Tweak

Shin settled at the desk as Ash and Layaent sat on the bed. They would be able to hear everything Mally said but Mally wouldn’t be able to see them. As they sat and waited for the call, Shin looked through the emails sent to him and responded to a few for work. One popped in from Ahta, saying that it would take longer than she thought to go through the power division. Apparently everyone described the display entirely differently. From tall to short, male to female, young to old. Shin shared the information but really, it made sense.

A power user who was also a thief wouldn’t want anyone to be able to point a finger at them and actually be able to describe them.

A phone call popped up on Shin’s screen and Shin answered it. On the other end was Evera and a very tired looking young woman. More a child than a woman, her hair was thick, a wild mass about her head and her eyes were brown. There was nothing out of the ordinary about her, she was of average build and height for her age and gender.

“Mally, this is Shin, Shin, this is Mally.”

“Hello Mally.”

“He-” Mally yawned mightily, “llo.” she rubbed her eyes and grumbled about wanting a snack.

“Mally, I’m calling about some display work you did for a museum recently. About two weeks ago?”

Mally grumbled about wanting a snack until Evera sighed and excused herself. It was only then that Mally sat in Evera’s chair and faced the camera.

“I’ve never met you before, Shin, or Ash or Layaent. Hello you two, look. Shin. I’ve got a pretty sweet deal going on here and just by contacting me, I’ve got enough information to make you regret screwing it up for me.”

“This conversation is-”

“Not,” Mally shook her head, “being recorded. Look, I’ve sort of been not,” she looked around her, “going. I’ve. Been sending someone else in my place.”

“Where have you been going when you’re lent out?” Layaent growled, walking into view of the camera, “and better yet, who have you been sending in your place?”

“I’m not telling you,” Mally snapped, “so you can steal her away from me.”

“Mally,” Shin said, holding up his right hand, “she and I have some business to discuss.”

Mally’s eyes locked on the ring immediately, “I. Didn’t see that.”

“He’s protected,” Ash said from his place on the bed, “because of the ring.”

“Oh?” Mally’s eyes narrowed, “why are you wearing that, what’s your business with her?”

“She stole the ring and-” Shin stopped as Ash slipped up beside him.

“She violated Shin’s mind and the minds of ten or fifteen others that we can trace her back to, and that‘s just in the city alone,” Ash growled, “she made Shin put on the ring then came looking for it, we’re all pretty certain she’s twenty-five or so.”

Mally made a face, “she’s not twenty-five, she’s thirty-nine.”

“Ah!” Layaent said quickly, “she’s the previous generation tweaker… wait, how-”

“She’s been flipped on, I was supposed to be flipped off. She taught me everything I know and she wanted to get out some but the company managed to convince the government to let them keep her. So she never gets out. I just,” Mally shrugged, “let people think that she was me. It’s not my fault if no one knows the difference and the ones who notice the difference just think it’s me playing tricks on them.”

“I’m sorry, but why is she thirty-nine?” Ash asked, “generations are like fifty years difference.”

“Corporations use commoner years,” Layaent muttered in response, “So every twenty-five years they can try again. Where is she now?”

“I don’t know,” Mally shrugged, “she’s still on loan to the museum.”

“She escaped the display, replaced herself with someone else and that display died,” Layaent said, “the museum is currently petitioning for a new display.”

Mally let out a line of cursing that was so colourful, it made Layaent blush, “I’m in trouble.” she looked around her and then muttered something under her breath. She sighed, “I’ll find her and find out what she wanted with the ring.”

“Mally,” Layaent said, “what’s your IQ?”

“Two hundred and eighty,” Mally looked over her shoulder, “Evera is bringing the guards back with her, I’m guessing they heard about the investigation and have put two and four together. If you’ll excuse me, I now have to escape. You ruined my good thing.” She jabbed a finger at the camera, “After I find her and deal with her, I’m coming for your asses. You owe me. Big time.”

Mally jabbed the button, shutting off the camera and ending the call. Shin looked at Layaent and then to Ash.

“I’m,” he said, “confused,” he looked back to Ash, “Mally was using the previous generation person, who she wouldn’t name.” he looked at Layaent, “to replace herself so she could laze about all day?”

“If she’s telling the truth,” Layaent muttered, “they really shouldn’t have made her so smart. Though I suppose they figured they had a very un-powered person.”

“But if she’s so smart and powerful,” Shin said, holding up a finger to indicate his point, “why can’t she just wipe their memories the way the other one does to people and then continue on with her life as if nothing happened?”

Ash and Layaent were quiet for a long moment.

“You know,” Ash muttered, “she, the other one, has only really affected third and tenth generations. I’ll. Go find Bri and talk to her about it, maybe she had a lead or the new information will somehow make sense to her.”

“I.” Layaent growled, “will go talk to Bri. Have to explain to her that someone went searching for information after we told her no one was, thanks Shin. Ash, stay here and keep him safe, would you?”

“I just thought if I could find out who she is I could find out why she wanted the ring or maybe even her source of information for the ring,” Shin protested, “with either of those things, maybe I could get the damned thing off and we could be done with it all.”

“You want it off?” Layaent asked.

“It’s useless to me, so why would I want to keep it on?” Shin said in response.

“Because it keeps your power from being noticed,” Ash growled, “you don’t register in my senses as a user, thus if anyone else decides to inspect you or investigate you for being a power user, they see nothing. Can you use power with it on?”

“I’ve… not even tried,” Shin muttered, it had never occurred to him to use his powers. Normally speaking, when people were around him, he tried very hard to keep his powers from being noticed. It was when he was by himself or amongst commoners when he used his powers. Most of his energy was poured into keeping himself from being noticed, “my capabilities aren’t really for. Fighting or.”

“What do you use your powers for?” Layaent asked, “what can you use power for?”

“Lots of things,” Ash murmured, “but power users only share such things with other power users, Layaent, do you mind leaving? Shin and I will. Spend some time seeing what he can do around the ring and maybe that will, you know, cause a reaction in the ring.”

Layaent smiled, “fine, I can take a hint when I’m given one.”

***

It was not a hint, but it got Layaent out of the room. The problem with teaching someone to use power was that it could not be taught with words alone. One could learn through stories and verbal words but there was always something missing, the order of things was backwards and…

“How did you learn to use your powers the way you have used your powers?” Ash asked Shin, settling on the bed as Shin closed his laptop.

The young man shrugged, “Meshnan used to tell me stories about some lover of hers and he had power. So I just… I don’t know, translated from his mind to mind kind of thing. What’s the big secret about power use, you move stuff around, you control peoples’ minds.”

“Everyone has the same powers, that’s true,” Ash said, “but some are stronger in some areas than others. I’m better at killing than I am at healing or even communication. I can’t read your thoughts but I can translate those thoughts into emotions, which allow me to judge your state of mind. If you are a power user, and not wearing the ring, in a state of duress or distracted, say two officers are questioning you and getting you riled up, I can walk through your mind and pick out information, but that’s only under duress and the person has to have,” Ash paused, “less power than me.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Shin muttered.

Ash reached for Shin’s mind and met nothing. It wasn’t like meeting the mind of someone who was blocking him or even the mind of a commoner without power. Shin didn’t even give off emotion, there was no mental sense of Ash’s that could pick up Shin’s mind or body. Even though Ash was doing the equivalent of mentally hailing Shin, with a megaphone, Shin didn’t react or show any outward sign of having heard Ash.

Which meant the traditional way of teaching Shin to use his powers was out of the question.

“To teach power, requires a mind to mind touch, the words coming out of my mouth explain only part of it. It’s like,” Ash looked down at his hands and set them into his lap, “it’s like how everyone else speaks with their hands.”

“Oh,” it seemed to settle in then.

“It’s not that you have to learn how to do it, Shin,” Ash murmured, “touching mind to mind, once you do that, there is no language barrier, despite our genetic material being so different, once we’re inside each others’ minds, we think in the same way, both of us would understand what is going on. The ones good at communicating, really good, can transcend the distance between species. They can talk to dogs or cats, fish or even the short people. If you can put your mind into the mind of a short person.”

“So…”

“I can’t see into your mind. I think it’s because of the ring. Come sit on the bed,” Ash patted the bed.

Shin sighed and moved from the chair, to the bed. He settled beside Ash and looked like he expected Ash to try something. Ash settled into place and let down his defences. The entire house around him was alive with a multitude of thoughts. He had heard of some who had learned to open themselves to a small area, open their senses to one person even. But Ash couldn’t do that, so he had every stray thought of everyone in the estate. A few were better guarded than others, but for the most part, there were hundreds of voices suddenly whispering to Ash.

“Try touching my mind,” Ash murmured, “have you-”

Something dark and untouchable swept through Ash, shattering the voices and scattering them to the winds. Ash reached for that thing, knowing it was Shin by the nothingness that it consisted of. Dark wings spread out, Shin swooped through Ash like a bird of prey searching for a mouse. The young man let out a squawk of annoyance and withdrew.

Ash gasped in and opened his eyes, slamming his boundaries back up.

“It didn’t work,” Shin grumbled.

“No,” Ash said, his voice sounding hollowed out, “that definitely worked. I was aware of you swooping through. Like. Remember that night we slept on the rock by the fire pit?”

“Yes,” Shin nodded.

“And we were looking up and the stars would suddenly disappear and then reappear and we knew bats were passing overhead?”

“I kept wondering why they didn’t eat us,” Shin muttered.

“You’re like the bat against the night sky. I can tell you’re there because you passed over the stars and blotted out their light as you moved. I don’t think you’re blocked off entirely, I mean, obviously you can still use power to some extent.”

“Is it the ring, or is it me?”

“Did you ever connect with someone? I mean, before you put the ring on?” Ash said.

Shin frowned, and looked away, thinking. There was a long moment of silence before Shin said, “there is one person who might know.”

“Good, are they still alive?” Ash asked.

“For the moment,” Shin murmured, “however, once Mally gets her hands on… her… she might not be alive for very long.”

“Eh?” Ash didn’t understand, he was confused. When it finally dawned on him he groaned, “the thief touched your mind? Of course it would be her. Well, let’s have you try and move,” Ash leaned to the nightstand and opened the drawer there. Inside were toys, not children’s toys but adult toys. He closed the drawer quickly and straightened. He cleared his throat and said, “do you have something small…” he winced at the word, “and lightweight,” again, a wince, “that we could use.”

Terrible, horrible wording. Shin’s eyes were locked on the nightstand drawer for a very long moment. By the time the young man turned his attention back to Ash, he had gotten the embarrassment under control.

“Uhm,” Shin slid off the bed and took a pen from his desk, the returned, setting the pen between them.

Ash went bright red. Perhaps Shin wasn’t aware that the pen was a phallic symbol.

“Try moving it.”

“Moving it. With my mind?” Shin asked, looking at the pen.

It lifted in the air and then floated gently back to the bed when Shin looked from the pen and to Ash. Chewing the inside of his mouth, Ash frowned at the pen.

“How hard was that?”

“Easy as thinking,” Shin said, looking thoroughly disturbed, “it’s not supposed to be that easy, is it? It’s supposed to be harder?”

“Some things come easy as breathing, but learning is difficult. Again,” Ash motioned to the ring, “the Emperor is said to have put all of his power into the ring and yet the ring somehow amplified his actual powers. Try. Turning on the television.”

“The what?”

Ash motioned to the flat screen sitting on the wall across from the bed, “the television.”

“That’s not a television,” Shin said, looking over his shoulder and then back to Ash, “that’s the emergency broadcast system. If something happens in commoner news or the head of household suddenly dies, you know, emergency things. Every screen in the house goes off and the oldest gather to do their thing.”

“Oh. Is there anything you can turn on over-” music began playing, “there, you did that, right?”

“Yes,” Shin said as the music lowered and switched to classical, “this power thing is easy. But I couldn’t do that before, I’ve been trying to turn the music player on with power for years. Just like I can’t turn on or off the lights. That’s the ring.”

“Good to know, at the very least, we now have a starting point,” Ash said, “power can do a variety of things and everyone can use their powers to do the same things. I can turn on the music player, but it takes more effort on my part. Before you had the ring, it took so much effort that you couldn’t see a change.”

“What can power users do?”

“Attack, make shields, you can learn to make things explode. Don’t!” Ash held up his hands before Shin could even think the idea, “try it. The Emperor was well known for his defensive power use. He could shield his entire capital city. He moved tracks of land and helped build his own palace by moving the blocks that would have taken hundreds of slaves to move. But he only went on the offensive once.”

“The battle that unified the city states under his flag. His enemy stood against him and killed his only son, mutilated the body and generally disrespected every tradition of the Emperor’s people. History is a bit confusing but myth says the Emperor made the army vanish.”

“That’s why people are looking for his palace,” Ash said in response, “to take the treasures and to look at the battlefield. But that’s way up north by the mountains that are always locked in ice. Or way down south and caught in the wilds. Depending on who you speak to. It’s like a needle in a haystack.

“But power can be used in a variety of ways, is the point. Just because I’m good at killing things or causing damage with my power, doesn’t mean I can’t become defensive later on. Even though I’m destructive in power, doesn’t mean that my personality is a reflection of my power or my power a reflection of my personality.”

“Maybe it is,” Shin murmured, “maybe you’re destructive because you want to be protective.”

“It’s an ongoing debate, let’s leave it at that,” Ash muttered.

He had had that exact debate with his father. And his mother. And several aunts and uncles. The cause of power and the strengths and weaknesses that every power user had, was up for constant debate. Just because Gomesh Genetics had found a way to turn on the power gene did not mean that they could control those with power. Giving an unborn person power was not the same as dictating what that power could or would be used for.

Genetics could shut off the triggers that would more likely result in schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorders and epilepsy but couldn’t get rid of kleptomania. Murders, while rarer amongst genetic families, still happened, abuse against breeding partners happened. There were some things that, despite their best intentions, genetic scientists could not fix.

“Do you ever get headaches from using your power?” Shin asked.

“Why? Do you have one now?” Ash asked, concerned. It happened, it could happen, use too much power and one’s head got full of cotton, like working too long at one problem. But with the ring, Shin shouldn’t really suffer that effect.

“No, not now, but before I had the ring, sometimes I’d get headaches.”

“Oh, yes, it’s a common side effect of power user,” Ash murmured, “fatigue, nausea, seeming problems concentrating. These are all things that happen to power users. But these are also common symptoms of any number of sicknesses and diseases. Those who use power can be picked out as being too imaginative, too emotional, too sensitive to the world. Runts and cases of nature, well they tend to develop powers which has drawn the debate to the idea that power is developed to compensate, a survival instinct that is thrust out of the body.”

“Wait. What?”

“Power is theorized to be a survival instinct thrust out of the body.”

“No, the people who are more likely to have power. They’re oversensitive, over emotional, imaginative, runts and cases of nature?” Shin asked, frowning, he shook his head, “that. That can’t be right.”

“Why not?”

“Because. That set of criteria is applied to a very different aspect of people.”

There was really only one other type of people Ash knew of, “wilds people?”

“No,” Shin was poor at lying, his over emphasis in his facial expression told Ash that he was lying even before the forced tone registered in Ash’s mind, “of course not, that’s ridiculous.”

Why would those with power go into the wilds? Life was more difficult for those with power, that was true. There were stricter rules and laws and the punishment for disobedience was severe. Could it have been that those with power longed for freedom and so they fled their own families and took up residence in the wilds?

Was that an option?

He could just leave one day, walk into the wilds and take up a life away from civilization. With no brand to wear because of his power and where no one would look down on him because he used power. Ash’s heart skipped a beat at the idea.

“Shin, do you want to be branded?”

“No,” Shin shook his head, “that’s why I’ve been trying to hide it for so long. Not bad enough being the runt, but I’m also a power user as well. That would just be a terrible life to live. If there was anyway for me to live, that I didn’t have to be branded, I would go that way. Probably. I have power and I serve my family, so what? I’ve never hurt someone with it before and if the government didn’t impose such strict laws on power users we wouldn’t hide so much. Maybe more people would have power because they wouldn’t fear it. Power users could freely breed and if everyone had power everyone would be on equal ground.”

“If everyone had power it would be chaos,” Ash said.

“Why would it have to be chaos? You and I have power, we are not plotting revenge or anything at all. We are sitting here, speaking out loud and interacting with reality. If there were a group of power users in a room, who is to say that every one of them would attack everyone else? Who’s to say that they would even be able to do that. If I attacked you, would you not have a defence against ones like me?”

“I do, yes, you can’t hurt me, not really.” Ash murmured, “just like it’s harder for an average power user to get inside my head. Because I can keep them out.”

“So you and Mally meet on the battle field, you look each other in the eye and who wins?”

Ash considered this for a long moment, “it’s luck of the draw there.”

“What if Mally had a sword and you didn’t?”

“Mally would probably win unless I got the sword out of her hands.”

“You and Mally meet on a field with power and sword in hand, who wins?”

“Ah, I would,” Ash murmured, “of course, we’re assuming Mally doesn’t know how to crack a mind open like a plemmer does a nut shell. But barring that, if two power users met in a fight, the one more likely to win is the one armed and knowing how to use their weapons.”

“Can a power user stop metal?” Shin asked.

“Not star metal,” Ash said, scratching the side of his face, “not, according to myth anyhow. But at the same time, star metal, in the hands of a power user amplifies their power. You can’t shoot a power user with a star metal bullet. For one, it’s costly as could be, and for two, if it’s not a through and through, it stays inside them.”

“Which amplifies their power.”

“Exactly,” Ash said, “some few power users have been known to manipulate flesh, they learn to damage flesh and then somehow reverse the process, becoming healers. The Emperor’s sister was like that and the ring,” Ash pointed to the metal band on Shin’s finger, “is said to have done something similar for the Emperor, but that didn’t save him when his heir took his head. And there’s no record of the Emperor surviving a lethal blow after his sister died. If you shoot one of these with a star metal bullet then you’re really, pardon my language, fucked.”

“But there aren’t any around, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Ash looked at Shin. He pressed his lips together and waited an entire minute, hoping Shin would put two and two together. The young man didn’t seem to comprehend what Ash was trying to get at, not at all.

“Shin.”

“What?” Shin asked, blushing just slightly.

“You could probably heal.”

“No I can’t!” Shin protested, “that’s crazy talk. You said yourself, only a few people can heal.”

“But healing is an aspect of power, anyone with power can heal, if they put in enough effort. Seems like the ring removes the effort part, therefore, you can heal.”

“That’s like saying power can make you a god if you think hard enough and you have the ring, therefore you’re a god,” Shin snorted, laughing nervously.

Ash just looked at Shin, the young man ended up choking on his own laughter.

“That’s not funny!” Shin said quickly, “not funny at all, and it’s a good and quick way to get yourself killed by God, she doesn’t like it when people mock her or worship false idols you know.”

“Well, maybe not an actual god. But if you went to the short people in the wilds and could float things, light fires with your mind, heal the people. What would you be?”

“If they have no power? Fine,” Shin sighed, “then I’d be a god, but it doesn’t actually make me a god, I would only be a god to them and that’s. That’s just silly nonsense.”

“Not nonsense, we need something to believe in. Some commoners think genetics are gods. Some other commoners think power users are gods, don’t even have to be a strong power user, if you have power, you’re a god.

“But the common belief isn’t always right. Just because a majority of the people say that power users are evil and need to be controlled doesn’t mean that power users are evil, it just means that a majority of people haven’t known power users one on one or have been the unfortunate victims of a few bad seeds.

“With that ring, you could do anything you want to do. So the real question is. What do you want to do?”



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