by Drew Hayes
“So is he technically a robot or a cyborg?” Vince asked Jill, one of the evidently more intelligent students who had opted to decline Coach George’s challenge.
“You’d probably have to ask my brother on that one. I can’t really connect with him the way I do other machines, though, so my money is for cyborg,” Jill replied.
Coach George had shifted into a man of metal, but unlike Stella, he was a more functional model. His eyes seemed to act as scanners, and several times he had blasted a charging student with a weapon from his body. His favorites seemed to be the energy guns that came out of his forearms.
“It looks we’re done here then,” Coach George told them, turning back into his human form. His pants and shirt were ripped and singed in a few places, but the skin he showed had no injury of any kind.
“When we’re done, someone go grab the healer girl to clean up in here, but first I want to say something. Pay attention, those of you on the floor who can still hear. Today was an important lesson: it taught you what failure is, some of you for the first time. For others it was one you’ve had before but could stand a little repeating. I meant what I said, though: I don’t hold it against you that you needed to test my mettle. I did the same thing to my coach when I was in your spot, and my ass wound up on that same floor. So listen close, kiddos, because this is the part that matters. Today I taught you how to lose, so that starting Monday I can teach you how to win. Come ready to hurt and ready to learn. Class dismissed.”
“Well, that was pretty horrifying to watch,” Thomas said, walking over to Vince and Alex.
“Agreed,” Alex said. “I say we hit the showers, go get dinner, and try very hard to forget what we’re coming back to on Monday.”
“I’ll catch up with you guys,” Vince said. “Somebody still needs to go get Camille.”
“I can do that, we’re somewhat friends after all,” Thomas volunteered.
Vince waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. I still owe her a thanks from Halloween anyway.”
“Very well,” Thomas said. “At least she should be free. It’s not like anyone in the alternative training class will need healing.”
* * *
“If you’re wondering why you can’t move, it’s because I’ve scrambled the receptors to your nervous system,” Coach Persephone explained to Nick’s twitching, collapsed form. “I’m not targeting any of the automated parts like heart and breathing, so you’ll be fine when I stop. Although, you might be a bit twitchy for a few hours.”
“How are you doing that?” Tiffani Hunt asked from the line.
“As a child, I always seemed to be able to turn people’s moods with ease. Eventually it was diagnosed that I was a Super, though at the time we all believed I had a minor ability to influence people’s minds. In an effort to understand my power, I did exactly what I told Nick here to do: I experimented with new things I’d never tried to before. Most failed, but some didn’t, and eventually I made a fascinating discovery,” Coach Persephone said, walking the rest of the way over to Nick and staring down at him.
“I learned I didn’t have power over the mind, I had the ability to, at will, create, emit, and direct pheromones of all types. At first I was disappointed, thinking the mind power to be more useful. My time at Lander taught me otherwise, though. I learned there are all sorts of things that pheromones influence and control. Did you know there are even some that can disrupt the nervous system?”
Nick made a slight gurgling sound from his place on the floor.
“Your homework over the weekend is to try one new way to use your power. Failure or success is irrelevant, I only demand that you try. Dismissed,” Coach Persephone told them. With that she turned and began heading back toward the exit.
Camille began moving toward Nick’s pitiful form to administer some help, but the sound of her name being called in a familiar voice pulled her attention away rapidly.
“Hey, Camille!” Vince yelled, jogging over from the entrance to the gym.
Camille took very deep, very rapid, very unsuccessful steadying breaths. She’d known this was going to happen eventually. It was unavoidable: he was just the kind of guy who had to thank anyone who’d given him aid.
“Coach George sent me up here,” Vince explained once he reached her. “He did kind of a number of our combat class and a lot of the guys could use some healing. Do you mind?”
Camille shook her head no and began to hurry past him toward where she was needed, but he stepped in front of her before she made it.
“One more thing. I just wanted to say thank you for helping me on Halloween. You guys really pulled me out of a tight spot there, and I don’t know what I would have done without you. So thank you, a lot.”
“No problem,” Camille squeaked, flushing bright red and bustling past him toward the door. To her credit she didn’t break into a full on sprint until she was out of the gym and on her way to the lower floor. Her heart was racing and her breathing was more erratic than a drunken bull runner’s, but she slowly got both back under control. It looked like he didn’t remember, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It made things easier, though, and that was something.
Upstairs, Vince was quite uncertain how, but he had a strange feeling he’d offended the girl he meant to thank. Added onto the tingle in his brain that there was something familiar about her, Vince had no idea what to make of the small female. Instead he wandered over to the circle of fellow students watching with amusement as Nick slowly regained control of his limbs.
79.
“How you feeling, buddy?” Vince asked, handing Nick a glass of water. They were back in Melbrook, lounging the common room with Alice, Mary, and Hershel. It had taken Nick twenty minutes before he could effectively coordinate his movements, and even then he’d needed help making it to the dorm.
“Glitchy,” Nick replied, sipping the water carefully. “That woman is a nutjob. Who just attacks a student on the first day?”
“Coach George attacked around eight, but they sort of volunteered for it,” Hershel commented. Roy had shifted back not long after being healed, happy to fade away after another trouncing. He wasn’t used to losing, especially not this often.
“Volunteered is the key word there. I just asked a simple question,” Nick said.
“You were being an asinine smartass, no surprise,” Alice corrected. “Just be glad I don’t have her power.”
“At this particular moment I’m more wishing no one had her power,” Nick replied. “Let’s just grab some dinner, rent some movies, and spend the rest of the night relaxing.”
“Actually, if you guys are interested, I was sort of planning to go out tonight,” Hershel said tentatively.
“Well, yeah, we assumed Roy would be on the prowl,” Vince said.
“No. I mean me. Hershel. I want to go to a club tonight.”
There was a soft creak of bones as everyone shifted their bodies to gaze at the chair where Hershel was lounging.
“But you don’t go out,” Vince ventured.
“I don’t, because Roy does and it keeps things much more amiable between us if I give him the weekends. Tonight, though, he isn’t feeling like his usual partying self due to Coach George’s smack down. So I thought it was a good opportunity to make use of a Friday while I have one,” Hershel explained. “Like I said at the party, I don’t want all of my college experiences to be secondhand.”
“I’m in,” Nick nearly shouted.
“You just had your nervous system rewired an hour ago,” Mary told him.
“And I’m feeling much better,” Nick said. “Hershel on the dance floor, though? No way in hell am I missing this.”
“Guess that means I’m in, too,” Vince said.
“You want to see Hershel bust a move too?” Alice asked.
“No, I just don’t trust Nick not to try and set him up in some sort of elaborate and embarrassing situation,” Vince said.
“Good call,” Nick agreed.
�
��I’ll be fine,” Hershel told him. “I would love it if you guys came, though. Alex is already in, and I figured we could invite everyone else as well.”
“I’m certainly not going to stay home by myself,” Alice said, a small chime of happiness echoing through her at being able to truthfully make such a statement.
“I’ll call Sasha and Will,” Vince volunteered.
“What about you, Mary?” Hershel tried to ask nonchalantly.
Mary waited a moment, savoring the uncertainty as only a girl being courted for the first time is able to do, then let out her answer in a small, reserved voice.
“I think that sounds like fun.”
“Awesome,” Hershel said, a wide grin breaking through his face’s futile restraint attempts.
* * *
“No. No. No. No. Dear lord in heaven, no. No. No. Maybe. No.” Alice paused to take a breath and move to another area of Mary’s closet. Mary had, much to her almost immediate regret, asked for Alice’s input on what to wear out to the club. What she had expected would be a two-minute process to confirm an outfit had turned into an endless critique of Mary’s entire wardrobe.
“I thought the yellow shirt looked nice,” Mary ventured.
“Nice is for church, class, and dinner with the family,” Alice told her. “Going out to the club is about grabbing attention and keeping it there.”
“That’s not really how I like to dress,” Mary told her, not quite able to stop herself from glancing down at her small frame.
Alice stared at her a minute, then realization of what Mary meant clicked into place.
“Oh no no no, I don’t mean slutty. That’s for costume parties and the like. I just mean attention-grabbing. The right combinations of colors and cuts to draw the eye, highlighting your own look just enough to make sure their gazes stay on you. In that case, less is more. Just trust me, Mary, when it comes to fashion I’ve been a Super for years.”
“You do always dress nicely,” Mary acquiesced.
“Thank you,” Alice said, turning her attention back to the closet. “Your clothes aren’t bad either. They’re just a little... eclectic.”
“When you’re in the woods, function tends to trump fashion relentlessly,” Mary said.
“I wouldn’t know. The closest we ever really came to roughing it in my family was staying at a hotel that had an indoor garden,” Alice said.
“You should go sometime. The air, the smells, the quiet: it’s a wholly unique experience,” Mary told Alice, her eyes drifting off as she remembered her peaceful trailer in the forest.
“I might just do that over the summer,” Alice said. “Now that I can, it’d be nice to try.”
“Now that you can?”
“Yeah. Now... post-procedure. I had to limit my time outdoors before,” Alice said.
“Oh, because of the floating,” Mary surmised.
“Bingo. When I was really happy, I floated. If there wasn’t a ceiling to stop me that meant a much longer fall to the ground. Being outside was basically taking my life in my hands,” Alice explained.
“That seems awful,” Mary said. “So every time you had a rush of joy it was soon followed by a plummet to the ground? How did you deal with that?”
“Mostly I stopped doing things that made me too happy,” Alice replied. “It wasn’t hard in my house. The goal was just to maintain a constant neutral, never have any strong emotions burst through.”
“You weren’t very good at it,” Mary said.
Alice jerked her head up sharply and met Mary’s eyes. Mary shook her head. “I wasn’t listening. I’ve just gotten to know you. You took to Lander so easily, accepted this new way of life with almost no problem besides hesitance and fear. Despite how hard you worked to be guarded throughout your life, you even made friends with a telepath. There’s no way a girl like that was good at locking down her feelings all the time.”
Alice said nothing at first, then placed a shirt on the bed.
“Let’s try the purple top with the jeans I picked out earlier,” Alice said.
“Sounds good,” Mary agreed.
“If the look works then we can finally get to the real fun.”
“Real fun?” Mary asked.
“Oh yeah,” Alice confirmed with a gleeful glint in her eye. “Shoes.”
80.
To say the music was loud would be an understatement of criminal magnitudes. The music here wasn’t so much heard as it was felt, the bass quaking through one’s bones and forcefully shaking one’s brain. It was easily louder than the country western club they had gone to last semester; however, this one had evidently possessed a designer with a modicum of sense. The club was split up into several different rooms. There was a patio outside, several rooms for lounging, and one wherein dancing was expected. The dance room was where the music reached its tooth-chattering apex, but the others were habitable enough to allow some conversation.
It was in one of the lounging rooms that the Lander students settled down to relax. The final tally had wound up being all of the Melbrook students along with Jill, Will, and Alex. Sasha had been too sore from the day’s class and they’d had no luck reaching Thomas. They were still a sizable crowd, and as such grabbed hold of a large circular booth where they could all sit comfortably.
“So, not to sound like the clubbing newbie here, but now what do we do?” Mary asked after they’d been relaxing in their booth for half an hour.
“Well, normally by this point Roy would be drinking heavily, dancing on the floor, and trying to figure out which girl to bring home. I think that’s pretty much the norm for club activities,” Hershel said. “Right?”
“Let’s hope not,” Vince said. “We’ve all got marked hands and are underage so drinking is out. Will and I are in relationships so we can’t chase girls with you, and all that leaves for us is dancing.”
“Maybe later on that one,” Hershel said. He very much wanted to ask Mary, who was currently sipping cranberry juice through a straw on the other side of the booth, if she would care to dance. Wanting to and having the courage to were proving to be very different things, though. So instead he was pushing it off, convincing himself it would somehow grow easier as the night progressed.
“Hey, let’s not give up on bringing girls home yet,” Nick butted in. “Alex and I aren’t taken. We can roam the club for young, impressionable women.”
“I’m going to leave an impression in your skull,” Alice threatened. “Regardless, if we keep sitting here all we’ll do is keep sitting here. Mary, Jill, come with me. We’re going to put ourselves near the dance floor and see how many boys come calling.”
“Finally, let’s move,” Jill said.
“Actually I’m comfortable right here-” Mary tried to object, but Alice took her by the shoulders and began marching her into the next room.
“Read my mind already,” Alice urged her. Mary had actually been tuning out thoughts tonight, the ambient sound of music uncomfortably reminding her of the days when she couldn’t make the voices stop. Still, she reached into Alice’s mind and listened. It seemed Alice was getting the girls away from the booth in order to force Hershel into making a move. Alice felt that if they stayed he would dither all night and lose the opportunity, but if he was scared other boys were dancing with Mary, it might push him to action.
By the time Mary had processed it all they were in the crisp chill of the outdoor area and safely out of earshot from the table. Granted, even in the lounge room ten feet would put you easily out of earshot from someone.
“I think he would have asked me,” Mary said, stopping the progression toward the dance room.
“He thinks so, too, and he would have kept thinking that until we had to leave and it wasn’t done,” Alice countered.
“Actually, I’m with Alice here,” Jill chimed in. “Boys are cowards and morons for the most part. I love my brother, but do you know how he got that girlfriend of his?”
“How?” Mary asked.
“She aske
d him out. Twice, because the first time he didn’t get that it was a date. You have to give them little pushes here and there or you’ll be waiting forever for them to make a freaking move,” Jill told her.
“This is a little push?”
“You’re not making out with some dude in the bathroom, you’re going with the other single girls to see if anyone will ask you to dance. This is pretty much as gently as we can remind him that other guys find you attractive, too,” Alice assured her.
“I guess it can’t hurt to go watch the people dancing,” Mary caved.
“Atta girl; we’ll have him eating out of your hand in no time.”
* * *
“Is it me, or did this just turn into a total sausage fest?” Nick asked as the girls scampered away.
“No, you’re dead on,” Alex agreed.
“That seemed... odd,” Hershel said. “They just sort of all bolted away.”
“Alice took Mary away to make you chase after her,” Will said simply. “They want you to go ask her to dance before some other guy beats you to it.”
“How do you know that?” Vince asked.
“Could be a lot of things. Could be that I have a much higher IQ than you guys. Could be because I grew up with a twin sister and have a slight insight into how girls think. Could be the bug I slipped onto Jill before we came out tonight,” Will said, pointing to his ear. Closer inspection would reveal a small device nestled in one of its cartilage curves.
“You’re kidding,” Nick declared.
“Not at all,” Will said. “My sister has a tendency toward telling very large, very gay men how sexy I think they are when we are out at clubs. She finds it endlessly hilarious, thus I’ve begun taking precautions so I can at least be forewarned when she hatches such a scheme.”
