Chapter 42 – Revise

“This is not okay! I need to stress this to you, very clearly.” Quest paced behind his desk as he looked at Sal with wide eyes. “A broken leg, we can fix. A version of events, we can find the truth. We have mind readers who come in for that very thing! But to remove a power from another student—that is absolutely not okay.”

Divinity tried to interject, but Quest quieted her with a sharp look.

“We’ll get to you in a moment, Miss Khan. I’m deeply troubled at your lack of judgment in this instance, and I can only hope you’ll take the time to truly ponder the choices you’ve made. But Salvatore, I need you to understand that this can never happen again. Controller classes are incredibly hard to foster, and behavior like this can be ironed out. By your account, he acted out of malice? We have punishments and penalties in place for a reason. You cannot act as judge, jury, and executioner just because your ability allows it. The entire academy would descend into chaos without order, and this action is a direct contradiction of everything we stand for.”

Sal bowed his head as he listened to the reprimand.

Divinity, on the other hand, looked furious and ready to retort as soon as Quest gave her an opening. She found it a moment later as Quest tapped at his console to bring up the file of the injured student.

“Headmaster, what is your stance on unlawful acts of mind control? Your prized student literally poisoned the mind of our friend, and coerced her into attacking Sal before instructing her to throw herself down the stairs. Would you ask us to call for help in the stairwell, when we, too, were vulnerable to the effects of his powers? What was the best course of action for us to take in that instance?”

Sal glanced up at Quest, only to see him glaring at the console.

Divinity waved a hand and laughed humorlessly. “Sorry, Headmaster. But I’ve got no reason to believe that the student hasn’t already influenced you into being lenient on him. Since he clearly has no regard to the wellbeing of his peers, why would he balk at swaying the head of the academy?”

Quest slammed his hand down on the table, causing Divinity to jump. “That’s enough, Miss Khan. I understand how angry you are that this has taken place, and I want all students to feel safe within these walls. There are two outstanding issues that are impeding that sense of harmony: Salvatore’s disregard for causing irreparable damage to another student on a fundamental level, and a rogue mind Controller who is sowing discontent around the campus.”

Sal really didn’t want to get between Divinity and Quest, but felt he had to at this point.

“I can undo the knots, sir. I’ll gladly do it. It was just the danger of the moment. If he told us not to remember it, then this wouldn’t have been brought to your attention. I just wanted to protect Divinity and Hannah. I didn’t do it out of malice or spite.”

Quest pinched his brow as he leaned back in his chair. “But therein lies the issue, Salvatore. You didn’t do it out of malice or spite. What would happen if you felt those emotions? Would you have the restraint, or would you let your sense of justice and reasoning influence your actions? This isn’t a question about your character—it’s about your capability.”

“Bullshit,” Divinity blurted at the headmaster’s words, shocking both Sal and Quest. She rounded on the headmaster and got to her feet.

“You’re saying that because he can do something, he might someday, perhaps, if he’s feeling it…start taking away people’s powers? Why don’t you get Erika in here and ask if she’s going to someday enslave humanity with her mind control? Ask Barry if he’s going to lock us all in his illusional world of purgatory? You’re not comfortable with Sal’s power, and that’s fine. But just say it rather than making him out to be a potential villain. We’ve already handed you one, and you seem damned determined to be lenient on him.”

Quest froze as he stared at his desk. After a few moments of silence, all that could be heard was Divinity’s erratic breathing. Quest pushed a button on his console and waited for Joanne to enter the room. When his secretary appeared, she looked somewhat confused by the summoning. Quest beckoned her to come over to the desk.

“Joanne, have a look at this student. Does he look familiar to you at all?”

Joanne walked around the desk and looked at the face that appeared on the terminal before blushing. “Of course. You’ve scheduled meetings with him every two weeks. I personally love his visits. He’s always so charming.”

The color drained from Quest’s face as his fists clenched both sides of his chair. “Joanne, I need you to get Neuro here as soon as possible.”

Joanne took one look at Quest and turned and ran back to her desk.

Quest forced a smile as he looked at Sal and Divinity. “One of the wonderful things about the System ability is that it has a log tracker. I’m able to see all the changes I’ve made to the system, long after they’ve been made.” His head twitched slightly as though he were preventing his true emotions from bubbling over.

“All the way back to the moment I first activated it.” His fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard before he let out a curse.

Sal gave Divinity a questioning look, but all she could offer in response was a shrug. She could obviously have looked into the future, but she seemed content to let events play out naturally. Sal wanted to know, but he was conscious of it being one of the things she disliked. He wasn’t going to ask her to use her powers just to sate his curiosities.

“Let’s bring this up to a wider scale.”

Quest sighed as he got to his feet and activated his ability. Thousands of status windows appeared in mid-air, flowing out in stacks and folders. It looked like absolute chaos, but Sal eventually realized that the shuffling between folders was actually Quest looking through the information at ridiculous speeds. Security footage, that showed the inside of the office, was placed to one side. Deleted files were stacked above it, along with records of Quest’s schedule. For good measure, he also added in a list of faculty complaints about students. Sal saw a number of unfamiliar names on the list, and if Quest realized that Sal was looking, he paid it no heed. The fact that he was doing this in front of them, with so much sensitive information, showed just how aggravated he was.

Looking at the headmaster, Sal saw his eyes were a shimmering blue. It was an odd moment, but Sal felt a strange sense of kinship with the headmaster in that they were both Support class and had ocular-controlled abilities. Divinity was unashamedly reading through the names that appeared on the folders, her head having to move around to track their movements across the office.

Quest grit his teeth as he winked with his left eye, causing nearly ninety percent of the visible folders to disappear…in a literal blink of an eye. The remaining folders were shuffled through, and Quest seemed to find what he was looking for. A folder with a stroke through it appeared front and center, and Quest rifled through the recordings at inhuman speeds. Sal wondered whether he was actually able to parse information that fast, and if so, he had a whole new level of respect for the headmaster.

“Here’s the little shit. Wester Templeton,” Quest muttered as a single entry filled the screen in a frozen state.

It showed the same student from the stairwell standing beside a seated Quest, speaking into his ear. Another folder entry came up beside it, from a different date, with the exact same scenario. Some had the student seated on the desk and others had him pointing at the console while standing over Quest’s chair.

“It would seem that you were correct, Miss Khan. I am not above being swayed. This is, by far, one of the lowest points I’ve seen a student stoop to, and there will be consequences.”

Quest closed his eyes, causing the screens to vanish. He tapped a button on the console again but didn’t wait for a response. “Joanne, is he here yet?”

Neuro stared at the footage on the console that Quest brought up, disgust evident on his face. Both Sal and Divinity were of the opinion that they shouldn’t be there, but Quest insisted that they stay when they tried to excuse themselves. Curiosity was one thing, but seeing the headmaster and his right-hand man looking enraged was not a pleasant sight.

The atmosphere was incredibly cold, and all talk of Sal restoring the student’s ability was abandoned as Quest regained his mental faculties. Neuro had a few observations that he shared with them about the nature of the power, as Influence was his specialist category.

Apparently, it wasn’t absolute control, but rather setting a foundation of fabrications. Small lies that could be accepted by the target, and built on over time, to become something much worse in scope. When the little lie was destroyed, it brought down the whole structure. In this case, Quest had been influenced to believe that the student in question was intrinsically good.

Quest’s nature of fostering talent and offering help to those who were struggling made him susceptible to those lies. The next was likely that everyone was more likely to persecute the individual because of the nature of his ability. All those lies created the perfect foundation for Quest to believe that Wester was innocent and to be trusted.

Neuro praised Divinity for standing her ground. Her argument had been the catalyst for Quest to break through the influence. There was nothing weak about the Controller ability, and the student in question was the persecutor rather than the victim.

Neuro shook his head as he stood to his impressive full height. “Where is he? I’ll pull everything out of him and get to the bottom of this. We’ve got no idea how much chaos he’s caused with you turning a blind eye.”

Quest didn’t look away from the console as he answered. “He’s in confinement in medical bay fourteen. Miss Khan rightfully did a number on him in the stairwell, and he needed treatment. Had I been thinking clearly, he’d have gotten a basic patch-up job at best.” Quest gave Divinity a slight smile, but it disappeared almost instantly as he turned to Sal.

“After we get what we need from him, there is the case of his power. What he has done is heinous and grounds for expulsion, but we’ll need you to undo the restrictions you’ve placed on his ability. It’s not our call and it will be up to the Hunter Bureau to decide his fate.” There was a level of trepidation in Quest’s voice, but Sal nodded in agreement.

“I’ll do that. No problem.”

A sigh of relief came from Quest, and Neuro chuckled darkly.

“You’re playing by the book, but you can’t hide your real feelings from me, Quest.”

The headmaster smiled and shot Divinity a guilty look. “I’d be reserving a seat for Mr. Templeton in the Crescents. He’ll be able to try his hand at swaying hardened criminals as much as he wants. They’ll teach him better manners than we’ve managed.” Quest muttered that last part under his breath.

Neuro pointed at an area on the console and Quest nodded, before taking out a tablet and loading the files onto it.

Just as he was about to leave for the medical bay, Neuro’s head snapped toward Divinity with a look of shock. “What was that?” he barked in a tone that was not to be fucked with.

In all the encounters Sal had with Neuro, he had never been this terrifying.

Divinity’s face paled as she sat up straight in her seat. “I saw one of the folders you had in the System ability, about Bastion. I was thinking if we should tell you about what we’ve found out about them recruiting Controllers at Quest Academy. I don’t have enough information yet to talk about it properly, but they’re currently vetting Barry Francis as a potential member.”

Quest took off his glasses and flung them onto the table before cupping his face in his hands. “If it was me who let those vipers in, I’ll resign immediately.”

Neuro shook his head and clenched his fists as he looked at Divinity. “We’ll discuss this later.” He shot Quest an annoyed glance. “I’m bringing Erika with me in case this fucker knows how to block my reading. She’s discreet and effective.”

Quest nodded through his hands. When Neuro left the room, Quest raised his face from his hands and laughed humorlessly. “Someday, the three of us are going to meet under pleasant circumstances. I’m sure of it.”

Sal and Divinity exchanged nervous looks as Quest spun around in his chair to face the window.

“Fucking Bastion.”