Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thursday, September 4

I got the idea for this journal when the cops wanted me to write out a statement. I don’t think they were satisfied with what I gave them, but I’ll try to do better here, where I can be private. I won’t tell everything here- I don’t want to get anyone in trouble- but I’ll tell as much as I can. I’m starting this in a notebook the Clinic gave me, but I’ll upload it to my blog when I get home. That way, I can keep it private (for now, anyway), and say what I want to, but still be able to make it public later. Part of me doesn’t think anyone would be interested in hearing what I have to say about all this, but who knows? People are crazy for novas, and I haven’t heard of anything like this being put out publicly. I don’t have to decide that now, though.

BE CAREFUL, KITTEN. NOTHING IS AS PRIVATE AS YOU THINK IT IS.

~S

I told the cops that I didn’t remember much about the accident, and that’s kinda true. I don’t remember much about the actual accident itself. There must have been a lot of crunching metal and breaking glass and skidding tires, but I don’t really remember any of that. I remember what came after, though. The Clinic was interested in that part. The cops were too, but not as much. I think they’re more interested in deciding who to blame. But I don’t want to get involved with that.

This isn’t a very good beginning. Let me start over.

It was Thursday, September 4th, 2008. Bailey was dropping me off on her way home after cheer practice. After her cheer practice. Not mine. I’m not on the cheer team, or any other team. Bailey was on the middle school cheer team, and she barely even had to audition for the high school team. She’ll probably be team captain next year. Well, maybe not, now.

Anyway, Bailey likes having me there to watch her practice. And I don’t mind. It gives me time to do my homework, and she gives me a ride home after. I have my driver’s license, but no car. Bailey’s parents gave her a bright yellow Lexus for her 16th birthday. Bailey Adams is my best friend since the second grade. I figured she’d drop me when we got to high school, but she never did. She’s loyal, and awesome like that. She’s also very ‘extra’, but in all the good ways. Extra pretty. Extra popular. Extra social. Her parents are extra rich. She’s on the cheer team, and the tennis team. (Luckily, she doesn’t care if I don’t watch her tennis practice- no matter where I sit, tennis balls seem to come out of nowhere and hit me.) Everything just comes easily to Bailey. She’s not a top student, grades-wise, but that’s just because she’d rather spend her time doing social things instead.

I’m getting off-track again. This part really sucks.

We had just pulled out of the school parking lot. The roads around the school usually aren’t busy once school lets out. We were talking- yelling, really, since Bailey had the top down- back and forth. Nothing really important. There was a party coming up on Friday, and she wanted to know what I was going to wear. I knew I was only invited to the party because I’m Bailey’s best friend. Where she’s everything ‘extra’, I’m just everything ‘enough’. Pretty enough (my skin is staying pretty clear, and the boob fairy finally showed up last year), smart enough, social enough. Nothing special. I don’t think I make much of an impression, really. I’m just ‘Bailey’s friend’, and I could never outshine her, even if I wanted to. That gets me invited everywhere, but not really noticed or talked to. It’s okay.

I’m still putting it off.

We got in a wreck. A bad one. There, I said it. There was a minivan coming toward us, and we crashed. I don’t want to talk more about that part.

Everything was weird quiet just after. I don’t mean there wasn’t any noise, but it was all… distant. Like it was happening someplace else, and didn’t really matter. I had a splitting headache, but other than that, I didn’t feel any pain. Bailey was still next to me- she always wears her seatbelt, and the airbags had poofed out. She wasn’t moving. Most of the front of the car was just crunched in all around us, but she’d gotten the worst of it. Or so I assumed. I couldn’t see where she was hurt, so I tried to get out and see if I could help her from the outside. I almost fell out of the car, and when I stood up, I noticed that I was covered with blood. Nothing but my head hurt though, so I ignored that.

When I got around to her side of the car, I couldn’t get her door open. The frame was all twisted. I pulled and pulled, and suddenly, the door just… came off in my hands. I must have been in shock, because I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I just tossed it to the side and tried to help Bailey. Her leg was caught in the twisted metal, and she was bleeding pretty badly. The first aid class I took the summer I was fourteen didn’t prepare me for anything like this. I couldn’t find my phone, but hers was somehow right there in her lap still, with the screen unlocked. So I used it to call 911.

I was afraid to move Bailey, and there wasn’t anything else I could do, so I went over to the minivan. It had flipped over and was lying on the roof. The woman driving had smacked her head pretty hard, and was just waking up. Her son (I guess?) didn’t look hurt at all, but his seatbelt was caught, and he was just sort of dangling there, upside down. He looked scared, but that was all. I thought everything was okay-ish. Then I looked in the back seat. The kid must have taken his seatbelt off. Looking back on it, I’m surprised he wasn’t in a car seat, but I didn’t think of that at the time. He… he wasn’t okay. I don’t want to write any more about that part.

I’m not sure how long it was before I heard the sirens, but it seemed like forever between me hearing them and them getting to us. There was a police car and an ambulance at first. A firetruck and two more police cars showed up soon after. Then another ambulance. Then more.

Things happened really fast after that, and it all kinda blurs together. They got Bailey and the woman into the ambulances. I’m not sure where the older boy went. I guess to the hospital. I was sitting on the curb and an EMT came over to check on me. There was a cop, too, but the EMT shoo-ed him off a little. He was still close enough to hear everything, though.

The EMT (he said to call him Andy) asked me what hurt, and I told him that I had an awful headache, but that was it. He didn’t seem to be listening, because he was a lot more interested in my legs. I had noticed earlier that I was covered with blood, but it hadn’t really ‘clicked’ before. Something was way, way wrong. My pants where shredded, and he started cutting away the lower parts so he could get a better look. From all the blood, you’d’ve sworn I’d been hacked to pieces. But instead, I was just covered in really bad bruises all over. He couldn’t believe it, and started to poke around, gently. Nothing hurt. And the bruises were fading as we watched.

“Nova.” It was the cop that said it. I’d almost forgotten that he was there. I didn’t know what to say. It was ridiculous. I’m nobody. I can’t be a nova.

Since I wasn’t hurt, the cop insisted on taking a statement right then and there, even though Andy wanted to take me to the hospital, “just in case”. He looked excited, but scared, too. I didn’t like that. I’m used to being, well, a background character in other people’s stories. I don’t like being the center of attention- especially like this.

I told the cop that I didn’t remember much about the accident, and told him what I did after. (I left out pulling off the car door, but they’ll probably figure that part out.) He kept pushing me for more, like he knew I was hiding something, but Andy finally put his foot down and said I was going to the hospital. I didn’t think I needed a hospital (even though my head was still splitting), but by then I would have gone anywhere just to get away from that cop. He said he would be talking to me again, later, though, so I doubt I’m done with him.

At the hospital, everybody was making a huge fuss. They ran every kind of test they could think of. X-rays, MRIs, all kinds of blood tests (they bent 4 needles trying to get a blood draw). They kept talking over, around, and through me, but never TO me. And they wouldn’t give me anything for the headache. Not even an aspirin! It’s not like I was asking for morphine, or something! They just kept ignoring me, even though they were poking and prodding, and hooking up all those wires with sticky pads that go ‘beep’.

Finally, I got so mad at being ignored that something… snapped. That’s really the best I can describe it. Like when you crack your sternum, but more so. The machine the wired pads were feeding into (EKG? EEG? I dunno.) went all crazy, then shut down. The pads gave off an ozone smell, too, and a couple fell off my chest. After that, everyone stopped talking over me. Somebody gave me a little green pill for the headache. It helped, and things got a little fuzzy after that.

I guess whatever I did scared the doctors, because they pretty much left me alone after that. About an hour later, an Asian man and a black woman, both in their late(?) thirties showed up. The woman fake-knocked on the curtain surrounding the bed where I’d been napping. Trying to nap, really. All the hospital noises kept waking me up. Plus, I was getting really hungry. They introduced themselves as Carl Li and Dr. Phyllis Jackson. I’m not sure if she’s a medical doctor or a college doctor. They’re from the Rashoud Clinic. I’d heard about Rashoud Clinics, but I didn’t realize we had one here. They told me that the hospital had ‘transferred me to their care’ and asked me to come with them.

I started to get kinda mad again- after all, I’m not sick or hurt, so nobody should be telling me where to go or what to do but my mother! And mostly, not even her! But then I thought, maybe the doctors were afraid of me. Of what I might do. What if I did- whatever- to something more important than an EKwhatsit? Maybe I should get out of there, and the Rashoud Clinic would be the best place for me. Then again, these were strangers, wanting to take me to another location. That’s how horror movies with dumb teenagers start. And that made me realize that I hadn’t even called Mom to let her know I was ok. And that reminded me that my phone was probably still in Bailey’s car.

I told them that I would go with them, but I needed to call my mom first. They brought me a phone, no problem, so at least they weren’t trying to keep me from contacting anybody. If you’d have asked me yesterday what Mom’s phone number was, I don’t think I could have said anything other than “*1”. But now I could remember it just fine. She was working her second job, so I knew she wouldn’t have heard about the accident yet. I left her a voicemail, telling her I was ok, but had been in a wreck. Mr. Li gave me the number to the Clinic, and I passed that on. I didn’t tell her what had happened via voicemail. I wouldn’t believe me if I heard that, so why should she?

After that I was ready to go. But another freaky thing happened when I hopped off the bed. I just… didn’t come down. I just kinda… hovered there, like I’d stood up from a chair instead of jumped off an elevated hospital bed. Dr. Jackson grabbed me (gently) by the shoulders and sort of tugged me back down till my feet were on the floor again. Mr. Li was grinning like I’d done something clever and said, “Well, at least we know where to start testing”. Like that was supposed to comfort me?

The hospital had given me some tacky blue pajama pants, since mine were ruined, but I had my backpack (just not my phone) with my wallet. I only had a few dollars on me, so I asked if we could stop someplace with a dollar menu on the way to the Clinic. I was embarrassed about asking, but by then I was so hungry I was almost nauseous. Nauseated? I always get those confused. They wanted to know when I’d eaten last, and I said that I had late lunch, so, about 1:30? It was almost seven pm, so it made sense that I’d be hungry, but not this bad. They told me not to worry about a dollar menu- that’d they’d call in a pizza order and we’d pick it up on the way. They even let me choose the toppings, which was nice.

They had a really nice SUV with a driver! And we picked up two pizzas, not just one. I was nervous about eating in the fancy car, but they said it was fine, and I needed to eat ASAP. I was so hungry. They each had a slice, but then they got to talking about the Clinic, and what was going to happen over the next couple of days; and by the time we’d gotten there I’d eaten an entire large pizza and most of the second one! I was so embarrassed, but they said it was normal- that novas always ate a lot, especially when they were under stress or used their powers a lot. Our powers. My powers. I guess there’s no denying it anymore- I really am a nova.

I think that’s enough for tonight. I’ll tell about the Clinic and Mom tomorrow.

Thursday, Later

I assumed I’d be tired after the day I’ve had, but I’m wide awake. So I’ll write a little more.

Where was I? Right. Getting into a car with strangers and riding with them to a second location where my mother didn’t know where I was, and letting them stuff me full of pizza. Yep, I make good life choices. Luckily, it’s worked out so far.

The Rashoud Clinic is an old farmhouse. Not quite a plantation, but close. I think it started out in the country, but the city grew to meet it, so now it’s barely in the suburbs. It has a lot of land around it, so you can’t see any other houses from either the farmhouse or the front gate. There’s a wall around it, but I think it’s more for decoration. I could have climbed it even before… all this.

Mr. Li and Dr. Jackson gave me a tour of the house, which has two main floors, an attic, and some kind of cellar. (I’m assuming the cellar, since I noticed a pair of those almost flat doors coming out of the ground by the exterior wall.) There’s an enormous barn in the back, a fancy garden, and a pool. I’m pretty sure the pool is a more recent addition. Other than the pool, the house and grounds look like they probably did 100 years ago. On the outside, anyway.

Inside was more of the same, for the first couple of rooms. A fancy entryway, a couple of rooms I can only call ‘parlors’, and a library. Further back, the house is divided down the middle. On one side, I saw part of a dining room, so I assume the kitchen is nearby. The other side was much more modern. There were several little rooms with equipment like you’d see in a doctor’s office. There was a room with ‘sealed environment’ signs and an airlock that I didn’t really like the look of. Mr. Li said it was the lab, and that I shouldn’t go in there, at least until my powers settle down. Suits me fine. Upstairs were several bedrooms. Mr. Li has a suite on one end of the hall. They’ve given me a big room on the other end. It has windows on two walls, one of which is a bow window with a cushioned nook like I’d seen in old movies. It looks out over the garden.

Dr. Jackson says it’s best if I stay here, for a few days at least. That way they can help with the headaches, which she says are pretty common to new novas and should go away in a few days. They also want to use the time to find out about my powers, and help me learn to control them. I told them that I didn’t want to make any kind of decision like that until I’d talked to my mom, and they were fine with that. Since it would be another couple of hours before my mom got off work, they suggested I take a shower (I still had blood smears all over, even though I’d cleaned up as best I could at the hospital), then take a nap if I wanted. I said I wanted to leave mom another voicemail with the Clinic’s address first, and they showed me a phone just outside my room and gave me privacy after writing the Clinic’s address down.

I left Mom another voice mail, giving her the address and asking her to come over when she got this, and to bring some clothes and my laptop. I told her I had something important to tell her, but not to worry. Then I got that shower. My room shares a bathroom with the room next door, but I peeked in, and I don’t think anyone lives there right now. I locked all the doors anyway, and stuffed a towel under the doors, just to make them harder to open. Mom didn’t raise a complete fool.

I ended up taking a nap after all, even though I hadn’t meant to. I woke up to knocking on the door, which turned out to be a middle-aged (well, at least 35-ish) woman. She said I could call her Clara, and she looked after the house. I can’t believe it. This place has servants.

I went downstairs, and Mr. Li said that my mom had called while I was asleep. I was about to get mad that they hadn’t woken me up, but he said she was on her way over, and should be here in another forty-five minutes or so, since she was stopping off at home to get my things. He’d explained, at least a little, about what happened today, and she was about as scared and excited as I would have expected. I’m not sure how to feel about all this. On the one hand, he probably has more experience talking to family members of new novas than I do, and probably handled it better than I could have. On the other hand, she’s my mom, and it was my news to tell. But saying anything would have been childish, and… I think I’m going to have to finish growing up a lot sooner than I had expected. So I thanked him and kept my mouth shut otherwise.

Mom got here, finally, and they left us alone in one of the front rooms. There was a lot of hugging and crying, and me explaining as best I could, without going into too many accident details. But that’s private stuff, and I don’t want to go into it here.

Once we’d calmed down a little, Clara stuck her head in and said that dinner was ready, and that Mom was welcome to stay, since there was a lot to talk about. I knew she must be tired after working two jobs, but you’d never know it to look at her.

The dining room table could have seated at least twelve, but there were only six of us that night. Mr. Li, Dr. Jackson, me, Mom, Clara, and a guy called ‘Bix’. Bix was really tall and skinny, and had a beard like ZZ Top, which he had in two braids. Mr. Li introduced Bix as their ‘tech guy’ who did most of the hands-on testing and training.

I didn’t think I could possibly be hungry again after all that pizza, but I was. Tuna steak with baked sweet potatoes was about the best meal I’d had in ages. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mom’s cooking, but it’s just us, and we don’t have a lot of money for fancy stuff. Besides, she doesn’t really have time to cook, and I’m old enough to take care of myself. We finished off with some kind of frozen thing that Clara set of fire. It was good, but I didn’t want to ask what it was and look stupid. I’ll look it up later. [Edit: It turned out to be Baked Alaska Flambé.]

During dinner, Mr. Li and Dr. Jackson told Mom all about novas, and erupting, and what had happened to me, and what would probably happen over the next few days. I think I caught her side-eyeing at how much I was eating, but I might have been imagining it. Mom was all ears, taking in everything and asking a lot of questions, mainly about what was being done to ensure my health and safety. I appreciate her going all Mama Bear, but I really do feel fine. Better than fine, actually.

I was paying close attention too, of course, and making mental notes about things to look up later. I don’t like getting just one point of view on anything, especially something that’s going to impact the rest of my life. As I listened, I got a weird idea. The whole thing seemed… too polished. Too ‘pat’. I mean, it makes sense. I’m not their first new nova, so they’ve probably had this discussion over and over, and developed a ’patter’ that works for them. But I guess I was expecting a conversation, or a lecture. What we got was less talking and more ‘talking points’. It’s probably fine. Mom always says I should have been Gen X, the way I never take anything at face value.

WISE KITTEN. NEVER TRUST TOO EASILY, ESPECIALLY UTOPIA.

~S

And really, it makes sense that they’d present everything this way. The Rashoud Clinics are part of Project Utopia, and everybody knows PU tries to get as many novas as possible to sign on with them, and use their powers for the greater good. So, in a way, Mr. Li and Dr. Jackson are trying to ‘sell’ me (and Mom, since I’m a minor) on Utopia. And Utopia’s loaded, so of course they’re going to have the resources to make their pitch as slick as possible. But I’m definitely going to do my own research and get alternate points of view before making any decisions.

If Mom caught on to the sales pitch, she didn’t let on. Dinner ended, and Mr. Li took Mom and I on the same basic tour of the house that I got earlier. This time, we also went out to the barn. It only looks like a barn on the outside. Inside, it’s a massive, high-tech gymnasium and training center. It had all the usual gym equipment- stationary bikes, treadmills, free weights, those big machines with the slabs that let you add weight according to where you put the pin, the works. It also had a track on the ground with giant hula hoops hanging at various heights above it. For flying, maybe? There were also hurdles and things that looked more like steeplechase equipment than something for people. There were several big, intimidating machines with pistons and hydraulics. Mr. Li said those were for testing extra-strong novas. I don’t think I’ll need them. Hopefully.

Once the tour was over, Mom was obviously tired from her long day, so I suggested that she go on home. I told her I would be fine here for a few days. She hugged me again, but I could tell she was staring at Mr. Li over my shoulder. She told him that she was allowing me to stay for now, but was in no way giving up any of her parental rights. Her voice had an edge I don’t hear from her often when she reminded him that I was a minor, and she did not give her consent for me to do anything dangerous or invasive. Then she kissed me and told me to call her if I wanted to come home, no matter what time.

And that was it. I walked her to the front gate, we hugged again, and she left. I’m not sure if I would have been able to hear her crying yesterday, but I could now.

I’m still not tired, but Mr. Li said that I should sleep myself out tonight, and we’d start testing when I woke up. So I’ll try to get some sleep. The Clinic has a killer OpNet connection, so I’ll play one of those ‘music to sleep to’ videos through my laptop and hope that helps. Mom packed me several changes of clothes and my ‘overnight’ stuff, so I’m all set. She even packed my stuffed badger, Mr. Lumpy. I wouldn’t have been caught dead asking for him, but I’m glad she sent him. Love you, Mom.

Chapter Text

Friday, Sept 5

I must have needed the sleep after all, because it was nearly ten when I woke up. They had kind of a buffet-style breakfast under warming dishes, and Clara made me some fresh scrambled eggs to go with the other stuff. They offered me coffee (which Mom doesn’t let me have) but I’ve never really liked it anyway, so declined. Mr. Li came in when I was almost finished with breakfast and handed me my phone. The screen was cracked, but it still worked. I couldn’t afford to replace it, so I’m just glad it wasn’t worse.

I thanked him, and asked him how he got it. He said that he’d gone out early to inspect the wreck site, and what was left of the cars, and got the police to release it for me. He acted like it was no big deal, but isn’t it a (small) part of an active investigation? I mean, it was an accident, but still, that poor kid…. But apparently, what Utopia wants is okay with the police. I should keep that in mind.

Dr. Jackson came in then (apparently she doesn’t live on-site), and asked if I was ready to get started with the testing. I told her that I was, but that I also wanted to check on Bailey at some point, and I would need to get my school assignments for the next few days, so I wouldn’t fall behind.

She looked kinda amused, like I shouldn’t care about those things. Or maybe she was expecting me to just accept whatever they planned for me. But Bailey is my best friend, and I still need to keep up with school if I expect anything in the way of scholarships. She told me that it might not be safe for me to go to the hospital until they worked out what I did to the monitor yesterday, but that she would call and get an update on Bailey’s condition. As for school, she said that Mr. Li would make everything right with them, and she doubted I would have much trouble keeping up. I’m not sure how I feel about all that, but I’ll go along to get along.

After breakfast, Dr Jackson took me to one of the ‘hospital’ rooms, took a medical history, and gave me a physical. I’ve had all my vaccinations, and otherwise my ‘medical history’ consisted of a broken arm when I was six, having my tonsils out when I was nine, and I had my wisdom teeth out a few months ago. I’ve been 5‘4” for close to a year now, so I think that might be as tall as I get. I’m not fat, but I’ll always choose a cheeseburger over a salad (that supermodel who said ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ can suck it), so I could stand to lose a few pounds. Or, I could have, until yesterday. Apparently now I have about seven percent body fat, and I don’t think you could ‘pinch an inch’ anywhere on my body. I didn’t really notice me looking any different this morning, but one thing my room doesn’t have is a full-length mirror. I’ll have to pay more attention in the bathroom tonight.

After she’d finished measuring every part of me twice, she pulled several little vials out of a microfridge, and told me that I needed some vitamin shots over the next several days as my body adapted, as well as a slow-release dose of adrenocilin for the headaches. She said I was getting headaches because my Mazarin-Rashoud Node was growing, and the pressure was causing the headaches. They should subside in a few days. She also wanted to draw some blood for other tests. I thought about warning her about the broken hospital needles, but figured she knew what she was doing. I took the shots, she took the blood, and we were done. She said we’d meet back up in the evening to answer any questions I had, and discuss my options for the future. I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that, so I was relieved when she sent me off to meet Bix in the barn.

He had beads. Braided into his beard. I’m pretty sure some of them would glow in the dark. Bix said we’d start with the easy stuff first, and sat me down at the weight machine with all the pulleys and handles. I’d used one of those during the last weight training unit in P.E. class, so I knew how it worked. At school, I’d managed about 90 lbs, but to be honest, I hadn’t been trying my best, since I didn’t want a reputation at school. This time, I lifted all the weight on the stack with no problem at all. Bix just made a note and moved me over to the big hydraulic thing. Long story short, I can bench press about a ton. A literal ton. Then he led me through a kind of breathing exercise that he said was supposed to ‘bring my quantum energy online’. After a couple of minutes, he had me try again. That time, I lifted a full eight tons. I can’t believe it. I didn’t even feel tired! At least, not muscle-tired. I did feel like if I kept breathing and lifting that way, eventually the headache would come back.

Next, he had me run track. I was pretty relieved when I wasn’t any faster than I had been before. I’ve never been a klutz, but erupting doesn’t seem to have done me any favors in the speed and grace department. After that, he took me off the track and put me on the treadmill. He had it tilted up at the steepest elevation it could go up to. Since speed wasn’t an issue, I figured we were testing my stamina. They already knew about how quickly I’d healed after the wreck (the leftover bruises are completely gone). But otherwise, I guess it’s hard to measure endurance in numbers like you can with weight lifting. I just kept running and running. Never even broke a sweat. I wish I’d had a podcast or audiobook handy, though. Just running in place like that was booor-ring. I think Bix was joking when he mentioned cutting me a little to test how long it took to heal, but just in case he wasn’t, I shut that down hard.

After all that, he brought in a ‘snack’. I was starving again, so a half dozen sandwiches and a fruit bowl were more than welcome. Am I going to keep eating like this? That could be a problem. Mom and I don’t go hungry, but the last few days of every month feature hamburger helper more often than we’d like. I don’t want to put more stress on her.

After that, it was less physical testing, which was a lot more interesting. He had me playing ‘spot the difference’ and ‘notice the details’ games, which got a lot harder than the little tests you see on the OpNet. I think I did pretty well, though. Then he had me do the ‘cover one eye and read a string of letters’ test, and I could read letters 1/8th of an inch tall at a distance of 100 feet! With some effort, I can see into the infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths as well. Oh, and I can see in the dark now. Not pitch dark, but if there’s the littlest bit of light, I can see. Plus, I can do this funny thing with my eyes like I have a built-in microscope. Once he taught me how to adjust my vision, I could see the undissolved detergent particles on Bix’s shirt. I think I could smell them, too, but that might be my imagination. Then we went outside and waited for a plan to pass overhead. I could see each passengers face clearly. I can’t wait to look at the moon tonight.

My hearing has gotten better, too, but not to the same degree as my vision. At least, I can’t do weird ear tricks the way I can do weird eye tricks. I wonder if I could develop sonar? No, radar. Sonar would be in the water. Or maybe I’m thinking echolocation, like a bat. That’s probably it. Something to keep in mind.

After that, he plopped some workbooks and scantrons down in front of me, and I spent a couple of hours taking tests. I’m certain my memory is better than it was. And I sailed though the calculus and physics I would have struggled with last week. (I’m not even supposed to take physics until next year.) I guess now I know why Dr. Jackson thought it was funny that I was worried about school.

Throughout all of this, Bix was talking to me, getting me to talk about myself, my family, school, whatever. At first, I thought he was trying to distract me, to make the tests harder, and maybe that was part of it. But later I wondered if he wasn’t somehow testing my social skills. I’m not sure how well that would work. Surely he realizes that people are different one-on-one with a near-stranger than they are in groups or with friends?

That took up most of the day, and even though I wasn’t actually tired at the end, I still felt like I’d been wrung out to dry. Bix said to come back tomorrow, and we’d test for ‘quantum powers’. I’m not sure whether to be nervous, excited, or both. It’s weird that he didn’t test me on any actual, well, skills. Maybe the school stuff counted, a little, but you’d think they’d want to know what I was actually good at doing? Or maybe that’s the problem- that they would have a hard time measuring what was a skill I already had versus what was new? Like, can I draw better? Or drive better? Or climb the rock wall at the mall better? Can I do things I never could before, like dance, or speak Chinese, or play the accordion? Or maybe that’s not how being a nova works. Maybe it affects the big stuff and not the little stuff. That’s something I can maybe make my own tests for.

At dinner that night (steak and rice pilaf with cheesecake for after), they started to talk about Project Utopia, and all the novas who had signed on with them. With PU, I mean. They seemed a little shocked when I didn’t recognize a lot of the names they dropped. But I was just, never really into novas. I mean, sure, I know most of Team Tomorrow’s names, and I’ve heard of Divis Mal, and have seen some OpNet clips about the Teragen, but I’ve never really been into celebrity culture. Bailey is. She probably would have recognized all the names. She has a Caestus Pax bobble head in her room, and it’s the ugliest thing.

So, Mr. Li backed up and started telling me all about the good things PU has done, like Project Eden in Ethiopia, and cleaning up the oceans and air and all. I’d learned about all that in school, but he gave it a new perspective. I’d never really thought about individual novas, as people, doing all those things. It was just nameless, faceless, monolithic Project Utopia. They were giving more of last night’s subtle sales pitch, about how important it was for every nova to use their powers for the good of humanity, and how we were all still, essentially, human. I agree with all that. I just can’t shake the idea that I’m being manipulated. And any kid old enough to see when they’re being played is old enough not to like it.

OF COURSE THEY PITCH THE ENSLAVEMENT OF THE ONE RACE TO SERVE BASELINE NEEDS AS A GOOD THING. HOW ELSE WILL THEY KEEP CONTROL OVER YOU?

~S

Maybe they saw I wasn’t one hundred percent on-board, because Dr. Jackson mentioned that she’d contacted the hospital and had an update on Bailey. She’d broken two ribs and had a bad concussion. But the worst was her leg. She’d already had emergency surgery, and would need at least one more operation. Maybe two. And she’d lost a lot of blood. The doctors expected that she would walk again, and probably run, but cheerleading is out for a long time. Maybe forever. I want to visit her, but Dr. Jackson said she was too doped up on pain meds. Maybe once they figure out what I did to that monitor in the hospital (and how to not do it again), then it’ll be safe. I have to be satisfied with that. For now. Mr. Li said that he’d told the school what had happened to me (they already knew about Bailey, of course), and that I’d be missing school for a few days. He didn’t come out and say it, but he implied that all such absences would be ‘excused’. He’d pick up a packet of work for me on Monday afternoon, once my teachers had a chance to put something together for me.

Again with the PU people telling others about me before I can! I really hadn’t wanted the school to know about my eruption right away. That’s dumb, and I know it. They’d have found out almost immediately anyway, and it’s not like it needs to be a secret. This isn’t a comic book. I don’t have a ‘secret identity’ to protect. But still, it rubs me the wrong way.

I guess what I’m really worried about is how the other kids will react when I go back. Novas are celebrities, even if I don’t feel (much) different. And most of the kids are nova-crazy, one way or the other. I caught Curtis doodling weird Slider porn in his notebook a couple weeks ago. Gross. Somehow, celebrities aren’t ‘real’ people. They’re images, and brands, and social media hashtags. I don’t want to go into that same category. Besides, I was able to fit into the background pretty much anywhere as just ‘Bailey’s friend’. Everybody accepted me, but nobody paid much attention to me. I liked it that way. But I’m pretty sure it’ll all be different when I get back. Even if Admin doesn’t come right out and announce that I erupted, that kind of news travels.

Anyway, after dinner, I went up to my room. The bathroom has a full length mirror, so I locked all the doors stripped down, and had a good look at myself. I’m still pretty much me. Medium long, blondish-brown hair, hazel eyes. I’ve always thought my nose was too long, but it seems to fit now. The little scar on my chin is gone, and so is the weird black mole on my shoulder. The potato-shaped birthmark on my ass is still there, but it’s faded a little. I have abs for the first time, and all my muscles are defined, but not in an ugly, vein-popped, bodybuilder way. Since I was already there, I went ahead and showered and washed my hair. I realized that I hadn’t shampooed it since Tuesday, so it should have been looking a little greasy, but it wasn’t. My split ends are gone too!

I don’t want to stay up too late, even though I’m still not tired, but I want to start doing some of my own research and getting other viewpoints on everything. I wasn’t sure what they would think about my ‘fact checking’ them, so I made sure to use my VPN and incognito mode. I think, if I put some time into it, I could maybe come up with something more secure, but this will do for now.

I didn’t realize how many nova fan sites there were! And not just for the Team Tomorrow and XWF novas, either! Elites, municipal defenders, even the Teragen! It seems like no matter how dangerous or violent some of these people are, there are people devoted to them. I don’t understand that. I get standing up for what you believe in, but the Teragen is into some dark stuff. The Elites, too, but they seem to be in it for the money; which I can understand, even if it seems kinda crappy. Still, everybody needs a job, and I doubt Totentantz would be happy doing construction work, or something.

I read the Zurich Accords, and the Team Tomorrow Code of Honor, and the Null Manifesto. I’d heard of them all before, but hadn’t really bothered with them. They had nothing to do with me, after all. The Zurich Accords were all very comforting political stuff. Maybe it’s me being cynical again, but it kinda reminds me of all the Native American treaties from back in the day- the ones that said everybody’s equal, and the same rules apply to everyone. And we see how well those all turned out. The T2M Code reminded me of the couple of years I was in Girl Scouts. Very earnest. Very “Aw, shucks, just doin’ my job, ma’am”. And making it an acrostic just felt like it was trying too hard. Of course, T2M still doesn’t apply to me. It just stands out as the most nova way somebody could ever nova. The Null Manifesto gave me a lot to think about. Not just what it said, but how Teragen novas have used it to justify what they do. I’d like to talk about it with someone, but I don’t think anyone here at the Clinic is the right choice. I’d like to talk to another nova. Several novas. I know I won’t find one without a bias, so I need to get several points of view and find my own truth between them. That doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon.

The moon was amazing, by the way.

THERE’S A LOT MORE TO TERAS THAN THE NULL MANIFESTO, KITTEN. IT’S THE GATEWAY, NOT THE END GOAL. BUT EVERYONE HAS TO FIND THEIR OWN WAY. HELP IS AVAILABLE WHEN YOU WANT IT.

~S

Chapter Text

Saturday, September 6

Huge, amazing meals seem to be the rule, rather than the exception around here; so I’ll stop describing them unless something really special turns up. Dr. Jackson asked me about the headaches, and I said that I was fine. I said I’d skip the painkiller for now, and see how it went. The extended release shot didn’t make me feel as fuzzy as the pill did, but I’d still rather do without if I can. She was ok with that, and just told me to come get her if I changed my mind. Cool.

Back to the barn for more testing. Bix was in there, tinkering with something. He started explaining about exploring my flight capabilities, but I was too distracted to pay much attention. There was… something different… in there today. Something that wasn’t there yesterday. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, and there was a weird kind of buzz behind my eyes. It was coming from a closed door- an office, I think.

Once Bix saw where I was looking, he pulled out his tablet and started asking me what I felt and making notes. I told him, and he had me go toward the door, slowly, telling him what I felt. The sensations got stronger the closer I got. Then he had me stop, and he went into the room. I could hear two voices, but not what they said. The soundproofing was good.

Then Bix came out and had me keep focusing on what was behind the door. The buzzy, prickly sensation got a lot stronger, then died away entirely for a few seconds, then came back to the level it had been. Bix looked thrilled, and knocked on the door.

This guy came out. He was hot. Maybe a year or two older than me, with a gorgeous tan. Black hair with red highlights, almost like henna, but I think it was natural. Or, nova-natural, anyway. He was obviously a nova. He was just… too perfect. He was about 6’2”, buff like he worked out but didn’t obsess over it, and had an amazing smile. His name is Alex Riviera, and it was hard to stop looking at him.

I introduced myself, and Bix took over before things could get awkward. He explained that what I was sensing was Alex’s ‘quantum signature’. That it spiked when he activated one of his abilities, and shut off entirely when he ‘dorm’ed down’. I didn’t know what was a thing. We can turn off being novas? Apparently not, but we can sort of… stuff it down deep inside for awhile.

Alex was there because he can fly, and he has electricity powers (Bix called it ‘Elemental Anima”), so Bix asked him to come help with my testing. Since we already knew (they knew, I wasn’t so sure) that I could fly, we started with that.

I can fly. What can I say? It’s amazing. I wanted to go outside and really try it out, but Bix said to stay on the track for now. Alex helped me out a little, at first, but is it bragging to say I caught on pretty fast? At first, we just flew around the track, a few feet off the ground. The hanging hoops were pulled up near the ceiling, out of the way. After a few times around, we started going faster and faster. I thought I was doing really well, until I sped up too much on one of the turns and crashed into the wall. The wall wasn’t padded, but it didn’t hurt as much as I expected. I could see Alex trying not to laugh. I guess it was pretty funny. Then he showed me how to bank on the turns, and I only hit the wall one more time before I got the hang of it.

Then, Bix brought the hoops back down. They were set at various heights, so I had to go up and down and in and out to get through them. That was a lot tougher than it sounds, and by the time Bix told me to stop, I was starving.

Clara brought in a huge pile of food, and Alex stayed for lunch. At first I was embarrassed to pig out in front of him, but he was going at it with a sandwich in one hand and corn-on-the-cob in the other, so I ate my fill.

While we ate, Alex told me all about himself. In detail. At length. With confidence. I’ll keep it short because, while I was hanging on his every word at the time, after the fact, it just… wasn’t that interesting. He’s nineteen, and erupted a year ago. He’s really strong, fast, and tough. He can fly and control electricity. He’s really proud of all the tricks he can do with it, but he focused most on using it in fights. I’m not sure he can actually create electricity. Everything he talked about involved pulling it out of wall outlets, or streetlights. That kind of thing. He talked a lot about fights. Fights he’d been in (he always won, apparently), fights he’d been prevented from being in, fights he was going to be in once he joined Team Tomorrow. He takes it for granted that T2M will want him, and maybe he’s right. He looks like he would fit in, and I know T2M gets into a lot of fights. But based on their Code of Honor, I don’t think they’re supposed to brag, and look for fights to get into. Alex… isn’t humble, or modest, like the Code implies T2M should be. When he was saying it, it all made perfect sense- who wouldn’t want him to be on their team? It was only later that I had my doubts. I mean, a lot of novas are strong, and tough. As novas go, Alex just… doesn’t seem all that special. At least, not compared with what I’m seeing on the OpNet. But maybe that’s all scripted, like TV. It’s not like I have the experience to know any better. Maybe Alex really is everything he thinks he is.

I didn’t think about it while I was with him, but Alex never asked me anything about myself, or my eruption, or what I wanted to do when I finished school, or any of the usual ‘getting to know you’ stuff. Most boys are self-absorbed, but most of them seem to remember at some point that they’re talking to another person, and at least pretend to be interested in what you have to say. Not Alex. It was all him, him, him. If any other guy pulled that, I would have noticed right away, and said something to put him in his place. Why didn’t I notice with Alex? When he was talking, it was like he was the only important thing in the world… Now that I have time to think about it quietly, alone, I’m not sure I like Alex. If we were just regular people, I don’t think I’d be interested in a second hang-out. But he’s a nova, and the only one I’ve met. And he’s helping me figure out my powers. So maybe I shouldn’t be too quick to judge.

Anyway, back to the training. After lunch, Bix took us into what looked like a shooting range. He’d set up a generator thing in there, and the walls had ceramic tiles on them. I think I remember that ceramics insulate electricity? So it was probably a safety thing. There was a mirror behind us, but I’m pretty sure it was one of those windows like in all the cop shows. Since Bix wasn’t in with us, I assumed he was behind the window. There were targets at the far end of the range, and Alex spent a few minutes showing off how he pulled power out of the generator and blasted the targets with lightning. It was all very impressive, especially at first. But it got old surprisingly quickly.

I think I was supposed to be trying to copy him, especially when he slowed down the way he was pulling power out of the generator. I was getting that buzzy prickly sensation again, and felt like there was a power available to me, if I just reached out for it. So, when Alex stopped for a moment, I did.

Only, I ended up not reaching into the generator. Somehow, I reached into Alex. I don’t mean I grabbed him, or anything. But some part of me reached out and touched that buzzy prickly part of him. And when I touched that, it was like a stream. And part of the stream diverted out of Alex and into me. It was light, and fire, and warm water surrounding me, drowning me, and- I’d never tell anyone else this, but it was like touching myself. I wanted more. At the same time, I became aware of another stream, like Alex’s, in me. And what I was pulling out of Alex was joining my own stream. When what I pulled from Alex joined what was in me, they merged and the new energy didn’t feel like Alex anymore. It was all me.

Alex yelled like I’d goosed him, and shoved me down on my ass. I heard the generator whirring, like Alex was pulling a lot of power from it, and he looked scared and mad at the same time. With that look on his face, I was afraid he was going to hurt me. So, I… reached out to the generator. Not to pull power from it, like Alex was. To force more power into it. I somehow connected that same stream inside me to the generator, and… pushed some of the stream into the parts of the generator actually creating the electricity. And… I… gave it more. Something inside it went pop, and it shut off. Like the monitor at the hospital.

About that time, Bix ran in, and got between me and Alex. I don’t know if Alex could draw on anything else in the room- maybe the lights? Or would all the ceramics stop him? So Bix getting between us seemed really brave to me. Alex was yelling, and Bix was trying to calm him down, and I just wanted to get out of there, but Alex was between me and the door. Plus, I didn’t want to leave Bix alone with him. Altogether, I just wanted to hide.

Suddenly, Alex cut off mid-rant, and asked “Where is she?” He almost sounded scared. But I was right there, sitting on the ground where he’d shoved me. Bix turned around, and they both looked confused. I didn’t understand what was happening, but was just glad the shouting had stopped (it was really hurting my ears), so I said that I was right there where I’d been. My voice shook and squeaked a little, which I’m not proud of, but Alex scared me.

Bix relaxed when he heard my voice, but even though he was looking in my direction, he didn’t make eye contact. Instead, he turned back around and told Alex that we were finished for the day (I think he had intended that we work at least another couple of hours), and would Alex please come back at the same time tomorrow? Alex looked around the range like he couldn’t see me, then left, grumbling under his breath. Last week, I probably wouldn’t have understood him, but now I clearly heard him mutter about re-negotiating his contract.

Once he was gone (I heard the barn’s outer door slam), Bix turned back and said that I could come out now. He still wasn’t quite looking at me, but he sounded… amused? I told him that I wasn’t hiding, and he said to look down at myself. No shit, I was invisible!

It took an embarrassingly long time for me to figure out how to turn it off. By the time I did, Bix had gone into the guts of the generator and figured out what I did to it. Apparently, there was something like a fuse, or maybe like the filament in a lightbulb, and I overloaded it. That seemed to satisfy him that whatever electrical trick I was doing wasn’t primarily electrical. He’s pretty sure I don’t have any kind of control over machines, or directly over electricity like Alex. Instead, he thinks I’m taking the quantum power inside myself and converting it into electricity.

By the time he’d finished looking over the generator and explaining, I was visible again. He wanted to test his theory, so he pulled out his cell phone. He started to hand it to me, then looked at the generator, looked back at me, and put his phone away again. Instead, he took me into his office, rooted around in a drawer, and pulled out some kind of little hand-held sensor thing. He tried to turn it on, but the battery was dead. He handed that to me, and asked me to do to it what I’d done to the generator- but gently. I can understand him not wanting to risk his phone.

I could still feel the stream inside myself- it seemed… smaller… like the water level was low in a river. I could feel several little branches off the stream, some of them larger than others. The stream wasn’t doing anything by itself, and I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d done to the generator (I’d been too scared of what Alex might do), so I tried diverting some of the stream into each of the smaller branches in turn. The first two were small, and dry until I diverted into them. The third was much bigger, but only had a trickle running through it. When I added to it, my senses sharpened. A lot. The fourth was bigger than the first two, but smaller than the third, and when I sent the stream into that branch, the sensor came to life. It also started heating up in my hand, so I dropped it on the desk and stopped diverting the stream into that branch. I could sense four other branches, the same size as the first two, but I left those alone for now.

Bix used his shirt like a potholder and scooped up the sensor. The batteries were fully charged, but the whole thing was on the verge of overheating. Apparently, I can use my quantum power in place of electricity, but it’s going to take practice to fine-tune my control. At least this means I shouldn’t be dangerous to the medical equipment at the hospital, now that I know what I’m doing- or, at least, now that I know what not to do. Hopefully this means I’ll be able to see Bailey soon.

Bix said we were done for the day, and to relax before dinner.

So here, I am. Relaxing, and writing everything down. (I really am tired, but not sleepy, and I feel like my energy is already coming back.)

Earlier, I wrote about how when I was around Alex, I just, sorta, accepted whatever he said at face value. But now, sitting here alone, I’m able to think back over what he said more objectively. I wonder if he… did something to me, to make me so interested in what he had to say? And then it wore off? I’ve heard that some novas can do that. But if he was, how would I know? It’s not like I can just ask him, “Hey Alex, did you pull some kind of Jedi Mind Trick on me?”

Or maybe it’s just him being the first nova I’ve met. Maybe I was more ‘star struck’ than I thought? Or maybe that’s just part of what it is to be a nova, and people will start reacting to me the same way? That’s a scary thought. I don’t think I would have gone along with it if Alex had wanted me to do something wrong (or nasty), but maybe? Maybe that’s why novas all seem to have fan clubs and followings?

Or maybe Alex does have some kind of ‘like me’ power, but doesn’t realize it? I mean, how could you even test for that? How could you tell the difference between someone being interested in you because you’re you, versus because you’re a nova, versus because you have a specific, subtle, power? For that matter, how am I ever going to know for sure if people like me for me, or because of what I am? Would I even realize it, if I developed a ‘pay attention to me’ power? Other than Mom, and the friends I already have, will I ever be able to really be sure anybody’s interest is real?

I don’t think I like this.

Chapter Text

Sunday, September 7

Today sucked. Real hard.

It started out good. Bix had me fly the track with the hoops for an hour. That was great! I can’t wait to be able to fly outside! Then he had me practice multitasking by flying while invisible. That was tougher. I kept losing concentration and either becoming visible or hitting a hoop. I hit the wall once, too. But I’m pretty sure that’s something practice will help. And even if I can’t go flying outside, I can practice staying invisible while I do other things.

It's tiring, though. I told Bix about the ‘stream’ I feel inside myself, and about the branches, and about diverting some of Alex’s stream. He seemed impressed, and said it was unusual to have that kind of understanding of quantum flow so soon after erupting. He also said that my powers seemed to be based on quantum itself, rather than specific manifestations of quantum. He thinks I may eventually be able to steal borrow another nova’s actual powers, the way I borrowed some of Alex’s energy. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

He went on to explain his theory that when a nova erupts, what powers they develop depend partly on the events surrounding their eruption, and partly on what the new nova subconsciously expects (or maybe wants- or fears). That each one of us is, despite Utopia’s avoidance of the term, a superhero; and we develop powers based on what kind of hero we want (or expect, or are afraid) to be. From some of our conversations, he said that he thought that I was the kind of person who wanted to understand the underlying aspects of whatever was happening on the surface, instead of taking things at face value. And that, because I was interested in the how’s and whys, rather than the actual stuff, that I was developing powers based on the power of quantum itself.

I think I understand what he means, a little. I never really wanted to be strong, or fast, or tough. I never wanted to get in fights, or control fire, or anything like that. I wanted to understand the deeper connections between things (and people), and figure out why things were the way they were. And I wanted to fly, because who doesn’t want to fly? I don’t understand any of this as well as I want to, but it’s something I can read up on.

So, the day started out good.

Alex came back for lunch. (Didn’t Bix tell him to come after lunch?) I thought he might apologize for shoving me and yelling. Then I could have maybe apologized for accidentally taking borrowing some of his energy as well. I don’t think I need to apologize- he was there to help me figure out my powers, after all, and that’s exactly what happened; but I was ready to apologize anyway, to keep the peace. But he didn’t. At first, he just gave me a couple of weird looks, like maybe he thought I should apologize to him, but when I ignored that he settled down to more of the same from yesterday.

I was ‘on guard’ today, and really paying attention to how he was talking and acting rather than what he was saying. I was paying attention to that prickly buzzy sense as well. I can’t prove anything, but I’m pretty sure he is using some kind of subtle social power- not just on me, I think, or at least, not deliberately. I’m not entirely sure he’s aware that he’s doing it. And, like I said, I can’t prove anything. So, I think it’s best that I let it go for now. I know that I need to watch myself around him, but he hasn’t actually tried to do anything to me. Before all this, I would have assumed that I was beneath his notice, and he was out of my league (not that I’m interested, after the way he treated me), but now I wonder. He’s young, and that’s got to be part of it, but I’m starting to get the idea that, like with everything else, maybe not all novas are created equal. I’m beginning to wonder if Alex is just a small fish in an ever-growing pond. But, if that’s the case, and he’s so much more experienced, what does that make me?

I really need to study up on other novas. I’m rambling, but this has got me thinking. According to the Utopia census, there are about 6,000 of us. I’m pretty sure there are more that they might have missed, but that doesn’t matter right now. But the public only hears about a tiny fraction of those. The Teams Tomorrow. A few highly visible, infamous members of the Teragen. Several (in)famous Elites- mostly mercenaries, and even then, we only hear about them occasionally. A couple of the better XWF wrestlers. A bunch of municipal defenders. All together, without doing a deep dive, I could probably name, maybe, 30 novas off the top of my head? Bailey could probably name two or three times that many. But that’s still not a lot. Not in comparison to even the probably-too-low 6,000 figure. So what are all these other novas doing? Are they just living ordinary lives like other people? Like baselines? Is that still an option for me?

NO KITTEN. LIVING LIKE A BASELINE ISN’T AN OPTION. YOU’VE COME TOO FAR TO TURN BACK NOW.

~S

Anyway, back on track. After lunch, and Alex telling me all about himself and his plans again, it was time for more testing. Bix started setting some stuff up. I turned around to ask Alex something, and I got this weird, fluttery feeling, like the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, but all over- AND HE PUNCHED ME IN THE JAW!!!! And not a little swat or slap, either. He pulled back and slammed his fist right into me! I was so shocked, I just stood there. I think he knocked a couple of teeth lose.

He was just looking at me, with this smug little grin on his asinine face, like he’d done something clever. I didn’t know what to do, and Bix was just standing there watching me. So, I went invisible, took off, and flew out the door. I wasn’t about to let them see me cry.

Fuck Bix’s ‘no flying outside’ rule. But my jaw hurt (though that was fading away really quickly and my teeth didn’t feel loose anymore), and I didn’t know exactly where in town the Clinic was. So instead of flying home, I just… settled on the roof and cried. The roof was really hot from the sun, but I didn’t care. I stayed invisible, too, so Alex wouldn’t see me if he came looking.

I’m not sure how long I stayed up there- I didn’t have my phone on me. But I saw a car leave at one point. Hopefully, it was Alex. I don’t want to see him again, even for an explanation and an apology. That he probably wouldn’t give anyway. Bix has a lot of explaining to do. I haven’t been in a fight since I was seven, and I have never allowed a man to hit me. If this is Project Utopia’s idea of ‘training’, I’m out. Screw this.

After awhile, I found my bedroom window. I know for fact it was closed when I went down to breakfast, but it was open now. Somebody giving me a back way in? I took some time to clean myself up, and write this entry. It’s close to dinner time, so I’ll be demanding that explanation from Bix.

Later-

I gave Bix a piece of my mind (I’m not going to repeat exactly what I said here), and he apologized. I accepted it, even if it was an “I’m sorry you were upset” non-apology and not an “I’m sorry I did something wrong” actual apology. He explained that part of training was seeing how a new nova reacted to the unexpected, and if they had instincts that might be a risk to baselines. And that was the entire justification- I might be a danger to baselines, so they ‘had’ to assault me to find out. I told him that I accepted his apology, but that I never wanted to see Alex again. I was done ‘training’ with him. (I wanted to say a lot more, but I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be here, and it’s better not to burn bridges.) I didn’t give him the chance to argue, but instead turned to Mr. Li and told him that I wanted to see Bailey tomorrow, as well as establish when I’ll be able to return to school. I told him that I was willing to continue to stay here so they could study me and help me get a better handle on my abilities, but I wasn’t willing to be shut away and isolated any longer.

Either Mr. Li was impressed by my firmness, or he and Dr. Jackson had already decided that it was time to move forward (probably the latter- I’m not nearly so arrogant about my social skills as Alex is with his); but he agreed. Dr. Jackson asked me to join her and Mr. Li in the parlor (yes, this place has a parlor) after dinner to discuss other aspects of my future. And that was that. The rest of dinner was quiet, and I tried to pretend there weren’t any hard feelings toward Bix. I’ll probably get over it in a day or two. Probably.

We settled down in the parlor- and it was exactly the kind of place that word brings to mind. They had me take a giant upholstered chair like you’d see a Bond villain sit in (fluffy white cat not included), while they took a sofa. There was a coffee tale between us, and Mr. Li started setting out stacks of papers.

I won’t go into all the details here- they were complex, and not really what anyone reading this journal years from now would want to know about. If need be, I can add a link to an upload of the documents they had for me. But it all boiled down to an employment pitch. How Project Utopia was working for the greater good of all humanity, how novas have a responsibility to use their gifts for the greatest good, and so on. It wasn’t all altruism, either. They showed me several charts of my earning potential with PU over the next several years, and pointed out how novas were celebrities, and how that carried its own benefits. (I noticed that they didn’t mention the drawbacks of fame and celebrity- like not having any privacy and never being able to know for sure who your friends were, but I left that alone. For now.)

They brought up the Team Tomorrow Academy, as well, but I shot that down right away. On the one hand, I’d like to meet as many novas my own age as possible, and it makes sense to learn about our powers in a group setting, as well as finishing high school and (maybe) earning college credit. But I want to stay in my high school, if at all possible. I want to stay with my friends. I want to stick with as much of my routine as I can- since everything else in my life is been shaken up so completely. I had another reason for refusing as well- everybody knows that the Academy is a pipeline to Team Tomorrow. (People even call the Academy 'Teen Tomorrow', like it’s just a fact of life.) And I know that I don’t want to be part of Team Tomorrow.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to help out my fellow man, and make the world a better place. But it seems like T2M mostly does that by barging into dangerous situations, fists flying and buildings falling down every which way. And that’s not what I want. Not that I think I’d be very good at it, even if I did want that kind of life. Luckily, I don’t think T2M will ever come calling on me. I’m strong, but there are plenty stronger. I’m tough, but the same thing. My senses are sharp, sure, but that’s not a major qualification for being a professional superhero. I can fly, but not very fast (though I fully intend to practice that!). Invisibility is neat, and maybe useful, but I think they already have that covered. And they can use an outlet to charge their cell phones like everyone else- they don’t need me. So, no Academy for me, thankyouverymuch.

Anyway, I reminded them that I was a minor, and therefore unable to sign any binding contracts. And that I’d want time to think things over, and talk to me mother, and maybe a lawyer, and that I’d want to take a copy of the contract with me to study. They were fine with all that, and asked me if I wanted them to find me a lawyer. I said no, that I knew one, and if she couldn’t advise me, I’d reconsider their offer. Look at me, sounding all adult! LoL

Then, I asked them what Alex had meant about ‘re-negotiating his contract’. They looked a little surprised- I’m not sure if they were surprised that he said anything, or that I’d overheard it, or that I’d asked about it- but explained that all novas who signed on with PU also agreed, as part of their base contract, to a three year term of service with Nova Services International, Inc. Then they told me all about NSI- how it matches up novas with (mostly) short-term contract work that needs novas. Anything from bodyguard work, to construction, to being there for media attention at the opening of a new supermarket. They do some charity stuff as well, and some feel-good PR stuff. It all makes sense, but I can’t help thinking of it as ‘nova temp work’.

The upshot of it is that PU uses those three years to see how the new nova handles themselves, how they continue to develop, and (they didn’t come out and say it) whether they were likely to make an ass of themselves. The nova would get a small(?) monthly stipend from PU, regardless of whatever contracts they were assigned by NSI, but that the bulk of the nova’s earnings in those three years would come through the agency. Mr. Li also explained that while a nova was expected to take whatever assignments they were matched with, they weren’t forced into anything they found truly repulsive. Boring or pointless, maybe, but nothing that went against their ethics or morals.

Me being underage isn’t a major sticking point either, apparently. Mom would have to co-sign on any contract I took until I turned 18, and I couldn’t be assigned to anything with a potential for danger (so no bodyguarding, not that anyone would want me for that). My 18th birthday isn’t until March, so they’re eager to go ahead with a minor’s restricted contract. (I think if I was turning 18 in a few weeks, they’d probably just wait and not mess with the restrictions and extra hassles.) There is a limit to how many hours per week I can work, and when, just like a regular job. So it shouldn’t even interfere much with school. Mom would never put up with that- and neither would I. I need to do well to get as much scholarship money as I can for college.

There was a lot more to all of that, but it got pretty detailed and technical, so I’ll leave it here. I took a copy of all their paperwork to read over, thanked Mr. Li and Dr. Jackson for their time, and reminded them about visiting Bailey tomorrow. Mr. Li said that he had errands to run in town, and so he could drop me off at the hospital and pick me up after about an hour- he didn’t think they’d let me stay very long, which I can understand. I thanked him, and went upstairs.

I’ve been making myself go to sleep every night, even though I haven’t been tired, but tonight, I have stuff to do. Now that I’ve updated my journal, I need to read over all these papers, then I want to do some research. I’m not training or testing tomorrow, so if I’m tired, it won’t matter.

Even Later-

I know better than to assume that just because I only had to look up a few words in an online legal dictionary that I know what this contract is all about. But it seems relatively straightforward. The only thing they didn’t tell me downstairs is that the NSI contract only allows for three ‘free’ contract refusals, for whatever reason, but that any further refusals after those are exhausted are applied to the term of service with NSI as ‘penalty time’, extending my term. So, if I’d used up my refusals, and refused a fourth contract that was intended to last three weeks, then they’d add three weeks to the three years I was supposed to serve with NSI. But, to balance that, a nova can specify certain things that they refuse to do at all when they sign on, so they won’t be assigned contracts involving those things. Like, a hardcore vegan could specify that they refuse any contracts involving animal products. The nova can pre-refuse specific organizations, as well. If I sign on with this, I’d blanket-ban PETA and the tobacco industry for sure.

Bailey’s mother is a lawyer. I think she’s even a contract lawyer, though maybe nova law is a separate specialty. I know Mrs. Adams has to be worried about Bailey and all, but I don’t think she’ll mind if I at least ask her to look over the papers with Mom and I. I need a job, and this seems like it’s my best option. My appetite is still ridiculous, and I really don’t think Mom could afford to feed me, so it’s time I earn my keep. Besides, she’s given up everything for me all these years, and this is the first chance I’ve had to make things easier on her. Not that I’m going to mention any of that to her- she’d just insist that she had everything under control.

Once all that was out of the way, I hopped onto the OpNet and put in some work fixing my nova ignorance. There are So. Many. Fan. Sites. And Rule 34 is awful. There is more Caestus Pax/Divis Mal shipfic than I would have believed possible.

I found the most recent nova census. I’m not on it yet, of course. It lists every known nova, the circumstances of their eruption (if known), where and when they erupted, what kind of powers they display, and what (if any) groups they’re known to work with. Most of them (according to the census) work for either PU or the DeVries Agency. There are a lot of blank spaces and ‘data unavailable’ notes in the census. I wonder how much of that information is really unknown, and how much is just restricted?

The census lets you sort the data by the nova’s name, their chosen nova name, the date of eruption, place, etc. When I downloaded the public-facing data, I was able to sort by broad power types as well. Several of the entries include pictures and/or descriptions as well. I didn’t realize how many novas have… unusual appearances. I’ve seen pictures of Leviathan and Geryon, and I know that several of Team Tomorrow have visual effects when they use their powers, but I was surprised by all the strange skin tones, unusual eyes, hair-that-isn’t, and so on. There’s a guy with deer antlers, and a woman made out of metal!

I found Alex in the census, by the way. He’s chosen ‘One-Two’ as his nova name. It took me a minute to figure it out, but it’s just another stupid fighting reference: a one-two punch. I think I sprained my eyeballs, they rolled so hard.

That does lead me to something I hadn’t thought of, though. My own nova name. At first, I thought I didn’t want one. Being Colleen Harris was good enough for me. But looking at all these fan sites, I can see the appeal of having a, well, a codename. That sounds so cringe. But having a public name might put some distance between me and the world, and give me a little privacy. Plus, I’m a little afraid that if I don’t pick a name for myself, someone else will. And that would be awful. So I’ll give it some thought. Names are important. They say a lot about who you are as a person, especially if you picked the name yourself. Would Caestus Pax (it means ‘fist of peace’, or something close to that) be the same person if he were called Strong Guy or Mr. Clean? I don’t think so.

And that led me to the last on tonight’s list of ‘things to do’. I looked up myself on the OpNet.

For the record, never do that.

All the early-recent stuff was about the wreck, and that part was more about Bailey. Neither of us were named in the papers (being kids has advantages), but the details of the wreck were told pretty accurately, and mentioned that the driver was still in the hospital. I found out about the minivan people, too. Melissa, James, and Beau Orlock. Beau’s funeral will be this coming Wednesday. I think I should go, especially since Bailey can’t. It seems like the right thing to do, but maybe not? Maybe I’m the last person they’d want to see. Maybe if I go, and just stay in the back...

The more recent articles mentioned the ongoing investigation of the accident. Then there was one about me. Not by name, but it came right out and said that ‘the passenger in the car erupted on the scene’. Just said it right out like that. I kept looking, working my way forward through the ‘developing story’. Yesterday there was a tabloid article naming me, personally, as the newly-erupted nova. It gave my name, where I go to school, and included Bailey’s name as well. It even had last year’s school picture. So much for kids and privacy.

I saved all the articles that mentioned Bailey. She keeps a scrapbook of everything she gets ‘noticed’ for. I don’t know if she’ll want to include these (I wouldn’t, if I were her), but if she does, I’ll have them put aside for her.

Dawn’s almost here, and I haven’t slept. But I’m not tired at all. Maybe I’ll do some flying practice before breakfast.

Chapter Text

Monday, September 8

Today was… awkward.  I should have expected it, really. I did my flying practice, like I said last entry.  I’m not sure if I’m getting any faster, but I didn’t crash into anything, so I’m calling it a ‘win’.  On the way into town, Mr. Li gave me some idea of what to expect.  Bailey’s hurt pretty bad.  They’re practically rebuilding her leg.  A few years ago, she might have lost it, but with all the new nova-led medical stuff, she should be ok.  Eventually.  But she was in a lot of pain, and they were keeping her doped up, which might lead to her saying or doing some odd things.  I can deal with that.  I’ve seen her drunk before, and she gets ‘truthy’, so I was expecting more of the same.

But there was more.  Once that tabloid article came out, the other papers jumped on it.  There was a good chance that some reporter or other might be hanging around the hospital in hopes that I showed up.  Mr. Li said that I wasn’t ready to give a press release yet (duh!), so he was going to walk me into the hospital and handle any reporters that were there.  Because of me, Bailey’s room was being given extra attention to keep strangers out, so once I got inside, I should be fine.  He said that he’d be back in about an hour, and that I was supposed to stay inside the hospital until he texted me that he was waiting outside for me.  I agreed, of course.  I’m not afraid of public speaking, but I’m not ready to be public about everything that’s happened yet.  Especially since my eruption came with a little boy dying.

We got to the hospital (Mr. Li already knew which entrance would get me closest to Bailey’s room).  He drove through the parking lot once, but neither of us saw anyone lurking around.  Of course, a good reporter wouldn’t lurk, but then again, a good reporter wouldn’t be hanging around a hospital on the off chance that today might be the day I showed up. So, yeah. 

Mr. Li let me out, gave me Bailey’s room number, and drove off.  That was it.  For the first time since all this happened, I was unsupervised.  I’ll admit, I suddenly wanted to just… run (fly?) away. Just go away someplace and be alone and quiet.  But that would have been childish.  And pointless. So, in I went.

I had to give my name at the nurse’s station, and I could tell she knew who (what?) I was.  I wondered if she knew because of Utopia, or because of the tabloids.  I guess it doesn’t matter. Everybody who cares to will know sooner of later.  That sounded so arrogant. The nurse said that non-family was limited to twenty minutes, but the way she hesitated, I’m not sure she would have enforced that if I pushed back.  I didn’t, though.  They must have a good reason for that kind of thing.

Anyway, Bailey was asleep when I went in.  Her mom was there, too.  I was surprised, but of course she’d taken off work while her daughter was in the hospital.  We hugged, and cried a little.  Mrs. Adams is like a second mom- no, not like a second mom.  More like the cool aunt who occasionally takes time out of her busy life to do awesome things with you.  She and Mr. Adams had been taking turns staying with Bailey (he’s a travel agent).  She told me that Bailey sleeps most of the time, because of the pain meds.  Her tone said there was more to it than that, though, or at least that she was afraid there was.  There was another operation scheduled for tomorrow. 

We talked about everything that happened.  She wanted me to tell her about the wreck, and I told her everything.  Almost everything.  Then she asked about my eruption, and what I was doing now.  And I told her all about that.  I even demonstrated being invisible (I didn’t want to risk the other stuff, even though none of Bailey’s monitors are life-supporting.)  I told her about PU wanting me to sign on with them, and the NSI contract, but that it seemed complicated.  I swear, I wasn’t dry begging.  I fully intended to come right out and ask her to look over the contract- I just didn’t expect to see her today.  But right away, she volunteered to look the contract over for me.  She’s taken a leave of absence until Bailey is better, so she has time.  And (she says) it’ll give her something to do other than worry.  I’ll ask Mr. Li to send her a copy.  Or I can bring it with me next time I visit.

Bailey was still asleep when the nurse came back in to tell me my time was up.  Mrs. Adams said she’d text me when Bailey was out of surgery tomorrow, which I appreciated. I didn’t want to wake her up, so I just held Bailey’s hand for a moment, asked Mrs. Adams to give her my love and tell her that I’d come back as soon as I could, and left.

That left me with time on my hands.  The hospital wouldn’t give me any details, but from what they didn’t say, I worked out that Melissa Orlock and her older son, James, weren’t currently admitted to the hospital.  So their injuries must have been fairly minor.  Not that anything can make up for the loss of their son and brother.

I knew I was supposed to stay in the hospital, but I figured, the little courtyard counts, right?  And I just wanted to be outside for a while.  So, I was sitting on the edge of the fountain, playing with the water a little, when the water parted around my fingers! Then it started swirling around like a little whirlpool!  I thought for a second that I was somehow doing it, but no.  There was a guy standing under a tree, watching me.  No, not watching me.  Watching the water.  Playing with the water. From twenty feet away.  He was another nova!

As soon as he saw me notice him, he came over.  He didn’t have Alex’s too-perfect looks, but he was still good looking.  Latino, or maybe multiracial.  Dark hair, green eyes. It was hard to put an age on him, but he seemed around my age, maybe.  His skin was dark enough that he was fairly close before I noticed a few freckles.  If I hadn’t been paying attention (and if my prickly buzzy sense wasn’t going off) I might not have immediately pegged him for a nova, and that was somehow reassuring. 

He smiled, and introduced himself as ‘Rocío’.  (I’m still learning Spanish, but I know nobody would name their kid ‘Dew’, so that must be his nova name.)  I gave him my name and invited him to sit down.  He did, but then asked me what my real name was.  He knows.  Somehow, he knows about me.  Does he have the same prickly buzzy sense?  Alex didn’t seem to… He seemed harmless, and no one else was around, so I came right out and asked him how he knew what I was. He said that some friends of his found my picture, and he’d been hanging around, off and on, in case I happened to show up.  He asked for my ‘real name’ again, and I told him I hadn’t picked a nova name yet.  He looked surprised.  I think my tone must have been kinda defensive when I told him that I thought it was a big decision, and not something to choose lightly or quickly- after all, not many people get the chance to choose how the world will think about them. 

He said he understood, and that it was good to think things through like that.  Apparently, most people- most baselines- spend a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to be a nova, about their powers, and what they’d call themselves.  I told him I never really gave much thought to novas before I erupted, so I’d never really had those dreams.  He burst out laughing, but it didn’t seem like he was laughing at me somehow.  So that was all right.

We sat and talked for a while.  He asked me about myself, how I was adjusting, and if I’d decided what I wanted to do next.  He seemed to mean as much about what I wanted to do about regular life, just as much as all the nova stuff.  And of course, we talked about our powers.  He can control water, and he’s learning to mess with the weather.  He said he was taking that slowly and seriously, because changes to the weather in one place could mess things up in other places.  I admired his consideration about that.  I told him some of what I can do- the flying, and the invisibility.  I hadn’t meant to mention being able to steal borrow quantum power from other people, but somehow it came out.  He seemed impressed, but not nervous. 

Then I got the text from Mr. Li saying that he was out front, and I had to go.  Rocío wrote down his OpNet handle and number on a scrap of paper, and I gave him mine.  Before I left, I couldn’t help but say how glad I was to meet a nova who wasn’t a jerk.  It just popped out, and I’m pretty sure I was blushing like crazy, but he just laughed and said that nova assholes were still assholes. 

It was a good conversation.  Maybe I’ll touch base with him on the OpNet sometime.  At least he wasn’t self-absorbed like Alex. 

When I came out from the courtyard, Mr. Li was there.  So was a guy with a microphone and a shoulder-mounted camera. He sorta… lunged for me, but Mr. Li put himself between us.  The guy started firing off questions, so fast I could barely even follow them, let alone answer.  But Mr. Li hustled me into the car, told the reporter “Ms. Harris has no comment at this time”, and we tore out of there.  I’ve never been ‘Ms. Harris’ before. 

Once we were back on the road, we were quiet for a few minutes.  Then Mr. Li asked about Bailey, and I had to tell him that since she’d been asleep, I felt like I hadn’t really seen her, and wanted to go back.  He said that was fine, but to give it a few more days.  I think he already knew about her next surgery.  Doesn’t privacy mean anything where Utopia is concerned?  It seems like they find out whatever they want to know.

Mr. Li said that he’d picked up my school work for the week, and that after that, I’d probably be ready to go back to school.  He brought up the Academy again, but I shut that down, and he accepted it.  He also said that since the reporter had found me, that we needed to go ahead and give the media what it wanted- a look at the newest nova.  He wants to set up a press release.  About me.  I don’t really like the idea- it seems pretentious, but I guess it’s better to get it over with all at once.  

I asked if we could swing by my place, since I wanted to pick up clothes for the funeral.  He agreed, but seemed surprised that I wanted to go.  He didn’t come out and say anything, but he made it pretty clear that he didn’t think it was necessary, or a good idea.  He implied that Dr. Jackson wouldn’t like it, but again, didn’t come right out and say so.  I told him that I thought it was the right thing to do.  He said that was fine (his tone said otherwise), and he would schedule the press release for Thursday, so there would be less chance of media disturbing the funeral.  I hadn’t even thought about that.  I’m going to have to keep the media in mind anytime I go out now. ☹

 We stopped off at the apartment.  If the reporters had figured out where I live yet, there weren’t any right then.  I scooped up a black skirt and a dark green shirt, both conservative enough for a funeral.  I don’t have any black pumps, but hopefully flats will be good enough.  I scooped up a filmy black scarf, just in case I needed to cover my head.

I left a note for Mom saying that Mrs. Adams had agreed to look over the contracts I was being offered, and that the three of us needed to meet up soon-ish, but not until after Bailey’s surgery tomorrow. And that was that.

We drove back to the Clinic (I made sure to thank Mr. Li for the ride), and I went upstairs to write all this up before starting my school work.  I hate homework, but the only way I’ll see the inside of a college without selling my soul into student loan debt is with a good scholarship, so the grades have to stay up.

Later-

Dr. Jackson was definitely laughing at me when I said I was concerned about missing school, and now I see why.  Mr. Li picked up a week’s worth of work for me.  I know it was a week’s worth, since I was out sick for a week last year with flu, and what they sent home was about the same amount.  It took me the whole week, plus the weekend, to get it all done then.  Though, to be fair, I was sick and running a fever, so that probably made everything harder.  So, I was expecting the work to take several days, at least.  Especially the math, which I always put off till last when I have homework.

Tonight, I flew through it.  All of it.  For the whole week.  Even the math.  I still don’t like math, but I didn’t have to struggle with it at all.  It’s like my mind was clearer than it’s ever been.  That got me to thinking.  Over the summer, I had started to study for the SAT and ACT and had taken a couple of practice tests.  My best SAT so far was 1380, and my best ACT was 26.  Since I had such recent tests for comparison, I decided to take them again.  I know online practice scores aren’t official, or anything, but I just wanted to see if there was any measurable difference since the summer.

There was.  I scored 1587 on the SAT (out of 1600), and a perfect 36 on the ACT.  I don’t think I’m going to have any trouble keeping my grades up and getting scholarships- I am an utter moron.  Here I am, worrying about scholarships.  I’m a freaking nova.  As much as I don’t want to throw my weight around and expect people to bend over backwards for me, I’m pretty sure most colleges would be thrilled to be able to say they had a nova studying with them.  I should be fine.  I still need to keep my grades up, though.  And a solid set of extracurriculars won’t hurt either.  I’d rather get into a good school on merit, rather than nova-ness.  Paying for it is something else- maybe I can get PU or NSI to sponsor me to a good school as part of my contract? 

After all that, I wasn’t quite ready for bed (even though it’s close to 36 hours since I’ve slept- I should test how long I can stay awake at some point), so I decided to look up Rocío on the OpNet.

He isn’t on the current census, so he must have erupted in the last year.  He isn’t listed on the T2M Academy’s OpNet site, so either he’s older than I thought, or he’s studying his weather power privately.  He isn’t listed on PU’s public roster, either, so it’s probably the latter.

He doesn’t have many hits on the OpNet at all, really.  A couple of small fan pages.  An article in the local Spanish newspaper.  On a hunch, I reset my VPN to Ciudad Acuna and searched again.  This time, I came up with several articles about him over the last few months, and several more fan pages.  (My Spanish is getting better fast.)  Apparently he’s been dipping back and forth across the border, solving water problems for small local farms.  There was also one article suggesting (but not quite stating) that he’d had something to do with ‘restoring water rights that a major factory installation had appropriated’.  The paper seemed sympathetic to the local farmers, so I’m not sure how unbiased the story is, or how much Rocío actually had to do with it.  A nice guy, does charity work on the downlow, but maybe also does some corporate sabotage?  Something to think about, for sure. 

I’ve decided to upload this journal to my OpNet site, so I can update it even when I’m not on my laptop.  But I’m setting it to ‘private’ for now, so no one else will find it.  Maybe someday I’ll make it public, and let people know how things were for me, but not now.  Probably not anytime soon.

MAKE IT PUBLIC WHEN YOU’RE READY, KITTEN.  MOST OF US DON’T HAVE ENOUGH INTROSPECTION IN OUR NATURE.  THIS COULD DO A LOT OF GOOD, YEARS FROM NOW.

~S

Chapter Text

Tuesday, September 9

Less testing and more training today.  I’m getting better at gauging just how much of my quantum power to put into electronics to run them without overheating or blowing out the delicate bits.  Bix has me multitasking more.  For two hours today, I had to light up a series of lightbulbs while either remaining invisible or hovering in the air.  Hovering in place is surprisingly difficult- I keep bobbing up and down when I’m supposed to be still.  But I’ll get the hang of it.  I love anything to do with flying!  He had me lifting weights as well, which was boring, but at least I can use that time to listen to some podcasts.  I’ve subscribed to several of the top podcasts about novas, trying to learn more.  Most of them are hosted by baselines, but a lot of them have nova guests on sometimes, so I feel like I’m getting to know some other novas at a distance.  I know better than to mistake parasocial relationships for actual knowledge, though.  It’s pretty clear they all have their ‘public faces’ on when they do those shows.  The Utopian novas in particular.  Everything is all spit-and-polish, ‘can-do’ attitude.  Very Boy Scout.  It’s impossible to say how much of that is really them, and how much is Utopia speaking through them. 

Mr. Li mentioned that he’d have a series of ‘talking points’ for me tomorrow, so that I would have plenty of time to get comfortable with the press release.  I don’t mind public speaking, but I’m not sure how I feel about delivering someone else’s speech.  It’s not like debate club, where I’m memorizing some eloquent speech about an important topic by a famous orator.  It’s just… me.  Talking about… me.  Shouldn’t I be able to handle that without a keeper?  But, Utopia has been doing this longer than I have, and they have a lot more experience dealing with the media.  They surely know better than I do. 

I just want my life to get back into some version of normal- even if it has to be a ‘new normal’.

I’ve been thinking a lot about nova names.  Alex’s name is really dumb, but it does tell you exactly what he wants you to know about him: that he likes to fight.  Rocío’s name says a lot about him, too.  Maybe on several levels.  First, it’s in Spanish, making it clear that his heritage is important to him.  It’s water-based, which match his powers.  And it’s a gentle name.  He could have been Torrent or Tsunami, or something.  But he chose something gentle, and easy to overlook.  That matches with (most of) what he’s been doing with his powers- helping the ‘little people’.  Utopia seems to be all about the big picture, and maximum results for effort expended.  I know that helps a lot of people in a lot of ways, but I can see how people can slip through the cracks.  Rocío’s activities aren’t making major news, but I bet his efforts are no less life-changing to the people he takes care of.

Between the census and the podcasts, I’m learning a lot more about individual novas- no, that’s not true.  I’m learning facts (which might not be accurate) about individual novas.  That doesn’t necessarily tell me more about who they are as people.  But the names seem to fall into a few broad categories.

I. Regional/Heritage-

     a. Where the nova grew up.

         i. The Brazilian Anaconda

     b. Where the nova feels at home.

         i. Coral

      c. Municipal Defenders.

          i. London Fog

          ii. Houston Tornado

      d. Homage to ancestry or culture

          i. Feathered Serpent

          ii. Harmattan

II. Power-

     a. Based on one of more powers the nova possesses.

         i. Splash

         ii. Bender

         iii. Copykat

     b. Based on some specific ‘technique’ the nova a famous for.

         i. Slider

         ii. Cloudburst

         iii. Evac

III. Appearance (usually inhuman, or at least unmistakably non-baseline)

     a. Leviathan

     b. Shrapnel

     c. Sloppy Joe

     d. Cernunnos

     e. Superbeast

IV. Details of Eruption-

     a. The Fireman

     b. Crystalhawk

     c. Ironskin

V. Personal Ambition/Ideals-

     a. Caestus Pax

     b. Antaeus

     c. Bounty

     d. Divis Mal

     e. The Miracle

VI. Generic ‘Badassery’-

     a. Most Elites

     b. Most XWF wrestlers

     c. Most criminals

So, where does that leave me? My appearance hasn’t changed much, so that’s out.  I don’t want to associate myself with the car accident, so anything to do with my eruption is out. Most of my powers are, well, relatively common.  Flying and invisibility are both cool, but not name-yourself-after cool.  Strength and toughness are too common- and naming myself for them might be taken as a challenge.  That’s the last thing I want.  Steal- borrowing quantum doesn’t seem like something to be public about.  I really don’t ever want to be in a position of needing to do it, but if that happened, it would be better if the other person didn’t know to guard against it. So naming myself for power doesn’t seem promising.  General ‘badassery’ is right out as well.  I like Wilmington, but I can’t say I’m especially attached to it, or anyplace else.  And I can’t see myself as a municipal defender.  And besides, don’t municipal defenders take on that name when they take on the job- haven’t there been multiple Houston Tornados?

That leaves personal goals, ideals, and ambitions. For the last few years, I’ve wanted to be a teacher.  I’ve done some tutoring, and enjoyed that.  I think I’d rather teach older kids, though.  At least middle school.  I babysit for extra money, and I guess I’m okay at it, but I can’t say I really enjoy taking care of little kids.  It’s better when the kids are old enough to see to their own needs, but just need supervision.  I look forward to having my own family someday, but I’d just as soon leave other people’s kids alone when they’re that young.  I’ll deal with them once they’re old enough to hold a real conversation with. 

So, maybe something to do with teaching, or mentoring, or guiding?  It seems pretentious now, still being a kid myself, but I want something I can grow into, that won’t seem silly in a few years.  So nothing with ‘Girl’ or ‘Kid’ or anything like that.  Nothing as obvious as ‘Teacher’ or ‘Tutor’.  And ‘Guide’ would be pretentious no matter how old I was.  Maybe instead of something overt like that, something from mythology, or history.  Maybe a character remembered for helping heroes become the heroes they were meant to be- someone important, but still sort of a background character. 

I’m going to try to see Bailey again tomorrow, after the funeral.  I’ll drop off a copy of the contract with Mrs. Adams while I’m there, so she can take her time looking at it.  Bailey’s much more important, of course.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, September 10

Today was hard.  Since I didn’t know how long the funeral was going to last, and I wanted to visit Bailey after, Bix was nice enough to lend me his car.  (I think it’s his way of making up for the whole Alex thing.)  Mr. Li looked like he wanted to object to my going out alone, but he had things he had to do, and I left before he could make a good argument.  I was extra careful driving, and made sure to fill the tank before returning Bix’s car. 

I’ve only ever been to two funerals before this, and I wasn’t prepared.  Of course, this was different on all levels.  This was Catholic, and for a stranger. And that stranger was a little boy.  I found out that he was only three.  I sat in the back and stayed quiet, trying not to be noticed.  I didn’t understand much of the service, so I just stood, kneeled, and sat when everyone else did.  It’s not like I was there for the church-ing, anyway.  Mom is Baptist-by-apathy, and I can’t even claim that much. 

It was a closed casket, and I was glad.  I really didn’t want to see that little boy again.  The memories I already have are… a lot. Mrs. Orlock, the older boy (James, I think?) were in the front row, with a man I assume was Mr. Orlock.  She looked like she’d been crying non-stop for days.  James had that kind of blank face you see on people after natural disasters.  Mr. Orlock looked like he’d been drinking.  I don’t blame him.  I can’t imagine the pain of losing a child.  I don’t want to think about losing Mom, and I know I’ll have to go through that eventually.

The service itself didn’t last long.  Some prayers, some speakers, not so much singing as call-and-response hymns.  After, people lingered, gathered around the family.  The acoustics in the church were overwhelming during the service, and even after, I could hear most of what was said clearly, even from the back.  A lot of ‘He’ll be missed’ and ‘He was so sweet’.  Offers of assistance to the family. Invitations to dinner.  I had been waffling on whether I should go down and offer condolences or not.  Would they want to see me? Would they appreciate that someone involved came?  Or would my presence rub salt in the wounds? 

I must have been thinking harder than I realized, because I never noticed the priest until he sat down on the pew net to me. He asked if I was alright, and if I wanted to go down and pay my respects.  I almost told him I was fine and not to worry about me, but then I thought, ‘He’s a priest. They’re supposed to give good advice, right?’ 

So, I told him that I’d been in the other car during the wreck, and since my friend was still in the hospital, it only seemed right that I come to the funeral.  But now that I was here, I wasn’t sure if the family would want to see me, or what I should do.

He took a few seconds to think about it, which made me feel better- instant answers don’t come with much real thought.  He looked at me more closely, and I could tell that he knew what I was.  I don’t know if he recognized me, but he knew.  He didn’t make a big thing about it, though. 

Eventually, he suggested that I go down, explain that I’d been at the scene, and offer my condolences.  And that I keep the rest to myself, unless they asked.  That sounded like a good compromise, so I thanked him and did just that.

Mr. and Mrs. Orlock didn’t pay a lot of attention to me- I was just one more well-wisher, and a stranger.  They were polite, but distant.  That was fine by me.  I felt like I’d ‘done my duty’ and was ready to get out of there.  James kept looking at me, though.  Maybe he remembered me?  Maybe he’d read something about me on the OpNet?  He didn’t say anything, though.  Just stared.

The funeral hadn’t taken as long as I’d expected, so it was still pretty early when I got to the hospital.  I did a drive-by like Mr. Li did, but didn’t see anyone suspicious. 

Bailey was awake this time, but doped up on pain meds.  Mrs. Adams was there, but she said she’d go down to the cafeteria for a few minutes and give us time to talk. 

Bailey… doesn’t look good.  I don’t mean the fading bruises and stuff.  She’s pale, and looks like she’s lost weight.  She looks… fragile.  Bailey’s never been fragile a day in her life.  But if this were Lit class, I’d have to call her ‘wan’ and ‘despondent’.  (Vocabulary words come back at the weirdest times.)  I knew she’d had another surgery yesterday, so that was probably why she looked worse than when I saw her on Monday.  Or maybe it was just that she was more like her old self when she was asleep.

It was awkward, at first. I wanted to hug her, but didn’t want to hurt her.  I wanted to hear how she felt, but didn’t want to push her.  I wanted to tell her what happened to me, but I didn’t want to brag or make her jealous. We’re best friends.  We both started at the same time, each demanding the other tell us everything. We laughed, and, as always, I let Bailey go first. 

It was mostly complaining, but I don’t blame her.  Her leg hurts, her ribs hurt, she’s tired of being in the hospital. The food sucks, and using a bedpan is humiliating.  She wants to go back to school, but doesn’t want anyone seeing her like this.  She knew she wouldn’t be able to cheer for a while.  She said ‘a couple of months’, but from what Dr. Jackson has said, I think it’ll be a lot longer than that- but I didn’t say anything about that part.  Mostly, she was concerned about her leg being scarred.  I hadn’t seen her leg, so I couldn’t really say much about that- just that doctors could do amazing things with cosmetic surgery after, and that right now she needed to focus on getting better.  I started to say that it couldn’t be that bad, but I stopped myself in time.  I love Bailey, but she’s really into her looks.  ‘Not that bad’ won’t be anywhere near good enough for her.

Then it was my turn.  I told her a lot of it. About the car door and the hospital.  About the Clinic and the testing.  A little about Alex.  (She didn’t recognize him, by either name.  He’d be crushed.)  She asked for a demonstration, so I floated in place (there wasn’t room to fly inside), then turned invisible for a few seconds.  A told her about Project Utopia wanting me to sign on with them, and wanting me to do ‘temp work’ with Nova Services International.  She laughed a little at that.  I tried not to make a big thing about any of it, but I felt ridiculous at the same time.  Of course, it’s a big deal. 

After all that, we were quiet for a minute.  Then she asked me why I was dressed up, so I had to tell her about the funeral. That stopped her cold.  I don’t think anyone had really told her much about the other car- the injuries. The death.  She was quiet for a long time, and I thought she must be blaming herself.  I blame myself, a little, even though I know it wasn’t my fault.  I wasn’t the one driving. I wasn’t the one who was- nevermind.  I hadn’t seen any kind of police or insurance report.  I don’t think there’s anything final yet.  Either they haven’t decided who’s at fault, or they’re keeping it back for some reason.  I was trying to come up with something to say, something to make her feel better, when she said the last thing I’d’ve expected from her: “Did you tell anyone?” 

THAT’S what she was worried about?!?  That she’d get in trouble?  That somebody would find out?  The look on my face must have given me away, because she got flustered and hurried on to say that if she could take it back, she would, and she felt really bad, and it was awful, but that telling anybody would only make it worse for no good reason.  She kept going on like that until I cut her off.  I told her that I hadn’t told anyone, and wouldn’t.  I used her phone to call 911.  So there was no reason anyone would- nevermind.  I don’t want to write that down.

We were both awkward again, after that.  A couple of minutes later, Mrs. Adams came back.  I gave her the papers, told her to take her time looking over them, told Bailey I’d come visit again as soon as I could, and left. 

I guess I understand.  Bailey’s life, as she’s always known it, is already over.  She’ll never be able to be who she was before, any more than I can.  And no amount of punishment will bring that little boy back.  Is this really any different than all those high school and college boys who get caught sexually assaulting raping drunk girls at parties, with overwhelming proof, only to have the judges turn them loose because they’re ‘good kids’ who ‘don’t deserve to have their lives ruined over one mistake’?  Would punishing Bailey really make anything better?  But at the same time, that was the first thing she thought about when she found out a little boy died?  How it would impact her?  Maybe it was just the pain meds talking.  This isn’t the Bailey I know and love.

Anyway, I wasn’t ready to go back to the Clinic yet, but I didn’t have anyplace else to be.  So, I went back to the courtyard where I met Rocío.  Not expecting him to be there, of course. Why would he be?  But a few minutes later, he was.  

We exchanged ‘hi’s’, and I asked if he was stalking me (mostly joking).  He laughed and said that he was, a little.  I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or skeeved out.  He complimented my outfit, and looked serious when I explained the occasion.  He said that I’d done right in going, and how hard it must have been for me, as well as the family.  I’m not sure I deserve praise for doing the decent thing, and said so.  He made a show of looking around, as asked how long I had before my keepers yanked the leash this time.

I laughed, and said they weren’t my keepers (though now that I think about it, they have kinda been acting that way- except for Bix, maybe), and that I was currently … unsupervised.  I said it with a big fake eyebrow wiggle, so it seemed like a joke, but I realized just then that this is the first time in a week I’ve been on my own, away from the Clinic.  It was refreshing.

Well, Rocío perked right up at that and asked me to go for a late lunch.  I started to say ‘no’, but… I really didn’t want my afternoon of freedom to end.  And what harm could it do?  I knew Mr. Li would object, though.  And his dumb press release idea would get messed up if the media got hold of me going out and about beforehand. 

I guess Rocío could read my face, because he said we didn’t even have to ‘go’ anywhere- that there was a cafeteria in the hospital.  The food wasn’t great, but it was ok, and we could find a spot where we couldn’t be seen from the windows.  His consideration decided me.  Besides, what Mr. Li doesn’t know, won’t hurt him, right?

We got some food (Rocío insisted on paying, so I ate light, or at least as light as I can anymore), and found a quiet spot behind a potted tree.  The small talk transitioned effortlessly into nova stuff.  He’s easy to talk with.  He asked me about the Clinic, and I told him about Alex and what he did.  He was appropriately outraged.  He had an odd take on it- that no man should ever hit a woman unless she hit him first.  I’d half expected some kind of macho protective attitude about never hitting a woman period, but maybe his way makes more sense with novas.  I’m sure most novas don’t need protecting, male or female.  Then he asked if I’d been allowed to fly outside yet.  He put a weird emphasis on ‘allowed’, with a kinda sour micro expression.  And I had to admit that no, I was still tied to Bix’s apron strings.  But I made up my mind right then and there to push the issue as soon as the press release was over. 

He rolled his eyes about the idea of a ‘press release’, and I had to laugh too.  It’s just so… contrived.  I want to say that no one would be interested in me, but I know that isn’t true.  Well, it kinda isn’t true.  No one would be interested in Colleen Harris, seventeen-year-old student.  But a lot of people will be interested in ‘the latest nova’.  Which really isn’t the same thing at all.  For that matter, everyone at the Clinic is much more interested in ‘the new nova’ than in Colleen.

I didn’t like where those thoughts were taking me, so I changed the subject.  I started asking him how his weather lessons were going, and how he went about learning something like that.  My powers seem simple in comparison.  He said that Hadley was teaching him, and that it was going slowly because they were both busy, so it was hard to mesh their schedules.  I couldn’t remember seeing Hadley’s name on the Utopian roster, and took the opening.  

Well, it turns out that Rocío isn’t connected with Utopia at all!  (Neither is this Hadley.)  In fact, he doesn’t think very highly of them.  Of course, I wanted to know why, and he shifted around and looked uncomfortable.  It took a little prodding, but eventually he said, “I want to do my kind of good in the world.  Not the kind of good they decide I should be doing.  I’m not a slave.”  That last part was really intense, and a subject redirection was in order.  So I asked him what it was like to fix the water problems for the farmers on the border.  He looked surprised, and said that I was the one stalking him.  I must’ve blushed beet red, because he had a point. 

He spent the rest of the meal tell stories about los campesinos and all the trouble they had keeping their family farms going in the face of industrialization.  How the big companies would build upstream and either divert or pollute the farmers’ and ranchers’ water supplies.  And they’d get away with it, since they had the money to donate to the right lawmakers, or just outright bribe judges.  So, he helped out the people who got lost in the shuffle.  He brought new wells to the surface when he could, made some other improvements (he slipped into Spanish with too much science jargon for me to follow completely), and… other things.  He brought himself up short there, so I didn’t ask about that ‘restoring water rights’ article.  We barely know each other, after all.  I wouldn’t go telling a near-stranger about the probably-illegal stuff I was doing in another country either.

I’ll admit, I lost track of time.  The sun cutting through the tree branches showed me how late it was getting, and I excused myself.  I didn’t want to risk Bix’s car driving at night.  I’m a good driver, but I don’t get many chances to practice, and I wouldn’t want to risk someone else’s property.  So I made my goodbyes.  Rocío was okay with the sudden end to our- was it a date?  I’m not sure. 

He walked me out to the parking lot, and asked if I’d be staying at the Clinic for much longer.  I said no, that I’d probably be going back home at the end of the week, but still going to the Clinic for training after school.  He seemed to like that, and said he hoped to see me again.

I got back to the Clinic just before dark, and Mr. Li seemed… perturbed.  But he didn’t say anything.  Instead, over dinner, he explained about the press release tomorrow.  It turns out that, although I’m the reason for it, isn’t all about me <whew!> It’s going to start out with a tour of (parts of) the Clinic, and then the training barn and grounds.  Apparently, my part in all of this is to be ‘interrupted’ during training, and join them for the tour of the barn, using me to demonstrate some of the more exotic equipment.  (I’m going to look like one of those fancy dancing horses being put through its paces in the show ring, but I can live with that.  I guess.)  Then I’ll come with the group out to the garden where all the cameras and microphones and stuff will be set up.  Mr. Li and Dr. Jackson will talk me up for a little bit, then open the floor to questions- which will include me.  Mr. Li gave me a list of the kinds of questions reporters usually ask, and a list of ‘suggested talking points’ that I can use to answer them.  Of course, he also told me to ‘just be myself’, so that’s pretty self-contradictory.  He also warned me that reporters liked to throw in a couple of ‘wild card’ questions, and to answer as honestly as I could, while keeping the ethos of Project Utopia in mind. 

I wanted to point out that I haven’t actually joined PU yet, but since I’ve been benefiting so much from everything they’ve been doing for me, that seems kinda shitty.  So I guess I’ll just go along.  I mean, I probably will end up joining PU anyway, right?  What else is there for me, really?  I mean, I looked at the DeVries OpNet site, and most of their work boils down to security, bodyguarding, and mercenaries.  None of that works for me.  I know I could find a job on my own, but I’d probably get taken advantage of.  Maybe I could hire an agent, or something?  Or I could just accept what Utopia is offering, make sure I still have the opportunity for college, and just.. go from there.  Well, I don’t have to decide until after Mrs. Adams looks over the contract and can talk to Mom and I about it.  Nothing really matters until then.

It’s only now, writing all this down, that I realize they didn’t ask about the funeral, or Bailey, or why I was out so long.  Do they not care?  Or do they already know everything, somehow?

Mr. Li just came up and gave me a present?  Or maybe a bribe? 😊  Eufiber!  A whole Eufiber outfit!  He said that I would need a little time to ‘attune’ it to my quantum signature, so I should wear it for at least an hour tonight, then wear it for the press release tomorrow.  Right now, it looks like a jumpsuit- not a Team Tomorrow uniform- in PU colors of blue and gold, but Mr. Li said that after the media goes away, I should experiment with it.  Not only can I store some of my quantum power in it and use it later if I need it, but I can also make it look like whatever kind of clothes I want!  Also, it should protect me if I get into any kind of trouble.  Trouble like a fight or accident, I mean.  Not planning to need that, of course, but they’re called ‘accidents’ not ‘on-purposes’.  LoL 

I thanked him of course- bribe or not, it’s still amazing.  I’d heard of Eufiber, but I never thought I’d ever see any up close, let alone have any of my very own!

I’ve been wearing it now for a couple of hours, and it’s the strangest thing.  It almost feels… alive.

Chapter Text

Thursday, September 11

Today wasn’t nearly as awkward as I’d expected.  The morning started off as usual, and then I went out to the barn, again, as usual.  I thanked Bix again for letting me use his car, then started training.  We were working on endurance this morning, and Bix warned me that after the media left, he wanted to run some other endurance-based tests that I wouldn’t like so much.  That worried me, but since I was determined that nothing would go wrong for my ‘debut’, I let it go.  Besides, if Mr. Li and Dr. Jackson are trying to sell me on Project Utopia (and I’m sure they are), Bix has never given me that impression.  Sure, he works for PU, and I’m sure he wants me to join up as well, but he’s never pushed anything, or even brought it up.  Maybe that means I can trust him for an unbiased- or at least, less biased- opinion?  Maybe.

Anyway, he had me on the treadmill again, at the highest inclination setting.  And this time, he added these ankle cuffs with heavy rubber bands attached to the bottom of the treadmill, so not only did I have to run uphill, I had to press against the added resistance.  (He’d tried strapping weights onto me, but he couldn’t strap on enough to make a difference without the straps tearing loose, so that was a bust.)   Like the weight training, this was booooring.  But I had several podcasts to listen to, so that was all right. 

Eventually, Bix stopped me and gave me a few minutes to cool down.  The news people would be here soon, and I was supposed to be ‘discovered’ working out, but not sweaty.  (Not that I was sweaty- I don’t think I’ve broken a sweat at all since I erupted.)  So I got some water, ran a brush through my hair, and was working away at the big hydraulic weight machine when Mr. Li brought a bunch of people in. 

I had been expecting, maybe two or three people at most.  Nope.  Mr. Li had about a dozen in tow.  Once the pistons on my machine stopped hissing, I was able to hear more people outside as well- in the garden, probably.  Setting up for the question and answer part? 

When Mr. Li ‘noticed’ me, that was my cue to untangle myself from the machine and join them.  (Did the reporters really think I just happened to be there and he wasn’t expecting me?  Surely not.  The whole thing seemed really fake, but if anybody else thought so, they didn’t let on.)  Either way, I put on my ‘meet the parents’ smile and played nice.

Last night, I’d already decided which ‘me’ I was going to be today.  Not the ‘background at every party’ me, or the ‘just making it through each class’ me, or the ‘this boy has been talking to me for twenty minutes without actually saying anything’ me.  No, I was going to be the ‘earnest student who makes the substitute’s day suck less’ me.  The one that is eager to do what’s expected of her, and modest about her achievements.  Adults always like that version of me, and I can maintain it indefinitely without breaking character.  Maybe it’s the closest to the real me, when I’m not trying to keep my place with the other kids?  Do other kids have such… regimented versions of themselves?  Do adults?

WE DO.  WE JUST DON’T ADMIT IT.

~S

Anyway, Mr. Li introduced me to everyone, and I made sure I would be able to put all the names with the right faces.  Everyone had a voice recorder, but only four of them had cameras- two with shoulder mounts, one with a chest mount, and one handheld.  I shook hands with everyone and made ‘pleasure to meet you’ chitchat.  Then Mr. Li asked me to join him while on the tour and ‘demonstrate’ some of the equipment.  Bix had made himself scarce for some reason. 

I went along, answering questions when asked, making sure to say ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Mr./Ms. Name’.  Mr. Li got some of the technical information on the equipment wrong, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea to mention it.  He had me demonstrate the ‘normal’ weight rack, the one with the stacked weights you see in any gym, and I’ll admit I showed off a little by sliding the pin into the heaviest stack, lifting effortlessly, then holding it while I answered another question.  It seemed like something Bailey’s boyfriend, Jeremy, would do (if he could), but the reporters loved it.  We went through a few more stations, then came to the big hydraulic one that I usually work with.  It was still set from the last time I used it- four tons.  I can lift more, but Bix wants me to increase gradually, rather than straining too much too soon.  Mr. Li picked out the most athletic-looking of the reporters, and invited him to try and lift.  Of course, he couldn’t budge it.  Then he had me do a few reps.  I noticed one of the cameras focused on the weight readout.  Everyone was impressed, and I was suitably humble. 

Then came the part I was actually looking forward to- the flying.  When the hoops came down from the ceiling, I knew where Bix had sneaked off to.  Mr. Li said something about how important it was to practice speed and precision when flying, and that was my cue.  I flew the course as fast as I ever had before, and centered every hoop.  I flew the course twice, then decided, all at once, to throw in a little extra.  On the last straightaway, I went invisible, then flew (slower, so I didn’t kick up a breeze) around behind the group, landed behind them, and became visible again, just as they were all making surprised pickachu faces and wondering where I’d gone.  I caught Mr. Li’s eye and grinned at him.  I’m not sure he was really pleased, but the reporters ate it up, especially when I cleared my throat and was ‘just there’ right behind them.

After that, the more formal presentation in the garden didn’t seem quite so formal- even though there were a lot more lights and cameras set up out there.  They had a lot of questions I expected from Mr. Li’s sheet of questions, and I used some of his suggested talking points.  Some, but not all.  I don’t want to make a big thing about it, but I haven’t signed on with PU yet, even though I almost certainly will.  I don’t like them assuming they can dictate everything I say and do.  On the other hand, since I probably will end up signing on, I don’t want to burn bridges.  Plus, I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the help they’ve already given me- especially since I might need more help at some point in the future.

Most of the questions were what you’d expect: What’s it like to be a nova? What are your powers?  Do you want to join Team Tomorrow?  I felt like I had to tread carefully on that one, since I absolutely do not want to join T2M, but it would be rude to say so.  So I just played modest and said that I was sure T2M had candidates that were much more suited to being such amazing heroes, and they’d never even think of asking for me.

Then they got on to some more personal questions. At first, they were harmless: What my favorite food is, what are my best subjects in school (I said history, which is true), that kind of thing.  Some of them were intrusive, like if I was seeing someone (No, I’m paying too much attention to my grades to have a boyfriend, <blush>).  The only one that really bothered me was one reporter that hadn’t been on the tour.  She asked me about the wreck, and how I felt knowing that my eruption came at the cost of a little boy’s life.  That was low.  I could feel Mr. Li tense up beside me, and I heard his heartbeat speed up.  But I knew I had to handle it as best I could.  I stared that reporter right in the eyes and told her, “My heart goes out to the Orlock family.  I haven’t had to experience a grief that deep yet, but their loss is something I think of often.  If I could give up my eruption in exchange for that little boy’s life, I would do it instantly.”  Pretty close to my exact words. She at least had the grace to look uncomfortable with my staring at her. 

Mr. Li took over at that point, and I was glad to let him.  The rest of it was a standard press release- repetition of PU’s ideals and mission statement, plans for upcoming local projects, veiled hints for donations.  I just stood back, kept smiling, and waited for it to be over.   

After everyone had packed up their equipment and been escorted out, Mr. Li called me into the parlor to congratulate me on handling that last question.  Apparently, I’d struck just the right response.  He seemed to be looking at it from a public relations angle, which makes sense, but I had been speaking my truth- even if it was a truth filtered through a desire to make that reporter feel like shit. 

I took the opportunity to bring up my starting to fly outside.  I was willing to stay on the Clinic grounds, at first, but I pointed out that I had to get used to it sometime, and anyway, flying would be my only real option once I went home and returned to school.  After all, Bailey had been my regular ride, and she wouldn’t be back for weeks at least. 

Mr. Li brought up something I hadn’t considered- airspace laws and restrictions.  He said that as long as Bix was okay with it, I could start flying outside tomorrow, but I couldn’t leave the Clinic grounds until I’d learned the guidelines for ‘non-vehicular’ flight.  He told me where to find the information on the OpNet, and that he’d test me on it when I was ready. 

Well, if that’s all that stands between me and the open air, I certainly have incentive to study!  So, I thanked him and went right upstairs to get started.

It turns out, it’s pretty simple.  Mostly, novas not on official government or PU business have to follow the same rules that drone pilots do.  Stay under 400 feet (while in urban areas, anyway), stay away from airports (including takeoff and landing lanes), stay away from any rooftop with a helicopter landing pad, and avoid all military bases.  All of these (other than the military bases) could be overlooked in an emergency, but it would be up to me to avoid anything resembling close contact with anything else in the air, and I’d better be able to justify my ‘emergency’ afterward. I’m also forbidden to fly fast enough to create a sonic boom in any metropolitan area.  FWIW, T2M is explicitly excused from all of these laws, though even they are ‘strongly encouraged’ to contact any military base prior to landing on-site.

That was one nice thing I’d noticed in the PU contract.  Not only would all my medical expenses be covered, but PU would cover any, erm, collateral damage that occurs from using my abilities while I’m ‘on the clock’, as well as in any kind of spontaneous ‘good Samaritan’ activity.  It explicitly does not cover any damages caused while engaging in criminal activity, or ‘activities not in accordance with PU mission statement’.  I can’t even make sonic booms, and I’m not likely to take up car theft as a hobby, so I think I’m okay there.

After I’d studied the flying laws, I decided to do my due diligence and look up all the ‘no fly’ zones in town.  Our airport is just outside the metro area, and a few minutes of studying a flight radar app showed me the major local flight patterns.  Finding all the helipads in town took a little longer, and there might be some private ones I missed.  Mostly, each major hospital has one, several of the news outlets, and about a dozen on skyscrapers.  The one at the zoo surprised me.  And there’s one just… out in a field.  I’m not sure that one’s still in use, though.  Looking on Google Earth, it looks like it isn’t well-maintained, so maybe it’s abandoned?  Either way, I made a list.  I already know where Camp Lejeune is, so that’s fine.

I didn’t want Mr. Li to think I wasn’t taking him seriously, so I’ll wait until tomorrow to present myself for testing.  Plus, I just realized that it’s nearly three in the morning, so I’m sure he’s asleep.  (Oops.) 

I’m not ready for bed yet, so I did a little more OpNet stalking.  This time, my target was Hadley.  I didn’t have much luck.  I found him on the nova census.  He erupted about four years ago, and has weather powers, can fly, and can survive space without a space suit.  That’s amazing.  I’d love to go into space, especially without anything between me and, well, everything.  I’m pretty sure that if I flew straight up, eventually I’d leave orbit.  Maybe I’d need to go fast enough for escape velocity?  Or is that just to overcome gravity, and I don’t need to worry about that part?  Anyway, I think I could maybe get to space, with enough practice.  It’s the not dying of cold and vacuum part that’s the problem.  I know some of the T2M novas can go into space, and there’s the Daedalus League.  I don’t want to bother T2M, but maybe if I got involved with Daedalus, they could teach me?  Or if Rocío and I keep meeting up, maybe he could put in a good word with Hadley? 

But what could I offer in return?  It seems like any nova that’s been around for a while is as rich as they want to be, so even if I had a lot of money, that might not earn me their attention.  Maybe if I somehow worked even harder to improve my vision, I could be some kind of living telescope?  If they taught me to go to space, I’d be outside of the atmosphere and all the light pollution, so I bet I could see a long way even now…  Well, there’s nothing I can really do about that tonight.  Maybe I can train my vision with regular stargazing?  And I can certainly start learning more about astronomy on my own.

I’ve been thinking more about a nova name.  (I was glad the reporters didn’t ask me about that today!)  I’ve always liked mythology, so I’ll start there.  I’m most familiar with the Greek and Roman myths, then the Norse and Egyptian.  Mímir might be good.  He’s the Norse God of knowledge and wisdom, who gave Odin council as a severed head. (Ick)  Or there’s Kvasir, a Norse wandering teacher whose blood, when mixed with honey, granted skaldship and wisdom.  Of course, nobody would know how to pronounce Kvasir, so that maybe makes it not a good name.  I wouldn’t want to claim any of the major Gods’ names.  Not only would it seem disrespectful, but a lot of other novas have already done it.  The Norse are really bad about killing off their Gods, though. I’m not superstitious, but maybe that’s not the best omen. I kinda like Mímir, though.  Probably better without the accent mark.  A name should be as easy to spell as it is to say, and accents give most keyboards fits. 

Is it cultural appropriation to choose a name from a culture that isn’t your own?  I never did one of those ancestry DNA tests, so I don’t really know where I came from, beyond ‘vaguely European’.  So either way, I would think that a Norse name would be okay.  Plus, the Norse myths are almost as popular as the Greek and Roman, and once something gets past a point of popularity, it almost seems to become available to all?  Certainly, I’m not Greek or Italian, but I don’t think anyone would think twice about pulling something from those myths. 

May as well get a little sleep.  I still haven’t figured out how much sleep I actually need, but I want to be at my best for outdoor flying tomorrow!

Oh, and I set up an OpNet alert to let me know if my name was mentioned in the media.  It seems so arrogant, but if I don’t have a choice about being a public figure, then I should keep track of what people are saying about me.  It turns out that there’s another Colleen Harris out there.  She’s in her seventies, in Montana, and bakes fruit pies that win awards at county and state fairs.  Who knew?

Chapter Text

Friday, September 12

Mr. Li quizzed me on the flying stuff over breakfast.  No problem.  He seemed pleased when I listed out the helipads in the area, and (maybe?) a little surprised about the one out in the sticks.  But that was all good.  As long as Bix is okay with it, he said I’m cleared! 

I headed right for the barn after breakfast.  (Aren’t people supposed to wait a couple of hours after eating before working out?  Or is that another thing that just doesn’t apply to novas?)  I went through the morning exercises with more enthusiasm than usual.  (I’m really not interested in getting even stronger, and I don’t see how running with rubber bands on my ankles will make me any more space-ready, but I’m not going to make a fuss.)  Bix laughed at me and asked if I didn’t have something more interesting that I’d rather be doing, and just like that- we were outside. 

I was so excited.  I might have been squeaking a little.  The Clinic’s grounds are pretty large, especially for what it is, but that’s large from the ground.  Not so much from the air, but that’s okay.  Baby steps are still progress. 

Bix had me start out slow, barely more than a fast walk, and do laps around the house and barn.  He said to pay attention to the wind and air currents, as well as birds and anything else that might be in the air with me.  I did, and expected it to be not much different than inside.  Wind makes a surprising difference, even the little gusts.  Bix says that buildings make wind and air currents do weird things, so when I’m actually flying at speed, it’s better not to be too close to large, solid objects. 

I did laps for about an hour, then Bix had me switch to longer laps around the entire property.  This time, he wanted me to practice precision distance- staying as close to 100 feet away from (inside) the wall as possible,  My new vision made measuring the distance easy. 

I did several laps and was really feeling good about myself when something… gooshy… hit me in the stomach.  I freaked out, thinking I’d somehow hit a bird or something.  But when I looked, I was covered in some purple goo.  I looped around to try and figure out where it came from, and found Bix, with what looked like a small cannon!  As soon as he saw me notice him, he fired another goo ball at me!  I dodged that one.  Mostly.  Well, partly.

I zipped around and landed behind him before he could re-load.  He tried to look serious, but his eyes were laughing at me as he explained that flyers needed to be aware of their surroundings in three dimensions, and be ready to take defensive action at any time.  Basically, anything in the air other than another nova is going to be less maneuverable than I am, so it’s my responsibility to get out of everything else’s way.  Makes sense, but the goo smells nasty.  And it’s sticky.  He says it’ll wash out easily, though.  Then he had me get back in the air and pay more attention. 

More laps, this time fully alert not just to my position, but to things going on around me.  I dodged most of the goo balls.  Mr. Li even got involved by manning a second cannon on the short end of one of the turns!  Either his aim wasn’t as good, or I catch on pretty quick.  Probably some of both.  My new vision certainly helps see things before they’re close enough to be a problem.  I was just beginning to think about maybe starting to be a little bit tired (flying uses muscles I wouldn’t have expected- kinda like holding a constant half-sit-up).  Holding myself straight in the air is a little like doing crunches in reverse. 

Bix announced that it was time to come in for lunch- by turning the hose on me.  A firehose.  I was thrown right into a tree.   It didn’t hurt much, but my dignity was all wet, lol.  At least it washed the goo splats off. 

We had lunch in the barn (Clara refused to allow my drippy self indoors), and Bix said that if I worked hard all weekend, and got better about the goo balls, then he’d arrange for my first real, off-property flight on Monday or Tuesday.  He says that since I’ll be relying on flight for most of my transportation, he wants to be sure I’m able to handle flying in the city before he clears me to go back to school.  I had hoped to go back on Monday, but after how different flying outside was, I can see his point.  I’m a little nervous about flying in bad weather, too, now that I think about it.  I need to look up the effects of lightning on flying objects. 

After lunch, I had a second wind (and would have pushed on even if I didn’t), and we went back at it.  This time, Bix had me doing tight turns, banking, aerial flips and rolls.  I used to get sick on roller coasters, so I thought this would suck, but it was actually kinda fun!  He hit me with a lot more goo balls on the tight turns, though, until I got the idea of going invisible.  Once he saw me doing that, though, he started having me turn the invisibility on and off when he yelled, so I had to keep an eye on everything else and do that, too.  I was exhausted by the time the day was over.  I had wanted to fly at night, but by sundown, I was ready to call it quits. 

Back in my room, I’d missed a call from Mrs. Adams.  Her voicemail said that she’d read over the contract, had a few suggested revisions, and said she wanted to touch base with Mom and I over the weekend to set up a meeting to discuss it sometime next week. She asked that I pass her number on to Mom, so they could work out a time (figuring my schedule was the most flexible of the three). 

She sent me an email with her suggested revisions as well.  There weren’t many, but I liked all of them. 

1. That while this contract only applied while I was a minor, any contract I signed with Project Utopia and/or Nova Services International would include the length of my minority contract as ‘time served’ for my term of contractual service.
2. That Project Utopia would cover any incidental costs of my attending any accredited university that I was accepted to, over and above any scholarships and awards provided by the school or other outside parties. This would include providing me with a private dormitory room on-campus.  Utopia would be responsible for those costs whether or not I rolled my employment over when my minority contract expired.
3. That I would be released from non-emergency contractual work during midterms and final exams for the rest of high school, as well as college.
4. That this minority contract should, instead of ending on my eighteenth birthday, extend until my currently expected high school graduation date (June 2009).
5. She noticed that the ‘standard insurance policy included with all PU employment’ listed PU itself as the beneficiary. This should be changed to my mother’s name.

I wonder if that last was a misprint on PU’s part?  Or some kind of sneaky corporate default setting?  Or maybe novas stop caring about their families after a while?  Weird.  I’m really glad Mrs. Adams caught that- I certainly missed it in my reading of the original.

With those changes, I’m pretty willing to sign up.  I was iffy about Number 4, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.  Still, if they push back on the changes I’d be willing to give up Number 4 if it gets me the rest.   I passed Mrs. Adams’ message and number on to Mom.  She’ll let me know what date they work out for the meeting.  It won’t be this weekend, so I’ll have all weekend to work as hard as I can on my flying.  That should ‘earn’ me the time off once they pick a date.  And besides, PU wants me on their roster, so they should be onboard with taking time to go over the contract.

After I got all that squared away, I decided to study up on flying in bad weather.  Maybe I should carry a pair of goggles with me?  I know I’m tougher than I used to be, but I’m not sure I like the idea of bugs or grit or something getting in my eyes.  But then, I wouldn’t want to be dependent on something like that?  Something to consider. I looked up pictures of other flying novas, and none of them wear goggles.  A bunch of them wear masks, though, and I think a lot of them are Eufiber.  So maybe the masks feature eye protection?  I’m not as worried about actual damage to my eyes as I am about being blinded, even briefly, while in the air.  How do other novas handle that?

Later-

Ok, some things never change. I just fell down a three-hour youtube rabbit hole, watching videos of novas flying.  It didn’t help me with the vision concerns (though I never saw any of them rub their eyes, or have bloodshot eyes, or anything, so maybe that’s an answer in itself).  But it did show me a lot of different flying styles and neat tricks I can maybe learn once I get past the basics.  I think those are things I’ll need to practice on my own, though.  Maybe out well away from other people, so there’s no risk of anyone getting hurt or me dying of embarrassment when I screw something up.

I’d never really thought about different styles of flying before.  Firefly, from T2M, is really flashy.  She takes a lot of risks, flies (too) close to buildings and too close to the ground.  She likes to zoom past people as close to them as she can.  I guess it shows off her skill, but it seems really reckless and irresponsible to me.  Even if she’s tough enough to shrug off an accident, what if she hit a pedestrian?  All it would take was some poor baseline making some expansive gestures, and BAM!  She’s fine, but he’s broken an arm, at best.

Christopher Gaal, on the other hand, (he’s a reporter and filmmaker for N!) flies really carefully.  He’s very deliberate in his movements, and good at hovering in place and staying still.  He also seems to be constantly watching out for the people and events around him- though I guess that’s as much about being a reporter as anything else.

The first Houston Tornado flew by summoning an actual (small) tornado to carry him places, which was amazing, but I bet it caused a lot of trouble with all the wind and damage that kind of weather causes.  The new Houston Tornado turns herself into air completely, so studying her doesn’t really help me improve my own skills.

Slipstream doesn’t have many videos of him, but he seems to be really good at carrying large groups of people with him.  I think I could maybe carry three people, if I had to (one in each arm, and one on my back), but I’m not sure how safe that would be.  Still, he seems to be more about the long-haul than fancy details.

Several of the Team Tomorrow novas fly, and I guess they’re the ones to really study, sense they get a lot of practice, and have to fly in all kinds of crazy conditions.  But some of them are so fast, most video cameras can’t keep up with them.  I read that Caestus Pax actually uses the curvature of the Earth to boost his flying speed!  I think he can go into space as well….

Chapter Text

Sunday, September 14

Yesterday and today were both spent on more flying training.  Bix got a drone and chased me around with it, then he had me go up to the maximum allowed 400 feet (I think to make sure I could judge the distance).  Later, since I’d (mostly) gotten better at dodging the goo balls, Bix upped the ante.  Instead of the obvious goo-ball cannon, he started hiding in the trees and sniping at me with a paintball gun.  I’m still not very good at dodging those. 

I know what he’s trying to do with the paintball, and it scares me.  Most people love novas, or at least are excited about them.  But a lot of people are afraid of us, too.  And some people hate us.  If somebody was able to murder Slider, what hope do I have if somebody decides to take me out?  The Church of Michael Archangel has people everywhere, and they’ve pretty much made it clear that they think the only good nova is a dead nova.  Anybody could be hiding in a tree, anytime, just waiting to take a shot at me. 

I suppose that’s true for anyone, really.  If a crazy really decides they want you dead, what can you do?  But up until now, I’ve never been anybody ‘worth’ that kind of attention.  Now, I am.  And will be for the rest of my life.  People will actually want to kill me, simply for being what I am- for something I didn’t ask for, and had no say in becoming. 

I almost said that now I understand what other minorities feel like, but that’s ridiculous.  I have no idea what BIPOC, or Jews, or LGBT+ folks have to live with on a daily basis.  And even if I have something new to fear, I still have an entire world of new opportunities available to me.  So no, I know better than to ‘center myself in other people’s struggles’.  But still, I can’t help but feel that- just a little.

Anyway, this afternoon, Bix drove me a couple of hours out of town to a wetlands nature preserve place.  It has a boardwalk, and is very peaceful.  Bix was constantly applying bug spray, but that seems to be another little benefit- I haven’t been bitten at all since I erupted. 

We walked around on the boardwalk long enough to make sure there weren’t other people around.  Then, he pulled out his drone and told me to ‘go explore’.  He didn’t actually send the drone up with me, but him just having it as a backup ‘escort’ made me feel a little better. 

The trees were really dense, and I practiced flying through them, dodging over and under branches.  Some of the trees had those raised roots that arched over the water, and I was able to skim under those.  Once I was mostly wet from doing that, I figured, screw it- let’s try an experiment.  Can I fly underwater? 

No.  No I cannot.

But I could swim well enough even before all this, so I didn’t get into much trouble.  And it turns out I can hold my breath for a really long time.  Maybe this is a way for me to ‘train’ to go into space?  Putting myself into unforgiving environments?

Then I spent some time skimming really really close to the water, trying to get as close as I could without touching.  That was fun, until I saw an alligator.  I didn’t fly so close to the water after that.  I saw some feral hogs and a bunch of other animals, too.

Trying to land, and perch on, tree branches is harder than it looks.  Once, the branch I tried turned out to be dead, and broke underneath me.  I got a bunch of nasty splinters, some of them pretty big, but they healed up almost as soon as I pulled them out, so that was fine.  I wasn’t so sure about going back in the water after that.  Just because I heal quickly, does that mean I’m immune to infections?  Swamp water’s got to be filthy.

So instead I started flying through the thin upper tree branches.  I was getting whipped in the face a lot, which stung a little, but didn’t bother my eyes.  So I probably won’t need flying goggles.

Eventually, I got the idea of ‘hunting’.  Now, I don’t like anyone who hunts for sport or trophies.  I understand subsistence hunting, and I can accept sport hunters who make a point of eating everything they kill.  But the only kind of hunting I ever wanted to do was one of those photography safaris (not that I could ever afford that kind of vacation).  But I thought, as long as I didn’t hurt the animals, what harm could it do to swoop down and get close to them? 

So, I found a tree branch and settled down to watch.  With my enhanced vision, I could see movement really far away.  It didn’t take long to spot the grass parting, and I pounced!  Out of the tree, swooping down as fast as I could!  I was expecting a bunny or a squirrel.  Nope.  SNAKE!  I like snakes, but that wasn’t a good surprise for either of us.  I think I’ll leave the animals alone.

Well, in all the fun and excitement, I completely lost track of time.  Suddenly, it was getting dark, and I was starving.  Aaaaand that’s when I learned an important lesson.  I was alone, in the middle of a glorified swamp, with no idea where Bix was.  I stopped and listened, hoping to hear the drone, but no.  Either it wasn’t up, or it was too far away.  And, like an idiot, I’d left my phone in the car. 

So, I freaked out for a second (okay, maybe a minute), then decided that I could figure this out.  Who knows, maybe this was another test?  I knew the boardwalk snaked through about half of the preserve, and Bix was on the boardwalk.  I’d been avoiding the boardwalk, since I wanted to explore the more ‘wild’ areas, but finding it shouldn’t be difficult.  And once I found the boardwalk, then I could follow it until I found Bix or the parking lot.  That was one option. 

Or, I could fly up above the tree line and yell for him, playing ‘hot and cold’ until I found him again.  Assuming he answered me.  Assuming this wasn’t a test.  But that felt like giving up and asking for help, and I didn’t want that. 

I could fly up high enough to just find the parking lot, get my phone, and text him to join me there.  I decided that would be my ‘last resort’ option.

Or, I could use my brain.  And my eyes.  I concentrated on my vision until I could see heat signatures.  There were a lot more animals around than I’d thought.  I knew I needed to look for something large, and warm, and either vertical (or hunched, if he was sitting down), rather than the horizontal of a deer or hog.  Once I’d sorted all that out, I took to the air again. 

This time, I flew high, but fairly slow, making up a grid pattern in my head and sticking to it as best I could.  I found the boardwalk a couple of times, and matched the places with objects I could easily see from the air, in case I needed to land and walk to find Bix.  It took four large heat signatures before I found him.  (I didn’t know deer stood on their hind legs!)  The other three were two bears and a hog that I somehow thought looked human-shaped.  There were a lot of alligators in the water, too.  I was lucky not to run into more of them earlier.  But they have a different heat pattern.  I hadn’t really noticed until I was really looking around, but as long as I don’t fly too fast, I’m almost completely silent, even without trying.  I bet, if I moved slowly and stayed invisible, I could probably go just about anywhere and not be noticed.  I wonder if I still show up on thermal imaging when I’m invisible?  Could I see another invisible nova that way?

It was full dark when I found Bix.  I don’t think I would have found him without my special vision- he was hiding under some heavy tree cover.  This was a test, after all.  I was a little annoyed, but after this amazing day, I couldn’t really mind. I did insist on Taco Bell for dinner on the drive back, though. 

I told Bix all about the things I’d seen, and tried, and succeeded (and failed) at; and asked him if he had any ideas on how I could get tougher- not the endurance training we’d been doing on the treadmill, but tougher like staying underwater for a long time.  (I didn’t mention space- it seems like a kid’s dream and I’m a little embarrassed.)  He said that he could probably work something out, but that that kind of development would probably be uncomfortable or even painful.  Apparently, you have to suffer before your body decides to adapt to the suffering.  That makes sense, and I’m willing to accept some pain in a good cause.

We got back to the Clinic- I almost said ‘we got back home’.  Isn’t it strange, how quickly we learn to accept new things?  Home is home.  The Clinic is not home.  We got tacos on the way, and it was late by the time we got back.  The Clinic was dark, and if Mr. Li was awake, he was in his room and didn’t come out.   I assume all this was pre-approved, though, so I’m not worried. Tacos make Bix gassy, and I learned that I can’t really turn off my heightened senses.  Eeew.

There was a message on my bed.  Mrs. Adams and Mom have set up a time to meet and go over the contract.  Mom is going to take a long, late lunch and meet Mrs. Adams at the hospital cafeteria on Tuesday afternoon, and they want me there, of course.  Mr. Li’s note said that he’d agreed to the meeting, assuming I didn’t object (of course I don’t).

Hopefully, I’ll be able to fly there under my own power.  That would be amazing, and I just realized how much I’ve missed seeing Mom.  We’ve talked almost every night, but it isn’t the same.  Flying over there would make her proud of me, I think.  And it would show her the progress I’ve made. 

I can’t wait to show her my Eufiber, too!  After the reporters all left, I spent some time learning to adjust it, just by concentrating on it.  With a little effort, I can make it look like regular clothes (t-shirt, jeans, and stuff), but I’ve tried some fun stuff too.  I made an okay-ish imitation of a dress from a movie I saw about Marie Antoinette (ok, maybe it was closer to a Marie Antoinette Halloween costume), a set of hospital scrubs with lab coat, and some steamy lingerie Mom would have a fit if she saw.  I even lost my mind for a minute and changed it into a T2M uniform.  Nope!  That does make me wonder if I’ll end up needing a ‘costume’ as well as a name.  I hope not.  Too cringe.

Chapter Text

Monday, September 15

More training today.  Bix told me that yesterday’s letting me get lost and be on my own was a test, like I’d thought, but not a test with passing or failing.  The Clinic wanted to know how I’d handle being caught out, alone, without anybody around to depend on.  He told me that if I didn’t find my way back, he’d’ve put a powerful light on the drone and sent it up, so I could follow it back to him.  But he seemed pleased that I’d come back as soon after dark as I did.  So, I guess I passed, even if that wasn’t a thing. 

He also told me that if I was serious about harsh environment training, he had a couple of ideas.  But he wanted to be sure I was committed, since it would mean bringing in some extra equipment, and he didn’t want to do that if I was going to flake out.  (He was nicer about it, but that’s what it boiled down to.)  I told him I was, and asked what he had in mind. 

A hyperbaric recompression chamber and a variation on a sensory deprivation chamber.  I kinda knew what the first one was- the thing they put scuba divers in when they got the bends.  But I had to ask about the second.  Apparently, if’s a big, coffin-like pod that’s half-filled with water.  The water is supposed to be exactly skin temperature, and so salty you float on the surface.  Then they shut out the lights and sounds, and you’re just… alone with no sensory input.  Seems a little weird, but also maybe like space, so I’m interested. 

Well, Bix plans on using this new equipment to mess with me rather than be helpful.  The hyperbaric recompression chamber is meant to gradually adjust the pressure in a diver’s bloodstream (or maybe their entire body?) to match the outside air.  He’s going to put me in it and increase the pressure as much as I can stand.  Like weight training, sorta.  And instead of the water in the floatation pod being skin temperature, he’s going to make it extremely cold, and maybe extremely hot. 

I’m not looking forward to this.  Except, I kinda am.  I want to know how much, well, body stress, I can take.  I told Bix I was serious, so he’s going to set it up.

Mr. Li picked up another week’s worth of work today, and dropped last weeks’ worth off at school.  I’m hoping to be back in school before the week is over, but I went ahead and did it all tonight anyway.  It won’t hurt to be a little ahead when I go back.  If I’m still going to be coming to the Clinic after school, I won’t have as much time for homework anyway.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, September 16

Success!  Mr. Li (with Bix’s approval) allowed me to fly to the hospital to meet Mom and Mrs. Adams.  And to see Bailey, of course.  I had to text Mr. LI as soon as I’d landed, and right before I was taking off for the Clinic again, but that was fine.  Mom made me do that the first few times I drove alone.

I trained hard all morning, then took a little extra time with my appearance.  I shaped my Eufiber into a nice pair of jeans and a long sweater- not that I needed the warmth.  I still have the weirdest feeling that the Eufiber is somehow alive, and that I could maybe do more with it than just change what it looks like.  But that’s for later.

I left the Clinic early enough that I wouldn’t have to fly at top speed and still get there in plenty of time to see Bailey.  I tried to stay away from busy roads, and fly over residential areas whenever I could, since I didn’t want to risk causing any kind of traffic trouble.  But as I got closer to the hospital, I had to pass over several business districts.  The wind was in my ears, so I didn’t hear much, but I noticed people noticing me.  Part of me was embarrassed, but part of me felt kinda good.  I liked being noticed for something I could do, rather than as someone else’s accessory.  Damn, that sounded bitchy.  But I’m trying to be honest in this journal, so I’ll leave it in.

I landed in the little courtyard where I’d met Rocío (he wasn’t there), texted Mr. Li and Bix, then went right in.  I didn’t see any reporters, either.  Maybe doing the press release was enough to satisfy them, for a while, at least.

Bailey looked a little better.  Mr. Adams was sitting with her today.  I don’t know him quite as well as Mrs. Adams, but he’s cool.  We made a little chit chat, then he excused himself.  He said he’d come back when Mrs. Adams showed up, to let me know she was ready.

That got Bailey’s attention, and I had to explain how her mom was helping mom and I with the Project Utopia contract before I signed it.  Bailey had a weird look on her face when I told her.  Maybe she was mad I was ‘using’ her mom?  But I intend to pay her, once I start actually making money, anyway, and Mrs. Adams never even mentioned charging me.  When I asked what was wrong, Bailey said it was nothing.  Then we talked about her physical therapy, and how maybe they won’t have to do more surgery for a while.  And how cute one of the nurses was.  And how bored she was.  And how nobody from school (other than the cheer team) had come to see her.  (I was surprised that Jeremy hadn’t come, to be honest.  They’ve been steady for months now.)  And how much the food sucked.  I just let her go on, since I figured she needed to vent.  I still felt funny about how our last visit ended, but if she did too, she never let on.  It was as though she’d never been selfish at all.  I guess I can let it go.  She’s my best friend, after all.

Mr. Adams came back, we all said goodbye, and I met Mrs. Adams and Mom in the cafeteria.  I’m really getting to know that cafeteria.  For once, I was too excited to be starving (just hungry), so Mom and I ate lunch while Mrs. Adams went over everything (she said she’d eaten earlier). 

She went over each contract (PU and NSI) page by page, with the original and her revisions side by side.  She explained everything to Mom, and went over the reasons behind her proposed changes.  I was surprised by how much Mom needed to have explained to her- she’s so smart, and I didn’t have any trouble following along.  Is this how all kids feel when they grow up and start realizing that their parents are… just people?

After Mrs. Adams finished, Mom asked me, really serious, if I was sure this was what I wanted to do.  I told her that I wasn’t sure I wanted to devote my entire life to Utopia, no.  But that for now, I think it’s my best option.  The pay was good, especially for a minor, and Mrs. Adams’ changes pretty much guaranteed me the best college education possible.  I’m willing to work for PU in order to get that.  (I’m less excited about NSI, but there was no need to mention that.)  And by the time I’ve finished college, I’ll not only have a degree, but I’ll have had time to get used to all of this, and be better able to decide where I wanted to go from there.  So, yeah, I was sure.  I told her that it was a lot better than joining the military for free college, anyway, which got her to laugh. 

So, we thanked Mrs. Adams for her time, and I told her I’d be happy to pay her out of my first month’s PU stipend.  She refused, which I kinda expected.  I’ll see if I can find something nice to do for her in the future. 

Mom had to go back to work, and I texted Mr. Li that I was going to ride with her, then fly back to the Clinic from there.  I looked for Rocío on the way out, but if he was around, I didn’t see him.  And really, why would he be?  It’s not like he gets his kicks hanging out around hospitals… On the way, we caught up more than we could over the phone.  I told her how I was spending my days, and she looked shocked.  And kinda mad.  She thinks they’re pushing me too fast and working me too hard. 

I hadn’t really thought about it, but… it’s been twelve days.  Only twelve days, and I’ve come so far.  I don’t feel pushed.  My days are busy, and there’s kinda a low-key sense of urgency that I don’t fully understand.  Urgency from the Clinic-side, I mean.  Getting back to as much of my normal life at school and with my friends is pretty urgent for me, but I don’t think Mr. Li and Dr. Jackson really care about that part.

I told Mom that I was fine, and that I was the one pushing for me to keep up with school and all.  And the sooner the Clinic agreed that I knew what I was doing, and wasn’t going to freak out, the sooner I could come home.  I told Mom that I missed her, and the way she focused on her driving real suddenly made me think she was trying not to cry.  After that, I showed off my Eufiber, and by the time we’d made it back to her work, she was a little late but smiling again.  She’d told her boss that she was meeting me for lunch and might be late, so it was okay. 

Her boss, Mr. McEachern, actually came out to say ‘hi’ to me as we pulled into the parking lot.  Surely he hadn’t been watching for Mom’s car?  We’d met once or twice before, but he was always busy with something else (which was fine by me- I don’t need to be buddies with Mom’s boss, besides, it would be creepy if he paid too much attention to someone else’s kid).  But today he was all smiles and handshakes.  He treated Mom better than usual, too.  Not that he treats her badly, but she’s just another employee.  But this time he asked if she’d had a good lunch, and had gotten to catch up with me, and kept watching me.  I figured it out pretty quick, and was a little disgusted, to be honest.  I was a nova now, so that makes me important and worth paying attention to.  And, by extension, that makes Mom important.  Well, I didn’t want to do anything that might mess with Mom’s job, so I just smiled and told him how nice it was to see him again.  I hope Mom can quit her second job once I start making money, and maybe even find a better main job, but that’s still in the future.

Anyway, Mom and I hugged goodbye, I texted Mr. Li that I was on my way back, then I took off, straight from the parking lot. I know Mom and Mr. McEachern were watching me, so I sent straight up to the ‘allowed’ 400 feet, and flew off as fast as I could.  Yeah, okay, I was showing off.  A little.  I slowed down once I was out of sight.

I got back to the Clinic and everything was fine.  I gave Mr. Li the updated contract, and told him that I (and Mom as my guardian) were ready to sign that version anytime they wanted.  He said he’d look over the changes, and I went up to my room.

I can’t help thinking about what Mom said.  Are they pushing me too hard?  Or is Mom just being over protective of her ‘baby girl’?  She’s usually pretty good about not being a helicopter mom, so I’m inclined to give her opinion some weight.  Then again, it’s just a fact that a lot of things are coming a lot easier to me now.  I think I’d be bored if I wasn’t being kept busy.  And the Clinic has experience with novas- surely they know best. 

Later-

I’ve done some reading on what happens when novas push themselves too hard.  It’s scary.  Most of the novas that look strange?  It might be because the quantum power we use taints our bodies- and maybe our minds, too.  Some of it’s harmless, like funny skin colors or glowing eyes.  Caestus Pax’s hands light up when he uses some of his powers, and Ricardo Montoya-Bernal’s arms have gone all snakey.  But some of the changes are a lot more intense.  Antaeus looks like Swamp Thing, and seems to care more about nature than people.  And he’s on ‘our’ side!  Leviathan looks like, well, Leviathan.  And I don’t even know which of the stories about him to believe. 

There can be mental changes, too, and other things.  There’s a guy who constantly sheds radiation.  Everyone who spends too much time around him ends up with a suntan, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re going to get cancer in a few years.  And some novas are just plain crazy.  That guy who runs the Church of the Immanent Eschaton (I had to look that one up- it means trying to bring about heaven on earth) is an absolute psycho with his own cult.  He claims all novas are chosen by God to bring about the apocalypse.  Or something like that.  Scary stuff.  Between them and the Church of Michael Archangel, I’m beginning to think that novas and religion don’t mix.  Or maybe it’s just novas and Christianity.  I should look up what other religions think about us.

The point is, it looks like overusing our powers, and pushing them too hard, too often, can trigger these changes.  So why is the Clinic pushing me to train so hard?  I know I need to know what I can do, and control it well enough not to do things by accident or hurt anybody with my powers, but still?  And why didn’t they warn me about what might happen? 

But I really don’t feel pushed.  And maybe what Mom thinks of as ‘pushing too hard’ is really just… Tuesday?  Maybe I’m being a baby and worrying for nothing?  Surely I would realize it if I was pushing too hard, right?  I’ve been tired a couple of times after training, but never really exhausted.  And there’ve been a couple of times when I’ve used enough power to feel sort of… depleted, I guess is the best word, but never to the point that I thought I might be close to running out.  And it always comes back quickly.  So maybe I’m not in any real danger, and that’s why they haven’t said anything about the risks?

I kinda want to ask Bix, but I want to start training to get tougher, and I’m afraid that if I express any kind of concern for how hard we’ve been pushing, he might put that off.  And who knows how long I’ll continue with the Clinic after I go back to school?  I mean, I plan to keep coming back after school, but what if something happens to prevent that?  What if, somehow, the structured training that I’m getting now is all the training I’m ever able to get, and I’ll be on my own after all this?  Or maybe working for PU or NSI will take up all of my after-school time?  (Not that I can really think of anything they would really want my power set for.  Basic construction work?  Heavy lifting?  Courier?) 

            I got a ‘ding’ on the OpNet alert that I set for my name, and this time it wasn’t about pies in Montana.  There hadn’t been much since the press release on Thursday, and I was just fine with that.  But it looks like my flying around town today got noticed.  Somebody’s started a forum for ‘Colleen Sightings’.  Really?!?  It already has a half dozen threads, one of which swears I was doing loop-de-loops over city hall.  WTF?  Who even goes to city hall?  You have to make an account to post to the forum, and I did.  Not as myself, of course.  Just being on that site at all feels cringe. And no, I’m not going to tell my user name.

Even Later-

I just got called downstairs.  Mr. Li had gone over the changes to the contract, and okayed them all, from Project Utopia’s side, at least.  Assuming Nova Services International accepts them (Mr. Li sent it to them already), then we can sign as soon as Mom gets time to meet up and do it.  Since I’m a minor, Mr. Li wants all of us to sign together, and get it notarized.  He says Mom can come out here, or we can go to her, whichever is more convenient, and he can have a notary ready.  So as soon as NSI gets back to us, that will be that, I guess. 

I’m still not 100% on board with all this.  I feel like I’m being- not quite manipulated.  Guided?  Managed?  Led to desired actions? Something like that.  But I guess I can understand that PU is used to getting its own way.  And it makes sense that it would want to recruit as many novas as possible, as quickly as possible.  At least it keeps them away from the Teragen.  No danger of that, at least.  I might not entirely like the way PU does things, but I’m not some kind of crazy, nova-supremacy terrorist.

Chapter Text

Thursday, September 18

After breakfast, Dr. Jackson took me over to the actual ‘clinic’ part of the Clinic, and put me through all the same tests she ran when I first came here.  She didn’t say much beyond the usual doctor/patient nothings, but she seemed pleased.  Something occurred to me, so I asked her if she was going to be my primary care physician now, and if I needed to transfer my medical records from my current PCP.  Or was I going to continue to see Dr. Ulin when I needed to?  She said that she would be my PCP, as long as I was in town, but not to worry about transferring- they already had all my records.  WTF?  Isn’t that some kind of privacy violation?  HIPPA?  I noticed she didn’t say anything about being my PCP ‘if I was okay with that’, or anything.  Just that she was going to be.  I assume when I go to college, I’d check in with the Clinic in whatever city I ended up in, and get a new PCP there.  And after college, well, wherever I end up will almost certainly have a Utopia presence.

After the checkup, I went out to the barn.  Apparently it was going to be a day for testing my progress over the last two weeks.  I didn’t really expect to see much measurable progress.  I mean, not flying into walls and keeping my quantum in my body is progress, but it isn’t something you measure on a chart.  I should get a whiteboard with ‘<X> Days Since the Last Collision’ on it.

But there actually was some progress.  I can lift an extra quarter ton without putting my power into it, and a little over ten tons if I really push it.  There’s not much difference on the treadmill, and the only way to get more elevation would be to run up an actual mountain.  But my flying is a lot faster!  I can go almost 250 mph now!  I didn’t even realize!  I guess all that practice really is paying off.  Once Bix put the radar gun away, he asked if I was ready for a real flying challenge. I was so excited, I said ‘yes’ right away.  Rookie mistake.  HE SET THE HOOPS ON FIRE.

And I made it through.  Only got singed once.  Does that count as a collision?  Mark that whiteboard back to ‘Zero Days’.  Oh well.

Bix barely even looked at the burn (it was already healing).  Instead, he told me that the hyperbaric chamber would be installed and ready to go tomorrow, but the sensory deprivation pod was already here, and would I like to start with cold tolerance?  Hell yes, I would!

I had never seen a sensory deprivation chamber before.  It looked like a coffin and one of those ‘you-store-it’ pods had a baby.  It had a hinged top, and was about nine feet long by four feet wide and six feet high.  Bix set up a screen around it for privacy and told me to strip down and get inside it.  The water inside was freezing.  As in, there were ice chunks, and they weren’t melting.  Once I was in, Bix came around, showed me an emergency release button on the inside, and closed the lid.

It was pitch black.  And so completely silent I could not only hear my breathing, I could hear my heartbeat.  I think I heard my hair and nails growing.  It was so cold.  My nipples could have cut glass.  I can’t say the cold was really painful.  It was more like an unpleasant sensation, and a kind of… pressure… than actual pain. I started to shiver almost immediately, and tried to meditate.  I knew that the shivering was my body’s way of trying to generate heat, and I wanted to get used to being cold.  So I slowed my breathing down, closed my eyes (not that I could see, anyway), and tried to just… accept the cold. The water was neck deep, so after a few minutes I ducked under the water and stayed under for as long as I could.  The cold on my face was like a slap. 

I lost all track of time.  After a while, I stopped feeling the cold, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or a sign of hypothermia.  I figured I’d hope for the former, and kept going with the breath holding.  I was counting ‘Mississippi’, and was getting to about 250 most of the time before needing to come up for air when Bix opened the lid.  All the little ‘outside’ sounds came rushing back in on me, and for a second I couldn’t sort it all out.  But I got over it.  With the light coming in, I could see that my fingertips were pruny, and the nail beds had turned blue.  I wasn’t shivering any more, but I wasn’t sure if that was because I was too cold to shiver, or if I’d gotten control over that response. 

Bix handed me a towel and helped me out- I needed the help.  My muscles were really stiff.  He asked me how it was.  I told him it was awful, and when could I do it again?  He burst out laughing, and we scheduled another session for after lunch.

The second time was a little better.  Maybe it’s wishful thinking about tolerating the cold better, but maybe not.  We’ll see.

After the second freezing session, they let me go flying off-property, alone!  Mr. Li gave me a bracelet that he said would let them find me if anything went wrong, and to be back in two hours.  I was so excited, I didn’t even know where to go! 

I didn’t want to look like I was showing off by just flying around aimlessly like I was hoping to be noticed.  So after some thought, I decided to fly to school.  Partly to see how long it would take, and partly to look for a quiet place to take off and land nearby.  I’d rather not do that at the main entrance, if I can avoid it.  It was late enough that there shouldn’t be many people around, anyway, and I figured I could fly low once I got close, so I’d be less noticeable from a distance.

It's funny.  I’ve been at that school since freshman year, and I never really thought too much about the outside.  Sure, there’s the track, and the football field, and the baseball diamond, and the parking lots, but I never paid much attention to what was out beyond those things. The whole property is fenced in, but it’s just chain link.  Anybody could get over it.  Inside the fence, there are a couple of clumps of trees, and a three-sided brick enclosure where the dumpsters are.  The dumpsters stank too bad to get near them, and I knew I didn’t want to make a habit of landing near the ball fields- there’s always people there before and after school.  And landing in the parking lot seemed like asking for trouble.  I finally settled on the nearer clump of trees.  No matter what direction I came from, I’ll be pretty visible, but at least I can land in the trees without being in anybody’s way.

After that, I had plenty of time left, so I decided to stop by Claws of Coffee.  I like their chai latte, and love their cats.  Plus, I wanted to know if I’d still be able to do something as simple as drink tea and pet cats in public.  I know it’s only been a couple of weeks, but it seems like forever since I’ve been in there.  Plus, it’s on the way(ish) back to the Clinic, so it seemed like a good idea. 

I landed behind the building and walked around front.  Berta and LeRoy were working, and they lit up like Christmas when I came in.  They were all smiles and asking how I was, and ‘long time no see’, and for a minute I thought everything might be normal.  I gave my order, and we talked cats.  Purrcival got adopted, and Maraschino might be soon.  Furnado came running over to give me headbutts of love, and I scooped him up.  He was purring like crazy and sniffing me all over.  He made the cat ‘stinky face’ when he got to my Eufiber (I wonder if it seems alive to him as well?), but kept sniffing just the same.  (I know my Eufiber is clean, so that’s not the issue.)  Berta introduced a stripey orange cat they’d brought in to replace Purrcival.  Her name is Serafina, but she was a little too shy to do more than let me give her a few pets. 

I knew they knew about me when LeRoy wouldn’t let me pay for my tea.  They tried to refuse a tip as well, but I snuck the cost of the tea into the jar when they weren’t looking.  We chatted for a little it while I had my tea and snuggled Furnado.  He’s a smokey grey unit of a cat, with little tufts of hair on the tips of his ears, and the most enormous paws.  He’s my favorite cat here, and I wish I could adopt him.  But we can’t afford a-  I’m an idiot.  Here I am, writing about how I can’t afford a cat, when I’m about to have this great job.  If Furnado is still at Claws when I get my first paycheck, he’s coming home with me!

Anyway, I finished up, thanked everybody, and went back to the Clinic.  Ten minutes early, thankyouverymuch. 

I checked back in, turned in the bracelet (I don’t like the idea of being tracked, but I’m willing to accept it for now, especially if it gets me flying alone off the grounds), and came upstairs to do some more name research.  Now that there’s an OpNet site about me, I kinda feel like I need to choose a name for myself, and soon. 

I was looking at Greek mythology tonight.  Coeus (or Polus- I think I like Polus better) was a Titan, rather than a God.  I like that idea.  The Titans were amazing in their own way, but they weren’t Gods, and there was never any really blurring of those lines.  Novas are amazing in a lot of ways, but we aren’t Gods. Polus means ‘query’ or ‘questioning’.  I like that idea.  That there’s always something new to learn, new questions to ask, new answers to find.  Plus, I like that he’s pretty obscure. 

I like Prometheus, too.  Though I think I’d go with Promethea.  A lot of the OpNet sites describe the power novas have as ‘quantum fire’, and that makes me think of Prometheus.  And I like the idea of being able to give something important to humanity as a whole, even if I don’t know what that is.  Yet.  I could do without the eagles eating my liver thing, though.  That has its own symmetry, though.  Most novas try to help people, and use their powers for the greater good.  But some baselines still want to destroy us.  Are people like the Archangelites our eagles sent to punish us for misusing our power?

I thought about Mnemosyne for a minute.  She represents remembrance, and she’s mother to the Muses, which reminds me of the family I want someday.  But I know better than to choose something so hard to spell and pronounce.  Metis might be a good choice, as the Goddess of good advice, but that’s too close to Métis, and I don’t want to risk cultural appropriation.

Chiron is an interesting option.  Maybe too famous a figure, though.  And maybe too easily confused with Charon?  I like the ‘tutoring heroes’ element, but not so much the ‘tendency to go wild’ part.  Plus, his story really doesn’t end well. 

Everybody always conflates the Greek myths with the Roman.  There’s a lot of overlap, but it isn’t a direct match.  Unfortunately, most of the Roman options have weird sex connections, or are impossible to spell, or their names have devolved into basic modern words.  The only name that really spoke to me from that list is Veritas, Goddess of truth.  But that’s a lot to live up to, and I think would be more aspirational than possible. 

Out of all of this batch, I think I like Promethea and Chiron best. 

            Outside of mythology, I’m also thinking of Neophyte, to remind myself that no matter how far I’ve come, no matter how far I’ll ever go, there’s always more to learn and more road in front of me than behind me.  That no matter what, in some things, I’ll always be an eternal beginner.  On a more cynical level, I like Milieu, as a callout to how my ‘place’ has always been as an adaptable background character in other people’s lives.  But maybe that’s too cynical. And who knows if it will even still be true?          

Chapter Text

Friday, September 19

Bariatric chambers suck really hard.  I feel bad for divers having to hang out in them, but maybe it’s easier for them, since their internal pressure is screwed up already?  And it’s certainly better than dying.  At least the sensory deprivation chamber was, in a weird sense, an active thing.  This was 100% passive.  The chamber is another capsule, this one made clear acrylic (I assume).  Inside it was a pad like one of those lounger lawn chairs.  I had to wear special all-cotton clothes in it, with absolutely nothing inside that could generate static or strike a spark.  So no electronics. 

I got inside, and it was the weirdest feeling.  I’d never really thought about air itself having weight.  The pressure built up, and my ears popped, like when I fly (in an airplane- I can’t believe I have to specify ‘in an airplane’ now).  But instead of releasing the pressure, it just kept getting worse.  My vision went blurry, my ears (and head) felt… full, and my fingers went numb.  So even if I’d been able to have a book or something, it wouldn’t have helped.  None of it hurt, exactly, but it was really disorienting.  I’ve caught a contact high at a party once or twice, and it was a little like that.  All swimmy and not quite sure where all my body parts were. 

At least in the sensory deprivation tank, I felt like I was working with my body to overcome the natural shiver response.  And then I had the (somewhat) active breath-holding underwater.  But in the bariatric chamber, I was just uncomfortable and fighting to breathe.  Even the breathing got easier after a while.  Maybe that’s a good sign? 

It feels childish to admit it, but I always wanted to be an astronaut.  I mean, every kid goes through a phase of that, right?  But I never really grew out of it.  I just shut up about it when I realized it could never happen.  The competition for opportunities is just too fierce.  And while I enjoy school well enough, math isn’t my thing, and the hard sciences make my eyes glaze over.  Plus, from everything I could tell, the best way to get into the space program was through the Air Force, and I have no interest in enlisting.  So, I just kinda put my space dreams away as a ‘never gonna happen’.  Until now.  Now, everything is changed. But dreaming about space still seems childish.  And deep sea exploration has a lot of the same environmental issues as space, right?  Lack of air, cold, pressure issues- vacuum is just a near-total absence of pressure, after all.  So being able to survive deep underwater should mean I could survive in space, right?  And there are fewer sharks in space.

Well, after what seemed like forever, the pressure dropped (that was its own set of weird sensations), and Bix let me out.  My ears and vision straightened out pretty quick, but I was a lot more tired than I expected.  He said that was normal, and that some athletes actually slept in those chambers.  (Yuck.)

After lunch was another session in the sensory deprivation chamber (still cold, but I was able to count up to 280 Mississippi (and once to 302!), so there’s that.  The rest of the day was spent in regular training, but I’ve written enough about all that to satisfy anyone’s curiosity. 

I occurred to me that I might not always have access to a GPS system, so it would be a good idea to learn how to navigate without one.  Besides, if I ever do go into space, my phone’s GPS will be useless.  I knew you could order online courses via the OpNet, but I had no idea there were so many different things available.  I’d always just assumed it was all languages and art history.  But there are science courses, and all kinds of other things, and even better, the Clinic has a premium account with one of the biggest online learning groups available!  Some of their course might even be transferrable for college credit!  The Clinic’s account lets me take five courses per month with all expenses covered.  They’re mostly self-paced, too, though there is a final due date on each one, so I can do them in clumps, like I’ve been doing my school work.

So of course, I signed up for one on navigation.  I read over the syllabus, and it’s going to cover the entire history of navigation, as well as the actual modern ‘how-tos’.  It mentioned astrolabes, which I’m not sure how they’re going to manage online.  Videos, I guess.  Surely I’m not expected to find a real astrolabe?  I saw several other courses I want to take, but I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew.  Especially since I’m still pushing to go back to school on Monday.  It isn’t that I think I can’t handle the extra work.  It’s just that I need to see how my schedule is going to settle out.

Mr. Li says that Nova Services International accepted the changes to the contract, and sent it back with their signatures.  He’s contacted Mom, and arranged for her to come over for dinner tomorrow evening and we’ll sign off on everything on our end.  And that will be that.  I’ll be a Project Utopia employee.  And an NSI contractor, but that doesn’t carry nearly the same ‘oomph’.

I’m excited to have this next part of my life really starting, but again with them making decisions for me!  I’m beginning to think it’s a PU trend, and not just Mr. Li being a little too on top of things.   

Chapter Text

Saturday, September 20

More training all day.  I asked Bix to increase the pressure in the hyperbaric chamber.  He did, and one of my eardrums popped.  Like, actually popped.  With bleeding.  But it healed almost instantly, so I didn’t say anything.  Apart from that one bit, I didn’t feel quite so disoriented this time.  It’s silly to expect progress so quickly, but I do.  It’s like, on some level, my body knows what it’s capable of, and wants to get there as quickly as possible. I want to push more, harder, faster.  But I also don’t want to turn purple, or have glowing eyes, or something.  So I’m trying to be patient and not expect too much.

Mom came for dinner.  Clara outdid herself- I’ll admit I’m going to miss the food here.  After dinner, we signed all the contracts, filled out all the tax forms, made all the copies, and filed everything that needed to be filed. And that was that.  I’m with Project Utopia.  My first month’s (pro-rated) stipend should hit my bank account on Monday.  And I’m going home tomorrow night after dinner, so I can start back at school on Monday! 

I’m still going to be coming back here after school every day for more training, so I won’t be doing much at home other than sleeping there, but… I missed my mom a lot more than I thought I would.  It’ll be good to be home. 

After everything was put away and Mom had gone home, Mr. Li came up to my room.  (Since they have plenty of room and no other novas in residence, they’re going to leave my room set up for me.)  He had a stack of stuff for me.  The Project Utopia and Nova Services International employee handbooks. A keycard and ID badge to let me into the Clinic (I’d been using a guest card). A PU lapel pin that I was supposed to wear anytime I was doing ‘Utopia stuff’. And lastly, a tiny communicator thing.  It looks a little like an old-style pager from the 80s, but flat.  It has a wrist band that holds it flush with the inside of my forearm.  I barely notice it a couple of minutes after putting it on, and unless I hold my arm in a weird position, I doubt anyone else will notice it either. 

It has a touchscreen, and a tiny speaker.  No headphone jack, though- it’s too thin. It comes with a thicker user manual than my laptop, though.  It’s voice activated, as well as having the touchscreen, and is meant for me to get in touch with PU immediately, any time.  Of course, that also means they can always get in touch with me, as well.  It will send me emergency alerts (that I can’t turn off), and directed emergency alerts that I’m obligated to respond to.  I can set it to send me a bunch of other alerts as well- I’m playing around with those settings.  I want alerts that involve me, or anything happening locally.  I don’t need to know about every nova thing happening anywhere on Earth, but I do want to know about major events.  It’ll probably take a couple of days to work out the right level of ‘connected’. 

It's an interesting device, but I’m meant to wear it all the time.  It’s got a ‘vibrate’ function so it isn’t noisy, and ‘Do Not Disturb’ setting so only the most important push notifications will come through at school, but still.  I’m not supposed to go anywhere without it, ever.  Intrusive, much?  And with tech this far beyond the curve, I’m sure it has some kind of GPS locator in it.  So Utopia will always know where I am.  

The Nova Services International Employee Handbook is about what I expected from a real, professional (non-fast food) job.  Company expectations about punctuality, no-call no-shows, misuse of company resources, and so on.  It covers the ‘3 refusal’ clause that Mr. Li told me about in more detail.  I blacklisted PETA, tobacco, and vaping; and since I’m a minor they won’t put me on tobacco or alcohol contracts anyway.  I don’t have anything personally against drinking, but I’d feel strange about representing it, for now anyway. 

The Project Utopia Employee Handbook was a lot more in-depth.  It covers all of the same basic things that the NSI handbook did, but goes into a lot more about ‘presenting yourself and Utopia in the most positive light’ and ‘always being mindful of your image, especially regarding the media, social or otherwise’.  In other words, watch what I post.  It even gives suggested quick responses that I can (and should, it implies) rattle off to the media if anything controversial or breaking news comes up. 

I can understand PU wanting to control the narrative regarding themselves, but thinking of myself as a ‘Project Utopia Asset’ is going to take come getting used to.  The Handbook devotes several pages to my responsibilities in emergency situations.  Basically, if a local, ‘general’ emergency comes up, I’m supposed to get over to it if I possibly can, and offer whatever assistance I can, putting myself at the disposal of whomever is in charge of the scene.  But if I have a good reason not to respond (like I’m already responding to something else), then that’s okay.  There’s a color-coded alert tier system that runs from ‘show up if you don’t have anything better to do’, to ‘drop everything and get there five minutes ago’.  Personal Alerts (literally alerts that begin with my name) are non-negotiable.  It doesn’t matter what I’m doing, I’m required to immediately answer the alert and obey instructions.  Hopefully I won’t get any of those.  Really, I can’t think of anything that could happen that I could be better suited to deal with than anyone else. I’m sure it’ll be fine. 

The Handbook includes a directory as well, and now I know why I had to sign an NDA to even see the Handbook.  It includes contact information on for so many people.  Important people.  Like, major PU people.  Including Teams Tomorrow.  I could call Caestus Pax if I wanted to.  And he’d probably answer.  Of course, I know better than to waste anyone’s time.  Those numbers are emergency only.  But still.

The last part of the Handbook gave me the guidelines for dealing with my handler.  I have a handler now.  Excuse me, I have a ‘personal liaison’.  But she’s a handler.  Her name is Erica, and I’ll meet her here on Monday, after school.  It’s her job to manage my appointments, schedule interviews, run interference between me and the media, even run errands for me, if need be.  It seems like she’s some kind of combined secretary, butler, and babysitter.  I’m not sure how I feel about having someone do everything for me, especially since that means she’ll always be up in my business.  I hope she’s nice, at least.  I hope I can trust her.

Chapter Text

Sunday, September 21

Sunday was uneventful.  More training, and I’m glad of school, if only to give me something new to write about.  I trained all day, then packed my stuff up and flew home after dinner.  My duffle bag and backpack weren’t heavy, but the weight threw me off balance a little, and the wind resistance they made as I flew felt different.  I should try flying carrying things, in case I ever need to do it for real. 

It was so good to be home!  The Clinic is nice, and Clara’s cooking is amazing, but home has Mom and all my stuff.  Home is, well, home.  I unpacked, and Mom took the night off from her night job, so we celebrated my coming home with pizza.  Luckily, I’d already had a big dinner at the Clinic, so I was able to just eat my part and be satisfied.  I’ll go grocery shopping on my way home from the Clinic after school tomorrow, once my first check is deposited.  I can’t eat Mom out of house and home, but I can’t starve myself, either. 

We had a couple of awkward moments, like we did every time I came back from a summer camp.  A weird little ‘getting to know you again’ period.  And it was worse this time, since I’m not completely the same person anymore, and there’s really no point in trying to deny it.  But we made it through and things were good again.

I was more excited for school tomorrow than I think I ever have been.  I never really looked forward to school before.  I enjoyed it (most of it), but I’m not some ubernerd.  But now, school seems like the ultimate ‘normal’.  I know it won’t be.  The news has spread by now, I’m sure.  Everybody’s going to know.  How will the school deal with it?  Our school’s never had to deal with celebrities, or celebrity parents before.  And that’s kinda what I am, now, even if I don’t feel like it.

Wait and see is all I can do, I guess.  I’ve already shifted my Eufiber to match the school uniform, so I’ll be good to go tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Monday, September 22 

I was so nervous going to school.  I mean, I knew I would be, but I didn’t know just how nervous.  Mom had to work early, so I was on my own for the morning.  I wore my Eufiber, and my communicator (set to vibrate), but not the Project Utopia pin.  I had it in my pocket, though.  I got breakfast, and stuffed several extra granola bars and some trail mix into my backpack.  Flying was easier with just the backpack- it was the duffle that threw me off last night.  Still, I should work on flying while carrying things.

I thought about going invisible when I got near the school so I could land and just walk up to the entrance like a normal person, but decided against it.  Whatever is going to happen, better that it happen quickly.  So, I flew in like usual.  ‘Like usual’.  I never thought I’d get used to this, and here I am talking about flying ‘like usual’.  People were staring and pointing as I came in, and several people started following my line of flight.  I landed in the clump of trees I’d picked out before, and had gotten myself smoothed out before the first of them came running up. 

The middle school is in a separate building, and starts an hour later than the high school, so these were all the younger kids who got dropped off early.  There were several familiar faces, but I didn’t know any of their names.  They all came running up, yelling at the top of their voices and asking questions, drowning each other out.  It was kinda overwhelming, but I tried not to show it.  I was afraid if I stopped and talked that I’d never get going again, especially since more kids were showing up.  Some older kids were coming over too- but high school kids are too cool to run. 

So I kept moving, making my way out of the trees and trying to be friendly, but not too friendly.  There’s a strict hierarchy around here, and high school kids don’t mix much with middle schoolers.  I decided last night that the best thing to do was behave as though I was just another student, with all of the social rules and expectations that came with it.  Otherwise, people might think that I thought I was better than them, or was putting on airs.  Social suicide. But I didn’t want to hurt the kids’ feelings, so I answered a few questions without singling anyone out with special attention. 

Once I broke out of the trees, I was able to put a little distance between me and them. I was halfway to the school’s main entrance when the first of my classmates fell in with me.  Unlike the younger kids, they were too conscious of their own reputation to show too much excitement about me.  But I could still tell, just by the fact that nobody made a point of coming over and saying ‘hi’ to me before all this.  They always came to greet Bailey, and then they’d say hi to me, but it was clear that Bailey was the main attraction.  Now, at least a dozen have come out to greet me and walk back to the school with me.  They tried to make it all seem casual, like they always did this, but it still felt odd.  And a little enjoyable, I’ll admit.  I never minded staying in my place as Bailey’s shadow, but maybe it won’t be so bad to be… less in the background.

Social hierarchy still reigns supreme, though.  The sophomores formed a ring around us, at a respectful distance, and kept the freshmen from crowding in.  My fellow juniors milled around inside the ring.  A few seniors shoved their way through to me.  One of them was Jeremy Eckles, Bailey’s boyfriend.  He kinda shoo-ed everyone else away and made a point of almost escorting(?) me the last few yards. 

We exchanged the kind of small talk you do when you haven’t seen each other in a while and the main source of your friendship isn’t right there with you, and I thought he would ask about Bailey (she’d said he hadn’t been to see her), but he didn’t.  He was focused on me.  I was about to start telling him about her, when we got to the main doors and the Principal, Mr. Stephenson, was waiting.  For me, it turns out.  He sent everyone back to what they were doing, and took me to his office, just as the warning bell for Homeroom rang.  I mentioned being late, but he said he’d write me a pass. I guess this was inevitable.

We went to his office, and were joined by Mrs. Salisbury (the school nurse) and Dr. Thompkins (the guidance counsellor).  The next few minutes were incredibly awkward.  For all of us, I think.  It was obvious that Mrs. Salisbury was afraid of me.  She stayed near the door, and actually flinched when Mr. Stephenson closed it. 

Mr. Stephenson is a tall man, skinny, with a prominent Adam’s apple.  He tends to slouch, and generally just… doesn’t convey much intensity or authority.  People make jokes about him behind his back.  I bet he got bullied a lot as a kid.  I sometimes feel sorry for him, but then he tries to be all heavy-handed in enforcing school rules, which spoils it.  Mrs. Salisbury is the kind of slightly frumpy, slightly overweight woman you would just somehow expect to be a school nurse.  She usually assumes kids are faking, unless she sees blood or puke, but once she’s convinced that you’re actually sick, she’s pretty nice.  Dr. Thompkins is fairly young, maybe his late twenties?  This is his first real school job.  Half the girls in my year have a crush on him.  He’s got black hair that’s just a little too long, he never wears a tie, and usually has an extra button open in his shirt.  I think he likes attention, but I don’t think he’d ever, you know, do anything.

Mr. Stephenson sat down behind his desk and told me to take one of the chairs in front of it.  Dr. Thompkins sat next to me, and Mrs. Salisbury stayed standing by the door.  She kept her head down, but I could see the way she kept staring at me through her lashes.  Like she thought I was going to explode, or bite her, or something.  I think she’d have snuck out, if she could have.  I couldn’t think of anything to make her feel better, so I just tried to ignore her. But it’s hard when someone is staring so hard at you.

Mr. Stephenson launched into a speech he’d obviously memorized, welcoming me back to school and congratulating me on my ‘interesting accomplishment’.  I guess that was his way of saying ‘eruption’?  I realized later that he never once actually referred to me as a nova.  Next, he tried to go all stern and authoritarian, but there was a weird sort of hesitancy.  He was insisting that all the school rules still applied to me, and that I would receive no special treatment, and not be allowed to use my ‘condition’ (as though I were sick!) to get away with anything.  His words were saying ‘This Is How It Will Be’; but something in his tone was asking, maybe even begging, me to go along with what he was saying. 

And that was when I really understood.  There was nobody anywhere at school that could make me do anything I didn’t want to do.  I held all the power here, and they knew it.  Even worse, my choices could undermine their authority with all the other students.  After all, students outnumber faculty by at least twenty-to-one.  Teachers only maintain control because we students don’t realize that.  If I was careless, or even worse, actively malicious, I could make it impossible for the teachers to run the school at all. 

EXACTLY, KITTEN.  WHY ALLOW LESSER BEINGS TO CONTROL YOU?  YOU ARE THE FUTURE, NOT THEM.  THE SOONER YOU ACCEPT THAT, THE BETTER.

~S

But I didn’t want to be careless, let alone malicious.  I just wanted school to be as normal as it possibly could be.  So, I looked Mr. Stephenson square in the eye, and told him exactly that.  That I wasn’t looking for special treatment, and just wanted things to be as normal as possible.  But that there were a couple of small accommodations that I would need- the main ones being my communicator (which I showed him).  We’re not allowed to have cell phones in class, but I explained that I was required by my contract with Project Utopia (I’ll admit, I got a little thrill out of name-dropping) required that I have it on me at all times.  I explained that in the unlikely event of an emergency, I was required to drop everything and deal with the situation immediately, which may mean leaving class abruptly.  I explained about my increased dietary needs, and that while I would try to keep my eating to the hallways between classes, I may need the occasional snack in class.  But that I would clean up after myself and keep the distraction to a minimum.  I think I struck the right tone with all this.  I was trying to convey “I’m asking permission as a courtesy, but saying ‘no’ isn’t an option”, and I think he got the message.  I went on to tell him that if anything else came up, I would be sure to address it privately with him, or the appropriate teacher, to prevent any kind of public fuss. 

And that was about it.  I think we all knew where we stood, and nobody was completely happy.  I was having new thoughts about how easy it would be to make life miserable for them, and they were left dealing with a seventeen year old student who could probably tear the school apart if she got cranky enough.   

I was twenty minutes late for Homeroom.  Mr. Stephenson forgot to write me the pass, but it turned out not to matter.  Mrs. Hood had just finished morning announcements, and was starting on the new pre-calculus chapter when I slid in, and she just waved me to my seat like nothing had changed.  About the best way it could have gone, I think.  Nobody could say or do anything without disturbing class, so I got to settle back in without fanfare.

Pre-Cal (well, any math, really) has always been my worst subject.  I guess it still is, but now worst just means ‘slightly less good’.  I was able to understand the formulas without even trying, and got half of the problem set she’d assigned as homework done before class ended. 

After class, I was mobbed in the hall.  It seems like everyone wanted to say hi to me, to hug me, to tell me how much they’d missed me, to take a selfie with me. (Just because phones are forbidden during school hours doesn’t mean we don’t all have them, duh.)  A few people asked about Bailey, but most of the wanted to know all about me- where I’d been, what I’d been doing, and- finally- somebody asked what they all wanted to know: what’s it like to be a nova?  That got a moment’s silence, and I was trying to figure out what to tell them, when the warning bell for next class rang and we all had to scatter. 

I found Jessica, Monique, and Alejandra (my closest friends after Bailey) in the crowd and told them I’d meet up with them for lunch (the only period we all have together) and we could catch up.  They were happy about that, and I’m sure we’ll end up drawing a crowd of eavesdroppers, but that’s probably the best way to handle it.  It’s not like I’m going to get up on stage in the cafeteria and do a Q & A with the entire school, after all!

English went fine, and so did World History.  Since I wasn’t late to those classes, there was time for whispers and some disruption until the teachers put a stop to it, but I tried my best to act as though everything was normal.  I never have any trouble with either class, so nothing really changed there.  But I was able to complete the full reading in the final ten minutes of History, and do most of the essay we were assigned on ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ in English. I’d read that over the summer, so I was able to get started while the others were discussing it.  I kept quiet for most of the discussion, since I’m not sure if my input would be a distraction.  I think I’ll need to ask each teacher how they would prefer I interact in their classes. 

Chemistry was a problem.  I’ll blame being hungry, but I just wasn’t paying attention.  We were supposed to be doing an experiment with heating various compounds in test tubes over the Bunsen burners, and noting down what kinds of precipitates formed.  That was fine.  I’m not great at chemistry, but I’m okay at it.  And I’m careful in the lab.  Usually.  But somebody pssst‘d behind me, and as I turned around, I caught the test tube on the edge of the burner.  I overcorrected, and ended up running my hand through the flame.  It hurt, a little, but the singed meat smell was awful.  Everybody gathered around when my lab partner yelled.  (I was only on fire a little.)  Mrs. Taylor came running, and got there just as the blisters were healing up. So much for keeping a low profile.  I apologized for being clumsy and tried not to make a big deal out of it, but I could hear the whispers.  I finished the experiment without any further problems, but I could feel eyes on me for the rest of class.  Especially Mrs. Taylor’s. 

Lunch was next, and I couldn’t have been more ready.  Not only was I starving, but I couldn’t wait to meet up with my friends.  There are times when I think I spend too much time with Bailey.  It doesn’t leave me much time for other people.  Jessica Akins, Monique Wilson, and Alejandra Ramirez would probably be my closest friends, if not for Bailey.  More than ever, I was looking forward to spending time with them, especially knowing that Bailey wasn’t going to come drag me off to whatever she wanted to do.  (Damn, that sounded bitchy.  And ungrateful.  I’m a bad friend. ☹ )

I saw Jess as soon as I hit the cafeteria, and waved to let her know I’d be there once I got my lunch.  Jess is really pretty.  She looks more like a fox than any human being I’ve ever met. Red hair, heart-shaped face, sharp features, big bushy tail.  She’s one of those ‘nobody gets to pick on my friends except me’ types.  Very Mama Bear.  She and I actually have a lot in common, interests-wise.  She’s a lot more outgoing than I am, though.  Not everyone likes her, but no one overlooks her.

I got into the lunch line, and there was a lot more whispering.  I’d pretty much expected that, but I hadn’t expected the bubble of open space around me.  Usually the line is packed elbow to elbow, but I had plenty of room.  Nobody talked directly to me, but… the whispers.  I think I would have heard the whispers even before I erupted, but now they may as well have been open conversation.  “Did you hear?”, “I heard that”, “She’s so lucky”, “Why did she even come back”, “She’s going to join Team Tomorrow”.  I wanted to turn around and nip that last one in the bud, but I didn’t want to let on that I could hear every word.  So I let it go and pretended not to hear.

The school lunches are tiny in ways I never realized before.  And not very nutritious.  And not very tasty. My time at the Clinic spoiled me for food.  That’s something I’m going to need to work on.  But the portion thing- I’m going to have to take that up with the school, I’m afraid.  I hadn’t bothered to look up this week’s menu.  If I’d known it was Suspicious Meat in Brown Gravy-Like Substance, I would have packed a lunch.  But I was too hungry to be picky, and just stacked the rest of the tray with salad cups, chips, Potato Substitute, and whatever else I could get to fit on there.  I heard a couple of giggles behind me- understandable, since I was getting enough food for at least three people.  Just to complete the ridiculous picture, I topped it off with a Diet Coke.

By the time I’d gotten through the line, Monique had joined Jess.  She’s short, with curves I only wish I had.  Lately she’s taken up hair extensions that go down nearly to her knees.  She’s added purple streaks since I’ve been gone.  I don’t go for girls, but if I did, she’d be it.  As usual, she’s brought her lunch.  Or, I should say, ‘lunch’.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat normal food.  This time, it was thin wafers of seaweed, rice crackers, and some kind of paste that smelled like fish.

Alejandra joined us a couple of minutes later.  If the sides of her hair were shaved any higher, she’d have a mohawk.  You can barely see her ears for all the piercings, and she’s added another in her lip recently.  The one in her eyebrow is so recent it’s still healing.  We all had a sleepover once, and she has tattoos that don’t show under the school uniform, too.  Her parents are either extremely cool, or utterly negligent.  I’ve never had the courage to ask which.  Her lunch was 3 pieces of leftover pizza. 

I was afraid things would be awkward, but it was almost like they’d gotten together and planned how to make everything comfortable.  We ended up trading news back and forth- me telling some of what I’d been doing (editing out the stuff that would sound like bragging), and them telling me all the school drama I’d missed.  There was a lot of it, and I was genuinely interested, but that kind of drama doesn’t belong in this journal, so I’ll skip it.

Every seat around us was jammed full of kids.  Some of them tried to pretend like they weren’t listening in, but most didn’t bother.  I couldn’t help but overhear them as they passed bits of what I was saying back to kids further away in the crowd.  It was like weird ripples in a sea of people.  Since I know this kind of thing is going to keep happening, I’m determined to get used to being the center of attention.  If anything, it’s worse being ‘on display’ like that.  I think it would be easier if they had the balls to just come out and ask me whatever they’re wanting to know.  Not my friends, I mean.  The others.  But I just got back.  Maybe things will settle down once they get used to me.

Jeremy showed back up partway through lunch, and elbowed his way in as close to me as he could.  Monique and Alejandra were on either side of me, and Jess was across, so he ended up shoving a sophomore out of the way to sit next to Jess.  He never said anything, but he had this weird, almost possessive attitude.  I thought maybe he’s just waiting for his chance to get an update on Bailey.

Lunch ended too soon, and the girls wanted to do some more catching up after school, but I told them I still had to go back to the Clinic most days after school for more training.  We agreed to hang out after school tomorrow.  Bix will understand, and let me off for the day, I’m sure.

P.E. was what I’d been dreading the most.  I’ve pretty much gotten used to my new strength, and I didn’t think anything gym class could throw at me would put a dent in my endurance, but I hadn’t decided how I was going to handle competing with the other kids.  Even when the activities aren’t actually competitive, we compete.  Not just dodgeball and volleyball, but who can climb the rope fastest, or do the most sit-ups, or lift the most weight?  We always compete.  And, I don’t care how arrogant it makes me sound, there’s just no real way to make any kind of competition like that fair, anymore.  About the only thing that would still be even close to an even match would be sprints.  I don’t think I’ve gotten any faster than I was, even if I can keep going for days now.  

Should I try to fake it?  Hide how much I’ve changed, physically?  But people will expect me to be different.  And what happens if something comes up later, and I couldn’t hide it anymore?  Then everybody would think I was lying, or screwing with them.  That might be worse in the long run. 

I still hadn’t decided what to do when I got to the locker room- and realized I’d forgotten my gym suit.  Not a problem, really.  I could just change my Eufiber into a gym suit.  A bunch of other girls (mostly seniors) came in mid-change.  For the first time today, I personally wasn’t the most interesting thing in the room.  They crowded around me as I finished changing the Eufiber, demanding to know how it worked, and insisting that I do it again.  This, at least, was something I was comfortable with, so I did a quick little fashion show.  Jeans and a t-shirt to little black cocktail dress to our team’s football uniform, complete with helmet.  All in under ninety seconds.  They were suitably impressed, and wanted to know where to get some.  I had to tell them that they could find synthetic Eufiber online, but I wasn’t sure they’d be able to make it change the same way.  (It’s strange.  My nova abilities are much more impressive than the ability to change my Eufiber easily.  But my nova abilities are something that just happened to me, while my skill with the Eufiber feels like something I had to work on- something I’ve earned.  I don’t mind showing off the results of effort.)

I was afraid there’d be some jealousy, but the Eufiber worked out pretty well as an ice-breaker.  Ms. Owens had us using ropes today.  Rope climbing, jump rope, tug-of-war, that kind of thing.  The only part I was worried about was the tug-of-war, since that’s a team thing.  And sure, enough, there was a fight when it came to picking teams.  Chrissy and Dana are pretty much always team captains of anything, so that was a given.  Usually I’m picked somewhere in the middle.  I’m not a great athlete, but I don’t trip over myself either. But this time, they both wanted me.  I didn’t know what to do, but Ms. Owens solved it by deciding that we’d do two rounds of tug, and I’d switch teams between rounds.  She gave me a dirty look, like it was my fault.  Maybe she expected me to know how to deal with this?  Or maybe she just didn’t want to have to get involved.  I don’t know.  Nobody was really happy, so I guess it was the best solution. 

Chrissy put me on the back of her team as anchor (she’s always lead), and that worked out fine.  I just had to hold the position, and let the other girls decide when to step back as Chrissy gave the count.  I know I could have yanked my entire team and Dana’s team off their feet easily, but I was careful not to.  We won by letting Dana’s team tire themselves out, then pulling them across. 

After that, we broke into small groups to do the climbing and jump ropes.  I was able to hide how easy the climbing was, so that wasn’t a problem, and nobody really looks at anybody else jumping rope.  Then it was time for the second round of tug. Dana put me on the front position, and took anchor herself.  I think she was going to try for the more active win, instead of following Chrissy’s lead and winning by fatigue.  I asked if she was sure, and she insisted that she was. 

So, we lined up, Ms. Owens gave the word, and I started the count.  We were taking small steps back (well, I was, I couldn’t see what the others were doing behind me), and I was concentrating on trying to pull just hard enough.  I knew I had to win, but not hurt anybody or make anybody look bad.  I leaned back a little too hard, though, and Chrissy’s entire team came flying.  Oops.  Nobody got hurt, thank goodness. 

Chrissy made a big show about being a good sport about it in the locker room after, and I think she mostly meant it.  I don’t mind taking P.E., even if it’s kinda pointless for me now, but maybe I can get Ms. Owens to excuse me from team activities. 

The rest of school was no problem.  My last class was Spanish, and I guess all the looking for articles about Rocío is paying off, because I finished all my work there early enough to finish most of the homework from my other classes.

By the time school was out, I’d come to a decision.  I wasn’t going to show off, but I wasn’t going to hide who (what) I am, either.  So, I changed my Eufiber from my school uniform to jeans and a t-shirt out in front of everyone, gathered up what I’d need for the little bit of leftover homework (somebody’d decorated my locker with all kinds of ‘welcome back’ stuff, which was sweet), and took off from in front of the main entrance.  I could hear some of the kids from the middle school actually cheer as I went by.  I’m not sure whether to be amused or mortified.  Both? Both.

I made it to the Clinic in good time, and Bix was ready with the hyperbaric chamber again.  I asked for more pressure again, and this time, nothing popped.  Progress! I told him about wanting time with the girls tomorrow, and he said that was fine.  We worked it out so that I would come to the Clinic on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after school, and spend all day either Saturday or Sunday as well.  Preferably Saturday AND Sunday, but either would do.  But in exchange, I should expect to push hard when I am at the Clinic.  It seemed like a good compromise.

From the Clinic, I went grocery shopping. Even pro-rated, my first month’s stipend is more money than I’ve ever had in my life, and I’ll admit I went a little nuts.  I focused on high-energy foods, to get the most nutrition out of the least amount of food.  The school’s lunch has made it clear that I need to either bring my own lunch entirely, or at least supplement.  I can’t live on that glop everyday anymore.

I surprised Mom by having dinner ready- nothing special, just a rotisserie chicken I’d gotten at the grocery store with red potatoes.  We settled into our old evening routine, and then I finished up the last little bit of homework. 

So, today had its ups and downs (literally), but it could have been a lot worse.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, September 23

Today was more of the same, really.  Although I had decided not to hide myself, I still felt it was a good idea to land in the trees, since there was less chance of my inadvertently hurting someone there, rather than trying to land anywhere near the crowded main entrance.  Kids aren’t known for looking left and right, after all, let alone up. So the trees it would be. 

Except that the clump of trees was packed absolutely full of kids- mostly middle school kids, but a few older ones as well.  They were packed in so tight, I didn’t have room to come down at all!  So, I ended up landing outside the clump instead, where there were fewer people.  This is going to be a problem.  Maybe I could rope off an area and declare it an off-limits landing zone?  A crowd of younger kids followed me to school again, this time crowding closer and being more strategic about asking questions. And I answered as many as I could.  A lot of the kids wanted to take selfies with me, too, and since I was a few minutes early, I said it was ok.  Hopefully, I wasn’t blushing too badly. 

Classes went fine, and I put out the word that I’d be visiting Bailey on Thursday, if anyone had anything they wanted me to take to her. Surely some people will send cards, or something, at least.  I’m still surprised that no one else has been visiting her.  I’d expected that Jeremy would, at least.  Even the cheer team only went once.  I managed to get all my homework done in class this time, so I could enjoy the rest of the day guilt-free.

Lunch was weird, though.  I was going to sit with the girls again, but Jeremy pushed his way through the lunch line to join me.  (Taco Tuesday is always good, even though I’d brought extra lunch from home.)  We hadn’t gotten to talk yesterday, and he’d looked like he wanted to, so I figured he was taking his opportunity.  Still, he’s always shoving his way into things and pushing other people around.  I’ve never understood what Bailey sees in him.  Then again, I tend to only hang around him with her, so maybe he improves on further acquaintance. Or maybe he’s just nicer one-on-one.  Anyway…

He pushes his was over to me, and was standing way too close.  He stands too close to Bailey, too, but she never seemed to mind.  I edged away.  I don’t want to be that close with any guy in public, especially not my best friend’s boyfriend.  He asks me how I’ve been,, and says school has been lame without me (bullshit- I never had any impact on the social scene before now).  I told him that I was sure things had been boring without Bailey around, and was he planning to go visit her soon?  I could give him the room number.  He sorta hemmed and hawed, and didn’t really commit.  Maybe he just didn’t want to be put on the spot?  Maybe he doesn’t like hospitals? (Who does?)

So, I start telling him how she’s doing (not in a privacy-violating way), and how bored she is, and how much she misses everyone.  He kept trying to turn the conversation back to me.  By the time I made it to the end of the lunch line, he came right out with what was really on his mind- he asked me to go for coffee after school! 

Now, I haven’t had a boyfriend since the sixth grade.  I don’t have a lot of experience with guys.  So I’m not 100% sure if he’s asking for a friendly hangout, or a date.  Or maybe he just wants to be seen in public with a nova- I can’t forget that that’s always going to be a possibility now.  But I know my hackles are up, and I don’t like this.  Even if he’s just being friendly- we’re not that kind of friends.  So I tell him, “sorry, no, I’ve already got plans after school.  But I’ll tell Bailey you said hi”.  Then I meet up with the girls at ‘our’ table.  He followed me over to the table, but couldn’t force his way quite as close this time, so I was able to ignore him.

P.E. showed me that some things never change.  I always avoided watching Bailey’s tennis practice because, no matter where I sat, tennis balls came flying at my head.  Well, apparently so do badminton birdies.  I was nailed by three! In one hour!  It didn’t hurt, but still!  I told Dana and Chrissy to throw Rock Paper Scissors, and I’d be on the winner’s team.  Luckily, none of my nova powers really helped much with badminton, so having me on a team was purely a social competition, rather than an athletic one.  I mean, sure, I could have sent those birdies flying with enough force to break things, but that would be a dick move.  So P.E. went all right. 

After school, I met up with Jess, Monique, and Alejandra in the parking lot.  Since they were still in their school uniforms, I left my Eufiber that way, too.  Jess has an old Honda Civic, so we all piled in.  I think some of the kids were disappointed not to get to see me fly away again. A bunch of notifications started to come up when I turned my phone back on, but since my Utopia communicator hadn’t gone off, I knew it was nothing important and didn’t want to be rude.

We did the usual “What do you want to do” “I dunno, what do you want to do?” thing on our way out, and eventually we ended up at the mall.  I was starving again, so we headed for the food court. I grabbed four slices of New York style pizza, and an order of Mongolian beef.  When we met back up, everybody stared at my tray, and Jess said I ate like a Hobbit, and did I know about Second Breakfast?  I couldn’t even be mad. 

While we were eating, we got to really talk.  We weren’t exactly private, but we weren’t surrounded by kids listening in on us, either.  Monique started asking me, all serious, what it was really like to be a nova.  Not what I’d already told them about the Clinic and training, but what it really felt like.  She always cuts to the meat of things.  So, I told them.  As best I could, anyway.  I told them about the stream of fire I felt inside me, and how it felt to fly.  And how it felt getting lost in the swamp and having to figure out my own way out of it.  I told them about Alex (though not by name).  I did not tell them about Rocío.  I told them about how nervous I was, waiting for my first NSI call. (I don’t even want to think about anything Utopia would call me up for.)

            Then Jess asked about the wreck, and that was harder.  I told them that I didn’t remember the exact moment of the wreck itself, but between Bailey’s injuries and how bad my bruises were (and the fact that I had any bruises at all), I guess I must have been hurt pretty bad, even though I healed up so quickly.  I told them about pulling the door off the car, but not being able to do anything for Bailey but call 911.  I told them a little about the minivan, but I kept that vague.  I don’t want to think about that again.

Alejandra picked up that I wasn’t happy and changed the subject, demanding a demonstration of my powers.  And to know exactly what I can do.  They’d seen me fly, and heard about yesterday’s P.E. class.  But they wanted details.  So, I told them.  Most of it.  I left out the part about being able to take quantum from other novas.  When they insisted on demonstrations, I made them all give me their cell phones.  None of them had more than 70% battery.  I showed them their batteries, then charged each one up to full by touching it.  (With a little practice, I’d gotten a feel for how much ‘oomph’ to put in, so now things don’t even heat up much when I put power in them.)  Then, I looked around, and since it didn’t seem like many people were paying attention, I went invisible for a few seconds.  That got some squeals, and when I faded back in, I noticed a couple of people a few tables over had their phones out- probably recording.  Oh well.

After we ate, we bummed around the mall for a while.  We tried on some clothes, got massages in those automatic massage chairs, watched the guy at the candy store make caramel apples in the window, and just generally had a good time.  I think it was the first time I felt really normal since I erupted. 

After we left the mall, Jess headed toward my place. (I could have just flown home, but I was enjoying the hangout time.  Jess stopped at a little pocket park on the way, though, and turned to me, trying to be all serious but still really excited.  She told all of us to get out, and we did.  I was confused, but they had a plan. 

They’d picked out this park because it was usually empty, and it was.  Alejandra put her hands on my shoulders, looked me square in the eye, and told me it was time to do my duty as their new favorite superhero. <uh-oh!>  It was time for me to take them flying. 

Crap. Double crap. Triple crap, even.

I tried to talk my way out of it, but they insisted.  I mean, I could have just refused, but these are my friends, I didn’t want to disappoint them.  Even after I told them I’d never flown with another person before, they still wanted to.  I told them about the 400 feet rule, and how I wasn’t willing to even go up that high.  That I wouldn’t go high enough for them to really hurt themselves if anything happened.  Monique pointed out the pond, and suggested flying over that, then she started doing a flight attendant impression and giving an ‘in the event of a water landing’ speech. 

That led to a new consideration- how to carry someone?  Princess carry?  Fireman carry? On the hip like a toddler?  Piggyback?  Grab under the armpits and dangle like a cat?  (Probably not that last- the cats rarely like it.)  Jess insisted on being first, since it was her idea.  Monique suggested that I could carry all three of them at once, but I put my foot down on that one.  I mean, I’m pretty sure I could, but that’s just asking for trouble.

Fireman carry always looked uncomfortable to me, so I opted to scoop Jess up Princess-style.  I told her to hold on tight, and jumped into the air.  I. Was. So. Freaking. Nervous.  I flew around in circles over the pond, did a couple of swoops and quick turns, and hovered in place so the other girls could take pictures.  She was laughing her head off when I put her down.  It was pretty much the same with Alejandra, though she had the sense to hand her phone off to Jess for pictures.  Monique had to be different.  As soon as I set Alejandra back on her feet, Monique jumped on my back, wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist and yelled “Giddyap!”  So, I made sure I had a good grip on her legs and giddyap’d.  She was whooping and hollering.  At one point, she tried to use my hair like reins and I told her to cut that out before I bucked her off (kidding, of course).  I’m glad she enjoyed, but I didn’t feel like I had nearly as secure a hold on her as I did with the other girls.  I think Piggyack is off the table as a viable flying option. 

            They insisted on having another turn each.  Alejandra demanded a barrel roll and almost threw up on me.  It was fun, even if I was nervous while it was going on.  Then Jess dropped us all off at our places. 

Once I got home, I finally got a chance to sort through my phone notifications.  Most of it was the usual social media push notifications and emails.  But there were several new posts on the ‘Colleen Sightings’ forum.  Apparently, some of the kids at school have found it, and started posting pictures.  Mostly of me taking off and landing, and some of the selfies with the younger kids.  I guess I should have expected that.  But a new post popped up as I was scrolling through.  It had a couple of shots of me at the mall with the girls.  Their faces were blurred out, but mine wasn’t.  It looked like the pictures were taken from some middle distance, with a zoom.  The pictures were cropped as well as the girls’ faces being blurred out.  Somebody put a little effort into the post- more than just a quick upload of a casual photo.  The second post (from the same user name- ‘Watch_th3_Skys’) was what really scared me, though. Several pictures of us flying in the park.  These were taken from long range, with a variety of zoomed-in effects.  Again, the girls’ faces were blurred. 

I had made sure to look for people in the park before the flying.  I didn’t see anyone.  And with my vision, I would have, unless they were going out of their way to hide from me.  Somebody was following me.  Who is Watch_th3_Skys?  Do I know them?  I’m a minor, surely there’s some law about taking pictures of me?

Later-

After some research, it looks like me being a minor doesn’t stop people from taking (and posting) pictures of me, as long as I’m in a public place ‘with no expectation of privacy’.  And it’s heavily implied that being a nova basically removes any ‘expectation of privacy’ anywhere but (maybe) in my own home. 

Those pictures of me at the mall, and especially the ones of me at the park, have gotten a lot of comments.  WtS shared the park’s location, so no doubt people will be hanging out there, for a while at least, in hopes of another sighting.  Good thing it wasn’t a favored hangout spot. 

I don’t like this, but I’m not sure there’s much I can do about it.  I don’t think one day’s activity can make a case for stalking, and anyway, the line between ‘interest’ and ‘stalking’ when it comes to any celebrity is blurry, doubly so for novas.  And really, nothing actually happened.  You could even say that WtS was restrained and polite by protecting the girls’ identities.  He could have put all of us out there. Instead, he(?) left them as much privacy as he could.  Maybe this is harmless, and just something I need to get used to. 

I don’t want to risk blowing my cover on the forum, so I’m hesitant to ask many questions.  For now, at least, I think it’s better if I pretend that I don’t know about the forum.  But I’ll talk to Mr. Li tomorrow, just in case he has any advice.

Some of the other posts on the forum were less worrying.  There’s a thread speculating about my powers.  They know about the flying and invisibility, and know that I’m strong, but the speculation about how strong I am borders on the ridiculous.  ‘First_Fan’ (one of the forum moderators) has it on good authority that I can juggle 747s.  LoL

The other interesting thread was speculating about when I would announce my nova name, and what it would be.  There’s even a running list of suggestions- most of which don’t bear repeating for one reason or another.  I’ll keep an eye on that thread though.  Who knows?  Somebody might come up with a good idea. 

Since there’s nothing I can really do about WtS, I might as well do some more name research.  I don’t think I’ll be sleeping anytime soon.

Even Later-

I’ve got a few options from Greek and Norse mythology. Roman left me cold.  I’ve been thinking a lot about cultural appropriation versus appreciation.  There are some cultures that I’m just flat-out not comfortable selecting a name from, such as the various Native American groups, and most of the Asian mythologies.  I think pretty much anything Indo-European is probably fine.  Most of Africa wouldn’t be appropriate, but Egypt seems like a special case.  Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India have all played such key roles in the development of literature, philosophy, and culture in general that they seem more available for (respectful) consideration.  I think the other thing is to ensure that I’m not taking something out of context.  So, once I have a list of good options, I’ll need to do some serious research into each one, to have the best chance of understanding and respecting the implications.

Egyptian mythology in particular has been spread so far across the world that it doesn’t seem disrespectful to consider names involving it.  I’d still want to avoid any of the major, most well-known deities, but there are a bunch of others.  Hesat could work.  I’d like to do whatever I can for humanity, and she was a cow Goddess who was all about protecting humanity and fertility.  That doesn’t really speak to me, though.  It does have the advantage of being easy to spell and pronounce.  Wosret makes a kind of cycnical sense- very little is known about her, and she’s considered ‘the Goddess next door’.  But that seems a little bitter. Hu is fascinating, being the personification of the first word.  But when I looked further into it, that ‘first word’ was spoken when Atum either came, or was circumcised.  I’m not leaving myself open to those kinds of jokes. Nope.

Kagemni was a deified mortal, which I like.  One of his titles was ‘overseer of scribes’, which has a nice connection with teaching and knowledge. A little tough to pronounce, and technically a man, but gender issues don’t really bother me.  Now Sia, or Saa, has a lot of promise.  The personification of perception and ‘intellectual energies of the heart’.  There’s a connection to writing, documents, and record-keeping that I like as well.  Sopdet, or Sothis, (I like Sothis better) is connected with Sirius, and speaks to my interest in space.

Seshat looks like a really good choice.  She’s tied to Thoth, which is a little too well-known for my taste, but she’s just about perfect.  Goddess of scribes, writing, most forms of education, all kinds of things.  Really, she’s probably the best option yet.  And her name is fairly easy, too. The last one I found was another strong candidate.  Maybe even stronger than Seshat, in a different way.  Heka.  It means ‘magic’, which in itself isn’t promising.  Until you look deeper and get into concepts like ‘inner fire’ and ‘divine force’.  Inner fire.  That’s what I see when I focus on my power.  A river of inner fire.  And if novas had been around in ancient Egypt, wouldn’t their powers have been accepted as magic?  We ‘know better’ now, but do we really?  A thousand years from now, will we look back on what we ‘knew’ now and laugh at how ignorant we were?  Probably.  And who knows?  I think it was Arthur C. Clarke that said, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so maybe there ultimately isn’t that much difference between the two?

It looks like Egypt has a lot to offer, name-wise.  But the Heka idea makes me think of some other ideas of ‘magic’, and what might lie underneath those themes.  But that’s for later, I think.  I’m not sure I want to connect myself with more widely-known ideas of magic- not if I want to be taken seriously.

That was enough name stuff for one night, so I switched over to the navigation course I’d signed up for.  The first few lessons were easy, so I knocked out several of them in one sitting.  I didn’t learn much actual navigation, but it makes sense to establish baseline knowledge before moving on to the harder stuff.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, September 23

I got to school early today.  Partially to see if I could avoid the crowd, and mostly to try and build myself a little ‘landing zone’.  Just to be sure, I flew the last little bit invisible, and slowed down to not make noise or cause a breeze in passing.

It worked, and I was able to land without being noticed, but I felt a little sleazy about it.  I don’t know why, but I did.  It’s not like I owe these kids my time or attention, right?  But, somehow, it feels like I do.  Like, because I have these powers, I have a duty to make myself available to people.  That’s the Project Utopia line, at least.  And, maybe I agree?  Or maybe the constant exposure at the Clinic is influencing me?

YOU’RE LETTING UTOPIA GET INTO YOUR HEAD, KITTEN.  YOUR ONLY DUTY IS TO YOURSELF AND YOUR FELLOW NOVAS.

~S

Either way, I landed, picked out an open spot, and started collecting rocks.  Rather large rocks, that I had no problem carrying, but that other people would have trouble moving.  And I set them up in a ring, about four feet across.  Well, at least I got about half of it done.  I’ll need to pick up more rocks from elsewhere on campus.  I had set up all the big rocks I could find close by when the kids found me. 

They wanted to know what I was doing, and I explained that it was dangerous for them to be too close to me when I was coming in for a landing, because there was a risk of my landing on them and hurting someone.  So, I was making this circle, and when it was finished, I was going to ask that no one who comes to see me in the mornings stand in it.  That way, I’ll always have a clear place to land.  The kids seemed to accept that.  Then came the usual (usual?!?! Am I getting a swelled head already?) request for hugs and selfies.  I figured more of these would end up on the forum, but that’s harmless, I guess.  But one guy- he couldn’t have been more than fourteen- actually grabbed my boob!!!! 

I wanted to slap him, but knew that wouldn’t go over well.  So instead, I just went invisible, called him a pervert, and stomped off.  I stayed invisible until I was almost at the main entrance.  Jerk.  Hopefully the rest of the kids will shut him down so I won’t have to.

Nothing really interesting happened at school.  A couple of people gave me ‘get well’ cards to pass on to Bailey.  Jeremy asked me out again, and I still said ‘no’ (I really wish I knew what he was up to!).  The girls were giggling over the pictures they’d taken in the park, and were getting a lot of attention and some jealousy.  I overheard somebody saying how I was a bitchy show-off, and thought I was better than everyone else, but I couldn’t tell which of a group of six girls had said it.  And I still don’t want to let on how sharp my senses are, so I had to let it go.  I’d kinda expected reactions like that, sooner or later.  High school drama is bad enough, even without this.  A certain amount of envy is inevitable.  That doesn’t mean I like it, but I was expecting it.  It still hurt, though.  Those girls weren’t close friends, but I’d thought we were on better terms than that.  Somehow, I bet they’ll still be all smiles to my face.

When I got to the Clinic, I stopped in to see Mr. Li before going out to the barn.  It turns out, he already knew about the forum.  He basically told me to get used to it, and that so far none of what was going on was actionable.  In fact, he considered it to be somewhere between neutral and positive publicity for me.  He cautioned me to be careful flying with my friends, but accepted my reassurance that I’d been careful to only fly over water for safety.  He seemed slightly concerned about ‘Watch_th3_Skys’, not so much because he(?) was following me, but because I hadn’t noticed him.  He said he’d have someone look into it and get back to me.  And that was that. 

Out at the barn, Bix had me in the sensory deprivation chamber again.  I asked him after if he hadn’t set the temperature as low as before, because it hadn’t seemed as cold.  In fact, I’d almost forgotten about the cold in my attempts to stay underwater longer.  (I’ve been breath-holding whenever I could during school when I wasn’t busy with other things.)  This time, I was able to break 800 Mississippi several times, and once almost hit 1,000!

After I finished at the Clinic, I stopped off at Claws of Coffee.  Mom had agreed to me adopting Furnado, so I wanted to get the process started.  It turns out that I had to fill out a form, and submit pictures of my home, specifically the cat supplies Furnado would have, and pay a $100 adoption fee.  I went ahead and filled out the form, and told them I’d come back with the pictures on Friday, since I would need to go supply shopping on Thursday.  It turns out that Furnado is bonded with another cat, Pyewacket.  Pyewacket is mostly black with a white belly and a torn-up ear.  Not quite tuxedo markings, but close.  He’s an older cat, and he doesn’t get much attention in the café.  I’d never really noticed him, to be honest.  Berta said it wasn’t likely that he’d ever get adopted, since he was a senior cat, and not very cuddly.  Well, what could I do?  Mom will understand.  I put down $200 for them both, with the understanding that I’d pick them up on Friday when I came back with the pictures of their new home.  Berta tried to refuse my money, but I told her it was as much for the other cats as for Furnado and Pyewacket.  It took some convincing, but she finally agreed.  After I visit Bailey tomorrow, I’ll stop by the pet store and get a litterbox, food, dishes, toys, all the good stuff.  And two cat carriers, of course.  I can’t imagine trying to hold one cat and stuff the other down my Eufiber…. As I was leaving, I saw Berta put the ‘I’m going home!’ stickers next to each of their pictures. 

It occurred to me that carrying the cat tree along with all the other supplies tomorrow would be hard to maneuver with, so I flew as fast as I could and got to the pet store about ten minutes before they closed.  Not enough time to do the main supply run, but enough time to pick out a good cat tree- and that was the bulkiest thing anyway.  I think the employees might have been a little less friendly about my last minute arrival if they hadn’t seen me fly in.  Since I was going to be out before they close, I didn’t feel too bad about it.  With two cats to consider now, I needed a more substantial tree.  I ended up picking one that has platforms on three levels, with a hammock and a couple of dangly things and a feather on a spring.  If I know Furnado, the feather won’t survive the day, and I’ll probably have to remove the spring, but oh well. 

I scooted out of there with two minutes to spare.  Luckily, the box has a handle, so flying with it is easy.  And I’ll have tonight to assemble it. 

Chapter Text

Thursday, September 24

I got to school early again, and finished my rock ring.  Once a bunch of the kids gathered, I explained the ‘stay out of the ring’ rule, told them why, and put the older kids that keep showing up in charge of reminding the younger ones.  I hope this works.  The last thing I want to do is accidentally hurt someone. 

School was uneventful.  I’ve pretty much worked out a system for getting my homework done during class, so barring any major take-home assignments, my after-school time is as much my own as the Clinic allows.  Jeremy was lurking around anytime I was in the halls or at lunch, but didn’t try to talk to me today.  He was just…watching.

A few more people gave me cards (and one small teddy bear) for Bailey, and I gathered them all up when I left. 

Bailey is looking a little better.  Mr. Adams excused himself after a little conversation.  I gave her the cards and bear, and told her how much everyone missed her.  (Actually, I was surprised that more people hadn’t made a fuss about Bailey being in the hospital.)  She’s one of the most popular girls in school, so I assumed people would be making a huge deal over her accident.  But they haven’t.  I hope that I’ve not overshadowed her, somehow?  But surely not for the first couple of weeks, at least.  No one really knew where I was, or what I was doing, and everybody knew where Bailey was.  So it seems like she should have gotten a lot more attention than she did, at least in those first two weeks. 

She glanced through the cards and put the bear on the bedside table. She said the police had been around to question her again, and she thought they might be finishing up their investigation into the accident.  She was looking at me with a weird intensity, so I told her that I hadn’t spoken to them recently and was sure she had nothing to worry about.  That seemed to be the right thing to say.  I wonder if they will come talk to me again.  If they do, I won’t tell them anything different than I already have.  What would be the point in screwing up Bailey’s life even more?  It wouldn’t undo anything.

We visited for a little bit.  It was awkward, since all I really had to talk about was school and the Clinic, and those were things she wasn’t able to be part of.  She said that the doctors were thinking about maybe letting her go home in another week, if she kept improving, but that going back to school was still ‘to be determined’. 

On my way out of the hospital, I stopped off at the courtyard, but Rocío wasn’t there.  Of course he wasn’t.  Why would he be? 

I went back to the pet store and got my list of supplies.  Two soft-sided cat carriers. An extra-large litter box, liners, scoop, and litter. Food and water dishes, kibble and wet food.  (Male cats especially need wet food to prevent urinary problems since they tended not to drink as much water as they needed.)  Toys, two cat beds, a brush, and some catnip.  There was a display of bubbles with catnip in them for you to blow for your cats, so I got some of that, too.  I got them both collars with reflective patches on them, just in case they ever escaped, and made them tags with my phone number on the automatic tag making machine.  Lastly, I got Furnado a harness and leash.  I don’t think Pyewacket is a ‘go for walks’ cat, but Furnado might be.  I understand now why Mom always said we couldn’t afford a cat.  Even though most of these are one-time purchases, it still added up.

Once I got home, I assembled the cat tree and got everything else set up, with pictures taken.  Then I had a thought.  Cats are not, by nature, flying animals.  Cats typically do not like new environments.  (I know to keep them in my bedroom for a few days to let them acclimate.)  I have the carriers, but I’m still going to have to fly them home.  What if they panic and flail around?  After some thought, I broke out the craft supplies and got to work. 

I found my widest, sturdiest leather belt, and punched several holes in it, equally spaced along its length.  Then I ran double-split keyrings through each hole, giving me several sturdy metal attachments.  Then I dug out some carabiners, and experimented with attaching the carriers to the belt.  I still planned to carry the carriers, but that way, if the worst happened, they’d only fall a couple of feet before being caught by the belt.  I put some books in each carrier for weight, and it seemed to work pretty well.  It looks kinda stupid, but I don’t care as long as the cats are safe. 

It is not a utility belt.  I do not need a utility belt. I do not want a utility belt. It is not a utility belt.

I checked the forum again, and there was a picture of my leaving the pet store yesterday with the cat tree box.  Watch_th3_Skys is still following me.

Chapter Text

Friday, September 25 (The Fire)

I’ll admit, I wasn’t paying much attention in school today, since I was looking forward to bringing the cats home.  So I was maybe a little more surprised than I should have been when my Utopia communicator vibrated against my arm.  I have it set to only send me emergency alerts during school hours, and to vibrate- only escalating to making a noise if I ignore it.  It went off in the middle of World History.  I was able to twist around enough to read the display without making a show of it. 

There was a fire in an apartment building, and the fire department was having trouble with it.  People were almost certainly trapped.  The alert gave GPS coordinates and told me to get there ASAP.  I jumped up, waved my arm at Mr. Arnett, said that it was an emergency and I had to leave, and ran.  I only stopped long enough to stuff my backpack in my locker. 

I made it to the apartment building in about six minutes.  The firefighters were doing their best, but there was some problem with the water.  The hydrant wasn’t working for some reason, and they only had one tanker truck on site. 

I landed next to clump of firemen and asked how I could help.  They wanted to know what I could do, and I told them- I could fly, I was pretty strong, fairly tough, and healed quickly.  I don’t think they realized I was a kid, or maybe they just didn’t care.  They sent me up to the nineth floor, where several different windows had been broken out.  There were people in all of them.  Firefighters were working their way up the inside of the building, but things weren’t looking good.

I. Was. Terrified. There’s something about a big fire that hits you right in the lizard brain. The idea of going toward it, rather than away from it was… alien. But what else could I do?  I flew straight up there and did what I could.  The first window with people in it still had glass shards, so I elbowed those out before grabbing people.  There were two guys, a few years older than me, in that first apartment, and I had to tuck one of them under each arm like a football to carry them.  It was the only safe way I could be sure of.  We zipped straight down to the ground, I dropped them off (literally dropped one of them- he was shorter than I realized), and went back for more.

The next apartment had an old lady, and I was able to bring her down more comfortably.  Then two kids and a babysitter(?).  I was grateful to Monique then, because I had the sitter get on my back and told her she had to hold on tight while I carried the kids.  That was one really scary, since I knew if she fell, there was nothing I could do about it without dropping the kids.

It went on and on.  It felt like hours, but I’m sure that’s wrong.  At one point, I think I remember another tanker truck showing up, and I think some people were trying to talk to me, but I just kept going back up. 

After I’d cleared out everyone who’d broken out windows and attracted attention, I circled the building, looking in windows for anyone else.   The fire had really spread by now, and I wasn’t sure if there were still firefighters inside.  But one of the apartments looked like someone was home, but there hadn’t been anybody at the windows.  I could see food on the table.  Someone was home, or had been.  I couldn’t risk leaving them. 

So, I punched out the window.  (I haven’t punched anything since I was ten, but when you’re strong enough, skill doesn’t matter.)  As soon as fresh air got in, I could hear fire roaring up from inside, and see the light, even if not the flames themselves.  I yelled, but I don’t think anyone in there could have heard me.  I had to go in. 

I went in through the living room, and didn’t see anyone.  The hall was on fire, and it was between me and the inner bedroom.  The smoke was so thick I could barely see, and when I tried to use my other vision, the heat was so painful I was nearly blinded.  I think I might have thrown up a little. So I tried to crawl down the hallway to avoid the smoke (In hindsight, that was probably unnecessary).  Some stuff fell on me from the ceiling, but I just brushed it off and kept going.  The hallway was full of smoke, even down near the floor.  I couldn’t breathe, but I had to keep going, just in case someone was in there.

I made it to the bedroom, and it’s a good thing I did.  She’d slipped on a rug and there was no way that ankle wasn’t broken.  She had to have weighed at least three hundred pounds, so I’m not sure she could have gotten up easily anyway, even without the ankle.  She was lying there, coughing her lungs out, trying to get up.  She had a little wiener dog with her.  The dog kept nudging her like it was trying to help her up.  If I hadn’t been so scared, it would have been funny.

I couldn’t leave the dog, but I’d need both hands to carry her safely.  So I stuffed the dog down my Eufiber (only then realizing it was still set for ‘school uniform’), and picked the woman up.  I know she was scared, and in pain, but her screeching nearly blew my eardrums out.  Have you ever tried to lift a sleeping cat?  It’s like they have no bones, and just kinda flop around.  That was what carrying this woman was like.  I told her to hold her breath through the hallway (I obviously couldn’t crawl carrying her), but I don’t think she listened.  At least, she never stopped screeching. 

I got her down on the ground, and went back for one last check.  But that was everyone.  The building was a total loss, but everyone, including the firefighters, had gotten out safely.  There was a lot of noise and heat, even on the ground, and an EMT was in my face asking if I was okay.  Apparently, I looked like shit.  It was only when I opened my mouth to tell him I was fine that I realized I hadn’t been breathing since I went down that hallway. 

The dog peed on me.

Mr. Li showed up soon after, and drove me to the Clinic.  He couldn’t seem to decide whether to praise me for handling everything as well as I did, or scold me for putting myself in danger.  I soon realized that it was only that final rescue where I went deeper into the building that had him so upset. 

Once we got back to the Clinic, Dr. Jackson examined me completely.  I didn’t realize it until then that I must have been on fire at some point, because the back of my Eufiber was burned through, and was only just beginning to regenerate.  Maybe whatever fell on me in that hallway?  I don’t know.  But Dr. Jackson says it will regenerate completely, and do so all the quicker if I keep it on.  So I’ll probably be sleeping in it tonight.

After Dr. Jackson finished with me, Mr. Li came back in to ‘debrief me’.  This was also my first time actually meeting Erica Sharpe, my handler.  After we did the usual greeting thing, she stayed quiet through Mr. Li’s debrief.  (I’d heard of people being ‘debriefed’ on TV and in the movies.  I’d never really known what it meant, but thought it sounded exciting and even a little dangerous.  It isn’t.)  That took a couple of hours, with a lot of nitpicky questions and critique.  I get the questions, but how can he critique when he wasn’t even there?!?  He then informed me that this was standard procedure- both medical exam and interrogation- after every incident where I functioned as a nova under stress.  Basically, anything unexpected or dangerous, like a fire or a crime; but not anything scheduled or safe, like a public appearance or press release.  Debriefs are to occur as soon after the event as possible, before making any substantive contact with the media. 

Luckily, the media had been on-site, but the EMT kept them away from me until Mr. Li got there.  At that point, Ms. Sharpe- Erica, she said to call her Erica- spoke up and said that she’d be scheduling a press event between me and the fire department for tomorrow morning.  I told her that I had no idea what to say or do, and anyway, surely the fire department had something better to do?  Apparently, they do not. Ms. Sharpe- Erica’s- parting words were to expect Nova Serviced International to have a contract for me within a week or so, now that I’d drawn attention and made a hero of myself. 

Part of me is excited to have my first job as a nova, but I’m concerned that it’ll be some kind of ‘hero’ job.  Today proved one thing for me- I might be able (and willing) to help people in need, but this is not the kind of nova I want to be.  I want to make small differences to as a lot of people, not be an action star.  That’s not who I am.

BASELINES WILL USE YOU ANY WAY THAT YOU LET THEM, KITTEN.

~S

When I finally got out of the Clinic, it was later than I expected.  I’m to report to Bix tomorrow after the fire department.  But I still had time to get to Claws of Coffee, even after stopping at home to pick up the carriers and my belt. 

By the time I got there, the fire was all over the news, including video of me.  There was even a looped clip of me pulling that dog out of my Eufiber, with a screenshot of us regarding each other with what I can only describe as mutual suspicion. Luckily, my wet front wasn’t apparent.  The café was more than half full, and the few people who didn’t realize that I was the nova on the news were soon told.  Everybody wanted to talk to me, congratulate me (I wanted to ask ‘for what?’ but didn’t), and buy me tea.  I couldn’t figure out how to extricate myself, and Berta was no help at all.  I think she just liked having me in her café- and having people know that I came to her café. 

But finally, things settled down,, and I was able to show Berta the pictures of my setup at home.  She approved (though I think at that moment she’d have approved me for almost anything), and we both signed the paperwork. 

I’d put towels down in the bottom of each carrier, and had an additional towel to cover each on with, in hopes that would keep them calmer on the flight home.  Pyewacket grew eight extra legs as soon as we tried to get him into the carrier, but we eventually got him in.  Furnado hopped right into his carrier, though getting him to lay down long enough to zip it closed took a little longer. 

A few more handshakes, hugs, and selfies, and I was able to leave with my new furry friends. I clipped both carrier handles to my belt, just in case, then wrapped each one in the towels and carried them home like footballs.  Furnado sang me the song of his people all the way, but seemed more excited than scared.  Pyewacket just seemed annoyed, and might be planning my death, if the growls are any indication.

At home, I found that Mom had come home early from her second job when she heard about the fire on the news.  I’m ashamed to admit that I never even thought to call her.  This time, I’m grateful for Mr. Li’s taking matters into his own hands, because he called her while Dr. Jackson was examining me. So she was worried, but not frantic.  She still hugged me really tight for a long time, and looked me over completely.  The burns (I assume there were burns on my back?) had long since healed, but the gaping hole in the back of my Eufiber was still filling itself back in, so I couldn’t pretend that nothing had happened. 

She did that weird thing moms do, alternately shaking me and hugging me; lecturing, and scolding, and telling me how amazing I was, all at the same time.  It was a relief to take her into my room and introduce her to the cats.  Pyewacket immediately disappeared under my bed, which I’d expected.  Furnado claimed the entire room (as well as Mom and I) as his own, ambling around and sniffing everything.  He stuck his head under the bed just long enough to ‘brrrt?’ at Pyewacket, then went back to exploring.  Mom fell in love with him instantly. 

Mom had been too worried to cook, so we got pizza delivered.  It was the strangest thing.  I don’t need to breathe anymore, and now (for the first time since I erupted) I wasn’t hungry.  I was still able to eat just fine, though.  But somehow, it felt like I was just… going through the motions.  Weird.  I’ll have to talk to Bix about it tomorrow.  Now that I think of it, I didn’t mention the breathing thing to Dr. Jackson, either.  Oops.

After dinner, I had a look at the forum.  As expected, there was a lot of buzz about today.  All the footage I’d seen at Claws was posted, as well as some that I hadn’t seen yet.  One actually showed me flying that last woman down, and (there was a zoomed-in shot posted along with it) you could actually see that my back was on fire.  Or smoldering, at least.  And I hadn’t even noticed!

I was reading all the conversations when a new alert for my name popped up.  A new OpNet site had gone online, not linked to the ‘Colleen Sightings’ forum.  This one was an actual fan club.  I can’t even. Luckily, there wasn’t much actual content on the site (yet).

Right as I was about to give into Furnado’s demands for all my attention (instead of the one-handed lap petting he’d been getting), I got an email from Rocío.  He congratulated me on my first real entry into novadom, and invited me out for coffee tomorrow.  I emailed him back, thanking him, and explaining that I’d like to, but that I had the fire department thing in the morning, and training at the Clinic in the afternoon.  Maye another day?  Instead, he fired back, offering a dinner date instead!  Well, what could I do?  Of course, I said yes.  I would text him as soon as I got out of the Clinic- no later than six.  We’d decide where to go from there. 

And that was that.  I have a date.  With a nova. With another nova.  One who’s actually nice to me.  And I have a cat to cuddle, with a second one I am eager to snuggle at his own pace. 

All is right with the world.

Chapter Text

Saturday, September 26

I really didn’t know what to expect from the firefighter thing.  Maybe just the chance for them to say ‘thanks for the help’ in front of the cameras?  Well, I guess in the most boiled-down sense, that’s what it was. 

They made me an ‘honorary firefighter’.  With a badge and everything.  And not a little kid’s plastic thing, either.  They gave me a tour of the fire station, and I got to meet a lot of the men who’d been at the apartment building yesterday.  They were all really nice, and seemed really happy to have me there- not patronizing or condescending at all.  There were reporters everywhere, taking pictures and asking questions, but even with all that, it somehow seemed like just me and the firefighters, being together like people.  It couldn’t have been more different than the last time I dealt with reporters.  I was comfortable pretty much the whole time.  They even let me slide down the pole!  😊  Mom always said it was her job to keep me off the pole, but oh well.  I’m sure someone will make something nasty out of those pictures, but I don’t care.

Later, at the Clinic, I told Bix about the not breathing thing, and about not being hungry last night.  He seemed to have an idea what was going on, and said he wanted to run some tests. I assumed that meant having me do something in particular, but he just had me get in the hyperbaric chamber as usual.  My ears popped quicker than usual, and then popped a second time (no damage, just like what happens on an airplane).  Bix was watching me really closely this time, when usually he just checks on me once or twice.  He had me in the chamber for almost two hours- longer than ever before.  It was about thirty minutes in before I realized that I’d stopped breathing again.  I tried to start again, and couldn’t, which freaked me out.  But I obviously wasn’t in any kind of trouble, so I settled down. 

After the session, Bix told me he’d reversed the settings.  I’d been sitting for two hours in nearly absolute vacuum.  I couldn’t breathe because he’d literally removed all the air. But he wasn’t ready to explain fully yet.  Instead, he put me in the sensory deprivation chamber.  I thought the ice inside smelled different, but he closed the top before I could say anything.  Another couple of hours.  I could feel the cold, but I couldn’t really feel it.  That is, I was aware that it was cold- colder than ever before.  But it didn’t actually bother me.  It was like the difference between being wet and dry in a warm room- you know you’re wet, but it isn’t especially problematic.

After Bix let me out, he told me why the ice smelled funny.  It was dry ice. I should have had frostbite over my entire body.  Needless to say, I did not. 

Once I was dressed again, Bix explained what he thinks happened.  All the endurance training that I’d been doing, coupled with the stress of the apartment fire triggered something in my quantum field, allowing my body to subconsciously adapt to harsh environments.  He’s pretty sure that as long as I have any quantum power in me at all, I may never need to eat, sleep, or breathe again.  I should be able to survive at the bottom of the ocean, in Antarctica (he told me not to try that, as there’s a weird group of isolationist novas down there), the deepest desert, or even outer space. 

He also said he was glad that he’d only leased the new equipment, since I wouldn’t be needing either chamber anymore.  Then, he got this weird look on his face, and told me to sit down.  I knew something heavy was coming.

He asked me what I knew about the average (expected) nova lifespan.  I told him that I’ve never thought about it.  About the same as a baseline?  Maye a little longer?  With all the medical advances in the last decade, regular people are more likely to see their eighties or even nineties, so I figured about that.  Maybe even one hundred?  Nope.  According to Bix, an average nova’s metabolism is such that they can reasonably expect to see at least one hundred and fifty years.  And that novas with enhanced endurance could easily see two hundred and fifty years.  (I wanted to ask how they’d figured that out, since novas have only been around for ten years, but he kept going.)  He said that novas who developed the kind of adaptability I was displaying could expect to live for several centuries.  Maybe even a thousand years. 

I… really don’t know what to think about that.  I was never somebody who dreamed of living forever.  I’ve seen old people, and a lot of them don’t seem very happy.  Their friends have all died, their families have either died or moved on with their lives, leaving them behind (metaphorically or literally).  Living for a long time doesn’t seem like much of a blessing to me.  On the other hand, maybe as I meet more novas, I’ll be able to make the kind of friends that might last that long.  I can only hope.  Because otherwise, ‘eternity’ could be awfully lonely.

It was a little after four when Bix sat me down for that little chat, and I needed some time to process it.  So, I left the Clinic early, and went down to the river to watch the water and think.  I can’t say I got much thinking done, but the water is older than I’ll ever be, and maybe that’s enough to find a little peace.  I watched the water until about five thirty, then texted Rocío. 

We decided to meet at a local steakhouse.  A mom-and-pop place, not a chain one.  I’d never been there before, but was willing to try it.  Rocío got there about five minutes after I did.  He drives one of those motorcycles that have you almost lying on top of to ride.  It looks fast.  And dangerous.  Baseline dangerous, anyway.

There were people in the waiting area, so I assumed we’d have to put our names on a list and wait, but the hostess looked at me, then at Rocío, and we were seated right away.  Maybe she recognized me from the news.  Surely neither of us stand out that obviously as novas, right?  We don’t have green skin, or antlers, or hair that moves on its own… But we got our table.  Rocío pulled my chair out for me and everything.  It was sweet, with none of the macho bullshit.  We both gave our orders (I had the New York Strip, he had a huge ribeye.) 

As soon as the waitress had dropped off our drinks, he asked me what was wrong.  I thought about denying that anything was, but something about him made me open up.  So, I told him about what Bix told me, and how I was still trying to work out how I felt about it. 

He actually seemed to take it seriously, and gave it some quiet thought.  Then, he told me that nothing could ever replace out baseline families (assuming we were lucky enough to start with good ones), but that novas had the opportunity, and maybe even the duty to make new, ‘found families’- with other novas.  He said that novas were people, and so some of them were assholes (like Alex, I thought, but didn’t say), but most of them were great people.  Or at least, interesting people.  People worth knowing, and worth talking to, and worth learning from. 

Then he said that he envied me, because if my body could adapt that way, then I would be ready to go into space when the time came.  He said that he was nowhere near ready himself, and didn’t know when he would be- if ever. 

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather.  I mean, most little kids dream of space, but I didn’t expect to find someone else who’d kept the dream!  And he talked like going into space was an inevitable group activity!  I asked him if he was talking about the Daedalus League, and he sorta brushed them aside.  He said they were doing good work, but they were ‘corporate’, and ‘in it for the wrong reasons’.  He was talking about people planning to go into space to make a new home for themselves, away from distractions, where they could explore and evolve in whatever direction their own destiny took them. 

He actually used the word ‘destiny’, like there was more to it than just a silly childhood dream we might get to actually live out.

Then our food came out, and we dug in.  It was delicious. I’m going to have to bring Mom here on her birthday.  We were interrupted once, when a woman a few years older than I was actually asked me for my autograph.  I was so embarrassed, but Rocío just snickered at me a little after she’d gone back to her table, and said ‘it was the price of fame’.  Dinner was fine.  We talked a lot about our early days as nova- he having more experience than me, of course.  But even so, he didn’t monopolize the conversation.  He kept coming back to the ideas of ‘found family’ and novas being able to depend on each other, and support each other, even when they didn’t always agree with one another.  How important it was to have a network of people you could rely on, who didn’t want to use you the way Utopia always did.  

I wanted to object to that last, but I really couldn’t.  I know I’m being used.  Project Utopia isn’t really hiding it, not if you know how to look.  They dress it up as ‘service to humanity’s greatest good’, but it still comes down to being used.  And I have no doubt that the (relatively) subtle emphasis on gratitude for the help I’m being given at the Clinic isn’t accidental.  But still, people use each other all the time.  It isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Right now, Utopia is using me mainly for media attention, but I have no doubt that as I grow up, and my powers grow, they’ll want more out of me. 

I told him that I knew Utopia was using me, but that, in a way, I was using them too.  How else was I supposed to learn about my powers?  And their goals were admirable, even if they were manipulative in getting to them.  But Rocío had an answer for that- the best people to help you learn about your abilities- about being a nova- was another nova.  Ideally, several other novas.  After all, what could baselines ever really know what it was like, any of it?  They could make graphs and do statistics, but they could never fly, or control elemental forces.  I told him he had a point, but since I only knew two novas, one of whom didn’t share my power set at all (as far as I knew), and the other who shared some of my powers but was a raging asshole, well, I would take what I could get in terms of training.  

It seemed like he was waiting for the opening, which raised some small alarm bells when I thought about it later.  Rocío immediately offered to introduce me around to other novas.  He got this big grin on his face, and asked if I’d been to the Amp Room yet.  Of course, I haven’t.  It’s in Ibiza, and I don’t even have a passport.  Not to mention that I’m underage.  And I’ve been a nova for less than a month.  

He said none of that (other than being a new nova) was important.  That the Amp Room was for all novas, no matter what.  Everyone was welcome, as long as they were novas.  Passports didn’t have to be a problem (though he did suggest that I look into getting one on general principles), since if we went, we wouldn’t be using the airports or involving any kind of border security agents.  Distance wasn’t a problem, though time zones were a consideration- Ibiza is six hours ahead of us. 

Of course, I had to ask him how he expected to work all this out, and he just oh-so-casually said that he’d ask Blinker to take us over and back.  He said I’d like Blinker- he used to be part of the space program, and actually went into space several times. 

Well, I could hardly say ‘no’ to something like that!  And he knew it, too.  Still, I knew better than to run off halfway across the world to a nova-only nightclub (with a pretty racy reputation) with a guy I barely knew and a strange man I’d never even met.  So, as much as I was interested, I asked for a rain check.  Maybe in a few weeks, when we knew each other better?  Then I nearly it my tongue off, because that sounded like I was expecting (or worse, asking for) a second date.  But he was fine with it. 

It was all ‘safe’ conversation for the rest of dinner.  I told him about my cats.  He told me about the horse ranch he visited whenever he could.  At one point, he nudged me once to point out some people filming us and trying to be sneaky about it.  They stopped when we turned around and waved at them.  I noticed a couple of other people taking pictures, but didn’t say anything.  There’s nothing I can really do about it, so I may as well get used to it.  But I envied Rocío a little, since he seemed to have avoided having his face splashed around everywhere.

When I said something to that effect, he laughed and said that he tried to keep a low-profile when he was in the States.  Things were different in Mexico, but the people who knew who he was there tended to express themselves with food and little gifts rather than cameras.  I suspect I’d find that even more embarrassing.  The people taking pictures of me are intruding on me, in a small way.  They aren’t giving up anything of themselves.  And most of them are at least well-off enough to eat out and have nice phones.  From what I’d read online, the people Rocío made a point of helping were really poor.  The things they gave him probably meant a lot more to them.  I hoped Rocío appreciated it, but didn’t think it was right to say so.  So, I let it go.

I’d already established that my cats were still settling in, and that I needed to be home with them as much as I could, so we went our separate ways after dinner.  Part of me would have liked to stay out longer, but I’ve had enough experience to know to end a date on a high note, looking forward to next time.  We said our goodbyes outside the restaurant.  Rocío was just the right amount of ‘interested’ without trying anything.  I’d had a good time, and I said so.  He did too, and that was that.  He draped himself over his motorcycle, and I took off. 

At home, Mom was working late, so it was just me and the cats.  Pyewacket had moved to the top of the bookcase, where he seemed to feel safe.  Furnado tried to climb me when I came in, but I scooped him up.  I don’t mind the claws, but it’s better that he not get used to climbing people he can actually scratch.   A quiet evening of cat cuddles was the perfect end to a complicated day.  At one point, I even lured Pyewacket down with treats, and got a few pets in. 

As I was close to getting ready for bed, I got an email, from Ms. Sha- from Erica. I have my first contract from Nova Services International.  Next weekend, I’m to travel to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and attend Midwest NovaCon 1.  I’m to be a guest of honor, participate in at least one ‘meet and greet’ (where people take pictures and sign autographs), and participate in several panels about novas.  I’m also expected to ‘make myself visible’ at various other events during the con. 

I’ve been to a few cons before.  Not many, since Bailey thinks they’re lame and usually has something else she absolutely needs me for.  But I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve been to.  I’ve never had the money for any of the big ones, like Dragon*Con or San Diego ComicCon, though.  I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the guests of honor at the cons I’d been to, since they tended to be voice actors I hadn’t heard of, or artists for fandoms I wasn’t especially interested in.  But I’d attended a lot of panels, so I had a pretty good idea what to expect.  And the middle school kids’ wanting pictures and stuff wasn’t much different than a meet-and-greet. 

So, I was more excited than nervous for my first job.  Especially when I saw the pay.  Not only would I be flown there and back (first class!), put up in the convention hotel, and have my meals covered, I would also be paid $30,000.00!  For one weekend!  I knew novas made a lot of money, but I had no idea!  The only weird thing was that I was required to be in my ‘school uniform costume’ for all public appearances during convention hours.  Had somebody somehow gotten the idea that my uniform was some kind of costume?  I guess I can see why, with the fire and all, but I’m going to have to nip that in the bud. 

And it seems like if I’m going to ‘make my debut’ into actual nova culture (I assume there’ll be other novas there?), then it’s time I get serious about choosing a name.  The idea of a ‘secret identity’ is silly, but I do want to be able to draw a firm line between ‘nova me’ and ‘regular me’. 

I emailed Erica back, accepting the contract, and telling her that I would also be using the event to put my nova name out there as well.  As soon as I figured out what it would be.  I also told her that, while I didn’t object to doing it this time, I was not willing to make a habit of appearing in my school uniform.  It had been an accident that it happened the once, and I wasn’t going to allow it to become closely associated with me.

Email sent, I dove back into name research, interrupted occasionally by Furnado jumping on my keyboard.  Remind me why I was so keen to get a cat?  😊

Thinking back to some of what I’d found under the Egyptian material (mainly the idea that quantum power would have been considered magic in previous centuries, and that people in the future may consider our current understanding to be just as backward as we think ‘magic’ is), I decided to look into some of the semi-modern occult traditions, like the Order of the Golden Dawn, Thelema, and so on.  Right away, that brought up ‘Neophyte’ again- the second time that’s come up.  Something to think about.  They say, once is an event, twice is coincidence, and three times is a pattern?

I like the idea of Sigil, being a pictorial ‘shorthand’ for a concept that can’t be easily described in words.  Most of my feelings about quantum energy can’t be described in words.  I think, as I learn more about it, I’ll have to be satisfied with experiencing quantum, and accept not being able to really talk about it.  Not with baselines, anyway.  A symbol- a Sigil- would serve as a stand-in for that inability to express it in words.  Of course, that would imply that I had a specific sigil in mind.  And that would be the first step down the road to a costume.  Which I’d rather avoid.  So, maybe not Sigil.

Hadit is a Thelemic deity, which has the advantage of not risking cultural appropriation.  What attracted me to Hadit was this quote: “Hadit identifies himself as the point in the center of the circle, the axle of the wheel, the cube in the circle, "the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star," and the worshipper's own inner self.” And, "Every man and every woman is a star." (The Book of the Law 1,3).  The flame that burns, and the core of every star.  That’s what I see, sometimes, when I consider the quantum river inside myself.  Of course, connecting myself, even at a distance, with Aleister Crowley might not be the best idea.

I was a little disappointed not to find more in this vein, but most of the occult stuff is either too esoteric, too silly, too hard to pronounce, or has creepy racist associations.  No thanks.  I looked at the tarot, as well.  A lot of the imagery appealed to me, but none of it enough so to build an identity on.  And I realize now that that’s what I’ll be doing.  Even without a costume, I’ll be establishing an entire separate persona for myself.  Not just a name.  Even if that persona is close to the ‘real me’, it won’t be the same.  Because I want my friends and family to have access to the real me- and that means putting a persona in place to keep everyone else at a distance.  Which is a little sad, now that I think of it.

Most of the other major mythological groups come too close to cultural appropriation for my comfort zone, so let’s make a list of what we have so far:

• Mímir- The Norse God of knowledge and wisdom. Easy to pronounce, easy to spell.
• Promethea- Based on Prometheus, the Greek Titan who gave humanity fire and kept getting his liver torn out by eagles.
• Chiron- The centaur who acted as a tutor to multiple Greek heroes.
• Neophyte- The beginner.
• Sia (or Saa)- Personification of perception, and the ‘intellectual energies of the heart’.
• Sopdet (or Sothis)- Associated with Sirius, the Dog Star, and also the inundation of the Nile.
• Seshat- The Egyptian Goddess of reading, writing, and education in general.
• Heka- Egyptian God of magic, Inner Fire and Divine Force. AKA quantum power.
• Sigil- A symbol representing something that can’t otherwise be expressed.
• Hadit- A Thelemic God- Every man and woman is a star.

It seems the names I like fall into two broad categories: teaching, and quantum identity.  I know that I want to be a teacher, as a profession, but I’m not sure I want my identity to be completely tied up in that.  Plus, while I know that being a nova will make it easier to get just about any job I want, I don’t think that my nova abilities are especially suited to teaching.  That would heavily imply that teaching will be more about my personal identity, rather than my nova identity.  So maybe a nova name based on teaching isn’t the best choice. 

Now that I have my short list, I think the next thing is to do some research into what (or who) else is already using each name.

Later-

Oooookay.  Good thing I did the reading.  Some of those names are right out.

Mímir has major connections with several video games, as well as baby talk in Spanish, with some odd Asian popularity. The Asian popularity doesn’t bother me, but the baby talk does.  And the video games just opens up connections I don’t want to deal with.

Promethea is also the name of a comic book by Alan Moore, a kind of moth, and is also part of a video game.  From what I can tell, the comic actually seems to have some loose nova inspiration.  While I now want to find and read that comic, that makes the name less than viable.  There might actually even be a trademark or copyright issue.  Not worth the hassle.

Chiron is a car.  A ridiculously expensive sports car.  No.  Just…. No.

Neophyte- This still looks like a good choice.  There’s an obscure computer game, but that’s not the primary connotation. This one is still in the running.

Sia (or Saa).  Sia is an Australian singer, but that isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker. It’s also an airline, but again, no big deal. But it also has connections with a cyber security firm and software products.  Again, possible legal issues.  Probably not, but since I like Saa better anyway…. But Saa is probably my worst option on this list.  Sex Addicts Anonymous.  Hard pass.  Also an art school, an archeology group, and an organization for archivists.  Nope. Too much baggage.

Sopdet (or Sothis)- Sopdet seems to be fine, though I’m still not 100% comfortable with taking an Egyptian name, especially when I like Sothis better.  Sothis, however, has a major connection to a video game franchise.  Worse, that Sothis has time control powers, which I definitely do not have.  I like Sothis, but I think it would cause unnecessary confusion.

Seshat is one of the few names on my list with absolutely no meanings (that I can find) other than the Goddess.  That means she’s still in the running.

Heka- Another with no other connotations.  I’m strongly leaning toward this one, potential for cultural appropriation be damned.  I can make an argument for appreciation rather than appropriation.

I still like Sigil, and as a word rather than a name, it still holds its primary meaning and association.  But choosing Sigil also strongly implies the adoption of, well, a sigil, and I really don’t want to get into costume territory.  I suspect that would be a conversation I’d get sick of having.

And finally, Hadit.  Another with only the Thelemic deity to consider.  But the connection with Aleister Crowley is still… iffy.

So, it seems like the short list is a little shorter: Neophyte, Seshat, Heka, and Hadit.  Of those four, I most like Neophyte and Heka. 

Neophyte speaks to where I am now, and where I suspect I will be for some time to come.  But will it always fit me?  Of course, it would serve as a reminder that no matter how far I go, there’s always so much further to go.  That could be worth remembering if Bix is right, and I have centuries in front of me.  It’s so easy to think you know everything, even as you look back on where you were (and where others are now), and poke fun at how ignorant and stupid you were.  I see that in my classmates (and myself, though I try to be better about it).  As juniors, they make fun of freshmen.  And middle schoolers are beneath notice.  I can remember being in sixth grade, and looking down on second and third graders.  I’m sure the seniors consider themselves much more mature than us juniors.  And when some of the kids who come home to visit from college drop in after school (usually to visit a teacher), they treat us all as though they’re all grown up and we’re just kids.  I mean, we are kids, but still.  A few months doesn’t make nearly the difference they seem to think it does.  Or does it?  

What will I be like in twenty years?  Or two hundred?  All my baseline friends I had growing up will be gone.  Mom will be gone, and my children, and probably my grandchildren too.  Even most of the novas I might meet in the next few years will probably be gone.  And I’ll still be here. 

Will I be jaded?  If I’m cynical now, what will I be then?  Will I constantly try to meet new people and make new connections, or self-isolate?  Will I be bored with everything and everyone?  Constantly looking for the next new thrill?  Or will I always be able to find something to care about in the world?  Or will I just… go off into space and never come back?  I think keeping my focus on beginnings would be one way to stay oriented with the world.  I’ve read a lot of vampire stories, and one of the major themes in a lot of them is stasis, getting stuck in the past, and being unable to keep up with how things change.  I’d hate for that to happen to me.  ‘Neophyte’ could serve as a constant reminder not to let that happen.

Heka, on the other hand, speaks to an entirely different part of me.  ‘Neophyte’ says that I’m always at the beginning, but Heka is an exploration of what comes before the beginning- and after the ending.  Heka is what underpins everything else.  Heka is what enables everything else to, well, to exist.  And Heka, or at least one tiny, infinite part of Heka, is what I feel inside myself.  It’s the fire I could spend an entire lifetime (even if that lifetime lasted for centuries) trying to understand.  It’s the light and the energy that I can feel in other novas.  It’s the force I can manipulate inside myself- and inside others.  It’s the energy that weaves its way through everything that I’ve become, and everything I could become in the future.  It’s impersonal, but at the same time, intimate. 

YOU’RE SO CLOSE TO STEPPING ONTO THE PATH, KITTEN.  JUST A LITTLE FURTHER.

~S

Bix says that he thinks novas develop powers based on how they think they should interact with the world- and that belief is usually subconscious.  So people who teleport do so from a sense of restlessness or exploration, and people who control an element do it because for some reason that element is unusually important in their lives, and they need to be in charge of it.  He also says that since I can draw quantum energy out of other novas, there’s a good chance that someday I’ll be able to draw off actual powers as well.  The image I keep seeing of my power as a river, and the way I interact with my Eufiber implies that my idea of power is exactly that- the raw force that is quantum, rather than quantum filtered through the idea of fire, or gravity, or something. 

And I still come back to the idea that if novas had existed Back In The Day, then our abilities would have been described as ‘magic’- or, in ancient Egypt, as ‘Heka’. Belief in magic has had a much longer run than belief in science.  And on a long enough timeline, who knows what will come next?  We laugh at the old beliefs and dismiss them as superstition, but the early days of science were just as bad.  Aether? Phrenology? The Four Humors?  Eugenics?  All of that was accepted, cutting edge science at one point.  Maybe two hundred years from now, we’ll all be cyborgs and psychics?  Maybe we’ll look back at our current achievements with the same horror that we view lobotomy and trepanning ‘to let the demons out’ now.  Maybe we’ll have all moved on to such an advanced stage that all of this will be meaningless and forgotten.  But somehow, Heka will survive, I think.  Maybe not in the same form.  Probably not with the same name.  But somehow.  I like that idea.  I like being connected with an eternal, impersonal, yet intimate force.

So.  Heka or Neophyte?  Or maybe Neo-Heka?  Neoheka?  No. Definitely not Neoheka. I think Neo-Heka might cross the line into appropriation, in that I’d be (somewhat) stripping the concept of its context in favor of my own interest.  So, not Neo-Heka either, even though I sorta like it.

Heka has another advantage- if I ever decided I did want a symbol, Heka’s name in hieroglyphics would do nicely, especially the simplified version. 

I think I’ll sleep on it tonight.  Maybe email Rocío and see what he thinks.  I’d thought about asking Bailey, but that idea left me cold for some reason I can’t put my finger on.  Asking the girls doesn’t quite seem right either.  Neither does talking to Mom.  Somehow, this seems like something I should decide for myself, with the advice of other novas only. 

Chapter Text

Sunday, September 27

I woke up in the middle of the night to find Pyewacket asleep on the foot of my bed.  He was back on top of the bookcase when I got up in the morning, but still- progress!  Furnado has claimed most of my pillow.  He’s a large cat at all times, but seems to get larger at night. 

I decided to spend most of the day at home with that cats, so they can get used to things as well as possible.  Plus, I had a lot to do online.  I sent the email to Rocío, asking his advice on choosing a nova name.  I gave him my reasons for choosing either Neophyte or Heka, the associations of both, the pros and cons I’d come up with, and what both meant to me.  While I made it clear that I wasn’t asking him for a final choice between them, I’d appreciate his input. 

I didn’t tell him that how he responded to my taking his advice (or not taking it) would also tell me something more about him.  I’m still thinking about his offer to take me to the Amp Room, but I want to be sure that he’ll respect my boundaries.  I like him, and think I could get to like him more, but let’s face it- I still don’t know him very well.  So learning how he reacts to things is important.  I’ve never liked girls who ‘test’ their boyfriends, but if I’m going to go off with him to Ibiza, some reassurance is in order.

Erica emailed me back (I was surprised that she was working on a Sunday) accepting my stipulation about future appearances in school uniform, and suggesting that even if I didn’t choose a costume or uniform to associate with, that I should at least consider a color scheme.  That I didn’t have to abide by the colors exclusively, but a couple of predominant colors would help shape my image.  She also pressed me to get back to her on my chosen name ASAP, so they could arrange for appropriate branding. 

Well, I didn’t have to think very hard about colors, and I don’t mind adopting a color scheme at all.  My favorite colors are soft, cool grays and dark greens, so most of my non-school clothes are already those colors, and Eufiber makes things even easier.  After a little searching, I narrowed it down to Forest Green (Hex #014421) and Templeton Gray (Hex #788787).  So I sent those back to Erica, and told her I’d narrowed my name choices down to two, and hoped to have chosen in the next day or so.  I haven’t heard back from her yet, which is fine.  I already feel bad that she’s working on Sunday.  Surely, she’s not on call 24/7?

It occurred to me that I should research nova conventions, who attended, and what went on at them.  For all I knew, nova cons were completely different than other fandom cons.  So that was next on the list of things to do. 

Since this is Midwest NovaCon’s first year, I can’t look at pictures from previous conventions, but their OpNet site is pretty spiffy.  It has the convention schedule, with all the panels, ‘official’ parties, and other events.  There are several tracks, so you could have your entire weekend planned out for you if you were interested in just one aspect of nova culture.  There’s a movie track, a print media track, a Novox track (with a concert, though I haven’t heard of the headliner), and several others.  If you want to plan for event types instead of themes, there’s a meet-and-greet track and a panel track.  Plus, there are the ongoing events, like Artist’s Alley, the Vendor Room, and (for some reason I can’t fathom) a Maid Café.  

There’s a costume contest on Saturday night (I assume for baselines dressing as novas, not for the novas themselves).  Now that I think about it, it would be damn funny if I cosplayed at the con- as another nova.  Maybe Firefly?  Slider would be in poor taste.  Cosplaying Leviathan would be a hoot, but I don’t think I have time to do that justice.  Maybe next year. 

There’s a map of the con space online as well, and a pdf of the program, so I went ahead and downloaded those.  The entry fees they’re charging are outrageous!  Especially when novas are admitted free.  Still, people are obviously willing to pay.  Maybe that makes sense.  Cons might be one of the few times a baseline can be reasonably sure to encounter a nova, especially at a time when they’re not rushing off to do something else.  I guess if you’re into nova culture, it’s worth it.

The OpNet site has already been updated to include me as a Guest of Honor.  There are three others: the Novox singer I never heard of, Cedar Rapids’ municipal defender, Mason, and Boom-Boom Harmon.  They must be really playing up the ‘cons are neutral space’ thing, since Boom-Boom is a known Terat.  He seems more flashy than violent, though.  I’m not sure why I was booked alongside these others.  Mason makes sense, as the local hero.  I never really followed Novox singers, but I guess it makes sense to have one at a con.  But Boom-Boom and I?  No idea.  I’m not even sure I’m still the ‘newest’ nova to erupt.  I guess the media coverage brought me to their attention.

This gives me a better idea of what to expect, but I still want to see how other cons have gone.  Especially ones about the same size.  No sense in looking at NovaCon New York and expecting this one to be anywhere near as impressive. 

A little more searching gave me several hits, and I settled down to stalk the pictures and videos.  Several panels had been recorded and released as podcasts as well.  While those were downloading, I stalked the pictures. 

There are a lot of people in costume.  A few of them are obviously real novas (body paint is one thing, but I just don’t see how a baseline could fake having their head on fire, or having a real, non-animatronic tail).  But most of the attendees have to be fans.  There are probably other novas in the pictures that I just don’t recognize, and of course my buzzy tingly sense doesn’t work over the OpNet.  Either way, it looks like I should expect a higher-than average amount of cosplay than the cons I’ve been to before.  I can handle that.

After I’d satisfied my curiosity, I went ahead and did several more of the navigation lessons.  These covered rough orienteering, marking trails, and traveling without maps.  Once it gets dark, I can do some of the more practical ‘navigate by the stars’ lessons.  I’ll probably need to fly out a ways to get them done.  Light pollution sucks.  I’ve heard in bigger cities, you can’t see stars at all. 

After I’d done as much of the nav course as I could during the day, I decided to see what Furnado thought about the harness and leash.  I don’t want to let either of the cats out of my bedroom until they’re both ready, and I doubt that Pyewacket will ever want to be a harness cat, but it was worth a try with Furnado. 

I put the harness on him, and he flopped over on his side, refusing to move.  I adjusted everything, making sure nothing was too tight, but he still flopped right over.  Since he didn’t seem to be in any actual distress, I left it on him, to see if he’ll accept it.  I got busy doing other things, and when I looked back, he was still in the same spot, sound asleep.  Very distressed about his harness, clearly. 

I woke him up with treats (and gave Pyewacket some on top of the bookcase), and he jumped right up for them.  Once he’d finished, he started to groom himself, remembered the harness, and flopped right back over again.  Drama queen.  <3

Later-

When I came back from doing the outside navigation stuff, I had an email from Rocío.  I’d been afraid he’d poke fun at me for making such a big deal about choosing a name, but, if anything, he took it more seriously than I did. 

Basically, he said that a nova name was our chance, sometimes our only chance, to decide who we would be for all time.  Plus, choosing a new name is a rite of passage, and some novas won’t take you seriously until you do.  He made a big thing about how novas shouldn’t be limited by who baselines thought we should be, and that only another nova could really understand the shift in identity that comes with erupting. 

He had a lot of thoughts about both Neophyte and Heka.  He said that Neophyte might serve as a reminder to myself to always be moving forward, but he also pointed out that it might make other people take me less seriously, and not pay as much attention to what I had to say.  The name came right out and said that I was inexperienced and might not know what I was doing, after all.

He liked Heka a lot better. Not only was he really impressed with my thoughts about the nature of quantum (he says he never really thought about it, but I’m not sure I believe that- how could any nova not think about these things?), he also likes the way it sounds, and how it’s obscure enough that most people won’t immediately know what it means, but it’s not so obscure that a little research wouldn’t answer the question.

He also thinks that costumes and symbols are pretty cringe-worthy, but also says that if I absolutely insisted on one (I so don’t), then the second is the better choice.  The first one is way too long and complicated.  A symbol should be able to be doodled and graffitied easily.  I’ll admit, I’d never considered vetting a symbol for how easy it is to use in vandalism.

He made it pretty clear that he preferred Heka to Neophyte, but reassured me that either would be accepted by the nova community. 

I sent him back my thanks, and told him I needed to decide by tomorrow.  Then I told him about getting my first Nova Services International contract, and the convention next weekend. 

After several hours, Furnado seems to be getting used to the harness, but I didn’t want to leave it on him overnight.  Mom is working later again, so I ordered a pizza.  I don’t need to eat (or sleep) anymore, but I still think it’s a good idea to maintain those habits.  I think it would weird people out if I never ate or slept.  Besides, maybe I will still need to do those things if I overextend myself?  I wouldn’t want to be caught by surprise.

Chapter Text

Monday, September 28

I only thought there were crowds of kids swarming my landing spot before.  This being my first appearance after the fire, you couldn’t have stuffed anyone else into that clump of trees.  But my ring of rocks was clear, and I made sure to thank the kids for keeping it open.  There were a lot more high school kids there this time, including several seniors. 

Jeremy was there, and shoved his way over as soon as I’d landed, trying to grab my hand.  I still don’t know what to think about how he’s acting, but I wasn’t going to let him give anybody any idea that he and I were together.  It would be all over school, and Bailey would be sure to hear about it as soon as she comes back, if not sooner.  Besides, I didn’t want to be rude to the kids.  A whole pack of them followed me up to the main doors.  Jeremy looked frustrated.  I’m going to have to find out what he wants, and soon.

While nothing was actually said about my running out on Friday, Mr. Stephenson showed up to silently disapprove of me before class started.  I don’t think there’s much he could say, after I was all over the news.  He’s not going to like my missing school on Friday, either.  But I bet that’s one of those things I can ask Erica to take care of.  I still don’t think I need a handler, but she might come in handy!

I suppose my ‘punishment’ was unavoidable in World History.  Mr. Arnett assigned a project and broke us up into groups.  Since I wasn’t there, he picked which group to put me in.  Allen, Sean, and Levon.  <eye roll>  Well, Levon’s okay, I guess.  He keeps to himself, mostly.  He’s on the yearbook staff, and does something on the student council.  Secretary, maybe?  But Allen and Sean are useless.  Allen puts more effort into avoiding work and taking credit for other people’s work than anyone I’ve ever seen.  And Sean is handsy.  I can already tell that I’m going to end up doing the entire project on my own.  Well, maybe Levon and I. 

Mr. Arnett gave me the assignment sheet with the rubric, and the last twenty minutes of class were left open to have everyone get with their groups and plan the projects.  The other groups were already chattering away when I joined mine.  I made sure to sit between Levon and Allen.  As I read over the assignment, I was a little relieved.  It was as much about design as anything else.  We were supposed to choose a topic from any of the units we’d covered so far and design a history museum exhibit about it.  Levon was already making notes.  Makes sense.  Isn’t a good bit of doing the yearbook about design and layout?  He and I might be able to pull this off together, even with the dead weight.

I wasn’t about to put up with people sponging off me, so I surreptitiously turned on the ‘record’ feature of my Utopia communicator.  I can upload the results to my laptop when I get home.  I figure, if I record all out interactions, then there’ll be absolute proof of who did what on the project.  I don’t mind working hard, and I know that nothing will ever be split exactly equally.  That’s fine.  But I won’t put up with other people taking credit for my efforts.  And Levon’s, of course. 

So, I settled down and asked if anyone had an idea for the topic.  Allen was too busy doodling weird anime catgirls in his notebook to bother answering, and Sean was staring at my boobs.  But Levon suggested a walk-through exhibit of the route Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s motorcade took through the streets of Sarajevo, with all the points of interest in the sequence of events.  We’d covered the lead-in to World War One right before I erupted, so I’d actually been in class for it, rather than reading along at the Clinic. 

It wasn’t what I would have chosen (I’m not sure what I would have chosen, but it wouldn’t have been that), but it was a good idea, and I immediately had ideas for it. Neither Allen nor Sean said yeah or nay, so we decided to go forward with it.  If we started with a map of the area at the time, we could get the same coordinates from Google Earth and compare the current area with historical photos taken at or near the time.  According to the rubric, our design could be 2D or 3D, but couldn’t be completely digital- we had to actually create something.  At first, we thought about mounting the pictures on one of those three-panel cardboard things kids use for science projects, but I suggested doing it in 3D instead, as a diorama or at least a shadow box.  Once I sketched out my idea, Levon agreed. 

We had just decided to use a historical map of the route as the floor of the display, and have modern pictures of the aged with a sepia filter forming the uprights of the display when class ended.  We told Sean and Allen to go on Google Earth and start collecting the pictures- Levon had already made a Dropbox (how does he have access to that already?) to collect everything, and sent us the link.  I don’t think Allen or Sean will do a damn thing, and I’m pretty sure Levon’s on the same page.  I’ll have to discuss my plan to not let them sponge off us privately with Levon.

Lunch was a weird, semi-public question and answer period.  It was ostensibly just me, Jess, Monique, and Alejandra, but so many other people kept asking questions that I may as well have been on a stage.  Jeremy kept trying to draw me away for a minute, ‘just the two of us’, which I refused.  But since I was getting frustrated with him being so creepy and pushy, I told him I’d meet him out front for a few minutes when class let out.  (Very public.  I don’t want any bitchy rumors getting back to Bailey that I’m trying to steal her man.  I definitely don’t want Jeremy.)

I think Ms. Owens might have been a little hungover.  P.E. was just us being assigned to walk/run track for the whole period. Awesome to have a non-competitive P.E. for once!

After school, I met Jeremy out front as promised.  He tried to get me to go off alone with him, but I (loudly) told him ‘No’.  I told him that I only had a few minutes before I had to leave, so whatever he had to say, he needed to hurry up.  I might have sounded a little harsh, but I’ve never been comfortable around him, and he’s been worse since I came back to school.  Whatever this was, I wanted it over with, and I wanted people around.

So, he came out with it, trying to be quiet.  I could hear him just fine, of course, but I wanted anybody passing by to know I wasn’t up to anything, so I made him speak up. He hemmed and hawed for a minute, so I made like I was about to leave.  Then he came out with it. He wanted to go out with me.  I’d been half-afraid of that, but had been telling myself that I was being vain and self-centered.  But, no.  I made sure my voice carried when I demanded to know what he was thinking, asking me out, when he was Bailey’s boyfriend.  I chewed him out for not supporting her, and for not even bothering to visit her in the hospital.  He kept trying to get me to lower my voice, and told me that he didn’t care about Bailey, that he’d always been interested in me, the whole nine yards.  It was disgusting.

I told him off right then and there- with plenty of volume- telling him that I would never betray Bailey that way, and he was awful to even suggest it.  Then I gave him the finger and took off right there and then.  A lot of people saw and heard.  Hopefully that will be enough to kill any rumors about me and him.  Even if I was interested in Jeremy, I’d never hurt Bailey that way.  (Girl code, and all.)  But now, the bigger question- do I tell Bailey?  That’s a problem for tomorrow me.

It felt strange to be at the Clinic and not in a tank, but Bix had already returned them both.  Instead, he had me working on increasing my flying speed, then working on aerial maneuvers.  He threw a bunch of things at me, and I was supposed to catch them, or bat them out of the air, or dodge them, according to what they were.  I didn’t always remember what to do with which thing with him yelling at me, so I ended up wearing a couple of raw eggs when I batted them instead of catching.  Oh well.  Practice makes perfect. 

Bix wanted me to practice endurance flying this weekend, by doing exactly that- picking a direction on Friday afternoon, then flying until either I couldn’t fly any more, or until mid-afternoon Saturday (when I would then turn around and fly home).  But I told him that I had my first job this weekend, so we’ll put off the endurance test for a couple of weeks.  That seems like a kinda irresponsible test to give me.  I’m still a kid, after all, and he’s suggesting the aerial equivalent of dropping me off in the woods and making me find my own way home.  I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I am sure I’m not going to agree to it until I finish the navigation course.  I wouldn’t put it past Bix to screw with my GPS as an added test, somehow.   

After the Clinic, I stopped at Claws of Coffee and showed Berta pictures of how the cats were settling in.  They’ve already got new cats in (Jacinth and Elminster) to replace the adoptees, but I’m going to do my best not to get as attached to any of the others as I have to Furnado.  I can’t keep bringing home cats.  Two is enough for an apartment.

At home, I did some more of the nav course (I figure two more long sessions will do it), then emailed Erica.  I’ve chosen Heka.  It just seems right.  A few minutes later, Erica responded, thanking me for getting back to her and assuring me that she would set everything up.  Since I have no idea what all that entails, I’ll leave her to it.

WELCOME, HEKA, TO YOUR NEW LIFE.  WE’RE WAITING FOR YOU.

~S

Then I turned my attention to the history assignment, and had an ‘oops’ moment in my favor.  When I transferred the recording from my communicator to my laptop, I realized that I’d never turned the recorder off.  Not only had it caught the assignment discussion between Levon and I, it had also caught the entire exchange with Jeremy!  I made sure to save the entire file, tagging the important parts, then extracted the assignment and the after-school mess.  Hopefully I’ll never need to play that second file, but if I need it, I have it!

I spent the next few hours on Google Earth, collecting images (since I was still sure Allen and Sean wouldn’t), and applying various ‘old timey’ filters.  I emailed Levon, explaining my plan to make sure Allen and Sean didn’t get a free ride, and asking if we could use the yearbook room’s printer for the photos and maps.  I also uploaded everything I had so far, and kept a record of all the metadata. 

At that point, Pyewacket surprised me by wrapping himself around my ankles, so the rest of the evening was spent loving on the kitties.  I think maybe tomorrow I can let them out to explore the rest of the apartment?  I want to be sure they’re both comfortable before I move the litter box into the bathroom, but even scooping it twice a day, the smell is intense for my heightened senses.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, September 29

School was mostly uneventful.  Jeremy stayed away from me most of the time, though he was still lurking nearby at lunch. 

Mr. Arnett is going to give us a few minutes at the end of each class period to work on the projects.  (I wonder if Mr. Arnett has something going on that he doesn’t want to use the full class period for teaching?  Or maybe he’s just trying to be nice?  Not my business either way.)  I showed Levon the pictures I’d found.  He showed me several different maps that he’d found.  We tried to involve Allen and Sean (I was recording again), but they weren’t interested.  Nor did they have anything to contribute from last night, but I think we both expected that.  I know I did.  Allen had his earbuds in, and Sean made a big thing about getting up to throw something away, then sitting back down waaay too close to me. 

In a way, Sean’s being a creep is almost a relief- he creeps on every girl that he doesn’t consider to be an absolute uggo.  I know that, with him at least, it has nothing to do with my being a nova.  Jeremy on the other hand….  After a lot of thought last night, I’ve decided that I have to tell Bailey.  I know it’s going to hurt her, and that sucks.  But it’s better that she find out, and better that she find out from me.  Besides, he’s a jerk. He doesn’t deserve to be covered for.  Covering for friends is one thing.  But this is different.

After school, I went to see Bailey.  I’d half expected Jeremy to have gone to her first, either in person or by phone, to get his story in before I could.  But apparently, he hadn’t.  He still hasn’t contacted her at all since she’s been in the hospital.  So… I told her everything.  The lurking around and trying to be near me, making it look like he was ‘escorting’ me places, and yesterday’s mess.  It… didn’t go well.  First, she didn’t believe me, and insisted that I was making it up because I was jealous of her and Jeremy.  Then, she switched, almost mid-rant, to how it was all my fault, that it was me going after him, and how could I be such a bad friend. 

I tried and tried to explain, but she wouldn’t believe me.  So, I pulled up the recording from my phone, and played her the whole thing.  There was a lot of background noise, but Utopia has good equipment- there was no denying who both of us were, and every word came through clearly. 

Bailey was quiet for a long time after, and when I tried to say something (I’m still not sure what I would have said), she told me to get out and not come back.  She had the strangest look on her face.  I expected her to be hurt, and angry, and probably to cry.  But her face went all tight, like she was holding everything in at once- or maybe everything was trying to come out at once and failing, like a bottleneck.  What could I do?  I just told her that I was sorry, and she could call me any evening if she wanted.  Then I left.

Since my visit was shorter than usual, I went by the café to find Mrs. Adams (she usually leaves us to talk alone).  I meant to only tell her that Bailey was upset, so she could decide whether to go back sooner, but I guess the combination of being a mom and a lawyer got the full story out of me.  Then she wanted to hear the recording.  I figured there wasn’t any harm in that- we’d been in a public space, so nothing we’d said was private.  I did make sure she knew I hadn’t been recording Jeremy on purpose- that it had been an accident leftover from class.  So, I showed her, and said that I hadn’t wanted to hurt Bailey, especially now, but I couldn’t see how not telling wouldn’t be worse than telling.  I might have cried a little.

Mrs. Adams hugged me, and told me I’d done the right thing, even if Bailey was upset right now.  That she was hurting, but she’d get over it, and when she did, she’d be glad I cared enough about her to tell her.  I accepted that, even though I’m not sure Mrs. Adams is right.  Bailey can hold a grudge, and I’m not sure Mrs. Adams has ever seen that part of her daughter.  But done is done, I guess.  She suggested that I give Bailey a few days to cool down, and that Bailey would probably call me when she was ready to talk.  She also mentioned that Bailey might be going home soon, which can only make everything better. 

Without anything better to do, I did a grocery run on the way home.  Later, I did some more of the navigation course (it’s getting easier, but I haven’t really had to test it for real yet, so I don’t want to get too confident). 

It’d been a few days since I looked at the ‘Colleen Sightings’ forum.  The media footage from the firefighters’ meetup was there, along with several more candid shots of the same event from Watch_th3_Skys.  Still following me.  Some other forum users were speculating that I was going to sign on with the fire department officially once I graduated high school, and be the second Fireman.  Big shoes to fill, there.  The world’s first nova?  No way could I ever even think to follow in his footsteps.

This is getting creepy.  I looked back at his (why do I still assume that Watch_th3_Skys is a guy?) posts, and all of the pictures and videos he’s posted have been either of me from behind, or flying across the camera’s field of vision.  He’s never posted anything of me looking directly at (or even close to) his position.  That means that either I’ve never seen him, or he’s been quick enough to hide his interest in me when I did see him.  Or maybe he has taken frontal pictures of me, and just not posted them?  He never makes actual posts- just pictures with captions listing the date, time, and location they were taken. The pictures usually post a couple of hours after they were taken.  Some of the pictures (like the fire stuff), I can confirm happened where and when he says he took them.  But others are just me… going from Point A to Point B. 

At least there haven’t been any posted from near my home.  Maybe I should start being invisible when I come and go from home?  Or maybe start varying my route?  I’m not sure there’s much this guy could really do to me, even if he wanted to.  And there’s no real reason he would want to.  But I’m worried for Mom and the cats.  And I want all of us to feel safe at home. 

There’s another thread on the forum all about Midwest NovaCon 1.  It looks like at least a few of the forum people will be there.  They’re discussing having a forum meetup, and studying the program to try and figure out the best opportunities to meet me.  The only public appearance I’m listed for are the meet-and-greets.  Otherwise, it just says I’ll be on ‘several panels’ and ‘involved with other events’.  Since I don’t even know exactly what I’ll be doing, I couldn’t tell them even if I did. 

Somehow, they’ve found out that I’m going to be revealing my nova name at the con.  How did they find that out?  I hopped over to the con’s OpNet site, but there’s nothing on there saying anything about it.  Is Erica on the forum?  Did she start the forum?  Surely not.  No, the forum went live before I signed with Utopia and Erica became my handler.  So while she might be on there (I’d be a little surprised if she wasn’t, now that I think about it), she didn’t start it.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, September 30

School seems to be settling down pretty well.  I spend as much time as I can with Jess, Monique, and Alejandra.  People still flock around me, especially the younger kids in the morning, but I guess I’m getting used to it.  Or maybe, people are realizing that I’m not going anywhere, and they don’t need to try and get my attention all the time.  People still watch me wherever I go, and talk to me if they have an opportunity, but there’s less competition(?) for my time or notice.  That’s great.  I knew things would be different at school, but I’d hoped they’d go back to normal.  And it seems like they might- as much as they can, anyway. 

I told each of my teachers that I’d be out on Friday, and was there any work I’d need to catch up on (or that I could pre-do).  Most of them told me not to worry about it.  I told Levon I wouldn’t be in on Friday, and asked him if he had any other ideas about the project, since I’d have time tonight and tomorrow, but not over the weekend.  He seemed to appreciate me not leaving him in the lurch, and Allen and Sean still haven’t done a thing.  So we worked out the rest of my contribution.  Levon says he’ll have his part gathered over the weekend, then we’ll just need to actually assemble the display itself next week.  I think he and I work pretty well together.  

Sean ‘accidentally’ ran his hand over my ass during class, and I reported him to Mr. Arnett.  I doubt anything will come of it.  That’s one major downside of being a nova.  Before I erupted, I could have just smacked him.  I might have gotten in trouble, but it wouldn’t have been a big deal.  I bet if I tried that now, he’d insist that I nearly killed him with my new strength.  I’m absolutely certain that I could control how much force I applied, but it isn’t worth the hassle. 

At the Clinic, Bix decided that my senses had been neglected in all the flying and physical training. So he sat me down to identifying microscopic organisms, picking out specific items in the dark, tracking small animals by their heat signatures, etc.  He released eight mice into the barn, and was confused when I came back with nine.  I found a wild one that had gotten in by mistake.  I put that one outside to live his best little mousey life.

Chapter Text

Thursday, October 1

After school, the girls and I went to see The Duchess, with Keira Knightley.  It was a lot of fun, and I hadn’t been to a movie in ages.  Bailey would never have wanted to see this one.  She hates costume drama.  Is it wrong that I’m coming to realize how much of my time- how much of myself- I’ve given up to Bailey?  Everything has always been about what she’s doing, and what she wants.  Now I’m spending time with other people, doing things we want, and it’s great!  But… Bailey’s my best friend.  Isn’t she?

Later-

Watch_th3_Skys was in the movie theater with us.  Somewhere behind and to my left.  Mr. Li hasn’t gotten back to me about anything that he’s found out (if he’s found anything.  Has he even tried?) so I’m going to ask Erica to look into it.  My flight only has one ticket, so either she’s going to the con separately, or she isn’t going.  Surely she’s going.  I don’t want to risk emailing her this late- she always seems to be ‘on call’, and if she’s asleep, I don’t want to wake her up.

Chapter Text

Friday, October 2 ( Midwest NovaCon 1)

This weekend is going to be busy enough (and exciting enough) that I should probably update in small bursts, rather than one long entry at the end of each day. 

So, here I am, flying first class (I feel so very posh) for the first time, on my way to Midwest NovaCon 1.  I emailed Erica this morning (I had to be at the airport at 6 am), and got her answer a few minutes ago.  She will be attending NovaCon with me, but she had some things to take care of first, and will take a later flight.  We’d be flying back together though.  (That’s cool.  We can use the time to actually get to know each other.  It’s weird having someone working for me at all, especially someone I know nothing about.) 

I’ve flown a couple of times before, once even as an ‘unaccompanied minor’, but never first class.  The whole experience-so far- has been very different.  I can see why people like it.  The people at check-in were nicer, the TSA people only groped me a little, and I was in the first boarding group, along with the active military and disabled.  The seats are larger, with more legroom, and the meal was better.  Not great- it was still plane food- but better.  The WIFI is complimentary, and I think the drinks would be too, if I drank. I’m not sure if the flight attendants know who (what) I am, but they’re very attentive- even more so than to the other first class passengers.  But that might just be because I’m minor. 

Since this is only a weekend thing, and I’ll be wearing my Eufiber the whole time (no, it does not look like my school uniform right now), I was able to pack light.  I won’t even need to visit the baggage area, since my backpack qualified as carry-on.

Some of my fellow passengers are beginning to give me stink-eye.  I think they’re jealous that the flight attendants are paying so much attention to me.  Utopia’s employee handbook has a lot to say about dealing with the public, but nothing at all about dealing with the public ‘in real life’.  I have no idea how to politely ask the FAs to leave me alone, let alone how to not come off as a spoiled brat to the other passengers.  On the other hand, it’s only a four-hour flight, and I’m never going to see these people again; so maybe what they think of me doesn’t really matter.  As long as I’m polite, they can get mad and get over it on their own.  It really isn’t my problem.  Is it?

Later-

Good grief.  They’re certainly laying it on thick.  The con sent a car for me.  With a driver.  Holding up a little sign with my name on it.  Not a limo, thank goodness.  I felt so out of place being ‘helped’ into the car with the driver carrying my backpack like it was fancy luggage.  On the drive, I panicked, realizing I had no idea how much to tip this man, and had to google it.  Luckily, I’d hit the ATM at the airport, so I should be good to go on that front.

The driver (his name tag said ‘Andrew’) made small talk as we went, and I asked him about Cedar Rapids.  It seems like a nice city.  If I have time, I might like to check out a couple of museums, but I doubt I’ll get the chance.

The con doesn’t officially open for another couple of hours, but I got checked into the hotel just fine.  My room is really nice, with two queen beds and a balcony that overlooks the river (I don’t see any rapids, though).  There’s a door to the adjoining room, but of course it’s locked.  I wonder if Erica will be staying there?  Or maybe she’s staying in the other bed?  I’ll be sure to leave it open for her, just in case. 

Once I’d checked in with the hotel, I still had to check in with the con itself.  That wasn’t open for regular attendees, but they took care of me right away.  They gave me a bunch of papers, a print copy of the program and map, and a copy of my personal schedule along with a fancy ‘guest of honor’ badge on a lanyard.  Then they asked me to be sure to change into my ‘uniform’ before coming back down to the main floor, so I went ahead and shifted my Eufiber.  I don’t want to get off on a bad foot for my first job. 

Not having anything else to do, I wandered around, watching all the last minute setup stuff and staying out of the way.  I tried to keep a low profile, but a guy in a hotel uniform came by, pushing a cart that was overloaded with stacked chairs.  He hit the edge of his cart on a corner, and the whole thing nearly toppled over.  I was able to catch it in time, so only the top two chairs came off the stack.  The poor guy didn’t know what to do, so I just made sure everything was steady then put the chairs back on top.  He thanked me and went on his way. 

It's weird to be more-or-less alone in a space that’s going to be packed in a few hours.  (I hear the con is sold out.)  Nobody pays much attention to me once they see that I have a badge.  I guess they either assume that I’m meant to be there, or assume it isn’t their job to throw me out.  I looked over the schedule, and found each room that I was assigned an activity in, so I’ll know exactly where I’m going once the crowds get too thick to ask directions easily.  Some of the timeslots are pretty tight.  Would it be rude to fly above people’s heads if I need to get someplace fast?  Ordinarily, I’d say ‘yes’, but maybe people would be cool with it here.

Once I knew where everything was, I wandered through the Vendor’s Hall.  Most of the vendors were still setting up, of course, but it was fun to see what was there anyway.  I knew people were crazy for novas, but this is ridiculous!  You can slap a nova or something about quantum on just about anything and expect it to sell!  And not just the ‘hero’ novas, either.  There’s as much Divis Mal merch as there is Caestus Pax.  Maybe more.  There’s a lot of Slider stuff too, including about her funeral.  That seems in poor taste. A lot of what’s available is pretty mundane- posters, t-shirts, buttons, that kind of thing.  Then there’s the toys.  I expected action figures, but the plushies startled me.  And, I have to admit, I found a Leviathan plushie in a kawaii style that was just too adorable.  That vendor looked completely ready to go, so I went ahead and asked.  I get the feeling she wasn’t supposed to be selling already (and if she’d hesitated, I’d have come back later), but she took my money with no problem.  I have a Leviathan plushie.  That’s who I am now.  /facepalm.

Artist’s Alley was interesting.  Since the artists didn’t have as much random ‘stuff’- just art supplies and finished pieces to hang up, most of them were either kicked back and talking among themselves or already drawing.  I wonder if artists draw at cons to encourage commissions the same way street performers ‘salt the hat’ to encourage tips?  The artists there were (almost) all amazing.  And even the few I didn’t much care for are probably great, if you like those styles.  I’d expected it to be mostly drawings, with maybe some digital art, and there was a lot of that.  But there were also paintings, with one artist in particular working in oils! 

At either end of the artist’s area there were a couple of cute booths.  One was photography.  That one had costumes people could put on and have their picture taken, as well as standees of various famous novas with the faces cut out so you could put your face in and have your picture taken.  The booth at the other end offered caricatures drawn right then, making the sitter into a nova.  That guy was working in chalk, but he also had some of those fancy oil pastel crayons as well. I guess a lot of people will be in costume, or just want a cheap souvenir, since there was one of those photo booths that spit out a strip of four portraits. 

Speaking of souvenirs, I should get some, I think.  Definitely for Mom.  And the girls.  And for Bailey, of course.  If she ever forgives me.  Strange.  It seems like that should hurt more than it does.  I’ve got a couple of open spaces in my schedule, so I’ll come back to the Vendor Hall once everything is properly open. 

Later-

I put the Leviathan plushie in my room, and while I was in there, Erica turned up.  She does, in fact, have the adjoining room.  She came in, all professional, and asked if there was anything I needed, or if I had any questions.  I figured I’d take the opportunity to get some clarity on one point that had been bothering me for days, and came to my attention earlier as I was wandering.  There are ‘Cosplay Is Not Consent’ posters everywhere.  That’s great, but it begs the question- what do I do if someone tries (or worse, succeeds) at touching me inappropriately?  Not just here, but anywhere?  I told her about the kid at my ‘landing zone’ several days ago, and Sean’s ‘accidental’ butt contact.  Before I erupted, I would have smacked either of them, yelled, and reported them to a teacher/security/cop whoever.  But now, I’m pretty sure that no matter how gently I made contact, I’d be accused of hurting someone.  Plus, I’m supposed to ‘keep in mind that I represent Project Utopia at all times.’  So, what do I do? 

She looked sorta pained and sat down on the bed across from me.  And she laid it out for me.  The safety of baselines had to come first, and Utopia’s reputation and clean image must be maintained at all costs.  As a guest of honor, I would have security near me at all times at the con, and anyone who touched me, or said anything inappropriate to me would be promptly removed as soon as I gave the word. 

But back in the real world, I was expected to ‘be the bigger person’, and ‘be gracious in the face of moderate harassment’.  I was allowed to take the minimal steps needed to secure my safety and well-being in the event of significant assault, but even then, violence toward baselines was unacceptable unless my life (or someone else’s) was immediately at risk.  Outside of that, the best thing I could do in those situations was to leave the area (and the harasser) as soon as possible.  In other words, I’m expected to accept being sexually harassed and even assaulted by baselines, as long as it didn’t come with violence attached.  If another nova sexually harassed me, I could respond as I pleased, as long as baselines weren’t injured and collateral damage was kept to a minimum.  Erica used a lot of corporate speak, but it all boiled down to ‘suck it up’.  At least she had the grace to look uncomfortable telling me that.  I know it isn’t her fault, so I’m not going to take it out on her.  But I. Am. Pissed.

YOU SHOULD BE PISSED, HEKA.  BASELINES SHOULD NEVER TOUCH YOU OR HARRASS YOU IN ANY WAY.  UTOPIA IS SHOWING YOU WHO THEY ARE ALREADY, AND IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE.  TO UTOPIA, BASELINES ARE PEOPLE. YOU’RE A COMMODITY TO BE USED- AND DISCARDED WHEN YOU’RE USED UP.

~S

And, with that delightful thought, I’m about to go down for my first scheduled event- opening ceremonies, followed by a meet-and-greet.  So I’m going to swallow my rage, smile, and make nice.  Because I signed a contract.  Because I’m a good girl and do what I’m told.  I can do this.  My contract lasts twenty months and completely covers my education.  And if I’m even a little clever, I can use the time to save my money, establish a solid ‘fuck off’’ fund, and develop the connections that I’ll need in the real world.  Twenty months.  I can do this. 

Later-

The first part of tonight went more easily than I’d expected.  I’d left Erica in charge of putting together an announcement of my name, but I hadn’t expected it to happen at opening ceremonies.  But I guess it makes sense.  No point in having ‘getting to know you’ events and then bringing out a new name after.  So, that went smoothly.  There was a little pocket of people off to one side that went absolutely nuts at the announcement.  Perhaps they’re the forum people who planned to be here?  I made note of as many faces as I could, in case I need to match them up later.  Could one of them be Watch_th3_Skys?

The meet-and-greet after was more like an old-school receiving line.  I stood in a loose line with the other Guests of Honor, with little podiums beside us with pens and things.  People lined up for ages to say ‘hi’ to us, get autographs, take pictures, and so on.  There were con officials hurrying people through, so nobody got to spend more than about thirty seconds with each GoH.  Even so, we were there for hours.  The line nearest to us was one of those snaked formats that kept doubling back on itself so you can’t see very far in front of you, but behind that, the line stretched across the room, out the door, and down the hall.   At one point, I asked a guy how long he’d been waiting, and he said two hours.  I can’t imagine standing in line that long to see my favorite authors, let alone a few people who are, effectively, famous for being famous. 

Oh, and I found out at opening ceremonies who the Novox singer is.  His name is Jakob Perkins, and he used to be part of a boyband called Powerstarz.  It was supposed to be an all-nova boyband, but Jakob was the only nova they could find for it, so the rest of the members were baselines.  They broke up recently when a second member of the band erupted during an argument about something band-related and promptly quit.  Perkins is trying for a solo career now, but I’m not sure how well it’s going.  I’d never heard of him (and only barely heard of Powerstarz), but my not knowing about something certainly doesn’t make it bad.  I’ll try to catch his concert tomorrow, and make a more informed judgement. Aren’t boybands put together more for image than for musical ability?

My endurance is good enough that I could have stood around for days, but apparently some of the other GoH weren’t so lucky.  I was between Mason, the Cedar Rapids municipal defender, and Boom-Boom Harmon, with Jakob Perkins on Mason’s other side.  We didn’t have the opportunity to speak much before the line was let in, but I got the idea that all three of them found this part really unpleasant.  They kept shifting their weight, and sighing, and making the occasional snarky comments.  I would have thought all of them, especially Mason, would have been more polite.  These people were waiting for hours to see us, after all.  The least we could do was be nice and at least pretend to be interested in seeing them in return.  I didn’t even have to pretend to be interested.  I’ll admit that I was (and still am) uncomfortable with the idea of people waiting around that long to see me, even for only a few seconds.  And I’m sure that most of those people were more interested in the others than in me.  (Apparently Boom-Boom is kinda a big deal in some circles, and the others must have established fan bases as well.) 

I took pictures, gave hugs, signed autographs (people wanted me to sign the weirdest things- sometimes even body parts!), and generally tried to be as friendly and gracious as I could be.  Some of them introduced themselves, and I made a point of matching as many names to faces as I could.  I’m sure I didn’t get them all, though.  It was a little weird how many didn’t introduce themselves, but maybe ‘celebrity etiquette’ is different?  All the faces I’d taken note of at opening ceremonies passed through my line in a clump, so it seems more likely that they know each other from somewhere.  They didn’t mention the forum, but two of them introduced themselves: Michelle and Gordon.

I’ll admit, I got a jolt on several occasions.  I knew people cosplayed, both as actual novas and as their own original characters.  But it never occurred to me that anyone would cosplay as me!  But six different people came through my line dressed as me.  One of them was a guy (or at least male presenting- there wasn’t time for pronouns).  All of them dressed as me.  Same hair, same backpack, same school uniform (and I know they don’t go to my school), one with the back charred away!  The ‘quality’ varied from a little better than a Halloween costume to so exact I couldn’t have been sure they hadn’t swiped my laundry.  Most of them were about my age, but there was one little girl there who couldn’t have been more than ten.  How would she even know who I was????  People came through the line dressed as the other GoHs as well, but I’d expected that.  Just not me.  Even if somebody wanted to be me, there hasn’t been much time to put together a cosplay- even one as simple as what I was wearing.  I felt a little bad (though I didn’t say anything to them) that I’d put my foot down about not appearing in my school uniform after this weekend.  Those people went to all that trouble…

After the meet-and-greet, we had a few minutes to ourselves.  Mason was doing the stoic ‘I’m just doing my job’ thing, and I don’t know anything about him, so maybe that’s his persona, or maybe that’s just… him?  Or maybe he just didn’t want to be at the con in the first place.  I guess if I was hired to defend the city, then maybe I’d think being at a con was a waste of my time and energy? 

Jakob and Boom-Boom were more talkative.  A little full of themselves, but I suppose that’s to be expected.  They both introduced themselves to me.  Jakob asked if I was going to be at his concert tomorrow, and when I said yes, he invited me backstage.  I told him that sounded like fun.  Boom-Boom asked me to lunch tomorrow, and once we compared schedules, we agreed to meet at the hotel restaurant.  Then we were all called into the last scheduled event of the evening: the VIP dinner. 

I’d seen that on my schedule, but I hadn’t really understood.  I’d just assumed that a bunch of people who were considered important for whatever reason would get together for a dinner, and that would be that.  Nope.  It turns out that the VIPs were split between major doners to the convention (like I’d expected), and people who’d been willing to pay $300.00 per plate to have dinner with a nova. 

There were four large round tables, and we were each guided to one.  Once we were seated, the VIPs came in, and sorted themselves into which table they wanted to sit at.  I felt a little bad for Jakob, since his table filled last.  Mason’s table was mostly older men in suits, that I suspect are local Cedar Rapids business leaders.  Boom-Boom’s table and mine filled the most quickly, and with a greater variety of people. 

I know you can never tell a book by its cover, and some of those people were only there because they paid to be, but I was still surprised.  There were eleven people at my table, other than me, and all of them men.  They all introduced themselves, and I made a point of using their names throughout dinner.  If they’re going to throw money away, then at least I can be polite. 

The man on my right was older, maybe late forties, and gave off a smarmy, used-car frat bro vibe.  His suit looked nice, but his shirt was unbuttoned too low, and he wasn’t wearing a tie.  I think I even saw a gold chain peeking out.  The way he kept side-eying me made me glad my badge was clearly tagged as ‘Under 21’.  His name was Cameron, and he pressed my hand a little too long when he gave me his business card.  (When I looked later, he’d written his hotel room number on the back.  Eeew.)

On my left was Barry.  If you looked up ‘basement dweller’ in the dictionary, I think you’d find Barry’s picture.  He was wearing jeans and a button-up shirt with a silk-screen printed dragon on it.  He even had a fedora.  At least he didn’t smell, though his skin had a sort of greasy film on it.  But he seemed nice, if socially awkward.  The other men at the table fell in between those extremes.  I did my best to talk to all of them, at least a little.  It was creepy the way some of them watched me, though.

I hope the rest of the events I’m scheduled for go better than the dinner.  It wasn’t that the dinner went badly, it’s just that I felt like an animal in the circus.  Since I erupted, I’ve felt like a zoo animal before- with people watching me, but this was different.  I felt like they were expecting me to perform, somehow.  Not actually perform, of course.  Not like singing, or card tricks, or something.  But I felt like something more was expected of me, somehow.  I was easily able to overhear the conversations at Jakob’s and Boom-Boom’s tables, and they didn’t seem to be doing anything more than I was (if anything, they weren’t making as much effort to include everyone as I was), so I don’t think I was really doing anything wrong.  It just felt… off. 

The prime rib was very nice, but not as good as at the Clinic.  I’ve definitely gotten spoiled in my eating. 

And that was it for the evening.  A long shower and a (relatively) early bedtime for me.  Tomorrow, I have several panels, lunch with Boom-Boom, and the concert later.  Plus, I want to go back to the Vendor’s Hall when it’s properly open.

Chapter Text

Saturday, October 3

Despite it not being on my schedule, I was ‘strongly encouraged’ to attend the Breakfast Buffet of Champions.  I figured I may as well.  It’s not like I needed to sleep in, or anything.  I was expecting the usual hotel breakfast stuff: pastries, fruit, cereal, maybe one of those DIY pancake machines.  But no, there was a full breakfast buffet, with bacon, eggs, sausage, the works.  I was confused at all the corn included in breakfast items that I’m not used to having corn in them, but I found out later that Cedar Rapids is the largest corn-processing city in the world.  Good for them, I guess?

Michelle and Gordon (I think they’re either a couple or related, not sure which) were there, and they pounced on the chance to sit with me and talk.  They were thrilled that I remembered their names, and we had a nice time.  They are from the forum.  I pretended not to know about the forum, and they told me all about it, and how they (or some of the others that were here) planned to record all of my panels this weekend and post them there so everyone could hear me.  They asked me about my new name, and I told them the short version of what it meant to me.  Not the really personal stuff, though.  They both seemed impressed, but I’m not sure Gordon was really following my explanation.  For a first extended, unstructured meeting with fans, I think it went pretty well. 

I had gone to breakfast early, and my first panel wasn’t until eleven, so I decided to hit the Vendor’s Hall right when it opened for the day, in hopes of picking up gifts for the people back home.  Everything was set up and ready this time, and I got a much better idea of just how crazy for novas people are.  Action figures. T-shirts. Lunch boxes. Plushies. Bobble-heads. Comics. CDs and DVDs (some bootleg, I’m pretty sure). There were novas put through the lenses of other fandoms- nova Star Trek, nova Hello Kitty, nova Sailor Moon, nova furry. 

There was a corner that had been draped off when I was there before, that now had a bead curtain saying ‘18+, NSFW’ on it.  But of course I went in anyway, and no one made the slightest pretense about checking ages.  When the sign said ‘NSFW’, they meant it. Porn. Lots and lots of porn either about novas or actually starring novas. And not just video porn, either.  Porn action figures. Porn ‘sexy’ costumes. There were even a line of sex toys claiming to be modeled after several famous nova’s dicks.  I noticed that a lot of the things on display had the same logo: Pandaimonion. 

There was a cardboard standee of a nearly-naked Andre Corbin next to a stack of his porno Hardballs.  I thought that was in especially poor taste, since he’s wanted for Slider’s murder.  I’m not sure he actually killed her, but him being on the run doesn’t make things look better for him.  I left pretty quick.  I’m not a prude, or anything, but there are some things I just don’t need to see. 

Back out in the main hall, I found some things that I thought Jess, Monique, and Alejandra would like.  Bailey was easier- anything with Caestus Pax would work.  Mom was harder to buy for.  If I’d previously been uninterested in novas, Mom was entirely uneducated on the subject.  I’m not even sure how much time she’s spent familiarizing herself with the whole thing- other than how it impacts me.  Looking around for something she’d like really brought it home to me that with her working two jobs and me growing up, we don’t really see much of each other, even though we’re in the same house.  Finally, I ended up back at Artist’s Alley, and found what I needed.  There was an artist who specialized in basing paintings and drawings off of media footage.  He had two of me and the apartment fire.  One of me bringing the two kids down with the babysitter on my back, and one of me flying the fat woman and her dog down, with my back on fire.  (The artist took some liberties with that one- I’d stuffed the dog entirely down my front, and I’m pretty sure I looked pregnant, if anything; but the artist had painted the dog with its head sticking out of my shirt collar.)  I bought the first one, since I didn’t think Mom would want something commemorating her only daughter being accidentally set on fire.  Once the artist saw who I was, he asked me to sign the on-fire one, and I did.  As I left, I noticed him marking up the price.  LoL.

I just had time to stash my haul in my room and update this before my first panel. 

Later-

The panels were interesting, if I do say so myself.  My first one was titled “Young Novas Making Their Own Place In The World”.  Boom-Boom and Jakob were on that panel as well.  It was moderated by a local baseline influencer I’d never heard of.  To be honest, I was a little surprised to see Jakob on the panel.  I was up-close enough with him yesterday to know that he must be twenty-five, at least.  Maybe older.  But he certainly acts young.  Or maybe I should say, immature.  Oh well.  Maybe being in a boyband stunts your development?  Or maybe just being a ‘celebrity’ does?  If so, I’ll have to watch out for that.  People seem to be determined to make me one.

Anyway, the panel turned out to be pretty easy.  It was people asking us questions- sometimes to all of us, sometimes to one of us in particular- and us answering.  Jakob’s style seemed to be ‘talk much, say little’.  I think that’s kinda a cop-out, but it might be a skill worth learning.  Boom-Boom seemed to be trying to be controversial (he’s a Terat, after all) but not too controversial for the Midwest, which intrigued me- it implies his antics might be part of a calculated image.  He made a big thing about the Teragen, and the One Race, and freeing ourselves from baseline domination to explore our own potential.  I’m not sure how much of that he means, or how much is just Teragen propaganda.  He seemed very… polished.  Not slick, but as though his ‘rough edges’ were left there intentionally.  I only know the Teragen from the news (which frames them all as evil, violent terrorists), and the OpNet (which has them as everything from evil, violent terrorists to the Second Coming.).  I’m looking forward to lunch even more now- maybe I’ll get a better idea of the reality- or at least his take on it.  For myself, being the youngest and newest, I went with the “I’m still just trying to figure things out and find my place in the world’, which the audience just ate up.  They asked me what I wanted to do with myself, and didn’t quite know how to respond when I said that I’d always wanted to be a teacher, and that I was planning to get a degree in education.  I think they expected me to talk about Team Tomorrow, or saving the world, or something.  But if you think about it, teaching is saving the world. One kid at a time.

My second panel was about “The Responsibility of Novas to Improve Lives for Everyone”.  This time I was on with Boom-Boom and Mason, and boy did the sparks fly!  They pretty much owned the panel between them, sniping back and forth at each other’s philosophies and ideals.  Basically, Mason gave the standard ‘superhero’ take that because we were given these great gifts, we had a responsibility to use them for humanity’s greatest good, each according to our own capabilities.  Boom-Boom;s take was that novas weren’t human, and had no responsibility to humanity.  That if we chose to help baselines, that was our choice, but in no way our responsibility.  That our gifts set us apart from humanity, and therefore, our duty was to explore our own evolving abilities as a way of finding out what comes next.  Mason was getting big mad, especially since somehow Boom-Boom managed to say everything with absolute sincerity, and yet still somehow give the idea that he was laughing at Mason. 

Finally, Mason pulled me into the mix by insisting that “even a child like me” (WTF?  Jerk!) understood my civic duty and “put myself in danger without thought for my own safety when baselines needed my help.”  I knew this was exactly the kind of thing that they meant when Project Utopia wanted me to ‘make sure my words and behavior were in compliance with Utopia ideals at all times’.  But I also was annoyed about Mason treating me like a stupid child.  (Yes, I know that complaining about being treated like a child makes me sound like a whiney teenager.)  So I couldn’t shut Mason down, but I didn’t want him using me as an example either.  So, I pointed out that the only reason I’d even been near that fire was because Project Utopia sent me an emergency alert while I was at school, and that I was confident that Utopia wouldn’t have sent me into a situation that was too dangerous for me to handle.  Mason looked frustrated, Boom-Boom looked amused, and the panel ended soon after. 

My final panel of the day must have been a scheduling mistake.  That’s all I can assume.  It was on “Novas in Sports: XWF and Beyond”.  I’m not sporty.  I don’t watch sports.  I know nothing about XWF.   The other two novas on the panel were both part of nova sports leagues, and clearly were hoping to join XWF someday.  They were both tricked out in full nova-based luchador gear, complete with masks.  Of the two, one of them sported Eufiber (it gives off its own, slight, buzzy tingly effect to my quantum sense), so I assume he has some kind of backing.  Or maybe he’s just got connections.  The other seemed more of a wanna-be.  Since I had absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation, I got some practice throwing the attention to one or the other of my fellow panelists, which they seemed to appreciate.

I met Boom-Boom for lunch in the hotel restaurant.  We were given a good table near the front, where we could be easily seen, but close enough to the hostess stand that we weren’t likely to be bothered.  He was actually at the table when I came in, which surprised me.  I somehow expected him to be late.  We gave our orders and then settled in to chat. 

It didn’t take long for him to come to his point: that (in his not-at-all-humble opinion, Project Utopia wasn’t the place for me, and that I shouldn’t allow them to use me for the good of baselines and to my detriment.  I’ll admit that I was still raw about Utopia’s stance on dealing with sexual harassment by baselines, so I didn’t immediately shut him down.  I did point out very clearly that I was under contract with Utopia, and would be until I graduated high school, at the very least.  He waved that off, and basically told me that if I decided to ‘go rogue’, there was really nothing that Utopia could do to stop me, other than cutting off whatever benefits I was currently receiving.  Which, when I think about it, is very true. 

I made sure no one was positioned to overhear us (without nova powers, anyway), and told him the truth: that I wasn’t completely happy with some of Utopia’s policies, but I was grateful for the help I’d received when I erupted.  Furthermore, my working for Utopia would help give my mother a better life, as well as pay for my education.  So, I was prepared to accept… a certain amount of distasteful realities in exchange for those benefits.  Especially when my current contract was of a relatively short duration. 

Boom-Boom wanted to know what I planned to do after high school, and I told him I wanted to teach, and would need to get at least a bachelors and preferably a master’s degree for that.  I thought he would blow that off as boring, or maybe even an unworthy goal, but he took me seriously.  He told me that Utopia wasn’t the only way to pay for my education.  That the right connections within the Teragen could do as much, if not more, for me. 

This seemed like an ideal opening, so I asked him to tell me more about the Teragen.  I told him that what little I knew came from reading the Null Manifesto, and from all the various media treatment that the Teragen gets.  I thought he might get defensive about the way the media treats his people, but he didn’t.  Instead, he came right out and admitted that some groups within the Teragen were exactly what the media makes them out to be: nova-supremacist terrorist cells.  But he went on to say that most of the Teragen was very different.  In fact, there were so many different groups within the movement that the only things that truly held them all together was the philosophy of Teras itself- and Divis Mal.

Most of his surface explanation of Teras, I’d already found on the OpNet, and to be honest, Boom-Boom doesn’t strike me as a philosopher or an especially deep thinker.  I think he’s sincere in his beliefs- he just hasn’t examined what he believes all that closely. He admitted that himself when I started asking questions, but he offered to send me some essays some of the more thoughtful members of the moment had written on the subject, which I happily agreed to.

Boom-Boom was much more up to the mark about how the Teragen actually works.  Basically, each member is expected to decide for themselves who they are and explore what they will become.  That they aren’t bound by baseline (he started to use a slur, but caught himself) laws, ethics, or morals; and that all novas everywhere are bound together as the One Race, having more in common with each other than with any baseline.  Terats don’t have to agree with each other’s ideas or plans, but they’re expected to tolerate them, or at the very least not actively hinder them.  Most Terats form networks of social connections and favors, allowing them to get help on their own pet projects in exchange for helping others.  It sounds like the best elements of mutual aid societies, with some actual anarchy (the political impulse, not the selfish asshats rebelling for no good reason).

He said that most of the Teragen didn’t actually have a problem helping baselines out with things if they asked politely- but the help would be given on our terms, not the baselines.  It was the expectation that novas were there to serve baseline needs that was the issue.  That resonated with me, I’ll admit.  I want to help people, but I want to do it my way, not whatever way someone else decides I should.  He said that a lot of Teragen members did work for charities, or in science and tech.  But they did it from a sense of noblesse oblige (he pronounced it wrong, but I didn’t correct him), with the understanding that novas were a separate and superior people, and forgetting that would only hold us back. 

When I asked, “Hold us back from what?”, he said, that depended on who you asked.  That got us in to some of the different groups within the Teragen.  It was pretty clear from how Boom-Boom talked that he had a lot more respect for some groups than others.  He was most eager to tell me about the Pandaimonion (that he’s part of and clearly wants to be in charge of), and the Casablancas (that he seems to think I’d fit in well with).  Pandaimonion, from what I gathered reading between the lines of what Boom-Boom said, was all about living like rock stars and being modern demigods with little to no personal responsibility.  They sound a lot like the group of Satanists at school- the ones that only took on the first half of the Satanic ideals.  (I read up on it when I ran across them in the cafeteria.  Basically, real Satanism rejects being controlled eternally by religion, society, and rule of law; in favor of being controlled internally by personal responsibility and a system of individual honor and ethics.  But the Satanist kids at school rejected all the first part, but instead of replacing all those external controls with internal guiding principles, they just decided that being Satanists meant that they could do whatever they wanted.  Not a philosophy I could admire.)

Anyway, it sounds like the Pandaimonion is all about looking good, acting cool, taking what they want, and not caring who they hurt.  It doesn’t sound like they’re actively malicious- just terminally self-absorbed.  To hear Boom-Boom talk, there’s a lot of them, though, and they have the best of everything.  Maybe they do, but I don’t think I’d want to spend much time with them.

What he had to say about the Casablancas was a lot more interesting.  Apparently, they’re into networking, information gathering and trading, and generally keeping the entire Teragen movement connected and talking to each other.  They seem to know everyone, hear everything, and have ‘people’ who can get almost anything done.  They also seem to be the group that has the most (positive) contact with baselines.  He’s right about one thing- I likely would fit in best with them.  Not that I have any intention of joining the Teragen, of course. 

Boom-Boom had a lot of respect for Nova Vigilance, one of the more… active groups.  Their thing is protecting novas from baselines.  That got my attention, and Boom-Boom noticed.  He explained that Geryon was one of the main people in charge of it, and he got involved when novas were abused or injured, or killed by baselines (or in service to baseline projects).  He mentioned that awful business in Tampa last year, which I’d only heard a little about. 

To hear Boom-Boom tell it, the mayor of Tampa passed a city ordinance that forbid novas from entering the city at all.   A young, idealistic nova named Sluice showed up to do some peaceful civil disobedience (like those young black men sitting at the Woolworth’s counter?), and was promptly abused and arrested before disappearing completely.  Geryon decided to make a point about not allowing novas to be mistreated by showing up to a public speech the mayor was giving, and ripping his head off his shoulders.  I’d heard the basics of the story, of course, with a lot of media outrage added.  The way Boom-Boom told it made it sound less like a rampage and more like a surgical strike: Geryon picked one target, went in, delivered his message, killed just that one target, and got out- all with minimal collateral damage, and no other injuries.  (If I recall correctly, there were other injuries, but even the media admitted that they were caused by people trying to get away rather than by Geryon directly.)  Obviously, I don’t condone murder.  And I suspect that Boom-Boom is being too generous with his telling of the event.  Still, there are three sides to every story…

I think Boom-Boom was hoping I’d be convinced to join up with the Teragen right then and there.  No way.  Even if some of what he says is true (and I’m willing to accept that there is some truth in what he said), that still doesn’t mean I should blow off Utopia and everything they’re doing for me.  But still, he’s given me more to think about.  And I do want to read those essays.  Assuming he comes through with them.  We exchanged OpNet addresses, either way. 

Ultimately, I had a good time at lunch, and learned a lot- even if it was from an unreliable source.  Usually, I get annoyed when guys go on and on, never letting you get a word in.  But this time, that was exactly what I wanted to happen, so it worked out.

Between lunch and the concert, I had ‘open time’, where I was encouraged to make myself visible in the con space, but wasn’t technically ‘on duty’.  I decided to watch the cosplay parade, and then the costume contest.  Those were fun.  The parade was about a sixty/forty split of baselines dressed as actual novas versus characters they’d made up themselves.  I’d learned from the conversations around me having art of your OC (original character- I had to ask someone) and putting together the best cosplay your skills (and budget, I assume) would allow was the mark of a ‘true fan’, and anyone who didn’t care enough to do so were just wannabes.  But also, paying someone to make your cosplay for you, or buying ‘off the rack’ marked you as a poseur.  I’m not sure how I feel about all this gatekeeping, but since the people talking tended to be either young teen girls or basement-dweller-looking men in their thirties, I took their opinions with several grains of salt.

The parade fed into the main hall for the costume contest, and I found a good spot to watch.  Those people put a lot of time and effort into their costumes!  I had no idea.  And not only did they have the gear and any props the nova they were portraying were known for, they also had little routines they did onstage.  Dances, shadow-boxing type fight sequences, sometimes groups performed.  And all of them were thrilled to go into detail about the craft and work they’d put into their costumes.  (I would be, too!  They have amazing skills!) 

Michelle was there, cosplaying as me!  She didn’t even place, but she looked like she had fun.  Her costume was really well done, but let’s face it- the best, most intricate creation of a school uniform is still… a school uniform.  Somebody in full Geryon gear won.  Is Geryon really that big?  I think that guy might have actually been wearing stilts!

After the costume contest, I just wandered around for a bit, before ending up at the Maid Café.  I didn’t know anybody here, and there wasn’t a panel I was interested in, so I just hung out for a bit and read a book.  People kept coming up to me for pictures and things, but that was okay.  It’s not like they were interrupting anything important. I never did figure out what maids had to do with novas, but oh well. 

I went back to my room for a little downtime and to do another of these little updates before the concert.  I’m not usually much of a TV watcher, but I wanted a little mindless entertainment.  I found a show about a team of people repossessing cars, and had that on for background noise until it was time to go to the concert.  I kinda don’t want to go- I’ve had enough of people and being social on-demand for one day.  But it’s on my list of scheduled events, and I sorta promised Jakob (not that I’m certain he would notice if I were there or not).  Besides, I’ve never seen a Novox show before. 

Later-

Well, that was… an experience.  I never really got into the whole boyband thing, with the choreographed dancing and the wailing fangirls.  But at least with actual boybands, there was a group with carefully constructed personas that you could watch, sorta like reality TV in music form.  All that gets lost in translation when the ‘boyband’ is… just… one… boy.  Don’t get me wrong, Jackob Perkins can sing.  He can carry a tune, and his voice is good.  I could feel him playing the audience’s emotions as effectively as he played his keyboard.  (Well, I’m not completely sure he was really playing the keyboard.)  But it seemed like he was trying to attract an adult listenership using tactics suited to impress twelve-year-old girls.  All style, very little substance. 

The baselines were eating it up, though, and I can’t help but assume it has more to do with his emotional manipulations than his music.  Is that even ethical?  I mean, I suppose it’s harmless during the actual show, since they’ve already gotten tickets before he starts screwing with them.  But does it work over recorded media?  Does the effect linger, and drive more sales after the fact?  That would seem problematic. 

Even though his music wasn’t at all my style, it was still interesting to be backstage.  I’d never done that, and I had a lot of fun watching all the support staff running around just out of sight, doing everything they needed to to make Jakob look good.  I guess it’s that way with any kind of support staff.  And that probably means that Erica is doing a lot more for me than I realize.  I definitely need to put in some time to get to know her on the flight home. 

After Jakob finished his concert, and his encore(s), he made his way offstage and noticed me.  He was energized and excited, and I wondered if he was somehow able to feed off the audience’s energy, as well as manipulate it?  I told him how impressed I was with his performance, and how good his voice was.  It was expected, and I didn’t dislike it.  I just… didn’t really care for it.  But it would have been rude to let that show, not that he was paying too much attention.  Once we got far enough away from the stage, near the dressing rooms (I assume), a gaggle of baseline fans pounced on him, and it was pretty clear that he would be well entertained for the evening.  (That’s another ethical puzzle.  How much is his emotional manipulation featuring in his having young women throw themselves at him?  Groupies flock around even mediocre bands that don’t have quantum-powered performers, so maybe it isn’t a consent issue, but it still seems… sleazy. 

I left once he was good and distracted, and went back up to my room for the night.  I’ve had enough people-ing for the day.

Chapter Text

Sunday, October 4

Even though I don’t need to sleep anymore, a good night’s rest still does a lot of good.  There was another of those big breakfast buffets.  Michelle and Gordon found me again, and this time they brought friends.  Several of them were from the forum, but some seemed to be people the couple(?) had met at the con.  I had thought the forum was just local to Wilmington, but some of those people were from Florida, and one was from California! 

I’m still a little weirded out by that.  I kinda get being excited about ‘your’ local nova, even if they aren’t very exciting.  It’s like being a fan of your city’s minor league sports team.  I get that- there’s some loyalty there.  People cheer for the Sharks, even in years when they aren’t very good.  But Florida?  California?!?!?  I can’t even name a minor league team in California! 

I only had one panel on Sunday (apparently there are a lot of all-night parties on Saturday, so Sunday activities are minimal and start later).  This one was on “Being a Nova in a World of Baselines”.  I thought this was an odd choice.  Surely of all the topics, this one would have the least interest for baselines, and stand the most chance of offending people?  I mean, how can any comparison not come off as arrogant and rude?  Or condescending, at best?  This panel had me on with two novas I hadn’t met yet: Deacon, a member of the Church of the Immanent Escheaton (I’ve never heard of it, but I’ll look it up later), and Dante, an ‘independent’ nova that, after hearing him speak, I suspect of having Teragen sympathies. 

Deacon was overtly religious, almost proselytizing. He talked about how all novas are gifted by God and sent to be his angels on earth.  Somebody in the audience asked him what that meant for Terats like Geryon and Leviathan, and Deacon just looked really serious and said that sometimes angels fall and become demons.  I think the guy was heckling Deacon, but if Deacon realized that, he didn’t let on.  He kept going on about how it was every nova’s job to set a righteous example, and ‘prove the gift of God’s grace’.  I don’t think he convinced many people.  He actually had literature to pass out.  Flyers and business cards for his church.  Not many people took any, but he passed me some onstage, so I kinda had to take them. 

Dante went the other way, though not to nearly such an extreme.  He said that novas were the next step in human evolution, and that, like Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, it was only a matter of time before novas took over.  In short, baselines were old news, on the way out- and they knew it, whether they admitted it or not.  That was why some people worshipped us, and others hated us.  Because our very existence made them ‘last year’s model’.  He didn’t get a lot of agreement or approval either, but I saw some people in the audience nodding or looking solemn, like he’d confirmed something for them. 

I’m afraid I came off as very ‘aww, shucks’, compared with the others.  I was pretty up-front about things.  That, at seventeen, I’ve only barely started to find my place in the world as a person, let alone as a nova.  I was honest when I said that I didn’t know where I would be in five years, or fifty, but that I couldn’t imagine ever thinking of myself as a ‘gift from God’, or ‘next year’s model’.  I told them that I didn’t really know who Colleen was yet, and Heka and I are still getting to know each other.  (I’ll admit, I’m pretty proud of that last line.)  I got the most applause of the three of us, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because I didn’t preach or compare people to cavemen.

Later-

I had a little bit of downtime before closing ceremonies, so I looked up that Church of the Immanent Escheaton.  It looks like some kind of weird, Christian nova cult focused on the coming Apocalypse that novas are supposed to bring about, or fight against, or both. (The OpNet site wasn’t very clear.  Or very well-designed, for that matter.)  They post videos of their sermons on YouTube.  Their main leader, Gabriel ‘The Miracle’ Melchior does things you used to hear about faith healers and tent revival shows doing in the Great Depression.  I’m pretty sure he’s real though.  A real nova, not a real ‘gift from God’.  He has a lot of novas in his congregation, and a lot of baselines.  Apparently he has a compound out in the Nevada desert.  (Like I said, a weird doomsday cult.)  They claim to have members all over the world, and that only the ‘elect’ actually live in the compound.  No. Thank. You.

Closing ceremonies were fairly low-key (and nowhere near as well attended as opening).  The con people thanked everyone for coming, went over the money they’d raised for a local homeless shelter (Mason accepted a big fake check on behalf of the city), and gave a rundown of how many people had attended, how many panels were held, how many this-and-that’s.  They made a point of reminding people that early subscribers to next year’s convention would get a discount, a special badge, and a t-shirt.  Then they thanked all us Guests of Honor for being there, we each said something about how much we’d enjoyed being there, and that was pretty much it.  (I don’t think Jakob’s eruption gave him any kind of extra endurance, because he looked a little rough.)

I had some more time before check-out, and didn’t have much to pack, so I just hung around watching people say their goodbyes and go their separate ways.  I was very specifically not wearing my school uniform, since as far as I was concerned, my contracted job was over.  Instead, I shaped my Eufiber into a nice green sweater and dark grey slacks (I remembered Erica’s request that I develop a signature color scheme like a good girl.) 

Michelle and Gordon, along with some of the other forum people found me again, and suggested that I join the forum myself.  (I still hadn’t mentioned that I already had, under a nondescript screenname.)  I mentioned not wanting to intrude, which I knew sounded silly the moment it left my mouth, and they insisted that I should sign up, and they’d love to have me, and promise not to bother me very much.  So, I made a show of letting them guide me to the OpNet site on my phone (luckily, I’d logged out of the forum before coming to the con), and I signed up, openly this time, as Heka.  I immediately got an error message saying that ‘Heka’ was reserved for ‘the real Heka, should she choose to join’.  When I showed this to Michelle (thinking it was hilarious), she looked embarrassed, immediately called somebody and told them it was me trying to register- apparently she knows the forum owner in real life- and to let me sign up.  A couple of minutes later, I was in.  I made a fairly generic ‘Hi, nice to be here, it’s an honor’ post, and they all seemed thrilled- several of their phones sent simultaneous notification pings, which I found amusing.

I excused myself to pack soon after, and the forum-ites wandered off.

The souvenirs I got fit into my backpack with no problem (I’d packed light), except for the painting.  I wasn’t quite sure how to bring that home safely, without damaging it.  So, I ran back down to the Vendor’s Hall, and luckily the artist was still there, and almost finished packing up.  I was able to get a box from him, though he didn’t have any extra packing material to pad it with.  I was able to get that from housekeeping, in the form of an extra roll of toilet paper.  Dignified? No. Effective? Yes. The boxed painting won’t fit in my backpack, but it will still fit in the plane’s overhead compartment, even if I have to pay extra for a second ‘carry on’.

Erica and I shared the car back to the airport, and she filled me in on everything she’d been doing for me over the weekend.  I now have a social media presence.  On every major platform.  When I protested that I already had Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, she told me that I was ‘allowed’ to keep those, but that these new accounts were my ‘official’ presence on social media.  And that she would be running them!  I objected. She insisted.  Finally, we compromised- she would run the accounts, but I would have the passwords, and could delete posts if I didn’t like them.  I could also submit posts to the accounts, but Erica would have to approve them.  I was not allowed to post anything nova or Project Utopia related on my personal real accounts.  What’s that cliché about diplomacy?  That you know it was a success if no one comes out happy?  I guess the diplomacy was a success.

She’s also secured several other ‘engagements’.  I’m scheduled to be on several podcasts in the upcoming weeks, and to be part of a holiday-themed fashion show next month.  As in, be a model.  WTF?  I’m no Quasimodo, but I’m not model-pretty.  The modeling gig and the podcasts were paid engagements, but the one I was actually excited about was a charity freebie for the New Hanover County Humane Society.  There’s going to be a dog adoption event, and my rescuing the dog from the fire made me a reasonable candidate for a ‘spokesman’.  At least that’s a charity I can get behind.  And I’d’ve insisted on doing that for free even if they wanted to pay me, but Erica says that I would be scheduled for occasional ‘freebies’ as part of my public image.

I wasn’t sure how to thank her for her efforts on my behalf, especially since I still wasn’t happy about the social media thing.  The best I could think of in the moment was to take her to lunch at the airport, which she accepted.

Once we were on the plane, I turned the conversation to her- who she was, how she’d ended up being assigned to me, the whole thing.  I won’t violate her privacy by talking about her private life (what little she told me).  She explained that she’d been working for Utopia since she gotten her master’s degree in Nova Studies (I didn’t even know that was a thing).  She’d done her thesis on social media and novas (which I guess explains why she was so insistent that she manage my social media presence).  She’d been with Utopia for four years, but that I was her first direct assignment to an individual nova.  I found out a few more things about her, but like I said, I don’t want to violate her privacy. 

By the end of the conversation, I came to the conclusion that I could trust her- to a point.  But I wasn’t sure I was ever going to want to be friendly with her on anything other than a ‘work relationship’.  It’s to her advantage (and it’s her job) to make me look good, and in so doing make Utopia look good.  She didn’t come right out and say it, but reading between the lines it was clear that Utopia looking good was the primary objective, and I would be ‘managed’ in service to that.  So, she won’t throw me under the bus, or go leaking my private life to tabloids (not that I have a private life), but that she wasn’t likely to choose my welfare over Utopia’s.  Okay.  That lets me know where I stand, which is really all I can ask for.

I flew home under my own power from the airport.  Mom was working, of course, and judging by the cat hair on the pillow, Pyewacket has claimed Mom for his own.  He and Furnado both welcomed me, Furnado with headbonks of love and lots of little chirrups.  I unboxed the painting and set it up on the dining table where Mom would see it when she got home. 

Then I unpacked, settled down to some serious cat-cuddling.  (They say two out of every three cats have been the victim of non-consensual snuggling.  I feel bad for that other third of catkind.)  I hadn’t really looked at the forum over the weekend, and was surprised at how much had been posted.

The forum’s name has changed from ‘Colleen Sightings’ to ‘Heka’s Home’, LoL.  There was a pinned post welcoming me, and assuring everyone that posts from username ‘Heka’ were actually me.  There was a thread discussing my name, with the early posts speculating on what it meant, and later ones from Michelle explaining how she’s gotten it ‘direct from the source’.  Links to all of my panels were posted as well.  There’s a YouTube channel dedicated to me where they’re hosting the videos, and the audio files are available by direct download.  I haven’t had the nerve to watch or listen to any yet.

The ‘fan club’ OpNet site has been updated as well, with pictures from the fire as well as the con.  There still doesn’t seem to be as much interaction on that one, compared to the forum.

Chapter Text

Monday, October 5

School was mostly uneventful.  I gave the girls their presents, which they appreciated.  In World History, Levon and I did most of the actual assembly of our ‘walking tour’ display.  Allen spent the time playing with the box cutter any time we weren’t using it.  Sean kept trying to get me to lean over.  <sigh>

Jeremy was lurking around me as much as he could, and I could tell he was going to try and corner me again after school.  This time, I recorded him on purpose.  And I didn’t feel bad about it at all. 

Sure enough, he was waiting by the main doors and tried (again) to get me alone.  I refused again.  Anything he had to say to me could be said in public.  He looked frustrated (I don’t think he’s used to being told ‘no’), but went ahead with it.  He told me that he’d broken up with Bailey, that he was done with her, had never liked her, and repeated how he’d liked me for a long time now.  He didn’t so much ask me to see a movie as tell me we were going to see a movie. 

The time for niceness was over.  I shut him down hard.  I told him that whether or not he’d actually broken up with Bailey (and I had no reason to trust his word), I still had no interest in going out with him.  I told him that the way he’d treated Bailey was awful, and even if he hadn’t been a jerk, I would still never date my best friend’s ex.  And even if he wasn’t my best friend’s ex, I’d still have no interest in dating him, ever.  Because he was a creepy jerk.  I told him, loudly, that we weren’t friends, we never had been friends, I had only put up with him for Bailey’s sake, and that nothing would ever make me date him.  Then I flew off before he could say anything.  Hopefully, that will be the end of it.  I want to call Bailey, or go visit.  I want to help her through the breakup (if he actually did break up with her), or tell him what he’s done.  But she hasn’t called all weekend, so I’m pretty sure she’s still mad.  So, I’ll leave it alone for now.  Getting in Bailey’s space before she’s cooled down can get nasty.

At the Clinic, Bix reminded me about wanting to do the endurance test this weekend.  Since I know I can finish the navigation course this evening, I agreed to it.  I may as well get it over with, and besides, I’m curious. 

Aside from that, Bix introduced something new today.  Fighting.  Right away, I objected.  I have no interest in fighting.  I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I don’t want to be hurt.  I’m perfectly content to turn invisible and fly away from any kind of danger. 

Bix was having none of it.  He insisted that everyone, even (especially) novas, needs at least a basic understanding of self-defense.  And besides, even if I’m willing to run away from a fight, I still have a duty to help those who can’t.  He insisted that I have a duty to protect baselines, whether from other baselines, or from novas.  Maybe I could do that by grabbing people and flying them to safety, but that wouldn’t always been an option.  In other words, I have no choice. 

Of course I had a choice.  I could walk out those doors right now, and not come back.  I could just flat-out refuse and see what happened.  I could- ….I could do what I’m told.  Like a good girl.  Like always.  When I didn’t keep arguing, Bix put on a pair of boxing gloves.

So far, learning to use my powers has come pretty easily.  Learning fine control has taken practice, and learning to multitask was a little rough, but just… using quantum has come naturally.  I suck at fighting.  I suck real hard at fighting.  Even with the boxing gloves, Bix can’t actually hurt me.  Not with punching or kicking.  But there must be something wrong with me, because I just keep freezing up when he comes at me.  If he came at me slowly, I could dodge out of the way, but if he surprised me, or started one hit, then switched to another move, I’d just… freeze. 

I don’t know if Bix was more worried about me, or disgusted with me.  But after a while, we switched places, and I was supposed to hit him.  I didn’t think that could be worse, but it was.  I’m not a pacifist.  I get that fighting is a fact of life, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  I’m not one of those ‘turn the other cheek’ people.  I’m willing to fight, if I can’t avoid it.  In theory, anyway.  But I also don’t like hurting people, especially for no better reason than because someone said to. 

I haven’t been in a fight since I was seven, and even that was more hair-pulling and yelling than slapping or punching.  Bix had to show me how to make a fist correctly.  Apparently, the thumb doesn’t go inside the fingers. 

I could hit him (he put on lots of padding), as long as he stood pretty still.  But I was so afraid of hurting him that I couldn’t make myself put any force behind my punches.  The same with kicking.  Tripping was a little better, since that was less about me applying too much force and more about balance. 

We kept at this until Bix was tired.  I hope he’s learned that I’m really not good at this and will leave it alone, but I’m afraid he’s just going to be more determined to teach me. Part of me is depressed and irritated, but more of me is just frustrated.  There’s just no reason for me to learn how to fight, especially since I’m so bad at it.  I can fly away from any baseline that might attack me, and any nova that can’t fly, too.  Add in the invisibility, and there’s really no reason for me to ever need to be in a fight.  And anyway, who would even want to fight me?  I’ve never done anything to anybody.  I just don’t get it.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, October 7

Things are beginning to settle into a routine, so I’ll only update this journal when something interesting happens. 

I was kinda dreading going back to the Clinic today, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected.  Instead of going through the awful failing-to-fight again, Bix had hung up one of those heavy boxing bags.  I think this one might have been heavier than usual, since it was supported by three chains instead of one, and was attached to one of the barn’s steel girders. 

I still don’t think I need to learn to fight, but since this way I don’t risk hurting anyone, I guess it’s a compromise I can live with.  Bix set me to punching the bag over and over, and eventually started using a laser pointer to direct where I was supposed to hit it each time.  It was okay.  I don’t really see what good this is going to do, since the bag doesn’t fight back, or try to dodge or anything, but whatever.  I can put up with this. 

After, Bix brought up the idea of bringing in another nova to ‘spar’ with, since I wouldn’t have to worry about hurting him, like I worry about hurting him.  I already didn’t like the sound of that, but asked him if he had someone in mind.  He oh-so-casually mentioned Alex.  Absolutely not.  What part of ‘I never want anything to do with him ever again’ did Bix miss the first time?  Not gonna happen.  I told Bix that if Alex were involved I would turn right around and leave.  Whether I ever came back was up for debate.  Hopefully, he got the point this time.

I got another OpNet alert for my name today.  Erica has put up an ‘official’ OpNet site about me.  About Heka, I should say.  It currently includes several pictures of me, a more-or-less accurate biography, and a fairly vague rundown of my powers. (I insisted on the flight back from Midwest NovaCon that my ability to borrow quantum energy from other novas not be made public in any way.)

There were links to past media articles about me, a page devoted to ‘Upcoming Appearances’, and all of my ‘official’ social media information, including an email address that I hadn’t known about.  When I checked, it had the same password I was given for the social media stuff, so I’m not going to raise a fuss about it.  I just set up the email to automatically forward a copy of all incoming and outgoing mail to me personally.  I’ve agreed to let Erica handle my official online presence, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep any eye on it.  It’s all got my name on it, after all.  I noticed that there were no links, or even mentions, of the forum, the fan club, or the YouTube channel.  I guess since Erica doesn’t control those, she won’t publicly acknowledge them.  LoL

There was some definite cognitive dissonance in subscribing to ‘my own’ social media accounts, but how could I not? 

Chapter Text

Thursday, October 9

Levon and I put the finishing touches on the World War One project (it’s due tomorrow), again without help from Allen and Sean.  Sean didn’t bother showing up to class today, which was just as well, in my opinion.  Allen had music blasting through his earbuds, ignoring us while we worked, so I quietly explained my plan for making sure Allen and Sean didn’t get credit for our work to Levon.  He was all in.  I think he’s sick of these guys too.  I’m sure Utopia didn’t intend for me to use my communicator this way, but who cares?  If they’re going to insist that I have it with me at all times, I may as well get some benefit from it.

Once I got home, I gathered all my recordings, and the other ‘evidence’ I’d collected from our project.  I made a simple graph showing the contributions of each member of the group (in other words, me and Levon doing things about equally, and Allen and Sean doing nothing), and linked in the audio files.  Then I uploaded everything and sent it to Mr. Arnett, along with my request that each member of the group be graded on their individual efforts, rather than everyone in the group receiving the same grade. 

Later-

I was looking back over my earlier journal entries, to confirm some dates for my email to Mr. Arnett, and I found something freaky.  Someone has been accessing my journal!  They’ve been leaving little notes in it.  When I found the first one, I went back to the beginning and found others.  They’re scattered throughout my journal. 

It’s supposed to be private!  Sure, it’s online, so nothing’s 100% private, but still!  The blog site I use has top-graded encryption.  My stuff should have been safe!  I’m not even sure I should be writing this now, but I can’t think of anyplace else to go with it, and I’ve always thought more clearly in writing.

Ok, stop and think.  It’s obviously a hacker.  Once I found the comments, I did a little investigating of my own, and there are no records of anyone other than my (encrypted, VPN’d) IP address accessing the blog or the metadata.  Every way that I know of to hide someone else’s accessing files would leave traces- maybe not of who specifically did it, but at least that it happened.  But there’s nothing.  As far as the data is concerned, it’s just been me, making regular entries, and not even going back to access old entries (until now). 

I think whoever is doing this must be another nova.  The content of their comments leads to that conclusion as well, but I suppose there’s nothing stopping a baseline from pretending to be a nova.  The total lack of traces makes me pretty sure it really is a nova.  That only gives me about 6,000+ suspects.  I went to the nova census, and started looking through the ‘S’s’.  I’m going to assume from the comments that S is standing for their nova name, rather than their birthname.  The census doesn’t list each nova’s baseline skills, but if this person is using some ability to control machines to avoid leaving traces, that might be listed on the census.  Assuming s/he is even listed on the census in the first place. That at least narrows my field of investigation. 

From what I can gather, I’m looking for a nova who can control computers, speaks English like a native, probably has Teragen sympathies, and is interested in me for some reason.  I can’t tell much from the comments, but I’m pretty sure this person doesn’t know me personally, regardless of what they may know about me.   So, let’s make a list of possible candidates.

• Scan- Has computer powers, but seems too focused on their job as an Elite.
• SEO- Another computer-y nova. Doesn’t seem to have many ‘extracurricular’ interests.
• Server- Has computer powers, but is dedicated to ‘backing up’ the entire OpNet. I could easily see them ‘backing up’ my blog, but not adding to it. 
• Shatter- A nova cultist trying to educate and recruit new novas. Not sure they have computer powers, but recruitment would give them a motive to reach out.
• Smart Alex- A member of Teen Tomorrow. Definitely smart enough to pull this off, maybe even without computer powers.  No reason to target me, though, unless I somehow got his attention for declining to attend the Academy.  The Teragen angle doesn’t match, either.
• Source- Cyber voyeur. Another one that might be inclined to read, but would never comment.
• Spam- Basic jackass with computer powers. Might be a good candidate, just to screw with me?
• Starchylde- potential computer powers. Known for Teragen-adjacent ideas about novas. Doesn’t seem likely, though.
• Steiner- known hacker. Likes to screw with people for no reason. But no reason I should even be on their radar.
• Swype- Another cyber voyeur.
• Synapse- Definitely has computer powers and hacker skills. Teragen connections.  Probably the best candidate on this list.  But why me?  I can’t be sure, but I think he’s kinda a big deal in the Teragen.  Boom-Boom mentioned him specifically, at least.

Ok, whoever you are.  Come out, come out.  Who are you?  Why are you reading my blog?  Give me one good reason for me not to take this offline, or even scrap it entirely?

OH, DON’T SCRAP IT ON MY ACCOUNT, HEKA.  WHAT YOU’RE DOING MIGHT VERY WELL BE UNIQUE TO THE ONE RACE, AND IT SHOULD BE PRESERVED FOR THAT, EVEN IF FOR NOTHING ELSE.  DON’T WORRY, I’M VERY GOOD AT KEEPING SECRETS.  AND BESIDES, YOU’VE SAID NOTHING YOU NEED BE ASHAMED OF.

~S

Chapter Text

Saturday, October 11 (Cross Country Flight)

Still no answer from ‘S’.  Maybe that’s a good thing.  Maybe they hacked my journal once, left all the comments, and never came back.  Maybe they never will.  That would be good, except that I’ll never be able to really trust that my journal is private.  If and when I make the whole thing public, then it wouldn’t bother me as much, but until then…

I’ll just have to be more careful with what I include, for now at least.  And thank goodness I chose to leave out some of what’s been going on.  I think I’ll limit the mid-day updates at events, as well.  At least when I post in the evenings, everything that’s happened is already over and done with.  If I posted like I did during the con, there’s a chance that ‘S’ could have used knowing where I was and what I was doing against me.  Nope.  Not messing with that.  For now, I’ll go on like I was.  I’m not sure whether to hope ‘S’ comments again, or not.  Besides, what happened this weekend was too important not to write down.

Anyway, this weekend was Bix’s threatened ‘endurance trial’.  Mom wasn’t happy about it, but she accepted it.  She wanted me to check in regularly, though.  So, I started off from school on Friday.  And flew pretty much straight west.  Mostly, I flew as fast as I could, but there were times when I slowed down to enjoy the scenery.  I’ve never really traveled much outside of the east coast, and to the Great Lakes once, so all the new terrain was exciting. 

I had no idea what to expect, flying so long.  I just kept going, and going.  I had my mp3 player, and several audio books and podcasts loaded up, so I didn’t get bored.  I’m not sure I would have been bored anyway, but that doesn’t matter. 

It started to get dark, and I wasn’t the least tired.  I was getting to put my new navigation skills to the test as well- I’d deliberately not brought a map, and refused to use my phone’s GPS.  But I did get a little concerned as night came on.  Not for myself, since I can see just fine in the dark, but I was worried that I was basically flying without any kind of lights.  Even staying under the 400 foot ceiling, that didn’t seem quite safe.  So, I stopped off at a convenience store and bought a whole bunch of glowsticks.  Some of them were little tubes on strings, and some of them could be circled into necklaces and bracelets.  I got enough to put several on neck, wrists, and ankles; with plenty more for when those wore out.  Between that, and changing my Eufiber to a reflective material, I felt a lot more visible, and therefore, safer.  And hopefully, the lights were human-shaped enough that I wouldn’t be mistaken for a UFO. 

I think I freaked out the store clerk, just coming down out of the sky, buying all his glow sticks and a honey bun, then flying away again.  (I hadn’t had a honey bun in years.)

I was a few minutes past Wichita when it happened.  I was flying along, minding my own business, when something came up from behind and stung the shit out of me!  I thought I’d hit a bird or something, and zipped up a little higher in case there were more, when another something hit me, harder.  I looked down and saw that I was bleeding!  Pretty badly!  I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to realize that I’d been shot.  Twice.  As soon as I understood, I went invisible (glow sticks and all), and started flying in a crazy zigzag, as well as up and down.  I was afraid to land, in case whoever was shooting at me could somehow find me on the ground. 

After a few random evasive maneuvers, I angled south, instead of the straight west course I’d been on.  I was really hurting, too.  The first shot had only grazed my hip, but the second one caught me in the gut, and I was afraid that I was doing myself more harm by staying in the air.  But I was too afraid to land.  Then, I realized that even though I was invisible, I might be somehow leaving a blood trail.  I mean, maybe the blood would be too dispersed on the wind to even hit the ground, but maybe not?  In hindsight, I was panicking, and not thinking clearly.  All I wanted was to get out of there. 

It's hard to really explain what I did then.  I reached into myself, somehow, and somehow… flooded that river of light inside myself.  I don’t know where the power came from, but somehow I pushed enough power into the river that it… overflowed the banks?  Maybe that’s pushing the metaphor too hard.  But for just that moment, I had more power available to me than I ever had before.  And I pushed it in a new way, forcing a new channel to open up.  That’s really the best way I can describe it.  I don’t really understand what I did.  But suddenly, I was flying so fast.  I’d lost track of exactly where I was, but suddenly there was a city full of lights down below me- Oklahoma City!

Aaaaand that’s when the extra speed ran out.  I figured there was no way whoever had shot me could have kept up that far, so I landed outside of town at a rest stop.  The holes in my Eufiber were still there, and the hole in my stomach still looked nasty, but the bleeding had slowed to nearly nothing.  I guess it was hard to heal while I was also… doing whatever I did.  I wasn’t exactly tired, but I was achy all over, like I’d ever-so-slightly pulled every muscle in my body at the same time.  And of course my stomach still hurt.

I washed off the blood, got a snack from the vending machines, and went back out into the dark behind the rest stop, where nobody would be able to see me.  I needed to rest, and I needed to calm down and really think.

Someone (maybe more than one) had shot me.  Twice.  In the middle of the night.  In the air, about an hour’s drive west of Wichita, KS.  I have no idea what, if any, hunting seasons are going on now, but hunting is the only reason I could think of to be out in the country at night with guns.  My glowsticks were almost expended, but looking down at myself (before I took them off), I was impossible to mistake me as anything other than a person.  Especially since my Eufiber was reflecting the different colors.  There was no way I could be mistaken for a bird, or something. 

Even if someone had a legitimate reason to be out in the country at night with guns, there was no reason to even shoot into the air, let alone at me.  Let alone twice.  And they had to have been aiming at me.  Once might have been an accident (unlikely), but not twice.

Somebody had shot me on purpose. 

Nobody knew exactly the route I’d be taking, and only a few people knew I was even doing this at all.  So… maybe whoever wasn’t shooting at me.  Maybe whoever was shooting at the nova flying overhead at night? 

Ok, stop and think.  Who, exactly, knew I was doing this test at all this weekend?  Bix. Mr. Li. Presumably Dr. Jackson.  Maybe Clara, but probably not.  Mom.  The girls. Anybody in the school cafeteria might have overheard something, but I don’t think enough to really understand.  ‘S’.  Maybe ‘S’.  Yes, I just scrolled back up, and I mentioned this test before I went to the con, and ‘S’ commented on con-stuff.  So ‘S’ knew that this was a possibility, at the very least.

Obviously, Mom would never do anything to hurt me.  And the girls wouldn’t either.  I don’t know everyone at school, but even if someone wanted to hurt me, I don’t think they’d have the resources to set this up. 

A lot of people knew I was going to do this, but I very specifically didn’t tell anyone exactly where I was going- not my (intended) destination, nor the route I planned to take.  So even if someone had wanted to, they couldn’t have known where to put a shooter.  Except for Utopia, and maybe ‘S”.

Wait.  There might be a way.  Two ways, now that I think of it.  My phone’s GPS signal, for one.  Just because I wasn’t using the phone, doesn’t mean it wasn’t bouncing signal off of every tower I passed over.  Tracing a cell phone is easy.  The other way, would be my Utopia communicator.  I know that has a tracker in it- probably a better one than my phone.  That narrows the list of potential suspects down a lot.  Bix, either on his own or on Mr. Li’s orders.  I’m not sure if Mr. has the skills to do it on his own, and I doubt Dr. Jackson does.  And ‘S’.  If ‘S’ can get into my computer, I have to assume they can get into at least my phone, and maybe my communicator.  Of course, I can’t get too paranoid.  It might have just been some crazy hunter, evil enough to think shooting random novas is a good idea. Occam’s Razor says that’s the most likely answer, but I don’t feel like trusting my life to a scrap of fortune cookie advice.

Could this be some kind of sick ‘test’ on Bix’s part?  He shot me with goo balls and paint balls, and actively hid from me, effectively leaving me alone in a swamp, and deliberately set me up to be assaulted by Alex.  All as ‘tests’.  And Mr. Li helped with shooting me at the Clinic, and presumably knew about Alex hitting me before it happened.  With the communicator, they pretty much know exactly where I am at all times, and Utopia has people everywhere.  If I could figure out my probable flight path based on my flight path so far, they certainly could.  From there, it would be pretty simple of have people watching for me. 

(Reading over the last couple of paragraphs, it looks like I was just sitting around, calmly contemplating my options.  I wasn’t.  I was hiding under a bush behind a rest stop, in the dark, invisible, and crying; while trying to decide who I could trust and what I should do next.  It’s only now, long after the fact, that I’m recreating as much as I can and putting it all down in the best reconstruction that I can.)

So, what do I do now?  My first thought was to go to the police.  I dismissed that almost immediately.  First, what good would going to the Oklahoma City, OK police about a crime that occurred outside of Wichita, KS do?  It probably wouldn’t even be a Wichita thing at all, and I have no idea which county I was in.  And really, what could even the Kansas police do?  Whoever shot me would be fools to have hung around after I escaped, and they’ve had plenty of time to cover their tracks.  Besides, if it was some local crazy, or worse, who’s to say the local cops wouldn’t take their side?  It’s not like cops are unbiased.  So, no cops.

Then I thought about calling my mother.  That was out, too.  It would only scare her, and for no good reason.  What could she do about it?  I was already out of immediate danger.  She could fly into Oklahoma City to meet me, but I could fly home under my own power faster than she could get to me, and again, what could she even do about it?  (Does every kid feel so awful growing up and realizing that their parents can’t solve all their problems?)

Calling the girls would be just as pointless- even more so, really.  They’re great friends, but what are three high school juniors going to do about shooters in the dark?  And I’d have to send Mom or them money to come out here, which I wouldn’t mind doing, if there was any point in it.  So, they’re out.  Pretty much all my friends are out, for the same reason.

I thought about calling Rocío.  I thought really hard about calling Rocío.  But our relationship isn’t at that stage yet.  (Do we even have a relationship?)  And I don’t know enough about who he hangs around with.  I think I can trust him, but right now, trust of any kind is in short supply.  Besides, even though I didn’t say anything about this test to him, and there’s no reason to think he’s ‘S’, well…. I might be paranoid, but somebody clearly is out to get me.

Speaking of paranoid, ‘Watch_th3_Skys’ has a significant ‘S’ in it.  And him managing to stalk me and take all those pictures without me seeing (or at least noticing) him implies an unusual skill set.  Could WtS be ‘S’?

That leaves Utopia, in the form of Mr. Li and/or Bix.  Logically, contacting them makes the most sense.  They’re the ones with the resources to actually deal with this.  There’s really no reason why they should have anything to do with this.  If it had been more paintballs, or even real ‘less lethal’ ammunition like rubber bullets or bean bags, then I would immediately assume Bix was involved somehow.  He might be unscrupulous, but I don’t think he would do anything that would potentially kill me.  And as bad as that second shot hurt, I’m pretty sure a headshot might have killed me outright.  And in the dark, the risk of that was too great.  It doesn’t make sense for Utopia to be involved. 

And it really doesn’t make sense for it to be ‘S’, either.  ‘S’ has been poking at me, saying things to disturb me and make me think about the things he(?) wants me to think about.  That pretty clearly implies that he has at least some minimal interest in me, beyond wanting me dead.  I have no idea if his computer skills transfer into Real World effectiveness, but surely he has friends.  He could (and probably already has) found out where I live.  If he wanted me dead, he could have sent someone, even if he didn’t want to do it himself. 

It really does seem most likely to be a lone crazy.  That’s both a problem, and a comfort.  I’ve seen enough true crime and cops shows to know that crimes without motives are the hardest to solve.  The likelihood of the shooter ever being identified, let alone caught, is terrifyingly low.  On the other hand, that means that the shooter probably doesn’t actually know anything about me, and won’t be likely to pursue me.  As long as I avoid that area, there’s no reason I should have any more trouble from him.

And that brings me back to the question at hand: what to do next?  In the time I’d been hiding under the bush, the last of my wounds had healed.  The holes in my Eufiber were almost closed.  Even the leftover bloodstains were gone.  I needed a shower, but that was the extent of the damage. Physically, anyway.  I’d been shot.  Twice.  Someone tried to murder me.  If I hadn’t been as tough as I am, they might very well have succeeded.  I’m not sure how to move forward with that. 

And when I don’t know how to deal with something?  I do what I always do- ignore it and get on with my life.  When I started this test, I made myself a promise: that I would make it to San Francisco if I possibly could.  I didn’t tell anybody that, or write it down anywhere.  So it should still be a safe option.  And San Francisco has several novas there at any given time, so I should be fine there for a few hours before turning around and coming back. 

So, on with the test, and I’ll deal with the rest later.

YOU’RE RIGHT, HEKA.  CELL PHONES ARE EASY TO TRACK, AND I WAS EASILY ABLE TO TRACE WHERE YOURS WENT FROM A SMOOTH FLIGHT TO PANICKED BOUNCING AROUND.  FROM THAT, I WAS ABLE TO LOCATE THE NEAREST SETTLEMENTS TO YOUR LOCATION AT THE TIME.  I’M PUTTING OUT FEELERS FOR WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN INVOLVED, BUT I CAN TELL YOU ALREADY THAT THAT AREA IS KNOWN FOR ITS MEMBERSHIP IN THE CHURCH OF MICHAEL ARCHANGEL. 

I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR ATTCK, BUT MY FRIENDS AND I WILL DO ALL WE CAN TO FIND THOSE RESPONSIBLE.  WE TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN, AND YOU’RE ONE OF US WHETHER YOU ACCEPT IT OR NOT.

~S

So, I ate all my vending machine snacks (no, I was not putting off taking to the air again), and got moving.  I’d thrown away the old, mostly dead glowsticks, and didn’t crack any new ones.  Better to fly without lights than risk another attack. 

The rest of the night was uneventful.  I kept my extra vision on the whole time, though, looking for suspicious heat signatures, which was a little tiring.  There are a lot of animals (and people) moving around in the wilderness at night. 

I made it to San Francisco a little before dawn.  I wasn’t tired at all, but I stopped at a truck stop outside of town and got a shower.  And I got the shock of my life.  My eyes have changed.  They used to be an ordinary hazel, that sometimes came close to green if I was wearing the right colors.  Now they’re solid black, with no color or whites at all, like those Hellraiser movies.  Well, no, not solid black.  There’re tiny little pinpricks of light in them.  Like a starfield. 

I’m not sure how to feel about this.  It marks me out as a nova, in a way I really can’t hide.  (I mean, I could get contacts, I guess, but that’s not really a long-term solution.)  Is this the first step in that overuse of power that I’d read about?  I can only assume the change happened when I did that weird inside push and went really fast.  All the rest of the night, I’d been pushing myself steadily, but not hard.  That was the only different thing.  Unless it was somehow being shot that made the change?  But that doesn’t seem likely.  Being in a wreck and a fire didn’t change my body like this. 

Will my eyes ever change back?  Will they change more?  They mark me out as something different, other than a regular person.  But, I think I like them.  Mom’s going to have kittens, though.

Anyway, after I’d cleaned up and taken a selfie, I wanted to see Fisherman’s Warf and the sea lions.  I’d planned to spend at least a few hours in San Francisco, depending on when I got there, but after everything that happened, I decided to turn around for home after seeing the Warf.  The sea lions were cute, though, and I watched them for almost an hour.  Then I bought a backpack cooler, filled it with dry ice, and bought Mom as much fresh Dungeness Crab as I could fit in the cooler. 

I texted her and Bix that I was on my way home (but not how far I’d gotten, or what had happened), and got moving again.  I decided that following the freeway system back would be safer than flying over wilderness, even during the day.  There’ll be more people on the roads, but I decided that more people meant less likelihood of any one of them doing something crazy.  I decided to bend the 400 foot rule as well.  Well, outside of urban areas, anyway.  In the wilds between cities, away from everything, I must have been at least a half mile up there.  Felt pretty good.  I was still probably within shooting range, but I felt safer, at least.  Plus, the crab stayed colder. 

Of course, going back east had time zones against me, so it was well after dark before I got home.  Mom wasn’t home yet, so I put the crabs in the fridge and went directly to the Clinic.  Somewhere along the flight home, I’d decided that I wasn’t going to tell Mom about getting shot- and that I was going to make sure Mr. Li didn’t either.  This isn’t something I’ll accept his taking matters into his own hands about.

I’d texted the Clinic on my way back, so I figured that at least Bix would still be there, even if it was late.  I didn’t see Clara, but Bix, Mr. Li, and Dr. Jackson were all three there, waiting for me.  Dr. Jackson took me straight back to medical, with the others following.  She made them stay on the other side of the curtain while she examined me, but they all wanted to hear what happened as soon as possible.  I didn’t mind the reduced privacy.  I’d already looked over the places I got shot, and even the bruises have faded by now. 

Dr. Jackson took x-rays, which found nothing.  I hadn’t thought about it before, but… if I was shot, in the belly, with no exit hole, then where did the bullet go?  (The other shot just grazed me, so I wasn’t surprised that nothing was there.)  No exit wound, no bullet still inside.  Did my body somehow spit it back out the way it went in?  Did it absorb the bullet somehow?  Something else? 

Dr. Jackson took more blood, did more tests, and used a sensor thing she hadn’t used before.  She waved it around my eyes and it went <beep-beep-beep-wooooOOOOOOoooo>.  I have no idea if that’s good or not. 

After I had explained (three times to be sure I didn’t leave out any details) what happened in Kansas, I told them all, very clearly and firmly that I did not consent to my mother finding out about this.  That I considered it an issue of medical privacy, as well as impacting my right to privacy as a crime victim.  I was staring Mr. Li hard in the eye while I said it.  Everyone said they understood.  That had better be the end of it, as far as Mom finding out goes. 

After that, Dr. Jackson explained about my eyes.  Like I’d figured out from my OpNet searches, when novas push themselves and their powers too hard, their bodies are put under stress.  This causes something called Taint, and when too much Taint is in the body, permanent change can happen.  Dr. Jackson said that my eyes weren’t a problem, but were a warning sign.  She also implied (rather heavily) that prolonged use of my abilities rather than the sudden overextending that I had done after getting shot could serve as the reason for the change if anyone asked. 

So, basically, I overextended, it isn’t a problem, but try not to do it again.  Here’s a convenient lie to tell my friends and family.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the lie.  And I’m glad they aren’t making a big deal out of my eyes.  But this is the first conversation we’ve really had about the potential dangers my powers could cause me.  Shouldn’t we have discussed this a month ago? 

As for whoever shot me and why, Mr. Li said he’d ‘look into it’, but that since it happened out in the country, at night, and I wasn’t even sure exactly where I was, that there probably wasn’t much that could be done about it.  He even tried to bring up the idea of a simple hunting accident and not attempted murder at all, but I shut that down hard and gave my reasoning.  He didn’t argue the point further, but also only seemed slightly upset about everything. 

It hasn’t escaped my notice that “I’ll look into it” is exactly what he said about Watch_th3_Skys stalking me- and nothing ever came of that either.

And that was basically that.  Bix wants me in early tomorrow to test for any other changes to my abilities, and whether I can reproduce that extra burst of speed when my life isn’t in danger.  I left, and I saw Bix and Dr. Jackson heading for their cars soon after.

I’m not sure what to think about all this.  I know I’m relieved that they were so matter-of-fact about my eyes (even if I think they should have done a better job of warning me about the risks).  But as for the getting shot part?  I know if I found out someone I knew had been shot- especially if it was an attempted murder, instead of an obvious accident, I would be a lot more… I dunno.  Freaked out? Concerned? Outraged? Surely something more than ‘mildly interested’.  Surely even most novas don’t consider getting shot to be part of their daily activities.  But they just… accepted it. 

I still think my earlier reasoning holds true.  I really don’t think anybody from the Clinic was involved.  It would have had too many variables to put into place on really short notice, and there’s no motive for them to have done it.  There’s just no good reason to think it was them. 

But their reactions tonight put the final nail in the trust coffin.  I can’t trust them.  I like them well enough.  And I’ll continue to interact with them just like I have been.  But I can’t trust them.  Even if they aren’t out to get me (and I really don’t think that they are), they definitely don’t have my best interests in mind.  Maybe I was foolish to think they would- after all, their priority is Project Utopia, not any one nova, especially one as (relatively) normal as I am.

But does that go for Utopia as a whole?  Or is it just these few people?  When I go to college (wherever that turns out to be) and transfer to a new area with new people, will I run into the same problem?  At least I know where I stand for now. 

I want the benefits Utopia provides, so I’m going to stick with them for now, and complete my contract.  But I’ll think long and hard before continuing with Utopia after that ends.  And that means that I have a little more than a year and a half to get myself into a position where I don’t need Utopia to take care of myself.  And Mom. 

Mom was home by the time I got back, and (as expected) she freaked out about my eyes.  I figured the best thing to do was let her get it out of her system, so I just kept my mouth shut and let her talk.  Once the tears started, we moved on to hugging, and everything was okay again.  More or less. 

She was glad about the crabs.  Fresh Dungeness crab is really hard to come by around here, and horrifically expensive if you can find it at all, so Mom’s only had it twice before.  I showed her pictures of the sea lions on the Warf as well. There were signs all over the place saying not to climb on the rocks or piers to get closer to them, but there were no signs forbidding flying!  I went invisible and got pretty close for pictures.  I made sure not to bother them, though.  A couple of them looked around, like maybe the smelled me, but that was all.

Later-

After Mom went to bed, I tried to sleep and couldn’t.  So I emailed Rocío, asking if he’d be willing to meet up tomorrow evening, or else Tuesday after school.  I want to tell him what’s been going on.  After deciding I can’t trust the Clinic (and maybe Utopia as a whole by extension), I need to talk to somebody.  And I want to meet other novas.  I’m still not one hundred percent certain I can trust Rocío, but right now, I’m happy to take him over Utopia. 

I remembered what he said about the Amp Room, and about not needing a passport, but that having one was a good idea in general, so I went ahead and filled out the online form to get that process started.  I’ll need to take a copy of my birth certificate with me to the post office when I get my picture taken.  Probably just as well my eyes changed when they did.  If they’re like this in a government-issued ID, then there should be less hassle about them later.

Chapter Text

Sunday, October 12

I was back at the Clinic early, and Bix put me through my paces.  I’m only a little bit stronger.  A barely measurable difference.  It’s hard to measure endurance, or other kinds of ‘toughness’, but after being shot, I somehow feel tougher.  Even without the speed boost, Bix’s radar clocked my flying at 350 mph! 

After he’d tested everything he could on-site, he drove me out into the country, away from anything breakable, and had me try to reproduce that extra speed.  It took some doing to figure out exactly what I’d done before, but I managed.  Once I figured out what I was doing, Bix clocked me at 1,000 mph!  Just under the speed of sound!  There’s no reason I should ever need to fly that fast in town, but now I’ll have to be careful about sonic booms. 

On our way back to the Clinic, Rocío emailed me back.  We agreed to meet up at the Arboretum after I left the Clinic.

When I got there, the place wasn’t especially crowded, and Rocío showed up a few minutes later.  He noticed my eyes right away, of course, and seemed to mean it when he complimented me.  We walked deeper into the Arb, and after a couple of false starts, I told him everything.  I might not have been completely coherent the first time through, jumping from sexual harassment to getting shot, to my journal, to social media stalking without much sense.  But he let me get it all out, then had me go over everything again, in a more sensible way. 

Just telling someone about it all was a huge relief.  It’s not like I’m expecting Rocío to actually do anything about any of this.  Even if he wanted to, what could he do?  And I’ve always been more of a ‘solve it yourself whenever possible’ type. But still, knowing somebody else knew what was going on helped more than I thought it would. 

He was quiet for a long time, after.  Then, he did something no one’s ever done for me before.  He came right out and asked me if I was venting, asking for advice, or looking for help.  He didn’t assume anything, but asked what I wanted.  And that caught me off guard, because I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted.  I thought about it, and said that I’d like advice, for now, and to see how that went.

He was quiet again, and I could tell he was thinking.  Finally, he said that I was right not to trust Utopia, but he understood my desire to finish out my contract with them.  He also said that my contract didn’t keep me from meeting other novas who could actually help me get what I wanted and needed, both for myself and the people I care about.  

He went on to say that Utopia wasn’t likely to find out who shot me, or even put much effort into trying- after all, it was pretty obviously a baseline (or several baselines) that did it, and Utopia always protects baselines from novas, rather than the other way around.  The same goes with the sexual harassment and stalking.  Though Rocío did admit that Watch-_th3_Skys’s stalking might not fully come up to the bar of needing protection from.  He agreed that it was creepy, and the fact that I’d never seen him(?) was worrying; but he wasn’t sure it crossed the blurry line between celebrity culture and an actual danger.  He was quick to point out, though, that if I didn’t like it, that was reason enough to put a stop to it.  No one, baseline or nova, should be invading my privacy. 

As far as my journal went, Rocío said that he might have an idea of who it was, but wanted to look into it before giving me a name.  He said that if it was who he was thinking of, then his hacking into my journal was basically an attempt at introducing himself.  But that he’d been around novas almost exclusively for years, and didn’t always understand how his behavior could come across to new novas who still thought of themselves as basically human.  He probably either didn’t realize that he’d freaked me out, or (if he did realize), thought it was a harmless joke.  Either way, he promised to check and get back to me.  Somehow, this feels more promising than Mr. Li’s ‘I’ll look into it’.

He admitted that he didn’t think that he, personally, could do much to help me with any of this.  But he offered to introduce me to some other people who could.  When I asked him about what they kind of assistance would cost, he was pretty up-front about it. 

He warned me that some of his friends didn’t have the best reputations, but that they wouldn’t harm me.  As far as costs went, most of them didn’t care about money, and did a lot of things (for other novas) simply because they needed doing.  If the favor was a big one, or dangerous, or really time-consuming, then they usually traded in favors, information, etc.  Mostly information.  Basically, if I happened across anything that I thought they’d like to know, they’d appreciate if I passed it along to them.  If they needed help with something that I had the skillset for, they might ask for my assistance, but I wouldn’t be forced into anything I didn’t want to do.  Rocío said they valued personal freedom too much to try and force me to do anything.  That, worst case scenario, if I consistently refused requests for assistance, then eventually they would stop helping me, but nothing worse would happen.

That seems pretty simple.  Almost too simple, really.  Who’s to say what they’d like to know?  I don’t think I know of anything especially juicy or sensitive.  The Clinic people don’t tell me anything about their day-to-day stuff that doesn’t involve me.  The events Erica has me doing aren’t anything special to anyone other than those directly involved.  Conventions? Podcasts? Charity events?  All fun, interesting, good causes, etc., but nothing earth-shatteringly important.  And besides, how would whoever know that I’d known something important and kept it to myself?  Not that I would.  If I made an agreement with Rocío’s friends, I’d honor it. 

I have some suspicion about who Rocío’s friends might be, but the way I feel about Utopia right now, I’m inclined to be open-minded.  If I’ve been wrong to trust Utopia, then I should re-evaluate Utopia-provided ‘common knowledge’. 

So, I asked him how I’d go about meeting some of these friends, and he looked so happy.  He said that they were all over the place, and tended to move around enough that the best option was usually to meet up at the Amp Room, since that was ‘neutral territory’, and no one thought twice about novas popping in and out of there.  Then he remembered my hesitancy about going there, and tried to come up with another option.  That decided me.  If he was willing to take me to the Amp Room, I was willing to go.

We compared calendars, and decided that this Saturday night would be the best time.  That would give Rocío time to be sure some of his friends would be there, as well as ask around about my journal.  Ibiza is six hours ahead of us, so if we left around 4 pm our time, we’d be there around 10 pm local time.  A little early for the standard ‘clubbing’ activities, but that’s just as well, in my opinion.  Apparently, things are never quiet at the Amp Room, but it would be quieter. 

He warned me that people would offer me, well, pretty much whatever I wanted in terms of drinks, ‘party favors’, and ‘company’; and that while he’d be there (as well as the bouncers) in case anybody got too pushy, Rocío made it clear that it would be better if I advocated for myself as much as possible.  No violence, though.  The bouncers would take care of anything that needed doing on that score.  I can live with that. I’m not a prude, but being in a strange place with strange people isn’t the time to deepen my relationship with the wilder side of life.  I doubt any of the parties I’ve been to could hold a candle to the Amp Room, but surely it’s just a difference of degree, right?

I thanked him for everything, and we parted ways. 

By the time I’d gotten home, Watch_th3_Skys had posted to the forum again.  This time It was me and Rocío entering the Arboretum together.  Rocío’s face was barely blurred out.  WtS’s post was just the picture, with date and time, but the forum responses were a lot more intense.  Speculation over the identity of the ‘mystery man’ was the main thing.  I was much more concerned about WtS’s post itself.  He’d been there, watching me.  Again.  Had he followed us into the Arb?  Had he overheard our conversation somehow?  Did he know about the Amp Room plan? 

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with going to the Amp Room, but somehow it doesn’t seem like something to talk openly about- at least not until afterwards.  At least WtS can’t actually follow me inside the Amp Room, even if he can get over there somehow.  Admittance is strictly novas-only.  So inside, I should be fine.

Unless WtS is a nova. Unless WtS and ‘S’ are the same person. I was worried enough to forward WtS’s post to Rocío, just in case WtS decided to start following Rocío around, too.  I don’t think that’s a risk, but better safe than sorry.

Chapter Text

Monday, October 13

I read back over my journal, and ‘S;’ responded again- sometime between Saturday night and now.  Finally.  On some level, I hadn’t wanted him to, but on another level, it’s a relief.  And the delay heavily implies that he isn’t watching my blog 24/7. 

After a lot of thought, I’m going to keep up with my blog for now, even with him eavesdropping.  I haven’t found any mention of anything that could be considered journal-related online, so it looks like maybe ‘S’ actually can keep a secret.  Not that that excuses him invading my privacy. 

Despite ignoring my request that he(?) identify himself, I’m interested to see if he actually follows up on his intentions regarding find out who shot me.  Between him and Rocío’s friends, maybe something will actually happen.  ‘S’s’ mentioning of a Church of Michael Archangel connection is a chilling idea I hadn’t really thought about.  Somehow, a lone crazy, or ever a small group of them, feels much less dangerous than an organized cult of them.

And along those same lines, I’ve decided to do some research of my own.  I don’t have official access to which cell towers my cell phone’s GPS pinged off of in Kansas, but I can draw some conclusions, and use a map.

There are a few little towns in that area.  Goddard seems a little too close to Wichita, and Murdock seems a little too far away.  But Garden Plain and Cheney seem like good candidates.  Neither place is especially known for its diversity.  Tiny little towns with a lot of church in them.  Cheney has seven churches, servicing a little over two thousand people.  Garden Plain has three, servicing about nine hundred people. None of them, in either city, have overt posted connections with the Archangelites, but when I cross referenced past guest speakers and events, I found plenty of links in both towns. So there’s a heavy Archangel presence in both places.

I made a dummy email account, and subscribed to both of the churches in question’s newsletters.  I subscribed to both town’s news updates, as well as the digital versions of their newspapers.  Part of me thinks this is overkill.  What am I going to find out from doing all this?  But someone there tried to kill me.

Oh, and as expected, everybody at school flipped out over my eyes.  I noticed Mr. Stephenson talking to Mrs. Salisbury, pretty obviously about me, but nothing came of it.  (Not that I’m into drugs or anything, but it just occurred to me that with my eyes this way, it would be really hard to tell if I were on any.)  Several people refused to believe they were real.  (One guy offered to test it by poking me in the eye, and I offered to bite his finger off.)  The girls required a new round of selfies, as did the littler kids at my landing zone. 

Some of the landing zone shots ended up on the Heka’s Home forum, which sparked some interesting discussions.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, October 14

After school today, I had one of the podcast interviews Erica scheduled for me.  The show is NovaNow!, and is one of the podcasts I started listening to after my eruption.  It’s one of the better ones, in my opinion.  It’s run by a pair of baselines, Nick-n-Eddy (podsmushed to Niddy) who divide their time between reporting/critiquing whatever nova news is happening at the time, and having actual novas on for interviews.  They’ve had a couple of ‘big names’ on, like Gina Benet (Team Tomorrow Asia/Pacific) and Cernunnos (English Neo-Pagan cult leader); but mostly they have lesser-known novas, and novas who haven’t been around for very long (like me). 

I’d never been on a podcast before, so getting a ‘peek behind the scenes’ was really interesting.  First, they did their usual news portion, so I was muted on the video call (they’re based somewhere in Texas, I think).  Their ‘witty banter’ is mostly real, in that it isn’t scripted, but if someone comes up with an especially good line, they’ll do several takes to get the best use of it.  There’s a lot more swearing than just the few words that get bleeped out of the final edit- NovaNow! Is billed as a family friendly show.  Plus, they leave dead air breaks in the recording, so the editor knows where to put the commercials.  During the dead times, they mute their mics and spend the time making goofy faces at each other.  It was adorable, and bizarre.

When my portion came up, they introduced me four separate times before they got something they liked.  The interview itself wasn’t really a big deal.  They asked me a lot of the same questions the local reporters had about my eruption, had me talk about the apartment fire, and then had me tell funny stories about ‘what it’s really like’.  They’d warned me in advance about that, so I was prepared.  The one that got the biggest response was when I mentioned about the dog I’d stuffed down my Eufiber peeing on me, so they had me repeat that one and expand it a little.  Not quite lying, but embellishing a good bit.  Then they closed out by having me list where I could be found on the OpNet, and I screwed up and gave out my personal twitter- well, I caught myself halfway though.  So we had to do that part again, using the ‘official’ social media platforms.  But other than that, it went smoothly enough. 

They record their podcasts several days in advance, so it will be sometime over the weekend when the episode drops.

A few other updates:

I texted Mrs. Adams to find out how Bailey is doing, since she still hasn’t given any hint that she wants me around.  Mrs. Adams let me know that Bailey is getting better, and (after a small setback) should be going home on Thursday.  It might still be another week or two before she comes back to school, though.  She also said that she was sorry Bailey was taking things out on me, but since she was still mad about everything with Jeremy, it would be best if I continued to ‘lay low’ for now.  I thanked her for the update, and asked her to let me know if anything changed.

I think Pyewacket has fully settled in (Furnado was comfortable at home almost immediately).  I’ve gotten a second cat tree and set it up in the living room, so they can watch the world through the bigger front window.  Furnado still sleeps on me or my pillow, and Pyewacket still sleeps with Mom, but they both spend a lot of the daytime hours on the living room tree.  Part of me wants to set up a webcam on the tree so I can watch them during the day, but somehow I suspect that ‘S’ would somehow get access to it.  Bad enough that he can read my journal.  I don’t want anyone spying any more than I can help.  (And yes, I’ve covered my laptop’s webcam with tape.  Somebody could potentially listen to me, but they shouldn’t be able to see me, at least.

Oh, and we got our World History project grades.  Levon and I got A’s.  Allen and Sean got D-‘s.  I’d hoped for F’s (I’m petty that way), but I’ll take it.  As expected, nothing was done about him groping me.

School is settling down, a little.  Or, we’re establishing a new ‘normal’, anyway.  The cafeteria still tends to orbit around me and the girls; with the other, long-established cliques sticking to themselves.  I overheard nasty comments about myself pretty regularly, but since I overheard those same kinds of comments about Bailey before all this happened, I’d pretty much expected it.  Some of the remarks hurt, but I try to remind myself that it’s all just high school drama.

When I first came back, a lot of people were too excited (or maybe scared?)  to do much more than say ‘hi’ to me, but now that people are getting used to me again, I’m starting to be invited to a lot more activities than I ever have before.

Before the accident, my social life consisted of watching Bailey’s cheer practice, attending the parties that Bailey threw or was invited to, and that was about it.  More and more, I’m realizing how much of my time was spent with Bailey.  I miss her, and I care about her, but… I’m really enjoying spending more time with other people and doing other things.  Things that I would never have been able to do before, since Bailey would always have other plans that I just had to be involved with. 

Aaron, a senior in my English class, asked me to come to a party at Michael’s house this Friday night.  Since it started after I usually finished with the Clinic, I said that I’d meet him there, if that was all right.  He was fine with that.  It wasn’t until later that I realized that was the first time I’d been asked to a party where I wasn’t coming as ‘Bailey’s friend’.  It gave me an odd feeling.  Aaron’s a good guy.  He plays football, but he’s not one of the major jocks.  I’ve heard that Michael’s parents go out of town a lot, so things might get a little wild.  But I can always leave if I don’t like it.    

Chapter Text

Friday, October 17

School talk was all about Michael’s party, so that was fun to look forward to. 

At the Clinic, Bix put me back to working out on the punching bag, but now he has me kicking at as well.  I don’t know why, but I don’t mind the kicking as much.  I still don’t want to hurt anyone, but somehow kicking seems more… self-defensey?  In the movies, I’ve never seen anyone start a fight by kicking somebody, at least.  They always punch, and kicking is for either self-defense, or when the kicker has already basically won the fight and is just being a jerk to the kickee.  Or maybe it’s just that I see women in action movies kick more often than punch, so it’s buried in my subconscious that punching is unfeminine?  Who knows…

I’m getting better at landing punches and kicks wherever on the bag Bix points the laser pointer, so he’s somewhat happy, even though he’s frustrated that I’m still not willing to fight another person.

Aaron had given me Michael’s address, and we met up in front of his house.  Michael’s parents are low-key rich.  Enough that they have a huge house in Harbor Oaks with its own private dock.  (If they have a boat, I didn’t see it.) 

There had to have been at least forty kids there already when Aaron and I got there, with more showing up all the time.  Most of the main floor was full of kids, dancing, talking, and drinking.  There were video game systems set up in several corners, one of them with the latest version of Dance Dance Revolution going.  The music was blasting so loud it was almost a physical thing, and it took me a moment to get used to it. 

Aaron and I wandered around for a little while, saying ‘hi’ to people, and ended up in the kitchen.  There was a massive punch bowl and several empty liquor bottles lying around, along with several kinds of beer.  Aaron grabbed a beer and offered me one.  Beer is nasty, but I figured a drink wouldn’t hurt me, so I opted for the punch bowl.  Besides, I wanted to know what if being a nova would make a difference when it comes to drinking, especially since I’ll probably be expected to drink at the Amp Room.  If something was going to go wrong, better I find out tonight than tomorrow, right? 

We danced a little, played some DDR (I didn’t suck, but wasn’t great), drank some more, and ended up downstairs. 

Downstairs was a finished basement, with a huge sunken entertainment center, ping-pong, air hockey, and a couple of arcade games.  The area around the big TV reeked of pot smoke, but Aaron didn’t seem eager to join in on that, at least.  By that point, we’d both had several drinks, and Aaron was starting to show it.  I didn’t feel anything.  We ended up in a truth-or-dare circle, with the usual blend of crappy pranks and sleazy ‘truths’. 

It was fun, but not something I’d want to do on a regular basis.  I mean, I’d rather actually spend time with people, if I’m being social.  Not just yell smalltalk over blaring music.  So, around 1 am, I thanked Aaron for the good time and left. 

I flew home slowly, and got most of the smoke smell out of my hair before I got home.  I’d told Mom about the party, but figured it was better to keep the questions to a minimum. 

Chapter Text

Saturday, October 18 (Amp Room)

I woke up early from another nightmare.  Did I mention that I’ve been having nightmares?  I have.  About the shooting, of course.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  They usually start out as replays of what actually happened, then divert into what might have happened.  This last one had me being shot, but being unable to stay in the air, and having to land nearby.  Then a bunch of hillbillies found me.  Luckily, I woke up before it went much further

I’d set OpNet alerts for any news about the apartment fire, and one posted overnight.  Now they’re saying that the reason the fire hydrant closest to the building wasn’t working is that it wasn’t fully hooked up to the main water supply.  It’s looking like either negligence or willful cost-cutting by the original developers.  If that turns out to be the case, there’s going to be some major issues, since the same company has built apartment buildings all over town.  Who knows if any others had ‘shortcuts’ taken in the building process?  I’m glad the apartment Mom and I live in is from the older, pre-development boom. 

I decided to train at the Clinic today, instead of tomorrow, even though I would have to leave a little early to meet Rocío.  I really have no idea what to expect from tonight, so I want to leave tomorrow open, just in case. 

Training was more work with the bag, punching, kicking, elbowing, that kind of thing.  I really don’t know what Bix thinks this is going to do.  Even if I get really good at whacking a bright red dangling cylinder, that doesn’t make me any more able (or willing) to hit a person. 

That might be the only part of being a nova that really sucks.  Now that I’m so much stronger than a baseline, I feel like I actually have fewer choices in defending myself.  Before, if somebody had groped me, I wouldn’t have hesitated to smack them, or go for a nut squeeze.  But now I’m afraid of doing permanent damage.  Maybe some people deserve permanent damage, but that’s a choice that I don’t think I’m ready to make yet.   

Bix brought up sparring with Alex again near the end, and I was able to use that refusal as cover to leave early.  Is Alex the only other nova Bix has access to?  Why does he keep trying to push Alex on me.  I might not be completely opposed to sparring with another nova- one that I was confident that I couldn’t do serious harm to- but I refuse to have anything to do with Alex.  Or maybe it’s somehow Alex pressuring Bix to bring him back in?  I hadn’t thought of that.  But no, that’s ridiculous.

Since I flounced out earlier than I’d intended to leave, I had time to go home for a shower and this update before meeting up with Rocío.  I wonder what Blinker will be like?  Would it be too childish to ask him about space?

Later-

Ok, wow.  A lot happened tonight.  I’ll try and make as much sense of it as I can, and keep it in order as much as possible.  But no promises.  I. Was. Not. Prepared.

I met Rocío as we agreed, and was a little surprised that he was wearing an ankle-length coat, all buttoned up.  All I could see under it were his thick black boots.  I’d had no idea what to wear, and assumed the Amp Room would be like the clubs I’d seen on TV and the OpNet, so I’d shifted my Eufiber to a lacy black skirt (much shorter than I usually wear) and an emerald green halter top.  I figured I could make adjustments on-site if I needed to, but I wasn’t willing to go much more risqué than that.  I hoped I wouldn’t need to. 

Ok, I’ll admit it.  I was happy to see how Rocío looked me up and down when he saw me.  I still don’t know exactly what we are, or what we might be in the future, but just for now, I know he saw me, and he liked what he saw.  He complimented me, and said that Blinker would be pick us up in a few minutes. Then he gave me some advice on what I was walking into.

It boiled down to this: The Amp Room was neutral territory, which meant that everyone rubbed elbows with everyone else, and pretty much anything goes.  Whatever two (or more) people decided to do together was fine- no judgements, as long as they didn’t wreck the place.  Fights were discouraged, and broken up by other patrons, if security didn’t get there first.  You could get pretty much anything you wanted at the Amp Room, and I would likely be offered things I’d never even heard of.  It was up to me what I chose to accept or decline, but not to make a big deal about refusing things I wasn’t okay with- “no thank you” was plenty. 

Rocío made it clear that he’d be with me, and have my back; but it would be better to stand on my own two feet as much as possible.  Everyone was constantly ‘on display’ in the Amp Room, and people would remember what I said and did.  This, more than anything else, was my real ‘debut’ into nova society, and I needed to keep that in mind.  Tonight would lay the foundations of my reputation, one way or the other.  He also pointed out that no one would know or care that I was underage, so go accordingly. 

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous.  Maybe a little more than nervous. 

We talked for a little while, and then there was this weird distortion in the air around us.  I could feel something coming in my buzzy tingly sense a couple of seconds before there was a rush of air and a pop.  And Blinker was there.  He’s tall, thin but with a kind of wiry energy to him.  He looked like he was in his late thirties, but who knows?  Brown hair with a few silver strands, brown eyes, a wide mouth and a small scar cutting through one eyebrow.  He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, so I assumed he was just dropping us off, rather than going clubbing himself.  He brought the smell of sourdough bread with him from wherever he’d just come from, and was in the act of brushing crumbs off of his front when he popped in. 

Rocío introduced us, and mentioned my interest in going into space.  Blinker warmed right up, and we spent a few minutes talking about his experiences.  He asked me if I was ‘vacuum ready’, and I said that I thought I was, but was a little nervous about finding out the hard way.  I also wasn’t really sure how to go about going to space.  Surely there was more to it than just flying ‘up’ until I couldn’t ‘up’ anymore?  But Blinker said that, yeah, for a flier that really was about all there was to it.  It was easier for him, of course, coming and going directly.  He said that if I wasn’t completely confident of my survival, then the best thing to do was to go with someone else the first time, or fly ‘up’ slowly enough that I wouldn’t be caught out by the thinning atmosphere if it turned out that I wasn’t ready to handle it. 

Blinker said that tonight wasn’t the time for a first trip to space (I agree, I want to really savor the experience), but that if I wanted, he could ask around for a vacuum-ready flier to escort me.  He said that he’d be willing to take me himself, the direct way, but thought I might enjoy it more going under my own power.  Plus, that would let me know if I wasn’t ready.  That sounded great to me, and I said so.  We exchanged contact information for later. 

And on that note, it was time to go.  I’d never really wondered what being teleported would be like.  Even though (according to my watch) no noticeable time passed, it felt… elongated.  Like I was somehow stretching between where I had been and where I was going to be, pulling away from myself like taffy, then the ‘where-I-was’ part rushing to catch up to the ‘where-I-would-be’ part.  It felt very strange, and my knees went a little wobbly.  Blinker caught me, and said most people felt like that the first couple of times. 

Apparently it’s considered gauche to just appear right in front of the club, so Blinker brought us out in a bit of open space about a block away.  I barely remembered to thank him, I was so amazed by Ibiza.  I’d done a little bit of reading, and knew the Amp Room was close to the historic district, and most of those buildings were centuries old.  But I still wasn’t prepared for the beauty and the sense of history.  And even with all the noise of Ibiza night life, somehow you could still hear the sea.  I’ve spent most of my life within easy distance of the ocean, but somehow this was different. 

And the people!  I knew Ibiza was a party town, for novas and baselines alike, but I didn’t expect… this.  It was about ten o’clock, local time, and already the people on the streets looked like they’d been partying for hours.  I saw two obvious novas walking past (one was glowing, the other had an extra pair of arms), but nobody looked at them twice!  I guess people around here are just… used to us?  I was surprised by how good that felt.  I didn’t realize how… scrunched in on myself I’d felt at home, knowing that everyone just… knew about me. 

That sounded so arrogant.  It’s not like I assume people are always thinking and talking about me, or that every stranger on the street knows who I am.  But just knowing that even a small number of people that I’ve never met (like most of the forum people) consider me to be part of their lives… it’s just strange.  I’m used to forming parasocial relationships, mainly with writers and podcasters.  And I never lose sight of the fact that they are parasocial- that the other person doesn’t know I exist, and wouldn’t care if they did know.  I’m not used to being on the other end of a parasocial.  I realize it’s harmless (until maybe it isn’t), but it still feels strange.  But now, for the first time since I erupted, I feel like I can just be… me.  The new me, sure, but still just me.

Rocío nudged me to get my attention.  Apparently he’d said something, and I totally missed it.  He laughed and said that he’d been overwhelmed the first time, too.  He offered me his arm, and we headed for the Amp Room. 

There was a huge crowd of baselines, some of them dressed like novas, clustered around the club entrance.  As we came up, a bouncer wearing body paint (at least, I think the stripes were paint), a thong and a couple of smiley face stickers over her nipples was watching the door.  A couple of beefy, muscled-up guys tried to go in, and her arm shot out like a bar, stopping them.  They said something to her (I didn’t even try to overhear, but it looked like they were trying to argue).  She just looked them up and down, shook her head, and made a little ‘shoo’ motion.  One of the guys looked like he wanted to push it, but the other one grabbed him and they slunk off. 

There wasn’t an actual line, but there was a steady in-and-out stream of people.  Some of them were obviously novas, but I assume they all were.  And those two guys weren’t.  The bouncer lady just looked us over for a second and waved us in.  No ID check, no need to prove ourselves.  Maybe she has the same buzzy tingly sense that I do?  If so, hers must be going off constantly.  Mine was going crazy and we were barely inside the building.

Just inside was a cloakroom, with an attendant dressed mostly in liquid latex.  Rocío gave her his coat.  Underneath, he was wearing (I should say ‘wearing’) something that missed being a thong by a couple of inches, his boots, and… ribbons.  Vertical ribbons draping down from a neck piece.  When he stood still, the ribbons covered him, but when he moved, the ribbons swirled around, flashing his body.  My noises of appreciation were, perhaps, not as articulate as I would have liked. Needless to say, I felt under (and over) dressed. At the same time.  I changed my Eufiber to make the skirt a little shorter, and the neckline on the halter a little lower, but that was as far as I was comfortable going.

The inside of the Amp Room was as beautiful as it was overwhelming.  The architecture had a heavy Moorish influence, as did the stained glass set into the skylight.  The dance floor itself was impossible to see, being covered in at least three feet of… bubbles.  Or possibly foam.  Or both.  I wasn’t sure.  It was piled up above head height in several places as well.  I can only assume the DJ was a nova, since the music was braided together with the lights as well as waves of raw sensation that paired with each chance in the rhythm.  It took just about everything I had to not drop everything and dance.  I almost regretted that we weren’t just here for fun, but I already know I want to come back.

I had expected the club to be dark, with accent lighting, but most of it was brightly, sometimes garishly lit.  Laser lights and strobes bounced off the bubbles, and lit up some of the dancers deeper inside the pile of foam.  Several of the novas shed their own light, as well. 

If I tried to describe all the novas I saw, just in those first moments, I’d be writing all night.  Maybe I’ll add those descriptions later, but for now, I need to focus on what we were there for.  I saw several people circulating with trays full of shot glasses, little bowls, and precut lines of what I assumed was cocaine or some other sniffable drug.  Rocío had told me on the way over from where Blinker had dropped us off that most alcohol and drugs had little to no effect on novas, but that I should be careful of anything that glowed, sparkled, or seemed to change color.  That of course, I should sample whatever I chose to, but those were more likely to hit me harder than I expected.  I fully intended to take his advice.  I had the idea that refusing all offers would be rude, or single me out, but I was resolved to avoid the hard stuff.

We were apparently a little early, so we circulated a little bit.  Rocío mentioned that the party had barely started, and not many people were here yet.  If that was ‘barely started’ and ‘not many people’, well, I’m not sure I want to be here with a party in full swing.  Rocío’s outfit was conservative in comparison to most of the others, which made me feel like an absolute nun.  Thongs and assorted piercings made up most of the outfits I saw, and a lot of people were already down to body paint, liquid latex, or nothing at all.  There was more than just dancing going on as well. 

In addition to the dance floor, there was a bar across one side.  The other three sides were given over to tables, booths, and little shadowy alcoves, some of them with privacy curtains.  It was pretty obvious that voyeurism and ‘private time’ were expected parts of the experience.  There was a mezzanine level, and probably a second one as well, but the bright lights made details hard to make out.  It seemed likely that everything that happened on the main level could be watched from above, though. 

As we moved around, a man with lavender skin and feathers along his shoulder blades (not wings, just feathers- like a dinosaur) came by with a tray, and we did shots.  I think it was tequila, but I’m not sure.  Upon closer inspection, the little bowls were full of pills and other ‘party favors’.  Rocío pointed out novas that he knew on the dance floor, and told me a little about them.  Depending on how long our meeting took, we might have time to meet some of them after.  I don’t want to drop names, since we ended up not having much time, so I’ll leave that for now.

About twenty minutes after we got there, Rocío escorted me to a table set in a deep alcove.  It had to had one of the best views of the dance floor, and the acoustics were amazing- as loud as it was in the club, inside that little space, you could carry on a conversation at a reasonable, non-shouting volume. At the table was an incredibly handsome Spanish man in his mid-thirties(?).  He was bald, with a stylish beard, and wore a silk suit that probably cost more than our apartment.  I was a little relived about that- I didn’t feel quite so out-of-place now that someone else wasn’t nearly naked.  (Really, I’d never thought of myself as a prude before tonight, but I was not prepared.)

When we came up, he was talking to one of the servers, who promptly took herself off somewhere.  There were two chairs on one side of him, and one on the other.  As soon as he saw us, he stood up, gestured us over, and pulled out the chair next to him for me.  Very elegant.  Rocío seated himself on my other side.  Compared to the club proper, it was very quiet in the alcove.  Rocío introduced me to Count Raoul Orzaiz, and introduced me to him as Heka.  (Now that I think about it, Rocío has only used my nova name since I chose it.)

Yes, that Count Orzaiz.  Face of the Teragen.  European royalty.  One of the most influential men on the planet.  Rocío really should have warned me.  If the Count hadn’t been watching me so closely, I might have smacked Rocío for getting me into this.  But ok.  I can deal with this.  What do you call a Count, anyway? Your Grace? My Lord?  Wait, I’m an American. We don’t care about other people’s titles.  Just be respectful.  Stop panicking.  Breathe.

How do I sort out my reactions?  How much of it is the Count being handsome European royalty? How much of it was my naïve reaction to him treating me with what I can only call ‘old world elegance’?  How much is him having so much… presence?  (Whatever social powers Alex might have are a bludgeon.  Whatever the Count has- and he must have something- is a scalpel.  A phrase from a Regency-era novel came back to me: ‘he has a great deal of address’.)  And how much of my reaction is knowing that I’m sitting next to someone Utopia considers to be one of the most dangerous men alive?  I’m in over my head, and I know it.

I’m also losing the thread.  Just thinking about that man is overwhelming.  Back on track, then.  Keep this as objective and factual as possible.

He must have seen that I was caught off-guard and flustered, because the Count spent several minutes putting me at ease.  The server came back with wine, and he poured for the three of us.  I don’t know a thing about wine, but I’d been to dinner with Bailey’s family several times, and I knew what steps Mrs. Adams took in appreciating it.  Swirl, sniff, sip, say something with adjectives.  I did my best.

It seemed like we socialized for a long time; just sitting, drinking, watching the dancers, and talking.  I let the Count take the lead.  I figured his time was more important than ours, so he should decide when to come to the point.

And eventually, he did. 

Having written about my trip to San Francisco here already, and having talked about it with Rocío, I was able to be more coherent when I told the story this time.  Since I’ve already covered that, I don’t need to go over it again here.  The Count mostly just listened, letting me talk, and only interrupted to ask clarifying questions.  He pulled a lot of detail out of me that I didn’t realize I’d noticed at the time. 

I’d been in this same situation just under a week ago, telling someone about how someone tried to kill me, but this time, I felt like someone actually cared.  I didn’t realize how… clinical… the Clinic people had been about it until I saw the Count’s response.  Maybe he was just putting on a show for my benefit, but the Count seemed to genuinely care about what had happened to me.  And he doesn’t even know me!  I’d been living and working with the Utopia people, and (in hindsight), they treated the whole thing like a report to be filled out, rather than something horrible that happened to someone they knew and (theoretically) liked.

I finished up my story with ‘S’s’ comments about the Church of Michael Archangel, and my own efforts at long-distance investigation.  The Count seemed to be impressed with my attempts so far.  Then he pulled out his phone, hit a button, and put it on the chair on his other side.  As the screen lit up, a kind of 3D hologram appeared, ‘sitting’ in the chair. 

Is it worth describing what he looked like?  I’m pretty sure he could make the hologram look like anything or anyone he wanted.  So, I’ll just say that he was ‘too sexy’ stuffed into ‘too average’.  It was like somebody hired Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt to play a ‘guy on a bench’ extra in a movie.  This was my first actual introduction to ‘S’, aka Synapse.

Synapse apologized for screwing with me, but I think he thought it was funny.  I have no idea how old he is, but he acts like the guys my age, so who knows?  Still, just knowing who ‘S’ is helps some.  And it’s Synapse.  Not like I ever had a prayer of keeping him out of my blog.  Hell, I’m not sure I could have kept him out of a pen-and-paper journal, if he’d really wanted in. 

Synapse confirmed what I’d found out about Kansas- that Cheney and Garden Park seemed the most likely source for my attackers.  He didn’t completely rule out Murdock, though.  He said that people in that area tended to stake out areas that they liked to hunt in, and stick with them, even if it was a longer drive to get there.  And that’s what he thought happened- that one or more Archangelites were out hunting (illegally, since there were no major hunting seasons open in that area right now), and when they saw me coming, they took the opportunity, figuring that no one was around to catch them- no baselines, anyway.  And that yes, they almost certainly were trying to kill me, even without having any way of knowing who I was.  I was obviously a nova, and that was enough.

I wasn’t sure what to think.  It was good to have confirmation of what I’d already (mostly) concluded on my own.  But at the same time, I felt sick knowing that there were people like that out there.  And that I’d probably never know who they were until it was too late.  Even if those specific people were caught, the Archangelites have members everywhere, and most of them pass for normal.  And that’s not even including any other crazies that just happen to be out to get novas.  What can you even do about that? 

I must’ve looked scared, because Synapse reached out and ‘held’ my hand, and said that he had some friends of his working with him on who, specifically, in those churches were responsible, and that when they found them, they’d make sure they never did anything like this again.  I wasn’t entirely sure how to take that.  He said that we were all members of the One Race, and had to look out for each other.  That’s certainly more support than I’ve gotten from the Clinic.

Then he oh-so-casually dropped a (small) bombshell.  His hologram made some typing motions, and my phone vibrated.  A number I didn’t recognize texted me a string of numbers.  Then another.  Then another.  The first string looked like an IP address.  The second and third set looked like coordinates.  Synapse looked smug and said that they belonged to ‘Watch_th3_Skys’.  He said that WtS changed IPs pretty regularly, and that was just the most recent one, so it wasn’t likely to be very useful, but the two sets of coordinates were the center points of two parts of Wilmington where he did most of his online activity.  One was the downtown business district, and the other was in Ogden, a little suburb.  Probably he lives and works in those areas.

Well!  That was unexpected.  On the one hand, it really doesn’t tell me much.  On the other hand, it does answer some questions.  And puts to rest my thought that WtS and ‘S’ might be the same person.  I mean, I suppose this whole thing could be some kind of elaborate game to screw with me, but what would be the point?  I made the appropriate ‘impressed and appreciative’ noises, and Synapse looked pleased.  

He said that he had other things he needed to get done, but that I could reach him at the number he’d texted to me, and he’d let me know if anything developed regarding Kansas.  Then his hologram dissolved into sparkles that looked suspiciously like the original Star Trek transporter effect. 

The Count put his phone away, and said that Synapse always made good on his promises, though the timing could sometimes be unpredictable.  I said that I understood, and was just grateful for the help.  I was sure that both he and the Count had far more important things going on.  He cut me off, (gently) to insist that no, helping any nova was what the Teragen was all about- at least his part of the Teragen.  He said that we’re all part of the One Race, and that Utopian novas and Elites just didn’t realize it yet.  That, in the end, all we’ll have is each other, and we need to build strong bonds and connections now rather than later.  He said that it was doubly important to reach out to young (both young-young and newly-erupted young) novas, in hopes of showing them that they had options beyond allowing Utopia (and baselines in general) to exploit them. 

There it was.  I could tell we were moving into the ‘cost’ part of the discussion.  The Count was trying to recruit me.  And I was more okay with it than I had expected to be.  Maybe I was still carried away by his presence, but I just didn’t want to lie to the Count.  (And I was pretty sure he’d be able to tell if I did, but that’s beside the point.)  So, I looked him right in the eye, and told him where I stand. 

I told him that I’d signed a short-ish term contract with Project Utopia, and despite my misgivings, I intended to fulfill it.  I told him that I did everything I could to keep my promise, and considered a contract to fall under the same idea.  I wouldn’t be the first to break it.  (And besides, even if I didn’t fully trust Utopia or its motives, I didn’t think they were likely to screw me out of what was (for them) a small amount of money (the cost of my college education).  I told him that I hoped to use the next year and a half to find my place in the world, both baseline and nova, as well as put aside enough money to take care of my mother.  I hoped that by the time my contract ended, I would be financially stable and not need to renew with Utopia, but that I wasn’t inclined to burn bridges unless they absolutely needed burning.

Then I told him (choosing my words very carefully) that I was willing to accept that a lot of what was public knowledge about the Teragen was based on Utopian spin and PR, but that I was wary of some of the more violent aspects of the Teragen.  Even if some of the news stories were exaggerated, not all of them were, and I couldn’t overlook that. 

I mentioned Boom-Boom’s re-framing the story about Geryon and the mayor of Tampa, and the Count asked me what I’d thought of Boom-Boom and where I’d met him.  That seemed like some kind of subtle test, and I took my time answering.  I told him about Midwest NovaCon, about having lunch with Boom-Boom, and him explaining Teras to me.  As to what I’d thought about him, after some consideration I said that I thought Boom-Boom had an ‘unexamined understanding’ of his own philosophy.  I had been thinking of that quote from Socrates about how an unexamined life is not worth living.  I meant that Boom-Boom seemed to have a very shallow understanding of the ideals he claimed to live his life by, but I didn’t explain all that.  For the first time that night, I think I caught the Count off guard, because he burst out laughing- and not, I’m pretty sure, at me.

After he got himself together, he gave me his card and told me that I’d be wasted in the Pandaimonion, but that if and when I choose to join the Teragen, he’d be pleased to take me under his wing.  I didn’t need Rocío’s gasp to know what a big deal that was. 

I took the card (of course), thanked him, and told him that I had been treated better by the Teragen than I had been by Utopia, and I wouldn’t forget that.  But that I also was serious about honoring my commitments.  As such, I wasn’t willing to join the Teragen while I was still under contract with Utopia, but that if I could offer any assistance that wouldn’t compromise my integrity during that time, I would. 

We made a little more social chat, and that was it.  I think we both understood each other.  Hell, I get the feeling he understands more about me than I do, and I probably have no idea what I’m getting into; but there it is.  Sometimes you just have to go with your gut, as long as you’re still guided by your character. 

As we left the table, I looked at my watch for the first time.  Almost three hours had passed!  I needed to get home!  Rocío understood, and we headed back to where Blinker would pick us up.  My first visit to the Amp Room was over.

Rocío texted Blinker, and he took us back to where we’d met up.  (The return trip was just as disconcerting, but I was ready for the knee-wobblies.)  Blinker said that he should be able to dig up a space-ready flier within the next few days, and when would be best for me?  I explained about school, and the Clinic, but that any evening would be fine, or any weekend.  Or I could take a day off from the Clinic if I had a little notice.  He said he’d see what he could do, and popped out.

I thanked Rocío for taking me, and introducing me to everyone.  I was going on about how much I appreciated it when… he kissed me!  And… it was good.  He broke it off, said “I had fun, too”, and left.  The guy knows how to make an exit. 

I really can’t deny it any longer.  Rocío is part of the Teragen.  And, so far, the Teragen novas that I’ve met have been more open and (apparently) honest than any of the Utopia people (nova or baseline) that I know.  I don’t think I’ll ever agree with the Teragen’s more violent, nova-supremacist views, but I see now that there’s more to the movement than just those extremists.  Is this really where my future lies?  I have breathing room.  My contract gives me time to think.  I’m going to need it.

When I got back home, I saw that my NovaNow! episode had dropped.  There was already a link to it on the forum, and it had been added to my official OpNet site as well.  I haven’t listened to it yet.  Somehow, the idea of listening or watching my own public appearances seems really self-involved.

Chapter Text

Monday, October 20

At school, the girls reminded me about the school’s Halloween party on Friday.  I’d completely forgotten about it, to be honest.  It’s technically a dance, but not really a dating kind of dance.  More of a bonfire and group hangout with music kind of thing.  I think the school does it to discourage us getting into trouble on Halloween.  (They’d tried holding it on actual Halloween a couple of times, but only the nerds with nothing better to do showed up.)

The girls wanted us all to do a group costume.  I suggested a pair of pantomime horses, but that wasn’t what Jess had in mind.  Monique suggested the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Alejandra suggested the Scooby-Doo characters (with a plushie Scooby).  But it was pretty clear they were both just throwing random suggestions out until Jess dropped the other shoe.  I should’ve expected her idea.  Novas.  Of course. 

I tried to shut that down, but they were all in.  Clearly, they’d been planning this.  Jess was going to be Splash.  Alejandra was going to be Firefly (odd that she wouldn’t be, well, Alejandra).  Monique was going to be Lotus Infinite.  It was clear they’d made their minds up.  Okay.  Fine.  I said I’d go along with it on one condition- that I got to be Leviathan.  That was met with too much excitement to back out now. 

My Eufiber will form the bulk of the costume.  But I’ll still need to work out an extra pair of arms, the head, and a tail.  Maybe I could mount a set of mannequin arms on a harness under the suit?  If I greased the joints and hooked the wrists to my actual wrists, they should move together, right?  Probably easier to just buy a mask.  Hmmm….. well, tomorrow afternoon is for shopping, I suppose.

At the Clinic, Bix had me working with the heavy bag again, like nothing had happened.  If he brings Alex up again, I’m going to confront him about it. 

Chapter Text

Tuesday, October 21

After school, I went shopping.  It’s still an almost guilty pleasure to be able to just, buy things when I want them (within reason).  Mom and I have been poor working class all our lives, so this is all new to me.  I don’t want to get too used to it. 

First, I went to a sporting goods store.  They had weight safety harnesses, and I knew I could use one as the base for my extra arms.  I found one that wouldn’t be too bulky under the suit, so that was fine. 

Then, it was off to the Spirit! Halloween popup store.  This year, it was in the old Circuit City store.  Novas have been a Halloween favorite since we started showing up, and there’s a huge nova section every year.  There were actually three different Leviathan masks to choose from.  Last year, I would have gotten the twenty-dollar rubber one and been happy I could afford it.  (Well, no.  Last year, I would have been going to whatever party Bailey had been invited to, and been wearing whatever she ‘suggested’ I put together.)  This year, I splurged a little, and got the seventy-dollar mask with the moving jaw.  (The next time I go to a con, I plan to cosplay, so it’s worth it.  Really.)  They had animatronic tails, too.  The only ones they had were wolf, fox, and cat, but I knew I could adjust the fox and cover it with the Eufiber so it would matcher.  I spent a little more than I intended, but… well, apart from the cats, I really haven’t done anything to celebrate my eruption.  So, why not? 

That just left the arms.  Mannequin arms are remarkably hard to find on short notice.  I looked around for the rest of the day, with no luck.  I even visited the abandoned mall, went invisible, and snuck around the department stores looking for abandoned mannequins, but all I could find were the fixed-joint kind.  But, I was determined, so I hopped onto the OpNet for cosplay ideas.  And sure enough, there were tutorials on building extra arms.  I zipped back over to Spirit! Just before they closed, and got a pair of shoulder-length gloves.  The rest of the supplies came from Wal-Mart.  Even though I had a few days, I really got into the project, and skipped sleeping.  By dawn, I had my extra arms.  Everything but the line and cuffs to attach them to my real wrists.  But that was fine.  I could get those on Wednesday.   

Chapter Text

Wednesday, October 22

Bix brought up Alex again, and I’d had enough.  I stopped with the bag, and refused to do anything else until he told me why he was pushing Alex on me. Bix tried to say that he was concerned for my safety, and that how I needed to be able to fight, and how it was absolutely necessary for my future, and stuff like that. 

I wasn’t buying it.  First of all, no I don’t need to know how to fight.  I’ve done enough research by now to know that most novas aren’t regularly engaged in violence, any more than most baselines are.  I’d only need to fight if I wanted to be an Elite, or some other high-danger, action-oriented job.  And I’d made it clear I wasn’t interested in being a municipal defender, or fighting with XWF (lol), or signing up for Teen Tomorrow.  Bix flinched when I said that last, and I could hear his heart rate pick up. 

That was it.  Somehow, the idea of Teen Tomorrow was still on the table- in his mind, anyway. And in who else’s?  I needed to shut this down now.  Once and for all.  I thought I already had.  So I sat down and stared at Bix until he did too.  Then I came right out and asked him why he thought Teen Tomorrow was still an option, when I’d made it very clear that I wasn’t interested. 

He tried to hem and haw, and dance around the subject, but I wasn’t about to let this go.  Finally, he came clean.  My ability to drain other novas of their quantum power was rare.  And, if I was able to learn to drain abilities as well (as Bix still insisted that I probably would), then that was even more rare.  The Teams Tomorrow are known publicly for their flashy powers: strength, speed, energy bolts, shields; and their ‘utility’ powers, like controlling the elements, teleportation, flight, and so on.  Some of the T2M members, the more specialized ones that weren’t connected with one of the four branches of T2M, or that only worked with T2M on special assignments, had more unusual powers, like Geisha’s diplomatic skills, or Antaeus’s control over the natural world.  He said that most of the time, those ‘auxiliary’ members went about their regular lives, but they could be called in when their special skills were needed.  There were only a few known novas who had the stealing borrowing abilities that I do, and none of them work for Utopia.  In short, they wanted me on Team Tomorrow Auxiliary, preferably by way of Teen Tomorrow for more structured training. 

And all T2M members needed a minimum set of skills.  Bix said that I already had most of those skills, even if they weren’t as ‘honed’ as T2M would like, but I was utterly unprepared for the kinds of dangerous situations I might have to face ‘on assignment’ in the field.  In a way, it was even more important that I be able to ‘hold my own’ at T2M Academy, since younger novas didn’t have as much experience controlling their powers, and I was more likely to be hurt accidentally in training.

I was seeing red.  Almost literally.  What part of I don’t want to be a superhero had I not made clear?  I don’t even want to be a part-time, backup, second-string superhero.  I took several very deep breaths.  Took a moment to imagine what it would be like to have an energy bolt power, and how Bix would look without a torso.  Took some more deep breaths. Then, I very carefully explained to Bix that I would not be going out ‘on assignment’ in the field, nor would I be attending T2M Academy.  I used small words, so there was no chance of a misunderstanding.  I told him, in no uncertain terms, that This. Would. Not. Happen. 

Bix looked like he’d bitten into something sour and gave it to me straight.  My contract included a clause that basically stipulated that, in an emergency, all of my protections and provisos went out the window.  That I would be compensated for any additional tasks, including danger bonuses, but that if a situation was declared an emergency, and my power set was deemed necessary to deal with that emergency, I would be deployed.  And that was all there was to it.  Bix was doing what he could to ensure that I came out of any such situation as safely as possible. 

He then leaned it, lowered his voice to the point that even I had trouble hearing him, and went of to explain that, as for attending T2M Academy, since that was in no way an emergency, Utopia couldn’t force me to transfer there.  But, once my school let out for summer, they could contract me for an all-summer job through Nova Services International (for which I would be paid), and assign me to the Academy for whatever ‘crash courses’ they felt that I needed.  Bix said that while attending the Academy was, in itself, not a bad idea, he was concerned about how much training they would try to squeeze in to that limited period.  So, again, it was better for me to learn as much as I could before spending the summer there.  

He didn’t come right out and say it, but he made it pretty clear that my ‘summer job’ at the Academy was already arranged.  More deep breaths.  After taking a moment to get myself under control, I asked what all this had to do with Alex.  His explanation would have been funny, if I’d been in the mood to see humor in anything.  He knew that I didn’t like Alex, and he knew that I didn’t like fighting because I didn’t want to hurt anybody.  Bix figured that I would be more willing to train with Alex because 1) He was a nova, and a nova specifically interested in combat, so would presumably be tough enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about hurting him.  And 2) That since I already didn’t like him, I’d be less bothered if I did manage to hurt him- that I might even be a little more eager to train if he was the one on the receiving end.  Funny, right?  I don’t like somebody, so I should be okay with potentially hurting them? 

Is this what Bix thinks of me?  Or is this what Utopia thinks of all novas?  Or is this just… human nature?  I gathered up my things, told Bix I needed to think about all of this, and that I wouldn’t be in on Friday.  I left before he could say anything else.

When I got home, I went over my contract again.  I remembered reading those clauses about emergencies, and how I was expected to respond to them.  But when we went over them the first time, they hadn’t seemed so… draconian.  I had thought they would apply to things like the fire.  Things that could be dangerous, but weren’t likely to kill me.  I certainly hadn’t thought it could apply to anything like Bix was saying.  But on re-reading them, they could be interpreted that way.  True, I could take it to court, and claim there was no true ‘meeting of the minds’ and try to get it thrown out.  But… it would be Utopia I was going up against.  With Utopia’s lawyers. And Utopia’s PR team.  And Utopia’s reputation.  What judge would rule against them, in my favor?

I’m stuck.  I mean, there’s no real reason to think that that kind of emergency will come up in the next year or so.  Novas have been around for a decade, and T2M almost as long, and they’ve never had access to someone with my skill set before.  They’ve been doing just fine, right?  No reason to think they’d suddenly need to call on me. 

And even if they did need my assistance, it’s not like they could force me to give it, right?  Sherman said, “If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve”, or something like that.  Surely I can’t be forced into a helicopter or a warp portal against my will.  (Well, I probably could.)  And even if I were forced to show up, I don’t see how anyone could force me to join a fight that I didn’t want to.  Right? 

What’s the worst that could happen?  Utopia could cut me off, sure.  And that would suck.  And maybe they could sue me for breach of contract.  But I’m not sure they would, now that I think about it.  ‘We abducted an unwilling teenager and dropped her into the middle of a nova fight that she then refused to participate in’ would look really bad for them. 

Or could they somehow force me?  They could hold my contract over me, but I’m already determined not to let that force me into anything I don’t believe in.  Could they somehow do anything to Mom?  Not officially, I don’t think.  Not legally.  But…?  No, I’m being paranoid.  This is ridiculous. 

I’ve been getting Furnado used to his harness.  It’s time to see how he does going outside in it.

Later-

As soon as Furnado connected ‘harness’ with ‘going outside and exploring’, he was all in.  We had an excellent time.  We started out in the courtyard behind the apartment, and he sniffed everything in the yard, twice.  He played pounce the leaves, and chased a squirrel (I had him on one of those extra-long retractable leashes).  When he lost the squirrel, he brought back a really big leaf, and I congratulated him on his successful hunt.  Then we went for a walk around the block, where he also had to sniff everything. 

We met several dogs, which worried me at first.  But Furnado was fine.  Most of the dogs were fine, too.  The big ones just wanted to sniff him, and play a little.  The little ones mostly just barked at him from a distance.  There was one little dustmop thing that tried to go after him, but Furnado just slapped the yappy little thing on the nose, and that was that. 

The walk, and brushing the grass out of Furnado’s tail afterwards, was just what I needed to clear my head. 

I will not allow Utopia to use me for things that I don’t believe in.  I will not allow them to make me into someone I’m not.  I will not be engaging in further training that would make that kind of use more likely.  But, despite my increased toughness, the world is still a dangerous place- maybe even more so now.  So I will accept training in purely defensive techniques.  Basically, things that would allow me to avoid getting hurt until I can escape whatever bad situation I was in. 

I’m not sure exactly what that will look like.  Maybe wrestling, to get out of holds?  (Real wrestling, I mean.  Not that XWF stuff.)  Or maybe one of the softer martial arts that focusses on redirecting force?  I’ve heard that aikido and hapkido are both fairly soft styles. 

With Bix going out of his way to keep his voice down, I think I need to assume what he told me was ‘in confidence’.  (I also need to assume that the barn, at least, has monitoring devices installed, but I’d already assumed that, for basic security purposes.)  That means that, officially, I don’t know what Utopia has planned for me.  I think I’ll play dumb for now.  The less Utopia thinks I know about what’s going on, the better for me, I think.  But it’s safe to say that any last bit of trust I had for Utopia is gone.  As far as I’m concerned, they’re planning to violate my contract, in spirit, if not in fact.  And that means that I have more room to respond without violating my own sense of ethics.  They haven’t actually screwed me yet, so I won’t actually screw them.  But that’s about as far as it goes.

JUST REMEMBER, HEKA.  WE’RE HERE FOR YOU WHEN YOU’RE READY.

~S

Chapter Text

Friday, October 24

We had permission to wear our costumes to school (as long as they were ‘tasteful’ and ‘age-appropriate’).  Somehow, I didn’t think it was appropriate for ‘Leviathan’ to be seen flying over the city, even if it is obviously just a costume.  So I flew most of the way invisible. 

My costume turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.  Nothing is going to hide the fact that I’m only 5’4”, and Leviathan is close to 7’ tall, but I think I did okay for less than a week’s planning.  Novas have been popular Halloween costumes since N Day, and a lot of the kids dress up as novas.  But I’d never seen a Leviathan costume at school before, so I was pretty confident of standing out. 

I dropped my invisibility as I flew over the school to my usual landing spot, and the crowd (which had dropped off a bit) was back in force.  More selfies, lots of questions about my costume, and one little boy asked if I knew the real Leviathan.  I told him no, that I’d never met him, but I’d be interested in doing so. 

When I got to the main entrance, about half of the kids were in costume.  Of those, a larger number than I remembered from last year were novas, but maybe that shouldn’t surprise me?  I saw at least six Caestus Paxes, as well as several other members of Team Tomorrow.  There were two Divis Mals, as well.  Edgelords gonna edge, I guess.  I didn’t see any Sliders, so that was nice.  I’d seen a couple of Slider costumes at Spirit!, one of which was even a ‘mourning edition’, but I couldn’t imagine anyone being Slider this year.  It would be too soon, and too tacky. 

I got a lot of looks, and compliments, and more selfie requests.  Does anyone else still smile for pictures when they’re wearing a full-coverage mask?  It seems pointless, but at the same time, it seems weird not to.  The tail took a lot of getting used to, mainly because the animatronics were almost too good.  It shifted and moved in accordance with my movements, but with somewhat… exaggerated results.  The extra arms were fine.  Since they were attached with loops of clear fishing line to my own wrists, they mostly just followed my regular arm movements.  The mask was the most disconcerting part.  The real Leviathan doesn’t have eyes at all.  He sees with his sense of smell, and some kind off electrosense, a little like a shark.  (I think.)  So the mask doesn’t have eyeholes, but has a painted mesh over where the eyeholes should be.  It took some getting used to.

I’d seen Jess in the hall, in her Splash costume, but we didn’t all get to meet up until lunch.  Monique had gone all out as Lotus Infinite, including a neat glowing effect on her hands to represent the energy bursts.  There was a puddle under Jess, which I’m sure was going to thrill the janitor.  When I got up for another Coke, I stuck a Wet Floor sign behind her.   Alejandra’s Firefly costume was more understated, but then Firefly’s costume is fairly understated.  She makes her mark in her behavior, not in her clothes.  Alejandra had colored every exposed inch of skin with luminescent paint, though, which was perfect.  We all spent a little while complimenting each other and asking for ‘how to’ details.  And, of course, more selfies.  (I never used to take half so many selfies.)  Jeremy was lurking, as usual.  He was dressed as Caestus Pax.  Big surprise. 

It's just as well that I don’t need to eat anymore, because even though the mask’s mouth moves, eating is impossible.  At least the girls’ costumes are all still overtly humanoid. 

I can’t say anybody really got much done at school. And after, a lot of us pitched in to finish pulling the dance together.  They’d gotten a big stack of wood for the bonfire, but either whoever arranged for it didn’t arrange for it to arrive pre-cut, or somebody forgot their chainsaw, because the wood was in ten foot lengths with nothing to cut it to size.  I’ve tried to avoid showing off at school, but this time one of the dance committee people asked me directly if I could deal with the issue, so I didn’t feel like I could say ‘no’.  So, I ended up breaking each log over my knee, like you would a broom handle.  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good to have the kids seeing me do it.  After that, I was asked to help set up a few other things.  Moving furniture, stringing lights without breaking out ladders, that kind of thing.

The night was fun.  The music was pretty good.  Some dancing, but not much.  Aaron asked me to dance, and Michael.  One kiss doesn’t mean Rocío and I are in a relationship, let alone exclusive, so that was fine. There was a costume contest, and I won second place.  Cassidy Norman won with an amazing Marie Antoinette costume.  I couldn’t even be jealous. 

The longer I wore the mask, with its restricted vision, the more it seemed like my other senses were sharpening.  By the end of the night, I was depending as much on my hearing as my vision.  That tail just kept getting more and more uncomfortable, though.  Not painful, just awkward and uncomfortable. I was glad to take it off when I got home.  Of course, the funny thing was that I never even bothered to put the batteries in.  I just powered it myself all day. 

I had fun, probably more fun than I’ve had at a party in the last few years.  I spent a lot of time with the girls, and just generally socialized with a lot of people I never used to be able to talk to, since Bailey would always pull me away to hang with her other friends.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling like something was missing.  For the first time since I erupted, I really felt a difference between me and the others.  No, that’s not quite right.  There’d been a difference since the moment it happened, but always before, it was baselines putting distance between them and me.  Even when they crowded around me, they were, well, othering me.  I was a spectacle instead of a person.  Tonight, the distance I felt was coming from inside me.  There was a lack of… kinship?  Understanding?  Shared experience?  And it wasn’t coming from the girls or anyone other than me.  Would I have noticed the lack before the Amp Room?  Would there have been a lack?  Did being surrounded by novas, and having that be ‘the new normal’ even for a few hours, make that much of a difference?  Did it change me somehow? 

IT DIDN’T CHANGE YOU, HEKA.  IT SHOWED YOU WHAT YOU’VE BEEN MISSING.  YOU’RE AN EAGLE KEEPING COMPANY WITH SPARROWS.  AND YOU’RE BEGINNING TO REALIZE THAT.

~S

The party was scheduled to run until midnight, but I decided to leave around ten.  I was having fun with my friends, but somehow I wanted to be alone, too.  So, I flew home.  It was dark enough, and my Leviathan costume is mostly black, so I didn’t bother with being invisible.  I took the long way home, and stopped off at one of my favorite spots by the river.  It was good to just sit for a while.

When I got home from the party, there was a package on my bed.  The postmarks were from Spain, but I didn’t recognize the address- not Ibiza.  Inside were two small-ish books, several pamphlets and essays, and a collection of monographs, all on the subject of Teras.  And while some of it seemed like ‘beginner stuff’, some of it looked like it would go into more depth.  There was also a datachip with the same material in digital form.  A note inside one of the pamphlets suggested reading that one first, as it assumed the reader was a seeker of truth without already being deeply informed about the material.  In other words, a primer for people looking beyond Utopia’s propaganda.  The note wasn’t signed, but I was pretty sure it was from the Count.  If it had just been the datachip, I would have assumed Synapse, but somehow I can’t see him willingly dealing in hardcopy.  When I looked at that specific pamphlet, it didn’t list an author, but it did have the same coat of arms imprint I’d noticed on the Count’s ring.  Did he write it?  It seems pretty clear that he published it.  I’ll start with that one.

Chapter Text

Saturday, October 25

I’ve read several of the pamphlets already.  Usually, reading something once is enough, but I think I’m going to need to re-read these, probably multiple times.  It’s not that they’re dense, but that there’s a lot to think about, and layers of nuance.  I think I’ll see different things in it depending on my mood when I’m reading it. 

I don’t think I want to include much about the details of Teras in this journal.  The fact that these published works already exist pretty much means I don’t need to.  But I’ll include some of my thoughts about it, if I find I have something specific to say, or thoughts I just want to work out on paper. 

That’ll be for later, though.  I made sure to send the Count a thank you card, though, with a note on how he’d given me a lot to think about.  I’d usually just send a email, but I get the impression that he’s the type to prefer the older, more elegant courtesies.  The postmark on the package matched the card he gave me, so it seems reasonable to assume the books came from him.

This is getting scary.  Watch_th3_Skys is at it again.  He knows where I go to school.  Maybe he has for a while, I don’t know.  But with security relaxed for the Halloween party, somehow he got onto campus.  There were several pictures of me in costume posted to the forum.  Some of me helping with setup, as well.  Wait, doesn’t that mean he was on campus before security was reduced?  By now, I’ve gotten pretty good at picking up the difference between pictures taken with zoom from a distance versus pictures taken from fairly close by.  Most of those were taken close-ish.  He was on campus with me.  I’m so glad I didn’t fly straight home last night.  There weren’t any river pictures, so maybe he didn’t follow me there.  Maybe he doesn’t know where I live.  Maybe?  

I still haven’t changed my mind about not needing to learn to fight.  And I’m still pissed as hell that Bix and/or Utopia (I’m still not completely sure where Bix stands in all this) are trying to manipulate me into it.  But, WtS seems to be getting closer.  Metaphorically, if not literally (some of his previous pictures might have been taken at closer range).  For the first time, I’m beginning to think that knowing what to do in a fight might not be the worst thing in the world.  I noticed that both times Alex assaulted me, all I did was freeze up.  Even if I decide that getting away from a situation is my best option, freezing up isn’t a good first response.  So maybe I do need some kind of training, if only for that. 

After some research into various martial arts styles, I think aikido is my best option.  Its focus on using just enough force to deal with the problem appeals to me, as does the idea of redirecting the opponent’s force instead of applying your own.  Even the way aikido is disregarded by a lot of martial arts practitioners as ‘not being a real martial art’ and being ‘too soft’ appeals to me.  I can’t help but think that being underestimated is a fine thing, if avoiding or escaping a fight is your primary goal. 

So I’ll give Bix a (polite) ultimatum on Monday.  If he insists on my learning to fight, I’ll learn aikido.  He can arrange aikido lessons with either a baseline or a nova (other than Alex- not that I think he’d know anything about aikido), but that is the only fighting program I will accept.  I think he’ll agree to that.  I don’t really care if he doesn’t.

Chapter Text

Sunday, October 26

Today was the New Hanover County Humane Society fundraiser and adopt-a-thon.  I had been looking forward to this since I found out about it.  I’m not a dog person.  That is to say, I like other people’s dogs.  Some of them.  In small quantities.  When I can hand them back to their owners after some petting. 

I wasn’t scheduled to be there until noon, but I got there early and helped them set up the event.  It was in the parking lot of one of the local pet stores, and since it was going to be a bright, sunny day, they were setting up sunshades and putting out extra water sources.  The dogs wouldn’t be there until just before noon, but they were setting up a big pen for the puppies, as well as some set-apart areas for dogs that were described as ‘needing only-pet placement’.  These spots were actually chalked out, with half-height cubicle walls so the dogs couldn’t easily seen the other dogs in the area.  I’m not sure how much good that does, since the dogs can still hear and smell the other dogs, but oh well.  They’re the experts. 

I’d hoped for some cats as well, but the volunteers said that they didn’t usually take cats on adopt-a-thons because they tended not to show to good advantage in strange places and being outside of their comfort zone.  Disappointing, but understandable. 

I had actually been working alongside some of the other volunteers, when the guy in charge(?) pulled me aside to scold me for not wearing my assigned volunteer t-shirt (all the actual Humane Society people had matching red shirts).  He was all set to drag me over to the supply boxes to see if they had an extra before I could even introduce myself.  After we got that straightened out, things were fine.  It was kinda nice to not be immediately recognized for once.

He gave me a sheet of talking points, and explained that I would be doing media spots ‘introducing’ the various dogs, saying something about their personalities, how long they’d been in the shelter, what kind of home they needed, that kind of thing.  They had bullet points for each dog, so I spent a few minutes going over the material.  I didn’t have pictures of the dogs, but I matched each dossier with the name, and hoped the dogs would be labeled, or something. 

Then everything was ready for the dogs to show up.  First came the puppies, since they were transported all together in a couple of large crates.  That was a simple matter of putting the crates down in the puppy pen, opening the fronts, and waiting for the explosion of excited puppies.  They left one volunteer to prevent escapes, while the rest moved on to the older dogs. 

Most of the older dogs were mutts, or mixes with some dominant breed in the mix.  They had all different personalities, some friendlier than others.  One of them was an akita mix, who didn’t look especially happy to be there.  The crate had ‘Sushi- Akita mix’ on a piece of tape, so that helped.  The file said that Sushi was a ‘stress shedder’, and I guess he doesn’t travel well.  All the dogs looked like they’d been groomed for the event, but Sushi was having a bad hair day. 

Nobody else was doing anything about it, so I grabbed a brush and started try to get rid of all the ‘fluffies’ he’d developed on the twenty-minute drive over from the shelter.  He seemed to enjoy the attention, so I kept going.  By the time the event was ready to open for the public, I had brushed out enough hair to make another, slightly smaller, dog.  He looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.  I was looking for someplace to dump the extra hair, but it blew away, so I ignored it.

Then my part of the event started.  It was me and the lead guy (his name turned out to be Paul) talking to a few reporters and OpNet people.  No big deal.  The dogs weren’t labeled, but their crates were, and I could easily read the names from a distance to match them up with the profiles I’d been given. 

Before the event, Paul had asked me to go out of my way to talk up the three pit bull mixes they had there.  Apparently, people don’t want to adopt pit bulls due to their reputation for aggression.  So, I went out of my way to point out to the reporters how friendly these dogs were, and how pits are only aggressive if their owners make them that way- which these clearly were not.  One of them tried to lick my face off, but that was the worst mauling I received. Nice dogs.  If I were a dog person, I’d seriously consider a shelter pit bull. 

The event went well.  The reporters wanted to stage me in the puppy pen, lying on the ground, covered in puppies, which was fun, apart from all the drool.  They also wanted me to fly around with some dogs, but Paul nixed that idea as being stressful for the dogs, which I appreciated. Rescue is one thing.  Joyriding is something else entirely.

By the time it was over, Paul said they’d adopted seven dogs and nine puppies, which they considered a pretty good success.  One of the adoptees was Sushi!  So, maybe I made a little bit of an actual difference. They’d also raised over $600 dollars in donations, which they were very excited about.  I was glad that this was a charity thing for me, since I’d enjoyed the event and knew that there was no way they’d have had the budget to ‘waste’ on a nova personal appearance.  If I had been paid, I’d’ve donated it back to them.

Shutting down the event went quicker than setting it up.  The dogs were tired, the puppies passed out, and they mostly just threw all the extra supplies into boxes to sort out back at the shelter.  Most of the puppies had passed out.  It was a good thing they took a nose-count, because one came up missing.  I was afraid it had been stolen, but the volunteers said he was an escape artist, so everyone scattered to look for him. 

I took to the air, and was able to spot what I thought was a brown-ish puppy in a thick clump of grass near the road, so I swooped down fast and scooped it up before it could get hit by a car.  I was bringing it back to the volunteers, and it was squirming like crazy and growling.  When I got back to the group, they’d found the puppy, and I took a closer look at what I was clutching to my chest.  I’d caught a rabbit.  An offended rabbit.  Oops.  I didn’t want to put it back by the road, so I flew around behind the pet store and put it down in the patch of brush behind the building.  Poor bunny had an unwanted adventure.

Erica is on top of things.  Pictures and video from the adopt-a-thon are already up on my OpNet site.  Nothing about the rabbit though. 

Chapter Text

Monday, October 27, 2008

I gave Bix my ‘aikido or nothing’ training ultimatum, and he was pretty okay with it.  He said that he’d have a trainer in to get started on Wednesday.  He didn’t say who it would be, but as long as Alex isn’t involved, it should be fine.  We worked on aerial maneuvers for the rest of the day, and that was okay by me.

I took Furnado out for another walk today, and this time he made no trouble at all about the harness.  This time, we went down to the river, and he played with the ducks.  Well, he tried to play with the ducks.  They weren’t impressed.  I was surprised at how willing to get wet he was, though.  He didn’t go all the way in, but he was up to his belly fur several times. 

Late in the evening, I started getting alerts and updates from those Kansas towns.  The local papers, digital police blotter, and church newsgroups all started going nuts.  So, I pulled up an online police scanner app and started to listen in. 

Several local hunters were missing.  They’d gone out early that morning, and hadn’t come back yet.  Everything carefully avoided saying they were ‘hunting’, since apparently they weren’t quite in alignment with any local hunting season, but it was pretty clear that’s what was happening.  They weren’t missed until well after dark, and now there were search parties being put together to go over the areas they were most likely to be in.  Obviously, I’m not any kind of expert, but it sounds about like the area where I was shot.  Names weren’t being released yet, and the search would be ongoing.  I suppose it’s too much to hope for that it’s the same people. 

Over the next couple of hours, the news went from ‘mildly concerned’ to ‘quietly panicked’.  Apparently, when a search party came to one of the groups preferred spots, they found traces of where they’d been, but no sign of them.  But wherever they’d gone, they’d left their guns behind, which makes them being missing a Big Deal.  Apparently Kansas rednecks are emasculated without their guns. (What, me, bitter?  Naaaaaah!)

Some dog teams joined the search, and picked up blood traces.  Once that happened, they found the first body fairly quickly.  Or, I should say, the first body parts.  A couple of severed fingers.  One searcher, upon being interviewed for a local blog, said they looked like they’d been bitten off.

That was all until morning.  (I was interested enough to stay up for this.)  Near dawn, they found several bodies.  All of them very dead, all with nearly identical gut wounds.  Out of the seven missing, five were discovered neatly stacked near a stream.  The other two hadn’t been located before I had to leave for school.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, October 28 (Graphic warning?)

 If anything interesting or useful happened at school today, I missed it entirely.  I was too wrapped up in whatever was happening in Kansas. 

On the one hand, there’s really no good reason to associate what’s going on out there with what happened to me.  I have no idea who was involved with shooting me, or how many there were, or even exactly where they were from.  Even those little towns that I picked out were only an educated guess (though a pretty good guess, I think).  And even if they somehow did turn out to be the same people, well, that still doesn’t mean it’s connected to me.  If they were an established hunting group, then it makes sense they would all go out together, and if something happened to them, it would be more likely to happen to them as a group. 

But… who am I kidding?  Missing hunters, lured away (or abducted) from their weapons, taken off away from their normal spaces, and all (so far) killed in a way that resembles how I was shot?  And two hunters still missing, with me having been shot twice? 

I can’t really doubt the connection, though I don’t know if these were actually the same people, or if someone was just going for general ‘eye for an eye’ vengeance, rather than direct, precision repercussions. I suppose I won’t know for sure until I find out who (specifically) was responsible.  And… I’m not entirely sure I want to know.  I have a general idea, of course. 

I’m not sure how to feel about this.  I think a lot depends of if those hunters really were the ones who shot me.  Well, there’s no way those specific hunters were the ones who shot me- not all of them, anyway.  There are five dead, two still missing, and I was only shot twice.  If we assume the obvious, then the two still missing were the ones actually doing the shooting, and the other five were… confederates? Supporters? Eggers-on?  If it were just the missing two (assuming they’re the actual shooters), then I could look at this as something like what happened in Tampa with the mayor.  A case of direct, specific response.  The other five makes it… messier.  Maybe they were all in on it, and equally at fault.  Maybe they were all aiming for me, and only the two succeeded.  In my panic at the time, I’m not sure I would have noticed other shots nearby, since they didn’t hit me.  Were all five of those other men trying to kill me too?  Will I ever know?  Do I want to know? 

I decided I had to see if I could find anything more out, so I pulled out all the precautions I could and… made myself at home in the Garden Plain police system.  I didn’t want to stay too long, so I just looked for information the cops were holding back from the press releases.  The answer was immediate.  Each of those five dead men had an N.V. carved onto their hip.  Nova Vigilance.  If I had any hope of this not being about me, that killed it.

But this isn’t about me.  It’s about bigots committing attempted murder.  I have to remember that.  They would have almost certainly tried the same thing with any other nova they could have.  And that they might easily have succeeded.  They. Were. Trying. To. Kill. Me.  And they didn’t even know me.  Didn’t even know my name. Likely never even tried to find out who they shot.  This is about them, and their choices.  Not about me.

But, did my being there open up those choices to them?  They wouldn’t have shot at me if I hadn’t been there.  And how many novas were they likely to encounter like that?  They wouldn’t have had the courage to shot a nova on the streets in broad daylight, would they?  So did my being there enable them to commit a crime they otherwise couldn’t have? 

No, that’s blaming the victim.  And I am the victim here, no matter what happens to them now. 

Assuming those men really were the ones that shot me.  Some of them.  Where are those last two missing me????

I keep trying to relate this to Tampa in my mind.  The mayor of Tampa passed a racist law that directly targeted a minority group.  (It seems strange to consider us a minority, and we aren’t in the sense of experiencing systematic oppression, but still.)  Sluice challenged the law and was arrested?  Taken into custody?  Disappeared?  In the normal course of things, the case would have worked its way through the legal system, maybe even as high as the Supreme Court, and (hopefully) the law would have been overturned as unconstitutional.  But that isn’t what happened.  Sluice disappeared, and Geryon made Nova Vigilance front page news by killing the mayor of Tampa in broad daylight, then just… leaving.  No one else was hurt (not by Geryon, anyway- some people hurt themselves running away).  Geryon didn’t kill the mayor and several of his city council.  He didn’t sneak around.  He didn’t hide bodies.

So why do I keep circling back to Tampa?  I’m not even sure that what happened in Kansas was Geryon’s work.  Nova Vigilance is a group, after all, not just Geryon.  And why would Geryon care about me, especially since I escaped with no permanent harm done?  If one nova’s arrest resulted in one baseline’s murder, does one nova’s attempted murder result in the actual murder of seven baselines?  (Because I have no doubt those other two are dead, whether or not bodies are ever found.)

And yet, some small, dark part of me is a little glad about this.  Utopia wasn’t doing anything.  Utopia hasn’t done anything to protect me from Watch_th3_Skys.  Admittedly, I didn’t give the local cops the chance to do anything about whoever tried to kill me, but somehow I just know they wouldn’t have made much effort.  The justice system isn’t really effective at the best of times, and the likelihood of getting a conviction in this case seems somewhere between slim and none. 

So, any justice (or revenge) would have had to come from outside the baseline justice system.  And… if I’m being honest, I can’t say that I’d be upset about the person (or persons) who specifically shot me being made to pay for it.  It’s the others that bother me.  Plus the fact that I don’t know that these were the same people.  And I don’t know what relationship (if any) the five have to the two. 

If I could assume that it was two people who shot me (not an unreasonable assumption), and if I could be sure that the missing (surely dead) two were the same two that did the shooting, well… maybe it makes me a bad person, but I just can’t be too upset about it.  But that still doesn’t excuse killing the other five.  And there’s still the issue of proof. 

Reading back over this, I’ve been really disjointed.  I guess that makes sense.  No one has ever tried to kill me before.  No one has ever killed several people for trying to kill me before.  Of course I’m not handling it well.  I think I need to talk to the people involved before I can really decide how I feel about all this.  I’d need to hear their reasoning for why those specific people were killed, and why so many.  How did they know it was those men, and not some other members of the same community? 

For that matter, who actually did the killing?  I have no doubt Geryon could have killed seven baselines without breaking a sweat or attracting attention, especially out in the woods at night.  Hell, I’m strong enough to probably manage it.  Maybe.  Well, maybe not.  Not that I ever would.  But does it really matter who actually did the killing?  Nova Vigilance isn’t a monolith, but it’s pretty uniform.  Regardless of who actually ended those lives, those lives ended because of me.  No, because of what they tried to do to me.  This really is ultimately on them.  It’s no different than if someone teased a wild animal and got attacked.  Or, maybe a more accurate idea would be attacking a predator’s cubs and getting mauled for it.  That seems more like it.  I can accept that. 

So, I need to put this in context.  Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that two people successfully shot me, one much more successfully than the other.  That seems more likely than not.  There may have been other people out with those two in the dark.  They may have been bystanders, or they may just not have been fast enough to get in on the ‘fun’.  (Or there may have been no one else there are all.)  I can’t personally know if anyone else was there.  Maybe whoever did this act of revenge can give me proof, but outside of that, I’ll probably never know. 

So, two people tried to kill me, and were killed in turn.  I’m not sure I like what it says about me that I’m pretty okay with that.  It’s the other five that bother me.  What bothers me more is, what if those other five weren’t involved in attacking me at all?  What if they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when Nova Vigilance came for the two that actually did the shooting?  What if killing them was simply an ‘easy’ way to get to the actual targets?  Again, can I ever know for sure?  I know that some fairly major factions of the Teragen have no regard for baseline life, and would consider those five baselines as ‘acceptable collateral damage’, even if they’d had nothing to do with the attack.

I think all I can do right now is keep watching the news and see what develops.  There’s no reason think this wasn’t Nova Vigilance, and every reason to think it was.  And part of NV’s thing is ensuring nova safety.  Hiding those last two bodies doesn’t make sense.  So those bodies aren’t hidden.  They just haven’t been found yet. 

Chapter Text

Wednesday, October 29

Last night was the first night since my trip that I didn’t have nightmares.  Funny how that happens.  It’s not like the world is really any safer, for me or anyone else.  But one act of distant revenge by persons unknown, and I sleep like a baby.  That really must make me a bad person. 

It really is a good thing I’ve got school running on something close to autopilot now, because I have not been giving it much attention. 

I was looking forward to the Clinic today, both for the start of aikido training and for the distraction from Kansas. 

Once I got there, I was a little surprised at the changes.  There was an actual raised platform with mats!  Somehow, even with the Clinic’s apparently unlimited budget, I wasn’t expecting anything like a real dojo.  I knew there was etiquette about the martial arts, and that I didn’t know what that etiquette was, so I just made sure not to step on anything and wait for someone to show up.  A few minutes later, Bix came in with one of the tallest women I’d ever seen.  My buzzy tingly sense wasn’t going off, so I assumed she was a baseline.  (I’m still mostly sure she’s a baseline.)

Bix introduced me to Sensei Laura and then promptly took himself elsewhere.  She looked me over for what felt like a long time, so I did the same.  Over six feet tall, slender but not skinny.  Dark brown hair up in braids around her head, so I couldn’t be sure how long it was.  Deep-set eyes, skin had an almost Mediterranean look to it.  She looked like she’s spent most of her life outside and enjoyed every minute of it.  It was hard to put an age on her, but I think she had to be in her late thirties at least.  Maybe early forties.  She was wearing pleated black pants, a white top, white socks with the first toe separated, sandals, and a black belt.  A black belt.  I guess I should have expected that.

When we’d finished examining each other, she asked me why I wanted to learn aikido.  I explained about not wanting to hurt people, but that I understood that I needed to be able to defend myself. That I’d looked at different martial arts styles, and liked the idea of redirecting other people’s force, and responding with the minimum possible force myself.   That I hoped aikido would allow me to defend myself (and others, if need be) without making things worse in the long run, since I don’t really think that violence is usually a good response.

She nodded, and explained that she didn’t usually teach one-on-one, but that she was making an exception for my nature, since putting me in classes with baselines would probably be counterproductive.  She also explained that at some point, I would be put in with baselines, but not at first.  (Maybe she thinks I’ll have trouble controlling my force?  Maybe she’s right?)  She also insisted that we would train exactly as though we were in regular classes, which I was fine with.  Apparently, that begins with a lesson in etiquette and behavior.  She handed me set of white clothes (including white belt) and told me to go change.  I thought about just shifting my Eufiber to match, but didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot.  For the record, split-toe socks feel very strange. 

The rest of the session was spent on learning to stand, sit, bow, enter and leave respectfully, proper forms of address, and so on.  This was all very interesting, but not what this journal is about.  Anyone who is interested can find all that on the OpNet. 

Near the end of our session, she taught me how to fall safely.  (Those mats aren’t nearly as soft as they look, but I didn’t mind.)  She also made it clear that I would not be using my nova abilities during our sessions.  I mentioned about how quickly I healed, and how I couldn’t really turn it off, and she said that was fine.  But I was not to fly, or use my extra strength, etc.  Makes sense.  I know she’s way more skilled than I am, but an accident could still hurt her in ways that I’d feel awful about. 

I wasn’t expecting ‘homework’, but Sensei Laura assigned me a series of meditations to perform every day.   

There were some minor updates from Kansas.  They’d released the names of the five dead men, and the search is still ongoing for the two missing.  The police are coming out and calling it murder (they’d only been implying that before).  Local reporters are speculating about motorcycle gangs or drug smugglers, so either they don’t know about the NV marks, or are working with the cops to keep it quiet.  One of the local churches (apparently all seven belonged to the same church) has come out and claimed that it was an ‘attack against the righteous by ungodly forces’, which sounds to me like they know what the dead men had been up to. 

Chapter Text

Thursday, October 30

I checked back in with Mrs. Adams, and she says Bailey is doing much better at home.  She might be coming back to school soon!  Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely glad that she’s doing better, and that she might come back to school.  But at the same time, I’m not sure how to feel.  She still hasn’t reached out to me, and the messages that I’ve sent her have been left on ‘read’.  She’s never stayed so mad for so long. 

But what’s worse is that I don’t feel worse about that.  Bailey’s been my best friend.  But the longer we’re apart, the more I see how one-sided that was.  We always did what she wanted, went to her friends’ parties, practiced her after school sports, hung out with her other friends.  There was never any time for my other friends or my other interests. 

In the six weeks since I’ve been back at school, I’ve spent more time with my friends than I have in more than a year.  I’m talking to more people, doing more things, being invited more places.  Yeah, I realize that it’s mostly (entirely?) because I’m a nova and people want to hang out with novas.  I get that.  But even with that in mind, I’m still having a more ‘normal’ high school experience now than I ever have before.  Because I’m not spending all my time with Bailey.

And the weird thing is, that school seems to have pretty much forgotten about Bailey.  She was one of the most popular girls in school.  Cheer team, tennis team, ran with the ‘best’ social set.  Had the ‘perfect’ boyfriend (even if he was a creep).  Everybody went out of their way to talk to her. Everybody wanted to hang out with her.  Everybody seemed happy when she acknowledged them.  She was queen of the school. 

And now… she’s not.  The cheer team replaced her immediately, and so did the tennis team.  (I can’t blame them, of course.  Competition is fierce and life goes on.  Especially with cheer- they need a certain number of people just to do the formations.)  Her cheer friends went to see her once in the hospital, then basically dropped her.  I don’t think her tennis friends saw her at all.  I had to push people to even get her get well cards.  (Damn, I just thought- what if they were only sending Bailey cards because I asked them to?  No, that’s just arrogance talking.)  Her boyfriend tried to cheat on her, then broke up with her (if he really did- I’m still not sure about that) without going to see her.  Her social set has dropped her.  It’s like she moved across the country or something.  And nobody even seems to miss her. 

What’s that going to mean when she comes back?  Will everybody just flock back to her like nothing happened?  Will she and Jeremy continue like he wasn’t utter scum?  Her places on the teams are gone, at least for the year, but she could fit back into everything else.  And what will that say about, well, everybody?  Fair weather friends at best. 

And what about me?  Three months ago, I couldn’t have imagined life without Bailey as my best friend.  Now, I’m living that life.  And liking it.  When she comes back, will she expect me to take up my place as her shadow again?  Just sweep the last few weeks under the rug like nothing happened?  I… I don’t think I can do that.  I don’t think I want to do that.  I never thought that I would be the one to drop Bailey.  I never thought I would be the bad friend.  But… am I really being a bad friend?  Looking back, I can’t help but think our friendship wasn’t equal.  Am I wrong to just… let it go? 

I can’t help but think about why Bailey is acting this way.  Of course, she’s been in this major, life-changing accident.  That’s reason enough for her to act different.  (Is she in therapy?  I never thought to ask.)  And as into novas as she’s always been, I can’t help but think she’s jealous of me, especially under the circumstances.  Her life as she knew it ended at the same time that I became a minor force of nature.  Of course she’s jealous.  Not to mention the thing with Jeremy.  And maybe she’s still worried that I’ll tell.  Not that I would.  There’d still be no point.  So yeah, she’s got good reason to be acting the way she is.  But none of this is my fault, and I’m not the bad guy here.  Maybe it’s just… time to move on.  Bailey and I both still have a lot of growing up to do.  Maybe that’ll happen better apart.  

But I still feel bad for her.  I don’t think she’s going to be prepared for all the changes at school.

Chapter Text

Friday, October 31 (Halloween, and Crime)

I was invited to Grace Elliot’s Halloween party.  Grace is on the cheerleading team with Bailey, so I know her and her other friends fairly well.  She invited the girls as well, which surprised me a little.  I know for fact she wouldn’t have before all this happened.  Monique is taking her little brother trick-or-treating, so we all decided to go with her for that.  We’ll decide about Grace’s party after we finish.  Monique’s little brother is only seven, so we should finish in plenty of time to do both if we want to.  I’m not sure I want to go, but if the girls want to, I will.  I guess I haven’t completely shaken off the mood I got into at the school’s Halloween party. 

I decided that Leviathan was a little too scary for a kids trick-or-treat excursion, so I made some adjustments.  Instead of solid black, he’s now got pink accents, with little bows around his tail and near where his ears should be.  It looks pretty adorable, if I do say so myself.  I sent selfies to Rocío, and he thought it was hilarious. 

Monique’s little brother (his name is Anthony) loved my costume, and as soon as he figured out it was me, he insisted on my taking him flying.  Since we hadn’t met up with his friends yet (apparently Monique was voluntold that she was taking his friends out too), I was ok with a quick flight.  But no way was I being responsible for a bunch of random little kids.  So, I zoomed him around the neighborhood a little, and that was good enough. 

Monique had already picked out a good neighborhood, so all we really had to do was keep track of six little kids, make sure they didn’t wander off, and make sure they stuck with ‘treat’ instead of ‘trick’.  I had to confiscate eggs and toilet paper off one enterprising little twerp. I don’t even want to know what he was going to do with bullion cubes.

We had a lot of fun trick-or-treating.  And yes, I got my share of candy.  You’re never too old to trick-or-treat, thankyouverymuch.  Once the kids were tired (and had gotten enough candy to satisfy them), we took them back home.  Monique was tired after looking after her brother, but Jess and Alejandra were still interested in going to Grace’s party, at least for a little while.  I still wasn’t hugely enthused, but went along with it.  So, we said goodnight to Monique, piled into Jess’s car, and headed over to Grace’s place. 

I like Grace well enough, and appreciate her inviting my friends, but her party was pretty much exactly the kind of party I was always invited to as Bailey’s shadow.  Maybe last night’s soul-searching contributed, but I’ll admit it- I was bored.  I think Jess and Alejandra were too.  They don’t run in the same circles as Grace, so they’d never been invited to one of these parties before, and I think maybe they expected a little too much.  Thinking back on previous parties with Bailey, they were all a little boring.  Drinking, dancing, a little making out, whatever video games were popular.  But not much actual socializing.  It was all surface stuff. 

We stayed about an hour, then decided to call it a night early.  Well, after we got food, anyway.  There’s an all-night diner (creatively named The Diner) that we all enjoyed, so we decided to go there.  It isn’t in the best part of town, but we’d never had any problems. 

Until tonight.

The place was packed, so we had to park in the back lot, which was pretty dark.  I’d stopped to answer a text message, and the girls were a little bit ahead of me.  I got this really weird feeling- almost like my buzzy tingly feeling, when Jess yelled.  I looked up and some guy had Jess by the arm. And he had a knife!  He told Alejandra to hand over her wallet, and he was waving the knife near Jess’s face.  His pupils were huge.  I knew he was on something. 

Is it stating the obvious to wish I’d accepted Bix’s attempts to teach me to fight?  I was pretty sure the guy hadn’t seen me, or at least wasn’t paying attention to me, so I went invisible and slipped up behind him.  I grabbed him by his knife hand, and did the thing with the electricity.  I’d never used it deliberately on a person before.  The best way I can describe it is like what an electric eel does. 

I’d thought he’d drop the knife, but either I hadn’t gotten a good enough contact, or he was too tweaked out to notice, because he kept his grip on it.  I didn’t want to hurt him, but I was more worried about him hurting Jess, so I grabbed his arm and twisted, pretty hard.  There was a crunch that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.  But he dropped the knife and let Jess go. 

Now, I really didn’t know what to do next.  I couldn’t just let him go.  And he needed medical attention.  But I really didn’t want to get arrested for assaulting a mugger.  So, I hung on to him, with him making these weird mewling noises, and we kinda just stared at each other. 

Then I had the good sense to remember my Utopia communicator.  That was what it was for, right?  Right.  I fired it up and told whoever was on the other end what had happened (it wasn’t any of the Clinic people, maybe there’s some kind of dispatch center?).  I told whoever that I had the guy, I was pretty sure I’d broken his arm, and I didn’t really know what to do with him.  The woman on the other end asked me if everyone else was okay, and when I said yes, told me to wait there, that they’d send someone to take charge of the mugger.  I gave her the address, but I doubt she needed it.  I’m sure they can pinpoint track that communicator anytime they want to. 

By that point, Alejandra had gotten Jess calmed down, and went to pick up the knife, but I told her to leave it where it was, since it was evidence.  We all just kinda… stood around for a minute, then I sent Jess and Alejandra inside the diner to get something to drink.  Mainly, I just wanted them away from this guy, in case anything else happened.  I still had a firm grip on his (not broken) arm, and he alternated between staring at me and trying to pull away, muttering and babbling all the time.  He sometimes seemed to forget his arm was broken, too, and tried to use it to hit me a couple of times.  Not sure what else to do, I just let him. 

It seemed like forever, but the cops finally got there.  (It probably wasn’t a very long wait, but I wasn’t in the best frame of mind.)  A few minutes after that, Mr. Li showed up.  The cops did their cop thing, collected the knife, took a statement from me (another cop went inside for the girls), and called for an ambulance.  The guy’s arm was broken really badly.  He was too stoned to really realize it, though.  Probably just as well. 

One of the cops wanted to arrest me for assault causing bodily harm, but Mr. Li jumped in at that point, and started throwing a bunch of legalese at the cop.  He was talking quickly and firmly enough that I think he was just steamrolling the cop, but it boiled down to a Utopian agent acting as a Good Samaritan, and being protected under those statutes.  I’m not sure how much of that is real law and how much is Utopia throwing their weight around, but I wasn’t going to argue the point.  If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it. 

By the time the ambulance arrived, the cop wasn’t actively wanting to arrest me anymore.  I’m probably going to have to testify in court, though. 

And that was pretty much it.  The cops and ambulance packed up.  Mr. Li told me to come by the Clinic tomorrow for debriefing (I thanked him for showing up, especially as late as it was on a holiday), and he left.  The EMS people had looked at Jess and I before packing up the mugger, but we weren’t hurt. 

I wasn’t really sure what to do next, so I joined the girls in the diner.  Of course, everybody in there knew what was going on (and several of the customers had slipped out the back when the cops showed up, so it wasn’t nearly as crowded), and wanted to hear the details.  I didn’t really want to rehash it, but Alejandra was happy to, with only a few embellishments.  Jess was working her way through a cheeseburger, and looked pale, but she said she was okay.  The Diner spotted all of our meals, so that was nice, if unnecessary.  (It was only when the food came that I realized I was still in my kawaii Leviathan costume.  Somehow that added a touch of surrealistic unreality to the entire thing.  I can’t help but giggle at the idea of Pink Leviathan taking down a tweaked out mugger.)

After we’d eaten and everybody had heard the story, I figured we’d had enough excitement for one night.  Jess was still too shaky to drive, so Alejandra drove us back to Jess’s place, then I flew Alejandra home from there.  Her parents weren’t around, but that’s not unusual.  She insisted she was fine, so I went on home.  I was thinking as I flew home, that it was actually a good thing that I hadn’t let Bix bully me into more fighting training.  As it was, I hurt that man badly.  Whatever he was on kept him from feeling pain, so I don’t think I could have stopped him without doing something drastic, but if I’d had more experience fighting, I might have ended up hurting him worse than I did.  Muscle memory and habit can be awful things.  I can’t really even wish that I’d gotten an earlier start on my aikido lessons.  From what I’ve read, aikido takes a lot of learning to be useful, so even if I’d had weeks of training under my (white) belt, I still wouldn’t have been any more effective tonight.  So, while I can (grudgingly) accept the need for some kind of combat capability, I’m just as glad I didn’t have it tonight.  It could only have made things worse. 

Chapter Text

Saturday, November 1

I went in to the Clinic early, wanting to get the debrief over with and find out how the mugger was doing.  I half-expected Dr. Jackson to do tests again, like after the fire, but apparently this wasn’t that serious.  Mr. Li had me go over everything that happened, in as much detail as I could, including what happened after all the cops and ambulances left.  I told him about zapping the guy (I hadn’t mentioned that to the cops), but that it hadn’t done any good.  Then I explained about how I’d almost certainly broken his arm, and that I wanted to follow up about that.  Mr. Li had been there for most of the rest, so I finished off with the meal at the diner, Alejandra driving Jess home, me taking her home, and that was pretty much it.  I said I was going to check in with both girls later in the day, but I didn’t want to risk waking them up, since it was so early. 

I had to go over it three or four times before Mr. Li was satisfied.  Maybe I’m still just feeling raw about Utopia’s not doing anything to help me with the Kansas thing, but somehow I got the impression that Mr. Li was more interested in the mugger’s well-being than in mine, or even in the girls’.  Maybe I could understand if it were just me- I’m pretty sure I could have survived anything but the absolute luckiest hit with that knife- but Jess and Alejandra are baselines too.  Shouldn’t their safety be more important than a tweaked out mugger?  But it somehow felt like I was being evaluated to see if I’d used excessive force, or brutality, or something. 

To be honest, maybe I did grab his arm too hard.  It’s certainly possible.  But I’d already tried the electricity thing- the jolt I can give is a lot like a taser (the touch-to-the-skin kind, not the fire-electrode-darts-with-wires kind), so as far as I was concerned, I’d tried the easy way before I went with force.  Having failed once, and my friend in danger, I wasn’t going to fail again.  So even though I feel bad, I don’t really feel bad. 

Mr. Li told me that the guy was, in fact, on several drugs.  He also said that I’d broken his arm badly enough to need surgery and would probably have to have some kind of steel rod put in to secure all the bone fragments.  I felt guilty, a little, but Mr. Li’s tone was almost accusatory.  Like I’d gone out of my way to hurt a baseline.  Not a criminal attacking defenseless teenage girls, but a baseline.  That nipped most of my guilty feelings in the bud. 

He said that if I had to appear in court, that Utopia would provide me with a lawyer.  WTF?  I can understand needing to testify against the mugger for his attack on Jess, but why would I need a lawyer for that?  No.  Mr. Li said that it was possible that the mugger might try to sue me for assaulting him.  He also said not to worry about it, since Utopia has really good lawyers.  But again, his tone made it seem like ‘I’d get away with assault because Utopia has good lawyers’, not ‘I’d be fine because I acted in defense of another and didn’t commit assault in the first place’.  In other words, that I was guilty but would get away with it.  Is this really how he thinks?  Or am I just overthinking things?  I thought I knew Mr. Li better than this. 

I’d halfway thought to check on the mugger in the hospital, but now I’m thinking it’s best to just leave things well enough alone. 

Later, I went over to Jess’s house to check on her.  She was jumpy, but insisted she was fine.  I’m not sure what (if anything) I can do to help, so we just chilled for a while.  Eventually, we decided to meet Alejandra and Monique for lunch, and hope for some normalcy that way.  Lunch and some mall time later, and things were on their way to being okay again.

When I got back home, I caught up on several notifications I’d ignored.  The story had made it into the news.  Several diner patrons had gotten pictures, and there was even a blurry video (who even shoots videos in portrait mode?) of me in my Leviathan costume just holding on to the guy and us staring at each other.  I downloaded everything, just in case I somehow needed it for court. 

Of course, it all found its way to the forum, with several threads about the attack itself, one about my costume, and one speculating on whether I was going to be Wilmington’s Municipal Defender.  I thought about squelching that one, but I don’t want to make a habit of posting in response to rumors. 

Chapter Text

Monday, November 3 (Graphic?)

Today was my first real aikido class, and it was kinda a rude awakening.  Since I erupted, pretty much everything has been easy for me.  My powers have more-or-less come naturally, and training has been more a matter of ‘putting in the time’ than actually being about blood, sweat, and tears.  Even the ‘harder’ things, like aerial maneuvers haven’t been ‘hard’ so much as ‘trying a few times until I get it right, then practicing’.  That sounds like I’m bragging, and maybe I am.  But I don’t mean to be.  It’s just like, suddenly I was playing on ‘easy mode’. 

Sensei Laura was having none of that.  As far as I can tell, the only thing that being a nova helps with when it comes to learning aikido is that I’m not sore afterward.  Other than that, I may as well be a baseline.  After thinking about it, it’s kinda refreshing.  I’m going to have to work for this.  It isn’t going to be handed to me.

There was a new development on the Kansas situation.  (I’d been following it every day, but the updates were always minor, in the ‘search continues’ sort of way.)  They found the other two men.  They were in an underground salt museum/cave thing in Hutchinson.  It’s about a forty-five minute drive from Garden Plain, but probably less than that as the nova travels.  Both of the men (I’d already decided not to use any of their names, and I’m sticking with that) were found in the mine.  They’d been torn apart, almost like an animal attack.  Their eyes had been torn out, and each finger had been removed, split lengthwise, and the fingers sort of braided together into a chain.  Each end of the chain was capped off by the torn-off trigger guard of a hunting rifle.  The rest of the pieces were stacked up in two neat piles, with salt all around them.  To preserve them? 

I heard a story in a history class once, about how the English bowmen were so feared that when French soldiers caught them, they’d cut off the first two fingers on their right hand, so they couldn’t draw a bow anymore.  This is supposedly the origin of ‘the finger’ as an obscene gesture, as well as the phrase ‘fuck you’ (started out as ‘pluck yew’, since bows were made of yew wood).  I have no idea how much of this is true, and how much a history legend that gets retold as fact.  The fingers and the triggers puts me in mind of that.  It wasn’t enough to kill those men- they had to never be able to shoot anyone ever again. 

I found out about the fingers by sliding back into the police server again.  All the public was told was that they were found, dead and dismembered, in the salt museum.  The museum has security, and cameras, but they never went off or recorded anything.  There wasn’t a camera pointed right where the bodies were left, and it took this long to find them.  I feel bad for the museum employee who made the discovery.  Whoever they were, they didn’t deserve to have their day ruined. I think I have a pretty good idea why the museum security features failed, but I’m still not sure who actually did the killing. 

Part of me wants to know.  Wants to know who I’m ‘indebted’ to.  Wants to know how they decided who had shot at me, and of the group, why they picked out those two for special attention.  Wants to know if they really were the ones who tried to kill me.  Part of me wants to know none of these things.  Part of me wants to put all this behind me.  Part of me never wants to think about it again.  And really, what would I do if I did know all these things?  Send a thank you note?  Send a strongly-worded letter condemning their actions?  Obviously, I have no intention of going to the cops.  Or Utopia.

I’ll continue to monitor developments in Kansas, but somehow, I don’t think the local police will get very far in investigating it.  And I doubt Utopia will even try- no matter what Mr. Li promised about ‘looking into it’.

Also, the mugger (his name turns out to be Dylan Martens) was arraigned today.  He pled ‘not guilty’, which seems ridiculous to me.  So, I guess that means it’ll go to court.  Cases involving novas tend to get fast tracked, so hopefully this will all be over in a month or two.

Chapter Text

Thursday, November 6

After school today I was recording another of the podcasts Erica had set me up for.  This one was Utopia Today, one of Project Utopia’s official podcasts.  The experience I had on this one couldn’t have been less like what I’d had on NovaNow!.  Utopia Today is a much more polished, professional podcast.  Better production values, better sound quality, better editing.  That all makes sense, since UT has Project Utopia money behind it, while NN! Is a production of two guys in a homemade studio.

While NN! used online video calling software to have me remote into their studio using whatever headphones and mic I had handy, UT shipped some very expensive remote recording tech to the Clinic, and had me set up in an isolated room there.  (I assume the Clinic will ship the recording equipment back, but since I’m not in charge of that, I didn’t follow up.)

Utopia Today is pretty obviously a Project Utopia mouthpiece, and while I acknowledge the high quality of its production values, I only listened to a few episodes in the first few days after I erupted before unsubscribing from it.  It was like getting your news from a highly-partisan network, and even before I started to sour on Project Utopia, I could identify it as slick propaganda.

Nick-n-Eddy seemed to genuinely enjoy what they’re doing, and have a great relationship even off-mic.  LaDonna and Josh, the hosts of this episode of Utopia Today (it has a rotating schedule of hosts) clearly view the podcast as a job rather than a passion project.  They’re very efficient.  Their on-mic personas evaporate as soon as the mic is muted.  It was very disconcerting. 

The content wasn’t exactly scripted, or at least, my part of it wasn’t, but it was clear they had an agenda, and I was a small segment of that agenda. The hosts asked leading questions that really only allowed for answers that fit with Utopia’s guiding principles.  If I were more interested in that kind of social manipulation and psychological communication, I probably would have been more impressed.  We did several takes of nearly every question, so there was never any sense of flow or banter.  I have no doubt that the final cut will be edited to a nicety.  The podcast usually runs about forty-five minutes to an hour, but we were recording for nearly three hours. 

I can’t say I especially enjoyed being on this podcast, but the contrast was interesting, at least.

Chapter Text

Friday, November 7

I think my aikido lessons are going well.  Sensei Laura can put me on the mats whenever she wants, but I’m starting to learn the basic moves, at least.  She doesn’t praise very often, so the few times she has said something have really meant something. 

That church in Garden Plain that all the dead hunters belonged to has started holding a bunch of extra prayer and revival meetings, often with guest speakers.  Some of those guest speakers have overt ties to the Church of Michael Archangel, and I bet if I looked deeper into the others, I’d find similar ties as well.  I’m not sure that it means anything.  That’s a really small town, and seven men, all of a similar age, makes a sizable difference to the community, not to mention the church.  So maybe this is simply mourning and fellowship.  I’d be more likely to believe that if not for the Archangel connection. 

Reading between the lines in the church groups and mailing lists I signed up for, I’m pretty sure some of the cops involved in the investigation are parishioners- and have spilled the beans about the Nova Vigilance tags carved into the bodies.  That church knows this was retaliation, even if they can’t admit it.  And they can’t, since that would mean admitting that they tried to kill a nova who was literally just passing by, minding her own business.  Maybe they want to see all of us novas dead, but they know better than to make that opinion too public. 

Still, though, if these meetings aren’t just fellowship, if they’re planning something, what then?  I don’t see how they could have identified me, personally, in the dark.  Even though my name and picture is out on the OpNet, there’s no reason to associate ‘random silhouette flying against the night sky’ with me.  I’m safe, right?  Or maybe they aren’t even focused on me- maybe they’re intent on revenge against the nova(s) who killed those men?  Of course, those novas are long gone.  No reason for them to hang around in middle-of-nowhere Kansas.  But still, maybe I should warn them, somehow?  

Hey, ‘S’!  If you’re still stalking my journal, I’m going to assume you know pretty much everything about this whole issue.  So, maybe pass the word, please?  Thanks.

CONSIDER IT PASSED, HEKA.  AND DON’T WORRY.  I DON’T NAME NAMES WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT, BUT YOU AREN’T IN DEBT TO ANYONE WHO MAY HAVE… TAKEN A FIELD TRIP.

~S

Chapter Text

Saturday, November 8

I went out for dinner with Rocío this evening, which was a lot of fun.  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed him.  We talked about a lot of things, and I get the feeling he knows about what happened to those hunters in Kansas.  I also get the feeling that we probably won’t talk about it- not in public at the very least.  I find that I really don’t want to talk aloud about it at all- not even to admit that I’ve been keeping track of it.  My journal is one thing, but somehow, whenever I’m about to say something about the whole Kansas situation, all the hair on the back of my neck stands up, and I feel like I’m in danger somehow. 

The only reason I can come up with is my Utopia communicator.  I know it has a speaker and microphone- I’ve used them.  Is it possible that it’s listening to me, even when I’m not actively using it?  That sounds so paranoid.  Why would Utopia do that?  Why would they care what I’m saying or doing in my ‘off time’?  I haven’t given them any reason to distrust me.  But I really don’t think I’m paranoid.  That sick feeling feels just close enough to my buzzy tingly sense to make me wonder if it isn’t some aspect of my power working, maybe subconsciously.  And if that’s the case, then I should pay attention to it, since my powers haven’t led me wrong yet.  If it’s a choice between trusting Project Utopia and trusting my own powers/myself, I know which one I’m choosing.  So I’m not saying anything out loud anywhere near my communicator.  Just in case.

After dinner, Rocío and I decided we didn’t want the evening to be over quite yet, so we decided to go skating.  The skating rink had a kids birthday in full swing and was really crowded.  Since the skating rink also had a bowling alley, we decided to go bowling instead.  I’ve bowled a couple of times, but I’m not very good at it.  Rocío definitely is.  I barely cracked 200, but he managed 280.  Very impressive.  And he wasn’t even competitive or smug about it, like most guys would be!

We bowled two games, and by then the skating party had cleared out, so we skated for a little bit.  Neither of us were very good at that, but it was fun helping each other up when we fell. 

I could talk about our goodnight kiss, but… I think I’ll keep that for myself. 😉

Chapter Text

Monday, November 10

I got an email from Blinker today.  To be honest, I’d kinda thought he’d forgotten about me, but I was wrong.  He said that he’d worked it out with Nebula (another nova who isn’t on the Nova Census- I checked), and she would be willing to escort me on my first flight into space.  She’s ‘vacuum ready’ (as Blinker puts it), and can both fly and teleport.  So, if something bad happens, she can get me home safe even if I can’t fly on my own for some reason.  (I appreciate his care and thoroughness, even if it makes me a little nervous that he think it might be necessary.)  Blinker gave me several dates that Nebula would be available, and I was so excited that I chose the first one- this Thursday! 

A few more emails set up all the details, and I’ll be meeting Nebula Thursday afternoon after school.  Time is going to crawl between now and then! 

Chapter Text

Thursday, November 13 (Space!)

Did I go to school today?  I must have.  Did I pay a scrap of attention?  No, I did not.  The girls wanted to hang out after school, but I told them I couldn’t, that I had an appointment.  Maybe I’ll tell them about space after.  I probably will.  But until I go, I wanted to be private about it.  I’m not entirely sure why.  It’s not like they would have tried to stop me, or anything.  Sure, eventually word would have spread, but who cares?  I’m not doing anything wrong.  Nobody had ever said, “Colleen, don’t go into space with strangers”, after all. 

I’ll try to tell all this in order, but it was… overwhelming… in the best possible way.  We’d agreed to meet at a coffee shop near the beach, since that wasn’t anyplace I usually hung out, and was far away from the airport.  (We’re obviously going to be breaking the 400 feet flight ceiling rule.)  I went over right after school, so I was there about half an hour early.  I take pride in being patient, but it was stretched thin today. 

Nebula was right on time, and it was obvious why Blinker didn’t bother to describe her.  Her hair was very long, and a shiny silver like a My Little Pony toy I had when I was little, or like the tinsel stuff that goes on Christmas trees.  Her skin was a pale grey, but up close showed delicate swirls and patterns, like, well, like a nebula.  Most of the coffee shop people had overlooked my eyes, but Nebula stood out.  We got drinks and ended up seated in a little circle of privacy while being carefully watched and recorded.  Funny how I’m almost getting used to that.  We kept our voices low, but didn’t have much hope of any real privacy.  Luckily, we wouldn’t be staying long. 

Basically, we talked for a few minutes, getting to know each other, and she asked me a bunch of questions about my abilities, to be sure I was really ready for this.  Ordinarily, I’d be annoyed at being treated like a kid, but this was a Big Thing, and I knew it was better to be safe.  So, I told her the truth, or at least the results of my most recent tests.  I can fly at about 350 mph.  I put on bursts of speed of about 1,000 mph, but that felt really draining, and I’d never pushed myself really hard to see how long I could maintain it.  That I didn’t need to breathe (but usually did so out of habit), and could hang around in pools full of dry ice without discomfort, though again, I hadn’t tested the extremes of temperatures I could handle. 

It turns out that Nebula can fly fast than I can, about 500 mph, but can’t do the burst of speed thing, so we’ll be going at my pace.  She told me that teleporting blindly over extreme distances was dangerous (she called it ‘tricky’, but I could tell what that meant), but that going to a place she knew well was much easier.  So, if something bad did happen, and she needed to get me back on the ground quickly and safely, she would teleport us to her home, and then bring me back here (or to a hospital, I suppose) once we were safe on Earth again.  She has a strong New England accent, so I assume ‘home’ is somewhere in that area, but it seemed rude to ask. 

Before we left, she asked if I could ‘attune’ objects to my quantum field.  I wasn’t sure what she meant, but when she explained, I realized that I’d been doing that without realizing it all along.  She told me to be sure and attune anything I wanted to carry with me, like my phone, before we left.  Electronics overheat without air to cool them, which I didn’t know.  If I wanted to be able to take pictures, I needed either NASA-grade equipment, or the ability to attune.  So, I did, and we were off. 

Nebula didn’t seem to really care about the flight ceiling, but when I asked about it, she suggested that we fly a few miles out to sea.  Not only would we be outside of U.S. airspace, but we’d also be out of (detailed) visual range of anyone on the beach, just in case I had an ‘oops’ moment.  That sounded like a great plan, so off we went!

Even though I had done the math before, I was still surprised that the ascent went as quickly as it did.  Even taking it easy, we left the atmosphere in less than 10 minutes.  I’m sure I could have done it faster, but there was no need to rush.  I wanted to really enjoy what was happening. 

I watched the Earth drop away, so smoothly.  We passed through several bands of clouds, which didn’t feel at all like I’d expected.  Eventually, I could see the curvature of the Earth, much more clearly than I ever could from a plane.  (Take that, Flat Earthers.)  I had thought ahead enough to secure my phone from a lanyard, so I was able to take a few pictures as we went up.  (Nebula asked that she not be in pictures, which I made sure to honor.) 

That by itself would have been amazing- watching the world drop away, first being able to see my school (my house was too small), then Wilmington dwindling to nothing, then everything I was familiar with.  At one point, a plane passed underneath us.  I almost wanted to drop back down and fly alongside it for a minute, but knew that would be irresponsible, and maybe dangerous (to the plane).  Besides, I had much more interesting things to do.  

My ears kept popping as we went higher, much more so than in a plane.  And my eyeballs felt funny- like the goo in them was adjusting itself somehow.  I could feel the cold- no, that’s not right.  I was aware of the cold.  It didn’t bother me at all, but I knew it was there.  The same with the thinness of the air.  When the plane passed under us, that was when I knew I was ready for this.  If I could go that high with no problem, there was no reason I couldn’t go all the way.  Some little nervous part of me relaxed at that point. 

Nebula checked in on me a couple of times, but we were mostly quiet, just enjoying the experience.  Our voices sounded strange in the thin atmosphere- flat, and sounds carried strangely.  We stayed pretty close together, but somehow I got the impression that if we separated, ‘conversational distance’ would be a lot closer than it is on Earth.  I was a little surprised that we could hear each other at all, without air to carry sound waves.  I guess ‘in space, no one can hear you scream’ doesn’t apply to novas.

Like I said, it took less than ten minutes to get to the upper edge of the atmosphere, so, technically space.  But where’s the fun in stopping there?  Another forty-five minutes took us close to the International Space Station’s orbit.  It must have been on the other side of the world at the time though, which was probably just as well.  As much as I would have loved to tap on the windows and wave at the astronauts, I wouldn’t want to screw with them.  I mean, I’m sure they’ve had nova flybys before, but still…

We went a little further still, enough to be well out of the way if the ISS came around while we were still up there.  Once Nebula was satisfied with our location, she suggested that I cut off my flight ability.  I did, feeling a little nervous, but of course I didn’t fall.  Without gravity, I just floated in place.  I was in orbit! 

I ‘paddled’ around for a little bit, and took lots of pictures.  Nebula used my phone (she can attune things too) and took some of me with the Earth as backdrop.  Then, I had an idea.  I had a tube of lip gloss in my pocket, so I pulled it out and let it go.  It hung there in orbit next to me, but as soon as it left my hand, it started to freeze.  Eventually, the cap popped off as the liquid parts froze and expanded.  Ordinarily, I’d never litter, but somehow the idea of this tiny container floating in space forever just tickled me.  So, I slung it as hard as I could away from the planet, and (hopefully) out of orbit.  Maybe some aliens will find it, centuries from now. 

I’ll admit, I completely lost track of time.  Eventually the ISS came around, between us and the Earth.  I dropped low enough to get some good pictures, but didn’t get close enough to disturb anything.  I don’t know if they noticed me on not. 

Eventually, Nebula said that we should probably be getting back, but before we did, she had an offer.  The Moon was too far away to fly ‘overland’ unless we had a long time to spend doing it, but she had a spot there that she knew well.  She offered to teleport me to the Moon!  Of course, I said ‘yes’!

She came up behind me and put her arms around my waist.  There was a new kind of tingle from my buzzy tingly sense- her attuning to me?  Or, I suppose I should say, ‘her attuning me to her’?  I hadn’t felt quite the same when Blinker did it, so I’m not sure what was different this time.  Maybe I just overlooked the sensation in the overall sensation of being teleported?  I don’t know.

Anyway, she teleported us, and if I went weak in the knees, the low gravity made it unnoticeable.  She brought us to a shallow depression, either not quite a crater or so old a crater that it was nearly worn away.  Most of the bowl was empty, but there was a footlocker anchored into the ground.  The cognitive dissonance of such an ordinary, mundane object in such an amazing, exotic place was incredibly funny.  Nebula popped open the box and showed me a couple of sturdy cushions and several books.  It turns out that this is where Nebula comes when she wants to have alone time and (literally) watch the world go by.  The view of Earth was amazing. 

I wandered around for a little bit (jumping was as fun as it looks in the videos), and picked up several small rocks as souvenirs.  And, of course, more pictures.  At one point, I happened across a relatively flat area with some dirt? dust? I’d never want to vandalize the Moon, but I figured drawing in the dust wouldn’t hurt anything.  Maybe someday, some astronaut will go back to the Moon, wander by that little spot, and know that ‘Heka was here, and it was amazing’.  Trite, but true.   

After that, I went back to Nebula’s little home-away-from-home, and she teleported us back into orbit.  I’m not sure if we ended up exactly back where we left from, but looking down at the Earth, it was close enough.  From there, we started to descend.  Other than Earth getting larger underneath us, the first part of our descent was almost unnoticeable.  Then we hit the atmosphere, and things got a little more intense. 

Once we were firmly back in the atmosphere, Nebula showed me a couple of tricks.  For one thing, gravity was in play again, so we could just stop flying and let ourselves freefall for a while.  That was a lot of fun.  I was aware of the heat of reentry, but like the earlier cold, it didn’t bother me.  It was just something I was aware of.  Freefall was fun, but then she had me start flying again, and actually fly as fast as I could, straight down.  Working with gravity instead of against it, I was able to go faster than I ever had (at least without putting on a burst of speed).  That was fun too, but I soon understood why Nebula had braided her hair- mine was an absolute mess when I got home.  Flying straight down got us there much faster, and I tried freefalling again, closer to the ground.  Not so close that I went splat, of course.  I’m not sure if I would survive a terminal velocity fall.  I think I would.  But that’s not really a chance I want to take.

Anyway, we came back down and inland a little off-target.  I think we were closer to the Georgia coastline, but I’m not certain- it could have been South Carolina.  We landed, and I couldn’t help giving Nebula a big hug when I thanked her for taking me.  Now that I know for sure I can do it, I’m sure I’ll go back (into space, at least, the Moon is pretty much out-of-reach for now), but I was really glad to have had company the first time.  I told her if there was every anything I could do for her, to let me know.  We talked a little about the whole experience, then she said she had to be elsewhere and poofed out.  I flew home from there, and got back to Wilmington a few minutes before Mom came home.  My hair was, in fact, a snarled mess.

This was a day I’ll never forget.  Thanks Nebula.  

Chapter Text

Friday, November 14

School was anticlimactic after going to space (and the Moon!), but that’s to be expected, I guess.  I showed the girls the pictures at lunch, and they were soooo jealous.  Monique threw a carrot at me.  So, it felt pretty good to be able to give them each a moon rock.

Part of me really wants to take them with me into space, even if it would have to be one at a time.  But I saw what happened to that lip gloss when I let go of it, and I just can’t imagine taking that kind of risk with anyone, let alone people I actually cared about.  So I kept my mouth shut about even the possibility.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, November 18

There’s a rumor going around that Bailey is coming back to school soon.  Maybe as early as next week.  I hope so.  It will be good to see her.  But it’ll be awkward, too, since she still hasn’t reached out.  I’m beginning to think that she won’t.  One good thing about it- Jeremy wasn’t lurking around the lunch table today.  He hasn’t tried to ask me out again, but he’s still always… there.  Watching.  Listening.  I try not to look at him, but I’ll catch him in the corner of my eye, and sometimes he has this weird, almost possessive, look on his face.  I don’t like it, but there’s really nothing I can do about it.

I’ve been checking in with Mrs. Adams about once a week, so I have a pretty good idea of how Bailey’s recovery is going, but Mrs. Adams hasn’t encouraged me to reach out to Bailey again.  My previous messages to her were all left on ‘read’, which pretty much says it all.  Mrs. Adams has made it pretty clear that I did the right thing in telling Bailey about Jeremy, but it’s only reasonable that she’s going to support her daughter.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.  Bailey needs all the support she can get right now, even if she doesn’t want it from me.

Still, it will be strange having her back at school.  I can’t imagine our relationship can go back to what it was (and I’m not sure I’d want it to, if I’m being honest).  I’ve changed too much.  I’m enjoying spending more time with the girls, and while I know better than to think my new popularity is ‘real’, I’ve gotten used to being something other- something more- than just ‘Bailey’s friend’. 

I suppose it’s possible that she’ll decide to just ignore these last several weeks and pretend nothing was ever wrong between us.  She’s done that before, when we had smaller fights.  No apologies, no talking it out, just a few days of silence and then everything back to normal.  She could try that, but… I don’t think I’m up for it.  Not this time.  Not after so long.  And not when the overreaction was all hers. 

But… no one else really went to visit her.  No one at school really seems to miss her.  And she can’t help but be changed by being so badly hurt and in the hospital for so long.  She won’t be the same Bailey when she comes back (and that’s perfectly understandable).  Will she be able to slip back into her old place in the school hierarchy?  Will she want to?  Will she be allowed to?  No one person ‘took her place’, but it seems like everyone else just shifted around a little to fill up the space she’d occupied.  I’m not sure people will shift again to let her back in. 

A good friend would be there for her.  But I’ve begun to see now how she’s dominated my life for years.  Is that the act of a good friend?  Shouldn’t friends be at least close to equal?  A good friend would stand by her.  But a good friend wouldn’t have pushed me away so completely. 

I’m not sure there’s anything I can do, other than to wait and see how things develop.

Chapter Text

Saturday, November 22 (Fashion Show)

Today was the fashion show Erica had scheduled me for.  Since it’s less than two hundred miles from here to Charleston, SC, I had assumed I’d be flying there under my own power.  But no.  Erica had me fly in, on a plane (first class again- do novas travel first class by default?) yesterday after school.  I stayed at a very nice hotel last night, and will be staying tonight as well before flying home tomorrow.  Since my flight isn’t until tomorrow evening, I think I’ll go see the Charleston Aquarium.  It looks really nice, according to its OpNet site.

Anyway, I really had no idea what to expect from today.  The fashion show was set for the evening, but I was expected to be there several hours early, for what turned out to be an extensive photo shoot, as well as trying on a bunch of clothes. 

The clothes part turned out to be mostly fun, but also eye-opening.  I had no idea what kind of effort fashion took!  Some of the other models were literally being sewn into their clothes.  There was spray-on glue involved to keep things in place.  And tape in places tape ought not be.  I overheard two women fighting over the last of the ‘nipple tape’.  I didn’t want to ask what nipple tape was, but I looked it up later, and it’s exactly what it sounds like.  Tape to both prevent any visible ‘nip slip’ and keep everything smooth in the event of unexpected… excitement. This behind-the-scenes look at the world of modeling was interesting, but if I ever had any interest in a modeling career, today killed it. 

It turns out that this fashion show was a blend of actual models and regional ‘up and coming young celebrities’.  I was the only nova there.  The other (non-models) were actresses, singers, athletes, dancers, and so forth.  I’m not sure, but I think I might have been one of the youngest there, or at least one of the only minors.  I hope that was the case, otherwise the photographers were being really creepy.  They either kept forgetting that I was a kid, or they just didn’t care.

The main photographer that I was working with kept encouraging me to do weird, contorted poses that emphasized my boobs and ass.  He wanted a lot of cleavage, and kept trying to ‘adjust’ the clothes I was wearing, even after I reminded him, pointedly, that I was only seventeen.  Later, he gave me his card and offered to do a ‘private shoot’ in his ‘home studio’.  He made it pretty clear that it would be clothing optional.  Yuck. 

I wasn’t sure whether or not to report his creepy behavior.  I noticed that most of the photographers took ‘liberties’ with the models, so maybe this is normal for the industry?  And most of the models either didn’t seem to care, or looked like they were enjoying the attention.  (A few were clearly uncomfortable, like me, but I think they were either newer or maybe other ‘guest celebrities’.)  Maybe this is just how models and photographers are with each other?  If so, then I’m not sure I should say anything- an outsider coming in and passing judgement always sucks.  I’ll think about it overnight.

The fashion show itself was interesting, in a shallow sort of way.  First, they took all of us ‘guests’ and gave us a lesson in walking.  Apparently models have a special walk they’re supposed to use.  Imagine a line running immediately in front of you, dividing you exactly in half down the middle.  Each step you take should end with your advancing foot crossing just over that invisible line, so your right foot ends up just left of your center mass, then your left foot goes just to the right of center mass.  It feels really silly, but it creates a seamless gliding gait.  And you’re supposed to keep your shoulders back, arms slightly away from your body, and look either bored or just a little angry.  No smiling.  Weird.

After they were satisfied that we wouldn’t look like we wanted to be there and wouldn’t fall on our faces, we were all sent to have our hair and makeup done.  I think my hair looks pretty good normally, especially in the last couple of months, but apparently it wasn’t good enough.  They somehow taped extra hair into my own hair.  I’m not sure how that worked, but it nearly doubled the volume (and my hair is pretty thick to begin with).  Then they fluffed, and teased, and did who knows what until I had the kind of mane you’d see, well, on a model. 

I don’t usually wear much makeup.  A little eyeliner and mascara, sometimes some lip gloss.  It just isn’t worth my time to bother with more.  But they covered not just my face, but my neck and parts of my chest as well!  Foundation, contouring, bronzer, blush, three or four things done to my lips, then an entire palette of colors not just on my eyelids, but covering most of the upper half of my face.  By the time they were done, I barely recognized myself.  And I could have passed for twenty-five at least.

Then, they put me in several- I can’t call them outfits since no one in their right mind would wear these things.  Call them costumes.  They put me in several costumes and took a bunch more pictures.  This time, there were three separate photographers taking pictures of me.  All three gave me their cards, two of them flat-out offered ‘intimate shoots’ in their studios later.  (The third photographer was gay, and I felt much more comfortable with him since he kept side-eyeing one of the male makeup artists and taking no interest in me that way.)

I sorta lost track of time, with all the pictures, changing clothes, touching up makeup, and more pictures.  But suddenly, it was time for the actual fashion show.  I’d almost forgotten about it, to be honest.  It felt like I’d already put in a full day’s effort, and I hadn’t even done what I’d been contracted to do yet! 

The event people put me in yet another costume, and had me line up with the others.  The first three women to go down the runway were actual models, and the rest of us were told to watch them and remember what we’d been taught.  After those first three, the ‘celebrities’ were mixed in with the real models.  I watched what the first three women did, and it really didn’t seem that hard: do the walk they’d shown us, keep your head up, don’t fall over. 

The worst part was the ridiculously bright lights that seemed to have no purpose other than blinding anyone on the runway.  I usually like my enhanced vision, but right then, it was a nightmare.  I felt like I was staring into the sun!  Even before it was my turn, I could see how the regular girls were having trouble with the lights, so I took to counting how many steps the girls in front of me took during each part of their walk.  That way, I would know when to turn and all even if I couldn’t see the marks on the floor.  It worked out, but it was still uncomfortable.  And I had to do it three times, in three different costumes, each one more ridiculous than the last!  The last one involved spray-on glue, all over my ass!  Peeling that skirt off after was a nasty feeling. 

At least the lights made it hard to see all the people staring up at me.  I’d been disturbed since I erupted, never being able to know if someone was paying attention to me for who I was versus what I was, but this was even more uncomfortable, since I had something new to wonder about.  Me, the person?  Me, the nova?  Me, the ambulatory coathanger?  Me, the walking piece of objectified meat?  Who was I, on that runway?  Very strange thoughts to be having, even writing all this down after the fact.

I don’t remember which supermodel said “modelling is hard work”.  I rolled my eyes when I first heard that, and still can’t say it’s difficult.  But I do have a little more sympathy for what models go through.  I certainly wouldn’t want to do it on a regular basis. 

After the runway, I had hoped to be finished with the whole thing, but no.  Instead, I was put into yet another costume (to be fair, this one was closer to actual clothes that a real person might wear), and sent into the reception to mingle with the sponsors and other attendees.  Some of the more musical local talent performed, but the rest of us were just supposed to circulate, look pretty, and…?  If there was some other goal, nobody told me.  So, I wandered around, nibbled on the fancy little snacks (why did they cut cheese and hard sausage into such odd shapes, anyway?), and made small talk when approached. 

What is it about (apparently) wealthy and powerful men that they instinctively treat young women like objects?  For as long as I can remember, Bailey and I talked about what we’d do when we grew up. The jobs we’d have, the parties we’d go to, the people we’d meet.  None of what we planned included being treated like meat by men who were absolutely certain they were better than us.  Well, that’s what happened to most of the girls.  All but one of the men who started that crap with me stopped as soon as they saw my eyes.  (The one that didn’t was so drunk I doubt he even knew what he was doing, not that that’s any excuse.)  I felt sorry for some of the other girls, especially the musicians and athletes- they seemed the least prepared for how they were treated.  The real models just took it like it was normal, and the actresses were either used to it, or pretended to be. 

Eventually, I ended up pairing up with a girl named Rebecca, who seemed to be the most uncomfortable with how she was being treated.  So, we spent the last half of the party together, and the men either focused on me or avoided us both.  She thanked me for being there, and invited me to watch her roller derby team.  If I ever come back to Charleston, I just might take her up on it. 

The night was winding down, and folks started leaving.  All the women went back to the dressing rooms to change back into our real clothes.  I made sure Rebecca got to her car safely.  Several of the models left with men from the afterparty.  No idea if they knew them beforehand or not.  No judgements, but if that’s what being a professional model is like, I’m definitely not interested.

Back at the hotel, I found the same TV show about men repossessing cars that I’d seen in Iowa.  I could never find that show on TV at home, but it seems to be one of the main things available on hotel TVs.  I know hotels have their own movie channels.  Do they have their own TV lineups as well?

Chapter Text

Sunday, November 23

I saw the Charleston Aquarium before flying back home, and it was amazing.  I got to pet the stingrays and a horseshoe crab, as well as feed them. 

They had an electric eel (not for petting, of course), and I was really interested in it, considering that I can deliver a similar electric jolt.  According to the sign next to the tank, electric eels are shy, and tend to hide in the rocks of their tank, and that’s what this one was doing when I came up.  But almost as soon as I got close to the tank, it came right out and pressed itself up against the glass, as close to me as it could get, then started twisting back and forth on itself.  It reminded me of Furnado twining around my ankles, either wanting pets or trying to trip me.  Maybe it sensed the same kind of kinship I felt?  But that’s silly.  I shouldn’t anthropomorphize a fish.  Regardless, it followed me as I moved around the tank, and the speaker that was set up to buzz whenever the eel discharged current kept going in constant pulses.  If there hadn’t been so many people around, I would have tried to pulse back at it, but I didn’t want that kind of attention while I was just out on my own. 

There’s a program where guests can pay to be in one of the larger tanks and get up close with the fish, especially during feeding time.  The aquarium provides wetsuits and scuba gear, and since it’s only a few feet underwater and closely supervised, you don’t need to be a trained diver.  I’d like to come back and try that- it’s not like I would need a wetsuit or scuba gear, after all.

When I got back home, Erica had been busy again.  She’d updated ‘my’ website to include the fashion show, including a few pictures.  The photographers who gave me their cards told me it would be a few days before they’d finished editing the pictures, and they’d email me when they were ready, so either these pictures were taken by someone else, or somebody (Erica?) paid for a rush job.

They were immediately posted to the forum as well.  I have to admit, I looked good.  It was waaaay too much effort with all the hair and makeup stuff to look like that every day, or even for most special occasions.  But it was neat to see what I might be capable if I really tried.

Chapter Text

Monday, November 24 (Bailey’s back)

Bailey came back to school today.  Since the rumors had been going around already, I had somehow assumed that there would be some kind of low key ‘welcome back’ effort made for her.  Someone had decorated my locker, after all.  Surely something similar?  (How does that kind of thing get decided, anyway?  I never overheard people planning things like that- they just seem to… happen.)  After the fact, I wondered if maybe I should have done something welcoming.  But… no.  I think it was safe to say that the ball was still in her court, and it was better to let her make the next move.

Anyway, Mr. Adams pulled up in front of the main entrance, right as I was landing in my little circle.  He helped Bailey out of the car and into a wheelchair with one leg elevated.  Luckily, the school has an elevator, even if students usually aren’t allowed to use it.  So that won’t be a problem, at least. 

I hung back, and let her make her way into school before I came close enough that most people noticed me.  I probably wouldn’t have noticed her dad’s car if not for my enhanced vision (and the fact that I was sorta watching for it, due to the rumors).  I’m still not sure how all of this is going to go, but I knew I didn’t want our first talk to be that… public.

The only periods we had in common were Chemistry and lunch, so most of the day was fairly normal.  But my locker is right next to Bailey’s.  I’d taken down the ‘welcome back’ stuff weeks ago, so at least there wasn’t any obvious evidence of my return being treated differently than hers.  But it would be impossible not to meet up with her between classes.

Part of me wanted to put the meeting off as long as I could.  Part of me wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, one way or the other.  I hung around my locker as long as I could without being late to pre-Cal, but she didn’t show up.  Maybe Mr. Stephenson took her aside the same way he did me when I came back?  It seems likely.

I made sure to be early to Chemistry and be in my seat, so Bailey could decide where she wanted to be since we usually sat next to each other, but I may as well not have bothered. The ‘extra’ desk had been removed and a small table set up against the wall, and when Bailey wheeled in, she set up there.  Makes sense, I guess.  With her leg out in front of her like that, she can’t really manage a desk.

We made eye contact, and I mouthed “I’m glad you’re back’, but she didn’t answer.  Maybe she didn’t understand, but she’s usually pretty good at that.  Not a promising start. 

After class, we were both heading for the cafeteria, but I gave her some space.  Despite the crowd noise, I was still able to hear everything.  A few people said ‘hi’ to her.  Some told her ‘welcome back’, or ‘glad you’re better’.  Nobody was much more than polite.  Nobody really seemed to care. 

Part of me felt really bad for her.  I know the way I was treated when I came back (and still am being treated) is due to the whole nova thing.  I’m not stupid.  But still, people made an effort, even if it wasn’t ‘personal’.  I was casually acquainted with most people, but my ‘circle’ was really just Bailey’s circle.  But when I came back, people well outside that circle had something to say, even if only in passing.  Considering her former place in the school hierarchy, those few people may as well have been none at all.  I saw several of her circle in the hall at the same time, most going to lunch as well.  And with the wheelchair’s leg extension, Bailey was impossible to overlook.  There’s no way her friends didn’t realize she was there.  But they didn’t come over.  They just went on into the cafeteria like she wasn’t there. 

Jeremy was waiting for her, though.  I’d wondered about that.  The way he was all over her, hugging her, kissing her, rubbing her shoulders, you’d swear he’d never even looked at another girl.  And she was eating it up with a spoon.  It definitely makes me think he never actually broke up with Bailey like he told me. 

He escorted her through the lunch line, pushing her wheelchair, and generally being smarmy.  Anybody else, I would have called it sweet, or charming.  But not after everything he’s done. By the time they’d gone through the line, I’d joined the girls.  Jeremy pushed Bailey to a table at the other end of the room.  I could still see them out of the corner of my eye, but with the crowd noise, even I couldn’t hear what they were whispering about. 

I watched them for a moment, but no one else joined them, even though several of Bailey’s friends were nearby.  That pretty much said it all, but I couldn’t figure out why she was being shut out.

Alejandra noticed where I was watching and asked if I was okay.  I hadn’t told the girls the details of the whole attempted cheating thing- just that Jeremy had asked me out, and I’d turned him down.  I hadn’t said much about Bailey leaving me on ‘read’ all this time.  But now, I explained everything as best I could, without going into dirty details. 

That Jeremy had asked me out multiple times, how he’d supposedly broken up with Bailey to be with me, how I had accidently recorded his doing so, and how after thinking about it, I decided that Bailey had a right to know. That she hadn’t believed me, accused me of lying, then blew up on me when I gave her the proof.  That she’d told me to get out and not come back, and we hadn’t spoken since.

I kept my voice as quiet as I could, but I’m pretty sure some people could have overheard if they were paying attention.  And people always seem to be paying attention these days.  Especially since the girls sometimes got a little loud in their responses.  I expressed that I wasn’t sure what to do now- that I was glad Bailey was back, but she’d given me the cold shoulder when we met up.  I wasn’t sure whether to force the issue, or just leave her alone to decide how she wanted to move forward.  I also mentioned how sad and surprised I was that nobody seemed to be making a big deal out of her coming back to school after so long.  She’d been so popular, and everybody liked her, so it didn’t make sense to me. 

The girls all sort of exchanged looks around, like ‘who’s going to tell her?’.  Finally, Alejandra spoke up, not loud, but not being as quiet as she could be, either.  She explained that nobody liked Bailey, other than me.  That she was a bully, and arrogant, and the stereotypical ‘mean girl’.  People had been friendly to her to stay on her good side- that she was even more of a bitch if she didn’t like you, or thought you didn’t like her.  

They thought that because she’d been gone so long, people realized how much better things were without her, and how they’d let her walk all over everybody.  And maybe they weren’t willing to put up with it anymore.  Especially now, when she came back, but obviously wouldn’t fit back into her old life.  No one was afraid of crossing her anymore, so there was no reason for anyone to pretend to like her anymore. 

I couldn’t believe it, but Jess and Monique agreed.  Monique referenced some old movie from the 80s called Heathers (she’s crazy about ancient movies) that described Bailey’s relationship with the student body.  I’ll have to check it out tonight.

I protested that I’d known her forever, and she just wasn’t like that.  That we’d been friends for years, and (until now), she’d stood by me no matter what.  Jess told me that Bailey was using me, and I was just too close to see it.  (I can’t believe that’s true- even if Bailey isn’t as nice to everyone, she’s always been good to me.)  She said that I did whatever Bailey wanted, went everywhere with her, was always available for her, was basically her sidekick and backup plan.  That hit home a little harder than I wanted to admit.  Had I really been that blind?  I didn’t think so.  But then, if what they were saying was true, could I trust my own judgement on the issue?

Well, there wasn’t much I could say to all that.  We changed the subject, but I had a lot to think about, and the girls were nice enough to leave me to my thoughts and just chattered about normal things.

The rest of the day was uneventful, and I hadn’t decided yet if I was going to try to get Bailey to talk to me after school (I was due at the Clinic, but was willing to be late for the chance to get this over with).  But when I got to my locker, Mrs. Salisbury, the school nurse, was packing up Bailey’s locker.  She just about wet herself when I came up- she’s avoided me like the plague since my first day back- and when I asked, she said that Bailey was being moved to a different locker.  I didn’t ask where.

So, I guess that’s it, then.  There’s no reason to move Bailey’s locker other than by Bailey’s own request.  That’s about as clear a ‘breakup letter’ as high school gets.  I’m not really sure how to feel.  I’m sad, certainly.  And hurt, that she didn’t even have the decency to face me.  And disgusted that this is all (I guess) over Jeremy trying to perv up on me.  So, in a weird way, this is his fault.  No.  This isn’t his fault, or at least mostly not.  No matter what he chose to do, if Bailey was as good a friend to me as I had been to her, she and I could have stuck together and kicked Jeremy to the curb.  He’s a creep and an asshole, but Bailey’s the one who chose him over me. 

But is it just the thing with Jeremy?  Or is there more to it than that?  Bailey didn’t seem jealous about the whole nova thing, but maybe she is, and I somehow missed it.  Or maybe it’s just that I walked away from an accident that put her in the hospital for weeks.  She could be jealous of that, even without the nova thing.  Not that any of that is something I could have controlled.  Or maybe she’s still worried that I’ll tell someone about the accident.  About just before the accident.  But that doesn’t make sense.  If she was afraid that I would tell, wouldn’t it make more sense to keep up the friendship, and keep me close?  If I had any intention of telling anyone, wouldn’t I be more likely to tell if she cut me off and acted like a bitch to me?  Not that I have any intention of telling.  But if she thought I might, surely being nasty to me would make that more likely, rather than less. 

So yeah.  I’m sad, and hurt, and confused, and disgusted.  Even a little angry.  But, the more I think about it, the biggest emotion I’m feeling is… relief.  I’ve got the chance to decide for myself who I’m going to be.  And ‘what Bailey wants’ isn’t a consideration anymore.  I get to make my own choices, have my own friends, use my own time as I see fit.  It’s a lot more liberating than I expected. 

The only thing I’m worried about is what Alejandra and the girls said about Bailey’s being vindictive.  If I’m not her friend, then I suppose I’m a target.  Even if the rest of Bailey’s circle have dropped her, she and Jeremy were still very close at lunch.  I have no idea what the story is there, but if he’s all she has left at school, she’ll keep him close.  And he didn’t like my refusing him. 

Am I being paranoid, or is it concerning that the two people at school who are the most mad at me are so close with each other?  One the one hand, what can they really do to me?  Spread rumors?  Pull pranks?  I don’t think there’s anything they could do to actually harm me, even if they tried to go that far.  And if the girls are right and the whole school never really had Bailey’s back in the first place, then they shouldn’t get very far with any kind of gossip campaign.  I’ve done everything I can to not make a big deal about what I am, but I’m willing to bet my newly rising star against any nonsense they come up with.

I hope.

Sensei Laura might have sensed that I wasn’t in a good headspace today, because she worked me over really thoroughly.  I think I’m doing pretty good with my aikido lessons.  Not super good.  But pretty good.  When we’d finished for the day, she said I might be ready to test for 6th Kyu soon, but that she wanted me to attend at least a few classes with her other students first.  Apparently, I have enough control that she isn’t afraid I’ll hurt someone by accident.  (I assume that was a concern, at least.) 

So, since she has a Tuesday evening beginner adult class, I’m going to attend it tomorrow.  It should be interesting.  I enjoy the private lessons, and think I’m probably learning more (and faster) with one-on-one attention.  But without other students, I really have nothing to compare myself with, other than Sensei Laura herself.  And there’s no point in comparing myself to her, after all.

I found a copy of Heathers online and watched it.  I get what Monique meant now.  Apart from the murders, I can definitely see some of Bailey’s behavior in two of the three ‘Heathers’ in that movie.  I don’t think I’m much like Veronica, though. 

Chapter Text

Tuesday, November 25

I attended Sensei Laura’s adult beginner aikido class this evening.  It was a really eye-opening experience.  This was a beginner class, so everyone was new-ish, but even so, there was a wide range of skill and experience in the students.  A couple of the men (they looked to be in their early twenties) either were absolute newbies or just really bad at this.  There was one middle-aged woman who surely must be ready for a more advanced class.  And everybody else fell somewhere in between.  I’d like to say I came in somewhere in the top third, experience-wise. 

Sensei Laura was demonstrating a new technique for the class, one that she’d taught me yesterday.  So after going through it a couple of times, she called me up to the front and had me go through it with her.  Of course, she’s way better than I am, but at least I got through it without falling over, and I avoided the hold she tried to put me in.  (Of course, she was only moving at, like, half speed.  I’m sure she could have put me in the hold easily if she’d wanted to.)  We ran through it a few times, then she paired us all up. 

She put me with one of the mid-range women.  We were doing the technique on each other, like we were supposed to, when she noticed my eyes and freaked out.  As soon as she realized I was a nova, she didn’t want to work with me anymore.  At first, I wasn’t sure if she was afraid I would be too rough on her, or if it was something else, but when she went over to Sensei Laura and loud-whispered (I could hear clearly, and I bet half the students could too) that she refused to work with ‘that’, it was pretty clear.  She didn’t like novas. 

As soon as she’d broken away from me, I’d immediately gone to the edge of the mat and knelt, like I’d been taught when something goes wrong in class, so there I was, alone with everyone staring.  Sensei Laura looked annoyed, but kept her voice calm.  She jus told the woman to change and go home for the evening, and they would discuss it later.  Then she waved the older woman whose skill I’d admired earlier to take over partnering me.  She really must be close to graduating to a more advanced class.

When we’d finished our repetitions, we moved off the mats and chatted a little.  Her name is Andrea, and she’ll probably be testing for 3rd Kyu soon.  (I think that would make her an orange belt (or maybe a purple) in other martial arts, but aikido does it differently.  She seems nice, and if she was bothered about training with me, she didn’t show it at all.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, November 26

The last couple of days have been okay.  Nothing has happened with Bailey- everybody is more-or-less ignoring her, and she’s ignoring me.  She’s gotten herself out of the chemistry class we shared, so the only time I see her now is in the halls (at a distance) or in the cafeteria (at a distance).  I’m a little surprised that she hasn’t changed lunch periods, but what would mean that she didn’t have lunch with Jeremy, so maybe that’s it. 

Anytime I happen to catch sight of them there, they have their heads together, and I’ve caught them staring at me several times.  They immediately look away as soon as I notice them watching me, though.  I still don’t think there’s anything they can really do to me, but I just can’t help feeling like the other show is about to drop.  All I can do is honor her wishes and stay away from her.  I hope that ‘taking the high road’ will be enough.

The girls and I spent the evening at Jess’s house for a ‘Friendsgiving’.  It was meant to be potluck, but since I’d be going over straight from the Clinic, I’d pre-purchased several deli items (potato salad, baked beans, and a pumpkin pie) since I wouldn’t have time to cook. 

I asked Clara if I could store the cold stuff in her kitchen while I had my Aikido lesson, and she said that was fine.  When I came back to pick the stuff up, Clara presented me with a huge platter of homemade turkey in some kind of warming box, and told me to take that with me along with the cold stuff (and bring the box back on Friday).  Clara’s good people.  I’ve got to remember to do something nice for her.

Friendsgiving was a hit, and Clara’s turkey was very well received.  The leftovers will feed Jess’s family for at least a couple of days.  Alejandra had baked bread and brought drinks, Jess had made regular potatoes and sweet potatoes (or yams? I’m not sure of the difference).  Monique brought turkey ‘sushi’ rolls and something she insisted was gravy based on cranberry sauce.  It was delicious, but nothing will convince me it was gravy.

Chapter Text

Thursday, November 27 (Thanksgiving)

Mom had the day off from both jobs, so we had a rare day together.  We cooked, watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, then Miracle on 34th Street.  That’s been our tradition in any year she had the day off.  Then, after the meal, we went to see a movie.  I always feel a little bad for movie theater people on holidays, always having to work, but I guess by the evening, the holiday is pretty much over anyway.  We saw Twilight, which I thought was hilariously cringey.  I’d kinda wanted to see The Dark Knight, but… we don’t really talk much about anything superhero-y.  I can understand why. 

Later that night, I got another forum notification.  I’d set up an alert for Watch_th3_Skies, but he’d been pretty quiet lately.  Now he’s back, posting pictures from the various photoshoots from the fashion show.  I recognized several of them, enough to know he’d gotten them from at least three different photographers.  Most of them had the watermarks removed, but WtS missed one, which pretty much sealed it. 

Since there’s really no reason to think that one of the photographers was WtS, and none of them has emailed me to say that the pictures are ready (though I’m expecting that any day now), that can only mean that WtS got access to the pictures some other way.  Probably hacking the various photographer’s sites. 

That’s bad enough, but the pictures that he chose to post were all among the more… risqué.  I had refused any pose that made me uncomfortable, but even so, some of them made me look much older and more… available than I am.  And those were the ones he chose to post.  That’s the first hint he’s given that his interest in me is more than that of an overly-interested fan.

I sent an email to the forum owner explaining that those pictures were stolen from the photographers, and asking that they be taken down.  I mean, I realize it won’t do much good- they’ve been posted, no doubt they’ve been downloaded.  So, they’re out on the OpNet forever.  But still, I don’t like what WtS did. If I’m lucky, he’ll be kicked off the forum.  Of course, maybe that’s not the best idea.  At least when he’s posting to the forum, he has an outlet.  I can’t imagine he’ll stop stalking me if he doesn’t have a convenient place to post.  Maybe it’s better to have him where I can keep an eye on him?

Then I had a better idea.  I still had all the photographer’s cards with the contact information.  So I emailed each one, with a link to the forum post and screenshots of WtS’s profile.  I pointed out that likelihood that WtS had hacked their servers, and that they might want to do something to protect their property.  I also made it clear that the forum itself was not to blame, and would likely be removing the pictures as soon as I asked them to.  

Maybe that will put a thorn under WtS’s saddle.

Chapter Text

Friday, November 28

I was supposed to be at the Clinic all day for training (I had already decided that ‘all day’ meant ‘no later than six’), so I was determined to do my best, whatever Bix had me doing.  I returned Clara’s warming box thing, along with a nice potted cactus, since I’d seen that she has several in the kitchen windows. 

Bix had me for the morning, and set me to doing aerial maneuvers.  Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I do think I’m getting better at that.  Flips, barrel rolls, tight turns, sudden accelerations and stops, trading speed for altitude and vice versa.  Lots of things like that.  He had a series of smaller hoops for me to fly through as well.  Some of them had paint smeared on the inside surface, so it would be obvious if I touched the edges. 

Then he took me outside at launched things at me again.  This time he had not just Mr. Li, but a bunch of guys hidden in the trees and bushes to snipe at me.  (I found out later they were from a local gun club.  I’m not sure how I feel about that, especially after Kansas, but it’s not like I can tell an actual shooter, “Hey, I’m not comfortable being shot at, so couldya not?”.)

Near the end, Bix had a new set of tricks.  Instead of shooting goo balls at me, he shot these weird, weighted balls connected with a cord.  I found out later they were called bolas.  Basically, the balls passed on either side of me, but the string hit me, causing the balls to spin around and tangle me up.  The first time he hit me with them, he actually pinned one of my arms to my side, but I don’t see what good he expected that to do.  As soon as I was tangled, I judged this to be a (fake) emergency, and promptly went invisible and violated the 400 foot rule, shooting straight up, high enough that I had to use my special vision to see anyone down on the ground.  Then, I took my time untangling myself.  After a couple of minutes, I came around behind Bix (still invisible), and came in for a landing. 

Without dropping my invisibility, I asked him what that was meant to accomplish, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.  (Good.) 

He told me that bolas were used by ancient hunters to bring down antelope and things by tangling their legs up so that they couldn’t run away and might even break a leg. 

I pointed out that most antelope needed all four legs to run, but that didn’t change the fact that I didn’t need any, so even if he’d tangled me up completely, I still could have just flown away to someplace safe enough to disentangle myself.  Even if he’d managed to break an arm or leg, that wouldn’t have kept me from flying off. 

He just grinned and said that he knew all that, but he’d just always wanted to throw bolas at a moving target.  Bix is a very strange man.

He had me get back in the air, and the gun club got back to shooting at me.  On my next pass around, Bix had another, nastier trick.  This time, he shot a net at me. 

Hit me square on, too.  And the net had hooks and weights on the edges, so I couldn’t just flip it off of me, since the hooks got tangled up.  I think, if I wasn’t as strong as I am, the weights might have been enough to drag me down, or at least slow me down enough for the gun club to shoot me better. 

To be honest, this one scared me, even though, in itself, it wasn’t dangerous.  This net wasn’t a problem.  But what about a heavier one?  Or one somehow anchored to the ground? 

This time, when I went invisible, I put on a burst of speed and was up high enough that even my better vision couldn’t see Bix anymore.  I stayed up there longer, too (I was careful to watch for planes).  I stayed up long enough to pull the net apart into very small lengths of cord.  I dropped the cords, and let those fall where they would, but I held on to the weights and hooks.  As much as I didn’t like this whole thing, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. 

When I finally came back down, I dropped the hardware down beside Bix and told him we were done with this for the day.  Either he’d already decided that enough was enough, or something in his face told him not to push me, because he sent the gun club home and we broke for a rather tense lunch.

THIS MAKES ME WONDER, HEKA.  YOUR BIX SEEMS TO BE PREPARING YOU FOR SOME VERY SPECIFIC EVENTUALITIES.  AND HIS LOYALTIES MIGHT NOT BE ENTIRELY WITH UTOPIA.  I WOULDN’T TRUST HIM, BUT HE JUST MIGHT BE TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING.  SOMETHING YOU NEED TO HEAR.  NONE OF THE OTHER CLINICS I’M AWARE OF TRAIN THEIR FLYERS WITH GUN-TOTING REDNECKS AND CAPTURE NETS.  KEEP YOUR EYES AND EARS OPEN.

~S

After lunch, Sensei Laura came.  I had pretty much expected her, but I was still a little nervous after what happened in her class.  So after the greeting bow and all, I apologized right away for creating a disturbance.  (I know I didn’t do anything wrong, and that it was entirely that woman’s problem, but sometimes an apology is the right move anyway.  I wouldn’t have apologized to the woman, but I have no problem apologizing to Sensei Laura.)

It turned out not to be necessary, though.  She listened, nodded, then told me I had nothing to apologize for.  That the other student had disrupted the class with her refusal to work with me.  Sensei Laura explained that she had called the other woman after class ended, and reprimanded her for her behavior, saying that aikido valued harmony and peace, and that her outburst had been disruptive and discriminatory.  The woman tried to claim that she was afraid that I would hurt her (a fear which, though unjustified, I could certainly understand), but Sensei Laura was having none of it.  She had brought me into the class.  She had included me in the lesson.  She had put me into the pairs to practice.  She wouldn’t have done any of that if I was a danger to the other students.  Doubting that was disrespectful to Sensei Laura.  (I could see how she came to that conclusion, but I wasn’t sure I agreed- I think people always have a duty to advocate for their own safety if they have a concern.)  Apparently, then the real issue came out.  The woman tried to insist that ‘my kind’ shouldn’t be in the same classes as ‘real people’, and that we should ‘stick to our own kind’.  She tried to claim that Sensei Laura was ‘selling out’ by teaching me.  At which point, Sensei Laura dismissed her from her dojo.  She says that she has no room for bigotry in her establishment, and has passed the word to other local dojos.  

Well, as much as I would have had sympathy for a genuine safety concern, this just boils down to racism. No, bigotry.  I still don’t buy the Teragen belief that we’re a separate race.  We’ve been declared a separate species, Homo sapiens novus, but not a separate race.  Which seems odd, now that I think about it.  We’re still black, white, Asian, whatever.  But we’re also separate.  Then again, the black/white/Asian distinctions aren’t biologically significant. 

Anyway, Sensei Laura explained to me that she was telling me all this not only to make it clear that she wouldn’t tolerate bigotry, but also because she thought it was important that I understand that this was something I would almost certainly run into again in the future, and she wanted my early exposures to be… less intense. 

I appreciate her compassion, but after being shot, being called a ‘that’ wasn’t especially troubling.  It makes me a little sad, I guess, and not just in a how-can-people-be-so-small-minded way, but that’s about it.  I can understand a certain amount of bitterness. 

If novas are the next ‘great leap forward’ in an evolutionary sense (and it seems like we might be), then this will be the first time that one branch of the greater human family has been able to understand and observe their eventual replacements.  This will be the first time we’ll be able to watch it happening worldwide.  Even though it won’t happen in their current lifetimes (I read somewhere that Neanderthals and humans coexisted for as much as 5,000 years and probably interbred), still there has to be something threatening about seeing ‘next year’s model’ prancing around in front of you all the time- especially when some of us aren’t shy about displaying their feelings of superiority.   

Anyway, the long and short of it is that Sensei Laura wants me to attend the next two Tuesday evening classes, and test for 6th Kyu on December 16th.  I was a little surprised, to be honest, since it seems a little early.  But if she thinks I’m ready, then I’m willing to try.  (And anyway, what’s the worst that can happen?  If I fail, I just try again later.  It’s not like I’m competing with anyone.)

After our talk, she put me through my paces for four full hours.  (Just because I’m attending some of her evening classes, she’s still continuing to train me separately.)  I think she wants me in the classes as much for the social and cultural aspect as anything else.  Like arranging playdates for homeschool kids.  Plus, it’s neat to see how other people do things, even if they aren’t nearly as experienced as Sensei Laura. 

As we finished up for the day, she mentioned that after testing, assuming I passed, we’d begin training with bokken (wooden swords).  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  On the one hand, weapons are pretty clearly outside the realm of ‘self-defense’.  On the other, since I’m unlikely to ever carry a sword in ‘real life’, this is really nothing more than deepening my understanding and experience of aikido.  I mean, even among big-deal martial arts masters, who carries a sword on the daily?  And there’s no way getting smacked with a wooden sword could hurt as much as getting shot. 

Though, now that I think about it, getting shot didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I would have expected.  Don’t get me wrong, it hurt.  It hurt really bad.  It was the worst thing I’ve ever felt.  But it wasn’t as bad as it looks on TV.  And of course, I didn’t go to the hospital, even though gut wounds are supposed to be really bad.  So I can’t imagine getting nailed with a wooden sword will be a huge issue.  And Sensei Laura’s been really good about taking it in slow stages.

Chapter Text

Saturday, November 29

I’d emailed Rocío yesterday, and we met up today for coffee.  We’ve been seeing each other semi-regularly, but I mostly don’t talk about it since this journal is about my experience as a nova, and most of our dates are just being… people. 

But today I had something specific in mind. After thinking it over (and seeing the most recent note ‘S’ left me), I’m beginning to think that maybe I do need to learn some more… aggressive powers.  I still don’t want to fight.  I still want to avoid any unnecessary violence.  But when everybody around you with any insight on the issue makes it clear that violence won’t always avoid me, well, I’d be a fool not to pay attention. 

But I also decided that I didn’t want Utopia to know what other tricks I might have up my proverbial sleeve.  After all, if I were Utopia, part of training new novas on how to use their powers would be learning how to stop those novas.  Either stop them from using powers, or just… stop them.  It’s not even all that paranoid a thought.  People are people, and it’s inevitable that someone who erupts will turn out to be a violent criminal- or already was before they erupted.  I’m not sure any ordinary prison could hold me, and I’m small potatoes.  So it makes sense that Utopia, as the world’s authority on novas, would take… steps. 

So, I want to have some way of defending myself that Utopia doesn’t know anything about.  I don’t really think I’ll ever need to defend myself from Utopia, but who knows?  Utopia has already made it clear (to me, anyway) that they don’t always have my back.

That was what I explained to Rocío.  He took my concerns seriously (he always does).  He asked me a lot of questions about what I wanted, specifically.  I told him that I wasn’t completely sure.  I wanted something that would allow me to defend myself.  Ideally with some destructive capability.  But I didn’t want something whose only real use was combat.  Basically, I didn’t want to start fights, but I wanted to be able to end them, either by escaping (which I think I’m doing pretty well on, with my flying), or by disabling (or destroying) whatever was trying to hurt me, or (worst case scenario) by hurting whoever was trying to harm me.  The problem is, I still don’t really know what novas are capable of.  So I don’t know what specifically to try and work toward, let alone find someone to teach me. 

Rocío thought about that for a while.  Eventually, he said that he thought there were a few ways I could go.  I could learn to manipulate (and maybe even create) some force, and use it for anything from a shield, to a destructive storm, or a direct attack, if need be.  He said that was what he did with water, but that water probably wouldn’t be the best choice of forces to control for my needs.  He said there were a couple of variations on that ability (most novas called them Elemental Anima and Elemental Mastery).  He was pretty sure I could learn Anima, but Mastery required a deeper connection to the Quantum field.  He didn’t have that deep a connection, and wasn’t sure if I did either.  He said that a lot of novas controlled elemental forces like that, so finding a teacher would be pretty easy.  The hardest part about that was that since I already had some affinity for electricity, it might be harder to channel control of the elemental forces into something other than electricity, since it sounded like I wanted something with greater direct destructive potential, like fire.   

He said that controlling plants or the weather (he suggested controlling animals, but I don’t like the thought of animals getting hurt for me) was also an option, but might not be as useful in an emergency.  The weather also was dangerous to mess with, since changing the weather in one place could screw things up in lots of other places.  And there were places that plants just didn’t grow.  He knew people who could teach both, though, if I decided to go that route.

Some novas can disintegrate things- including people, if need be.  That would probably be the ultimate in what I wanted.  And I could choose to use it selectively, disintegrating the weapon someone was holding, or the car they were driving, rather than attacking a person directly- unless I had to.  But Disintegration also takes a deep connection with the Quantum field.  

The last idea he came up with involved learning to control the forces of entropy.  Being able to make things fall apart, break down, age, etc (including people) would have a good chance of doing what I want, but getting it to work depended heavily on what you’re trying to use it on.  Basically, breaking a car was a lot easier than breaking a wall.

Rocío said that he thought he might know someone who could teach me to control entropy, but he didn’t have a personal connection with him.  He knew of two people who could disintegrate things, but one of them refused to teach the ability, claiming it was irresponsible, and the other was… a rather important person.  I was disappointed, because it sounds like disintegration is my best option, and it must have showed in my face. 

Rocío said that him being important didn’t mean he wouldn’t agree to at least meet with me and discuss things- he took mentoring new novas seriously and felt that it was part of his duty.  But he didn’t have a lot of time, and, to put it bluntly, this would be a big favor.  Plus, he would insist on meeting me first (assuming Rocío could even set it up, which he wasn’t completely sure of), to see if I was the kind of person he would be willing to teach.  Rocío also warned me that he was highly religious, and would almost certainly include philosophical discussions in any lessons he offered.  That pretty much clinched it for me- whoever Rocío had in mind was another Terat.  And it sounded like, if this happened at all, it would either be a truly monumental ‘favor owed’, or I’d be asked to render some kind of significant service right away in exchange. 

This is pretty clearly a big deal.  From everything that Rocío has said, disintegration is the way to go.  If I had to settle for something less, I could- anything is better than nothing, obviously!  But if I can reach for the big goal, I should.  But, if meeting with the Count was a big deal, it sounds like this is that much more so.  Potentially life-altering.   I asked him to give me some time to think it over, and he seemed relieved that I was taking it seriously.

The rest of the date was more fun and less intense.  😊

Chapter Text

Monday, December 1

School was fine.  I still get that ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ feeling from Bailey and Jeremy, but I’m making peace with the fact that she and I aren’t going to be friends anymore.

I texted Mrs. Adams yesterday to let her know that if she ever needs anything, to let me know, but that I was respecting Bailey’s obvious preference by not continuing to butt in.  She responded thanking me, telling me that she was sorry things turned out this way, and that she hoped things would improve in the future.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s that, unless someone reaches out to me.

I was nearly to the Clinic when it happened.  I was coming in, slowing down and getting ready to land when all my neck hairs stood on end and I got a sudden feeling of DANGER.  I didn’t question, but went invisible and but on a burst of speed, straight up.  I went as fast as I could, and some of the windows at the Clinic blew out.  I could hear the glass shattering, but that sound didn’t cover up the sound of two gunshots.  I wasn’t hit, this time.  And when I looked back down, there were two men, standing out in the open, calming disassembling rifles and putting them away in cases.  No attempts at escape, no panic, no nothing.  Another test, then. 

I flew around a little, and found a strange car parked nearby.  The Clinic is isolated enough that it was a good bet it belonged to the shooters.  I took pictures of the license plate, as well as the VIN number.  Then, I shredded all four tires.  That car isn’t going anywhere soon. 

Then, I went on to the Clinic.  If not for Sensei Laura, I would have just gone home.  But I have too much respect for her to ghost her.  Instead, I just told Bix, as calmly as I could, that the next time he arranged for any kind of ‘test’ like that, I would consider it a direct threat to my life, and respond accordingly.  I stared him right in the eyes and asked if he understood.  He said that he did.  I told him that the next time anyone shot anything at me, if I found out that the Clinic had anything to do with it, that would be the end of my involvement with the Clinic in any capacity.  I don’t know if I was in shock, or just too disgusted, but my voice sounded so empty, even to me.  I think he realized exactly how serious I was. 

Sensei Laura asked me what happened, and I told her.  (I left out what I did to the car.)  I’ve never seen her mad before.  Even with the bigot in her Tuesday class, she didn’t lose her temper.  But she cussed Bix in three languages and heavily implied that his family tree doesn’t fork.  Then she told me that instead of having class today, we were leaving.  Now.

Of course I went with her.  She drove us to her dojo, which was closed for the evening, and took me into her office.  She put hot water on, and offered me coffee or tea.  I took tea, she had coffee.  Then she sat down and was quiet for a while.  Finally, she started to talk.  I know I won’t get everything that she said exactly right, but I’ll do my best. 

She started off by saying that she was in an awkward position, because I was technically a child, and she felt that children should be protected as much as possible from the worst the world had to offer.  But that I was nearly an adult, and even if I wasn’t, that sometimes events ended childhood before it was time.  And that because of that, she had decided to treat me like an adult, even at the risk of doing more harm than good.  (I wasn’t sure what kind of harm could come from that, but she went on before I could ask.)

She started telling me about her early adulthood.  Just after she’d graduated high school.  She couldn’t afford college right away, so she was working crappy jobs, trying to save money, and just generally get on with her life.  She met some people who seemed really nice, and acted like they knew exactly what they were doing with their lives.  She didn’t have a lot of friends, so she started hanging out with them. 

They started spending more and more time together, and eventually, they invited her out to a weekend camping trip.  Of course, she accepted.  The camping trip turned out to be a wilderness retreat with their ‘mentor’.  The long story short, it was a cult.  But not the usual religious cult.  Not an apocalypse cult.  For a while, it was all about doing good for the community, and watching out for each other.  Eventually, she moved in with her friends.  Gradually, the focus shifted.  ‘Watching out for each other’ became watching for ‘others’, because ‘others’ couldn’t be trusted. 

The group began to self-isolate.  Only other members could be trusted.  But it was still necessary to go into the city and recruit.  Those trips were nightmares, since the cult had drilled it into them all- no one outside could be trusted.  The only safety was with the group.  Only the need to expand the group forced them into the outside world at all.  After a few months, Sensei Laura was terrified to go anywhere or do anything, for fear that someone would try to hurt her.  The cult reinforced this, by staging ‘attacks’ on members whenever they were alone.  It was always explained after as ‘this is what could happen to you out there, so it’s better to stay with us’. 

Now I was beginning to understand why Sensei Laura was telling me this.  She glossed over how she eventually left the cult.  I got the feeling that maybe she did something drastic to get out.  But if she didn’t want to offer, I wasn’t going to pry. 

She told me that after the cult, she was even more alone, and not willing to trust anyone.  It was even harder to find a job, too, thanks to the gap in her work history.  Finally, she joined the army, as much for not having any place else to be as anything else. 

She described basic training to me.  The abuse, the yelling, the constant demands, the irrational orders (sorting pine needles by length, cleaning toilets with shoe polish, only to then be dressed down for them being stained black with polish, etc).  She told me how everyone was made to conform, forced to move, act, and think as a unit; while at the same time turning on anyone who didn’t measure up.  She explained how the soldiers were broken down, only to be built back up again the way the army wanted them to be.  She said that the army didn’t try to train her, they tried to change her.  And they succeeded.  She served out her enlistment, never really questioned anything.  She was what they made her into- a good soldier. 

When she got out, she was even more lost.  If all she was was a good soldier, and now she wasn’t a soldier anymore, then what was she?  She didn’t go much further than that.  Only said that she’d drifted for a while, and eventually found people who helped her put herself back together.  The way she wanted. 

She asked me if I understood why she was telling me this.  I thought about it, and thought I knew.  The Clinic was using the same fear tactics that her cult used.  And the Clinic (or maybe Utopia in general?) was trying to remake me into what they wanted. 

When I explained, she nodded, and told me that I had made a start today, in giving Bix my ultimatum.  But that I would need to be on guard for more subtle attempts to control me.  And that I needed to have a plan for what I wanted to do when they crossed a line I wasn’t willing to put up with.  (I noticed she said ‘when’ they crossed a line, not ‘if’.)

I think I can trust Sensei Laura, but… Bix was the one who found her.  Maybe I can trust, but only so far.  Just in case.  So I just told her that I had already been thinking along those lines, but hadn’t made up my mind yet. 

That seemed to be good enough for her, and she told me that if at any point I decided I didn’t want to go to the Clinic anymore, she would be willing to train me here instead.  Her dojo doesn’t have the reinforced structures and equipment that the Clinic has, but since aikido was more a matter of skill and control than raw power, that shouldn’t be an issue. 

Then, she sent me home. 

On my way home, I texted Rocío, telling him that if he could set up a meeting, I was willing to do just about anything to learn.  He said he’d see what he could do.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, December 2

Today was a day for playing ‘catch up’.  I’d let a bunch of the things I’d been watching slide, and since I didn’t have any other plans, I decided to catch everything up as best I could.

So, in no particular order…

The guy who tried to mug the girls has a court date at the end of January.  The primary charge is armed robbery with a deadly weapon.  There are several other charges as well, but that’s the big one.  He’s gone through all of the pre-trial stuff already, but I wasn’t needed for that.  He plead ‘not guilty’, which seems ridiculous to me, but maybe he has a reason.  I’ll probably have to testify, but with everything else that’s been going on, I just can’t make myself worry about it. 

I heard back from one of the photographers from the fashion show, thanking me for letting me know about Watch_th3_Skys’ stealing their work.  The forum had already taken down the photos, but I had the screenshots, and forwarded them to the photographer.  I don’t know if he’s going to pursue WtS somehow, but he agrees that the forum isn’t at fault and acted in good faith.  So, while I’ll certainly help him if he decides to go after WtS, this is probably the end of it.

The big thing (and at the same time, not a big thing at all?) is Kansas.  The official investigation has pretty much gone cold.  The cops are still making a big show of ‘following up on all leads’, but they’ve got nothing.  They still haven’t released the ‘N.V.’ details, and some of the other things they’ve been holding back, I assume to weed out the attention seekers from people who really know something.  I’ve slid into their system a couple of times, and they’ve been going in circles. 

Some Feds have come in to help- no way am I trying to access their systems, but the regular cops include snippets from the Feds, so I can draw some conclusions.   They don’t seem to have much more to go on than the regular cops, but from context, I’m pretty sure the Feds think this was reprisal for something the dead hunters did, rather than a random act of (almost certainly nova) violence.  Which means they’re looking into the dead hunters’ lives more closely than the regular cops did.  Though I suppose, to be fair, the regular cops already knew the hunters (or thought they did), and so didn’t need to look much further into their lives.

Maybe it’s due to the Feds looking into things, or maybe that church has just gotten more careful, but I’m not able to glean much insight from their church bulletins and groups.  They’re still having guest speakers with connections to the Church of Michael Archangel, but those connections aren’t quite so obvious.  Again, just from context, I suspect that they’re still actively working on something, but if so, they aren’t doing it digitally.  I suppose an old-school phone tree is better for shady stuff.

I still haven’t completely decided what to do about Bix and the Clinic.  After everything he’s done, I think I’d be well within my rights to cut all ties with him and the Clinic both.  My contract doesn’t specifically state that I have to continue training there.  Of course, Utopia could simply ‘hire’ me through Nova Services International, and assign me to regular Clinic activities.  I don’t think they would, but they could.  On the other hand, I gave Bix the ultimatum.  It only seems right that I should give him the chance to make good on it. 

And part of me can’t help but wonder if, in some horrible way, Bix really is trying to help me by doing all this?  Some of what he’s said and done, and the trouble he took to avoid being overheard, heavily implies that he is.  Is this some twisted ‘I’ll hurt you, so someone else doesn’t hurt you worse’ thing?  Of course, even if that’s exactly what he’s doing, that doesn’t make him correct- it just means that he’s acting in something resembling good faith. 

What if he’s right?  What if he really is trying to prepare me for something worse?  But even so, that doesn’t make how he’s going about it okay.  And if he is right, then what is he trying to prepare me for?  Something to do with Utopia, obviously, or he wouldn’t be hiding his efforts the way he is.  But that’s leading me back into a paranoia spiral.  If I keep this up, I’ll be stalking him outside of work to shake him down for information.  And that’s just not me.  (And besides, even that wouldn’t tell me anything solid- it would only (maybe) give me more insight into his thoughts.)

It boils down to three options:

• Bix is sadistic, and going after me for his own sick pleasure.
• Bix is delusional, trying to protect me from a threat that’s entirely in his own mind.
• Bix is right, and trying to protect me from something very real.

Bix is definitely something of a prankster.  He enjoys surprising people and doing the unexpected.  But there’s a huge difference between shooting me with paintballs in the backyard and hiring gunbunnies to attack me on the street.  That goes beyond anything that could be considered a prank. 

I think a sadist would get more… enjoyment… from his activities.  My senses are sharp enough to hear Bix’s heartbeat, watch his pupils expand and contract, and so on.  I think I would know if he was getting his jollies by torturing me.  I really don’t think he is. 

So that just leaves two options- is he right, or is he crazy?  I suppose he could be both?  If he’s crazy, I should bring it up to Mr. Li.  If he’s having delusions, he needs help.  And he shouldn’t be doing work that feeds his delusions.  But if he’s right, then Mr. Li is the last person I should go to.  It could even be dangerous to go to him- for Bix, and for me.  Until I know which, I’ll keep Mr. Li out of it. 

If Bix is right, then he might be the only person in Utopia I can trust, even a little.  And I can’t trust him completely- he works for them, after all. 

I always do my best thinking on paper.  Working it out like this makes it clear- I have to go back to the Clinic tomorrow, as though nothing happened.  Just knowing that Sensei Laura has my back, to the best of her ability, helps.  She understands at least a little of what I’m going through. 

Chapter Text

Wednesday, December 3

The Clinic was… awkward.  Stiff.  I flew in slowly, invisible, and circled the entire perimeter twice before coming in.  Nothing.  No cannons, no snipers (infrared vision is great for picking those out), not automated equipment ready to attack.  The car with the mangled tires was gone, too. 

Inside, Bix and I both pretended like nothing happened.  No apologies. No explanations. No assurances.  Things were… carefully neutral. 

Sensei Laura worked me extra hard.  It almost seemed like she had something to prove to Bix.  Maybe, ‘See? You don’t need to play mind games to get good results’. 

Rocío got back to me while I was training.  He says that if I can be ready tomorrow afternoon, I can meet the man who might agree to teach me.  If I can’t meet tomorrow, the next chance won’t be for several weeks.  Of course I said I would be available.  Rocío said that this was only a meeting to see if we suited each other, and if the man would be willing to teach me.  That I shouldn’t go in with expectations.  I think this man, whoever he is, makes Rocío nervous. 

Rocío wouldn’t be going with me this time.  I was to meet Blinker at a certain location.  And I was to leave my Utopia communicator at home.  That seemed a little ominous, but if this man was Teragen, and maybe highly placed Teragen, it would make sense that he wouldn’t want any Utopia tech near him- I’m still certain there’s a tracker in it, and that Utopia can listen through it whenever they want. 

This might also be a test- am I willing to trust these people enough to go somewhere, without whatever protection Utopia might be able to offer?  Am I a snitch for Utopia?  If it’s a test, I intend to pass.

Of course, I agreed.

Chapter Text

Thursday, December 4

After school, I stopped off home just long enough to drop off the communicator.  I left a video playing on loop, so if they do listen in, it will just seem like I’m watching TV.  I’m not sure why, but I snipped off a tuft of Furnado’s fur for luck (he’s got plenty and didn’t even stop purring from my petting) and tucked it into my pocket.  Then I went invisible, slipped out my window, and went to meet Blinker.  Even just being out without my communicator felt a lot more freeing than I would have expected.  And I also felt surprisingly guilty.  Is Utopia getting into my head more than I realized? 

I made it to the meeting point, and Blinker showed up almost immediately.  He wasn’t unkind, or anything, but there was a sense or formality this time that wasn’t there when he took Rocío and I to Ibiza to (as it turns out) meet the Count.  The Count is pretty obviously the public face of the Teragen.  What does that make whoever I’m about to meet, that everyone involved is so much more… careful of him and his time? 

December in Wilmington has been pretty mild, temperatures in the fifties, sometimes sixties, down to the forties at night.  And there’s a quality to the air that lets you know you’re at sea level, and near the ocean.  I don’t know where Blinker took us.  We came out inside a building, in an interior room.  I didn’t hear any air conditioning, so I assume the drop in temperature was environmental rather than climate control, but it was clear that winter had a bit more bite wherever we were.  The air had a crisp quality that I associate with mountains.  Being an interior room, I couldn’t make a guess about the local time zone. 

There were some sofas in the room, and a TV.  There was a bookcase full of books in several languages.  Newspapers, again in several languages and from all over the world, were spread out on a table.  There was another table with a snack buffet.  There was breakfast stuff as well as regular stuff laid out.  I think it’s a waiting room, and people come from all over to wait in it.  So, it seems like whoever I’ve come to see takes his hosting duties pretty seriously, at least when it comes to seeing to people’s comfort. 

Blinker settled in- he said he’d been asked to stay until I was ready to go home.  I had just enough time to second and third guess myself when a young man (early twenties, maybe?) stuck his head in and asked me to come with him.  This was it, then.

This guy was young, like I said, short for a guy, and the kind of slender you get from swimming.  His skin was a pattern of tiny hexagonal scales, flesh colored, but with an iridescent sheen.  He had seven fingers on each hand, and (being barefoot) I could see seven toes as well.  His eyes were enormous, and a striking blue, but I’m not sure if he was born with them that way or not. His brown hair had blonde streaks that might have been natural.  His hair was in three braids and came down to his knees.  The whole effect was very striking, but there was no way he could have ever passed for baseline without some major efforts of concealment.  He led me down another interior hallway, knocked on a door, then sent me on in.  He didn’t follow me in.   

Inside was something between a library and a study or common room.  Dark wood, high quality, comfortable-looking furniture that had obviously seen decades of use and loving care.  Bookcases everywhere.  A long table with several chairs at the far end of the room.  Sofas and chairs arranged for conversation at the other end. 

And, standing next to that sofa group, was a man.  Bald, eyes filled with fire and light (literally- it spilled out and crackled around his head).  He just radiated presence.  There was a kind of remote kindness and serenity about him, like he had compassion for everything and everyone- from a distance.  Like he wanted what was best for everyone and everything, but didn’t want to force himself on them.  He seemed somehow comforting, but with some tiny sense that his anger might be as deep as his compassion.  I really don’t know how or why I had all those impressions.  Maybe he somehow engineered how he presents himself in that way?

This, then, was Scripture.  Jeremiah Scripture, as I found out later.  Long-time lover to Divis Mal.  Leader/mentor to the Cult of Mal.  Member of the Pantheon (the closest thing the Teragen has to a leading body), along with the Count and a few others.  Of course, I only found out those things later. 

He waved me over to join him, and offered a hand.  I went for the handshake, but he just caught my hand in both of his and stared at me for a long time.  I felt sorta warm all over (not blush-warm, there was something so impersonal about whatever this was that I couldn’t be embarrassed), and my buzzy tingly sense went off the charts.  Buried the needle.  He was doing something, something big, and I had no idea what.  Then it stopped, he smiled, let my hand go, and we sat down.

What can I say about the next couple of hours?  We talked.  Well, I talked.  He listened, and asked questions.  Sometimes, it seemed like he was listening as much to the spaces between what I was saying, and what I wasn’t saying, than to the words themselves.  And yet, I was certain that he’d be able to remember everything either one of us said or did that day.  I’ve never had someone’s attention be so completely focused on me before. I never felt like I was being ‘interrogated’, but he still got more out of me than I would have expected.  Things I’d forgotten about.  Things I’d pushed to the back of my mind and not thought about.  Feelings I didn’t know I had, or didn’t realize how strong they were.  Hopes. Fears. Dreams. Plans.

By the end, I think he knew me better than I did.  And all the time, I got the idea that he wasn’t so much learning as confirming.  Like he already knew everything about me, and just wanted to hear how I would present it to him.  Maybe he did. 

I had half-expected this, though not to anywhere near the depth that he drew out of me.  This meeting was a kind of interview, or maybe an audition.  To see if he would be willing to take me on as a student.  He never came right out and said that he was Teragen, but I knew the name ‘Scripture’ from the various books the Count had sent me.  I’d been studying them pretty consistently since then, and keeping my thoughts about them in an actual pen-and-paper journal.  (For some reason, I don’t want ‘S’ reading my thoughts on that specific subject, so I’m not putting them online anywhere.)  My study of Teras had come out in Scripture’s questioning, and he (very politely) asked if he could someday see that journal.  I’d brought it with me, just in case.  Did he know that, somehow? 

By this time, I was so comfortable with Scripture- no, ‘comfortable’ isn’t the right word.  I’m not sure there is a single word for what it felt like to be with him.  It was like sitting on the ground, relaxing, next to some amazing apex predator.  Knowing that if the predator turned on you, there was absolutely nothing you could do to stop it, or even escape.  And yet, knowing that the predator had absolutely no interest in doing any such thing.  Another way to think about it was like having tea with a fully-powered-up nuclear reactor that was politely holding in all of its radioactive danger for your benefit. There was nothing you could do to prevent it destroying you- and no reason to believe that it ever would. 

I handed over the journal without a moment of hesitation.

And then I started to worry.  I knew that this man views novas and Teras from an exclusively religious perspective.  And I… don’t.  I’m agnostic at best.  I don’t have anything against religion, it just isn’t for me.  Faith isn’t something that I really vibe with. 

My journal had long passages of me working out my thoughts on Teras, and the idea of the One Race.  How I could easily accept that novas were different than baselines- that much was obvious.  And that the question of whether or not we were ‘human’ depended largely on context.  Are we a different species?  Yes.  If Neandertals and Cro-Magnon men weren’t considered ‘human’, if only Homo sapiens sapiens was considered ‘human’, then no- we’re not human.  But we’re definitely ‘human’ in the sense of being people.  That eruption was no excuse for becoming inhumane.  That novas had a responsibility to act in a humane manner.  But even then, ‘humane’ didn’t always mean doing what others wanted.  Sometimes humane behavior hurt- like putting a suffering animal down, culling herds, destroying some things so that others could thrive. 

I had, over the course of several readings of the Count’s books, come to the conclusion that novas were not human.  But we had as much responsibility to care for and, well, act as stewards for the planet as humans did- maybe more so.  Humanity has nearly destroyed the only planet we have (for now), and even if novas aren’t human, we’re still (mostly) confined to this one planet, so it’s in our own best interests (as well as humanity’s) to clean up and repair the planet as best we can.  Because we live here, too.  And even though we didn’t make the mess, we still have to either clean it up or live in filth.

So, as much as I distrust Utopia, I couldn’t deny that they’d done a lot of good in the world.  That, under their auspices, novas had done a lot of good in the world.  That didn’t excuse Utopia’s butting in everywhere and pushing their agenda, but let’s face it- novas are still fundamentally human, in that we think and act like humans.  Many (most?) of us tend to be small-minded and selfish.  Without Utopia’s guidance, planning, and resource management, I doubt that the world would be in nearly as good a shape as it is right now.  Sure, the novas that actually did the work were capable of doing the work without Utopia (maybe).  But Utopia resources, training, and, well, vision took all those projects from could-be-done to done.  It’s a little like performance art.  Somebody inevitably says, “Well, I could have done that!”, and someone else comes back with, “Yeah, but you didn’t, did you?” 

So, novas are ‘different’.  We are not ‘human’.  I can even accept that we’re ‘better’ in the way next years model car or a next generation computer is ‘better’ than current models.  But I can’t agree that novas are ‘better’ in terms of intrinsic value.  There are a lot of baselines that are better than me, both objectively and subjectively.  There are baselines that run faster than I do, baselines that are prettier than I am, baselines that are more socially adept.  There are baselines that can do all kinds of things that I can’t do.  Is being able to lift a car one-handed somehow ‘better’ than being able to perform a lung transplant?  I don’t think so.  We might very well be humanity’s eventual replacement, but that doesn’t make us ‘better’.  It just makes us ‘next’.

My journal also included my thoughts on Divis Mal, and I was a little more worried about how Scripture would react to that.  Because most (but not all) of the books and things the Count had sent me made it pretty clear that Terats regard Divis Mal as an incarnate God.  Or at least, the avatar of some incarnate God.  Or something like that.  (The pamphlets that specifically had the Count’s imprint were the ones that didn’t paint him as a divine figure, which I found rather interesting.) 

I’m not at all sure I believe in any God.  But if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be Divis Mal.  Mal is a nova.  Just like me.  More experienced?  Yes.  More powerful?  Definitely.  More accomplished?  Absolutely.  More ‘enlightened’?  Almost certainly.  He’s certainly thought longer and deeper on ideas that I’m only scraping the surface of.  He’s either more enlightened or the scary kind of lunatic that you don’t realize is crazy until it’s waaay too late.  And if cleverer people than me haven’t caught on to his crazy, then either he isn’t crazy, or he’s so good at being crazy there’s no point in arguing about it.  So, sure, he’s more enlightened. 

But he’s still ‘just’ a nova.  I can’t elevate someone who, at the end of the day, is just like me (only much more so) to Godhood.  I can accept that he’s further along whatever path we’re collectively taking.  I can accept that he’s trying to guide us to some great future that only he sees (or maybe away from some danger that only he’s aware of).  But that makes him a guide.  A teacher.  Maybe a guardian.  Not a God.

If I absolutely had to assign some kind of mythological/religious title to him, maybe I’d choose that thing from Buddhism(?).  Boddhisatva.  Somebody who had gone to the edge of whatever comes next, and paused there, so others could catch up.  (If I’m using that word correctly.  I haven’t studied much Buddhism.)

I don’t think I have it in me to ever worship Divis Mal as a God, even though the writers of some of those books clearly do.  I can certainly admire him as an idealist, and maybe as a revolutionary.  I can respect him as a leader (whether or not I ever count myself as a follower).  But I can’t really come to any conclusions beyond those basics, since I’ve never met him, or even seen or heard him speak, other than that time in 2005 when he took over the world’s media to deliver the Null Manifesto.  And since it’s unlikely that I ever will meet him, that’s really all there is to it.  The books give him an absolute glow-up.  The Count’s pamphlets cast him in a much more human light, but still absolutely make him a figure of almost supernatural respect.  Utopia paints him as a frothing manic who eats baseline babies.  Most of the OpNet sites that don’t follow Utopia’s lead puts him on a pedestal of gleeful destruction- almost like edgy teenagers in crappy metal bands glorifying Satan. 

None of that is unbiased.  Therefore, none of that can be trusted.  If none of what I’m told can be trusted, then I can only rely on what I personally experience.  And I have no personal experience to rely on. 

Scripture reads fast.  He finished the journal before I’d even had time to really start worrying.  And if he was offended by what I’d written, he didn’t show it.  He just gave my journal back to me, smiled, and said that he’d be interested in discussing some of my thoughts with me in greater detail at some point.  That got my hopes up, at least a little.  I wasn’t about to be kicked out on my ass, at least.

Then he asked why, exactly, I wanted to learn such a destructive power.  I’d been ready for that question, at least.  I told him (briefly) about being shot in Kansas.  He didn’t seem at all surprised.  Maybe he already knew,  or maybe he just expected baseline attacks on novas.  I don’t know.  I went on to explain about the mugger outside the diner, how he’d threatened my friends, and how my little bzzzt! power hadn’t done anything to stop him.  How I’d ended up breaking his arm, and then just had to stand around and hang on to him until the cops showed up.  I told about the rednecks shooting at me on the street outside the Clinic.  I told him about Bix’s bolas and nets, and what might have been coming next.  I told him that I didn’t like fighting.  That violence should be a last resort.  But that if it came down to me (or the people I cared for) being safe, I couldn’t stand by. 

I told him how I had thought about how I would handle things like nets or cages, or something else that might keep me from flying away.  I had thought about how I might deal with weapons.  About how people weren’t as much of a threat if they didn’t have things like nets and cages and weapons.  And if I could destroy the things that made people dangerous, then maybe I wouldn’t have to hurt the people themselves.  And, how, if all of that didn’t work, then I wanted to be able to protect myself and my people.  Even if that meant hurting the people who wanted to hurt me.  I told him that Rocío had explained what he knew about what other novas could do; about controlling elemental forces, and entropy, and things.  And about Scripture’s disintegration power.  And out of all of it, that seemed like the thing I could use to do the least harm, but still be able to do more harm if I needed to.  It seemed like a scalpel, when all the others seemed like bludgeons.  I wanted a scalpel. Something I could keep hidden, and hopefully never need to use.

I told him that I was scared.  And that I didn’t know who to trust (but had a pretty good idea who not to trust).  And that the people around me pretty obviously had plans for me that I didn’t know about, and was pretty sure not to like.  And that I wanted to be able to do something about it- something that no one at home knew I could do, and therefore wouldn’t be coming up with ways to stop me, if it came to that. 

I’m embarrassed to say I was crying by the end.  I didn’t expect him to hug me.  He held me like that, not saying anything, until I got myself under control and pulled away a little. 

Then, like nothing happened, he said that he needed to see if my connection to the Quantum forces was strong enough for me to even learn what he could teach.  He reached out, like he was going to put his hands on my head, but then paused.  He was pretty clearly waiting for my consent.  When I gave it, he put both hands on my head, and I felt the same all-over warmth.  My buzzy tingly sense went off again.  He took his hands away, and said that my connection wasn’t quite deep enough.  But that it was close.  

Scripture said that it would be best if I could devote blocks of time to deepening that connection and training, ideally several days at a time, rather than just a few hours per session.  I told him that I was still in high school, but the Christmas break was coming up.  As long as I was home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I was sure I could be available for the rest of the break, if that would be a good enough start? 

I said that, depending on where we were, I could fly directly, since I didn’t want to assume Blinker would be okay with taking me on two round trips.  But, of course, if Scripture didn’t want me to know where we were, I would understand.  It was only then that I realized what this meant- Scripture was going to teach me! 

He just smiled, and said that assuming we came to an agreement, he would have no problem with my knowing where this location was- but that he would not allow Utopian technology in his home.  I completely understood that. 

So, I came right out and asked him.  I said that I knew he would be taking a lot of time out of his busy schedule for me, and teaching me something dangerous.  And I couldn’t (and wouldn’t!) expect him to do that without getting something in return.  I understand that everything has a price.  What was he going to want from me in return?

He got this weird look on his face, like he was momentarily sad, but wiped it away quickly.  He said that serving as a mentor to young novas was one of the things that gave him the most enjoyment in life, especially lately.  That it was a shame that people were trained to think in terms of debt and obligation; but he understood that that was how baseline society worked, and novas are still a product of baseline society.  He mentioned the Count, and his general preference for ‘favor for favor’ trading, and that he was prepared to accept that as well. 

He also told me, point blank, that he thought my future lay with the Teragen rather than Utopia.  I had mentioned my contract to him already, and that while I didn’t trust Utopia at all, I valued keeping my word.  In other words, I didn’t want to be the first one to break my contract.  And, whatever game Bix was playing, Utopia itself hadn’t broken its word to me- yet.  It was pretty clear that they intended to, but I didn’t want to be the one to do the wrong first.  But all that aside, I told him that I didn’t plan to continue with Utopia after my current contract ended.   After that, we’d see.

He smiled, and said that there were several members of the Teragen currently tucked away inside Utopia.  That he wouldn’t push me, but that choosing the Teragen didn’t have to be a public, bridge-burning choice.  And that we could discuss such things when I came to him for training. 

It was decided that I would come to him early Wednesday, December 17, and stay until early morning December 24.  Blinker would bring me that time, and, assuming everything went well, we’d see about my coming back under my own power early on the 26th, when I would stay until we either unlocked my abilities further, or I had to return to school. 

And that was that.  I must have been babbling, I was thanking him so much. 

Blinker was still in the waiting room, talking with another nova.  She… well, I can’t say she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, but somehow, she was everything I most wanted.  And I’m not even into girls!  When I came in, she stood up from where she’d been sitting next to Blinker, looked me over, cupped my cheek in her hand, then no-way-it-was-accidentally brushed herself against me as she walked out.  I was having… thoughts.

Blinker had to ask me twice if I was ready to go before I heard him. 

I slipped back into my window at home without incident, other than Furnado yelling at me.  There were no important missed notifications on my communicator.  When Mom got home, I explained that I would need to spend most of the winter break taking some extra training, but that I would be home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  She wasn’t thrilled, but agreed.  She also agreed to take care of the cats.  So, everything is set.  When I go to the Clinic tomorrow, I’ll tell Bix and Sensei Laura that I’ll be gone for those two weeks (and that I won’t be taking my communicator with me).

Chapter Text

Friday, December 5

It feels like I’m keeping a secret from the girls, not telling them where I’m going and what I’m doing.  I guess that’s because I am keeping secrets.  But this one is bigger than just school friends.  I’m doing this so that I have a tool in my ‘toolbox’ that nobody knows about, meaning that no one will be prepared to counter it.  (I meant what I told Scripture about hoping I never needed to use it.)  If they absolutely needed to know for some reason, that would be different.  But it still feels a little dishonest. 

I’m not sure why, but lately my hearing seems to be getting even better.  If I focus, I can hear pretty much any conversation in the cafeteria clearly, even through all the noise.  I found that out when I happened to see Bailey and Jeremy out of the corner of my eye, and ‘tuned in’ to them.  They were talking about how much of a bitch I was, how I was a slut and a whore for ‘throwing myself’ at Jeremy, begging him to sleep with me behind Bailey’s back.  I stopped listening as quick as I could, focusing on anything else.  Eeeeew.  That pretty much killed any lingering regret I had for our friendship.

After school, I went for my usual Clinic session.  I got there early enough to tell Bix that I wouldn’t be coming to the Clinic over the holiday, and that I wouldn’t be available by communicator.  He didn’t like it, but I made it clear that it wasn’t up for discussion.  Sensei Laura’s arrival cut off any brewing conflict.  I told her that I wouldn’t be around during the holiday, but that I wasn’t leaving until after my level test, and she was fine with that.

When I got home after the Clinic, I started playing around a little, seeing exactly what I could do with my hearing.  Weird special tricks, like with my vision?  Yes!  After some fooling around, it seems like I’ve developed sonar!  And when Mom got a call in the other room, I could hear both ends of it through the cell phone- and not just from being able to hear really well- somehow, I was listening in to the actual cellular sound waves!  That got me to thinking (and also to get Mom’s conversation out of my head since I didn’t want to eavesdrop), and I was able to tune into my favorite radio station (WKXS-FM 94.5) without an actual radio.  I just… decided to listen to it, and there it was.  I turned on the actual radio to be sure, and yup, it was the same thing playing.  Does this mean I can call people’s cell phones without using an actual phone?  Just… connect with my brain?  That could be incredibly useful.  And creepy.  Just in case, I took some time to actually memorize the numbers in my contact list.  Who knows if that might come in handy?

Chapter Text

Tuesday, December 9

I attended another of Sensei Laura’s regular classes tonight.  I’d half expected there to be some fallout from that woman being kicked out, but if anyone objected, nobody gave any sign of it.  Everybody was the kind of friendly you get when a stranger shows up to take part in a group activity.  Nobody is there to make friends, it’s a class after all, but it was the ‘we’re all here to pay attention’ vibe, not the ‘you aren’t welcome here’ vibe. 

After the class, Sensei Laura had me and  several others stay back while she went over how next week’s testing would go.  I’d thought that the entire class would be testing, but apparently not.  The most beginning classes (like this one) were for all levels of study before testing.  So, there were people who had just started, people who were ready to test, and even sometimes people who had tested and failed on the first try.  Sometimes, too, a more advanced student would help out a newer class, or drop back in on a lower-level class when they were recovering from an injury but didn’t want to sit out completely.  So, out of a class of about twenty-five, only ten would be testing next week.

I was a little surprised when she went over the techniques we would be expected to demonstrate.  To be honest, I thought there would be more to it than that.  Maybe the one-on-one training has put me a little ahead of where I thought I was?  I know Sensei Laura had told me at the beginning that even if my raw physical abilities might allow me to progress faster, she still intended to train me according to all the ‘traditional’ requirements, which I was (and still am) fine with.  This whole thing seems like math- each thing building on everything that came before, and the whole thing falling apart if you skip steps at any point along the way.  So I’m happy to stick with the minimum practice hours requirement between tests, as well as showing increased mastery of technique, form, and general attitude.  I just thought I was further behind than I am, I guess.  Does that sound braggy?  I don’t mean it to be.  There are still several of those ten who are waaay further along than I am.  I’m not sure if they’ve been at it longer, or if they’re just that much better, but I respect it, either way.

Chapter Text

Friday, December 12

Bix tried to convince me to take my communicator with me on my ‘vacation’, but I shut him down hard.  I told him that not only would I be well outside the range of any reasonable response time, but that I was entitled to a vacation.  Being unavailable was the entire point of a vacation.  I told him that it was up to him whether I left the communicator at home during that time, or dropped it off at the Clinic for safekeeping, but it wasn’t coming on vacation with me.  He tried to push the issue a little more, but finally said that I didn’t need to drop it off at the Clinic.  I ignored his attempts to find out where I was going.  (After all, I don’t actually know where I’m going, so I couldn’t have told him even if I wanted to.) 

I really wish I knew what Bix was up to, and where he really stood.  I’ve more-or-less come around to the idea that he really is trying to protect me from, or at least prepare me for, something.  But is it something real?  Or something in his own mind?  Something I’d agree was a threat if I knew about it?  Or something that I could handle easily?

I know I’ll never find that out at the Clinic.  One of the niftier aspects of my new hearing tricks is being able to hear the ‘whine’ of surveillance equipment.  I’d always assumed the barn was monitored, but I had no idea how completely.  There isn’t a square inch of the place that doesn’t have a camera, or at least a microphone.  Including the areas that should be ‘private’, like the restroom and changing area.  That one time Bix tried to warn me about Utopia’s plans for my summer might have been a real act of bravery for him.  Even with the efforts he took to be quiet, he couldn’t have been certain of success.  And even if Utopia didn’t hear what he said, they still saw him whispering and making an effort to not be overheard. 

So, while I definitely don’t trust Bix, I can’t distrust him either.  That doesn’t excuse the crap he put me through, though.  I just wish I could get him alone somewhere, where we could really talk!

Later-

It occurred to me that I could, at the very least, find out more about Bix.  The search took a little longer than I’d like, since I was being sure to cover my digital tracks, but I made a good start tonight. 

Getting his home address was easy enough.  He lives alone in a small apartment a few miles away from the Clinic.  According to his LinkedIn profile, he’s worked for Utopia for eight years.  Before that, he was doing something for an industrial think tank with military connections.  Very few details there, and I got weird vibes about pushing deeper, so I didn’t.  I don’t want to touch Utopia’s servers to find out more about him.  I know they’ll have the best possible security.  I’m good with a computer, but I know when I’m not good enough.  

He either doesn’t use social media at all, or he does so under a really effective cover, because I couldn’t find any traces of it. 

Oddly enough, I was able to get the VIN number of his car, and its maintenance history.  Assuming he holds to his normal schedule, he has an oil change coming up next month.  Maybe that could be a time to ‘accidentally’ cross paths with him away from Utopia’s gaze.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, December 16

The regular aikido class ended a few minutes early, since testing is done in front of everyone.  I was so excited for my 6th Kyu test!  Sensei Laura called us alphabetically, so I was near the middle.  I had seen the first few students go through the required demonstration of the techniques we’d learned, the holds, the falls, the grace and control in getting up, knowing when to ‘tap out’.  It got me to wondering- I know I heal quickly, and I know my body can just… take more punishment than a baseline.  Judging from what I’ve seen when watching the other students, I think if the holds were continued or extended past the ‘tap out’ point, then bones would almost certainly be broken and joints dislocated.  Which makes sense.  I chose aikido because it seemed like the gentlest, most controlled martial art that could still be useful in an actual fight, but it is still a martial art- not just an exercise regimen. 

I’m pretty sure if Sensei Laura took a baseball bat to my arm, the bat would stand as much chance of breaking as my arm- maybe more.  But part of aikido is mastery of controlled and applied force.  Can these holds really hurt me?  Tonight isn’t the night to find out, especially not with me starting my other training tomorrow.  But I think, when I come back, I’ll ask Sensei Laura to make the experiment.  Even if she managed to break or dislocate something, I’m sure it would heal within a few minutes (a couple of hours, at most), so there wouldn’t be any real harm done.  I don’t like the idea of being hurt, but I think it’s worthwhile to know what I might need to expect if I get into a real fight someday.  I hope she’s willing to make the experiment.

Anyway, my turn to test came, and (I think) it went fine.  I demonstrated the holds, fell in controlled ways, and tapped out when I was supposed to.  Etiquette and respect was part of it as well.  I think that, having seen a little more of what’s expected of me, I can make better use of my training time, and at-home practice.  I really appreciate the one-on-one instruction from Sensei Laura, but I can’t help thinking I might have understood a few things a little differently if I’d been in classes with other people.  That’s all right, though.  I know what to look for, moving forward.

The rest of the students tested.  I was pretty sure that nine of us would pass easily, but I wasn’t sure about the tenth.  It turns out, that in class, you fill out a card requesting to test, and as long as you’ve met the minimum requirements (length of time since your last test, knowledge of particular techniques, and so on), you’ll be allowed to test.  That doesn’t mean you’re ready to test, though.  I think part of it is knowing when you’re actually ready, versus when you’ve put in the minimum effort to try.  One of the guys pretty clearly fell into the latter group. 

Once everyone had tested, Sensei Laura and the two assistants she had observing the proceedings went back to her office, leaving the rest of us in the main room.  There wasn’t much talking.  One of the older women (one that I had thought especially skilled in class) mentioned that this was the second time she’d tested, and felt a lot better about her performance this time.  It turned out that last time, she was too nervous, stepped on the mats in street shoes, and fell badly during a takedown.  She didn’t get hurt, but it was clear she didn’t have the control she needed.  So, she failed and was just now able to test again. 

I think maybe she was telling us this in case the guy that didn’t do as well failed.  Maybe she was trying to preemptively make him feel better?  Not that I’m claiming to know anything, but he didn’t seem nervous to me.  If anything, he seemed arrogant and overconfident.  Like testing was a boring formality that he shouldn’t have to go through.  If attitude plays as much of a roll as I think it does, he might have failed on that alone. 

Sure enough, when Sensei Laura came back all of us except him were promoted to 6th Kyu.  In other styles, that would mean a yellow belt instead of a white one, but our school uses a white belt up until we qualify for a black belt.  Still, even without a tangible symbol of my success, I felt pretty good!  I tried not to look at the guy who had failed, but he seemed more mad than anything else.  I wonder if he’ll continue in the class?

After class was dismissed, Sensei Laura held the nine of us back for a moment.  She explained that although we would continue to learn and train predominantly with unarmed forms, we would also be adding weapon training to our program.  First swords, later knives and a staff.  She handed each of us a wooden sword (a bokken), and told us to take them home.  She wants us to get used to the weight, and get comfortable with them in general.  She taught us what we needed to know in order to treat the bokken respectfully, then sent us home.  I looked mine over closely when I got home, and I think it’s made of oak.  Definitely a hard wood of some kind. 

Chapter Text

Wednesday, December 17 (Begin training with Scripture)

Blinker brought me back to that same waiting room.  He didn’t stay this time, only wished me good luck and poofed back out. I wasn’t sure whether to wait there or go find Scripture, and I had no idea what time it was locally, so I decided to wait there.  It had been fairly early when I left Wilmington, and it had been late evening last time, so since Scripture had been awake and active that time, he might not be now.  So, I waited. 

About twenty minutes later, that same young nova came to get me again.  This time, I was taken to an interior courtyard.  There were several large trees, a fountain with benches, and a couple of tables and chairs.  I could see mountains in the distance, but had no idea which mountains.  Not American ones, I don’t think.  By the sun, it was mid to late afternoon.  Maybe this is a step in mutual trust?  Scripture is trusting me with more information on his location, while also putting me at my ease, knowing I could ‘escape’ at any time if I felt the need.  (I’m pretty sure that would be a false sense of security.  The whole point of my being here is to learn a power that he already knows well, and could use to kill me, even as I flew away.  But the gesture is still nice.)

I was asked to sit at one of the tables.  Scripture joined me a few minutes later, and another nova (this one with two extra sets of arms and a prehensile tail), brought out a cart with several dishes covered in domes.  Several objects were covered by a cloth on the cart’s lower shelf.  The multi-armed nova set out what turned out to be lunch for all three of us before sitting down with us.

Scripture introduced him to me as Reach, and said that he was also training, partially with Scripture, and partially with other visitors.  He introduced me to Reach as Heka.  As far as I can tell, the Teragen almost exclusively use their nova names, I assume as a way of distancing themselves from baselines.  I wondered who else was here, both as students and teachers, but didn’t want to pry.

Lunch was nice.  Baked trout on rice with vegetables.  At least, that’s what Scripture and I had.  Reach had cubes of what looked like raw beef.  I didn’t want to stare, but as he ate, I couldn’t help but notice that his teeth were triangular, and serrated.  Like some of the shark teeth I find on the beach sometimes. 

Everything was very polite.  We made the kind of getting-to-know-you small talk you do when you aren’t sure what you really have in common with someone.  I mean, my life is still relatively normal.  I can’t imagine how Reach spends his day-to-day time.  Baseline society would never leave him alone.

After lunch, Reach loaded the dishes back on the cart while Scripture uncovered what was on the lower shelf.  It turned out to be a tray with several small items on it: rocks, wood, plastic, a glass, several different bits of metal, etc.

Scripture explained that although I didn’t have my connection to Quantum wasn’t deep enough to actually learn to disintegrate things yet, he wanted me to see and understand the process.  Reach was learning to disrupt other people’s use of nova abilities, and Scripture wanted him to practice that at the same time.  In other words, Scripture was going to disintegrate each object, Reach was going to try to stop him, and I was going to carefully watch how it was done. 

He disintegrated the first couple of items (a rock and a stick) without Reach trying to interfere.  I watched him disintegrate the rock with my eyes, but honestly, there wasn’t much to it, visually.  The rock just glowed briefly, then dissolved into what looked like fine ash.  I mean, that’s amazing, I’m not suggesting that it isn’t.  But it’s amazing in sense that someone can just look at a thing, want it to not exist anymore, and… it doesn’t.  Without fanfare, without fuss, that thing is just… gone.  As terrifying as it is awe-inspiring.  But at the same time, visually, it was kinda ‘meh’.

I ‘watched’ him do the stick with my buzzy tingly sense, and that was much more impressive.  Usually, my buzzy tingly sense is just that- a sense.  Sensation.  Not visual.  But ‘watching’ Scripture work with my eyes closed, focusing on what I was sensing, it became almost visual.  Like the shimmery haze over a hot road.  It was like I could almost see bands of force swirling around something I couldn’t see with my eyes closed (the stick).  It was like an animation I saw once of an atom, with electrons swirling around it, but without a visible center part.  The swirls went faster, and tighter around the invisible center, then the whole thing collapse in on itself, with a few of the swirls dissipating while the rest… imploded(?).  If watching the rock with my eyes was tarrying in its implications, this was terrifying in application.  To be honest, if I wasn’t absolutely certain I needed a hidden talent that Utopia wouldn’t see coming, I might have abandoned this whole idea right then. 

I opened my eyes to find the stick in ashes and Scripture watching me.  He asked me what I’d sensed, and I told him about my buzzy tingly sense, and what I had seen while he disintegrated the stick.  He told me that it was fine to ‘watch’ that way, then told Reach to start trying to disrupt his further efforts.

I’m not sure what exactly Reach was doing.  Maybe it took him a moment to get started?  Scripture did a couple more rocks with no apparent interference from Reach.  When he moved on to a glass ashtray, I finally ‘saw’ some difference.  The swirling patterns surrounding the ashtray were being… disturbed.  It was like if someone was blowing smoke rings, and someone else passed their hand through the ring to disperse it.  But in this case, the ring kept coming back together. 

The disturbance kept happening, but each time the swirls stabilized, they were faster, and tighter to the invisible central object.  It took longer, but eventually the swirls imploded again, like before.  When I opened my eyes, Reach was panting a little, and Scripture congratulated him on making the process take longer and require more effort. 

They kept at it.  Reach kept trying, sometimes more successfully than others.  I kept watching.  Finally, Reach managed to completely dissipate the swirls of energy before they could collapse in on themselves.  When I opened my eyes, the little bar of iron had a pitted, flakey look (Not rusted.  It was like it had taken on the texture of sandstone, and had bits knocked off or rubbed away.) 

And Reach was sitting back in his chair, panting like he’d run a marathon.  He was clearly exhausted.  He even looked different.  Depleted.  Less… vibrant.  I’d almost say, ‘less alive’.  Not dead, but less alive.  Like a candle flame that was near guttering but hadn’t actually faltered yet. 

Scripture called a halt to the exercise.  I was surprised to see that it had gotten dark.  How long had we been at this?  Scripture sent Reach off to get something to eat and rest.  He took charge of the cart himself and motioned for me to follow.  We went back inside, down a couple of hallways, and into a kitchen.  Scripture started washing the dishes himself!  After a second, I started helping.  I had assumed that the younger novas I’d seen so far were assistants (I don’t want to say ‘servants’), but maybe things were more egalitarian.  Or maybe they were students who did chores as part of ‘earning their keep’.  Either way, as long as I was a guest here, I was happy to do my share of the work.

After we’d finished cleaning up, Scripture sat me down and asked me to explain more fully what I’d seen and thought about today.  I’d kinda gotten the idea that lying to him would be a Bad Idea, so I was honest when I told him that watching with my eyes, the way the things glowed, then fell into ash hadn’t really looked like much; and that it was only when I stopped and really thought about what it meant that it got scary.  But that when I watched it with my buzzy tingly sense (Scripture calls that ‘Quantum Attunement’- I can almost hear the capital letters), it was a lot more interesting.  I told him what I had ‘seen’ (since, really, I hadn’t seen anything at all, but that’s the best way of describing it), and he seemed really interested. 

Apparently ‘Quantum Attunement’ (that seems really pretentious, and I’m not sure I want to get used to it) is fairly uncommon, and having it strongly enough to perceive anything more than the presence, absence, and relative strength of quantum signatures is almost unheard of.  He said that he himself, despite being able to disintegrate things, had never been able to actually watch how it happened from the ‘inside’, so to speak.  But that his partner could.  I didn’t know who his partner was, and it seemed rude to ask, so I let that go, even though I was interested that someone else shared some of what I was sensing.

He asked me if I needed to sleep, and when I said no- that I still did as a way of keeping my schedule from blurring together, but I didn’t need to, he told me to stay awake tonight and extend my senses as far as I could over the grounds.  That many of the novas here did need sleep, and it would be less intrusive on them if I stretched my sensory abilities when they were less likely to notice and be disturbed.  He said that prolonged use of that sense is one way to deepen my connection to the Quantum field. 

Scripture took me to a nice little bedroom.  Like the rest of the building I had seen so far, it’s pretty clearly old, like centuries old, and just as clearly modernized.  We’re definitely somewhere in Europe.  There’s nowhere in the United States where you could get this blend of the ancient and modern.  The bed was a weird size, somewhere between a twin and a full, and obviously handmade.  There was a wardrobe instead of a closet, and a chest at the foot of the bed instead of a dresser.  There was a desk thing, with a mirror behind it that was probably a vanity in an previous life.  There was a window, but the glass was ancient- thick and bubbly- so I couldn’t see what, if any, view I had.  Still, it was another gesture of trust, I think.  That I could escape if I decided to, and this room was clearly only meant for one person to stay at a time. 

I set up my computer on the vanity, then realized my power cord wouldn’t fit the outlet.  Definitely in Europe.  That was okay, since I already knew how to run the computer off my own energy.  The OpNet connection is amazing (I suspect Synapse’s work), so I was able to connect with no problem.  I’d left a webcam set up at home in my room, and checked in on Furnado.  He was asleep on my pillow, and Pyewacket was with him.  Pye stays with Mom more than with me, and I’m just as glad.  He’s a great cat, but I’m glad Mom will have company that’s bonded to her when I’m not there.

I only stayed online long enough to write this up.  I don’t want to look like I’m shirking what Scripture told me to do- plus, it sounds like it’ll be interesting!

Later-

The sun is coming up, and at least some people are early risers here.  I spent all night doing… something.  Not quite meditation.  Actively invoking my buzzy tingly sense, rather than just having it go off when things are nearby, is very different, and a little draining.  Not much, though. 

When I started ‘looking’ around, there were nine other quantum signatures in the building, other than myself.  One of them was very bright, three moderately bright, and the rest relatively dim.  Of the dimmer ones, one was very, very dim, but seemed to slowly be brightening up.  I think the very bright one was Scripture, and maybe the very dim one was Reach?  He’d clearly exhausted himself today, and maybe I was ‘watching’ him recover his energy? Those two signatures also seemed more familiar.  I’m pretty sure that I would recognize them if I saw them again.  

Not really sure what else to do, I was studying each one in turn when there was suddenly a huge… flash(?) surge(?) wave(?) of quantum energy.  It almost ‘blinded’ me for a moment, like a bright camera flash.  When my sense was clear again, there was a tenth quantum signature in the building, much brighter than (I assume) Scripture’s.  And it was very close to him. 

I thought about running to be sure he was alright, but then I remembered that he had a ‘partner’, obviously a nova.  That was probably who this was.  So interrupting would be a bad idea.  And, if I’m being honest, even if Scripture was in trouble, if he couldn’t get himself out of it, there was no way that I could.  Especially if a bright quantum signature corresponds to more power.  If so, there was absolutely nothing I could have done to even inconvenience the new person. 

I went on with studying each signature in turn, leaving the newest one for last.  When I got to that one (it was still bright enough to nearly overwhelm my buzzy tingly sense), I was just settling down to really watch it, when it vanished!  Just… gone!  And then it was back.  And then gone again.  Then back.  I thought I understood.  Like when Alex had ‘dorm’d down’ back at the Clinic.  Whoever this was, was shutting himself (somehow, I knew it was a ‘he’) down and powering back up.  I think he knew I was watching him, and letting me know that he knew.  Or maybe telling me to knock it off. 

Just to be safe, I knocked it off.  I spent the rest of the night studying the others, especially the one I thought might be Reach.  By dawn, he was just as bright as the other dim signatures.  Right as the sun was coming up, I go the idea to see if I could see myself.  But I couldn’t.  Maybe there’s a trick to it, or maybe that’s just not something you can do.

Chapter Text

Thursday, December 18

Just after dawn, the tenth signature flared up super bright again, and then was gone.  But gone in the ‘not there’ sense, rather than the ‘powered down’ sense.  At least, I think so.  Just to be safe, I waited until the signature that I was pretty sure was Scripture started moving around before I left my room and went back to the kitchen. 

Sure enough, he was there.  Making oatmeal.  Who even eats oatmeal?  We do, apparently. As we made enough oatmeal for at least six people, Scripture asked me what I’d observed last night.  I laughed, and told him that I’d learned what not to observe.  I told him about sorting the different signatures, about being fairly sure about his identity, and Reach’s, but not recognizing the others.  I told him about being nearly blinded when the tenth showed up, and being glad I didn’t give in to my first impulse when it happened. 

He asked what that was, and I told him that I almost came running to be sure he was okay, and not in any kind of trouble.  He burst out laughing, then asked why I hadn’t.  I told him that if the new person was too powerful for you to handle, I didn’t stand a chance.  And besides, I’d remembered him mentioning his ‘partner’, and decided that was probably who it was, and went on with my observations, leaving out the new signature once he ‘flickered’ like he was giving a warning.

Scripture asked me what I would have done if I had decided that he actually was in trouble.  I’d actually briefly considered that last night, so I had an answer ready.  I said that if the other man was strong enough to overpower Scripture, then the best thing I could do would be to either try to get to the other novas in the building and get them out before the killer went on a rampage; or, if I didn’t think I could get to the others, then the best thing to do would have been to slip away and try to get to the Count.  That he would certainly need to know, and have the best chance of knowing what to do. 

Scripture seemed pleasantly surprised by my answer, but I’m not sure if it was because he expected me to try something stupid, like a fight, or just to run away and hide.  He just said that that had, in fact, been his partner.  And that he would be back this afternoon to see what he could do to help deepen my connection to the Quantum forces.

We scooped out a couple of bowls of oatmeal and left the pot warming on the stove for whoever came in after us.  While we ate, he talked to me more about Teras.  As I’d been warned, he viewed it entirely in religious terms (which I definitely do not), but wasn’t a zealot about it.  No, that’s not quite right.  He was absolutely zealous about it.  He just wasn’t pushing me to adopt his point of view.  Teras and Divis Mal are everything to Scripture.  He just doesn’t expect that kind of commitment from others.  I can respect that, even if I don’t fully understand it. 

How do you give yourself entirely to something, to an idea, that didn’t even exist ten years ago?   Even if Mal started creating Teras right when he erupted (I’m assuming he was one of the first novas to erupt, back in 1998), it’s only just been ten years.  I’m not sure that any philosophy can take hold so strongly that it dominates the understanding and belief of someone like Scripture.  But maybe Teras isn’t the main point.  Maybe it’s Mal that dominates his thinking, and Teras is simply a way of connecting with Mal? 

Even that, I have a little trouble understanding.  Dad left when I was too young to remember him, and Mom never dated much.  I never really had a father figure, or any kind of adult male interaction.  With Mom working so much to keep us going, she wasn’t around much.  I love her, but I basically grew up without her.  My love for her is somehow a distant thing.  Something to feel, not something to live.  Maybe being in a relationship brings out that kind of all-consuming passion.  Maybe I’ll develop that with Rocío, assuming things go well. 

But what Scripture seems to feel for Mal seems more like cultist with his cult leader, or a seeker for his guru.  I’m rambling.  The point is, Scripture is utterly devoted to Divis Mal.  I assume he’s met him, probably more than once, so that isn’t a parasocial relationship, even if Mal doesn’t look at Scripture the same way.  But still, how do you idolize someone that you know, even casually, so completely?  Is Mal that charismatic?  Is he a Jim Jones figure?  Will staying here make me drink the Kool-Aid?  I don’t think so.  But, would I know if I were in trouble? 

Later-

I am an idiot.  An unobservant idiot.  I understand now why Scripture is so into Divis Mal.  They’re lovers.  Partners.  Apparently for a long time.  Which means that it was Divis Mal that showed up last night while I was watching quantum signatures.  And Divis Mal that almost certainly noticed me watching him- probably watching him getting frisky with Scripture.  I was accidentally eavesdropping on definitely one, and probably two of the most powerful men on the planet as they were… together. <facepalm>

THIS IS HILARIOUS.  ONCE HE GOT OVER BEING ANNOYED ABOUT IT, HE PROBABLY LAUGHED HIS ASS OFF.

~S

Well, I definitely learned a lot since my entry this morning.  And not just about who’s doing who.  After the lecture/discussion about Teras, Scripture asked me to do the same thing I did last night, searching for other quantum signatures, now that they were awake and active (mostly).  Apparently my performance last night (oopsie aside) implied that most of the others either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t be disturbed by my watching. 

It was a little different this time.  Not only were the signatures moving around (most of them), but they were also doing things.  One of them was apparently still asleep, or otherwise immobile and inactive.  I think that was Reach, fully recharged, but not really doing anything.  The others were exercising their abilities in various ways.  I could watch the quantum energies flowing, but couldn’t really figure out what they were doing, beyond noting whether it was energy intensive or not. 

Well, that’s not quite true.  I could draw some conclusions.  One was using quantum in short, sharp bursts, sometimes several in a row, very quickly; other times in single controlled expenditures.  I think that one was maybe doing target practice?  That signature was working closely with another one.  That one was channeling quantum in a smooth, controlled way.  I wouldn’t have called it a flow at all, except that it rippled at little each time the others’ bursts came into contact with it.  One nova ‘shooting’ at another, and that one with some kind of force field? 

The others were much more erratic in their usage.  Little runs of power, a pause, then a burst of more intense activity.  That kind of thing.  I have no idea what activities would match those patterns. I gave Scripture the rundown of each pattern as I was ‘seeing’ it, and what in the case of the two working together, I thought they meant.  Then I realized that I only counted eight signatures, including Scripture in front of me.  One of last night’s group was missing. 

When I mentioned this to Scripture, he told me that the ninth was still here, but had ‘dorm’d down’.  He told me to keep looking for him.  It would be harder, since his ‘quantum fires were banked’, but I should be able to find him if I concentrated enough. 

So, I kept trying.  And kept trying.  And kept trying.  Finally, I felt a tiny flutter in my buzzy tingly sense.  It was so faint, I never would have noticed it if I hadn’t been absolutely focused.  Even then, I wasn’t sure.  It could just as easily have been wishful thinking on my part, or my senses showing me what I wanted simply because I wanted it so badly. 

I reported what I sensed to Scripture, and he congratulated me, but I wasn’t satisfied.  If he hadn’t told me the ninth nova was still on-site, I would have assumed he left and thought no more about it.  I certainly wouldn’t have put in all that effort for a result I didn’t even fully trust!  Clearly, ‘dorm’ing down’ was a pretty effective way of hiding yourself.  I’d have to keep that in mind. 

The hunt (the wild goose chase?) for the dorm’d down nova actually took a couple of hours.  I completely lost track of time.  Another good reason not to rely on my buzzy tingly sense to find dorm’d down novas.  That nova could have simply walked out the front door at any time, and I would never have found him.  If he had, I would have been searching for him, with no chance of success, until I either gave up or Scripture called me off. 

Either way, we were talking about the patterns I had observed, when that bright flash of quantum came again.  I recognized it as the same one(s) from last night, but wasn’t any more prepared for their brightness. He really was terrifying in his strength, and I hadn’t even met him yet.

That changed, almost immediately.  A couple of minutes after I ‘saw’ the flash, a man came outside to join us.  (Scripture seems to like being outside as much as possible.)  On the tall side of average, well-built without being excessively muscled.  Dark red hair brushed back from his face.  Piercing eyes, but somehow, I can’t recall the color. Black slacks, a soft grey sweater.  An open, friendly expression on his face, like he was expecting something enjoyable and perhaps amusing to happen.  His posture and attitude said that he was utterly at peace with who he was, where he was, and what he was doing; yet somehow he radiated the kind of energy and potential that should have had him vibrating with the effort of just standing still.

When he spoke, his accent was strange.  A blend of several things, like he’d spent enough time in enough different places to blur it.  I think there was Irish in there though.  And maybe Boston?  Scripture saw him, gestured him over to sit with us, and introduced me to Divis Mal. 

What can I say?  The man is a force of nature.  Maybe literally.  I can understand why Scripture has devoted his life to Mal, even without being lovers.  It would be easy to do.  Even though, somehow, I got the idea that wasn’t really what Mal wants.  I don’t think he wants followers.  Definitely not sycophants.  I picked up on that right away.  He doesn’t like yes-men.  (Not that I’m calling Scripture a sycophant or a yes-man- he isn’t.)

The discussion that followed was somehow different than discussing Teras with Scripture, even though we covered a lot of the same ground.  Scripture is a teacher, and enjoys being a teacher.  Mal doesn’t enjoy teaching, and it shows.  When he talks, he’s speaking as a guide, or maybe even a scout- somebody out in front, blazing a trail for others to follow.  He hopes people follow, maybe expects people to follow.  But he isn’t going to do much doubling back to be sure they do.  Maybe that’s where people like Scripture and the Count come in.  They’re the ones that are in charge of herding all the cats down the trail Mal marked for them.  It’s not that Mal doesn’t care if people follow him.  He absolutely does.  It’s just that he expects others to follow because they know it’s the right choice, not because he’s nagging them to.  Also, I think maybe the more time he spends herding the cats, the less of that trail he has the time to mark?

Talking with Mal, I was able to articulate some concerns with Teras that I hadn’t really been able to verbalize to Scripture.  Not because he would have rejected them, but just… somehow they didn’t come up.  But with Mal, I was able to bring my thoughts out.  And he actually listened.  This important, powerful man, listening to me, like I was important!  Is this why people join cults?

Basically, I have two main issues with Teras as a philosophy. 

First, that it liberates novas from the need for external control without actually instilling the overriding need for self-control.  It’s one thing to say, “Baseline laws do not control me, because I control myself.”  It’s quite another to say, “Baseline laws do not control me, because I reject any need for self-control.”  Regardless of intent, Teras is being used to embrace personal freedom without consequence.  And the Teragen’s (apparent) stance of tacitly approving any action a nova chooses to take, as long as it doesn’t directly harm other novas only encourages a lack of personal responsibility. 

I compared it to some of my friends’ younger siblings.  Most of them were growing up like regular kids, but two of them were turning out to be really nasty people.  After several attempts at explanation, I settled on this: that they’d figured out that their parents couldn’t truly control them long before they’d learned to control themselves.  That’s what I see a lot of the younger novas in the Teragen, like Boom-Boom and Dante, doing.  Rejecting any form of personal responsibility. 

Mal really listened to my concerns, and seemed to be taking them seriously.  Finally, he said that it was true that some Terats lacked self-discipline and, well, depth.  He said that he hoped that many of them would grow and mature in the coming years.  He also spoke about the need for novas to create their own, new society, culture, and norms.  And that we needed time to do so, especially since we needed to start from the ground up, as it were, rather than build from flawed baseline templates. 

But I protested that that would be nearly impossible, since all of us are built on flawed, baseline templates.  We’re barely ten years old as a new species, and most of us much younger than that.  Most of us were raised human, thought of ourselves as human, had human lives, families, friends.  Even if our bodies were changing, our minds changed much more slowly, and our spirits slower still.  Even if we are ‘the next leap forward’, we’re fundamentally still very human in outlook.  And we’ll continue to be, as long as our formative years are spent as humans.  Maybe that would change when we started having children of our own- that they might not be raised as humans from the beginning (that’s assuming our children would even be novas, and who can say about that?); but for now, we are what we are.  Growth and change may be possible, but they’ll be slow in coming.

And that’s when Mal told me the plan.  Just, laid it out there.  He plans for novas, as a people, to leave the Earth, journey into space, and either live indefinitely in space or find other planets to colonize, where we can live without baselines.  He said that it would be years before we were ready for this.  That we’d need to either be ‘vacuum-ready’ as a people, or build space ships beyond anything baseline science could manage, or send scouts ahead who could teleport or warp, enough to bring the bulk us through to… wherever.  He said he didn’t think we’d be ready as a people for at least fifty years.

I was stunned.  And, I’m ashamed to say, I selfishly started thinking about my own circumstanced almost immediately.  Fifty years.  My mother would be very old, if she was still here at all.  My current friends would be old, and we’d probably have lost touch.  If Bix is right about my lifespan, I won’t be much older than I am now (and that would put its own strain on relationships). And I’m already ‘vacuum-ready’.  In short, looking at things from my current perspective, there wouldn’t be much keeping me here by then.  Of course, I would probably have made new friends in that interval, but I’d be doing it with the lingering idea of an exit date in the back of my mind. 

Mal was going go while I was thinking.  About how baselines and novas ultimately couldn’t live together.  How baseline jealousy and need to control us would constrict our growth.  How our inevitable growth (and growing pains) would be a danger to baselines.  How their dependance on us would cause them to lose the drive to solve their own problems.  How already, baselines looked to novas to solve just about any major crisis that came up.  That if we separated and withdrew, both races could grow without stunting the other’s growth.  I’ll admit, the way he described everything made it sound reasonable.

He said that novas had no business ruling over baselines, but that baselines could not be allowed to rule novas, either.  And the planet wouldn’t survive having two proud, dominant, destructive species going to war over it.  In short, we could leave far more easily than baselines could.  And once we had left, we could consider an alliance, or mutual aid, or any other relationship.  But we had to have distance, and sovereign territory before any of that could happen. 

I pointed out that there were elements within the Teragen who did feel that they should rule over baselines.  That they should rule the world.  Some even wanted to see all baselines destroyed.  Mal looked sad when I brought that up, and a little resigned.  But all he said was that not everyone who began the journey of Teras would finish it, or even progress very far.  That, when the bulk of us left, those few who decided to stay behind and try to rule would almost certainly be overwhelmed without the support of other novas- that in fact, those novas would probably turn against each other in an effort to be the last man standing and rule the world.  That they’d either destroy each other, or weaken themselves enough that baselines would destroy them.  But that in the meantime, he would still hope that they’d have time to grow out of their misguided thinking. 

At that point, Scripture put in that as those elements of the Teragen made their views more widely known, it would encourage many more to reject them in favor of Mal’s way.  And that the actions of those radicals might also be the final catalyst for the rest of us to leave the planet.  I’m not sure I was meant to hear him when he muttered, “In chess, the pawns go first”.

Mal said that the time would come when Teras was sufficiently well-established that those fringe elements could be edged out.  But for now, the radicals, as well as the poseurs and wannabes (like Boom-Boom and Dante?) had their uses.  That made me wonder what Mal thought of me.  Poseur? Wannabe?  Utopian dupe? Baseline sympathizer?  Fifty years.  That’s a long time to change.  To decide who I’ll be.  At the same time, it isn’t very long at all.

My second problem with Teras is what’s missing from it.  That really got Mal’s attention, and I think might have offended him a little.  When I starting reading the books and pamphlets the Count sent me, I realized that I needed to forget everything I had heard about Teras on the OpNet and start fresh.  Start with the Null Manifesto, then move into the other material.  Go over each concept in turn.  And nearly from the beginning, I had sensed that something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.  It wasn’t until I started aikido that I realized what was missing.  Teras doesn’t address what comes next.

In aikido, you start as an unranked student.  You test up the Kyu as you learn and improve.  Some schools start at 6th Kyu, some at 8th or even 9th Kyu.  Regardless, you tested up until you eventually got to 1st Kyu.  Or until you quit, of course.  But from Day 1, you were taught that after the Kyu came the Dan.  That not everyone who progressed to 1st Kyu moved on to the Dan.  It was fine to stay at 1st Kyu- many students did.  But the Dan were the next steps.  The next phase.  Progressing into the Dan marked a completely new phase of training, and a significant change in your life.  And that even if you progressed through all 3 Dan, there was still more out there.  After 3rd Dan, there was still more.  Not in structured levels, but in the expectation of personal growth and exploration.  By the time you achieved 3rd Dan (if you ever did), you had all the tools you needed to move beyond.  Establish your own school, maybe even establish your own martial art.  At the very least, explore what all this really means to you in a way that no one else could ever really understand.  Unlimited potential for personal growth.

Teras, at least everything I’ve read and heard so far, lacks that.  It doesn’t address what comes next.  Teras is all about freeing yourself from baseline restrictions and baseline thought traps.  It’s all about opening up a new path.  But it doesn’t provide any kind of next step.  It doesn’t even imply that a next step is possible or desirable.  It’s like the Kyu ranks, but without ever even being told about the Dan, or what comes after. 

In aikido, people who get to 1st Kyu but don’t progress to the Dan tend to drop out eventually.  Maybe they continue to practice on their own, I don’t know.  But they stagnate, practicing the same things, in the same way, not really growing anymore.  The ones that avoid that, do so by moving on to the Dan.  But Teras doesn’t include anything like the Dan, let alone the ‘undiscovered country’ that comes after. 

So that was what I meant when I told Mal that I thought Teras was missing something.  It’s missing what comes after.  Mal has given us Teras, shown us a new path.  But he hasn’t given us the tools to either follow it to the end, or given us the skills we need to step off his path an make our own.  After all, Mal may be one of the first novas, and certainly among the strongest, but everything about Teras insists that the difference is one of quantity, not quality.  There’s no reason that any of us, given enough time and opportunity (and vision) couldn’t do what he’s done.  But Teras has given us the goal, and the desire, without actually giving us the skillset to make those desires and goals a reality. 

In other words, Teras has begun to break us out of baseline ideas.  But that’s not enough, if it doesn’t provide even the beginning of a framework to replace what we’ve lost along with those structures.  What happens when we outgrow Teras?  Because we will.  And if there’s a plan for that, it’s been very carefully concealed.

Mall just kind of stared at me.  I thought for sure I had screwed up royally.  Finally, he said that no one had ever come right out and asked him that before.  That if anyone had really thought about it, they’d kept their doubts to themselves.  Then he said the last thing I ever thought I’d hear from him- that he didn’t know what came after Teras.  That he hadn’t seen that far ahead yet.  That that was part of why he spent so much time away from everything- that part of his blazing the trail was his own attempt to find what came next. 

He said that he wasn’t a teacher.  That he didn’t really like teaching.  It wasn’t a role he was comfortable with.  He said that that was part of what the Pantheon was for- that it was the closest thing the Teragen had to a leading (not ruling) body.  That it was comprised of Terats who were teachers, though not always teachers in the usual sense.  That those Terats had gathered followers of their own, each comprising a different Teragen ‘school of thought’.  That each of them guided their adherents in the path of Teras as they thought best.  And when they time came, one (or more) of them might actually be the one to find ‘what comes next’.  And he was content to let them do it.  That if he was a trailblazer, or a scout, they were the troopleaders and guides who took care of those who came after.

And that, apparently, was enough for the time being.  I was told to go get something to eat, and we’d work on my Quantum connection after dinner.  I’m pretty sure this was more an excuse for Mal and Scripture to talk by themselves, since Scripture at least knows that I don’t need to eat any more than I need to sleep.  They must  have thought that I was out of earshot already, but I heard Mal tell Scripture to ‘keep a close eye on her’.  The tone didn’t sound ominous, but that really could be taken several ways. It made me a little nervous.

Chapter Text

Friday, December 19

I didn’t get a chance to record what happened last night, so I’m reconstructing as best I can.

So much of this is hard to put into words.  Maybe there aren’t words for it.  Maybe English just isn’t meant for things like this- but would any other language be any better?  Maybe it’s only a matter of time before we invent out own language….

Anyway. After dinner, Scripture and Mal brought me into a small interior room.  It was entirely stone, with a fireplace (unlit) and two large floor cushions.  Mal sat me on one, and took the other himself.  He had me close my eyes, and he put his hands on my head.  They were cool, except for the fingertips, which were almost burning hot.

How can I describe the feeling of what he did?  It was weirdly intimate, but utterly non-sexual.  Like touching a place that really wasn’t designed to be touched.  The closest I can come is what it might feel like to have a stranger gently stroke your ear canal or massage your tongue.  Very odd.  Whatever he was doing, it… expanded something inside myself.  Something that I’d gotten so used to that I rarely even noticed it anymore.  And when that place expanded, energy welled up to fill the new space.  Energy that I was familiar with- Quantum.  But more than I’d ever held before. I felt… stretched.  Like a balloon.  And at the same time, absolutely comfortable.  Like I was more completely myself than I’d ever been.  I felt like I was glowing, but I wasn’t (I checked). 

Then Mal took his hands away, but the expanded feeling stayed.  He told me that he’d increased my connection to the Quantum field, temporarily.  (I wished I’d thought to watch with my buzzy tingly sense, dammit!)  He said the effect should last for at least a couple of hours.  In that time, he wanted me to do something I’ve never done before- exhaust myself.  Use every scrap of quantum energy I could wring out of myself. 

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure how to use up as much energy as I had right then in that little amount of time.  Flying doesn’t take much energy, even invisible flying.  And flying with my maximum speed risked damaging the building, or at least breaking a lot of windows.  And borrowing energy from other novas is exactly the wrong thing to do.  That really only left one option. 

It was late enough in the day that the kitchen was empty.  So I went in, unplugged everything, and ran every last appliance off of my own quantum field.  Once I had everything going, I looked around the cabinets and found all the appliances that don’t get used often- crock pots, blenders, an ice cream maker, of all things.  I ran all of them as well. 

That still didn’t feel like enough, so I found some potatoes and started electrocuting them in my hands.  That, surprisingly, took more work.  With the appliances, once I started them up, they just drew from me passively.  But I had to start from scratch on each potato.  Once, I put too much energy into a potato, and it exploded.  Oops.  I didn’t want to waste all the potatoes I’d been playing with, so I ended up throwing them in the slow cooker (which I was powering).  At least they’ll be useful for tomorrow’s meal. 

Eventually, I got bored with playing with kitchen appliances, so I put everything away, plugged everything back in properly, and started flying up and down the hallways as fast as I could without damaging anything.  I stayed up near the ceilings, so there wasn’t any risk of collision.  I did that for a while, blinking in and out of invisibility.  Finally, I ended up just forcing as much electricity as I could through my hands into a bucket of water.  Even though I’m immune to my own powers, it still tingled. 

Finally, after doing everything I could think of to ‘waste’ energy, I started to feel tired.  Is this how parents of toddlers get them to go to bed?  I was beginning to feel like Reach looked after Scripture’s lesson in disintegration. 

I staggered back to where I could feel Scripture and Mal (not where I’d come to realize was Scripture’s bedroom).  I could hear them talking, but was too tired to really focus on what I was hearing.  Mal looked me over (I could tell he was using something more than his eyes), then said “Almost, but not quite.”  Then he pulled every last bit of energy I had left out of me.  It felt a little like that time I borrowed energy from Alex, but in reverse.  It felt awful.  Like an open, gushing wound.  If that was how it felt when I did it to Alex, maybe I can understand his reaction.  A little. My knees buckled, but I don’t remember hitting the floor, if I did.

I woke up this morning in my bed.  This bed.  Not my bed at home.  I wouldn’t say I was sore exactly.  But I was feeling the aftereffects of using so much power in so short a time.  Or maybe it was the consequences of whatever it was Mal did to expand my capacity for Quantum yesterday.  I felt replenished, sorta.  I mean, I was back to my usual self.  But after having been more, going back to being the usual feels like less.  Like wearing six inch heels, then going back to being short.

Scripture was helping himself to crock pot potatoes when I got to the kitchen.  When I asked, he told me that taking quantum from someone else was never comfortable for the person losing it, but it was much less unpleasant to lose some from a full (or nearly full) reservoir than it was to lose the very last of your energy.  So, I felt better about doing it to Alex.  He didn’t go through nearly what I experienced last night. 

I’d hoped that exhausting myself like that would be a one-time thing, but no.  Scripture told me to take the morning to do the same thing (but to please leave the kitchen alone during lunch).  Only this time, I was supposed to burn through my energy without Mal augmenting it.  When I was finished, come find him in the courtyard. 

Honestly, the thought of another round of useless ‘exercises’ that were more boring than anything else, was a real turnoff.  So I got a different idea.  I tracked down Reach, and asked if he would be willing to practice with me. He was game, and we got started.  He disrupted my flight. He disrupted my invisibility.  He disrupted my electricity conversion.  He was a lot better at disrupting me than he was at disrupting Scripture.  By the time we were both tired, we’d become something on the way to being friends, I think. 

I wasn’t tired enough, yet, so I went back to flying around and doing anything I could think of with electricity.  Finally, I went back to Scripture.  I was exhausted, but not so much that I couldn’t stand.  We talked for a little while, then Mal showed up again.  He must be a busy guy.  He always seems to be coming and going. 

We went back to the little room, and Mal did the same thing where he pulled (almost) the last of my energy out of me again.  Even being (sorta) ready for it, it still sucked.  Either being prepared helped, a little, or he didn’t take quite so much this time, because I didn’t pass out- I just wished I could.

I was barely able to hold myself upright on the cushion while he did the same expansion thing he did last night.  It felt different this time.  Still weirdly intimate, but that was overshadowed by an almost desperate response in my body.  Not like hunger, or anything I’d ever felt before.  It was more like, instead of water finding equilibrium between two levels, the lower level was actively drawing in the water, instead of letting it come on its own.  I’m not sure I liked the feeling.  It felt so… needy. 

It didn’t fill me all the way up, either.  It was like Mal expanded my capacity for Quantum to the same degree he had before, but only that same amount of extra energy came with it.  Like putting ten dollars in a gas tank, instead of filling it up.  But after being so tired, and so empty, anything felt wonderful. 

When we came back out to the courtyard, Scripture had another tray of items, like before.  He had me watch him work a few times, and it seemed like I could see the flows and shifts in power a little more clearly.  Then, he metaphorically put his hands over mine and started to lead me through the process. 

It was halfway between a guided meditation and teaching a young boy to tie a necktie by tying the same tie around both throats at once. It also didn’t seem to be working.  I was trying.  I really was.  Maybe I was trying too hard.  And Scripture was beyond patient with me.  He really is a good teacher.  He kept going over it, and going over it.  And I got so desperate not to disappoint him that I did… something.

It felt a little like when I tried to reach into the generator and reached into Alex instead.  But this time, it was Scripture.  And this time, it wasn't energy that I stole borrowed.  This time, it was power. 

I had already been using my buzzy tingly sense to watch the energy come from Scripture and surround the various items before destroying them.  But when I looked harder, I could see where that ability ‘lived’ inside him.  And almost before I knew what I was doing, I reached for that place.  Maybe I just wanted to see the shape of it better?  I’d like to believe that.  I don’t want to be someone who just takes what they want if they get desperate enough. 

But, I somehow reached into Scripture, and grabbed part of what he was using.  It flowed into me the same way energy had flowed into me from Alex.  And it felt even better.

Scripture jumped like somebody’d goosed him, and the whole exercise fell apart.  He wasn’t mad, exactly.  But he wasn’t pleased.  After feeling how bad it felt to have Mal take energy from me, I can only imagine how much worse this would probably feel, so I can’t blame him.  Plus, it was rude.  He’s going out of his way to do this amazing thing for me, and just… attacked him.  I mean, I didn’t mean to.  I didn’t even know I could.  And I stopped, and apologized right away.  But still. 

Scripture stared at me for a long time, and my buzzy tingly sense went off again.  I think he was somehow looking inside me.  I’m not sure if I mean that metaphorically, literally, or both.  I felt like I was being weighed.  And judged.  Not in a self-righteous way, but in a ‘discerning the nature of my heart’ way.  Like that Egyptian myth where if your heart (soul?) doesn’t balance against a special feather, it gets eaten by a monster. I really hadn’t meant to do it, and I really did feel bad about it, so I just sat there and didn’t try to excuse or justify myself. 

Finally, he asked me to tell me again, in full detail, what happened that time with me and Alex.  I did, and offered to show him my journal entry for that day.  It’s personal, and I didn’t really want to show it, but after what I did, it seemed the least I could do to make up, even a little.  He said that wouldn’t be necessary. 

Eventually, he said that he perhaps should have expected it, that stealing (he said stealing, and I really can’t argue the point) powers was, in a sense only an expansion of stealing energy.  And that the two situations were very similar.  So it wasn’t completely unexpected that being placed in the same situation would trigger the same response.  He said that I might have even been able to steal powers for a while, and that there just hadn’t been a situation where it had come up.  He also said that he was partly to blame for making it so easy for me to do- that I’d caught him off guard.  (I think maybe he was trying to justify himself a little there, but no way was I going to mention it.)  He said that we would work on making sure I learned conscious control of those abilities in the future, so that it would only happen when I intended, rather than anytime I was under stress next to another nova.  But for now, we’d work with what we had.

Because, for better or worse, for now I could actually do the things he’d been trying to show me.  It wasn’t easy.  Using my own abilities feels like a part of me, like walking or breathing.  When I borrowed some of Alex’s energy, it became mine.  As soon as it was in my system, I couldn’t tell that it had ever been Alex’s.  This was completely different.  Even though I took part of Scripture’s power into myself, it didn’t feel like mine.  It felt like trying to type in heavy winter gloves or drive the drunk driving simulator car they had at school that one time.

We turned back to the tray of ‘stuff’.  I had already watched Scripture work several times, so I knew, in theory what to do.  But it was really hit-or-miss.  Especially since I only had the little bit of extra energy that came from Mal’s expansion to work with.  Over the course of seven attempts, I was able to manage it three times.  A rock, a stick, and a piece of fabric.  It was strange that what the item in question was made of didn’t seem to matter.  And size only seemed to matter in terms of how much of it I was able to destroy. 

Because it wasn’t an all-or-nothing thing.  I was able to destroy the rock and the fabric completely, but the stick sorta… stopped… mid-fall-apart.  I would have thought it was because I ran out of energy before I finished the job, but I managed the rock (after a couple of false starts) in its entirety after my partial success with the stick. 

After seven tries, I was exhausted.  Not the absolute exhaustion from before, but too tired to even think about trying to make anything else happen.  Scripture told me that that was enough, and to get something to eat and go to bed.  Even without needing to eat (as tired as I was, I still wasn’t hungry), there’s still something comforting and normal about food.  And as I went to the kitchen, I realized that I wasn’t tired in the physical sense.  It wasn’t like I’d run a marathon, or something.  It was less tired and more depleted. 

I didn’t have the energy to power my computer tonight to update this, but luckily there’s enough battery for a pre-bed entry.

Chapter Text

Saturday, December 20

Scripture had me meditating all morning, exploring the nature of Quantum within myself. 

In the afternoon, I think he’d decided to make a virtue of necessity, by teaching me how to consciously choose to steal borrow powers (and, by extension, how not to).  Oddly enough, it was a lot harder to do on purpose than accidentally. 

I’m not really sure why.  Maybe because, on some level, I know that borrowing something so personal from another nova is wrong, under just about any circumstance?  Or maybe I just don’t want other novas to dislike or distrust me; and they would if they thought I was likely to take their powers away.  It’s different than what Reach can do- he might make it harder to use what you have, or even block you entirely, but your powers are still yours.  You can still feel them inside yourself, waiting to be used.  If borrowing a power feels anything like borrowing a lot of energy, then it must be awful.  Part of me is curious to experience it myself, if only so that I know what I’m potentially doing to someone else.  But most of me is just as happy that I probably never will know what it feels like. 

Unless Mal can do that, too?  Maybe he’ll be angry at what I accidentally did to Scripture.  I don’t think he’d do anything about it, really.  But I’d be mad if somebody attacked Rocío, especially if it happened while Rocío was trying to help them.  And I haven’t known him nearly as long as Mal has known Scripture.  If Mal does decide to do something, I’ve made up my mind to accept any punishment he decides on, short of doing me permanent damage.  (Not like I could stop him, anyway.)

Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that after this afternoon’s work, I won’t be accidentally taking anything that doesn’t belong to me anymore.  And that’s a good thing.  Among other things, that’ll make is less likely that Utopia will find out I can borrow powers as well as energy.  Somehow, I’m sure that if they knew, they’d be even more determined to use me on something connected with Team Tomorrow.  I haven’t forgotten Bix’s hints about what might be planned for me over the summer.  The less Utopia knows about me, the better.  They already know too much.

Later-

Mal came back again, and did his expansion thing again.  Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I think maybe he didn’t take as long?  Or maybe, he didn’t have to expand as much?  Maybe everything we’re doing is working? 

He didn’t seem angry at me, either.  I can’t imagine that Scripture didn’t tell him.  Maybe he’s content to let Scripture deal with me in whatever way he chooses, and doesn’t feel like he needs to get involved?  That seems likely.  As close as he is to Scripture, there’s a distant quality to Mal.  An aloofness.  Like he has his mind on much bigger, more important things.  Which is probably true. 

Since I wasn’t made to run myself ragged all day, I was able to practice a lot longer tonight, and Scripture tested my control by having me borrow just enough of his disintegration ability.  If anything, that made using it even harder, like I didn’t have as much to work with.  But at the same time, I had more raw energy, so I was able to try a lot more often before getting too worn out.

Chapter Text

Sunday, December 21

Mal did his expansion thing again, this time in the morning before he left for whatever he does all day (I am so not asking). 

This time, Scripture had me working at a steady pace all day- never too hard.  He was having me pace myself, resting when needed, to keep my energy levels fairly consistent.  It’s surprisingly difficult (and boring) to find things to do when the goal isn’t ‘get <X> done’, but ‘exert yourself consistently’.

But it finally happened!  I was so busy paying attention to pushing myself only so much and no more that I completely lost track of time.  It was well after dark when Mal came back, and it was only then that I realized that what he did to expand my capacity for Quantum hadn’t worn off.  And it should have, hours ago! 

After some testing, Mal and Scripture agreed- my connection to Quantum has deepened enough that I can try to actually learn what Scripture can teach me on my own,, without Mal’s help.  Scripture seemed a tiny bit sad when he said that.  Mal left later that night, and I wonder, does Mal not usually come around as often?  Is he usually too busy to spend that much time with Scripture?  And now that things are going back to normal (for them), Scripture is going to miss having him around as often?  That’s really sad.  ☹  I don’t think I’d want to be in a relationship with someone so important, powerful, and famous. 

Chapter Text

Tuesday, December 23

I’ve spent the last few days doing absolutely nothing but trying to disintegrate small objects.  Key word being ‘trying’.  Scripture says I’ve seen it done enough, and done it myself enough when I was borrowing his power, so I know what it looks like when it works, how it feels, and what to do.  So now, all I can do is practice practice practice until knowing becomes doing. 

It isn’t going well. 

Scripture has also told me that under no circumstances am I to continue to practice when I go home tomorrow (not that I would have). 

But on the positive note, Scripture trusts me enough to tell me where we are, and allow me to fly home rather than have Blinker take me home!  I won’t say where we are, though.  ‘S’ might not be the only one capable of hacking into my journal. 

The trip will take some time (I don’t want to say how much), so I’m flying out early tomorrow morning.  And I’ll be invisible for at least the first leg of the trip, so I won’t be noticed coming and going.  No one asked to do that, but it’s the least I can do to keep this place safe from any prying eyes.

Chapter Text

Friday, December 26

Christmas was great, and I was glad to see Mom again (Furnado made sure I knew he was angry with me by ignoring me for a good two hours.  Pyewacket allowed me to pet him, but he’s absolutely Mom’s cat.)

I timed my return to Scripture’s home for early morning, local time, again coming in invisible.  It seemed the best time to avoid being detected somehow.  Anyway, as soon as I was back, Scripture set me right back to doing the same exercises I was doing before I left.   And I kept right on trying.  And trying.  And trying.

When I broke for lunch, I took the time for a quick look around with my buzzy tingly sense.  Mal wasn’t around, and while by now I’d met the other novas in residence, I didn’t know them well enough to put a quantum signature to a name with any but Scripture and Reach. 

And, when I ‘looked’, Reach’s signature was… different.  Very different.  He was somehow… more himself.  Like his signature had expanded.  Not gotten stronger.  Gotten larger.  And it felt different.  It was also the weirdest combination of absolute stillness and constant, subtle motion. 

Usually, a signature reflects whatever the person is doing.  Using powers, sleeping, doing manual labor, whatever.  And it moves accordingly.  Big, internal movements with power use, tiny shifts at rest, whatever might be called for with other activities.  What Reach’s signature was doing- I can only call it surging.  To compare it to a washing machine completely misses the somehow awesome nature of the movement, but the comparison fits. 

Curiosity will kill me someday, I’m sure of it.  I had to find out what he was doing.  Soooo…. I went to his room.  None of the bedroom doors have locks on them, so when I knocked and got no answer, I might have peeked.  A little. 

It was dark in his room.  The air was damp, and oddly humid, with a musty sort of smell.  (Reach never smelled like that.)  There wasn’t much in the way of furniture.  Instead of a bed, he had something more like a nest of blankets and pillows.  But he wasn’t in his nest.  If my buzzy tingly sense didn’t insist otherwise, I would have sworn he wasn’t in there at all. 

In the middle of the room was a large, leathery, something.  If a bat could wrap its wings so tightly around itself that they fused together, it might look something like this.  There were elements of a bug’s exoskeleton, too.  Like a cicada, maybe?  There were cocoon-like elements as well.  It was just laying on the floor, pulsing a little.  It was obviously alive.  And my buzzy tingly sense told me that Reach was inside it somehow. 

I knew better than to touch the thing, so I went to find Scripture.  He told me that Reach was fine, but that what he was doing was a very private thing, a Terat thing; and I wasn’t to interfere with it in any way.  His tone made it clear that I wasn’t in trouble for peeking, but that I was not to ask further questions.  Maybe if (when) I fully join the Teragen, I’ll find out what this is.  But it’s understandable that they’re keeping secrets. 

I went back to my exercises.  Staring at rocks and sticks and things and trying to take them apart with your mind is about as useful as trying to blow passing cars up with psychic energy as a kid.  The only difference is that, eventually, I should actually succeed.

Chapter Text

Monday, December 29

I DID IT!!!!!!  Finally!  I disintegrated a rock!  …And part of the tray it was on.  Oops. 

It was the most exciting thing!  Well, it started out as the most boring thing.  Just… staring at a rock and ‘poking’ it with quantum, and telling it to fall apart.  And, of course, it refusing to fall apart.  But then, I poked it extra hard, and it did fall apart!  Just like I wanted!  Into a little poof of dust.  Part of the tray poofed too, which worried me.  The whole reason I wanted to learn this specifically was to be as careful and selective as possible in destroying things.  But, really, it was my first time.  When I was first learning to fly, I kept hitting the walls.  This is probably no different.

Of course, I immediately tried again, on a stick.  No good.  Again.  No joy.  Again.  Dusted!  This is definitely going to take practice. 

By the time Scripture came to check on me, I’d dusted a total of two rocks, a stick, a piece of fabric, and jack (the little pointy toy, not the car-in-the-air tool).  I was also almost as tired as when Mal had pulled all my quantum away from me. 

Scripture congratulated me, and seemed to be genuinely happy.  I was a little afraid he’d want to send me home, since his job was technically done, but no.  He wants me to stay and practice more- to get as much control as I can. 

I’m glad of it.  Now that it’s too late to back out, I’m a little scared of what this power can do.  Maybe that’s a good thing.  If I’m afraid of something, I’ll be less likely to misuse it, right?  But I just keep thinking about the tray.  What if I’d been trying to disintegrate a gun, and accidently included the shooter’s hand? 

But, let’s be real.  Part of why I’m here is because I suspect- no, I know- that sooner or later something’s going to happen and I’ll need to defend myself.  Actively.  By taking out whatever is threatening me.  Someday, and I hope that day never comes, I might have to do that to a person.  On purpose.  

Chapter Text

Thursday, January 1

The last several days have been different kinds of practice.  Instead of just small items on a tray, Scripture is having me disintegrate small parts of larger items (like the locking plate on a doorknob), or only one small item in a crowd of others (one specific blade of grass), or moving items (balls in mid-flight).  Disintegrating water is oddly satisfying, if mostly useless, since unless it’s a small amount of confined water, more just flows in to take its place.

There’ve only been a couple of accidents, and even then, nothing major.  Part of a second leaf.  The edge of the door frame.  Once, entirely the wrong leaf.  But those mistakes are getting fewer and fewer.  I’m still nervous about this.  I feel the responsibility of the power more every day. 

I wondered why Scripture didn’t lecture me about it.  Didn’t give a ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ speech.  Finally, I came out and asked him about it.  He told me that he’d ‘read my soul’ when we’d met for the first time, and wasn’t concerned about misuse.  He also reminded me that Teras was about each Terat finding their own way.  That if I decided that disintegrating the Brooklyn Bridge was what I needed to do to fully explore my potential, then no Terat would do anything to stop me. 

I’m not sure whether to be comforted or terrified by that.

Rocío sent me an email today, forwarding an OpNet story from back home.  I’ve really enjoyed being shut away from the constant barrage of social media and notifications, but I’m glad he sent me this one. 

Someone vandalized my school.  Badly.  Most of the outdoor athletic equipment was destroyed.  Pretty much every window in the building was shattered.  Banks of lockers were twisted in on themselves.  (I’ll admit, the first thing I thought when I saw the pictures was, “thank goodness I didn’t keep anything but textbooks in my locker.”  Yeah, I’m selfish.)  Several of the classrooms were trashed. 

The link he sent me was a ‘breaking news’ thing, so I’m sure there’ll be more about it in the next couple of days.  I’m glad whatever happened, happened over the break.  It would have been awful if people had been in there. 

But what did happen?  Anybody could break windows and trash classrooms (and honestly, the classrooms were more messy than damaged, other than the windows).  But the outdoor equipment would have taken major construction equipment to even move, let alone destroy.  And nothing I can think of could have twisted up metal lockers like pretzels.  Nothing but a nova, anyway.

Had someone else erupted over the holiday?  Someone with a grudge against the school?  There are plenty of students who would probably enjoying damaging the school, but what are the odds of a second nova erupting so soon, in the same place?  Not very likely. 

And if one had erupted, the Clinic would have known about it.  And even without my communicator, I’m pretty sure they would have emailed me- and probably demanded I come back from vacation early.  No way would I want to even try getting into the Clinic’s files, but just from the surface level stuff, they don’t seem to be doing anything new.  So, it doesn’t seem likely to be a new nova.

Well, I’ll keep an eye on the story- that’s really all I can do.  I’m sure I’ll hear all about it when I get back.  Who knows?  Maybe I can help find out who did it?

Chapter Text

Saturday, January 3

Tonight is my last night here.  On the one hand, I feel like I’ve learned so much from Scripture (and from Mal, and oddly enough, from Reach- who is still in his cocoon thing).  Part of me wants to stay here, if not forever, at least a lot longer.  But I need to go home, get back to my real life, and be with my friends. 

I still need more practice disintegrating things, but I’ve got enough control now that Scripture trusts me to practice on my own.  I’m going to keep it to small, common objects; and work in small bursts.  That way, the items won’t be missed, I won’t make too much of a mess, and the uses of power shouldn’t be suspicious to anyone who might happen to be watching. 

Tonight, Scripture gave me one final task.  So far, I’ve been working on small stuff.  Nothing much larger than my own head.  Tonight, he took me to an isolated part of the grounds I hadn’t been to before.  There was a bunch of old building material- bricks, stones, a huge woodpile.  And one enormous boulder.  It was so big, I’m not sure I could have picked it up, even using all my power.  And Scripture wanted me to disintegrate it!

It took me five tries.  Not because I missed, or couldn’t make the power work.  Because there was just so much stone.  My best attempt only destroyed about a third of it at once.  That was good to know.  Now I have a better idea of what my limitations are, size-wise.  And the difference between failing to make the power work, versus making it work, but having more material than power available.  It’s something to keep in mind. 

When we said our goodbyes, I told Scripture that I understood how much I owed him for all the time and effort he’s taken with me, and that I realize that I’ll be called on to repay at some point.  But that, after all he’s done for me, I’d be willing to help even without any debt being involved.  I think he understood what I meant, maybe better than I did.

Chapter Text

Sunday, January 4

I spent the morning with Mom and the cats, but met up with the girls in the afternoon.  School starts tomorrow, and I wanted to reconnect before. 

When I’d gotten home last night, I’d cleared out the huge pile of notifications off of my communicator.  There wasn’t anything urgent, but there was a notification to meet with Mr. Li at the Clinic tomorrow after I finished with school.  The word choice was odd on that.   The forum had been pretty quiet, probably because I’d been off the grid.  No new posts from Watch_th3_Skies.  I read everything I could about the school vandalism, but there wasn’t much that I hadn’t already heard.  Oddly enough, the police didn’t seem to be doing much about it.  There was a single entry on the city ‘police blotter’ OpNet site, but that was just a report of the break-in and damage, not any kind of real investigation.

I met up with Jess, Alejandra, and Monique at the mall.  Of course, they wanted to talk about the school.  They had a little more information- that school would reopen tomorrow, on schedule.  That the windows had been boarded over, but students were advised to bring heavy coats to class.  That the classrooms had been cleaned up, but the lockers and athletic equipment were a total loss.  There were rumors that whatever students had had in their lockers (other than textbooks) wouldn’t be replaced by the school.  There was debate over whether the school’s insurance would fully cover the damage, since it was obviously a criminal act. 

The girls seemed… twitchy.  Like they knew something they didn’t want to tell me.  Of course, I pressed them.  Finally, they admitted that everyone was saying that it was a nova who had done it.  Since I had more-or-less come to the same conclusion, I wasn’t especially surprised.  But some people were saying that I had done the whole thing! 

Of course, I told them that was ridiculous.  I hadn’t even been in the country at the time.  They believed me.  I’m pretty sure they believed me even before I said anything.  But if that rumor is going around already, I’m suddenly not looking forward to school tomorrow.  And that puts the message to see Mr. Li tomorrow in a different light. 

The worst thing is, none of the pictures that I saw showed things that I couldn’t have done, and done fairly easily.  The windows would have been easy- a really fast fly-by.  The classrooms, well, any baseline could have done that damage.  Messy and annoying more than anything else.  Messing up the lockers and outdoor equipment would have taken me longer, but I could have done it, I’m sure.  But the school has security cameras.  I’m sure those will show that it wasn’t me.  The rumors will still suck, though. 

We hung out a while longer, but that put a damper on the get-together.

When I got back home, I emailed Rocío to see if he’d heard anything more about it.  He hadn’t, really, other than more assumptions that a nova had done it.  Super strength is one of the most common nova abilities, so the field of suspects is wide open. 

The biggest question, in his mind, isn’t so much ‘who’, but ‘why’.  If it isn’t a new nova who was a student at the school, then what’s the motivation?  The school hasn’t taken any kind of anti-nova stance.  They’ve treated me very well.  That should eliminate any kind of ‘Nova Vigilance-style’ retaliation.  (Plus, N.V. doesn’t go in much for property damage- they prefer direct, personal violence.)  And I hadn’t pissed off any novas (that either of us could think of) that would want to hurt me- and even if I had, why would they go after the school instead of coming for me?  No, there was no reason to think this was personal.  Not everything is about me, after all. 

That really only leaves three options:

1. That it wasn’t actually a nova at all, despite appearances. That would be great, but doesn’t seem likely.  It also doesn’t answer the ‘why’. 
2. That it was a random act of vandalism by one or more novas, probably very new/young ones. That doesn’t make sense either.  I mean, kids are kids, whether baseline or nova, and kids do dumb stuff.  But why pick this school?  And why now?  Plus, kids tend to brag.  If it was a nova kid, Rocío probably would have heard something through the grapevine by now. 
3. There are novas who’ll do just about anything for money. The most famous ones, Elites like Totentanz and Lotus Infinite, wouldn’t take on something like this- it’s too small and piddly.  Those are novas who get hired to fight wars singlehandedly.  But there are others.  Less famous (or less good at what they do), who could probably be hired to bust up a school.  (Hell, I could probably be hired for legitimate demolition work, through Nova Services International.  But that’s not the same thing.  And I don’t think NSI contracts for criminal work.  Not officially, anyway?)  But that still doesn’t explain ‘why’.  All it does is shift the ‘why’ from the nova to whoever hired him. 

None of this makes sense.  The school just isn’t that important.  There’s no reason to think this has anything to do with me.  But there’s no reason to think it doesn’t, either.

Chapter Text

Monday, January 5 (Expelled!)

Is it overly dramatic to insist that my life is over?  Probably.  But it is.  I’ve been expelled from school.  Excuse me, my ‘voluntary withdrawal’ has been accepted.  It isn’t paranoia when someone really is out to get you, right? 

Ok, here’s what happened.

I went to school in the morning, just like regular.  I got there a few minutes early, since I wanted to fly around (invisible) and see the damage for myself.  Some of the windows were already being replaced, but most of them were still boarded up.  That meant I couldn’t see into the classrooms, but based on the pictures I’d seen, the actual damage to the classrooms was minimal.  The football field was a wreck.  The goal posts had been uprooted and tied in knots.  The field itself will probably need to be re-seeded.  Re-sodded?  Whatever.  The asphalt track around the football field had been broken up in several places, with suspiciously foot-shaped holes stomped all over the place.  It was pretty obvious that a nova did this. 

For once, there wasn’t a group of younger kids gathered around my landing ring.  There were some hanging around nearby, but the vibe was completely different.  Before, the crowd had been enthusiastic, interested, and a little star-struck.  Now it was the kind of crowd that gathers around car crashes. 

Waves of silence, followed by whispering radiated out from me as I walked over to the main entrance.  Like on my first day back, Mr. Stephenson was waiting for me, and took me into his office again.  Dr. Thompkins, the guidance counsellor, was already there.

They just stared at me for what felt like forever.  Finally, Mr. Stephenson asked me what I had to say for myself.  They thought I was responsible for all the damage!  I insisted that I had nothing to do with what happened, and that I hadn’t even been in town at the time, since I’d spent the holiday abroad.  Mr. Stephenson obviously didn’t believe me.  He turned his computer monitor around to face me, and showed me a couple of clips from the school security cameras. 

The cameras don’t pick up audio, so instead of a (presumed) sonic boom, all they showed was the school windows blowing out, one after another, just the way they would if something flew past at hypersonic speeds.  Except that nothing flew past on camera.  Another clip, inside this time, and with audio, showed the lockers being picked up, shaken around, and twisted up, crushed into balls, and knotted.  The crashing and screaming metal sounds were awful, but again, no one was on camera.  You could see indentations where something (someone) grabbed each bank of lockers, but no hands were visible.  The cameras on the football field and track were wide-angle, so didn’t give as much detail, but you could see the holes being ‘stomped’ into the track before the goalposts were destroyed. 

The next clips were actually of me, but they were clearly date-stamped months before.  Me suddenly appearing or disappearing, and a brief clip of the Halloween bonfire, of me breaking big logs over my knee like kindling. 

I insisted that I had nothing to do with the damage, and that while, yes, it seemed more likely than not that a nova had done it, they had absolutely no proof that it was me.  Mr. Stephenson said that he had testimony from students that I had bragged about planning to vandalize the school over the winter break, and how I’d never get caught because I’d do it while invisible.  Of course, he wouldn’t tell me who had accused me, but at one point, he slipped and said ‘two students’ instead of ‘the students’.  That was all I needed. 

Bailey and Jeremy.  But had they set this up somehow?  Or had they just taken advantage of the coincidence?  I didn’t know, and that wasn’t the time to figure it out.

I told Mr. Stephenson flat out that the students were lying.  I hadn’t been anywhere near the school all break, and there was no way he could prove otherwise.  He demanded to know where I was, and I refused to tell him.  (Scripture trusted me with his home’s location, and I wasn’t going to break that trust at the first sign of trouble.)   I reminded him that as the accuser, the burden of proof was on him, not me. 

He didn’t like that.  His lips thinned and his eyes went all hard.  Instead of responding to my point, he told me that one of two things was going to happen.  Either I voluntarily withdraw from the school, or I would be expelled.  If I withdrew voluntarily, Project Utopia had already agreed to cover the costs of repair and upgrades to the school.  My academic record wouldn’t include an expulsion or any other disciplinary action.  My college options would remain unchanged.  If I refused to voluntarily withdraw, I would be expelled and my record marked as such.  Most colleges would refuse to accept me.  The police would be involved.  I would be sued, and there would be a civil court case at minimum, and possibly a criminal case.  Either way, my presence at school would no longer be ‘tolerated’.  TOLERATED!!!!

I was given twenty-four hours to make my decision, and escorted to the door.  I think they would have escorted me off the property completely, but I took off as soon as I was outside, leaving them staring.

The notification that I’d gotten from the Clinic told me to come in when I’d ‘finished with school’.  Of course, they already knew about this, if they had agreed to cover the repair costs to the school.  The school will probably get a significant upgrade, and come out of all this better than before. 

But did Utopia believe that I’d actually done it?  Were they paying up because they really thought I was a criminal?  Or because they just wanted to avoid bad publicity for any nova, and sweep everything under the rug?  We’re they supposed to advocate for me?  Take my side?  Even make an attempt to talk to me before deciding what to do about it?  Before deciding my future? 

Two days ago, I would have said there was no way they’d think I did it.  But two days ago, I would have said there was no way the school would expel me, either.  Excuse me, ‘accept my voluntary withdrawal’.  Because that’s what I’m going to have to do.  As much as I hate how unfair (and probably illegal) this is, I know better than to risk my chance at a good college.

I can’t remember ever being this mad before.  If I’d wanted to damage the school, I could have made a much more thorough job of it than that!  For a brief second, I considered waiting until dark and actually doing what I’d already been accused (and effectively convicted) of.  But I know better. 

Instead of going directly to the Clinic, I went and sat by the river for a while and thought about everything.  A few things are clear:

• Someone set me up.
• Bailey and Jeremy are involved, though their involvement may have been peripheral or after-the-fact.
• Project Utopia isn’t interested in clearing my name.
• I can’t go back to that school. (At this point, after what I’ve been accused of, I wouldn’t go back with an engraved invitation.)
• I have to complete my education.
• I didn’t want to ask for help from the Teragen. Not only to avoid more ‘debt’, but also because I don’t want to develop a reputation for being helpless, or (worse) as being more trouble than I’m worth.  
• If Utopia won’t help me clear my name (and I doubt they will), then I need to do it myself.

REASONABLE CONCLUSIONS, ALL, HEKA.  YOU HAVE BEEN SET UP.  IF YOU NEED US, CALL.

~S

And with those things clear in my mind, I was as calm as I was going to get.  I headed over to the Clinic to work out what to do next. 

Mr. Li was waiting, of course.  If he expected me sooner, he didn’t give any sign of it.  

The first words out of my mouth were, of course, “I didn’t do it.”  He said that he believed me.  I think he was telling the truth- his heart rate didn’t go up, and his pupils didn’t dilate.  He went on to explain that while Utopia didn’t believe that I had vandalized the school, it was pretty clear that a nova was involved.  And that made it Utopia’s business.  And because they didn’t want any more attention drawn to the issue than already had been, they determined that covering the cost of repairs and putting the incident behind us was the best course of action.  As far as the actual culprit, Utopia would ‘look into it’.  By now, I know that ‘we’ll look into it’ is Mr. Li code for ‘nothing will be done, but we’re going to pretend that it is’. 

I pointed out that while that was fine for the school and for Utopia, it still left me without a school to go to.  Even without a formal expulsion on my record, every school in town knew what had happened, and by not clearing my name, no school would have me. 

Mr. Li told me that that had already been taken care of.  A spot was being held for me at Team Tomorrow Academy.  He said that he understood my desire to stay with my friends and maintain as much of a normal life as possible, but as that was no longer an option, the Academy was the best place for me.

And that’s when a thought hit me.  Who has nearly unlimited access to novas?  Who can contract novas to do almost anything?  Who is above suspicion, with a reputation for charity, as well as for dealing with ‘problem novas’?  Utopia.  The Clinic could have set this up, either directly or through Nova Services International.  Looking at it that way, the damage to the school makes more sense- maximum impact and inconvenience, but minimal actual damage.  Lockers can be replaced in a few days.  Windows are inconvenient and somewhat expensive, but don’t impact structural integrity and wouldn’t prevent classes being held.  The track and football field is the worst, but if they end up being ‘upgraded’ during the repairs, well, who wouldn’t be pleased in the long run?  And anyway, those also don’t directly impact classes.

And the Clinic made it clear from Day One that they wanted me at Team Tomorrow Academy, and weren’t happy about my insisting on going back to regular school.  What Bix hinted at, about my being contracted to the Academy during the summer came back to me as well.  If they can contract me for the summer, now that I’m not in school, they could contract me to just flat-out attend the Academy.  It wouldn’t violate my contract at all.  Mr. Li hasn’t brought that up yet, but he’s no fool.  He’s thinking about it.  He just wants me to agree to the Academy, rather than be forced into it. 

THIS COULD ACTUALLY BE A GOOD THING, HEKA.  WE’VE BEEN WANTING MORE DIRECT EYES ON THE ACADEMY FOR AWHILE NOW.  IT’S UP TO YOU, OF COURSE, BUT YOU COULD DO US A LOT OF GOOD THERE.

~S

And that means… I have room to negotiate.  The Academy is a boarding school, since most of the students don’t come from the area.  But it’s within easy flying distance for me.  If I agree to attend the Academy, I think I can get concessions- mainly continuing my Aikido lessons (I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying them), and either having Furnado with me, going home regularly to see Mom, or both. 

So, I countered Mr. Li’s assumption that I’d accept the Academy with a couple of other thoughts.  I could pass the GED without effort, and just go right into college.  This would be somewhat suboptimal, as there will always be people who look down on a GED (even though it’s nothing to be ashamed of), and it might limit my prospects a little.  Or, I join an online school, burn through the coursework, and graduate sooner than I otherwise would have if I’d stayed in regular school.  Probably by the end of the year, at most. 

Mr. Li obviously didn’t like those ideas, but I kept going before he could object.  I told him that if, if I agreed to attend the Academy, we would have to come to an understanding.  I would board there during the week, but I would be free to spend every weekend at home, assuming I so chose.  My cat would come to the Academy with me, staying in my room during the week and going home with me when I did.  And I would continue my aikido lessons with Sensei Laura, which would mean my flying to and from the Academy three times a week, in addition to the weekends. 

Mr. Li made a show of being annoyed by my conditions, but his heart rate and the tiny micromovements he made gave him away.  He was relieved that I was willing to go to the Academy.  When had I gotten so good at picking up his tells?   He countered by agreeing to all of my conditions, but insisted that my aikido lessons would drop down to twice a week.  I insisted that (assuming Sensei Laura was willing), they would be longer lessons, so no actual instruction time was lost.  He agreed.  I insisted that my agreement was conditional on Sensei Laura’s, but I doubt that will be an issue.  I’m sure I could find an aikido teacher near the Academy, and if Sensei Laura suggests it, I will.  But I like her, and I like the way she teaches. 

A little more back-and-forth, and Mr. Li agreed that I would go to Sensei Laura’s studio, wait for her to be between classes, and discuss it with her.  (There was no sense in her coming to the Clinic this afternoon with all this upheaval.)  Assuming she agreed, we’d iron out the details.  I made it very clear to Mr. Li that I wanted to be the one to present my decision to withdraw to the school.  I’m long past tired of Utopia ‘handling’ my business for me.

I stopped off at home long enough to pick up my laptop, then went to wait for Sensei Laura to finish her class.  I used the time well, if I do say so myself.  First, I downloaded all the security camera footage from every camera on school grounds for the last 30 days (apparently they don’t keep footage older than that).  Then, I slid into the local police server, and got a copy of the police report, as well as confirming for myself that no other action has been taken, nor is there any expectation of any.  Officially, it's already been swept under the rug.  Certainly, Utopia isn’t ‘looking into it’ through any official channels. Just to be thorough, I downloaded the official weather and air traffic records for the day the vandalism occurred.  Then, I started searching through the footage, starting with the night of the event.

I had barely gotten started when class ended and Sensei Laura was able to see me.  She took me into her office, and I explained what had happened.  She didn’t have a lot of time before her next class, so I kept it simple. 

She believed me (I’m sure she did), and said she was willing to continue to teach me, dropping back to twice a week.  She said that if I was willing to come to her studio on those nights, instead of meeting at the Clinic, then she would be able to put the time she didn’t spend commuting out to the Clinic in teaching me, meaning that very little actual time would be lost.  Since that would effectively end my association with the Clinic, I was glad to agree.  She seemed flattered that I was so determined to continue to study under her.  When she asked where the Academy was located (it’s not a secret), she said that she would ask around for a local dojo, where I could go for additional practice, or see if I liked the people there any better.  She was happy to continue with me, but encouraged me to explore all my options.

Her next class was starting, so she said that she wanted to discuss what happened further, but it could wait, and we parted ways. 

I dropped my laptop off at home before going back to the Clinic.  On the way, I had a thought.  Why didn’t Mr. Li make even a token effort at getting me to tell him where I was over the break?  Even though I have no faith that he’ll actually ‘look into’ clearing my name, my being elsewhere at the time would have been the easiest way to clear me.  Not that I would have told him, but still.  The fact that he didn’t even ask is suspicious.  Either he has no interest in clearing me (which I’d already considered), or he already knows where I was.  I’d left my Utopia communicator at home, so I couldn’t be tracked that way.  But I took my phone with me.  And Mr. Li had had plenty of unsupervised access to it when he got it back from the wreck.

Well, that’s easily dealt with.  As soon as I finish with the Clinic and email Mr. Stephenson, I’ll get a new phone.  Besides, I never did get the cracked screen repaired from the wreck.  I think I’ll get a new laptop, as well.  Just in case.  (It’s such a relief to have to money to just… decide something like that now!)  I’ll leave the old laptop at home, so I can chat with Mom via the OpNet.    

I let Mr. Li know that Sensei Laura had agreed, and he told me to be ready to leave for the Academy on Wednesday afternoon.  I would go up, settle in Wednesday night, go through orientation on Thursday, pre-placement testing on Friday, and begin classes on Monday, the twelfth. 

I stopped in at the barn to say goodbye to Bix, and slipped him a note, telling him I wanted to meet him, either tonight or tomorrow at the latest- privately.  Away from Utopia grounds.  Hopefully, he’ll make it happen.  If not, I’ll have to arrange things myself.

Back at home, I sent Mr. Stephenson a (rather cold and formal) email, restating my innocence of any wrongdoing, but tendering my voluntary withdrawal from school, ‘due to the hostile and unwelcoming environment’.  Then I sent an email to Erica, to update my ‘official’ website and put out a press release emphasizing my innocence, and what was coming next for me. 

Then, I’ll admit, I had a petty moment.  Instead of waiting for her to do that, I posted to the Heka’s Home forum, and laid everything out.  How I’d been out of town over the holiday break, and was being framed for the damage to the school.  How because of it, I had withdrawn, and would be attending the Academy.  How I’d be back in town as often as I could, and considered this an unexpected, but… interesting new development in my life.  The thread was heating up nicely when I logged out.

After that, replacing my phone and laptop kept me busy until school let out, when the girls promptly blew up my phone, demanding a meetup.  Of course, I obliged.  I wanted as many people to know what had really happened as possible. 

They were all appropriately outraged, insisting that I should fight, or sue, or really bust up the place, since they were determined to blame me for it (that was Alejandra- great minds think alike).  When I mentioned that two students claimed to have heard me bragging about doing it, they jumped to the same conclusion that I did- Bailey and Jeremy.  I think they’re right, but we really put our heads together to try and think of anyone else it could be.  We threw some names out for consideration- a few of the typical ‘mean girls’, some of the ones who’d said bitchy things not-quite-behind-my-back.  We even discussed the general troublemakers who could have been expected to do as much damage as they could.  But nothing else really stuck.  The bitches and mean girls were all talk, and the rare times they graduated to action, it was personal.  Destroyed clothes, cut hair, ruined schoolwork.  And it was, not exactly secretive, but it was… ‘in house’.  Something just between girls.  Not for adults or guys to be involved with.  And the regular troublemakers couldn’t have done all that damage, and none of them would have wasted money hiring even a C-list nova to do it. 

That led us to a different line of thought.  We all agreed (after I explained some of the closer details- they hadn’t seen the field damage up close, and the lockers had already been removed) that whoever did that either needed significant demolition equipment, or nova powers.  And that kind of equipment couldn’t have been hidden.  That really only leaves a nova.  And a nova, unless they either had personal beef with the school (or me), or were particular friends with someone, had to be hired.  And that takes money. 

Now, I’ve never looked into hiring anybody to do anything, let alone a nova.  But considering that I made $30k for a weekend of easy ‘work’ that was barely work at all, took absolutely no use of actual power, and was completely legal; I could only assume that hiring one to do something illegal would be even more expensive.  (I had made $5k for the Utopia shill podcast I’d been on, $2,500 for the other (better) one, and $15k for the fashion show.)  There were certainly people at school whose families could probably afford something like that, and even a few whose families wouldn’t even notice that kind of expense.   But none of them were the kind of people who would care enough to do it.  Those kids just lived in their own little bubble.  Partying, coasting through school, and waiting for college and (even more) freedom.  I’d attended some of their parties since erupting.  They were sorta boring, really.  I could easily see them not bothering to think about how their actions would affect others, but they didn’t go in for active, pre-planned malice.

Bailey’s family is wealthy, yes.  Wealthy enough to hire a nova.  But not, I think, wealthy enough to not notice that kind of expense.  And no matter what Bailey thinks of me now, I don’t believe for a moment that her mother would agree to hiring a nova to bust up the school in the first place, let alone frame me for it.  I know Jeremy’s family is loaded too, but I’m not sure how loaded.  But it seems unlikely that, even together, they could have hired somebody. 

That leads me to believe that they weren’t responsible for the damage, but that they took the opportunity to hurt me when it came up.  We talked it over from every angle, but the girls couldn’t come up with a better answer. 

I didn’t tell the girls about my ‘finding’ the camera footage, but I plan to go over the feed whenever Bailey and Jeremy were together.  I think my hearing is good enough now to pick out what they were saying, even through crowd noise.  I kinda wish I hadn’t chosen to ignore them earlier.

When Mom got home that night, I had to tell her everything.  She. Was. Pissed.  Full Mama Bear mode.  She was all set to tear Mr. Stephenson a new asshole, and Utopia too, for not defending me.  It took the better part of an hour to get her calmed down enough to really talk.  (I feel like we’ve grown apart- even more than her working all the time- since I erupted, but this really reminded me of how much she loves me.  How much we love each other.) 

I thought about telling her my suspicions about Utopia, and why they weren’t defending me, but decided not to.  What could she really do about it?  It would only make her angry, and suspicious.  And even if I don’t really trust Utopia anymore, they hadn’t shown any sign of causing trouble for Mom.  If she started making a fuss, that might change.  It’s better, maybe safer, if she doesn’t know what’s going on- especially since I don’t know anything definite yet myself. 

I thought about what Mal had said about novas and baselines not being compatible, and not being good for each other in the long term.   Maybe, just maybe, there’s something to what he says.  I love my mother, and I always will.  And I want to protect her.  But maybe protecting her means keeping some parts of my life away from her.  I don’t think baselines are inferior to novas.  But they are more… vulnerable.

She didn’t like me going to the Academy, doubly so because she wouldn’t be able to take off work on such short notice to go with me and check the place out.  I reminded her that I would have been leaving for college next year anyway, and depending on where I went, she probably wouldn’t have been able to got with me then, either.  I told her to think of this less like boarding school and more like summer camp.  It’s only a 30-minute flight (much less, if I pushed myself).  I’d be home every weekend.  And if her work schedule allowed it, we could meet for her dinner break after my aikido lessons.  It wouldn’t be so bad. 

She didn’t like it.  I don’t like it.  But I know (even if she doesn’t) that there really isn’t another decent choice.  So, I put the best face on it that I could.  I told her about leaving my old computer here, so she could use it and we could chat. 

Later-

I got a text from an unknown number.  It said that if I was serious about talking, to meet where my life changed in an hour, and not to reply to the message or bring any tech with me. 

Well, then.  If that’s not a little too cloak-and-dagger, I don’t know what is.  I can only assume it’s Bix.  And ‘where my life changed’ is probably where the wreck happened.  Ok, I can do that.  I set up a video on my computer and left my communicator listening to it while I (invisibly) went out the window. 

I was there almost forty-five minutes early, and stayed invisible.  Of course, the wreck itself had been cleaned up months ago.  There wasn’t even any leftover glass by now.  After Bix’s previous behavior, I wasn’t sure this wasn’t a setup, and if it was, I wanted to be there and see what was going on early.  I flew around, slow and quiet, looking for anything unusual.  Nothing.  I searched with my buzzy tingly sense.  Nothing.  I looked around some more, noticed a traffic camera within range and decided not to take chances.  I wedged a leaf in front of the lens.  Hopefully, it would look like it had just blown onto it.  Then I waited, perched on a nearby roof. 

Bix got there about twenty minutes early.  I recognized his car.  He drove around the block a couple of times, real slow, like he was looking for something.  He was the only one in the car (unless someone was hiding in the trunk, I guess).  He finally parked, in a fairly dark spot between two street lights.  He turned off his lights, but didn’t turn the car off.  He seemed to be waiting.  Didn’t even have the radio on.  I watched him until five minutes before time.  Searched again with my buzzy tingly sense.  Nothing.  This was my one chance, and it was as good as it was going to get.  I flew down to meet him. 

He had his drivers side window cracked a few inches.  Good enough.

Not knowing how much time we had, I didn’t bother with chitchat.  Keeping my voice low, I asked him, “There’s been a lot you haven’t wanted to tell me at the Clinic.  Now seems like a good time.”  To his credit, he only jumped a little.  I was still invisible, after all.

Bix seemed nervous, like even out here, in the dark, on a deserted street, he wasn’t sure we were alone.  Since I still wasn’t sure if Bix was paranoid, delusional, or justified, that made me a little more nervous.  He started to say something a couple of times, cut himself off each time.  Then it all came out in a rush. 

There was too much to even try to get verbatim, so I’ll just hit the highlights. He didn’t think I should trust Utopia.  They didn’t have my (or any nova’s) best interests at heart.  He’d been told to push me as hard as he could, to develop my powers as quickly as possible, even though all the research had made it clear that wasn’t good for novas, and caused a lot of problems in the long run.  They didn’t care.  They especially wanted my ability to drain power from other novas, and were desperate for me to develop the ability to take powers as well (I didn’t tell him that I already had).  They wanted to use me to take down ‘problem novas’, ideally as part of Team Tomorrow, but at least as an Auxiliary member.  That meant toughening me up and making me ‘toe the line’.  It also meant isolating me from casual contact with non-Utopia baselines, and scaring me into thinking that Utopia was my only source of protection against the outside world. 

I nearly laughed out loud at that.  If that was what they’d been trying to do, they couldn’t have done a worse job of it.  Still, they were doing a good job of isolating me.  I asked Bix, point-blank, if Utopia had hired the nova who busted up the school.  He said he didn’t know (and I think I believe him), but that it was the kind of thing they would do, if they decided it was ‘for the greater good’. 

Bix told me (as though I hadn’t already figured it out) that not only was there a tracker in my Utopia communicator, but it was always listening.  And its recording feature could be activated remotely.  So, anything that happened around me while I was wearing it could be eavesdropped on, and recorded by, Utopia at any time.  And, short of destroying the thing, there was no way to prevent any of that.  He warned me that Utopia was very, very good at keeping track of its ‘assets’- and that’s exactly what they considered me to be.  I’m not sure if it’s scarier to put the emphasis on ‘their’ or ‘asset’.  He told me that since Mr. Li had had access to my phone, he’d probably put a tracker (at least) on it.  (I didn’t mention that I’d already dealt with that issue.  I think Bix is playing straight with me, but the les he knows, the better.)

Apparently, a lot of what Utopia wanted from me was legit- the public appearances, the charity work, etc.  They actively looked for teenagers like me for the PR opportunities, and to ‘keep us out of trouble’.  That as long as I played that role and did what I was told, there was no reason that anything should go wrong, especially now that I was ‘getting with the program’ and going to the Academy.  I think Bix was trying to reassure me.  Maybe.  Or maybe he was trying to make himself feel better about the part he played in all this.

I asked him about that- how could he be part of something like this?   He didn’t have a satisfactory (to me) answer.  He just went on about how much good work Utopia does (which I can’t deny), and how they really do have humanity’s greater good in mind (maybe, if you don’t consider novas human?), and how without Utopia, the Teragen would run wild and take over. 

Maybe those are good enough reasons, from a baseline perspective.  I’ll admit, before I erupted, I’d never given any real thought to what was good for novas.  I knew that novas had done a lot of good in the world, and was grateful for that; but I’d never really though about it costing the novas anything more than some time and effort, which they were (apparently) glad to provide.  Maybe I can’t fault Bix for not looking at it from the other side.  Even working so closely with novas, he doesn’t really seem to think of us as people.  Not really. 

He also justified himself by saying how much he enjoyed the work, how exciting it was to ‘help prepare the people who would change the world’.  How training novas was his own way of serving the greater good.  And how, Utopia was ultimately in the right, even if he didn’t always like their methods. 

That killed any rising sympathy I might have had for Bix.  He was not on my side.  I could not count on him for any but the most basic, inconsequential, help.  He was telling me all this out of a sense of… what?  Fair play?  A sense of playground honor?  Not because he thought that what was happening to me was really wrong, but that I shouldn’t be kept in the dark about it.  (And even then, would we have had this little talk if I didn’t force the issue?)  It also explained his insistence that I learn some kind of fighting skill.  Utopia wanted it, but Bix was nearly desperate about it- and now I know why.  Not because he thought it was wrong that I be forced to join T2M in some capacity, but because he wished me (slightly) well, and wanted me to have the best chance of surviving the experience.

There was a little more, but the only other interesting bit was that Utopia had Bix bring Alex in for an ulterior reason.  Yes, he was supposed to help me work out what it was I did with electricity, but they also were… trying to set us up!  Like some kind of old-timey Hollywood studio off-screen romance between contracted actors!  We were supposed to hit it off, and he would shape me into the Ideal Utopian Nova Youth!  (Nice to know Utopia can screw up so spectacularly.)  Well, I couldn’t hold back laughter at that, which was loud enough that it spooked Bix into cutting our little discussion short.  He left abruptly, and I flew home before I was completely satisfied.

I think I’d already gotten about as much as I could from him, though.  I like Bix well enough, I guess.  And I don’t think he’s crazy.  Is paranoia still paranoia if it’s justified?  After all, Bix might be as much of an ‘asset’ to Utopia as I am.  I think Bix told me the truth tonight, though maybe not all of the truth.  But that doesn’t mean I can trust him.  If anything, this shows that I can’t trust him.  Ultimately, he’s a very weak man.  I should be grateful that he put himself out there enough to have this talk.  At least this means I won’t have to stalk him when he gets his oil changed, lol.

When I got back home, I sent Rocío an email, updating him on what happened.  Hopefully we can spend some time together tomorrow. 

I checked the forum, and the school thread has over 500 posts!  Almost all supportive of me, too.  Only a few saying that I must have done the damage, and those few got ratioed hard.  It’s nice having supportive fans.  But I kinda wonder- they really don’t have anything other than my word that I didn’t do it.  Would they support me, no matter what I did, as long as they liked me (for whatever reason)?  That’s a little creepy.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, January 6

I spent most of the day with Rocío, but that’s not what this journal is for.  Strange that anything concerning two novas can still be ‘just people’, but there it is. 

Packing for tomorrow went quickly.  There really isn’t much to pack.  Since I wear my Eufiber pretty much every day (it’s self-cleaning), I’m only bringing a few changes of regular clothes.  Most of my books, music, etc are digital, so everything fits on a couple of external hard drives.  A few keepsakes, Mr. Lumpy the Emotional Support Badger, and a few comfort books in dead-tree format.  My computer will go in last, of course. 

Furnado actually has more stuff than I do.  I don’t know if there will be room for a cat tree, so I went to the pet store and got one of those cat hammocks that sticks to the window, and some wall mount cat shelves.  I saw one of those giant hamster exercise wheels for cats, but we’ll see about that.  I’m a little concerned about separating Furnado and Pyewacket, but Pye’s bonded with Mom so much, I think it will be ok.  If either of them have trouble, we’ll revisit the situation.  I’d rather they be happy, even if that means I’m cat-less for a while. We’ll see.

I spent the evening going over the footage from the school’s video cameras.  Most of it is useless, so I stuck everything that didn’t include the day of the incident, or Bailey, or Jeremy into a folder, just in case. 

Then I focused on the actual vandalism.  Each camera feed has a location and time stamp, so I was able to match things up easily.  The exterior cameras don’t have audio, but the interior ones do, and they’re good enough that (when it’s quiet), they’ll sometimes pick up external noises.  Nothing major, but you can hear the occasional airplane flyover, or big truck.  That’s enough to make me certain the interior cameras would have picked up a sonic boom if one happened.  There was no sonic boom when the glass in the windows broke.  Also, the windows didn’t break in a smooth wave, like you might expect from a passing disruption.  They broke sequentially, yes, but in groups rather than a single fluid motion.  The school has two stories (plus a basement), and each set of windows broke out in clusters of eight- four rooms’ worth on each floor, then the next set of eight, then the next. 

This obviously wasn’t the work of a fast flier.  If so, all the windows (at least all of them on a given side of the building) should have broken within a second or two.  Instead, the damage to one side of the building took nearly five minutes.  Then there was a lengthy pause, then the end windows went, another, shorter pause, then the same set-of-eight pattern worked its way back up the other side of the building.  Not a flier at all.  This was someone on foot, walking around the building, breaking windows as they went.  Whoever it was, was probably invisible, but it’s possible they just stayed far enough away to not be picked up on camera.  That actually makes more sense, since that would mean a longer walk around the building to stay out of camera range. 

That doesn’t explain the other footage, though.  Whoever destroyed the lockers, track, and field equipment was definitely invisible.  Unless… maybe there were two novas involved?  Strength is one of the most common nova gifts, and flight and invisibility are both common too.  But not so common all in one person.  And flying fast enough for a sonic boom isn’t common either.  So maybe they couldn’t find someone able to mimic all of that, and settled on the best they could?  Rocío controls water from a pretty good distance.  Maybe someone who controlled glass would be the same?  I read somewhere that glass is a liquid, flowing in an extremely slow state, but I don’t know if that’s true.  Those powers are called ‘elemental’ (in the Earth/Air/Fire/Water sense, not the Hydrogen/Helium/etc sense), but novas use a lot more than just the four elements with it.  Alex’s electricity, for example.  Why not someone who controls glass?  Or just someone able to exert force over a distance?

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter who actually busted up the school- they were only hired to do it.  Of course, finding them might lead me to who hired them, but probably not.  If they want to keep being hired for things, they won’t squeal on who hired them.  So, really, they don’t matter much. 

The destruction on the track and field didn’t tell me much.  The cameras were on a wide angle lens, so there wasn’t much detail.  The track destruction was basically just somebody stomping holes in the asphalt with super strength.  Really, something like a toddler’s temper tantrum, but with more impressive results.  The goal posts were something else again.  When I first saw them, I just assumed that I could do the same thing.  On closer inspection, I’m not so sure.  Those metal goal posts are filled with concrete.  I have no doubt that I could have torn them out of the ground.  I may have even been able to walk away with them.  But I’m not sure I could have tied them in knots like that.  That’s just too much material.  And when the concrete (or is it cement?) inside cracked, the whole thing should have come apart.  I know I couldn’t have held the thing together long enough to complete the task.  And whoever did this, did it twice.  Definitely above my pay grade. 

When I looked at the lockers, I noticed something that should have ended the entire question of me being involved.  The timestamps of the windows breaking on the west side of the building overlapped the time stamp of some of the lockers being trashed!  Both things were happening at the same time, at opposite ends of the school!  That means there were definitely two novas involved! 

That also almost completely lets out Bailey and Jeremy as the ones who hired them.  Bailey’s family could afford one nova, but not two.  And definitely not without feeling it badly in the budget.  I don’t know exactly how well-off Jeremy’s family is, but it isn’t top-tier.  They didn’t do this.  They just took advantage of it.  That really only leaves Utopia.  Unless, somehow, Utopia worked through Bailey?  No, that’s too far-fetched.  Utopia is too careful, and they wouldn’t trust a spiteful teenager to keep her mouth shut.  No, Bailey and Jeremy just saw an opportunity and jumped on it.  I’m not sure if that makes me feel any better.

As for the lockers themselves, that’s definitely something I could have done if I’d wanted to.  The lockers are fastened together in sets of either ten half lockers (five upper and five lower) or six full lockers.  Each bank of lockers were just sitting next to each other, and only the sets at each end of the row were bolted to the wall (which seems like a safety hazard, but that’s not my problem anymore).  Even full of stuff, I could have taken those lockers apart with one hand.  Again, no one was visible.  I wonder- could I make someone else invisible?  I think I could, if I were touching them.  I’m not sure if they’d stay invisible once I let go, though.  Really, the only interesting thing about the lockers was the timestamp. 

Mr. Li isn’t stupid.  He noticed at least some of all this.  Plus, he’s had months to get to know me.  He knows I didn’t do this.  You’d think he’d want to clear one of Utopia’s newest ‘assets’ name.  And it would be easy to do, just using the school’s own evidence. He would, unless not doing so gave Utopia what it wanted.  I went through a true crime podcast phase about a year ago, and learned that a truly motiveless crime is almost never solved, unless the criminal is incredibly stupid, or the cops incredibly lucky.  Neither is the case here.  If this was truly motiveless, then I may as well give up.  But if there’s no reason for one random nova to bust up a school, there’s even less reason for two to do it.  So there is a motive.  A quick OpNet search shows that there haven’t been any similar crimes reported anywhere else in the country.  Plenty of school vandalism, sure, but nothing nova-related.  Plenty of anti-nova vandalism as well, but that’s obviously done by baselines.  So, it’s just my school.  Just… me.  That’s a motive. 

It crossed my mind that this could be a Teragen thing.  Maybe they were trying to isolate me from baselines?  Break me away from my baseline support network, and get me to turn toward them?  Especially in light of how helpful Utopia isn’t being?  Not an impossible idea, but I don’t think it holds water.  Scripture made it pretty clear that he values free will.  Mal made it clear that he thinks most novas will fall in with his ideas on their own, eventually, and the few who don’t, he’s basically going to write off.  Neither of them would do this.  There’d be no point.  I think they both are pretty sure where my loyalties will end up landing.  The Count?  Not his style at all.  Definitely not.  And not any of his people, either.  They’re information gatherers and networkers.  They don’t tend to take this kind of action.  And even if they did, they’d have done it better than this.  This was… sloppy. The Count is never sloppy. I’d bet anything on that.  None of the other Terats that I’ve met would have any reason for this either.  No, this wasn’t the Teragen.  And there’s really nobody else.  Other than Utopia.

NO, HEKA.  THIS WASN’T US.  AND IN CASE YOU’RE INTERESTED, THOSE VIDEO FILES HAVEN’T BEEN EDITED, BUT YOU WEREN’T THE FIRST PERSON TO ACCESS THEM.  SOMEONE WAS THERE BEFORE YOU.  YOU COVERED YOUR TRACKS WELL ENOUGH, BUT THEY WERE MUCH BETTER.  BE CAREFUL.

~S

Chapter Text

Wednesday, January 7

On the way up to the Academy, I’d made some decisions.  I’d decided that I was going to be up-front about what had happened at school, but not express any suspicion that someone hired novas to frame me, or that Utopia was the most probable candidate.  I was going to be cautiously optimistic about attending the Academy (rather than being sullen about having no real choice), but was going to remain adamant about not wanting to join Team Tomorrow.  I’d also keep up the modesty of insisting that T2M wouldn’t want me in the first place, so it was a non-issue.  I was going to use this as an opportunity to meet other novas my own age, and try to figure out where they stood with regard to Utopia, while keeping all my suspicions to myself.  In short, I was going to make the best of it, keep my eyes open and my mouth shut as much as possible, and play nice without compromising my basic principles.

Well, this was definitely a change from the last time I entered a strange Utopia building.  This time, I flew to Virginia under my own power, with a backpack and duffel bag strapped to my back, and a cat carrier in my arms (and attached to my belt, just in case).  I wasn’t bringing much stuff- no point, since if I needed anything else, I could just pick it up when I went home. 

The flight went smoothly, even if it wasn’t my best speed.  Not only did my bags create a surprising amount of drag, but I also didn’t want to risk upsetting Furnado.  So, the thirty-minute flight took closer to an hour and a half.  No problem, since I’d left early.

The campus (this was a full campus, like a college, not just school grounds) was set off back in the woods, and the nearest town was probably a good twenty minutes away by car.  The non-flying students must be pretty isolated, unless they all make friends with fliers and catch lifts that way.  The campus was fairly large, and could have comfortably held a lot more (or larger) buildings than it did.  It had a high stone wall around it, tipped with fancy iron spikes on the top.  Fancy or not, that’s still not very friendly.  Even less friendly, when I noticed the broken glass embedded between the spikes.  I hope that wall is intended to keep people out, rather than in, but it still doesn’t give the best impression.  

There was one road leading onto the campus, and that passed through a heavy iron gate, which was open when I flew up.  The gate had a call box with a monitor and keypad, so I assume it’s remotely operated. Not wanting to make a bad first impression, I entered through the open gate, rather than flying over. 

The road ended in a circular driveway in front of a medium-sized, two story, brick building with a sign saying ‘Administration’.  I could see several sidewalks leading in various directions.  No other roads were immediately obvious, but the walks were wide enough for golf carts. 

I landed in front of the building and went in.  Inside, the place reminded me a little of the front rooms of the Clinic- elegant, a little formal, and very, very ‘public’.  I unclipped the cat carrier and took off my not-a-utility-belt before anyone could see it.  Nobody seemed to be around, and I was debating whether I should look around for someone or just make enough noise that it was obvious that I was here when redhead in her mid-thirties stuck her head out of an office down the hallway. 

This turned out to be Linda (no last name provided), and I’m sure I was meant to think that she was scatterbrained.  She made an ‘oops I didn’t know anyone was here’ noise, then came and was about to shake my hand when she saw the cat carrier and redirected all her attention to the large, grey catloaf inside.  She cooed over Furnado for a minute before (apparently) remembering me.  But I’d been watching her, and all the time she was sticking her fingers into Furnado’s carrier, she was studying me, side-eyed.  I pretended not to notice, and waited to see what she’d do next.

What she did, was ‘remember’ me, then start into a bubbly welcome speech that was long on buzzwords and short on meaning.  I gathered that she was the receptionist and public-facing point of contact for the Academy (so, clearly her ditzy routine is for show if she deals with the public). 

Linda brought me back to her office and gave me a bunch of forms to fill out, which I did.  Then she took me into a smaller room, took several pictures of me, took a retinal scan, of all things, and made me an ID card.  I was surprised she didn’t fingerprint me.  I felt like I was being processed for jail or something.  Once she’d finished all that (babbling away about how much I was going to love it here all the time), she gave me a little keychain fob that she said would open everything I was ‘cleared for’ on campus.  I asked her what kind of things I wasn’t cleared for, and she brushed it off with, ‘faculty residences, labs after-hours, and some of the testing rooms’.  The fob also opened the front gate.  Students were asked to get in the habit of using the gate, as ‘in the unlikely event of a lockdown incident, trying to fly over the wall would be a bummer’.  A bummer?!?!?!?  But at least that tells me that there’s more here than meets the eye.

By the time we got back to Linda’s office, a tall black woman with a complicated set of braids was waiting for us.  Linda introduced me to Jacqueline, call-me-Jak, Landry.  She would take me to my room, then show me around campus.  She would also be my Resident Advisor.  My buzzy tingly sense suggested that she was not a nova.  Neither was Linda. 

Jak had just enough of an accent that I was pretty sure she was African, but I’m not familiar enough to pin it down any more than that.  We left out the back of the Admin building, and Jak pointed out the other buildings as we walked.  The library was the fanciest-looking building, though not the largest.  There were several buildings devoted to classes, which I’d see later, their own in-house Rashoud Clinic, which I’d visit tomorrow for preliminary testing, a full gym with a pool and assorted athletic fields, and a couple of utilitarian buildings she said were for power training.  Nearly on the other end of the campus were the dorms.  Off to one side was what looked like it might be an observatory.  There must be another entrance somewhere, because I saw another road, which led to several (very) small private houses.  Jak said those were for faculty and staff. 

I’d noticed a couple of small buildings tucked back into the tree line as I flew in, but Jak didn’t mention them, so I didn’t let on that I’d noticed them.  I’d also noticed some slight discoloration in regular patches on the grass- very faint, but noticeable if you were looking with enhanced vision.  I think there might be a lot more to this place underground. 

The dorms (two separate buildings linked by a sheltered walkway with a courtyard in the middle) were about as far from the front gate as could be managed.  The front building had the ‘lived in’ look that I’d have expected, but the back building didn’t.  Jak said that the back building had only just been completed, in expectation of more young novas erupting, but wasn’t in use yet.  The front building was two stories tall, with little balconies outside of each of the second floor rooms and tiny patios outside of each first floor room. 

Jak fobbed open the front door, which led to an open atrium, with plants and a tiny fountain.  There were couches and tables scattered around as well.  Jak said that this area was open to all the students at any time, but that otherwise, men had the lower level, women the upper.  Neither was allowed on the other’s floor after dark, and our fobs would only open our own floor.  Jak’s eyeroll and ‘yeah right’ tone invited me to share in the ridiculousness of such a precaution.  I laughed, but I’m nowhere near thinking I can trust Jak, just because she presents herself as ‘cool’ and maybe a little rebellious.  She fobbed open the elevator, and we were in another common area, this one with a big TV, several couches, and a kitchenette off to one side.  She said the laundry room was next to the kitchen.  We went down the hall, which was unusually wide, with thick carpet and slightly recessed doors.  The doors were widely spaced, so I figured the rooms must be pretty large.  Surely I wouldn’t have to share a room?  What hadn’t I thought to ask about that?!? 

But no, I had my own room.  About halfway down the hall, on the side facing the trees, away from the rest of campus.  Jak had me fob open the door, and… there I was.  In the Academy.  My room was as large as the door spacing had suggested, and shared a connecting bathroom with the room next to mine. 

The walls were a pale mint green, with darker green trim and curtains.  There wasn’t much furniture, but there was room for me to bring in more, if I wanted, I suppose.  A double bed, dresser, desk, bookcase, and nightstand was about it.  Outside, the little balcony was crowded with a tiny table and one chair.  No TV, but I saw the outlets where I could hook one up, if I brought one from home.  But I’m not big on TV. 

The bathroom had a huge bathtub, a separate shower, a double sink, and two sets of cabinets.  Lots of storage space.  I peeked into the cabinets.  One set was completely empty, the other held a modest selection of girly stuff.  It seems my bathroommate isn’t inclined to spill over her allotted space.  A good sign.  I didn’t hear any noise coming from my neighbor’s closed door.  Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen anyone other than Linda and Jak yet. 

Jak suggested that I let Furnado out, and put his things where he could get to them, and then she’d show me the rest of campus while he settled in.  I set up the litterbox, put out food and water, and his favorite blanket, then unzipped the carrier.  I decided to leave his harness, for now, just in case I had to catch him again before he was completely settled in.  Furnado promptly disappeared under the bed, and I figured it was best to leave him alone for now.  I’d unpack later.

As we left the dorms (Jak pointed out her suite at the very end of the hall), I asked her where everyone was, and she said that they were in classes.  I’d start meeting the other students this evening, when I’d be assigned my mentor.  This was news to me.  It turns out that new students are paired with an older, more experienced student for the first month, who helps them settle in and learn how everything works.  I’m not sure how I feel about being assigned a babysitter/designated friend, but hopefully it won’t be too bad.  And if it is, well, it’s only for a month.

The building nearest the dorms turned out to be the dining hall.  Although the dorms had limited kitchen space, everyone (students, faculty, and staff) ate here most of the time.  It was a couple of hours before any reasonable person would think of lunch, so we just stuck our heads in.  It looked pretty nice.  There was a buffet line (currently shut down), a salad bar, a breakfast station off to the side, and table full of snacks that were shelf-stable and always available.  I’d almost forgotten how much most novas ate.  Jak was surprised when I said I wasn’t hungry after she offered me a snack.  There were just the faintest cooking smells getting started, and I would be interested to see what kind of lunch they put on. 

Jak only pointed out the buildings where classes were held, not wanting to disturb anything in session.  There was a lot of attention devoted to language arts.  That surprised me a little.  Jak asked if I spoke any languages other than English, and was pleased that I was fluent in Spanish, and passable in the other Romance languages.  But she said I would still be expected to take at least a couple more, and to be thinking about which ones I’d be most interested in.  Apparently, the Academy is really into the idea that novas are ‘citizens of the world’ and should speak accordingly. 

Jak took me through the library briefly, as a shortcut to the gym.  I could cheerfully spend hours exploring that library, but Jak hustled me right on through.  Oh well. 

If I’d thought the barn at the Clinic was well-equipped, I hadn’t seen anything like this gym.  I suppose part of what made it seem so imposing was that there were multiples of each of the machines, and most of them were as far advanced from the Clinic’s gear as the Clinic was from a regular baseline gym.  I hope I won’t have to spend much time here, but I’m sure I will. 

She took me to their little Clinic, which was surprisingly small in comparison with the one at home.  The building was nice, like all the others, but very sparse.  I think maybe it’s more for confirmation or dealing with injuries, rather than training.  After all, the whole campus is for training, one way or the other.  I would be reporting here after breakfast tomorrow. 

Lastly, the buildings where students were trained in using their powers were pointed out, but again, we didn’t go in.  Out of everything on campus, those buildings were the only ones that didn’t match the surroundings.  Everything else gave the appearance of a small college campus.  These buildings seemed somehow squat and ugly.  They didn’t have any real windows, only narrow slits, and the doors looked like heavy duty security doors.  I wonder if the ‘power training’ areas also doubled as a prison.  They looked secure enough.

Jak had scooped up a booklet while we were in the library, and now she handed it to me- the Student Handbook.  I was to read it today, and be ready to answer questions on it this evening.  It outlined what was expected of me in terms of behavior, decorum, scholastic achievements, code of honor, etc. 

Aaaaand, just like that, we were done.  Jak told me to go back to the dorm and take the rest of the day to settle in, study the handbook, and meet my classmates.  Lunch would be in about an hour.  Then she just… left me standing there. 

I could only assume this is a test.  Would everything be a test, here?  I really hoped not.  Luckily, this one was easy enough.  The campus was nowhere near large enough to get lost in. 

I fobbed myself back into the dorm, confirmed that no, my fob didn’t let me into the guy’s first floor section, and went up to my room.  Furnado had obviously been out and exploring the space (as evidenced by the thin coating of shed fur everywhere), and was asleep on the bed when I came back in.  I woke him up just long enough to take his harness off.  Unpacking didn’t take long, and most of that was mounting the cat furniture on the walls and window.  As expected, the OpNet connection here is lightning fast.  Once all that was done, I read over the Student Handbook once before a bell (like a church bell, not a class-change bell) suggested it might be lunchtime. 

I debated lunch.  After all, I wasn’t hungry, and wasn’t sure about meeting a bunch of new people all in a clump that way, but decided that I may as well.  At least with a meal, we’re all there for a reason, and there’s a definite end to it.  So, down to the dining hall I went.

I had to look twice to be sure there were only seven students there.  They made enough noise for twice that, easily.  Only seven?  And I make eight?  I had thought that all young novas were… strongly encouraged to attend the Academy.  I know we’re rare, but I didn’t realize we were that rare.  Or maybe there were multiple lunch periods?   The adults and students ate at opposite ends of the room, and basically ignored each other.  But there didn’t seem to be any tension in it.  Since I hadn’t (apparently) been spotted right away, I took a moment to study the scene.  Seven kids about my age, one stunningly beautiful with enormous feathery wings.  The wings were the variegated gray of a pigeon, rather than the snow white of an angel.  I’d never really thought of wings being anything other than white feathers.  The others all looked more normal- more baseline.  But I knew they weren’t.  I ignored the adults for now. 

The kids were all eating at a trestle table that could have easily seated ten, so I knew there’d be space for me.  The buffet line was open and steaming, so I got a tray and loaded up- there was a large roast with the carving tools so you could serve yourself, several kinds of vegetables, potatoes (baked and mashed), a couple of pizzas, and three kinds of soup.  A salad bar occupied one end.  A self-serve fountain dispensed several kinds of juice, tea, and coffee.  No sodas, but an ice chest nearby held bottled Cokes.  The upper shelf of the buffet line held several kinds of bread and saucers of deserts- mostly wedges of pie or cookies. 

I took what I wanted and headed for the table.  One of the girls stood up, waved me over, and made room for me by hip checking the guy next to her into scooting down.  She was tall, with brown hair and eyes, a wide mouth, and a slightly beaky nose.  Even though her features weren’t much better than average, she had an… inner vitality.  Like she stuffed twenty-five hours of living into every day and enjoyed every minute of it. 

This, it turned out, was Natalie Miller, aka Flare.  She was assigned to be my mentor for the next month.  She introduced me to the rest of the group. 

There was Donovan Carter, the one she’d scooted down the bench.  His hair was a darker brown, his eyes so dark they were almost black.  He had a farmer’s tan, and even though he was perfectly clean, somehow he gave the idea of having dirt under his fingernails- not a sense of being dirty, but he had a look that could have been the illustration for ‘salt-of-the-earth farmer’.  Donovan was big.  Not fat- solid.  If people still used horse-drawn plows like they used to, he probably could have been hitched to one without any fuss.  He gave me a big smile, but was too focused on his food for much more.  He also had about four times as much food on his tray as anyone else.  Natalie said that his nova name was ‘Bruiser’, but everyone called him ‘Puppy’. 

Beside him was a gorgeous Brazilian guy called Paulo ‘Guardião’ Braga.  Caramel skin, black hair, eyes such an intense violet I thought they might be the result of overusing power.  He was more perfectly comfortable in his own skin than anyone I’ve ever seen before.  Serene, like nothing could ever make him doubt himself; but not in an arrogant way.  I look forward to getting to know him better.  If every group has a confidant, I’m pretty sure it’s him in this one. 

Jared ‘Stinger’ Nelson was on the end.  He was pale, with dark blond hair and light green eyes.  There was a reserve about him, and the only tension I saw at the table.  I watched him out of the corner of my eye, and it seemed directed inward rather than toward anyone.  He sat up very straight, and made a point of shaking my hand and saying it was nice to meet me.  He acts like he’s older than the others, but I’m not sure if he really is.  I’m not sure if he’s shy, anxious, or just has a small stick up his ass.  We’ll see. 

On the other side was possibly the single most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.  She was tiny, even sitting down, and her wings took up more space than she did, tucked behind her, with the tips spilling across the ground.  I made a mental note to watch where I stepped around her.  She was Asian, maybe Korean?  Straight black hair, black eyes, skin like porcelain, delicate features.  I hate to bring up stereotypes, but whoever came up with the ‘delicate Asian pearl’ trope may as well have been thinking of her. Natalie introduced her as Choi ‘Dream Shadow’ Yu-Jun.  Her smile lit up the room, and I instantly wanted to be her friend.  Am I really that shallow?

Beside her was Lorenzo ‘Shift’ Rossi.  His red hair didn’t go with his tan skin and Italian accent, but I’m pretty sure it was natural.  Even though he looked to be about the same age as the rest of us (late teens, all), his body had a lanky, unfinished look.  Like he had another growth spurt that was planned but hadn’t shown up yet.  He had the skittery movements, too, like he wasn’t quite sure where his body was. 

Last, across from me, was Anastasia ‘Sapphire’ Koval.  She was blond, with blue eyes so pale they were almost white, but unusually dark eyebrows.  Her accent was from Eastern Europe.  Not quite Russian, but close.  I hadn’t really noticed anyone else’s clothes, but hers screamed ‘wealth’ and ‘style’.  And I don’t think she’s wearing Eufiber, either.  She pretty clearly comes from money.  She has the confidence to go with it, too.  She looked me over really quickly, and I never felt so… catalogued. Like everything about me was noted and filed away for future reference.  She wasn’t unfriendly, but she was nowhere near as welcoming as some of the others.  There was also a literal chill coming off of her.  As in, the air around her was at least fifteen degrees colder than elsewhere in the room. 

Natalie said that there was one more student in their group, Mitchell ‘Hourglass’ Campbell, but he rarely joined them for lunch.  Apparently he keeps weird hours.

When I mentioned how surprised I was that there weren’t more students, Jared said that the ‘Senior Squad’ (I could hear the capital letters clearly) were gone most of the time.  They were the first group of students to come to the Academy, and were close to graduating, so they spent more time out in the field, getting hands-on experience.

What I kept to myself was my surprise at how diverse the students were.  I had somehow thought that an Academy for young novas would be a regional thing, like the schools of wizardry in the Harry Potter books- each part of the world having their own.  But it turns out, there’s only one Academy.  Or, I should say, only one Utopia-sponsored Academy.  It occurs to me that Scripture’s home might serve as an Academy in its own way. 

There wasn’t time for much more than introductions before the others had to go back to class.  Natalie told me to take my time settling in, and we’d all meet in the common area when they finished with classes around six.  Soon after, everybody took off for their afternoon classes.  The faculty had left a few minutes earlier. 

Someone in a janitorial jumpsuit came out from the kitchen and started clearing the table.  Not having anything else to do, I joined in.  George (his name was sewn on his jumpsuit) didn’t have much to say, but he appreciated the help.  I always went out of my way to make the janitors’ jobs easier at school, so I may as well keep it up.  Bailey always made fun of me for doing ‘the help’s’ jobs for them, but I figure it’s better to be on the right side of the people who make your life easier. Especially when it doesn’t cost you anything but a little time and effort.

After, I went back to the dorms, remembered that I hadn’t texted Mom to let her know I made it safely, did that, then settled in to re-read the Student Handbook.  It really doesn’t seem like much, but it has enough finicky little rules that I think if they were looking for ways to get you intro trouble, it would be easy enough to find something.  I read parts of it aloud to Furnado.  He wasn’t impressed. 

All at once, I didn’t want to be alone in the dorm.  So, I put Furnado’s harness back on him, and we went out for a walk.  I decided to head toward the observatory.  I didn’t think there’d be anything going on there during the day, but I wanted a closer look at it. 

Like most observatories, it was set off away from all the other buildings.  There were trees screening it from the rest of campus, but none close enough to obscure the view.  Furnado liked all the new smells, insisted that all the squirrels belonged to him, and had to roll around in every interesting patch of grass, so progress was slow. 

When we finally got there, the place was quiet, like I expected.  My fob didn’t work, so I guess an observatory during the day qualifies as a ‘lab after hours’.  I hope I’ll be allowed to use the telescope eventually.  We walked around the building, and I scooped Furnado up long enough to fly up and look at the dome of the building.  Furnado doesn’t like flying outside the carrier as much, so I landed quickly and let him play stalk-the-leaf for a while.  Then we headed back.

Since I suspected the little niche rules in the Student Handbook could be used against me if I wasn’t careful, I read it again.  This time, I read all of it aloud, recording it into my computer for later listening.  If I have to be here, I may as well get in the Academy’s ‘good books’.  And who knows?  Maybe all my suspicions are just paranoia, Utopia isn’t being shady, and it’s all in my head.  It’s possible.  And pigs may fly. 

Even after reading the Handbook aloud, I had plenty of time for this entry before the others got back.  I’m doing the update out on the balcony.  It’s a little cramped, but I wanted to let Furnado out to see how he’d do.  I hope I can leave the door cracked so he can get out on the balcony whenever he wants, but I have to be sure he won’t jump off, first.  So far, so good. 

Later-

Well, tonight was a lot of fun.  I’d decided while I was walking Furnado how I was going to handle displaying my powers.  I decided that I’d be completely open about the flying, the invisibility, the electricity thing, and the strength.  I’d keep the details of my enhanced senses to myself, as well as just how tough I am, but not deny those things outright.  I wouldn’t volunteer anything about borrowing energy.  I’d admit it if asked- but I’d keep how good I was at it to myself.  The other stuff- being able to borrow powers, and what Scripture taught me, I’m keeping completely private.  Since I’ve never displayed either of those outside Scripture’s home, there shouldn’t be an issue.  And I’ll try to keep just how deep my connection to Quantum is a secret, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to.

I was glad I’d decided all that beforehand, because I guess it was inevitable that ‘getting to know my classmates’ mostly consisted of “What can you do?” and “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine”.  It would have been rude to take notes, so let’s see how much of this I can keep straight. 

Natalie, ‘Flare’ (the culture around here seems to be to refer to each other by our nova names, unless we’re being private or serious.  Our regular names aren’t a secret, but they seem to want us thinking like teammates more than like people.)  Anyway, Flare is really fast, and flexible.  She thinks fast, too.  She can burst into flames whenever she wants, which explains the name.  She can’t really do anything with the flames.  They’re just there, and anything that gets too close to her gets burned.  But the coolest thing is, she can teleport!!!!  I’m really glad she’s my mentor, now.  Hopefully we’ll be friends, and maybe she’ll teach me how!. (Fingers crossed!)

Guardião is really tough.  It’s hard to compare that kind of thing, but it sounds like he might be tougher than I am.  He can do the same thing Reach can do, keep other people from using their powers.  I don’t think he’s as good at it as Reach is, at least, not the way he describes it.  And he can heal.  Actually touch people and make wounds close up!  So cool.

Dream Shadow can fly, of course.  She flies with her wings, instead of just... flying.  It’ll be interesting to compare notes.  In addition to being so incredibily beautiful, she’s also strong (at least as strong as I am, maybe more) and fast.  She’s got a yell on her that will rattle windows.  I bet she can be heard for miles.  It’s a little creepy, all that noise coming out of such a tiny person.  It turns out, she shares my connecting bathroom.

Stinger can shoot energy bolts out of his hands.  He’s fast, too, and can shoot them with crazy accuracy.  He can also create these awful waves of energy that screw with other people’s senses.  I kinda get the idea that he’s the leader of this group, but I’m not sure who put him in charge.  People don’t seem to have the kind of respect for him that you’d expect if they’d chosen him as leader, so I bet that either he put himself in charge, or Utopia is maybe grooming him for some kind of leadership role.  I think that’s why he’s so uptight.  Out of all of us, he’s the only one who really seems to think much about how we’d work as a team, especially in a fight.  He and I might end up butting heads over that.  I hope not.

Shift is exactly that- a shapeshifter.  He can turn into just about anything, and display a lot of the abilities of what he’s turned into.  Like, if he turns into a bird, he can fly; and if he turns into a polar bear, he has teeth, claws, and thick hide.  He’s kind of a social chameleon, too.  I watched him subtly mirror whoever was talking, and I think he really understands how people think.

Sapphire has enhanced senses, like me.  She does the same kind of elemental control things that Rocío does with water, only more so.  Except, she does it with gemstones.  I guess that explains her clothes.  If she can create precious stones at will, then she’d have all the money she’ll ever need.  She can fly, too, and create illusions.  Assuming everyone is being honest, I think she might be the most powerful member of the group.  I think her connection to Quantum might be as deep as my own- if my buzzy tingly sense is any guide. 

Puppy- I just can’t think of him as ‘Bruiser’- is tough, and really strong.  Like, really strong.  Juggling 747s strong.  He’s really sweet, too.  It’s impossible not to like him.  And he can talk to animals, and get them to do what he wants.  There’s just one problem.  He’s as dumb as a bag of hammers.  I’ve heard of novas being physically disabled, but I’ve never heard of one being, what’s the nice word?  ‘Developmentally delayed’?  I don’t think there’s anything actually wrong with him.  He’s just… not bright.  My grandmother would have called him ‘simple’ and made sure he had a job that made him happy.  Maybe I can ask him to talk to Furnado, and make sure he understands about the balcony. 

The last guy, Hourglass, didn’t show up again.  Apparently he’s so smart it’s hard to understand him when he talks.  And he manipulates time, somehow!   That’s a little creepy. 

Of course, then it was my turn.  The kids who have easily-demonstrated powers did so, so I did as well.  Like I planned, I was open about the flying, the invisibility, the strength, and the electricity conversion.  I downplayed how tough I was.  I didn’t mention being able to borrow energy, but when Flare brought it up, I admitted to it, but said I didn’t like using it.  Either she’s a mind reader and not admitting it, or (more likely, since she’s my mentor) she’s been briefed on me.  That would make sense, but I’m going to have to be careful around her.  I don’t want anyone figuring out what else I can do, and if anyone is going to, her, Sapphire, and maybe Hourglass seem the most likely candidates.  I’m assuming about Hourglass, of course.  Maybe he’ll turn out to be the ‘oblivious genius’ type that knows everything but doesn’t notice anything around him?  I won’t know until I meet him, if then.  

Nobody seemed especially impressed with me, which is good.  I don’t want to stand out around here.  Well, maybe for the flying.  I think I’m pretty good at flying, and I look forward to seeing how I measure up to Sapphire and Dream Shadow.  But I know that flying, even being really good at flying, won’t make me more interesting to Utopia, so it’s something I can show off safely.  And maybe if I’m really good at one thing, they won’t expect me to be good at other things. 

Well, after show-and-tell was over, we all settled down to more important (though less interesting) things, like classes and how the school works.  I’m used to having several one-hour classes each day.  Here, there are only two or three classes every day, each of them two or three hours long.  That could be interesting.  You can go into more depth with a longer class period, and I guess the faculty just expects novas to be able to pay attention better than baselines.

Then they started talking about what they actually learned in these classes.  I’m used to things like history, chemistry, and pre-calculus.  Basic school things.  College-prep things.  Apparently, those things aren’t important here.  Here, I’m going to be learning more… hands-on things.  First aid.  Structural engineering.  Disaster relief.  Crowd control.  Diplomacy.  Police procedure. Forensics.  Military engagement.  In short, things that heroes are expected to know and do, when they aren’t fighting the Teragen or Elites.  While a lot of those topics are interesting, and I’d like to know more about them, this is pretty much my worst-case scenario.  As I’d expected, the students of Team Tomorrow Academy are being groomed to be heroes.  Maybe not all of them T2M heroes, but heroes.  And I still have no interest whatsoever in being a hero.  It’s one thing to help out in an emergency, like I did with the apartment fire.  It’s quite another to have that be my job. 

And worse, these classes won’t provide what I’ll need to get into college.  Colleges look for AP Biology, not Basic Crowd Control Techniques or Coordinating with Baseline Military Units.  Well, that might not be quite true.  If novas are sought after as students, then I suppose a graduate of the Academy would be an even bigger prize for enrollment, even if that graduate couldn’t tell Faulkner from the French Revolution.  Still, it sounds like my actual education isn’t going to be a priority here.  It almost sounds less like a high school than a trade program.  There’s nothing wrong with specialized programs for plumbing or welding, but… that’s not the kind of education I want.  And that’s not the kind of education that will take me where I want to go in life. 

About the only really scholastic thing they focus on here is languages.  And that’s a major priority.  I guess that makes sense.  If we’re being trained as heroes, well, heroes need to be able to talk to everyone.  I’m actually looking forward to that part.

Then Stinger dropped the other shoe.  As soon as I was settled into classes, the faculty would start me on combat training and unit tactics.  He said that since I didn’t seem to have much in the way of ranged offensive capabilities (his words, not mine), then I’d probably end up joining Puppy in front-line work.  I might also be useful in reconnaissance. 

I told him flat-out that I wasn’t a fighter, and had no intention of becoming one.  That I was taking aikido purely as a self-defense exercise, and that was the extent of my ‘combat effectiveness’.  I had no interest in even trying to be that kind of hero. 

Well, that went over like a lead balloon.  Dead silence.  Everybody staring at me.  Stinger looking like I’d shat in his cornflakes.  I’m not sure if he was more bothered that I’d rejected his intended tactics for me, or that I rejected the idea of being a hero.  Finally, he just looked over at Flare with a ‘you deal with this’ look on his face. 

Flare turned to me and said, slowly, like I was a little kid, “You do realize that you’re here to train to be a hero, right?”  She stared at me, really intensely, then flicker her eyes up and to one side, several times, without moving her head.  I casually shifted position and was able to look where she had been indicating.  I found it after a moment.  A camera.  Not really hidden, so much as casually concealed.  We were being watched.  Luckily, I’d already decided how I was going to handle explaining why I was here. 

I told her that, no, I wasn’t here to be a hero.  I was here because I got kicked out of my previous school.  That there was vandalism that only a nova (I didn’t say ‘two novas’) could manage, and that the principal had blamed me for it.  And that Utopia had decided it was better to sweep the whole thing under the rug and send me here, rather than to clear my name.  I told her that when I’d been encouraged to come here right after I’d erupted, I’d refused.  Because I wanted to finish high school, go to college, and live as close to a normal life as I could.  That I had no interest in being a superhero, and had been doing just fine for months, taking the contracts and doing the jobs I was given while being a more-or-less normal high school student.

That got their attention.  Contracts?  Jobs?  After some confusion, I figured it out.  None of them were working novas.  They had all come straight to the Academy as soon as their powers had stabilized and been deemed ‘under control’.  They weren’t under contract to Utopia or Nova Services International. Apart from a couple of interviews and media events connected with the Academy, none of them had done anything other than attend the Academy. 

It reminded me of a summer day camp I went to a few years ago.  Mom was always finding week or month long places for me to spend the days during summer, before I was old enough to take care of myself.  When money was tight, she enrolled me in whichever camps were cheapest. Which usually turned out to be some kind of Vacation Bible School (never mind that we weren’t religious).  One year, I’d ended up with a group of kids who were all homeschooled.  They’d never done any of the normal school things- field trips, fundraisers, class projects, anything like that.  I’d felt like the ‘worldly’ goat in a flock of sheep.  I felt like that now.  Sorta like that. 

There was also a weird kind of classism, like I was somebody who worked any odd job I could find to feed myself, suddenly thrown in with a group of idle rich kids with tutors and chauffeurs.  It wasn’t that I was being looked down on (or looked up to, for that matter).  It was just that I’d clearly had a completely different experience with being a nova than they had.   Or maybe, it was that I’d had experience in being a nova, where they were learning about being heroes. 

All talk about unit tactics was abandoned (though probably not forgotten).  Instead, they started pumping me for what it had been like to actually do the things they were learning about.  This was sticky.  I didn’t want to set myself up as being more experienced than them.  I wanted to blend in and not be noticed.  But I couldn’t just… not answer.  I did my best, and tried to make everything sound as mundane as possible.

No one wanted to hear about the podcasts, which was fine.  Only Dream Shadow, Sapphire, and (oddly enough) Guardião wanted to know about the fashion show.  Puppy and Stinger were interested in the dog adoption event- Puppy because of the dogs, and Stinger because it was (in his words) ‘a chance to interface with baselines in a non-threatening, community building opportunity’. 

Stinger and Flare wanted to hear about the convention.  Flare because she was fascinated by the idea of being around so many baselines who made novas the entire focus of their lives- for the weekend, at least.  Stinger wanted to know about my encounters with ‘actual Teragen’.  He seemed to be half impressed that I’d survived, and half outraged that I’d been willing to speak with them.  (Has he really swallowed Utopia’s propaganda?  Have they all?  I’m going to have to be extra careful.)  He seems to think that any nova not absolutely connected with Utopia is selfish and pathetic at best, and outright dangerous at worst.  I hope he isn’t actually as zealous as he seems to be.

But everyone wanted to hear about the fire.  First, we had to sort out the confusion of how I’d even known about it.  Apparently, since they went directly from their local Clinics to the Academy, they were never issued Utopia communicators.  The Senior Squad had them, but the younger students didn’t.  So, I showed them mine, and a few of the features.  I explained how the emergency alerts came through, even in ‘do not disturb’ mode, and that one had come through in the middle of school.  I did what I could to downplay the whole thing.  These kids are all about being heroes, and this was classic, textbook ‘hero stuff’.  I didn’t want to dwell too much on ‘heroics’.  So, I focused on the awkward piggyback ride, and the dog peeing on me. 

Somehow, the mugging was even more exciting for them, even though I was much less happy to talk about it.  For them it was real, in-the-moment, unplanned hero stuff.  Actual crime fighting.  And the fact that my friend could have been seriously hurt or killed didn’t seem to matter to them.  It also didn’t matter that I’d basically sucked at heroing, ended up hurting the guy, and then just stood around holding on to him until the cops showed up.  When I mentioned having to be in court at the end of the month, it was a totally new idea for them.  Somehow, they’d never considered that ‘hero stuff’ resulted in court, injuries, property damage, and all kinds of very unheroic consequences. 

That gave me the opening to ask some questions of my own.  Like, how long they’d been at the Academy.  Stinger had been here the longest, other than the Senior Squad.  He’d been here a little more than a year.  Sapphire was the newest (until me)- she’d arrived four months ago.  With the exception of Dream Shadow and Puppy, they’d each been sent to the Academy after only a couple of weeks in their local Clinics.  Dream Shadow had been involved with a North Korean government training facility for three months, which she didn’t want to talk about.  Puppy had erupted on his family’s farm, and they’d kept him hidden, putting his strength and animal powers to good use, until religious extremists found out about him- and set fire to the family’s barn.  Puppy had come to the Academy to keep his family from being harassed any further.  (I wonder if they ran afoul of the same hate group that shot at me.  It was about the same part of Kansas, after all.) 

I also found out that, other than Dream Shadow and Hourglass, the Academy had given everyone else their nova names.  I guess that explains how Puppy ended up with ‘Bruiser’- it absolutely doesn’t fit him.  Dream Shadow is the english translation of what her first training facility called her, and Hourglass came up with his own name.  That led to me explaining how I had chosen ‘Heka’ and what it meant to me. 

The evening broke up soon after that, and it was only when I got back to my room that something occurred to me.  Out of all the classes they mentioned, something didn’t come up.  Social media.  Image management.  Branding.  In short, the PR aspect of being heroes. 

That got me curious, and I did some OpNet searching.  There were a few OpNet hits on most of the kids, mostly in the days immediately following their eruptions.  But none of them has any official social media presence.  Only Stinger has an OpNet site devoted to him, and it’s pretty bare bones- dealing less with him as a person or nova, and more with him as a prospective teen leader.  I don’t think these kids have ‘handlers’ of their own.  I’m thinking that maybe I should keep Erica’s presence in my life on the downlow, for now at least.

That reminded me of the camera in the common area.  I guess it isn’t unreasonable that there would be security in the relatively public areas.  I would almost expect it in the class buildings and training areas.  But, the way the camera was at least partially concealed, rather than posting it openly, with a wall mount, or one of those little black bubbles in the ceiling rubbed me wrong.  And it made me wonder.  I curled up on my bed with Furnado, using petting him as a cover for a little investigation.  Carefully, trying not to be obvious what I was doing, I examined every inch of my room (that I could see from my position on the bed). 

It didn’t take long for my suspicions to be (partially) confirmed.  I’d half expected to find a hidden camera in my room.  I didn’t.  If there is one, it’s very well hidden.  What I did find were hidden microphones.  Two of them.  One near the door to the balcony, and one near the desk.  The one by the balcony might be sensitive enough to pick up the bathroom as well, I’m not sure. 

Does Flare know about the mics?  She certainly knows about the camera, and where there’s one, there’re more.  Do the others know?  Both the mics that I found were the same kind, so I have at least some idea what to look for moving forward. 

I wish I had someone here I knew I could trust.  I’d like to trust Flare, but her being made my mentor heavily implies that she’s fully on board with Utopia.  Stinger certainly seems to be.  I’m less certain about Sapphire.  The way she looked at me, examining and cataloguing, made me very uncomfortable (and is that how I make baselines feel???).  It will be hard keeping secrets from her, but that also means that it will be hard for Utopia to keep secrets from her as well.  If anyone here is likely to have noticed something wrong, it’s probably her.  But the question is, what (if anything) is she willing to do about it? 

I’m telling myself that I’m still in some degree of control.  There’s no reason I can’t just... refuse to come back anytime I leave campus.  I want to protect Mom, and I certainly like having money, but I think I could just... leave... if I had to.  That’s an option.  Hell, I think if I did it without giving any kind of warning, I could probably just fly away anytime I wanted. 

But I feel very alone here.  More so than when I was (basically) the only nova I knew. 

Chapter Text

Thursday, January 8

Four months, nearly to the day.  And I’m back being tested again.  At least this time, I know what to expect.  First, the usual medical part.  Dr. Akins is more… congenial(?) than Dr. Jackson, but he also treats me like a little kid.  At least Dr. Jackson treated me like a person, even if she was sorta remote.  Aloof?  Whatever.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  I don’t think I’ll be seeing much of Dr. Akins after the testing is over, unless something weird happens. 

After I was cleared through medical, I was tested on the Student Handbook.  I’d read it one more time last night, so it was still pretty fresh in my mind.  They were really intense about it, though.  I still can’t help but wonder if some of the finicky little rules are intended to trip kids up and open up opportunities for ‘discipline’.  I’m not especially worried about it.  I’ve been a ‘good kid’ for as long as I can remember.  Going along to get along is second nature to me.  And knowing that I can just… leave… anytime I want will make putting up with anything easier. 

After the testing, Flare took charge of me, and showed me around the campus again, just as though Jak hadn’t done that yesterday.  This was a more interesting tour, though, since Flare kept up a running commentary.  She talked about the faculty and staff, their personality quirks.  She talked about Jak, and how she was there to basically keep us from doing stupid crap, and to deal with any emotional stuff; but she’d made it clear that she didn’t want to be bothered and would return the favor.  In other words, if I really needed something, I could go to her, but it was better to solve my problems myself, or get help from the other kids.  Okay, I can deal with that. 

She had this weird blend of admiration and contempt for Stinger.  She accepted him as their leader without any (apparent) question, but at the same time wrote him off as an uptight tattle-tale and teacher’s pet.  If that was meant as a warning, message received.  I thought about mentioning the microphones in my room, but I’m still not completely sure of her yet.

We talked about powers for a while as well, and it turns out that she’s as interested in being invisible as I am in teleporting.  We haven’t come to any real agreement yet, but I think maybe we can teach each other.  From what I’ve gathered from listening to the others, the faculty here haven’t been pushing the kids nearly as hard as Bix pushed me.  I’m not sure what that will mean for how I’ll measure up.  I don’t really think of myself as ‘driven’ or ‘ambitious’- I just want to hold my own here.  But I don’t want to stand out too much. 

It’s going to be a tough needle to thread, especially working blind.  If I’m ahead of the others, substantially ahead, I don’t want to show that.  Not only do I not want to make myself any more attractive to Team Tomorrow, I also don’t want to spur any jealousy from the others.  On the other hand, if I’m behind, I don’t want to be ragged on, or assigned extra training, or otherwise be the ‘weakest link’.  About the only thing worse than jealousy is pity.  Or contempt.  But I also need to avoid giving any impression of ‘throwing my weight around’ as the new girl.  I already might have screwed that up, but how could I know that they hadn’t ever been ‘working novas’?  I would have kept as much of that to myself as I could, if I’d known.  Too late now.

Flare had afternoon classes, and I had nothing scheduled after lunch.  So, I decided to test a theory.  The Student Handbook had a lot of finicky, fussy rules, but there were some weird omissions.  Like leaving campus.  The Handbook didn’t say anything about it.  It wasn’t forbidden.  It didn’t list any kind of exit procedure (other than using the main gate, rather than going over the wall).  It didn’t even require telling someone I was going. 

I was pretty sure that if I got into trouble, I could successfully point out that there was nothing in the handbook against it.  And if I got in trouble, this would be a way of seeing what ‘trouble’ looked like, without courting any kind of major violation.  Besides, I had my communicator, so I knew they could track me. 

So, I just… walked out the front gate.  Openly.  Once I was out, I took to the air, and flew into Roanoke.  Maybe the sheer isolation is enough to keep students from wanting to leave on a whim?  I noticed that there weren’t any cars on campus, so while I assume the faculty has a hidden parking lot somewhere, I don’t think any of the students have cars.  That would mean that only Dream Shadow and Sapphire could get into town easily.  Maybe Flare, if she’s been there enough to teleport safely. 

Roanoke is a nice enough place, I guess.  I figure I’ll space out my explorations, to make it last longer.  I also didn’t want to push my luck and be gone too long.  So, I just visited the planetarium in The Center.  It also has a history and science museum that I’ll want to spend more time with.  The planetarium was cool, but planetariums all tend to be pretty much the same. 

I got back a little before dinner, and although nothing was said about my leaving, I noticed Linda in the front window of the Admin building, puttering around.  I think she was watching for me to come back, because as soon as she saw me, she ducked deeper into the building. 

When I joined the others for dinner, I mentioned my little field trip.  The surprise and (from Stinger) disapproval made it pretty clear that unauthorized excursions were, if not forbidden, at least frowned upon.  Interesting.  So, there’s going to be a lot to learn about the unspoken ‘rules’ of the Academy, beyond the Student Handbook. 

Chapter Text

Friday, January 9

I talked to Flare before breakfast about the others’ reaction to my going out yesterday.  She said that there wasn’t an actual rule about it, but that no one ever did it.  When I asked why, she said that we had everything we needed here on campus, which I didn’t think was any kind of answer at all (in addition to being incorrect). 

With some further prodding, it came out that none of them left campus at all, other than for ‘nature training’ in the national forest.  Even when they did the occasional ‘look at the teen novas!’ press event, the media came to campus instead of them leaving.  They usually didn’t even go home for holidays, let alone weekends, though some of them called home frequently. 

Flare tried to make out like it wasn’t a big deal, but I got the idea that she was a little afraid of baselines.  No, that’s not quite it.  Like she was afraid of herself around baselines.  Like, baseline safety was paramount, and she couldn’t trust herself around them.  After the way Bix ‘tested’ me to see what I’d do if startled, and the way they treated me versus the various baselines I’d interacted with, I’m not surprised.  And these kids have been isolated, with only Utopia’s way of thinking since they erupted? 

This is ridiculous.  But I’m not sure I should even try to do something about it.  I don’t want to be here.  The most logical thing, is for me to ‘do my time’ and get out.  Hopefully, these kids will figure out the truth once they graduate and go out into the world.  But will they?  If some or even most of these kids are expected to go straight from the Academy to T2M or some other Utopia-driven ‘hero’ job, will they ever go out into the world?  Or will they be pampered celebrities in their own protected bubble, kept away from anyone or anything that could wake them up to the real world?

I’m sure Utopia wouldn’t be happy with my rocking the boat.  Stinger would almost certainly have kittens.  I’m not sure about some of the others.  But I’m going to be doing a bit of boat-rocking regardless, since I fully intend to go home most weekends, as well as keep up my aikido lessons. 

So, the question becomes, Do I play nice, doing my own thing and not trying to show the others what they’re missing?  Or do I show them that they can (and should) burst their little safety bubble?

Placement was both similar and very different to testing my powers at the Clinic.  First, was a set of academic tests.  These were easy, and I’m pretty sure I could have managed most of what was on them even before I erupted.  It was a little like the ACT, but a bit more broad in scope.  It got scored a lot faster, too.  As in, I got my results on the spot.  The tester, a baseline named Mrs. Richardson, told me that my scores indicated that there was no need for any remedial studies (duh!), and I could be passed directly onto ‘vocational education’.  In other words, hero classes.  As far as the Academy is concerned, my time as a high school student is over. What I’ve already learned about history, biology, and literature is all I’m going to get. 

After I got out of the first half of ‘placement’, I went back to my room and did a quick OpNet check.  Yes, the Academy is an accredited high school.  A diploma from here is just as valid as a diploma from an public high school.  Maybe better, due to the prestige.  But I get the impression that this is another instance of ‘what Utopia wants, Utopia gets’. 

I looked up the actual requirements for graduating high school (weird that I’d never thought to do that before).  In additional to minimum attendance, overall GPA, and the need to pass most courses with a minimum grade, there was also a list of credits each student has to have.  Six semesters of science, six semesters of math, eight semesters of English/Literature, six semesters of history, two semesters of art/music/theater, eight semesters of Phys Ed (or marching band, sports, or cheerleading), several other small things.  None of which I’ve completed yet (having another four semesters between me and graduation).  In short, the Academy is basically declaring me academically ‘graduated’ even though I’m nowhere near meeting the requirements.  And yet, it sure does seem like I’m going to be given a high school diploma at the end of all this.  This is wrong.  But Utopia makes its own rules.

The second half of ‘placement’ was more like what I was expecting, though not in the way I was expecting.  There was a team of people to test my powers this time.  Three baselines (Arnie, Julio, and Wanda), and two novas (Flamestrike and The Wall).  The baselines did a few basic tests, like I was expecting- weight lifting, a vision test, that kind of thing.  They didn’t bother testing my enhanced senses, other than confirming that I could see thermal patterns. 

Then things got ‘real’.  We all went into this big open hanger.  The baselines went into a reinforced viewing pod.  The Wall was just hanging out, watching.  Flamestrike was very professional and ‘nothing personal’ about it, and he told me up front exactly what was going to happen.  He was going to try to hurt me.  He wasn’t intending to kill me, but this was a ‘live fire’ exercise, so it was going to be dangerous.  It was up to me to avoid getting hurt.  He told me to go to the opposite end of the hanger, away from the viewing pod, while he took the middle position. 

I had no idea what to expect, other than what his name told me- probably offensive uses of fire.  Of course, I wanted nothing to do with any of this.  But I didn’t have a lot of choice, either. So, I walked down to the other end.  And waited.  I had all my senses fully on the alert, so I caught the heat shimmer around his body as he powered up.  As soon as I saw flames actually gathering around his hands, I went invisible and took to the air, flying in a zigzag, slow enough not to make noise or kick up a breeze. 

He fired off several fist-sized fireballs where I’d been.  I’m not sure if he was keeping them small, or if that was the best he could do, but either way, those would have hurt if they’d landed.  He kept firing, and I kept not being there. 

Then, he switched tactics.  Instead of fireballs, he started shooting sheets of fire.  He didn’t have quite as much range on those, but he covered a much greater area.  I wasn’t expecting the scope of it, and he caught me on the edge of a sheet.  When I yelled, he focused on that area, but I’d already moved.  I’d been staying ‘up’, so this time I went down, and behind.  Once I was out of the immediate area he was shooting at, I dropped really low- barely off the ground, and came in slow around and behind him.  And that’s where I stayed, floating about six inches off the sandy floor of the hanger, about five feet behind him. 

And that’s how it went.  He’d move around, shooting in patterns, and I’d move to stay just far enough behind him that he wouldn’t step on me if he backed up.  He did fireballs, and sheets, and streams, and jets.  He did patterns, and then random shots in the middle of the patterns, in such a way that he should have hit me, even by accident- if I hadn’t been so close to him.  And by just waiting quietly behind him, I healed from the burn I’d taken. 

I wasn’t really sure what to do next, since we were basically at stalemate- he couldn’t find me, and I couldn’t escape without making my position obvious.  (I studied the door from where I was, but it was locked.  By the time I got it unlocked- if I even could-, he’d have fried me.)

Finally, I had an idea.  I eased myself away from him, and slowly flew behind the viewing pod.  Once out of sight, I collected several handfuls of sand and formed a pouch in my Eufiber to hold it.  Then, I flew back up toward the roof at the far end, and threw a handful of sand near the roof.  The sand became visible as soon as I threw it, but I was already moving.  Sure enough, he fired a stream of flame where the sand was falling, hitting the ceiling as well. 

I did it again in another area.  He hit the ceiling there too.  Then back near the first spot.  Then a third.  I had to go back for another pouchful of sand, but eventually I got him to do so much damage to the ceiling in one spot that I was able to put on a burst of speed and force my way out of the hole.  That hurt, but not as much as getting shot had. 

At that point, I figured the exercise was over, so I went around to the door and knocked (then got out of the way, just in case).  They let me back in, with Flamestrike looking mad, and the Wall laughing his ass off. 

Flamestrike asked me why I didn’t try to fight back, or at least stop him, and I told him (logically, I thought) that I wasn’t a fighter and didn’t want to get hurt.  So, avoiding him and escaping if I could was my best option.  He asked how I’d avoided his attack pattern.  I said “by not being where you were shooting”, but refused to explain where I had been.  I figure, if I have to do something like this again, I don’t want to spoil a good trick.

Then it was the Wall’s turn.  Pretty much the exact opposite.  Instead of avoiding getting hurt, I was supposed to do everything I could to hurt him.  He even promised not to fight back- pure defense only.  <sigh>  Well, I knew this was going to be a disappointment, but in a way, that was a good thing.  I don’t want to make a good showing of myself.  In fact, I probably should have figured out a way to fail Flamestrike’s test. 

Anyway, I started out with the obvious.  I hit him.  With a name like ‘The Wall’, and me not having kept my strength a secret, I figured it was safe to hit him as hard as I could.  He obviously let me hit him- didn’t even try to stop me.  It was, in fact, like hitting a wall. 

Then I tried the throws I was comfortable using from my aikido lessons.  He let me throw him, once, but rolled immediately back to his feet, then moved just enough to keep me from throwing him again.  I remembered that scene from The Princess Bride, when Westley and Fezzik are fighting, and Fezzik says that he wanted Westley to feel he was doing well, because he hated for people to die embarrassed.  I did not feel I was doing well.  Of course, I didn’t want to do well, but I wanted to look like I was trying to do well.

I had one other idea that I was pretty sure wouldn’t work.  I scooped up more sand, but this time I threw it directly in his eyes.  And while he was clearing them, I grabbed, and flew for the ceiling to drop him.  Or at least, that was the plan.  I grabbed him, but it was like he was nailed to the floor.  I had to let go quick before he grabbed me.

So, I switched to even dirtier tactics.  I went invisible, made some noise in one spot, then quietly flew in low, but in front of him this time, rather than hiding behind him.  I gathered up as much quantum power as I could, converted it to electricity, and… grabbed his balls.  And squeezed.  He jumped like I’d goosed him (which I had, I guess), but wasn’t especially hurt.  He did reach out and try to smack me, but I can’t really blame him for that, and besides, I was already out of the way. 

I’d given him my best hit, and hadn’t done anything of note to harm him.  If Utopia didn’t already know I could borrow energy, I would have called it off right then, claiming that I’d given it my best shot and couldn’t hurt him.  But they knew, so I had to make the effort.  Not much effort, though. 

I stayed invisible, and started making fast passes by him, just lightly smacking him each time I went by.  Each time I smacked him, I took some of his energy.  But I deliberately didn’t pull as hard as I could.  And I was surprised by how hard I felt like I could pull.  I thought powers were only supposed to get stronger when you used them?  I’d gone out of my way not to use this….

Anyway, I kept making passes, taking just little sips of energy each time.  Since I was gaining energy, I knew I could keep this up all day, but eventually the baselines in the viewing pod called an end to it.  The Wall later described the sensation as ‘being nibbled to death by an invisible duck’.

Their assessment of me in a fight?  I was mobile (really mobile), sneaky, and didn’t panic.  I was also a smartass.  (They didn’t say that part out loud, but I heard the mutters.).  I had no real defensive capability other than mobility and invisibility- in other words, if I got hit, I was screwed.  (I was glad to hear they’d apparently underestimated how tough I’d gotten- being burned hurt, but it didn’t slow me down any.)  Offensively, I was next thing to useless.  My bzzzt! power wouldn’t stop most baselines, and dropping people from a height was a maneuver I probably wouldn’t be able to pull off very often.  The only thing I had going for me was my energy drain, and that was weak.  (Score another one for me!)

Unfortunately, that didn’t mean I was excused form combat training.  I was told that I would be expected to work with my draining power as much as I could, as often as I could.  That would be my primary objective in group activities.  <sigh>  I was also signed up for smaller group lessons with Sapphire and Dream Shadow for aerial maneuvers.  That part, I was actually looking forward to.  I wasn’t hiding anything about my flying, so I could focus on improving it in every way I could.  Plus, I really wanted to see what the other girls could do in the air.

Lastly, they surprised me with one final exercise.  They set up some targets and brought out a rack of a bunch of different guns.  I don’t really like guns.  They don’t scare me, and I’m not some uber anti-gun activist.  But I don’t think most people need them, or should have them.  They’re tools for very specific tasks.  And those are tasks I have no interest in performing.  I’m never going to need to hunt an animal for food, and I’m not interested in carrying a gun for self-defense, let alone for offense. 

But… none of that matters.  I will be taught to shoot.  Apparently my lack of offensive capabilities doesn’t let me off after all.  It just means that I’ll be expected to use guns.  (I tried to argue for archery, or even a crossbow, but was refused.)  Ick.  The whole point of the Academy is teaching kids to be heroes.  There’s nothing ‘heroic’ about using guns, especially against baselines.  Or other novas, for that matter.  If a nova doesn’t have some significant defenses, they may as well be a baseline when they’re on the wrong end of a gun. 

Now, let me be clear.  I have no objection to learning about guns.  That falls under my general idea of ‘no knowledge is ever wasted’.  Where the safety is, how to load/unload, the different types of ammunition, even how to clean and maintain them.  And I’ll admit, I really do like the way gunpowder smells.  I just don’t want to shoot them.  Especially since I know exactly how it feels to be shot.  With a gun.  What I want doesn’t matter. 

They systematically tested me on every kind of gun they had available.  Pistols. Revolvers. Several kinds of rifles.  Shotguns.  Those big, nasty ones the military uses.  Even one that fired little darts instead of bullets.  I don’t think I was very good with any of them, but I was best with the shotguns and rifles (I didn’t even need the scope with the rifles, which helped).  I was able to (mostly) hit the targets (or at least the paper the targets were printed on), but if I hit the actual bullseye, it was purely by accident.  So, in addition to everything else, I’m to have shooting lessons.  Oh, joy.  They ‘allowed’ me to pick three guns- a pistol, a rifle, and a shotgun.  I picked a revolver that reminded me a little of my favorite Stephen King story, a rifle that seemed like it was mainly intended for hunting rather than killing people, and a basic shotgun.  They put the rest of the rack away, and told me I was to fire fifty rounds with each gun.  Every. Single. Day.  One of the other buildings is devoted to ‘ranged target practice’, so I was told to go right over there and get started.  I felt absolutely ridiculous hauling all these guns across campus.  (Apparently nobody cares about the possibility of school shootings here.)

The ’ranged combat’ building was divided into several lanes, some intended for shooting, some (I think) for throwing things, and some for power use.  I picked a lane that reminded me of the one Bix put me and Alex in (without the ceramic plates), and got started.  The cameras in here were obvious, but no one was immediately on-site watching me. 

I read the range safety instructions, set up my target, and got started.  I’m absolutely garbage with a revolver.  The shotgun just blows big holes in things, so I’m not really sure how much skill even goes into it.  The rifle was a little different.  With my vision, I really do think I could get good with the rifle.  If I wanted to.  Which I don’t.  I think this is going to be a subtle test of how much I can get away with only pretending to try.  I fired off my fifty rounds with each, put my name on each of my target papers, and left them in a stack with several others.  It looks like Hourglass is taking target practice, too.  I’m not sure if this building is one I’ll have access to ‘after hours’.  I hope so.  I don’t want to waste more useful time doing this.  If the Academy is going to insist I do this, 3 am sounds like a pretty good time. At least 150 rounds don’t actually take too long.   

There wasn’t any place to secure the guns in the training building (that I could find), so I took them back to my room, made sure they were unloaded, safety on, then stuck them in the closet where Furnado can’t get to them.

I’d lost track of time, and dinner was well underway when I got there.  Hourglass was, again, not present.  The rest wanted to know how I’d done with placement.  I told them that I’d cleared the academic side (apparently everyone except Puppy and Dream Shadow have as well, and I think Dream Shadow only hasn’t because she isn’t fully fluent in English yet).  Then I told them what the baseline proctors had said about my combat performance- mobile, sneaky, smartass.  I was trying to avoid telling the actual story of what happened, but they wouldn’t let it go. I still kept the details of how I’d hidden from Flamestrike to myself, though.  Even if I decide that I can trust some of these kids, it’s clear we don’t have privacy.  For that matter, who knows if some of the faculty at the other end of the room can’t hear as well as I can?  They could easily be listening in to everything we say.

I asked Puppy if he wanted to meet Furnado after dinner, before I flew home for the weekend.  He was thrilled.  The others were startled that I was leaving.  It seemed as good a time as any to explain that my situation wasn’t quite like theirs.  That I’d made a special agreement with the Academy, allowing me to continue as much of my life as I could outside of school.  Specifically the aikido lessons and the weekend home visits.  I said that I wasn’t sure how much, if at all, I would be contracted by Nova Services International while I was in school, but even if there wasn’t much, I would still have to be in court for the mugger at the end of the month.  In short, I was going to be on-and-off campus pretty regularly. 

Stinger actually tried to lecture me about the need to be careful of baselines, and always keep their safety and comfort uppermost in my mind, and how everything I did needed to be for their good, rather than my own selfish pleasures.  I wasn’t sure whether to laugh in his face or pity him.  Probably pity him, since it’s sooo clear that he believes all this.  Then I looked around at the others, and saw varying levels of agreement.  They all believe that, to one degree or another.  I never especially liked the Wolverine character in X-Men, but I’m beginning to understand his antagonistic relationship with Cyclops a little better.  This is going to be a long eighteen months.

I think I have a better understanding of what bothers me about both Utopia and the Teragen when it comes to baselines.  Utopia focuses hard on novas ‘serving’ baselines.  That our powers are for the greatest good of humanity (aka baselines), and everything that we do should be toward that end, whether that means cleaning up the environment, curing diseases, stopping dangerous novas, or whatever.  Key word: serving.  The Teragen, at least the less radical elements of it, focuses on distancing and isolating from baselines.  That novas should never serve, and should look to their own concerns. 

I agree that novas shouldn’t serve.  We definitely shouldn’t be expected to serve, and taught that service is our reason for being.  But I’m not sure that complete isolation is right either.  I don’t want to serve.  But I do want to help.  In my own way.  By my own choice.  And other people’s expectations only matter if I allow them to (in other words, if the person in question is important to me). 

I’m still not completely sold on Mal’s plan for leaving the planet, but I do see that sharing everything with baselines can be dangerous for them, and that there are some things baselines will never understand.  But one thing I do know.  I want to give the world a gift of my own, someday.  Maybe, if I accept Mal’s plan, it will be a ‘goodbye’ gift. 

And I think I know what I want that gift to be.  Space junk.  More and more, as we launch more satellites, more rockets, more everything, there’s leftover stuff in orbit.  Old, dead, broken stuff.  Stuff that can endanger active satellites, as well as fall out of orbit and cause damage back on earth.  I think it would be ‘doing my part’ to clean up all that trash.  Not anytime soon- it would involve showing my ability to disintegrate things, and I want to keep that secret.  But eventually.    

Once dinner was over, I thought about bringing Puppy up to my room to meet Furnado, but thought better of it.  No sense in skirting the edges of the rules for no good reason.  So, I put his harness on and we met Puppy on the lawn outside. 

He shrieked “KITTY!!!!” like a five-year old, threw himself down on the grass for an extended session of petting and conversation.  Furnado promptly flopped over and demanded belly rubs (this is often a ruse, but this time, he didn’t attack). 

After several minutes of petting, purring, and little happy noises, Puppy sat up and told me that Furnado had some things to say.  (I’ll admit, I’d kinda been hoping for this when I invited Puppy, but wasn’t going to ask for it.)

In short, he was very glad that I adopted him and Scent-of-Sand-in-Fur (Puppy said that most animals had their own names for themselves and others, and they were hard to put into words).  He said that he liked the den we shared with the other human better than this one, though.  He said that he loved me, but he missed Scent-of-Sand a lot.  And what I’d put in the small den (the closet, I figured out) stank.  He didn’t want them there.  Can’t fault him on that- I don’t want the guns there either. Ultimately, he said that he loves me, but he wants to go home. 

I was afraid of that.  I hadn’t been sure about taking him away from Pyewacket in the first place, but I’d been more worried about Pye than about Furnado.  Puppy said that cats understood more words than most humans thought they did, but didn’t always connect up the ideas behind the words.  So, I asked Puppy if Furnado would be happier at home with Pyewacket and Mom all the time, and me seeing him on the weekends.  After some staring and petting, Puppy said that yes, that was what Furnado wanted.  That he would miss me, but he needed Scent-of-Sand.  And more space than just this new room. 

Well, that was good enough for me.  I wasn’t happy about it, of course, but when you get a pet, you agree to put their needs and comfort over your own.  Furnado was going home with me tonight, and he’d be staying home.  I thanked Puppy for letting me know what Furnado wanted and asked him to keep an eye on Furnado while I packed up all the cat gear for the flight home.

Considering how the others reacted to my leaving campus yesterday, I slipped a note under Jak’s door ‘reminding her’ (I’m not sure she ever knew) about my agreement with the Academy that I went home most weekends, and that I would be back Sunday afternoon/evening.  Just to cover my ass.

When I had my stuff ready (no duffle- just the cat gear and computer in my backpack) I went back out to Puppy to collect Furnado.  Out of curiosity, I asked him what Furnado thought about flying.  He said that he liked it, thought it was exciting, but didn’t like that I wrapped the blanket around his carrier- it kept him from seeing what was going on.  I told him I was worried about the wind being too much for him, but we compromised.  I would only wrap the front end of the carrier, that faced the wind.  That way, he could look out the back. 

And that was that.  I thanked Puppy, almost flew off over the wall, remembered not to at the last minute, and left by the front gate.  Outside, I took to the air, and made good time home.  I stopped a couple of times mid-way, to be sure Furnado was okay but he seemed fine with the new blanket arrangement.

Chapter Text

Sunday, January 11

The weekend went fine.  Mom was happy to see me.  I told her about the other kids, didn’t tell her about the testing, or the guns.  Furnado and Pyewacket were happy to be back together, so bringing him back home was for the best, I think. 

I spent some time with Rocío, and with the girls.  Monique says that Bailey and Jeremy and doing everything they can to push the idea that I trashed the school, but not many people believe them.  If anything, she’s even less popular now, and she’s taking Jeremy down with her.  I wish I could say that I was sorry to hear it, but I’m not.

For some reason, I didn’t want to check on the situation in Kansas while I was at the Academy, but I did while I was at home.  From what I could gather from the local police’s server (I’m still not going anywhere near the Fed’s systems), the Feds are pulling out and going home.  I’m not sure if that means the case is being declared unofficially ‘cold’, or if they have everything they think they can get from investigating on-site, but the local cops are both pleased and frustrated.  Pleased to have the ‘outsiders’ gone, but frustrated to not be getting anywhere with the biggest murder investigation they’ve had in decades.

I might check back in from time to time, just in case, but I think Kansas is as settled as it’s going to get.  I’ll probably never know for sure if those dead men were the ones who shot me, and unless I go out of my way to ask, I’ll probably never know who dealt with them.  I guess that’s okay.  And I’ve learned a valuable lesson about flying over places like that.  Fly high, fly fast, fly invisible.  Ideally, just don’t go.  At the same time, I wonder.  I know I’ve gotten tougher since then.  Just how vulnerable am I, really?  For my own peace of mind, I want to know.  But I don’t really want Utopia to know.  Plus, if I’m not as tough as I think I am, results could be… messy.  For sure, if I could take a bullet to the stomach before, and not need anything more than time, it would be even better now.  I might even be nearly bulletproof.  But what about a headshot?  That’s really the only thing that worries me, now.

I went back to campus early, deliberately seeing how fast I could make the flight.  I did it in a little under twelve minutes.  300 miles (give or take) in twelve minutes.  I’ll admit, I was proud of myself.

A schedule had been slipped under my door while I was gone.  Other than my language classes, I was to go in with Flare’s schedule- meet her at breakfast, and follow her lead.  Fair enough.  It looks like we’re all together for ‘tactics and combat’, all separate for languages (which makes sense if we’re all taking different ones), and split into two groups for the rest of the classes. 

The dorm was quiet, so I went looking for the others, and found them in the pool in the gym.  The gym is open all night, it seems.  They were splashing and playing like any other kids on the weekend, so I shifted my Eufiber to a swimsuit and joined them.  Again, Hourglass wasn’t there.  (Does he actually exist?)  Everybody except Puppy was in the pool.  (Turns out Puppy is afraid of the water!)  I was a little surprised that Dream Shadow went in- somehow, I had the idea that wings and water don’t mix.  Stupid, I know.  Ducks are a thing, after all.

A couple of hours playing together did more to break the ice than anything else could have, I think.  Hopefully, once I’m in classes tomorrow, I’ll feel more like part of the group.  If I’m going to be here for another eighteen months, fitting in will be important.  I’m not willing to give up aikido, but I might need to figure something else out for the weekend home visits.  I don’t want to lose track of my Mom, the cats, my friends, and Rocío, but I need to make a place for myself here as well.  Maybe if I only went home every other weekend?  Or came back Saturday night instead of Sunday night?  Or left for home Saturday morning instead of Friday night?  We’ll have to see.

After the pool party broke up, the kids went back to their rooms.  Since I didn’t need sleep, I decided to ‘show willing’ by scooping up the guns and see if the target range was open at night.  It was.  More importantly, someone else was already there. 

He was about my age, maybe a little younger.  Short, but not awkwardly so.  Black hair, blue eyes, slender frame.  He had one of those ‘spew all the bullets’ guns, like in the mob movies.  I didn’t want to startle him, so I waited for him to finish his current round of shooting. 

Hourglass does, in fact, exist.  I don’t know if he sleeps, but he definitely keeps his own hours.  He wasn’t unfriendly, really.  He wasn’t mean, or snide, or rude.  He just… didn’t have much to say.  And wasn’t interested in talking.  We introduced ourselves, established that yes, I was the new girl, then he went back to shooting.  I did my fifty rounds with each gun, stacked my targets, and left him still going at it.

I’m not sure if he really wants to learn to shoot well, or is just going through the motions like I am.  I peeked at his targets, and they were better than mine, but not anything really great.  I guess being really smart and controlling time offers even less in the way of direct offensive capabilities than I have. 

Maybe he really does want to be a sharpshooter.  Maybe he’s just going along to get along.  Or maybe the act of shooting gives him ‘alone time’.  There are cameras in there, but with all the noise, we may as well be alone.  Noise offers its own kind of isolation.  Maybe, in there, no one intrudes on his thoughts.  Well, I won’t either.  I’m willing to be friendly, but I think I’ll leave the next move to him.

Chapter Text

Monday, January 12

What do you say when all your worst fears are confirmed? 

We all met up for breakfast, then I followed Flare to our first class.  We have two classes in the morning, then lunch, then ‘tactics’.  The morning classes are split.  Me, Flare, Stinger, Sapphire, and Guardião make up one group, with the others in a second group.  They’re split up having language lessons (and in Dream Shadow and Puppy’s case, remedial academics) while our group has whatever other class is on offer.  Then, we switch, with them coming together for the same class, while we split off for languages. 

Today’s class was obviously an ongoing unit on first aid and emergency medicine.  I’m not sure when this unit started, but I couldn’t have missed much.  They started on CPR right away, which suggested they’d learned it last session, and were supposed to practice it this time.  The first aid class I took three years ago used dummies to practice CPR on, and I assumed the Academy would too- Utopia is well-funded enough to have the best of the best, after all.  But no.  We were expected to practice on each other.  We were told to only go ‘half strength’ (less for me) with the compressions to avoid breaking ribs, but otherwise to work on each other as though the ‘victim’ was a baseline. 

Performing mouth-to-mouth on Sapphire was... awkward.  And not just because she tastes like limestone.  Guardião, oddly enough, was the only one who really had trouble with the CPR, and eventually I figured out why.  For the rest of us, CPR and first aid is a legitimate, vital skill.  (Even though I have no intention of being a professional hero, everyone should know this stuff.)  But for Guardião, CPR and most other kinds of mundane first aid is not only pointless, it might even be a dangerous waste of time.  He can actually heal with a touch.  Why waste time thumping chests and breathing into someone’s mouth when you can just... fix what’s wrong? 

We moved on to other other, practical emergency issues.  And instead of using first aid kits, we had to use whatever we could find on hand.  We’d be given a scenario- broken leg, head wound, gunshot, whatever; and then we would have to use whatever we could scrounge up to stabilize the problem in an arbitrary(?) amount of time.  If time ran out, the person we were working on was dead.  It was a little freaky, to be honest.  And our instructor, Lt. Riggs (no first name given, baseline, definitely army, but with no insignia on his uniform) would yell at us for letting the person die, or randomly declare that we were being shot at and had to work flat to the ground, or other complications. 

I’d thought I was pretty cool, able to handle myself.  But this whole thing rattled me.  Even though I knew perfectly well that none of it was real, I still felt a lot like I did with the mugger.  Or in Kansas.  I’d never really given much thought to joining the military.  After all, I was pretty sure of a scholarship, even before I erupted, and paying for college is the only reason to join up, in my book.  But even if I had been interested in the military, this would have killed it for me.  Hell, if this is what Team Tomorrow has to deal with when they go up against Elites in the field, Count. Me. Out.  I don’t need this kind of stress.  I’m probably going to have nightmares.

‘Triage in a War Zone’ went on waaaay too long.  When Lt. Riggs finally called a halt to it, Guardião was huddled in on himself, trying not to cry.  I guess this whole thing hit home even harder, since he would have (should have?) had an easier time with all this.  I can’t be sure, since I was busy with my own efforts, but I kinda think Riggs declared Guardião’s victims ‘dead’ more often than he did the rest of us.  He certainly seemed to be harder on Guardião than on the rest of us. 

If Stinger is trying to be the leader (or is being set up to be), you’d never have known it from today’s efforts.  Maybe I’ve read too many comic books and such, but I thought a leader was supposed to stick up for his people, and (up to a point) take responsibility for them.  But he didn’t stand up for Guardião at all.  Maybe I should have?

We had a small break, then split off for languages.  That was all in the library building, but we each got a private room with an individual tutor.  We saw the other group leaving as we were coming in, but didn’t have time to talk. 

For my two language groups, I chose Arabic and Japanese.  I picked Japanese because I’ve heard that they treat novas very differently there, and one day I’d like to find out for myself.  Plus, I like the architecture, and the various animal preserves that I’ve seen pictures of.  I’m not really sure why I choose Arabic for my other required language.  Maybe I just like the sound of it?  Anyway, I’ll be having Japanese on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and Arabic on Tuesday and Thursday.  My tutors are coordinating their lessons, so I’ll be learning the same things in both languages, as close to the same time as possible.  I’m not sure if that will make things easier or harder, but these are language experts, so I can only accept what they decide, I guess.

After languages came lunch, and this time I was able to fully join in on the discussions.  I feel like, now that I’m in classes, I’m that much closer to being accepted as one of the group.  Guardião was still really quiet and hunched in on himself.  Dream Shadow was quiet as well, but I’m not sure how much of that is shyness, how much is her being upset, and how much is still learning English.  Puppy was excited about finally passing his last math test, and how hopefully he wouldn’t have to do much more make-up school stuff. 

After lunch we went to the ‘tactical training ground’.  This was an area I hadn’t seen before, since it was screened by trees from the rest of the area.  I can only assume there are other training areas, or this one is somehow modular, otherwise it seems pretty limited.  The area was set up like a couple of alleys leading to a courtyard full of scrap metal and ruined outbuildings.  It looked like an inner-city wasteland coupled with a warzone.  Right away, I could tell that safety wasn’t a primary concern, which I guess makes sense, since superheroing isn’t exactly safe, but still, not all novas are physically tough.  This seems a little excessive to me, but then again, I don’t want anything to do with this kind of training in the first place.

There wasn’t anyone else around (as far as I could tell) when we all got there, but there was a manilla envelope nailed to a post on one edge.  Stinger pulled it off and opened it.  Apparently this was our ‘mission briefing’.  Hidden somewhere in this mess was a hostage.  We were to extract the hostage unharmed, with minimal collateral damage. 

And that was all the information that we got.  No hint of other people involved.  Nothing about bystanders, or environmental hazards.  Obviously, I’ve never done anything like this before, but in the movies, there’s always a cop or something to brief the heroes about what to expect before going in.  Usually I know better than to believe TV or movies, but somehow I did this time.

Since the others had been working together for at least a few months, and Stinger definitely didn’t ask for my input, I kept quiet and figured I’d just follow the others’ lead.  I also listened really hard, and thought I heard at least two people, nearby-ish, breathing.  People who weren’t part of our group.  But there was enough ambient noise that I couldn’t be sure, so I kept quiet about it.

Stinger was making his decisions.  Puppy was to call any animals in the area and have them look for the hostage.  (How an animal was meant to distinguish ‘hostage’ from ‘hostile’, I have no idea.)  He told Shift to turn into something small and do the same thing.  The rest of us waited, just standing around in a clump. 

It seemed like Sapphire and I could have been used as scouts, especially since I could do so invisibly.  Our enhanced senses would probably do a lot of good, looking for other danger, even if not the hostage.  After all, there must be something dangerous here, beyond the terrain.  You wouldn’t just leave a ‘hostage’ lying around unguarded, right? 

I looked around from where we were all grouped together, and tried to edge away from the others a little, so we weren’t all so close together.  I wanted the distance to see if I could sense anyone else (and to not present such a huge target if whoever else was here came after us), but Stinger called me back before I’d gotten more than a few feet away.  <sigh>

Puppy was having trouble finding useful animals.  If this had been a real urban environment, he probably would have found a bunch of rats or pigeons, but out here the best he managed was some squirrels and a rabbit.  The squirrels told him about three people inside one of the buildings, but couldn’t distinguish friend from foe.  The rabbit found ‘sharproots’ in the rubble in front of the same building, which Puppy knew meant barbed wire or razor wire.

Shift had turned into a rat and scurried off.  I didn’t see him until he came back.  He did his shifting right out in the open, which was fascinating to watch, but seemed like maybe a bad idea, since now anyone who was watching him knew what he could do.  Oh well.  Assuming whoever is here works for the Academy, they probably already know.  He said that three people were in an upstairs room in one of the buildings, which he pointed out to us.  They all had guns, and wore body armor (so probably not our hostage).  He didn’t see a hostage, but there was a closet in the room, as well as a large footlocker that could hold a person if they curled up tight.  The windows had bars on them, and the main door was locked from the inside.  He said there was a back door, but it was blocked with a bunch of crap that would make a lot of noise if we moved it. 

Stinger wanted Flare to teleport into the room, but since she’d never seen inside the place, and Shift described the room as fairly small and crowded, she said she couldn’t without risking teleporting into a wall (or worse, a person- ick). 

The windows were too small for anyone to fit through (other than Shift, if he took a smaller form), but the building didn’t look especially sturdy.  In fact, I was a little afraid the building might fall apart if it took a lot of structural damage.  Stinger didn’t seem to notice (or think it was an issue if he did), so he decided on a frontal assault.  He gave his orders out loud, in front of everything.  If anyone else was anywhere near close, they’d be able to hear everything he said.  And no one had looked around for any other danger!  Maybe Kansas made me paranoid, but I couldn’t help but notice all the places we could be shot from that no one was paying attention to.  But, this was my first time doing anything like this, and I didn’t want to get on Stinger’s bad side (or worse, have anyone thinking I wanted his place as leader!)

Puppy, Shift, and Stinger would charge the building.  Sapphire and I would do the same from the air.  Dream Shadow was supposed to wait until everyone else was at the building, then carry Flare up to a window so she could see inside to teleport.  (That part, at least, made a little bit of sense, except that that would leave Flare alone in a room with three armed men and- maybe- a hostage.)  Stinger’s ‘plan’ boiled down to ‘everybody try to get into the building whichever way you can.  If you find the hostage, great. If not focus on taking out the three guards'.  (That’s a plan?!?!?!?  I know comic books and movies aren’t real life, but this is the kind of ‘plan’ ten-year-olds on the playground make.)

Guardião was supposed to hang back and enter after everyone else.  If the hostage wasn’t immediately obvious, his primary goal was to find them and not to engage with the guards.  I was glad about that part, anyway.  I get the impression that Guardião doesn’t like violence.

The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, and I was sure that we were being watched- maybe set up.  I was in danger, and if I was, I had to assume that everyone was.  But wasn’t that the point?  Still, I could at least take steps to minimize the issue. 

Stinger spaced himself, Shift (who turned into a gorilla, of all things), and Puppy across the mouth of the alley where we’d been lurking all this time, so they’d have space between each other as they crossed the open space between us and the building.  He set up Sapphire and I behind and between them in a staggered 3-2 formation.  Dream Shadow (with Flare already in her arms- princess-style, I noted) and Guardião were further back. 

And then the front three charged.  Sapphire turned into a living statue made of, well, sapphire, and took to the air.  I went invisible and took off, too, flying straight up before zigzagging forward.  I didn’t see what Dream Shadow or Guardião did, since they were behind me. 

For a split second, nothing happened, and I thought they might make it.  Then the gunfire started.  Not just from the windows where we knew the three guards were, but from five other windows and a rooftop.  As Shift was the largest target, he took the brunt of the damage, and I was relived to realize it was paintballs.  Stinger and Puppy got hit several times as well.  Then Puppy went down, tangled in the razorwire, which turned out to be very, very real. 

I noticed that the paint splatters coming from the rooftop sniper were a different color and made a bigger ‘splat’.  Maybe that meant a different, more dangerous kind of gun?  Since the whole thing was already FUBAR, I decided that the best thing I could do was take care of that guy. 

So, I looped up to the roof, didn’t bother to land, but just came in fast behind the guy.  I was still invisible, so he never knew I was there until I grabbed him, picked him up, and flew away with him, real fast.  I didn’t want to drop him, or hurt him, so I put on a burst of speed and put him down safely at the main gate of the Academy.  I was counting Mississippi and was back in the ‘fight’ in under five seconds from when it all started.

When I got back, Shift was down (maybe there’s some rule about playing dead after a certain number of hits?  If so, I wasn’t told.)  Sapphire had been hit a few times, but the paint just dripped right off her gem body- maybe she’s bulletproof in that form?  She was at one of the upstairs windows, and was yanking at the bars.  It looked like she was going to tear the whole window out, maybe along with part of the wall, but she was taking direct fire from the guard inside.  Dream Shadow was hovering outside the other window, and I saw Flare disappear from her arms.  I assume she reappeared inside. 

Puppy was still tangled in the wire.  He was trying to pull it off him by just yanking it out of the ground, which was only getting him more tangled.  He was covered in paint, too.  Stinger had done a little better.  He’d been able to dodge most of the paintballs and was firing energy bolts at the locked front door. 

The mission statement said to limit collateral damage, so I decided not to take take out a wall, even though I was pretty sure I could have.  Instead, I flew around the outside of the building, found a larger, unbarred window, broke the glass, and went in that way.  Now I was downstairs, inside, and alone for the moment.  I heard the front door give way, and Stinger pounded in and right upstairs.  Guardião slipped in behind him a few seconds later, somehow completely clean. 

All at once, I had a plan.  I showed myself, just a flicker, to Guardião, then got close enough to whisper it to him.  He agreed, and I picked him up, princess style.  I concentrated on aligning my quantum field with his, and made him invisible as well.  Then we both flew silently up the stairs.  Stinger had already kicked in the door to the room in question.  He and Flare were fighting the guards.  Except there were now five guards, not three.  Flare was on fire, which meant the paintballs couldn’t really mark her, but also meant that she’d set part of the room on fire.  Stinger was firing his energy bolts around, and Sapphire had torn away the window and part of one wall.  The entire building was shaking. 

If I put Guardião down, he’d become visible, so we had to stay together- at least touching.  We tried the closet first.  It was locked, but I was able to snap the doorknob off one-handed.  I think the doorknob might have been electrified, but I snapped it off too quickly to be sure.  The closet was empty anyway.  Next we tried the footlocker.  When I got close enough, I could hear breathing in there, so I figured this had to be the hostage.  I broke the lock off the locker and Guardião got the hostage out.  

The ‘hostage’ turned out to be a guy in his late thirties, zip-tied and wearing a t-shirt that read ‘Unconscious, head injury, shot in the shoulder’.  He was also grinning when the lid opened, but looked surprised when he didn’t see anyone.  Guardião picked him up (which made it look like he was floating), and I herded them both to the door.  We were almost out when one of the guards noticed the floating hostage escaping.

I shoved Guardião out the door and slammed it behind him, leaving him visible but (hopefully) safe away from the fight.  He’d snuck in all right, so I hoped he’d be able to sneak out.  I was still invisible, but the door slam made it pretty obvious where I was.  So I dropped to the floor and crawled toward the window Sapphire had torn out. 

The building was shaking even worse, and as I looked down, I saw that several more people were converging on the area.  If we didn’t get out of here quickly, we’d be overwhelmed, or the building would come down on our heads.  Maybe both.  Dream Shadow was still hovering outside, but then she dropped to the ground, covered in paint.  Guards had surrounded Puppy, and he’d stopped thrashing around but apparently wasn’t ‘dead’.  I yelled that we had more guards coming, and Stinger called a retreat. 

Except it was more of an ‘everybody get out as best you can’ than a ‘retreat’.  Flare poofed out.  Sapphire grabbed Stinger and flew out the same window she came in.  He got hit several more times as they flew.  (So did she, but it just dripped off again.)  I flew back downstairs and exited through the window I came in, which only had one guard now, which I slipped past. 

Stinger, Flare, and Sapphire met back in the same alley we’d started in.  Guardião and the hostage were hiding in a clump of bushes by the edge of the enclosure- I could see him from the air, but they were pretty well hidden from the ground.  I settled at the far end of the alley and waited.  A voice called out “Exercise Ended” over a loudspeaker. 

Guardião and the hostage stood up from where they’d been hiding, I became visible, Shift, Dream Shadow, and Puppy rejoined us.  Guardião and I hadn’t been hit at all.  Sapphire had been, but her gem form seemed to make that not an issue.  If Flare had been hit, her being on fire made it impossible to tell.  The others were covered. All of the ‘guards’ (a total of twelve!) joined us.  Then Lt. Riggs from the first aid class showed up, took a head count, and demanded to know where Anderson was.  I told him that if Anderson was the rooftop sniper, he was at the main gate, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do with him. That got me a couple of dirty looks and some snickers. 

Then Lt. Riggs went over, in painful detail, everything that we’d done wrong.  It took a while, but the main points were these:

• Insufficient scouting. Not only did we not fully scout the main building, we didn’t investigate the other buildings at all.  If we had, we would have found at least some of the additional guards, and maybe been able to neutralize them (Riggs’ words).
• We did an open frontal assault on the front door. If the guards had wanted to kill the hostage, they would have had plenty of time to do it.
• We stood around in plain sight of the main building, not to mention everything else while we made our plans.
• We made our plans aloud, on-site, where they could be easily overheard.
• We’d left teammates behind, allowing them to be captured, and didn’t even bother to check that our ‘downed’ teammates were actually dead. (This seemed to be what got Riggs the most mad, and I can’t help but agree.  I realize we’re all still learning, and just kids, but I would not feel at all confident going into a real situation with this ‘team’.)

Once Riggs finished abusing our performance as a group, he got personal. 

Shift was first on the chopping block.  He was criticized for shapeshifting in the open, letting everyone watching know what he could do.  Then he was criticized for not being careful enough when scouting.  (I hadn’t seen him moving around, but apparently the guards did, and could have picked him off at any time.)  Then he was ripped a new one for choosing a form that was ‘poorly suited for the exercise’.  Gorillas are strong, and relatively tough, but lack desirable offensive capabilities.  Riggs said that he should have chosen to be a tiger, or wolf, or even a bear.  If he insisted on being a primate, even a chimp or baboon would have been a better choice, as well as having the chance of climbing the outer wall of the building rather than trying to rush the door.

Puppy was given a scrap of praise for using animals to scout, but chewed out for not using them to scout fully, not calling in birds for aerial scouting, and not confirming other ground hazards besides the razorwire.  Then he was yelled at for getting caught in the wire that he already knew was there, and getting tangled trying to pull it up, rather than snapping the wire itself (which he was apparently strong enough to do.)  Finally, he was praised a little for having the sense to surrender when surrounded, instead of continuing a losing fight with both wire and guards.  But that praise was negated by Riggs’ pointing out that he shouldn’t have been able to be captured in the first place.  Apparently he should have sicced animals on the various guards and escaped.  If he wasn’t tangled in the wire.

Flare got off relatively easy.  She was called out for setting the room on fire, with the hostage still inside, and ignoring the mission statement of ‘minimal collateral damage’.  Her teamwork with Dream Shadow was praised, but then Riggs pointed out that teleporting into the room without backup was really stupid.  She was also criticized for just ignoring the fact that she was getting shot at.  Although the bullets that actually hit her couldn’t have hurt her (so I was right about there being some kind of criteria for that), the sniper on the roof had a bigger gun that would have killed her if he’d gotten the chance at her, and she was taking no precautions to avoid larger weapons. 

Sapphire got most of the same criticism as Flare.  Her gem form was immune to regular bullets, but the sniper would have gotten her, and she did nothing to prevent it.  Also, she, too, ignored the ‘collateral damage’ part of the exercise.  Breaking a window or door would have been acceptable.  Tearing out a wall and damaging the structural integrity of the entire building- especially with people in it- was not. 

Dream Shadow was praised for her teamwork with Flare, but then ripped on for basically not doing anything else, other than make a target of herself until she was shot down. 

Guardião came out the best of us, as far as Riggs’ yelling went.  He was praised for actually extracting the hostage, and for not being shot, and making sure the hostage wasn’t shot.  But he was critiqued on going to ground and hiding instead of escaping with the hostage, as well as for not being prepared with a way to get the hostage out of the locker on his own.  Still, he was the only one who stuck with (his part of) the (crappy) plan, and that counted for something.

Nobody else had argued or tried to justify themselves, so I knew how to behave when he got to me.  (I was a little confused that he asked me questions, rather than just issuing judgements, but then I realized that he was trying to figure out what I’d been doing, since I’d been invisible most of the time.)  I was praised for also not getting shot, and for ‘taking initiative’ by getting rid of the sniper on the roof, who would have been able to take down Flare and Sapphire.  Riggs asked if it was me that broke out the other window, and I said that it was, and that I’d ended up going in that way. He asked if I was responsible for Guardião disappearing inside, and I admitted it.  (I’d assumed the whole place had cameras, and this confirmed it.)  Apparently he was able to work out what else I’d been up to by the moving objects and yelling.  I was called out for not sticking with Stinger’s plan of being part of a frontal aerial assault.  Even though it was a stupid plan, I should have obeyed orders. 

He’d also noticed me looking around during our ‘planning session’ in the alley, and asked if I wasn’t paying attention.  I told him, truthfully, that I was paying attention, but that I was also trying to figure out other places where we could potentially be shot from or people could be hiding.  He then demanded to know why I hadn’t brought up that possibility to Stinger.  It took me a second to realize that he actually wanted an answer, and I’ll admit, I screwed this one up.  I told him that, being new, I had no idea how the group worked and didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.  Everyone else here has more experience than I do with this kind of thing, so I assumed they didn’t need me butting in. 

Wrong. Answer.

He got right in my face and screamed at me- like actual, spit-flying screaming.  How I wasn’t taking this seriously. (I’ll admit, I wasn’t.)  How I was spineless.  How I was useless.  How I let everyone down.  How I got my teammates killed.  How it was as much my fault as Stinger’s that everything went wrong.  He went on and on. 

Maybe Riggs is right.  From his perspective, he definitely is.  I don’t want to be part of this ‘superhero’ team.  Yes, I’d like to have some or even all of these kids as friends, but my goals aren’t theirs.  I have no intention of taking up a life of crime fighting.  So, from my perspective, this is a waste of time.  Even if I somehow found myself in a similar situation, I’d go about it entirely differently.  (And, if I’m being honest, I’d probably fail at least as badly as we did today.)  But really, I suppose I did let the team down. 

I knew Stinger’s plan was dumb, and we were going about things the wrong way.  But I just let them do it- because I knew that, ultimately, it didn’t matter.  It was all pretend.  Nobody was really in danger.  By not stepping up to Stinger, I ultimately called his leadership into question even more than if I’d challenged him directly. 

But dammit, I don’t want to be a superhero!  And I don’t see why I need to be included in these exercises.  Hourglass is notably absent- why does he get to avoid this mess?  Can you really blame someone for not giving their all to a team they never wanted to be on in the first place? 

Finally, Riggs finished with me and turned on Stinger.  It’s hard to be objective, but I think Stinger got it even worse than I did- though with less actual screaming.  Not only was everything that all of us did wrong blamed on him as the leader, but he was reamed for all his tactical errors.  Even the things he did right, he got wrong.  Like, using his quantum bolts to take out the locked door was a good move, but he did it while standing in the open where everyone could shoot him while his teammate died next to him.  Everything Riggs had brought up in the general criticism, he brought up again, detailing how it was all Stinger’s fault. 

Through it all, Stinger didn’t say anything.  He just had this look on his face.  I’d seen it before on kids at school during Parent’s Night or ball games.  When the kid had tried his best, but his parents were still yelling at him and telling him what a failure and disappointment he was.  Stinger has a stick up his ass, but if this is how he gets treated, I can understand why.  Does he even get any perks for being a leader?  Or is it all misery and unreasonable responsibility?

We were dismissed after that, and I learned why the others hadn’t been around between classes letting out and dinner.  They all gathered together in a little garden space with a fountain to talk over the exercise.  Nobody was very happy, and I got the impression that this was a pretty regular occurrence.

I was afraid they would turn on me, maybe as a way to take heat off of Stinger, but they were all really supportive of each other, including me.  It would probably help if I could make myself think of myself as part of this ‘team’, instead of just part of the student body.  Back at school, there were enough kids around that the ones who refused to be part of the school culture could just be ignored and left to go their own way, but that isn’t possible here.  I think I need to at least pretend to conform.  Make an actual effort at the exercises, even though I have no intention of changing my mind on the whole ‘superhero’ thing.  I’ve made myself very clear on that point.  But maybe I can think of myself like a foreign exchange student- someone who doesn’t belong, but is going through the motions to experience different ways of doing things.  That might work.  Come to think of it, Dream Shadow might be in the same boat.  If anything, her experience in a North Korean training facility was probably even more alien to what’s going on here than mine has been. 

Anyway, so we all started going over what happened, and it was the weirdest thing.  I’m used to kids either ripping on each other, or telling each other that they did nothing wrong and it was somebody else’s (usually an adult’s) fault.  Basically, an extended ‘we’re cool, the world is wrong’ session.  But that wasn’t what happened here.  Yes, everybody comforted each other (even me), but the discussion was about what we each could have done better, not how what we actually did was cool. 

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of concrete ‘what we could have done better’ beyond simply trying not to make the same mistakes again.  I asked how often similar scenarios were run, and Flare said that we had exercises almost every day, but so far nothing had been repeated, so it was hard to put the lessons they’d learned into practice.  Honestly, it sounds like they mostly just let Stinger come up with strategy, then do whatever he tells them.  I’m beginning to feel a little more sorry for Stinger.  Even if he is an uptight ass.

It was during this discussion that I learned about how ‘kills’ were counted.  The baseline guards shot us with paintballs.  When they judged that they’d shot us enough, or in enough vital places, or with larger enough paintballs to ‘kill’ us, they’d shoot us with a numbing dart.  It wasn’t enough to hurt us, but it would slow us down enough to notice, and then we were supposed to play dead.  Each of us had our own ‘killed’ threshold, but nobody could tell me much about it.  There were special darts for Flare and Sapphire, since their abilities would keep a regular dart from penetrating.  I wondered what would happen when I got darted.  I was sure (pretty sure) they’d set my threshold too low, and that was fine.  But if they used a regular dart on me, would it even penetrate?  I hoped to put off finding out as long as possible. 

We broke for dinner, and Stinger asked to meet with me after dinner for a talk.  I assumed he was going to rip into me in private, but figured I’d put up with it for the sake of peace. 

Later-

Stinger and I left the dining hall together, and he got right to the point.  Not to yell at me, or tell me how much I sucked, like I expected.  He just asked me, really quiet and sad, why I hadn’t contributed when I saw what he was doing wrong earlier. 

That made me feel like absolute shit.  Way more than Riggs yelling at me did.  Of course, I apologized my ass off.  And I told him as much of the truth as I thought I could trust him with.  That I had resisted coming to the Academy in the first place, mainly because I don’t want to be a superhero.  Everyone knows the Academy is the fast track to joining Team Tomorrow, or getting a high-status municipal defender gig, and that wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life.  That I was glad to meet other novas, and hoped we’d be friends, but that I would not be moving onto a professional team with them.  And because of that, I really didn’t want to be part of these exercises.  But I also told him that I’d decided earlier today that while I was here, I would do my best to contribute. 

Then I explained that I knew he was being set up as the group’s leader, and I didn’t want to get in his way or step on his toes.  And, well, I assumed that since he had been at this longer than I had, that he’d already thought of everything that I’d noticed, and had a reason for doing it the way he was.  (This was a lie- I had been pretty sure at the time that he just didn’t have much of a real clue, but no way was I going to say that.)  I’d assumed that since he was leader, he would look at me suggesting other options as challenging his leadership- especially since I was new here.  I didn’t want to put myself forward.  And I apologized again. 

He told me not to hold back next time, and asked what I would have done with today’s exercise.  I asked him if the training ground was open at night, and he said he didn’t know.  So, we went over and checked.  It was.  We went back to the alley where we’d planned before. 

First, I pointed out how visible we were from several points, and how there were places where people could have been hidden close enough to overhear us.  I pointed out a couple of spots, but said there were probably others I’d missed.  So, for starters, we shouldn’t have entered the training area until we had a plan. 

Then, I pointed out all the places I could see from where we stood where someone could hide.  My voice was shaking, and Kansas was on my mind for some reason, even though no one had been hiding to shoot me.  He looked at me really weird during that part, and asked why I was so wigged out. 

I decided to tell him about Kansas.  The shooting, and what happened immediately after- not Nova Vigilance’s retaliation.  I told him what it felt like to get shot for real.  To be shot without warning, while you were just going about your business, by someone who probably didn’t even know your name.  I told him how it felt to be alone, in the dark, bleeding, not knowing what to do next.  I told him about the nightmares after.  I told him about Bix’s training at the Clinic, and how he’d hired snipers to shoot at me.  I told him about how, even months later, I watched my surroundings.  All the time.  Because some part of me still expected to be shot again for no good reason. 

Stinger was quiet for a long time.  Finally, he said that he hadn’t really ever thought about what it would be like, really being out there.  That he’d always wanted to be a nova and join T2M, and now that he had his chance, he would do anything to make it happen.  But he hadn’t really thought about what it would be like.  People get hurt.  People die.  Several members of T2M have died, and a couple have disappeared.  And, other than Slider, when heroes died, the world mourned and moved on.  His tone said he was really thinking about all that for the first time.

The pause got awkward, then we got back to today’s exercise, and what I would have done differently.  I tried to hedge (after all, I hadn’t really given it any thought), by saying that I didn’t have a really solid grasp on everyone else’s powers, so I couldn’t make informed decisions; but he was having none of that. 

So, I thought about it.  Eventually, I told him that having Puppy’s animals scout was a good idea, but it needed to go further.  He should have called in enough animals to check the entire area- not just the main building.  I mentioned how animals wouldn’t be able to distinguish friend from foe, so trying to identify a hostage that way was a bust.  All the animals could do was point out ‘people’.  Ideally, Puppy could have brought in a flock of birds to get an aerial view.  Then Shift (out of view) could have shifted into another one of the birds, joined the flock, and been able to provide a more intelligent idea of what to expect, ideally without letting the guards know he was anything other than part of the flock. 

For additional scouting, I could have gone in, invisible, and found a more accessible entrance to be building.  But even before we’d made any attempt on the building itself, we should have taken out as many of the outside guards as we could.  I mentioned thinking that I’d heard people hiding nearby while we were planning, but I couldn’t be sure (I was pretty sure).  The more guards we could have removed before the fight started, the better.  If we’d been able to slip up behind some of them quietly enough, we could have taken care of a lot of their firepower and reinforcements, ideally before they even knew we were there. 

Once we’d gotten rid of as many of the outside guards as possible, then I would have had us sneak in as best we could.  We could have made our way around the back of the training ground, maybe even climbing the buildings to stay out of sight.  I didn’t know how many people Flare could take with her when she teleported, but if I had flown her up to all the windows, keeping us both invisible, she could have brought ever-how-many people into an inside room, away from were the guards were.  If we were quiet enough, she might have been able to make enough trips to bring us all in that way.  At the very least, she wouldn’t have been alone with three guards.  Even if teleporting inside didn’t work, we still could have found another window and snuck in.  That would have kept everybody from being shot by anybody we’d missed outside. 

Then I had to stop and think for a while, because I didn’t see any way to sneak into the main room.  I could have made Flare invisible, and she could have teleported me inside, but that didn’t help much.  Even invisible, teleporting makes a little bit of noise, just from the air displacement.  And we’d still have to get the door open.  It had been a flimsy, interior door, easy to knock down, but obvious.  Once we got the the room stealth went out the window.  So I thought about it.  Stinger waited. 

Finally, I told him that I’d have Sapphire and Puppy (and maybe Shift if he had a really tough form) burst in through the door and basically draw fire from the guards, since they were the least likely to be hurt badly.  Stinger would be the next one through the door, get into a corner, and offer ranged covering fire.  If he could get behind cover, that would be ideal.  Flare and Guardião would go in next and they would be the ones to find the hostage, edging around the room and staying out of the way as much as possible.  By that point, if either Flare or Guardião were strong enough, it might be better to leave the hostage in the locker as added protection, and just take the entire locker.  If Flare could teleport both Guardião and the hostage out, that would be best- to take them both to a pre-determined safe spot away from everything.  If she could only take one person, she should do the fire thing and use herself as cover for Guardião to get the hostage out of the room, then teleport them to safety one at a time. 

Dream Shadow’s wings wouldn’t allow her to fly indoors, so her best option would be to land on the roof and keep watch.  When reinforcements started coming in, her shroud could keep them from being a problem.  It could also cover our escape if need be.  Sapphire’s illusions might also be helpful to cover our escape, maybe by making it look like were were going in another direction, or something.  I don’t know enough about her power to be sure about any of that.

Once the hostage (and Guardião) was out, then our job was done- we didn’t actually need to fight the guards.  At that point, it was all about getting out safely.  Flare was probably gone already, so either our three frontliners would come together to cover our retreat, or (if we’d practiced enough to make it work) Sapphire and I could have provided transport.  Shift could take on a flying form and escape.  If Sapphire or I grabbed Puppy, and the other grabbed Stinger, we could all be airborne within a second or two.  Even if we had to break out more windows to get out, that’s still less damage to the building than we did.  I don’t know how fast Sapphire can fly, but even flying zigzag would make it harder to shoot at us as we escaped, and of course, whoever I was carrying would be as invisible as I was. 

And from there, as far as I was concerned, we could let the baseline authorities clean up any remaining guards, as they weren’t our problem. 

Stinger just kinda stared at me, and I got embarrassed.  So I started babbling about how my ideas probably wouldn’t work, that hindsight was 20/20, that something went wrong in all the movies I’d seen, and history made it clear that ‘no plan of attack survived contact with the enemy’.  But that wasn’t what was bothering him.  Finally, it came out.

“But... that isn’t how heroes do things.”

I’ll admit, I didn’t know what to do with that, so I just stared at him for waaaaay too long.  Finally, I told him that heroes came home from their hero-ing.  Martyrs didn’t.  And he’d lost two members of his team today, and had a third captured.  That wasn’t very heroic either.  (I’ll admit, I was getting mad at that point, and trying not to show it.) 

I asked him if he’d ever been shot before- really been shot, not just paintball.  He said no.  I asked if any of the others had been.  He said no.  I told him that he had no idea what it felt like, and until he did, he had no grounds to complain to me about ‘not being heroic’.  I’d seen how covered in paint he was, and I told him flat-out that I think the faculty had let him take waaay too many hits without declaring him dead.  I told him that in my opinion, if today’s exercise had been using real bullets, Shift, Stinger, Dream Shadow would have all been dead, and there was a good chance Puppy would have been as well- several of the paintballs he’d taken were to the head.  Even if he wouldn’t have died outright, he would have been too injured to continue, and might never have recovered. 

Out of everyone, only Puppy, Guardião, and I had anything more than basic nova vitality, and considering the way Puppy’s scratches from the razor wire weren’t healing like my minor injuries do, it was pretty clear that he and I were tough in different ways- he might not be as bulletproof as I am- and I’m pretty sure a headshot from a rifle would still kill me. 

I told Stinger (I was starting to yell, but got that back under control) that until he could take better care of his team’s health and safety, he would never be a good leader- and he would get someone killed for real someday.  And he’d have to live with that for the rest of his life. 

Then I walked off back to the dorm. 

I know I was too hard on him.  He’s never really been in a bad situation before (I don’t think).  I know Kansas changed me in ways that I’ll never get back, and maybe it’s better that he hasn’t been changed like that yet.  He’s just a kid, after all.  And even though the Academy seems to be using ‘sink or swim’ (or maybe that’s ‘fly or die’) teaching methods, in a lot of ways they’re keeping these kids really sheltered. 

I wonder if our little talk will make any difference.  Everybody knows we went out to talk, but that doesn’t mean they’ll pry.  If I were Stinger, I wouldn’t say much about it to the others, just take some of what I’d heard to heart if I could.  But I’m not Stinger.  I kinda suspect he has some misplaced sense of honor.  He might tell everyone everything.  I’m not sure how that would go.  I really don’t want to be set apart, especially I don’t want it to look like I think I’m better than everyone, or smarter, or whatever.  And whether he tells or not, I know the training ground is monitored.  It probably wasn’t being actively monitored after dinner, when no one was supposed to be around, but our conversation was probably recorded.  Whether anyone will listen to it?  Who knows.  I kinda wish I hadn’t gone off like that, either listing out how I would have handled the exercise, or telling Stinger off.  I don’t want any more official attention than I can help.  I might have really screwed up tonight... ☹

I was most of the way back to the dorm when I had a nasty little thought.  Utopia hasn’t done anything to keep me safe.  They’ve even put me in situations were it was possible (unlikely, but possible) that I could be hurt or killed.  They don’t have my welfare in mind.  So, it seems reasonable (since I’m nothing special) that they might not have any nova’s well-being in mind.  There are all those rumors about Slider’s murder, and how Utopia might have been involved.  Could Utopia deliberately be allowing these kids to learn bad habits that will get them killed?  Lt. Riggs blasted us all for what we did wrong today, but he didn’t take any time to go over what we should have done, and from what the others said, he never does.  He’s not teaching.  He’s just setting us up to fail. 

But that’s crazy.  I’m getting too paranoid.  I know I don’t trust Utopia, but the whole idea of them setting young novas up to die heroically (and pointlessly, and stupidly) is just sick.

This has been a long, nightmare of a day.  I’m exhausted in ways that have nothing to do with being tired.  For the first time in my life, I feel old.  And (not for the first time) alone.  And scared.  I’m in over my head here.  I need to fit in, but I’m less and less sure I want to. 

And this has only been my first real day here.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, January 13

I had nightmares last night.  Not about the training debacle.  About the first aid part.  The scenarios Lt. Riggs kept yelling at us somehow got mixed up with Kansas in my dreams.  I had hoped I was finished dreaming about Kansas. 

Breakfast seemed normal enough.  Stinger was there, and acting the same.  He seemed to be avoiding eye contact, though.  Or maybe I’m being too sensitive.  Puppy still had traces of paint in his hair. 

Class was more ‘Triage in a War Zone’, but this time we were sent back to the exercise area we’d used yesterday afternoon.  The building had been demolished sometime after Stinger and I left (did we interrupt the demo team?), but all the rubble and mess was still there.  This time there were added  environmental effects.  There were several fog machines taking visibility down to nearly zero.  There were sounds, too.  Gunshots, and what I can only assume were bombs dropping.  And screams. 

Lt. Riggs told us that we were to “enter the conflict zone, then stabilize and extract the wounded”.  Again, we weren’t given any equipment, medical or otherwise.  (I wonder, if I’d brought equipment with me, would I have been allowed to use it?  Would I have been allowed to leave and go get some?  A regular old first aid kit would be used up almost immediately, but even a few basic tools would have helped a lot.)

Again with the high-stress environment.  This time, Riggs wasn’t screaming at us, though.  It was worse.  We all scattered into the area, looking for people.  I was expecting dummies, since obviously we couldn’t use each other for this, but when I found my first ‘victim’- I recognized him!  It was Anderson, the rooftop sniper I’d dropped off at the gate last night.  I was just as glad he hadn’t actually seen me yesterday.  He had a tag tied to his leg that said “compound fracture, significant blood loss”. 

I knew what to do about that- stop the bleeding by applying pressure, stabilize the bone(s), and keep the limb as still as possible.  Of course, I didn’t have anything but my hands to apply pressure to the bleeding with.  I looked around for anything I could use, and found an old t-shirt.  It was filthy, but I didn’t have a lot of other options.  I tore that in half and tied one part each above and below the ‘break’.  I got a wooden plank to put the leg on, but had nothing to secure it with.  Well, I had razor wire, but somehow that seemed like a bad idea, LoL.

So, I was about to (carefully) pick him up, plank and all, when the other shoe dropped.  The shooting started.  Somebody yelled (Flare, I think?), and it wasn’t just surprise.  The shots didn’t sound like paintballs.  When I peeked out, I saw something crack a wooden wall before bouncing off.  Rubber bullets.  Like cops use on activists.  I had no idea they were that large.  They were actually shooting at us.  ‘Less lethal’, sure.  But still shooting at us. 

I watched what was happening for a while.  The shooting was coming from three clustered areas, and all the bullets were hitting at waist height or higher.  That probably meant that all the ‘victims’ were lying flat on the ground.  Okay, fine. 

I knew I could make Anderson invisible and fly out.  We’d avoid being shot, but I’d have to get out fast enough to avoid random fire, and that would jostle the leg.  Not a good plan.  Staying on the ground it is, then.  I moved Anderson onto a wider piece of wood, one that would support at least part of his body along with his leg.  Then, I told him to stay quiet and left him, turning invisible.  I stayed low, and picked out the smoothest route out of the area, clearing it of as many obstacles as I could.  I moved rocks and debris, covered some razor wire with a piece of wood, and generally got as smooth a course as I could.  Then, I went back to Anderson and started carefully pushing the wood he was on down the path I’d picked out. 

It seemed like it took forever (and Anderson wasn’t helping- I’m sure he came off the plank on purpose), but eventually I got him to the edge of the exercise ground.  Once he was outside the marked area, I figured he was safe and went back in. 

Twice more I found people.  I didn’t recognize either of them, but I’m pretty sure they were more of yesterday’s guards.  The next one was simple.  Her tag read “Legs pinned under rubble”.  She was actually under some rubble, though I could see a little open space between her body and what had been stacked on top of her.  That was a simple matter of moving the stuff without having it collapse on top of her.  Slow going, to make sure nothing fell on her, but not hard.  Once she was out, I had her crawl behind me until we worked our way out of the zone.

The third was marked “Extreme vomiting, disoriented, combative.”  Great.  Luckily, the guard wasn’t actually puking.  He was actually trying to fight me, though.  And trying to stand up to do it.  After a couple of tries at getting him to calm down (I swear that guy was enjoying his performance), I ended up giving him just a little bit of a jolt- not enough to hurt him, but enough to get his attention.  While he was pondering his life choices, I got him back down on the ground and dragged him out. 

I didn’t see any of the others during all this, but right as I was about to go back in for a fourth time, Riggs called a halt and we regrouped. 

In one sense, Guardião had done the best of all of us.  He’d found five people, simply healed whatever was listed as being wrong with the person, then escorted them out.  He’d been shot once, but he healed his own bruise as well. 

Sapphire and Flare had found two people each.  They’d both torn up their clothes for bandages (making me realize for the first time that they weren’t wearing Eufiber).  Since Sapphire was in her gem form, her being basically topless didn’t matter, and if she’d been shot, she probably hadn’t even noticed.  Flare had sacrificed most of her pant legs, and since she couldn’t set herself on fire without hurting the people she was rescuing, she’d been shot several times and was covered in bruises- one of them scarily close to her eye.  She hadn’t had any trouble extracting her victims once she’d treated them though, since she’d simply teleported them to safety. 

Stinger had found four people, and had more luck than I had with finding things in the rubble to use.  He’d actually found some rope to make a splint, and had only had to sacrifice one pant leg for bandages.  He was covered in bruises, though, and one of his victims had been shot while Stinger was getting him out. 

And I had my three, all of us un-shot, but one slightly fried.  I wasn’t sure how Riggs was doing to take that.  I felt a little bad for the guy, since he was only doing his job, but still.  He had been shooting at us yesterday.

This time, instead of yelling, Riggs asked questions.  And actually wanted answers.  He wanted to know why we’d made whatever choices we had.  We all answered questions about how we’d ‘treated’ each victim- splints, bandages, etc.  Riggs seemed pretty happy with all that.  Then came the questions about getting them out. 

Guardião had done the best, but he’d also had the easiest time of it, since his victims were able to help themselves after being healed.  He’d noticed the shooting pattern as well, and simply had everyone crawl to safety.  Riggs didn’t offer any praise, but he didn’t yell, either, so I think Guardião had a better day today overall. 

Flare also did well teleporting her people out, but she hadn’t been at all careful about staying under the line of fire.  She’d been caught off guard when the shooting started, and just... stood there for a moment.  That was where most of her bruises had come from.  Guardião went over to heal her, but Riggs wouldn’t let him. 

Sapphire had done something nifty to get her people out.  She was more-or-less bulletproof, but she created a kind of wall made out of sapphires, keeping it between her and the shooters as she carried each one to safety.  I’m not sure how well it would have worked if there had been shooting from both sides, or if the exit was further away, but it sounded really clever.  I wish I’d seen it.

Stinger’d simply picked up (or dragged, in the case on one larger man) each of his people and ran out with them, using his own body as a shield as much as possible.  He was covered in bruises, and the way he was moving, I think he might have some cracked ribs.  I’ve seen the way he moves usually, and I’m pretty sure he can dodge bullets- maybe.  But not while distracted.  But at least he’d been a ‘hero’. 

Riggs wanted to know what I’d done to the last guy.  I told him, making sure to point out that I’d kept the strength of the jolt low.  He asked why I thought it was appropriate to attack an injured man.  I told him that he was already injured, but not in a way that the jolt was likely to make worse, and that the way he was acting endangered both himself and me.  I wasn’t going to allow that, so after trying to calm him, I put him down with as little harm as possible so we could both get out.  He was at risk for being shot as long as he was standing up, and if I’d been injured too badly to rescue him, then I’d not only have failed to get him out, I’d have made the problem worse since someone would either have to rescue us both, or abandon us.  Bzzzt-ing him was the least-worst option in the moment.

Then he asked me why I didn’t just fly the people out of danger.  I told him that, even invisible, the chances of one or both of us getting shot were too great, plus Anderson’s described injury was too nasty to risk jouncing around with quick flying.  Riggs asked me if I was a coward, since I was so afraid of getting shot with paintballs and rubber bullets. 

Well, I wasn’t inclined to let that ride (and if he’d heard my talk with Stinger last night, he already knew about me), so I told him flat-out that yes, I was a coward about being shot with paintballs and rubber bullets because I’d already been shot by the real thing.  That I knew exactly what it was like, and intended to treat anything being fired at me as though it was the real thing.  Because some day, it would be.  I told him that if I died, or was too hurt to keep going, then I was no use to anyone.  So not getting hurt was the best way to help others.

I’d wondered since I’d met Lt. Riggs yesterday, if he’d ever actually seen an active military situation.  If he’d ever been in combat.  I was staring into his eyes as I said that, and now I know.  He has been.  I don’t know if he’s been shot himself, but he’s been up-close when it happened to someone else, at least.

He didn’t say anything else, and dismissed us to our language classes. 

At lunch, Stinger told me I shouldn’t have spoken disrespectfully to Riggs.  I told him that I didn’t think that I had- he’d asked a question, and I answered it.  If Riggs didn’t like the answer, that wasn’t my problem.  Stinger couldn’t say much to that, but the others wanted to know about what I’d been talking about. 

So, I told them about my cross-country flight, and being shot over Kansas.  Puppy wanted to know where, and I remembered that he was from the area.  I told him I wasn’t sure exactly where (since I didn’t want to let on that I’d been doing my own investigation), but told him It was a few miles outside of Wichita.  He got quiet then, and said that when he’d erupted, his parents had kept him hidden on their farm so the ‘bad people’ wouldn’t find him- but they’d found him anyway.  He said his parents said there were lots of ‘bad people’ around, but that Utopia would keep us safe from them.  (I really hope he never has to find out otherwise.)

I asked how much longer our First Aid unit might last, and Flare said that each topic tended to last two or three weeks, but that this was the start of the second week of First Aid, so not much longer.  She had no idea what would come next, other than that it wouldn’t have much if anything to do with medical stuff.  Apparently the Academy isn’t big of regularly reinforcing and building on established skills.

This isn’t a school.  It’s a training camp for child soldiers.

After lunch, we were told to meet at the back entrance.  I hadn’t seen that yet, but we all went over together.  There was another gate, this one functional rather than ornate, and a small parking lot full of cars.  Lt. Riggs was there waiting for us and we piled into the backs of two pickup trucks. 

We were driven out into the woods.  Flare told me this was the Havens Wildlife Management Area.  Deer season had just ended a few days ago, but it wasn’t impossible for there to still be hunters in the area.   I immediately shifted my Eufiber to a bright orange vest, just in case. 

When we were out in the middle of nowhere, Lt. Riggs had the trucks stop and gave us our mission for this scenario.  A lost child.  Five years old.  In the woods.  In January.  Oh, and bears are a possibility.  That was it.  (I can’t help but feel like a real search party, looking for a real kid, would be given a lot more information than that.)  While Riggs was giving us the mission, I casually dropped a GPS flag on our location, just in case.  With half the party being able to fly, I don’t think it would be possible for us to get lost for long, but, just in case.  At least, for once, I was pretty sure that Utopia wasn’t monitoring us- they couldn’t have the entire forest wired, after all.  So my communicator and any tech the others were carrying were probably all Utopia had on us.

And just like that, the trucks turned around and left us alone in the middle of the woods.  Once we were alone, Stinger took charge.  At first, he wanted us to all split up and search, but accepted my suggestion that we search in pairs- one flier to each pair.  That way, we couldn’t get lost.  I also took to the air for a moment and fixed a few landmarks, to make it easier to find our way back to the road.  (I couldn’t help but think that Riggs had a secondary goal with this- to see if we could find our way back to the road, or even all the way back home.)

The forest was too thick to make looking for the kid from the air feasible, but there were a lot of small animals and birds around, so Puppy was really able to shine.  Within a few minutes, he was surrounded by squirrels, rabbits, deer, birds, foxes, and even a small bear.  He looked like an overgrown Disney princess and was clearly having the time of his life. 

Apparently, none of the animals had seen anyone since the hunters had cleared out, so Puppy talked them into fanning out and looking for people.  Then we all broke up into pairs and started looking.  Shift turned into a bloodhound and started sniffing around.  He didn’t have a scent for the kid (and for that matter, I doubted there was an actual child, which would make things more complicated), but I guess he just assumed that the freshest tracks would be the right ones. 

I figured that the ‘kid’ would turn out to either be a live adult, or a child mannequin stashed somewhere by an adult.  I was hoping for the adult, since a mannequin would be almost impossible to find- closer to finding a body than a person. Other than Puppy and Shift, none of our powers were really useful in this exercise.  I kept popping up above the tree line to keep track of our location, and I occasionally saw Dream Shadow or Sapphire doing the same, but otherwise, we might as well have been baselines. 

After about an hour, I had a thought.  Thermal imaging.  Even during the day, it would pick up heat signatures, even through the trees.  It wouldn’t make a bit of difference if we were looking for a mannequin, but if it was a person…. I started scanning for radio frequencies, too.  I figured if it was a person, they’d have a radio with them to get picked up if we failed to find them. 

Now, I figured that using thermal was perfectly fine, since any living kid would have a heat signature.  Hunting for the radio would almost certainly be ‘cheating’, since a little kid probably wouldn’t have one.  Of course, I wasn’t completely certain that the lost person would even have radio.  And if someone was really missing, you would use everything at your disposal, right?  I also realized that I didn’t really care if I were ‘cheating’.  I still think Riggs is setting us up to fail by deliberately giving us minimal information (we didn’t even have a map of the area!), and I’m already over it.

I told Flare my thoughts about thermal imaging, and asked if Sapphire had that kind of vision as well.  Flare didn’t know, but didn’t think so- Sapphire had never mentioned it.  So I started staying in the air, near Flare, but above the tree line, looking around for heat signatures.  We couldn’t rule out any of a medium size or bigger, so there were several false positives.  I found several deer- lying down, they don’t look much different than a person.  They run off real quick when they hear us coming, though, which is a pretty good giveaway that they aren’t what we’re looking for.  There was a bear, that might have been the same one Puppy was having help us. 

I found three ‘hikers’ (two of them obviously hunters), and those we had to check out individually, in case one of them was our pretend kid.  They weren’t.  The ‘hikers’ had some really big guns for a ‘hike’, and really didn’t want to talk to us.  The third one probably was a hiker- he was equipped for it, at least.  Once he (his name was Donny) figured out we were novas, he got all excited, wanted autographs, selfies, and so on.  Flare was a little weirded out by all that.  I keep forgetting that the kids have been isolated on campus pretty much sense they erupted. 

It was Shift who finally found the ‘kid’, which turned out to be a relatively small adult woman.  Once Shift found her (he and Stinger were paired up), Stinger had him turn into a bird and get the other fliers’ attention.  As each of us popped up, he gathered us all in, and we regrouped together. 

Once everyone was back together, we hit the snag I’d pretty much been expecting- getting back to the road.  I looked at Stinger, to see what his idea would be, but he was looking kinda white around the eyes.  So, I asked Flare if she knew the road well enough to teleport back to it with the ‘kid’, but she didn’t.  Ok, no problem. 

I popped back above the tree line and spotted the landmarks I’d memorized earlier.  I didn’t want to depend on the GPS tag I’d dropped if I could avoid it.  Once I had my marks, it was easy enough to fly slowly enough for the others to keep up.  Even if I lost sight of them visually, all together they made a massive heat signature, so it was easy to keep them headed in the right direction. 

We made it back to the road, and… no trucks.  When we asked our ‘kid’ if she had a radio to call them, she smirked at us and stuck a lollipop in her mouth.  Tuning in to the right frequencies, I could hear that she did have a radio, but unless we frisked her, she wasn’t going to admit it. 

Stinger wanted to wait for pickup.  I didn’t think pickup was going to come, but left it alone for the time being.  We waited.  And waited.  And waited. 

I had to be in Wilmington at six for my aikido lesson, so eventually I was done with waiting.  Flare could teleport home with two passengers (if they were small enough), so she agreed to take our ‘kid’ and Guardião back to campus.  Shift turned into a hawk, Dream Shadow scooped up Puppy, and I offered to give Stinger a lift home.  He didn’t like it, but the rest of us were done with waiting.  So, we all flew back to campus- after all, the road only ran in two directions.

It was the first time I’d gotten to really see the others fly.  Shift was a bird, and flew like any other bird.  Impressive, but nothing really unusual.  Sapphire flew like I did, but I don’t think she’s had as much practice.  Both of us fly more-or-less horizontally when we’re by ourselves, but hover in place vertically, and end up at a weird forward angle when we’re carrying someone.  It’s like carrying someone throws us off-balance, somehow, which is ridiculous since we’re more levitating than flying; and not dependent on balance, or gravity, or whatever. 

Dream Shadow was different.  She doesn’t fly like Sapphire and I, but she doesn’t fly like a bird, either.  The forward posture Sapphire and I adopt when we’re carrying seems to be her default position whether she’s carrying someone or not, but she carries lower on her body than Sapphire and I do.  We both tend to tuck whatever (or whoever) close to our chests in the crooks of our elbows, while Dream Shadow carries lower on her belly, with the weight resting on her forearms.  I wonder if that offsets the motion of her wings? 

Anyway, we got back to campus, and of course Flare, Guardião, and our ‘kid’ were already there.  Riggs was waiting for us, and I was tempted to just head out for my lesson.  But, that probably wouldn’t have gone over well.  I could give him forty-five minutes.  But I refused to be late for Sensei Laura’s lesson. 

Amazingly, he didn’t have much to say, other than ‘what took us so long?’  We went over what we’d done and why, and that was about it.  The others retreated to their usual discussion spot, but I told them I had my lesson and would meet them later.  Stinger wasn’t happy with that, but he doesn’t need to be.  My sympathy for him has limits. 

My lesson with Sensei Laura went well.  We spent half the time on holds and throws, and the other half with the bokken.  After the lesson, she asked how I liked the Academy, and I was as honest with her as I felt I could be.  I told her my concerns about the lack of academics, how I thought Riggs was purposefully setting us up for failure, and how isolated the other kids were.  All safe topics, since only the Riggs issue reflected even slightly negatively on Utopia, and even though Utopia found Sensei Laura for me, I really don’t think she’s in their pocket.  Not much, anyway. 

After the lesson, I stopped home to visit the cats (Mom was still working), then headed back.  I’d missed dinner, but that was fine.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, January 14

At breakfast, Flare asked me how I’d been so comfortable dealing with that baseline hiker in the woods yesterday- the one that wanted autographs and selfies. 

I told her that most baselines admired novas, and a lot of them were crazy about us.  I told her that it was better to get used to dealing with them, because the real world wasn’t nearly as isolated and sheltered as the Academy was.  Outside, she’d have to get used to being treated like a celebrity, and learn how to handle it with at least the appearance of grace.  If we treated being asked for selfies and autographs like it was no big deal, then we could actually make it no big deal.  And if it was no big deal, we could get on with our lives.  I told her that I’d watched OpNet videos of celebrities that have a reputation for being kind to their fans and generally good people; and saw how they treated people who ‘intruded’ on their personal time.  And then I just did the same.  Usually, being gracious gets it over with quickest, but that doesn’t mean you should allow yourself to be taken advantage of.

I saw I had everyone’s attention, so I told them that it had bothered me when I first erupted, too.  And, to be honest, it still bothers me sometimes.  A lot.  But having baseline friends made a lot of difference.  They helped keep you anchored, and gave you space to just be a person, rather than having to be a nova all the time.  And being able to be a person made being a nova easier.  Basically, I told them that baselines were going to treat them as being different and special no matter what, and it was up to them to decide how they wanted to engage with that.  Personally, I think it’s better to stay as humble and down-to-earth as possible.  And that means interacting, as much as possible, with people on their own level.  That means treating people like people- not like delicate sculptures too fragile to touch, not like dirt under our feet, not like angels and saints on pedestals.  We should respect baselines, but not fear them or coddle them.  Treating them as too precious to interact with does them just as much disservice as treating them like animals or dirt.  

Besides, we had all been baselines before we’d been novas.  We’d been baselines longer than we’d been novas.  Most of us can still pass for baselines if we want to, other than Dream Shadow and I.  All of the others could walk into town right now, and no one would know they were novas unless they told someone or were recognized.  And since Utopia had kept them so isolated, recognition wasn’t very likely.  In other words, there was no reason they couldn’t start interacting with baselines again.  They already know how- they’re just out of practice.

Isolating a new nova from baselines long enough to get their powers under control is reasonable.  Continuing to isolate novas after that point is not.  Novas have to be allowed to make mistakes, just like anyone else.  Especially novas our age.  Our teens and twenties are when we should be exploring the world, finding our places in it, and learning the lessons we’ll need for the rest of our lives.  That means making mistakes- sometimes making mistakes that shape the rest of our lives.  But if we’re prevented from learning those lessons and making those mistakes, we’ll be stunted as adults; and, in a very real way, never grow up at all.

We had to leave for class then, but I think I might have gotten a couple of people thinking.  I don’t think I got through to Stinger, though, which sucks.  I’m pretty sure the group will ultimately follow his lead, whether his lead is worth following or not.

Class today was better, if nastier.  It was all about dealing with gas attacks, poisons, and generally how weaponized substances harmed people and what to do about it.  Apparently even Lt. Riggs couldn’t figure out how to simulate that kind of a disaster with any realism, so he went with the next most traumatic option: showing us pictures and videos of the victims of all kinds of gas and poison.  He had samples of a lot of things, so we could learn how things looked and smelled (luckily, he didn’t want us to taste, LoL). 

The visuals were disturbing, but I figured that would be the worst of it.  Not quite.  Halfway through the class period, he took us to a small outbuilding with only one door and no windows.  I’ve seen too many police and army movies not to know what was coming. 

Is ‘showing someone what it’s like’ ever really a good reason to gas someone?  Does knowing how much something sucks make us better prepared to deal with the situation later?  Does it make people less likely to cause trouble?  Does it make people have more sympathy for other people the gas is used on?  (Well, okay, that last one might be a good reason.)  Or do the people in control just get their kicks by making other people miserable?  Maybe there’s an element of ‘I went through it, so you should too’? 

Anyway, we all filed into the shed like good little sheep.  The door locked behind us, and the hissing noise started.  The others didn’t figure out what was happening right away.  Guardião picked up on it first- maybe some extra sense that goes with his healing ability?  I’ll admit, I was curious.  Out of all of us in this smaller class, he and I are the only extra-tough ones, and I didn’t think we shared the same gifts that go with it.  Would he be able to ignore what was coming? Recover from it really quickly?  Or did his gifts apply to other things? 

They applied to other things.  Everybody started coughing and tearing up, doubling over, trying to throw up (Flare succeeded).  I didn’t really know what to do or not do, so I couldn’t really help anyone.  Sapphire tried to take to the air (maybe she thought it would be clearer up near the ceiling?), but was coughing too much to get off the ground.  I felt oddly bad about not being effected.  (I had been pretty sure I wouldn’t be, but not positive.)  There’s something really awkward about standing around while others are miserable, and not be able to either do anything to help, or at least share in the misery. 

Finally, it was over.  The hissing stopped, the door cracked open, and we were let out.  I figured we’d be given first aid to neutralize the gas.  Nope.  While we’d been inside, a table had been set up, with a bunch of bottles, sprays, and other things.  We were expected to treat ourselves, despite being blind, throwing up, and unable to breathe.  And despite not knowing exactly what we’d been hit with (I assume tear gas, but what do I know?) let alone how to treat it. 

No instructions, no explanations, no nothing.  Just Riggs and a couple of other guys standing by watching.  Well, I could see just fine, and Guardião was recovering fast now that he was out of the ongoing irritant, but his eyes were still swollen almost shut.  But the others were screwed.  So, I  went over to the table and started looking the things over. 

There was plenty of plain water.  Water with baking soda in it.  Vinegar.  Milk.  Several products I didn’t know anything about.  I started reading things aloud to the others, hoping they’d know what worked best.  When I got to the baking soda water, Guardião asked for it.  He sprayed himself several times in the face with it, and it seemed to help a little.  I went back to the bottles, and started reading the fine print.  (This was a nasty trick on Riggs’ part- even though the bottles had instructions printed right on them, there was no way anybody who’d been hit by the gas could have read the directions.) 

I found one that told me how to use it to neutralize gas, and asked Flare if she wanted me to use it on her.  She agreed, and I started pouring it into her eyes.  She had to hold each eye open with her fingers to get the stuff in.  Sapphire found the milk, and started pouring that into her own eyes, but it didn’t seem to do as much good as the soda water stuff.  I used the bottled stuff on Stinger next.  By then, Guardião had more-or-less recovered, and was helping Sapphire. 

By the time we’d finished, everyone was miserable, with red, swollen eyes and wracking coughs with snot.  And then Riggs turned the hose on us all. 

Part of me knows this was necessary to clean the gas off of our bodies, clothes, and hair.  Part of me is certain it was sadism.  The water reactivated the gas on our bodies.  Streams from our hair got into our eyes, our skin was irritated all over again, everything.  Plus, it was cold hose water in January. 

Water and (I assume) tear gas is bad.  Enough water and tear gas is, eventually, good.  We looked like drowned rats, and most of us were close to hypothermia, but we were clean.  Then Riggs took us back into the classroom and started teaching us how to treat victims of gas and poisons like nothing had happened. 

I really hope Riggs goes away when the First Aid unit is over.  If he’s one of our main teachers, I don’t know what I’ll do.  He’s awful.

Languages classes are going well.  Japanese is a lot easier than Arabic.  But the language classes don’t really have anything to do with nova-ing, so unless something special happens there, I’m not going to go into detail about them.

Today’s ‘tactical’ exercise was interesting.  We were given another urban environment simulation- an abandoned warehouse.  It was a really small ‘warehouse’- just a cinderblock building.  There was one door that we could see on the front, and no windows that we could see from where we were.  The building didn’t look tall enough for a full second story, but seemed too tall for just one floor- so maybe some kind of balcony or catwalk?  Our mission envelope was taped to the wall at the other end of an alley.  This time, we were told that a street gang had taken over the building, and it was our job to take them into custody with no casualties and minimal property damage. 

If there was ever an opportunity for Stinger to take what I’d told him under advisement, this was it.  Surely, he was going to have us do significant scouting.  Maybe even send some of us to go get useful equipment.  After all, we didn’t even have anything on hand to secure people once we had them ‘in custody’.  Right?  Wrong. 

Stinger hadn’t learned a damn thing, and started making his plans right there in sight of everything.  This time, I suggested we back away, get some distance, and break line-of-sight.  We all moved away, but Stinger didn’t look happy.  He had Puppy call in animals for scouting again, this time finding some pigeons as well as squirrels. 

The ground in front of the warehouse was clear, so unless they’d buried mines or something, we were probably okay on that score.  The other ‘buildings’ surrounding the warehouse were only façades, so we didn’t have to worry about outliers like last time.  That was the good news. 

The bad news was that the pigeons came back to tell Puppy that there were only two doors- the one we saw in the front, and a roll-up garage door in the back.  There were no windows, but there were several vents up near the roof.

That was enough for Stinger.  He started breaking us into two teams, one to go in the front door, and one to go in the garage door.  When we got in the doors, we were to fan out and take down the gang.  No other prep or plan needed. 

I couldn’t let that stand.  I really, really wanted to let him fail again.  (Yeah, I’m petty.)  Not knowing how to do something isn’t a problem.  Not learning how, especially when given multiple opportunities is.  And besides, I didn’t want to draw more attention to myself.  But I couldn’t let this go.  So, I spoke up.

I pointed out that we had no idea how many people were in the building.  What they were armed with.  If they had non-combatants inside.  What else was in the building (boxes? shipping pallets?  explosives?)  I pointed out that we didn’t even have anything other than our own hands to restrain anyone we caught. 

Stinger didn’t like any of that, but the others were nodding.  So he asked me (a little snarky, but I guess I can’t blame him- I was challenging his leadership in front of everyone) how I would handle it.  I didn’t have to think about it for long. 

I asked Flare where the nearest tool shed was.  She told me.  I sent her for two sets of bolt cutters and as many zip ties as she could find.  If she couldn’t find zip ties, duct tape, rope or even chain was better than nothing.  (I didn’t think it was reasonable to expect there to be handcuffs available.) 

I asked Sapphire if her hearing was unusually good, beyond her other enhanced senses, but she said it wasn’t.  I asked Shift if he could take a form with a really good sense of smell, that was small enough to not be noticed.  He turned into a squirrel.  Watching him change was as impressive as it was creepy.  I told him to sniff around the vents for anything chemical, gunpowder, gasoline, or any other nasty surprises, as well as to try and get a sense of what else might be in the building.  He skittered off. 

I told the others to stay put while I went invisible, took off, and started listening at each of the doors, then the vents.  When I really focus on it, I can hear people breathing several rooms away.  By circulating all around the building, I was pretty sure I’d found everyone, but had no way of knowing if they were all our targeted ‘gang members’.  I also peeked in the vents.  The angles were bad, so I couldn’t see much, but there was an open catwalk around the inner edge of the space. 

Just to be sure, I flew a quick circuit around the rest of the space, but the other ‘buildings’ were only mockups, like I thought.  No one was hiding anywhere outside the warehouse, even to thermal vision.  Well, almost no one.  Riggs was hiding near the edge of the exercise ground.  But it was obvious that he was observing rather than involved, so I left him alone.  It was the best I could do, so I went back to the others.

Flare was back, and Shift was human again.  She’d brought back the requested bolt cutters, a handful of zip ties, and three rolls of duct tape.  Shift said that he smelled gunpowder, metal, and chemicals.  He couldn’t pick out which chemicals, but there were a lot of them. 

That got me to thinking back to Riggs’ gas lesson.  Utopia doesn’t do anything without a good reason, so I sent Flare back to the shed for any safety goggles, respirators, or other kinds of face protection she could find- and if she found anything else she thought would be useful to bring it along. 

Stinger was looking really impatient by the time she came back with a painter’s respirator and four sets of safety goggles.  She also brought a crowbar.  I wasn’t sure what good a crowbar would do, but wasn’t going to criticize. 

I told everyone that I had heard ten people breathing inside, but that doesn’t automatically mean that all of them are our targets.  I told them approximately where each person had been, but mentioned that they could have moved since I’d checked it out. 

Not wanting to make things worse than they had to be, I said that Stinger’s idea of two teams, one on each door was a good one, and put everyone into their groups accordingly.  I gave a set of bolt cutters to each team, let Flare keep the crowbar, and mentioned my concern about gas or similar problems.  I hadn’t seen how Puppy, Dream Shadow, or Shift had dealt with the gas lesson (if they’d even had it), so I let everybody decide for themselves who got what safety equipment.  Dream Shadow, Shift, Flare, and Sapphire all took goggles.  Dream Shadow took the respirator.  Puppy said he didn’t need anything- I know he’s tough.  Maybe he’s the same kind of tough as me?  He breathes and eats, but then, so do I unless I choose not to.  I suggested to the others that they pull their shirts up over their noses and mouths and tape them into place- it wouldn’t do much, but might be better than nothing.  Stinger refused any safety gear. 

I told them about the catwalk, and suggested that Sapphire fly up to it as soon as she got in.  That once everybody on the front door team was inside, that she use her power to create a wall of stone to seal that entrance and prevent any escapes.  If she had time to do the back door, great.  Otherwise, I wanted her to stay either on the catwalk or in the air, and focus on anyone else who was on the catwalk with her.  The others were to fan out like Stinger said, and take the other gang members- keeping an eye out for any noncombatants.  I handed out the zip ties (there were enough for everyone to have two each), and gave a roll of duct tape to Guardião, Flare, and Stinger.

There really wasn’t a way to conceal the whole group, so I had the back door team circle around outside the exercise space.  Then both groups would sprint for the doors, running zigzag, let the bolt cutter people do their thing, then everyone pile in.  I’ll admit, I didn’t think this was a good plan, but I couldn’t think of a better one.  I could only make one other person invisible, Flare couldn’t get people inside without knowing the layout, and even then she would need multiple trips, and having Puppy (or Dream Shadow or I) bust through a wall went against the ‘minimal collateral damage’ stipulation.  So, this is what we had. 

Stinger had me on Team Garage Door, along with Puppy, Dream Shadow, and Guardião.  Dream Shadow grabbed Puppy, I grabbed Guardião, and we were in position quick.  As soon as I heard Stinger get the front door open, Puppy popped the lock on the garage door and threw it open.  In we went.

The place was full of crates and pallets, like you’d expect a warehouse to be.  It offered plenty of places for people to hide.  I was invisible, of course, and took a hard right as soon as I got inside the door.  Sapphire had her wall up over the front door, and was able to block off about half of the garage door, so I dragged some crates over to help block off the rest of it and opted to stay nearby to prevent any escapes. 

Then, the shooting started.  I’d pretty much expected it.  These were ‘gang members’, after all.  There were three on the catwalk, but Sapphire took one of them out almost immediately, and a second soon after.  The third one got several good shots in, though.  I didn’t see how she got the first two, but the second must have given her trouble since the third shooter was able to work in peace for awhile before she got him. 

The crates worked as much in our favor as they did against us, giving us cover from the paintballs as well as hiding our targets.  The crates also destroyed line of sight for everyone, so I couldn’t see how the others did.  There were a couple thumps, like people being knocked down, so I guess we were doing all right.  The shooting from the catwalk stopped, so either Sapphire got the third guy up there, or Dream Shadow did.  I caught one guy and zip tied him, but I didn’t want to get too far away from their only escape point.  I noticed my guy was wearing a full gas mask.  Great.  Sure enough, I heard the hissing start soon after.  I knew I’d be fine, and so should Dream Shadow, being fully protected with goggles and respirator.  I hoped Puppy would be okay on his own, I knew Guardião wouldn’t be, but would recover the quickest (plus, I think he has the sheer stubbornness to just keep going no matter how much he hurts).  Stinger had made his choice, and best of luck to him, but I was worried about Shift. 

I yelled for Shift to come take over covering the exit point.  I figured that would get him as much fresh air as possible, and he could turn into something large enough to block the exit with his body if need be.  That freed me up to get more involved. 

I took one guy down (first time actually using my aikido- can’t wait to tell Sensei Laura), then had trouble with finding anyone else in the crates.  Finally, I started pushing piles of crates against the walls.  This took awhile, but it meant there were fewer places for people to hide.  Less cover from shooters as well, but once the catwalk people were taken care of, the shooting had been minimal. 

Stinger started yelling that we had everyone and were done.  I yelled back, asking for an actual count.  Sapphire had taken out two, Dream Shadow one, I had two, Flare had one, Stinger had two.  Shift was currently a hippopotamus with his head outside the garage door, so he didn’t say anything, but I didn’t think he’d gotten anyone.  Guardião hadn’t gotten anyone, and Puppy didn’t answer (which worried me). 

I told Stinger there were still two more unaccounted for.  And that somebody needed to check on Puppy.  Guardião went looking for him.  Stinger insisted we had everyone and could pull out.  I told him we needed to push all the crates and pallets against the walls, to flush the last two out of hiding.  Stinger insisted that I’d miscounted.  By that time, Guardião had found Puppy and said that he needed to get out of there, so Stinger sent them both out the garage door, along with Hippo-Shift.  He started to leave as well, and told the rest of us to come with. 

Now, I knew that whatever I did next would be wrong.  I could either be insubordinate, or I could let us fail the mission objective.  (To be honest, I didn’t really care about either one, but oh well.)  So, I told him that he could go if he wanted, but I was going to stay until the job was done.  Dream Shadow and Sapphire stayed with me.  Flare left with Stinger.  Stinger was plenty mad.  I told them that staying would likely get them into trouble, but they stayed anyway.  Sapphire sealed off the rest of the garage door with her sapphire wall, then we all started pushing crates and pallets around.  Eventually, the gas stopped- I don’t know if they ran out, or gave up.  Dream Shadow was fine with her protective gear (so she said, but I could see the blotches on her skin where her clothes hadn’t fully covered her), and Sapphire was able to cope enough in her gem form. 

It took us another thirty minutes for the three of us to move all the pallets.  In the pauses, I could hear two people sneaking around, so I knew we weren’t just wasting our time.  Eventually, we caught them, duct taped them, and then Sapphire took down her gem walls. 

As far as I could tell, the only damage we’d done to the building was cutting off the locks, and maybe scuffing the floor.  Ten baselines ‘in custody’, undamaged.  Sapphire had a couple of paint smears, but in her gem form, they didn’t really matter.  Dream Shadow had been hit once in the arm.  I’d stayed invisible, and hadn’t been hit, even when it was pretty obvious where I was due to moving things around.  I didn’t know how the others had done. 

When we were sure we had everyone, we found a couple of pallet blankets, stacked all our ‘gangsters’ on them, and dragged them out the garage door.  Lt. Riggs was waiting.  So was Stinger.  Flare was off to one side with Guardião and Puppy.  Guardião had clearly been busy helping the others deal with the gas.  Stinger had several paintball shots, at least three in vital areas.  Flare had been hit in the leg (she hadn’t been in flame form to prevent collateral damage).  It didn’t look like Puppy or Guardião had been shot at all, but the gas had hit Puppy hard.  Whatever kind of tough he is, I guess it isn’t that.  ☹  If Shift had been hit, you couldn’t tell after the shapeshifting, which was interesting.  Guardião came right up to us, and started to check Sapphire and Dream Shadow over, and Riggs let him. 

I had already decided that I would try to take the heat for Dream Shadow and Sapphire if I could, but I also wasn’t going to lay myself open to the oncoming bitch-fest.  Let Riggs yell if he wanted, he would need to be the one that started it- I wasn’t going to offer excuses or justifications.

But I hadn’t counted on Stinger’s need to be right.  He started bawling me out, right there in front of Riggs, like it was his job.  (I guess, maybe, it is his job, in a way.  If he’s supposed to be our leader and everything.)  I let him rip into me all he wanted.  I’d already pretty much lost all respect for him, so there wasn’t anything he could say that could hurt me.  My just watching him yell, listening, not arguing, somehow made him even more mad. 

He started in on Sapphire and Dream Shadow, and that’s when I answered him.  I told him that I was the one who had chosen to stick with the mission rather than abandon it, and if he had a problem with that, he needed to take it up with me, rather than going after them.  I was responsible for what happened.  That if he needed to yell at someone, he could go right on yelling at me, but going after them was unacceptable.  I might have also made a remark about how yelling wasn’t a strong leadership trait.  (Hey, I said I was petty.)   That got his attention back on me, which was what I wanted, but that was when Riggs stepped in.  (I realized at that point that I may have screwed up a little more than I thought, since Riggs yells a lot too, but too late.)

Riggs didn’t yell.  He asked Stinger, very calmly, to explain what had happened during the exercise, from start to finish. 

Stinger did, and he spun things pretty harshly (though not completely inaccurately).  How I’d been insubordinate from the beginning.  How I’d wasted time.  How I’d made Flare steal supplies from the tool shed.  How I’d been pushy and disrespectful.  He detailed what he’d done while we were inside, how he’d found and secured his two gangsters.  He also pointed out how I’d ordered Shift around when I didn’t have the authority to do that (I guess he was right about that).  How I’d refused a direct order to leave, and convinced Sapphire and Dream Shadow to do likewise (that was horse shit, but if it kept them out of trouble, I’d take it).  How I’d wasted more time moving boxes.  He was honest enough to acknowledge that we’d found the last two men.  All the time he was talking, Stinger was staring at me like I’d killed his mother.

When he’d finished, Riggs just nodded, and asked Flare for her recap.  More than ever, I realized that Flare was a compromiser.  She didn’t want to upset Stinger, but she didn’t want to throw me under the bus.  She probably didn’t want to make Riggs mad, either.  She explained how I’d sent her to the shed for supplies, then narrated what happened inside, including how she’d taken down her gang member.  Coming to the end, she mentioned how she’d left when Stinger told her to, but didn’t mention how the rest of us stayed, even though it was obvious. 

The others all gave similar answers.  Puppy hadn’t seen much, since he’d apparently been right next to a gas vent and had spent most of the exercise in the fetal position trying to breathe.  (Never mind that tear gas is heavier than air, so on the ground was the worst place for him to be.)  At least being on the ground meant that he hadn’t gotten shot.  Shift acknowledged that I’d called him over, but said he was glad that I had.  He also admitted to getting shot once in the ass, but that the paint smear hadn’t lasted when he’d shapeshifted.  (I respected his honesty on that.  I’m not sure I would have mentioned it.)

Finally, Riggs asked for my account.  I told him about pulling us back so we couldn’t be seen or heard (as easily) while we planned, the raid on the tool shed, Shift and I scouting, my perimeter flight (I didn’t mention that I’d noticed him), and expanding on Stinger’s original plan.  How I’d stayed by the garage door to prevent escape, but once the gas started, I knew I would have an easier time with it, and Shift was best able to take over guarding the exit.  I explained about catching my two, then realizing that all the piles of crates was basically a maze where the others could hide for a long time, and our safety gear wasn’t really good enough to play hide-and-seek all day, so I started moving the crates to get rid of hiding places. 

I took full responsibility for disagreeing with Stinger about leaving, since I decided that being yelled at for insubordination was better than being yelled at for failing to catch all the bad guys, so I chose to stay and finish.  I also mentioned that, in hindsight, we should have had one of us stand guard over the gang members as we caught them, since even with their wrists bound they still could have escaped, but I hadn’t thought of it at the time.  The closest I came to self-justification was pointing out that I had been up-front about my choosing to stay behind.  I told Riggs that although I hadn’t asked (let alone told) Sapphire and Dream Shadow to stay, I did take full responsibility for their choice, and their staying to help meant that we caught the last two much quicker than I could have alone. 

I told him flat-out that if anyone should be disciplined for disobedience, it was me alone.  (I’m not sure if Sapphire or Dream Shadow actually want to join Team Tomorrow, but if they do, I didn’t want this to be a mark against them.)

I expected Riggs to yell, then.  Or lay down some kind of discipline.  (There wasn’t anything in the Student Handbook that covered what I’d done, but I was sure Utopia wouldn’t like it.) 

Instead, he just said, real calm, that this exercise had the fewest team injuries so far, and was the first to complete the mission objective in its entirety. (Ouch.)  And then he walked away.  Stinger was left spluttering, so I just suggested that we all get cleaned up before we met back up to discuss.  I’ll admit, I wanted to give him some alone time to cool down.

At least the dorm has an apparently infinite supply of hot water.

We met up as usual to discuss what happened.  I figured it was best to stay quiet unless spoken too- I didn’t want to step on Stinger any more than I already had.  He stayed pretty quiet as well, but the others were really happy with how they’d done.  (It turns, out, the other class had had the gas lesson, in an abbreviated form.)  Puppy’d had a reaction then, too, but somehow hadn’t expected it to happen again.  <sigh>  I like Puppy, but he’s going to need a keeper.

Flare asked me how I’d gotten the idea to raid the maintenance shed for supplies, and I just said that the mission didn’t say that we couldn’t, so I figured that meant that we could.  And anyway, how else were we supposed to keep control of multiple baselines without hurting them?  There weren’t enough of us to sit on them…  Other than that, they mostly chattered amongst themselves. 

This got me thinking, we should assemble some kind of basic equipment cache.  Things that would help with building entry, restraints, safety gear, body armor, things like that.  Maybe light sources, first aid kits (for when Guardião is busy), something to help with communications.  I decided I’d do some research on what kind of gear Team Tomorrow had available this evening.  After all, if the Academy wants us to be like them, then we should be equipped like them, even if on a smaller scale.  You rarely see anyone on T2M getting shot, after all.

That sent me down a different rabbit hole.  T2M are some of the strongest, most experienced novas on Earth.  You constantly see them doing humanitarian stuff (which is what I like best about them to be honest), but when you see them fight, there are a few things in common.  For one thing, they all have full Eufiber, and I know first-hand that that helps a lot with diminishing the effects of getting shot.  They also have a lot of baseline backup, especially when they’re going against baselines.  The OpNet coverage doesn’t show it much, but if you look close at the backgrounds, it’s there.  T2M travels with a lot of support staff.  They don’t get involved with the actual fights, but they’re there.  I bet they do a lot behind the scenes to make T2M look good.  For that matter, most of the footage of T2M dealing with baseline criminals tends to be either Caestus Pax demanding that a group surrender (which they usually do), or various members of T2M hauling restrained and subdued baselines out of buildings and presenting them to cops.  Not many clips of actual fighting. 

And when T2M fights other novas, they always seem to have a major numbers advantage.  Like, two-to-one, at least.  I can’t recall the last time I saw video of them fighting Elites or Teragen on an equal footing.  Again, the OpNet clips only show certain parts, but that makes it even more obvious- wouldn’t it be more exciting, dramatic, heroic, to show T2M winning against tough odds?  If that kind of footage isn’t on the OpNet, it more than likely doesn’t exist. 

NOTICED THAT, DID YOU?  T2M DOESN’T HAVE THE BALLS TO FACE US WITHOUT OVERWHELMING ODDS.  THEIR STATUS AS HEROES IS AS MUCH PROPAGANDA AS REALITY.  CONSIDER HOW MANY WARCRIMES (AS THEY SEE IT) ELITIES GOT AWAY WITH IN THE EQUATORIAL WARS, BECAUSE T2M WAS TOO SCARED TO INTERVENE.  THEY ONLY STEP UP WHEN THEY’RE SURE THEY’LL WIN, AND LOOK PRETTY DOING IT.

~S

And yet, several T2M members have died.  Slag died in a fight.  Slider was murdered in her home (which I guess isn’t quite the same thing).  Saxon disappeared on a T2M mission, and rumor says he’s dead.  Luna was killed in Nigeria (no known footage). Elliot Mencken disappeared on duty. Pele was wounded badly enough to not be seen in public since.  Starbell didn’t even make it onto the team before being killed by Archangelites.

Anyway, the discussion broke up after a while, and (like I expected), Stinger pulled me aside.  At least he (sorta) has the praise in public, punish in private lesson down- this afternoon being an exception.

I expected him to tear into me for making him look bad.  Instead, he just looked really sad, and resigned.  He told me that I should take over as leader of the group.  That was the last thing that I expected (or wanted).  So, of course I refused immediately.  I told him that I don’t want to be a leader of anything.  I have no intention of continuing as part of the team beyond the Academy.  I certainly wasn’t going into the hero business.  He needed to be the leader- not me.  He just… needed to learn to think outside the box.  And maybe work with the group more on teamwork and planning outside of the assigned exercises.  I wasn’t sure how much he knew about the details of the others’ powers, but I certainly didn’t know much.  We should probably work together to come up with useful tactics. 

He tried to insist that I take over, and now I saw something like a martyr ‘it’s best for everyone if I step aside’ attitude, which I wasn’t willing to put up with.  I told him flat-out that I wouldn’t be a leader, but I’d try to help him be a better one.  If he wanted.

Do the various groups within the Teragen have these kinds of problems?

Chapter Text

Thursday, January 15

I really hope the other class units are less traumatic than ‘first aid’.  At least, I think we might be coming to the end of this unit.  Today was less a single specific lesson than a grab-bag of small things.  Pregnancy and birth complications.  Long(ish) term wound care.  And acute mental illness.  Well, not so much dealing with acute mental illness, but controlling someone exhibiting it.  I can’t help but wonder if all the graphic videos and pictures of what could go wrong with the birth process might not have been as useful to us as a method of birth control as anything else.  It was pretty awful.  I still intend to have at least two kids, but I certainly don’t intend to do it anytime soon.  But really, I’m not sure what good showing us all that really did.  To be blunt, most of those scenarios didn’t end well, and (with the exception of Guardião) the best thing any of us could do for a pregnant woman in crisis would be to get her to someone more capable as soon as possible.  The same with the wound care, too, for that matter.  The section on mental illness was interesting, though, if not very compassionate.  Then again, people aren’t really compassionate about that kind of thing, are they? 

But altogether, apart from being squicked out, class wasn’t too bad today. 

The ‘tactical’ portion of the day was… unexpected.  Instead of giving us another scenario to bumble through, Lt. Riggs told us that we had the time to ourselves, to ‘explore the nuances of our own abilities, and how they can best be utilized’.  Since that’s pretty much exactly what I suggested to Stinger last night, and we were close to the cafeteria when we talked, I can’t help but think we were overheard.  I know there was no one else around though.  Are we being monitored everywhere on campus?  I’m beginning to think we are. 

I grabbed some notepads and pens, and we all retired to our usual discussion spot.  In previous discussions, I’d made the best investigation as I could without being obvious about it, and didn’t find cameras.  The place is outside, though, so distant cameras are certainly possible.  Microphones are a lot easier to hide though, so I wasn’t convinced we weren’t being recorded.  Since this was a regular hang-out site, it would almost be weird if we weren’t being monitored.  This time, I specifically paid attention to my hearing, and caught the tiniest flicker of… something.  Oh well.  I hadn’t planned on being completely candid anyway.  I wonder if the others will be?

Stinger took charge, and I was glad to see it.  In this, at least, I think he’ll probably do fine.  He explained that we needed to learn to use our abilities better together, and that meant knowing more about what we all can do.  So, he said we were going to take it in turn to explain our abilities in more detail than before, demonstrate them as much as possible, and get an idea of their limitations. 

Stinger himself set the example (the mark of a good leader, in my opinion).  He said that he was fast, but now he clarified that he could run almost forty miles per hour, and maintain it for several minutes at least.  (I had to look it up- the human speed record is about twenty-seven mph, and that only for brief distances.)  He said that he was omnidexterous- anything he could do with his ‘dominant’ hand, he could do with either hand, or with his feet.  (If I had that kind of skill, I don’t think I’d ever wear shoes again.) 

He'd previously demonstrated his energy bolt powers in the exercises, but now he gave us a more precise display.  He could narrow his bolt down to a tiny target, doing a lot of damage like a laser, or disperse the energy over a (slightly) wider area, doing less damage.  He demonstrated by ‘blasting’ leaves off bushes and wads of paper Flare tossed for him.  He was good, too.  He hit everything he aimed at.  Finally, after some hesitation, he demonstrated on each of us (with our occasionally doubtful consent), pulling his ‘punches’ as best he could.  It was an interesting sensation.  Subduing his power like he was, it really did feel like a punch.  A very powerful punch from a very small fist. 

His other power was as impressive, but nowhere near as enjoyable.  He can project a field that disables other people’s vision briefly.  Sometimes the effect lasts longer than others.  It was really uncomfortable in a way I didn’t expect.  It was a little bit like the sensory deprivation tank, but not as much so- maybe because I never lost my other senses.

He went ahead and covered more mundane skills too.  He’s a brown belt in karate, has his driver’s license (but no car), and loves working on pretty much anything with an engine.

Flare went next.  She’s fast too, though not as fast as Stinger (she can run about 30 mph).  But when it comes to doing stuff, she’s ridiculously fast, and as careful as if she’d taken all the time in the world.  She could knit a sweater in under a minute, paint a house in less than an hour, that kind of thing.  Assuming she knew how to do a thing at all, it would get done quick, fast, and in a hurry.

She could teleport, and take one person with her (two if they were small, but it was a strain).  She said she was comfortable teleporting within about one thousand miles (from Fresno to Seattle), but the furthest she’d ever managed was about 2,200 miles.  (She’d been homesick when she first came to the Academy, and not fully in control of her powers, and accidently teleported back home.)  She had to either see where she was going, or be familiar with the place (as in, she needed to have been there before).  She could teleport blind, but she said it wasn’t safe, and it would have to be a for-real emergency (rather than a school exercise) before she would do that, since she could end up in a wall or something.  (Ick.)

She also could surround her body in an aura of flames that didn’t hurt her, but hurt anyone trying to grab her.  It also set fire to anything close to her, and eliminated some incoming damage- like paintballs and (probably) small caliber bullets. 

Since I knew she could attune her quantum field to take others when she teleported, I asked if she could do the same thing to extend her flames to cover someone else- or at least make them not hurt someone she was touching.  She didn’t know, so I volunteered to find out.  Flare didn’t want to risk hurting me, but I told her I was willing to try- after all, I healed quickly, and Guardião was right here if something went wrong.  She still wasn’t keen on the idea, but Stinger thought it was a good thing to know, so she gave in. 

A couple of false starts and a few crispy moments (being burned really hurts, but Guardião’s ability is amazing), we learned that she could keep her flames from burning someone she was touching (if she concentrated on it), but couldn’t extend her flames to cover another person.  Still good to know- that means that she can still use her flames even if she needs to be close to someone without burning them. 

Flare likes doing hand-stuff.  Sewing, cooking, woodcarving, drawing, that kind of thing.  She can juggle, and ran a small business before she erupted.  (When I asked about that, she didn’t give many details, but after a minute I figured out she had an investment portfolio and did day trading on the stock market.  She really likes finance stuff, and still keeps up with her ‘favorite companies’.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Puppy was bouncing around in his seat.  And petting a wild rabbit.  He said he can deadlift about fifty tons when he isn’t even trying, and can lift more than eight hundred tons if he really tries hard.  (If it was anybody other than Puppy, I’d assume he was exaggerating.  But not Puppy.  It’s possible that he misunderstood, but he’s not the kind to lie for no good reason.)  He can also crush just about anything in his bare hands, and punch concrete blocks into powder and steel into slivers.  He looked really sad when he said that, though, and went on to reassure us all that he’d learned to be gentle.  (I think that means that he’s gotten good at not using his full strength, but he looked like he was about to cry, so I didn’t want to push.) 

He’s tough, too.  He says that things hitting him just doesn’t hurt him the way they hurt other people.  Shooting him with paintballs barely leaves a bruise, and he said that one of his neighbors shot him with buckshot once, at close range, and it ‘kinda tickled’.  (He seemed to think it was an accident, but considering he comes from the same area where I was shot, I’m not so sure.) 

All this time, he was petting the rabbit, which was making a weird noise, kinda like a cat’s purring, but quieter.  Puppy said that animals liked him, that he could talk to them, and call for them to come to him, and they would almost always do what he asked them to.  He said that he didn’t like it when people were nervous around him, or were mad, so he could make it so they weren’t, sometimes.  (I’m not sure what to think about that.) 

He said he liked gardening, and missed his family’s farm, where he had his own garden.  He liked rock climbing and swimming as well. 

Dream Shadow asked if she could pet the rabbit, and Puppy said she could.  This wild rabbit flopped over to show its belly, and Dream Shadow got to pet it all she wanted. 

Still petting, Dream Shadow took her turn.  She fluffed up her wings, and said that she could fly about thirty-five mph.  She got tired after awhile, though, and preferred to glide or only fly in short bursts.  She could run about as fast as she could fly, and do it nearly silently.  When she’s being sneaky, she’s about as sneaky as a tiny person with huge wings can get (which is creepily sneaky.) 

She said she could lift about ten tons, and when she yelled in a special way, you could hear her for miles.  She demonstrated, and it was actually pretty scary, especially when all that noise came out of such a tiny, dainty-looking girl.)  I wonder if the sudden noise damaged the microphones I assume are listening to us.  It would be really useful to know that.

Even after several days of knowing her, I still think Dream Shadow is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, so it was all I could do not to laugh when she said, “People say I’m pretty,” like she wasn’t sure.  Or maybe like she didn’t care.  She said that she didn’t fully understand how it worked, but sometimes she didn’t have a reflection.  When she didn’t, technology couldn’t see her.  (I think that means that recording devices can’t pick her up, which is amazing.) 

Then she demonstrated her strangest power.  She created an area of absolute darkness around all of us!  There we were, outside, in the bright sunlight, and we couldn’t see a thing!  I couldn’t see my hand when it was literally resting on my nose!  That was really impressive.  It was a little less impressive, since it affected everyone except Dream Shadow, so I’m not sure how much use it will be in our tactics exercises, but I bet we could work out some way to use it as cover for an emergency exit, if nothing else. We took some time to establish how big an area she could Shroud (about thirty yards in diameter), so that’s good to know.  Also, the effect stays put, even if she moves, so that might be useful.

Dream Shadow said that she hadn’t had time for hobbies before she erupted, but liked to sing. 

Sapphire went next.  She said that her senses were enhanced, and we tested her vision with a quick-and-dirty eye chart.  Flare drew one of those letter lines in decreasing sizes, like at the eye doctor.  Sapphire and I both took it at the same time, and she can see even further, better, than I can!  I was able to read the smallest line at about two thousand feet away, even without using my special vision, but Sapphire could read it anywhere she had line-of-sight.  Flare couldn’t go far enough away that Sapphire couldn’t read it (unless things like trees got in the way, of course).  Plus, she has eyes in the back of her head.  Not literally.  Eeew.  But she can see things that are exactly behind her just as though they were in front of her, and in just as much detail. 

She can fly at about 350 mph, but when she demonstrated, I don’t think she’s had much practice in aerial maneuvers.  Her turns are wide and she… just isn’t all that graceful in the air.  (I guess I should be thankful to Bix, for that at least.  And I’ll admit, I’m glad that I’m the best flier here.  Out of everything I’ve learned, flying is the thing I enjoy the most, and want to do as well as possible.  And if I’m going to attract attention for anything, I’m pretty okay with it being for that.)

Sapphire also can generate illusions.  Her images can move, and are really detailed, but they only affect vision.  Still, that could be really useful.  If we’d known about that, she could have made an illusion of empty ground during that first exercise, and we could have all just walked up to the house’s front door.  Oh well.  We’ll have to keep that in mind for next time.

Probably the coolest thing she can do is manipulate gemstones.  Not only can she turn her body into a living statue made of sapphire, but she can also create sapphires (and other gems, but she isn’t as good at those) out of thin air.  She can create walls of sapphires, or surround herself with a sapphire shield.  She can project blasts of sapphire shards, but her aim isn’t great.  With an infinite supply of a precious gemstone, I guess it’s pretty obvious where she gets her money, LoL.

I’d almost gotten used to the way the temperature drops around her, but she mentioned that that started about the same time she learned to take her sapphire form. 

Outside of her powers, she enjoyed driving (and said she could drive just about anything), fashion (she designed a lot of her own clothes), and maintained a substantial social media following.  Flare looked startled about that, and I was too, a little.  I’d thought all of these kids had been really sheltered since they erupted, and while they have been strongly encouraged to stay on campus, Sapphire maintains her fanbase over the OpNet with a regular stream from her dorm room, as well as photoshoots on campus.  Of course, I immediately followed her on all social media.

That left Guardião, Shift, and me.  Guardião is tough, but apparently not much more than baseline tough.  He heals really quickly, even without using his actual healing power.  Not as quickly as I do, but he heals more... effortlessly?  When I get hurt, I have to make an effort to have my regeneration properties kick in.  His just... happen.  I wonder if that might not be a better deal, in the long run.  If I were unconscious, I couldn’t kickstart my healing, but if he were anything other than dead, his would work, if more slowly. 

He's justifiably proud of his healing abilities.  We’ve all been healed by him at one point or another by now (though my first time was just now when Flare set me on fire).  It’s a really strange sensation.  On the one hand, so creepy to feel whatever’s hurt just… putting itself back together.  It’s like when you pop your sternum- something moves in a way that it isn’t supposed to, and it feels funny.  On the other hand, it’s a weirdly soothing thing.  Like, for the few seconds when he’s using the power, nothing could possible be wrong with the world.  Nothing bad could ever happen.  It’s hard to think while he's doing it- or maybe it’s hard to want to think.  But it only lasts a few seconds, unless he’s healing something really major. 

His other power is to disrupt other nova’s powers.  I’d seen Reach do this at Scripture’s home, and been the target of it, so I knew what to expect.  Reach was better, but Guardião was pretty good.  He gave everybody a demonstration.  Puppy’s rabbit ran off (which bummed him out a little).  Stinger’s energy bolts fizzled.  Flare’s fire went out.  It took him a couple of tries to get rid of Sapphire’s sapphire form, but I think that says more about how strong she is than about his ability.  Dream Shadow’s darkness went poof.  Shift rather abruptly stopped being a deer.  I became visible.  (I think, based on the time I spent with Reach, that I might be able to fight Guardião’s disruption ability, but I didn’t want to try, just in case I need a surprise sometime in the future.)

Guardião also likes to study history.  He’s always struck me as a really peaceful person, so I was surprised that he also was a student of military history and war.  I need to encourage Stinger to talk with Guardião about all that.  He’d be a much better person to talk to than me.  He’s also into rap battles, which amuses the hell out of me. 

Shift was last, other than me.  He’s about as mentally fast as Stinger is physically.  (He doesn’t seem unusually smart- not like Hourglass is, but the ideas that he has come really quickly.)  No matter how much he’s caught off guard by something, he never just stands around staring- he reacts first and asks questions maybe.  He’s also weirdly in-tune with how groups are feeling and reacting.  (I guess that explains why he’s always watching the group as a whole, rather than just whoever happens to be speaking.  I wonder if he’s picked up that I’m keeping things back?  It’s not like I can ask him, LoL.)

He’s also good at getting people to agree with his opinions.  And if someone is hiding something, he can usually get them to confide in him.  He says it only works when the person feels bad about whatever they’re hiding, or knows that it’s wrong to keep the secret.  (I definitely need to be careful around Shift.  I’m hiding a good bit now, and although I think hiding it from Utopia is 110% justified, hiding things from these people- people who should be my friends and on the way to building trust- is uncomfortable   My main reasons (excuses?) are fears of the Academy listening in to any revelations I might make, as well as fears that some of my fellow novas would report me ‘for the greater good’.  So I’ll be careful around Shift.)

His main power is shapeshifting, which we’ve all seen him use.  But now we got to watch him, giving him our full attention.  He’s a lot smoother at it outside of the exercises.  He turned into an elephant (the largest form he said he could usually take), then we thought he disappeared entirely.  It was Sapphire who noticed the tiny movements in the grass and picked up one of those extra-small (robo?) hamsters.  He can’t talk in his other forms, but can ‘communicate’ with other animals of the same kind, at least as well as the other animal’s intelligence allows, anyway.  We were surprised that Puppy was able to talk to him just fine in whatever animal form Shift took.  Upon experimentation, Puppy couldn’t ‘call’ Shift, or get him to do what Puppy wanted.  Probably just as well. The communication could come in handy, though.  Shift won’t have to change back to human to report when he scouts. 

Shift plays chess, and really likes strategy games of all kinds.  He also spends a lot of time getting into places where he really shouldn’t be, which could be as helpful as it is worrying.  (I’ll have to remember to check my buzzy tingly sense before I do anything I don’t want him around for.  I’ve also re-arranged my desk so my screen can’t be seen from window, door, or bathroom.  Just in case.)

Finally, it was my turn.  I explained that I was tough, but didn’t let on how tough.  I did mention that I didn’t need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and that temperature extremes didn’t bother me.  And I told them about how I could regenerate really quickly- but only if I concentrated on it.  I really didn’t want to, but since we were all demonstrating as much as we could, I asked Puppy to break my arm.  He flat-out refused, and I couldn’t convince him.  So I asked Dream Shadow.  She really didn’t want to, but agreed, and broke it good.  Hurt like hell.  I concentrated, and it healed up instantly. 

I explained that I was strong, but nowhere near as strong as Puppy, even though we had the same ‘lifting’ trick.  I can lift about one ton regularly, and eight tons if I really try.  I was fully up-front about my strength.  With Shift’s talents, I think honesty is the best policy, as much as possible.  I’ll conceal what I feel I have to (for myself and others), and no more.

We’d already tested my vision along with Sapphire’s (mine is good, hers is better), but I can do more ‘tricks’ with mine.  I explained about seeing in anything other than total darkness, seeing into the infrared, and sorta turn my eyes into powerful telescopes or microscopes.  I explained that my hearing was also really good, could hear infrasound and ultrasound, as well as use, well, not really sonar- that’s a water thing.  More like echolocation, like a bat.  I didn’t mention being able to listen in to radio and cell phone frequencies, though.

I demonstrated my invisibility, which they’d ‘seen’ before, and Guardião had previously experienced for himself.

I’ll admit, I showed off a little with my flying, going as fast as I could (without the burst of speed) in tight loops and maneuvers.  I can get up to about 500 mph without the speed burst, and can turn on a dime.  I guess I need to be thankful to Bix, for that at least.  I explained about the bursts of speed, how I could break the sound barrier, but demonstrating would risk breaking windows.  Plus, it would take me off-campus grounds right away.  (I’m not afraid of leaving campus, but I’ve decided to keep my excursions limited for now, outside of what has already been agreed to.  If I have to leave, I will, but doing it gratuitously will probably Attract Notice, and I’d rather not have a new policy added to the Student Handbook.)

I demonstrated my ability to convert my quantum energy into electricity by charging up Sapphire’s cell phone, and gave everyone a (limited) jolt of my bzzzt! use of the ability.  I kept it low-powered, though, so it wasn’t much more than the shock you get from touching a doorknob sometimes. 

Lastly, I demonstrated my ability to steal borrow quantum power from others, again taking only a little from each one, to show how it feels.  I kept the bzzzt! to a minimum to avoid hurting anyone, but I kept the leeching to a minimum to conceal how much I could take if I really had too.  I haven’t forgotten how Bix was sure this was why Utopia really wanted me for Team Tomorrow.

I kept my ability to take actual powers entirely to myself, as well as Scripture’s disintegration ability.  Nobody will ever know anything about those while I’m here, if I have any control over it.

I mentioned that I had my driver’s license (but no car), was learning aikido (which was where I went on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, that I enjoyed history, astronomy, and computers; and had taken a navigation course.  And that was pretty much it.

Once everyone had gone, I asked Stinger for another demonstration of his vision disruption power (he calls it a ‘Strobe effect’.  This time, I wanted Sapphire and I to try and use all our enhanced senses and tricks to try and overcome his ability.  Results were mixed.  Since we were both blinded, we couldn’t try the eye-chart test again.  Sapphire’s all-around vision was suppressed just as much as our regular vision, as was my telescopic vision and low-light vision.  But I could still pick up thermal differences.  Maybe because somehow the thermal input isn’t actually coming to me visually, and I’m just interpreting it that way?  I don’t know. 

I asked Dream Shadow to make her Shroud again in the same way, to make the same tests.  Sapphire was in the dark again, and this time, I was too.  Completely.  Even my thermal vision was gone.  It was impressive, but creepy.  I’ve gotten used to having extra options, and having them taken away is… upsetting.

I asked Sapphire to make an illusion again, to see if I could use my enhanced senses to see through it.  She said it wouldn’t be a fair test, since I would know it was illusion already, but Flare had an idea.  She sent me away, then called me back.  When I did, nothing seemed different.  I concentrated as hard as I could, but... nothing.  I tried my buzzy tingly sense, and that made it clear that a power was being used, and that Sapphire was doing it, but it didn’t help pierce the illusion.  Then I tried my thermal vision, and that did it.  Guardião wasn’t where he looked like he was.  In fact, nobody was where he was.  But there was a heat signature standing behind Sapphire, even though my eyes told me no one was there.  Very impressive!

Finally, the discussion broke up.  I had to leave soon to get to Sensei Laura, but I finally came out and asked what had been bothering me since I got here. 

Hourglass.  He lived in the dorm, but never showed up to meals, classes, or these tactical afternoons.  He never seemed to hang out at all.  I’d only ever seen him on the shooting range at night.  Was he part of the team, or not?  Stinger looked uncomfortable, but didn’t say anything.  Finally, Flare said that Hourglass had ‘special accommodations’, like I did.  He was allowed to miss classes and the tacticals.  The classes, he skipped because they were pretty much useless to him.  Either he already knew everything we were being taught, or could teach himself the same things in a few minutes using the class materials we learned over two or three weeks.  It was possible that he would join the class for any individual unit that interested him, and didn’t lend itself well to self-teaching.  He did come out for the language classes, but since those were already private, we didn’t see him.  As for the tacticals, the Academy had ‘determined that his abilities were better harnessed off the battlefield, and his contributions to society were too important to risk his safety needlessly’.  (It was obvious that she was quoting somebody.)

Hourglass had his own private lab and workspace on campus, and spent most of his time there.  He was, in other words, part of the team in name only.  None of the others seemed to mind, other than Stinger, who looked annoyed when Flare explained.  I’m not sure if he was annoyed at me for asking, her for answering, or Hourglass (and maybe by extension, me) for getting special treatment.

YOU’VE DONE WELL GETTING ALL THIS INFORMATION, HEKA.  THERE MAY COME A TIME WHEN IT WILL COME IN HANDY.  I’VE PASSED IT ALONG TO THE COUNT IN YOUR NAME.

~S

My lesson with Sensei Laura went fine.  She was proud of me for using aikido in even a fake ‘real world’ application, but cautioned me against pride and overconfidence. 

I stopped off at home to visit the cats.  Mom was at work, as usual, but we chat online almost every night, so we don’t miss each other as much. 

Just for kicks, I logged into the Heka’s Home forum.  For some reason, I don’t like doing that at the Academy.  With less for them to talk about, since I haven’t had public appearances or work, I’ve been making the occasional post about what few parts of Academy life I felt certain wouldn’t violate any kind of security issues. 

When I logged on today, I found a new category on the site.  Fanfic.  Good lord.  People are writing stories about me.  I made a post on that section telling them that I was very flattered (I’m not really sure that I am, but it’s not like I can do anything about it), but asked that they please not post any ‘adult’ content stories involving me.  I explained that I realized that I couldn’t stop them, but the idea made me really uncomfortable.  Hopefully that will be enough.  Out of morbid curiosity, I downloaded the stories to a chip drive for offline reading, and noticed that Rocío had commented on a couple of them.  I guess I’ll read those first. 

Chapter Text

Friday, January 16

Lt Riggs finished up the unit on first aid with a genuinely pleasant surprise.  (Of course, it couldn’t last.)  This last class was all about natural medicine, herbs, and staying healthy out in nature.  Everything from purifying water to knowing at least a few common plants with medicinal properties. 

To be honest, I’m not sure what practical good this will do.  Different plants grow in different places, at different times, after all.  And knowing what a mature plant looks like doesn’t help when it’s in an immature form, pre-bud or post leaf drop.  And if we’re being trained to go anywhere in the world, knowing a few plants from one area hardly seems helpful.  But with all that, this class was still a nice change from what else we’ve done. 

Our tactical portion of the day was a follow up to the in-class session.  We were trucked back out to the woods and told to hunt down and harvest the plants we’d learned about.  They dropped us off in a different area of the woods than we were in last time, and I couldn’t help but assume that we’d be expected to get home on our own again, even though they didn’t specifically say so. 

So, there we were, alone in the woods.  Again.  This time, all three flyers popped up and got a good fix on where we were, so finding our way back to the road wouldn’t be an issue.  And it seemed like this was going to be a pretty relaxed afternoon. 

We moved out, staying close enough together that we were always in hearing distance, even if we couldn’t always see each other, and started looking for plants and things.  Everything was fine for about an hour.

Then came the snipers.

When I heard the first shot, I went invisible and flew up and diagonal.  I’m ashamed to admit, my first though was Kansas, and getting away.  But I got over it almost immediately and came back.  Out of everyone, Dream Shadow and Guardião were the only ones who’d responded sensibly.  Dream Shadow had also flown for safety- and in fact, hadn’t come back yet.  Guardião had taken cover in a little creek bed, where he had shelter from most angles.  The others had gotten behind trees or dropped to the ground, but they weren’t exactly ‘taking cover’.  They were looking around trying to figure out what was happening.  Definitely not taking the situation seriously or trying to get away.  

Since I wasn’t in immediate danger (I was hovering, invisible, in the upper branches of a tree), I took a moment to try and figure out what was expected of us.  I was about 95% sure that this was a sadistic training exercise, and not an actual group of baselines trying to kill a group of teenage novas in the woods.  But I wasn’t sure if the point was for us to escape, or to somehow take down the snipers.  And I really couldn’t think of any way to figure that out in the moment.  Maybe that was part of the test?  Seeing what we’d do under pressure? 

Well, as far as I was concerned, escape was the priority.  We had no idea how many of them there were, or what other tricks they had up their sleeves.  Escape it is, then. 

The next question was, how to do it?  I was pretty sure we’d get ripped a new one for just scattering and going ‘every man for himself’.  So we all needed to get out.  Otherwise, I’d just go back to the Academy right then and wait.  But Dream Shadow was already gone, and it was better that we not break apart any further.  I took the precaution, just in case, of doing a circuit of the area with thermal vision, looking for giant wings- just in case she’d somehow gotten herself stuck or hurt.  Nope.  She was gone.  I just had to hope she’d gone back to campus.

Everybody was just... hunkering down in place, and other than Guardião, none of them had good cover.  Stinger wasn’t doing anything to get the group moving.  As much as I didn’t want to take over (or try to), I didn’t see another option. 

Flare was closest to Puppy, so I yelled at her to grab him and teleport back to campus, then come back and take Stinger.  As soon as I yelled, bullets started flying in my direction, but I was already moving.  I got behind another tree, yelled for Shift and Sapphire to get out of here, back to campus.  Then I had to move again to avoid a lucky shot.  By the time I’d gotten to a new position, Flare and Puppy were gone.  A hawk burst up out of nowhere, and I had to assume it was Shift.  Sapphire took her gem form and flew away, straight up.  The snipers tracked her easily, but the bullets couldn’t really hurt her.  (By now, I’d seen they were more of those ‘less lethal’ bullets- not paintballs.) 

I planned to grab Guardião, make him invisible, and get us both out, but I didn’t want to leave Stinger.  So, I flew down to hover over where he was hiding in the creek bed, and whispered to him to stay put, I’d get him out, but I had to wait for Flare to come back.  He looked grateful, but didn’t say anything.

A minute or two passed.  (Well, it seemed like that.  Who can really tell time under those circumstances?)  Flare didn’t come back.  I had no idea if she was too scared, if something had happened to her and Puppy, or if she just didn’t know the spot we were in well enough to teleport back to it.  But she didn’t come back. 

Enough was enough.  Guardião had the best cover available, so I told him to stay put, I was going to get Stinger out, then come back for him.  I didn’t give him time to object- not that I think he would have. 

I circled around to get the clearest angle on Stinger as I could.  The snipers were moving too, and he’d been hit a couple of times, but nothing vital.  There wasn’t much time, so I grabbed him around the waste, attuned my quantum field to him, making him invisible, and flew off toward the road, taking the best evasive maneuvers as I could.  I flew a couple of miles down the road, with him dangling the way a cat does when you grab it under the armpits.  I dropped him in the ditch next to the road and told him to stay put while I went back for Guardião.

Guardião was right where I’d left him, and I did the same swoop, attune, flee thing.  We met back up with Stinger, and I ended up carrying both of them back to campus.  Carrying two grown people at the same time really sucks, and doesn’t get any easier with practice.  I wanted to fly back at my absolute top speed, but I couldn’t expand my quantum field enough to cover both of them, and I was afraid they would be hurt by flying that fast.  Still, getting back to campus didn’t take long.

Back on campus, Sapphire was already there, along with Flare and Puppy.  Shift flew up about the same time I did.  That just left Dream Shadow, and I wasn’t sure whether to be worried about her or not.  Going back to campus would be the logical thing to do, but what if she panicked?  Or if she did come back, but hid?  Or maybe she was embarrassed to have run away and left everyone on their own?  There was no way to know until she turned up.  And that might be hours or even days, if something went wrong.

Flare explained that when she tried to come back for Stinger, she didn’t know the site well enough to risk teleporting back in.  There was too much risk of ending up inside a tree, or worse, one of the snipers.  She was sorry, and even more sorry that she didn’t have a way of letting me (and Stinger) know that she couldn’t get back to us.  No harm done, this time, but it points out the fact that the group has a communication problem. 

A few minutes passed, and still no Dream Shadow.  Finally, I suggested that we look for her on campus, before looking for her off campus.  Accordingly, we scattered, checking classrooms, the cafeteria, and the spots where we usually socialized after the tactical sessions.  Since I had the connecting bathroom, I checked her room. 

She didn’t answer my knock on either her door or the bathroom door, and both were locked.  I’d’ve heard her breathing if she were in the bathroom, though.  I’d probably have heard her breathing in her room from my room, but I wanted to be sure.  So I flew around to her balcony, which was open. 

She wasn’t in her room (not even in the closet or under the bed- not that I think her wings would fit under the bed).  She wasn’t in the bathroom, or any of the common areas of the dorm. 

Nobody else found her either.  Either she was actively hiding somewhere (and doing it really well), or she hadn’t come back to campus.  Now, we’d learned yesterday that she could be really sneaky.  So her hiding wasn’t impossible.  If she really didn’t want to be found, it would probably take Sapphire and I, or Shift, using enhanced senses to track her down. 

How bad has Utopia screwed with my mental state?  I couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t an extended part of today’s little ‘scenario’.  Sudden snipers in the woods, followed by a missing teammate?  I wouldn’t put it past Lt. Riggs.  But whether she was in on it or not, that doesn’t really matter right now.  What matters is finding her.  It kept running through my mind- what if, however improbable, this hadn’t been a test?  What if Dream Shadow really was out there somewhere, hurt, or captured, or even dead?  Probably not.  But….

I really hoped Stinger would take over and be the leader.  I stepped back and very deliberately made room for him to be in charge.  He just stood around, looking worried and mad.  I’m plenty mad myself, but somehow I get the idea that we aren’t mad for the same reasons.  I’m mad at Utopia.  And the Academy.  And Lt. Riggs.  Maybe a little mad at Dream Shadow.  A little.  Either she’s in with Riggs, which is unacceptable; she panicked, which is understandable but still a problem; or she’s genuinely in trouble. 

Everybody was looking around, waiting for someone else to tell them what to do.  They were looking at Stinger.  And at me.  Dammit.  Finally, I asked Stinger what he thought we should do (trying to give him every chance).  He didn’t have a good answer.  He said that Dream Shadow abandoned the team (which is true, unless she got hurt and couldn’t help it), and that she was going to be in a lot of trouble.  He seemed to be more focused on that than on where she was right now.  He certainly didn’t seem to think we needed to be involved any further.  I did. 

I asked Flare and Puppy to find Lt. Riggs and let him know that Dream Shadow was missing.  (I was pretty sure he already knew- from us searching on campus, if not from the snipers themselves- but telling him officially would keep things from getting confusing later.)  I asked Sapphire and Shift to fly back out to the site with me to look for Dream Shadow.  Guardião offered to come with us, in case she was hurt somewhere. 

Stinger objected.  What if the snipers were still in the area?  We didn’t even know if we’d failed the exercise (at least I’m not the only one assuming it was another exercise) by running away instead of staying to fight.  (And he heavily implied that if we had been expected to fight, it would be all my fault that we failed.)  Going back out could be dangerous. 

I told him that if going back out was dangerous, then staying out alone was even more dangerous for Dream Shadow, especially if she was in trouble.  I also told him that it would be just as well if he stayed here, in case she came back while we were out looking.  Flare and Puppy went off to find Riggs, I scooped up Guardião (princess-carry, much more comfortable), and us fliers went out to see what we could find. 

We got back to where the road was closet to the site, and landed.  If Dream Shadow had kept to the air, then tracking her by scent would be nearly impossible.  But if she’d gone to ground, Shift stood a good chance of finding her.  He turned into a bloodhound and started sniffing around.  I told everyone to mark this stretch of road.  If we got separated, we’d regroup here in an hour.  I knew Shift would be able to sniff his way back here, and Sapphire had already learned to take aerial landmarks, so we should be okay.  I figured we had about three hours before dark. 

I found out later that Shift made his way back to the ambush site easily enough.  All the snipers were gone, and there was no sign of Dream Shadow, other than a couple of broken tree branches that he thought smelled like her.  Maybe she’d forced her way through them as she fled?  From there, he switched from bloodhound to hawk and took to the air to keep looking for her.

Sapphire flew a grid pattern in wider and wider sweeps, eventually making her way to the edge of the Wildlife Management Area.  She crossed over the road several times, and eventually linked up with the main road into town before turning back to the meeting point. 

Guardião and I stuck together, since he would be more-or-less screwed on the ground.  I was using thermal vision, since the trees were thick enough that I wasn’t confident I’d be able to see her otherwise.  Especially since her wings would likely blend into the shadows under the canopy.  Blazing white wings would have stood out, but pigeon-gray?  Not so much.

Sapphire had flown off in one direction, and Shift was doing his thing, so Guardião and I went deeper into the woods.  If I had been Dream Shadow, run away, and not come back, I would have stayed near (but not on) the road.  Of course, if she were panicking, there’s no telling what she would have done.  So deeper into the woods, away from the road we went.  At one point, Guardião expressed his concern about getting lost, but I told him I was keeping track of landmarks and could find my way back. 

The little bit I’d read about the Wildlife Management Area said that due to how rugged it was, it wasn’t actually good for hunting, or even really supportive of much wildlife.  The government had had to improve the land by cutting artificial clearings and providing watering holes.  Deeper into the preserve, those efforts petered out. 

My thermal vision was helpful, but gave back a lot of false positives.  We’d found a bear, several deer, and two feral hogs, but no Dream Shadow.  There was one decent-sized river running through the area, and Guardião said we should check up and down that.  Honestly, I didn’t see much point in that- the river was open enough that if she were there, she would have been obvious to my thermal vision.  But I didn’t have any better idea, so I agreed. 

Guardião was right.  When we came around a bend in the river, there she was.  She was actually in the water, and it looked like she had been for awhile, since her temperature was really low.  She barely showed up to my vision- I might have missed her if not for the one outstretched wing.  She wasn’t moving much, and her head was just barely above the water.  Luckily, the river wasn’t especially high, but it is January, so the water was freezing. 

We landed, and figured out pretty quickly that she was stuck- her other wing was pinned where some rocks had shifted under the water.  The wing was broken, and her position was awkward enough that trying to pull herself out would have only made the damage worse. 

Guardião steadied the wing and kept her head above water while I went underwater and shifted the rocks enough to free her.  Once we had her out on the bank, Guardião was able to set her wing (no doubt the wing was absolutely broken, which makes me feel a little bad about suspecting her of helping Riggs screw with us) and take care of her other minor injuries.  She was still dangerously cold, so we ended up snuggling up against her on either side to warm her with body heat. 

Luckily, even novas that aren’t especially tough bounce back pretty quickly.  After a few minutes, she was still cold, but she was moving more easily, and we figured it was best to get her back to campus.  Besides, we were overdue for our agreed-upon ‘meet back in an hour’. 

Sapphire and Shift were waiting for us, and getting nervous, when we got back to the road.  Once we were all back together, we decided that Shift would go on ahead, to let the others know we’d found Dream Shadow, and the rest of us would take it easy flying home, so we could support Dream Shadow if need be.  If need be, Sapphire would try to carry Guardião so I could carry Dream Shadow, but she might have to stop and rest since she wasn’t much stronger than a baseline. 

Shift took off, and we made our slower way home.  Thanks to Guardião, Dream Shadow’s wing was fine, but she was still cold and generally exhausted, so it was rough going.  We flew her directly to the little clinic on campus, and they took over from there. 

Riggs was waiting for us when we rejoined Stinger, Flare, and Puppy.  I was in absolutely no mood to put up with much of anything from him at that point, but Stinger just made things worse.  Before either Riggs or I could say anything, Stinger was falling all over himself trying to explain how everything was my fault.  (Flare said later that Riggs wouldn’t allow anyone to speak until we were all back together.)

Stinger explained that Dream Shadow abandoned the team, and instead of everybody regrouping to take out the snipers, I pushed my way in and made everybody run away and abandon the entire training exercise.  That I’d grabbed him against his will and taken him out of the area by force.  And then, I’d been the instigator, convincing the others to leave campus without permission to look for Dream Shadow. 

Riggs just stared at Stinger, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was disgusted.  I certainly was.  Stinger finally wound down.  I thought about trying to defend myself, then decided not to bother. 

The flight back had given me time to think.  I can’t keep doing this.  These training scenarios are sadistic, and seem to be designed to set us up for failure.  We aren’t learning anything here.  We’re just being thrown into situations that we aren’t prepared for and have no reasonable way of dealing with. 

I don’t know how much of this is Utopia’s doing, how much is the Academy, and how much is Lt. Riggs.  But I’m not sure it matters.  This is not a situation that I can continue to participate in.  And that leaves me with two (technically three) options. 

1. I can withdraw, mentally, if not physically. Stop caring about anything that happens here.  Do the bare minimum.  Make no extra effort.  Be ‘part of the team’, even temporarily, in name only.  Basically, become one of those slacker kids that hang out in the back of the classroom and scrape by all their classes with a D average. 
2. I can rebel. Refuse to participate at all, or worse, deliberately fail the exercises.  Leave campus every chance I get, live my own life as best I can, and let Lt. Riggs know he can get stuffed. 
3. Technically, I could simply leave. There’s nothing keeping me here.  All my previous thoughts about taking the GED and going right into college still hold water.  I could fly away in the night and either contact Erica, telling her that I was available for full-time work, or even really leave.  As in, turn in my communicator and tell Utopia I quit entirely. 

Right now, I’m leaning toward the first option.  I can always move to option two or three later, but it would be a lot harder to move from two or three back to option one. 

So I didn’t bother to defend myself.  (Stinger was right in a couple of his points anyway- he was just a spineless ass in how he presented things.)  I just watched Riggs and waited quietly.  I didn’t have to wait long.

Riggs is more interesting when he isn’t yelling.  Paying attention to him is more worthwhile.  He wasn’t yelling now.  Very calmly and quietly, he told Stinger that making excuses was unacceptable in a leader.  That going to look for Dream Shadow should have been his idea, and he should have organized it.  That staying to fight in a situation where there were an unknown number of assailants- with superior firepower- was really stupid; especially since there was nothing to be gained by doing so. 

He said that getting out as quickly as possible had been the right call.  Making sure that the entire team got out should have been Stinger’s primary goal as leader.  Instead, he’d done nothing, then tried to blame someone else (me) for ‘overstepping’. 

Riggs said that Dream Shadow panicking and abandoning the group was a problem, yes, but Stinger’s response to it was a bigger problem.  As soon as they’d realized that she hadn’t come back to campus, Stinger should have been the one organizing the search party.  Instead, all he’d thought about was staying out of trouble himself, and therefore had done nothing.  He hadn’t even thought to tell anyone about what had happened in the first place.  If there had been a real squad of snipers so close to the Academy, especially with a teammate missing, didn’t Stinger think that maybe telling the faculty about it might be a good idea?!?!? 

Riggs ripped Stinger a new one, and he deserved it.  I’m tired of cutting him slack.  Riggs is a sadistic ass, but Stinger is just as an ass.  I don’t know if he really even wants to be team leader, but if he doesn’t, he needs to grow a pair and say so.  If he does want it, he needs to step up.  If he acts like this out in the real world, he’s going to get people killed.

Riggs only asked me one question.  Why did I decide to pull the team out instead of engaging with the snipers?  I looked him in the eye and told him there was no good reason to stay.  Given the choice between fighting and escaping, I’d need a really good reason to stay and fight.  I told him flat-out that when the shooting started, I rabbited just like Dream Shadow did.  I flew off and was completely away from the area as soon as the bullets started flying.  The only difference was that I came back to be sure the others got out.  Staying to fight was never something I considered doing, although I did wonder if it was what we were expected to do.  But if it was, I didn’t care.  Leaving was still the better option, even if it meant we failed.

And that was that.  Riggs didn’t tell me I was right, but he didn’t tear into me, either.  Maybe he realizes that I’m fed up and don’t care anymore?

We retired to our little garden spot.  Dream Shadow wasn’t there, of course, and Stinger was sulking, but the rest were nervous and excited.  I think this was the first time something had really seemed real to them.  Maybe it was being off-campus, and maybe it was the lack of a mission briefing- that the whole things was a surprise- but this time the others were thinking about what happened as having consequences.  Or maybe it was because Dream Shadow got hurt for real. 

Always before, these decompress sessions had been more like a paintball team talking about how they’d done in a competition.  Tonight, they were talking like a group of teenagers who’d been attacked in the woods.  Before, it was re-hashing who did what, what was cool, and what could have gone better.  Tonight, it was about feelings.  About how scared they’d been, and how they hadn’t known what to do or where to go.  Especially when they realized the bullets weren’t paintballs.  For the first time (I think), they were really thinking about how dangerous what they’re doing is. 

And not one of them liked it.

Flare asked me how I’d known what to do.  I told her the truth- that I hadn’t known what to do.  That I’d run away at the first sign of trouble, and had to talk myself into coming back for the others.  And even when I came back, it was only because I was hidden and not being shot at that I was able to think things through.  Once I’d seen where everyone (except Dream Shadow) was, it was clear that getting away was the only good option.  After that, it was just a question of pairing up the people who could get out on their own with the ones who would have a harder time of it.  The only reason I paired off the people I did was because I was able to see where everyone was, and who could get to who most easily.  That was really all there was to it.

I apologized to Flare for asking her to do something dangerous by teleporting back into the woods.  She said it was fine, and that she hadn’t realized it would be a problem until she was already out and trying to come back in- and of course, by then, she had no way to contact any of us and tell us.  (Most of us have cell phones, but we’re supposed to keep them in our rooms, so they’re never available in class or on the tacticals.)  I told her that I had an idea about that, that I was going to look into over the weekend. 

Which reminded me, that I needed to get going.  The get-together broke up, and I was halfway home before I realized that Stinger hadn’t said anything (which wasn’t completely unexpected), and that no one had said anything to him.  Were they mad at him?  For not doing better in the woods?  For abandoning Dream Shadow?  Or for trying to throw me under the bus? 

Chapter Text

Saturday, January 17

The girls and I spent most of the day at the beach.  It was too cold (for them) to go in the water, but the sun was warm and we had fun talking and having a picnic.  They wanted to hear all about the Academy, and I wanted to hear all about school, so we caught each other up.

It turns out that Bailey is still more-or-less a pariah, and Jeremy as well.  There’s been no further investigation into the vandalism.  Everything but the goalposts have been fixed, and the goalposts will be finished next week.  The ‘unofficial’ stance is that I did all the damage, but due to the arrangement with Utopia, no official blame has been formalized.  The ‘official’ story is that the school was vandalized by persons unknown, and I withdrew for personal reasons.  The rumor mill has come down pretty hard on my side- no one believes the official or unofficial stories, and everybody thinks it’s Bailey’s (and/or Jeremy’s) fault that I was blamed.  There’s a running bet whether either of them will come back for senior year or transfer.

In turn, I told the girls about the other novas (nothing too personal), what passed for ‘classes’ at the Academy, and a little about the tactical exercises.  I tried not to sound bitter, but I think Jess, at least, caught on that I’m not happy.  They seemed to think the tactical sessions were as exciting as they were scary, and were horrified about yesterday’s ambush. 

Alejandra got really quiet, and when I asked her what was wrong, she said that she hadn’t really thought about me being in danger before- or at least, not like this.  She said that rescuing people from an apartment fire was one thing.  That that was dangerous, sure, but it was an emergency, and for a good cause.  It was one thing to put myself in danger for people who were in trouble and couldn’t save themselves.  It was the same with the mugger outside of the Diner at Halloween.  I hadn’t been in danger, but I’d still helped them.  But both cases, the people involved hadn’t had a choice about it, and I’d done what I’d needed to in the moment. 

She said that what the Academy was having us do was different.  Other than the missing kid exercise, everything that we’d been doing involved us being attacked by people who were there on purpose to hurt us- and probably kill us, if it wasn’t a training thing.  She said it was wrong to expect us, especially as young as we all were, to put ourselves in danger like that, especially when other people (adults, baselines) trained for years to do exactly those things.  It wasn’t right. 

What could I say?  I told her that I agreed with her.  That I’d told everyone from Day One that I wasn’t going to be a superhero, but ‘being a superhero’ was all we were being trained for.  We certainly aren’t being prepared for college.  And what really bothered me was that the other novas just seemed to accept it.  But there didn’t seem to be much I could do about it. 

Monique asked me if I’d ever seen Footloose.  (She’s always coming up with some old movie or other.)  I told her no, and she said I should watch it. 

After we parted ways, I did some shopping.  Somehow, I think Lt. Riggs isn’t going to like it.  Tough.

Later, I had dinner with Rocío, and went into a lot more detail.  He was a blend of amused and concerned.  I guess the amusement stems from this being proof of his good choice to avoid Utopia as much as possible, as well as Utopia’s apparent inability to run a decent school. 

But I can’t help but wonder if Utopia is failing.  I wonder if, instead, they’re accomplishing exactly what they set out to do- produce poorly educated novas who don’t question Utopia’s authority and are willing to go into dangerous situations where they’re likely to be hurt or killed without hesitation.  Because the Academy is teaching that really effectively.  I told him about how Flare and the others are being encouraged to put the needs and comforts of baselines above themselves.  About how Flare sounded like she didn’t think she could be trusted around baselines- for their safety.  And she was willing to seclude herself because of it.  I haven’t had as much conversation with the others (except Puppy), but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the same attitude.  Baselines first, novas second- if that.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not turning nova-supremacist.  But we should be equals.  Nobody should be categorically first. 

Later-

I found a copy of Footloose on the OpNet and watched it.  Monique is usually on-target with her obscure movies, but I think she missed the mark this time.  An outsider kid comes to a repressive environment and shakes things up.  I guess I can see the parallel, but it’s thin at best.  Plus, the guy in the movie doesn’t really do anything to fix things.  If anything, he works around the conservative assholes in charge, rather than doing anything directly.  He fails to overcome their authority, so he goes outside it.  Maybe that’s the point? 

Mom actually has Sunday off, for once, so we’re going to spend the day together.  It’s been months since we’ve really been able to do that.

Chapter Text

Sunday, January 18

I went back to school a little earlier than last time, so I could share my shopping results with the group, and give them plenty of time to work out any kinks.

Walkie talkie watches.  Nine of them.  I didn’t really need one, since I had my Utopia communicator, but this will be our semi-private system.  I say semi-private since I’m sure Utopia will be able to listen in anytime they want.  I got one for Hourglass, even though I doubt he’ll ever need or want it.  But what the hell.  It’s not like I’m spending my Utopia stipend on anything while I’m at the Academy. 

These have twenty-two channels, as well as being able to tune into the emergency weather radio and police scanners.  They have a range of thirty-five miles (though probably less, depending on terrain), were waterproof, and had active battery life of fourteen hours, standby battery of one week,  They’re rechargeable, and are fully charged in less than an hour.  They have a panic button that emits a siren, as well as sending out a pulse to any other units in the link with GPS coordinates.  Plus, they tell time and have a tiny flashlight built in. 

I set them all up on the same channel (and disabled the police scanner part) before I passed them out.  We spent several minutes learning how they work, then scattered across campus to play with test them.  We haven’t been dropped in the woods more than twenty miles from campus yet, so even with difficult terrain, we shouldn’t have any problem keeping in touch with each other.  This way, problems like Flare not being able to tell us about not coming back won’t be an issue anymore.  And if we’d had these, Sapphire and Shift wouldn’t have been as worried about us when we were late meeting them on the road.  For that matter, if Dream Shadow had had one, she could have called for help. 

Dream Shadow was fine, by the way.  They let her out of the clinic on Saturday.  She was embarrassed about panicking and running away, but she shouldn’t be.  Running was the right call.  Although I’d never admit it, I’m really thinking that this group of novas is a ‘team’ in name only- and Utopia doesn’t seem interested in changing that.  And if we aren’t a team, then the desire to help others has to be carefully balanced against your own safety.  I can’t blame Dream Shadow for how she responded- if anything, I’m surprised I risked coming back for the others.

I brought Hourglass’s watch with me when I went to the shooting range, since that was the only place I ever saw him.  He thanked me for thinking of him, but said that he didn’t expect to ever need to use it.  I said that was fine, but better safe than sorry. 

My shooting is not getting much better, and I’m rather pleased about that.  Granted, I’m not making any effort at getting better, so that’s to be expected.  Maybe it’s petty, but even this small act of rebellion feels good.

Chapter Text

Monday, January 19

Why did I think class would be better after we finished ‘first aid’?  Why did I still expect anything resembling a normal educational experience?  I don’t know, but somehow I did expect some form of normality.  Like, an exam, or a review at the very least.  Something to prove what we’d learned.  But no.  We’re done with first aid.  If we got it, we got it.  If not, tough. 

Our next unit is ‘World Hotspots’.  We’re going to be learning about all the parts of the world that tend to hire Elites to fight their wars for them, as well as those areas that hire novas for other, even less wholesome activities.  Like enforcement through terror tactics.  This kind of stuff is exactly what Team Tomorrow does, so I’m even less enthusiastic than I was for first aid.  At least first aid (if well taught) had the potential to be useful. 

At least this seems more likely to be a classroom-based unit.  I’m not sure how Lt. Riggs can arrange anything ‘hands on’ for this.  And yes, this unit is taught by Riggs as well.  I guess that maybe makes sense- ‘World Hotspots’ is more-or-less military oriented.  He probably knows the material as well as anyone.  But still, another two weeks (or even three!) with him?  Ick.

It was maybe inevitable that our next tactical would be something where our new walkie talkies wouldn’t be helpful.  We were all wearing them in class, so even if Riggs hadn’t known about them before, he did then.  And it’s not like they’re subtle. 

Today’s exercise sent us back to the woods again.  But this time, we were each given a laser gun, a headband with a sensor, and a chest sensor.  If we were shot anywhere other than a limb, the sensors would go off and we were dead.  Riggs said that a perimeter had been set up, giving us about one square mile that we had to stay in.  If we crossed the line, the sensors would flash.  If we didn’t get back inside the line within ten seconds, we were dead.  Okay, fair enough. 

But what happened to teamwork?  This was clearly ‘every man for himself’.  Literally.  We were supposed to hunt each other through the woods, ‘killing’ each other until only one was left.  The exercise wouldn’t end until all but one of us was ‘dead’.  The sensors were rigged to a unit Riggs had, and he would fire into the air each time someone ‘died’.  Three shots in quick succession signaled the end of the exercise.  That’s just sick. 

We were each faced in a different direction and told to start walking.  Once we heard a starter gun, it was no mercy.  Off we went, and of course I lost sight of everybody right away.  By now, I was pretty confident of finding my way back to campus no matter where we were dropped off, so I wasn’t too worried about that. 

I immediately went invisible, and took to the air, flying through the lower branches instead of staying on the ground.  I heard the gun go off, and instantly changed directions.  Then I paused, hovering, and gave this some thought. 

I. Did. Not. Want. To. Do. This.

And, I decided that I wasn’t going to. Now, I wasn’t going to just lie down and wait for someone to find me.  No.  I was going to sit the whole thing out.  If I stayed invisible, Sapphire and Shift were the only ones who stood any real chance of finding me.  And Shift would be using his sense of smell more than anything else, so if I stayed off the ground, he would have a much harder time of it. 

First, I experimented, flying straight up.  (Screw the 400 foot rule.)  The sensor didn’t go off.  Their perimeter net didn’t include ‘up’.  Okay, fine.  I could just hover here in place indefinitely.  But I had another idea.  I thought the river where we found Dream Shadow might be inside the perimeter.  If it was, then I could just sit in the middle of the river.  The sound of the water would cover any noise I made, and the river would cover my scent.  Then I could watch anyone else who came along. 

The river was just barely inside the net.  The sensors flashed before I got out to the middle, but I could hang out in the shallows with no problem, and that would be good enough.  I found a big rock to lean against (breaking up my place in the water), and hung out. 

Several hours passed.  Two shots came fairly quickly.  I had no way of knowing who had killed who, but was generally disgusted that the others were participating.  Two more shots came, at longer intervals.  Finally, two more came, in quick succession.  Had two of us somehow killed each other?  It was down to me and one other.  And that was how it was going to stay.  I hadn’t seen anyone since I took up my spot in the river. 

Another hour passed.  It was getting dark.  I wondered if Riggs was going to keep us out here all night?  I was determined to wait him out, if so. 

Full dark.  At one point, something moved in the undergrowth by the riverbank.  I really had to focus to see Dream Shadow.  It was dark, her wings blended in with the shadows, and she was being extra sneaky.  She picked her way to the river, waded out near the middle, triggered her sensor, and backed off.  Then she turned and started wading downstream, away from me.  It looked like she’d had the same idea that I’d had to cover her movements. 

But she couldn’t stay in the freezing water for long.  (And I honestly admired her for being willing to get back into the river at all, after what she’d been through.)  But before she’d gotten out of line-of-sight, she was shivering too much to stay in.  She waded back to shore and snuck back into the trees.  I didn’t see her again.

Another hour.  I assumed Dream Shadow was still out there, since there was no one left to ‘kill’ her but me.  I wondered if she’d come to the same decision that I had- to refuse the assignment?  Or had she participated, but focused more on staying alive than killing others?  Maybe I had it wrong, and she was an expert assassin, and had already killed several of the others.  (I still felt like the two shots I’d heard so close together meant a mutual kill.)  Stalker, hider, or fellow resistor?  I had no way of knowing. 

Actually, yes I did.  Unless I activated the panic button, our walkie talkies didn’t send out a GPS pulse, so I could use the voice feature without drawing her to me- unless she was close enough to hear me without the walkie talkie. 

So, I contacted her.  I asked her, point blank, if she was actively hunting for me, or was she just waiting for the exercise to be over.  She didn’t respond at first, and I started to think she wasn’t going to.  Then she said that she didn’t like this game, and had been avoiding everyone, and how did I know she was the other remaining ‘player’? 

I told her that I’d seen her pass by, but that since I had decided not to play at all, I hadn’t come out from where I had settled in.  I asked her if she wanted for both of us to just go back to Riggs, and, if we ran into each other on the way, we could either separate again, or go back together. 

She said that Riggs said the exercise wasn’t over until there was only one left, and she didn’t want to break the rules by going back early.  But she also didn’t want to try to kill me, or me her. 

I told her that that was fine.  That I was happy where I was, and wasn’t going to hunt for her.  She could either continue to move around, or find herself somewhere to curl up until Riggs gave up and called us in. 

And that was that.

Hours passed.  It was close to midnight. 

Finally, three shots close together.  It was time to come in.  I took a few seconds to work the water out of my Eufiber, then flew back, still invisible.  I trusted Dream Shadow’s word that she didn’t want to play this game, but her need to do what she was told could have overcome her hesitancy.  I wanted to decline this game- not lose it at the last minute. 

Dream Shadow was less sneaky in the air, so I ended up just following her back to the road.  Neither of us got lost, so there was that.  Dream Shadow landed with the others.  It turned out that Riggs kept everyone out here until the exercise was done- I hadn’t considered that my little stunt would have kept the others out.  Ouch.  I circled a couple of times to get a read on Riggs’ mood.  He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t really look mad, either.  I circled around so it looked like I was coming in from anywhere other than the river, and dropped the invisibility. 

Riggs wanted to know why we hadn’t finished the game.  Dream Shadow just kept staring at her feet.  I wasn’t going to throw her under the bus, so I told Riggs that I had decided not to play this game at all, and therefore found a good spot to stay out of the way until everyone else finished.  I had made no attempt to either hunt down anyone else, or allow myself to be hunted.  I had simply removed myself from the action.  I told him that, if there had to be a winner, it should be Dream Shadow, since she actually participated (even if her participation was to actively avoid being killed).

Riggs had that real calm tone that says he’s way more mad than when he’s yelling when he asked me why I had decided to refuse an exercise. 

I told him that everything the Academy claimed to stand for was about being a team, building trust for each other, and so on.  Then, suddenly, we were expected to all turn on each other, and use everything we had learned about each other in good faith to try and kill each other.  That wasn’t what teams did.  So far, everything he’d had us doing was either a team effort, or rescue-based, or both.  I didn’t object to rescue work, but I’d been disturbed by the ‘get the gang out of the warehouse’ exercise, since it was a purely offensive act on our part.  I’d kept my mouth shut then, but I wasn’t anymore.

I told him that I objected to the very idea behind this exercise, but didn’t feel that it was my place to try and bring others around to my way of thinking, especially since it would open them up to whatever response Riggs himself might choose to make.  I reminded him that I had said from the beginning that I had no interest in being a superhero, or even trying to join Team Tomorrow, and this kind of exercise was both pointless and exceedingly distasteful to me.  So, I refused to participate.  I didn’t disturb anyone else’s activity- I just waited for it to be over.  I also told him that I would continue to refuse exercises that were designed to turn the team against each other. 

For the first time since I’ve known him, Riggs had no idea what to say.  Stinger jumped right in, though.  How dare I refuse an order.  Who did I think I was.  Did I think I was better than everyone else.  How much more arrogant could I get.  And so on.  I’m done with Stinger.  You have to respect someone before what they have to say about you can even have a chance of being painful.  Since I don’t respect him, his words have no weight with me.  I just tuned him out and watched Riggs.

Riggs just kept staring at me.  Gradually, it dawned on me.  Riggs knows.  He probably always has known what I only learned (accidentally) from Mr. Stephenson when I first went back to school.  He knows that he only has as much power and authority as we give him.  As much as he convinces us that he has.  He can’t actually make us do anything.  Even if we weren’t novas to his baseline, there are eight of us to one of him.  He knows it.  I know it.  And, now, he knows that I know it.  The others haven’t realized it yet. 

Finally, he cut Stinger off mid-rant with a gesture, and we all piled into the trucks.  When we got back to campus, the others went for a (very) belated dinner.  He told me to stay back for a ‘chat’.  I couldn’t help but notice the smug look on Stinger’s face as the others all went to dinner. 

Riggs just looked at me for a while, then asked me why I was here, really.  Since I’d already made my opinions known at the Clinic, I didn’t see any harm in being (mostly) honest.  I told him that while I liked my fellow students (mostly true) and the faculty I’d met so far (a white lie), I did not want to be here.  I had, in fact, refused to come here when I first erupted, and was only here now because I’d been backed into a corner. 

Not knowing how much he knew about me, I told him that I’d been falsely accused of vandalizing my high school (but I didn’t say that I was pretty sure Utopia was involved somehow), and that the Academy was a slightly better option than simply dropping out of high school, getting my GED, and starting college right away.  I also told him that I was reconsidering that choice.  That I wasn’t happy with the ‘education’ we were receiving, that it was not sufficient to prepare us for life in the adult world, let alone prepare us for college.  I told him that I still maintained my absolute refusal to engage in any kind of professional superhero-ing.  I had no interest in Team Tomorrow, and wouldn’t join even if they asked (I made it sound like I didn’t know anything about what Bix had warned me of), and had equally little interest in being a municipal defender or corporate icon.  My plans included college, and eventually a teaching career.  None of what I was experiencing at the Academy was in any way helpful for that. 

He tried to bluster and tell me how lucky I was to be here, and how I should be grateful if I were to be asked to join T2M, even in an auxiliary role.  How I should be grateful to Project Utopia for all the help they’d given me so far, and be eager to do my part.

I told him that I was grateful.  To the Rashoud Clinic that taught me to control my powers.  But I was also perfectly aware that Utopia benefitted as much from the help they provided as I did.  After all, any untrained, out-of-control nova was a potential danger to baselines, and Utopia’s greatest good was the safety and well-being of humanity as a whole.  So the help they gave me, while definitely appreciated, was as much in humanity’s best interest as for my own. 

But as far as being grateful to the Academy?  No.  No I was not.  My education is being stunted.  I’m being asked to perform unnecessary (and unnecessarily dangerous) ‘training exercises’.  I’m being subtly encouraged to stay away from baselines and isolate myself as much as possible.   I’ve been told I’m part of a team, when we aren’t being given the tools needed to actually make us a team.  I mentioned that cliché about a definition of insanity being ‘doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results’.  The Academy isn’t teaching us how to be a team.  They’re just giving us opportunities to fail at being a team.  And now, today, the exercise had (as far as I can tell) been calculated to destroy whatever limited sense of being a team we’d developed. 

Riggs looked like he was about to say something else, so I made my last point before he could.  I told him that I was willing to stay here through my senior year.  That I was willing to put up with a lot of unpleasant, unwanted, pointless tasks, even though I knew that I was being ‘trained’ for a life I refused to participate in.  I would tolerate the shooting sessions.  I would put up with having my educational opportunities wasted.  I would participate in any tactical exercises that didn’t violate my personal boundaries or ethics.  But I would not go beyond that.  I would not participate in any activity that I believed to be wrong or harmful.  I would do what I could to have my non-participation impact the others as little as possible, but that was it.  I had already made a lot of compromises to come here, to stay here, and to participate here as much as I was.  I would not compromise further. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect next.  Yelling?  Some kind of punishment?  Expulsion? 

Riggs offered me Stinger’s position as team leader.  (This was the first formal acknowledgement that I’d had that his position was an official one, and not one that he’d just claimed for himself.  That makes a difference, though not a big difference.) 

Of course, I laughed in his face and refused.  Clearly, he hadn’t been listening.  If the others wanted to be professional superheroes, then they deserved someone who was as committed to that as they were.  I hoped to develop lasting friendships with them over the next eighteen months or so, and hoped those friendships would last.  But once I graduated, I was out.  I would not be part of the team anymore. 

I told Riggs that I was not a leader, had no interest in being a leader, and would not be a leader.  If Stinger wanted the job, more the fool him.  Regardless of my opinion of Stinger as leader; Riggs, the Academy, and Utopia would be much better off actually giving him the help and training he needed to be the best leader he could be, rather than replacing him with someone who would be, at best temporary (not to mention uninterested). 

He tried to point out that I’d done more in terms of leading the team since I’d been there than Stinger had, and done more to teach them to think beyond Stinger’s limitations.  (Ouch, on multiple levels.)  I told him that if I continued to ‘teach them to think beyond the current limitations’, that Riggs might not like the results.  I told Riggs that I thought the way the Academy encouraged their isolation from baselines to be a very bad, dangerous thing.  Especially isolating them from their families (where family involvement was possible or desirable- for all I knew, some of them had awful home lives and were better off away from their families).  And if I were team leader, there would be a lot less blind obedience and a lot more thinking and deciding for themselves. 

I was staring Riggs right in the eyes as I said that, and I saw… something.  Did he actually agree with me, on some level?  Surely not.  Surely anyone chosen to work so closely with ‘impressionable young novas’ would be hardcore in favor of the Utopia party line? 

Suddenly, I was just… so tired.  Not physically, of course.  Several hours sitting in a freezing cold river was nothing.  Not even mentally.  But emotionally, even spiritually, tired. 

I told Riggs, once and for all, that I would not take over as team leader.  It would be cruel to Stinger, disruptive to the others, and awful for me.  I pointed out that Riggs had experience in commanding men.  (I’d seen how he dealt with our faux gang members, hostage guards, etc.)  I was pretty sure he had experience in leading them as well as commanding them.  I told Riggs that he should be the one specifically teaching Stinger how to be a good leader. 

I said that I didn’t know if Stinger had what it takes (I didn’t say how much I doubted it), but I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t figure out how to be a good leader by trial and error.  He needed help.  I’d made a mistake in trying to help him, even a little, on the quiet.  It wasn’t my place, and it was obvious that he resented me- or maybe felt threatened by me.  Or both.  Either way, he wasn’t receptive to anything I had to say, and that was fine.  But he needed help.  Riggs was the best person to give it.  And Stinger was, by the simple fact of (apparently) being the only one who wanted the position, the team’s best choice for leader. 

Riggs said that he’d leave the team roster as it was, for now, and I could go on to dinner.

Is it petty that I took some glee in appearing halfway through dinner, looking composed and calm, where Stinger had clearly expected me to be upset, if I showed up at all?  Maybe.  Yeah, definitely.  I’m pretty.  And just this once, I don’t care.

I don’t know what to think about all this.  Did Riggs even have the authority to make such a drastic change in the team?  I thought he was just an instructor/trainer/drill sergeant.  Was I wrong about that?  Now that I think about it, I haven’t actually seen many faculty members here.  Most of the baselines I’ve met here have clearly been admin.  Linda. Jak. Mrs. Richardson in ‘placement’.  The cafeteria workers and janitors.  All admin or staff, rather than ‘faculty’.  I’m not sure where Lt. Riggs’ men fall.  TAs?  Assistant faculty?  Guards?  Are we being covertly guarded by those men?  If so, why?  Celebrities and special commodities get guarded.  But so do prisoners. 

My language tutors are technically faculty, I guess. But it’s so obvious that they aren’t involved with the Academy in any way beyond location that it doesn’t matter.  They may be the best private tutors Utopia’s money can buy, but they’re still glorified private tutors.  (I don’t mean that as an insult- they’re both great at what they do.  I just don’t see that they have any interest in what’s going on here at the Academy beyond teaching me my languages.  I assume the others are about the same.)

It makes sense to have a military man teach train us in the tactical stuff.  Those are essentially military/police exercises.  And I suppose I can accept the first aid stuff as ‘military adjacent’.  It was mostly about triage under fire and dealing with the results of combat conditions, after all.  What we’re doing now is essentially military adjacent/history as well.  So, again, Riggs as instructor makes sense.  Are all our classes going to be ‘military adjacent’?  I’m beginning to think they are, though a sample size of two isn’t really enough to be sure of a pattern. 

But… where is everybody else???  Other faculty members?  Other novas?  I haven’t seen Flamestrike or The Wall since I had my placement tests.  Stinger said there was an older ‘Senior Squad’ of students.  I have no reason to doubt him, but the only hint I’ve had of their existence is that my room in the dorm (along with the others’) is halfway down the corridor, with a bank of apparently unused rooms between ours and the upstairs common areas.  I assume those belong to the Senior Squad. 

I’m rambling. 

Back to the main point.  Why did Riggs offer me leadership?  Was it a test, to see if I’m ambitious?  If I could be bought?  Was it intended for a reward for previous actions?  An attempt to control future actions?  Was it intended to set me and Stinger actively against each other, instead of whatever passive-aggressive thing we have now?  Maybe he intends Stinger and I to compete, ideally making both of us improve?  Maybe he has something against Stinger, and wants to use me against him?  Maybe he has something against me, and wants to use Stinger against me?  Or maybe he’s on the level, and just looking for the best team leader he has available.  (Not that I’d call myself good- not at all.  It’s just that Stinger is so… lacking.  Lacking in flexibility, imagination, creativity, and the ability to think outside the box and act with independence.) 

Maybe this is a different kind of test.  To see if I’ll tell Stinger (or anyone else) what happened.  And, if so, how I tell it.  Maybe it’s even a trick- maybe I’m ‘supposed’ to go brag to Stinger and the others, only to have Riggs deny everything?  Probably not, but maybe. 

Should I tell Stinger?  If I were him, I’d want to know that Riggs was so eager to replace me.  That way I’d have a chance to improve myself, or, at the very least, come to terms with the situation and not be caught off guard.  But, in a weird way, telling someone bad news contributed to my being here.  Telling Bailey about Jeremy asking me out turned her against me.  (I guess maybe I should say ‘completed turning her against me’, since looking back, I can see the signs of growing jealousy since I erupted.) If they hadn’t come forward with their accusations, would the school have had such an easy time throwing me out?  They probably would have still done it, but it would have been harder on them. 

But I’ve refused, and clearly no one else wants to take over as leader.  Stinger’s roll is safe.  At least until some other new nova arrives.  I’m sure he would view my telling him as bragging- or even as a threat.  But, if I don’t tell him, and he finds out somehow, then it looks like I betrayed him by not saying anything.  It might even look like I was scheming to take over, somehow.  And what about the others?  How would they take this?  I’m new.  I’ve barely been here.  It seems like Stinger has been in charge more-or-less since Day One.  Surely they’d rather have the leader they’re used to. 

This might be a no-win situation.

So.  Where am I now?

1. I don’t want to be team leader.
2. I don’t want to be on the team at all, but am willing to compromise in the name of living with my fellow novas while I’m here.
3. I’d like to establish good relationships with my fellow novas and am willing to compromise a lot to do so.
4. I don’t know where Riggs stands, or even really what his position is here at the Academy.
5. The lack of other faculty members is suspicious.
6. The lack of any nova involvement outside of ourselves is extremely suspicious.

Something else just occurred to me.  I have no idea who the Academy’s principal (Dean, Headmaster, whatever) is.  I just checked the Academy OpNet site, and there isn’t even a position listed, let alone a name of who fills it.  You wouldn’t expect the principal to meet with every incoming student in a regular high school, but here?  There are only nine of us, and we didn’t all come in at once.  It’s odd that there hasn’t been at least a brief introduction. 

Unless there is no principal.  It’s been clear from the beginning that, ultimately, Utopia is in charge of the Academy.  With its association with Team Tomorrow, it’s not unreasonable to assume that T2M had some interest and say in how things are run as well, but even then, they’re ultimately answerable to Utopia, so that’s really no difference. 

Linda in the admin building might very well be the lead administrator, but it doesn’t seem likely that she’s ultimately in charge of the Academy.  And the medical people are siloed into their own concerns.  Jak seems to do as little as possible, and sticks with ‘domestic’ stuff, dealing with the dorm and maybe the cafeteria.  (But really, if anyone involved with Utopia could be accused of just drawing a paycheck and doing nothing, it would be her.)

So, that leaves us with a few options. 

1. There is no principal- no one is directly in charge of the Academy.
   • This is the ‘obvious’ truth, based on the OpNet site and all generally available research, but it seems highly unlikely to be the actual truth.
2. There is some shadowy person in charge, whose identity is being concealed.
   • Possible, but unlikely. Utopia likes to present itself as open and honest.  Hiding the principal seems a pointless contradiction of that.
3. There is someone in charge who administrates from somewhere off-campus.
   • Possible, maybe even likely, but sub-optimal. Someone who isn’t on-site can’t have the kind of immediate grasp of developing situations on campus, and can’t have immediate access to campus in an emergency (without nova assistance).
4. Riggs is the principal, in fact if not in title.
   • With his behavior tonight, I have to wonder if this isn’t the truth.

Flare is supposed to be my mentor, for this month at least.  I’ll talk to her about all some of this, and see what she thinks.  It’s time to start getting to know the others better, anyway. But not tonight.  She’s almost certainly asleep, and I still need to put in my time on the shooting range.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, January 20

‘World Hotspots’ is interesting, if not necessarily in the ways Lt. Riggs expects or wants.  Today, we reviewed a bunch of footage of Team Tomorrow engaging Elites in Nigeria and Sudan.  I was surprised at how much footage exists.  When I first erupted, I did a lot of searching for footage, and didn’t find nearly as much on the Equatorial Wars.  (And I might not be the best at that kind of search, but I’m pretty good.)  It looks like a lot of stuff has been kept off of the public OpNet- an impressive feat in itself. 

We got to see a lot more of the action, and see what was publicly available from different angles and perspectives.  But I’m pretty sure we’re still not seeing everything Utopia has.  For example, there’s no publicly available footage of the battle where Luna was killed, but we saw some today.  As in, we saw her actually fighting an Elite.  But we didn’t see her fall, and then, she just wasn’t in the footage anymore.  The same with Pele, though we’re told she survived and is recovering (recovering?  It’s been seven years!), we saw the fight she was in, but not her actually being so horribly injured.  They wouldn’t even tell us any details on what happened.  (I guess I can understand that to a point- HIPPA applies to novas as well as baselines.)

In other words, we’re seeing a lot of admittedly exciting battles, T2M taking some minor injuries, and ultimately winning every fight.  I’ve studied as much as I can about T2M, and I know for fact that not all of them, barely more than half of them, are tougher beyond what a baseline can be.  Even if each T2M team travels with someone like Guardião at all times, they must get hurt, and hurt badly, in these battles.  But they don’t seem to. 

That got me to looking at the footage itself, rather than what’s going on in it.  With my enhanced vision, it’s easy to notice when cuts are made.  Most of them are reasonable cuts for time and (apparent) lack of anything happening.  But some of them are much more subtle.  Sometimes just a few frames seem to be cut out.  Sometimes much more. 

What aren’t we being shown?  That got me thinking about what we are being shown.  T2M always winning.  Always winning easily.  With just enough effort to make it look good.  Nobody ever getting severely hurt.  No support staff present.  And the odds.  T2M rarely shows up with less than five members, and often more.  And in every battle we’ve seen so far, T2M has outnumbered the Elities by at least 2-to-1 odds.  The most Elites we’ve seen T2M engage with in class is three, and even that was only once.  Two Elites, or even just one, is much more common.  Now, I know I’ve seen footage of Elites doing war and terror stuff in Africa.  And yes, they work alone or in pairs a lot.  But not always.  Sometimes they work together in larger groups (and usually really well).  And when they do, T2M never seems to be around.

Our tactical today was unexpectedly... gentle?  We stayed on campus for this one, and were divided into two teams.  (I wonder if maybe Riggs wasn’t testing my boundaries with this, but it was a completely different situation, so it didn’t bother me at all.)  Red Team consisted of me, Flare, Guardião, and Dream Shadow.  The others made up Blue Team. 

Each team was given a list of items- a scavenger hunt.  The rules were that we had to stay on campus, not cause any damage to any building, and collect as many items as possible by four pm.  Whichever team won would actually earn a prize.  (That’s interesting.  I haven’t seen anything in terms of rewards so far, and only the very mildest ‘talking to’ that might be considered ‘discipline’.  Then again, the others are so well-behaved, discipline hasn’t been needed.)

This was a lot of fun.  The teams were pretty well-balanced, in my opinion.  Both Flare and Shift could get inside locked buildings pretty easily, each team had someone who was fairly strong.  Each team had someone with enhanced senses.  Each team had two potential fliers.  I’ll admit, I was glad to not be on a team with Stinger, but I was pretty sure this was a way of Riggs setting me up to lead ‘my’ team. 

I tried so hard not to.  I was only slightly interested in winning- more for curiosity about the prize than desire to win it.  But the others just seemed to expect it.  I tried to get Flare to take over, but she kept asking me what I’d do, and eventually I gave up. 

The details of the scavenger hunt don’t really matter.  We went over the list, and we each made our own list of things that we knew exactly where to find.  That didn’t take long, and about an hour later, we reassembled with about half the list completed. 

Then we went to work on the weirder stuff- stuff no one could immediately grab.  Some things we needed a quick OpNet search to figure out what they were, but once we knew, we had a good idea where to find them. 

A few of the items were tricky little things.  Puns, clever wordplay, things we’d need to actually puzzle out, but were easy to find once we did.  Flare was really helpful in getting us into locked buildings (and every last building was locked- I suspect on purpose).  Guardião was really good at figuring out some of the wordplay clues, and of knowing the places they could reference on campus.  Some of the items were actually locations- we took pictures of those, as well as of equipment that was too big or delicate to move. 

Probably the most interesting thing was a talent Dream Shadow displayed.  One of the things on our list was a specialized star chart.  We looked all through the library and couldn’t find anything like it.  We were about to give up on it (there’d been a couple of other items we either couldn’t figure out or couldn’t find), when I remembered about the observatory.  When we went out there, it was locked of course.  It had been before when I visited it.  It didn’t have any windows, so Flare couldn’t see in to teleport safely.  We’d been told not to damage anything, so breaking the lock wasn’t an option.  I was ready to give it up, when Dream Shadow (politely) shooed me out of the way, pulled a little piece of wire out from inside her feathers, and picked the lock like a pro.  Everybody was stunned.  Dream Shadow, of all people!  (I’m so going to ask her to teach me.)  I wonder what else she has hidden in her feathers.

We got our star chart.  Dream Shadow relocked the door, and you couldn’t tell she’d messed with it at all. 

We ran out of time with four items unaccounted for.  Blue Team had found all but three items.  They’d won, and I was okay with that.  I was actually pretty glad- Stinger winning would be good for him, and maybe make Riggs more likely to keep him as leader.  Then Riggs went over the lists, and tossed out one of Blue Team’s finds- apparently Puppy’d done a little bit of damage when he moved a car.  Tie. 

That was interesting.  I don’t see how Riggs could have known the score would be so close, and there was no reason to assume he’d declared a tie on purpose.  I really am getting paranoid.  It was probably legit. 

What was our ‘prize’?  A day off from tacticals tomorrow.  In fact, an afternoon off campus entirely.  We were allowed to go into Roanoke after our language lessons were over.  And since we’d tied, everyone got to go.

I expected a little more excitement, to be honest.  I  was certainly excited.  But the others seemed almost... nervous. 

Oh well.  I pulled Flare aside before I left for my aikido lesson, and asked if I could talk to her after dinner tonight.  She agreed and I headed out.

My lesson went fine.  Sensei Laura corrected a couple of bad habits I was developing, and I’ll pay more attention to them in my nightly exercises.  I stopped off after to see the cats.  I’d thought Furnado was full grown when I got him, but I swear he’s still getting bigger.  His paws are enormous, with little tufts of fur between the beans.  It’s adorable, but sometimes he loses traction on the kitchen floor and slides into the cabinets or fridge.  I always feel bad for laughing at him.  He looks so offended. 

On the way back to campus, I gave some thought to what I wanted to say to Flare, and more thought on where I wanted to say it.  I’ve found two microphones in my room.  It would be stupid to assume that Flare’s room doesn’t have them too.  (Does she know about them?)  We could talk outside, but there’s still no way to be sure of not being overheard.  I think it’s best to limit our conversation to what I’m comfortable with Utopia overhearing.  And in that case, it doesn’t matter where we talk. 

I got back to the dorm, and Flare invited me to her room.  I was a little surprised at how... homey it was.  She had a little loveseat, a beanbag chair, and a couple of bookcases, along with just the basic furniture.  It made me realize that I never really ‘moved in’.  My room looks more like a hotel room or hostel than a home.  The closest things to personalization there are the cat stuff that are still on the walls and window.  I hadn’t really thought about it, but now that I have, I’m not really interested in changing things.  As it stands, I could leave right now, and the only thing I’d be leaving behind is my computer, and while that would suck, everything I need on it is backed up on the OpNet, where only I (and ‘S’, I’m sure) can get to it.  Besides, if I’m in anything other than a life-and-death hurry, grabbing a laptop doesn’t take much time.  

And Mr. Lumpy, of course.  I’d really miss him.  In fact, I think I’ll take him home when I go on Thursday.  He’s irreplaceable.  Better to be without him now than risk losing him if something were to happen.  Why do I expect something to happen?  It’s almost like my buzzy tingly sense going off....

Anyway, Flare sat me down, got me a Coke (she’s got a microfridge as well), and asked what was on my mind.  I couldn’t help but look up at the place where the microphone was hidden in my room.  Knowing what to look for, I spotted it immediately.  She followed my gaze and nodded.  She knows.  I looked for the one between the balcony and bathroom.  Her eyes widened.  She hadn’t known about that one.  I pointed at my eye, and gave her a questioning look, but she shook her head.  Then she looked back at the second microphone, and shrugged.  She didn’t think we were being watched, but wasn’t sure now.  Fair enough.

We had a couple of moments of chitchat, then I got to the point.  Some of the points.  I asked her about our classes, to start.  How, if this was an accredited high school (and I’d made sure that it was before coming), why weren’t we actually learning any of the things we needed for graduation?  How to deal with tear gas and the conflict in Kashmir were unlikely to help us navigate our freshman year of college.  We needed biology, chemistry, algebra, and so on. 

Flare agreed.  She’d been surprised by the lack of actual academics when she first came to the Academy.  She’d been disappointed in the curriculum, but comforted herself that colleges looked less at what classes a student had taken in high school, and more at their GPA, class standing, and the prestige of the school itself.  Being a nova and graduating the Academy were prestigious enough in themselves to get her admission just about anywhere, and she was sure it would be the same for me, and any of the rest of us who were interested in college.  She didn’t think the others would be, though. 

As for GPA, she didn’t know how the Academy was going to handle that, but since it wouldn’t be in Utopia’s interest for novas to fail, she was confident we would be given appropriate grades- however they were decided.  (Her tone was more cynical than I’d ever heard her.)  And as for class standing, she wasn’t sure how that was going to work.  Without tests and structured performance reviews, there was really no way to know how that would work, but she suspected that Utopia would decide who placed where according to how well we complied with Utopia’s ideals and fell in with the Academy’s program.  The look she gave me then was a blend of amusement and maybe a little pity.  If she’s right, I’m likely to be bottom of the class.  LoL. 

Flare mentioned that the Academy wasn’t completely ignoring academic subjects.  Everyone had taken placement tests when they arrived, after all.  While she admitted that she wasn’t happy with not continuing formal education, she pointed out that students who fell below minimum academic achievements were given remedial studies.  Puppy had needed a good bit of help, by his own admission, but was coming along well.  She’d thought that Dream Shadow had been behind as well, but it turned out that her problems were less academic and more linguistic and cultural.  She’d had trouble learning English, and her upbringing in North Korea had led to some epic culture shock when she fled to America. 

Flare suggested that, while according to the Academy, I was already ‘sufficiently prepared for continuing education’, if I was unsatisfied, I could always take independent courses.  Utopia had arrangements with several major universities that offered courses via the OpNet.  (I’d forgotten that, despite having used the program for my navigation class.)  Flare herself was taking a couple of courses that way.  That’s a really good idea.  I hadn’t really planned to start looking for a college until June, but maybe I should start sooner.  And there’s absolutely no reason I can’t get some of the usual ‘general studies’ requirements out of the way.

That led to my main reason for coming to her.  I told her, after asking her to keep it to herself, since I didn’t want to cause drama or hurt feelings, about Riggs’ offering me Stinger’s position as team leader.  She winced, but didn’t look especially surprised (which surprised me, a little).  She asked me if I was going to take him up on it, and of course I said ‘no’. 

She had a weird mix of expressions on her face, and I asked her about what she was thinking.  She flicked her eyes up at the microphone, and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t giving me full candor.  Flare said that she liked Stinger, and respected his dedication to Utopia’s ideals.  She appreciated his ambition to join Team Tomorrow.  (I have the impression that maybe she isn’t as keen on joining as I’d thought, but I wasn’t going to mention it there.) 

There was a pause, and an unspoken ‘but’.  I pressed her on it, gently.  She gave a couple of false starts, like she was looking for just the right words.  Finally, she said that Stinger would make an excellent second-in-command.  And that was fine, since T2M wasn’t looking for new leaders (unless they  formed new regional divisions, and even then, they’d promote from within).  Stinger would (she hoped) find a place in T2M, but it wouldn’t be in a leadership capacity.  At least, not beyond the ideal that all T2M novas should be role models and paragons of leadership, anyway. 

Flare looked embarrassed, but admitted that she and Guardião had had similar discussions weeks ago, as well as she and Sapphire.  Basically, all three of them acknowledged his faults as a leader, but none of them wanted (or felt qualified) to take over.  Guardião was too gentle and nonconfrontational.  Sapphire was, to put it bluntly, too self-absorbed and uninterested.  And she, Flare, lacked both confidence and motivation.  Flare acknowledged that out of the three, she would be, if not the best replacement, at least the ‘least worst’.  But none of the three thought that the team’s performance would improve much by Flare taking over from Stinger.  Plus, she didn’t want the responsibility.  (I can certainly understand that.) 

The others had never expressed any concern with Stinger’s leadership, and to Flare’s knowledge, no one had mentioned anything to Riggs about it.  So, Stinger remained team leader, and had made it most of his identity and personality since he’d been here. 

Flare didn’t know what Stinger would do if someone took over as leader, but she didn’t think it would end well.  She’d noticed that he didn’t take well to being shown up, or contradicted (another ‘meaningful’ look at me), or made to look bad in any way.  He took failure personally, too.  In that way, if nothing else, he was a good leader- he didn’t blame others for his shortcomings.  He took the team’s successes and failures both as his responsibility. 

But... he just didn’t have ‘it’ as a leader.  Creativity.  Improvisational skills.  Initiative.  And he never questioned orders or encouraged anyone else to.  Everybody liked him well enough (as far as Flare could tell), but respecting his determination to lead wasn’t the same as respecting his leadership.  He didn’t have what it takes to make his team want to follow him. 

Flare told me that she wasn’t sure it was a good idea for me to take over as leader (I assured her again I had no intention of it), but that she, at least, thought I would make a better one than Stinger.  She was pretty sure Guardião and Sapphire would agree, if they knew.  The others, she wasn’t so sure of.  Puppy liked everybody and didn’t like anybody to be unhappy.  Dream Shadow rarely shared her thoughts.  She didn’t know where Shift stood. 

I asked about Hourglass, and she shivered a little.  She said that since Hourglass rarely involved himself, he was unlikely to share an opinion, whether he had one or not.  Her tone made it clear that she wasn’t comfortable talking about Hourglass, so I moved on. 

That brought me to Lt. Riggs, and my uncertainty of his place at the Academy.  Did Flare know anything about him?

She said he was army, and currently on special service with Utopia.  That he’d been in Afghanistan, and seen active duty there, but she didn’t know the particulars.  As far as his position at the Academy, so far, he had been their primary instructor in everything but the languages classes.  He was exclusively in charge of tactical training, and handled most of the classwork as well- only bringing in ‘subject matter experts’ for things he wasn’t qualified to handle the details on. 

I asked her, point blank, if he was the principal, since we didn’t seem to have one.  She looked a little startled, like she’d never wondered about the lack before.  She said that she’d never heard him referred to as anything more than an instructor, but then again, she’d never heard of anyone else having more authority than Riggs did.  So.... maybe? 

So, he probably had the authority to offer me Stinger’s position, then?  Flare said that she’d be very surprised if he did not.  That even if he wasn’t technically in charge, she was sure that nobody would overrule him. 

Then it was her turn to question me- Why didn’t I want to be leader?  Why wasn’t I, well, ‘getting with the program’?  Why was I here, if I didn’t want to join Team Tomorrow?  (Again, there was something in her attitude that suggested she wasn’t keen on it either.) 

Well, that was safe enough ground.  I’d already told Stinger and Riggs enough, where I was pretty sure of being overheard, to have no problem telling Flare (almost) everything.  So I gave her all my reasons why I didn’t want to be leader- not wanting the responsibility, not wanting to give false expectations of my long-term involvement, not wanting to do anything that would attract Team Tomorrow’s attention (again insisting that I had no reason to expect T2M to want me), and not wanting to make trouble with Stinger.  All completely true. 

Why wasn’t I ‘getting with the program’?  Because ‘the program’ wasn’t taking me in the direction I wanted to go.  I didn’t want to bring down the team, or jeopardize their chances, but the things they wanted simply weren’t what I wanted to do with my life.  That, indeed, other than the ‘prestige’ of getting a diploma from the Academy, and the genuine pleasure in meeting other novas my own age, really, being at the Academy was doing me more harm than good, in my opinion.  And I resented that, though I was trying not to take it out on anyone.

And why was I here?  Well, I told her, in detail, everything about what had happened at school, and how I’d been blamed for it.  I told her everything except my suspicion that Utopia was behind it all- and that they’d done it to get me to the Academy when I’d absolutely made up my mind not to come.

Flare asked me what I actually did want to do with my life, and I told her.  I still want to be a teacher.  I want to go to college, get at least a masters degree, and teach.  I hadn’t fully made up my mind yet exactly what I wanted to teach, or who, but was leaning toward middle and high school, since very small children tended to annoy me.  I’d wanted to be a teacher for years, and erupting hadn’t changed that.  I was honest enough to acknowledge that being a nova would open doors for me that I’d otherwise have to compete for, but it didn’t fundamentally change what I wanted to do with my life.

My turn again.  I asked her whether she thought I should tell Stinger what Riggs is up to.  I explained my concern that he wouldn’t take it well (which would be understandable), and that he’d take it out on me (which would be a problem).  There’s no way telling him wouldn’t make things awkward between us, as well as create tension on the team.  On the other hand, not telling him left him open to being replaced without any kind of warning, the next time a potential candidate showed up.  Wouldn’t telling him give him the opportunity to ‘shape up’?  Besides, what if Riggs didn’t take my ‘no’ for an answer? 

Flare said that he’d had plenty of shape-up opportunities, and nothing had really helped.  After every exercise, Lt. Riggs went over what he’d done wrong, usually in painful detail, and it never seemed to make any difference.  He’d make tiny, specific, improvements; but they never seemed to carry over into new situations. 

Flare thought about it for a while, and finally said that she didn’t think I should tell.  If Riggs let it go, and didn’t keep trying to put me in as leader, then no harm done, and Stinger wasn’t any worse off than he was now.  If Riggs did keep trying, then Stinger knowing would only make things worse between us between now and whenever he pulled the trigger and put me in charge.  (Ick.)  And either way, Stinger having it confirmed that I was preferred (Flare was pretty sure he already suspected it) would only make things worse between us. 

I came for advice, and she knows Stinger better than I do, so I’m going to take her advice.  Even if I’m not completely comfortable with it.  Besides, if the situation changes, I can always tell him later- I can’t un-tell him if I change my mind. 

I thanked her for her advice, and was about to go back to my room, when another thought that had been circling around in the back of my head popped out. 

Would Flare be willing to teach me to teleport?  I’d be more than happy to teach her to fly, or be invisible.  Or to convert quantum energy to electricity, if she wanted that, I guess. 

She looked really startled.  Like, she’d never even considered learning or teaching the powers that we have.  She asked if that were even possible?  She knew we could improve the powers that we’d erupted with with training, but wasn’t that as far as it went? 

I told her no, that we could definitely make a conscious choice to learn new abilities.  That I’d learned not to need to eat, sleep, or breathe due to deliberate training.  And I’d developed my burst of speed power when I’d really needed it, but it ‘felt’ completely different to use than regular flying.  It wasn’t just a new way of using the same power. 

She asked me why I wanted to teleport, when I could already fly.  I told her that I loved flying, it was the best thing about being a nova in my opinion, but teleporting was still faster.  And flying wouldn’t get me past a locked door.  And…. (I decided to offer a little trust.)  And, I wanted to go into space someday.  All the fast flying in the world wouldn’t cover those distances.  If I wanted to visit the Moon, or Mars, and not spend months just going and coming back, I would need to be able to teleport. 

She said she’d think about it.  That has to be good enough, for now.  I thanked her and left.  

Chapter Text

Wednesday, January 21

I’ll admit, I didn’t pay much attention in class.  Getting to go into town with the others, even to such a small mountain town, was a lot more exciting than I’d expected. 

Of course, Lt. Riggs didn’t make things easy for us.  We were allowed to go.  That wasn’t the same as giving us a lift.  I’d only been there once, and the others hadn’t been at all, beyond driving through to get to the Academy.  The quickest way to get there was to fly or teleport, of course.  Since Flare needed to know where she was going, I flew her there, and let her get familiar with a good spot.  Then she teleported us back to campus, where she, Dream Shadow and I brought the others into Roanoke. 

We… drew some attention.  And a crowd.  As much as I don’t want to be team leader, this is the kind of thing I’ve learned not to mind taking the lead on.  When people came up to us, I was happy to do the social thing, introducing everyone.  People wanted autographs and selfies, and I encouraged the others to go with it.  (They really needed the exposure to baselines in a friendly, open situation.)  Sapphire joined me in being open and friendly, even if the others were uncomfortable.  She posed for selfies like the influencer she is (I’d forgotten about that), and basically made everyone who wandered past thrilled to be near her.  It was really impressive. 

There was an ice-skating event going on, and we’d decided to check it out.  I’ve only ice skated once before, so I wasn’t expecting to be any good at it, and I wasn’t.  Flare, Stinger, and Sapphire were amazing, though, and Shift was pretty good.  The rest of us just wobbled around in circles, but it was a lot of fun.  We drew a lot of attention there, too, but either the others were too busy skating to notice, or they were trying to ignore the observers. 

After skating, Puppy was starving and the rest hungry, so we found a Chinese buffet.  I was a little concerned, for a minute, since I hadn’t thought to ask if the others had money.  I knew they weren’t ‘working novas’, so who knows what their finances look like?  Flare and Sapphire ‘solved’ it by having a (good natured, I think) fight about who got to treat everyone, before deciding to split the bill between the two of them. 

In hindsight, a buffet might not have been the best choice.  The food was great, but Puppy can eat.  A lot.  Like, a truly impressive amount of food.  This place was more pan-Asian than Chinese, and it was funny watching Dream Shadow try and identify the ‘Americanized’ versions of some of her familiar dishes.  She also corrected my chopsticks form.  Flare and Stinger were the only ones to go all-in on the sushi.  <Shudder>

Puppy got us low-key kicked out when he ate an entire pan of beef with broccoli in one sitting, and we were (very politely) encouraged to leave by having the manager sort of… hover around us, staring at our plates and looking concerned.  As funny as it was, I felt bad for the poor man.  I’m sure Flare and Sapphire left a good tip, but I made sure to add to it as well.  No restaurant should have to deal with eight unexpected novas without some extra compensation.  I noticed a couple of the waiters taking pictures of us, so I suspect we’ll end up on their bulletin board of happy diners. Maybe we’ll inadvertently help get them some extra business.

Once we were back outside, Sapphire declared that it was ‘golden hour’, and that we were all required to take pictures.  The photoshoot that followed was (slightly) less professional than what I’d seen with the modeling job, but a lot more fun.  Sapphire knows a lot about photography, and even more about how to make people look good.  We ended up with group photos, individual shots, and small groups of two and three of us in every combination.  We did ‘candid’ poses, silly poses, and some that I thought were a little risqué.  Sapphire knows what she’s doing, though, so I let her have her way.  She flashed me copies onto my chipdrive, and gave permission for me to post them.  I’ll post some to the Heka’s Home forum tonight, as well as send some to Mom.

Stinger made sure we were back on campus in good time, and there hadn’t been any real tension between us all day.  Hopefully things will stay good. 

Over all, it was a lot of fun.  I think the others enjoyed it, and got some much-needed exposure to the ‘outside world’. 

Chapter Text

Thursday, January 22

I’m pretty sure this entire ‘World Hotspots’ unit is going to be pretty much the same.  Videos of Team Tomorrow fighting (but only when the odds are overwhelmingly in their favor), discussions of the political situations in the various areas, and predictions about what might happen in the next few years.  Mildly interesting, I guess, but less so once I noticed about T2M and their odds.  Or maybe that’s a completely different flavor of interesting.

Today’s tactical was a whole different kind of sad.  So far, each thing has been different enough that the same tactics that we’d used before wouldn’t be immediately helpful again.  Frustrating, but understandable.  I guess. 

Today was different.  The training ground was completely different (I was right in guessing there are several, semi-modular, exercise areas), but the exercise itself was identical to the first one I was involved with.  Down to the mission briefing being in an envelope nailed to the outer wall.  ‘Rescue the hostage. Minimal collateral damage.’  This time, instead of a busted up house in an urban wasteland environment, it was an office building (or a small part of one, anyway) surrounded by heavy shrubbery and corporate green space. 

Surely, Stinger would do well this time.  This was the first time (that I know of) that he’d effectively have a second chance at an exercise he’d previously done poorly at.  He’d learned, right? 

Nope. 

I know Stinger isn’t stupid.  He’s reasonably observant.  He asks good questions in class (where any questions are needed, anyway).  He’s able to express himself and make decent arguments.  He’s not stupid.  So why does he seem to be incapable of learning from past actions????

He even seemed to recognize that this was functionally identical to the previous exercise.  But instead of learning from what happened before, he pretty much made all the same mistakes. 

Making his plans right there where we were sure to be overheard.  Again with using Shift, as well as Puppy’s animals to do some very minimal scouting.  (Not a bad idea in itself, but not nearly enough).  Shift learned from last time, at least, and did his shapeshifting under cover so whoever was watching wouldn’t immediately know what was going on- or at least what form he had taken.  Puppy called in several squirrels (we have a lot of squirrels on campus), a couple of little birds (maybe sparrows?  I don’t know from birds), and a fox.  I know Shift did his thing, but he’s good enough at what he does that he either blended in with the animals that Puppy called, or just took a form that was sneaky enough to not be noticed. 

Stinger didn’t have me scout, and knowing what Lt. Riggs wants, there was no way I was going to give any impression of taking over or offering advice.  Instead, I basically resigned myself to another disastrous pyrrhic victory, at best. 

Just looking around, there weren’t such obvious hiding places as last time- no ruined buildings and big piles of rubble, but I was pretty sure there were people hidden somewhere.  The only roof was the office building.  I supposed that snipers could be on the roofs of other campus buildings, with scopes, but somehow I was pretty sure that would be considered ‘out of bounds’.  Whatever was against us was already here. 

Stinger was waiting for Puppy’s animals and Shift to report back, so I tuned out all the little noises close by and really listened.  Yup. Breathing.  Lots of it.  Mostly coming from the bushes and green spaces.  That got me to looking at those areas using my thermal vision and boom!  There they were.  Eight different people, really well concealed in the bushes.  When I matched thermal to enhanced vision, I was only able to see five of them- the other three were too well camouflaged to see visually.  (Very impressive.)  The ones I could see were wearing really elaborate ghillie suits.  One of them was actually hidden in plain sight as a topiary sculpture. 

Shift came back to us, human again, and Puppy was a little ways off, surrounded by his furry friends.  They collectively said that there were three offices in a line, each with four people inside them.  Each office had a large window, which Shift and/or animals had peeked through to see the people.  They were all wearing body armor, so they weren’t likely to be our target.  Each office had a single door, the left-hand office being the only one that was open.  From what little Shift could see, it looked like it lead to another, purely interior office space- probably a waiting room.  He couldn’t tell if it was one large waiting room, or three smaller ones. 

Shift, at least, had learned again from last time; because instead of just checking the three windows, he checked all around the building.  The front door was reinforced glass, and showed a hallway with doors down one side, presumably leading to the three offices.  The hallway ended in another door, this one metal, and not designed to be opened from the outside.  Probably a fire door.  There was no sign of a hostage, and no obvious place in the three visible offices to hide one.  The three offices were furnished identically- a desk, desk chair, two chairs on the other side of the desk, a book case, and a large potted plant.  The angle of the one open door wasn’t good enough to tell anything about the other room(s). 

I had no doubt that Puppy could tear the fire door open, and Dream Shadow could probably open it up without damage if given the chance.  Personally, I consider the loss of doors and windows to fall within ‘minimal collateral damage’, as long as the basic structures weren’t impacted, but I suppose that could be debatable.  The front door, being reinforced glass, I guess any of us could get through without much trouble.  I wondered if there was some nasty surprise on that door, though.  Or both doors, for that matter.

Neither Shift nor Puppy mentioned the guards hidden in the greenery, and no one had checked the roof.  The way the men were arranged, there was really no way, other than invisibility, that anyone could have snuck up on the building.  I could have snuck Flare close enough for her to spot a good landing spot for teleporting, but, like last time, that would have left her and (at most) one other person alone with four guards and likely reinforcements.  That would be even worse if Flare then left whoever she brought with her alone while she went back for someone else. 

Unless there was roof access (which no one had checked for), entry would have to be by one or both doors, or the windows. 

And, as usual, that was good enough for Stinger.  I was genuinely curious about what he was going to have us do, since there were several options, each with advantages and disadvantages.  Sending everybody in on one door would create a bottleneck, and give them the chance to escape (if that was what they wanted).  Dividing the team between the two doors still left the windows open.  Ignoring the doors in favor of the windows seemed like the best bet, especially since we didn’t know what we might find in the interior room(s).  But even then, three windows, leading to a total of twelve visible guards, plus the eight guards outside, plus whatever was on the roof.  (Riggs would be an idiot to not put something on the roof, right?) 

Thinking about it, if it were my choice, I’d sneak Flare up to the leftmost window, where she could see into the interior room.  Then have her teleport Stinger in there, since he’s our best ranged fighter.  I’d divide the rest of the team between the left and center window, and have them make entry at the same time Flare and Stinger teleported.  I’d have fixed the fire door so it couldn’t open (or at least, not easily) to eliminate that as an issue, and have Dream Shadow in the air to watch for either escapees or reinforcements. 

From there, I’d secure those two rooms, counting on Flare and Stinger to either secure their room or join the team in the leftmost office, then work our way down to the rightmost office.  Once that was secured, then we could search for the hostage, if they weren’t in the interior room(s). 

That would be my plan.  Ideally, I’d take out as many of the outside guards as I could before starting it, but they were all more-or-less in sight of each other, so doing it would only alert the inside guards.  Not a great plan, but the best I could come up with.  Something about the roof kept bugging me, though.  I wouldn’t do anything until I had checked it out. 

That’s what I would have done.  But what did Stinger do? 

Stinger sent Puppy, Sapphire, Dream Shadow, and Flare to the fire door, He, Shift, and I were on the front door, with Guardião behind us.  Again, Guardião was tasked with staying out of the fighting, and instead looking for the hostage.  (That part, at least, wasn’t such a bad plan.  Guardião’s disruption power is only useful against novas, and he really doesn’t like violence.  He’s much tougher than a baseline, but really doesn’t have any offensive capabilities.) 

Team Fire Door had no way of getting there without being in the open, and I could see Flare’s shoulders slump as they went.  She knew everything was about to go sideways.  For a second, I was annoyed.  If she knew this was a bad plan, why didn’t she say anything?  Then I had to laugh at myself, since I was doing the exact same thing.  Yup. I’m a hypocrite.

The rest of us got into position for a run at the front door.  I went invisible and immediately changed positions.  No need for me to be where the hidden guards had last seen me.  Guardião hung back enough that anyone targeting the group of us would be less likely to hit him.  Shift turned into a bear this time, and Stinger grabbed the front door handle. 

Which turned out to be electrified.  His yell was apparently the signal for Team Fire Door to come in, because Puppy ripped the door off its hinges.  If it was electrified too, Puppy didn’t yell about it.  I got the almost buzzy tingly feeling that I tend to get when I might be in danger.  Since Stinger was getting to his feet and Shift was trying to break down the door without touching anything metal, I took the chance to fly up and look at the roof. 

And right as I did, Team Garden opened fire.  So did Team Six Guys On The Roof.  But more important was what else I saw on the roof.  The ‘hostage’.  Handcuffed, with ankles ziptied together, and with a hood over his head.  Just lying there, in the middle of the roof, completely unguarded.  (The roof guys being engaged with shooting Team Front Door and Team Fire Door.)

Well, what else was I supposed to do?  Letting Stinger dig his own grave was one thing, but refusing to complete the task when the opportunity was handed to me was something else entirely.  I circled him once, looking for an ‘injury’ note (or even a real injury, though that didn’t seem likely).  Nothing.  So, I scooped him up, covered him with my own quantum field to make him invisible too, and flew off with him. 

I held onto him while I looked for Guardião, since he was supposed to be in charge of the hostage, and was best suited to taking care of him.  I found him plastered against the side of the building, under a tiny overhang, where he hadn’t been shot (yet).  I swooped down, told him to meet me by the exit to the training ground, and that I had the hostage.  He slunk into the bushes and I went to the point I’d specified.  As soon as he was far enough away from the shooting (paintballs again, luckily), I used my wrist walkie talkie to tell the others that I had the hostage and that there was no need to go into the building.  Guardião worked his way over to me a moment later, and I turned over the hostage to him.  Sapphire and Dream Shadow flew off immediately, since they hadn’t made it into the building at all yet.  Flare appeared nearby a moment later with Puppy, both of them having been shot several times.  Flare’s fire is really useful, but she’s limited in when she can activate it, since it causes damage, and can hurt someone if she needs to teleport with them.  Sapphire, as usual, had paint just dripping off of her with no effect.  Dream Shadow had been hit a couple of times, but nowhere vital.  The sound of shooting stopped.

We waited for Stinger and Shift.  And waited.  It suddenly occurred to me to wonder what happened to Shift’s stuff when he shapeshifted.  I know it didn’t fall to the ground.  And his bear form wasn’t wearing clothes.  Does it somehow get absorbed inside his body?  Could he hear the walkie talkie?  But even if he couldn’t, surely Stinger had. 

We waited.  Even though I knew I was doing exactly what Riggs wanted, I had to check on them.  I told the others what I was going to do, went invisible, flew around to come in from another angle, then came at the front door.  They’d gotten it open and I had to assume they were inside.  Thermal vision showed only two ghillie guards still outside, so I assumed the others had gone inside as well.  I flew near the ceiling and made my way inside.  Stinger and Shift were inside the first office.  Both of them down and not moving.  Shift was still a bear, but an immobile one.  Even though there was no way he could have fallen that way naturally, I was amused to see that he’d spread himself out like a bearskin rug.  Stinger was just down in a heap near the office door.  There were two additional guards in the room, along with two of the topiary brigade.  I didn’t know if Stinger was ‘captured’ or ‘killed’, but I was pretty sure Shift was ‘dead’.  I also noticed that Stinger wasn’t wearing his walkie talkie.  I withdrew without anybody noticing me and went back to the others. 

Back with the others, I asked Dream Shadow to yell for Riggs that the exercise was over- that we knew Stinger and Shift were down, and that we had the hostage.  She really does have a terrifying bellow on her, when she wants to. 

Riggs’ voice came over the loudspeaker instantly, calling an end to the whole debacle.

The rest was predictable.  Riggs read us the riot act for not learning from a nearly identical previous experience.  No need to rehash all that again.

This time, he (sarcastically) praised Shift for actually learning from (some of) his previous mistakes.  He praised him for getting the door open without being electrocuted, and for choosing a more effective form.  Of course, he also bawled him out for getting killed.  Again. 

Sapphire and Dream Shadow he more-or-less ignored, since they ended up having minimal involvement and didn’t get hit often enough to be a major problem.  Flare was criticized for knowing better and going along with the nonsensical plan anyway, Puppy for damaging the wall when he pulled the door open.  (It turned out he’d pulled the entire door frame out, rather than just breaking the lock.  Ooops.)  And of course, they both were yelled at for getting shot.  A lot. 

Guardião got the only unmitigated praise.  He avoided getting shot, did what he was told, and took charge of the hostage.  Good job.  (I’m not really sure what Lt. Riggs thinks of Guardião.  Does he hold him in contempt for being anti-violence?  I’m pretty sure he thinks Guardião is soft, but does he think he’s too soft?  Or is there maybe a little respect for Guardião’s understanding of his own limits and working within them?  Or maybe military people just always feel some kind of way about medic-types?  I don’t know, but I’d like to.)

I’d expected Stinger to get reamed.  And he’d have deserved it.  But Riggs just gave him a disgusted look and said nothing, which was somehow so much worse.

My turn.  Riggs yelled at me for not pointing out the flaws in Stinger’s plan.  For not insisting on scouting.  For not making suggestions.  Basically, for not taking over.  He insisted that if I had made sure somebody took a look at the roof, the whole exercise could have been basically avoided.  I let him talk, without being bothered by it in the least.  He finally wound down, and asked me why I hadn’t done better, especially after being yelled at for not participating better during the first exercise I’d been part of.

I just looked him in the eye, and told him, very quietly, that he knew why.  And that was it.  I could feel the others looking at me, but there wasn’t much else I could say.  There wasn’t much else he could say, either.  Not without opening up a whole other set of problems.

We retired to our usual garden spot for discussion, and I asked Shift about what happened to his stuff when he changed.  He said that he didn’t really know.  That it went somewhere, maybe somewhere inside himself, and came back right where it was supposed to be when he changed back.  The stuff wasn’t damaged, even when he got hurt in places where the ‘stuff’ should have been, but he couldn’t use the stuff while it was... wherever it went. 

I was not going to ask Stinger why he hadn’t worn his walkie talkie.  Hell would have frozen over before I asked him.  Anybody else, I would have.  But not Stinger.  (Plus, I was a little embarrassed not to have noticed that he wasn’t wearing it in the first place.  I should have.)  Flare had no such inhibitions.  She demanded to know why he wasn’t wearing it.  If he had been, he would have known to pull out, and he and Shift might not have been killed. 

He told her that it was none of her business, and that he didn’t think it was right to wear ‘outside equipment’ during a training exercise.  When the others just stared at him, he turned red and stomped off.  It put a damper on the evening. 

Flare and I exchanged looks, and I think we were both thinking the same thing.  This isn’t working.  But I’m still determined not to take over.  Stinger can go right on failing, as far as I’m concerned.  If the others are smart, they can learn a lot of what not to do from these exercises. 

In a way, it was a good thing the ‘decompress’ session broke up early.  It meant I didn’t have to leave early for my aikido lesson.

Chapter Text

Saturday, January 24

I took the SAT today.  I’d taken a couple of practice tests since I erupted, and had done a lot better than the practice tests I took before.  So, I wasn’t really expecting any trouble.  And the test wasn’t being given at my old high school, so no drama needed.  There were a few of my former classmates taking the same test, but the room was huge and there wasn’t much time for talking. 

The test itself was pretty easy, but the structure made it kinda a pain.  When I took the practice tests, they were timed, but when you finished one section, you could go right on and start the timer for the next section.  So I was able to knock it out in a little under an hour and a half.  This time, I had to stick with the allotted times, no matter when I finished.  Since I was also doing the essay part, the whole thing took about four hours.  Ick. 

Oh well.  I know I need to take both the SAT and ACT for college, and I might as well get them both over with ASAP.  I should get my score back somewhere around February 20th.  If my practice tests are any indication, I won’t have to take it again. 

Chapter Text

Monday, January 26

Classes are continuing.  ‘World Hotspots’ goes on, and I pay attention more from habit than interest.  I think I’m hitting my stride on Japanese, and not having to search for every word.  (At least, I can form simple sentences, anyway.  If the person I’m speaking with talks slow enough.)

The tactical exercises continue as well, but the patterns are pretty well developed, enough that continuing to write about them is getting repetitive.  If something unusual happens, I’ll make a note of it.  Stinger is still butt-hurt, and apparently even more butt-hurt by my not being bothered about it.  Oh well. 

I tried to help Stinger, which turned out to be a mistake.  I suggested to Lt. Riggs that he help Stinger, which he can’t or won’t do.  (Or maybe he’s already tried, and given up?  Maybe.)  Flare, Guardião, and Sapphire don’t want leadership any more than I do.  Puppy is unqualified, no matter how great a person he is, and Shift is... immature.  Both of them are followers, which is fine.  Hourglass is uninvolved.  That leaves... Dream Shadow.  She keeps so much to herself, but it’s clear she has hidden talents.  Maybe Riggs should be looking at her for team leader? 

Oh well.  Not my problem.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, January 29

It felt strange to be home in the middle of the week, but I have court today.  The mugger, Dylan Martens, was pleading ‘not guilty’ to aggravated robbery, possession of methamphetamine, public intoxication, possession of a deadly weapon while on probation, and a couple of other minor charges.  I wasn’t sure why they bothered with the minor stuff, when they had bigger crimes to deal with, but I found out that the prosecutor piles things on to give more room for a plea deal, as well as to make it more likely to get a conviction for something, even if the person somehow gets acquitted of the main crime.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Jess and Alejandra were there as well, but since we were all witnesses, we weren’t allowed to talk to each other.  Either Martens hadn’t thought of suing me for breaking his arm, or he’s waiting to see how this trial goes, because I was just there as a witness. 

The only experience I’d ever had with court was watching The People’s Court on TV, so the whole thing was interesting.  I hadn’t been involved with most of the early parts of the case- arraignment, plea bargaining, etc.  The prosecutor had met with me a couple of times to go over my testimony, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to say.  He basically told me to answer any question I was asked as briefly as possible, not to lie (duh), and otherwise not to volunteer anything. 

They did all the court stuff you see on TV, then they started calling witnesses.  (All the witnesses were kept outside the court room, but I could still hear every word.)  They called Jess first, and she told what happened, from her perspective.  Because she’d been so shaken up after, and not wanted to talk about it, I’d never actually heard how it started (I’d been a little behind the girls answering a text message). 

Apparently, Marten had been walking in our direction, away from The Diner, sorta jostled Jess, then grabbed her while she was off-balance and threatened her with the knife to get her and Alejandra to give him their wallets and stuff.  Jess got really emotional as she told what happened.  It was weird and a little sad the things that really stood out in her memory- like the way the guy smelled: a sweet, chemical smell, mixed with B.O. and bad breath.  She remembered that that knife was dirty, too, and so were his fingernails.  And the he had on a coat ‘like the angel on Supernatural’. 

I wish I hadn’t been able to hear the fear still in her voice.  And when she cried. 

Alejandra didn’t cry.  She was mad, and it showed.  She basically told the same story, but included how she’d wanted to go after the guy, but was afraid he’d hurt Jess if she did. 

Then, it was my turn.  I answered the questions (see my entry on Friday, October 31, 2008 for the story), and otherwise kept my mouth shut.  There were a lot of things I was surprised that the prosecutor didn’t ask, but of course he knows what he’s doing.  The defense tried to make out like I was some kind of violent vigilante, and that I’d responded with excessive force, but he couldn’t make any of that stick. 

After I was dismissed, Mr. Li testified.  His statement was all about my contract, how I was a Utopian employee, and incidental ‘crime fighting and public safety engagement’ was part of my job. 

Dylan Martens took the stand in his own defense, and I can’t begin to understand why his lawyer let him.  His story was basically that he’d innocently asked Jess for money and the I had attacked him.  The prosecutor ripped him apart.

After all the witnesses were called, the prosecutor played a bunch of videos that I could only hear and not see.  He said the first one was from a traffic camera nearby, but that one had no audio, so I have no idea what it showed.  Then came several people’s recordings they’d taken from inside The Diner.  Those didn’t have useful audio, either, since they were taken inside.  But the people inside’s commentary was funny, and a little cringe.  Several of them were laughing about how I was wearing a pink kawaii Leviathan costume.  Some of them thought I had an actual stun gun (apparently the zap of contact made an unusually large spark), while others were sure I was generating the electricity myself.  One guy actually tried to start up a betting pool. </facepalm>

That took up most of the day, and the court recessed until tomorrow.  The witnesses were all required to come back tomorrow, and to not communicate between now and then.  Too bad, I would have liked to touch base with Jess and Alejandra, but it makes sense why we can’t.

Chapter Text

Thursday, January 30 (Court, cont.)

Back in court again,  This time, they went right into closing arguments.  Then the judge gave the jury some specific information about some laws concerning the actions of novas ‘engaged in Good Samaritan activity or otherwise acting in the interest of public safety’ (basically, that we can’t be held responsible for anything but the most excessive collateral damage or injury), then sent them off to deliberate. 

I had no idea how long that was supposed to take, or whether it taking longer was a good thing or a bad thing.  On the one hand, Martens was obviously guilty, and deserves to be punished for what he did.  On the other hand, addiction is a disease, and he needs help.  On the third hand, a person needing help isn’t enough- he has to want help, and I’m not at all sure Martens does.  On a fourth hand (the maximum number of hands my Leviathan costume allows), Martens didn’t target Jess and Alejandra personally- they just happened to be there.  I don’t think he’s likely to go after either of them again.  But I do think he’s likely to try and rob other people if he’s let go. 

The jury was out for about an hour and a half.  That seems like both a long time, and a really short time.  A long time, because it was obvious that Martens was guilty.  What took so long?  A short time, because they were basically deciding on a man’s future.  That’s a big thing, even if the right choice is obvious.

The jury came back and gave their verdict.  Guilty on all charges except public intoxication.  Apparently, something had gone wrong with the test for that, or the submission of the test into evidence, or something.  Oh well.  That was one of the minor ones anyway. 

And that was that.  Sentencing would be next month (I only thought I was finished with this).  I didn’t know witnesses got paid for their testimony.  I guess it makes sense, if they had to take off work, or something, but it still feels weird. 

I looked up the charges Dylan Martens was actually convicted on.  Even assuming the judge does a concurrent sentence rather than a consecutive one, he could be facing twenty years in prison.  Only about twenty percent of prisons have effective drug rehab programs. I feel like it would be an insult to Jess and Alejandra to argue for lenient sentencing, but maybe I could offer some kind of plea for him to go to a prison with a good program?

I had time before my aikido lesson, and the girls were happy to hang out after we got out of court.  Monique was still in class, but we texted her to meet up after school.  We headed for Jungle Rapids Family Fun Park.  Even with the water park part being closed for winter, there was still mini golf, laser tag, bumper cars, and a huge arcade. 

We played mini golf until Monique was able to join us, then she wanted to play laser tag. I hadn’t thought I was getting any better with all the shooting I’d been doing (because I wasn’t making any actual effort at improvement), but I guess even half-assed practice helps, because I won two out of three games (and had to cheat a little not to win the third).  Then we hit the arcade and I remembered how much I like skeeball. 

We bummed around until it was time for my lesson.  It was a good day, overall. 

Chapter Text

Tuesday, February 3

Well!  Today’s class was exciting!  We started a new unit on ‘World Diplomacy’ yesterday.  It might as well have been subtitled ‘How Not to Make an Ass of Yourself in Foreign Countries’.  Everyone was in this class, instead of being split into our usual two ‘pods’, and I soon found out why.  This was a class I was genuinely interested in, since I want to travel, and would rather not be rude without meaning to be.  So I would have sat up and taken notice regardless.  But today was special for another reason.  Geisha, from Team Tomorrow Asia/Pacific, was a guest speaker! 

It makes sense that the world’s greatest diplomat would be the best person to instruct a bunch of kid novas in etiquette (doubly so since Shift and Puppy were... less than attentive to yesterday’s class).  Geisha can make anyone pay attention to her, and I’m pretty sure she could get anyone to do just about anything, just by asking them to.  The boys certainly didn’t cut up and goof off around her. 

On the other hand, she’s the world’s greatest diplomat.  Surely she has better things to do than teach us.  Maybe it’s just part of her charm, but it seemed like she was unusually focused on me.  But she probably makes everyone feel that way.  It’s probably nothing. 

She spent most of the session talking about etiquette, and politeness, and making a good first impression; breaking things down into broad cultural groups.  But she also spent the last few minutes talking about Team Tomorrow, and how they were always on the lookout for up and coming novas, and how all of us were being watched with enthusiasm as we developed our abilities. 

At the time, I was hanging all over her words, like everyone else.  I really think if she’d produced a T2M contract, I might have signed up!  <shudder>  That woman could sell iceberg lettuce to a polar bear.  The others were all hanging on her words just like I was. 

It was only after another disappointing tactical exercise that I was able to shake off her influence.  I’m still not going to join T2M.  And now I know to be careful around Geisha.  I don’t think she’d actually force me into doing something I don’t want to, but what she does is so subtle.  I wonder if her own powers work on herself?

She’s going to come back tomorrow as well, so I’ll see if being ‘on guard’ helps me not fall in with whatever she wants.  Whatever social whammy Alex had to make himself seem so interesting is nothing to what Geisha can do. 

Chapter Text

Wednesday, February 4

Geisha came back today, and while the discussion of etiquette and diplomacy was genuinely interesting, there were a lot more overt references to Team Tomorrow and our future.  I was prepared this time, and ready to actively resist her ‘come hither’. 

Results were... mixed.  At no point did I lose sight of my unwillingness to join T2M.  At no point did I agree with what she was saying about our future.  I was absolutely clear about that the whole time.  And yet, regardless of my feelings, I found myself agreeing with her, discussing the future along with the others, and generally going along.  If anything, that felt worse.  Yesterday, I was excited and enthused in the moment, only coming back to ‘normal’ later.  This time, I was entirely in charge of my own mind and opinions, but still not in control of my emotions.  Knowing something is wrong and going along anyway feels much worse than (temporarily) forgetting that it’s wrong in the first place. 

And I’m still not sure that she’s even doing it deliberately!  Everything I’ve ever read about her touts her sense of personal honor and the need to ‘do the right thing’, which would imply that manipulating people against their will would be something she’d avoid doing.  She’s been using her power for so long now, and it’s so subtle, does she always know when she’s doing it?  Can she even turn it off?

And, what if everything I’ve read about her sense of honor is simply public relations propaganda?  Isn’t diplomacy ultimately about forcing people/groups/nations to do things they don’t want to do, for the greater good?  If she’s willing to manipulate governments for ‘the greater good’, why wouldn’t she be willing to manipulate individuals, again for ‘the greater good’?  And if she genuinely believes in Utopia’s goals, then wouldn’t their goals be her ‘greater good’? 

It’s not like I can ask her if she’s manipulating us.  It’s obvious that she is.  It’s less obvious whether she’s using her powers to do it.  Being the ‘world’s greatest diplomat’ means that she’s amazing at what she does, even without powers.  She could probably wrap us around her finger without channeling quantum at all.  So asking her, “Hey, are you manipulating us into doing the thing that we’re all supposedly here to do anyway, and are you using your powers to do it?” would not only be incredibly rude, there’s no way I could trust whatever answer I got.  I’d just be drawing more attention to myself by asking. 

I’m an idiot.  I just realized that I can figure out if she’s using her powers on us- though not whether she’s doing it on purpose.  My buzzy tingly sense.  When she comes back tomorrow, I’ll check.  If I can remember to do it once she’s there.

Chapter Text

Thursday, February 5

Geisha is using a power on us.  I don’t have any way of knowing what it is, and I can’t be sure she’s doing it deliberately, but she’s definitely doing it.  I had my buzzy tingly sense on full alert in class today, and the moment she started talking about Team Tomorrow and our futures, my senses went off.  It didn’t happen during the first part of the session- when she was talking about diplomacy and etiquette in China.  It only started during the T2M discussion.  And even knowing what was happening, I still wanted to go along with her while she was talking! 

I really don’t see that there’s anything I can do about it, though, other than avoiding her.  And it’s not like I can pretend to be sick and skip class, LoL. 

I’m still not picking up on Arabic as quickly as I think I should be, but Japanese is really starting to click.  I know I’m nowhere near ready to go over there, but… I really want to.  Or maybe I just really want to get away from the Academy.  Being away for two extra days reinforced just how isolated and artificial this place is. 

As far as the tactical exercises, it’s still more of the same.  Variations on rescues, take-downs, assaults on buildings.  Stinger is in charge, and while we accomplish the basic goal most of the time, it’s rarely without team ‘casualties’ or failing at secondary goals (such as ‘minimal collateral damage’).  Every time, Stinger makes a crappy plan.  Every time, I obey him until something happens to make further obedience pointless or suicidal, and every time, Lt. Riggs gives us a detailed breakdown of how we screwed up.  I offer no advice, accept being yelled at, and generally just put in the minimum effort- unless presented with an unavoidable opportunity to end the misery early, which I then take, making things even more tense between Stinger and I.

It almost seems like a weird battle of wills between Lt. Riggs and I.  He keeps expecting me to take over, and tries to manipulate things to force the issue, I keep (mostly) passively resisting.  I feel bad for Stinger, being caught in the middle of it.  It isn’t his fault that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but it is his fault that he isn’t learning when given ample opportunity. 

At least my aikido lessons are going well.  Sensei Laura says I can test for 5th Kyu next Thursday.

Chapter Text

Saturday, February 7

Geisha stayed with our class for the entire week, but won’t be back next week.  Now that I’m away from her in both time and distance, I really hope I never run into her again.  Don’t get me wrong, she’s an amazing person (but is she? Really?), but I can’t trust anything I feel around her.  And that’s terrifying.

I took the ACT today, with the essay, so the whole thing took about four hours.  Like the SAT, I’d done the practice tests before, so I knew what to expect and wasn’t worried.  And after the SAT, I knew to expect the long periods of inactivity after each section.  The ACT was a lot easier than the SAT, but I didn’t see any of my former classmates there.  I should get my score around March 7th. 

After the test, I spent time with Rocío, and told him about my experience with Geisha.  Neither of us came out and said anything, but I think we both understood that he would be passing it on to The Count.  (I assume ‘S’ is still reading this, and passing on what he thinks needs to be passed on.) 

OH, I AM, HEKA.  NOT TO WORRY.  YOU AREN’T ALONE, EVEN IF WE’RE KEEPING CONTACT TO A MINIMUM.

~S

After, we went and saw this new movie called Push, about young people with powers (not novas) on the run from a nefarious government agency.  A really good movie, but I can’t help but wonder if we might not have been watching our own future.  All it would take was for major world governments to decide that novas are dangerous, and need to either work for the government or be… removed.  Some governments are already heading in that direction. 

Definitely something to keep an eye on.  And really, the way Utopia works, it might as well be a government.  It already has weirdly broad government oversight powers, and no real checks on its own power.  More and more, it seems like Rocío and I are in sync on how we think about these things. 

I looked at the Heka’s Home forum while I at home.  I’d uploaded some of the pictures from Sapphire’s photoshoot a few days ago, and the forum went nuts for them.  They wanted to know all about the other novas, and more about what we did all day.  I kept it all fairly vague, not wanting to break confidences (or NDAs), but the conversations are still ongoing, which was nice. 

What was less nice was a private message I got through the forum.  From Watch_th3_Skys.  Pictures of a couple of the places we’d been in the photos.  I wasn’t in them, obviously, but this was the first time he(?) reached out to me directly rather than making public posts.  And he was making it very clear that he’d followed me to Roanoke. 

I took some time to check Google Earth.  Although I know exactly where the Academy is, it isn’t exactly marked on Google Earth, or any other publicly-available satellite mapping tool.  Not exactly.  The location of the Academy is covered by a black box.  So anyone could find out exactly where it is.  They just can’t see the actual grounds that way.  So, if WtS decides to show up, there’s really nothing to stop him.  The main gate is open pretty much all the time- anyone could enter campus.  You need a key fob for the buildings, but even then, peeking in windows is a thing.

I wonder if I should bring it up to the Academy.  WtS has definitely crossed the line into ‘stalker’ behavior, both with making direct contact and with following me across state lines.  But, who would I tell?  Lt. Riggs?  Linda in Admin?  Maybe I could tell the other kids, and do it someplace where I’m sure we’ll be overheard.  They deserve to know, at the very least.  And then they could keep an eye out for strangers around campus.  Just because I’m pretty sure we’re being recorded nearly 24/7, that doesn’t necessarily mean someone is actively listening to those recordings.  So it might be days, weeks, or never before anyone in Utopia hears about it. 

Part of me wants to respond to WtS’s PM.  Part of me wants to ignore the whole thing.  Depending on what kind of stalker he is, any kind of response might only encourage him and make things worse.  I think, for now, I’ll just ignore him.  I can always change my mind later, but I can’t undo any response that I might choose to make.

Chapter Text

Monday, February 9

Geisha’s time with us is up, but Lt. Riggs didn’t take over again.  Instead, the rest of the unit will be assorted baseline diplomats coming in to discuss their areas of expertise.  By now, I know the others well enough to be pretty sure that at least some of them wouldn’t be paying attention to this stuff.  Puppy has a relatively short attention span for a lot of things.  Shift has ‘class clown’ energy, unless whatever is going on is really engaging.  And Sapphire either doesn’t care about this stuff or thinks she already knows everything she needs to about it.  Stinger, of course, makes it his duty to be a perfect student, and the others are usually pretty good about paying attention. 

But no.  Everybody was absolutely attentive.  No goofing off from Shift.  No drifting off from Puppy.  No bored inattention from Sapphire.  You’d have thought our entire lives depended on what these people were telling us (today was about India and the dangers of nova cults.)  Is this proof of Geisha’s lingering influence?  I can’t help but think it is.

Today’s tactical was unusual, so I’ll describe it a little.  It was a relay race.  Sorta.  We were divided onto two teams, but this time we had to choose our own teams.  Stinger was captain of one team, of course.  Riggs made me captain of the other, over my protests.  We were given no insight over what we would be required to do before we chose teams, so there was no way to choose people for the tasks at hand.  (Which I’m sure was part of the point.)  I wanted Flare, Shift, and Guardião, to cover as many bases as possible. 

Stinger offered to flip a coin for first choice, but I just told him to go ahead and pick first.  He chose Flare, which I guess isn’t too surprising.  She’s got a good head on her shoulders.  I took a chance that Stinger wasn’t as interested in Guardião, so I chose Shift first.  Then Stinger chose Puppy and I got Guardião.  He took Sapphire, and I got Dream Shadow. 

I was pretty happy, overall.  Flare and Stinger are the fastest runners, I’m the fastest flier, Flare can get places either instantly or not at all.  Puppy is crazy strong, but Dream Shadow and I together should be able to handle anything strength-based that comes up.  I was glad for Dream Shadow’s stealth, and considered Shift a great general-purpose pick. 

We were taken into a different part of the woods, deeper than we’d been before.  Then we were split up into our teams and each given a list.  The ‘race’ was almost like a scavenger hunt.  Eight little rings had been hidden in four different areas.  Each ring would make a low beep and dim flash of light, to make them easier to find.  Each team could go after the rings in whatever order they chose, but couldn’t go find the next ring until the current ring was returned.  One set of rings was hidden in the river, one was hidden in a bear’s den, one in a heavily forested ravine, and the final set was hidden in an abandoned coal mine.  (WTF?!?!?!?)  Each team had to send one member to retrieve each ring.  Once we had them all, we were to return to where Riggs had parked the truck.  The first team back, won.

Wow.  Ok.  Well, who to send on which mission was the first thing to decide.  The coal mine was the most dangerous, so I decided to take that one myself.  Shift and I (assuming he took an appropriate form) were the only ones who could handle prolonged exposure to the river in February, so I sent him to the river, suggesting an otter form, but leaving it up to him.  He went running off.

That left Guardião and Dream Shadow to deal with the ravine and the bear.  There were advantages to sending either of them to either spot.  The ravine was a larger space, and Dream Shadow could cover the distance more effectively, plus, her wings would be a hinderance in the enclosed space of a bear den.  Guardião was best able to deal with the bear (or more specifically, what the bear would do to him if it woke up), but he would also be able to move around under the ravine’s canopy without an issue, while Dream Shadow would be more comfortable staying above it.  On the other hand, Dream Shadow was much sneakier than Guardião (even though he’s remarkably good at not being noticed), so she had a better chance of the bear not noticing her in the first place. 

We dicussed it a little, and I let them decide for themselves.  Dream Shadow would take the ravine, and Guardião the bear’s den.  I figured the bear, being a smaller space, wouldn’t take as long, so Guardião would go out as soon as Shift came back.  Then Dream Shadow, then me.

About thirty minutes passed, and a hawk came flying up to us with a ring in its talons.  As soon as Shift hit the ground, Guardião went off for the bear’s den. 

Shift explained that he’d gone into the river as a bull shark, since he figured that the rings must have an electrical pulse if they were making noise and lights, and a shark could sense that.  Once he got close enough, he switched to otter form to get the ring away from where it was attached to the river bottom.  Then it was a simple matter of flying back (and he only got lost once, and that not for long).  I congratulated him and told him how well he’d done.  I’d certainly never have thought of a shark. 

It took Guardião longer to come back, but then he had to travel overland, so that was to be expected.  He said that he’d found the bear’s den, with bear included.  There were two rings there, one dangling from a thread tied to a root sticking out of the den’s ceiling, and the other actually between the (hibernating) bear’s paws.  He went for the one between the paws, since he didn’t want to put whoever came for the other ring at more risk. 

Dream Shadow had taken off before she even heard Guardião’s story, and she came back a lot faster than I’d expected.  It turned out that the ravine rings were both hidden in the canopy.  Pretty easy for a flier to find and recover, but a big problem for anyone on the ground.  I hoped (for Stinger’s sake) that he sent Sapphire after that one, but Dream Shadow said no, that as she was flying back, she saw Puppy climbing down into the ravine. 

This was the first we’d seen or heard of the others, other than the presence of both rings in the bear den indicating that Stinger’s team hadn’t been there yet.  I assumed they’d already collected their river ring, since Shift only saw his, and it seems like the two rings were pretty close to each other in each spot.  So, we can be pretty sure Stinger’s team has the river ring, doesn’t have the bear ring, and probably doesn’t have the ravine ring (yet). 

Regardless, it was my turn.  Now, I’m pretty sure that nothing really bad can happen to me in an abandoned mine, no matter how dangerous it is.  I’m tough enough to deal with falling rocks, and I don’t need to breathe.  So even if the mine collapsed, it probably wouldn’t kill me, and if I couldn’t get out, then I’d just wait for help. 

Accordingly, I had my team switch their wrist walkie talkies (was Stinger wearing his?) to a different channel, just in case.  I told them that if I didn’t check in within an hour, try to contact me.  If the mine blocked the signal, then wait.  If I hadn’t come back in three hours, screw the exercise, come check on the mine, but don’t follow me in.  If anything seems wrong, or I’m gone for a full four hours, go get Lt. Riggs.  Screw the exercise, at that point. They agreed and I flew off. 

I dropped a GPS tag on the mine when I got there, just in case. Then, in I went.

Now, I’ve never been afraid of the dark.  And while my mother never specifically taught me not to play around abandoned mine shafts, she didn’t need to.  And as good as my vision is, once I’d made a couple of dog legs, all the light from the entrance was gone.  Pitch black.  As soon as the last of the light failed, I started counting my steps.  I figured that, and memorizing the turns, would help me find my way back out.  Once I was in the dark, I stopped moving, and stopped breathing, and just listened. 

Sure enough, I could hear a beeping.  It was really faint.  But more importantly, I could hear someone else moving around.  Since it was wildly improbable that some random stranger had decided to explore an abandoned mine shaft in the dark, I had to assume it was someone from Stinger’s team.  I was surprised by how quickly Puppy must have found his ring, but then I realized that he must have called all the animals in the area to help him look.  Makes sense.  But I would have thought Stinger would have sent him to the bear.  Oh well. 

It would make the most sense for whoever was here with me to be Flare, since she could teleport out if anything went wrong.  It was probably safer for her to be here than anyone else, including me.  Then again, if Stinger judged this to be the most dangerous leg of the ‘race’, then he would have put himself on it, just like I did.  I might not think much of him as a leader, but that’s the kind of leadership he’s genuinely great at.  (Not that I’m calling myself a good leader for doing the same thing, LoL.) 

There was no point in trying to sneak around, so I just called out.  Whoever it was froze, then shuffled toward me.  I dropped another GPS tag where I was, just in case, and kept talking, letting the other person come to me. 

It turned out to be Stinger.  Awkward.  It seemed that he’d entered the mine a few minutes before I did, but hadn’t been able to find the ring yet, since he had no way to see in the dark and had gotten turned around.  I really wanted to ask him how he planned on finding his way out, but I didn’t.  Instead, I told him that I could hear the beeping, and we could stick together and probably find the rings near each other. 

He didn’t like it, but didn’t have much other choice.  So I kept counting steps and tracking the sound.  It took a few minutes.  The mine had a lot of echoes, and I didn’t want to risk confusing myself with backtracking.  But eventually we found the rings.  One was lodged in a crack, the other up on a ledge near the ceiling.  We each took one and were ready to head back out. 

Ok, I’m pretty.  I gave him the chance to go first.  And he had to admit that he had no idea how to get out.  I did not say anything snarky.  But my silence might have spoken for me.  I took the lead, retraced the turns, and counted steps back out.  Once we got back outside, I could see that he wasn’t wearing his walkie talkie.  Oh well.  You can lead a horse to water.  But seriously, what would he have done if whoever had been on my team had done this task first???  Shift could have sniffed him out easily enough, and we all could have come together as a team to get him out, but really….

I offered to stay together until we had to split up to get back to our respective meeting points, but Stinger declined.  Just as well.  I don’t feel bad about winning this game, and I don’t see how my team can lose at this point.  Even if he was the last person on his team, I can still get back to mine faster than he can get to his. So once I was out of sight of him, I flew back to our meet point with the fourth ring.  I scooped up Guardião, Shift turned back into a hawk, and we all flew back to Riggs. 

And waited. I had assumed that Stinger was the last person in his team, but either he wasn’t, or they were having a hard time getting back to Riggs. 

Nearly an hour and a half later, they made their way back to the truck.  On the way back to campus, we learned that Stinger had assigned Sapphire to the river, since while she still had to breathe, her sapphire form could handle the cold water with no problems, and her enhanced senses could hear the rings over the water noises.  (A good choice.)  Puppy had, in fact called in all his animal friends and found his ring in the ravine really quickly.  (So that turned out to be a good choice, too, though I still think I would have sent him after the bear.)  Stinger, I already knew about, and the less said, the better. 

Flare was last, being sent to the bear’s den as soon as Stinger made it back.  She got in easily enough, but the bear must have moved in it’s sleep, because the thread holding the ring had broken, and the ring was then actually leaning against the bear’s sleeping nose.  She’d tried to ease the ring away with a stick, but hadn’t been able to get a good angle, so eventually she just had to snatch it and bolt.  Then everybody had to make their way back on foot, since Sapphire couldn’t carry anybody for very long, and Flare could only take one person with her when she teleported. 

I was just as glad that Lt. Riggs hadn’t said anything about a prize for the winners this time, since our team clearly won, and I wouldn’t have felt right about enjoying something when the others couldn’t. 

When we got back and had our usual post-tactical hangout, I told everyone about Watch_th3_Skys stalking me, and the pictures he’d sent of the places we’d been in Roanoke.  Responses were... mixed.  Everyone expressed concern that I’m being stalked, like you’d expect.  But Sapphire took it in stride, like it was no big deal.  Of course, with her being an influencer, maybe she’s had experience being stalked before.  I’ll have to ask her about that. 

Puppy was very concerned for my safety, but utterly failed to make the connection that anyone else might potentially be at risk.  Shift was fired up to go find him, wherever (and whoever) he was.  Dream Shadow and Guardião didn’t say much, with Guardião simply advising me to be careful when traveling alone.  Flare got my meaning right away.  If he could stalk me, there was no reason he couldn’t expand his efforts to include some or all of us.  And she was definitely nervous about it. 

Stinger looked annoyed, like this was somehow my fault, and I was making trouble for the group.  I suppose on some level, he has a point.  If I hadn’t come to the Academy, neither would WtS.  If I wasn’t a (minor) public figure, this probably wouldn’t have happened.  But stalking isn’t one of those things where blaming the victim is okay (not that that’s ever okay), and Stinger should know that.  Oh well. 

We all agreed to be mindful of any strangers we happened to see around campus or in the woods, and otherwise see how things developed.

Chapter Text

Thursday, February 12

It took until today for Geisha’s lingering influence to wear off.  At least, I assume that’s why Shift was cutting up again, and Puppy and Sapphire back to not paying attention.  Good to know there’s an expiration date on her power, at least when she’s not around. 

I had my test for Fifth Kyu with Sensei Laura, and we all passed.  That one training exercise aside, I still think it’s going to be a long time before I know enough to really be confident using this stuff in real life, but I still think that I’m better off avoiding situations where I’d need to use it, so that’s mostly okay. 

When I stopped off at home to visit the cats, I had a letter from the SAT people.  My scores were in early.  1592 out of 1600!  Well, then.  I don’t think there’s much point in taking it again, just to try and pick up those last few points.  While I’ll still need to wait for my ACT score before I start actively applying to places, I think it’s time to really start narrowing down which colleges I want to apply for. 

I left the score report on the table for Mom, and headed back to campus.  Everyone else had already settled in for the night, so I was able to start researching universities.  My main requirement was a strong education program, with either an accompanying graduate program, or a good enough reputation to make it that much more likely that I’d be admitted to a good graduate program.  Secondary concerns included the school being in a large city (bigger than Wilmington, at least), with a large, diverse student body.  A lot of social opportunities would be good too.  At this point, there’s no place in the continental US that I can’t fly to and from fairly easily, so location isn’t a big deal, but I would like a place far enough away to really feel like I’m ‘on my own’.  Cost isn’t really a concern (and don’t I feel weird writing that), between the likelihood of scholarships and Utopia being obligated to cover my costs. 

After a few hours of research, I think I’ve narrowed it down to two: UCLA Berkeley, and Vanderbilt.  Both have strong programs.  Both have a lot of social opportunities.  Both have solid connections for graduate school.  Nashville isn’t quite as big a city as I would have liked, but it’s way bigger than Wilmington, and that’s good enough. The most direct path to Berkeley from Wilmington takes me over Kansas, but detouring around there won’t add more than a few minutes to my flight.  And that’s without taking into account my hope that Flare will teach me to teleport.

Once I get my ACT scores, then I’ll reach out to both schools and see what the process looks like.  I never thought I would wish for a proper high school guidance counsellor, but I could use one right about now.  No way I’d approach Dr. Thompkins, even ‘off the clock’, though.  I don’t think he had any direct involvement with the school and Utopia screwing me over, but he certainly made no effort to advocate for me. 

Chapter Text

Wednesday, February 18 

It feels odd to have skipped an entire week of journaling, but really, nothing new has happened.  Diplomacy and Etiquette is a long unit, and Shift, Puppy, and Sapphire have gone back to their old ways now that Geisha isn’t there to keep them engaged.  The tacticals have been more of the usual rescues or assaults, with the same results.

I was actually sorry to miss class today, since I’m really enjoying this unit, but I had to be back in court for Dylan Martens’ sentencing.  This time, all the witnesses and everyone were in the courtroom, so I was able to watch as well as listen. 

There was a brief recap of the case, then both sides presented their arguments.  The witnesses were allowed to speak on how what Martens did impacted their lives.  I wasn’t given an opportunity to express my wish for him to be forced (if need be) into a prison rehab program.  Then there was a recess, and the sentence was given out.  He got seven years and some fines.  Seven years, out of a possible twenty plus, seems reasonable to me.  The fines, not so much.  Not that he doesn’t deserve fines or other punishments.  But how is he going to pay them?  If he had money, he wouldn’t have been trying to rob people in the first place.  And now that he has a record, the likelihood of his getting a good job after prison is nil.  So I don’t see how he’s ever going to get out from under that. 

I looked up the prison he’s going to be sent to.  It has a drug rehab program, technically.  But from what I can tell, it isn’t very good, or effective.  There’s definitely nothing in the way of structured therapy or support. 

It doesn’t look good for Dylan Martens.  Part of me feels a kind of satisfaction and even glee- someone tried to hurt my friend, and that someone is being punished.  And I had a a hand in that.  On the other hand, his life is basically ruined.  And I had a hand in that. 

Court didn’t take long, and I probably should have gone back to campus after.  But I didn’t.  I wanted to be alone to think.  So, I went home, loved on the cats, dropped off my Utopia communicator, and went back to space. 

Obviously, without Nebula, I couldn’t go to the Moon, but orbit was good enough.  And without Nebula, I was able to go faster and stay as long as I wanted.  I spent almost three hours up there (enough to see the space station go by underneath me, twice), just thinking.  About people.  And crime.  And prison. And people.  And punishment.  And what comes after.  And people. 

Martens’ life is over.  And I can’t help thinking that baseline society was stacked against him from the start.  That doesn’t mean that he isn’t responsible for his actions- he made every choice that led him to this.  But if society was different....  Baseline social structure, if it improves at all, improves at a snail’s pace.  Even with the near elimination of famine, the cleaning of the environment, and the cure of so many diseases, there’s still systemic inequality.  All those improvements to society have come from novas.  But we aren’t allowed to help with the things that are at the root of everything: people.  I guess, on one level, that’s a good thing.  It would be too easy to take over in the interest of improving things for everyone, and a benevolent dictator is still a dictator.  And people still need the right to choose whether or not to be part of a solution.  We can’t take that choice from them.  Even if someone like Geisha or Andre Corbin so easily could. 

More and more, I’m coming to think that Divis Mal is right.  Baseline humans and novas aren’t good for each other.  Not in the long term.  Sure, individual relationships can be great, but on a species level?  We are not the same, and novas have too many options available to us to fit into the baseline world indefinitely.  Baseline laws often don’t work for us.  Society is geared to accommodate baselines, which is as it should be.  But we shouldn’t have to be restricted to baseline needs and capabilities.  And the best way not to be restricted, without hurting baselines, is to separate.  Hopefully not forever.  Hopefully, we can both collectively grow as a species, but we need to do it separately. 

Mal’s plan calls for us to leave in about fifty years.  I’ll be ready.  Mom and the cats are really the only things truly holding me here, and well, they’ll be gone by then.  Rocío will almost certainly leave with us, when the time comes.  I’d miss my friends, but how many high school friendships really last into adulthood, anyway?  

But I’m more determined than ever to leave a ‘goodbye present’ before I go.  Being up here, alone, let me see some of the space junk in orbit.  As soon as I don’t need to keep my disintegration power a secret anymore, that will be my contribution to baseline humanity.  Other novas have cleaned up the air, the water, and terraformed Ethiopia.  I’ll clean up our planet’s orbit.  If the baselines junk it up again, well, that will be on them.

Eventually, I went back.  Picked up my communicator (Furnado was sleeping on it).  Now I’m making this entry before I go back to the Academy.

‘S’, when you see this, please pass a message to the Count.  I’d rather not ‘come out’ publicly as supporting the Teragen while I’m still under contract to Utopia (which ends in June of 2010).  But I’ve made my choice.  If he wants me to publicly stay with Utopia after, I will.  If not, I’ll come out then.  But I’m with you.  Whatever he needs, to the best of my abilities. Thanks.

I’LL PASS YOUR MESSAGE, HEKA.  AND WELCOME HOME.  I’M SURE THE COUNT WILL KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU CAN HELP.

~S

Chapter Text

Monday, February 23

Ok, this is new.  And for the first time, I’m 100% invested in classes.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been paying attention all along, but it was from a standpoint of ‘this could come in handy’, not ‘I’m genuinely interested in this topic’.  That changed today, and I hope we stay on this subject for a long time.  We’re finally, actually, talking about novas and nova powers.  Individual novas, their known power sets, how individual powers work, and (in the case of Elites and the Teragen) how they can be overcome. 

Guardião and I were specifically called out (in a good way) as being especially well-equipped to shut down ‘problematic’ novas.  He can disrupt other novas’ use of their powers, and I can drain their energy (though I’ve still kept how well I can do that to myself).

Today’s session was all about nova powers in general, how they could be broken down into several broad categories, and how even novas that display the same power sometimes have unusual variations on them.  I’m not sure I agree with the way they’re categorizing powers, but this is an area where I have to accept that Utopia knows best.  They might not know everything, but they almost certainly have the most experience dealing with the widest variety of novas.

Some of the power categories were obvious, like transport/movement, body alteration, or ‘control’ powers.  Some of them have a lot of overlap between categories.  For example, Sapphire’s ability to create and control gemstones is a ‘control’ power, but it has offensive and defensive aspects as well.  Not to mention her being able to become a living statue falls under body alteration.  It almost seems like other classifications would be more useful.  Simple things like offensive, defensive, utilitarian, personal, nova-oriented, etc.  Even that would have a lot of overlap, though.  Maybe trying to classify powers isn’t especially useful.  Maybe we should just concentrate on studying them individually, rather than trying to put them in boxes. 

We talked a lot about combat-oriented powers today.  Mostly Quantum Bolt, which made Stinger happy, and defensive powers, like Armor and Force Field.  I was a little disappointed that we didn’t go into the nitty-gritty of how these powers worked- as in, how the quantum energy in our bodies flows into these patterns, rather than other patterns.  But maybe we’ll get there later.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, February 24

Today we began in what (in hindsight) seems the obvious place, though I was surprised at the time.  We began with Team Tomorrow.  I was surprised because I somehow expected Utopia to want to keep details about what they could do on a need-to-know basis.  But I was reminded of two things:  first, that the Academy was intended to funnel novas into Team Tomorrow or similar high-status Utopia positions, so presumably we’re trustworthy and would end up learning these things anyway; and second, that just because we were being given this information, that doesn’t mean we’re being given all the information.  They could very easily be holding things back. 

We studied Caestus Pax, of course.  He’d probably be furious if we started anyplace else.  We didn’t talk much about his past, or his personality, other than to make it clear that he was one of the first novas to erupt, and is the world’s most powerful nova.  (I’m not at all sure that that’s true, but even if I knew for sure, I wouldn’t bring it up.)  We talked about his ability to fly at hypersonic speeds (apparently that’s what my ‘burst of speed’ is actually called- hypersonic flight), his extreme strength, endurance, speed, and flexibility.  How he can shoot Quantum Bolts (Stinger perked right up at that- I get the impression that Pax is Stinger’s personal role model), and augment his punches with what Lt. Riggs called ‘Claws’, never mind that he doesn’t actually display elongated, sharpened fingernails.  Apparently, anything that enhances a punch falls under ‘Claws’.  Pax can also project force fields, manipulate kinetic energy in much the same way Sapphire manipulates gemstones, has telekinesis, and is more-or-less invulnerable. 

Lt. Riggs spent the rest of the session talking up what a great leader Pax is, how he always does his duty and puts the needs and goals of Utopia and humanity (interesting order, there) first.  Maybe I’m being oversensitive, but it seemed like Riggs was watching me more than the others when he talked up Pax’s leadership qualities. 

I found it interesting what he didn’t talk about.  Pax’s humanity.  The man behind the powerhouse.  Who he actually was.  Surely, the leader of Team Tomorrow is more than just the sum of his powers.  Surely, we all are, right? 

Maybe it makes sense that Riggs didn’t talk about anything personal.  Maybe he’s never met Pax in person.  Maybe he doesn’t feel that it’s his place to share his opinions, especially since there’s a very good chance that some, maybe most, of us will be working with Pax someday.  Maybe he doesn’t want to influence our opinions.  Or maybe he just doesn’t want to risk us telling Pax on Riggs if he shared anything that was less than complimentary. 

But somehow, I got the impression that there was a lot more that Riggs could have said about Caestus Pax.

Chapter Text

Friday, February 27

We’ve covered the rest of Team Tomorrow’s power set now, and I can’t help but notice that we didn’t spend half so much time on anyone else as we did on Caestus Pax. 

Even keeping in mind that Utopia might not be sharing everything that T2M is capable of (and realizing that we haven’t covered in any of T2M Auxiliary), I can’t help but notice some odd gaps in their abilities.  Slider was T2M’s primary teleporter, and with her death, they brought on Sneak to replace her.  But still, only having one teleporter seems like a problem for a globally-affiliated team.  None of them can open the kind of portals that Divis Mal can.  Several of the T2M members can fly, and a few have other special methods of movement, but overall, they aren’t actually as immediately mobile as they’re made to appear.  They have specialized vehicles to do most of their movement from place to place- some kind of VTOL system.

Other than that, while most of the T2M members have significant combat abilities (Geisha being a notable exception) both offensive and defensive, they also tend toward ‘control’ powers.  Splash controls water, Thorn controls plants, Tremor controls the earth, etc.  They also tend to be superhuman in themselves, as well: super-strong, super-tough, super-charismatic. 

But there’s something missing.  Not one of them, publicly at least, are focused on actual, well, quantum power.  They all seem to be concerned with how they can shape power, rather than with what the power actually is.  Maybe that’s why none of them display the things that I can do- converting quantum energy to electricity, or borrowing energy, or borrowing powers.  I’m still not happy about the way they think they can just decide what I’m going to do with my life, but I am beginning to see how they’d view me as filling a fairly significant gap in their abilities. 

Of course, none of that matters.  I’m not joining T2M. 

But… what if that’s exactly what the Count (or Mal) decides they want me to do?

Chapter Text

Saturday, February 28

My ACT scores came in early.  A perfect 36 out of 36.  I wish I could be certain what my updated GPA will be at the end of this semester- hell, I wish I could be certain I’ll have an updated GPA-, but even the 3.9 I had before I erupted should be enough, along with my SAT and ACT, to get me into either Berkeley or Vanderbilt.  Further research suggests that a Berkeley degree will be more helpful to me in the long run than a Vanderbilt degree, but they’re both good.  I think I’d rather live on the West Coast than Tennessee, though, even if it meant detouring around Kansas when I came home. 

Looking over the Berkeley OpNet site, it looks like to get where I want to go, I’ll need to minor in education, major in something else, then pursue education further in grad school.  I can work with that.  Looking over the available majors, and considering my own interest in space and astronomy, as well as keeping Mal’s plan in mind, a planetary science major seems like the right choice. 

Looking over the entrance requirements, I’m pretty confident on my grades and testing.  But Berkeley also looks at AP courses, and college classes taken in high school, and I’ve only taken one AP history class.  The Academy doesn’t even offer real classes, let alone AP options, so I’ll have to look into dual enrollment college courses.  They look for extracurriculars, as well, which is more of a problem.  The Academy doesn’t have extracurriculars.  I think the best I can do on that front is to get Erica to start scheduling me for more weekend charitable works and other public services.  That should probably serve the same general purpose. 

Another good thing about doing some dual enrollment (and a way to make it more likely that the Academy will agree, since they have to sign off on it), is that it’ll diminish the overall amount of time I’d be spending in college.  From Utopia’s perspective, that means I’d be available to them ‘full time’ that much quicker. 

I’ve emailed Virginia Western Community College to begin the enrollment process.  Late February is too late to begin the standard Spring 2009 academic term, but they have enough in the way of asynchronous learning that I should be able to get something started. 

Chapter Text

Monday, March 2

I’ve heard back from Virginia Western Community College.  They’re interested in having me.  I’ve sent them my transcripts and test scores, my current enrollment status with the Academy, as well as an outline of my current education goals.  They’re…. very interested in me, LoL.  So much so, that they’re waiving all the (already minimal) costs associated with dual enrollment.  Basically, all I have to do is get the Academy and Mom to sign off on the plan, and I’m in. 

I was right about being too late for this semester’s usual academic calendar, but there are plenty of classes running on other timetables, and I can access several of those.  I’ve made a list of what I’ll need for Berkeley’s general studies program, and crosschecked which VWCC courses will transfer there.  If I do it right, I might be able to clear an entire year of classes before I even graduate.  I know Mom won’t object to it, so all I need to do is convince the Academy.  Since there isn’t a principal listed, I’ll take it up with Lt. Riggs tomorrow after class, and find out how to go about this from the Utopia end of things.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, March 3

I’m more convinced than ever that Lt. Riggs is the principal, in fact if not in name.  When I explained about wanting to do dual enrollment, and needing the principal to sign off on it, he told me there wouldn’t be any difficulty, as long as I continued to uphold my responsibilities to the Academy.  I thought for a moment that he was bargaining with me, or even low-key threatening me- if I wanted dual enrollment, I needed to commit to the program fully.  But then I really thought about what he’d said, and realized that wasn’t what he meant.  Or at least, it wasn’t an unreasonable ‘threat’.  He wasn’t negotiating for more involvement, he was warning me against less involvement.  I can live with that. 

I printed out all the enrollment forms, signed my parts, and took them with me when I went home for my aikido lesson.  Usually, I only stop off at home after for a few minutes to visit the cats, but this time I stayed until Mom came home. 

She congratulated me again in person for my test scores and, as expected, had no problem signing off on my dual enrollment.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, March 4

We finished discussion of Team Tomorrow (finally), and moved on to the Teragen.  Ooooooh boy.  This is going to be… interesting.  

First, we had a broad overview of the Teragen in general- from Utopia’s perspective, of course.  Not even a discussion of the people or the abilities they’ve displayed.  And only the most biased discussion of the philosophy.  Nope, this was mostly about what horrible criminals Terats are (at best, they’re tragically misguided or selfish), with what amounts to sound bites of the principles of Teras. 

I think the best thing I can do this week is keep my mouth shut.  Eyes front, neutral face, no questions.  Just… exist.  Obviously, I know better than to express any sympathy for the Teragen, but I don’t want any extra attention being directed my way.  So I won’t let on that I’ve studied Teras semi-extensively by now (I still find new things to think about when I re-read the things the Count sent me, but I know better than to keep even digital copies of those materials on Academy grounds).  I certainly won’t mention my interactions with Terats. 

It was disappointing, but not surprising to see how the others just swallowed everything Lt. Riggs had to say about the Teragen.  Well, almost everyone.  Sapphire was about as closed off and composed as I was.  Of course, she’s always in control of her expression and posture, so maybe that doesn’t mean anything, but she seemed… unusually ‘grey rock’ today.  It makes me wonder (and I’ve wondered a little about her before), but there’s no way I’d attempt to bring the subject up with her- especially here, where we’re monitored all the time.  Still, I’ll keep an eye on her. 

Stinger’s response was a little surprising, in another way.  I expected that he would buy the Utopia party line regarding the Teragen completely, like he does everything else Utopia says.  But I didn’t expect him to be almost… rabid about it.  I’ve seen him angry, and sullen, and pouting, and embarrassed.  But I’ve never seen the kind of barely-contained rage he showed today.  Part of me wonders if he has some kind of personal stake in hating the Teragen.  Surely it takes something personal to generate the kind of unthinking hate I saw in his face.  Then again, those Archangelite hicks in Kansas tried to murder me without even knowing who I was, and if that isn’t blind hate, I don’t know what is.  I have issues with Stinger, on several levels, but I never thought he’d have something in common with murderous zealots.

Anyway, it was interesting to see exactly how Utopia (in the form of the Academy) wants us to view the Teragen.  I’d already seen most of the sound bites Lt. Riggs played for us, and the few that were new to me were mostly variations on familiar themes.  But while the clips they played were genuine (as far as I can tell), they mostly took them wildly out of context, or layered them next to other clips that created linked chains of meaning for anyone watching.  In other words, Utopia didn’t outright lie, but they strongly encouraged us to draw the (erroneous) conclusions that they wanted.  They’re definitely threading the needle- making it obvious what we’re supposed to believe, without actually coming out and making (many) accusations.  Stinger was swallowing it all, without question.  Flare didn’t look doubtful, but she was obviously thinking, and maybe drawing her own conclusions.  Guardião didn’t seem at all resistant to what was being said, but he also wasn’t emotionally invested either. 

There was a lot of time spent on Geryon’s murder of the mayor of Tampa, with only minimal mention of Sluice’s peaceful protest, and no mention at all of the fact that Utopia disappeared him after, and that he hasn’t been seen since.  I guess it makes sense.  Geryon’s action, along with Mal’s commandeering of the worldwide media to deliver the Null Manifesto, are two of the biggest ‘Teragen bad!’ moments that are available for detailed analysis.  I’ve covered my thoughts on Geryon’s actions before, so there’s no need to go over it again. 

The last part of the session was devoted to the Null Manifesto itself.  Lt. Riggs took it apart with gusto, but without much skill.  No, that’s not right.  He went at it with a lot of skill- it’s just that his skill was intended to appeal to our emotions and ‘patriotism’, rather than to rational discourse or intellectual debate.  As he was going over it, I kept thinking about 1984’s ‘Three Minutes Hate’.  His words were intended to shut down critical thinking, replace it with emotion, and generate a tribal, us-versus-them mentality.  And he was good at it.  If I didn’t have solid experience to the contrary, I might have begun to doubt some of my own opinions. 

After class, I went to Lt. Riggs with the dual enrollment form Mom had signed off on.  He read it over really quickly, then signed it as well, titling himself ‘Dean of Students’.  Well then.  He even told me I could skip today’s tactical (yet another rescue scenario, he said) in favor of flying over to the college to turn in my form and get everything set up for my attendance.  He said that this was a one-time thing, and he still expected me to participate in the tacticals; and that he expected as many of my classes as possible to be online and asynchronous, requiring me to actually be on VWCC campus as little as could be arranged.  I was okay with that.  I think I’ll have to be on-campus for any science labs, but that should be about it.

I’m not sure what to think about Riggs’ sudden tolerance and leniency(?) on me.  On the one hand, if he (and by extension, Utopia) is still serious about somehow getting me onto at least T2M Auxiliary, then having me complete my education as soon as possible makes sense- it would make me more available to them quicker.  And maybe they’re simply buttering me up, or setting up some kind of implied reciprocal agreement- they facilitated what I wanted, so I should feel obligated to do what they want.  Maybe they think that these opportunities will make me more open to leadership opportunities somehow?  Or maybe, Riggs has noticed the tension between Stinger and I, and is trying to give it a release valve by having me do other things?  I don’t know, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I joined the others for lunch, and told them I wouldn’t be there for the afternoon exercise, and why.  Stinger perked right up.  I don’t really understand him, but apparently his less-than-sound choices don’t bother him as much when I’m not around.  Oh well.  The others didn’t express much interest.  Puppy made a joke about voluntarily doing more nerd stuff, but it was in good fun.  Flare just gave me an approving look. 

After lunch, I flew over to VWCC campus admissions building.  Since I didn’t have an appointment, I expected a lengthy wait but I was assigned an admissions counselor within about ten minutes.  Annie Jakes looked like she was only just out of college herself, and pretty clearly wasn’t sure how to treat me.  I did what I could to set her at ease, and we got started on the rest of the paperwork. 

VWCC is waiving all tuition and other fees (other than any required off-campus experiences that individual professors may assign), in exchange for permission to include my image in their OpNet site, a testimonial, and up to three appearances at college fundraisers per semester while I’m enrolled there.  I sent the contract to Erica as a formality, but I’m sure there won’t be an issue with that. 

I’d brought my notes about Berkeley’s required courses, and which ones VWCC had that would transfer and meet those requirements (most of the ‘general studies’ stuff that everyone has to take).  I’d also printed out a list of the current courses offered for the mid-spring term.  The term had actually started on Monday, but since I wanted asynchronous courses, starting a couple of days late shouldn’t be a big deal.  Ms. Jakes assured me she could get me any exceptions I would need from the professors.

The mid-spring term is an eight week intensive course structure.  I wanted to take a full fifteen hours.  Ms. Jakes wanted me to take six hours.  We compromised (once I’d gently explained that I didn’t need to sleep and could therefore make full use of my time) on nine hours, plus a required one hour science lab.  The lab would be on campus, the rest asynchronous and online. 

As of now, I’m enrolled in English 111 (Composition 1), Math 154 (Qualitative Reasoning), History 111 (World History pre-1500), and NAS 131 (Astronomy: Solar System) which comes with the lab.  After I finished with admissions, I went over to the student center to get my ID made and confirm that I wouldn’t need a parking pass.  Then, the student book store for my textbooks and supplies.  I wonder if the Academy will let me use the observatory?  The few times I’ve been over there, it’s always been locked up tight (though Dream Shadow opened it up that one time). 

I went ahead and found where the astronomy lab was being held- my first session there is on Friday, so I haven’t even missed anything.  I’ll do all the assigned astronomy work for the week once I finish this entry, so I’ll be caught up with the other students.  I should have the rest of the week’s classwork done by tomorrow night as well. 

This is going to require a little careful time management, but it seems perfectly doable. 

I need to touch base with Flare again, to see if she’s given any thought to teaching me to teleport. 

Later-

Well, that didn’t take long.  The first week’s work in astronomy was pretty basic.  Reading over the syllabus, reading the honor policy and grading rubric, and then reading the first three chapters of the textbook and taking three quizzes.  I suppose three chapters is a lot of reading in one week, especially if you’re also taking other classes, but if this is ‘intensive’, I don’t think I’m going to have much of a problem. 

Excellent news!  Flare has agreed to teach me to teleport!!!!  So excited!  I offered to teach her invisibility, or flying, or anything else I know (that I’m admitting to knowing, of course), but she said that she’d rather I just ‘owe her one’.  I’m a tiny bit nervous about that, but I don’t think she’ll screw me.  And well, if she does ask something of me that would compromise something I believe in, well, I’ll comply only as far as my ethics allow.  But I doubt it will come to that.  I think she’s just the kind of person who likes to have a network of banked favors.  I’m pretty sure the Count works the same way.  Maybe I should too?  It’s not my style, but I have a long life ahead of me.  Maybe it should be.

Chapter Text

Thursday, March 5

Today was awkward in more ways than one, and did not end at all as expected.  I think I handled it okay, but… I wouldn’t know until it was too late, would I?  Somehow, Lt. Riggs knows about my going to NovaCon.  That’s not especially surprising, since it was arranged through Nova Services International, which by extension means Utopia.  It makes sense that he’d want to know what ‘his’ students have been up to.  Anybody that cared to look could have found out that I’d been on a couple of panels with Terats or novas with pretty obvious Terat sympathies. 

I didn’t expect him to know that I’d had lunch with Boom-Boom, though I guess in hindsight I shouldn’t have been surprised.  But Riggs was talking about a Terat called Narcosis (I remember Boom-Boom talking about her, and I’ve heard a lot about her from the OpNet), who runs the Pandaimonion.  And then he came right out with “But you’ve had direct contact with the Pandaimonion, haven’t you, Heka?  Go ahead and tell us all about it.” 

Ouch.  Well, you could have cut the silence with a butter knife, and if Stinger’s looks could kill, I’d be in a box right now. 

So, I told them about meeting Boom-Boom at NovaCon, and being on panels with him and Dante (though I  stressed that I didn’t know for sure that Dante was a Terat, let alone connected with the Pandaimonion).  I told about how Boom-Boom had behaved himself on the panels, and basically just repeated the same ‘talking points’ that Terats have been making since the Null Manifesto. 

Then I went on to explain how I’d had lunch with Boom-Boom at the hotel restaurant, and we’d talked more about a lot of things, but mostly about himself and what he wanted to do with his life.  I was honest (if not completely forthcoming) about my opinions of him.  That he was superficially charismatic and charming, but shallow, selfish, careless, and not given to deeper understanding of much of anything- including the philosophy he claimed to uphold. 

Then I explained my understanding of the Pandaimonion, as explained by Boom-Boom.  Basically, that they reject any need to conform to baseline societal norms, and instead live like rock stars, doing whatever they want, whenever they want, and devoted to not much more than looking cool and having fun.  They seemed petty, and certainly they could easily harm baselines in their carelessness, but that in the grand scheme of things, they just didn’t seem like an especially major threat.  Individual members, maybe, but not really the group as a whole.  They seemed kinda childish to me, but to each their own, I guess.

Boom-Boom had clearly been the ‘edgy bad boy’ of the convention, and he played to that image.  But he was also keeping himself within some form of limitations, whether those limits were imposed by the convention, or he imposed them on himself.  In other words, he could have been a lot worse, even without violating any rules, and he chose not to be.  Whether that makes him more socially savvy than I’m giving him credit for, or less of an edgelord than he portrays, I don’t know.  (What I didn’t say was that I had a pretty good idea why he was ‘playing nice’- he was trying to recruit me.) 

As for Dante, the other nova who’d seemed like he had Terat sympathies, whether or not he was an actual member, there wasn’t much to say.  He was spouting the ‘next evolutionary leap forward, baselines are irrelevant’ line, which I found rude, but the only harm that was likely to come from it would come from carelessness rather than malice.  Not that that makes a huge difference to the people who get hurt, but still, there is a difference between an elephant who steps on a small animal because it didn’t see it sitting on the ground; versus a polar bear ripping a seal to pieces for the fun of it.

The upshot of the whole thing was that I did my best to make my contact with ‘big bad Terats’ no big deal.  I think I succeeded, but like I said, I won’t know I failed until it’s too late.  Riggs gave no sign of knowing anything about my other encounters, and even though I was watching the others, I was listening to Riggs- and his heart rate never changed.  Either he was satisfied with my answer, or his self-control is amazing. 

I had talked a little about the convention to the others before, and even mentioned Boom-Boom, but either Stinger hadn’t been listening before, or hadn’t made the connection.  He was not taking my having spent any social time with Boom-Boom at all well.  I think he was semi-okay with my having been on a panel with him, and done the Guest of Honor receiving line thing, but having lunch with him was a Problem. 

And I couldn’t figure out why.  Out of all of us, Stinger seems to be the only one who is invested emotionally with fighting the Teragen.  The others seem to be accepting the Utopian party line of ‘Utopia good, Teragen bad’, but there’s no personal investment in it.  We’re Utopians, so we’re obligated to oppose the Teragen.  End of story.  Stinger’s anger is on a whole different level.  I think I’ll ask Flare if she knows anything about that.

That closed out class, and we spread out a little on the way to lunch.  Enough that I could pull Flare aside and ask her if she knew what Stinger’s problem was.  She got this weird look on her face, and asked me ‘which problem?’, which I thought was strange. 

I said, his problem with the Teragen- how he seemed to be overly invested in the Utopia/Teragen conflict, beyond just being on different teams. 

She said that she didn’t know for sure, personally.  But that she and Stinger had messaged back and forth a few times while they were both still at their local Clinics.  Stinger had erupted a couple of weeks before she had, and since they were the two youngest novas on the West Coast, they’d struck up something like a friendship.  Seattle has a municipal defender called Tenor, and she accidentally destroyed the Second Narrows Bridge in Tacoma about a year ago.  She’d been chasing down a Terat named Damian Storm at the time.  Flare wasn’t certain- Stinger didn’t talk about it- but she was pretty sure that he’d lost someone he loved in the accident.  It would make sense that he’d blame the Terat, rather than Tenor, even though Tenor was the one who’d actually destroyed the bridge. 

Ouch.  I know grief isn’t a rational thing, so I guess I can understand him blaming the Terat instead of Tenor.  And without knowing why Tenor was chasing Storm, I really can’t pass a judgement.  Not that it would matter even if I did.  But at least now I know.  Stinger’s pathological rage at the Teragen is rooted in personal loss and selective blame.  Understandable.

But then, I had to ask what Flare had meant about ‘which problem?’.  She said that she’d thought I was going to ask why he’d been so upset about my spending time with Boom-Boom at the convention. 

I said that I assumed it was because he was a Terat, and he didn’t want anyone socializing with them, and she got this ‘that’s so cute’ look on her face.  I know she was playing me, but I still had to ask what the look was for. 

For a second, she looked like she wasn’t going to tell me, but then she shrugged and said the last thing I’d have expected.  She said, “He didn’t like you having a date with Boom-Boom.  He’s jealous.”  I protested that it wasn’t a date (though I guess it could be considered one), and more importantly that there’s no way Stinger was jealous of me.  Mad about me making him look bad, sure, but jealous?  No way.  Flare looked at me like I was stupid and said he wasn’t jealous of me.  He was jealous of Boom-Boom.  Because Stinger was interested in me.  Flare said that she’s suspected it for a while, but that Stinger had apparently only just fully realized it.

I wanted to pursue this idea, but we’d caught up to the others at the cafeteria, and this was not a conversation I wanted an audience for. 

I can’t even tell you what the day’s tactical was.  Probably another rescue scenario.  I had to have been ‘phoning it in’, since I was paying (subtle) attention to Stinger.  He was avoiding looking at me so hard he might as well have been staring.  That can’t really mean anything.  Surely not.  That’s the last thing I need.  Rocío and I haven’t had any kind of ‘exclusivity talk’, and with me being at the Academy, that’s probably for the best.  But he’s the only person I’m interested in.  And even if Rocío wasn’t in the picture, there’s no way I could have feelings for Stinger.  Absolutely not.

After the tactical, I left right away for my Aikido lesson, only staying for about fifteen minutes of the post-training decompress. 

And it was just as well that I did.  Since I’d left early, I was taking a slightly longer (and slower) route home, flying over as much of the coast as I could.  As I got close to home, I noticed this little tiny plane above me in the sky (I was under 400 feet, like a good little girl).  Little planes happen, but this one was painted bright yellow, with red and blue parachutes all over it.  Skydiving plane?  I’d never actually seen anybody skydive before. 

Okay, I’m nosey.  I admit that.  We were over the beach, so I flew out into international waters, then said ‘screw 400 feet’ and went up to match their altitude.  I was at least three miles out, so I wasn’t even sure they’d be able to see me without a scope, but even so, I just sorta hung there in the air and watched.  With my telescopic vision, I might have been right beside them.

Four people (two men strapped together- a training flight, I guess, a man, and a woman) jumped out of the plane, and the plane started doing a big circle around them.  They freefell for about a minute, and then the duo pulled their chute.  The woman did a second later.  The solo man…. Something went wrong.  He was pulling and pulling, but nothing happened.  Then he started pulling something else (a backup?), but still, nothing happened.  By now, he’s way lower than the other three.  I zoom in on his face, and he’s terrified.  Something was way wrong. 

So, I flew over as fast as I could without a burst of speed (I was afraid I’d overshoot him), matched his speed so the impact didn’t hurt him, and caught him.  His arms snapped so tight around my neck I couldn’t have breathed if I’d needed to.  I wasn’t sure how baseline a body would handle a sudden slowdown, so I took my time getting him down toward the ground.  He was crying, and I think he peed a little.  There was a big, marked off dropzone on the beach, so I landed there, and immediately exited the ring.  Didn’t want three other skydivers landing on us, after all. 

The skydiving company groundcrew were all over us, of course.  And a couple of lifeguards.  And a huge clump of beach people.  People might not go in the ocean much in March, but they still love the beach.  I put the guy down, made sure he was okay, and let the professionals take over.  The guy in charge of the dropzone and one of the life guards wanted me to stay and give a witness statement, but I told them that I had a class that I was almost late for and needed to go.  (I probably could have stayed to answer a few questions, but then I would have needed a burst of speed to be on time to class, and that’s a problem in town.)  I gave them both my contact information, and told them I could either meet them this evening after class, or they could email me a form to fill out, and I’d do it tonight.  They weren’t really happy about that, but there wasn’t much they could do about it, so they asked me to come back after my class.  I agreed and flew off.  400 feet up.  Like a good girl.

I should maybe have business cards printed up.

Anyway, class was fine.  I wasn’t as early as I prefer to be, but I wasn’t late, so that was good enough.

After class, I put off visiting the cats long enough to go back to the beach.  The dropzone had been cleared away, and most of the beach people were gone, but the lifeguard, his boss, and the dropzone lead guy were there, along with a few reporters.  Crap.  I sent a quick text to Erica about what happened, and that I was about to face reporters, just so she couldn’t say she’d heard it first from the media.  No way could she get there in time to do anything, which (in my opinion) was just as well. 

The meeting didn’t take long.  They took me into an admin shack, away from the reporters, and the dropzone guy asked me a bunch of questions.  I’d quietly activated my Utopia communicator to record, just in case, as I flew down, so I wasn’t too concerned. 

I explained to them why I’d been in the area (flying home from the Academy to attend an aikido lesson), how I’d left a few minutes early and decided to take the ‘scenic route’ over the coast.  How I’d noticed the brightly colored plane, and decided to hang around for a better look, making sure to stay well out of the way (mentioning my telescopic vision).  How I’d seen the guy’s chute fail to pop out (though I didn’t know anything about parachutes, so had no idea what might have gone wrong).  How I’d read somewhere that there was a backup chute, so I waited to see if that one would work.  When nothing happened, and I saw the panicked look on the guy’s face, I went and caught him.  How I’d brought him down as gently as I could, and hoped he was okay.  (They assured me that he was.) 

I asked if the other three had made it down safely (I was embarrassed in hindsight not to have waited to see, but, after all, their chutes had popped out just fine.)  They said they had.  I said that was great, and did they have anymore questions? 

The head lifeguard wanted to talk to me about doing some kind of publicity thing for the beach, and would I be open to something like that?  (The look on the dropzone guy’s face said that he wasn’t happy about that.  I guess he wants as little publicity about this as possible- after all, it was his company’s equipment failure.)  I told the head lifeguard (Mitchell Ellis) that I wasn’t opposed to the idea, but that he’d need to work that out with Erica and/or Nova Services Int’l.  I gave him both sets of contact information.  (I’m pretty sure that was the right response- Utopia will be pleased.)

They also mentioned that while the guy I’d saved (his name turned out to be Pete Butler) had been taken to the hospital as a precaution, he’d made it clear that he wanted to meet me, and thank me in person.  Of course, I said that no thanks were necessary, that I was just glad I’ve been in the area; but when they pressed, I told them that I was due back at the Academy tonight, but was home here in Wilmington every weekend.  And that was that.

Except for the reporters. 

By now, I’d dealt with enough reporters, and seen enough other novas being interviewed to know how to talk in sound bites.  I answered their questions, briefly, taking care to not express any thoughts about why the accident happened or name any names.  I just did my ‘aw, shucks, just doing my duty’ thing, and left it at that. 

Then, one of the reporters asked me about the wooden sword I had strapped to my back. 

Crap.  I’d forgotten all about that, both during the event and now.  Why is it that whenever I end up doing something accidentally heroic, I’m wearing something weird?  A school uniform.  A pink, kawaii Leviathan costume.  And now, a bokken.  

Well, I just laughed it off, and explained that I took aikido lessons.  I wasn’t sure if Sensei Laura would want me shouting her out specifically, so when the reporter asked, I just gave the name of the dojo.  I took a couple more questions, then said I needed to go and flew off.  A couple of miles away from the beach, I went invisible for the rest of the flight home (I was determined to still get my cat time in), just in case.  I didn’t think anyone would try to follow me home, but better safe than sorry.

I had my cat snuggles and checked my email.  Both of the other skydivers had had video cameras.  As had several people on the beach.  I was all over the news.  The Heka’s Home forum was going nuts.  I got an email from Erica, thanking me for the warning, and reminding me to debrief with the Academy, since they were my primary point of contact with Utopia now.  I told her that she (or NSI) might be hearing from the beach about some kind of publicity thing, and that I wouldn’t mind it, depending on the details.  I copied my communicator recording over to my home computer and a chip drive, and flew (direct route) back to campus.

When I got back to campus, I wasn’t quite sure what to do.  I went to the campus Clinic, but no one was there.  (There was an emergency call number, but this didn’t seem like an emergency.)  Lt. Riggs seemed like the obvious person to ‘debrief’, but I didn’t have contact information on him.  Finally, I remembered Jak. 

I hadn’t seen Jak since the day I’d moved in, other than occasionally in the cafeteria.  And Flare had made it pretty clear that she didn’t want to be bothered unless it was really important.  Was this really important?  Honestly, I didn’t think so.  But Mr. Li had made a point of how important it was to let someone In Authority know as soon as possible after something happened.  So, I’d be doing my due diligence, and maybe earning some brownie points with Riggs (even if not with Jak).  So, I knocked on her door.

It was about 11 pm.  I had no idea what kind of hours she kept.  The sound proofing on the hall was good, and I’d never made a point of eavesdropping on her.  For all I knew, she was in bed already.  I figured that I’d knock twice, quietly, and if I didn’t get an answer, I’d just wait and tell Riggs in the morning.  But just as I was about to knock again, the door opened. 

I don’t think she’d been asleep, but I’ll bet she was in bed.  She’d thrown on a robe that she was holding shut, I don’t think she was wearing anything underneath.  She did not look pleased to be disturbed. 

I apologized, and told her, very briefly, that something had happened on my way to class today, and my home Clinic had made it clear I was supposed to Let Someone Know as soon as possible when something happened, but I hadn’t been able to find anyone in authority, so I’d come to her. 

She looked annoyed, but brought me into her suite.  She has a suite.  A living room, a separate bedroom, a private bathroom (from what I could see without being nosey), another door that was closed but seemed larger than a closet, and a much larger balcony than any of the other rooms.  I guess it makes sense.  This is her home, more or less, while we’re only attending boarding school.

She sat me down on the couch and told me to start from the beginning.  I did, and after a couple of minutes she stopped me.  She made a phone call, put Lt. Riggs on speaker, then had me start over.  I did, and once he’d heard me out, he told me that I’d done the right thing in letting someone know, and that the FAA and/or the police would probably want to talk to me in the next couple of days.  He said he’d do a full debrief tomorrow after class. 

Jak sent me back to my room, and that was that.  I realize that I disturbed her late at night, but for a ‘Resident Advisor’, Jak really doesn’t seem to do much.  She isn’t very friendly, either. I can’t help but wonder what she does all day.  She certainly doesn’t keep an eye on us.  Unless… does she monitor all those microphones?

Chapter Text

After class, Lt. Riggs took me to his office.  I didn’t know he had an office, but I should have assumed that he would, I guess.  It was in the Admin building.  I hadn’t been there since my first day.  I didn’t see Linda. 

His office was large, but… impersonal.  There was a nice desk, two chairs in front of it, and a big leather chair behind, a sofa that I suspect pulls out to a bed, a bookcase, several file drawers, and a big cabinet.  But no pictures, or certificates, or any personal touches.  There were books in the bookcase, and the file drawers had a heavy, solid look that empty metal ones don’t have, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this was less ‘Lt. Riggs’s office’ and more ‘whoever needs to do something official’s office’.  Oh well. 

Riggs pulled out a digital recorder, listed the date and time, who was present (just us), and the date and approximate time of the event.  Then he had me go over the whole thing.  I went over it once, without him saying anything.  Then he had me do it again, asking questions, prying out all the tiny details.  He was a lot more thorough than Mr. Li ever was.  This was more like an interrogation than a debrief.  He looked pleasantly surprised when I gave him the chipdrive I’d copied my recording of the meeting onto.  He said that was good thinking on my part to have recorded it, and that I ‘had a good head on my shoulders’.  He doesn’t give praise much, so I suppose I should feel good about it, but the look on his face said he was thinking ‘Team Leader’ thoughts again. 

The debrief ran long, so he had lunch brought in.  I don’t know if he’d forgotten that I don’t need to eat, or if he was just being polite.  Maybe he was hungry himself and didn’t want to eat alone.  Either way, we didn’t finish everything until it was nearly time for the tactical. 

I kinda hope the beach follows through on having me do some publicity for them.  I’d like that, and it would be nice to ‘work’ again.  I didn’t realize that I’d missed being a ‘working’ nova since coming to the Academy.  It was like doing a dry run for adulthood, that I didn’t realize I wanted until it was gone. 

I think Riggs must be scraping the bottom of the barrel for tactical ideas.  Today we had to locate a ‘bomb’ (not even disarm it) while under fire.  Finding the bomb was easy- Shift just became a bloodhound and sniffed it out.  He got shot twice, though.  Stinger just isn’t very good at keeping (most of) us alive.  I still haven’t been shot yet, but I know it’s because my power set is uniquely suited to not being shot, rather than any actual skill I have. 

I was only able to stay for a little of the post-tactical decompress, since I had to go to my first Astronomy Lab before going home for the weekend.  I’m not really sure what I was expecting from astronomy lab, especially a first lab, but honestly, it was a little disappointing.  We didn’t do any actual lab work.  In fact, most of the session was making sure everyone knew how to use a scientific calculator.  ☹ Oh well, maybe it’ll get better.  This is only Intro Astronomy, after all.  Maybe my own outside interest has just put me a little ahead. 

When I got home and checked my email, I found a message from Erica.  It must have come in while I was flying home.  The beach was serious about doing a ‘thing’, and wants me to do a ‘meet and greet barbeque’ with Pete Butler (the skydiver) this Sunday.  Short notice, but fine.  I mailed her back that that would be fine.  I was a little afraid the guy was going to be embarrassingly grateful to me, which would be understandable but still awkward.  Best to get it over with, I guess.  

Chapter Text

Sunday, March 8

It’s amazing what people can do ‘last minute’, if they’re properly motivated.  I emailed Erica around 8pm Friday night that I could attend the beach thing.  Today, there was a full stage assembled, several food trucks, a bar, several small vendors selling generic beach gear, random nova kitsch, and cheap parachute toys (in poor taste, if you ask me).  There was a DJ, a local band I’d never heard of, and one of those ‘flash mob’ style dance troupes. 

None of this made a bit of sense.  I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on.  Were we celebrating Pete not dying?  Thanking me for saving him?  Somehow drawing passive-aggressive attention to the skydiving company?  Generally advertising for the beach?  Some weird blend of all of that?  Not a clue. 

The girls were able to come out to the party, which was nice since it’d been a few weeks since I’d really had a chance to hang out with them.  I though it might be awkward for them to be around while I was ‘working’, but it was okay.  (By ‘okay’, I mean Monique teased the hell out of me and Jess kept making faces at me from the crowd while I was meeting with Pete.  At least Alejandra was relatively normal.)

Pete was awkwardly grateful and kept shaking my hand.  His wife kept hugging me and crying, which was worse.  He has three kids- a baby, a boy around eight, and a girl around five.  She kept hiding behind her mom, but the boy demanded that I take him flying like his dad.  Mom looked like she was about to pass out at the very thought of it, but Pete said that it was fine, if I wanted to.  To be honest, I didn’t really want to, but what could I do?  And really, it was no big deal. 

So, I got a good grip on the kid, and flew him out over the ocean.  We went up high, then dipped down really close to the waves.  I noticed something large in the water, but I don’t think the kid did.  It could have been a shark, or maybe a lone dolphin or porpoise.  Definitely not a manatee.  Those are all more-or-less the same shape and size, especially several feet under water.  And water screws with perception, anyway.

When I dropped the kid off with his mom, I quietly mentioned the shark/dolphin to one of the life guards.  Being March, not many people were in the water, so I figured he’d know whether to make a fuss about it.  He didn’t make any kind of announcement, so either they decided it wasn’t a shark, or large-ish sharks aren’t an issue near public beaches.  I mean, the sharks were there first, after all.  We’re the ones screwing around in their home.  They usually don’t come up on land to hassle us.

The event itself was no big deal.  Pete, his family, and I were up on the stage, along with the head lifeguard and the other three skydivers.  If the skydiving company was represented anywhere, I didn’t see them.  Somehow, I doubt they wanted to be involved.  Reporters and beachgoers were clustered around the stage, and the head lifeguard made a speech about how amazing and safe the beach is, and how great it is to vacation here, and how it’s good to be adventurous and have fun. 

I won’t pretend this made any kind of sense.  He was effectively celebrating what, under any other circumstances, would have been an awful tragedy.  If Pete had landed on the beach, he certainly would have died.  If he’d landed in the water, he probably would have died, or at least been badly hurt.  It was pure dumb luck that I happened to be there in the first place, and pure nosiness on my part that made me hang around and watch.   Really, there’s nothing for the beach to celebrate.  The beach wasn’t involved at all! 

But I guess that doesn’t matter.  This whole thing is more-or-less a publicity stunt, and free advertising for the beach.  Maybe it’s even somehow a way of getting out in front of any bad press or investigation.  Surely the beach had to give permission for the company to skydive in the area, right?  So maybe the beach might somehow be culpable, as well as the company?  I have no idea, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter. 

Anyway, speeches were made, Pete told everybody how scared he was, and how I’d “appeared out of nowhere, like an angel sent from heaven” <sigh>, and how I’d caught him out of the air like it was nothing, and “brought him safely to the ground and back to the loving arms of his family”.  (I can only assume he’d spent the last couple of days coming up with all that, because it seemed waaaay too over-the-top otherwise.  But maybe he just gets nervous in front of people.) 

After Pete spoke, it was my turn.  I didn’t talk for long.  Just said that I was glad to have been passing by, and that I was sure anyone else who could have would have done the same.  I knew better than to say anything that could be interpreted as ‘saving your life was no big deal’ (rude, much?), so I tried to make it about him rather than me.  Then I said a few words about how Project Utopia encourages all novas to use what we’ve been given for the greater good of humanity.  And that was about it, really. 

After that, the reporters yelled questions at Pete and I, many of which the lifeguard answered before we could.  Then people started bringing us BBQ food truck stuff, and the rest of the day was basically a beach party. 

At one point, I was pulled aside, back into the lifeguard shack.  Three people in dark suits were there to talk to me.  I surreptitiously turned on my recorder, just in case.  They were from the FAA, and, like Lt. Riggs suggested, they wanted to ask me about the accident. 

It didn’t take long.  They asked me the same questions that Riggs had, and not in as much detail.  They had a recorder of their own, so hopefully I won’t have to go through this again.  They were really particular about how high in the air I was, and where.  It was pretty obvious that I was flying over 400 feet, but I made it clear that I had been obeying the 400 rule until I saw the plane, and when I decided to go higher, I made sure I was over international waters before I did so.  And that once I realized the emergency, yes, I had come in over land, well above 400 feet, but those regulations were suspended in emergencies.  They looked surprised when I quoted the statute, but when I study something, I tend to remember it. 

I answered their questions, made it clear I wouldn’t put up with anything involved with this being held against me, and was eventually allowed to go back to the party.  Jerks.

I met Rocío after it was all over, and we had a quiet dinner together.  I’d invited him to the party, but somehow I was just as glad that he declined.  I don’t mind doing the ‘public nova’ thing, even under Utopia’s auspices.  Especially if doing so will earn me brownie points I’ll need later.  But it seems a little… tawdry?  Cheap?  Like I’m prostituting myself (not that there’s anything wrong with consensual sex work).  I was just as glad for him not to see me doing it.  And just as glad that we not be photographed together.  I’m not ashamed to be with him, but I respect his desire to keep a low profile as a nova, and that would get harder if he’s publicly connected with me.   Besides, I am still just seventeen, for a little while longer.  He’s not so much older that it’s a problem, but… it’ll be better once any whiff of an issue is gone.

Chapter Text

Monday, March 9

Big news today!  But taking it in order…

We’ve moved on to discussing Elites, and specifically the DeVris Agency.  It’s weird.  I would have expected Utopia to devote most of its vitriol to the Teragen, considering their diametrically opposed philosophies and the undeniable fact that certain elements of the Teragen are terrorists.  But somehow, Elites seem to be even more looked-down-on than the Teragen. 

Lt. Riggs discussed the Teragen with a blend of anger and pity (and a little fear).  But his discussion of Elites was dripping with utter contempt.  It took most of the session to figure out why.  The Teragen is a philosophy.  A misguided one, according to Utopia, but it’s novas fighting for a cause, even if the cause is one that Utopia finds abhorrent.  Elites, on the other hand, fight for money.  They (most of them) have no moral compass, selling their services to the highest bidder- sometimes even turning against former employers when they get a better contract.  In short, Elites are mercenaries. 

Is ’mercenary’ worse than ‘terrorist’?  Is killing for money worse than killing for a cause, even a misguided one?  I… honestly don’t know. 

My choosing the Teragen over Utopia doesn’t in any way mean that I approve of some elements within the Teragen.  I’ve made that clear.  And in return, it’s been made clear to me that I don’t have to approve of or support those elements.  I just have to leave them alone unless they’re actively impacting me and my activities.  I don’t like that, but I can accept it.  It’s unreasonable to expect someone to agree with everything any organization does. 

At least the Teragen sticks together, passively at least, and usually actively.  Elites don’t.  An Elite is just as likely to attack another Elite as anyone else.  Maybe even more so, since they compete for contracts, where neither the Teragen nor Utopia does.    And ultimately, that’s why Elites aren’t nearly as effective as either the Teragen or Utopia.  They aren’t cohesive, and only act as a group when they’re under the same contract or form small, personal teams. 

But that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.  If anything, they’re some of the most dangerous novas on the planet.  Even the Teragen’s most powerful (or at least, most feared) fighters might not match up to a lot of Elites, simply because Elites spend their entire lives fighting.  Terat ‘boogeymen’ like Geryon or Leviathan spend their lives doing things.  They make plans, make connections, and do what it takes to achieve their goals.  Often, that ends up including violence, and sometimes violence is the point.  But it usually isn’t the entire point.  (And, if I’m being honest, Geryon is more likely to do violence on baselines.  He usually doesn’t go after novas unless they try to stop him from achieving whatever he’s decided needs to be done.) 

In other words, Leviathan may always be up for a fight, but Totentanz does very little else.  When you devote your life to doing just one thing, you get good at it.  And when that ‘one thing’ is nova-powered combat, then you either get really good, really fast; or you get really dead, even faster.  Plus, Elites are pushing their powers pretty much all the time.  That means they get more powerful quickly, but it also means that they have more… changes.  A lot of Elites seem pretty unstable to me, but I doubt anyone is going to stage an intervention for them.

So, yeah, Elites are dangerous.  That reminds me of what I observed weeks ago, about how Team Tomorrow never seems to go up against Elites at all, unless they have overwhelming odds on their side.  And yet, Riggs is laying on the scorn and contempt really thick, building up T2M as the ultimate, while casting Elites as dangerous, worthless, vermin.  I can’t help but think that’s setting us students up for a rude awakening, for those of us who may meet Elites in the field some day. 

Ok, so I haven’t said much about the tacticals for a while now.  And that’s because they’ve all been variations of a few basic themes, and all of them have been boring.  (And because detailing Stinger’s performance issues seems mean, especially since it’s just more of the same that I’ve already covered in detail.) 

Today’s tactical was the start of something new, both for me personally and for the group.  For me personally, it was new because the mission statement we were given included specific (if pretty open-ended) instructions for me.  For the group, it was new because for the first time, other novas were involved!  FINALLY!!!!

Our task was simple, though easier said than done.  We had to keep The Wall from leaving the designated area for thirty minutes.  While the others were doing whatever they decided to do to keep him in the area, I was supposed to drain his energy.  Well, this will be interesting, at least.

It occurred to me that, apart from being ridiculously tough (and inexplicably hard to pick up), I had no idea what The Wall was capable of.  It turned out, neither did anyone else.  Flamestrike and The Wall had been involved in each student’s testing, but their tests had  been pretty much like mine, with varying results.  Nobody knew what, if any, other tricks The Wall might have up his sleeve. 

Well, I don’t know what Stinger was thinking this time.  Always before, he’d come up with some kind of plan, even if it was a crappy one.  This time, he literally yelled “Get him!” and charged The Wall.  Everyone else followed and surrounded him.  Maybe Stinger figured that he was all defense, with no offense?  Maybe he was simply counting on numbers to make the difference.  (A standard Team Tomorrow tactic, so maybe he was justified in that?) 

I went invisible and took off.  By now I know exactly how slowly I have to move in the air to keep from making noise or kicking up a breeze.  As long as I keep that in mind, I’m more-or-less undetectable.  To start with, I hovered over his head, and waited for the others to do… something. 

They clustered around him, and basically made a ring with their bodies and grabbed him.  Dream Shadow was flying like me, and The Wall grabbed her out of the air and literally threw her out of the field.  She wasn’t hurt, but… ouch.  I took advantage of his motion to gently touch him and ‘sipped’ just a little energy.  I don’t actually have to touch someone, just be fairly close.  But I don’t want Utopia to know that.  And, like before, I was going out of my way to only take a little.  As soon as I made contact, I changed position and waited. 

Everybody piled on, with no rhyme or reason.  Just grabbing.  And The Wall kept throwing people.  And every time someone made contact with him, so did I, taking a little more energy and changing position. 

I think The Wall was just playing around, at first.  Because for the first couple of minutes, he made no effort at actually leaving the building.  He just let folks come at him.  Then, he started to move.  Slowly.  Just taking normal steps toward the edge of the exercise yard.  Step. Step. Step.  Flare wrapped herself around both his legs, which made him pause for a moment.  Just until he could reach down and unwrap her.  He took her by the collar and waistband and launched her into the air.  She teleported before she hit the ground, so she didn’t get hurt, but still. 

The others, without any direction from Stinger, tried to be a little more strategic.  Shift turned into an enormous snake.  He didn’t try to entangle The Wall’s legs at all.  Instead, he tried to pin his arms to his sides.  A good idea- that way, The Wall wouldn’t be able to throw the others.  It worked for nearly a minute.  Then The Wall was able to shrug him off.  (I was able to touch him several times while Shift was wrapped around him.  I think that if I’d really been trying as hard as I could, I might have made a difference by then.  Maybe.)

Stinger used his Strobe power, and that actually did make a solid difference.  The Wall fell down, and had to crawl with his eyes closed.  Unfortunately, everyone else on the ground was affected too.  Sapphire and I were far enough above everyone’s heads to be clear of it, and I hadn’t seen Dream Shadow since the second time The Wall yeeted her.  Stinger’s power was doing the best of all of them, but it was impacting the team more than The Wall.  After all, The Wall was still moving, if slower.  None of the others were moving at all.  Eventually, Stinger shut down his power, and everyone got back in the game. 

I had just gotten another touch in, when I noticed that Dream Shadow was back, and had pulled Sapphire aside.  They were talking, but even with my hearing, everyone else was making too much noise for me to make out what they were saying.  But I saw Sapphire nod at something Dream Shadow said, then they parted. 

Dream Shadow brought up her shroud of darkness, and everyone on the ground was involved.  But Sapphire had been watching exactly where everyone was, and went to work.  When Dream Shadow dropped her Shroud, Sapphire had raised an entire wall of sapphires, in a ring around The Wall.  She’d caught Flare inside the ring as well, but she teleported out immediately. 

The Wall stopped, examined the wall of gemstones he was surrounded by, looked up and actually complimented both of them on good teamwork.  (I took the opportunity to touch him again, and in the close confines, he almost grabbed me.)  I thought for a moment that we’d won.  But he just tapped on the sapphires with his fingernail, then punched the wall.  Shards of sapphire went everywhere.  Several of the pieces cut people, but it was all minor injuries.  And The Wall just kept moving. 

I really admired what Dream Shadow and Sapphire did, but ultimately it was Puppy that came out the best of all of us.  Throughout all of our training exercises, Puppy has always done what he was told, always done his best, and usually ended up getting shot, hurt, and (often) killed. 

This time, he simply came up behind The Wall, grabbed him around the waist (pinning one arm at his side), and picked him up off the ground.  (Maybe he's only un-pick-upable when he's not moving?)  He actually managed to hold him in the air for several minutes as they not-quite-wrestled each other. 

I really thought Puppy was going to be able to hang onto him until the time ran out.  But somehow, The Wall managed to reverse Puppy’s hold, and suddenly, The Wall was holding Puppy in the air.  It took both hands for him to do it, but Puppy couldn’t get the leverage to escape The Wall’s grip.

The others piled back on.  Guardião and Stinger each took a leg, but The Wall just kept stepping, dragging them every step of the way.  Shift pulled a nasty trick and actually managed to blind The Wall.  He turned into a camel and spat nasty, green, sticky goo into his eyes.  Disgusting, but effective.  Sapphire and Dream Shadow linked arms with The Wall in the middle, like kids playing ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’, and added their weight to the guys on his legs.  Flare got in front of him and literally braced herself against him, pushing against his forward momentum.  He could have handled any of these problems instantly, but he would have had to put Puppy down to do it, and Puppy had stopped his progress the longest.  So he kept hold of Puppy and just slooooowly forced his way forward. 

With him fully engaged, I was able to touch him a lot more often, and I’m positive that if I’d been trying, I could have drained him dry by now.  It was closer than I’d expected.  It took The Wall twenty-six of his allotted thirty minutes to exit the training area, dragging young novas every step of the way. But he made it. 

As soon as he’d crossed the ‘exit’ line, he put Puppy down, shooed everyone off him, and spent a very long time wiping Shift’s camel spit out of his eyes.  (He looked really disgusted about that, LoL.) 

Lt. Riggs started in on us, as usual.  The Wall hung around for it.  He mostly let Riggs say his piece, about how we were disorganized, had no plan, etc.  (All of this was absolutely correct, so I can’t fault him for bringing it up.)  But as Riggs was winding down, The Wall took it upon himself to offer something we rarely get- praise.  He again complemented Dream Shadow and Sapphire’s teamwork and creativity.  And he complimented Puppy’s... determination to succeed.  (I’m not sure if anyone caught his slight hesitation.  I think he was having trouble expressing his desire to compliment Puppy’s skills without implying his total lack of forethought.)  Really, today those three were the standout VIPs, and I’m glad they got noticed for it. 

Riggs didn’t let the praise go on for long, though, and brought things back to me.  Since I’d had special instructions, I’d been left out of the preceding discussion entirely.  But now he turned to The Wall and asked how I’d done specifically. 

He laughed and used the line he’d used the last time we’d interacted- that my draining his power was like being nibbled to death by an invisible duck.  He also said that I’d drained him more completely than he’d experienced before, even in actual combat where he was freely spending his energy to fuel his abilities.  He said that, in combat, if he’d had me draining him the way I was, and was having to expend energy to actually fight, he probably would have exhausted himself and had to either flee or surrender.  He also said that while each contact that I made only drained minimal energy, I was making contact often enough that it added up quickly.  He wanted me to work on being able to drain more energy at a time, but that even as things stood, I would be a valuable, if highly specialized, asset to Team Tomorrow.  <Dammit!>  Finally, he pointed out that since he could never see me, or know when I was coming in, or from what angle, he basically had no defense against me, and just had to take it. 

Riggs didn’t say anything much about my performance, but he looked entirely too satisfied for my liking. 

Since the exercise was timed, we ended up having a lot more time to decompress after.  We all sat around talking, and everybody was really excited to have actually engaged against another nova, even if they hadn’t actually succeeded on the exercise. 

I didn’t say much.  Usually, I can look at the exercises and say (to myself, of course- never out loud), “Stinger should have done this”, or “In Stinger’s place, I would have done that.”  I couldn’t do that this time.  It was obvious that Stinger didn’t do well.  He didn’t even try to come up with a plan, and once the action started, he offered no leadership whatsoever.  But really, I can’t think of anything I could have done better.  The best I can say is that I would have at least tried to suggest any ideas that came to me in the moment. 

Thinking about it for next time, and with the benefit of hindsight, I would have kept the others out of range of Stinger’s Strobe power, and had him and Dream Shadow work together- him Strobing, and her Shrouding.  Maybe the others could have made noise, or used ranged attacks to keep him disoriented, and maybe turn him around enough that he was no longer heading toward the exit.  But that’s really all I could think of.  That and maybe have Puppy or Sapphire somehow move the exit.  Maybe build a barricade, and make a new exit, which he wouldn’t be able to see?  But even that would be a long shot....

As much as I don’t want to, I should probably talk about how using my Leech power so much made me feel.  It’s embarrassing, and... intimate.  But isn’t that what this journal is for?  To talk about all the real details about being a nova? 

The first time I used the power was on Alex (see entry, Saturday, September 6, 2008).  I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time, and made no effort to only take a little.  I’m not really sure how much I took, but it was a lot more than I’ve taken in my uses of the power since then.  I wrote at the time about how good using the power made me feel.  Any time I’ve used it since, it’s felt good, but since I was deliberately only taking minimal energy, it was never anything like that first time.  Today, I was still only taking minimal energy each time, but it added up.  And it was... overwhelming.  Not only do I have more energy running through my body than I’ve ever had before, but the sensations. 

Oh, God, the sensations.  I was at a party once, about a year ago, where a guy described what it was like to use crystal meth.  The euphoria.  The feeling of well-being.  The intense burst of energy.  He also described confusion, difficulty concentrating, and jitters.  I experienced all the upsides he described, with none of the downsides.  I felt like I could fly to the moon and back, arm wrestle Caestus Pax, and settle all the differences between Utopia and the Teragen.  As good as I felt right then, if I’d been offered membership in Team Tomorrow, I probably would have accepted it!  I felt so amazing, anything would have been okay with me in that moment. 

The amazing feeling lasted for a couple of hours.  Once it wore off, I’ll admit, I’m a little worried about it.  Addiction doesn’t run in my family, and I’m not sure novas can get addicted to anything in the first place, but... I could easily see myself wanting those sensations more and more.  It isn’t a problem right now (I don’t think), but if Riggs assigns me to use the power very often in our tacticals, I’m going to be exposed to the effect again and again.  That could be a problem. 

I wish I could talk to somebody about this.  But with me at the Academy, I think that’s impossible.  The whole reason Utopia is so keen to have me is because most of the people who develop Leech are Terats.  So, I’d need to talk to a Terat.  Do all novas who can Leech feel the same way when they use it?  Borrowing Scripture’s Disintegration power didn’t feel the same at all.  But I’m too closely monitored now that I’m at the Academy.  There’s no reasonable way I can even find out who else has the ability (other than Divis Mal, of course, and I’m certainly not going to bother him with my issue), let alone talk with them without Utopia finding out about it.

I’M NOT SURE WHO ELSE, OTHER THAN MAL, HAS THAT SPECIFIC POWER, BUT I’M PRETTY SURE THE COUNT WILL HAVE SOME IDEAS.  WE’LL TRY TO FIND A WAY TO GET YOU THE HELP YOU NEED, HEKA.  IN THE MEANTIME, TRY ‘BURNING OFF’ THE ENERGY YOU ABSORB AS YOU TAKE IT IN, RATHER THAN STORING IT.  THAT MIGHT HELP YOU DEAL WITH THOSE OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS.  AND IF IT GETS TOO MUCH TO DEAL WITH, LET ME KNOW HERE.  THE COUNT WANTS YOU TO TO STAY IN THE ACADEMY AS LONG AS POSSIBLE, BUT WE’LL EXTRACT YOU IF NEED BE.

~S

The energy overcharge is still with me, and I’m practically itching to do something with it.  I need to do this week’s assignments for college, but I don’t want to.  Not yet.  I really want to do something with all this energy.

Later-

I went to Flare, and asked to start learning to teleport.  I figured, since I had all this energy, now was a great time to get started.  She kept giving me funny looks, so maybe the ‘high’ I got hadn’t worn off as much as I thought it had?  But she agreed anyway. 

It would have been easier if I could have done on purpose with Flare what I did accidentally with Scripture- borrow the power and experience it firsthand.  But of course, that would let her know what I can do.  I want to trust Flare.  But without knowing where she stands, I just can’t. 

She’s never taught anyone how to use a power before, and I have to be careful not to let her know what kind of experience I’ve had in learning. 

For starters, I explained my buzzy tingly sense to her, and how I can use it to watch powers in use.  We attuned our quantum fields to each other, and then Flare demonstrated teleporting- just popping across the room, so I could see the whole process.  She did that several times, then did it several more times, taking me with her, so I could know how it feels.  (Of course, I didn’t want to explain that I’d been teleported before, and by several people.) 

I watched each demonstration carefully, until I was pretty sure I could make out how the quantum energy moved inside Flare, and around us both.  After that, comes the tedious part.  Moving the quantum energy around inside my own body, trying to make it ‘match’ what I see and sense in Flare’s.  And that with the differences inherently between us, making it not a one-to-one, identical effort. 

I was also a little startled when I compared the strength of our quantum fields and signature.  I remember when I came to Scripture, Divis Mal examined me, and said that my quantum connection was almost strong enough to learn to disintegrate things, but not quite.  Since I eventually learned, and felt my connection to quantum deepen, I knew I’d gotten stronger.  But I’d never really made any attempt at comparing myself to anyone else.  (Obviously, Scripture and Mal are both stronger than I’ll ever be, and beyond that, it never occurred to me to really look.)  Working so closely with Flare, I couldn’t help but become aware of the difference.  I don’t really know how to quantify what I sensed, but her connection to the quantum forces we all use seems so much... less. 

I know Bix pushed me hard at the Clinic.  And Scripture and Mal’s instruction certainly expanded my horizons, probably more and faster than was completely safe.  And I’ve noticed that the Academy has us using our powers, but never pushing them, or really doing anything to deepen our connection to quantum energy.  Why?  If they want some, even most, of us on Team Tomorrow, then shouldn’t they want us to be as good at what we do as possible?  Shouldn’t they want us to be all we can be?  Even if they were playing it safe and not pushing us as hard as I’ve been pushed, that still doesn’t explain why they aren’t pushing us at all.  It’s like they want to keep us at a low level of power, while making sure we’re ready and willing to use that power for whatever projects they come up with.  Why?

I guess it doesn’t really matter.  If Utopia wants to keep their novas ‘small’, that will just make things easier for non-Utopian novas. 

Wait a minute.  What if young novas are being held back to make them easier to control?  Or easier to restrain and restrict?  If Utopia knows exactly what a nova is capable of, and actively works to keep them from expanding that capability, then they’d know exactly how to... neutralize... that nova. 

But that’s ridiculous.  I don’t trust Utopia, and know that they place baseline concerns above nova concerns in all things.  But that isn’t the same as Utopia actively working against novas.  Utopia wouldn’t do that, right?  We may be ‘second class citizens’ when compared to baselines, but we’re still ‘citizens’.  Aren’t we? 

Enough rambling. 

Flare and I worked for a couple of hours, then she declared herself tired.  I thanked her for the lesson and went back to my room.  I went ahead and did most of my assignments for this week’s classload (a set of math problems, writing a short essay about what I hope to gain from my time in college, then peer-reviewing two other, similar essays, and reading three chapters of astronomy.  The history is my favorite, so I left it for tomorrow.)  Then I kept working on shaping the quantum energy inside myself to match what I’d seen from Flare.  I wish I’d thought to really study Blinker and Nebula’s quantum signatures while they teleported.  I’m sure having three different teleporters to compare would be really helpful.  Oh well.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, March 10

More Elites discussion today, with an interesting digression into ‘mask culture’.  Mostly as it applies to Elites, but also with XWF and Mexican nova culture.  Lt. Riggs got oddly in-depth and almost... poetic... about the meanings behind masks in general and old-style Luchadores in particular.  I saw unexpected depth in Riggs today.  For the first time, I saw something in him that wasn’t ‘soldierly’. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never thought that Riggs was stupid, but he’s always been monofocused and determined to get what he wants.  Everything he’s ever said or done in my presence has been about our training, our failures in training, our eventual places with Team Tomorrow, or Utopia’s general expectations of us.  Today, I saw him introspective, even lyrical, about something that he has no obvious connection to.  Riggs is definitely not Latino, so the likelihood of him growing up with any kind of Luchador culture is very slim.  And soldiers rarely have much up-close-and-personal exposure to Elites, so he’s unlikely to have picked up the appreciation from that.  I mean, there’s nothing wrong with him having an unusual appreciation for Luchador culture.  It’s just odd.  It would be like me getting weirdly into cricket, or Australian-rules football. 

After languages and lunch, we had our tactical.  As I’d half expected, today we faced off against Flamestrike.  Again, the tasks were fairly simple, and again, I had special orders.  The others were to prevent Flamestrike’s burning down several key objects on the training yard, and then leaving.  He wasn’t allowed to leave until he’d burned everything down.  I was supposed to be the ‘invisible duck’ again, and nibble him to death. 

I’ve gotten into the habit of re-reading my earlier entries, looking for ‘S’s’ responses, so I’m going to put his idea about burning the energy off ASAP rather than storing it to good effect.  I hope.  The overwhelming sensations come from the act of taking the energy, rather than from holding onto it, but I’m willing to give just about anything a try. 

Flamestrike told us that while he was going to do his best not to actually burn any of us, and would be deliberately damping his power down, what we were going to do was still dangerous, and the only way he was willing to engage in this kind of training was if we used a ‘safeword’.  He had to explain what that meant- though the snickers coming from Sapphire and Flare made me think they already knew.  Basically, the idea comes from the BDSM community, and it’s a word the person on the receiving end of the kinky stuff can yell if they need whatever is happening to stop Right Now. 

Riggs looked annoyed by the whole safeword thing, which I guess I can understand.  I doubt anyone out in the ‘real world’ would stop attacking us if we yelled ‘pineapple’ at the top of our lungs.  But even though it’s obvious that (whatever his title) Riggs is in charge of the Academy, it was just as obvious that Flamestrike did not consider Riggs to be in charge of him, and what he wanted in this case, he would get.  So the safeword is ‘pineapple’. 

So, we get  started.  There are about twenty things scattered around the training area.  Big logs, part of a golf cart, a pile of glass bottles, all kinds of things that would take various amounts of time to burn completely. 

This time, at least, I had an idea about how to go about this.  Flamestrike wasn’t allowed to leave until everything had burned as completely as it was capable of burning.  So, keeping things from burning all the way meant that he couldn’t leave.  There was nothing saying we couldn’t scatter and bring fire extinguishers, or water hoses, or something like that.  Even Sapphire could encase the burning items in sapphires, denying them the oxygen needed to burn.  I didn’t know how many of those walls she could build and maintain, but even one would be enough.  Guardião’s Disruption power would be invaluable.  And if Flare could attune any of the objects before Flamestrike got to it, she could teleport it away- he couldn’t burn what wasn’t there, after all (though I’m not sure that would count).  The point is, there were lots of options this time.  But would Stinger think of any of it?

No.  No he would not. If it wasn’t for his absolute zeal for Project Utopia and Team Tomorrow, I’d almost wonder if he wasn’t being deliberately bad at this. 

The closest thing to a ‘plan’ that he offered was telling Flare to use her Immolate power, and try to get between Flamestrike and whatever he was trying to set on fire.  Admittedly, I hadn’t thought of that, but even if I had, I don’t think I would have suggested (let alone ordered) it.  From the look on Flare’s face, she didn’t think it was a good idea either.  After all, just because she happened to be surrounded by fire, did that mean she was immune to incoming fire-based attacks?  To be honest, I don’t know.  And from her expression, she didn’t either.  Just thinking about it, I’d be willing to assume she’d be immune to really minor fires, like candles or even gas stoves, but probably not significant sources of fire- like a fire-wielding nova actively trying to burn things down. 

But Flare is a people-pleaser.  She didn’t push back against Stinger.  I started to myself, but stopped, for several reasons.  First, Flamestrike had said he was going to dampen himself.  So even if she took the full force of his attack, it shouldn’t be lethal.  And I was confident that if he hurt her badly, he’d immediately end the exercise, in spite of Riggs.  Plus, we had Guardião, and I know exactly how effective his power is.  And finally (and this is really petty), I think she needs to grow a backbone, and not just do whatever she’s told.  If that takes getting burned, well, as long as there’s no permanent harm done, so be it.  So, I shut up.  After all, I already had my orders. 

So, we got started.  I went invisible, took off, and stayed behind Flamestrike, waiting for my opportunities for fly-by ‘nibbling’.  Guardião didn’t feel the need to wait for Stinger’s direction.  He stayed where he was and stared at Flamestrike so fiercely that I know he was using his Disruption power.  And for a little while it looked like that might be enough.  At least, Flamestrike looked surprised, then got a concentrated ‘pushing’ look on his face.  If I’m being honest, he looked like he was constipated.  Flare had her flames on, and was standing in front of the log (which was what Flamestrike had been oriented on), but she looked as ready to jump out of the way as to defend the log.  Everybody else just looked confused and stood around. 

Finally, Flamestrike ‘broke through’.  Guardião dropped down to knees like he was exhausted.  (I hoped he’d still be able to heal people if it came to that.)  Flamestrikes flames came on in a big whoosh and fired off at the log.  Flare dived out of the way, and the log went up like it was soaked in oil (it wasn’t).  Stinger looked mad, but I’m really glad she ducked.  Even damped down, it looked like Flamestrike had built up an overcharge and might not have been fully in control of that first blast.  When I made my next ‘nibble’ pass, I heard him muttering “Shit, shit, shit” really quietly to himself.

The exercise kept going.  Flamestrike’s next several blasts were much smaller and more controlled (but still really effective), and Stinger yelled for Flare to ‘stick with the plan’.  And she did it.  She got in from of him when he oriented on the pile of glass bottles.

I’d give a lot to know what was going through Flamestrike’s head at that moment.  Did he think they were playing some game of ‘chicken’?  Did he somehow assume that her being on fire made her immune to incoming fire?  Was he confident enough of not killing her that he was out to prove a point?  I don’t know, and knowing would tell me a lot more about who Flamestrike is as a person.

Either way, he saw that she was between him and his target, and he went for her anyway.  Except that I intervened.  Even though I’d decided to let Flare ‘fuck around and find out’, in the moment, I just reacted.  I dipped in and ‘nibbled’ harder than I had before.  Still nowhere near as hard as I could, but hard.  And instead of darting away again, I hung around for a second touch.  I don’t know what made me do it.  But Flamestrike swung around, right as he was firing.  And caught me right in the chest at point blank range. 

Now, I’d been grazed when he’d been part of my testing when I first came to the Academy.  It had hurt.  A lot.  It hadn’t done my any real damage, and I’d healed almost instantly, but it had still hurt.  (Though come to think of it, he’d probably been dampening his power then, too.)  So I was expecting this to hurt so much worse, and was determined not to yell or anything- just get out of the way long enough to heal.  But... it didn’t hurt.  At all.  I knew I’d gotten tougher since I’d been here, but how do you really measure something like that?

I was all set to just ignore Flamestrike’s blast, fly out of his way, and keep going, but even though he couldn’t see me, he clearly saw that his flame bolt had hit something.  He yelled “Pineapple!” and everything stopped.  Obviously, I was the only one ‘missing’, so he told me to come visible, and I did.  I fed all the energy I’d nibbled into my Eufiber, and it was nearly healed when I turned visible.  Nearly, but not quite.  It was obvious that he’d scored a direct, point-blank hit on me. 

The look on poor Flamestrike’s face was something I hope I never see again.  He looked like he’d done something too horrible to ever be forgiven.  He started screaming for medics, and Guardião came running over.  Riggs came too, and a couple of other soldiers (there are always a few hanging around the tacticals, even when they aren’t part of them).  Flamestrike told me to lay down, that everything would be okay, how sorry he was- just babbling, really.  When I didn’t immediately lay down, he tried to scoop me up, but I flew up out of reach.  (I knew he meant well, but I don’t like being grabbed.)

I insisted that I was fine (and by then my Eufiber had put itself back together), but Guardião asked me to come down so he could have a look at me anyway.  He had a weirdly calm tone in his voice, I didn’t want to push him.  So, I came down and let him look me over.  Riggs was watching everything.  Poor Flamestrike was actually hugging himself, he looked so miserable.  If you’d have asked me yesterday if a nova could be dithering, I’d’ve said no.  But he was clearly in a dither, thinking he’d hurt me, badly. 

Guardião put his hands on me, and I felt that warm sense of well-being, and that same hard-to-think sensation, but stronger this time- I guess because he was putting in more effort this time than when we were all demonstrating our powers to each other?  (Come to think of it, it had hurt, a little, when Flare burned me then.  But not now, and this was a much more intense flame.)  

I couldn’t tell you how long it took, but Guardião took his hands off me and said that I was fine- there was nothing to heal.  He had to tell Flamestrike twice before he believed it and really looked at me.  And I was fine.  Completely fine.  And Riggs had such a satisfied look on his face- but as soon as I noticed that I was looking at him, he went stone-faced. 

I was finally allowed to stand up, and the whole thing was just so awkward.  Flamestrike wanted to cancel the rest of the exercise, Riggs was having none of that.  I told Flamestrike that it was an accident, it could have happened to anyone; all the normal things you tell someone when they try to burn a hole through your chest and you don’t want them to feel bad about it.  <LoL>

I suggested that we continue the exercise, but maybe it would be a good idea to establish, once and for all, if Flare was immune to incoming fire before we got back into things.  Riggs gave me a look that said I’d earned brownie points.  Flare and Flamestrike both looked less than happy, and I can’t blame them. 

A small argument resulted, and Riggs ultimately shut that down.  He told Flare to turn her fire back on, and we’d test it.  He had Guardião standing as close to her as he could, with the flames going, then told Flamestrike to target her with his weakest possible flame.  He did, and nothing happened.  Everybody relaxed a little, even though he hadn’t hit her with anything much more than one of those lighters you can get to let off a flame about six inches high. 

Riggs had Flamestrike scale up his fire, and it didn’t take long before his flame was able to overcome hers.  By this point, poor Flamestrike was on a hair-trigger, so as soon as Flare yelped, he stopped and refused to go any further.  Guardião immediately healed the burn (it was really minor), and Flare looked both relieved and really... solemn.  Even if Stinger wasn’t thinking about what would have happened if she’d carried out his ‘plan’, she sure was. 

Flamestrike had had enough, and refused to continue the exercise.  Even though continuing had been my idea, I wasn’t sorry for it to be over. 

I really wanted to go someplace quiet and think, but I knew that would be the worst thing I could do.  Nope, right then, it was important to be part of the group, and stick with them.  I didn’t want them having time to maybe start thinking some kind of way about me.  I think everyone had assumed that Puppy was the toughest in the group (and maybe he is- I have no idea), but we all somehow seemed to share the idea that he wouldn’t have been able to basically ignore such a direct hit.  It probably wouldn’t have been especially bad for Puppy, but...

I stayed with the others in our decompress spot as long as I could, mainly focusing on Flare.  She knew how close she’d come to getting hurt today, and hurt badly, even if Stinger didn't give any indication of realizing it.  I hope this was a wake-up call for her.  Actual age aside, our childhoods ended the moment we erupted, and the expectation that anyone will advocate for us ended at the same time.  Flare needs to learn to stand up for herself and refuse bad, stupid, or dangerous orders.  Especially when they’re given for no good reason.  It’s one thing to get hurt actually saving someone else.  It’s quite another thing to get hurt because some idiot told you to allow yourself to be set on fire just to ‘defend’ a pile of glass bottles.

One of the only bad things about being able to fly so fast is that I have less ‘alone time’ to think on the trip.  My aikido lesson went fine.  Sensei Laura mentioned that I smelled like smoke, and I (briefly) told her what happened.  She was Not. Amused.

I spent a little longer than usual at home, loving on the cats.  Mom still works crazy hours, even though I put a solid chunk of my monthly stipend into the household accounts.  I think she might be lonely in the apartment alone. 

The downtime let me really stop and think about what happened today. It was a Thing on two levels.  The most obvious being that I took a direct, point-blank gout of fire to the chest, and was completely unbothered by it.  As much as I don’t like getting hurt, I really think I do need to start exploring exactly how tough I really am.  But what happens when I find my limits?  Maybe I can get Guardião to be on-hand for the experiments.  I know he doesn’t like violence, but surely he’d see that this is necessary?

The other thing, I only realized while I was telling Sensei Laura what happened.  I had already decided to let Flare experience the consequences of her own actions.  I’m pretty sure that had Flamestrike hit her, with her being much further away than I was, that Flare would have definitely been hurt, but there was no real likelihood of any permanent damage being done, especially with Guardião there.  So even though I knew in the moment that her life wasn’t in any actual danger, I still reacted like it was- and ended up taking the attack meant for her. 

Like a teammate?  Like a friend?  The entire rest of the team was there, and did nothing.  ‘Teamwork’ wasn’t on the menu today.  I like Flare.  I think, under other circumstances, that we could be friends.  But without knowing where she stands re: Utopia, I can’t fully trust her.  I can’t confide in her.  What kind of friendship is possible under those circumstances?  And, with the Academy monitoring us all the time, there’s no way to even begin figuring out where she really stands.  If she even knows herself.  I know she’s really smart, but I suspect she’s made a habit of not allowing herself to know/notice certain things.  And that’s another reason I can’t trust her.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, March 11 

Lt. Riggs held me out of the tactical today.  Instead, he sent me to the little on-campus Clinic.  They wanted to examine me, and try and test exactly how tough I’ve actually become.  That was fine by me.  I suspect the tactical was going to involve Flamestrike again, and while I have no hard feelings toward him, I think he (and Flare, and Stinger) need to let whatever is going to happen, happen.  Besides, I want to know whatever the Clinic can tell me about myself.  It’d be nice to not have to worry about getting shot ever again. 

The first chunk of time was a basic medical exam.  They tried to give me shots (vitamins, they said), but they couldn’t get the needle to pierce my skin.  Just as well.  I really didn’t want to take anything else, not even vitamins.  And I only have their word that’s what was on offer.  Finally, just when I thought i was in the clear, they brought in a tungsten needle, and (after a couple of tries) gave me the shots.  I don’t think they were vitamins.  Vitamins don’t make you all floaty-feeling.  I never actually passed out, but I wasn’t myself, and things are fuzzy.

Then they started durability testing.  I’m not sure how accurate the rest of this is.  I might have things in the wrong order, or have details wrong.  I definitely wouldn’t have gone along with a lot of what happened next, if I’d been ‘with it’ enough to stop them.   

I’d somehow thought that testing for durability in a medical clinic would be more... scientific.  Instead, they just hurt me.  Or, I should say, they tried to hurt me. 

They brought in one of the soldiers who played ‘gang tough’ or victim’ for our tacticals.  I think I recognized him, but I’m not sure.  He beat me with a baseball bat.  It was like being viciously attacked with a plushie.  He eventually broke the bat against my ribs.  Once he’d done that, he picked up a knife and tried to stab me.  He couldn’t get it to pierce my skin.  He punched me, but only once.  I think he hurt himself. 

Then another guy came out.  I don’t know where he got a real sword.  Who actually carries swords around?  He didn’t have any better luck.  They hit me with some other things that I don’t really remember. 

Then they started shooting at me.  That got my attention, and I started to object, but I think somebody gave me another shot.  I still didn’t want them to shoot me, but I wasn’t able to get the words out, and when I tried to fly away, I couldn’t concentrate enough to do it..

So, they shot me.  A lot.

They had the first soldier come back in.  I think he said something to them.  I think he didn’t want to shoot me.  Maybe something about how out-of-it I was?  I’m not sure.  I think maybe there was an argument.  I vaguely remember Lt. Riggs being there, but then he wasn’t, and the soldier shot me. 

He started with a pistol.  Or maybe a revolver.  I couldn’t focus my eyes enough to be sure.  But a small gun.  It kinda tickled.  Then he moved up to bigger, heavier pistols.  But they still didn’t hurt.  He had a shotgun, too.  The little pellets I didn’t even feel, but they made the floor harder to stand on.  The big slugs, I felt, but they didn’t hurt. 

I think there was a taser somewhere.  At least, I heard a zap like one, and I didn’t think I was the one doing the zapping.  But if there was, I didn’t notice the little darts or the electricity. 

Then somebody brought in some bigger guns.  Hunting rifles like (I imagine) the people in Kansas shot me with.  That got my attention, and I tried to get away.  I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly, but also knew I didn’t to be shot with something that could actually hurt me.

People crowded around me, and I think there must have been another shot because I don’t have continuous memories of anything else until that evening.  I remember raised voices, but couldn’t understand what they were saying.  Then ‘my’ soldier was gone, and there was a new one. 

The new soldier shot me with big hunting rifles, smaller SMGs, and a rifle that shot shards of something sharp instead of bullets.  Most of it didn’t hurt at all, but some of it did, even if not very much. 

Later, I remember looking down at myself- my Eufiber was down around my waist somehow, and I just had my bra on.  I was covered with little bruises, and a couple of them were bleeding a little.  I think the new soldier was shooting me from close range, but I don’t actually remember him doing it. I didn’t hurt like Kansas, but I still ached all over.  I think I was crying. 

The next thing I remember, there was a smell in the room.  Not quite like gas.  Maybe kerosine?  My bra felt sticky on my skin.  Somebody was holding my hand, but not in a good way.  I don’t remember who burned me.  I just saw my hand, with the fingers smooshed together, being held over one of those big lighters you use to start BBQ grills.  I remember seeing my fingers in the fire, and a smell, but I don’t remember any pain.  I saw a Bunsen burner at one point, but I don’t remember it being used on me.

I remember a welder’s mask, and being scared since somehow I didn’t realize at the time that it was just a person in a mask.  I think I must have been burned with some kind of welding tool, but I don’t actually remember it.

Later, I remember smelling ozone, and a skittery feeling, like ants crawling all over me.  I know I saw a cattle prod on a desk, but don’t remember it being used on me.  A later scrap of memory has a car battery, but again, I don’t remember it being used.  For some reason, electricity doesn’t bother me as much as being shot, so maybe that’s why I don’t remember it as clearly.  Or maybe they’d given me more shots- I don’t know.

I don’t remember anything else until I woke up in my own bed.  It was a little before sunset- almost dark.  It took me a moment to remember where I was.  When I looked down at myself, I was covered in bruises and dried blood from shallow wounds.  I moved quantum energy around, and everything healed up and my head cleared. 

I was finishing up my shower when Dream Shadow knocked on our connecting bathroom door.  She looked me over with a directness that she doesn’t usually show- she usually avoids eye contact.  But she examined me like she was looking for something very specific- and finding it.  

She ducked back into her room, then came back with several pieces of fruit, of all things.  She shooed me into my room, and followed me in.  This was an all new Dream Shadow.  Usually she’s quiet.  Unassuming.  Shy.  But right then she took charge of me like I needed to be taken care of, and she’d assigned herself the task.  Maybe she was right.  I’d purged whatever they’d given me from my system and healed the damage, but I still didn’t feel right about anything that had happened. 

She pressed the fruit on me (I was surprised by how much her English had improved since I’d met her- I hadn’t noticed since she almost never talks.)  I thanked her, but told her I didn’t need to eat.  She told me that no, I didn’t need food, but I needed to feel normal, and eating was normal.  So eat.  It made a weird kind of sense.  I ate, and did feel a little better- a little more... grounded. 

She said, very quietly, that she’d seen people look like I did before.  I stopped her, and looked up where the microphone was concealed in my ceiling.  She glanced up where I was looking, nodded, and shrugged like it didn’t matter.  Apparently she meant to say her piece regardless. 

Dream Shadow said that she’d seen people look like I did back at home, but she’d seen Puppy look like I did once, too.  He’d told her about what they did to find out how tough he really was.  I’d forgotten that they had remedial classes together- her to learn English and Puppy for, well, a lot of things.  She told me it was good to talk now, while it was fresh.  That talking would help it ‘not take root’.  I’m not sure exactly what she meant by that, but she wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer. 

I told her, as best I could, and nowhere near as coherently as I’ve written it down here.  She listened.  Really listened.  When I’d finished, she said that Puppy’s story was his to tell, as mine was, but that he had gone through something similar.  The only major difference was that they hadn’t drugged him.  They’d just told him to stand still, and he did. 

She told me that when people looked like I did (and like Puppy had) in her country, it was best to talk about what happened, then ‘put it away’.  That holding on to it would only make trouble.  That it was best to look forward.  It took me a moment to remember that Dream Shadow had been in a North Korean ‘training center’ for novas before she came to the Academy.  She didn’t say it, but I suspect she saw a lot of ‘re-education’ while she was there.  Her eyes kept flicking up to the microphone while she said all that. 

I flicked my eyes the same way to show her I understood, and told her that I would try to do that.  That even if I didn’t always like testing, that I understood that Utopia had to know what we can do.  I’m pretty sure she read my real feelings on my face, but I think my voice was steady. 

Once she went back to her room, I’ve written this account.  It’s a little better organized than what I gave Dream Shadow, but I don’t think I would have been able to put down as much as I did if I hadn’t talked to her first. 

This has shown me a whole other side of Dream Shadow.  Before, well, I hadn’t really thought much about her, really.  Apart from being one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, she just... faded into the background, as much as she could.  And she’s good at it.  But I’ll never overlook her again.  What she did for me tonight... well, no one else came to check on me.  And she knew what I needed more than I did. 

It’s funny, but one conversation was enough to take me from not thinking anything about her one way or the other, to being closer to trusting her than I am to anyone else here.  Not that it matters, much.  Even if I were willing to confide in her (and I’m still not quite there yet), there’s still no place I know of on campus where I could be sure of privacy. 

As far as what the Academy, and by extension, Utopia, did to me today; well, if I’d still been on the fence about trusting Utopia, this would have killed any chance of it.  The only good part of this is that I have a much better idea of how tough I really am now.  Not a perfect idea, since I still have gaps in my memory about the testing, but a pretty good idea.  Unfortunately, that means Utopia does, too.  And it still isn’t quite the same.  The people in Kansas were actively trying to kill me.  Utopia wasn’t.  I’m pretty sure that if Utopia actively wanted me dead, I would have had an unfortunate accident.  Maybe I still will, someday. 

I know what my best course of action is- to say nothing, and ‘accept’ what was done to me as a ‘necessary unpleasantness’.  To appear not to hold a grudge.  To want to ‘put it behind me’.  In short, to pretend nothing happened. 

And I’ll do all that.  For now.  I feel... violated.  This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like that, though this is the worst (so far).  And every time I’ve truly felt that way, Utopia has been involved somehow. 

The Count wants me here, and that’s good enough.  For now.  But I will not let this lie indefinitely.  If I need to stay here, play the game, and maybe even eventually let Utopia manipulate me into Team Tomorrow Auxiliary, so be it.  But once that’s no longer necessary, I want to be sure that the Academy can’t do to other young novas what’s being done to us.  This is wrong on a level I hadn’t believed possible. 

HEKA, WHEN YOU GO HOME FOR THE WEEKEND, BE AT THAT PLACE BY THE RIVER YOU GO TO BE ALONE AND THINK.  SATURDAY AFTERNOON, ABOUT 4PM.  NO TECH.

~S

Chapter Text

Thursday, March 12

Today was more of the same.  I couldn’t help being quieter than usual.  Flare noticed during class.  I think some of the others did too, for various reasons.  I’m still not sure I believe that Stinger has feelings for me, but I caught him watching me several times during class. 

Guardião gave me one long stare at the beginning, then pretty much ignored me.  Does his healing power come with some kind of diagnostic sense?  I’d be surprised if it didn’t, but I thought his power required touch to work. Sapphire paid a little more attention to me than usual, but when I caught her looking at me, she just raised an eyebrow and looked aloof.  Of course, it’s almost impossible to know what she’s really thinking.  I wonder how much of her self-absorption is real, and how much is an act...

Flamestrike was at the tactical again, and I had the same instructions.  I have no idea what happened at yesterday’s exercise, but today Flamestrike was painfully careful to keep his bursts of fire well below any reasonable flying height.  The bursts were smaller and weaker than before, too.  It seems a little silly, since he saw on Tuesday that I had been able to take a direct hit with no difficulty, so, if anything, I would have thought he would be less careful, rather than more.  Maybe he really was genuinely upset at the idea of hurting me, even though I wasn’t hurt.  Maybe he just doesn’t like hurting people.  If so, he might be the first Utopian nova I’ve met that actually cared.  Even Geisha manipulated all of us, either without caring or without knowing (and not knowing is its own form of not caring, as far as I’m concerned.)

This time, the goal was unusually complicated.  The others had to keep him from burning down a (small, cheaply made) building long enough to rescue the people inside it.  The mission statement carefully didn’t say how many people were inside the building (which makes sense, I suppose- we wouldn’t know that in the field).  Flamestrike told us that the only way he’d agreed to participate in this exercise was if the ‘people’ we were rescuing were actually dummies.  He refused to risk actual baselines.  Lt. Riggs looked annoyed that he’d said even that much, but I respected his caution. 

Flamestrike is obviously Utopian, otherwise he wouldn’t be here with us, but I like him.  I won’t allow myself to trust him, but I like him.  He’s one of the few Utopian novas I’ve met so far that I can confidently say, “I think he’s a good person”. 

And how sad is it, now that I think about it, that he’s the only one?

Anyway, this was probably the most complicated thing we’ve had to do yet, or at least, the exercise with the most moving parts.  And the most options. 

It seemed to me that the best thing would be to stop Flamestrike from setting the building on fire in the first place, or keep the fire from spreading if that failed.  Since the ‘victims’ were dummies, they couldn’t escape on their own, but we would have had to check the place to be sure everyone had gotten out anyway. 

I couldn’t help but think that (apart from the fire being deliberately set) this was almost exactly like my first experience with actual superhero-ing.  And for the first time, I actually kinda wanted to be in charge of the team.  Just this once.  But no.  Even if I hadn’t had my usual ‘nibble’ orders, I know better than to put myself forward even once.  So, I left Stinger to fail in whatever way he decided to.

And he did not disappoint.  He made no effort at any kind of fire suppression.  He didn’t even have Guardião try to Disrupt Flamestrike’s power again.  (Even though Guardião had ultimately not been able to completely shut Flamestrike down last time, he’d still made things more difficult for him, and slowed him down.  That would have been enough to give the others more time for rescue activities.) 

Instead, Stinger decided to send Puppy and Flare straight into the building, at a run, in full sight.  (Flare couldn’t teleport because she didn’t know the inner layout of the building.)  Dream Shadow and Sapphire were supposed to go for the upstairs windows, looking for victims to rescue.  (Not a bad idea in itself, except that doing so would expose them to Flamestrike’s attacks, as well as the soon-to-be-flaming walls.)  Guardião was to wait outside the building to deal with any ‘injured victims’ as they were brought out.  Stinger assigned himself and Shift to ‘stop Flamestrike’.  Just the two of them, when apparently the whole group hadn’t been able to complete whatever yesterday’s objective had been (I hadn’t cared enough to ask for details). 

And that was the whole plan.  Oh, and Stinger ordered me to ‘follow my mission instructions’, like it was his own idea.  And like he could have ordered me to do anything else and expected me to put up with it. 

I’m getting really sick of writing about team failures.  Briefly, then.  Flare and Puppy went inside.  Flare teleported two ‘victims’ out safely (apparently the dummies were easier to teleport than people- she was able to take two instead of her usual limit of one person).  Unfortunately, that left Puppy behind.  Alone.  In a burning building.  That the smoke made him get lost in.  Eventually, he panicked, and kicked a hole in the wall.  He wasn’t badly burned, but it turns out he’s at least a little afraid of fire.  Poor Puppy.  ☹

Dream Shadow knocked a window in and rescued one victim, but her wings were so badly seared that she couldn’t go back for any others and Guardião had to come in and help her.  (Note to self: burning feathers stink even worse than burning hair.)  Sapphire did a little better.  She got one victim out, and went back inside for another, but couldn’t find anyone else before the roof caved in.  In her sapphire form, she wasn’t hurt, but that pretty much ended the exercise.  The building burned down. 

Stinger’s Strobe power put Flamestrike on his knees, and made some of his flame bolts go wild (one almost hit Guardião, and I’m certain Flamestrike didn’t intend for that to happen).  But Flamestrike was almost as effective on the ground as he was on his feet, so what Stinger did really didn’t help much. 

I don’t know what Shift was thinking.  Maybe he’s getting sick of Stinger’s plans too.  Or maybe he just was in a mood today.  His idea to ‘stop Flamestrike’ was to turn into an elephant and sit on him.  Except, Flamestrike just gave him a ‘hotfoot’ (hotass?) and Shift jumped up faster than any real elephant could have. 

And I ‘nibbled’.  It was harder this time, and  didn’t get as many nibbles in.  Between Shift sitting on Flamestrike and Stinger’s strobe effects, I usually couldn’t get close enough to touch Flamestrike (and I’m still not letting anyone know that I don’t need to touch).  So I only took a few small ‘sips’ of power. 

I followed ‘S’s’ advice about burning off the power I took as I took it.  It helped a little, but it was the limited opportunities more than anything else that kept the sensation from building up again.  Still, any help is better than none.  Thanks, ‘S’. 

Once the building had burned down, Lt. Riggs went over what we had accomplished.  Flamestrike was slightly bruised but had not been hindered in any meaningful way.  Four ‘victims’ were rescued.  Seven more burned to death- no one ever even saw them.  Dream Shadow was badly hurt, though Guardião had already healed her.  Puppy and Shift were slightly hurt.  I had been less effective than usual.  Riggs didn’t comment on why, but I’m pretty sure he realized what had happened.

Considering the loss of human ‘life’, I’d say this was our worst failure yet.  The rest of the team seemed resigned.  We’re used to failing by now.  It was Flamestrike’s expression that interested me.  Once he realized that he’d almost hit Guardião with his wild shot, he looked... stricken?  That’s not quite the right word.  He looked like he was seriously reconsidering his life choices.  And not in an ‘oh, shit, that was bad’ way.  In a ‘is this really what I should be doing with my life?’ way.  I really do think he’s a good guy.  Maybe all this will make him re-think his place with Utopia.  I hope so.  He deserves better than being used to attack kids.

I went to the decompress after, but stuck with my ‘withdrawn’ attitude.  It’s odd, to think that I’m playing a role, when I really do actually feel that way.  It’s just that shock and a sense of violation can’t hold a candle to anger. 

Things were really quiet in our little hang-out garden.  I think, for the first time, the others were really considering the ramifications of our (and especially Stinger’s) failures.  Seven ‘lives’ lost today.  Because we aren’t a team and have no effective leadership. 

I’d give an awful lot to know what went on in Stinger’s head.  How can he keep not learning from previous failures?  He’s not stupid.  He doesn’t have memory problems.  If he doesn’t genuinely want to be a good leader, then he’s the best actor I’ve ever seen.  I’d almost rather believe that he was screwing things up deliberately, for whatever reason.  But I just can’t see any motivation for him to do that.  What’s going on with him?  Why is nothing changing? 

There’s that old cliche about a definition of insanity being ‘doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results’.  By that definition, Stinger is batshit crazy.  And, in a way, so are the rest of us.  All of us see that something is wrong.  Most of us have discussed it, at one point or other.  (To my knowledge, Dream Shadow hasn’t said anything, but after last night, I know she’s a lot more keyed into how the group works than I’d given her credit for.)  I’m not really sure about Puppy, but the rest of us know what’s wrong, and keep doing it anyway.  Because even though we know Stinger sucks as a leader, none of us want to do it either.  (Well, I’m not really sure if Shift’s reasons are the same.  He still seems so much... younger than all the rest of us.  I don’t know why.  He’s only a year behind, I think.) 

Anyway, the point is that whatever Stinger’s reasons for doing what he’s doing, our reasons are worse- we see a problem, realize that any of us could potentially solve (or at least improve) the problem, and refuse.  For no better reason than because we don’t want to.

I wasn’t sorry when the time came to leave for my aikido lesson.  I tried to shake off everything that had happened, but Sensei Laura knew something was wrong, and she kept me after the lesson to talk.  I didn’t want to go into detail about yesterday’s ‘testing’, but she knew I was holding something back.  I told her a little about today’s exercise, but not much. 

When she pushed for details, both about today and ‘whatever else was bothering me’, I had to tell her something.  I respect her too much to lie to her.  But I know her well enough to know that she feels protective of ‘her’ students.  At least the ones who are serious about learning, anyway.  If I told her even a little of what the Academy did to me yesterday, she would feel like she had to take some kind of action.  And anyway, I know regular teachers are Mandatory Reporters when they find out about child abuse.  Does that include specialized teachers?  Because I am still a child, for a few more days.  And what was done to me was abuse. 

So, I couldn’t tell her the truth, but I couldn’t lie to her.  Finally, I settled for telling her that some bad stuff had happened, and that I was dealing with it.  That I wasn’t really okay, but I would be soon enough.  And that talking about it would only make things worse. 

I could see she wasn’t satisfied, but didn’t want to push me.  Finally, she just gave me a hug and her private telephone number.  She told me to call her any time, day or night, if I needed to talk. Or needed anything else.  Her tone when she said that last part was very... open-ended. 

Utopia wants novas to serve the greater good of baselines to the exclusions of everything else, including our own good.  Divis Mal wants novas to explore our own potential, without regard for baselines, but without going out of our way to harm them- hence his planned separation for the good of both races. 

The Teragen has shown that they care for me- and not in a culty, love-bomb way.  Yes, they expect me to pull my weight, and want to use me in some ways.  But ‘use me’ in the sense of a mutual aid network.  Utopia wants to use me as well.  And I suspect they’d be just as happy to use me up. 

But it’s the baselines, or at least a very few baselines, who actually seem to care for me.  Mom (though I guess she’s kinda obligated to care, lol), the girls, Sensei Laura.  I really do believe they care for me.  The Teragen cares, some of them anyway, in its own way.  But the Teragen cares for Heka.  These few baselines care for Colleen.  And tonight, that’s really important to me.

Furnado’s fur is very absorbent, by the way.  He’s a very tolerant cat.  By the time I’d finished using him as a crying towel, he’d groomed my hair into cat-spit covered spikes. 

Chapter Text

Friday, March 13

Today’s tactical was The Wall again.  As far as I can tell, apart from some strength (and the ability to throw people/things that goes along with it), his power set is entirely defensive.  This seems likely to result in stalemate, depending on the mission goal- we can’t do much to him, but he can’t do very much to us either.  Attrition seems the most likely way to decide the outcome. 

But today was different, and it was all thanks to Flare.  Our mission goal was unusual.  Prevent The Wall from getting to a designated target.  That was all.  (Well, I had my usual ‘nibble’ orders.)  I think the soldier who was playing ‘target’ might have been the one beating me with a bat and stabbing me.  The one who (I think) objected to hurting me more.  But I’m not certain. 

Stinger’s plan was particularly uninspired, but at least he had a plan this time.  He told everyone other than me to simply form a ring around the soldier, and keep The Wall from getting through.  He told Sapphire and Dream Shadow to stay in the air above the ring, and dart down at The Wall if it looked like he was going to break through.  Nevermind that The Wall had previously demonstrated his ability to pick any of us up and simply throw us away.  The fliers could get back quickly (assuming they didn’t get hurt on landing), but the ground-bound members of the team would take at least a couple of seconds to get up and run back to the ring, which would be all the time The Wall needed to get to the soldier.  The Wall isn’t especially fast (that he’s shown, anyway), But if he’s close enough to grab and throw, he’s close enough to get to the target soldier before anyone could run back. 

Usually, Flare is better at controlling her expression, but I caught her rolling her eyes when Stinger told them what to do.  Of course, he repeated my orders to me, as though he’d come up with them himself. 

So, off we went.  The others formed themselves into their ring, with the fliers hovering.  I knew this exercise wasn’t going to last long, so I started doing my passes as The Wall walked across the training yard toward the ring.  He kept trying to swat me, but I kept not being where he expected me to be.  (I kept dumping the energy I took, too, but the sensations were still starting to build.)

Anyway, as soon as he made it to the ring, he grabbed... Stinger.  And threw him across the yard.  He actually bounced when he landed.  Twice.  Since Stinger had made his ‘plan’ well within The Wall’s hearing range; some tiny, petty part of me wonders if he chose to launch Stinger as ‘punishment’ for making such a dumb plan.  Probably not, though. 

Stinger was moving, and getting up, but not very quickly.  The others tried to close ranks, and Sapphire dove at The Wall.  But instead of yeeting her, he just let her hit him.  She couldn’t build up enough force to hurt him, even in her sapphire form.  Instead, he grabbed Shift, and flung him.  Shift fared better than Stinger.  He turned into a ridiculously fluffy housecat, twisted in midair, and landed on his feet.  He started to run back to the group right away, but it was too late. 

The Wall had the opening he needed, and was just about to grab the soldier.  Flare, at the back of the ring, grabbed the soldier first.  And teleported away with him. 

And that was that.  The Wall had no chance of getting to the soldier now, so the exercise was over.  One of our only unqualified successes.  Stinger was a little bruised, but no one was seriously hurt.  Lt. Riggs berated us for a crappy plan, but that’s to be expected.  He actually praised Flare for her quick thinking, and asked where she’d taken the soldier.  She said the nearest roof, so she could see when to bring him back.

For once, our little garden hangout was really excited and cheerful.  Stinger was sulking, but at this point, I don’t think anyone really cared. 

I didn’t stay long, since I had my astronomy lab, and once that was finished, I went straight home. 

On the way home, I had a thought.  Could something (someone?) be preventing Stinger somehow from being a better leader? 

Is that even possible? 

I know Geisha can make people do pretty much whatever she wants, just by asking.  And people want to please her even when she isn’t actively using her powers.  If she can do that, other novas must be able to as well.  But I’m not sure that her power works like it would need to for this.  It’s one thing to have ‘favors’ done.  It’s another thing to actually change someone’s long-term behavior. 

I know Bender can manipulate people’s emotions.  Again, what one nova can do, surely others can as well.  And, used creatively, changing someone’s emotions could change that someone’s behavior.  But I don’t think it could change a fundamental part of someone’s character.  I truly believe that Stinger wants, maybe even needs to be the best leader he can be.  Emotional manipulation could stir up his pride, or resentment, or even insecurity, but I don’t think it could prevent him from learning from past experiences.

Everything that I’ve really heard much about when it comes to controlling other people is focused on controlling emotions, and obeying short-term orders.  None of that really matches what I’m thinking about.  I’ve heard of a couple of novas being able to read minds, and communicate via telepathy.  But could someone like that actually change a person’s mind on a deep, fundamental level? 

This is what it boils down to, as far as I can tell.

1. Stinger isn’t stupid.
2. Stinger doesn’t have any apparent mental health issues.
   1. He may very well have issues with insecurity or pride, but those would seem more likely to make him try harder as a leader, rather than make things worse.
      1. Such issues might result in a downward spiral when he continues to fail, but there’s no evidence of such a spiral.
      2. His failure as a leader, as well as his apparent mental state is ‘static’, further suggesting that any insecurity, etc. Isn’t actually impacting his performance.
3. Stinger doesn’t have any apparent memory issues. He fully grasps the concept of ‘Cause and Effect’ as well as actions having consequences.
4. Stinger wants to be the best team leader he can be.
   1. He’s made being ‘Team Leader’ a major aspect of his personality.
   2. His drive to prove himself is strong. He wants to please authority figures, as well as himself by succeeding as leader.
5. Stinger has had many opportunities to learn from past failures, as well as from other people.
   1. Even when walked through deconstructed tactical exercises step-by-step, he seems unable to retain the lessons learned in those discussions.
6. Stinger is not unobservant. He must have realized that Riggs was (and probably still is) interested in having me replace him as leader.
   1. He does not want to be replaced.
   2. He requested my advice early in these exercises, then failed to put any suggestions I made into practice.
   3. He almost certainly resents me as a threat to his position.
      1. Flare thinks he has feelings for me. I doubt this, but it would certainly make things more complicated for him, if true.
7. There MUST be some reason for Stinger’s continued failure as Team Leader.
8. 1. Simple repetition should have resulted in at least some improvement.
      1. The very fact that nothing has changed is suspicious in itself.

So, what could be holding Stinger back?  At the most basic, it has to be either something external, or something internal. 

Let’s consider the internal possibilities first. 

1. Stinger really is that good an actor, and he’s doing all this on purpose, for whatever reason.
   1. If so, then there’s nothing I can really do, and nothing I need to do. He can go right on doing what he’s doing until either Lt. Riggs gets sick of it, or someone else steps up.
2. I’ve missed something, and there actually is something wrong with Stinger, either medically or mentally.
   1. This is unlikely, but even if true, it’s ‘above my pay grade’. If the professionals at the Academy haven’t picked up on whatever’s wrong, what chance do I have?

That’s really all I can think of, for ‘internal’ problems.  There are more options for external influences.

1. Stinger is being bribed, blackmailed, or otherwise incentivized to continually fail.
   1. Highly unlikely. As much as I object to Utopia putting its nose into everyone’s business, I don’t think they’d overlook something like that. 
2. Stinger is actually a Teragen agent (Asset? Operative?) His anti-Teragen zealotry is a mask.
   1. Possible, but unlikely.
3. Stinger’s memory is being altered somehow, making him unable to learn from past experience, making each failure a ‘first time’.
   1. I don’t know if novas can manipulate memory, but even if they can, surely we’d notice. You can’t completely remove so many experiences without the rest of us noticing that something was wrong.  Can you?
   2. And even if it was possible, wouldn't there be some trace of this other nova's regular presence?  Even invisibility isn't perfect cover. 
4. Stinger’s mental processes are being messed with somehow. As in, his actual thoughts are being changed.
   1. I don’t know if this is possible, either. But it seems like it would be a lot harder to catch than ‘just’ messing with memory. 
   2. This seems really close to ‘brainwashing’, and I’d never believed that was a real thing. Didn’t the government spend years and a ridiculous amount of money trying to figure out how to do it, and finally concluded it was (mostly) impossible?  I know novas do the impossible every day, but....
5. Stinger is possessed, sometimes or even most of the time. It isn’t him screwing up so badly, but someone acting through him.
   1. This is ridiculous. Isn’t it?

Project Utopia collectively knows more about novas than anyone else than anyone else on the planet.  I’m sure that the Teragen, especially Divis Mal, knows things that Utopia doesn’t, but Utopia has more people collecting and sharing knowledge, giving them the advantage.  But Utopia is only interested in sharing bits and pieces of what they know. 

I could ask The Count, or ‘S’, whether any of these things are possible, or if they have other ideas.  But even if they know, what could I do about it?  Besides, it probably isn’t in the Teragen’s best interest to have Stinger be an actual, functional leader.  Then again, the Teragen is all about nova freedom.  If Stinger is being controlled or coerced somehow, wouldn’t the Teragen object to that?  Unless the Teragen is behind it, of course. 

Chapter Text

Saturday, March 14

Being ‘summoned’ in the early afternoon pretty much makes everything up to that point irrelevant.  I made sure to be at the river about forty-five minutes early.  I’d done my usual preparation by lining up about twelve hours of assorted documentaries on my laptop, and leaving my phone and Utopia communicator next to the computer.  Furnado likes sleeping on my communicator (maybe because it’s warm and smells like me?), so if Utopia bothers listening in, all they’ll hear is history docs and maybe some purring. 

I’d assumed that someone would be meeting me by the river, and that there was a better than average chance that I might be teleported someplace else.  I was half expecting the Amp Room again, but was ready for anything.  For that matter, I wasn’t even sure who I was going to be meeting with.  About the only person I could be fairly sure wouldn’t be at the river was ‘S’.  I’m pretty sure he can appear anywhere there’s tech around, so telling me to leave all tech at home pretty much rules ‘S” out.  Of course, if transport was on the agenda, then ‘S” could certainly show up wherever I ended up.

My life really has changed in the last several months.  None of the old advice (like ‘never go with someone you meet to a second location') seems to apply anymore.  I know the world hasn’t changed since my eruption, that I’m the one that’s changed.  I guess it’s normal for anyone my age to be self-conscious, and to feel like everyone’s looking at them, and judging them, all the time.  I know it really isn’t so.  No one is actually interested in me.  Except when I’m doing nova stuff, of course.  And even then, they aren’t interested in me.  Just in what I am and what I can do (usually what I can do for them).  That’s comforting, in a way.  To know that, even after everything that’s happened, I really don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.  That maybe I can still just be ‘me’, at least sometimes.

But, I’m rambling.  I seem to do that a lot in this journal.  If I ever decide to make it public, I’ll have a lot of cleanup and editing to do.  I wonder if I should cut out ‘S’s’ comments?  It almost seems a shame to exclude them.  Like he’s offering his own weird commentary.  Oh well, no need to decide anytime soon.  I have no current plans to go public. 

I’d walked up and down the riverwalk twice, then decided to hang out on my favorite bench.  Almost as soon as I’d sat down, Blinker was next to me.  Just... poof.  I wish I’d known he was coming, so I could study how the quantum field shifted as he appeared.  Oh well, there’ll be other times. 

We made a little small talk.  I asked him what he’d been up to.  He didn’t say much, just that he was working on a secret project Someplace Else.  (Off planet?  Seems likely.)  Blinker isn’t the type to waste time, so as soon as the social obligations were over, he asked if I was ready to go.  I asked where we were going, and he just said ‘to a friend’s house’.  (So, not the Amp Room after all.  Probably just as well.)  It was clear I wasn’t going to get any more details.  Besides, maybe whoever is in hiding and doesn’t want just anybody knowing where to find them.  I can understand that. 

Curiosity will almost certainly be what ends up killing me.  Of course I said I was ready when he was.  This time, I watched closely as he teleported us.  The quantum energy moved a little differently than when Flare did it.  I wonder if that’s due to length of experience, greater skill, the distance traveled, or something else? 

I’m not sure where we ended up (and if I was, I wouldn’t say).  It felt vaguely Mediterranean.  The house (Mansion? Villa? Palace?) was all white marble and columns.  It was very tastefully (and probably expensively) furnished, but it somehow felt like a place for visiting.  Like, whoever owned it used the place to entertain and impress, but not to relax and be themselves.  Probably the strangest thing was how... empty it felt.  I didn’t see anyone there that wasn’t immediately involved with our meeting.  No servants (and this was very much a place that needs servants).  No cooking or cleaning smells.  No sounds of anyone moving around elsewhere in the building.  Very strange.  I suspect The Count owns the place, but he didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.  Not my business, after all. 

But the Count was there, and clearly in charge.  Then again, I’m pretty sure he’s in charge wherever he goes.  Blinker brought us out in a little alcove that I suspect might be left empty for the purpose of people having a safe, secluded place to teleport in and out.  The Count was waiting for us, along with a woman I’d never seen before.  He thanked Blinker for bringing me, and Blinker said he had stuff to do, and to call when I was ready to go, and poofed back out.

The woman was a tall African (I couldn’t place her accent any closer than that), with close-cropped hair and vines and moss growing on her.  Not nearly as thickly as the pictures I’d seen of Antaeus, but thick enough that no one could fail to notice.  She had this... remote... element to her.  And an odd kind of balance.  Like she was both serene and fierce, aloof and intense.  The Count introduced her as Bounty.  I’d heard the name before, in connection with the Teragen, but didn’t know much about her.  Apparently, she keeps a low profile, or else Utopia has their own reasons for not talking about her. 

The Count brought us to a sitting room (escorting both of us, offering each of us an arm like in a costume drama).  Once we were all settled, he got right to the point.  (Bounty doesn’t seem like someone who wastes time and energy on chitchat.) 

He explained that when ‘S’ told him about what happened to me this week, and my reaction to whatever they’d used on me, he’d felt that it was important that I be checked over for any lingering effects.  He said he also wanted to be sure Utopia hadn’t done anything more to me than I was aware of.  I didn’t like the sound of that at all, but if anything else had happened, I wanted to know about it.  So I thanked him, and said I was ready to get started.

Bounty didn’t say anything.  Just stared at me real hard, a little like Guardião the day after everything happened.  That pretty much confirms that some kind of visual diagnostic power comes with healing.  And it makes me wonder what he saw.  Then she put her hands on my head, one over my eyes and the other on the back of my head.  She felt like moss- cool and slightly moist, but not in a sweaty way.  I could feel.... something.  Not quite moving around inside me, but that’s the best description I can give.  Like, maybe something would have been moving, except it was too insubstantial.  Something like that.

I’m not sure how long we sat like that.  Time didn’t really feel like it was passing, but it wasn’t the same warn, ‘don’t want to think’ feeling that came with Guardião using his power.  Maybe they’re slightly different abilities?  Or maybe each person feels different when they use it?  I’m not sure. 

Anyway, eventually, Bounty stopped doing whatever she was doing.  She gave the Count a look that seemed to confirm something, but whatever it was, was between them.  Not sure how I feel about that.  It’s my body, after all.  But then she started explaining things, and I was all attention. 

She told me that with my regeneration capability, she wasn’t able to determine exactly how I’d been injured, or how severe the injuries were.  Apparently, when baselines (and even most novas) heal injuries, there are leftover internal marks, like scars, that last a long time- sometimes forever.  But anyone who regenerates like I do, regenerates completely, with no ‘leftover’ scarring.  So, as far as physical injury goes, I would either have to be content with what I remembered, or try to find any security recordings that might have been made of the event.  To be honest, I’m not that interested in that aspect of it.  They attacked me, dosed me, and hurt me.  The specific details of exactly how many times I was hit/stabbed/shot really doesn’t make a difference.  That it happened at all is what matters.

Bounty was more concerned by how I’d reacted to being dosed.  She said that I’d probably been given moxinoquantamine, which is usually given to new novas to suppress their powers.  She said that was the only likely drug they’d administer for tests like that- unless they’d invented something completely new that nobody’d heard of yet and were testing it on me.  The Count broke in and said that that was unlikely- his people would almost certainly have heard of something like that.  So it was probably Mox. 

But, if it was Mox, that was a problem.  Assuming that my memory was accurate (not a 100% safe assumption, but what other choice do we really have?), then they’d given me at least three times a ‘safe’ dose of the drug.  Enough to OD most novas and kill at least five baselines.  Also, the same adaptation that lets me not breathe, eat, or sleep should make me immune to most poisons and drugs.  So, the Mox really shouldn’t have affected me at all, no matter how much they’d shot me up with.  Worse still, Mox shouldn’t have left me so… disconnected… from myself.  Mox suppresses powers.  Sometimes it leaves the person a little lethargic.  But nothing like what I experienced, even at overdose levels.  Either what they used wasn’t Mox (despite all evidence that it was), or something had changed in the way my body processed it. 

That’s what Bounty was looking for.  And she found it.  Apparently my eyes aren’t the only thing that pushing my powers has changed.  Something in my biochemistry is altered as well.  I’m going to need to be careful with any kind of drugs, poisons, bioweapons, whatever (not that I plan to experiencing most of those things, if I can avoid them).  There’s really no way to tell how my system will react to those things.  So, either I need to deliberately experiment, taking as many substances as I can and tracking what they do to me, or I need to avoid all of the above as much as possible.  Bounty says that probably some things will work like they’re supposed to, other things won’t work at all, and somethings will have wildly unpredictable results- like the Mox.  Needless to say, I shouldn’t take Mox again, if I can help it.  Not that I was given a choice.

Now I have to wonder.  When my eyes changed, that was a sudden event.  And it happened right after a panic-induced power surge.  Perfectly explainable, if unexpected.  But I haven’t had anything else like that since.  And I’ve been using power, but not abusing it.  I can’t look back and point to any event that might have triggered this change.  I’m pretty sure the Clinic gave me Mox when I first erupted, and it didn’t cause anything like what I experienced.  So, the change wasn’t part of my eruption.  Could this change in how my system reacts to things have come on gradually?  And I only noticed it when so much Mox was forced on me? 

And what about Riggs and the others' non-response to my weird reaction to it?  Not only were they willing to drug me against my will, but they purposefully OD’d me.  Maybe they thought they had to, to overcome my supposed resistance to drugs.  But that still doesn’t excuse the fact that they did nothing when I reacted in a way that was completely unlike what even an overdose of Mox would cause.  Does that mean that they knew about my altered biochemistry?  How would they have?  I don’t think any of the tests they’ve ever given me would have disclosed that.  Maybe Guardião noticed it, one of the times he used his healing power on me, and told the people in our little Clinic?  But that really doesn’t seem like something Guardião would do. 

And that was about it.  Bounty told the Count that I had the ‘usual Utopian problem’, but that the way I was evolving, I might be able to overcome it without assistance.  I tried to interrupt and ask what that meant, but she went on.  Apparently, I’m building up Taint faster than she liked.  (I remember Dr. Jackson talking about Taint when my eyes changed, but it hadn’t really come up much since.)  She said I should begin exploring Chrysalis soon- maybe within a few months, certainly within a year. 

I asked what that was, of course.  I’d seen the word in some of the pamphlets and monographs the Count had sent me, and obviously I know what the word means in the butterfly sense.  But there’s clearly a lot more to it when a Terat says it.  So, I asked. 

The Count told me that Chrysalis is a process of personal exploration and meditation that helps Terats control the flow of quantum energy through their bodies and prevent Taint from manifesting in harmful ways.  Apparently, Chrysalis is both a period of personal discovery, and a (devastating, it sounds like) process of actual transformation- almost like a second eruption.  The Count explained that I would need a mentor through the process- one who had already been through it.  And that beginning to learn about it was best done when a good chunk of time could be devoted to it all at once, like my visit to Scripture.  (I’d kinda assumed he knew about that, but that was confirmation.) 

I pointed out that with my being at the Academy, my time wasn’t really my own, and getting away on weekends was the best I was likely to manage for the foreseeable future.  He told me not to worry about that.  He said that when he’d found the right mentor for me, he’d find a way to pack plenty of learning time into a few weekends.  Until then, I shouldn’t worry about it. 

Then, he asked me the big question.  The one I’d been half-expecting.  After everything that Utopia had done to me (especially this last- call it what it was- assault), did I want out?  He laid things out for me pretty bluntly: I was useful where I was, and could be even more useful in the future.  But the way I was being treated was more than any nova should have to tolerate.  And he was sensitive to the fact that I was young and being exposed to these kinds of problems for the first time.  Did I want out? 

Honestly, I do want out.  I want to fly away from the Academy and never look back.  I want to fly away from Utopia and never look back.  But that’s not all I want.  A month ago, I would have been content to simply leave.  Now, I want more.  I want to, someday, ensure that Utopia can’t do these things to other novas, especially young ones.  Yes, I want out.  But I have a better chance of achieving that goal if I stay in.  Maybe Utopia can be reformed.  Maybe the rot and corruption goes too deep.  I don’t know.  But I do know that I have a better chance of protecting other novas from inside.  And I’m more useful to the Teragen inside as well.  

So that’s what I told the Count.  All of it.  That I was staying in.  That I’d even go into Team Tomorrow Auxiliary (assuming they really want me), if that’s what the Count wants from me.  That someday, I wanted to be able to ‘come out’ with public support for the Teragen, but knew I was more valuable if I didn’t. 

I think that man might be one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever met.  He made a simple expression of appreciation sound like I’d given him the Crown Jewels and the Grand Unified Field Theory all at once.  I’m pretty sure he makes everyone feel that way, though. 

Once Bounty and the Count were finished with me, the Count called Blinker.  This time, I was ready for him, and was able to watch the shifts of quantum energy in the alcove before he arrived, as well as throughout the teleportation process.  I think I learned a good bit.  Between him and Flare, I think I see what changes I need to make in my own quantum field.  It would still be easier if I could ‘borrow’ their power and really see how it works from the inside, but that’s not a viable option.  Instead, I’ll just have to practice more. 

One thing I need to remember (and ask an experienced teleporter about at some point) is what I saw before Blinker popped in.  I was watching the alcove where Blinker brought us in in the first place, and also ‘watching’ with my buzzy tingly sense, and I saw the quantum field... flex just before he arrived.  Maybe bulge is more accurate than flex.  But however you’d describe it, the quantum field changed just before the teleport happened.  Assuming that happens all the time (and that will take some experimentation to find out), then someone with their own buzzy tingly sense could sense an incoming teleporter a few seconds before they actually showed up.  Maybe a few seconds is no big deal.  Maybe everybody already knows about this, and I’m ‘late to the party’.  But if this isn’t a well-known thing, then having even a few seconds of warning might be important- especially if other people didn’t know you had it. 

Obviously, I can’t ask Flare if she knows about this.  If she doesn’t- if it isn’t widely known at all- then my bringing it up would only alert Utopia to the possibility.  If this is a new discovery, then I want the Teragen to be the ones to have it.  And I’ll admit to being petty enough that if it really is a new thing, then I want it to be something I was able to bring to the table.  A contribution that I was able to make.  Plus, I’m curious.  I want to explore the details.  The timing.  Exactly how much warning can I get?  How close to the point of teleportation do I have to be?  How much attention do I have to be paying to notice the effect?  And what about that other way of traveling that Divis Mal uses?  The one that opens up a hole in space that anyone can step through?  Could I sense that happening before the hole opened?  All things to think about...

I’VE CONSULTED WITH SOME PEOPLE ON OUR END, HEKA, AND WE THINK YOU’RE ON TO SOMETHING.  NEITHER OUR TELEPORTERS NOR OUR MEMBERS WHO ARE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE TO THE QUANTUM FIELD HAVE REPORTED ANY SUCH FLUCTUATION IN THE QUANTUM FIELD.  BY ALL MEANS, CONTINUE YOUR EXPERIMENTATION.  YOU MAY HAVE OPENED UP A VITAL ADVANTAGE FOR US.  WELL DONE.

~S

It occurred to me, after everything was said and done, that the overwhelming majority of the novas I meet aren’t interested in socializing of any kind.  I felt bad about it for a bit (am I really that boring or obnoxious?) but not for long.  After all, people like the Count and Blinker aren’t my peers.  Apart from being novas, we really have nothing in common.  If not for that one thing, we’d almost certainly never have met at all.  And besides, these are all adults, who have been living on their own in the world for years, making their own choices and running their own lives.  Am I interested in talking to twelve year olds about their experiences transitioning from elementary to middle school?  Not really, though I’d like to think I’d humor a kid if they felt the need to tell me about it.  So, really, why should I expect people at wildly different places in their lives to want that kind of interaction?

Besides.  These people are all busy.  The Count is basically the Voice of the Teragen.  Blinker has his super secret project.  Divis Mal is... Divis Mal.  I should be grateful and honored that I’ve been given as much attention as I have been.  And I am grateful.  I can look for social interactions among the other Academy students, even if I can’t fully trust them. 

Chapter Text

Monday, March 16

How can something that was so successful feel like such a failure?  Even though we succeeded, pretty much everything I’d dreaded from seeing how the ‘team’ functions came true. 

But first things first. 

We finished up our discussion of Elites, and now we’re moving on to how specific countries (or cultures- not always the same thing) react to novas.  Starting with Japan.  I’d heard a little about that already, which was why I’d picked Japanese as one of my languages to study. 

Most places in the developed world treat novas as celebrity superheroes.  At the same time, most places don’t seem to fully trust us.  Considering that many of us have the potential for a lot of destruction, I guess I can’t really blame them.  After all, if I decided to start flipping cars and busting heads, who (other than another nova) could really stop me? 

But Japan seems to be different, at least in part.  The country itself is fairly conservative.  They don’t welcome Project Utopia there (and Lt. Riggs made is abundantly clear just how misguided they were about that).  As a result, there are not Clinics, and Utopia has minimal presence there.  Riggs claims not to know much about Japan’s official response to novas.  (I doubt that’s true.  Well, Riggs might not know, but I’m sure Utopia has all sorts of spies there.)  But the youth culture of Japan is very different.  They tend to embrace the new, the different, the extreme.  Maybe it’s a form of rebellion and celebration of the individual?  I don’t know.  Because of all that, they’ve formed something that could reasonably be called a cult around novas over there. 

Novas are welcomed with open arms, treated like, well, not quite Gods, but as something very much more than mortal.  Cults in general squick me out, but I’ve heard that their whole thing is oddly respectful and almost… meditative.  Riggs described it (what little description he gave) with such revulsion, you’d’ve thought he was an Evangelical describing a gay orgy at Disneyland. 

But what really was important today was the tactical- or, to be specific, what interrupted the tactical.  We were going up against Flamestrike again and had just gotten started when Riggs came over the loudspeaker and called a halt to the exercise.  (It was just as well.  Stinger was continuing his usual trend of ‘leadership’.)  Riggs told us to gather around, that we were being ‘deployed’ for a real emergency.  He even used the ‘this is not a drill’ line, just like in the movies.  We were to meet him at the rear entrance to the campus, where we met for forest tactical exercises. 

Of course, we all went right away, even Flamestrike.  Riggs was waiting for us, and we loaded into the back of a couple of trucks while he told us what was going on.  Some kind of youth group was having a spring break camp out in the woods a few miles away.  That would be fine in itself, except that the park rangers had just found out about a fire in the same general area where the kids were supposed to be- and no one could get in contact with the group leader. 

Now, the rangers didn’t know exactly where the kids were, and due to the rugged terrain, firefighters were having trouble getting close enough to the fire.  The firefighters had called in for special equipment, and were confident they would be able to handle the fire before it spread to ‘civilized’ areas, but the kids needed to be found and rescued ASAP. 

Flamestrike immediately volunteered to get out in front of the fire and burn out areas as firebreaks, which Riggs said was probably a good idea, but to take it up with the firefighters when we got on-site.  And off we all went, stuffed into the backs of two trucks. 

I was in one truck, and Stinger was in the other, so I couldn’t say what (if any) plans he made on the way to the site.  I wanted to believe he would actually be able to perform in a real crisis, but I wasn’t willing to risk a bunch of kids’ lives on it.  So I did my best to figure out what we could do to find the kids. 

We’d done several search and rescue exercises before, and I think we were collectively pretty comfortable with them.  But we hadn’t looked for groups, and there hadn’t been a fire before.  So the complexity was through the roof.  Not to mention that this was all real for the first time.  (I’ll admit, I had a brief paranoid moment of wondering if this was some kind of Utopian mind game, but then I smelled the smoke and saw the flames in the distance.  I don’t think even Utopia would go that far.)

As far as I could tell, we would need to split up (hopefully in pairs) to find the kids, then (ideally) come together to get them out safely.  In the past, Shift had turned into a bloodhound and sniffed out lost people, but I was afraid the heavy smoke would make that impossible.  The heat of the fire would probably make my thermal vision worse than useless, too.  All the fliers would be vulnerable in the air due to smoke as well.  But flying was still going to be our best option for finding the kids.  Maybe the firefighters could outfit Sapphire and Dream Shadow with breathing equipment?

I was in the second truck with Flare, Guardião, Shift, and Flamestrike.  I checked- Flare and Guardião were wearing their walkie talkie watches.  Shift wasn’t.  I couldn’t remember how many of the others were wearing theirs.  (When we got to the site, I looked at the others.  Sapphire, Dream Shadow were wearing theirs, Puppy and Stinger weren’t.)

We turned off the road I was somewhat familiar with onto a dirt track that probably had had an ‘official use only’ sign at some point.  Then we turned onto a smaller road.  This one had broken tree branches and bushes on either side- something large had come through recently.  It may sound silly, but this put the final nail in the coffin of my theory that this was some kind of elaborate Utopia test.  Riggs has always been fanatical about keeping equipment pristine, but the trucks we were riding in were getting scratched to hell by the undergrowth, and nobody cared.  This was the real thing.

By the time we stopped, I had no idea where we were.  Certainly deeper than we’d ever gone on our various exercises.  We came to a clearing where the trail faded out, and three fire trucks were parked.  There were a bunch of firefighters setting things up, but I can only assume it was meant for some kind of staging area, since there was no fire around, and no way for the trucks to get closer.  There was an ambulance as well, and some men in dressy casual clothes that looked like they were supervising... something. 

We all piled out of the trucks, and Stinger told us to split up and look for the kids.

Now, up until now, I’ve gone out of my way to not step on his toes, both because I didn’t want to make him look bad, and because I didn’t want his job.  But that was when there was nothing much at stake.  I couldn’t let it go this time.  So I yelled for everyone to stay put.  (Later, I was embarrassed by how the others immediately fell in with me rather than do what Stinger said, but I didn’t really pick up on it at the time.)  Flamestrike was talking with the firefighters, but since he wasn’t part of our team, I didn’t really consider him my problem.  He ended up running off into the woods, and I pretty much forgot about him. 

Anyway, everybody stayed put (even Stinger, but he looked mad about it).  I went over to the ‘supervisors’, introduced myself, and started asking questions.  How many kids were missing.  When & where were they last seen.  Age and gender range.  How many adults with them.  And so on.  When I had what I needed, I went back to the others. 

I told them that we were looking for fourteen kids and two adults.  The kids ranged from age nine to twelve.  Nine boys and five girls.  The group had last been seen by a park ranger on Friday morning when the group checked in, intending to camp for the week.  However, the rangers had seen a campsite that was likely theirs (considering the size and number of tents) on Sunday in the early afternoon.  The adults had expressed their intention to make several all-day hikes.  As a result, there was no way of knowing exactly where the group was, but they were probably within a range determined by the likely stamina of the younger children (approximately a 6-10 mile diameter area). 

The active fire engagement was currently about eight miles away, but shifting winds were driving it in this direction.  Assuming the wind remained steady, the fire could intersect the kids’ route within the next hour or two.  I also got the emergency channel the rescue people were operating on- which our walkie talkies could transmit on.  So not only could we stay in touch with each other, we could stay in touch with the first responders. 

Then I split the group up into pairs, making sure at least one walkie talkie was in each pair, and at least one flier as well.  The ‘supervisors’ (who turned out to be multi-qualified firemen and medical people- I didn’t bother to find out exactly what they were) gave me two extra sets of breathing apparatus, and I handed them off to Dream Shadow and Sapphire.  (Shift would have to be an animal to fly, and I don’t need to breathe.)  I figured smoke would be more of a danger in the air than the actual fire, and I didn’t want any of us suffering smoke inhalation if it could be helped. 

We all set our walkies to the same channel (not the emergency band- no need to clutter that up), and whoever found the kids first would drop a GPS tag and call the others in.  I had them all drop GPS tags on our current location as well, to prevent getting lost.  I told everyone to check in every fifteen minutes, whether we’d found anything or not- just in case.  The first responders had given me directions to the base camp the rangers had found, so we used that as our starting point and fanned out in the four compass directions.  I paired myself with Puppy.  I’d wanted to pair with Guardião (I have a lot of respect for his steadiness), but the flier and walkie pattern didn’t work out that way. 

Off we all went.  Puppy found a little trail that seemed likely, and I flew above, looking for any movement.  The woods were oddly still.  A little like back at home just before a hurricane.  I’m sure there were animals around, but Puppy said they were all too scared to ‘listen’ to him, and he didn’t want to force them. 

How can I really describe a combination of boredom and terror?  On the one hand, this was just like all the exercises we’d done in the woods.  And those were some of the most tedious we’d ever done.  On the other hand, this was real.  Lives might be at stake.  I checked in with the others every fifteen minutes.  And I checked in with the firefighters a couple of times.  They said the fire was advancing in our direction, but had slowed down a little.  We had time, but not much.

It was close to two hours later that Sapphire and Stinger found the kids.  We all converged on their location.  I was so relieved.  But not for long.  They’d found thirteen kids and one adult.  The Counselor, Maria, said that one of the younger kids had wandered off, and Randy had left her here with the others while he searched for the missing one. 

Our job wasn’t over yet, but we had to get this group to safety.  Flare said she would be able to ‘get to know’ this place well enough to teleport back to in in a few minutes, but that she didn’t know the ‘staging area’ where the firefighters were well enough to teleport to it.  The best she could was to take them all to the Academy campus, one by one.  Probably the safest place for them, and the staff there could feed them with no problem.  Once she was ready, she started moving people out, one at a time.  I had her start with Maria.  Better that we watch a bunch of kids here for a few minutes than have even one kid unsupervised at the other end.  Once Flare had made a couple of trips, I had the rest of us fan out to find Randy and Arthur (a nine year old boy). 

Unfortunately, in the middle of Flare’s moving people out, we ran out of time.  The wind shifted, and immediately we could all smell smoke and hear flames.  Way too close.  Flare just kept right at it, doing what she was doing.  There was no other choice.  I told her that once she’d gotten everyone out, to return to campus and get in touch with Riggs.  I left Guardião with her, in case the worst happened.  That left Sapphire and Shift paired together, but it couldn’t be helped. 

We scattered, looking for both Randy and Arthur.  And now, we had an absolute time limit- the flames were coming closer. 

Dream Shadow and Stinger found Randy.  Randy hadn’t found Arthur.  They had to take him back to campus by force, since he didn’t want to leave without the kid.  (Understandable, but stupid- the flames were visible by then.)  She was able to carry both Stinger and Randy, though it meant she wasn’t able to fly as fast.  Still, she was heading away from the fire, so that was fine. 

I wish I’d known before that big fires could interfere with radio signals.  The check-ins started getting staticky.  The fire finally got too close, and I couldn’t get in touch with Shift and Sapphire.  I just had to hope that they’d be able to fly away from any danger they couldn’t deal with.  I felt awful, basically leaving them on their own, but isn’t this kind of danger exactly what we’ve been training for all this time?  Sooner or later, we would all have to do it for real. 

The fire was sending out advance tendrils, and we still hadn’t found Arthur.  (It occurred to me, even at the time, that Shift and Sapphire might have found him already, and just not been able to let us know, but I couldn’t risk that.)  So Puppy and I kept searching.  I know he’s tough, but today I learned just how brave and kind he is.  Even when the fire was close enough for the heat and smoke to start being a problem, he wouldn’t give up.  Tough or not, he still needs to breathe, and the smoke was starting to get to him. 

How does a leader know when to cut their losses and get out?  How does a leader decide to pull their team out, knowing it will almost certainly mean somebody else dies?  I don’t know, and I was terrified that today was going to be the day I found out.  Because, as much as I hate to say it, if it came down to getting Puppy out safely or finding Arthur, well, sorry Arthur.  Puppy was going to be my priority. 

It didn’t come to that. 

We actually found Arthur.  The fire was on our proverbial heels, and we actually found him.  He was trying to burrow down in a shallow creek.  (A pretty clever idea, though I doubt it would have made much difference.)   We were able to get him out of the water, and checked him over- scrapes and bruises, but no major injuries. 

And we ran out of time.  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that forest fire had a mind of its own.  Faster than I though possible, we were completely surrounded.  The trees were on fire, and the little creek bed was the only clear ground. 

I knew I could fly through the fire without getting hurt.  And Puppy might get singed or have more smoke inhalation than he was already suffering, but I was pretty sure he would be able to take it.  I knew I was strong enough to carry both of them.  But... I would have to fly directly through the flames.  And I didn’t think Arthur could survive that. 

I’ll admit it, I was scared.  Terrified, really.  Not for myself, and only a little for Puppy.  But I was sick to my stomach.  I didn’t see how we could get Arthur out alive.  And as willing as I had been a few minutes before to abandon him in order to save Puppy, now that we’d found him, that wasn’t an option.  We had to get out.  All of us.  RIGHT NOW.

How can I describe it?  I reached into myself, and pulled more quantum energy into myself than I could usually hold.  I could feel myself... expanding... somehow.  From the inside.  My uncle was run over by an ATV when he was younger.  He said that right after, he felt like ‘ten pounds of shit stuffed into a five pound bag’.  That’s the closest I can come to describing how this felt.  But I wasn’t stuffed with shit.  No, it was light, and life, and power.  And I knew it was now or never.  I grabbed Puppy and Arthur, and... pushed. 

And we weren’t there anymore. 

It didn’t feel anything like being teleported by Flare, or Blinker, or Nebula.  I don’t know if the difference was my inexperience, the overcharge of power I was channeling, or maybe it’s just different being the one doing the teleporting.  I don’t know. 

The first time I was teleported, there was some stomach flipping and wobbly knees, along with the feeling of being stretched apart like taffy, then springing back together.  Every time after, I’ve still felt a drop in my stomach, like being in a fast elevator, and the stretching.  But the knee issue went away almost immediately.  (Come to think of it, Flare only ever teleported me over very short distances, and I never had the stretched-like-taffy feeling when she teleported me.  Maybe that part’s an issue of distance?)

Anyway, when I did it, it felt like it took a lot longer than when the others teleported.  That was probably subjective, but it felt long enough that breathing should have been an issue.  Except that I didn’t really feel like I had enough of a body to need to breathe (if I needed to breathe in the first place).  Puppy and Arthur didn’t come out gasping, so it must have been a subjective feeling.  I didn’t have much of the stretched feeling (another reason to think it’s a distance thing?), but the stomach flips were much worse, and I had this weird sense of pressure against, well, everywhere, but mostly on my face.  It was like pressing up against thick, clammy, moist cobwebs.  But much thicker than cobwebs.  More like a membrane I was pressing against, and trying to tear through, but at the same time, trying not to tear through.  I have no idea what it was (and it could even have been a hallucination brought on by stress and all the quantum I was using for all I know), but somehow I knew that actually tearing through that membrane would be a Bad Thing.  As in, maybe we wouldn’t come back out where we were supposed to- or at all .

Then it was over, and we were all in my bedroom on campus.  As soon as Puppy realized where we were, his first thought was whether or not he’d get in trouble for being on the girls’ floor.  <LoL>  Arthur threw up.  I’m going to pretend it was due to smoke inhalation rather than my brand-new teleportation skills. 

Anyway, I contacted Flare so she could let Riggs (and the firefighters) know that we’d found Arthur.  She told me that all the others, including Dream Shadow, Stinger, and Randy were safe.  Shift and Sapphire had broken off the search as soon as they’d realized that they’d lost contact with everyone else, so they were fine.  (I’ll admit, I thought that was a little lame that they’d quit so soon, but I’m not going to say anything.  I wouldn’t have wanted them to hurt themselves, of course, but it sounded like they’d left before there was even the slightest risk of danger.  But I wasn’t there, and I have no right to criticize what risks other people are willing to take or not.) 

I asked about Flamestrike, but Flare didn’t know anything.  I was about 99% sure that Flamestrike could take care of himself.  He’s an adult, after all, and an experienced nova.  He knows what he’s capable of, and what he isn’t.  On the other hand, if he’s completely swallowed the Utopia propaganda, he might be willing to ignore his own safety in favor of baselines- and he had no way of knowing all the baselines (other than the first responders) were safe.  Flamestrike is not my responsibility.  Hell, none of them are my responsibility.  Except, I took over from Stinger, so doesn’t that make them my responsibility, just this once?  But Flamestrike was never part of ‘my’ team.  So, not my problem.  But... he’s still a nova, and Utopia doesn’t care about us.  We have to care about each other.  I knew what I had to do.

I put Puppy in charge of Arthur, and sent them to meet up with Flare.  I told him that I was going back to make sure Flamestrike was okay, and to tell Riggs that when Puppy saw him.  (I wasn’t sure if Riggs was on campus or if the trucks were still at the staging area with the first responders.)  Ideally, I’d be back before Riggs realized I’d gone anywhere, but I know better than to go someplace potentially dangerous without letting someone know. 

I wasn’t confident I could teleport again when there wasn’t immediate danger, so I flew back to where the first responders were.  After all, there was no point in going back to where we found Arthur- that was the one place I knew Flamestrike wasn’t. 

I got to the staging area, but it was gone.  It wasn’t burned, but the fire had come close enough that everyone had pulled out.  I remembered which direction Flamestrike had run off in, so I took off and flew that way.  The line he’d taken was parallel to the fire, which made sense, I guess, if he was trying to direct or contain it.  (I don’t think he has any way of putting out fire, so containing it would probably be his best option.)   I could still hear and smell the fire, and even see it while I was in the air, but it was far enough away not to be visible from the ground.  In the distance, I could see helicopters flying over part of it, dumping water (I assume) in big loads.  There was a steady cycle of five helicopters coming and going, so I had to hope they’d have things under control soon enough.  Either way, there was nothing I could do to help them, so I ignored them.

This far into the woods, there really shouldn’t be anything moving other than him- any large animals would have either fled or gone to ground, and the baseline first responders had moved out.  So I flew fairly high, looking for movement.  As soon as I was high enough to see more of the landscape, I saw several thick burn lines, separate from the main body of the fire.  Flamestrike was making firebreaks, to keep the fire from spreading more in this direction.  That gave me an easy way to track him. 

I flew on, following the burn lines.  Eventually, I noticed they were getting thinner.  Was he running out of energy?  Or was something else wrong?  I flew faster, and finally found him.  He was sitting in a burned-out circle, near the end of the last burn line.  Just... sitting there.  When he saw me, he started waving, obviously trying to get my attention. 

When I landed, he immediately wanted to know if we’d found the kids yet.  I told him that everyone was all right, and safe, and even the first responders had moved out of their little base.  As far as I could tell, it was just us still on the ground. 

It turned out that he’d burned through almost all of his energy making the firebreaks, and didn’t have any way of knowing how anyone else was doing.  So, he was resting until he could get his energy back, and then decide whether to keep going or turn back.  I told him I could just take him back to campus now, since I had no idea where Riggs and the trucks were- for all I knew, they were back at campus already.  Flamestrike looked like he wanted to argue- I’m not sure if he thought he should stay here and make more firebreaks, or if he just didn’t want me carrying him to safety.  But he agreed, and we flew off.  Before we left, I switched over to the emergency radio channel the first responders were on, waitied for a pause, and broke in to ask if they had Riggs there.  They said he’d left awhile ago.  I told them that we’d cleared out all the kids, the two adults, and that our team (and Flamestrike) had left the area.  They thanked us for our help, and that was that.

Back on campus, the kids were gone (I didn’t ask where), and everything was settling back down.  It had occured to me, as we flew back, to wonder how the Academy was going to handle my suddenly being able to teleport.  I know about the microphones in our rooms.  Whether or not they have someone live monitoring them at all times- well, that doesn’t seem likely.  But they’d be fools not to record all the time.  So the question becomes, do they live monitor 24/7?  And if not, how often do they check through the recordings? 

Flare and I had made no secret of her teleportation lessons, but we hadn’t been public either.  Therefore, I assume the Academy knows about my interest in learning, her agreement to teach, and our efforts.  That being said, since I’m pretty sure we aren’t supposed to know about the microphones, Utopia would need to pretend that they didn’t know anything about it.  (And, if they don’t live monitor, and don’t check the recordings often, maybe they didn’t actually know what we were up to.)  So Utopia would need to pretend ignorance, even if they actually weren’t.  And that was going to mean questions.

I decided that since they would probably have to ‘play dumb’, so would I.  If they asked, I would explain about asking Flare for lessons, but I would volunteer nothing.  I figured they would probably want another round of testing, which I would allow.  But I would not allow any further shots. 

So, I dropped Flamestrike off near the rear entrance (he said his car was there), and went to join the others.  The kids were all gone, like I said, but the others were all clumped up.  Pretty obviously waiting for me, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.  Riggs wasn’t there right then, but he came up almost immediately.  And started to go over what had happened, just like this was a tactical class.  I guess I’d expected something closer to the debriefs I’d had when I’d gotten involved with something unexpected.  Even so, I guess I somehow also expected that we’d be ‘graded’ (not that we get grades) a little more leniently, since this was a real thing, and things always go wrong out in the real world, as opposed to the safe training exercises where we should be expected to perform better, since there’s less pressure.  I’m not sure that made any sense, but I’m not sure how to explain better.  Maybe that I thought we’d be ridden harder in training to make sure we learn the right lessons, but be treated easier in reality, since much less of it is under our control? 

Once it was clear that we were in for a standard harsh critique; I then assumed that, since I had pushed in and taken over, that Stinger would be off the hook.  Again, I was wrong.  Lt. Riggs ripped Stinger a new one for allowing me to take over!  As though he could have stopped me!  I almost spoke up and mentioned that, but grew a braincell at the last moment.  Saying that would have made everything so much worse.  So, Stinger got chewed out for allowing me to take control, as well as for not seeking even basic information from the baselines before trying to send the team out. 

Then things got a little weird.  Riggs demanded that each one of us give an account of exactly what we’d done.  I’m ashamed of how long it took me to realize what was going on- he hadn’t been there.  Riggs had no idea of exactly what happened out in the woods today.  It was our collective sense of ethics that kept us from spinning today’s events however we wanted.  (Well, that and the fact that we hadn’t had time or privacy to get our story straight, LoL.)

Stinger started off with a rather snarky run-down of how I’d butted in and taken over, followed by a fairly objective explanation of how he and Sapphire had looked for the missing kids, and how they’d actually found them.  Most of them. 

Riggs stopped him there, and had the others give their accounts up until that point.  They did, but didn’t have anything especially important to add.  When it was my turn, I explained about wanting to get as much information from the first responders as we could, then split up safely to make the best use of our resources.  (I explained why I’d paired people up as I had- that I’d wanted a walkie talkie in each group, and a flier.)  I explained about having us keep in contact by radio, and how I’d checked back in with the first responders. 

When we’d all told our stories up to the point where Stinger and Sapphire found (most of) the kids, Riggs let Stinger take up the narrative again. 

Stinger explained about the missing kid, and how the counselor had gone after him.  And how I’d ‘taken over again’, putting Flare and Guardião in charge of getting the group out (which screwed up the team pairs), and how he and Dream Shadow ended up finding the counselor.  He made it sound like he’d convinced Randy to come back with them, but Dream Shadow told me later that she’d had to pick him up by force, and fly both him and Stinger back to campus. 

(This is the first time- to my knowledge- that Stinger has shaded the truth like this.  I can’t quite call it a lie.  But always before, his accounts have either been scrupulously honest- even to his own detriment- or at least a clear matter of opinion- him objecting to me ‘butting in’.  Did stress make him misremember?  Was he already feeling inadequate, and this was a ‘white lie’ to make him seem like a leader?  I don’t know.  With anyone else, I would expect them to shade things to make themselves look better, and wouldn’t give it a second thought.  But not Stinger.  That’s not his style.)

Flare and Guardião explained how they’d gotten the main group of kids back to campus, and how the fire was actually in the clearing with them by the time Flare took the last kid out.  Guardião had actually gotten burned by some flaming debris by the time Flare was able to come back for him, but his own power healed him almost at once.  I hadn’t known Guardião had gotten hurt.  I’m not sure what, if anything, I would have done differently if I’d known that would happen, but I still feel responsible.  On the other hand, Of all of us (other than me and maybe Puppy), he was the best equipped to handle himself in that situation.  So, if it had to happen to someone, well.... Still, I feel bad.

Shift explained how he and Sapphire were looking for the last kid (they’d heard about Stinger and Dream Shadow finding the counselor before the radios started to fizz out), but that once they’d lost contact with the others, they’d decided that it was too dangerous to stay out there with no way to contact anyone, so they’d gone back to campus. 

Riggs stopped him there, and turned on me.  (This had never happened before in one of these discussions, so I was caught off guard.)  He demanded to know what I thought about two of my (he said ‘my’, which though temporarily accurate was still an ‘ouch’ moment), ‘my’ team abandoning their duty like that.  (Damn.  Could he have been any nastier about it?)

I looked him right in the eye and told him that I thought it was the right call.  That we were all being trained to know our own capabilities, and use our own best judgement.  Once the radios were no longer reliable, Shift and Sapphire were on their own, without backup, and neither one especially fireproof.  They were just as likely to become casualties themselves as find the last kid if they’d stayed out there.  And that if anything had happened to them out there, we wouldn’t have even known to look for them until it was too late. 

I said that if they had decided to risk staying out longer, I would have accepted that, and backed their choice.  They decided that the risk exceeded the likelihood of success, and I accepted and supported that choice as well.  I said that Puppy and I were both much more fire resistent than the others, and therefore could safely stay out longer and go closer to the fire.  But our unusual capabilities didn’t invalidate the others’ choices.  In other words, I trusted ‘my’ team to make the right call when they were on their own.  (To be honest, I still privately thought they’d given up too soon, but no way was I going to say that out loud, especially to Riggs.  Nor was I going to throw anybody under the bus.  Even if I’m never team leader again- and I hope I’m not- I know what a leader owes to their people.)

Riggs just stared at me for a moment, then had me get on with my story of Puppy and I finding the last kid.  I explained that the fire was getting close enough that, even if we weren’t in physical danger, the chances of finding the kid alive were rapidly diminishing, when we... found the kid.  And the fire found us.  I explained my reasoning- that I knew I could carry Puppy and the kid at the same time, but wasn’t sure the kid would survive actually flying through a forest fire, which we were then surrounded by.  I didn’t go into details (not that it would have done much good, I think- can baselines really understand how these things feel?  Not how they work, but how they feel?), but just said that I’d reached down deeper inside myself than I ever had before, pushed in a way I never had before, and... the three of us were in my bedroom. 

I was willing to leave it there, but Riggs demanded to know about why I’d gone back to look for Flamestrike.  I told him that, after giving it some thought, I’d realized that Flamestrike didn’t have a way (that I knew of) to communicate with either us or the first responders, and therefore had no way of knowing that everyone had gotten out safely.  Plus, if anything had happened to him, no one would have any way of knowing, maybe not until it was too late.  So, I went back for him.

Riggs tried to tell me that it wasn’t my place to go after Flamestrike- that he wasn’t part of my team (‘my team’ again- ouch).  I shut that down as politely as I could.  I told Riggs that even though Flamestrike wasn’t a student at the Academy, he was a nova, working for Utopia, and going out of his way to teach at the Academy.  Therefore, we were all on the same team, and just because he wasn’t a student didn’t mean we didn’t all have a responsibility to look after each other. 

Then Riggs tried to bitch about my going back into a dangerous situation without telling anyone, but I shut that down too- I had told someone.  I’d told Puppy, and told him to pass the word to Riggs ASAP.  And a forest fire was less dangerous for me than it was for anybody else, other than (maybe) Flamestrike.  So I was the only logical person for the job.  And it was just as well that I had, considering that my concerns were justified- Flamestrike had depleted himself, and didn’t have any way of getting in contact with anyone.  So, while he might not have been in actual danger, it was still better that I brought him in.  

I made sure to keep my tone respectful, but I made it clear that I wasn’t going to accept Riggs’ criticism of what I did.  If he had input on how I did things, or what could have been done better, fine.  But I wasn’t going to put up with being told that I shouldn’t have done it at all. 

Riggs had that extra-neutral face he gets sometimes when he doesn’t want anyone to guess what he was thinking.  He just stared at all of us for a while, then dismissed us. 

I really didn’t want to go to our usual post-exercise hangout.  I didn’t want to deal with Stinger’s sulking, or (even worse) his hurt feelings.  But better to get it over with, I guess.  And if there was going to be a scene, maybe us all being together would keep it manageable.

The atmosphere was close to what it was in mid-January, when we had the forest tactical with the surprise sniper ambush.  Again, I think it was because this had been real in a similar way to that one- more real, on the one hand, sense it really was real, but not quite as intense since we (mostly) didn’t feel like we were in the same kind of immediate danger. 

That time, we all sat around and talked about our feelings.  This time, we didn’t talk at all for a long time.  After a while, I figured I should get it over with.  I don’t believe that I did anything wrong in taking over from Stinger, but I know the value of an apology, whether warranted or not. 

So, I apoligized to Stinger. 

It was dark enough by then that probably only Sapphire and I could see everyone clearly.  All the little people-shifting-around noises stopped, though.  No one wanted to miss whatever was coming next. 

I thought at first that Stinger wasn’t going to say anything.  But finally, he did.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody, especially anybody my age, have so many conflicting emotions in their voice at once.  He had his head down, so I couldn’t see his face.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget what he said. 

“It doesn’t matter.  I give up.  You should be Team Leader.”

I wish he would have yelled at me.  Or at least been mad.  But everything about him was... hurt.  Defeated.  Resigned.  I didn’t know that ‘low self esteem’ was an emotion until now.  And he was putting himself out there, in front of everyone.  (Not to mention Utopia probably listening.)  I don’t think I could have done it. 

And I also wasn’t going to put up with it.  So I shot that idea down fast, and did everything I could to hide the pity I suddenly felt for him.  That would have been the worst thing I could have shown, I think. No guy likes being pitied.  I think Flare’s wrong about Stinger having feelings for me, but if she’s right, that would make it even worse. 

So, I told him (and everyone else, since they were clearly listening) that I didn’t want to be Team Leader.  I didn’t want the job- Stinger did.  I don’t want to join Team Tomorrow- Stinger does.  I don’t expect to be part of a team at all after we graduate- Stinger does.  Stinger’s been here longer than I have, and has more experience.  Stinger is going to be here for the long haul.  I’m not.  I’m leaving as soon as we graduate.  The team deserves someone who is commited to them. 

On and on.  I’m not sure I ever worked so hard to convince someone of something they already wanted to believe.  Especially since I didn’t want to actually lie to him.  So I couldn’t tell him what a great job he was doing, and how everyone loved having him as leader.  All I could do was point out all the ways it made more sense for him to be leader than me.  Of course, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.  I will continue to refuse to be Team Leader, and Stinger’s sense of duty won’t let him drop the ball (more than he can help, I mean). 

Though, now that I think of it, with Stinger himself having opened up the idea of stepping down, I really think that Lt. Riggs should put each member of the team in the leader position in turn- as a kind of tryout.  I already know Flare, Sapphire, and Guardião don’t want the job any more than I do.  And we all just kind of dismiss Puppy and Shift as options, though for different reasons.  (Maybe we’re wrong about that, though- especially about Shift.  Just because he acts immature doesn’t mean he is, or that he always will be.  Maybe he should have his chance.)  But more and more, I’m interested in what Dream Shadow could bring to the table as Team Leader.  And of course, nobody even thinks about Hourglass.  I still only ever see him late at night on the shooting range.  I’m not sure if the others even see him that often. 

But I didn’t think of that in time, and the moment passed.  I’m not sure how I would have brought it up anyway.  And that’s assuming Riggs would even agree to the experiment. 

But this only reinforces my concern about Stinger.  Tonight made it clear that he knows of his failings as a leader.  He sees what’s wrong.  He wants to be better.  So, why is he continuing like this?  I’m genuinely worried about him.  And concerned that something weird is going on here.  I want to talk to someone.  Someone with insight.  Someone with a perspective I can trust.  Someone like the Count.  Or Scripture.  Probably Scripture.  If anyone in the Teragen was behind Stinger’s behavior, the Count would know about it, and maybe even be facilitating it.  I don’t think that’s the case- I really don’t- but I know the Count would be capable of doing it, if he felt it necessary.  Somehow, I don’t think Scripture would.  I think he probably could, but I don’t think he would. 

But it doesn’t matter.  Those are both busy people, and Stinger not only isn’t a Terat, he’s about as vehemently anti-Terat as it’s possible to be.  I can’t go pestering either of them and wasting their time.  I’ll either need to figure this out myself, or just let things go on however they’re going to.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, March 17

After class, instead of the usual tactical, Riggs told us to go to lunch as usual, but then to get cleaned up and put on our uniforms.  We don’t have uniforms.  Or, we didn’t.  Apparently, they’d been delivered while we were learning more about Japan. 

Instead of our tactical, we would be attending a press conference.  The media wanted a chance to interview the ‘team of teen heroes who saved a group of kids from a rampaging forest fire’.  Oh dear.  Lt. Riggs told us to be ready to look good, smile for the cameras, and answer questions.  Everyone would be expected to speak. 

I was a little nervous, but not much.  Sapphire looked bored, like she did this kind of thing every day.  Maybe she did, before she came to the Academy.  I wasn’t really nervous for myself, since this won’t be my first time, but I was worried about the group as a whole.  Flare had a sort of resigned look.  Dream Shadow and Shift looked genuinely scared.  Puppy looked concerned too.  Nobody seemed really excited.  Stinger perked up at the mention of uniforms, though. 

The uniforms weren’t... bad, I guess.  I was half afraid we were going to be put in spandex and capes.  I was hoping that everyone else would finally get Eufiber.  (After all, my first press conference resulted in a gift of Eufiber...)  But no.  The uniforms were a cotton-lycra blend.  Stretchy and form-fitting without being too clingy and gross.  Basically, you could see curves and muscles, but not nipples or nether bits.  I’d gotten used to always wearing green and grey, so the blue and white (only a little lighter than Team Tomorrow’s blue) was a shock.  The logo was a shock, too.  The standard ‘T2M’ with ‘een’ scrawled in a red graffiti font coming off the ‘T’.  Very cringe.  Obviously a corporate design.  Probably tested well with some focus group somewhere.  Ick. 

Call me paranoid, but I decided to wear my Eufiber underneath.  I could have just made my Eufiber match the uniform, but something told me it wouldn’t be a good idea.  So, I just had it as a thin ‘bodysuit’ under the uniform.  I wondered what Dream Shadow is going to do- her wings make a unitard jumpsuit awkward at best.  Still, I had confidence that Utopia wanted us to look good (as they defined it), at the very least.  So none of us were likely to embarrass ourselves.  By appearance, anyway. 

It’s been weeks since I really thought about it, but this brings an old observation back to mind.  Utopia wants some or even most of us in Team Tomorrow, eventually.  T2M spends almost as much time doing humanitarian stuff and media engagements as it does dealing with the Teragen or Elites.  Utopia should be training us in how to deal with the media, public appearances, that kind of thing.  Even if we aren’t going to end up on T2M, we’re still inevitably going to be in the public eye, just for being novas.  Attending the Academy only draws more attention to us.  But we haven’t had any training on that.  And here we are, being thrown to the wolves on short notice. 

Are we somehow being set up to fail?  Probably not.  At least, not on purpose.  Utopia has a vested interest in us looking good, after all.  But I didn’t think any of us, other than Sapphire and I, were going to be even a little comfortable out there today.  And it didn’t have to be that way.  Utopia should have prepared us better.  Too late now, I guess. 

The others looked pretty good when I saw them, though only Stinger looked really excited to finally have a uniform.  All of ours were nearly identical: well-tailored, but not crazy well-tailored.  Like, whoever made them knew our measurements, but we hadn’t had actual fittings.  (Of course we hadn’t- duh.)  Dream Shadow’s uniform (why do I want to keep saying ‘costume’ instead of ‘uniform’?)  was the only one that was really different.  Instead of the long sleeved ‘jumpsuit’, she had something like a halter top.  Instead of tying in the back, there was a band of fabric almost like a really wide belt, but it was otherwise backless.  It wasn’t as sketchy as it sounds.  It actually looked really good, without being slutty.  She didn’t look completely comfortable, though, and I doubt it was the cold.

I half expected that the media would come to the Academy.  That was how my first media engagement worked, after all.  It was a chance for the media to see the Clinic, and for the Clinic to be in the media.  I figured reporters would be even more eager to get a look at the Academy campus.  And maybe they would have.  But they didn’t get the opportunity. 

Instead, we were taken into Roanoke.  We went right into the city center, where a stage had been set up.  I’d half expected the stage.  I hadn’t expected the local high school band.  They weren’t bad.  Better than my old school’s orchestra band, at least.  Our marching band was pretty good, but our orchestra band, not so much.  But these kids were good. 

There were a bunch of reporters out there, print, TV, and digital.  There were several TV cameras already set up and a bank of microphones in front of the stage.  Of course, we only saw all that in passing at first, since we were brought in from behind the stage area.  Behind the stage was a curtained off area, and that’s where we were put.  Actually, there were two curtained off areas.  And I could hear kid noises from the other one. 

That’s when I realized.  The youth group we’d pulled out of the forest was here too.  I should have expected that.  The only thing better for the media than a nova is a group of novas.  And the only thing better than a group of novas is a group of novas dealing with kids.  Oh well.  At least these kids weren’t much younger than the ones I’d dealt with at school in the mornings.  I could deal with them.  They’re a little younger than the age bracket I eventually want to teach, but at least they aren’t toddlers. 

Anyway, the mayor was there, and he wasn’t going to miss his chance to be in the media.  So he made a speech, all about the great history of the town, the Wildlife Management Area, and a bunch of other stuff.  Long winded.  Talk much, say little.  Finally, he came around to how pleased he was that the Academy had chosen to build their campus in his town, and how much we had to offer each other.  (What does that even mean?  The campus doesn’t hire any locals that I know of.  I don’t think we get much if any of our supplies locally.  I assume the Academy pays taxes, but that’s about it.  We really have nothing to do with the city of Roanoke, and vice versa.)

Eventually, he started explaining about the fire.  How they still didn’t know how it had gotten started, or how it had gotten out of control.  How the first responders had gone into action and been heroes.  How the fire had been contained, even if not all of it had been extinguished as of yet.  (I hadn’t realized that- I’d thought it was all over.)  Then he started explaining about how the youth group had been camping, and how they’d been out of contact and unaware of their danger.  (It was obvious that the mayor had had no idea of any of this until after the fact, but whatever.)

Is it weird that, hanging around ‘backstage’, listening to this guy blather on, all I could really think about was a high school assembly in the gym with a public speaker nobody really wants to hear saying things he has no direct understanding of?   This guy should have been in front of an awkward dance troupe, freestyle rapping about abstinence to several hundred students suffering second-hand embarrassment.

I kinda zoned out for a while.  Finally, it was time for us.  We all filed out on stage (just us, not the kids yet).  The mayor introduced us to the crowd.  (He introduced Puppy as ‘Bruiser’.  I’d almost forgotten that was his actual nova name.  Poor Puppy looked uncomfortable about it.)  I was expecting the media people.  I wasn’t expecting the big group of looky-loos.  There were a few people in uniform- obviously first responders, and maybe some of the ones who’d been at the staging area  (It was hard to tell without all the safety equipment.)  And there were a bunch of people all of a suspiciously similar demographic- age, apparent socio-economic status, mostly paired off.  After a minute, I figured out that they were the kids’ parents.  The rest were (I think) just town people who came out to have a look at the novas.  I saw Erica at the back of the crowd, which surprised me.  She hasn’t had much to do with me being more-or-less locked down and not working. 

So, we all came out, smiling and waving (we’d been told to do exactly that right before), and presented ourselves to the mayor.  I didn’t want to look around at the others too much, so I’m not sure how they were all handling it.  I could see Flare, Stinger, and Sapphire clearly though.  Flare was not comfortable, and was trying her best not to show it.  Stinger was trying not to look as eager as he really was- but I thought I could see some conflict in him, too.  Sapphire was just eating it all up- out of all of us, I think she’s the only one who really enjoys this kind of attention.  I’ve learned not to mind it, but she lives for it. 

Once we were arranged on the stage, the mayor introduced each one of us, then went on to give a brief (and mostly incorrect) explanation of our actions yesterday.  Then he asked if any of us wanted to explain more about how we rescued the kids.  I suspected Sapphire would have been willing, and under other circumstances, that would have been fine.  But I wanted to prop up Stinger a little more as Team Leader, if I could.  So I accidentally shifted my weight into him, so he was nudged forward enough for the mayor to assume he was volunteering.  (In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have.  A leader needs to know how to talk to people and handle the media, but that doesn’t mean Stinger has any skill in that department.  But it worked out, so I’m going to call it a ‘win’.)

So, Stinger steps up, and basically goes over what happened- more accurately than what the mayor said, without directly contradicting him.  I’ll admit, I was impressed.  Stinger clearly wasn’t comfortable with public speaking, but he obviously took it on as a duty- something that had to be done, so he was determined to do it as well as possible.  And he did pretty well.  He’s got potential as the ‘Face’ part of being Team Leader. 

After he finished, the mayor brought the kids out, along with the two counselors.  He got what I can only call ‘sound bites’ out of a couple of the older kids, but the counselors were able to speak more coherently.  They basically fell all over themselves thanking us for rescuing them. 

Finally, the mayor opened the floor for questions from the media.  Those were directed at us, at the kids, at the counselors, all jumbled up.  Most of them questions were what you’d expect- ‘How did it feel’, ‘Were you scared’, ‘How did you do it’, and so on.  There were a few weird ones, mostly directed at the female novas.  If we had boyfriends. What we thought of the male novas.  There was some other gross stuff for adult men to be asking teenage girls.  Nothing really flagrant.  Just the kinds of things that, when you push back, they immediately go to “it was a joke” or “girls are so sensitive”.  Ick.

Sapphire just looked bored by their questions, but Flare and Dream Shadow were obviously uncomfortable.  I was trying to figure out how to shut the guys down without getting Utopia up my ass when Stinger and Puppy both stepped up.  Puppy looked mad, and sorta… puffed up.  Not in a nova power way, but like an animal trying to make itself look larger and more intimidating.  I don’t know what he would have said or done, but Stinger took charge. 

He looked the guy who had asked Dream Shadow if she liked dating American boys right in the eye and lectured him about how inappropriate his question was.  That, as novas, we were citizens of the world; and as Academy students, we were devoting ourselves to the greater good of humanity everywhere.  He said that we didn’t ask for, or expect any thanks for what we did, but we did expect to not be subjected to those kinds of questions, especially given that none of us were even adults yet.  He looked very stern, and at the same time… condescending isn’t the right word.  But maybe in the older, Jane Austen sense of it?  Like someone who knew his own worth, deliberately making time to be kind to someone who probably didn’t deserve it.  The reporter (I assume he was a reporter) kinda shrunk in on himself and slunk away. 

Stinger watched him go, then made a kind of ‘that’s that’ gesture and took the next question.  Go Stinger!  Maybe there’s some potential there, after all. 

This really did get me thinking.  I’ve just been assuming that ‘Team Leader’ means ‘person in charge of the group’.  But maybe it can mean ‘person who speaks for the group’, or ‘person who takes responsibility’.  Let’s face it- most of what the Academy has been training us for has been combat or combat adjacent.  Stopping other novas.  Stopping dangerous baselines.  Rescuing baselines from immediately dangerous situations.  Tactical stuff.  But maybe the leader doesn’t need to be the person who decides the tactics.  If the leader delegates that duty to someone else, either because the leader isn’t present or because the other person is better suited to the task, that doesn’t make the leader any less a leader. 

Like on Star Trek.  Captain Picard rarely goes on the away missions.  He puts someone in charge of the mission, gives them a broad mandate to get the job done, and lets the away team get on with it.  He might give advice, but he doesn’t micromanage.  And yet, Picard is absolutely the leader.  If the away team did something awful, Picard would take ultimate responsibility for it.  Even though the away team people might be disciplined for their actions, final responsibility still falls on Picard. 

Maybe that’s the key with Stinger.  Maybe he can be Team Leader, be the face of the group, take ultimate responsibility… and have someone else handle the actual in-the-moment tactical decisions.  As it is now, he’s trying to be a Captain Kirk leader- leading from the front and making things worse as often as not.  Maybe he needs to be a Captain Picard leader, leading from the back and stepping in only when his specific skills are needed.  

The question is, how do I sell this idea to Stinger?  Not to mention, to the others?  And if I manage that, how do I avoid becoming Riker to Stinger’s Picard?

Anyway, after the awkwardness, the mayor brought out the kids again, and we had a little meet-and-greet. Obviously, when we found the kids originally, there wasn’t time for all the social niceties, so this really was like meeting them for the first time. 

Interacting with the kids really showed Puppy and Shift off in their best light.  And I was surprised by how comfortable Dream Shadow seemed with them.  She’d been pretty stoic throughout most of the day, but I could tell she was uncomfortable.  But she really relaxed around the kids- even when one of them pulled on her feathers. 

Well, the rest of the event was pretty standard.  The mayor talked a lot more, the kids were all over the place, and at the end we were supposed to take questions individually.  Maybe Stinger and Puppy had an effect, because nobody else was gross. 

Eventually, it was all over, and as we were regrouping at the trucks (come to think of it, why doesn’t the Academy have a big van or even a bus?  Something that can carry all of us?) Erica approached me.  It’s been a while since I’d seen her in person, though we’ve kept in touch by email.  She told me to make sure I had my weekend free.  She had work for me. 

Of course, I said yes.  Most of my weekends are spent with Rocío, or hanging out with the girls, but I didn’t have any concrete plans.  What was I going to be doing?  A photo shoot and interview.  For a magazine.  Seventeen, to be specific.  Holy shit.  I’ve never been a big magazine person (mainly since they seemed like a waste of what little money I had), but Bailey subscribed to them all.  And sometimes I’d flip through them when she was doing something else.  Seventeen.  Even I know that’s kinda a big deal…

That’s a weird kind of excitement.  Like being asked to guest star on a TV show you don’t watch.  It’s important to be nice, and treat it like the big deal it is, but at the same time, you’re just not especially interested.  I’ll buy a copy of the current issue on my way to my aikido lesson tonight.  It never hurts to ‘study up’ on who I’m going to be dealing with.  I assume it will be a lot like the photoshoot part of the modeling gig I did a few months ago, hopefully with less ick from weird photographers. 

I wonder if ‘Watch_th3_Skys’ will somehow get hold of these pictures early too?  He’s been fairly quiet recently- just a few pictures posted of me flying to or from the Academy- which tells me either he’s moved up here from North Carolina, or he’s able to spend as much time as he wants to up here anyway.  Which says something about his life, come to think of it.  Either he’s unemployed but comfortable enough to not need to work in order to travel, or his job allows him to take a lot of time off, whenever he wants it. 

I suppose that’s one good thing about being at the Academy.  Overall, I can’t say that I’m really enjoying my time here, but there are advantages.  I’m not learning anything I thought I would, and I’m not making as much money as I would if I was getting more work.  But my college will be covered, and WtS can’t get to me nearly as often as he could back home. 

Then again, what if WtS gets frustrated?  What if he steps up his activity?  He’s been following me this long, there’s no reason to think he’s going to give up anytime soon.  Clearly, he feels entitled to do what he’s doing.  If he isn’t satisfied with his current level of ‘interaction’, what will he do next?  He probably can’t harm me physically.  I mean, after Riggs’s ‘test’, it’s pretty clear that nothing short of military grade weapons can do much damage to me.  But that doesn’t mean he can’t do something awful to me.  I don’t think he’d be able to keep me, even if he were somehow able to abduct me, but…. What about Mom?  And my friends?  He could certainly get to me through them. 

Somehow, I doubt the Academy will do anything about WtS, especially since he hasn’t posted anything showing the campus or implying he’s been nearby.  Yet.  The Clinic back home didn’t care, so there’s no reason to think the Academy will either.  I could ask for… other help.  But I don’t want to.  Not yet, anyway.  That kind of help would probably end up with him being killed, and I don’t want to be responsible for that, even indirectly.  As long as he’s just watching, I can live with that.  The problem is, if he escalates, I probably won’t know until it’s too late.

The rest of the day was uneventful.  We all went back to campus.  There wasn’t any need for a decompress get-together, but I made a point of praising Puppy for being willing to step up, and Stinger for how well he handled the situation.  It was almost embarrassing how Stinger perked up.  Maybe Flare was right, and he does have feelings for me.  Or maybe he just… never gets praised.  I’m not sure which is worse, really. 

Thinking back, I can’t really remember a time when Stinger got any real positive reinforcement.  He gets a lot of criticism, especially when he screws up the tacticals, which he honestly deserves.  And Lt. Riggs is definitely not the ‘praise public, punish private’ type.  I can recall Stinger getting some offhand praise in class, when he’s made a good argument or regurgitated some Utopia propaganda.  But it’s never been… directed.  Purposeful.  Always just a “good job, moving on now” kind of thing. 

Damn.  No wonder Stinger has a stick up his ass.  He tries so hard to please The Powers That Be, and he gets ignored at best or kicked in the nuts at worst.  That changes things, a little.  It doesn’t make me like Stinger any more.  But it makes me more willing to put up with him.  And if I can figure out some way to help him, I think I’d have to try.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, March 18

We moved on to talking about India in class today.  I’d’ve liked to stay with Japan a little longer, but since Lt. Riggs was so clearly biased against Japan (I assume due to their less-than-welcoming stance on Utopia), I’m not sure I could rely on anything I learned about it anyway. 

Riggs’ stance on India (so far) has been cringe in a different way.  With Japan, he was basically saying ‘they’re misguided (and maybe a little suspicious) for not welcoming Utopia, and some of them have a cult-like attitude about novas, but at least they’re an otherwise upstanding culture, fully integrated into the modern world’.  His take on India seems more at home with the British Raj.  He doesn’t come out with any overt racism (I’m not sure he would even recognize what he’s saying as racist), but he’s very condescending.  He’s got an almost avuncular attitude.  A kind of ‘we can’t expect them to know any better, but we’ll help them grow out of it’ stance.  It’s subtle, but it ran through just about everything he said today. 

Basically, what we’ve learned about India where novas are concerned is that a lot of novas work in the entertainment industry over there, both as on-camera performers and as stunt people.  It’s very much becoming the new Hollywood.  Riggs wasn’t too cringy about that- he just dropped a couple of comments about novas working for selfish ends rather than for the good of humanity.  That’s pretty much what I expected.  What surprised me was what he had to say about rural India.  Apparently, there are bunches and bunches of tiny villages out there, mostly living the way they had been decades ago.  And for reasons that Utopia hasn’t figured out yet, a surprising number of novas have erupted in those tiny villages.  (I would have just assumed that India, having a high population density, would have more novas erupting, and more and more novas are erupting all the time.  But apparently Utopia thinks it’s more than that.  In that kind of thing, I’ll assume they probably do know best.) 

Anyway, Utopia has had next to zero luck recruiting those novas who erupt out there.  Most of them don’t even want to come into a Clinic for basic testing and training.  Riggs says that these novas all form little cults around themselves, setting themselves up as avatars of various Gods.  (Riggs seems to be low-key obsessed with cults.  Maybe he’s worried that Utopian novas will get the same idea?)  The interesting thing is, is that even without testing and training, these Indian novas don’t seem to pose any danger to their communities.  There haven’t been any stories of tragedy, and only a few minor ‘oops’ moments.  (I’m pretty sure that’s really true.  If Utopia had evidence of what horrible things happened with untrained novas, I’m sure they’d be using that in their propaganda.  They aren’t, so I’m pretty sure there aren’t any such stories to use.) 

So, there are all these novas, living normal-ish lives right in the middle of their home communities.  Using their abilities (mostly) to aid their neighbors, not making a fuss, and just… existing.  I’m not going to weigh in on whether they’re really communicating with their Gods, obviously.  But whether they are or not, them thinking they are is no different than Christian prayer- especially intersessional prayer, like the Catholics practice.  Really, what’s the difference if someone prays to God through a saint or prays to Vishnu through a nova? 

Somehow, I doubt Riggs would appreciate these observations. 

The tactical was another round of ‘keep The Wall from doing whatever he wants’.  I had my usual orders to ‘nibble’ his quantum energy.  (It seems less nasty of a power if I think of it that way- being nibbled to death by a duck.)  I’m still sticking with my resolution to only pull small amounts of power each time, but even so, I can feel myself getting better at it.  Practice makes perfect, I guess.  I’m afraid that I’ll slip up one day and accidently pull too much.  I know that if I do, I can easily spin it as a ‘break through’, that all the constant practice has improved my skill (which it has).  But then I’ll be expected to operate at that new level, and be pressed for more.  Maybe I’m still being paranoid, but I just don’t want Utopia to know everything I’m capable of. 

Anyway, this time, I decided to try something new.  The Wall has never displayed any major offensive capabilities beyond his strength.  And I’m pretty sure Puppy is stronger than he is.  Of course, he’s plenty strong enough to throw people for distance and accuracy, and I’m sure he could really hurt people if he tried.  I really don’t want to find out what happens when his strength meets my toughness.  But in a training activity, I was willing to take a few more chances.  I figured, even if he accidentally hurt me, he wouldn’t be applying his full force, and I can heal quickly enough that it shouldn’t be an issue. 

So, this time, I started out as usual- being invisible, swooping by whenever The Wall was distracted, and ‘nibbling’.  Each time I made contact, I’d zip around to some other spot close by, so he couldn’t hit me, even with accidental flailing. 

Now, The Wall has this thing where if he’s standing still, it’s nearly impossible to make him move, pick him up, or knock him over.  But that only works if he’s standing still.  If he’s moving, he can be messed with like anyone else.  Of course, all he has to do is stop moving, and he’s planted again.  So I waited until he was really focused on Puppy and Stinger.  Then, instead of my usual fly-past-and poke, I made a dive for his knees and wrapped myself between his lower legs.  Kinda like shoving a stick into the spokes of a bicycle wheel. 

I’m sure that if he’d have seen me coming, it never would have worked.  But since he was already mid-step and off balance, he actually fell over!  He fell on top of me, but oh well.  I can live with that.  Everybody piled on him immediately.  And there I was, on the bottom of the pile.  I could have gotten away, but why bother?  Having the weight of several people on top of me isn’t an issue.  So, instead, I just kept ‘nibbling’.  I was still only taking small amounts each time, but since he was literally on top of me, I was able to just do it over and over and over.  (I was bleeding off the excess energy as quickly as I could, but the sensations were still building up pretty intensely.)  I’m not sure exactly how long the situation lasted.  Puppy was punching The Wall, Stinger was shooting him with his quantum bolts, the others were all doing their stuff. 

Then, suddenly, The Wall tapped out.  He gave up.  And about that time, I realized there was nothing else to ‘nibble’.  I’m sure he’d been using his quantum energy in the exercise, but I’d taken whatever he had left.  He was dry. 

We’d won.  We’d actually won!!!

Let me be clear about something.  We’ve ‘won’ most of our tactical exercises.  We’d be given a goal or a mission to complete, and we usually- almost always- managed to complete it.  But always before we’d done it badly.  Either we’d had massive collateral damage, or some of our teammates were captured, badly injured, or killed, or we’d achieve the primary mission while falling a secondary goal (like, we’d rescue the hostage, but the ‘bad guys’ would escape).  In other words, our successes were usually more technical than actual.

But this time, we’d won a clean victory.  The Wall was completely neutralized.  He was going nowhere.  Shift probably didn’t need to turn into an anaconda and wrap around him as a restraint, but it was funny as hell.  And no one got hurt- at least not beyond a few bruises and scratches.  No major damage to the environment either. 

And even better, probably no one but me and The Wall really understood what had happened.  I had been invisible, after all.  For all anyone else could see, he simply tripped.  Sapphire probably noticed that The Wall wasn’t actually on the ground when everyone else piled on (he was partly on top of me, after all), but he could have coincidentally landed on me. 

In other words, unless The Wall spoke up, no one was likely to connect this to me.  Stinger’s plan for this exercise hadn’t been much better than any of his previous plans, but it wasn’t any worse.  And I was happy to think that maybe he’d finally get the praise from Lt. Riggs that he so desperately wanted.  I certainly wasn’t going to steal his thunder.

Anyway, we all untangled ourselves.  The Wall didn’t look good.  I knew how he felt, since it had been awful when Divis Mal drained all my energy, but I can only hope I didn’t look as bad then as The Wall did now.  Being around more novas than baselines lately, I’d stopping really noticing some of the subtle differences between us.  How novas just seem to be more… alive.  Vibrant.  Energetic.  Like we’re filmed in 720 while everyone else is in 480.

It was somehow wrong to see The Wall diminished like that.  It wasn’t a pity thing.  I didn’t feel bad, or sorry for him.  I knew he’d be better in a few minutes and completely fine in a few hours.  It wasn’t that.  It wasn’t nearly so personal.  I don’t like describing it this way, but these are the only words I have: It was like seeing something holy defiled.  Like seeing a God stripped of his divinity.  Novas aren’t gods.  We aren’t holy.  But those are the only words I can come up with to describe what I had done to The Wall. 

This was training.  We’re meant to be learning something from these exercises.  And I learned something today.  I never want to drain another nova dry again.  I won’t do it.  Not without a truly life-or-death reason behind it.  Never again. No matter how good it felt to finally get a clean ‘win’, this was wrong.

Riggs’s comments after?  “You did good.”  That was it.  Apparently, that was enough.  Stinger looked like he was floating on clouds.  I didn’t think you could really have a party without, well, party stuff- music, dancing, food, whatever.  But even without any of that, our decompress session was absolutely a party.

Chapter Text

Saturday, March 21

A few basic updates:

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful.  We finished discussing India and moved on to Africa.  I’m not sure how that’s going to go.  Africa is about as diverse an area as it’s possible to be, and Lt. Riggs talked about it as though it was one big, unified country, rather than the patchwork of countries that it is.  That was just on Friday, though.  Maybe that was meant to be some kind of broad overview?  Maybe we’ll get into more detail on the various countries next week.  After all, those of us with ambitions of joining Team Tomorrow might end up spending a lot of time (and maybe blood) in Africa.  We’ll see how that goes.

The tacticals have continued.  I didn’t want to repeat my little ‘grab and badger gnaw’ stunt, so I went back to nibbling.  We were up against Flamestrike both days, with limited success.  So, ultimately, nothing has really changed. 

Aikido is still going well. 

As for my actual classes, that’s mostly going well.  I’ve finished all the Math except for the final, so that’s out of the way.  The way English and History are structured, I can only work so far ahead, but I’ve worked out a schedule so those aren’t an issue. 

The Astronomy class is disappointing, but I think that’s more an issue of my expectations than anything else.  Since I erupted, I’ve noticed that schoolwork tends to come easier for me, and I’ve tested higher, with less effort on my part.  I don’t want to sound braggy, but it’s hard to deny that I’ve gotten smarter- just not superhumanly smart (which I’m glad about).  It hasn’t really been an issue, most of the time.  I’ve just kept quiet about not having to work as hard, and done my best not to judge or be impatient when other people haven’t caught on to things as quickly.  But Astronomy has been the first time that I’ve really felt ‘held back’ by my baseline classmates.  It isn’t just a question of learning the material.  It’s also being limited by the lab equipment and the amount of time allotted to each exercise.  The college has one decently-sized telescope and a couple of small ones.  The big one is usually booked by more advanced students, who understandably have priority.  That leaves the smaller ones for my class to use.  With twenty-ish people showing up for any given lab session, that means each person has very little time to complete the assignment.  And we have to use the equipment.  I usually make a point of not wanting special treatment for being a nova, but this is one instance where I really do want it.  Because I don’t need a telescope- at least, not the little ones that we’re able to use.  I can adjust my vision to see the moons of Saturn or the rings of Uranus just by moving quantum energy around.  And yet, I’m still required to use the telescopes.  And I can’t complete the assignments until I’ve had my turn.  I get the need to understand how a telescope works- and just using my enhanced vision won’t provide that.  But these telescopes are old, nearly obsolete.  I understood how to use them after the first session. 

My other source of frustration is purely personal.  Everyone else in the class, even the professor, looks at astronomy as a theoretical thing.  Some of them really enjoy it, but none of them (not even the professor) look at it as something they’ll ever do more than look at.  But I’ve been in orbit.  I’ve walked on the moon.  When I’m a little more confident of my teleportation skills, I’ll visit Mars.  And Pluto.  Astronomy is something that I’m doing, not just looking at.  And that makes all the difference in the word. 

I think I’m going to talk to Riggs about quitting my sessions on the shooting range.  I still shoot every night, and I’ve gotten a little better in spite of myself.  But I still don’t enjoy it, and I’ll still refuse to carry a gun under any foreseeable circumstances.  There’s no point in my continuing, and I can put the time to better use.  That’s still the only time I see Hourglass, but he’s made it very clear that he’s there for his own shooting practice, and has no interest in socializing.  That’s fine.  I’d like to know more about him, but I’m not going to force the issue. 

And now for the actual news.  The Seventeen shoot. 

I had assumed it would be a lot like the modelling thing (see entry Saturday, November 22, 2008), only without the catwalk and (hopefully) without the skeezy old men.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Even though most of the women at the fashion show were very young, they were treated exactly like hardened working pros.  This was different.  It was lighter, more fun.  And while, yes, I was expected to do what I was told and be professional, there wasn’t anything like the ‘meat market’ vibe I’d gotten from the fashion show. 

I was flown up to New York City on Friday night and put up in a nice hotel.  I got in fairly late, and while I knew a bunch of stuff would still be open, I opted to just hang out on the roof for awhile and watch the city.  It turns out that a couple of homeless people were also hanging out on the roof (maybe they lived up there?).  I’m not sure who was more surprised.  As soon as they realized that I wasn’t going to hassle them, or rat them out for being there, we got along pretty well.  I could hear Lenny’s stomach growling, so I excused myself and flew down to street level.  There were food trucks all over the place, and a lot of them were still open.  I got the guys a selection of hot dogs, pretzels, and kabob-like things- enough for two or three meals, I think.  When I flew back up to the roof with the food, it was pretty clear that I’d made friends for life.  😊 

It’s funny.  Being at the Academy had almost made me lose sight of something so small, but so important.  The best part of being a nova is the ability to help people in direct, meaningful ways.  Not the big, important programs like Project Eden, but just being able to get some food for hungry people.  (Well, I say that’s the best thing about being a nova.  Really, the best thing about being a nova is flying.  But that’s selfish.)

I was scheduled to be at Seventeen all day today, but would have at least part of the evening free.  There was so much I wanted to do (I’d never been to New York), but doubted I would have time for much- and anyway, I was a little overwhelmed with choices. 

But first, the shoot. 

I’d figured that it would be a lot like the fashion show, and the first part was.  Sorta.  It was a bunch of people clustered around me, doing my hair, doing my makeup, picking out (and arguing about) what I was going to wear.  But it was different too, and eventually I figured out why. 

At the fashion show, all the models were treated like meat.  We were almost ignored.  The hair and makeup people talked over us instead of to us, unless they were giving orders.  “Turn your head.”  “Close your eyes.”  “Lick your lips.”  Like running a dog through each trick it knows.  Some of the other models had to put up with nasty comments about their bodies, too.  “Your eyes are puffy.”  “Have you gained weight?”  That kind of thing. 

But none of that happened this time.  Well, the orders were the same, but that was all.  The mood was a lot more excited and engaged.  The people talked to me rather than over me.  They actively tried to put me at ease.  One of the women made sure I knew exactly what products were being used on me- every brand, every shade, every step of the process.  Cover Girl this, L’Oréal that, Paul Mitchell other thing.  I thought it would be rude to tell them that I didn’t care about the brands and products- I just use whatever shampoo is on sale, and rarely bother with makeup at all. 

By the time they’d finished with my hair and makeup, two guys and a girl had finished pulling together an entire rack of clothes, whittled it down, pulled another rack, and come to some kind of consensus.  There were more clothes there than I’ve owned in at least three years.  All of it very trendy, and ranging from ‘I’d wear that if I had an unlimited clothing budget, but would never pay extra for it’ to ‘Does anyone actually wear things like that on a regular basis?’

Being away from Bailey for as long as I have now has made me re-think a lot of our friendship.  I’ve had to admit that I’m better off without her.  But I’ve been so used to being her sidekick (maybe even her accessory?) for so long that I never really developed a style of my own.  Mom could never afford trendy clothes, and since I grew up that way, I never really cared about it.  Bailey usually loaned me stuff from her closet (that she picked out, of course) when we went out together, so she was basically in charge of how I looked when I was supposed to be ‘dressed up’. 

Since I never really had control over what I wore, I never really gave it much thought or learned what actually looked good on me.  And now, it almost feels too late to start.  I’m more-or-less happy with who I am.  I’m comfortable with how I look.  I’ve even gotten used to my eyes being weird.  My Eufiber can look like whatever I want it to, and since it’s self-cleaning I wear it every day.  It’s just silly not to.  So, even though I finally have money I could spend on clothes if I wanted, what’s the point?  And if I’m not going to buy them, why pay attention to them? 

All that’s just the long way of saying that I had no idea what was currently popular in the fashion world.  But this trio of fashionistas had Very Definite Ideas about what I would be wearing today.  But unlike the fashion show… they actually asked me what I liked and wanted.  Woah.  I guess it makes sense.  They’d already gone through and gotten rid of anything they’d decided I wouldn’t be ‘allowed’ to wear, so I was basically choosing between the pre-approved options they’d already decided on.  (Isn’t that how you’re supposed to handle toddlers?  Let them choose between a small number of pre-approved things?)

Well, I started looking through the clothes (apparently my ‘signature’ color scheme wasn’t going to cut it today) and picked out a nice flowy blue skirt and a pale yellow, v-neck top.  That met with their approval, but it wasn’t enough.  I was going to be doing multiple clothing changes.  So I ended up with a reddish ‘romper’ one-piece thing, a pair of rather tight jeans with a silky purple tank top, and a couple of other things.  I thought we were done, but they brought out a rack of swimsuits.  Apparently, this is going to be a late-summer issue.  It felt weird to be picking out swimsuits in March, but oh well.  They let me get by with one bikini and a one-piece with a sarong.  The bikini had little wooden beads and shells dangling from it- surely not meant to actually get wet. 

Then it was time for the pictures.  They had several sets ready to go, including a little courtyard they’d set up like a park.  I don’t think they liked the lighting, or something, though, since we didn’t stay outside for long.  Or maybe they just weren’t comfortable in the cold? 

Anyway, the nuts and bolts of the photo session was similar to the fashion show, with a couple of major exceptions.  I was still being posed and positioned, and told things like “suck in your cheeks” and “tilt your head”, but I wasn’t being put into -erm- provocative poses.  Some of it was a little flirty, but I no big deal.  Kudos to Seventeen for remembering that I am, in fact, seventeen. 

Well, they put me on several sets, ran through all the costume changes, did some cringy stuff with a huge fan and fake beach, and took approximately sixteen bazillion pictures.  It seemed like it went on a lot longer than the session at the fashion show did, but then again, I was the only person involved, so I guess maybe that makes sense.  If they were going to fly me up here and go to all this trouble, I guess they meant to get their moneys worth. 

I really do tend to just go along with things.  It actually just now occurred to me- why did Utopia fly me from Virginia to New York City (first class, no less), when I could have just… flown here?  I’d’ve actually gotten here faster if I’d come under my own power.  But when Erica told me when to show up at the airport, I just went along with it without a second thought.  Maybe the New York novas don’t like randos just flying in out of nowhere? 

Anyway, the pictures took all morning and part of the afternoon, with a lunch break.  Then came the interview.  Erica had coached me on the flight up (maybe that’s why they didn’t want me flying myself?)  on what kinds of questions I would probably be asked, and what specific talking points Utopia wanted me to cover.  That was mostly fine, but there was one thing that left a cold spot in my belly. 

Erica explicitly told me not to say anything about not wanting to join Team Tomorrow.  She said I didn’t have to pretend to be enthusiastic about the idea, but I couldn’t shut it down.  Of course, I protested.  After all, I’ve made it clear at every opportunity that I don’t want to do it.  (The fact that I’ve become a little resigned to the idea of going in to T2M Auxiliary, at least temporarily, is something I’m keeping very much to myself.)  Erica didn’t come out and say anything, but her tone heavily implied that what I wanted wasn’t an issue and I needed to stop digging in my heels.  Just another reminded that Erica works for Utopia, not for me.  She has my best interests at heart only as long as that doesn’t conflict with Utopia’s goals.   

The interview itself went fine, I guess.  They started off easy, asking me questions about my life before I erupted, the details of my eruption (I didn’t go into graphic detail, of course), and how I liked training at the Academy.  I could handle all that.  The early stuff I could be honest about, and I know better than to mention all the ways the Academy is sketchy. 

Then they wanted to know more about my training itself.  That was a little trickier.  Erica had told me that while I could mention the tactical training, I could only do so in the vaguest possible ways, and I was forbidden to say anything that would make the training sound violent or dangerous.  I was especially not to mention anyone getting hurt.  The classes, I could be open about, as long as I didn’t share ‘restricted’ details. 

So that’s what I did.  I talked about the classes.  I told (in general terms) how we learned about other cultures, and how they viewed novas, as well as learning about other novas and how nova powers in general worked.  I told about our language classes.  I made sure to mention the language classes, hoping the interviewer (she said to call her Becky) would catch on to what I wasn’t talking about- actual academic classes.  I was hoping she’d catch on to the fact that, although the Academy claims to be a high school, no actual teaching happens there.  But if she noticed what I was saying, she didn’t say anything.  I tried to bring the point home even more obviously, by talking about attending college classes at Virginia Western Community College (and wanting to attend University of California at Berkeley later), but she didn’t take the bait.  She asked me what courses I was taking there, but otherwise didn’t make the connection. 

Becky tried to press for details about how we trained our powers and prepared ourselves for our futures as novas, and that’s where things got a little more awkward.  I think I did pretty well keeping my explanation of the tactical exercises vague enough to please Erica, but detailed enough to satisfy Becky.  That part went okay.  But then she got onto my personal future as a nova- my future with Team Tomorrow. 

Right into what Erica had warned me about.  Now, I had a choice.  I could do exactly what I’d been told not to do, and make it clear that I had no interest in joining T2M in any capacity.  Now, if that actually made it into the published magazine, that might end all talk of my joining.  T2M is supposed to be the absolute pinnacle of desirability, so somebody being publicly known not to want to join would automatically not be a good candidate.  Probably.  But there was no way Project Utopia would allow that part of the interview to be printed.  PU is the most powerful organization in the world.  If they tell a magazine to cut part of an interview, there’s no question that they will.  And then PU will know that I can’t be relied on.  Things could go bad for me if I bucked them for no good reason like that. 

Plus, it really does seem like the Count wants me connected with T2M in whatever capacity I can be.  If that turns out to be my contribution, well, I can suck it up.  For awhile, at least.  Plus, if Bix was right, Utopia may be intending to force me into doing what they want (like they low-key have already), and avoiding that would mean a complete restructuring of my entire life (if it’s possible at all).  Plus, there’s Mom to think about. 

Therefore, I couldn’t be honest.  But I also couldn’t be enthusiastic about joining T2M.  After all, I’ve made my opinion very well known to anyone who will listen. So a sudden reversal might be suspicious.  I had to thread the needle, and do it in such a way that I got Becky off the topic without upsetting Erica. 

I went for modesty.  Full ‘aw shucks’ mode.  (It’s worked well in the past, after all.)  I said something about being sure that T2M had way better candidates than I ever could be- some of my fellow students, for example- but that I would be honored if they ever asked me to join.  I suppose I would be, too.  Just because I don’t want to join, I suppose being asked to join a group that’s popularly considered to be the best of the best of the best would be an honor.  Just not an honor I aspire to.  There are, what, about 40 nova members of T2M?  And about 6,000 novas?

It had the desired effect of getting Becky onto a new subject- my fellow Academy students.  I was on firmer ground, there.  I knew better than to go into detail about their abilities, but I could give generalities and gush about their personalities and achievements.  I made sure to talk Stinger up as best I could as Team Leader, how he always looked out for us and made sure we had opportunities to excel.  (Basically, I glowed up the social parts of his leadership and carefully didn’t mention his tactical failures.)  That smoothed things over, and the interview ended soon after. 

After, one of the photographers pulled me aside for a few more ‘candid’ shots (I wondered if maybe he wasn’t doing that for either personal reasons or a side hustle, but decided not to make an issue about it), and that was that.  It was about five o’clock on a Saturday in New York City, and I had the rest of the evening to myself!

….And I had no idea what to do.  Erica had made herself scarce as soon as we were finished (not that I wanted to hang out with her, but she was the only person I knew, even a little).  I hadn’t planned ahead for this at all, and knew most of the cool tourist stuff needed advance reservations.  For a minute, I entertained the idea of trying to use my nova-ness to eat at a good restaurant without a reservation, but decided against it.  For one thing, that would be rude.  For another, New York might be one of the few places where novas dropping in might not be a big deal, and the only thing worse than a ‘celebrity’ throwing their weight around is a ‘celebrity’ trying to throw their weight around and failing.  So, no fancy restaurants.

The aquarium, zoo, and most of the museums I was interested in seeing either were closed already or would be closing soon.  After some thought, I decided to see the Statue of Liberty.  The last ferry (and tour) had already left for the day, but I hardly need a ferry to get over there, and if I couldn’t see the inside, that was okay. 

So, off I went, making very sure to obey all the flight laws.  New York has a municipal defender (The Gothic Knight) and while it would be interesting to meet him, I’d just as soon not annoy him.  I’ve heard he hangs out on rooftops, but I never saw him. 

The Statue of Liberty was interesting.  I’d like to see inside someday, but seeing it ‘up close and personal’ from outside was neat too.  The last tour of the day was still on Liberty Island when I got there, and I’m afraid I caused a little bit of stir by flying around looking at the Statue.  Oops. 

After the Statue of Liberty, I went to Nathan’s Famous, and had a Hell’s Kitchen burger and a New York Cheesesteak Dog.  They weren’t bad, but I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.  After dinner, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

It’s embarrassing, but I ended up just riding the subway for awhile.  I’d never actually been on a subway before and wondered if everything I’d seen on the OpNet was real.  (Some was, some wasn’t.)  There were a lot of people that I assumed were probably homeless, and I saw a couple of drug deals, but it was cleaner than I expected and not nearly as dangerous as the media makes it seem.  Twice I felt people trying to pickpocket me, but since I’d sealed my wallet into a pocket of my Eufiber, I wasn’t worried.  Without an opening, the only way someone was getting my stuff was by literally cutting it out, and Eufiber is pretty resistant. 

Since I didn’t have a specific destination in mind, I wasn’t paying attention to where the subway was going.  So I have no idea where I was when I got off.  Someplace called Rockaway Station.  It was pretty dark, but I didn’t see any real reason to worry, so I decided to visit Central Park. Even better, I had an Idea. 

Since the fire, I’d been practicing my teleporting, but since it’s been subtly made clear that I shouldn’t leave the Academy grounds without permission, I’ve been sticking to shot hops and familiar places.  Obviously, I’ve never been to Central Park.  But I’ve seen lots of pictures.  I know what it looks like.  Parts of it, anyway.  The Sheep Meadow, at least.  Mostly.  Anyway, this was as good a time as any to try teleporting someplace I’d never been before, right? 

It's weird.  If I had to pick the best thing about being a nova, I’d say flying.  Hands down, no question.  It’s all about flying.  Not just the freedom of going wherever you want, but the feeling of wind in your face, the shifting stresses on your body as you turn and maneuver in the air, and seeing everything so small on the ground.  I could spend hours flying and love every minute of it- it wouldn’t even matter where I was going or when I got there.  Obviously, teleporting doesn’t have the same joy of movement and seeing the world around you, but I can get places even faster, and that opens up waaay more possibilities.  If I’ve done the math right, it would take me about five days to fly to the Moon, one way.  As soon as I’m sure enough of my skills, I’ll be able to teleport to the Moon nearly instantly.  (Well, in a few minutes.  I’d still like to fly up into orbit, teleport to near the Moon, and fly in to land that way.) 

So, you’d think I’d love teleporting the same way I love flying, right?  Nope.  I appreciate teleporting.  I absolutely do.  But it’s a tool.  It’s a way of getting from Point A to Point B.  Flying is an experience in itself.  Teleporting might be faster, but it can’t compare. 

Another weird thing about teleporting.  I’m still having that creepy sensation of pushing against some kind of membrane every time I do it- trying to push through, and at the same time absolutely trying not to push through.  I don’t know why, but I have the feeling that if I somehow did push through, I’d end up someplace very different to where I was trying to go.  But that’s ridiculous.  Maybe it’s some kind of spatial hallucination?  But I never had it when I teleported with Flare, or Blinker, or Nebula.  Then again, teleporting with each one of them was a little different.  With Blinker, my first time made me a little nauseous and knee-wobbly, though that got better later.  Nebula, I only teleported with her when we were already in low-gravity environments, but there was no nausea or knee issues.  There was none of that with Flare, either. 

I’M CONCERNED ABOUT THAT ‘MEMBRANE’ YOU’RE ENCOUNTERING, HEKA.  THERE’S SO MUCH THAT EVEN THE BEST OF US DON’T UNDERSTAND ABOUT QUANTUM ENERGY.  BE CAREFUL.  AND CONSIDER TALKING TO A TRUE EXPERT ON THE SUBJECT.

~S

Flare’s teleporting is somehow different than Blinker’s or Nebula’s (or mine, I think).  When Blinker, Nebula, or I teleport, there’s an instant when we ‘land’ where we have to pause and kind of…. reset ourselves.  It doesn’t take long- less than a second-, but it’s almost like our bodies have to… reassure themselves that they’re where they’re supposed to be.  It’s just a split second, but I wouldn’t want to try and do anything important right then.  When Flare teleports, it’s different.  She can pop in and out of places and be ready for anything right away.  I’ve seen her pop in and out so fast during our tactical exercises that I needed my enhance vision to keep track of her. 

I’m pretty sure that Blinker has more experience teleporting than Flare does.  So is she somehow just more talented?  Or is there a difference in how her body uses quantum energy that makes the difference?  Flare didn’t know what I meant about the ‘membrane’ feeling when I asked her about it.  Maybe she and I do teleportation differently?  If I ever run into Blinker or Nebula again, I’ll ask them. 

I’m rambling again. 

Anyway, teleporting to Central Park.  Which I’d never been to before or seen up close.  Aaaaand I ended up teleporting inside a tree.  You’d think, the Sheep Meadow.  Big, open space.  Not many trees.  More open space than not open space.  Plenty of opportunities to not end up inside a solid object.  But no. 

And let me tell you, that hurts.  It hurts in a special ‘inside’ way that I hope no one else will ever experience.  I was forced out of the tree right away and ended up right next to it.  It was the strangest feeling.  I’ve seen movies that tried to show what it might be like to be possessed by a ghost or a demon or something- two entities occupying the same space, and that space only meant for one.  This was like that, but without another consciousness involved.  My mother described an overstuffed suitcase as ‘ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag’.  It felt like that.  Like there was too much in too small a space.  I sat there, in the dark, or the ground next to the tree.  It had hurt like hell, and I expected to be covered in bruises at least, if not blood.  But there was nothing.  I guess my body absorbed the damage?  The tree was fine, too, as far as I could tell. 

I’m not sure what I did wrong, other than not be familiar with where I was going.  Was it just dumb luck that I hit the tree?  Would I have done better with an exact mental image of where I wanted to go, instead of just ‘the Sheep Meadow’?  I know it’s easier when you’re familiar with where you’re going.  Still, if ending up inside a solid object is the worst that can happen to me, well, it wasn’t too bad.  I mean, it sucked.  It sucked real hard.  But it could have been worse.  I don’t want to experience that again, but the risk won’t stop me from experimenting.  I’ll have to be really careful teleporting with other people, though.  Just because I didn’t get injured (hurt, yes, but not injured), doesn’t mean somebody else, especially a baseline, would be so lucky. 

I guess I understand a little more why Flare is unwilling to teleport into places she doesn’t know well- especially places without a lot of open area.  She doesn’t have the increased toughness that I do, so I imagine the tree incident would have been a lot worse for her.  I should ask her at some point if she’s had that problem, and if she has any tips on avoiding it. 

Either way, more practice is in order before I try for the Moon.  So, more practice it is.  I’d intended to wander around Central Park for awhile, but opportunities for this kind of practice don’t come often.  So, I concentrated really hard this time and teleported back to the Statue of Liberty.  I’d planned to come out in the air this time, near the torch.  I got pretty close.  Since I hadn’t picked an exactly specific landing point, I can’t tell exactly how close.  I think I should make it a habit (as much as possible, anyway) to teleport into places I’m not familiar with in the air.  That way I’m less likely to end up inside an object.  Or a person.  That would be awful.  The tree didn’t seem to be damaged by my being inside it, however briefly, but I don’t think I want to try that experiment with another human.  <shudder>

I got a map at a gas station (they still make paper maps- who knew?) and spent the rest of the night picking out places on the map and teleporting to them.  I didn’t end up inside any more solid objects (mainly because I stayed in the air as much as possible), but I didn’t always hit exactly the mark I was trying for.  I’m not sure how much of that is due to not having a good mental image of where I was going, and how much is due to my just not being very good at this yet. 

I wanted to try teleporting around the subway system, or even exploring some of the tunnels I’d heard about underneath, but I chickened out.  I could live with another solid object incident, but the chances of appearing inside a person were too great to risk.  I mean, the chances of it were small, but any risk of that, for no reason other than personal curiosity, was too great a risk.  So, I did the next best thing, and teleported into Long Island Sound. 

I know Project Utopia put a lot of effort into cleaning up the air and water.  And I’m certainly grateful for that.  I also don’t even want to imagine what Long Island Sound was like before all that happened.  I can’t fly underwater, but since I don’t need to breathe or worry about temperature and pressure, that wasn’t a problem.  I just grabbed a rock to keep myself from floating back to the surface and walked around on the bottom for awhile. I saw a bunch of fish and crabs.  There were a couple of sharks, but I don’t know what kinds.  As much as I like aquariums, marine biology isn’t my thing.

Most of the sound is pretty shallow, but one part goes down a lot deeper all of a sudden.  I figured, screw it, when was I likely to be doing this again?  So I went all the way down.  There was enough light that I could still use my enhanced vision, but looking around with thermal vision was more interesting.  Of course, the fish and things are cold blooded, so they didn’t show up nearly as strongly as people and other animals do, so it was interesting learning how things looked so far underwater.  I found some lobsters, and petted them, but they didn’t seem to appreciate it.

I found some old lobster traps down there, along with a bunch of other garbage.  I haven’t wanted to practice my disintegration power much, for fear of Utopia catching on that I have it, but this seemed like a pretty safe place to do it.  Some of the traps were still intact enough to catch stuff, so I made sure to shake each one out before I disintegrated it.  I doubt I made much difference overall, but it felt like I’d done something.  And I appreciated the chance to practice. 

Just to see what happened, I tried disintegrating water.  It didn’t work very well.  I mean, something happened.  There was a tiny globular wave as more water swooshed into where the disintegrated water had been.  But nothing more than that.  I assume the same thing would happen, in a smaller way, if I tried disintegrating air.  But I don’t see much point in it. 

I wandered around at the bottom of the Sound, disintegrating trash until I actually started to feel like my energy reserves were starting to run low.  I wasn’t tired, but I knew I was close to the end of my reserves.  Since I didn’t want to be a drippy mess going back in to my hotel, I teleported one last time back to the Statue of Liberty, then flew back to the hotel so I could dry in the wind.  I wasn’t completely dry by the time I got back, but I wasn’t drippy.  I still got some weird looks from the front desk staff, though.  When I got back to my room, I realized why.  In addition to being damp, I had some kind of seaweed tangled in my hair.

Chapter Text

Sunday, March 22

I flew out early this afternoon, so I didn’t have time to do any real sight seeing before I left.  I did take a quick fly-through Central Park during the day though.  The tree I teleported into on the Sheep Meadow didn’t look like it had taken any harm, so it’s all good.

If Erica knew about my late-night wanderings, she didn’t say anything.  I’m not sure how she could know, but I don’t want to underestimate Utopia’s resources.

As soon as the plane landed, I took off straight home.  There wasn’t enough time to see Rocío or the girls, but I wanted to visit the cats.  And if Mom happened to get home early, spend time with her.  (She didn’t.)

Chapter Text

Saturday, March 28

It feels weird to skip an entire week, but, really, nothing interesting happened.  Flare didn’t have any useful advice about not teleporting into solid objects beyond ‘don’t teleport places you don’t know well’.  Which is certainly safe advice, but not useful advice.  She told me about the closest she came to teleporting into a solid object.  Rather than showing up entirely inside a big tree, like I did, she accidentally put her shoulder inside a brick wall.  Apparently, it hurt her a lot worse than it did me, so I can understand her hesitancy to risk that again.  Especially bringing another person with her.

I didn’t point out to her the problem that we might need to teleport into tight, unfamiliar spaces someday.  Especially if Team Tomorrow comes calling.  I don’t think Flare is completely sold on the T2M thing, but she keeps her long-term plans pretty much to herself.   After Slider’s murder, T2M needs teleporters.  I think they learned a lesson about depending on only one nova with the ability.  Out of all of us, I think Flare (and unfortunately, me) have the best chance of actually being recruited for T2M.  She might even make one of the main teams someday.  Whether she wants that, well…. But if so, she’ll definitely need to get over her unwillingness to teleport blind like that.

It seems like I’m just going to need to practice tight, blind places.  For now, I don’t think distance matters as much as precision.  Maybe I can set up some kind of obstacle course?  Of course, if I set it up, it wouldn’t be ‘blind’.  Maybe something small and random.  After all, if the point is precise ‘ports into tight spaces, then the objects in the area wouldn’t need to be very large.  Maybe I could use a classroom, or even a closet.  And maybe throw a bunch of small things that would bounce around inside, so I wouldn’t know where they ended up.  Like a bunch of basketballs, or something. 

That got me to thinking.  I know that novas develop new powers, as well as get better at using the powers they already have.  And I know that practice and training helps to develop those powers.  To my knowledge, none of the others have developed a new ability since they came to the Academy, but who knows?  They may have before I came here.  Or they may be keeping things to themselves.  But either way, the Academy doesn’t do much actual training.  The tactical exercises encourage us to use our abilities, but not really to develop them beyond our current capabilities.  Now, I know that Bix was pushing me a lot harder than maybe he should have, and I still don’t know exactly why.  So that’s probably why I have more inclination to push further, and see what else I can do- which might be why I developed teleportation in the first place.  That, and Bix’s theory that a nova’s body is somehow… protean.  Able to change and adapt in accordance with our desires.  That, over time, we might be able to do just about anything we could imagine. 

But that’s not the point.  I ‘suddenly’ (after several lessons and in a high-stress situation) developed a brand-new ability.  And I did it in a place supposedly dedicated to training the next generation of young novas in the proper and responsible use of their abilities.  I could see how it might take a day or two to get around to testing and training- obviously, I’m not the only student here and resources have to be shared- but it’s been nearly two weeks and no one has even brought the subject up!  I’m beginning to think they aren’t going to.

If I’d been back at the Clinic in Wilmington, Bix would have pounced on this and had a bunch of ideas to test what I could do- and improve it.  I don’t trust Bix, but I kinda miss him. The point is, it looks like I’m going to have to take testing and training into my own hands.  And since my time during the week is so structured, it looks like it will have to be on the weekends. 

But not this weekend.  This weekend, I’m celebrating my birthday.  It isn’t until Monday, really, but I’ll be back at the Academy then, so this weekend is as close as possible.  Mom has all day off tomorrow, so we’re going to spend Sunday together, but today was for the girls and (later) for Rocío.

It was strange.  I haven’t thought much about Bailey lately, but this was the first birthday I celebrated without her in years.  I almost didn’t know what to do with myself.  In the past, Bailey took me out to dinner (she always picked the places), then to a movie or something.  Unless there was a party she’d been invited to.  Then, she’d take me along, announce to everyone that it was my birthday, and everybody would congratulate me before getting on with their lives. 

I try not to make a big deal about my birthday.  Mom and I never had much money, so there usually weren’t many gifts.  Bailey always got me something nice (aka expensive) but otherwise it was mostly useful, practical stuff.  And that was fine.  For my sixteenth birthday, Mom took me down to get my driver’s license, then let me drive us home.  It seemed like I should do something special for this milestone birthday, but I couldn’t really think what.  (Not to mention that I wouldn’t technically be eighteen for another couple of days.)  Sixteen lets you drive.  Twenty-One lets you drink.  Eighteen lets you… vote? Great….

Anyway.  I went out with the girls to a nice Asian Buffet with a sushi bar.  After, we hung out at the beach and just talked for awhile.  It was low-key, but a lot of fun.  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed just hanging out with friends.  I see the girls sometimes on the weekends, but it’s usually in smaller chunks of time.  This was nice.

We talked about school (theirs, mostly), and people I hadn’t seen since I went to the Academy.  Jess shared several stories about pranks and classes.  Monique caught me up on who was dating who (and who was butthurt about it).  Alejandra mentioned that Allen and Sean both failed their history midterms, and rumor says they might fail the entire year if they don’t get their act together.  There hadn’t been anymore ‘nova vandalism’, but that’s to be expected.  Pretty much nobody really thinks I had anything to do with the damage, but nobody really talks about it anymore.

I couldn’t help asking about Bailey.  She and Jeremy are still together.  She’s collected a few people around her again, but she’s nowhere near as popular as she was.  It’s a rumor accepted as fact that she (or Jeremy, or both) were involved in me getting kicked out, and that took her down several pegs.  She’s still using her wheelchair, but Monique said that she saw Bailey in a store downtown and she was on crutches, but waving them around rather than using them to walk.  So Monique is convinced that Bailey is using the chair at school for sympathy (and to get people to do things for her).  Jess and Alejandra aren’t so sure. 

Of course, I have no way of knowing one way or the other.  But Bailey’s always been the type that, if she can’t be as good as she wants to be, then she doesn’t want to try at all.  (She never cared about her grades, but social things?  She always was on top.  And sports- if she couldn’t win most of the time, she didn’t play.)  It’s pretty clear that, no matter what else happens, her cheerleading days are over.  And if she ever plays tennis again, well, I’d be really surprised if she was ever as good as she had been.  So it doesn’t really surprise me that she might not be motivated to get the most out of physical therapy.  But that’s her choice.  She’s still never reached out to me, so that tells me everything I need to know about what she wants.

We talked some about what I’d been doing as well.  The forest fire had been on the news, so of course I had to tell all about my part in it.  When they learned that I could teleport, then of course that required demonstration. 

I didn’t mind.  Popping from place to place when I could see where I was going was easy.  But I dreaded what would inevitably come next.  But at the same time, I was interested too.  And, as expected, they demanded ‘rides’. 

Now, this was potential trouble.  I’d never teleported anyone else since that one time.  I’ve been able to expand my own quantum field to cover another person before, but I’m still not sure how I managed to teleport both Puppy and Arthur- especially since they weren’t even touching each other.  Flare hadn’t been able to offer any ideas about that, either.  So I was pretty sure I could teleport one extra person, but had absolutely no intention of risking more than one.  And, like I said, I hadn’t teleported anyone else since that one time.  What if I screwed it up, somehow? 

I told the girls all of that.  And, as expected, they didn’t care.  They accepted the need to take turns (besides, somebody would have to hold the phone for videos), but they insisted on being teleported.  I insisted on short hops only.  And I had another condition.  I wanted each of them to pay close attention to any sensations they had while teleporting, and tell me about them, in as much detail as possible.  (I wanted to see if they perceived the ‘membrane’ or anything similar.)  They agreed.

So, somewhat against my better judgement, I bounced them around the beach.  The first attempt was a failure- not that I couldn’t teleport Jess, but that Monique wasn’t watching in the right direction with her phone for the video.  So we marked out a couple of X’s on the sand, and I teleported between them.  Obviously, there was nothing to take pictures of, so video was required.  I’d warned them about how I’d been a little sick to my stomach the first time, but Monique still has a hilarious video of Alejandra trying really hard not to throw up. 

After we’d bounced around a little (because, really, other than the newness of it, there’s just not much to it), I insisted they describe what they’d felt.  Ideally, I’d’ve had each one do it away from the others, but that wasn’t really an option.  Regardless, while each of them reported slightly different sensations, none of them reported anything like the ‘membrane’ I kept sensing- even though I’d sensed it every time I teleported one of them.  And I was pretty sure that none of them were holding back.  They hadn’t sensed it at all. 

More than ever, I really want to talk to Blinker.  Or Nebula.  Or any other experienced teleporter. Because this is starting to worry me.  Assuming this membrane is real, and not some kind of weird hallucination, then what happens if I somehow break through it?  Some instinct tells me that whatever is on the other side of it isn’t a place- at least, not anyplace in this world.  Is that membrane somehow a barrier between dimensions?  (Is that even possible?  Are other dimensions real, or just a science fiction trope?)  Maybe it has something to do with time?  If Hourglass can control time, even to a limited degree, then that makes time a tangible thing, in some sense.  What can be manipulated, can be… broken.  Or maybe that membrane stands between me and… the source of quantum energy itself?  If anything, that seems the most scary.  And there’s only one person I could even imagine talking about it with.  But no way am I going to even try to intrude on his time. 

Anyway, after the beach, we all went our separate ways.  Later that night, I had dinner with Rocío.  It was very romantic, and much more intimate than I’d expected. 

But some things should stay private. 

Chapter Text

Monday, March 30- My Eighteenth Birthday

Mom and I spent all day Sunday together.  It was great.  It’s been months since we’d really had a chance to just… be together.  We’re both (I assume) used to it by now- she’s pretty much always worked two jobs and I’ve pretty much always taken care of myself, at least for the day-to-day stuff.  With me getting older, we’re able to spend time as much like friends as parent and child.  We’re able to really talk more. 

Mostly. 

I realize that there’s a lot of my thoughts about Utopia and the Academy that I can’t share with her.  Mostly because I don’t want to worry her, but also because I’m beginning to wonder what Utopia would do to make sure I held to ‘the party line’.  Me maintaining Utopia’s public image is as big a part of my ‘job’ right now.  As long as I do that, I have no reason to think anything will change. 

So, for now, the best thing to do is what I’ve done all my life- go along to get along.  Just like always.  It’s easy to just… let others decide who I am.  ‘Bailey’s friend’.  ‘Good student’.  ‘Teen nova’.  ‘Team player’.  I’ve always let that happen- let other people define me.  And I’m still doing it.  And I don’t even have a plan to stop.  How pathetic is that?

Today I’m an adult.  Technically.  Of course, no one actually expects anybody to be truly different at 18 than they were at 17 and 364.  Nothing’s really changed.  Everything’s changed.  I no longer have even the minimal protection of “I’m just a kid”.  Suddenly, society expects me to know what I’m doing, even though it doesn’t treat older teenagers as anything other than kids. 

But I’m an adult now.  Even though my contract with Utopia technically runs through June of next year, I’m pretty sure I could legally break it now, if I wanted to.  An adult can’t be held to a contract signed as a minor, right?  (Of course, Utopia pretty much does what it wants, so who knows?)  Not that I plan to.  My contract is still a pretty good deal.  There’s something comforting about knowing that I can just say ‘screw it’, fly away, and start my life over whenever I want.  Even though I’m pretty sure that’s not true.  Or at least, it isn’t any more true than it was yesterday. 

Ultimately, nothing’s changed.  I’ve lost a thin layer of protection that I may never have really had in the first place.  I’ve gained a little freedom that I might not actually have at all.  I went to class and did today’s tactical exercise just like always. 

Birthdays are really only special to the person having them.  I know that.  And they get less special, the older you get.  I had my celebration this weekend, with my friends.  With Rocío.  With Mom.  That’s all I need.  It’s more than a lot of people have.  Birthdays aren’t a thing here.  I don’t know when anyone else’s birthday is.  I don’t even know how old anyone else here is, other than ‘under twenty’.  For all I know, several people have had birthdays since I’ve been here, and they’ve gone unremarked.  Just like mine was today.  There’s no reason to expect any different, and I didn’t.  No one here knows it was my birthday today.  (Well, Lt. Riggs has seen my file, and I’m sure it’s written down there, so I suppose he knew.  But that’s not the same.)  I really didn’t expect any kind of acknowledgement.  I didn’t.  How could there be?

So why am I crying?

Chapter Text

Friday, April 3

It feels weird to have skipped another whole week, but really, nothing happened.  Well, a couple of minor things. 

I knew without having to be told that April Fool’s Day was Not A Thing at the Academy.  No pranks, no jokes, no nothing.  (Really, the Academy is not good at fun in any form.)  Apparently, Shift didn’t get the memo, because he spent the entire class period that day looking exactly like Lt. Riggs.  Riggs ignored him, so everyone else did too.  It was interesting, though.  I knew he could turn into pretty much any animal, but somehow it never occurred to me that he could mimic specific people, too.  And he’s good at it!  Obviously, I didn’t have the option to get really up close and personal, but even with my enhanced vision, I couldn’t tell the difference from across the room.  Well, until I paid attention to the scent.  My sense of smell isn’t as good as Shift’s is when he’s being a bloodhound, but it’s pretty good.  And with both Shift and Lt. Riggs in the room, the difference in scent was obvious.  But still, I’ll keep Shift’s little trick in mind for the future, just in case.

I don’t know if it’s just a change in personal outlook after my birthday or if something’s really different.  But all this week, the classes as well as the tactical exercises just felt like… filling time.  Doing busywork.  The language classes are still interesting.  I’m really starting to feel comfortable in Japanese.  I’m steadily getting better in Arabic, but I’m not sure I’ll ever feel as comfortable with it. 

On a whim, I decided to stop visiting the shooting range every night.  I’m supposed to be firing fifty rounds each with three different types of gun.  I never wanted that and have made no effort to actually improve.  (I think I actually have improved, a little, but I think that’s entirely an issue of muscle memory.)  This week, I just… stopped going.  No one’s mentioned anything about it yet.  I’m not going to bring it up if they don’t.  I returned the guns to the lockers, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it. 

Aikido is going well.  I should be ready to test for forth Kyu in mid-May. 

As for my college classes, that’s mostly fine with a side of frustration.  My math class opened up the final early.  I took it, and am completely finished with Math 143 (Qualitive Reasoning).  History’s final is a research paper.  I did mine on Hatshepsut (done to death, I know).  I’ve turned it in, but haven’t gotten a grade on it yet.  So I’m more or less finished with History 111 (World History pre-1500).  English 111 (Composition 1) is giving me trouble in that part of it requires peer review.  I’ve already written everything that’s required for the class, and turned it in.  But we’re required to peer review a certain number of other people’s assignments.  Also, you aren’t finished until at least three of your own assignments have been peer reviewed.  So now I’m waiting around, checking the website every day, hoping someone else will have turned something in that I can peer review- and hoping someone will have peer reviewed something of mine.  So I’m finished with English, but not really. 

Astronomy is what’s really irritating me.  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that class is trying to persuade students to not pursue astronomy!  Space is fascinating, and terrifying, and awe-inspiring.  But you’d never know it from this class.  The textbook is pretty awful, and the professor (who luckily I only have to put up with face-to-face during the labs) records all his lectures and uses this dull monotone.  He basically just reads aloud from the book.  No additional information, none of the humanizing asides that make astronomy gel with any other science.  No nothing.  I could live with that (it’s only a few weeks, after all), but the lab really is insufferable.  Crappy equipment that isn’t as good as my own (enhanced) vision, piddly, make-work exercises, and everything going at the snail’s pace required by having to share equipment and be held back to the slowest students’ pace.  And by ‘slowest student’, I don’t mean the least clever.  I mean the ones who goof off, don’t pay attention, and clearly are only in the class because they thought chemistry or biology would be too much work.  <Grrrrrrr.>  Oh well.  At least I only have another four weeks.  I’ll be sure to choose a different professor for my next astronomy class, that’s for sure. 

That’s about it, really. 

I feel bored, and restless, and unsatisfied.  But since I don’t know exactly what it would take to make me feel differently, there’s not much I can do about it.  It almost feels like I should have had this ‘phase’ a couple of years ago.  That’s when Bailey had it.  When Bailey came over to my place (it didn’t happen often) and got into one of these moods, Mom called it having ‘a case of the can’t-help-its’.  In Bailey it manifested as loud, dramatic sighs, insisting that there was nothing to do, and how everything was boring and lame.  I thought it was kinda funny at the time- she could afford to do anything she wanted, and was given everything she wanted.  It was hard to sympathize.  But now I’m having some of the same feelings.  I need to knock that crap off.  If I can’t even figure out what I need to be satisfied with my life, then I don’t deserve to be satisfied.

Chapter Text

Monday, April 6

Well, this was sorta interesting.  Today’s class was the beginning of a unit on dealing with newly-erupted novas.  How to calm them down.  How to help them deal with suddenly having powers and (probably) having no idea what to do about it.  (Not to mention the splitting headaches and the hunger.)  How to (if need be) defend baselines from anything the new nova might do accidentally- or on purpose.  How to deal with baselines who might be involved or might be bystanders caught up in the mayhem.  How to deal with police and media. 

Basically, it boiled down to training us to be emergency social workers, press agents, crisis management personnel, and on-the-spot nova suppression.  Guardião got a lot of attention on that front, since he can actually shut down another nova’s powers.  And since new novas tend to be weaker, and definitely lack training, he should be able to shut them down pretty effectively. 

I was called out for attention as well, but since my ability to ‘nibble’ energy is both comparatively aggressive and an extended activity, where Guardião can usually just shut the person down, he was definitely the VIP of the day.  Stinger and Dream Shadow both got attention as well, for their Strobe and Shroud powers, respectively.  Basically, both of those options, like mine, were less than optimal, but should be kept in mind, especially if Guardião was unavailable or the nova in question displayed enhanced capabilities rather than overt quantum powers. 

Lt. Riggs said that this week we would be doing roleplay exercises to hole those various skills, but since he was waiting on someone special (??) to be available, we had a rare afternoon off.

AS SOON AS YOU FINISH YOUR CLASS THIS FRIDAY MEET AT THE USUAL PLACE.  NO TECH.  IF YOU CAN FINISH YOUR CLASS EARLY, SO MUCH THE BETTER.  PLAN TO BE GONE ALL WEEKEND. 

~S

Chapter Text

Tuesday, April 6

Class today was basically ‘movie day’.  Only a few novas are publicly known to have erupted on camera.  Turns out, there are a lot more.  It makes sense, I guess.  There are cameras everywhere.  Security, traffic, weather, even game trails and things.  It’s probably harder to find a place where you aren’t being recorded than one where you are.  (Which is its own kind of creepy.)

Most of the eruptions that were caught on camera and made public were also witnessed by baselines, and couldn’t be kept quiet.  Apparently, anytime Utopia can confiscate eruption footage, it does so.  And never releases it.  I can understand them wanting the footage.  And certainly, some eruptions are pretty terrifying- not good for nova/baseline relations.  But a lot of them are harmless, and I don’t understand why they’re suppressed. 

I actually asked Lt. Riggs about that.  He said that it was to discourage copycat attempts.  But I don’t think that’s the reason.  Or at least, not the only reason.  We saw several dozen eruption videos today, and only one of them (it involved a hollow tree, a wasp nest, and a vacuum being used in ways a vacuum shouldn’t be) showed anything that nova wannabees haven’t been doing for years.  Extreme sports.  Fights.  Thrill-seeking.  Drug use.  The videos seem to fall into three basic categories: people erupting accidentally in genuinely dangerous situations (like I did), people erupting accidentally while doing something ‘nefarious’ (I guess I can see why Utopia would want to keep those quiet), and people actively seeking eruption.  The first two categories were usually caught on some pre-existing camera.  The third group was usually actively filming themselves.   I can only assume a lot of people seeking eruption end up hurting or killing themselves, but luckily, we didn’t watch those videos.  Just the successful ones.

            It was the weirdest thing.  I’d never even considered whether or not my eruption had been caught on camera at all- I just assumed that it hadn’t been.  But it had.  And so was Stinger’s.  Well, part of mine was, anyway.  There was a traffic camera leaving the school.  It didn’t catch the crash itself, but the force of the impact threw Bailey’s car back into camera range.  So, it caught me pulling myself out of the mangled wreck, going around the car, pulling the driver’s side door completely off the frame and casually tossing it behind me.  It showed me checking on Bailey, then exiting the frame to go check on the minivan.  So, it didn’t show the exact instant of my eruption, but it was pretty close. 

Stinger’s eruption was less immediately dangerous, but much more… poignant?  Is that the word I want?  There was a construction site, and his eruption was caught on one of the site cameras.  It didn’t show what he was up to beforehand, but there were some kids playing on the empty site.  Little kids, maybe seven or eight?  Who knows what they were doing there, especially unattended.  It looked like early evening, too.  Definitely too late for little kids to be running loose.  Anyway, the kids (there were three of them) were climbing all over some huge stacked pipes.  Big ones, easily big enough for a kid to climb inside. 

Anyway, I couldn’t tell if the pipes weren’t secured well enough, or if the kids did something (accidentally, of course) to set them loose, but they started to roll down the pile.  Suddenly, Stinger came racing in from off-camera, grabbed one of the kids and literally threw him to safety.  He went to grab the little girl, and a pipe came down on both of them.  He split it in half with his Quantum Bolt, leaving both him and the girl apparently unharmed.  The third kid, the smallest boy, wasn’t so lucky.  The pipe Stinger had blasted split off in two directions, and clipped the last kid.  That might not have been so bad, but it stunned him enough that another pipe hit him, and ended up pinning him down.  Stinger blasted that pipe apart, but the damage was done.  There was a cut in the footage, and the timestamp advanced about fifteen minutes.  Then there was an ambulance and a bunch of construction people.  Stinger was one of the ones being loaded into the ambulance- I guess the eruption headache, along with everything that happened was too much for him. 

That explains a lot about Stinger, I think.  He was (he is) the kind of person to run into a dangerous situation without thinking twice, take action to save lives, and… have disastrous consequences, even when he succeeds.  It also explains why he takes everything so seriously.  But it doesn’t explain why he isn’t more, well, safety conscious.  If I knew more about psychology, I might say that the trauma of his eruption locked him into a basic set of responses, with the limitations he accidentally imposed on himself following the event.  But I only had one semester of high school psychology, so I’m not going to say that.

Lunch was… awkward.  What do you say when the most intimate moment of your life was caught on camera and shown to your peer group without your consent?  Without even a warning?  At least my eruption was ‘only’ a personal reaction to danger.  It didn’t hurt anyone.  (Bailey was hurt by the accident itself, not me erupting.)  The accident was definitely not my fault.  It was an accident.  Nobody was at fault.  I just got lucky enough to erupt instead of having to go through an intense recovery process (at best). 

What happened with Stinger wasn’t his fault.  Obviously.  And if he hadn’t been there, those kids would almost certainly have all died.  No one would have blamed Stinger if he hadn’t gotten involved- hell, no one would have known Stinger if he hadn’t gotten involved.  His actions saved two lives outright.  I wouldn’t have asked him about what happened to the third kid for all the world, but Shift apparently didn’t feel the same way.  (Things like this are why I say he seems so much younger and/or less mature than the rest of us.)  He came right out and asked.  I thought maybe Stinger wasn’t going to answer, he looked so sick.  But finally, he just said that the boy had lost a leg.  He’d been pinned, and the leg was crushed beyond saving.

What can you say to that?  Nobody knew, but Flare just hugged him and spent the rest of the lunch break beside him. 

(Hmmmm…. Thinking back about that, I wonder.  Flare thinks Stinger has feelings for me.  I’m still not sure, but I can’t rule it out.  I wonder if maybe she’s more aware of that, since maybe she has a thing for Stinger?  It’s hardly something I can ask her.)

Anyway, the tactical today was the promised roleplay.  I think.  Lt. Riggs promised ‘roleplay’ yesterday, but today he seemed determined that everything that happened was one hundred percent real.  Maybe he was just upholding kayfabe?  I only learned that word a few months ago, but I think it applies here, even though this had nothing to do with wrestling.

Here’s what happened.  We all meet out near the training area, like usual.  But the yard is still set up like it had been on Friday- something like part of a house with the roof fallen in.  (Everything on the training yard is modular- I think people just assemble the parts they want into whatever forms they need, like giant Legos.  One of these nights, I’m going to slip out of the dorm, sneak up, and watch how they do it.) 

So we’re all standing around, not sure what to do.  And Lt. Riggs comes over to us, with a little kid.  She was maybe nine or ten?  Certainly no older.  She looked… wrong somehow.  Or maybe I mean that she looked exactly right.  Like if somebody was going to cast the part of Little Girl in an old movie.  Pigtails.  Jumper dress.  Freckles.  I’ve learned not to take anything at face value around here, so I was on my guard, and focusing on my ‘buzzy tingly’ sense.  Something definitely wasn’t right, but I wasn’t sure what.  She was definitely a nova though.  And using a power, but I couldn’t tell what kind. 

Riggs introduced her as ‘Cozbi’ and said that she’d erupted two days ago. 

Of course, I was immediately suspicious.  It was too ‘pat’, and she was too perfect.  But you don’t just come right out and say “No, I don’t accept that you are who you say you are”.  At least, not without a really good reason and some solid proof.  So, I kept myself to myself, and watched her closely.  That meant I wasn’t able to watch my fellow students as closely, so I wasn’t sure how they were taking this. 

I was afraid Riggs was going to place her with us as a ‘new student’, but he didn’t.  Instead, we were supposed to spend the afternoon with Cozbi, teaching her what it means to be a nova, helping her get used to (and better control) her powers, and generally giving her the Utopia ‘come hither’ sales pitch. 

Now, there are several things wrong with this.

1. While theoretically, anyone with an MR Node can erupt at any time (but usually when under stress), it’s unusual for teenagers to erupt, and almost unheard of for little kids to do so. (I think there’ve been maybe three so far that erupted under the age of twelve?  That we know of, anyway.) 
2. If a child had erupted, the idea that they would be allowed out of the most well-staffed Rashoud Clinic available is ridiculous. The Clinics do whatever it takes to hang on to new novas until they’re absolutely certain they’re adjusted and under control.  While technically there’s a Clinic here at the Academy, it isn’t well staffed, functions more like an infirmary, and just isn’t equipped to handle a brand-new child nova.
3. What parent is going to allow their child to go off unsupervised like this? Yes, Utopia has a tendency to get what it wants, but that’s still a stretch.  And this kid was obviously not the product of a neglectful home.
4. If Cozbi only erupted two days ago, and Riggs teased her arrival to us in class yesterday, then she’d been a nova for less than twenty-four hours at that point. The likelihood that he would be able to get her here so quickly is extremely low. 
5. The timing is too coincidental. If Riggs had already planned this series of classes, then suddenly having a brand-new child nova is utterly unbelievable.  If the sudden existence of this brand-new nova instead prompted the series of lessons, that might make a little more sense, but still isn’t at all likely.
6. If a child had erupted, it would have been national news. It wasn’t.  While some people do erupt without other people around, the chances of it happening to a child, and being kept entirely quiet are slim to none.
7. I’m not so far removed from being Cozbi’s age myself to not remember how I looked and acted. My elementary school was a cross section of Wilmington society.  We had little rich kids, really poor kids, and everything in between.  Nobody dresses like Cozbi was.  Even if she was ‘dressed up’ for the occasion, kids don’t dress like that anymore. 
8. She didn’t act like a kid, either. Especially not a kid that had suddenly grown superpowers.  When it happened to me, I was as scared as I was excited.  I knew everything was going to be different forever.  Maybe a little kid wouldn’t fully understand that (I’m not sure that I fully understand that even now), but a little kid would also have a much harder time controlling how they felt.  And that’s not even taking into account the fact that she was meeting eight other novas, probably the first other novas she’d ever been around before.  And semi-celebrity novas at that.  (Let’s face it, even though I don’t think much of the Academy as a school, it certainly has social cachet.)  But she wasn’t excited, or nervous, or anything.  She was polite, interested, confident.  On her ‘best behavior’, certainly.  But you can always tell when a kid is wearing the ‘best behavior’ mask.  She wasn’t. 

So, something obviously wasn’t right here.  Plus, my buzzy tingly sense said she was using a power, steadily, but I still couldn’t figure out what she was doing.

Most of the others took the whole thing at face value, or seemed to.  Sapphire was quiet and aloof, but then again, ‘too cool for you’ is her default attitude.  Dream Shadow was her usual, shy self- withdrawn but not unfriendly.  All of the guys were enthusiastic about greeting her, and talking to her, and telling her all about how lucky she was, and how much fun she was going to have as a nova.  They were really falling all over themselves for her, but not in a creepy way.  No, exactly in a creepy way.  Just not in a creeper way.  It was like she was suddenly everybody’s little sister they hadn’t seen in ages.  Flare was getting in on it too, but not as thoroughly as the guys.  I couldn’t tell what she thought from her expression. 

I don’t know why I was different.  Maybe I’ve just gotten so used to being suspicious of anything Utopia does that it’s a kneejerk reaction now.  Of course, maybe I wasn’t the only one that wasn’t buying Cozbi.  Maybe the others were just handling it differently.  But after greeting her and making a little small talk, I let myself sorta.. fade into the background a little.  I was watching everything that was going on, and trying to figure out what was really going on. 

This wasn’t what it seemed.  So, what was it?  There were a couple of options:

1. Cozbi was an experienced nova, playing the role of a ‘newbie’ to give us the roleplay opportunity Riggs mentioned.
   1. That still didn’t explain how a nova this young (and she would have had to have erupted even younger to already be a ‘working nova’) hadn’t made the news.
      1. If that’s the case, then the exercise can probably be taken at face value- we’re supposed to accept her as a newbie and practice what we’d learned in class.
2. Cozbi isn’t actually a little girl at all. I don’t mean that she was some kind of Little Person pretending to be a kid.  (I’ve heard there’s a movie coming out this summer about something like that.)  But if Shift can become Lt. Riggs, why couldn’t someone shapeshift into a little girl?  And if it was an older adult doing it, maybe that would explain why she seemed ‘too perfect’. 

If Cozbi is a fake, then that leads to more questions. 

Who brought her here?  The obvious answer is Riggs.  But even that isn’t so obvious. 

Does Riggs know she’s a fake?  Again, it seems obvious.  Of course he knows.  That’s why he brought her here.  But why? 

It could be entirely what it seems like- a completely innocent roleplay opportunity, with the only ‘problem’ being that the object of it isn’t what she seems.  If that’s the case, then the best thing I could do would be to go along with it.

But what if there’s more to it?  What if Cozbi is ‘too perfect’ for a reason?  What if we’re supposed to realize that something is wrong, and deal with it?  I wouldn’t put it past Riggs, especially after that forest ambush stunt he pulled.  What if the actual point is to call her out, rip off the ‘mask’, Scooby-Doo style, and demonstrate that we can’t be fooled?  If that’s the case, then I need to step up and do something about it. 

It's also just barely possible that Riggs doesn’t know she’s a fake.  That either she’s a plant from higher up in Utopia, or even that she’s an infiltrator from some outside group (or even just a random nova acting on her own, for that matter).  If that’s the case, then the issue is much more serious, and points out a major security flaw.  But that’s really not very likely. 

For now, I think I’m going to just wait and see what happens.  Riggs heavily implied that Cozbi will be with us tomorrow, and maybe for the next few days. 

Oh, after everything was said and done, I got curious.  Since I spent so much time picking out my own nova name, I’ve been curious about other people’s names- what they mean, why they chose them.  I looked up Cozbi.  It’s Hebrew.  It means ‘liar’ or ‘slipping away’. 

Chapter Text

Wednesday, April 7

Tuesday was pretty much the same as Monday- more ‘how to’ in class, followed by more Cozbi.  I still don’t trust her, the guys are still all in, Flare is still toeing the line. 

It was the same thing today.  But this time, I decided to do something, even if only ‘secondhand’.  So this evening, after we’d all settled in for the night, I went to Flare’s room.  And I came right out and asked her what she thought about Cozbi.  She immediately looked at the nearest microphone, and I gave her an ‘I don’t care if they hear’ gesture. 

She shrugged and said that something didn’t seem right about the whole thing, but that she’d assumed Cozbi was the promised roleplay opportunity, and hadn’t given it much more thought than that.  We’d been given an assignment, and that’s what she was trying to do. 

She agreed, when I pointed it out, that the guys’ reaction seemed a little too… gung-ho for their usual approach to training.  Stinger would take ‘teaching the newbie’ seriously, and maybe Guardião as well.  But Puppy and Shift?  They’d be more likely to get Cozbi into a game of hide-and-seek or something than actually do any newbie intake.  Flare had noticed, but had also noticed that I was being unusually standoffish, and figured how everyone was acting was connected somehow. 

To be honest, I hadn’t considered that.  Could my immediate suspicion and mistrust be the flipside of the guys’ immediate acceptance?  I had to acknowledge the possibility.  And if that’s the case, then probably Sapphire and Dream Shadow are the only people acting ‘normally’.  I’ll try to pay more attention to that tomorrow (Cozbi will be here all week), but I’m not really sure if I would know if someone was affecting me that way.  The closest thing I can think of to that was when Geisha visited, and I’m 99.9% sure that whatever she was doing was passive and even subconscious (see Feb 3, 2009 entry).  If a skilled, experienced nova was deliberately screwing with my mind, what chance would I really have to notice?  Even now, I won’t be able to be sure if my continuing suspicion is due to whatever she’s doing, or my own genuine suspicion of my own reactions!

Other than that, Flare really didn’t have any ideas to offer.  So, other than trying to police my own feelings and actions even more, for now that’s all I can do. 

Actually…. No.  Maybe there is something else I can do tomorrow.  I’ll probably get in trouble, but it might be worth it. 

Chapter Text

Thursday, April 8 (CW: Body horror?)

Well, I did it.  And it went… better than expected.

Ok, so we had more time with Cozbi today, and I was monitoring my own reactions as well as I could.  Cozbi was still constantly using… whatever she’d been using since we’d met her.  I’m sure I’ll be able to recognize the ‘feel’ of it if I ever run into it again, but I still don’t know what it is.  Like recognizing a face you see every day, even though you’ve never actually met the person.

I couldn’t feel anything being done to affect my mind or emotions, but that isn’t especially reassuring.  It’s awful not being able to completely trust your own perceptions and judgement. 

Anyway, a few minutes before Cozbi was scheduled to leave, I excused myself to the restroom.  And since it was close to the end, I said that I was just going to go on to my aikido lesson, so I went ahead and made my goodbyes. 

But I didn’t go to the restroom.  Well, I did, just in case anyone was paying attention, but then I went invisible and went back to the group.  Things were just breaking up, and Lt. Riggs was coming back to collect Cozbi.  I took to the air and flew after them, low and slow so they wouldn’t hear me.  They went toward the main gate.  Once they had the bulk of the Admin building between them and the rest of the campus, Cozbi changed. 

I’ve seen Shift shapeshift several times now, and this wasn’t like that.  When Shift does it, it’s like his body… recombines itself.  Limbs break and reform, hair grows, mass shifts.  It happens really fast, even to my enhanced vision, and he says it doesn’t hurt.  It looks like it should hurt.  But what Cozbi did was completely different. 

The top of her head split open, almost like a snake beginning to shed its skin- or like a costume unzipping.  She started to writhe around, wriggling the split further open, down her body.  And her body was changing.  She was getting much bigger.  Taller, broader, more angular.  At first, I thought it was a man.  Then I wasn’t so sure.  At one point, the person flopped over on the ground, and thrashed around, freeing himself? Herself? Themself from the ‘skin’.  The split skin included Cozbi’s hair and clothes, by the way. 

Probably the worst part of the change was the sound, though.  There was a crackling throughout, and I swear, all I could think about was cooking meat, when the skin of a bird splits and the liquid fat oozes out.  That kind of crackle.  There was a smell, too, but it wasn’t so bad.  A little like a well-tended compost heap- earthy and pungent, but kinda low-key. 

Whoever was underneath Cozbi’s skin was slick and shiny.  I don’t know if it was some kind of lubricating mucus, or just part of who they really are underneath.  The skin underneath was a sickly grayish color, like old meat.  And the person’s eyes!  They were huge and bulbous, faceted like an insects eyes.  I don’t think they had eyelids- at least they never blinked.  The mouth was restructuring itself as the head was freed from ‘Cozbi’s’ skin.  The lower jaw dissolved, and the whole mouth took on this round, sucker-like appearance, with needle teeth- like a lamprey.  (I was still in the air, so I wasn’t making noise, but I moved behind a bush just in case.  I wasn’t sure if maybe those eyes could see more than human eyes could, and I really didn’t want to get caught.)

Once the person was completely free of ‘Cozbi’s’ skin, their appearance changed again.  It was like the mucus that they’d been covered in started to harden.  But instead of hardening into a shell or crust, it hardened into a new person.  As this was happening, the shed leftovers of ‘Cozbi’ dried into dust and blew away on the breeze. 

The ‘new Cozbi’ was a man, about six feet tall, built like an athlete, but not the bulky kind.  He was tanned, had sandy blonde hair, hazel eyes, and freckles.  He was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt, and beat-up tennis shoes.  The clothes had formed out of the same mucus shell as the skin. 

The whole thing, from the first split to the final dust-off took about three minutes.  I’d been rivetted to watching the change, and only looked over at Riggs once it was over.  He was putting on a good face, but he looked a little green.  There was a noticeable hesitation before he offered a hand to shake, but all he said was, “Same time tomorrow?”  The ‘man’ just nodded, walked out the gate, and got into a 2007 Honda Civic. 

As soon as the ‘man’ was outside of the gate, Riggs turned around and made himself scarce.  It was pretty clear from his expression once he turned away that he was disgusted by what he’d seen.  As soon as Riggs was gone, I followed the ‘man’ out, making note of his license tag. 

Curiosity must be one of my major flaws.  I’d (mostly) solved the mystery of Cozbi.  I knew she was a ringer, and I knew Riggs was actively involved.  Now, I just had to decide what to do with what I knew.  That should have been enough.  It was not. 

Of course, I followed him.  Invisibly.  From the air.  Staying far enough back that I had to use my enhanced vision to keep track of him. 

He drove through Roanoke, picked up I-81 going south, and stopped in Lafayette, where he pulled into a Hilton and went inside.  I watched for a few minutes, but he didn’t come back out.  I’ll admit, I considered working my way around the hotel, peeking in windows to look for him, but decided against it.  Instead, I just took a picture of his car and went on to my aikido lesson. 

I spent a longer time than usual visiting the cats after my lesson.  Petting cats is great for hard thinking. 

So, what do I really know?

I know Cozbi is a fake.  I know Riggs is aware of this and actively (and apparently voluntarily) participating in it.  It’s reasonable to assume ‘Cozbi’ is a Utopia asset.

What I don’t know is what I should do about it.  And I don’t know that because I don’t know Riggs’ motivation.  He’s already lying to us about who Cozbi is.  There’s no reason to assume he’s being truthful about anything else.  And he already has a history of assigning us to do one thing while actually intending something very different.  (See Jan 16, 2009 entry). 

So I have to give this a 50/50 likelihood of either being the case.  We’re either supposed to take this on face value and play nice, or we’re supposed to expose the imposter.  And I have absolutely no idea which. 

After a lot of petting, I decided to err on the side of caution, suspicion, and (let’s face it) what would be more interesting.  I decided to ‘out’ her tomorrow. I just wasn’t sure how.

Chapter Text

Sunday, April 11

What a weekend!  I wish I’d had my laptop with me (or even just a notebook) so I could take notes on things as they happened, but I’ll reconstruct as best I can.

First, the easy part. 

On Friday, we were supposed to have more time with ‘Cozbi’.  And it got started the same as always.  I still hadn’t decided exactly how I was going to handle the situation, so there’s no doubt it could have gone better.  About mid-way through our time with ‘Cozbi’, I asked her, oh-so-casually what ‘she’ thought about the 2007 Honda Civic.  That I’d heard they were low-maintenance, and I was thinking about getting one.  (Not my best effort, I know.) 

She looked all confused and said she was too young to drive, but she’d ‘ask her mommy’.  I asked if her ‘mommy’ was at the Hilton in Lafayette. 

Oooooh boy.  Up until then. ‘Cozbi’ had been a perfect little girl.  Too perfect.  But when I said that, her face lost all expression.  It was like watching a serial killer take the mask off.  Plus, I was watching her closely, really closely, and I noticed a tiny little shiver pass all down her body.  I wondered if she was maybe getting ready to shed her skin.  Just because ‘she’d’ taken her time with it yesterday, that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it faster if she needed to.  Plus, I had no idea what else she was capable of.  So, I was nervous. 

Flare was giving me a ‘this is on you’ look, and the guys mostly looked confused.  Stinger looked irritated with me, like I was being rude.  (Which, technically, I was, I guess.)  

I never took my eyes off ‘Cozbi’, but I explained to the others that this person (I’d settled on ‘they’ pronouns, since I didn’t know what was correct) was a different kind of shapeshifter than Shift was, and that since I wasn’t sure if we were really supposed to just be going along with it, or if this was another ‘test’ like those snipers in the woods, I wasn’t willing to take chances.  ‘Cozbi’s’ skin was looking a bit tight, and I don’t know what would have happened next.  I’ll probably never know, because Lt. Riggs came out.  I’d hoped he was somewhere nearby, but hadn’t been sure.  But with him on site, ‘Cozbi’ probably wouldn’t do anything I’d regret.

He made a gesture to ‘Cozbi’, hand flat, parallel with the ground and pushing a little further down.  I didn’t know what it meant, but ‘Cozbi’ settled into a kind of semi-relaxed ‘waiting’ posture.

Instead of ripping in to me (which I’d half expected), Riggs turned to each of the others in turn, and asked them what they thought of all this.  Puppy and Shift were confused.  Guardião and Flare both said that something about Cozbi hadn’t seemed right to them, but they’d just assumed it was part of the exercise and went along with it.  Sapphire just shrugged and said that she didn’t like kids.  Dream Shadow mumbled something, and Riggs didn’t bother telling her to speak up.  Stinger said that I was out of line, and that I’d messed up the exercise.  (I noticed that he didn’t say anything about him noticing that anything was wrong about Cozbi, and I’m pretty sure Riggs noticed it too.) 

Lastly, Riggs demanded to know what I’d been thinking.  I gave him all my thought processes from Monday after our first session with Cozbi.  I thought about including my talk with Flare, but she was carefully studying the ground in front of her, so I didn’t mention it.  If Riggs wants to review the recordings, he can. I explained that on Wednesday, I’d thought of a way to address my own concerns, and that I’d followed Riggs and Cozbi to the front gate, saw them change, then decided to follow them further before going on to my lesson. 

I further explained that I wasn’t sure whether the stated goal of the tactical exercise was the actual goal, and mentioned the forest sniper ambush back in January (staring him right in the eyes while I did so).  I decided that it was better to err by being too careful rather than too trusting, so, here we are. 

He asked me when I’d first known something was wrong.  I told him on the first day. 

He asked me why I hadn’t said anything to him at the time.  I told him that there was an unlikely but non-zero chance that something worse than I suspected was going on, and that I’d wanted to know more before I spoke up.  I also mentioned that I’d only spoken out this way because I couldn’t handle the issue the way I would have preferred to. 

He asked how I would have preferred to handle it.  I told him that, if I’d had the option, I would have gone to his superior, explained my concerns, and asked for further information.  After all, Riggs was either complicit with what was going on, or in the dark about it.  Either way, that was for someone further up the chain to deal with.  But since Riggs doesn’t have an on-site supervisor, I was left to act as I saw fit.  And ‘ruining’ a nearly-completed training exercise was better than allowing a potential bigger problem to pass unchallenged. 

I was watching Riggs while I was saying all this, but ‘Cozbi’ and Stinger were both in my field of view.  Stinger looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. ‘Cozbi’ was grinning, but it was an odd expression.  I still think that shiver must have loosened their skin, because while their mouth moved into a grin, none of the other, smaller changes that come with a smile happened.  It was like one of those masks where the mouth has some limited range of movement.  Riggs, on the other hand, was doing that carefully neutral expression he uses when he doesn’t want anyone to know what he was thinking. 

Finally, Riggs asked me what I thought going to his superior would have accomplished.  I told him that, if the exercise was exactly what it appeared to be, then I could have been told to just go along with it and not ruin the test.  If the exercise was actually another sniper ambush, then I could have been told that either the test was over because someone had figured it out, or to keep my mouth shut and let it play out to see who else got it.  And if, in the unlikely event that Riggs was doing something shady, then his chain of command needed to know about it.  Regardless, someone with more experience than me would then be involved.

I still don’t know if the exercise was originally intended to run as presented, or if we really were supposed to be playing ‘catch the mole’.  But Riggs decided to act like it was the latter.  Ultimately, the truth might be less interesting than why he chose the way he did. 

If he’d said, basically, that of course ‘Cozbi’ wasn’t a real kid, but it was a real roleplay exercise, then he could have taken the opportunity to knock me down a peg, the way he does with Stinger and anyone else who makes a mistake (or when he just doesn’t like what they’re doing).  I doubt it would have impacted my self confidence much, but it could have undermined me with the group and cast doubt on anything I noticed in the future. 

By claiming that this whole thing really had been a test all along, he risks damaging whatever trust the others have in him (and I have no idea how the others feel about Riggs in the first place, especially after the snipers).  Worse, this undermines the others’ confidence in their own perceptions and decision making skills.

It may be self-centered of me, but I just can’t help but wonder if I’m not getting special treatment here.  I don’t mean being able to go home on the weekends and have off-site aikido lessons.  I know that’s special treatment, but it’s treatment I negotiated for before I even agreed to come here.  So that’s not quite the same thing.  (Plus, I wonder if the others couldn’t have made the same demands before they agreed to come to the Academy and just didn’t think of it.) 

But it’s more than that.  I don’t think the tactical exercises themselves are going easy on me.  I really don’t.  I just happen to have a set of abilities that makes it easier to avoid getting hurt in the training, whether it involves paintball, rubber bullets, or other things.  But I do wonder if Riggs is going easy on me in how he handles his critiques after the sessions.  He regularly finds all kinds of things the others could have done better or should have done differently.  Especially Stinger.  He rides Stinger like white on rice. And yeah, maybe Stinger deserves it.  (But I still think Stinger needs help to improve, not constant criticism.)  And yeah, Lt. Riggs usually finds something to criticize about my performance.  But it’s usually something small and petty.  Today could have been the day that he ripped into me good.  Even if I’d been exactly right about the real nature of the test, he didn’t need to admit it.  Today could have been the day he put me in my place.  But he didn’t. 

All the students here are ostensibly intended to eventually go into Team Tomorrow, or other highly-placed Utopia positions.  Maybe I’m being arrogant, but it seems like maybe some of us are… more valuable? higher priority?  more sought after? than the others. 

Bix told me flat-out that Utopia doesn’t have anyone who can drain energy like I can.  With Silder’s murder, T2M lost their teleporter.  They’ve recruited a new one, but it stands to reason that they also realized that depending on only one teleporter was a bad idea.  So that makes Flare more of a ‘catch’.  And Guardião’s healing ability might not make him front-line, front-page material, but T2M gets hurt a lot more than people are led to believe.  That makes him a big deal. 

The others are all good candidates for T2M membership in their own right, but they’d be meeting a general need to expand the Teams with qualified novas.  Still very necessary, but not ‘hand-picked’ necessary. 

Flare and Guardião tend to keep their heads down and do what they’re told.  So it makes sense that they wouldn’t catch an undue amount of flack.  Honestly the worst they’re usually ‘guilty’ of is going along with bad/stupid orders.  And even then, Guardião has a knack for staying out of trouble.  He’s just about as good at it as I am, and since he doesn’t have my invisibility and mobility, I’d say that actually makes him better at it than I am.  But, in a weird way, I’ve been making a lot of trouble for Riggs.  Being able to leave campus.  Accidentally throwing light on Stinger’s leadership issues.  Thinking outside the box.  Refusing exercises.  Now this. 

This was a perfect time to bring the hammer down on me.  Am I getting special treatment?

Anyway, on to the weekend.  Normally, I just put up with the full Astronomy lab, but this time I told the professor I needed to leave early, and could I please do the exercise first.  He was fine with it (it’s not like I’ve ever asked for anything special from him before).  I was in and out in record time.  Instead of flying home, I teleported.  I didn’t think my usual trick of leaving my Utopia communicator next to my laptop playing documentaries would be plausible for the entire weekend, so I decided to leave it on my backroom sink.  If anyone asked, I could say that I’d taken it off to shower, and left it there by accident. 

I left Mom a note saying that I’d been invited to a weekend get-together, and I’d see her Sunday.  Then I went down to the river.  Blinker was actually waiting for me there.  I felt bad that he’d had to waste more of his time than usual, but it also brought home to be how important whatever this was was going to be.  After all, if the Count had stationed Blinker to wait for me, instead of just checking in at a reasonable time, well, surely that means that every moment is going to count this weekend.

There was no small talk.  He just asked if I was ready and took me as soon as I nodded.  I paid special attention, and I didn’t notice the ‘membrane’ when Blinker teleported us.  As soon as we’d arrived (in the same alcove as before, so I knew we were at the Count’s place again), I asked him if he sensed the membrane when he teleported.  He had me describe it in detail, but then said that no, he’d never experienced it, and didn’t know of any other teleporter who had.  He suggested that I talk to a Warper about it instead.  I don’t see what good that will do, but I’ll take his advice if I get the chance. He poofed out almost immediately.

I heard voices and followed them.  I found the Count and a very strange looking person talking in the same room where I’d met Bounty before.  And by ‘very strange looking’, I mean he was the most stunning person I’d ever seen.  He made Dream Shadow look like an ogre.  He was so attractive, it actually hurt to look at him.  Add to that that he was surrounded by a kind of haze and was actually hovering a few inches off the sofa he was ‘sitting’ on, and well, yeah.  Strange. 

The Count noticed me right away, said that he would be finished in a moment, and would I please use this time to familiarize myself with the alcove that I’d arrived in, in order to facilitate my ability to return on my own?  That’s the weird thing about teleporting.  If you’re familiar with the place you’re going, it doesn’t matter if you actually know where it is.  So, if I learn this little alcove (which I suspect is kept empty just for teleporters and warpers to have a safe ‘landing’ spot), then it doesn’t matter that I don’t actually know where this house is, geographically.  (I suspect somewhere in Spain, but I could be very wrong.)  I’m not sure if the same thing applies if the destination moves- like, if I was familiar with the inside of a car, could I teleport into it whether it was in New York or Los Angles?  I’ll have to make the experiment.

Anyway, I took my time in the alcove.  Not only was I honored to be trusted with what amounted to a ‘spare key’ to one of the Count’s places (though I was still certain he didn’t actually live here), but it was clear that he didn’t want me around for his conversation with the man. 

Of course, I eavesdropped.  And I’m pretty sure the Count knew that I would.  He wasn’t making any effort at keeping his voice down, so I barely even had to use my enhanced hearing to catch most of it.  I didn’t hear everything, and it seems rude to transcribe what was said (my memory is good, but not perfect), so I’ll just summarize, and leave out some of the awkward details.

The Count thanked the other man for agreeing to serve as my mentor (?!?), and said that there were very few novas who had more experience with the Chrysalis than he did.  The other man had a sneering, condescending tone to his voice, and said something nasty about how the Count should be ashamed of himself for having never attempted it.  He implied both cowardice and something close to blasphemy.  Or maybe heresy.  Anyway, his contempt for the Count was clear.

The Count didn’t rise to the bait.  Maybe he wanted to keep the other guy in as good a mood as he could, or maybe he just didn’t care about his opinion.  Either way, he ignored the insults.  The other guy sounded like some of the more successful ‘mean girls’ in my old high school- his insults had a juvenile ring to them.  But there was something compelling about his voice....

Anyway, they went back and forth a little, with the Count going out of his way to praise the other guy (and laying it on thick enough that I’m pretty sure he was manipulating the other guy- and that it wasn’t difficult to do), and the other guy making it clear that he considered himself much more important and evolved than the Count.  The other guy was full of himself in ways I’d never heard from an adult before. 

(I wondered if this guy had erupted young- I had no clue how old he was.  I’ve read that if somebody suddenly gets rich or famous, that they never really grow beyond whatever they were at the time- which would suck for me, though I wouldn’t consider myself either rich or famous.  He seemed to be stuck in the ‘desperate to prove myself, and desperate to prove that I don’t need anyone’s approval’ phase that most of the guys in my class started going through last year.)

Anyway, the Count just let him rant, and I think I got a decent handle on who this guy is.  Nova supremacist.  Zealot.  Potentially violent.  Highly manipulative, but only to certain kinds of people.  The one thing that came through loud and clear was his absolute adoration of Divis Mal. 

The Count only mentioned in passing that Mal appreciated him taking on ‘this task’, and would be stopping by soon to ‘facilitate matters’.  And that was all it took to launch the other guy on a sermon about the glories of Mal, and how no one understood and appreciated Mal like he did, and how he would do anything to serve Mal. 

By that point, I’d spent as much time as I reasonably could in the alcove, and made my way back to them, deliberately making more noise than I needed to. 

Sure enough, they were quiet when I got back. The other guy’s face was a little flushed (blushing?) and he was so worked up his eyes were actually sparkling.  The Count just had this tiny smile on his face. 

The Count introduced me to The Apostle, and explained that he was one of the Terats most experienced in the ways of Chrysalis (the capital letter was obvious).  He went on to say that Divis Mal himself had heard of me, and wanted me to learn from the Apostle.  The Apostle interrupted the Count to tell me how honored I should be that Mal had taken notice of me, and how lucky I was to receive this kind of training, as young as I was.  The Count had his back to the Apostle and was staring at me in this intense way.  I knew I wasn’t supposed to admit to having met Mal before. 

Having overheard enough to have a good idea what I needed to do, I went into ‘earnest young student mode’, gushing about how thrilled I was to be learning from him, and how amazing it was that someone like Mal even knew who I was, and ‘I’m-not-worthy’, and so on.  It was exactly what the Apostle wanted to hear, and the Count relaxed. 

I’d kept my buzzy tingly sense active all this time, and I felt the same surge I’d felt when I’d stayed with Scripture- the one that said Divis Mal had just opened a portal.  He joined us a moment later.  The difference between who he was now versus who he was at Scripture’s place was stark.  Not just his clothes, but his entire demeanor, body language, everything.  Before, he’d been almost... human.  (He’d probably be irritated by that, but it’s true.  He’d been a man, coming home to his partner, probably to the place where he felt most comfortable.  At least some of his masks had been off.)  Today, he was all Divis Mal, leader of the Teragen and Terrible Angel of the One Race. 

I was about ninety-nine percent sure he recognized and remembered me, but it was clear that we were meeting for the first time today for some reason.  I’ve known since the Count made his low-key offer to ‘take me under his wing’, as it were, that I was in waaaaay over my head.  This was just more proof of that.  Something was going on here that I didn’t understand, but Mom didn’t raise a fool.  I’d play my part, at least until I understood more about what was happening.  So, I immediately took a little step back, like I was overwhelmed, and did the big-eyed awestruck silence thing. 

It was interesting, watching the power dynamics in play.  Mal was in charge, obviously.  I suspect Mal is in charge wherever he goes.  He greeted the Count first, and thanked him for allowing us to use his villa, despite the short notice and inconvenience.  The culture lessons that came with my Japanese language studies actually pointed out some things that I might not have fully understood before.  Who is introduced to who, and who is greeted first is a mark of status and respect.  Mal spoke to the Count first, and made it clear that the Count was doing him a favor and Mal appreciated it.  Acknowledging a debt also marks status.  Then, he turned to the Apostle, and thanked him for agreeing to act as my mentor.  He spent a little more time talking to the Apostle, and acknowledged the service, but didn’t mention anything about favors or anything like that.  But he spoke to the Apostle longer than he did to the Count, and the Apostle looked really pleased. 

The Count ‘introduced’ me to Mal, and he shook my hand like we’d never met before.  But his eyes were laughing and I knew for sure he remembered me.  Mal said he was pleased to meet me, and was glad the Count had brought me to his attention.  I stammered something about it being an honor to meet him, and how embarrassed I was that he would waste his time on me, and how kind everyone had been to me.  Not quite ‘wailing fangirl’, but close. LoL.

Anyway, Mal talked a little about how glad he was to find young novas embracing Teras, and how he was sure I had great things ahead of me.  Generic ‘I don’t actually know you but I need to be friendly’ stuff.  Then he turned back to the Apostle, and the Count gestured for me to leave them alone together. 

Once we were in the hall, the Count took me into another room, out of earshot (for a baseline, at least) of Mal and the Apostle.  This time, he kept his voice low, asking me if I’d heard his conversation with the Apostle.  I told him I only had if I had been supposed to overhear it, and he snickered. 

We didn’t have much time to talk, so he gave me some advice and a few warnings.  He told me that while the Apostle was unusually experienced with Chrysalis, he wasn’t someone I would ordinarily be exposed to.  But ‘with Fong unavailable for the foreseeable future’, this was the only readily available option.  Plus, I might learn something useful to the Count.  He warned me that the Apostle viewed Mal as a genuine, for-real, God; and anyone who doesn’t agree with him (such as the Count) are blasphemers and heretics.  While obviously I didn’t need to express a similar belief, it would be helpful if I gave the impression that I could be converted.  Not only would it make dealing with the zealot easier, but the Apostle might speak more freely to someone he thought he could bring into the Cult of Mal.  (Really?  The Cult of Mal????) 

He also warned me about a couple of things.  I shouldn’t let on that I’d ever met Mal before, unless Mal did so first.  And I was never to mention Scripture at all.  As far as the Apostle should be concerned, the only things I know about Teras, I’ve learned from the books that the Count had sent me, and what little bit Bounty had mentioned about my needing a mentor soon.  Also, he warned me that the Apostle was capable of emitting just about any kind of drug or pheromone he wanted.  That haze that surrounded him consisted of vapor that had whatever effect he wanted, from uppers to downers, to hallucinogens and euphorics.  Since the Count wasn’t sure how my altered biochemistry would deal with whatever (if any) substances the Apostle tried to dose me with, it would be better not to breathe around him.  Or eat.  Or drink.  Or allow him to touch me, if I could avoid it without drawing attention to it.  Apparently he can deliver his substances via touch as well. 

It bothered me that the Count thought the threat was serious enough to warn me about.  That means that the Apostle is well-known (at least in some circles) for, well, roofie-ing people whenever he decides that it’s a good idea.  And that although the Count didn’t want me dosed, he also didn’t consider such activities to be a deal-breaker for having this creepo mentor me! 

I tried to keep my face neutral, but the Count must have seen something in my expression, because he told me that we didn’t have much time, but that if I had a concern, he wanted to hear it. 

I thought about it for a second, then decided to be honest with him. 

I told him, basically, that ever since the Amp Room, I’d known that I was in over my head.  I knew that there was a lot more going on that I had any idea about, and that I wasn’t very important in the grand scheme of things.  I said that I understood that people could be genuinely friendly and well-intentioned toward other people while still using them for their own ends.  That I didn’t really mind being used, especially if it meant I could learn what I needed to know.  But that it was hard, never knowing what was genuine and what was manipulation, and that it was even harder, knowing that both of those things could be true at once.  In short, that I greatly appreciated the help I was being given, and accepted that I was a very minor pawn in a game I might never understand.  I might have said more, but my throat was tightening a little, so I shut up before I embarrassed myself.

The Count just looked at me for an uncomfortably long time.  Then he said (nearly direct quote here), “I won’t deny that you have the potential to be extremely useful to us.  And that we fully intend to use you.  And that there’s a lot going on in the inner circles of power that you won’t be allowed to know for some time, if ever.  And yes, sometimes pawns get sacrificed.  But if a pawn makes it far enough, it can get promoted to a queen.” 

“If it makes any difference to you, I myself am fully aware that I might be sacrificed as well at any time, if the benefit is great enough.  I’ve come to terms with that, and don’t allow it to shadow my relationships.  Your position within Utopia makes it necessary for us to limit contact, but what I told you in the Amp Room was quite true.  That I think you’re someone worth knowing, and think well of you.  We’re both expendable, ultimately, but it’s best to live well and freely in spite of that.  And remember, expendable can still be irreplaceable.”

As for setting me up for being taught by a roofie-ing creeper?  He said, “Life for novas isn’t about safety. It’s about risk assessment.  This isn’t going to be safe for you.  But I believe the risk is manageable.” 

I’m not sure if I should be flattered by his confidence in me, or annoyed at his assumption that he gets to decide what risks are manageable for me.  Probably both.

And before I could answer, the Apostle was calling for us.  As we went back to the other room, the Count told me that if I needed to return to his villa at any time, I could.  But that if I did, especially if I did without letting him know beforehand, it was important that I not go outside, or even allow myself to be seen from any exterior windows.  Apparently there are people watching the villa at all times, noting who comes and goes, and he didn’t want my Utopian bosses to know I was here.   Fair enough.

Back in the other room, the Count pointed out a hatch in one wall.  It turned out to be a dumbwaiter.  I didn’t know people still had dumbwaiters.  The Count explained that the Apostle’s meals would be sent up through that (pointing out that I didn’t need to eat), and that everything we should need for the next week was already available in this room or the adjoining bedrooms.  (So the Apostle still needs to eat and sleep- good to know.  If I absolutely have to get away, I can, even without teleporting.  It also means I’ll have breaks from him when he sleeps.) 

Of course, I pointed out that I couldn’t stay for a week, that I had to be back Sunday night at the latest. 

That’s when Mal spoke up.  He said that I would be home on time.  That he was going to create a ‘bubble of additional time’ in this suite.  As long as no one entered or left the suite, the effect would continue (hence the dumbwaiter).  In other words, a full week would pass inside the bubble, while only about 36 hours would pass in the rest of the world.  However, anyone passing in or out of the bubble would break it, requiring that he return and reset it.  (His tone made it clear he Would Not Be Pleased About That.)

Suddenly realizing that I had more time than I had expected, I wanted to ask Mal about the ‘membrane’ I sensed when teleporting, but I didn’t want to do it in front of the Apostle.  It wouldn’t have fit my character of ‘awestruck young nova meeting Mal for the first time’.  Oh well.

Anyway, the Apostle was ready to get started, and I was as curious about what he had to teach as I was wary of him, personally.  Plus, I was having all kinds of conflicting feelings about the Apostle.  He was still inhumanly perfectly beautiful.  And his voice!  That man could read repair manuals aloud and I’d be pretty happy to listen.  That doesn’t make his message any more palatable, though.  Something about the way he carries himself (or maybe his body language, or maybe something else) makes it seem somehow right and proper that the Apostle be in charge. 

But then, all of that is immediately countered both by the simple presence of Mal, and by how the Apostle responds to Mal.  The Apostle treated the Count like he was scum, but he fawns on Mal like a whipped dog.  The Apostle obviously thinks that he’s the best thing since sliced bread, and the most important person anywhere- except for Mal. 

The dichotomy is stark.  Both the Apostle and the Count understand that Mal is... more.  But the Count doesn’t allow Mal’s more-ness make him less.  And he does it effortlessly.  He’s secure in his own place and his own sense of self.  He can accept that Mal is his superior without losing any of his own value and dignity.  The Apostle, on the other hand, is very different.  When he’s in the presence of Mal, the Apostle... dwindles.  His own identity collapses into a reflection of Mal. 

There was an old Christmas movie about a little boy who wanted a bb gun for Christmas, and all the daily troubles he had.  There were a pair of bullies in the movie- or more specifically, a bully and a toady.  The toady acted like a bully, and was treated like a bully (in that the other kids gave him what he wanted), but his power derived from the actual bully, and his own status as a bully collapsed in the presence of the actual bully (the bully bullied the toady if no other victim was handy).  Hearing how the Apostle acted toward the Count before Mal showed up, and seeing how he acts now, when Mal is here, I can’t get that little toady kid out of my head. 

It’s definitely setting up some cognitive dissonance for me.  Looking at the Apostle, and hearing him speak leaves me responding on an almost instinctual level- it seems right and natural to agree with whatever he says and does.  But when I actually listen to him, and watch how he treats others, he’s certainly no one I want to associate with.  I’m going to have to be very careful, especially if this ‘mentor’ relationship is supposed to last beyond this weekend.  I’ve always assumed ‘mentor’ was an important, meaningful relationship- something to be taken seriously.  The Apostle certainly took teaching me seriously, but it was painfully obvious that it wasn’t about me.  It was about looking good for Mal, and about recruiting me for the Cult of Mal (I still can’t say that with a straight face.)

I’ve rambled enough, but I have a good reason for not coming to the point sooner.  See, I’m really not sure how much of what the Apostle taught me I should write down.  What he told me about Chrysalis is pretty esoteric Teras stuff- not what you can find on the OpNet, or even in the books that the Count sent me to get me started.  And I have to assume there’s a reason for that.  It didn’t occur to the Apostle to tell me to keep my mouth shut (and really, who would I tell?), but somehow I’m pretty sure the Count, at least, doesn’t want this kind of thing being available for anyone to find.  And ‘S’ is proof that even though this journal is private, and I’m taking precautions, if someone really wants to find it, they will. 

I think the best thing to do is to talk a little about some of the ideas that the Apostle shared with me; three philosophies (or maybe branches?) of Teras, and otherwise keep this to a very barebones account.  I can always go back and add more later.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.   I really want to write everything down, even as close to word-for-word as I can.  After all, isn’t that the point of this journal?  To document everything that happens to me, in this first year of being a nova?  And outside of erupting in the first place, this might be the biggest thing to have happened to me yet.  Plus, my history professor was talking about some building technique Way Back In The Day that nobody ever wrote down how to do, because either everybody knew it at the time, or else it was some kind of big secret handed down from master to student- and now those techniques are lost.  I can’t imagine Chrysalis getting lost to time (especially as long as Mal is around), but those ancient people didn’t think it was possible either.  On the other hand, what I’ve learned so far could be really dangerous if someone tried to mess around with it without knowing what they were doing.  And I wouldn’t want to be responsible for enabling that kind of unguided experimentation.  Not to mention that Utopia would have a fit.  So for now, I’ll keep it brief.

The Count left the room.  Mal went to the door, got a sort of unfocused look on his face, then nodded and left.  I felt a kind of weird ripple, but that might have been psychosomatic based on him obviously doing something. 

As soon as he was gone, the Apostle was one hundred percent focused on me.  And when he turned on the charm, I finally realized why his behavior felt so familiar- and why I had such an immediate antipathy toward him.  Whatever social thing he had that made what he said sound so reasonable, was a stronger, more intense version of what Alex had.  And even knowing that, it was still really hard to maintain a solid sense of skepticism.  The best I could do in the moment was not commit to anything, and re-think about everything he said later.  At least he didn’t try to press me for commitment.  In fact, I don’t think he really tried to convince me of anything.  He just made proclamations and expected unquestioning acceptance.  The Apostle seems to rely on whatever manipulation powers he has, rather than being convincing in his own right.  But still, in the moment when he was speaking, it was hard not to swallow every word.

Anyway, let me explain the three ‘branches’ (archetypes?) of Teras, and leave it at that. 

The Monster is probably the easiest to explain, even though I feel the least connection with it.  It’s the path of utter, even violent, rejection of humanity.  Monsters tend to be very... physical beings.  Creatures of instinct held under tight self-control until the time is right to unleash the darkness and transcendence they cultivate for themselves.  They pride themselves on not needing anything from humanity, and in divorcing themselves from baselines as much as possible.  They are, above all else, utterly inhuman. 

The Apostle doesn’t know everything I can do (I think), but what he does know about- my strength and stamina, as well as my ability to drain quantum energy from other novas- was enough to make him point out that my abilities suited me very well for this path. 

Which only proves how little he knows.  I can accept that my abilities might predispose me to the path of the Monster (even more than the Apostle seems to realize), but my beliefs and outlook on life make this the last path I could take.  I can accept that novas are no longer human.  I can accept that we’re the ‘next step’.  But that doesn’t mean we can or should reject everything that humanity has taught us.  We need to take those lessons with us into the future, adjusting them as we go- not reject them entirely. 

The Marvel is much less disturbing to me, but doesn’t really fit me.  Marvels are flashy.  They want to be the center of attention, especially when they’re using their powers.  The worst possible thing you could do to one is overlook them.  That line of “Ozymandius” seems really appropriate for Marvels: “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’  Except that in the poem, there were no works to look on, but everything about the Marvel is their Work.  Marvels are very social, in the Queen Bee sense.  They are always in charge, simply by being who they are. 

I think Mal might be a Marvel.  Or maybe he’s everything all at once.  Just because I don’t see the Monster in him, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.  The Apostle claims the mantle of the Marvel with pride, and had decided that I should as well.  The Apostle seems to barge in and throw his weight around.  Mal simply Is, and that’s enough to draw every eye to him. 

None of that describes me.  I don’t mind being seen.  I can handle being the center of attention.  But I don’t especially want it.  I certainly don’t seek it out.  I don’t want to be anyone’s example (and I certainly don’t want to be anyone’s ‘horrible warning’).  I try to be the best I can be, and if someone looks at that and approves, that’s fine.  But I’m not doing anything to prove myself to anyone.  Well, not to anyone but myself, anyway. 

The Monster might represent what I could become if I allowed myself to, but the Marvel?  I just don’t see anything of myself in there.

The Portent seems to be where I most belong, though it seems a little grandiose to say so.  The Portent acknowledges that we still have a long way to go.  It’s about exploration and introspection.  It’s about noticing all the little things, drawing connections between them, and working out what comes next.  In a way, Portents are Marvels turned inside out.  Where Marvels are outward facing and looking to control their environment, Portents are inward facing and looking to understand and control themselves.  

And isn’t that what this journal is all about?  Me keeping a record and trying to understand myself and what might come next?   Plus, I’m stubborn.  I’m willing to go along with a lot, especially if it isn’t very important to me, but there are lines I simply won’t cross, no matter who tries to say otherwise.  Maybe those lines will evolve in time, but if so, it will be because I change, not because someone forces me.

The Apostle has decided that I’m going to follow him down the path of the Marvel.  While I was in the room with him, his power made it nearly impossible to tell him otherwise, and I didn’t really try to.  But I knew that wasn’t where I belonged.  He didn’t need to know that, though.

As interesting as the three paths were, what really caught my attention was the Apostle’s explanation of Chrysalis.  That, I’m sure I’m not supposed to discuss in detail, so I’ll just say that it’s a period of personal evolution when quantum potential literally reshapes a nova- body, mind, and spirit.  Nearly anything can happen while in Chrysalis, and it allows a Terat to process Taint in ways that no other nova can.  Plus, it’s a literal cocoon that forms around the nova.  Finally, I’m beginning to understand what was happening to Reach.  (See entry December 26, 2008.)

That’s all I’m going to say about Chrysalis, for now, other than to note that it excites me almost as much as it scares me.  When the Apostle explained how to trigger Chrysalis, I had a sudden, deep-down intuition about what I would need to do to trigger mine when (if?) the time comes.  The Apostle made it clear that, as my mentor, he expected to be present and even somewhat involved with the process.  I couldn’t tell him ‘no’ while we were together, but that isn’t going to happen.  I know, on some level I can’t even begin to explain, that I’ll need to be absolutely alone.  But that’s all I’m going to say about that for now. 

Seeing Reach in his Chrysalis coccoon, and hearing the Apostle talk about the process, well, it all seems incredibly personal and vulnerable.  It certainly wouldn’t be something I could do while I was involved with the Academy.  As far as anyone in the Teragen knows (or is saying), Project Utopia doesn’t know anything about Chrysalis.  They won’t be finding out from me.

I’ll admit, I completely lost track of time while the Apostle and I were in that room.  He ate several times, and slept three times.  I know novas that aren’t extra tough can often stay awake for a couple of days with no problem, so his sleeping periods didn’t really help me track time.  (Or maybe that was just a side effect of whatever Mal did to the room?)  While the Apostle was sleeping, I used the time to both think about the things he’d said from a clearer perspective, and to meditate on the things he’d taught me. 

Anyway, the Apostle was holding forth on nova evolution, and moving beyond baseline perspectives when the door opened.  I swear, something popped, like a soap bubble.  I didn’t see or hear anything, but it was like a slight sense of internal pressure that I’d gotten used to pushing against suddenly wasn’t there anymore. 

The Count was there.  Mal wasn’t.  (Or if he was around, I didn’t see him.)  The Apostle immediately starts ripping into the Count for interrupting us, how what he was telling me was the most important things I could ever hope to learn, and anyway, he’d just ruined Divis Mal’s work in granting us this space.  He didn’t seem to reach the obvious conclusion- if the Count had interrupted us, it was because our time was up and I had to get home. 

And so it was.  I think the Count’s standard response to the Apostle is bland indifference covering amusement and thinly-veiled contempt.  And now that the Apostle’s attention wasn’t focused on me, I could consider everything he’d said and done in a more objective light. 

I was definitely ready to get away from him.  Most of our time had been spent in him teaching me more about Teras (from his perspective) and Chrysalis.  But he’d also made an ongoing attempt at recruiting me for his Cult of Mal.  (When he’d been focusing on me, that didn’t seem nearly so ridiculous.)  He wasn’t inviting me to join him.  As far as he was concerned, my being onboard was a foregone conclusion.  It was only a matter of how deeply I would be willing to commit myself to him.  He dropped several hints that I could hold a place of importance in his plans if I devoted myself to him and his cause.  (I’m not sure if that was flattery intended to entice me, if something about me really did seem like ideal material for whatever he’s up to, or if he simply doesn’t have many dedicated followers yet.) 

Thinking about everything he said, and everything he implied, I can draw some conclusions that I don’t much like.  It’s obvious that the Apostle thinks very highly of himself.  Indeed, Mal is the only person he acknowledges as his superior in any way.  In his mind, he has no equals.  From what the Count said (and how the Count treats him), I get the idea that the Apostle is highly placed in the Teragen power structure, but maybe not as highly respected or trusted.  There are definitely people that Mal respects and values above the Apostle.  The Apostle has either decided that one or more of those others have taken his rightful place within the Teragan (and in Mal’s esteem), or that those others simply don’t deserve the favor they’re being shown. 

I have no idea what the Apostle in planning, or who he’s plotting against.  But I know- I know- that he is.  And while I’m not sure how dangerous he is personally, if he has even half the following in his ‘Cult of Mal’ that he suggests, then his followers may very well be directly dangerous, even if he isn’t.  I didn’t eat or drink while we were together, and he didn’t try to touch me.  But the haze surrounding him changed several times.  Since the Count told me that the Apostle could control the effects of that haze at will, was he trying different ways to influence me?  I wasn’t breathing, so I don’t think there was any effect, but maybe there was.  Maybe something he was doing got to me, along with his ‘believe in me’ power, to make it so hard to deny him in the moment?  I’m not sure. 

I wanted to warn the Count about him, but there wasn’t time.  I mean, the Count probably doesn’t need my warning, especially when it’s so vague.  He probably knows what the Apostle is planning before the Apostle himself does.  And if he doesn’t, surely Mal does.  But still, better safe than sorry.  I’d hate for something to happen, only to find out it could have been avoided if only someone had been tipped off.  So I’ll warn the Count ASAP. 

But there wasn’t time.  The Count let the Apostle rant until he had to pause for breath.  Then he cut in and told me that it was Sunday afternoon, and I might want to freshen up before going home.  I certainly did.  Whether or not the Apostle’s vapor had done anything to me, I certainly didn’t want any trace of it lingering on my skin or clothes. 

The Count directed me to a bedroom with attached bath while he discussed something with the Apostle.  Not wanting to burn bridges, I thanked the Apostle as sincerely as I could for all he’d done for me, and that I had so much to think about because of him. 

The bedroom the Count directed me to was obviously a guest room.  It was elegant and tasteful, but there weren’t any personal touches.  Nobody actually lived there.  There was a little table with a platter covered with a silver dome, like you see in the movies.  A note next to it said that I might want a snack, to make use of the shower and any supplies I needed, and to take my time.  He’d ended my mentoring session in plenty of time before I had to be home.  When I was ready, I should return directly to the alcove and leave from there.  He didn’t want to risk me encountering the Apostle again, so not to bother finding either of them to take leave. 

I was flattered that he was confident that I could get home on my own, and disappointed that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to talk to him alone before I left. 

I teleported home with no issues- the longest distance I’ve teleported yet (probably, since I don’t know exactly where the Count’s villa is).  Mom must have found my Utopia communicator in the bathroom, because she’d moved it to my pillow and Furnado was sleeping on it like he was trying to hatch it. 

‘S’, if you’re watching, could you pass my warning on to the Count ASAP?  I know there’s nothing detailed in it, and I’m probably being silly, but all my intuition is screaming at me to tell someone.  The Apostle is up to something.  And if he succeeds, it will be really bad for somebody- maybe several somebodies- central to the Teragen. 

I’LL PASS THE WORD, HEKA.  INTUITION ISN’T ONE OF MY GIFTS, BUT THE COUNT VALUES IT HIGHLY, IN HIMSELF AND OTHERS.  HE’LL TAKE YOUR WARNING, VAGUE AS IT IS.

~S

Chapter Text

Wednesday, April 14

Other than writing up yesterday’s entry, I put the weekend out of my mind as much as possible when I went back to the Academy on Monday.  It’s going to take time for the new ideas and ways of looking at things to really take root in me, and while I know I need to actively help that along, doing so actually at the Academy seems like a less-than-great idea.  So my nights have been spent in my room, thinking, and my days of classes and tactical exercises seem even more pointless than before.  I feel like I’m in a holding pattern, waiting for whatever comes next. 

It's given me time to think about other things.  I saw an article on the OpNet today about a guy who successfully summited Mt. Everest.  Apparently he’d tried to do it a couple of years ago, but had to give up due to frostbite.  Now he’s gone back and completed his goal. 

That got me thinking.  Now, I’ve never had any interest in climbing Mt. Everest.  Sure, I would have liked to see the view from the peak, but the danger and pain wasn’t worth it to me.  I can only assume most people who do extreme things like that do it more for the thrill and sense of accomplishment than anything else.  Mountain climbers, deep sea divers, Antarctic explorers- while I’m sure there are complicated reasons why they do it, I’m equally sure that the sense of accomplishment and overcoming danger plays a big part.  Even less intense things, like skydiving seems similar.  The adrenaline, excitement, and fear are a huge part of the experience. 

I never had any interest in mountain climbing.  I was (and still am) interested in exploring the ocean, and I’d like to see Antarctica, but I always knew those were things that could never happen.  That stuff takes money, or connections, or special training that I would never have access to.  Skydiving was a little different.  Expensive, yes, but something I could save up for at some point. 

That was part of why I was watching those people skydive that day (See entry, March 5, 2009).  I’d never seen skydiving up close, and it was something that I’d wanted to try but probably never would.  But the article about the guy climbing Mt. Everest got me thinking. 

There’s nothing stopping me from flying to the top of Mt. Everest.  For that matter, there’s nothing stopping me from strapping on some climbing spikes and climbing Mt. Everest.  The same with visiting Antarctica or the Mariana Trench (and I’m seriously considering the Trench when I have a few days to really do it right).  I could do all those things, with minimal preparation and nearly no real danger. 

And that’s the problem.  Without risk and danger, there’s no sense of accomplishment.  I could visit Everest.  But even if I climbed rather than flew, I still wouldn’t have actually accomplished anything.  And in a way, my doing it would somehow cheapen the accomplishments of others (in my own mind, at least.  Hopefully not in theirs).  How would that guy in the article have felt when he made it to the top, and was all bundled up in cold weather gear and oxygen, only able to stay there for twenty minutes; only to find me there, no oxygen, no gear, just hanging out and seeing the sights? 

How would Piccard and Walsh have felt when the Trieste made it to the Challenger Deep in 1960, only to find me hanging out down there, with nothing but a weight belt?  Or all of those Antarctic explorers, pushing further and further south?  How would Shackleton or David have felt in 1909 when they went south till they couldn’t south anymore, only to find that I’d made a snow fort down there and was ready for a snowball fight?  

Mal talked about how novas weren’t good for baselines’ long-term well-being, and how they needed to be left alone to develop on their own.  And I could see his point, even then.  These are frivolous thoughts, but they come at that same idea from a different angle.  Novas cheapen baseline accomplishment simply by existing.  That’s not good for humanity, but it ultimately isn’t good for novas, either.  Given long enough, humanity has a history of not tolerating anything that makes them feel inferior. 

All that being said, Mal’s plan to leave the planet fifty years from now seems more and more necessary.  But it also gives me a time limit.  I want to explore space.  But I want to see as much of Earth as I can before I go.  I will go to Everest.  And the Mariana Trench.  And the South Pole.  But I’ll make a point of doing it in ways that won’t disturb baselines.  That won’t really be a problem with the Trench, Antarctica, and other huge, empty places.  As for Everest, well, invisibility is a big help.  I won’t disturb anyone else’s triumph if they don’t know I’m there, right?

Eventually, I’m going to leave this planet, and who can say if I’ll ever return?  I want to take as much of it with me as possible, as experiences that shape my life, when I go.

More and more, I feel like I’m wasting my time here at the Academy.  I understand the need to go through the motions, follow the steps, and all that.  I do.  And I’m hanging on to patience with both hands.  But the Academy isn’t training us for anything that would be genuinely helpful for what they claim they expect of us.  And we only have one instructor, who doesn’t seem to possess any kind of academic credentials and has no apparent oversight (no on-sight oversight, anyway).  The only other nova contact we’re getting either comes in the form of brief visits for mysterious reasons (I can’t imagine Geisha actually was pulled off of whatever important assignment she was working on to spend a couple of days with us just to talk diplomacy to a bunch of kids; and who knows what Cozbi was actually up to.)  Or semi-regular contact by two very nice (but let’s face it, rather limited) novas who might not actually have many better things to do. 

Let’s face it- The Wall is really good at what he does.  But what he does… isn’t very useful.  Being an immovable force doesn’t matter much if you can just walk around him.  Being a bullet sponge is great for his personal safety, but not really helpful to anyone else.  I have no doubt that there are plenty of ways he can put his abilities to good use, but that’s like playing First Chair tuba at the Chicago symphony- you’ll always have work, but it won’t get you laid (to misquote Dennis Miller).

Flamestrike is a little better off, employment-wise.  He could probably be an Elite, though maybe not a top-tier one.  He could be a solid municipal defender.  There are plenty of things he could do with his skill set, but if any nova’s powers can be said to be ‘common’, his would qualify.  Again, First Chair tuba. 

If they aren’t under direct contract to Project Utopia, then they were probably hired to help at the Academy through Nova Services International.  The point is, that while both of them seem to be good guys, and they’re making a good-faith effort at training us, their skillsets limit the range of experiences we can have with them.  And the Academy isn’t doing anything to address that. 

By now, we’ve gotten some decent experience dealing with fire (and its offensive capabilities) and with someone who basically can’t be hurt or moved against his will.  But… that’s a tiny fraction of the nova experience.  The team wouldn’t have much idea what to do if they were suddenly confronted with a flier, or a matter controller, or even a water-worker.  And what about indirect confrontations?  How would we even find an invisible nova, or catch a teleporter?  Totally new experiences.  And if the past is anything to go on, this team doesn’t do very well on its own with totally new experiences. 

Lt. Riggs isn’t stupid.  He knows this.  He must be aware of the flaws in the Academy’s program.  Project Utopia has a nearly unlimited budget, and a massive array of nova resources.  The Academy is billed as a major priority for Utopia- training kids up right, as it were, as well as being a recruitment pool for Team Tomorrow.  So why does this place feel like a high-tech Title One school?  (Maybe that isn’t the right term.) 

Now that I think of it, there are so many more buildings on this campus than we ever use.  I get the logic of building the dorms for growth, but we have an entire campus full of classrooms, lab equipment, libraries; pretty much everything a real school would be expected to have.  And yet, we attend all our classes in one room of one building.  The only time we even go into the library at all is for our language classes, and then it’s only to meet in the study rooms there.  And the tactical exercises take place on only a few of several areas obviously intended for the purpose.  It's almost like most of the campus is a movie set- just for show, rather than for any actual use. 

There aren’t enough people here, either.  Not only is Riggs the only instructor (apart from our various language tutors), but I’ve only ever seen one member (Linda) of the Admin staff.  A few people doing the cooking and cleaning up in the cafeteria.  I never see Jak outside of her suite, and while I assume she has a male counterpart on the guys’ floor, I’ve never seen any indication of it.  A skeleton staff for the little onsite clinic (and I’m not sure how many of them are around at any given time).  And Riggs’ soldiers.  Guards.  Teachers Aids.  Whatever you call obviously military people being used as ‘extras’ in whatever exercise we’re being put through.  When I make the list, it sounds like a lot of people, but it isn’t.  Not for a place this size, that’s supposed to be as important as it is. 

So, where does that leave us?  Buildings that never get used.  No extraneous personnel around.  Large underground structures (I know that based on the very subtle differences in ground cover and color that occurs in suspiciously regular shapes on the lawns.)  Constant monitoring, visual in the public areas, auditory in the ‘private’ areas, including our rooms.  Subtle discouragement from leaving campus or interacting with baselines.  No actual academic education.  Tactical training that’s so incomplete as to be laughable- and dangerous. 

If I didn’t know better (and I’m not sure I do, at this point), I would think that we’re being deliberately held back, hampered from developing as a team, and our training being sabotaged.  Now that I think about it, is Stinger’s inadequacies as Team Leader part of that?  A team is only as effective at its leader.  And might Riggs’ trying to put me in as leader be another attempt at destabilizing us?  After all, if I took over, there would be tension.  People might even take sides.  Stinger might cause problems, either actively or passively.  Sure, we might eventually come out stronger for it, but we might not, and either way, our effectiveness would be even more compromised while we sorted ourselves out. 

It just now occurred to me- there might be another reason Lt. Riggs wanted me as Team Leader.  Being leader would take up a surprising amount of time, assuming the leader was any good.  I learned that during the forest fire.  Not only did I have to do my part in looking for the kids, but I also had to keep track of the team, touch base regularly with the baseline first responders, and get constant updates on the location of the fire, wind speed, etc.  Plus there was the added emotional weight of knowing that I had taken charge.  If anything went wrong, it would be my responsibility (not necessarily my fault, but my responsibility).  It was exhausting and nerve wracking in a way that simply looking for the kids wouldn’t have been.  If I were Team Leader, I wouldn’t have nearly as much time or freedom to ask questions or notice when things aren’t what they seem.  And I suspect that if I were Team Leader, there would be a sudden uptick in minor, annoying tasks that suddenly were my problem as leader.  In a weird way, being leader would have sidelined me, maybe to a significant degree.

What is Utopia up to???  What’s the point of all this???

Obviously, we’re not here to complete our academic education.  I’m having to take care of that myself.  We’re not here to really train our abilities.  We’re not here to become a working, effective team in our own right.  So what are we here for?

Are we simply being kept out of the way?  Teenagers get into trouble.  Teenagers with superpowers get into supertrouble.  Is the Academy nothing more than a preemptive reform school?  Probably not, but it isn’t impossible.  Our very existence is an amazing PR coup for Utopia.  ‘Earnest young heroes training to be the best of the best’ and all that.  We’re poster children for novas serving the Greater Good of Humanity.  Anyone can look at us and say. “Those kids are being raised right.  There’s hope for the future”.  And maybe we are being trained for Team Tomorrow- just not in the way we’re led to believe.  What if, instead of training active, decisive heroes to step up, ready to do what’s right; they’re instead training obedient, dutiful soldiers who do what they’re told and don’t ask questions?   The Team Tomorrow roster has changed several times, and anyone paying attention can see that there’s tension between some of the members.  Maybe some of the current members of T2M are a little too independent for Utopia’s liking?  And they’re training us as more biddable replacements when the time comes?  (I could easily see Splash telling Pax where to get off if she thought he needed to hear it, but I can’t begin to imagine Stinger doing the same thing.)

I’m not getting a useful education here.  I’m not getting useful training here.  The Count wants me here, and I have enough respect for him that I’m not going to just tell the Academy to screw off and get on with my life.  So, I’m going to stay and keep going through the motions.

And I’m going to find out what’s really going on.

Chapter Text

Thursday, April 15

While I was at home visiting the cats after aikido, Rocío sent me a message asking me to meet him, alone, this weekend when I’m at home.  It didn’t sound like he wanted a date.  I hope everything’s ok. 

I deliberately put off going back to the Academy as long as I could tonight.  I wanted everything to be as settled in for the night as possible.  Once I was back, I waited a couple of hours then (invisibly) teleported out of my room and onto the lawn.  From there, I slow-flew around campus, just seeing what (if anything) went on at night. 

When I got out to the training area, I got to see how the exercises are assembled.  I had assumed the structures were modular, and the desired bits just put together from stock pieces.  I had no idea how right I was.  This was more than just pre-fab building parts.  They had a couple of small cranes and winches and were literally snapping walls together like Lego blocks.  I watched for maybe thirty minutes, and they’d completely disassembled one building and mostly assembled another. 

I’d’ve watched longer, but something else came to my attention.  Guards.  Baseline guards.  Armed baseline guards.  They were patrolling the campus in pairs, wearing night vision goggles so they didn’t need any light to move around.  I recognized both of the pair I saw as some of Lt. Riggs’ soldiers, though I’ve never learned any of their names other than Anderson.  When I looked closer, I realized that the ‘construction crew’ were Riggs’ soldiers as well.  Unless those were the only two soldiers on guard duty that night, that probably means that Riggs has a larger force of soldiers than we’ve been allowed to see.  And since there’s no way that only two baselines, however well equipped, could effectively patrol the entire campus, and only patrolling part of the campus is pointless, I have to assume there are a lot more people here than we ever see.  So where are they during the day???

I decided that I’d explored enough for one night, and flew back to the dorms.  Teleporting makes a small noise, and I didn’t want to risk being heard near where the men were working and patrolling. 

Chapter Text

Saturday, April 17

I think I’m going to make a habit of leaving my Utopia communicator at home when I go out on the weekends, even when I’m not doing something private.  Better that it be a regular occurrence than a signal that I’m doing something I don’t want Utopia to know about. 

Anyway, I met up with Rocío.  I was a little nervous, since I knew he had something serious on his mind, but had no idea what it was.  Was he upset at how slow we were taking our relationship?  Nope. He needed a favor.  <Whew!>

More specifically, a family of campesinos he’d been working with needed a favor.  I’m not going to go into details to protect their privacy (and safety!), but they needed to get away from their farm.  Far away.  As soon as possible.  And not come back. 

Rocío had found a place for them to relocate in the States.  Again, I’m not going into details, other than to say that it was waaaay too far for them to get to on foot.  Especially not with little kids.  Anyway, Rocío’d found the people to take them in and set them up in their new lives.  Of course, things being how they were, the entire family would be undocumented, but that was better than the danger of staying home.  The only problem was getting them to their new home. 

That was where I come in.  He wanted me to teleport them to their new home. 

Obviously, I don’t know these people.  Don’t know anything about them.  But Rocío says they’re good people in a bad spot, and that’s good enough for me.  I found that I didn’t care much about American immigration laws. 

I do care about safety.  While I’ve demonstrated that I can survive blindly teleporting into a solid object, I’m certain that a baseline, especially a baseline child, couldn’t.  And obviously, I’ve never been to wherever they’re going to be going. 

Rocío had a set of coordinates and a nearby street address.  That was a good start, and we looked it up on the OpNet.  The satellite pictures of the area were a couple of years old, but we were able to zoom in on a couple of unique landmarks nearby.  That was enough to make me willing to try to go there myself, but not enough to make me willing to bring anyone else with me. 

After a little arguing that I should take him with me, Rocío agreed to my teleporting to the site alone and taking the time I needed to familiarize myself with the spot.  Then, we’d go down and meet up with his friends.  While I was doing that, he would contact them and tell them to get ready.  I told him that I would need to take them one at a time to their new home.  I’d also be willing to make an extra trip at the end for luggage, so while they wouldn’t be starting over with all their possessions, at least they’d have more than a couple of backpacks worth of stuff. 

This time, I really took my time.  I studied the picture.  I learned every detail I could from it.  And then, I really concentrated as hard as I could on the teleport.  I’d never gone this far before, especially not ‘blind’.  So I was a little worried. 

But it worked.  I popped out about fifteen feet away from an unusual looking tree I’d spotted in the picture (it had a different kind of tree somehow growing out of a crook in the branches).  Not bad, if I do say so myself.  I spent about thirty minutes learning the site.  It wasn’t quite the same as learning the Count’s little teleportation nook.  That was a small, confined space.  Easy to know the limits of.  This was a large, open section of ground; not much different than any other large, open section of ground.  But eventually, I was as satisfied as I was likely to get.  Rocío insisted on making sure everything was safe for his friends, so I spread my quantum field over him, and we popped right back to where I’d left from.  He was satisfied, and we went back home. 

We decided that it would be better to meet up with his friends by flying overland (invisibly) to where they were staying, since they moved around every couple of days to avoid ‘certain people’.  That was fine by me.  My quantum field could cover Rocío with invisibility as well, and I’ll admit that I got a thrill out of ‘princess carrying’ him as we flew down to Mexico. 

Like I said, I’m not going to give any details about the family.  They didn’t say much to me.  They were really nervous, and I think Rocío was the only nova they knew.  (Not to mention, they didn’t want whoever they were running from to find them.) 

I explained to them what was going to happen, how I would take them to their new home one at a time, then come back for their possessions.  There wasn’t much more to be said.  They’d either already said their goodbyes, or were afraid to.  There was no one around, so we got everything going without much fuss.  I bracketed the adults, so that the kids wouldn’t be left unattended at either end.  I probably could have taken the two smallest kids at once, but there was no need to risk it.

When I dropped the first of the adults at the site, I pointed the direction of the street address that Rocío had given me, along with the coordinates.  It was out of sight from where I’d brought us out, but within an easy walking distance, even for little kids.  I somehow doubt that’s where they’re actually going, though.  There was another farm on the satellite map, in not quite the opposite direction from the address.  If I were sneaking into the country, I’d want that little extra layer of secrecy, and I’ll bet they did too.  But that’s none of my business. 

I ferried two adults, then the kids, then the final adult, then the baggage.  It didn’t take long.  As I was taking the last of the kids, Rocío whispered for me to hurry back for the last adult.  He’d thought he saw someone lurking around.  I hurried as fast as I could.  Once all the people were gone, there wouldn’t be much whoever was after them could do about it (I hope).  The baggage, I was able to take my time with, at least a little.  I went back for Rocío, figuring we’d both teleport home from there and not wanting to leave him alone down there, especially if someone was maybe ‘lurking with intent’. 

Once everyone and everything was safe under the weird tree, that was really all there was to it.  The family was really grateful, of course, almost embarrassingly so.  The younger kids weren’t really clear on what was going on, and the older ones were as excited by being teleported as anything else. 

I’ll admit, I didn’t really know what to say to them.  “It was nothing” sounds condescending and almost cruel.  It might not have been much to me, but apparently it was everything to them.  I ended up just wishing them peace in their new life and hoping that was good enough. 

They were all kind of obviously standing around, waiting for Rocío and I to leave (making me even more sure they weren’t actually going to the address they’d given Rocío), so we said our goodbyes and popped back home and Rocío took me out to dinner.  (I asked, but Rocío didn’t notice the membrane any more than the others I’ve teleported with did.  I didn’t ask the family.) 

And that was that. 

If I ever publicly sever ties with Utopia, maybe I could make a living as a coyote.  At least with me, migrants wouldn’t have to worry about getting lost in the desert.  I’m only slightly kidding.  I think.

Chapter Text

Monday, April 19

I did some more after hours campus exploration tonight.  Even though I heard ‘construction noises’, this time I avoided the exercise areas.  I had a pretty good idea what was happening there, so I turned my attention to the buildings we don’t use every day.  All the buildings have electronic locks, so I didn’t even try to go inside anywhere- it would be too easy for the Academy to notice someone being out and about at night.  Instead, I started peeking in windows. 

Of course, I was invisible, and slow-flying to be quiet and not leave any tracks.  And a good thing, too, because I saw five more pairs of roaming night patrol.  Considering the construction crew, that definitely means there are more solider-types around than we’re led to believe. 

Which makes me wonder.  The campus isn’t exactly ‘secure’.  Yes, the front gate is shut at night (a couple of times I’ve gotten back late and found it closed, so I just flew over), and yes, the decorative wall has bits of glass embedded in the top.  That would maybe be enough to stop random kids from sneaking in, but it certainly wouldn’t stop a dedicated intruder.  And really, other than the students themselves and (maybe) some specialized medical equipment in the clinic, there’s really nothing special here.  Apparently.  Certainly nothing that needs armed guards to protect.  Are those guards to keep other people out?  Or to keep us in? 

On the surface, that’s ridiculous.  If we decided to leave, especially in a group, there’s really nothing that armed guards could do to stop us.  Several of us fly or teleport, several of us are partially if not entirely resistant to bullets, and several of us are sneaky enough that those guards wouldn’t even know we were gone until it was too late.  But if they’re keeping outsiders out, why aren’t they primarily patrolling the perimeter?  Maybe they aren’t meant to keep us in, so much as keep us away from certain things on campus?  That might make more sense.  We’re being trained to obey orders and not question orders, so a pair of Authority Figures could potentially keep some or even all of us in line, simply by telling us to stay away from something and go back to bed. 

When I first came here, it was heavily implied that there were hidden defenses.  Maybe that’s true, but I’m less certain of it.  Maybe I’ll make that my next ‘investigation’. 

But tonight was for the unused buildings.  Like I said, I didn’t bother with the doors.  Instead, I systematically went after the windows.  They all had heavy blinds (and a few had curtains).  On the ground floor, all of those blinds and curtains were carefully closed tight.  But on the upper floors, I found some gaps and was able to peek into places. 

And found…. nothing.  Literally nothing.  Empty rooms.  Not even set up for future use.  Large portions of these buildings, maybe even entire buildings, are nothing more than a front to make the campus look bigger than it is.  In the activity sense, I mean. 

The dorms being big in anticipation of more students made sense at the time, and I suppose it still does.  But now I’m beginning to wonder.  Yes, novas are rare, and teen novas even more so.  But the Academy’s stated purpose is to prepare us to join Team Tomorrow, or take on similar tasks of humanitarian importance.  Let’s face it, not all young novas are cut out for that.  Either their powers or their personalities aren’t suited for ‘public life’, according to Utopia’s ideals.  (Plus, I couldn’t fail to notice that everyone involved with T2M is, if not stunningly attractive, at least not freaky and twisted-looking.  T2M doesn’t recruit novas who will make baselines even a little bit uncomfortable.) 

The more I think about it, the more I doubt that Utopia is really expecting a massive influx of new students.  These buildings are a façade.  They aren’t planning for a much larger endeavor than they have now. 

But why aren’t they?  More novas are erupting every year, according to the census.  We may never be a majority (at least not unless we really are the next evolutionary step and eventually everyone will be novas), but if the numbers keep trending like they are, there’ll be at least ten thousands of us in the next twenty years.  And that doesn’t even take into account our having kids.  I haven’t heard of novas becoming parents yet (which is strange in itself), so there’s no way to know if being a nova will ‘breed true’, but it seems likely.  And those kids will need special schools even more than we do. 

The Academy should be planning for all that.  But it isn’t.  It’s like they aren’t expecting a significant influx of young novas at all….

Chapter Text

Tuesday, April 20

Tonight’s investigation was into the Academy’s perimeter.  When I first enrolled, I was told to make a habit of coming and going by the main gate, since in the event of an emergency, I wouldn’t be able to fly in or out.  The implication being that I would be unable to leave via flight, not that I wouldn’t be allowed to.  I accepted it without question then.  Now, I’m not so sure. 

So, I got to thinking.  How would you keep a flier from entering or leaving a large, open area?  With some kind of enclosure, of course.  The campus is too big for any kind of physical enclosure, like an actual roof structure (at least, it would need to have supports and things which would be obvious even when not in use).  That leaves an energy barrier of some kind.  Something that’s turned off most of the time, but can be easily activated at need. 

There are two ways to handle that kind of an energy field.  Either with a series of anchor points (like a fence), or with a central field generator (like a bubble).  The central generator was easier to check, so I tried that first.  A little math and a campus map showed me that the exact center of the campus (where a central generator would need to be) was an open space between two of the empty buildings. 

I went to the spot to check, but there was nothing there.  Not even a statue or fountain where a generator could be hidden.  So, unless it’s underground, I think I can rule out a centralized generator for some kind of bubble energy field. 

That leaves a perimeter fence that extends to enclose the entire area.  Since there’s a functional brick wall around the entire campus, it makes sense to base the perimeter field there.  You wouldn’t want to put it outside the wall, where it would be easy to disrupt, and putting it further inside the wall would leave an unprotected space between the wall and the field, as well as requiring more obvious equipment installation.  So the extant wall is the only reasonable place for an energy-based perimeter. 

And the best place to find any indication of that is at the only two breaks in the wall: the main gate and the smaller back gate.  Unfortunately, those are also the places most likely to have mundane security as well. 

I decided to try the back gate first.  It was closed, of course, and the light was blinking on the keypad, so I assume it was locked.  I wasn’t about to mess with something that almost certainly had an alarm on it.  For all I knew, there were other security features as well, but with my enhanced vision, I didn’t need to get close.  I can be yards away and focus in on something like it was under a microscope.  So I settled into a good spot where I could see each end of the wall where the gate was inset, as well as the gate itself, and went over it (visually) with a fine-tooth comb. 

Absolutely nothing.  Well, not quite nothing.  There was the electric line that ran to the security keypad.  And a bunch of microscopic cracks in the wall itself.  But nothing that could potentially generate or channel any kind of energy field. 

Enhanced hearing didn’t fare much better.  I could hear the tiny whine of current moving through the power line, but that was all.  Same with smell- I could smell the faintest whiff of ozone, again, connected to the security keypad.  I wasn’t going to risk touching anything. 

So I sloooowly made my way around the wall, looking for anything out of the ordinary, until I got to the main gate, where I repeated everything.  Again, nothing.  The only difference being that the main gate had a second power line.  It took me a minute to work it out- the main gate can be electrified if somebody decides they’re feeling frisky.  But that was it. 

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be one hundred percent certain, but I don’t think the Academy has any kind of super-special defenses, like I was led to believe.  Unless, or course, we’re the super-special defenses? 

I’m as certain as I can be- Utopia may very well have ways of tracking who gets in and out of the Academy, but they don’t have much in the way of stopping someone who was really determined to come in- or to get out. 

That’s enough for one night, I think.

Oh, and I finished the final peer review stuff for English 111, both reviewing others and being reviewed.  So, that’s over.  There’s interesting insight into how other people think, based on the ways they offer peer review.  People are ridiculously unwilling to offer valid criticism.  Oh well.  That just leaves Astronomy, and I’ll be finished for the term.  And since that has a lab, I won’t be able to finish it early.  There’s a compact mini-term in May.  If I push it right, I should be able to take at least two classes then. 

Chapter Text

Saturday, April 24

When I went out again on Wednesday night, I noticed an unusually high number of patrolling pairs moving around on campus.  Since I didn’t have anything in particular I was looking for that night, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and went back to my room.  I don’t know that they have any way of knowing I was out, but I can’t think of any other reason for the uptick.  Lt. Riggs wasn’t any different in class, though, so who knows?  Either way, I’ll leave late-night explorations alone, unless I think of something very specific I want to look for.  No point in forcing the issue for no good reason.

Friday was my last Astronomy lab, and as soon as the final opened, I took it.  So that’s it for this semester’s classes.

Last weekend’s unexpected teleportation practice got me in the mood for more practice.  It was time for me to fulfill the promise I’d made to myself.  That I wouldn’t go back to the Moon until I could do it under my own power.  I figured that even if I wasn’t one hundred percent accurate on where I teleported to, I would at least be close enough to try again with better visuals, or (worst case scenario) I could just fly the rest of the way.  And so far, I’ve never had any trouble coming back home.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? 

I wanted to give myself the best possible chance of success, so I flew up into orbit like I have before.  Once I was clear of the atmosphere, the Moon was even clearer, especially with my enhanced vision.  I hovered there for awhile, really studying it. 

It was beautiful, as always.  But as I watched it, I found myself getting nervous.  No, there’s no point in lying in my own journal.  I was getting scared.  What if I screwed something up and ended up millions of miles away?  What if I teleported into the Moon, and hurt myself a lot more than teleporting into the tree?  What if?  What if?  What if?

Almost without thinking about it, I teleported.

And ended up in the middle of empty space. 

For a moment, I was absolutely terrified.  I was lost.  I was alone.  I would never see home again.  Then I took myself in hand, reminded myself that I was a nova and little things like being completely alone in the middle of space without a spacesuit wasn’t something to panic about. 

And when I looked around again, the Moon was much closer.  I’d gone in the right direction.  I just hadn’t made it far enough.  As best I could estimate, I’d made it about half way.  Not bad, for a first attempt.  Especially not with nobody around to see me panic.  😊

So I tried again.  More confident this time, and really pushed.  I wanted to make it the rest of the way. 

And I did.  A little too much.  I ended up waist deep in the Moon’s surface, and was immediately shunted out.  I thought the tree had prepared me for how much teleporting into solid objects hurt.  This was much, much worse.  This was so bad that all I could do for a few minutes was lay there and hurt.  It felt like I’d broken every bone from the waist down.  I knew I hadn’t really, since I was able to move everything.  It was like having all the pain of the breaks without the actual breaks.  Then I got myself together and moved enough quantum energy around to heal myself. 

Any landing you walk away from is a good landing, right?  Since nobody was around to see otherwise, I had a perfect landing.  That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.  Either way, I was on the Moon!!!! 

I spent a few minutes just looking around where I was, enjoying the beauty of the moonscape, as well as Earth seen from a distance.  But I also had another goal. 

Obviously, I wasn’t going to butt in on Nebula’s little spot, but I wanted at least one, maybe two spots on the Moon that I was familiar enough with to teleport to with minimal difficulty.  So, I took to the ‘air’ and started flying around, high enough to see a lot of the lunar surface.  I noticed Nebula’s spot, but she wasn’t there. 

Eventually, I found a place I liked.  It had a lot of interesting boulders, was near a small crater, and had some nifty openings that I’m pretty sure lead to lava tubes.  Plus, it had a great view of Earth.  That was enough for me to settle down and really learn the place.  Since it was so far away, and I was probably going to make this my ‘home away from home’, I took my time. 

Once I was satisfied, I decided that I had enough time to at least find a second good spot, even if I didn’t have time to learn it well enough to come back easily.  This time, I headed for the dark side of the Moon. 

I was surprised by how different it felt, not being able to see the Earth.  Obviously, it isn’t actually ‘dark’- it still faces the Sun sometimes.  The ‘dark’ side of the Moon is a lot more rugged, with more craters and less flat plains.  I found a good spot, and memorized some landmarks so I could find it again, but decided not to stay long enough to really learn the place.  I might reconsider spending much time here, but having an extra place to go might come in handy. 

Just to test myself, I teleported back to ‘my’ spot.  No problem, I was right on target, at least at this distance. 

As much as I wanted to stay and just… enjoy the silence, I figured it was time to go home.  I picked up a few moon rocks, and really pushed myself again. 

It was a strain, but I made it all the way back into Earth’s orbit- not exactly where I’d left from (I ended up over Florida), but close enough to fly back down the usual way. 

There’s really no way to explain how it felt, to travel that far, see those things, and come home again.  So I’ll just say that I had a good day. 

Chapter Text

Monday, April 26

I’m enrolled for three classes for the intensive May mini-term.  My advisor didn’t want to let me take more than two classes, as the term only lasts a month, so I had to go in and plead my case in person.  Once she saw the classes I planned to take (and I explained that I didn’t need to sleep), she signed off on it. 

So next month I’ll be taking SDV 101- Orientation to Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Transfer (2 credits), ITE 152- Introduction to Digital Literacy and Computer Applications (3 credits), and Math 155- Statistical Reasoning (3 credits).  Basically, the first one is How To College, the second is How To Computer, and the third is an actual math course.  The first two are throwaway courses, but required, and all three are entirely online, so I should be able to complete them just as quickly as the professors puts the material up. 

I thought really hard about trying to get out of the How To courses, but decided against it.  That would be a clear example of using my novahood to get special treatment, and I don’t want to make a habit of that.  At least, not for small inconveniences like this.  (I guess I already did that a little to even get the third class, but oh well.)  I also thought about pushing to take a fourth class, but decided against it.  The only one that would have fit would have been my next English requirement, and I learned last semester that having to depend on others for the peer review sections made it less likely that I could finish it as effectively in this short time period.  So, three classes it is.

While I was on campus, the Dean of Admissions stopped me and politely hinted that it was time I made good on my agreement to do some publicity for the school.  Fair enough.  We agreed that I’d make myself available after class when the May term started next week.  There’d be photos, a recorded interview, and a filmed ‘walking tour’ where I basically introduced potential students to the amenities of the campus.  They’d send me a script in the next day or two. 

Chapter Text

Monday, May 4

Although all three of this month’s classes are online, for some ridiculous reason I was still expected to show up in person for the first How To College class.  I was also strongly encouraged to show up for the first How To Computer class, but it wasn’t required.  The math class was sensibly online from Day One.  I wouldn’t have shown up for How To Computer, but since Lt. Riggs had (grudgingly) given me permission to skip class and the tactical today, I thought it was only fair that I attend both the classes.  Besides, I was a little curious to see what actual college classes were like, instead of the asynchronous learning that I’ve been doing.  Also, I had already agreed to do the campus publicity material in the afternoon. 

Since I was expected to know my way around the campus for the walking tour, I decided to go over early (How To College started at eleven am) and familiarize myself with the rest of the campus.  So far, all I’d seen was the Admissions building and the book store.  I got there by eight, and had a good mental map of the place by ten. 

How To College was in a huge classroom with stadium seating.  The place could easily seat two hundred people.   There were barely fifty people there when I showed up.  Since I’d made it a point to stay on the ground and was wearing a pair of sunglasses on my walk, I’m pretty sure I escaped detection.  At least, no one reacted to the presence of a nova. 

The other students mostly seemed about my age, with a few in their late twenties and one guy who had to be at least sixty.  The older ones all looked bored- I think they were as disgusted by being required to take How To College as I was.  Most of the students were chatting among themselves, complaining about how intense the mini-term was going to be, and how glad they were to get the easy stuff over with.  I couldn’t help overhearing, but didn’t try to join any of the conversational groups.  If this went anything like high school, I was afraid my presence might be a disruption. 

The instructor (I’m pretty sure she was a Teacher’s Assistant or something, rather than an actual professor) came bouncing in like How To College was the most amazing thing anybody could hope to do in a day.  (Either she’s an amazing actress, she’s thrilled to have a job, or she has a painfully dull life.  Maybe all of the above.)

Anyway, she spends a few minutes going over the syllabus, projects a copy of the campus map on a screen and points out where everything is, and actually takes attendance.  (Good thing I showed up, I guess.)  She literally called everyone’s name and expected a raised hand and a verbal response.  Is this normal for in-person college classes????  I hope not. 

At least she waited until near the end of class to call the roll.  I noticed a couple of people sneak in midway through, so they’d hopefully still get credit for being there.  I was really hoping that she wouldn’t have been told anything about me- that I would be just another name on the list.  I’d enrolled under Colleen Harris, of course, so it wasn’t completely unreasonable.  But no.  Either the Admin people had briefed her, or she was a nova enthusiast.  She got to “Colleen Har-“, then she stopped and started looking around for me. 

Of course, I had to raise my hand and say “Here”.  I was hoping that would be the end of it.  But ooooh no.  She actually introduced me to the rest of the class.  As Heka, the nova from the Team Tomorrow Academy.  Ouch.  So much for anonymity. 

That pretty much ended the class session, since nobody was paying attention to Ms. TA anymore.  I’d’ve felt bad for her, but she literally brought it on herself.  The last twenty minutes of the period were requests for selfies, the usual array of “What’s it like?” and “Have you met?” questions.  Pretty much exactly like high school.  Which, to be fair, I should have expected.  Most of these kids were still in high school a few days ago, and some of them are probably still in high school, doing dual enrollment like me.  I put up with it all with as much grace as I could until the period ended, then excused myself on the grounds of having another class to get to. 

How To Computer wasn’t actually for another hour, but I was grateful for the excuse to get away.  A couple of people tried to follow me, but I ducked into the bookstore, hid behind a rack of school spirit merch and went invisible.  Then I slipped out with the next customer.  Sleezy, I know, but I just wasn’t in the mood for that nonsense.

How To Computer was better, sorta.  This was held in a computer lab (or maybe a classroom dedicated to computer classes, I’m not sure).  There were about twenty-five of us there, and this time the class was about sixty percent incoming freshmen and forty percent older people.  I assume some of them were taking it as a continuing education thing? 

The instructor was an older guy who clearly had no interest in being there.  He took attendance as well, but he did it by sending around a clipboard and having everyone write their name down.  He didn’t even bother to look at it when it came back to him.  I think I’m ‘safe’. 

I had assumed that showing up for the first session of How To Computer in person was pointless.  And, for me, it was.  But I soon saw that there was a good reason for it.  Three of those older men, and one girl about my age, clearly had no idea what they were doing.  ‘How To Computer’ is a beginning class, but it still assumed that you’ve seen a computer before and maybe even used one casually.  These four apparently had not. 

We were each given an in-class assignment that I can only describe as a basic literacy test.  It had a series of steps we were expected to follow.  Things like ‘Turn the computer on’, ‘Login in with this one-time password’, ‘Set a new password’, ‘Access your campus email account’ (with step-by-step instructions on how to do that), and so on.  It didn’t take anyone other than those four longer than ten minutes. 

All three of the older folks got stuck on accessing their campus email, which to be fair, had a pretty crappy interface.  The girl couldn’t identify the computer’s power button.  I’m pretty sure I was the only one who was able to hear the instructor mutter ‘there’s always at least one’. 

That girl’s seat neighbor had a hard time believing she was that clueless, but the girl insisted that her parents had hired her a tutor, and she’d always made the tutor handle all the computer stuff.  Further explanation revealed that this poor tutor had actually written all of her high school assignments and projects, leaving the girl more time for ‘important stuff’. 

I really hope we won’t have to do any group projects in this class.  Somehow I know I’ll get stuck with this twit.

Anyway, the instructor said that the rest of us could leave after we completed the assignment, so everybody bolted while he worked with the final four.

Since I’d gotten out early and had some extra time, I decided to try out the campus cafeteria.  Not bad.  They had a buffet-style thing where you took a to-go carton, loaded it up with whatever you wanted, and paid by weight at the end.  Some of the students had a special card that I think must have been a meal plan, since that seemed to cover most or all of their selections. 

The food here is a lot better than at my high school, but nowhere near as good as the Academy or Clinic.  I guess I really have gotten spoiled on that score.  I took my time eating and just watched the students come and go.  There were several large tables full of people who obviously met there regularly.  They didn’t have the high school clique vibe, though.  No whispers, meaningful looks, then erupting into laughter.  So that’s good.

When it was time, I reported to the Admissions building to start my promo work.  The school had sent me the walking tour script and several talking points, so I had a pretty good idea of what they wanted me to say.  It was a little cringe, but oh well. 

They did the pictures first, putting me in front of several campus landmarks.  They even snagged several (apparently?) random students to be in the pictures.  Just me doing low-key ‘nova things’ in front of the school’s sign, the lawn with the mascot picked out in vegetation, etc.  No big deal.  The interview was a no-brainer as well.  They basically wanted me to tell them all about how I’d selected their school for all it’s advantages (rather than for having a campus close to the Academy).  I regurgitated their talking points, and they were happy.  Then it was time to film the walking tour.  Out of everything we’d done so far, this was the only thing that I thought might actually make a difference in people deciding to attend here.  I mean, probably not- surely students are more interested in what the school actually has to offer than in there being a nova there, right? 

I’d been hearing sirens while we were outside doing the pictures and things, but they were pretty faint- clearly audible to me, but I doubt the baselines were aware of them.  As we were about to start filming the walking tour, the sirens got louder- loud enough that everyone heard them.  I think the camera guy assumed they’d pass by quickly, because he signaled us to wait.  But they just kept getting louder.  They were heading for the campus.

Suddenly, a big SUV comes tearing up out of nowhere, turns onto the loop that surrounds the campus, and promptly hits a light pole.  A guy jumps out, waving a gun around, and starts running toward a group of students.  Three cop cars came screaming in right behind him. 

A few of the more alert kids were running or dropping to the ground.  Most of them were oblivious.  There was no way the cops were going to be able to get to the guy before he got to the crowd of students.  

But I could. 

I’ll admit, I wasn’t really thinking about it.  I didn’t have any kind of plan for what I was going to do or anything.  (And in hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Stinger for coming up with crappy plans, if I couldn’t come up with one at all in the moment.) 

I just flew straight at the guy.  But since I’d been on the lawn, that meant I was coming at him from the slant.  I wasn’t flying super fast, but a lot faster than any baseline could run.  And I just reached out and… grabbed him.  Of course, I was still flying, so that meant I basically tackled him around the waist and kept going. 

I was trying to grab the gun, and remembering the guy who tried to mug my friends (Dylan something?) on Halloween last year, and how badly I’d broken his arm.  So, okay, I wasn’t paying as much attention to where I was going as I should have been.  I’d been trying to force his arm down, and I guess that translated into a general downward slope, because we both hit the ground.  And bounced.  And skidded.  And I ended up more-or-less sitting on him with a streak of torn-up grass behind us a good fifteen feet long.  Oops.  At least I got the gun? 

Well, at least this time the cops were already on-site and saw everything.  And the guy didn’t have anything worse than some ‘road rash’.  (I didn’t know grass could do that, but maybe there were little rocks or something?)  So I just sat on the guy until the cops joined us.  They took the gun, cuffed him, and did all the usual cop things. 

I found out later that the guy had robbed a convenience store across town, had led the cops on a low-speed chase, and entered the campus for who knows what reason.  The cops took my name and contact information, but there wasn’t any sense of my being in any kind of trouble.  I’ll probably have to go to court again, though. 

Once it was all over (and the crowd of students that clumped up on me had dispersed), I went back to the Admin people to see if they still wanted to do the walking tour video, or if they wanted to reschedule.  (By that time, my Eufiber had absorbed the grass stains, so I’d be presentable once I ran a brush through my hair.)  But they said that no, they weren’t going to bother with the tour video anymore.  The camera guy had gotten the entire thing on video, and apparently a ‘superhero student actively defending the campus’ was better than any celebrity endorsement could ever be.  <sigh>  At least I wasn’t wearing something weird this time.  

They offered to take me to dinner, but I declined, saying I needed to get back the Academy.  I wasn’t sure if today’s tactical was already over, but even if it was, I could probably catch Lt. Riggs before he left.  That way I could update him on what happened without bothering inconveniencing Jak again. 

I updated Riggs, and gave him the card one of the cops had given me (I’d already copied down the contact info, just in case).  Riggs said he’d take care of it, and that while I might have to go to court, it wouldn’t be an issue.  Especially since it would be local this time.

And that was about it.  I have to wonder, though.  Is there something about being a nova that subtly attracts weird or dangerous situations?  I went my entire life without anything ‘interesting’ happening to me, or around me.  I’m a lower-middle-class white girl.  Things like crime and emergency rescues don’t happen to us, at least not more than once.  Since I erupted, I’ve been involved with more craziness than any five people ever should be. 

The mugging?  Okay, that was probably just our luck running out.  The Diner isn’t in the best neighborhood, so maybe that was just a matter of time.  And the original car accident could have happened to anyone.  But the rest?  The apartment fire.  The assassination attempt.  The skydiving accident.  The forest fire.  Human trafficking (though maybe that one doesn’t really count as an emergency rescue).  And now this.  The apartment fire I was very specifically called to attend.  And I suppose that goes for the forest fire as well, though I doubt I would have been called to either if I hadn’t been known to be close by.  So, there’s at least an explanation for those.  But the rest? 

Do novas just have some kind of ‘wrong place, wrong time’ aura around them?  Do other novas have this problem?  I mean, all the students were involved in the forest fire, but otherwise, it’s just been me.  Or did all the others have these things happen to them before they came to the Academy, and it’s only because they don’t leave that they aren’t still having these issues?

Most of my questions, I don’t feel that I can ask my fellow students (or I don’t want to ask where Utopia can overhear).  But this one seems safe enough.  I’ll ask them tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, May 5

After another pointless tactical (I’ve more-or-less mastered ignoring Stinger’s ‘interesting choices’ unless they directly impact me, and Lt. Riggs still has me working on my energy draining ability anyway), I was able to ask my question.

As soon as I did, I had to explain why I wanted to know, which led to explaining what happened at the college yesterday.  They’d heard I’d helped out some cops, but hadn’t had any details.  Once that was out of the way, I pointed out, in broad strokes, what I meant about being a magnet for weirdness.  And I asked if they’d experienced anything similar, apart from their eruptions.

Shift, Guardião, and Stinger all denied anything strange happening to them, other than erupting and being invited to the Academy.  Flare mentioned that she’d seen a little kid run out in front of a bus, and teleported him to safety, but that was all.  (Not that saving a kid’s life is a small thing, of course.)  Sapphire mentioned that she’d been present for two ‘questionable’ incidents involving probable organized crime, but she hadn’t actually been involved with either.  And she implied that those kinds of occurrences were semi-common where she came from, and the only weird thing about them was her being there.  (I’m not sure if she’s ‘talking up’ how dangerous her home is or not- if any one of us would exaggerate something like that, it would be her.  I’m not accusing her of lying.  It’s just that if she thought coming from a ‘hard spot’ would help her ‘brand’, well, that’s how she would present herself.)

Dream Shadow got quieter than usual.  When I (gently) pressed, she said that she’d witnessed and even been part of several ‘troubling events’ back home, but that it wasn’t coincidence or anything subtle like I was asking- everything she’d been involved with could easily be traced back to her government.  It was clear she didn’t want to talk about it, so I dropped it.

Puppy’s story was a little rougher.  I’d heard that his parents hid the fact that he’d erupted and kept him on the farm.  I’d heard that he only came to the Academy when the neighbors burned his family’s barn down.  What I hadn’t heard was that he’d been shot at several times, actually shot twice (both times with buckshot, which didn’t hurt him), been run off the road once in what he described as an accident (but I think sounded like an on-purpose).  He said there’d been some other problems, but they were pretty minor. 

The final straw was when a bunch of masked men tried to literally lynch him.  Which was as ridiculous as it was horrifying.  Even freshly erupted, he had most of his strength and stamina.  He still has to breathe, but he was easily able to hold his breath long enough to snap the rope- and the tree it was attached to.  That, along with the barn incident, was what made his parents decide to send him to the nearest Clinic. 

I’m not sure how to classify Puppy’s experiences.  It seems obvious that he was the target of a concentrated campaign of hate and violence in his little farming community.  And my own research into the presence of the Church of Michael Archangel suggests that it was almost certainly religiously motivated. 

But is that the same thing as what I’ve been experiencing?  Somehow, I don’t think so.  None of what’s happened to me, other than the apartment fire, was even slightly directed at me, personally.  None of it was about Heka, let alone Coleen.  Even the apartment fire was only personal because I was summoned to the event.  The fire itself had nothing to do with me.  All of Puppy’s experiences were very obviously aimed at him (or at his family for sheltering him). 

On thinking more about it, I’m inclined to say ‘no’.  Baselines responding to a young nova with hatred and violence isn’t the same thing as (potentially) being drawn to events of stress, drama, and violence.  Then again, am I being drawn to these events, or are these events being drawn to me?

Classes are mostly going to be easy this month.  ‘How To College’ is just a series of recorded lectures we’re supposed to watch on campus life and how to use resources and get help when needed, followed by little quizzes to prove we watched the videos.  I’ve already done about a third of the coursework and hope to finish the rest tomorrow night.  Statistical Reasoning is dull, but not hard.  Every assignment but the final is already available online, and I hope to finish by the end of the week. 

How To Computer is going to be a pain, though.  The coursework is easy, but there is a group project, like I was afraid of.  The details aren’t online yet, so I’m trying not to dread it.

Chapter Text

Thursday, May 7

I’ve completely finished ‘How To College’.  I think the TA in charge of it is disappointed that I finished everything so quickly.  Maybe she wanted to have some excuse to interact with me?  (That sounded really full of myself.  Gotta watch that.) 

I went ahead and pushed my way through Statistics, and as of seven this morning, I finished all of it except the final, which I don’t think will be posted for awhile. 

As for ‘How To Computer’, I’ve done all the assignments that can be done alone.  But several things on the syllabus are going to be based off this mystery group project, so there’s only so much I can do.  I low-key dread being paired with any of the students I saw in class.  Not that they were stupid, or incompetent, or anything.  Most of them were fine.  But none of them had my drive to get things done as quickly (and well) as possible.  And my progress will be largely held back by their pace. 

Is this more of what Mal meant about novas and baselines needing to separate, for the good of both races?  This seems like such a minor- even silly- example, but it’s also true.  If it weren’t for this, I could have finished this entire term, other than one final, in a week.  Instead, I’m being held back, which isn’t fair to me. 

It isn’t fair to whoever my partner will be, either.  Through no fault of their own, there’s just no way we’ll be able to put in equal effort.  Either they’ll be forced to try and keep up, or I’ll be forced to try and hold back.  Or both.  Probably both.  At least most of the others are starting from a position of basic competence.  The three old guys might not be so bad.  They got hung up on the school’s server, and it really is badly designed.  And the old guys probably have life experience and other things to offer to balance out a lack of tech skills.  I’m probably just being overdramatic to just assume that I’ll be paired with the twit who had her high school tutor do all her work for her.  Right? 

Chapter Text

Friday, May 8

I have been paired with the twit.  The twit’s name is Sammi, and I already want to drop kick her into next year.  The assignment was uploaded today, with the groups (pairs, actually) posted.  We’re expected to take the weekend to decide how to divide the work, get to know each other, and plan how we want to do the project. 

Sammi still doesn’t know how to use email, but her tutor reads her email to her.  (I’m not one hundred percent sure Sammi knows how to read.)   When I sent her my suggestions for the project (we’re required to build a simple OpNet site using existing templates- effectively a drag-and-drop thing with no actual coding required), her responses were so nonsensical I’m not sure what to do.  Maybe I should just ask if I can work with the tutor instead? 

The assignment itself is dead easy.  I could have it done in under an hour, and we have a full two weeks.  Which is part of the problem.  Sammi has absolutely no sense of urgency about getting this done.  The idea of ‘the sooner we finish, the sooner we can forget about it’ is lost on her.  She doesn’t seem to think deadlines apply to her.

I thought, maybe she’d be better in person.  Maybe the whole computer thing is the problem.  So I invited Sammi out for coffee this afternoon before I went home for the weekend.  I figured we could put together some ideas for the OpNet site- maybe she’d be more comfortable communicating verbally. 

Not only was she forty-five minutes late to our meeting, she had no interest in discussing the assignment.  Anything else?  Sure.  Classwork?  Nope.  Conversation ranged from coffee, to fashion, to the latest movies, to a particular band she wanted to see, to a particular band she’d just seen, to fashion, to guys she thought were cute, to makeup, to fashion.  Every time I tried to shift the conversation back to the assignment, she just ignored the change of subject.  In other words, nothing got done, and I have no expectation of any useful collaboration in the future.

And the worst part is, she seems nice, I guess.  Very social. Very outgoing.  Very upbeat.  Very kind.  Very unprepared for anything involving academic effort.  I think she and Bailey would have gotten along really well.  (Which had me missing Bailey for the first time in weeks, which didn’t help.)  I really should like her, even with the need for patience when dealing with her.

Okay, I know I’m being anal and uptight about this.  I’m not responding well.  It’s been several hours and every time I think about this, it’s an effort to confine my irritation to ‘the twit’ and not let it become ‘the baseline’.  I’ve never had that reaction before.  Even when Mr. Li at the Clinic back home made it clear to me that baselines would always be more important than me, even when I was being sexually harassed, I didn’t have this same feeling of… contempt.  Outrage, yes.  But not contempt.  When that kid groped me, I was disgusted and angry at that kid, not at that baseline. 

This is new, and I don’t like it.  I’m not sure working with Sammi (assuming any work actually happens) is going to help.  Maybe I’ll find some common ground with her and be able to think of her as an individual.  Or maybe my ongoing irritation will solidify her into nothing more than… a baseline.

I’ve never thought of myself as prejudiced before.  Certainly not as racist.  And it isn’t prejudice, let alone racism, to dislike an individual based on their individual personality traits or actions.  But my immediate jump to generalization has caught me off guard.  When I was doing the group project with Levon, Allen, and Sean; I was irritated with Allen and Sean because they were personally annoying and didn’t pull their weight.  Them being baselines never entered my mind.  But the situation with Sammi is almost identical (lacking only the presence of a decent group member in Levon), and yet my gut level response was ‘useless baseline’. 

I don’t know what to do.  Force myself into extended proximity to her, in an attempt to re-humanize(?) her in my mind?  Or just get this whole thing over with (as in, just do it myself and let her put her name on it) and get as much distance from her as I can?  I don’t want to be prejudiced.  If I don’t like her because she’s lazy, or stupid, or something; that’s fine.  The other isn’t. 

I don’t have anyone I can talk to about this.  My fellow Utopians would be horrified by my attitude, and probably start paying more attention to me than I’d like.  My Teragen friends would tell me that I’m exactly right in dismissing Sammi as ‘a baseline’.  My baseline friends would only be hurt by the very idea that I might someday think of them that way.  Of course, I never would.  Would I?

Chapter Text

Monday, May 11

I spent most of the weekend being disgusted with myself, and on Sunday, I decided to do something about it.  Two things, actually. 

First, I decided to deal with the stress of the assignment itself.  If I didn’t have to depend on Sammi, maybe I could get past my poor opinion of her.  So, I made the OpNet site, fulfilling all the points on the assignment rubric.  Then, I did it twice more.  The assignment was to make a simple OpNet site, but there was no guidance on the site’s subject.  So, I made three- one on the latest fashion coming out of Milan, one on cats, and one on the college itself. 

I can present all three to her, ask what she thought of them, if she had any input, and if they might work as a basis for our mutual assignment.  If I’ve gauged Sammi correctly, then she’ll almost certainly pounce on one of them, tell me that it’s perfect as-is (I know better, but that’s what I would say in her place), and maybe offer some token input (which I’ll happily accept).  Then I’ll put both of our names on it and turn it in.  Immediate problem solved. 

Doing the assignment, even three times, didn’t take long, so I had plenty of time for my other plan- OpNet stalking.

Over the course of about three hours, I learned an awful lot about Sammi.  Stalker-ish, I know.  But I have no intention of doing anything with the information, and it helped me see her as a person and not just a baseline, which was the point.

Sammi is rich.  Really rich.  Like, ‘why is she at a little local college’ rich.  She has two older brothers.  Her parents are still together, but they seem like more of a power couple than a happily married pair- but I could be wrong about that. 

They travel often, which meant that Sammi was pulled out of school regularly and tutored privately.  (Not sure how I feel about this tutor- his name is Barry.  After all, doesn’t a good tutor actually teach the student, rather than doing everything for them?)  Anyway, Sammi missed close to half of each school year, but kept getting passed to the next grade with Bs and Cs, even though she rarely turned in work (and what she turned in wasn’t hers). 

One of her brothers is in med school.  The other is studying to be an architect.  Sammi is a legacy for Vassar, which might explain why she’s here now- her parents want to give her a ‘soft start’ before sending her on to the Ivy League. 

I was right about her seeming kind and generous.  She volunteers at a horse rescue ranch and sponsors several Southeast Asian underprivileged kids to school (a little ironic, but nice).  She’s got a Very Nice Boyfriend, no major criminal record, and a string of speeding and parking tickets. 

Ultimately, I still can’t say I think much of her, and I have no interest in spending time with her socially, but at least she isn’t just ‘that baseline’ to me anymore. 

I messaged her, attaching the three assignments that I did and asking for her input, but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet.   

Chapter Text

Tuesday, May 12

Sammi hasn’t gotten back to me yet, but I’m not going to let that worry me.  I somehow doubt that she’s working on other assignments, but it occurs to me that she might not know how to use her messaging app, and maybe Barry is busy doing her other work for her.  No problem.  There’s plenty of time before the assignment is due, and if she flakes out, I’ll just turn one of mine in with both of our names on it and move on.

I’ve already finished everything but the final for Statistics, everything for How To College, and everything except the project for How To Computer (the project counts in place of a final).  So that means I’m one test away from finishing this term, with plenty of time to spare. 

As for the Academy, I’ve stopped my nocturnal wandering, but I’ve been keeping the door to my balcony open and actively listening- the patrols are still more numerous than they have been.  Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe it wasn’t my prowling around that triggered something?  Maybe something else is going on, and me being out at the same time was a coincidence?  The way things are going, I’m not likely to find out. 

I’m still just… passing time here.  Going to classes of limited value.  Learning languages which are a genuine pleasure.  Doing repetitive tactical exercises where nothing changes and we aren’t actually being trained for real-life trouble we might run into. 

I had a nasty thought, though.  If we’re not doing actual academic schooling, then how do we know when we’re finished?  I already know that the Academy doesn’t have a summer vacation like regular school.  We don’t have exams, we don’t earn credits toward graduation.  The school is accredited, and pretty much everybody is used to giving Utopia whatever it wants, so I’m confident that my diploma will be worth as much if not more than a diploma from my old high school.  But that implies that graduation is a thing. 

It’s mid-May.  In a normal school, we’d be gearing up for finals and end-of-year stuff.  The end of my junior year.  I’d be meeting with the guidance counsellor to make sure I was on track for college, getting my transcripts in order, taking the ACT/SAT (if I hadn’t already), and so on.  None of that is happening here.

Best case scenario, at some point, the Academy simply declares us ‘graduated’ and we move on to whatever is next in our lives.  Worst case scenario, we stay here until we ‘age out’ at twenty, and then we’re on our own, like aging out of the foster care system.   What seems most likely to me (as things currently stand) is that we’ll be kept here, in training, until Utopia finds a semi-permanent place to use us.  Maybe that means a space opening up on Team Tomorrow.  Maybe that means a position within Utopia itself that one of us is uniquely suited to fill.  Maybe that means something else. 

I expected to finish my junior year of high school early next month, and my senior year a year after that.  So far, I’ve transferred those expectations to the Academy.  I’m resigned to not having a ‘Senior experience’.  No prom.  No Senior Trip.  No parties.  No group tours of nearby college campuses.  No ‘Senior Privileges’ like going off campus for lunch or parking in the closer parking lot.  I can do without all that. 

But now is the time when I need to start subtly making it clear to Lt. Riggs that I don’t intend to continue as a student here after June of 2010- the point when I would have normally graduated.  And I think now is the time for me to start actively working on getting admitted to Berkeley.  After all, if it’s already done, Riggs will have a harder time putting obstacles in my way. 

Chapter Text

Wednesday, May 13

I have an appointment with the Dean of Admissions for Berkeley this Friday afternoon.  They’re three hours behind me, so I should have plenty of time to get there.  If I fly at top speed, I should get there in a little under two hours.  Less if I teleport even part of the way. 

I haven’t mentioned this meeting to anyone yet, and I’m not going to.  I’ve gathered my ACT and SAT scores, as well as my college transcripts and current term progress.  I’ve got my old high school transcripts, but I’m not sure about showing them- I got good grades, but I didn’t do as well then as I am now.  And as for the Academy, well, it will be interesting to see what their ‘transcripts’ look like.  I’ve also prepared something like a resume (or maybe a CV is closer?) of what I’ve done so far as a nova- both the charity and PR stuff as well as the ‘superhero-ing’ I’ve done. 

Hopefully, it will be enough to get me admission, even without an Academy transcript.  Hopefully. 

It will be easier, spinning my wheels here, if I have something concrete to look forward to.  I’m ready for the next step in my life, and I want to get on with it.  Maybe everyone my age thinks that.  Probably so.  And a lot of people are in for rude awakenings.  Maybe I will be, too.  But even finding out that I was overconfident would mean that I was at least doing something. 

Still no response from Sammi.  I sent her another message, asking if she wanted to meet up and start a new project together from scratch, if she didn’t like any of my ‘rough drafts’.  The project is due on Wednesday the 27th, so I figure I’ll give her until the 20th to get in touch with me.  If she doesn’t, I’ll touch base with the instructor about turning in the project solo (but still being willing to work with Sammi if she responds before the due date).

In all the excitement, I almost forgot.  Today is the one year anniversary of Slider’s murder.  Utopia is obviously but not-quite-officially blaming Andre Corbin, but otherwise nothing much seems to be being done about it.  There was a lot of public remembrance, and Utopia put out a statement, but it seemed… performative.  On Utopia’s part, anyway.

Chapter Text

Thursday, May 14

I tried something different tonight.  About midnight, I turned out all my lights and went to bed, leaving my balcony door open.  (I still sleep at night when I don’t have something to occupy my time, since otherwise the days tend to blur together.)  I laid there for about an hour, then oh-so-silently (and invisibly) got up and went out the open balcony door.  I have no idea how sensitive the microphones in my room are, but since I didn’t touch anything on my way out, I doubt they picked my movements up.  Then I settled down on the roof and really opened up all my senses. 

For a little while, it was almost sensory overload.  Usually when I’m really focusing on one sense or another, I’m searching for something specific, and kinda tune everything else out.  This time, I was deliberately not ‘looking’ for anything.  Just sitting there, in the dark, alone, waiting to see what my senses would bring me. 

There was a lot, but most of it didn’t matter.  I watched and listened to everything for a few minutes, then shut it all out bit by bit as I identified it.  Insects. Birds.  Bats (we have a lot of bats).  A nightbird singing that turned out to be tree frogs.  Rabbits.  Lights and sounds from the training area, where the next round of modular, Lego-style construction was ongoing.  And the patrols. 

There were still more than I’d seen on that first night.  But now that I was up higher and able to see more of the campus, I was able to make out a pattern.  They weren’t patrolling the perimeter, like you’d expect.  And they weren’t patrolling the entire interior of the campus, either.  They were focused around a few key sites.  The training area got some attention, but not as much as some other places.  I guess the men working there were also assumed to be ‘on watch’ for whatever they were looking for.  The building we used for class got some attention.  The Admin building got occasional visits, but not often.  The two areas that had the most patrol activity were around the dorm and… the old observatory. 

I could just barely see the observatory through the trees from where I sat.  I’d asked about it last semester when I had my astronomy class, but was told the structure was abandoned and unstable.  Completely off-limits.  I’d been disappointed, but hadn’t questioned it then. 

But now, I could see dim, red lights coming from that part of campus, and there’s nothing over there except the observatory.  And there’s nothing over there to patrol- other than the observatory.  To my knowledge, no one had been over there since the scavenger hunt (See entry for January 20, 2009).  But clearly something was going on over there now.  The observatory doesn’t have any windows, so the light had to be coming from either the (opened) door, or from the dome slit.  It was too dim and diffuse for me to be sure which it was.

I almost flew over to check it out, but thought better of it.  I have important stuff to do tomorrow, and don’t want to risk unnecessary trouble.  Plus, I want to watch some more and see if the activities have a pattern over time.

Chapter Text

Friday, May 15

I wanted to give myself plenty of time (an also get  more practice in ‘blind’ teleporting), so I teleported across the country in three extended ‘hops’, then flew in for the last hour or so.  I had plenty of time, even without a burst of speed, and I used that time to really think about the impression I wanted to make. 

I wanted to be obvious as I came to Berkeley, but not ostentatious.  I wanted to cause just a little stir, but not be too disruptive.  Plus, I didn’t want to annoy Rainbow.  I wasn’t sure if San Francisco’s municipal defender considered Berkeley as part of his ‘territory’, and I certainly didn’t want to start out on the wrong foot with him.  Even if he doesn’t include Berkeley in his turf, I’ll still end up spending enough time in San Francisco that I wouldn’t want to make things difficult.

So, long before I got close to the city, I dropped down to the ‘under 400 feet’ fly zone.  I slowed down enough that I was still making good time, but baselines would be able to see me clearly.  And once I was close to Berkeley, I made a point of hovering in place long enough to locate the campus (and let anyone interested get a good look).  Maybe the PR stuff Erica’s had me do has rubbed off on me a little.  The point is, I wanted to make it clear that I could be an asset to the university, and I wanted to start that impression even before I met anyone.  Overthinking?  Probably. 

The campus itself was fairly obvious, so I didn’t hover for long before doing a slow glide down to the main entrance.  I’ve pretty much gotten used to the stares and not-so-subtle picture taking, but nobody ran up on me, which I took to be a good sign.  Either Berkeley (or more likely, San Francisco) is much more accustomed to novas than Wilmington or Roanoke, or the students here just have enough excitement in their lives that a nova isn’t such a big deal.  A good sign for my being able to live here comfortably.

I had a few minutes to kill before my appointment, but flying around the campus would cross the line between showing up and showing off, so I just walked to the Admissions building, checked in, and waited patiently. 

The place was an absolute hive.  People everywhere.   Parents with people my age.  People my age on their own.  Older people who somehow didn’t look any more at ease.  I suppose it makes sense.  This is Admissions.  Everyone here is either trying to get into Berkeley or just recently did.  Nobody other than the employees is comfortable being here.  There was a sense of frenetic energy there- everyone looked nervous, stressed, or excited.  I understood where they were coming from, since I was excited too.  And lets face it, I have a better chance of getting in than most people.  I looked up the admission statistics for Berkeley.  For incoming freshmen, the admission odds are about 1 in 10.  For transfer students (like me!) the odds are about 1 in 4.  My grades, test scores, etc would be a solid grounding to begin with, without the nova thing.  (And yes, I know I’m being hypocritical about this- I’ve said that I want to be treated like a regular person and not use my being a nova for special treatment.  But I’m making an exception for Berkeley.)

I couldn’t help but overhear the conversations around me, of course.  They were mostly between parents and their freshmen children.  The others tended to keep quiet.  It seemed like the parent/child dynamics broke down into a few broad categories.  There were the parents reassuring their kids that of course the kid would be accepted.  Some of the parents pointed out the kids’ academic excellence and whatever else.  Others apparently believed that their ‘baby’ was just so special and important that them simply being themselves would be enough to secure admission.  I was laughing (internally) about this, but then I realized- that’s more or less why I’m here.  Sure, my credentials are good, but the only reason I’m fairly confident of success is because, let’s face it, I’m special.  That was a humbling thought. 

Other parents weren’t so much reassuring their kids as they were demanding success from their kids.  They were hypercritical, pointing out flaws in the kids’ appearance, posture, clothes, and so on.  I would have hated to grow up with parents like that.  Those kids looked as beaten down as they did nervous. 

A few parents were demanding reassurance from their kids.  They were concerned about costs (some of them), and about their ‘babies’ leaving home for the first time (most of them).  Those parents never seemed to even consider that the kid wouldn’t be admitted. 

It all makes me appreciate my own mom that much more.  We never had much money.  And since she almost always worked two jobs, I didn’t get to see much of her once I was old enough to take care of myself.  (That’s still the case now, even though I’m sending her half my monthly Utopia stipend.)  But I always knew that I could count on her.  That she would be there for me.  That I could tell her anything.  Since my eruption, I’ve started keeping things from her, and it hurts.  I think it’s the right call, but it still hurts.   

As I watched (and listened) more closely, I realized that there was another set of people actually there.  At least three separate parent/child pairs had obviously gotten ‘we regret to inform you’ letters and had showed up in person to… appeal?  Contest?  Beg?  There were varied strategies involved. 

One pair was dressed to the nines- designer everything.  There was an unsightly bulge in the woman’s purse that I suspect was meant to be a bribe gift of some kind- a woman doesn’t allow a bag that expensive to get pushed out of shape without a good reason.  Another pair had gone the opposite direction (or maybe they just didn’t have other options).  They were wearing old, raggedy clothes.  Clean, but obviously well-worn.  The kid’s sneaker had a hole in the toe.  If the first pair were going to try and buy their way in, this pair was clearly hoping to play the deserving poor card.  (And who knows?  Maybe they really were exactly as they presented themselves.)  The third pair was the most interesting.  The kid, a nerdy-looking guy who might as well have had ‘victim’ written on his forehead, was already crying quietly.  His mother was watching him with a critical, almost cold attitude.  Instead of comforting him, or suggesting he go calm down in the bathroom, she was actually giving him instructions on how to look more sad.  At one point, his tears seemed to be close to drying, and she leaned over and whispered something in his ear.  I’m sure no one else there heard her, but I sure did.  She was reminding him about when his dog was hit by a car.  She went into nasty detail.  Cue more tears from the guy. 

I was absolutely disgusted.  And I can be petty when I want to be.  I pretended to read a magazine so I could peek over the edges of it at that horrible woman.  No words needed.  No grand gestures.  Certainly no physical contact.  Just a tiny trickle of power.  When they were called back for their appointment, one of her stiletto heels snapped off.  And when she fell, the weakened seams on her skirt tore wide open.  The granny panties were an unexpected bonus.  This wasn’t what Scripture had intended when he taught me to disintegrate things, but I’d be lying if I said I felt more than slightly guilty.

My name was called a few minutes later.

The Dean of Admissions, Dr. Monica Humphries, was a tiny woman.  I towered over her, and I’m not anything close to tall.  She had a bright smile, with enough laugh lines around her eyes to make me think she actually meant it.  Firm handshake, too. 

I’d already sent all of my records ahead, so I wasn’t really bothered when she barely glanced at the printed copies I’d brought with me.  She wasn’t interested in talking about my GPA, test scores, extracurriculars, or anything else school-related.  I’d been a little afraid that she’d ask about why I’d suddenly transferred from my old school to the Academy, but she didn’t.  In hindsight, I guess that makes sense.  Why wouldn’t I have transferred?  To most people, I belong at the Academy, so my transfer was to be expected.   My time with Virginia Western Community College didn’t get much more attention.  We talked briefly about my stopping the gunman, but it was almost perfunctory.

What Dr. Humphries wanted to talk about was a little different.  She wasn’t interested in what I’d done or what I was.  She wanted to know what I planned to do.  Both in the next few years and with my life in general.  My being a nova was part of that, of course, in that it opened up a lot of new options for me, but it wasn’t the main focus. 

So, I told her.  I told her in more detail than I think I’ve ever told anyone else.  I told her about my twin dreams- to be a teacher, and to go into space.  I explained how I didn’t think those dreams were mutually exclusive.  I touched a little on my potential life span, mentioning that eventually humanity would be living more and more of their lives off-planet, and I wanted to be there for it.

I told her bluntly that I understood that a lot of teachers left the profession because they couldn’t earn a good living, the hours were too long, the pace too exhausting.  None of those things were an issue for me.  Fast-paced and long hours are easy when you don’t need to sleep.  Low pay isn’t a problem when you make most of your money doing the occasional ‘superhero side gigs’. 

As for space, I was content to explore during my summers for the foreseeable future.  And eventually, I knew that my profession (like the rest of humanity) would follow me out into space, where I would still be able to teach.  (I didn’t mention Mal’s plan that most if not all novas would leave the planet in about fifty years.  Fifty years is a perfectly respectable professional lifetime, and if my career as a teacher ends then, so be it.   Besides, nova children will need teachers too.)

Then Dr. Humphries started asking me about my personal life.  Well, not my personal life.  She didn’t ask anything really intrusive.  But it was clear that she was trying to find out what kind of person I am.  I answered honestly, even though I left a lot out.  I talked about my friends, my Mom, my cats.  The things I enjoyed doing.  The things I tried to avoid doing. 

We’d been talking for more than half an hour before she asked me what I hoped to get out of Berkeley.  I told her that I’d done my research, and Berkeley was the best school for what I wanted to do, both with teaching and with space exploration.  That I hoped to do a masters degree, and perhaps a doctorate.  That I had a backup school in mind, but Berkeley was my first (and hopefully only) choice.  I talked about the program mostly, but also about the connections that I would forge during my time here.  And sure, I mentioned my interest in campus life and proximity to San Francisco. 

I explained how I’d never lived in a really large city before, and was looking forward to it.  I even talked a little about how I was hoping to be a little less noticeable, day-to-day, in such a large place.  That I was comfortable with who I was, and willing to use what I was for the greater good, but it would be nice if more people saw the who than the what.  At least sometimes.

After all that, Dr. Humphries was… respectably blunt.  She told me straight out that my grades, scores, etc. were enough to earn me consideration for admission to Berkeley- that I would have no chance of admission without them- but that it would be my being a nova that would ‘put me over the top’ and ‘seal the deal’.  She said that she’d been interested in having a nova enrollee for some time, but wanted to be careful as to how that nova presented themselves.  And she wanted more from that nova than just the mutual prestige of their presence.

She laid it out for me. 

She wanted a nova student for her campus.  She wanted that student to be exemplary in every way- excellent scholar, good citizen, exemplar of student life.  And she wanted one other thing- she wanted that nova to be Berkeley’s own private municipal defender. 

I was not expecting that.  But, I found I wasn’t completely opposed, either.  I had a lot of questions. 

First and foremost, What did Rainbow think of this idea?  Does his ‘turf’ include Berkeley?  She said that she’d discussed the matter with him once, in a general way, more than a year ago (so obviously not with me in mind, lol).  He does consider Berkeley (and Oakland, and the other communities surrounding metropolitan San Francisco) to be part of his protectorate.  He also acknowledged that it was too large a space for him to adequately protect alone.  Because of that, he would potentially welcome another nova acting as something like a deputy.  But that he’d want to meet such a nova before anything was finalized.  (That made sense to me.  I mean, I don’t think any municipal defender has the right to tell another nova to stay out of ‘their’ city, but I can understand wanting some input on the matter.)

What, exactly, would I be expected to do as a ‘farm team’ municipal defender?  I have no interest in being a cop, and while I’ve never been especially politically active, Berkeley students have a reputation for getting rowdy with their activism, and I had no interest in squashing that.  Dr. Humphries assured me that Berkeley had a perfectly capable campus police force, and I would not be expected to take on ‘cop duties’.  I would be expected to make myself available in any emergency, similar to my recent experience at Virginia Western, and practice basic situational awareness.  In other words, if I noticed a problem that a readily available campus defender could solve, I should.  She made it sound a lot like being a free-range resident advisor, to be honest.  My main ‘regular’ duty would be to make visible, obvious circuits of the campus- not so much a ‘patrol’, but a way of showing the student body that I was there and available for them.  (Seemed a little weird and pretentious, but I could deal with that, I suppose.)

I had other questions, but they were minor, and I’d taken up a lot of Dr. Humphries’ time already.  Before I could ask anything else, she laid out the rest of the deal- assuming we decided to move forward.  I would be admitted to Berkeley to complete my undergrad degree.  Assuming my relationship with the university was successful, I would be accepted to graduate school under similar terms, the exact details to be worked out then.  During my undergrad period, I would live on campus, in a dorm.  I would have a private room, as my lack of sleeping would be disruptive to any baseline roommate.  I would be expected to carry at least fifteen credit hours per term and maintain at least a ‘C’ average.  I was welcome to join whatever campus organizations I chose, but would not allow any affiliation with such an organization to damage my relationship with the university.  (In other words, I would need to be very careful about any acts of protest or other demonstrations.)  I would be expected to perform regular ‘campus defender’ duties, as previously explained, as well as occasional public appearances, but these would not interfere with my class attendance (outside of emergencies, of course). 

            While Dr. Humphries did not offer me a scholarship, or waive my fees, she did make it clear that the school would absorb any costs that Utopia didn’t cover under my existing contract.  She also made it clear that this meeting was ‘exploratory’.  That we were discussing options, and nothing concrete was being decided on right now.  That nothing could be decided until I’d met with Rainbow, and Utopia had accepted my attendance at Berkeley under my already extant contract with them.  That was all fine with me. 

In short, we left it here: that I wasn’t officially accepted into Berkeley.  That I needed to meet with Rainbow ASAP (and Dean Humphries would set up a meeting soon).  That Utopia would have to be looped in and their contract with me consolidated with the agreement Berkeley would be willing to offer me.  Only if all of these things went as planned would I be in attendance.  (I’m pretty sure most of this was ‘cover your ass’ talk, so I couldn’t come back and say “but you promised!”, and I’m okay with that.) 

So, the next step is meeting Rainbow.  After all, he can’t stop me from attending Berkeley, but he can squash me as his deputy defender, and generally make things difficult if he doesn’t like me.  So that’s next- hopefully next weekend.  Dean Humphries understands about my Academy obligations, but also realizes that time zones are a factor.  So a weekend meeting would be best, but a Tuesday or Thursday evening would work as well.  She’ll let me know once she gets something set up.

And that was that.  I got familiar with a couple of spots on campus that would be out-of-the-way enough for me to teleport into safely, then went back home, fingers crossed for luck all the way.

This was an interesting meeting.  Since I erupted, I’ve always wanted to be treated normally, and not like I was special.  And I’ve known that’s really not possible in any meaningful way.  But today, in a weird way, I got a taste of that.  Dean Humphries made it clear to me that I was not special.  That my achievements, while laudable, weren’t enough to assure my entrance into Berkeley, and definitely wouldn’t win me much in terms of scholarships.  On my own, I’d’ve had to drown myself in student loan debt to get in here, if I was accepted at all. 

She made it clear that my acceptance was almost entirely due to my being a nova.  That should have been more of the exact behavior I’ve been trying to avoid: treating me like I’m special.  But somehow, it wasn’t.  Dean Humphries was pretty up front about it.  She would have made this offer to the first viable nova to come along.  It wasn’t about me.  It wasn’t personal.  She wasn’t interested in Colleen, and was only interested in Heka if Heka was useful to her.  She treated my eruption as a random chance occurrence that just so happened to have landed on me, when it could just as easily have been anyone else.  In short, I am not special. 

And I love that.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, May 19

I tested for 4th Kyu today.  At this point, I’ve pretty much gotten used to the format of testing.  It’s still nothing to take for granted, though.  Being a nova hasn’t helped with aikido at all, other than never being sore after practice, LoL. 

It’s strange.  When I tested the first time, it was with several other people.  I just assumed that most of them would continue at about the same pace, since they were all in regular classes, and there is a minimum number of practice sessions you have to have between testing.  So I assumed I would see most of those people over and over again, and maybe not see many new faces.  But this most recent test, none of the people I tested with the first time were there.  I’m sure there are all kinds of good reasons.  It just took me by surprise. 

I sent Sammi another message about the project.  She hasn’t responded to anything since we met for coffee.  I’d thought that meeting went well at the time.  She seemed a little surprised at my being a nova (we never made eye contact in class, so she probably hadn’t noticed before), but she immediately went into ‘too cool to care’ mode, the way some of the rich kids at my old school did when they talked about meeting sports figures or musicians.  So our meeting was, if not successful, at least not a disaster.  I don’t think she went away hating me, LoL.  But there’s been absolutely no communication since then. 

I’ve scheduled a meeting with the instructor for tomorrow after class.  If Sammi gets back to me between now and then, great.  If not, I’ll explain to him what’s going on, show him my completed assignments on my laptop, and ask to turn any or all of them in.  If Sammi comes through later, well, we can cross that bridge if we come to it.

I’ve been a little petty, too.  The projects that I sent to Sammi were perfectly adequate.  They fulfilled the requirements of the rubric, and looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.  But I knew even as I sent them to her that they weren’t my best work.  They were ‘C’ efforts at best, by my standards.  So tonight I went back and improved them.  A lot.  I’m not sure I would call them ‘A’ work, in my mind.  But then again, I’m not sure that following the rubric allowed for the kind of project that would be worth an ‘A’ to me.  Either way, I’m a lot happier with these new versions. I don’t plan on sending the updated files to Sammi.  If she gets back to me, we’ll talk about it.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, May 20

Still no word from Sammi, so I went to my meeting.  In class, the instructor, Prof. Daniels, had seemed utterly bored and checked out.  He obviously doesn’t want to be teaching this class (I can’t blame him.)  In office hours, one on one, he’s a little better.  At least, he’s a little more animated.  

I explained the trouble I was having getting Sammi to respond to me, the efforts I’d made to work with her, and my concern that her non-participation would impact my grade.  Then I brought out the laptop and showed him my three OpNet site projects (the updated versions).  I asked him if I could go ahead and submit any or all of these now, on my own, for credit, assuring him that if Sammi ever responded to me, I would be willing to work with her.

He didn’t seem surprised by her lack of effort.  Apparently she hasn’t turned in any of the other assignments either.  (Maybe she doesn’t have Barry The Tutor around to do her work anymore?)  He told me to go ahead and upload all three of my files, since I’d put in the work; and assured me that I would be graded on them alone.  If Sammi turned in versions of my files that she’d made some actual changes to, so be it- she’d be graded accordingly.  If she turned in exact copies of my earlier (poorer) work, well, that would be a problem. 

So, I uploaded all three of my projects to the class site right there in front of him, then emailed the ‘rough draft’ files that I’d sent Sammi, so he’d know if she’d made any changes. 

And that was that.  Unless Sammi unexpectedly reaches out to me, I’m finished with How To Computer.  Oh, and Statistics uploaded its final exam, so I took it tonight as well.  So I’m functionally finished with my second term of college. 

Chapter Text

Thursday, May 21

There’re still a lot of patrols around the grounds.  And more lights and movements near the observatory.  I really want to go investigate that, but every time I’m about to, something stops me- a feeling, not quite like my buzzy tingly sense, but close.  On some deep, gut level, I know that going over there, no matter how carefully, would end badly for me. 

I almost want to bring it up to the others- with all our skills combined, I’m sure we could figure out what was going on without being caught.  But I can’t fully trust them.  After all, whatever is happening is pretty obviously Utopia business, and we technically have no cause to stick our noses in.  And even if I was sure I could trust, even some of them, there’s no place I can think of where we could talk without being overheard. 

Dean Humphries contacted me.  If I can make it on ‘such short notice’, she can arrange a meeting with Rainbow for tomorrow night.  I would have said yes even if I wasn’t pretty sure that the short notice was deliberate, and maybe some kind of test.

Chapter Text

Friday, May 22

My meeting with Rainbow took place at a fancy restaurant that (apparently) he goes to fairly often.  Dean Humphries just gave me the name of the place, and what time to be there, leaving me to figure the rest out for myself.  Another test?  Probably not, but maybe.  More likely, they were just assuming a basic level of competence on my part.  So I did the research.  Got the address, looked at pictures of the place (to see what people were wearing there), and had a look at the menu. 

There were no prices listed.  Bailey’s parents would occasionally invite me out to fancy dinners with them, so I knew what that meant- the meal was almost certainly going to cost more than the rent on our apartment. 

That got me to thinking strategy.  Logically, since Rainbow (via Dean Humphries) was inviting me, he should be the one to pay.  And certainly, he could afford it more than I could.  The question was, do I let him?  I haven’t spent much of my monthly Utopia stipend, so I could certainly afford a ridiculously expensive dinner.  I could offer to split the check, establishing my own independence and rejecting the symbolic ‘debt’.  I could offer to treat him, but that’s a bad idea.  It would look like I was either trying to bribe him somehow, or making a show of myself.  But letting him pay for me puts me on an inferior footing (never mind that if this works out he’ll absolutely be the senior member of whatever relationship we establish).  Eventually I decided I was overthinking the whole thing and would just see what happens. 

The people shown eating there were fancier than anything I had in my wardrobe, but Eufiber makes that a non-issue.  I opted for an understated dress in my ‘signature’ colors, form-fitted but not too revealing.  Dress for the job you’re trying for, rather than the one you have, right? 

I teleported easily to one of the spots I’d picked out for myself on the Berkeley campus, then flew the rest of the way to the restaurant.  I walked the last block.  I wasn’t really sure what to do when I got there (I was a few minutes early), so I just kinda hovered (not physically) around the front entrance.  A host (maître d? concierge?) popped out almost immediately, asked if I was ‘Ms. Heka’, and brought me in to a small table set a little apart from the others.  The place was busy, but not packed, and I was glad to see that I’d judged the dress requirements correctly- I was probably the least elegantly dressed person there, but not by enough to raise any eyebrows.  I looked like I fit in, but would never stand out.  Perfect. 

The maître d seated me, told me that Rainbow was expected any moment, and asked that if I needed anything this evening, to speak with him personally.  (Is this normal for classy restaurants?  Somehow I didn’t think so, but I’ve never been in a place this nice before.) 

Rainbow showed up a few minutes later.  Is ‘twink’ a word that only the LGBT community is allowed to use?  Because I’m pretty sure if you looked up ‘twink’ in the dictionary, you’d find Rainbow’s glamor shot. 

He was average height, I guess, but looked taller for being so slim.  Most novas are ‘defined’, even the ones that don’t work out and aren’t especially buff.  But this guy went beyond ‘toned’ to ‘sculpted’, all without muscling up and looking lumpy.  I was half expecting him to make an entrance and draw all the attention, but he didn’t.  In fact, I wasn’t even sure it was him until the same maître d brought him over to my table. 

This really was the most awkward mishmash of social meetings.  Part job interview, part business meeting, part getting-to-know-you social occasion, part recruitment drive.  About the only element missing was ‘first date’.  We had the expected small talk as we looked at the menu and gave our orders.  I chose a pasta with lamb ragu.  Apparently Rainbow has the usual nova appetite, since he ordered a steak, some kind of calamari dish, and pappardelle with sea urchin.  He must eat here at least semi-regularly, since our waiter didn’t react to all of this.  At that point I also realized why we were at a table sized for four, but with only our two seats.  Rainbow was going to need all that room for his dinner. 

I had done a little bit of research on Rainbow when I found out I would need his approval for Dean Humphries’ little ‘workstudy program’.  He’s part of the Queer Nova Alliance.  He’s very specifically not associated with Project Utopia, though he makes a point to not be at odds with them.  In fact, other than QNA, his only real loyalty seems to be to the city he defends (and to be honest, I’m not sure if that’s anything more than just a job he happens to be good at).  He’s been a nova for about five years, and San Francisco’s Municipal Defender for three.  His powers (as publicly demonstrated, anyway) involve manipulating light, creating force fields, and running really really fast.  I’m not sure if he’s quantum-ly flexible, or just a highly skilled gymnast. 

He’s carefully, almost vehemently, outside of local politics, never endorses anybody, but is outspoken on LGBT causes (naturally), as well as advocating for undocumented immigrants and the homeless.  As far as his municipal defending goes, he mostly takes a ‘don’t start none, won’t be none’ attitude to trouble in his city.  Anyone is welcome, but everyone is expected to behave themselves.  Interestingly enough, ‘behave themselves’ might not mean quite what I expected.  I found a lot of stories about, uhm, specialized social events that he not only didn’t squash, but sometimes actively encouraged, even to the point where they ‘spilled out’ into society at large.  It seems that novas occasionally inconveniencing others in pursuit of a good time is acceptable, as long as no one gets hurt and property damage is minimal and compensated.  Interesting.  Maybe a certain amount of excess acts like a pressure valve? 

I had assumed this would be something like a job interview.  I thought I would be expected to ‘sell’ myself as a good candidate for this odd position.  That wasn’t what happened at all.  Instead, we talked.  Just talked.  And not really even about nova stuff.  Just… stuff.  Life.  Love.  School.  Friends.  Goals.  Hopes.  Fears.  Just talked.  And it was a real dialogue, too.  Neither one of us monopolizing the conversation. 

I’ll admit, I lost track of time.  (The food was great, by the way.)  Before I knew it, it was nearly midnight and the restaurant was obviously in ‘wind down’ mode.  Nobody was hovering or trying to encourage us to leave, but no new diners were being seated and I could hear the kitchen noises change from ‘prep mode’ to ‘recover mode’.  When I (hesitantly) mentioned the time, Rainbow just ginned and said it was fine, we wouldn’t be here much longer.  Then he asked me the only question that I could even consider ‘interview-ish’.  What would you do if you saw a group of Berkeley students hassling a homeless person? 

Well, that was easy enough.  I told him that I’d intervene.  That my first priority would be to make sure the homeless person wasn’t in immediate danger.  Then I’d deal with the students.  ‘How’ would depend on exactly what they’d been doing.  Once they were delt with, at least in the short term, then I’d see what, if anything I could do to help the homeless person- get them to a shelter, get them a meal, put them in touch with appropriate services.  If the Berkeley students’ behavior was anything even marginally actionable, I’d make the appropriate campus authorities aware of the issue.  If the students’ activities were actually criminal, I’d involve the cops as well. (If I’m being honest, I doubt the cops would really care, especially since it would mean taking action against the probable scions of privilege.  But I’d still at least want to try to handle things the ‘right’ way.)

I wasn’t sure if I’d said something wrong, because Rainbow started making ‘this evening is coming to an end’ moves soon after- finishing the last of his drink, asking if I would like anything to go, and so on.  It turns out that I hadn’t needed to worry about payment etiquette- Rainbow owns the restaurant!  As we were heading toward the door, he said, very casually, that he thought I would be a good choice for Dean Humphries’ idea of a ‘farm team’ campus defender, and he thought that we would work well together when needed.

And that was pretty much that.  I thanked him for the dinner, and talk, and hoped that everything would work out for my attendance at Berkeley.  Once we got outside, there was a small group of people hanging around, obviously hoping to see Rainbow.  (I guess owning a restaurant makes it easier to arrange sightings, LoL.) 

He spent a couple of minutes shaking hands and taking pictures, and even introduced me into the process.  I wasn’t thrilled about that, but whatever.  If this is the next phase of my life, I’ll need to get used to being out in public as a nova again, and in a larger way.  And these people were relatively cool- no groping, and only one weird selfie request.

Once Rainbow had ‘put in his time’, he playfully shooed everyone away and literally ran off at superhuman speed.  I figured that was permission, so I waved goodbye to the remaining crowd and flew off. 

Since I was already in town, I decided to visit the sea lions again.  It being pretty late at night, they were all asleep in piles.  Very cute.  Very smelly.

By the time I’d gotten back home, some of those pictures in front of the restaurant had already been uploaded to the Heka’s Home forum.  Luckily not by Watch_th3_Skys, though.  I think I’d’ve really freaked out if he’d been able to follow me across country on such short notice.  Of course, I haven’t done anything noteworthy lately, so maybe he’s finally given up?

Chapter Text

Wednesday, May 27

Well, the ‘How To Computer’ project was due today, and Sammi never once got back to me about it.  I’m glad I re-did my work and turned it in early.  Prof. Daniels emailed me today, asking if Sammi and I had worked any further on the project, beyond the ‘rough drafts’ I’d sent to her or the ‘final copies’ I’d turned in on my own.  I responded that we hadn’t, and that I hadn’t heard a thing from her after our one in-person meeting, despite several attempts at contact on my part.  His reply, “Thank you for providing this information” was so carefully neutral that I suspect something nasty is going on behind the scenes.  My ass is covered, but I’ll bet Sammi tried to turn in one of my roughs as either ‘our’ work, or all her own. 

I’m sure that school privacy policies mean that I won’t ever hear anything specific on the subject.  I suppose I could go snoop around in the digital files, but honestly?  I don’t really care.  I made the effort to work with her.  I went out of my way to re-humanize her in my own mind.  And I ensured that my own grades and academic future weren’t even slightly at risk.  Whatever else happens really isn’t my problem.

Prof Daniels also said that while the grades won’t be officially posted until Friday, he was comfortable telling me that I’d aced the course.  So that’s done.

My Statistics final was graded- 99%.  I looked back at the question I missed, and the way it was worded was questionable, but it isn’t worth contesting. 

This term’s classes were basically make-work, and I’m glad I got them out of the way so quickly.  I’ll see if there are any other requirements like that for the summer term.  The more dull, required-to-graduate-but-otherwise-pointless classes I can get taken care of before going to Berkeley, the better.

I saw my advisor (Lt. Riggs is getting more and more okay with my missing the tactical exercises, as long as it’s ‘for school’) today.  After a little argument, I’m signed up for the summer term.  I’ll be taking Eng 112- College Composition II (3 credits), PLS 135- U.S. Government and Politics (3 credits), NAS 132- Astronomy: Stars and Galaxies (4 credits with lab), and Eng 225- Reading Literature: Culture and Ideas (3 credits).  I wanted to take CST 100- Principles of Public Speaking (3 credits) as well, but that has an on-campus component, and the only time slots it was offered was during prime Academy class time.  No way will Riggs be okay with that. 

Even without the Public Speaking, this will put me a full year ahead for college.  If all goes as well next year, I should be able to enter Berkeley as a Junior.  In a way, I’m a little sad about that.  I’m already missing my ‘senior experience’ in high school.  Now, I’m going to be half of my actual college experience.  I suppose that living on campus and having all the new things happen counts as a ‘freshman experience’ no matter what year you are when it happens, but still, it’s a little sad.  I’ll already be leaving my high school friends behind (even more than I already have), and having such an abbreviated time in college won’t leave much opportunity for new friendships to really take root- and don’t people say that college is where you make the friends you’ll keep for the rest of your life?  

Maybe I’m pushing myself too hard, too fast.  I can handle the work- that’s not an issue.  But will I regret missing the social component later?  Somehow, I doubt that graduate studies will offer the same opportunities

Chapter Text

Sunday, May 31

It was a good weekend.  I was hanging out with the girls at the beach, just bumming around and having fun in the sun.  Monique tried to use me as a surfboard, with questionable results.  (I didn’t know she could pinch with her toes!)

I was facedown in the ocean with Monique standing on my back when I saw the shark.  I surfaced immediately, dumping her into the water, but I barely paid attention to her spluttering and yelling.  She was fine, and I scooped her out and we made a beeline back to shore.  As soon as she was out of the water, I went back in.  I figured it was best to get rid of the shark without causing a panic, if possible.

Even with my enhanced vision, it was surprisingly hard to find.  Sonar was more useful- sharks have almost perfect camouflage.  But I did find it.  It was about seven feet long, and cruising around just past the breakers.  Well within where people swam.  I really wished Puppy was there, or Shift.  Either of them could have talked to it and at least asked it to go away.  All I could do was try to chase it off. 

Which wasn’t terribly effective.  As soon as I stopped following it, it would turn and swim back toward all the splashing.  Finally, I gave up and went to Plan B.  I stopped chasing it and waited for it to turn around.  Then I grabbed it and teleported.  About fifty miles straight out into the ocean.  When I let it go, it circled me a couple of times, and I thought it was going to try and bite me.  But instead it just swam off, deeper into the ocean.  Good enough for me. 

I don’t know if this shark would have hurt anyone, and I didn’t want to hurt it.  For all I know, it was swimming along, enjoying the day, just like everyone else.  But I couldn’t take the chance, and this way was safer for everyone.

I flew back overland and invisible, and rejoined the girls.  Monique was still complaining about getting dunked, and Jess was wondering where I was.  Of course, I explained what had happened, and Monique stopped bitching. 

They didn’t want to get back in the water after that, for some reason.

Tonight I emailed Erica.  I explained everything that had happened with Berkeley, and the tentative arrangements I’d made with Dean Humphries, with Rainbow’s tacit support.  I reminder her of the clause in my Utopia contract that they’d pay for my college education after I graduated next year, and let her know that it was time to get the ball rolling on that. 

She emailed me back about an hour later, congratulating me on my ‘forward thinking’, and saying that she would take care of the next steps. 

So that’s it, for now.  On the one hand, I have an entire year to get this done.  On the other hand, I want to get it locked down as soon as possible, as a way of making sure it happens at all. 

I have no reason to think that Utopia won’t honor the contract I signed.  But I also have no doubt that if they decided they needed to weasel out of it, they’d find a way.  The sooner everything is settled, the better.  If nothing else, my getting started this early will bring it home to everyone involved just how serious I am about attending. 

Chapter Text

Thursday, June 4 (Field Promotion)

Well, it finally happened.  What I’d been dreading.  I’ll try to take it step by step, as it happened.  It started yesterday, Wednesday, but I’m only just getting time to write everything down. 

I pretty much always keep my Utopia communicator set to ‘vibrate’ and ‘emergency only’, especially while I’m on the Academy campus.  After all, if there’s anyplace that Utopia always knows where to find me, it’s there.  I’d noticed there were an unusual number of alerts vibrating against my forearm, but nothing overrode the ‘emergency only’ restriction, so I’d been ignoring them.  The class was a boring discussion of nova ‘guidance’ of Russia’s rebuilt economy.  Dull, but not so dull that I was looking for a reason to not pay attention. 

Then Lt. Riggs’ radio went off, saying that there were people from Utopia on the grounds and on their way to the classroom.

This was new, and weird.  So of course we were all perked up and paying attention.  I’ll admit, I had a moment of entirely irrational dread.  I thought for sure they’d somehow found out about my Teragen connections.  For a split second, I thought about just poofing out of there.  But I knew that if this wasn’t about me (and there really was no good reason the think it was), then running would only stir up suspicions.  So I just sat tight and waited with the others, telling myself that whatever was happening had nothing to do with me. 

But it did.  Out of nowhere, for the first time since the apartment fire, I was being called in to ‘work’.

These two guys, young men in their late twenties, and so close to identical they might have been twins, came into the classroom without bothering to knock.  They were wearing oh-so-carefully-not-military uniforms, and weren’t obviously armed.  But everything about their body language screamed ‘soldier’.  They reminded me of younger, stiffer, versions of Riggs.  One of them stayed by the door while the other whispered to Riggs.  I could hear them perfectly, but I doubt anyone else (other than Sapphire) could. 

Soldier One whispered to Riggs that they were here for Heka, and might need to come back for Guardião, so have him ready to leave without notice.  Soldier Two did that staring-into-the-middle-distance thing that soldiers do when they don’t want to make eye contact with anybody.

Riggs didn’t batt an eye.  Just told me to go with them, right now.  I caught Sapphire’s eye and sort of cut my eyes over to Guardião a couple of times.  She nodded, a tiny bit.  I hope we’re on the same page, and she’ll warn him that they might be coming back for him.

In a way, the idea that they might be coming back for Guardião made me less nervous.  Yeah, it was a problem that whatever was going on might require a healer, but if Guardião is involved, whatever this is almost certainly isn’t about me and my ‘extracurricular friendships’.  So I went with them without asking any questions.  Not that I think they would have answered me if I’d asked. 

Soldiers One and Two flanked me and hustled me out the main gate and into a black SUV.  That got me a little nervous again, but there was nothing strange about the car to my buzzy tingly sense. 

In the car, there was an older man in a fancier version of Soldiers One and Two’s uniforms.  He introduced himself as Lieutenant Colonel Randal Potter.  Of course, I asked what was going on, and he said that he’d been assigned to collect me and bring me to the airport.  I was being placed on ‘special assignment’ in accordance with the emergency clauses in my Utopia contract.  He made it pretty clear that I didn’t have a choice in all this.  He said that I’d be briefed on the mission once we were in the air. 

And that was all he’d say. 

Roanoke’s airport was pretty small, but crowded, and it didn’t take long to figure out why.  No flights were coming in or out, so passengers were backing up in the airport.  Parked on one of the two runways was a fancy jet- something I’d never seen before.  I don’t know anything about planes, but this one looked quasi-military, and had funny shaped engines.  Later I found out it had VTOL capability, though it took off like regular.

My buzzy tingly sense still wasn’t going off, so I was fairly sure nothing would be able to stop me if I just made a run for it.  But I was still pretty nervous.  I was weirdly excited, too, which surprised me.  Whatever was going on, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it, but I darn sure wanted to find out more!

I was hustled onto the plane along with Potter, Solider One and Soldier Two.  We took off within minutes.  We’d been in the air for about fifteen minutes when Potter finally explained what was going on, and I thought I’d crap my pants.  

I was being called out to meet up with Team Tomorrow Central for a low-key mission.  Well, part of T2M-Central, anyway.  It seems the entire team wasn’t involved.  This was going to be Caestus Pax, Psyche, Lightning... and me.  I was afraid I understood then why they ‘might need to come back for Guardião’.  I know Pax is tough enough to survive just about anything, and the other two are highly experienced novas, but none of them had any kind of healing abilities (to my knowledge).  From the Academy classes, I understood that T2M usually took the field with a bunch of support staff that (I assumed) included a healer. 

But this time was different.  Not only was the full Central team not going to be present, they would be going in with limited ground support.  In fact, this was meant to be a relatively low-key mission.  Sort of.  I found out later that ‘low-key’ didn’t mean ‘no media’. 

So, where were we going?  Tanzania.  Specifically, a stretch of mostly uninhabited land that was used for rich people to go big game hunting.  I was going to be meeting the others about twenty miles away from the site for a final briefing, but the basics of my task were pretty simple.  It was exactly what I’d been doing at the Academy tacticals for the last several weeks, in fact: fly around, invisible, and drain a target’s quantum energy by swooping past and ‘buzzing’ them.  Simple, in theory.  In practice, not so much.

The ‘not so much’?  The target.  Pursuer.  The Elite.  More specifically, the Elite who’d seriously injured Pele, and hurt Caestus Pax when they clashed in Nigeria.  One of the most dangerous Elites out there, next to Totentanz.  Pax and T2M Central were going to take him down.  And I was expected to help.

Let me interrupt the chronological narrative here to explain something I had no idea about at the time, but found out after.  I’d known about Pursuer hurting Pele really badly during a fight in Nigeria.  I’d heard about him hurting Pax, but it was brushed aside as ‘no big deal’.  What I hadn’t known was just how long Caestus Pax can carry a grudge. 

You’d think that a group of people who make either hurting people or fighting people who hurt people their jobs would just sorta... expect to get hurt on the job.  That’s one of the many reasons I don’t want any part of T2M.  In a weird way, high powered nova fights are almost like sporting events- very dangerous sporting events.  People get hurt.  Most of the time, they get better and come back to play again.  Sometimes, the injuries are career-ending.  Occasionally, people die.  (I’m not being callous about that.  People die on football fields, too.  Nobody thinks it will happen to them, but they all acknowledge, on some level, the possibility.)  I would have thought that there’d be a certain amount of acceptance and even respect between fighters, especially ones who meet over and over again on different sides of various conflicts.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t think they would really take injuries personally.  In Pax’s case, at least, I was very, very wrong. 

Because Pax has held a grudge against Pursuer since the Nigeria incident.  And not even in a “you hurt my teammate’ sense, either.  This was purely personal.  The official records don’t go into much detail, but I did some digging and got at least the bare bones of the story.  Pursuer has gravity control powers.  He used those to increase gravity in a small area, catching Pele and Pax.  Pax was tough enough to make it out with only some broken ribs.  Pele... wasn’t.  She nearly died.  And this was before T2M travelled with a huge entourage (in fact, I think this is what made the off-camera entourage happen), so there wasn’t anyone immediately available to help Pele. 

Pursuer is... a professional.  He does the job he’s paid for, and nothing more.  It isn’t personal with him.  I couldn’t find out exactly what he’d been hired to do that day, but whatever it was, he was able to do it while Pax and Pele were pinned down in his gravity field.  Once he’d done whatever it was, he just... left. 

Once he was far enough away, his gravity field collapsed, and Pax and Pele were freed.  Pax had to have seen how badly Pele was hurt.  He had to have.  But instead of trying to help her, or getting her to safety, he went after Pursuer, leaving Pele lying on the ground, maybe dying. 

Even injured, maybe Pax could have taken Pursuer.  I don’t know.  Pax certainly seemed to think so.  But Pursuer had enough of a lead that Pax had to fly after him.  And apparently gravity powers are a problem for fliers (wish I’d known that at the time).  So every time Pax got close enough to Pursuer, Pursuer would slam him out of the air with another gravity field.  I don’t know if Pax was eventually too hurt to continue the chase, if Pursuer somehow escaped, or if Pax finally had second thoughts about abandoning Pele, but ultimately Pursuer got away, Pele survived, and Pax has had it out for Pursuer ever since.

Well, it turns out that T2M-Central had gotten a tip that Pursuer was vacationing in Tanzania, hunting.  As in, big game hunting.  In an isolated game preserve.  I don’t really know how legal anything that happened yesterday was.  Elites are mercenaries, by definition.  That’s not illegal in itself.  Novas are subject to war crime law, like anyone else.  But it seems like a lot of what Elites do falls into a gray area of legality at best.  (Now that I think about it, this is a pretty gaping hole in the Academy curriculum.)  That being said, Pursuer seems to be relatively careful and even somewhat honorable as an Elite.  He wrecks what he’s sent to wreck, kills who he’s sent to kill, and keeps the mayhem and collateral damage to a minimum.   In other words, I’m not sure if there’s anything like an actual warrant out for Pursuer’s arrest or detainment, or anything.  He's a soldier, not a wanton killer.  I’m not sure he’s actually committed any war crimes or done anything else to make T2M hunt him down.  In short, I don’t think T2M-Central had any business doing what they did to him.  What we(?) did to him. 

Anyway, back to the story. 

The plane landed in an open field in what I can only assume was the Tanzanian wilderness.  There were several sturdy trucks and about thirty non-Utopian baselines milling around (low-key, indeed).  They’d been there long enough to pitch a sun shade and break out food, but there weren’t any actual tents or anything.  This wasn’t a camp, it was a staging ground.  There was none of the small army of Team Tomorrow support staff that Lt. Riggs had told us accompanied any T2M field activities.  Did that mean this wasn’t an official T2M engagement?

Pax had Lightning and Psyche off to one side, studying a map on a table.  Psyche seemed to be arguing with him a little, but not being confrontational about it.  They both shut up as Potter brought me over to the group.  Pax had been frowning when he looked up, but he put his ‘PR face’ on once he saw us.  And it was a PR face.  It was like watching a comfortable mask slipping into place.  He met Potter with handshakes and (careful) shoulder slaps before turning his full attention on me.

And it was overwhelming.  What Alex had a little, and the Apostle wielded like a bludgeon, Pax used like a scalpel.  Before meeting him, just from watching him on the OpNet, I had thought he was a bossy creep who had a major stick up his ass.  Sitting here now, the next day, typing all this out, I know he’s an authoritarian asshole with a steel girder up his ass.  But on that open field under the hot African sun, he was the most amazing, admirable person I could ever hope to encounter, and just for a moment, I wanted to be just like him.  And thinking about that now, sickens me.

I’m going to try and separate what I think and feel now from what I thought and felt then as best I can.  Because in the moment, everything was overwhelming, and it all happened so fast.  I didn’t really have time to think or reflect.  Not that I’m trying to excuse myself.  I don’t think what any of us did was right, but I’m not completely sure it was wrong either.  Reflecting on it afterward, all I can say for sure is that it felt… dirty.  Cheap. 

I don’t really want to go into detail about how Pax behaved toward me.  So let me just say that he acted like a perfect gentleman, along with an absolutely demanding commanding officer.  He was completely respectful while making it clear that I was there to follow orders and nothing resembling questioning or insubordination would be tolerated.  But it was all very polite and affable.  Looking back, I can see the condescension, but I didn’t at the time.  At the time, it all seemed perfectly reasonable.  I was young, after all.  Inexperienced.  This was a dangerous mission with a dangerous foe.  (Yes, he actually said ‘foe’.)

Pax was weirdly intent on my understanding that he could handle this entire mission without me- without anyone else, in fact.  And it was only T2M regulations that had brought Psyche and Lightning with him.  I was simply here to speed up the process of Pax’s inevitable victory (and, I found out later, to make it more impressive for the cameras). 

Pax impressed upon me the need for me to stay invisible at all times.  He phrased it as being for my safety, but in hindsight, I think it was to boost his image.  This was about him settling an old grudge, and doing it on camera.  It wouldn’t help his image to have an unknown girl nipping around his target like a rodeo barrelman distracting a bull.  With that in mind, I don’t know why he still insisted that I wear the T2M uniform.  At the time, I didn’t question it.  With three examples in front of me, it was easy to just shift my Eufiber to match.  I carefully didn’t include the T2M patches, though.  I don’t deserve them, I haven’t earned them, and I don’t want them.  Pax either didn’t notice or didn’t care. 

Potter had drifted away somewhere, and it says something about how much of my attention Pax commanded that I hadn’t even noticed him go.  Pax introduced me to Lightning and Psyche.  Lightning seemed like a good guy that I wouldn’t mind getting to know a little better, especially since his electrical powers are so different than my own ability to convert quantum energy into electrical current.  I’d like to talk to him about that someday. 

Psyche seemed friendly enough, but I kept catching her staring at me when she thought I wasn’t looking.  Maybe she doesn’t like working with ‘amateurs’?  I could certainly understand that.  It must be unsettling, going into a dangerous situation with someone you don’t know, and don’t know it you can count on.  I’d feel the same way if a new student suddenly showed up at the Academy and had to be included in our tactical exercises.  Even though our teamwork (and Stinger’s plans) still aren’t great, at least I know what the others are capable of. 

There wasn’t much time for getting to know each other.  Pax was fully engaged with his plan to catch Pursuer.  It was pretty simple.  Pax was going to engage him directly, in close combat.  Lightning was going to stay further away, and zap with his lightning bolts at range.  Psyche was also going to stay further away and launch some kind of psychic attacks.  (Later I noticed that this arrangement would make it look like Pax was the only one doing any ‘real’ fighting, but I didn’t pick up on it at the time.)  It seemed reasonable.  Neither Lightning not Psyche were as tough as Pax, and their powers worked better at range.  I was supposed to stay in the air, invisible, and do exactly what I’d done in training- steal Pursuer’s quantum energy in a series of flyby attacks.  Again, Pax assured me that all I was doing was speeding up Pax’s victory.  My weaking Pursuer wasn’t giving Pax any advantage, it was simply a time-saving measure. Looking back, it seems more like sticking those lances into the bull to slow it down before the matador goes in for the kill with his sword.

There really wasn’t much to it.  Pursuer was known to be hunting alone, and had been for several days.  There were very few people in the area, and no buildings, so the possibility of civilian casualties or property damage was nearly nonexistent.  Apparently Pursuer has enhanced senses, so sneaking up on him wasn’t really any option.  Instead, Pax was going to fly in, full speed, carrying Lightning and Psyche.  He’d drop them off at range and go straight for Pursuer.  I was to fly in as fast as I could, note where Lightning and Psyche were staged, and hold position until Pax actually started his attack.  Then all I had to do was stay out of Lightning and Psyche’s line of fire and do my thing.

Several of the baselines were loading up, and that was when I noticed it- two of the trucks were those open-sided things like you see carrying tourists on safari tours.  And most of the baselines hopping into those trucks had photography equipment.  That was when I really understood.  They were heading out now, under pretense of being a safari tour, so they would be close enough to cover the fight when the time came.  Pax had set this whole thing up- not just to take down Pursuer, but to get the whole thing on film.  No wonder he wanted me there.  My weakening Pursuer would make Pax look that much better.  And even then, Pax’s presence was just so… present that I couldn’t come up with more than a vague feeling of disquiet about the whole thing. 

As the fake safari headed out, I noticed again the lack of a T2M support team.  I didn’t say anything about it, of course, but I happened to overhear Lightning complaining to Psyche about it.  How going out understaffed was against regulations, and was a bad idea, especially considering what had happened to Pele.  Psyche just shushed him and told him to stay on task.  That Pax had everything under control. 

Pax let the safari get far enough ahead that they’d be fairly close to Pursuer before gathering up Lightning and Psyche.  He asked if I was ready, and as soon as I nodded, he took off.  I know from OpNet videos that Pax can put on a burst of speed that makes mine look like I’m going backwards.  But that’s not what he did.  He flew off, fast, but not window-shattering fast (not that we had any windows handy).  So I was actually able to keep up pretty well.  I’m sure he would have beaten me easily in an actual race, but as it was, I was only about a hundred feet behind and above him. 

We zoomed over the bushes and little clumps of trees, and overtook the fake safari.  Pax dropped off Lightning and Psyche, and I got more height, circling well above them and out of the way (invisible, of course). 

I thought Pax would just slam straight into Pursuer and get it over with, but he didn’t.  Instead, he took some time to, well, in hindsight I can only call it posturing.  He was waiting for the cameras to get some good shots while he mocked and threatened Pursuer.  At the time, I didn’t really see it that way.  In the moment, it seemed like Pax was sincerely giving Pursuer the chance to surrender peacefully.  But I don’t think anyone expected that to actually succeed.  And I’m certain Pax didn’t want it to.  He just wanted to be able to say that he’d given Pursuer a chance. 

I’m pretty sure Pursuer knew that, too.  He spotted the fake safari, and if I could see the sun glinting off all the camera equipment, I’m sure he could too.  He knew he was being set up.  Still, he carried himself well.  He told Pax, loudly enough that all the reporters would hear, that he’d done nothing wrong, and there was no warrant for his arrest.  He was here on vacation, and Pax’s presence there today could be construed as harassment.  He managed a couple of pointed remarks about the unprofessionalism of holding grudges (which is what led me to do my research after everything was over).  But I think everybody knew it was posturing. 

When Pax had had enough (and was sure the reporters would have a good angle), he suddenly drove in close with Pursuer.  Psyche and Lightning took up ‘action’ stances, but didn’t do anything.  I hovered about thirty feet above Pursuer. 

I can only assume that Pax had learned from his previous encounter, because he came at Pursuer on foot, rather than from the air.  Even so, I could see the sudden heightened effect of gravity on him.  Lightning was caught in the very edge of the gravity field and had to reposition.  Pax’s forward momentum slowed to something not much faster than a baseline could manage, but he still came close enough to land the first punch. 

Which was the cue for everyone else to open up.  I’ll admit, I hung back for a moment.  I knew Pax would want to be close and fight hand-to-hand, so I wasn’t worried about stray attacks from him.  But I wanted an idea of what to expect from Lightning and Psyche. 

Lightning’s attacks were straightforward enough.  He… threw lightning.  Almost like throwing javelins.  Most of them hit Pursuer, but they didn’t seem to do any good.  Pursuer wasn’t wearing any obvious body armor, and there was too much quantum energy in the air for me to try and figure out if he was wearing Eufiber, but I assume he has some kind of armor or damage-absorbing power.  He pretty much ignored Lightning. 

Psyche was different.  She just… stared at Pursuer, and pointed at him every few seconds with her thumbs and two pointer fingers forming a triangle.  Whatever she was doing seemed to have a little more effect that Lightning’s attacks- at least, Pursuer looked like he had a headache. 

But Pax was obviously doing the lion’s share of the ‘work’.  Which reminded me that I had work to do as well.  So, I started my first pass. 

I hadn’t been sure whether I should even make passes and touch him.  I don’t actually need to.  I’ve just allowed Utopia to think I need physical contact.  But in this case, actually coming close enough to touch Pursuer would not only make it obvious that I was there, it would also get me too close to Pax for comfort.  I opted to split the difference and do the passes, but not actually reach out and touch anyone. 

The first pass went fine, swooping down, then immediately twisting away in a different direction.  Pursuer knew something was up immediately.  I knew he couldn’t see me, but he obviously was aware there was a fourth opponent on the field. 

On my second pass, he fired what I can only describe as a bolt of gravity in my general direction.  It caught me in the side as I tried to dodge- even a glancing blow still hurt.  I darted away and hovered for a moment, and no further attacks came.  Then I got it- he was listening to the sound the air made around me as I swooped in.  It was something I had made sure to avoid with Flamestrike, but I’d forgotten to go slow now. 

I came in low and slow on my third pass, drained more of Pursuer’s quantum power, but got caught in the gravity field he’d thrown up around Pax.  I was tough enough (and it wasn’t centered on me) that I could feel my ribs straining, but not breaking.  But there I was, on the ground, and not strong enough to move away. 

Then I realized that I didn’t have to actually move.  My teleporting made a definite noise, and I think that might have distracted Pursuer, because Pax got in a nasty punch.  I’d ‘ported about forty feet straight up and instead of getting right back into the fight, I came down slow and worked out the edges of the gravity field.  It only took a few seconds- Pursuer was focusing on intensity, not coverage. 

After that, I was able to make three more successful passes, coming in slowly enough to not stir the breeze.  But he still managed to hit me again.  He was still able to sense me, and I couldn’t figure out how.  (Later I realized that he was probably tracking me by scent.)  The second time he hit me, I actually had to move quantum around to heal myself.  But after drawing off his own power, I had plenty to spare.  I’m just glad that almost all of his focus was on Pax.  I’m sure that if Pursuer had been able to really pay attention to me, he’d’ve killed me.  Then again, if Pax wasn’t -erm- pursuing his grudge, I wouldn’t be here in the first place….

After that, things happened really fast.  I made several more passes, got hit twice more.  Got caught in his gravity field again and had to teleport out.  I’m not sure if I miscalculated or he expanded the field.  I didn’t have the breathing room to really pay attention to what Lightning and Psyche were doing, other than to note that they were still in the fight. 

In hindsight, I feel bad for Lightning.  There was no reason for him to be there.  He was hitting with most of his attacks, but Pursuer just shrugged them off.  And since Lightning was staying out of close combat range, he wasn’t even a distraction.  There really was no good reason for him to be there at all.  After all, the lack of support staff made it pretty clear that Pax wasn’t being a stickler for upholding T2M rules of engagement, so the ‘3-to-1 odds’ rule couldn’t have been a huge dealbreaker either. 

Psyche was having some effect, I think.  I’m not sure whatever she was doing was making a huge difference.  Then again, I’m not sure that what I was doing was really making much difference either.  But I can at least be charitable and say that whatever she was doing might have been a distraction.  Then again, for all I know, she has something like Guardião’s power to inhibit or disrupt other novas’ powers.  If so, I really don’t want to think about what Pursuer could do at full power and undistracted. 

Pax was fully focused, and I doubt he would have noticed (or cared) if a bomb dropped out of the sky on him.  When I hovered after ‘porting out that second time, I caught a clear glimpse of Pax’s face.  The look in his eyes actually scared me.  It was nothing but pure rage.  But there was a kind of... blankness there as well.  It was like what I’d read about viking berserkers- warriors who forced themselves into a battle frenzy, giving themselves amazing strength and stamina, but also making them not be able to tell their friends from their enemies- or recognize when the fight was over.  I won’t say Pax wasn’t thinking, because he was fighting tactically.  But he wasn’t rational in that moment.  If Pursuer had suddenly stopped fighting and surrendered, I really do think Pax would have killed him, right there in front of all those reporters. 

But of course, Pursuer didn’t surrender.  He didn’t try to escape, either.  I think he knew that wouldn’t work this time.  The fight felt like it went on for hours, but I know it didn’t.  I’d be surprised if it lasted more than a couple of minutes.  Gradually, Pursuer switched more and more to defensive tactics.  Then, he started moving around for the first time.  (There’d been some back-and-forth between him and Pax, but not like this.)  It didn’t take long to realize that he was shifting his position in order to reposition Pax.  And Pax either didn’t notice or didn’t care. 

But I noticed.  Pursuer had moved around enough that he could include Lightning in his field of fire.  Maybe all those tactical exercises I’d had paid off in a way I hadn’t expected, because I had a pretty good idea of what Pursuer was about to do.  It was obvious that he couldn’t beat Pax.  And Pax was out of control, so surrender wasn’t an option.  Pursuer was going for a desperation play in an attempt to get away- or at least make the situation worse for everyone. 

I knew I wasn’t supposed to do anything to reveal my presence to the reporters.  And my teleporting Lightning out of the way would do exactly that.  But I didn’t care.  Pursuer was about to throw an attack that was setting Pax back on his heels- at Lightning, who didn’t have Pax’s endurance. 

I broke off my pass and flew as fast as I could toward Lightning.  I had to get to him, expand my quantum field to cover him, and teleport us both out of the way before Pursuer could hit him with a deadly gravity bolt.

I didn’t make it in time. 

But what I did do, entirely by accident, was place myself squarely in Pursuer’s line of fire.  His bolt of concentrated gravity hit me dead center. 

I’m not even going to try and describe how much it hurt.  I don’t want to think about it.  Things snapped that should never snap, and I felt most of my torso squish.  I was barely conscious enough to pump quantum through my system to heal.  And the force of the bolt drove me into Lightning, knocking him off his feet.  He wasn’t hurt, and luckily my invisibility didn’t break.  So maybe it looked like Pursuer actually hit Lightning, knocked him off his feet, but he got right back up again.  At least, I hope that’s what the reporters saw. 

But that moment of distraction was all Pax needed.  He came at Pursuer one last time and took him down.  Pax hit him again while he was down, and I think he would have kept going.  But Psyche stepped in.  She got real close to him, and usually I would have listened in, but I was hurting too badly to care.  Usually I heal instantly, but Pursuer’d hit me hard enough that I had to make two tries to put myself back together. 

Lightning couldn’t see me, but he had a pretty good idea of what had happened.  He asked me, real quiet, if I was okay.  I think I told him no, but I’m not sure.  Either way, he stayed close by me until I was on my feet again.  Once he knew I was better, he told me to stay close to him, and be ready to leave when the others did.  We’d probably be leaving the reporters behind and flying back to the staging point.  He even asked if I was okay enough to fly back under my own power, which was thoughtful of him.

By the time I had myself together enough to really pay attention to what was going on, Pax had himself under control.  Pursuer was wearing some kind of weird collar with lights on it and what looked like an ordinary pair of handcuffs.  He was still unconscious. 

Pax left Psyche to watch over Pursuer while Pax went up to the reporters, who had come closer as soon as the fight ended.  He went into a sanctimonious speech about justice and no one escaping punishment for their crimes.  He was using the voice I always heard in his interviews and press conferences.  The one that combines an ‘aw shucks’ tone with a commanding, almost smug attitude.  I tuned him out almost immediately.  When his attention wasn’t on me, it was a lot easier to see him for what he really was, and I already felt sick about what we’d just done. 

As we moved to join Psyche with Pursuer, I asked Lightning, real quiet, if he was okay, and he said “Yeah, thanks to you”, which I’ll admit felt really good.  But I didn’t really know what to say to that, so instead I asked him if Pax usually went right for the reporters instead of making sure his teammates were all right.  Lightning just said that yeah, that was normal.  But his tone was... complicated.  It was mostly resignation- he knew better than to expect any real attention from Pax.  But there was also some surprise in his voice, too.  Surprised that I’d noticed?  That I’d said something?  That I’d criticize Pax, even slightly?  I don’t know. 

Psyche looked Lightning over and asked if he was okay.  He said that he was, and told her what happened.  Psyche carefully turned so that the reporters couldn’t see her face full on and addressed me, asking for my version.  I told her, as quietly as I could: that I’d seen what Pursuer was up to, guessed his likely target, tried to get there to get Lightning out of the way, and instead ended up taking the blast myself and being thrown into Lightning.  Psyche just kind of grunted and said “Good work”.  Somehow, that didn’t make me feel nearly as good. 

Pax finished strutting around for the reporters and came to rejoin us with Pursuer, who was still unconscious.  From the little bit of first aid training I’ve had, that worried me, especially since Pursuer seemed tough enough to take a lot of punishment.  Basic medical training says that any period of unconsciousness after a traumatic injury is dangerous, and one lasting more than a minute or two requires immediate medical attention. 

Pax asked if we were ready to go, and we said yes.  Which made me wonder how we were going to carry Pursuer.  I could easily carry any of the three, but not without the reporters noticing.  Pax was strong enough to carry three people easily, but I couldn’t imagine him allowing anyone to ride him piggyback, and he only had two arms.  But it wasn’t a problem.  He just stared at Pursuer and the man just... floated off the ground.  Pax picked up Psyche and Lightning like he had before, told me to follow and stay invisible once we got back to the staging area, and took off, Pursuer bobbing in his wake like a balloon.  After everything else that happened, it seems silly to say so, but I felt even more sorry for Pursuer- he looked so undignified.

As soon as we got back to the staging area, Pax shut off whatever power he was using to support Pursuer, and he just dropped to the ground like a sack of meat.  Now I was really getting worried about him.  Even from a distance I could see him breathing and hear his pulse.  Breathing was the slow, regular sleep breathing; but his pulse was weird.  A little too fast, and almost fluttery.  Like his body was reacting against something it wasn’t used to. 

Pax looked around and must have been happy with the few people there, because he told me I could come out.  As soon as I was visible, I took Lightning aside and told him about Pursuer’s pulse.  He looked concerned for a moment, but said it was probably just the collar inhibiting his powers. 

Ok, not gonna lie.  That was really scary to hear.  Utopia has a collar that can shut off our nova powers?!?!?!?  Probably several of them, if they let one be used on this irregular.... whatever this was?  Was the collar keeping him unconscious, too?  Or was he actually badly hurt from Pax’s beating, and unable to heal with the collar on?  I didn’t know. 

Lightning must have seen something in my face because he gave me a really intense look and a tiny head shake.  The message was clear: Don’t make a big deal about this.  Since he was the only person here I felt even a little bit comfortable around, I took his advice.  But I kept an eye (and an ear) on Pursuer, just in case.

Lieutenant Colonel Potter must have been in the plane all this time, because he came out and had Soldier One and Soldier Two load Pursuer into the plane.  Pax didn’t seem interested at all.  I guess he’d already gotten what he’d come there for.  Instead, he called for Psyche, Lightning, and I to join him and Potter by the plane for a quick debrief.  He (slightly) praised Psyche for her efforts, and chided Lightning for not being more effective.  He had that ‘ha-ha kidding, not kidding’ tone that I used to hear some of the older guys on the high school football team using with younger players when they told the younger ones how much they sucked.  It was jarring to hear that coming out of a grown man, let alone someone the world looked up to as a role model, especially to one of his own teammates.  But Lightning just took it like he was used to it. 

Then Pax turned to me.  And even though I was completely disgusted with him, it was like the sun was shining just on me.  He told me that I’d done very well, especially for my first time out.  That my efforts had probably ended the fight earlier than it otherwise would have (or course, the outcome itself was inevitable), and that I’d followed orders well.  (Looking back, I can clearly hear the condescension in his tone, the verbal pat on the head, but in the moment it was all I could do not to bask in his undivided attention.) 

I’d thought that would be it, but it got worse.  When Potter came up to Pax, I’d noticed him hand off something small, but hadn’t thought anything of it.  But now, Pax came in closer to me, and pinned something onto the collar of my Eufiber ‘T2M’ uniform. 

How does “Congratulations and welcome to the team” sound so much like “Screw what you want, you belong to us now”?  Whatever I stammered out in response must have been enough, because Pax turned away, told the others to get on the plane, and he’d meet them back at Addis Ababa.  Then he flew off, faster than I could even track, let alone keep up with.  The rest of us got on the plane.  Once we were seated, I looked at what Pax had pinned to my uniform.  A simple collar pin.  A stylized T2M-Aux. 

Fuck.

The flight to Addis Ababa didn’t take long, really, but it seemed like it took forever.  Lightning and Psyche chatted to each other and to Potter.  I stayed silent and kept listening to Pursuer’s fluttery pulse.  I caught Lightning watching me a couple of times, but his expression was too neutral to read. 

I somehow thought that the plane would drop the others off back at T2M-Central, then take me back to the Academy, but in hindsight, that was silly.  I was included in the debrief. 

Is there any real reason to describe the T2M-Central compound?  Anybody who cares to can see videos of it on the OpNet.  So all I’ll say is that it was somehow smaller than I’d expected, but the grounds were amazing- what I got to see of them, anyway.  The debrief room was where I spent most of my time there, and it was just an ordinary room with a smartboard on the wall and one of those tables where the entire top is a digital display. 

I was pretty explicitly told that what happens in the debrief room stays in the debrief room, so I won’t say what happened, other than that it was about like I’d come to expect from the previous times I’d been debriefed.  If I ever need to tell someone about it, so be it.  But for now, there’s really no point. 

The takeaway was that, as of now, I was considered part of T2M Auxiliary.  (I was not given the chance to protest, let alone refuse- and considering that the Count has made it clear that he’d rather have me here, I’m not entirely sure what I would have said, given the opportunity.)  I was not to discuss anything that happened today with anyone other than Potter and the three members of T2M who had been involved.  For now, I was to keep my appointment to T2M-Aux to myself.  An official announcement would be forthcoming in a couple of weeks and would be coordinated through Erica, who would continue to serve as my ‘assistant’ (aka ‘handler’) despite my changed status.  At least the need to keep my changed status quiet made a good excuse to take the pin off. 

And that was pretty much it.  I don’t know where they took Pursuer.  I do know that he didn’t regain consciousness while I was anywhere near him, and his pulse never settled into a more normal rhythm.  I was put back on the plane with Potter and Soldiers 1 & 2.  Potter took the time to reinforce that ‘tell no one’ included my family and the Academy.  He said that Lt. Riggs had already been told what he needed to know. 

Between timezone shenanigans and all the ‘post mortem’ stuff, it was really late when Potter dropped me back off at the Academy.  The gate was still open, though.  Even with everything on my mind, I couldn’t help but notice that since I was openly crossing the campus, there wasn’t a patrol in sight. 

When I got back to my room, there was a note slipped under my door.  Lt. Riggs, asking me to see him in his office tomorrow before class.  ‘Asking’ in name only.  Somehow, I doubt that he’s going to try to pump me for information, and I’m sure he isn’t going to bother catching me up on what I missed in class.  But of course, him wanting to see me is connected to all this, somehow.

Part of me just wants to crawl into bed.  I’m not physically tired, but I’m exhausted in every way that matters.  Instead, I’ve stayed up, writing of this out.  Learning about Pax’s beef with Pursuer.  Trying to separate how I felt in the moment from how I feel now.  Wanting to put everything down while it’s still fresh.  Needing there to be a record, in case whatever comes tomorrow is more than I can handle. 

A few final thoughts before bed. 

Looking back, I’d be interested to know why Pele wasn’t involved in all this.  She was the one who’d been most impacted by the original fight with Pursuer.  If anybody had the right to get revenge, it was her.  But apparently she wanted nothing to do with this entire thing.  Was she afraid to face Pursuer again?  Or does she share Pursuer’s mindset that the whole thing was ‘just business’ and doesn’t carry a grudge like Pax does?  Maybe she blames Pax for not caring more about her wellbeing, instead of putting everything on Pursuer?  Or maybe, Pax told her to stay away?  After meeting him, hogging all the glory of taking down Pursuer seems very much like something that he’d have planned from the beginning.  In fact, I think that’s exactly what he did.  And if Pele were present, it seems likely that the press would focus more on her than Pax would be willing to tolerate. 

I think it’s likely that my involvement in… this… will remain as much a secret as it can.  Pax has no interest in my presence being revealed.  Lightning and Psyche are obviously team players.  Potter is a ‘good soldier’.  So I doubt I’m going to face any significant repercussions from this.  Except feeling slimy in my own skin, of course. 

The more I think about what happened today, the more sure I am that it wasn’t right.  What Pax did to Pursuer was wrong, and petty.  And I’m complicit in that.  This has brought up a lot of other, older feelings as well.  It’s made me face things about myself that I usually try to ignore.  Mainly, how easy it is not to stand up for what’s right.  How ‘go along to get along’ is my default response to most things.  Even my moments of independence are ‘stolen’.  Every important thing I’ve done lately has happened while I was sneaking around. 

I don’t like what that says about me.  And I don’t know if I have the personal strength to change it. 

THANK YOU FOR THIS, HEKA.  I KNOW TODAY WAS DIFFICULT FOR YOU.  THE COUNT WANTS YOU TO KNOW THAT HE RESPECTS YOUR CONTRIBUTION, AND WHAT YOU’VE GIVEN US TODAY MEANS MORE THAN YOU MIGHT KNOW FOR A LONG TIME. 

~S

Chapter Text

Friday, June 5

Is this an example of ‘be careful what you wish for, you might get it’? 

I showed up at Lt. Riggs’ office before class as instructed.  At first, he just stared at me for an uncomfortably long time.  When he finally spoke, he didn’t ask about my ‘field trip’ at all.  Clearly, he’d been told something about it.  From the look on his face, it was nowhere near enough.  But he’s a good soldier, so it was going to have to be. 

I don’t know what I was really expecting.  But it wasn’t what happened. 

Lt. Riggs congratulated me on my early graduation from the Team Tomorrow Academy.  He handed me a fancy leather folder that turned out to contain a high school diploma.  There was a wallet-sized version as well.  He told me that my transcripts (what transcripts- we haven’t ever had any real classes) would be sent on to UC Berkeley, since that was where I’d expressed interest, and he understood that I’d been provisionally accepted there.  He said that I should work with Erica and the University to see about changing my enrollment to this coming fall semester. 

All of this seemed so… perfunctory.  Riggs wasn’t excited, or pleased, or annoyed, or… anything.  He was just stating facts and making suggestions, and making the suggestions like they didn’t really matter. 

I’d been speechless since he handed me the folder, but I got myself together enough to ask what was going on.  It turns out that being accepted onto T2M (or T2M-Aux) was grounds for immediate graduation.  I was now T2M-Aux, so I was no longer a student of the Academy.  That was really all there was to it. 

Riggs told me that I could attend today’s classes if I wanted to, or I could simply pack up my things and leave.  If I simply left, Riggs would announce my departure to the others.  If I went to class, I could make my goodbyes over lunch.  And then pack up and leave.  The message was clear- no longer a student, no longer a resident.  Of course I said I’d attend this final class. 

As I was turning to go, Riggs called me back long enough to hand me a squashy, sealed packet.  I’d never seen raw Eufiber before.  Riggs said that ‘someone from Central’ had noticed that my own Eufiber colony wasn’t as dense as it could be, and sent enough… spores? cells?  fibers? to bring my own colony up to what my body could support. 

When I opened the packet, the… stuff… kinda spilled out and began to join with the Eufiber I was already wearing.  Visually, the new Eufiber sank into the existing colony almost immediately, but my buzzy tingly sense told me that full absorption would take a little while.  It was the strangest sensation.  Very subtle.  Not so much movement as the ghost of movement. 

Sitting in class for the last time, the sensation kept intruding on my attention (and it’s not like I needed to pay anything more than polite attention to the lecture anyway).  The feeling of the Eufiber settling in was like silk talking to itself.  I know that sounds crazy, but that’s the best explanation I can give. 

Of course, everyone in class knew something was up.  Not about the Eufiber- I don’t think there was any visible difference.  About my being taken out of class by soldiers with no explanation.  But Riggs was in charge, and no one interrupted him.  I can’t say I’ll miss these classes. 

My last language classes were more bittersweet.  I said goodbye to my instructors, and thanked them for everything.  Regardless of my overall disappointment in the Academy, the language classes were amazing.  I wish I’d known I was leaving.  I would have liked to give my instructors a gift or something.  I’m pretty much fluent in Japanese (though no one would ever mistake my accent for a native speaker).  I’m not quite so comfortable in Arabic, but I think I could live in an Arabic-speaking country and not have language be an issue. 

Lunch was hard.  I’d always resented being thrown out of my old high school with no chance to say goodbye or anything.  But now I wonder if maybe that wasn’t an unintended blessing.  Goodbyes are tough. 

I would have liked to call several of these kids my friends.  And I think if it wasn’t for my issues with Utopia, we might have been.  Maybe at some point in the future, we will be.  But even thinking of them as somewhere in that nebulous zone between ‘coworker’ and ‘friend’, saying goodbye was hard. 

Especially since I really couldn’t explain what had happened.  I mean, I did the best I could, without violating Potter’s orders.  I told them openly that stuff had happened that I wasn’t allowed to talk about yet, and stuff I might never be allowed to talk about.  That was the fairest way I could think of to put it.  The difference between ‘hiding things’ and ‘not allowed to share things’ is subtle but huge.  And I didn’t want there to be any doubt of which way this was going.  Not that I would have wanted to tell them everything, not by a long shot. 

But I wanted to leave on the best terms that I could.  But nothing changed the fact that the stuff I wasn’t allowed to talk about meant that I couldn’t be a student at the Academy anymore.  So, I’d been graduated.  And I would be packing up and leaving after lunch. 

The reactions were… interesting.

Puppy’s response was the sweetest, and the most embarrassing.  He started to cry and actually left his lunch to come hug me.  (If you knew Puppy, you’d know that boy really likes his food.)  The next couple of minutes were all about reassuring him that we’d meet again and always be friends.  Very sweet. 

Sapphire was her usual ‘too cool’ self.  She just congratulated me on moving on with my life and left it at that.  Shift kept pestering me for details about what happened and what I would be doing next.  (I could tell him the truth about that last part, at least- that I would be attending Berkeley, hopefully in the fall.) 

Guardião just shook my hand and said that he’d enjoyed my being here and that he expected that we’d meet again soon.  There was a ‘weighted’ tone in his voice.  I think Sapphire followed up on my hint and has warned him that he might be next to be suddenly pulled out of class.  I’m pretty sure the gears in his head are turning. 

Dream Shadow didn’t actually say anything.  She just pressed one of my hands between hers and stared into my eyes for what seemed like forever.  I think she was trying to communicate... something... but I don’t know what.  Out of all of them, I think she was the only one who really thought that I’d gotten involved with something... unwanted. Thinking back on our few personal encounters, she always seemed the most insightful among the others.  Somehow, I doubt that I’ve kept as many secrets from her as I think I have.  And oddly enough, that doesn’t worry me.  If there’s any one of the other students I think I could maybe trust, it’s her.  And I wasn’t expecting that. 

Flare hugged me and congratulated me on getting into Berkeley.  She said that she ‘expected to hear big things soon’.  I’m not sure if that was a general platitude that you tell people when they’re leaving, or if she’s actually put two and two together and knows another shoe is about to drop.  If I’d been asked last week, I’d’ve said that Flare is the closest thing to a friend I have here.  And it’s true that she and I have socialized more than I have with any of the others.  But that was before I was having these thoughts about Dream Shadow..

Stinger’s response was predictably complicated.  He said all the right things, congratulating me and expressing his hope of seeing me again soon.  And I’m pretty sure all that was genuine.  But there was resentment there, as well.  And something else I couldn’t quite identify. 

The resentment makes sense, I guess.  I’m the most recent student to arrive, and the first to ‘graduate’?  That’s not fair by any reckoning.  Plus, I’ve made his life harder by (accidently) making his leadership flaws more obvious.  I’ve undermined him, even without meaning to, and now I’m leaving him to work it out as best he can.  If he didn’t know before that Riggs was willing (even eager) to replace him as Team Leader, he certainly does now.  And that has to suck. And all of that doesn’t even take into account Flare’s insistence that Stinger was (is?) interested in me.  At least that’s something- out of sight, out of mind, right?

Of course, Hourglass was missing, since he’s always missing.  And to be honest, I didn’t even think about finding him to say goodbye until hours after I’d left.  Another mystery left unsolved.

I feel like I’m leaving a lot of mysteries and loose ends behind me.

All the unused space and buildings on campus.  The increased night patrols.  The clandestine activity around the observatory.  Whatever structures are underground.  The comparative lack of faculty and staff. 

At least one of my questions has been answered, maybe.  It’s looking more and more like students will be kept at the Academy either until they ‘age out’ at twenty (because I saw no evidence of ‘graduation prep’, and I know that at least a couple of the others are older than me and this should have been their senior year), or until Utopia decides to put them to some specific use.  And with that in mind, plus what I overheard, I’m pretty sure Guardião will be the next to go.  Will he end up in T2M-Aux as well?  Or maybe find a place in the T2M support entourage?  I wish him the best, whatever happens.  Out of all of us, I think he might be the best adjusted and most likely to succeed at having a normal life. 

And that was it, really.  We finished lunch, had a round of hugs, re-exchanged contact information, took a bunch of pictures.  Then they went off to their tactical, and I went back to the dorm for the last time. 

Packing up only took a few minutes, and I was struck all over again by just how little mark I’d made on my room.  When I moved in, I didn’t want to be here.  And as my Teragen sympathies increased, I think I subconsciously expected that I might have to run away with very little notice.  So I didn’t have anything here that I would miss if I left it behind.  I’d even taken Mr. Lumpy, my stuffed emotional support badger, back home.  Almost all of my entertainment media is digital.  Eufiber takes care of almost all of my clothing needs.  And since I went home regularly, I didn’t have any keepsakes here.  Everything I’d brought fit into my backpack.  Somehow, that made me a little sad.  I’ve spent months here.  And once fresh sheets are put on the bed, you’d never know I was ever here. 

Is this how things are going to be fore me now?  My life changing completely without notice and me having absolutely no control over it? 

Mom wasn’t surprised to find me waiting for her when she got home from work- I’m home often enough on Friday nights that that wasn’t unusual.  But she was shocked when I handed her my diploma.  And to hear that I wasn’t going back to the Academy. 

We had a long talk, late into the night, about what happened.  And she was Not Happy about what I couldn’t tell her.  Because she’s nowhere near stupid.  She knows if I’m being told to keep something quiet, that means it was dangerous, underhanded, or both.  And naturally she doesn’t want her only daughter involved with anything like that.  I’m sure it didn’t help that I wasn’t enthused about my clandestine activity.  Even my promise that she’d find out at least part of what I’d been up to in a couple of weeks didn’t help, since I didn’t even try to muster any excitement about it. 

Ultimately, she decided to focus on the positive.  An unexpected summer of me being around more.  That was nice.  Even my decision to add two more classes to my summer schedule (I’d decided on the flight home to add CST 100- Principles of Public Speaking (3 credits), PHI 220- Ethics and Society (3 credits) to my load, since they had in-person requirements that I could now accommodate) wasn’t an issue.  Being in class a few hours a week is nowhere near the same as living at a boarding school. 

I’m glad to have this final (?) summer with Mom.  (And somehow, it does feel ‘final’.  I don’t know why.)  And I’m glad to have more time with Furnado and Pyewacket.  And it’ll be good to spend more time with the girls and Rocío.  I know that even with my ability to travel cross-country almost on a whim, I won’t be seeing them nearly as much next year. 

Chapter Text

Saturday, June 6

I emailed Erica and asked her to be sure my transcripts were sent to Berkeley, and asked her to get into contact with Dean Humphries about moving my admission date up to the fall semester. And ensuring there’s a space in dorm for me.

Later that afternoon, Erica emailed me back that the transcripts had been sent, Utopia would be honoring its end of my contract (to pay for my education) despite the changes in my current academic standing, and that she expected to hear from Dean Humphries by Monday afternoon.   

What can I say?  I might not always like Erica’s interference in my life, but she’s good at what she does. 

Oh, and Erica mentioned my final GPA.  I hadn’t really thought to ask, since whatever number Utopia assigned me wouldn’t be based on any real academic achievements while at the Academy.  So, really only my old high school GPA and my current college GPA mattered.  And my high school stuff was pre-eruption anyway, so not a good indicator of my current ability.  But either the Academy had some kind of esoteric formula to decide these things, or they just made something up so I (and by extension, they) looked good.  Final GPA?  4.2.  I wish I knew what I actually deserved.  Without that, there’s really no feeling of accomplishment.

I added those other two classes- CST 100- Principles of Public Speaking (3 credits), PHI 220- Ethics and Society (3 credits).  Both of those are MWF classes, so I’ll be ‘commuting’ up to Virginia Western three times a week instead of coming home for aikido classes twice a week.  So really, not much has changed.  I’ll file my intent to transfer as soon as I hear for sure from Berkeley. 

Chapter Text

Monday, June 8

Principles of Public Speaking is going to be easy.  I’m pretty sure it would have been pretty easy even before all this happened.  It’s less about teaching us to speak well in public than it’s about teaching us not to panic or make horrific blunders when asked to speak in public. 

That’s the good news.  The bad news is that since this class has a major ‘in person’ component, my ability to work ahead and finish early will be limited. 

Ethics and Society looks like it will be more interesting.  We’re actually going to be expected to put some thought into major issues and develop a personal ethical system.  While I’d like to think that I already have at least the beginnings of a personal ethical system, especially after reading so much about Teras and hearing Mal speak, I look forward to the chance to re-examine my ideas from other angles.  I’m really looking forward to this class, especially since these are two of the class objectives:

*Develop a world view on the issues of sex, love, marriage, abortion, and euthanasia.

*Examine our duty toward animals, the environment and terrorism.

I’ll admit, my thoughts on ‘terrorism’ have… adjusted… in the last several months. 

College Composition II isn’t going to be nearly as much of a hassle as Comp I was.  Comp II focuses on research and documentation, rather than any kind of peer review.  I should be able to work ahead without much difficulty. 

Reading Literature: Culture and Ideas looks like it will be a little more writing intensive, but again, I should be able to work at my own pace.  So I’m not expecting any real difficulty. 

U.S. Government and Politics is going to be a joke.  A bad joke, unfortunately.  I watched the first recorded lecture today, and let’s just say that the instructor doesn’t need anyone else’s input.  I’ve dealt with teachers like this before.  In the past, I might have tried to fight it, tried to make things more open.  But not this time.  This summer isn’t about making waves or getting involved in conflict.  This summer is about ‘putting in my time’ and getting on with my life.  I can put up with anything for a couple of months.  All I need to do is parrot this man’s opinions back to him for him to love me.

I think Astronomy II is going to be a lot better than Astronomy I.  It really just comes down to the teacher, and I made sure to pick a different one this time.  The labs might still be awkward, but I’ll adjust.