MISC: The Girl Who Saved the World 40

[George Phillies]

Password Lord and His Three Trusty Companions would be delighted to go 
on an adventure.

Patrick and Abigail looked at each other. “We’ve told both of them,” 
Patrick said, “that if they ever want to talk to us they can. If they 
want someone else to talk to, we can arrange that. They both said they 
were entirely comfortable talking with you. What I didn’t expect, though 
maybe I should’ve, is that Janie shared mind to mind with Brian what she 
remembered. Brian wanted to be sure he understood what his sisters went 
through. And they both said that Joe’s mom did something so they 
remember what happened, but they don’t remember being frightened, and 
they are not frightened when they think about it. Or did you help with 
that?”

“I would’ve done that for them,” Morgana said, “but Joe’s mom did it 
first. She did a very good job of it.” Morgana looked down at the table. 
“Actaully, she did a truly fine job of it, and I can’t imagine sho she 
is, either.  I could’ve taken care of their minds if they needed it. 
Goddess only knows I’ve had enough practice healing people with 
after-combat mental distress. What I meant to ask about was not what 
must to you have been a horrifying few hours, but the physical details 
of the persona combat.”

Abigail shook her head. “Trisha was out cold almost the whole time, and 
Janie said she didn’t see very much except occasionally things got 
bright. She was very busy shouting for help. She did pull Trisha over 
the edge of a sand dune.”

“Janie shouting for help is how I got involved,” Morgana answered. “If 
the two of them hadn’t been persona, the kidnappers would have ignored 
them. If Janie hadn’t been so good at mentalics back then, the 
kidnappers would probably have gotten away with it. One of the 
kidnappers had a very strong mind screen, strong enough that Janie had 
to be really loud to be heard outside. Fortunately, we heard her. But 
when I met Janie and Trisha I could tell they were very deeply gifted, 
and would be better off with a practiced hand guiding them. That was me.”

“In any event,” Morgana continued, pausing once and again for more 
chicken,  “the press coverage of Joe saving Trisha and Janie made it 
sound like the villains teleported out to Sand Crab Island, and in the 
middle Joe somehow separated them from their pistol, following which the 
Stars Over Boston came to the rescue. Then Joe got your daughters back 
to you. The miscreants must’ve been seriously injured while resisting 
arrest, because they all died that evening. None of that is false, but 
there are some minor details left out.” Morgana paused to finish off 
another croissant.

“Janie described Joe teleporting them to someplace in northern Canada 
and then to Frog Pond Park,” Abigail said. “They were both worried about 
Joe, because when they left him he was shivering.”

“Chills are common if you go way too deep into your gifts,” Morgana 
explained. “And I really mean way too deep, not just a bit too deep. 
That’s not surprising, given what he did. Fortunately, he or they moved 
the whole thing to Sand Crab Island. That combat was not a couple of 
guys wrestling over possession of a knife. Joe was the good-guy side of 
the deepest power persona combat in New England since Crittenden’s War. 
Joe is in the power range where he could level a city block of 
brownstones with one blast, which is truly unusual for a boy his age, 
the people on the other side were probably about as good, and the pistol 
did not quite take down Joe’s shields was indubitably a Krell disruptor 
pistol.  It’s a starcore weapon. If the villains had fired it at Boston, 
they would have torched everything on the ocean side of Beacon Hill with 
one shot. Assuredly it hit Joe’s shields, and his shields did not collapse.

"Joe won by himself, and on the way out grabbed the pistol and a Krell 
shield bracer that had been protecting one of the miscreants. Until Joe 
killed the fellow. Joe seems to have no compunctions about killing 
people.  The Stars Over Boston got there after almost everything was 
over. I am morally certain Joe teleported out with your daughters 
because he saw me appear, not because he thought he was escaping the 
villains.

“Then, afterward, something broke into Castle Island Prison, put the 
guards to sleep without their noticing anything, hid its presence from 
the three members of the Stars Over Boston who were also guarding the 
place, and exfoliated the memories of the surviving villains, 
incidentally killing them. The villains were very deeply tranquilized 
and being given medical care. Mighty Mind was going to search their 
minds carefully, but was waiting for the needed court order. Something 
else did not wait.

"You may have heard about the ring of perverts in our country’s southern 
neighbors, the ones who were kidnapping persona children and torturing 
them to death? The people captured in Boston were their strike team. The 
same night that the prisoners died, something appeared above their main 
base, smashed down a very high power set of force fields, killed the 
persona defending the place, and rescued a bunch of children.  The 
political aftermath, when the detailed records were made public, is 
still reverberating. People have heard the parts, but not connected the 
dots.”

“Are Trish and Janie safe near Joe?” Abigail asked. “Isn’t it dangerous 
to have personas that powerful wandering around in their vicinity? I’m 
not counting you, of course.”

“The only time I’ve seen Joe use his powers, that from a distance, he 
was protecting Trisha and Janie at what I hope he realized was a 
considerable risk to his own life. Trisha and Janie have nothing to 
worry about, so far as I can tell. Joe took a big chance to fight that 
crew. I’m not sure whether or not he knew he was taking a chance. He may 
have thought he would just stomp the people attacking Trisha and Janie 
into the ground.

"I would’ve liked at least to speak to him. Many people owe him favors, 
but he made no effort to collect. With that sort of power, unless you 
have good training, your slight errors can get large numbers of people 
killed.  Including you if you make a mistake. Also, someone put a geas 
on your house. I find that bothersome. There aren’t a lot of people who 
can do that, and none of them appear to have a motive.”

The wind gusted, hard enough that the shutters rattled.