“Always listens to him anyway?” I followed the obvious line of reasoning. “He’s not a motivator too, is he?”
Kals shook her head. “Yes, but it’s not that simple. We’re mostly immune. If we weren’t, we’d never be able to use our power without following our own orders.”
As Cassie and I sat down at the table across from Kals, Cassie glanced over at . “Mostly?”
Kals brushed a lock of black hair out of her face. “Mostly. It works, but it’s hard. Do you have any people with motivator powers on your world?”
Thinking about Julie, forr mber of Justice Fist and now a fellow student at Stapledon, I said, “I know one, but there are probably more. Her mother had the sa powers.”
Cassie barely let finish before adding, “If there are more, they don’t seem to be running things on our world. I don’t see how they could. Julie orders people to do things, but it wears off and there’s no mystery about who’s responsible. Even if she did take a country over, all you’d need is a sniper rifle or big bomb to solve the problem.”
Kals shook her head saying, “That’s not how it works. Sure, if you’re inexperienced and you’ve got no one to train you, you go the direct route and bark orders at everybody, but that’s not the way the best motivators do it.”
“Uh huh,” I said, mostly to make sure she knew I was listening.
Kals didn’t say anything, waiting and only beginning to talk as Cassie frowned and sent the words, “What is she doing?” at via our implants. Kals pointed at Cassie. “That’s what we do. We’re taught to constantly be watching people so we can use them. I knew you’d say sothing first. Nick’s patient. You’re not. You beco suspicious more easily than he does. I’d have an easier ti getting him alone and an easier ti getting started on him, but he might be harder ultimately because I think he might notice what I’m doing.”
She looked at Cassie, eyes resting on the sword and then looking toward where the table hid her gun . “I’m not sure you’d notice, but if you did, you’d kill or sothing.”
I leaned forward, putting my arms on the wooden table. “What would we notice?”
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“I’m was getting to that. Most of the ti, we have to motivate people we have no control over, people who know we’re there for the Ascendancy, and most of all, people who don’t trust us. We don’t command them. What we do is listen, maybe use a hint of our power to make them talk a little more freely. Then once you know what makes them tick, then you start modifying their mories—“
Cassie interrupted. “—Wait a second. You’re not a telepath. You can’t do that.”
Kals raised an eyebrow. “If you’re done, I’ll tell you how I can. People’s mories aren’t set. I can’t change sothing that people rember well as easily, but sothing half rembered? That’s sothing I can do. Look, you can do it. If you make up a mory with enough enthusiasm and detail, they’ll begin to rember it—at least if they think you might rember sothing they don’t. It’s the sa for except as long as I don’t contradict sothing big, it doesn’t matter, they’ll listen. Once you’ve found the right mories, you modify around them and you can change their whole aning, change the person’s loyalties, likes and dislikes. You can’t do it all at once, but over ti, you can do almost anything.”
She explained it like she might have described how anything worked, and not at all the way you’d describe warping soone’s personality to make them betray everything they cared about. On the other hand, she’d trained at it for years. That was enough ti to get used to the idea.
Following the next question that ca to mind, I asked, “So, okay… How does that explain why Maru isn’t manipulating your mom?”
“He can’t,” she said, gesturing outward with her hands as if it should have been obvious. “Maru’s a motivator, but my mom studied with the best teachers the Ascendancy had to offer. Maru couldn’t even get into her school. He worked for one of the professors, but he didn’t go there. He trained sowhere else. They used him as an opponent so that they’d learn how to fight other motivators. It’s hard to affect each other, but it’s possible—barely. She beat him again and again. He’s not at her level. I don’t think he’s even at my level.”
I thought about that. “Alright. So he t your mom at the school she went to and she hired him, why?”
She shook her head. “She didn’t hire him. My dad also went to the school at the sa ti. He hired him and sohow they all got involved in the resistance because of my mom. I’ve never gotten the full story. Mom’s impossible to talk to.”
I sighed. Either we weren’t getting anywhere, or we were on the edge of sothing big. “I think I asked this, but why did he try to warn us about you then?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I think he hates , but I think he hates the entire second generation.”
She leaned back in her chair, smiling. “Does that an you think he’s working for the Ascendancy?”
Cassie shrugged. “Maybe.”
I said, “I don’t know. He might be. He’s a little suspicious, but we don’t have anything resembling a motive. Do you?”
She tilted her head, pursing her lips. “Let think.”
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