A week had passed since the incident with Mrs. Pemberton, and Aiden was seriously starting to wonder if he had become completely nuts or if his new powers were real.
Probably both, he thought with irony while observing Sarah approaching his crib.
- "So, my little prince with golden eyes, how are you today?" she cooed while smiling at him.
"He really has magnificent eyes, he'll be a future handsome guy, oh my... I've never seen this color in a baby and he always looks at me as if he understood every word."
If you only knew, beautiful, thought Aiden returning what must have resembled an angelic smile. I even understand your most twisted thoughts hum hum grow fast little body grow fast.
But he was being careful now.
There was no more question of playing kamikaze with prolonged eye contact. His little excursion into Mrs. Pemberton's traumatic memories had served as a lesson.
The lesson had been painful certainly but really effective, Aiden was already thinking about how to simulate having vision problems so that others wouldn't look at his pupils which would trigger his powers.
However, something had changed since that episode. His abilities had... refined. As if this mental overload had been a sort of intensive training for his brain.
Thoughts now came to him with crystal clarity, without particular effort. He could even capture the emotions of other children across the nursery, their little minds emitting constant signals:
Hunger... cold... loneliness... need for hugs...
A real concert of primary needs that sometimes made him want to plug his ears, well, mentally speaking.
It's like having a radio constantly on in your head, he told himself sighing internally. I really need to learn to filter all this.
The worst is Mrs. Pemberton, I have private, free and effortless access to her mind, everything reaches me, no more need for eye contact, I'm completely VIP.
It wasn't unpleasant but sometimes he really didn't want to know all the orphanage's problems and even less her youthful romances.
Six years later...
Aiden was now six years old and today he was crouched in a dark corner of the orphanage's basement if you could call it a basement, a dump would be more fitting for such a place.
So much so that he had managed to catch a rat there, it wasn't an easy task but it was now done and the little gray rat trembled in his small hands. Aiden's eyes lit up with their orange glow, a glow that contained something a child his age shouldn't have had.
Come on! Focus! he told himself while observing the little rodent that desperately tried to escape by biting him with its fangs that must have contained something even more terrible than the plague at this time. This time, I need to go further.
Six years. Six fucking years perfecting his abilities in the greatest secrecy. What had started with simple thought reading had transformed into something much more sophisticated.
He had spent six years, six fucking years perfecting his abilities day after day, in the greatest secrecy. Simple thought reading now seemed far from what he was doing now and what he was trying to control.
And much more dangerous, he added mentally with a smile that had nothing childlike about it.
Over the years, as his body grew and his mental abilities developed, Aiden had learned to master the art of closing his mind. It had come naturally, almost instinctively. When he concentrated and closed his eyes, he found himself on that floating brick platform, in that mental space he had discovered during the incident with Mrs. Pemberton.
From that platform, he could control his abilities. Decide when to activate them, when to deactivate them. Filter the constant flow of parasitic thoughts that assailed him. It had become a refuge, his personal sanctuary where no one could reach him.
No one, except when there was direct eye contact. That, he still couldn't completely control. His gift was too powerful, too instinctive. A prolonged look and boom, forced dive into the other's mind.
And there were again those nightmarish "memory missiles," as he had started calling them in his child's head, that arrived without warning.
It was always the chase that he never won, and BAM, he found himself projected into the memory of a bombing in London, the wailing sirens, Mrs. Pemberton clutching her doll against her in an air raid shelter, each time he discovered more and more of Mrs. Pemberton. The emotional pain of these foreign experiences left him exhausted, trembling, sometimes nauseous, his little body still too young to support such effort.
But Marcus Reid hadn't become a neurosurgeon by giving up at the first difficulty. Even at 2 years old, something in him refused to passively endure.
Fortunately everyone thinks I have vision problems, he chuckled internally.
He had developed this little comedy around the age of three. Squinting his eyes, appearing to see poorly from afar, avoiding direct gazes under the pretext of shyness. Mrs. Pemberton and the others had gotten used to his "oddities," and no one was surprised anymore that he often looked away.
But that wasn't what occupied him today. No, today, he had a much more ambitious project.
The experimentations.
It had all started with flies. Then spiders. Then mice. A logical, methodical progression, worthy of the former neurosurgeon he had been.
Over the years, Aiden had discovered that his abilities weren't limited to thought reading and mental suggestion. He could literally navigate through the memory tunnels of other minds, learn to dodge those "memory missiles" that had made him suffer so much with Mrs. Pemberton.
And above all, he had discovered the existence of the control center.
The fucking neuronal control center, he thought while absentmindedly stroking the rat. The Holy Grail of mental control.
That's where everything happened. Motor commands, pain management, reflexes, survival instinct. A sort of cerebral control tower that orchestrated all neuronal signals.
And if I can reach it, I can control everything.
His first attempts had been... catastrophic. The spiders committed suicide rather than let him invade their control center. The mice became hysterical, banging against walls until death. Their mental defense systems, as primitive as they were, preferred self-destruction to invasion.
But I'm learning, he told himself while staring at the trembling rat. With each failure, I understand better. I'm improving.
The rat squeaked pathetically, instinctively sensing danger. Aiden smiled and plunged his gaze into the animal's small black eyes.
The rat's mind opened to him like a simplified picture book. No words, no complex thoughts, just raw sensations: fear-hunger-cold-danger-flee-flee-flee.
Aiden mentally navigated through the superficial layers of the rodent's consciousness, gradually descending toward the deeper zones. He had learned to move with caution, like a burglar in a sleeping house.
Emotional layer... sensory layer... and now...
He reached the rat's memory tunnel. Unlike Mrs. Pemberton's, it was a simple place, almost empty. A few scattered fragments: cage-food-other-rats-fear-of-cat.
Aiden ignored them and continued his descent. Deeper. Toward the heart of the system.
And there, he saw it.
The rat's neuronal control center looked like a miniature engine room. Millions of small lights blinking, neuronal "cables" pulsing with energy, commands that activated automatically.
Magnificent, thought Aiden, fascinated despite himself.
He approached mentally, extending a spectral hand toward the controls. As soon as he touched the first "button," the rat's defense systems activated.
ALERT! INTRUSION! FOREIGN BODY! ELIMINATE! ELIMINATE!
The control center began blinking violently, alarm signals shooting in all directions. Aiden felt the massive resistance of the organism trying to expel him.
In the real world, the rat began to convulse, its small paws frantically clawing at the air, its tail whipping like a miniature whip.
Shit, thought Aiden trying to maintain his mental position. Not again...
But it was too late. Like every previous attempt, the rat's mental immune system chose the radical solution.
SELF-DESTRUCTION INITIATED.
The lights of the control center began to go out one by one. The rat let out a final sharp squeak and became still, its small eyes becoming glassy.
Damn! Aiden released his mental grip and returned brutally to his own body. The rat was dead in his hands, victim of what looked like cardiac arrest.
He sighed and gently placed the small body on the cold stone floor of the basement.
The seventeenth, he counted mentally. Seventeen rats dead because I can't get through their defenses without triggering their self-destruction instinct.
But he wasn't getting discouraged. On the contrary, each failure taught him something new. He was beginning to understand the defense mechanisms, to map the reactions of different neuronal systems.
I need to go more gently, he analyzed while observing the dead rat. Find a way to bypass the alert systems instead of triggering them. My spectral body is too noisy, I'll have to try to modify that if I want to continue my plans.
A sound of footsteps on the stairs interrupted his reflections. Quickly, he slipped the dead rat into his pocket and went back up toward the nursery, displaying his usual mask of innocent child.
Mrs. Pemberton coming to get preserves, he guessed by capturing her thoughts before she even appeared.
- "Aiden? What are you doing down there, my little one?"
- "I'm playing hide and seek with Tommy!" he lied with the angelic smile he had perfected over the years.
- "This boy really has an overflowing imagination. Always inventing strange games. But at least, he doesn't cause problems like some others."
If you only knew, thought Aiden following her toward the stairs.
That night, lying in his small orphanage bed, he took stock of his progress. Six years of secret experimentations. Six years developing abilities that no one suspected.
He now mastered superficial thought reading with disconcerting ease. He could close his mind at will, take refuge on his mental platform when he wished. He was capable of navigating through others' memories without being "attacked" by memory fragments.
But the neuronal control center still resisted him. That ultimate zone where he could theoretically take total control of another living being.
Patience, he told himself while observing the shadows on the ceiling. I'm only 6 years old but things will accelerate, especially in the technological market and I urgently need to be able to influence an adult mind.
Outside, London slept under a starry sky. And somewhere in that peaceful night, Aiden perceived the gentle emotions of clouds that slowly drifted, carriers of dreams and serenity.
Soon, he promised to the dead rat hidden under his mattress. Soon, I'll have pierced all your secrets.
And for the first time in a long while, he fell asleep with a smile.