Emergency klaxons blared outside, warning everyone that the Freedomland Academy was under attack. Thomas ignored his own blurred reflection in multiple surfaces as he sped through the Dragon Tower’s grand lobby. His overclocked perceptual senses enabled him to note every unique shadow, every distant sound.

“Yes?” Thomas answered a call on his supercom wristwatch.

“You must get to safety.” It was one of his door sentries.

“On it.” Thomas had already switched his tower to lockdown mode. Nerve gas protected all possible points of entry, and reflective quicksilver transformed large surfaces into makeshift mirrors. That should prevent teleporters from surprising him.

He considered commanding the sentries to go home and defend their own families. Perhaps if they went somewhere safe, the Torth might jump to the wrong conclusion that Thomas was elsewhere?

An incoming call from Varktezo interrupted his thought processes. “Protect anyone who needs you,” Thomas said, and switched to the next call.

“Teacher?” Varktezo’s beak filled the tiny viewport video feed, as if he had forgotten how wristwatch cameras worked. “The Torth have a new gas.”

He was whispering.

The camera moved, and Thomas squinted at footage of lab technicians staggering down a familiar hallway. Varktezo was in the research annex.

“Get to safety!” Thomas urged.

“I think I’m hearing people’s thoughts,” Varktezo whispered.

“It’s chaos,” another ummin voice moaned in the background. “We are hallucinating.”

“Shh,” Varktezo whispered. “Torth are coming.”

The figures in the hallway acted drunk or drugged. Thomas heard wet blasts in the distance, yet no one ran. Were his people brainwashed? Or hallucinating?

Or reading minds?

That made no sense, even if such a miracle were possible. Why would Torth empower their enemies with telepathy?

“Take care of yourself,” Thomas whispered at Varktezo. “Use your wristwatch to scan for neurotoxins.” He had installed sensors on their supercoms in order to give warning about any substantial compositional change in the air.

No response. Varktezo must be in danger.

“Stay safe,” Thomas whispered, and ended the call. He could not help Varktezo from afar.

Or anyone else.

If only Ariock or someone on his team would respond to emergency calls. Thomas might actually able to do something with solid facts instead of guesswork.

“…invaded the Academy.”

“No one knows where the Bringer of Hope…”

“…Say he’s defeated.”

Thomas wore an earpiece over the ear that had been mangled and chewed by wild zoved. He listened to the citywide broadcast channel. Since his earpiece was bone-conducting, it was virtually inaudible to anyone else.

“…They have some kind of hallucination gas?”

“…probably heading towards…”

“Let them have the rekveh.”

“That wouldn’t bode well for…”

On it went. Thomas dialed the audio down, needing facts rather than rumors. How he hated to feel mentally blind.

The Megacosm glowed just above his perceptions.

It was a beckoning siren, a promising trove of useful data. But Thomas knew better than to hand his enemies an advantage. The instant he ascended, the Lone Twin, the Death Architect, and others would plunge into his brain and fish out his exact location.

He needed to go somewhere unpredictable.

Thomas stopped at one of the many hundreds of electric torches in the grand lobby. He raised his hoverchair and stretched up, grasping and yanking a lever hidden within the torch’s wall bracket.

A portion of the stone floor dropped away, facilitated by oiled tracks. Thomas went down with it.

The trapdoor above him slid shut, concealing him inside the secret passageway.

One could never go overboard with defensive measures when one had super-geniuses for enemies. Thomas had engineered the city’s infrastructure to include bomb shelters, passageways, even an underground backup control room for the spaceport. Other than himself, only Ariock knew the locations of every underground bunker. Ariock was the builder. Thomas dared not entrust the secrets to anyone else.

So no one had ever used this passageway until now. It smelled musty.

Thomas sped along a corridor lit by dimly glowing stones at intervals. His earpiece continued to ding with notifications.

A chime overrode the rest of the noise. That was a top level incoming call. Maybe it was Ariock?

Thomas eagerly answered the call.

“Where are you, boy?” It was Garrett’s gruff voice.

“Safe,” Thomas said. “But Freedomland is under attack. Where are you and Ariock?”

Garrett groaned, and Thomas knew it would be bad news.

“Ariock got hit with some kind of insanity gas,” Garrett said. “He’s on a rampage, wrecking everything in sight.”

Implications ran through Thomas’s mind. Most were devastating scenarios.

“I tried to stop him.” Garrett sounded exhausted. “Couldn’t.”

Thomas felt stricken. Suddenly, he didn’t feel safe at all. These stone walls might as well be flimsy paper.

His precautions against a Torth invasion seemed pathetically inadequate. Secret passageways? A standing army? Superluminal communications? Ha. He should have locked himself away in a secret lair off-world. Maybe he should have surrounded himself and Ariock with zombies, the way Garrett kept urging them to do.

Poor Ariock. What had the Torth done to him?

Thomas dared not ask how many allies Ariock had harmed by accident. Funerary processions would come later. But one thing was immediately clear: This attack was not just against Ariock’s forces, but against Ariock’s psyche.

The aftermath would have long lasting effects.

The bottom line was that a Torth super-genius—or maybe a secret coalition of them—had launched a horrific attack. And sure, Thomas had half-expected something like this, but he had failed to predict the specifics of when and how.

He had failed to stop it.

This was on him. The blame. And also the responsibility for setting things right.

“Where are you?” Thomas figured that he ought to set up superluminal trackers for the heroes in the future, so that he’d be able to find them anywhere, on any planet. “Are you injured?”

“I’m near depletion,” Garrett said.

That was bad.

“I left Ariock.” Garrett sounded ashamed. “Maybe Evenjos will be able to stop him, or save him. Let me help you.”

He was offering to save Thomas’s life with the last of his strength.

“Where are you, exactly?” Garrett asked.

Thomas hesitated. Torth must be pouring into the Academy, threatening everyone who worked with him. Shattered equipment could be replaced. But people? No. Friends and colleagues? No. The proud sense of security that his citizens had, living in these seaside mountains? That was being tromped upon.

“Look after Kessa,” Thomas told Garrett. “Keep her safe. And Cherise. And Varktezo, if you can.”

“I need to protect you.” The old man sounded thwarted, no doubt prioritizing the Wisdom of the prophecies. He was obsessed with those prophecies.

Thomas imagined himself protecting his friends. Could he be useful in a war zone? His translucent hoverchair had a top speed which was illegal under Torth rule. Might he be able to speed past hundreds of invading Torth and twist their minds in quick succession?

Could he do so without running into pink inhibitor gas?

Or the insanity gas which had gotten Ariock?

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“What’s the situation in the Academy?” Thomas demanded. “I need intelligence. Where are the Torth forces deployed? What chemical weapons are they using?”

“How should I know?” Garrett sounded grouchy. “I’m not crazy enough to go in the Megacosm right now.”

Thomas had hoped for actionable intelligence. But he would make do.

“You shouldn’t go after them.” Garrett’s voice was adamant. “They’ve been crafty today. You need to stay hidden. Please. I don’t want you to take unnecessary—”

“I’m at full strength,” Thomas interrupted. “It sounds like you’re on the edge of depletion?” Even if Garrett had some juice left, he would lose it in coming to Reject-20. Teleportation was a massive drain on raw power.

Garrett spluttered. “Don’t count me out. I can—”

“Do what I said.” Thomas didn’t care if he sounded commanding. Someone had to be rational and mature. “Beware the insanity gas. Protect our friends. I have a way to detect neurotoxins in the air. I’ll be careful.”

He let Garrett bluster and protest for another second.

Then he said, “Take care,” and ended the call.

Thomas silenced the other dings. He floated alongside the wall, listening with his telepathic sense.

He reached the end of the long passageway without encountering any other minds, unless the negligible synapses of alien rock mites counted. Thomas hesitated to press the activation plate that would rotate the secret passageway exit. His embroidered kaftan was not armor. He had no weapon, other than his mind.

He pressed his forehead against the cold, rough-hewn stone, and listened with all his senses.

Fear.

Thomas sensed the mind of a military-trained nussian. The thorny soldier stood in the utility closet on the far side of the wall, hidden. Terrified. Certain of death.

Well, some risks were worth taking.

Thomas firmed up his resolve and opened the passageway.

The terrified nussian leaped aside and slammed into shelves. Supplies rained down. Thomas ignored that and scanned the soldier’s mind, ascertaining that there was no pink miasma outside.

He checked his wristwatch to be absolutely sure. The faintly glowing readout told him that the air composition was within normal parameters. No neurotoxins nearby.

The soldier stared down at Thomas, emanating a volatile mixture of fear and crazed hope.

“Shh,” Thomas whispered.

He floated out of the secret passageway.

As the wall rotated back into place, silent on its oiled tracks, the thorny soldier seemed torn between a duty to protect Thomas and a desire to hide in the secret passageway. Blood spattered his lower plates. It seemed he had escaped a war zone.

“You’ll be fine here,” Thomas whispered. Having soaked up the soldier’s recent memories, he could guess where the mayhem was. Red Ranks had invaded the lobby of the research annex.

Red Ranks? Those were hardly a threat.

Thomas floated onward, confident. His wristwatch would vibrate in warning if the air exhibited the least hint of becoming toxic.

It was no surprise that the Torth Empire had sent invaders to the research annex. Thomas had become too predictable in his habits. He would need to remedy that.

He rounded corner after corner. Soon he floated towards the massive lobby…

…And into a massacre in progress.

A nussian tried to gallop away on all fours, and bellowed in agony as his lower body exploded in bloody ropes of gore. An injured govki moaned as an ummin dragged her, trying to escape the mayhem. The ummin fell in a wet explosion.

The stench was carnal and fresh.

There were heaps of bodies. Hundreds.

Blood pooled on the floor. Blood painted the walls and reception desk. Blood dripped from orb lights, painting the light red.

Thomas backed away, searching for threats. All he saw were a couple of Red Ranks. They swaggered with so much confidence, they didn’t even wear helmets.

Why had none of the nussian and govki soldiers shot them down?

The few survivors in the lobby moved as if unsure whether or not they could trust their own eyes. They seemed confused about where to place their feet. And they exploded in gore as the Red Ranks walked up behind them and casually shot each one in the back.

They died without even fighting to defend themselves.

Thomas flicked his gaze to his wristwatch. His display showed no problems. No neurotoxin. So why were the people on his side acting intoxicated?

Both Red Ranks strode towards Thomas, and he saw their pink irises. Their armor was misleading. These were Rosies. They had powers. They might be able to infuse their bodies with extra speed and shoot him, or throw grenades, before an ordinary person could even think to react.

But Thomas was sure that he could dodge them using his power to project illusions.

His overclocked brain gave him microsecond advantages. All he had to do was zoom at the nearest threat and twist her mind. That would enable him to start amassing a daisy chain of zombified Torth.

The Conqueror is dead meat, one Rosy Rank thought.

 The Conqueror is Ours, the other silently agreed.

  We—

   —win.

They were beyond Thomas’s range, yet he heard their thoughts.

That ought to be impossible. Was he imagining things?

Worry wormed inside him. Why weren’t these two Rosies fleeing from him? Why did they radiate triumph? They clearly believed that they were about to become immortalized in the Megacosm as the champions who defeated the (former) Conqueror.

While his consciousness struggled to understand the wrongness of this situation, his mind collated clues. Whatever drug or illusion was affecting the aliens did not appear to affect telepaths. That hinted at something specialized. Something tailor-made. It wasn’t affecting the Rosy Ranks, and it wasn’t affecting Thomas.

Why spray the room with something that did not affect Thomas? Something that merely confused soldiers, rather than killing them? It seemed pointless…

…Unless he was only noticing a mere side effect of the drug.

There might be a main purpose that was eluding him. After all, the drug was not setting off any vibrations on his wristwatch sensor.

He was missing something.

The Torth were not acting afraid of Thomas’s mind control power. Was that merely an attempt to psych him out? Or did they have a legitimate reason to be confident? Did it have something to do with…

!!! (Teacher) !!! “Teacher!”

Varktezo skidded into Thomas’s range of telepathy, emanating determination to shoot at Torth. He had grabbed a blaster glove.

But he seemed confused as to where to aim.

Varktezo aimed at one Torth’s head, only to waver and shift his aim elsewhere, as if she had teleported. But she had not. Varktezo was apparently unable to believe his own perceptions.

The pair of Rosy Ranks grinned like twins. Let’s kill the Conqueror.

 Together.

They had closed in on Thomas. They were too close, within his range.

Easy targets for zombification.

Thomas prepared to plunge into an abhorrent Torth mind and twist it.

Varktezo fell on his backside, staring at Thomas. His beak gaped open. His eyes bugged out. “Whoa.”

Thomas helplessly absorbed the ummin’s perceptions. Varktezo was perceiving not just with his eyes, but the way a mind reader would perceive things. Part of Varktezo saw the way Thomas looked. Most of him saw a towering monstrosity that contained hundreds of thousands of lifetimes worth of life experience, snapping with lightning jabs of inspiration, thundering with revelations.

Teacher? Varktezo back-scrabbled. “Teacher?” He was uncertain whether the enormity of thoughts had any relation to the frail boy who guided his experiments in the lab.

Thomas sensed all of that.

Varktezo sensed Thomas sensing it. He stared in awe and terror, feeling as small as someone meeting a god.

That was when Thomas understood the function of the mysterious neurotoxin. It wasn’t a chemical at all. That was why it hadn’t registered as a threat on his sensor. It did not change the air.

It changed brainwaves.

It acted like a tranquility mesh.

Like telepathy.

Thomas wanted time to work through the implications of telepathy gas. But the Rosy Ranks had their blaster gloves readied. Thomas’s capacious mind continued to collect and assess hints, and the final piece of the puzzle slammed into place with breathtaking clarity.

This new gas enhanced telepathy.

Thomas and these Torth were not immune, but since they were already telepathic, they hardly noticed the fact that their thoughts were skating along a dark energy matrix and mushrooming beyond their normal boundaries. They hardly noticed that the four yard range was rendered meaningless.

It was like fog. There was no sharp beam of light. Instead, the light was everywhere.

Thomas overheard the thoughts of people beyond his normal range. Not with exacting precision, but random perceptual data and thoughts drifted here and there, as indirect as echoes. Even non-telepaths could sense the widespread thoughts and perceptions and moods.

And if Thomas twisted a mind?

Everyone in the vicinity would be affected … including Thomas himself.

…

Ooh, one Rosy Rank thought. He gets it.

 He recognizes his Defeat. The other glowed with triumph.

  Sweet Victory is Ours!

   Do We even need to shoot him?

The moment of shock seemed to last forever, although it was only a microsecond.

In that instant, Thomas understood that he was screwed.

He could not brainwash or twist a mind, or he would suffer the effects.

He could not give a pain seizure, or it would be reflected back upon him.

His mushrooming thoughts would give away his location even if he projected an illusion to try to fool their senses.

He could try to flee, but the Rosies had enough power to rope him back.

This new weapon was specifically designed to nullify his unique advantages, in the same way that insanity gas had been designed to defeat Ariock.

Checkmate, little Yellow. He could all but hear the gleeful whisper from his Torth opponents. They weren’t the Upward Governess, but they were the ones who had inherited her scientific research. The Death Architect and the girl Twin wielded double the brain power and social influence that the Upward Governess used to have.

Wildfire was an extracorporeal power. Unlike telepathy, it shouldn’t get reflected back on him. Thomas summoned a fireball and hurled it at the Rosy Ranks.

One of them casually raised her gloved hand and sucked heat out of the fireball. It died in midair.

She thumbed her trigger.

Thomas flashed back to his first day in the Torth Empire, when the Swift Killer had aimed a blaster glove at his face. He had peered into that black aperture and known that his death was imminent. Except it had been postponed.

Til now.

Thomas sent a silent apology to Varktezo, and to anyone else who might overhear his defeat and death. Some Torth super-genius or two had finally outmaneuvered him, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to save his own life. He had put up a good fight—the best fight in galactic history—but he should have anticipated this ending.

No individual could hope to stand against the collective might of the Torth Empire. The Torth were always victorious.

Lightning flashed.

There was a crash of thunder and a smell of ozone. The blast whizzed past Thomas’s head, burning his mangled ear and disabling his earpiece.

Garrett landed out of nowhere, robes billowing, hair and beard flowing. He held a makeshift staff in one hand. When he flicked it, stone pillars cracked and buckled. The Rosy Ranks went flying as if hit by invisible fists.

One of the Rosies slammed against a stone wall with enough force to liquify bones. The other cushioned her landing and backflipped in midair to land near Thomas. She triggered a blast at him.

Her blast should have killed him. Instead, it exploded against an invisible shield of solidified air.

The Rosy spun and force-slammed Garrett against the wall. Thomas could see, now, that Garrett’s armor was dented, and he had a nosebleed. The old man seemed to gather his strength before whipping a miniature shock wave at their attacker.

She aimed another blast at Thomas. The shock wave hit her at the same time, and her blast went wide and slammed into the passageway. Chunks of granite rained onto the inert bodies of victims.

Garrett force-slammed the Rosy against the ceiling. Cracks formed. Blood leaked from the corpse before she fell in a crumpled heap, dead.

“That was amazing,” Thomas said.

Garrett sank to one knee, clinging to his staff for support, wheezing. “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks for saving your ‘I told you so’s’ for later.”

Judging by the ruination of his armor, he’d had a hard day.

Thomas wanted an update about Ariock’s situation on Nuss, but there was no time. The Torth Majority knew his exact location. Garrett seemed entirely depleted. A horde of champions could easily finish both of them right now.

“Ariock and Evenjos are in trouble,” Garrett confessed.

“So are we.” Thomas did not hide the shakiness of his voice. More Torth invaders would show up at any second.

The Torth will have to get past me, first. Varktezo stood with a blaster glove on each hand, radiating determination. He looked ready for anything.