Poking the Bear (and the Eyes, and the Eardrums)

Morcai's thin blue alien body glowed softly as small tendrils floated around its head. The humans seemed to be arguing about something, but it couldn't tell what. It seemed to have something to do with Morcai, itself.

Alex stood in front of Morcai, shielding it, and Aisha stood in front of Alex shielding him, while Bjorn tried and failed to walk around the two to get to Morcai.

"Just toss them aside and kill the alien!" Sophia said. "What's so hard about that?"

"I'll pull your fucking eyes out your head, Bjorn. Don't do it," Alex said.

"I can't do this," Bjorn said. "You do it if it's so important to you."

"Ok, then," Sophia said. "I will."

Sophia grabbed one of the corrosive weapons off the floor and aimed it at Alex and Aisha. "Stand down, Alex. One alien isn't worth dying for."

Alex tried to deactivate the gun, but apparently it wasn't electronic. Just mechanical. Damn. He would have to get creative to get out of this one.

"Sophia. Just let me have this one," Alex said. "You don't want to know how much pain you'll be in if you don't."

Alex focused on creating two new skills. The base skill was his telekinesis. The first one was a blunt force to a small amount of space. It was kind of a poking skill.

It poked an area the size of a dime with as much force as Alex's telekinesis could muster without using any stamina. It wasn't a lot of force. His telekinesis was at noob level.

He could only generate as much telekinetic force as physical force that he could generate with his body. Like he could throw a coffee cup across the room or he could telekinetically punch someone, but that was it.

This didn't need to be strong, though. It just needed to be accurate.

[New skill created: Telekinetic poke]

The next skill he worked on was a pinch. This didn't need to be strong either. Just accurate.

[New skill created: Telekinetic pinch]

He did this in a matter of seconds, not minutes.

"I'm not letting you have shit. I am your commanding officer, and I am ordering you to stand down!" Sophia roared.

"No. What are you going to do, shoot me?" Alex said.

"That's exactly what I'm going to do," Sophia said. "I'm going to kill all three of you, and Chet is going to help me cover it up. Won't you Chet?"

"I didn't see nothing. One moment I looked away, and when I looked back, you were dead. As far as I know, one of the robots did it," Chet said.

"And Bjorn will follow along because majority rules, unless he wants to get shot too." Sophia aimed the gun at Bjorn and Bjorn put his hands up in a gesture that said he didn't want any part of this. He would follow along if that's what he had to do to survive.

"That's what I thought," Sophia said. "A soldier that can't follow orders is a dead soldier."

Sophia raised the gun and aimed. Just as she was about to pull the trigger, Alex activated his telekinetic poke. He poked both of her eyes first, and then he poked her eardrums.

After that, he activated his telekinetic pinch. He pinched the carotid artery on the left side of her neck, and then the one on the right side.

After getting poked in the eyes, Sophia fired the gun. It went wide, not even getting close to hitting Alex, Aisha, or Morcai. Next were the eardrums. Now she couldn't hear or see.

And finally the carotid arteries, which she didn't notice until she was already falling face first into the ground. Her body slammed into the ground with enough force to dent the metal flooring.

Alex walked over and grabbed the gun. He aimed it at Chet and then at Bjorn. "Don't either of you dare come near me. I have the detonation codes to this facility, and I will blow this place sky high if one of you so much as looks at me funny."

Alex didn't have the detonation codes for the facility. He wasn't sure it even had detonation codes, but they didn't know that.

"What did you do?" Aisha said, gesturing to the unconscious Sophia.

"Oh, I just poked her eyes and eardrums with my telekinesis and cut off the blood circulation to her brain for ten seconds. Nothing you couldn't fix. It's nothing like my partially melted face and eyes you fixed not two seconds ago," Alex said.

"Ok. I guess that's not so bad considering she was going to kill us," Aisha said.

"Heal her eardrums though. She'll need to hear when she gets up," Alex said.

Aisha kneeled down next to Sophia and healed her ears, and then she stepped a healthy distance away.

'What's going on?' Morcai asked Alex.

'Oh, we just had a disagreement. I told her she'd have to kill me if she wanted to kill you, and she was going to do just that, so I stopped her,' Alex thought.

'I didn't want you to risk your life or position for me,' Morcai thought.

'Man, you are so nice for an enemy combatant,' Alex thought.

'It's not like I wanted to be in a war against another intelligent species. I took a non-combat role. Research and data gathering. I didn't want to fight anyone. And yet it showed up on my doorstep,' Morcai thought.

'Man that sucks. Although pretty much the same thing happened to me,' Alex thought. 'If I save your ass, will you provide intelligence against your own? Because that's probably the only way the higher-ups are going to let me keep you alive.'

'I don't want any part in this war, but if it is what I must do to survive, then that is what I must do,' Morcai thought.

'Good. Because I don't want you to die, but if the higher-ups decide not to keep you alive, there's nothing I can do. As strong as I am, they are infinitely stronger. Your cooperation will go a long way towards getting them to agree to keep you alive,' Alex thought.

'Then that is what I will do. Cooperate,' Morcai thought.

'Ok, I need to talk out loud now, because people are starting to stare at me,' Alex thought.

"Ok, I've talked to the alien, and it says it's willing to cooperate and give us vital intelligence on our enemies if we allow it to live. Intelligence that isn't housed in the database I scoured," Alex said. "Cooperate with me, and we'll all come out on top. Ok? Ok."

Alex didn't know if the alien had vital intel. He suspected it, but he didn't know for certain. Alex aimed the gun at Sophia from several feet away and slapped her using telekinesis. After a few more slaps than necessary, Sophia woke up.

[New skill created: Telekinetic slap]

Alex connected his mind with Sophia's and thought, 'Wake up. I have a plan. And you're going to go along with it. Or you're going to die. Now that you see what I can do, I'm telling you if you go against me, I'll reach into your brain and give you an aneurysm. And no one will know it was me.'

Alex didn't know if he had it in him to kill Sophia. At least not yet. If she threatened his life again, that was a different story. But for now, he'd give her a second chance.

Not that it would do her much good. He was certain that the moment he let his guard down, she would try to kill him again. She seemed like the kind of person to hold a grudge. He had embarrassed her, and as a person in a position of authority, she probably didn't handle embarrassment well.

That said, he didn't think he even could give someone an aneurysm. The way telekinesis worked seemed to prevent that, at least for now. He could create external force but no internal force.

Telekinesis basically replicated anything he could do physically except with his mind. So if he wanted to shove someone, he could shove them, like he could physically.

Or if he wanted to grab someone and lift them in the air, he could do that too. But he couldn't cause someone an aneurysm with his mind any more than he could with his physical body.

Sophia posed a continued threat to Alex's existence right now. He wouldn't let her know that though, because that would cause her to strike. He would bide his time until he was strong enough to defeat her in a straight-up fight.

"Everyone, listen up! Like I told you, I'll tell Sophia here, the plan is take the alien in so it can give us intel on the enemy and help us make strategic decisions going forward. If it gives a single incorrect detail, it's dead. If it plots against us, it's dead. It has agreed to help as long as we keep it alive. Got it? Ok," Alex said.

'Can you disable this facility from ever being used again?' Alex thought to Morcai.

'Yes, why?' Morcai thought

'I need you to do that now. I can't do it myself yet. It was part of our mission.' Alex said.

'Ok. I'll get up and do that now. Make sure no one shoots me,' Morcai thought.

'Will do,' Alex thought.

"Ok everyone! The alien, Morcai, is disabling the facility permanently. I will be able to check with my technopathy to make sure it's done," Alex said.

Morcai got up, went over to a computer terminal, and started working. After a few minutes, Morcai thought to Alex, 'It's done.'

Alex checked with his technopathy, and the systems were fried. Nothing worked. It felt like white noise scratching the inside of his brain.

"Aisha, I need you hold my hand and Morcai's hand. Do you have the extraction device?" Alex held out his hand for her to give it to him.

Aisha pulled it out of her pocket and handed it to him.

'Hold the lady's hand. We're getting out of here,' Alex thought.

'Ok,' Morcai thought. It grasped Aisha's hand.

"Alright, everyone. Get out your extraction devices. We're going back. On go. One, two, three, go."

Alex pressed the button on the device, as did Sophia, Chet, and Bjorn, and they all disappeared.