See These Bones

by Chris Tullbane

  A couple of the other first-years were nodding their heads, Tessa and pale Erin Pearson among them.

  “So you’d just sit on your ass then?” That was Caleb, tearing his eyes away from Isabel’s own rear end for just long enough to join the debate.

  “No. I’d get Jitterbugs like you to canvas the city while Earthshakers and Druids used their powers to sense for locations the device might have been stashed. And I’d have Sirens like Prince help evacuate public centers to minimize casualties in the event that we couldn’t find the bomb.”

  “That’s… not a bad plan,” admitted Paladin.

  “It’s also irrelevant,” said Ms. Ferra. “This is Ethics of Power 102, not Disaster Preparedness.” She focused back in on me. “Let’s modify the hypothetical. What if you knew for a fact that this person had information on the bomb?”

  “How would I know that?”

  Winter started to babble something about hypotheticals again, but Isabel cut her off with one upraised hand. “Let’s say that the person in question is Major Disaster himself.”

  “So he went through the trouble of planting this bomb, and then somehow managed to get caught?” I frowned. “Sounds to me like he’s already been lobotomized, but whatever. Fuck him. He deserves what he gets.”

  She narrowed her eyes but let the expletive go by unchallenged. “So your concerns about an individual’s rights and freedoms are contingent upon that individual’s innocence?”

  “He’s the one who placed the bomb,” I reminded her. “That makes his brain fair game.”

  “Even a Black Hat has rights, Damian.”

  I turned to Paladin. “Does he? Nikolai’s been literally beating it into our heads that we need to be prepared to kill should it come to that.”

  “Yeah, in combat. This is different. You can’t lobotomize someone in cold blood.”

  “If you say so.” I turned back to Isabel. “Are we done?”

  “Not quite. Let’s add one final wrinkle. After setting the bomb, Major Disaster was killed in action. However, you know with complete certainty that he was able to telepathically embed the information about that bomb in a single person’s head. You also know that you have a fifty percent chance of retrieving that information from the individual’s brain without causing any damage. However,” and here she paused to smile yet again, “that person is not some random individual, but instead a friend.”

  “That might be pushing the hypothetical too far, Ms. Ferra,” complained the Viking. “Damian doesn’t have friends.”

  “No?” Isabel’s eyes landed on Kayleigh, seated next to me. “For the sake of argument, let’s say the individual in question was Ms. Watai. Would you risk destroying her mind?”

  “No.” I wasn’t sure what she was driving at. I just knew her end goal was to make me look bad in front of the class.

  Her smile widened triumphantly. “You’d put the needs of one over the needs of a hundred?”

  “Depends on the one, I guess.” Kayleigh. Dead Alicia. Little Nyah back at Mama Rawlins’. Even Silt. Can’t say the list of names was all that long, but I guess it didn’t have to be. “But yeah.”

  “How about a thousand innocent people? Ten thousand? Exactly how far are you willing to go?”

  “As far as I need to,” I growled back, my words seeming to echo in a classroom that had suddenly gone quiet.

  “One person’s life over the rest of the nation? Over the world?”

  “Fuck the world,” I told her. “What’s it ever done for me?”

  •—•—•

  See what I mean about Ethics?

  Total bullshit, every fucking time.

  CHAPTER 53

  Ethics wasn’t the only class where my lack of focus was noticed, and Isabel Ferra wasn’t the only teacher I got into it with over the ensuing weeks. Even got reamed by Amos once, which was an experience. When you live forever, I guess you learn all there is to know about verbally tearing someone a new asshole.

  It’s not like I didn’t realize pissing off my professors was stupid. It’s not like I was going out of my way to do so either… with the possible exceptions of Isabel and Emery-fucking-Goldstein. Mostly, I was just stuck in a loop; fixating on Nikolai’s ultimatum and my own lack of progress in that area.

  I was eighteen and scared. Can you blame me?

  If you’re the sort of asshole who answered yes to that, you’re going to have some serious problems with my actions down the line. Assuming you don’t already know what I did. Assuming you’re not here, a faint fragment of your living self, because of what I did.

  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. I was almost halfway through the month Nikolai had given me, two days before my next sparring match, with another beating staring me in the face, when it finally happened. Call it a breakthrough. Call it an epiphany. Call it pure dumb luck. Just whatever you do, please don’t give that fucker Emery any credit.

  Even if it did happen in his class.

  •—•—•

  Perception was my least favorite class as a first-year. Ethics had twenty-one other first years to distract Ms. Ferra. Projection had people hurling fire and lightning and shit. Sometimes literal shit when Silt got pissed. Control… well, at least the new building still had a giant window I could people-watch through. But Perception? All it had was three of us kneeling in a circle in a dark room in complete silence, while Emery sat at his desk, doing fuck-all.

  Or so I thought. Vibe told me later that Emery gave her assignments every class; to identify the emotions he was pushing her way—increasingly complicated shit like regret, guilt, and stress—and to separate them from whatever emotions Muse was putting out at the same time. Freddy had his own assignments, although I never learned what they were. Truth is, I wasn’t entirely sure why the Switch had been placed in both P’s, given that his powers seemed based entirely on Projection instead of Perception.

  Anyway, those two had assignments and exercises to complete in Perception, but all I had was time to kill. Normally, that would’ve sucked. Most of the time, it did. But with Nikolai’s ultimatum hanging over my head, it meant Perception was the one class other than Control where I was not only free to meditate and beat my head against the wall of my own power… I was actually encouraged to do just that.

  And I did. Eyes clothed, breathing steady, mind scratching away at the layers of emotion and hard-earned shell that I’d peeled away so easily in Sally’s presence. None of it did any good. Trying to reach that emptiness meant thinking about the emptiness and thinking about the emptiness made me think about the reason it was there to begin with and that… well, that was just another path to anger and starting the whole fucking cycle all over again.

  We still had a half-hour left to go, but my knees were killing me, and my focus was shot. With a sigh, I shifted position and opened my eyes. I wasn’t admitting defeat… not really. I was just acknowledging reality; victory wasn’t happening any time soon.

  Kayleigh was across the small circle from me. I watched her breathe—eyes twitching back and forth under closed eyelids like she was dreaming—and wondered for the first time exactly what her empathy was showing her. I knew she could track emotion to its source, but were other people one-sized blobs of sensation or could she perceive more than just distance? Could she see shape or color? And was I an empty hole in the middle of that space or did I not register at all? Was I just background noise, like a tree or a stone?

  There’s a saying you may have heard. God knows Emery said it more than a few times during class, because he was exactly the sort of asshole that liked to hear himself talk and didn’t mind if we’d heard it all before.

  Perception is reality.

  Pretty sure the saying’s got nothing to do with Crows, given that it predates the Break by at least a few decades. But the thing is, as I was thinking about Vibe and how her power didn’t see me, about the possibility that I was nothing to her senses but void and vacuum, I felt the empty space inside of me respond. Instead of di
gging for that emptiness, I sat outside myself, and the emptiness rose up of its own accord, filling me until nothing, not even the pain in my knees, remained.

  It lasted a handful of seconds before the realization of what I’d done hit me, and with it, an elation that promptly swept the emptiness away. For a moment I just knelt there, part of me already questioning what I’d done and felt.

  Then I did it again.

  And again.

  And again and again all the way until class was over.

  For the first time in weeks, I had hope.

  My breakthrough happened in Perception, sure enough, but that doesn’t mean Emery Goldstein deserves any credit. If you want to credit anyone, credit Vibe.

  Credit the power that can’t even see me.

  CHAPTER 54

  After eight months, the pits were familiar territory. I could even tell them apart by the patterns of stains across their cement floors. This was pit number two, where Silt had splattered Santiago’s nose right after kicking the druid in the balls, and where Prince had vomited up his breakfast for at least the sixth time.

  Eight months of bloody history layered on top of all the classes that had come before us… it should have bothered me, I guess. Instead, it felt like home.

  The man across the pit from me though? He fucking bothered me.

  Alan Jackson was a nightmare even in human shape. Shifted into his animal form, he was far worse; arms dangling to the ground, overly long, multi-jointed fingers ending in claws that could pierce even the Viking’s skin. Instead of a nose and mouth, Alan had a wide snout filled with sharp teeth, and the shaved pate of his skull had been replaced by a thick coat of black fur.

  Only the eyes stayed the same… but then, there’d always been something inhuman about Alan Jackson’s golden eyes.

  “Just roll over and play dead, Crow.” The words were distorted, forced out through a mouth more suited for carnage than communication. “Sooner this is over, the sooner you can leave this class to those who belong.”

  Maybe he was trying to be nice, in his own way. Maybe he was taking pity on the poor little useless Crow.

  But you already know how I feel about pity.

  I bared my teeth at the monster. “It’s time someone taught you to sit up and beg.”

  I stepped outside of myself and waited for the emptiness to come.

  Nothing happened.

  Alan Jackson was already in motion.

  “Fuck.”

  •—•—•

  I had plenty of time in the med ward to think about what had gone wrong.

  First, I’d pissed off Alan Jackson.

  Second, I’d failed to call on my power when it mattered. Maybe it was the difference between combat and a quiet classroom. Maybe it was a question of adrenaline or the irritation and fear I’d been dealing with.

  Whatever the reason, I was that much closer to getting kicked out of Combat. I only had one more sparring session before Nikolai’s deadline was up.

  At least it wouldn’t be against Alan.

  My healing had finished a while earlier, but when I went to push myself up and off the table, Gladys was there with a crooked finger in my face. “You’re not going anywhere, young man, until we can be certain the internal bleeding has stopped.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “As long as it takes. Now lie your bony ass back down.”

  There was no arguing with Gladys when she used that tone of voice.

  “I’m not sure pissing off Alan Jackson was the best decision, tactically speaking,” said the med ward’s other patient, flat on his back on the far gurney.

  “Yeah, well.” I couldn’t shrug, because they’d taped one arm across my chest, but I rolled my eyes at Paladin. “That was just phase one of my plan.”

  “When is phase two?”

  “I’m still working on it. But it sure as hell won’t involve Alan—” I scowled. “And when is he going to pick a codename anyway? I’m getting damn tired of saying Alan-fucking-Jackson all the time.”

  “I hear he wants to be called The Manimal.”

  “Seriously? That’s—”

  “Almost as bad as Baron Boner? Yeah.”

  I scowled again, but Matthew wasn’t looking my way, his eyes focused on the ceiling as the other Healer rebuilt the bones in his leg.

  “What happened to you?” Almost nine months in, and I was no longer convinced Paladin was my arch-nemesis, but part of me was still glad to see he’d gotten his overly pretty ass handed to him.

  “Orca happened. I made a mistake and she capitalized.” He shook his blonde head, voice tight with pain and frustration. “It won’t happen again.”

  “You sure about that? That’s three in a row.”

  “Laugh it up while you can, Skeletor,” he told me. “You’re fighting her next.”

  That killed my amusement. One fight left to prove I belonged in Combat, and it was going to be against Nadia, almost as deadly as Alan and twice as fast.

  I needed to figure out how to use my power when it actually mattered.

  I needed a miracle.

  Most of all, I needed help.

  CHAPTER 55

  “You want me to do what?” Silt folded her arms across her sizable chest and frowned.

  “I told you already. I want you to spar with me.” I swung my arms back and forth to get the blood moving. “I know how to fight and I know how to summon my power, but I can’t seem to put the two together. If I’m going to beat Nadia…”

  “You’re not going to beat Orca, Boneboy. Not now, not ever.”

  I swallowed my protest, knowing she was right. “I need to at least not look totally pathetic against her… and that means using my power in a fight.”

  “And me knocking you around is going to help with that?”

  “If it doesn’t, I’m kind of fucked.”

  Sofia shook her head. “If we take our powers out of the equation, you’re a better fighter than I am. And if you go full-Walker on me, what the fuck am I supposed to do? These legs aren’t made for sprinting.”

  “That’s why we’re out here, and not in the Pits.” I’d brought Silt to the clearing behind Bard’s office, the same place where Shane’s memorial service had been held, and where Caleb had smacked me down with a lucky shot. “I want you to use your powers.”

  “I’m still not following. I can just have the earth swallow you up to your knees, then go get a tree branch and hit you in the face until you stop moving. What exactly would that accomplish?”

  “It would piss off Gladys, if nothing else, but that’s not what I was thinking of either. Did you ever see the vid where Evan Earthquake fought King Rex?”

  It took a moment. For all Silt’s mastery of pre-Break pop culture, she was far less knowledgeable when it came to Cape vids, but eventually I saw the light dawn in her eyes.

  “Do you think you could manage a smaller version of that?” I asked.

  “That’s… a bit advanced for a first-year.”

  “It’s that or I ask Jeremiah to help instead.”

  “Wouldn’t help,” she muttered. “In his flesh form, you’d kick his ass. In his stone form, he might just kill you.”

  That pretty much mirrored my thoughts, which is why I’d sought her out in the first place. “I know, but I don’t have any other options. I don’t want to push you outside your comfort—”

  A heavy blow blasted me from behind, picking me up off my feet and tossing me a full five feet past the squat Earthshaker. I spread my arms in front of me as I fell to lessen the impact, and tucked into a roll. When I’d made it back to my feet, I found my attacker standing next to Sofia; a featureless simulacrum of mud and dirt with four roughly hewn limbs.

  “It’s okay,” said Silt, her grin wide and wild. “I think I’ve got it figured out.”

  •—•—•

  Mama Rawlins once described karma as someone doing the shit to you that you did to someone else. Not sure if that’s the official definition. Not
sure I even believe in karma, but training with Silt sure felt like some kind of payback for how I’d trained Stonewall.

  Only difference was, when Jeremiah and I were training, we’d both gotten tired. We’d both gotten bruised and battered in the process. Silt’s golem didn’t have that problem. It didn’t tire, it didn’t ache, and it sure as fuck didn’t stop.

  “I think you almost had something that last time.”

  I was bent over with my forearms resting on my thighs, sucking wind, and wondering how I was going to explain to Gladys my latest round of injuries, but I still managed to shoot the Earthshaker a surprised look. “How could you tell?”

  “You were moving differently. Less like someone who wanted to puke their balls out.” She spat to the side, and yawned. “Is this really helping?”

  “I think so,” I wheezed. “I’m getting the hang of calling my power in mid-fight. It’s just holding onto it that’s difficult.”

  “You didn’t have that trouble when you fought Paladin.”

  “I was mostly unconscious by the time my power kicked in. There wasn’t much in the way of thought or emotion left.” I swallowed and forced myself upright. “That’s not an approach I want to rely on.”

  “Makes sense. Can we hurry this up a bit though?”

  “Why? You have plans tonight?”

  “I have a date.”

  “Seriously? Am I the only one at this school who doesn’t have a love life?”

  “Probably. It’s not like you talk to anyone but me and Vibe and, on very rare occasions, Evie.”

  “That last part is Wormhole’s decision, not mine. She still thinks I’m going to eat her, I think.”

  “She’ll come around. Maybe.” Silt frowned. “Speaking of Vibe… where is she?”

  “No clue. I haven’t seen much of her recently.”

  Light dawned in Sofia’s broad brown face. “Since the Ethics class where you and Isabel almost threw down?”

  I frowned and reviewed the past week. “I guess so. Why?”