Chapter 25

Posted: October 11, 2006 - 08:36:57 pm

I discovered an interesting fact. The United States Department of the Interior had a bunch of money they were giving away for 'urban renewal'. I had written the Chinese embassy. I sent them a thank you. I had said that I was seriously considering their kind offer, as was the mayor.

I had learned the mayor had been trying to point me in this direction the whole time. I had misunderstood what he was saying. Well, he should have been more 'up front' with what he wanted. I would have climbed onboard right away, had he been truthful. We repaired the rift between us with some very plain and blunt talking, and we moved on from there. It was he who told me about the Department of Interior.

I looked into it and discovered I stood a good chance of getting a grant from them, for the bridge that the town needed. All I needed to do, was to file with the Department. I would need to include who would benefit, and a few other items. As long as I was not the only person being served, we stood a good chance at getting a bridge. So, I let the wheels grind. Shortly thereafter, a guy showed up from the D.O.I. to look things over.

He went out to the site of the fallen bridge, and looked over the current way we had into and out of the town now. Then he looked at the town itself. The he talked to town's people, and checked out my factory. He then asked me how much I stood to lose if this bridge didn't go in, and why I had not built my factory elsewhere.

I explained that firstly, I wanted the peace and quiet I had found in this town. Secondly, I said that my research had revealed that being the major employer in a small town, would tend to supply me with loyal employees. I pointed out that I wanted to stay in business a long time. Loyal employees were a key towards that goal. Thusly I knew that I needed the town. I also said that I thought the town needed my factory, simply to survive. I concluded by telling him I viewed my relationship with the town, as a "win/win" situation.

After that, he left. He said that his office would be in touch.

While waiting for that decision we held off on issuing any publicity, ourselves.

The national and international press, however, were already onto this story. It was too profitable to them, for them to let go of it. The story 'took on a life of its own', as the saying goes. Other horror stories of misspent tax money, and 'things slipping through the cracks', were brought to light. Ours wasn't the only little corner of the USA to have problems.

Public officials were getting placed on the rack, almost everywhere. It nearly became a new 'national pass time'.

Needless to say, there were a lot of unhappy politicians whose favorite pork barrel projects were being outed, left and right. This is not to say that the funding had been stopped. Oh no, not at all! It was simply that now that the public knew about these 'pork' projects, the funding for them had to be more effectively hidden.

One of the things I had submitted to the Department of the Interior, had been the projected costs for the bridge. I received word very quickly indeed, that my petition had been approved. We now had more than enough money, even to fund bid number two.

When the town heard about this, they went wild! There was an impromptu party, as most of the town's people drove or walked to my factory. They set up folding "card" tables in the parking lot, and a sort of picnic happened. The total spontaneity shocked me. I had truly underestimated the regard the townspeople held for me.

I was stunned when I went out to see what the commotion was about. I mean, we had only heard about the DoI's good news a couple of hours earlier. Yet here was a goodly portion of the town, creating a party in celebration!

I... I... was cheered by the crowd when I came out. It was embarrassing, to say the least. No one had ever cheered for me before, not even during a high school sports event.

There were speeches given. People spoke of the history of the town. Everyone seemed pleased to have me in their town.

I mean, they seemed really pleased! Even over and above the money I was bringing in. I was a part of this town, now. I was accepted by all.

Actually, it felt incredibly good to be accepted.

With the bridge problem resolved, work permits were filed with the state. The state was notified of the type and load capacity of bridge that would be built, and everything associated with it. They sent their congratulations on acquiring the funding. In the same letter, they sent a list of safety requirements to make sure the bridge would meet specs. Typical.

The company building the bridge told us not to worry, they had been dealing with government bureaucrats for a number of years. We would have a strong, solid two-lane bridge... with a pedestrian walkway... quicker than we could believe.

They got started early the next week, as their equipment started arriving. They actually had to delay, and wait for the state to finish clearing away the old bridge. They offered to clear it for the state, at a spec cost, but the state said 'no'. They had a company that would do that (truthful read: 'Had been grossly overpaid to do that, and were supplying kickbacks').

In the meantime, I turned over all relevant contact material to the mayor and his office. I became the contact point for the bridge builders. Great thing, this 'delegation of authority', eh?

In order not to seem vindictive (and to get out of the public spotlight), the state came in quickly. They had the remainder of the old bridge down in an amazingly short period of time. Two weeks after we had notified the state of our willingness to construct the new bridge, they had removed the old one, totally.

In the meantime, waiting for the state had given our bridge builders time to start getting materials on site. They had a nice little stockpile of materials at the ready, for when they were cleared to start working. Everything had to be shipped in, of course, and that took time. But, with the stockpile of items at the ready, they would not fall far behind schedule, it seemed.

In the meantime, Talent Inc. was holding its meetings at a twice a month rate. The new Director was my Brenda, so we held meetings at my place. Tom transported everyone who was out of town or not close enough to drive.

'Handy person, is my half brother Tom, ' I thought with a wide grin.

Of all the things that had happened, the best was that the computer had identified another talent. He was a telepath. But, when we approached him, he was not receptive to us at all. A true telepath would have been a veritable boon to our group. But this guy was an embittered young man. It was because he could see the real thoughts behind the words, that he had trouble dealing with people.

It seemed he was not at all averse to invading the minds of those around him. He never had liked the nasty, mean spirited, and cruel thoughts behind some of the decisions that had affected his life, to date.

This had served to make him a bitter person. He had been smart enough not to let on about his Talent, but that also meant keeping quiet about knowing the real reasons behind the things that were decided about and for him.

He had made the mistake of telling his mother and father that he 'heard' voices 'speaking', when he was about twelve. This meant a trip to several doctors, particularly psychiatrists. They quickly put him on several different medications to help relieve his 'problem'.

The meds did work, to some extant... That is, he learned a valuable lesson from them.

His mental state was constantly being evaluated. Once he cleared his mind from the effects of the medications, he was able to listen to the minds of the 'doctors'. He would answer in such a way as to give the doctors satisfaction that they had found the correct treatment for his 'problem'.

Of course, in today's society, when filling out a job application, no one wanted to take a chance on a nut who heard voices. It was hard for him to get a good job. After all, there were places on the application that had to be filled out about medical problems, as well as the 'were you ever arrested and convicted of anything' questions.

In school, it got around that he was a 'nut case'. He was constantly teased and ostracized by the other kids. All this made him a very bitter, very angry person.

His ability was untrained. It was line of sight only, and even then only with those in his general vicinity. He had been amazed when he had tried to read Tom. Tom had been through training to block that type of access, as had we all.

Unfortunately, since we could block him out totally, he didn't trust us. He had developed a very deep paranoia. He didn't trust anyone he couldn't read right from the start. I felt really sorry for the guy. He had been treated so badly, that he now perceived everyone as a probable enemy, rather than as a possible friend.

I was able to face the fact that my friends were not always pleased with my actions, but that worked both ways. I think I was glad I could not read minds, actually. This guy was skating on thin ice, as it was. And it was all due to his ability. He was on the edge of going truly insane. We didn't really want him, after all of his negative attitudes had come to light. At least, I didn't.

"You have to be careful of getting locked into a specific thought, Scott," Brenda chided me at the meeting.

"Yes. Our guys can train him to get better range and to adjust the way he thinks. But as he is right now, he is not an asset. It's a shame, really. A telepath, in a world that does not believe in his ability, is always marked as psychotic in some way, when they admit to hearing voices," Tom responded sadly.

"Think about it, Scott," Courtney demanded. "Would he be accepted with open arms if he proved that he could really and truly read someone's mind?

"No!

"He would be quickly killed.

"Even 'ordinary' people would seek to kill him.

"What would YOU feel about someone who could read every thought you had?

"The fear and hate mongers would have to stand in line to kill him.

"If he survived at all, the government would demand either total control of him, or his death! No matter which way he turns, his life expectancy is extremely limited," Courtney concluded.

"No one wants their real inner thoughts revealed. We all have secret thoughts. Everyone has. We would all be embarrassed to have them revealed to others. That's the fear, the total paranoia that a telepath brings. The government would see him as a huge giant security risk. Even if he was firmly in their control, he would be MUCH easier to 'handle', if he was dead," Tom added.

Unfortunately, once this guy Nathan McDaniel found people who knew him for what he was, he got scared. To add insult to injury, he couldn't read us. We watched him, and it was only Tom's quick intervention that headed off some serious problems for a couple of us.

He was very good at insinuation thought into third parties. It was how he 'paid back' people who had been screwing him over for the last ten years. He had also become adept at causing trouble for others. He had learned that staying in the background, even when other lives were deeply affected by his actions, kept him safe.

Nathan was a dangerous and unstable person. He might become someone we would have to deal with. I was hoping it could be handled discretely. This was something that our group had tacitly assumed responsibilities for, and it was the first time we might have to take an adverse action against someone who could have been one of the group.

We could not ignore him. He was not going to 'go away'. One of the things he could do, as a telepath, was to implant ideas and information into someone's mind. It was a form of external control, and another dangerous off shoot of his telepathic ability. Not all telepaths had this ability we later learned, but he did. This made him very dangerous indeed.

We had kicked around some ideas as to what to do, but unfortunately all we could come up with, was not close to a satisfactory ending. All our ideas had to do with imprisoning or killing another human being, because we couldn't convince or control him.

This made me start thinking of who was right, and who was wrong!

Didn't the government think the same way? Weren't we fighting them tooth and nail?

When I pointed this out to the others, they instantly disagreed.

"That's different" they insisted.

They said we were not psychotics. We were not reacting out of anger and fear, as this guy was.

Somehow, it's always "different", isn't it?

So we discussed this into the late night hours on a Saturday. By Sunday, we had not reached a conclusion.

I didn't like the way things were going.

We discussed taking him to the alternate world, and placing him in a prison, there. We talked about possibly burning out his talent altogether. That seemed harsh, also.

With no conclusion reached, we broke off. We would resume late Sunday, sometime in the evening. This was something that had to be resolved, and resolved quickly. Still, I didn't like the way the meeting had gone, nor the tone of voice of the people there.

It was true that we would have left him alone, if he had said for us not to bother him. But while we talked, he had been trying to enter our minds. Only our training had prevented this. While I knew we had been trained to block mental invasion, to actually have to use it was so unusual, as to be nearly beyond belief.

Sunday evening's meeting was a repeat of Saturday's. Nothing was resolved. Nathan was busy undermining Tom and Ruth, the two who had gone to see him.

I pointed out that we might want to develop another means of contacting the people we wanted to recruit.

In the meantime, I was getting flashes of the immediate future. They were not good. It consisted of federal agents. Several of us were going to jail, in Federal custody.

Well, there was no way I was going to let this happen. I informed the others of what I was seeing. They were understandably disturbed, and asked me if I had pin pointed what had gone wrong.

I replied that I really wasn't sure. I just knew it was connected with Nathan.

The vote changed.

Tom said we could always place the guy in 'the between' for safekeeping, and to keep him from causing 'whatever' to happen.

As much as I hated it, it was better than the alternative of killing him, or burning out his ability. Those seemed to be the two options we had most discussed, lately.

So this is what happened.

Late Monday afternoon, Tom was in the 'almost there'. He was monitoring Nathan. He finally saw an opportune time and place to make his move.

He put Nathan in 'the between', for storage.

As soon as that happened, my visions of the immediate future changed. Apparently, we had headed off that particular disaster. Still, it was a harsh move, and I felt bad about it.

There had to be a way to resolve this to the satisfaction of all of the parties concerned.

Right?

Right???