But now, a young girl had just reached out to him, told him that she and at least a few other campers knew what he was doing, if not what for…and they didn’t care. Yoko didn’t ask me what I was doing with everything I was buying, thought Noah. There had been no judgment, just a simple statement of fact.
Yoko glanced him over once more before pivoting, dismissing the conversation and walking to the door. Noah called out to her, “You’re wrong.”
The girl stopped but didn’t turn around. “Oh yeah?”
“You said none of us are special,” Noah replied. “But what if everyone is? What if everyone is worthy of a second chance, or a helping hand?”
Yoko shook her head before opening the door to the mess hall and stepping through. She must have noticed that Noah hadn’t actually contradicted her. If everyone is special, then nobody is. But if it’s one thing Noah had learned, it was that the same fact can be looked at in two different ways that can both change a person’s worldview.
He stared at the exam score one more time. Then he got up slowly, walked to the briefcase, and shut it.
***
An hour later, using [Listen], Noah picked up the easy breathing of the other campers inside the small cabin. Noah lay on the bottom bunk, unable to sleep. His mind wasn’t the usual kind of restless–buzzing with plans of the future. Instead, he was thinking about the past.
For some reason, he thought how the cigarettes that Doc had been slowly killing himself with had always bounced up whenever he grinned. Noah had experienced plenty of fun moments since his new life with his friends and family, but until an hour earlier, he didn’t know that he had been missing something. Granted, he’d been depressed and alone in his first life, so he’d thought he had everything this time around. Noah genuinely loved the new memories he’d created, but playing games with Johnny and being goofy with his parents felt…lesser compared to surviving the Shift and his lessons he’d received from Doc.
His new memories weren’t truly spontaneous, didn’t feel as genuine. They felt manufactured with his Charisma - like staged photographs. Even though he had genuinely had a great time with his loved ones, the moments had always been plagued by the dark undercurrent of the coming Shift. Because of that, he had never really felt like he truly belonged, had always felt different.
Until today, Noah thought, I didn’t realize I kept a distance between me and everyone else. I never even tried telling anyone any of my secrets, just assumed everyone would think I was nuts. Nobody—I never gave anyone a chance.
He narrowed his eyes and decided he refused to brood without action—that would be an old Noah thing to do. Instead, he got up from his bunk bed and stepped outside. [Listen] alerted him to movement in the nearby tree line–one of the Interpol agents. Noah wasn’t going anywhere; they could watch him all they liked. He sat on the stairs of the front porch and stared at the night sky, tracing the invisible lines between the stars like Doc had taught him.
Someone opened the door behind him, and Pietro from Russia sat next to Noah without looking at him. The boy’s messy black hair fell down to the top of his eyes, making him looking like a shaggy dog. Noah cleared his throat, held out his hand, and said, “Hi, Pietro. My name is Noah.”
Pietro looked at Noah’s hand but didn’t take it. He nodded and spoke English in a perfect North American accent, “So, Yoko got to you?”
Noah let out a defeated sigh. “Yeah, and she was right. I’ve been kind of a jerk.” Not one to repeat the same mistake, Noah talked to Pietro like an equal.
The Russian boy hugged his knees under his chin and looked up at the stars. He didn’t acknowledge Noah’s words and continued to stare at the sky. Noah’s Charisma stat wasn’t necessary to stay silent. He didn’t need his abilities to remind him what it was like to be fourteen.
After several minutes of silence, Noah turned his head and saw something wet glisten Pietro’s eyes. The Russian boy seemed to be filled with wonder, like he couldn’t believe where he was. He whispered, “It’s so quiet here.”
Pietro had been fidgeting, trying to hide his hands, but Noah had seen the burn scars, small little dark spots across the tips of his fingers. He frowned and to his own surprise, found himself saying, “Not for me. I can still hear things.”
Pietro finally broke his gaze from the stars and read Noah’s face carefully. After a moment, the boy nodded solemnly. “You too, huh? Me? I see things. Can’t unsee them. They tell me sometimes that I’m lucky to be alive. I think they’re lucky to be ignorant.”
The boy paused, his eyes moving back to the sky. Pietro’s voice was strong but brittle as he asked, “In such a peaceful place, what do you have to be afraid of, Noah?”
Silence passed between them before Noah’s hands stretched back behind him, his weight leaning on his palms just like Doc used to. Somehow, the gesture gave him comfort. Ever since he’d been reborn, his mind had been working non-stop. For the first time since hanging out with Doc on the back porch of his cabin, Noah stopped thinking and allowed himself to feel without any restraint.
Somehow, he felt a kindred spirit in the Russian boy sitting beside him, something Pietro must have felt too. Finally, Noah decided to be entirely honest and said, “I’ve seen people I care for die horrific deaths. I saw monsters, both human and not, do things no one should witness. Everything I do, every second of my waking life, is to make sure that never happens again. No matter how much I prepare, I’m afraid I can’t stop it. No matter how much I push myself, I’m afraid I’m not enough.”
Noah didn’t feel sorrow as he spoke the words. Instead, he felt lighter, less removed from his own humanity. It was an odd feeling, to give away such a terrible secret and get back comfort in return. It’s been so long since I’ve talked to anyone like this, Noah realized.
Pietro let out a stuttered breath, his voice hesitant. “I’m afraid all the atmosphere in the world will be sucked up into the vacuum of space where no one can hear me. I’m afraid to wake up in a vegetative state where my mind still works but I can’t move my tongue.”
Then the younger boy silently cried, hands buried under his legs. Noah eyed him, but respected his space and didn’t acknowledge the tears. Suddenly, he didn’t see Pietro the boy genius from Russia. Instead, he saw himself a lifetime ago. Noah knew Pietro’s fear because he could relate. When life, the very foundation of everyone’s existence, seemed so rocky, what do we have to anchor us? If we don’t already have them, we need to create those ties.
Noah slowly stood, stretched, and gave Pietro his best Doc Broad smile. “So you’re afraid you will have no voice, that no one will hear you. But I will, Pietro. I’m a good Listener. In fact, I’m listening right now.”
The words had been spoken without any double meaning. In a way, Noah had been speaking to his past self. Pietro eyed him for a moment, his shoulders hunched forward, and Noah could see the strength in the boy, cracked by old wounds. It was a surreal moment, like staring into a mirror crossing time and space, and somehow, Pietro must have picked up on it too. The boy’s searching look ended, and he nodded.
Something warmed in Noah’s chest as he held out his hand to the Russian boy. Pietro stared at the hand before nodding again and grasping it tightly, as if it were a lifeline in a storm. Noah helped him up, and they went wordlessly back into the cabin to their bunks. The connection, the friendship had been made and didn’t need to be rushed.
As Noah stared upwards before sleep, he wondered if the Merriweather division had planned on the other kids at Camp Firestarter being younger, and Noah older. It couldn’t be. Government agencies are never that efficient…are they?
The thought was the last Noah had before drifting off to sleep.
Chapter 18
Seven days later, Noah sat in the back of a bus full of noisy campers, sandwiched between Pietro and Carlo. Yoko sat in front of Carlo, tying a boondoggle lanyard she had made around his wrist. When she finished, every camper on the bus would have a blue and white plastic lanyard.
Carlo leaned over Noah to show Pietro a video on his phone. It wasn’t the typical 3d hologram video, but a normal one from in the early days of the internet. Noah caught the logo and recognized that it was an old YouTube video. Carlo was fascinated with old world technology, and could spend hours watching videos of people building huts out of mud. This video was about weapons, with someone fashioning a crude bow out of PVC pipe.
Pietro watched the video suspiciously, shaking his head. “It doesn’t make sense to me why you watch these old crafting videos. These weapons are ineffective in war.”
Carlo rolled his eyes and said, “Says you. But you are missing the point. They have stabby parts and things that go zoom. They’re cool. You must have that word in Russia, right? I mean, your country is full of ice and snow, how can you not understand what cool means? Besides, not every weapon has to blow up.”
“They should,” Pietro countered quickly, raising his chin a little. “Explosives are the science of physics, and a mere engineer like you wouldn’t understand the complexity.”
Carlo’s eyes went dull, and his voice dripped sarcasm. “Things go boom. Wow. So complex. My butt goes boom every time I fart. Does that make your precious physics–”
“Boys,” Yoko said impatiently, adjusting her lanyard. “Noah has the next stop. Also, Carlo, really?”
The Filipino boy blushed and quieted as Pietro pretended he hadn’t been involved. After the two boys stopped arguing, Noah nodded appreciatively to Yoko for cutting their conversation early. Although friends, once Pietro and Carlo got going, a shouting match between the two geniuses usually followed. Noah said, “I was actually interested in the video. Carlo, could you send me a few links?”
The genius from the Philippines nodded excitedly. At thirteen years old, he already had a graduate degree in Metallurgical Engineering and a few other degrees as well, on top of speaking at least ten languages that Noah knew of. He said, “Oh, man, just you wait till you get—”
Yoko placed her hand on Carlo’s wrist, and he pulled back reflexively, squinting his eyes at the Japanese girl. Pietro made a face and said, “I understand what you two are doing is parting of adolescent courtship, but I still think it’s weird.”
The bus began to slow down in front of a familiar abandoned office building. Standing outside the building were three Interpol agents and a man in a crisp black suit with silver hair. The Japanese girl sighed and let go of Carlo’s hand, his lanyard tied. To Noah, she said, “I’m glad we met you.”
Noah got up and fist bumped Pietro, Jed, and Yoko. “Me too.” Noah had never felt like a big brother before, but had discovered that it fit fairly well.
“See ya, dude,” Carlo said.
Pietro gave Noah a slight smile. “Goodbye. Don’t forget to stay in touch.”
“I won’t,” Noah replied.
He walked down the aisle, bumping fists with all the campers. As he stepped off the bus, he noticed that one of the Interpol agents had already unloaded his bags from the bus. Noah watched the vehicle drive off with his new friends. He assumed they’d be heading to the airport.
Burgess raised an eyebrow. “You were last in all your scenario tests.”
Noah shrugged. “Don’t pretend that’s the reason you sent me there in the first place.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yah. Camp Firestarter isn’t a training ground or a test facility.”
“Then, what is it?”
“I had enough time to figure it out,” Noah replied. “It’s just a normal camp. The tests were there to distract the campers and give them stimulus so they wouldn’t get bored. They were more just for fun, and less annoying than exams that could teach us anything important.”
Burgess chuckled. “I would keep your opinion to yourself and make sure none of the higher-ups hear that. It would wound their pride. But now you’ve only told me what the camp wasn’t, not what it was.”
Noah picked up his bags, and Burgess turned around, leading him inside the building which housed the current secret location for Merriweather Division operations. Noah thought before speaking. “Like I said, it’s just a normal camp for at-risk geniuses. Whoever designed that camp made it to address the at-risk part more than the genius part. The program is for weird kids to interact and not feel so alone.”
Burgess hummed as he held the door open for Noah. “That’s an astute observation. But why wouldn’t Interpol just send them to therapy? It would be much more efficient.”
Noah gave him a look. “Efficient but not effective. Kids hate psychologists.”
Burgess nodded as they reached the bottom floor door, leading to the real offices of the Merriweather Division. “Children can smell clinical testing a mile away. I’ve found that if you give a troubled child a safe environment to just be a child–not whatever the world wants them to be–some problems can kind of sort themselves out.”
That gave Noah pause. “Then what was my problem?”
Burgess opened the door and smiled. “Welcome to the Merriweather Division again, Noah. I hope you have your workout gear. We have some training to do.”
***
“That looked painful!” The unfamiliar voice drifted from the small group of people on one side of the room.
“We can go again whenever you’re ready,” said Louis from the opposite side of the wrestling mat.
It took Noah another second to catch his breath. For some reason, he couldn’t make out the name of the constellations he was seeing. Oh. Wrong stars.
He groaned as he got back up for at least the hundredth time, stretching his back. The other members of the Merriweather Division surrounded the wrestling match, passing money around every time Noah got up. He sighed and said, “This is technically child abuse. I’m fourteen.”
“I didn’t take you as one to make excuses,” said Louis. Noah wondered what that meant since they’d basically met for the first time that day. After being introduced, Noah had changed into athletic clothes and begun getting dismantled in front of an audience.
Obviously another Merriweather agent, Louis oozed self-confidence. The big, bald black man stood a couple inches shorter than Noah, but must have outweighed him by fifty pounds. Probably in his early thirties, every inch of the muscular man screamed ex-military. The fact he was easily manhandling Noah in hand to hand combatives was somehow made even more frustrating by the man’s unflappable, French-accented drawl.
Noah pulled up his [Listener] menus and quickly glanced at all the martial, mundane skills he had acquired over the years. All of them were at least level three. He frowned at screens and thought, I know I have a level five limit with mundane skills, but I didn’t realize exactly what that meant until recently. He mentally sighed.
The black French man crouched in front of him and grinned. Even without knowing that the man was a friend of Emily’s, the smile would have made him uncomfortable.
Noah blinked the screens away. Burgess had originally told him to last only five minutes against Louis. When he’d passed that test, the older man had shrugged and challenged him to last as long as he could. Noah had felt a flash of irritation that seemed to have activated his core of stubbornness that had been growing during the course of his new life.
After that, word had apparently spread around the Merriweather building that the new kid, the Michigan genius, was getting his butt kicked by Louis in the training room.
That had been two hours ago. Since then, Louis had beaten Noah more than nine times out of ten, all while somehow avoiding seriously hurting or bruising him too badly. They’d boxed, they’d wrestled, they’d done floor exercises, and Louis had even beaten him at fencing! Noah’s pride was still delicate after his experiences at Camp Firestarter, which made everything worse. It was one thing to get beat up - he’d endured plenty of that in his past life - but it was entirely different to be out-skilled at martial arts–something he’d felt confident in–over and over again in front of an audience. Emily, in particular, had seemed to enjoy watch
ing Noah be thrown around like a rag doll.
While [Listen] had picked up some of the Merriweathers marveling that Noah had won at all, and that he’d lasted so long, the young man had taken no comfort in it. The world post-Shift would be a dangerous place, and he was training to fight more dangerous foes than people—the Aelves. The memory of how Doc had died, and the overwhelming power of the Aelves he’d faced, made him grit his teeth and just try harder.
To his surprise, the painful and incredibly embarrassing experience had allowed him to level up several of his martial art skills. Still, even when he combined all his physical mundane skills together, he’d been unable to beat Louis any better than a fluke here and there. A few martial skills had even leveled to the maximum of five points, but regardless, he had been unable to level any of them past that.
After flexing his hands in his padded gloves, Noah feinted and shuffled to the side, testing Louis’ defenses. They were sparring with mixed martial arts now, technically using a point system, but it kind of didn’t matter since Noah kept being incapacitated or thrown.
His only advantage was a slightly longer reach, and the occasional stroke of luck–-the French fighter was on a different level. The man seemed to always know what Noah was going to do, have a counter, and have better timing too. Louis even had better endurance! Noah had been tempted to use [Harmony] while humming a tune. He wasn’t sure it would work for a fight, but had decided against it either way. Cheating wouldn’t help him get better.
Noah concentrated on minding his distance and throwing exploratory jabs. He’d tried playing defense before, but if he did, he’d just lose faster—probably because Louis got bored. Instead, he was focusing on looking for openings, using as many martial arts skills as he could, levelling the ones that needed it. Noah kept a watchful eye on his opponent, knowing that Louis seemed equally good at striking and grappling. Luckily, the man hadn’t been following through on his strikes, just batting Noah around.
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