Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant by J. Gregory Keyes

anger. Mauled by two Normals in as many days? No.
    The train cop lifted the shock stick for another try. Al noticed, with the odd clarity of adrenaline-heightened perceptions, the pucker of wrinkled skin on the cop’s elbows, the storm-tang ozone scent of the weapon. He struck. The normal had no guards at all. His mind was watery and open and - delicious. It was as if Al had been shelling walnuts his entire life and was suddenly offered a plate of them, already shelled…
    What he did wasn’t fancy - he just sparked him, sent a powerful jolt into the cop’s ancient, limbic, lizard back-brain, the first rock in an avalanche that roared forward toward consciousness, gathering fears, images, and pains in an unstoppable cascade of waking nightmares that obliterated his thinking mind in an instant.
    He groaned like a lost soul, his pupils suddenly became pinpricks, and he dropped the shock stick, lurched back against the door. Al grasped and lifted the shock stick carefully, and touched it to the man’s temple. The cop jerked, fell prone, and kept jerking. Al found a pair of handcuffs in the man’s back pocket and snapped them onto the unresisting wrists.
    Now what? For a moment he didn’t care. He felt like the unstoppable Juggernaut of Hindu legend, an elemental force that had been contained for too long. He just stood there, grinning, hands clenching and unclenching, wishing another normal would come at him, just try something. He felt… he sipped in a deep, calming breath. He felt too good. This was exactly why Psi Corps had the rules it did. He had always considered himself controlled, strong-compared to most he knew, he was. And yet this could be addictive, more addictive than a drug. Only his training had saved him, and the strong principles taught by the Corps.
    It suddenly occurred to Al that he now understood some of what it might be that rogues desired-freedom to exercise their abilities whenever and however, on whomever they wished. That could be a powerful incentive, as he had just learned - but not an admirable one. So indeed, what now?
    He took off the cop’s shoes, then his socks, balling up the last and placing them in the fellow’s mouth. The cop was starting to come around, and once his eyes were somewhat clear, Al came to the painful decision that he was going to have to break a regulation. He probably had already-pushing a normal, even in self-defense. Still, at this point it would probably be for the greater good if Al Bester survived.
    “Why did you do that?” he asked, aloud, and then scanned for both the willing and unwilling response.
    He got it, and nodded grimly. The cop’s name was Alistor Hech, and he was a rogue sympathizer. That’s why Brazg was on this train to begin with. Even so, if he turned Hech in, the cop likely would report him for unauthorized scanning.
    Well, that was for later. He probed a little more, but the normal didn’t know anything else, or if he did it would take a deep scan to find it. Even under the circumstances Al wasn’t willing to go that far. What Al knew was what he had started with: Brazg would get off in Paris, and from there on out only she knew her plans. The door rattled, suddenly, and Hech started making frantic gagging noises. Gripping the shock stick, Al dithered for an instant. The door was locked, but if the person on the other side had a key… He placed his fingers against the door and concentrated.
    “Hech?” he heard, muffled.
    He’s not in here. No one is in here
    (glyph of the room, empty; glyph of Hech, walking though the aisles of the train).
    No one is in here. The room is empty.
    < A few paragraphs was lost :( >
    …he from talking about him. Maybe, but probably not. Anyway, that would be going way, way too far. He was in trouble enough as it was. But perception could be as powerful as the real thing, couldn’t it?
    “I’m planting a compunction in your mind,” he told Hech.
    “You won’t feel it, or know it’s there - unless you