Every… last… bit… Matt thought as he sank into contemplation while repelling the surrounding psions. The bus rattled as he did so, but it didn’t affect him as he studied the flows of the psions trying to derive meaning from it. As he did, the bus stopped and he opened his eyes. Not my stop.

The eye-patched man stepped out, but he did not, and moments later, the bus began to rattle again as it picked up speed. He felt right at home as it sped over bumps sending the rattles over the edge and felt the driver’s aura… Reading it closely and trying to find patterns, as he did, the bus turned around the corner and stopped once more.

He opened his eye, looked out and thought, Oh no… Ugh…

He built up strength in his legs and send himself flying out of the steel cage and across the grass with heavy rain drenching his clothes. He shot down the pavement like a possessed ferret, shielding his head, and turning into the decrepit old building. He panted in the lobby as he thought, Ugh… That was horrible...

He slowly made his way to his cage as the drops dripped down, turned the handle, and stepped into the usual place. He entered the bathroom, removed his clothes, did an absurdly quick wash, and stepped out. So expensive… But if I don’t do that much, then Patrick’ll get mad… Still, the amount of money I waste on water is… Absurd…

He dressed up in an equally tattered looking shirt and pants before sitting down on a simple wooden chair. He zoned out and sensed the various psion leaks in the surrounding area. As he drew the psions in, countless emotions followed. Hate. Madness. Love. Sadness. Lust. Joy.

So many emotions poured in to the point where he could barely bare it and he suddenly cut off the connection bringing the emotions back down to their normal level before projecting psions to deflect them.

Urgh… That was too much… Far too much… I almost went crazy… It makes sense that if I can repel then I can absorb but… I really don’t want to do something like that again, if I don’t have to… Well… I might not have much choice, my power’s still far too weak, but still, I need a breather before continuing…

Matt panted as he shook off the countless conflicting emotions and said, “Gestik Minkin.”

The world him dissolved as a world of white formed. He looked around, or rather, felt around, but he couldn’t feel a single psion, not useful for training, but great for recovering. This place is as empty as ever, how depressing… Urgh, still… I managed to escape from that hell.

He took out his phone as he flipped through the messages and opened up a local news site. The first article caught his eye and was titled, “Strange string of insanity in Burns Town.”

Could this be…

Strange string of insanity in Burns Town

There have been some strange cases of insanity in Burns Town today. They have all inexplicably exhibited a moment of insanity and don’t understand why they behaved so absurdly.

The first was the 32 year old Jim Davos who stole a bus and abandoned it before attending a meeting in West Burrow. He claims that he suddenly went insane all of a sudden and that he was filled with rage towards the system for having bus’ which run so late.

The second was the 38 year old Kevin Harclays who believed that he was the master of the universe, he insisted that officers called him master or king and was furious when people gave him instructions of any sort.

The third was the 44 year old Jack Parsley, who worked as a security guard at Burrowmart. He was arrested for molesting one of his co-workers. He claims temporary insanity like the two above. Also, the same store had a man attempt to steal a wallet, while seemingly petty, he fought with guards, managed to steal another wallet and drove off.

Store officials contacted the police shortly after with the car’s registration number and several cars were deployed to apprehend him, but as they were on the way, he stole a golden necklace from Miss Elaine Lirvin and a diamond watch from Darwin Markel.

Matt’s mouth dropped open as the article contained all the information he needed, including the results of all of his tests. And while it didn’t tell him as much as he would have wanted, it told him something extremely, extremely important.The effects aren’t permanent. That’s… It’s good that they’re not in the madhouse for petty things, but… This is… Too distinct. It’s already drawn suspicion from the media for them to connect the incidents like this… I knew that it would look suspicious, but I didn’t think they’d join the dots so easily, even though they’re doing this for sensationalism… Tch. Not good.

He grimaced as the scenes of the guard and Kevin came to mind. He read the article two more times and clenched his fists. Not good at all, while I can influence Patrick, if I do the other things, then there’s a good chance that I’ll be discovered, and that RaeI… It said… That people might be out to kill me, I don’t think it said that for no reason. There must be someone who knows.

If I’m seen in too many places then… It really could be the end.

His body trembled as he hit the back button and scanned the list of articles, but asides from murders, theft, and a controversial new law, there wasn’t anything relating to the people going insane.

It wasn’t too bad… Good… Good… Ugh, I really shouldn’t take risks like that again, especially not something as obvious as with the guard… If someone did use a power there, then wouldn’t it be obvious that it was me? It only takes so many moments like that to raise the eyebrows of even the dumbest inspector.

If I do do something then… I need to do it in the midst of many people, preferably a crowd to make it hard to zone down on me. But more importantly, I need something more. This new power I discovered is great for getting back at enemies, but the chances of detection are too high.

There must be something else I can do… Something more… And to discover that. Matt rose up and repeated the words, “Gestik Minkin.” The surroundings broke down and he returned to the usual dump, a dim light shining above him. I’ll need to… Study more psions!

The emotions poured in, and as they did, he sucked them in, but with a much weaker force than before, while trying to sense the secrets they hid. As he did, he managed to slid a small tendil of psions into an otherwise silent man, and discovered a vast reservoir of lust.

Very… lustful… But that emotion hasn’t surfaced… At-least, not strong enough for it to leak, I see… Like this, I can sense the emotions of even someone without a leak, although… Ugh…

He tried to push the psions deeper and met resistance, he pulled back and found another silent target. He didn’t know what this person looked like, but he could feel someone there, he tried to push his way through the outer psion shell, but unlike with the man, he couldn’t find any way of doing so and pulled back.

I don’t want to go too far here, otherwise I might drive her insane… And that’ll be a huge problem considering I live here… He instead decided to push a psion tendril into the first man and channeled the smallest strand of people he could into the sea, concentrating as much as he could to avoid going over even the slightest bit.

A pulse went across the sea, but he couldn’t sense anything outside, not a bit of leakage. Hm… He decided to instead channel a strand of emotion, but unlike before, he couldn’t project it, not in the slightest. Odd… Hmm… He envisioned a mild scene with a woman, and while it made it to the tendril, the sea didn’t react in the slightest. What’s going on, this was working before…

He tried channeling a stronger pulse of emotion across the tendril and over the sea, but there still wasn’t a reaction. I could channel the image of… Wait. Wait. What. What if… It’s just him… Let’s see how the others react…

Matt scanned around with his psions looking for another silent target, but asides from one unknown person, most of the people had strong emotions, mostly stress from work or a lustful mood. The tendril hovered over the person head, then it crept into his cranium and past the outer shell. So far so good.

Before it lied a small sea of sadness, in fact it wasn’t even really a sea, more like a pond. He sent a pulse of power into it followed by a primal sense of sadness and waves spread out from the point across the sea unlike the previous one.

Great, a response, it’s a shame I can’t see what’s going on with this person, but… Finally, a response… If I can implant or… Stoke up... emotions without going too far, then maybe I can avoid the complete insanity they end up in… Maybe…

The tendril retracted out of the sea and back into Matt as he began to suck in psions again, starting with as little as he could pull to a strong storm. I’ll alternate between the two… Or three. I’ll stoke up that sea over and over… While absorbing these psions to help strengthen my mind… And occasionally jumping into the blank space to rest. Yes… That’s a good idea.

He began to tremble as the emotions constantly ate away at him, his psions began to fall into chaos, and he repelled the psions once more before resting. After doing that, he went back to probing or absorbing before once again rest before looping over and over and over.

As he did, a thin man in an adjacent room had a strange look on his face as a strange feeling almost rose up for a moment before dissipating, stronger sometimes, weaker other times, but nearly non-existent. He shrugged and went back to watching a horror film.

Matt kept probing, absorbing, and resting until he collapsed on the bed from his head hurting really badly. He entered the strange space, but even after sitting for half an hour, it didn’t go down by much.

Ugh, I might have pushed a little too hard, I should probably stop for today, it’s time to sleep anyway… He sat on the springy bed and stared at the wall for twenty minutes with the background psions tickling away at him before finally dozing off into sleep, and as he slept, his mind was drawn into a strange area.

A room with white walls with no exits and entrances, the same as he had previously been in, but with a white figure hovering overhead. It whispered, “Subject 52,788’s progress is abysmal, this one’s a wash. The virus king is still the best candidate, the others are too few and useless.

We might need to change our approach, this isn’t working.”

The figure dissipated into the white nether as Matt opened his eyes, clutched his head and looked around. This place again… Ugh, what did they say I should do here again… Oh yes… Study, ugh. Can’t they just shove this knowledge in my head? What should I learn? Better bricklaying? No…

Wait. Wait Wait wait wait wait. Kevin’s a supervisor, if he’s fired, then they’ll look for a new supervisors, so what I should do is… Learning about supervising people… Managing people… That’ll help a lot… A looot. If things go well, then I’ll go up all the way...