The Hadley Academy for the Improbably Gifted

by Conor Grennan

  In just a couple of minutes, the tablet dinged and turned from red to a clear blue. Jack expected to see a screen pop up before them. But he had underestimated the technology in the Superior’s office.

  Suddenly, Team Thirteen was sitting in a white room with every Hadley instructor sitting in chairs in front of them. For a sickening moment, Jack thought they had just connected into a council meeting as Superior Blue. But no—Superior Blue was one of the seated people. This was some kind of immersive hologram, like the one used by the Dome.

  “What is this?” Asha asked, puzzled.

  “It looks like a program,” Freddy said in wonder. “The Dome records everything through people’s bands. It must record conversations too.”

  Jack leaned forward, remembering that the terminal would think he was Superior Blue. “Computer, replay a conversation I had with Darius about the dead zone.”

  In the immersive hologram, Darius and Blue stood up from their chairs, but they didn’t speak. A synthesized female voice said, “Please narrow your search.”

  Jack altered the command. “Play the conversation we had about the dead zone when it appeared in the shadow map.”

  “To which dead zone are you referring, Superior Blue?” asked the voice. “The first or the second?”

  Voss looked at the others. “There was a second one? Superior Blue said there was only one, six months ago, when the Bulgarian killed the civilian.”

  “Maybe the other one was classified,” Freddy said, excited. “When did the second dead zone happen?” he asked the program.

  “Ten days ago,” the voice responded.

  “Play the conversation about the second dead zone,” Freddy instructed.

  “Filtering by most relevant,” the voice said. “Conversation between Director Darius and Superior Blue, taking place three days ago. Playing now.”

  Darius and Blue faced each other, as if they were having an actual conversation. It was eerie.

  “You cannot deny what is happening, Iliana,” Superior Blue said, walking after her. “It’s happened again, and it’s exactly as the Bulgarian described. Exactly. A dead zone and a darkened in the precise area.”

  “This event is not proof that Wyeth is alive, let alone that he darkened a civilian, William.”

  “The girl is an improbable!” Blue shot back. “The event is too similar to the Bulgarian’s encounter for it to be a coincidence.”

  “None of this can be verified because the girl won’t talk.” Darius argued. “We cannot rely on a police report based on what an old woman witnessed out her window.”

  “Pause!” Freddy shouted, and Blue and Darius froze in the hologram. “They’re talking about Claire!” Freddy bounced on the balls of his feet. “Ten days ago was the day Jack was supposed to meet Claire at the diner. I knew something happened to her.”

  Jack felt sick again. He had felt bad enough about not meeting Claire that night. But this was horrific.

  “We’re running out of time,” Voss reminded them.

  “Play,” Asha commanded the program.

  “She has to speak to somebody,” Superior Blue said. “She’s the only witness. She’s the only one who can prove that Wyeth is back.”

  Darius cut him off. “Or prove that this is all a fantasy. She could prove that these dead zones have nothing to do with Wyeth,” she said passionately. “I don’t doubt the girl was traumatized that night. But that is not evidence. You must stop pushing this irresponsible theory that Wyeth is back and turning humankind into a race of darkened. It distracts from Hadley’s true mission!”

  Darius held out her hands to try to calm the situation. “Listen, Rook. I’m taking care of it. You were distracted with the Jack Carlson boy. I was the one dealing with the Naming Ceremony. But now you know what Miles Watt is. We have decided to allow him to stay for this very reason. He will get the answers that she refuses to give. He will clear this up once and for all.”

  “Miles Watt should never have been allowed to remain. The boy is not an improbable; he is a Psionic, Darius,” Blue said angrily. “He has one of the ancient shadow spades. We should have given him a deep mind-scrape immediately and sent him to the Hadley Asylum with the other ancient spades and the dishonorably discharged.”

  “The Asylum exists to keep dangerous improbables away from the rest of the world. Miles is too valuable. He may be our only hope of finding out what happened to that girl,” Darius countered.

  “He will snap her mind in two,” Blue warned. “I will not sacrifice Claire Lacoste’s life.”

  “Pause,” Jack barked. He was shaking.

  “That explains why Claire isn’t talking,” Asha said softly.

  Voss swiped away the hologram. “I don’t get it. Did Claire kill a man, like the Bulgarian did?” he asked, incredulous. They were back in the Office of the Superior.

  “Not a man—a darkened,” Freddy urged. “At least that’s what Blue thinks. Claire must have witnessed Wyeth darkening a civilian.”

  “And Darius has sent Miles to crack her mind.” Asha fumed. “He’s dangerous!”

  Pure fury rose inside Jack. He stood up. “I’m not going to let him hurt her.”

  Voss looked up, suddenly interested. “What are you going to do, break into the Barracks?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Jack said.

  “I’m coming too,” Freddy said.

  “Me too,” said Asha.

  Voss nodded. “What else can they do to us, right? It’s about time we broke some stuff around here.”

  Asha, Voss, and Freddy threw themselves into rapid strategizing. They would break into the Team One barracks—everyone would be back from Prophecy Hall by now. Everyone would also be awake, so it would have to be a blitzkrieg that could catch Miles, Kasun, and Janelle off guard. Voss and Asha—who had just constructed a makeshift Taser and was weighing it in her hand—would contain the others long enough for Jack and Freddy to get to Claire. The risk was that she would use her spade to keep them at bay. But they had to try. Jack had to talk to her. He had to tell her what Miles was doing.

  “You have very little control over this life,” Jack’s mother had told him. “Make good decisions in the moments you can control.”

  Jack had control over this decision. They were never going to complete a simulation, but they were going to do everything in their power to save Claire.

  They walked down the steps from Superior Blue’s office. By the time anyone noticed they were missing, they would be at the Barracks. Voss stretched his neck. “You all ready for this? It’s gonna be a fight.”

  Asha nodded. Freddy cracked his knuckles, resolute. Voss motioned for Jack to lead them out. “All right, man. Let’s go get your friend.”

  Jack swung open the door. Standing outside was Claire Lacoste.

  “Hello, Jack.” Claire’s voice was weak. She looked over Jack’s shoulder at the rest of the team and offered a small wave. She looked back at Jack nervously. “Maybe . . .” She swallowed and tried again. “We could talk?”

  CHAPTER 16

  THE WITNESS

  Jack and Claire walked away from the Office of the Superior. Freddy asked to come along, but Voss took him in a gentle headlock and dragged him back inside.

  “Miles is trying to break into your mind, Claire.” Jack spoke quickly, afraid that this moment would somehow slip away or that he would be physically repelled by whatever ionic forces she controlled. “He can really harm you—”

  “I know, Jack.”

  Jack stopped. “You do? But then . . . why won’t you talk to anyone?”

  Claire kept walking across the East Clearing. Jack followed her to the striking steel tree that Boris Kleptov had created. She reached up to brush her fingers along the still leaves of a low-hanging branch. “I couldn’t relive what I saw that night,” she finally answered. “Not to Director Darius, not to Dr. Horn, not to anyone. By their urgency I could tell they needed to know, immediately. But”—her gaze fell to the ground—“I
couldn’t. I don’t know how to explain, exactly.”

  “You experienced something unspeakable,” Jack said. Claire looked up quickly. “Voss hacked into Superior Blue’s records,” Jack explained. “I know some of what happened to you that night.”

  Claire’s shoulders softened a little, as if Jack’s knowledge helped somehow. Then she turned and placed her palm on the smooth trunk of the steel tree. “Think of this tree as a brain, Jack,” she told him. “I can control static electricity, and there’s a lot of electricity running through a brain.” The entire tree buzzed with a billion tiny blue sparks, lighting up every centimeter. Jack stepped away from the tree, unable to take his eyes off the exploding beauty around him.

  “I created a synaptic fence around my memories of that night,” Claire said. “I buried the memories deep.” The current shifted to the outer branches and leaves, leaving a small dark space in the middle of the tree. “I wasn’t sure I could access them myself, even if I wanted to.”

  “But you’re talking now.”

  She dropped her hands, and the tree went dark again. “When your door didn’t open back at the Dome, I knew you were washing out. I was afraid you’d try to come talk to me again. That changed everything.” She looked at him seriously. “Miles would have killed you if you had come. I mean literally. He’s different, Jack. He’s not like everyone else here.”

  “They call him a Psionic. It’s apparently a different kind of spade. Blue called it a shadow spade,” Jack told her. “I don’t know anything else about it.”

  Claire nodded. She seemed tired.

  Jack summoned the courage to say what he needed to. “I’m really, really sorry, Claire. I never meant to leave you alone that night. I had a blackout. I’m just . . . I’m sorry.”

  “I forgive you, Jack,” she said. “I believe that you didn’t mean to. And yes, it was a horrible, horrible night.” She looked at him. “I want to tell you. But you’ll think I’m crazy.”

  Jack indicated the world around them. “I have a much higher bar for crazy these days.”

  Claire gave a weak smile that quickly faded. “Can we walk?”

  They took one of the small beaten trails through the forest, crossing over cobblestone paths until they reached the river, where they turned upstream. The slow-moving water lapped against the rocks.

  “I was angry when I left the diner,” she began. “I thought you stood me up. I was walking home.” She paused.

  “There was a man at the corner, across the street from me, leaning against a brick wall. He was big and had on a red coat with a fur-lined hood. He seemed drunk.” Claire stood still for a moment, as if the memory of the night had arrested her movement. Jack waited.

  “I pass guys like that all the time in the city. I wouldn’t have given him another thought, except for what happened next. Another man came up the street, same side as the drunk guy. He was walking from the direction of the diner, and for a second I thought it might be you.”

  Her expression hardened. “But it wasn’t you. He was dressed in black clothes and he was hard to see. He stayed in the shadows, away from every light.”

  Claire swallowed hard. “The man in black walked straight up to the drunk guy in the red coat. He put his hand on the man’s shoulder. Then everything went dark: streetlights, lights in windows, everything,” Claire said. “The man in the red coat wasn’t leaning against the wall anymore. He was standing straight up, shaking, practically vibrating. It was as if he’d been electrocuted.”

  Claire squatted down and picked up a rock, then skimmed it into the river, staring out at it, as if summoning the strength to divulge the entire story. “Then he came at me,” she said softly. “The drunk guy—but he wasn’t drunk anymore. He ran at me like a charging rhinoceros, like he was going to kill me with his bare hands. I screamed and dropped to the ground.”

  “But . . . he didn’t? What happened?” Jack stuttered.

  “I looked up just in time to see it,” she said, her voice edged with effort. “The other man—the man in black—grabbed the man in the red coat from behind in a bear hug, ripping open his coat and shirt and pressing something like a butane lighter to the man’s chest. The man screamed, and I heard ice shattering. Then the guy just . . . vaporized. Gone. The man in black turned and walked away.”

  “You’re saying . . . ?” Jack started.

  “The man in black turned that guy into something. Something like a reaper.” Claire stood up straight and faced Jack for the first time. “The man in black was Wyeth, Jack.” Claire’s tone pleaded to be believed. “Wyeth touched that drunk guy, and he turned him into something awful, something that wanted to kill me. Then Wyeth destroyed it, before it could harm me.”

  Claire continued upstream. Jack followed her. “Have you ever seen someone right after they die, Jack?”

  He shook his head.

  “I have,” Claire said. “Just once. I was in the hospital room when Nana passed. When she died, this complete stillness came over her body. I knew my grandmother’s face as well as I knew my own parents—I spent every weekend with her. I knew the instant she passed away. I could see the peace settle over her. It might sound weird, but I knew just by looking at her that her soul was gone, that it had been freed from the physical world. It actually gave me peace.”

  Claire turned to face Jack. “The thing that attacked me was dead, but it wasn’t empty. It was filled with rage. Its eyes were pitch black. It was like its soul was being tortured, trapped in a prison. But when it was destroyed, in that split second before it vaporized, its eyes went back to normal and it let out this sigh. It was like its soul had been . . . freed.”

  She winced. “Trust me, I know how that sounds. But I didn’t imagine it. I think Wyeth has found a way to trap people’s souls inside their bodies after he kills them.”

  “I believe you,” Jack said. “But—”

  “Don’t say but,” Claire interrupted. “It makes me feel like I’m going insane.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. And I believe you. I’m just thinking, if Wyeth is alive, he’s found a way to somehow hide his identity from himself. That’s why the Bulgarian’s Signature Algorithm hasn’t been able to track him except for tiny pings, like when he emerged in the first dead zone,” Jack said. “So why did he come out now? Why come after you?”

  “The question that scares me isn’t why he decided to kill me, Jack,” she said. “It’s why he decided to save me.”

  They walked until they reached the next bridge over the river, at the edge of the woods. Upriver Jack could see the rocky bluffs with the odd assortment of instructor housing. The path to the east forked in several directions. One path would lead back to Claire’s barracks. Another would take Jack back to the Office of the Superior, back to his team. Jack didn’t want the night to end.

  “How long do you have left?” she asked him.

  Jack checked his band. “Five hours until the procedure. It takes some time to arrange the integration back into our old lives. I’m still not sure where everyone’s going to end up. I guess I’ll be back at St. Paul’s tomorrow, not remembering any of this.”

  “And there’s no alternative? You can’t stay?”

  “I don’t even have a spade. The others on my team, they weren’t selected by the Dome,” he said. “Superior Blue was right about Wyeth being alive, but he was wrong about everything else. We don’t serve any purpose. It’s up to the operatives now. And up to you, I guess.”

  Claire looked up at the stars above this small island that nobody knew existed. “I don’t understand this place,” she said. “But I didn’t understand the dormant world either.” She seemed like she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t. “I’m going to go now.”

  He wanted her to stay. But he wouldn’t ask her. “Be safe, Claire,” he said. “Keep breathing, okay?”

  She smiled at the expression they said to each other during every long run, when one of them was almost gassed. It was the thing that kept them go
ing, together, always.

  “Keep breathing, Jack.” She walked off into the night along the edge of the Long Woods, back toward the Barracks.

  Jack watched her until she was out of sight. Then he turned to head back to the Office of the Superior. He wanted to be with his team until the end.

  A voice from the woods made him jump. “Well done, Jack.”

  Superior Blue walked out. He put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. He looked behind him. “Are you convinced now, Iliana?”

  Director Darius walked from the trees with her hands locked behind her back, staring at the ground in thought. “You were right, William. The boy was able to get her to talk. What Claire described can only have been Wyeth’s doing. He must have discovered a new weapon or gained some kind of new power. He is turning humans into something like reapers.”

  “It’s even more sinister than that, Darius,” Blue told her. “Wyeth has found a way to trap his victim’s soul inside a reaper-like exoskeleton. That is the source of their rage and their black eyes. The Bulgarian called them ‘the darkened’ for this reason.” Blue turned to look in the direction Claire had gone.

  “But how is he doing this?” Darius asked. “It must be some kind of virus. But who could create a virus that powerful?” Director Darius suddenly glanced at Jack, as if she’d forgotten he was there. “Well done, Jack Carlson. I admit that Superior Blue’s faith in you was well placed.” She turned to Superior Blue. “You knew that only her closest friend could get her to talk.”

  “I ran thousands of iterations, Darius. Miles Watt may have eventually gotten the information out of her, but not without destroying her mind. The only person who had a chance of getting her to reveal what happened to her that night was her best friend, Jack. She trusted him more than anyone.”

  “And this whole nonsense about the Order of the Grays and the Guardian?” Darius asked.

  Superior Blue held up his hands. “I confess it was dramatic. But I had no plausible reason to bring in a dormant like Jack Carlson. So I created the fiction that I believed he was the Guardian, and I convinced you to indulge me.”