I thought about it. “A better idea? I don’t have one. I don’t think it’s going to be a popular idea, though. At the sa ti, if we don’t have the option of removing the command, and obviously we can’t sedate him until Magnus is defeated, then it’s better than leaving him like this.”
Julie frowned, “I don’t like it, but I don’t know what else you could do. Besides, if you do it, I might be able to chip away at the command. Kals might not be here, but the implant has a library of Dominator techniques. Between knowing the words she used and the implant's knowledge base, I’ve got a chance. Wiping his mory of being captured gives ti.”
Daniel’s eyes glazed over, and I felt a stream of implant information flowing into his brain. “Wow, I wasn’t thinking about that before, but I will have to go through these techniques. I might be able to create strategies to counter them over the long term. Not today.”
He glanced at , “Do you get deluges of information like this all the ti?”
I shook my head, “Not too often. It gets better at sensing how much you find useful at once, and your brain gets better at handling it. Plus, my brain seems to be made for it to a greater degree than most humans. It might be an Artificer thing, but my implant has noted similarities to brain structures in both Xiniti and human variants the Abominators made for fixing things.”
Daniel’s and Julie’s eyes glazed over as their implants explained my references.
Julie’s eyes dropped toward my boots, “Can you grab things with your feet?”
“Brain structures are the only similarity,” I said, rembering Four Hands, a forr Ascendancy commando who lead his people against the Ascendancy. That assud he still lived, of course. War had a way of changing one’s status. “Still,” I added, “feet with fingers would be useful sotis.”
“Okay,” Daniel said while the scene around us beca blurry and then began to shift. “I should talk with everyone outside before I ss with his head, but before that, I think I should show you a training montage of his ti with Magnus.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not ant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Oh,” I said, “I’d like to see that.”
It would be interesting to compare what he’d been learning to my sessions with Kee.
Julie laughed, “Training montage?”
Shrugging, Daniel said, “It’ll take too long to do anything more than hit the highlights. Plus, pretty much all the sessions are the sa.”
The scene shifted. I knew sohow between Daniel’s telepathy and Jody’s internal comntary that it was the sa day he’d repeated Colette’s command. He wore the sa Grand Lake High School Varsity Basketball t-shirt.
He’d been a great point guard (a position I only knew because I was in Jody’s brain), often praised for his speed. I could only wonder how often unconscious power use had helped him.
Knowing what I now knew about myself, I could only guess how much weird Artificer side effects had helped .
Magnus and Jody stood in the courtyard of the villa. Ard guards stood on the roof and on the ground, so of them watching outward, others watching the inside of the courtyard. I didn’t know whether their concern was Jody or possible traitors within the Nine.
Magnus stood across from Jody, doing his best impression of a teacher. It could have been better. He bellowed more than fit my taste.
Stretching out his hands, Magnus started by saying, “Though you may not feel it now, you have infinite power at your disposal. I’m here to teach you to channel it into your abilities and discover the true ability hidden within them.”
Tilting his head, Jody said, “What? I’ve got one power. It’s ‘run real fast’ and that’s the whole thing. That is the true power.”
“No!” Magnus brought his hands down and stamped his right foot. “I’ve been improving myself for millennia. I’ve been taught by survivors of civilizations that never made it into your histories. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.
“I began with a small ability, the power to bend people to my will with my voice. When Urin and others taught to find my internal well of energy, I poured it into my power, and then my true power ca out, influencing the masses. At first, I was limited to affecting the people in front of , but I found that with work, I could create sounds that could be heard for miles. Whole cities followed my commands without even knowing it.
“When so of my rivals wrecked my voice, destroying that avenue to power, I still wasn’t powerless. I’d learned how to direct my energies into other hidden abilities within the larger one. I’d strengthened my mind’s resistance to other people’s voices. I’d given myself strength and despite my rivals, I retained so ability to influence the minds of n.
“These abilities that this ti calls superpowers are wider than you know, and the more power you pour into them, the sooner you’ll surpass their crude limitations.”
Even though I half-expected Jody to talk back to him, Jody didn’t. He said, “Alright, let’s find my power.”
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