A Long Time from Home Ch. 31

"What do you mean?" I said neutrally.

Zena rolled her eyes. "< The Mentat from the Square tried to break through their Mind Shields, but couldn't, despite them being drugged. Only Mentats would have Shields that strong >"

I shook my head. "That's not entirely true. It is possible for a non-Mentat to have an incredible strong natural shield, even when drugged.... But otherwise, you're right and they were hunting the Mentat from the Square." I smiled at them. "Now please open the chains."

While the Twins attempted to find the right key, I checked on Sheena and the other agent, trying to determine if Parker had succeeded in whatever he was trying to do, when I interrupted him.

To my relief their mind shields were intact, just as the Twins had said, and their thought patterns weren't tampered with.

Their physical state was the same as Alice, Rita, and Karen, but without the Salamander Power, they would be out for at least a day more, if not two.

Something in their energy lines caught my attention and after a quick examination, I realized Parker had given the women's sex drive a small boost. It was purely biological and undoing it would take at least an hour, so I decided to just leave it. It wasn't anywhere near a level where they couldn't control it themselves, making it a minor inconvenience at worst and not something I wanted to spend energy on.

There wasn't space for more people in the other room, so after Cyra and Zena had unlocked the chains, I carried both agents into the office one by one and placed them on a sofa there.

"< Ehhh Ivan, you are aware that there're five women in a cage looking at us, right? >" asked Cyra uncomfortable as I placed Agent Honeycutt on the sofa and covered both agents with a blanket.

"< Yeah... and I will free them as soon as I'm sure Parker's pacified >" I replied as I lifted Parker up from the floor, placed him on the desk and sat down in the chair next to it. "< I need to concentrate on this, so please don't talk to me >"

"< Yes, sir >" answered Zena with amusement in her mental voice.

"One moment more." I said to the women in the cage and placed a hand on Parker's head, reached out with my mind, smashed right through his mental shields like a boulder through thin ice and immobilized him, before I started to absorb knowledge. Mind-images and information began to flow into me at a high speed.

To my surprise, I discovered Parker and Curtis were father and son. Curtis was the result of a drunken one-night stand, Parker had had with yet another Psychic in his youth, though Parker haven't known about that until Curtis was about twenty.

The discovery that he had a son, and that Curtis was a Psychic, had changed Parker's life.

Until that point in time, Parker had been all about amassing wealth and real estate, but after discovering that the children of two psychics might become psychics themselves, Parker's goal in life had become to establish a dynasty of psychics that would eventually rule the world.

With a sigh, I quickly examined the plan, which Parker had divided into five stages.

The first stage had been amassing wealth, but Parker was, according to himself, already one of the riches persons in the world, so that stage was finished.

Now, they had moved on to the second stage, which was finding women with Psychic abilities to have children with.

Third stage was training the Psychic children and mind controlling as many influential people as possible.

Fourth stage was inserting the adult and loyal Psychics into the governments of the most powerful nations in the world.

The final stage was several options, but mostly it was to give Parker the total dominance of the world, with Curtis as his 'crown prince'.

Given the extensive nature of the plan, I took a closer look at Parkers mental powers or rather his own perception of those powers. The mind control ability and telekinesis were no surprise, but that he had the gift of Precognition was.

As the ability to foretell the future, Precognition was a gift so rare that I only knew of one Baylon and one human, that had it, and that was the king who had made the decision to move Baylon from its home dimension to this one to save it from destruction. The human with the same ability was Alexander the Great, who had used it to carve out an Empire that had rivalled the later Roman Empire in size.

Like both of them, Parker had no control over the visions he had been getting, but they were focused on Parkers interests, which was real estate, something called the stock market and smuggling. It was because of those visions, that Parker had been able to be as successful as he was.

Unfortunately for Parker, his visions never included people, causing him to bring Curtis in on the plan and together, they started looking for women with mental powers to have kids with. To my surprise, they had found two such women and the Twins would have made a nice addition to their 'collection'. The search also revealed that at least some of the kids I had seen in Curtis' photo album was still alive, though Parker didn't know exactly where they were, as that had been Curtis' 'project'.

After the botched kidnapping, Parker had discovered that the two Interpol agents were Mentat and decided to use them as well, despite the danger of kidnapping police officers.

That startled me a bit. As far as I had understood from people of this age, Interpol was supported by a lot of countries and was not something to be taken lightly. Just to make sure, that Parker didn't know something about Interpol that I didn't, I delved into that subject.

It didn't take long before I discovered that Parker was well and truly insane.

After years of being a highly intelligent and powerful Mentat, capable of foreseeing some of the future, in a world of mostly non-Mentats, he now considered himself a god-like being, in the line of the old Greek demigods. Ironically, it was a fate he shared with Alexander the Great, who had been a genius with delusions of grandeur and dreams about conquering the world, who had been driven insane by his visions.

Normal people were no longer real to him, but pieces to be used or discarded at his convenience. He did have some respect for organizations but believed that he could outsmart most of them and mind-control the rest.

Having limited time, I changed the subject on my search and started looking through Parker's mind for information about the women in the cage.

I found the information quite easily and it related to information on his criminal activity.

My theory about them being smugglers turned out to be at least partially correct, as Parker and Curtis were heavily into both counterfeit medicine and slave trade, or human trafficking as it was called now, through an organization Parker had named Erebus.

Apparently, there was still a lot of slavery going on in the world. Some of was for sex and it was almost exclusively women and children, that was made slaves.

Using their ability to control people, Curtis and Parker had made this their specialty, as they smuggled many different goods, among them counterfeit medicine to Africa and art to Asia, accepting slaves as part of their payment.

Taking only the most beautiful young women, they had examined those women for psychic abilities and if the woman didn't have any, Parker and Curtis would use their mental abilities to turn the women into willing and loyal sex slaves, that were sold to rich people around the world.

Some of the women had been former soldiers and after mind controlling them, Parker had used them as his personal bodyguards or for sex if no other women were available when the need come over him.

The five women in the cage were an extension of that activity. Not satisfied with the looks of his current guards, Parker had wanted to create a whole squad of beautiful women that could function as both bodyguards and sex partners. To that end, he had asked his contacts for beautiful women, that were tall, beautiful, fit, buxom, combat trained and had special skills, offering a huge bonus for everyone chosen. The better the skills, the bigger the bonus.

Out of the hundreds he had been offered, he had picked the five women in the cage and had them brought to Malaga, where he and Curtis had started the mind control. Fortunately for both them and me, the work had been interrupted by the botched attempt to kidnap the twin and Curtis' death.

With a sign, I mentally dived into the information to figure out, why Parker had chosen those five, besides their natural good looks.

As it turned out, Riya was chosen for her medical skills, but was able to fly a helicopter as well. Delina was not only a communication officer, but also extremely good with electronics. Petra was a crack shot and a Military Police educated bodyguard, with good leadership skills. Like Delina, Ayanna was good with military electronics, but her real specialty was surveillance systems, while Esther not only had counter-terrorism training, but was also a sniper.

"Hey!" a female voice called, interrupting me. Turning my head, I saw the one named Petra looking at me. "Would you let us out of here?" There was a slight pause. "Please?"

With a sigh, I stood up and walked over to the cage. "Just to be perfectly clear: If you chose to come with me, I'll do my best to protect you, but you'll do as I say, and it will be for good. There will be no change of mind later. Got it?"

The responding "Yes sir!", was almost a chorus.

"You still want to come?"

"Yes, sir!" they repeated in unison.

"Good." I said with a nod as I activated a mind-trick and added. "I'm the Dream Master. "

They all looked at me with wide eyes, but then nodded slowly.

The last, and rather strange, sentence along with the mind-trick was something I had picked out of Parkers' mind. A trigger had been placed in the women's heads along with a loyalty codex, so that they wouldn't run away, if given the chance. As a loyalty codex takes time to develop, he had planned to keep them locked up until he was sure that the codex worked and then use the trigger to activate the loyalty codex. According to Parker, the Loyalty Codex wasn't quite done yet, but as I didn't have the time to wait, I would just have to take the chance.

Another reason for activating the loyalty codex was to save their lives. Parker had been a firm believer in not leaving any potential witnesses behind and if the loyalty codex weren't activated within a week of being completed, it would release all the energy in it at once, frying the brain of the victim.

Distasteful as it were, it left me with no choice. If I haven't activated the Loyalty Codex, there was a good chance that at least one of them would leave the warehouse, while I was busy with Parker.

Like Healing, mind reading at the level I planned to use, made you unaware of the surroundings and they could easily have sneaked out or even attacked me, spelling for them later. On the positive side, being forced to activate the Codex had provided me with someone to guard me, while I worked on Parker.

Another point to consider, was that the TV screens in the office showed the whole warehouse and was clearly visible from the cage. It wasn't fair to them, but it was highly likely that the five women had not only witnessed my fight with Parker, but also witnessed me taking out the guards, using powers not normal for this world. That meant, that I before I could allow them to go back to where they came from, I would have to remove Parker's loyalty codex. That would take a lot more time and energy than I had right now, so they would have to come with me and then I would have to see it I could undo Parker's work later. There had been plenty of room on Wave Dancer for five more guests and as Parker had planned on bringing everybody along, they were even expected by the crew.

"Any combat experiences?" I asked, since I had met all too many people who had spent time in an army without getting training or experience.

"Yes." Said Petra. "Kosovo and Angola. Both was supposed to be peacekeeping missions, but we did get into combat."

The dark-skinned Delina nodded. "Same for me, but in Côte d'Ivoire and Congo."

After a moment of hesitation, the Persian looking Esther followed, as she shortly said, "Counter- terrorism."

I looked over at the last two, but they both shook their head. "Sorry, no combat experience."

That caused me to smile. "Don't be sorry." I used Parker's key to open the door, before giving the bundle to Petra. "Unlock everybody."

The brunette looked at me with surprise written in her face, but then smiled as she said "Yes, sir." and went to work, while I used the wait to relax a little.

"What's the plan?" asked Petra as soon as she was finished, bringing my attention back to her. She really was remarkably beautiful. "How're we going to get out of here, where are we and..." She nodded in the direction of the Agents and the Twins. "...who are they?"

I chuckled at the amount of questions. "First of all, we're in Malaga, Spain and we're leaving by boat."

She grimaced. "Hopefully better than the piece of shit cargo ship, that brought us here."

"Almost certainly." I said as I removed the scarf from my face. They would see my face at some point anyway and I felt ridiculous wearing it.

"Thank you." Said Petra and raised her eyebrows in surprise when she saw my uncovered face. To my surprise, there was a slight spike of lust from her, as she said. "Wow... you're younger than I thought."

I sent her a grin. "Thanks, I think."

She smiled back. "You're welcome. What's your name, by the way?"

"Ivan."

The brunette tilted her head. "Russian?"

"Not even close." I smiled. "To answer your questions from before, the two unconscious women and Cyra and Zena are all victims just as yourself... there're three more victims in the room next door, but they are drugged and out cold."

For a moment, she hesitated, but then finally asked. "Ivan, what the hell have we become involved in? The scumbag over there had mental powers belonging in a movie and we saw you taking out both the guards and him, using the same kind of powers. What's going on?"

By now, all five women were looking at me and there was telling silence in the room.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the Twins exchange knowing grins.

"He and I are both Mentats." I explained. "As in we have some mental powers and unfortunately, controlling people was one of his specialties." I nodded towards Parker. "That scumbag runs a human trafficking operation and tried to kidnap somebody I know, so I stopped him and his partner. Then he kidnapped the people I've mentioned, and I went after him. Basically, he's a bad guy and I'm a good guy." I shrugged "We don't have time for a longer explanation right now. I'm not done with the scumbag yet and that'll take time."

"What do you need to do?"

I fixed my eyes on her. "To destroy any memory of you as well as his ability to use his mental powers. I want to make sure neither he nor the police come for you. That's going to take a lot of concentration, so while I do that, you're going to be in charge and make sure nothing disturbs me."

"Killing him would be easier." The dark skinned Delina remarked, giving me the feeling that Parker would be dead, if she got her way.

"Yes, but the police need someone alive to blame for all this." I explained.

Petra nodded and to my astonishment, the simple statement along with the explanation and delegation of responsibilities seemed to make the women relax.

A piece of information from Parker entered my mind and I walked over to a closet, opened it, and took out a suitcase. "There're some fresh clothes for all of you in here. You can change while I work on the scumbag here but stay in the warehouse."

They all nodded.

That settled, I turned my attention back to Parker, placed my hands on his head again and activated an even stronger Ars Mentalis trick to read his mind in detail.

Parker had set up the way the criminal organization Erebus ran, and I shook my head in wonder as I studied it. I've seen spy organizations set up with less security and it was clear that Parker was a masterful organizer.

As far as people knew, Erebus was controlled by someone named along The Dream Lord with his two trusted business partners, who went under the names The Nightmare and The Dream Maker.

Parker had used an idea from a film called 'The usual suspects', where an unknown criminal mastermind runs a criminal organization. However, Parker had added two imaginary business partners with the only purpose of being able to assume the identity of one of them if the needed, while keeping the appearance of The Dream Lord hidden.

Directly under the top three, was an assembly of people who took care of running Erebus, using the directions given to them by the three leaders. All communication was done in code using electronics. All members of the Assembly, as well as the few people that needed to know the real identity of Parker and Curtis, had been mind-controlled for complete loyalty.

Leaving the trafficking of adult people to Parker, Curtis had dealt with child trafficking.

Parker had found the whole thing disgusting and only tolerated it because he needed Curtis help with his plan to establish a dynasty of Mentats and because it brought in more females that could be tested for psychic powers.

With a sigh, I started to examine that part of the operation in detail. It was just as revolting as I had thought it would be and I sighed with relief when I was finished and went back to absorb information about the other parts of Erebus.

When I was finished learning everything I could, I had a splitting headache, but on the bright side I had memorized just about everything about their operations, complete with names, code words, passwords, bank account numbers and everything else.

Then I started on the legal part. Invented a long time before Curtis even entered the picture, the legal businesses were controlled entirely by Parker and had been started when Parker had used his mind-controlling ability and a lot of money to take over a privately-owned company, by forcing the owner to sell it to him. In the following years, the company was reconstructed, creating a 'mother company' named Starlight Merchant Group that controlled a lot of other companies under it.

The setup was almost the same as Erebus, except with a little less secrecy. The main difference was that Parker had people to run the business on a daily basic and only became involved in the big decisions as something called a Chairman, meaning that only a select few actually knew that Parker owned the company. True to form, the few in the know were mind-controlled to loyalty and secrecy.

One of the companies under Starlight Merchant Group was called Dream Escapes and caught my attention because it owned a dozen sailing yachts and earned money by renting them out. Among the clients was Erebus and Parker had used that as a way of transferring money from his illegal activities into his legal ones, without anybody noticing. They did that by smuggling rich people from India, Africa, and Asia to new and better counties, but instead of using ordinary ships, as they did with the counterfeit drugs and ordinary sex-slaves, they used chartered luxury sailing yachts for this purpose.

As sailing ships, the fuel-cost was minimal and as luxury yachts, they were rarely searched and could dock at one of the many houses they rented from yet another company, called Dream Holidays.

That wasn't the reason why I noticed it. It was because it was by using one of Dream Escapes yachts, that Parker had planned to leave Malaga and he had been waiting for a yacht named Dream Weaver to arrive, so he could use it to leave Spain.