The Written Works of Michael MacKenzie: Strength of Thought II

Here's the second half of Strength of Thought. It wouldn't all fit on one page.

BOOK TWO

Prologue

“What’s this poor bastard’s story, anyway?” Stu asked as he pushed the bed down a stark, empty corridor at the Lethbridge Regional Hospital.

“Nobody’s sure,” Luke said. “They found him unconscious in some chick’s apartment about six weeks ago. He was lying on a mattress full of hundreds of shards of glass.”

“Damn!” Stu said. He had only moved to Lethbridge from Moncton, New Brunswick two weeks ago, so he hadn’t seen the news on television. “I guess that explains all the bandages. What happened to the woman who lived in the apartment?”

“Nobody knows.” Luke stopped at an elevator and pushed the button for going up. “She wasn’t there when the cops arrived, and she hasn’t been seen since. She has a lot of questions to answer when she turns up.”

“No kidding,” Stu said. “Anyone who does this—“ he motioned to the comatose body on the bed—“better have a damn good excuse.”

Luke nodded his agreement as the elevator doors slid open. He followed Stu and the bed inside. “He wasn’t found alone, either,” Luke said. “He was found with two other guys and a woman.”

“Where are they now?”

“The woman and one of the men are dead,” Luke said. “The woman did a turn face-down on the same mattress as this guy, and then she was thrown out the fourth-story window.”

“How’d the guy die?”

“You aren’t gonna believe this,” Luke said. “But the police think he was somehow shoved right through the fuckin’ wall and fell to the ground outside!”

“Bullshit!” Stu said. “How could he just be shoved through the outside wall of an apartment building? The guy who pushed him would’ve had to be Superman, or something.”

Luke shrugged. “The cops found him on the ground with a broken neck and chunks of the wall lying around him, and a hole big enough for him to go through four stories off the ground.”

Stu shook his head. “That’s wild, man! What about the other guy they found?”

“He was just a kid,” Luke said. “17 years old, or something like that. He wasn’t hurt bad, and the police questioned him. The kid wouldn’t say a word, though. Didn’t even give them his name.”

“What’d they do with him?”

“Nothing,” Luke said. “The day after they found him, he just disappeared without a trace. No one knows where he went.”

“Maybe the chick came back to finish him off.”

“Maybe,” Luke said.

The elevator reached the desired floor, and they wheeled the bed out and to the unit where they kept the other long-term coma patients.

Stu looked at the wristband on the patient. “John Doe,” he read. “They don’t know who this guy is?”

“He didn’t carry any ID,” Luke said.

“Who was the chick who lived in the apartment?”

“I don’t remember. Melissa, or Megan, or something like that. She was just a schoolteacher in a small town near here.”

“Doesn’t sound like the type who’d throw people through walls and slam on glass mattresses,” Stu said as he put the bed in place.

“No, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. The cops figure there was a third party, but they don’t know who.”

“What kind of crazy town have I moved to?” Stu asked.

“This kind of thing is rare, believe me,” Luke said. “Lethbridge is dull. Come on, let’s go outside for a smoke.”

“G’night, Johnny,” Stu said as he left the room.

The door closed behind the two porters. The one visible eye on “John Doe’s” face opened.

Chapter One: Erin and Michael

“Mrs. Baker?”

“Yes, Stephen?”

“I have a question.”

“Is it about the assignment you’re working on?”

“Kind of.”

“What do you mean ‘kind of?’”

Stephen—by far the most outgoing, social giant in the grade ten Science class—gave up the pretence of being on topic and asked the question on his mind: “Why did you move to Prince George?”

Mrs. Baker put her pen down and smirked. “What does that have to do with electric circuits?”

Other students were looking up from their work to listen in on the conversation. They took any excuse to distract themselves from their schoolwork. They were all curious about the new teacher who had been part of the faculty when they arrived back from their summer holidays. Most of the students had been going to Lakewood Junior Secondary School since the beginning of eighth grade, so a new face provoked a lot of interest. The fact that she was a young, attractive teacher especially interested the boys, who were in the throes of 15-year-old hormonal overdose. The wedding band on her finger didn’t discourage them.

Stephen shrugged. “I’m just wondering, is all.”

Mrs. Baker saw that the class had abandoned their work, and she would be hard-pressed to get them back on task. She could do it if she wanted to, but it would be easier just to satisfy their curiosity.

“I came here because this is where a job opening was,” she said.

“This couldn’t be the only place,” Stephen persisted. “Why Prince George? It’s dull here. Surely, you could’ve found a job in Vancouver, or Edmonton, or something.”

“I didn’t look in Vancouver, or Edmonton, or something,” Mrs. Baker said. “My husband grew up in Vanderhoff. We wanted to move someplace in this area once we were finished university.”

“Where did you live before you came here?” another student—Elisa—asked.

“Winnipeg.”

“What’s your husband’s job?” Stephen asked.

“He’s a traveling salesman.”

Stephen laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Mrs. Baker asked.

“Sorry,” Stephen said. “It just sounds like a loser job.”

Mrs. Baker smiled. “My husband is no loser.”

“What does he sell?” Stephen’s friend Mark asked. “It’s not vacuum cleaners, is it?” The other students laughed.

“He sells brakes wholesale,” Mrs. Baker said.

The students laughed harder. “Isn’t that what Chris Farley did in that Tommy Boy movie?” Stephen asked.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Baker,” Elisa said, “but your husband sounds boring.”

“Trust me,” Mrs. Baker said. “He’s not boring. Now you’ve found out about my personal life, so you can get back to work now.”

There was a groan from the students. “Come on, get to it,” Mrs. Baker said. “The more you do in class, the less you have to do at home.”

* * *

“Mrs. Baker” put down her marking pen and looked up at the now-empty classroom. Hi Alex.

<Having a good day, I see.> Since reuniting with Alex, Michelle—known to the people of Prince George as Erin Baker—didn’t mind him reading her thoughts. He kept some degree of concentration on her at all times to make sure she was safe, and she quite often was aware of his thoughts. They both enjoyed this degree of intimacy.

Yeah, it has been pretty good, Michelle thought. My students were asking about you.

<Yeah, I overhead that> Alex said. <They picked up on my Tommy Boy reference. I’m impressed.>

Stephen’s very quick-witted. It’ll get him in trouble someday.

What’s wrong?

Be careful.

I love you too.

Michelle turned back to her work. She missed Lethbridge, and she missed her old school, but Prince George was nice, and so was Lakewood. She and Alex had come here directly from Calgary after getting married and emptying out their bank accounts. Alex chose it because it was a good-sized city in an isolated region of northern British Columbia, and he saw a job opportunity for Michelle. A teacher was retiring, and a job position was opening up for a science teacher, which was Michelle’s major in university. She had typed up a resume that accurately showed her skills and experience, but with false specifics. Instead of listing the University of Lethbridge, she claimed she was a graduate of the University of Manitoba, and she listed her two years of teaching experience at a Winnipeg school instead of a Southern Alberta one. The references were made up. When the school board checked her references and past employers, Alex made them think that everything checked out.

Finding a home was simple. They found a nice, small house to rent on Merton Crescent, which was within walking distance of Lakewood Junior Secondary. The lease was in the name of Michael and Erin Baker. Michelle’s salary was more than enough to cover their expenses, which weren’t much since they had no mortgage and no car payments.

Alex wasn’t a brake salesman. He had no job. No paying job, anyway. He spent all of his time fighting against The Higher Mind. In the six weeks since escaping from the Jackpot facility, Alex had been busy. He had killed 13 lieutenants throughout the United States, and he had also killed 19 recruiters who refused to stop recruiting. Agents of The Higher Mind who were lower down the chain of command were split. Some opposed Alex. They liked their line of work, and they liked the idea of The Higher Mind controlling things. Others were overjoyed to leave The Higher Mind after Alex freed them. The Higher Mind recaptured some of them, but Alex did his best to help. Dexter and Ligaya helped when they could. They were strong telepaths and telekinetics, but they paled in comparison to Alex’s skill. He appreciated their help, but he didn’t need it.

Alex’s actions didn’t go unnoticed by the public. He made sure of that. Each time he entered a city and forced The Higher Mind’s agents out of it, he would give the city what he called a “group vision.” He would enter the minds of every citizen in the city and tell them what The Higher Mind was and who he was in great detail. The only secrets he kept were his new home and his new life as Michael Baker. He did this for the protection of Michelle and himself. So far, 15 cities had experienced this same group vision. The media had seized upon it, and the whole world was now aware of The Higher Mind.

The Higher Mind, naturally, was pissed.

Chapter Two: Back in Lethbridge

Alex hadn’t seen an agent of The Higher Mind in over a week. The last one had been a lieutenant in New York City. She had been unwilling to give in to Alex’s demands, and a fight had ensued between him and all of the agents stationed in New York. Alex always made sure to disable all Blind Spots in an area before approaching a lieutenant, so the fight hadn’t lasted long, and he had followed it up with the usual group vision. The whole of New York had too many people to give the vision to everyone at once, so he had done it a borough at a time.

The more Alex used his abilities, the stronger they got. He kept expecting his growth to level off, but it just kept going. It had gotten to the point that Blind Spots only had a slight effect on him unless it was a stronger-than-average Blind Spot. His telekinesis amazed him on a regular basis. Levitation in particular was impressive. On the way back from New York, he had broken the sound barrier. He had to be careful traveling at such high speeds. It was necessary to reach out in front of him with his Touch and move the slightest obstacle out of his way. He also wore a fighter pilots helmet and oxygen mask, including goggles, so he could breathe and keep his face protected from the intense wind. The only thing that kept his clothes from ripping off was his telekinesis.

Alex’s telepathy was developing in less theatrical ways. His background noise was reaching higher numbers. Without difficulty, he could be aware of every mind in Prince George, which had a population of about 72,000, and he had been aware of entire cities of nearly one million people. Along with this came the ability to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. At the moment, he could have three lines of thought going independently of each other at the same time. For example, he could have a conversation in person with a clerk in a store while talking telepathically with Michelle and pulling a child out of a burning building with his telekinesis. In addition to this, he was always subconsciously aware of the background noise.

Alex was confronting the private investigator in Lethbridge because he was the first person related to The Higher Mind he had seen since New York. Maybe he could get some information from the man about the location of his enemies. The investigator—Chris, his name was—didn’t know who his employers were. They had hired him anonymously. In most cases, Chris wouldn’t take a case from a nameless employer, but The Higher Mind bent his will to their own desires. He was searching for Alex Cook and Michelle Lewis, and even though Alex was becoming a celebrity, those controlling Chris’s mind kept him from making a connection to The Higher Mind, which Alex was publicly fighting against, as his anonymous employers.

Lethbridge was drawing near. Alex reached ahead and located Chris. The investigator was in his hotel room talking on the phone with Chuck.

“They didn’t tell us anything,” Chuck was saying. “They just disappeared.”

“Aren’t you his best friend, Mr. Stanton?” Chris asked.

“Yes,” Chuck said. “We’ve known each other since we were kids.”

“I find it hard to believe that a man would leave town without telling his best friend anything about it.”

“Don’t you watch the news, buddy? He was kidnapped months ago. As a general rule, the abducted don’t get to phone their friends and tell them that they’re being taken.”

“I do watch the news,” Chris said. “And, according to Alex, he escaped from his kidnappers.”

Chuck knew all this. He was just trying to be uncooperative. “Well, he didn’t come back here. He’s running around the States exposing some sort of conspiracy. He made public appearances there. Why don’t you go check out the towns he has been spotted in over the past month instead of looking around the town he hasn’t been to in over four months?”

“He did come back after he escaped The Bigger Mind, or whatever it’s called,” Chris said. “On August 18, there was an incident in Michelle Lewis’s apartment. Three men and a woman were found severely beaten. The woman and one of the men were dead, another man is in a coma, and the third man has since disappeared. The dead man was somehow pushed through an outside wall of the apartment building. The two dead people have been identified as Sandra Hodgson and Eugene Pettigrew, and they are believed to be former students of the same organization Alex is fighting against.”

“So?”

Alex smiled. Chuck knew what Chris was getting at. He was being stubborn.

“So,” Chris said, “that is when Michelle Lewis disappeared. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure this out, Mr. Stanton. Alex came back for Michelle. These other supposed telepaths guessed that he would, and they attempted to ambush him. Somehow, it backfired, and Alex took Michelle and went into hiding.”

“Not very effective hiding,” Chuck said. “Alex keeps popping up in major US cities.”

“True,” Chris conceded. “But nobody seems to know where he comes from or where he goes when he’s done. He appears, kills agents of this organization that kidnapped him, somehow convinces everyone in the city that his claims are true, and then disappears again.”

“I’m telling you,” Chuck said. “I don’t know where he went.” That’s when Chuck hung up the phone.

Chris was frustrated. His search for Alex had reached a dead end. He had found record of his marriage to Michelle in Calgary, and he had also found Michelle’s car at the dealership they had traded it to. Aside from that, there was nothing.

Alex landed in front of the room at the Howard Johnson that Chris was staying at. He removed his helmet, set it down by the door, and knocked. He felt Chris stand up and walk to the door. As the private investigator put his eye to the peephole, Alex smiled and waved.

The door flew open. “Mr. Cook!” Chris said. His excitement was apparent even without the aid of telepathy.

“Hey, Chris.” Alex stepped over the threshold. Chris stepped back to let him enter, and Alex closed the door behind him. He left his helmet and oxygen mask outside without the fear of theft; he could sense everyone in Lethbridge, and he would stop anyone who might be tempted to take them.

Chris wasn’t sure what to do. He had been instructed by his employers not to confront Alex upon his discovery. Alex confronting him had never really occurred to him. He was desperate to think of a lie to tell Alex.

“Don’t bother,” Alex said. “Most of what you hear about me on the news is true. I can hear your thoughts. I know who you are, and I know what your job is. More importantly, though, I know who hired you.”

Chris was speechless. His mind was struggling with itself over whether to believe Alex or try to salvage his covert operation.

<You’re going to make me demonstrate, I see> Alex said. <You people always make me demonstrate.>

“How are you doing that?” Chris asked.

<It’s a natural ability that 2% of the world’s population has. Usually, it doesn’t exhibit itself until a person reaches adulthood, and until recently, everyone who had this ability was abducted by The Higher Mind.>

“Is The Higher Mind everything that you’ve been claiming?” Chris asked. He was starting to believe.

“Yes,” Alex said. “They’ve been running the United States for 40 years, and they have big plans for the rest of the world. Until I started killing them, anyway. That’s why they hired you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You were hired by an anonymous party, right?”

“Right.”

“Doesn’t that seem odd to you? You never do that.”

Alex sensed the mind of a telepath trying to control his thoughts. He followed the mind back to its source, ascertained that it was the mind of someone who harboured a great deal of hate for Alex, and then rendered him unconscious. The man was in the village of Stirling, southeast of Lethbridge. He would deal with him later.

Chris, his mind no longer clouded, made the connection. “Of course!” he said. “You’re killing them and not keeping it a secret, so they hire me to find you so that they can stop you. It makes perfect sense! Except…”

“Why don’t they use their extraordinary abilities to find me themselves?” Alex finished.

“Yeah.”

“I can block them out,” Alex explained. “There’s no way for them to find me telepathically or telekinetically, so they resorted to more conventional methods: you.”

Chris turned this over in his mind a few times, and then came to a decision. “I’m dropping the case, Mr. Cook. I don’t want to get mixed up in weird stuff like this.”

“Thank you,” Alex said. “My wife and I appreciate it very much.”

* * *

While Alex spoke with Chris the private investigator, a second train of thought focused on something disturbing that he noticed in the background noise of Lethbridge. Employees of the Lethbridge Regional Hospital were perplexed by the disappearance of one of their comatose patients. It was a John Doe patient, but the circumstances of how he had ended up in the hospital were an interesting story that the whole city knew about.

It was Tarso Werlang. Alex knew that Tarso had survived the fight in Michelle’s apartment. When he had discovered this, shortly after arriving in Prince George, he had considered finishing him off, but had decided that killing a man in his sleep was something that he couldn’t bring himself to do.

Now Tarso was gone. No doubt, he had awoken from his coma and snuck out of the hospital. He wasn’t in Lethbridge anymore. Alex didn’t let it bother him too much. Tarso had probably headed back for his home in Brazil. If he did show up in Alex’s life again, Alex would deal with him the same way he dealt with any agent of The Higher Mind who refused to stop exerting his power over those who couldn’t defend themselves.

Alex put thoughts of Tarso out of mind as he flew to Stirling. He’d worry about Tarso when Tarso made himself a problem. Right now, he had his first lead to The Higher Mind in over a week.

Stirling was a small farming community populated mostly by Mormons. Although it was only a 20-minute drive outside of Lethbridge, Alex had never been there. He had never had the need until now. As he approached it from the air, he saw the small grid of paved streets in the village proper surrounded by acres of farmland with dirt roads threaded throughout. The agent he was looking for was in a small white house on the south side of town.

Alex set down on the front step of the house. He unlocked the front door and stepped onto an enclosed sun porch. He dropped his flight gear inside the door and opened the inside door leading into the living room of the house.

The man was lying on the white carpet in front of the television. Alex switched the TV off and looked at his enemy. He was a young man of 22 who Alex recognized from his days as a student in Jackpot. His name was Matt Ross. He had come to The Higher Mind’s training facility a few weeks after Alex had arrived there. Another international recruit, he had come from Moncton, New Brunswick.

<Wake up> Alex commanded.

Matt stirred, and his eyes fluttered open. He saw Alex standing over him and scuttled away from him until he was pressed against the sofa. Fear widened his eyes.

<Glad to see that you still recognize me, Matt> Alex said.

“Please, don’t kill me!” Matt pleaded.

<Don’t make me kill you> Alex said. He didn’t want to kill him, and he wouldn’t if Matt cooperated. He wasn’t the strongest telepath, so Alex would let him go without fear of regretting it later. Matt wasn’t much of a threat.

“What do you want from me?” Matt asked.

<You’ve been manipulating a detective named Chris Isaacson. I want you to leave him alone and go back home to Moncton.>

Matt nodded. He was eager to please Alex, and would’ve agreed to pretty much anything Alex told him to do.

Alex wanted his command to stick. He got down on one knee and grabbed the front of Matt’s shirt. Leaning over until their faces were just a few inches apart, Alex said out loud, “If I ever see you in Alberta again, I will kill you.”

Matt’s faced blanched, and he started shaking. Alex let him go and stood up. <I’ll be watching you> he said as he walked out the door.

Alex left the Stirling disappointed. He had hoped to acquire information from Matt, but he was an unimportant agent of The Higher Mind. He hadn’t known anything except for what his commanding officer had told him, and that wasn’t much. He didn’t even know the name and location of the person giving him orders. Alex had shaken the private investigator off of his trail, but aside from that, he hadn’t gained anything.

* * *

“Alex, you son of a bitch, where the hell have you been?” In contrast to his harsh words, Chuck embraced his best friend in a tight bear hug.

“Hi, Chuck,” Alex said as he returned the hug.

Chuck let go of Alex and took a step back. “Don’t you ‘hi, Chuck’ me, young man! You and Michelle disappear, leaving death and destruction at Michelle’s place, and you don’t speak to any of us for months, and then you just waltz back into my life and say ‘Hi, Chuck?’ I oughta kick your ass right now!”

Alex smiled. “It’s good to see you, too.”

“I’m serious, Alex. Where have you been?”

“I can’t say,” Alex said. “I’m sorry, but if you knew where I was, my enemies would know in a matter of seconds. They keep you under constant watch.”

Chuck was silent at this revelation. Alex could feel Chuck’s outrage. Outrage, but not surprise. Alex had just confirmed his own suspicions.

“So it’s true what they say on the news,” Chuck said. “An army of telepaths is hunting you.”

“Yeah, but I’m hunting them right back.”

“Are you winning?”

“So far. I’m stronger than all of them.”

Chuck smiled. “Give ‘em hell for me.”

“Count on it.”

“Is Michelle okay?”

“She’s great. We’re married now.”

“Get out! Are you kidding me?”

“No.” Alex showed him the gold band on his finger. “Sorry we didn’t invite you, but we kind of got married on the run.”

“Hey, speaking of that, I was just talking to a private investigator who has been looking for you.”

“I know. I spoke to him as soon as he was done talking to you. He’s nothing to worry about.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Are you in town for long? The gang would love to see you again.”

“I’d love to see them, too,” Alex said. “But I should be getting back to Michelle. I get nervous being so far away from her.”

“Too bad,” Chuck said. “It was great seeing you again, man.”

“Too brief, but at least it’s something,” Alex said. “Tell the others I said hi. Let them know we’re okay.”

Alex retrieved his helmet and strapped it on.

“What’s that for?” Chuck asked with an amused expression.

“Protection,” Alex said. “See ya around.” He lifted into the air and sped northwest.

Chapter Three: Regina

“How’d it go?” Michelle asked as Alex came through the front door.

Alex put his helmet down on a table just inside the front door. “Great,” he said. <He’s dropping the case. I didn’t even have to use any mind control on him. All I did was explain how things are.>

So he was a pretty reasonable guy, then.

<Yeah. I liked him.>

Michelle checked her watch. “And you’re back in time for supper. What do you want to eat?”

“Chicken,” Alex said. “It’s already on the table.”

“I hate it when you do that,” Michelle said and poked Alex in the ribs. “It’s weird.”

Alex smiled. “I’m all about multi-tasking,” he said.

“Put that on your resume.”

Alex Cook doesn’t need a resume. He’s a crusader fighting against global oppression. Michael Baker sells brakes.

“Good ole Mike,” Alex said. “Simple, boring, and normal.”

“And adorably cute.”

“What am I, a puppy?”

You’re my husband, my Mikey, my Alex. Michelle put her arms around Alex’s neck. Alex’s hands rested on Michelle’s waist.

“I love you,” Alex said and kissed her.

“I love you, too, Mike.”

“Shall we go eat, Erin?”

“Sure, you can eat Erin.”

Alex laughed. “You’re terrible. Come on; let’s eat. The food’s getting cold.”

They went to the kitchen and found the food Alex had prepared from a distance waiting for them on the table. As Michelle sat down, she thought, One of these days you’re going to fall right out of the sky because your concentration was on something else.

“Yeah, probably,” Alex said. “It’ll serve me right, too. I’m such a show-off.”

“You don’t have to impress me, you know. We’re already married.”

Alex winked. “Who says I’m showing off for you?”

“Watch it, Mister, or you’ll find yourself sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Alex smiled as he dished out his food. He loved bantering with Michelle. As busy and violent as the past six weeks had been, they were made bearable by Michelle’s presence. No matter what happened to him during the day, he knew he could go home and find his wife ready to lift his spirits.

“You’re sweet,” Michelle said. Alex had been subconsciously letting her overhear some of what was going on in his head. She didn’t know the specifics of his thoughts, but she knew that they were fond thoughts about her.

Alex said. Whenever they spoke of their former lives, they did so with telepathy.

Did you talk to him?

<Yeah. I let him know that we’re okay. He’s going to let the others know.>

Did you tell him where we are?

<No. It would be too big a risk. The Higher Mind is always looking in on our friends and family.>

Even your family?

Alex paused. He hadn’t thought about that. The fissure between him and his parents was so wide that he didn’t think he would have to worry about them. But what if The Higher Mind got so desperate to find him that they decided to use his parents somehow? They had tried to use his friends, but Alex kept a close watch on them, and he always prevented their plans.

Alex said.

* * *

Alex hovered on the outskirts of Regina. IPSCO, the steel mill, was half a kilometre to the north. He looked at the small city with trepidation. He hadn’t returned to Saskatchewan since he and Chuck had left right after high school. That had been almost eight years ago. The province’s capital held years of bad memories for Alex. This had been where he had grown up in a loveless home. His parents had never physically abused him, but the mental and emotional stress of his childhood had been overwhelming.

Coming back to Regina, however, wasn’t the return to a nightmare that he had expected it to be. All of his bad memories had overshadowed his pleasant childhood memories. There was the elementary school Alex had enjoyed attending. It had been an escape from home. There was the park he and Chuck had played in with their other friends. There was the baseball diamond he had played in during junior high. Regina wasn’t such a bad place when you looked past the Cook family.

And there was the house in which Alex had spent the first 18-and-a-half years of his life. He frowned at the feelings it brought back to him. He made a tentative peak into the minds of the house’s occupants and was surprised to find that his parents weren’t there anymore. Instead, a family of five lived there.

Alex looked into the background noise and found his parents. They had moved into a newer, bigger house two years ago. This relieved Alex. He had sworn never to return to the house he grew up in, and he wouldn’t have to break that oath.

The house loomed in front of Alex as he hesitated on the front step. It was unfamiliar to him, but he knew the people inside all too well. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.

He rang the doorbell and waited.

The door opened, and Alex found himself face-to-face with Orlando Cook. “Hi, Dad.”

Orlando was shocked. He had never expected to see his unwanted son again. Alex heard every other thought leave his father’s mind. Shock and anger were all that remained.

Taking advantage of Orlando’s momentary paralysis, Alex stepped over the threshold. He closed and locked the door behind him.

Orlando found his voice. “What the hell are all these crazy stories about you all over the news?”

“It’s a—.”

“Do you realize how embarrassing this is? I can’t do business without my colleagues asking me about you!”

“I’m sorry, Dad, but—.”

“Sorry? You’re sorry? Well, okay then, that makes everything better!”

“You don’t need to be sarcast—.”

“Shut up! I’m talking, you little shit!”

“Orlando?” It was Jilliane, Alex’s mother. Attracted by her yelling husband, she came to the top of the stairs. She saw her son standing in the entryway and was filled with anger to match Orlando’s.

“Alex!” she spat. “What the hell are you doing here? You know, some bitch called here a few months ago looking for you. What was that all about?”

“That was my wife,” Alex said.

“Wife!” Orlando yelled. “You’re married? You’re only 25!”

“I suppose you were too ashamed of your own parents to even send them an invitation!” Jilliane yelled. “You’re such an ungrateful little bastard!”

“Ungrateful?” Alex’s own anger was rising. “What do I have to be grateful for from you?”

“Watch how you talk to your mother, boy,” Orlando growled and jabbed a finger in Alex’s chest.

“You have your life to be grateful for!” Jilliane yelled as she came down the stairs to join Orlando’s side.

“My life, but not my happiness,” Alex said. “I was never happy until you two were out of my life! And you didn’t even give my life to me willingly! You’ve always made it clear that I was an accident. There’s more to parenthood than getting knocked up!”

Orlando swung his fist. Before the blow could land, Alex pushed him across the room and slammed him into a wall.

“Don’t even try, Orlando,” Alex said. “I’m more powerful than those ‘crazy stories’ about me on the news say I am.”

Jilliane and Orlando were silenced by the small display of Alex’s power, but their anger still boiled.

Alex opened his mouth to explain why he had come, but Jilliane spoke first. “So,” she said. “The stories are true. You know, you’re ruining our lives? I can’t go anywhere without people asking me about you.”

“I’m sorry to be such a nuisance,” Alex sneered. “Now shut up and listen.”

“Don’t you tell us to shut up!” Orlando said. “Like it or not, we’re your parents, and you will treat us with the respect we deserve!”

“You can’t demand respect,” Alex said; “it has to be earned, and you have done absolutely nothing to earn my respect.”

Orlando started to say something more, but Alex had had enough. He used a touch of mind control to stop his and Jilliane’s mouths.

“Now listen to me,” Alex said. “I didn’t come here for this stimulating conversation that we’ve been having. There is a group of people like me who are hunting me down. They can’t find my wife and me, so there is a danger that they will use our friends and families to draw me out. I’m here to warn you and to offer you my help.”

Alex let them speak again. “We don’t need your help,” Orlando said.

“We don’t want your help, either,” Jilliane added.

“Get out of my house, you freak,” Orlando said. “I didn’t want you before, and I definitely don’t want you now that you’re some sort of inhuman monster.”

“Fine,” Alex said. “I tried. When The Higher Mind breaks down your door trying to get to me, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

“Get out!” Orlando yelled.

In his anger, Alex turned to the door and smashed it into pieces that scattered over the front lawn and into the street.

* * *

“They haven’t changed at all! In fact, I think they might be worse than I remembered them!”

“Don’t worry about them, Alex,” Michelle said. “You warned them and offered them your help. It’s up to them to be on guard now.”

“I don’t even want to help them anymore!” Alex yelled. “They’re such assholes! They deserve whatever comes to them!”

Michelle stepped in front of her pacing husband and stopped him with a gentle hand to the chest. “Forget about them,” she said. “They’re not worth getting so worked up over.”

Alex breathed deeply in an effort to calm down.

“Come to bed,” Michelle whispered. “I’ll help you get your mind off them.”

Chapter Four: Dexter

“I wish I could go with ya, baby-doll.”

Ligaya squeezed Dexter’s hand. “It’ll only be two weeks.”

“I’ll miss ya,” Dexter said. “’Sides, It’d be cool to go to the Philippines. I’ve never even been to Mexico.”

“Someday,” Ligaya said. “After this whole thing between Alex and The Higher Mind is over, you can go to the Philippines with me. I’m sure my parents would love it if they found out I was dating a rich Amerikano.”

Dexter laughed. He didn’t need to ask why she had called him rich; he saw in her mind that Filipinos thought all Americans were rich. “If I was rich, I wouldn’t be livin’ with my parents at 26,” he said.

“Yer livin’ pretty swanky compared to most Pinoys,” Ligaya said in a distinct Texas drawl.

“You’re so cute when you talk like a Texan,” Dexter said. Ligaya—all telepaths, as a matter of fact—picked up the accent of the person whose language she was speaking. It wasn’t always strong, but Ligaya would sometimes exaggerate it for fun.

Ligaya kissed Dexter on the cheek. “I have to go,” she said. “My flight is boarding.” The line to get onto the plane was dwindling. They would be announcing the last call for boarding soon. Dexter wrapped his petite girlfriend in his large arms and kissed her good-bye.

* * *

Dexter couldn’t go with Ligaya because Alex needed him here in the southern States. Alex’s powers were amazing, but he wasn’t omnipotent. Dexter was his eyes and ears in this part of the continent. He kept tabs on the movements of The Higher Mind ‘round these parts. It wasn’t always easy. Unlike Alex, Dexter had the obstacle of Blind Spots keeping him from seeing everything. He only saw as much as he did because everyone was in a panic over what Alex was doing, and that made them sloppy.

As he drove from the airport to his parents’ home, he telepathically looked around downtown Dallas for Pete. Alex needed to be informed about something.

Ligaya had gone to the Philippines to visit her family and tell them what was going on. She was confident that Alex could manage without her for two weeks, and she was probably right. Sometimes she and Dexter felt how Jimmy Olsen must feel around Superman. They helped as much as they could, but it didn’t amount to much compared to what Alex accomplished on his own.

There was Pete! He was scrounging through a garbage bin behind a pizza place. His shopping cart stood behind him brimming full of junk that was valuable only to its owner.

After a brief pause, Alex answered: <Hey, Dexter. What’s up?> Alex was always aware of Pete on some level of consciousness. Since it would be dangerous for Dexter to know where Alex was—The Higher Mind was always peeking into his thoughts—they used Pete as a medium. Dexter could only hear the thoughts that Alex put into Pete’s mind so that Dexter wouldn’t accidentally overhear any confidential information while being in direct contact with Alex’s mind. Pete was schizophrenic and always hearing voices anyway, so two more didn’t bother him much.

<What is it?> Alex’s tone had changed from the small talk between friends to the all-business of co-conspirators.

<Somethin’s up with The Higher Mind ‘round here> Dexter explained. <They’re all high-tailin’ it outta here.>

<Trying to regroup and come at me with a more organized, consolidated force?> Alex hypothesized.

<Maybe. The Blind Spots have kept me from seeing what they’re plannin’. I’ve just been able to find out where they’re goin’.>

Alex paused. After some thought, he said, <Thanks, Dex. I’ll head to Mexico and check it out. Hopefully I’ll catch them off-guard.>

<Don’t be so modest, Alex> Dexter said. <It doesn’t matter if ya catch ‘em off-guard or not. You’ll still kick some major ass.>

Alex made Pete laugh. <Save your flattery for Ligaya> he said. <Anything else to report?>

<No, not really> Dexter said. <Well, there is one thing I should report.>

<What’s that?>

Alex made Pete laugh again. <I’ll see you later, Dex. Have a good one.>

<Later, Alex.> Dexter had arrived at his parents’ house. He turned the car off and walked around to the back door of the house.

“Ingenious plan.”

Dexter spun around to see who had spoken. He hadn’t sensed anyone nearby, so that meant one thing: Blind Spot. The inhibitor stood alone in the shadow of a tree. The sun was behind the tree, and Dexter had to squint to see where the man was.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that the dog-eating puta is the one who came up with it,” the man continued. “You and Cook are too dumb for something like that.”

Dexter knew that voice. “Tarso!”

Tarso stepped out of the shade and into the sunlight. The smug smile was the same, but little else about the face was how Dexter remembered his former classmate. Scars had turned it into jagged, twisting roadmap, and his left eye was milky-red and obviously blind. The right eye, however, was the same, and its cool fire blazed in Dexter’s direction.

“I thought you were in a coma!” Dexter said. He reared up to his full height and towered over Tarso. He was prepared to send him back to whatever hospital he had crawled out of. He couldn’t sense Tarso’s thoughts, but the background noise was still there. Whatever Blind Spot that was keeping him from sensing Tarso wasn’t inhibiting him from anything else.

Tarso smirked. “I’m stronger than you,” he said. “I always have been, and you’ve always known it. You can’t take me.”

“You’re nothin’ but a blow-hard, Werlang,” Dexter said. “You were never as strong as you bragged to be.”

Dexter’s left leg snapped.

“I am now,” Tarso said as he pulled a sword out of a sheath that was behind his back. The sun glistened off of the razor-sharp edge of the blade. Dexter tried to deflect the blow with his telekinesis, but he found that Tarso’s boasting had truth behind it.

Chapter Five: Found

When Alex arrived in Tijuana, Mexico, he could only find 14 agents of The Higher Mind. They were all mediocre telekinetics. Only one of them was a telepath. It wasn’t much of a regrouping. Alex probed their minds to find out what exactly was going on, but it didn’t help much. They had all been ordered to come here without receiving any explanation. That was all they knew.

This’ll be no problem, Alex thought as he landed just outside of town. As he had probed their minds, Alex had learned that eight of them were willing to leave The Higher Mind if someone—namely Alex—came along and set them free. Five of them were staunch supporters of The Higher Mind, but they weren’t very skilled, and they would never amount to much more than assassins. The last one was the only telepath, who also supported The Higher Mind. He was in charge, but he didn’t know anymore than the rest of them.

Alex would be able to do this without killing all of them. It only required one death. He put the leader to sleep. Once he was unconscious, Alex squeezed his heart until the man was dead.

The 13 telekinetics were with their leader when this happened. The eight who wanted to be freed were filled with hope as they realized what this must mean. The five supporters reached out with their unimpressive Touch to look for Alex, but they couldn’t find him.

<You’re free> Alex said. <Now go home.> And then Alex took his own advice and shot into the sky.

As he flew over Texas, he looked for Dexter. He wanted to talk to him about this supposed regrouping of The Higher Mind in Mexico. Something was up. For some reason, The Higher Mind wanted Dexter—and, therefore, Alex—to believe that they were regrouping in Mexico. There had only been a group of weak agents there who didn’t have a clue what was going on. A distraction? Probably. Alex checked in on Michelle to see if she was all right. She was fine. He continued his search for Dexter.

Dexter wasn’t at his home, so Alex searched through the background noise for his friend. He couldn’t find him anywhere. Alex checked in on Pete. If Dexter was leaving the area, he usually left a message in Pete’s mind for him. Pete’s mind didn’t have anything of worth in it, so Alex Touched Dallas.

There he was. Dexter was lying in a dumpster in a back alley not far from Pete. And he was—

Alex gasped. He couldn’t believe it. This couldn’t have happened. He landed next to the dumpster, ripped the lid off, and threw it into the side of the building on the other side of the alley.

“Dexter!” Alex knew his friend wouldn’t answer, but he called out to him just the same. He reached inside and pulled the body of Dexter Barnes out. Alex knelt beside him as he gently lowered him to the pavement. His eyes confirmed what his Touch had already told him. Dexter’s head was attached to his body by only a few inches of flesh. His own blood, which covered his shirt, was sticky, but not quite dry. He had been dead for a few hours.

Grief seeped into Alex’s heart. Dexter was dead! The Higher Mind had killed him! Alex’s vision blurred.

No! he told himself and blinked away the tears. He couldn’t succumb to grief. Something big was happening. The Higher Mind had made a move. What was the next one?

<Michelle?>

Alex?

Yes. Why? What’s wrong?

<Something’s going on. I’m not sure what. Keep your eyes open.>

Are you okay Alex?

<I’m fine. I’m coming home. Meet me there.>

* * *

Michelle parted the blinds and scanned the sky for the fifth time since arriving home. It had been over an hour since Alex had contacted her from Texas. She knew it was too early for him to cover that much distance, even at the speeds he was capable of in the air. Still, she couldn’t keep from watching for him.

Something was wrong. Just before he had spoken to her, she had felt a sharp stab of grief from Alex. She didn’t know what the problem was, but she knew it was bad.

A speck moved through the sky in the distance. Her eyes locked on it. Alex? Even as she thought his name, she recognized the speck for what it was: an airplane.

“This is ridiculous,” Michelle told her empty house. She needed something to distract her. She sat down, turned on the TV, and forced herself to watch it.

* * *

Prince George appeared on the horizon. The majority of the city was located in what the locals called “the bowl,” a tree-rimmed valley where the Fraser River met the Nechacko River. During his flight, Alex had been focusing on Michelle’s mind to make sure she was okay. Now that he was approaching home, he let his background noise and Touch lay over the city.

He discovered that his greatest fear over the past few months was coming true.

26 telepaths were in Prince George waiting for Alex to return. Of these 26, nine were strong telekinetics. Usually, Alex would have no problem fighting off a group of this size. The Higher Mind, however, knew this, so they had sent 30 Blind Spots in addition to the 26 telepaths. They weren’t working directly on Alex yet, but even so, his background noise was faint, and his Touch was numb in Prince George. This wasn’t going to be easy.

Michelle was still fine. They hadn’t made a move on her. Alex wasn’t sure why. It made sense for them to use any advantage over him that they could.

The Blind Spots and non-telekinetic telepaths were spread throughout the city in five groups of eight and one group of seven. Alex wouldn’t be able to take them out at once.

As Alex drew nearer to town, he came under the blanket influence of the Blind Spots. This blocked his own limited inhibitor abilities, and the telepaths found him.

The first attack was mental instead of physical. Thousands of voices flooded his mind. The noise was deafening and very distracting. Alex’s own thoughts were being drowned out by the voices of the entire population of Prince George being amplified and pumped into his head by 26 different sources. It was as if 1,872,000 people dwelled in Alex’s mind.

Somehow, Alex managed to land on the outskirts of town with killing himself. He collapsed in a heap next to highway 16 and screamed. This was far worse than when he hadn’t yet gained control of his powers back when they were new, and he couldn’t block them out now because they were being forced there by other telepaths. His individuality was slipping away. Each train of thought was just as powerful as his own. He was having trouble remembering which person he was.

If not for the Blind Spots, he would be able to force the thoughts out of his mind. The closest of these Blind Spots were in the forest a kilometre to the east of Alex with two telepaths. Using all of the concentration he could muster, Alex could barely make them out from the rest of the mental onslaught. They were staying out of the way of any telekinesis that might happen later. They sensed that Alex had found them and tried to run, but it was too late. Alex knocked over the trees all around them and made sure that they landed on his enemies. They were either dead or unconscious. Alex wasn’t sure. He just knew that the voices in his head were turned down a notch. It wasn’t much, but it was a noticeable difference.

Another group of five Blind Spots and three telepaths was in the forest a kilometre to the north. Alex crushed them with trees, too. The other four groups were able to scatter before Alex could use the same tactic on them.

The distracting noise of hundreds of thousands of voices still assaulted him, but Alex still stood and sighed in relief. Disabling those five telepaths was like purging the thoughts of 360,000 people from his mind. Add to that the death of ten Blind Spots, and Alex was able to filter out some of the noise. The voices were still there, but they weren’t so over-powering. He could actually hear his own thoughts without confusing them with foreign ones.

That’s when it started to rain cars.

The nine telekinetic telepaths spread throughout the city were starting to attack on a new front. Without easing up on the mental attack, they were throwing dozens of cars at Alex, who almost didn’t notice in time. He barely managed to deflect the first car—a 1984 Pontiac Bonneville—from crushing him. It smashed to the pavement just ten feet away. The driver of the car died instantly.

More cars were coming at him. He tried to catch as many as he could and set them down so that the occupants of the vehicles would live, but in his weakened state, he couldn’t catch all of them.

The ground was becoming cluttered with automobiles, some of them neatly placed safely away from Alex, others sitting in twisted, smoking, bloody wrecks.

Alex lifted himself into the air where he could more easily dodge the barrage of vehicles. When he was 50 feet above the ground, he saw a half-full bus flying at him. He grabbed it and opened its doors. He lowered the people to the ground and found people to replace them: five Blind Spots and three telepaths five kilometres north of him. They had scattered to avoid being crushed at once by falling trees, but Alex gathered them back up and forced them into the bus. He then hurled the bus across the city where it landed on top of a Blind Spot in the forest to the east.

14 Blind Spots, nine telepaths, and nine telekinetic telepaths remained. And Alex was feeling twice as powerful as he had when the fight began.

* * *

Alex was close to home. Michelle could sense the occasional snippet of a random thought or feeling being sent from him. She couldn’t tell anything specific, but she knew he was in trouble.

When the show she was watching was interrupted by a frantic news update about cars launching into the air at random, Michelle wasn’t surprised. As the confused reporter tried to explain what was happening, the camera followed a bus as it shot into the sky and stopped short of a flying man wearing a fighter-pilot’s helmet.

Be careful, Alex.

* * *

Alex was now able to ignore the telepaths who weren’t telekinetic. The voices were dim enough that they weren’t impeding Alex. They were there, and they were annoying, but Alex could function fine. It was like an athlete playing a sport in a noisy arena.

The telekinetic people abandoned their barrage of cars and decided to target Alex directly. They grabbed him and pulled him out of the sky.

As the ground rushed up at Alex, he pulled himself against the force of the nine telekinetic forces shoving him towards a messy death on the pavement in the middle of a busy Prince George intersection. He wasn’t able to overpower their force, but he was able to work enough against it so that he hit the ground with a force that was far from lethal. He suffered only scrapped palms and bruised knees. The forces working against him ripped some seams in his clothes, and they tore the helmet right off his head.

Alex stood up and looked around. Empty cars idled all around him. Once people noticed random cars all over the city inexplicably shoot into the air, they abandoned their own vehicles for fear that they would be next.

He tried to find the telekinetics in his background noise, but it was unreliable. The continued noise of the telepathic attack was making it impossible for Alex to discern anyone telepathically. He had to rely on his Touch, which wasn’t hard, because the nine people gliding through the air towards him were obviously his enemies.

Alex couldn’t afford to think. They would read his thoughts and know what his actions would be before he could perform them. So he just acted without thought. He reached up and ripped the heart of one of the telekinetics in two. The man was dead before he even started to fall.

The other eight hesitated at the sudden, unexpected violence. They knew Alex was strong, but they were just now realizing how strong. Before they started coming at him again, Alex turned one of their brains to mush. A second telekinetic fell dead out of the sky.

Alex was full of confidence again. The outcome of this fight had been in doubt when it started, but now that almost half of his adversaries were dead, he knew that he would win. He and Michelle would have to leave Prince George and start another new life elsewhere, but they would survive the day and be 56 agents closer to wiping out The Higher Mind.

Alex rose into the air once more and flew towards one of the approaching telekinetic people, this one a middle-aged man. He saw him coming and turned in fear as the other six surviving telekinetics hurried to his aid. As Alex approached him, he reached out and found two more Blind Spots, which he strangled.

The telekinetic man, in an effort to defend himself, uprooted a fir tree and launched it at Alex, who swatted it away with a slap of his mental hand and sent it flying like a missile at one of the six pursuing telekinetics behind him. The telekinetic tried to deflect the tree, but Alex was stronger; the tree impaled her, and a third dead agent of The Higher Mind fell out of the sky.

In the meantime, Alex had caught up to the middle-aged man. Telepaths and telekinetics are disturbed by actual physical violence, so that’s why Alex attacked him with his hands. The man’s fear turned to panic, and he flailed out with his arms and legs. Alex clamped his arms and legs together with his telekinesis, grabbed the man around the waist with his arms, and flew full-speed at the ground. At the last instant, Alex pulled up, but let go of the man, who slammed into a soccer field.

Alex landed beside the small crater created by the impact and looked up at the five remaining telekinetics. He killed two more Blind Spots as he watched them, which brought his own powers closer to their normal level. On some level, he realized he was in the field between Lakewood Junior Secondary School and Lakewood Elementary School. The house he and Michelle shared on Merton Crescent was only a few blocks away. He checked on Michelle quickly and saw that she was all right. Worried, but fine. She was watching the confused news coverage of the fight raging all over the city. Nobody knew who was fighting whom, but there were reports of flying cars, flying people, and falling trees all over Prince George.

An invisible force slammed into Alex and sent him flipping end-over-end into a residential neighbourhood. He cursed his momentary distraction and gained control of his fall. He set himself down and looked around to see where he was now. There was his house, just down the street. This fight was getting too close to Michelle. He had to move it away. He was about to take to the air again, but something froze him.

He felt a thrill of fear shoot through Michelle’s mind. She was under attack.

* * *

Michelle gasped when she heard wrenching metal at the back of the house.

“Hello, Michelle!” a man taunted from the back door. Michelle reached for the poker next to the fireplace, but it twirled end-over-end away from her and embedded itself in the wall.

“Those things are dangerous,” the man said. Michelle turned to face him as he emerged from the kitchen. His one good eye gleamed at her from his scarred face.

* * *

Alex sprinted down the street towards his house. Someone was in there with her, someone who she was terrified of. But Alex couldn’t sense whoever it was. That was probably more disturbing than anything. Was there a new strong Blind Spot in the picture that Alex hadn’t come across before?

Alex reached the house just as the front door exploded. Alex protected himself from the shower of wooden splinters, but he didn’t stop running until he saw Michelle come through the door.

Alex skidded to a halt. It felt like an icy hand had just caressed his heart. Michelle floated through the door. Behind her, a short Latino man sauntered outside.

“Tarso!” Alex yelled. He recognized him immediately despite the scars and one blind eye from his face plant into a mattress full of glass. He had the same smug smile and same malevolent glint in his good eye.

“Hey, Alex,” Tarso said. “Long time, no see. Get it?” He pointed to his blind eye. “No see?”

“Let go of her,” Alex said. “Now!”

“You don’t seem to understand,” Tarso said. “I have the upper hand. I make the demands.”

“What do you want?”

Behind Alex, the five remaining telekinetics landed. He impatiently shoved them halfway across the city.

“Well, it’s funny,” Tarso said. “I don’t actually have any demands. I’m only here for revenge.”

12 Blind Spots were still dulling Alex’s powers. If Tarso was as powerful as Alex expected him to be—he did, after all, seem to have Alex’s inhibitor ability—then he would need to be at his best.

“No,” Tarso said and squeezed Michelle. “You touch those Blind Spots, I kill her.”

Because of Tarso’s tight hold on her, Michelle couldn’t scream, but Alex could sense her pain in her mind and see it on her face. His heart wrenched as if it was a hand clenching into a tight fist.

Tarso stepped around Michelle and walked towards Alex. As he came, he pulled a sword out of a sheath behind him. “This is the sword that killed Dexter,” he said and held it up for Alex’s inspection. “Nice, isn’t it?”

Alex grabbed the sword with his mind and tried to rip it out of Tarso’s hands, but Tarso, who was unimpeded by the 12 Blind Spots inhibiting Alex, was stronger. He held on to the sword and shoved Alex onto his knees.

“Back to the subject of revenge,” Tarso said. “You killed my girlfriend, so I get to kill yours now.”

“Don’t touch her!” Alex yelled.

“Fair is fair,” Tarso said.

“You never loved Sandra. She was nothing to you but a willing piece of ass. Michelle is my wife!”

Tarso shrugged. “That may be true,” he said. “But, still.” He lifted the sword and swung it at Michelle.

Alex sprang to his feet as he mentally shoved Tarso’s arm so that the blade missed Michelle by inches and took a chip of concrete out of the walk.

Tarso spun and swung his sword at Alex. Unaccustomed to not sensing an enemies attack, Alex saw the move coming too late. The sword slashed over both of his eyes. The flesh at the corners of his eyes, and the bridge of his nose was sliced open. Both of his eyes were punctured in a white-hot flash.

Alex screamed and fell to his knees. His hands went to his eyes and were instantly soaked in blood and vitreous humour. He collapsed onto his side and writhed in blind pain.

My eyes! His mind screamed uselessly at itself. Oh, God, my eyes!

* * *

Tarso had her mouth clamped shut, so Michelle’s scream was muffled as Alex went down. She could hear his unspoken cries of panic. She struggled to reach out to him, but Tarso wouldn’t let her budge.

Alex, get up! Don’t let him win!

<I’ve already beaten him. Now it’s your turn.>

Michelle saw steel emerge from her chest, and everything went black.

* * *

Michelle! Alex rose above the pain and reached out to Michelle with his Touch just as she slumped to the ground.

“No,” Alex whispered. He crawled to Michelle’s motionless body. Blood ran down his face like a heavy flood of tears. He cradled Michelle in his arms. “No,” he said again. “Nononononono.”

“Yes,” Tarso said. “She’s dead.”

With his Touch, Alex felt the blood soaking the steel of Tarso’s sword. He felt his wife lying in his quivering arms. He felt the slick hole through her chest where Tarso’s sword had punctured her heart.

Tarso stood over his broken enemy with a satisfied smile on his mutilated face. A crowd of civilians had gathered to watch the scene. Somewhere in the distance, sirens were approaching. Tarso had never felt better. He raised the sword over his head in preparation to decapitate Alex, who had pulled Michelle close to him and was curling into a ball.

The sword reached the top of the swing. And stopped.

Everything had stopped. People had stopped talking. They had even stopped moving. The singing of birds and barking of dogs had stopped. The sirens in the background still wailed, but they had stopped drawing nearer.

Tarso sensed something strong. An emotion. Grief.

Every head in the city of Prince George, British Columbia looked towards one man holding his dead wife in his arms. Every person knew who this man was, even though most couldn’t see him. They knew he was Alex Cook. And they knew Michelle Cook was dead in his arms. Alex had subconsciously reached out in his grief and touched every mind in his range, including Tarso Werlang’s.

“Nononononono,” Alex was repeating in a small, agonized whisper. Every tree in and around Prince George leaned towards him. People felt drawn towards him. Small bits of debris slid towards him.

“No,” Alex said. He raised his ruined eyes to the sky. An unnatural hush fell over the city for one second, two, three.

Then there was a deafening noise as Alex wailed with 72,000 voices.

Cracks radiated away from Alex in a radius of 12 blocks. Every window in that same radius shattered. Everybody in the city, still crying out in Alex’s grief, was knocked to the ground. 26 agents of The Higher Mind fell dead among the screaming residents of Prince George.

Tarso, in a confusion of triumph, grief, and guilt, dropped his sword and fled.

PART TWO: Emptiness

Chapter Six: Aftermath

People stood up on shaky legs and looked towards Merton Crescent. Except for those who were actually on Merton, they could no longer see what was happening there, but they looked just the same. The grief they had felt, although a shadow of what they had felt moments ago, still twisted in their hearts. In their minds lingered the vision that had just been forced upon them. It didn’t dwindle and fade like a dream. Instead, it stood out like a memory of actual events. They were actual events, but they were another man’s memories of the event, not their own. In the moment when they had all virtually been Alex Cook, they understood who he was, what his story was, and what he had just lost.

The entire population of Prince George wiped tears from their eyes. Alex’s tears. Many of them, after wiping away Alex’s tears, replaced them with their own. They wept for Alex. They wept out of pity now instead of the grief that Alex had unconsciously imposed on them.

Those few who were on Merton Crescent walked in the direction of the wounded soldier. They avoided broken glass and the cracks radiating out from Alex, which formed a web with him at the center. Nobody dared approach him. They formed a circle around him and watched in awe from a distance. More people came from other streets in the neighborhood to join the onlookers.

The sirens in the distance drew near. The drivers of the emergency vehicles had gained their composure enough to start moving again. Before, they had been confused. They hadn’t known what was going on, or where exactly they were needed the most. Now they came for Alex. When the police and paramedics arrived, they eased their way through the crowd and joined Alex at the middle of the circle.

It was a heartbreaking sight. One of the paramedics and three police officers cried silently when they saw it: a man, blood on his cheeks, cradling his dead wife in his arms. Even in unconsciousness, he clung to her. He didn’t want to let her go. They managed to pry his arms away from her and laid them both down on their backs. While the police confirmed that Michelle was dead, the paramedics saw to Alex. All they could do was press a bandage to his eyes in an effort to stop the bleeding.

Nothing at all could be done for Michelle.

* * *

Alex was taken to the Prince George Regional Hospital. His eyes were damaged beyond repair, so they were removed. After stitching the wounds at the corners of his now-empty sockets and on the bridge of his nose, they placed him in a private room with a police guard. They feared an attack by The Higher Mind, but the only people they had to keep out were the media. Alex had already been a celebrity, and the events of this day were turning into a sensational twist in the drama of Alex and The Higher Mind that all of North America was eating up.

It was during the graveyard shift that the nurse doing her rounds found the room empty. The police guards at the door swore that no one had come in or out, and there were no windows inside the room. Alex had simply vanished.

Chapter Seven: Rampage

<Werlang really messed things up, didn’t he?> Deacon said as he drove to the gathering point in Buffalo.

<He came closer to killing Cook than anyone else ever has besides Parks and Callaway> Nick replied. He was driving to the same point, but coming into Buffalo from the other side of town.

<Yeah, but he didn’t kill him when he had the chance> Deacon said.

<Hey, it happens to the best of us> Nick said. <Cook is strong.>

<That’s not my point, Nick, and you know it. We’re both telepaths; you can sense what I’m getting at.>

<You’re upset because Werlang shouldn’t have made this kind of offensive without being absolutely sure of success. By killing his wife, he has just worked Cook up into a rage.>

<Rage, yes, that’s a good word for it. How many of us has he killed in the last 24 hours?>

<Thirteen.>

<You’re right> Nick said. Deacon could see beneath his words that he was arriving at the gathering point, which was the eighteenth floor of a busy office building. They were staying in densely populated areas in an effort to have their thoughts lost in the background noise of everyone else.

<Where is Werlang, anyway?> Deacon asked. <Has anyone found him yet?>

<Yeah, that’s probably true. It’s not like Cook is being subtle. All of the agents he’s killed since the incident in Prince George have been brutal and public.>

<Brutal! No kidding! Did you hear what he did to the head of Congressional control?>

<Dropped a car on him in the middle of Washington> Nick said.

<There are easier, cleaner ways for telekinetics to kill a person> Deacon said. <He’s being this brutal on—>

<No!> Nick screamed.

Deacon’s stomach twisted. He saw it through Nick’s eyes. Nick was inside the office building now, and as he entered the conference room where they were converging, he saw at least a dozen dead bodies.

<It’s a trap!> Nick said. He was looking around, not sure if Cook was still there.

<Don’t look, you idiot, just run!> Deacon yelled. Nick turned to heed his friend’s advice, but the door slammed shut. He turned the knob, but it didn’t budge. He wasn’t telekinetic, so he couldn’t force his way out.

Deacon, who had slammed on his brakes when Nick first screamed, turned his car around and headed out of Buffalo. He still watched Nick’s thoughts as he did.

<Where is he?> Nick was panicking. He tried all three doors in the room, but none of them opened. They didn’t even jiggle in their frames. Cook held them perfectly still.

And there he was, sitting at the head of the conference table. He must have been there the whole time, and was only now clearing away the cloud he had cast over Nick’s mind.

Nick couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even think. Fear and panic had chased away all rationality.

Cook didn’t move. He just sat in the chair with his shoulders slumped and his face downcast. Looking up would do no good. The bloodstained bandage over his eyes made that much obvious. The scene didn’t change for a moment. There was only silence and stillness as Nick tried to press his back through the door and Cook sat motionless.

Deacon’s heart was racing. His foot pressed harder on the accelerator.

The window opposite Nick exploded inwards. Bits of glass stung Nick, but he barely noticed them. His mind screamed three relieved words: <A way out!>

<Nick, no!> Deacon yelled. But his call went unheeded. Nick climbed over the table and dove headfirst through the eighteenth floor window. Deacon broke contact with Nick just before he hit the sidewalk.

Deacon sped along the freeway. He knew that Cook knew where he was. He knew that there was no hope of running. He ran anyway.

As he drove, he felt Cook’s mind invade his and take control. He made no effort to hide it. “No, please,” Deacon whispered.

There was no answer from Cook. An overpass was approaching. Deacon’s foot pressed harder on the accelerator, but not by any choice of his own. When he reached the overpass, his hands pulled the steering wheel hard to the right, aiming the car at a concrete abutment. It struck at over 100 miles per hour.

* * *

Alex pushed his chair away from the polished wooden table and stood up. He ran his hand over its surface. His Touch gave him a perfect mental picture of the table. A picture of the whole room, in fact, dead bodies and all. He could tell you any detail about the room, with one exception: what color it was. That, really, was the worst thing about losing his eyes. He would never see any colors again. Because of his Touch, he could still “see” better than anyone with a fully functional pair of eyes. He would miss colors, but at least he wasn’t crippled by his blindness.

He had lost something infinitely more important than his eyes.

A cool breeze howled past the broken window. Alex walked to it, put on his helmet, and floated into the night sky of Buffalo. He hovered facing west. His first impulse had been to return to Prince George, but what was there for him? An empty house and a wife in the morgue. Where would he go then? Lethbridge? Oh, he could picture it now: all of his friends, so sympathetic and filled with the desire to comfort him. They would smother him with their sympathy. Returning to his friends would just be a glaring reminder that the group was and never would be complete. The last thing he wanted right now was to think of Michelle. The grief was too recent to deal with.

He decided to go to Toronto, simply because it was the nearest major Canadian city.

Yesterday, he had woken up with Michelle’s name on his lips. The memory of her dying in his arms brought tearless sobs from him. He had convulsed on the hospital bed as his insides tore themselves apart in grief. A policeman had poked his head in, but Alex had sent him away. He needed solitude. Eventually, the sobs had died down. He noticed that he couldn’t see, but wasn’t surprised when he found the empty sockets where his eyes had been. He hadn’t had much hope of ever seeing again after Tarso slashed him.

Leaving the hospital unseen had been a simple matter. He had just walked out. With some help from his telepathy, nobody had been paying attention to him. After stopping at home to trade his hospital gown for jeans and a T-shirt, he had set to work right away. Once the agents of The Higher Mind realized that Alex was out to get them with renewed enthusiasm, some of them had tried to flee the continent. They realized quickly that it was a vain attempt. Alex had only ripped three of them through the fuselages of airplanes before they gave up on leaving North America. He then had scoured the United States looking for agents. He killed everyone he found. Only the ones who wanted to be part of The Higher Mind were still agents. There were telepaths and telekinetics around, but he left them alone. They, in turn, stayed as far away from the conflict as possible.

He killed thirteen before coming across their gathering point in Buffalo where they planned on hiding out from Alex until Tarso resurfaced. In their minds, Tarso was their only hope of survival. Alex wanted to find Tarso. He wanted to rip him apart. But he couldn’t find him, so the weaker agents of The Higher Mind were suffering from his wrath. Not that Alex felt sorry for them. They wanted to kill Alex. If they had been in Prince George, they would’ve helped kill Michelle. He had no sympathy for them. So he waited in the office as they came, one or two at a time, and he killed them. Nick and Deacon had been the last two. Tarso Werlang was the only agent of The Higher Mind left alive, but Alex couldn’t find him.

When Alex arrived in Toronto, he went straight to a hotel downtown. He didn’t want to deal with any people, so he telekinetically reached into the lobby and grabbed a key. He went to his room and stretched out on the bed.

Thoughts of Michelle came to him as soon as he was in bed. Images of her smiling at him in that way that she smiled for no one else; the sound of her voice; the feel of her flesh under his hand. And, with the images, the cruel knowledge that he would never experience them again.

A single sob echoed through the room. He stood up. Even being alone in a queen-sized bed magnified his sorrow. He needed to get his mind off of her. If he had eyes, he would open them to keep his mind’s eye from playing movies of his dead wife over and over again for him. It was an unexpected additional cruelty of blindness.

He reached out with his Touch and examined the room he was in with great detail. “Get your mind off of her, Alex,” he told himself. “I can’t deal with this.” The room held little of interest to keep him occupied. Walls, a bed, a desk, a TV, and a mini-bar. Boring. He needed something new.

His Touch gradually turned to his own face. He felt the bandage over his eyes and reached his mental fingers underneath. Stitches, like, thick whiskers, extended from the corner of each eye socket and across the bridge of his nose holding together the stinging cuts in his skin. He paused before exploring more. His Touch was gentle, so there would be no pain if he felt inside the sockets, but he still hesitated, his curiosity fighting with his reluctance. He Touched his eyelids. They were loose with nothing beneath them to stretch them taught. Behind them, he felt emptiness. Then, as he Touched with more attention, he felt the grotesque details of the empty sockets. Fine muscles hanging uselessly, smooth bone, and blood collecting in small pools at the bottom and leaking out through his flapping eyelids and soaking the bandage he wore. It was unsettling and gory. But it kept his mind off of Michelle. He returned to the bed and fell asleep examining his wounds.

Chapter Eight: Ligaya

Alex’s story spread around the globe, even to the poor archipelago nation of the Philippines. When Ligaya heard the news of Michelle’s death, she decided to cut short her visit home. A day later, after some teary farewells and a promise to come home again when she could, Ligaya was on an airplane over the Pacific Ocean.

Even though she was exhausted after disembarking in Dallas, Ligaya reached out to find Dexter. He would know what was going on a lot better than the television stations on the other side of the world. One problem, though: Dexter wasn’t in Dallas. She couldn’t find his familiar, welcoming mind anywhere. With her Touch, she found his family’s house. It was empty. That explained why no one had been answering the phone since she had started trying to get a hold of them three days ago.

Dexter was probably with Alex, who would need the support of his friends, especially those who could assist him in his fight against The Higher Mind. But where was Dexter’s family?

Ligaya did another sweep of Dallas, this time specifically looking for Dexter’s parents. She found them on the other side of town staying with Dexter’s aunt and uncle.

Ligaya’s breath caught in her throat, and she collapsed to her knees as she walked through the concourse. Dexter’s fate blazed like a neon sign in Dexter’s mother’s mind. His dead body had been found in an alley, his head almost completely severed.

A sob escaped Ligaya as her vision blurred from tears. She was attracting attention now, but she didn’t notice until a security guard approached her.

“Miss?” he said. “Is everything alright?” He held out his hand. She accepted his help, and rose to her feet even as the tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Akon uyab,” Ligaya lamented in her native tongue. “Patay na hiya!”

“I’m sorry, miss,” the confused security guard said. “I don’t even know what language that is, much less understand it.”

“Never mind,” Ligaya said. There was nothing this man could do, so why burden him with her sorrows? “I’ll be okay.” She turned and continued towards the nearest exit. Ligaya sensed the man’s desire to probe further to find out what the problem was, but Ligaya changed his mind for him. He walked off to continue his rounds.

* * *

She spent the night in the Barnes family’s empty house on Dexter’s bed. His room still smelled like him. She fell asleep crying into his pillow.

When the morning came, Ligaya rose and wondered where she could go. She wanted to find Alex. If he was still in contact with Pete, he wasn’t answering her calls. So she would look for him elsewhere.

She was on a plane in by early afternoon. Lacking Alex’s telepathic range, she had to actually go to Lethbridge to make contact with anyone in it. She chose Lethbridge because Alex probably wouldn’t want to stay in Prince George now that his wife was dead. It would make sense for him to seek out the comfort of his friends.

As soon as she arrived in Lethbridge, before the plane even landed, she reached out with her background noise. She only had the capacity to be aware of about 50,000 people at once, but that was over half of Lethbridge’s population, so it didn’t take her long to realize that she couldn’t sense Alex. That didn’t come as much of a surprise; Alex did have limited Blind Spot abilities. She searched for his friend Chuck instead. He would be the most likely person to know where he was.

Ligaya located Chuck, and she was surprised by what she found when she probed into his mind. Chuck had no idea where Alex was. He had only briefly seen him at Michelle’s funeral, and he hadn’t spoken with him at all. Alex was hiding, and nobody in Lethbridge knew where he was.

He wouldn’t have gone to his parents, would he? Ligaya scoffed at her own question. Alex hated his parents, and they hated him. Even so, it was the only lead she had.

Regina wasn’t far, so Ligaya flew there under her own power. It took her just under three hours. When she arrived, it was getting late in the evening. She checked on the Cooks before dropping by to make sure she wouldn’t be waking them by visiting at this hour. They were awake, so Ligaya landed at their front door. She opened her mouth to say “maupay,” which was how you announced yourself at a house in Waray-speaking regions of the Philippines, but she checked herself in time and rang the doorbell instead.

A tall, middle-aged woman answered the door. “Yes?” she asked.

“Mrs. Cook?” Ligaya asked. She already knew that this woman was Alex’s mother, but she didn’t want to flaunt her telepathy. It made a lot of people uncomfortable.

“Yes,” Mrs. Cook said. “And you are?”

“Ligaya Dela Cruz. I’m a friend of Alex’s.”

Ligaya had been expecting an unwelcome response, but Mrs. Cook surprised her. “Is he okay?” she asked with real concern as she opened the door wide to let Ligaya inside.

“I don’t know,” Ligaya said. “None of his friends have seen him since his wife’s funeral, and he didn’t speak to anyone then. No one knows where he is. I was wondering if he came here.”

Mrs. Cook shook her head. “We haven’t seen him in weeks. He came by to warn us that we might be in danger.”

Ligaya nodded. “I didn’t think he’d be here, but I don’t really know where else to look for him.”

“He must be in an awful state,” Mrs. Cook said. After hearing from Alex what his parents were like, Ligaya was surprised by his mother’s concern for her son. “He’s probably told you that he and I have never gotten along, I’m sure,” she continued.

“Yes,” Ligaya said.

Mrs. Cook nodded. “We never liked each other much. Orlando and I didn’t want children, and Alex was an accident. We resented him. But still, losing his wife and being crippled like that; I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

Ligaya was relieved to hear this. The woman had some decency in her, after all.

“When you see him again,” Mrs. Cook said. “Give him my condolences.”

“I will,” Ligaya said. “Thank you.”

* * *

Ligaya searched Prince George next, but not with much hope. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t there. It was hard enough looking for a man when he could be anywhere in the world, but looking for a man who was a Blind Spot was that much harder. If she didn’t have any leads, she couldn’t really hope to find him. She returned exhausted to Lethbridge and found a hotel to sleep at.

Chapter Nine: Funeral

Alex almost didn’t go. Michelle’s funeral was being held in Coaldale, where she would also be buried. He didn’t want to face his friends. He didn’t want to face her family. Most of all, he didn’t want to face the grief. It was a jagged wound in his heart. Going to the funeral would be like spreading the wound open and poking at it. In the end, he decided to go. It would be his last chance to say good-bye to her, whether she heard his farewell or not.

The family viewing was at 11:00 in the morning. Alex arrived in a black suit he had retrieved from his house in Prince George and a pair of reflective sunglasses to hide the bandage. He had changed the bandage that morning, but there was still a small trickle of blood that had seeped through in places. He stood outside of the chapel doors without entering. Almost, he turned and left. How could he face Michelle’s family? She had died because she had been Alex’s wife. There was no other reason. There was no way he could bear their looks.

He didn’t have to bear their looks. It would be simple to use the same trick he used when he left the hospital. He could walk right through a crowd and control their minds just enough that they didn’t realize he was there. Alex entered the chapel and stood near the back of the room. Nobody knew he was there. He wasn’t using his background noise. Instead, he used just enough telepathy to keep them from noticing him. His own grief was more than enough to deal with. He didn’t want everyone else’s grief magnifying it.

Alex could still feel everyone in the room. He relied on his Touch more than ever now that he was blind, so he couldn’t very well turn it off as he did his background noise. Although he had never met Michelle’s parents, they were easy enough to pick out. They were the couple in their 50s who stood nearest the casket with teary eyes.

The casket. And in the casket, the cold, beautiful body of Michelle. Alex walked unseen until he stood in front of his dead wife. His Touch felt every detail of her body, every detail of the clothes she wore. It wasn’t an outfit he recognized. They must have bought it just for this occasion. Touching her wasn’t enough. He wanted to see her.

A man stood beside Alex. He didn’t know who he was. He wasn’t more than two or three years older than Alex. Michelle’s brother, maybe. His nose was shaped the same as Michelle’s. Alex entered his mind, but not enough to hear his thoughts. He only wanted to borrow the man’s eyes, to see what he was seeing.

Michelle’s dress was a pale blue that would have matched her eyes if they had been open. Her beautiful brown hair formed a soft halo around her face, which wasn’t quite the right color. It was too pale. The make-up she wore couldn’t hide the fact that she was dead. If Alex’s tear ducts hadn’t been removed with his eyes, he would have cried then.

He reached down with his hand and stroked her cheek. So cold. He ran a gentle hand over her hair. “Good-bye, Michelle,” he whispered with a hoarse voice. “I love you. I always will.”

It was too much for him to take. He left the chapel and leaned against the front of the building sobbing softly. Passers-by noticed him. They were strangers who didn’t grieve for Michelle and didn’t know who Alex was, so he felt no need to hide from them.

After Alex gained his composure, he still didn’t go into the chapel until more people started showing up for the funeral. He hid from these people. They would recognize him, and he didn’t want their attention. Especially when Chuck, Andrea, and the rest of the gang showed up. They walked past him, not three feet away, and didn’t see him. They all looked sombre, and the women looked like they were just barely containing tears. Alex followed them in and sat behind them.

The service started. Alex sat through it in a daze. He didn’t pay any attention to anything until it was announced that Charles Stanton would be giving the eulogy. He looked up, and there was Chuck making his way to the pulpit. Most people were surprised when he didn’t take out a piece of paper to read a prepared speech, but Alex knew that Chuck would be doing this spur of the moment. Chuck did most things spur of the moment. The only difference this time was the lack of a wry grin on his face.

“Michelle has been my friend for over four years,” Chuck said. He smiled then, but there was none of his usual nonchalance about it. With this one small smile, he conveyed worlds of love and sadness. He was showing a depth of emotion that few people had realized was there. “In reality, she was a few months younger than me, but in my mind, she was my big sister.”

Soft laughter came from Alex’s friends in front of him, and Alex could feel smiles on many faces in the room.

“She knew how to laugh, and did it often,” Chuck continued. “But she also knew when to be serious. Or, in other words, she knew when to tell me to shut up and wasn’t afraid to do it.”

More laughter. Good, Alex thought. This was good for Michelle’s family. It was light, yet respectful. Funny and reverent at the same time. Yet even as he thought this, Alex didn’t smile. His grief and guilt still crushed every other emotion.

Chuck went on for five more minutes telling personal stories illustrating what a great friend Michelle had been. Alex remembered each event Chuck brought up, and he yearned for her that much more because of it.

“A few months ago, Michelle disappeared,” Chuck said as he drew near the end of the eulogy. “We know what happened to her. Her close friends and family were told that she had run off with her boyfriend, Alex Cook, and married him. They married in secret and lived in hiding for good reason, which we all know already, so I won’t go into it. Suffice it to say that their enemies found them. Now Alex has disappeared. We know he’s still alive, but we should remember today as we mourn the loss of Michelle that Alex is out there somewhere, a young widower, mourning alone.” Chuck surprised Alex then. His voice cracked, and a single tear slid down his cheek. In all the years that Alex had known Chuck, he had never seen him cry until now. “Imagine how he must feel. We’re all grieving today, and it hurts to have such a wonderful woman as Michelle torn from our lives. But at least we have each other to lean on. At least we aren’t alone, even though we will never be complete again. But Alex; who does he have to lean on right now?”

If Chuck had more to say, he couldn’t say it. He returned to his seat and silently wept into his hands as Mindy and Andrea, sitting on either side of him, tried to comfort him.

Alex almost showed himself then. He almost reached out his hand to touch Chuck’s slouched back. Instead, he stood up and left the chapel.

* * *

He didn’t leave Coaldale. It wasn’t finished yet. Alex went to a flower shop and bought a single red rose, and then he made his way to the cemetery to wait for the rest of the mourners.

The grave was ready and waiting. Alex stood next to the rectangular, concrete-lined hole with the straps and mechanism that would lower the casket into the earth. Artificial turf covered the recently disturbed dirt, but the illusion was lost on Alex. Nothing could hide from his Touch, which was currently covering ever detail in a five-mile radius.

The funeral procession was approaching. Alex stayed where he was near the grave. Let them gather around him and join in his mourning; he wouldn’t stand at the edge of the crowd joining them in their mourning.

The hearse at the head of the line of cars parked nearest the grave. As people gathered around what would be Michelle’s final resting place, the back door of the hearse swung open and the pallbearers took their spots. Chuck, Rick, and Dan were pallbearers representing their close group of friends. The other three were strangers to Alex. Friends of the family, or maybe cousins. They carried the coffin to the grave and set it down on the straps.

Alex stood rigid as a priest said a prayer over the grave. The words fell upon his deaf ears as he stood there barely able to contain his grief. He wanted to cry out. He wanted to throw himself on the casket and refuse to get up. Let them bury him with his wife. There was nothing left for him in this life.

The brief graveside service ended. People lined up to lay flowers on the coffin as others milled about visiting with friends and giving condolences to Michelle’s parents. After laying her own flower on the casket, Andrea stood to the side, not far from Alex. She was still under Alex’s influence of mind control, so she didn’t notice him. As she stood there weeping, Chuck came to her side and put an arm around her.

“I miss her so much!” Andrea’s voice was no more than a whisper.

“I know,” Chuck said. “So do I.”

“As much as it hurts that she’s gone,” Andrea said, “I find that I’m thinking more about Alex than I am about her. What’s he going through?”

“He’ll survive,” Chuck said. “Believe me, Alex is a tough little prick.”

“I wish he was here,” Andrea said. “I’d give him the biggest hug.”

Which is exactly why I’m not letting them know I’m here, Alex told himself. It would take only one hug from someone he loved to make him break down into a blubbering mass of flesh.

“I can hardly believe he isn’t here,” Chuck said. “I mean, it’s his wife’s funeral. He should be here.”

A pang of guilt unrelated to what he already felt about Michelle’s death stabbed Alex. What must people think when they noticed his absence? Michelle was his wife. Husbands attended their wives funerals if they were still alive themselves. It was just the way things worked. He decided to use his subtle mind control for a different reason now. He made sure everyone was looking at the grave as he walked up to it, allowing himself to be seen now, and placing the rose he still held on top of the pile of flowers adorning the casket. Nobody spoke a word as they watched the 25-year-old widower give one last gift to his wife. The only sounds were the wind, a few sniffling noses, and a lone bird singing in the distance.

As Alex stepped back from Michelle’s coffin, the silence broke. “Alex,” Chuck said and stepped forward. He was full of sympathy and compassion. Alex stepped into the crowd and let himself get lost in it, leaving Chuck and everyone else wondering where he had gone.

Chapter Ten: Taking Charge

Physically, there was no one with him in Alex’s hotel room, but he wasn’t alone. He was with the entire city of Toronto. Returning from Alberta, Alex had found his turbulent emotions too much to deal with, so he had reached out as far as his background noise and Touch could spread. For a moment, he had been surprised by his capacity, but he soon lost himself in the lives of these people.

At first, his attention roamed at random from person to person, dipping into their minds to see what they were up to, watching for a short time, and then moving on. They were ordinary lives of ordinary people. Once in a while, he would come across people talking about him. He never dwelt long with these people. He was looking for distraction, not the average Joe’s opinion on recent events in his life.

In his wanderings, Alex came across a ten-year-old boy named David in a residential suburban part of town. He was walking his dog, a one-year-old German shepherd named Max. David had the happiness and pure contentment that only a child can experience. He loved Max, he loved the outdoors, and he loved life. Max, as with all other animals Alex had come across since his telepathy emerged, was hard for him to read. Alex could only ever pick up a vague sense of emotion, never any thoughts. The emotions Max felt right now were love and excitement. A squirrel was running in a park on the other side of the street. The dog pulled against the leash, which slipped out of his young master’s hand, and he bolted across the street. David ran after him.

As this was happening, Alex saw 21-year-old Kyle driving down the same street. The speed limit was 50 km/h, but Kyle was driving 80 with Nickelback blaring on his car stereo. David and Max were around a bend in the road, so Kyle didn’t see that he was about to run them down.

Alex acted without thinking. With gentle speed, he pushed David and Max to safety. Kyle, having seen how close he had come to vehicular manslaughter, slowed down to 30 km/h. His heart did a nauseating dance of fear with his stomach. Alex seized on this fear and shame, and he amplified it in Kyle’s mind. It would be a while before he drove so recklessly again.

The good deed felt nice. For the first time since Michelle died, Alex found a faint glimmer in the midst of his dark emotions. It wasn’t enough to call it happiness. It was more a feeling of accomplishment, a feeling of purpose.

Purpose. Not just mere distraction. Alex now had a purpose that didn’t involve killing his enemies. He embraced his new self-appointed role as saviour of Toronto. His search through the city carried on with new interest. He didn’t dwell on things that didn’t pertain to his goal.

Alex spent hours in this endeavour. All over Toronto, he prevented accidents big and small: car crashes, slips of knives, dropped pots full of boiling water, bad falls. And there were more than just accidents. He stopped a few instances of bullying at schools, a fist fight getting out of hand at a bar, husbands abusing wives, parents abusing children, and even one attempted murder.

Around midnight, as Alex was growing tired, he came across a small family. Seth, a 16-year-old high school student, was the only child of Rod and Janice Sharp. He was returning home late after being with some of his friends.

“Decided to come home, did you?” Rod said as Seth came in the front door.

“Yeah,” Seth said. He was waiting for the usual biting remark from his jerk of a father. Seth could not remember a single instant of patriarchal love from this man he called Father. Alex could sympathize.

Rod was prepared to deliver the expected harsh words. I wish you would just run away and get it over with. It would make life so much easier for your mother and me. These words stood out in the man’s mind. They had been there for a few hours. He had been preparing this lecture, and now the audience he had been waiting for was present.

Alex stepped in before the lines could be delivered. He took control of Rod, but not deep control. The man would remember the words he spoke and the actions he made in the next few minutes. Alex’s control was subtle enough, though, that Rod wouldn’t realize that the words and actions weren’t his.

Alex rested Rod’s hand on Seth’s shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “You worry us sometime, son.” Alex’s words spoken through Rod Sharp’s mouth.

Seth was flabbergasted. He hadn’t been prepared for this reaction, and so he didn’t know how to continue.

“I know we don’t always show it,” Alex’s puppet continued, “but we do love you.” This wasn’t a lie. Alex could sense the man’s love for his son. It wasn’t the strongest love, and it was contradicted with a strong dislike for Seth’s personality, but the love was there. But it was out of character for Rod to voice this love.

Seth still didn’t know what to say. His father had never told him before that he loved him. Now that it was out there, he didn’t know what to do with this information.

Alex made Rod smile. “Go to bed, son,” he said. “You have school in the morning.” Rod turned and ascended the stairs to the bedrooms on the second floor.

Seth sat on the sofa in the living room and wept.

Alex drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Eleven: On Patrol

Helicopters circled overhead shining spotlights on Alex. One was a police helicopter. The other two were from news stations. Wind buffeted him as he stood on top of the CN Tower, but he didn’t lose his balance. He was aware of the helicopters and the wind, but no more than he was aware of the rest of the city. He was on patrol.

* * *

A mile away, Jay Rogers was robbing a convenience store at gunpoint. His construction job didn’t provide him with the money he needed for the lifestyle he wanted to live. His car stereo was acting up, and the money he got from this robbery—his third in three months—would help pay for a new one.

The kid behind the counter, who was no older than 19, was visibly shaking as he emptied the contents of a cash register into Jay’s backpack. Jay estimated that it was about $300. There was a five-dollar bill under a little clip under the rest of the fives. If removed, it would set off the alarm. As the clerk reached for it, Jay grabbed his hand.

“Just leave that one, you little punk,” Jay said. “Close the drawer, and then zip up my backpack.”

The kid obeyed, hoping that he wouldn’t be hurt at all, and planning on quitting this job if he made it through the night alive. This wasn’t worth minimum wage.

When he looked up, something had changed about the man who was robbing him. He just stood there slack-jawed when the kid held out the backpack for him.

“Put it back in the register,” Jay said. His voice was soft and calm. The kid blinked. This wasn’t how the robbery script was supposed to play out. The robber was supposed to take the money and run. Instead, he set the gun on the counter, removed his ball-cap and sunglasses, and sat on the floor.

“The police are on their way,” Jay said in his sleepy voice. “I’ll just wait here for them.”

* * *

Dennis Lee was drunk. He had never been so drunk before. Drinking was a new habit that he and his friends had picked up since starting the tenth grade. The party they had gone to tonight had been a wild one, and Dennis had downed more than he ever had before. His ride had passed out on the couch, so Dennis had decided to walk home. It was already an hour passed his curfew. His parents were going to kill him.

Walking proved to be a lot more difficult than he remembered. He thought that he had mastered the art of putting one foot in front of the other and keeping balance while doing so. Tonight, however, showed him how wrong he had been. Walking was hard work! He couldn’t keep going in a straight line, and his blurry vision didn’t help him any.

The night was getting brighter. Was it later than he thought? Was the sun already rising? Man, my parents are gonna flip!

He turned in the direction the light was coming from. Two suns? That can’t be right.

Someone shoved him. He fell in the gutter as a car sped by inches from where he lay.

“Hey, thanks,” Dennis said as he got to his feet. He looked around to see who had pushed him out of the road, but no one was nearby. Confused, Dennis continued on his journey home. This time, though, he managed to stay on the sidewalk.

* * *

Tara Henderson was in a crowded liquor store picking up a case of beer for a party at her best friend’s house. As she carried it towards the checkout, the clerk went running out the front door after a couple of guys.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Were you guys planning on paying for that?”

Tara looked at the vacant checkout, watched as the only other employee in the store ran out to back up his co-worker, who was arguing with the guys who had just walked out without paying for what they took.

I could just walk out of here with this while they’re distracted. The thought attracted her. She hadn’t shoplifted since she had been in junior high. Free beer tonight would be nice. She was a university student, after all. Money was tight. She needed a lucky break like this.

She took a few steps towards the door with the intent of sneaking off with the case of beer, but then she stopped. A sudden change of mind came over her, and she decided to wait a few minutes and pay for the beer.

* * *

Darren Parker fidgeted in excitement as he waited for the ascending elevator to reach the ninth floor where Georgina waited for him. He looked down and realized that he was playing with his wedding ring, spinning it around on his finger. He pulled it off and stuck it in his pocket.

His wife, Lisa, thought he was out of town on business. It wasn’t a complete lie; Georgina was a business associate.

This was Darren’s second encounter of this nature with Georgina. They had been working together for five years, and had become good friends. Then last week, they had ended up working late together. After the office closed, they went to Georgina’s nearby apartment to continue on their project. The casual location led to more casual conversation, and with the aid of a whiskey or two, they had ended up in bed.

Yes, Darren felt guilty. He loved Lisa. But Georgina was something new and exciting that he couldn’t resist.

The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open. Darren stepped out and practically hopped down the hall to her door.

The door opened, and Lisa greeted Darren. Not Georgina.

“Darren?” she said. “Why are you knocking on your own door?”

Darren blinked and looked around. This was his apartment. He could’ve sworn he was in Georgina’s building.

“I thought you were in Ottawa,” Lisa said.

Darren smiled. “I wanted to surprise you,” he said. Yes, Lisa. Lisa was the woman he wanted. Lisa was his wife. He had to love and cherish his wife. She was a treasure that he needed to thank God for every moment that they were together. Georgina was a beautiful, charming woman. She could find a man of her own. She didn’t need Lisa’s husband.

Darren entered his home, closed the door behind him, and took his wife in his arms.

* * *

“Alex,” a voice said, and Alex was pulled from the lives of Toronto to his own physical surroundings.

The helicopters, which had only noticed Alex after he had been on top of the CN Tower for most of the evening, still circled him. The voice was coming from a loudspeaker on the police helicopter.

“We know that you’ve been through a lot of hard times, Alex,” the voice, a man’s voice, continued. With his Touch, Alex had a perfect mental image of what this man—Constable Neil Armitage—looked like.

Before Neil could continue, Alex broke his loudspeaker. He didn’t want to hear what he already knew they were going to say to him. They didn’t want him to kill himself.

The helicopters were loud and annoying, and he could feel the cameras from the news copters pointing at him and sending their signals out live so the country could watch this latest drama in the Alex Cook story unfold.

Well, Alex told himself, if they want drama, who am I to keep it from them? He ran to the edge and dove off. He gave himself a little telekinetic push to be sure that he’d clear the lookout, which was wider than the roof he had been on, and then let gravity have its way with him.

The air howled around him as he felt the ground below coming closer and closer. For a moment, he considered letting the ground crush the life out of him. Maybe he and Michelle would be reunited in death.

Tarso was still out there somewhere. This alone made Alex catch himself before hitting the unforgiving Ontario ground. Someone needed to keep Tarso from running wild in the world.

He levitated away from the prying eyes of the news cameras and returned to his empty hotel room.

Chapter Twelve: Alex and Ligaya

First thing in the morning, Ligaya turned on the television and tuned in to a Canadian 24-hour cable news channel. She listened to it as she dressed, and it wasn’t long before a story about Alex came on. Half-dressed, she sat on the foot of the bed and watched the story.

Alex had been spotted in Toronto on top of the CN Tower. Police thought that he was suicidal and tried to talk him down, but he ignored them and jumped anyway. Ligaya gasped and held her hand to her heart as they showed footage of Alex plummeting to his apparent doom. As he neared the ground, his fall slowed, and he swooped unharmed into the night.

Ligaya let out the breath she had been holding.

The anchorman continued talking about Alex, but he didn’t have any solid information. There was only speculation about Alex’s shaky emotional state. Ligaya turned off the television and finished dressing. She had a plane to catch.

* * *

That afternoon, Ligaya stood atop the CN Tower where Alex had been the previous night. There was no sign of him now. Searching Toronto took longer than searching Lethbridge, but Ligaya had managed to touch every mind in the greater Toronto area. He very well could have left already.

Ligaya sighed and floated into the air high above the city. Where to now?

Something in the streets below caught her attention. Like all telekinetics, she kept her Touch attuned to a large area around her. A car ran a red light, and was about to be broadsided by a bus, but an invisible force pushed the two vehicles so that they missed each other.

Telekinesis was at work here, and it wasn’t Ligaya.

She paid closer attention to what was going on around her. Subtle acts of telekinesis were happening all over the city. Some small acts, others larger, all of them preventing accidents great and small.

Now that she was looking for it, Ligaya also saw instances of telepathic manipulation. People involved in questionable or illegal activities experienced unusual changes of heart. Heated arguments had a way of cooling down. Watching it unsettled her. It reminded her of The Higher Mind, only with more benevolent goals.

<Don’t compare me to them.> The last word was filled with loathing.

<Alex.>

No answer.

<No.>

Alex was silent. He was still blocking her from reading his mind, so she couldn’t determine where he was. She reached out with her Touch and searched for the familiar feel of her friend. Of course, if he didn’t want to be found, this wouldn’t work. He could mask himself to telekinesis as effectively as he could to telepathy.

<We have a lot to talk about> Ligaya said.

<You’re a good friend, Ligaya, but why would I lean on you when I don’t even want to lean on my best friend.>

There was no answer from Alex. Ligaya continued her search while she spoke.

There he was. She still couldn’t see his thoughts, but she could feel him with her Touch. He was sitting up in a hotel bed with his back against the headboard. It wasn’t far from where she was, and she arrived at the hotel in a few minutes.

Ligaya opened the door to Alex’s room and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. He wore a pair of sunglasses, but she could see white gauze peaking out at the edges. He looked morose. She understood why and felt a pang of grief at Dexter’s memory.

“I’m sorry about Dexter,” Alex said.

“I’m sorry about Michelle.” Ligaya sat in a comfortable chair next to the window.

“It’s my fault they’re dead,” Alex said with a wooden voice.

“That’s stupid,” Ligaya said. “Tarso hated Dexter before he even heard of you. And blaming yourself for your wife’s death is uncalled for. Tarso killed her, and you tried to save her.”

Alex was silent. Ligaya couldn’t read his mind, and he had no eyes that she could read emotion from, so she had to rely on his body language alone to guess what he was thinking. She didn’t think he was convinced.

“What are you doing here?” Ligaya asked. “Besides wallowing in self-pity, that is.”

“Don’t preach to me about self-pity,” Alex said. There was a satisfying degree of heat in his voice. It was good to see him rising out of his wooden silence. “You’re brimming over with self-pity. You’re dealing with the pain in the same way I am. The only difference is who we’re reaching out to help. You want to help me; I’m helping the people of a large city.”

“So that’s it,” Ligaya said. “Something bad happened to you, so you’re keeping bad things from happening to the people of Toronto, no matter how inconsequential.”

“You think what I’m doing is wrong.” He said it with absolute certainty. He knew all of her arguments before she could say them, but damned if she wasn’t going to say them.

“It is wrong,” she said. “You’re controlling them. How is that different than what The Higher Mind did?”

“The Higher Mind didn’t help people,” Alex said. “Everything they did was selfish. I’m making life better for these people, and soon for all people!”

“All people? You’re going to be the protector of the whole world?”

“I can do it,” Alex said. “Not yet, but someday. In maybe a year or two, my background noise and Touch will be strong enough to reach around the globe. I’m not far from being able to be aware of the entire province, and my growth isn’t showing any sign of stopping.”

It was Ligaya’s turn to be silent. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Had Alex destroyed The Higher Mind only to replace it?

“Stop it!” Alex hissed. “I’m nothing like them! Part of the reason I’m doing this is to make sure that nothing like The Higher Mind is ever formed again. I can stop telepaths and telekinetics from every organizing themselves into a group that can take power to the degree that Parks and Callaway did.”

“Why do we need an entire organization when one man can do it on his own?” Ligaya asked.

“Damn it, Ligaya, you aren’t listening to me! I’m helping people!”

“You’re helping them too much. You’re controlling them.”

“I’m making their lives better.”

“At the expense of their free will. I’m not blind to your influence here. People make mistakes. That’s part of how they learn. How can these people grow if everything is done for them?”

“The world is a terrible place that needs to be fixed.” Alex stood up and started to pace. “I have the power to fix it. What kind of person would I be if I stood by and let people do such terrible things to each other?”

Ligaya stayed seated and calm. “Don’t stop helping them,” she said. “Just don’t help them in cases when it’s not your place to help them. Continue saving people’s lives. Keep pulling children out of burning buildings and stopping fatal car crashes. Stop murders. But stay out of their private lives. Don’t take away their God-given right to live their lives the way they see fit, even if they’re terribly wrong.”

Alex stood at the window with his back to her. He was unreadable, as quiet to her as the statues at the MacArthur monument in Tacloban.

“You remember what it was like in Jackpot,” Ligaya said. “You remember the mind control training. We both hated it. We felt dirty taking people’s freedom away and making them do what we wanted them to do. And now here you are, making Ontarians do what you deem to be right.”

Ligaya sat and waited for Alex’s response. It didn’t come. While she was waiting, she blacked out. She woke up alone on the outskirts of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Alex had sent her away.

She sighed and headed into Winnipeg to find a place to stay for the night. She could only hope that Alex had taken what she said to heart.

PART THREE: Alex and Tarso

Chapter Thirteen: Tarso and Cam

Tarso was feeling much better. His altercation with Alex had been disastrous. He hadn’t expected the intensity of the emotional onslaught from Alex once he had killed Michelle. Unprepared, he had been overwhelmed by it. Tarso’s telepathy was every bit as sensitive as Alex’s. This, combined with Alex’s nuclear mind bomb, rattled Tarso more than anyone else in Prince George on that day. Alex’s thoughts and feelings had been as strong in Tarso’s mind as his own thoughts and feelings. The confusion had been too much to bear, and Tarso had fled.

For weeks, he hid in the Rocky Mountains. He had been a wreck. The triumph he felt from defeating Alex and killing his whore clashed with the sorrow and aching sense of loss for the same reasons he felt triumph. It was almost enough to drive him mad. He barely ate and slept during this time as he tried to sort out the conflicting emotions.

Over time, he was successful. He was able to differentiate between Alex’s feelings and his own, and then he was able to purge those foreign feelings from his heart. They were nothing now but a memory. He returned to Nevada three weeks after killing Michelle. He was pale and 20 pounds lighter, but he was himself again. Even his scarred face and one blind eye didn’t get his spirits down. Alex was blind in both eyes. The memory of chopping Dexter’s head off also cheered him up whenever he was brooding about his own deformities.

Finding Alex in Prince George had been simple. All it required was someone who could mask his thoughts from him. Tarso was that man. Watching Dexter had led Tarso to Pete, the schizophrenic homeless man in Dallas. When Alex and Dexter used Pete to speak to each other, Tarso had followed Alex’s thoughts back to their source, and Alex had no idea.

Tarso’s life was given purpose by one goal: kill Alex Cook. He had come so close before, only to fail due to lack of preparation. Alex Cook and Dexter Barnes, the two people he hated most. One was already six feet below Texas. Killing Alex would require more strategy. He supposed that he’d end up killing the Filipino bitch, but she didn’t elicit the hate that he felt for his American and Canadian classmates. Killing her would be more of an afterthought.

Strategy. That’s what brought Tarso back to Nevada. No one had seen Cam—who, it turned out, really was Hurst’s son—since Alex destroyed The Higher Mind’s headquarters just outside of Jackpot. In the months between Cook’s rebellion and his rampage against the surviving agents of The Higher Mind, a rumor had circulated that Cam had grown to be the most powerful inhibitor in recorded history. He was to Blind Spots what Tarso and Alex were to telepaths and telekinetics. If Tarso could find him, he may be an important weapon.

Tarso was searching in Nevada because that was the last known location of the Hurst family. The problem with looking for a Blind Spot of such strength was the difficulty in sensing his thoughts. So Tarso looked for actual blind spots in his Touch and background noise. If there was any area that he couldn’t see, chances were that Cam Hurst was in the middle of it.

It was in suburban Las Vegas that he found a dark spot in his mind’s eye. It was a small section of land in the middle of a sprawling upscale neighborhood that was just big enough to conceal a good-sized house. Tarso headed for it.

Life had been good to the Hurst family over the decades. Being the alpha inhibitor and one of the three founding fathers of The Higher Mind had its privileges. Getting past the gate was no problem, but things got tricky as he approached the house. He walked into the influence of Cam’s power and found himself with nothing more than the normal five senses. He had planned to unlock the door and walk right in. Instead, he had to ring the doorbell.

Cam answered the door. He looked the same as he had at the Jackpot facility. Tall, lanky, young, but with those penetrating green eyes that had his father’s intensity. “What do you want, Tarso?” he asked. His voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.

“He speaks!” Tarso said, trying to jolly Cam out of his sullenness.

Cam stared at Tarso.

“How have you been?” Tarso asked. “I haven’t seen you since graduation.”

“What do you want?” Cam repeated.

“Remember Alex Cook?” Tarso asked.

Cam’s eyes clouded. Of course he remembered. His father was Alex Cook’s first kill.

“You’re just as strong as I hoped you were, Cam,” Tarso said. “We could use each other’s talents.”

Cam opened the door wide to let Tarso inside.

Chapter Fourteen: Alex and Chuck

Is Ligaya right? This question plagued Alex in the hours after his visit with the only friend he had left from his days of training for The Higher Mind. Oh, how he had hated The Higher Mind. So selfish and manipulative. Was he becoming them?

He wanted to do what was right. He wanted to help people. Was he taking away their freedom in the process? If he had been in control of things a month ago, Michelle would be alive today and Tarso would be dead. Leaving Tarso alive after their fight in Michelle’s apartment was the biggest mistake he had ever made. Michelle and Dexter both would be fine. Alex wouldn’t be blind. Everything would be great.

Michelle. What would Michelle think of what Alex was doing now? When his telepathic had powers first exhibited themselves, she had been wary and frightened of them. After time she had grown comfortable with most of his abilities. She had enjoyed the unprecedented intimacy they had shared. Mind control, however, was something she never got used to. It had bothered her that Alex had the ability to take control of people like that. And now he was controlling most of the population of Ontario to some degree. Alex had to admit to himself that she wouldn’t approve of his actions.

A sob escaped him. This new realization that Ligaya had nudged him towards made him feel like he had betrayed his wife’s memory. He had only been trying to make the world a better place, and in the process he had started down a path that would lead him to become everything he hated about his former captors.

* * *

Mindy was trying to cheer Chuck up. He loved her for trying, but it wasn’t working. As they sat in the bar sipping beer and listening to a local band play, all Chuck could think about was Alex. How many times had he and Alex done this very thing? Mindy’s heart was in the right place, but she should’ve taken Chuck on a date that didn’t remind him of his missing best friend.

Losing Michelle had been tough. Chuck had meant everything he had said at her funeral about his fondness for her. It was Alex, though, that was distracting him. It was the thought of Alex off somewhere wounded and alone that mellowed Chuck’s natural exuberance.

“Do you want to go home?” Mindy asked. She must have noticed Chuck’s mood.

Chuck nodded. They both stood up and made their way to the exit. “They kinda sucked, didn’t they?” Mindy commented as they stepped into the cool, clear night. The air was sweet after being inside the smoky bar.

“They kinda sucked big-time,” Chuck agreed. “They’ll probably be the next Nickelback.”

Mindy laughed. A taxi pulled up to the curb and they got in the backseat together. After telling the driver their destination, Chuck leaned back and sighed. “Sorry I’ve been so gloomy lately,” he said.

Mindy squeezed his thigh. “I can’t blame you,” she said. “I’ve had a tough time dealing with this, and I didn’t even know Alex and Michelle nearly as well as you did.”

Chuck smiled and looked out the window at the passing scenery of Lethbridge. “I just wish I knew what was going on with Alex,” he said. “When I saw him on the news last night, I thought he was really going to kill himself.

“I couldn’t even watch when he jumped,” Mindy said and shivered. “I—“

“Stop the car!” Chuck said as he sat up straight. Had he actually seen what he thought he had? The driver wasn’t stopping fast enough. “Stop, stop!” Chuck shouted.

The driver pulled the cab up to the curb of Third Avenue. Chuck was out the door and running before the car had come to a complete stop.

“Chuck?” Mindy was running behind him to catch up. “What’s wrong?”

Chuck stopped and looked around.

“What are you looking for?” Mindy asked.

“I could’ve sworn I saw Alex,” Chuck said. “He was wearing sunglasses, but I’m pretty sure it was him. Who else but a blind man would wear sunglasses at night? Besides Corey Hart, that is.”

He was positive that he had seen him. He had known Alex since he was a kid. He knew his face, he knew the way he carried himself. It had been Alex standing here on this street corner. But where was he now?

“Hey!” the taxi driver called. “Were guys gonna pay, or what?”

“He’s gone again,” Chuck said. “Damn it, why does he do that?”

“Come on, Chuck,” Mindy said and took his hand. “Let’s go gome.”

Chuck let Mindy lead him back to the taxi.

* * *

An hour later, Mindy was snoring softly next to Chuck as he stared at the ceiling. Sleep was eluding him, as it often did these days. He couldn’t stand lying awake anymore, so he rose from the bed and left the bedroom.

After grabbing a glass of water, Chuck went out to the balcony for some fresh air. He lived on the eighth floor of one of the taller buildings in Lethbridge. From the balcony, he could see the apartment that Michelle had lived in before she ran off with Alex. Melancholy washed over him. He emptied his glass and threw it over the edge. The soft shattering of glass reached his ears from the pavement below a couple of seconds later.

“That’s not something the Chuck I know tends to do.”

Chuck spun around and looked in the direction of the voice. Alex sat in a chair to his left.

“You’ve never been prone to emotional outbursts like that,” Alex said.

“I’ve had a lot on my mind lately,” Chuck said.

Alex nodded. A brief silence hung between them.

“So what gives?” Chuck asked. Now that he had Alex in front of him, all of his anxiety was turning to anger. “What the hell do you think you’re pulling? Michelle dies, and we don’t hear a word from you!”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “I couldn’t face you guys at first. You would’ve all been so…so good to me about it. You wouldn’t have let me forget about it.”

“So you shut yourself off from the world?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“And what about us?” Chuck asked and stood in front of Alex. “It was bad enough losing Michelle. Didn’t it ever occur to you that it felt like we lost you, too?”

Alex turned his face up to Chuck, the black sunglasses inscrutable. “No,” Alex said. “I’m sorry.”

Chuck folded his arms and leaned against the balcony railing. “How are you holding up?” he asked.

Alex shrugged.

“That bad, huh?” Chuck said.

“You don’t understand what it’s like,” Alex said and stood up. “Yes, you loved Michelle. She was a wonderful friend. But she was my wife! She was everything to me!” Alex’s voice was thick, but no tears came.

“I know,” Chuck said. “But Alex, I’m your friend. There are still people who love you. Don’t shut us out over this.”

Alex surprised Chuck by sobbing. No tears had warned him that this was coming. But then Chuck remembered that, of course, Alex had nothing to cry with. Chuck hugged him. Alex leaned against him and shook with sobs.

“Oh, Chuck, I miss her so much!” Alex cried.

“I know,” Chuck said. He held Alex up as he let go of the burden of grief he had been trying to hold up himself and allowed his friend to share in that burden. And, in sharing the burden, it was lightened.

* * *

“You can stay here with me,” Chuck said ten minutes later.

“You’re sure?” Alex asked. “I could get a hotel.”

“Oh, knock it off, Alex. You’re my best friend. Where are your things? You’re moving in with me for now. Mindy won’t mind.”

A small smile touched the corners of Alex’s mouth. “If you insist,” he said. A duffle bag leapt over the edge of the balcony, and Alex caught it with an almost absentminded hand. A duffle bag and something else.

“Is that a sword?” Chuck asked, a touch of amusement in his voice.

Alex’s smile melted away.

Chuck drew a sharp breath. “Is it the sword?”

Alex nodded. “I’m saving it,” he said. He turned and stepped inside.

Chapter Fifteen: Alex and Tarso

Alex said.

Ligaya said. <The only friend I have left on this side of the world wasn’t talking to me. I figured I’d hang out in the last place he knew I was just in case he wanted to get a hold of me.>

<I’m sorry, Ligaya. I was a prick the last time we talked.>

<It’s nothing, Alex. I understand. All is forgiven.>

Ligaya could sense enough of Alex’s feelings to realize that this wasn’t an offer for a date. Neither one of them wanted a new relationship so soon after losing the ones they had loved. This dinner would be reconciliation between two friends who should be helping each other through hard times instead of bickering.

Ligaya smiled. <That’d be nice> she said. <You’re back in Lethbridge now?>

<Yeah> Alex said.

* * *

In truth, Alex wasn’t in Lethbridge when he was talking to Ligaya, but he was close enough. He was at the cemetery in Coaldale visiting Michelle’s grave. The headstone had been erected earlier that morning, and this was Alex’s first time visiting it. The engraving on its granite face had been done with excellent workmanship. He ran his Touch over it to read what was said. Beneath her name—Michelle Valerie (Lewis) Cook—and the dates of her birth and death was an epitaph: “Loved by all who knew her/Taken from us too soon.” It was perfect. Her mother had come up with it. He would have to commend her for it as soon as he built up the nerve to face them.

Alex placed a rose on the grave and sat next to it.

* * *

Something was wrong. As Alex approached Lethbridge two hours later, there was a glaring problem with the place. His background noise and Touch reached to every inch of the city with one exception: he couldn’t see or hear Henderson Park. It was like a small section of a map had been blacked out with a permanent marker. His blindness made it even worse. He couldn’t just look and see what was going on.

Blind Spots were obviously what were keeping him from penetrating the area with his extra sensory perceptions, but what were they hiding? And how many of them must there be to prevent him from seeing whatever was there?

Alex landed on the west side of Mayor Magrath Drive opposite Henderson Park and outside of the influence of the Blind Spots. Pedestrians were walking along the sidewalk around him. Alex borrowed one of them and used his eyes to look into the park. All he saw were trees, more pedestrians, inline roller skaters, and people walking their dogs. Whatever was going on must be deeper in the park. Alex let the man whose sight he had borrowed continue along.

He drew in his background noise and his Touch and focused all of his mental efforts on the darkness across the street from him. Using all of his strength, he found that he could see into the park, but not very well. His Touch was vague and weak, and he could only read one mind at a time.

Cam Hurst was the first person he recognized. Alex was surprised enough to see him after he had seemed to vanish after the fall of The Higher Mind’s headquarters. More shocking, though, was Alex’s realization that Cam was the only Blind Spot in the area. How was this possible? Cam was at least 50 times stronger than any Blind Spot Alex had ever met, including the senior Hurst.

And you’re 50 times stronger than any other telepath and telekinetic before you and Tarso came along, Alex told himself. The appearance of a stronger-than-ever inhibitor wasn’t such a stretch of the imagination.

All thoughts of Cam were washed away in a river of hate when Alex noticed who accompanied young Mr. Hurst. Tarso Werlang stood in the middle of a ring of nine people on the north shore of Henderson Lake.

Alex lifted himself across the busy six-lane road and set himself down on the other side. He strode into the park intent on killing his wife’s murderer.

As Alex entered the park, he came under Cam’s full influence and found himself blind. His Touch went numb; he could only feel in a radius of about five feet. He groped around like the blind man he was, not knowing what was in front of him outside of his meagre range. His purposeful stride slowed and lost some of its confidence. He had also lost all telepathic contact with Tarso and Cam. He could feel the whispers of thoughts from people near him, but his enemies were too far away.

This is ridiculous, Alex told himself. He couldn’t face Tarso in this weak condition. He turned to leave the park and think up a plan, but Tarso’s voice spoke up in his mind: <No, Alex, don’t leave now. Keep coming.>

Alex didn’t halt his retreat. Let Tarso taunt him. Alex wouldn’t walk blindly into a hopeless fight.

<If you leave,> Tarso said, <your friends will die.>

Alex stopped. When he had seen Tarso, he hadn’t even paid attention to the nine people who had formed a ring around him. Now Tarso let him know who they were: Chuck, Andrea, Mindy, Rick, Dan, Krista, Sherry, Cynthia, and Maren. Alex’s closest friends. Tarso held them captive. Their eyes were opened, but they had the blank faces of those under heavy mind control.

Bastard! Alex thought as he started walking in Tarso’s direction. He didn’t have the strength to project the thought to Tarso, but Tarso was at full strength; he would be listening to all of Alex’s thoughts. I’ll rip your heart out if you hurt them.

<You’re too slow> Tarso said. Alex was pulled forward 100 yards or so and dropped in the grass at Tarso’s feet. He stood up and faced his enemy.

“Hey, Alex,” Tarso said. Alex’s Touch was too weak to feel any details on Tarso, but he could hear the smile in his voice. “How have things been? Is the wife doing well?”

Alex punched Tarso in the face. Tarso went down, and Alex swung his foot in his general direction. This time, Tarso saw the blow coming and knocked Alex’s leg out from under him. Alex scrambled to his feet as Tarso rose in no hurry.

“I hope you enjoyed that,” Tarso said.

“Oh, I did,” Alex replied.

“It’ll be the last time you touch me.” Some of the mirth was gone from Tarso’s voice, but he still reeked of confidence.

“Let my friends go,” Alex said. “You have me. You don’t need them anymore.”

Tarso stepped closer to Alex. “Do you realize how many of my friends’ lives you’ve taken in this little self-righteous war of yours?” he asked. “How many of my fellow telepaths and telekinetics? And don’t forget Cam. You shot his father in the face. We owe you, Cook.”

“I killed Cam’s father in self-defence,” Alex said. “I killed the other people to free the world from their oppression.”

“Oppression!” Tarso scoffed. “The world didn’t even know about The Higher Mind until you told them about it. They lived their lives content that they were living in freedom.”

“The illusion of freedom is still oppression,” Alex said.

“Justify it all you want, Alex. You’re still a murderer.”

“You’re the only murderer here, Tarso. You killed my wife out of spite.”

“And I enjoyed it,” Tarso said.

Alex mustered all the telekinetic strength he could and shoved Tarso, who only staggered back a few steps and laughed.

“Pathetic,” Tarso said. He lifted Alex into the air and slammed him down onto his back. The breath was knocked out of him and pain shot along his spine.

“This is too easy. Why don’t we have a little fun with him, Cam? Let me see my handy work,” Tarso ripped off Alex’s sunglasses and the bandages beneath them. Alex’s empty eye sockets were exposed to the air.

“Just finish him off,” Cam said.

Alex tried to sit up, but Tarso shoved him down again.

“I don’t think I will finish him off,” Tarso said. “I think Chuck will have that honor.”

Alex reached out with his weakened Touch and felt one of his friends step out of the ring formation and approach him. Alex couldn’t feel with enough detail to see who it was, but he assumed from what Tarso said that it was Chuck.

“No,” Alex said. Chuck knelt above him. Alex was pinned beneath his best friend. “Stop it, Tarso.”

Tarso laughed. Chuck’s hands clamped around Alex’s throat.

* * *

Ligaya looked for Alex as soon as she arrived in Lethbridge. She didn’t expect to find him in the predicament that he was in: Tarso Werlang, Cam Hurst, and some of Alex’s friends stood around while Alex was being strangled by Chuck Stanton.

She paused, thinking of her best course of action. It needed to be quick. Tarso and Cam were focusing all of their efforts on Alex, so they hadn’t noticed her hundreds of feet above them yet. That wouldn’t last long. She had to do something before she was disabled.

* * *

Alex tried to pry Chuck’s fingers off of his throat, but his grip was too strong. He could sense Chuck’s thoughts enough to know that, despite Tarso’s control over him, he was conscious and knew what was going on. It was just one more cruel act from Tarso to let Chuck know that he was being used to kill his best friend.

Someone else approached Alex and Chuck, this one a woman. Which woman, Alex couldn’t tell. She reached down, stuck her fingers in Alex’s empty sockets, and poked around. The pain was more than he expected, and he would have screamed if he could have drawn breath. Instead, he just gurgled and twitched.

Tarso was laughing, but it seemed to be coming from far away. The pain and lack of oxygen was making the world around Alex fade. It would vanish soon. Chuck would squeeze the life out of him in a matter of minutes. Alex tried reaching out with his telepathy and telekinesis, but he wasn’t strong enough to do anything.

I’m dying, Alex thought as he listened to the blood pounding in his ears.

Just before Alex lost consciousness, something happened. His Touch came back full force, and his mind was flooded with the thoughts of everybody in the city.

“What!” It was Tarso, bellowing in fury. In his distraction, his control over Chuck and the woman—Andrea, Alex was able to see now—broke, and they pulled their hands away from Alex.

Air! Alex gulped it in, coughed, gulped in some more.

“Alex, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Andrea was gushing out an apology as she wiped her fingers in disgust on the grass.

When Chuck stood up, Alex rolled over and coughed some more. <It wasn’t your fault> he told Andrea as he hacked. With his Touch, he could sense Cam lying on the ground with most of his head caved in. A large rock, about the size of a soccer ball, was nearby with bits of hair, skull, and gore staining it.

* * *

Ligaya had dropped the rock from fifty feet above Cam. She had shoved it down, giving gravity a hand to make sure the rock hit its mark and hit it hard.

Once Cam was dead, Tarso had reached out looking for the cause. It didn’t take him long to find Ligaya.

<Come here, you little whore!> Tarso grabbed Ligaya and pulled her out of the sky. She resisted, but he was too strong for her. She hit the ground and everything went black.

* * *

When Alex finally stopped coughing and started to breathe normally, Chuck helped him to his feet.

“Are you okay?” Chuck asked.

“Fine,” Alex answered. He looked around and found Ligaya lying unconscious at Tarso’s feet. Tarso held the same rock that had killed Cam above her. Before he could use it, Alex shattered it.

“Take care of Ligaya,” Alex said to his friends as he ran forward. He grabbed Tarso from behind and flew into the air.

Maren was closest to Ligaya. She approached her, checked for a pulse, and then turned to the rest of the group. “Call an ambulance,” she said.

* * *

Alex and Tarso splashed into the Old Man River, where it divided West Lethbridge from the rest of the city. Alex had wanted to get farther away from populated areas, but Tarso had started struggling as they flew, and they crash-landed in the river.

Beneath the surface of the water, Tarso pushed Alex down into the silt and held him there as he flew out of the river and hovered a few feet above its lazy currents. Alex struggled to free himself, but it was taking too long. He was running out of air again. Instead of wasting his energy struggling against Tarso, Alex reached out to the water and pushed it away from him so that there was a hole extending from the surface of the river to the bottom where Alex was forcing his way out of the soft muck.

“That’s a fancy trick, Moses,” Tarso called. “But this is hardly the Red Sea.”

Alex gave Tarso a telekinetic punch to the gut. Tarso flew backwards and landed on the shore of the river. He had managed to block some of it. Otherwise, it would have killed him.

Alex flew out of the river and let it flow unimpeded again. The river ran through coulees, a valley of smooth, grassy round hills. The dry grass was yellow at this time of year, and rolled away from Alex and Tarso in windblown waves. The only manmade structures visible from their position were the University of Lethbridge and a bridge that connected the Westside to the Southside.

Tarso’s thoughts were blocked from Alex. He had the same limited Blind Spot abilities that Alex had. That meant that they would be telepathically cut off from each other. This fight would only be telekinetic.

The river began to roil, and a bulge of water rose up out of it. “Let’s keep playing with water!” Tarso said. “It’s fun!”

The bulge of water rose higher and became a pillar, which then sprouted fingers. A hand the size of a house made of water slammed down on top of Alex. The blow rattled him. He had pushed against it enough that it didn’t crush him, but he found himself drowning again. He tried to push the water away from him, but Tarso moved in more water to take the place of any water Alex managed to displace.

A distraction was needed. A few miles up the river, large stone formations jagged out of a hillside. Alex broke them up and threw them at Tarso.

Tarso found himself in a rainstorm of boulders. He caught them and deflected them away to fall harmlessly in the dirt. The ground shook with each impact, but Tarso was unharmed.

It created the distraction Alex had intended. The water hand still held him, but Tarso wasn’t paying as much attention to it as he had been before the hail of stones. With a mighty blast of telekinesis, Alex reduced the hand to millions of droplets that sprayed as far as a mile away.

Alex and Tarso stood facing each other, both of them soaked and breathing hard.

“You’ve gotta admit,” Tarso said, “we’re pretty evenly matched.”

“I’ve always been stronger than you, and you know it,” Alex said.

“You were stronger than me. Not anymore. I may have taken longer to get here, but I’ve reached the same level of power as you.”

Alex took advantage of his ability to shut Tarso’s telepathy out. He reached to Chuck’s apartment, where he had been staying since returning from Toronto, and found something there that he had carried with him since leaving Prince George. It sat in the corner of a closet. Alex placed it on top of the roof of the apartment. He just had to wait for an opportunity to use it. Tarso needed to be distracted so that he wouldn’t see it coming.

Alex excelled at distractions. He opened the earth at Tarso’s feet. Tarso caught himself and floated above the hole, but Alex had been expecting that. He raised tons of dirt up around him. Tarso was swallowed by the ground, which packed tight around him.

It didn’t hold long. Tarso blew his muddy prison apart much the same way as Alex had done to the watery hand.

“Wanna play dirty, do you?” Tarso asked. The bridge across the river was behind Alex. Rush hour traffic had come to a stand still as people stopped their cars and watched the awesome spectacle of the large-scale telekinetic battle. Alex felt it crack, shudder, and then collapse. He caught the hundreds of spectators as they fell among the rubble towards the river where many of them would be killed or seriously injured. As he set them down in a safe place, Tarso slammed an invisible fist into his back. Alex cried out as he tumbled through the air.

“That’s your biggest weakness, Alex,” Tarso called after him. He caught Alex in mid-air and slammed him into the riverbank. “You’re too easily distracted.”

Alex knocked Tarso over with a telekinetic punch of his own. He got to his shaky feet and reached out again for Tarso, who was also getting to his feet.

“Let’s see how well you can save these people,” Tarso said. At first, Alex didn’t know which people he was talking about, but then he felt the plane in a nosedive high above them.

“Tarso, you’re crazy!” Alex yelled. He caught the plane and struggled to keep it in the air as Tarso fought to bring it down right on top of Alex. It was a large plane, a Boeing 737 that was en route from Toronto to Vancouver. 66 people—passengers and crew—were on board.

“It’s coming down whether you like it or not, Alex,” Tarso said with a voice strained from the effort of the struggle.

The plane shuddered. It was only 200 feet above them. The stress of being pulled in two different directions was taking its toll. Alex wanted to set it down somewhere safe, but Tarso was intent on crashing it on top of Alex.

The wings ripped off of the plane. Tarso tore them off as he let go of the airplane. Alex lowered it to the ground slow enough that nobody would be hurt. He was aware of the wings flying in his direction, but his main focus was saving the lives on the plane.

The wings were right on top of him now. He deflected one into the ground. The other one he didn’t stop in time. He managed to slow it down, but it still hit him hard enough to knock the wind out of him. In the distance, the plane fell 20 feet and crashed on its belly. The people inside would be shaken up, but they would live.

Alex had managed to twist the wing so that it hit him with its broad side to minimize the damage. Tarso kept the wing flying towards the ruined bridge in an attempt to sandwich Alex between the two. Alex lifted himself away from the wing and headed towards Tarso again.

A rain of rocks and rubble rained down around Alex as he hurried towards Tarso. Bits of rock, concrete, and metal launched at him. Alex deflected them and moved forward with no hesitation.

As Alex drew nearer to him, Tarso gave up the storm of debris and clamped a telekinetic hand around Alex’s throat. Alex fought back, managing to keep Tarso from crushing his larynx, but he still couldn’t breath.

“It’s time to finish this,” Tarso said as he dangled Alex by the neck in front of him. “This rivalry has gone on long enough.” He squeezed Alex harder, and not just his neck. Alex’s arms were pinned to his side; his ribcage was crushing his lungs. Tarso even grabbed his heart and squeezed it. Alex shuddered and fought for consciousness. He forced his heart to beat even as Tarso squeezed. It looked like he was panicking. He should have been panicking.

But he smiled.

Tarso’s brow furrowed in confusion. Alex was about to die. Why was he smiling?

“You’re too easily distracted,” Alex gasped. And then a sword—the sword that had killed Michelle and Dexter—burst out of the front of Tarso’s chest.

Alex dropped to his feet. Tarso fell to his knees and looked at the familiar steel blade protruding from his chest. His good eye met Alex’s eyeless gaze. The eye glazed over, and Tarso collapsed on his face.

* * *

Chuck, Mindy, and Andrea sat in the waiting room at the hospital watching the news. Their other friends had returned home after talking to the police. The three of them had decided to wait around to see how Alex’s Filipino friend was doing.

“This is insane,” Chuck said as the television showed the torn up valley where Alex and Tarso had battled. They had watched live as Tarso was defeated, but now Alex was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s not going to run off again, is he?” Andrea asked.

“I hope not,” Chuck said.

The automatic doors around the corner from the television slid open, and the nurse at the desk said, “Are you alright, sir?”

“I’m okay,” the new arrival said. Chuck stood up and went around the corner. The man’s torn clothes were caked with mud and blood. So was his face and hair. Chuck almost didn’t recognize him, but the missing eyes were a giveaway.

“Alex!”

Alex turned to Chuck. He looked exhausted, but managed a weak smile. “It’s over,” he whispered and collapsed into his friend’s arms.

Epilogue

Alex sat on the beach watching the sunset through Ligaya’s eyes. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Ligaya said. She sat next to him on a bamboo bench. Sweat was shining on Alex’s tanned face. The setting sun reflected on his glass eyes. He smiled at Ligaya, but sadness still hid behind that smile.

As soon as Alex and Ligaya had been able to leave the hospital, they had both come here to the Philippines. Alex needed to get away from things back home for a while. They had been here, in the town of Albuera, for a month. Tacloban had been too large for Alex’s liking, so they had come to this smaller, sleepier town in the Cebuano-speaking area of Leyte.

<You’ll be leaving soon, won’t you?> Ligaya asked.

Alex turned his false eyes to her. They were good reproductions of his original eyes, and he could move them around in a natural-looking manner with his telekinesis. People were more comfortable with him when he made eye contact. The scars were still there at the corners of his eyes and across the bridge of his nose, but those didn’t repulse people.

Ligaya was surprised when tears came to her eyes. She would miss Alex more than she had thought.

Of course, Alex noticed her tears and knew what had prompted them. He had been more open with her in the past month. He didn’t shut her out as he had before his show down with Tarso. She sensed in him now the same feelings that she felt.

“Will you be coming with me?” he asked.

Ligaya smiled and took his hand in a brief squeeze. “Not yet,” she said.

Alex nodded in perfect understanding. It was too soon for both of them. The memory of their dead partners still stung too much. This past month together giving each other strength had been wonderful. They were closer friends than they had ever been while suffering through their forced training in Nevada. But their wounds had a lot more healing to go through before any romance could come to their lives.

“What will you do when you go home?” Ligaya asked.

Alex shrugged. “Get a job, I guess,” he said. “Maybe go golfing with Chuck.”

“Would he trust you not to cheat? It would be easy for you to influence where the ball goes.”

Alex laughed. “He’ll have to take my word as an honest man.”

“Anything else you plan on doing?” Ligaya prompted.

Alex nodded. “I need to pay a visit to Regina,” he said. “This unexpected pity for me that my mother expressed to you gives me hope. Maybe I can salvage some sort of healthy relationship with my parents out of this. Or at least work out a truce.”

Ligaya took Alex’s hand again. The mosquitoes buzzed around, but none of them could come within a foot of Alex and Ligaya.

Alex sighed. “It would be nice if I could settle back down into a normal life.”

“No matter what happens,” Ligaya said, “you’ll have your friends there to help you through it.

Alex squeezed Ligaya’s hand again. The sun had lowered below the horizon, but the sky was still painted dramatic shades of orange and red.

Alex leaned back and relaxed.

The Written Works of Michael MacKenzie

Stormy D. Logan

Welcome

Strength of Thought II