Chapter 4

We went back to the boring life of school work but we also carried on with our research. The lab that had made the drugs and the Abicore was mainly used for purifying body fluids that had the new version of Abicore in them. It served for our chemical research but this was minimal at the time. We knew that soon it would have to expand. The pack made long term plans and they included what we were going to do to help humanity.

Another lab was set up but we had to make our own tools. ESP did not use the electromagnetic spectrum so we had to devise experiments to see what would work. In electronics a coil of wire or two conductors that were near each other but not touching had certain effects on an electric current.

So far we had found that a thin sheet of gold foil tended to block thought but fine particles mixed into molten aluminum worked even better. Later we used powdered aluminum and steel dust and mixed in an acrylic binder. This worked better.

I just hoped that what we were after was not the same as how the normals were looking for the causes of gravity. We already knew facts that the researchers would love to know. Some of this was directly related to our ability to fly.

Theories abounded but we had to use the scientific method to see which ones were true. The problem was that too many of them were true and we had difficulty finding the right sort of tests.

Our abilities were all increasing but a numerical analysis said that we would reaching our maximum soon. Taking more Abicore was an option but we had stopped using it. The natural method was best. Our dreams rested in our children because they may be powerful enough to make a real difference. Hopes of finding anything really significant were slim until we had enough time and people to dig deeper into physics. This might be a blind alley. Our physics dealt with only three dimensions. We may have to un-learn some facts before we could go forward.

On another topic, the Post had a large article on how a great many terminally ill children were making miraculous recoveries. We knew this would happen but it was distressing. People now would be actively looking for the cause.

One young child had awoken while being worked on. Melissa had pushed calming thoughts into the boy's mind. He had seen four people dressed in masks though the costumes were not usually worn now. The boy went back to sleep. We didn't know what he told his parents but he might not have said anything. Melissa looked like a poor super hero because we could see that she was obviously pregnant. This also made her more in tune to the children we helped.

Other hospitals were targeted too but this was after the fact of the statical anomaly.

On the seventeenth of February, I got an urgent call from Cathy Keep. "Kelly is missing. I can't find her anywhere. She's always punctual."

I sent a call to Nicolas, "Home in on Kelly Seal's phone." I got a single grunt and knew he was working on it.

I said to Cathy. Has she found new friends?"

"She is a wonderful child. She always makes friends and she's very cautious."

"How long has she been gone?"

"She said she was going to be back five hours ago."

"Any customers take a special interest in her?"

"Always but they are nice about it. Everybody has to pay but they are getting a great deal and know it. I don't think she is just on a date because she knows she can just phone. They know how I worry."

"Was she with others?"

"We always go out in groups but she disappeared from the Eaton Centre. She just went back to return a pair of slacks. As soon as the rest found her missing they followed the routines and phoned then searched as a group."

Nicolas said, "I found her phone. Seven kilometres north east of the Eaton Centre."

"Everybody into the cars. Treat this as a kidnapping. Widest search pattern."

I said to Cathy, "We may have a lead. I'll call back when I know more."

"Can I come? I love my girls."

"No! We have to go." I hung up the phone and raced for the car. We had one esper in each car so we could cover the maximum area. Nicolas stayed behind to coordinate. Usually we took some strattera but it dulled our perceptions and we needed everything we had.

It was fifty three minutes to get to the location Nicolas gave us. All the time we had been calling Kelly hoping she would be able to form a thought that we could find.

William found the phone but a man of twenty was using it. It took seconds to find that the man sold drugs and had just bought the phone. We needed the man to think of the character so we got a visual as soon as possible.

The car stopped and William raced out with his mask on. The man did not see William coming until he was thrown against the wall. The phone fell from his fingers.

"Who sold you the phone?"

The man was not intimidated by William until he was punched eight times and thrown down. Some punishing holds were applied. "Tell me who sold the phone to you."

"Get off of me."

William dislocated one shoulder then the other. The young man was in shock. Another man came running to the scene. He was friends with the drug dealer. William jumped up, ran, then flew through the air nearly ten metres to kick the man in the chest then run back.

"Answer now or I will rip your arms off." A little twist helped.

"I — I don't know. I just paid twenty bucks."

A twist and then another was used because the man was lying. He did know the area the man was usually seen in. This was more south and we hurried off. Nicolas called the police to report a gang fight over dope. If they hurried, they would get two of them.

It was ten minutes later that we arrived at the new area. It was Kim that called out, "I have her. Oh god, he beat her unmercifully."

Herb called out, "You better be invisible. You can go in but wait for us to get in the apartment. Don't go in alone."

"You better hurry. I'm going to kill the son of a bitch."

I actually got to the building before Herb and went invisible. The driver left immediately but would stay near. The front door was designed to keep people out but it was blasted in like a truck drove into the lobby. Two sets of doors were flung into the cement on both sides. The thick aluminum twisted. One old woman was crouched on the floor. She had not seen Kim come in but just the doors flying inward. She wanted to forget this as fast as she could.

"The person that gets here after Herb, take the old woman to her apartment. She's in shock."

The doors to the steps had been locked but the door was far down in the next landing. I raced up seven floors using my overdrive. When I got to the landing, I saw rubble down the hallway. When I got close, I saw the door laying inside an apartment.

Kim had a naked man by the throat and the nuts. The man would be screaming except he was now unconscious. Kim gave a good squeeze and left the man to go to the bed where Kelly was tied.

We had just got her untied when Herb and Brandon entered the room looking for threats. Herb said, "The cops are coming. Let's get out of here."

My mind was racing. Find Kelly's clothes and anything else she had. Wrap her up in the sheet. From the pack I got an up to the second placement of the two police cars racing this way. There was no way we could get down in time.

"Get to the roof. We'll float down or over to another building."

On the way out I saw that the man was going to die. That was fine but I wanted him to suffer. Brandon and I commanded the blood vessels that lead to his crushed testicles to constrict. There was blood everywhere and he may just survive this.

The elevator took us up and an old couple wanted to get on. My push that they leave was followed very vigorously. Brandon got up onto the roof and surprisingly Kim could not do it. She was bone weary and so was I.

I formed a shield around us to keep the cold wind off and we floated down while invisible. We flew over a shorter public building and then to the street. A car pulled up. Kelly, Herb and Kim got in the back seat while Brandon and I got in the front. It was a block later that we became visible.

The driver said, "How is she?"

I replied, "She'll be ok," but I added, "I hope."

We raced home as we poured our healing power into Kelly. She regained consciousness a few times and smiled. She felt safe now. After a half hour there was no more we could do for her body and I started to work on Kelly's mind. The best thing to do was to delete her recent memories but we could not do that yet. The best we could accomplish would be to transfer them to her long term memories. If they went far enough then perhaps, only perhaps, she would view the facts as something that had happened to her long ago.

I gathered the rest of the pack so they could see what I was doing as I tried to heal her mind. We were home but stayed in the car for a few minutes before I finished. Kelly was then hustled into the house and to the infirmary.

I remembered the first Kelly that had worked in this very area. My memories were fond of her but she did exactly what she was told. In the end she used a gun against us and had been killed. I hoped that the Kelly we had would not as confused because of the conflicts in her past.

Kelly woke up again as she was being cleaned. The guys had fled but only for a while. I went over what had happened to the girl in front of me and worried about disease. At least pregnancy would be ruled out because of the pill. The girl came to the school and had fun with the boys as well as the girls. She suffered from burns, bruising and a torn anus.

She had been raped many times by three men. The now sterile perp was the one who snatched her from the mall. Marlo Jenkins worked there and managed to drug the girl and then shove her into a large box on wheels. The box went through the service entrance to his delivery truck.

Two friends had come to the party when invited. At the time Kelly was sedated. When she woke up she was beaten for the fun of it by Jenkins. The other two had already left.

From the office, I heard, "Piper, I think there were cameras in the lobby of that building."

I searched my memories and saw a camera hid by a tall fake tree, "Shit, you're right. Let's go. I hope the police haven't got the tape yet. We could be in deep shit."

We raced back downtown in three cars. We might need to be in more than one place at once. There was no need for the entire pack so only some of us went.

The street was cordoned off and we had to walk. The police were worried because of the way the doors had been blasted through. A bomb disposal squad was investigating and doing so very slowly.

I read the cops near me and so did the rest. Jenkins was in the hospital. The guy was a former cop that had been asked to resign some six years ago. I had not got this information because I saw no need to dig through the muck.

The police kept the people back and had even evacuated the building as a precaution. It took fifteen minutes to find the super. He had to stay nearby in case he was going to be asked questions. He answered ours in a way too.

There were four cameras in the building. They were accompanied by a motion detector. Every fifteen seconds the feed from one camera would change to the next. The motion detector could override the timer and one camera could focus on some action. If another camera clamoured for attention, a backup recorder would take over and monitor the remaining three cameras.

The tapes ran for over a day and were changed in the morning. The old tapes were stored in case something came up but they were reused in ten days. The equipment and tapes were in the office just off the lobby. They were further sealed in a locked metal cabinet. Police were all over but the ones inside were in kevlar armour.

Herb said, "How are we going to get by? There's broken glass all over the floor. The door's locked. If we get the door open, it's sure to be seen. The windows are permanently sealed."

"They're going to know we came back. The windows are our best choice."

Dina was with us this time and she stayed close to the front of the building so she could see the door to the office. She was invisible or she would have been compelled to move.

Herb, Kim and I went around the building. We found police cars nearby. When Dina said it was relatively clear, I formed a shield. This was shaped the way I did when flying so it was long and narrow for the least wind resistance. This time I made it more blunt to contain the broken glass and hopefully some of the noise.

When the police got in their cars to get warm. I pushed quickly. There was a big shock as if I had run into a mountain and in effect, I had. Herb and Kim were in the room even before I could get up.

The police had heard something and came out to look but did not know where the sound had come from. They walked toward the broken window. Kim and Herb needed more time. I raced to the police cars they left. The engines were still running. I took each of them out of park and into drive.

The cops had just made it to the window that had a sill two metres up. Kim and Herb were working hard because the bomb squad had heard the noise too.

The police noticed their cars and one gave chase. I turned the siren on the one I was in and fled. This car was aimed at a snowbank but the other was heading toward the street.

Two cops from the front ran around the building and had to think fast to stop the car.

The cop at the window was getting up when he fell backwards. Kim and Herb flew out with a bag in their hands and an soda bottle. We went over a fence and then down the block to an alley were we stopped making the compulsion for people to not see us.

Kim was excited and her eyes almost gleamed. "Did you see my ninja attack?"

I said, "Ahhhh the old ginger ale in the face move. Only the old masters were able to pull that off correctly."

"There are not many that could do that with the accuracy involved."

"You're right." I said smugly, "I got to drive a police car and turn on the siren."

"You always were a showoff."

Herb said, "Girls! We have some others to catch."

We picked up Dina and the drivers took us to the nearest hospital. Jenkins was currently in surgery but that did not stop us from walking through his mind.

After we got a rough idea of what the man was like, Kim said, "I should have squeezed his head that way too. He has a conscience but he suppressed it until it doesn't bother him anymore. His two friends are not much better."

Dina asked, "We going to crush their nuts or get them arrested? One is into importing drugs. We can get some justice from both."

"I like doing both but we're trying to act civilised."

We stayed longer to find out more about Mr Jenkins. When we collected all we thought pertinent, I went into Jenkins' mind and did some rearranging. What the man feared the most was rats and spiders. He would feel them coming closer to get him unless he started confessing to the police about everything he ever did wrong. When he went to court, he might get off as a nut case but they would not let him go. I just had no pity on him at all and I didn't care if I was civilised or not.

We split up to find Carmen Bodardo and Richard Magnas. They were at work when we got to each of their addresses. One worked at Pearson International Airport and the other was a short haul trucker.

The airport was crowded and people were excited. Their minds pounded on ours. Drugs helped but I figured that we were building up a sort of defence. Our children would have to learn about this to get along and I was determined to find a way.

Carmen Bodardo was an elusive person to find. It took three hours to locate him and we all had headaches. We never saw the man and had to go by what Jenkins had in his mind. This meant we could not get much. He was also in a high security area so we could not get to him.

In the course of our search for the man we had run across hundreds of people that should die not just go behind bars. Most came from other countries as businessmen. Their ways of doing business were even more vicious than local businessmen simply because ours were constrained by some sort of law.

I did not mind if they fought among themselves but innocents or ones that were nearly so were eaten or destroyed. To clean up the world, five percent of the people would have to die and incarcerate double that. The ones left outside the bars were not that much better.

One man riding on the plane was watching three mules carrying drugs in various orifices. I'd like to nab this guy but we were not here to catch him.

The exodus from the school had started. The pack went out to heal those we could and this time our group would try to heal humanity by removing a small colony of disease organisms.

There were other disease fighters here too. They worked undercover to gather information about smuggling and drugs. Not all of these were clean and one was working with the importers.

When Bodardo got off, we were there to investigate those coming on shift and those going off. It didn't take long to see what Bodardo was really like. We searched his mind plus three others that were involved with moving drugs through customs.

One average looking guy by the name of Patrick Lindsey was actually an investigator sent to pick up information about Bodardo and two others. He did not know about a third nor did he know that another cop by the name of Ken Morgan worked with him and who was not that clean.

I had an idea and Dina and I followed Pat Linsey until we called his cell phone.

I said, "Hello Pat. My code name is Zip. I'm part of an allied organization that is after the drug importers the same as your group is."

"Hi. Sorry, you have the wrong person. My name's Frank. You sound like a young lady."

"I am a young lady. You're Patrick Lindsey." I went on to talk about his family, who is boyhood friends were and then his present circumstances. I didn't leave out the people he worked for and with.

He said nervously, "How do you know all this?"

"We work for the same organization that pays your salary. We get our orders the same as you and it's time that you were informed of a few additional facts."

"Why don't you go through channels? Hell, a cell phone is not that secure."

"We know but Bodardo, Carver and Wa already figure you are a plant. We know that Sandas is also one of their group. The other Frank in your group is actually Ken Morgan. He's a fellow cop but not as clean as you are."

"What do you want with me?"

I had come up with a cover story and said, "I'm part of an experimental group. We are not quite like the old television series called 'Mod Squad' but we are close. You are not making much headway and we do not want to break our cover. The logical solution is to feed you facts. You check them out and see if they are true or not. If we lie, then you disregard us."

"Why not tell Hammer?"

Hammer was a code name for his boss. "Hammer has not completed our security checks yet."

"Talk to his boss."

"He is in the same boat. You passed the tests and it's just a matter of seeing if you will be our stalking horse. For helping us you get the credit."

"How can you prove any of this?"

"Three mules came through with condoms up their ass, their cunt and in their stomach. How about we get them arrested and you get to see if they have anything interesting."

"How are you going to do this? Unlawful search and seizure is going to get the cases thrown out of court."

"Get in your car and drive down Eglinton until you get to Dufferin. The transference of the drug and the payment of money is in a converted van. I have this feeling that a rival gang will attempt to seize the drugs. You will see this and anonymously call the police.

"Gunfire will keep the occupants in the van until the police come. You will read in the paper in a few days, if there was any drugs found and then how much. You'll then have a valid reason for believing me."

Pat said, "That's dangerous. This is not the movies."

"I agree but it's cold out. It's late. Few people are around and you get to call the police before all the fun starts."

"Why don't you make the call?"

"I will if you want. I just want to prove that we're on the same side."

"I want to see you."

"I'm cute but anonymous. Perhaps later if the situation warrants. Now do you want to see three mules drop off their cargo or not. You are not going to participate."

Pat was trying to get a handle on this. He was exposed and vulnerable. The stakes in this game were death or worse. He didn't know if I were trying to trap him. Then he remembered all I knew about him and I did not have to trap him at all. He thought he was going to be set up to be killed but that could have been done without telling him anything.

Abruptly he said, "I'll do it. Lead the way."

"You hurry or we will be late. We are not exposing our vehicle to you. The last mule left five minutes ago in a taxi."

We were already ahead of him and drove more aggressively. Traffic was light and there was no snow. It was not too hard to find the van in a parking lot. A car beside it had two men and one of the mules in it. The van was used to provide some privacy so the drugs could be extracted.

Dina could see through thin materials and the walls of the van were not proof against her sight. A woman was sitting on a toilet getting rid of the a condom.

Nicolas was making the call for us after I phoned him with the details. The police would not arrive until after the woman finished. She was paid and she quickly left.

Pat arrived and I phoned him and said without preamble, "The woman coming from the parking lot was just paid eight thousand dollars in American money. She just got off flight 802. There is a car beside the van with two guards and one male mule in it. He is being called into the van to drop his load and I do not mean figuratively."

"What about the police?"

"They were called almost four minutes ago. We are into the police computer and they should be here in three minutes."

"How—did you do that?"

"Same employers. Remember?"

When the police were close I said, "Pat, you better get further away. They are going to want to talk to everybody."

"I'm alright."

"Suit yourself. You're a big boy."

Dina and I were already invisible and within a metre of the two vehicles. Dina and I waited for the man to finish with the purgatives. If the condom opened inside the man he would die.

He just finished puking when Dina and I started shooting at the vehicles so they could not function. Now the police would have a valid reason for approaching. The men dived to the floor and we shot just above their prone bodies. We moved around a lot because they started to shoot back.

The police blocked one of the entrances and sought cover. I shot out a window of the parking lot kiosk and the police shot back. We went straight up and then shot down after gaining a low roof.

One guy was getting away though. When we stuck our heads out we were shot at by both the police and the drug runners.

We shifted location again and this time it was Dina that was able to shoot the perp in the arm. The cops were close but I raced in and used a kick to the jaw to put him out.

The cops had the guy and went searching for us. We were on the next street. I phoned Pat and said, "It's over Pat. They got everybody and only two wounded and they were not the police."

"There were lots of you there. I saw gunfire from nine positions."

"Sorry to disillusion you but there are a lot less than you think. Now see if you can extricate yourself and I'll tell you about the group you are investigating."

Pat managed to get away. The police were too busy to give chase but others that were approaching were not as encumbered. We had to reference the police computer to give him directions on how to avoid some unpleasantness. Once he was clear, I gave him in-depth information on Wa. He was actually the one in command of this group. He was also a good actor.

When the batteries in the radio were giving out I said, "I'll email your account at your home. You can try to trace it but you're wasting your time." I then gave him a long password to open the file.

Dina said, "Bodardo went home to sleep. Our people are pissed off that we had the all the fun."

"It was exciting but being shot at is no fun."

I was far from tired when I got home. Kim and Herb had made an official looking report and Dina and I added to it. This looked odd because it did not have all the dates and assessments that a police document would have so I altered it to be like a personal letter. At the end I wrote, "My husband is part of the team. He's not angry that you went on a date with some of us."

The file was sent to Nicolas and he encrypted it. Soon it was sent through a long chain of sites just to be extra safe.

Kelly was still sleeping and two of the girls were sleeping with her. When we peeked into her mind, she was only upset with being kidnapped. She was also sore from the pain but we had mitigated most of it for her.

We dug into some of the government computers to find out about Pat Linsey. Computers were not easy to access but Nicolas was able to mimic how the legitimate users did it. He gave himself administrator privileges and just before he left, he altered the file so his incursion was not referenced anywhere.

CSIS and the RCMP had almost the same file on him. On a whim, I had the reports made by his superiors altered to give Pat a better assessment. If we could use Pat in the future, it would be good if he had a position with more authority.

While we were at it, we studied other profiles in the highest security areas. Leaving whimsy aside, we added our own biography. Code words were used in place of names in this area. Nicolas had a big smile behind a block and also provided us with lower level identities that would be easier to find if we had to ask for help.

Bobby was sleepy from the work he had done and asked Nicolas, "What did you do?"

Bobby always liked that term and we used it especially when he was down. Now he was just sleepy. Herb scooped him up and took him to bed. Bobby was very smart and talented but he was still a little boy then again so was Herb.

We usually slept four hours but could get by with less. It all had to do with how we organised our brains. We did this with the power of healing. Tiffany went down to the hospital and got near Marlo Jenkins. There were police outside his door and two more inside with a tape recorder. Apparently Jenkins was more than just desperate to get everything off his conscience.

Tiffany studied what had been said then pushed suggestions to Jenkins so that some details came out much clearer. We did not have to know how many bicycles he had stolen as a boy.

The people that had died at his hands and those that he had witnessed got the cops a lot more interested.

From the minds of the police, Tiffany found that they were perplexed about the explosions because no residue was found. They figured it had to be an explosive because of the sheer force used to drive the doors and glass into the concrete walls. We wouldn't mind finding out how Kim did it too but she was too angry at the time to remember just how.

At my suggestion, Nicolas went back into the RCMP computer and found out about Pat's boss and then his boss. We decided to search further and then plant better identities.

The former Minister for the Federal Department of Fisheries had recently died so we made links from our supposed organisation back to that federal department. Nicolas had to work a long time to find the computer handling the Minister's documents. We added some of our own and most were encrypted. It now looked like a specific ministry was supporting us and giving us some legitimacy.

Nicolas' work was not done. More data had to be seeded in other machines so an investigation would not see the files as an obvious plant.

Stored email was then planted as if it came from reputable sources talking about our group. Little information was given beyond the fact that we were usually young so we could use some top secret cybernetic hardware. This would make our abilities seem technological in nature and thus plausible.

This concept tickled the group even more than making costumes. There was no shortage of ideas. Points were argued out and then voted on. It would now look as if we had engineers and scientists by the dozens helping us do great things.