(NOVELLA) Two Accounts of the Ment Resistance Incident and the Inhumanity Shown by the Norms

(written in 2008)

DURING the nineteen-year period between 2029 and 2056 AD, the people of Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) were collectively willing bystanders, albeit deceived into behaving so, to a vast inhuman, insidiously malicious act. Perpetrated by the head-honchos (via their henchmen) of a global food production and genetic engineering conglomerate, OneWorldTopStandardProducts (OWTSP), they maintained a sufficiently enormous multitude of tentacle-like regional branches penetrating into almost every nation across the planet.

The global conglomerate’s Vancouver branch, operated by OWTSP’s North American corporate entity InterTopStandardProducts (ITSP), was assigned the “prototype facility” status that entailed the performance of blatantly immoral, unethical and criminal abusively invasive means of laboratory research and testing on human beings, beginning at their embryotic stage.

To acquire their targeted quantity of 218 future test-subjects, the ITSP facility advertised irresistible offers to area couples who strongly desired to conceive their own children but were deemed by their own physician(s) to be biologically incompatible to do so. The facility offered interested couples, who must not be deemed infertile by a facility doctor, free in-vitro fertilization procedures as well as free full facility-hospital accommodation—a package that would otherwise cost each couple, whose dual salaries combined make up but one average income, upwards to a million dollars.

When the inevitable logical question surfaced from interested couples as to exactly what the facility got out of it all, the reply had been thoroughly thought-out and very well-rehearsed.

“Well, in return, the expectant mother remains at the clinic until birthing occurs, following by the resultant offspring spending some time at the clinic, as we observe their progress—of course with all regular life-related costs, such as food and clothing, etcetera, totally covered by us. And of course you’ll be spending very much time with them, as you’ll be staying during interval periods at our facility’s luxury living quarters, again free of charge … Just to be openly clear, the entire purpose of the ‘free offer’ is for us to learn the healthiest means of rearing a physically, psychologically and emotionally stable child into his or her teenage years. There’s really absolutely nothing to worry about—nothing—and our health representatives will go over everything in intrinsic detail before anything is agreed upon and signed.”

However, the big secret was that, immediately upon the couple’s sperm and ovum having merged and formed into a viable embryo, its DNA strands and therefore genetic code went through the rigorous engineering as had always been intended. If following the biological tampering the embryo remained viable, it was implanted onto the uterus wall of the mother-to-be, along with a virtual hundred percent certainty of successful impregnation due to even more state-of-the-art human-biology-tech tinkering.

After four weeks of gestation, when the embryo has increasingly developed the three sections of its brain, the fetus was again insidiously manipulated with a genetically engineered cerebral-enhancing chemical compound covertly placed into the meals given to the mother-to-be. The flavorless compound was designed to be digested then absorbed into her bloodstream and from there directly into the fetus.

Further genetic manipulation occurred yet again during the crucial Week Six, upon the formation of the brain’s two hemispheres which includes some wave activity; and lastly during week seven, with the neural tube connecting the rapidly-growing brain and spinal cord sealing in finality.

The design and intent of the for-profit project was to chemically stimulate the fetal subject’s developing brain with the goal of significantly enhancing its future mental acuity thus in the long term creating a human being with artificially advanced cerebral capacity.

Extremely unfortunate for the future hybrid-human youth, however, was that such unprecedented genetic manipulation of fetal development would virtually guarantee the test-subject a lifetime of clinical mental illness amongst various sorts and intensities. The illness would be psychiatrically diagnosed by professionals intrinsically linked to the project, who had already predetermined that the mental illness would fully form by no later than age fourteen. For this reason, ITSP’s best chemists commenced their lab work to create a modern psychotropic medication—though (again covertly) complimented by a further significant aspect to serve ITSP’s project interests—conceived solely for consumption by the test-subjects.

Only thirteen months after their births, it was already confirmed via the latest genetic profiling technology with which specific mental illness and intensity of such each test-subject offspring inevitably was to be afflicted.

When the eventuality of such misfortune manifested itself after years gone by, the mostly teenaged test-subjects having been diagnosed with mental illness were then thoroughly utilized as lab rats to field test a brand new state-of-the-art multi-psychiatric-purpose medication christened Pronetin.

Up till that point, everything—other than the initially-unforeseen future test-subject mental illness—was advancing as had been scientifically determined. The human-lab-rat experiments projected to eventually procure from the test-subjects demonstrable psychical abilities, including telekinesis, temporal deviation inclinations (i.e. precognition) and other such paranormal talents.

As for any relief from symptoms of their mental illness, the test-subjects then and there essentially had no choice but to indefinitely consume the Pronetin on a one-pill-per-day basis. Yet while so doing, they weren’t just alleviating some symptoms, but far more important to ITSP’s project plans, the medication would also additionally enhance their artificially spawned psychical abilities.

But as though matters hadn’t regressed enough, the test-subjects’ parents were soon erroneously informed that their mentally ill offspring must continue their daily Pronetin dosages or else consequently face a near certainty of developing a degenerative debilitating brain condition—an effective scare tactic with very productive results in ITSP’s favour.

FOR six out of every twelve weeks of their test-subject offspring’s extended stay at ITSP’s Vancouver branch, the eager parents resided in the enormous research facility’s exceptionally comfortable guest quarters immediately adjacent to the large dorm-like living quarters of their children.

Quite pleased, the parents observed their children enjoying a fun and intellectually stimulating experience. Furthermore, the parents were exceptionally pleased by their offspring scoring unprecedentedly high grades (relative to their age) in their science and calculus studies, amongst other advanced-level subjects, at the facility’s educational institute self-servingly referred to as InterTopStandard Life Studies & Quality.

Whenever somewhat bewildered parents queried, and then on occasion queried again, the staff as to ITSP’s specific interest in their offspring’s wellbeing, the standard public-relations platitudinous reply basically remained that, “Our goal ultimately is to ensure that all children—including the countless unprivileged youngsters around the globe—will sooner rather than later be enabled to utilize their full human potential in advancing themselves towards a bright, healthy future.”

Not surprising, the parents, quite anxious to continue receiving the otherwise unaffordable care for their children that consistently resulted in the youths’ high academic accomplishment reports, were left conveniently susceptible (for ITSP) to swallow the PR line. Until it would in later years become belated public fact, no parent would open up their minds to learning the entire truth about how their misguided though very honorable intentions had been blatantly exploited by ITSP, all at their children’s great expense. The parents would very bitterly learn that the sole purpose of their test-subject children’s entire stay at the facility was but for the success of the ITSP and parent conglomerate OneWorldTopStandardProducts mega-project for mega-profit.

As expected all along by the mass corporate interests, month after month the parents also were remarkably pleased upon witnessing their offspring so very much wishing to remain there, particularly with so many likeminded youngsters with whom to physically interact and exchange both jokes and atypical intellectually advanced concepts on a variety of topics.

“They’re just so … so amazingly bright!” an impressed parent emphatically expressed to clinic staff attending to her twin son and daughter. “What you people, the corporation, are doing for our children, for all children, is absolutely wonderful and incredibly generous. You are all truly God sent!”

AS time progressed in many score months, the first set of three dozen test-subjects entered their teens and soon began exhibiting psychical abilities, mostly in the form of telekinesis and telepathy, which utilize the brain’s extremely low frequency (ELF) Alpha brainwaves. The immediate ITSP response to this new situation was to maintain collective ignorance for a few years, with clinic staff and lab techs ordered by their superiors to convince the young test-subjects to remain calm and quiet about their new found abilities.

The same clinic staff and lab techs found it easy enough to pass along to the test-subjects ‘explanations’ that ITSP’s head-honchos fabricated as to why substances were suddenly being injected into the children’s spinal cord at the base of their skull. On one very rare occasion, a parent inadvertently witnessed lab team members performing such injections. That parent immediately received a template PR response to her somewhat concerned query—one that she was politely asked to imminently openly share with fellow parents of the test-subjects.

“They’re perfectly harmless. They’re vitamin and mineral supplementations given to ensure that the children receive anything that may be lacking in their diets.”

According to facility statistics, the test subjects who were both plagued with mental illness and psychical abilities numbered 218 in total (as was the conglomerate’s target quantity for that specific ITSP regional branch). Broken down according to age, the stats revealed that ninety-seven percent of them were in their teens. Twenty-four of those percentage points represented test-subjects between the ages of thirteen to fourteen; thirty-six percentage points represented test-subjects fifteen to sixteen years of age, and the remaining thirty-seven percentage points consisted of seventeen- to nineteen-year-old subjects of the project. Only three percentage points represented those aged either twelve or twenty, with no one being either younger or older than those respective latter two ages.

Even after so many years had passed, there still had yet to be a single notable suspicion expressed by any parent about what was really occurring at any of ITSP’s North American regional branches, let alone specifically that of Vancouver. All along, the young test-subjects had been genetically and chemically primed, from the embryonic stage to the commencement of adolescence, a patently unethical and immoral tampering that, as intended, resulted in the inevitable development of psychical abilities, although accompanied by a terrible side effect in the form of mental illness. The misadventure and manifestly inhuman exploitation suffered by the youth was just that well-managed by ITSP’s employees and topnotch public relations people.

But there would imminently be a time of reckoning.

There was a formidable negative sentiment accumulation occurring, one involving the youths’ collective resentment over “the very suspect and increasingly painful procedures performed on us since … since forever—and especially the strange cerebral events and illnesses that have surfaced over the past two years.”

With the lab-team members’ private thoughts having become progressively readily readable by most test-subjects, the formerly fully concealed purpose of the project from Day One. Month after month it was becoming clearer to the young telepaths that their great burdens were for naught but the financial benefit of the conglomerate and its minion subsidiaries; for the mega-corporate entity to acquire competing corporations’ valuable secrets through the utilization of the psychical abilities they had years before genetically implanted then artificially enhanced upon the young test-subjects.

“All of ITSP’s work focused upon exceptional breakthroughs in genetic engineering and the resultant successful procurement of psychical abilities from human test-subjects, paranormal talents ranging from low-level telepathy to formidable full-capacity telekinesis. However, the genetically thus cerebrally enhanced test-subjects unfortunately developed severe mental illness of varying sorts by no later than age thirteen.

Their eventual development of psychical abilities was intended for utilization, albeit by way of unconventional methodology, in serving OneWorldTopStandardProducts’ strategic corporate interests via the infiltration of its competitor conglomerate corporations’ databases.

Upon the full validation of their beliefs regarding the callously cold exploitation of their unsolicited psychical abilities, all accompanied by serious mental health side effects, the vast majority of the test-subjects firmly decided, for starters, to refuse further consumption of their 40 mg daily dosages of Pronetin. Of course the facility’s lab team members again urged them (with crocodile tears) with forewarnings of the supposed “extremely serious repercussions” of Pronetin withdrawal and its resultant imminent psychotic relapse.

“It really does mean the gradual loss of normal necessary cerebral and bodily functions closely followed by permanent neural degradation.”

Contrarily, it could’ve been accurately stated that the Pronetin medication wouldn’t permit its consumers full and permanent withdrawal—or “escape,” as the test-subjects would later on refer to it—from medium-term dependence, i.e. three-years-plus of daily dosages involving 20 mg or more.

As it were, the facility’s lab team members, under the thumb of ITSP, insisted upon all test-subjects’ full cooperation in maintaining their residence at the facility’s living quarters, continued Pronetin consumption (typically of 40 mg per day) and availability for daily lab tests and treatments.

The following day saw a tremendously unnerving initial indication of impending terrible things to come.

Each lab team staffer was issued a “masking helmet, for your own security”—though also to offer physical protection from flying objects telekinetically thrown about, it foremost was intended to obstruct “thought invasions and other forms of telepathic manipulation.”

Further serving ITSP’s interests at this troubled point in time was the fact that, as pre-memory infants, a mild pain inducing “zapper” had been covertly implanted a centimeter into each toddler’s shoulder muscle. Such could be activated by the simple pressing of a button in the hands of senior lab staff, though according to top-brass with ITSP, “the device is to be utilized only on the unlikely occasion that bodily harm to our employees by test-subjects is an imminent threat.”

When test-subjects had decided upon going AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave) from the lab facility, each had the zapper removed by one of three rogue night-shift lab staff who chose to risk their career over the furthering of the youths’ suffering by way of corporate mandate.

Contrary to reacting with malleable minds and docile personalities towards the injustices committed against them for ITSP’s monetary benefit, the large majority of the young test-subjects behaved defiantly. With all of ITSP’s attempts to control them, the youths’ unprecedented artificially-manufactured psychical abilities posed a potential arduous threat. It increasingly appeared that ITSP’s considerable time, effort and resources invested into years of experimentation with genetic engineering would become regarded as not just a failure and waste but also an ugly, troublesome threat.

Minus the small minority who solely out of fear decided to stay behind, the test-subjects who decided to go AWOL felt they had no option other than to continue their Pronetin consumption (by stealing enough Pronetin to last them a solid quarter century) while maintaining hopes of eventually being able to hone their psychical talents and thus fully liberate themselves (forcibly, if need be) from the facility.

WITHIN two years of liberation from their lab-rat status, almost all AWOL “Ments” (as the test-subjects began referring to themselves) had become potently psychical. They could already ‘sense’ that they’d been designated with extermination status by the “Corp” (as the Ments began referring to ITSP). Henceforth the Corp strategically yet implicitly re-shaped public opinion via various media followed by word of mouth against the general mentally ill populace. But not long after that, they subtly targeted their negative PR campaign specifically towards “the ‘Ment’ resistance” (a Corp-established phrase reference to the former test-subjects) who, according to the Corp’s ambiguous claims, “will sooner than later become anarchist threats to normal peaceful society.”

But in actuality, the true threats to society were ITSP’s health-hazardous genetically engineered or modified foods sold to the general populace or “Norms” (another term christened by the former test-subjects or Ments).

Also very disturbing was the (albeit compelled) culpability of the global mainstream news-media, through their outlets in every major city on the planet. At the behest of their respective majority shareholders ITSP and its sub-entity branches worldwide, the news-media propagated an ideological shift within Norm society towards intolerance of that which is cerebrally abnormal. Seemingly discarded right out the journalistic window was the profession’s formerly incorruptible adage, “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.”

However, there’d also be the rare unscripted spiteful rant on the topic by a Corp head-honcho that also got reported. As with almost all academia and accompanying professions, there were numerous news-media employees who’d refused to compromise themselves, and they paid for doing so with their careers.

“The Ments parasitically exploit the citizens of the normal hard-working and taxpaying communities of the world. They must be stopped!”

Yet, the real exploitation was actually that by ITSP of the Ments, the latter whom by definition were themselves also citizens. Nevertheless, they were allowed minimal employment opportunities and thus little income—if any at all, mainly because they had to stay off the all-knowing ‘grid’ to maintain secure anonymity, though such (non)status excluded them from accessing any disability benefit income.

During the initial years of large-majority Ment emancipation from lab-rat status, the Corp successfully turned a significant portion of the Norm populace against the meager-quantity Ment population. By publicly emphasizing that the Ments “are draining working society dry through various handouts and freebies or through criminal activity,” the Corp gave an erroneous yet influential impression that the Ments somehow had access to government assistance.

“It should be increasingly common knowledge that they’ve had it a bit too easy, for a bit too long.”

What exactly are all of InterTopStandardProduct’s interests that it perceives as being threatened by the Ments? was the crucial question that the more thoughtful amongst the Norm populace might have taken the moral initiative to publicly put before the Corp.

Instead, the Norm large-majority remained conveniently quiet in response to the mass demonization of the mostly scattered, tiny Ment community.

The very difficult honest answer would have essentially been, ITSP’s interests are sufficiently significant that ‘Big Tobacco,’ a most despised product of which our conglomerate holds not a single share, is used as a very expedient diversionary tactic to retain the focus of the Norm consciousness and condemnation away from our new and also health-hazardous products. We, ITSP, basically force-fed an unsuspecting citizenry unhealthy genetically manipulated foods in the form of produce and grains (fruits, vegetables, rice and wheat) as well as meat and dairy products (milk, eggs and yogurt).

A year later, a large Corp advertorial campaign was initiated against the Ment resistance, the latter which had organized into a relatively efficient cell. The negative PR campaign was especially critical of Ment-published essays (although anonymously in low-circulation journals, since mainstream media weren’t interested in such Ment “propaganda) that in detail warned the Norm populace about the health hazards of consuming genetically manipulated foods.

The Corp adamantly maintained that, “Such claims by the Ments are without any proven basis in fact, but rather are self-serving half-truths or outright lies. These outcasts stubbornly choose to not even sample these healthier, higher yield quality foods. These people are simply too paranoid to try experiencing anything progressive that we, that all of normal society, has to offer. They’re obviously only preoccupied with mental illness, frustration and plain aggression.”

It was through their control of information dissemination that the Corp efficiently totally fabricated the concept that, “statistics and study findings indicate that the Ments have become a disproportionately large source of criminal behavior, including violent assaults and homicide. Without doubt, they are an intolerable threat to peaceful, functional society.”

Just eight days shy of a year after the former test-subjects went AWOL from its research facility, the Corp determined that due to the Ments’ honing or fully honed psychical abilities, the conventional extermination required ambush-like surprise attacks. Henceforth, highly skilled Norm mercenaries were utilized and equipped with “masking helmets” that theoretically would suppress virtually all ELF brainwave emissions, though with more limited success with finely proficient telepaths. Thus the vast majority of Ments were at all times unaware of an approaching extermination threat from such a highly-skilled source; and as such, many were destined to be ‘taken out’ by fully automatic assault rifles’ hollow-point bullets designed specifically to literally explode their targets’ psychically-abled brains.

Yet the Corp also employed “suppressive psychics,” however. Exceedingly potent telepaths—a few of whom were actually Ment ‘turncoats’ sufficiently paid or plainly extorted by threatening their loved-ones—suppressive psychics would telepathically disrupt or obstruct resistance-Ments’ psychical abilities, in particular their telepathic sense of approaching danger.

But even equipped with such high-tech masking helmets and high-powered firearms, extermination missions were nevertheless the most efficiently performed as deadly serious work by exterminators. If adequately calm and focused, the potently psychical Ment would promptly formidably telekinetically retaliate, and for good measure, if he or she wasn’t taken out expeditiously.

PSYCHICALLY the Ments were absolutely certain of the Corp’s factual knowledge of the real risk of multitudes of Norm citizens developing various forms of malignant cancer amongst other serious disease through their consumption of the Corp’s genetically engineered foods. Indeed, an inconspicuous Ment information website posted minimally published research results competently discrediting vastly publicized yet bogus ‘findings’ of ‘studies’ commissioned solely by the Corp. Such did read a posted essay on the website: “InterTopStandardProducts (ITSP) knowingly propagated false ‘facts’ claiming that their genetically ‘enhanced’ food products are not only healthier but are also readily produced in greater quantity and perish at a greatly reduced rate, yet without requiring a greater amount of resources, effort or time. Therefore, far more people are able to be fed with considerably less input in all aspects of the meaning of the term.”

In order to maintain economic, social and political order in their favour, the Corp deemed it in their best interests to immediately counter any information, however little known, that’s contrary to its erroneous propagations.

“The anti-progress resistance movement calling themselves ‘Ments’ are willfully ignorant of the recently scientifically proven fact that mental illness is overcome mostly through the disciplining of one’s mind,” the Corp’s head public relations spokesperson proclaimed to a well-receiving general Norm populace.

“The Ments need only choose to grasp the courage to come back and rejoin the rest of the hard working population.”

With such a large quantity of bad publicity so widely consumed by the Norm populace as a whole—although there indeed was a small number of compassionate Norm folk who rejected the Corp’s PR campaign—came to contemptuously stereotype and distrust the Ments, all lumped together. But the Ments mostly couldn’t find it within themselves to blame the Norms for their negative sentiment, since the latter was efficiently denied knowledge as to what the Corp’s research facility lab employees did to the Ments ever since their very conception, especially the genetic manipulation and the resultant detrimental mental conditions.

As for the Ment populace’s disproportionately high suicide rate, the Corp, even though having been their creators, was but left encouraged at the concept of even more Ments taking that final corporeal route.

The Corp entity, of course with the blessing of its parent conglomerate, went as far as to (though unsuccessfully) attempt convincing general Norm society that mental illness was found by ITSP researchers to largely be contagious, implying that the “infectious” Ments were a problematic health risk not worth tolerating.

YET however greatly burdensome their lives had been, the tide for the former test-subjects was finally to imminently turn in their favour.

Following months of unprecedented mainstream news-media investigative journalism combined with independent scientific studies involving reputable parapsychological research, “shocking results of a nature totally unrealized to this day” (part of a USA Today headline story) were divulged through conventional means. The factual breakthrough resulted in the rare belated knowledge regarding the sad facts surrounding the former and current lab-rat test-subjects finally getting out in the wide open public arena—completely uncensored information becoming increasingly known throughout the entire Norm populace—knowledge that even the Corp’s own suppressed research findings had supported for some years.

The clinically-diagnosed formidable mental illness suffered by a small minority though nonetheless large number of people around the world was in fact a form of that small minority’s ESP-based genuine empathic endurance of the overwhelming psychological turmoil that a large majority of the ‘normal’ population would’ve otherwise suffered. It indeed was discovered through research that, without exception, all clinically diagnosed mentally ill persons in every nation who were tested for such scored very high on the ESP scale.

Yet this genuine empathic suffering experienced by all those with psychical abilities was even significantly more so by the global Ment portion of that sub-populace; for, as exceptionally though artificially psychical young people, they resultantly took on a greater burden of the world’s collective mental illnesses.

It was aptly metaphorically described in a New York Times feature story as being that “of a bone dry sponge squeezed then submerged into filthy bathwater before being released, thus instantly absorbing an enormous quantity of others’ psychoses, clinical depression, hyper-anxiety, etcetera, all to varying degrees of severity.”

Thus it progressively became generally accepted as significant truth that, had the mentally ill former test-subjects not been telepathically forced to experience the serious emotional and psychological struggles or outright anguish in place of so large a portion of the Norm populace, enormously important daily societal functions (e.g. operational hospitals and drinking water purification plants) simply wouldn’t be sufficiently performed. It became accepted fact that, globally, the Ments’ psychological turmoil was the result of their endurance of the accumulative mental illness and dysfunction otherwise suffered by the world’s Norm populace.

As such, without the Ments bearing the figurative collective-Norm cross, vast numbers of otherwise stable-minded Norms would overwhelm every psychiatric ward on the planet with lifelong psychologically-sound people suddenly afflicted with chronic psychosis, nervous breakdowns, debilitating depression, countless cases of severe bi-polar disorder, etcetera.

Without doubt, there’d be a mega-surplus worldwide of Norms-turned-paranoid-schizophrenics, ‘hearing’ voices compelling them to perform diabolical deeds, complimented by frightening visual hallucinations; an inundation of new cases of chronically clinically depressed Norms suffering crippling grief and hopelessness; a sudden explosion in the global number of obsessive-compulsive-disorder patients who’d, for example, find themselves unable to cease their superfluous repeated hand-washing.

As such, the very small Ment minority inevitable gained the acknowledgement and even gratitude from the Norm populace around the world, although an insufficiently miniscule quantity of them stubbornly refused to relinquish their long-held contempt.

Upon this refreshingly progressive Norm enlightenment, a relatively large number of Ments greatly distanced apart after almost a decade of independence placed themselves onto the global grid and soon began communicating via social media.

They initially expressed doubt or outright disbelief in the notion of them actually having received credit for such a supernaturally supreme sacrifice. Even as psychic Ments, this they felt compelled to skeptically question.

We, however few of us, have ‘taken the bullet’—and such a large one at that? And we managed to do it all even after so many of us were gunned down? That’s hardly plausible!

But they’d very soon grow to believe it. When a seasoned Boston Herald reporter was tipped-off into investigating little-known illegal activities by the global conglomerate OneWorldTopStandard’s headquarters itself, her intensive investigation findings made world headlines. The conglomerate’s genetic research and human test-subject laboratory activities at its regional branches had been fully exposed in their entirety.

Thus, for starters, mass Norm popular demand required that immediate ethical, compassionate medical and financial assistance be justly provided in every case of an ill and/or impoverished Ment, including those who had fearfully decided against escaping from OneWorldTopStandard’s many outreaching branches of clinic-and-laboratory facilities around the world.^■

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The Second Account:

When They Finally Left & What It Would Cost Them

“WHAT’S the matter with her?!” Richard asked Shelley, his voice trembling. He then turned his attention to his other three peers. “And with them?! They look as though their heads are going to burst!”

“Probably the same thing that happened to Stephen just an hour ago,” she replied desperately, “and to Bridget and Paul just before him!”

Richard’s twin sister, Becky, lay on the floor convulsing, with Shelley gently holding her jerking head. In frustration she felt totally useless, as Becky was certain to meet the same violent fate as the five others—a severe brain aneurysm due to blood vessel strain—and Shelley was completely helpless to do anything to save her or the others.

Yet she knew precisely what had triggered the fatal convulsions; for, as a 15-year-old with psychical abilities, she could in actuality see in her mind her dead peers’ ravaged sub-cranial blood vessels.

A wet-behind-the-ears clinic staffer, fresh out of a research facility training clinic, had mistaken the “20 mgs” of Pronetin she was supposed to distribute amongst the test-subjects as a “200 mgs,” as though she wasn’t at all familiar with the grave effects of such an abnormally high dose of the potent psychotropic medication. Shelley indeed knew this for a fact since she could clearly feel the at-fault greenhorn’s frantic panic and guilt ridden thoughts upon looking at her medications instructions sheets a second, third and fourth time.

When Rebecca suddenly ceased convulsing and lay still with a slight nose bleed, both Shelley and Richard could sense that she was gone.

“Sorry,” Shelley consoled him, placing her hand onto his shoulder before whispering to him, “All of her suffering is over. Nobody can hurt her anymore. Not even the Corp.”

“Please, Becky—don’t go.”

Suddenly shaking with last-straw anger, Shelley wiped away her tears before asserting, “We all have to get out of this place—by tomorrow night, the latest—while we can still do so on our own two feet!”

But she realized that she must first involve Jericho and Fiona on this most significant of matters, whether those who wish to do so should go AWOL.

The two oldest, most experienced thus likely wisest InterTopStandardProducts test-subjects, the nineteen-year-old Jericho and a-year-younger Fiona had for some months behaved noticeably resistant towards most of the clinic staff and lab technicians. The pair’s younger fellow test-subjects were exhibiting worrisome signs of “lab subject burnout” (Fiona’s words) as well as acute symptoms of prolonged consumption of the powerful Pronetin in the form of headaches and inexplicable bouts of what was being deemed by facility doctors as “vivid visual and/or auditory hallucinations.”

“But they’re not really by definition ‘hallucinations,’ are they?” Fiona implicitly challenged both the ethical and moral integrity of one particularly callous lab tech named Patheta. (Some of the more aggressive test-subjects nicknamed her “Pathetic,” which, to their rare pleasure, almost always managed to visibly agitate her.

“Those instances of seeing and hearing things that you guys allege are not really there, all end up being confirmed precognitions of notable events that occur in the imminent future. For example, the precognition involving bold censuring we received from you guys that just happened to occur word-for-word two days later. And to answer your doubtful thoughts—No, only Jericho and I knew of all of the precognitions, with their precise contents, and we knew well before they occurred.”

“Well, you know that I empathize with you poor … ,” Patheta had barely began before being abruptly cut off midsentence.

“Oh, bull—t!” blasted Fiona, clearly infuriated by Patheta’s crocodile tears. “You couldn’t ‘empathize’ with others’ suffering even if you were an actual sixth-sense empath, like what’s ’er name … Deanna Troi, from that old Star Trek: The Next … whatever TV series. The fact is, you couldn’t give a rat’s ass about our predicament—the unmistakable sense we’re consistently receiving of being blatantly callously exploited, even to the point of violent death! Like Becky this morning, plus the other five just before her!”

As it were, the fact was that both Jericho and the younger Shelley exhibited notable signs of psychical-empathic abilities. Nevertheless, Fiona, even at that intensely emotional moment, decided to not use her two peers as rare examples of genuine empaths; rather, she’d respect their rightful choice as to if or when they’d bring to the fore any of their psychical abilities, especially where ITSP eyes and ears were concerned.

Very early the following morning, all test-subjects assembled in the facility’s gymnasium, with four of them volunteering to keep watch for any unexpected employees. With Jericho and Fiona each co-chairing the to-date most important meet, the typical teenaged give-and-take chatter of so many youths was soon settled quiet upon Jericho’s request.

“C’mon, people; let’s all listen up,” he politely requested, and was thus obliged. “I’m sure that by now, all or almost all of you have heard about the clinic’s new and very green staffer’s incredibly incompetent blunder that cost six of our fellows their lives—and, sadly so, in a rather horrible manner.”

“Yeah, we have. And I helplessly watched it all happen,” Shelley clearly spoke out at the first opportunity of brief silence. “I for one am not sticking around here a single day longer, especially with the f——g idiot incompetent Corp employees being hired to replace the few who quit due to guilty consciences! Tonight, I’m gone for good. Simple as that.”

The assembled test-subjects then began the discussion of greatest importance—that of the untimely, violent deaths of their six fellows, and how the rest of the test-subjects can’t just sit idly by waiting for an eventual tragic repeat or something very close to it.

The following issue of imminent urgency discussed was that, having spent their entire lives at the facility, which was rather like a miniature city to them, and thus having had no real contact with normal society, the test-subjects, if fully freed, would certainly find the ‘outside world’ notably daunting, at best. It would be comparable to that of prison inmates who’ve become so used to a confined prolonged existence, i.e. “institutionalization,” that they simply cannot last very long in a normal free society before they reoffend or even resort to suicide.

What the test-subjects did agree upon was that they were extremely weary of the ITSP facility and their lab-rat lives; thus they strongly desired relief from it all, even if profoundly difficult lifestyle changes were a requisite for such relief.

“Well, then; we should do what my grandfather’s fellow labour union members would’ve done during the last century,” asserted Paul, the youngest of the most vocal test-subjects favouring eventual AWOL. “For now, let’s go on strike.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘strike’?” asked another.

“What I mean is, we do what they used to call ‘work to rule’. We’ll continue taking our Pronetin but cease eating our meals. What could they do about it? Physically force the food down our throats? I can’t picture them getting overly extreme here at the facility that they’re willing to openly physically force anything on us; not at this point, anyway.”

There was close to full consensus amongst the 218 test-subjects; the holdouts were mostly teens that feared potential disciplinary consequences by the staff, especially if ITSP was to call the work-to-ruling test-subjects’ bluff.

“If they do test our resolve, then they’ll see that we’re serious,” Jericho defiantly replied. “But I’ll bet they’ll bargain with us.”

He was quite wrong, however, for ITSP had its facility employees take up a firm maintain-order approach; that of course was implemented following a serious forewarning about what unpleasantness to expect soon after quitting a long-term large-daily-dose Pronetin regimen.

Plus, for the first time in their lives the test-subjects found that their cellphones no longer had unrestricted-call access, even that involving their own parents.

Thus the test-subject strikers decided to, just before fleeing the facility, covertly accumulate a very large quantity of Pronetin and whatever other necessities of life that they could readily carry with them to freedom without appearing too conspicuous.

Of course they had full intent upon fully utilizing whatever psychical means at their disposal while fleeing the well-secured grounds. Besides their meat-and-potatoes capability to telekinetically breach otherwise fully fortified locked doors, they’d also “pick up” the highly-alerted thoughts of security personnel fixated on performing the search-and-secure directives ITSP would surely fitfully place upon them immediately after any mass test-subject escape.

The test-subjects who’d remain behind perceived themselves as having no option other than to fully comply by consuming everything facility staff put before them and more so by abiding by all lab-testing required of them. As such, with great melancholy they’d resign themselves to likely spending the remainder of their lives as but “corporate ITSP’s lab rats.”

As for the test-subjects who had left, they divided up the stolen supplies amongst themselves before splitting up into small groups of five or six. With all having agreed to maintain at least some non-traceable contact, preferably telepathy, every group then headed outwards in some direction within the Greater Vancouver area.^■

___________________________________________

Part 1: The Reunion

The five of them—Bryan, Terra, Jessie, Michael and Paula—met after almost six years of isolation.

They decided to henceforth get together more regularly, at Steiner’s Coffee every second Monday to catch up on one another’s experiences since separating. Each was very curious as to how the others had been affected so far by the Pronetin, specifically the extent to which they suspected the medication had enhanced their psychical abilities.

All found it within themselves to laugh at how they’d greyed, regardless of being but in their early twenties.

Ever since they had gone AWOL from the research facility, each had attended his or her local drop-in centre. Two of them, Terra and Bryan, had incidentally met at an inter-clubhouse dinner party and henceforth spent much time together. They’d meet at other venues, often communicating between themselves only by way of telepathy.

As with all such test-subjects planet-wide, everyone had eventually acquired psychical abilities to some extent, including cases of potent telekinesis, in which the “Ment” maintained the capacity to, as a good example, ‘focus’ a homicidal gunner into turning his weapon upon himself.

Unlike the other four, Bryan turned out to be an exceptionally potent telekinetic, which was due to the large degree of genetic manipulation that he’d underwent as an InterTopStandardProducts test-subject.

He also held the psychical capacity to genuinely experience empathic sensations. For instance, on the occasion that Jessie had been suffering a formidable headache, Bryan, while in close proximity to him, promptly developed or sensed the same headache.

“Well, guys,” Bryan began, “I think we all know why we’re here right now.”

“I feel I do,” offered Paula, with the remaining three concurring.

Bryan again began: “Has anyone here, besides me, been following up or focusing upon the Corp’s activities over the last few years, but in particular their anti-Ment public relations?”

“I saw its CEO in an advertorial,” Peter noted. “He was lying through his teeth about the ‘safe and high quality’ products they’re promoting—just a lot more of their genetically enhanced food BS line. But now there’s also some so-called healthy homeopathic stuff they’ve added. I could fluently feel his deceit; in fact, so much so that I also picked up he knew we’d sense his bulls— right there and then.”

“They’re vicious Great White sharks,” Peter emphasized, “and I strongly sensed that they’ll put up an all-or-nothing-to-the-end fight for their interests.”

Getting in the last word, Bryan included some news. “That’s the understatement of the millennium, considering that the Corp has blown-to-bits our underground research lab after it was discovered. And, yeah guys, it almost certainly was ratted-out by a Ment turncoat. The good news is, all of our people’s test results, our own research findings, etcetera, are digitally coded and saved at multiple locations. But as far as finding another pro-bono independent university lab—not to mention one staffed by a lab team willing to risk their lives for our cause—that’s definitely going to be a most formidable hurdle for us.”

Part 2: The Hall Meeting Turned Ment Massacre

“It’s them or us!” declared the desperate designated speaker. He was a very popular Ment and one of the region’s most talented telepaths, known only as Stowly. “It’s literally our very lives at stake, here, to all be viciously snuffed out! So what are we going to do about it?!”

Such Ment meetings were rare, for doing so made them an easier target for masking-helmeted-thus-brainwave-blocking exterminators assisted by the honed telepathy of a turncoat Ment.

Although the Ments knew that, in the Norms’ eyes, they had no more right to life than wild animals, only to be mowed down with machine guns, the two dozen Ments nevertheless ‘gathered’ themselves for the very-last-moment meet at a small decrepit boarded-up former public hall.

The tension that slowly filled the room was thick and noticeable in Stowly’s voice. Even though they were a fair distance from corporate headquarters, every Ment there knew that he or she was nonetheless simply too vulnerable as a still-too-viable target; and collectively they were considerably more vulnerable than if each remained alone as individuals or even just as pairs or trios meeting somewhere preferably outdoors. Accumulating in such relatively large number thus (so as to be inconspicuous) in an enclosed structure in which they potentially can be entrapped was indeed very risky business in exchange for greater communication, even as telepaths.

“They’ve got the Norm populace actually believing we can’t be trusted, that we’re … ,” Stowly continued before cutting his serious address short. He looked up at the closed entrance doors for a second then back down at his audience to finish his proclamation. “ … They say that we’re nothing but … ,” he again briefly began though only to look back up at the doors.

The roomful of Ments turned their heads toward the doors. They were becoming increasingly concerned, for everyone had heard of Stowly’s exceptional ‘radar,’ even when it came down to potential assailants wearing masking helmets.

Silence fell over the crowd momentarily, followed by a wide-eyed Stowly blaring, “Out of here, everyone! Out through the rear door!”

He toppled over his crate podium in his desperate attempt to safely lead everybody out, but it was already too late. Both rear and front doors were instantly smashed open, with six fully armed exterminators donning masking helmets entering and opening fire, their sole intent being to spare not a single soul.

Half were fallen in the first five seconds alone, with the remainder futilely scrambling for their lives. Well trained at such lightening assaults against the Ments, the exterminators caught their terrified prey off guard thus virtually eliminating the Ments’ ability to sufficiently focus and utilize their telekinesis against their assassins.

There were no signs of life left amongst the bullet ridden bodies, so the gunners spread out to find and finish off anyone who happened to still be twitching.

Having had two Ments topple dead onto him, Stowly planned to play dead until confident the gunners had left for good. But he began pulling himself out from beneath the carnage a few seconds prematurely. As the sixth and last gunner was leaving she noticed within her peripheral a body the sole surviving Ment inadvertently let roll off of him with an audible thud.

He knew that he’d been discovered upon hearing the squeak of the exterminator’s boots suddenly turning about and accordingly made his motions toward escaping through the back door.

All four gunners turned and fired, though missing their moving target as their evasive prey swiftly swerved down the darkened back-alley.

But with the gunners at most only fifty feet behind him, he was forced to make a hasty ninety-degree right turn into a twelve foot tall cement wall dead end.

The heavy-breathing Stowly momentarily stood there staring up at the wall before turning to see the gunners slowly corner him into the small confined space.

With his back pressed against the wall and his eyes closed, he did his best to calmly focus his telekinesis, but the sudden surge of fear within was unrelenting and fatally debilitating. The exterminators instantly reacted by firing nineteen rounds into his chest.

Part 3: Corporate Meeting & Briefing

“Either we stop them or they stop us! It’s now pretty much as simple as that!”

In boldly stating such a self-imposed ultimatum, InterTopStandardProducts CEO Peter Stashing was fully aware of the implied confirmation of a last-ditch-effort war of sorts against an extremely small minority of the population—a tiny impoverished portion who all struggle to remain borderline physically and mentally functional on a worrisome day-to-day basis.

“Looks like we might’ve stepped into a pile of our own shit,” board member Gordon Fletcher barely audibly mumbled to an adjacent peer. Sitting at the conference room’s long table seating a corporate elite compliment of forty-eight, he was one of only two members who had long held strong reservations about the Pronetin psychotropic medication being distributed amongst any consumer demographic; but least of all forced upon an uninformed and very vulnerable young demographic enduring formidable mental illness and strenuous artificial psychical abilities.

“Do you have something to say, Fletcher?” Stashing asked with agitation, for he was in no mood for such unsolicited self-disparaging commentary.

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“Because if you have anything to offer by way of progressive suggestion … Like I was saying—it’s them or us; and their collective intensity of resistance apparently is growing with time. More so, there’s troubling evidence that they’re actually infiltrating and therefore threatening most of our bread-and-butter interests, on a regional, national and international scale.”

CEO Stashing stopped talking for a moment before playing for the room recorded audio and video security monitor feed clearly revealing automaton-like junior staff calmly complying with identifiable members of the Ment resistance.

“Extremely sensitive computer-file data have been—and very possibly still are being—downloaded and freely handed over by our own employees who later swear (and pass with flying colours our polygraphs) to having no recollection whatsoever of ever doing so … The utterly stunned and bewildered expressions on those staffers’ faces when confronted with the recordings strongly indicate that they had all been psychically hoodwinked. We do, after all, know for a fact that many resistance members have the ability to telepathically manipulate in just such a manner the normal, general population.”

Then it was suggested by another board member, with evident anxiety and desperation: “But even if just theoretically, those few staff could still very well be Ment insiders or sympathizers putting on a good performance, how can we know for certain?”

Stashing calmly continued, however, “The effected junior staff at issue know full well they’re closely monitored and recorded as such, and they also know full well the most severe consequence of willful betrayal. There’s simply too much for them to lose.”

Part 4: A Smaller Meeting of Ments to Discuss Matters

As per usual Bryan was the first to arrive while noticeably punctual and alert despite his ailments. Although his schizoaffective disorder was treated fairly successfully with the Pronetin (having consumed it for almost thirty-one months), simple existence remained a struggle. To the Ment resistance’s advantage, he was immensely proficient at detecting an approaching exterminator, regardless of one’s wearing of a masking helmet.

To connect and arrange a meeting with his relatively close-knit group of five Ments Bryan organized via telepathy the other four and all readily agreed upon a time and place.

To avoid risking the safety of family members all AWOL Ments avoided contacting relatives over the years, therefore resistance members couldn’t be reached by way of the conventional grid system.

The other four answered to Bryan’s communications, though not nearly matching his more advanced psychical degree of clarity and intensity, thus all coordinated to rendezvous at the designated location. Not coincidently it was a site actually quite close to the Corp’s Vancouver head-office tower, for who’d expect such prey to gather so nigh their enemy’s home turf?

“Great, you made it, man!” Bryan greeted Jessie somewhat sarcastically, since he was the fifth and last to arrive.

Fluent in speaking and writing both English and Arabic (as were his parents), Jessie had that same morning finished writing to Mom and Dad a basic I’m-doing-okay letter in an archaic form of Persian. Having it covertly reach them through its exchange amongst three pairs of hands, took up most of his morning.

A frustrated Peter eagerly initiated a discussion regarding finally and even permanently procuring for all Ments at least some semblance of a normal life.

“We’ve got to work a lot harder on exposing those bastards—to prove to the Norm population that their Corp-sourced primary food supply can be just as detrimental to their health as a daily pack of smokes!”

“Much easier said than done, Pete,” Bryan intervened patiently. “The entire global conglomerate, not just the local Corp, has the mainstream mass media effectively in its back pocket. And it’s said that in a democracy the news-media acts as does a baton in a tyranny.”

“You’re being defeatist, Bry,” Peter stated with sincere belief. “I think we could do it, with sufficient organization.”

“I’m not being defeatist, but rather realistic. Having said that, though, we still must do our very best at trying—to give it literally our all. And the last time we met, Terra was quite correct in emphasizing that the Corp knows that the resistance knows too much about their monetary and power interests. Furthermore, we can accomplish a great deal against those same interests, especially if we all set our minds to it, so to speak.”

Rather than snicker at the unintended pun, all five stared ahead into the empty air before them while in deep contemplation.

“But first and foremost,” Michael finally broke the brief silence, “we’ve got to go after the news-media, like Bryan said. They’re definitely the primary concern for us right now—the upper-end talk shows in particular—as long as they remain Corp puppets.”

Terra concurred, strongly voicing herself: “We must focus on forcing out the truth. Everything must be completely bared to the mass audiences, about the insidious menacing mass production and distribution of InterTopStandardProduct’s recklessly genetically engineered foods. We’ve got to force, by whatever means, that information out of the horse’s own mouth; to force that horse’s mouth to admit to the public at large that the Norm consumership—ninety-five percent of the population—is being spoon-fed a serious health hazardous variety of designer food products right from the shelves of their neighbourhood grocery stores … Accomplishing something other than that, in all practicality we’ll have gotten nowhere.”

Part 5: The Chase

He must’ve turned his head a hundred times in that downtown back-alley to gage how far behind they were in pursuit. Forcing him to flee for his life the two exterminators were only forty meters behind, firing off a few rounds at their prey here and there. With the two gunners’ infrared night-vision goggles they also had the advantage of any early-morning stark darkness they’d run into.

They also held the additional advantage of hunting a Ment who had seemingly sealed himself into a jumbled emotional state of terror, essentially negating any chance of him calmly focusing his telekinesis sufficiently to counter the two exterminators in any way.

            They’re catching up, raced through his panicked thoughts. They’re catching up!

The loud popping of occasional gunfire continued—he even heard a round buzz right past his ear—until he had completed the last ten meters to the back-alley exit. There, however, he found that he had no choice but to take the chase into the store-front-strewn street so as to make his way to the back-alley in the next block.

Regardless of the presence of a handful of late-night onlookers, the gunners continued their pursuit, as those Norm pedestrians would simply duck out of harm’s way (perhaps while they’re under the illusion that the sought extermination would likely be for the betterment of the collective normal ‘working’ populace).

However, on the other hand, the chased member of the resistance may encounter a Norm citizen who will behave actively sympathetic towards a Ment in a dire situation. For example, observing that the totally unarmed extremely desperate human being’s two bloodthirsty pursuers were fully geared and brandishing assault rifles in action, such a heroic Norm would get involved by assisting the fatigued Ment in accessing a hidden location. Although very rare, such good-Samaritan acts were in fact occurring in such inhumane times due to the minute yet still growing cynicism amongst some Norm citizens towards the plethora of frighteningly hateful anti-Ment propaganda being readily disseminated en masse. The latter fact was why the technical staff at an independently funded and operated genetic-research laboratory offered their albeit-covert pro bono assistance until it was destroyed by an unsolved bombing.

But upon this night and deathly chase the Ment prey had no such heroic efforts performed on his behalf thus he’d no choice as to where to flee. The road construction methodology of three decades prior dictated that he’d have to riskily run the illuminated street one block in order to make its adjacent, darkened back-alley. He was but twenty meters onto the open street when the gunners abruptly turned the corner behind him.

Their powerful weapons released a succession of armour-piercing slugs and their accompanying pops as about a half-dozen pedestrians huddled down against the storefronts thus creating a clear path through which the gunners could continue firing at their prey. It very much appeared that the two hunters wouldn’t be hindered by anyone from imminently shooting down the Ment, then claiming the night as a success.

They fired another nine rounds his way before he could reach and turn the next street corner. From there he ran directly towards and along another back-alley just a short half-block over; then having traversed that distance he dashed across yet another street, where just a few moments’ chase ensued before the prey turned hard into one final back-alley.

The situation there was notably different, however. It extended in near darkness for as far as the eye could see, although there were a few points along its way where he could try his luck with a back entrance to some late-night business.

With the exterminators just about to turn hard into that same back-alley the Ment prey managed to slip into an ajar back door which he promptly locked behind him. He had entered a bustling, noisy video arcade from its temporarily unoccupied backroom; yet, so casually did he hurry past game enthusiasts that momentarily he was already out through its front entrance and quickly mixed amongst a dense crowd along a busy street.

Easily blended in with the large group of partiers, he uneventfully made his way back to the tiny bachelor’s suite that he called home.

“By the very whiskers of my lucky stars,” he, the hunted Ment, muttered just before dropping onto his cot in total exhaustion.

Part 6: The Ment Turncoat Deathly Challenge

There’s definitely that ugly feeling again, a borderline panicked Bryan regretfully reassured himself.

Stopping at Statsen Street and 47^th Avenue, he slowly rotated about ninety degrees at a time, while both visually and mentally scanning the busy-looking crowd of a couple dozen or so people. But on the surface of things there appeared to be nothing noticeably notable.

Irregardless, he plainly couldn’t at that moment isolate the precise source of the psychical trace emitted, as he suspected, by a suppressive Ment turncoat. From whomever it was emanating, it was a relatively weak extremely low frequency (ELF) brainwave that an astute and potent Bryan was sensing.

            There it is, again—just like before. He had to acknowledge what he’d undoubtedly just sensed in relation to a similar experience about two years prior. The guy’s signature was barely distinguishable, even though he was only a couple meters behind me. It has to now be another suppressive … Maybe even the same one.

Bryan made a sudden left turn onto Statsen and conspicuously speed-walked to Terra’s apartment complex, three city blocks away.

He’d just arrived at the base of the cement stairway leading up to the complex’s front doors and was just lifting his boot onto the first stair when the Ment turncoat suppressive finally struck like a snake’s bite, very sudden and hard. The guy had been stalking Bryan for the last two-and-a-half hours, and successfully enough so due to the skilled turncoat’s means of stealthy brainwave suppression.

Bryan felt the full impact of something hollow though large and metallic, knocking him a good four metres to one side, leaving him considerably stunned in every sense of the term.

“Jesus,” he lightly groaned as he gradually arose, verbally communicating to someone he hadn’t yet seen but knew was there. He then added, “I felt you a bit there for a while, but just barely.”

Standing on his own again, Bryan turned to see exactly he who had nailed him straight and for good measure. “Ah, I thought so—a garbage can,” Bryan noted. “I’m lucky it was empty; it must be garbage day. It’s you, isn’t it.” He slowly turned until confirming the identity of his assailant, a renowned turncoat telekinetic who was standing firm immediately before him.

“You’re Daniel, I take it. You’ve changed. Your size—a bit bigger; and your hair’s blonde—it used to be jet black.”

“Well, naturally many things change,” Daniel replied smugly, for he felt overly confident that he held the advantageous higher ground. “Then there are things that must change, rather like a chameleon, in order to maintain a steady flow of ‘doing business’ and … ”

“I had a hunch it was your stench somewhere close behind me,” Bryan cut him off with intent rudeness. “But why you and me, again?”

Solidly on foot again, he remained fully aware that he must very soon mentally select something in close proximity and sufficiently hurl it hard as a projectile take out Daniel with permanence. Meanwhile Daniel did likewise, scanning his environment for an equally lethal object to launch at Bryan, indeed heavy enough to knock him into eternity.

“And here I thought I’d already taken you out, what, a couple years back,” Daniel boisterously asserted. “But, no, you had to be tough as nails … Well, there’s definitely not going to be a third-time’s-a-charm, Bryan; there’s simply too much money to be earned, or other things lost if I fail yet again.”

They both then locked their glares onto the very same object, with the very same aim in mind, as it leaned against the brick wall of the apartment complex. It was a heavy chain-locked, very large framed mountain bike—an effective enough metallically solid projectile as could be expected to be accessible in that part of town (short of an overkill automobile toss that would attract far too much attention).

Then “Bry?” came the sudden unexpected voice, down from an open window up on the third floor. From right above him, Daniel instinctively looked up at Terra, whose head was protruding out. “Who is he, Bry?” she queried.

Unlike Daniel, Bryan, the true opportunist in life-and-death matters as he’d always been, kept his mind calmly focused on the mountain bike. Daniel, on the other hand, belatedly realized his fatal error just before returning his attention to where the bike had been stationed still. The fully attentive and thus totally advantaged Bryan already had the bike telekinetically thrown at over 100 kilometers per hour into his chest and head.

The powerful inertia from the lion’s share of the bike’s metallic parts, including its heavy bike-locking chain and padlock had virtually entirely taken off the turncoat Daniel’s forehead.

“Oh, God!” Terra gasped then wept. She had been left utterly stunned by the surprise assault and kill, although she’d always tried preparing herself for such an exchange of seemingly inevitable inhumanity. “Who was he? Did you know him?”

In order to look up at the upset girl, Bryan had to force away his own stare from the turncoat’s badly bloodied and broken body laying at the bottom of another cement stairwell.

“Yeah, I somewhat knew him, I guess,” he finally replied. “His name was … Well, it’s not even worth mentioning, now. But he was quite the talented suppressive-for-hire willing to severely screw his own kind for some morally corrupt blood money.”

Part 7: The Ment Resistance’s First Hard Strike Back

Bryan repeatedly looked down at the sixty tickets in his hand for that evening’s live-audience Steve Nasher Late Night.

He had just procured them from the Ment version of Deep Throat—a Norm-community Corp insider who deeply sympathized with the resistance’s desperate situation. The distribution of all live-audience tickets was supposedly tightly controlled by the Corp; in fact, CEO Peter Stashing’s right-hand man, vice president Mark Larent, ensured his boss that all tickets definitely had already gone to highly paid suppressor turncoats. But unbeknownst to both men was that VP Larent’s guarantor of ticket distribution security was herself a resistance mole solidly entrenched within the Corp’s upper echelons.

The Ment resistance carefully planned to effectively utilize all sixty seats to enable the most psychically potent Ments, including Bryan, via mental manipulation to outright force the show’s featured guest into stating some actual insider facts however damaging to mega Corp business interests.

While at the mercy of the determined minds making up the entire live studio audience, the Corp’s Mark Larent will directly face the most important major-network cameras broadcasting live as he’s openly discussing InterTopStandardProduct’s corporate plans, though of course following the intended fine filtration of the discussion content by its PR people.

Suddenly Bryan felt exceedingly excited over the fact that it’s actually the Steve Nasher Late Night show, with over a hundred million viewers, from which the public at large (assuming the planted Ments are successful) will hear from the horse’s own mouth all about the Corp’s parent conglomerate’s factual plans for large increases in genetically engineered food production and distribution. By collectively focusing their telepathic abilities spiced with a moderate amount of telekinesis directly upon Larent, the Ment audience members are confident that they’ll force the oral truth from him.

Ironically, on the surface of the matter very few Norm TV viewers would mind Larent wearing a masking helmet for protection against just such psychical manipulation from covert-action Ments. However, because of even the slightest potential for unpredictable negative public perception resulting from just the least bit of appearance of Larent perhaps having something to hide could become detrimental to Corp interests. A masking-helmet-donning Larent might even end up being perceived in much the same light as that of the Corp assigning masking-helmeted guards to stand by the studio entrance, if not right inside.

As for individually distributing the tickets, Bryan, having reasoned that it’s crucial the sturdiest sixty “psychical Olympians” (he termed them) make up the entire live studio audience, knew exactly to whom they’d all go. He could clearly sense their considerable potency during the large ‘underground’ meeting about a year prior. He soon afterwards psychically contacted all sixty to inform them precisely where and when to meet, then exactly what actions to perform at that most vital event. There, he’d give each one a ticket, while not having to verbally explain any details, etcetera. The sooner and the more silently that all the tickets were handed over to each, all the safer thus all the better.

Irregardless of his psychiatric medication’s effectiveness, due to his uniquely enormous responsibilities Bryan’s anxiety still left him somewhat edgy; and it took some extra effort to limitedly suppress his racing thoughts, particularly those of the more negative-scenario sort.

However, he’d habitually instantly remind himself, the very art of thought suppression is for one to simultaneously maintain a useful ability to continue receiving some of the other telepath’s thoughts plotting against you; otherwise much, if not all, of the purpose will be defeated.

Part 8: The Steve Nasher Late Night Show Offensive

The assigned sixty Ments arrived outside the studio reasonably in advance of the doors opening and casually formed into a line-up. They asymmetrically showed up at various uneven points in time and in normally seen numbers, most being as couples and trios of laughing friends, so as to not appear out of the ordinary in any way. And as expected, there wasn’t a masking helmet in sight.

Soon enough the doors opened, and the line of excited-looking people began moving forwards into the enormous studio structure.

With all finally seated, they gradually increased in uncomfortable anxiousness, for this event was so far the most crucial moment in the Ments’ entire lives. Indeed, their anxiety climaxed with each feeling as though his or her heart pounded with the intensity of five dozen adrenalin-rushed hearts. About twenty minutes later came the point at which a stage employee told the audience members that the show was to begin in precisely five minutes.

When the huge digital-countdown clock mounted near the top of the towering wall way up behind the show’s host and guest seating platform indicated in red ‘00:00’ the following second saw ‘APPLAUSE’ light up in its stead.

As per normal everyone in the audience obliged the sign’s instruction as host Steve Nasher enthusiastically walked onto the platform, the latter holding two comfortable chairs and a small coffee table before them on which stood two glasses of water.

Everyone again obliged when the sign changed to read ‘SILENCE’.

“Tonight, we have a special guest,” the host heartily announced. “Mark Larent, vice president of the booming InterTopStandardProducts conglomerate corporate empire.”

Once more came the ‘APPLAUSE’ with Larent walking onto the platform smiling wide, shaking the host’s hand then seating himself. When the ‘SILENCE’ came up the second time the live-studio-audience Ments prepared to commence their assault.

“Mr. Larent, the corporation you’re with has made some astonishing breakthroughs in the exploding new industry commonly referred to as genetically-enhanced food products. The first thing that may come to the food consumer’s mind is, ‘That sounds kind of scary.’ What is your response to that?”

“Well, Steve: first I want to thank you for having me on your show.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

“As for your good question, I would like to answer with a question of my own: If average- and low-income families could have twice the amount of safe, healthy food on their table for half the price, would it not make a lot of sound common sense for the product consumer to be greatly in favor of that?”

“Well, of course, but … ”

“And doubling the product’s accessibility to every household at just half the normal price is exactly what we’re doing.”

That was the queue for the Ments in the studio to press their psychical ON button.

Collectively closing their eyes for a moment each imagined that he or she was in fact vice president Mark Larent and literally could only speak and disclose the truth on the matter—to only straightforwardly answer questions and offer factual insight and information, and all in their entirety.

“What we at InterTopStandardProducts have for years planned and produced are the … are the … are the … ”

In utter bewilderment and with no forewarning, Larent betrayed a contorted, confused expression on his face as he continued talking: “ … are the … are the results of what our own conclusive study findings have clearly indicated are in fact detrimental effects from the genetic engineering we perform upon our food products.”

Seeing the unparalleled shock on Larent’s face was the most wondrous experience for the dozens of resistance members making up the live audience, not to mention the delighted much larger portion of Ment society viewing the event on TV.

Even so, again the Ments briefly closed their eyes to refocus their imaginative thoughts.

“You mean to say, Mr. Larent, that there actually are such recorded conclusive study findings?” a rather astonished Nasher queried him. “Could you please elaborate as to precisely what you mean?”

Clearing his throat, a seemingly forced Larent went on to state that, “What I mean is … is … is that … is that it has been revealed to us the genetic engineering has … It has been revealed to us that … ”

“What exactly has been revealed, sir?”

Larent simply could no longer at all suppress his wagging tongue and instead blurted out, “ … that the genetic manipulation we perform has, for one thing, cancer-causing side effects.”

Stunned into momentary silence the show’s host looked wide-eyed at his dumbfounded guest, who openly appeared so disorientated from the intense brain invasion it seemed that he might even pass-out. As planned upon such a successful outcome a preselected half of the studio audience Ments began to shout insults at Larent, booing him, as the other half remained relatively calm while glancing around at their vocally boisterous peers in order to maintain a facade of non-conspiratorial conduct.

“Fucking slime!” one shouted as another blared, “What gives you the right to screw like that with our health, our lives, when we trust you with the food you sell to us!?”

“Yeah!” shouted others. “What gives you the right!?”

Realizing that he’d been mind-manipulatively duped by some potent telepath resistance members almost certainly within the live audience, Larent post haste left the studio through the backstage exit while encircled by bodyguards, before any further damage was sustained by the Corp’s public relations that night.

            How the hell was this allowed to happen?! raced his still stunned and rather numbed thoughts as he wiped beads of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. How the fuck did they get those Goddamn tickets?! People are going to answer for all this come Monday morning!

But deep down inside his weary mind the VP somehow knew that the war—and not just this most major of battles won against them—has likely been lost. Indeed, the beginning of the end.

Part 9: A Great Revelation

Just over a week after ITSP vice president Mark Larent learned from his ex-wife that their only child, a son of eighteen years, was diagnosed with a most severe form of schizophrenia, CEO Peter Stashing received a vicious blow upon hearing that his daughter of sixteen years was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, likely due to her extensive consumption of genetically modified food products—ironically all of his own indirect making. And all even as much as he’d lied to her and fed her lines of twisted up tangled webs of deceit he’d weaved in order to give her sufficient cause to completely avoid consuming such forged foods. But to avoid ‘needlessly’ worrying Dad she kept secret her source of diet; something along the lines of his secret, and him trying his best to scare her away from such foods without committing the corporate unforgiveable sin of openly directly warning literally anyone about that very same model of foods.

As would be expected, there was to be truly progressive change, however small initially, within the upper echelons of InterTopStandardProducts Inc.

“My name is Peter Stashing, and I am Chief Executive Officer and board president of InterTopStandardProducts Inc.,” he began openly honestly stating in a global mass audience broadcast.

“For approximately the preceding two years as of about seven months ago, we had made widely public proclamations regarding scientific breakthroughs involving food-product genetic modification, or more bluntly referenced as ‘genetic engineering’. These research findings were extremely profound as to their beneficial effect upon our conglomerate interests and shareholder dividends—all effective on a global scale since the very same research was relevant across the planet. However, when implemented these same research breakthroughs, we’d also discovered, would also bear very costly human tolls: This meant that, although the fruits of the new form of genetic modifications translated into food production being quantifiably greatly enhanced, the potentially permanent detrimental effects of this same new form of mass food production on the consumers’ health would also be substantial. I am almost entirely referring to the considerable increase in the number of terminal cancer patients. We at InterTopStandardProducts Inc. suppressed these likely catastrophic consequences from our massive consumer base, across the entire globe …

“Perhaps out of plain corporate economic-interest convenience, we had convinced ourselves that the ‘trade-off’ between the large numbers involving food-consumer benefits, with the large number of cancer victims and their sufferings was somehow ‘well worth it’.”

“The sole impedance we faced was from a negligibly small number of very young people from within the mental health community; more so, they were persons enduring psychosis entirely caused by the far more insidious elements of our genetic modification program, and thus they were essentially forced without exception—if they wished to find any relief—to consume only our new pharmaceutical anti-psychotic medication, Pronetin.

“However, the psychosis was actually shamefully a byproduct of another insidious, covert gene-manipulation program of our conglomerate. These very young people, these citizens, had developed psychic abilities—largely telepathy and telekinesis—to which they were predisposed since conception due to our scientific interests and efforts. As these people, indeed our test-subjects at that point in time, aged into their late teens, the psychical abilities enabled them to not only gain access to substantially sensitive corporate information but also the capability to strategically force corporate employees, as we would repeatedly discover, to publicly reveal on a grand scale such information so eminently damaging to our conglomerate interests.”

He then paused for a moment before continuing: “During all those years that these great injustices took place, however, our top research teams had hypothesized then proved by way of scientific measurement that there is yet another most amazing psychical talent beheld by this same very small segment of society. But unfortunately it carries with it an extreme burden, one in which so-called normal society solely reaps the immeasurable benefits and one about which until now the world’s enormous populace would not know …

“Through that extensive research we discovered—and reconfirmed those results three times—that the measurable mental stress and thought disorder intensities of the average non-mentally-ill person significantly reduces, if not dissipates altogether, when that person is in proximity to a person who is suffering with severe mental illness but, crucially so, is also reasonably well enduring the illness’s symptoms, however formidable. In fact, we have found that the more severe the symptoms suffered by the ‘mentally ill’ test-subject the greater the reduction in the mental stress and thought disorder intensities experienced by the ‘normal’ test-subject.”

Likely needless to mention, every clinically mentally ill subject participating in the major study scored very high on the ESP scale.

“In summation, if it were not for the tiny minority of the world’s population who suffer with severe mental illness the vast majority of us ‘normal’ folk—those being the societally functional dominant demographic who are not diagnosed with such a debilitating mental illness—would in fact be unable to function properly with regularity. In other words, we’d be unable to sleep, work, play or enjoy life as we typically do.”

Part 10: The Conclusion of an Ordeal

With the collapse and bankruptcy of InterTopStandardProducts Inc. and almost the same for its parent OneWorldTopStandard Inc., also came the near loss of its patent for the Pronetin medication.

By way of three separate jurisdictional court orders the medication’s core elements were “revised” thus transforming it into a considerably more effective anti-psychotic medication, freely and confidently prescribed by most psychiatrists. As for the Ments almost all acquired and maintained confidence in the medication’s new formula, which was no longer forced upon them.

Not readily admitted by them as a collective there were some who’d miss the psychical abilities they’d lost after the banishment of the original Pronetin formula, regardless of the inhumane manner in which its consumption was originally forced upon them still being fresh in their memory.

The remainder of the lives of all post-liberation Ments held some forbidding demons within; however, for the members of the actively participating Ment resistance simple existence after their ‘war’ was anxiety-ridden too much of the time.

To not be misunderstood, though, the belief that they’d no longer be in the crosshairs of hired exterminators granted them great relief, even if still somewhat on edge in an instinctual-survival-mode manner when, for example, surrounded by a bunch of strangers at a crowed shopping mall.

Of all those well-employed at ITSP, as it turned out, fate hit CEO Stashing by far the hardest and most permanent; in fact too devastatingly for him to come to terms with the major blow: He hanged himself in his basement the morning after his daughter succumbed to her cancer.

Not at all surprising when considering the dismal statistics, a disproportionately very large number of Ments had also committed suicide over the years, almost entirely due to unrelenting psychological turmoil.

Most of the Ments—who as a whole didn’t mind being referred to by the formerly resistance-linked label in the occasional media story—kept in touch, even often meeting to fully enjoy a cup of gourmet java rather than deeply worrying about being assassinated upon, say, being cornered in some back alley by masking-helmeted Corp-procured gunners. It was finally their chance to be as normal as they’d perhaps ever be.^■

Frank G Sterle Jr