The Hadley Academy for the Improbably Gifted

by Conor Grennan

  “Theoric.” Darius announced.

  There was a metallic creak, as if an invisible stamp was pressing through from the other side, and a name appeared.

  “Your spade name is Link,” Darius told him.

  “Link,” Freddy breathed. “Wow. Cool.”

  Dr. Horn walked over to Freddy. She held two fingers to his forehead and closed her eyes. “Link, your spade is incongruous logic. You are able to make connections that others cannot.”

  Darius stepped back up and pounded her fist against her badge. “One Life for Many.”

  Freddy, grinning broadly, repeated the gesture, pounding his fist on the blue Theoric icon that had appeared above his heart. “One Life for Many!”

  Asha went next. She steadied herself, then walked through the Spade Threshold.

  The circle on the right side of the gate glowed gray.

  “Expathic.” Darius announced. On the name arch, the word Ice appeared. “Your spade name is Ice.”

  Dr. Horn placed her fingers on Asha’s forehead. “Ice, your spade is as your name says. You have an environmental manipulation gift: the ability to change water molecules to ice. You appear to have a minor spade as well, though the Threshold doesn’t reveal minors.”

  Darius beat her fist against her badge. “One Life for Many.”

  Asha touched her fist over the new gray Expathic circle on her uniform. “One Life for Many,” she said in a slight daze.

  Voss walked up to the Threshold. Darius nodded to him, and he took one broad step through. On the left side of the gate, the orange square glowed.

  “Kinetic,” Darius announced. They all stared up at the name arch. “Your spade name is Torque.”

  Dr. Horn moved toward him, but Voss took a sudden step back. He spun around and stared at the name arch. He turned back to Dr. Horn. “How did it do that?”

  “The Threshold is only a mirror,” Dr. Horn said. “It reflects who you are. Does that name mean something to you?”

  “No,” Voss said quickly. “Nothing.”

  Dr. Horn studied him for a moment, then reached up and placed her fingers on his forehead. Her eyebrows furrowed. “You are especially gifted, Torque. You have the gift of strength. And you have a minor spade as well that feels as powerful as your primary spade. But it is buried deep. Do you know what it could be?”

  Voss shook his head.

  Darius pounded her fist against her badge. “One Life for Many.”

  Voss hesitated, then touched the orange square that had appeared on his chest. “One Life for Many.”

  Superior Blue looked at Jack. “Okay. You’re up.”

  Jack walked around the gate. He paused, then quickly walked through without being bidden.

  Nothing happened.

  “It didn’t work.” Freddy frowned. “Is it out of power?”

  “It doesn’t run out of power,” Dr. Horn said in a low voice. Blue and Darius looked at each other.

  “Could it be another . . . ?” Blue started.

  “No,” Darius said. “When someone with a shadow spade passes through, the runes go black. The name arch goes dark.” Darius motioned to the Threshold. “This is . . . nothing. It’s as if nobody walked through.”

  “Maybe he has so many spades that they canceled out,” Freddy suggested.

  Dr. Horn approached Jack and gently put her fingers on his forehead. They felt like soft leather, and Jack felt a cool tingling where she made contact with his skin. She dropped her hand and turned to Superior Blue and Darius.

  “He must have a gift; every child is born with one. But I can’t detect anything. I can’t explain it.”

  Superior Blue put his hand to his chin. “Well. That complicates things.”

  Iliana Darius turned to Blue. “Superior Blue, we can end this now. Dr. Horn can mind-scrape them, and we can have them off Elk Island immediately. You would retain the position of Superior.”

  Blue shook his head. “No, Director Darius. This only confirms what the Order of the Grays are trying to tell us. It all makes sense.”

  Dr. Horn gave a sidelong look at Darius. She put her hands in the air, disavowing any responsibility. “This is between y’all. I’m heading back to the clinic. Let me know if you need me.”

  Darius turned back to Blue. “What’s the next move, Superior Blue?”

  Blue seemed surprised at the question. “The same as all the other teams, of course. Team Thirteen will report to the Manifestation Room in the Kwei Library. Reapers 101 is about to begin, and Instructor Suzuki won’t appreciate it if they’re late.”

  Voss stared at Jack as they followed Maggie to the library.

  “Why do they want you here?” Voss asked finally. “You were the first one they brought through. Superior Blue clearly thinks there’s something different about you. He barely blinked when you walked through that Spade Threshold and didn’t show up as anything. What’s the deal?”

  Asha turned to face Jack. “Voss has a point. It seems like all this started with you. You don’t have any insight here?”

  Freddy answered before Jack could speak. “Think about it. Blue probably figures Jack is that Guardian person. The one who will destroy the Reaper King.”

  Jack stared at Freddy. “Actually—yeah. How did you know that?”

  Freddy shrugged. “Seemed obvious.”

  “So we’re here because of you,” Voss said, pointing at Jack. “Because they think you’re some kind of mythical figure? And now if we fail, we get a dishonorable discharge. They’re going to scrape our minds and disappear us—or worse, put us back where we came from with big gaps in our memories? I don’t know about you, but I like my mind just the way it is.”

  “We can’t fail,” Freddy shot back. “Weren’t you listening? We’re the ones who are going to help Jack kill the Reaper King!”

  “The Reaper King that’s already dead? How does that make sense?” Voss asked. “And what happens when they find out Jack isn’t the Guardian?”

  “Listen, maybe we’ll be okay, right?” Asha said hopefully. “Think about it, what if Jack really is this . . . whatever?”

  “This what? Finish that sentence, Asha,” Voss pressed. “A boy who fell from the sky to save the world? I got news for you: Jack didn’t come from the sky. And we have no clue how to kill shadow reapers. These people train for years to do that. They’re improbables, with crazy gifts—we’re not!”

  “Relax. We have time,” Freddy pointed out. “It’s only day one.”

  Jack cleared his throat. “Yeah. Um. We actually don’t have long,” he said. “In order to get the Council to agree to all this, Superior Blue guaranteed that we would complete a simulation—kill a reaper, or I think they say blaze a reaper—in . . .” He wiped his suddenly sweating palms on the legs of his uniform. “Well, in a shorter time frame.”

  Asha stopped walking. Voss stood in front of Jack. “Hang on. How long, exactly?”

  Jack swallowed hard. “Three days.”

  Even Freddy did a double take.

  “Okay, that’s not going to happen,” Asha said. “We need a new plan. How do we get to stay?” She chewed on a fingernail. “I can’t go back to where I came from. I can’t.”

  “We figure out how to use our spades, and we complete the simulation,” Freddy said, his bravery returning. “Maybe we only come close to blazing the reaper in the simulation tonight. By tomorrow we’ll complete a simulation. By day three we’ll be reaper-destroying machines.”

  Asha just stared at the ground. Voss seethed.

  Freddy ignored them, pointing up ahead. “Whoa. That must be where we’re going.”

  CHAPTER 7

  REAPERS 101

  The Kwei Library was a perfect hexagon. It looked like a modern art gallery—a three-story, windowless building. Horizontal stripes of alternating black and gunmetal stone, smooth as glass, formed the six walls. Inside, the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books that appeared to be merely decorative. Glass terminals lined the hallway and several other
smaller rooms that Team Thirteen passed through before they crossed over a bronze plaque on the floor that indicated they were entering the Manifestation Room. The room contained a hexagonal ring forty feet in diameter, surrounded by low bleachers. The recruits took their seats, as if a show were about to start.

  Instructor Suzuki walked in and stood before them. “Welcome, recruits. Today’s demonstration will prepare you for your first engagement in the simulation dome, taking place this evening,” Suzuki announced. “I will manifest a basic overview of the behavior and biology of shadow reapers before you see the real thing—or a simulation, at least—in the Dome. In the Dome you won’t have time to study one up close; you’ll be fighting for your life.”

  Instructor Suzuki strolled back and forth as she spoke, carefully arcing around the ring. “I’m an Expathic—my spade is tactile holographic manifestation,” she said. “My spade name is Ghost. The holograms I manifest have a life span of only moments, yet they have physical properties. This ring is for your protection; it safely constrains the holograms. A hologram reaper is not real, but it can hurt you. So when the ring is lit, please do stay in your seats.”

  “I told you,” Freddy whispered to Jack, then popped a large chunk of granola bar into his mouth. He had been delighted moments earlier to find it in his pack when he reached in.

  “You told me what?”

  “That reapers exist! In my presentation. But you didn’t believe me.”

  Jack stared at him. “Yeah. We’re beyond the point of ‘I told you so’ though, don’t you think?”

  Freddy shrugged and swallowed. “I’m just saying.”

  Voss turned around from the row in front of them, where he sat with Asha. “Be quiet.”

  “Sorry,” Jack whispered.

  “I’m allowed to talk,” Freddy whispered to Jack. “We still have freedom of speech in this country. We’re not communists.”

  Asha pressed her finger to her lips, which communism notwithstanding, silenced even Freddy. She had good reason: The ring around the center of the room glowed. And it was no longer empty.

  Standing in the ring was an unremarkable-looking man in a button-down shirt and khakis. Only his blank expression made him seem unusual.

  “The first challenge with reapers is that they resemble humans to everyone except their victim. This makes it impossible for anyone else to pick them out—including operatives. The reapers’ prey will appear to be hallucinating. Let me give you a sense of what a victim would see.”

  Suddenly, the reaper was no longer a blank-faced human. It was the thing that had chased Jack in Jersey City: a terrifying creature, gleaming as if covered in a thin layer of ice, eyes glowing a violent purple. The audience of recruits recoiled. Just as quickly, the figure’s features turned back into a human face.

  “The shadow map in the Office of Reaper Engagement is able to detect a reaper because its organic makeup is decidedly nonhuman. When the shadow map detects a reaper in hunting mode, a team of operatives gets called in.” Suzuki walked toward the reaper, and it tensed, like an animal sensing danger.

  “Do not expect to identify reapers by outward appearance. The best operatives learn to sense them, as all reapers have one very small tell,” Suzuki said. “I’ll turn up the volume, so you can hear what I mean.”

  This time, when the reaper moved, Jack heard it crackle softly.

  “That tiny sound is the unique biological makeup of a reaper,” Suzuki said. “What looks like skin is actually a hardened icy exoskeleton with a tensile strength of a little over two million KSI. That’s about twenty times harder than tungsten carbide. You could bounce a Sidewinder missile off it. Watch.”

  Suzuki held up her hand. An Uzi submachine gun appeared in her hand, and Suzuki let fly a deafening round of ammunition at the reaper. The reaper crouched as bullets ricocheted off it, scattering and vaporizing as they hit the perimeter of the ring. Suzuki snapped her fingers, and the Uzi became a long knife.

  “They’re also exceptionally fast.” Suzuki slashed at the reaper, which dodged her knife. “And strong.” Suzuki added as the reaper lunged at her. A curtain of steel appeared between the instructor and the reaper. The reaper drove a fist hard into the metal, creating a round steel bulge just inches from Suzuki’s face as she leaned backward.

  They froze in that position as Suzuki gauged the recruits’ reactions. She relaxed, and the reaper wandered back to the center of the circle. The steel curtain vanished.

  “Reapers kill with one method. We call it icing.”

  Another human form appeared in the ring. He stood as still as a mannequin. The reaper sprung at him and pressed its open palm against the man’s chest. The civilian stumbled back as if he had been shocked, then stiffened and clutched his chest. Finally, he fell over in a fetal position.

  “Reapers blast-freeze your organs. They stop your heart and freeze the blood in your veins, just long enough to kill you. This method is silent and leaves no marks. Completely untraceable. It appears that the person has died of a heart attack or an aneurism. When fighting reapers, you must, by any means necessary, keep their hands away from your chest and throat.”

  Suzuki motioned at the civilian, who stood and walked to the edge of the ring and out, disappearing. The instructor made a wide circle around the reaper, coming to a stop directly in front of it. “And just as they kill in only one way, there is only one way to destroy them.” She took her rune blade from her hip. The hilt was marked with the charcoal-gray circle of the Expathic.

  Suzuki twisted the handle. The blade sprung from the hilt. The very tip of the blade was an intense silvery-gray flame, short but powerful like a blowtorch. “The hilt acts as the striker, igniting what we call the blaze. The elements inside any Hadley blade create a blaze powerful enough to destroy a reaper’s ice exoskeleton. But the blaze must strike the reaper at its weakest spot—between the rib cage. We call this area the bull’s-eye.”

  Suzuki held her blade level and pressed it to the center of the reaper’s chest. The reaper vaporized in a burst of violet dust.

  “They disappear when blazed. That’s another way they have managed to remain undetected for centuries.” Suzuki held her blade straight up and nodded at the flame. “The blaze lasts just two minutes. When it expires . . .” The gray blaze flickered out. “You must re-strike the tip to light it again. Think of it as cocking a rifle. It is the same principle for training blades as well as for rune blades. You will learn to do it quickly in the heat of the battle.” Suzuki twisted her wrist. The blade retracted in a split second and sprung back out, the blaze once again lit.

  Instructor Suzuki checked her band. “That’s all for today. You are dismissed, recruits.” She blinked out the light of the manifestation ring.

  Voss stood and pointed at the ring. “You see that reaper? She couldn’t bring that thing down with an Uzi. You got something up your sleeve, Sky Boy? Because I ain’t going back without my memories, bro.”

  “It’s not Jack’s fault, Voss,” Asha interrupted. “What did you want him to do?”

  “Tell them he’s not some mythical guardian!” Voss said, throwing his hands up.

  “I did tell them that!” Jack interjected.

  “How did you tell them? Because one minute I’m out there, going about my day, and the next minute . . .”

  But Jack wasn’t listening anymore. He was staring past Voss, at a girl walking toward the door. Freddy followed his gaze to the recruits across the room.

  “Whoa,” Freddy breathed. “Is that who I think it is?”

  Voss looked behind him. “Who?”

  But Jack had already pushed past them. He followed the girl across the Hexagon. He stayed a couple steps back until he saw her face—the pale skin, the subtle freckles across her nose and cheeks. “Claire?”

  Claire Lacoste was walking in a tight group with her team.

  Jack hurried up to her. “Hey, Claire, it’s me.”

  Before he reached her, he bumped up against a wall of air. It was
like Claire had some kind of force field around her. Jack pushed, but he couldn’t move through it.

  Claire didn’t slow her pace. But one of her teammates did. He blocked Jack’s path.

  “You need something?”

  “I’m trying to talk to Claire. She’s my friend.”

  “Your friend?”

  “Yeah, our friend.” Freddy pushed his way into the kid’s face, despite the boy being about Voss’s size.

  “She doesn’t want to talk,” the boy said.

  “How would you know?” asked Freddy.

  “Because you couldn’t get near her.” The boy checked over his shoulder. “That girl is the second-ranked recruit in Hadley. Her spade name is Static. That negatively charged ion field you bumped into? That’s because she wanted you away from her. She lets her team near her, that’s it. We’re Team One. If she wanted to talk to you, she would have let you in.”

  “Static?” Freddy asked. “Like static electricity? How does that—?” Freddy cut off, suddenly wincing and holding his head. He turned away from the boy, who was shooting an intense look at him.

  “Hey! Are you doing that to him?” Asha barked. “Quit it!” She shoved the boy in the chest.

  “Miles Watt!” Instructor Suzuki stormed over. Miles looked up. Freddy gasped for breath but seemed to be free of pain.

  Miles Watt. That was the recruit who had caused such concern at the Naming Ceremony. The one Darius and Blue had been worried about. The first in several years to . . . what? They hadn’t said.

  “Don’t you ever attack a recruit. Do you understand?” Suzuki’s face flashed with anger, and she clutched her blade.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Miles answered, lowering his gaze. “I apologize, Instructor Suzuki.”

  Suzuki stared at her hand on her blade for a second, then quickly let it go. “Now out, all of you.” The recruits that had paused to watch the confrontation filed quickly out of the room.

  “She doesn’t want to talk,” Miles said again. “Plus, I heard you guys are washing out in three days.” Miles leaned forward to whisper to Jack and Freddy. “Either of you try to distract my teammate again and I’ll end you.” He turned and followed Claire and the rest of Team One down the hallway to the library entrance.