Empowered Academy 1985

by Dawn Jansen

  After about an hour, when the exercise was finished, we all met back near the tennis courts. The sun was higher in the sky now and I felt my stomach rumbling, but I was eager to figure out which team had won. Although Emily and I had argued a lot, in the end we found five drones, which I thought might have been enough to put us in first.

  Once everybody had assembled, however, it was clear that although Emily and I had found more than almost every other team, we were not the winners; Felix and Ray were. And I was sure that they’d cheated their way through the whole exercise.

  “Alright, Felix and Ray have seven drones, that makes them the winners,” Ms. Warren proclaimed after she counted everybody’s drones. “All the rest of you, I want a written report on the tracking unit next week. Three pages at least. Class dismissed.”

  Most of the students groaned. I clenched my fists in anger. If there was one thing I hated, it was extra writing assignments.

  “That worked out great,” I said sarcastically to Emily.

  “It’s not always about winning, you know?” Emily snapped back in reply. “I actually found this exercise very useful. Oh, by the way, I’m not writing our report alone. You’ve got to at least pretend to help out with that. Let’s meet in the library tomorrow at four?”

  I grunted in reply. I was in no mood to argue with Emily; all I wanted to do was get to the cafeteria and take out my frustration on some hamburgers.

  I watched Emily walk back to the Academy mansion with one of her girlfriends, and I was once again reminded of why Emily was at the top of the hot list. This other chick—Clarissa, a more senior student—was hot for sure, but she had nothing on Emily, whose fit hips and ass hypnotized me as they swayed back and forth with each step.

  I was only broken out of my trance when Chad elbowed me from the side. As he and I began heading toward the mansion together, Ray and Felix came up beside us.

  “Was that part of your plan to get inside the pants of a senator’s daughter? Pretend you’re as prissy as her?” Ray sneered.

  He was short and would have been really easy to smash, but I had to be careful with Felix there because he was definitely one of the strongest students at the Academy. I was sure Chad and I could have taken the two of them, but I didn’t think an all-out brawl by the tennis courts was necessary today. Besides, I was more concerned with pounding some protein than pounding skulls at the moment.

  “Virgins aren’t my thing,” I said simply as Chad and I continued inside.

  Chapter 7

  Emily

  The past few days had been a whirlwind of change and new situations, but I was presently on my way to the library, which had always been my favorite place at the Academy. I was only slightly less excited than usual because joining me in the library would be Ramsey, my classmate who, despite his off-the-charts hunkiness, was the one person at the Academy that I probably butted heads with the most. So while the Academy library—and any library in general, actually—usually brought me a sense of peace and tranquility, today I’d be happy if Ramsey and I could just get along long enough to finish our report.

  While most of the rooms at the Academy had been converted (the medical ward was actually the mansion’s solarium, for example), the library had actually stayed the same throughout the mansion’s century-spanning transformation from opulent residence to government institution. It had huge, vaulted ceilings with clerestory windows that angled in light from above, and aside from rows of bookshelves, there were also old paintings—mostly of Hudson River School painters, which made sense given the Academy’s location in New York—hung up on the wood-paneled walls. The centerpiece of the library was a massive, antique globe, almost as tall as me, that still had Germany listed as Prussia, around which were several long tables with Emeralite lamps on them for reading.

  Students at the Academy were kind of weird in that they either loved reading and more intellectual pursuits (like me) or they loathed books and dedicated themselves to strictly physical training (like Ramsey). As such, I often saw the same people in here, and today was no different—there was Mace, who spent a lot of time reading about history and politics; Baxter, who mostly read fiction; and I even saw Ronda, a student I always found quite mysterious because her power let her enter people’s dreams, carrying a stack of books back to her table. This familiarity with so many of the people in the library was what made me even more surprised by the addition of a new face that day: Edgar.

  He hadn’t noticed me yet. He was sitting at one of the tables in the corner and I recognized his jet black hair immediately. His head was down and he was absorbed in a book, and there was a stack of other books by his side. As I stood planted where I was watching him, I almost felt as though I had utilized Blink’s time-stop power; the whole world seemed to crystallize into stillness around me as I breathlessly watched Edgar’s strong but gentle hands turn the pages of his book.

  But then I remembered: those might not be “Edgar’s hands” after all. With his ability to change his appearance, there was no way to know what Edgar actually looked like—who the real Edgar was. This thought had been bugging me ever since I absorbed Edgar’s powers, and I knew it would keep bugging me until I finally got to the bottom of it, so I made up my mind to go talk to Edgar first before meeting with Ramsey.

  Edgar didn’t notice me until I finally sat down across from him. He looked up and seemed momentarily surprised that it was me, but he appeared to quickly calm down as well.

  I didn’t know what to say. My mind had been blank as I walked over to his table, and after having had Edgar run out on me twice so far, I supposed I just wanted to see if he would actually stay put this time.

  “So, you probably hate me,” he finally said, and then cast his eyes back down toward his book, apparently not able to continue looking me in the eyes. He ran a hand through his perfectly sculpted hair and sighed.

  “I don’t... I don’t hate you, Edgar,” I said, leaning forward a bit so we could keep our voices low in the quiet library. “I was just shocked. I’ve absorbed lots of powers before, and I never knew anybody that had two powers.”

  He looked up at me somewhat curiously. “That’s why you reacted that way?”

  “Look, I know I might have overreacted, it’s just that...” I struggled for a moment, trying to figure out what I actually wanted to say. “I think I was really starting to like you.”

  As tame as this might have seemed, it was actually a big step for me. I’d never really admitted my feelings to a boy before. Edgar looked surprised too, a rosy hue spreading over his angular cheeks.

  “Me too,” he blurted out.

  “But I can’t shake the feeling that you’ve been hiding something from me,” I said.

  Edgar sighed and looked down again. He seemed to be thinking about what to say.

  “I wasn’t trying to hide anything,” he said, bending the cover of his book back and forth nervously. “It’s just... I don’t think anybody would accept me if they saw the real me...”

  “So you’re like, always using your power?” I asked, trying to sound gentle so he didn’t freak out again.

  “Pretty much...” he replied. He had been looking down, but then he tilted his head up to meet my eyes. “So at least you know it’s not personal. I’ve been doing this my whole life. Or for as long as I’ve known about my powers, anyway.”

  “Doesn’t it get tiring?” I asked. “I haven’t heard of anybody that can keep their power running for hours on end.”

  “It was hard at first, but I’ve had a lot of practice,” he explained. “I let myself rest at night or when I’m by myself too.”

  “I want to see the real you,” I suddenly said. Even I was surprised by the words that came out of my mouth. I hadn’t filtered them through my consciousness; they just came out naturally.

  Edgar’s face took on an expression somewhere between slight confusion and careful apprehension. “Why?” he asked, furrowing his brow curiously.

  “I just... It must be tiring
having to hide who you are all the time,” I said. “I think you should have somebody you can be yourself with. I can be that person.”

  For the first time today, Edgar smiled, a timid but charming smile that warmed my heart.

  “Okay, but... could we go somewhere private?” he said.

  My first thought was my room, but it felt a little weird to be suddenly inviting a boy to my room, so I decided against that.

  “How about... the roof,” I said. I had only been up there once my first week at the Academy, and I didn’t think anybody really went up there normally. “Meet me up there tonight at ten.”

  “I didn’t even know this place had a roof,” Edgar said.

  “That’s normal; you just got here,” I said with a smile. “Just go all the way up the east stairwell and you’ll find it. Nobody’s ever up there.”

  “Okay. Tonight at ten. Yeah,” Edgar said, nodding as he spoke as though he was convincing himself that he could do it.

  “Isn’t this better than running away?” I said, which made Edgar laugh. I felt accomplished, as though I’d befriended a skittish cat.

  I looked at my watch. It was already ten minutes past four, so I said goodbye to Edgar and made my way to one of the side rooms where Ramsey was waiting for me. As soon as I walked in the door, I felt Ramsey’s eyes lock on to me. He was leaning back in his chair with his sneakers kicked up on the table, the fabric of his school shirt stretched taut against his massive chest, and I felt him devour me with his eyes. It was weird—after having just been with Edgar, whose gaze was tinged with a sense of diffidence and affection, Ramsey looked at me like I was a delectable snack ready for his taking. I hated that look, but I hated even more that a secret part of me seemed to enjoy being looked at that way.

  I put my backpack down on an empty chair and then sat down, making sure to leave one space between Ramsey and me. I had to admit that the sheer physicality of his presence in any room was arresting. Not only did he have the classic features of a hunk, but his impressive physique made everything around him, like the chairs and tables, look smaller—even the pen he was holding looked like a toy in his large, muscular hands.

  “Alright, preppy,” he began, taking his feet off the table, “you don’t like me, and I don’t like you, but I’ve got a hot date with Caitlin out on the lake tonight, so let’s just get this over with.”

  I somehow—ridiculously—felt a tinge of jealousy that he was going to be with another girl tonight. Or maybe jealousy wasn’t the right word, but a sense of desire to know what it would be like to be out on a canoe with Ramsey in the middle of a lake and feel his powerful arms wrapped around me... And, once again, I felt disappointed in myself as my musings on Ramsey produced an acute physiological reaction beneath my skirt.

  “That’s fine,” I said quickly, ignoring the dampness between my legs. “I have a date too.”

  Ramsey’s face took on an expression that I couldn’t quite identify. “You? Ms. Goody Two Shoes? With who?”

  “That’s private,” I said, taking my textbook and notebook out of my bag, “and not the reason why we came here. Let’s just focus on the paper.”

  Over the next two hours, Ramsey and I banged out the paper, which was basically a summary of everything we had studied in the tracking unit of the Field Survival textbook. Surprisingly, we actually managed to keep the bickering to a minimum, which I guessed was because we both had somewhere important to be that night. In the end, we actually had a decent paper that I’d be able to hand in after a little bit of editing.

  As I left the library, I noticed that Edgar had already left, and I wondered if he was as excited as I was for our meeting later that night. Not only was I curious to see the “real” Edgar—what he looked like when he wasn’t using his power—but I was also looking forward to spending some alone time with somebody besides Lizzy. I didn’t know if it would count as a date, like I’d stubbornly told Ramsey, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction for me.

  Chapter 8

  Emily

  It’s not that I’d never been on a date before, it was just that this was the first one I had ever really been excited about. When we were seniors in high school, Lizzy had tried setting me up with a few guys, and occasionally I relented and went out with them once or twice, but for the most part I had never really found somebody I connected with. More importantly, I hated doing things in secret, because even though my dad was rarely at home, he still kept tabs on me, and dating was strictly forbidden; I couldn’t stand the feeling of dishonesty that gnawed away at me each of the few times I went out with a boy.

  As I finished putting on some light makeup, I told myself that I had to stay open-minded about Edgar’s appearance. After all, I’d promised him that I was somebody he could trust, and that meant accepting him for who he was, no matter how short or fat or unsightly that would be.

  After stepping out of my room and closing the door behind me, I was taken aback by how quiet the Academy was. I was used to always being able to hear conversation, laughter, and rough-housing coming from somewhere in the mansion, but presently all I could hear was the creaking of the floorboards beneath me. That was when I realized this was probably the latest I’d ever left my dorm room, which gave me a delightful thrill.

  As I made my way toward the east wing of the mansion, however, I soon heard hushed whispers and footsteps coming from around the hall, and they were voices I recognized immediately—Blink and Lizzy. I was surprised that they’d be out of their rooms this late, but more crucially, I didn’t know what I’d tell them I was doing when we ran into each other. It’s not like I was breaking any rules or doing anything bad, but I hadn’t had a chance to tell Lizzy about Edgar, and even though I liked Blink, I didn’t want to explain everything with him there. Before I had time to think of a good excuse, however, Lizzy, Blink, and Wesley turned the corner.

  They all looked surprised to see me, and I even feigned surprise myself so they didn’t think I was creeping around like some kind of weirdo.

  “Emily!” Lizzy explained, trying to keep her voice down. “Did you get called too?”

  They weren’t wearing their school uniforms like I’d expected; they were all suited up in combat gear, like the kind we wore for simulations. I had to admit, the three of them looked pretty badass together.

  “Called for what?” I asked.

  “A field mission,” Blink said. “Ms. Martin’s just told us. Busting up a chop shop in Brooklyn.”

  “No, I’m just... going to meet somebody,” I explained sheepishly.

  Lizzy’s face immediately lit up when she heard that. “You go girl,” she said. “We better get going; don’t wanna piss Ms. Martins off. I need all the details when we get back.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said as they had already started taking off. “Be careful out there,” I added, suddenly realizing the danger of the situation they were about to go into.

  Wesley turned around and winked at me, his long brown hair—Lizzy definitely had a type—whipping around as he pivoted to face me. “We’ll take care of Lizzy,” he said confidently before spinning around again and following Lizzy and Blink down the hallway.

  Once they turned the corner, I stood there somewhat dumbstruck. It seemed like having two boyfriends wasn’t all that bad. Lizzy was tough as nails, but it must have been nice knowing she had Blink and Wesley backing her up. It might have seemed like a coincidence that the three of them were chosen to go on the same mission, but I knew why the Academy had organized the mission that way. Though my dad didn’t share a lot about the inner workings of the Academy with me, he had told me about the extreme measures they go through to track students’ interpersonal relations. Once you graduated and became an EMP, you worked in a close-knit squad, often composed of best friends or lovers or some combination therein, and they mimicked this squad arrangement at the Academy too. That’s why they always used to combine me with Lizzy during simulations; the fact that they hadn’t chosen me to accompany her on th
is mission meant that her relationship with Blink and Wesley was really starting to develop. I could only imagine the depths of power they felt when they were all in sync and working together, and I wondered when or if I would ever feel something similar.

  ━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━

  It was chilly up on the roof, even for early April. Dark clouds passed silently over the moon, which looked extra-large that night as it shined down, highlighting the tips of the pine trees that surrounded the mansion. It was so quiet that off in the distance I could even hear the sound of waves from the Atlantic crashing against the beach, making me unexpectedly homesick, which was a rare emotion for me to have. Back in Rockland, I used to spend lots of time by the sea, especially during the summer. This was the longest I’d ever been away from Maine, and while I had always dreamed of training at the Academy, it could be stressful at times.

  And it wasn’t really the classes that were stressful, but the people. Lizzy would always be my best friend, but now I had to worry about her going out on missions, and though we were still close, I knew she found it hard to juggle her time between me and her new boyfriends. There were jerkholes like Dexter and Ray, who seemed hellbent on tormenting me for some stupid reason or another. There was Ramsey, who made me feel a roller coaster of emotions, from annoyed to turned on to disenchanted. And then there was Edgar, who produced butterflies in my stomach whenever he smiled and who currently had me wondering if he’d never show up for our rooftop rendezvous.

  I looked down at my Casio G-Shock. The glowing display showed it was only ten minutes past ten, but I still felt a pit forming in my stomach. It had been difficult for me to reach out to Edgar like I had, and if he ghosted me again, I doubted I had the resilience to keep trying.