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The Talents of the Fallen - 9. Part Nine: Alteration
Chapter Nine: Alteration
“You bring a strange boy to my house telling me to let you two take care of my boy. Then this happens!”
“What happened tonight has nothing to do with them. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, nothing more. If anything you should thank me for having them watch out for him.”
“Yes… quite fortuitous don’t you think? A bunch of drug addicts get it into their heads to try to ra…” She choked up, unable to say the word. “I should be grateful but I know better. Your kind plan to take him away from me and do god knows what to him. Well I won’t have it.”
“Shut up!” Jon shouted. “I wasn’t supposed to be there alright, but luckily I was. If anything it’s your fault. If you would tell us the truth of how you came by him we could take him to where he would be safe from your world.”
“Eh? My world? I… I just knew it? You two are aliens, aren’t ya? Well Aaron isn’t an alien with your special powers. He’s just a boy… my boy.”
“A boy who’s not yours by blood, Dr. Mays. We’ve done a little digging and you know what turned up… an arrest warrant for kidnapping, in your name.”
“I had to. I couldn’t let the foster system have him. My son’s last words were for me to raise Aaron. He told me exactly what to do… no sunlight, no meat, make sure he doesn’t get too much sun.”
“All of which we could have dealt with better than you. I will give you credit for getting the boy away from Bay Bulls but that’s probably the only smart thing you’ve done.”
“I’ve kept the boy alive haven’t I?”
“You didn’t do all that good a job tonight.”
“What do you want of me? I won’t let you have Aaron. Never.”
“The truth… we want to know everything about your son and how you came by Aaron.” Dr. Harris reached out with his mental Talent and forced her to bend to his will.
Mary pulled on her graying locks. She felt the pressure building inside her head. If she didn’t tell the truth the secrets she kept would cause her head to explode. “It was the cult.”
“Which one?”
“The one from eight years ago.”
“You mean the one where all those cannibals burned to death.” Jon asked. That was exactly what the headmaster had suspected. Hearing it from this old woman made it all the more real.
“Yes. I found that mark… the one with the shield and skulls tattoo to my son’s arm.”
“Funny I don’t remember any reports coming out of Bay Bulls talking about a cult survivor showing up.” Dr. Harris replied.
“Have you forgotten I’m a doctor? I cut the mark out before the coroner could find it.”
“Why did you do that?” Jon asked.
“Eh? Are you daft? Do you think I wanted to be known as that mother of a son who ate people? I also worried about the boy. With all the news reports talking about surviving cult members showing up dead I didn’t want them coming for him.”
“You do know Aaron is not your son’s child.”
“Ah, my husband told me as much. Tried to get me to see reason and come back home. Said my younger son Tom was getting into all sorts of trouble but I already broken too many laws getting us into America. There was no real turning back at that point.”
“Dr. Harris if Aaron is…” Jon was about to demand Aaron be let into Lakes when he saw how he was glaring at him.
“Be quite Jon. This doesn’t concern you.”
“By hell it does. I’m the one would found him. I’m the one who just saved him tonight. I think I’ve earned a say in what should happen.”
“What should happen is for you and Aaron to go back to your own schools.”
“What?” Both mother and kid shouted at the same time.
“You want to put my boy back into that nest of demons.” Mary had a firm hold of the crucifix she always kept around her neck.
“I’m afraid we have to. If Aaron doesn’t go back to school then the authorities might think he is somehow tied to what happened tonight. Who knows one of the students might outright admit trying to rape him. We’ve already sent out a special team to help cover this mess up but you Jon made that near impossible with that knife trick of yours.”
“They got what they deserved. They all did.”
“What we got are two kids in a comma, one in a vegetative state, and another who’s right now being equipped with a colonoscopy bag. We’re trying to track down the dealer but it won’t be easy. He and the one who attacked Aaron are the sons of local players. If word gets out what happen then the whole town will get caught up in the scandal. That is why Aaron’s school will be doing all they can to sweep what happened under the rug.”
“Which is all the more reason why we should get Aaron to Lakes where he belongs?” Jon insisted. This time Jon ignore the man’s growing anger.
There was a lot of shouting at that point. Mary threatened to take Aaron south to Mexico. Jon threatened to go before the Council. Dr. Harris warned that if they didn’t shut up he would have both of them lobotomized.
Aaron for his part was standing at his door with his hands over his ears hoping they would all shut up.
It was Jon who noticed Aaron was upset therefore the first to go check on him. Aaron had his back against the door which made getting inside a short game of tug of war. Jon eventually pushed his way inside. He went to where Aaron sat on the floor, took him in his arms and held him tight.
At that point Jon didn’t care what the physical contact would lead to. He held him as the key was inserted into the lock and turned. Both boys’ eyes went wide. Aaron looked panicked while Jon was amazed. It was like what he felt when he first discovered Aaron.
It had been at a clothing store. Aaron’s grandmother was passing him outfit after outfit insisting he couldn’t wear his school uniform 24-7. It was while Aaron had been in the dressing room that Jon had barged in. He had demanded to know how much longer he was going to take when they came in physical contact.
According to the headmaster what Jon experienced was called the push-pull phenomena, or in this case, a Need-Needed reaction. One of Jon’s unique Talents was the powerful aura of charisma he used to command others. He was a natural born leader and at Lakes had the largest following of friends. Aaron on the other hand had the less direct Talent of making him appear as insignificant to the point of being invisible. Most would say that Aaron, with his position as a social outcaste did not need a Talent to achieve that but as the events in the locker room show, his attackers had not noticed him until Aaron had physical contact with one of them. Aaron had what could only be described as his own cloak of invisibility.
When Jon’s heroic aura of courage came into physical contact with Aaron’s aura of unassuming helplessness Jon felt he found the person who needed him most. With his greatest need being the need to be needed Aaron was the perfect fit. Aaron had needs of his own. The most important one was to be protected. Jon pushed towards Aaron and Aaron was in turn pulling him in closer…. the Push Pull Effect.
Jon could have kept Aaron in his arms forever but Dr. Harris was not going to allow that. “What is going on here?”
“Stay away.” Jon began summoning his Talent. He would push his way past Dr. Harris and Dr. Mays if need be. Once in the car the two could then drive off and search for a place where they would be safe.
Dr. Harris had his own Talent however. As a kinetic he could move matter with the force of his mind and that is exactly what he did to the clinging pair. He lifted them off their feet and then pulled the two apart. Once separated, he used that same forced to throw Jon out of the room. “What did I tell you?”
Jon could have fought through the teacher’s kinetic Talent but it would only guarantee him never seeing Aaron again. “I’ll be at Lakes if you need me.”
“I don’t think that will prove necessary.”
***
On reaching the hospital where the boys were being kept Talia used her strong mental Talent to extract the room numbers of the four boys from the staff at the front desk. She also stole the names of the nurses who worked in the ICU.
Once she had all the information she wanted she snuck into a changing room and put on her disguise. When she left she was wearing a flawless brown wig tied with a crown of Swiss braids. All her makeup had been removed as well as her heels. She now wore a business suit and a doctor’s coat. Attached to the top pocket was a visiting physician ID. The name, Ivana was fake but the ID itself was real. The Council had agents everywhere and had no problem obtaining authentic identification documents to any organization in the Untalented world. Talia could have even come to the hospital as an FBI agent and no one at the hospital would have grounds to be suspicious. If any of them called the local branch office and asked to confirm she was an agent none of the FBI agents would saw she wasn’t. Such was the reach and power of the Elected.
On reaching the ICU she presented her badge and papers. The station nurse gave them a cursory look and handed them back. “Well I can’t say I’m all that happy to have these four bastards taking up space but what are you going to do. Supposedly the powers that be want what happened to be kept hush from the media.”
“Given the circumstances that’s more than understandable. Do you have their charts?”
The nurse handed Talia and iPad. Tapped into the system’s mainframe Talia could access any chart of those being hospitalized.
Reading as she was led to the first patient she was proud she managed not to laugh in front of the charge nurse. The first boy was the one she herself had left with the mind of a worm. If she was to question the brat, that would have to change. But as destroying will always be a lot easier than creating she wouldn’t be able to return the boy back to his old self.
After dismissing the nurse Talia pulled up a chair by the bed. This was going to take a bit of concentration. When she had gathered herself she placed a gentle hand on the young man’s forehead and sent her power into him.
Repairing individual neurons and synapses did not require possessing massive amounts of mental Talent. A low mental Talent like Jon wouldn’t have been able to turn Aaron’s rapist into a perverted masochist if it took much power. In fact, by its nature powerful mental Talents like Talia found causing specific changes in a person’s personalities harder. Instead of power it took still and a light touch to do what Jon did to Mick. As for turning this Ted boy into a vegetable that was a feat beyond Jon’s ability. Only someone with massive amounts of mental Talent could so brutally destroy another person’s mind.
To repair Ted’s mind would require a great deal of time and patience.
It was an investment Talia was unwilling to make. She repaired only what she had to in order to restore a basic level of human awareness. “Can you hear me Ted?” She asked when she was done.
“Uh… Uh…”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Here’s a harder question. Do you know where you are and how you got here?”
“Uh… hos-pi-tal.”
“That’s right. Do you how you got here? Why you deserve to be here?”
“A—aron.”
“That’s right, Aaron. You weren’t very nice to him were you Ted.”
“I… I…”
“Just a nod of the head will do.”
Ted nodded his head.
Now that she was sure he had some memory of what happened to him. She began hitting him with an endless row of questions. Talia only half listened to his stuttered with infantile precision to her questions she found the answers she sought within the man’s mind. While much of his brain remained heavily damaged by getting him to focus on his answer she learned what she needed to know from his mind. What she found was horrific as it was astonishing.
What happened at the football game was not the first time Mick and his goons had gone after Aaron. Dating back three years Aaron had been made to endure their physical and sexual abuse.
Aaron might be nothing but a low Talent Blip but he was one of her kind. The Elected looked out for their own. If it wasn’t for the other thing she found she would have trapped his conscious mind in an empty void berthed of any outside stimuli… a mental state of solitary confinement.
The mitigating circumstance was the signs of mental alteration. Someone with Talent had caused changing inside Ted’s mind to turn him into the sort of sadistic bastard who would rape an emotionally handicapped student. She wouldn’t be surprised if the same was true for the other three boys.
Whoever had perverted the boy’s minds had been clumsy. The changes in neurological structure and chemistry were as if they had been done by someone following Cliff Notes. It had gotten the job done but was so obvious as to stick out like a sore thumb.
Removing the changes was not all that difficult but she wasn’t done with him yet. Never one to miss the chance to make a profit she twisted and altered his mind and thereby his future. One way or another the kid would end up on the streets where the Graft would find him.
The Graft was the madams of all madams in the world of the Elected. The kid was pretty enough and came from upper class stock. The Graft would make him one of his boys and Talia would be paid a finder’s fee. If she did the same for all four boys she would have enough money to buy her way into one of the Area’s gambling pools. That’s where the real money could be had.
After dealing with Ted and the two comatose boys she went to Mick’s room. As he was the ring leader she had wanted to save him for last. Out of the four of them Mick was the only one not to be mentally damaged. Jon might have lacked the mental Talent to cause that level of destruction but he could cause minor changes in the Mick’s personality that would seem worse.
When she reached his room she found the nurses had put him in restraints. According to his chart the young man would put anything he could get his hands on into his anus. After what he had done to Aaron it seemed a fitting form of justice but the Council would not let it stand. She removed the worse of what Jon had done. He would continue to huger for something to shoved in there but it wouldn’t stray too far dildos and dicks. He too would end up one of the Graft’s boys.
After recording what evidence she found in Elected technology data crystals. She left the hospital with the boys in better shape than when she arrived. She could have done more, yes, but she could have also done a lot worse. But wasn’t that the role of a good physician? To do no harm and see to the wellbeing of their patients? She would have to think on that one. She did, after all, had a reputation to maintain.
***
If Jon found his separation for Aaron difficult, Aaron found being forced back to school terrifying. It took the joint empathic Talents of Dr. Harris and Andrew to keep him calm. Once in the classroom they put him in a soundproof unit they had borrowed from the music department. Once he was locked inside Dr. Harris and Andrew debated what to do next.
“I want to tell him.” Andrew said. “He needs to know he’s not alone.”
“Tell him that the Coven kidnapped you as well? Do you think you can compare your experience to his? You were a lot older and spent a far less time with them. He witnessed Cake Day when he was… six-seven. That is a horror none should endure yet one day you will convert while there is still a chance he will not. Aaron might show outward signs… his sensitivity to light and his hair but those are only superficial compared to what is going on inside you. He is not like you. He’s something else.”
“Nothing the Council should fear.”
“As far as we are aware the Council sees Aaron as a Blip.”
“But he’s far more than that.”
“That has yet to be seen.”
“But my sister… even her mental Talents were unable to see into his mind. That has to count for something.”
“He does seem to have some ability but it’ll take more than then the ability to block other Talents to impress the headmaster.”
“But you’re not giving him a fair chance. How can he prove he’s not a Blip if we don’t even try to train him?”
“Do you wish to train him?”
“I think I’ve earned the right.”
“Funny the Omicron lad feels the same. I will pass along your request to the headmaster but the decision is his.”
“Let me talk to my brother. I’ll convince him.”
“If you wish to present your request to him personally that is your right. It is not my place to interfere with the inner workings of your family.”
“Just remember that when I meet with him.
***
Headmaster Gregory Balthazar listened as his chief aide went over last night’s events with a displeased snarl. When he had heard enough he had him shut up. “Is that all Ryan?”
“There is the matter of who was behind the attack.”
“Is there any proof there is more involved then that the boy was only in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“There is.” Ryan Harper reached into his suit pocket and took out what looked like 24-sided dice made of crystal. He rolled one of them on the school master’s desk. Halfway across the table the crystal bounced into the air and hovered there. It was now aglow, the 24 sides projecting a spherical holographic image of neural pathways. “This is the preliminary report sent in by your sister. What you are looking at now is a brain print of Aaron’s primary attacker. If you look here…” Ryan pointed to a point in the image which caused it to zoom in. “If you look here you will see clear signs that…”
“That some klutz has been fooling around inside in this kid’s head. Has forensics deciphered the resulting changes the alteration caused?”
“It will take some more time to analyze but so far it seems linked to sexual aggressiveness and sadism.” Rolling the second dice a series of memories played like the images of a 3-D movie. “These were collected from the deep memory probe your sister performed. As you can see…”
“I can see well enough.” The images showed different times Mick and his gang had gone out of their way to assault Mays. After it played for the third time Dr. Balthazar took the memory crystal and crushed it in his hand. “I don’t want my brother to find out about this. It would lead to vendetta. If Aaron is a Talent he would have every right to declare one. We take care of our own.”
“I would be more worried about the Omicron boy finding out. His family is well known for their temper. The boy has made it clear that Talent or no Talent he has staked a claim on the Aaron.”
“You worry too much my friend.” Greg Balthazar playfully patted his secret lover’s face with the palm of his right hand.
“You do know what would happen if our relationship became public knowledge.”
“What? That my boyfriend is Untalented? So long as I don’t marry my father won’t care.”
“The same could be said of Jon Omicron or your brother.”
“If Aaron is to go to be with anyone it will be my brother. For the present that doesn’t matter now does it? It seems someone with Talent has it in for the boy. That alone would get the perpetrator imprisoned for a good twenty years at the Reformatory. Has forensics been able to identify the manipulator’s mind signature?”
“Not as of yet, which troubles me. Give the kid’s past run ins with the Coven one of them might be behind these attacks.”
“It is possible but if so they’ve gotten sloppy. These alterations…” He pointed to a section of brainwave activity. “These alterations are the work of an amateur.”
“That would suggest the attack was personal.” Ryan rubbed his chin while thinking on the issue. “Can we agree the manipulation was done by a member of the Coven?”
“That depends… If the Coven wanted Aaron back they would have come for him before we took an interest him but I understand your reasoning. Only a member of the Coven would stoop so low.”
“Their brainwave signature would also not be recorded in the Council archives. The attacks were personal in nature and have only been occurring since he entered the sixth grade. Something must have triggered these attacks… something over the last three to four years.”
“Are you asking for my permission to investigate the matter yourself?”
“Have I ever failed to deliver the goods?”
“Well there was that time when you shot your load before…” Before Greg could say more Ryan wrapped his arms around his lover’s waist and backed him onto the desk. He could tell both of them were hard. Lowering Greg onto his back he pulled his knees apart leaving him enough space to stand between them. He undid his belt and let his pants fall to the floor and did the same for his lover. As he expected he wasn’t wearing any underwear. He sucked his master’s cock and fucked him up the ass. He then let Greg Balthazar do the same to him. All the while Greg used his Talent to play with the sexual pleasure point of their minds.
While the intermingling between those without the Talent was seen as taboo, so long as neither were married Elected would turn a blind eye to their romance. That was one of the reason’s Ryan had taken an interest in Aaron. Like him, Aaron was considered an outsider yet also like him, found himself drawing the romantic eye of a son of Lord Balthazar. If Ryan could see Aaron accepted as one of the Elected then at least he might be able to live out their romance openly. Ryan on the other hand knew that his with Greg would end when Greg told his future wife… I do.
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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