up.
“The President isn’t pleased that our cult has managed to attract two of his daughters, it seems. Even if he knows the truth about us. Part of it. To that end he’s sending in people to watch us, under the guise of protecting his children. Not that I blame him, but we have enough agents here to do that, if he wants.”
There was something in his voice, and a name in reverse on the screen the man had up, floating over his desk. Michelle Pindar.
The last name was different, but the picture next to it wasn’t going to fool anyone. Even if she did have blond hair now. It was shorter, too. Sporty looking.
Ben just nodded, getting a lot more data than he wanted on the topic. She was one of the very few people to have protected herself from Winston Mills. That had been by running away. When Ben told her to, in point of fact. Her boss, Frank Houser, had died moments before, so no one was blaming her for being cowardly. She would have died, having a broken arm already, at the time. One that Ben had given her. Hitting her with a chair in a rage that had taken him out of nowhere.
Even given his new genetic patterns and how it made him feel trusting of everyone, more or less, Ben managed to make a face.
“Really. So we’re doing that one again? I take it that it was her idea?” That one he could make up excuses for. She might be scared of him, if she was smart, but the woman had a total of one way to keep her mind sane for the time being if she wanted to keep being a psychic. If she was allowed a choice in the matter. By contract Ben wasn’t, and technically she was in the same boat, but he was willing to bet that she didn’t feel like honoring contracts was all that important, given her line of work.
Kyle pretended to check, even though he knew the answer he was going to give.
“It… Doesn’t say. Does it matter? This is going to cause problems, and whoever is in charge there has to know it. A set up?”
Ben knew it had to be, but when he went away, suddenly, to find himself in the head of an older woman named Terry Lands, who was the new head of the ultra-secret division Micha worked for, she seemed remarkably un-shifty. A request had come in, from the White House, so she freed up an agent that had a real reason to be there. That had been all it was. There had been some problems before, with their person being both attacked and breaking several laws, but that was undercover work, as far as Terry was concerned. You had to let a few broken bones go, if it meant getting the job done.
Ben started to move to Micha, but pulled away, shaking his head. Honestly, he didn’t care what she had to think about the matter.
Kyle looked at him, his mind very still, suddenly. It had been shielded, but this was different. True meditation under that part of things. It didn’t tell Ben much, but got his attention anyway.
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to leave her alive? I know this is less than ideal, but if you keep trying to take her out, the government will eventually come down on us for it. That they didn’t this last time is a wonder. If you hadn’t been doing so much on the terrorist operations, my guess is that you would have met with a bullet to the head from a long range sniper. Not that it would work, but it would disrupt things if you had to go on the run.”
It could work, of course, if the right person was doing it. Micha could have pulled it off, he bet. Even if she needed someone else to do the actual sniping, it could. It was all in how much she knew about him, and how the null effect field worked. If he were reading everything around him, then no, a single bullet wouldn’t work. Even a bombing run might not, since he’d know about it in advance, most likely.
There might be ways around prescience however. Ben didn’t know how he’d managed it, but twice now he’d taken Micha by surprise that way. Three times, really. He’d forgotten having Wall drop her off of a climbing tower. Since all of those events had injured her, and she normally got that kind of data about a half hour in advance, it was a big deal. If she could work out how to do that to him, then bombing them all might work too.
The easiest thing to do would be to not plan it until midnight or so, and then hit them while they slept. He still could get that however. Mags as well. Lissa was their strongest telepath, and Clark was the big deal for telekinetics, but Mags had nearly lost it due to seeing the future too well. Even if he were tricked personally, she might just work out that something was coming, much further in advance than the rest of them could.
Thinking about her left him feeling warm inside. The night before hadn’t really gone the way that he’d figured it would, after they turned in for the night. Ben had just climbed into bed, wearing a fresh gray outfit, since the place was getting a little cool, being about as weather tight as a shipping crate that had seen better days.
Mags just stripped off by the door, and climbed on top of him. It had been fun, but unexpected really. Even after everything. Then, that morning, she’d made a point to make out with him before they left. There hadn’t been time for sex, but it was cozy and nice. Gentle, even, at least for her. She was a bit wild, but didn’t hurt him, which was better than his last experiences that way, by far. The only one that he’d had since doing both her and Lissa. Only this time it felt more real.
Shaking himself, and glad that he hadn’t started to relive it in front of Kyle, Ben shook his head.
“I’m not certain what to do about this. I can’t forgive her. I don’t mean I won’t, I can’t. If it was that easy, I’d do it, just to keep things running smoothly. So, what am I supposed to do? Pretend I don’t hate her? Play nice, and… I’m really not getting anything right now on that. Not even visions of me shooting her.” For a second he wondered if it were blocked from him somehow, but he did get some things. They just weren’t ones that he wanted, or believed.
Visions, light ones that didn’t seem real at all, but were, he bet, what most people would have gotten, where he and Micha were being nice to each other. A few had them kissing and doing things that he simply wasn’t going to. It took him a moment to realize what had happened, and that he was actually inside her
head, not his own, seeing the future her way.
The only good side to it was that she felt horrible about the idea, too. Worse than he did, really. Mainly because she’d spent most of her time lately with several psychologists, all of whom had pointed out that she hadn’t handled Ben very well, at any given point. Now it looked like she was going to have to sell herself to him, again, for access.
It was her job, but the things she was seeing seemed to be saying that it would work, which she honestly doubted. Visions aside. Ben wasn’t going to roll over for a few blowjobs. No, he’d use that trick of his, and hide what he was really planning to do to her. Probably only letting her see things like she was at the moment.
Ben had to agree, that sounded about right. Not that he was doing any of that, but if he could, it would be his plan. At any rate, he was able to see what she was doing, which involved riding the second Hyperloop across the country at the moment. From Boston, where she’d been stationed, back toward the Cymed operation. It wasn’t where she wanted to go, but she couldn’t quit her job, and doing anything else would require that first. She wasn’t a slave, but if she ever wanted to get rid of her powers, or even control them, she needed to go back.
She wasn’t afraid really, but didn’t trust what she was seeing. Where Ben was concerned, that had failed her, too many times. Plus, it was clear that he hadn’t totally been lying about what the new glands he had going on did. That last fight they’d had, he’d been about to kill her. His fighting skills were crap, compared to hers, and while he was larger, she should have been well over five or six times stronger than he was. Faster by the same amount or more, as well.
That wasn’t the case, even though Ben clearly didn’t have that kind of power all the time. Only when he was trying to kill her, it seemed. What it meant was that Ben Epson, the man that she’d abused and humiliated after thinking she’d enslaved his mind, so that she wouldn’t grow attached to him, was better than she was.
