My contemporaries will consider me a traitor for publishing my story. They believe that people fear what they don't understand, and will destroy what they can't control. I wholeheartedly agree.

So why go on the record with this story, fantastic as it may seem? Why set myself up, at best, for censure from my colleagues, and at worst, being torn to pieces by an angry mob? I do this because, eventually, our secret will come out. Eventually someone in authority will notice someone's illogical behavior, will notice a pattern to that behavior, and having discarded all the logical possible explanations, will consider the impossible ones. When that happens, a government bureaucrat will check the NSA's database on all stories and articles pertaining to this subject, and finally someone will unearth this story, which most everyone had regarded as fiction. And so, Mr. NSA agent, as you read this, you will once again understand the fundamental truth of the concept, "Hide in plain sight." And with the publication of my story in global news groups, I can truthfully say, "You can't say I didn't warn you."

Mind control. See? Already you say pish-tosh at such a ridiculous notion. It's the stuff of science fiction. It's the wish of adolescent minds who only desire complete control over friends, family, and ultimately, the opposite sex. So in the interest of understanding, I must ask you to suspend your sense of disbelief. It's not that far a leap, when you consider what you think you know about the workings of the human brain. For instance, everyone knows that humans only use 5% of their brain capacity. It's a fact. They did experiments. But, who are they? How did they do this experiment? Did they take pictures of someone's synapses lighting as he tried to solve a word problem? Did they ask a million people to try and move a pencil across a desk using only mind power?

Actually, given the government's obsession with this subject, it wouldn't be surprising if they already did all that. But even if they had, do you think the findings would be released to the general public? No, I'm afraid all we're left with is that 5% number. And I can tell you, authoritatively, that the figure is wrong. Because the method of measurement is wrong.

Instead of trying to measure the brain's ultimate capacity, imagine measuring its capacity to grow. Think of the brain as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it grows. You've seen this in action. The more you work crossword puzzles, the faster you get at solving them. The more often you tackle logic problems, the faster the answers come to you. The more you read, the smarter you grow. If, using your arm muscles, you can lift 100 pounds, and later can lift 200 pounds, you're twice as strong. The same can be said of the brain. If you can remember names twice as fast as before, then its twice as strong. For measurement purposes, most of humanity is rated as having 1X mental powers.

I'm rated at 20X. Whoops. There's that disbelief, raising its ugly head. Don't worry, it's to be expected. That's quite a leap I'm trying to get you to believe. From 1X, normal human power, to 20X, twenty times the average human. But like all measurements, this one is built on a relatively arbitrary scale. 20X represents an aggregate score of achievement in a number of mental functions: logic, memory, telekinesis, telepathy, automanipulation, and others. Thus, 20X is simply 20 times more powerful than the average human in a wide range of mental activities.

Still, it's one I'm fairly proud of, given my humble and amusing beginnings in the world of mental gymnastics. Like many 16-year-olds, I liked to read science fiction. And like many, I bought into the science part of it more easily than the fiction part. Enhanced mental capabilities were a staple in the stories of that age. Telekinesis (TK), the movement of objects from a distance, made an excellent fictional device. Unprovable, untraceable and incredibly useful. A good place to start if you're 16 and you have a great deal of free time on your hands.

My first attempts had all the romance of a scientist trying to discover something by throwing all kinds of chemicals together. I lay in bed for hours, trying to project movement pulses at the mobile hanging over my head. I reasoned that the paper shapes were light enough to move mentally, while still being attached so I could measure their eventual movement.

There! A clockwise pulse had moved that orange shape clockwise! Now to push it counter-clockwise! Mmmmf. Ugh. Mmmmf. Nothing. It continued to move clockwise. Wait. It slowed, then reversed its cycle. My shout of triumph died stillborn as a I noticed I'd forgotten to shut the window. Sure enough, closing the window stilled the breeze, bringing all my hopes and dreams to a grinding halt.

I continued to try for many months. After all, as a typical high school kid, it wasn't like my social calendar was busting at the seams. In the end, it was a relatively commonplace but still traumatic event that proved to be the turning point. Another fight with my parents, which usually ended with me stomping to my room and slamming the door shut behind me. Only this time, I forgot to slam the door. Adrenaline pumping, mind focused, I glared at the door, upset that it hadn't shut. Whhooomp! It slammed shut, shaking the frame and rattling the windows. I checked; all windows were shut, nothing could've pulled the door closed. The realization scared me perhaps more than the sound pissed off my parents. I'm sure that, during their lecture, they assumed that my mind was not focused on the perils of slamming the door again. They were right.

In a work of fiction, it'd be easy to say that my mental skills grew easily from that initial breakthrough. In fact, it was a long and frustrating process. I spent many hours trying to recreate my feat; even going so far as to pick a few fights with my parents, in the hopes of recreating that emotional stress. That path resulted only in a few weeks of being grounded. Eventually, though, I began to become aware of certain emotional states that made me feel more focused and alert than others. I knew that many emotions depended upon or resulted from the release or deprivation of certain chemicals in the body. I studied those processes, and learned meditation as a way to relax and control my mind. Five months after the initial breakthrough, I moved my mobile... without a single draft to help me. Ten days later, I moved a pencil on a desk.