A Glimpse into the Unknown

[Jennifer Younge]

It was time, Jenni had decided, to face facts. It was inevitable that she would come to a point where she just had to admit that she couldn't do it. She couldn't face the the daily torture of stepping outside her dorm, alone. It was impossible for her to deal with the onslaught of thoughts flying around and hitting her full force. The poor girl, simply wasn't strong enough. She was daily bombarded, and thus incapacitated by mid-afternoon, if not sooner, by the skull splitting headaches. Of all the powers possible, she had to have one that caused her impossible pain. Typical.

She had heard of Dr. Sean Neville, resident shrink, and co-telepath; and it was his office, she stood outside of. She had figured that Dr. Neville was the guy to see about her powers, to learn the limitations, the benefits, basically, the facts. After all, he had to gone through what she's going through. It made sense. He was a telepath, she was a telepath, how much difference could there be?

Jenni lifted her hand, as if to knock on the door, and then let it fall again. Why was it so hard for her to take the first step? Simple. It meant admitting, finally, that all this is real. While she put off seeing Dr. Neville, she was able to live in denial. Pretending she was just on some weird and crazy exchange program, and the powers were all just part of some twisted mind game. But she couldn't pretend anymore. It hurt too much. Jenni let out her breath in a sigh, and knocked.

The little telepath seriously hoped there would be no answer. She had made the effort, if he wasn't in, well, not her fault is it? She crossed her arms to stop twisting her fingers as she waited, (hopefully for nothing). She didn't want to do this, but she knew she had to. She didn't want to admit all this was true, she didn't want to accept the fact, she was a freak. She wanted to go home, and deal with her Mom's craziness. It hadn't been the perfect life, but it had sure been a whole load of easier; and Jenni, just like any other thirteen year old, preferred easier.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

There was no answer at the door. This was an uncommon occurrence, but tended to happen when Sean wasn’t in his office. He didn’t usually leave save lunch break and damage control, unless he had a particularly strong need for coffee. Today he’d had such a need, since he hadn’t slept for more than two hours the night before. His insomnia had returned, in spades, as it did from time to time. The caffeine made it easier, and since it was nearly the weekend, he resolved to take a sleeping pill on Friday and compensate for the lost hours then.

Returning with coffee, he saw young Jenni outside his office, knocking and obviously waiting for him. He was careful not to startle her, as he didn’t like doing that to any students and particularly not young telepaths from a sense of camaraderie. Balancing the coffee in one hand, he asked gently, “Are you looking for me?”

The answer to that question was fairly obvious, but he saw no reason to either spook her by simply coming up behind her and standing there, or to make assumptions, should she change her mind at the last moment. He knew how difficult it could be to reach out for help at that age, with that particular ability. He made sure that his mental shields were at maximum, to keep her from being bombarded with any additional thoughts. After all, he had an inkling of what had brought her to his door today.

“If you are,” he continued, stepping around her to allow him to open the door to his office, “you’re more than welcome to come inside and make yourself comfortable.”

[Jennifer Younge]

With her fingers crossed tightly, Jenni raised her clenched fist to knock again. But before her fist could connect to the wood, she heard a questioning voice coming from behind her. Whirling around, Jenni dropped her fist and half nodded. Her heart was in her throat as she caught her breath, and it took a few moments before she could form a coherent sentence.

"Dr. Neville?" It was question, but obviously un-needed. The fact he had asked if she was looking for him while she stood outside someone office made it clear that this was in fact Dr. Neville. She uncrossed her fingers and nodded, this time more clearly. She tried not to look as though she was disappointed, after all, she didn't need him to know she didn't really want to come and see him. He might send her away, and that wouldn't help matters in the slightest.

Jenni quickly side stepped to allow him more room, and then glanced at her shoes. She looked up when he offered her to entered and gave a third, if slightly jerky, nod.
"Um... If that's OK, sure." Her voice was quiet, timid. She waited to enter the room, wanting him to have seated himself before she followed him. The truth was,she was dawdling, but trying not to make to obvious. She was seriously wary, what if he read her mind? She repressed a shudder.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

She looked nervous, which was to be expected. Sean had never met with her before, he had his reputation about him, and she was young, which was enough to make any student nervous. Add to that the typical nervousness of untrained telepaths, and he sympathized. “That’s me,” he told her with a gentle smile. He wished to set her at ease, the same way that Robert had always been able to calm him when he was nervous.

He paused in the doorway a moment to let her enter first, but when she made no effort to move, he took the hint. He would do this her way, as it didn’t matter to him if he entered first, or sat down and made himself comfortable while she was still outside. It didn’t matter to him if she decided to cross herself three times and say a Hail Mary before entering his office, if that would set her at ease. Opening the door fully, he entered his office, set his coffee down on a coaster, and then sat in the chair by his desk.

She’d followed him, so there was no need for her to beckon her further; she could have her pick of other furniture in his office to make herself comfortable. He certainly had more than enough, which is what happened when he was allowed to design and furnish his own work space.

Although he wasn’t probing her mind, he did overhear the thought, her fear, her concern – that he might read her mind, and that was disappointing. He took no offense to it, because she didn’t know him. But whenever another psychic held those same prejudices of mental powers that the general population had, he grew disappointed. If she feared other telepaths, then she could never grow comfortable with herself. But that lecture would come later, not during her first visit.

Once she was seated, he asked the obvious question. “What can I do for you?”

[Jennifer Younge]

Jenni entered the office cautiously, as if expecting something to jump out a her. Her nervousness was rootless however, and when nothing tried to eat her, she forced herself to enter further and take a seat in front of his office. She used the time it took her to look around the office. There was a lot of furniture around, along with the other usual office supplies. It looked like a normal office, but then, Hammel looked like a normal school.

She looked at him when he asked what he could do for her, and she shrugged slightly. She had got this far, so why not finish the task. She took a breath, and then launched into everything that was bothering her. She didn't think that a; there was a lot bothering her, or b; she may be speaking to quickly for him to follow properly. As far as she was concerned, that wasn't her problem. She just had to speak, and once started, she couldn't seem to stop.

"I'm scared." the admittance was quiet. "And I don't understand anything. Why me? Why do I have to have this stupid power that give's really bad headaches? Why do I have to hear other people's thoughts? And, why did I have to come here? I mean, my life wasn't perfect, but at least I got everything. My biggest worry was what mood my mom was going to be in, and now? Now I don't dare enter the cafeteria if its crowded, or walk down the halls. 'Cause I know that everyone will be thinking everything really loudly and I don't care about what their thinking. I liked it when I didn't know." she paused to take a breath, and gather her scattered thoughts.

"I heard that you're a Telepath too, and no offense, but I don't want anyone else reading my thoughts, they are my thoughts, and private. But mainly, I don't want to have to go through all this... crap, and not know anything about it. I want to be able to block other people's thoughts, and I want..." she took a deep breath, and blurted out the one thing that was bugging her the most. "I want help." There. It was said, and despite how much she wished to, she just couldn't unsay it.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean waited patiently for her to answer his question, already anticipating the onslaught. When she spoke, he was prepared, because it was nothing he hadn’t heard before.

“Telepathy can be scary.” Sean wouldn’t lie to another telepath, not when he had said a variation of those same words forty plus years ago, and then multiple times every year until his graduation from Hammel. “But it can also be very useful.” Beautiful, as well, but he didn’t expect a thirteen-year-old to understand the profound beauty in being able to cut away the pretenses that most of the population had to face on a daily basis. He also wasn’t going to give her the “husk of a kiss” talk this early on in their association. “And as for why you had to be a telepath, it’s luck of the draw. Nobody chooses to be meta-human, and no meta-human gets to choose his or her abilities. If they did, I think we’d have more healers and telekinetics.”

The psychiatrist wasn’t offended by her remark about wanting him to stay out of her thoughts; everyone desired privacy, and with time, she would come to understand that even for trained telepaths, such a request wasn’t always so easy. In time, she would come to resent her psychic ability – and other psychics – less; it could be an uphill battle, but there was time and no other choice. Sean Neville didn’t expect overnight results.

“You’re in the best place on the continent to get help, Jenni.” Hammel was the first of its kind, and the most innovative, despite having no other competition in the States or Canada. Sean had full confidence in their programs, not merely as a faculty member and alumni; that confidence was validated through the comparative rankings of global meta-human institutions which were published periodically, as Hammel was always at the top.

“Since you know that I’m a telepath too, I hope you’ll listen when I tell you that it’s going to take hard work to learn to block other people’s thoughts. Psychic minds aren’t like everyone else’s. Non-telepaths have doors that are closed but don’t lock; we have empty thresholds and keys. Do you get my meaning?” Sean was trying to put this into words that a thirteen-year-old hearing the explanation for the first time would understand, without explaining the precise mechanics of telepathy. “Eventually, you can build a door of your own, one that locks, but it takes time and effort, and you’ll get a lot of headaches in the process. And you’re going to have to share your thoughts with other people; it’s unfortunately part of the package.”

She required a psychic trainer; there was no other option. Sean was adamant about this at faculty meetings, about the necessity of hiring more psychic trainers; although it might appear to be sectioning off metas based on power, he’d seen too many younger psychics who’d struggled along the way because of a communication barrier. It took them twice as long to learn and their shielding remained sloppy in comparison. He’d conducted a study once, the results of which had never been published due to fear of disclosing numbers of psychics globally – and with ever changing disclosure rules, it was for the best. But he still had the numbers. Reaching for his pen, he asked her, “Do you have a trainer yet, Jenni? If you do, who is it?”

[Jennifer Younge]

Jenni tried not to scoff, she really did, but trying didn't seem to be good enough anymore. Scary? That was an understatement, Jenni felt that Telepathy was downright terrifying. Having to ability to dig through someone else's most private? There was nothing worse.
"How can it be useful?" Jenni demanded, unable to hold her tongue. "I mean, I can't even control it. Sure it would be a good way to stop criminals and stuff, but other then that...? Jenni glanced at him, her apology in her eyes, she hadn't meant to but in like that, but hey, if anyone could deal with moody teenagers, it was a psychiatrist right? "I think I'd prefer to be a healer." Jenni muttered, her thoughts on Benji.

Jenni didn't bother to argue with his statement, she was in the only place on the continent to get help. No where else helped Meta's, unless the government had made a cure but were keeping quiet about it. But she kept that little thought to herself, and hoped Dr. Neville wouldn't read her mind. She didn't think, hoping for a cure would be something the teachers at Hammel would agree with. Besides, it was pure fantasy, and she didn't want to seem like a complete childish idiot.

"What are the keys for?" Jenni asked, slightly confused, "If there are no locks, why are keys needed?" Yes, the girl was confused, and yes, she said the first thing that occurred to her. When she actually shut up and let him finish, she soon realized the necessity of the keys. Though that wasn't the point of the speech, and somehow Jenni knew it. She reconsidered the words, and then spoke slowly, trying to make sense of it.
"So, My mind is always open?" she frowned, and tried to make sense of it all, "But others people's aren't." this time, it was a statement more then a question. "Are you saying that I'm always going to get other peoples thoughts, but its harder for me to put thoughts into other people?" She looked up at him, hoping she had got it figured out right. Jenni was often told that she complicated simple things, and simplified complicated things. If Dr. Neville had explain it the way she had translated the metaphor, she would have been baffled completely, because it was, in theory, simple; and simple was out of her league entirely.

"But my thoughts are private!" Jenni objected, "It's just wrong to read someone else's thoughts, that why normal people can't do it." Jenni didn't have anything to hide really, but whenever she thought of people hearing her thoughts, she was taken over by an intense fear. Not only that but she didn't want everyone to see what her mother was really like. Jenni could pretend like everything was normal and happy, but if someone dug a little deeper, they'd see the amount of guilt Jenni was feeling.

"Um, I don't think so." Jenni replied, confused. Trainer? "I have teachers..." Something told Jenni that trainers and teachers were not the same, but all she had were the normal teachers. In the end she just shook her head, deciding that that was best course. Fifi had mentioned something about help from her friends, but that wasn't the same was it? Anyway, Jenni could use all the help she could get.
"I don't have anyone teaching me how to... control my powers better." Jenni finally said, hoping that was what he had meant.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

She was only thirteen, too young for Sean to hint at, let alone explain outright, the joys of telepathically enhanced sex. She was too immature to understand the emotional component of a relationship in which one touched minds as well as hands, so he would keep that to himself. In a few years, when it dawned on her, he would still be here to give his perspective. He also smiled a bit when she immediately tried to apply the power to crime fighting; superheroes were alive and well in the mind of every student at Hammel. “It lets you help people, by knowing what they need. Not everyone is so good at saying so aloud.”

Such had been Sean’s point when he said so in the first place. Healing was seen as a universal good, a power that was difficult, if not impossible, to fear or hate. Telekinesis was popular too, because it was eminently practical, and straight out of the comics. Sean was too old, too used to his powers to want to trade, but he understood the appeal. “You’re not the first, and you wouldn’t be the last. Healing is more tangible, less confusing. But you can heal with telepathy, too. And you have a whole host of new experiences that you’ll be able to have, once you get a handle on it. I know that seems far away right now, but there’s good to be had.”

“It’s a metaphor, Jenni. You have keys to lock your mind once you build your own door, and keys to help open rusty doors in other people’s minds, or to try to unlock the minds of other psychics. You have to build the door first.” Sean hoped that was a clearer explanation for her, such that she would follow along. “Right now, your mind is wide open, and you hear most everything, and unfortunately you’re projecting a bit too, although for most telepaths, we hear more easily than we speak, at least at first.” So yes, it would be harder to put thoughts into other people at the moment, or to keep it up amongst many people because the ratio was not in her favor. But that would not be permanent. “Once you learn to tune out the noise, your mind will be as closed – locked – as you like it to be, and you can open it to hear, or to speak, as you wish. Does that make more sense? The potential to transcend is there, which isn’t in the minds of any non-psychic person.”

It was unfortunate that she was at the stage where she equated normality and morality, or even the physical and morality. That most people couldn’t do something didn’t make it wrong. After all, the vast majority of the population would never conceive of what went through Stephen Hawking’s mind, and yet only the Religious Right would call his discoveries morally wrong. Jesus healed the sick, the lame, and the blind; that was how he’d been taught to think of his abilities when he was twelve, before Hammel: like a blessing. And although he had stopped believing in the divinity of Jesus decades ago, that lesson, too, had benefited him. “You shouldn’t use the word normal, Jenni, it can be hurtful. And no, most people can’t read minds, just like most people can’t heal the sick, or fly, or heal quickly, but that doesn’t make it inherently wrong. It just means that there are rules, most of which involve respect.” She would learn later.

Sean was not in charge of day-to-day operations at Hammel, nor had he any authority when it came to teacher assignments; although he could make recommendations and requests, personnel was outside his control. However, he couldn’t imagine what the training department was thinking by failing to assign a young telepath to a trainer immediately. He’d essentially been given his dormitory before being introduced to Robert, and Sean firmly believed that he was better off for that approach. Young psychics required trainers, immediately; there was no room for discussion. That she had sought him out because she had no trainer was distressing. “I’ll be sure to get you a trainer – someone who teaches you how to control your powers better – as soon as possible.”

She would benefit the most from a telepathic trainer, just as Ann would benefit from an empathic trainer. Unfortunately, there were no such available trainers, and she would have to make do. The psychiatrist ticked through the list in his head: nobody with a physical power, and Jude’s limitations wouldn’t benefit her until she already had mental shields. Anya was an excellent trainer, but Sean did have a bit of a bias when it came to psychics being taught by other psychics, which left Chase. A different power, one whose control worked in the opposite way of telepathy. Anya or Chase...he’d ask Claude to make the decision immediately, for Jenni’s sake. “There are a few trainers who understand psychic powers, and will be able to help you. They’re very good.”

[Jennifer Younge]

Jenni nodded, conceding to his point. It didn't make anything that much different to the way she viewed things, she just accepted what he said, because it was true. To some extent. "How can I help them? she asked, frowning a little. She didn't see all the possibilities before her. Why would she? All she knew, was that she was left with this power that did nothing but hurt her.

"Well right now, all I feel is bad." she said moodily. This meeting wasn't going the way she wanted at all. She wanted a quick fix to the problem, but if she was honest with herself, she would have known that this was impossible. After all, when it comes to the mind, it can take a long time for anything to work the way a person wants it, especially after something major happening. And you didn't really get much major then having to deal with an entire new you, complete with powers.

Lower lip still stuck out, Jenni processed his words. There were a lot of them, and she was close to becoming confused. But instead of trying to make sense of what he said, she just listened a little closer, and she was sure she had what he said perfectly understood. The whole door thing she could understand. So she kinda got the part about building a door for herself. She finally nodded, "Yes." she said simply, but then tilted her head to one side. He had used some big words in that last sentence, and if she truly wanted to understand what he was saying, then she needed to know what those words meant. "What does potential, transcend and non-physic mean?" she asked, struggling with the larger words.

"But reading minds is wrong! Jenni replied defiantly, "Its like me going through all your stuff and learning things about you, and thats wrong. Its wrong to spy on someone. Its wrong to read someones diary!" To Jenni, reading minds was the same as snooping, and she had always been taught to never snoop on people. She couldn't see how reading minds was any different, so she was adamant on her views, and it would take more then one man telling her it wasn't so. Not only that, but next to her thoughts, her diary was the most private thing to her, and because she wrote her thoughts in her diary, the two were the same thing. Reading someone's diary is one of the biggest crime possible to commit to the thirteen year old.

Jenni wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying. The names mentioned were unknown to her, and her thoughts were on other things. She wasn't happy with the way the whole session had turned out, she felt as thought she was being told off, and yet she wasn't sure why. Confusion took hold of her, along with her typical sulkiness. Her lower lip once again jutted out, she felt like crying all over again. But she didn't want to cry. Not in front of this man. She didn't trust him fully yet, and she didn't want to be told off anymore. She was sick of being yelled at. Instead, she nodded to what he was saying, as if agreeing even though she had only taken in a few words.

[Sorry its not as long as your hun.]

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“At this moment, you can’t, because your powers are untrained. Don’t worry about helping people now, Jenni; just remember that telepathy is a gift, not a curse and that good can come of it.” Sean realized that it sounded like a lecture, and he wished that he could say so to her in a way that didn’t sound as though he was lecturing. However, the only other way to explain this was to tell her how difficult this had been for him when he was her age, and then to show how well he had adapted. Unfortunately, that would then sound like a dismissal of her problems wrapped up in an “when I was your age” talk. As he was not reading her thoughts, he had only his instincts to rely upon, and he doubted she would appreciate that tactic.

“I know.” This he did know. “Right now, it’s a headache.” That was, perhaps, an understatement. Whilst literally telepathy resulted in migraines, the problems associated with untrained or newly emergent telepathy were more than mere headaches; telepathy involved a fundamental shift in one’s perception of the world and everyone around one. Barriers ceased to exist, and a person’s inner thoughts were laid bare before someone who had no interest in hearing or seeing them. Depending on the range of the telepath in question, it could become literally impossible to ever truly be alone. And considering that privacy and solitude were so often crave during adolescence, the experience was all the more frustrating. “Truly, I wish that I could do something that just turned it off for you, Jenni, or made it easier.” Perhaps one day, someone could, although that would unleash an entirely different set of problems for the psychics among them.

Sean corrected himself immediately, using smaller words that she was more familiar with. “Potential means possible, but more than that, something like ‘could or will become’ or ‘could or will happen.’ For example, a child is a potential adult. Transcend means to rise above or beyond. So what I said is that one day you’ll be able to go into any door, like we were talking about, doors being minds. And a non-psychic is anyone who doesn’t have a psychic power, like reading minds, and never will. Most people are non-psychic. Most meta-humans are non-psychic too.”

Sean didn’t interrupt her as she protested, spouting analogies that were ill-suited for this situation, and displaying a child-like naiveté when it came to ethics and morals. He agreed with her that, as a rule, nobody should probe another’s mind for information, unless doing so for protection or to achieve other necessary objectives, or with permission. He also drew a distinction between probing and scanning surface thoughts, and the ethics of scanning were far looser. She would learn in time, and there was no sense in bombarding her with that distinction at present. Instead, he simply wanted to help open her to the possibility of learning to control her powers – for her own sanity if nothing else – and would do so by drawing a distinction; she had to realize that she wasn’t a bad person or in any way morally wrong for overhearing what she couldn’t tune out. . “If someone is sitting next to you on a bus, and talking very loudly on his cell phone about how he needs to pick up milk at the store, is it wrong to know that he needs to buy milk?”