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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 189: Takano 142
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 60
The evening routine at this point had everyone coming home for dinner, even on the weekend, then after dinner Derek would teach a new psionic skill to Vashti, and Vashti would teach one to Tommy that she had already learned. Because Vashti had learned a couple of skills previously she was a couple steps ahead, but on Friday Vashti had been taught heightened awareness, followed by panoramic sight, clairvoyance, and a clairtactile sense that would tell you the temperature of a place or object without pain. Over that same period Tommy learned telepathy, summoning butterflies, and the heightened awareness and panoramic sight skills. She was told that telepathy only worked with humans, but if she encountered humanoids, aliens, or animals she could probably extrapolate how to contact them from this. Also, she was told that if she used the mindreading skill to get the pattern of any animal, the summoning skill would work with any creature whose pattern she knew--but it did not grant significant control, only that she could persuade creatures to do that to which they were already inclined.
Monday, and for most of the week, she made an effort to catch Cutter’s mind whenever she wasn’t doing something else. She found on the one hand that now that she was familiar with his pattern she could find his thoughts even when he wasn’t in the building, but at the same time that she couldn’t usually maintain the link for long, and most of what he was thinking was rather useless information. He genuinely seemed to grasp things faster than Tommy did. The only information she got that was interesting was something about having arranged for someone called the pair to do something called the job together next Monday, which although she kept checking she never figured out what pair or what job. Still, she passed this on to the others, who were equally intrigued, and equally stymied.
She did not catch up with Robbie this week, and occasionally wondered what her friend was doing with this new toy. It occurred to her that she could probably tune in to Robbie’s thoughts wherever she was in the same way that she was picking up Cutter’s, but that this would be an invasion of privacy she probably shouldn’t indulge. Already Brian was leery of her use of this power--all these powers--but he more than once said, “I understand; it’s your decision,” with the clear meaning that he would have decided otherwise. At least she wanted to demonstrate that she could be responsible with it.
Once she learned telepathy she and Vashti would chat telepathically two or three times in the day. They excused it as practice, but it was fun to have a friend closer than telephones or text messages. They tried not to let it interfere with their work.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
