Altered Children
Chapter 17: Problem Children

Jason and Peter Starkey and their father Howard returned home at ten thirty in the morning on Monday, August 10, 2026. They’d tromped through the state forest to Old Fort Townsend State Park. Now a campground, it had been an army fort from the 1850s until the end of the nineteenth century when it was destroyed by fire. Scent of the forest hung on their clothes. Seventy degrees and a slight breeze dried them after a brief drizzle. The peaceful hike over a nearby two mile trail had invigorated them for the rest of their day.

The boys talked about their Internet classes for the coming semester through the University of Washington. These were included in the university’s online study program. Their father had helped them enroll earlier in the summer. By now nearly all the 220 altered children who were part of the group had turned eight years old and most had completed high school.

The autodidactic children had become very accomplished at utilizing the Internet and local libraries to take themselves far beyond the levels of their formal schooling, particularly true for the majority who had been attending public schools. Others had been lucky enough to be either home schooled or in private schools capable of teaching highly intelligent children. In fact, three quarters of them were either enrolled or about to enroll in university classes, principally via the Internet.

Some parents had feared the notoriety college attendance at such young ages might bring, but it was not as extraordinary as they had thought. They were quite relieved when Ramaraju Gupta informed them of the many major universities which each year enroll at least one or two gifted children ranging in age from nine to eleven. He told them of children who had skipped from second or third grade into junior high school in just one year and then through high school in one or two more.

Rama added that children were known to graduate college at ten and eleven years old and enter graduate school as young as twelve. While they could expect publicity because of it, he assured them their celebrity status would soon pass.

Jason and Peter turned on their computers as soon as they got to their room. Jason began to review the e-mails as soon as the website they created for the altered children opened. Peter started skimming the discussions in the chat rooms they had established.

“Hey, Pete, come over here and check this e-mail.”

Peter pushed his chair to Jason’s desk and read the e-mail. “Who’s Kathy . . . oh yeah, now I remember.”

The e-mail from Kathy Haller told of her telepathic contact with a boy who lived near downtown Los Angeles, a hundred miles south of her home in Bakersfield, California. She informed them she was becoming proficient in searching for and “kind of listening in” to random thoughts from other telepaths. His transmissions were usually not terribly strong, but occasional bursts of robust thoughts made it easier to pick him up. He hadn’t realized she was tapping into his mind and she caught him bragging to another boy about robbing a liquor store the previous week and being accepted into the local street gang.

Kathy’s e-mail mentioned “seeing” the boy’s visualization of the robbery, telling Jason and Peter that the boy used his telepathic hypnotic ability to commit it. She suggested joining with Jason, Peter and Phil Demakis, another powerfully telepathic child to try to reach the boy and convince him to join their group and stop misusing his paranormal abilities.

“They should both be on summer vacation,” Peter said. “Do you want to mind-talk with Kathy now?”

“Let’s try.”

It took very little effort to make telepathic contact with Kathy Haller. By this time, children who had communicated telepathically on multiple occasions had learned to recognize each other’s mental patterns and found it unnecessary to identify themselves. The paranormal abilities and other talents of the altered children were becoming stronger with practice and maturity. In particular, their aptitude for communicating complex concepts and ideas without using actual words enabled them to put together and express several thoughts at one time. Sometimes, however, they found it useful to employ actual words, especially with those being approached for the first time. Frequently, they were able to get into another person’s mind so completely, they saw, heard and felt whatever the person experienced.

“I’m glad you both reached me,” Kathy said. “I really think that boy is going to hurt someone and get into a lot of trouble if we don’t help him. His name is Henry Charles, but everyone calls him by his street name, ‘Little-C’. We could also use Phil Demakis’ help. He’s linked with me before when I was listening to Little-C’s thoughts.”

The three children had no trouble getting Phil’s attention, though their combined efforts did jolt him a bit. He lived in Aurora, IL, nearly twenty miles west of Chicago and it was early evening there. The boys decided to let Kathy do most, if not all, the talking with Little-C. Kathy probed for Little-C’s mind, guiding the other children until—

“Hey!” Little-C exclaimed, looking around. “Where yo’ be?”

“Little-C,” Kathy said telepathically in almost the blink of an eye, “you can’t see me. My name is Kathy. I’m talking to you from my mind to your mind. It’s called ‘telepathy’, but I, and others like me, call it mind-talking. I’m miles away from you right now. Three friends and I want to talk to you. You don’t have to speak out loud, just think to me.”

Little-C cautiously glanced around again before answering silently. “Yeah, I know about mind readin’. So, what yo’ want?”

Kathy concentrated and organized her statement carefully. At times she spoke to Little-C using real words to make everything completely clear to him. “We want you and your parents to meet with other children and their parents and talk about your ability to make people do what you want them to . . . and to explain why you are able to do it.”

“It ain’t none-a yo’ business. Say, how the fuck yo’ know what ah do?”

Kathy took a deep breath and jumped in with both feet. “I accidentally picked up your thoughts. We know you robbed a liquor store. Why did you do that?”

“Yo’ can’t prove nothin’. Mah bro and me’s gonna join the Dragons. Yo’ gots ta be in a gang around here if yo’ wanna be somebody.”

Jason indicated to Kathy he wanted to try. “This is Jason, Little-C. I’m one of Kathy’s friends who can also mind-talk. You don’t have to join a street gang or hurt people to be somebody. Join our club. We’ve got people from all over the world in it. I think we can get you and your family away from there to a safer place, if you would like to move. What do you think?”

“Ah gots all mah troop here. The Dragons needs me. What ah need yo’ punk ass fo’?”

“You’re a lot like us, and important to us too. We want you to join us,” Kathy urged.

“How yo’ know ah’m like yo’? Ah don’ know none-a y’all. Stay outta mah head. Go away, an’ stay away!” Little-C ignored all further attempts to communicate with him.

“Gosh, that boy is angry,” Kathy said. “Couldn’t you feel it?”

“I don’t know,” Phil replied. “It felt just like fear to me.”

Peter shuddered in his chair. “It’s scary, being able to feel someone else’s emotions so strongly. I’m sure I don’t like it. I still remember what it felt like when Tom . . .”

“Me too, Pete,” Jason agreed.

“But it can help us understand Little-C better, can’t it?” Kathy asked.

“Yes it can,” Jason replied. “It can also help us decide who’s being honest with us and who isn’t. Think about it. The more we practice reading people’s feelings, the better we’ll be at it and the easier it will be to find people in government we can trust.”

Kathy thought for a bit. “Maybe we can use this ability to help people change the way they feel about things.”

“Right,” Peter said, “like those kids in the mental institution who are so afraid.”

“Well guys, what do we do about Little-C?” Kathy inquired. Everyone could tell she was exasperated, even without hearing her voice.

“If he won’t join us . . . or let us help him, there’s nothing we can do—is there?” Phil responded.

“If he’s in the Dragons he’s going to keep robbing, and maybe worse.” Peter said.

“He could put all of us in danger if he scares people by using his abilities to hurt people,” Jason added.

“I’ve got it,” Peter asserted. “Let’s notify the police. His brother’s got the gun. That’s evidence.”

“It’s not so easy,” Phil countered. “They’re going to want to know how we know about what he’s done.”

“Besides, he’s awfully clever,” Jason added. “All he has to do is use his ability to get the policeman who arrests him to let him go. Look at what Tom, Dione and Luci did in their escape. How can anyone hold Little-C against his will?”

“Even if he’s arrested and held,” Peter said, “he could make a judge give him bail or make people on a jury say he isn’t guilty.”

“I’d rather help him to see the right thing to do than to put him in jail,” Kathy said.

After further discussion, they decided to let Kathy and Phil work together for a week and try to persuade Little-C to quit his gang involvement. If they were successful, they’d have Dennis Murphy arrange for a meeting with Little-C and his family. Otherwise, at the end of the week Jason and Peter would ask him for his professional advice. Jason and Peter looked at each other. Peter frowned and Jason shook his head slowly.

“Well, that didn’t go well,” Peter muttered, looking at Jason.

“No it didn’t,” Jason replied. “But at least we’re doing something.”

“Yeah, maybe we’ll be lucky and do better next time,” Peter said with more than a slight touch of sarcasm.

“Aw, don’t be so negative.”

“I guess I’m a little frustrated. I ought to get back to the chat rooms.”

“Okay. I’ll get back to the e-mails.”

A minute later, Peter sat up straight and exclaimed, “Wow! Jase, look at this chat thread.”

They read the discussion between Bhagwant Kumara in Nagpur, India and Rafael Lopez in San Jose, Costa Rica about a strange contact they each had had. Bhagwant was sure the girl he detected spoke Tamil, which put him in southern India, but since Bhagwant spoke Hindi, he did not understand more than a few words. Rafael, a Spanish speaker, was able to recognize some of the Portuguese used by the boy whose mind he had touched and thought he lived in Brazil.

Both Bhagwant and Rafael had felt uncomfortable by the negativity emanating from those children. They said they would try to get help from some other children and again attempt contact with those two minds.

Following another hour of working the chat rooms and dealing with e-mails on their website, Jason and Peter had lunch with their father. By two o’clock they were back at their computers working on an updated computer spacecraft navigation simulation they were developing for a space war game they’d created recently. A computer game company affiliated with their father’s book publisher had agreed to market it. It was scheduled to go into beta testing in two weeks, after which it would be advertised and distributed for sale.

Bright and early Tuesday morning, Jason and Peter got back on the computer to check e-mails and the forums in the chat room. An ongoing discussion in the chat room concerned how fast things seemed to be happening lately and how overwhelming it was. Many children were having trouble sleeping, but were managing to maintain an even keel. Another thread—now that nearly everybody was aware of Operation Pacify—involved a discussion of how to stop the abductions, or if they couldn’t stop them, how to make use of them. Among the adults, members of the newly formed Operations Committee were conferring on the same subject.

“Jase, come here and look at this chat about the abductions.”

Peter jumped from his chair and sprang across the room. He glanced over Peter’s shoulder at the computer screen. “Wow! Good ideas on how to deal with the abductions. How many kids are in this forum?”

“Let’s see.” Peter checked the count of the forum’s participants. “Thirty-four have logged on and are either monitoring it or chatting.”

Jason pulled his chair next to Peter. He and Peter read the comments and joined the forum. The forums in the chat room had proven a very useful, if slow, method for large numbers of the kids to exchange ideas. It was one circumstance in which telepathy proved to be impractical. Large numbers of kids could not mind-talk effectively at the same time. It was too much of a jumble.

Several of the children agreed to prepare a summary of the ideas and suggestions being made. They would e-mail the summaries to Jason and Peter, who were fast becoming the primary spokespeople for the children, so they could collate the information and pass it on to Dennis Murphy. One of them was expected to present their summary and recommendations to the group at the next conference to be held five days hence.

When they quit the forum almost two hours later, Jason spoke to his brother telepathically, “I really like the idea of playing along with the aliens, since we can’t stop the kidnappings right now.”

“Me too. If we don’t cause trouble for the aliens and pretend to follow their instructions, we can learn more about them and their spaceships.”

“Uh-huh. And maybe no one else will get killed either.”

Jason went back to his computer and e-mailed the information from the chat room forum to Dennis. Then they both returned to checking e-mails.

“I guess it’s my turn now, Pete. Come here and look at this e-mail.”

The e-mail was from the Kenyan boy, Absko, who Yuriko had accidentally contacted two weeks earlier when she was trying to locate the African boy involved in the fire which had caused Yuriko to panic during her concert over a half year earlier. He had found the boy, whose name was Masanja, with the help of Kamal, Zahra and a couple of other children. They had discovered that linking together enhanced the strength of their paranormal abilities, making it much easier to search for and locate others like themselves.

The e-mail briefly described what happened to Masanja once he’d sensed danger while helping clean the family compound in early December 2025. This had occurred shortly after Masanja’s friend, Lupandagila, died and two huts in his family compound were set on fire, for which Masanja was blamed. Masanja had concentrated on the danger and ascertained that someone was coming to kill him in the early hours of the following morning.

He and his family took what little they could carry and sneaked out of their village late in the evening. They’d hiked almost five hours until they dragged themselves into the Sukuma village of Igaganulwa over eleven miles away. They immediately sought out the sister of Masanja’s mother, who had married a cousin living there. Though she’d been awakened at four in the morning, she took them in and treated the scrapes and bruises that came from their trek over dark trails.

“That’s great news!” Peter acknowledged.

“I’ve got to tell Yuri-chan,” Jason said excitedly. “She’ll be happy to hear this.”

“Hold on. Won’t it be too early in the morning?”

“Oh darn! You’re right. It’s after 2:00 a.m. in Tokyo. Let’s do it at six o’clock tomorrow morning. We can contact Absko in Nairobi, and also Zahra and Kamal in Rabat.”

Peter thought for a moment. “Yeah. It will be afternoon in Rabat and Nairobi, and 10:00 p.m. in Tokyo. We can all join in to help Masanja understand what’s going on.”

For the remainder of the day, the twins completed the space navigation simulation for their computer space war game, made new copies on a half dozen DVDs, and got two of them ready to send to the company which would soon publish and market the game.

At six in the morning on Wednesday, August 12, Jason and Peter woke up without use of an alarm clock. They quickly washed up, gobbled down bananas, and then sat down at their desks with the chairs turned to face each other. The brothers took deep breaths and began to relax using the meditation techniques they’d learned for focusing their paranormal talents on whatever tasks they needed to do. This morning, Jason concentrated on contacting Yuriko in Tokyo, while Peter tried to reach Kamal Fakherdin in Rabat, Morocco.

After only a couple of minutes, Jason sensed Yuriko’s reply. “Jase . . . is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me. Did I wake you?”

“No. I was n bed visualizing my new composition, a violin concerto, but I wasn’t asleep yet. I’m happy you contacted me.”

There was a momentary embarrassment from the growing emotional attachment so obvious to them both, but which they were unable to speak about. Following a little small talk, Jason said, “We got an e-mail from the Kenyan boy, Absko. He found that other African boy, the one from the fire.”

Yuriko sat up abruptly and almost shouted, but held back and replied telepathically. “Oh my. How wonderful! Is he okay? What happened to him? Where is he?”

“Slow down. I’ll explain everything.”

While Jason described Masanja’s narrow escape and current situation, Peter reached Kamal. It was just after one in the afternoon in Rabat and four o’clock in Kenya and Tanzania. Kamal linked with his sister, Zahra so Peter could more easily communicate with both of them. Peter told them about Masanja and invited Kamal and Zahra to join him, Jason, Yuriko and Absko in mind-talking with Masanja. It took only three minutes for them to link together.

Absko was able to reach Masanja very easily. He had learned the basics of Kisukuma, Masanja’s language, and with Masanja’s newly developing knowledge of English and Swahili, Absko had been able to explain about telepathy, clairvoyance and the other children. Masanja had great difficulty at first in believing the aliens were not demons. Absko guided the other children in their initial communications with Masanja, and soon they were all able to converse with him.

While the others listened in, and made occasional comments, Yuriko and Absko were able to convince the receptive Masanja that the points of light in the night sky were suns, many of which had planets like Earth. He finally accepted their claim of intelligent beings living on other planets. Masanja proved to be as bright as they all expected and hoped him to be.

“Thank you for not giving up,” Masanja said. “I have felt alone and out of place for a long time.”

“We will help you and your family go to a better place where you can be with other children like you,” Yuriko pledged to him.

“Please don’t take too long,” Masanja implored them. “I’m afraid people in this village will learn about me and we will be in danger again.”

“Don’t be afraid,” Zahra urged him. “You have friends. You can talk to us whenever you need to.”

“I understand I have a lot to learn about places outside of the villages where we used to live and where we live now,” Masanja said. “I’m very excited. I don’t think I will sleep tonight.”

Kamal and Zahra promised to speak with their parents and Munir Ben Nafi regarding helping Masanja, and Absko assured them he would get his father to help also.

Zahra had a growing interest in parapsychology. She’d discussed with Professor Ben Nafi and Karen Pacheco her interest in getting degrees in psychology and parapsychology. Zahra had described her desire to help them develop a tailored program for the altered children to enhance and strengthen their paranormal abilities. I could really help Masanja, she thought. He seems like such a nice boy.

Anna Burgio, Todd Madden and four other children from the eastern United States arrived at the University of the District of Columbia almost simultaneously. The foundation’s new Governmental Affairs Committee had arranged for the children to be picked up and brought together at the university, located on Connecticut Avenue NW near Rock Creek Park. Todd’s father, Gerald, had previously taught economics and finance at Princeton University and was now an assistant secretary in the Treasury Department. He’d scheduled the tour for Wednesday, when the cabinet would be meeting.

In his late thirties, Gerald Madden was slender with an athletic body and stood almost seven feet tall. The dark blue suit he wore contrasted nicely with his dark brown, curly hair and skin color a light shade typical of many African-Americans. He intended to introduce the children to anyone he thought they should meet while a docent conducted the private tour.

While Gerald Madden drove the fifteen miles to the White House he described what they might see on the tour. He swore silently as the van entered the typically heavy traffic on DuPont Circle. They finally inched their way through the traffic and exited the circle on Seventeenth Street and made their way to Fifteenth Street. A minute later they were parking at the Treasury Department building across the street from the East Wing of the White House. Since he had personally set up the tour, these children were able to enter areas of the facility not open to public tours.

As they wandered the hallowed halls of the White House, the children probed the minds of various officials working in their offices or who passed them in the corridors. Assistant Secretary Madden introduced the children to several officials, making it easier for them to probe even deeper into the officials’ minds. The children were in constant mental contact with altered children elsewhere in the country who made notes of the information being gathered by the children taking the tour.

During a break, one of the children said silently to the others, “How disappointing!. Two people I’ve touched are totally into the power they have. I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could toss a car. The others have good intentions, but still can’t be told about us.”

“Yeah, right,” a girl added telepathically with palpable cynicism. “If they believe us, they’re going to feel obligated to pass what we tell them to someone we may not have vetted.”

“Man,” someone else noted, “this doesn’t look too good does it?”

Anna said, “We’ll be going by the Cabinet Room while the meeting is on. Let’s hope the most senior officials will be more reliable. I don’t think we can ever depend on the others.”

Their break concluded, the group was led to the hall on the West Wing’s ground floor that ran along the outside wall of the cabinet’s meeting room, adjacent to the Rose Garden. They lingered for a short time and were introduced to the secret service agents outside the door. The children used the time to explore the deepest thoughts of the president, vice president and each cabinet member. They finally strolled away and finished their tour, which had taken close to two hours. Driving away in the van, they silently discussed their findings.

“I think we should tell the president and only the president,” one of them suggested.

“I agree,” another added. “He seems okay, and won’t inform anyone else unless absolutely necessary.”

“While we’re with him,” Anna said, “we can make sure he doesn’t tell someone who shouldn’t be told.”

Treasury Department Assistant Secretary Madden pulled over and stopped the van. He turned around in his seat to face the children. “Did you find anyone in there you could trust?”

After apologizing for not including him in the conversations they’d had telepathically, they revealed what had been learned from the various people whose minds they had examined. They answered that senior officials would just inform the president, without taking action on their own. So the children had decided to go right to the top.

The assistant secretary considered this for half a minute before agreeing with the children. “I can go through normal channels and arrange for the president to briefly meet with a party of child prodigies. Presidents often have these kinds of activities. I should be able to set it up with a couple of weeks’ notice, but not before our next conference. One more thing, if you learned even one tiny secret, don’t tell anybody.” When he returned to his office, Gerald Madden e-mailed the results of the tour to the members of the Governmental Affairs Committee, which posted the information on their page of the foundation’s website.

Mary Roberts felt it in her bones. That boy was not right, she thought, not nice at all. As other children were doing, she had been trying to find children who were as yet unaccounted for. From her home in the town of Sheffield, seventy-five miles north of London and thirty east of Manchester, she searched telepathically for signs of children with advanced paranormal abilities.

Mary touched the mind of Alain Lovett a little before noon, local time, on the fourteenth of August, but she’d not lingered long. Three hours later she entered Alain’s mind again and this time she did linger, without him detecting her and long enough to understand him better. By late afternoon Mary’d had enough of Alain’s thoughts and plans to get a good sense of his personality. She took two minutes to clear her mind and enter a state of relaxation before concentrating on Peter’s mental patterns.

In a short time, Mary contacted Peter, jarring him out of his reverie as he was finishing his breakfast and reading a recent article in the Journal of the Franklin Institute about fractals and recursive programming.

“Peter, I found one of the missing children. His name is Alain Lovett and he lives a hundred sixty kilometers south in a boarding school.”

“Awesome, Mary. Did you mind-talk with him?”

“No, I did not. I will not talk to him alone. His mind’s too ‘grotty’; makes me feel uncomfortable. He’s going to be trouble for all of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“He cheats on his exams and homework. He ‘nicks’ money from other students and ‘snaffles’ goods from the shops in town. He feels no remorse and does it because he can. Alain’s smart and his parents have money so he doesn’t need to behave this way.”

“How does he do it, Mary?”

“Peter, he uses telepathy and clairvoyance to get the answers to exams, and to cheat other students when he gambles with them.”

“Has he used telekinesis to do anything bad?”

”This is what bothers me most, Peter. He’s arrogant and has few friends. Alain was thinking about what he did yesterday, after two bigger kids called him a low-class cheat. He made a soccer ball someone kicked fly off and hit one of them in the face. It broke the boy’s nose. Then he started planning what to do to the other boy. I couldn’t listen any longer.”

“Can you get with other altered children and try to talk sense into him together?”

“I’ve got Colleen O’Sullivan from Dublin linked in with us, but we want you and Jason to ‘muck in’. Let’s all do it now, can we?”

Soon, Mary, with Colleen, Peter and Jason listening in, touched Alain’s mind again. Only this time, she got his attention while he was in the student’s common room.

“Bugger off,” Alain said telepathically. “I knew there were other telepaths around, but I don’t care, do I?”

“I’m Mary, and you’re right, there are. We want to speak to you about our paranormal abilities and why we have them.”

“It doesn’t matter why. I have the knack and do whatever I want with it, don’t I?”

“Alain, this is Peter. Four of us have our minds linked and we just want you to join us.”

“You’re all ‘odds and sods’. I’m better and stronger than you, and I don’t need you.”

“We know you use your abilities to cheat and steal, and hurt other people,” Jason flung out hotly.

“How do you know? Have you been reading my mind?”

“Yes, Alain,” Mary said. “I have, and any of us can listen to your thoughts. Don’t you know what you’ve been doing is wrong?”

“So what? I can do whatever I want and that’s that.”

By this time, the four children were feeling very frustrated and angry. They all felt Alain was not going to listen to them or even consider changing his behavior. They had to respond quickly to his plan to injure the other child.

Jason had had enough. “We can’t let you use your abilities to hurt other people, Alain. We will stop you.”

“You can’t do anything to me. Sod off!” Alain tried to break contact. But the children wouldn’t let go and kept him from concentrating on his tasks as long as they continued their attempts to contact him.

“You can’t keep this up,” Alain retorted. “I’ll figure out how to resist you. I’ll find you and I can hurt you too.”

The four children immediately quit their interaction with Alain, but maintained their contact with each other.

“God, he’s ‘narky’; what an arse!” Mary said. “You see why I didn’t want to try by myself.”

“He scares me,” Colleen admitted.

“We’re lucky he doesn’t know us or where we live,” Peter asserted. “But, if we can get into his head, he probably can get into ours.”

Leaning back on the pillow on his bed, Jason smacked a fist against his palm. “We have to try to stop him from hurting us or anyone else.”

“But we can’t prove he’s done anything bad up to now,” Colleen said, “or that he’s going to hurt the boy. Why would people believe us? How can we stop him?”

Peter jumped in. “Well, he’s threatened us and we know he is going to hurt another boy. He’ll probably do it just to spite us, and soon. There’s no way we can convince a normal person of what he’s done or will do. We don’t have a choice. We have to scare him so bad that he’ll change. Maybe we have to hurt him and keep scaring him until we come up with a better plan.”

All four children mulled it over in their own minds for less than a minute.

“You’re right about keeping him scared of us,” Mary agreed. “But we shouldn’t hurt him unless it’s the only way we can stop him from injuring or killing someone.”

“Okay,” Jason agreed. “How’s this? We monitor his thoughts without him knowing. If we detect him starting to cheat, steal, or cause injury, we do something to scare him . . . or hurt him if we have to. But we’ll have to bring more children in so we can take turns.”

The other three concurred with Jason and concluded they had to act quickly, and that this dilemma made it extremely critical to develop a code of ethics. Eight other children from Europe and North America agreed to help monitor Alain and inform Mary if Alain was getting ready to hurt somebody or do something illegal. There was one point, however, over which three of the twelve volunteers strongly disagreed.

“How badly might we have to hurt him?” a French girl asked.

A boy from Canada replied first. “Hopefully, just enough to make him stop doing something bad. But, to protect a person’s life, especially one of us, we might have to kill him.”

Jason jumped in. “I think it would be acceptable to kill only if there’s no other way to stop him.”

“It would be wrong to kill,” an American girl said. “I couldn’t do it.”

A girl from Poland stated her position. “Think about it. If the only way you can stop a murder is to kill someone, you have to do it. It would be immoral if you don’t act to save a life.”

“I couldn’t kill anyone either,” the Spanish boy vowed. “There’s a reason for everything. When a person dies, it’s God’s will. It says ‘thou shall not kill’ in the Ten Commandments.”

“Istenem!” (Oh my God!), the Hungarian boy exclaimed. “Sorry, but that commandment is more correctly translated from the original Aramaic as ‘thou shall not murder’. The bible has many examples of killing approved or demanded by God. “

Mary added her opinion. “God gave us brains and these mental powers for a reason. Since we can’t know His wishes, maybe He would want us to do whatever is necessary.”

“We’re not going to totally resolve this question now,” Jason concluded. “Let’s not try. Besides, there’s only two more days until the conference. It can be discussed then.”

“Whoever can’t hurt or kill Alain—if we have to do it—that’s okay,” the Polish girl said. “I think we all understand and won’t hold it against you. But, can you agree to help us monitor him?”

The American girl and Spanish boy who had made it clear they could not kill anyone agreed to help monitor Alain and see what action would be taken against him before deciding whether or not to drop out of the mind link.

On Monday, August 17, the girl from Sweden passed Alain to the Spanish boy at 9:00 a.m. London time with a warning. “I think, at some level, he knows I’m listening to his thoughts. Be careful.”

Two hours later, the Spanish boy presented Alain to a German boy, telling him, “I felt resistance from him. If he knows we’re watching him, he may be harder to control.”

The German boy monitoring Alain contacted Mary. When she looked at the clock it was 11:32 a.m.. He told her Alain was about to hurt, and possibly kill, the second boy by making him fall down a flight of stairs on his way to lunch. Mary contacted the other children who had volunteered to monitor Alain. By 11:44 her time, eleven more children linked their minds with Mary’s to strengthen her telepathic control of Alain. Mary had already awakened the American girl in Kansas City at 6:35 a.m. central time, and Jason and Peter at 4:36 that morning.

At 11:50 a.m., Alain left his second floor classroom for the lunch period and strolled to the second boy’s classroom. Alain saw the boy leaving the room and followed him, heading in the direction of the stairway. Mary felt Alain getting ready to assault the boy and signaled the other children. With their support, she started pushing Alain’s mind. His eyes widened and his grip on the handrail tightened; he pushed back. They felt Alain resisting and concentrated more deeply. Though highly experienced at controlling other people, Alain could not overcome the power of the twelve determined children working together.

With great reluctance, the children embarked on a path from which they felt there was no turning back and would likely have momentous repercussions for all the altered children. The Spanish boy complained of extreme discomfort because he could feel the weight of Alain’s fear.

Alain lurched down the stairs, other children staring at him and moving out of his way. He stumbled out the door and jerked his way across the courtyard. His body and clothing were wet with perspiration from his struggle and sweat ran down his forehead. Alain’s eyes stung and his skin felt clammy.

For the first time in his life, he felt panic. One of the altered children had seen in Alain’s mind thoughts of the hole in the fence behind the hedge which many of the students knew of and sometimes used to sneak out. When he got to the hole he put both hands on the fence and held tightly. Alain’s resistance weakened against the force the children applied to his mind and he eased through the hole.

Strength ebbing, he meandered down the long driveway. At the end of the driveway, he turned south on Shurdington Road, the A46, which was the main road between Cheltenham and the nearby village of Painswick. The Spanish boy and the American girl indicated they could continue no longer and withdrew from the mind link. Alain then moved step by slow step along the road toward Painswick.

The children saw the truck coming in Alain’s direction through the boy’s own eyes. A distance of one hundred and ten meters separated Alain and the truck speeding along at nearly a hundred kilometers per hour.

Events began moving in slow motion for Alain. He became aware of what was in store for him but could do nothing to stop it.

Eighty-five meters! The French girl had to stop; she dropped out of the link, leaving nine children to do what they’d convinced themselves must be done.

Seventy meters away! Alain’s body twisted against his will. He faced the street.

The light from the smallest of the three moons shone dimly through the window of the prime minister’s apartment in Cor Velot, the capital city of the Silkar Union. Shadows were cast around the living room from the bright flames of the fireplace in the wall between the sofa and two easy chairs on the other side of the small, low oval table. Remnants of their light meal lay strewn across the table.

Valarde kaKinon, prime minister of the Silkar Union seated herself on the sofa next to her husband. He is as handsome and strong as when I married him, she mused. They faced the Home Affairs minister in one easy chair and her chief adviser, Gaspo kaPakar ensconced in the other. Adviser kaPakar was nervous, his unease unmistakable by the twitching of his left eye.

“So, Gaspo, what is the problem?” the prime minister asked.

“Ma’am, we have become aware of suspicious activity among military units at a number of Silkar and off-world locations.”

She urged him on. “Suspicious . . . how so?”

He glanced at his notes. “The Third Regiment of the Second Home Guard Division left its barracks and has disbursed to unknown positions. A battalion of the Twelfth Special Operations Regiment has also gone missing. There have been unexplained movements of other units as well. We have recently been unable to contact the small spacecraft carrier flotilla which had been assigned to support the league’s Jeritha Study Group under ECR B1847.”

The prime minister and her husband shifted restlessly. When her husband glanced at her with raised eyebrows she said, “B1847 is the resolution passed eleven standard years ago by the league’s executive council. Under it we, the Jitza Coalition, the Rhelian Alliance, and the Haktar United Planets are obliged to monitor Jerithan activities for thirty years.”

“You were new and inexperienced then,” her husband added. “Maybe a little naive.”

“Yes, and here I am nearing the end of my second term. If all goes well, my third and last term will be as successful as my first two.”

The Home Affairs minister put a hand on the chief adviser’s arm and sat forward in a conspiratorial manner. She had risen rapidly in the party’s ranks and was popular with most of the legislators and with the press. She was shorter and more slender than the roughly six-foot and two hundred pound average for a Silkaran female. Her light red skin had a slightly orange discoloration indicative of her anger.

“The Military Affairs minister has been rather uncooperative lately,” the Home Affairs minister stated. “I asked him about the Jerithan Study Group’s flotilla, but he gave a lame excuse. I said nothing regarding the military units because I did not want him to know we were keeping track of them.” She nodded her head at each in turn, her narrow face and sharp jaw evocative of an exclamation point.

The prime minister’s husband, who was an influential businessman with a fleet of space freighters, gazed at his wife. “It is too bad you had to appoint a minister who was handpicked by the military high command.”

Prime Minister kaKinon smiled at her husband and took his hand. She looked across the table. “Do either of you seriously think the military is going to move against the government?”

“I spoke with the director of the Union Intelligence Bureau,” the Home Affairs minister told them. “Despite those movements, he does not believe so. But, the status of that Third Regiment concerns him, and he thinks they may be training to do just that.”

“Our spy, Scalpel, has the same impression, Madam Prime Minister,” Adviser kaPakar said.

“Gaspo, keep him alert and make sure he informs us if he hears anything regarding imminent anti-government action by the military, even if he has to break cover to do it.”

The prime minister looked at her Home Affairs minister. “Have the UIB maintain their surveillance of the military units and their senior staff. Ask the director to help you verify the loyalty of your Home Guard commanders. Also, do what you can to strengthen the Guard divisions whose loyalty you are certain of, but as quietly and credulously as possible. Hmm . . . ask the Military Affairs minister, casually mind you, for the location of that missing Third Regiment. After all, the Home Guard belongs to you. We will meet again here, at the same time, in three days.”

The Home Affairs minister shook her head. “Never thought my military service would prove so useful.” She’d risen to the rank of captain after twelve years of broken service.

“I will have the Executive Security Service expand their protective details,” Adviser kaPakar said. They all sat quietly for a few moments.

“Why now?” Prime Minister kaKinon asked rhetorically. “Whatever is going on seems to be escalating. But to what end?”

The nine children were about to force Alain into the street in front of the onrushing truck. However, eight simultaneously decided not to go through with it and immediately disengaged from Alain’s mind. But a boy from Canada, his adrenaline at an overwhelming level, gave this problem child’s mind a final push before withdrawing. His foot poised to step into the street, Alain fell to his hands and knees at the side of the road. Light-headed, his heart pounding, Alain rolled over and lay on his back. Then he let out a distraught scream and began to cry.

“What did we almost do?” Colleen inquired.

“Did we really come so close to doing that?” the Swedish girl asked.

“Why did you stop?” the Canadian boy demanded. “I thought we were going to kill him.”

“I’m glad we didn’t, but I am really glad we scared the shit out of him,” the German boy answered.

“I think we stopped for the same reason,” Colleen replied. “We couldn’t kill him until we tried something else first—like scaring him so badly he won’t try to hurt anyone ever again.”

“But I pushed him one last time,” the boy from Canada said. “I . . . I don’t know if he’s okay or . . . or n-not.”

“We’d better find out if he’s hurt,” Peter suggested. “If he is all right, maybe we scared him enough with what we did to him.”

“I hope that will do it,” Jason said. “The other boy might still be in danger. We need to warn Alain again. Mary, can you—”

Mary burst out with, “No way! I can’t get in his head again—not now—you do it.”

“All right,” Jason replied, “I’ll do it.”

“I’ll link with you and help,” Peter promised.

Three of the other children, including the Canadian boy, joined Peter in linking with Jason. With the others in the background, Jason entered Alain’s mind. They were glad Alain was unharmed when they found him sitting on the ground with his head in his hands. “Alain, now you know what we can do if we have to. If you ever hurt someone else, we won’t be so nice. That was your last warning.”

Then they removed themselves from his mind and joined the other seven children and explained what they had done. All twelve were now back in contact.

“We’ll have to monitor him once in a while—to remind him we’re still around if for no other reason,” the German boy said.

“We should tell Dr. Murphy about this,” Peter suggested.

“Yes, please do,” Mary agreed. “And maybe our parents too.”

“No, don’t,” the Swedish girl begged them. “Don’t tell anybody . . . not yet.”

“At the last conference,” Jason reminded everyone, “we raised this question to the group—the foundation.”

“It’s already on people’s minds,” Mary remarked. “They have information on the problem children we’ve found so far, and know something has to be done about them.”

“Won’t we get in trouble?” the Swedish girl asked. “We did almost kill someone.”

“Remember,” Peter said, “we may have saved somebody’s life, and we had no time to get advice. But I’ll bet we’re not done with Alain.”

“Yes,” the German boy added. “We reviewed all the reasons for hurting or killing him, and we still may have to kill him.”

“Peter and I will tell Dr. Murphy today,” Jason said. “He’s very reasonable and understanding. He’ll help us. Let’s wait to say anything to our parents until we talk to him.”

As upset as they all were, the children believed their actions were necessary under the circumstances and agreed to have Jason and Peter inform Dennis Murphy later that morning.

Jason and Peter remained sitting quietly in their beds for a few minutes following their disengagement from the other children at 5:20 on Monday morning. Try as they might, neither one could get back to sleep. Peter got up and went into the bathroom. Jason could hear Peter crying lightly. Jason laid his head on arms he had placed on his raised knees. His eyes became moist. When Peter returned, Jason lifted his head and shook it intensely. The two boys tried to read or work on the computer, but were too upset and nervous. Shortly before six o’clock, they called Dennis Murphy at his home.

“We’re sorry for calling you so early,” Jason said, “but something important has come up and we need to talk to you.”

Dennis yawned and then replied. “If it is important, don’t worry about the time.”

“Do you think it would be wrong to kill someone who was going to hurt another person so bad they might die?”

“No, I don’t. It’s never a good thing to take a life, but . . . under certain . . . my God, what happened?” Dennis asked, pulling himself upright in bed.

Jason paused briefly, so Peter took over. “A bunch of us were monitoring the English boy, Alain, without him knowing it—and he was planning to use his powers to make another boy fall down the stairs at their school—and when he was ready to do it, we took control of his mind—and he knew we were there, but he couldn’t stop us—so we scared him real bad—and we came awfully close to killing him.”

Peter finally took a breath and Jason spoke up. “It was the only way we could stop him this time—but we’re still not sure he won’t hurt that boy. He even threatened all of us. It happened so fast we couldn’t ask for help.”

“How many of you were involved?” Dennis was fully awake by now.

“Twelve of us took turns watching him,” Jason replied. “But nine of us were there at the end . . . when we almost killed him.”

“You children are only eight years old now. That’s such a huge choice for adults to make, let alone children—even children like you. How did you reach this decision about Alain?”

Peter motioned to Jason to let him answer. “We did think it through. And we discussed the reasons why we should or shouldn’t kill him. But we didn’t have a lot of time because we had to decide fast before he hurt the other boy. We were ready to do it, but at the last instant . . .” Won’t mention the Canadian boy, Peter thought . . . “we just stopped.”

“We knew he was more scared than ever before,” Jason added. “We did warn him afterward about what might happen the next time he tries to hurt someone.”

Dennis squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I want to arrange for counseling sessions for all of you. Each of you will need guidance. And, since this situation could come up again, we’ll have to discuss it at the next conference. Do you agree, . . . and will the others accept it?”

The boys, greatly relieved, expressed their agreement and their belief the other children would go along with it. At his request, they gave Dennis the names and phone numbers of the other ten children. He told the twins he would review the situation with all the children’s doctors and psychologists, including their own. Later in the day, after considering what he would say, and how he would say it, he made the calls.

Bhagwant Kumara of Bangalore, India, finally felt he had learned enough of the Tamil language to try to contact that child whose mind he had touched in the first week of August. So, on Wednesday, the ninth of September 2026, he led two other Indian children in the attempt. After less than an hour, contact was made.

“I’m glad I was able to contact you. My name is Bhagwant. What is your name?”

“I am called Jagathi. I felt your mind last month but I was unable to talk to you.”

Bhagwant’s eyebrows scrunched up and he grew concerned. “You seemed distressed—“

“Yes,” she quickly said, and then added, “I just learned a friend had died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Bhagwant said with some relief. He then told Jagathi about the other children and their website, the aliens, and the artificial tumors. He described the foundation and the latest plans and strongly advised her to get a CT scan.

“You are the first one like me I have found. I am glad I am not alone. I must go now. May we talk again?”

“Of course,” he replied. “Goodbye for now.”

Bhagwant queried the two children who were listening in about what they thought of Jagathi. They said that they felt somewhat uneasy, despite what she said. All three children agreed there was something wrong but did not know what it was, and that they should try to monitor Jagathi and keep in contact with her.

In early October, reports began to appear in local newspapers and on local radio and television stations in southern India of a growing number of robberies and murders. They also reported on rumors circulating that these crimes were committed by what appeared to be a resurgence of the Thuggee cult, led by a child. Thuggees were thought to have been wiped out in the 1870s. Historically, many Indians, especially Thuggees, worshiped Kali, the Hindu goddess of time, doomsday, and death; large numbers of Indians still do. Kali is also known as the black goddess because of her black skin.

Thuggees had a history of recruiting young children and using them to allay the fears of people they were going to attack. Jagathi Servai, now eight years old, had gathered a gang of superstitious followers who worshiped her as the incarnation of Kali, an impression made easier by Jagathi’s black hair, brown eyes, very dark skin, and her paranormal powers.

By mid-October, Rafael Lopez of San Jose, Costa Rica, had acquired sufficient knowledge of Portuguese to talk with the Brazilian child whose thoughts he had picked up in August. He ad three other children reached out and were able to connect with Eduardo Velêz after almost two hours of repeated attempts.

They discovered that Eduardo lived in the Vila Cruzeiro favela (slum or shantytown) in the northern area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Many of the hundreds of favelas are ruled by drug traffickers or organized crime groups—called militias—that set the rules and run the favela. The residents are protected by the drug lords in terms of local robberies, yet violence between rival gangs is high. The Vila Cruzeiro favela has been and remains one of Rio’s most dangerous and violent favelas. Rafael’s conversation with Eduardo was very similar to Bhagwant’s conversation with Jagathi.

The feelings and conclusions reached by Bhagwant, Rafael and their teams were much the same. Each of the boys entered relevant information on the children’s website about these contacts and how everybody had felt uneasy, but could not say exactly why. They also emailed Dennis Murphy and Ramaraju Gupta with the same information.

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