Part 4

Lukas leaned against the wall outside the small practice room, biting his lip and fighting to keep his shielding in place. It had been a constant struggle since early that morning, and he'd nearly lost control twice already - he was trembling on the verge of a Fit, and after all his hard work to free himself from them he had no desire to go back to them now.

Everyone at the Institute, Instructor and student alike, was furious, grief-stricken, and anguished by turns. In the advanced firearms practice that morning, during the middle of a target run much like the one in which Lukas had first discovered the new application of his Gift, Arun had turned his pistol around and shot himself fatally in the head before anyone could stop him. No one had realized what was happening until it was too late - even Ivan, the Russian Healer who shared the class with them, had been unable to save the telepath.

The worst part was that there had been no clue, no warning signs, no indication at all that Arun would do something like that. The Pakistani had always been quiet and retiring, but he hadn't seemed any more so than normal lately. He hadn't had any close friends - few of the students were close with each other, despite the forced intimacy of their living conditions. The Instructors made sure of that, to prevent just the kind of conspiracy that Brad and Lukas were in. Only Lukas had had any hint that something might be wrong - that day nearly a month previously, when he had encountered Arun leaving his private lesson with Instructor Emanuel.

He was furious with himself now, for not having followed up on the things he'd felt in his friend's mind at that time. He'd known that the depression and self-hatred he'd sensed weren't normal, he should have reported it to someone! But he'd been so wrapped up in his own elation at being promoted in two areas that he'd dismissed it from his mind, wilfully forgotten it because he hadn't wanted to deal with it. Now Arun was gone forever, and it was at least partly his fault.

A group of the younger students passed him in the hall, heading towards a strategy class by the looks of the texts and notebooks in their arms. He was nearly swamped by the wave of sorrow and misery they projected, most of them still too untrained to have learned how to shield themselves. He snarled at them. "Damp it down, will you?" he snapped, raising one trembling hand to his head in a futile effort to stave of the migraine that was forming. "Have a little consideration for us telepaths!"

They gave him startled looks, and scurried on past him as quickly as they could. Those few who knew how to shield did so, stretching themselves to cover their companions as well. Lukas sighed in relief as the headache abated a little, though it was far from gone.

At long last the door beside him opened and Sirikit, a telepath from Thailand, emerged. She was as downcast and upset as everyone else, but at least her personal shielding was strong enough that she wasn't forcing Lukas to share her emotions with her. She nodded at him, gliding past him down the hall on silent slippered feet. He ducked into the practice room the moment she was out of the doorway, although protocol called for him to wait until Emanuel invited him in, and let the door slam shut behind him. Enveloped in the muffled feeling of mental silence caused by the heavy shielding on the room itself, he breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"Having trouble keeping it all out?" Emanuel asked from the other side of the room, where he was seated in one of the two chairs studying a clipboard of notes. He didn't bother to look up as Lukas entered the room, signaling his subtle disapproval of the boy's actions - but he didn't order him to get out, either, to Lukas's gratitude.

"Yeah," he answered roughly, drawing a shaking hand across his brow to rid himself of the sweat that had gathered there. "It's pretty rough out there. Everyone's going nuts, and even the people who CAN shield aren't remembering to."

Now Emanuel glanced up at him; a neutral glance, neither friendly nor hostile, just as he always looked. Still, today there was something buried deep in his black eyes that made Lukas feel uneasy. Or perhaps it was the lack of something, he thought to himself; Emanuel was the one person in the entire Institute who looked as though he'd barely noticed the death of one of his prize students.

"Sit down," the man invited at last, and Lukas did so. "I realize that you're not working at full capacity today, but we're going to attempt some exercises anyway. It will help you get your mind off it, if nothing else." He smiled thinly at his own little pun. Lukas shifted nervously in his seat, unable to shake the feeling of unease that was plaguing him. It grew worse with every word Emanuel uttered, and he threw his tightest shields up to try to combat it. That helped, at least for the moment.

"Today we're going to be working on reading people through shielding and other obstacles. Yes, I know you're already strong enough to get through the shields of anyone here at the Institute without effort," he said, forestalling Lukas' protest, "but you have a distressing tendency not to look past the surface thoughts, the first layer of a person's psyche. Many telepaths can be stymied by the simple expedient of repeating nonsense verse or doing mental calculations in your mind, keeping the information they want to read out of your surface thoughts." Lukas nodded thoughtfully - he'd encountered that phenomenon a few times. Usually he was strong enough to just bull past the distraction and grab what he wanted anyway, but if there was an easier way to do it, he was willing to learn! It took a lot of energy to get through by main strength of mind.

"You are more than strong enough to get past this," Emanuel said, echoing his own thoughts. "What you now need to practice is finesse. Control. Just as a smaller, lighter martial artist can defeat an opponent who uses only brute strength, so a telepath with good control can outmanoeuvre a technically more powerful mind."

He paused, staring at Lukas intently. It was the most emotion Lukas had ever seen on the man's face, but he couldn't identify the source of it. Whatever it was, it made warning bells go off in the back of his mind, making him twitch and look away.

"This is the first exercise," Emanuel finally continued, still watching him intently. "I will think of something that I wish for you to do. I will be thinking of different things on several layers - this is a technique that I perfected some time ago, which few can manage. Depending on which action it is that you perform, I will know how deeply you have been able to go. We will practice this until it is second nature to you. Then we will expand your facility, by setting a predetermined 'level' for you to look for, rather than simply the deepest. Do you understand?"

Lukas nodded, frowning in concentration. Emanuel grunted in satisfaction. "Very good. Begin."

He half-closed his eyes, carefully dropping his shields one by one and sending tendrils of thought probing out. He didn't close them entirely - that was a bad habit they were broken of early in training. Close your eyes to concentrate on mental attacks, and you give your enemy a physical opening. The moment he lowered his defences the feeling of unease returned, but he ignored it - he was fairly certain now that Emanuel was projecting it on purpose, one of the 'distractions' he was supposed to get past.

The first layer was easy, despite the heavy shielding Emanuel had up. Get up, cross the room, and pick up the square blue block from the set that the telekinetics practiced with. He ignored it, and dug deeper. Ah, clever - same command, but the block he was supposed to pick up was the round red one. Emanuel had said that there would be several layers, though, so he kept digging. He was taking too long, but it was only his first try - speed would come with practice, as the Instructor had said.

He passed by several more commands, both simple and complex, before he thought he had the bottom one. Smirking slightly, he reached out and touched Emanuel's right arm, precisely one inch above the elbow. The man gave him a thin smile in return.

"Very good, though that was not the very bottommost command. You were only a few levels from it, however. Excellent for a first attempt."

Lukas fought to stifle his frown. He thought he'd done better than that. Greedy, he told himself firmly. You can't be the best at everything on the first try. You may be powerful, but if you didn't need practice, you wouldn't be here!

"Again."

They went through the exercise several more times, and still Lukas was unable to penetrate any further into the man's mind. He was starting to get frustrated, when suddenly he had a brainstorm - he stopped looking for articulated commands, and opened himself to images and emotions as well.

Bingo! Emanuel was always so careful to keep emotions out of the lessons, always stressed concentrating on the purity of telepathy, that he hadn't thought to search for them before. But there they were, shining out brightly. Triumphantly he leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and propped his left ankle up on his right knee. He grinned exultantly at his teacher, who nodded.

"Excellent. But too slow. Now we work on speed of comprehension, and this time there will not always be the same number of layers each time."

Lukas dropped his foot back to the floor and sat up again, concentrating. He reached out once more, keeping himself carefully open to images and emotions. He drew back again almost at once, stunned. He stared at Emanuel, bemused by what he'd felt - a storm of carefully controlled hunger and need, directed at him. The sensation made his stomach roil, and he shivered. "Well?" Emanuel prompted him impatiently, and he hesitantly reached out again. It had to be his imagination, he told himself, though he couldn't keep from swallowing hard and bracing for the return of the sensation.

It wasn't his imagination. At the deepest levels of the Instructor's mind that he could reach, the hunger sat waiting like a chained predator. It felt a bit like what he'd seen in Brad's mind when the older boy had kissed him, but dirtier, disgusting. Images accompanied the feeling, and this time Lukas knew that what Emanuel wanted him to do was nothing so innocuous as touching him on the arm...

He drew back again in horror, slapping his heaviest shields up in automatic defence. "You can't be serious!" he blurted out, revolted. He was only fourteen, and this man was his teacher! That was even worse than what Sven and Ingrid did, he knew. Why, if the other instructors ever found out...

His mind suddenly flew back to the day when he'd run into Arun in the corridor outside this very room. He'd had the same feeling of uneasiness then, and what he'd seen in the boy's mind - horror, revulsion, self-loathing... He stared at the Greek man, shocked.

Emanuel didn't seem to have noticed his distress. He remained calm and collected, examining his nails as he sat in the chair as though he didn't have a care in the world. "Do you know what happens to a student who uses his powers against an Instructor, Lukas?" he asked casually, his tone purely conversational.

"The rest of the Instructors burn his mind out," he replied automatically, not sure what this had to do with anything. He shivered at the mere thought - he'd never seen it happen, though it had occurred a few times in the Institute's history. It was a spook-story, the kind of thing the younger kids passed around between themselves late at night in pitch-black dorms to scare each other - be good, or the Instructors will blow your mind out. He knew the method well enough; the offending student was tied to the Punishment Post in the courtyard, and all the other students were called to witness the event, as an example. Then the Instructors systematically destroyed the child's mind, from the surface downward, taking away Gifts, intelligence, rationality, even instinct, until the body was little more than a living corpse. Then they left it alone, only the autonomous functions remaining, until it died of dehydration some days later. It remained in the courtyard all that time, to remind the other students of the folly of rebellion. It was a harsh punishment, but an effective one - they rarely needed to use it, perhaps once in a generation.

"We will continue the exercise," Emanuel said blandly, as though he were discussing the weather. There was no hint of menace in his tone, but suddenly Lukas was terrified. The implied threat would be clear even to a non-telepath; do as he said, or Lukas would be punished. He knew better than to even think of telling any of the other Instructors - they would believe Emanuel over him, even Dekane. That alone might be enough grounds for punishment, he thought, shivering.

Agonized, he tried to decide what he should do. What he had seen in Emanuel's mind was disgusting, perverted - he wanted nothing to do with it. He knew Brad wouldn't mind his experimenting with a few of the other kids, but this! This was dirty, this was wrong. He saw in Emanuel's mind that HE would be dirty after doing this, or at least everyone would think so. No one would want him, certainly not someone like Brad. Suddenly Lukas understood why Arun had chosen the escape he had - once begun, death was the only way to escape the cycle.

And yet, what choice did he really have? He didn't think he had the strength of will to kill himself as Arun had; he was too afraid of death and what lay beyond it. Besides which, the Instructors would be triply diligent now, guarding against any other student trying the same thing. Arun had gotten away with it only because he'd caught them by surprise, moving too quickly for one of the telekinetics to stop him. And if he disobeyed - he shivered. Having his mind torn to shreds was an even less appealing prospect than what Emanuel wanted of him. And he had little doubt that Emanuel would carry through on his threat.

Reluctantly, fighting off the tears that insisted on welling up in his eyes no matter how he tried to will them away, he opened his shields again. The smirk on Emanuel's face and the self-satisfied feeling to his thoughts told him that the Instructor was well aware of his struggle and was enjoying it.

He followed the images in the man's mind exactly, knowing that the slightest deviation could be construed as disobedience. Moving slowly, he got down on his knees in front of the Instructor, and leaned forward to carefully undo the button fly of the man's old-fashioned trousers. His hands were shaking worse than they had been earlier, and he struggled not to let his emotions show on his face. There was a firm bulge beneath his fingers, and he could hear Emanuel's breath speed up when he brushed against it.

Giving up on his struggle with the tears, he ignored them as they streamed down his cheeks, and withdrew the hard cock from within the man's briefs. He wasn't a total innocent - he'd touched himself often enough, late at night in his bunk or when he was alone in the showers, usually thinking of Brad when he did it. He'd even listened in on the minds of two of the older boys once, fascinated as they screwed each other silly. The Instructors didn't try to keep them from having sex with each other, though the girls were temporarily sterilized to ensure there wouldn't be any accidents. They'd even stopped trying to keep Sven and Ingrid separated. Lukas vaguely remembered from his childhood that two men having sex was supposed to be evil for some reason, but such taboos were impractical here at the complex, where the boys so outnumbered the girls.

*Swallow it,* Emanuel instructed him, and his eyes widened. The dick in his hands was huge, and he was certain he wouldn't be able to take all of it without gagging. Hard pressure at the back of his head warned him not to take his time about it, and he closed his eyes and leaned forward, wrapping his lips around the disgusting thing with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

It was horrible, even worse than he'd feared - Emanuel apparently didn't wash there too frequently, and the taste was at least as bad as the smell. He choked as the hand on the back of his head forced him to take it all, the length hitting the back of his throat and triggering his gag reflex. He fought against it, feeling the bile rise in his throat and forcing it back down. Emanuel began to pump his hips back and forth, his mind radiating sick pleasure, and Lukas shielded himself in self-defence.

That proved to be a mistake - it meant he didn't pick up the next command, and the Instructor pulled away from him and slapped him harshly. "Pay attention!" he was berated, and he nodded miserably, opening his shields again.

He returned his lips to the man's erection, touching where Emanuel instructed him to touch, feeling sickened by the perverse pleasure the man felt. At last the hard length in his mouth twitched once, twice, and Emanuel's entire body tightened with release. He nearly choked again on the sticky fluid that streamed forth into his mouth, but a harsh mental warning from the older telepath made him swallow quickly.

He pulled away at last, covertly trying to wipe the awful taste from his mouth, thinking that was the end of it. Emanuel proved to have other ideas; he was ordered to strip and go to the table at the far side of the room. Miserable, he did so, hopping up to sit on the cold metal surface of the table and crossing his legs to train to maintain some semblance of dignity.

Emanuel forced him to lie back, and he shivered as the steel touched his overheated skin. He was flushed with shame, trembling with fear, as the man touched him all over. He was rough, not caring if he left bruises - all the kids always had bruises, their physical training was not particularly forgiving of mistakes. Lukas choked down a plea for mercy as the rough fingers tugged at his cock; he knew mercy was a concept foreign to the Greek telepath.

To his utter horror, he felt his body responding to the steady stroking, just as it did when he touched himself there. He fought down the sensations, frantic, but his body refused to listen to his mind. This was pleasurable, it insisted, and he was damn well going to lie there and like it.

He bit his lip until he tasted blood, hoping to distract himself, but it was no use. When he was hard and stiff and fully erect, the older telepath pulled away. He cried out despite himself, his body aching for the completion he'd been denied.

Then he cried out for a different reason, pain spiking through him as Emanuel took him with no preparation at all. It hurt, oh it hurt! He was too tight, Emanuel was too big for him, and it was tearing him apart. He could feel blood lubricating the forceful thrusts, and he turned his head to the side to avoid the sloppy kisses being forced on him. He didn't care at the moment that he might be punished for his defiance - all that mattered was the pain in his ass and in his soul.

His body went rigid, eyes wide and mouth gaping, as Emanuel suddenly forced his mind onto Lukas'. The sudden juxtaposition was overwhelming, making his muscles trembling with the signs of an oncoming Fit. He tried to choke out a denial, a warning, but couldn't get a sound past the tongue shoved down his throat - any attempt at mental coherency was blocked by the waves of incoming thoughts and emotions. He could feel Emanuel's pleasure at his tightness, feel the ecstasy building in the man's body, and felt it echo within his own body.

They came together, Emanuel's mind whispering to him all the while. *You see, you liked it,* it said insidiously, crawling around inside his brain until he wanted to retch. *You're a little whore, just like Arun was. He begged me for it, again and again, just like you're going to beg me for it. Your body wants this, little whore, even if your mind doesn't. You can't escape me - they won't believe you, and you won't be able to get away the way Arun did, the bastard. You're all mine, little one, mine for the taking. So you might as well just enjoy it, like your body wants you to.*

Lukas screamed a protest, wishing desperately that someone would hear and come to his rescue, though he knew the room was just as well soundproofed as it was shielded. No one would hear. No one would believe. He was a little whore, the semen spattered over his stomach proved that. Brad would never want him now...

His mind blanked out, shutting down in defence against his own invidious thoughts. As he slipped away into the void, Lukas prayed for forgiveness - not from God, in whom he no longer believed, but from Brad, the only person who had ever truly cared for him.

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