CHAPTER 15: Memories
“Now, let’s see if you can make more connections and leave them running,” suggested Andrea.
Delving into himself, Adam created the first thin connection to Andrea. It took him a few tries to create a new tendril without taking from the one he had used. Then he connected to Abbey and created a third to Alissa. They all smiled happily and went back to sitting with him as he laid down.
“I definitely overdid it,” Adam said. “I have a headache and my mind feels strained.”
“Is it hard to keep the connections running?” asked Andrea.
“No, I think I’m fine holding them now. Once I create them, I need to take action to remove them. Manipulating the formless stuff inside takes a lot of internal energy, and sending the pulse of emotions through the connection takes conscious thought.”
“Well, it feels good. Let’s leave it running.” Abbey and Alissa agreed with Andrea. The boys just groaned at having to watch all that. “A king in his kingdom,” muttered Carlos. A few minutes later Emily came in the room with a tray of brownies. She put it down and sat back next to Carlos.
Abbey picked one up and started feeding it to Adam while he relaxed.
“Need some peeled grapes or fanning leaves, your majesty?” mocked Emily, clearly angry at whatever Alissa had said.
“Brownies are fine. I didn’t get breakfast anyway,” he responded without acknowledging the edge to her voice.
A short while later his mom entered leading Tom, Brandon, and Brittney.
“Adam, are you expecting more friends?” she asked.
“I wasn’t expecting any to begin with,” he said around a bite of brownie. His mom stared for a few minutes at his casual position with the girls. She seemed to struggle not to say more, though the disapproval was clear. Andrea responded instead.
“Four more should be joining us, mother.”
“Mother?” Mrs. Clemens eyebrow twitched upwards. “Nick, could you and your friend help bring more chairs in?”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Clemens,” said Nick. He and Carlos got up and at her direction carried a sofa from the other room and a few dining room chairs.
“I’ll order a bunch of pizzas for everyone,” she said as she poked her head back in.
“That’s greatly appreciated, mom,” Adam told her. “Do you mind that they are hanging out here? We can always find somewhere else.”
“Oh, its fine. You so rarely brought anyone home other than Nick so it’s refreshing to see that you have more friends.”
“Thanks, mom. Love you.”
Once his mom was gone, Abbey rubbed his hair roughly. “You guys are so cute!” Then she kissed his forehead. Tom started giggling and Brittney’s jaw dropped.
“What has been going on here?” asked Brittney.
Carlos answered with, “Adam found another superpower. He can now mind control. The girls practiced it with him. They liked it and now want him to do it all the time. However, they were already like this before he used it.”
“That’s some superpower,” Tom said as smarmily as possibly while sitting down. “How does mind control fit his build, though?”
Andrea sat up. “That’s a good point! He is a rampaging brute but now he can influence people’s thoughts. Those abilities clash. Is it meant for intimidation?”
“No,” said Brittney, “He has [Angry Face] for intimidation. There is also the yelling that makes everyone pause.”
“Weird. We‘ll need to figure this out,” said Alissa thoughtfully. “Maybe he is just a little bit of everything and will be all mage-y next?”
“He’s a little too physically powerful for that to make sense,” thought Andrea.
Adam noticed that Brittney’s hand was on Brandon’s arm the whole time, while Brandon just stared downward. She tried offering him a brownie and he just shook his head without even looking at her.
“How are you two holding up?” Adam asked them. Brittney shook her head in response. “Damn. Sorry. I wish I could have prevented it, and at the same time I know we need to be prepared for things like this.”
“It’s not your fault, Adam. If anything, we have only gotten this far because of you. All our confidence comes from you and your personal power. The fact that you lead us well and got such different people to work well together is amazing. I think we’ve all changed thanks to you, even Brandon.”
Andrea was tapping on her teeth, then spoke up. “Actually, I have an idea we can try for Brandon. What if we use Adam’s mind control on him.”
“You want him to seduce Brandon?” Carlos gasped.
“You lost speaking privilege, Carlos,” said Andrea with a mock glare. Emily and a few others laughed. “Adam said he was excited about girls when he used it on us. What if instead he thinks calming thoughts and connects to Brandon. Maybe it can help calm him instead.”
“That makes sense,” said Abbey.
“Will he have to break our connection to do it?” asked Alissa.
Brittney looked at her. “Is it that pleasant being under it? I don’t think I’d want to be controlled.”
“It isn’t like that,” said Alissa. “It’s more like he strengthens the emotions there. We all have some kind of affection towards him. It’s pleasant and having it boosted while getting a sense of shared feeling with him just feels nice.” Abbey and Andrea agreed with her. “If I concentrate, I can even sense his feelings towards me. A bit of hesitation and embarrassment mixed with glee. I think it can be an emotional support as much as Carlos’s mind control.”
“Then I think he should try it on me before Brandon. No romance stuff. Just see if he can trigger the calm,” said Brittney.
“Ok, makes sense,” Andrea agreed. “You up for it, darling?”
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Adam sat up once more. The positioning on the couches were shuffled around so Adam and Brittney were next to each other with some space. He looked at her to make sure she was ready, and she nodded with determination.
“Alright, give me a minute to get in the right mind set.”
Adam sank into his inner self. He spread out the coolness. Then he sensed for the space that would represent Brittney. Once he found it, instead of forming the tendril right away, he thought back to when he felt confident and sure of himself. The strongest of those memories came from recently, before going into a fight. A strong determination and knowing that he would come out of it alright.
Once that feeling was suffused through the coolness, he reached it towards Brittney. He used a thicker tendril this time. When it had connected to her, he pulsed the emotion. Then he opened his eyes and looked at her.
She was staring at him, her eyes bulging. Her mouth was open. Balling up her fist she punched him as hard as she could in his shoulder.
“What was that for?” he grumbled as he rubbed the shoulder, surprised it didn’t hurt much.
“What the hell, Adam? This isn’t fair. This isn’t fair! This is how you feel going into a fight? We are all scared and weak, and you go in feeling like this? This is amazing and terrifying. I can feel your strength and confidence as if it was my own. I feel like I could go run into a pack of monsters right now and take them all out,” Brittney said breathily. “Feeling this way would get me killed.”
“Oh, I want a taste,” said Alissa with a smile.
“Me too,” Abbey said meekly.
Adam pulsed that feeling into their existing connections, and they gasped together.
“Oh yeah!” cried Alissa.
“I like this! I wish it were real,” said Andrea.
Abbey just nodded along.
The guys were now leaning forward a bit.
“Did you see any of the memories I was thinking about or just the feelings?” Adam asked.
“Just the feelings, but we knew it was about fighting because you included a bit of blood lust. I don’t just feel the confidence and power, I also want to go prove it right now,” said Andrea. “I can’t believe how much you desire to fight.”
Adam shook him head, “The dose I gave you three was much smaller than Brittney’s too.”
“Wow. Keep that much to yourself. She's right that it would get us killed if he went into a fight with it.”
Adam wondered if he could pull back just the new emotions from the thinner tendrils but couldn’t figure out how to. Instead, he just cut those connections.
“Awww,” whined Abbey once it was gone.
“I expect more of that later,” insisted Andrea.
Adam went back inside himself to observe the connection he had left with Brittney. It was nice to know he could remove certain ones without cutting them all. The connection with her was still strong and he was curious if there was something else he could do with it.
Until now he had always stayed within the space of his own body, but suddenly he wondered if he could leave that space. If the coolness could reach out, then maybe he could stay within the coolness. He let his consciousness follow along the tendril. As he reached the other end of the connection, he noticed that the tendril wasn’t just touching Brittney’s space but had gone inside, like a root in the ground. When Adam thought about moving further into the space the tendril expanded into that part. There was no attempt to stop him. The two substances, his coolness and Brittney’s space, didn’t seem to mind moving around each other.
“Adam, what are you doing? Can’t you cut the connection?” asked Brittney.
He was able to still control his body even while in this ethereal space, though splitting his attention was challenging. “I’m trying something. Give me a few minutes.”
For a short while he guided the tendril around the space. It wasn’t shaped like a person, and he ran into the edges in several spots. The space was made up of the same stuff all throughout, but he did find different parts of it that felt like they had different purposes, almost like there were metaphysical separators between them. Two areas were more interesting than the rest. One area had little bits like clouds. Those clouds were very small and sparse, but he could feel strength from them. They wanted to get denser and more numerous. He had no idea what they were.
The second area was full of sparks. Little sparks and big sparks floated around. They bounced off each other like animations of atoms from middle school. As the tendril got closer, the sparks just moved around it, as though they couldn’t exist in the same space. Out of curiosity he formed the tendril into a tip and tried to touch a spark.
Suddenly he was in a park. His small hands were handing a slice of apple to a child. Little Brandon wouldn’t take the apple, though he clearly wanted to.
“My dad says I can’t take handouts,” Brandon said.
“It’s not a handout, it’s an apple,” said Adam with confusion.
Adam turned his head towards where their moms were sitting. “Can I share?” he asked in a little girl’s voice, feeling confused.
Brandon’s mom looked concerned but said it was alright. Brandon then accepted the apple.
Adam pulled back the tendril.
“What was that?” asked Brittney.
“Did something happen to you?” countered Adam.
“Yes, I just remembered when I was eating an apple in the park with Brandon. Did you cause that?”
“I think I found where your memories are,” said Adam. He heard laughing from the group but couldn’t afford to concentration on anything else.
“Don’t mess with them, please,” Brittney said with concern.
“I won’t. They avoid me unless I reach for them. Give me just a minute then I’ll come back out.”
He continued to look around until he noticed a disturbance in Brittney’s substance. Everything so far has felt like moving through a dense gas, no resistance, with it just moving out of the way. However now he found a spot that was almost solid. It was round with a bit of jaggedness. There was a wrongness too it and his tendril wanted to destroy it.
“I just found something weird. It’s like a hard orb in your memory area. The other memories are avoiding it, and it looks like it is changing parts of your memory space.”
“What?” Brittney asked sounding alarmed. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Should I try touching it?”
“Darling,” Adam could feel Andrea’s voice near his ear. “Do you think it’s dangerous to her?”
“I don’t know. It’s in her space so might be a part of her but the texture is wrong. Everything about it feels wrong. It’s probably been here for a while.”
“Can you try touching it without doing anything?” asked Brittney.
“I can try,” answered Adam.
He took the tendril and touched the jagged orb. Nothing happened for a moment, so he pushed a little harder into it. Then it responded. The jagged edges turned into spikes that tried to jab him. The space was weird, and it seemed like they couldn’t enter his tendril’s space or interact with him. While he watched this with curiosity, the way they moved towards him but never touched him, electricity started crackling around it. It was like the sparks of memory but there was way more energy here. The energy was building through the orb until the orb cracked, releasing the energy. It leapt around the orb, hitting all the spikes and edges of the orb. Then it hit the tendril that was touching them.
Adam was six. He was outside playing with the neighbor boy. They had several dolls around them under a tree in her yard. A scary man was standing over them. The man was short, sweaty, and yelling at the boy. Tears streamed down Adam’s face as he cried, too scared to move.
“Dosh plah wif dulls, yoush panshy!” the man shouted then pulled back his foot and kicked the boy in the stomach. “Shoopid kids and der shoopid dulls.” The speech was all slurred together, and Adam couldn’t understand it. Blood came out of the boy’s mouth.
Adam, terrified as he was, stood up and yelled at the man, “Stop hurting him!” He could barely see through the tears, so he wasn’t able to see the man’s hand before it grabbed him by the back of his neck. The brief feeling of flying ended with making contact with the tree. Pain took over everything, especially his arm.
The sounds of adults rushing out of a house to protect their daughter, and another woman getting punched as she tried to pull the scary man away, barely registered through Adams pain.
Then there was sobbing, both distant and close, and the feeling of shaking brought him out of the memory. He let go of the tendril and was back on the couch. Brittney was sobbing. Her hands were grabbing his shirt and shaking him while her forearm was pressed against his chest. Tears streaked down his own cheeks as well.
The room had once again become still, unsure of what had happened. Alissa moved to hold Brittney’s hands while Andrea had already wrapped Brittney in a hug. Abbey touched her and a red flash indicated a heal had been cast.
Adam didn’t know what to do. Guilt flooded him as he realized he was experimenting with unknown powers on a friend. Using his powers felt so natural, like he had them for years but had forgotten about them. They were so much stronger than those starter skills everyone else had.
Doing the only thing he could think of, Adam imagined what it was like to feel sorry and at the same time reassuring a friend. He took those emotions and pushed them into the connection before canceling it.
Brittney raised her sobbing face and looked into his eyes. “That really is unfair,” she whispered and started laughing while tears still poured from her eyes.