by A. A LEVINE
I’ve been at The Institute all my life. There is no back-up plan. I don’t know who I’d be away from The Institute. Jackass John is right though. Tomorrow is the day that can change the trajectory of the rest of my life. Either way the results go, I need to be ready.
We gather outside the training hall immediately after lunch to wait for our results. I think we’ve all obsessed and worried for the last six hours about how things would turn out. Those of us on thin ice barely got any sleep and a few of us have already packed their bags in anticipation of being sent away. I’m one of them.
“Okay, okay, okay. Quiet down. While you were off sleeping like you always do, the TO’s were up all night tallying scores and deciding whether or not you stay to train another day. I won’t lie. Some of you really surprised us.” The supportive cheer is cut short when Alex snaps, “Meaning we were disappointed in how poorly you performed because we believed you were the best. I guess it just goes to show, not to count yourselves in, or out, too soon.”
Xander steps forward next. “Something you don’t know about the scoring process is that we have some leeway regarding who stays and who doesn’t. It’s called an instructors challenge. We can fight it out literally or figuratively for the recruit who we believe shows the most promise. We understand that sometimes you may struggle in one area, but with time you can improve and become an asset to Orion.” I can see some faces brighten. He’s saying the instructor’s pet can be safe from expulsion.
Alex speaks again. “The challenge, like everything else, can be used against you. We can take the best recruit and bounce them because although they have the fundamentals like strength, and endurance that we expect from an intern, they may also have some undesirable traits like impulsiveness, carelessness, easily swayed by suggestion and an inability to take direction.”
An instructor with a Mohawk speaks up. “And sociopathic behaviors.”
John nods. “Yes, thank you. That’s a biggie. Most of those people are weeded out with the initial psych evaluations but sometimes a few slip through.” He turns back to us. “We gave you a series of tests yesterday. Each one more physically taxing than the last.”
I think back to the day’s events. Up at five. Endless running. The river. The fighting. The math, and science test. The essay writing. Then the darkened room where we were told to stay awake no matter what. It seemed like each test got easier, but if the body is tired, the mind starts to tire too. It’s why science says our minds are the sharpest first thing in the morning.
“The final tallies are in. They’re based on your individual ranks before endurance trials and yesterday’s events. Spoiler alert, from the moment we paired you up, until the academic tests, everything was graded as a team event.”
“Even the fighting, when it was a singles match?” Someone asks.
“That’s right. Even then and including the run times. We assigned the team the lowest of the scores received. So if your partner received a three on sparring and you earned a ten, then three is your number.”
I bet football jock is mentally assassinating my character at this very moment. I don’t need to look at my scores to know I brought down his average. The instructors step away from the board and the students press forward to see the results. Some people yelp in excitement, others groan, and still others break down in tears. I wait in the back until finally there’s enough room for me to get closer. Two hundred and seventy recruits and at the end of phase one ten percent are going home. I see my name below the red line and even though I expected it; it feels like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. I feel a few commiserate pats on my back as I make my way back to the door fighting back tears.
John’s standing in the middle of the floor blocking my way. “Excuse me.” I say, silently adding the asshole, to my statement as I step around him. I’m almost to the door when he yells out. “Oh, one thing, I almost forgot.” I thought I’d be able to leave without having to hear him comment, but I guess he needed a bigger audience to humiliate me. Cool. I stiffen my spine and set my lips ready to hear his sadistic quip. He’s been waiting for this day from the moment I got trapped in the sliding doors. But if I hope he’s prepared, because when he’s done, I have a few things to get off my chest. “Bonus points to team turtle for being the first team to figure out the river test.” I turn to slowly. Is this a joke? He waits until I lift my head to meet his eyes. “Ever.”
Over his shoulder, I see the bright red numbers flicker and my name moves above the red line. At the end of phase one, I’m number two hundred and forty-three.
Xander
Today we’ve made a special allowance for the recruits to call their families. The ones that didn’t make the cutoff are calling to tell them that they are being reassigned to another program. Those that are staying are calling to share their good news. I watch Holli talking to her friends as she waits her turn to use the phone. During deliberations, I was expecting to resume my fight with John about why she should be allowed to stay. But her score on the river test and her grades were enough on their own to buy her a little more time. The brain scan didn’t reveal anything alarming. The analyst determined her brainwaves didn’t register a spike because she’s always in a state of complex mental activity. Basically, she doesn’t know how to turn her brain off and relax. It coincides with other scans she’s had, so we were told there’s no cause for concern. John still didn’t mention what he saw during his trip in her head, so it must not have been anything he could use against her.
I watch her long fingers punch a number on the keypad and speak into the receiver. We allow one call per recruit and they all hope they reach someone on the other line. Her call ends before the allotted ten minutes is up.
She exits the makeshift phone booth and slips out the front door of the recreation building. I catch up to her on the sidewalk that leads to the library and fall into step beside her. She gives me a small smile before returning her gaze to the path in front of us. “Were you able to share the news?”
She nods but her body language lacks the excitement I’m used to seeing when endurance trials are over. “My brother Aiden is staying on at his internship too, so my dad is kid free for another month at least.”
Is that how her parents view this opportunity? As a way to ditch their kids?
Chapter Ten
Phase II
Xander
I’m siting cross-legged a few feet away from the ring watching John and Holli go through today’s sparring exercise. It was the event she scored the lowest in at endurance trials. He’s accused me of being too soft when it comes to fighting the females in our groups and insisted on walking her through this fight sequence one punch and kick at a time.
I ignored the soft comment and agreed he should run this lesson because John’s a telepath and he’s the best person to teach any telepath how to fight with their gift. That’s what today’s lesson is all about. Countering the moves you see and don’t see. A strong telepath can clear their mind and prevent others from being able to read it, which makes them unpredictable. John never lets anyone in so it’s always fun watching the recruits try to figure out what he’s thinking.
“No!” John stops his attack and steps behind Holli to reposition her feet. “You need to anticipate where I’m going next. Read my body language. All of it. My eyes. My hands. Do my feet face in or out? Do I pivot or redistribute my weight before I attack? You need to be on the offensive for as long as possible and then strike so forcefully and unexpectedly that your opponent won’t know what hit them. Crowd them. Never give them enough time or space to run away.” He stands in front of her and raises his guard. “Go again.”
The other recruits are whispering among themselves and I can tell she’s distracted by the noise. They should be listeningand watching not running their mouths, but there’s no scenario when everything will be quiet so we’re not censoring them during today’s lesson. The recruits need to learn to ignore the noise. As a telepath Holli has to learn to ignore everythin
g.
John lands a punch and a kick to her ribs. She’s getting stronger and her coordination is better than it was last week. We’ve been spending a lot of time together in the gym. Her running trying to increase her speed and endurance. Me lifting weights, or sparring with one of the other trainers or recruits, and sometimes when I don’t have anything else to do I’ll stand off to the side and watch run. I offer advice on how to get better when I can. But it’s up to her to apply what she learns, and she’s been doing that.
“Where am I going to be next turtle? Most people think it a split second before they do it. It’s so fast it seems like no decision is being made at all. But it is. Find that thought.” They reset. “Ready? Again.” A few more punches and kicks and she’s still backing up away from his attacks. “This is the easiest lesson. You should be able to do this without trying. If you can’t control your power, you’re a danger to everyone.”
She closes her eyes the way she has each round for the last five minutes. John walks around the ring slowly thinking of how he’ll attack. He never uses the same opening move, and what he meticulously plans is seldom what he does, which is why this is hard on all of them. Even the others that are watching and taking mental notes won’t do any better than Holli when it’s their turn in the ring. John’s just that good.
He strikes and I watch as she sidesteps his low kick, ducks his right jab and steps out of range of his cross. As he shifts his body to throw a hook, she steps forward and lands a jab cross combination of her own. John’s second kick lands square in the ribs the same place as before. She rolls with the blow and swings her arm a little too widely. He grabs it blocking her attack and knees her in the gut. I’m impressed when she quickly counters with an elbow to the face that draws blood and while John’s monetarily dazed, she lands a jab to the side of his head. He spins her quickly and pulls her arm behind her pushing her to her knees. “How you gonna get out of this one turtle?”
The sparring session just turned serious. If he applies the slightest bit of pressure, he’ll dislocate her shoulder. We train hard but we’re not here to maim the recruits. “Time.” I yell as a warning to back off.
“It’s time when I say it’s time. In the real world, nobody’s quitting when it gets a little hard.”
The pain registers on her face. Holli turns her body slightly into the contortion and I think I can hear the ligaments popping. “I can hold this position all day, but, your arm won’t last that long.” He leans forward and says in a tone that’s devoid of emotion. “Let’s count how long it will take to do some serious damage, shall we?” Things go silent in the gym and the only voice is his as he starts to count. “One, Mississippi. Two Mississippi.”
The rumbling on the other side of the room draws my attention away from the scene in front of me. I stand to search for the source of the noise. I’m startled by the thud that lands at my feet and watch as the medicine balls roll off their shelves one by one. With each count John calls out, another medicine ball liberates itself from its holding area with more urgency than the last. At first they roll, then they bounce, and when John reaches the count of six, they’re airborne flying across the room towards the ring.
He’s so caught up in his power trip he doesn’t see them. The other recruits are still silent, watching the action in the ring and the medicine balls whirling around the room. I reach out my hand to stop them before they reach their intended target, but miss one. It whizzes around in a circle and stops inches from John’s face. The shock of the near collision forces him to release his hold on Holli’s arm. He glances over at me and I return the makeshift weapons to their original location while he ends the training event. When I join him by the ring, he snatches his water bottle off the floor, and takes a measured sip. “Protecting your girlfriend by knocking me out?”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Yeah right. Who else would have the balls to do it? Pun intended.”
“I’m serious John. There were six medicine balls heading your way. But I wasn’t the one controlling them. I was trying to stop them.”
“Yeah well buddy, you missed one. Maybe you’re getting rusty and should think about lifting weights with more than your hands.” As he’s talking, he’s looking around the room.
“Picking up on anything?”
He shakes his head no. “Maybe it was someone walking by who was trying to be funny?”
“Maybe.” I agree. “You have a habit of alienating the recruits. It could have been someone from one of the other classes. They could’ve seen it as a chance at payback since you were so distracted.”
“I wasn’t distracted. I was proving a point.”
“Which is what?”
“Which is the same thing I’ve been saying all along. This isn’t a place for the weak and we don’t do Holli or anyone else any good, if we take it easy on them, or stop because their boyfriend calls time.”
“You can stop with the boyfriend shit. There’s nothing going on between us.”
He tips his chin toward the wall behind us. “Does she know that?”
He slips out the back exit leaving me with that question rolling around in my head. I move to the other side of the room watching Holli stretch and rub her sore arm. “Make sure you put some ice on that.” I extend my hand to help her off the ground and suppress a smile at the way her cheeks pink up when our hands touch.
Relationships between recruits and training officers aren’t exactly encouraged. When it happens, one of them usually gets reassigned to a different team so that there’s less chance favoritism will influence the rankings. This is why John keeps pushing at me. As hard as he fights to boot Holli from the program, is as hard as I fight for her to stay, and it has nothing to do with my growing attachment to her. I don’t know why, but I have this feeling she’ll be a great agent. I want her to have that chance.
“Are your folks coming next weekend?” It’s our second family day.
The campus is abuzz with people talking about seeing their family but Holland has been quiet on the matter.
“Maybe Aiden, if he can get away.”
She always talks about her brother and father. The mother, well, I’m not sure she’s even in the picture. “What about your mom?”
She looks uncomfortable at the mention of her other parent. “My mother travels a lot on business and uh, I haven’t talked to her since I’ve been here, at Orion. But I’m sure if she could, she’d be here too.”
“What does she do for work?”
She looks around as if making sure nobody else is listening. “Research. For The Institute.”
Chapter Eleven
Holli
Turtle, you’re with Shane’s group.
Those four words take what little optimism I had about today being a good day, and body slams it into the mat of dread the way Shane will most assuredly body slam me. The scowl on his face is enough to let me know that he’s not happy with the team up either. He’s probably thinking about how my performance is going to bring down the team’s average.
“Today’s routine will be a little different. All of you are scheduled for your midterm medical screenings on Wednesday and we know that takes all day. We’ve also been informed you have important tests or projects that are due at the end of the week, so we can’t keep you up late and impact your sleep or study time because your education is important.”
Maybe this will be quick and painless, for me, after all.
“Before you get too excited, this doesn’t mean your training time with us is cancelled. But it does mean that we have to cram a lot into a small amount of time. So for the next two days you’ve all been excused from class and we’re going on a camping trip.”
Alex rubs her hands together excitedly. “We’ve broken you up into four teams and the event is capture the flag. Last night while you were engaging in your favorite pass time, sleeping, some of our helpers went out and planted the team flags somewhere around the Orion Compound. You may notice there are some senior recrui
ts joining us today. That’s because they have agreed to help us make this event more challenging. A few of them are already standing guard over the flags. Your jobs are to find them and as the name says. Capture the flag. Only your goal is to capture all the flags you can find. Hint, hint, there are more than just the four-team flags out there worth points ranging from one to one hundred. The team with the most points wins.”
Xander gives the closing remarks. “We’ve set up rooms for each team to serve as a base of operations. You’ve got thirty minutes to set up an organizational structure, study the landscape, and come up with a rudimentary plan of attack. Go.”
I think there’s something wrong with the suppression chips. Their whole purpose is to make sure that Breakers can’t use their abilities without permission. It’s a protective measure so that we don’t let our emotions get the better of us and wind hurting each other or non-powered people. I still struggle with signaling them out as normal, humans, or sapes (homo-sapiens), as if they’re a different species than us.
Some breakers do in fact see themselves as a superior race, but I don’t. I don’t see us any differently than I would see someone who has green eyes, or a different ethnicity. We’re all different but part of the same world. And even though I feel that way, I believe the S-chips are important because they keep us from being overwhelmed with our gifts.
Like right now, I’m hearing everyone’s thoughts all at once and it’s overloading my senses. I feel like I’m tripping on an illicit drug and the more I try to block them out, the more the thoughts come rushing in. My breathing is labored and my head is starting to hurt. Why is this happening? I look around at my teammates, and why isn’t the breakdown in the hardware affecting them the way it’s affecting me? I guess it’s just one more thing they can do better than I can. Act like nothings wrong.