by Dawn Jansen
My arousal is threatening to burst through my pants right about now. What gives? I’m far from being on a dry spell. Just last week, in fact, I hooked up with Gaze, but already I’m feeling this insane pull toward Mazzy. In the back of my mind, I keep thinking back to how she rejected me earlier, and it’s driving me crazy inside.
“Mr. Silva, perhaps you’d like to answer that question?” Ms. Fischer’s voice cuts through my roaming thoughts.
Shit. I have no idea what she was talking about, so lost I was in my thoughts about Mazzy.
“Um. I’m gonna go with false,” I say with a confident smile. I figure there’s a 50% chance she was asking a true or false question, and a 50% chance the answer was false, so by my calculations, that’s a 100% chance of being right (math was never my strongest subject, so I may be off). My answer elicits some laughter from the class, but not from my classmate MacCready.
“Wastoid,” he says, turning back in his seat and giving me a dirty look.
“Eat dick, MacCready.” I snap back without missing a beat. I’ve proved myself plenty of times since coming here, and though I haven’t had it out with MacCready yet, I don’t doubt that I could take him. He has the power to instantaneously swap places with anybody in his line of sight, which actually makes him quite deadly combined with his excellent combat skills, but I think I could beat him one on one. He’s had it out for me since he found out I slept with Gaze because, according to his twisted world view, she’s one of the girls in his “roster.”
“Enough, you two,” Ms. Fischer threatens in a commanding voice that quiets everybody. “I was just telling Ms. Martins here what the primary method is for getting a Class A empowered in control of her abilities. Perhaps you could tell her?”
By now my boner has died down enough so that I get some free blood into my brain and answer her question coherently: “Proximity.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” I begin, clearing my throat, “the closer you are to other fully activated EMPs, and the more time you spend with them, the more you can tap into your powers on your own.”
Mazzy turns back to look at me as I finish speaking, and I make eye contact with her. I can’t read the expression on her face, but I blow her a kiss anyway, which predictably enough provokes an eye roll from her.
“Right,” says Ms. Fischer, “and that’s what we’ll be doing today. Everybody get to Test Chamber Alpha. We’re going to do some group work.”
Chapter 4
Mazzy
“You know the person whose seat you were in died last week?”
We’re in “Test Chamber Alpha,” a huge metallic room with all sorts of training equipment in it, when Crash, one of the girls in our group of four, says that to me. She’s a typical goth, but I actually like her style. Unlike me, she actually had time to put on makeup this morning, and her black lipstick and black hair compliment her pale skin nicely.
“Melt Boy?” asks Tristan, who was the asshole I bumped into in the hallway this morning. He’s also in our group.
“Yeah,” Crash replies.
“Worst fucking power ever,” says Overcharge, the fourth person in our group. He was sitting next to me in class before. I notice some of them go by aliases, and others, like Tristan, just go by their names. To be honest, I hope they just call me Mazzy. Some of their nicknames are super lame.
“What was his power?” I ask.
“He could, like, just melt into liquid,” Crash tells me. “And then reconstitute himself. But that was it. And like, he couldn’t even control the liquid. He was just a stupid puddle.”
“I honestly wanted somebody to drink him just to see what would happen,” says Tristan, laughing.
“Ew, gag me with a spoon. I’d rather eat one of Parasite’s bugs,” Crash says, slapping at Tristan. The two of them seem pretty close.
“So how’d he die?” I ask. I’m kind of amazed at how nonchalant they all seem about the death of a classmate. Maybe the dean and that teacher in the hallway weren’t just trying to scare me.
“Test Chamber Delta,” Overcharge says casually. “That’s where they run the more dangerous simulations. Don’t worry, though, usually nobody dies in Alpha.”
“Stop fucking with her,” Crash chides him, and then puts her hand on my shoulder. “Nobody ever dies in Test Chamber Alpha. This place is just for focused practice of our powers, not mission reenactments.”
I’m just barely keeping up with all these terms and new information, and not only that, trying to piece together where I fit in to all of this.
“What are your powers anyway, new girl?” Overcharge asks.
“Mazzy,” Tristan responds before I can answer. “Her name’s Mazzy.”
This is the first time I’ve seen him so serious. I don’t understand why, but this is the first thing that makes me feel welcomed since I got here. I don’t know what Overcharge can do, but I’ve seen Tristan’s weird powers, and just on physicality alone he’s quite a bit taller than Overcharge too. Like I said, I’m no damsel in distress, but it’s nice to feel like somebody’s on your side, especially in such a messed up environment.
“I can, like, move things,” I reply hesitantly. I’m nervous. I feel so out of my element here. Everybody else has already learned how to use their powers, and I’ve only really just discovered that I have mine.
“And...?” Crash says, hoping to get more out of me.
“I don’t really know either,” I say with a sigh. “Last time my powers came out, I bent some cop’s handcuffs with just my mind. They crushed his hands completely.”
“Whoa, that’s radical!” exclaims Overcharge.
“Is that a psychic power?” Charge asks no one in particular.
“Nah, it’s probably more like Replicator,” Tristan says, referring, I assume, to another classmate I’ve yet to meet. “He controls things on a molecular level. It’s probably like that.”
“Thing-Bender!” Overcharge says excitedly.
“Hand-Cruncher!” Crash chimes in.
“Wait, guys, no,” I say in protest. “I don’t want a stupid nickname. Just call me Mazzy.”
“Well, you gotta at least learn how to control your power,” Crash says. She walks over to a nearby wall where there are various pieces of equipment and takes a metal staff. “It’s easier than it looks,” she says, twirling the staff in her hands deftly as she walks back over to us. “Just being around us should be enough to give you the first boost. Once you know what it feels like to tap into your powers, you’ll be able to do it whenever you want, as long as you have the energy.”
She holds the staff out with one of her hands, grasping it in the middle so it’s parallel with the floor.
“Bend it,” she says.
That easy, huh? I’ve tried this before with that stupid spoon, but at least I was alone in my room then. Now I’m gonna have to look like an idiot in front of my new classmates.
“Think of an emotion,” Tristan says. “Whatever you’re feeling right now. Hone in on that emotion and let it guide you.”
“I feel... nervous,” I say honestly.
“Good,” Crash says, still holding the staff. “Use that.”
I don’t fully get what they’re saying, but I know I have to try. After all, if I don’t figure out how to use my powers, the government will see me as a liability and I’ll be “disposed of,” as the Architect put it.
I close my eyes and try to feel my emotions. I wasn’t lying; what I’m feeling the most right now is nervousness. But not just from being put on the spot like this in front of new classmates. No, it’s something more serious.
In the past, each time I’ve used my powers, it’s been in response to something terrible. My abusive foster families, my asshole boyfriends, aggressive cops... It’s always been something painful. I’m afraid if I access my power, I’ll feel all those things again.
“No matter what,” Crash says, her voice serious and steady, “don’t turn your back on your emotions. You have to face
them, accept them. They are what empowers us.”
Taking her advice, I stop trying to resist my nervousness and fear. I let it flow through my body, exciting my veins, and then I open my eyes. Glaring at the staff, I imagine it rending upwards, pulled to the ceiling by the emotions coursing through me, and to my amazement... it does.
A loud, metal screeching noise echoes through the test chamber as one end of the bar curves violently upwards. Crash braces herself and stares in amazement, her mouth arched in a smile of amazement. Many of the students in the other groups around us stop their practice to stare at what I’ve done.
Just like before, that feeling of energy in my core rose up within me, and I saw that glowing whiteness encroaching on my vision, but this time the energy felt directed, controlled by my will. Though I didn’t move from where I stood, I could somehow feel myself reaching out through the air and twisting the metal bar upwards—not in a tactile sense, with my hand, but with “it,” with my very power itself. I felt it as an extension of my own body, a prehensile limb forcing the staff to bend.
“Not bad, Mazzy,” I hear Ms. Fischer say from behind me. “Alright, back to work everybody,” she says to the rest of the students, clapping her hands.
The sounds of the other groups practicing around me carry on, but I’m still staring in shock at the staff I just bent. I’m out of breath, and I feel like I just ran a 100-yard dash, but I also feel incredible. I just did that!
Crash is inspecting the staff, particularly at the spot where it bent.
“Pretty cool,” she says. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.”
“That’s a tier one power,” Overcharge says. “That kicks ass.”
“Tier two at best,” Tristan says.
“What? She could fuck people up with that! Mazzy, can you do that to people?” Overcharge asks, calling me by my real name for the first time. “Wait, don’t try it on me. Try it on Shadow.” I guess that’s Tristan’s alias.
“If I can break your arm, does that make it a tier one power?” I ask Tristan with a grin.
“If you can use it without getting out of breath, then we’ll talk,” he says, smirking back at me with a look that sends a charge through my body. Dammit. I promised myself I wasn’t going to let myself get attracted to him, but his charm and looks are almost impossible to ignore.
“Your endurance will come in time,” Crash tells me. “When I first started learning to use my powers, I’d feel exhausted just detonating a quarter. Now, though...”
She holds the bent staff up in the air with one hand and focuses on it. Within a matter of seconds, it begins glowing with a purple aura, and a humming noise that sounds kind of like an electric generator starts emitting from the staff. The glow and the humming noise increase in intensity until Crash finally tosses the staff up into the air where, at its apex, it detonates in an explosion of brilliant purple light. I feel the shock wave from the blast rush past me.
“Bitchin...” I say breathlessly.
“I’m working on being able to detonate bigger objects, and with greater explosive force. They’re always pushing us to explore the limits of our powers. If you can manipulate something like that staff now on your first try, in a few months you should be able to do some seriously impressive stuff. Overcharge was right; I think that’s a tier one power you got there.”
“Are those, like, official rankings?” I ask.
“Nah. There’s a list that people pass around,” Crash tells me. “It’s subjective, but we all know who the most powerful EMPs are here. We have to train together all the time. Oh, we got a list of the hottest guys here too. I’ll show you that list some time. You could weigh in.”
“What about you?” I ask Overcharge.
“Oh, I’m into girls,” he responds.
“No, what is your power?”
Smirking, Overcharge kneels down and places a hand on the ground. “Wherever there is an electrical current, I can tap into it,” he says, and I see arcs of thin blue lightning coursing in a line across the metal floor and up into Overcharge’s arm. There must be circuitry down there connected to the mansion’s power, because the lights in the test chamber start flickering as the lightning spreads throughout Overcharge’s body, moving from his arm to his torso and legs. When he finally stands up, my hair is standing up because of how much static electricity he’s giving off.
“See that dummy over there?” he asks, pointing to a sturdy-looking combat dummy about twenty feet away, his eyes glowing with energy.
No more than a second after I nod, Overcharge has seemingly teleported over to the dummy and delivered a devastating punch to it, sending it flying off its stand and planted into a wall far away.
As Overcharge walks back over to us, obviously exhausted, there’s no longer any electricity flowing through him, and the current around him is gone. I guess he expended it all in that punch.
“Phew,” he says, obviously out of breath. “I’m working on flight. I don’t think I’ll be able to stay up there for long, but I know if I can control the energy better, I’ll be able to soar through the air for a while. What have you been working on, Shadow?”
“Trying to bring others with me into the shadow realm,” Tristan says.
“I thought you were calling it the shadow world?” asks Crash quizzically.
“Nah, shadow realm sounds cooler,” Tristan explains. “I don’t even know if it’s possible though. I asked Mr. Heaton about it. He thinks I would have to practice with somebody I’m strongly connected to, on an emotional level.”
Crash snorts. “Yeah, right, as if you could emotionally connect with somebody.”
I guess Tristan is known as a womanizer. Makes sense, given his incredible good looks, but that’s even more reason not to get too close to him.
Suddenly, he looks at me with his mischievous sparkle in his eye.
“You know, I think we have an emotional connection,” he says to me, holding laser eye contact and stepping forward.
“As if,” I say, but I find I can’t turn away from his gaze. I’ve dealt with my fair share of players since I’ve been on my own, but I’d already have to put Tristan up there in terms of seduction skills.
“Don’t you want to know what it’s like in there? How it feels?” He extends his hands, palms facing upward, as if he wants me to put my hands in his, and keeps walking steadily toward me.
I have to admit, I am tempted. Not because Tristan’s hot, either, but because I am curious what it’s like in the “shadow realm.”
I tilt my head to the side and give Tristan a grin. Confidently, he grins back at me. So I go along with it and raise my hands up to his.
Just before we touch, however, Tristan suddenly disappears completely. There’s a warped tearing sound and, in the blink of an eye, somebody totally different is standing right where Tristan had just been.
“Was he bothering you?” asks the person who has just swapped places with him. It’s another student, and I vaguely recognize him from class before. He looks to be in his mid-twenties, which makes him a bit older than most of us, who all seem to be closer to my age. He’s got fiery red hair and a matching beard, and the sleeves of his school shirt are pulled up, revealing thick, powerful forearms. He’s significantly shorter than Tristan, but probably weighs about the same given his greater muscle mass.
Shocked, I take a few steps back, and soon I hear Tristan yelling from about twenty yards away.
“What’s your damage, MacCready?”
“Just trying to make sure you keep your slimeball fingers off the new girl, dipstick,” the redhead responds, turning his attention to Tristan, who’s still charging forward.
“Hey, I don’t need you trying to protect me, douchebag,” I exclaim.
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize maybe it’s not the best idea to be making enemies on my first day at the Academy, but I can’t help it. I hate it when guys act like I’m some kind of prize, just waiting passively for one of them to c
laim me. I was the one going along with Tristan’s advances because I wanted to.
MacCready now turns his attention back over to me, somewhat confused. I guess he’s not used to girls who stand up for themselves. Just as I notice his confusion turning to anger that I’d dare insult him, Ms. Fischer’s voice cuts through the chaos.
“One more word out of any of you and you’re all going to wind up in Epsilon,” she says.
I don’t know what the hell “Epsilon” is, but I’m guessing I don’t want to go there. Tristan stops where he is, his hands balled into fists. All the other students stopped what they were doing, hoping to see a fight or something between MacCready and Tristan.
“That’s class,” Ms. Fischer says. “Go get some lunch, you animals.”
With that, everybody steps into action again, heading toward the chamber exit. Tristan disappears—literally—into the shadows. MacCready gives me a real dirty look as he passes by.
“Watch your back, new girl,” he whispers.
I just roll my eyes and get ready to leave too, but then Ms. Fischer calls my name.
“Mazzy, Paul, you two get over here,” she orders.
I watch as everybody files out besides me and another student, who I assume is Paul. He’s tall and incredibly well built, and I noticed him in class before too. His blond hair is dirtier than mine and he has the perfect amount of stubble on his prominent chin. Aside from his commanding physicality, he also stands out as having only one arm; his school sweater, which is stretched taught over his muscles, is tailored shut above where his right elbow would be.
“Mazzy, you’re going to need some tutoring to catch up with everybody,” Ms. Fischer says to me now that the three of us are the only ones left in the test chamber, which seems exceptionally quiet now compared to the bustle of training that was going on before. “There’s a lot to take in, especially during the first few weeks.” Then she turns to Paul. “Paul, this will be good for you. It’ll help you freshen up on the basics. I want you working with her every Friday after class.”
