by Dawn Jansen
Paul nods somewhat absentmindedly.
“And maybe it’ll give you some confidence,” Ms. Fischer says. “No matter what, you’re gonna have to get over this if you even hope of passing the Test this time,” she adds, gesturing toward his missing arm.
At that, Paul finally looks Ms. Fischer in the eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m trying.” Then Paul turns to me. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the cafeteria.”
Chapter 5
Mazzy
Paul remains cold and cordial during the whole walk to the cafeteria. I’m used to most of the other students here either having a chip on their shoulder or being overly enthusiastic toward me, so Paul’s aloofness is throwing me off, and I find myself naturally trying to fill the gaps in our conversation.
“Thanks for being willing to tutor me,” I say, to which Paul just gives a grunt in reply. He keeps his eyes focused forward, and has only really glanced at me once since we first met.
“So, I can control matter with my mind,” I tell him, trying to think of something to say. “What’s your power?”
“Super strength,” Paul responds.
“Oh yeah? Did they try to give you a stupid nickname too? Bulk Thickneck or something?”
When my corny joke makes Paul crack a smile, I feel almost as accomplished as I did when I first used my powers today.
“They go overboard with the nicknames sometimes,” he says, looking a little more relaxed now. “I’m just Paul.”
“Super strength, though, that’s pretty rad,” I say. “What’s it like?”
“It was good,” he replies. His face returns to that serious expression he had earlier. “That’s why it’s been tough since the incident...”
“What happened?” I wasn’t going to bring it up, but now that he’s already mentioned it, I figure it’s fair game.
“I took the Test... and I failed.”
“I keep hearing about the Test, but I still don’t know what it is,” I say.
“It’s the ultimate test of your abilities, everything you’ve learned since you came here. They run you through an obstacle course and put you up against these machines that the Architect designed. In a way, I’m lucky; lots of students who fail the Test die,” Paul says, his expression growing grimmer with each word. “I thought I was strong, but I wasn’t even strong enough to protect the only person in the world who mattered to me...”
With his hulking frame and heroic features—he looks like he could play a blond Superman in a movie—it feels weird to see Paul become so dejected, but I guess it’s understandable. Whoever this person was must have been pretty important to him. I wonder what it’s like to love somebody that much?
I put my hand on his shoulder, trying to offer him some comfort, but my touch seems to snap him out of the memories he was just absorbed in.
“Paul...” I begin, wanting to let him know that it’s okay to feel sad, but he cuts me off.
“Cafeteria’s straight ahead,” he says. “I forgot something in class.”
Paul turns away and goes down another hallway, not waiting for my reply. I feel kind of snubbed, but I could tell he didn’t want to get too emotional in front of me. After all, I’ve seen firsthand how vindictive some of the students here can be. He’s probably afraid of giving me ammo to hurt him with later.
I’m kind of shocked by my own response though. I could see a part of myself in Paul just then—full of self-doubt and regret, feeling like you’re worthless. When I finally moved out on my own, I slowly learned those were just beliefs my abusive foster families had instilled in me, and I’ve gradually overcome them. I wanted to give Paul that same comfort just now, and that he didn’t give me the chance makes me feel a little empty inside, like I’d reached out for a connection and been denied.
“Come on, Mazzy,” I think to myself as I make my way into the cafeteria. “You’ve got enough to worry about on your own. Don’t get wrapped up in other people’s problems.”
The cafeteria is in a huge room with a large open space that I imagine used to be the mansion’s ballroom. There are big oak tables spread out beneath tasteful chandeliers and there are a few dozen students in here now. I was here this morning for a quick breakfast, but it was much quieter then. Because of how busy it is now, I feel something I haven’t had to deal with in years: the dread of having to find my spot in a new cafeteria.
Even though I’m nineteen now, I think you could put forty-year-old me in the same situation and I’d still feel uneasy. There’s just something intrinsically vulnerable about walking around with a teetering cafeteria tray trying to find a familiar face among a sea of people staring at you whispering. I thought I’d be able to sit with Paul, but he ran off already. And even though Tristan is a jerk and I’d probably have to deal with him hitting on me the whole time, at least he’s somebody I know, but I don’t see him anywhere.
Once I’ve loaded my tray with an admittedly tasty-looking meal—Brussels sprouts, seared salmon, and sauteed shiitake mushrooms—I start looking around the room again for a place to sit. Just as expected, there are many eyeballs glued to me as I steady my tray and start navigating between the tables. I wonder if this is like prison and I should just clobber somebody on my first day? On second thought, seeing what Overcharge and Crash were capable of doing, and given the school’s seemingly lax attitude toward student fatalities, that would probably be a death wish.
Just as I spot Crash sitting with a group of people and decide to go sit with her, I feel somebody tap on my shoulder. Expecting it to Paul or maybe even Tristan, I spin around and see nothing other than a disembodied arm perched on a lunch table waving at me. I absolutely freak and jump back instinctively, dropping my tray of food to the ground in the process.
The whole cafeteria erupts in a roar of laughter, and I stare speechlessly as the arm. It uses its hand to walk like some kind of finger-legged spider and rejoins its owner, a muscular student sitting a few tables away who’s laughing harder than anyone. I’m still in shock as I watch his arm literally fuse back onto his body, and he then gives an enthusiastic high five to MacCready, who’s seated beside him. I guess that’s payback for calling MacCready a douchebag.
I try to hide the redness of my cheeks as I bend down to pick up my try, and when I get up, Crash is standing there.
“Looks like you’ve met the Arm,” she says, smiling.
“Clever alias,” I grumble.
“Don’t worry. Everybody has to go through a little hazing here. Come on, I want seconds,” she says, guiding me back to the buffet dishes.
The laughter has mostly died down by the time I get a new tray of food and go with Crash back to her table. Once we sit down, Crash introduces me to everybody.
First there’s Frankie, who looks Asian and has the most incredible hair I’ve ever seen on a guy before. I don’t know what his power is, but having such bitchin’ hairdo counts as one in my book.
“Psychism,” Frankie says suddenly in between bites of his food.
“W—what?” I ask.
“You were wondering what my power is. I’m a psychic,” he says nonchalantly, running a hand through his perfect mane. “The trick is not washing your hair so often, by the way.”
“Rad...” I say, making a note to myself to be careful of my thoughts around him.
Crash then introduces me to the other student sitting with us who, like Crash and Overcharge, goes by his nickname: Gate. He’s the short and skinny type, and his most notable feature is a prominent Adam’s apple that bobs up and down when he talks.
“Nice to meet you,” Gate says, right after which there’s a weird sucking sound and some kind of circular mirror appears in the air in front of me. Before I can process what it is though, somebody’s hand comes through it. At first I think it must be some other asshole playing another practical joke on me, but then I realize that Gate has extended his hand through a similar-shaped “hole” in the air in front of him.
“Portals,” he says, smiling. “I make porta
ls.”
It feels so weird to shake his hand coming out of the portal, and I stare in amazement at how space literally bends around the edges of the portal, like some kind of distorted mirror effect. As he pulls his hand back, the portals disappear with the same sucking noise.
“Your guys’ powers are so cool,” I say honestly.
“You’re not so shabby yourself,” Overcharge says. “You’re lucky you managed to figure out how it works today. Ms. Fischer seems chill, but she’s got a short fuse. What did she want to talk to you about after class anyway?”
“She says I need tutoring to get up to speed. I’m gonna be working with Paul after class from now on.”
Everybody seems to get quiet when I mention Paul.
“Paul?” Crash says. “I’m surprised he was even willing to talk to you. He’s been totally whacked out since he failed the Test.”
“Can you blame him?” says Frankie. “He lost an arm, and his freaking girlfriend died.”
“Nobody ever thought he’d fail the Test,” Overcharge adds. “He was like, the star quarterback of the Academy. The Delta simulations were a piece of cake for him. He and Tristan used to hang out all the time, actually, but I don’ think they’ve talked once since Paul failed the Test. He’s just a totally different person now.”
I think back to how Paul smiled when I joked about the nicknames. I could see a hint of it then, the confidence and light that he used to radiate, but it was quickly erased by his brooding solemnity.
“So you do the Test in pairs?” I ask.
“Groups, actually,” Crash says. “You might not realize it now, but emotional leverage is crucial to bringing your powers to the next level. The Academy is constantly spying on us, analyzing our relationships and figuring out which students share the greatest emotional connections, because putting those people together in a group brings out the best in them. So you do the Test in groups of three or four. I’ve even heard of five, if all five people share a strong enough connection.”
“What kind of connection?” I ask. “I kinda hate MacCready already, does that count?”
“Technically speaking, hatred can fuel your power, but they’d never put students that hate each other together,” Frankie explains. “You can’t just empower each other, you have to work together too. It’s common knowledge that love works the best, as it’s the most sustainable. All the best EMPs are lovers.”
Dammit. I was hoping I could stay out of any romantic relationships while I’m here and just focus on training, but now I’m not so sure that’s an option.
“It’s not,” Frankie says with a grin. His mind-reading is gonna take some getting used to. “I mean, you can try, but once you see how much energy you can get from sex, you’ll be wanting to get as much of it as you can.”
Before I even have time to process what I just heard, the bell rings, followed by a cacophony of chairs scraping against the hardwood floor as everybody gets up and starts moving toward the door.
I take a look at my schedule. My next class is “Hostage Crisis Management” with Mr. Heaton.
First time for everything, right?
Chapter 6
Paul
As soon as I’m out of Mazzy’s sight, I make a beeline for Test Chamber Alpha.
I’ve been trying to keep the memories of that day buried, but Mazzy unknowingly brought them up when I was walking her to lunch just now. She didn’t mean to; she’s a good girl, I can tell. But that’s all the more reason that I should stay the hell away from her. I couldn’t protect Starla when I had both my arms; why would I think I’d be able to protect Mazzy with only one?
Ever since I failed the Test three weeks ago, Test Chamber Alpha has been the only place that offers me any solace. I come here when the chamber is empty and just unload on the training equipment, letting out all my rage.
It doesn’t do me much good though. Every punch I throw reminds me of how much power I’ve lost since my connection with Starlet was severed. Everybody in the Academy used to think I was some kind of Superman—that I could smash my way through any obstacle—but none of them knew how important Starla was for my power. Without her, I’m not even half the man I once was.
Being down a limb sucks too. Phantom pain is a daily occurrence, and as fate would have it, it was my dominant arm that got pulverized during the Test. But while I can deal with retraining my left arm, what I can’t deal with is mending my shattered heart.
Because of the ratio of men-to-women among EMPs, most female students at the Academy end up having several male partners at once. It’s just a necessity of the situation we’re in; very few EMPs can tap into their full power without a romantic partner. But Starla and I were different, and not just because we were one of the few exclusive couples in the Academy’s history, either. We were also unique in that we knew each other before coming to the Academy. We grew up in the Midwest together, and when both of our powers first started to manifest in our teens, we turned to each other for comfort.
I send a training dummy careening toward the wall, where it embeds itself with a loud crash. Luckily, the Architect is a super-genius funded by the richest government in the world, so even with my super strength I wouldn’t be able to damage the structure of the test chamber too badly.
After about a half hour of taking my anger out in the test chamber, I finally feel the fatigue that I had been so desperately looking for; the fatigue that makes me momentarily forget everything that’s happened recently.
Panting and covered in sweat, I grab my bag and head to the showers. As I let the hot water run down my body and lather myself up, I start wondering what I’m going to teach Mazzy when I have to tutor her on Friday. I know what Ms. Fischer has in mind by trying to get Mazzy and I alone together. The Academy is always trying to encourage students to shack up with each other, and I’m sure they’re worried about the drop in my performance ever since Starla died, but I have no interest in getting involved with Mazzy.
It’s not that she’s not beautiful—she is probably the most attractive girl that’s joined the Academy since I started here—but because I know they’re going to make me take the Test again soon, and if Mazzy and I develop a relationship before then, they’re going to put us together. I’m not willing to endanger her like that, and so I have to keep my distance. I remember what it was like when I first got to the Academy—the hazing, the weird classes, learning all the different kinds of powers there are—so I know she needs help getting used to everything. And I’ll give her that, but nothing more... for her sake.
━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━
I get changed into my school uniform just in time to make it to my next class and, speak of the devil, there’s Mazzy sitting near the front row when I walk in. I don’t know why, but my eyes hone in on her and her blond hair as soon as I enter the classroom. She gives me a smile when she sees me, and there’s something in her expression that I find comforting, so much so that I feel myself giving her a light smile back.
That’s twice in one day she’s made me smile, which is pretty much a record for me since the incident. I plop my bag down beside my desk and take my seat.
Mr. Heaton is the teacher for this class, and he’s also the Director of Powers Research at the Academy, which puts him not far down below the Architect in terms of authority. The stories about Mr. Heaton are intense. He’s one of the more senior faculty members, and his power is tier one to the max—the ability to steal things from people when he touches them, but abstract things like aspirations, feelings, and memories. Rumor has it he’s almost as smart as the Architect because he stole a rogue EMP’s intelligence at some point.
This class is all about dealing with hostage situations, and it’s mainly focused on minimizing collateral damage. Apparently it’s a rather new addition to the curriculum. Though we’re still mega-top-secret, the government has become more willing to utilize EMPs on missions in recent years, and I guess they don’t want any hapless civilians punched into orbit or sucked in
to the shadow realm when we’re trying to save them. This is part of the “public relations” portion of the curriculum, which deals with how we keep a low profile in public when we’re out on a mission. The last thing the Academy wants is word getting out that there are unstable, super-powered teenagers training to become assassins and spies out in the woods of New York.
After a bit of lecturing, Mr. Heaton has us split into groups of four to tackle a group exercise in the book where we have to brainstorm how we can use our powers to resolve various hostage situations. I’m put into a group with Melody, MacCready, and... Mazzy. I saw what happened between them in Test Chamber Alpha today, and everybody knows that MacCready has quite the mean streak in him, so I make sure I’m sitting in between the two of them when we all move our seats together.
Despite this, MacCready still has something nasty to say once we’re all sat down.
“If it isn’t the blond bimbo,” he sneers, provoking a snort of laughter from Melody.
“Don’t you get tired of being a jerk all the time?” Mazzy says in response. I respect that she doesn’t seem intimidated by him, but maybe it’s just because she doesn’t realize that MacCready is one of the deadliest students in the Academy.
“Whatever, bitch,” MacCready lashes out. “Your shadow-fucking boyfriend isn’t here to protect you now, so I can say whatever I want.”
“Cool it, MacCready,” I say. That was way out of line for just some stupid test chamber beef.
MacCready looks at me with disdain. “So the gimp thinks he’s still a big hero, huh?”
There used to be a certain level of respect between me and MacCready. I might have even said he looked up to me before the incident, but now he’s showing his true colors; he’s nothing more than an opportunistic wolf. My brow furrows as I ball my hand into a tight fist.
