The Pulse Pt. 01

This is a bit of a slow burner.

It is very much mind control but it could also be listed under romance so if you're looking for a story where someone abuses their power and their victims then this isn't the story for you. There is sex but not very much, so again, if you're after something quick and dirty this isn't going to float your boat.

This part is quite long at 12,000 words. As ever, I'm not sure yet how many other parts there will be. I'll see where the muse takes me. And I owe a small debt to Julian May and her books for some of the structure around the mental powers. Start with "The Many Coloured Land" - they're great books.

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Books spilled out of my bag onto the ground as I was knocked to the floor. Raucous laughter came from the in-crowd surrounding Chris Waite as they moved further down the corridor.

Jamie, my only friend, came running up from his class and tried to help me up but I was looking at my ruined bag. The buckle holding the strap to the bag had snapped and it was split at the bottom.

"Just another day in paradise," said Jamie. Wasn't it ever!

I hauled myself upright, with nothing worse to show for my tumble than the embarrassment of being picked on yet again. I often imagined that I was wearing a turd magnet on my head which was irresistible to any and all of the scumbags in the school.

"Thanks Jamie," I said, and we hurried our separate ways to get to class.

At eighteen I was a late developer. I had just had a growth spurt, was a shade over six feet tall and had just finished dealing with my voice changing from what had been a fairly decent boy soprano to, well, whatever register it chose when I opened my mouth. It had been humiliating in the extreme.

And my growth spurt meant that my clothes were constantly trying to keep pace with me and with it being the end of the year, my parents were trying to make this final school uniform last.

I made it into my English Literature class just in time. Mr Kelson was a senior teacher at the school but could bore anyone into submission. His classes were quiet which was a wonderful respite. At the end of term, as a special treat, Mr Kelson would occasionally read his favourite section from Lord of the Rings. This was better than working but only just.

"Doom, doom, went the drums!"

I let the familiar passage roll over me as I tried to figure out how to make it out of school in one piece. I'd obviously become the target of choice earlier today. Who knows why? Maybe I'd been allowed to be anonymous for too long? Time ticked by and suddenly everyone was moving as the lesson ended.

I tried my best to get out with the initial rush, hoping that I'd be lost in the swarm heading down the hall. My bag tucked under my arm I made it to my bike and was unlocking it when I was shoved from behind.

"Hey arsewipe!"

Fuck.

I looked up and saw it was Chris Waite. Two hundred and twenty pounds of rugby playing muscle.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

There is never a good answer to this sort of question. I knew that the oaf was just looking for the hint of a reason to pummel me. So I stayed quiet.

He moved closer. Thick curly hair, a serious monobrow and a surly sneer completed the picture. Shave an ape and you're probably pretty close with the rest of him.

"I...said...where...are...you...fucking...going?"

He punctuated each word with a prodded finger to my chest, forcing me backwards until I was against the wall.

My body flooded with adrenaline as the imminent beating approached.

And eerily time seemed to stand still. I felt a weird...pulse, I suppose you'd call it. A feeling of pressure almost like a heartbeat but behind both of my eyes at the same time.

"You know I can fix that for you?"

I hadn't even thought those words! Where the fuck had that come from?

"What are you fucking talking about?" shouted the ape, looking suspicious.

"Your technology project. I can fix it."

"How...?" Chris slowly lowered his fist and was looking perplexed. "You can fix...? I mean, what the fuck do you care about my project you shit?"

"I finished my assignment a bit early and you were sitting at the terminal in front of me. You seemed to have caused some kind of a loop. I can fix it."

By some miracle the fist lowered. I had no idea who, where, what or why that piece of information had suddenly been dredged from the recesses of my brain three days ago. But whatever it was, it was important to Chris.

"When?"

"Now, if the computer lab is still open."

I waited with bated breath. I saw Jamie skidding to a halt round the corner, taking in the scene.

"Yeah." It's almost like Chris was in some kind of daze. "Get that shit finished and you can go."

"OK then" I said, slowly pulling myself upright. I grabbed my bag and followed Chris back towards the computer lab. Jamie was staring at the two of us.

"What the fuck are you looking at you turd?" snarled Chris.

After a murmured, "nothing" Jamie turned tail and fled leaving me to whatever weirdness was happening here.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Forty-five minutes later I found Jamie waiting for me on our route home. We varied it most nights because it was the safest option to avoid the various predators.

"Harry Youle was bragging that Waite was going after you. I ran like hell and when I got there you're agreeing to help him with his technology project..? What's going on, Jake?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. Thank the gods for tech!"

We headed home and I told Jamie how I'd fixed his error in the code. I also told him how I saw the conditional offer letter for Exeter university that had come out of his bag. Tech was one of the subjects Waite would need to get in and if he hadn't got his project finished then he probably wouldn't have got the grades that he needed.

"Exeter have the most amazing rugby programme. But they have very high academic standards. I suppose that the ape needed this to be able to get in."

"Maybe he'll finally leave us alone now."

"Chance would be a fine thing. You could always fuck up his tech project for him so that he doesn't!"

I laughed.

"That's not the worst idea you've ever had. It's only fair to fuck up his life after what he's done to us the last few years here."

We parted ways at the bottom of the hill and I slogged my way up on my old bike. I say on my old bike. It was probably my grandad's old bike. No fifteen-gear racer for me. But it worked, albeit only in the highest of its three gears. The only way to make it work was get up to speed and pedal like crazy until you got to the top. It was better than walking but this hill killed me every night.

I arrived home and as usual my parents were busy sniping at each other. Quite why they were still married is unclear to me. I really hoped it wasn't for my sake. They were honestly great individually but together..? One of these days I'd find out what it was that had attracted them to each other. As of now it was tough to guess.

Later that night after explaining away the broken bag to my parents I lay in bed.

Why on earth had I said what I said? How had I known what to say? And at the precise moment that I needed it? Sleep took a long while to come.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

"You're going to be late"

"Huh? What?"

I'd slept in. We'd had a power cut in the night and my radio alarm was flashing away "12.00" on the display. I looked at my watch and made a dash for the bathroom. I hated rushing.

I grabbed a slice of toast on my way out of the door, jumped on my ancient bike and slowly got up to speed as I headed down the hill.

The morning run was always bad but this morning it was chaos. Imagine a long straight road about quarter of a mile long. On one side it's just woods but on the other some nice houses and sub-urban roads leading off. At the bottom of the hill is a small roundabout and just before the roundabout is a junior school. After the roundabout there are two other private junior schools and the large fifteen-hundred pupil school that I go to.

With all the parents dropping off their kids it was carnage. People parking up meant that there wasn't enough room for two cars to pass each other. Not a problem for me but the amount of road rage was unreal.

I sped down the hill with half an eye on my watch to see whether I'd make it into my form on time when a car decided it had had enough of waiting and it turned right directly in front of me.

I slammed on the brakes but the bike was old and I might as well have put my feet down to try and slow down. My heart rate went through the roof. And again, for the second time in two days, there it was. A pulse behind my eyes.

Everything went into slow motion.

As my front wheel was being destroyed against the rear wheel of the car, some outside force triggered muscles I didn't know I had. I powered off the pedals and leapt over the handlebars, rolled across the roof of the SUV and somersaulted to a stop about ten yards beyond the car.

I hadn't even dropped my bag. My bag taped up with duct-tape.

Looking back at the car I saw a mother getting out of the driver's seat with her hand over her mouth obviously fearing the worst. In the back was Jennifer Sawyer, the fever dream of my fantasies.

Let me pause briefly here to describe her because, believe me when I say she's worth taking time over. I had spent a lot of time fantasising about her over the last two years.

Jennifer was about five foot five with long wavy dark hair. She usually wore it swept over one side but recently with the warmer weather was wearing it up in a ponytail. She wasn't overtly sexual in what she wore but the bland black and yellow school uniform looked like she was modelling high fashion to me. How she did it I have no idea.

She's a gymnast and has that tight toned body with the perfect arse and perky tits that had that wonderful wobble. Probably a generous B cup. She was maybe 105 pounds and I had it bad.

And that morning she was actually looking at me - possibly for the first time.

"My God, are you alright?" asked her mother.

"Er...yeah...I'm OK I think."

Taking my obvious lack of injury into account her eyes turned shrewish and calculating.

"Well that's a relief...but look at the state of my car! I was making a perfectly legal turn and you slam into the side of me obviously going too fast. You even set off the air bag you hit the car so hard. This is going to cost a fortune. Who are your parents? I'm going to need to speak to them to get this sorted out."

As my anger rose I felt the pulse behind my eyes again and before I knew it words were pouring out of me.

"You can stop that right there. I'll just speak to the various other drivers and get their contact details for witness statements. I'm sure that they'll support me when I say that you pulled out with no signal, without checking your mirrors while I was passing quite legally down the side of the traffic. Didn't you have a big dent in your last car as well? I'm sure that we can check your insurance history and understand whether this is an isolated incident. I'll also be looking for you to make it up to me as my bike has had the frame bent and front wheel destroyed. What are your insurance details?"

Her mouth just opened and closed for a moment before a car coming in the opposite direction beeped at her to get her car out of the way. That broke the spell. She climbed back into her car and moved it to one side before calmly handing me her insurance details.

I did speak to the people behind me in the queue, getting a high five from one of the kids in the year below ("I can't believe you man. You were like Spiderman or some parkour dude!") and then abandoned my wrecked bike in the woods before heading in to school.

The rest of the day went weirdly well. Jamie and I seemed to have a "do not touch" bubble around us. Word of my epic leap quickly made its way around the school and I found myself talking through the event again and again to people that I didn't think even knew my name.

And it became a memorably good day when Jennifer Sawyer swept past and said over her shoulder,

"Congratulations, I'm not sure anyone has shut my mother up like that before. You should come to gymnastics if you can move like that."

"Err...thanks."

She just smiled and walked on with her friends gossiping around her while I stood there with a semi in some kind of dream state.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

"I just got off the phone to Celia Sawyer - she said you were in an accident! Why didn't you tell me?"

Mum's voice always started to go up in pitch as she got more concerned. And she was in full mama bear protective mode right now.

"Oh right. I forgot to tell you."

"You forgot... She just called to ask for our address for the insurance company. What did you do? Are you alright? How much is it going to cost?"

"Mum, calm down. She was in the queue going down the hill to school and decided she couldn't wait and pulled out on me without looking. I just rolled over the top of the car with no bruises or anything but my bike was totaled."

"She what!" She shrieked obviously about to hit full histrionics.

For the first time I went looking for the pulse. I closed my eyes and...I don't know... reached back and down and this surge of blueish light washed back through me and there it was.

Pulse.

"Calm down Mum. I'm not hurt and it's not going to cost us a penny."

Her colour almost immediately returned closer to normal and that shrieky note left her voice completely. She became weirdly calm.

"It...it's not?"

"No. They need the address to pay for a replacement bike."

"Oh."

As she went quiet I thought that I'd chance my luck.

"And mum, I want to join the local gymnastics club down at the school. I should be able to pay for most of it from my part time job but I need some new kit."

With the same weird calm, she said "of course, dear."

And that was that! No long discussions about why we couldn't afford it or complaints about how much I was growing. Just "of course, dear"! I got the hell out of there and headed up to my room. I had a date with my hand and the memory of Jennifer Sawyer actually talking to me.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Three days after the accident I received a cheque through the post for £500 complete with a handwritten apology from Celia Sawyer. I was stunned. Added to my savings I'd finally be able to buy my neighbours old mini. At last a car of my own! Old Bill had bought it for his son years ago. He had long since moved on from it and it had been sitting on the drive for two years now. He'd promised me that I could have it for a thousand pounds if I kept mowing his lawn every couple of weeks. I was doing that anyway and a thousand pounds? The car was worth twice that, before we'd spent the time fixing it up.

But it was the tone of the letter from Celia Sawyer that was slightly unsettling. And at the same time strangely exciting. How she'd like to make it up to me. How brave I'd been. How I should drop by any time that I was passing.

Looking at her address at the top of the letter they didn't live a long way away from my weekend job at the local garden centre.

What was I thinking? Why would I even consider that? I was just reading too much into it.

She'd been a complete bitch until I'd told her...

Yes. Until -I- told her to stop. With the pulse.

What else had I said?

That she was going to make it up to me..? Or something like that. I started to get butterflies in my stomach. Did this mean that the pulse had a lasting effect...? It wasn't just in the moment stuff? Is that why Waite and his apes had left Jamie and me alone for the last couple of days?

I needed to think this through.

My mind was racing. I needed to try and figure this out. Work was tomorrow and gave me the perfect opportunity to be around a bunch of people as I helped out in the warehouse, with deliveries and any other odd job that needed doing. And of course surrounded by the Great British Public. Ugh.

I lay back on my bed and tried to visualise reaching for the pulse again. I almost startled myself by how quickly I was able to find that energy again. This time instead of reaching I tried to picture what it looked like. I suddenly got a clear image of a multi-coloured ball of light, swirling in the darkness.

After studying it for a while I could see that it was made up of strands of red, blue, yellow, green and purple light. Interesting. It had flashed blue when I spoke to mum. What did that mean? Did it mean anything?

I reached for the ball and randomly pulled at the purple colour.

Instantly I was mentally transported out of my room, up and out of my house and down to the nicer part of town near where I worked. My consciousness slowed its pace as I drew closer and saw Jennifer Sawyer walking up the last steps to her front door. All the lights were out in the house - a lovely big place set back from the road with nice gardens around it giving it plenty of privacy.

If I hadn't been lying down already I would have fallen over, I was so shocked. No guesses what my subconscious was focused on then! The image started to fade as I relaxed. I rapidly concentrated again and as I started to follow Jennifer into the house, I caught sight of a figure lurking in the bushes at the side of the house.

Curious, I moved my focus in that direction. I didn't recognise the man, but he was wearing black and was carrying a bag. He must have been facing away from the house when Jennifer got home. He started to pull a metal bar out of the bag, looking around cautiously as he approached the window in front of him.

I exited the pulse as if a bucket of cold water had been dropped on me. I scrambled to the phone at the top of the stairs and called 999.

"Emergency services. Which service do you require?"

"The police."

"Please hold."

The line clicked and then rang twice.

"Surrey police - what's your emergency?"

"I've just seen a burglar attempting to break into a house on Allen Street in Basingstoke."

"What number please?"

"12"

"Thank you, I'll request a patrol car. Please stay on the line so that I can take some details."

At that I hung up. How was I supposed to explain how I knew that someone was breaking into Jennifer's house?

But what if the police didn't get there fast enough?

I ran downstairs and was out across the lawn to our next door neighbours place in a flash. Bill was in his garage getting a bottle of wine for his evening meal. He looked up when he heard me coming.

"Hello young Jake. A bit late to mow the lawn isn't it?"

"Mr Davison, I was wondering if I could take the mini for a quick spin - just to make sure that everything is still ready before I take it for its MOT this weekend?"

"Well, I'd need to check that you were safely covered on the insurance first Jake. Why don't you come inside and.."

I reached. And pulsed.

"Mr Davison. It would be great if I could just take it round the block. It won't take long and you don't need to bother yourself."

"Yes...I...err... yes that would be fine. The keys are just here by the door."

"Thank you Mr Davison!"

I grabbed the keys and was in the car and on the way to Jennifer's before old Bill could shut the door.

I broke a few speed limits getting there and made it in about ten minutes. As I pulled into Allen Road I saw blue lights flashing and much to my relief I saw two police officers dragging the man that I'd seen outside the house down the long gravel drive. Jennifer was at the door looking very pale and shaken.

I'd parked a bit too close to the house and one of the policemen called out to me.

"Excuse me sir."

Dammit! The car had no MOT and my insurance didn't start until Sunday! This was all I needed.