fandomhigh | The Science of Psionics, Wednesday

"You may review your notes today," Kerrigan said, from her position at the front of the classroom. "After we delve into the actual science for a minute or two."

She turned on the projector, displaying a 'map' of the human brain. "This is the activity in an average human mind at rest," she said. Click. "This is a psionic's mind at rest." An area in the back of the brain had lit up a little brighter than on the first picture. "This is a psionic's mind when actively trying to listen in." The area at the back had lit up further, spreading forward into the frontal lobe. "And this," she continued, "is a telekinetic at work." The parietal lobe at the back was a frantic place of activity now, spreading forward into the frontal lobe in quick, precise spikes.

She glanced at the class. "That's the human brain," she said, "This is the protoss mind at rest."

Not only was the image she showed next shaped somewhat different from the human brains she had shown before, but the back of the brain seemed to be about as active as that of the last human image. It even spread towards the middle, to the temporal lobe. "The protoss practically seem to subsist on psionic power," she said. "Their minds are constantly working with it, trying to get it under control." She elaborated on the various lobes of the brain for a few more minutes.

Then she glanced over the class. "I'm not asking any of you to get your brain scanned, though the option is there," please, please take the option, "But merely to consider what this means. It might lead you to develop new strategies to control and focus your power. You can review these simulations as you wish."

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"It's the same with me," Emma agreed smoothly, picking up where Jono left off. "I believe the term I've heard on the news once or twice is homo sapiens superior, which I cannot argue with." Her lips twitched in amusement. "It's far more accurate than 'mutant menace.'"

"But our power rests in our very DNA. No one knows what causes an X-Gene to manifest, at least they don't in my time-" and she shot Jono a curious glance. "-but you either have it or you don't. You can be a latent mutant, if you haven't manifested yet - or ever - but you're still a mutant, powers or no."

At Emma's glance, Jono just gave his shoulders a shrug and shook his head. If they'd managed to figure out where it came from before, he certainly didn't know about it. And there was a part of him that didn't want them to figure it out, either. In the wrong hands, the knowledge of where it started could very well lead to people searching for a way to stem it at the source, and he really had no interest in becoming a member of an endangered species.

//There are more now,// he added, //in my time, at least, than there ever were. Mutants are manifesting more frequently. I have no idea what might cause that, either. It's hereditary, to some degree, so interbreeding between regular humans and mutants might have a hand in it, but I doubt it's anything quite so simple.//

"Circumstances for manifestation differ, as do mutations themselves. I suppose they can't all be psionics." Smug Emma was smug, because she and Jono were awesome, thank you.

...she can hear the emo, Jono. Try not to be quite so dour.

He wasn't being dour. He was being pragmatic. There was totally a difference. He was, after all, living in the age of Operation: Zero Tolerance. He wouldn't put much of anything past humanity, anymore.

//Right. A little variety never hurt, I suppose.//

He made a point to not let his mind wander on that topic, because that one definitely could get dour.

"Mutants don't spontaneously appear, usually our X-Gene comes from somewhere," Emma pointed out. "I don't know if there's really more of us, or if we're just becoming more powerful and harder to ignore."

"I wouldn't be shocked if we both had a variety of mutants in our family histories; mild healing factors, weak clairvoyance that could be passed off as hunches, things like that. Without the 'little variety,' mutation would inbreed too fast and you'd be a hermaphroditic Siamese twin instead of a psion."

See, Jono? Your mutation could be worse!

//My great-granddad was a fire breather,// Jono said, raising a pointed eyebrow. //Fairly obvious mutants travel back th'Starsmore family tree for... quite some time.//

He wasn't even going to get into who was at the root of that bloodline, no.

//And my family were th'sort to keep track of who could do what. No hermaphroditic Siamese twins, so far as I'm aware.//

"Seriously?" she asked, lighting up. "Hazel and Winston are flatscans, and if anyone in my family has ever been a mutant - on either side - there's no record or mention of it."

She wished they did have the same family history as Jonothon seemed to possess. Maybe then they wouldn't have been so quick as to label her crazy and worthless.

//Seriously,// Jono agreed, nodding faintly. //For what it's worth, I can tell you with... some authority, I suppose, that there have been powerful mutants on Earth as far back as ancient Egypt.//

None that he was particularly pleased to be descended from, mind. But there, they'd existed. And still did.

The Science of Psionics, Wednesday

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