Psychic Showdown

It must really suck to be one of those psychic guys that can read other people's minds, huh?

It must drive you crazy that people can't read what's going on in your mind and just download images and stuff from your head when you talk to them, conversations and stuff must seem so slow and frustrating and one-sided to you.

'Cause you're still forced to communicate your side of the conversation by converting all the stuff you think into little monkey screeches and squawks and stuff with your mouth.

Yah, that must really suck.

But you hear the words and see all the pictures I'm thinking right?

The stuff that's bouncing around in my short-term memory, the junk that's loaded in consciousness, whatever I got running in my RAM?

So when my pants crawl up my crotch and take a bite out of my nutsack, its like its happening to you, right?

Or even if I just sit here and think about stuff like how my back hurts and my ass cheeks flap in the wind after an especially gruesome fart...

Okay, okay, take it easy, I'm thinking about polar bears now, polar bears frolicking in the beautiful snow, no two snowflakes are exactly alike.

And you can't read my long-term memory, right?

'Cause that's like cold storage, shit man, even I can't read my own cold storage half the time heh.

You'd have to be able to take control of my brain to access that stuff, right?

Or wait until I think of it, without any fast forward button.

Or at least be able to push thoughts into my head to make me do it.

And that'd be a different super power.

So mind-reading really sucks, I think, you got ripped off, man.

Well, how you supposed to fight somebody with that shit?

Ah, you can be kinda invisible, 'cause you know where everybody is looking, and where they ain't looking, yah, that's pretty cool I guess.

And its pretty easy for you to get the combination to locks.

Oh, and you can go around and continually improve your own mental processes by stealing programming from anybody who thinks about stuff better than you can, so you're probably super smart, huh?

And you can go around collecting beautiful memories from folks, and not just the bad ones, so you'd know all sorts of secret junk like the best way to see the color blue, and how sweet it is when a momma sings to her baby, and you'd be able to see the heroic side of people, too, I guess that kinda makes up for all the hate and insanity you'd have to see and the flapping ass cheek fart and nutsack stuff...

Alright, alright, damn man, you think you would've upgraded your sense of humor by now, polar bears, polars bears frollicking in the beautiful snow, no two snowflakes are exactly alike...

Oh, and if you did meet another mind-reader, you'd have all sorts of awesome pyschic warfare shit you could do to them.

Yah, like two minder readers reading each other's minds, that'd be like some kinda Hall of Mirrors effect, a psychic feedback loop, reading a guy's mind who is actually reading your mind, he'd be reading your mind reading his mind reading your mind...

And eventually somebody would get knocked unconscious from short-term memory buffer overflow.

Or you'd at least make each other really sleepy, right?

'Cause your brain needs to sleep to convert that short-term memory junk into long term memory?

Yah, junk like photographic memory would give you tons of ammo and help you fill up their short-term memory buffer faster, and some kinda neural data compression trick would help yours not fill up that fast.

Well, that's pretty cool, I guess, but it only works on other mind-readers, y'know, and nobody else can even tell anything is happening, so it ain't like its gonna be easy to get a job as a Psychic Bodyguard or Gladiator or something, can't sell that on pay-per-view, 'cause there ain't nothing to view ahaha.

Yah, I still think you got ripped off man, that's a sucky power, how are you supposed to fight a guy with an atomic punch or something?

Ah, you know when he's gonna do everything.

Still, that's not gonna help you against a machine gun guy.

Ah, you know what to say and do to make people stop and do what you want, you can see everybody's buttons so you know what to push.

But you still have to push them the old fashioned way, see, that sucks, man.

Yah, you need to get that power where you can just take control of somebody else's mind.

Or see into the future or something so you can stop things from happening.

Well, mebbe if you hunt down those kinda guys, you can just read their mind and see how they do it and steal their powers.

Ah, but then you might be getting into a psychic showdown with 'em, and that's dangerous, 'cause they could do freaky stuff like turn off the safety constraints that separate your short-term and long-term memory in the fight, and overwrite your longterm memory with a bunch of crap when you overflow, turn your brain into a smooth sheet of glass and then reprogram it however they want.

Well, actually, you might be able to recover from that, at least a little, if you went around visiting people that knew you before you got your brain wiped, you could sorta reconstruct yourself from their memories and impressions and expectations of you, but it wouldn't be perfect, y'know.

Yah, that's some spooky shit, you need to get better at this psychic stuff A.S.A.P. man, before you bump into one of those guys and they make you think you're a chicken or something.

Are you sure there ain't none of them around right now?

Ah, when another mind reader is around, you hear their thoughts echoing the original thoughts of the mind they're reading a second later, psychic echoes, hey, that's a pretty cool detection system heh.

Plus they probably have all the mental upgrades, from going around and stealing stuff from other people all the time, so their minds probably seem a little too clean and bright and shiny and perfect and polished when you scan them, compared to regular shmucks.

But what if they're running silent, y'know, like a submarine, psychic stealth mode, mebbe they're smart enough to keep their psychic radar turned off until they can get in close and hit you with a psychic ambush or some shit?

And they might even keep their conscious mind all messy on purpose to avoid detection.

And mebbe they're tricking you by setting up some kinda psychic honeypot or something, keeping you distracted.

Something like polar bears, polar bears frollicking in the beautiful snow, no two snowflakes are exactly alike?

Hey, take it easy, everything's cool, man, just relax.

Yah, hey, if I really was a bad guy, I could've just taken away your free will and forced you to think I wasn't, instead of letting you decide to get all freaked out and shit like this on your own.

You think its fun for me, trying to talk to a guy who can't push his thoughts into my head?

Its so frickin' slow and messy man, yer like half-duplex.

Well, yah, mebbe I do like seeing you get freaked out a little, but only as much as buddies like ribbing on each other.

Would you feel better if I started thinking about my ass cheeks flapping during an especially tasty fart?

Alright, alright, I can't take this anymore, here, before we go any further, read the sense of humor part of my brain already.

You frickin' newb.

Ah, now that's better ahaha.