New Markets - 02 (51 page)

I was forced to stop as the mass of students left the room, however.  I couldn't see my own notebook as the mass of mindviews crowded my vision.  I hooked my backpack with one arm, stood up, and brushed off my skirt where I'd been sitting on the floor.

I'm not certain how long they stood there directly in front of me, but I finally realized that someone had walked up directly in front of me and was waiting for me to look at them before saying anything.  I must have looked like I was ignoring them, staring off into space.

I said, "Hi."  From a few other mindviews I saw that it was a thin guy with short, light brown hair, a lot of freckles, and glasses.  He wore a t-shirt with some band's logo on it and ripped jeans.

He said, "Hey.  I'm Lee."  He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and asked, "So, uhh, what are you taking notes on out here?"

I debated making something up, but claiming I wasn't a super wasn't an option.  There were still four people in the hall nearby other than Lee, plus Professor Zilgard, Megan, and the other professor and a few student in the room next door.  All the active mindviews were making my eyes glow from behind.  Definitely not a normal look, even if one discounted the gold hair color.

I shrugged, "I'm taking notes on Professor Zilgard's class."

"From out here?"  He thought I was feeding him a line.

"Yep.  It's less of a distraction, both to me and to the rest of the class." 
Not to passerby, who all liked to stare at me as they walked down the corridor, but at least they weren't trying to focus on a class....

"You interested in genetics because of, well, because you're a super?"

"Err ... right." 
Sounds like a good enough reason.

"Well, you're welcome to come and sit by me during class.  You don't have to sit out here.  Same with the other rooms, since you seem to be hanging out at all the third year gen classes."

I smiled.  "I appreciate the thought, but it really does work better if I sit outside, or at least away from the mass of people."

"Oh.  Okay.  Well, it's a standing offer if you change your mind."

"Thank you."

"So, uhh, can I ask what you can do?"

"I'm surprised you haven't heard, since it's on the web and in at least one supers rag.  I can fly."

"Whoa.  That's awesome!  Do you do it with mental powers, or move the air around you in some kind of cyclone, or stand on a platform of air?"

"I have no idea how it works, but I just do it.  There's no air movement, no platform, and I don't have to concentrate on it to do it."

"Nice, some kind of inherent flight then.  I wonder if it's actually a type of anti-gravity power."

Now I saw where he was coming up with his ideas, between comic books, T.V. shows, movies, and a lot of science fiction novels he was rifling through the possibilities in his mind's eye - or in my case in his mindview.

"So why does it work better if you sit outside a classroom if you can fly?"

"Err ... yeah." 
Hmm, I
did
pick my name based off of the telepathy.  People at both Metrocity General Hospital and Iron Cross know I can do it.  So do the Feds, H.E.R.O.  Bah, it's going to come up during my special testing class anyway or it won't be worth doing.  A dozen students or more and it's bound to get out.

I continued, "I'm a telepath as well." 
Like heck if I'm going to spread around what I can do with my pheromones, though.

"Ooohhhh.  That makes more sense.  I think.  Uhh, or not.  Why would it matter?"

I looked up for a moment and bit my upper lip while thinking.  "Sometimes I hear voices, it can get distracting."

"Oh.  Yeah.  That's cool though too.  Someone makes you mad and
bam
you nail them with a migraine."

I tilted my head to the side and raised an eyebrow.  "Well, I try not to do that sort of thing." 
To those who don't deserve it....

I continued, "Well, I need to get moving, I need to speak with Professor Zilgard."

"No problem.  I'll probably see you tomorrow then in Professor Stonewall's class.

"Have a good day then."  I smiled at him and walked into the classroom.

The other four mindviews from the hall converged on Lee like vultures, inundating him with questions.  I smiled - nice to see someone else get pelted with questions for a change.

I walked up to Professor Zilgard; he and Megan had been waiting for me. 

Megan hugged me and said, "I really love this mind thing.  You're helping me figure stuff out faster."

"Same here, Megan.  Plus you're allowing me to actually see the whiteboard - thanks for that."  I grinned at her.

Professor Zilgard said, "You two are talking during class?"

I nodded, "I see through your and Megan's eyes most of the time, and we clarify things to each other as you teach them."

"Hmm.  Too bad you couldn't do that for entire classes.  I'd love to have an entire class of A's for once."

"I'm not sure I could, I can only pull up one mindview at a time, and while I've thought a few things that others have heard, the only reliable means has been when I've got the one pulled up."

He nodded.  "So, I was wondering ... is there any chance you could do that happy thing again with me?  It made for an unbelievable day on Tuesday."

I blinked, "Really?  You actually want me to do something to you?"

"Sure.  It'll make for a nice experiment as well.  You know, to see if it lasts as long."

While he said that, part of him was thinking that he really enjoyed the feeling of being so happy during a day.  I couldn't see anything wrong with that, so I shrugged and said, "Okay."

It only took me a moment to draw his mindview close, pull myself into it, and walk him to his emotion center and have him touch his happiness pond.  It was interesting that his emotion center door had been closed.  I didn't know if that meant he was in an emotionless state or what, but it was worth thinking about.

I stumbled back when I left his mindview.  It took me a bit to recover from that shock, as usual.  Megan was holding me up as I blinked and became aware of my surroundings.

She said, "You okay?"

I blinked a few more times and nodded.  "Yeah.  Leaving a mindview is always something of a shock to me.  Is he...."  I didn't need to finish the statement, as I felt the waves of happiness flowing through his mindview to me.

Then I gently pushed Megan back as she leaned in even closer, drawn by my pheromones.

She sighed, "I want to bottle that up."

I smiled ruefully, but was interrupted by the professor before I could say anything.

The Professor grinned at us and clapped his hands.  "This ... is ... absolutely ...
fantastic
!  Wow, what a great day!  Thank you so much, Stephanie!"  He stepped up and clasped my right hand in both of his for a moment before stepping back and picking up his laptop and briefcase.  "You ladies have a truly wonderful day.  I'm quite sure I will now!"  He took a deep breath, blinked and looked back at me.

He continued, "Has anyone told you that you smell fantastic?  Well, I'm off, be good, ladies!"

Good thing you weren't near me, Prof, yeesh, or you'd be all over me.

He walked out of the classroom.  Megan's eyes followed him out of the room, and then she looked back at me with one eyebrow raised.

"What ... what did you do to him?"

"On Tuesday I asked if I could try making him happy.  He just asked me to do it again, so I did.  Kind of nice doing it to someone who actually wants me in their head rather than being all hostile."

"So ... you, did what exactly to him?"

I shrugged.  "I'm actually not certain.  While I visualize it as walking him up to a pond of happiness, I think the reality is that I'm somehow activating whatever makes him happy in his brain."

"That makes sense.  You've made people who don't want you in their heads happy, then?"

I laughed, "No, them I make afraid.  Very, very afraid."  I couldn't help but hear a slight sinister tone to my voice from Megan's mindview.  "Yeesh, that makes me sound like I'm evil.  Let's just say that when a bad guy is trying to hurt me, sometimes I make them afraid."

"You can make people happy and afraid, what about the other emotions, like trust, surprise, sad, angry.  Hold on a sec."  She pulled out her phone and pulled up a list of emotions and feelings on some website.  I saw the list through her eyes before she had a chance to rattle them off.

She continued, "Disgust, anticipation?"

"Hmm, I've not walked someone into a pool of any of those types, although I can do some of the same with my pheromones.  I know I've projected trust and anger before."

"Cool.  What about this list of feelings?  Aggression, awe, contempt, disappointment, ooh, or love or submission."

"I, well, I've not tried any of those.  Did you want me to try one on you?  Perhaps awe or submission?"  I grinned at her.

"Oh, well, I could do without those.  What about optimism?"

I shook my head, "I've not tried that one yet either.  They are cool ideas to try, though."

She kept scrolling down the web page, "What about lust, that would be interesting, or cheerfulness.  There's a whole list of secondary emotions, or feelings.  Hey, surprise would be a pretty humorous emotion to kick off."

"No idea, I'll have to try them.  Oh my, can you imagine someone constantly surprised about everything for a while.  That could be downright silly."

"Yeah.  You need to try it on one of the guys.  Maybe Trevin, he'd deserve it."

"That's a neat idea.  Surprise might be a safe one to try on him without ticking him off, too.  Speaking of surprise, I'm a bit surprised that Rael hasn't tried calling again.  Oh ... wait, I turned off my volume."

I pulled out my two phones and turned the volume back up on both.  I had messages on both of them from Rael to call him back.

"Crap, I forgot to call Rael back in my rush this morning.  I hate being knocked out."

Megan's eyebrows went up at that.

Chapter 31 - Frustration

Rael's Viewpoint

I awoke around six a.m.  I tried calling Stephanie's H.E.R.O. phone again and left another message. 
You better be okay, Steph, or I'm not going to forgive myself....
  I picked up Tina's spare bedroom while I waited for her to get home.

I used the H.E.R.O. phone to send a text to Gatecrasher asking to let me know when he'd be available.  We needed to coordinate with a few others to be able to do the attack, much less find them, and that if we couldn't do it in the very early morning that we might have to wait until midday for the hero who could find the kidnappers, or perhaps I should start calling them slavers, since that was what they were doing.

I called H.E.R.O. HQ and asked if they could do another trace on Psystar's phone.  It took them a moment to patch me to Rick, apparently one of their specialists for the phones.  It took him a minute before he said she was still roughly where she was at.  I thanked him.