Hugh waited in the interview room, wondering why he had been asked to come in here. He had been actually enjoying his wood working workshop when they had unceremoniously dragged him in here.
The door opened, and that women, the other telepath, Tanya, entered. She closed the door behind her and sat down on the chair on the otherside of the table. She had a stern look on her face which Hugh ignored.
"Alex," she said.
Hugh gave her a blank look.
"Or maybe you'd know him better as 'that human boy you preprogrammed to kill Isabel Evans'."
Ahh. So it finally happened. Hugh couldn't quite keep the smirk off his face.
"I'm sure you'll be happy to know your block on him dropped yesterday. Very clever. Got past all our usual security precautions. You guys did a throrough job on him."
"Why thank you."
"I'm sure you'll be just as happy to know - seeing as how you've been integrating so well here - that he failed."
Hugh paused and drew in his lips.
"He did?" he inquired, trying to keep his voice steady.
"He did," Tanya confirmed. "I got an emergency call yesterday, and ended up having to remove your programming from his head. Not a bad job for an amatuer."
Hugh glared at her.
"I'm not a amature."
"Well, you're certainly not a professional," Tanya dismissed. "I've been in the telepathic inductry for longer than you've been alive kid. If I had been the one to program him, Isabel would be dead already. But she's alive, well, and completely unharmed, if a little shaken up."
Tanya considered a moment.
"You may have set back Isabel and Alex's relationship a few years though."
"The Semrellian Royal Family should not dilute the bloodline with human DNA," Hugh cited primly.
"Interesting," Tanya considered, tilting her head to the side and considering him.
She was no empath, but she knew the signs of people spouting of propaganda they only half understood or believed.
"And why do you say that?"
"Well they... they have standards to uphold," Hugh replied. "A heir - who may one day rule - shouldn't be half something else."
"Why not?"
"Well, because their rule might be contaminated by their other heritage."
"And interesting line of reasoning. You think that a Sem king who is half Dath or half human might sympathise with their kindred beyond what is wise?"
"Yes," Hugh nodded.
"Well, historically the rest of your race agrees," Tanya replied blandly. "That's why the Device, and the chemical changes that mark the royal family of any given planet are also programmed to change the DNA of their spouse, if they aren't a Sem also."
Hugh frowned, and Tanya leaned forward.
"Max Evans may have married a human, Liz Parker, but his wife, Liz Evans is a Sem."
Hugh stared at her.
"You lie," he whispered hoarsely. "That's impossible."
"I assure you, it is not. That's why your attack - they one that got you caught - failed. Liz Evans is alive and well, and all because her speciality power is healing too."
Hugh sat back and stared.
"Now, don't worry," Tanya went on blithely. "This won't count against your progress, since you obviously programmed Alex long before you came here. I've probably given you too much information, but I've been told you have been doing such a marvellous job integrating here."
Hugh clamped down on another smirk.
"Even though, of course, you've been half pretending that you're integrating."
"What?" Hugh questioned, startled.
"Oh, didn't you realise?" Tanya asked smugly. "The staff here have also been rehabilitating boys - and girls in the girls section - here also for longer than you've been born. They know all the signs to look for. You think you're the only one to try the 'play along and lure them into a false sense of security' routine? Sneaky, but not sneaky enough, I'm afraid. Still, they are reasaonly assured that you are integrating despite your efforts otherwise. Funny how that works, huh? You pretend to integrate, and end up integrating for real. Seems to be taking the long way around if you ask me, but you get that."
Hugh stared at her, his mind whirling with all this new information. Liz was a Sem? Isabel alive? He was an amturish telepath? The rehab staff knew he was pretending to integrate, but that the was integrating for real anyway? He clutched the sides of his head with his hands and stared down at the table.
"Hugh, I honestly believe that you have what it takes to become a productive memner of our society, just as soon as you shake off these homocidal tendancies of yours," Tanya said, then tilted her head to the side. "But then, you haven't actually tried to kill someone directly before, you've only programmed people to do the killing for you. An indirect method, but effective and I suspect that if you were presented with the opportunity to kill someone directly that you wouldn't be able to do it. It's very easily to pull strings from the sidelines, but much, much harder to do these things yourself. Shaking off the lies that the SPM has been feeding you since birth would help too."
"They never lied to me!" Hugh declared, glaring at her.
"Really?" Tanya mused. "What about that story about trying to rig the voting? Stealing the Device? Murdering Max and Isabel's parents?"
"They usurped the throne! They were not the rightfully voted -"
"See?" Tanya mused. "The Daths monitored the proceedings themselves. I assure you that -"
"YIRAAS lies," Hugh hissed. "YIRAAS propganda."
"Ahh. So we come to the point of the conversation where we each say the other is spouting off propoganda, and neither can prove that they not, hmm?"
Hugh stared at her.
"This is a controlled enviromnent, so it's easy for you to say that we would only show you want we want you to see. As I said, if you could shread those homicial tendancies of yours, I think I should like to take you out into the world with me," Tanya said. "I could teach you to use your telepathy properly, and you could get to see what the world is like outside of the SPM, and you could make up your own mind."
"You mean I would believe that what you're saying about them is true," Hugh replied cynically.
"It's a hard thing to turn your back on your family," Tanya replied.
She paused for a moment, then leaned over and touched his hand.
"Let me show you something."
Hugh found himself in a field of black, with Tanya's figure beside him.
"Where are we?"
"Our minds have joined. I'm a strong enough telepath to be able to get away with this in these walls, but only by physical touch," Tanya replied.
The blackness changed to reveal a small town with a dusty dirt road for a main street and a great dead of trees and follage around the buildings. The adults stopped and chatted to each other and kids ran across the road playing with each other. Tanya smile and then pointed out a young girl about seven years of age joining in with the games.
"There you go. That's me," she said. "I was such a cute kid."
Hugh grunted.
"I was also a bright kid," Tanya went on as the scene changed to a warehouse late at night.
Tanya the child was amongst a group of adults, one of whom sent her out to meet one of the patrolling guards. the guard knelt down to talk to her and evidently was asking who she was and what she was doing out here this late, when aburptly he stood, and had a glazed look in his eyes. Tanya the child gestured to the adults, they all stood and went inside the warehouse.
"That wasn't the first time, though."
There seemed to be a slide show of scenes, Tanya the child helping adults to get into various places, to steal or to sabotage, sometimes even to kill. Tanya the child grew up into Tanya the teen and still the scenes continued.
"One day, like you, though, I was caught."
The scenes changed to ones that gave Hugh a sense of deja vu. Tanya the teen wore a collar in a long trip in a van. Tanya the teen was put into rehab - a different one fromt he one Hugh was now in. Aside from this one being for girls, it was also Earth based.
"It's funny, how history repeats," Tanya mused. "Once I was like you, used by my own family, by their organisation to destroy. I knew no other life. I certainly didn't know that what I was doing was wrong, nor that I was buying into their own brand of propoganda. I was taken in hand by a Master Telepath, who taught me and showed me the world, showed me the things that he had seen. He didn't try to force a change in my thinking, because he knew that just by experiencing the world outside of my own small part I would learn the truth for myself."
Hugh watched Tanya the teen as Tanya the adult spoke. She had been a very beautiful girl. He found it all so hard to believe, and yet...
"I had to hide from my family after I got out. They were always trying to relocate me again, but I took a number of false names to throw them off. But... a confrontation was inevitable, and though I tried to fight it, I did end up helping in the capture and detainment of my family and their crminal organisation. It was the worst day of my life. I had betrayed them, and although they had, in a way, betrayed me by lying to me and using me all my life, they didn't believe that they had. They thought that they had done the right thing. It always the way. People always do things because they believe they are in the right."
Hugh was silent.
"Carl - the master telepath - became like a father - a real father - to me. He even sponsored my application to become a YIRAAS agent when the time came. I learnt a lot from him."
The mindscape faded, and Hugh found himself back in the interview again. There seemed to be a sad look on Tanya's face.
"Of course, then I nearly burnt myself out on my first assignment in my enthusiasim to prove that I was a valuable asset and worthy of his sponsorship," Tanya rolled her eyes. "Don't do that, by the way. Burning yourself out is so not fun, and in my case it took its toll physically rather than mentally, which was not cool."
There was silence for a time.
"You were brought up outside of YIRAAS?"
"Yes."
"And they started giving you assigments early?"
"Yes."
"And you went to rehab?"
Tanya nodded.
"I did. I even did what you're doing now - trying to fool them into thinking that I was integrating. I didn't realise they could read me like a book though. And Carl was wonderful. We became friends - it wasn't just the training, although I was certainly very happy to learn and master new techniques and such. It felt good not to be stunted in my telepathic growth. Not many become Ga'Revali master."
"Telepathic martial arts," Hugh murmered. "Do... do you think I would do well? I was the best one amongst my group."
"And they could only teach you what they knew, beyond that, you had to teach yourself," Tanya nodded knowlingly.
She paused, then figured she had told him this much, she may as well finish it.
"I think you could be a master too."
"Like you?"
"And Carl."
Hugh was silent, mulling htings over. Tanya stood.
"I'll leave you now," she said. "Think things over. If you decide you want to, and they're happy with your progess, I'll be happy to take you out of here for awhile. Continue your rehab 'on the job' as it were. You'd probably still have to wear the collar at first - I know, it sucks - but -"
"They did it to you too, right?" Hugh said. "So you know all about it."
Tanya nodded.
"I do," she said quietly.
"How... how do I know all of that wasn't just a trick?"
Tanya just smiled and left the room.