Chapter 3

The rest of the day had been fairly uneventful; Becky had gone off shift a few hours after our ‘appointment’, she had popped in to say goodbye but, other than that, I hadn’t really seen her – or any of the other nurses – since our rendezvous had finished. Jimmy had come, as expected, for the afternoon’s visiting hours; the conversation had been normal enough, almost exclusively dominated by his growing desire for Philippa. My mind was consumed with the memories of Becky’s touch; her hands, her skin, her lips ... both sets ... her warmth and, most dominantly, her eyes, flashing with primal hunger before I spent myself into her mouth. That serene satisfaction that she had pleased me filling her thoughts, that glow about her that radiated blissful contentment ... she was genuinely happy with her decision to follow through with her plan and would have spent the rest of the day with me if her duties had allowed. Unfortunately for both of us, they hadn’t.

Jimmy had, of course, noticed my distracted involvement in our conversation; he had bought my excuse about being tired and had shrugged the rest off as a hangover from my parents visit. For his part, Jimmy had been elated at Philippa’s perceived – albeit vague – interest in him, I was the only one that knew her real desires and her growing attraction to my friend; but he’d had the good sense to swear off other women until he got a concrete answer from the object of his obsession. As far as he was concerned, he had gone 8 weeks without any pussy, another few weeks wouldn’t hurt if there was a change of Philippa being his reward, especially if it meant something more long-term than his usual conquests.

Despite me being awful company – and in a true testament to his friendship and character – Jimmy had not cut his visit short and had stayed right up until the end of visiting hours, his happy chattering about Philippa – or occasionally, and briefly, another subject – had gone a long way in distracting me from my own thoughts which were as happy and optimistic as his, and he had known when to stay quiet and leave me to my thoughts when my mind drifted away from the conversation.

Becky wasn’t the only subject occupying my mind, although she was by far the most dominant and enjoyable; it was becoming increasingly difficult to drown out the thoughts coming from random people around me. At first – immediately after the accident – I seemed to be only able to hear people that were right next to me, especially if they were concentrating on me, but over the past day or so, that limit had loosened; now I could hear the thoughts of random strangers in the hallway, thoughts that would grow in volume as they approached my door and then die away as they moved further away from me. Although I had never seen it, I knew that the nurses station had to be reasonably close to my door, because a lot of the thoughts I was picking up involved complex and undecipherable medical jargon, thoughts about treatments, medication, therapies and – from the male nurses especially – the relative hotness of guests and colleagues. Apparently, Jimmy was right, Charlotte – who I still hadn’t met – was the epitome of feminine beauty, surpassing even Becky and Philippa on the nurse’s scale of hotness.

It had become overwhelmingly exhausting. The promise of this ESP thing was quickly being tempered by the sheer volume of ‘noise’ it was picking up from useless sources. Sleep seemed to be the only respite and as Jimmy stood up to say his goodbyes, my feelings of guilt for giving him less than my full attention was offset by the prospect of blissful respite from the thoughts of the people around me. My eyes dropped shut almost as soon as the door closed behind him.

I couldn’t tell you what time It was; the still curtain-less windows showed nothing but blackness in the night sky but I was pulled from my sleep by a feeling – a presence – that I could only describe as power.

My eyes took a few moments to adjust to the dimly lit room, but soon a figure could be made out, standing off to my left. It was male, that much was obvious from the sheer size and shape of the intruder but there was more about him that that.

He smiled as he stepped into the small amount of light from the window.

Now, I have never been homoerotically inclined; I am not homophobic in the slightest, it’s just that the relative attractiveness of other men is not a concept that I am familiar with, but this man was an Adonis! His broad shoulders, chiseled jaw, immaculate features and piercing blue eyes could drop panties, harden nipples and moisten labia at 50 paces. There was an air of well-earned superiority about him, like a pro-athlete, multinational business billionaire or Hollywood superstar deeming you worthy of unrequested personal attention ... like a demigod stepped down from Olympus just to talk to you; it was awe inspiring.

Strangely, however, I felt no danger or threat from this man whatsoever – counterintuitive when you consider being woken by a shadowy figure in the middle of the night, albeit a perfect specimen of masculinity – in fact, the man gave off an aura of friendship, trustworthiness and safety that I doubt I will ever be able to adequately explain. My mind instinctively reached out to see his thoughts, it wasn’t a conscious act, it was something I had been involuntarily doing since the MRI incident but this time, I genuinely wanted to know what was on this stranger’s mind, but – for the first time – they seemed cut off from me.

“So, it is you.” He smiled warmly.

“I ... err ... Who?...”

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” He said, his smile never waning for a second.

“Have you?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow, I was surprised by his statement, aside from the severity of the car crash and the fact that I survived it, I didn’t think there was anything special about me at all, at least nothing that anyone other than I was aware of.

“I am like you.” He simply said, his statement was followed by a rush of thoughts, as if the gates baring my gift from his mind was suddenly thrown open and everything behind them came rushing out in one unrelenting torrent.

Suddenly, I was aware of things that I couldn’t possibly have known; his name was Marco and he was old, hundreds of years old, more importantly – at least to my addled brain which seemed to jump over that nugget like a rat in the street – he really was like me. I could almost see the activity on his theta wave and although Doc Harris had said that judging the relative power of a person was difficult from just looking at a wave form, I instinctively knew that this man was powerful, how his power compared to mine – it would seem – was still a matter of investigation. What was most important though, was that this man identified as a teacher ... maybe an apprentice’s master would be a more accurate description, but even that hardly did it justice.

Moreover, we weren’t the only ones; dozens, maybe hundreds of faces flashed through my mind ... his mind ... whatever, each of them possessing the same gift I had miraculously gained, yet I somehow knew that of all of them, I was the only one not gifted with this ability from birth. He was here to initiate me into their little brotherhood and train me in the use of this new gift, but given the source of my power, my ‘training’ – for lack of a better word – would be unusual for the both of us.

As quickly as it started, the flow of information stopped. My eyes eventually refocused on the dimly lit room that I had completely forgotten I was in; his smiling face was the first thing that drew my eyes. “Impressive,” he nodded, “not many people can handle that level of exchange on their first attempt.”

“Err ... thanks.”

He huffed a laugh, moving forward and sitting himself down into the chair usually reserved for Jimmy, crossing one leg over the other and straightening his back into what can only be described as a perfect posture. “I’m guessing you have questions.”

“A few.”

His smile widened. “I knew I would like you.”

“You did? How?”

“As you probably know now,” he started, “we can ... sense ... another person with our gift from great distances, the limit of that distance directly corresponds to the power of our gifts, in our case, the power of mine ... and the power of yours.”

“Cool, so how far away were you when you sensed mine.”

“I was in Rome.” My eyebrows shot up, he had located me from easily over 1000 miles away, I was suddenly very grateful that he bore me no ill intent, not that I could have done anything to defend myself against this man in my normal condition, let alone my current one. “I have been reading your memories and your thoughts since I detected you; you haven’t had an easy life, Pete, but you have conducted yourself honorably, you deal with your problems and hardships, not with violence or aggression like most, but with humor and integrity. As you already know, I usually only deal with children - the ages at which their gift becomes active varies in age from 9 to about 14, so I have never initiated one so ... mature before. Hopefully, that maturity and your character will go some way to offset the ... err ... novelty of your situation.” I already had more questions than I could count from that statement alone, but I seemed to know that they would all be answered as his lessons went on. “I suppose I had better start from the beginning.

“The Doctor you spoke to was right, at least in part; we are the next step in human evolution, but by the same determination, we are also ‘not human’ – the only analogy I can give is the evolution from Neanderthal man to Homo-Sapiens: related, but different – with enough numbers and enough time, ours will become the dominant species on the planet. Humans, as we know them now, will simply be bred out of existence.”

“I’m not sure they will be happy about that.”

“We’ll get to that,” he replied, his words slow and careful, as if each of them was carefully considered before being spoken, “but safe to say, the homo-sapiens were extremely violent when it came to replace their less evolved cousins, we are committed to not following their example. Anyway ... the first of us, at least the first of us that we are aware of was a woman, her name was Maria – our Eve. We don’t know exactly when she was born, but her writings tell us that one of her parents and both of her siblings were killed in the Black Death – the plague that swept Europe in the mid-1300s – somewhere around modern-day Munich. She was caught up in – and eventually killed during – the Salem Witch Trials in 1693 meaning that at the time of her death, she was about 350 years old.

“In that time, she had travelled all over the world, looking for others like her, and she found them ... she is the spiritual mother of our species, even though it is unlikely that she truly was the first of our kind. She also spent centuries trying to discover the source of her powers ... of our powers. What she first postulated – and we have since confirmed – is that our kind go through some sort of transformation in the womb under some very specific circumstances; in short: the mother needs to contract some sort of illness, the type of illness is unimportant, but it must be one that transfers through the mother to the fetus – the common cold or the flu, or even cancer, for example, don’t work. The fetus, in turn, needs to be at a point in its development during which the brain is being formed from a group of cells into a more complex organ ... if all this happens at the right time, a new part of the brain develops, bridging the gap between the right and left hemispheres and the various lobes and giving us what we have called ‘the gift’. I’m not going to lie, it is an extremely complex process that some of the best minds in the world have spent decades trying to explain, but that is the best theory we have so far ... the only other way is for one of us to have a child, passing it down genetically is the most common and easiest way for us to grow our numbers.

“In your case,” he went on, “our best guess is that your mother did contract some kind of illness that transferred to you, enough to partially develop the new lobe, but not enough to activate the gift. Then, when the MRI overloaded, the magnetic waves finished the process and activated your abilities. What we have discovered is that the strength or power of a person’s gift is directly proportionate to the severity of the illness they were subjected to; there is little doubt that without the lobe, the waves of that errant MRI would have killed you instantly. Some of our greatest scientific and medical minds are keen to see how much power that translates into, but the working theory is that you may be one of the most powerful of us all, maybe only matched by the great Uri.”

“Uri?”

“Uri’s mother lived in the city of Pripyat” my look of confusion told him to continue, “she was only a few miles away when the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl melted down, she was dosed with unimaginable amounts of radiation, most of which was transferred to Uri ... his power far exceeds any other known gift by some margin.”

“Ah, so why is he so great?”

Marco laughed again, “If we were ever to say we had a leader, it would be Uri” he thought for a second before correcting himself, “maybe leader is not the right term, guardian maybe ... he protects us.”

“From what?”

“That will come later in your training.” Marco smiled again.

“And how long will that take?” I asked carefully, “I don’t mean to sound rude, but the sooner you can show me how to control these powers, so I’m not bombarded with random peoples’ thoughts, the better ... It feels like my head is going to explode sometimes.”

Marco’s smile faltered for a second, his brows arching into a concerned frown. “Really?” he mused to himself, “that’s interesting ... I’ll show you everything you need to know, but to answer your question ... about an hour.”

“An hour?!?”

Marco’s smile resumed its rightful place. “You’ll be amazed what you can achieve with the gift. Before we start, there is something that you need to consider ... it will help make the whole process go that much easier; humans are one of only a few species in the natural world who are born lacking an understanding of their own abilities. A baby does not know how to walk, or talk, it cannot feed itself or communicate with its parents; it is totally reliant on adults to keep it safe and alive, there are almost no other examples of this in the natural world. Almost every land going animal is born knowing how to – and being able to – walk, there are a few exceptions, but the overwhelming majority are on their feet within minutes of being born. Most know how to feed without help; they know where the mother’s teat is or how to gather food for themselves, fish are born knowing how to swim and how to feed, some species have genetically passed down the instinct to hide in shallow waters to avoid predators and almost all animals can communicate with their peers. Even birds, capable of the most complex physical activity on earth, are born knowing how to fly – even if they are not physically capable for it for a few weeks.

“The reason why human’s cant is simple. The human brain is so advanced that it takes about 2 years to develop to the point that it is capable of something approaching self-sufficiency, but if that were to take place in the womb – as it does almost everywhere else – a human woman would have to give birth to a toddler. A woman’s body simply isn’t designed to allow a child of that size through the birth canal, neither the mother nor the child would survive that kind of pregnancy.

“This becomes relevant when you consider the gift; in the same way a horse is born knowing how to walk, we are born with an instinctive knowledge of how to use our gift ... most of us don’t become consciously aware of our powers until we hit puberty, but when we do, we go through a process known as ‘the awakening’ ... it is our evolution’s way of allowing us to comprehend and access our powers.

“In your case, its slightly different ... you didn’t have your powers when you went through puberty, and we can’t make you go through puberty now, but the theory still stands; your subconscious mind contains the knowledge and ability to control your gift, the fact that you have a lobe – and are still alive and possess the gift - proves it ... we just need to initiate your awakening.”

“Cool, so how do we do that?” I asked. There was a small part of me that felt like I should be laughing my ass off at the absurdity of what I was hearing, or at least thoroughly questioning it, but there was something about Marco that made me accept his story without doubt; whether it was part of the gift or a conscious compelling by Marco, I wasn’t sure, but nothing that Marco was telling me seemed anything other than the logical explanation of my condition. I wasn’t confused or doubtful, I was just grateful and eager to learn.

Marco’s warm smile remained in place as he effortless pulled himself from Jimmy’s chair and walked up to the side of my bed. “Take my hand” he whispered almost reverently. I arced an eyebrow, suddenly worried I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face if this guy started muttering a prayer or a spell, but I did as he asked.

As soon as our fingers touched, existence fell away.

I found myself standing in a room; it was odd, like an overly dramatic movie set. It was dark, with invisible light sources overhead providing the only illumination yet I could see everything. If I were ever to imagine what the insides of Bond villain’s office would look like, this would be it. There was a huge computer against one wall, multiple screens – currently blank – hanging off the wall above the keyboard. Alongside it were huge units of memory banks – the kind you see in server farms or on supercomputers, the kind that hold incalculable amounts of information, I had seen these kinds of things before as part of my studies into computer game development for online games. Along the wall opposite the computer was a large, black, leather, comfortable looking sofa and an equally luxurious looking bed. On the walls behind me, either side of the door I didn’t remember entering though, were hanging sets of Plasma screen TVs. In the center of the room, was an illuminated, round white podium, the kind you would see at a tailors ... it all looked very impressive but I had no idea what any of it actually did ... or where I was ... or why I was here.

Suddenly, Marco was standing next to me.

“Where is this?” I asked, still looking around the office.

“That’s ... hard to explain.” He answered after some thought. “this is your subconscious mind’s interpretation of your gift. It’s a way of explaining it to you in a manner that you can understand.”

“Hmmm...” my subconscious wasn’t doing a particularly good job on that front. “Ok, so ... what’s that?” I asked, pointing to the computer, obviously the most important thing in the room.

“That’s where things get complicated,” Marco answered after another pause, “You see, what you are seeing is your subconscious mind’s interpretation of your gift. Even though you can see me, I cannot see what you are seeing, I am in my own subconscious looking at my gift and you are here with me. In my case, it is a library; rows upon rows of books and information and memories, maps, diagrams, and a desk to study and organize them all ... a writing bureau to make my own additions ... and – probably like you – a very nice bed. My library is the physical manifestation of how my subconscious perceives the world and my understanding of it. Yours will be very different.

“There are, however, the same basic elements in everyone’s library - at least that is what I call my own subconscious, you may want to call it something else - the first is the storage, usually that takes up most of the space in the room you are standing in,” my eyes were instinctively drawn to the memory banks. “this is where your life’s experiences and knowledge are stored, the room itself will grow as needed to allow this storage space to grow, there is no limit to how much knowledge and memories you can hold in this space.”

“Cool.”

“Now, there should be a way to access them ... They are not accessible at the moment, but there should be a way for you to start using them; in my case, there was a rope barrier blocking access to the aisles. Look around your storage space to see what I mean; the answer should be obvious to you.”

With a shrug, I walked over to the memory banks and immediately noticed that they weren’t switched on, a small power socket at ankle height to the left of the machines seemed to be connected to banks. I flicked the switch and the banks hummed into life. The effect was immediate; in an instant every long forgotten memory, every piece of information, every lesson from school and every detail of every conversation I had ever had appeared in my mind ... not an overwhelming resurgence of information, just the knowledge that they were all instantly accessible. With a thought, I could recall my first steps, the perfume that Stacy Granger – my first crush – wore during the summer dance, and the feeling creeping up my spine when, a few years later, her sister gave me my very first blowjob. Every single nugget of information I had ever learnt, including every word I had heard or read about my college degree was at my finger tips and – more than that – organized in a way that made it all make perfect sense. The information I now had would allow me to ace my way through college ... college that I may never be able to attend again. That final thought pulled me back from the euphoric realizations that had kept my mind busy for the past few minutes.

“Wow” I mumbled with a little less enthusiasm than this ability warranted.

“Have you accessed it?”

“Yeah, it’s amazing.” I put a little more effort into my voice this time, not wanting to sound ungrateful for Marco’s help or underwhelmed with an ability that most people would kill for.

“Don’t worry about your injuries,” Marco said with a smile, somehow – and unsurprisingly - knowing what I was thinking, “We will get to that in a minute, but rest assured, there are very few things that our gift cannot change.” Again, my usual skepticism was silenced by the trust I instinctively had in Marco.

“Ok, next there should be some sort of viewing device, something that you would use to be able to see yourself; Mine is a full-length mirror.”

My eyebrows scrunched up, something to view myself in, there is nothing like... my eyes were drawn to the tailors platform in the center of the room; with the new found memories at my fingertips, it was looking a lot more familiar than I had originally noticed, it took only a few seconds for me to realize what I was looking at ... It was a character design screen from a computer game. The newfound understanding that the memory banks allowed filled in the blanks for me; Marco was old, I hadn’t worked out exactly how old yet, but certainly older than modern computing technology; his way of gaining and storing information was with books, books which – for my generation - had been replaced with computers. He saw himself as a 2-Dimensional reflection in a mirror, my gaming experience had trained me to think of myself as three-dimensional character floating on a screen, a screen which contained a pedestal just like this one. “I’ve got it.” I answered.

“Ok, same principle, you need to activate it. I had to simply look into mine, you will know what to do with yours.” He was right, all I needed to do was to walk up to the pedestal and stand on it. The lights underneath came on but, other than that, nothing else happened.

“Err ... ok, I think that’s on, now what?”

“Now leave it.”

“Leave it?”

“Yes, walk away from it.”

I did as I was told and walked back towards the door, resuming my place next to Marco. When I turned back towards the room, I was surprised to see a 3D holographic representation of my body – complete with scars and broken limbs - something my current ‘subconscious’ body was lacking – slowly rotating a few inches above the pedestal. “I ... erm...” I had no idea what I was looking at, which felt strange considering my newfound abilities from the memory banks ... which in turn felt strange due to the speed with which that ability now seemed natural. Part of me was convinced that I should be freaking the fuck out by now.

“That,” Marco said with a smile, “Is what I call the editing station. With that, you can change anything you wish about your physical body.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What? Do you think I was born looking like this?”

I shrugged, everything Marco had told me so far had been true, so I saw little reason to start doubting or questioning him now. “So, how does it work?”

“Basically, and as strange as this may sound, you only need to concentrate on which parts of your body you want to change and how you want to change it, and the editing station will do the rest for you. Be careful though, any drastic changes will be noticed by others which in turn can draw some unwanted attention.”

“Can’t I just make those changes happen gradually?” I asked. “Like, this is what I want to look like, make those changes happen over the next ... I don’t know... 3 months.”

Marco’s smile widened, “You’re a much faster learner than I had hoped.”

I walked up to the pedestal. Right, well then ... all that broken shit can go! I want to make a full and complete recovery in the next ... I don’t know ... what’s a realistic time frame for me to get back on my feet? No fucker will give me a straight answer for that one. Ah fuck it, let’s see what this thing can do, let’s say 6 weeks. I want to have a better body, and be better looking ... nothing stupid, I don’t want to be a body builder size, maybe like brad pit in fight club or something, maybe Cuba Gooding Jr in Jerry Maguire. Let’s do that over the same time. Hmmm ... I paused. Looks would be difficult, people know what I look like and a better body can be explained away with working out, changing my face, not so much ... I gave it some more thought ... nope, nothing. I’ll have to come back to that. Oh ... an obvious one, I want a bigger cock, nothing obscene, let’s say another few inches ... and that shit can happen right the fuck now! Same will illnesses or diseases, I want to be in perfect God Dammed health by the time I leave hospital, whenever the fuck that will be.

“Ok, I think I’m done.”

“You healed yourself didn’t you.” Marco grinned.

“Err ... gradually, yes.”

“Doctor Harris was right about another thing. This gift is part of an evolutionary trait, but one of the others that we have is – as she explained – accelerated healing. If you think about the source of our differences to humanity – the illnesses during fetal development – it is essential that we can heal those illnesses very quickly, being born with Typhus – as I would have been – would have killed our race off in our infancy. Your wounds will heal all on their own with no assistance from you in a much faster time that even you would think of, same with illnesses. How long did you say?”

“Err ... six weeks.”

“Ha!” Marco Laughed, “Try two”

“Cool,” I muttered, “Wont that be hard to explain.”

“Very, but again, we’ll get to that.” Marco stretched and resumed his smile, “right, next will be the desk, or at least mine is a desk. It is something you would commonly associate with working, studying, that kind of thing. I would hazard a guess that yours is some sort of computer.”

“Yup.”

“Alright, you know what to do.”

Surprisingly, I did. Just like the memory banks, it was simply a case of turning the computer on, no wall sockets this time, but pressing the power button the computer itself. Blue lights illuminated from within the machine, casting a glow over the comfortable looking desk chair I hadn’t realized was there until now. A few moments later, the three screens on the wall flickered to life. Streams of information started flowing across them, all of it completely incomprehensible to me.

“Err...”

“Let me guess, you are seeing some writing that you don’t understand.”

“Lots of it.”

“Don’t worry about that for now, it is the visualization of neural energy, in short, it’s the language of your brain. When you focus on it in context, you will be able to understand it. Now, your desk will be split into three parts...” I assumed he was talking about the three screens. “yours might be slightly different but usually, the one in the middle is the internal version of the editing station. My mirror allows me to edit my external features, this part of the desk allows me to edit my internal ones; there are very few limits to what this can achieve, it has already allowed you to read other people’s thoughts, that one is almost always active unless you apply filters ... mine for example is filtered to only hear thoughts that are relevant to me or that I would find useful.”

“That’s a big vague, isn’t it?”