When in doubt, talk it out. (Sean)

Evolutionarily superior.

A decade ago, Sean had seen a movie with his sister, her husband, and their son, wherein a character made that same argument: “You’re a God among Insects.” Within months, Kathleen had removed him from her life, expressing her prejudices and fears that the mere existence of his powers meant that, on some level, he had to agree with that sentiment.

Nearly two decades ago, a student espousing those same beliefs managed to graduate from Hammel despite Sean’s concerns about him that had been met with accusations of being paranoid and overly-cautious. The telepath had done what he could to watch from afar, but, as a powerless citizen of modest authority and relatively modest means, he could do very little. Three years ago, that former student had reappeared in Pilot Ridge; he had kidnapped students, taken lives, mentally and physically violated many, and all for one belief: meta-humans were evolutionarily superior to non-powered humans.

Eight decades ago, a man rose to power in war-torn Germany on the notion of evolutionary superiority. He proceeded to murder eleven million people, not including the actual war deaths, long-term suffering, and sterilizations. Such a belief was why Josh had never met one-half of his family.

As a matter of course, Sean bristled at the mere notion of such a divide. It was false; there was no such superiority as a matter of genetics or happy accidents of birth.

“We are Homo Sapiens.” The psychiatrist gestured between Christian and himself, before spreading his hand to encompass all of the people in the tiny restaurant, meta-human and non-powered alike. He lowered his voice as well, also learning forward because, if overheard in such a small environment, they might have an altercation on their hands. “Every single trapping of baseline humans applies to meta-humans as well. Some of us abuse drugs; some of us fight with strangers; some of us beat our spouses and our children; some of us lie, cheat, and steal; some of us use our particular knowledge and skills entirely for self-gain and self-gratification; and some of us commit murder for no other reason than because we can or because we get caught in the heat of the moment. No matter what, all of us make decisions that we later regret, and it’s because we’re all human. Each and every one of us.”

That needed to be said first, because, if he and Christian couldn’t come to an agreement about the status of meta-humans in society and in relation to non-powered people, then the rest of the conversation was already a wash.

It was decades of separating thoughts from actions, thoughts from expressions, thoughts from feelings, thoughts from words, that allowed Sean to maintain a perfectly bland expression in the midst of this conversation. Outwardly, he didn’t react strongly; he spent so much of his life needing to maintain his calm and patience that it was second nature. That didn’t make him passionless; it merely made him controlled.

The telepath reached for his tea cup, which still had a bit left. He sipped lightly, before setting the cup back down in its saucer. “As for the rest of it, those are two separate issues. For the first one, let me ask you this: Who consented to that sort of wide-sweeping invasion of privacy? And who elected me arbitrator of propriety and justice?” The answer to both questions was nobody.

“More people in the U.S. died this past year of gunshot wounds than have died in the past forty years from terrorist attacks.” That was a statistic that Sean had memorized, and which sadly remained true with each year since the September 11th attacks. He didn’t often discuss politics outside of close friends or family with whom he agreed, because it was impolite at best and aggressive at worst. However, Christian was the one who had invoked a terrorist threat as something that legitimized improper use of telepathy, and thus the doors were wide open for Sean’s true opinions. “So, I’m far more afraid for children dying from preventable illnesses because their parents can’t afford health care than I am of a terrorist attack.

M.S.A.D. aside, he had never lived in fear of a terrorist attack. Not in the weeks immediately after September 11th, not even during the height of Iran-Contra.

The telepath then shook his head to himself and laid his hands down on the edge of the table. His voice was low and deadly serious. “I don’t boast my powers, Christian, but if I wanted to, I could move down to Washington D.C. I could mentally whisper in the minds of Senators and Congress people, claiming to be the voice of God they so often invoke as a shield and a weapon against vulnerable people. I could nudge them, and nudge them, and nudge them until they see the world as I see it, and they vote the way I want them to vote.” His lips curled downward into a frown, because the mere notion was repugnant. “That I believed it for the greater good, and that I did it without overt violence, wouldn’t make me any less of a tyrant.”

That he had a duty to weaponize his powers against those who gave no consent was as repugnant a notion as doing so to escape a personal debt, if not more so. As it was, he encountered people who assumed that he used his powers so that he didn’t have to pay taxes to the IRS, simply because there would be no recourse if he did do that.

He then wiped his hand with his napkin, before reaching up to briefly rub his eyes. “For the second one, that’s something you have to judge for yourself. Personally, I think that I am using my powers for the greatest good possible; I help children to become responsible, well-adjusted adults. I help students and adults to work through their problems, and I listen when they need to talk. And, when my partner’s had a bad day, I know without him having to tell me, so that I can make his favorite foods for supper.”

He wiped his hand again, so that there was no stray fluid on his fingers. “You don’t find teaching as fulfilling or important?”