POSTHUMAN

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Every time he watched Legacy use this power, Ronald was no less inspired. The young man before him had the ability to manipulate fundamental laws of the universe; or rather he expanded an entirely new paradigm of scientific thought; the science of psionics, something which he, Aaron Albion and John Kale had been charged with forwarding. Barnes was the only one left but that did not seem to matter all that much right now as Legacy used his mind to take apart a laptop.

        The precision of his technique fascinated Barnes, the psychic deftly plucked components from the motherboard with a flick of his wrist. Between them, suspended in the air, were dozens of pieces of the laptop, spread out in a thin cloud.

        The final exercise of the day always took place in Legacy's room. It had four light grey walls, one window was set into the steel door, a single bed with one pillow and white blanket, and a little dresser next to the bed; a small adjoining bathroom held a shower, sink, toilet and solitary shelf between sink and toilet.

        "Excellent work Legacy, that's all of your exercises done for the day," praised Barnes, he made sure his ward could see as he glanced in the direction of the room's surveillance camera.

        Legacy's left index finger twitched and the bits of laptop clattered to the ground. He looked up from the debris on the ground, from his perch on the bed, "Father, the camera is stalled, what did you want to talk about?"

        "I wanted to say that these thoughts you have about the Supreme Leader's motivations aren't something you should share with anyone but me," Barnes bridged the gap and sat down next to Legacy, "Others in The Providence won't be nearly so understanding. I doubt I would have been had I not been-"

        "My father?" finished Legacy.

       Barnes nodded and continued, "They might take offence to the idea of the Supreme Leader being anything less than perfectly guided."

       "Who would I tell? I don't talk to anyone but you; you're one of few people who I know has clearance to speak to me. There's Agent Stern and Director Saul but I don't want to speak to them," Legacy's plain statement of his isolation played merry havoc with Barnes. He knew he had been emotionally compromised by this experiment. His dad, David, had done his utmost to instil in Ronald an intrinsic, unfaltering trust in The Providence and devotion to its objectives, this came hand in hand with belief in the Supreme Leader.

        "Then let me ask you this, who should be in charge if not the Supreme Leader?" a question that his dad used to ask a young Ronald when he doubted Epoch's brilliance.

        "No one, The Providence needs to demobilise. The war that might happen is going to be The Providence's fault. If the people who want to advance humanity are going to start what is essentially a species civil war then they should not be in charge," came Legacy's immediate response. Barnes reeled, his reply had always been: 'I don't know, anyone the Supreme Leader thought was right.' He was sure that he had not uploaded the mind of some anarchist philosopher into Legacy's imprints; this must be what a mind newly introduced to the world order actually believed without propaganda to sedate it.

                                                                             * * *

Clement had tried to access restricted Voodoo using Dr Kale's login, the term used collectively for all of the aggregated knowledge of The Providence from its science, military and intelligence work, within Metro Café but the system said that the reinstatement required Dr Kale to perform a first log-in from his work terminal. This involved breaking into the Hopkins Centre, where security was now so tight that if a mouse farted in the walls there would be a bullet between its tiny eyes.