Torth, in aggregate, were banal.

They watched each other for cues on how to act and what to think. None hid unique ideas. Their secrets, if they had any, were petty and tasteless. Their crude concerns were as basic as a herd of animals.

Was this the alleged master race? These were the superior, godlike beings who had appointed themselves to rule over everybody else?

Huh.

Thomas probed each and every penitent without moving. Mind readers shuffled past his chair, one by one, under threat from the Yeresunsa warriors who stood on the wraparound balcony above. At least none worried about getting zombified. Telepathy gas filled the hall, causing thoughts to echo and spread like underwater music, reducing the chances of any sort of attack. Stranger Danger would be unable to use their power here.

Where are you, Stranger Danger? Thomas wondered between mind probes. I know you’re in My city.

The mind controller did not reveal themself.

On it went. Penitents entered through one huge door and exited through another. The warriors above looked hellishly bored. Since the balcony was above the telepathy gas zone, they were not inundated with (blah) (blah) (blah) Oh Great Mind! or (blah) (blah) (blah) I miss fashion shopping. All they heard was blessed silence.

Morning passed. Then lunchtime.

Everyone had a bit of excitement when one moron decided to attack the Conqueror. Thomas detected the upcoming malice. He scooted backwards, although the four yard range was distorted and augmented, thanks to telepathy gas.

The pain seizure never hit him. Instead, it reflected back upon the attacker. It also scattered into several other penitents who were standing too close. They winced, but the pain was much less severe than it would have been, had it been focused upon a single target. The effect was shared around and thus lessened.

The attacker writhed for a second, full of ??? before he figured out that he had accidentally attacked himself.

So he quit the pain seizure and lunged. He intended to strangle the Conqueror to death like a savage!

“Kill.” Thomas pointed.

Spears hit the attacker at bullet speeds. He died a gruesome, bloody death, impaled by a dozen projectiles.

Thomas had a moment of regret. Perhaps he should have asked the warriors to drag the attacker away, for later use as a zombie? That would have been a more economical use of resources.

Nearby penitents exchanged fearful glances. Oh Great Conqueror! They scrambled to worship him, terrified of being mistaken for enemies.

Thomas decided that instant death was plenty of punishment.

“That wasn’t the mind controller.” He figured that his saviors up on the balcony would want to know. So saying, he got back to work.

Another hundred.

Another thousand.

Another fifty thousand.

More and more and more.

Cringing, whinging thoughts saturated the hall, scattered further than usual because of telepathy gas. It felt like soaking in a cesspit. Thomas wanted to vomit. But he kept working.

“Rekveh.” The premier warrior on the balcony had a kind voice, despite his use of the insulting word for telepaths. “Would you like to take a break? We can give you a meal.”

Oh. Right. It was growing dark outside.

Thomas hardly felt his own body. He was an amalgamation. He had nearly forgotten that some people had to speak out loud, like animals.

“Silence,” Thomas said in a robotic tone.

The premier looked offended.

Thomas belatedly realized that he was expected to behave more like an angel from paradise than a Torth. After all, he was from the same homeworld as the messiah. He had grown up in the same household as Cherise and Vy.

Well. The process of calculating a proper apology seemed more complex than quaternion geometry. Thomas wasn’t going to even attempt it right now. Sure, he was a half-angel, but all the minds he’d absorbed told him that he was actually the sum total of six hundred thousand wretches from a cesspit.

His human self was a long ways away.

The warriors could go ahead and hate him. Whatever. Some of them would hate him no matter what he did or said.

By the time Thomas had thoroughly probed seven hundred thousand minds, he questioned the wisdom of continuing. He could hardly separate his own opinions from the morass. Was he supposed to think critically? He barely remembered how.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He thought of Azhdarchidae, soaring free. Lucky sky croc.

Azhdarchidae had learned how to fend for himself, especially during Thomas’s long work hours, but he returned to his roost atop the Dragon Tower every night. Thomas tried to visit him every morning. Ironically, his pet yielded more fruitful information than many hundreds of thousands of penitents. The sky croc’s keen observation skills gave Thomas a daily overview of what was happening around his city. He saw the fishing boats and the harbor, the teleportation flats, the rural spaceport with its makeshift launchpads, agricultural fields, the zombie pens, soldier training grounds, and the dumps where most penitents lived.

Dinnertime passed. Thomas hardly noticed.

Nror, his assistant, placed a protein shake in his cupholder. Thomas took small sips as he worked. He had to forego his daily physical therapy regimen. He needed to find Stranger Danger before the villain could strike again.

Ariock was depending on his success.

The whole city was depending on him. Plus all of his territories. His people.

Besides, he (was a penitent) had promised to obey Garrett Dovanack. He had duties. He dared not shrug them off. He would not make himself into a liar.

Another ten thousand. Another twenty thousand.

Thomas felt his own personality losing coherence, subsumed by hundreds of thousands of others. He struggled to remain himself amidst other people’s personalities.

He was burning out.

His mental capacity seemed infinite in comparison to the capacity of ordinary minds, but perhaps it was not infinite. He actually might have a limit.

A warrior leader spoke. Nror said something. Thomas could not even spare the bandwidth to translate their sounds.

Another five hundred hyper-alert telepaths. Another five hundred.

Deep down, Thomas knew that stopping would be the wise decision. The healthy choice.

Were some of these former Torth a little bit different from others? Was he imagining it?

The subtly different ones would have escaped his notice under normal circumstances. They would not have stood out in the Megacosm. Thomas could hardly even pinpoint what made the different ones different.

He pondered that question in the tiny corner of his mind that was still sane.

The penitents were too terrified to dig into his private musings. They were unaware that he had picked up something unusual.

The rarities stood out in a room full of telepathy gas, where thoughts bounced around, diffuse. Their thoughts stuck to other minds. They seemed more influential than others, in a weird, subtle way.

Only a super-genius would have noticed such a subtle distinction, and only one who was saturated with data and still paying attention.

Thomas paused on the next rarity he came across.

She stared back at him with wide-set yellow eyes. Please, great Conqueror, I swear, I am innocent. She quivered with typical fear and standard thoughts. I will obey You in all things! I promise!

Sincerity emanated from her. It echoed in the telepathy gas zone, as moods tended to do. Her sincerity bounced off other minds.

But her influence was strange. Nearby penitents felt more sincere, more scared. Just like her.

It was not a power. But it might be a … well, a something.

A potentiality?

Thomas flicked his fingers, dismissing the terrified penitent. She slunk away, allowing the next penitent to step into her place.

Thomas took the precaution of screening his inner thoughts with tornado-like flurries of data. What made the influential ones different? Could they be Yeresunsa?

Well, all Torth were Yeresunsa, technically.

Third magnitude telepathy was a somatic power, which meant one did not need an outsized sphere of influence or extra raw strength in order to use it. Telepathy was as intrinsic as breathing. Telepaths used their ability no matter what, whether they were on the inhibitor or not, whether they were depleted or not.

The ones with extra influence … perhaps they were stronger telepaths?

Their extra influence was only detectable with telepathy gas, echoing and reflecting off other minds. It was the same way that Thomas’s mind control power would echo and reflect back upon him, should he be suicidal enough to use it within an artificial telepathy zone.

Fourth magnitude telepaths, Thomas realized with a chill.

Their memories held no trace of recognition that they were capable of subtly brainwashing people.

Of course not. They had never been traumatized enough to snap into survival mode, the way Thomas had when his abusive foster father assaulted him in a burning house. Most of their lives were spent in luxury.

Now?

They were a gigantic bomb just waiting for a trauma trigger.

Thomas backed away from the endless chain of penitents, feeling overwhelmed. Eight hundred thousand minds in one sitting was too much, even for him. He could not go on. He needed fresh air.

Especially now that he knew he was outmatched.

The clueless brainwashers were fewer than one in a thousand. Thomas never would have noticed them if he had stopped after a thousand minds, the way he usually did. But after a hundred thousand … after eight hundred thousand…

Statistically, they seemed to comprise about 0.10% of the ordinary Torth population.

If they were, indeed, fourth magnitude telepaths, they would naturally be more common among Rosy Ranks and Servants of All.

Altogether, there must be billions of them in the Torth Empire.

Billions.

Thomas sped into the cold night air, hyperventilating. The Torth Empire had thirty-eight billion latent brainwashers.

In the wrong hands, that resource could be transformed into a universe-ending calamity. Once the Death Architect realized what a gold mine she was sitting on…

Oh, but she probably realized it already.

She just needed to unearth it.

Everyone knew, by now, that trauma was the key to unlocking powers. The Death Architect must yearn to torture Servants or Rosies, to traumatize them in order to spark their buried, latent brainwashing powers. What held her back?

Just popular opinion.

She probably felt a bit too insecure on her metaphorical galactic throne to torture her most powerful underlings. Maybe she was engineering a reason to do so?

All she needed was an excuse.

Thomas closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing. He felt defeated. Even with all of his brains, he could never outfox more than thirty-eight billion brainwashers. Especially when they got led by an enemy super-genius.

Unless…

Holy crap.

Unless Thomas flipped the potentiality to his own advantage.

“Are you okay, rekveh?” a kindly premier warrior called to him.

Thomas reexamined his idea.

He tested out mad hypotheses and extrapolated possibilities. He gawked at ramifications. This was incredible.

It could blow up in his face and doom the universe.

His timing would need to be perfect, if he decided to do it. This was not something to try casually. He would need to do a lot more scheming, to shore up holes, and to seal away flaws. All of his friends would need to be on board. And if the Death Architect anticipated his plan? Even at the last microsecond?

It was an enormous risk.

The whole mad idea should be a last resort solution. But if it worked…

The Torth Empire would become history.

“Rekveh?” The premier, Boryuchal, sounded concerned. “Do you need a nurse? I am calling for help.”

Thomas tried to reply. All that came out was an embarrassing squeak.

“Nope.” He cleared his throat to reestablish his speaking voice. “I’m fine. I’m done for tonight.”

With that, Thomas floated down the road, leaving a retinue of warriors to scramble after him. At a respectful distance, of course.

Soldiers would clear out the assembly hall and prepare it for Thomas’s next visit tomorrow morning.

He buried his idea beneath the many layers of his consciousness. After all, one never knew when Garrett or some other mind reader would show up.

He would sleep alone, as usual.

Alone except for the multitudes of screaming memories weighing upon his soul. And an unfurling map of future possibilities, as complex as the neural pathways in his brain.