CRYSTAL

MIND

A Novel in the Projector War Saga

Other books by K. A. Excell

CRYSTAL CHOICE

CRYSTAL TRUTH

CRYSTAL

MIND

A Novel in the Projector War Saga

K. A. Excell

CRYSTAL MIND

Copyright © 2020 Katerina Ann Excell

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-952856-00-6 (Paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-952856-01-3 (Hardcover)

LCCN: 2020910898

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

Front cover image by Jesh Art Studios.

First printing edition 2020.

Katerina Ann Excell

Hurricane, UT

www.KAExcell.com

For Jase, who started me on this path.

CHAPTER ONE

“Watch it, Crystal!” someone snarled.

My head snapped up, but I registered the collision too late. I sat down hard rather than try to correct my balance. The loose-leaf english homework in my arms slid to the floor, still more or less in order. I reached down to gather it back up as a half-hearted kick—fueled by frustration, not violence—sent them fluttering around.

Blue lines sputtered to life, bringing numbers with them as I mobilized half my mind to calculate a course to retrieve the papers. The other half of my mind held blue lines ready in case the foot that had kicked at my homework decided to kick at me next. As part of the evaluation, a portion of my blue lines flicked over the person I’d run into.

My lips tightened as I read the white name tag. Ollie Peters. A moment later, the tag was joined by a memory of her entering her apartment across the hall from Zach. A dozen cross-references presented themselves—all featuring her in close proximity to him.

“Sorry, Ollie,” I mumbled as I reached for my homework.

Ollie snorted. “Sorry’s right. Tell me again how a dunderhead like you caught the most attractive guy in the neighborhood last year?”

I stiffened further as a picture of Zachary’s leer superimposed itself on my world. I tried to force the memory away by looking up at Ollie. Her eyes were hot and uneven, full of anger and hurt.

She kicked at my homework again. I calculated the airwaves and noted where my homework would land so I could plot intercepts for later retrieval.

“That’s right, only someone like you could just watch as he gets hit by a drunk driver. Useless freak.” Her words were low. Mean.

The image of Zachary pushed itself on me again, and I flinched away. The memory was returning, full force. I tried to hold on to the real-life images in front of me, but they faded as I watched—to be replaced by images of the past.

Not here, not again!

But it wouldn’t obey. The memories flooded past my mental fingers, and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

I shrank down into a ball as I remembered the projected path and force reading on his hand coming toward my face. I could see it coming, but the same tools that let me know when to expect the pain told me I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough.

His hands came up again, and again, and again, but I couldn’t avoid them. I was too slow and too scared. The intercepts flashed red, and pain lanced through me. I tucked my head to protect my skull, but that didn’t save my ribs.

I woke up in the hospital later. Mom said I fell down the stairs.

She would have reported him if she’d known, but I couldn’t find the courage to tell her and she wasn’t in any shape to figure it out by herself.

“Oh, grow up, Farina!” Ollie said. I heard the words in passing, and then they faded out again. I was still caught in the memory. The fear, adrenaline and pain built a prison of images that forced me to relive it all over again. My mental fingers clawed at the walls, but there was nothing I could do.

I saw the car flying toward Zachary, and then his screams. The sirens flowed past like water.

A hand touched me, and I reacted.

A moment later, my vision was clear of the memory, and Ollie was doubled over clutching her neck. I looked down at my bladed hand and replayed the moment in my mind. Ollie had grabbed my arm. l had turned and jabbed my fingers into the soft part of Ollie’s throat. The pressure reading was below the threshold to damage the human body, but it still left her gagging on the floor.

“What in the blazing rages is going on here?” Principal Pierce appeared from around the corner. His face darkened as he took in the scene. “Crystal Farina, I should have known. Come with me.”

I followed him wordlessly—leaving my homework discarded in the hallway. It didn’t matter anymore. A moment later, I sat in the chair he pointed to.

I didn’t have to hear his words to know what he was saying—I’d heard this same speech three times, now, about how problems were to be solved with communication and compassion instead of with fists.

I looked down at my feet while the Principal droned on and on. The memory was still fresh in my mind—the images, anyway. Sounds were still mushy groans, barely decipherable on a good day. Today was not a good day.

Finally, the memories slowed, and I caught my breath.

“—Crystal?”

I pointed my face toward him, still avoiding his eyes. “What?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “I asked if you even understood why what you did was serious.”

I bit my lower lip. “It would have been fine if she hadn’t touched me.”

“Ollie said she was asking whether you were alright, and I believe her. She’s a good kid. She couldn’t have meant any harm.”

I blinked away images of Zachary and the feel of his skin against mine. The kisses he stole that I hadn’t given. The worst was over, but I was still trapped in two different times. I took another slow breath and martialled my blue lines.

“Point-six pounds of pressure will stun. It’s non-lethal—even non-damaging. She’ll be fine.” My voice was toneless. Hopefully. Mom said that sometimes my voice went cold. Cold meant angry. Angry with the Principal would get me kicked out of school.

“We have a zero tolerance policy, Miss Farina. Do you know what that means?”

Finally, another image to focus on! I located the image of the school handbook and read off the section about zero-tolerance while he blinked at me.

“Even within the zero-tolerance policy, you have the option to suspend from the institution. In that context, zero-tolerance does not immediately lead to expulsion,” I said, after I finished reading.

He frowned, and I risked a quick glance at his eyes. He didn’t seem to like me much—but I didn’t really like myself right then, either.

“That’s for people who need a second chance,” he said. “You’ve already been kicked out of three schools for violence.”

“But—”

He raised a hand. “They almost charged you for assaulting that poor boy back at your first school. Since then, you’ve been expelled from two more in as many weeks. ”

I grimaced. “I know it looks bad, but—”

“—there is no ‘but’, Miss Farina. You have troubles, and I get that. You need a school for troubled children then, not a public school. We are simply not equipped to help you.” He shrugged.

Whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by a knock on the door.

I knew it was Mom before I turned around to look. I always knew when Mom was near, just like I always knew her voice, and could never look at her eyes.

“Crystal, are you alright?” she asked.

I hesitated a moment, unsure that the words Mom had said were the words I had actually heard.

“Mom, I did it again.” The words felt rough in my throat. How could she not be furious? The secretary must have told her what happened. The first time had shocked her. The second and third time had made her angry.

She stepped up next to the chair so I could see her out of the side of my vision, even bent, studying my shoes as I was.

“I know. It’s alright.”

The principal coughed. “No, it’s not. Miss Farina, you are hereby expelled from the school. As this is your fourth expulsion, I feel required to explain that you will not be admitted to any more public schools. Someone will email you with a list of schools for troubled youth in the area.”

Mom glared at the principal. She opened her mouth to say something—then closed it again. She took my hand firmly and walked out of the office without even saying goodbye. Mom glared at everyone who looked our way. I studied my feet until we reached the car. Did it matter what any of them thought about me? They couldn’t possibly know what it was like inside of my mind.

We drove home in silence. I looked toward her a few times with explanation on the tip of my tongue, but every time I looked at her slender form staring intently at the road, the words died.

She parked the car on the side of the street in front of our place, checked the lock, and opened the apartment door with the ‘spare’ key.

She never remembered her keys.

Once inside, habit took over. I started the kettle and pulled two chipped tea cups from the cupboard. I sniffed the tea bags as I laid them in the cups. They were old, but drinkable. I flipped the oven broiler on, then off, then on again. The coils still didn’t light, so I flipped the broiler off again and found a frying pan. Six minutes and twenty-seven seconds later the tea was steeping and I finished plating the cheese sandwiches. Lunch.

Only then did I look back at Mom.

“Crystal, it’s 10:30,” she said, but she took a sip of the tea, anyway.

I checked the clock in the top center of my vision. “10:32.” Rounded, it could be called 10:30. Then I frowned. “Why didn’t you stop me? This is lunch food. It’s not lunch.”

“I tried, but you couldn’t hear me and you wouldn’t look at me.”

I looked down at the cheese sandwich for a long time. “I don’t want to eat cheese sandwiches for lunch anymore. Most kids don’t come home for lunch. They eat at the cafeteria. Most kids go to school all day.”

“Do you want to go to school all day?” Mom asked. Her eyes were soft. Kind.

Images of children playing, screaming, and running together on the playground flooded my mind. I’d played like that once—or that was what Mom said. I didn’t remember much from before Dad left.

“Yes.”

But it was too late. Even if people didn’t ignore me or make fun of me, I couldn’t go back. I hurt people when I went to school.

“Are you sure?” Mom asked.

I laughed, and Mom flinched. “I shouldn’t want to, but I do.”

She moved an upturned hand toward me and then back. It was a small gesture, but easier to process than a verbal question.

I clenched my fists at the sudden image of Zach’s face. He had hurt people because I was at school; because they looked at me. I had to hurt Zach. Now I hurt people who did nothing to me. I reached back in my mind to Ollie’s shocked face after I hit her only an hour ago. She hadn’t really been trying to hurt me—not physically, anyway—but all it took was Zach’s name and one touch for me to react.

What had I done to myself?

I examined my mind for protocols that told me to hurt people, but nothing was there except one line in red. “It’s alright to protect yourself.”

“Yes,” Mom said. I looked up. “It is alright to protect yourself.”

I swallowed as the blue lines on my vision told me that her reaction was consistent with my having spoken aloud, even though I didn’t remember speaking. That happened sometimes.

“You still didn’t answer my question.”

I clenched my jaw. “I hurt people when I go to school.”

So many people. I couldn’t stop the flood of images in front of my eyes with pressure readings and dates. Pressure readings from the blows that had broken their bones, and dates from when I stood there and watched with the wall of blue lines between my emotions and my vision.

Now I wasn’t just watching. What had Zach done to me?

“I know that, Crystal. But why? What happened with Zach? That’s when this all started, isn’t it? When you two broke up after his accident?”

My shoulders hunched forward, and I reached for my tea. Mom’s hand got there first, though. Her skin was rough—like needles rubbing against my skin.

“No. Look at me, Crystal.”

I squeezed my eyes closed. “I can’t.”

She said something else, but the words mushed together enough that I couldn’t decipher them. I peeled my eyes open slowly, but kept them focused on the cracked, stained wood of the counter.

“You can. You’ve been doing better at meeting peoples’ eyes. You said you don’t want to be ruled by fear.”

I swallowed and pulled my hand away from Mom’s. Most eyes just brought fear, but Mom’s eyes weren’t just eyes.

Zachary’s face was abruptly in front of mine again. His mouth moved silently, but I knew what he was saying.

“Scared, huh? Eyes aren’t scary, sugar bun. See?” He took every opportunity to torment me. I could see the pleasure in his eyes when he grabbed my chin to make me look at him. He said he cared about me, but hurting me made him happy. It didn’t make sense—but people rarely did.

Were Mom’s eyes any scarier than Zachary’s were while he was in a rage?

It was a different kind of fear.

Slowly, I raised my eyes to meet hers. Everything else faded away. Everything except those emerald jewels inside her face. Pain. Fear. Memories better left alone. Nothing but me and her.

I tried to look away, but I couldn’t move my eyes. I tried to run, but my limbs were like lead. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t cry. Couldn’t do anything except stare.

Finally, Mom blinked.

I fell back into my own mind with a strangled gasp.

“See?” Mom said. “That was better than last time.”

I tried to nod, but my head was heavy and I abandoned the effort halfway through. I started toward the door that led to my room.

Mom stopped me with a wave of her hand. “Why won’t you tell me about what happened between you and Zach?”

I looked back at her, but the words stuck in my head. I couldn’t tell her that I’d created a weapon that had pushed a car on top of him. Mom was the only one in the world that didn’t look at me like I was broken.

“I just can’t.”

I found my way into my room, locked the door behind me, fell on my bed, and finally felt safe enough to let go of the blue lines on my vision.

All at once, the anguish of this morning crashed into me.

My heartrate—suppressed along with my breathing—sprang back and the sweating started as repressed adrenaline flushed through my system. My hands shook as I finally gave into the memories and allowed my mind to process what had happened.

I bit down on a groan as I twitched away from Ollie’s hand in my memory.

Why couldn’t Zachary leave me alone?

He was paralyzed from the waist down, spending most of his days in physical therapy, but he still haunted my every step. Why had I ever decided to go on that first date with him? Why hadn’t I gotten out while I still could? Why hadn’t I run instead of devoting hours of research, study, and practice to finding the weak points of the human body? Of all the ways to fix this, why hadn’t I found something that didn’t involve hurting others?

Why did his ghost still haunt me now that I’d finally gotten rid of him?

I was expelled from school. I hurt someone else.

I cried myself to sleep.

I woke up just after noon only to stare at the ceiling and compute the odds of earthquakes in various parts of the world for lack of anything else to do. Four minutes, and six countries later, Mom knocked on my door. I didn’t bother pretending I was asleep—she would know I wasn’t. She always knew.

I wanted to tell her I couldn’t answer more questions about Zachary today, but I didn’t. What would be the point? I couldn’t avoid her forever.

“Come in.”

She cracked the door open. “I just thought you might want some good news.”

What even was good news? The thought was dull, and I spared a millisecond to wonder when life had become so bleak. Still, I motioned for her to continue.

“I got another job,” she said.

I sat up and twisted my mouth into a smile. “That’s good.” For however long it would last.

Mom was forgetful about everything except me. She was barely ever on time, and sometimes she would even have nervous breakdowns and have to go to the hospital for sedation. She could never hold down a job for more than a few months. Dad’s child support checks weren’t enough to do more than keep a roof over our heads and make the car payment. She had some savings from before Dad left, but that was dangerously low. Now she was going to have to pay for my school—

I clenched my fists. Why did I have to be such a burden on her? She taught me how to understand people, how to communicate with the outside world, and how to stand on my own two feet and I rewarded her by becoming so violent I couldn’t even go to regular school?

“I’m sorry about school,” I said.

She nodded. “I know you are, but hey—I think I have a solution for that too. Have you ever heard of Martial Academy?”

I shook my head. It sounded like one of those fancy private schools where they specialized in something weird like dance. It was probably expensive, too.

“It’s a school where they teach martial arts as part of their curriculum. Someone I used to know wants to sponsor you into the school with a scholarship. It will pay for everything, and I think it might help you learn control.”

“A school for fighting?” I swallowed hard. “But—”

But what? How did I tell her that I hated violence and hurting other people? A school full of people trained to fight?

I shuddered.

Did I have another choice after getting kicked out of public school? Mom didn’t have the money for anything else. I had to take the school that had given me the scholarship—the other option was dropping out.

No. I had to finish highschool, or I would never get to University. If I couldn’t go to University, then I could never become a real engineer and Zachary would have succeeded in ruining my life.

I clenched my jaw as a decision module blinked in the top corner of my vision. I would take this opportunity and make the best of it. If the school trained fighters, all it meant was that I wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else.

“When does it start?”

CHAPTER TWO

Martial Academy was old, with towering walls and an iron gate near the driveway. The walls cast shadows on the street deep enough to keep me from seeing if anything was hiding there. I wondered what the building had been before it was a school. Perhaps a military base? A prison? The wall and gate together were solid enough to keep unwanted visitors out, or perhaps students in?

Whatever it used to be, Martial Academy hadn’t been externally modified when it was turned into a school. I scanned again for some sort of student entrance, but there was nothing. I tried a comparative analysis to both schools and prisons, only to find the words ‘abnormal conditions noted’ written on my vision. What abnormal conditions? I scanned the building a third time, but it didn’t help. I shuffled forward, through my doubt, and pressed the buzzer near the talk-box by the gate.

“Yeah?”

I squinted my eyes at the talk-box in an attempt to make the sounds less mushy—but it didn’t help. Instead, I pulled a newer notecard from the ‘required materials’ folder to the front of my vision and scanned over the words Mom had given me to say at the gate.

“I’m Crystal Farina, the new student.” My hands shook, partially from the chilly autumn air, but mostly from my own uncertainty. I clenched them into fists. Fists were strong. Maybe they would make me strong, too.

“You’re late. Warmups started forty minutes ago.”

I bit my lip, fighting momentary panic. This wasn’t on the script Mom had given me! Then I took a deep breath and ran my fingers through my long black hair. I could handle this. It was only another new school—nothing to be afraid of. That was why Mom had helped me build the blue lines I used to analyze things when I was just a kid. If I could use my tools, I could figure out what to do in unexpected situations.

The voice sighed and the gate clicked open just enough for a skinny girl to squeeze through. “Go on in. I’ll call the Prefect down. Don’t touch anything.”

I thanked him and squeezed through the gate. It clicked shut behind me as I stopped to stare at the courtyard. A flagstone path wound its way across combed white sand that rippled out from where it surrounded a sakura tree in full bloom. Stray cherry blossoms dotted the sand like crystals—disturbing the perfectly circular lines in the sand. It was hard to imagine anything less like the dark Chicago street I’d just left—or the gate I had just passed, for that matter. I followed the path as I battled with the incongruity of this place. Thick, stone, military walls rose on every side as a reminder of power—and yet this place had such a fragile beauty.

I stopped in front of the two doors on the other end of the courtyard and let my blue lines analyze them. They were eight feet tall and, so far as I could tell, made of solid wood. The drag marks on the ground next to me only verified that fact. The doors were quite literally too massive for me to overcome inertia enough to move them, so I stood there silently and watched the cherry blossoms shift in the breeze.

Two minutes, eight seconds later, the doors swung outward with the even pacing of an electronically-driven system. Behind the door was a woman who stood five-foot-even with red hair so dark it could be mistaken for brown and callused hands that matched Zachary’s by 40%. I risked a glance past her face, and managed not to flinch away as I met purposeful green eyes tempered by loss—and conviction. Those were eyes I could get lost in if I looked too deeply. I looked away before they trapped me, and instead scanned the hallway. For a moment, the colors were as dull as the street I’d left, but that changed as my eyes finished adjusting to this new light. I gasped. My feet moved of their own accord as my eyes traced the thick wooden walls from the deep shadows in the corner to where light from the wall sconces made the varnish glow with ethereal light. These colors spoke of age—and museum quality care. Farther in, the walls were lined with antiques. Art mixed with armor—perhaps they were the same thing—until my blue lines were nearly saturated with age calculations.

“My name is Vera Hunt, and I’ll be showing you—” Her voice faded into the background as my eyes caught the gleam of a naked blade. I pushed past her to stare at a stack of swords hung on the wall. The largest was twenty inches long, and the shortest was barely ten inches.

“Are those katanas?” I asked.

I turned back to her so I could hear the answer. Her mouth turned into a frown, but she answered, “No. The top one is a katana. The next one is an ontaro.”

I pulled a little pad of paper out of my pocket and scribbled down the names on different sheets of paper. I handed them to her. “Hold these next to the swords.”

She sighed, but did as I asked.

I stepped back and studied them, making sure my eyes ran over every detail and then landed on the names last. Now I would never forget which was which.

She quirked an eyebrow when I motioned for her to lower the pieces of paper. “What was that about?”

“I have a photographic memory. If I see the names by the swords, then I won’t ever forget.”

“Ah.” She handed the papers back and pulled a clipboard out of a pack that was sitting against the wall. “If you’ll step over here, I have some papers you need to sign before you can get started with classes.”

I gave the hallway one more good look and then took the offered clipboard. I glanced through the stack of papers. “What is it?”

“A standard assumption of liability, ethics agreement, and student conduct agreement. The last page is your schedule.”

The words were tiny and cramped together on the page. I sighed. “This is going to take me a moment.”

One trade-off of my photographic memory was that it took forever to read anything. Mom thought it might have something to do with the fact that I couldn’t ever read anything without memorizing it. It didn’t much matter to me why I was the way I was, though. It just made things like this hard. I shifted the page to better catch the light.

“I could give you the high points, if that would work better. You’ve probably signed a dozen just like it.” She tilted her head at an object on the wall behind me. I pulled the recording of my surroundings from my examination earlier—the object was a clock.

I started searching for an explanatory note card, then abandoned the attempt and recalled the blue lines from their calculations. Age analysis on the antiques could wait, and so could social analysis on Vera Hunt. I needed the information on the page—hopefully it would help me stay at this school for more than a few days.

I started scanning the words as best I could, then reading them as they surfaced in blue overlay on my vision. A few moments into it, I stopped and looked up. I’d forgotten something—oh, right. She’d said something. I scraped together what I could remember, then formed my response.

“No summary can actually mean the same thing as the actual combination of words on the page. You see, language—especially written language—is a complex maze of visual symbols to convey a meaning. It has a vocal equivalent that also has a thought equivalent and that is how two people communicate. A summary will destroy the tiny intricacies and change the meaning of the text. I need to read it for myself. Also, I’ll forget it unless I see it.”

She folded her arms and widened her stance to something with a seventy-nine percent similarity to military parade rest—settling in to wait—as I scanned the page. Fifteen minutes, twenty-three seconds later, I started rooting through my school bag for a pen. She handed me one without a word, and I signed all the documents. At the back of the clipboard was a copy of my new schedule. I glanced at it to get the basic picture, then pulled up the image in my mind and filled in all the details.

“Are we going to my first class now?” I asked.

A gong sounded through the entire building. I jumped and threw my hands over my ears while she just stood there looking at me. The ringing lasted several moments after the sound had actually stopped, and when I could hear again, I glared at her. “What was that?”

“That was the starting bell for your first academic period.” She gave me a pointed look—which I didn’t dare evaluate for fear of getting sucked into her green eyes—and started walking. I reluctantly stored the partial antique analyses and followed. “I thought we were going to make it in time for you to start there, but this took a little longer than I thought. Let’s go up to the dorms so you can put your stuff away. Hopefully we’ll make it down in time for the first martial period.”

“First martial period?” I asked.

She stopped and folded her arms across her chest. “We’re in a school for martial arts. Half your classes are academic classes, and half of them are martial arts classes.”

Her words were short, which was indicative of . . . something?

I pulled a note card from memory—from one of my talks with Mom about society—and scanned through it. There, under vocal cues, below my pages of complaint about how similar they all were, was a set of descriptions.

When a person has words shorter than the average as dictated by the location and culture that constitutes background, it is a sign that they are annoyed, angry, frustrated, etc. Generally negative emotions.

I frowned. “Did I do something to make you annoyed?”

Red-brown eyebrows lifted higher onto her forehead. “It takes a lot more than a clueless first-year to annoy me.” She looked up into the corner of her vision, and I could see the half-truth behind her eyes. I looked down again quickly.

I pulled up another of Mom’s notes.

People’s emotions are not quantitative, but rather qualitative. As such, people often round their emotions based on a self-determined threshold dependent on the situation. Many times, they will round the emotion toward the nearest positive emotion. This isn’t generally considered untruth, but rather socially conscious.

“Now come on, or you’ll be late for your next class, too.” She didn’t wait for a response, just headed down the hall.

I followed her, racking my brain for what I could have possibly done to annoy her.

As we walked, she kept up a narrative about how, while there were plenty of specialized schools out there for things like Performing Arts, Martial Academy was unique. It was founded by modern warriors who felt that self-defense was as much a human right as education was. The current school administrator, Ms. Green, was continuing that legacy by boosting enrollment and expanding programs. Five minutes into her spiel, she stopped and turned to face me, eyebrows drawn together.

“I should mention that unsupervised fighting outside of designated places or designated times is strictly prohibited and will be punished.”

My chest grew tight. “Expulsion?” This school was my last chance. I couldn’t afford to be expelled for fighting!

“No, but the school does believe that you should only fight when it is your last option. Should someone begin a fight, it is the defendant’s duty to end it as quickly and permanently as is reasonable.”

I shivered as images of Zachary in his wheelchair after the ‘accident’ flashed through my head. I knew how to end fights quickly and permanently—and that moment still haunted me. Was that the sort of thing they taught here? And what exactly was a designated place? Class?

“I say this because we’ve heard about your previous difficulties. Realize that if you pick a fight at this school, the other person can probably hit harder, faster, and more accurately than you can. Go at it all you want if you’re in class, or in the Tournament ring being supervised by a teacher. They know where to stop things if someone looks like they want to go too far.”

“I don’t actually like fighting, you know.” The thought of deliberately hurting another person was enough to tie my stomach up in knots—but the thought of sitting there helpless while someone hurt me was even worse.

She nodded. “And that’s why you were sponsored in. I’m not trying to sound judgemental. With your looks, you’ve probably had to deal with a lot. The ability to frame a clear ‘no’ is never a bad thing, but it can sometimes get out of control. If you want to talk about it, let me know. I’ll be around.”

With my looks? Was Vera Hunt some sort of fashion designer? A makeup artist? The question died on my tongue as I pulled up an image of myself. Green eyes stared back at me, framed by loose black hair that fell to my waist in scraggly waves. My olive skin was far from flawless—though some of the blemishes were probably due more to the sensitivity of my eyes than any actual imperfection. Zachary said I was ugly. He said I was lucky he could stand to look at me. That, if he hadn’t found me, I would never be pretty enough to find anyone else. Mom said I was beautiful. I didn’t believe either of them; how could I? The data points were in obvious conflict, and I didn’t care enough to gather additional data. Beautiful or ugly didn’t matter much. I was me, and that was the important part. What business did Hunt have bringing up my looks, anyway?

I shrugged and moved on as we reached the dormitories. Hunt pointed to my bed. It was the ground side of a bunk bed with a chest at the foot and a nightstand to the side. The other five beds in the room looked pretty much the same. Some had different colored blankets sitting on the top, and others had books or papers on the bed, but they all had the same structure.

I put my bag on the bed and followed her out of the room. I would unpack later.

On the way out, she glanced at the clock and sighed. “We don’t have time for a tour anymore, so I’ll just show you where things are as we go. Got it? Maybe you’ll be on time to First Martial.”

“But won’t you be late to your classes?” A quick analysis showed that she was school aged, like I was. Perhaps one year ahead—probably a senior.

She arched an eyebrow. “I’m a Prefect. We’re like mixes between students and teachers, so we have a little more flexibility. In this case, I was assigned to greet you and show you around. Like the other Prefects, I’m a teacher aid in most of my classes—so as long as I get back within the first few minutes of the next period, I’ll be fine. You might not be, if you’re late for class. The Prefect for Mr. West’s class likes to give out detention more than—well, everyone but Eugene Berry.”

I wondered, for a moment, what that said about the Prefect’s character, then frowned. “What sets you apart from the other students?” It would be a good idea to find out more about these Prefects if they had the ability to assign detention.

“We’re good.”

I looked up. “That’s a qualitative statement.”

She blinked. “Ok, then. Prefects are fourth—and occasionally third—year students who have proven themselves both academically and martially. We learn quickly, we move fast, and we hit hard. If there’s trouble in the school, we’re the first to know, and the first to deal with it.” Her lips thinned into something that wasn’t quite a grin—more of a challenge, no, a dare. The look faded as quickly as it had come.

I bit the inside of my lip. If she was a Prefect, that meant she excelled at martial arts; the art of hurting other people. I set my eyes to scanning her movements and comparing them with Zachary’s as we moved further down the hall.

She was light on her feet, and her balance was generally centered—not forward like Zach’s had been. The musculature ratios were different, too. Zachary’s arm muscles had bulged with every motion. Some days he spent hours at the gym, trying to look intimidating. The result had been a large amount of upper body strength at the expense of total body strength. Hunt had less arm muscle, but more muscle overall.

“This is your first Martial period classroom,” Hunt said. I blinked away the numbers and looked it over. It had a gold nameplate to the right side of the door that read, “West, Krav Maga”. I pulled up the image of my schedule, and compared it to the teacher’s name. Earl West.

Just then, the gong rang through the entire hallway, filling my head with half-sounds that shifted as I tried to identify them. I pushed the sounds to the back of my mind as unimportant and hoped Hunt didn’t try to talk to me for the next twenty seconds as I tried to sort everything out. Finally, the information cleared. I reset the timer in my head to warn me before the next bell. If I didn’t figure out how to automate this process soon, the bell alone was going to leave me with a processing headache!

Doors all over the long hallway opened and kids poured through. Hunt placed her back against the wall. As the students diffused into the open space, I began to see why. Without prompting, my blue lines started computing the physics of the situation. A secondary set of calculations opened up as I tried to keep the most empty space around myself as possible to avoid bumping into the flood of people. When the kids started piling up outside Mr. West’s classroom, I’d only just managed to push my blue lines down to a more subconscious level. As they faded from my vision, I sighed in relief. The bell might just be the least of my worries. This school was already ten times worse for sensory processing problems than any other school I’d been to.

Hunt pulled a set of keys from a pocket in her shorts and unlocked the door so the students could enter. I waited silently as all the students streamed past. Hunt waved a taller student aside.

“Farina, this is Castillo—another Prefect.” She turned to Castillo. “Where’s Quinn?”

“Mrs. Payne’s in the infirmary. Quinn’s covering and Kor’s got some kind of competition today, so that pretty much leaves me.”

Her eyebrows narrowed. “I see. Well, this is Crystal Farina—Mr. West’s newbie. Try to show her what’s up before you go all military on her?”

I looked up to see a mirror above us just a fraction of a second before a note card concerning metaphor flashed across my vision. Right. I really was regressing today to have to pull that card. I took a deep breath to refocus as Hunt left.

Castillo was taller than I was—a feat, considering I was almost six feet tall—with powerful shoulders and a square chin. His eyes—I looked away as soon as I met them. They were hard. Calculating. There weren’t numbers behind his eyes, but qualitative calculation didn’t keep him from cataloging all the ways he could dismember me if I became a threat.

I pulled the blue lines to the forefront of my vision to start quantifying threatening behavior in the back of my mind.

“So you’re the one West sponsored into the Academy,” he said.

I blinked. Mom never told me who sponsored me, just that I’d gotten a scholarship. “I don’t know.”

Castillo grunted, spun on his heel, and saluted a new man.

The newcomer was shorter than I was, but powerfully built. His red hair caught the light unnaturally—a clear signal that it was dyed. I looked more closely for any sign of his natural hair color but there were no tell-tale undertones. A natural blonde, then? I shifted my attention towards his eyes, but he turned sideways so he could look at me through the mirror. I held his gaze without fear. The mirrors took away the weight behind his eyes.

“Crystal Farina, I’m Earl West. You’ll be with Castillo today. If you make sufficient progress, perhaps you’ll join the rest of the class before the end of the week.” He nodded to Castillo. “Dismissed.”

Castillo stiffened to attention, and motioned for me to follow him.

We exited the classroom and retraced part of the path Hunt and I had taken to find the martial classrooms. We stopped early and turned into a room I had seen, but not noticed. I jotted down a reminder to put my map together as soon as I had an extra moment. This compound was huge, and it would be easy to get lost.

The room looked similar to the practice room we’d come from, only three-quarters the size. Castillo pointed to a spot on the mat. “Stand there. Got any stuff with you? No? Good. We’re going to start with stretches.”

What he called stretches left me with rivers of sweat running down my cheeks like tears. When he finally called a stop, twenty minutes later, I collapsed onto the mat. When I’d caught my breath enough to look up, Castillo was crouched next to a pile of multicolored balls at the front of the room. I pulled the memory of the last few seconds and played it in my mind like a video on fast forward. I watched him cross to the far side of the room and pull some balls from the cabinet. The memory flickered out, and I sighed. The fact that he’d moved hadn’t even registered through the exhaustion. If I didn’t start paying more attention, I wouldn’t survive in this school where everyone looked at me like I was a piece of meat.

Castillo hefted a ball. From the air-resistance, and general velocity as he tossed it in his hand, I could tell it was dense. Rubber, probably.

“How quick do you move?” Castillo asked.

I pulled up the reference numbers to give him an average as he wound up his arm. One of the lines flashed red as I saw its trajectory. He released the ball, and I moved out of the way a fraction of a second before the ball made contact.

“Was that a rhetorical question?” I asked as he hefted another ball.

He grunted and threw it. That would be a yes.

I slipped out of the way and winced as I saw the energy of impact reading. If that had hit me, it would have broken blood vessels in the hypodermal layer of my skin—though it wouldn’t break bones. In a word; pain. I brushed those calculations away and shrugged. If this was how he wanted to play, I would play to win.

I considered a module I had created for a game I had started using to sharpen my reaction time and movement speed at home—something I’d started when I’d realized I wasn’t fast enough to avoid Zachary’s fists. It would do nicely. I touched the PREP module and watched as all the extraneous data collection bled away, leaving me with all my blue lines in the forefront of my vision. Now I was prepared for conflict analysis—which was why the module was called PREP.

Another ball sailed past my head at forty-three miles-per-hour, and I frowned. This wasn’t just a game to Castillo. There would be actual pain involved if I didn’t get out of the way. I locked the PREP module in place and began to move.

Castillo tried his hardest to hit me. Some balls were faster, others were slower, but there weren’t nearly enough balls to saturate my defenses. I grinned as he ran out of balls and dove for another one. I let him have it and snatched the one nearest to me off the ground. In the upper right hand corner of my vision, I plotted the locations of every ball in the room, and soon I was throwing just as hard and often as he was.

When the gong sounded, I barely heard it. Castillo froze mid-throw, and set his ball down, so I stopped. The pattern was broken.

“We done?” I asked. It could be a trick to mentally disarm me. Maybe he was betting on surprise to make me mess up.

“Yeah. We’re done.”

I released the PREP module and stored the relevant data. A moment later, Castillo opened the practice room door to admit Hunt.

“You said West sponsored her in?” Castillo asked.

Hunt shrugged. “I honestly didn’t think he was the type to take a chance on a newbie this far into the semester, but yeah.”

Castillo snorted. “He wasn’t taking a chance, Hunt. We just finished up dodgeball. I didn’t hit her once.”

Hunt’s eyes widened. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“And that’s not all. She pegged me once.”

Hunt grinned. “It’s about time.” Then her grin faded. She looked at me with critical eyes. “You’re not a professional dodgeball player, are you?”

“That wasn’t dodgeball, it was a bloodsport.” Or it would have been, if the dozens of balls aimed at my nose had actually hit.

She nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

She turned and left without another word. I pulled my schedule up in front of me as I hurried to catch up. After Martial Period One came snacktime.

“Why does the school have a snacktime? Or a snack room, for that matter?” I asked.

Hunt didn’t slow down. “Fighting is hungry work. You burn a lot of calories. Plus, a little break time goes a long way. As for the room? We’ve found that most kids sit down and seize up if we lay out the snack in the dining room. It’s better to make the snack portable. Anyway, we’re not headed to the snack room right now. Most kids hit the showers after the martial period.”

Suddenly, I could feel the sticky sweat cooling on my face. I shuddered away from the sensation, but it didn’t help. “Showers are a good idea.”

The water in the shower room was cold, but that was just fine with me. Once the sweat was gone, I grabbed a set of standard Martial Academy sweats and followed Hunt to the snack room. The line of students stretched out the door, but it moved quickly. Soon, I had a yogurt in my hand.

I peeled back the top and sniffed it.

It was sweet, like the yogurt sticks Mom used to freeze and make me eat when I was a child. I stuck the spoon in and shuddered as it slid through the slimy almost-fluid. Food shouldn’t be slimy.

For one long moment, I contemplated just throwing it out. How bad would waiting until lunchtime be? After all, I’d made it this far on just breakfast.

The quick shower and long walk back to the snack room had untied my stomach from the knots all those stretches had put in it, and now it was growling at me. The blue lines had surfaced of their own volition and were calculating how far a human could last on a certain number of calories. Then they calculated how quickly decreased efficiency could set in with low blood sugar, and estimated how many calories Mom’s eggs and cheese this morning had contained.

I pulled the spoon out of the yogurt and slurped it down, trying to ignore the feeling of that thin residue coating my mouth and throat. I stuck the spoon in again, and again, and again until the yogurt was gone and my stomach was satisfied. Then I banished the blue lines and took a deep breath.

Hunt eyed me. “You really don’t like yogurt, do you?”

I shrugged. “Food shouldn’t be slimy.”

She stood. “The gong is going to ring soon. If you’re going to cover your ears, you might as well do it now.”

I did as she suggested, without bothering to explain that I had already managed to synch the bell schedule she had given me to the alert system in my brain. The bell wouldn’t surprise me again—but evidently not everyone learned as quickly as I did. The next few moments were filled with covered ears and winces. I jotted down the location and description of everyone who winced on my notepad and saw blue lettering fill in by their figures. They were newbies, like me.

“Academic Two, let’s go.” Hunt said, and hopped off the table where she’d been sitting. We followed the stream of students out of the snack room and toward the classroom hall.

CHAPTER THREE

The next academic period was Algebra, taught by someone named O’Brien. I pulled the images from the last time I was in the hallway with all the classrooms and found his name on a door labeled Karate: Synthesis. The door on the other side of the hallway also had his name on it, and was labeled ‘Algebra’ and ‘Psychology’. I double-checked that with my schedule and swallowed as I found that he did, indeed, teach Psychology. And I was enrolled in that class, too. I stifled a groan. I’d spent entirely too much of my life around shrinks, and I had hoped never to see one again.

I had spent two years working with Dr. Carlisle twice a week after Dad left. Dr. Carlisle was supposed to try and figure out why I was so afraid of eyes, but all he ever did was stare at me or ask nonsensical questions about inkblots or worse—my feelings. My fear didn’t make eyes scary—getting trapped in an ocean of unfamiliar thoughts made eyes scary. He never believed it, though, and I never took any of the medications he prescribed me.

Mom’s panic attacks started the year after I stopped going to Dr. Carlisle. She went to a psychologist to see if they could figure out what was wrong with her. They asked what she felt and saw during the attacks, but she couldn’t remember—not even under hypnosis. After a while, they just gave up. Mom didn’t seem to mind, though. She said they were helpful with something called emotional release, even though they couldn’t do anything about her attacks.

After too many years, I was done with people who asked qualitative questions about subjective things. Now I had a psychologist as a teacher. Great.

I sighed quietly to myself as I walked down the hall and looked back down at the schedule.

At least I wouldn’t have to deal with psychology until tomorrow.

Briefly, I wondered whose bright idea it was to have me in that class. Then I shook my head. After my behavior during and after my relationship with Zach, it was no wonder Mom signed me up for that class. She knew I wouldn’t go to a doctor, but she also knew about the analytical tools in my head. Perhaps if I knew more about how the mind worked, I could help fix myself?

It was a futile wish. My mind wasn’t broken, it was unique—and that was just fine with me. I could do a thousand things other people couldn’t, even if it made people hard to understand.

I walked into the Algebra class and nearly melted in relief. Even though the door was marked ‘Psychology’ and ‘Algebra’, the room was decorated almost entirely with mathematics posters—well, there was one corner that quoted Sigmund Freud, but eighty-six percent of the room was covered with algebra.

“You must be Farina,” a short, balding man said.

I looked down at him and nodded.

“Ah, you’ll be a bit behind. Fill out what you can from these worksheets. If you can get them all done, I won’t have to keep you on the weekend—but I wouldn’t count on it. This class moves faster than most algebra classes, so you’ve missed quite a bit. You can sit in any one of the open seats, just try not to be a distraction. It’s alright if you don’t understand the lesson.”

I accepted the stack of papers then turned to find a seat as the gong rang. One of the students in the front of the class jumped and covered her ears with her hands and shoulders. The rest of the class just sighed.

Mr. O’Brien clicked his tongue as a few more students dashed through the door. “If you can all find your seats before my ears stop ringing, I might not give you all detention.”

I hurried to a seat and examined the worksheets as delight blossomed. This was easy math, and it would give me extra time to process all the information backlog I’d acquired! I moved my pencil over the sheets of paper as quickly as I could, but twenty-two minutes into the class, I’d computed all the problems and my fingers were still going. Ten minutes, and thirty-five worksheet pages later, I laid my pencil down and turned my attention to processing the raw data I’d collected so far.

First priority was the map. I pulled up the footage of everything I’d seen in the academy so far and started splicing it together. Starting at the front of the school, there was a long hallway that ended in a T-shape, splitting into two entirely different corridors. We had taken the hallway branching to the right, so I followed that path, putting the other hallway in place without adjusting its length. Soon the hallway I was following turned left, making a ninety degree angle complete with wickedly sharp corners. The first door occurred on the right. It contained a long upwards staircase that led to a hallway with five doors. Four of those led to rectangular rooms containing beds and showers, but Vera Hunt had said that the fifth was for the Prefects. Apparently that one was more like an apartment than a barracks.

I followed the stairs back down, continuing along the original hallway until it branched to the left. I turned to find the long path between the martial and academic classrooms. Slowly but surely I reconstructed the little yellow plaques on top of the doors from memory. I knew I was missing some because some of the names of the teachers that had been mentioned hadn’t been given a classroom yet; like Ms. King and Ms. Rin. Those would be beyond Mr. O’Brien’s classroom, somewhere I hadn’t yet gone. I would have to remedy that later.

I went back to the junction of hallways and turned left, to continue along the original hall. Soon, there was another junction. I turned, finding a number of doors I couldn’t pair with rooms, but there was one I recognized from earlier. I opened the door and wandered into the snack room.

When I had finished labeling the map with everything I knew, I archived every teacher’s name and tagged it with the classes they taught. Then, I opened another file for the Prefects. When I finally finished sorting people, I started focusing on every person I’d seen today. I visualized the face and tagged them with every piece of information I could find. Mostly, I sorted them into groups by teachers I’d seen them with, then tentatively cross-referenced them with other kids I’d seen them next to. Finally, I put a tentative tag on how new they were based on the degree to which they flinched when they heard the bell.

By the time I was done, the timer in the top of my vision was counting down to how long until the gong went off. This time, I didn’t flinch when it rang, I just walked up to where Mr. O’Brien was standing near his desk and handed him the papers.

“Can I join class tomorrow?” I asked as all the other kids filed out of the room.

He looked down at the papers. Then pulled the round wire glasses off his face and sighed. “What did you use to cheat?”

My eyes widened. What did he mean, cheat? I reviewed my actions for something he might have misconstrued, but I hadn’t pulled anything out of my bag. I hadn’t checked my phone—I hadn’t done anything except write on the worksheets.

“I am not a cheater, sir.” The words were hard in my throat. Was he just determined to think the worst of me, for some reason? It was the only thing I could think of that would explain his accusation.

He looked up with anger tinged distrust in his eyes—reminding me of Zachary at the beginning of one of his rages. I took a step back and brought the blue lines to the forefront of my vision, ready to plot intercepts if need be.

His sigh muted the emotions in his eyes. “What else would you have me believe? I can’t even do those in the time it took you, and I barely have to think about them—which leaves me an interesting question. Did you memorize all the answers before you came in to keep yourself from getting detention? Hunt tells me you have a photographic memory.”

“What? No!”

“Then what?”

I checked the time before my next period started and clenched my teeth. I would have to run to my next class to keep from being late. Being late meant detention, and detention meant not being able to see Mom on Friday.

It was better than being expelled for cheating, though. I’d seen the academic honesty policy in the papers I’d signed earlier, and it was as clear on the consequences of being labeled a cheater as the other schools had been on the consequences of being labeled a fighter.

So how did I explain my mind to someone like Mr. O’Brien?

“I think in math.”

Mr. O’Brien blinked. “Right.”

I met his eyes again to check the sincerity of the word—sarcasm was based on verbal cues, so I tended to miss it. Sure enough, his eyes still showed disbelief.

The best way to defeat disbelief was through demonstration. I pointed to a paper on his desk with three square holes in it where Mr. O’Brien had been cutting out flashcards.

“That paper was an eight-by-eleven sheet. You cut out three three-by-five cards. The area is forty-three inches.”

He put his hands on his hips. “That’s elementary school math.”

My eyes snagged on a fist-sized rock he was using as a paperweight on his desk. That would work. “Yes, but it’s a useful type for what I’m about to tell you. Toss me that rock.”

Mr. O’Brien grabbed the rock and then looked at me, eyebrows narrowed. “This isn’t one of those foam rocks teachers throw at their students for fun,” he warned.

“I know that. Assuming that, like most people, you unconsciously try to average the energy per second you use to move an object, I can use the constant I got from handing you the worksheets to determine the mass of the rock—a little over a kilogram. I can average the volume and divide to get density—which is inconsistent with the density of Styrofoam.”

Mr. O’Brien pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything.

I plowed forward. “Throw the rock.”

He put his weight behind the throw and delivered it at thirty-eight-point-six miles per hour. I danced backward two steps as the intercept flashed red in my vision, and winced at the energy reading. I still reached up to snag the rock out of the air and read the intercept off, complete with angles and trigonometric equations. When I was done, I put the rock back down on the desk and massaged my stinging hand. Then I filed the information away so I could construct a full musculature model of the teacher the next time I had a lull in the analysis queue. Preparation was the key to not ending up bloodied on the ground.

Mr. O’Brien only frowned. “If you can do all that math in your head, then why are you in my class?”

As if that answer wasn’t obvious! I bit down on my frustration and tried to keep my words level. “When one ends up at four schools in as many weeks, one’s math scores aren’t always transferred.”

Mr. Obrien looked down at the rock on the desk. “Impertinent, but understandable.”

I stared at him in silence for four-point-seven seconds, and then jumped as someone behind me called my name. Mr. O’Brien looked up. “Ah, Hunt. Here I was thinking you’d forgotten Farina.”

I didn’t quite catch her response, but Mr. O’Brien laughed. “Quite.” He turned to me. “I’ll see what I can do about finding a class that will be a challenge for you. Now, whose class do you have next?”

“Regional History with Mr. Salazar.”

Mr. O’Brien reached for a pen and paper. “He’ll accept my note, but you’d better hurry.”

I accepted the paper and hurried out the door. I plotted the least-time path to the Regional History class, and set off at a run—leaving Hunt trailing behind.

True to O’Brien’s word, Mr. Salazar accepted his note and merely pointed to a seat. I spent the next hour staring at the board as he wrote things down, detailing the history of the early Italian Renaissance. I jotted down a few notes, but mostly stared at the people around me. When my head started to throb from all the data analysis, I took a deep breath and cleared my vision of all the extraneous tools I kept around in case I needed them. Then, when the throbbing still didn’t subside, I retreated into the depths of my mind—taking care to keep my eyes open and recording Mr. Salzar’s lecture.

The ever present hum of unidentified sounds faded away. As they retreated into nothingness, the feeling of fabric, rough against my skin vanished and I was left floating in the dark. Alone in my mind. Safe.

This was the place Mom showed me after Dad left, before her panic attacks started. It was room deep inside my mind where nothing could reach me. Colors, sounds, smells, and textures were all stripped away like I was in a dreamless sleep. My blue lines would wake me if something unexpected happened. Otherwise, I would stay here, healing, while my eyes recorded everything important happening around me. I could play the memory back at any time.

I crept out of my safe place exactly twenty minutes later. The gong rang twenty seconds after that, and I flinched at the cacophony of sound against newly raw ears. Perhaps I should have set the clock to wake me after the gong.

I filed that note away in my mind, then followed the students out of the classroom. Hunt found me in the crowd as I turned the first corner and opened her mouth to say something. She stopped, though, and put a hand to her ear. She stiffened, suddenly, and growled a response to whatever she’d heard from the wire she had stuck in her ear. Then she turned to me. Her eyes gave the impression of spitting fire. I shied back.

“Farina, I need you to follow the other students to lunch. Something’s going down that I need to deal with.” She spat the last words, like she was trying to get the taste of something bitter out of her mouth.

I squinted my eyes at the unfamiliar usage. “Going…down?” I rifled through the notecards in the back of my mind as Hunt put her hand to her ear again.

If something was ‘going down’, what sort of aerodynamics would it have to have for Hunt to get there in time to catch it, anyway? She looked like she would run fast enough to break the sound barrier if it meant she would get there in time.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. I’ve got to go.” She turned and jogged down the hall, leaving me to stare after her.

CHAPTER FOUR

Rather than attempt an aerodynamic model for Hunt’s impossible situation, I just filed a note under ‘ask Mom’ and hurried after the crowd of students heading for lunch. They turned into a thirty foot by ninety foot room with colored glass chandeliers that scattered spots of electric light where they could be caught by the occasional mirror on the wall or reflected by the glossy varnish on the rich wooden floor. Four long, skinny tables ran down the length of the hall on either side of a steel grey carpet, with seating for over three hundred people. Another table at the front ran the wrong way across, adding an additional seventy people to the room’s seating capacity. Most of those people were here today—and they were all talking.

The sounds scattered off the hard, grey stone walls, blending with the smell of meat, grease, spice, and bread. I tried to take a deep breath, only for the feeling of stagnant air being breathed by too many bodies to steal my attention. The lights being refracted by crystal chandeliers, reflected by mirrors, and scattered by shining silverware were too much for me to follow, and I bit down on a scream. My blue lines went limp in my vision—paralyzed by the sheer amount of information in this new room. It took all my self control not to clap my hands over my ears and run from the room. Instead, I pulled at the blue lines and shoved them at the queue in my mind. The faster I could analyze the information, the faster I could clear it from my awareness. Moments later, my vision was crowded with notifications—but the sounds had faded to a dull roar.

A girl in front of me pointed to the far right table against the walls—grey, but hex code #585a5e instead of the lighter #828385 of the rug on the floor. I sat down there, still trying to wrestle all the information into nice, neat categories in my head.

When I finally managed to clear enough information from my vision to see again, someone was waving a hand in front of my face.

“Kid?”

I looked up at the person trying to—get my attention? I forced enough cards from my vision to be able to make out his face, then pulled a card to be sure that his actions were consistent with a deliberate attempt to draw my attention. I replaced the card. That done, I traced the fingers waving in my face up the arm and to its owner’s face—careful to avoid his eyes.

“Finally! Look, who told you to sit here?”

This new person stood six inches taller than Vera Hunt’s five foot frame, with broader shoulders. His hair was longer than the school’s average by 0.68 inches, and his rounded fingernails bore the telltale reflection of a clear-coat.

My shoulders hunched under his angry gaze. Even without looking at his eyes, I could feel his annoyance.

“I asked you a question, newbie.” The sound was harsh in my ears as I dragged the meaning from the words and started to formulate a response.

“I—I don’t—”

“You don’t know.” His gaze intensified, and I could feel old machinery from the times I’d wilted under Zach’s eyes start to come back together. I tried to keep the pieces apart, but the longer he stared, the closer together those pieces came. A section locked. My hands curled into fists, and then released as he sighed and looked away.

I risked a glance upward to see him staring at the chandeliers strung in a two-by-nine grid in the center of the room. More analysis surged to my vision, fighting for my attention.

“Look. You’re obviously not supposed to be sitting with the third years. Go to that table over there, and try to pay attention. It shouldn’t be that hard to tell when you aren’t with other first years.”

I sat there, silent, as I tried to clear my vision enough to identify the first year table and plot a course. Finally, the course was locked in. I stood under the Prefect’s laser eyes and followed the path like a train on tracks—hoping desperately that the way as clear now as when I had plotted the course. My ears were hot by the time I found a new seat. I checked the still-dismembered modules in my mind. They hadn’t retreated. Only paused.

I pulled on the BYE-BYE module—one of the less volatile programs that had snapped together. I took one deep breath, then another as all the extraneous thoughts slid into a file marked “after the crisis is over”. Working mind clear, I pulled the video from earlier and noted an anticipatory gleam in someone’s eye that drew my attention—now that it wasn’t cluttered by hex codes. It was the girl who had originally pointed me toward the third-year table.

I banished the tape and looked around, anger working around the edges of my vision. That same girl was looking at me from across the first year table, two people down. The people next to her were chuckling, like they’d just had a wonderful joke.

Sure, point the new girl to the wrong table and watch as she gets in trouble. They thought it was funny, but I didn’t. I had ways of dealing with that kind of prank, though—I had to. It happened at least a few times every school year.

The trickster and her friends were still nameless, but that didn’t matter. I pulled out my notebook and flipped to a well-worn page at the beginning with the word ‘untrustworthy’ written on it. A moment later, the word hovered next to each of them—a reminder I could see every time I saw them.

That finished, and the blue lines finding nothing immediately dangerous, I released Zach’s module and grabbed food for my plate from where it was laid out in the center of the table. Buzzing started in my ears from noise I was too tired to decipher.

Someone tapped on my shoulder and the rest of Zach’s modules—the ones I’d dismembered to keep them from activating and making me hurt someone—jerked closer to each other. I placed a mental hand on them then looked at who had nearly gotten their arm ripped off. She was petite, with brown hair that fell in her face as she looked at the floor. I blinked as a cross reference appeared over her head. She was the one who still cringed at the bell in Mr. O’Brien’s class.

“Call me Smith,” she said, and stuck her hand at me.

I looked at the offered appendage, then squinted at her. In all the footage I had of her, not once had she actually ever looked up. Could she be afraid of eyes, like I was?

“Sure, I can call you that. What’s your name?” I asked. I took her hand to satisfy the complaining ‘social niceties’ program in the upper left of my vision, then dropped it quickly. The clothes against my skin were already taking too much attention in this room where sounds, lights, and smells were at critical density. I didn’t need my mind going off and trying to build premature models based on a handshake.

She gave a slight grin. “My name is Tabitha Smith, but most people here just go by their last name.”

I wrote that down on my notepad and stowed the information for later sorting. The social niceties program prompted me again, so I introduced myself between bites of lunch, then patted myself on the back for not shoving the program into the locked drawer at the very bottom of my social notes filing cabinet.

Smith pointed at the guy across from her. “This is Briggs. I think he might be in a few of your classes.”

I looked up from the ham sandwich and ran Briggs’ face through a quick matching program, then nodded. “Krav Maga.”

His mouth opened 0.27 seconds longer than average chewing speed, then closed again. He finished swallowing his food.

“You are observant—against all odds, it seems.”

His eyes suggested that there was more to his statement than words, but I wasn’t about to hold his eyes—unassuming though they were—long enough to puzzle out any hidden meanings. I already had enough data to sort through. If I looked at eyes now, I might get lost in them like I always got lost in Mom’s.

Smith’s laugh added to that data load, and I nearly covered my ears. I survived the sound, then used the BYE-BYE module to clear my working mind again. I took a few more bites, then realized that Briggs was staring at me.

“Maybe not?” Smith was saying. She still looked like she was completely focused on her food. So why did I feel like she was evaluating everything I did?

I finished the sandwich then reached for the water glass set at the top of my plate.

“Hey, you know it is not polite to ignore others—especially not others who want to be your friends,” Briggs said.

I looked up at him. There was no guile in his eyes, and the social niceties notification had been vibrating on my vision for eighty-six, now eighty-seven seconds.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is all hard to process.” The program changed, but didn’t go away. To satisfy it, I added, “What were you saying?”

Briggs looked at Smith, who shrugged, but I wasn’t about to spend enough energy to decipher the gesture. I drank some more water and waited.

“I was just wondering what you thought about West. You’ve had a class with him, right?” Smith said.

I frowned. “I haven’t really been able to see him. He sent me out of the room with a Prefect the moment I arrived.”

“Oh, right. You got here late—I had forgotten,” Smith said. I noted the lie in blue by her head. “Welcome to the late club. You’re probably going to want to keep an eye out. Kids who transfer here from other schools have to stick together, you know? Could be worse, though. You’re what, a junior in highschool? I heard there was a first year senior here a few years back. They gave him no end of trouble.”

Briggs coughed. “Anyway, you’re going to want to keep your eye on Mr. West. He’s got some quirks for sure. ‘Course, he’s not as strange as some. Stiff, and I’ve heard stories of him pushing students hard. He’s had more students in the infirmary than even Ms. King, but I honestly think she’s stranger.”

Smith bit the inside of her cheek. “Yeah, maybe. What do you think, Farina?”

Mr. West was…well, I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t had enough time to analyze movement patterns, and I’d never directly seen his eyes. Without that information, I couldn’t evaluate him, let alone compare him to this Ms. King I’d never even seen.

I opened my mouth to respond when Smith stiffened. I looked around to find the cause, only to spot a student limping in late. My blue lines noted it as a probable abnormality—but how had Smith noticed? She hadn’t even turned around, so there was no way she could see him.

He found the seat nearest to the door at the second year table then stared silently at his plate. His face was shades of brown, blue, and green that turned my stomach. I’d seen them all too commonly on my own skin.

The second years around the open seat all squished together to place a foot wide gap on either side of him, and I could see disgust in every eye. Heads turned as the doors to the lunch room opened again to admit Vera Hunt. Rage filled the air around her as she strode down the center of the room with her head held high. Her eyes blazed as she swept the room with her gaze. When she saw the kid who limped in late, I thought she was going to cripple him with sheer contempt.

Instead, she moved her attention to the teachers scattered around the room. Some nodded, others just watched her. When the only teacher sitting at the long table stretching the wrong way across the end of the cafeteria nodded, the silence thickened and Hunt whirled around to address the room.

“Of all the things a man can do, assulting a woman in this school is the most idiotic.” There were flinches and indrawn breaths from spots on the first-years table. Hunt raked her eyes across the room. “We are a martial arts school. Did you really think your actions would go unnoticed? That we would look the other way?”

The man that had limped in earlier grit his teeth and met her eyes. “Assault is a strong word, Hunt. My business is my b—”

Her eyes flashed and his words died in his throat. He dropped his gaze, though he still made a show of watching her. He was trying to project bravado, trying to pretend that what he’d done was no big deal. I had seen Zach do the same thing over and over again. It was obvious what kind of person he was, even without the comparison analysis.

She tilted her head to the side. “You made it the business of every decent soul that’s ever lived, Liam. Now, you wanted a date so you’ll get one. You, me, and your martial focus teacher will be taking the ring tonight—Alya, if she can walk—will join us.” Her eyes flicked across the great room with an intensity that made my hair stand on end. “Castillo? You’re the aide for his martial focus class.”

The large, cold, calculating third-year stood from where he’d been having lunch at his year’s table, crossed the room, and sat in the void between the offender, Liam, and the other second years.

Hunt looked at the first year table. “Castillo’s only job is to make sure Liam can fight in the arena tonight before we turn his sorry a—” The teacher at the head of the room coughed, and the woman turned to her. “Sorry, Ms. Green—his sorry head—over to the police. I want each of you to pay attention, though. This is what happens when you attack another student. We do not train you to be monsters, and anyone who has so little self respect so as to become one is dealt with.”

I could feel the angry energy she wore like a cloak around her intensify as she strode out of the room, leaving complete silence in her wake.

I looked back at Liam, still self-assured. His anger burned deep, and there was something ugly and familiar in his eyes.

I turned back to Briggs and Smith before memories of Zach could finish rising to the surface.

“Why does she care?” I found the words coming out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Smith was still looking down at her food, so I had to lean forward to understand her words. “Why wouldn’t she care? Like she said, any decent human being has a duty to stand up for those who have been abused.”

I looked down at my empty plate. No one stood up to Zach until it was too late. He’d left his hands in my mind just as surely as he’d left them elsewhere. I touched the ring on my finger for comfort, but it was only cold metal—like a frozen needle against my skin. Still, needles were better than hands.

The bell rang, disrupting my thoughts until the data backlog cleared. By then, everyone else had cleared out. I hurried after them, only to stop as a voice cracked across the room.

I turned to find that same man who had yelled at me for being at the wrong table advancing across the room.

“Who gave you permission to run?” He demanded.

“N-no one.” I curled my hands into fists and touched the module that would clear all extraneous data.

“Then why are you doing it?”

I didn’t need the blue lines to find the error in his logic. “Technically, I was doing it. But I’m not doing it anymore. When you yelled I—”

“Well, technically you have detention. Don’t call your ride for pickup on Friday. Got it?”

I stiffened. “That’s not f—”

His eyes glinted in anticipation. “Do you want detention Saturday, too?”

This time, I stopped myself. Not having filters around this guy was just going to get me in more trouble.

“You’re already terrorizing her, Berry? Can’t you see it’s her first day?”

I looked up at the chandelier to see Tabitha Smith’s reflection coming toward us.

Berry shrugged. “First day or not, running in the halls means detention. I’m just enforcing the rules.” He glowered at her. “Got a problem with that, Smith?”

I opened my mouth to point out that ‘cafeteria’ and ‘hall’ weren’t even synonyms, but stopped as a new notification sought my attention. The first time I had corrected him, he’d given me detention. The second time, he’d threatened it. One data point and a partial weren’t enough to give a pattern, but data collection, in this case, was not its own end. Extrapolated data would do, and that graph showed that argument—whether that was offering correction or direct debate—had a direct relationship with detention.

Smith stopped even with me, then sent me a sideways glance through the curtain of her hair. “No sir. But you might want to make sure she knows what the rules are before you punish her for breaking them.” She looked up, though her eyes looked past him as she fixed him with a fake grin. “Like this! Oh, yeah. Farina, you’re not supposed to run in the halls—or, apparently, the cafeteria.”

Berry’s lips tightened. “You want detention for smart mouthing a Prefect, Smith? I can arrange that. As for Farina, it’s common sense. Halls—or cafeterias are for walking, not running.”

Common sense was, statistically, an oxymoron. But I pressed my lips shut before I could point that out, too.

“You can’t go a little easy on her? Come on, Berry. Even you’ve got to have some heart.”

“Heart’s got nothing to do with it. Now get out of here—unless you want to join her on Friday.”

Smith stiffened and started to argue again, but I raised a hand to stop her. Berry exercised what power he had because he wanted to be in control—funny how control was such an illusion. My blue lines blinked as they found the least-time solution to this particular threat. There was a silver knife on the table, only two steps out of my reach. The ropes suspending the chandeliers around the edge of the room were hidden, but not inaccessible. A precise throw of the knife could sever the rope in under zero-point-eight-six seconds with a twenty-six percent of failing. If I sprinted across the room to cut the rope, it would take three-point-seven-two seconds, but had only a three-point-two-three percent chance of failing. Berry, oblivious to everything except winning this petty argument, stood beneath a glittering, deadly light fixture that weighed at least a hundred pounds.

I considered the solution for another long moment, then dismissed it. Berry wasn’t a problem that warranted my engineering skills. I could stay an extra day at school, and be grateful for the extra time to catch up on my studies. Mother would probably be happy to spend less money on groceries for lunch, anyway.

I turned and walked away with a smile on my lips.

CHAPTER FIVE

The next class was Ballet with Ms. Kirna, in a classroom just down the hall from Mr. West’s classrooms. Briggs was clustered with some other students in the far left corner of the room, standing on some black flooring with a texture somewhere between vinyl and rubber. I started toward him as he looked up.

“Farina, get off the marley!” he hissed.

I pointed at the floor for clarification, and he nodded. Black flooring was called marley. Got it. I hurried off the marley and onto the wooden floor, only to wince as I saw the trail of dusty footprints leading across the floor.

As I considered how to erase them, another figure appeared on the floor.

“Alright, everyone, line up on the bar,” he said. Briggs and the other students hurried to obey him—which meant he must be someone in authority. The instructor for this class was named Ms. Kirna, though, so he had to be a Prefect.

When everyone was lined up next to the wooden bar that spanned the edge of the room, the Prefect looked down at the floor and deliberately traced the dusty footsteps to me. A sneer crossed his face. “You must be Farina,” he said, and stepped into the classroom, careful to remove his shoes and place them by the door before continuing onto the marley.

“Yes, sir.”

One of the kids snickered.

“I’m only going to tell you this once, got it? Stay off the dance floor if you’ve got street shoes or wrestling shoes on. Point-shoes and flats only. You savvy?”

I nodded.

“Then get over here.”

I blinked.

The marley covered the entire floor between us—there was no way to both stay off the marley and get to him.

“Take your shoes off, Farina, and get over here so we can start class.” He said the words slowly, like he was talking to a child. Not even I could miss the ire in his voice. I hurried to do as he said.

He waited a moment, watching me with predatory eyes before barking out an unfamiliar word to the other students, who started bending their knees and pointing their toes at the bar.

I followed the Prefect into a room I hadn’t noticed on the other side of the dance floor.

He rooted through bins in a cabinet and tossed a pair of pink tights and a black leotard at me. I caught them before they smacked me in the face.

“You get these on before I get here or you’re late—that’s detention. Short your lunch if you have to, but I don’t want to see you here dressed in street clothes again, understand?”

I nodded, then looked up at him from beneath uncertain lashes. “Who are you?”

He scoffed. “I’m the assistant teacher, Doug Houston. Call me Doug, and I’ll hurt you. Now get those on.”

I looked around for somewhere to change, but the only place was right next to the wall where the cabinet he’d pulled the clothes out of jutted out an extra foot. Even though I was out of his direct sight, my cheeks heated while I changed. When I was covered again, I stepped out and looked back up. His face was carefully neutral, but his eyes held a quality that made me shiver. It was a hunger I’d only seen once before.

With Zachary.

Heedless of the ballet shoes I was carrying, I threw my hands up to fend off imaginary fists as Zachary’s smirking face appeared in my vision.

Houston blinked and picked the ballet flats from where they’d landed on the ground.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

I fought through the ghost and shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. This man was dangerous—not only that, he was a Prefect. That meant he was good at hurting people, and he had the authority to get away with it. Suddenly, I wished the rest of the plasma pulser rings were on my fingers instead of hidden at home. The single ring I wore now was a reminder—not a defense.

He looked me up and down, then smirked. “That’s what I thought. Now put your hair up before I cut it off.”

I flinched and pulled up an image of some of the girls in the class with their hair twisted into a bun. I gathered up my hair and secured it with a hairband. Maybe it would stay.

The class that followed was full of bends, twists, and turns that left me half-sprawled on the marley.

“Farina, you’re off the beat!”

“Farina, get that leg turned out!

“Farina, point your toe!”

I tried to analyse everyone else’s movements, but the class moved on before I could complete any of the analysis. Even when I could fully understand a move, I couldn’t copy it well enough to make Houston happy. These motions weren’t like fighting where the move was reasonably accurate if I could hit the target with the desired limb. Here, they wanted grace—not economic movement, but economic movement that passed through some mysterious intermediates that somehow made the motion beautiful. By the end, my head pounded as badly as the days I computed the math for the plasma pulser.

Houston caught me after class with a frown on his face. When I looked at his eyes, they were silent. Silence, from a man like him, was more dangerous than anger. I couldn’t tell what he was planning.

I folded my arms over my chest and watched his center of balance. The blue lines rose to the forefront of my vision, and I pushed the pulsing pain to the back of my mind. Assistant teacher or not, this man was a threat.

“You’re awkward and slow, Farina. Your coordination is fine, but you have to pay attention to how everyone else is moving. You aren’t being attacked, you’re dancing!” He sighed. “If you need a CD player to practice, see Ms. Kirna after the Tournament.”

I nodded dumbly and watched his form until he left. Then, and only then did I lay a soothing hand on the blue lines and lay them to sleep. I checked my schedule briefly and sighed.

Biology. I could deal with biology.

I spent the entire class period locked inside my safe place, letting my headache die down. By the time the class was over, I could think again without pain. Hunt walked me back to Mr. West’s Martial classroom, then stopped me outside the door.

“After the martial period, we do a cool down and then go to Tournament. I’m going to be busy teaching that dirtbag, Liam, a lesson, so I won’t be able to check in with you until after. You going to be okay finding the tournament by yourself?”

I frowned at her and started to ask for clarification about the fight this morning, and the purpose of Tournament, but I stopped myself. My headache was about to be bad enough without extra data assimilation. I could figure it out later. I stepped into the classroom and looked around.

Castillo came up and pointed to an area off the mats where fifteen pairs of shoes were stacked. I pulled my shoes off and set them down nicely by the wall, outside of the mash of shoes and then returned to Castillo, who showed me some basic positions while the rest of the class did jumping jacks and pushups with Mr. West.

I spent the rest of the period kicking and punching with the same movements over and over again until Castillo finally nodded his satisfaction and gave me a different motion to practice. The gong rang forty minutes after the period started, and I dropped into a heap.

“Get up, Farina, we aren’t done,” Castillo said. I looked up at his eyes, but he wasn’t angry. I picked myself up off the mat and followed him and West in a series of stretches that relieved the burning in my thighs and arms for another twenty minutes. When the gong rang again, the class dropped what they were doing and filed out of the room.

I moved to copy them, but West caught my eyes through the mirror and motioned me over.

“Hold on a moment, Farina, I need to talk to you,” he said, and then spun around to face the open doorway. Hunt and another Prefect came in. The other Prefect’s face was curled into a frown, but Hunt was unreadable.

“Sir, we’ve got a message for you. It’s important,” Hunt said. She produced a letter—crumpled, but intact—from a pocket in her shorts.

West’s paled slightly—without my fixation on colors, I might not have noticed—as he scanned the letter’s contents. “Alright. In my office. Farina, we’ll talk after.”

He pulled aside one of the mirrors in the back of the room to reveal an entrance to his next door office. He gave me one more unreadable look, then disappeared behind the mirror. I scanned what little of the room I could see before the mirror-door closed and stored it for later analysis. Then I settled down to wait.

Ten minutes later, West emerged, face drawn. I tried to catch his eye to maybe see what the frown was about, but he avoided my gaze.

I clenched my jaw as I stood.

Eyes were the window to the soul—even more so for me. Yes, they were frightening but, ever since Zachary, I’d found out how useful they were. If I’d listened to what his eyes had said about him, I wouldn’t have had to hurt anyone. Since then, I’d focused on at least glancing at people’s eyes every once in a while to tell why they did and said the things they did.

And yet, I hadn’t once been able to catch Mr. West’s eyes in anything except the mirror.

It was almost like he was avoiding me?

I met his eyes through the mirror, and he offered a terse smile. “We’ll have to talk later. I’ve got a date in the ring.”

My eyes narrowed, but before I could ask for clarification, Hunt answered from behind me, “Usually Tournament is used for full-contact sparring, but today Liam,” she spat on the ground, “gets to go three rounds in the ring with me, West, and the defendant.”

There was blood in the other Prefect’s eyes, and I shivered. “Is that legal?”

Hunt laughed. It was a cold kind of humor. “He signed up for classes here. If he’s been studying, he’ll be fine. Besides, we’ll all be in full body protection. By the time we hand him over to the cops, he’ll have learned his lesson.”

I looked back at Hunt, and froze as the surroundings bled away, and there was only me, her, and pain tempered by loss. Pain like from Zachary.

I blinked away as Hunt’s mouth formed a little ‘O’. Then her eyes hardened back into that impenetrable shield. “I’ll get this guy, Crystal. I promise that much.”

I nodded, and followed them out of the room.

Hunt made good on her promise. Liam was on the ground in the first two minutes, and both she and West aimed for his balls more times than I cared to count. By the end, he had to be carried out of the ring by the two police officers sent to retrieve him.

“You’d think they’d learn,” Tabitha Smith muttered from beside me.

I nodded. “But they don’t. Our only option is to become strong so they can’t hurt us.”

She turned, and I could tell she’d made some sort of connection—even though I couldn’t see her face. “Is that why you’re here?”

My face flushed. “I got kicked out of school for fighting. You were the only ones who would take me.”

Her eyes showed clear disbelief, but she didn’t press it any farther, and that was fine with me. Hunt knowing what happened was bad enough. She knew how it felt. Tabitha Smith had no such shadows in her eyes, and I didn’t need the whole school knowing about it.

Zachary’s face flashed behind my eyes as I stood. I wrenched myself out of the memory before it could get any worse.

There was a hand on my shoulder.

I spun and grabbed it, but it twisted out of my grasp.

“Farina, it’s just me,” Smith said. I opened my eyes all the way and traced her form.

Not Zachary.

Her chin was tucked to protect her neck, and her eyes were closed. Somehow, she was more dangerous this way.

I dropped my hands and stepped back.

After a moment, Smith relaxed, too.

“Dang, girl. Whatever it was really messed you up, huh?”

I grunted as I registered a dozen eyes staring at us.

Most of the students had already left, which meant the teachers had a clear view of what had just happened.

My stomach clenched.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

If they decided that counted as a fight, then I’d be in the ring tomorrow. I was going to be sore enough as it was without being taught a lesson by the teachers. Being in that ring, in Liam’s place—it would be worse than Zachary. He pretended to know about pain, but the teachers didn’t have to pretend. They would take me apart.

Smith forced her head up, though her eyes never focused on my face. Her lips wore a smile. “No problem. I shouldn’t have touched you. You would have been within your rights to put me on the ground.”

I let out a heavy breath. The teachers’ attention faded away—all except for one.

I looked across the room to see an unfamiliar woman dressed in all black. She had auburn hair cut at her chin, much like how Hunt kept her hair, and brown eyes so dark they might have been black.

I shivered.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

Tabitha didn’t look up from collecting her backpack. “That’s Ms. King. She teaches Advanced Krav Maga, but she’s proficient in anything you’d like to name.”

Dangerous woman, then. So why was she looking at me? I was probably the least dangerous student they had.

I looked back at her to see if there might be some answers in her eyes, but she’d left the room.

I checked the time at the top of my vision. Three seconds since I’d last looked at her.

She was fast.

I turned to leave, only to find Mr. West leaning against the doorway. “Come on, Farina. We need to talk.”

I followed him to his office and sat down in the chair opposite his desk. He sat on the corner and looked past me.

“It’s the end of your first day. What do you think about Martial Academy?”

I bit the inside of my lip. I wasn’t really sure what to think. I’d started a list of strange things I’d noticed—like how Mr. West wouldn’t look at me, and how Tabitha Smith didn’t want to look at anyone—but there wasn’t enough data for me to form conclusions.

After a moment of silence, Mr. West looked down at his hands which were clasped in front of him. “I get it, Farina. Why would you trust me? You don’t have any idea who I am—other than a teacher at your new school. Believe it or not, that’s a good quality. The fewer people you trust, the fewer people can burn you later.”

I nodded. He hardly had to tell me that. The only person I could trust was Mom, and I couldn’t really even do that. She had my best interests at heart, but she could be a little bit useless. That didn’t keep me from loving her, though. Before the panic attacks had started, and she stopped remembering things, she’d helped me put together the programs in my mind that made life bearable. Mom was the only one who would ever look out for me all the time. It was just a fact of life.

Mr. West sighed. “Crystal?”

I looked up at him.

“Why did you complete all your math work for Mr. O’Brien during class today when he said you had the rest of the week to do it?”

Mr. West had called me in here to talk about Math? I checked the map in my mind to see if he also had a Math classroom, but there was nothing. The social niceties icon was blinking in the corner of my vision, so I didn’t run a cross check. Instead, I focused on forming a response.

“The math was kid stuff. The calculations only took a few minutes. Most of the rest of the time was actually writing it down.”

He frowned. “But you could have waited and turned it in during your next class with him. Right?”

I shrugged. “Yes. But why would I do that?” My blue lines said that the best way to finish school work was one assignment at a time. Getting the easy assignments done during the designated time period was best practice.

“Because now Mr. O’Brien, Miss Hunt, and anyone else they choose to tell—which includes most of the teachers—know exactly what your mind can do. Any advantages your very special mind would have given you can be mitigated once people know what you can do.”

Like Zach. If he had known about the Plasma Pulser—if I had given him even a hint of what was coming—he would have shattered every bone in my hand so I couldn’t wear the weapon.

I shuddered.

“That’s right,” Mr. West said, and stood. “Maybe you should refrain from showing off, Miss Farina. It’s easier to stay under the radar that way, and you never know who might be looking for you.”

Mr. West’s warning appeared in blue, written across my vision. I swallowed hard. He was right. There was no way for me to know who might be a future enemy. Anything they knew about me, or Mom, or any of the things I cared about could be weaponized.

The social niceties icon blinked in the corner of my vision again, so I nodded. “Thank you.”

As I hurried out of his office, I couldn’t help but wonder why he had told me that. What was in it for him? But my blue lines didn’t have any answers, so I archived the questions and went back to the dormitories.

That night, I spent what little free time we were given for homework compiling lists of things to process while I was asleep. The backlog of data in my mind was enormous. I used my notepad to jot down a reminder to take some acetaminophen in the morning; the headache was going to be extreme. Hopefully there would be less information to process tomorrow, and even less the day after that. I would get through this—it would just take a while.

I was just finishing writing out my directives for the night when Hunt entered the room. I looked up, but she just crossed the room to another bunk and put her stuff down. I frowned.

“Don’t Prefects have their own apartments?” I asked.

She grinned and pulled a textbook out of her bag. “Yeah, but I’d rather get to know the students. I shift around the girls dormitories to make sure everyone’s doing alright.”

“And you’re staying here tonight?”

She shrugged and opened the textbook. “The room’s only half-full, so I won’t have to climb all the way to the top bunk.”

I checked her eyes, but they didn’t tell me anything.

I finished getting ready for bed in silence, expecting my other roommates to come in any moment, but they never did. Five minutes before lights out, I looked up.

Hunt was watching me from the corner of half slitted eyes as she lay face up on the bunk across from me.

“You ready to talk?” she asked.

“About what?”

She snorted. “I heard what happened with Smith earlier. It’s really not hard to figure out.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“That’s crap and you know it. Farina, you need help—and I mean before you hurt someone. It was close with Smith today.”

I swallowed hard. She was right. I had been prepared to do anything I had to in order to get her away from me. It was only due to Smith’s own skill that it hadn’t gone any farther.

And what if she hadn’t been paying attention?

Her average movement speed was slower than mine. She didn’t have the same analytical tools I had at my disposal. Yes, she was in the advanced Krav Maga class, but that only meant that she could hurt me just as badly as I could hurt her. And for what? She was trying to make sure I was alright. I rewarded her friendship with violence.

“I don’t want to hurt people,” I finally said.

Hunt swung up to sit on the side of the bed and met my eyes. “But you’re afraid.”

I nodded. “I can’t—” my voice cracked as Zachary’s ghost floated past my vision. When he met me, I was helpless and naive. I said no. He said yes. He said yes again and again and again until I couldn’t do anything but capitulate.

I was weak, and he was strong. I couldn’t do anything but cry and stand there while he hurt me and others that tried to help me. The inability to defend myself drove me to design modules threaded with targeting systems. Identifying the weak points in the human body wasn’t difficult once I’d memorized the human anatomy, and hitting them was only a matter of plotting the correct course. Muscle memory came from hours of reaction games—a desperate attempt to become physically fast enough to follow the courses my lines plotted. After Zachary’s accident, I had dismembered the modules and hidden them—but that didn’t help. I was still too weak to defend myself against real threats, and too violent to have friends.

But what was the alternative? If I hadn’t put those modules together, I wouldn’t have learned how to turn to minimize the damage his fists did. I wouldn’t have realized that beating him with my hands was impossible without more formalized training than I had access to. I wouldn’t have designed the plasma pulser. I would still be curled in a ball, trying desperately to avoid Zach’s rage.

I pictured the words I wanted to say and forced them out through my teeth. “I can’t be weak.”

“And hurting people that try to get close to you is the answer?”

Hunt’s eyes were narrowed. Challenging.

“No.”

“Then what are you going to do about it?”

The obvious answer was to refuse to fight. If I didn’t raise a hand, then no one would be hurt. The thought made my stomach turn.

“I can’t stand by and let that happen again.”

“No one’s asking you to, Farina. Think about it. What do we teach here?”

“Fighting.” The word was slimy as it exited my mouth. I’d seen blood before, and bruises, and bones that snapped like candy. Why would a school teach that to so many people?

“Wrong,” she snapped. “We teach control. Yes, we use violence to do it. If you can’t control someone who tries to hurt you then you surrender control of your own body. That is unacceptable. The only way to win a battle without fighting is to know that, if they start it, you will come out the victor with the body of your enemy broken at your feet if they decide to continue. You control the situation.”

I swallowed hard at the image of Zachary half buried under the car, screaming and crying for help. If he had known how it would end, he never would have set his sights on trying to own me.

“Get it now?” Hunt asked.

I nodded.

“Good.”

She stood and opened the dormitory door. Smith and two other girls I’d seen in classes but not met spilled through the doorway as the timer shut the lights off.

Hunt sighed and slapped the lightswitch back on. “You’ve got five minutes to be in bed, or you’ve got detention.”

I pulled the covers over my head and willed myself asleep.

For the first time since the accident, I didn’t wake up in a cold sweat.

CHAPTER SIX

I woke two minutes before the first gong, vision clear of the usual notifications and analyses. I took a deep breath in the quiet morning. When everyone else woke up, the calm would be gone. The air would be filled with the buzz of excitement, anxiety, happiness, and pain. I looked around the room at all the girls peacefully sleeping. My eyes caught on Vera Hunt’s prone form.

Who taught her about control? Who helped her find that icy calm that shielded her eyes?

She shifted, and then sat up—as if she could feel my eyes on her. She met my gaze, then pushed back the covers and stood.

Following her example, I swung out of bed and hurried to get ready. After the gong startled the other girls out of their beds, Hunt offered to show me the way down to warm ups before she went to find her class. Castillo was still subbing with West because the usual Prefect was still in the infirmary. Absently, I wondered what had happened to put her there for so long. Sure, this school was more dangerous than most, but this Prefect had been in the infirmary for three days, already.

I managed to keep up through warm-ups in spite of my aching muscles. West wandered through the class, offering suggestions and pointers as we stretched and did basic exercises to get the blood flowing.

Not once could I meet his eyes through anything but the mirror.

Breakfast passed quickly, filled with chatter about last night’s tournament and speculation on what would happen tonight between Tabitha Smith and Doug Houston.

The gong rang too soon and I hurried to psychology. I stopped outside Mr. O’Brien’s room and swallowed my dread. Dr. Carlisle wasn’t waiting with his endless unanswerable questions and searching stare. It was not a psychologist’s office—just a math classroom.

I stepped inside and found a desk. A few moments later, Mr. O’Brien dropped a textbook in front of me.

“We’re on Chapter 5 as a class. You can just use today’s class to get caught up—and tomorrow’s detention, if your Martial focus teachers don’t take up your whole day Friday.”

I stifled a groan and opened the book. Of all the ways to learn psychology, this was probably the worst. While I wouldn’t have any trouble recalling the information once I read it, actually getting through the textbook was going to give me the mother of all headaches.

Still, I bent my head over the textbook and started to scan through the words as quickly as the lines on my vision could go. I could already see the weekend full of textbook pages. Forget detention, it was going to take both Sunday and Saturday to read to chapter five.

By the time the class ended, I was half-way through the first chapter.

Mr. West was standing by the door to the Krav Maga classroom when I entered, and I caught him staring at me through the mirror more than once as I tugged my shoes off and set them on top of the textbook in the corner.

I ran his behavior against average data and frowned. Sixty percent match with his being bothered or confused by me, coupled with thirty percent his wanting to talk with me, nine percent his keeping an eye on me—the lines were undecided between my troublesome history and the fact that I was new—and one percent outliers given by the fact that he refused to meet my eyes.

I turned to him when he approached me, but he still insisted on orienting himself so he could talk to me through the mirror instead of face-to-face.

Could he possibly know the kinds of things I saw when I met another’s eyes? I batted that thought away almost as soon as it surfaced. Sure, I could tell things about people when I looked at their eyes, but who couldn’t? The eyes were called the window to the soul for a reason. Whatever I could do, it wasn’t any more abnormal than the blue lines on my vision.

I stored the analysis in a folder on the back of my mind labeled “West”, and focused my attention back on the room.

“Your performance in last night’s class was abnormally poor given your reflexes and history, Farina. I expected better.”

My eyes widened. “Sorry, Sir. I’m not great at copying people.”

There was too much data to compile, analyze, and execute. It would get a little easier once I understood the structure of the class and perfected each move. For now, though, I couldn’t do much without giving myself a data headache.

“That’s not what I saw,” he said.

I stiffened.

“You were trying to copy too much, and you were ignoring your natural responses.” He raised his voice, and turned to address the class. “Fighting isn’t about the forms we teach—it isn’t about getting it perfect. There is no one attack that will bring a target down, and there is no one defense that will keep you safe. If something works for you, use it.”

He turned back to the mirror and met my eyes. “Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, then fall in and warm up. Castillo, get them started.”

Warm-ups weren’t difficult. I almost had them memorized because they followed the same pattern every class. That didn’t keep me from being sweat-soaked by the time we finished. I started technique drills with West’s words heavy in my mind.

Instead of spending my energy on averaging the class’s form when they did the technique, I watched the blue lines in my vision calculate energy outputs. Castillo had said before that Krav Maga was all about putting as much pressure in as small an area as possible—preferably over a soft target. The throat, balls, or eyes were always preferable to the body. After a few sets of the technique, I closed my eyes a moment to build a basic model of the human body, drawing from the hours I’d spent studying human anatomy on the internet. The manakin was in front of me when I opened my eyes. I watched the energy readouts as I hit the imaginary target. While they didn’t have the same sheer force as Castillo’s did, they were higher than the class average. By the end of the first drill, the blue lines had hit their stride, and it only took a few repetitions to maximize energy output.

Mr. West moved throughout the class, watching through slitted eyes. When he stopped behind me, I dedicated a few of the lines to watching him through the mirror. He just nodded and moved on.

“Alright,” West called as Castillo started to transition between drills. Everyone fell into attention and turned to look at him. “Pair off into sparring groups. One referee per group, Castillo floating, Farina with me.”

The other students grouped themselves into threes as I stood there motionless. Then two of the three faced each other and, at the third person’s word, began one-on-one fights.

“Farina, I’m waiting,” Mr. West called.

I hurried over to him. “Sparring?” I said, “I’ve only been here twice.”

Mr. West’s lips twisted into a grin. “Yes, but you have the analytical skills of someone who’s been fighting most of her life and the control of a three-year-old. If I let you loose sparring with anyone else, I’d have to call the nurse’s office to pick your opponent off the floor.” He flashed the silver band on his wrist meaningfully.

“Sir, I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“None of us do, Farina. I can’t teach you control until I know what I’m starting with, though. Take your stance.”

I frowned, but did as he said. He had to be mistaken. I couldn’t even touch most of the kids in this class. They were all strong and fast, and they’d been studying the style far longer than my two days.

Mr. West started on the offensive with a right hook toward my jaw. I ducked under and separated as quickly as I could.

“That was a missed opportunity,” Mr. West said, “You’ve got to do better than that—unless you want Saturday detention?”

I grimaced but changed my strategy. I was already staying tomorrow while everyone went home. I wouldn’t stay any longer if I could help it. Mom would need help at home—and I could certainly use the extra time to process the backlog of information I was generating.

I pulled all the lines from their idle business behind my vision to the front of my mind and set them to analyzing opportunities.

Mr. West pivoted on his hips and brought the tip of his elbow up. The intercept with my chin flashed red, but another line flashed purple at the same time. Quick step to the side, right hand fisted, I made to slam the side of my fist into his temple. He was faster. The elbow of his free hand came up and my fist hit only padded bone.

West pivoted and grabbed my hand. A moment later, it was twisted behind my back, only a few degrees from agony. I grit my teeth and put the heel of my foot into his cup. He grunted, but didn’t release my arm very much. I jerked my head back into his nose, and he stumbled back.

I pressed the attack, but he caught an errant leg left out too long and slammed me to the mat. All the breath whooshed out of my lungs and the lines scattered. I pushed up to standing, and he let me. A moment later, we were trapped in that loop of action-reaction. Intercept-avoid. Plan-replan. Repeat.

I found his eyes halfway through as the rhythm finally made sense. A program, quickly brushed aside, warned me against taking my focus off his center of balance. Eyes could lie, after all. Taking advantage of Mr. West’s concentration on the fight to figure out what he was hiding was stupid at best, but I brushed the warning aside and dove into his eyes anyway.

On the surface, there was concentration and interest. Deeper down, there was caution tempered by nervousness. Some of it was about me. I was…strange. Terrifying in that deep down place left over from when fire was all that stood between us and the wolves of night. He fought that fear with passion and a drive to protect. But who was he protecting? Me? Someone else? Someone close to him who was injured now. All he could do was watch and help on the outskirts of the fight. The only way to protect her was by protecting the ones she loved.

I forged on, and suddenly there was a deeper fear—someone else? No, two people. One was a person in power who could not ever know what he thought of her. One already knew, but couldn’t do anything. He would have to be careful.

I went lower—deeper into his eyes—but there was a wall. He was hiding something—

My visions erupted into red intercepts and I knew I couldn’t avoid them in time.

A thousand impacts hit me at once and I found myself face up on the mat, looking at the mirror on the ceiling. Red trickled down my jaw.

There was a figure in front—on top of me? No, definitely in front.

“Farina, are you alright?”

I blinked at the words, but his mouth was fuzzy and the sounds just floated past.

Alright?

According to Oxford Dictionary, that meant ‘acceptable’ or ‘only just good enough’.

I took what inventory I could. My toes wiggled—well, I couldn’t feel my right pinky-toe—my fingers moved. My vision?

It wasn’t black, which was an improvement over a moment ago.

“Yeah,” I breathed.

I struggled to stand back up as one line limped back onto my vision, but it fizzled out as the mat tried to hit me in the face.

Fingers grabbed me, hands checking—something?

The lines wouldn’t come back, and the colors of my vision danced like fire in the wind.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

I managed to get my eyes focused on the blobby-fuzzy things that bore a statistical resemblance to fingers—or they probably would if I could figure out where my blue lines went.

The appendages split and fused with dizzying haste, and my stomach twisted. “Ah, that’s not biologically possible.”

There was another sound—one Mom said was bad. The proper noun for it floated somewhere outside my head. Curse word? Maybe. It was unimportant.

He pressed something on a silver bracelet thing on his wrist. “Pretty, pretty jewelry,” I sang out.

He looked at me again when the bracelet made a sound.

“Yeah, I need you to come pick up a student. She looks like she’s got a concussion.”

“Cun—cuncusssssssss,” I said, trailing out the sounds. It was an ugly word, too, but it hissed through my mouth just right.

“Yeah, hurry,” he said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The doctor—a guy in his mid-thirties—helped me back to his office and confirmed Mr. West’s diagnosis. After ninety minutes by the clock on top of my vision—which might not have been completely accurate after that bump—I could find my lines again. Two hours later, the doctor let me go to classes with strict orders not to participate in any of my martial classes today, If I still wasn’t at 100%, he said I wouldn’t be able to participate in any of my detention classes tomorrow, either. I wasn’t very worried about it, though. I healed faster than anyone had a right to—which might be why, even after a summer with Zach, I was still in one piece.

I escaped to lunch, but ate little. Across from the table, Tabitha frowned at me. “I heard West put you down hard during First Martial.”

I nodded.

Briggs shook his head. “You’re a beginner. Going full contact with you wasn’t just stupid—it was dangerous.”

I frowned and pulled up the images from my peripheral vision during the sparring match with West. Some of the older kids had minimal contact, but even Briggs—who bore a statistically significant resemblance to Castillo—didn’t actually touch his partner.

Tabitha’s eyes narrowed. “It’s his choice how he teaches his students, but he should have been more careful. You’re brand new, not used to how combat works.”

I relaxed my fists finger by finger as I fought away the image of Zachary’s face. To a point, Smith was right. I had never participated in two way combat. I’d always either curled into a ball and waited for it to be over, or I’d ensured that the only possible outcome was the complete annihilation of my enemy.

I knew how it worked, though.

The weak got hurt by the strong, so the weak worked until they could break the strong down and make it so they could never hurt anyone again.

What West did was different, though. I hadn’t seen his eyes after he gave me the concussion, so I couldn’t be sure, but the visual record showed that I was the one who let my guard down.

“I know enough to not make the same mistake twice,” I finally said. I finished the last bite of my sandwich.

“Hey, Farina!”

I turned to see Hunt just over my shoulder, and wondered just how long she’d been there.

“I heard you took a big bump in your martial period. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

I’d had worse and, while my analysis wasn’t going to be great for the next little while, I would survive it.

“You sure that’s not just Stupid talking? You can’t just shrug off a concussion—I don’t care what kind of crap you’re used to.”

Despite her off-hand attitude, I could tell she was genuinely worried. I twisted my mouth into a smile.

“If I start having trouble, I’ll get help. I promise.”

She grinned. “Atta girl, Farina.” Then she was gone.

I reviewed the encounter twice before the gong rang, but each time was the same. Hunt really was trying to look after me. I couldn’t tell whether to be glad about it or not.

I shoved the confusing emotions away and stood carefully, with my blue lines watching for any sign of dizziness—but there was no issue. Hunt’s worries were unfounded.

Still, I didn’t hurry to follow the crowd of kids streaming toward the door. I had a doctor’s note that gave me permission to sit down during the recreation period, so I didn’t have to rush to claim a specific activity. It would be good to have a few minutes to just breathe.

Eventually, the hallways emptied and I was all alone with my thoughts. I replayed the visuals I had from my sparring match with West again, this time focusing on the things I’d seen inside his eyes. The feelings were duller in memory, but I had more time to look through them. Somewhere, deep in his eyes, I could see an echo of an image. His arms were extended to shield someone he cared for. Was it one of his students? One of his friends?

A feeling like someone had hit me over the head with a bat crashed through my vision like lightning, and the thought was gone. I staggered against the wall to keep from falling as the floor in front of me started to twist.

“Miss Farina, are you alright?”

I looked up to find Mr. West striding down the hall in front of me.

“I’m fine.”

He frowned. “You don’t look fine. How’s your head?”

Pounding like a herd of buffalos. “Not great.”

He offered me one long, muscled arm. “Here. I’ll help you back to the infirmary. Concussions are nothing to mess around with.”

I waved him off, though. “The headache isn’t from that.”

“Oh?”

“It’s just a little data overload. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.” Data overload or not, I risked a glance past his eyes—but he was looking at the floor.

“You should at least sit down, then,” he said.

I put my back against the wall and used it to slide slowly to the floor. Mr. West sat next to me in the hallway, and my eyes widened. “Don’t you have someplace else to be?” He was a teacher, after all.

He chuckled. “It’s nothing that can’t wait until you recover from your—data overload?”

I suppressed the urge to see what the blue lines on my vision had to say about his behavior. It would only prolong the throbbing in my head. Instead, I added the analysis to the queue and leaned my head against the wall.

Mr. West sat next to me in companionable silence for four minutes and twenty-seven seconds, then stiffened and climbed to his feet. A moment later, Doug Houston, the Prefect from Ballet, rounded the corner.

Headache or not, I summoned my blue lines to the forefront of my vision to analyze this new threat.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the teacher meeting?” Doug asked. The set of his shoulders and jaw projected a cocky boredom that set my teeth on edge. I pulled farther into my ball and focused on being anywhere but there. Maybe if I pretended hard enough, he wouldn’t notice me here. Houston was the last person I wanted to talk to when my data systems were still recovering from that blow earlier.

“I could ask the same of you,” Mr. West said. He positioned himself between Houston and where I sat on the floor.

Houston just snorted. “I would be, but Berry said something about a missing first year who’s supposed to be in the rec room right now. Know anything about that, sir?”

Mr. West didn’t even twitch my direction. “If you mean Farina, I think she went to lay down. Doctor’s orders.”

Houston’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?” There was unmistakable anticipation in his eyes. “What happened?”

“None of your business. Now go let Berry know he can go back to just monitoring the rec room.”

Houston shrugged. “Can’t. Apparently, he’s got to talk to her, and he’s not allowed into the girl’s dormitory by himself. The other Prefects are in the meeting.”

“I’ll tell her to come down. You’re dismissed.”

Houston lifted his hand in a sloppy salute that complemented the sneer on his face. “Yes, sir.”

When he finally turned on his heel and stalked off, I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Mr. West turned to me with tight lips full of concern.

How had Houston not seen me? I was sitting here in plain sight—even with Mr. West between us. He certainly wasn’t wide enough to hide me.

“Take however much time you need,” Mr. West said gently. “When you feel up to it, I think Berry’s waiting for you in the rec room.”

I nodded. “Thank you.” And I meant it. Mr. West couldn’t possibly know how much Houston scared me, but he had still stood between us.

Mr. West smiled. “Any time.” He lifted a hand, then strode off.

I waited for my heartbeat to calm down again, then spent a few moments in my safe space—but I couldn’t stop the swirling questions. Mr. West was an enigma. First, he started a full-contact sparring match where he gave me a concussion, and then he stepped between Houston and I? Did he just feel bad about what happened earlier?

But merely feeling bad wasn’t motive enough to lie about where I was—not when I was in plain sight behind him! And why would he shield me from Houston, specifically? Did he know what ugliness Houston hid behind his eyes? Finally, the headache calmed down enough for me to face Berry, so I pulled on the BYE-BYE module to force the question from my mind. That done, I started toward the rec room.

“Farina!” Eugene Berry’s voice cracked across the space as the rec room door closed behind me. I turned to face him with a sigh.

“I was not running in the ‘hall’, and I have a doctor’s note excusing me from normal restrictions. What do you think I did this time?”

He stared at me a long time, his eyes undecided between rage and laughter. Finally, he snickered. “Better watch out, Farina. That attitude will get you in trouble even if you aren’t doing anything against the rules.”

I didn’t respond except to note the word attitude and put it in blue next to Berry’s head. I wasn’t the one with attitude problems when he spent all his time giving detention to unsuspecting first years on their first day.

He sighed. “Ms. King wants to see you as soon as their meeting gets over, which is,” he made a show of looking at his watch, then gave me a nasty grin. “Now, I think.”

Ms. King—the teacher who had stared at me at the tournament. Tabitha Smith’s advanced Krav Maga instructor.

“Why?”

Berry shrugged. “Not my business, didn’t ask. Now get going, or she’ll be giving you detention.”

I frowned, but left without argument. I got halfway down the hall before I realized that I hadn’t asked where Ms. King was, but Berry was gone and I couldn’t bring myself to go back. I sighed and pulled up the map of the academy I’d created earlier. Some portions were still blank, so I pulled what footage I could to fill those blank spots in from the route down to the auditorium where the tournament was held.

I located an office on the far side of the hallway that contained Mr. O’Brien, Mr. West, and Ms. Kirna’s classrooms. It had a little nameplate to the right of the door labeled Ms. King.

My frown deepened and I sent a query running through the map footage. There weren’t that many office-like rooms in the entirety of Martial Academy. Ms. Green had one across from the lunchroom—understandable given that she was the school administrator—Mr. Mccoy had one next to the Rec room, Mr. West had one in the hallway I had Mr. Salzar’s class in, but Ms. King was the only other teacher that had an office.

I scribbled down a note for later, reminding me to start a tentative school hierarchy. Most places, workplace politics were complicated but mostly subtle—based on education level and time-in-grade. Perhaps figuring out some of the school’s internal politics would help me figure out Mr. West’s odd behavior, and Ms. King’s stares.

I hurried through the halls and arrived a few minutes later at Ms. King’s office.

She opened the door as I moved to knock.

“Ah, Farina, come in,” she said, and held the door open.

The lines in my vision scanned across the room with quick, excited flicks and began highlighting angles, corners, and projected walk paths.

My eyes narrowed as I tried to keep up with the massive amount of data the lines spat out. Finally, I turned to Ms. King.

“Why do you have a rhomboidal room?”

There were mirrors on both walls carefully positioned to make the room look rectangular, when the walls were both angled ten degrees.

She grinned wide. “Do you like it?”

“It’s giving me a headache.” Or more of one, anyway. I rubbed my temples in an attempt to take the edge off.

She laughed. “Blunt. We might have to work on that.”

I took a moment to shunt the blue lines to the back of my mind—keeping only the projected walk-path so I didn’t miss the desk in the middle of the room. Almost immediately, the headache dulled by two degrees and I concealed a sigh of relief.

She grinned again as I arrived precisely in front of the center of the desk—something someone without my analytical skills would have found to be a frustrating venture. I bit the inside of my lip as I remembered Mr. West’s warning. Maybe I should have acted confused instead of coming right here?

“I can see that you’re in Psychology with Mr. O’Brien. Good.” She looked down at her desk with a frown. “Have you taken Sociology yet?” she asked.

“No.”

She sighed. “That’s what comes of recruiting first years.” She dropped a Sociology textbook on her desktop.

“Recruiting for what?” Odds were that I was the first year she was referring to and, therefore, being recruited for something.

“Blunt, and direct; not unsurprising. I teach a class called Social History. It’s a secondary martial focus class—so it would replace ballet with Kirna and Houston. Similar to Mr. Mccoy’s Military Practice and Mr. West’s Advanced Firearms class, it is not on the class lists. I don’t generally recruit freshmen unless they have a family history with the school, but you’re interesting.”

I frowned. Interesting how? Her eyes held no clues. They were ice blue and cold, showing nothing but calculating intelligence. “Why is a Social History class a secondary martial focus?” I asked, intrigued but cautious. First West found me interesting but concerning, now Ms. King? Were all the Krav Maga teachers out to study me?

“As a class, it focuses on social engineering of different time periods and how that can be used in a myriad of ways; extracting intelligence, moving unseen in social circumstances, even using blackmail to avoid a fight. In short, we study how social structures can be used as a weapon. Occasionally, we do supplementary tactical exercises to try and put those social structures into practice.”

An entire class studying people? Unlike the other kids I’d grown up with, I didn’t learn social skills by observation. Society was the one thing I couldn’t quantify or explain—the one thing my lines could not help me with. I didn’t learn social skills instinctively, which meant I would be starting at a disadvantage—both in the class, and in life. If Mom were here, she would sign me up in an instant. She’d spent so long talking with me and helping me try to understand the people around me. I knew a lot now, but not nearly enough. There was a little icon pinging in the back of my mind that wondered if I would have been able to avoid Zachary if I had only understood society a little bit better. Maybe I would have seen the signs. Maybe I would have seen his invitations to ‘hang out’ with him and his friends as the trap they were, instead of being flattered that someone was finally paying attention to me. Maybe I wouldn’t have mistaken the signs that screamed ‘predator’ for ones that said ‘friend’.

But I’d spent so much time trying to learn all this; what made me think I would do anything except fail at this class? If I couldn’t understand the basics of society, how could I hope to apply it as a weapon?

More than that, what would happen to my chances of getting a scholarship to University if I failed this class? More information might ensure my safety, but it also might ensure that I never succeeded as an engineer. For a moment, I wondered which one was more important.

Ms. King’s grin faded a bit. “You’re not going to ruin your GPA, Farina. You might spend an awful lot of time learning the material with me in detention, but you won’t fail the class. All you would have to do is your best.”

I looked up. “If you know how much extra work you would be taking on to help me learn this subject, then why do you want me in your class?” The behavior indicated a deviation from normal teacher behavior. Deviations could be dangerous.

“You are interesting, and I try to collect interesting students.”

So the question became whether or not I minded being in a collection.

I eyed the Sociology textbook. If I accepted, it meant almost every moment of my waking life would be spent reading textbooks. Did I really have the time for that?

Still, there might be answers if I took Ms. King’s class.

Mr. West and Mr. Mccoy had secret, invitation-only classes, just like they were the only other teachers who had offices other than their classrooms.

How else would I figure out what was going on at this school? Briefly, I wondered if I should ask West about his class. He sponsored me into the school, after all. Then an image of him meeting my eyes through the mirror flashed through my head, and I frowned. No. Mr. West wouldn’t give me any answers. My best shot at finding out what was going on here was with Ms. King. Besides, what did I have to lose?

I tuned out the sound of the gong ringing as Ms. King stared at me, completely unreadable.

“When would I start the class?” I asked.

Ms. King bared her teeth in something that my lines told me was a smile. Her eyes glinted with predatory anticipation for one sharp moment before they snapped back to that icy cold.

“Now.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

I followed Ms. King through a side door originally hidden by the mirrors and into another classroom. My blue lines flicked over it quickly and then stilled. I rubbed my temples, grateful that this room wasn’t so visually busy as her office was as I reviewed the data my lines brought me.

The room was of medium size—not really any bigger than any of the other classrooms—but the ratios were telling as I compared it to the internal map of Martial Academy. There was another door on my right. It was identical to the door that had led into Ms. King’s office, down to the old brass handle. I scanned my memory to see if Ms. King’s office had another entrance to her classroom, but there was nothing. In fact, there had to be another room that backed up against Ms. King’s office wall and, based off my map, it had almost three times the space this classroom did.

I stored the numbers in a folder marked ‘mystery’, and cross-referenced it with Ms. King, Mr. West, and Mr. Mccoy. Only then did I scan the faces in the class.

Immediately, I found Tabitha’s eyes among the group. She radiated satisfaction, even though she looked at the ground instead of up at me, which was consistent with what data I had on her. The others I’d never seen before.

“Alright, girls, pick a time period and make your introductions,” Ms. King said.

The entire class straightened, and even Tabitha looked up from the ground.

They lined up with a giant, broad, dark skinned girl in front. She made a curtsy low to the ground and then looked up at me with calculated curiosity in her eyes. “It is wonderful to make your acquaintance. My name is Luna Burton—may I ask yours?”

I told her my name—hopefully that was what she wanted from all those words.

Ms. King shook her head. “You decided to head the group with that introduction?”

One of the girls in the back of the line sighed, and Ms. King gestured for her to speak.

“Dean, would you care to rectify her mistake?”

A short, wiry girl crept out of the crowd. “Yes, Ma’am,”

She straightened just a bit, but kept her eyes coyly to the side as she approached. I focused my attention on her and cleared everything nonessential from my queue so I could process her words—but she didn’t address me.

“Miss Burton, might I have the pleasure of an introduction?”

Burton’s eyebrows narrowed, but she turned to me. “Miss Farina, this is Miss Velma Dean. Miss Dean, this is Miss Crystal Farina.”

Ms. King jerked her chin down in a half-nod. “Well done Miss Dean. Now, does anyone have a variation on that introduction?”

Miller stepped forward and, with that same graceful curtsy said, “Miss Farina, I am overjoyed that you could make it.”

“That wasn’t an introduction,” one of the girls near the back of the line said.

Ms. King tilted her head. “It was unorthodox for an introduction, but recall the criteria for the assignment. Miss Smith?”

Tabitha stepped forward, eyes still on the ground. She lifted her head just enough for me to see the grin on her face before she let it back down. “You asked us to pick a time period and give our introductions. You never named a scenario or expanded on the initial parameters, which leaves us free to adjust.”

Ms. King nodded. “And Miss Wong, why is Miss Miller still within the parameters I set forth?”

Wong stared at Ms. King’s lips a moment before answering. Finally, she spoke in mashed-though-intelligible words. I wondered if that was what I sounded like while I was a kid, trying to learn to speak.

“Introduction has a broad denotation and an even broader connotation.”

Ms. King pursed her lips. “I’m looking for something more specific.”

Dean’s hand came up, and then down almost as quickly as it had come.

“If you have thoughts about it, either share them or don’t—but you have to make up your mind,” Ms. King said. Admonition hung in the air thick enough that I could almost see it. Then it was gone.

Velma Dean blushed red and tucked her chin into her chest. “I was going to say that connotation varies per person. The closest to quantifying it we can come is an average.”

Ms. King tapped long fingernails on the table surface, then turned so she could see everyone. She snagged my eyes.

“Using only the data readily available to you, compute the percentage of an average class that would have deviated from the normal in a similar manner to Miller.”

I narrowed my eyes as red notices started to cloud up my vision. “This makes some assumptions—first being that this class constitutes an average class. Equally important is the assumption that I have data on a class that bears a statistically significant similarity to this class.”

Ms. King’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me you can’t compute it?”

“The numbers I get won’t apply to this class.”

She motioned for me to continue, and I rattled off the numbers.

“Basically,” I said, “the number would be proportional with error to how many others had followed the same thought-path Miller had.”

“Now why do you think that is different in this class?” Ms. King asked.

“Because this school has an incessant—though constant—deviation from standard behavior. I don’t know how that deviation will manifest.”

Ms. King seemed to accept that, and motioned for the introductions to continue.

Wong executed a bow and spouted off a string of Chinese Mandarin that I could identify as a greeting phrase, but not quickly enough to translate.

I sorted through the Mandarin course I’d gone through online and found a response phrase. The pronunciation was sure to be jumbled, but the ‘social niceties’ program had started dancing in the corner of my vision. Wong’s eyes widened.

“Do you speak Mandarin?” she asked in English.

“I read it, but I’m too slow to do much else.”

She gave another bow and moved off to the side.

The other introductions were mostly a variation on modern and medieval introductions, with just enough time between them for me to record their names in blue above their heads. When the last girl shook my hand, everyone turned to Ms. King. She grinned.

“I would like you all to note the time and the fact that none of you are seated.”

A few of the girls groaned, but most restrained themselves. I only frowned and reached for the context I was lacking—but my blue lines came up empty. I shoved a wave of anxiety down. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

“On the bright side, we have a reward for our game today and an opportunity for extra training. Find your seats, and I’ll give you your briefing on the scenario.”

I waited for everyone to establish a trajectory, then threaded a path toward the only seat not taken around the large horseshoe table in the middle of the room, next to Wong and a more heavyset brunette named Burton.

Once everyone was seated, Ms. King nodded. “The game is Capture the Flag. You’re already seated in teams. Equipment is standard, those who can are running unlocked. There is a turncoat in play, and I’ve talked with her outside of class. You have three minutes to strategize. Burton, you’re team lead on yellow. Smith, you’re lead on Blue. Miller, you’ve got lead on Red. Planning starts now.”

Luna Burton and Janice Wong stood and hurried to a small table in the southwest corner of the room. They turned to me almost immediately.

“Your job today is to watch, learn, and stay out of the way. Got it?” Burton said.

I nodded. “Sure. What are we doing?” I understood the instructions, but not the parameters of the game. I needed more information.

She sighed. “Capture the Flag. Three flags are hidden over the field; one for each team. You want to find and secure your own flag and steal and secure the other two. As a plus, you can shoot—or lock down—members of the other teams. You lose points if you get locked down. The team with the most points at the end of the time wins. The other two teams get detention; that’s what she was saying earlier about us not being sat down before the bell rang. Now Farina, listen close. I don’t intend to stay here tomorrow. I’ve got a cousin’s wedding, and my mother will kill me if I can’t go. Stay out of the way, and don’t get locked up.”

“Time’s up, finish briefing en route. Burton, you’re through first.” Ms. King said.

Burton sighed as we all stood and moved toward the extra door I had noticed earlier. She stopped in the doorway and accepted a card from Ms. King, which she tucked into her bra.

“Who else is running unlocked?” she asked.

“You and anyone else who is authorized.”

“And who else is authorized?” Burton pressed.

“Figure it out and give the class a report later.”

Burton blushed. “Yes, Ma’am.” She hurried through the door and down the hall. I squinted in the dark ambiance as the light from the classroom faded away. The farther along the hallway we got, the more smoky it became. The particulates in the air were consistent with a smoke machine.

The hallway opened into a room with racks along the hall filled with suits and play laser guns with LEDs that flashed every once in a while.

Burton and Wong put the suits on without hesitation, strapping them on over their clothes. I followed as best as I was able, but it was hard to interpret the black straps without knowing what it was supposed to look like. I still managed to secure it only eight seconds after Burton and Wong had finished. Burton shoved a holster at my chest and crossed the room to grab a headset and bundle of wires.

“Turn around,” she said.

She fitted the headset to my head as Wong grabbed two more sets.

Burton did Wong’s up, then turned so Wong could do hers.

“Communication equipment?” I asked. Burton nodded.

“Stay off it as much as you can. You never know when there are bugs on the line. There are always a few on the field.” Burton said.

“Now come on. Smith and the rest of Blue are coming down the hall.”

I followed Burton out of the equipment room.

“What did Ms. King mean about a turncoat being in play?” I asked.

Burton stopped halfway down the hall. “A turncoat being in play means that someone on the field is not being scored with their team. After the game starts, she will have ten minutes to present herself to another team of her choice and notify them that she is being scored with them.”

“So one team will be playing with four people?”

Burton nodded. “And one team will be down to two. The problem is that anyone can say they are a turncoat, but all their actions can still go toward their original team. If you are approached by someone claiming to be a turncoat, get Wong or I before you believe them. We don’t want to throw away a valuable resource, but we also don’t want to get stabbed in the back.”

I nodded and started to inspect the weapon as we walked. It had a trigger, but no mechanism to allow it to be cocked. Upon depression of the trigger, it emitted a red laser. My blue lines started flashing over it as I noted an abnormality in the design. How hard would it be to get a screwdriver in here to take it apart?

“Hey, careful with that,” Burton said, and danced to the side as a second laser blast nearly caught a sensor on the lower part of her vest. “If that laser hits a sensor on the suit, you’ll lock whoever you hit down, whether they’re on your team or not.”

“Lock down?” The term was obviously some kind of jargon.

“The suit’s got motion sensors. If you get hit and then continue to move, it’ll hit you with a nasty shock. Hurts like nothing else, but it won’t permanently damage anything. The effect is that you get to lay there until the lock down timer runs out. The timers are set for ten minutes unless the whole team is out. Then you’re out of play until the game is over.” She gave me a sly look. “Of course, any shots coming from a suit in lockdown still count—just like friendly fire. You’ve got to be careful on the field, not that a newbie like you would understand.”

She finished her explanation as the hallway emptied into an arena full of smoke. On the right was a padded black tower lined in yellow LEDs. In the center was a second, identical tower lined in blue, and on the left was another one in red.

We jogged through a gate made of that same padded material the gate was made of, and passed other pieces of cover carefully arranged to provide areas of both dense and thin cover.

This entire field was designed to teach ranged combat tactics.

The realization sent a shiver down my spine, and I looked down at the laser gun as numbers started clouding my vision.

If I had the materials, I could have made one of these that was deadly. I’d almost made one to deal with Zachary, but I hadn’t been able to actually do it. It would have been a weapon built for killing, and I wasn’t a killer.

This was a field designed to train people to kill.

“Wong, you find our flag. I’ll seek.” Burton started toward the red territory across the field.

“What about me?” I asked across the growing distance.

“Find somewhere you’ll be out of the way and stay there—and don’t forget to turn on your com!”

Looking around, there were very few places where I could stay out of the way without cutting off my lines of sight. I started toward the top of the tower—the one place where I would be able to see all lines of approach and be out of the line of fire.

“Where are you going?” Wong asked.

I turned to face her. “The top of the tower. If someone comes, I’ll let you know.”

She pursed her lips a moment.

“Game begins in thirty seconds. Vests active in ten seconds.” A voice said over the intercom.

“Go,” Wong said.

I hurried over the tower and began to climb straight up the side. There was a path that wound around a few times before it finally would posit someone at the top, but the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, and my climbing speed wasn’t far enough below my average walking speed to make up the difference. Five minutes after the game started, I was hot, sweaty, and at the top of the tower.

I flipped the com switch to ‘on’, and listened a moment. There weren’t any noises I could make out as speech, so I just focused on scanning my surroundings. Two minutes and seventeen seconds later, I spotted a blue figure climbing the tower—taking the path instead of the shorter climb I’d used to get up here.

“Burton, Smith is climbing the tower,” I said.

There was a faint crackling, then someone’s voice—presumably Burton’s—said, “How do you know it’s Smith?”

I looked back down to see a flash of the blue suit disappear around a corner. “I saw her. My eyes are good.”

But not that good. Well, maybe. If I’d seen more than a glance and had time to analyze walking speed, height, and perhaps derive hair shade, then maybe. As it was, I didn’t know how I knew it was Smith—only that it was. That blue form held the same type of intense intelligence and confidence I’d seen when I’d looked into Smith’ eyes before.

“Is she alone?”

I blinked back to the visual I’d seen of her starting the climb, but there were no other blue flashes.

“Yes.”

As I pushed away the memory, the air around me filled with buzzing—like a bumblebee flying around my ear. I squinted my eyes and tried to push the sound away like I usually did with annoying sounds. It faded, but didn’t go away.

“—engage.”

I bit my lip and closed my eyes. It took one, firm push to clear away the buzzing in my ears. I refocused on trying to parse through the sounds coming from the com.

“I didn’t catch that,” I said.

There was a sound I couldn’t quite identify except to say it was auditory input, and a long pause. “I said to go get Wong. She’ll be somewhere inside the tower. Whatever you do, if you’re alone, don’t engage. She might be the turncoat.”

I nodded to myself. That was one possibility I hadn’t considered. After all, why would she come here without at least one person from her team as backup? It increased the probability that she would get locked down, and it decreased the probability of mission success.

That said, I didn’t have the data to know how abnormal her behavior was. After all, Burton had gone alone to Red territory without backup. Part of that was because she didn’t trust me to have her back, but part of it was likely habit. I wasn’t sure how often they changed up teams for games like this in class, but everyone had already known which teams they were on when they got there which meant they’d worked together before—or that there was a discernable pattern to who worked together when. Burton had to be used to working alone and leaving Wong to defend the flag. Smith was a different story.

I found Wong in the center of the tower looking behind loose styrofoam blocks in the wall to try and find our flag. I met her eyes and she frowned.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Her eyes were fastened on my lips.

“Smith is en route to the top of the tower. Burton thinks she might be the turncoat.”

Just then, the sound of cursing on the other side of the mic reached my ears.

“What is it?” I asked Burton.

“Just got locked down by Red—they weren’t even supposed to be here.”

“Not supposed to be here?” I echoed.

“With Blue one down, I decided to take them on. No luck. Tell Wong she’s on her own, will you?”

I agreed, and Burton’s mic went silent. I started a timer in the corner to reflect Burton’s lockdown timer, then updated Wong. We hurried back to the top of the tower without a word, just in time to see Tabitha Smith come around the corner.

Wong’s laser gun was in her hand. Smith’s was in the holster, and her hands were spread palms out in a sign for peace. She was even watching us so I could see her eyes.

“Don’t shoot, I’m the trade-over. I declare with Blue team.”

Wong pursed her lips. “If you really are the turncoat, why declare with us, and not Red?”

Smith jerked her head at me. “Farina already has one period of detention, and she’s one of my friends. I’m just trying to help her stay out of Saturday detention, too.”

“So you pick the disadvantaged team and risk your own weekend?” Wong asked.

Smith shrugged, her hands still carefully out to the side. “Look, either believe me or lock me down. The game’s almost a quarter of the way through, and I need to get out there and earn points. I’m being scored with you now that I’m declared. You lock me down, and you’ll lose twenty points.”

Wong tilted her head a moment, and then holstered the gun. “We’re on channel 1-1-4-2. Code 2-9-7-3-2. It should change your vest color, too.”

I saw the flash of triumph in Smith’ eyes alongside the dishonesty. Then she looked back down at the ground.

“Wong, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. She could be lying,” I said.

Smith looked past me, carefully avoiding my eyes, but still looking at me. “I’m hurt, Farina. You should know that if Blue wins this competition, it’ll be the second win in the last six games. Historically, you haven’t scored that well. I’m coming over here to help you.”

I caught her eyes again, and the buzzing in my ears roared back to life. Smith was worried.

Wong turned to me and started speaking, although it took me a moment to parse through the sounds—partially because all sounds were hard, but partially because Wong’s diction was just as bad as mine had been before Mom helped me put together some optimization programs to help my auditory processing. It was hard to speak clearly when I wasn’t even sure what my own voice sounded like. I focused on making the sounds coming out of Wong’s mouth make sense. “Part of the turncoat exercise is to make us distrust one another—to drive us apart and make us reject help when we need it most for fear of being wrong. This team won’t fall for that trap.”

I saw conviction in Wong’s eyes as surely as I’d seen the triumph in Smith’s, and let out a sigh. There was no winning this battle.

“Alright. Now that that’s taken care of, I’m going to go out and seek Red’s flag. That’ll keep me out of your way, and doing something productive.”

And out of our line of sight so she could spring an ambush on us when we least expected it.

“I’ll go with you,” I said.

Smith’ eyes widened, trying to project a sort of innocence, but she didn’t argue.

“Let’s go, then,” she said, opening her arms wide to motion me in front of her.

I chuckled. She couldn’t think I was that stupid, could she? “You first.”

I shook the buzzing in my ears away and followed her down the path on the side of the tower.

“Hey Farina,” Smith said, halfway down.

I tensed, ready for an attack, but none came.

“Yeah?”

“I heard Burton tell you to stay out of the way, and I just wanted to let you know that she’s wrong. You don’t learn anything in this school except by trying. And yes, you’ll screw it up a few times, but that’s just part of the learning process.”

I nodded. “If I see somewhere I can be useful, be sure that I’ll do anything I have to do to help my team.”

If I’d sat out every single time someone had told me to stay out of the way, or that something I was trying was impossible, I would still be under Zachary’s thumb. When Smith tried her trick, I would be ready.

As we finally finished the climb down the tower, Smith stopped. Her hands were down at her sides, deceptively calm. She turned, and I could see that her eyes were closed, behind that curtain of hair. She was ready for action. “Well, Farina, it looks like this is where we part.”

I grit my teeth as I caught a glimmer of blue reflecting off one of the camera domes on the ceiling. If it wasn’t for the effort of tuning out that buzzing in my ears, I probably would have processed it sooner.

Smith moved like lightning, and before I knew it was raising her weapon. I pulled the visual feed from the walk down the stairs and marked the other Blues in my vision. Smith fired, but I wasn’t there. I tucked and rolled like Mr. West had shown earlier, recovered, and pinged the laser off the sensor in the center back of Smith’s suit. I ducked down behind cover a moment before two blue lasers converged where my front, heart sensor would have been. One and Two were between me and the tower, both behind cover. If I poked my head out, they would trip a sensor for sure.

My lips curled into a grin as I spotted the dark domed camera with just enough light difference to be reflective. I brought the blue lines up across my vision, lifted the gun up to the correct angle, and bounced the laser off the camera.

“What was that?” one of the blues shouted as her suit chimed and locked up. The second blue tried to rush out from cover.

She thought I was a newbie—that I would be startled off my aim if she yelled loud enough.

She was wrong, and then her suit was locked up tight.

I checked the timer on their suits through the reflection on the camera and frowned. Their timers were set for the rest of the game. It was a good thing for this particular situation, but not so good for the game in general. Smith wasn’t the trade-over, and they also hadn’t been approached by anyone else or there would be one more person on their team with their suit unlocked, and their suit timers would be set for ten minutes, not twenty-two. We hadn’t been approached by anyone from Red, and neither had Blue. That meant no one from Red was the turncoat—which left Wong and Burton.

Wong stealing the flag before she declared would be nearly useless because she wouldn’t get the points, which left—

“Burton, are you unlocked yet?” I asked with an eye on the timer ticking down in the corner of my vision.

“Yeah, I’m headed back with Red’s flag.”

Liar. There should have been eighty-two seconds left on her timer.

That settled it. Burton was the turncoat, and she was more than likely headed toward Yellow base. Only she didn’t have Red’s flag, she was coming for ours.

I reached toward the com to let Wong know what I’d figured out, then stopped as my blue lines flashed for attention. They’d finished an analysis on Wong’s behavior—how she watched everyone’s lips, and had a hard time speaking clearly. Wong was hard of hearing—perhaps even deaf. All that would accomplish would be letting Burton know I’d figured her out.

Without that information, though, Wong wouldn’t know what hit her.

I bit my lip, and then hefted the laser gun. Burton was going to be pissed, but I had no intention of staying here Saturday, too.

CHAPTER NINE

Two lines on my vision flashed red as I spun in the air, avoiding the laser flashes by picometers. My aim was dead on. Both suits chimed and Burton let loose a string of words I was glad I wouldn’t remember. She went for her firearm in spite of the shock gained from her moving while she was locked down.

A third line flashed red, and I kicked the weapon away. “Stay down, Burton, the game’s over in two seconds anyway.”

Sure enough, the buzzer went off. Her rage washed over me and I shivered. I took a defensive position, but all she did when her suit lock clicked off was hiss.

“Dang it, Farina, I told you my mother’s going to kill me!”

Rhonda Miller, Red Team’s leader, only laughed. “That’s what you get for underestimating the recruit. Come on, don’t you have to go collect Wong?”

Burton stalked off, and her rage went with her. I started to sigh in relief, but it turned into a hiss as the buzzing in my ears returned full-force. I plugged my ears, but it made no difference.

“You alright?” Miller asked. “You aren’t an Auditory, are you? The first game can be a killer, what will all the gongs and dings.”

“The only thing auditory about me is the Auditory Processing Disorder,” I snapped. The buzzing wasn’t going away, but this time I could at least hear through it.

Then, all at once, it snapped off like a switch and I straightened.

Miller’s eyes widened. “Oh. Dang, girl—why couldn’t I get you on my team?”

“Could you hear that too?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not as loud as you could. Good luck, Farina, you’re going to need it.” Then she turned and jogged off.

I followed her, albeit slower. What was that buzzing sound? Was it just over the entire field in sporadic bursts? It shouldn’t be a problem with my ears. In fact, if I was hearing it that loud, everyone else should have been complaining, too. What did Miller mean, that it wasn’t as loud for her?

I stowed the problem away in the back of my mind as I stripped off the suit and stored it.

Ms. King’s eyes were narrowed and unreadable as I walked through the door, but she didn’t stop staring at me for a long time. I shivered.

Then she grinned. “That’s the first time a newbie has done that well, Farina. One flag retrieved, and six lockdowns. Truly impressive—I shall expect great things of you.”

I ducked my head and muttered something to satisfy the ‘social niceties’ notification dancing around my vision. Then Ms. King looked around at the rest of the girls. “So what does that mean for all of you?”

Velma Dean’s eyes were contemplative, but everyone else slumped just a little. “Detention.” Tabitha Smith was the one to say it, with her eyes glued firmly on the ground.

“I am surprised at you,” she said. “Not one of you would rather pick another punishment?”

There was silence, and then Velma Dean grinned. “I would rather skip the punishment, Ms. King. You never did lay out what it was, after all.”

Tabitha’s head jerked up. “That’s right. What you said was, ‘I would like you all to note the time and the fact that none of you are seated.’ and then ‘On the bright side, we have a reward for our game today and an opportunity for extra training.’. You never said the losing teams would get detention.”

The corner of Ms. King’s mouth lifted in approval. “Well done, both of you. Smith, see me after class, I think you’re ready for your assignment. Dean, I’ll let your martial focus teacher know you’re released from Friday’s detention. Everyone else gets to stay an extra day except Smith—who was already staying tomorrow and Saturday—and those declared with Blue.”

Burton stepped forward slowly. “Ma’am, I would request that I receive extra training time next week in lieu of this week’s detention.”

Ms. King inclined her head just barely. “You’ll stay both Friday and Saturday in that case.”

Burton restrained her sigh. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

Ms. King nodded. “And what about that report I asked for at the beginning of class?”

Burton frowned. “As far as I could tell, Miller, Farina, Smith, and I were the only ones running unlocked. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with some of the others, though.”

Ms. King looked at me through narrowed eyes. “I see. Thank you, Burton. I’ll reduce your detention by another day. Now take a moment to record or remember what you learned in this class. We’ll have an oral quiz later in the week. After you’re done, class will be loosely dismissed. Please do not exit the room until the gong has rung.”

Then she turned and hurried toward her office.

When the door shut, I saw some of the girls jot things down on notepads. Others spelled things out with their hands, and others, like Tabitha Smith, just turned to talk to their neighbor. I watched Wong and her lipreading a moment before a lightbulb went off.

Wong had similar, though likely worse, auditory issues than I did, and yet she was completely functional because of her lip-reading. If I could learn that skill, perhaps I wouldn’t have to write things down on my notebook nearly as often?

I pulled up the visual of Ms. King’s instructions and focused my blue lines on lipreading. Sure enough, the words showed up in blue just below her figure. I grinned and pocketed my notebook.

The gong rang, and I hurried to my next class.

Today was English with Mr. Barnes, and I watched the board—and his lips, when I could see them—carefully as I reviewed what had happened in Social History.

What had Burton meant about ‘running unlocked’? And what did it mean that Rhonda Miller and Tabitha Smith had been running unlocked? As hard as I searched, though, I couldn’t find any answers.

I made my way to Mr. West’s class, still lost in thought.

Mr. West met me by the door. “I wanted to apologize about yesterday,” he said, still studiously avoiding my eyes.

“You knocked me on my tail because I let my guard down. That was a lesson, and you are a teacher. The logic follows.”

A smile started at the corner of his mouth. “Right. Now, I hear you have a ton of psychology homework you have to get done?”

I nodded.

“Instead of sitting out this period, like you did this morning, why don’t you go get caught up? If you rest today, I’ll make up the session during detention time tomorrow—which is better than handing you over to Ms. King the whole time, no?”

I ducked my head in agreement even as I frowned at spending so many hours pouring over Psychology—and Sociology. “Thank you, sir.”

As I left, I couldn’t help but wonder if the reason he wanted me out of his classroom was so that I didn’t have the chance to look in his eyes again.

A nap did a lot to quell the headache that had been ever present almost from the moment I set foot in Martial Academy. I checked the alert that had woken me up, and sighed. Tournament started in ten minutes, and it was going to be between Smith and Houston. Part of me wanted to put my pillow over my head and just go back to sleep. No one would blame me for getting some extra sleep after the day I’d had—but I still put my shoes back on.

It would be good to see what this Tournament was supposed to be when the teachers and Hunt weren’t focused on teaching someone a lesson.

An image of Zachary flashed through my head, and I forced my breathing even again. Did I really want to see Houston fight when he reminded me of the worst year of my life? Would I be able to sleep when it was done? Would the memories trap me again? If they did, people could get hurt—or I would when they defended themselves.

I clenched my jaw and shut the dormitory door firmly behind me. Hunt said this school was about teaching control. Was there a better way to test my control than to watch a controlled match between Smith and Houston?

Despite that justification, I could feel my blood pressure rising as I found a seat around the arena, way in the back. The gong rang, and students flooded in.

“Hey Farina!”

I turned to see Briggs sitting next to me.

“I thought you would be in the dorms. West didn’t make you sit and watch class, did he? You know Tournament is only mandatory three of the four days, right?” Despite his cheerful words, I could see real concern in his eyes—although I couldn’t tell if it was for me, or Smith, who was about to get into the ring.

I shook my head. No one had told me that Tournament wasn’t mandatory, but that wasn’t why I was here.

Briggs looked back at the ring. “It’s going to be a good match. I can’t wait to see Tabitha crush Houston. She may not look it, but she’s probably one of the best first year fighters Martial Academy has. She doesn’t like to talk about it, but apparently she had a few years of training before she came here.” Briggs’ smile faded just a bit as Houston stepped into the ring. “Houston might be a monster, but Smith’s got her own bag of tricks. It’s going to take a bulldozer to keep her down.”

I shuddered. “I just hope it doesn’t drag on.”

“Seriously!” Briggs leaped to his feet as Smith ducked into the ring. “Take him down quick, Smith. We’re counting on you!”

She raised a hand to acknowledge him, although she didn’t look our way. When I focused on her face, I could see that her eyes were closed.

“I’d be down there myself, if I could be,” Briggs said. “I registered for this slot, but Tabitha got it first. Houston took my brother down hard last year. He deserves a good beating.”

The buzz of conversation died down as Mr. West joined Smith and Houston. He spread his arms. “I want a good, clean fight. You hear me?” He met Houston’s eyes with a frown that someone without my eyes wouldn’t have seen. Houston gave him the barest hint of a nod.

“Begin!”

Smith darted in fast, but Houston saw it coming and stepped out of the way. Three lightning speed strikes later, Houston was still untouched. The blue lines on my vision surfaced to analyze their average speeds. I frowned as the data came back. Smith was one-point-two-seven miles per hour faster than Houston. By all of my calculations, Houston should not be able to intercept everything she did—and yet not a single one of Smith’s strikes had landed.

There was a thin sheen of sweat over Smith’s face and arms, and yet Houston wasn’t even breathing hard. It was like he could anticipate when and where Smith would strike!

Houston grinned as Smith’s pattern altered. She tried to separate, but Houston grabbed the front of her shirt. I winced as I saw the projected force reading on Houston’s strike. Smith’s average speed had fallen, and she didn’t have the same sheer stamina he did.

Somehow, Smith intercepted the strike, stepped out, and delivered an uppercut to Houston’s jaw. Houston stumbled back, then checked his jaw. If not for the mouthguard, I was sure he would have spit in derision—and yet Smith’s strike hadn’t been a love tap. Gloves or not, that had to have hurt.

They clashed again, with less energy. The fight had only been going for forty seconds.

The blue lines on my vision blinked, and I opened the analysis with a frown. Smith didn’t have a chance. I closed my eyes to fight down the bile in the back of my throat.

What had I expected? Men like Zachary and Houston spent their life learning how to hurt others. They enjoyed it, and that gave them an advantage.

My eyes snapped open just in time to see Smith fly across the ring. West stepped between them with hands spread wide. When Houston stepped back, the teacher helped Smith up. I focused on their lips.

“You okay?” West asked.

Smith looked at Houston, then back to West. “It just surprised me, is all. Trying to block that one was dumb.”

“Just be careful. He’s a Prefect, you know. He’s been at this for a long time.”

West stepped back. “Round one goes to Houston.”

Smith stepped back in, and I could see her determination. She thought she had something figured out. They closed again, and Smith got a few blows in but they barely phased Houston. A moment later, she was down on the ground. I saw the opening for Houston to wrap his legs around her head and end the round, but Houston only delivered a fist to her side. West winced as Smith climbed back to her feet.

Briggs leapt up. “Come on, Smith! You can do it!”

Houston bared his teeth as they clashed again. Suddenly, Houston’s average speed dropped by a quarter—like he was tiring out or, maybe, like he was moving through water. His face curled into a snarl, and something in the air flashed. Smith stumbled back to try and catch her breath, but Houston didn’t give her the opportunity to recover. He drove his elbow into her gut, and she groaned.

Houston bounced on the balls of his feet, eyes alight with anticipation. “Are you done already?”

“I’m not losing to you.”

Smith staggered upright again, only to end up with her face pinned under Houston’s knee. She freed herself before time ran out, but the blue lines in my vision told the other half of the story. Houston had let her up, just like he had ignored the opening earlier. He enjoyed toying with his prey here in the ring where everyone could see just how thoroughly he could destroy her. He enjoyed watching Smith force herself back to her feet even when every muscle must be screaming at her to rest.

Houston grinned as Smith staggered to the floor, retching from a blow that hit too near her kidney for comfort.

“Get up!” Briggs was shouting. Smith’s arms twitched, like she was trying, but she couldn’t. “Come on, Smith.” His words were quieter this time, like he knew what was going to happen, but didn’t want to accept it.

The timer ran out, and Smith was still on the mat.

“Once again, the win goes to Houston!” West’s eyes showed his disapproval just as surely as if he’d shouted it to the crowd as he helped Tabitha Smith off the mat.

The students cheered—but it was nothing compared to the terrifying roar as the teachers had picked Liam off the arena mat to be escorted to the police. A quick glance around the room showed that few people were thrilled at Houston’s victory.

Briggs’ eyes held a storm as I looked at him. “I can’t believe it. Smith was a great match for him. She may only be a first year, but she’s fast, and her technique is fantastic! How could Houston walk over her like that?”

I frowned. Houston’s win was impossible—except he knew when and where she was going to hit before she even moved. “Some people are just good at figuring their opponents out, I guess. There are some things even Smith can’t defend against.”

“Houston’s a bully. He doesn’t figure people out, he takes them apart.” Briggs stood. “One of these days, I’m going to take him down.”

I didn’t respond. What was there to say? Houston was unbeatable, and there was nothing I could do to fix that.

Briggs looked at me. “You alright?”

I nodded. Somewhere in my mind, I knew that was a lie. The image of Houston’s face as he took Smith apart was like a ghost in my vision. He enjoyed every moment of it, just like Zachary. If Smith, who had spent years training, couldn’t take out Houston, how could I feel safe? What if Houston cornered me? I would be powerless to stop him, and he knew it.

I resolved to bring the pieces of my plasma pulser to school the next time I got the chance. It was the only thing I could think of that could possibly stop him if he decided to come after me.

When I got back to the dormitory I sat on my bed and frowned at the Sociology book. There was nothing I felt less like doing—but there was nothing to be gained by putting it off, either. I picked it up and flipped through it, scanning all the pages and reading none of it as thoughts ran through my head.

What was I doing here? I wasn’t ever going to be good enough at martial arts to defend myself against someone like Houston. Without that certainty, how could I sleep at night? How could I make sure I could protect myself?

An image of the plasma pulser flashed through my mind, and my frown lessened. That was right. I had more than physical prowess on my side. It might take a while to engineer a device to help me with my problems, but it was possible. That was the reason I had created it in the first place, and it would continue to be my insurance.

I looked at the Sociology book again, and then laid back with a sigh. Although my headache wasn’t as bad as earlier, my blue lines were sluggish again. How much did I really want to overtax my mind?

“Hey, Farina, why so quiet?” Hunt asked. She lay on her bed looking at the ceiling. “Having trouble with Sociology?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s not the problem, is it?” She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed so she was facing me.

I shook my head, then wondered why I was even talking to Hunt. Sure, she cared, but my problems were mine alone. Just because she cared didn’t mean I could trust her.

“Are you going to tell me, or are you going to make me guess?”

I frowned down at my hands. They were soft, without the calluses everyone else had. They were just one more evidence of how weak I was. Even if I worked for years like Smith had, I wouldn’t be able to protect myself from Houston, and Houston wasn’t the only one out there who could try to hurt me. What if one of the teachers attacked me—not just for training purposes, but for real. How would I protect myself then?

“Guessing it is,” Hunt said with a shrug. “I think you watched Houston fight today and are wondering how you would fare in the ring. Smith kept getting back up, but that wasn’t enough, was it? Every time she got up, she got smashed back into the mat. If she was that outclassed, what would have happened to you? Am I close?”

Was I really that transparent?

“I could get back up. I could wear him out.” If we were in a fight with rules, in protective equipment, fighting with a referee to make sure nobody got killed.

“I believe it.” Hunt said. “And wouldn’t that just give him more satisfaction?”

I cringed away as Zach’s face leered at me. In the memory, I got back up—I fought—eight times. He punched me down, wrestled me to the ground. I twisted away. Eight times. But it was hopeless.

I could feel the ghost of my pain as I stopped getting back up. I stopped trying to fight because my blue lines told me the odds. There was a two-point-six percent chance of being able to fight him, and one-point-three percent chance of getting away. I gave up.

Vera Hunt was in front of me, crouched so that she could stare fully into my face. “Leave it in the past, Crystal. He controlled your life back then, but not any more. You’re free, and you’re strong.”

“I’m not strong enough.”

“That’s crap,” she snapped. “Castillo’s told me about your classes. You’re already one of the top students in West’s class. A little clueless perhaps, but you’re catching up. You shouldn’t be afraid of anything.”

I stared at her. Was she just that unobservant? Or just that privileged? No, I remembered the shadows in her eyes. She knew exactly how evil the world could be. So how could she ignore the fact that there were so many people around her that could take her apart with their bare hands?

“You see the powerful people in the world—people who have great martial skill—and all you see is their potential for violence. You’ve never been protected. You’ve had to fight for every breath, so you’ve tricked yourself into thinking that anyone who can hurt you will.”

I clenched my teeth. If I had adopted that attitude before Zach, he never would have been able to hurt me. Now she was saying that it was wrong? What guarantee could she give me that I was safe? None. Nobody was ever safe. Not me, not Hunt, not even West.

Hunt sighed. “Look, Crystal. Look at me.”

I made myself meet her eyes. I saw the pain overshadowed by complete sincerity.

“Do you think, in your heart, that I would ever hurt you?”

I shook my head. She had suffered too much and spent too long protecting people like me to be able to hurt anyone like that.

“Why?”

“You know what true pain feels like.”

Hunt’s eyes softened. “I’m not perfect, Crystal. Sometimes I get angry, and I hit things, but you will never see me hurting someone who isn’t trying to hurt me or someone I care about. I have respect for life. I have integrity. So do the teachers. That’s part of what we try to teach but, even though we try our best, not everyone learns those things. People like Liam fall through the cracks, and sometimes they do cruel things. That’s when common decency comes in. That girl earlier that Liam tried to hurt did a good job of protecting herself. She held him off long enough for someone else to help her. See, you can’t always handle it on your own, and you can’t spend your whole life relying on other people. At the end of the day, though, you have to ask for help. No one—not even me—can defend herself against every possible threat. You’ll wear yourself out if you try.”

Hunt’s eyes were still sincere. She believed every word.

“No one came then. How do I know people will come now?”

Hunt arched an eyebrow. “Was there really no one who asked what was going on?”

No one who survived the fear Zach beat into them. But I had been too scared to ask for help then, too. I could have gone to the Police. I could have told Mom.

“Crystal, you’re stronger now. You did your best, then, and you survived. Now it’s time to let the past stop controlling your life. Everyone has scars—that’s just part of living.” She stood. “I wish I could do it for you, but it’s your life. The one person I can’t protect you from is yourself.”

Hunt lay back down on the bed, eyes closed. She wasn’t asleep—just waiting. Giving me time.

My eyes filled with tears as I stared down at the Sociology textbook that was still in my lap. She was right. I might not have a lot of friends, but there were plenty of people who would help me. It was time to stop letting Zach destroy my life.

I could protect myself from the little stuff. I could survive stuff that wasn’t so small. I might not be able to put someone like Houston in the ground, but I didn’t need to. I just needed to be able to protect myself and learn to ask for help.

I pulled the modules I’d created to deal with Zach to the front of my mind. They drifted in space, aimless, torn apart like a broken coffee pot and used for parts. I lived in fear that they would snap together and make me hurt someone else. The reality was that they were tools, just like everything else. Living without those pieces of myself wasn’t living, it was hiding.

Deliberately, I released the locks on every single one and watched as they snapped together. A spark ran down my spine as they re-integrated. My eyes snapped open. The colors in the room were brighter. More defined. Whole.

I closed my eyes again to check the integration, but the modules were interfacing perfectly. I swallowed old fear. Hunt was right. I had given into Zach once, but that didn’t mean my life was over. It was time to stop using him as an excuse.

I opened the textbook and started to read. After a few minutes, my headache—almost forgotten—returned.

After one more look, I replaced the Sociology book in the bottom of the chest and laid back on my bed. As I closed my eyes, I caught flashes of textbook pages darting past my eyelids. I pulled one of them to my full vision and snapped my eyes open. It was from my Sociology textbook!

Was it possible—could that solve my reading problem? And when had I gained the ability to do that? I examined the now-integrated modules in my mind, then grinned. Did it really matter?

I pulled the first twenty pages of the textbook to my vision and scanned through them. If I wanted, I could recite them word-for-word. I grinned and pulled the psychology book from the chest and flipped through those pages too.

I had problems with reading because it took so blasted long to both read and memorize things. But if my eyes could see it, it only took a little processing time to add it to my general knowledge base.

My blue lines yawned, then sputtered, then died halfway through the psychology book, so I put it away and went to bed. In the morning, all my psychology problems would be solved.

I groaned as the gong almost vibrated me out of my bed.

“Wake up, Farina, you don’t have warm-ups, but you’re going to be hungry if you have to skip breakfast to get to Mr. West’s class this morning. You’ve got detention, remember?”

I peeled my eyes open to see Vera Hunt staring at me.

My head throbbed to the beat of my heart.

Perhaps forcing my brain to process two textbooks in a night was not such a good idea. I fixed the time I had to be at breakfast in my mind and got dressed. At breakfast, I took two acetaminophen and the throbbing died down a little. A little caffeine later, I was functional and in front of Mr. West’s door.

“Come in,” he called as I lifted my hand to knock.

I pulled the door open to find him fiddling with a silver object that bore 65% resemblance to a modern-day firearm, and 79% resemblance to the laser weapon I’d contemplated building as a child.

He looked up and met my eyes in the mirror. Then he frowned and pocketed the weapon.

“How did you sleep? Did you get caught up with psychology?”

I arched my eyebrows. “My psychology will be fine, and I can catch up on sleep over the weekend.”

He grinned and stood. “How’d you stay up so long with Hunt in your room? She’s usually really good about that sort of thing.”

I just shrugged, and didn’t bother to correct him. It was hard enough for me to understand what my mind was doing—explaining it to someone would just give me a bigger headache than I already had.

“What was that thing you were holding, earlier?” I asked instead.

“A toy.”

The probability of his lying was sixty percent with known factors, and probably higher once I had more information, but I didn’t press the issue. Mr. West had secrets—I’d seen as much when I’d found his eyes during the fight.

“Now go through morning warm-ups while I go check something.”

When he came back, I was sweaty but limber. He came up behind me fast. The intercept point flashed red, and I danced to the side to avoid his grab. He recovered and stilled while I watched him, blue lines ready.

He grunted. “You’ve got good reflexes and reactions when you can see your opponent coming. I figured as much. Let’s try something a little different. Close your eyes and turn around. Just see if you can spin and block the strike. I’ll go slow.”

My stomach twisted a little as I looked at him. “Close my eyes?”

“It’s not something to be worried about—it’s just an exercise.”

I wiped my palms down my pants and took a deep breath. Mr. West was right. It wasn’t anything to be worried about—just a few moments blind, while he tried to hit me.

He wasn’t actually going to hurt me.

I turned to see if I could catch his eyes. For once, he let me.

There was nothing behind those eyes except a cold, hard wall. No honesty, no dishonesty, no malintent, or even intent to help.

Just nothing—like something was shielding his eyes.

I had no choice but to trust him. He was a teacher, after all.

I closed my eyes and composed myself to listen.

The first strike came to my chin. It was just a tap, and the blue lines floating aimlessly in a sea of black seized the contact to recreate his position.

I was too late, though. Blocking after the first strike was worse than useless—there was no guarantee I would still be in good enough shape to respond.

“That’s alright, let’s try another one,” someone said—probably West, given that he was the only one in the room.

It didn’t matter how many times he tried, I couldn’t figure out where he was until after he’d made contact.

Finally, he called a stop. “Maybe that’s too advanced.”

He modified the exercise so that I was to block a given strike. That way, he reasoned, I would only have to figure out when he began his strike, not where he would aim.

This exercise was almost worse than the first. He never fell into a rhythm, and he steadily increased how hard he hit until I was just guessing when he would strike so I wouldn’t get bruised.

It had been going on for six minutes with no improvement before I was fed up. I snapped my eyes open just moments before he moved and intercepted the blow.

“Enough,” I said.

He moved back two steps and fell into a neutral position.

“You’ve learned what you need to know. I might as well be deaf when my eyes are closed. This isn’t teaching me anything, it just hurts.”

Mr. West frowned. “Just because you don’t see the lesson doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to learn.”

“Yeah. Keep my eyes open, and don’t trust my ears,” I muttered. “Can we do something else now?”

He tilted his head, and then sighed. “Take a moment, Farina. It’s never wise to fight while angry.”

I bit down a retort and took a deep breath. He was right. Fighting while angry was only going to get someone hurt. I soothed the blue lines on my vision and retreated to my safe space for thirty seconds where the only thing present was the steady thrum of my heartbeat and warm beige walls. No sounds. No threats. Just peace.

Mom had taught me how to create this place when I was younger and easily frustrated by my auditory defects. At first, I’d had to use it almost every hour, but it had gotten better. Now I only used it when I needed a break from the outside world.

I returned to myself slowly. Mr. West was still frowning at me, but his eyes didn’t give any indication as to why. He just started showing me how to refine some of the movements I’d learned.

An hour later, he said I was free to go.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and stared at him. He looked back with that shield of icy calm behind his eyes.

“I heard you are the one who sponsored me into the academy.”

He dipped his head just a bit.

“Why?”

I’d never seen him before—and there was no way for him to have heard about me.

His eyes softened just a bit. “You needed somewhere to go, and I thought—correctly—that you would fit in well here.”

Fit in? I snorted. “I don’t fit in anywhere.”

“Not yet, but that will change.”

But it still didn’t compute. “I don’t understand. How did you know about me? Mr. West, I don’t know who you are, and you don’t make sense.” I frowned down at the floor. “I don’t like things that don’t make sense.”

The ‘social niceties’ module in the back of my mind pinged, telling me that I’d just been incredibly blunt; rude, even. It prompted me to apologize, turn, and get out of the situation before I angered the incredibly dangerous man in front of me.

Mr. West just smiled. “You’re right. I had never met you before you walked into my classroom. I’m an old friend of your family—though Adalind doesn’t seem to see it that way anymore.” His smile turned bitter sweet, and he ran a hand through his hair. “I was just trying to do her, and you, a good turn.”

An image of my mother appeared in front of my eyes. It was quickly replaced by a second image—completely blank, just like the images of my father. Maybe he was friends with my father? But, even if that was the case, I would have no way to know. Mom destroyed all the pictures of my father shortly after he left—and his was the one face I couldn’t remember. I could see Adalind, with her frail smile and fragile bones. The difference between her and the powerful man in front of me couldn’t have been more pronounced.

“I don’t believe you.” But somewhere, deep in my gut, I wanted to. Since Dad left, it was just me and Mom against the world. Maybe it would be nice to have an ally—or maybe he was just pretending, like Zach. I needed more data, but his eyes told me nothing.

The social niceties module presented its warning again, only to be brushed aside.

Mr. West’s smile turned sad. He shrugged. “You don’t have to. Only believe this: I want to be here for you. Don’t think this means I will go easy on you in class, though! You’re my student, first and foremost.”

I bared my teeth as the recording of his strikes that had given me that concussion played in my mind. “That, I believe.”

He reached up to run his fingers through his hair again, embarrassed. Almost as if he could read my thoughts, he said, “Um, that wasn’t on purpose.”

I turned and started toward the door as I finished reviewing the footage. I could see the intent behind his eyes—slight fear and movement prompted by necessity. Those strikes had been deliberately plotted and professionally executed. Earl West was many things; honest wasn’t one of them. The real question was, why?

CHAPTER TEN

The dining hall was empty except for a table at the back with a dozen sandwiches. I helped myself and ate quickly, then found my way to Ms. King’s office.

She called for me to enter before I could raise my fist to knock.

“I wish you would tell me how you do that,” I said as I entered.

She looked up from a stack of papers on her desk and grinned. “You’ll figure it out eventually. Anyway, how are you doing with that Sociology book? You got time to look through it last night, I trust?”

“I got through most of it.”

Her eyes widened. “And here Hunt was telling us that you weren’t a fast reader. That’s truly impressive, Farina. Come over here and analyse these for me. When you’re done with that, I’ve got some studies for you to look at.”

Ms. King handed me a stack of paper thirty pages thick along with a pen, and I spent the next hour going through sociology problems—grateful for the distraction. She glanced through them when I handed them back, and whistled.

“One of these days, you’re going to have to tell me what changed. For now, I’d like to know what you think of this school.”

This time it was my turn to frown. “The school?” Why would she want to know about the school? She was the one who worked here, and she’d been around far longer than I’d been. My opinion after being here two—now almost three—days would be statistically insignificant. I wasn’t a good source for data.

Her long, red fingernails tapped the mahogany of her desk as I debated whether to point out the inconsistency in her logic. I pulled a card from the back of my mind. Tapping fingernails was a sign of impatience. Impatience quickly escalated to anger, then violence. I needed a strategy to gather more data. I sorted through the ‘toolbox’ file Mom had helped me make until I found something that might work.

“I don’t understand the parameters of the question,” I said.

She sighed. “What have you noticed about this school? Is it different from the ones you’ve spent time in?”

That, at least, had a clear answer. I nodded. “Aside from fighting classes, I’ve seen quite a few strange things.”

“Like what?”

I hesitated. Why would I tell her about the things I’d noticed? Why would she care? But she’d asked, and there was no reason to keep the things I’d noticed secret. She’d been here for a long time, so she obviously had to have noticed the same things I had. Maybe that was the point? To figure out something about me?

I took a deep breath. “First, why are you, Mr. West, and Mr. Mccoy the only teachers with offices?”

“I asked for observations, not questions,” she replied. “I’ll answer the questions later, if we have time. Now, you’ve noticed that we’re the only teachers with offices. What else?”

“Both you and Mr. West never wait for me to knock. You always know when I’m there. Mr. West wouldn’t look me in the eyes, and when I finally did find his eyes, he gave me a concussion.”

Ms. King leaned forward with a glint in her eye. “Is that what happened?”

I nodded. “Well, I let my guard down when I finally found his eyes. I took my attention off the intercepts my lines were plotting.”

She clicked her tongue. “Well, that’s a lesson in and of itself. Don’t let your guard down—especially not while you’re fighting. Now, did you notice anything else?”

I frowned, and pulled out the folder of notes about martial academy. “Well, there seem to be quite a few students here with strange minds. Tabitha Smith, for instance. She hears sounds extra loud.”

“How could you tell?”

“She cringes every time the bell rings, even now, when we’re three weeks into the semester. Either that gong sound is as new as I am, or she has abnormal auditory processing.”

Ms. King grilled me like that for an hour before she finally stood. “Alright, if you sit much longer, you’ll be stiff tomorrow. Make sure you do a cool-down before you go back to do your homework. In the mean-time, Mr. Salzar wants you to go over some of the regions you missed in Regional History, and then Mr. O’Brien wants to talk to you about your math class.”

I spent the rest of the day ping-ponging around the teachers until I was exhausted and my head was trying to split open for the third time in as many days.

Mr. O’Brien was starting me in calculus—which was still a review, but there were some interesting integrals—and Mr. Salazar had given me a packet of papers to read. I scanned them through and fell into bed before lights out.

The next morning, my head was mostly clear. Mom picked me up and brought me home before she went to work, and I spent the morning working on an engineering project I’d dabbled with for the last year—ever since Zach showed me how to work on a bike. It was a set of engines, only miniaturized. The math wasn’t difficult—it was the actual device that was causing me trouble. I saved up all my allowance to buy parts, and it still wasn’t really enough to get half the things I needed—especially since I’d diverted quite a few of the components to the plasma pulser.

I sat at my workbench, staring at the pieces of circuitry and metal placed with painstaking care in a grid on the tabletop, labeled to prevent any confusion. I sighed at the “matchstick” box. I didn’t really need a matchstick, but the pieces inside could be modified to make the equipment I needed to check the first section of the device. Once I had that, I could re-work the math and adjust my design. Until then—

My eyes slipped to the pegboard hung on the opposite wall where I pinned an envelope with my allowance money. I wouldn’t have enough for another three weeks, but—

I stopped and blinked at the note pinned above the envelope.

“Extras from work, love Mom” it said.

I pulled it off the pegboard and leafed through the green bills. It was enough—only just barely, but it was enough.

I hurried out back to grab my bicycle so I could go to the hardware store.

The store was only eight blocks away, and soon I was on my way home with the matchstick tucked in my backpack.

Two blocks from my house, all the lines snapped into my vision.

‘Abnormal conditions noted,’ they said in bright red letters written across the top of my vision.

I braked to a stop as I pulled the visuals from the last two minutes and watched through them on fast forward.

There!

It was a splotch of blood on the cement, still not congealed, which meant it was fresh. Someone was hurt.

I dismounted the bike and retraced my footsteps. There wasn’t any way to calculate the probability of danger, but I couldn’t just ignore someone who was hurt.

Half a block back, in front of an alleyway I knew well from my time with Zachary, was the original bloodspot. A shiver raced down my spine as I stared at the alleyway.

This was one of the places Zach had dragged the guys he caught looking at me before he and his friends turned them into sobbing, broken heaps of purple and blue skin.

I swallowed hard. Zach was paralyzed. There was no way for him to continue his dirty work. His friends were another matter.

I curled my bare fingers into a fist and wished I’d pulled the plasma pulser rings out of their hiding places before I’d tried to investigate. Still, the odds were that if this was the work of one of Zachary’s friends, they wouldn’t stick around after they saw me. They knew I’d done something to Zach, and none of them would risk it for their old ‘friend’.

I stepped into the alley with blue lines on high alert, running a compare-contrast on other videos from when I’d been here.

The lines found something in the corner, huddled next to the dumpster, in the shadow so there wasn’t that much of a difference from typical late afternoon shadows.

The heap looked up. “Farina?”

The lines analyzed the figure and wrote her name in blue above her head.

“Tabitha Smith? What are you doing here? How did you get hurt?”

She started to untangle herself. “You really shouldn’t be here. It isn’t safe.”

“Then what are you doing here?” I offered her a hand, but she insisted on pushing herself up. Her jaw was set, and her eyes were hardened against the pulses of pain as she leaned on the wall for support.

“I’m serious, Farina. They could come back. You need to go.”

I let my eyes wander around the scene a moment, and pulled what data I could. There were footprints in the dirt—faint, but readable. There had been five people, likely male from what weight distribution and foot-sizes I could pull.

“One girl against five guys. I know you can handle yourself but, Smith, you need help.”

She took a step toward me, then thought better of it and leaned against the wall for support. “You have to leave.”

“Not going to happen.” I’d stood here, useless while people I knew got beat up in this alleyway before, and I wasn’t about to do it again. “Do you think you can walk two blocks?” I asked her.

She shook her head in a minute gesture, and then hissed.

“I’ll help. Come on, Smith. You can stay over at my house tonight. We have a full medical kit—I’ll get you patched up. Unless you want me to get you to the hospital?”

“No. Not the hospital.”

I shrugged. Why wasn’t that wasn’t surprising?

Between helping her, and going back for my bike, it took thirty two minutes for us to make it back to my apartment.

When I had returned from retrieving my bike and had locked the front door, I found Smith laying on the couch, a bandage across her shoulder.

She didn’t open her eyes when I approached, but she did release a heavy breath. “Thank you for your help.”

I sat down in Mom’s armchair across from the couch. “What happened?”

Her lips curved up into a sarcastic smile. “Nothing at all.”

When I started to protest, she just held up a hand. “I can’t tell you anything more, Farina, I’m sorry. You have been in class for one day. You can’t be involved yet, no matter what Burton thinks.”

“Involved in what?”

She shook her head. “You’ll have to ask Ms. King.”

Ms. King, who recruited special students for a class that taught battlefield tactics and strategic blackmail.

Still, I let it go. After a long silence, she shifted. “What now?”

That was a good question. How was I going to explain to Mom why my friend from school was beaten bloody on the couch?

Perhaps she wouldn’t notice. She never was very observant—except when it came to me. She’d seen my limp when I’d come home from Zach’s house that first time, and she’d nearly suffocated me with questions I didn’t dare answer. After all, what was to stop Zach from doing to her the same thing he’d done to me—or to any of the people he’d cornered?

Mom had enough problems with her panic attacks. She definitely wouldn’t be able to defend herself and, with how fragile her health and mind were, he might even accidentally kill her. No. Whoever had done this to Smith was serious. Mom couldn’t know.

I grabbed a make-up case from the bathroom and helped Tabitha apply it to hide the bruises. I was good at that.

When Mom came home, she was ecstatic that I’d made a friend, though somewhat puzzled that I hadn’t told her Smith was coming over.

We stayed quiet all that night, and went to bed early.

When I woke up in the morning, Tabitha Smith was gone.

I ran through the video from last night looking for some indication of how long she’d intended to stay, but there was nothing. I dismissed the video from my vision, then froze as I saw the paper taped to the door.

“Thanks for the help. Just went for a walk with Zach. No need for worry. See you at school.”

It was scrawled in a hurried hand, and hung cockeyed on the door.

It had to be from Smith, which left a question. How did she know about Zach, and why would she leave a note like that for me?

I found the answer even while I was asking the question. Because she was in trouble again.

My blue lines swept through the room, picking out signs of new disorder that had appeared last night while I was asleep.

Papers were shifted on the desk, Smith’s bed was in three pieces around the room. The carpet—well, that was interesting.

I pulled up my latest picture of the carpet and compared the two.

There had been three unfamiliar people in my room last night leaving minute imprints on my carpet.

Tabitha was in Zach’s kind of trouble.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

My stomach twisted as I sat there, the need to help her warring with nightmares of Zach. Finally, I clenched my jaw and stood. I crossed the room to my desk and pulled out the second drawer. I pulled out the papers and then the false bottom.

Inside was a ring box. I flipped it open and twisted it on to my second finger. The second ring was in my jewelry box. The third was in a compartment in the couch. The fourth was in the bathroom in the makeup kit, and the fifth was in the handle of a screwdriver on my workbench. The two chains I needed were hanging as decorations on the wall. The battery bracelet was in Mom’s jewelry box under the ring compartment.

Soon I was ready. I assembled the components with trembling hands and then checked the charge. All five rings began to tingle when I closed my fist. I released my hand and sighed.

The plasma pulser wasn’t really a long-term weapon. It was my response to a specific need, and it had worked. I had no way to calculate the probability of it working now.

Still, I pulled up the data sheet and scanned over the specs.

The plasma pulser gathered specific, stable gasses in the air then condensed and heated it into a plasma using a field generated between the rings and chains on my hand. The plasma blast was unstable and hotter than a Bunsen burner. If it hit someone straight on, they would die from dehydration. A missed shot would land them in the hospital burn ward.

The biggest limit was the fact that it took seven minutes to charge. The second limit was that it took a major amount of the heat required to get the gasses past their critical point from my body, which left me a quivering mess.

Still, it was better than nothing. I headed for the door.

“Where are you headed?” Mom asked

I spun around, careful to avoid her eyes.

“Tabitha wanted to go to the park. I’m headed down there—she already left.”

The lie was sour on my lips, and I nearly gagged, but Mom could not be involved in this. Who knew what would happen to her?

Mom accepted the lie. “Alright, have fun.”

I grabbed my bike and hurried off while my blue lines started compiling a list of places Zach had frequented. I started at the alley two blocks from my house but Smith wasn’t there. I checked two more places before I saw signs of passage in the alley behind an old, abandoned movie theater. I swallowed hard and pushed away my twisting stomach.

Instead of vomiting all over the street, I dismounted the bike and leaned it carefully against the wall. I slipped between the buildings and crouched behind a large dumpster, on top of some dubious green sludge.

There were sounds coming from the area on the other side of the dumpster, but I couldn’t identify them other than to add them to the evidence that there were people behind there. Odds were in favor of those people being the ones after Smith.

I pulled visuals from the last time I was here and cringed as Zachary’s face came into full view. His lips formed words.

“How many times do we have to do this, Crystal? I’m your man!”

I cringed away from the blow.

“You shouldn’t look at other guys—don’t you see how much it hurts me? How much it hurts them?”

I looked past Zachary to see Isaac, a boy at my school who’d asked why I came with bruises coated with makeup every day, half unconscious on the pavement.

Zach wound up for another blow.

“I said don’t look at him!”

I jerked myself free of the memory and sat there, face full of sweat, panting. I closed my fist to feel the reassuring tingling of the plasma pulser.

I wasn’t weak like that anymore. Zach was in a wheelchair—he couldn’t hurt me.

I set those facts securely in my mind, like a wall against the full emotional brunt of the memory and dove back in. This time, I let the memory play and focused on the alleyway. It was a small space—nine feet by seven-point-three feet—with a boarded up doorway and one window on the second story of the other building with bars over it.

Nothing I could use to help Tabitha get out.

I risked a glance past the dumpster, and froze.

Doug Houston stood over the huddled mass that was Tabitha with bruised knuckles and a grin on his face. She clawed at the wall as she struggled to stand. “You don’t . . .know what you’re doing. Please—”

He drove his fist into her kidney, and she fell back to her knees, whimpering as the organ dumped its stored toxins back into her bloodstream. “I am the only one who knows what I’m doing!” he screamed. He grabbed the front of her shirt and dragged her in close. “You think you know who I am, but you have no idea. The people I work for,” he glanced at a woman leaning against the wall opposite the dumpster with disinterest in her eyes. “Well, let’s just say that I’m not going to be a pathetic little human for very much longer.”

He dropped her on the asphalt with disdain, and stepped on her face.

The blue lines on my vision highlighted Tabitha’s chance of survival in red. Nineteen-point-two percent with known factors. I shifted toward her, farther outside of the morning shadows that concealed me. The woman who was watching Houston snapped her fingers as she saw me.

I tried to run, but hands grabbed me, and no amount of twisting seemed to help. I pulled the visuals to try and evaluate who had me, but I’d only caught a glimpse. They must have been on the other side of the dumpster where I couldn’t see, and I certainly did not have enough to rebuild his musculature. I clenched my fist to start the plasma pulser.

“Who—” Houston looked up from Tabitha and met my eyes. “Farina, what are you doing here?”

His eyes were puzzled, but that puzzlement quickly sharpened into certainty.

Recru…King…why didn’t sh…it doesn’t mat…

“You really shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

Tabitha struggled back to her knees. “Leave her alone. She’s just a turnip—she doesn’t—”

“Turnip or not, we don’t need to be dodging law enforcement.” Houston kicked at her, and she groaned and folded back over.

Then he was in front of me with a knife. There was an ugly monster in his eyes—the same one I’d seen in Zachary’s time and time again as he beat up on people who had been kind to me.

This time, I recognized it.

Hunger.

The difference was that Zachary had just hungered for power. Houston hungered for power, death, and pain. I could see how he would do it spilling from his eyes and filling the air around him. He could already see the anguish on my face. He could already feel the blood between his fingers. He knew how this would go because he’d done it before.

I tried to twist away, but he just grinned wider.

The woman who had been leaning against the wall straightened. “Careful Houston, she’s a civilian.”

He flipped the knife in his hands. “So what?”

“The Company will not be pleased.” Her eyes were primed for violence, but not immediately. She would wait until it was too late for me before she acted.

“The Company shouldn’t have been using me as Agency bait,” he snarled as he advanced.

Tabitha struggled to get to me, but she could barely walk. I braced myself for the cut of the knife, but all the preparation in the world couldn’t erase the feeling of steel parting flesh. I gasped as the first wave of pain hit—a shallow cut on my arm, but it was enough. I could feel hot blood cool as it dripped past my elbow. Houston’s anticipation grew as he tasted the echo of my pain.

This was different from Zach. He got caught up in the moment, and hurt me worse than he intended to. He wanted the power, not the pain.

One of my lines flashed red, and I managed to jerk one hand free of the person holding me. I turned, got my knee up, and connected with my attacker’s groin. My other hand was free, and then it wasn’t. An alert on my vision flashed, but I couldn’t react fast enough.

I was on the ground—or, that’s what my lines said as they limped around my vision. My head rang from Houston’s backhand, and I tried to coax my lines into moving faster, but it didn’t help. Houston dragged me back up and threw me against the wall.

“You know, Turnips really shouldn’t get involved in what they don’t understand.” The knife was in his hand again.

“What don’t I understand?” Obviously both he and Tabitha were involved in something. Houston said he worked for someone, and that he wasn’t going to be human soon? What did that mean?

He slashed at my body, and I threw my hands out to intercept the strike, but the knife wasn’t where my lines told me it should be. I looked down to check the wound as Houston laughed. “Impressive brain or not, you’re still completely clueless! It’s really fantastic.” He wiped a pretend tear from his eye.

The cut was barely a scratch across my belly, but it was enough to free the bottom half of my shirt. I grit my teeth as Zach flooded back into my mind. There wasn’t any way to win this. A six minute timer started counting down in my vision. That was how long Houston would play with me before I died.

He crouched at my side and reached a finger toward the line of blood that spanned my abdomen. I could feel his desire to taste it—and to watch me retch as he did it. I caught his wrist in one hand and tried to smash the side of his head with my elbow. He caught the strike and pushed. I gasped for breath as his motion smashed my knuckles into my throat. He only laughed.

I clenched my teeth as the lines on my vision flashed red. The knife was coming, and I could see where it would strike. The world slowed as I saw the force reading, and the model my mind had made. There, in my vision, was a mannequin of me with the knife in my gut, blood pooling and mixing with stomach acid that would eat my insides as I screamed. No amount of blue lines could insulate me from that pain.

I grabbed for any other option. I didn’t want to die here!

Another intercept in my vision flashed red next to a second timer. Ten seconds. If I could stay alive for ten more seconds, I had a chance.

I twisted wildly away and scrambled up as the blue lines came back. Ten seconds.

“She’s not a turnip!” Houston yelled as the other two people with him sprang into action to try and corral me. “She’s an Agency plant!”

Intercept lines flashed as rocks lifted up from the ground of their own volition and hurled toward me. Each one of them was only the size of my fist, but if one of them hit me in the head, I’d be stunned. Six seconds.

I dodged to the side and set my lines searching for some sort of control mechanism. Surely the rocks couldn’t just be floating there! But my lines greyed. Two seconds. No mechanism detected.

I shoved that information into a file for later analysis as the timer hit zero.

I unfurled my hand and directed the charge toward the dumpster.

It took one-point-two-three seconds, but the visuals played in slow motion. I spun out of the way of a second volley of rocks, and leapt toward Tabitha. I landed against her as the blast twisted the dumpster. The heat hissed and pulled against its prison. The metal heated to white and then shredded itself with a bang.

Contorted shards of metal hissed through the air, cooling as they flew, and sprayed the alleyway like a thousand oversized flechettes.

I tuned out the screams of agony and counted the injuries. My lines flicked over their convulsing forms, but every one came up as non-lethal.

Then my lines blinked out, exhausted.

Tabitha struggled up, grabbed my arm, and said something.

The blood and buzzing agony that filled the air was too much. I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t hear anything but the dull, aching certainty in my bones that there was no going back. I had done this. Three people screaming on the ground with sizzling metal stuck in them because I raised my hand. Because the numbers my vision computed gave me the power to make a weapon that could hurt people.

I followed Tabitha blindly, the images of that alley stuck in my head.

A car pulled up, and Tabitha staggered in. She dragged me in after her, and I followed blindly.

How often would I be forced to do this? How often would I have to hurt people to protect myself and those I cared about? Was this the cost of not being a victim? Was this just who I’d become?

I reviewed the percentages and calculated my options, but Houston had been coming at me with a knife, and there was nothing I could do. All the other percentages showed death—either mine or theirs. There was no way around the writhing, screaming, blood-speckled butchery I’d left behind. I couldn’t accept that. There had to have been another way. If I’d had more processing time, or used a lesser plasma charge, or used a different angle—I drove the blue lines on my vision faster. Harder, until I couldn’t see anything except blurs of blue marred by tears.

Sometime later—the clock at the top of my vision was buried under frantic blue lines—I felt someone shaking me. There was motion beneath me, too. I was in a car. I fought free of the lines and looked past the vision of carnage I’d created.

There was something on my cuts to keep them from bleeding everywhere, and Tabitha was staring at me with concern bordering on panic in her eyes.

“Farina, can you hear me?” her lips said.

I refocused my eyes and buried the pictures of white hot metal twisted with blood and ivory bone deep in my mind. It didn’t take away the guilt or the headache that came from pushing my lines too hard, too fast, but it did restore some of my other senses.

The cold bludgeoned me over the head, and I curled up on myself, shivering so hard my bones grated against each other. Tabitha shook my shoulder again, and I managed to pull my head up enough to see her eyes again, but the moment I made eye contact, the pain in my mind increased tenfold and I groaned. The colors shifted between red and grey.

“We need a hospital,” Tabitha shouted to whoever was driving—I didn’t dare pull the visuals for fear of making my head hurt worse.

I grabbed her hand and then jerked it away as the heat radiating off her burned my skin.

“No. It’s alright.”

That was part of the problem with using my plasma pulser. The device only pulled some of the heat—a small fraction—from my body, but even a small portion was enough to send me into shock.

“It’s not alright, Farina, your lips are going blue. You’re as cold as ice, and you’re bleeding.”

The car didn’t turn around.

“It’s j-just a—” My jaw spasmed of its own accord and I bit down hard on my tongue. I barely noticed the addition of such little pain, but it left the metallic tang of blood in my mouth. “It’s just a s-side effect. It will stop in a moment.”

My words didn’t do much to ease her frown, and I didn’t dare look at her eyes to see what she was thinking.

Finally, her jaw firmed and something around me—shifted. The temperature began to increase as the air around me shimmered like light off of hot asphalt. Beads of sweat began to steam down Tabitha’s face but, little by little, the shivering stopped and I was able to uncurl from my ball. When the shivering had subsided to controllable levels, I looked at her. She had done something—no doubt about that.

“Can we turn the heater down now?” the person in the front asked. “And what about a mission report? Talk to me, Agent.”

Tabitha sighed. “The mission was a failure. I couldn’t track him, find any of his superiors, or figure out his primary mission.”

“And Houston? Where is he?”

The throbbing in my head had subsided enough that I risked a quick blink back to the image of that carnage. With my emotions safely behind the wall of blue lines, I surveyed the last picture of the scene I had as Tabitha half supported me, half forced me to support her through the jungle of jagged metal shards, only half cooled from their white-hot state.

I counted the forms, but there were only two.

“He got away.”

Tabitha’s head jerked up. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

I blinked the image away and rested my head against the back of the car seat. “I just do.” Attempting to explain the way my brain worked wasn’t easy on a good day when I could think unimpaired. I couldn’t do it now, while I was dancing around every possibility of using my blue lines.

“I see,” the person in front said. There was displeasure there—not in his voice. Somewhere else, in the air floating around him? The throbbing in my head spiked as buzzing filled my ears. “So what am I going to tell your instructor when we get back to Martial Base? It was your solo assignment—I can’t pad it for you.”

Tabitha paled. “I didn’t correctly estimate how much his telepathy would increase his range, so he heard me. I wasn’t careful enough, and so—”

“You almost got killed.”

Tabitha looked down at the ground. “Yes, sir.”

He grunted. “Well, at least you know where you went wrong. That will give you points with Ms. King.”

He turned back to me. “And what exactly was all that about back there? Where did you come from, and what is that device on your hand?”

I frowned at the plasma pulser, still on and operational. Wordlessly, I flipped the ring that would move it to stand-by mode and then closed my fist. “Tabi—Smith was in trouble, so I came to help.”

The car screeched as he slammed on the brakes. He put one arm over the passenger seat back as he turned to look at Tabitha.

“You’re telling me you asked a Turnip for help? While you were on your solo assignment?”

My face flushed and I shifted forward in my seat. “She didn’t ask for help, but she had three cracked ribs and a gash in her shoulder. I wasn’t about to let her bleed out on the street when I could help.”

He turned to me. “You’re messing with a world you don’t understand—” then, half to himself, “How am I going to explain this security breach to Medina?”

Tabitha was shaking her head. “I’m not sure—”

“Not sure about what? You put a civilian Turnip in the line of fire! You knew who you were dealing with. How long have you been studying for this assignment? How long—Nevermind.”

“She’s not a Turnip.”

The words were quiet, but the man froze. “What?”

Tabitha lifted her chin. “She’s not a Turnip, sir. Houston said it after she stepped in back there. He thought she was with us—reasonable given that she is in the recruitment class at Martial Academy.”

He relaxed just a bit. “She’s a recruit?”

Tabitha nodded. “New—but Burton thinks she’s unlocking herself.”

“Burton hasn’t even managed to complete her graduate assignment yet.”

“But she is observant, and she’s been around as long as I have,” Tabitha argued.

The man shook his head. “This is a mess.”

“What mess?” I asked. Recruitment class? They had to be talking about Ms. King’s Social History class, but graduate assignments? Turnips? Why was Tabitha following Houston in the first place? Who was this man? And, above all, why was my stepping in a problem?

Houston was going to murder Tabitha or, if not murder, the beat her within an inch of her life. Yes, it was dangerous. Yes, I could have died, but I didn’t. The chills from using the pulser weren’t life-threatening, and whatever emotional trauma had happened to turn me into an automaton was just life. I’d gone through worse.

Tabitha sighed. “You know Ms. King recruited you for the Social History class, and you know we run tactical exercises and do other things way beyond the scope of the school. That’s because Ms. King is a recruiter for Beta-One. It’s an agency for neurodivergents—people whose brains were formed differently. Most of the time, those differences aren’t severe enough to do more than impact how people interact with society. In some, few circumstances, people can develop abilities.”

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the car seat as the man started the car.

“So when I saw the rocks lift off the ground in that alley?”

“Houston and that man he had with him were both telekinetics. They lift things with their minds.”

No wonder I hadn’t found anything supporting them. Houston must have lifted them with his mind.

I shook my head as images—things I’d seen but had thought impossible—flitted through my mind. The first of those was the shimmering that had happened while Tabitha was trying to warm me, but it was followed by an image of Houston standing there in the hallway. Had West used some sort of power to hide me? Had I used some sort of power to hide myself?

“You’re a telekinetic, too, aren’t you?” I asked.

She nodded. “There are telepaths, too. Tolden is a pretty strong telepath,” she motioned at the driver. “Houston was a mediocre one at S4 or S5.”

The flashes of thoughts, and the feelings, and what I saw when I looked in people’s eyes suddenly made sense.

I could see all those things, not because I was reading some hidden language in their eyes, but because I could see into their minds. “And me?”

Tabitha frowned. “Tolden, can you read her?”

The man at the wheel shook his head. “Some Turnips have strong walls, though.”

“Yes, but the strength of a telepath’s walls is generally proportional to how strong a telepath they are, or how strong a teleprojector.”

“A teleprojector—or a projector telepath—is a telepath who can not only read others’ thoughts, but can put their own into someone else’s head. Only the strongest telepaths can be teleprojectors.”

I frowned as I tried to sort the information and place it so I could remember it later. “So this Beta-One is an agency for telepaths, teleprojectors, and telekinetics?”

Tolden gave a short bark of a laugh. “We take all sorts of minds. We have people with impeccable hand-eye coordination, minds that work in tastes, smells, numbers, colors, sounds, or even emotions. Sure, we recruit mostly telepaths, projectors, and kinetics, but that’s just because they’re easier to detect.

“Part of our other function is to train these special neurodivergents on how to use their abilities. You see, there are millions of neurodivergents in the world. Most of them will go their entire lives without knowing that they are different in such a radical way. Most of them, even if they have Psionic genetics don’t ever unlock themselves. They don’t discover their ability. Those who do, though,” he let out a long whistle and shook his head. “They have the potential to become real problems. Think Hitler. He was a low level projection telepath. He used the ability to plant thoughts and, mostly, emotions in others’ heads to rise to power and plunge the world into chaos for how many years? Imagine if every person with that potential was allowed to run free.”

I’d seen the films on the holocaust and the World Wars. Still, how did one suppress an entire population of people with abilities like that? The only thing that came to mind was concentration camps. “So how do you prevent that?” I asked, quietly.

Tolden hissed air out through his teeth. “First, we try to recruit promising neurodivergents. If they work out, we introduce them to the Agency, and they might find employment with us in data analysis, engineering, research and development, intelligence, tactical, or any of the splinter departments that upkeep our bases scattered around the world. If they don’t work out as possible employees or if they don’t want to work for us—after all, some wish only to live their lives, and that’s fine—we train them in the proper use of their abilities and insert a tracker into their arm. We erase any potentially compromising memories, and that’s that. As long as they don’t try to cause World War III, we leave them alone.”

“Then there’s the third group.”

He sighed again and shook his head. “There are those who, like Hitler, want to use their abilities to build their own personal empires at the expense of world peace. Some cause wars, others turn terrorist but, regardless of what they do to cause upheaval, they need to be stopped. It’s the Tactical department’s job to stop them. Mostly, we sedate them and bring them in. Occasionally, harsher methods are required—but we try to limit that kind of thing.”

I frowned. “You work as a prison for naughty neurodivergents.”

“That’s right.”

I narrowed my eyes at him as bits of information jumped out in my vision. “What was that you said about erasing their memories?”

Tolden’s frown deepened. “There are very few projector telepaths of any real power in the world, but those who have a large amount of projection strength have the ability to delete memories. We don’t have to do it often, but it is possible.”

A chill ran down my spine. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Tolden pulled through a set of black wrought iron gates and kept driving around the back.

“You’re in the recruit class, which means Ms. King thinks you’re suitable material to be employed by the Agency. You have only passed the preliminaries, so we don’t know for certain. If worst comes to worst, we can just delete your memories and it will be like this conversation never happened.”

I swallowed.

Tolden shrugged. “It is what it is. That said, Smith’s going to take the fall for this if it doesn’t work out, so I’d rather you have clean and pretty thoughts when I hand you over to the Projectors. If you don’t, you might as well try to cut and run so I can haul you in, because there is no hiding anything from the projectors.”

Images of Zachary and Houston overlaid on my vision made me cringe. Still, I’d had a definite reason to do what I did both times. I had nothing to hide.

Tolden tapped a button and a portion of the cement driveway slid open to reveal a ramp. He drove in, and the driveway slid closed behind us.

My head still throbbed from information overload and how hard I’d driven my blue lines earlier, so I took a moment to find my safe-space.

A few minutes later, I stepped out of the car.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tolden stood close to me as we strode through the front door. Tabitha limped off another way—presumably to find medical care, but I didn’t ask.

My heart was in my throat and, in spite of Tolden’s verbal explanation that everything would probably be fine as long as I didn’t have anything to hide, I was still nervous.

He didn’t take his attention off me once while we moved through the facility.

Three rooms and three checkpoints later, we moved through a hall and into a huge, white rotunda filled with groups of people headed this way and that. A trio of people in white lab coats with clipboards stood talking in a circle while men and women in street clothes laughed and talked as they moved across the area. Occasionally, I could see people in black suits with straps securing gadgets I couldn’t name, except to say that every single one of them had a silver weapon of similar design to the weapon West had been cleaning yesterday visible on their belt. I started extrapolating from previous data and labeled the people in the black suits as agents from the tactical section Tolden had mentioned, and the ones in white lab coats as from research and development.

My blue lines all jumped from even analysis to concentrated data in one corner of the rotunda as one group of people in those black suits emerged from a door two by two. They were formed around a woman in a long red dress that flowed with her as she moved. The fabric was all wrong, but my lines couldn’t tell me why. I stared at her a while as they marched through the rotunda. There was something about her form—she was too tall, too lean to be natural. I had only studied genetics in passing, but her figure didn’t fit with any comparative analysis I ran. Above all of it was the persistent flashing of ‘anomaly detected’ over my vision.

I shook my head to clear the flashing words, but it didn’t help. The buzzing sound that wasn’t really a sound was back, beating at my mind. I pursed my lips and triggered the BYE-BYE module to force everything away so I could re-evaluate the situation. The woman’s head lit up blue as my blue lines synthesized new information with old. The buzzing in my head was this telepathic gift Tolden had told me about. This buzzing was also very different from the other buzzing I had heard during the tactical game in Social History. Something about that woman’s mind was disturbingly different. A second location lit up blue, and I focused on her fingers that caressed the chains on her handcuffs. She scanned the room, wary, but not afraid.

I tried to recall everything from my earlier conversation with Tolden, about my telepathy. Could I use it more deliberately than trying to process this awful buzzing? I bit my lip as I remembered the things I saw in people’s eyes—and how I got stuck in Mom’s. Except, I wasn’t stuck in her eyes, I was trapped in her mind. If looking people in the eyes helped me read their mind, then perhaps it would give me the information I needed to fully understand what was so disturbing about this woman?

I took a deep breath, then deliberately met the woman’s eyes. I froze. “That thing isn’t human.”

I didn’t realize I’d said the words out loud until Tolden stiffened beside me. “Excuse me?”

I motioned toward the woman in the red dress, now halfway across the rotunda. Her mind was strangely shaped—completely different than any of the pieces I’d picked up from accidentally reading others’ minds over the years. Just to make sure, I compiled every single video I had of meeting someone’s eyes, and ran a comparison analysis. This woman had a six percent resemblance to a normal person’s mind, fifty-six percent resemblance to a neurodivergent mind, and the rest went under the ever growing label of ‘abnormal conditions noted’. If neurodivergent minds were like mine and Tabitha Smith’s, then this woman was on a whole different level. Adding the abnormal musculature to the brain that evolution on Earth never could have created, the only possible explanation was that she was an alien.

Tolden winced. “Yeah, well we can’t have all the luck in the world can we?” he said to no one in particular. He motioned for me to move along as the blue lines in my vision flashed red. I stayed rooted where I stood.

“That agent—” if agent was the right word, “is half unconscious.”

The person in question had his eyes locked on the back of the alien’s head with his arms folded to conceal the fact that he had no use of his right arm. I could see the blood, just a shade darker than the black tactical suit bleeding through. Then, as my focus narrowed down onto him, I could feel the waves of pain lapping at his consciousness. I hissed and withdrew with a half step back. That was one disadvantage of deliberately using my newfound abilities. If I was inside someone’s mind, apparently I could feel their pain, too. I filed that information away as the blue lines revised their estimate of how long he had until he passed out. The agent was swaying where he stood. The alien’s smirk widened.

Tolden saw the agent stumble and then looked back at me with his growing frown. “Stay put, stay quiet and, if you value your memories, keep your thoughts to yourself.”

The threat didn’t have any steel behind it, but I still resolved to do as he asked while he strode up to the man at the head of the column. I still had plenty of tools without this new mind-reading thing. I set half my blue lines to gathering any information I could about this place while I focused the other half on trying to follow Tolden’s conversation with the man at the head of the two columns. Unfortunately, Tolden was turned so I could only see the back of his head.

The man at the front called the column to a halt as Tolden approached him.

“Tolden, what’s going on?” he asked.

There was a space, and then the man’s eyebrows narrowed. “Are you sure?”

Tolden nodded and motioned to the injured agent.

The blood drained from the man’s face. “We have to have a projector—it’s the only way to take this thing down. She’s not some run-of-the-mill neurodivergent, sir. The other half of my strike team is in the infirmary right now—and she took down three of them after we were in the chopper, with a syringe full of tranquilizer in her system!”

There was another pause.

The agent shook his head. “Nope, never. AnAd doesn’t know what to make of it and, frankly, I don’t care if she’s human or not. My job is to get her to Interrogation so Medina can have his spooks deal with her. Medical and R&D can figure out exactly what she is after we figure out what she was doing so close to Martial Academy. She’s never going to get to InDep if you pull my teleprojector, so no. I don’t care if you’re the Agent-In-Charge of the mighty Tac 47. Unless you have a better plan, my agent stays here.”

Tolden looked back at me with speculation in his eyes. A moment later, the man looked at me, and then back to Tolden. “And she’s still locked? No biocard? Are you sure she’s not the more dangerous one?”

There was a pause, and then the agent nodded.

Tolden motioned me over, and I came. He looked at me straight on while the leader of the tactical team motioned the projector telepath out of line.

“Alien? Seriously whacked-out human? We really don’t know. What we do know is that she’s dangerous. Now, that teleprojector you see there needs medical attention, but we need another projector to keep the prisoner in check. The only other one on-base at the moment is arm-deep in surgery, and the tactical projector isn’t going to be keeping anyone in check. He needs to get to the infirmary, and I need you to go with tactical team six. Watch the prisoner, and if she does anything—anything at all—that seems the slightest bit hostile, I need you to get as far inside her mind as you can and start screaming. Understand?”

I almost choked. “I thought you said only projectors could speak mind-to-mind.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Trust me, Farina, you’re a teleprojector. You’re strong enough I can feel the pull of your mind on mine standing eight feet away while you’re trying to be neutral. You can do this.”

I reviewed his proposal, then cross-referenced it with a video of Doug Houston trying to find me in a hallway where I was desperately wishing I was anywhere but there. Was that a kind of teleprojection? Had I suggested to his mind that I really wasn’t there?

I looked back at Tolden, who was waiting for an answer, then past him to the teleprojector still swaying on his feet. I bit my lip. I was going to regret this—I just knew it.

“I’ll do it.”

I switched spots with the teleprojector, who collapsed onto Tolden. The column started off again, faster this time, and I focused my eyes and blue lines on the creature in front of me instead of on Tolden, who was busy helping the other projector toward an elevator in the corner of the rotunda. The maybe-not-human woman radiated faint amusement and complete innocence, but farther in her mind was a bone-deep terror. As I tried to look for the root of that terror, my forehead started to pound, and I pulled back.

I really didn’t know what I was doing. Could I accidentally hurt her, or myself? I had only found out that telepathy was possible a few minutes ago, and now I was spending time in a nonhuman head?

Hopefully the woman would prove as benign as the air she was projecting, because I didn’t know how to do anything more than read her surface thoughts. If she tried to attack us, I probably wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop her.

The woman’s amusement only grew.

Luckily, eight minutes later we found our way into a hallway lined with high-security doors. The tactical officer at the front called a halt, and the first four rows split. A man in a white collared shirt with a pointed chin covered by a goatee stood by one of the doors. He caught the head tactical agent’s eyes and motioned him over. I wanted to run an analysis on this new person, but reined my lines in. The woman could still turn and attack us. Now was not the time to be unfocused. But focus didn’t mean I couldn’t read their lips.

“We still don’t have a reliable reading on her,” the tactical officer reported. The man in the white shirt was turned so I couldn’t see his lips.

The tactical offer frowned. “Yes, sir, but Kinkins was non-functional. Tac 47’s CO lent me a recruit, but she’s the only one available at the moment.”

The man turned to look at me, and I couldn’t resist. I met his steel grey eyes but they told me nothing. There was a wall behind them as cool as ice. The man’s lips twitched, and then he turned back to the tactical agent. I returned my attention to the woman in the red dress.

“Yes, sir,” the agent saluted. “I’ll see that she reports immediately.”

The man nodded toward the salute and then strode off down the hall with long, purposeful strides.

The tactical agent turned to me. “Farina, is it? Come here.”

I moved out of line and approached him, blue lines ready for anything. He tapped his toe on the ground while impatience radiated from him. “I’m not going to bite. I need you to do as deep a reading as you can manage, got it? Look her straight between the eyes and dive deep.”

I turned around to meet the alien’s emerald green eyes—oddly reminiscent of my mother’s. They held a challenge, but they also held interest. I moved past them, deeper into her mind.

There was patience, and superiority, and pride so vast I could get swallowed by it if I looked too long. Deeper than that was the fear I’d seen earlier. It wasn’t fear of the agency, but of something else connected with the agency.

You haven’t done this before, have you?

The question was as clear as if she’d spoken it, but I was pretty sure she hadn’t said a word.

There was a derisive laugh, then.

You aren’t part of them yet. That’s good. Perhaps if you keep your eyes open, you’ll survive.

Survive what? I wondered.

She shook her head just enough for my blue lines to catch the action.

The Agency is blind, and it’s going to get us all killed. Keep your eyes open, Farina. The Instructors are watching this place.

That thought was accompanied by a taste of muted horror. The Agency needs to look around, or they will continue to be mere pawns. You look around, don’t you Farina? You can see the two sides. Perhaps you will pick one. Perhaps you will merely be swept along by this massive Agency machine. Now wouldn’t that make the Instructors happy?

The correct side of what? Who were the Instructors?

There was a flash of an image. A tall man with green eyes and olive skin like mine—so similar that we could have been siblings, except for the muscles in all the wrong places. His hair was black like congealed blood. A moment later, he was joined by a woman who could have been his sister. Even in that one still image, they radiated power. I ran an analysis between them and the woman in front of me. Eighty-nine percent match. They were practically twins. Was this woman also an Instructor?

The woman snorted. I am not an Instructor, I am a defect to be corrected or thrown away. Just like you neurodivergents, and the rest of humanity. They will not stop until they have created the perfect Superior—their perfect soldier. Not human, but better than human.

She sent a brief skeleton picture of the musculature I had noticed on her, and then the images of the Instructors. Then, with a flick of her claw, she sent me spinning from her mind.

I staggered back and then looked up at her.

“This is the child you send to read my mind?” she asked. “I thought your race had many mind-talents.” She snorted and shook her head. “The Instructors, at least, will be pleased.”

The head tactical agent clicked the door open, and the woman—or, rather, the Superior— walked through. When the door shut and the lock cycled, the entire group let out a collective breath.

I archived the information from our conversation, then turned the more salient bits over in my mind. She was supposed to be some sort of super neurodivergent? Why would someone want to create something like that? Didn’t they understand the trade-offs we made? I might be able to remember everything I saw, but sounds never processed correctly. I couldn’t eat certain foods because they felt too awful in my mouth. I couldn’t wear certain clothes. I couldn’t understand people. And now these people wanted to make more of us, like we were lab experiments? Like we were better than regular people? Neurodivergents weren’t better, we were just different.

And the Superior woman. Who was she, and why was she here? She didn’t like the Instructors. No, that wasn’t quite right. She was afraid of the Instructors. But if they had made her, the way my comparative analysis suggested, then why was she afraid of them?

This whole situation made very little sense. I had a feeling I was going to be running a lot of data analysis in the next few weeks to try and squeeze answers out of that situation.

The head agent motioned to one of the other agents. “Well, that’s a wrap. Alright, Taz. You’re on escort duty with this one. She needs to go down to see Robbins. Hand her right over—if Robbins isn’t done with his surgery, then wait. Everybody else, go get cleaned up. We’ve got exercises against Tac Team 23 tonight and, mission or not, we aren’t losing our streak. We’ll play against Tac 47 yet.”

There were nods all around the group, and then they started back down the way they’d come. Taz, an agent about my height with a crooked nose and a limp—probably from their mission—motioned me farther down the hall.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To see Robbins—he’s a good guy. I think you’ll like him.”

“He’s a teleprojector?” I guessed. That’s what the percentages said.

“Yup, assigned to R&D—sometimes MedDep. He’s been around a long time.”

I followed Taz through the halls until we came to a door with a swipe-lock on the side. Taz pulled a card out of a sleeve on his tactical suit and the lock cycled to green. He pushed the door open, obscuring my view of the room, and nodded. “You got her?”

There was a sense of affirmation from a person I couldn’t see, and Taz backed away from the door, still holding it wide. “Good then. I’m headed to the infirmary to see about my leg. Good luck, kid. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

I stepped through the door with a knot in the pit of my stomach. What would happen if I didn’t do fine? What constituted ‘fine’?

The door clicked closed behind me and the lock’s glow changed from green to red. I swallowed and let my blue lines roam the room.

After a few seconds, the statistical analysis showed sixty-percent resemblance to a doctor’s exam room, twenty-percent resemblance to a conference room, with ten-percent unknown.

One wall was a counter with cupboards above and cabinets below. It was completely bare, and held a glisten inconsistent with the material—like it had just been wiped down. The other three walls were lined with blue-grey chairs facing the center of the room where there was a table covered with the lining often found on doctors office exam tables, designed to be stripped off and relaid for each patient.

Standing behind the table was a balding man, eight inches shorter than I was with smiling cheeks and eyes that radiated cheerful content. When I focused my blue lines on him, he clicked his tongue.

“I can understand your caution, Farina, but you’re already exhausted. Beating yourself against my shields will only give you a headache. Why don’t you sit down and I can help explain some things?”

He motioned to a seat on the wall, and I sat. He moved a comfortable distance away and then examined me. “You look like you’ve had a rough day. You must have a lot of questions.”

I resisted a snort. Rough day didn’t even begin to describe it. Still, most of the data integrated with the questions I’d been asking since I came to Martial academy. Every bit but one.

“The head of Tactical 6 asked whether I was more dangerous than the alien but, from what I’ve seen, I am not the most powerful individual you have working here. Why was he scared of me?”

Robbins’ eyes narrowed. “You are bright. I assume no one has told you about the difference between bio-unlocked and natural-unlocked, then?”

I shook my head.

“Biocards are a well-kept secret, and one of the ways we stay on top of the natural-unlocked population. You know that there are many with the potential to develop abilities, and that only a small portion of that population ever unlock themselves, right? Well, there are other ways to unlock a neurodivergent’s powers. Done correctly, it amplifies their power. For example, a telepath without a biocard—a naturally unlocked telepath—might be an S2 on the Psionics scale. With the biocard, they might be anywhere between an S5 to an S7. Keep in mind that the Psionics scale is similar to the richter scale. Each successive level is multiples more powerful than the last.”

I hissed. I was a natural teleprojector—which was already a rarity. I had enough power to equal Kinkins, the bio-unlocked teleprojector who’d gone to the infirmary.

He nodded. “So you see the issue. Right now, our files have you listed as somewhere between a PS2 and PS4. If you are bio-unlocked, that will shift radically. There are very few active agents with that kind of power. Ms. King, and Ms. Green—the director of the Agency—are the only teleprojectors who I could say for sure would be above your projection strength.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” I asked. My blue lines were present again, ready to plot intercepts and retrace my steps out of here if need be.

He sighed. “We aren’t going to do anything, child. You can relax. Believe it or not, we are grateful for your intervening on Agent Smith’s behalf. We are grateful to you again for your helping us secure the Superior. As far as I know, there is nothing barring you from beginning an accelerated study course to receive an offer of employment from the Agency.”

“Then why am I here?”

He waved his hand. “Just because we don’t anticipate any issues doesn’t mean we can lose all sense of caution. Before we can allow you to leave, we need to ensure you are not working for anyone else.”

My eyes widened. “Who else would I be working for?”

Even as I asked the question, my thoughts flicked to Houston.

“There are other neurodivergent agencies who are not as selective in their operations and operatives. Alpha-Niner, for example.”

“Is that who Doug Houston works for?”

Robbins shrugged. “So far, that seems the most likely candidate. We know he was unlocked here at Martial Academy, and there are only the three of us recruiting here.”

“Us, Alpha-Niner, and who?”

“Dean Mccoy has been a longstanding recruiter for the United States Armed Forces. So far as we know, the military remains clueless as to the true power neurodivergence holds, which means Houston must have been recruited by Earl West.”

I blinked. Of course. Who else could it be, but the man who refused to meet my eyes because he was afraid I would read his mind? The three offices made sense now, at least. One for each recruiter.

“Is Alpha-Niner bad?” I asked. Mr. West had seemed nice, but if they spent their whole time supporting men like Houston—

Robbins shook his head. “Saying Alpha-Niner is bad is like saying all chihuahuas are bad. They have their members who go too far, and they have their members who are exemplary citizens. On the whole, they have been less selective of their membership, but that doesn’t make them bad. It just means that we keep an eye on them when we can, and bring in their members who have chaos on their mind.”

“Members like Doug Houston.”

Robbins shook his head again. “Before this morning, he hadn’t crossed a line. We couldn’t touch him or risk violating our own directives. Now his danger rating is down to a two. If we think he’s up to something, we’ll bring him in. Otherwise, he’s free to live as he chooses. Until his danger rating reaches one, we can’t send teams actively searching to bring him in.”

I started to argue, but he held up his hand. “I’ve heard Agent Smith’s report, and I know he tried to kill you. That means he’s a criminal, but that does not make him a Psionic criminal. We will put in tips to the local authorities and they might catch him. Unless he uses his abilities to commit a crime, he does not fall under our jurisdiction.”

His hand fell again, and he sighed. “We are walking a very thin line here, Farina. We have to be careful not to dispense vigilante justice, or we would be no better than criminals ourselves. Now, do you have any other questions?”

“Is Houston going to come back to Martial Academy?” The thought of seeing him again—even in passing—made my blood boil. My fist tightened around the rings of the plasma pulser.

“Not if he knows what’s good for him. Authorities aside, the Company knows better than to send hostile agents into our territory.”

“Your territory?”

Robbins ran fingers over his balding head. “We’re actually in a base underneath the Academy right now. It’s one of our largest recruiting stations, and the forward operations base for the midwestern United States. While we aren’t quite sure how much the Company knows about our operations here, they wouldn’t be dumb enough to send one in of their comprimised operatives. If they’re smart, they will have cast him off by now. The last thing they need is an all out war with us—especially given Martial Academy’s delicate situation. At best, the Military is clued in, and will start collecting and experimenting with neurodivergents. At worst, the world becomes aware of our presence, and it becomes a free-for-all. I don’t need to tell you how much of a mess that would be.”

I shook my head. Doug Houston was still free, but maybe not for long if the police were looking for him. The moment he showed his face again, the Agency would try to bring him in. He wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone without risking his freedom—which was enough to make me take a deep breath.

“What now?” I asked.

He motioned to the exam table in the middle of the room. “With your permission, I am going to examine your memories. This serves a few purposes. First, it will allow me to determine whether or not you are working for anyone else. Second, it will allow me to determine if you are the kind of person we want in the Agency. Third, and rather unique to your case, it will allow me to review any intel you gathered from the alien and Houston without a lengthy debrief.”

“You’re going to root around in my head.”

He nodded, suddenly serious. “I’m not going to lie, it might be uncomfortable. Unlocked, you are a higher Projection Strength than I am, which means your shields will be extensive and difficult to dismantle. If at any time you wish to stop, let me know and we can try again later.”

I met his gaze. “And if I refuse?”

He stiffened. “Then I will have to erase your memories before we release you. You will be removed from the selection process, and we will insert a tracker into your arm. From there, you will be free to live your life so long as you do not misuse your natural gifts.”

I shivered. “And the same thing happens if you see something you don’t like. I don’t really have a choice here.”

His frown deepened, but he only nodded and motioned to the exam table.

I sat down gingerly on the edge with my blue lines ready, even as the pit in the center of my stomach told me that they wouldn’t do any good. If I let him in, he would do as he wanted and I would have no defense.

“I can understand your nervousness, child, but you have nothing to fear from me. This will only take a moment—if you would lay down?”

I did so. My skin rippled with goosebumps as the chill of the exam table settled into my bones. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“Good, now I’ll need you to relax. If I’m going to get past your shields without harming you, I’m going to need your cooperation.”

The buzzing outside my ears crescendoed, and I did my best to shove it to the back of my mind, but it wouldn’t subside.

“Don’t fight your gift. It’s rising to try and protect you. Accept it—internalize it.”

I stopped fighting the buzzing and it continued to crescendo. After a moment, it was all I could hear. Then it stopped and my surroundings came into fuzzy clarity even through closed eyes. The buzzing was gone.

“Good, now relax.”

I did my best, but the table was hard and I could feel his mind questing toward mine. The first touch was gentle, but sustained. As the pressure normalized, I gasped and jerked away as something slammed against my mind and a shoot of pain stabbed through my head.

“It’s all right. It will be over in a moment,” he said.

Almost as soon as the words were over, the pain subsided into a steady throb.

Unbidden, images rose to my vision. At first, it was images from the day-to-day. Class, school, home life. He watched with interest as I interacted with my mother, Adalind, and spent time working on my engineering projects. Then he moved on to things about the school. First, he pulled up my confrontation with Mr. O’Brien about cheating, and then he skimmed through my interactions with Mr. West. When he happened upon my ballet class with Houston, he slowed down the memory and re-played portions—especially where I looked him in the eyes.

I could see the hunger more plainly this time as his eyes flicked over me and brushed against my shields. He could reach inside and take whatever he wanted—he knew it.

When Robbins moved on, he jumped back to my encounters with the Superior woman. He raked through this memory with a fine-tooth comb, especially the conversation we had. FInally, he paused for a long time. My head started to get big and fuzzy—and then the feeling was gone. Finally satisfied, he returned to skimming my life. He watched with interest as I fired the pulser onto the bin and watched as molten metal rained down on Houston and the others and then turned into an automaton. After that, he skimmed through the memories of Zach.

I bit my tongue and held the wall of blue lines between me and the old grief, shame, and terror. He didn’t look at them too closely, so it was easier to insulate myself.

When he jumped to the beginning of the next memory, though, my stomach twisted and the wall I’d held so carefully crumbled.

The plasma pulser was on my hand, and Zachary was drunk, emerging from an alley with blood on his knuckles. His eyes were glazed with satisfaction. He never even saw me as I released my fist. The blue lines had calculated the trajectory exactly, and I watched as the car flew toward him.

He turned at the last moment as he finally registered the threat, just in time to shriek as the car smashed him into the wall. He lay there, stunned as I pulled the burner phone out of my pocket and dialed 911 with gloved fingers. A moment later, he stirred and then groaned. I could see his body stiffen when the shock began to clear and the pain hit. Agony that could have been his slashed through my mind, but I drew the wall of blue lines between me and him the way I’d done while I watched him beat other kids senseless. This time was different, though.

I watched until the ambulance arrived. Then I slipped into the shadows. I never went to see him at the hospital. When he came to visit the school four weeks later, he was in a wheelchair. I didn’t speak to him. I could barely look at him.

Finally, Robbins moved on and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was back at the apartment my mother and I shared. There was a man there, impossibly tall. In one hand he held a bag that contained the only belongings he couldn’t bear to leave. I could only see the back of his head, but I could see every detail of every hair.

I felt Robbins withdraw—apparently satisfied, but I held onto the memory out of habit.

“Where are you going?” I asked. My voice was higher, with a childlike gentleness I hadn’t felt for a long time. It was my voice from an eternity ago—the sounds in this memory weren’t difficult to preserve.

“Somewhere I can help the world,” the voice said. There was sadness and anger carefully hidden from me, but I could hear it now. They were circling in his mind like convection currents, tempered only by certainty and need. I could see that now, but I could still see too little.

I wanted to scream at him for leaving or ask why, or even tell him how much I missed him, but that wasn’t the way this scene worked.

“You’ll come back?” I asked

“Always.” The voice stank of lies. He never came back.

The man twisted around, letting me see the blurred, shapeless blob that was his face. Any hope that had built inside me shattered, and I could feel the wetness on my cheeks as years of wasted time staring at this memory leaked out.

I still couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t remember his face. The only thing there was a projected smile that I’d once been naive enough to believe. Then he left. Mother burned all the pictures in her grief, unaware of the effect that would have on me.

I could remember everything I saw—everything except that one face. I could see him on the street, and not know him from a complete stranger. He could be the next door neighbor, or the milkman, or the mail person that knocked on the door every so often—but I would never know. Despite my ability to store every single image I encountered, I’d tried for my entire childhood, but I couldn’t ever see his face.

I shoved the memory away with disgust and returned to myself. Lingering there was pointless—but that was just more evidence that I wasn’t always as logical as I wanted to be. Just as suddenly as it had all began, it was done, and my vision was my own again.

Robbins stared at me, worry evident on his face as one hand inched toward the silver bracelet on his wrist that likely contained a direct link to the infirmary. His hand dropped as I looked at him.

“Oh good. I was beginning to think you would never come out of it.”

I sighed and wiped the tears from my cheeks. I was a fool to think that this newfound skill would have any impact on my inability to remember my father’s face. In twelve years, I’d never managed to remember—no matter how deeply I analyzed or scrutinized the images. He always left, and I always saw that blob with a projected smile.

“No. That’s normal.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. Sometimes I held onto the memories, and sometimes the memories held onto me. I was getting better—learning control. All the control in the world couldn’t help me remember my father.

Robbins sighed. “I see. Well, we all have our unique traits.”

I sat up slowly and then sighed as I looked around the room.

“I guess this means I’m free to go?”

I still knew what the Agency was and that I was a teleprojector. Something in my videos was pinging for attention, but I brushed it away. It wasn’t important—why would I pay any attention to it? Important things were happening now, in the present. I didn’t need to pull any video of the recent past. It wouldn’t help anything at all.

Robbins nodded. “I’ll call down an escort who can take you home. I guess it goes without saying that you can’t tell anyone about this?”

“Who would believe me anyway?”

Robbins smiled a half smile and then his eyes glazed over. When he returned, his smile widened. “Someone will be down shortly. Be careful, Farina. Now that you know about your abilities, you have to use them responsibly. Ms. King will teach you more about it during classes.”

I thanked him and rode home in silence with a woman in a tactical suit. The notification in my vision disappeared—like it had never ever been there to begin with.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

When I got home, Mom was watching the front door. There were tearstains on her cheeks. She looked up when I opened the door.

“Crystal, where have you been? I was worried you had—” her throat closed, and her cheeks reddened as she fought back tears. She rushed over to me and enfolded me in a hug. “You didn’t come home, and I got worried.”

I endured the touch as well as I could, but the pressure around me was like needles on my skin. I pulled away at the earliest possibility. “I’m fine, Mom. I wanted to walk Tabitha back to her place, but it was farther away than I thought.” I glanced out the window at the stars starting to peek out through the setting sun and swallowed. “A lot farther away than I thought.”

She stepped away and looked at my face. “Crystal, it isn’t safe to be out by yourself this late. You should have called me—I would have taken you home.”

I frowned. It wasn’t really safe for Mom to drive. If she had one of her fits while she was behind the wheel, things would not end well. She still did it when she had to—she still had her license, after all—but only for short distances. If it required a longer trip, I usually drove. Sure, I was underage, but Mom had started teaching me how to drive when I was eleven and the lines on my vision meant that I’d learned quickly and never had a problem. My height meant that I looked old enough behind the wheel and, for longer trips, I did my makeup to cover anything my height didn’t hide.

“It’s alright, Mom. I’m home now,” I said trying to keep my voice soft.

She sniffed and wiped away the tears. “Yes. You’re home. Nothing can get you here. Home is guarded. Home is safe.” She turned and wandered back to her bedroom.

That night, I made sure she took her sleep medication before bed. Her behavior held an eighty-two percent match to other nights she had nightmares, and I hated hearing her screaming during the night. She never remembered her dreams, but I’d heard her pleading, screaming at some unknown figure for mercy enough times to know they weren’t good. When she remembered her medication, it wasn’t so bad. She fell into a deep enough sleep that she couldn’t dream.

The next morning, Mom was barely functional. She wandered around in aimless circles and jumped at every shadow. It wasn’t the worst I’d ever seen her—at least she wasn’t screaming—but she was barely able to feed herself breakfast. I called her in sick for work and made tea, then sent her back to bed. I put her subway card on the table, then hid her keys so she wouldn’t try to drive anywhere if she woke up while I was at school. Hopefully she would be more like her usual cheery-though-forgetful self. I wrote her a note telling her that I was at school—just in case she didn’t remember—then took the subway to Martial Academy. It was still dark out when I got there.

Warm-ups were a mind-numbing relief after the weekend, and I welcomed the sweat and cold, stinging water from the shower before breakfast. At the table, Tabitha’s eyes sparkled with excitement. Briggs was distant—lost in thought.

As I looked around the room, no one looked any different, but the room was twice as loud as usual. After a moment, I closed my eyes and watched the colors of my surroundings bleed through the dark.

When I opened my eyes, the sounds were more muted.

I moved through the day quietly. Every once in a while, I took a moment to quiet my mind and allow my gift to move unrepressed, but by the time I got through my academic periods my head was throbbing.

Ms. King was waiting for me when I arrived at Social History.

“Come with me,” she said.

Once we were safely in her office, she folded her arms. “You’ve been given an introduction to Beta-One, I suppose.”

I nodded.

“You’ve been cleared by personnel to receive a temporary biocard and have been placed on the pre-tactical track. If you would like to be assigned to another track, speak now and I can talk to personnel.”

My eyes widened. “Why tactical?”

Ever since Zachary, I’d done everything I could to keep from hurting other people—whether they were bad guys or not. To be put on track for a job where I was expected to do that every day? Was she insane?

Ms. King’s lips tightened. “Your protective instinct is fierce. Your analytical skills are invaluable, and your projecting talents are best used there. I understand that you don’t like violence, and you especially hate killing. I might suggest, though, that the best way you can reduce the overall hurt in the world is to work with a tactical team. In any case, you would never be assigned to a strike team. Most likely would be an investigative or versatile team where you may encounter combat, but your primary focus would be reconnaissance.”

I swallowed. “What about engineering? You need engineers, don’t you?”

Ms. King sighed. “I’ll admit that your talents in that direction are impressive, but we have many engineers.”

“And you have fewer soldiers? What does that say about my survival rate?”

“We have fewer soldiers because the agency is on the verge of war. These terrorist attacks that have been happening globally? The political unrest? Do you really not see the signs? Wouldn’t you rather help protect people that have been hurt? People who are like you were once? Who else can lift them up off the street? Who else can keep them from being hurt in the first place? Farina, we need a teleprojector out there badly.”

I pinched my lips together. “It’s always been my dream to be an engineer,” I whispered. But how could I stand by while people like Zach and Houston roamed free to hurt countless people?

“You don’t have to give that dream up,” Ms. King said. “You are free to join or begin any project you would like to in our labs, pending graduation. I will ensure they give you a bench and workstation.”

I looked up at her, but there was no guile in her eyes.

“Will that work?” She lifted an eyebrow.

I nodded.

She pulled a piece of plastic out of her desk and handed it to me. “Good. This is your temporary biocard. It doesn’t work outside of the classroom, but it will provide a temporary unlock for you to practice your abilities at their fullest. Now come on, you are late for class.”

When we passed from Ms. King’s office into the classroom I gasped and nearly fell as all the colors sharpened into vivid contrast and the room exploded into sound.

Ms. King turned around and clicked her tongue.

::If it’s too much, then pull back. Don’t just lay about outside of your walls. Use your sense, girl.::

Ms. King’s mouth didn’t move, but the words were sharp and clear inside my head.

I struggled to bat away the noise as Ms. King turned back around and started to gather the class. Somehow, I made it to my seat.

Some of the girls gave me sideways glances as I collapsed into the chair, but no one said anything aloud.

I remember the first time I pulled my temp card, Miller thought. Scariest thing in the world. She met my eyes and formed the thoughts more discreetly. Don’t worry about it, Farina. You’ll get used to it eventually. Worst thing you can do right now is fight it, though.

::Focus, girls,:: Ms. King projected, loud and clear. Everyone’s thoughts drifted toward Ms. King and the upcoming lesson—everyone’s thoughts but mine.

I tried to pull away from the sounds, or lock them up, or even just quiet them, but nothing helped.

Thoughts about public opinion and different techniques to sway it swirled outside my head like the beginning winds of a hurricane.

Slowly, my vision dimmed until there was nothing left but shadows.

::Farina, Smith asked you a question. Perhaps you would like to join us?:: Ms. King’s words were dry.

I jerked my head up to try and find the figure that was Tabitha. Her lips were moving.

“What percentage of people make enough to live in brand-name clothes?”

I blinked at her, but the sentence didn’t make sense through all the thought fractions fighting for my attention.

She sighed, and looked around at the class. “Dean? Miller? Do you have a better question?”

Ms. King directed my attention toward Miller, and I watched her lips carefully.

“What’s the last digit of Euler’s number?”

Just like that, the lines on my vision snapped up and the sounds faded to a more manageable grey.

I stopped the calculation before it could get too far into the irrational number and then sighed. “Thanks.”

Ms. King coughed. “Touching as all this is, we have characters to assassinate here. Can someone please give me an analysis of why proving ethos is less valuable in a character assassination than the literature suggests?”

::Alright, Farina, there’s a hidden number in play among the telekinetics. I expect you to both keep up with the lesson and deliver the number I’ve given the telekinetics to remember.::

I frowned. How could I know who the telekinetics were? Obviously Tabitha was, but what about the others?

::You’re a mind reader. Figure it out,:: Ms. King said.

I turned as much attention as I dared from the class to the thoughts I found floating around in everyone else’s heads.

At the end of the class, Ms. King turned off the projector and looked at us, radiating expectation.

::Reports.::

I opened my mouth to tell her the number, only to close it as Smith winced internally at my near faux pas.

The thoughts around me solidified into deliberate words.

Some of the reports made sense, like Smith’s She had apricot butter on biscuits for breakfast. But most were random words, likely based on highly specific questions.

Instead of merely forming my thought in my own mind, I folded the number sixteen inside of the blue lines on my vision and pushed it to her. Her walls flickered into my vision and bent around the package to accept it. Then whatever feeling my blue lines had used to create the image vanished.

::Well done, Farina,:: Ms. King said as the girls stood to file out of the room. ::There should be a cubby on the wall for you to put your temporary card in. Return it, and then you may go.::

I focused on projecting a sense of understanding and hurried to do as she said.

When the card left my fingers, the world went silent and the colors in my vision dulled. I stood and looked down at my shaking hands in complete silence. Would Ms. King notice all that much if I just brought the card with me?

The blue lines in my vision blinked at a 90% certainty she would notice. Still, even after so small a time, I hated to leave that card in the cubby. I still didn’t have control of my powers—I knew that. The outside world would feel too loud, and I would be battling sensory overload for the rest of the day. I was willing to risk it, though. That card was an extension of my blue lines. Even though I was still figuring it out, it was like a module of analysis tools. Leaving it in the cubby left me more vulnerable—and more stupid—than having it with me.

“Even if you were to take it, the card wouldn’t help you outside of this room or the arena in the back.”

I looked up to find Ms. King studying me from across the room.

I took a deep breath and closed the cubby. I’d lived in a silent world for twelve years. I could handle it a little longer.

I hurried to Mr. Barnes’ Biology class, careful to keep an ear and a tendril of thought out for Berry or Houston. Berry, because he would ground me for running in the halls, and I had no intention of staying here Friday, and Houston because, even after what Robbins had told me, I didn’t trust him to act rationally. If he did come here, I wasn’t sure what would happen if we ran into each other after he tried to kill me earlier. Did I have enough experience to defend myself against him, even for a little while? I thought of the gleam of anticipation in his eye as he advanced on me with the knife. Until I had better control over my abilities, Houston would take me down just as easily as he’d destroyed Smith in the ring.

When I made it to my next martial period, Mr. West watched me with cautious eyes. When I reached out to his mind, it was covered in a sort of glassy dome that my mind just slid off of.

“Castillo, take the class,” he said, and made his way over to me.

This was the man who must have recruited Houston for the company—and yet he’d stood between us earlier. A retro analysis of his actions showed that West knew that Houston was a threat just as well as I did. So what did that make him?

I followed Mr. West into his office behind the mirror. It was sparsely decorated and mind-game free—a stark contrast to Ms. King’s room. I sat in a solid wooden chair on the other side of Mr. West’s desk, and watched him cautiously. Did he know what Houston had tried to do earlier?

Mr. West only looked past me—like he was trapped in a bittersweet memory. Finally, he shook himself loose. “I heard what happened yesterday.”

Was he looking for information? I stayed silent.

“I’m sorry you had to make that choice.”

Which choice? The one between letting Houston kill me and my friend, or potentially killing him? The one between having my memory erased or joining the Agency? Neither of those were much of a choice. Zachary had taught me that I couldn’t sit still and watch people get hurt. I would fight—even if it meant breaking my own mind. Now, there was only one way to keep Houston from hurting people, and that was working with the Agency. It was a simple calculation.

Mr. West’s hands were clenched on the desktop. He took a deep breath. “You deserve to know more than I can tell you but, Crystal, please be careful. This game is bigger than you know.”

“That’s not what I saw.” The Company let people like Houston run free, hurting others. The Agency locked those people up. If that wasn’t high enough contrast, I didn’t know what was.

He raised an open hand. “What did you see?”

“That there are lots of people who use their power to hurt others.”

“People you think we helped put on the streets.” Mr. West rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Isn’t that what happened?”

“I wish I knew.”

I directed my blue lines to his body language, and cross-referenced that with the new data from Ms. King’s Social History class. Mr. West was confused, and agitated. His frustration, I could understand—but his confusion?

“Houston is strong. He’s dangerous, and you just taught him more about how to use his power.” It was pretty simple. If the Company hadn’t recruited him, Houston wouldn’t be such a threat.

“And you think all powerful people are dangerous? Look at yourself! Powerful people have the potential to be dangerous, but that capacity for violence is held in check by two things. Control, and respect. You have no control, which makes you at least as dangerous as Houston.”

“Houston isn’t disrespectful, he’s a monster. You had to have seen how much he enjoys hurting people when you recruited him—and then you gave him the tools to violate minds!”

Mr. West stood abruptly—startling my blue lines into defense mode—only to start pacing. “We have places to use individuals like him—places that minimize the risk. In the end, we don’t have the option to be choosy. We recruit whoever we can get—or we try to, anyway.”

A question flashed on my vision. “Then why didn’t you try to recruit me?”

Mr. West stopped, and stared at me. “What?”

“If you need every Psionically inclined individual you can recruit—if you’re desperate enough for people that you’re recruiting here, inside the Agency’s territory, taking their cast-offs—then why didn’t you try to recruit me?”

He swallowed. “My mission was to observe and report.”

“That’s the real reason you got me a scholarship to this school, isn’t it? So you could watch me?”

Suddenly, he looked very tired. “The world is getting more and more dangerous, Crystal. I didn’t want you to have to be involved in this war—but I guess I never did have any control over that. Just be careful. The Agency doesn’t understand everything that is going on, here. Not everyone there is what they seem.”

I looked at his eyes to try and figure out exactly what he meant by that, but his mind was still shielded. He sighed, and motioned toward the door. “We should get back to class.”

I had chosen my side, and that was that.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Houston was nowhere to be found the rest of that day, or even that week. By Friday, the prefects had redistributed the load and it was barely noticeable. Many of the Prefects had to change which classes they helped teach—like Vera Hunt, who took over for Castillo in Mr. West’s classes. She drove us harder and faster than Castillo ever had—demanding absolute excellence in everything. Outwardly, she seemed unconcerned about Houston. The more control I gained over my ability, though, the more I could tell how much it bothered Hunt. She wasn’t the only one. The teachers were distracted—especially West. He started showing up less in class—and when he was there, he mostly stood and watched. On Wednesday, Hunt took over all his classes while he hid away in his office.

I wondered how much of it had to do with Houston, and how much of it had to do with that mysterious war he’d mentioned the last time we talked. The shield on his mind never wavered, though, and I certainly didn’t know how to circumvent it. There was no way to know exactly what the problem was.

I had resolved to ask Ms. King about it when I walked into Social History, only for her to immediately wave me over and hand me the biocard. Thoughts of Houston fled as the world lit up and the minds around me came alive.

::Your abilities as a telepath are coming along far more quickly than we anticipated,:: Ms. King said. It took a while to get used to her always talking in my head—but it did make a certain amount of sense. If no one ever physically talked about the secret Neurodivergent agency in the basement, the only people who could possibly find out were neurodivergents like us.

::Yes, quite.::

I bit the inside of my lip. While getting used to the idea of telepaths and teleprojectors wasn’t that difficult, getting used to one almost always being inside my head was harder than I’d expected.

::If you don’t want me to read your surface thoughts, then school them, Miss Farina. You are a powerful teleprojector, but that does not mean your natural shields will protect you from everyone. In fact, the sheer strength of your shields means that if anyone does invade your thoughts, they will almost certainly have the ability to modify them at will. The only telepaths with a strong enough gift to get inside your head, Miss Farina, are projectors.::

Which was important information—and might even be useful if I hadn’t already figured that much out—but what was this all-important difference between telepaths and teleprojectors?

::You have already attempted several of the things that separate projectors from their less powerful cousins. Projectors have the ability to modify thoughts—although everyone accesses that ability in a different way. Some of my students have used sounds to do it. They merely talk while they are inside someone else’s head, and the other can hear them—of course that approach makes some other things much more difficult. Other students of mine send the equivalent of mental e-mails. Regardless of how the process makes sense in your mind, there are some important things to remember. If you are already inside someone’s walls, sending them a message—like I am doing with you—is simple and makes relatively little telepathic noise for others to pick up on. Sending a message to someone while you are not inside their walls is telepathically noisy. While thoughts—any thoughts—are outside someone’s walls, any telepath that can reach the mental height you sent the message at can read your message.::

I thought about that for a moment, then formed a response, tucked it in an envelope, and sent it to Ms. King. ::So communication like this can be picked up by a telepath, while a teleprojector is the only one who can send it?::

Her walls accepted the message—and they changed colors as they did so. I sorted back through my videos of the last three days working with Ms. King on my abilities, and noted a similar color shift every single time. Did thoughts have frequencies, like light? Could that be what I was seeing there?

::Perhaps. As I said, everyone perceives it differently. Walls have different heights and thicknesses—which could certainly be described as the amplitude and frequency of a light wave. Thoughts can also be sent at these different frequencies. Faster thoughts sent at steeper heights are more difficult for others to intercept—higher velocity waves with higher frequencies, in your analogy.::

And more powerful telepaths and teleprojectors had access to a wider range of frequencies they could send or use to listen in—which was why some telepaths could get through some walls. If the walls operated on a higher frequency, only a high frequency telepath—say an S5—could get in. If the walls were a lower frequency, anyone above—say an S2—could get in. The PS ratings for Projector telepaths were similar. Although they all had a telepathic Strength rating of above S8, the frequencies they could project were different. A PS1 could only project very low frequency thoughts, and so would be easily picked up by any telepath in the vicinity.

::Yes, but PS1s can be very useful. Emotions exist at low frequencies, and so any projector telepath can manipulate others—just like you did with Houston, earlier. He couldn’t see you in the hallway because you convinced his subconscious mind that you weren’t there. Mastering low frequency projection is harder than you might think, though. Your encounter earlier was beginner’s luck.::

I bit down on a sigh as I guessed Ms. King’s intention. She was going to have me practice emotional manipulation for the rest of class.

::Correct—and impressive. You have been paying attention in class, it seems. Only a few weeks ago, you never would have been able to accurately guess someone’s intention like that.::

I grinned in spite of myself. Ms. King was right—she had been all along. This class had opened up so many more doors than just telepathic ones. It really was helping me to understand society.

I accepted my assignment from Ms. King to sway Smith into saying a few key words during class, and started trying to split my attention between my assignment and the class’s topic—field communication during a tactical operation. One way or the other, I was going to earn my permanent biocard so I could use these abilities whenever I needed them, and not just in class.

Halfway though the period, Ms. King paused her narration. Her eyebrows drew together—she was annoyed. I reviewed my actions to see if I’d done anything wrong, then stopped as I felt her inside my mind.

::Someone downstairs wants to talk to you,:: she said. There were only traces of frustration in her mental voice but, now that I knew what to look for in her thought frequency, it was there.

I wondered, briefly, what it was about, and then stopped. If someone was interrupting Social History, it meant we were on a limited time frame. I had to be back to the school before the end of the period, or risk missing Biology next period.

::Very good, Miss Farina. Now, why don’t you persuade someone to send you on an errand back in the arena? Miss Smith, perhaps?::

I tried to plant the idea that Smith had forgotten her pencil, or something, in the arena, but she just shook the idea off.

Ms. King sighed inside my head. ::Perhaps that is too much for your first day. It is much easier to shift memories, and alter perception than it is to grow an idea out of nothing. Keep working on it.::

Ms. King dismissed me from the class, and I hurried along a path Ms. King projected to me. There were stairs in the back of the arena—eight flights of them. As I entered the stairway, my temporary biocard I kept in my bra powered down—just like she’d said. The temporary biocard really was useless outside of the classroom.

Someone was waiting for me as I emerged into the rotunda. He wore a white shirt, like the last time I’d seen him. But where had I seen him? I ran a search, and came up with a nameless individual talking to a tactical agent in a hallway, but my surroundings were fuzzy.

The nameless man with the goatee stuck out his hand. I took it without prompting—that one had been covered in depth during a Social History class. Apparently, a handshake could have all sorts of meanings. All I got from this man’s handshake was a business-like respect.

“Miss Farina, it’s good to officially meet you. My name is Joseph Medina.”

Medina—the man Tolden had worried about explaining me to when he found out I wasn’t part of the Agency yet. I swallowed hard.

“My reputation is a little more severe than fact. Don’t worry, kid, I’m not going to bite. I just have some questions about your family history. You’re newer than most recruits when they’re introduced to us, so I decided to handle your background check personally. If you’ll follow me, I’ve got a private place we can talk.”

He led the way to an elevator labeled “InDep”, swiped his card, then turned to me with a grin as I wondered what InDep stood for.

“Most people find Intelligence and Interrogation too big a mouthful, so they call the department InDep,” he said.

I frowned. Was he inside my head, too?

Medina chuckled. “I don’t need to read your mind, Miss Farina, it’s all over your face.” The elevator opened, and we stepped inside. A laser—too quick for most people to probably detect—flashed over me. The door froze open.

“Temporary access detected. Elevator locked. Please input code to continue.” The lights in the elevator dulled to red.

“Recruiter access: Medina, Joseph.”

The elevator lights came back up, and the door closed. Medina tapped a button on the elevator, and we started to go down.

“You’re a recruiter?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him around the school—and wasn’t Ms. King the Agency’s recruiter?

Medina gave me a slight smile. “Not currently, no. I had the post before Ms. King joined our organization. Unfortunately, my skills were needed elsewhere. Now I dabble here and there, and help out when someone who is—let’s say more statistically improbable than the other recruits—comes along.”

I frowned. Was that why Ms. King was so annoyed with him? He was doing part of her job? Ms. King said people could get territorial, and that sometimes helping out—even when you mean well—could make others mad.

The elevator dinged before I could finish my analysis on whether or not to ask Medina that, and soon we were in a small conference room. Medina offered me a glass of water, and I took it—mindful of Ms. King’s lessons.

Medina sat, just looking at me, for a long time. I checked the frequencies in my own thoughts, but there was no indication of Medina in there. Was he reading my body language, then? Could that be what made him different?

Finally, I couldn’t stand the silence anymore, but before I could find a random question to blurt out, Medina leaned forward.

“You seem to be a very straightforward person, Miss Farina. You’ve been shaped by some very specific circumstances, but you haven’t let them—rather, him—swallow you.”

I jerked upright. “How do you know about Zach?”

Medina only smiled. “It’s my job to know about the people we hire, and to give that information to people who need to know. Miss Smith is certainly glad I did my homework, isn’t she?”

So was this man how Tabitha had known about Zach? But if he had already been digging into my past, why had Tolden been so worried about him?

I dismissed the question, absently. At the time, Tolden had been worried about a completely unknown telepath riding in the back seat of his car. I would have been worried about security, too, if I had been in his place.

“Past relationships can tell a lot about a person. The car—and the engineering abilities that incident displayed—was impressive, but that relationship is not the one I’m concerned about. What about your mother?”

I clenched my jaw. “Leave her out of this.”

Medina leaned back in his chair to study me for a long moment. “Your protective instincts are understandable, given your mother’s fragile health. She is prone to fits, and is often ill. She can’t hold down a job. Your family’s only source of reliable income is a check that arrives on the first day of every month. So what happened to cause your mother’s panic attacks?”

I looked down at the table. “We don’t know.”

“But you’ve tried to find out, right? What did the doctors say?”

“That whatever is hurting my mom doesn’t exist. They can’t help us.”

Medina nodded to himself. “And what about your father? He didn’t come back when your mother took a turn for the worse? He didn’t start sending more money? He didn’t even visit?”

I clenched my fists. “No. I wouldn’t even know him if he did come around. Mom destroyed all his pictures, and I can’t remember his face.”

“I see.”

Medina produced a note-pad and scribbled something down. After a moment, he looked back up. “And there aren’t any other relationships that might come to bear on your work here? You don’t owe anyone money? You don’t have friends who might decide to check up on you?”

I snorted. The last person outside of Smith and Briggs that had even claimed to be my friend was Zach. I didn’t need friends like that.

“I can see from your face that you don’t.” Medina closed the notebook, and then stood. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I’ll be in touch if something else comes up. In the meantime, do keep me updated on your mother’s condition. Having a sick parent is never easy.”

I evaluated his offer, then dismissed it. He was just fishing for more information—not actually trying to help. Still, Ms. King had stressed the importance of appearances.

“Thank you.”

Medina smiled again and led the way back to the elevator. I re-entered Ms. King’s classroom as the gong signalled the end of the class. She watched me as all the other students left. I hurried to put my biocard back so I could get to biology in time, only to find her standing in my way. I checked the timestamp on my vision, then blinked the numbers away. That was impossible. Ms. King could move fast, but not that fast.

“What did Director Medina want to talk with you about?” she asked.

Director Medina? Which department was he the director of? I cross referenced his face with the title, then pushed the question away. I would certainly be able to find that info later. “He just had some questions about any potentially complicated relationships,” I finally said.

Ms. King nodded. “I see. Well, don’t be late for class.”

Somehow I didn’t think she was satisfied.

I tried to keep my head down during the next few classes. The last thing I needed was to end up in some sort of political power struggle between the old recruiter and the new one—especially since the old recruiter was now the head of an entire department, and the new one could eat me for breakfast.

All-in-all, I was ecstatic when I entered class on Friday to find the room abuzz with thoughts of another tactical game. Ms. King entered the room shortly after I did, and sat down at the head of the table. When we were all seated, she clicked the projector on and grinned at us. “The tactical tournament played it’s semi-finals yesterday night,”

Excitement like a lightning bolt shot through the room, and all thoughts of Director Medina fled.

Ms. King nodded. “Exactly. I’m borrowing the finalists for today’s round. You’ll be in two teams—red and blue—matched with tactical teams from the Agency. Everyone is unlocked by now, so you’ll all be playing with your cards. No turncoats, but there is a full set of equipment on the field, so watch out for bugs.”

Burton’s hand shot up, and Ms. King nodded at her

“Are we playing with sedatives?” she asked.

Ms. King grinned. “Fortunately for some of you, Tac 47 is on call. They may have to drop and evac at any moment to deal with an occurring threat. As far as other toys go? Well, you’ll just have to see what the teams bring.”

Smith’s hand was the next one up. “Who is going with which team?” she asked. Inside, I could see her real question. Which of us get to go with Tac 47? There was no doubt in her mind that Tac 47 was one of the finalists.

Most everyone around the table echoed that sentiment. I did a quick search for the last time I had heard that name, and came up with a single instance in a blurred memory. Apparently, Tolden—the one who had introduced me to the Agency—was the Agent-In-Charge of that tactical team.

“Don’t you want to know what the other team in play is?”

There were a few distracted nods, but no one really cared.

“Alright, girls. Smith, Miller, you’re with 47. Everybody else is with Tac 16.”

There were a few groans, and a bit of trepidation from Smith, but everyone still hurried into motion.

There moment we stepped onto the field, the game began. Burton, Wong, Dean, and Miller all opened fire while the rest of us did our best to get out of the way. Dean, and two other girls didn’t make it. I hurried away and managed a few shots back in their direction, but it was mostly to keep them from shooting at me.

My blue lines screamed intercepts at me before they even managed to get their weaponry up and aimed, so I got away clean. I hurried through the completely dark no-man’s land that had functioned as blue’s tower during the last game, keeping my head low so that a stray shot wouldn’t set off a sensor.

Somewhere behind me, I could feel Smith in pursuit. She hadn’t rendezvoused with her team yet, but I could feel her thirst to impress them. Apparently, Tac 47 was one of the most important and skilled teams the Agency had—and also one of the smallest.

I hid behind a nearby cube and checked my weapon. She came around the corner and I pulled the trigger.

Smith grinned, and I whirled. I caught a glimpse of my target—enough to identify him as Not-On-My-Team—and pulled the trigger as the intercept screamed red in my vision. I threw myself backward to avoid it and groaned as I slammed into the ground.

I reviewed the visuals. The shot hadn’t connected.

Whoever was after me was fast.

I started building a physique model as I rolled to the side and left my shields down just a bit.

There!

I spun to the side to avoid a blast and sent off a quick reply.

It failed to connect.

I flipped my comms on to ask if someone might have a moment to help, but then stopped. There was a full set of bugs on this field and the odds that a team member of mine would be available weren’t good.

I clenched my teeth and made a break for the other side of his cover. I aimed a laser underneath the cube and then grinned as my blue lines reconstructed his location from the scatter pattern.

“You’ve got to have a direct hit, sweetheart,” he said. I grinned and dove around the side, firing as I went.

He grunted as he went down—suit locked—and tried to raise his firing arm in spite of the shock. The intercept flashed red as the opportunity flashed purple. I shoved my weapon into its holster and grabbed for his gun. A quick twist pulled it from his grip.

Fine, have it. I have better.

His intentions solidified, and I gasped. Was that even possible?

I was already running by the time he pulled the laser bomb from his pocket, jerked the key out and tossed it.

I got clear before it detonated. But only just barely.

I rounded the next corner to find a teammate pointing her weapon in my direction. I slid under the laser blast and dropped my gun.

::Easy, there,:: I projected.

Her eyes widened. “You our projector?” she asked. Her words were quiet, but they were mirrored in her thoughts.

I nodded. ::What’s our situation?::

There were thirty minutes left in the round. I hurried to bring her up-to-date on who was down.

She grinned. “That guy you nailed was Neal Black, Tac 47’s Hitter. You got lucky, girl—or maybe not lucky. When he unlocks, he’s going to find you and lock you down hard enough you won’t walk for a week.”

My eyes widened. “That bad, huh?”

She shrugged. “We’ll see? I’m your team lead, by the way. Agent 65.”

Twenty minutes later, half our team was locked down and Black was unlocked again. I was alone again, this time in enemy territory.

I had their flag on my belt, and Tolden knew it. Half his team was behind me, and the other half was spread out in front of me. I caught glimpses of lights every once in a while, but I didn’t trust them without secondary data. Tolden and Smith, working together, had almost nailed me back there by covering the LEDs on their suits and deploying decoys to run me down. I wasn’t about to make that mistake again. The good thing was that, even though I was new to my abilities, I had good enough control to gain secondary data—which was what saved me.

I felt Black’s low, boiling anger in front of me before I saw him. I tried to slide under his sights, but he followed me. The blast hit the collar sensor of the suit, and it locked down with a jolt. I clenched my jaw as I went down hard on my nose. An intercept on my vision blinked purple, though, and I snagged one of Black’s toys from his belt as he stood there, gloating. He didn’t notice as I pulled the key, set the timer in my vision, then covered it with my body to keep them from noticing what I’d done. Fire ran up my arm, but the Blue lines insulated me from the pain. If this worked out, all the jolts from moving in a locked down suit would be worth it. A moment later, the rest of the team showed up—just in time. Tolden was bending over me to take the flag from my belt, when I shifted to let the laser bomb go off.

My aim was true, and every one of them went down. Eleven minutes left in the game, eight minutes until I unlocked, and ten minutes until they unlocked. Five minutes later, some of my teammates arrived to finish retrieving the flag. One got nailed by Black and his happy trigger finger, but the flag got away clean. When the buzzer finally sounded, I grinned.

Tolden held his hand out and I took it. “Good game, Farina.”

Agent 65 slapped my back. “More than a good game—that was wizard’s work. You know Tac 47 hasn’t lost a game in five years?”

Tolden frowned. “Yes, and we intend to remedy that during the finals. “

She laughed. “Not running two people short, you won’t.”

Tabitha’s cheeks reddened and she hurried away.

A moment later, Ms. King emerged from her office. She didn’t display the scores on the projector the way she had last time. Instead, she held a cube in her hand that splayed white light out in a 3D array.

“Everybody watch close,” she said, accompanying the command with a lash of compulsion. I waved the compulsion off, but stared at the cube anyway.

It wasn’t hard to identify the scene as the incident from the beginning of the round where four girls opened fire, and anyone not at the top of their game locked down. She slowed down and zoomed in, first critiquing Smith’ firing form, then Burton’s inability to coordinate her attacks with the others. After a moment, she zoomed in on Tabitha and I watched the laser beam shift in its course to avoid hitting the sensor.

Tabitha colored.

Dean grunted. “I thought that should have hit.”

::Tricks like that work in simulated combat, but you cannot move a bullet with the ease you can divert a stream of photons. This goes for everyone—even the tactical players. It is easier to break into minds you know, and easier to move things you are used to. What about a marked bullet, though? How easy is it to move one of those? What if it was made of lead? Don’t get complacent. I don’t care what your energy rating is. E100, or E1200, no telekinetic can shift very many bullets in combat. If you rely on brute force, you will get yourself killed.::

She shifted the scene to the interplay between Neal Black and I. She met Black’s gaze evenly, even as he glowered at her. “What was your first mistake?” she asked.

“I’m not in your class, woman. Ask them.” He growled and folded his arms across his chest.

Ms. King let the corner of her mouth lift in a humorless smile. “Very well, then. Farina, what was his first mistake?”

I frowned and pulled the visual. The camera feed she was using lacked both depth and perspective. “He was completely focused on the asassination—open and easy to read.”

Tolden smothered a chuckle. “Single-minded. That’s our Black.”

Tac 47’s Hitter just clenched his jaw.

“And your mistake?”

I shrugged. It was no secret that I couldn’t focus on more than one thing at a time. “I was so focused on taking Smith out that I nearly walked into him. If he’d been two-point-eight seconds faster, I wouldn’t have known he was there.”

The other man from Tac 47—a tall, thin kid who couldn’t have been more than a freshman in college with hair bleached white and three separate phones on his belt—narrowed his eyes. “Two-point-eight, huh?”

“Two-point-eight-two-seven, to be exact. I rounded it to the tenths place because the other digits are extraneous given this situation.”

He ran his fingertips through white bleached hair. “And why two-point-eight? Why not three or four seconds?”

For the first time in a while, I pulled the data break-down for my number.

“It took point oh-five seconds to ensure Smith was both locked up, and defeated. The auditory analysis for the suit lock-down chime had to be run twice to ensure authenticity and then cross-checked with visuals. After that, it took point-seven-five seconds to shelve Smith’ data, unfocus on the threat, and re-plot my course. During that process, I expanded myself and caught wind of hostile thoughts. After that, it took roughly point-two-five seconds to ensure my ability was giving me correct information and ensure those hostile thoughts were directed at me. I took another—”

Steele held up his hands. “I got the picture. You’re an analyst, alright. Did everything my computers could do, only I didn’t have to program you.”

Program me? Did he have any idea how long I’d spent perfecting my analysis skills as a child just so I could survive? I had to program myself.

I bit back a retort and squared my shoulders.

The gong rang in the silence, and Ms. King sighed. “That’s a wrap, then. Tac 47, you’re still on call, so you should probably head back. Tac 16, congratulations, you get the bonus in tonight’s game.”

She dismissed everyone, and I hurried to my next class. After that night’s tournament, Ms. King lingered a little longer in the stadium.

::Farina, meet me in my office.::

Ms. King made it to her office before I could, and she held the temporary biocard in her hand. I swallowed.

“Did I do something wrong?”

There was a haze of trepidation surrounding her, too, but it cleared as I tried to examine it.

“On the contrary. You’ve shown considerable progress over this last week. Due to a lack of operatives, exemplary performance, and the Tactical Agent-In-Charge’s request, you have been selected to receive your permanent biocard.”

I stared at her and slowly pieced the words back together. Permanent biocard? As in not-having-to-give-it-back-every-class-period card? I wouldn’t have to go back to the dark, dull silence time after time again.

“Thank you,” I breathed.

Her lips curled up into that humorless grin of hers. “Don’t thank me yet. The moment you get that card, you work for us. There are a few contracts you’re going to have to sign. We’re placing you on a Flex Tac team, which will ensure you get a place in R&D, too.”

My eyes widened. A place in R&D? I would be able to have the resources to work on all those inventions I’d designed, worked the math for, and ultimately given up due to lack of resources? Surely someplace like the Agency would have the equipment I needed to work on my shielding module—or finally finish the miniature engine I was working on at the house?

“You should know that, legally, you’re being hired by a consultant company and that is what will show up when you are paid—Beta-One does not exist, after all—but you will receive the rate for a Tactical Analyst, and Projection Telepath. Perhaps you will also receive third or fourth Hitter pay in addition to bonuses from any engineering projects you complete, but it depends on what your AIC has to say about it. It’s a lot of responsibility, I know, but your AIC says you can handle it better than some full agents he’s seen. He’s vouching for you, so don’t let us down.”

“And who is my Agent-In-Charge?” I asked.

She laughed. “You’ll have to wait and see. Now take a moment to look these over. You don’t have to sign them now—just by the time you go in for surgery. I should let you know that you have detention for the next two days. The school has already notified your mother.”

My head snapped up. “Surgery?”

No one had said a thing about surgery.

“Of course we didn’t say anything. The biocard process is our agency’s most closely kept secret. The biocard project is run by the Medical Department because the process requires active medical doctors. It is not a difficult surgery, though.”

“What are you going to do?”

She shook her head. “I am not allowed to say. I can only assure you that it takes very little time. We’ll put you all the way under, and you’ll come out of it three hours later with a biocard. Most of that is time allowance for the anesthetic—and the only reason we don’t use general anesthetic is that some of our employees with impressive memories would spend the entire time reconstructing the process, and then biocards would not be a secret.”

Employees like me.

Got it.

I took the offered contracts, scanned over them, and then followed Ms. King out of the room, into the classroom, and then into the arena. We didn’t go toward the stairs, though. Instead, Ms. King led me to the middle of Blue team’s tower. There was a scanner to the side—hidden behind a foam block. Ms. King placed her hand on it, and then tapped her card. It lit green and the door popped open.

“Is this always here?” I asked.

“It’s usually a little better hidden, but I haven’t had time to replace the camouflage since this afternoon’s game.”

We walked a little further down a hallway that ended in an elevator, where Ms. King tapped her card again, and this time inserted her thumb into the bottom of the reader.

“What’s that one?” I asked.

“Thumb reader. Instead of reading thumb prints, it reads your entire thumb.”

I frowned. “Wouldn’t that be a little bit touchy? What if someone bites their nails?”

“There is a margin of error. Now do hurry—we don’t want to make the medical team wait.”

The elevator emptied into the rotunda. Tonight, it was slow, with only the occasional tactical suit. Some people sat around on benches with tablets in their hands, and I caught a glimpse of candy crush and buried a snort.

“Not much going on here, is there?”

Ms. King’s eyebrows narrowed. “That’s a good thing. Think of us as policemen for neurodivergents. The less we have to step in, the better the day the world is having.”

Somewhere beneath the serenity she was radiating was a twinge of anticipation and—regret? The feelings flashed away as soon as I could see them, to be replaced with caution.

She increased her stride. “There are four elevators in the rotunda. The tactical elevator is in one corner, the Interrogation/Intelligence—we just call it InDep—elevator is opposite it. The Medical and R&D elevator is this one here—” she swiped her card and the elevator dinged. “The one opposite us is for analysis. It’s got some administration offices there, too, but Analysis pretty much runs the place. Everyone just calls it AnAd for short.”

I caught sight of a bunch of plainclothes men and women piling in, chatting amiably the whole way.

“Analysis has its own wing?” I asked. The job sounded kind of like bureaucratic paper pushing, so why did it have more space than R&D?

If it had so much importance, then why wasn’t I assigned there, instead of Tac Dep?

“It’s sub-divided into a dozen different centers that help run everything from Agency funding, to personnel, to Command and Information Systems—CIS. Analysts in the AnAd wing are useless with just about anything else, though. The traits that help them analyze things are crushed under pressure. Yours come alive when you are confronted—you fight. That’s a rare trait, Farina, but one that is going to make you the envy of the entire tactical department.”

And one that I had spent too much blood and pain perfecting. I wondered how many other people in the Tactical Department had learned to fight back after surviving someone like Zach—and then I dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter what was in our past. What we did with our future was what counted.

We hurried out of the elevator and down a hallway. Ms. King stopped at a door labeled “Cards” and tapped her card.

“This is your stop. Someone will come by to take you to your new tactical team when you’re done.”

I stepped inside.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My tongue was big and heavy, and my hands were fat, fuzzy sausages when I came to. I let my eyes rest—I would have had to peel them open—and watched as the room took form around me. There was a doctor in the corner of the room adjusting charts and noting readings from monitors. The rest of the place was empty—not that the room was large. It could perhaps fit another two people in before it threatened to explode.

There was a knock on the door, and the doctor opened it.

I brushed Tolden’s mind to find it dark, but clear. They were deploying his team as soon as he could gather all its members.

“How is she doing?” he asked.

The doctor shifted. “She’ll be out for another two hours.”

“Wake her up. We need her now.”

The doctor blanched internally. “She’s not cleared to go out in the field, Agent. She just got out of surgery an hour ago. Even after she wakes up, she’s due for a day of testing before she can leave Med Dep.”

I forced my eyes open to see the same grim determination in Tolden’s mind reflected on his face. “So administer an antagonist. I need her now.”

The doctor put his hands on his hips. “You might be the high-and-mighty AIC of Tac 47, but this isn’t your department. She stays until she wakes up, and that is that.”

I took a moment to exercise my jaw. My tongue was a little smaller now, but not quite it’s normal size. Rather than try to speak, I reached out to them, mind-to-mind.

::I assume it’s important—whatever it is?::

Tolden looked past the doctor and met my eyes. “We try not to pull agents from anethstesia unless it’s an emergency.”

The doctor looked from Tolden to me, with fractions of sentences racing through his mind. Finally, he decided on one. “You shouldn’t be awake yet.”

::But here I am.:: I sat up slowly and set my blue lines to stabilizing the world as it tried to rock around me. ::Now, where are my clothes?::

I laced the question with just a little bit of compulsion. Tolden’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.

A moment later, I was dressed and following him out the door.

I swallowed to try and whet my throat and, after a moment, was confident enough that my voice wouldn’t give out to try and speak.

“I assume you’re my new AIC?”

Tolden stopped and turned around. “For now. I’m agent 52, and Tac 47’s commanding officer—but you already knew that. Ms. King asked me to give this to you.”

He handed me a card with my picture above Agent 32.

“Congratulations—it’s official just in time for your first mission.”

“Which is?”

He shook his head. “I don’t have time to explain it twice. We’re headed to the briefing room where you can meet the rest of the team.” He broke into a jog down the hallway, and I hurried to keep up. “Welcome to the Flex Tac block, kid. Where you have no choice but to stay on top of things.”

A few minutes later I arrived sweaty and out of breath at the other side of the compound. Tolden was barely breathing hard.

Domnick Steele, Neal Black, and Tabitha Smith sat around a conference table in uneasy silence. When Tolden and I entered, Neal Black turned with words on the tip of his tongue, and then stopped. His eyes narrowed.

“Two newbies on the same mission, Tolden? Are you trying to get us killed?”

Tolden gave a grim smile. “Smith is here because our target was her grad assignment before his danger rating was moved to One. She’s slated to get her permanent card as soon as Houston is neutralized. Farina here is a full agent as of about five minutes ago; designation, Agent 32.”

Black met my eyes. “You’re the one from the game yesterday?”

I nodded.

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You can’t pull those laser tricks with a real gun, kid. It’ll be a cold day in summer if I ever let you around a firearm—and you can forget plasma weaponry.”

“What’s her job?” Steele asked.

“She’s running primarily as a Teleprojector, although she is also an analyst and an engineer if we need one.”

Steele stood. “Finally!”

“Sit down, Nick.” Tolden’s voice cracked like a whip, and suddenly Steele was seated again. “You get to go back to CIS when I say, and not a moment before.”

Steele’s lips tightened. “You hardly need me in the field. I can fly the chopper and any drones from my chair in CIS command. She’s running analyst, and you saw her in Ms. King’s game. She’ll be the third Hitter in no time.”

Tolden crossed the room and murmured something in Steele’s ear. The thoughts came and went so quickly I couldn’t grab them, but Steele was suddenly resigned.

Tolden straightened and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We have a mission to run, people. There is no time for arguing. Now Farina, get Steele to help you into the tactical suit and listen up. Our target is Doug Houston. His danger rating was moved from Two to One when he reappeared at Martial Academy and assassinated Earl West.”

I gasped as images from Tolden’s mind came through. Pieces of skull and brain tissue were scattered around his office with impact patterns that showed that those pieces had shattered the mirrors and left broken glass everywhere. What was left of Mr. West was slumped in a corner. His face was gone.

“Farina, are you alright?” Steele asked.

I pulled my shields up and caught myself on the table. Tolden pushed a rolling chair my way and I collapsed into it. “What can make a person look like that?” I finally managed as I struggled to regulate racing emotions.

Mr. West had been alive and well only a few hours ago. He’d been making us run laps around the room—and now he was a mash of bone and brain tissue, slumped against the wall. Only a few days ago, he had stood between me and Houston. He was warning me to be careful. He couldn’t be dead.

I tried to scrub the image from my mind, but all I could see was flesh and bone scattered around the room. Flesh and bone that had once been my teacher.

Black twisted his pinky finger in his ear. “Do you want to tone that down?”

“Black!” Tolden snapped.

Black shrugged. “If she’s going to have an emotional come-apart, that’s just fine. She just needs to do it in the privacy of her own mind. I don’t care what kind of time she spent with the guy—”

“Black!”

He shrugged. “Just saying. There are more important things to worry about right now, like her question. Those aren’t normal battle injuries.”

Tolden shook his head. “Medical and R&D have been arguing about the cause of death for the last two hours. Medical says it’s impossible. R&D thinks an impact from an object at terminal velocity could create that kind of shatter pattern.”

Black snorted. “That’s the working theory? There are very few telekinetics with that kind of power rating, and no punk kid is going to have it.”

Steele pulled a cube from his belt and pushed the display onto the table. “Would an E1200 do it?” he asked. The display showed Houston’s profile.

My blue lines snapped up to try and create a working model. I shut them down before they could do more than reconstruct Mr. West’s face. I stared at it a long time, then tore my attention away as Tabitha coughed.

“It wouldn’t be easy—he’ll be weak for another few hours, even with that power rating—but he could do it.”

I noted the projection strength rating next to his energy rating. PS5. That explained how he’d destroyed Smith in the ring—and made him that much more dangerous.

“Analysis and Administration is of the same opinion, which is why we’re heading out now,” Tolden said. “The longer we wait, the more he’ll recover. As far as we know, he has not been trained as an assassin, but we still need to be careful with how we engage him. Our best bet is going to be manipulating him through projection.”

I tore myself out of the profile I was building on Houston and reviewed Tolden’s words as everyone turned to look at me. ::Assassin?:: I asked him silently.

Assassins are telekinetics trained specially to kill using their gift. Imagine someone having the ability to close all the valves of a human heart with only a look. It doesn’t take much power, but it does take years upon years of training. Odds are that Houston does not have that training or he wouldn’t have resorted to that level of force to take West out, Tolden explained silently.

I finished yanking the straps on the tactical suit as Tolden opened his mouth to continue speaking. A knock on the door interrupted what he was going to say. “We’re going to have to finish the briefing in the air.”

The door opened to admit a woman with a tablet in her hand. “Agent 52, your target has been sighted. We’re scrambling the chopper now.”

“Chopper?” Tabitha paled.

“Hey, it’s no big deal,” Steele said. “I’m the primary pilot, and I’ve been running those things since I could walk.” He glared at Tolden a moment. “I’d rather be running it from a joystick in CIS—”

“—but we don’t always get what we want,” Tolden finished sternly. “Now let’s go.”

Black didn’t budge. Instead, he folded his arms and fixed Tolden with a glare. “I’m not taking both of them. The brunette’s still got three broken ribs and a cracked collarbone, and the black haired one isn’t cleared for weapons use. I don’t care what AnAd says, this is suicide.”

Tolden looked at Steele, then back at Black. “Houston is Smith’s graduate assignment, so she’s been studying him in-depth. She has intel that isn’t in the files yet. I don’t need to tell you what happens if we go in without all the information we can get.”

“Then she stays here with a direct link to whatever bots Steele’s using.”

Tolden looked at Smith, who was frowning at the ground. “Black’s right. You won’t be much use against Houston when it comes time to take him down—but I don’t like the idea of leaving you here. Tac 47 works as a team, and the team stays on-site so we have what we need when things go sideways.”

“I can’t spend very much time on a helicopter,” she said. I could feel the shame in her mind, and the analysis overriding it. She processed sounds the same way I processed sight. There would be too much interference from the sound of the helicopter for her to think, let alone be helpful. Headphones helped, but they also tended to muffle her analysis tools.

“I see. Well then, I guess you’ll be staying. I’ll have CIS patch the feed from Steele’s drones into this room. You’ll have a direct line into our com system. If you think of anything at all, I need you to tell us,” Tolden said.

“I will.”

“Then let’s go. We’re late for our ride.”

We jogged through the halls until we reached the underground helipad. The prep-pilot handed the chopper off to Steele, who climbed in the front seat. Tolden took the seat behind his, facing Tabitha, which left me facing Black on the other side. I slammed the headphones over my ears and clicked the harness closed as the chopper dipped forward. My stomach dropped as it swayed to the side and the wind drove my hair into my eyes and mouth. I gathered it into a ponytail as Tolden resumed the briefing.

“We’re going to run a mass approach and keep hidden until Houston’s defenses are down. Farina, your job is going to be to talk him down. Use your projection to convince him that we are on his side.”

Someone’s voice came over the speakers in my headphones. Was it Tabitha? I dismissed that question as Black identified the sound for me. Of course it was Tabitha. She was the only one who was supposed to be on coms with us. Still, just because she was the only voice who was supposed to be in my ear didn’t mean something unexpected couldn’t have happened.

“We have to stay out of the vicinity or he’ll hear us coming,” Tabitha said.

Tolden’s eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing like that in the file. Does he have an undocumented analysis skill?”

“Houston has an auditory memory. If he can hear it, he processes it. You can’t have that many people that close to him without him knowing—and then he’ll never trust Farina.”

“So what? Drop a bomb and leave?” Black asked.

Tolden snared my eyes with his. “How comfortable are you with your gift, Farina?”

Can you handle Houston yourself?

“What’s the alternative?” I asked. I’d never used much persuasion, and wasn’t the best at manipulation in class—but if it was the only way to put Houston behind bars, I would do it.

Tolden frowned. “Let Black have his head and turn this retrieval mission into a strike. Ms. Green won’t be happy, but it’s better than risking the team against a possible assassin.”

“But you’re Tac 47, right? Your missions—the ones Ms. King lets us study, anyway—are legendary! What happened to beating impossible odds?” Tabitha asked.

Nila.

I could feel the name radiating from all of them, and even see some images of a black haired, slender beauty with a gun in one hand and a tablet in the other. Who was she? A teammate, perhaps?

Finally, Tolden answered. “I won’t lose another agent in the field. If that means our success rate goes down, then so be it. We live to fight another day. Now Farina, can you convince Houston to come with you, or not?”

I bit my lip as the blue lines on my vision computed the odds. The calculations were overlaid by the image of Mr. West’s skull scattered across the classroom. After a moment of silence, I looked back up at him. “With what factors I already know, there is a fifty-two percent chance that I can persuade him to come. Failing that,” I closed my fist on the plasma pulser in my hand and felt its reassuring tingle. “I can hold him off long enough for help to arrive.”

Black scoffed. “You’re no match for him.”

I squared my shoulders and looked him in the eye as new numbers rose. “I have a ten percent higher pain threshold than he does, and I’m eighteen percent more adaptable with a two-point-eight percent margin for unidentified factors. I’ve seen him fight for real, so I have his patterns on file. Beyond that, I trust my numbers. Let me go in.” I laced those last words with just a hint of compulsion.

Tolden nodded. “Go in, then. Steele, do you have a lock on him?”

“Shut up and let me work, old man. Miss DEXDA will find him in a moment. She’s sorting through civilians right now.”

“Miss Dexda?”

“Discrete Exploration Delinquent Analysis drone,” Tolden said. “Steele’s eyes in the sky.”

“He’s flying that thing and the helicopter?” I asked. That was a talent I’d like to have.

“That and monitoring local chatter, finishing up some software for AnAd, and running models to figure out what strength Houston will be at when we take him on.”

“You forgot to mention the MMORPG he’s running on the tertiary screen,” Tolden said.

Steele brushed off Tolden’s comment and refocused on another screen. The data running through his head was impressive—and not something I could sort through without causing myself a headache.

Tolden arched an eyebrow at me. “You’re a PS6? How large is your range?”

I shrugged. That wasn’t something I’d ever tested, but if it meant bringing Houston to justice, I’d go as far outside my own mind as I had to. “Would you like me to find him?”

Tolden nodded, so I let my walls down just enough to drift away, and headed to the surface we were flying over. Slowly, my surroundings filled into color and I felt other minds brushing me. At first, they were simple with thoughts of food and warmth. They had no walls, but their thoughts operated on such a high frequency that I doubted they were human. The trees, perhaps? I stowed that information for later analysis and then dismissed it. Whatever they were, they had nothing to do with Houston. Every once in a while, I’d brush a mind with thoughts of love, and even more often, I’d find a mind with shopping lists and day-to-day tasks on their mind. None of them were Houston, though. I would know when I felt his mind.

I drifted along the ground, expanding to touch all the minds I could.

Finally, in an area with many simple minds thinking of nothing but sunlight and breezes, I brushed past a nexus of violence. There was joy there, and images of blood and power. I jerked back and noted that place in my map. Then I retraced my steps to my own body.

When my eyes snapped open, I gasped in a lung full of air. Inches from my nose was another face with black stubble on his chin and brown eyes full of worry.

There were fingers on my neck, and the blue lines spun into action.

—No threat.

I laid my head back against the seat and moved my head away from his fingers on my pulse. “What, are you part medic?”

Black jerked himself back into his harness. “What was that, Farina? You could have killed yourself!”

I ventured outside my mind, only to be consumed by waves of varying degrees of panic and fear. I wasn’t gone for that long, what was all the worry about?

Tolden leaned forward. “You detached your entire attention from your body, Farina. Don’t you know how dangerous that is? You could have been lost down there, unable to return to your body.”

My blue lines ran the possibility. “Eight percent chance is hardly dangerous.”

“Eight percent—” Black ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t care what the numbers say, you were only minutes away from forgetting how to breathe. Don’t they teach you these things in training?”

What training? Ms. King was giving me the essential information as I needed it, but I was over two years behind the other girls. I folded my arms across my chest. “Look, I’m fine, and I have your coordinates. I’ll make a note to not do that unless the circumstances make it a requirement.”

Tolden’s jaw was still tight, but he nodded. “Fine. What are the coordinates?”

I read them off my vision.

“DEXDA is checking…confirmed.” The helicopter banked.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Minutes later, I stood on the ground eighty feet from where Houston’s mind radiated complete pride and satisfaction.

My stomach twisted as I brushed past his mind again. It was greasy like Zach’s had been. Still, I strode toward him. It was my job to bring him in, and I wasn’t going to him to hurt more people.

He spun as I approached. I showed him my empty palms and braced myself to brush against his mind again.

“You shouldn’t have come here, Farina. The Agency doesn’t have any idea who they’re dealing with.”

I could feel his mind reaching for the weapon at his belt, even though his hands didn’t move.

“You’re right—they don’t. But I do.”

“Stay out of my head,” he snarled, and jerked the weapon up.

I laughed. “I’ve been in your head this entire time, Houston. Thanks for helping with my cover—by the way. That was the only way I was getting into the Agency.”

“Cover?” His shoulders were still set, and the gun wavered just out of his reach. He held a tendril of thought on the trigger.

My blue lines ran a steadily updating intercept on the bullet—aimed exactly at the center of my mass as clearly as if he’d outfitted his weapon with a laser sight.

“You don’t really think you found that Smith girl by chance, did you? She stayed just out of your hearing range the entire time. If it weren’t for a little nudge from me,” I started applying the thinnest layer of coercion I could, “you wouldn’t have ever found her.”

HIs jaw tightened, but he didn’t pull the trigger. “You want me to believe you revealed that girl to me? Like I couldn’t find her myself?”

I shrugged slowly—carefully—and took a half-step forward. Distance was not my friend in this game. “You need a handler, Houston. You’ve always needed one. That’s why they sent me.”

His adrenaline spiked, and his panic rose. I reached out to smooth off the edges as best I could. “The Company doesn’t control me. It never has, and it never will.” The gun flew to his hand, and he levelled it at my chest. “Come to think of it, you’ll make a great message to that effect.”

I laughed, projecting irony and humor as I did so. Sure enough, it disrupted his intention to shoot—for the most part.

“Why’d you kill Earl West?” I asked, once I recovered from the laughter.

His eyebrows scrunched close together. “I killed him because he was trying to control me.”

His mind said something different. He’d killed West because he could, and because—there were images in his mind that threatened to suck me in. I shoved them away and refocused on what I was doing.

“You killed him because I told you to.” I reached into his mind and planted the kernel of a memory—the memory of him meeting my eyes during Ballet class. I’d modified it so that instead of shying away, I’d stood, placed my hand on his cheek, and whispered words about control and hunger into his ear. Then I left.

He blinked, and the weapon dropped. “W-who are you?” he asked.

I shrugged and took another step closer. “I’m the woman who is going to set you free. Truly free. The Company has been looking for someone like you, and now we know exactly what you can do.”

Just like that, the spell I was weaving shattered into a billion pieces as the image of a creature with jagged teeth and blood stained lips stared out at me.

I knew that image! I’d seen it before—but where? This wasn’t the time to chase an elusive memory. I archived the information and refocused on Houston.

“For a second I thought you were working for the Institute,” he said. I tried to take another step toward him, but the gun was aimed at me before I could move. I jerked my hands back up, palms out. “Turns out, the Agency is still too dumb to realize that there is another war going on here.”

“Houston, you don’t want to—”

He jerked his gun at me. “Get down on the ground, Farina. I won’t ask again.”

I sank to my knees, careful to monitor his thoughts for the decision to shoot. There was only a three percent chance that I would be able to get out of the way—even with the early warning from his thoughts—but it was better than nothing.

“Hands behind your head—and get your fingers out of my mind. If you try anything at all, I will shoot you.” There was cold certainty in his mind as he relished the feeling of deadly steel in his hand.

The com in my ear crackled with a voice, but I ignored it. Taking time to process extraneous audio would get me killed.

I moved my hands up slowly, but instead of lacing my fingers behind my head, I balled my fist and started the plasma pulser timer.

My blue lines calculated the probability that the pulser would be ready in time, and it wasn’t good. I clenched my jaw and tried to find another way out.

“What was that?” he snapped.

My blood ran cold. Were his ears really good enough to hear the start-up sequence for my pulser?

His eyes glazed over for half a second as he started searching for a match to the sound. When he found it—

I was already moving by the time he returned enough attention to his eyes to sight and pull the trigger. The bullet nicked my arm, but I was on him before he could pull the trigger a second time.

Words from Mr. West’s lessons overlayed with my vision. When dealing with a gun, distance was not your friend. Close as quickly as possible.

Done. The blue words greyed out and faded.

Second, separate the enemy from the weapon. The weakest part of any grip is the thumb.

A line flashed purple over his thumb. I grabbed, twisted, and yanked as secondary blue lines started to plot intercept points. One flared red, but I couldn’t duck fast enough and the flat of his palm smashed into my neck. I stumbled back and fought for air as a third set of lines crowded up the right side of my vision with status reports. There was no real damage—it was a stun strike.

I managed to duck under the follow-up kick and close before he brought the gun up.

A moment later I forced the gun from his hand and landed a semi-successful strike at his knee.

Even as the flash of pain tore through his mind, there was a glow of triumph. I checked the defensive lines on my vision, but there was nothing there. I felt the impact at the base of my skull too late and the world flashed black. Telekinetic!

I laid on the ground for four seconds before my vision returned. Houston was standing only half a foot away with the gun in his hand. I stared down the barrel of the gun, paralyzed.

Why had I told Tolden I could do this? I knew my abilities were new. And my hand-to-hand was only average—no matter how quickly I was picking it up.

Ms. King, Tolden, and the others thought I was some sort of hero, but I wasn’t. I was just trying to survive.

“You should have stayed home, Farina. You are no match for me.”

“32! What’s going on down there!” Tolden’s voice erupted in my ear, but I paid it no heed. There was too much going on, and too many calculations to perform to divert enough attention to my almost-useless ears to figure out what he was saying

I could feel the power tingling around my fingers, turning the rings into white-hot energy collectors. My hand burned as a rhythmic thwap filled my ears. Odds were, it was the sound of a helicopter—but they were still going to be too late. I opened my fist, which released the energy and sprayed flame at his feet.

The smell of scorched flesh filled the air as he leapt back and sent three rounds through the flame. I fought the shivers that threatened to rack my body. I couldn’t deal with them now.

If I’d had a weapon, I wouldn’t be in this situation. Why hadn’t Black authorized me to have a weapon? They’d all known this could get dangerous, but now it wasn’t theory anymore. Now I was the one in the line of fire with nothing more than inferior hand-to-hand defense techniques, and a weapon that was only good for one use.

Now I’d used the one charge I had. I was practically defenseless. Still, there was a man with a gun on the other side of the flame, and my odds of survival were even lower if I waited for him to make the next move.

I crossed my hands over my face and barrelled through the fire. Heat licked at my skin, leaving burns wherever they touched, but I sealed the pain away behind blue lines. There was no time to think about that.

I knocked the gun from his hand and pressed the attack. He spun. His leg came up at the last moment—too fast! The hard side of his leg smashed into the side of my face, but I couldn’t fall completely. His hands grabbed my right forearm with a surgeon’s precision and he snapped it in half like candy.

Not even I could forget the sickening sound of snapping bones. Echoes of past pain washed over me. I collapsed to the ground, cradling my arm as all the blue lines scattered. My head throbbed and all I could see was the blue sky with cirrus clouds drifting in the upper atmosphere. The flame crackled only a few inches away as I lay in a haze of pain.

Houston’s face filled my vision, and then there was pressure on my abdomen as his booted foot came down. I screamed and clawed at the blue lines for relief, but they wouldn’t come. I was defenseless.

“It was dumb to come alone, and even dumber to impersonate an Alpha-Niner agent.” I saw his lips move and knew what he’d said. Then the gun was above me. I could feel his relish as he shifted his foot so he could fire into my abdomen and then watch me scream as I died.

I grasped fruitlessly for the cold, calculating state I knew could save me. I couldn’t die like this! Not here, not now!

He pulled the trigger, and I jerked once. Twice.

He smirked and holstered the gun.

“You really are an idiot, Farina. Projector or not, you couldn’t have possibly thought this would work.” He kicked at me as I gasped for breath. My head slammed back on the ground, and then it was there. I didn’t know how or why, but the lines came flooding back. I dove into his mind, and dumped all the agony I felt into him.

He collapsed on top of me, and his hands went to his ears in pain—not that it would make any real difference. I tried to push him off me, but he was too heavy, and I couldn’t keep this up for much longer. When I was spent, he would recover and finish what he started. I wouldn’t have any strength left to defend myself.

I redoubled my efforts.

And then he was gone, replaced by Black’s gruff face. “We got this one. You alright?” He asked.

I nodded and set my lines to scanning the area. Steele was working with Tolden to get the cringing man into the chopper as I continued to scream in his mind.

“Never better,” I lied. I was functional for now, but when the blue lines went away, the pain would return. For now, I was second priority to making sure Houston couldn’t do this to anyone else. “Go help them.” I said, watching Steele stagger under Houston’s weight.

And then one of the lines turned red. I struggled to my feet and fought my blurring vision to make out what my lines had identified as a threat.

I gasped as I finally made out the threat and the realization crashed though my mind for the second time. He was a telekinetic! I shouted a warning into Tolden’s mind as my world slowed down. Tolden couldn’t react fast enough. He would be too late, and Houston wasn’t aiming for a torture shot. If he pulled that trigger, Tolden would be dead.

Another line flashed, and I looked down at my balled fist. The rings weren’t tingling, and the count down until my next charge was barely a quarter of the way through. I cursed Black again for not letting me have a weapon even as I hoped desperately my calculations were right and the weapon would have enough charge to travel all the way to him before Houston killed the other agents with the gun floating above the ground. I uncurled every finger except my middle one to charge all the energy into the middle ring, feeling the skin around my finger bubble and pop as the ring overloaded and tried to bleed energy. And then I let go.

Fire erupted where Houston used to be, and we screamed in pain as one as I felt the fire smash into me. I separated myself from his mind and collapsed into shivers that spasmed though me like electric shock. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open and recording. The blue lines started to flicker, and I could feel them slipping away.

Tolden heard the warning, and he pulled the gun from Houston’s hand as the blue lines finally vanished.

::You’d better find some way to keep him from using his telekinesis, or one of us is going to be dead by the time we get back!:: I projected into Tolden’s mind, trying and failing to push away the pain. The blue lines were gone, and they weren’t coming back anytime soon.

“You said you weren’t hurt!” I heard Black’s exclamation outside my head and nodded. The motion sent drumbeats of pressure through my mind. My stomach twisted and fought against the nausea.

I had to keep it together.

I clutched my stomach, and felt the red flowing over and between my fingers, finally visible through the black suit. Darkness flickered at the edge of my vision.

::No…said…OK. Now…not.:: I managed. I couldn’t hold the nausea down any longer. I twisted and let my stomach contents go as another wave of agony hit—this one worse than the first. I could tell my message was tattered, but my vision started going blurry and I had other worries.

Concerned waves radiated from all of the team members. “We’ve got to go!” Tolden shouted, “he’s unconscious for now, but that might not last for long.”

Black cursed and knelt at my side, pulling a first aid kit from his bag. “We’ve got an agent down over here!”

“Treat her in the chopper. Black, we’ve got to go!”

The last thing I saw was Black’s grizzled face above mine.

Hold on, kid.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When I came to, I was alone in the med bay. I sighed. Quiet at last.

Images from the encounter with Houston flashed through my head. Two gunshots to the abdomen, at least fifteen minutes away from treatment? I checked the clock at the top of my vision, but it wasn’t there.

They’d had to put me all the way out, then. There was very little else that could shut down routines I’d embedded in my mind for that long. That meant surgery.

I pushed the blankets back, but there was not so much as a scratch.

My arm was whole, too.

I laid back and played the whole scene on fast-forward. Everything, the fear, the pain, the relief at the rest of Tac 47’s arrival, everything was so real. But there was no cast on my arm or dressing on my abdomen. Nothing to show it had actually happened.

Could it have been a dream?

I pulled my blue lines to the front of my vision to analyze the lack of wounds. Sure enough, there were two bullet-shaped scars I’d initially overlooked.

I leaned back against the pillows.

So it wasn’t a dream, after all. I’d almost died, but Houston had found his justice for killing Mr. West.

I was a hero—or, if not a hero, then an agent.

Yes, Agent 32.

There was a knock on the door. “Agent 32, are you up?”

She cracked the door as I reached out to her mind.

::Come in.:: I projected.

Her eyebrows rose, but she did, and closed the door behind her. She was a short, portly woman with grey hair, glasses, and a dimpled smile.

“I’m—”

“Here to debrief me?” I finished. I could feel her intentions drifting outside her walls. Or, maybe, her walls were just tuned to such a low frequency that they couldn’t keep her thoughts inside. She suppressed a surge of annoyance and resettled her glasses. “I’m Agent 3-22. Now, before we begin, how do you feel? Do you need me to fetch a medtech?”

I shook my head. “Against all odds, I seem to be whole. I don’t have the data to do a full analysis, but that takes time and you’re in a rush.”

She looked at me over her glasses. “I don’t see any patterns that would cause you an issue. Of course, you should perform your own analytics when you have a moment. For the time being, though, I’d like you to take me through what happened after you hit the ground.”

I pulled the memory in my mind, and opened my mouth to begin describing it to her when I had an idea. I projected the memory into her visual centers.

She gasped, and gripped the counter, but the panic levels in her mind dropped after a moment.

“Agent 32, given the shape you were in when you came in, I’m not entirely sure I want to go through your mission like this.”

I grimaced at the thought of verbally describing everything that had happened. “I can dampen the pain, but this will be both more accurate and quicker.”

She frowned. “What’s your projection strength rating?”

“I was a PS6 with the temporary card, but my abilities are more consistent with a PS7. Med Dep did not have time to conduct a full examination of my abilities.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re that Agent 32. I saw the complaint against Tac Dep come across my desk.”

I started to move the scene forward, but she held up a hand. A quick foray into her thoughts showed that she was searching for a pen. I shared the location with her.

“Thanks.”

The pen on the counter flew toward her hand, and she poised it above the paper.

It took sixteen minutes and thirty-four seconds to show the whole scene, and sweat drenched my skin when I was done. She looked up from her clipboard and frowned. “I wouldn’t take your collection of gifts for the whole world, 32—but you did good work. There will be a combat bonus in your account by the end of today.”

And then she left.

I stared at the ceiling.

Excitement warred with discomfort in my mind. I had a job now, and one that could support Mom and I forever with a more-than-comfortable allowance for whatever we wanted, but in return, I had to use violence. I had to hurt other people. They were bad people who didn’t deserve to roam free, but they were still human beings.

Even Houston, who had shot me twice and laughed while I lay dying, was a person with feelings, hopes, and dreams.

But now he couldn’t do that to anyone else. Like Zachary, he was somewhere he couldn’t hurt anyone ever again. He would live with his burns for the rest of his life, though. And I would live with the perfect memory of what I had done.

Abruptly, there was a knock on the door.

Domnick Steele.

::Come in,:: I projected.

He pushed the door open and threw a t-shirt and jeans at my bed. I stared at them a moment. Were those mine? “Get dressed, Farina. Tolden wants me to show you around. He’d do it himself, but he’s at an Agent In Charge meeting.”

I looked at the clothes dubiously.

Steele pulled a device off his belt, scanned its contents, and jumped. “Put it on quick so we can avoid Black’s ambush. He’s got half of Tactical looking to meet you!”

“Ambush?” I asked.

“Yeah. If we don’t go quick, we won’t make it down to R&D in time—and I’m not going toe-to-toe with the real Tac wizards.”

My eyes widened as memory clips played in my mind. Ms. King had promised me a station down in R&D and, with all the excitement earlier, I had forgotten.

I shooed him out while I changed, my thoughts whirring. What kind of technology would they have down there? Would they have all the pieces I needed to make my miniature engine I was working on? What about the shielding module? Suddenly, I was sifting through all the designs I’d set out, researched, computed, and then filed away again because I didn’t have the resources to make them. In only a few days, they had gone from a distant hope to a very near reality.

I smoothed down the front of the t-shirt—which Steele must have gotten from the dormitory—and took a deep breath. I’d waited my entire life for this opportunity!

I followed Steele down the elevator and into the research department where almost everyone wore one of those white lab coats I had coveted my entire life. Some of them turned to stare as we walked past. My cheeks reddened. Walking down here in a clunky black t-shirt with pi on it was silly. Of course I stood out!

Steele laughed as my shoulders started to hunch. “Chin up, Agent 32. It’s not every day you see a woman spraying fire from her fingers. Everyone wants to know how you did it.” He made a face and glanced at his watch. “Ms. King wants you home by midafternoon, though, so most of them aren’t going to get their wish.”

I stopped and stared at him. “Engineers want to know how my device works?”

Steele shrugged. “How should I know—I’m a software engineer and I saw what a mess of wires you had hooked up to that computer. Programming really isn’t your strong suit, is it?”

I shook my head. “Whenever I try to program anything, I skip enough steps that it’s hopelessly confused. Hard-wiring it was just easier and I thought I only needed it for the one job.”

Steele clicked his tongue and started moving again. I followed. “Hard-wiring was easier. I never thought I would hear those words. You know Rube-Goldberg machines have a notorious fail rate?”

He scanned through a glass door and we stepped into a room buzzing with activity. There were tables everywhere with bins of components, wires, and tools stuffed underneath. People stood working at the stations or chatting in groups or demonstrating things. A group of three people in labcoats groaned as a flying speck in the air sparked and then caught fire.

“If it’s a fire hazard, test it in the safe room!” said a large-boned woman with blonde hair twisted into a bun.

“It wasn’t supposed to—”

The woman waved a hand. “At least stand by with a fire-extinguisher then. It’s not rocket-science, people!”

There were pockets of laughter around the room.

She turned and spotted us near the door. “Steele, we’ve got eight projects waiting for a software engineer. Go find something to—oh.”

Steele put an arm around my back and pushed me forward. “You wanted to know about that thing spewing fire on the battlefield right, Cal? Well here’s the engineer herself.”

I stared at her and tasted the numbers bubbling under the surface of her mind. She wasn’t running the calculations, but she rolled the numbers around in her mind, feeling them to figure out where they fit in the puzzle she was working on.

A real engineer. “I-I’m not an engineer. I dabble, is all,” I managed to get out as Steele pushed me even farther forward.

Cal’s frown lightened a little as she looked me over. “Tac stole another one of my recruits, did they? You that new kid on Tac 47? Agent 32, is it?”

I nodded.

“First rule of nerd town is this. No fighting. Second rule is that anybody in a lab coat belongs here and we don’t take ‘dabblers’. Are you serious about engineering?”

“Yes, of course!”

She nodded. “That’s what I thought. You are no ‘dabbler’. You’re a newbie—no more, no less. Now get a lab coat on and go find a table. I’ll send a team over in a moment and you can show them the basics of that device you used earlier.”

I looked over at the lab coats hanging on a rack by the door, took a step toward them, and then stopped. A quick look over everyone’s minds and memories revealed that most of the people in the room had Ph.Ds or real doctorates in everything from physics, to engineering, to chemistry and beyond. I was in highschool.

How could I hope to work with all these people? Most of them had more years dedicated to education than I’d even been alive. I had to earn that position. To just have it handed to me?

Cal rolled her eyes. “Get on with it 32. I told you to put a lab coat on, so put one on. Steele will help you find a station.”

That’s all the prodding it took. I slipped a lab coat on and followed Steele to a station in the center of the room.

“The stations are outfitted with most everything you would need—wires, instruments, tools, you name it. There’s a 3D printer and soldering iron in every group. Laser cutters, C&C machines, and complex synthesizers are in the machines room. Odds are that you’re not going to be assigned to a group project, so you’ll share one with the other independents.” He pointed to a cubic device the size of a printer on the edge of the bench table. “Anything special you need is either in the extra bins along the side of the room or in the stockroom. Beyond that, you can ask the stockroom to order it, or you can build it yourself.”

I nodded and started pulling bins out to inspect the equipment when there was a surge of excitement behind me. I stood and whirled to find a group of men and women in lab coats advancing on us with clipboards in hand.

“You’re 32, right?” one asked.

Another overrode him. “Cal said you’d be willing to show us how you got a plasma engine that small. I’ve been researching it for ten years, but I can’t get the capacitors working that quickly. The math says it should work, but,” he shrugged. “Those mathematicians have it easy. All theory and no idea what the real world’s like—” he devolved into coughs as the first one elbowed him in the ribs.

“What he’s trying to say is that we want you to show us how it’s built.”

I looked around and then grinned as my lines highlighted the primary components located around the room. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

With everything to hand, it only took me an hour to assemble the pieces and build the other ones I needed, but Steele interrupted me before I could begin putting the pulser together.

“Black’s waiting outside.” He made a face. “Just leave your pieces where they sit and go grab a ‘project in progress’ sign to put on the desk. No one will bother it.”

I looked back at the doors. Sure enough, there was a Black-shaped shadow on the other side, and his thoughts weren’t happy. I sorted the project so I could find what I needed when I came back, then followed Steele back to the doors.

“Good luck, kid. I’ve got a chair in CIS that’s calling my name.” Steele turned around, then froze.

“Chair?” Cal said. She was standing behind us with her arms folded. “I thought I remembered telling you there were projects that needed your attention!”

Steele gave a good-natured sigh. “Work, work, work. Have fun out there, 32. Don’t let Black bully you too badly.”

Outside, Black was leaning against the wall watching white-coated techs hurry back and forth through the hallway. “I see you’re walking, now. Anything still wrong that I should know about?”

I shook my head.

“Good.”

I barely saw the flash of intention cross his mind before I was against the wall with his hands on either of my head. His nose was just inches from mine, and his breath was heavy on my face as he stared me down.

“Next time I ask you if you’re alright, you answer honestly or I will kill you myself. Understand?”

I nodded slowly, but he didn’t move.

“I’m the team medic, and it’s my job to keep you alive. I nearly lost you on that chopper, Farina. Our med pods can do a lot back at base, but they’re stationary and not completely reliable. None of it matters if you’re dead before you get back.”

I shivered. “That’s how close it was, huh?”

He pulled back and nodded. “I’m not losing another member of Tac 47. Got it? I don’t care how abnormal your pain response is. If you’re hurt, you tell me. You have the analysis skills to figure it out.”

I was silent a moment as I let that information sink in. Out of habit, I pulled the memory and watched in slow motion as the bullet exited the barrel of Houston’s gun and punched through my skin.

Black asked me if I was hurt. The Tac suit had hid the blood well enough that he hadn’t immediately seen it.

But if I hadn’t lied, then I wouldn’t have been unencumbered enough to save Tolden.

“If I have life-threatening wounds, I will ensure that you know,” I said.

When had I learned to lie with such ease? Once upon a time, it had made my stomach churn. Now?

I refused to take myself out of a dangerous situation just because I was injured when I had the ability to protect my teammates.

Black shook his head. “Come on, 32. I won’t insult you by making you lie again.” We walked down the hallway in thick, heavy silence. We crossed the rotunda and arrived in the tactical section.

People turned to look at us as we walked by, and whispers followed us. I wondered what they were about this time—the plasma pulser again? Black turned into a room with ping-pong tables, video games, and pool tables around the edges, with papers lining the walls. The black-suited Tac Agents all stopped what they were doing as we entered.

A woman with close cropped hair and petite shoulders jerked her chin my way. “Hey! You 32?”

“Yeah, this is her,” Black said. He took a few steps away and folded his arms across his chest.

I tensed and reached out to brush their minds, only to stop and stare in amazement as they started to applaud.

The woman who’d asked about me stepped up to clap me on the back. “You did good, kid. Not many people here who would’ve kept going like that on their first mission as a—what grade are you in again?”

“I’m a second-year in highschool,” I said.

She threw her head back and laughed. “Two bullet holes, hypothermia, a second-year, and a Danger rating One in the bag. Ms. King has an eye for recruits, I’ll give her that.”

The next thirty minutes were filled with introductions and applause. Finally, I tore myself away from the other Tac agents and made my way back to Black. There was amusement close to the surface of his thoughts, but it was quickly buried.

“Tournament sign-ups are there. AnAd wants us to go paperless. I’m sure we’ll make it one of these days, but right now we’ve got paper taped to the wall.” He shrugged. “So sue us. More important than the paper is which kinds, and the betting pools attached. We’ve got team tournaments that double as training exercises and everything in between. Marksmanship with anything in the armory—though you have to actually go to the armory for some of the more obscure tournaments. We’ve got weapons tournaments, unarmed tournaments, full on military games, you name it. Most of us are required to enter in at least two for training purposes, but you’re still in school, so classes count. Betting pools are over there.” He motioned to a counter with a mob of agents around it.

“There must be something exciting going on tonight.”

Black laughed. “Agency games are coming up in a few weeks. That one is required for all personnel not currently on-duty. All the tac teams compete against each other, half on Ms. Green’s team, and half on Ms. King’s team. Tac Block 4 gets split down the middle, and the extra team sits out in case something comes up while everyone else slugs it out. Lists for who’s on which side came out while you were unconscious. We’re on call so we can’t play—Tolden’s pissed, but it’s his just rewards for winning against Ms. Green’s team last year. Everyone knows he was the one running coms.”

I followed him out the door. “What’s so different about Tac block 4 to get it split down the middle?”

He stopped, and turned. “Ms. King didn’t—how long have you been a recruit?”

I frowned. “I stumbled into it last Saturday. Tolden brought me in, and I got my temp card.”

Black didn’t react, but I could feel the surprise lance through him. “Well, that explains your hand-to-hand. Tac Block 4 is a group of nine flexible tactical teams. We’re the ones they send in when they don’t know exactly what they’re dealing with, and there’s always two of us on-duty at a time. We spend way more time than is healthy on-base, but we’re also the best the Agency’s got. Newbies don’t often get assigned here, either. Two assigned to the same team? I thought for a moment that they’d written us off.” He turned and walked a few more steps to stand in front of locker 32.

“Everybody in the tac section has a locker. This one’s yours. You’ll keep a change of tac-ware here and whatever else you can’t keep on you during school. Weaponry, gadgets we haven’t released to the public, things like that.”

I keyed it open with the passcode they gave me on my card and my eyes narrowed. In the weapons rack to the right of my plasma pulser was a polished black firearm.

I turned to Black, eyes still narrowed. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be certifying me with one of these.”

Black wasn’t happy, but he shrugged. “Tolden said something about making sure you keep your shields up next time. He wanted me to tell you he was listening.”

To me cursing Black for sending me in without a reliable weapon. Right.

I searched out Tolden’s mind in the middle of the meeting.

::Thanks for listening—and for the gun,:: I projected.

I could feel him smile. I’m your AIC. It’s my job, even more than it is Black’s, to keep you alive. Now go learn to use it.

THANK YOU

Dear Reader,

Thank you for taking the time to read Crystal Mind. I hope you enjoyed getting to know Crystal and all her new friends.

Before you go, please take a moment to leave a review of my book. Tell me what you liked, what you loved, and even what you hated—I just want to hear what you think. Reviews aren’t easy to come by, which means that you—the reader—have the power to help Crystal’s story reach the people who most need to hear it. Here’s a link to my author page, which includes all my books on Amazon:

amazon.com/author/kaexcell

Thank you again for spending time with Crystal. I hope to meet you again between the pages of another book!

Sincerely,

K. A. Excell

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Keep reading for an excerpt from the second book in the Projector War Saga: Crystal Choice.

CRYSTAL CHOICE

I strode down the hallway of Martial Academy fast enough that Eugene Berry would have no-doubt given me detention had he been around. It wouldn’t be the first time. I could still see his lips curled into a smirk as he formed my name.

“Crystal Farina. Detention—again.”

After that incident, I’d taken extra care to use my new Psionic abilities to make sure that neither Berry nor any other Prefects had the satisfaction of giving me detention. Of course, detention wouldn’t change a thing. I was already going to be here all weekend for a team training exercise that started on Friday. They’d been happening more and more often—which was probably good, given how tensions were rising. The Agency and the Company were at each other’s throats. I was still so junior that Ms. King only smiled and told me not to worry when I asked her about it, but I couldn’t ignore the way she hurried off to meetings, or the way she scanned us when she thought we weren’t looking. Something was afoot, and she was worried we wouldn’t be ready in time.

I arrived outside Mr. West’s Krav Maga classroom and took a breath. Four minutes late. I opened the door and slipped into line.

“Detention, Ms. Farina,” Ms. King said from the head of the class.

Vera Hunt, the Prefect who was leading the beginning of class stretches, shook her head with exasperated amusement. Her surface thoughts drifted outside her mind like colorful, lazy clouds. If this keeps up, Crystal will be here two weeks after everyone else gets out for the end of the year.

I concealed a grin. “Yes, Ms. King.”

I changed positions with the rest of the class. It was hard to believe that these stretches had once left me in a puddle on the floor. Now they were second nature. Most of it was Neal Black’s training—he’d pushed me beyond my limits, watched me puke, then told me to get off the ground and try it again. If not for that, I probably wouldn’t have survived a full semester here; let alone a full semester with secret meetings, trainings, and missions on top of my full school load. The only reason I had any free time to myself was because my blue lines let me keep up in academic classes. All the time that was supposed to be for homework had turned into design time for my inventions in R&D. Ms. King had appropriated my weekends—every day except Sunday—to go over everything I should have learned before I was assigned to Tactical Team 47.

It wasn’t all bad. I could almost hold my own in hand-to-hand against Black, and the newer engineers in R&D spent so much time ogling at my work that it was easy to forget that ninety-eight percent of them had college degrees. Already, I was consulting with a team tasked with creating a new line of energy weapons equipped with limiters that restricted the electrical pulse—turning the device into a stunner. The designs were still preliminary, but working with that team had given me the idea to combine some of their basic membrane technology with my pulser to create a sort of energy shielding module. It was the opposite of an energy weapon—and much more my speed. Unfortunately, processing space was at a premium, so I’d only just started on the calculations. There was no sense in adding a processing-headache to the mix when I was only getting four hours of sleep a night.

I jotted down a quick mental note as another idea occurred to me. Perhaps I could ask Ms. King for extra credit for my new developments in R&D. I couldn’t ask now—applying for extra credit immediately after getting detention would probably make me lose points in class because it wasn’t strategic. Of course, if I could engineer a situation to apply more of the things I’d learned in Social History while I asked about it, then I might get double the extra credit. Ms. King liked it when we tried to incorporate the manipulation techniques into our everyday lives.

I watched Ms. King out of the corner of my vision as she paced up and down the rows of students with a critical gaze. It was amazing to me how far she’d helped me come. I’d shown up on Martial Academy’s doorstep terrified, clueless, and with abilities I didn’t understand. Now, I was one of five projector telepaths on base, and fully capable of protecting myself.

She wasn’t the only one who had helped me through my first semester. Memories of Zach were seldom—thanks to Vera Hunt. I was more in control of myself than I’d ever been. I was tired, too, but it was a wonderful kind of tired.

I concealed a yawn as Hunt finished leading the stretches and dismissed us to grab a drink of water.

Perhaps I could ask them to delay the next briefing a bit. Fifteen extra minutes of sleep would go a long way—but it would also mean I was late to class more often. Today there had been a twenty minute buffer zone between when the briefing was supposed to end, and when class was supposed to start. Tolden hadn’t let us go until three minutes before I was supposed to be in class. Even running, I had only made the rotunda before the gong rang.

Suddenly, Hunt stiffened. Her surface thoughts pulled back behind her walls, until they were well guarded enough that it would take some effort to break through.

“Uh, Ma’am?” she hurried up to Ms. King. Their voices were low enough that only someone like Tabitha Smith—Tac 47’s Auditory Analyst—would have been able to hear them. I merely detailed a few of my blue lines to watch their faces and translate what they were saying into text I could read off of my vision. That was one skill I’d developed in the Social History class. As long as I could see their faces, I could read their lips.

“Something just came up. I need to go.” Hunt said.

Ms. King’s eyes narrowed. “Fine.”

Hunt hurried out.

Ms. King paired everyone up and demonstrated the first drill. Soon we were all breathing hard again. As I worked, I wondered what Hunt had left to do. She had remarkable control over her surface thoughts, to be able to shield them like that. While her walls weren’t much of an obstacle for someone with my projection strength, it was impolite to drill inside someone’s mind. Ms. King had been quite clear on that fact.

I wondered, for a moment, if Hunt knew about the Agency. She’d been at Martial Academy for four years, and she was observant. She had to have noticed something—though she might not have pursued it. I’d never seen her around the Agency’s compound, and no one in Social History had ever mentioned her.

I pulled up an image of Hunt handing Mr. West a letter on the first day of school, last semester. Could she be working with the Company? That was one explanation, but it could have just as easily been a note about something else. She was a Prefect, after all. There were plenty of things non-Company related that could have been in that note. Short of asking, I really had no way to know.

The way Ms. King had let her go without asking any questions—verbal questions, anyway—made it seem like Hunt was working with the Agency but, if that was the case, why hadn’t I heard about it? She’d been helping Ms. King teach Mr. West’s class for a few weeks and, before that, she’d been teaching Ms. King’s advanced classes. That meant Ms. King had to trust her, right? If Hunt was working for the Company, why would Ms. King be using her as an assistant teacher?

Or, maybe what Hunt was doing to help Ms. King didn’t require much trust. It wasn’t like Advanced Krav Maga was Social History, the class Ms. King used to vet new Agency recruits. Ms. King had mentioned something before about keeping enemies in sight and busy so they didn’t do anything unexpected. This could be one of those cases.

::Farina, keep your mind on the fight,:: Ms. King snapped. I jerked my thoughts back to the present and managed to keep moving with the lines weaving around my vision. We were non-contact sparring, which didn’t require much attention. I could tell my partner’s intentions before he moved, so there was plenty of time to move out of the way and counterstrike. Unfortunately, Ms. King was the only person I’d met with a high enough PS rating to read my mind. Her touch was gentle, so I didn’t usually notice it until she projected something to me.

::You can’t always count on reading your opponent’s mind to mean you are fast enough.::

She called a halt and moved partners around so I was paired with Briggs. He was with Mr. Mccoy’s military group—recruited almost the moment he set foot on campus. He was good, but still not nearly as fast as Houston had been. When I was focused, keeping pace with him was easy. When I was distracted, I started lagging behind, which was no-doubt Ms. King’s intention.

I refocused on Briggs, and made note of how he moved. His strength and speed were improving at a fantastic pace—his strength slightly more than his speed. It was probably due to all his extra weekend assignments with the Military. I wasn’t sure what sort of ringer Mr. Mccoy was putting his class through, but it must have been similar to what Black was doing with me. I was glad, though. Briggs was one of my friends here. He and Tabitha Smith were the first people to reach out and be friendly with me.

Five minutes before the gong rang, Ms. King froze. The door opened to show a larger woman with black hair like mine, cut at her chin. She scanned the room as she stepped inside with Hunt on her heels. Hunt’s eyes were wider than usual, and a touch of anxiety hovered outside her walls. She took a deep breath as she came all the way into the room, and the anxiety disappeared. She was as calm and collected as ever.

I signalled to Briggs to stop the exercise and watched the newcomer carefully. Around me, the other drills slowed to a halt. The newcomer was scanning the room, so I took the opportunity to brush up against her mind. My eyes widened as I realized what she was doing—sorting us into groups. Ms. King and I went into the Beta-One category, while Hunt, and some of the less timid newbies, went into the Alpha-Niner category. I took note of those with a frown. If this woman knew about Neurodivergents, she would know that Ms. King, at least, was a Projector Telepath. Why sort her people into groups without taking precautions to shield her surface thoughts?

I examined her walls. They wouldn’t be difficult to get through. The frequency shifted a lot, but the range was relatively small, and even the highest frequencies were set at half my capacity. If this newcomer was a telepath, I would eat my tactical suit.

She finished her inventory, then wrenched those thoughts back inside her walls. Her eyes locked on Ms. King, and she began to advance. Her thoughts whipped into a frenzy of accusation and hurt, only partially covered by a weak attempt at oozing false congeniality. She stopped inside Ms. King’s personal space, and looked up at her with bared teeth. “I understand you’ve been substituting my class while I made arrangements to relocate here. Your services are no longer required.”

Ms. King nodded and draped the room in soothing thoughts to try and calm the woman down, but it only enraged the storm of half-formed accusations whipping around the new teacher’s mind.

Ms. King gestured to the students watching all around them. “Of course, anytime. I have a capable student instructor, so I would be more than happy to continue to assist you while you’re settling in.”

I tried to dive inside the new teacher’s surface thoughts to see if I could find a single coherent word inside the storm, but the hatred clawed at my mind. These weren’t just surface thoughts, these were raw emotions with such a low frequency that the newcomer couldn’t shield them if she tried. Stepping inside would be like standing in front of a speeding semi truck.

The newcomer’s eyes narrowed. “No, that won’t be necessary. I understand that Ms. Hunt is here as my teacher aide today. Plus, it would be far below your pay grade, don’t you think?”

Pay grade? It was a well known fact inside the Agency—and, apparently the Company, too—that Ms. King was the second most powerful person in the Agency’s hierarchy. The only one with more clout was Ms. Green, the Agency’s Director and the Administrator of Martial Academy. I concealed a smile. Both of them knew who the other worked for. If there hadn’t been students here, this encounter might have left them both with some nasty bruises. Then I caught images drifting from the new teacher’s thoughts and revised my estimation. If this had happened anywhere but this classroom, then one of them would be dead.

::Yes, my thoughts as well,:: Ms. King projected to me. ::You may not want to spend any time alone with her until she learns to control her hate. She is a powerful telekinetic—much more powerful than Houston—and she would be rated as far more dangerous if our analysts knew she was incapable of controlling herself. Once I’ve made my report, her danger rating will be revised.::

I nodded and Ms. King excused herself—leaving the rest of us with the new teacher, who introduced herself as Ms. Graff.

Table of Contents

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CM Half Title

Other Books

CMTitle Page

Copyright Page

Dedication Page

TC1

TC2

MChapter3

MChapter4

MChapter5

MChapter6

MChapter7

MChapter8

MChapter9

MChapter10

MChapter11

MChapter12

MChapter13

MChapter14

MChapter15

MChapter16

MChapter17

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