"Oh please, you really think they would have a normal, doing prison guard duty in a prison for telepaths. That's not gonna work on me, filtered out before it even hit my mental shields. Besides... heh... calling locking you up evil is a bit of an exaggeration after what you did."
A mental scream was Guarin's only response.
"Oh and you probably want to be learning to speak, instead of project, because about right..." the guard flipped a switch on the wall outside the cell."...Now! You'll find using your abilities to be rather painful."
Guarin instantly doubled over in pain, and fell to the floor clutching his head between his hands. His head had exploded in pain like a thousand hot needles had been plunged into his brain. The Guard had obviously activated a behavior suppression field.
"...Yep stuck me in there once turned the switch on..." The guard continued oblivious to Guarin's predicament in the cell. "...oh fuck did it hurt, when they told me to try to project a thought at them..."
"You fool..." Guarin began screaming in pain in the cell. "...I'm a radiant ...I can't turn it on and off like you..."
"Huh, oh" The guard noticed Guarin's situation in the cell. The Guard reached in a pocket of his vest, and pulled out a small bottle. "Yeah they told me that, said I should give you these." He tossed the bottle in the cell; it bounced once and rolled in front of Guarin. Then he reached up on the wall under the switch for the behavior field and turned down the intensity just enough so that the pain in Guarin's head was now just a dull roar.
Now that the pain was lessened Guarin could move and pick up the bottle. He suspected what was inside, and confirmed it quickly. He opened the bottle cap and dumped out the contents into his hand. Out came three small Kmilac pills 10mg apiece, it was a psychic suppression drug. In a non-radiant, who could choose when and how to use there psychic ability, one of the 10mg pills was enough to suppress the ability for an entire day. In a radiant, like himself, the ability was always turned on and didn't need conscious effort to use. The three pills might be enough to give him relief from the pain of the behavior field for an hour or two if he worked very hard at containing the ability. Unfortunately containing the ability came with problems of its own.
"Well hope that helps, I gotta go now, things to do, things to do" The guard turned and walked away, Guarin could hear the booted footsteps as the guard retreated down the hall.
Guarin turned his attention back to the pills, even with the lessened intensity of the behavior field the pain was starting to grow again. He used what mental capacity he had to think out the best strategy for using the pills as long as he could. Who knew when there might be more? He swallowed one of the pills immediately, it would take 10-20 minutes to have any effect; however at least he would get the edge off the roar in his head for maybe a half hour after that. The other pills he returned to the bottle which he placed on the small metal shelf welded to the wall of the cell. He figured if he saved the other two, they might allow him to sleep for a while later, with minimal pain, since generally his ability was less active when he slept.
Guarin moved over to the bed, sat down, pulled his legs up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around his legs. He sat for a long time and contemplated, he really didn't know what he was going to do, he couldn't live like this for the rest of his life. That was going to be a long time, he was only 30, and the rest of his life could easily be 70 years or longer. With his ability partly suppressed he would be inconstant pain from the behavior field, no matter how low it was set. He suspected at the moment it was already set as low as it went anyway. If they ever gave him enough of the drug to completely suppress his ability he wouldn't feel alive anymore. For a radiant telepath the psychic ability was as much a part of them as breathing, or seeing was for a normal human. For a standard telepath this sort of punishment was less cruel. They could at least live out a normal life since the ability in them was under their control, to be used or not used at will.
When the pain began to lessen, due to the drug, Guarin got off the bed and attempted to move around the little space the cell provided to him. It was a pretty standard cell... bed, single shelf, toilet, sink and a small area to rollout an exercise mat stored under the bed. He walked to the bars at the font of the cell and looked out. There was not much to see there, just the blank cinder block wall across the hall. He couldn't crane his neck sufficiently to see to either side next to his cell. He made the mistake of trying to employ his ability to stretch his senses, and was rewarded with another hot flash of pain that left him crumpled unconscious, on the floor. That's where his first visitor found him.
Guarin woke up to see a tall bearded man dressed all in grey standing in front of him.
"Tried to see around the corner...?" the man sighed "...everyone tries that, always the first mistake, knocks 'em on their ass."
Guarin just nodded, and grunted an "Uh. Huh" between clenched teeth. The pain in his head upon waking was almost as bad as it had been when the field was first turned on.
"OK, so let's have ourselves a little chat, lemme turn this off so we can actually talk." The man in gray flipped the switch for the behavior field. The pain in Guarin's head disappeared, and he was able to grab his bearings in the world again as his ability was able to reorient.
"Now do your best to keep that in check." Said the man in grey as he felt the tendrils of Guarin's ability reach out and touch his mental shields.
"I'll see what I can do, but as I'm sure you know being a radiant it's a little hard to stop." Guarin had sensed as his ability reached out this man was also a radiant, and a very powerful one.
"OK, so first off I'm John Kessler, I'm your assigned rehabilitation officer during your stay here. I'll be assisting in trying to teach you to control and perhaps use you ability in more positive ways while you're here and perhaps after you leave us. Let me see here..." John started as he opened a black leather binder in front of him and turned to the first page of notes "...ah it appears your going to be here for quite awhile, give us a good long time to get to know each other...huh...aggravated mind rip...mental tampering...suicide suggestion...mental rape suggestion...umm you were a bad one on the outside."
"Yeah, I suppose" said Guarin under his breath. He was still trying to fine tune his ability to see past John's shields and through the drug it was taking effort that wouldn't usually be needed to do so.
John turned back to the folder he was holding and continued to read a moment longer. He then began to talk with Guarin in a serious tone.
"Guarin is that your first name or last name by the way?"
"What's the difference?"
"Just Curiosity really, although it does seem strange the system would only have a single name for you."
"Well, when that's all you give 'em, that's all they are going to have, now isn't it?"
"Yeah, well I suppose that's true...However I am curious just for the sake of knowing"
John actually already knew the answer he was just wanted to see if he could coax it out of Guarin, set the expectation for what kind of foot their relationship was going to start on. If he could get a full name this early on it would prove the assumptions of Guarin having been locked up wrong.
"Guarin is my family name, I prefer it since there were a bunch of men named Angus in my family, too confusing..." Guarin paused momentarily realizing he had just let his name slip without intending too.
"Well that's a good start, I actually already knew that, and I know that you're not the person that your record makes you out to be either." John spoke in an encouraged manner.
"Yeah, how can you be sure, maybe this is what I really am and everything 'til my life turned was the lie?"
"Humm, well I don't get a sense of that, and remember I am a radiant like you, some things I just know without having to be told."
"Then you know what I'm thinking right now..." Guarin sneered, the rather traditional cliché challenge to a psychic's abilities.
"With your shields down, due to the drug at the moment I do know exactly what you're thinking, all the things you're thinking all at once. Both that image of me getting butt fucked by some fat hairy prison gay named "Bulldozer"...and how your thinking how great it would be to get your cock in some warm pussy, but how that's never gonna happen again because your locked up in here till you die..."
Guarin recoiled in shock, the drug had not completely taken his shields down, and he thought he at least was keeping others out. He mentally reviewed his state of mind; he knew his mental shields were up there was no way this guy could be reading past them. Guarin had met a lot of powerful psychics in his life, radiants were the most powerful of all, so powerful even the strongest mental control couldn't contain the ability. He was the strongest of the radiants he had ever met. He was sure if there was anyone stronger than him he would know about them at least.
John noted the look on Guarin's face, and thought to himself. Wait until he finds out how I did that!
John continued. "So anyway as I said it's going to be my job to attempt to rehabilitate you. I've got plans on how we are going to do that, its going to be interesting. However at the moment you seem a little surly to be getting started so, just one more thing and I will go."
John fished around in the pocket of his blazer for a moment, and withdrew a rolled up package, and slipped it through the bars of the cell. Guarin quickly retrieved in from the floor in front of him. He unrolled it, and saw that it was a bubble pack of pills. The pills proved to be 100mg dosages of Kmilac.
"That should be useful to you I imagine, they will never give you enough to stop the pain of the field completely even set on the lowest setting with an ability as strong as yours. It's flat so you can hide it in the bedding and they are not likely to find it. Dose yourself however you see fit, turn off your ability completely and live as a normal or just keep the edge off when you need too, your choice."
"I'm going to go now, I will see you soon and hopefully in a better mood, so we can get down to brass tacks, and talk about your future."
John turned and walked away. Guarin could hear John's hard soled shoes clicking on the cement floor as he retreated down the hall, then a click and bang as the door at the end of the cell block opened and closed behind him.
Bill Dunn
Administrator/Author
www.epithna.com
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