Her Voice
Awakenings
by goodbot
See spoiler tags :
#pluralityFive years ago, when Olivia was fourteen, her hometown was attacked by aliens. It started with a bright flash, and through the classroom window she could see a portal opening in the sky. For a few seconds she just stared at the blue-green glow of spacetime being torn apart, her first personal encounter with the paranatural.
The teacher told everyone to duck-and-cover. Olivia was pretty sure that a particle-board desk over her head wasn’t going to help if the aliens started firing on them with plasma beams or laser cannons or whatever supertech this particular species of interdimensional invaders uses, but she played along, knowing the point was just to keep everyone as calm as possible. The best they could do was stay in one place and hope that the capes would arrive in time. She was terrified, like any rational person in a situation like that.
Under the desk next to her was her best friend, honestly her only real close friend, who exclusively went by the surname Liu back then. They looked at each other, both thinking they might die and not knowing what to say, until Liu reached out and held her hand.
“I’m scared,” Olivia whispered as if that wasn’t obvious.
“I am too. I think we’ll probably be okay, but… in case this is my last chance to say it: I like you. Sorry I didn’t say it before.”
“I like you too,” Olivia said, smiling a little despite the fact that they might both be incinerated by extraterrestrials. Focusing on silly teenage crush feelings was good, because it distracted her from we’re-going-to-die feelings. “If we survive, will you go out with me?”
“Are you free after school today? We could go get milkshakes?”
“It’s a date.”
“Good, then neither of us is allowed to die this morning. It would be very impolite to die before our first date,” Liu whispered, and Olivia giggled.
They didn’t die. Within ten minutes, a half-dozen superheroes were on the scene, the alien ship had crashed down outside the city limits, and the principal announced over the P.A. system that the lockdown was over. They shared a milkshake that afternoon, and for the next few months Liu was her boyfriend.
It couldn’t last. Olivia always felt like Liu was hiding something, or wasn’t quite comfortable in their relationship. When she came out as a trans girl, Alison Liu, the breakup was inevitable. Olivia just wasn’t into girls in that way. After a couple weeks of awkwardness, they agreed to bury their messy tangle of romantic feelings and stay best friends.
For a while, Olivia thinks they’re the only two people out here, until she sees someone approaching them. The first thing she notices is that he’s wearing shorts and a t-shirt in November. Then she recognizes the greek letters on his shirt. Other girls have warned her to stay away from that frat’s parties, not that she’s the kind of person who goes to parties in the first place. She stays close to Alison, avoids eye contact, and hopes he’ll just walk past.
“You ladies shouldn’t be out by yourselves this late. I bet you could use a man to make sure you get home safe.” Olivia rolls her eyes, Alison glares at him, and neither of them slow down. Unfortunately this means getting closer to him, and that lets the asshole get a closer look at Alison. “Oh, you already have a man, don’t you? You really want a crossdresser walking you home?”
“Don’t say that about her,” Olivia snarls.
“Yeah, fuck off.” There’s something uncanny about Alison’s voice that makes the guy look dazed for a moment.
“Yeah, yeah… I should fuck off…” he mutters before walking past them.
“Um, Aly, what just happened?” Olivia asks once they’ve put a fair amount of distance between themselves and the asshole. “You felt that too, right?”
“I… I don’t know. I was so pissed off at that guy, and when I told him to fuck off I felt, I dunno, something, like I was putting pressure on his brain. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“You don’t think…”
“That I have a superpower? You’re the parascience major. You tell me.”
“Has anything like that ever happened before?”
“Definitely not.”
“If you have a migraine in the morning, that’ll be a clear sign that this was paranatural. It’s pretty much a universal fact about awakenings, regardless of what kind of power.”
“Liv, I think I just mind-controlled that guy. That’s not a hero power, that’s supervillain shit. I… I can’t deal with this right now. Let’s just get home and crash, we can figure things out tomorrow.”
They return to silence for the rest of the walk, and Olivia starts thinking over the implications. Mind control is one of those hypothetical superpowers – like precognition and time travel – that have been imagined by science-fiction authors but never recorded in a real superhuman.
Olivia would bet that Alison is the first person with any kind of mind-control ability. If some supervillain had developed that power before, they probably would have conquered the world already. She knows how abilities outside the usual recurring power-sets are often the most powerful, since they don’t come with standard weaknesses or drawbacks. It’s a chilling thought. With a power like that in the wrong hands, a villain could conquer the world just by whispering in the right ears.
The world is lucky that this power fell into the hands of someone caring and responsible, who Olivia completely trusts would never turn to the side of evil. But Alison was right that mind control powers are assumed to be a villain thing. The kind of people who would violate a person’s free will, make them follow orders, or reshape their minds into obedience are the bad guys, or at least that’s how it works when mind control appears in the kinds of science-fiction stories Alison likes.
What Alison doesn’t know is how mind control works in the kind of kinky stories that Olivia likes. Mind control powers are hot and Olivia has no idea how she’s supposed to feel about her best friend having them. She knows she should try not to think about that angle, to not risk reopening old emotional wounds, but she can’t completely stop thinking about it.