5

Chapter 2

He walked home as he always did, practicing his quickly developing ability to control minds. He had discovered a few years earlier that if he relaxed and opened his mind, he could 'sense' the presence of most beings around him. Not only sense them, but he could also anticipate what they wee thinking and were about to do, as if he could read their minds. This new discovery helped him tremendously in the sports arena where he didn't need to react to his opponent's move: he knew what it would be as soon his adversary.

No matter how much he wanted to expand this new ability and use to become even more popular, especially with the opposite sex, the vivid memory of the fear that his mother had felt that day when she had seen him control that young boy's mind for the first time kept him from using it too much. He didn't want to draw too much attention to himself. He became satisfied with finishing in the top fifteen of any event, but never first place. That meant that he was good, but not good enough to draw much attention from anyone. Especially from his mother, who attended all the events in which he participated.

Now that Master Skywalker was coming to his school, he had to be able to make the teachers pick him as one of the three that would get to ask him questions. Some of them were human, others were androids and others were from other species. Who would pick the students, he didn't know, but he had to be able to get in the heads of all of them and put his name at the top of their lists. The transport station offered him the perfect training fields since all types of life, sentient and mechanical gathers in groups as the transports arrived and departed.

His sole focus had turned unto a pretty girl across the walkway from which he stood, but for some reason, he couldn't reach her with his ability. He first caught sense of her as he began walking up the platform towards his normal station. A small crowd had already gathered, a sign that his transport would be arriving soon. At the front of the crowd he sensed her, as if she was drawing his attention to her. He could 'sense' the area immediately around her, as if had cast a small mental field around her head but her mind appeared to his senses as a vacant sphere. No, not vacant. He could feel that space as it had substance, like a dark orb encircling her head. He tried to expand his range but the shield grew thicker. He 'felt' the people around her, could sense their thoughts, but she remained 'closed' to his senses. Confusing him further, he wasn't able to shift his attention from her.

He had never failed to sense another being in such a manner previously. He strained, focusing his entire energy on her but that only made the orb grow thicker. Frustrated and exhausted, he sat down on the nearest bench. Obviously he had done something wrong, he chastised himself. Quickly, though, he corrected himself. He had done everything exactly like the many the times before. He could sense the people around her, which meant that it wasn't a matter of him not doing something correct. He was being blocked.

He couldn't sense everyone and he knew that. Some minds he just didn't know how to handle, but he had a sense of them. This one purposely blocked him and increasing his frustration, she was letting him know that he was being blocked. Confused further, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes as he let out a deep breath. At that moment, the floodgates opened. Suddenly, a tidal wave of thoughts drowned his mind. He heard a cacophony of words, laughter and cries loudly in his head. He sat up startled. When he had sat down, there had not been many people near him. Had he found himself suddenly surrounded by hundreds of beings?

No one stood near him. People were continuing walking to their destinations, as they had been before he had sat down. He looked for the girl he had been trying to persuade but she no longer stood in the platform station. Perhaps her transport had arrived. Immediately he knew that wasn't the case as the crowd had grown. The transport had not arrived yet. As an older woman passed by him, he heard her shout in pain. He jumped to his feet, looking for the cause of her agony but nothing had changed. He looked at her and he heard her scream again. However, she had not physically done so. She looked at him, sensing his stare, and smiled at her with her old, rubbery lips. But her eyes remained strained with agony.

Laughter made him turn around. Similar to the agony from the old lady, it was not physical laughter. He could hear their thoughts. Everyone around him suddenly had opened themselves to him. Or, he had found a way into them? As if on queue upon his discovery, the noise got louder. He covered his ears but that increased the intensity. He began walking on shaky legs towards the platform that would take him to the park but that didn't seem like a good idea. On such a nice afternoon, it would be crowded. He had to get away from people. He stopped suddenly and walked back down the ramp. There seemed to be less people on the street.

As he turned the corner immediately outside the terminal, he bumped into the girl that he had been trying to read earlier. He had been staring at his shoes, focusing on each step, trying to dim the racket in his head. He looked up, apology ready on the tip of his tongue. When he saw her green eyes so close to him, he couldn't speak. Suddenly, all the noise in his head stopped. He felt the sphere around her head spread and encompass his as well.

"Once you discover them, you can't shut them off. They have always been there, behind a wall. When that wall comes down, you can't raise it ever again. You have to build a new wall or you will simply go insane."

Ona took a step back. "What are you talking about?"

She smiled at him and pointed to his head. "Their thoughts. You could always hear them, you just didn't know it."

He shook his head. "No. This has never happened to me before."

She nodded. "Yes, but as I said, you just didn't know you could."

Ona studied her closely. Her beauty was not as pronounced as he had first thought from a distance but there existed no doubt that she was still very attractive. Her long, thick black hair flowed down to her waist, despite having the front area of her head shaved smoothly. The tiny bumps above each eye were the only evident signs that she was not human. With her standing so close to him, he couldn't think clearly and had forgotten her species.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

She offered him a wide smile. "You were trying to reach my mind at the platform up that ramp you just came down from. I felt you. And I blocked you. I know you felt it because you pushed harder. I must say, for your age, you have not developed it very well."

"No I wasn't. Developed what?"

"Mind reading. You've always had the ability to do it just like the ability to control them, although technically that's not what you're doing. You are simply giving a suggestion and your success ratio depends on the strength of your suggestion and the weakness of the mind you are making the suggestion to. You can't really control another mind."

Ona blinked in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

The girl continued talking as if he had not asked a question. "The most important thing is really not that you use it but rather when you don't use it. It's a part of you. Not like walking or eating but more like breathing. You have to actually try not to breath when you want to hold your breath. This is like that. You have to learn how to stop their mental chatter."

As she said that last sentence, she waved to all the people around them on the street. Sensing his disbelief, she continued. "Ona, I want you to tell me one thing."

Startled, he took another step back. Suddenly he didn't feel safe standing in front of that strange pretty girl. "How do you know my name? Who are you?"

She smiled. "Once you tell me that one thing, you will have that answer."

He shook his head as he took another step back. "What one thing are you talking about?"

"How is it that you hear me, yet my lips aren't moving?"

He held his breath. He stared intently at her, concentrating on her mind but the void around her, a wall she had said, grew thicker. She shook her head and continued to smile at him. "You're not allowed in there, Ona. That's private. We must all have some secrets."

He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear the rambling confusing that now dominated his thoughts. Her lips had not moved. She had been talking to him inside his head all that time. And that meant that she too could read minds, and control probably control them. He stood straight and faced her, fists clenched. Summoning all his concentration, he pictured a white wall and tried to encircle his mind with it.

"You are being too broad," she spoke to him, "What you need to do is actually picture this wall as a physical presence. Brick by brick or bolt by bolt."

Ona, distrusting what she said but wanting to block her from his mind, followed her advice. He had not really seen many walls in his young life, but he recalled that a few years ago, he had gone to the zoo and seen huge bear-type creatures behind a white stone wall. He didn't remember what those beasts were called, but he remembered the wall. He focused on the size of the bricks, the amount of mortar and even on the texture of each brick. The white wall began to grow in volume. It started to have texture and as he continued to focus on it, it grew into a real wall encircling a vision of his mind. He actually felt the young girl being repelled from his thoughts. Immediately the sense of being engulfed inside a sphere dissipated, replaced with a peaceful silence.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. She started to clap her approval. When she spoke, she moved her lips. "You're quite good. Better than I thought. It took me many tries before I could do it, and yet you accomplished it on your first attempt. Very nicely done."

He smiled, pleased that he could think clearly again. "Your voice is different than before. Why is that?"

"This is my real voice. What you heard before was only how you thought my voice would sound. I hope you are not disappointed."

He shook his head. "No. Why would I? Who are you?"

"No one, really. I was just visiting and today I must return to my own world. I was supposed to be on that transport that you saw leave a few minutes ago but it is rare that I find another being with our ability."

The sense of being in danger had not lessened but curiosity held a bigger sway over him. Cautiously he tried again to reach her mind and see if he could get an answer to his many questions but her resistance remained strong. He took a dejected breath and stared into her eyes. "Our ability? I don't-"

"Stop saying that!" she loudly chastised him. "I've just been in your head Ona. I know all about you. You can affect machinations, and that I have never herd of before. That makes you even more special."

The anger at having his mind invaded coupled with the frustration at his failure to do the same to her dulled the sense that he had to get away from her. "What do you want from me?"

Her voice quickly became low and soothing. "Ona, I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to help you. And to protect you."

"Protect me? From what?"

"Ona, listen to me carefully. You have a very special gift but you don't know anything about it. You need training. Tell me, have you discovered what other things you can do yet?"

"What do you mean by other things? What other things?"

She shook her head, teasing him. "It is better that you discover them on your own, Ona. Me telling you is not going to do you any good. I would hate to rob you of that sense of discovery. And I tell you, that's a great feeling, the first time you discover a new thing you are capable of doing. Have you been tested?"

"You mean tested for the Jedi Academy?"

She nodded proudly. "Good. You read my thought that time although I was slightly veiling it. Yes, that test."

Ona nodded, confused by the question. Every new child was tested within hours of being born. That was standard practice. She seemed to sense his thoughts although he prevented her from reading his mind. "I was just curious is all. I too was tested, and I too did not pass. Yet, I can do these things. And I sense in you that you can do much more than I can. All you need is proper training."

He took a step closer to her. "Seriously, you're freaking me out. Who are you and what do you want from me?"

Meeting his gaze and not taking notice of the other step he took closer to her, she maintained that same teasing smile. "Remember, you sought me. I should be asking you that question."

Caught off guard by her assertion, he stood motionless as she took two steps forward, swung her right arm towards him and threw him hard against the wall. His back struck the metal wall, knocking the air from him. The mental wall he had built disappeared. All the mental chatter engulfed him, driving him to his knees more than the impact against the wall. As he tried to breathe, he closed his eyes and created the wall again. The noise ceased as quickly as it had overtaken him. He stood up, searching for the girl. She had vanished. She had flung him a good five feet – without laying a hand on him.

He looked at his chest. The pain he felt there didn't care whether she had laid a physical hand on him or not. Rubbing it, gently as he continued to search for her, it felt as if a blunt object had struck him. Looking up at the huge digital display screens on the building across from him, he saw that the time had grown late. His mother expected him home in a few minutes and he had probably missed another transport and he would have to wait for at least twenty more minutes. Shaking his head and putting the whole ordeal temporarily out of his mind, he turned the corner and ran back to the transport station. Perhaps he would get lucky and one would be waiting for him.

As he ran up the ramp, he didn't sense a pair of gray eyes studying him closely from across the street. Standing next to the tall, muscular figure dressed in a hooded tunic stood the girl with the green eyes. After Ona had disappeared into the transport station, they looked at each other and nodded. They had finally found him.