Thomas stood at the head of the War Room. He had called this secret meeting, and now he faced skepticism.

Ariock’s absence was noticeable, his big throne-like chair empty. The group of heroes felt diminished. The fancy chairs were all pushed back from the massive table, empty, except for the seats occupied by Kessa and Cherise. They sat across from each other, looking mystified by the otherwise empty room. War councils usually included a lot of councilors and battle leaders.

Garrett appeared with a pop of air and a scent of ozone. He was in full battle armor, and too irked to take a seat. “This had better be about Ariock. Where is he?”

Evenjos separated from Garrett. At first she was smoke, but she solidified and shook out her purple hair.

“I know how to defeat the remnants of the Torth Empire,” Thomas told them.

He expected a positive reaction. Maybe some fanfare?

Instead, Garrett folded his arms. “Torth are already defeated. I need to be out there, helping our stranded armies.”

Ariock’s absence meant that all of the scheduled mass-teleportations throughout the galaxy were halted. There was chaos.

“Billions of people need healing,” Evenjos added, taking a seat next to Kessa. Her gentle tone was not accusatory. “There are terrorists who are using Ariock’s absence to attack our people.”

“We have literally trillions of fires to put out,” Garrett growled. “So what is this really about?”

Thomas wondered if his outfit made him too easy to dismiss. He wore the plain woolens of a shani day laborer. Hey, it was comfortable, plus he had pockets to rest his hands in. He disliked brocaded formalwear.

“I mean,” Thomas said, seeking a path towards clarification, “I know how we can stop the death cult and their terror attacks.”

That got their attention.

“We can end the Torth,” Thomas said, “for good. We can destroy all of the Death Architect’s resources and force her to halt her plans.”

Garrett’s anger simmered down. “Really?”

Thomas nodded.

“How?” Kessa asked.

“All righty.” Garrett took a seat as readily as a pupil. “You have my attention.”

Thomas took a deep breath. Once he lit this fire, it would burn across the galaxy and supercharge everything. There would be no way to snuff it out.

And he knew that he would have regrets. He would feel the aftermath for the rest of his life, no matter how long or short that life was.

He yearned to discuss his daring plan with Serette and Mondoyo. But the Twins had their own personal concern looming large. Serette was bedridden and Mondoyo was worried sick about her.

So Thomas had thought about it alone all night. For a super-genius, that was equivalent to agonizing over a decision for multiple years. And finally, he had decided to do what Ah Jun had willed to happen through her paintings—including the painting she had deliberately defaced.

“I’ll need your help.” Thomas clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace. “The Torth have a high percentage of brainwashers among them. Five to eight percent, I estimate.”

Cherise looked shocked. Garrett blanched.

“That shouldn’t be a surprise.” Thomas waved dismissively. “We always knew mind control wasn’t unique to just one Torth.” He gestured to himself. “Telepathy is foundational to the Torth Empire, and mind control is just a high magnitude of telepathy. Lots of Torth have the potential. But it’s locked away. The power is dormant inside them.”

Evenjos tapped her jawline, looking thoughtful. “It makes sense. Extracorporeal powers are easy to discover on one’s own, but intracorporeal powers are another matter. Those require some sort of psychological awakening.”

“Thomas’s father had that awakening,” Kessa pointed out.

“It won’t be common,” Thomas assured his friends. “If there were a lot of Torth who could brainwash each other, that would have entered common knowledge in the Death Architect’s Necrocosm, one way or another. Garrett would have learned about it.”

He did not explain that such a power was far more useful when wielded with utter secrecy. His biological father had wisely kept his brainwashing power a secret.

“Is this just conjecture on your part?” Garrett looked suspicious. “How did you come up with that estimate of five to eight percent?”

“I’ve detected the potential locked away inside a lot of Torth,” Thomas admitted. “When I was searching for the hidden danger who turned out to be my biological father, I began to notice that some Torth had extra influence over others. It was extremely subtle. I never would have noticed, except for the fact that I was absorbing tens of thousands of minds in rapid sequence, and they were in a telepathy gas zone. That turned their thoughts into an ambient atmosphere instead of constrained to the four yard radius. I noticed that their moods had an effect on other people’s moods. And none of them were aware of it. I was the only one who noticed.”

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Kessa looked pained, as if she was reevaluating everything in her life. She must be concerned about her lieutenants, wondering how many might be in danger. What if meek penitents could subtly brainwash them?

Garrett swore. “Well, this is disastrous.” He jumped to his feet, pacing with furious fear. “Is there any easy way to tell which ones are dangerous? What do we do? Kill them?”

Thomas raised his voice, wanting to stop Garrett from spiraling into a fear-fueled rampage. “They’re useful. We’re going to make use of them.”

Garrett stopped and stared with incomprehension.

“Allow me to explain.” Thomas forced himself to be patient. If only Ariock were here to take control of the meeting.

“Go on,” Evenjos said.

Thomas gave her a grateful nod. He began to pace in slow, measured strides, not because he felt restless or fearful, but because movement was a method of commanding attention. When he was in motion, people were more likely to listen to what he was saying.

“We have a bunch of clueless brainwashers on our side,” Thomas said. “If we act fast, and in a holistic manner, we can, uh, change the minds of our unrepentant, hardcore enemies.”

Only Kessa seemed to comprehend what Thomas was driving at. Her eyes widened.

“The Death Architect has no idea which of her people are capable of brainwashing,” Thomas said. “She has zero interest in getting to know her own people. That gives our side a distinct advantage.” He indicated himself. “I can very quickly identify fourth and fifth magnitude telepaths.”

Garrett scrunched up his face as if facing a difficult puzzle. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Step one,” Thomas said. “We disperse our own penitent brainwashers into enemy Torth populations. Step two: We gather enemy Torth into the Necrocosm. We make an announcement or we get them riled up. Step three: Our own brainwashers, including me, ascend into the Necrocosm and consensually drill down and lightly brainwash every enemy Torth.”

He wasn’t proud to reveal his plan. He had spent all night trying to justify it on a moral level.

In the final analysis, he figured that Torth who wanted to rob former slaves of freedom did not deserve total freedom themselves.

Still, he worried that he might have misinterpreted that equation. Morality was so slippery, so difficult to evaluate.

“Hold on,” Garrett said. “I thought you couldn’t do that?”

“Brainwash people through the Necrocosm?” Thomas restated his claim for clarity. “I can. I zombified a Servant of All through the Megacosm when the Torth invaded my lab with the pink inhibitor gas. The caveat is that it has to consensual. They have to let me into their minds. That means I’ll have to do it ultra fast, before they realize what I’m up to. That’s why this meeting is secret.” He gestured around. “Our penitent brainwashers will likely need to do it in person to the, uh, victims.”

Garrett sat, looking profoundly uneasy. “The Death Architect will figure out what you’re up to. Won’t she?”

“It doesn’t matter if she does,” Thomas said. “She can’t stop me. I can steal enough social attention away from her, at least for a short time, to do what I need to do.”

Garrett looked deeply thoughtful. No doubt he understood that the Death Architect had a weak grip on her own loyalists. She was too uncaring. Even if she communicated a warning, few of her cultists would heed it in time.

“You want to trigger a mass conversion event.” Cherise’s gaze seemed to drill into Thomas’s soul. “You’re going to brainwash the brainwashers among the Torth, right? Then you’ll use them like tools to turn all the other hardcore Torth into penitents.”

Shocked silence. Everyone was staring at Thomas as if he had sprouted horns.

“Yes.” Thomas hoped his plan wasn’t diabolical. “If my estimates are correct, there are enough Torth brainwashers to go around locally and convert just about every death cultist into a penitent. The only ones who would escape would be those who are utterly isolated.”

No one jumped up to decry his plan, at least.

“Alone,” Thomas went on, “I can only brainwash a limited number of people in one go. And since I’ll be doing it through the Necrocosm, the Torth will eventually go on high alert and reject me. That means I need to focus on a limited number, and let them take it from there. This needs to spread in a chain reaction.”

“And it has to be light brainwashing,” Evenjos said in a tone of realization. “Because anything more entails permanent brain damage, and then the brainwashers could not use their power on anyone else.”

Thomas nodded. “Correct.”

“Light brainwashing,” Garrett stated flatly. “Can you do it?”

“I think so,” Thomas said.

Garrett’s suddenly guarded expression revealed what he thought about that.

“Have you ever done it before?” Evenjos gave him a very sharp, assessing look.

“I’ve experimented on animals.” Thomas tried to shrug away his embarrassment. Why was this so shameful? “I’ve lightly brainwashed snails and crickets. Things like that.”

Kessa gave him a probing look.

Cherise asked him flatly, “Have you ever done it to a person?”

“No!” Thomas said. “Of course not.” He softened his tone, reminding himself that wrong assumptions about him were typical. He did have a lot of nefarious power. He did come across as creepy sometimes. People would jump to conclusions.

“I had to learn my capabilities,” Thomas went, explaining. “And I learned that light brainwashing wears off after a few hours. It’s not permanent. There’s no lasting brain damage. It’s, uh…” He searched for the best way to describe it. “A subtle effect.”

Evenjos nodded in recognition. For a wonder, she didn’t look judgmental. “In my time, fourth magnitude telepaths would illegally help drug addicts to quit their addictions. Or they would influence people to get out of bad habits. Mostly, people pretended not to notice if a black market telepath was operating in their neighborhood. They did more good than harm.”

“Really?” Garrett looked amazed.

“On balance.” Evenjos gave him a look of frustration. “Of course, I was betrayed and stabbed in the back by a fourth magnitude telepath. So I do not have a wonderful view of them.”

Garrett winced.

“Light brainwashing wears off.” Evenjos looked at Thomas, her frown full of misgivings. “So the obedience of all these diehard Torth will only be temporary. What will stop them from reverting to being evil?”

Thomas saw that Kessa and Cherise had responses to that complaint. He let them explain.

“Penitents have laws they must obey,” Kessa said. “Once they kneel and agree to be penitent, they cannot simply stroll away and change their minds. It is a program. They are on a path towards earning redemption.”

“And the Necrocosm will be gone,” Cherise added. “There’s no Megacosm. They have nowhere to go back to.”

Evenjos looked satisfied. “I like that.”

“All right.” Garrett seemed to be running out of complaints. “But do we really want a bunch of subversive Torth embedded in our penitent population?”

“We already have that,” Kessa said. “We have more than twenty-eight trillion penitents. They are not all happy to be where they are.”

Kessa had to deal with rebellious lieutenants and other upstarts, in addition to fending off death cult terrorists. She always had a lot of people to manage.

“Will you attempt to brainwash the Death Architect herself?” Evenjos looked fascinated.

“She’ll likely escape any direct effects,” Thomas admitted. “As soon as she understands what’s happening, she’ll exit the Necrocosm. But if all goes well, she will permanently lose access to all of her minions and assets.” He imagined the little girl stranded in whatever dark lair she had made for herself, unable to call for help. “That might be enough to preclude her from triggering doomsday.”

He had to make this happen quickly.

He hoped the Death Architect did not foresee this future and take precautions.