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Sylvia was out the door before anyone could ask too many questions.  She took the El to the rail station, then took the train to the stop near Mentano Mental Hospital.  She was lucky that a number of people from the city commuted, so there was a way for her to get there easily.  She walked the distance to the hospital's front gate, about four city blocks, and stared at the building for what seemed like the hundreth time.  She had questions about sanity and ethics that she wasn't sure who to ask, and for some reason she kept coming here thinking that this place, a fortress of solitude for the disturbed, might hold the answers.

She was starting to get the impression that what brought her here was some subtle part of her mind telling her that she was crazy.  Things she thought she understood were becoming unclear, and she was wondering just how much power she had over the world around her.

So, why don't you come up?  The voice was a new tick, something her mind was doing to make her think she wasn't just talking to herself in her head.  No, I'm in here.  Room 618.  Tell them you're here to see Mr. Smith, they'll let you in.

The building, a broad Art Deco silhouette with a crested central tower, like the grill of an old Chevrolet, had indeed provided some comfort.  At least, it provided an undeniable retort to the question of her own sanity.  As long as I'm not in there, the reasoning went, I'm okay.

But today the voice in her head made her jump.  She looked around, dry-mouthed and shaky.  "Hello?"  There was no one out there on the sloped and manicured lawn, and the only cars parked in front of the building sat at a great distance down the driveway.  She wasn't sure, but she thought she whimpered.

[I could've sworn I posted to this topic a few days ago.  That's what I get for trying to PBP and level at the same time.]

Sylvia, sick with dismay over this new development, reasons it out.  If it's all in her head, she goes to Mentano.  If it's not all in her head, she goes to Mentano.

She walks toward the front entrance of the hospital, the immaculate lawn and faded sun looking less and less convincing with every step.  She enters the foyer, where the polished floors seem a little too hard and shiny and the white uniforms a little too crisp and absolute, and goes to the front desk.  She can't even bring herself to look the nurse at the desk full in the face.  "Mr. Smith please," she mutters.

"Oh?"  the woman's tone is one of slight suprise.  "He has so few visitors.  you must be his neice."  She gets up and leads Sylvia to the elevator and they go to the 6th floor.  She leads Sylvia to room 618, and knocks twice, "Mr. Smith, your neice is here."  She opens the door and light floods into the room.  The curtains are black and heavy, keeping the light to a minumum.  sylvia sees a man on the far side of the room, in a chair.  He's perhaps six feet tall, not overly muscular looking, and in need of a shave.  His hair is fairly short, but not so short that he doesn't suffer from a sever case of bed-head.  He's dressed in the dingy white pants and top of the other patients here, with white canvas slip-on shoes.  "I'll give you some time alone."  The nurse says, leaving the door open.

The man rises from his chair and opens the curtains, bringing the bright light of the low slung sun into the room.  "Have a seat."  He says, a voice weak from lack of use.  I don't Bite.

Jack's trained Sylvia to deal with biters, among other things, so it's not that that she's afraid of.  But still, she hesitates before taking the chair he indicates.  She stands behind it, hands perched on its back in a tentative way, and her hard stare bores through the man in front of her, Smith, as if she's trying to see through him.  "Sorry.  Maybe you understand why I have to ask.  Are you real?"  It's a Through The Looking Glass question, but Alice has been chasing a few white rabbits lately, and she's starting to feel a little like a twitchy prey animal herself.

"I'll take your word for that," Sylvia says, taking comfort in the surreality of the situation.  Her mind settles on the pragmatic as she sits, dropping her tote bag on the floor beside the chair.  "Why aren't your lips moving?"

Sylvia can't help herself.  Even if she could stop herself from issuing the questions, she can't help thinking them.  She blurts, figuring it's all the same to him.  "What sins?"

She's suddenly wary, brain running through the litany of tactics she's learned to deploy.  Decoy fire, decoy police, decoy her.  "Why would you do that?  Did it have to do with your mind-reading?  You used it to kill people?"

Sort of.  I speciallized in suicides and accidents.  You ever hear that joke about hunting season.  Before the guys with modern guns the guys with black powder guns get to hunt.  Before the black powder it's the bow hunters.  Before the bow hunters it's the psych students from the university trying to convince the deer that it's life isn't worth living and it should kill itself.  After a pause, he continues.  Don't worry, it was never that funny a joke.

So, you're worried that your powers are leaking out of your head and changing the world.  Why would you think that?

Briefly Sylvia wonders how someone gets into that kind of work.  Does some guy in a government-issue sedan take you to a dark room where they shine a light in your face and tell you all about your duty to your country in an electronically distorted voice?  She wonders if that'll happen to her someday if she's not careful.


"I'm not worried they're changing the world.  I'm worried I can't control them.  And I'm worried I can't tell the difference when I can't control them."  She looks aggrieved, figuring she doesn't need to relate the details; he can read her mind after all.

That's not how it happens.


Seems like a reasonable fear.  Have you conjured up things that you didn't know were fake but then later discovered were figments you'd created?

"Not yet," she says, feeling that she might come off as a paranoiac, "but if I did, how could I tell?  I mean, how do I know that any of this is real?  All I can do is take your word for it, like you said."  She pauses and deliberately summons up a memory for his perusal.  "My friend Colin tried to reassure me with this whole routine about marbles, but really, really, if that were all in my head, how would I know?  How do I know Colin and I really had that conversation?  How do I know one of the marbles was real?  How do I know Colin's real?  How does anyone know anything's real?"  There's a thread of panic, like the fraying of a psychic sweater, as it were, running through her head.  It doesn't evince itself in her voice.  She sounds worried, but the anxiety in her skull, the deep questions about life, the universe, and everything, is bigger than she lets on.  The world is strange, and full of bizarre and awful things, and Sylvia would rather believe she's losing her mind than that it's all real.  It's more plausible.

"I totally understand that," she says.  "I've been reading about Hume's solipsism and Spinoza's absolutism, and I know I'm not the only one to ask these questions, but. . . ."  She shakes her head.  "So much strange stuff has happened since I've moved here.  And people like to fling around the phrase 'convergence of improbability,' but it's starting to smell more and more like bullshit.  I mean, it seems equally plausible that I'm in a coma or that I died in a plane crash or that I'm just dreaming because everything that's happening around me is nuts and because everything I've learned I can do since coming here is the stuff I can do in dreams.  Occam's razor, right?  The simplest explanation is usually correct?

"And you.  You're just another blip of data to add to the mess.  You're talking to me in my head.  You realize that, don't you?  You're talking to me in my head.

"And normally I would be alarmed, but by this point I'm thinking 'convergence of improbability,' almost without questioning it.  It means I'm buying into the delusion, if it's a delusion."

After a pause, she's not sure how much of that she said aloud and how much of it she's merely thinking.  The words are rushing out of her.  If it's all coming out of her mouth, it might sound like raving, and if she's raving, that's an argument in favor of psychosis.


"Not so I've noticed.  What makes you think so?"

Are you normally a lucid dreamer, if not then the dreaming thing doesn't hold water all that well.  Besides, Occam's Razor does not apply to paranormals.  The Convergence of Improbability theory takes the place of Occam's Raxor where we're concerned.  It is Occam's Razor for us.


Ah, except I could kill you.  If I were in your head, I couldn't.


Well, if you feel you could be buying into the delusion as you call it, it's likely you're not.  Crazy people don't question their sanity.  If you ask me how I know that, I'll throw you out a window for asking the most alarming stupid question possible under the current circumstances.


Even sane people rant.  Actually, suprisingly few insane people do.  It probably has to do with the copious amounts of medication they imbibe.


"Not so I've noticed.  What makes you think so?"
[/quote]

Because I've spent a long time studying the human mind, I know a lot about what mental powers do to people.

He sits down.

Let's assume for a moment that you are not insane.  That you are not loosing your mind.  That you are not in a coma.  Let's assume that you have not invented the people, places, and events in your life and are in fact operating just like the majority of the people in the real world.  We'll use the term real world in place of a better one.  You're a young and intellignet girl, you've obviously discovered the world is no where near as safe as your mommy and....sorry, mommies made it out to be.  Why has this been such a blow to you?

"You mean, do I have dreams in which I realize I'm dreaming?  Yeah, sometimes.  Usually toward the end."  That's a disconcerting thought.


She almost, almost wants to say, "I dare you."  But she holds her tongue.  Her instinct to root out the truth is perversely at odds with her instinct for survival.


"That the world's not safe?"  She feels her shoulderblades pinching together as he comes close to the mark.  It takes her a while to compose a thoughtful reply.  "Because it's not supposed to be this way.  Because society as a whole can be viewed as an organism, with individuals as cellular units.  If we didn't benefit by society, by civilization, we'd still be living in caves or scattered settlements.  But civilization, as a general concept, must be a form of evolution, right?  We have laws, we mass together in cities, we don't kill each other on sight because it makes sense for us to coexist, the strong protecting the weak."  She's almost looking to him for confirmation.  She wants to believe this.

"So when the world's not safe, when crime happens within a societal body, it's like an infection, like a cancer.  Something's out of balance."

She proceeds with as much care as she can muster, formulating the idea as she goes.  "In a body, when you get sick, your immune system produces leukocytes to fight the infection.  Are we leukocytes?  T-cells?  The ones who are supposed to keep the whole thing safe?  I feel like I've been given this responsibility without the power to do anything about it."  She pauses and musters wry humor.  "And that's a whole different mental illness, right?  Paranoid delusions of grandeur?"

He leaves his chair and lays down on the bed.  His gaze fixed on the ceiling.



It's not just that you know you're dreaming.  It's that you can interact with it and know it's a dream, you're not just being dragged along with it.  But, let's assume that you are a lucid dreamer and can do anything you want in your dreams.


That moment right there, that uncertainty, means you're still clinging to the idea that this is all real.  That's a good thing.


Paranoid delusions of grandeur, I'll have to remember that one.  You're mistaking having powers with some higher calling.  The role you serve in society is not determined by the gifts you have, but by your free will.  In a pure and perfect society you would give to society according to your gifts and taske from society according to your needs.  Since there is no pure and perfect society, we make due by following the rules as much as possible and doing what we can to survive.  Free will is the key, it's actually the key to everything we do but that's another issue all together.

You mentioned that you might be a T-cell, that you feel you've been given a responsibility withouth the power to do anything about it.  Did you specifically mean that you have super powers but you don't feel that they suit you to protect society?

Sylvia hesitates.  She has an inkling of what she could do--to the rapists, to Logan Darklighter, to the witches they know.  Without articulating the thought, she presents someting that's not quite an image, but more of an impulse.  She's been doing some reading into basic psychology, one-trial learning.  A dog in a room with an electrified floor hears a bell and, one second later, experiences an almost fatal shock through his feet.  It takes him only one trial to learn that the bell means he should jump onto a chair.  Intense fear creates an instant and indelible behavior modification, a psychic scar that takes decades to heal.  She leaves him to consider the possibilities.

What she says is, "Are you tired?  I could go."  She doesn't want to.

I don't tire easily.  so, the truth is, you have powers and you're afriad you're going to stray down some dark path to villainy?

It's the first time she's been able to say it.  That she should say it to an admitted murderer in a nuthouse must mean something, but Sylvia doesn't want to look too closely at that.  "I'm afraid I should stray down the dark path.  I'm afraid that's the most effective thing I could do and that all this pussyfooting around with gathering evidence and working with the police is just the kind of vaguely moral bumbling that keeps us two steps behind our enemies."  Associated questions well up.  "If you're weak and the person who attacks you is strong, you call it a crime.  If you're strong and someone attacks you, you call it war."  Her eyes go to his face.  "Am I right?"

No one in history would say that they are a villain.  Each person acts in accordance with what they feel is right and just.  Adolph Hitler, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Theresa, Elvis Presley, they all felt they did what they needed to do.  In the end you have to live with yourself.  It might be that no one else knows your secrets, the things you've done that would make other people pale with fear, but you'll know.  You have to live with your actions, others are affected by them, but they don't shoulder the burden of living with them.  They get to sit back and weigh what you did against their own ideals and then make judgements, if they even know.  You say the dark path might be the most effective thing, but you have to ask yourself what the goal is.  Is the goal punishing the wicked, or ensuring the system is fair and works for everyone.  You have to know what you want before you can choose a path.

Sylvia's just met this man, but it won't keep her from asking her frank questions about his dark past.  "Why did you do what you did?  What was your goal?"

The safety and freedom of my country.  Eventually that idealism wears away and you start to have to really think about it.  You rationalize unpleasant things as necessary for the continuation of society as a whole.  Like a surgeon cutting away cancerous growths so that the body might live on.  Eventually you become numb and stop worrying about it, it's not a major issue.  Then, after some time, you start to think about it again.  Usually some catalyst event brings it back into focus.

She doesn't want to dig into him.  Despite the weird situation and short acquaintance she feels some rapport with him.  He's been kind, she figures, unless his secret plan is to eat her liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.  "Like what?"  He mentioned it.  Maybe he wants to talk about it.

He chuckles audibly.  It's a sound that seems unfamiliar to him, as though his body didn't know how the sound was supposed to be made.

I like that movie.  Catalysts come in many shapes and sizes.  Children are the hardest sometimes, since they seem like they'd be innocent.  You let yourself be convinced that the experts who have done the analysis know what they're talking about when they say the child has to die or they'll grow up to be a monster.  Occassionally it's something else, like the cold and perfect logic of the victim, the circular logic that is undeniable as long as you remove human emotion from the equation.  Then you start to wonder about yourself.  If someday they'll realize that you could become like the poeple they've asked you to stop, and then you muse that they'll ask you to do it yourself.  Self-sacrafice is the perfect expression of public service.  In the end you realize that you're thinking of yourself in the third person, and you don't recognize your name when you see it written down.  Oh, it causes some vauge recolection, like it might be someone you've heard of before in passing.  That's when you know you're broken.  Or, at least it's when I knew.

Sylvia's mind spins off into analysis.  He's telling her there's someone who keeps track of future villainy?  Someone foresees who'll cause nuclear holocaust or instigate the next world war?  "Who did you work for?"  She's trying to suppress the thought, trying to preserve his confidence, but her mind wanders to Colin.  Is that what they do with precognitives?  And who is They?

Analysts and psychologists.  Precogs are too unreliable, what they see is possible and what analysts and psychologists see is probably.  The government likes to think that probably means something other than possible.  Who did I work for?  I knew a man once who referred to them as Vicious Patriots.  I suppose I was one too.  We struggle for a safer and better world, knowing we don't deserve to live there.  Evil for the sake of good, men with no remorse when it's for the good of the nation.

Patriotism.  Sylvia has been thinking in terms of her school, her neighborhood.  When she begins to think of an entire nation, an entire world, the looming fear becomes crushing.  "Have you always been able to read minds?"

"You can read minds."  She looks at him, head tilted to one side.  Jeez, that's a big nose.  "Can you stop?"

It takes her a second to realize what he's talking about.  "It is a big nose.  And just because I noticed doesn't mean I meant anything personal by it.  You can't tell the difference, can you?"  There's a thread of pity in the realization.  "You listen to everything everyone thinks, so you can't tell the difference between when someone's talking to you and just thinking about you."

"Lying isn't automatic," Sylvia insists.  She's almost forgotten why she came.  In her stubborn pique, she's forgotten her anxiety about the events of the weekend.  "You can go through your whole life without telling a lie.  And I don't think omission is a form of deceit, most of the time.  If I think your nose is big but I don't tell you, it means I don't think it's important enough to say.  It doesn't mean I'm trying to deceive you into thinking you look like Matt Damon."

Please.  The only way to go through life without lying is to never speak.  You lie all the time, but it's accepted as part of the price for living in polite society.  Lying is polite.

So, how can I help you.  You've intrigued me, and I sense you're troubled.  Tell me what's bothering you, it's not like I'm going to repeat it.

Sylvia slumps in her chair a little.  It's less a sign of defeat than it is the sign of a teenager making herself comfortable.  She debates telling him, then realizes it's already out there for him to read.  It's a relief to get it out, at last.  "I can make people feel things."  Her voice is flat and quiet in the effort to tell it true.  "I haven't told anyone.  I don't want them to be afraid of me."

"It's a possibility, don't you think?"  She pauses.  Then she flashes him scenes from the football game--the cheerleaders, the dance routine, the weird vibe from the stands, the crashing pole.  It's little more than a notion in her head that she could have instigated that, something she's been afraid to examine too closely.

"We have suspects."  He gets a shot of Candice, and then she refers to her powers again.  "That it gets away from me at all is scary.  Are you always under control?  Have you always been under control?"

I wasn't always.  Mental powers can take time to bring under your control.  It's the nature of the mind, that it roams about on it's own.  I had quiet a time managing them, especially during my late teens when I would drink illegally with my friends and smoke pot.

"How did you get into the work you chose?  I mean, I'd think hearing other people's thoughts would make it harder to kill them."

Some people are harder to kill if you can hear what they're thinking.  Some people, it just made it easier.  Listening to the words come out of their mouth and knowing what was really going on inside their heads made it suprisingly easy to have them kill themselves.  I sort of fell into it, felt I might be good at espionage and so I applied.  I guess I had midland talent as a spook, but it was made that much better by my powers.  I didn't start off killing people, they'd never do that.  They want to work up your patriotic blood first, then slowly work you into murder for hire.

His hed turns slightly, like he's trying to hear a sound far away.

Colin and Kel are here.  They just did something downstairs.  The catatonic girl is awake.  That's good, she'll stop screaming in her sleep, which was making it difficult to rest.

Several thoughts rush to the forefront of Sylvia's mind.

Colin and Kel?  What the hell?  Can't I go anywhere . . . ?

Can you scream when you're catatonic?

If I go, can I come back?

She voices only the last.  "I gotta go.  Can I come back sometime?"  She's up and grabbing her bag, wondering who the hell Kel is beating up in a mental hospital.

"Please do."  His voice is thick from lack of use, and The door opens for her as she approaches it. I'm not going anywhere.

Sylvia's startled by the door opening, and she throws a look back at Smith.  He can push things around with his mind, and he had to talk people to death?

Then she's out the door and racing downstairs to do what she can to keep Kel and Colin out of trouble.