“Always listens to him anyway?” I followed the obvious line of reasoning. “He’s not a motivator too, is he?”

Kals shook her head. “Yes, but it’s not that simple. We’re mostly immune. If we weren’t, we’d never be able to use our power without following our own orders.”

As Cassie and I sat down at the table across from Kals, Cassie glanced over at me. “Mostly?”

Kals brushed a lock of black hair out of her face. “Mostly. It works, but it’s hard. Do you have any people with motivator powers on your world?”

Thinking about Julie, former member of Justice Fist and now a fellow student at Stapledon, I said, “I know one, but there are probably more. Her mother had the same powers.”

Cassie barely let me finish before adding, “If there are more, they don’t seem to be running things on our world. I don’t see how they could. Julie orders people to do things, but it wears off and there’s no mystery about who’s responsible. Even if she did take a country over, all you’d need is a sniper rifle or big bomb to solve the problem.”

Kals shook her head saying, “That’s not how it works. Sure, if you’re inexperienced and you’ve got no one to train you, you go the direct route and bark orders at everybody, but that’s not the way the best motivators do it.”

“Uh huh,” I said, mostly to make sure she knew I was listening.

Kals didn’t say anything, waiting and only beginning to talk as Cassie frowned and sent the words, “What is she doing?” at me via our implants. Kals pointed at Cassie. “That’s what we do. We’re taught to constantly be watching people so we can use them. I knew you’d say something first. Nick’s patient. You’re not. You become suspicious more easily than he does. I’d have an easier time getting him alone and an easier time getting started on him, but he might be harder ultimately because I think he might notice what I’m doing.”

She looked at Cassie, eyes resting on the sword and then looking toward where the table hid her gun . “I’m not sure you’d notice, but if you did, you’d kill me or something.”

I leaned forward, putting my arms on the wooden table. “What would we notice?”

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“I’m was getting to that. Most of the time, we have to motivate people we have no control over, people who know we’re there for the Ascendancy, and most of all, people who don’t trust us. We don’t command them. What we do is listen, maybe use a hint of our power to make them talk a little more freely. Then once you know what makes them tick, then you start modifying their memories—“

Cassie interrupted. “—Wait a second. You’re not a telepath. You can’t do that.”

Kals raised an eyebrow. “If you’re done, I’ll tell you how I can. People’s memories aren’t set. I can’t change something that people remember well as easily, but something half remembered? That’s something I can do. Look, you can do it. If you make up a memory with enough enthusiasm and detail, they’ll begin to remember it—at least if they think you might remember something they don’t. It’s the same for me except as long as I don’t contradict something big, it doesn’t matter, they’ll listen. Once you’ve found the right memories, you modify around them and you can change their whole meaning, change the person’s loyalties, likes and dislikes. You can’t do it all at once, but over time, you can do almost anything.”

She explained it like she might have described how anything worked, and not at all the way you’d describe warping someone’s personality to make them betray everything they cared about. On the other hand, she’d trained at it for years. That was enough time to get used to the idea.

Following the next question that came to mind, I asked, “So, okay… How does that explain why Maru isn’t manipulating your mom?”

“He can’t,” she said, gesturing outward with her hands as if it should have been obvious. “Maru’s a motivator, but my mom studied with the best teachers the Ascendancy had to offer. Maru couldn’t even get into her school. He worked for one of the professors, but he didn’t go there. He trained somewhere else. They used him as an opponent so that they’d learn how to fight other motivators. It’s hard to affect each other, but it’s possible—barely. She beat him again and again. He’s not at her level. I don’t think he’s even at my level.”

I thought about that. “Alright. So he met your mom at the school she went to and she hired him, why?”

She shook her head. “She didn’t hire him. My dad also went to the school at the same time. He hired him and somehow they all got involved in the resistance because of my mom. I’ve never gotten the full story. Mom’s impossible to talk to.”

I sighed. Either we weren’t getting anywhere, or we were on the edge of something big. “I think I asked this, but why did he try to warn us about you then?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I think he hates me, but I think he hates the entire second generation.”

She leaned back in her chair, smiling. “Does that mean you think he’s working for the Ascendancy?”

Cassie shrugged. “Maybe.”

I said, “I don’t know. He might be. He’s a little suspicious, but we don’t have anything resembling a motive. Do you?”

She tilted her head, pursing her lips. “Let me think.”