Chapter 9: Quaestio - Inquiry

September 7th, 1993

While all this had been going on in my life, time had been passing. Angela had been in beauty school for a month by now. My family had been dead and buried for weeks. My heart felt like it had been hollow for an eternity.

The day of all the revelations was Labor Day, a holiday. I sent Angela home the next morning, the 7^th, and had her come back with the mortgage on her trailer. I called her bank and mine, and I arranged for it to be paid off. Then she left for her mom's place to see her kid and go back to beauty school.

I didn't tell her, but I put $10,000 in her checking account and had my banker open a trust account in her kid's name. I put $50,000 in that account, and hoped that by the time the kid was 18, there'd be enough for college. Why not? It's not like money was had to come by.

I also had Natalie open an account at my bank and accept $100,000 as a deposit. She didn't want to take the money, so I made her ... as a kind of foreplay. Then I had her make calls to find a dojo while I went out and bought her a car.

Did you know that it's hard to buy a car with cash? It took some convincing on my part. Luckily, I'm good at that. I tossed Natalie the keys to a new 4-Runner as I came in and sent her off to the dojo she picked out to enroll.

I took off for the city as soon as they were both gone. I left a note saying I'd be gone for a couple of days, and asked them to take good care of Marco.

I put the 10mm in a hide-away holster at the center of my back at the belt-line, and put on a sport coat to hide it.

I drove up into the city and parked off of Clarendon Drive, not far from the big 'Sutro Tower' that dominates the entire San Francisco skyline. It's a giant broadcast tower built near the highest point in the city. I walked about a bit, on the campus of the University and off. Eventually, I was able to find a view that suited me.

From where I sat down, I could look over most of San Francisco, from the south-east side through downtown and the finance district, all the way north and west past Golden Gate park.

I leaned back against a tree and relaxed.

It didn't take me too long and I was able to identify where Martine was, then after some work, Claudio. One by one, I worked through the unique mental feel of everyone from the Cabal that I knew about.

One thing I had not done too much of, and Loris had chided me for it, was direct mind to mind communication. There's something invasive and intimate about being in telepathic contact with another person, and until recently, I'd never been able to just communicate, there'd always been more in the 'signal' than I wanted there.

That was all altered now. So I reached out for Martine, and 'spoke' to her. She opened her perceptions to me, and quickly I 'was' where she was ... in a cafe in the Castro, being bored by conversation between James, Claudio's personal driver, and Sylvie, a French girl who was fascinated with James.

"Martine ... here are the people from the Cabal that I know of, the ones I can find. Who am I missing?" I listed out for her the people and places I had sensed.

"Carter, you're searching for Lynn?"

"Yes ... perhaps only by her absence."

We 'talked' for a couple of minutes. Martine gave me a couple of new names and rough locations, as well as a rough 'feel' for what their minds were like. I withdrew from her.

It took me another half hour, but I soon had a good feel for where everyone in the Cabal was. I closed my eyes and worked on tracking them all at once. I tried to keep an 'eye' on them all at once. I was far too exhausting and confusing after anything more than a minute or two.

I was frustrated. If I couldn't track a large number of telepaths at one time, I was going to be in trouble in Las Vegas, and I'd have a difficult time sorting through every human being in San Francisco for my target.

I walked down the road a ways, where there was a house. There was a woman there. I had her make me a sandwich for lunch.

Unsettling isn't it? A strange man walks in your house. You just happen to have an extra sandwich prepared. You hand it to him, and he walks out with it and a soda. And then you forget the whole thing ever happened.

If I had wanted to be a monster, it would have been easy. The woman was moderately attractive. I could easily, almost without an effort, have turned her into a panting slut, and then had her forget. Imagine a world that is your own private rape camp. I imagine such things. They wake me up at night, all horny and bothered. I have enough moral conscience remaining not to actually do it, but sometimes it's a near thing.

I went back to my tree and sat down again. I knew that it must be possible to do what I needed to do. As always, it was going to be a matter of technique. As I looked out over San Francisco, I was daunted by how large it was.

And then I remembered altering Angela's step-father from miles and miles away, and also how I had sensed Loris's presence all the way from Reno. I realized that it was not a matter of reaching out, it was a matter of letting in. I thought back to the time that I was in a coma, and how hard I had to fight to keep it all out. I'd succeeded in putting up barriers that let me retain a sense of myself, but those barriers also limited my power, shut me down. I now knew that I wasn't going to just fade away into the ether. My ego was strong, I wouldn't lose myself.

I leaned back, closed my eyes, and let my mind and my power expand freely. I relaxed and let the world in. It was like a kind of meditation. My eyes closed slowly and I drifted. As I drifted I could feel my sense of things slowly expand. Every time I sensed a limit on my ability, I knew that it was actually me shutting down, and I would just let another block go. Then the flow of power would grow again.

A drop of water landed on my forearm. I opened my eyes and the world was blurry. My nose was running. My eyes had been leaking.

I wanted to cry for my momma, for my sister, for my dad. I wanted to cry for everyone I'd hurt. I could feel it there, inside me, like a deep, deep well ... full up of hurt and pity. I'd been stupid, naïve, ignorant. I'd gotten people killed. It hurt. It hurt like a raw, aching hole.

I wanted to cry for who I was becoming. For what I was doing, for what I had done. It hurt so bad. I wanted to cry and cry and just cry. I wanted someone to tell me that I could be okay again. I wanted to go back to my life before.

But I didn't.

I choked it all off. Instead I let myself be angry. Righteous and angry served me. Maybe I had been an idiot, but I had also been hurt, and I was going to pay them back, all of them. I didn't care who was in the way. Everyone I had ever cared about was dead, or lost to me. Sure, I had people in my life now ... but it was all a shadow play now, wasn't it? The real Carter had died in that hospital a long time ago. All that was left was a product of the mind fuck games of the Cliques ... power plays of telepathic junkies looking for a fix. Just one more rush of power, just one more mind rape.

I could walk down that hill there, and pick up a knife from that kitchen there ... and kill that woman. And another ... and another. And no one, ever, would be able to find me. No one.

It was all a shadow play now. All that mattered was power. I was weak, and I got hurt and hurt people. As I got stronger, I was able to protect people. And now that I'm strong, very few can hurt me. And once I'd killed Vincent ... I would be feared. And I could keep the people I love safe. Unless you had power you were meat. That was Vincent's lesson to me.

So I choked it all off and I concentrated on killing. After a while, I could focus again. I was glad in a way that this had happened here. If I had been weak that way near my enemies, I would have lost. Weakness was for the dead.

Another slow, warm blossoming of power as I reached down inside myself and turned it off, straightened the path, cleared the way.

I slid down a little so I could lay all the way back. I closed my thoughts deep down inside me, quieting them, stilling the inner voice, until I was hollow and quiet inside. And then I opened myself, and let the city flood in and wash over me.

I was a hooker sitting on a bar stool in the Hustler Club, waiting for the afternoon trade to begin. I could feel a scrape against my heel from the cheap shoes and a gnawing in my stomach from the crank.

I was a bum in the tenderloin, collecting cans in an alley, fuzzy headed and feeling slow, waiting for the MD20-20 to warm me up. I gathered my coat into my shopping cart and moved to the next dumpster.

I was on the make in the financial district, waiting anxiously for this client meeting, hoping the commission would pay for a lease on a new BMW, wondering there, in my $2000 Nordstrom suit, if my wife was cheating on me.

A million dazzling lights, hoping, praying, working, running, fucking, sleeping, living.

And down there, in those lights, wrongness. People who shouldn't be, people like me. People whose minds are a little unstuck, whose egos extend beyond their bodies. Some of them almost invisible, like Martine, with her careful, deliberate aura of normalcy ... carefully crafted to feel like a human being.

But we're not. Not anymore, are we? We're monsters.

People like Claudio. Almost aware of me, tendrils of danger spread out from his mind like the tentacles of a monster. Seeking, slowly searching for the unusual ... ready to cling to it, pry it open, pull it closer for inspection. But he didn't feel me caress his mind and move on. He, surely, is a monster.

Earl, Claudio's assassin. His mind is powerful, trained, but not cunning like Martine or Claudio. Earl kills like a bear. He mauls his prey to the floor, and then bites. No one escapes Earl. Except. Except that Earl's pattern, his life pattern, is altered, cut into, sutured closed to look whole. Earl has been turned. He's a pawn now.

Jessy. Jessy is pure nasty bitch. She's Claudio's muse, his foil, his beast. She thinks his evil thoughts and gives them voice. She's powerful, distant, but ready to serve. She's Claudio's mind slave, awakened as his thrall and trained to his leash. No qualms there.

Other, lesser servitors and minions of the master. I felt them out there. I could feel their weakness, and I knew that they were no danger.

Did the city know that a monster lived in its heart? Does every city beat with the heartbeat of a beast?

Down in Chinatown, a powerful telepath. He is vaguely alarmed by me, but cannot sense me. He's powerful, like Loris, or Claudio, but hides it. He doesn't feel like a member of a cabal, and he quickly pulls his power down into himself and tries to hide.

My power flows outward. I sink down into myself. I think the thoughts of the sky, of the wind.

I know that there is a mind out there that knows each of these people, but is none of them. Each mind is a pattern ... Martine, Claudio, Earl, Jesse ... all of them feel a certain way, taste a certain way. Who is it that tastes like Martine but isn't? Who smells like Earl but isn't Earl? Where is Jesse's lust but not where Jesse is?

Time passes. Afternoon chills into evening. Squirrels play over my head, but I am not home.

...

There's a spice of Earl on Russian Hill. A thin tendril, like a warning bell, stretches from Earl's living presence, from that hole in his aura ... to Russian Hill.

It's tiny and thin, just a whiff of a connection. But it's enough. I know where she is. I am there. I'm in the eyes of the Doberman trotting next to her master as he labors up the hill. I'm listening through the ears of a cat blinking lazily on a perch in a Victorian.

I can feel it.

Her neighbors are operated upon. Their minds are just ever so slightly truncated. Just a tiny bit curled. Oh, and yes ... every mind is trapped. All of them are booby trapped, set to alert her. Funny, but she didn't think of using the pets.

I do. I'd rather be in a dog than a human. It's more sanitary.

I can tell from her work that she's good. But she's just powerful and talented. She's not like me. One at a time, I work my way into her booby trapped neighbors and turn them to me. I put tracers on them, twist them slightly, and then turn them loose again ... looking exactly the same to anyone but me.

Evening comes and I wake myself up. I'm tired, deeply tired inside. Fatigue washes over me. I drive to a hotel in the city. All I want to do is sleep.

...

When did this happen? My power is extraordinary. Not just extraordinary, but huge. Did it start when Vincent couldn't kill me? Or when Loris trained me? Or in the fight with Ruby? Was it earlier? It expanded each time, I grew each time. When I had operated on Martine, when I had to fight her, it grew then as well.

Do I remember the white light? What happened inside the light? Why does it seem important to me? Have I always been this way, just waiting for the right key to unlock what's possible?

These things slip away, you know?

...

I park at the hotel. They just happen to have a suite available. I take it. I throw open the drapes and open the windows. The city comes in. I lay down on the bed just intending to rest my mind. I come unstuck instead. My power races out of me in a torrent. It's a wave of pure lust.

Down stairs in the hotel bar is a woman named Julia. She's beautiful. She's single. She's flirting with Steve from accounting. Steve is interested and ready to go, ready to cheat on his wife. Julia is happy to flirt but undecided. She's fully prepared to sleep with Steve, she just doesn't know if it'll help her career enough or not.

Julia turns to Steve. "Oh god, excuse me Steve. Those tacos at lunch are bothering me. Can I get a rain check? I need to go to my room."

Steve looks concerned for a moment, but he's mostly concerned about losing the blowjob. He opts for discretion. "Man, that's too bad. Do you need me to get you some Tums or something? Are you gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, I just need to use the little girl's room and lay down."

He nods, disappointed. "Okay sure. See you tomorrow."

They kiss, a small light kiss that promises more.

She takes the elevator up to her room. She strips, revealing her pretty, sensual body, then takes a warm shower. Returning to the bed, dries off, puts on a tiny bit of perfume, and pulls her dress on over her head. No panties, no bra, no stockings. She slips into her shoes and grabs her room key.

She walks to the elevator and presses my floor. She waits for the floor and then gets off. She slowly walks down the corridor. She stands in front of 2114. She knocks lightly.

The door is ajar. She opens it and walks into the darkened room. She smells the smell of a man in the room. Her nipples harden. She pushes the door closed with her foot. She feels her pussy lubricate in a warm wet rush. A wave of heat passes over her skin. She takes off the dress and kicks off her shoes. She's naked in the dark room. She turns to the bed. I can see the man's body, my body, on the bed. His eyes are closed, is he sleeping?

No words are spoken. She feels me on the bed by touch. When her fingers touch my skin it's like warm honey electricity up under her breastbone. She climbs on the bed and mounts me, immediately sliding me into her warm wetness. She thinks she might faint.

She moves on top of me. Slowly coming up, slowly sinking down, feeling every moment of my arousal inside her like an impaling light. She breaks into a sweat. Her eyes close, her second orgasm blooms.

I drift away borne on the scent of desire.

Room service comes. They bring me steak and desert. The woman on top of me smiles at the room service girl, who smiles back. They share a delightful secret. The room service girl feeds me tiny bites while Julia rides me up and down. They kiss.

I drift.

I open my eyes.

There are three women naked in the room now, licking me, sucking on me, touching each other. The woman from room service is in the bathroom, in the shower, naked, masturbating.

The couple in the room next door have been fucking for an hour. They're lost in each other. She's had ten orgasms and her stomach hurts.

Down the hall an eighty year old Mormon man opens the window and masturbates, he watches the traffic below and dreams of his lost wife. Soon a beautiful woman will knock on his door and beg him to fuck her in the ass. He'll betray his god for her.

I drift.

It's late at night. Julia is still moving on top of me, breath ragged, thighs shaking, her clit rubbed raw and swollen. She's had orgasm after orgasm, and she cums again, sobbing. She can't take any more and begins to pass out. Five other women are touching me, holding me, stroking me. One of them pushes Julia aside and mounts me.

In the bathroom the girl from room service is being eaten out by the couple from the room next door. They take turns whispering their undying devotion to her. Someone puts a finger in her ass.

All around me, everywhere near me, people copulate. Ones and twos and threes and fours. Slapping and moaning. Flesh on flesh. Moisture, lubrication.

I drift away.

I can hear people stop in the street below. They stop, argue, and begin to fuck each other on the hoods of cars. Sirens. Moaning.

What happens in the light?

SLAP

SLAP

I open my eyes.

From a million miles away, I can see Martine. She's leaning over me. Her mouth is moving. I can think of better uses for that mouth.

SLAP

She's there again. Talking to me, trying to catch me.

SLAP

She's fighting me. 'Carter'

SLAP

"Carter."

SLAP

"CARTER!"

SLAP

"CARTER!"

"Martine?" I open my physical eyes for the first time.

"CARTER! STOP IT!"

She shakes me, roughly. There's this long, long moment. I try to decide whether or not I like it out there. Then I see her tears.

I pull myself back inside my head. The people in the room stop moving.

I look at Martine. "Sorry."

She cries and holds me.

I send the people away. They forget. I pull myself in from a million miles. I keep pulling. It's tiny in here.

I hold her back. We lay on the bed together. I've scared her. It makes me sad. I sleep.

I whisper in her mind as she sleeps. "We're monsters, Martine."

"Ssh, Carter. Sleep."

Martine kisses me and slips out of my grasp. I open my eyes to the devastation of the hotel room. Clothes everywhere. Dropped food, mashed into the floor. The shower curtain is on the floor in the entry, covered in some kind of oil. I can see hand prints on the wall paper.

I find my clothes and shower while Martine is gone. She returns with three maids who ask no questions. They clean up the room as Martine and I exit.

We go down to the buffet in quiet.

"Want to tell me what happened last night, Carter?" She asks as we sit down to our food. The morning is still early and there are few people in the restaurant.

"I'm not sure. I was searching the city for Lynn..." I start.

"Searching the CITY?" Martine looks at me.

I wonder for a moment just how much to tell her. "Not just the city, Martine. San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, maybe Sacramento ... I don't know ... maybe a hundred, two hundred miles."

She looks at me in shock.

"Maybe more."

"How, Carter?"

"I don't know. I just know that something has come ... unstuck. That, and I have this sense of power. Huge power."

"Claudio sent me last night. We could feel you all the way across the city. We didn't know it was you ... it didn't feel like you."

"What did it feel like, Martine?"

"It just felt like a wave of power, like sex ... like passion."

We ate for a couple more minutes.

"I didn't plan on that happening." I moved some eggs around on the plate.

"People were humping the statuary in the lobby."

"I don't know what happened, Martine. I came loose from myself. I just felt myself grow stronger and stronger. Right now, I can almost feel it ... if I just ... I don't know how to say it ... If I just 'let go' in the right way, I'll come loose and all this power will be there, come rushing ... Oh."

She looked up from her food. "Oh?"

I blushed. I felt a little dirty, ashamed.

"What is it?"

"I think I understand now, Martine."

"Yes?"

"I think it's my knack. I can feed on people's sexual energy. Use it to power me. The more I grew, the more I could feel the sex under their skin ... and the more I turned it loose, the stronger I got. And stronger and stronger."

She put down her fork and frowned. "I've heard of such things. But I thought they were old tales, like body jumping. Or reverse aging."

"But why do you think it happened, Carter?"

"Because of what I did up on the hill, searching the city ... I think my mind needed to ... I don't know ... feed. I think I needed the power after what I'd done. The thing is Martine it's there right under the skin on everyone. Everyone. I can feel it, right now. Everywhere around me, all this power, all this lust."