Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 20:55:51 -0700
From: Dan Kirk <kirkjr2@home.com>
Subject: Wreckers Interlude 2

This story contains some erotic and violent situations.  The violence, and
sexual material, for that matter, are not gratuitous.  They are part of the
story.  If this is illegal where you reside, or you are not of legal age,
read no further!  Otherwise, enjoy.  All work remains the property of the
owner, and is printed on this web site, and its authorized mirrors /
affiliates by permission of the author.  Any other printing, distribution,
etc. is prohibited.

I'd like to thank Ed once more for his work in proofing this.


Wreckers Interlude #2 -


For a moment, weird disorientation hit him hard, and he stumbled.  Cold
stone met his outstretched hands and knees as he hit the ground.  The
disorientation passed, and Andrei remembered who and where he was.
Standing back up, and sitting back down in the chair he had made from the
stone dais, he looked at the form of J'Stan sitting across from him.

Tears stained those beautiful cheeks, and his arms clenched the arms of his
own stone chair.  Using the new abilities within himself, Andrei sensed
both a great joy, and even greater sadness flowing from the man who had
once been Justin Ackeman.  This piqued his curiousity, but he thought he
knew the man well enough now to not ask too directly.

"Why'd you stop now?" Andrei said.  "It was just getting exciting!"

A laugh broke through J'Stan's tears and he said, "What, you just want to
skip to the sex?"

"With those two, who wouldn't?"

A deep sigh sounded very loud in the room, and a soft smile lit J'Stan's
face.  "Could you imagine what it was like, for the three of us?  We were
linked so deeply together that when we made love, we felt everything each
of us felt.  All three of us.  Those four years were probably the best four
of my life, and since I'm now somewhere over 10,000, that's saying a lot."

"Four years?  Is that all?" Andrei asked, somewhat surprised.

"Yes, four years.  There was a lot going on.  For the first year, none of
us were allowed outside the base.  We taught new students, and did such a
good job at it that within a few months, we were the only instructers left
on the base.  Everyone else was deployed.  There were a few graduates there
on R&R until they were re-deployed, but the three of us gave most of the
classes."

Andrei didn't understand why they were talking about it, since previously
J'Stan had just shown things to him, like Andrei had been Justin himself.
"I take it that whatever happened during those interrogations, they didn't
find out anything you didn't want them to know."

J'Stan just looked at him for a moment, before responding, "If I had
realized just how much showing this to you would bring back, I don't think
I'd have started.

"No, the interrogators never got the full story from us.  They thought that
this melding enabled the twins to use my powers, and that Corcoran died
without telling us the secrets he had learned.  It wasn't easy, but over
the next four years, we managed to confirm everything Corcoran said, and
much more besides.  The time when we would have held elections passed
without a vote being made.  Those in power stayed in power, claiming that
the 'National Emergency' demanded continuity in leadership, and promising
to restore normal elections when it was over."

"What did you do about it?" Andrei asked.  He'd never heard of the United
States before being thrown into this room, but from the memories he had
been shown, he actually felt a sense of loss at what he'd been told.

"At first, nothing," J'Stan answered, getting up from the chair, and
starting to pace around.  Andrei admired his nude form, and realized the
twins had been lucky when they'd caught this man.

"But we soon figured out how to hide ourselves, and our intentions.  We
sheltered our knowledge, our plans, and our thoughts related to the people
who had stolen the government into that part of our minds that were shared.
Only the three of us could reach it, could understand it.  When someone
read my mind, they read just my mind.  When Curtis was drugged, they got
answers only from Curtis, not the part of us that made us who we were.

"You see, after that joining out in the woods of West Virginia, we truly
were 3 parts of one person.  It was really weird at first.  Have you ever
seen a face that reminded you of a person, but it wasn't that person?  Did
you realize that they reminded you of someone you used to know?  Or a sound
remind you of something that happened when you were a kid?  Or did you ever
just sit and reminisce about a childhood friend that isn't around anymore?"

"Som..Sometimes I think about Creis and how much I miss him," Andrei
stuttered, tears coming to his eyes now.

"Yes, he was your lover, right?  They splattered him against that wall
outside last year?"

Sobbing now, Andrei just closed his eyes against the tears and just shook
his head.  He was surprised to feel warm arms around him as he was pulled
into J'Stan's embrace.  "I may be bored, Andrei, but I haven't forgotten
sympathy.  I didn't mean to be so rude about your loss, but I think you get
my point about memories."

When Andrei's sobbing had slowed down some, and the tears stopped flowing,
J'Stan continued.  "Now, imagine what it was like remembering those things
from TWO other people's lives.  Jason and Curtis were twins, but they still
had individual lives.  Growing up, in school they had different classes,
some different friends.  They had even dated different people for a while,
until it caused some problems between them.

"When the Event happened, they didn't notice much different about
themselves at first.  Except that they were a lot closer, mentally.
Before, they'd always had an awareness of each other, but in the first few
months, they began to realize that they could hear each other's thought
clearly now.  They could see what each other saw, even if they were miles
apart.

"They lived in a town called Kenosha, Wisconsin.  Things didn't go too bad
at first after the event, but like Phoenix, riots soon swept their town
too.  When the riots started, Curtis was out training with the local
national guard. Like everyone their age, they had been drafted to help keep
civil order.  Jason was home with his parents, trying to help them with
making candles, and other things they needed without electricity.  A mob
formed a few blocks away, and clashed with local police.  Somehow things
boiled over in front of their home, and the house caught on fire.

"Curtis, practicing with his unit, caught a mental image of what was
happening from Jason, and convinced his squad leader to go to the area,
even though no official reports had come in yet.  They arrived in time to
save Jason, but not in time to save their parents, who were burned to
death."

"Wow," was all Andrei could say.

"Yeah, but the point of this is, that one day I was training some new
students in elemental combat.  Remember the training room?  Well, one
student managed to burn another, and when I rushed over to heal him, the
smell reminded me of my parents' death.  The grief came back and I found
myself sobbing as I healed the student.

"Except it wasn't MY parents. It was their parents.  Likewise, one day we
got a student who had just turned 13.  He looked a lot like Tyler would
have, if he had lived.  Jason was trying to teach him to shield his
thoughts, and just started crying.  The kid reminded him too much of his
nephew, Tyler.  Except Tyler was MY nephew."

"So, it was like you had the memories of each other, had lived their
lives?" Andrei asked, understanding intuitively.  After all, he was
undergoing something similar, but much more limited, through the sharing of
J'Stan's memories.

"Exactly," J'Stan murmured as he stood up from the embrace with Andrei, and
returned to his chair.

"So, for four years you trained people, hiding your decision to rebel
against the people in power?" Andrei asked, realizing the discussion was
depressing J'Stan.

"Yes, we trained all the new people that we found, and we did more
besides," J'stan answered, glad for the change in subject.  "As the only
three trainers, we were able to probe these students when we were training
them.  We learned them, and we learned which would blindly follow orders,
or worse, would gladly follow orders.  We found those who would question
their orders, and doubt the validity of a government which ruled through
fear and oppression.

"Those that we believed would join us willingly, we had a 'talk' with.  If
they consented, we drew them into our little consipiracy, and taught them
the true nature of their powers.  We also taught them how to hide their
knowledge and abilities from the FBI agents who did periodic testing of us.
Not one of those interrogation sessions revealed our consipiracy.  I think
that was the only thing that worked exactly as planned."

"What about the others?" Andrei asked.  "What about those who were just
following orders, or..or those that enjoyed the things they were told to
do?"

"Those cruel bastards who enjoyed it, well, there weren't many of them, but
there were some.  Think about bullies, and that's what most of them were
like.  Many of them gladly took to tasks like hunting down people with
'disloyal' thoughts.  Killing them.  Some of them even took part in local
purges.  Oh yes, there were purges of people who weren't like the others in
their communities.  Gays, Muslims, Jews, blacks, hispanics.  You name it,
it happened.  Many of them were stirred up on government orders by our
agents.

"I managed to arrange a few accidents for most of them.  There were
training accidents that happened, and sometimes I just wasn't fast enough
to heal them, or I was in another part of the base, and the healer assigned
just wasn't strong enough to save him."

"That's, that's..." Andrei stuttered, looking for the right word.

"Barbaric?  Yes.  But they weren't innocent.  They had committed crimes
against humanity, and would have stood in our way when we made our move.
Their deaths were necessary."

"So it took four years to get ready for overthrowing the government?"

"No, Andrei.  Four years and we weren't even near ready.  Overthrowing the
government was only a part of it.  You see, Andrei, when that government
was gone, it would have to be replaced by something or millions were likely
to die in the chaos that followed.  The trick was to find something, or
more exactly, some people to take their place.  Whoever we set up would
have have to be able to command the military command staff, and appear
legitimate to the people.  After four years, we were no closer to that
answer than when we started."

"Oh," Andrei said, lost in thought for a few moments.  The great room was
silent as they sat starting at each other.  "Couldn't you have taken
charge?"

J'Stan laughed, filling the room with echoes of that laughter.  "No.  I
didn't want the responsibility.  Besides, what good does it do to replace
tyranny with tyranny?  I thought about it, and Jas and Curt suggested it,
but I couldn't stand the idea of doing that."

"Instead, after four years we were no closer to finding a replacement
government, and our restriction to the base limited us in our ability to
make the contacts we needed.  None of the people we recruited were old
enough, or experienced enough to help us out either."

"What about Alan or Henry, or even David?"

"We probed them too, under the disguise of practice sessions.  Of the
three, Alan was the only one who might have been willing to help us out.
Unfortunately, he was dedicated to the military command, and didn't have
what it takes to rebel.  We thought he might, even made openings to him,
but he reacted so negatively we had to wipe his memory of it."

"Oh, so how did it change?"

"I got a mission." J'Stan said.  "David and Alan were back at the base, and
had assumed many of the instructor duties.  Things back in Phoenix weren't
going well.  Civil unrest had picked up in the wake of some new laws that
were forced onto the public. I was sent for two reasons.  One, there had
been an attack on the solar power facilities there, and our help was needed
in rebuilding them.  Two, they suspected those responsible for the attacks
were receiving help from a rogue psionic."

"Rogue?" Andrei asked.

"Yeah, by that time, there were three confirmed desertions.  Only one of
them had been found, and executed.  Two of them were people we had
recruited, but had faced the choice of following orders they couldn't
stand, or leaving.  They'd all left, and with the knowledge from me of the
true nature of our abilities, they evaded capture.  Command didn't know
that part of it, of course, but they felt that maybe since I had succeeded
with Corcoran, I'd succeed again.  Except this time they were sending me
without the twins."

"You went alone?"

"No, they sent two people with me.  One was a member of our select group.
The other was one of the cruel types I had not yet managed to kill.  Both
of them were in California at the time, and were making their way to
Phoenix over land.  I teleported.  We had shown members of our group how to
do that, and to avoid suspicion, let command know something of that
ability.  It was agreed among us that I'd be the only who could teleport
long distances, or groups of people, but that others would be able to
teleport short distances.  We never showed anyone to do this unless they
were part of our little resistance group."

"Oh, so you went back to Phoenix?" Andrei asked, curiousity burning him up.

"Not before saying good bye to the other parts of myself.  None of us
suspected that the goodbye might be forever"

"Forever?" Andrei said out loud.

"Yes, forever," J'Stan said, tears showing again. "I guess you better live
through this too, It's too much to say out loud."

Once again, the room spun around Andrei, and the feeling of disorientation
spread throughout his body as he let J'Stan send him into the memories of
the past.