Daniel Spree sat in his hospital bed. He was in a lot of pain. It was, he was certain, because of the complete and utter incompetence of the hospital staff. They had no idea what was wrong with him and they didn't even have the nerve to tell him to his face, always scheduling more tests. A doctor walked in with his clipboard. 

This guy, the doctor thought, and sighed internally. There was nothing new on the chart, nothing even remotely useful that would explain the bursts of neurological activity when he was sleeping, the ones that seemed to cause nightmares so violent Daniel had to be tied down and muzzled before bed so he wouldn't bite off his own tongue, cluster headaches and migraines that caused nosebleeds. He put on a smile, and said something to Daniel, who wasn't listening now that the doctor had stopped speaking, choosing instead to take a deep dive into the man’s mind. 

Not much interesting in here, Daniel thought. An affair or two. An ethical wobble while treating a mass shooter. All in all the doctor's life was boring. He extracted himself. 

“-that's why we're hopeful this next test will-”

“Shut up, Stu Coleman.”

“I'm sorry did I upset you in some-”

This time Daniel didn't interrupt him. Not verbally, at least. Daniel sat up and swung his feet off the bed. 

“You are all useless,” he said casually. “I’m going to find me someone who can actually do some good.” He put his hand on Doctor Coleman’s shoulder. “I don't have to tell you that. You're already dead. Ha ha.”

The doctor stood there frozen until Daniel Spree had put his clothes on and left the room, then crumpled in a heap. He'd been brain-dead since he stopped talking. 

—- 

Daniel Spree had never been nice, or kind. When his telepathy manifested at a young age, he used it to blackmail his parents into giving him what he wanted. Eventually, when he gained the ability to transmit thoughts as well as receive them, he drove them both to suicide. That wasn't planned, that was just a bonus. He made sure they both signed the emancipation papers and left him the house. 

For the next ten years, until he was eighteen, he learned. Absorbed pure information from people. He had stopped growing stronger. Very well. He hadn't stopped learning and growing smarter, so he did just that. Listened to people's thoughts. Exactly one time he took a plane. 

A taxi cab to the hotel. One night of the insufferable noise of the city, the incessant nonsense of them all. The fucking. Daniel would never admit this, but he resented people sex. He resented people in general, hearing every thought around him, but intimacy was something that especially irked him. Because he couldn't have it. He wanted to feel whatever made those idiots so happy and their brains so mushy, but he was repulsed by the thoughts of anyone he considered attractive. He did not want sex as such as that he wanted to feel the surrounding emotions. But he couldn't imagine even kissing one of these humans. He tried to sleep. 

The next day, he bought a foot long sandwich. He wasn't hungry, he just wanted to be reading for a long time. On his phone, he had a small app open. Carefully positioning himself outside the stock market building, he simply listened. After two hours, he walked away three million richer. Nobody would be the wiser. He didn't tip the cab driver on the way back to the airport. 

—-

That was fourteen years ago. He had since pulled his trick four more times. The last one was fifty times his first haul. It had been necessary to set up in the old power plant. He'd hired a construction company to refurbish the old cooling towers into what he claimed was going to be a luxury hotel outside the city. In practice, it's where he was going to be putting his targets. He was a long term planner. The other half was funding research into his brain. Maybe he could do more than send thoughts, and he wanted to make sure. 

It was raining when he got a call from his lab. “Sir, there's been a breakthrough. We think you're going to want to see this.”

He hated that phrase, but he also really wanted to see the breakthrough and quite literally pick their brains for anything they might have left out. 

His coat was heavy with rain as the electronic door buzzed him in, but his excitement wasn't dampened in the slightest. The men he'd hired were the best of the best, the most morally bankrupt and easily bought and, to add stick to carrot, easily blackmailed into keeping their fat mouths shut. So calling him there was not something they did unless they had something substantial. 

Inside the lab the men stood around like excited chickens, and he scanned them one by one. Then, he asked one of them to show him the breakthrough. It was a lot like reading the script to a slow movie. By the time the man's mouth had caught up, Daniel had heard and read the relevant information from the man's brain.

Daniel Spree picked up the miniscule glass container with slender fingers and perfectly manicured nails. 

“The chip amplifies the outgoing signal. The microdrone is the delivery mechanism. Base of the skull. Undetectable.”

The scientist stammered and tried to look over his shoulder. 

“Yes but we, we haven't tested it on live subjects but we are hopeful-”

“It will work. I cross referenced with the others.”

The man - Daniel had never bothered to learn how name - frowned. “I don't understand, what o-”

He would never understand, of course, as Daniel shot him through the forehead, and then every one of the other scientists in quick succession, except the last one. He handed the man an injection pistol and the capsule. 

“Base of the skull please. If you don't mess this up, you live.”

With trembling hands, the last man standing did as he was told. As soon as he felt the fast jolt of pressure and pain, he felt his consciousness expanding. Making sure not to forget to tie up loose ends he shot the last man twice. 

He felt his reach increasing, and the noise with it. But he could also now feel an increase in the power of his grasp. No longer sending whispered thoughts. No. He found the closest mind, a man walking home in the rain. He saw the world through his eyes. Made him raise his hand. Froze him there for a second. This man's mind was putty in his hands. He moulded it this way and that until he was satisfied and knew that if he let him go now he would, upon coming home, violently murder his wife and two children. 

Perfect. 

He squeezed and the man dropped dead. He was ready to start his plan. 

Or he would have been. 

That's when he headaches started. They weakened him. Reduced him. His plan, his wonderful plan for domination (the state, first. These things required finesse) would have to be put on hold. When he started bleeding he knew he was dying. 

He was going to fix this. He'd kill every man, woman and child in this godforsaken country if it gave him the relief he sought, and he wasn't going to let a damned headache take that away from him. 

He was furious. To calm his nerves, he killed seventeen people on the way home. Five by suicide, eight murdered by a loved one, three in horrible accidents, and the last he strangled to death in an alleyway himself. He still let himself enjoy the little things.