The natives were getting restless.
Natives?
Classmates?
Inmates.
My fellow inmates were getting restless. The class we were waiting for should have started
two minutes ago. Doesnt seem like much, two minutes, but classes were always on time. Everything was always on time. And any deviation from routine generally meant some kind of trouble.
It was unusual for them to leave us unsupervised. Well, how unsupervised can you be with two cameras mounted in the room? But it was unusual not to have any NIAC—National Institutes for Ability Control—personnel physically there to eyeball us. Id heard stories from kids who hadnt been at State School #15 as long as I had, whod come from normal schools and normal lives on the outside. They said kids acted up at school sometimes, caused trouble just for the sake of causing trouble. Took the consequences just to get attention, or for the thrill of breaking rules and the possibility of escaping with no consequences at all.
It was hard to wrap my brain around t hat. But then, Detention doesnt mean the same thing to them. Out there.
My pencil snapped in my hand. Damn.
Ethan,Karens voice soothed its way into my brain, you need to relax. Its probably nothing.
I glanced over to throw her a smile, reassure her that I was fine and not a danger to myself or others…except for the pencil. She was fiddling with her long, black hair, and while her mental voice was calm as ever, she couldnt hide the apprehension in her grey eyes.
Then those eyes flicked to Elle who, a moment later, turned in her seat and reached across the aisle toward me. I put the two pieces of the pencil in Elles hand. She closed her fist around it, opened her hand, and I retrieved my pencil, good as new, from her palm. My fingers brushed her skin and I felt a tingle all the way up my arm. I had to clear my throat to whisper “Thanks,” at her. I doubt she heard me. I barely heard me. She was already facing front, and I was looking at her honey-brown braid again.
You know what you learn when you can read minds? Karen “asked.”
I heaved a heavy mental sigh. Lots of things that arent your business, Id imagine.
Boys are idiots.
Dont you have anyone else to pick—?
Theyre coming.
The door opened and three people entered the room. One was the armed guard who would stand in the corner and look bored the entire time our instructor was in the room. One was the instructor for this class. The class was called Mental Defense, but the instructor had never told us his name. Lots of NIAC personnel didnt give us their names. We called him Sir. The third was a guy about the same age as Karen and me.
He was on the tall side, pale and really skinny, and his hair was cropped so close to his scalp you could hardly tell what color it was. Brown, I guessed. He walked kind of strangely, one foot dragging a little with each step. The instructor didnt tell him to take a seat. As the kid stood at the front of the room, it seemed he had a tick that caused his head to tilt to the side a few times a minute.
“This,” the instructor said with a tone of suppressed excitement in his voice that made me kind of nervous, “is Anderson. Hell be helping us test the telepathic blocking techniques weve been working on.” I definitely didnt like the sound of that. “Anderson has come to us from Delta Facility.”
That announcement broke through even our rigid discipline. There were a bunch of gasps, even whispers. The instructor pounded his fist on his desk, looking really pissed off at the outburst. What did he expect? Delta Facility was the proper name for what the NIAC personnel more casually referred to as Detention. It was the worst threat of punishment available to them, the nightmare of every kid in State School. It was a place few kids ever came back from, and no one ever left the way they went in. It was a place of free experimentation where life had no value and pain wasnt a concern. Rumors of unending torment, yet a territory vastly unknown. It was Talent Hell. We called it Everlast.
Across the room, an empath groaned loudly and his chair scraped against the floor. From the corner of my eye I could see him grab his head and twist in his seat.
“Use your blocking, Kenneth,” the instructor snapped.
I tried to pull my emotions back, to calm down, to put Everlast and the concern about what the Anderson kid was here to do aside for the moment. I hoped the rest of the class would do the same and give Kenneth a break, poor guy.
“Can you continue without disrupting us?”
“Y-yes, Sir,” Kenneth gritted out. He folded his hands on the desk in front of him, arms trembling, knuckles going white. They told the public that they took us from our families to train us to control our abilities, protect us as well as them. Since we were never allowed to communicate with our families, since no one ever went home, its hard to believe that anyone on either side of the electrified fence believed that. We were training to be government operatives and they didnt like to see weakness. If you couldnt handle the strain, you werent going to hack it as a soldier. And if you couldnt hack it as a soldier, the next best use was lab rat.
“Glad to hear it,” the instructor said curtly. “Anderson has been a successful part of an experimental trial involving an important new technology that may someday aid all AbilityAffected persons. What brings him to our Mental Defense class, however, is his inborn ability: Compulsion.”
Even I could feel another shift in the energy in the room. Compulsion and Influence Talents were pretty rare. At least they were in the State Schools. NIAC didnt trust kids who could affect their thoughts. No wonder hed ended up in Everlast.
“As we have discussed on numerous occasions, there may be a time when you will be faced with an Ability-Affected opponent or even, at some point in the future, a technology that may attempt to force you off-mission through some form of mindmanipulation. Today were going to be getting realworld practice in using the blocking techniques weve been learning. All right, Anderson, lets start with something simple. Choose your subject and make that subject…walk to the front of the room.”
Anderson and the instructor went a few rounds of trying to make us dance—literally in one case. The instructor pointed out Rand and Karen and told Anderson to force Rand to strike his older sister. The poor kid got a nose bleed and almost passed out, but he held his own. No big surprise to me. Rand and Karen were really tight and even at twelve, Rand was shaping up to be a strong guy. Even Anderson broke out in a sweat on that one, looking kind of embarrassed and pissed off, but the instructor was pleased.
“All right, take your seat, Rand, and keep your head back. Well do one more and then well call it a day. Your choice Anderson.”
Andersons head kept snapping that little sideways jerk as his narrowed eyes looked us over. When he looked down my row, I glanced away. Nope, no challenge here. The last thing I wanted was to find out that I lacked the mental fitness to stand up to him and end up giving Rand a busted lip to match his bloody nose. Andersons expression looked mean and I figured thats what hed go for. Better he pick on one of the smaller guys.
Elle pushed her chair back and stood. She grabbed the back of it and swayed on her feet, as though trying to pull herself away from invisible hands. Her hand jerked away from the back of the chair as one foot slid forward. Then another. She was shaking her head as she moved haltingly forward, grabbing at the sides of desks in an effort to hold herself back, sometimes pulling them away from their owners.
Anderson waited for her at the front of the classroom, lounging negligently against the instructors desk. He was smiling now, a predatory smile that made my blood boil. I heard the scrape of my own chair before I was even aware of what I was doing.
Stop it!Karens thought was forceful, edged with urgency, and made me pause long enough to see the instructors attention directed my way, his expression half warning and half challenge. Yes, hed love an excuse to go after you. Dont give it to him, Ethan.
Help her, I thought.
You know I cant get involved any more than you can. Shes gotta do this on her own.
Some best friend you are.Unfair, but I wasnt feeling a lot of fairness just then. Elles no match for him. She was already near the front of the classroom now.
I know. Ethan, you need to calm down. Sirs watching you. The violence pouring off you is about to make Kenneth sick, and theres nothing to be done. Its humiliating, yeah, but shell live.
He wont.
Cut the macho crap. Youre always going to be on probation here. You cant afford a show of temper, so just cool it. Close your eyes and think of your happy place or something.
But I couldnt close my eyes. I had to watch Elle being pulled and jerked by Andersons Talent until she seemed to throw herself against his chest. He caught her lightly around the waist and waited for her to raise herself on her toes and press her mouth to his.
I think I growled.
Careful, youre about to out yourself on the whole secret crush thing.
If that was supposed to lighten my mood, it was total fail.
Karen? Shut. Up.
My teeth hurt from grinding them together. I know it was only a moment but it seemed to take forever before the instructor broke it up. Part of me was surprised he had let it go that far. They didnt go as far as they could have to segregate the sexes, but boy/girl relationships were definitely frowned on.
“Okay, Anderson, thats enough.”
Anderson released her immediately, licking his lips with a satisfied smirk that made me need to kill him. Elle jerked away like he was made of fire and immediately raised her hand to slap him. Instead she used the back of it to swipe across her mouth. She turned and marched back to her seat with her chin up, but not making eye contact with anyone. There were tears on her cheeks.
Beyond my rage at Anderson, at the instructor, at pretty much the whole world just then, I felt bad for even looking at her in that moment, at not having the sense to look away and give her that much privacy.
The instructorlooked at his watch. “Were done for today. I trust all of you will now diligently practice the exercises youve been given and strengthen those mental defenses. Dismissed.” As always, the instructor and his guard left first. They took Anderson with them.
Lucky for him, I thought.
“Ow!” I looked up to see it was Karen who had cuffed me on the back of the head. Big surprise.
“Youre having a relapse. Snap out of it. I didnt spend all that time helping you learn to control that temper of yours so you couldblow it now,” she said in a low voice. She turned to Rand. “Hows the nose.”
“Its fine. What an asshole. Is that what they do at Everlast, turn people into assholes?”
“Watch your mouth! Ethan, whats going on in the guys dorm? Whys my baby brother talking like a sailor?”
Rand made a disgusted noise in response to the “baby brother” remark. “You okay, Elle?” He changed his voice to mock the instructor mode, “Okay, Anderson, its lackeys choice.” Then to mock the idiot mode, “Oh, um, I think Ill pick…get the prettiest girl in the class to kiss me!” Back in his own voice, “How original. Asshole. Like hed ever get any any other way.”
Karen cuffed him on the head, but Elle smiled. Man, the stuff you can get away with saying to a girl when youre only twelve.
“Come on,” Karen the mother hen said, herding us chicks along behind the other kids. “Were gonna be late for PT.”
Physical Training meant different things for different Talents. For Karen and purely mental Talents like her, it just was just calisthenics, laps, stuff like that. She hated it. Rand loved it. The kid had way too much energy. They were trying to curb that with the discipline of a lot of martial arts training. As soon as we walked outside he put a little spring in his step. For a kid who could manipulate his own gravity, that spring sent him sailing over our heads with a wave, and bouncing off to his sensei like a man on the moon.
“Like Tigger on crack,” Elle said.
“Who?” Karen and I asked together.
“Tigger. Tigger and Pooh? Hes bouncy, pouncy, flouncy…and you have no idea what Im talking about.” Unlike Karen, Rand, and I who had been here since we were really little, Elle had spent years in the real world before coming here. Sometimes I didnt understand a word she was saying.
I shook my head, thinking how pretty she was, especially when she had color in her cheeks like that. The wind blew at strands of hair that escaped her braid and I really wanted to— I coughed, feeling Karens amused eyes on me. “I, uh, gotta…” I hitched my thumb over my shoulder.
“See you at lunch, big guy,” Karen said.
Elle smiled at me.
I thought about that smile later as I waited for a healer. It must have been a busy day on the PT fields because it seemed to be taking forever. I concentrated on Elles smile, on holding my form, on not passing out. Theres nothing worse than getting burned, and I was lucky it wasnt a lot worse.
“Im so sorry, Ethan,” Emily said again. She looked like she was going to cry.
I opened my mouth to tell her, again, that it was okay, it wasnt her fault. But the coach cut me off. “No apologies. Maybe thatll help him think a little faster on his feet next time, right Ethan? Hold that form. Youre morphing.”
Of course Im morphing! It was hard enough taking the form of this skinny little girl, then add dodging the fireballs you made her throw at me, and now Im supposed to be able to concentrate enough to hold it when shes fried my damned arm? Son of a bitch!
“Im doing my best, Sir.”
“Well your best sucks. Your best let this girl make barbeque out of you. Wheres that healer? Lets see another shift—no, dont go back to your own form. Do…Marcia over there.”
God forbid you could ease up and let me do someone my own size.
It was a really long PT.
Later, in the mess, I spotted Elle and Karen on the line. Elle waved me over to cut in. Most kids didnt much care about that kind of thing. We were all getting fed and the food was nothing to hurry for, and even if someone did have a problem, Id been big, mean, and unpredictable enough when I was younger that I still had a certain reputation. No one wanted to start something.
“What happened to you?” Elle grabbed my arm to examine it as soon as I was within reach. Her fingers were warm on my bare skin and all the air pretty much evacuated my lungs. The next moment she dropped it like a hot potato and took hold of her braid instead.
I rubbed at a sudden chill, feeling the charred ends of where my sleeve used to be. Id have to wear this shirt the rest of the day—so that everyone could see I was clumsy enough to get hit, I guess.
“Singed a bit?” Karen asked.
I had no doubt she knew. Her giant, all-powerful, scary-ass psychic brain always seemed to be everywhere at once and she had no concept of privacy.
We were nearing the entrance to the serving area. An armed guard stood off to the side, droning in a loud monotone, “Keep both hands on the trays. No talking to the staff. Keep the line moving.” I always wondered why they didnt just record that and play it over a speaker.
We moved through the serving room. Karen seemed distracted. I saw Elle take her hand off her tray to push Karens arm forward. The server behind the glass glared at both of them as she smacked a scoop of something down on the plate. “Keep your brain to yourself and pay attention, nosy,” I whispered, in what was supposed to be a taunt to jolt her back to her own reality. But she didnt seem to hear me.
We had almost reached the exit when I saw Rands dark head bobbing in and out of the crowd ahead of us. He fought his way upstream, shoving kids with trays as he pushed through the narrow doorway. I turned to Elle who switched her grip to balance her tray on one arm and held out the other for mine, and when my hands were free I grabbed Rand by the shoulders and planted his feet firmly on the floor. The guard had stopped droning, and Rand had his full attention.
“Hey kid, calm down. Whats going on?”
He looked up at me for just a second, then his face screwed up and he fell against my chest. He was crying.
Aw, hell. I glanced at Karen whose face was tight.
Somebodys dead. One of his friends.
One of the kids?
Yeah.
Aw, hell.
I took him by the shoulders and pulled him away from me, giving him what I hoped was a comforting squeeze while shook him a little. “Snap to, okay, buddy? You cant do this here. Straighten up.”
I felt like an asshole. You shouldnt have to say that to a little kid whos just lost a friend. You shouldnt have to deal with things like little kids losing friends and guys with automatic weapons looking like theyre ready to pounce.
“You got that under control?” the guard barked at me.
“Yes, sir. Were fine. Sorry, sir.”
I turned Rand around to walk in front of me. All the other kids had spun back around when the guard spoke and we were moving in quick, orderly fashion. I kept myhands on Rands shoulders as I marched him out and over to a table and sat him down next to me. The girls followed and sat across from us. I knew it about killed Karen not to cuddle him.
Karen and Rand were about as tight as siblings could be. They came here when Karen and I were five and Rand was only two. I think their parents might have coped with having a telepath around, but having a toddler literally bouncing off the walls probably made them glad for the excuse of the Ability-Affected Persons Civil Responsibility Disclosure Act—the law that required citizens to notify the government of suspected Talents. It also required parents to allow them to be taken to State Schools to be trained under the authority of the National Institutes for Ability Control.
The last few years had been especially hard on them—more for Karen, I think. She and I had turned twelve and were moved up to Senior Section together, while Rand was left behind in Intermediate. We were hardly able to see him at all until he got old enough to catch up to us again. Karen had taken a big step back from him, and that was hard on her too, but she knew she couldnt keep fussing over him. We were too old for that. NIAC let us socialize, let us form friendships, but they frowned on deep relationships that might get in the way of their own agenda. If two people seemed to care more about each other than they cared about getting along with NIAC and sticking to the program, well, there were a bunch of other State Schools a kid could be transferred to. Got a problem with that? Then there was always Detention.
Elle slid my tray across to me and I shoved my paper napkin at Rand. “All right now, mop up, kid. Take it easy. This aint the place and you know it, so man up.” That sounded harsh. It was harsh. But I just couldnt let him make a scene and show weakness. Not in front of the guards, not in front of so many other Talents, kids hed be facing off against on the field or in the classroom, whod be looking for weaknesses to exploit in order to impress the instructors. I kept my hand clamped to his shoulder, and that was all the support I could offer.
Karens face had a look of intense concentration. She was sorting through Rands jumbled thoughts, trying to get the whole story. “Eat your lunch,” I told her sharply, jolting her out of her study. “And that goes double for you, kid. Take mine, Ill go get another.” I shoved my tray in front of Rand.
“Im not hungry,” he whined.
“Ask me if I care. Youve been bouncing around like a maniac and Im sure you put in a good workout before you got your bad news. So eat something, whether you like it or not, or youll crash and burn before the days over.”
“Says the guy who was dodging fireballs.” Elles tray slid across the table and stopped in front of me. “You eat, and listen to your own advice. Ill get another.” She was gone before I could argue.
“Come on, kid, lets dig in. Well talk this out later. I promise.” I was more than ready to lead by example. A big guy like me needs a lot of calories in the first place, and morphing, holding the more complicated forms under stress, dodging fireballs, getting healed…I was starving and if I didnt fill up now I was gonna tank big-time before food was offered again.
“Did I mention what a bad idea this is?” I rea ched up and adjusted the tag in the neck of uniform shirt I was wearing. It was itching my neck.
“Only five or six times,” said Elle, who was walking beside me along the quiet, dimly lit corridor.
On her other side, Karen grunted irritably. “But youve been thinking it non-stop. At this point I think Id prefer your daydreams about—”
“Hey now,” I interrupted on cue. Karen wasnt really about to out me in front of Elle, she just wanted to annoy me. But what did she expect? That I would be thrilled when the two of them snuck out of the Girls Dorm and came looking for me, bearing the dirty laundry of NIAC personnel? Id said it then and Id say it again, sneaking around trying to find information about the story Rand had told us was a bad idea.
“Please,” Karen drawled, “dont say it again.”
“Just keep your nose in your clipboard and look officious.”
“Is that even a word?” Elle asked.
“It is,” I told her. Sure, I liked hanging out and joking with my friends, but with Karen wearing the white lab coat of a NIAC researcher or technician, me disguised as a guard, Elle walking between us as the subject under study, the three of us so where we were not supposed to be, and lighthearted banter was not where my head was.
“This is it,” Karen said, stopping in front of a door. She looked around. “No cameras, and I dont hear anyone nearby.”
“Thats good, because if anyone hears this, were gonna have some explaining to do.” The form I had taken was one of the guards I was saw fairly often, a guy pretty close to my own size and muscle mass. Unfortunately, the girls had brought me a uniform, but no boots and all I had were my sneakers. They were black and would probably pass if anyone stopped us, but for this, it was gonna hurt. “Stand back.” I snapped a kick at the lock. Sonof a… Had to kick it twice before the door swung inward. We hurried in.
Elle wrapped her hands around the busted lock and closed her eyes. When she pulled them away the door looked good as new. She shut the door and locked us in. I let myself morph back to my real form with a sigh of relief.
“Ethan, these file cabinets are locked.”
“Of course they are.” I broke those locks and we commenced rifling. “I got some more out of Rand before I finally got him to sleep. His friend in the Intermediates told him that they took five kids almost two weeks ago. They came back a week ago with their heads shaved, bandages on their scalps, and acting strange. Over the last week, two of them, his friend Chaz and some other kid, collapsed with seizures and died. Now theyve notified five more kids in the Section that theyve been selected for a special project. Its supposed to start Monday.”
“Thats pretty much what I got out of his head earlier—except it was a lot messier than your version,” Karen confirmed.
“Andersons got something to do with it.” Elle got our attention with that one. She was sitting on the desk with a file labeled Confidential. “What happened to Rands friend is a later phase in an experiment that started at Everlast. The round of…procedures—the surgeries they did two weeks ago—the results havent been what they expected. So theyve flown Anderson in, as a successful test subject, so the doctors involved can study him before the next round.”
“Test subject for what? What kind of surgeries?”
“Theyre doing brain implants. Computer chips. For mind control.”
We all let that sink in for a moment. It made sense. Who would these paranoid monsters want to control more than a Talent who had the power to control them?
“It does make sense.” Karen said. “It felt like there was something really wrong with that Anderson guy—”
“Youre telling me,” Elle growled in a dry tone.
“More than just being a creep, though. I wasnt sure how to describe it, but it was like…not all his thoughts were his own. Now the one about you—that was all him, all horny guy with no respect. That was about showing off. Getting away with something like that—approved by an instructor even—thats one of the few shows of power hes capable of. And powers important to him because he feels powerless. He feels…leashed.”
“You sound like an empath.”
“Im just trying to put clearer words to it. His thought is kind of non-verbal a lot of the time.”
“Ok, whatever,” I ground out. I didnt want to talk about this guy, let alone hear about his feelings or how his evil little mind worked. I still wanted to pound him into the ground. “Anything else in those files, Elle?”
“Yeah, but I dont even know what Im reading.” She looked at Karen. “Were going to have to take this back to Angeline.”
“No,” I said, “no, no, no. I dont care if she does understand everything she reads, were not stealing files.”
“Well, I guess we could always bring Angeline down here,” Karen pondered. “Wed probably need two „guards to pull that off. Think you get another one of the guys to help out?”
“You want to sneak fivepeople around the restricted zone after lights out?”
“Hes kinda cute when hes about to explode. Dont you think hes kinda cute, Elle?”
“Give him a break. Look, Ethan, I understand your concern—”
“Oh, Im real glad to hear that.”
“—but kids are dying. Little kids. Are dead. These,” she held up the files, “are definite plans for hacking into more little kids heads and cutting into their brains, making them into slaves of—“
“Okay, okay. Get off your moral high-horse before you crack your head. I get it. But I get to sit next to you on the bus ride to Everlast.”
I couldnt believe I just said that. I felt my cheeks get hot. Elle blushed. Behind a file folder, Karen rolled her eyes at me.
“Get what youre getting and lets get out of here,” I snapped.
“Okay, we go up this wall. Theres an access door on the roof thats going to get us in real close to where theyre housing Anderson.”
The girls hadnt wasted any time getting Angeline to explain the file to them. Elle had already been ready to go on a crusade for these kids, and Angeline had told her she believed she might have the very Talent that could help them. So without me as the voice of reason, they came up with this great plan to visit Anderson, which had Elle and me staring up the side of this building the next night.
Elle squinted up and tugged on her braid. “Ethan, I cant climb that.”
“I know, dont worry about that. We can do this two ways. I could climb up and lower down a rope and then pull you up. But youd have to wait down here by yourself while I made climb. I think it would be better if I just carried you up on my back. If…uh…thats okay with you.”
“You can do that?”
“Uh...yeah.” I felt like an idiot. I didnt want to sound like I was bragging or showing off or something, but I wanted her to understand shed be safe. “Look, Im a shapeshifter, right? It pretty much means I can give myself as much muscle mass as I need. The only thing is that Ill need my arms, so youve got to be sure to hold on. It shouldnt take too long, though.”
“Yeah, okay, I can do that.”
I turned around and Elle clambered onto my back, wrapping her arms around my neck, legs around my waist, and making me really glad Karen wasnt here to read my thoughts. I leapt up for the first handhold, testing our weight, and then started climbing.
“Is this why you didnt want to bring Karen?” Elle asked in my ear.
“Karen doesnt have any business climbing buildings in the middle of the night. Not that you do either.”
“Youre very protective of her.”
Whats that supposed to mean?
“I guess. I mean, yeah, I am. Do you know why Im on probation?”
“What do you mean, „on probation?”
“I mean, like, one more strike and Im o