“I don’t get why I’m here,” Drake said, shivering against the cold.
“In case one of ours gets spotted,” Izel said. “The meteoropaths have to be pretty close, along the route the ICE gestapo are takin, to keep the weather pattern relatively contained; if we froze the whole city we’d cause a lot of accidents- especially with that kind of a freak storm- no pun intended. But that means a certain degree of vulnerability. We’ve got them linked up with telepaths, who can push the agents away with some mental suggestions, but probably not if a whole group of them at once decide to pay attention.”
Drake frowned. “’Mind control’ is a misnomer,” Tucker explained. “Most of the time, in most senses of the word, we don’t really do that. It’s more about… influence, and misdirection. You get enough telepaths together, and you can force your will on someone. But the mind isn’t really designed for that sort of… flexibility. You push someone too hard and they’ll break. Maybe they just experience it as trauma- it is essentially a mental assault. But that’s kind of the best-case scenario. You can break entire thought processes, brain structures- you can lobotomize someone for all intents and purposes without trying if you aren’t cautious. So mostly we stick to a gentle push. Suggestion. Not dissimilar to hypnosis, really. Convincing someone that what you want from them is what they wanted to do in the first place.”
“Which isn’t to say telepathy isn’t one of the more scary powerful abilities out there,” Izel said. “I can link your memories such that your knees stop working every time you hear the word ‘purple.’ I can convince your neurons to link up in new ways- either to make you a lot dumber or a lot smarter.”
“But it’s a lot like programming, or maybe hacking,” Tucker interjected. “There are a lot of ways that the human brain takes shortcuts. Most of our minds and our memories are about linkages, connections. It’s functionally a whole different language. But once you learn to speak it, there’s a lot you can do with it.”
“But not always quickly,” Izel added.
“Look, over there!” Tucker pointed over Drake’s shoulder, and he turned to look. “See, trying to convince you to do that telepathically would require me to connect with some portion of you that would want to see something over there, then convince your mind that that something might be over there, and feed that suspicion until it was worth the effort to look.”
“I think I got it. Having telepaths run interference is like having a deflector shield- it’ll maybe save you from a little indirect attention, but not from a hail of gunfire.”
“Exactly.”
“I really hope there isn’t a hail of gunfire,” he said.
“Us, too. But you’re here, in part, to make sure that can’t become a possibility- or at least remove our people from the line of fire if it becomes one.”
“So I’m their exfiltration option. K.” He disappeared, and reappeared an instant later, sliding on a heavier coat. “Much better. I swear, I’m going to spend a week in a warm bath. And meteoropaths?”
“Nothing to do with meteors; well, a little, I guess,” Tucker said with a shrug. “It technically means they control things high in the atmosphere. Though I don’t know of anyone who controls both- it’s just a quirk of the language.”
“You two are central command, right?”
“Sure,” Tucker said.
“I should be at the front. Wherever they’re most likely to get spotted.”
“That will make them a lot easier to spot,” Izel said.
“Right. But if I’m there, then I can pull everybody ought quickly as possible. If I’m here… then we’ve got a whole other pair of brains involved in the decision tree, when seconds- even microseconds- may be the difference. Point me to the tip of the spear.” Tucker closed his eyes, and shared an image from the mind of the telepath nearest the approaching ICE line. “Got it,” he said, and was gone.