"Little of both," I reply looking at the building he's pointed at and I scrunch my face up in distaste.
"Nice. Three? Four?" he prods.
He's pretty nosey for a bus driver, so I ignore him. The Academy tries to place like powers together in the quads, then further splits them up by levels in the same dorm so as to minimize opportunities for bullying and mayhem. Atlas Quad houses students with primarily strength and speed-based powers. The next group of buildings after this one houses the students with mental powers like telepaths, and the last building on this side of campus, Oppenheimer Tower, is a single building that provides dorms for the geniuses and mad scientist wannabes. It's a single building with a Commons next to it. Behind them is a large, modern, white building set a couple hundred yards back that is full of labs, machine shops, and even a foundry that the students can use.
I should have housed with the science students, but decided last spring to go with speed as my primary power when I applied to go to Nova. It was a safety decision as much as anything as I can't imagine that many super geniuses being in one place without one, or more, of them eventually blowing them all up. That and they tend to be the most paranoid and anti-social bunch of idea thieving bastards you'll ever see.
Mad scientists stealing ideas? No! Really? Yeah, really. The only thing mad scientists like doing better than inventing new things is taking someone else's new thing and going one better. Because you can't reach the top of the scientific heap by inventing the “next step” off of technologies everyone already knows about. You would be just like everyone else if you did that. Nope, you have to invent the step-after-the-step-after-the-next-step if you want to really make something no one else has already made. And who better to get an extra step from than another mad scientist?
"Sure," I say and grab my two bags from the back. It's none of his business what my class is, and although he tried to make it seem like he was being helpful, he was actually being nosey as I heard him asking the same things to the guy we dropped at Tesla. I wouldn't be surprised if someone was paying him to collect information on the students that ride on his bus. Call me paranoid.
The driver looks at me and sees I'm not cooperating with his little information gathering, so goes for the low blow, "Atlas-1 will most likely be where they put you. It's over there on the other side of two." He starts heading back to get on the bus and says, "Good luck, kid." I watch the bus for a minute as it heads off to the rest of the campus to make stops at the dozen or so other quads housing all the kids with different power types. It is pretty amazing to bring this much talent all together into one place.
Chapter 9
I may need some luck, but not as much as the bus driver thinks. I throw my bags over my shoulder and head for Atlas-2. The driver could have been right with Atlas-1 if I wasn't also a Class 3 speedster. Atlas-1 is for Class 2s and Atlas-2 is for Class 3s, and so on. Baselines and Class 1’s don't get a number at Atlas because they would never be placed here to begin with. My speed could almost qualify me for Atlas-3 just because of the rarity of speedsters compared to strong men, but they gave me the option. Being stronger than the other guy begins to become less important if all your punches look like they’re moving in slow motion to the guy you’re trying to hit.
Atlas-2, like all the buildings in the Atlas Quad, is a three story white building with all the styling of an inner city project, although a better comparison might be to project housing in the former Soviet Union. Tesla has very modern styling with sweeping glass lines and tall I-Beams with heavy cabling holding up canvas sheeting, it looks like modern art.
I'm not sure if the appearance of Atlas Quad is due to alumni being cheap, or if muscle and speed types are just naturally a bunch of slobs who don't care about appearances. Or, if they're paying homage to the old Soviet Union Olympic power lifters. For my purposes, living in a dorm where people only pay attention to big muscles, and who are more entertained by punching holes in walls than creating a laser, is perfect. No mad scientist would ever think to sneak into these dorms. What would they steal? Barbells? And, the native population doesn’t have any more curiosity than Farmer John’s cow and won’t go snooping around my projects.
I walk into the lobby of my dorm where people are coming and going from the wide stairwells and echoes of dozens of students talking all at once are bouncing off the walls. In the middle of the lobby are half a dozen strongmen types: muscle bound apes, and an ape-ette that's buff enough that you have to wonder if she doesn’t have gorilla DNA. The apes are making a lot of noise and harassing other students that walk by while poking each other's pecs and bragging about how much they can lift. One of them has a "Welcoming Committee" sign he’s shoving into student's faces and pushing them around.
Taking a detour around the Welcoming Committee, I head over to the Dorm Master's desk to check-in and see it is crowded with students all talking at the same time to get their dorm keys. Waiting my turn, I keep watching the Welcoming Committee. Everyone has started giving them a wide berth, so now they are moving in a herd back and forth across the lobby toward whoever is closest they can mess with. I can’t believe these apes are from this dorm. They musts be Class 3 or 4, or there would have been multiple fights by now. A Class 2 can tell if someone is a Class 3 or higher the first time they bump into them. It's like running into a walking, talking, fortress. Just before I get my key, the herd moves over by the entrance to the stairwell and takes up station as the best place to mess with the most people.
My dorm room is on the third floor. I have my bags with my duffel bag of clothes and basics in my right hand, my backpack on and cinched down, and my bag with all my equipment in my left, farthest away from where I'll be passing the herd on my right. Heading towards the stairs, two of them have already noticed me, the first of whom starts off with, "Hey, fresh-meat," with a smile like he's greeting me with all sincerity and open arms. I want no part.
I'm just out of their reach when I make my move, throwing my duffel bag of clothes to the top of the first flight of stairs onto the landing, and all of their heads snap around to watch if fly up and hit another student right in the chest as he rounds the corner. My “Look, a bird!” distraction works a little bit better than I intended.
"Nice shot!” one of them shouts.
I don't wait to see who says it and before they have their heads turned back to congratulate my aim, I'm at the top of the stairs with my duffel bag. "Sorry, man. You all right?" I ask my victim.
"I'm fine. Didn't appreciate taking your bag in the face, but have to give you cred for getting past those assholes."
Of course, I smacked a guy who is cool and laid back while trying to get pass the a’holes. "Thanks. Really, sorry about hitting you."
He’s looking down at the Welcoming Committee, "You think you can throw me past those guys?" He asks all serious.
"Uh, no. I don't think that's going to work twice," I reply as I look back. The welcoming committee has moved around to block the entire entrance to the stairwell. "You may want to go out a window."
He looks at me like I just showed him where to find the Secret Door to his favorite RPG game then turns and runs back up the stairs and onto the second floor. Shrugging, I grab my bags and start the climb up to the third floor.
Chapter 10
My dorm room is dark and empty, except for the pile of bags thrown on the bed by the window, so I move to the other side and stake my claim on the remaining bed.
"Hey, roomie," My roommate comes in about the same time I finish putting my clothes in the dresser on my side of the room and start surveying the wall to decide what I might want to put up for decorations. There are nail holes and tape all over the wall and I'm thinking the first thing I'm going to put up might be spackle and paint.
I give him a chin nod and say, "That you?" and point to the bags across the room.
"Yeah, Carlos. Carlos Jones," he replies, and steps over to me shake hands. Carlos looks latino, but I’m going to assume with the last name Jones,
it’s on his mom’s side. He’s a little taller than my 6’2”, and broad shouldered like pretty much everyone in this dorm. Thick black hair and a friendly smile, he looks like he’ll be okay for a roommate.
Normally I avoid contact with strangers as part of my policy of not giving anyone any more information about me than I absolutely have to. But if he's going to be my roommate, there's no reason to hide the basics and offend him for something he'll know within a couple days anyway. I reach back and we shake. Carlos does not have what I would call a "firm" grip, but I can feel in the skin and flesh of his hand he's definitely a Class 2 or higher body type.
"I'm a 3-2," he offers, noticing that I noticed his grip. "What are you, a 2-2?"
"2-3," I reply. Body and speed, when it is offered, are always given in two numbers with body type first, and speed last. Carlos offers up that he's a Class 3 body type, which makes him among the strongest who will be living in this dorm. But, he's not as fast as me, and that's my edge. For most people, body type or strength go hand-in-hand and rarely do you see someone with them more than one class level apart. It's a natural consequence when someone is so strong they tear their own body apart, or you’re strong enough to get yourself into trouble, but not tough enough to take the damage. A wide variation is not the most successful in the Darwinian world humans have been living in since the Event. Add in services like The Gene Store, the few families that have wide variations go out of their way to boost their children up to a more survivable class level match their other traits. Carlos is fast enough, though, which with his strength is deadly. The exception is with the Class 5 strongmen. Most are no more than Class 2 speed, presumably all those muscles get in the way of freedom of movement, or twitchiness of the muscles, or something. New genetic research has it the same genetic sequences involved in giving Class 5 strength are also involved in higher class levels of speed. So, if you’re the lucky one in a hundred million or so to get Class 5 strength and toughness, it is not as simple as getting lucky another one in another ten million times to also get higher than Class 3 speed.
"Nice balance," he smiles back at me, "Just don't get caught, right?”
"No crap, huh." He’d never touch me.
Carlos and I get to know each other as he starts and I continue to unpack. He's from Miami and his mom's Cuban while his dad is a transplant from Ohio who decided to move off the farm and go live the life of sun and surf. We don't talk about our powers any more, which is pretty common to not give much information about what you’re capable of to people you only casually know.
Once I finish unpacking I ask Carlos, "Hey, feel like hitting the quad?"
"Yeah, there's supposed to be an Atlas only party in the Commons. You ready?"
“Bump to that. Just a sec," I say as I turn and put my lock on the double wide locker I shoved my bag with my equipment into and slap my padlock on it. It'll have to do for now, until I can get a more secure place to store my stuff. "Let's go."
We skip taking the stairs, and running into the Welcoming Committee again and just jump out our window to exit the building.
Carlos is about to snap his neck trying to check out every hot chick that he can see in the Commons Lounge. The music is blasting and everyone is still wearing their hot weather minimal clothing and summer tans. This could be a great year for my social life, but I've got to keep that under control so I can focus on more important things this semester. Another reason I worked so hard to date both Tera and Maria this summer was so I could get it out of my system and focus on work when school starts. I'm beginning to think that could be a problem, though as, at nineteen, hot college girls don't really get out of your system no matter how much time you've had with them over the summer.
The women in the Commons were coming in two flavors, Amazon Goddesses, and Russian power weight lifters. There was no middle ground, and the Amazonians outnumbered the Comrade Helgas three to one. It is pretty well accepted that the ratio of good looks to not so good looks reverses the higher physical class level you go in power. “Supers” magazine makes it clear in their photo spreads every issue, without actually saying it in print. When it comes to strength and toughness, the more you have the uglier you tend to look. I'm not sure why that is, I'm just glad I'm not a Class 5 because I’ve yet to see one that wasn’t ugly as a baboon’s butt. It's not worth it.
People are up doing some low key partying and just hanging out far longer than I can handle. Carlos and I lose track of each other, so I am on my own. He was trying to put his best detail on a blonde from Atlas-2 and I am not interested in being the third wheel. I wander around for a while before heading back to the dorm room. When I get back to the room, Carlos is already there, with his blonde, so I head down to the lounge on the first floor. The Welcoming Committee is gone. They were wandering around in their herd on the quad for a while before I saw them going off toward Atlas-3. Some of them were bragging about being Class 3 and 4 strength, which is pretty pathetic they wasted their time harassing Class 2s and 3s. That's a waste of an existence if ever there iss one and I'm fairly certain the Welcoming Committee's futures will be as human construction equipment where their brains will be secondary to their brawn.
Chapter 11
It's Monday, the first day of school. Carlos is racked out and sleeping off a second night of partying. It's only 5:30am, and the sun is just beginning to light the eastern sky out our window. I love this time of morning, but usually only when I am up to work on a project. Today is an exception, but only because I need to go over to the science lab to grab a locker before they are all gone. Showered, dressed, and out the door, I’m off for some much needed breakfast. The food court is already fully staffed, but only a few students are here, some still in their pajamas.
I eat a lot and the Atlas Commons is set up to feed the biggest appetites in the super community. Class 3 and higher speedsters have high metabolisms and eating a big meal and every meal, is a must. I hurry and mow my five eggs and country fried steak and gravy and hash browns. Thankfully, I will never have to worry about cholesterol or clogged arteries or getting fat, and can eat anything I want.
It is three hours before my first class and I want to tour the labs before class. They were locked up over the weekend, so I wasn’t able to reserve one of the larger secure storage lab lockers for my equipment. It's first come, first serve, for getting lockers and I'm sure they will go fast as the only ones that will be open are the ones that were vacated last year by graduating seniors.
My first class is Super Powers 101 in the Liberal Arts building, located on the other side of the campus from the science labs. I have to run to get there in time and nearly take out a crotchety old professor on the way. The only reason I am late is because of the near fight I got into with another student over the last large locker available; it was a fight I lost as the other guy was a junior and buddies with the lab clerk who assigns the lockers. I settled for a mid-sized locker that will have to do. Fortunately, it is located in the back of the labs across from the Metalworks Lab and near the back entrance, so I'll be able to come and go without too much attention.
I enter and take a back seat in the auditorium style classroom just as the instructor enters the class from a side door at the front, "Good morning, my name is Professor Blake, and I will be your instructor for the next three weeks to help you familiarize yourselves with the wide range of enhancements and superpowers that exist so you can learn the first lesson in any super conflict: know when to run." That gets laughs around the classroom. "This is a mandatory class for all incoming students, but as you know, it is only a three week course. After this, many of you will move on to the advanced class, Super Powers 301, or you can go straight into whatever late starting courses there are available,” the professor said as he walked along the front of the class, sizing up each person he looked at as if he could tell exactly what power set they have just by looking at them. "I would advise anyone who has not thoroughly researched their specialty to take 301 first as you may find there
is another path you want to take. This could save you taking a class you don't need and wasting a lot of money.” He’s definitely not speaking to me.
The professor finally gets to the back row of the class in his tour of student faces and I feel, rather than see, him looking at me. The SOB is trying to mind probe me. Not that he can get through my natural defenses, but that's just rude, and unethical. I raise my eyebrows at him to let him know I notice what he is doing. I'm not a telepath, and I'm sure he knows exactly who the telepaths are in the room even before he entered. He apparently did not know I have sensitivity and a strong mental defense. It is pretty rare for non-telepaths.
"Interesting," he says, taking a last look at me, "Well, let's get started."
"That was rude," I say in a low voice as I shift in my seat and give my head a shake to recover from what amounts to a dump truck running into the iron gates of my mind.
"Wasn't it though," comes from my left out of a very attractive mouth, which is attached to an even more attractive face, which is framed by a mane of beautiful long curly brown hair. "The man has the finesse of a sledge hammer," she adds.
"He do it to you, too?" I ask the newfound object of my attention.
"Oh, no. He was very careful to avoid the active telepaths," pointing with a wave of her fingers over to our right in a very general manner, "there are several there and he avoided every one of them."
"You could feel him doing it?" I’m surprised to hear.
"Sure. Not a lot of people can, but I can."
I realize I have been focused on her mouth the whole time and pull back to take her in fully. She just told me she could do something I have never heard of before. Sure, a telepath can often tell when another telepath is using their power, and all of them know if another telepath is using their powers on them, but to be able to tell exactly who another person was using their telepathic powers on in a crowd, is pretty amazing. She is able to tell who the professor was using his powers on, and who he wasn't. I need to take a closer look at this girl.
Nova Academy: A Superhero & Supervillain Novel Page 5
