Just five more minutes. He had five more minutes before his shift was over and he’d be able to retreat to his quarters with a hot pizza and 4 or 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Things were finally going his way.. which had him worried. Because when things went his way, it meant that something was gonna go wrong, something always went horribly,
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"What's this about renegade telepaths?" Her voice, harsh and ruined, could have been genuinely curious or borderline hostile. It was hard to tell with her, sometimes.
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“I mean telepaths on the run from the Corps. They tend to filter through the station and most of ‘em don’t cause a problem. It’s the ones that spend their time in the Zocalo, cheat at gambling, start fights or illegally scan people and generally make life difficult that I have to worry about. Believe me, I don’t like calling that sneaky son of a bitch Bester any more than telepaths like seeing him.”
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However, she didn't make it a habit of rifling around in peoples' heads unless they gave her a reason to, so she kept her mind to herself.
"Let me guess. This Corps takes esper--telepath, whatever--kids away from their families, trains them up, puts them to work, and they get treated like tools and thrown away when they're not useful anymore." She narrowed her sharp blue eyes in consideration. "And the ones who get out of the system have to be stopped so the others don't get ideas. Am I close?"
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"Look lady, it wasn't my idea. PsiCorps is for all human telepaths, it's a way to keep them regulated so they don't run around scanning people whenever they choose and using the information how they see fit. I don't like PsiCops any more than anyone else, but I also don't trust the average human any further than I can drop kick them. The average telepath? Probably a little less."
"Lately John's been letting some of the rogue telepaths hide out in Down Below. They keep their head down and keep quiet, I don't have a problem. It's the ones that think they can ride all over mindblind people that I wind up having a problem with."
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She had become quite comfortable with that, but then something had plucked her up and set her down here and now, and they had been on the fritz ever since. It was like trying feel through a wet woolen blanket, and it had done nothing at all for her already fiddly temper.
She narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin. "Okay. You have a kid, maybe four or five years old. One of them comes and tells you that they'll be taking that kid away for their own good and the benefit of the state. You know what you do about how they operate, and what happens to the ones who work outside of the rules. What do you do?"
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"Look, both options suck, okay? You live with the Corps, you do it all their way. You live on the run, you have to live below the radar and off the grid as much as possible. Neither one is the better choice, but so long as a rogue telepath doesn't cause trouble on the station, I got no problem with them."
Well, not entirely.
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"I take them to the Underground Railroad. I still have a few contacts on Mars and on the station that would be able to do a hell of a lot better by some telepathic kid than I ever could. Then they can grow up and make their own damn decisions."
Hell, he had trouble keeping his own life together, much less worrying about anyone else's.
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"Right, staircases. Moving. Got it."
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