I thought about it. “A better idea? I don’t have one. I don’t think it’s going to be a popular idea, though. At the same time, if we don’t have the option of removing the command, and obviously we can’t sedate him until Magnus is defeated, then it’s better than leaving him like this.”

Julie frowned, “I don’t like it, but I don’t know what else you could do. Besides, if you do it, I might be able to chip away at the command. Kals might not be here, but the implant has a library of Dominator techniques. Between knowing the words she used and the implant’s knowledge base, I’ve got a chance. Wiping his memory of being captured gives me time.”

Daniel’s eyes glazed over, and I felt a stream of implant information flowing into his brain. “Wow, I wasn’t thinking about that before, but I will have to go through these techniques. I might be able to create strategies to counter them over the long term. Not today.”

He glanced at me, “Do you get deluges of information like this all the time?”

I shook my head, “Not too often. It gets better at sensing how much you find useful at once, and your brain gets better at handling it. Plus, my brain seems to be made for it to a greater degree than most humans. It might be an Artificer thing, but my implant has noted similarities to brain structures in both Xiniti and human variants the Abominators made for fixing things.”

Daniel’s and Julie’s eyes glazed over as their implants explained my references.

Julie’s eyes dropped toward my boots, “Can you grab things with your feet?”

“Brain structures are the only similarity,” I said, remembering Four Hands, a former Ascendancy commando who lead his people against the Ascendancy. That assumed he still lived, of course. War had a way of changing one’s status. “Still,” I added, “feet with fingers would be useful sometimes.”

“Okay,” Daniel said while the scene around us became blurry and then began to shift. “I should talk with everyone outside before I mess with his head, but before that, I think I should show you a training montage of his time with Magnus.”

“Oh,” I said, “I’d like to see that.”

It would be interesting to compare what he’d been learning to my sessions with Kee.

Julie laughed, “Training montage?”

Shrugging, Daniel said, “It’ll take too long to do anything more than hit the highlights. Plus, pretty much all the sessions are the same.”

The scene shifted. I knew somehow between Daniel’s telepathy and Jody’s internal commentary that it was the same day he’d repeated Colette’s command. He wore the same Grand Lake High School Varsity Basketball t-shirt.

He’d been a great point guard (a position I only knew because I was in Jody’s brain), often praised for his speed. I could only wonder how often unconscious power use had helped him.

Knowing what I now knew about myself, I could only guess how much weird Artificer side effects had helped me.

Magnus and Jody stood in the courtyard of the villa. Armed guards stood on the roof and on the ground, some of them watching outward, others watching the inside of the courtyard. I didn’t know whether their concern was Jody or possible traitors within the Nine.

Magnus stood across from Jody, doing his best impression of a teacher. It could have been better. He bellowed more than fit my taste.

Stretching out his hands, Magnus started by saying, “Though you may not feel it now, you have infinite power at your disposal. I’m here to teach you to channel  it into your abilities and discover the true ability hidden within them.”

Tilting his head, Jody said, “What? I’ve got one power. It’s ‘run real fast’ and that’s the whole thing. That is the true power.”

“No!” Magnus brought his hands down and stamped his right foot. “I’ve been improving myself for millennia. I’ve been taught by survivors of civilizations that never made it into your histories. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.

“I began with a small ability, the power to bend people to my will with my voice. When Urin and others taught me to find my internal well of energy, I poured it into my power, and then my true power came out, influencing the masses. At first, I was limited to affecting the people in front of me, but I found that with work, I could create sounds that could be heard for miles. Whole cities followed my commands without even knowing it.

“When some of my rivals wrecked my voice, destroying that avenue to power, I still wasn’t powerless. I’d learned how to direct my energies into other hidden abilities within the larger one. I’d strengthened my mind’s resistance to other people’s voices. I’d given myself strength and despite my rivals, I retained some ability to influence the minds of men.

“These abilities that this time calls superpowers are wider than you know, and the more power you pour into them, the sooner you’ll surpass their crude limitations.”

Even though I half-expected Jody to talk back to him, Jody didn’t. He said, “Alright, let’s find my power.”