Every emotion has a scent. Or, at least, that's the closest telepaths can describe it.
A tightly woven, almost singular, psychic pattern that triggers a specific combination of neuro-peptides throughout key areas of the brain. It varies how strong the scent is, and the duration it lingers on the mental planes.
Most people, in normal cirumstances, have at least three simultaneous scents whether they realize it or not. Two are attributed to dominant thought, and subconscious behavior. The third is what is termed as the 'Primal Scent'. No one is quite certain what the primal scent truly is, except that it is present from the moment life begins....and it is the most basic method of mental identification.
This is how a telepath truly sees.
Sure, hijacking a tele-feed into the visual cortex of a brain gives four-dimensional sight for an immediate glimpse of the situation. But, it's alot of detailed work for most psychics, and is mostly just used in short, quick glimpses.
Broad carpet-views, as they are called, relay the overall scenario of mental surroundings within a telepathic perimeter, allowing the psychic him or herself to concentrate on a multi-pathic situation where the eyes are simply useless. Or, in some cases, an annoyance in having to allocate a percentage of their brain to process a visual feed of their immediate location.
Most telepaths rely on carpet-views to keep them aprised of people within their immedtiate surroundings. The more talented can register and follow up to twenty or thirty scents at once. The best in the world can follow up to fifty, and make rare dips into the visual cortex for four-dimensional shots of about ten of those scents at any given time.
Phil Smith was currently following one-hundred-and-three seperate scents, with one-hundred-and-three multi-pathic visual feeds streaming into his awareness at a constant rate.
For five blocks, Smith was mentally and visually intimate with every single La Perditian. And, even while he fought The Dead with his Vanguardian chess pieces almost a block away, he was constantly aware of the average citizen that was walking by. Seventy-eight were on their way to a job. Seventeen were running personal errands of some kind. Three were headed for individual medical appointments. Three were buying some hash from a fourth. And one considering streaking naked through traffic.
Phil floated in the lotus position, eyes closed, hands at rest...
Ben, throw a left
Passing citizens walked on, seemingly never noticing a floating man, the body under him, or the loud noises from Vanguard's fight in the distance. That's because Smith was coaxing their attention. He would shoot short messages into their sublimal awareness, effectively blinding them to a piece of their own reality.
Nothing here. Move along.
This is the power of a true telepath.
Nice day, keep walking. Body? There's no body here. The other sidewalk would be more pleasant to cross. No reason to take your eyes off the road, there's nothing to look at here. Keep your clothes on.
Griss duck.
Seven new people entered telepathic range...
...walking near the crosswalk...sexual fantasies....
Four leaving the corner shop...
....two walking together....milk, eggs, butter....one by himself....the newspaper....stock market soaring.....one smells sour....anticipation....fear....adrenaline......shoplifter...
Two people rollerblading south....
....do I look fat in this... ...she's getting fat...
Bri, watch your six.
One man, turning the corner to Jake's....
You don't feel like Jake's....it's boring...
...he turned away, casually strolling across the street for another bar nearbye.
Nine people entering a cafe......fourteen crossing the intersection....three cyclists speeding by....
...what the hell's that... ...is that a man... ...he'll be killed...
Phil frowned, jumping mental tracks quicker and quicker....
...he's falling... ...oh my god I can't look... ....what's that.... ....he's crazy....
The slap of pennyloafer-against-pavement snapped Phil's eyes open with a sudden shock. Standing next to him was the man called only....
"...Tiberius?" he asked.
Phil looked quickly around, as everyone seemingly forgot about the man as easily as forgetting the body, and turned his attention back to the newest of Vanguardians.
"Where the hell did you come from?" Smith asked.
There was something odd about Tiberius.
"Grissom Montag's penthouse." Tiberius replied honestly.
Of course, 'odd' was an understatement. But, something specifically odd for Phil.
"Montag's......that's six miles away..." he said. "...how did you get here?"
He could read his mind, and that was not, in itself, unusual. He could see the man's answer before he spoke it.
"I jumped."
He could also see that Tiberius did not mean he jumped the entire six miles in one leap. He did it in quarter-mile intervals.
"Of course...." Smith nodded, accepting his answer.
The odd part, for Smith, was the fact that...he had been monitoring the surroundings. He had been monitoring and watching....and had not seen Tiberius until he was upon him.
"You did send for me, correct?" Ty asked.
Phil had only known him for a few days now, but, he had already noticed that the man seemed to hold his emotions greatly in check. Solemn and given to bouts of long silences. It was not a menacing air he produced, as much as an attention to the moment.
Tiberius had no scent.
"Yes....yes I did...." Smith finally said.
He knelt down by the body, Tiberius following.
"We got called in this morning by Jake, the owner of this bar." he began. "Found this body pretty much exactly the same as it is now..."
Smith withdrew the blanket back, so that Ty could see it completely. His expression did not change, light-purple eyes scanning the body up and down.
"Now...I'm not certain exactly what makes you tick..." Smith began. "....but, I've seen abilities like yours at work..."
"...Turkish Stringfellow...?" Tiberius asked, still looking at the body.
"Right. Turkish." Phil nodded. "If you work anything like him, I'd imagine you may be able to tell me something about this body..."
"Something?"
"A clue. A hint. Anything that might get us started down a path..."
Tiberius rubbed his goatee, staring at the dead person before him.
"I see....."
"...yes?"
"A dead man."
Phil stared at him cooly.
"Are you fucking with me again?" he asked.
"I do not know what you think I can tell you about this..." Tiberius shrugged. "...but, I can only see what you see. Given your own abilities, probably less..."
"Can't you...like...communicate with the elements, or something?"
"Like Turkish?"
"Yes, like Turkish."
"No."
"No?"
"No. I cannot communicate with any elements...."
"But, what about that walk-on-water trick you do?"
"What about it?"
"Don't you...you know...communicate with the water, or something? Ask it to hold you up?"
"No."
"Then how do you do it?"
"I force it to happen." Tiberius responded plainly.
Smith stared at him a moment. He was serious.
"So, you have no ethereal powers that can give me anything about this body?"
"Only what my eyes tell me." the man said. "Only what is obvious. He has been stabbed nineteen times. But, the only blood present is what has come from his wounds..."
The man indicated the small pool with his finger.
"There are no signs blood along the walls of this bar, or this sidewalk." he continued. "Also, bone fragments, shattered in this pattern, would seem to indicate that a severe beating or collison took place. All of this leads me to believe many possible things..."
"...yes?" Smith asked, curiously listening to the man's theories.
"Well, one....the lack of blood leads me to believe that this occured at a different location." he began. "The body was placed here after the wounds were inflicted. Also, with the broken bone pattern, if his body had collided with an unmovable object at a high speed....we should see some sign of it. Whether...indication that he was hit by an automobile, or, marks on the sidewalk or wall...."
He paused, looking around...as did Phil.
"Nothing." he stated.
Phil thought about this, staring at the body.
"Of course...." Tiberius added. "...there is another possibility..."
Phil glanced up.
"Shoot."
"Well, there is a way the wounds could have been inflicted here...." he began. "...if he had stayed in the exact same place...if he had been right here...."
Tiberius pointed at the body itself.
"....when all of this happened to him. Then, certainly, it's possible."
"But....for all of this...the stab wounds...the bruises...the broken bones...for all of this to have happened right here, only on this exact spot.....it would have had to have happened...."
His voice trailed off, looking up at Tiberius with a subtle glaze of worry...
"Simultaneously?" Tiberius said, coming to the same conclusion.
Phil just stared, a bit wide-eyed...
"...fast..." he finally answered.
