O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc by Elaine Levine

Author:Elaine Levine [Levine, Elaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-20T18:30:00+00:00

19

Skin-walking was a laborious endeavor. Merc thought back to his days in the training camps, learning to astral-travel. He had to first overcome his doubts about it being a real thing, then he had to tackle his fear about the altered reality it brought. Was he still himself outside the shell of his body? Once he’d made the leap, he realized reality was a misnomer. There was only truth in the moment, and even that was defined in the eyes of the observer.

Maybe that was when he began to hate himself.

He felt the same uncanny feeling now, trying to consciously possess a worker from the mine. He was attempting to take over a regular—a being he was sworn to protect. And though he had only the intention to ride the man into the protected zone to see what was happening there, Merc knew possession violated the Legion’s principles. It wasn’t something taught in the training camps; he had no idea where Flynn had learned to do it. The art of possession, once mastered, made a mutant far more powerful than a regular. And as with every other superior skill a mutant had, it was something that could be used without oversight, without checks and balances, and, worst of all—without guilt.

Merc centered himself again. The morals of what he was doing would have to be sorted later. Getting into that mine was all that mattered. He’d spent the days since his return connecting with several of the mine workers. They worked three days on, off one. Not one man enjoyed his work. Most spent their off time drinking and fucking. None spoke of what went on during his shifts, not with each other, not with their families.

Merc’s astral self jumped to the modified ATV that was transporting the incoming crew. The men aboard were silent. Merc couldn’t tell if that was due to a compulsion or personal choice. He suspected the latter.

The trip to the mine on the transport took about an hour. Merc had one hour to get inside one of them—not an easy feat, given how strong the protection on them was. He realized he couldn’t force his way in; he had to be invited.

Merc faced the man riding alone in the back row. Juan was his name. Merc didn’t use words to seduce the man’s psyche. Instead, he used the skill Guerre had taught the team of communicating in knowings. That skill had had a steep learning curve, until they’d all understood that a concept was known before the idea of it was articulated. When you saw a door open, you didn’t have to say to yourself that the door opened—you already knew it without the words describing it. And just as emotion was often lost in a text, the nuance of a meaning could be lost in a verbalization, but it was never lost in a knowing.

You are afraid, Merc sent the acknowledgement into the man’s mind. It was the truth, and was so pure a knowing that it bypassed the protection on his mind.

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