To the Last Syllable (Mr. M & Bathos)

When Lyla put her arms around T.B.'s neck and pressed her face hard into his back, she recalled waking that morning. Skin beneath her fingers. Warmth radiating up her side.

She stumbled when she hit the pavement, but quickly regained her balance.

Lyla tilted her head sideways and waited for T.B. to go on, but he didn't. Would she like him to what, she wondered. She couldn't imagine what he might offer, what she'd ever need to ask of him. Everything she had, everything she was--it was all because he gave freely.

She'd never had to ask for a thing. Every direction she turned, there he was, five steps ahead of her, anticipating everything she might want or need and making it reality. This wasn't news to Lyla. She'd watched stone-faced through every gesture of kindness with her heart in her throat. But this was the first time she'd allowed herself to think that it wasn't all going to be yanked out from under her without a moment's notice.

"I want for nothing," she said, her smile frayed at the edges with emotion and the lingering hangover. It was the truth.

"See you later," Lyla said. And with that, she turned and skittered off toward the apartment.

He watched her go, hurried and still vaguely unsteady though she was, and smiled under his mask after her. There wasn't a solid, formed thought, no defined definition for what he felt about her right now: it was just warmth and gentle smiles and maybe a touch of wistful, but that was all. That's all it needed to be. He kept his glass-shaded eyes on her until she jimmied the locks on the door and disappeared inside. Then he turned his attention up the block, up toward where the Stairs were.

~~~~

Their scents were still around and about. He'd be able to track them later. But for the moment, he was loitering around the base of the Stairs, waiting for the telepath guy to show up. Finally, one man stepped out from the well-lit area, looked around, and started directly over toward T.B. He was dressed casually, scruffily enough to blend into the moderate street-level areas, although a bit overdressed for the local zone. But he walked straight up and nodded from a few feet away.

"How did you know?" T.B. asked quietly.

"You're the only one I couldn't read. Mom let me know what to look for."

T.B. felt his jaw gape a little bit. "You're Tav's son?" His mind whirled, trying to do the math.

"Yes," the young man said. "Not yours, though, don't worry. Jonn is my name." He almost stuck out his hand for a handshake, but remembered T.B.'s cover as a Phoba, and, well, Phobas just didn't do that. "I understand you have a friend who could use my help?"

"Yes, I'll take you to her. This way."

They worked their way down the block, the well-traveled pathway to the hideout door. T.B. was extra careful to make sure they weren't being observed, and Jonn assured him he was taking steps, himself. The throwback filled the telepath in on the basics: it had been just over three weeks since Lyla's fateful skydive, and while she was working on her telekinesis, she didn't have a good way of working with her telepathy.

"Well, that's what I'm here for. Don't worry, I've done this a lot."

"Oh? How long have you been active?" They both knew what they were talking about, but the habit was well-ingrained to avoid direct reference.

"Well, if you listen to my mother, I was already complaining when she made sharp movements while I was in the womb," he said with a smile. And then they were at the door before T.B. could come up with an appropriate response.

"All right, well... let me open the place up, and I'll make the introductions."

"Oh," Jonn said softly, "I'm taking care of that myself."

He'd felt her since before he reached the bottom step; her mind was powerful, more than she knew, and it was like a beacon for any sensitives out there. Luckily, there were very few sensitives in existence, and it was a big city. A really big city. He knew what she'd be sensing as he approached, as well; a mind, a presence like the others (except for this T.B. person, of course), but muted, shielded. Safe.

And when they came up to the door, he sent a telepath's "welcome package." He encapsulated his genuine pleasure at the prospect of meeting her, a few images of himself as he saw himself in mirrors, a flash of his humor and a precursor to what he was intending to teach: the feeling of what it was like to send such a package, and the sensation of quiet and peace one could achieve once the mental shields were "raised." All of that, he sent to her, knowing she'd receive it, and he waited calmly for T.B. to open the door for them.

Lyla knew it made her a hypocrite, since she'd spent so many spare moments trying to hone her skill and hack T.B.'s thoughts, but she hated the idea of someone else in her head. It was chaotic enough with just her in there, and suddenly there was someone else, feeding her sensory information as well as concise thoughts, and she was suddenly gasping for breath.

Should so use that for brain sex. Oh, fuck. I didn't think that. I'm not thinking about--Dammit.

When T.B. opened the door to Lyla's apartment, she stood there waiting for them. She'd automatically sprung to her feet when she sensed they were near, but now she was standing awkwardly, looking vaguely horrified and flushed. Incidentally, she was also wishing for the ground to swallow her up.

"Um. Hi."

Hi? she thought, just for good measure.

"Lyla, this is Jonn, the son of ... an old friend. He's the telepath, here to help you. Jonn, this is Lyla. Be completely assured she can thrash you if you give her cause to."

While the still-masked T.B. was talking, Jonn was just smiling at her, and she felt... well, he was conversing with her, but it was compressed, accelerated. It was more like he was giving her memories of things he'd just said, like he'd just spoken, but he hadn't taken the time to say it. It was much faster, and preserved his friendly, humorous, reassuring tone.

I'm presuming that feeling in your thoughts was you trying to project a greeting to me. Rest assured, I'm doing my best not to read your mind; think of it like politely ignoring someone changing clothes in front of you. Your projection was the right effort, though. When we have a few minutes alone, I'll be able to focus and give you some tools to help you sharpen that skill, as well as cloak your random thoughts so you only show what you want to show.

Physically, he stepped forward, smiled, and held out his hand. "Charmed!"

He glanced over at T.B. "You know, she's in good hands, and so am I. If you'd care to give us a little bit, I can give her the training I'm here for."

The shorter man regarded Jonn with blank, smoked-glass eyes, and then tilted his head toward Lyla. The questioning tone of mind was clearly known to all parties, but Lyla knew precisely what it meant; if she said the word to stay, he'd be immovable. Or if she said it was all right, he'd go.

It was like thinking in surround sound, John's presence in her mind, forming actual words that didn't originate in her own head. It was deeper than hearing, though. Deeper than any physical sensation, because it was suddenly there, integrating itself into her own mental processes: John's voice. The awful headache from those first few days, the agony, did not return. She did, however, feel a certain ominous tension.

Lyla hesitated wordlessly for a moment, glancing between T.B. and John. She trusted T.B. without exception. If it wasn't safe for her, she doubted he would be offering to leave at all. In fact, she could just see him perching obstinately in the corner, legs crossed and arms folded, and refusing to grant her privacy; he'd do it, if he thought she wasn't safe. Lyla's heart gave a sort of twinge at the realization.

Instead, T.B. was offering to leave and while the idea of being alone with any mutant who wasn't her hairy savior sent her belly into somersaults, Lyla offered a shaky smile and nodded.

"Yeah, we're fine," she said. "In fact ..." Lyla shot a measuring look at John and then back to T.B. "I think we've already begun."

T.B.'s mask was expressionless, of course, but the tilt of his neck (and the buzz of his brain) spoke of confusion for just a moment, then he sighed and shook his head. "Right. Telepaths. Tav used to..." but he brought himself up short and just barely glanced over at Jonn. Then he "covered" by clapping his hands together and rubbing them as if in anticipation.

"Right, then. I have some things I could do, so I'll get to them. Jonn, it was a pleasure to meet you. If you're not on your best behavior, you'll have to deal with her." He jerked his head slightly to indicate Lyla. "Then you'll have to deal with me." He tilted his face forward so he would have been looking out of the tops of his eyes if they hadn't been cloaked by the mask. "Then you'll have to deal with your mother." His head raised to normal posture, but Jonn's face blanched just a little bit. "So I trust you'll refrain from being rude."

He glanced over at Lyla, making glass-to-eye contact. "And you... learn lots." He tried to put the smile in his voice, even if it was slightly muffled. Then he made his exit.

~~~

On the street again, he paused, and shifted not only his hat so it sat more securely, but also his attitude. Now was hunting time. He took to the catwalks, going fast and nearly silently, seeking the lingering scents of his prey. One was fading, blurred by time and pollution and other people, but one was still strong. He sought it down an alleyway, back where the core access panels were securely bolted closed and those who couldn't break into an empty facade-building made their bunks near the heat of the massive power cables.

One instant the scrawny could-have-been-blonde was shifting, adjusting himself in his drowse, and the next there was something landing beside him, and the next he was being dragged up the wall by his collar, up to the catwalk level, too fast to even scream out. The first chance he had to make a noise, he was dangling by his ankles, out of his arm's reach from the side of the rusted catwalk. Nothing was below him but some broken bags of trash and his gang "friends" who were just themselves coming awake from their afternoon siesta, gaping up at the spectacle above them.

"That girl was off-limits," T.B. growled, loud enough to be heard by the others down below. "I told the boy to let everyone know. Don't pretend you didn't hear the word."

"Oh, shit, it's the crazy Phoba!" one of the kids on the ground muttered, and the others all backed away as best they could.

"We didn't know it was her! We had no idea!" The scrawny guy was too panicked to even affect an attitude; he knew there was a good chance he'd get dropped, and there were some injuries even an autodoc booth couldn't fix.

"Maybe you should have considered NOT attacking any other random girl, then!" T.B. snarled, shaking his victim's legs. "As it is, I have to deal with both of you, now."

"No, please! I won't do it again! I promise!"

"Where's your friend, by the way? I haven't been able to find him."

The scrawny guy seemed to get an idea. "I-if I tell you what happened to him, will you let me go?"

"Is that what you want?" T.B. let one of the ankles go, and the kid screamed in terror, kicking his free leg until T.B. captured it again.

"Just, just let me down, OK? Safely?"

"Only if you avoid young women."

"I'm going to keep away from that girl."

"ALL young women! You don't touch a woman unless she invites you to." T.B. took an exaggerated sniff of the air. "Good luck with that."

"Okay, okay! Just don't drop me!"

"Tell me where your friend is."

"We don't know, none of us know! The Doccies got him."

"You're talking nonsense," T.B. growled and began lifting his fingers away from the boy's flesh.

"No, wait! Doccies! Doctors! The guys in the white who have been collecting folks."

This was new. "Collecting people?"

"They bring 'em back, but they fix 'em up first. Nobody knows where they go. But they picked up Tsuki last night, when he was still passed out from what your b... young lady did to him. He ought to be back in a few days, if you want to talk to him then!"

T.B. considered. This was new, and he'd want to check with others, sniff around, to see about these doctors. He didn't trust that kind of public charity, not in this city, not this far down. "All right. You've bought your life."

"You're going to put me down now? Please?"

"But of course." T.B. let one of the kid's legs go at the same time as he swung his own legs over the side of the catwalk. He caught their combined fall with his hand on the edge of the walk just as the scrawny young man started to scream and wet his pants. Reaching low, to give the boy as little of a drop as he could, he casually swung the noisy kid and arced him safely into a pile of garbage. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but he was safe and unharmed.

Hanging in the air by one hand, he surveyed the rest of the gang. "I'm feeling unusually generous today," he said clearly. "Don't fuck it up. Stay out of the way of me and mine." With that, he flexed his arm and brought up his legs and neatly flipped back onto the catwalk, and he was gone, padding away again.

Behind him, he could hear one of the kids whisper, "that's one fucked-up cyborg."

~~~

Back in the apartment, Jonn looked around, and used his voice to speak, his tone and timbre friendly and reassuring. "This is really a great place. I've seen some places down this low that would curl your toenails, but this... this is nice."

His mind was armored, not letting anything out nor in. Somehow, she could sense he wasn't being receptive, wasn't reading her while he looked around; it was like her telepathic talent could recognize the different types of mind-shield permeability. Was this something she instinctively recognized, or had it been part of the "skills package download" he'd given her? It wasn't immediately apparent, and that was both disturbing and wonderful, simultaneously.

He looked back at her and smiled. "So, what do you want to start with? Answers, descriptions, or training? Your call, anything you like."

"You're supposed to be the expert," Lyla groused automatically, because while she had slowly softened around the edges for T.B., she had and would always have a fairly prominent brash streak. (It could also be that she imagined a certain air of condescension in his remark about her apartment and it set her immediately on the offensive.)

"I mean." She hastened to correct herself. "I don't really know how to answer that, since I have no idea what any of those things are. So, what I meant is ... whatever you think is best is what I'd like to do first."

She nodded, glad that she could sense the wall erected between her mind and John's.

"So," she said, spreading her arms wide. "Have at me."

Jonn grinned. "All right, then. Story time!"

He moved toward the big easy chair, but then paused, and looked at her. "Please, this is obviously your seat. Feel free to take it." He pulled up the smaller chair that T.B. usually used, and took out a small bag of lozenges from his pocket. He popped one in his mouth and offered her the bag. "Citrus flavor. Just to soothe the throat as I'm talking."

When they were both settled and ready, he began to speak in a soft but clear voice. "We don't know how long there have been telepaths in the human race, or other psychic powers. From what our own research has determined, it's a matter of particular developments in the structure of the brain that produce such powers. Certain developments, telepathy. Others, precognition. Others, telekinesis. It's pretty sure that they'd have happened by accident in the past, but it wasn't until the modern era that there were enough of us to actually get together and form some sort of organization."

"We have learned how to protect ourselves and succeed. It's kind of like a union, or professional society, but membership is highly limited. We don't really think of ourselves as mutants, actually; psychic powers like ours are a natural part of the human brain, just a part that is very rarely able to be utilized. The end effect is a rate of appearance like viable mutation, but separate." At this, Jonn paused and leaned in conspiratorially. "Frankly, I don't know about that, but that's the story we tell ourselves. Personally, I tend to think we're all special, whether you can read minds or move things around or lift cars or shoot electricity out of your hands. But I'm not running the show, so I should tell you what the official line is."

"Anyway. We recognize that it's scary and painful to 'wake up' to your powers alone, no way to understand what's happening. We have a few volunteers who try and scan the city for the tell-tale signals of a newly-awakened person, but there's very few of us, and a lot of territory to cover, so we have some AI's scanning data as well, to help us track things down."

"Since you have this power, the whole organization wants to help you learn how to control and develop it. It's in everyone's best interest to keep things quiet, but we don't want to force you into anything you don't want to do, so our attitude is: provide assistance, and make ourselves available if you want to make use of us later. You're already a member of the union, but it's up to you if you want to pay your dues and enjoy the benefits."

He paused. "Okay, that's the short version, just telling you where your power comes from, where I come from, what's available to you. We can talk more about that soon. But I'm betting you're also interested in what precisely is going on. Well, put simply, telepathy is kind of... extending your central nervous system into other people's. You have the ability to form a temporary connection with other people's nerves, and that lets you feel where they are, what they're thinking and feeling. When you get good with controlling this connection, you can protect yourself from unwanted intrusion, or you can start to insert your own thoughts, feelings, and so forth."

"Since it's a connection between nerves, since you're making a link between brains as if they were naturally one piece, you can transfer not only words but also images, sensory data, memories, skills... anything you can generate in your brain, you can generate in another person's brain, if you have figured out how." He smiled. "That's one of the advantages of training in your telepathy with another telepath. I can package up my memories of how to do things and send them to you, give you my knowledge. I've learned most of my telepathic skills that way, although I had to practice them and solidify them myself. Problem is, you're not prepared to take it like that. I'll have to give you what snippets I can until you're ready. But don't worry; soon as you're ready, I can give you enough tools to operate in normal life, protect yourself from being overwhelmed, all that. And then you can learn the rest yourself, or when you're ready, you can contact us again, and someone will be able to give you more."

"And that," he finished, sitting back, "brings us from answers through descriptions and straight up to training. When you're ready, I can start. It can take as little or as much time as you're comfortable with, but I'm not going to do a damn thing until you're ready and willing." He grinned. "And then you'll be able."