Author's note
As always, my thanks go to Dr Mark, for his tireless efforts in editing the story, and to you guys for not getting bored and wandering off.
KR
PM
Chapter 53 - Back to school.
Tatarabuela Gonzales, or at least the part of her consciousness that had been copied into my mind as my protection, regarded me steadily.
"You have questions?" she asked.
I did. A myriad of questions. The first of which was what the hell was she? Was she a consciousness within my own? A second personality? How was there even space in my head for the two of us? Did I need to worry about her trying to usurp control of my body from me?
I didn't think so, but I didn't know.
It seemed that I didn't need to voice my concerns. She could hear my thoughts.
"What I am," she said, "is a fragment of the consciousness of Elana Maria Theresa Gonzales. I was created originally to protect the children of the Gonzales line. I have a very limited capacity to act. I can access your powers to defend you against physical attacks within your body, I can neutralize poisons or drugs, and defend against mental attacks. I can even heal damage from physical attacks using your own healing powers, but only within you. I cannot affect anything outside of your body, even with your powers. I am always here, always awake, and always on guard. I see and hear everything you do. I know everything you do.
"Can you teach me about powers?" I asked. "About Compulsion?"
"You already know all you need to know," she said. "If I could teach you, then that would mean that the knowledge you needed was within me, or more accurately already inside of your own head."
"But..."
"You don't need more knowledge. Your first teacher told you everything you needed to know, but you seem to have, if not forgotten it, disregarded it.
"He told you, for instance, about subtle Compulsion. He taught you how to get someone to do something, not by brute force but by nudges, slight little tweaks to their thoughts that make them WANT to do what you want them to. When did you last do this? Since you left his instruction, you have been training your strength, and your endurance, both of which are essential. But you have ignored the one thing that would make the greatest difference. Train more using subtlety and you will notice that your energy usage with Compulsion will decrease dramatically.
"Sadly, this doesn't hold true for Healing. Since cells do not have conscious minds you can 'tweak' you do need to use force to Heal."
I considered this. I remembered the lesson with John where we spoke about subtle Compulsion but then things seemed to go sideways and I simply fell back into imagining an outcome. Brute force.
"Also," she went on, "Compulsion subjects, even willing ones, fight the Compulsion. It's an instinctive reaction that cannot be suppressed. That is one reason it takes so much energy, is so easily detected, and leaves behind so much evidence. Subtle Compulsion, done right, is virtually undetectable. It takes almost no energy since you are not fighting with the subject to achieve your aims; rather you are, in effect, persuading them that they want to do, whatever it is that you want them to do."
"I need to protect my girls," I said, "especially the Norms. How can I do that? Ness nearly got raped again and I could do nothing to stop him."
"You allowed his Compulsion to block your connection," she said. "Granted you were further away, but you could have broken his Compulsion on Ness quite easily. All you needed to do was to Compel her yourself through the bond. That would have broken his control, and then you could simply release her and use the connection to deal with him, as you did with those boys all those months ago. Since you have a direct connection already established with the girls, Compelling them, even at distance, would be simple and would displace any other control held by anyone not so connected."
I sat and thought about that for a few moments.
I was disappointed. I had thought that having the consciousness of the Tatarabuela Gonzales would have given me someone from whom I could learn so much, but she was right. If that was the case, I'd already have the knowledge in my head, why would I need to 'speak' to her to get it?
"I can't give you any more than you already have," she said, apparently hearing that thought too. "You speak Spanish because I know how. I didn't have to teach you. But perhaps I can ask questions that you are already asking yourself, and help you to a better understanding of what you already know. For instance, why are you wasting so much resource during your hypnotherapy sessions?"
"Wasting resource?" I asked.
"You have hypnotised probably over a hundred different people, yes?" she asked, and I nodded.
"It is likely that each of those people," she continued, "had some knowledge, or skill, that you do not. Why are you not taking those since you are already in their minds. You could have the ability to speak multiple languages, have sat practically every single course that your university provides, and learned about all kinds of things. And yet you sit there, twiddling your thumbs and wasting your time, with them."
"I..." I began. Why was that. I could say that it would be a violation, but what exactly would I be violating. It's not like I would be taking anything from them, or prying into their personal or private lives. I could easily extract all the memories of a specific subject exactly as I had with Daisy and her cooking. I didn't have a moment's hesitation in doing that, and my hypnotherapy clients signed a very similar waiver. I could have already learned so much.
"You spend so much time agonizing over morality and ethical issues," she continued. "This is time wasted. Jeevan summed it up in a simple question. Are you causing harm? If the answer to that question is 'yes', then stop and re-evaluate your actions. There may be excellent reasons why it's right, at that time, to cause harm, but if the answer is 'no', then there is nothing more to consider.
"I am not suggesting you approach people in the street and start rummaging around in their heads for their knowledge, but all of your hypnotherapy patients have consented, in a fashion, to you entering their minds. You need to be in there in any case to help them. You are not violating them further, if you take a copy of their learning, or knowledge, at the same time."
It kind of made sense in a twisted logical sort of way. I determined to think on this further and, perhaps, in the next hypnotherapy session look to see what I might learn from my client.
"Practice subtle Compulsion," she said. "Stop hitting everything with the biggest hammer you have and perhaps use a scalpel for a change. Practice on Josh and Louise. You need to get to where they do things and do not even know you compelled them. This will, of course, not feed their fantasies, but you have done enough of that. Like your TK, your Compulsion is about as strong as it's going to get. Over the next few years you may gain ten percent more power, but that will be as much as you will ever have. It is time to practice skill and, more importantly, stealth."
And with that she, once again, kicked me out of my own illusion. I would have to ask her how she did that, but then realized that I already knew.
I looked at my watch - it was just after five. I decided to go for a run.
+++++
"What are you doing today?" I asked Ness over breakfast. I wasn't sure if the previous day's events had changed things at her college.
"We've been called in to a cadre meeting," said Ness. "Apparently the cadre leader has left the college...they didn't say why...and we need to meet our new leader and get our schedules."
I thought about that. I wondered what Maggie had told the college about the professor and why he had been arrested, and what the college was going to do about it. Since none of the students, apart from Ness, remembered the incident, I thought that they might simply continue on as if nothing happened. I couldn't figure out what the alternatives were.
The other girls had classes today, and so, technically, did I. I'd already decided that, once again, I would attend my Ethics classes, as there was a mandatory attendance criterion, but would simply read the material and do any assignments and exams for the others. If I ran into any problems, which I didn't envision, I would reevaluate my attendance position.
Gracie had an appointment with Dianna to assess her mental state following the attack. She was looking forward to getting back into things.
Mary had asked for permission to start scheduling hypnotherapy appointments, and I had provisionally said yes having given her my school schedule. My first appointment would be the following day after my Ethics class.
After everyone had left, I hit the internet looking for contractors. I wanted someone I could trust to come and do the job without having to be supervised. Since we were all in school, and I had a full calendar, I was hoping to get someone we'd be able to leave to get on with it without us having to be here.
