by Hayes Farley
She wanted to sit next to you!! She likes you! She wants your WANG! Lololol. It buzzed again. SMOKIN THE DONKEY!! Alex laughed and tucked his phone under his leg.
“What’s so funny?” Eva said.
“Nothing…just my dad texting me.”
“What’d he say?”
“Oh, just how he put out the garbage this morning wearing only his boxers. Our neighbor passed by and beeped at him. We always joke that she likes him.”
Eva grinned. “So is that gonna be you one day? Walking around in public, not caring what you look like?”
“Maybe. Although, I’m thinking by that age I’ll have ditched my boxers for tighty whities. That’s a good look.”
“Sexy,” Eva said.
Alex felt his phone vibrate again. He waited until Eva turned around. It was another text from Patrick:
Well played, son. I’m very proud of you. –Dad. Alex closed his eyes and tried not to laugh. He’d have to thank Patrick later for giving him an opening.
“So I told my parents last night.”
The three boys looked at Eva.
“You mean, about this place?” Nate said.
Eva nodded.
“Like, all about this place?” Patrick said.
She nodded again.
“But you can’t. We signed that paper at registration,” Patrick said.
“Oh, please. That was just saying we promised not to go off telling the news or something like that.”
“Yeah but…our course info…there were red letters that said we’re not supposed to tell our parents,” Alex said.
“No, it said they ‘highly recommend’ we don’t tell them. There’s no can’t.”
“Same thing,” Patrick said.
“No it’s not. Besides, it’s not like I told just anybody. They’re my parents. I’m not even going to tell my sister.”
“But your parents might,” Nate said.
“No. Definitely not. Besides, I made them promise. If anybody ever tells my sister, it will be me. What? Don’t look at me like that. I had to tell somebody. This place is incredible. They had to know.”
“They didn’t have to know anything,” Patrick said.
“Of course they did! We’re talking about our parents. The people who brought us into this world. The people who have sacrificed so much of their lives for us. My mom’s like my best friend. We talk about everything. It doesn’t even register in my brain how I could not tell them.”
“We obviously have very different brains,” Patrick said.
“So what did you tell your parents?”
“I didn’t tell them anything. I haven’t spoken to them since I got to campus.”
“What?”
“I sent them a text,” Patrick said. He turned on his phone and held it so Eva could see.
“I’m having lots of fun…campus is pretty,” Eva said, reading his phone. “That’s it?”
Patrick nodded and tucked his phone away.
“But moms want to know more than that. You can’t just send them a text.”
Patrick shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll call them sometime.”
“That’s terrible,” Eva’s voice started to rise. “What about you two? Did you at least call?”
Nate and Alex nodded.
“And did you tell them anything?”
“Not really,” Alex said. “I just told my dad about the room, meeting you guys, the dinner…stuff like that.”
“Same here,” Nate said.
Eva just sat there shaking her head. “Guys are the worst.”
“So…what did they say?” Alex said.
“My parents? Well, after promising me for like five minutes that they’d keep everything a secret, they basically just had a bunch of questions. I answered as much as I could. I told them I’d know a lot more after today. They were excited, though. My mom said she always knew something was special about me, but that’s something all moms tell their kids, so who knows if it’s true or not. My dad tried to look it up on Google Maps, but couldn’t find any trace of the campus. He could see the brick one—the one we visited this summer—but nothing but green on this side of the mountain.”
“That explains the green roofs,” Alex said.
“And I told him that,” Eva said, “but he said there wasn’t any sign of any kind of development over here, even after zooming all the way in. He said it almost looked like that part of the map was an older image of the mountain.”
The squirrel on the left wall caught Alex’s attention. He watched it grab an acorn with its mouth. It moved off the grass and into the dark soil near the base of the tree and sniffed the ground, whiskers twitching. When it found the right spot it hunched forward and dug a hole and lowered its head and dropped its prize. Alex watched its deft little hands perform the task for which they were perfectly designed. The squirrel gave a few final tamps and then went off in search of another acorn.
CLICK
The wall monitors went dark.
“Good morning, class!”
****
The students turned at the sound of the nasally voice to find their professor plodding down the aisle. He had long legs and long arms and a long neck and his head bobbed along with each step like a giraffe moseying to a tree. He had a pot belly the size of a basketball but no butt to speak of, so his unhemmed pants rode low and bunched around his ankles. The only thing protecting his modesty was a four-sizes-too-big braided leather belt that he cinched as tightly as possible, stuffing the remainder back into his trousers with no regard for his belt loops.
He hefted his briefcase onto the desk and it immediately flopped on its side. He paid this no mind and instead shoved his hands down the back of his pants and tucked in the shirttails of his button-down and then turned to the class. His thin lips formed a hard line and his eyebrows furrowed as he squinted at the faces of his new students.
“This is a helluva small class.” His voice pierced through the auditorium. “Would you believe that this room used to be full back in the day? There were a couple years where we had to split the freshmen into two Intro classes. But I’m not complaining—it’s a good thing. It means that shitty drug got off the marketplace.”
He sat hunched on the desk with his gut spilling over his belt. He grabbed his briefcase and placed it on his lap and pulled out his tablet and tossed his briefcase back on the table and began swiping his finger across the tablet. The glass windows frosted over. He turned around and gave a little nod. He began typing and instantly the words Intro to Pal Tech and Telekinesis appeared across the windows and along each wall. “My name is Bill Startsman, and it’s my job to introduce each of you to telekinesis.”
He scanned the auditorium again, drumming the table with his right hand. He sat there thinking for a while. Then he pushed himself off the desk and hitched up his pants in one smooth, well-rehearsed motion. He propped his tablet against his chest as if he were holding a clipboard. The glow from the screen highlighted his crow’s feet.
“Those were some pretty neat tricks Monday night, weren’t they?” Startsman spoke with the air of someone discussing last night’s ball game. “We had, what, eight floating students? Over sixty dessert plates? Speaking of which, did anybody else think the apple pie was a touch on the dry side?” He lowered his tablet. “No one? Hmm. Maybe it was just me.” He shrugged.
“So, how many of you hurried back to your dorms and stayed up all night practicing?” He raised his eyebrows and his thin smile turned into a smirk. Only a few hands were in the air. “Five of you, huh?” He rolled his eyes. “Come on, now. I like to keep my classroom as lie-free as possible.”
This time almost everyone raised their hands. Startsman nodded. “So that brings me to my next question: Did any of you actually move anything? Anyone? Maybe just a teensy bit?” He pinched his fingers together.
A boy sitting in the front row began to raise his hand.
“I remembe
r reading that every time someone tells a lie a hawk swoops down and kills an unsuspecting Golden Retriever puppy.” Startsman glanced at the boy and he lowered his hand.
“There’s a reason none of you moved anything that night. It’s because none of you are Naturals. None of you.” He paused. “And that’s precisely why this school exists. To act as a training ground for you and others like you once your powers are unleashed. And the story of Pal Tech starts with the man who performed all those tricks the other night.”
He went back to his tablet. A recent picture of President Joyce popped up on the two walls and the back windows. A few seconds later it morphed into a picture of a child. “Chris is a Natural, one of only a few in the world. And like all Naturals, he started showing signs of telekinesis when he was just a toddler.” An old video of a child surrounded by floating toys played on the back windows.
“Eventually they had to pull Chris out of school. But of course that didn’t curb his telekinesis; there were still incidents. And so it’s not surprising that after one particular episode at the local diner, word of Chris spread to some very influential people who were familiar with his gift.” Startsman brought up a map of Virginia and the CIA’s logo. “They found a place for him at Langley not long after he finished high school.
“Chris began his training as a scientist, but with his abilities, it wasn’t long before he was assigned to field work. By the time he was in his thirties, he was a high-level special-ops agent, leading missions even beyond the scope of the CIA. So valuable was his skill set that the military decided they needed more people just like him. So they went searching—searching for what made Chris special.
“Brain scans came first.” A dozen MRIs popped up on either wall. “As you can probably imagine, the results were extraordinary. It was the largest cerebral cortex they’d ever recorded, with far more active synapses than a normal brain.” Two different brains began rotating on the back windows. One was alive with red light. “Next was a thorough study of his genetic code. Not surprisingly, they found several anomalies. It was determined that these irregular genetic markers were the drivers—the cause—of his telekinesis. And voilà,” he said, spreading his hands like a magician after a trick, “they had a blueprint.”
He checked something on his tablet and started pacing the length of the classroom. His neck jutted forward at a forty-five degree angle. Whenever he looked toward the class, his head swiveled so that one eye was always higher than the other.
“So now they just needed to find people who met the parameters. They began testing. And they started in a pretty logical place. Any guesses as to where that was?” Startsman raised his eyebrows. “Anybody?”
“Schools.”
“Incorrect, but not a bad guess. Anyone else?”
“Blood drives.”
“That would have worked, but the sample size would’ve been much too small.”
“Doctor’s offices.”
“Getting warmer,” Professor Startsman said. “But you need to think younger.”
“Babies.”
“Ding ding ding, we have a winner. Testing began in the maternity ward of every hospital in the country. It was simple, really. A new test was added to the battery of tests already administered on newborns. This one identified any baby with those key genetic markers. The results were never reported. Hell, no one even knows this test existed. And that includes the doctors.” He chortled at the thought.
“So, guess what they found?” he said. “They found that a lot of babies met the parameters. Well, I say a lot. They found about one hundred per year. Still, that number seemed simply astronomical when you consider that only a handful of these people existed at the time.” He was pacing faster now, his long strides getting longer as he got into the rhythm of his speech. “Each of these babies was logged into a database and periodically observed under the guise of some doctor’s visit.
“But there was a problem. None of these babies ever showed any signs of telekinesis! So now you had a whole bunch of high-level government scientists trying to find a way to induce telekinetic ability. Do you still follow me?” he asked the class, his nasally voice getting higher.
Alex nodded along with the other students, but he wasn’t really listening. He was still picturing that video of Chris making his toys float all over the room. Was it really that easy? There had to be limits. Weight limits, for sure. Luke Skywalker struggled the first time he tried to lift the X-Wing. It didn’t even look easy for Yoda. Alex was remembering that scene on Dagobah when he realized what was happening and shook his head. What an idiot. His brain was so filled with pop culture knowledge that he was struggling to think rationally. This wasn’t a movie. For all he knew, there could be people out there lifting buildings with their minds. Alex cut his eyes at Eva. He noticed her leaning a little bit toward his chair and it made him smile.
“So, it was at this time that those government scientists split into two groups. The first kept trying to induce—and some would say exploit—the power of telekinesis in all those children. And then there was the second group of scientists, led by our own Christopher Joyce, who wanted nothing more than to determine the cause of all these babies developing telekinetic potential. Because by all accounts, they should not have found that many babies with the special genetic markers.
“Let’s talk about Chris’s group first. They went straight to the source, interviewing the moms who gave birth to these special babies. They found—after a lot of digging and detective work—that every one of those moms was on Pregnacal, an over-the-counter migraine medication made specifically for pregnant women. It was the only common thread. Subsequent controlled tests proved this finding. They even determined the odds: If the mother was on Pregnacal, there was a one in twenty thousand chance that the baby would be a latent telekin. Better odds than winning the lottery,” he said, his thin smile returning.
“But their work wasn’t done. Pregnacal had been on the market for nearly twenty years. So, they started searching through the past, poring through sales records and backlogs of information. Amazingly, they were able to track down almost every mom who took the drug while pregnant. And then they tested their kids,” he added. “They found hundreds of kids under the age of nineteen that had the potential for telekinesis.” He stopped pacing and a thoughtful frown came over his face. “Kind of scary, when you think about it,” he said, to no one in particular.
“Now, back to that other group of scientists, the ones trying to create a telekin army. They piggy-backed on the findings of Chris’s team and developed a pill with a concentrated dose of Pregnacal’s active ingredients. And it worked! They tested it on a dozen high school students who were known to have the correct genetic code and it worked every time. Each of these kids started showing signs of telekinesis.
“They had pediatricians across the country ready to prescribe these pills to the kids in their database. But at Chris’s urging, they reconsidered. He told them that instantly creating hundreds of young telekins would be dangerous. Chaotic. Plus, with that many telekins running around, how would the government keep the project a secret?
“Thankfully, President Joyce can be a persuasive man. He developed the idea of a special college for telekins, and promised that he would create the curriculum, under one condition: that Pregnacal be removed from store shelves, immediately. Chris argued against artificial genetic manipulation because, really, that’s what was happening at this point. He said that not only was it morally wrong, but we didn’t know the long-term side effects. And at the time, he was right. Thankfully, though, it now looks as if all of us unnatural telekins are healthy.” He looked down and patted his stomach. “Well, relatively healthy.
“Chris also argued that it would be hard to police all of these newly developed telekins—that their powers must be cultivated in a controlled environment. And that’s why, if any of you looked ahead in your course catalog, you saw a variety of philosophy and ethics courses in your junior and
senior years.
“The government—specifically the military—wasn’t in love with the idea of giving up Pregnacal. But they knew having Chris involved was the only way this project would work, and they wanted access to these kids as quickly as possible, so they compromised and fast-tracked the college. Pal Tech was born. That brick campus with the two guards? That was the first campus. This one was built some years later.”
Professor Startsman made his way back to the desk. He faced the class and placed both palms on the desktop and with a grunt of effort lifted himself to a sitting position. “Pregnacal was removed from store shelves quickly, as promised. However, online merchants continued selling the medication. We believe it was completely eradicated from society a few years later. The year of your births marked the final year newborns were tested for telekin genetic markers.” He stopped here, seeing the obvious question form on everyone’s lips. He squinted. “Yes, you represent the final freshmen class at Pal Tech.”
9
Pill Poppers
Professor Startsman grabbed his tablet and began reading with the blissful detachment usually reserved for the toilet. He seemed to ignore the restless silence taking hold of the room.
Not that it lasted long. Only minutes went by before a few of the bolder students made their presence known with a timely zipper pull, the opening of a carbonated drink, or maybe just an extra-loud yawn. This emboldened others, leading to a few whispered comments, which in turn led to a few whispered conversations. Voices rose beyond whispers, and soon even the most timid students offered their two cents to the nearest discussion. Now Blue101 had the steady din of a bistro.
Startsman slid his tablet into his briefcase and got to his feet. He wedged his hands down his pants and tucked in his shirt tails, never taking his eyes off the class. “Settle down, everyone. Settle down. Okay, now that you’ve had time to talk for a few minutes…are there any questions?”
