I had been inside the Mountain most of a year now.

I had been a pretty naughty girl, given all the systems I’d suborned, the brainboxes like Bob I’d Branded, the nasty surprises and self-destructs I’d thoughtfully rendered inoperable, and the amount of catastrophically sensitive data that I’d shunted off to the Pentagon.

The atmosphere among the Old Men was pretty tense, because they had finally realized that the Assassins they’d sent out had all ‘died’.

It was an eclectic combination of missed check-ins; informers among the Umbrans, Mekkers, and Mentats; and flagged security reports by various parties, as party after party of Assassins and their crews evaporated.

None had yet escaped, as the kids working that duty were very good, and the Assassins themselves had no idea they were there.

As the messages went out to alert the teams on astropathic ridealongs, our assets were in place to follow them and see exactly where they were going and how. The fake messages that were set-ups, others false, others disguised and misdirective, were all noticed, as they frantically went searching for the information leaks.

This uncertainty and feeling of being hunted by an unknown and horribly competent foe didn’t exactly make these Old Men feel too good. It was too much like being hunted by their own disposable minions.

However, there was some excellent news, in that this current generation of brave lads they were training/brainwashing in service to the Empire was proving to be one of the most gifted so far, especially in the area of cognitive skills, learning, and mental focus. Their teamwork ability was top-notch, and they were learning from one another with remarkable skill and focus.

Was there a reason for this sudden increase in the capability of these young men?

Why, yes. Because I had Marked them all...

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There were literally thousands of them, of all ages, from teenagers to toddlers. They were monitored at all times, they were brainwashed to believe what they were told and to live in fear of the horrible pressure from outside the Mountain that would rapidly kill them and render them monstrous threats to others.

I didn’t usually like to exploit my ability to shapechange via the Marks, but there was no reason not to here. I could not fool an Awakened Void, since my Null was definitely not the aura of a Primos, but the cameras and idle eyes? I had no difficulty looking like I belonged somewhere, and once I rewrote the security and tracking paradigms (and their monitoring programs...), the systems gave me permission and multiple identifications, so anyone checking on me could see I belonged there... not that many ever saw me.

I started with the natal unit. Branding an active person here was very dangerous, of course, since any Void interacting with them would be able to sense the Brand. But without Helices, a Void wouldn’t sense a Mark inscribed inside the nasal cavity of one of their own.

So, I got to kiss every young Void in the place, starting with the kids and working my way up.

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Jarod was fairly typical of the young teen Voids. Dark bronze skin, hair close-cut, intelligent dark eyes burning with intensity, extremely toned physique, remnants of fine scars all over his body from combat injuries.

That being said, he was no more immune to perfect hips and legs and a 50 Charisma smacking him full in the face with a gossamer pillow than any other young man his age.

“Sit,” I directed him with a smile that sent all his hormones raging despite himself. His return smile was a little unnatural as he tried very, very hard to keep control of himself. He hopped himself up on the rest there and did his best not to look at me, or hear my voice, or smell the faint aroma of my perfume, or want to touch my long red hair.

“We’re going to be doing a close inspection of your esophageal and nasal cavities, Master Jarod,” I said smoothly, putting down my pad and stepping up to him. He tried to wrap his head around my words, but his concentration was a little fuzzy at the moment for some reason, and didn’t really process what that was going to mean when my hand grabbed the back of his head, yanked it back, and then his eyes got really, really wide when I went down on him.

What fun thoughts were going through his head definitely weren’t stopping as the fun stuff on my tongue and my ki started swimming through him, and, hey, he was a long way from having a Vajra and that level of physical control. All his dreams were being met way, way, waaaaay past anything he could consider as my tongue filled his mouth, inspected his throat, and started messing around in his nasal cavity.

He was all aquiver and tense everywhere with rampant desire, trying to paw at me and really unable to think that far, when the Mark lit up and washed all that away with cool serenity.

“Muh?” he managed, as I lifted my mouth away from him, and he stared at me, feeling his thoughts shining as he looked at me, and a clarity and purity that had never been there.

“Lessons on how to use your Mark will commence tonight during your rest period. You will not talk of it, or indicate anything else has happened, before then.” My voice was reverberating inside his ears, and he was gawking despite himself at the incredible Presence of Sama leaking from behind that door in his head.

He couldn’t have betrayed me if he wanted to, if for no other reason than that pure mana I’d used to clear out his head had just given him his first taste of The Land, and his being was totally oriented on it.

“Shall we continue with the rest of the exam?” I smiled professionally, and he could only nod silently at me as I continued with the rest of my inspection...

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-Welcome. You may now open the Door and step through.-

There wasn’t much hesitation. They’d been getting +1 Intellect from the Mark all day. They were chaffing at the bit to know more. Those Markdoors opened up, and they stepped through and stopped, right there.

I looked back at all of them as they gaped at me.

-Welcome, young Voids, to the Markspace. Here you can communicate with people from all over the galaxy, not just the tightly restricted set of teachers that have been administered to you, and the even more tightly restricted information you have been taught.-

And the Markspace lit up.

They gawked, because they could tell right now they were the focus of literally millions of different gazes, all directed at them, all alive, all of them individual...

All of them friendly.

The outpouring of goodwill washed over them like a tide of beneficence. Some of them almost fell unconscious right there, drowning in the flow of niceness, of sympathy, and warmth, and mass human contact. It was smothering, but only in the nicest way, so true and pure; the mother’s love, father’s love, grandparent’s love, brother’s love, sister’s love, familial emotions that had been completely denied them.

-Talk to whoever you like until it is time for you to wake.-

The Brothers, dozens of them added today, looked over as an unseen wall vanished, and they saw hundreds of their own already flitting off to join small groups of others in mental chats, welcomed with good cheer and friendliness, none of the suspicion and measuring and cold analysis they had been programmed to use on others.

It was... so unreal, yet so natural. As if this was the way things should be...

They looked at me, and then the many, many other bright lights around me, also so damn awesome and powerful... and staying far back and away, perhaps watching, but not regulating, letting them go where they wanted to go...

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Jarod found his head turning strangely, not knowing where to go or what to do, and then it just settled on... a girl.

Her smile as she looked up and met his gaze went right down to his soul. He’d never felt the kind of connection he felt right then with anyone, as if he’d been guided right to someone made for him.

-I...I’m Jarod,- he /whispered, suddenly right up with her.

-I’m Shelly!- the girl /replied cheerfully. -I was told that you’re all cooped up in that dreadful place and can’t go anywhere except to fight. Would you like to look out my eyes as I walk around?- she /asked him, reaching out a mental hand.

-I-I...sure,- he /answered, completely blindsided by the question. He felt a sudden urge, and her eyes seemed to grow and swallow his perception, and suddenly he was looking out her eyes as if she was the world’s best camera!

“Mom! Mom! I’ve got a Void looking out of my eyes! I’m going to take him down to the river!”

“Ah, sure dear?” the brunette doing the dishes replied with an arched eyebrow, as her daughter bounced up from her chair and hurried outside.

-The sky!- he /blurted out despite himself, and she slowed down to look up at the blue-purple sky and drifting clouds overhead, contrasting to the yellow and green of the leaves below.

So much color...

“We live on Chroma III now. It’s much nicer than the city was,” she told him aloud, spinning around to give him a good view of the area, and the prefab house mounted on a plascrete foundation, looking both right at home and out of place in a grassy yard with trees all around. “Daddy’s off to work right now, but Mom mostly works from home, and I just got out of school.”

Her eyes shifted towards a decline in the yard, and a trail leading down and away through the trees. “Let me show you my favorite place in the whole world!” She ran for the wild and the woods, and the stunned young Void could only gape and watch and listen along as she ran towards the water gurgling below, the rocks and the stream and the tiny fish within, so much life that he had never seen so wild and free as this, without trying to kill him...

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I prepped my pad for the morrow, and my list of appointments, double-checking that nobody had actually checked up on me in the system, and smiled.

I wasn’t going to show or teach them anything until they came and asked me. They would be naturally drawn to those who were complementary to them, who were basically kids their own age, most of whom would be psionically gifted and suited for Bonding, or Nulls and Sources at the same level of mental development... mostly street punks, war survivors, and gangers who’d lived through nasty shit, and still managed to hold onto their humanity... or reclaim it, as it were.

The Voids had no social skills to speak of, other than Intimidation and reading an opponent, but it didn’t matter. This was the Markspace, where you wore your emotions on your sleeve, and there were individuals in here just as cold and messed-up as these kids, learning to break out of their shells.

And, there were girls. One of the very best ways to prep them for the Breath of the Land was with contact with the other sex that had mostly been denied them, except for cold and formal mother figures who stayed distant and reserved.

All their feelings of loyalty were meant to be directed at their own Brotherhood and the Mountain, and the Empire, nothing else.

As Voids, their preternatural awareness was going to hold them in good state for masking their inner thoughts... and they’d have help if they wanted it. But for now, all that was happening was that these cold, trained young killers were going to be asking all the questions they wanted to, seeing all the things they wanted to, and meeting any number of people who were not like them at all, giving them all the human connections they could desire.

-MOOOOOOOOM! You got ALL of their first kisses?!?!-

Of course, my girls naturally focused on the important things...

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Reader booobOb asks: What happened to her eldest Markee, Trindi?

I think she and her husband are running a chain of high-end food wagons on Parcomi II, who plot a lot of the comings and goings of the elites there. Their firm also specializes in hit-and-run accidents happening to upspire degenerates with unhealthy appetites they take downspire, and a lot of very adept drivers and gunners for the Planetary Guard come out of Food in Motion, a G&G Subsidiary ™.