by A. M. Pierre
And now for the other touchy topic. “One more thing . . . I thought I was supposed to be helping Dice today.”
“You were.” Ezio’s voice held no rebuke, only a statement of fact.
“So, should I take this as a lack of confidence in me, or as an attempt to keep me from getting maimed?”
“Definitely the latter. Given the, uh, events of last night, I felt sending Gabriela in your place would help you remain uninjured.” Ezio’s expression was tentatively hopeful. “I hope I have not upset you.”
Connor thought for a second. “Naah, Z, ‘uninjured’ is good. Thanks.”
“She will come around.”
Connor’s expression wasn’t hopeful, tentatively or not. “Yeah, we’ll see.”
* * *
So many butterflies fluttered in Kaia’s stomach she felt certain one would fly out of her mouth if she tried to speak. Cold seeped into her spine from the metal exam table they had her sitting on. She suppressed a shudder, which, honestly, wasn’t completely from the cold.
She’d been sitting here for at least ten minutes trying not to let her imagination run wild about what they might extract (and how) in order to test her, all while Dice and Gabriela murmured in the corner and rapidly scribbled on their brightly colored clipboards. “Um, guys?”
“Right, sorry, of course.” Dice threw his arms wide like a circus ringleader. “And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for! The moment we get to see what your element is!” He clapped his hands together with glee. “Are you ready?”
“For the test?”
“Yep.”
She had to ask. She was terrified of the answer but even more scared of not knowing. “This test . . . will it hurt?”
Dice and Gabriela looked at each other and burst out laughing.
Kaia’s cheeks turned red. “I don’t think it’s very funny.” Her anger pushed away her shyness. “How am I supposed to know what kind of test you would use to determine what element a random person can theoretically mentally control?”
“I’m sorry, I really am.” Dice was still chuckling slightly. “You’re right, you couldn’t have known.”
“Okay,” Kaia said, slightly mollified. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing too traumatic. Mostly, it involves,” Dice leaned in, “talking.”
Kaia blinked. “Talking?”
Dice nodded seriously. “Yes. Perhaps even conversing. And if we get really wild and crazy, we might even try,” he surreptitiously looked both ways, “chatting.”
Kaia couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, so what do we talk about?”
Dice adjusted his clipboard and pen. “You don’t think you have abilities. I think you do. We talk until one of us is proved right.”
Kaia’s smile froze. “What happens if I’m right? What will you do with me?”
“We’ll have to kill you, of course.”
Kaia stared.
Dice’s jaw dropped. “What, you believed me? Sheesh, you’ve seen too many spy movies. Also, I think you should’ve been teased more as a child, perhaps even exposed to sarcasm on a regular basis. If you don’t have powers, you go home. That’s it. No need to be scared or suspicious. Not that I’m saying it’s wrong in general to be skeptical or suspicious of somewhat sinister things. I mean, with all the secret programs and agencies out there, you’d be an idiot not to be suspicious sometimes. Or most of the time, really.”
Gabriela rolled her eyes. “And here we go . . .”
“Did you know,” Dice continued, “that the United States government has been trying to engineer people with superpowers for years? Ever since World War II, when they wanted a new secret weapon to fight the Nazis. They actually came close a couple of times, but the successes were, shall we say, transitory.”
“You know that’s just some weird urban legend,” Gabriela said.
“No, that’s just what the people in charge want you to think. They watch everything everyone in their country does. It’s not like they’re the only country that does it—they’re just more blatant about it. Look at the name of their capital—Washington, D.C. Rearrange the letters and what do you get? Watchdogs Inn. The place where their watchdogs sleep. I rest my case.”
“Good. Can we let it keep resting until we finish Kaia’s test?” Gabriela sat beside Kaia and patted her hand consolingly. “Dice really likes conspiracies. Or plots. Or conspiracies about plots. Anything ridiculous and unprovable, really.”
“Whatever, Gabby.”
“You know only Connor gets to call me that, Dice.”
“Um, guys?” Kaia interrupted. “The test?”
“Right, right, sorry. I don’t know why Gabby keeps slowing us down.” Dice dodged as a pen went flying by his head. “She does need to work on her aim, doesn’t she? So, to begin, Kaia, what’s your birthday?”
“You took my UNID card. You already know that.”
Dice gave her a sly grin. “Ah, yes, we have your ‘official’ birthday, but we don’t have your real one. Or do we?” He pulled out a small calendar from his pocket with a dramatic flourish. “Ta-dah!”
Kaia’s real birthday was circled in red. “H-How could you have known that?” Her voice cracked. They said it was a secret. “I’ve never told anyone.”
“It’s pretty simple,” Dice said. “We know because we all were born on the same day.”
Kaia frowned. “But you’re like 12.”
“I’m 14, thank you very much, but, no, that’s not what I meant. Same day, different years—so next month, on our collective birthday, you’ll be 16, I’ll be 15, Connor 17, etc. Clear?”
Clear in that I know what you’re saying, but . . . Kaia rubbed her forehead. “Are you saying anyone born on that day has these ‘element powers’?”
Dice shrugged. “Honestly, we don’t know. I grant you, there may be others out there who share this trait but not the power, but every person we’ve found with this power shares this trait. You’re right in that this could be a sort of ‘every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square’ kind of thing, but taking the statistically unlikely fact that eight children who were informed by various authority figures they have the same alternate birthday were then discovered to share powers never encountered before and dismissing said fact as being evidence of a completely coincidental set of circumstances might appear to the outside observer as bordering on the imbecilic. At the very least, one has to concur it warrants further investigation.”
Kaia and Gabriela stared at him.
Dice coughed. “Or, you could say we don’t know why, but it’s pretty weird, huh?” He rubbed the back of his head and turned away. “Uh, I need a new pen.”
Gabriela whispered in Kaia’s ear. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but Dice’s a genius. He’s not a jerk about it or anything, and he tries to keep it reined in, but sometimes his mind runs away with his mouth.”
Dice sat back down, new pen in hand. “Sorry about that. Okay, next question: do you speak French?”
Kaia nodded, slowly. “Yes, but a lot of people speak French.”
“Very true, but it still seems more than coincidental. Every person here speaks English and French in addition to any language native to their homeland. It’s like someone knew we would end up—” He stopped short, his eyes wide.
“Like someone knew we would end up in France?” Kaia shrugged. “Don’t worry, I kinda already knew.”
Gabriela looked impressed. “Even with all the windows covered and everything? How?”
Kaia ducked her head down. “I . . . I remembered the furniture from my history book. It’s in the baroque style, which began in France and was really popular in the late 1600’s . . . I’ve just always liked history.”
Gabriela ducked her own head down to look Kaia in the eyes. “What are you acting
all ashamed for? That’s really cool! I can never remember stuff like that. I’m not bad at math, but remembering dates and places and people and things that happened and what old couches looked like—forget about it. Seriously, you should be proud of yourself—”
“And we should probably be moving on,” Dice said. “Right. French and English. We all speak them. Seems a little odd. Next question! Did you have an unhappy childhood?”
Kaia jerked back in surprise. “What does that have to do with anything?” It came out far louder than she had intended.
Gabriela gently rubbed Kaia’s back. “I think we can take that as a ‘yes.’”
Dice set his pen down. “We’re not trying to upset you, Kaia. It’s just another one of those ‘bizarre coincidences.’ Everyone here has had . . . bad things in their life. Seven sob stories, all different, but all stinking in their own distinctively rotten ways. I’m guessing yours would make eight.”
“What could that possibly have to do with whether or not I can move salad bowls with my mind?”
“Again, I don’t know. I always see the patterns—I can’t always explain them.” He looked down at his clipboard. “Okay, we covered bizarre birthdays, linguistic anomalies, and childhood trauma—now the fun part.” His eyes lit up. “Have you ever felt like someone was watching you—and they’re so close they’re practically breathing down your neck? You try to ignore it, but it’s about to drive you mad, so you look . . . and there’s nothing there.”
Kaia knew exactly what he meant. Every time a teacher assigned her a seat by a window, she had felt that way. She could’ve sworn someone was whispering, watching her, but it wasn’t something she could explain without sounding like a paranoid lunatic. She chose her words carefully. “What are you saying it is?”
Dice grinned. “It’s your element.”
Yeah, right. “You’re saying the elements are alive? Hydrogen and oxygen are watching us and whispering?”
“No, of course not, don’t be silly. I’m saying if your element is nearby, you can tell, and it gives you the jitters. With my element being copper, it wasn’t so bad, but the copper wiring in light switches could be a pain. I would’ve hated to have an element like oxygen. Not only is it everywhere, you’re breathing it in! I’m surprised Connor didn’t go insane growing up.”
Kaia turned to Gabriela. “What about you? What’s yours?”
“Carbon.” She shrugged. “I know it doesn’t sound as much fun as some of the others, but I can still do some pretty cool things, like, you know, change pencil lead into diamonds.”
Kaia gaped. “You can do what now?”
“Pencil lead’s graphite, a form of carbon. Diamond is, too. I change one into the other. No biggie, but it does pay the bills.” Gabriela looked around the room. “Well, technically, Ms. Smith pays the bills, but she does it using my diamonds.”
Kaia blinked away diamond-enhanced daydreams of office supply stores and tennis bracelets. “Wait, who’s Ms. Smith?”
“We’ll get to her soon, I promise,” Dice said. “So in what exact circumstances did you feel ‘The Elemental Heebie-Jeebies’?”
“You really need to make a better name for it,” Gabriela grumbled.
Dice ignored her. “Kaia?”
Kaia hesitated, like she was about to make a choice with no take-backs. “I, uh, I . . .”
Gabriela took Kaia’s hand in her own. “It’s okay. I know it’s scary, but we’ll take care of you. That’s what we do. Even if we fight or get on each other’s nerves sometimes, we’ve always got each other’s backs.” She paused. “It’s the only place in the world I’ve ever felt safe.”
Kaia considered that for a moment. Here goes nothing . . . “I’ve always felt uncomfortable near windows.” Dice’s forehead furrowed like she’d given a wrong answer, but this was one thing in her life she was sure of. She nodded for emphasis. “Yes. Windows.”
Dice held the frown for a second more, then his eyes lit up. “No, it couldn’t be. Oh, that would be so cool!” He stood up and started pacing back and forth. “But why would she be the first—no offense, Kaia, just talking to myself. Maybe she’s remembering wrong. No, we all remember. We all know.” He whirled to face them both. “Kaia, I think you’re ready to try on my ‘Incredibly Epic Soup-It-Up Helmet.”
“That is such a lame name, Dice.”
“Really don’t care, Gabby.” He dodged as she threw another pen at him. “I’m going to go get the helmet. Little Ms. G, bring two sets of body armor to Practice Room 1—make sure they have full face protection!” He grinned insanely. “This is gonna be so much fun!”
* * *
Yeah, fun.
Kaia looked over at Dice and Gabriela, who were peeking out of the miniature bunker in the corner of the room. She scowled slightly. Their “bit-too-big” body armor may have looked goofy, but they had nothing on her helmet. It looked like what a five-year-old would make if he wanted something “scientific.” First, take a bright orange football helmet. Second, glue dozens of blinking lights all over it in various patterns. Third, connect all of them with myriads of intersecting wires of different colors and gauges. Fourth and finally, add several random spinning things that looked like tops, fans, or satellite dishes to make it extra ridiculous.
Despite the absurdity of her headgear, Kaia was still incredibly jumpy. When the only other people with you were hiding behind armor and blast plating, one tended to feel less than 100% safe. She glanced down at the forty or fifty glass bottles lying on the ground around her.
“Kaia? You ready?” Dice asked.
As I’ll ever be. “Tell me again what I’m supposed to do.”
“Sure thing. Gabriela and I will cower in fear. I will then turn the helmet on. You should feel the Elemental Heebie-Jeebies, just amplified a hundredfold. It should actually feel better, less ‘jittery’ and more ‘sense-y.’ After that, I would like you to manipulate the bottles somehow. Either scoot them along the floor or pick them up or warp them—something showing you’re in control.”
In control, right. I’m never the one in control. She took a deep breath. “Turn it on.”
For a second, there was nothing. Just her standing there with a flashing, spinning monstrosity on her head. And then it started—almost imperceptibly at first, but ramping up in a few short seconds as her brain adjusted to the new input.
She could hear them. Each of the glass bottles in the room—she could hear them. It didn’t strike her as odd, either. It felt right, like something out-of-whack had finally snapped into alignment.
Each bottle produced a tone, a beautifully clear bell-like tone that echoed and harmonized wonderfully with the other notes in the room. She closed her eyes, and she could still tell what each sound meant. The lower tone coming from her left—a big rounded flask with thick walls. The higher pitched one with a warble in it—the small juice bottle with curved sides, lying on the floor next to her. She imagined one of the tones going up and down like the plastic slide whistle she had as a child. It changed exactly as she wanted it to, and she opened her eyes to see the bottle gliding up and down in front of her. Her eyes widened. “I’m doing it.”
“Yes, you are!” Dice shouted. “Now try something else!”
She twisted the notes, played with them—made them sound like the increase and fade of a car engine zooming by, dropped them by an octave or raised them the same, or shifted the pitch ever so slightly. The bottles danced around her—spun like tops, swirled above her head, or hovered in midair. She couldn’t keep the grin off her face. This had to be one of the most fun things she’d ever done.
“Sorry to break this up, Kaia, but there’s a safety limit on using the helmet. Five minutes total. You’ve only got one minute left.”
One minute? That’s it? She sighed. All right, but before this ends, I have something I want to try. She closed her eyes. The tinkling, crystalline music soun
ded in her ears, as if begging for one last trick. She held her hands up like she was conducting a symphony, then flung them out to silence the orchestra.
BOOM.
A million shards flew outward as the bottles exploded, creating infinitely greater numbers of shrapnel as the debris from each miniature explosion collided with the debris of the explosions around it. Little glimmering slivers shot through the air like tiny prismatic bullets, glinting with a million miniature rainbows before embedding themselves in every available surface from floor to ceiling.
Kaia cracked her eyes open. She half expected to be bleeding from dozens of wounds.
There wasn’t a mark on her.
Dice and Gabriela slowly emerged from their bunker with their mouths hanging open. Kaia’s stomach churned as she looked at the wreckage. “I’m so sorry, I honestly didn’t know that would happen.”
Dice took the blast shield off his head. His face split into a huge grin. “That. Was. AWESOME!”
“You should’ve seen her test, it was unbearably cool!”
“So you’ve told me. Repeatedly.” Connor was smiling, but he wasn’t as excited as Daisuke thought he should be. “You’ve seen some amazing things before. What’s got you so hyped up this time?”
“I’ll tell you once Ezio and Alizée get here.” Daisuke tapped his foot. “I told them 1 o’clock.”
“Yeah, and it’s 1:02. Cut them some slack.”
“I know they’ll be here soon, Dice,” Gabriela said. “We can’t go to lunch until you’ve finished your report, so they’re bound to be motivated.” She looked more than a little out of it.
Connor frowned. “Did you have your snack this morning? You know how you get if your blood sugar drops too low.”
Gabriela didn’t get a chance to reply before Ezio and Alizée walked in.
Finally, the gang’s all here.
“Sorry we are late, everyone,” Ezio said, “but I hear Daisuke has some news worth waiting for.”
Daisuke stood up, clipboard in hand. He’d been waiting for this moment all day. Well, all last hour, anyway. “Indeed I do, good sir. ’Tis a verily fine report I bear, with sights such as have ne’er been seen—”
