The Institute Stories Set 03

"Empathics can't shield," she said.

"David can show you something almost as good," I said. "For now, it will be easier if you spend time around me. You cannot project what I feel so it will reduce the feedback."

"There is one thing coming from you that I do recognize," she said putting her hand on top of mine. It was a mystery; I had never felt sexual desire as hunger before.

"Are you doing this?" I asked seriously. She shook her head and looked around the room for someone who might be. It was impossible, but I jacked into everyone within Emphatic range to discover the hunger came wholly from within me.

"Interesting," I said.

"Do you want to do something about it?" she asked. "I am of age, and it is time for me have a child. A Positive would be the preferred father and you, the best."

The Director was going to like Amada.

"I am biologically incapable of having children," I told her.

"Then you can help me celebrate life," she replied.

"Positives and Positives don't do well together," I said.

"I'm a woman first, a Santera second, and somewhere far behind those, whatever the Institute calls me," she said smiling. "I'm sure I won't be the last woman to jump into bed with the wrong man."

"How much death have you seen?" I asked.

"I didn't want to get on the plane, Jason," she said meeting my eyes like no one ever had. "My father killed my mother and himself in front of me, to take away any reason I had to stay."

"That has to be the worst intro to foreplay I've ever had to overcome," I told her.

"The only things left for me are the children I will have, the pain I can heal, the hope that someday I will be unnecessary, and a few precious seconds I can steal for myself in someone's arms."

I jacked into her and took away the moments after she had put her hand on mine. They would come back to her after we were done, but I could give her more of the seconds she craved with just the offer of pleasure lying between us.

"Do you want to do something about it?" she asked. I sent a wave of affirmation through my link. Her eyes lost focus, and she took a deep breath before looking around.

"This way," I said standing up still holding her hand.

Amada deciding she did not want to wait to get to my room before she started stripping had less to do with the looks we got than was healthy for the human race. Positive/Positive relationships happened, but most were kept secret or public enough to maintain a lack of seriousness, like Elijah's wagers.

I keyed Amada's desire to grow by leaps and bounds with each step that brought us closer to my bed. There was something inside of me growing on its own, and I wanted her on the same mountaintop when it exploded out of me.

I slammed my door open and pulled Amada in front of me. Her nails dug into my shoulders as my lips crashed into hers. There was no time for anything other than feeding each other's hunger.

Amada's lust was mad: my jack pushed her, but she also received what was burning everything out of me.

I picked her up and threw her on the bed. Her back arched as the trigger I set went off. I was naked before her pleasure completed its cycle. She looked up at me as I grabbed her legs and pulled her to the edge of the bed. Amada's eyes seemed to glow as I fucked into her with no control. Her nails cut into me as what she received a direct skin-to-skin connection to what I felt.

"DIOS!" she screamed. It would have been blasphemy for me to scream that in his house so I made do with biting my lip until I could taste blood.

"No!" she whispered as the pain gave me a semblance of control. She locked her ankles behind me and tightened her thighs around me to push against our joining.

It was in her mind; nothing would please Amada more than to have those few precious seconds be ones even I could not control. There was no reason to hold back. I grabbed her hips in holds tight enough to bruise. I pried us far enough apart to thrust into her hard. The stroke made her release the pressure she held me with so I could give her another.

I did it for myself; I took what I wanted from her body, whatever it was that seemed to feed me. She screamed as one last thrust let me discharge what was inside of me into her.

"I see why Positive on Positive relationships are frowned upon," she said minutes later, as we lay beside each other staring at the ceiling. "You'd fuck each other to death."

I would have to ask the Director what was wrong with me, but first I wanted to string together enough seconds for Amada to last a lifetime.

-----

"Sir," Elijah said, opening my door. I had been awakened seconds before by Amada's writhing.

"Robert's been killed," he continued before I jacked into Amada.

"Where's Sheila?" I asked reaching for my robe. Robert's death explained Amada's restless sleep.

"What's wrong, sir?" Elijah asked.

"Where is Sheila?"

"She is in conference with the Director; they're waiting for you," he said.

"Sit," I said pointing to my bed. He had learned to follow my orders without question and immediately climb onto the bed. "Tell every Telepathic in the Institute to put up the strongest shields they can and stay behind them until I give word."

"Yes, sir," he said closing his eyes.

I ran towards the Director's conference room. Sheila was staring at the table as an Institute tech set up for the download of Robert's earcell.

"Jason?" the Director said without taking his eyes off Sheila.

"What's wrong with her?" Stephanie asked getting up from her chair.

"They were a couple," I said walking towards Sheila, "from the moment they met."

"She'll kill every Empathic in range," the Director said, "and they'll kill everyone in theirs."

I put my hands on Sheila's shoulders and jacked into her--nothing, and Sheila diving deeper into it. I set my feet and jacked into Amada. Sheila's loss was dragging the Healer into an EM-Loop. I followed the echo of Amada's emotional projections to every Empathic in the Institute and for the miles their ranges overlapped.

I had no choice; Sheila had dragged them down too far. I jacked deeper into each Empathic and focused their talent on me. They could not feel what I felt; I spoke a different emotional language. It made me a filter through which Sheila's emotions became bearable. With the Institute protected, I turned on Sheila.

"I will not allow this, Sheila," I said.

I LOVED HIM

"I will not allow this."

WHY?!?

"Because Robert wouldn't have wanted this, Sheila."

LIAR! YOU'RE THE DIRECTOR'S DOG!

"Of course," I replied, infusing each word with scorn. "Always first is the Institute."

A woman in love and lost turned on me as if I were the one who had taken her love away.

"I will hate you for the rest of my life," Sheila said hours later as she got out of her chair.

"I'm sure it will be longer than that," I replied. Amada walked in after Sheila left and stared at Director and me.

"Is that why you don't allow Positives to have relationships with other Positives?" she asked.

"It's a policy, whose time has come to reconsider," I said.

"Yes," the Director said sitting back in his gravchair.

"They're still human, sir," I told him.

"If you hadn't been here..."

"I was," I said. "Amada can you talk to Sheila; I did not handle her gently, and she needs someone who can."

"I would say rather, she did not handle you gently," she said to no one in particular.

"How old is that girl?" the Director asked when she walked out of the room.

"Old enough, sir," I replied.

"This is impossible," the tech said looking at his gear in shock.

"I wonder why so many people say something is impossible at the exact moment it is proven not to be," the Director said impatiently. If the tech had straightened any faster, he would have needed a gravchair of his own.

"Sir, the earcell's transmission was blocked," the tech said. "We have nothing after Operative Robert entered the institution's grounds."

"Institution?" I asked.

"Someone stuck an Empathic in a mental institute; Robert went to take him off their hands before any damage was done," the Director informed me.

"We're supposed to believe an insane Empathic could kill an Operative?" the tech asked.

"Actually, we're NOT supposed to believe that," the Director replied staring at me. "Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to meet you, son."

"Load Robert's case file to my gravcar, tech," I said walking out.

-----

"If you were going to be this clumsy, a written invitation would have saved time," I said walking up to the mental institution's doors. The grounds were abandoned, as was the approach to the building; no one sat at the reception desk either.

Every door except the one at the end of hallway was closed. The open door led to the dining hall with a table set for one in the middle.

"Turn towards me, animal," someone said from behind me. I turned around to watch three groups of four people walk around the dining hall; one group took position behind me, and the other two to my left and right. At the door, another group of four stood in front of a man wearing a uniform.

"It didn't take sixteen to kill Robert, did it?" I asked.

"The mind reading animals were enough to kill your owner's dog," the uniform said. I sat on the floor in a half-lotus position and studied the people surrounding me. The scars on some of their faces told the story.

"You chose slavery," I said to the uniform.

"There are no other choices for humanity!" he spat.

"Let me guess," I said. "Holding the tiger's tail with one hand and using the whip with the other hasn't worked out, especially with Telepathics."

The Positives growled at my tone of voice and some took a step towards me. The aggressive position revealed collars around their necks.

"Your Director lies," the uniform told me. "Only by enslaving these animals and their power can we survive."

"How many did the Telepathics who broke free kill?" I asked curiously. The uniform stared at me with fury pouring out of him.

"To really hurt you, other Positives would have been their first targets," I said.

"The renegades destroyed entire stables," the uniform admitted. "We need new slaves, and the Institute is greatest deposit of animals in the world."

"To take over the Institute, you need either the Director dead or in your control," I said nodding. "But it's not something I'm likely to allow."

"You're a smart animal," the uniform said laughing. "It's too bad we cannot spare your life to train you to a beast's proper place."

"These are your best," I said looking around the room.

"Enough to kill even you," the uniform said. "Though I'm told you are not the most powerful Positive, just the most loyal of your master's dogs."

"Sixteen Positives," I sighed. "I was so close to breaking even. You're going to put me eight million behind in one shot."

The Empathics were the first to look nervous; those had always known within seconds that I was different. I nodded towards them so the uniform would notice their discomfiture.

"Animals!" he yelled, focusing their attention back on me. His eyes turned to me again. "You can't believe you can control this many!"

"I have to give you credit for the willful ignorance necessary to try this stupid a plan," I said. "A bullet would have served better, but I guess I shouldn't expect much from someone who tried to enslave a greater power than their own."

"What are you talking about?"

"A mouse trap to kill a Positive except..." I said and looked around the room again. "Ask them."

He stared angrily at a couple of them. They tried to reply but no words came out of their mouth; their masters had cut out their tongues.

"You don't let the Telepathics enter your mind even if it might save your life," I said. "In that case, I'll be the bearer of bad news. They're trying to tell you the Institute's classification of me as a Positive is inaccurate."

The uniform was smart enough to take a step back. I drew my gun from the holster.

"Kill him!" the uniform yelled and they tried. The Empathics rolled waves of despair at me; the Telepathics used their Scream; the Pheromones dug into me with power; the Symbolics grasped my symbols to twist them.

I put a bullet into the uniform's leg to keep him in the room and put the gun on the floor.

None of the Empathics were the equal of an untrained Healer like Amada. The Symbolics total power did not add up to Simon's. The others were weaker than the Institute's average Positive of their type.

I jacked into the sixteen and studied their lives. No one deserved what they had been put through; I pulled the jacks and their lives out of them.

The uniform screamed in fear as his slaves collapsed around the room. I picked up the gun and walked to him. A bullet in his arm became necessary when he reached for a weapon. I jacked into him to mitigate the pain; he could serve the Institute by staying alive a little longer.

"What are you?" he asked with the false courage I lent him.

"A thing. A creation," I answered. "But that's not really what you're asking. I think the best classification for me would be Positive-Killer. The Director probably thought it too dramatic."

I knelt down next to him and waited for the question I made inevitable.

"What do you mean creation?" he asked; his words were my words.

"The Director made me, though I prefer created," I replied.

"Clone?"

"No," I said. "I do look like him, but even your God created you in his image so the conceit is forgivable."

"I don't understand."

"Centrally, I am derived from the Director's genome," I told him. "He augmented the blueprint with others: Michael, Miguel, Santos, and David. At least, two of those should be familiar to you. The important thing is they were each of a different type of Positive power."

"We tried to combine the animal powers," he said surprising me. "We failed."

"Excuse me for a second," I said and flipped through his mind to find out what he was talking about.

"You misunderstand," I said after some thought. "The Director was not trying to combine the Powers to create a fifth. He sought to create a limit on the ones that already existed."

"Why?"

"How successful were you in controlling your slaves?" I asked. "You must have power greater than the one you are trying to control to succeed. I am a gift of power to humanity."

"But we cannot control you?" It took only a little push to get those words out of him; the failure of his nation had stripped him down to almost nothing.

"The Director constructed a single cell embryo," I said standing up and pointing the gun at his head. "There was no ova or sperm involved in my conception. No cell cloned. No woman's womb to carry me. Can you imagine the breadth of problems he had to surmount to hear my first cry?"

I tilted my head and smiled down at him.

"God walks up to the bar, sits beside you, says 'I am the Lord God, thy Creator!', and asks a favor," I said. "What would you do for him?"

I put a bullet in his head when he did not reply.

"What wouldn't I do?" I asked the corpse.

With Operative case files open to the public, I had given the Director's enemies the excuse they needed to wage an open war against the Institute.

Against me.

THE END of The Third Motherless Child Institute Story

To be Continued in the Final Set of Institute Stories