it begins...

The two men knew they had to move quickly. There was no margin for error. They had been watching her for quite a while and had seen enough to make them more than a little nervous. Her powers had grown and were growing still. While uncertain of her exact progress, they knew, for now, she still seemed to need a little time to consciously focus those powers in order for them to work. They hoped that fact would buy them enough time. Silence, speed and mechanical adherence to the plan were all that could prevent a complete disaster. If they failed today, there would not be another chance.

Kathryn heard a sound upstairs. It was too early for Jack to be home. With his work and hers, they had a lot of visitors. Perhaps it was Alfred with the capacitors she had ordered, or maybe a neighbor had stopped by She and her children had put in several good hours of consciousness/concentration study. With a sigh and a smile, she decided it was time to end her day’s work and declare family time, anyway.

“Josh, run on up and see who it is. Get them some tea and I’ll be right there. Kaitlyn, get your puzzle and take my hand. We're going upstairs.”

Kathryn's focus was still very much on her children, as the men had known it would be.

Both children promptly did as their mother had requested.

Reaching the top of the stairs, eleven-year-old Joshua recognized Mr. Thompson, but not the man with him. Joshua forced a faint smile and nodded for both to have a seat. Joshua was glad there were no more visitors, because four tea glasses plus Kaite’s little cup were about all he could balance on the silver tray. Further, the more guests, generally speaking, the longer they lingered. He hoped these would be dispatched fairly quickly. He heard his mother and little sister bumping and thudding up the stairs, and hurried to heft the tray so they could get this social time over with and enjoy a rare evening on which, he hoped, all four family members would soon be home together, alone.

Joshua dropped the tray as he rounded the corner to see his mother thrashing weakly against the stranger who had one arm wrapped brutally around her throat and his opposite hand across her mouth. Her legs dangled lifelessly and the syringe that had delivered the epidural that had paralyzed her lower body still protruded from her back. Her hands madly sought any grip they could find, but she was no match for the huge man, and was rapidly losing strength as she struggled simply to breathe.

Joshua wanted to run to his mother's defense. His mother's voice inside his head softly, firmly told him to remain where he was. The voice he would have ignored, but something stayed his feet. Silently, he strained against invisible shackles.

Something more primal than thought held her son at the safest distance Kathryn could manage, while the processing and planning layers of her mind searched for some foothold. There had been a time when Kathryn had known Cory Thompson's mind well...too well. Despite efforts to put those times behind her, enough remained of their connection to ease her access now. She soon saw why he and his associate had come. She was horrified by what she found in his mind. Her insight came only in the form of fleeting snapshots and fragments of intention or conversation, but this jumbled, incomplete data still told her a great deal. Could there really be so many scientists who felt as these men did? She saw hundreds of faces in Cory's mind, the countenances of scores of strangers, of many notable public figures and even a few whom she had called “friend.”

She wished she had been able to see six months ago, or even six weeks ago, what she saw now. So many things began, too late, to fall into place. Learning, knowledge, growth…they come in their own time. She cursed the legacy of her line, forever fated, it seemed, to see the truth an hour too late. If only she could at least live long enough to warn Jack... She knew she would not.

Her mind snapped back to Kaitlyn first. The child was very young and useless to these men, at least as far as they knew. Kaitlyn was also too small to run far or fast. Kathryn’s instructions to Kaitlyn were simple: “Hide! No matter what happens, hide and don’t let them see you. Focus on that and nothing else. I love you very much. I always will. Now hide!”

Kathryn glanced once more into the mind of the man holding her and saw their plans to take her son and force him to do for them what she would not. She saw Joshua was their priority and they would stop at nothing to hunt him down and force him to their will. There would be no escape. If only she could reach Jack in time. Then she saw through her captor’s eyes the signal from the other man, and its meaning. Not much time.

“Joshua,” her mind spoke to her son’s,” I love you and I’m sorry to do this, but we have no choice. I’ll try to help you understand later, if I can. For now, just trust me. Ignore everything else that's going on and concentrate on opening yourself to me completely. ” She reached as deeply and as thoroughly into Joshua’s mind as she could, fighting back her own maternal impulse to stop to administer comfort to each spot of fear and pain she found. Deeper into the most remote crevices of his consciousness, deeper than she’d ever been. She was uncertain of the repercussions, but she couldn’t afford to miss anything. As her body failed, her consciousness surged forth to fully engulf Joshua's mind.

“One last chance, dearest Kathryn,” came Cory’s honeyed velvet voice at the edge of her awareness, but she saw in his mind there was no such chance. She said nothing as Cory lifted her favorite scarf from the chair where she had carelessly draped it the evening before. He caressed its folds, then lifted the bit of silk to his face to breathe deeply of her scent. He seemed to relish each movement as he enveloped the detonator and the tiny bit of explosive in the cherished scarlet banner given to her by her husband on their last anniversary.

Reading his vision of the impending moments, she was struck by the humor of it. They must have feared some part of her mind might live on in the physical brain itself, were it not fully destroyed. Had there been more time, she might have taken the moment to feel somewhat honored to have been so powerfully and so superstitiously feared– by men of science, no less!

Cory had long known too much. She cursed herself for having invested her heart so foolishly in her youth. His obsession had turned from her to things far darker, as she had feared it eventually must. The awful shape of the truth took form. Having failed to control the object of his desires, Cory had now set his sights on controlling the whole of the human race, starting with the non-tech masses. Once they were under his power, he could use their sheer numbers to control his own, the scientists…but not without the power of a mind such as hers, or her son’s.

She had barely begun to assimilate her most recent, staggering breakthrough and its implications. She wished this power were not so new, not still so based on familiarity and repeated exploration. It was one thing to read a person’s thoughts, quite another to control them. She wished she knew the men’s minds well enough to find her way deep inside to the parts where she could cripple their bodies or bend their minds to her will. Had she lived, she was sure she would have become much more adept at seeking out the reins more rapidly. Ironically, she was sure she would have had the capacity to implement every evil Cory could imagine, and many well beyond his limited scope. And, yes, as he feared, she would definitely have had the power to neutralize him.

For now, she hoped she had the power to save her son.

Deeper through the fine pathways branching to the very edges of Joshua’s awareness. She had him entirely engulfed in her mind’s embrace now. Her lungs were failing. The oxygen her mind needed was scarce. She no longer had the strength to struggle as Cory tied the scarf around her neck. She summoned all her remaining strength, and in a single, blinding blast just preceding the one that would tear her head from her shoulders, she wiped Joshua’s mind entirely clean. The electrical thrust of her mental demolition wave was so powerful, even the two men felt something. Even they somehow knew the two consciousnesses had been erased from their reality.

From her silent, invisible place in the middle of the room, Kaitlyn felt them leave her, as well, and a tear rolled down her cheek, but still she hid. The man dropped Kathryn’s husk to the floor and backed well away. Then came the second, muffled blast.

***<>***

“Get the children.”

“No. Let's just get out of here. They're worthless now. I think the boy’s dead, or brain-dead, at least.”

Indeed, Joshua’s small frame had become a rigid statue. His eyes were dull, grey and unblinking. Kaitlyn could not feel him at all. An echo of her mother’s voice in her head told her this was as it should be, to let him go.

“I don’t care. He’s the second half of what we came for and I’m not going to leave him behind. We'll figure out what we can get out of them later. Find the girl.”

“Where is she?”

“You were supposed to watch them.”

“I was holding the woman. Was I supposed to do everything?”

“Shut up, you sub-non idiot. Just grab the boy and take him to the transpod. We don’t have time for this. I’ll find her and catch up in a sec. She can’t have gone far.”

Ten minutes later, Cory rejoined his companion, still empty-handed, fury reddening his face. “Go.”

“What about the other kid?”

“Damn it, I said GO. I don’t know about the other kid. You lost her. I don’t know where she went. She wasn't in the room, so she didn't see anything. It doesn’t matter. She’s an infant. She wouldn't be any good to us anyway. Hell, she can barely talk. Maybe if her father still has her to worry about, we can use that one day if we need to. He’ll be home any minute, so we’re done here.”

The stolen pod was back to its vacationing owners’ port before anyone had missed it, and the blank-minded youth would have no idea where he was… if he ever woke up.

***<>***

Kaitlyn knew when the men were gone and she could quit hiding. She hadn’t moved an inch from her front-row position in the middle of the room until she felt them leave. Then she went to her mother’s still-warm body. Kaitlyn knew. She knew more than most of us like to think any less-than-two-year-old can know. Tears wouldn’t come. She just sat, immobile in her dreadful Knowing, until her father came home.

***<>***