A/N: This the sequel to Marie. You don't have to read that one first, but I hope you do read it:-)
And Sci-Fi Channel's bought the rights to B5 and the tv movies! Alright!
Disclaimer: B5 and all it's wonderful stuff belongs to JMS and the people he works with. If I was making any money at all I wouldn't be writing stuff like this. I just wanted to take a peek what could be happening elsewhere in that place.
Emiliy
by Cptn. Suz
Emiliy felt a light probing of her mind. Startled, she abruptly stood up and looked about. There on the far side of the promenade were three suspicious men of the kind she'd never wanted to see again.
Since they already had a fix on her, her best bet was to try evading them till she could get enough distance between herself and them for them to lose the fix.
Emiliy tore off, running as fast as possibly could.
It wasn't fast enough though. One of the men caught up with her and grabbed her by the arm.
"Let me go!" Emiliy protested, and she struggled to free herself.
Building up, Emiliy tried to push at the man mentally, but she was too worked up to concentrate and apply the necessary pressure to the correct places.
There was suddenly something cold pressing hard at the base of her neck, and everything went black.
When she came to, her muscles ached from staying in the same position for too long. It was as if she had been placed in a small postal tube.
Enclosed in this claustrophobic cylinder, Emiliy began to despair. In a decidedly drastic moment, Emiliy remembered something she'd been taught.
Closing off the appropriate ties in her mind, Emiliy drew back in her mind, away from the despair of the isolation. There she hid and waited for something to happen. Unable to feel pain, Emiliy watched as her body wasted away. It hurt her inside to watch it happen, but if she let herself feel again, the pain would have overwhelmed her.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, because her sense of time was distorted, they pulled her out, and sat her down in a room.
Well, the only reason she was staying in the chair was the fact that gravity was in affect.
The same telepath that had first caught her was apologizing. Information came. The scans of you came up negative. You didn't contact anyone while you were in the isolation tube. You must not be a telepath. Sorry about the inconvenience.
He left and there was only one person left in the room. Emiliy focused in on him. The man was most likely a Psi Cop, but even with her mind closed away, she could sense that he had been in close contact with Marie for sometime.
Marie! Oh, if she could find Marie again! She hadn't meant to get lost and left behind. Emiliy felt out of place without Marie to guide her in the use of her powers. Had Marie left her a message here? Emiliy couldn't tell unless she opened up.
She decided to chance it.
The Psi Cop happened to be Austerling, because the universe has a lousy sense of humor. He had raised his hand, about to wipe the last several days from the mundane's mind, when there was a burst of rapid thoughts, and then she began to sob hysterically.
Austerling rushed forward and grabbed the girl by the shoulders. What was going on? He reached and did a slightly deeper than surface scan to find out what had changed.
He was almost sorry he did.
The girl, Emiliy he learned, was a total mess mentally, but not only that, but her p-level was no doubt off the scale. It was a different kind of telepathy than Austerling had ever encountered. Which was probably why she had somehow managed to hide it.
Austerling jerked back, as if he was having an adverse reaction to her mind. The sobs had slowed down, to be replaced by quiet tears.
"You are a telepath," he stated.
Emiliy nodded.
"Then how come none of tests showed it?" he questioned. "Because...I'm not...a biological telepath," she choked out.
"Not a biological telepath? Then someone gave you telepathy?" Austerling asked. Emiliy hiccuped and nodded.
"You...you've been in contact with Marie. Where is she?" she stammered.
"How do you know about Marie? What do you know about her?" Austerling shot back.
"I...she was the person who..." she trailed off, briefly gesturing to her head, "Just where is she?"
Not one to lose a possible advantage, Austerling asked, "What does it matter to you?"
"She's...I'm lost. I need to find her," Emiliy answered.
"So Marie gave you this gift. What for? What was the other half of the deal? Marie didn't strike me as the type of being that gives things away for free, especially not such a thing as telepathy," Austerling said.
"You...you never give something away for nothing, you always receive gratitude," Emiliy replied.
"That's not an answer," Austerling stated.
"She," again gestured to her head, "Because I was her helper. I could explain motives and history. I was to go back with her and learn of their culture. I...I got left behind. I came looking for her, and I wasn't careful enough. You caught me. Please just help me find her," Emiliy said, getting quieter all the time.
"Even if I knew where she was, I wouldn't let you go. You were born a mundane, and now you're a telepath. We've never succeeded in 'turning on' the gene for telepathy. No, you're staying here," Austerling said.
A terrified look crossed Emiliy's face, quickly replaced by one of anger.
Austerling felt something both cold and scalding slice at his mind. He pushed it away quickly, before he became too terrified to do so. There are very few things that can terrify a PsiCop. Just about having your mind minced into little pieces is one of them.
Putting up a strong block, he carefully left the room.
His thoughts raced. Clearly Emiliy had been successfully turned into a telepath. How he didn't know yet, but without Marie, who appeared to be her instructor and guide, Emiliy was wildly out of control. She was incredibly strong, and most likely had other mental powers, like Marie. Though, because she was indeed human, he seriously doubted that she could pull the same disappearing act Marie had.
But how to restrain her? Guards, telepaths or not, could end up very dead, if Emiliy decided to try an encore of her performance earlier. It was unseen if she possessed telekinesis, but he shuddered to think what would happen if she did, and the computer was guarding her. He'd read the articles on prior telekinesis tests again computers, and they didn't play to him advantage.
Unsure how she would react, they tranquilized her and moved her to another, more secure room.
It was a time later when Austerling returned with another telepath.
Emiliy was sitting in the corner of the room, rocking back and forth in the thin shift she was wearing. The other telepath threw a glance and a light probe in Emiliy's direction. "What are you talking about, Austerling?" she replied, "She's as mundane as they get. You need your mind checked?"
"What?" Austerling screeched, as the other telepath left. He turned to Emiliy, but the girl had once again retreated to her previous catatonic state. He growled under his breath. He would bring her out of it. He just had to find the right thing.
He tried threats. He tried temptation. He tried food. That was interesting. After an unsuccessful attempt to draw her out, he left the food for her in the middle of room. She came forward and ate it with a half-conscious effort. Then she went back to the corner, and sat down again.
One day for no apparent reason, she screamed for about an hour.
Everybody there was getting pretty fed up with Austerling by now. If something didn't happen soon, they told him, they were going to wipe her memories and let her go.
Something did happen. A young woman showed up at Psi Corps' door, walked in, and headed right for Austerling. How she got into the high-security area, or how she knew exactly where he was, he would never know, but Austerling was met by Marie halfway to where Emiliy was being kept.
"I believe you are holding my assistant. I would like you to return her to my custody," Marie said.
"I can't do that," Austerling replied,
"You were somehow able to 'turn on' her gene for telepathy. I don't know how you did it, but I'm going to find out."
"You would not understand it in a hundred years. And you will never understand it as long as she has hidden away in her head. And I will guarantee you that she will remain that way until she leaves with me. I should know, I taught her this defense myself, along with numerous other blocks, traps, and mental tricks," she replied.
"If I give her over to you, I'll never see you or her again. My career's already backsliding."
"You will have to let her go eventually anyway, and then I would collect her and be on my way. She is a very tiresome creature to care for and put up with. You would find it frustrating, and dangerous if you made her angry. She is wildly uncontrollable when she's distressed. That's why I've been trying to find her," Marie said.
"Yes. She nearly shredded my mind," Austerling informed her.
"All the more reason to turn her over to me," Marie said.
"Will I get anything from this?" Austerling asked.
"You will no longer have to care for Emiliy. And I will leave you with a part of the process to turn the gene for telepathy on," she said.
This started Austerling so, that he didn't quite hear her quietly add that she didn't know why he would want that information. His mind was already racing with possibilities. What a job boost this could turn out to be!
He led Marie to the room, in which Emiliy was locked, though he doubted she needed to be led there.
Upon Marie's entrance, Emiliy got up and came back to herself. "Marie! Marie! You came, I knew you would! Can we leave now? I'm dreadfully hungry. Oh, and I'm so sorry I got lost. I didn't mean to. I swear," she spilled out. Marie just smiled and Emiliy shut up.
Austerling accompanied the duo down the halls and outside, and nobody even glanced in their direction. Austerling chalked it up to Marie, though she didn't seemed to be at all strained by this enormous task. But then, Marie never seemed strained by any task, large or small.
She stopped by a planter that held a small, decrepit tree. "Here is where we part ways," Marie said. She reached up and pressed a hand to Austerling's cheek. His mind when blank for a moment, then started to reboot. "Yours is an interesting culture," she said, "I will enjoy analyzing the data from this visit. I find you particularly interesting, Mr. Austerling. Our paths will cross again," she said, before stepping back, holding Emiliy protectively by the shoulders, and disappeared.
Austerling shook his head. Marie had eluded him again. He didn't understand how their paths could cross again, but he hardly plondered that. Marie had given him a clue to controlling the telepathy gene, and he was more than a little excited to get started working on it.
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