Super Powereds: Year 1 Page 8

  With only slight trepidation, Vince flicked the lighter on with his left hand. With his right he reached out to it, forging a connection to the energy leaking out from the metal-topped plastic container. The flame jerked toward him and began flowing in. The lighter had far more potential energy than a single match, so it took a few seconds before it ran dry and the light of the flame vanished. Vince stretched again, noting that the soreness had definitely decreased. He also felt a bit more awake and alert. The lighter had packed significantly more juice than half a pack of matches.

  “That was pretty cool looking, I have to admit,” Sasha commented.

  “Thanks,” Vince said. “I think I needed that more than I thought. You want the lighter back?”

  “Keep it,” Sasha said. “Dead lighter isn’t much use to me, you know?”

  “That I do,” Vince agreed. “So, are they going to tell us when everyone is done fighting, or do we just rest until we feel like we should go?”

  “Oh, you’re free to go anytime,” Sasha told him. “If you hurry you might still catch the last of the boys’ matches.”

  “What about the girls?” Vince asked.

  “Those wrapped up, like, half an hour ago. My roommate already texted me some of the rankings,” Sasha said.

  “How’d you do?” Vince couldn’t imagine a girl with super speed had faired too poorly.

  “Nineteen out of twenty-two,” Sasha said glumly. “That steel bitch took me down in the first round. Even Julia did better than me.”

  “That sucks,” Vince said. “Is Julia your roommate?”

  “Yeah, and number fourteen in the ranking,” Sasha said. “She made it to the second round, but then she got put down hard. They couldn’t really dock her too many points for it, though. I mean, the broad who beat her did wind up ranked number one for the girls.”

  “Who was that?” Vince asked out of curiosity.

  “I haven’t met her yet,” Sasha said. “But Julia told me it was some telekinetic girl named Mary.”

  14.

  Mr. Numbers and Mr. Transport sat at Dean Blaine’s desk, looking across the sleek mahogany surface at his unapologetic scowl. The lights in Dean Blaine’s office were fluorescent and bright, like a compromise between high beams and lamps. The décor was stark, with little more than a diploma and a few awards adorning the four walls around them. Mr. Transport had a vaguely uncomfortable feeling but was unsure how to place it. Mr. Numbers, on the other hand, had been something of a hellion during his younger days and knew immediately why this sensation was both unenjoyable and familiar. It felt almost exactly as if he was once again fourteen years old and sitting in the principal’s office, trying desperately to figure which crime he had been discovered at.

  “When I agreed to host your students,” Dean Blaine began at last. “I did so with the understanding that these were unfortunate children who were being provided with an opportunity to get some measure of control in their otherwise hectic lives. These were Powereds that had been spurned by fate and society alike, yet now that they could actually use their abilities, they wanted to become Heroes and give something back to the world. That was the way your organization pitched them, correct?”

  Mr. Numbers cleared his throat. “Well, we aren’t really consulted in matters of marketing and diplomacy, but I will admit that does sound like something our company would say.”

  “Regardless of who said it, you two are the representatives that I have at hand, so you are going to have to be answerable for your company as a whole,” Dean Blaine said. “Which brings me to why I called you down here to my office.” He slid a piece of paper onto the smooth polished surface of his desk. “Would one of you like to guess what that is?”

  Mr. Transport took the paper first, since he had the longer arms and could reach. “It appears to be a ranking of the freshman female students entering your program,” Mr. Transport said after a quick glance.

  “Correct,” Dean Blaine agreed. “Now will you read for me the first name on that list?”

  “Mary Smith,” Mr. Transport said. He was very thankful he had worked so hard for long at keeping all emotions, including surprise, out of his voice when needed.

  “You nailed it,” Dean Blaine said with a very out-of-place smile. “Now, for the last question. Can you please explain to me how a girl who had almost no control over her abilities until a few months ago managed to wipe the floor with every other freshman we put her up against?”

  “In all fairness, just because she won doesn’t mean she wiped the floor with them,” Mr. Numbers jumped in.

  “I saw her last fight, which was coincidentally her longest, myself,” Dean Blaine said. “It lasted all of twenty two seconds and was against a girl who transformed into solid steel.”

  “How did Mary beat that?” Mr. Numbers asked with genuine interest.

  “She forced her opponent halfway through the concrete wall, face first. We were forced to remove the girl before she suffocated,” Dean Blaine explained.

  “Given their respective powers, that seems like the best method she had,” Mr. Transport said.

  “Oh, the strategy was sound, no one could question that,” Dean Blaine acknowledged. “The problem is that no girl her age should be able to generate that much telekinetic force, let alone one whose abilities have been fully-functioning for only a few months. Forcing a human being made of steel through several inches of concrete at point-blank range is a feat that only those who have been training for decades are able to pull off. There are certified Heroes that couldn’t have managed to accomplish that so effortlessly.”

  “So, if I am to understand you, you’re concerned about why Mary is so much stronger than she should be,” Mr. Numbers said carefully. He desperately wished he had his usual calculations running through his head so he could jump ahead of the conversation, but unfortunately around Dean Blaine that was impossible.

  “I am concerned that you did more than just help these children!” Dean Blaine exclaimed as he rose from his seat. “I am concerned that perhaps your company, under the guise of feeling sorry for these dregs of the world, decided that they wouldn’t just give the kids control, they would amplify the children’s powers a bit. After all, they’ve already agreed to be guinea pigs, why not run them through every experimental procedure you’ve got?”

  From the way the dean was panting and gesturing it was very apparent to both Mr. Numbers and Mr. Transport how much harm the dean believed a little extra testing could do.

  “I can assure you that is not the case,” Mr. Numbers said. “Even if the doctors and nurses were not heavily monitored during the children’s treatment, which they were, the company has never successfully found a way to amplify a person’s natural abilities, Super or Powered.”

  “Until a few months ago I was under the impression that no one had ever found a way to turn Powereds into Supers, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical of your assurances on the lack of existing technology,” Dean Blaine said. He did seem a bit pacified, though, at least enough to retake his seat.

  “Be that as it may, it is the truth,” Mr. Numbers said. “All our company did was give Mary the ability to control the power she already had. Perhaps it was just that she was born with a very strong ability and is only now learning to use it.”

  “It is... possible,” Dean Blaine conceded. “And for the girl’s sake, I hope that’s the truth of it.”

  “What do you mean?” Mr. Transport said, a bit more harshness to his voice than he wanted. The dean wouldn’t notice, and Mr. Numbers would scold him for tipping his hand even slightly, but he couldn’t help it. Mr. Transport had been put here to control but also to protect the students in his dorm. Responding with harshness to a perceived threat was a natural reaction. As it turned out, though, it was an unwarranted one.

  “I mean that for a girl that young to be that powerful there are only two options... if one discounts the possibility of outside enhancers,” Dean Blaine said, not without some suspicion ling
ering in his voice.

  “Which we are,” Mr. Numbers replied without missing a beat.

  “Yes... Anyway, the only ways she could be that strong are if she was born with a tremendous gift or if she put herself through an unimaginably hellish training,” Dean Blaine said.

  “What sort of training?” Mr. Transport asked.

  “Well, most telekinetics are also telepaths. Something to do with the part of the brain that gets the power,” Dean Blaine said. “Anyway, many of those with the advanced mind ability train up their telekinesis by learning to sharpen their focus. The better they can focus, the more power they can use and the faster it comes. One of the more popular methods of training is to open up their telepathy as much as they can bear and try to function constantly under the barrage of voices. It helps them learn to focus on tasks at hand and blot out the ambient noise that’s always assaulting them.”

  “Interesting,” Mr. Numbers said, praying silently that Mr. Transport wasn’t giving anything away on his face. “I had never heard of that.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” Dean Blaine said. “It’s really only something you know of if your job is training Supers day in and day out.”

  “So, some of the more powerful ones must be able to blot out a lot of noise,” Mr. Numbers said casually. “What’s the most you’ve heard of someone being able to function with?”

  “Well, of course I don’t know what all of them do, but the best I’ve personally witnessed was a Hero who could still function while hearing all the thoughts around him in a three mile radius,” Dean Blaine said. “He’s a top notch one, too, can do some amazing things with that brain of his.”

  Neither Mr. Transport nor Mr. Numbers responded. At that moment they had glanced at each other and were having another of their standard silent conversations. There wasn’t much to say in the way of details, merely a subtle sense of panic and surprise. Unbeknownst to Dean Blaine, the company Mr. Numbers and Mr. Transport worked for had done a similar radius test on Mary in their pre-program evaluation.

  Mary’s range was five miles, and she was able to function perfectly normally while listening to all of that in a populated city.

  Mr. Numbers and Mr. Transport quickly excused themselves.

  15.

  “You’re sure it’s okay for you to be walking?” Vince asked as they made their way down the steel and concrete hall.

  “No, but I think they were mainly worried about me breaking the sound barrier, not going to the main hall to check the results,” Sasha replied. Julia had texted her that the boys’ fights were finished, but rather than getting the results from her roommate, Sasha had cajoled Vince into seeing for himself.

  “Well... okay,” Vince said reluctantly. “Just let me know if you need to lean on me or something.”

  “I bet you say that to all the mending girls with super speed,” Sasha said.

  “Only the ones with pink and black hair,” Vince shot back.

  “Good answer, Silver. Good answer.” Sasha might have continued their verbal dance, but at that point they stepped out of the tunnel and into the main hall. It was really more of an entrance foyer than anything else. Conveyor systems that ran to the respective dorms were on one side, while an enormous screen was perched overhead on the opposite end of the room. There were various hallways like the one Vince and Sasha were emerging from branching off, and at the moment there was a tremendous cluster of black-uniformed freshmen under the screen, looking eagerly for their name in the listings.

  The screen was split into two sections currently, boys’ list and girls’ list. Most of the attention was geared towards the boys’ listings, but in fairness, the girls had been finished for at least an hour or so. Vince and Sasha made their way into the rabble of freshman and began their short search of the boys’ list. It took Vince a few minutes to find his name, not because the list was enormous or complicated, but because he was looking in the wrong part of it. When he couldn’t find himself in the bottom section, he finally looked to the higher rankings, though he was utterly unprepared for what awaited him there.

  “Eighth?!” Vince exclaimed. “How the hell am I eighth? There are, like, thirty guys and I went down in the first round. Was there a mistake?”

  “It isn’t just about how many fights you were in,” Sasha said soothingly. “They were also evaluating how you used your abilities against the ones you were fighting, how you dealt with their techniques, and how well you thought on your feet. If you were fighting a really lopsided battle and still managed to show solid skills then that was factored in.”

  “Yeah but still... eighth?” Vince sighed and tried to relax. It was a good thing; a high ranking was something he should be proud of. He’s been a Powered until two months ago and here he’d managed to show up twenty-two Supers by outdoing them. It was an accomplishment. Vince just wished it was one he felt as though he had earned.

  “Didn’t you say the guy you fought was named Michael?” Sasha asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Looks like he made it to number three,” Sasha said, pointing up at the list. Vince checked for himself and sure enough she was right. Michael Clark was the third strongest male there, below the number one slot, Chad Taylor, and the number two slot, Shane Desoto. Vince was about to look away when the name in the number five slot caught his eye.

  “Who is Roy Daniels?” Vince asked.

  “According to Julia, the sexiest man she’s seen in years,” Sasha said. “She keeps texting my ass about him. Also he’s number five.”

  “I wonder if he has a brother,” Vince speculated. “One of my dorm mates is named Hershel Daniels.”

  “Hershel, huh? I don’t see him up there,” Sasha said.

  It was true, Vince looked and looked but Hershel’s name didn’t appear anywhere on either list. Nick was listed at number thirty on the boys’ side and Alice had come in just below Sasha at twentieth on the girls’, but try as they might, the only Daniels they could find on the board was Roy.

  “Weird,” Sasha said at last. “Do you think Roy is Hershel but they messed up his name?”

  “I somehow doubt it,” Vince said. “Nothing against Hershel, he seems like a really nice guy, but he isn’t the type that your roommate would be constantly texting about.”

  “How do you know? Maybe he’s Julia’s type,” Sasha said, a glimmer of antagonism in her voice.

  “Does she like LARP and table top games? Because that’s what Hershel told us he loves to do in his free time,” Vince countered.

  “Oh. No. Totally a different dude,” Sasha agreed quickly. “Well, whatever; just ask him about it when you get back to your dorm.”

  “I’ll have to,” Vince said. “Especially since none of my fellow Melbrook residents seem to have hung out after they saw their ranks.”

  “No worries, I bet they lick their wounds in time for Casino Night,” Sasha said optimistically.

  “Casino Night?” Vince asked.

  “Yeah, there are flyers up all over the dorms,” Sasha said.

  “Must have missed them,” Vince said, doing his best to sound casual in the deflection.

  “It’s in the student union tonight at seven,” Sasha explained. “Free food, fake gambling with free chips that you can use for raffles, and all the karaoke you can handle. Supers and Normals are both invited.”

  “That sort of sounds like fun,” Vince said.

  “Yeah, we can meet more fellow freshman. Maybe we’ll even make a friend or two that can’t lift a bus or melt steel,” Sasha said.

  “Very true,” Vince agreed. “I don’t really know anyone here except my dorm mates. Oh, and now you, too.”

  “Same boat,” Sasha said. “I met Julia because she’s my roommate, but you’re the only other friend I’ve made so far. Combat doesn’t really engender communal feelings on the first day.”

  “Maybe that’s why they do it,” Vince speculated.

  “Point,” Sasha said. “Well, I’m going to head back up to the dorm. Seven is
only a few hours away and I am desperate for a shower. You think you’ll go to the Casino Night?”

  “Positive.”

  “Sweet,” Sasha said, pulling out the “e” sound a bit. “Want to meet up at the entrance and then lose all our fake money together?”

  “Absolutely,” Vince said. “I’ll see if I can talk any of my dorm mates into coming along.”

  16.

  Nick was already seated comfortably at a blackjack table when he noticed Vince and some pink-haired girl walk into the garishly decorated student union. They had obviously been trying for an over-the-top Vegas style décor with the gold banners and fake statues, but what the decorator had failed to realize was that Vegas’ brilliance was in the subtlety beneath the glamour. Nick took no offense to it, though; that was the signature appeal of his home town. Often imitated, never duplicated.

  Nick was grateful that Vince had told him about the event at any rate. Throwing his first fight to stay off anyone’s radar had left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. Tactics and stealth were all well and good, but there was something so viscerally wrong about losing in any way. It had been necessary, though, and as Nick pulled in a few more additions to his pile of chips he felt the sourness ease from his taste buds. It didn’t matter that the chips were worthless: it only mattered that Nick was winning.

  “Hit,” said a female voice next to him. Nick had been seated and working up a hot streak when Mary had plunked herself down next to him. He didn’t want to be rude, but he didn’t want a mind reader so close to him, either. He had waffled for a few moments then let it be. The girl could follow him even if he did get up; besides, he had no idea how good her range was. Even being in the same building might give her free access to his head. Better to stay put and keep up appearances of friendliness toward his dorm mates. It wouldn’t fool her, but that was a lost cause anyway.