Empowered Academy 1985

by Dawn Jansen

  I wondered if this ‘Mazzy’ was one of the teachers I knew. While we knew a few of the teachers’ first names, for the most part, we only knew their last names.

  “Sounds pretty rad,” I said.

  Mr. Silva looked like he’d just snapped out of a daydream. “It is... That’s why it’s important you try. You have a tier one power for sure. You just have to learn how to use it. Now go join the others in the observation room.”

  I nodded and, still thinking about what he had said—find your tribe—made my way to the observation room to watch some of the other students run their last simulation.

  Chapter 2

  Emily

  After watching the others finish their simulations and showering, Lizzy and I made our way to the cafeteria. I was starving, as usual. Despite being on the petite side, I had the appetite of an NFL linebacker, which made sense to nobody.

  As Mazzy and I walked through the ornate hallways of the Academy, an old, turn-of-the-century mansion, I focused hard on the lights above, trying to use Carl’s power to make them flicker, and I succeeded.

  “Cool!” I effused. “See? I can hold on to people’s powers for longer now.”

  “Is that what Mr. Beefcake wanted to talk to you about?” Lizzy said with a laugh.

  “Oh—no,” I said, not wanting to tell Lizzy about what Mr. Silva had actually told me. I felt kind of embarrassed. “Just some stuff about my dad.”

  “Em, puh-lease. We’ve been friends for how many years now and you still think you can hide something from me?”

  “I always have sucked at lying, haven’t I?” I said. “Okay, fine. He said I need to make more friends, basically.”

  “Of the boy variety, I’m guessing?” Lizzy asked perceptively.

  “I think that’s what he was getting at, yeah. I’ve never even thought about finding a boyfriend. I was always too busy with school, and now with training here.”

  “But now a teacher has told you to,” Lizzy beamed. “You could look at it like extra credit. Besides, I can help you.”

  “I seem to recall you setting me up with Bobby Sanders in high school and that went terribly, so thanks but no thanks.”

  “How was I supposed to know his ex was a psycho that would end up stalking you?” Lizzy said defensively. “People are more open here, even with relationships. I’m sure you won’t have to worry about psycho exes anymore.”

  “Speaking of relationships,” I said, trying to change the subject. “I found out who Mr. Silva is dating. Somebody named Mazzy.”

  “My rival. I will crush her,” Lizzy said jokingly, balling her hand into a fist dramatically. “That’s a weird name. Is it one of the other teachers?”

  “I thought you might know,” I told her. “Oh, he also said he only became a teacher here half a year ago. So she’s probably young like him, too.”

  “Wow, you guys talked about a lot,” Lizzy said, nudging me in the arm suggestively.

  We flung open the doors to the cafeteria and it was packed. Just like high school, everybody was in their own little cliques; jocks, nerds, mods, preppies, skaters—the Academy had them all, and most were even weirder than their non-empowered counterparts. I had started to realize that growing up with superpowers could result in some pretty traumatic experiences for a lot of people. In that regard, Lizzy and I were lucky. Though I grew up without a mom, both of us had had relatively normal upbringings. As we hit adolescence, even though we both became very different—I was more of an introverted preppy, while Lizzy became an outspoken alt kid—we never drifted apart. Part of that was likely due to the fact that we were both the only empowered either of us knew.

  The cafeteria at the Academy was very different from the one at our old high school. While the latter was all cheap plastic, garishly colored trays, and microwave pizzas, the Academy cafeteria was filled with gorgeous oak tables, a gleaming hardwood floor, and daily buffets of the finest foods. It reflected the amount of money the government poured into the Empowered program and in training new EMPs.

  Lately, we had been sitting with some friends that Lizzy had made over the past month. This made me reflect on what Mr. Silva had said, and I guessed it was true; you could say I had made several acquaintances at the Academy, but none I would have really called a “friend.”

  Lizzy and I got our food from the buffet—my tray piled with twice as much food, as usual—and then made our way to the table we’d made our home in the month since we got here. To be honest, I felt kind of out of place there. Lizzy was way more eccentric in her tastes than me, and so she attracted an oddball group of friends too.

  “Yo, Liz!” Blink called out to us as we neared the table.

  Blink was Lizzy’s de facto boyfriend, though they hadn’t made it official yet. With his dark, olive skin and long, wavy hair, he was quite the looker and ticked all the right boxes for what Lizzy liked in a guy. Though this sometimes made me the third wheel, I didn’t feel jealous at all, partly because I was used to Lizzy having more luck with guys than me. That’s not to say I hadn’t had my fair share of suitors throughout high school, but I was known for turning them down, and so it discouraged a lot of potential candidates.

  I liked Blink, and had given him and Lizzy my official BFF Seal of Approval. Not only was he easy on the eyes, but I could tell he was a kindhearted guy. He had even let me use his power once, which was the only time-related power I had absorbed before. He could stop time for a few seconds, and during those few seconds, although he too was locked in place, he was still conscious and could process things normally. I tried it out one night when we were all hanging out, and it mega-spooked me out how everybody looked frozen in time. Still, there was something oddly beautiful about it too, almost like being in a snow globe.

  Lizzy sat down next to Blink, and I took my seat between Lizzy and Brock on my other side. Brock always made me feel weird because his power let him see through solid objects. Apparently he could even see our guts and stuff, and I once made him promise that he’d never use his power to stare at my or Lizzy’s boobs. While this ability did let him perv out to his heart’s content, however, it was widely debated between other students how useful of a power it actually was in combat situations.

  “Did you guys hear about the sims getting canceled?” asked Mace, the other person at our table. Even though we all had to wear Academy uniforms, you could still tell Mace was a typical punk with his multiple piercings, tattoos, and refusal to conform to anything—essentially my polar opposite, but exactly the type of character that Lizzy attracted.

  “Dude, I told you guys!” said Lizzy excitedly, happy to see that one of her many conspiracy theories had been validated. “I overheard Ms. Fischer talking about it last week, and then this week—bam—sims canceled so the Architect can run her top-secret tests. You know, Brock, you could help me prove my theory too. I bet you could see through the walls of Test Chamber Delta when the Architect is running her tests...”

  “Yeah, and what would I tell them if I got caught? ‘My crazy friend wanted me to prove her theory that the Empowered Bureau is trying to phase out EMPs in favor of more easily controlled empowered robots’? Come on, Mazzy. That’s too evil, even for our government.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them,” said Mace, curling his lip. “You guys heard of MKUltra, right?”

  “And that’s only what’s been proved,” Lizzy added, smacking the table for emphasis.

  “Enough!” I cut in, slamming my fork down with a loud clank. “Stop making it out like we’re the bad guys or something. The bad guys are the ones in Russia stockpiling nuclear weapons and arming rebels in the Middle East. We’re the ones that are fighting for peace and freedom.”

  “That’s what I’d expect to hear from the daughter of a senator,” scoffed Mace.

  I was preparing to tell him off when Blink suddenly gripped Mace by the shirt.

  “What the hell, Mace?” Blink said, tugging at his shirt forcefully. “That was a real dick thing to say.”

&n
bsp; I was shocked to see Blink stand up for me like that, but then I got worried the two of them might come to blows. I didn’t want them to get in a fight because of me; for one thing, I preferred to fight my own battles, and for another, it was just a stupid remark.

  “Hey, it’s cool,” I said, softening my voice to try to disarm the situation. “We shouldn’t be fighting like this. Who knows if they’ll send us on a mission together soon. We have to get along.”

  Lizzy stroked Blink’s arm, trying to soothe him too. Blink let go of Mace’s shirt, ending the standoff.

  “Sorry,” Blink said, shaking his head like he was snapping out of a daze. “Been pretty stressed lately.”

  “No worries,” said Mace, smoothing out the wrinkles on his shirt where Blink had grabbed him. “I shouldn’t have said that. Being cooped up in this place wears on all of us.”

  “Hey, speaking of being cooped up,” Lizzy cut in, “the silver lining to all of this is that we’re finally gonna be allowed to leave the mansion when they take us out on missions.”

  “I hope my first mission is stopping a robbery at Wendy’s. I’d kill for a Frosty,” said Brock, which prompted a round of laughter from the rest of us, bringing the mood back to normal.

  I looked down at my plate and it was about as empty as my stomach still felt, so I got up for seconds as the conversation at the table drifted to something called “New Coke,” which Brock claimed tasted like cat vomit.

  As I was loading my plate up with sushi, a student I had never seen before caught my eye. I wasn’t usually the type of person to judge someone based on their looks alone, but it was impossible not to notice how good looking this kid was. His school uniform fit perfectly over his tall, well-proportioned frame, each crease in the fabric of his clothes seeming to compliment his figure. A lock of black hair obscured his left eye somewhat, giving him an aura of mystery, but then his hair was cut cleanly in the back, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen such perfectly shaped eyebrows on a man before. Though his lips were on the thin side, they worked well with his sharp jawline that angled down to a somewhat pointed chin, which gave him an almost regal demeanor. Most striking of all, however, were his brilliant blue eyes that seemed to shimmer as they reflected the world around him. I somehow felt desperate to know what he was thinking behind those eyes.

  Before I could finish ogling this mysterious new student, I heard Mr. Silva’s voice in my head: Find your tribe.

  Alright then. Maybe this could be my first step in opening up to another student. It was, after all, painfully obvious that this was his first day at the Academy. He had that classic deer-in-headlights look of a new student sizing up his options for cafeteria seating at a new school. I was lucky in that Lizzy and I had joined the Academy together, so I’d been spared this particular brand of anxiety my first day here, but I could imagine how overwhelming it was for him. After all, most of us didn’t know other EMPs existed before we came to the Academy, and then on your first day they just throw you in with a whole cafeteria full of them.

  “Hi,” I said to him, seizing on the opportunity to introduce myself before he sat down. “I’m Emily.”

  He looked caught off guard, and I immediately saw how bashful he was.

  Where does a hottie like you get off being shy? I thought to myself.

  “Oh, h—hi. I’m Edgar,” he replied, his face rouging ever so slightly.

  There was this shade of sincerity he expressed in his bashfulness that drew me in immediately. It made me feel I could trust him even though we’d only just met.

  After telling me his name, he balanced his tray on one hand and thrust his other hand out for a shake. I could have done the same—and I would have very much liked to touch his hand just then—but I didn’t. As brief a moment of contact as it would be, by shaking his hand I might inadvertently absorb his power, which would be quite jarring for the both of us, and right now I wanted to at least pretend that we were just a normal guy and girl meeting each other for the first time.

  “Sorry, my hands are full,” I said, nodding toward my impressively stacked tray. “Don’t be fooled by my looks. This is round two.”

  The almost innocent-looking smile he gave in reply made my heart flutter with titillation. I started to wonder why I’d waited so long to put myself out there like this.

  “First day, huh? I’ve only been here a month myself. Wanna sit with us?”

  “Sure. I mean, of course. Yeah, I’d love to sit with you.”

  He wasn’t the smoothest talker, but he made up for it with his guilelessness. He reminded me of a child with how unfiltered he was in expressing himself. When he accepted my invitation to sit with us, his delighted smile beamed even more brightly and his cheeks glowed with color again. This time I noticed the dimples that appeared when he smiled, and for a split second I even thought of what it might feel like to feel my lips pressed to his.

  As I turned around to lead us back to our table, I felt like I was walking on air. I had been so nervous about taking the initiative to befriend another student—especially a hot guy like Edgar—but my first attempt was going better than I had ever expected. Just as I was thinking about how surprised Lizzy would be that I’d wrangled a boy over to our table, however, I heard a huge crash behind me.

  I spun around and felt an immediate surge of anger course through my veins. Edgar had just face-planted right in the middle of the cafeteria, and standing above him were Dexter and Ray, two of the biggest dipsticks in the whole Academy. From the way they were cackling and high fiving each other, I knew they had tripped Edgar on purpose. The whole cafeteria fell silent as everybody turned their heads to see what would happen next. Fights at the Academy were common, and in some ways even encouraged by the administration, as theoretically any intense emotions could be used to fuel an EMP’s powers, but I’d managed to avoid them during my month here so far. Given how enraged I felt right now, however, I wasn’t sure how avoidable this confrontation would be.

  Edgar wasn’t hurt—at least not physically—but he was obviously humiliated. His hair, which had looked so rad and perfectly groomed just a second ago, was now soaked in the pomegranate juice that splashed up when he had tripped. He seemed too embarrassed to even lift his head and face the stares of an entire cafeteria-full of new classmates gawking at him, all wondering what he’d do to the two bullies that tripped him. Knowing how nervous he had been even just saying “Hello” to me, I could only imagine how humiliated he felt now.

  “Cleanup on aisle ten,” said Dexter with a snort. He was a big jock whose power made him nearly impervious to physical harm, and he was also the ringleader of their little squad of goons.

  “Sorry, Emily,” added Ray. He was Dexter’s right-hand man, a short little thug with a major Napoleon complex who could turn invisible. “Your little boyfriend tripped over my foot. I didn’t realize I was still invisible.”

  “Somehow I find that hard to believe,” I fumed. “Don’t you two have anything better to do than bully the new kid?” If there was one thing I hated, it was seeing innocent people get picked on. In my mind, that went against everything we strove to fight for as EMPs.

  Edgar had finally gotten up, but he kept his head bowed. His clothes were stained with food and his hands were curled into fists. As I studied his face for some sign of an expression, I could have sworn that I saw it change—morph somehow for a split second—but it was too quick to be sure.

  “Better watch out, Ray. He looks angry,” Dexter jeered. “Who knows what his power is? Maybe he’ll throw his diaper at you.”

  “Or maybe he’ll turn into a girl!” Ray said, staring at Dexter to see if he approved of his childish insult.

  They were starting to seriously piss me off. I didn’t know what Edgar’s power was either, but I was ready to join him in standing up to these assholes. I balled my hands into fists and got ready to make a move when, to my astonishment, Edgar stormed off toward the exit, keeping his head down the whole time.

  The cafeteria e
rupted in laughter that followed Edgar out the door.

  Dexter and Ray were doubled over in laughter too. I just stood there confused. Why did Edgar let them get away with that? I was ready to back him up.

  “You sure know how to pick ‘em, Emily,” Dexter said in between fits of laughter. “Your new boyfriend might be the biggest wimp in the whole Academy.”

  “He’s not her boyfriend, shit-for-brains,” came Lizzy’s voice from behind me before I even had time to reply.

  She came up beside me with her arms crossed and a mean look on her face. Blink was with her too.

  “Looks like the Goonies have arrived,” scoffed Dexter, prompting Ray to laugh sycophantically.

  “I think you owe Emily an apology,” Blink said, stepping forward a bit.

  I discreetly grabbed Lizzy’s hand and quickly absorbed her power in preparation for the imminent brawl. It was something we did almost automatically when the two of us faced a threat together, and the fact we did it now proved just how tense the atmosphere in the cafeteria had become.

  But there was no brawl. The bell sounded and all of the other students who had had their eyes glued to us now rushed to put their trays away and get to their next class in time. The sudden change in our surroundings—as well as the knowledge that we too would have to get our asses to class soon—had the effect of de-escalating our little standoff.

  “Come on, Ray. We don’t got time for these losers,” said Dexter, giving us all a dirty look as he turned away.

  Ray followed behind Dexter like the obsequious little boot-licker he was.

  “What the hell happened?” Lizzy asked when they were gone, her eyes full of confusion.

  It was somewhat touching to know she had my back without even knowing all the details, though I’d expect nothing less from my best friend.

  “I tried taking Mr. Silva’s advice, but I freaking blew it,” I said with a sigh, remembering how humiliated Edgar looked as he rushed out of the cafeteria. I couldn’t help but think this was all my fault. Dexter and Ray had always loved messing with me. I was sure they only targeted Edgar because they saw him talking to me.