The experience of Tony touching the blue mineral was similar in many ways to Tanya’s first contact with Elenium in the Imperial orphanage. The moment they put the elenium helmet on her head, a rush of static flowed across her skin and she’d become aware of a subconscious awareness of the space around her contracting into her body and then exploding outward again in a telekinetic display as every small item in the room began to defy gravity.
This time however, instead of telekinesis, it was telepathy that bloomed and exploded from his person. His awareness sharpened and seemed to crystalize, each of the mental presences sharpening, individualizing and becoming, almost counterintuitively, easier to manage.
That didn’t help mother or Mr. Kelerchec though. Before the world froze in place around him and became drowned in a very familiar white-gold light, Mr Kelerchec’s head exploded and mother’s eyes lit up with electric blue light and sparks of lighting, even as blood began to flow from her ears, nose and eyes.
Tony tried to turn around as a presence stepped up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. If that familiarity was not affront enough, the creature was chuckling quietly to itself. “Two years, one month and thirteen days.” Entity O’s voice sounded behind him. “In your last life you at least managed to last until Norden. What were you, then? Seven? I guess Coyote won our bet.”
“Almost 8. What do you want?” Tony ground out, patience thin and blood boiling. He’d liked his mother. She was a little silly and could use his instruction, but she’d been pleasant and attentive. She did not deserve this!
“To provide… heh, revelation. The last of your companions to agree to follow you have been placed. Further, due to your wish to restrain Elohiem, I have taken over the game and implemented new rules. Under my stewardship, you will keep your wits upon receiving Divine Mana or Blessings. Instead prayer and homage will be required prior. To pay homage; Slay enemies upon the field of battle. Revel in the frenzy of combat! Slay monsters and make trophies of their remains! Name your weapons and inscribe their deeds in runes. Seek knowledge and mastery even, or especially, through hardship. Travel far and wide, using disguise and subterfuge to win by your wits. Spread the blessings of magic and faith in The Allfather! Lead!”
Tony was... conflicted. On one hand, if the creature was telling the truth, that removed two, maybe three, of his greatest hatreds for the false gods. On the other hand, his new… overseer? voyeur? torturer? was obviously a battle maniac! Tanya had come to… L.. appreciate her battle maniacs, but they were human and generally rational off the field. Entity O, if the histories were right was a certified battle maniac. Indeed, a god of battle maniacs. Worse, where Being X had used world war 1 to pressure her with the promise of easy retirement eventually if she bowed her head earnestly, Entity O’s speech seemed to indicate he would actively encourage him to engage in battle with war as the point in of itself.
“You’re subverting the nature of our agreement,” Tony scowled, “even if you’re keeping to the letter of it. I’m familiar with the practice, an expert at it. Though after dealing with Being X for 40 years, I suppose I should expect nothing less from you. You want me to kill, so can I also assume you’re responsible for...this?” he hissed, gesturing toward mother and Mr Kelerchek.
The false god snorted. “Yes and No. Magic in this new reality does not function quite as you are familiar with. While mana always comes from the soul, one way or another, various realities have their own rules about how it’s expressed. Where the magic of your first reality focused on prophecy and in your second reality it focused on psychokinesis, magic in this world focuses on telepathy. Psychokinesis, prophecy and the astral abilities are all still entirely possible, but only great strength or specialized equipment shall manifest such power. Such was your prayer upon revival; to maintain your spells and the ability to fly, and so as one with great power and little experience this fate was likely to be visited on someone sooner or later. It would likely have been later, had you not been so focused on using your abilities as a babe, but taking the focusing crystal directly from the man's hand funneled most of your power through him, causing the gore. Incidentally, it also saved your mother from death, limiting her suffering to mere trauma.”
Tony momentarily sagged in relief before quickly disguising the action. Injured, but not dead. Although brain trauma was hardly something to scoff at, it was something he knew how to deal with, due to the expanded spell list he’d received during reincarnation. They were difficult spells however, requiring experts a decade to master. He would also need to craft a computation orb capable of handling them, one focusing on delicate application of energy over power.
“It won’t work.” Tony’s head shot up, eyes narrowing. “What you’re planning, healing your mothers brain trauma. It COULD be done by a professional. It could even be done by finding the purple vespene. Or I could grant it as a blessing. But you aren’t going to have that time for the first two. Your episode here has triggered a number of magic sensors across the planet, and when this communion is over, you will have only minutes before your magical signature is relayed back to Tarsonis and the Mage Academy. I could prevent that too, for a heartfelt prayer; if your pride would yet allow it.”
“You set this up.” Tony chuckled dully. “You set this all up. I should have known better than to hope you aliens would keep your word.” He turned a suddenly bulging eyed glare on Entity O. “But I have not been reborn just to die again! Two years! TWO FUCKING YEARS! For all your words of change, you’re just the same callous, petty, spi...”
Tony found himself unable to move, unable to speak, unable to breathe, as Entity O stared down at him imperiously, a feeling akin to the worst battle panic she’d ever felt as Tanya suffused the air. “Be silent, wretch. The only thing I set up was who you were reincarnated as. The boy who was promised to the Raynors would have found this fate at four years of age, far less prepared. The ghost academy would tell his father he died in transport and left him alone with a traumatized wife; bitter and disillusioned as she wasted away and gave up living.”
“You were born stronger than Jonny was, with the experience to make use of your powers, to survive the experiments and keep your new family together. I would use you, make no mistake! But I don’t have to lift a finger past the original deal to get what I want. You told Elohiem it was his business plan that failed him… Well welcome to corporate transfer! Elohiem was the god of slaves and schemers who sought to rule the world, only to fail the moment his scripture became widely read. I am the god Berserkers, Magi and Merchants; and I shall rule this entire sector without your aid! Fight for me and be promoted as your choice of blessings shall fall like rain! Resist and I will happily ignore you as you struggle alone in your basement office doing scut-work for others.”
With that declaration, Entity O settled down and Tony was released to stumble to the ground. Still, he glared up hatefully at the being who would call itself a god, but if, IF, it was telling the truth, perhaps it was something he could genuinely work with? Tony didn’t hold out much hope.
“I was going to let you choose,” Entity O murmured quietly. “See if you save the man, save your mother, or save yourself… but I suppose our relationship is still too raw. Goodbye, Tanya. We will meet again when you first pray for my aid. Perhaps next time we can have a proper discussion as you originally tried with Elohiem upon your first death.”
With that, the light faded away and the gore from Andy Kelerchek began to flow across the room, forming rough spidery symbols on the walls and across mothers forehead. They burned orange for a moment and vanished. As time resumed, Lidya Raynor gasped and arched her back, before collapsing to the ground, her limbs trembling, eyes wild and bloodshot.
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James Eugene Raynor stood in the Diamondback Mining Group’s command center, and surveyed the carnage. He had already wiped the structures security feeds, saving the contents to a data spike which he held in his hand; but the body was going to be another matter.
“Jonny’s outburst was widely felt,” came the voice of Global Magistrate Myles Hammond from a drone floating beside him. “People as far as red gulch were stunned senseless by the backlash. I’ve managed to intercept the alerts, Jim, but if this happens again… ghosts get more powerful as they mature, and Jonny’s only two.”
“Kid didn’t do it on purpose,” he replied, solemnly. “It was an accident.”
The magistrate snorted. “You know that just makes it worse, Jim.” Hammond hesitated before continuing. “I can… reach out to my contacts,” he offered the sheriff, “find a ghost who survived among the rebel groups… or employ a Shadowguard.”
“NO!” James started. “No, don’t call the Umojian’s. You’ll get both of us killed. The communists may allow their ghosts to keep their memories and provide great funding and supplies to rebels, but the casualty rate for their catspaws is worse than an honest man in the guild wars.”
Hammond hummed. “You survived the war.”
It was Raynors time to spit. “And you know what I had to do to make that possible. You called me here for a chance to get away from all that.”
“Alright, Jim, I’ll respect your wishes on the matter” Myles replied, “for now. How’s Liddy?”
Raynor grimaced again. “Delirious, but stable. The hemorrhaging didn’t damage anything critical and the auto-doc is keeping the swelling in check. Should make a full recovery.”
“I saw the logs, Marshal.” Hammond chided him. “I was referring to her… divine visitation. And other claims...”
“I aint ever been all that religious, Magistrate, but no man’s an atheist in a firefight.” Raynor shook his head. “Liddy got hit by a psi blast, we’re lucky she got off with a few hallucinations. Odin’s a bit of an odd choice, but her father’s working in the Valhalla system last I heard, so it prolly figures. Andy though...” he trailed off, looking around at the gore.
“Wasn’t so lucky.”
The explosion's origin point had been within the man's skull, so the splatter pattern was perfectly spherical, save where his wife, son and some furniture had been standing in the way. Judging from the medical report on his wife’s injuries and extrapolating, Kelerchek’s brain tissue itself had heated up to the point it boiled the blood within the skull, causing rapid fragmentary decompression. However, Liddy’s brain could handle the extra energy, channeling it through her empathic ability, which was why she didn’t explode, merely hemorrhaging as her blood heated up but failed to boil.
“Have you been getting any other readings since the first?” Raynor asked after a short pause. He wasn’t looking forward to covering this all up, but… well, he’d done worse when Tychus had them working for that one Morian pirate lord. It was why he left… the bank job was just the last straw.
“I have, Marshall,” the magistrate replied heavily. “A clean P6 signal emanating from your area, though triangulation is tricky. May be that the nearby mineral field is interfering, bouncing things around, but I imagine people’ll be able to figure it out as the mining operation moves around. Or if the academy sends a wrangler. ”
“Shit.”
“No kidding,” Hammond agreed. “I’ll put out feelers, James. If you don’t like the three great powers for this, I’ll use the same contacts I used to track you down, see what shakes out. Just understand, trainin from a rogue psychic, it’s not gonna be the best quality… But hey, if Liddy ain’t lost her mind an yer boy’s the literal prophet of an Old Terra deity, maybe the problem’ll take care of itself!”
Both men shared a laugh at the absurdity of that last pronouncement and signed off.
The body of one Andrew Kelerchek would be buried in the Mar Sara City cemetery, a tragic victim of a mining accident. A sudden quake had caused a tragic equipment malfunction and his head got caught in between. The funeral would be closed casket. James, Lidya and their insurance company would make a payout to the man's only living relative, an adult daughter, and the matter would be settled. James, feeling guilty about the whole business, made a point to do all of the deliveries personally.
What surprised him though, was when Jonny insisted on going with him.
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Writing and delivering Notification of Death letters to grieving family members has always been the worst of officer duties. It’s something many delegate to their less favored subordinates, and with good reason. It’s stressful, you’re liable to be attacked even if it's not your fault and dealing with the emotions of others can be… difficult, even without frustrating powers that let you literally feel their grief. It gets worse when you can’t even tell the family what their loved one died for, as regardless of fault, that will focus their grief into rage directed at the person delivering the news.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
In his life as Tanya, Jonny had done her best to limit casualties as a result, not just because it was typically due to a waste of human resources.
Occasionally though, you got family members like Judith Barlow-Kelerchek. When Father delivered the news to her at the Borgo Vespene refinery on the other side of the planet, she’d not visibly reacted. Not until the money was mentioned. Inside her head however, Jonny could see satisfaction, emptiness, rebellious rage and a single memory of her parents arguing. Judith had been expelled from a college she’d gotten into at 16 and Mr Kelerchek had promptly moved the family to the fringes for… something Tony couldn’t quite discern before greed took over and washed the memory away with plans for how to spend the cash.
No loyalty. As one did not simply flee planets for a child's misbehaviour, basic extrapolation offered that she’d likely done something to endanger her family and her father had saved her life; an act for which she resented him. Tony snorted and decided not to inform the woman how her father had truly died as he had planned.
The trip hadn’t been a complete waste of time however. The clarity granted by the blue mineral had proven to remain effective even after an environmental stress test. Individuating the voices allowed them to be tuned in and out to a degree, which was helpful. Like sight and peripheral vision, focusing in on one mind while holding the gem made all others seem to wash out, the hubbub of their multitudinous thoughts almost, but not really fading away.
Tony experimented with this on the way through the facility, focusing his senses on sectors, cones and areas of minds in addition to the omni-directional default and invasive single point focus.
This effect stacked with the tiered nature of human minds which he’d begun to become aware of with these recent excursions. Minds which had more going on were louder, and harder to ignore. Even from a distance, a mind which he could sense more from when up close broadcast louder than those with fewer layers to them. Focusing his ability from an omni-directional sense to something more focused had further effects, extending and contracting the range at which minds became perceptible to him based on how he devoted those resources and what class the associated minds were in. Just listening in on surface thoughts could be done in a line that extended all the way across the wasteland from one city or mining installation to another, for instance, but focusing on one mind at the extremity of distance cut that to the diameter of Mar Sara City. Passively listening to the surface thoughts of the whole city was possible, but getting in on their memories and hardwired skills limited him to a single building, while getting in on their sensory input could be done on a city block or four.
This, Tony remembered, was how the magic signature detectors had worked in her second life, though with magical activity rather than minds. Tony shuddered to think how different that experience might have been, or might become, if the empire ever learned to read their citizens' minds via magic. On one hand, high fidelity communication and easy screening for imbeciles, incompetents and other wastes of a government, army or businesses time and effort. The effects on education alone were mouth-watering to contemplate! On the other hand, what would that have gotten her? Would she have been able to get that perfect rear line position early? Immediately even? Or would they have recognized her warped mind as the threat many psychology books stated it to be and eliminated her forthwith? It had been world war 1; not 2, but Hideki had read about how the thought which lead to the german gas chambers had been popularized with the execution of the mentally ill in 1910 by the left wing academics and medical doctors in France and Italy before migrating to germany with comrade Lennin in 1916. Though Lennin was forcibly repatriated from Switzerland to Russia by the Kaiser the following year, the damage had already been done.
As Tanya, she had looked for Lenin, seeking to correct that particular problem early, but either the man didn’t exist, or he had been returned early in that timeline; a matter which would explain the state of the Russy Federation and… Loria.
The day was not all progress however. As much as the blue mineral aided in wielding Entity O’s curse as the blessing the creature thought the ability to be, holding the gem actually weakened the abilities Tony prized from her life as Tanya. The flight formula, while far easier to remember and adjust under the gems influence, required more than five times the mana it had taken only the previous day, before mother had taken him to work. Discarding the crystal after father had returned them home returned the mana cost to normal, but now the minds of the entire mining camp were discernible from the previous safety of home, which wasn’t good either.
It took a week to determine a likely solution. Such slowness of thought shamed Tony, but he attributed it to his 2 year old brain still being vastly underdeveloped.
Mother had said that there were several different colours of mineral, colours which correspond to the range of materials the magical substance refined. If the blue mineral had such an obvious effect on his powers, then it seemed reasonable that the other colors might as well.
The problem, of course, was getting samples. Blue minerals were forged from common lower elements. The others were forged from higher bands of material. This not only made them more valuable from a materials perspective, but also from rarity. Tony could not recall seeing any color other than blue when looking out the window at one of mothers new mines.
It was conceivable that Tony could purchase the materials over the galactic internet… but that would require internet access and confederate credits, both of which were locked behind his parents bio-metrics. On one hand, damn them that he could not simply steal their passwords and purchase his materials. On the other, such limits aided in signaling his character of a perfect son and avoiding temptation to behave otherwise. He had elenium, even if it was not the flavor he preferred, now he just needed to demonstrate his readiness for the responsibilities of the nanoforge.
He supposed he could probably make an orb without the forge, instead cobbled together from household electronics. His Entity granted knowledge of the orbs operation showed him that the gears and clockwork were a calculation engine aided by minor telepathic properties of the elenium crystal, not rune work or ritual shapes. So long as he could use his knowledge to program spells, a variety of computation devices might be used to similar effect. As had been demonstrated with the magic signature radar units back in the war.
The massively increased costs for psychokinetic effects he’d discovered would be a pain, but they’d also reduce the range of his telepathic contact, which would make the aggravation worth it. He’d been… having trouble sleeping lately. The extra “noise” of other people's dreams was difficult to handle. Dreams were supposed to be your mind working on defragmentation mode as it abstracted and anthropomorphized the problems of the day. Witnessing the dreams of others as they intruded on his own may aid in understanding their motivations and actions, but it left him sleep deprived unless he slept in. Allowable for a 2 year old, but less so as he aged.
The calm clear sky beckoned,.. but he could be patient.
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Global Magistrate Myles Hammond leaned back in his chair as he studied his problem children. Hammond had long prided himself on having a keen eye for talent, and before now he had been nothing but pleased with the results presented by most of his choice colonists, such as Lidya Elisibeth Kensington or James Eugene Raynor. Neither were the best in their field, but the flaws they held complimented their performance. It helped them relate to the cats they herded, and the results had spoken for themselves. 30% increase in minerals from the fields Liddy controlled without needing to re-seed and an 80% drop in crime in the regions under Jim’s… supervision.
What was the Old Terra saying? ‘If I only had a hundred of him, I could rule the world.’ Well, Myles DID have 100 of that sort. Not to put too fine a point on it, he had more than a thousand such independent and passionate types and everything he was in charge of chugged along smoothly as a result. ...If only he didn’t have to deal with Colonel Edmund Duke as leader of system defense. The perpetually sour old war dog resented having been passed over for General a third time and made sure everybody around him knew it.
Which was a pity, given that Duke, when he wasn’t being a bitter party line asshole, was extremely competent as well.
But it seemed that the bill had come due. His attempt at matchmaking, while quite positive for the couple themselves, was now building into a threat to the entire colony. The Confederacy was extremely interested in the bloodlines of it’s ghost operatives, as the psychic assassins were the primary means by which they resisted Umojian infiltration, quashed homegrown rebellion and remained superior to the Kel-Morian hydra. Intelligence reports from psychic polling and surveillance as well as clean identification and assassination of trouble makers was the foundation of Confederate power, much as the Old Families state businesses were it’s load bearing structure and the military it’s armored walls. Keeping a ghost candidate hidden was tantamount to treason.
Of course, that was because having one as potentially powerful as Jonny in his debt was comparable to having his own battleship. Maybe even a small armada.
His personal objections, though, were on another level. What the ghost academy did to its students was monstrous. The entrance exam killed 60% of all candidates, training involved torture as a means of desensitizing recruits whatever missions the confederacy might send them on, and the final exam involved a mind-wipe and the implantation of a neural control chip. Say nothing of the experiments done on the students. Drug trials, cybernetics, nanite treatments, genetic modifications, most of it done during non-anesthetized vivisection… Hammon closed his eyes and focused away the memories. There had been a reason he retired to a series of backwater postings.
Now though, he was beginning to have regrets.
The boy was… strange. Cold. He moved mechanically and trained constantly; almost as though he were already a ghost agent. Some might call it playing, because Jonny was using a children’s Adventure Learning Holo, but the Raynors security system showed him attacking the ‘game’ day in and day out for a year and a half already, with an intensity and attention to his scores that could be called nothing else. That, and Jonny’s progress being 12 years ahead of his age, could be forgiven in a child 4 to 8 years older. Call him a genius sociopath and be done with it. Unfortunate, unlikely given his parents, but hardly unusual for the sector, practically unremarkable.
But then you add in that the kid was 2 years old and psionic.
Hammond knew psionics. Prior to, and even during the “training” Psionics were empathetic. Charismatic. They cared more than most, due to knowing how the things they did affected others. They didn’t become psychotic until they’d been brain-panned a few times.
Jonny… was.
Or at least, Jonny was giving indications of being so. Maybe he was just overthinking things, child psychology AI said that all kids were pretty much sociopathic at 3-4 years old, and it was due to group socialization and brain development that they slowly shed their sociopathic tendencies, but even the AI admitted it wasn’t familiar with Psionic Psychology.
Unfortunately, the obvious solutions were themselves problematic. Giving the kid a peer-group involved the big 3’s Psycorps, which he and Raynor agreed was wrong. Training him on playdates of kids his own age would involve placing those kids in significant danger, which was unfair to their parents and generally criminal, besides. Training him on a group of handpicked “good men” could work, but more witnesses meant necessarily higher risk of exposure. The safest solution would paradoxically be to somehow convince Jim and Liddy to have more kids. Younger siblings were a time tested means of instilling responsibility and empathy into a person; at least once you got them past the jealousy and abandonment issues of the new child getting the lion's share of the parents attention. Unfortunately, the Raynors were already worried about their current child and if the rest were as ‘gifted’ as Jonny, the problem could just as easily increase exponentially as it could solve itself.
The final option was a rebel psion mentor. Generally not an easy thing to find, and though he knew a few places to get one, they still weren’t easy to acquire.
Psions who had managed to slip through the cracks of the big three powers and NOT get tangled up with a rebel group wanted to be left alone. They weren’t generally interested in money, sob stories, causes or jobs and had enough power to discourage the pushy, while still being weak enough not to garner the attention of academy battlegroups sent to retrieve them… or nuke them from orbit.
Psions who were part of and being hidden by an organization were generally considered far too valuable to the organization to let go for any length of time, and were also generally deeply invested in their cause. The only way to get a hold of one, was to offer a lucrative job that would advance their cause… or promise them custody of the new psion you wanted them to train.
This of course led to other considerations. Like which group to approach and what to promise them. As soon as they learned what the situation with Jonny was, there was of course no way they’d let the situation go with anything less than a full recruitment. But… if he could get his hands on an organization with a psion that had recently fallen apart, grabbing THEIR could avoid such issues. Just scatter and employ their excess members across the colony, and put the Psion under Jim’s care. The problem there, of course, was that Myles was far from the only person with this train of thought. Fallen organizations were chum in the water, and snapped up or eliminated within weeks, whether by the big 3 or other competing organizations. The only reason this was even worth considering was because there were just so many rebels against the confederacy. Fascists tended to inspire that; though it could be argued the communists were just as, or more, responsible.
Practically speaking, he had 2 options; one good and one bad. Four, if he wanted to hit Jim with the old line about beggars and choosers.
Option 1, was a group of pirates known as the Blue Suns. They’d grown to name recognition status after attacking a fringe colony, they’d triggered a psionic among their victims. The P7, Kuro Rhin, had killed most of the attackers upon his wakening event, frying the brains of 7 and culling another 30 with a combination or incredible marksmanship and Psionic recognizance. Rhin, or Rhin-er as he preferred to be called, had leveraged his abilities into gathering a small fleet around him, and at one point had been said to command a guild wars era battleship. Their pirate group had tangled with the wrong Umojian asteroid base however and Rhin-er was rumored to be on the run from the Umojan Shadowguard.
If Kuro Rhin could be found, he would be the best option for Magistrate Hammond and Jim Raynor. A fringe worlder with a history of success, independence and no connections to the big 3.
Option 2, was Arcturus Mengsk and the Sons of Korhal. Mengsk was known to have more than a dozen Psions in his employ, including THE Sarah Kerrigan. Kerrigan’s awakening and examination had rewritten most of what the three great powers thought they knew about Psionic Ability. Better, The Sons had survived for 10 years as a public enemy after having assaulted the Tarsonis Ghost Academy itself!
Of course, something that sounded too good to be true usually was; and in Mengsk's case, the man was backed by the Umojians. Rumor said he’d married the daughter of one of their high leadership, Umoja-Confed Ambassador Commissar Ailin Pasteur. Ailin’s backing of the Mengsk family was the reason Angus Mengsk, Arcturus father and head of one of the Confederacy’s Old Families, had felt secure enough to take his planet of Korhal and rebel against the confederacy, declaring independent monarchy. The Sons rebel group was founded in the subsequent Nuclear apocalypse of said planet.
The Umojian’s had apparently cut them loose 3 years ago, complete with a space-battle and public disavowal. Whether that was a legit event or further propaganda to try and shore up their flagging support among the confederate commoners was up for debate.
Still.., the majority of their ghosts were those freed from confederate brain-panning. That meant they were well trained and likely had fungible loyalties, which was the reason he was considering them.
Options 3 and 4 were to throw up his hands and go directly for foriegn support. A Umojan Shadowguard or Kel’Morian Bladerunner. The Umojian’s would be only too happy to foment communist rebellion on a confederate fringe world, while the Morian’s were both easily purchased and would enjoy the irony of poaching a powerful Psion from a world they lost in the guild war. And practical options 5 and 6 were to sacrifice or save his friend by turning the creepy kid over to the Dominion. Four, probably five, bad options.
Sighing heavily, the Magistrate began issuing orders.