The Recruitment

The Recruitment

Her warm, telepathic thought bubbled into my mind.

'Ready Don?'

'Yup.'

I steeled myself, took a deep breath, and entered the cafeteria. At that moment Celia's gentle thought of obliviousness settled on the busy place like a soft blanket. All the staff and customers continued on as if nothing was happening. All except one. His head snapped up in alarm as he looked around to see where the thought was coming from. His eyes settled on me suspiciously as I felt his mental shields stiffen in intensity.

"Hello Mr Templeton, do you mind if I sit so we can talk?"

I indicated the chair on the opposite side of the table from him.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

I felt his mind scan mine and saw his eyes widen in surprise as he impacted against my shields. He would have felt how tight and hard mine were compared to the crudity of his. The surprise in his eyes was replaced by a growing fear.

"Please Mr Templeton, I'm not here to attack you or do anything nasty to you. Quite the opposite in fact. But we do need to talk. You're in danger and need our help badly."

"Do I have any choice?" he asked warily.

"Yes, but I really do advise talking. It'll be worth your while. I'm not going to do anything to you. You can feel my shields. You can guess at my power. I could punch through yours in a second if I wanted to. But I don't want to. I just want to talk to you."

"I'd rather die than let you get control of me," he said vehemently.

"I feel exactly the same way."

He drummed his fingers on the table in indecision before making up his mind.

"Alright," he growled, "we talk."

I sat down in the seat.

"Andrew - may I call you Andrew - my name is Donald. You can call me Don. Everyone else does. The person putting out the damping field is Celia. It's not aimed at you but it's just a general thought that everyone ignore us."

I could feel him cautiously sample Celia's telepathic thought before he grunted acceptance.

"Yeah, I get what it's doing. OK, if you're not here to attack me, what do you want?"

"Before I tell you that let me fill you in on a little background material."

I brought up his details in my mind.

"Your name is Andrew Templeton. Five months ago a benign tumour started growing in a very specific part of your brain. It caused certain mental powers to get switched on. At first it was the ability to read minds. After a few weeks you started learning how to control minds. You've been growing in proficiency since then. This includes stopping the tumour from growing any more. We know all this because we've been watching you very closely."

"You've been watching me all the time?" he asked with a start.

I nodded.

"As soon as you started flexing your powers Andrew, started reading minds and so forth, you came to the attention of a number of factions. Ours is the largest and, fortunately, we were able to get to you first. We've been hiding you from the others. You really don't want to fall into their clutches."

"Who are these others?" he asked curiously.

"There are essentially three factions Andrew."

"The first is the Government. They're terrified of mind controllers and hunt us down without mercy. Some they capture and lock away in remote controlled prisons, remotely forced to use their powers to find us. On others they do awful experiments to try and learn how these powers work. Usually they just kill us with the use of snipers, poison or remote controlled booby traps. Their psychic resources aren't great but they have access to a lot of money and manpower."

His eyes widened in alarm.

"The second are various religious sects. We call them the Paladins. They believe their mind control powers are a gift from God to do God's work. They're fanatics of the worst kind, who would enslave the world to God if they could. If they got to you they'd rip your shields apart like tissue paper and enslave you to their cause. As much as you'd prefer to die than be enslaved, you'd have no chance against them."

His fear was growing visibly.

"There are Christian, Muslim and Hindu sects. There's even a Buddhist one. They actually aren't too bad and we have a sort of working relationship with them. The other sects and the Government are in perpetual war. We work to play them off against each other to keep them in check and out of our hair."

I smiled at him.

"That leaves us - the Neutrals. We're the remaining mind controllers who essentially want to be left alone to do our own thing. We've banded together into a mutual protection pact to keep each other safe. In numbers we're the single largest group."

"Aren't there individuals around who aren't part of any faction?" he asked hopefully.

I shook my head.

"Nope. Either they join us or the Government and the Paladins hunt them down. They don't stand a chance. All this gets me to the purpose of what this little talk is about."

I had his attention now.

"Andrew, you've met our criteria for membership and we'd like you to join us."

"Criteria! What criteria?" he asked in perplexity.

"As I said Andrew, we've been watching you. As soon as we found you we set up psychic interference to prevent the other groups finding you while we waited to see how you used your powers. Overall, we've been very impressed."

"You have! But, but,..."

I could see the growing consternation in his face as he realised he'd been spied on and we knew what he'd done.

"OK Andrew, let's go through the list."

"Firstly, you turned your wife into a cock loving slut who is eager to do just about anything for you."

He was squirming now.

"Secondly, you turned one of the female clerks at your work into your personal blowjob masseuse. You've even had her come over to your house a couple of times to join you and your wife in a threesome. I'm guessing this relationship is going to grow into something permanent. Your wife and Chloe certainly hope so."

"Thirdly, you've influenced your bosses and clients to look at you in a more favourable light."

I smiled at him.

"Overall Andrew, you've done very well."

"You mean you're OK with this?" he asked in surprise.

He was looking very confused. I found myself rather amused by this.

"Yes Andrew. Very OK. After all, I have a couple of sex slaves myself and so does Celia. Hers are male though. Anyway, it's what you didn't do that's really important. You could've done really terrible things with this power but you restrained yourself."

"Let's go through the list of what you didn't do."

"Firstly, you could've dumped your wife of thirteen years to capture some young pretty bimbo. You didn't though. She's become cock hungry but she's also far, far happier than she was before. You've been careful to balance her happiness against her new found slutishness."

"Secondly, at work you could've captured your personal secretary but you didn't. Why not? Because she's married with children and you didn't want to mess that up. The only thing you did to her was make her blind to Chloe coming in to attend to you. A sensible precaution."

"Speaking of which, why Chloe from the office females? Because she's about your age and single. She enjoys coming in to give you daily blowjobs but you've helped her as well. You've used your power to help her do her job better and she's soon going to get a well deserved bonus."

"And that brings me to your bosses. You could've gone berserk, making them give you unwarranted promotions and unsustainable pay rises. You didn't. You just nudged them gently."

"You could've gone out and enslaved dozens, with no thought about the consequences to them or their loved ones. You didn't."

He was nodding in agreement now.

"That's another aspect of what you did that impressed us greatly. We were careful not to read your mind or touch it in any way. If we had you would've felt us immediately and that would've defeated the purpose of our test. That is, to see how you acted while thinking there was absolutely nothing to restrain you. On the other hand, we could read the minds of those you affected, particularly your wife and Chloe."

"I have to say Andrew, for someone so inexperienced you have a particularly deft touch. Those that descend into evil simply bash their victim's mind into whatever shape they want. The trouble is, this generally sets up quite awful psychological traumas. You were careful, easing them bit by bit into slavery. Your inexperience did create some problems though and we had to step in to smooth out what you were doing."

"You changed Anna and Chloe! What did you do to them?" he asked angrily.

"Please Andrew, all we did was smooth out what you were doing to ensure there was no trauma with your girls. You'd pretty much done the right thing anyway so there wasn't much we had to do. The girls have become exactly what you wanted them to be while being well adjusted and happy to boot. You've got two very delightful slaves who are very lucky to have you as their Master."

He seemed to settle down while he thought about what had happened. Then he laughed at himself.

"Was I really that ham fisted?"

I couldn't help grinning back at him.

"Well, it was a bit amateurish and crude but a very good first attempt. As you gain in experience you'll see what I mean. The main thing is, you tried to do the best by them while making them your slaves. That particularly got our approval."

He was smiling now. A good sign.

"That's what we like about you Andrew. You've used your power to have a bit of fun and improve your life but you haven't become a monster from it. You've maintained an ethical balance. I've watched those who became monsters and it's a bottomless pit of depravity they descended into with a trail of mutilated minds behind them. I'll tell you this frankly Andrew, if you'd descended into evil we would've thrown you to the Paladins. They're sniffing at the edges of our group hoping we do just that."

"You would've thrown me to them?" he stammered.

I nodded.

"What happens if I don't join?" he asked warily.

I shrugged.

"Nothing, except we stop protecting you anymore. We leave you to the mercy of the other factions. They won't show you any though."

"If you join us you'll have our support, encouragement and protection. We'll teach you how to use your powers more effectively. Things like developing mental shields like mine and learning how to properly and safely control others."

I could see his face lighting up at the prospect of that.

"However Andrew, there are responsibilities as well as rights to being part of us. We have a set of rules. Things we consider acceptable uses of our power and things we don't. I think you'll readily agree to those rules. Also, once you're trained up, you'll have to put some time into guard duty to keep all of us safe and free from the others. You won't be alone in doing that though. We all have to do this."

His fingers were drumming on the table again as he considered everything I'd told him. Then he gave me a hard look.

"What are these rules you're talking about?"

"Good question. They basically break down to four things."

"One, you never try and use your power on another mind controller. Especially in our faction and the Buddhists. That protects you from us and you'd be mad to pick a fight with a Buddhist psychic. The meditations they practice make them amongst the most powerful psychics on the planet."

"Secondly, you never try and take control of another controllers slaves. This protects your girls."

"Thirdly, you never try and use your power on people who are politically and economically important to the country. That keeps the government off our back and makes them focus on the Paladins. They definitely target these people."

"Fourthly, those that you do control you do so to minimise any trauma to them and any collateral damage that might cause. Like not taking over your secretary because of the impact on her husband and children."

"That final rule also helps keep the Government off our back and means the Buddhists sort of tolerate us. The Buddhists aren't interested in power like the other sects are. They're after enlightenment and focus their power inwards, rather than outwards. Anyway, we value the truce we have with them."

Andrew snorted with amusement.

"It sounds like the politics of this get messy."

"Tell me about it," I said sourly.

Then he looked at me shrewdly.

"I get the impression you're more afraid of the Buddhists than any of the other factions."

"Maybe. I suppose I am a bit. It's more that I'm in awe of them. Their Abbots are beyond anything we know. They're also strange. They start seeing things in an entirely different way to you and me which can make them very cryptic at times."

I sighed as I thought about some of the telepathic conversations I'd had with the monks. Conversations that tended to get under your skin and make you think in different ways. I shook my head in annoyance at these memories.

"Do they ever attain it?" he asked.

"What?"

"Do they ever attain enlightenment?"

"Yes, some do."

"What does that mean anyway? What happens when they attain it?"

I sighed. How do you explain something that confuses the heck out of you?

"I think they stop being human and become something much more. The monks say that everything we see and hear and touch is a powerful illusion dragged over our eyes to conceal from us a much deeper, more complicated, universe. They say the developments in quantum mechanics are the way scientists are beginning to penetrate beyond that veil. They also say our psychic power comes through a little back door we keep open in our minds to that universe. When the monks attain enlightenment they go beyond the illusion. I heard the monks say that when enlightenment is attained the person stops being anything and becomes everything, stops being anywhere and becomes everywhere."

Andrew blinked at me in surprise.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Dammed if I know. All I know is they become utterly beyond us. Anyway, the thing is, they never capture people like the other factions. They do recruit from us but they do so in a much more subtle fashion than the others. They've taught us many of the mental techniques we know to train up our psychic skills. Those techniques begin to change some of us after a while. I guess it opens that door wider so we start seeing things in a different light. Those people eventually leave and are accepted into the order."

Andrew was back to drumming on the table while he thought about everything. Then he abruptly stopped and looked at me directly.

"Well, I dunno about these Buddhists. They sound a bit creepy to me but the rules seem reasonable."

"They are Andrew and they work to keep us safe. The choice is yours. Join us as a free individual or be on your own."

...

Eight months later.

'Ready Andrew?'

'Yeah Don.'