That was not good. That never happened during practice.
Without thinking, I flicked my wrist, and the word “sorrow” echoed through my mind. Masters of the Mental Arts form psionic weapons from thoughts and emotions. Unfortunately, I am not a Master. I didn’t mean to draw the emotion that triggered the Psi Fighter’s most powerful Psi Weapon, but Andy and I had just practiced the technique in training, and I couldn’t think of anything else. A ghostlike whip of psychogenic mist exploded from my Amplifier and solidified around the stalker’s arm. I yanked and held tight. His gun spiraled through the air, and he fell to the grass, shaking violently. My Memory Lash slithered up his arm, coiling around him like a misty python.
Please! The stalker’s terrified thoughts filled my brain before his voice reached my ears. He sobbed like a little girl, thrashing as the Memory Lash tightened. His memories flooded my mind like a blast of putrid wind, siphoned by the Lash…tiny faces in a wire cage, little girls crying for their mothers. A hideous skull surfaced and disappeared. A little blond face flashed into my head, dirty and crying, screaming that she would tell his mommy. Horror gripped him, fear that his mother would find out—
His terror filled me in a way I had never experienced in practice. I became him, horrified of my mother, paralyzed by what she’d done to me in the past. Her enormous face came at me from all directions. The little girl wouldn’t stop screaming. I ripped open the cage door, picked up a claw hammer, and hurled it with all my strength. The claw lodged in the wooden frame beside her head. Terror filled the girl’s eyes, and she clamped her hands over her screaming mouth. An overwhelming sense of glee flooded into my mind, and I slammed the cage door shut.
That twisted feeling jolted me like high voltage electricity, and I fought to become me again. I threw my Amplifier to the ground, trying to escape the horrible images, but I couldn’t push the stalker’s memories out of my head. My legs shook, the world spun, and I dropped to my knees, trying not to vomit in my mask.
“Get up!” Andy’s irritated voice snapped me from the trance. His mask, a bright angelic face with laughing eyes, peered down at me, cocked at a furious angle.
I knew without looking that the smelly creeper was gone.
“Andy, I’m sorry.”
He jerked me to my feet. “You ignored my orders. Why?”
“But my radio—”
“I told you to check the charge,” he spat, towering over me. “Why would you use a Memory Lash? You know you can’t handle it!”
“It was all I could think of.” My whole body quivered. “He had a gun. I’m sorry, Andy, I…”
Andy sighed. His big body relaxed, and he rested his gauntleted fist on my shoulder. “It’s okay. Did the Lash change him?”
“No sorrow, no remorse,” I said. “He enjoys terrorizing. I think he likes being afraid. Andy, I saw his face.”
“I know.” Andy picked up the dropped Elmo mask. “That thing smells awful. Who is this Jim Henson reject?”
“Didn’t recognize him. But Elmo isn’t his only disguise.”
“Yeah, I know. Clowns, purple dinosaurs.”
“I saw a skull mask in one of his memories. Like a pirate’s Jolly Roger. Probably wears it to frighten the children.”
Andy’s body went rigid. “A death’s head? Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. Now that I was released from the effects of my backfired attack, I tried to remember what I had seen. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it. Children were caged, and I had just let their kidnapper escape. “Idiot!” I said under my breath. “Andy, he’s holding little girls captive. If they die, it’s my fault.” I picked my broken Amplifier out of the grass and pulled at it with my mind, hoping that some memory fragments remained.
How could I have let him get away? How could I have been so stupid? That poor child, the way her eyes bulged when the hammer nearly killed her, the sickening joy the stalker felt, the horror of his mother…suddenly, a gateway opened and the terrible things I had seen in the stalker’s mind flooded out. My legs buckled, my hands shook… Instantly, the memories became too vivid—the hammer felt deadly in my hand—I was there again, enjoying it, and it terrified me—and I struggled to separate myself from him. “Andy, the little girls—please stop it! I can’t keep him out—Andy, help me! Andy—”
Andy was on me in an instant, arms around me, masked forehead pressed against my own, whispering into my mind, “Every mission has its own horror. Don’t dwell there. You know how to push it away. Now push. Like we practiced.”
Calmness flowed through me, but I knew it wasn’t of my own doing. I concentrated, filling myself with thoughts of home, the Academy, my family, until I regained control. My storm of emotions calmed. I forced the memories out, and I was me again.