This story contains some erotic and violent situations. The violence, and sexual material, for that matter, are not gratuitous. They are part of the story. If this is illegal where you reside, or you are not of legal age, read no further! Otherwise, enjoy. All work remains the property of the owner, and is printed on this web site, and its authorized mirrors / affiliates by permission of the author. Any other printing, distribution, etc. is prohibited.
I'd like to thank Ed once more for his work in proofing this.
Wreckers Interlude #2 -
For a moment, weird disorientation hit him hard, and he stumbled. Cold stone met his outstretched hands and knees as he hit the ground. The disorientation passed, and Andrei remembered who and where he was. Standing back up, and sitting back down in the chair he had made from the stone dais, he looked at the form of J'Stan sitting across from him.
Tears stained those beautiful cheeks, and his arms clenched the arms of his own stone chair. Using the new abilities within himself, Andrei sensed both a great joy, and even greater sadness flowing from the man who had once been Justin Ackeman. This piqued his curiousity, but he thought he knew the man well enough now to not ask too directly.
"Why'd you stop now?" Andrei said. "It was just getting exciting!"
A laugh broke through J'Stan's tears and he said, "What, you just want to skip to the sex?"
"With those two, who wouldn't?"
A deep sigh sounded very loud in the room, and a soft smile lit J'Stan's face. "Could you imagine what it was like, for the three of us? We were linked so deeply together that when we made love, we felt everything each of us felt. All three of us. Those four years were probably the best four of my life, and since I'm now somewhere over 10,000, that's saying a lot."
"Four years? Is that all?" Andrei asked, somewhat surprised.
"Yes, four years. There was a lot going on. For the first year, none of us were allowed outside the base. We taught new students, and did such a good job at it that within a few months, we were the only instructers left on the base. Everyone else was deployed. There were a few graduates there on R&R until they were re-deployed, but the three of us gave most of the classes."
Andrei didn't understand why they were talking about it, since previously J'Stan had just shown things to him, like Andrei had been Justin himself. "I take it that whatever happened during those interrogations, they didn't find out anything you didn't want them to know."
J'Stan just looked at him for a moment, before responding, "If I had realized just how much showing this to you would bring back, I don't think I'd have started.
"No, the interrogators never got the full story from us. They thought that this melding enabled the twins to use my powers, and that Corcoran died without telling us the secrets he had learned. It wasn't easy, but over the next four years, we managed to confirm everything Corcoran said, and much more besides. The time when we would have held elections passed without a vote being made. Those in power stayed in power, claiming that the 'National Emergency' demanded continuity in leadership, and promising to restore normal elections when it was over."
"What did you do about it?" Andrei asked. He'd never heard of the United States before being thrown into this room, but from the memories he had been shown, he actually felt a sense of loss at what he'd been told.
"At first, nothing," J'Stan answered, getting up from the chair, and starting to pace around. Andrei admired his nude form, and realized the twins had been lucky when they'd caught this man.
"But we soon figured out how to hide ourselves, and our intentions. We sheltered our knowledge, our plans, and our thoughts related to the people who had stolen the government into that part of our minds that were shared. Only the three of us could reach it, could understand it. When someone read my mind, they read just my mind. When Curtis was drugged, they got answers only from Curtis, not the part of us that made us who we were.
"You see, after that joining out in the woods of West Virginia, we truly were 3 parts of one person. It was really weird at first. Have you ever seen a face that reminded you of a person, but it wasn't that person? Did you realize that they reminded you of someone you used to know? Or a sound remind you of something that happened when you were a kid? Or did you ever just sit and reminisce about a childhood friend that isn't around anymore?"
"Som..Sometimes I think about Creis and how much I miss him," Andrei stuttered, tears coming to his eyes now.
"Yes, he was your lover, right? They splattered him against that wall outside last year?"
Sobbing now, Andrei just closed his eyes against the tears and just shook his head. He was surprised to feel warm arms around him as he was pulled into J'Stan's embrace. "I may be bored, Andrei, but I haven't forgotten sympathy. I didn't mean to be so rude about your loss, but I think you get my point about memories."
When Andrei's sobbing had slowed down some, and the tears stopped flowing, J'Stan continued. "Now, imagine what it was like remembering those things from TWO other people's lives. Jason and Curtis were twins, but they still had individual lives. Growing up, in school they had different classes, some different friends. They had even dated different people for a while, until it caused some problems between them.
"When the Event happened, they didn't notice much different about themselves at first. Except that they were a lot closer, mentally. Before, they'd always had an awareness of each other, but in the first few months, they began to realize that they could hear each other's thought clearly now. They could see what each other saw, even if they were miles apart.
"They lived in a town called Kenosha, Wisconsin. Things didn't go too bad at first after the event, but like Phoenix, riots soon swept their town too. When the riots started, Curtis was out training with the local national guard. Like everyone their age, they had been drafted to help keep civil order. Jason was home with his parents, trying to help them with making candles, and other things they needed without electricity. A mob formed a few blocks away, and clashed with local police. Somehow things boiled over in front of their home, and the house caught on fire.
"Curtis, practicing with his unit, caught a mental image of what was happening from Jason, and convinced his squad leader to go to the area, even though no official reports had come in yet. They arrived in time to save Jason, but not in time to save their parents, who were burned to death."
"Wow," was all Andrei could say.
"Yeah, but the point of this is, that one day I was training some new students in elemental combat. Remember the training room? Well, one student managed to burn another, and when I rushed over to heal him, the smell reminded me of my parents' death. The grief came back and I found myself sobbing as I healed the student.
"Except it wasn't MY parents. It was their parents. Likewise, one day we got a student who had just turned 13. He looked a lot like Tyler would have, if he had lived. Jason was trying to teach him to shield his thoughts, and just started crying. The kid reminded him too much of his nephew, Tyler. Except Tyler was MY nephew."
"So, it was like you had the memories of each other, had lived their lives?" Andrei asked, understanding intuitively. After all, he was undergoing something similar, but much more limited, through the sharing of J'Stan's memories.
"Exactly," J'Stan murmured as he stood up from the embrace with Andrei, and returned to his chair.
"So, for four years you trained people, hiding your decision to rebel against the people in power?" Andrei asked, realizing the discussion was depressing J'Stan.
"Yes, we trained all the new people that we found, and we did more besides," J'stan answered, glad for the change in subject. "As the only three trainers, we were able to probe these students when we were training them. We learned them, and we learned which would blindly follow orders, or worse, would gladly follow orders. We found those who would question their orders, and doubt the validity of a government which ruled through fear and oppression.
"Those that we believed would join us willingly, we had a 'talk' with. If they consented, we drew them into our little consipiracy, and taught them the true nature of their powers. We also taught them how to hide their knowledge and abilities from the FBI agents who did periodic testing of us. Not one of those interrogation sessions revealed our consipiracy. I think that was the only thing that worked exactly as planned."
"What about the others?" Andrei asked. "What about those who were just following orders, or..or those that enjoyed the things they were told to do?"
"Those cruel bastards who enjoyed it, well, there weren't many of them, but there were some. Think about bullies, and that's what most of them were like. Many of them gladly took to tasks like hunting down people with 'disloyal' thoughts. Killing them. Some of them even took part in local purges. Oh yes, there were purges of people who weren't like the others in their communities. Gays, Muslims, Jews, blacks, hispanics. You name it, it happened. Many of them were stirred up on government orders by our agents.
"I managed to arrange a few accidents for most of them. There were training accidents that happened, and sometimes I just wasn't fast enough to heal them, or I was in another part of the base, and the healer assigned just wasn't strong enough to save him."
"That's, that's..." Andrei stuttered, looking for the right word.
"Barbaric? Yes. But they weren't innocent. They had committed crimes against humanity, and would have stood in our way when we made our move. Their deaths were necessary."
"So it took four years to get ready for overthrowing the government?"
"No, Andrei. Four years and we weren't even near ready. Overthrowing the government was only a part of it. You see, Andrei, when that government was gone, it would have to be replaced by something or millions were likely to die in the chaos that followed. The trick was to find something, or more exactly, some people to take their place. Whoever we set up would have have to be able to command the military command staff, and appear legitimate to the people. After four years, we were no closer to that answer than when we started."
"Oh," Andrei said, lost in thought for a few moments. The great room was silent as they sat starting at each other. "Couldn't you have taken charge?"
J'Stan laughed, filling the room with echoes of that laughter. "No. I didn't want the responsibility. Besides, what good does it do to replace tyranny with tyranny? I thought about it, and Jas and Curt suggested it, but I couldn't stand the idea of doing that."
"Instead, after four years we were no closer to finding a replacement government, and our restriction to the base limited us in our ability to make the contacts we needed. None of the people we recruited were old enough, or experienced enough to help us out either."
"What about Alan or Henry, or even David?"
"We probed them too, under the disguise of practice sessions. Of the three, Alan was the only one who might have been willing to help us out. Unfortunately, he was dedicated to the military command, and didn't have what it takes to rebel. We thought he might, even made openings to him, but he reacted so negatively we had to wipe his memory of it."
"Oh, so how did it change?"
"I got a mission." J'Stan said. "David and Alan were back at the base, and had assumed many of the instructor duties. Things back in Phoenix weren't going well. Civil unrest had picked up in the wake of some new laws that were forced onto the public. I was sent for two reasons. One, there had been an attack on the solar power facilities there, and our help was needed in rebuilding them. Two, they suspected those responsible for the attacks were receiving help from a rogue psionic."
"Rogue?" Andrei asked.
"Yeah, by that time, there were three confirmed desertions. Only one of them had been found, and executed. Two of them were people we had recruited, but had faced the choice of following orders they couldn't stand, or leaving. They'd all left, and with the knowledge from me of the true nature of our abilities, they evaded capture. Command didn't know that part of it, of course, but they felt that maybe since I had succeeded with Corcoran, I'd succeed again. Except this time they were sending me without the twins."
"You went alone?"
"No, they sent two people with me. One was a member of our select group. The other was one of the cruel types I had not yet managed to kill. Both of them were in California at the time, and were making their way to Phoenix over land. I teleported. We had shown members of our group how to do that, and to avoid suspicion, let command know something of that ability. It was agreed among us that I'd be the only who could teleport long distances, or groups of people, but that others would be able to teleport short distances. We never showed anyone to do this unless they were part of our little resistance group."
"Oh, so you went back to Phoenix?" Andrei asked, curiousity burning him up.
"Not before saying good bye to the other parts of myself. None of us suspected that the goodbye might be forever"
"Forever?" Andrei said out loud.
"Yes, forever," J'Stan said, tears showing again. "I guess you better live through this too, It's too much to say out loud."
Once again, the room spun around Andrei, and the feeling of disorientation spread throughout his body as he let J'Stan send him into the memories of the past.