Voice of the Mind

Chapter 15 - Kevin

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Chapter 15.1 - Explanations

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When Kevin arrived, Vincent took his coat and guided him towards the living room. Talitha and Nicole were already there, awaiting the other visitors, of which Kevin was the first.

"I don't think you've met Talitha yet, have you?"

"Not in person," Kevin remarked and kissed her hand when she had stood up and had extended one. "Only in spirit. Nice to meet you. I noticed your mentor has also arrived."

He greeted Nicole as well - this time only shaking a hand after seeing her eyeing him - when he sat down in one of the seats while the doorbell chimed, just like Kevin had said a moment before. Vincent opened the door and the woman introduced herself as Emily, a brunette dressed like she was coming straight out of work; a modest black skirt which dropped to below the knees, black, low-cut shoes and a white blouse, covered with a beige coat. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, high up, which left room for her neck to be seen under the ponytail.

She's a lot different from Kevin. This one seems to be a professional and she's dressed like one, whereas Kevin feels like an old man still stuck in time where emancipation wasn't invented and chivalry wasn't dead yet.

That thought earned him a genuine smile from the woman as she heard it.

"I'll take that as a compliment, thanks." The voice was huskier than he remembered, but then again, the last time he had spoken to her he was still recovering from the onslaught of thoughts beating on his mind. It was deeper, lower pitched and it sounded sexy. She took a seat in on of the other seats, her legs crossed.

Vincent took his seat between Nicole and Talitha on the couch.

"Nice of you guys to drop by," he started. "But as you know, there are a few things about which we're in the dark. We would like you to provide some answers for questions we have right now."

Talitha seemed to feel uncomfortable in this group of people, of which two were professional mindreaders. He thought he could understand where she was coming from, considering how the only times she met other telepaths she was being hunted by them. He could nearly

feel

her building up a wall as a barrier to not be invaded by other mindreaders.

"Let's start with the organisation you guys work for. Because honestly, ever since my first contact with Kevin, I still haven't heard a name."

He saw Emily exchange a glance with Kevin, but he merely smiled.

"Our organisation doesn't have an official name, as we're not an official organisation," he said. "I know that sounds like a cheap cop-out, but it's true; we don't have cards, we don't have a website or anything like that. We're just 'the organisation'. Easier to disguise yourself with when someone googles you as well. But if you want a name, some of our older members sometimes call ourselves 'The Thinkers', which is just as obscure as any other. Half the people working with us don't even know that name, so you might not think of that as the name of our organisation.

Many of us don't even know each other, to ensure our safety in case one of us gets caught. We just have our assignments and our districts. Emily and I have only met two months ago. Since she has come to work in this vicinity, it would be useful if we knew each other so we do not distrust each other when our paths cross. I've been in this line of work for years and I still only know five, six agents and the higher ups.

To you this might sound odd, but times have proven that this lineup works. If ever we are being captured, the less you know, the more limited the information someone might forcefully pry from your mind will be; it's a dangerous line of work after all. You've experienced that yourselves."

"How did you find us?" Nicole asked. "I can imagine that one doesn't advertise being a telepath."

"Field agents find you," Kevin explained. "We're experienced enough to 'feel' changes to the astral plane, where telepathic communication occurs. If there are little tremors, that means someone's shaking at the tree, a newly awakened telepath. We then bring it to the attention of the higher ups and they assign someone to that person to keep an eye on them.

As Vincent has already said, we don't actually

do

much. We're guiding people, helping people coming to terms with their abilities. If you have questions, you can ask us. When someone pops up on the radar, but never masters control and it stays slumbering, then we don't even approach you. You need to be having actual trouble with it, or you need to have displayed some sort of control.

It is why you haven't gotten assigned your mentor yet, Nicole. You've never displayed anything yet, so you

shouldn't

be having questions about it either. The only reason you're here is because Vincent has made you aware of this situation and that you have experience by letting other people involve you in telepathic communication. Personally, I don't think you should have been involved, but Vincent insisted. So here you are."

"So I

do

have a latent telepathic ability," she said. "I figured as much, but it is nice to hear confirmation. Does that explain the tight guard I display?"

Kevin touted his lips as if considering an answer, but Vincent thought that he was probably poking around in her head. He wasn't experienced enough to feel any kind of tremors on a particular astral plane, but he could make an educated guess.

"Some of it, yes," Kevin finally admitted. "There is some interference which has added an extra layer of protection. To be honest, even I have trouble getting past it and that says something."

"You mean some of this guard isn't her own doing?" Vincent asked.

"Probably. Someone went out of his way to make sure that her mind would be extra protected. I don't know who and honestly I don't really want to pry - protection layers are there for protection. Tampering with them usually breaks them. Nicole, do you want to know?"

She thought about it and shook her head. "I would like to know, but like you said - it's there for a reason. Someday it'll be revealed and I'll be shocked, but until then I'm my own person and I'll do my best to live my life normally." She glanced aside at Vincent and added: "As normal as things allow under these conditions."

"Good girl," Kevin applauded theatrically. "Now, any more questions for your friendly talkshow host?"

"I have a question for Emily," Talitha spoke. "And I want to know if you know about my father."

Emily hadn't said anything so far and seemed to let Kevin do the talking. He seemed to like talking anyway, Vincent thought.

"I know," Emily said simply - and Vincent once again thought her voice was really sexy. She glanced at him as if to let him know that she heard him and then resumed. "I know your father has plans by using people with telepathy. He doesn't know much about it, only that he can use it for his gain. His network is broad, broad enough to get into contact with one of the organisations whose agents are for hire - for a price. This man you've encountered, he is - or was - part of that organisation.

I have looked into this case and have found that he hasn't contacted them. His contract stated that he should only contact them once he had you in custody. Until then he would be on his own. This to ensure that the organisation doesn't get exposed by careless communication.

Your father is still under the impression that someone is looking for you and unless someone at the organisation has noticed this man missing, nobody will be looking for you for the moment."

It was enough for Talitha. She sank bank onto the couch and stayed silent. She had decided she would

trust

these people, but she was her own person. She didn't like to be 'guided' or 'mentored'. But she appreciated to be able to ask questions. For now, that was enough.

"So, how does this work?" she said. "If I have questions, I just put a mark outside my window and someone will show up?"

Kevin laughed. "You've read too many spy-novels, my dear. No, now you've met us you can just telepathically reach out to us and ask us whatever bothers you. Of course, we have our work and our own lives, so you might not get a direct answer if we're engaged in some sort of way. But generally, we are available if you need anything.

We all have the same basic abilities, but most of us have specialized in a particular field. My specialization is finding people; I seem to have a knack for discovering people who have just recently found out there is something different about them. Not many develop further than that, but it's my job to report to the higher-ups to make them assign someone to monitor these people in case they start developing their ability.

As for Emily," he pointed at his co-worker. "She is someone who has specialized in people who have more serious problems. She can search their minds to see if there have been unintentional barriers placed by people who have tried to deal with their ability. Some people can't deal with being a telepath and protect themselves by erecting protective barriers. Some of them limit themselves so much that they cannot function properly anymore. Emily can find these barriers and break them down to help these people back to society.

Just in case you wondered, that doesn't seem to be the case with you Nicole. Your barrier isn't erected as protection from yourself but from outside forces. It might as well be that you erected them yourself when you felt someone trying to peek into your mind, but it could just as well be that someone placed that barrier to help to protect you from other people breaking in. I can't determine that right now. There are, however, people in our organisation who are able to do so. If you want to know at some point I can put in a request."

Nicole nodded to indicate she understood, but she didn't follow up. Kevin acknowledged that by nodding himself and continued.

"Whenever you have a need for us, we are available as I said before. Because we have already been assigned as a mentor we have a sort of alarm for when any of our ... students, if I may call you that, need us."

"Do you people have a day job next to this?" Nicole inquired, looking at Emily's attire.

Kevin snickered. "Most of us don't. My day job is travelling and listening to whether new telepaths have woken up. Well, next to be a guide to the people who I have been assigned to. I don't know about Emily."

"I have a day job," she stated. "Or rather, I have a side-job. I only have been assigned one person to mentor and otherwise I would be on the list for people who have need of a specialist. That's not as often as I thought, so I had decided to take a job to fill the time inbetween. I hate doing nothing productive. It's also the reason why they had assigned me to be a mentor. I suppose I'll get more people to mentor eventually, but at the moment Talitha's the only one because she liked to travel a lot and I couldn't get more people to mentor because I would be half a world away.

No offense," she added afterwards.

"None taken," Talitha replied. "It's not like I particularly wanted to travel either, so it was an inconvenience for both of us. It might've helped if you had made contact with me before."

Emily smiled the way one smiles at a child for making a silly remark.

"Would you have believed me when I said I came to your rescue?"

Talitha didn't take long to respond. "Not a chance."

"Hence the non-approach policy. I would've done more damage than actually helping you. You would've simply viewed me as another hostile antagonist and we probably would've been locked in combat before you'd flee once again. I preferred to monitor you without you noticing and step in whenever you needed me. Mostly that meant cleaning up messes you left behind, like robbing that supermarket and not wiping the security cameras.

Just because you can erase the memories of someone doesn't mean you don't leave traces. I have to admit I couldn't always be in time to erase those traces before someone else dug through them, so sometimes you were followed by other agents your father sent by means of those traces. For that you have my apologies."

"I ... don't think I need an apology for that. I have been careless and who knows where I'd ended up if you hadn't been around covering for me. In fact, I should be apologizing instead."

Vincent was surprised in hearing Talitha say that. She had never apologized in full for whatever she had done, simply telling him that you had to do things you weren't proud of whenever it came to survival.

"Don't worry about that. You've been entirely self-taught. If nobody points out those things we can't expect you to do them. That's one reason why we have the whole mentor thing going." She paused for a bit. "Which doesn't mean we tell you to go erase the security camera's next time."

Talitha laughed softly.

"We might be a mentor but we also have our own ethics," Kevin resumed. "We don't approve of criminal activity unless it's warranted. But even then we prefer to do things within the boundaries of the law - either the regular law or the telepathic law. And yes, we do have some sort of guidelines for how a telepath should behave. Since it's not publicly known that there are telepaths, there haven't been any laws for misbehaviour. We have taken it upon ourselves to write down a sort of law for that.

Notice that this law cannot be held up in an actual court, so we generally refer to it as guidelines. We don't

really

enforce it the way the police would do - we don't have enough people for that in the first place - but any kind of lawbreaking does make us wary. Sometimes we also act on it.

Imagine a telepath abusing his powers to enslave a woman and keeping her around as a pet, or as a slave, fully deprived of her own will. That would be against

our

law and if we can, we will try to act to free that person, restore her free will and if she wants to we will block her memories for when she had been enslaved to allow her to not be burdened by that memory. The evil-doer usually fights it until one of us is dead though, so acting on these law-breakers is essentially doing something with your life on the line. You guys have experienced that already, so you might understand it a bit. But let me inform you that neither me or Emily are part of those people who apprehend these guys."

Vincent and Talitha nodded, remembering the time in the warehouse.

"Do you guys have an actual police for that?" Nicole asked.

"We have a sort of ... well, squad for that. It's not really a squad, just a couple of people who have been trained to apprehend such people. They need to be trained for that, just like the police would be if they want to make it out of these situations alive, but there have been situations where people have died. We're no superhumans, we're merely telepaths. And some of those law-breakers are trained telepaths who really know what they're doing.

But letting them roam around free is wrong in our opinion, so we try to do something about it nevertheless."

They stayed silent for a bit and Kevin didn't press them. Eventually it was Nicole who stepped up and said: "I think it's time to call it a day. I'm sure that we all have plenty more questions, but we have to let it sink in first and get our minds around this whole thing before we can actually provide said questions. I, for one, have trouble coming up with any concrete questions while my mind is overflowing with all kind of stuff. That would probably go for the other two as well."

"Very well," Kevin said while standing up. "It was a pleasure to meet you all and I would like to thank you for your hospitality."

They shook hands, Emily as well and they left. There was no telepathic greeting or anything that would have defined them as different than anyone else who had left through that door and for some reason that struck Vincent as odd. Like they were

actual

humans, which they were. But the entire situation felt like they should be

more

than that.

"Kind of feels like an anti-climax, doesn't it?" Nicole said and he realized he wasn't the only one felt like that.

"Yeah," he said. "I had kind of expected them to disappear in a flash of light or something, like a superhuman or so. But they're just normal people, like we are. Even with the addition of telepathy and that whole organisation thing, they're just normal people. Emily even had a job."

Talitha nodded. "It just feels strange. Knowing there are other people, even a whole organisation who tries to do something good with this ability. I never had imagined there would be people like that. Shows what kind of fucked up situation I ran from."

"But you're home now," Vincent said. "And you have friends now. That should count for something, no?"

Talitha looked like she wanted to say something, then didn't. She stayed silent for a long time before she nodded.

"Guess I'll go home as well. Much to think about."

"You and I both," Nicole agreed.

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Chapter 15.2 - A helping hand

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He had been alone in the cafetaria again when Emma had found him. It had been a regular occasion when he was alone that she had been approaching him for a short talk. At first it had been casual conversation and sometimes Jenny was there too, but after a little while she had opened up a bit more. He realized that Emma wasn't bad company to have around and the past few weeks he had even looked forward to meeting her.

They talked about all kind of things, but every now and then her weight came up. It was a sensitive thing for her and he generally tried to lift her spirit a bit.

"I know I'm a little too fat," she said. "But I'm doing my best to lose some weight. I'm just not that successful."

"What are you doing to lose weight then?" he asked. "Besides going to the gym."

"I try to cut back on eating, but more often than not I end up gobbling some late night snacks after I succeed in not eating as much. I've read a few books on how to lose weight and I tried to follow some of those advices, like taking time to eat a light breakfast - I've never eaten breakfast before - and drinking more water after eating to feel more satisfied instead of feeling hungry. But it all comes back to me before I go to bed. It's frustrating that I have so little discipline."

"I'm sure you don't have such a problem. But if you think you're having trouble with it, why don't you go visit a dietician?"

"I'm doing that," she admitted, "and many of the suggestions I followed are because of her. I have a schedule to follow for what I'm allowed to eat at which time of the day and that

mostly

works. But every time I lose a pound I seem to regain it after a day or so. Jenny kind of warned me about it, but it still feels discouraging."

He knew that she still lived at her parents, which was only a 20 minute drive away from college, so there wouldn't be any roommates helping her out. And seeing how her parents hadn't done anything to stop her from gaining weight so far he didn't believe they would be doing it now.

A thought came to mind, but he wasn't sure it was a good one.

What if I tried to make her believe she wasn't hungry anymore?

he wondered.

Jenny had suggested it back when my ability first manifested and Talitha had confirmed that you could make someone believe whatever you have suggested.

Technically I've experienced it myself when we were in that warehouse, getting pummeled by all kind of mental attacks which Talitha claimed were merely forced suggestions to feel specific kinds of pain.

He shivered at the memory of that day. That wasn't a memory he really liked to recall, especially since it landed him in the hospital for over a week in some sort of coma.