章 44: Division, Pt 9
The gunfire around dies down and ebbs as the last of your enemies fall or flee. The defending residents around you then launch into deafening cheers that drown out all other sounds. You're also caught up in their moment of joy, and yell supportively as a result.
You even fling a fist in the air, and a few others join in your victorious gesture.
But Frank gets everyone to calm down after a few moments, then goes to the furthest window and sticks his head out.
The fighting at the western side of town also dwindles, and few bursts of gunfire are exchanged between the residents and their opponents. You can easily tell that one group is fleeing further west, as the sounds of their guns firing recedes towards the edge of town.
A scan confirms that the scant few enemy combatants still alive are definitely on the run. Their minds are frantic and chaotic and filled with dread. You sense panic in each of their steps, which doesn't seem to decline no matter how far they get away.
All of you can just make out the other residents' cheering, even from that distance. And it brings a smile to most of your faces. Those who aren't able to enjoy the moment instead tend to the dead or wounded, their minds dark from trauma and conflict and unimaginable loss.
One of them drapes herself over a body that's riddled with bullets and bleeding profusely. His dead body is still warm, but you sense no thoughts coming from his mind. It's all blank, and you're certain that he's beyond saving.
Her grief feels as deep as the ocean, and the person she's grieving no doubt meant the world to her. Now that he's gone, you sense her heart as it becomes heavier and heavier, as its beat becomes lopsided and irregular. Her heartache is so palpable that you personally feel the same emptiness fill your own chest.
That deep sense of loss is something you're distinctly familiar with, and easily identify with the grieving woman.
You wonder if you should do something, if you could use a low-level Surge to ease her mental and emotional anguish. Not just hers, but everyone else, as well. But a part of you reminds you that it's not your place to do any such thing, and that you don't exist to meddle in other people's lives. This is her loss to work through, not yours.
Another part of you wonders if helping is the same as meddling. Isn't it its own kind of interjection? Wouldn't that be you influencing their paths, no matter what? You suppose that you've already gotten this far and helped them fight off their enemies. Your very actions have helped the residents win this fight, without a doubt. Why stop now? The pain doesn't end only when the bullets stop flying.
And so you reach out with a highly subtle Surge which ripples all around you. It infuses itself into the defending residents around you, lightening and unburdening them to some degree. It isn't much, just a sense of calm, a sliver of peace, a measure of bittersweet victory. But it is enough to get the grieving woman to come to terms with her loss just a little bit easier.
It might still take her a long time to heal fully, of course. But at least you did your part to help, even if it is miniscule in the greater scheme of things.
"That was a good thing you did," Frank tells you.
You wonder how he knows what you've done just now, but then realize that he's talking about all the rest of the fight. The parts where you've been disabling and stunning the so-called 'gangers'. Something inside you wants to tell him that you could have done more.
It certainly wouldn't have been much of an effort if you opened up a Network and infused an Orchestra among the residents. Doing so would have saved even more lives, without a doubt.
But you find that you can't do any such thing. A bit of shame fills you at the thought. You can't imagine openly confessing that you could have saved more people, but purposefully chose not to. You do imagine that Frank could possibly never forgive you.
"I just did what I thought was right," you answer. "And I kinda wish I coulda done more."
"You did plenty," he replies quickly. "More than anyone else could, that's for sure."
His words don't bring you any sense of relief, only more guilt. You fight against yourself and resist the urge to look away. Every part of you wants to escape this conversation as fast as possible. Instead, a lingering silence sits between you for a few moments.
"You oughta check up on everyone," you say. "Make sure they're okay and all."
Frank nods in agreement, then grips one of your shoulders.
"Yeah, let's go take a look," he replies.
"Us? Uh, I'm not really a resident here, I don't think I should-"
"Horseshit," he interrupts you. "You've done helped out a whole lot here, and I want everyone to know just how much you made a difference today. We coulda gotten wiped out by all these damned gangers, but your psionic whatever powers really did them in. That's worth sharing."
There's a chorus of agreement from a few of the defending residents around you. You get a sense of their gratitude for you - they most certainly experienced your contribution to the fight. Although they aren't sensitive to psionic energies, they can instinctively feel the imprint you've made on all their psyches.
It's like hearing an echo, but from a place that's distant and unreachable.
"Lead the way," you tell Frank, defeated.
Frank leaves the second team in charge of the defending residents, specifically in terms of getting the wounded medical help. Then he gathers up the first team and heads out towards Town Square. With you in tow, of course.
You make your way to Town Square in no time at all, and head straight towards the fountain in the center. There, a dozen or so defending residents gather up to report their successes and losses. You sense much of their psyches in disarray, a result of all the frenzied fighting. Thankfully their victory keeps them more or less balanced and upright.
You note that among the people gathered there are Carl, the Mayor, and the two other psions living in the town. Close to them are their teams - there's a sense of camaraderie that binds them together in those little groups.
As for the two psions, you had felt them fighting at the western flank. You had felt the Telekinetic - Chris - flinging various debris at his enemies. Mostly, he threw shards of glass or chunks of broken brick or other small but dangerous objects. You sensed that he had been channeling his energies at a near constant pace all throughout the fight, and never once tired himself out.
No doubt he knows his own limits and paced himself as much as he could.
You can easily tell however that his psionic energies are about equal to yours, at least while you're capped. Certainly not stronger than Kaja was at her peak, but he's definitely strong enough to hold his own in a firefight.
The other one, Nance, stands near him, but with a handful of her team just off to the side. Unlike Chris, her energy usage spiked up and down all through the fight. Also unlike him, she didn't use the energies of Telekinesis. Instead, she counted mostly on her ESP and Foresight.
Though she isn't as potent as you, even in your capped state, she still has enough ability to see shards of the future fly in towards her present. But you note that instead of focusing her energies on herself, she had turned it towards her companions all through the gunfight.
You aren't exactly sure what she's doing, and you would need to be closer to her to observe how she uses her powers. But you guess that she's using her Foresight to guide her teammates. A bit like what Frank does, but intuitively rather than through sheer combat experience.
Not that there's anything wrong with that in the slightest, and you decide to try something like that out in the future. The more you stretch your powers out and discover your capabilities, the easier this entire Walkabout will be.
You nod at the two of them in recognition of their powers and abilities, and they do the same to you. No doubt they sensed your own energies during your own fight, and know what you can do.
"Glad to see you're all alive and well," Frank tells everyone. "That was a hell of a fight."
"It was too damn much!" Carl complains. "Damned gangers just about brought a whole damn army at our doorstep."
"That was far from an army," Nance chides him, though he summarily ignores her.
"If they done brought that many guns this time, they're for sure going to bring even more next time," Carl continues unabated. "We can't wait for something like that to happen. No way."
"What exactly do you want us to do?" counters Mayor Lisa. "Start an army? Build walls?"
"We need to move our asses to the Fortress."
A number of groans escape from a few residents around you, but the rest agree with Carl and grunt or mumble in approval.
"That's the only place we can be safe," he continues. "They got all the guns we need to protect us from whatever's out there. These fuckin' gangers are prolly the least of our worries when all is said and done. What is onna them Sweepers show up? We ain't gotta chance in hell."
"What're you even talking about?" Frank protests. "Yeah, the gangers were here, but we fought 'em off! I even heard lots of 'em drop their guns on the way out. Guns that're now in our hands. We can hold our own against the worst."
"Yeah, and just how many of our friends and family died today, huh? I watched Ole Gregg bite it not even a minute into the fightin'. And he weren't the only one that fell dead today."
"Look, I ain't saying we won't be losing people, all I'm sayin' is that we, as a whole, still made it out alive. Goin' to some Fortress out in the middle of nowhere is only gonna get us killed. I mean, you think we're just gonna teleport there? Hell naw, we've gotta pack our shit up and walk our asses over. And who knows how long that'll take. While we're out there, we're exposed to everyone and everything. Not just whate'ers got guns, but the heat, starvation, and so on. At least here all we gotta deal with are gangers."
Tensions among the residents around you rise as Carl and Frank argue. Both of them talk in near circles with their own arguments, with neither of them giving any ground for the other. Clearly, they believe their ideas to be the only ones worth thinking about.
You grimace when you realize that this moment should be spent celebrating victory, but instead the survivors are mired in an existential standoff. A subtle Scan reveals everyone's thoughts leaning one way or the other, either for Carl's argument to leave, or for Frank's argument to stay.
It dawns on you that people subtly shift where they're standing as well, as they move somewhat closer to either Carl or Frank's side. And you note that Chris joins Carl, while Nance joins Frank.
You glance over at Mayor Lisa to see what she chooses, but then realize something startling. All throughout the fight, the Mayor didn't use any psionics at all. Although everyone in town did everything they absolutely could to fight off the enemy combatants, the Mayor did nothing.
You didn't sense even a sliver of her psionic energy emanating out, certainly not like Chris or Nance. And you can definitely tell that she's much stronger than the both of them, though you're unsure how much.
The thought nags you greatly, to the point that you confront her about it.
Why didn't you use your powers to fight off those people? you ask her Telepathically. All the rest of us did.
All I can do is use Telepathy, she replies. What good is that in a firefight?
But her answer is unconvincing in the slightest.
You could have used it to coordinate the defense! you tell her. Would have seriously helped if you just kept some order through the entire battle!
Why don't you mind your own damned business, stranger, she thinks to you.
You sense her anger rise, directed towards you. It's clear that she doesn't like you poking and prodding her about her powers. But you can't help it. People died, and she did nothing at all!
And who the hell are you to judge me, anyway? she continues. You're hiding what you can do, too. It's not like I'm calling you out for keeping your powers secret.
Well the difference is that this is your town, your people, your friends, you reply. And you did nothing and just let them die!
Her anger peaks at your last transmission, and you sense her mind become cloudy and dark as a result. She shuts off your Telepathic connection to her instantly, and it feels like she has slammed a door in your face.
"Hey, you know what I think?" says the Mayor. "I think Nomad here is one of the gangers. I mean, you show up one day, and a whole army of heavily armed ganger soldiers appears the next. That can't be a coincidence, can it?"
Shock fills you and Frank both at the accusation. It stuns you to the point that you can't even respond to it - it's patently absurd. But those same words sink down into Carl, who accepts them readily. They sink down into his conscious mind and take root among the rest of the hateful emotions he has towards you.
"Holy shit, yeah!" he says. "That makes total sense! Now I know why I wanted to shoot the hell outta you when we first ran into you! I guess now's better than never to make up for that mistake!"
Carl then brings up his gun and points it straight at your chest, ready to blow it wide open with a single shot.
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