Academy #7 - "Heart and Mind" - copyright Dave Van Domelen, 1994
              A Coherent Comics UnIncorporated Production
==========================================================================

[cover shows Aaron and an unknown man standing before the gates of heaven.
Arin Kelsey stands between them and the gates, full of light and fury as she 
drives them out.]

==========================================================================

                            THE GRADS
                         ===============

Drake, Anthony "Tony" - Totally invulnerable to physical harm, but not pain.
Grant-Taylor, Sarah - Hyperspeed, 20 times faster than normal humans.
Henderson, Howard (Junior) - Elemental Mage
Kelsey, Arin - Able to explode with the force of a ton of TNT or more.
Kleinvogel, Jen - Antigravity sheath allows flight and partial invisiblity.
Napier, Salvatore "Big Sal" - Superhuman strength, and resilience.
Rodriguez, Sara Ana "Essay" - Bodybuilder, super-gadgeteer.
Scorch (nee Scott Handleman) - Flame projector.
St.James, Sean "Popper/Pops" - Teleporter, short range.
Sylvester, George - "Transmutation" of energy (heat to light, for example).
Taylor, John Zachary "Jakzak" - Brute-force gravitic powers.
Teller, Jason William - Superhuman accuracy with all weapons due to TK powers.
Tracey, Dan "Grind" - Peak of human perfection and beyond.  Omni-capable.
Zander, Aaron - Psi.  "Mind Over Matter" gives great strength, healing powers

===========================================================================

     "Hey, Netwalker, you comin' t' dinner?" asked one of a small knot of 16
year olds.
     Nate "Net" Walker shrugged.  "Maybe later...gotta check the Net, eh?"  He 
ignored the (relatively) good-natured barbs from his friends as he turned and 
headed for his dorm room.  For many at the Academy, hanging around on the Net 
was entertainment and a way to kill time.  For Nate, it was practice.  And 
entertainment and a way to kill time.  He grinned.
     Nate was at the Academy because he had a superpower, just like everyone 
else studying there.  However, his power was not physical like most, nor was it
psychic in the strictest sense.  His power was to enter the Net, like the old 
cyberpunk fiction characters could do.  He could even bring people with him, if
he concentrated really hard.
     As he entered his room, he booted up his system.  It looked pretty much
the same as any other slave keyboard produced in the last forty years or so... 
interface technology really hadn't changed a whole lot.  Oh, there'd been a lot
of work towards "netrunning" technology, virtual reality interfaces and all 
that stuff...but the time saved by having the user less hampered by the 
interface were offset by the amount of system resources the interface itself 
used.  Not to mention to cost.  Not to mention having to retrofit the entire 
Net to whatever system was finally put in use.  So far, no system had yet been 
designed that gave enough solid benefit to merit making it the standard, so all
the VR systems out there were pretty much novelties, rich kid toys and military
toys.  Thus, the keyboard and screen had stayed pretty much the same as in his 
parents' and grandparents' times.
     Of course, a few decades of advancement had made an impact on the Net 
itself, if not on the interfaces.  Gone were the tenuous connections and 
illogical rerouting paths the old Internet and its sister systems needed.
Faster and bigger mainframes had allowed for more and better interconnections 
to be made, making the Net far easier to get around on even before the United 
World stepped in.  Adapting the World Wide Web's hypertext system and merging 
it more smoothly with other functions like netnews and file transfer protocols 
had brought the Net tremendous gains in the last decade.  And with the United 
World agreements putting all of the Net under one authority made for the final 
step in standardizing all the operating systems, so that even with essentially 
the same hardware as in 2010, the Net of 2022 worked almost as quicky and 
"magically" as the fictional cybernets of 20th Century cyberpunk writing.  
Artificial intelligences not dependent on violation principles were starting to
appear, and they could perform 'drone' tasks for a user at incredible speeds 
without as much GIGO worries.  The AI could tell if you'd asked it to do 
something stupid...and could even learn to tell when you really did want to do 
that stupid thing.
     Not that Nate needed any AIs.  The Net was a wonderful playground, and he 
was sitting on the swings.  He could, as the docs put it, "directly project his
spirit into the framework of the computer Net, perhaps even entering an 
alternate reality which mirrored the events on the Net via symbolic filters."
     Or to put it more simply, he could netrun, and choose the setting.  And 
the setting determined how he saw things...in a normal urban setting, protected
files would look like safes or locked vaults, defense programs like police, 
normal data flow like street traffic, etc.  It was more intuition than logic, 
which was par for the course on Tesla powers.  If his intuition failed to tell 
him what a particular block of data really was, he'd see it wrong.  Kind of 
"not seeing" the huge cannon a security guard had in his pocket.  With 
training, he could see more and more clearly, but he could still be fooled.
     Because of that, he was required to always wear electrodes when netting, 
so that if he got in serious trouble a med team could come and yank him out.
One time he'd been "killed" by a security program, and it had sent him into 
convulsions for an hour.  He shuddered at the memory.
     The electrodes in place, Nate logged in and "plugged in," sending his mind
into the local system.  The Academy's mainframe was not a Regional Node, but it
was one step below that.  From here, he could either access the RN for the 
Academy's United World representation region, or for any of the RNs 
geographically nearest his, roughly 5 of them in this case.  It was easiest to 
go directly to his own RN, but the others were frequently used when traffic got
too high locally or there was a system outage.  This kind of "cell system" 
redundancy helped make sure no signal was lost, that the mails would get 
through.  Nate had read once that in the past, a newsgroup not carried by every
system might not be able to connect to all the systems that did carry it, since
the signal might not be able to get through.  Now, fortunately, all outgoing 
signals went upstream to RNs no matter whether Local Nodes upstream chose to
carry the particular board or group.  And then from the RNs and National Nodes 
it would propagate back down, again regardless of LN choices.  Easily one of 
the biggest benefits of the United World Net, Nate thought...local sysadmins 
can't decide what other nodes will and won't get.  Takes some of the power out 
of the hands of petty dictators, always bleating about their precious resources
being used up by things they don't approve of.  Nate didn't give a second 
thought to the possibility that they might have a valid case...after all, 
computers today have so much more cheap capacity than in the Dark Ages of the 
1980's and 1990's.
     Nate chose an Art Deco Techno viewpoint, and his LN immediately sprang up 
around him like a gleaming city of steel and glass, hovercars flitting along 
elevated ramps from one subsystem to another, helitransports carrying data to 
the subsidiary nodes under the Academy's aegis (mostly private mainframes used 
by professors) and to other LNs in the region.  Nate called up a file transfer
program, which formed around him as a bubble-domed car that zoomed along on 
maglev propulsion, whisper-quiet.
     Quickly he merged onto the "superhighway" to the RN, joining other traffic
headed upstream.  It never ceased to amaze him that processes taking 
nanoseconds in real life seemed to pass at a leisurely pace when he wanted them
too...his mind sped up to computer speeds, far faster than mere electrochemical
switching could hope to.  Had be been hooked up to this setting with a "real" 
cyberinterface, things would pass in a blur, he'd be more a passenger than a 
driver...the brain can only compute so fast, after all.  But his mind was freed
from the shackles of biochemistry, and he was able to take the time to look at 
the passing data carriers as he drove down the link.  Nothing terribly 
interesting, though.
     He cranked up the speed, letting his mind relax for a moment to normal 
rate, and the journey was over in an eyeblink.  He was now in a much bigger
city, with cargo dirigibles crowding the sky like wayward clouds.  Time to hit 
the National Node, or maybe straight to Central Node...he felt like some 
globehopping.  Normally, traffic had to be high priority to go directly to the 
Central Node from a Regional without first going through National, but Nate 
knew how to make himself look like high priority.
     His car morphed into a sleek and heavily modified DC-3 and took to the air
from the highway.  Flashing the appropriate signal to the top tower, he took to
the skies over the Node.
     Nate pulled back his perspective away from his "body" and saw the Net as a
whole mapped out below him, with a small arrow representing his location.  In 
the tradition of the motif he'd chosen, the arrow arced across the globe to 
Australia without stopping, leaving a red line behind it.  At Australia, home 
of the Central Node, a red dot appeared as he changed course, heading out into 
the hinterlands of Northern Africa.  He felt gutsy, he was going to try and get
into a Corp system, one of the few dotted across the mostly abandoned 
continent.  He might also hack a Moslem system while he was at it, but they 
tended to be very hard to get around in, since they hadn't officially joined 
the Net yet.  A small "Here be there monsters" label appeared on the globe over
the Sahara, and Nate snickered.  Khadamite experiments were rumored to wander 
the desert.
     He stopped snickering when he felt a jolt and a sickening lurch.  With a 
speed far faster than thought, he returned to the cockpit of the plane, to see 
a giant demon tearing his wings off!  What the hell?
     Nate shifted the plane into a rocketship, hoping to at least give the 
beast less to grab onto.  Logically, he knew that how he saw things had nothing
to do with how it saw them...it looked vaguely arabian, but that didn't mean a 
whole lot.  Perhaps a nasty security program doing outrider work for one of the
Corps?
     The demon flew after him at incredible speed...no lag on that beasty!  
Whatever it was, it was damn hostile...no secsystem would be that dogged once 
the target has already shown it's leaving.
     Khadamite.  Damn, it had to be some kind of AI experiment that the 
Khadamites have unleashed on the Net to see what it could do.  Bad enough they 
did it in real life, now they had to clutter up his lovely Net?
     Nate wasn't really prepared for any serious net.combat...he hadn't planned
on this level of opposition.  He'd have to wing it.
     Thinking fast, he emitted a great cloud of smoke from the rocket's tail.  
That would blind the AI with noise long enough for him to split the rocket's 
image in three, two of which would be decoys.
     The smoke cleared, and the demon wasn't nearby.  But he could feel the 
sick sensation as one of the decoys was destroyed.  Then another.  It was 
toying with him...he had only nanoseconds!
     Below he saw an old, disused Local, only barely connected to the Net.  To 
his eyes, it looked like a shotgun shack hidden behind a tall stand of trees 
nestled in a fjord.  He ejected from his rocket and sent it on its way to the 
Central Node...if it could make it there on autopilot, the defenses of the CN 
might kill the Demon.  If not, at least he had a second to hide.
     He jumped down on his antigrav cape to the shack and dove inside, shutting
the door and pulling it in after him.  He cut the Node completely off of the 
Net.  He knew from experience that doing this would make him stop breathing in 
real life, so he only had about a minute realtime.  Fortunately, that was 
almost an eternity on the Net...certainly long enough for either the Demon to 
give up, or for him to find a defense.
     He looked around the shack, finding an address plaque in the old style.  
It read "ftp.dhhalden.no" under a crust of dirt.  No one had maintained this 
node in ages...files were corrupted or missing, the whole place was full of
noise.  An ftp site...maybe it had something in it he could use.
     After a few minutes of riffling through files and cupboards, all he'd 
found was a few fiction directories.  He'd have to make any defenses from 
scratch, then.  Maybe he could find something in these files to give him ideas,
though.
     /pub/LNH/Constellation?  Nope, all corrupted.  He looked around some more.
"Electrocutioner's Song?  Legion of Net.Heroes?"  Hmmm...that gave him an 
idea....
     Some time later, probably about ten seconds realtime, Nate had finished 
cobbling the program together out of raw data lying around the room.  He'd 
found a few GIFs to use as visual reference, and the rest just sort of felt 
right.  He donned the armor-like program and reopened the connection.
     Instantly the Demon was upon him, tearing through the walls of the Node.  
Fortunately, Nate had all he needed from it, stored as folders in the blocky
backpack of his armor.  The Node was torn apart as he sailed out through the
roof to meet the Demon head-to-head.
     The Demon itself looked different.  Less Arabian, more like something that
would have looked at home in a story drawn by the one who had inspired the
armor he wore.  He pointed a gauntlet at the Demon, and a crackling mass of
dots and color lanced out at the Demon, sending it reeling.
     He felt his voice boom out like thunder, "Your hell-spawned might is no
match for he who wields the POWER KIRBY!"
     Another bolt, and the Demon flew apart into noise.  Nate grinned behind
the helmet.  So this was what it was like to be a Net.Hero....

[To Be Continued in Legion of Net.Heroes 2023 #0, by Austin George Loomis!]

==========================================================================

     Snow was falling lightly, dusting the helipad with white.  Inside the
small arrivals room abutting it, Aaron waited nervously.  It had been months...
and now to finally see him again....  He'd hoped for a reunion under better 
circumstances, of course, but you take what life throws at you.  And hope it 
doesn't hit you in the face.
     Paul wasn't totally done with his training, but it was judged that he had 
the best chance of helping Arin.  But since his shields weren't totally back 
up, he had to ride in an artificially shielded helicopter to avoid broadcasting
his thoughts to every sensitive between Maine and Wisconsin.  Unfortunately, 
that meant Aaron had to wait for Paul to arrive before they'd be in contact.
     --How could normal people handle it?-- he thought.  --Having to be in eye 
contact to be in contact...and even then not really being in Contact?  To be in
love with someone yet held apart from them by barriers of distance, or by the
inadequacies of language?  Even a few months of having my contact limited 
nearly drove me mad...no wonder people have such problems in their 
relationships.  Love without Contact can drive anyone insane.  Jealousy, doubt,
even just the *frustration* of reaching out and touching only the body...not 
the heart!--
     He heard a faint sound, and willed his hearing more acute.  The familiar 
whupwhupwhup of a helicopter's blades.  Aaron's heart jumped.  He checked the 
computer screen next to the doorway to make sure.  Yes!  It was Paul's 
helicopter from MetaPysch!
     Focusing his eyes more carefully than a mere human could, he could just 
make out the form of the helicopter through the light snow.  Every second that 
passed brought it closer...brought Paul closer.  Did the thrill of anticipation
make up for the loss of Contact among the normals?  Did having so little real 
Contact make them more fully appreciate meeting after an absence?  Certainly,
Aaron had never felt quite so giddy at the prospect of meeting Paul as he did 
now...since before Paul had left, they had never actually been apart.  Not 
really.  Meeting physically before had just meant the bond between them 
strengthened a little, as Aaron could pick up the slack more easily at close 
range.  --I guess absence *does* make the heart grow fonder,-- Aaron mused.  
--But it's not worth the pain that absence brings.--
     Then the helicopter landed and Paul emerged from it.  His presence, his 
love washed over Aaron like a torrent.  More powerful than he remembered it 
being.  Paul was more powerful than Aaron remembered, that much was for sure.
     Suddenly Aaron felt very small, a tiny pebble in a raging stream.  He 
started to lose his balance, and clutched the doorframe to steady himself.
     ++What's wrong?++ came Paul's mindspeak, almost louder than Aaron could 
bear.  He must have winced, because Paul's face fell as the telepath realized 
what he had done.  ++I'm sorry,++ came the voice, much softer now.  ++I'm still
not used to my own broadcasting strength at short range...are you all right?++
     Aaron grinned and tried to erase the signs of pain from his face.  --Now 
that you're here, I am.--  But hidden in the back of his mind was the thought, 
--But what do you need me for now?--

               *              *              *              *

     Two Grads in the infirmary in one week, noted the orderly on duty.  Not a 
good sign.  Normally the infirmary only hosted the younger and less experienced
students, ones who had yet to master their powers and could be expected to make
major errors once in a while.  The Grads were supposed to be the cream of the 
crop, they weren't supposed to make near-fatal errors.
     Of course, to be charitable, young Miss Kelsey wasn't here because of any 
injury to her body.  She'd entered a catatonic state after her last mission.
The orderly didn't know the details of it...classified.  But it must have been 
pretty horrific to just shut her down like that.  Supposedly someone from 
MetaPsych was going to help her come out of it at least enough so that more 
conventional therapy would work on her.
     The other case, though, deserved what he got.  Mr. Taylor'd been stupid 
enough to try a major new application of his powers without any sort of 
supervision.  The orderly looked at the chart again and whistled low and long.
Fifteen major breaks in arm and leg bones, one collapsed lung, broken nose, a 
dozen or more hemmorrages...it was like someone had used him for play putty and
not put him back in the right shape.  Of course, that was a good description of
what happened, if the doctors were right.  Mr. Taylor had been playing with 
spacetime, and it had played rough.  He was warped in dozens of directions in 
a matter of seconds as reality reasserted who's boss.  Parts that could stretch
that far did.  Those that couldn't, broke or tore.  If his wife hadn't gotten
back right after the incident and rushed him to that psychic healer guy, he'd 
have died.  The Psi had managed to put most of the parts back in the right 
place and make them hold long enough for surgery to fix them up.  Still, it'd 
be weeks before even a supernat with those kinds of injuries would be back to 
normal.  A normal would have died instantly.
     There was a knock at the door.  The orderly went to get it.
     "Hello, I'm Mrs. Grant-Taylor...could I see my husband for a while?"
     The orderly nodded, "Okay, but don't tire him out or anything.  He's still
in delicate condition.  I'll be in the other room monitoring his vitals."
     The orderly knew the woman a little, since she was friends with most of 
the older staff.  He noticed that she moved slowly as she went over to her 
husband's bed.  Well, fast for a normal, but a lot slower than he'd ever seen 
her move.  Grief can do that to a person.  He left.
     Sarah sat next to JakZak's unconscious form.  His breathing was even and
light...he was under heavy sedation for the pain.  Why had he gone and done 
something so foolish?  Sarah knew the answer to that before she even mentally 
framed the question.
     The doctors had said he was trying to look through time.  Only one reason 
to do that, really.  The Burnouts.  He must have decided to take action on his 
own.  She'd known him to do some stupid things before, but this took the cake.
He must really have been concerned about the case to do something so dangerous.
     Gently, slowly, she traced her finger across his face, touching the 
outline of his cheek.  Her finger stopped at a tear on his face.  But it wasn't
his...it was hers.

               *              *              *              *

     The man known to all but a few as simply The Professor brooded silently in
his office.  His glasses rested on the desk in front of him, and all but one 
light were turned off, as if he didn't really want to see anything right then.
     Sitting back, he absently brushes a thinning lock of grey hair back from 
his eyes, although it wasn't long enough to fall into his eyes.  Old habits die
hard, if at all.  The hand strayed back to his temples, pressing against them 
as if he had a headache.
     Of course, what he really had was a heartache, a gnawing in the depths of 
his soul.  Was it really better to keep them in the dark and let them stumble 
into death and pain?  He wanted to reach out and protect them, keep from them 
all the horrors that the universe held, and which he had faced himself.
     But he knew he shouldn't, even if he could.
     They had to see the bad along with the good, as much as it hurt him to let
them suffer like this.  And eventually they would...the world has ways of 
making you acknowledge its existence and its power over your fate.  He knew in
his head that this way was best...expose them to the worst the world could 
offer now, rather than let them discover it themselves later.  For now, they 
had the Academy to support them, they could retreat to the nest if things got
too bad, and try again later.  Once he let them go, once he graduated them into
the real world, they'd have no one to fall back on but themselves.  His job was
to make sure that it would be enough, by making them the strongest, best 
spirits they could be...NOW.
     But it didn't erase the dark stain of guilt on his soul.  He wasn't cut 
from the cloth of a drill sergeant..."It's for their own good" could convince 
his head, but never his heart.  He tried to tell himself he didn't know for 
sure that the Pranir were organlegging...but he knew that was a lie.  Pranir 
didn't take human slaves, there were far cheaper alternatives.  And they didn't
take on human crew either.  More efficient to takeon crew who already knew the 
tradespeak of the Planetary Confederation, knew how to operate standard Pranir
and Santari devices, etc.  Of course, a major Pranir trading house might wish 
to bring Terrans somewhere as part of an elaborate deal, but that ship was 
obviously a small-time operator.  They didn't have the time or resources to get
fancy, they made their deals fast and ran with the loot.  And the only way 
humans fit into that equation was as merchandise.  Which left organlegging.  
And left one of his students insane, with several others holding deep emotional
scars.
     But even that paled before his other sin against the students.  The other 
secret he kept from them, the secret they seemed on the verge of discovering.  
The secret which might have cost the life of a man the Professor had come to 
see as a son.

               *              *              *              *

     Paul had explained it matter-of-factly.  Going into someone's mind was 
like taking a powerful hallucinogen...your sense of reality was strongly 
skewed, controlled by the subject's sense of reality.  If you weren't really 
careful and skilled, you could become totally absorbed into the subject's 
worldview, perhaps end up sharing their psychosis.  That's why any Psi delving 
into another's mind always took a partner with him.  To act as an anchor on 
reality, a solid reminder of what reality was.  The two could reinforce each 
other, keep their partner from sliding into madness.  It wasn't failsafe, but 
it was more safe than solo work.  So Paul had naturally asked Aaron to be his 
partner on entering Arin's mind.
     They had voluntarily cut their bond to a bare minimum while they prepared 
for the journey.  Each needed to concentrate on what they knew as real, have as
strong a sense of self as possible before entering.  To be too deeply in 
Contact beforehand would only serve to lessen their sense of individual self.
     Aaron was worried.  Cold, unreasoning fear filled his mind, no matter how 
he tried to push it down.  What good could he do Paul?  Paul was like a giant 
now, and Aaron only barely not beneath his notice.  To say Aaron felt 
inadequate would only start to describe his state of mind.  Even when they had 
been in full Contact, there had been more of a rift between them than either 
would consciously admit.  Paul operated on such a different mental level now...
the two had grown apart in more ways than they wanted to admit.  Paul 
concentrating on the mind and Aaron on the body was only the surface of it.  
Had their love been killed, and they were merely trying to keep the cold corpse
of it going?
     --Maybe I should tell Paul to find another partner for this,-- thought 
Aaron.  --These feelings are bound to come out while we're in Arin's mind, and 
that would hurt not just us, but her.  But...if I tell him that, then *he'll* 
be distracted unless I tell him why, and I...can't.  And he's the important one
in this operation.  Better I be not up to par than he.  After all, it's not 
like I'll be doing more than holding the anchor line.--
     Aaron felt a warm, familiar touch on his mind.  ++Are you ready?++
     --Yes,-- he lied.

               *              *              *              *

     Pale light streaming from above.  Misty cloudiness below.  Gates ahead, 
with an old man seated at a ledger beside them.
     Paul turned to Aaron, "A bit of a traditionalist, isn't she?"
     Aaron frowned.  "Yes...but this is a bad sign, isn't it?  I mean, if the 
gates to her mind are the Pearly Gates, doesn't that mean she thinks she's 
dead?"
     "Maybe.  Or perhaps it's just a reflection of her faith in general.  Her
file says she's from a group that believed an odd mixture of Protestant and 
Catholic dogma, so this kind of thing isn't totally unexpected.  If she'd been 
better read, these might have been multiple jeweled doors from Revelation.  
First test, can we get in peacefully?"
     Aaron nodded, and the two approached the image of St. Peter, who looked up
from his ledger.
     "Ah, Aaron Zander.  I must say I'm surprised to see you make it even this 
far, given your sinful acts."
     "Da..." Paul started to mutter before he stopped himself.  Not a word to 
use in this setting.  "Her sect must have kept the Biblical injunction against 
homosexuality.  This won't be easy."  He turned to St. Peter.  "Excuse me, sir,
we don't seek entry, we merely wish to talk to Arin Kelsey.  If she'll see us, 
that is."
     St. Peter looked a bit ruffled as he closed his book.  "Just as well you
don't wish to enter...you wouldn't have made it.  I'll inquire as to whether 
the young lady wishes to see you...it maybe a while, we've been extremely busy 
in the wake of the Apocalypse."  He turned and whispered to a cherubim, who 
flew off to deliver the message.
     Paul looked at Aaron.  "Apocalypse...she must believe the world has ended.
That must have been one NASTY mission."
     Arin appeared at the gates, looking at peace.  Then a vague shadow of 
guilt flitted across her face.  "Oh, Aaron.  I'm truly sorry that I killed you 
before you could repent for your sins against God...but I was but His 
instrument.  The world needed to be cleansed, the judgement was at hand."
     Paul spoke evenly, patiently.  "Arin, please understand.  This is not 
really heaven.  You've retreated into a corner of your own mind.  You did not 
destroy the world with your powers.  And you need to come out so we can help 
you get better."  Aaron could see the uncertainty Paul was trying so hard to
hide frmo Arin.  This was Paul's first real test of his powers, and Aaron could
see that he wasn't doing as well as he had in practice runs.  It showed in his 
body language.
     Arin stammered, "Bu-but...I have to be dead.  God's taken the faithful 
into his bosom after the Apocalypse...I...I remember the....
     "FLAMES!" she screamed, the world dissolving into a torrent of fire as she
exploded with fury enough to consume a world!
     The two Psis screamed in pain as they felt their bodies wither under the 
touch of the cleansing fire.  Paul grabbed Aaron by the shoulders and shouted 
between gritted teeth, "IT ISN'T REAL!  HELP ME CONCENTRATE!  IT...ISN'T...
REAL!!"
     Aaron focused his will in the same way he would to block pain from his 
body.  The pain started to recede.  --But this isn't really my body, is it?--
Suddenly the pain rose again.
     ++NO DOUBTS!  YOU CAN BEAT IT!  WE CAN BEAT IT!++
     Shutting his eyes...shutting all of his senses except the feeling that 
Paul was there, Aaron blocked out the pain.  Then he opened his eyes.
     The fire was still there, but it was like a movie screen or a hologram...
all light and no heat.  He looked down at his hands, which he had felt 
withering away to stumps...they were unscarred.
     "You did it," gasped Paul.  "This is a lot harder than in the 
simulations...a psychotic's conviction in the reality of his own little world 
is a lot stronger and harder to deny than something an instructor can fake."
     The flames started to fade.  "I'm moving us back through her mind, trying 
to find the root of her problems.  Somehow I doubt the mission was enough to 
totally unhinge her...this feels deeper than that.  But we'll have to make it 
past her memories of these events to get there.  Are you okay?" asked Paul.
     Aaron nodded as he felt the world grow colder and darker.  Shadowy shapes
started to be visible all around him.  He knew what was coming, although he 
hadn't seen it himself.
     The bodies.
     The trigger to Arin's break from reality had been discovering the bodies 
that the Pranir had planned to sell for organ transplants.  Pretty grisly 
stuff, but Aaron felt ready for it.
     He wasn't.
     Arin hadn't seen the chopped up body parts as transplants.  She'd seen 
them as food.
     Paul looked sick as images of Pranir shovelling bloody gobbets of human 
flesh into their mouths became clear.  Aaron did his best to keep calm, Paul 
would need the anchoring.  At least he'd seen corpses before, Aaron realized.  
He'd created a few on that mission, even.  Paul hadn't, being totally 
noncombat.
     "Paul, are you sure *you're* okay?  You haven't pulled combat time, this 
has got to be getting to you."
     "Yea..uh.  Just give me a moment.  As bad as this is, I think whatever's 
under it's worse.  After all, you only saw frozen blocks with some flesh in 
them, nothing as graphic as this scene.  She must have been worked into a near 
panic already by something else...oh my god...."
     Aaron followed Paul's gaze...and saw his own dead face looking back at him
from the plate of a gourmandizing Pranir.
     The images got clearer, and he could see his friends and companions among 
the dead bodies being sucked down like spaghetti.  One Pranir grinned in that 
hideous way only a snakeowl could, and reached down for Aaron.  He froze.
     The Pranir exploded in a shower of red at the touch of Paul's mental 
lance.  Paul grabbed Aaron and pulled him back before another Pranir could 
reach for him.
     "I'm going back further!" Paul shouted as a gigantic parody of a Pranir 
lunged for them...and faded.
     "Why are the bodies still here, I wonder..." Paul mused.
     "I think I know...but how she knew...?" Aaron started.
     The bodies now stretched to infinity in both directions, an endless morgue
of Academy students, from mere children to young adults.  Each had empty, 
smoldering eyes, hollow pits where their souls had been sucked from them.
     And as one, they rose.
     "Murder..." they chanted, long and low.  Paul backpedaled.
     "Okay, what's going on?" Paul demanded.
     "Burnout victims!  Can't you see it in the eyes?  Symbols of being Burnt 
Out!  Someone must have told her that we suspected murder in the Burnout 
cases!"
     "Hell of a time for me to find that out!  Apparently she now thinks we're
the killer!"
     Aaron kicked away one of the walking dead, who looked disquietingly like 
Carlos Rodriguez, Essay's cousin.  "Paul, is there any chance of someone nearby
getting sucked into this?  I don't want the meds to find themselves suddenly 
fighting zombies!"
     Paul blasted the dead with his vast mental power, made real on the mental 
arena.  "Only someone with their defenses totally down...shit!  JakZak might 
get pulled in, he's sedated!"
     Aaron looked up into the air, where a lone figure hovered malevolently, 
lightnings flashing from his eyes.  "Don't look now, but I think he has, and I
think we're in deep trouble!"