Aunt Kate spoke. “Okay, settle down." She hit a button on the laptop, and the list of my shortcomings disappeared. “We welcome back Olivia today. And yes, we know she has a lot of catching up to do, and we will all help her."
She gave everyone an intense look, as if trying to burn these instructions into our brains. At Zoe’s mutinous look, I decided mind control was apparently not Aunt Kate’s significant ability. From what I remembered, mind control was an incredibly rare ability. In fact, Mom had told me she didn’t think any supernormal alive had that ability.
“Over the next few weeks, I will assign each of you some time with Olivia to help her understand what life is like in the family," Aunt Kate said.
Oh joy, time spent alone with Hugh, Zoe or Emma sounded awesome. It would probably be more fun getting all my toenails pulled out. On the flip side, hanging out with Kevin might be okay, and Lange didn’t seem so bad.
Uncle Dan stood up. “Olivia, I do a progress report every Monday so you can get an idea of what you need to focus on for the week.” He pulled up a screen on one of the large monitors so we could all see each other’s progress.
“Hey, that’s not my name.” I pointed at the screen where my name was listed as Olivia Brighthall, not Olivia Woodson.
Uncle Dan frowned in surprise. He looked at Aunt Kate, who said, “Olivia, supernormals take the name of the line of ability.”
“What does that mean?”
“You take the name of the parent who has abilities,” Hugh’s tone said ‘you idiot.’
I wondered why Mom had never told me. Seeing my name as Olivia Brighthall gave me a dislocated feeling, like I was looking at the life of a stranger.
Taking my silence as acceptance, Uncle Dan continued talking, listing each of our areas in need of improvement. He spent a lot of time on Emma, reminding her of her weak climbing skills. He told her to do two challenging climbs, one of Big Pink, the tallest building downtown, and one of her own choosing. She looked at her hands and nodded meekly, but I noticed one foot was pressed against the ground so hard her calf muscle bulged out.
Uncle Dan told Hugh to work on his swimming, which I thought was odd until I realized Hugh was learning to hold his breath underwater for long periods of time. He was up to five minutes, and Uncle Dan challenged him to go to six minutes by next month.
When Uncle Dan got to me he just said, “Olivia, we will spend the week building up your basic skills before I assign more focused training.” I was both relieved and a little deflated. I hoped for a little bit of praise.
The session concluded with Aunt Kate reminding us of the supernormal’s code: protect, serve, and survive.
Chapter 10
The rest of the week went much like Monday – thinking I was doing well at a task only to discover how far behind I really was.
By Friday I managed to run the marathon in an hour and half. I was congratulating myself when Kevin bounced up.
“Cool ability, Kevin," I said. His leaping ability combined with his exuberant personality made me think of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh and his tail-bouncing ways. He hadn’t had any problem telling me what his special ability was, but I’d followed Zoe’s suggestion and waited for my family to reveal their special abilities in their own time. So far, I knew Lange’s, Kevin’s, and Hugh’s. I was still a little bit shaken to discover Kevin and Hugh had the same ability as Mom. I closed my eyes for a moment, willing away my memories of her showing me how she could leap across the Willamette River. No bridges needed for my mother. My eyes prickled, but I managed to stop any tears from slipping down my face.
“Yeah, it comes in handy at times." He appeared modest but I caught the pride in his eyes.
I felt a flash of envy. When would my ability manifest?
“Uncle Dan wanted me to get you.” Kevin nodded his head in the direction of the classroom section. I saw the rest of my cousins were gathering in front of Uncle Dan, who rested his hand next to an iPad lying on the table.
“I think it’s laser tag time.” Kevin grinned.
I perked up. Since my return, no one had ventured into the laser tag maze or even mentioned playing in it. This should be fun; I was really good at laser tag. Now I could show my cousins some of my skills.
Kevin and I joined the rest of my cousins. Lange and Hugh were wrestling. Lange kept winning, using his ability – super reflexes – to wrap his arm around Hugh’s neck before Hugh could react. Zoe egged them on, laughing hysterically when Hugh managed to dance away, then leap across the room, landing near the laser tag maze opening.
Hugh leapt back, smirking at Lange, who bowed in acquiescence of the win.
“Settle down.” Uncle Dan gestured for us to sit down on the couches in front of him. He picked up the iPad and touched the screen a few times. “We’re going to end today’s training session with a few rounds of laser tag.” He waited for the enthusiastic cheers and high fives to die down before continuing. “As it’s Olivia’s first time, we’ll take it easy. No abilities for the first two rounds.”
I hunched my shoulders, imagining what everyone was thinking – they were prohibited from using their abilities because I didn’t have mine and was too weak to compensate. I didn’t look at my cousins; I couldn’t bear the pity I was sure was in their eyes.
Kevin leaned into my side, forcing me to look at him. “It’s okay. You’ll get your ability soon.” He grinned. “And then all gloves are off. No more Mr. Nice Guy.” He waggled his eyebrows and I couldn’t help a snorting laugh. He was such a dork. The laugh lifted my heavy heart some.
Uncle Dan was still talking. I tuned back in. “The rounds will last ten minutes each. We’ll play as individuals first to get warmed up, and then we’ll form two teams.”
Emma raised her hand. She said primly, “Who will be on which teams?”
“The break out will be as follows – Lange, Zoe, and Olivia on one team; Emma, Hugh, and Kevin on the other team.” Uncle Dan favored me with rare smile. “It’s nice to have even-numbered teams now.”
“Sort of even,” Zoe muttered.
I frowned down at my hands in my lap, then gave Zoe a sideways glare, which she met with a sardonic smile and a shrug. I faced Uncle Dan, determined to show them I could play a fierce game of laser tag, even without a stupid special ability.
“All right, suit up and let’s get started.” Uncle Dan followed us over to the vests and laser tag guns hanging along the wall to the maze.
I pulled a vest off its hook and observed the lit display on the front. It flashed red a couple of times before showing my name. I glanced up to see Uncle Dan working the iPad again; he watched while Hugh put on his vest. Uncle Dan looked back at the iPad and touched the screen. I saw Hugh’s name displayed on the front of his vest. I knew without asking that Uncle Dan would be monitoring and measuring our performance in the maze. The back of my neck tightened with anxiety; it would have been nice to play a game without being evaluated.
I shrugged into my vest, tightening the straps on the side before unclipping the laser gun. I turned it over in my hands, remembering Mom telling me we never used guns. “Hey, why do we train with every other kind of weapon except guns?” I lifted the laser gun and sighted along it. “Wouldn’t guns make stopping the bad guys easier?” I lowered the weapon and looked at Lange, who was standing next to me.
He settled his vest into place. “Guns make it easier for normals to see us. We can usually move around unnoticed, even while carrying a sword or axe, but normals are hardwired to react to guns. For that reason, we can’t stay unnoticed when holding a gun.”
Zoe chimed in. “Also, it’s easier to hurt someone by accident when shooting a gun.”
“And, not to forget, guns don’t hurt us because our skin can become armor,” Emma said.
I knew that from the bank robbery – I still remembered the feel of my skin hardening just before the bullet hit my hand. Obviously an involuntary reaction shared by all supernormals. “Even the bad supernormals,” I commented, realizing that for the fi
rst time.
“Yep. So it’s usually pointless to take a gun to fight a supernormal. For some reason, we can be cut but not shot. Same with many of the creatures we fight.” Lange grinned. “If you want to sit for a lecture sometime, if you’re tired or something, ask Aunt Kate about it.”
I could imagine my analytical aunt had some thoughts on the matter. I could just see the wrinkle between her eyebrows that appeared when she explained a difficult concept. I felt a surge of affection for her and her many thoughts. My own thoughts came back to part of Lange’s statement. “Creatures?”
“Yeah, what did you think we do with our training? Look for bank robberies to stop?” Zoe looked very competent holding her laser gun.
“Okay, everyone, stop chatting and let’s get going.” Uncle Dan stood near the door to the laser tag maze.
While we had been talking, he had switched on the maze. Lights flashed and music pumped out the doorway. My body reacted to my anticipation by turning up my senses. The world became brighter, sharper, more present.
We lined up in front of the doorway. I held my laser gun with both hands and tried to see into the room.
“Remember, no teams yet, and no special abilities, just your regular ones,” Uncle Dan reminded us. I got it – we could use our supernormal enhanced senses; strength, speed, sight, etc., but not unique abilities. It was a safe bet Uncle Dan would be monitoring us, not only for performance but also to be certain his rules weren’t broken. Not that it was a problem for me, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to find out what the punishment was if one of us broke the rules.
I bounced up and down on my toes, shifting my grip on the laser gun, impatient to play. Uncle Dan stepped out of the way of the entrance. Lange was the first to enter. I heard a mechanical voice stating his vest was activated. As Lange darted out of sight, Kevin stepped through the doorway.
Zoe went next, gone as soon as her vest activated. When I marched through the entrance, I saw no trace of her or the guys. My vest flashed green, and I ran into the maze, scanning for the most strategic spot, determined to rack up the most points. Behind me, I heard Hugh’s vest being activated.
The darkness in the maze was frequently punctuated with bursts of multicolored lights. My supernormal sight overcompensated, first for the darkness, and then for the blinding lights. I stumbled into a wall and hunkered down behind it, shaking my head, disoriented by the noises. It was standard practice for a laser tag maze to be dimly lit with loud music playing, but this was extreme. In a normal maze, my supernormal sight and hearing were one of my main advantages, allowing me to pick out sounds of potential attackers under the noise, but in this maze I was overwhelmed by sensory overload. I took a shuddering breath and ordered myself to focus. Obviously the point of overpowering our sensory inputs was to help us deal with these types of situations. So I would deal.
I slid up from my crouched position, keeping my back to the wall. It wasn’t the best spot, not very defensible. In fact, now that I was getting accustomed to the light and sounds, I realized one of the zinging noises I could hear was me getting tagged repeatedly buy an unseen cousin. Crap. I tightened my grip on my laser gun and scrambled around the wall, only to stagger right in front of Kevin, who wasted no time in tagging me, with a cheerful grin.
“Ahh!” I yelled and managed to tag him back a few times as my vest shut off and back on in response to his hits. He laughed and ran off before I could get more points. I gasped as he ran straight at a wall and then up it to leap off and over to another section. Totally against normal laser tag rules, but obviously not a problem here. I felt a surge of excitement and grinned. I’d always chafed at the rules against running and leaping in laser tag – looked like I could let go for once.
I scanned what I could see of the maze and felt a surge of excitement when I saw a perfect spot to stage my attack. I took few running steps, swinging my laser gun around in response to a hit from behind me. It was Zoe. I counted to three in my head, and my vest reactivated. I aimed and tagged her.
“Dammit!” Zoe cursed as she ran off. I kept going, heading for the large wall near the middle of the maze and hoping my plan would work. I saw Kevin coming back for more and dove to the ground, rolling so quickly that I was out of his sights before he could hit me.
Along the way, I took hits from Lange, Zoe, and Hugh. Hugh executed an awesome backflip off a wall; I tried to tag him, but his arc was too quick. When he landed, he tagged me before dashing away. I was too impressed by his moves to be annoyed.
I darted towards my goal, hearing my vest reactivate as I ran. I scanned my path, looking for the best way to climb the wall without getting hit too many times. When I saw the knee-high wall, I knew what to do. Taking a running leap, I jumped onto the wall and used it to propel me to the top of my destination wall, landing in a crouch. I felt a flash of triumph. I’d been right; this wall was thick, with a narrow indentation along the top. It was a tight fit, but I managed to squeeze my body into the trough. I could lay flat on my back and still maneuver enough to raise my laser gun to tag my cousins.
For a few minutes, it was almost too easy. I was able to rack up hundreds of points before anyone figured out where I was attacking from. I watched as Lange ran around the perimeter of the maze, probably trying to triangulate my position. Kevin and Hugh actually bumped into each other while both were looking up in an attempt to locate the source of the attacks.
From my vantage point, I realized Emma wasn’t all that great at the game. She was terrible at hiding and at sneak attacks, something Zoe excelled at. Without planning to, Zoe and I began to tag Emma in tandem. Emma jerked around, trying to see who kept hitting her, and she grew more and more angry. I felt sorry for her, but I also wondered why she didn’t try to find a better spot to hide. Finally, she crouched down so we couldn’t hit her.
I entertained myself by tagging Lange as he crawled over a barrier. Then I spent a few seconds flash-tagging the trophy column in the middle of the maze. It was blinking on and off rapidly, indicating it was possible to hit it several times in succession and get more points.
I gasped when someone tagged me, my vest going dark for a few seconds before lighting up. I flattened into my trough and looked around wildly for my attacker. Damn. It was Hugh. He’d figured out where I was, probably while I was distracted by getting points off the middle column. He’d climbed up one of the walls and was aiming at me. When he saw me see him, he gave me thumbs up. I stuck my tongue out at him before lifting myself out of my hiding place to drop down off the wall. I landed and started to run for cover when Emma saw me.
“It was you!” She grimaced. In the flash of light, I could see she was flushed and flustered. “Not fair, you cheated.”
“Hey, if there was a problem with how I was playing, I bet Uncle Dan would have stopped the game.”
And then the game ended, the lights going up and the music stopping. My stomach clenched. Had I broken the rules? Uncle Dan spoke over the loudspeaker. “Nice job, everyone. Olivia.” When he said my name, I took a deep breath, preparing to defend my actions. “Very well done. You received the most points.” Groans from my cousins echoed around the maze.
I felt a smile stretch across my face. I’d won the first round. I couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at Emma, who just glared at me before stalking off.
Zoe came over and punched my arm, knocking me back a step. “Sneaky moves there, kiddo.”
I started to retort, but she held up her fist in fist-bump position. I returned the bump. “Thanks.” I decided not to mention Emma’s reaction. I holstered my laser gun and followed Zoe out of the maze, where I was favored with another smile from Uncle Dan. It was banner day for me.
“Ok, next round, same rules. No special abilities, individual play.”
We lined up at the door again and repeated the entry process. I briefly considered trying my ploy from the first game, but I knew everyone was wise to me. I needed another plan.
While I tried to think of one, I notice
d the noise and light level wasn’t bothering me as much this time. I’d grown accustomed to the new environment quickly. The realization, on the heels of winning the previous game, gave me a surge of confidence. Clutching my laser gun firmly, I grinned and ran into the fray. I dimly knew I got hit a few times, but I scored several tags of my own. I kept glancing at my previous perch, but no one seemed to have taken it. My cousins were all savvy enough to know it was an obvious spot right now.
I crouched behind a wall that had a window-like opening in it. I tagged Lange as he leapt over my hiding spot. He yelled as he landed, aiming his laser gun in my direction. I dashed away before he could retaliate. My heart beat hard in my chest and adrenaline made my body quick and strong. I was having a great time.
A wall loomed in front of me. Remembering Hugh’s backflip from the previous game, I couldn’t resist trying it for myself. As I flipped through the air, I twisted and turned to avoid getting tagged. I landed solidly on both feet, my body buoyed with exhilaration.
Hugh got me while I was tagging Zoe then I caught Kevin as I rounded a corner. I tagged Emma from the side while she crept along a wall, totally exposed. Kevin jumped several feet in the air to avoid the hit I aimed at him. On his way down, he tagged me and Emma in quick succession.
I tagged Emma just as our respective vests reactivated, and she glared at me before darting away. I heard her yell in anger when someone else nailed her. I shook my head. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t better.
I dashed into a small alcove and almost fell over Kevin. I was faster than him, though, and tagged him first. He just shook his head. I held up a hand for a quick truce while I took a deep breath.
“Having fun?” Kevin held his gun with the barrel pointed up.
I mirrored his pose. “Absolutely!” I hesitated but had to know. “Why does Emma suck at this?”
Kevin’s mouth quirked. “She’s too used to using her time-stopping ability in the game. Anytime Uncle Dan makes us play without our unique ability, she totally blows.” He aimed his laser gun at me. “Truce is over.”
The Supernormal Legacy_Book 1_Dormant Page 8
