"I see you met Chloe and Frankie last night, did you find their company pleasant?"
Psion stared across the large overly ornate wooden desk, "And?"
Hassan smiled indulgently, "They aren't exactly your type of…companion."
"And?"
"I mean, they weren't paraded before you at the behest of a cattle prod."
Psion could feel the blood rushing to his face but he refused to lose his composure, remaining silent and tapping into one of his abilities to cool his temper as well as his skin.
"What were you doing last night?"
Silence.
"The surveillance in your room cut out and didn't come back online until this morning John, what were you and the other children talking about?"
Silence.
"How long are you going to let them believe they are your friends? When are you going to cast them aside? Once you've used them all up to your own goals?"
Psion felt something snap inside him and felt his body tensing to strike when Hassan sighed and reached for the small metal box bearing a red button that he depressed. Psion jerked in his chair, his hands involuntarily clenching around the metal arm rests and he received a solid jolt of constant, concentrated pain before two things happened. The healing dulled it and he absorbed it, transferring it across the air between them and into the older man's outstretched hand. Hassan jerked and his mouth opened just short of a scream, but he released the button and sagged into his cushy leather chair, panting. Psion turned his gaze to the landscape outside the window, waiting patiently for the older man to recover.
"You are full of surprises. Your file doesn't contain that information. What did you just do?"
"Tell me why I would tell you?"
"Because I asked." Hassan's voice had taken on an edge like razor sharp steel that Psion didn't believe he was capable of until that moment. He sat back, feeling for the first time a measure of respect. Clearly he had underestimated Hassan. He wasn't used to that, he hadn't made that mistake in a very long time. He'd grown complacent.
"Tell me why I should tell you then? You know now your little torture device won't work."
In response, Hassan snapped his fingers and two droids sauntered into the room. "You may be able to absorb energy and channel it elsewhere, but I doubt you can absorb a bullet…and believe me, when they are through with you that wonderful healing factor won't be able to save you, or your two new friends."
"Energy absorption was something I picked up once I…escaped from the compound in Alberta. I was naked, homeless, exhausted. I passed out somewhere, I remember hearing cars. Someone was kind to me and before I could get away, she'd touched my bare skin. I ran."
"And the transference?"
"I don't know how it works, I just know how to trigger it. Electronic devices, I can change a television channel with a blink, start a blender with a snap of my fingers…I just channeled the energy with that power into the device and conductivity did the rest." Psion shrugged and leaned back in his chair.
"I meant, where did you get it?"
"The compound in Alberta. They didn't write everything they exposed me to down in that pretty little file because they were afraid people like you would get a hold of it. You can imagine the damage that power could do to coordinating military efforts, in fact that was the one power they shouldn't have exposed me too. It was responsible largely for my ease of escape."
"Intriguing" Hassan said and set the device aside, "I begin to understand now why so many people want you dead or recruited."
"I don't want anything to do with that or them, I just want to find somewhere to live alone in peace."
"And yet you wanted something to do with Chloe and Frankie."
"They're kids, Hassan, they don't deserve to be kept here under lock and key. They should be out there" he jerked his hand toward the window and the freedom it so cruelly represented "living, not stuck here as one of your lab rats."
Hassan only smiled indulgently again. Psion was seized with the desire to rip that smile off his face and launched himself across the desk. He had the satisfying sensation of feeling the flesh of Hassan's slender neck being clasped in his hands, unaware before his side erupted with pain. More pain and his vision went black.
He woke in a hospital bed and his first thought was that he was too valuable for Hassan to commit to killing. That gave him leverage, somehow, but he couldn't figure out what leverage it was and how to exercise it…yet. Frankie's face appeared and lit up with joy.
"Hey! He's all right! Swan, he's all right?"
"Who's Swan?" Psion asked as he sat up in bed. A soft brief pain blossomed from along the surface of his skin but he ignored it.
Chloe floated over too the other side of the bed, "I'm Swan."
"When did you learn how to fly kid?"
"I've always been able to fly, I just haven't felt like it since I came here." Swan grinned.
"So you're going by your real name now, what's yours Frankie."
Frankie's grin slid from his face and he looked down at his feet, "I've never had a cool nickname like Psion or Swan, it's always just been Frankie or street rat, or little bastard."
Swan suddenly looked as uncomfortable as Psion felt, but he knew how to deal "Listen, Shift…"
That had done it, Frankie's eyes lit up like the fourth of July. "Shift! That's awesome! Thanks Psion!"
Psion winked over at Swan and sat up further, "What's the word? Why was I hospitalized?"
"Hassan said you were caught trying to sneak into the lock up down in the basement and were punished."
Psion snorted, eliciting a question from Swan.
"What really happened?"
"Hassan and I had a little disagreement about how he treats the both of you and I tried to kill him." Psion instantly regretted telling them that because he recognized the look in their eyes. Love. His uncontrolled defense of them had just earned him two companions that would go to the ends of the earth for him. For the first time he wasn't repulsed by the idea, a strange emotion to be sure. "What's the general feeling in the house Shift?"
"Most of the older mutants, the ones who prefer it here because of what is waiting for them on the outside, agree with Hassan's methods and believe you got what you deserved. I overheard one of them saying how he hoped the amount of lead the droids filled you with would be enough to overdraw the healing factor and see you dead."
Psion chewed on the inside of his cheek in thought and didn't register what Swan had said at first. "What did you just say?"
"I told him to tell you the rest."
Psion looked at Shift's unsure face and gave him an encouraging look.
"They said that if the bullets didn't, they would. They said it was disgusting that Hassan let one of your kind in the house. They say you're dangerous."
"I am," Psion said flatly and was surprised when neither Swan nor Shift flinched.
"They're all afraid of you Psion," Swan said softly. "They leave us alone now, Shift and I. They're all afraid of what you might do to them."
"What?"
"Hassan was carried out on a stretcher, the medical staff were crawling all over him as they pushed his gurney down the hall. The house was in an uproar for days after. Most people respect Hassan, respect and fear him because of his unholy power over them, but you…they are absolutely terrified of you."
"Why?"
Shift cleared his throat, "Hassan's not human, and he's not a mutant either. He's something else. He's what controls what powers are available to whom and when, not electronic devices. The last person who tried to kill him ended up a vegetable, completely stripped of his power." Shift shuddered violently at the thought and refused to say anymore so Swan took up the rest.
"He couldn't stop you and you nearly killed him. The fact that you touched him has everyone running scared because they are afraid you'll be able to do what he does now." Shift broke his silence to add, "And not just to everyone else, but Hassan himself."
