The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Vanessa looked at Jacob. There was a certain agreement between them to keep their respective mental powers away from each other, but she was decidedly not happy to be here. St Agnes was swarming with police.

Though they could worm their way through by mentally causing people to forget them, there were way too many people. She was certain it would be difficult with half the people.

“It appears someone from the CDC have turned up,” she said.

“I got that where I tried to get in too,” he responded, “It turns out Fergie and Hal are not the only ones who have undergone a major loss of memory. I can’t locate Hal in there at all. There’s too many minds, too many people.”

“My view is,” she snarled a bit bit, “if the number of people with memory loss is so high, there’s another telepath out there we haven’t found yet. Some rogue nut who just seems to think it’s a good idea to wipe people’s memories when he’s done.”

“Or she,” responded Jacob, “I get your point. We have a new player who has been scrubbing people minds when he, or she, is done. Mostly men it would seem. Why is Hal’s pregnant cow only missing the time she was with him though, when all the other people are supposed to be total amnesiacs? I’m going to have a headache.”

“I think we have two unknown parties. One killing us. One playing games without letting us know they’re around,” Vanessa said. “And dammit Jake, I want to get back to my playthings. How long do you think it will take to find these people.”

“Don’t know. It will take as long as it takes. If we don’t find them first, they’ll find us. I’d rather we be the ones doing the finding. And skull crunching.”

She crossed her arms. Her expression devolved into a snarl but not directed at Jacob. The inconvenience of this crap was pissing her off. She didn’t like it. She knew Jacob wasn’t any happier or she’d be growling more at him.. There had to be better answers somewhere.

“Maybe if we find some of Hal’s other servants we can probe them for what happened,” she offered.

He gave it a thought for a few moments.

“Do you know anything about the twins? He had a couple young twins he used. Maybe we can find them. Who might know?”

“We can ask at the club,” she responded. “Maybe one of ours knew one of his other toys well enough for us track them down.”

“Good enough. Let’s get the hell out of here. The noise level here is too high at the moment.”

He started the engine.

“Aw,” Mathers said. Her usual stern face had softened into a lovely smile. “It’s so adorable, pygmy marmoset?”

“No, it’s not,” he smiled at her, “Clever guess though. Most people don’t know about thumb monkeys. He looks remarkably like one though. There’s some kind of technical name, I forget off the top of my head, but these are often called Pocket Sloths.”

“But he looks like a tiny monkey,” the policewoman near him said. She had an overwhelming urge to pet the thing, it was so cute. “So he’s a kind of sloth?”

“No, he’s akin to the finger monkeys and unlike them, these guys don’t get aggressive as they get older. These guys look for small warm places. If you’re where they live, they sneak into pockets, hiding there. Thus the descriptive name. They sleep a lot. They need to be around their specific person once acclimated, for some reason. Sometimes Hubert here will climb up to the collar of my shirt and just hang on there.”

“Seems awfully odd for a CDC investigator to travel with a pet,” said Thorn, “I would think there’d be a risk of them being unsanitary.”

Nathan Jones, the name he gave them, was one of two men who’d come from the CDC in answer to a request from the hospital in Columbus. So he’d told them. He was singularly unremarkable aside from his pet. Sandy hair, an ordinary looking face, kind of an average sort of build. It might be real easy to ignore him completely depending one where you saw him.

“I’m not the one who usually goes to infectious areas, My partner, Dr. Stevens does most of that. He’s got the medical credentials. I’ve got the dirty duty of handling most of our political and liaison activities. That allows me to bring Hubert with me, doesn’t it Huey? Besides, if not around me, Hubert refuses to eat and just gets morose.”

He stroked his finger over the top of the little creature’s head. The almost pure black eyes seemed to peer up at him as the ringed tail that seemed three times as long as the creature’s body curled around his wrist. It let out a plaintive chirp like sound. Jones pulled a grape out of a self locking plastic bag and handed it to the little creature.

“I’m real sorry Officer Peters, but he’s nervous about strangers. Even my girlfriend has a hard time convincing him to be friendly. Though when he is, he likes to sneak into her hair and snooze.”

“It’s okay.” The woman in uniform smiled. “He is a nice distraction to see though.”

She wandered away back to the reception desk, watching people. She had been curious about the wee pet of the CDC man, but not so curious as to abandon her post.

“I wonder where the good doctor David has gotten to,” he said. The other CDC man wandered off with one of the physicians, talking about amnesia victims. Nathan was looking around to see if he’d spot a gruff man with salt and pepper hair. He knew just who had sent the message he’d received. It was apparent the odd amnesia experiences were what he’d been contacted about. There was clearly someone intentionally wiping memories.

“I gather,” he said to Special Agent Mathers, “your agency alerted you we were coming?”

“Interesting how that happened,” Thorn answered for her, “We don’t usually get calls from the Director himself.”

“He was interested for some reason. He did say he had agents out here just now. He offered to call ahead to alert you we’d be around. I understand you’ve a tangled up case. He said if we thought our problem involved you somehow I should talk to you.”

Mathers looked around to see if they had any privacy,

“He told us if you had questions, you’ve better clearance than we do,” responded Mathers, “implies you’re from an entirely different agency.”

“If I was, would I talk about it with anyone, much less in public?”

“You’re not exactly telling us anything now,” responded Thorn.

“Maybe later,” he noticed his pet had eaten the entire grape and was begging for another, “no no no, you silly boy. You’ll ruin your appetite.”

He wandered to the admissions desk and asked after the neurology expert Dr Stevens had wandered off with, leaving the two FBI agents standing by themselves.

“It is hard to believe anyone from the CIA or NSA would have a pet with him. Even harder to think a CDC investigator would bring one.”

“Cute pet though. Did you see it poking its little face out of his shirt pocket when he showed up?”

“Damn cute,” Thorn shook his head, “Not sure why he’s here. The amnesia thing they have going on doesn’t appear to be an infectious disease. More like psychiatric nonsense than an illness. So the CDC cover feels a bit nuts.”

“I don’t think he cares what we think about his cover. General consumption for the masses, you know. He’s not going to be fooling people he interacts with much, and it doesn’t seem to me he cares.”

They both looked after the man walking away with a nurse while talking to his little critter.

“I wonder if that’s how he gets chicks,” said Thorn.

They’d gathered at the Ollyhops Hotel. Bart had a suite for some reason, but Edward thought it was very nice. He wondered how the place had come by the name, but he really didn’t care enough to ask. Enough time passed without a group pow-wow it felt almost comforting. It seemed Bart wanted a few normal chairs for a meeting though. Edward laughed when the seating issue was mentioned.

“Here I thought I was the odd one of the lot of us,” Edward pointed out.

“My old bones need their comforts,” Bart replied.

“Now that we’re here,” Polly asked, “Samuel and I need to tell you about the epidemic of amnesia victims the hospital we dropped Susan off at has been seeing.”

“No need to go into a lot of detail about that,” replied Bart, “As it just so happens? I dropped off our now impotent Hal there too. Same hospital, St. Agnes.”

“I hope you weren’t seen.” Polly grinned, “because you just added to their amnesia victims. From what we got out of it, the victims so far have all been strapping young men. Your deposit will be uniquely older than the average they’ve been seeing.”

“You can be certain there’s no record of my presence there. There was no record of yours either. So no worries with regards to our visibility yet.”

“We were talking a while ago about this. This amnesia thing seems like something a psi would do, simply because it’s too big a statistical blip. Also, despite it being noticed at the hospital,” said Samuel, “it’s evidently not a disease. Not a contagious one anyway. Certainly someone else noticed it by now.”

“Yes, I’m certain they will contact higher authorities who will also puzzle over it not being disease driven. Seems obvious to me some psi is using mind wipes to cover their tracks instead of replacing memories. A truly lazy way of dealing with the throw aways.”

“Do you think it’s just someone so inexperienced they don’t know how to do it any other way?” Edward spoke up.

“No. No, I doubt it. I think someone just doesn’t care to do better.”

“We were talking, Sam and I,” Polly said, “we were thinking the implication is... we have the Fire Eaters, we have someone killing their members, and now we have yet another person out there doing the kind of damage that will undoubtedly bring public attention to everything else.“

“The thought crossed my mind,” said Bart. “We have an awkward confluence of agendas in motion. Let’s not leave out the law enforcement folk who are trying to catch the killer without knowing about the connection to the Fire Eaters.“

“Plus medical people trying to grasp how a cluster of amnesia victims showed up right here,” piped up Elaine. “You have to know they’re going to want answers.”

“As long as the fire department isn’t involved,” Lexi offered with a touch of levity in her voice. “Hooks and ladders, you know. And hoses! Water everywhere!”

Everyone smiled briefly at Lexi.

“Speaking of all the groups involved,” Bart said. “I thought briefly about sending Edward along with his proto-family here,” he indicated the three women sitting relatively close to the young man, “off on a vacation until this is resolved.”

“Oh? Only briefly?” Edward of course. “Why only briefly?”

“Son, you’re too strong a psi to send away if we need your talents.”

“Just out of curiosity, do you have any ideas about shutting down this unpleasant slavery club? It’s not like we can just rush in and conduct wholesale manumission for the people they’ve collected. We don’t have someone named Lincoln available.” Polly looked at Bart with her arms crossed.

“I was thinking of picking them off a couple at a time. Maybe. I was hoping you could help, Maid Marion. You and Robin Hood are such a nice team together.”

“Pfiffle.” Her disgust was not serious but plain none the less.

“Seriously, I am trying to identify a way to pick them off quickly and do it one or two at a time so they don’t catch on and flee. Might resolve the immediate problem they represent, still, they’re the careless kind who’d expose others even if elsewhere. We have them in one place. I’d like to end this group.”

“What about the killer?” asked Elaine. “I almost don’t want them caught.”

“She,” stressing the word Bart turned to her, “seems to be an odd strain of vigilante. I’m thinking she must be a woman. Not only was my visitor at the surveillance site a woman but the main motive I can come up with for vengeance is someone she knows having been enslaved by one of the members. It’s the simplest explanation I can think fits. Occam’s Razor. I can come up with other motives but that’s the easiest explanation.”

“So once they’re gone, she will vanish too?” asked Prudence, showing hopefulness at the thought.

“I doubt it. She’s killed now, several times. Bets are she feels she’s getting justice. So odds are she’ll either look for more psis or she will find another niche of criminals to try to rid society of. It’s hard to imagine someone who likes killing but they exist.”

“Have you ever killed someone?” asked Edward. “Should we be afraid you might do something like that?”

Bart took a deep breath, slowly letting it out as a sigh. He turned and looked Edward directly.

“Edward, you’re a good man. I would just as soon not answer. You deserve some honesty. You’ve been trying to hold yourself steady so others know they can count on you. The hard truth is, I’ve killed people, and on more than one occasion.”

“How is she different?” asked Prudence.

“I’m not sure she is,” the older man responded, “In order to know for sure either we’d have to see if she stops when the club is shuttered, or we’d have to personally encounter her. I don’t want to either. I’ve been military, something I do not choose to talk about. I’ve had to kill when dealing with wild talents who simply could not be stopped other ways. I’ve never liked it, but I can’t guarantee others dislike it with the intensity I do. I’ve run into far too many people who enjoy killing.”

Elaine looked grim. Prudence held her hand. Lexi reached out to hold Edward’s. Polly and Samuel were quiet after the pronouncement from Bart.

“Since you’re feeling so honest,” Edward finally piped up, “just how long have you been doing this?”

Bart smiled, shook his head then closed his eyes. “Not gonna give up, are ya? No, I’m not tellin’.”

Edward was grinning. He was hoping the persistent question would break some of the solemnity.

“Yeah,” Edward said. “I thought I’d try anyway.”

“I’ve been gathering addresses for the names I have. Some of them are bound to be fake.”

“Like yours?”

He grinned at Edward, “Your aunt used the name Theresa when she was in Italy a few years back. Your uncle, damn Samuel, what name were you using?”

“Henry,” replied Samuel. He turned to Edward to explain, “It’s a common hazard for psionics, where keeping identity hidden is necessary during travel. But, it’s also common for some people to hold onto their real names even when it might be detrimental.”

“Dang, I want to know Bart’s real name,” said Edward.

“I don’t think Bart knows his own real name anymore,” said Polly.

The women near Edward broke into giggles. Bart didn’t respond though.

“I do know sometimes he goes by the name Robert. Probably more often than Bart.” Samuel looked smug pointing this out.

“Sure, give away all my secrets why don’t you?” he replied. “It’s true, but don’t call me Bob. I know someone who goes by Bob and honestly, he’s far more the Bob type than I am. Besides, the ID I have with me now says Bartholemew, not Robert.”

“Yep. You’re more the Robert type,” grinned Polly. He groaned again.

“Yep,” Edward added, “you don’t wear a cowboy hat either, Bat Masterson.”

“Okay. I get it. I get it. Okay, let me start telling you what we do know about the people I’ve found so far...”

“Hello Miss Laramy,” he said as he walked into the room Dr. Stevens was in. “Hey there David, I wondered where you got to.”

“Who are you?” Susan asked.

“I’m Nathan, another investigator from the CDC. Don’t worry. I won’t bother you with questions too. I’m more the bureaucrat type than the medical type. Dr. Stevens is exceptionally good though.”

“Oh, look at the cute little,” Susan said, “um, what is that peeking out of your pocket?”

“This is my Hubert,” he said. “Huey, come out and say hi to the nice lady.”

Hubert slipped out of the pocket and up Nathan’s shirt, curling around behind his neck then peeking out at Susan again. He made some cheeping and chattering noises, quietly due to his size. It was a bit as though he decided to introduce himself and let his opinion be known on the spot.

“He’s shy sometimes. He doesn’t usually take,” Hubert leapt off Nathan’s shoulder onto the bed with Susan Laramy, climbing up to curl into a pile on her tummy a moment. The little monkey like creature made a few purring like noises then blinked at Susan. “...to new people. That’s different. A surprise, really.”

The nurse, Miss Andrews, by the window giggled. “Aw, he’s sweet.” She walked over and reached out to pet Hubert but the little pocket sloth proved to be anything but slothful as he skittered up behind Susan’s neck to hide. The nurse looked a little taken aback.

“As I said, he usually doesn’t take to new people. Miss Laramy, you seem to have charmed Hubert instantly. Magic maybe?”

“I didn’t do anything,” but she reached a finger back to where Hubert had lit. The creature started rubbing its fur covered face against her finger. “He seems very friendly to me.”

“I’ve never seen him take to anyone like that,” he held out his hand for Hubert to climb onto. Odd little being that the pocket sloth was, it put one of it’s little monkey like hands on one of Nathan’s fingers but shook its little furry head back and forth wildly. The little black eyes stared up at it’s master.

“He seems to want to stay with you a while,” so he pulled out the bag of grapes, a bag of nuts, and a little bag of cheese crackers. “If you like, he can keep you company for a while. You can feed him but be careful. He likes to over eat, then seems to go comatose. If it happens, he’s okay, but it isn’t good for the little sprite.”

“Oh thanks,” Susan answered.

Miss Andrews frowned at him. “We don’t allo...”

“No worries Miss Andrews,” said the doctor. “I’ve been around this particular beastie enough to know he’s really pretty safe. It might be good for Miss Laramy to have the cheerful fellow here for a day. He won’t be staying terribly long.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll check with the chief physician. I doubt he’ll agree. But she does need something to cheer her up. Her parents won’t be here for a few days yet.”

“Oh? Maybe I can come by later to play some cards with you Miss Laramy?” asked Nathan.

“Call me Susan,” she replied, “and that would be delightful. Won’t your wife be jealous?” She pointed to the ring on his finger. He looked at it.

“No worries,” he replied, “and she’s my girlfriend too.”

Susan giggled and Hubert bounced back and forth between her hands. His tail was soft against her wrists as it wrapped around each time to give himself stability. The smile she displayed could become infectious.

“I’ll wait here nurse until you check with your chief,” Nathan added, “in case he decides Hubert can’t stay with her for a while.”

Nurse Andrews ducked out the door to make the call. He grinned at the pregnant patient.

“Sometimes, even bureaucrats bend with the wind.”

Jonathan reviewed all the people Mikhail had scanned already. Every single one had slightly jarring changes where the focus went to Fergie’s collapse and EMTs taking him away. They tried to find anyone outside who might have been there at the time when the event occurred. Jonathan did notice something Mikhail had missed.

There was a small convenience store and gas station just a little ways up the road from Holly’s. While he didn’t think anything could come of it, he dragged Mikhail over to see if they could look at the convenience store’s security videos.

The clerk at the register knew nothing about where the videos were kept or how they were accessed. It took a few minutes to find the room with the computer keeping the records. The first thing they did was to wipe out records of themselves. Neither Mikhail or Jonathan had any desire to turn up in anyone’s particular investigation.

After struggling with the equipment for an hour, Jonathan managed to find the period of time before Fergie walked into Holly’s. He even managed to find Fergie walking in with the two women on his arms. That alone felt like a minor victory for him. Mikhail was jubilant they’d found anything at all.

As Mikhail was grinning, Jonathan grimly moved the video forward to watch who came and went. The EMTs arrived before too long, while only a handful of people left. The obvious couple that left while the EMTs were inside didn’t look like much, but he captured a photo of them. Blurry and very distant but he felt he might be able to make something of it.

Examining it closely, he thought he could actually pull better images of that couple from the waitress if he wanted to. He remembered something about her serving a couple that kind of looked like these two.

Then a group of four people left the place. He tried hard to zoom the image in but all it did was pixelate on him. He handed the photo of the couple to Mikhail.

“Get rid of that. These are the people we’re after.” He pointed to the totally unclear image of the foursome as they were frozen in place walking away. He made a mental note of the direction they went. He ran the video forward as slowly as he could. None of the pictures improved things but he was certain a couple of them were women. He wasn’t sure if they weren’t all women, or if the other two were men. All he knew was none of that set of individuals were in the memories of anyone he had scanned.

That made it a dead certainty to him. Someone in the group were involved with what happened to Ferguson.

He and the Russian learned there was a parking lot with surveillance cameras in all four corners in the direction involved. With a little effort they got in to check those videos too. It turned out two of the cameras were dummies, phony meant to deter would be criminals. Of the other two, one of them was on the blink at the time they wanted to watch. Jonathan was angry about feeling thwarted. Mikhail was at least glad someone else was frustrated by all this too.

They finally tracked the parking lot video back to about the right time. Though the footage was still grainy, they were able to collect a couple images of the four people getting into the car at that time. Somehow it just cemented the idea these were the people he was looking for to Jonathan. Three women and one guy.

He figured maybe this guy and Fergie had a run in over women. Otherwise, why would this guy have three already and not collect the two with Fergie? He got a few of those pictures and they went back to the club to distribute them. Maybe someone had seen this guy.

Connie had the unique advantage of having been born to money. She rarely wanted for anything. So shopping for new shoes was an exercise in entertainment, not a necessary activity. It was much more a past-time than a mandatory activity. She was no Imelda Marcos but she had a fair number of shoes to pick from in her closet.

At her favorite store though, she didn’t get quite the service she was used to. Someone else had attracted the sales clerks first. She wanted to grumble but it sure looked like some guy was out with a bunch of women. There were three of them and he kept saying things about not caring one bit how much it cost if the shoes they wanted were just that. What they wanted.

Edward had been convinced to take the three out for a while, to escape the walls of the loft’s built in interior. He had no problem paying for any number of things the three women with him wanted. If his aunt had come along, he’d pick up the tab for her too. He was pleased to see the three of them enjoying themselves even if it was less than thrilling for him.

Looking at their gams was a really hot treat for him anyway. He loved the fashion show of their ankles at the moment, something he always found hot about looking at women. It must be an odd kink or something, he’d guess. But he so liked seeing how women’s ankles looked while in heels.

Connie watched this activity with a little curiosity after a bit. He wasn’t demanding anything, was getting little kisses from two of the women, and was not critical as the women piled up little sets of shoes they were going to make decisions about in a while.

She had a clerk tending her who seemed a little discomfited at first, being left out of being able to work with the big spender, until Connie pointed out price was no issue to her either. The other clerk over with the group recognized her and would have excused herself to help Connie, but Connie shook her head, indicating the young woman tending her needs. She was very curious about the group getting shoes but wasn’t about to impose herself on them.

If they came to see her, she’d talk to them. But they gave every indication of being oblivious to her presence. She didn’t mind at all yet if they did notice her, there wasn’t any indication at all.

It wasn’t the case though. Edward noticed her immediately when she came in. He had no reason to be lecherous about her attractive shape or face, he had three women, probably two more than he should already. He made damn sure not to let his attention wander.

But he did pick up an odd sense from her presence. He couldn’t place it at all but she seemed quite harmless and from all he could tell by just a gentle look with his abilities, a very nice young woman. She was obviously a wee irked at first the clerks were busy taking care of the lovely ladies with him, but she’d disposed the idea as useless awfully quickly. Then he noticed nothing more than her mild curiosity, and attended his companions as being the center of his universe.

Connie picked out three pairs of new shoes. Two of them with killer spikes on them. The third a pair of walking shoes. Why walking shoes, she wasn’t entirely sure. But something told her they’d been needed so she should get a pair. So she made as nice as possible with the clerk, let the young woman ring her out, and left.

Edward looked at her walking out the door, noting as she went through the door though she had heels on, her head was close to the six foot mark they had on the door to help clerks determine the height of robbery suspects. He gave that some thought and wondered why that would be of any interest to him. It somehow caused an itch in his thoughts and he could not quite identify why it might matter at all.

Jonathan, Mikhail, Jacob, and Vanessa were taking assessment of the events together. They were drinking their personal favorites, and Vanessa had her current wench between her legs, licking to please her mistress. Seeing that, the others shook their head but didn’t really care. It looked hot and kept them entertained as they talked about the progress so far.

“So you didn’t get anything from the pregnant slut or the bitch who was there when Vince bought the farm?”

“Where do you come up with these phrases?” Jacob replied, “No, there were too many cops. I didn’t want to take any chances of mistakes. There were a couple FBI jokers either on their way or there too. It just didn’t seem like a good risk to take.”

“Oh, hell,” said Mikhail. “I could get in and out by myself. At least we know our hostile telepath isn’t there.”

“Sure, sure. You really want to try,” responded Jonathan. “I don’t wanna go near the place until things settle down a bit.”

“I bet things have already settled down. How long can it take for them to question those sluts?”

“I don’t know, I just don’t wanna be there if it turns out you’re wrong.”

“Okay,” responded Mikhail, “I’ll go on my own. You won’t even notice I’m gone, I’ll be back so fast.”

“If you want, but I think we need to see if anyone knows this guy I think did the job on Fergie. And if you see him at the hospital, don’t stay.”

“Okay, I accept that one is dangerous. If he’s our threat, we need to pile on him as a group. If we can find him. If it turns out he’s at the hospital, I bet we can figure it out from the outside pretty quickly. All we have to do is scan a few of the staff.”

“Maybe more than a few.”

“Fine. We can scan a significant proportion of the staff near the cunts we’re after. If they haven’t seen him, we should be good to go in and do a deep dive on the two bitches and figure out what the hell they’ve seen.”

Vanessa let out a soft happy moan, “you guys are all fucked up. Not bitches, slaves.”

Jacob looked over at Vanessa, “you’re such a slut yourself, having to be eaten out while we’re discussing business.”

“Yeah, sure,” she replied, just enjoying the movements of her slave’s tongue.

“Okay Mikhail.” Jacob looked at the Russian, “go take a stab at it, you have my blessing.”

“I have stuff to do at my house,” said Jonathan. “You can come join me there and tell me what you found afterwards, Rasppie.”

“I told you that’s not acceptable Jon. Don’t call me that,” Mikhail said.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Jonathan. “Whatever...”

Polly and Samuel had just come in from the lift. Edward was taking a shower. He and Lexi had a quiet night with Prudence and Elaine snuggling purely for the affection and love of each other. Elaine had gotten out of the shower just before Edward went in, and had finished dressing in jeans and a t-shirt without a bra under it. Polly smiled and Samuel leered until she poked him gently in the ribs.

It was evident he was allowed to look. Polly would probably get the benefit of his lecherous gazing later, so Prudence thought it amusing.

“Oh, Hi there Miss Polly,” said Elaine, “Your timing is wonderful.”

“Ellie, you look, um, almost undressed that way.”

Elaine gave a grin and reached for Polly’s hand. “You’re our Aunt Polly too now, so just get used to the oddities of our happiness in that fact.”

“Okay, where are you,” Polly found herself being pulled along, “taking me?”

“You, and I,” said Elaine, “we’re going to have a chat. Nothing bad. I just want to talk about Edward with you. It occurs to me, you and I best communicate some more on a personal level.”

After a few moments going through the odd configuration of hallways that made up Edwards loft home, they came to a door at the back which led to the stairs up. Elaine grinned.

“I found him hiding up here once. It’s a cool place to sit and chat.”

“Okay, Lay on MacDuff.”

“Up this way.”

She flicked a switch that turned on running lights on the stairs and the gangway above. They clattered on the metal grid work until they got to the little cage at the top.

“Which would be better?” asked Elaine, “me on the inside so you can get out if you want, or me on the outside so you can push me out when you want?”

Polly gave a little chuckle. “Child, I’m here with you for whatever it is you wanted to talk about. I see you gave some thought to choosing a place we wouldn’t be disturbed.”

“It’s where he ran off to in order to hide when he thought Lexi and Prudence were going to couple up and so exclude him. I talked him through my part of it, then Prudence sat him down and made him apologize to Lexi. It was a special moment. If you like. It really was for me. He showed he was human, and showed his soul.”

“Well, I’ve never understood or been one for polyamory myself. Samuel and I are so intertwined, he and I are almost the same person sometimes.”

“No, your individual personalities shine through,” Elaine slipped in first and leaned against the corner. “We all can see you complement each other well.”

“Do they? Sometimes it feels like we speak for each other to the people we talk to. Sometimes we don’t bother to talk before doing things together. It’s just one of the side effects of our mental bond with each other.”

“That’s kind of the topic I wanted to talk about. I am not like you and Edward. Clearly I have no telepathic ability.”

“Yes. I had noticed, young lady. I worry about Edward imposing where he ought to tread carefully.”

“I do get what you mean.” Elaine straightened up a bit. “For starters. You do understand I asked him to do what he did. I meant that. He did not force it on me and really tried to explain why it disturbed him to do so.”

“Good. I hope he’s been raised well enough to respect others.”

“Well, he does. I think you missed something in this though.”

“No, I’m pretty sure when one of us imposes on someone else’s mind, we’re taking their free will away from them, taking over something that belongs to them.“

“Let’s correct that a moment. I’ve already lost any chance at having a normal life with totally free will. Dean did that to me and when he died, it only partly freed me.“

“I get it was partial,” Polly nodded.

“You do,” she took a deep breath, “and you don’t. Edward already freed me from a number of things. He’s the only reason I can wear jeans when I want to, if I want to, at my choice. When I want to.”

“A good step in the right direction.”

“When I asked him to claim me, I know it was at my choice too.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“How can you be so sure I don’t know it?”

“Because it only takes a little push to sweep someone without the ability into one’s influence.”

“Maybe. But right now, and before I asked him, my owner was and remains,” she choked a bit on saying it, “Dean. The only reason I’m not going crazy about it is because the bastard is dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.”

Her vehemence was quite strong.

Polly hugged Elaine lightly. “I understand honey. I do. I’m sorry. An awful lot of the wild talents are utter assholes.”

“I get it, honest Aunt Polly.”

“um.”

“Yes, Aunt Polly. I will treat you as my aunt because I feel as close to being married to Edward as I can while still under the influence of the jerk.”

“Honey, you don’t know what you are saying.”

“Yes. I do. You are the one who hasn’t gotten the big picture yet. Shall I?”

“Okay, go on.”

“I’m as close to having my free will back as I ever will. It’s mine to decide what to do with at the moment. I will never have complete free will as you mean it again. Even if Edward clears everything controlling my actions the cruel one left behind, I will still be influenced by how it conditioned me.“

“Okay, so you have limited choices, but you still have choices.”

“And Edward wants me to have choices. Which I will still have if he claims me as his the way he did.”

“How? He will be able to tell you to do anything.”

“Miss Polly. I want him to be able to tell me to do anything. I probably would have even if he didn’t have the power to control me that way.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re saying?”

“Worst case, and we can work this out by the way, worst case, I suffer decision paralysis because he hasn’t told me specifically what to do in a situation I feel I need for his guidance for. Worst case. I freeze up in such a situation.”

“How is that the worst? You could just evaporate under his will.”

Elaine closed her eyes a moment.

“Because I consent to it, for one thing. More importantly though,” she paused, “while he controlled me, we shared each other’s emotions. I mean really shared emotions.”

“Probably just a reflection of whatever he was feeling.”

“No no,” she shook her head firmly, “You aren’t understanding. With Dean, he left my emotions alone. He wanted me to know I was not able to control my own actions, he wanted me to suffer my own feelings during the events he planned for me. He relished how humiliated it made me. I could tell through everything else, my emotions as opposed to his emotions. He did it entirely on purpose so he could break me. He got a peculiar thrill knowing it upset me inside.”

“Oh honey. I’m so sorry. I wish I could make the pain go away. I could do so but Edward tells me you’re fitted out with so many mental booby traps I’m just as likely to hurt you. I so want to help.”

“You can help. Just not the way you’re thinking of.”

“How? If I even try to adjust your mind, I might trigger a problem.”

“Not that way. By letting Edward and I work out our own choices for our relationship. If I choose to ask him to own me the way he claimed before,” she gave a sincere look at Polly, “I am asking you to not judge him for it. I find myself utterly in love and completely unable to express it to him just now.”

“What about Prudence and Lexi?”

“What about them? I love them too. You may not get how we are, but I am certain we all feel the same. Seriously. Prudence spent the night holding me last night while Lexi was in with him. Lexi is planning to spend the night with me tonight so Prudence has time with him. Somehow we’ve connected this way. Connected. I can’t just now because of unpleasant constraints.”

“If he can remove them, you guys will be okay.”

“You aren’t getting it,” she squinted at Polly, “I do want him to own me. I want to belong to him. What I bet will confused the fuck out of you is Prudence has expressed the same desire now, and Lexi was always intensely excited by the idea of him getting into her head. She told me the moment he could get in and control her mind at all, she was almost wetting herself with desire.”

“You have to be kidding me.”

“I am not kidding you,” she replied with a firm tone. “It’s more of the consent thing. Seriously. It’s an up front consent thing and may be an odd kink. But no kink is utterly invalid when consent is involved. Unless it’s got to do with dying maybe, I guess. It may not be your thing, but others can seriously be interested.”

“Ut. You’re going to end up philosophical on me.”

“Yeah. I guess. I’m no a push over Polly,” said Elaine. “I want to be with him. I want him to want me. I could feel his emotions through our connection just as he felt mine. I know how he feels. Please. I’m begging you. Give him your blessing. It means the world to him.”

“I’ll give serious thought to it, Ellie.” Polly straightened up and brushed the wrinkles out of her blouse. “I just know it doesn’t fit how I was raised to treat those who can’t use psi talents.”

“I got that early on. He was raised the same. He hurt doing the right thing as you see it. It hurt me having him let me go. I don’t want him and I to go through letting go again. It matters to me the right person be the one I am bound to.”

“Bound to? On, it’s more binding I think than you imagine. If anything happens to Samuel, I will probably die as well. Seriously.”

“I got the idea from what Edward said about his mother.”

“His father was her life. Without him, even with Edward, there wasn’t anything left of her. That is how she felt. I visited a number of times and I could tell how empty she became. If anything happened to Edward, it would not be the same as Dean dying.”

“I know. I accept that possibility.”

“I will give it some serious thought, Ellie,” said Polly, “I don’t know I fully can accept it, but I may bless it anyway.”

“My, My.” Nathan said. “If isn’t Wyatt Earp.”

“Naw, it’s Bat Masterson I’m using right now. Be thankful it’s not the ID your friend made me for Pat Garrett. I really haven’t been able to shake the idiotic set of paperwork your team made for me. I thought you had the Arthur Doyle ID for a while?”

Nathan laughed.

“George was such a fuckin’ joker. He stuck me with Winnie Churchill once. I was so mad at him I couldn’t speak to anyone for a week. The Doyle thing was just a joke, he shredded it right away.”

“You have too much a nobody look to do Winston Churchill any justice. The bugger was a plump little beast, he was.”

“I’m glad to see you’re still with us.”

“Yeah, yeah. Me too. I’ve had years of experience being a coward though,” responded Bart.

“You called. I came. What the hell do you have going on here?”

“It’s a touch of a mystery. There’s a gang of wild telepaths with a club here in town.”

“How many? A dozen? Maybe a few more?”

“No. We have a right ugly mess here. There’s over three dozen of the worst sort of shits. Plus we have an assassin making as short work of them as possible.”

“Oh?”

“If that’s not a’fuckin’ ’nuff, there’s someone out there erasing the minds of young men from across the country and dumping them here.”

“Oh my god. I have two FBI guys here looking for your killer, I think.”

“That’s fine. They may prove helpful. I don’t know how much to let them know yet. It’s a woman, as it happens. I’m pretty sure. Unless she has a confederate, which might be the case.”

“I see. So this killer, she’s helping reduce the pool of wild talents we need to take down.”

“Yes. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing yet. It’s hard to tell,” he looked at Nathan’s obvious pockets, “Where’s your little buddy. I haven’t seen him poke his head out of any of your pockets.”

“Hubert insisted he wanted to stay with a pregnant woman at the hospital.”

“Oh. Susan. We dropped her off after clearing out a house one of the wilds had. I left him off there too.”

“Ah ha. One of our amnesiacs?”

“Older than I think the others are.”

“Yeah. I saw him. I’m far more concerned with the two young women. The pregnant girl and the rape victim. At least her attacker is dead. Your assassin, I believe.”

“I think so too.”

“I get the impression I need reinforcements.”

“You might. I don’t know. I’m taking down some of them, the assassin we have yet to identify is getting a few, and god knows what this idiot turning out amnesia cases is doing. Do you have anyone trustworthy? Because I damn sure don’t know who you would call on.”

“All I can do is ask. We have five other guys in my department who may have contacts.”

“Oh, they do. Half of them would call me. I’m afraid I’m not available at the moment.”

Nathan laughed.

“It’s good you see the humor in it,” said Bart, “I’m trying to see it myself at the moment. But you actually have another half dozen teams if you had to call on them.”

“What do you mean?”

“The nuclear security groups. I don’t think any of our kind are crazy enough to want to destroy civilization, so it’s unlikely they’ll be called on any time soon. They are protecting us from the suicidal who wants to destroy everything though.”

“How is it you know about them?” said Nathan. “Those guys are so classified I barely know about their existence.”

“Oh come on.” Bart gave his old associate a bemused look. “You don’t really think I’m that ignorant, do you? I’ve been around a while. I was consulted about forming those teams.”

Nathan shook his head. “It would take a special release for even one of those teams to help out here. Frankly,” he scratched his chin, “three dozen wild talents on the loose working together might be just the reason to make it possibly a priority. I’ll check in. Maybe the assignment management will have some ideas.”

“You do that. You might also get in touch with your Canadian counterpart. If they aren’t busy, they might have someone to spare,” Bart said. “I called someone in I could. Not a talent capable of fighting these guys, but someone who might help with some outlying issues. If I can, I’ll see who else is actually available.”

“Good. When do you want to get together?”

Bart waved the burner phone he picked up earlier. “I’ll give you this number. If I even have a hint it’s being tracked though, I’ll boot it to the sewer.”

“It won’t be me or mine if it happens. Give me the number.”

“Under the criteria you provided Sir,” the man said, “he is not ready yet.”

The white room was bright at the moment. There was one young athletic looking man on the table, strapped down. There were two arm chairs and a few cabinets. The man on the table had a catheter in and was being given an intravenous solution to keep him from dehydrating.

Jonathan lifted one of the man’s eyelids, exposing the blank but bright blue eye to the light. The pupil contracted immediately. He let go of the eyelid, then checked the time.

“I don’t care, I have to make this work. Soon. Move up the next two,” Jonathan said, “if this one doesn’t work, I will have to try again as soon as possible. Contact Leo and tell him I may want three more immediately.”

“Yes Sir,” the man in the blue scrubs left the room.

“Okay, you. Let’s see what you’ve got,” Jonathan said to the unconscious young man on the table. “It’s time for you to go to sleep...”

He sat in his armchair, looking at the young man. He reached his thoughts out and started to clear space in the sleeping mind. It would be a few hours, even if everything went right. He was glad the Russian had volunteered to collect what information was available at St. Agnes. It gave him some time alone to work on the project.

Outside the hospital, the little Eastern European man had parked in the lot. The police presence thinned since Jacob and Vanessa had been here. He really didn’t care as long as there were no surveillance images of him. The rest of it was a simple matter of minor adjustments to have any memory of him from forming.

The greater problem was sorting out the people he wanted to scan from the ones who he didn’t care about. That would require getting inside and making sure visually he was checking the right body. Had he been just a bit more clever, he might have found another way to find them but going inside was no big deal really. It just meant a few extra precautions to avoid leaving a noticeable trail.

It only took him a few steps to approach the door. By then he’d already arranged to turn off cameras along his approach. He was able to walk past the officer standing outside the automated door’s movements. The couple near the wheelchairs didn’t even see him at all, saving him a little effort.

Now which should he visit first? The cow Hal had kept for breeding, or the witness to Vince’s shooting? He hesitated for a little bit but concluded the easy one to check first was the pregnant woman.

It took a few minutes to determine where the maternity ward was and get to the correct elevators. Walking past little clumps of people through the hallway was a minor challenge. It had been his experience people move slightly but not all the way to the side to let other pedestrian traffic past them. If they saw each other. Some folk were completely oblivious to others walking in the same space.

If he didn’t want memories of his being there to even form, he had to avoid making anyone move. It would feel wrong to them to sidestep something that simply wasn’t there. He wasn’t there. Not for them he wasn’t.

Mikhail found the elevator and it took a couple openings then closings with casual passengers before he could get one with enough room not to disrupt how other passengers moved in the space. He really hated having to be this stealthy, true. But the imperative to be cautious was very strong. Mostly due to the way Fergie and Hal had been erased. That threat was dominant in his thoughts.

When he stepped out of the elevator, he saw the nurse’s station. A woman stood there with a clipboard. He stayed as close to the shadows as he could, stepping past her once he was sure she would lose the memory of any kind of taking hold. He spotted the room assignment list and went down the names until he came across S. Laramy.

He looked at the room number, smiling. Yes, he’d visit her now. He walked down the hallway and found the large heavy door with a metal push open latch with the right number. He was pleased with himself having found her hospital room without any guards near it.