The Hadley Academy for the Improbably Gifted

by Conor Grennan

  The dominant feature of the place, though, was the wall.

  In the distance the wall rose two hundred feet in the air, above the tops of the tall pines. It was made of slate-gray stone, streaked with black metallic veins. The jagged and pockmarked face looked to be a single piece of stone, extending as far as Jack could see into the woods.

  Soon the grounds became more manicured, with trees sculpted like oversized bonsais. The path divided, and they followed a darker stone trail leading off to the right and over a small rise. The path ran between two large boulders as tall as Jack. Inscribed on the stone to the left were the words The Barracks. On the boulder to the right was chiseled a relief of a boy with a blade, ready for battle. It was the same image as the statue in the portal courtyard, where Jack had entered. Beneath the boy, just as on the statue, were emblazoned the words One Life for Many.

  “We’re here,” Superior Blue told him. Jack followed him between the boulders.

  CHAPTER 4

  HIDDEN NAMES

  The Superior leaned toward Jack. “Just wait back here. The less you see, the less Dr. Horn has to mind-scrape.”

  They had arrived at a wide circle of a dozen grand residences of red brick and white pillars, each one with a slightly different design. Imposing Roman numerals hung in front of the pillars like pendants from a necklace, although Jack could not see what the numbers were actually attached to. The houses were marked from one to twelve around the circle, like elements of a giant clock. Soft pageantry music swelled across the green.

  In the center of the circle, four dozen teenagers stood in formation, all in maroon tactical uniforms. Ahead of them, a podium sat next to an ancient wrought iron gate.

  Superior Blue took a step toward the gate and then turned back to Jack, pulling out the coin again. “A man named Hans really gave this to you? He really sent you here?”

  Jack nodded vigorously. “Yes. I didn’t mean to come in here.”

  Superior Blue stared at Jack for a long moment, then looked back at the coin before he tucked it into his jacket pocket. Then he walked to the podium.

  Waiting at the podium was a woman with short black hair that curled up as it touched her shoulders. Her narrow face ended in a sharp chin, and she wore a scowl of impatience. Thin dark eyebrows angled up like bolts of lightning. Superior Blue whispered something to her, and the woman squinted past the recruits to focus on Jack.

  Then Superior Blue stepped to the podium, and the music faded out. “Congratulations, recruits. A week ago you came here with two hundred draftees. You are the last forty-eight standing, the most improbably gifted. I know this week has been exhausting and confusing. But you have passed every physical challenge, every mental examination, and every stress test. You are our finest.”

  The crowd murmured with anticipation.

  “Your spade has defined you your entire life,” he told them. “Your spade has shaped your personality and dictated your motivations. Understand your spade and you understand yourself.”

  Superior Blue paused. “But you are not here for a journey of self-discovery. You will learn to weaponize your gift, for the good of humankind. For that, I place you in the capable hands of our Director of the Office of Reaper Engagement: Director Iliana Darius.”

  The woman with the black bob stepped forward. “You now know of the shadow reapers and the war we fight,” Director Darius announced. “Over the next three years, as you rise to the rank of cadet and graduate to become operatives, you will learn to blaze these reapers, and you will learn to survive.”

  Director Darius surveyed the recruits before she continued. “One Life for Many,” she said. “It is inscribed on the statue in the portal courtyard. It was the first thing you saw when you entered Hadley. You will also find it inscribed on every one of your barracks. When you are hurt, when you are tired, when you are in pain, when you are afraid, repeat that mantra to yourself. Hadley stands between civilization and chaos. You will give your life to protect others if necessary. That is your calling.”

  Low, excited chatter spread through the crowd. Recruits rubbed sweaty palms against their uniforms, eyes darting to see how others were reacting. Jack wondered what they had learned over the last week to get them so ready to face the shadow reapers—the same reapers that had come inches from murdering Jack earlier that morning.

  Director Darius motioned to the gate next to her. “This is the Spade Threshold. The Order of the Grays created it a thousand years ago. Since then, recruits have passed through to discover which spade classification they belong to: Kinetic, Theoric, Systemic, or Expathic.”

  Behind the podium a massive hologram appeared in the air: an orange square surrounding three strokes in a shape resembling the point of a sail and its connecting ropes. Jack recognized it as the badge on Howler’s uniform.

  “Kinetic,” Darius said. “Kinetics are driven by physical activity. They are natural trackers and explorers. They are risk takers and thrill seekers. Their spades are often marked by strength, speed, or agility. They are restless, most comfortable in nature, and always seeking the next challenge.”

  The orange square blinked out and was replaced by a blue rectangle with an infinity sign in it. Jack noticed for the first time that Superior Blue wore the same icon on a patch on the breast pocket of his suit.

  “Theoric,” Darius continued. “Natural-born problem solvers and strategists. Theorics are highly curious and often extroverted. Above all, they are visionaries and leaders. They excel at finding solutions where none seem to exist.”

  Next, a green triangle with three parallel diagonal slashes, large to small, appeared in the hologram. “Systemic. Highly creative, they find patterns where others do not. Systemics are outstanding designers, architects, artists, and coders. They tend to be introverted, obsessed with reading, sketching, and creating.”

  The image faded and a fourth icon appeared, a slate-gray disc with four waved lines flowing outward—up, down, right, and left—from a small central circle.

  “Expathics have a profound understanding of their environment, especially of nature and animals. They may be able to change the physical state of an object or even move it. Expathics are highly attuned to the emotions of others, allowing them to inspire and influence. They are exceptionally loyal and always looking to improve the world around them.”

  The hologram disappeared, and Jack studied the gate. Its interwoven black iron beams rose out of the ground to form an arch that towered over Darius and Blue at the podium. Runes of the spade icons marked the three-foot-wide sides, two on each side. Across the arch stretched a single smooth sheet of metal.

  Darius glanced over her shoulder. On the houses surrounding them, the Roman numerals on each residence lit up. “We will place you on twelve teams of four,” she announced. “These teams are ranked from strongest to weakest, from one to twelve. Let your ranking motivate you, whether you are placed on Team Twelve or Team One.”

  Director Darius held up her band as if checking the time. A small holographic screen appeared above her wrist. She read four names, and four jittery recruits shuffled through the formation and came around to the other side of the iron gate.

  “To hear your spade name is to hear your true identity spoken for the first time,” explained Darius. “It is the name you have always had but have never known.”

  Director Darius and Superior Blue faced the gate and the four recruits. “Let the Naming Ceremony begin!” she called. The recruits behind her cheered.

  Darius motioned for the first member of Team Twelve to pass through the Spade Threshold. A tall, tanned boy with green eyes stood straight and moved forward. As he stepped through, the blackened iron gate shone as if newly polished. On the left side of the gate, the iron rune in the shape of the Theoric rectangle glowed blue.

  “Theoric,” Darius announced.

  The blank arch across the top of the gate dimmed, as if a cloud had passed over it. Then metal creaked, and a name stamped itself into relief across the arch.
>
  “Maze!” Darius read the name triumphantly. The boy’s face lit up, and the blue infinity patch appeared on his maroon uniform over his heart.

  “Welcome to Hadley, Maze the Theoric.” Director Darius said. She clenched a fist and pounded it against her own orange Kinetic badge. “One Life for Many.”

  “One Life for Many,” Maze repeated, copying her gesture as well.

  “One Life for Many!” the rest of the recruits shouted in unison.

  The next recruit, a girl, wrung her hands before she stepped through. As she did, the orange rune glowed.

  “Kinetic,” Darius called.

  Across the top of the gate, a word imprinted on the iron. “Spin!” Darius announced. The girl beamed.

  “Welcome to Hadley, Spin the Kinetic!”

  Spin was followed by the last two teammates, Turret the Systemic and Carbon the Expathic.

  The names meant nothing to Jack. But it was clear each recruit had been deeply affected at hearing their names spoken.

  After Team Eleven and Team Ten had completed the ceremony, Superior Blue whispered to Director Darius. She gave him a long look, then scanned over to pick out Jack from behind the remaining recruits.

  “Instructor Suzuki, would you be so kind as to lead the rest of the Naming Ceremony?” Darius called over the invisible loudspeaker.

  A tall woman in a black-and-white silk blazer left the front of the Barracks and came to the podium. Instructor Suzuki’s long hair hung down to her waist in a perfect black braid. Only a slight quizzical glance from Instructor Suzuki to Superior Blue led Jack to believe the request was unusual. Suzuki tapped her band, and the hologram of names glided from Darius’s band to hers. Instructor Suzuki read the names of Team Nine.

  Director Darius and Superior Blue made their way past Jack, and Blue beckoned for him to follow them. They returned to the twin boulders marking the entrance to the Barracks, out of sight of the recruits and the Spade Threshold.

  “You should have kept him in the portal courtyard,” Darius told Blue. “Dr. Horn will have more to remove now that he’s seen so much. The chances of brain damage are already increased.”

  Jack’s stomach roiled. Brain damage?

  “Except,” Superior Blue answered. “I don’t believe he should be mind-scraped. I believe Jack Carlson should join this recruiting class.”

  Iliana Darius’s eyebrows raised. Her voice remained level, but she looked as though she’d just caught a whiff of something distasteful. “We have the Forty-Eight. Their cognitive access levels are exceptional. They had their breakthroughs long before they arrived here. They have spent years accepting that their gifts are real. This boy is a dormant.” She drew out the word, not disguising her scorn. “He has had no breakthrough. He believes himself to be completely normal. He is, in short, useless to us.”

  “No one accidentally stumbles into Hadley,” Blue replied. “He claims he was brought by a man calling himself Hans who gave him this.” Blue flipped the coin to Darius.

  She caught the metal disc without taking her eyes off Superior Blue. Then her gaze fell to the coin and the etching of the stone silo. Her brow furrowed. She looked back up at Superior Blue. “Is this a joke, Superior?”

  “It would be quite a joke, wouldn’t it?”

  Darius held up the coin to Jack. “Where did you get this?”

  Jack swallowed hard. “It’s like he said. This guy, Hans—the new school security guard—he told me I had been drafted. He told me to give that coin to the Superior. We were being chased by two reapers. He saved me.”

  Darius’s expression clouded over. “What do you know about shadow reapers?”

  “Nothing,” Jack said quickly. “Hans called them that. And my friend at school . . .” Jack motioned weakly around him. “I need to get home. My mom is going to be worried.”

  Darius ignored Jack. She flipped the coin back to her colleague. “What exactly is your theory here, Superior Blue?”

  “Jack Carlson is the Guardian.” A long, awkward pause spread between them.

  “Excuse me?”

  Blue’s expression remained even. “The Order of the Grays said that Wyeth—the Reaper King—can only be destroyed by the Guardian. The Guardian has arrived.”

  Director Darius took a step back and examined Jack. “Did he fall from the sky, as the Grays predicted?”

  “Not literally, no. He came from New Jersey.”

  Darius rubbed her hands together in thought. “I am not sure where to begin, Superior Blue.”

  “Try the beginning, Director Darius.”

  Darius looked instead to Jack. “Jack Carlson, is it? Well, Jack. Superior Blue seems to believe that you are the one indicated by the Great Prophecy, the myth of an ancient order of monks. The Order of the Grays were the founders of Hadley, many centuries ago. Do you know anything about the Grays?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Well, that is curious, since Superior Blue believes that you are the one they’ve been waiting on for a thousand years. Did you emerge from the Silo, by any chance?”

  Jack was growing more confused by the moment. “Silo?”

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Darius said. “More important than where you came from is who you are. Superior Blue believes that you have come to fulfill the prophecy by killing the Reaper King, Wyeth, and saving humanity.”

  Director Darius let that hang in the air for a moment. “Can you take a guess, Jack Carlson, as to why I believe you may be unable to kill the Reaper King?”

  Jack gulped. “Because I don’t know anything about reapers? And because this Reaper King could probably kill me pretty easily?”

  “That is obvious and true, but it is not the reason I am thinking of.” Darius tossed a look of annoyance at Superior Blue. “It is impossible because the Reaper King is already dead.” A note of satisfaction shaded her voice. “Wyeth has been dead for thirteen years. Since then, not a single new shadow reaper has been created. Their numbers have dwindled, and we are on the verge of winning the Reaper War.”

  She turned back to Superior Blue. “Yet now you believe that the Guardian has arrived. Thirteen years too late.”

  “Wyeth is alive, Director Darius. Everything the Order of the Grays has ever predicted has come to pass. The Grays said that Wyeth could only be destroyed by the Guardian.” Blue turned to Jack. “Did you ever kill a Reaper King, Jack?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then Wyeth cannot be dead,” Superior Blue confirmed.

  “The Bulgarian killed him, Superior Blue.”

  “The Bulgarian came to believe that he did not, Director Darius.”

  “Because he went insane.” Darius’s annoyance had soured into deep irritation.

  “The Bulgarian came to believe the Grays were right,” Superior Blue insisted. “They predicted that Wyeth would bring a darkness that would consume the world.”

  “For a thousand years we have fought the plague of shadow reapers. Was that not enough darkness for you?”

  “The Great Prophecy predicts that in the final days, Wyeth will not merely have a reaper army. Rather, the world will become his reaper army,” Superior Blue clarified. “Hadley operatives are trained to fight reapers. We are not trained to rescue a darkened world.”

  “But this boy, this dormant, is trained to rescue a darkened world?” she asked. They both turned back to Jack.

  “You have the answers, Jack, even if you don’t know it,” said Blue.

  “I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” Jack stammered. “I don’t understand any of this. I need to get home.”

  Darius adopted a more practical tone. “Even if we wanted to keep him here, we don’t have room. Would you propose we mind-scrape one of our skilled recruits?”

  “No. We will create a thirteenth team.”

  Darius threw her hands up. “We have had twelve teams since the founding of Hadley,” she pointed out. “We don’t have extra recruits lying around with which to fashion a thirteenth team.”

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bsp; “I can find the rest of his team,” Superior Blue said.

  “The Dome identifies improbables from among millions of young men and women. It drafts a pool of two hundred to bring to Hadley each year. From this pool we select the Forty-Eight. You are proposing that you can find three other draftees out in the dormant world that the Dome somehow missed?”

  “The rest of the team members are likely also dormants, so the Dome would not have identified them. This case requires that we use the ancient methods of the Grays.”

  Director Darius rubbed her forehead in frustration and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Superior Blue. I respect your gifts. And I have a deep reverence for what the Order of the Grays has given us—humanity owes them a great debt. But their time has passed,” she said. “I will not support this radical idea of yours, and we both know that neither will the Council. This is their decision, not yours.”

  Superior Blue paused thoughtfully, staring off into the woods.

  “I propose a compromise,” he said at last. “Let Jack stay. Let me bring in the rest of a team. We give them three days. That’s three simulations in the Dome. If Jack is truly the Guardian, they will easily complete a simulation within seventy-two hours.”

  “Three days? Superior Blue, you are talking about four dormants. It would take them three years just to discover their spades, let alone weaponize those spades, let alone defeat a shadow reaper in the simulation dome,” she said. “It would be like gifting a boy his first pair of running shoes, then giving him three days to win an Olympic medal.”

  “You’re saying it would take a miracle.”

  “A literal miracle, yes.”

  “Then we’re in luck because that’s exactly what stumbled through our portal this morning,” Blue said, motioning to Jack.

  She shook her head. “This would be pure folly. What happens when they fail?”