Noel Thurston leaned back in his chair, teetering precariously on its back legs. His eyes half-closed, he scanned the constant stream of people hurrying past. The sidewalk cafe he'd picked for his vantage point was a good place to sit and sip a creamy latte on a fine spring day. It was just past noon, and variously clad students from the University of Washington mingled with staid businessmen and scurrying housewives under a cloudless sky. Few noticed him, fewer gave him a second glance and that was just the way he wanted it. Medium height, too old to be a student or computer nerd, not dressed formally enough to be a businessman, he was just there, an unobtrusive presence in his slacks and lightweight knit shirt with its open collar, taking up sidewalk space on a spindly wrought-iron chair by an equally flimsy table.

He sampled their minds as they walked past, sweeping their surface thoughts just deeply enough to detect any anomaly. Every tenth mind or so, he would insert a pre-programmed thought sequence, one that would never surface unless conditions were just right. Every member of The Organization was supposed to do this, preparing for that hopefully far-off day when their existence would be revealed to a hostile world.

There! That one just wasn't quite right. She was young, and looked younger, with perhaps a slight trace of undeveloped talent. Possibly a student on her way back from a jog in the nearby park in her shorts, sweatshirt, running shoes and terrycloth headband. No, her thoughts weren't right for that, not focused enough on studies and books. Not a housewife, either. He wasn't sure just what it was about her that had caught his attention.

A mental nudge, and she paused at the counter of the little cafe to order a cup of foamy espresso. Unaware of his presence, she brought it to his table and sat beside him, Preoccupied with her own concerns, she idly watched the ebb and flow of traffic along the street. Her thoughts were open to him and he covertly studied them, nudging them in the direction he wanted them to take.

"You're not from here in Seattle, are you?" His voice merged with her own thoughts so smoothly that she didn't notice her sudden awareness of his presence.

"No, not originally," she answered, speaking as though to an old acquaintance. "I was raised on a farm just outside of PantherLake. That's up in the hills back of Renton. I've lived here in town for almost a year now, ever since my parents died."

Her gaze rested on him, faintly troubled as though the strangeness of the situation had just come to her notice. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

'My name's Noel Thurston. You're Sally, aren't you?"

"Sara Lee Lindquist. Some of my friends called me Sally." She blushed slightly, pink against creamy tan. Her wavy blond hair swung free from under the terrycloth headband, and her thoughts confirmed that she'd been jogging instead of eating lunch. Her sweatshirt and shorts fit closely enough to reveal an athletic, but full figure, one that plainly required firm discipline over her appetite to keep it in bounds. She continued to talk in response to a mental nudge. "I'm a waitress at Sammy's Steak House, but I'm taking night classes at UW this semester. Why am I telling you all this?"

"Because I'm interested. No, stay sitting," he told her as she started to get to her feet. "Don't worry about anything until I tell you that you can."

"But..." She gazed at him helplessly, her thoughts seething behind her placid features as his constraints roused fragments of memories that she didn't want to have to face. "But I... ,"

"Just sit there and drink your espresso. I have to learn more about you, but you don't need to talk right now."

His thoughts probed more deeply into her mind, searching for whatever it was that had disturbed him. Images of a happy childhood presented themselves to his mental gaze, but there was something not quite right somewhere.

There! That was a part of it. A dark stain where there should have been only childish laughter and sunlight. She'd been almost thirteen that summer, walking through the woods along a path that would bring her out on a gravel road close to a country store. Walking along, thinking about everything and nothing, dolls and horses, girl friends and the neighbor boy who'd carried her books to class for her, when...

She had turned aside for no apparent reason, climbing clumsily through a wire strand fence and pushing past a clump of brush into a stand of alders. Someone waited for her there, someone she almost knew, but whose blurred face she couldn't quite recognize.

"Come here!"

Helplessly, she'd walked closer, standing close to the man. She still couldn't see his face, but she thought that he was only a year or so older, maybe fifteen or sixteen. She knelt in front of him, fumbling with the front of his jeans. His erection made it difficult for her to undo his zipper, but she managed to get it open. The taste of him was bitter and salty in her mouth, and he smelled like he hadn't bathed lately.

She lay on top of her clothes, legs spread as he thrust into her. It hurt! She tried to cry out, but somehow she couldn't make a sound louder than a faint whimper as a spurious excitement overlaid her anguish.

"Clean yourself off. No, use these leaves. Now, get dressed and go on with what you were doing. You won't remember this, won't remember why you are sore, but you'll come back here tomorrow. You'll only remember slipping as you crossed a fence, and think that maybe you bruised yourself, made yourself bleed."

The same kind of thing happened the next day, and the next, until at last one day in the fall the young man wasn't there to meet her in the grove of alders. Her faint memories of the encounters faded until hardly any trace was left. She only knew that she had a horror of being touched, that she hated living in the country and in her memories of that year the summer sun was strangely dim and cold.

Sally gradually came back to the present, to find Noel watching her with compassionate eyes as she huddled in her chair.

"You never did find out who he was, did you." Noel's words were a statement, not a question.

"No, he could have been any one of a dozen boys who lived around there," she whispered. Her arms wrapped tight across her chest, holding in the anguish that she still wasn't allowed to express.

"All right, just stay relaxed a while longer."

Noel took a cellular phone from an inside pocket and punched in a series of numbers. "Hello, Control? Noel here. I've found traces of a rogue talent. It sounds like he could be a bad apple." He gave a succinct account of what he had learned so far, concluding, "It was about ten years ago, but since it was in a small community there's a good chance we can track him down. I'll take charge of Miss Lindquist for now."

"Take charge of me?" Sally tried to push her chair back, but couldn't make it move.

"You need help, and I need more information. I'm taking you home with me for now. You don't have to work today or tomorrow, so nobody will wonder if you don't show up, Just stay calm, nobody's going to hurt you. Come with me, and don't worry about anything."

Don't worry! Of course she worried. How could she help it? Then her thoughts slipped away to other subjects and calmed as her fear was momentarily forgotten. He took her arm and guided her around a corner. She followed his guidance willingly, though she couldn't help stiffening at his touch. His car was nearby, a nondescript foreign sedan. It merged smoothly into traffic, and Noel glanced questioningly at her.

"Where do you live?"

"My apartment is a few blocks from here." She gave him directions, and all too soon he pulled up in front of a brick building.

"Go on in and get whatever you'll need for a few days at my place. Just act natural. If anyone asks, you'll be staying with a friend."

Sally pushed open the door to the building and got into the creaky elevator, As she rode up to the third floor she tried to throw off the compulsion that directed her movements, but it was no use. It didn't take long to toss some things into an overnight bag, and then she was locking her apartment door behind her and taking the elevator back down to street level.

"Leaving, Miss Lindquist?"

"What?" She glanced up to see her neighbor, Mrs. Gill waiting for the elevator. "Oh, yes, I'm off to stay with a... a friend for the next few days." She struggled to say more, to frame a cry for help, but couldn't even think the words she wanted to utter.

"That's nice. I'll take care of your mail, if that's all right with you."

"Thank you, I'd appreciate it." Sally pushed open the Street door, hoping against hope that Noel wouldn't be there, but he was already out of his car, holding the passenger side door open for her.

Neither one said a word as Noel's car slid easily through the mid-day traffic. Sally tried to watch where they were going, but somehow the streets faded from her consciousness so that when they pulled up in the driveway of a largish older home she had no idea what part of Seattle they were in. Or even whether they were still in Seattle.

"Come on in, I'll show you to the room where you'll be staying.

She followed docilely through the ornate front door and into a tastefully appointed entry. She had an impression of expanses of hardwood floors with scattered area rugs, and a curving open stair that led up to a hallway with several doors to either side. Noel stopped at the second door on the left, opening it and ushering her through. She moved ahead of him, quickly enough that his hand just missed touching her elbow.

"Your own bath is through there," he indicated a second door opening off to the side. "If there's anything you need, just let me know. My housekeeper is away, but she'll be back in a couple of days. Make yourself comfortable, then come on downstairs."

The bedroom furniture was old but lovingly maintained, heavy dark woods polished to a soft glow. A dresser with a large mirror flanked a tall window. Making a wide detour around the spacious canopied bed, Sally hurried over to peer out. Where were they? She could see out over a wooded slope, with houses scattered around seemingly at random, but somehow couldn't make sense out of what she saw. Were those snow-capped hills in the distance? They seemed to shift and change even as she studied them. Turning away in frustration, she busied herself unpacking and putting away the few belongings she'd brought with her. She thought about showering and changing, but couldn't stand the thought of taking off her clothes in this place.

That simple task completed, she nerved herself to face Noel once more. She didn't feel like she was being coerced, more like she was deciding for herself to obey his commands, but somewhere within her mind were deeply buried screams of fear and a slowly building anger.

Noel met her at the foot of the stairs, leading her into a living room that looked like it could hold twenty or thirty people without crowding. Seating her in a comfortable reclining chair, he pulled another one around to face her.

"Now, I suppose you have a few questions you'd like answered before we begin," he told her with a wry smile.

"You... I... What have you done to me?" Suddenly released emotions crowded one another, making it almost impossible for her to speak. She shrank back in her chair. "Who... What are you, some kind of an alien or something?"

"Just a man. One with a few powers most people aren't capable of." He smiled ruefully. "I'm sorry that I had to take charge of you like that, but I'm afraid that this is more important than you can realize right now."

"Powers? What kind of powers? You take over my mind, make me do things, see things that I don't want to remember..." Her voice caught on a sob and she shook her head angrily. "What do you mean, important?"

"You've pretty well experienced what I can do. I can read some of your thoughts, how deeply depending more or less on how hard I try. I can place my own thoughts into your mind, even make you think that they are your own. I can implant commands that you will follow if at all possible. I can also, though that isn't too useful, move small objects with my mind." He frowned, concentrating, and a glass ashtray wobbled up from the surface of a nearby table and floated unsteadily over to him. He reached out and caught it as it fell, setting it down on the floor by his chair. "Some of us can also see a little way into the future, but I'm not one of them. I'm a member of an organization of people who possess these powers, dedicated to preserving our existence. One task that we have set ourselves is the detection of others with powers who aren't aware of us. Particularly, ones who misuse their abilities. You might think of me as sort of a one man ethics committee."

"Misuse? And just what do you call what you're doing to me?" Her temper flaring, she leaned forward in her chair, forgetting for a moment to be afraid. "What's that if it isn't misuse?"

"You haven't been harmed, not by us anyway. You have been harmed by someone else, or you wouldn't have the memories that you do. Somebody abused you as a child, a pre-teen, and then made you seem to forget." Sally shrank back in her chair as his words brought back ugly shreds of the memories he'd uncovered earlier.

"We need to track down whoever it was, and either convince him to behave or neutralize him. Our organization is a secret, obviously, and we'd like to keep it that way. Oh, we dress it up in fine words, but we really don't need someone using their powers recklessly, giving future enemies ammunition in their fight against us."

"What... what's going to happen to me? I'll know about you." She bit her lip, suddenly aware that she'd said more than might be wise.

"You'll forget, completely this time, if it becomes necessary," he told her. "That may not have to happen, though. When I scanned you, there on the street, the first thing that I noticed was that you have the latent potential for powers of your own. A deeply buried potential, but it's there. A small percentage of people are born that way, but most of them are never awakened."

"But I don't want to be a... a freak!" Once again she realized that her words were running way with themselves, but somehow it didn't seem to matter. Then, her attention caught by his words in spite of herself, she quavered, "Powers? What kind of powers would I have?"

"Pretty much the same as mine, though they could be either more or less powerful. You'll need training before you can use them properly. I do take it that you aren't in favor of misusing any powers that you might have?"

"I guess not. I mean, of... of course not." She strove to regain control of her words, then relaxed once more as she realized that it didn't matter all that much. Noel could read the thoughts behind them, after all. Somehow that made her feel naked, more naked than if she'd been sitting there before him completely nude.

"Yes, and that's an enticing picture." Noel smiled at her, and Sally could feel herself blushing furiously. She could also feel that her nipples were suddenly erect, rubbing against the constriction of her sports bra. Trying to change the subject, turning her mind from the thought that Noel was an attractive man, she cast about for something else to say.

"How are you going to find the man who... who molested me?"

"That's already being done. We know when it happened, and where. I would guess that my friends have already narrowed it down to a half-dozen or so suspects, and they'll check them out in the next few days. In the meantime, we have work to do."

"Work? what kind of work?" Sally was leaning forward now, half interested, half afraid that she already knew the answer to her question. "What do we have to do?"

"I'm afraid that the next step is to study your memories much more thoroughly than I did back at the cafe. Working together, we can bring them to the surface one at a time and neutralize any commands that are still active, It won't be pleasant for you, but it has to be done. Most important right now, we may be able to get a better image of what your molester looks like. As we go along we will heal the damage that those memories have done to you."

"Damage?" Her voice was husky, and she had to clear her throat before she could continue. "What kind of damage?"

"Why don't you have any men friends? You are certainly attractive enough."

"I don't... I don't need men friends, or women either. I don't like to be... to be touched. They all want the same thing! Just like you, sitting there like a spider in its web, pulling my strings, I hate you all!" Aghast at her own words, she fell silent, watching him, her eyes wide with fear,

"There, you see? That's the kind of damage I'm talking about. You've been afraid to live your own life because of what happened to you as a young girl, even though you didn't consciously remember any of it. Some of it may have surfaced in dreams from time to time, but that's all. You're deathly afraid of men, and since you're not attracted to women you don't have much of a life outside of your work and your studies." He suddenly changed the subject. "You haven't had any lunch today, either. I think that what you need most right now is something to eat."

"Oh, I couldn't..." She paused, suddenly realizing that she was indeed hungry. Was this another instance of his control over her mind and body?

"I'm afraid not," he answered her unspoken thought. "It really is getting well past your usual lunch time, and you've had a strenuous morning. Come on, and we'll see what we can find in the kitchen. Mrs. Hilton, my housekeeper usually sees that there's something in the refrigerator for me to munch on, the days she isn't here."

The kitchen demonstrated what a free hand with money could do to renovate an older house. The spacious room was fitted with every possible appliance, chrome and brass providing highlights against a background of colored porcelain and polished oak. Noel swung open the door of a refrigerator that seemed almost large enough to walk into, and peered at the contents of its shelves.

"Let's see, there's almost a whole left-over pizza, or a pot of chicken noodle soup. Which one would you like, or maybe both? There's also peanut butter and jam or sliced meat and cheese for sandwiches."

"If you'll get out the sandwich makings, I'll pop the soup in the microwave." She smiled guiltily as her stomach loudly made its demands known, her hands busy with the welcome task.

"All right." He moved out of her way as she quickly laid out plates and silverware while the soup heated, seeming pleased that she had something to take her mind off her troubles for a few minutes.

Back in the living room, Noel adjusted her chair so that she was almost comfortable, though she wasn't really relaxed.

She squirmed and fidgeted, trying to fit her curves to the softness of the chair until finally she lay still. She tensed again as Noel reached over and unlaced her running shoes, slipping them off of her feet.

"There, that should be better. I know that I can't really get comfortable with my shoes on. Now, why don't you begin by relaxing the muscles in your feet, and now your legs. That's it, relax your hips, stomach and chest, letting the relaxed feeling move upward until your mouth and eyes feel heavy. Even your hair feels heavy and relaxed."

She was tired, Tired of fighting, tired of running away, tired of being afraid. She let her thoughts drift, turning back to that long-ago time when she was happy and carefree. Once again she was walking along the narrow path alongside the barbed wire fence.

As she skipped along, singing a nonsense song under her breath, she realized that it would be cooler under the trees. Cautiously pushing down the lower strand of wire and lifting the upper one out of her way, she wormed her way through the gap, careful not to snag her plaid shirt or cut-off jeans on the barbs.

She didn't realize for a moment that there was someone waiting in the shade of the alder trees. He was only a taller shadow at first, somehow blurred so that her eyes couldn't quite focus on his face. She knelt in front of him, her knees almost touching the toes of his heavy shoes. As her fingers fumbled with the zipper of his jeans, she couldn't even wonder at her actions. Everything she did seemed inevitable, the only thing that she could possibly imagine wanting to do.