Vile Machinations

  Vile Machinations

  P.S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2018

  Chapter one

  The grand and pretentious room Connor found himself in was vaguely familiar. Not, of course, for the correct reasons. That would be too much to ask, he knew. The large desk was set up in a command position however, with a large, even majestic, chair behind it that could have, if a person wanted to be a bit less than kind, be honestly described as a throne. Behind the well-dressed bald man sitting in it, his lean frame allowed expansive red leather to be shown, held in place by decorative woodworking on the edges. The carvings were so fine they were nearly hidden in the polished gleam.

  The desk itself was incredibly ornate on a level that spoke of compensating for personal issues. Large on a scale that presented the person behind it as being nearly godlike, or at least kingly. Most likely that was about feelings of inadequacy, possibly due to having a small penis. It was, nearly, something that the boy sitting in front of it recognized. As if the whole thing felt like he’d been there before.

  Except, of course, that wasn’t true. For all the room, desk and chair were in what was supposed to be his own home, Connor had never seen it before. He was simply thinking of the desk that his old school headmaster, Morris, used. A thing not nearly as decorated or gaudy. It was still an attempt at over compensation, he didn’t doubt.

  On the good side, sitting there in front of his father, the chair Connor was in nearly matched that on the other side. It was in red leather that matched and while fractionally smaller, that part was nearly invisible. In Headmaster Morris’s office, the boys had been placed in very small wooden seats, with no arms and almost nothing to support their backs. A thing that drove the knees up enough to make even a powerful man feel diminished. By the time Connor had been fifteen, two years before, the monthly headmaster visit had become near torture, just due to the seating available.

  Stephen Harriman wasn’t trying to humble him nearly as much. If at all, from a psychological perspective. Just show that he was the one in charge of his little kingdom, with a display of riches and powerful design. The whole thing was meant to be intimidating. A thing that Connor didn’t particularly feel at the moment. After all, he had other things to worry over. Bigger things than his father being slightly disapproving of him. For instance, the man might be highly disappointed in him, which, given his schooling and the rest of his life, could lead to being either disowned or possibly shot in the head. There had been a few henchmen looking guards around earlier, all of whom probably liked to start the day with a good killing.

  Not that it would really be anything that dire. Not for the obvious reasons.

  After all, being kicked out of school, even an exclusive and expensive one, was sort of a right of passage for the children of the vastly wealthy. That Connor had never bothered doing anything like that before was probably a sign that something was rather wrong with him. Worse, he’d been removed from Etain for a rather strange reason. Nothing had been set on fire, for instance. He hadn’t even attacked and killed a faculty member, even though his training there had primed him for that sort of thing on a level that had made it closer than he wanted to admit.

  Instead of frowning at him, the tidy looking billionaire put the ends of his fingers together, making a triangle. He was leaning back, to show a relaxed command of the situation. A learned power pose. A thing that he’d had in classes at Etain. So that he could both use and recognize when that kind of manipulation was used. Worse, he smiled at his son. A thing that looked dry and rather plain, instead of menacing. As if he wasn’t pissed off on a level that would require blood. Really, it had to be a setup, since even normal parents that loved their children would have had to fake being angry over the whole situation.

  Not that his father could lie to him at the moment. He was too close for that to work.

  “Connor. So good to have you home!” The words, for some strange reason, sounded honest. Genuine.

  Which they simply were. Connor’s powers assured that. Not that it was the best super power in the world or anything like that. It worked though and while not the ability to fly or shoot lasers from his eyes, it was real enough. People near him, within about fifteen feet, told the truth. That effect got stronger the closer he was to them, meaning that his father, sitting not six feet away, was being honest. He was actually pleased enough to have him there. Even if it wasn’t something that Connor would have suspected as being real for the man. They weren’t close.

  The man could have said nothing at that range, or omitted something, fairly easily. It wasn’t the same as being able to lie to him, but a person with a strong mind wouldn’t have to blurt out everything in their head. If they shook hands, a thing that hadn’t been offered at all, the older man would have been turned into a zombie. Not the undead kind that craved brains and loved to walk with a slow and uneven gait. Just a very honest one that would answer anything Connor asked. Without being able to even hide their darkest secrets from him. There was no fighting about it inside, either, from what he’d seen. People just spoke and answered as completely as they could at that range. Then, when they weren’t in contact any longer, after he moved back a few feet, the memory of the whole thing would be gone.

  His powers had been tested, the day before, by a strange doctor that his father had at the house. If the teen girl, with her thick black framed fake glasses and oversized lab coat that made her seem like she was playing dress up, was actually one of those. She’d said so, and had been pretty efficient when it came to testing his abilities. That had included bloodwork and the use of large machines that Connor frankly couldn’t name to save his life. That might mean that she was what she’d claimed. Even if she was so nerdy looking and tiny that everything about her seemed off.

  Not that he didn't think she was cute about it. In an awkward way that left him feeling a bit uncomfortable. After all, he couldn’t touch a person without them going still and vapid on him. A teen girl that just laid there, unconscious wasn’t going to be a lot of fun for him. Not past the first time or two, anyway. Etain hadn’t had any of those for him to experiment with, so there would be some novelty factor, he had to guess.

  That his own father hadn’t even patted him on the arm was a pretty good sign that he’d gotten the full report on Connor’s new abilities already. Not that it could have really told him anything that Connor wouldn’t have. He’d been living with his new curse for three months already, after all.

  At school, which had always been a place of secrets and rather horrible tortures, even before that. Nothing about it had been good. Not for him. Not for most of the other boys there, either. A lot of them had been treated far more harshly than he had, as well. Connor had been taught enough about psychology to know that what had been done to him had nearly broken his mind.

  They’d used a series of complicated scenarios and training to turn him into a killer. A sociopath. For his own good, of course. It was a known thing that the biggest flaw in self-defense training wasn’t about lack of good fighting skills. Regular practice doing anything combat oriented was enough for most people. No, the lack of a will to harm and kill was the issue. Connor had been trained not to feel anything for others, so he could take them out if they came after him. A thing that had nearly ended the lives of a lot of people, in the last few weeks.

  The man behind the ornate chunk of finely crafted wood went on, almost immediately.

  “I heard there was a small issue there, at school?” The man seemed a bit phony, the way he spoke the words. Not just snooty, but as if he wanted to hide how much he knew, so was fighting to keep the words inside. It showed in the tightening around his lips. They didn’t turn white, but there was tension there.
>
  Connor listened anyway. A thing that he might not have, a few months before. Not on the level that he had to now. People near him could only be honest with him. It changed things as far as what he needed to pay attention to in life. This strange man he barely knew meant what he was saying. That he’d heard about things… Also, that to him, it honestly was a small issue. Something that he could barely be bothered to care about.

  Which was probably correct. Even to Connor it wasn’t that massive. The big portion, for him, was that his perfect disciplinary record had been scuttled at the hands of a rather upset headmaster. Not that the man hadn’t started the whole thing himself. Even at Etain, pointing a finger and yelling that he started it had never flown as an excuse. In fact, fighting, unless in a simulation room, was punished with electric shocks from the harness, instantly. By the time he’d been eleven, Connor had feared the pain so much that he’d rarely done anything other than what he’d been told. A few times, but even thinking about those things filled him with dread.

  Instead of hedging, since it was clear his father knew more than enough to put things together, at least over time, Connor decided that lacing all the pieces in front of him into a pleasing, or at least coherent, pattern was the better plan. After all, if he neglected to mention something, it could seem like he was trying to hide things. That probably wouldn’t help him in the moment. Especially since everyone else around him was going to be forced to tell the truth. It would make any lie he told stand out even more.

  Sitting up straight, a thing that he’d been taught to do his entire life, often enforced with electrical shocks when he was younger, if mild ones, Connor nodded, schooled his face to seem calm and a bit bland, then punctuated that with a smile. Something so fake that it didn’t touch his eyes at all. Connor really couldn’t manage that kind of thing, even if he tried.

  “Small issues. For us. Some of the instructors there might find things not to be so tiny as all that. What with the prison sentences they’re likely to receive.”

  Rather than wait for a response, he went on. Taking the initiative in conversation was a risk, but also allowed him to present things in the light he saw them. Besides, his Dad hadn’t even tried to interrupt or accuse him of anything yet.

  “About a month ago, I was called in for the Headmaster’s chat. I don’t know if you get reports from that kind of thing… Anyway, that went fine enough. You have a report from Doctor Short on my… Abilities?” Calling his curse that seemed about right. It wasn’t perfect, but denying it was powerful in a strange way would be a lie.

  There was a smile and a nod then.

  “Indeed. That’s… Well, I could try to claim it’s a surprise, being so very different than what your mother had, but the truth is that there was a fifty percent chance of you showing something like this. I’ll explain that later, if you wish? Please, go on, though.” There was a wave of the right hand. It wasn’t negligent or sarcastic. Just a request that he continue his tale.

  So he did, taking a deep breath first. Trying to think of how to present himself in the best way possible without lying.

  “At that meeting, Headmaster Morris mentioned to me, in passing, that he was stealing from the school. To the tune of fourteen million dollars. He even included the banking information. Where he had the funds and that kind of thing, not the numbers to the accounts. I… Really, I didn’t care about that at all. I mean, I’d worked out that everyone was being incredibly truthful with me suddenly, and that the closer they got the more powerful the effect was. I told him that it was just between us, and meant it. It isn’t my money and come on, it was kind of cool that he’d bother to be that interesting, you know? Illegal, but lots of things there are.”

  The words, interestingly enough, got a nod from the man behind the desk. His face lined, even if he wasn’t all that ancient. Only fifty-three. There wasn’t a single hair on his head, however and his face was clean shaved, so if there was any gray there, it was impossible to tell.

  “You took his words as being presented in confidence?”

  It was an interesting way to put the idea, but was close to what Connor had been working with. When people told him anything, he really had been trying to keep silent about it. At least he had been up to that point. A lot of it was much worse than a bit of peculation, too.

  So he nodded, feeling a little subdued by the weight of it all, suddenly. His entire life was just too heavy to bother carrying. Which probably meant he was feeling suicidal, even if he wasn’t allowed to think of things like that without a sense of fear trying to overwhelm him. Not that it was totally working, at the moment. It had been coming at him in waves, for the last two months or so. His gift, if it were to be called that, wasn’t the one that he would have picked. Plus, he wasn’t an idiot.

  Warped, possibly broken, but intelligent enough to understand what the world held for him.

  If he couldn’t even shake hands with a man or boy without them going slack jawed and still, babbling answers to anything he asked, then his relationships with women, or men if he decided to go that way, weren’t going to be all that smooth, he had to think. Worse, even if he met a lady who was willing to put up with that sort of thing, she wouldn’t be able to recall having been in contact with him.

  A thing which was no doubt great for date rape, without actually allowing a real relationship at all. Now, for the most part the fact that he couldn’t feel love anymore probably meant the same thing, but his power took away even the idea that he might be able to fake something like that, even for a while. Since he didn't aim to be the world’s best creepy rapist, the situation that way was looking to be rather dismal.

  Instead of whining, since that could have a boy shocked by the training harness, at least at Etain, he nodded in response.

  “Yes. It didn’t affect me directly at the time at all, so it was a confidence between us. The problem was that the Headmaster didn’t trust me enough. That was foolish of him. That lack led to him having drugs planted in my room. Pills and some white powder. Several pounds of it. Which I found out about before it was used against me, since the instructor that had placed them there informed me about it. We’d passed in the hallway, by chance. I managed to get them out of my things in time to prevent the police from finding them.” That really wasn’t the action that had him removed. A lack of drugs wasn’t illegal, after all.

  Which his father, who would have investigated the whole thing, clearly knew. That was pretty easily read on his face. Not that it wasn’t under his control at the moment. The man, a practical stranger, wanted him to see what he was thinking and feeling at the moment. Clearly.

  Going on, Connor tried to make his own face bland. As if the whole thing wasn’t a huge stress for him. It had been and still would be for some time. At least until after the trial.

  “So, after that, I had to protect myself. I collected information, about Headmaster Morris and several of the instructors there, showing various crimes. Also, showing the men admitting to what they’d done on video, in rather a lot of depth. Then I put it up on the internet. None of them could recall having made the confessions, which didn’t really save them, after the fact.” The police had been sent copies as well, but not surprisingly, they hadn’t chosen to do anything about the abuse at Etain.

  Not until public opinion had pushed them into taking action.

  Stephen touched his lips with both of his index fingers, still making a triangle in front of his face. They tapped several times, bouncing in place, before he replied. The move was supposed to be powerful, but the body language told Connor that he was trying to physically hold back part of what wanted to come out.

  “After which, even if he didn’t have enough proof or evidence for the actions, Headmaster Morris had you removed from the school. The rape of the other boys there was, of course, covered up. In part. The whole thing was rather public, so it made the news. You… weren’t part of that, were you? The abuse there?”

  It was impossible to tell if he was asking
about Connor having raped underclassmen or having been the victim of such himself. Neither was true, for him, thankfully. About a third of the boys there had done both, of course. You didn’t lock two hundred teen boys in with a group of pedophiles for several years without it having long term negative results. The rumors of such things were thick enough on the ground that Connor had learned of them years before. Even without his new abilities having come online.

  After that had taken place, his abilities coming into play, well, he had a list of names and confessions as to what almost everyone there had participated in. Most of it was drinking and doing drugs, some petty theft and hidden violence. That and loads of gay sex. That part of things had been a bit annoying, to tell the truth.

  After telling him all about their sexual adventures with the other young men at the school, most of the confessing lads had decided that being that open and honest meant they were attracted to him. Not that he was against a bit of a good time, but walking down the hallways and suddenly having a fellow student grabbing his behind or trying to work the front of his trousers behind the building, ten times a day was a bit much. Especially since all of them just froze as soon as they touched him. They’d made moves on him and then couldn’t follow through at all.

  Also, he was pretty certain he was straight.

  The idea of women was a lot more enticing to him at least. Not that he’d seen many of those in the last nine years. Mainly the mothers of some of the other boys there, when they came to visit a few times per year. So that kind of person, women, had been thin on the ground since he’d been sent to Etain, and pretty much abandoned there. The ten minutes he’d been in the office with his father was the longest time that he’d spent with the man in over four years. True, he was busy. There was always business to attend to, after all.

  Other parents had managed to do better, at least coming for those annual visits and taking their children off on vacations a few times per year. When Connor had been free from school he’d literally been packed off to a camp in the woods. Nothing particularly fun, either. It had been years of wilderness survival training, in all terrains and conditions, when he wasn’t at Etain.