by Sophie Davis
Parents of non-Talented children weren’t the only adults calling for segregation of the Talented. Five years after the school’s inception, Congress passed the Mandatory Talent Testing Act. This law required that at the age of five, every child be tested for special abilities. Any child testing positive was brought to the School. As the first generation of these School-trained children turned eighteen and graduated, it became clear that all of the training and Talent development was going to waste, and TOXIC was born.
The Talented Organization of Exceptionally Interesting Citizens is an agency within the government that utilizes each child’s unique ability in the most advantageous way. Divisions within the Toxic Agency were created around the most prevalent talents.
The Hunters are aptly named, because their main duty is to hunt both people and information. Morphing, Light Manipulation and Telekinesis are the most common gifts among Hunters. If another division perceives a threat, a Hunting team is dispatched to neutralize it. When another division tumbles across valuable information, a Hunting team goes to retrieve it. Hunters have effectively replaced, what used to be the government’s more clandestine divisions – spies.
Toxic’s Crypto Division was created for Higher Reasoning Talents (Brains). The Brains spend all their time in front of computer screens, sifting through streams of encrypted communications, quickly decrypting the streams, and analyzing any hidden messages in their heads. They monitor every text, voice or holographic communication throughout the entire United States, and many abroad. Essentially, Brains are the eyes and ears of the Agency; they are the first line of defense against all threats, both foreign and domestic.
Toxic’s Tracking Division is staffed by Viewers – Talents able to remotely observe events taking place anywhere in the world. The more powerful Viewers are better able to control the Talent; given a picture or a piece of clothing, they are able to focus their energy, locate the individual, and give an accurate description of the surroundings. Unfortunately, strong Viewers are rare these days. The one or two Talents that test positive for viewing every year are usually too weak to be very effective trackers. At best, they are able to track an individual they are physically close with or related to by blood.
The Planning Division is home to the Visionaries, or Talents that see the future. The difficult with Visionaries is that most cannot control the timing of their visions. The average strength Visionary only has a vision every couple weeks, and it occurs at random. Most are unable to control the target of the vision as well. The strongest, or Elite level, Visionaries are able to concentrate on one person and see flashes of their future on command. The insight of Visionaries often prevents attacks on our country.
The Interrogation Division is manned by Talents with varying degrees of Telepathy and Mind Manipulation capabilities. Telepaths and Mind Manipulators use their abilities to question any individual thought to be a threat to the country’s safety. Telepaths can easily tell if a person is lying, and manipulators can compel him to tell the truth. The Agency even lends out weaker telepaths and manipulators to local governments to interrogate criminal suspects. Mental Talents have led to swift justice and an expedited legal system. Many years ago the Supreme Court ruled there was no need for a trial in cases where the prosecution has a documented Telepath or Mind Manipulator interrogate the suspect.
There are also divisions within the agency that are not gift-specific. The Research and Development and Medical sectors are staffed by any Talent exhibiting a high enough academic aptitude in one of the sciences, biology, chemistry, or physics. Those demonstrating extraordinary physical strengths, that aren’t accepted into the Hunters, or don’t want to be, join Toxic’s Military division or Guard Toxic’s various facilities such as, weapons plants, prisons, and the McDonough School. Some Talents stay on at the McDonough School and help the newbies develop their own abilities. Finally, there are the low-level Talents, some of whom end up in one of the agency’s manufacturing plants, assembling anything from weapons to office chairs. The really unfortunate low-level Talents become secretaries, cooks, or cleaning technicians.
After the death of my family, I came to live, and attend McDonough. My decision to Pledge the Hunters had brought me to my current home, the Hunters’ Village, at Elite Headquarters, located approximately one hundred miles west of the Nation’s capital in scenic Brentwood Springs, West Virginia. If all went according to plan, I would officially graduate in one year, become a Hunter, and find the man responsible for the deaths of my parents. But for now I would settle for learning to live with my new teammates, without killing Erik or dying of embarrassment on account of his constant teasing.
Chapter Five
I wasn’t hungry, but I accepted Henri’s invitation to have lunch with him before our afternoon practice anyway. Henri was twenty-two and already a full-fledged Hunter after following the usual Toxic protocol. He had started at the McDonough School, leaving his home in Somerset, Pennsylvania, when he was just five. At seventeen he’d Pledged the Hunters and come to live at Elite Headquarters. At eighteen, after successfully completing his Pledge year, he’d officially graduated and become a member of Toxic’s most coveted division.
Henri and I chatted comfortably through lunch. In the two weeks since my arrival we’d rarely spent any time alone, just the two of us. Normally during meals he lectured me about the nuances of life in the Hunters. But today he told me a little bit about his family back home in Pennsylvania. His parents, neither of who are Talents themselves had been shocked, yet pleased to learn that he was a poly-morph. His much younger sister, Melony, was twelve and also a Talent – a Light Manipulator. He visited her at the School as often as he could get away since neither went home very often.
Most people didn’t know about my past, so I let him do most of the talking. At School I had kept a low profile, not really displaying my full powers. Telepathy was not uncommon but advanced Mind Manipulation, like I was capable of, was extremely rare. Here, at Headquarters with Henri and Erik, they knew exactly what I was capable of; if it unnerved them, they didn’t let it show. Henri had even said that he’d requested me specifically because he’d heard rumors of my abilities.
After lunch we met up with Erik at our designated practice area, Area Thirteen. Today, like every day since I’d been assigned to Henri’s team, we worked on three-way mental communication. This skill was the entire reason Henri wanted me as part of his team. I was able to mentally communicate with each of them individually, but he’d thought I might be able to figure out a way for all three of us to hear each other at the same time.
Ordinarily I would’ve said three-way communication was not possible, but in this case I wasn’t the only one in our group with an unusual Talent for a Hunter. Erik is what Toxic calls a Mimic, meaning that he can mimic the abilities of any other Talent he is physically close enough to. When all three of us are together, Erik is able to mimic my mental abilities, and Henri’s morphing Talents at the same time. This allows me to communicate mentally with both Erik and Henri, and for Erik to communicate with both me and Henri mentally. The final step, the one we’d worked on every day for the past two weeks, was to establish the three-way link. So far, we weren’t having a lot of luck. Henri was becoming frustrated with my lack of progress and Erik’s constant threesome jokes, but he was doing a good job of hiding it on the surface. He was too polite to complain out loud, and too professional to let his disappointment show. Still, I could feel his patience waning with each passing day.
In addition to the mental training, we also trained physically. I typically spent my afternoons at the firing range, practicing with both firearms and a bow and arrow, or learning to control throwing knives. Once a week Erik also taught me how to fence; I wasn’t very good, a fact made more apparent by Erik’s amazing skill, but Henri insisted that it was important for me to train with every weapon available.
After our training that afternoon we went back to the cabin to shower and change.
“You gracing u
s with your presence at dinner?” Erik asked as I sat on my bed, drying my hair after my shower.
“Not tonight,” I replied, off handedly.
“We’re way better company then the Director’s son.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I scowled. I was used to the way that others acted towards Donavon. He wasn’t only the son of the Director of the Agency, but also shares a last name with the founder of the school. Margaret Ann McDonough was his great-great-great-great-great grandmother, give or take a couple of greats.
“Oh Talia, come on now, I don’t need to tell myself that there are plenty of girls who tell me all the time,” he winked at me.
“Erik,” Henri warned, giving him a pointed look.
“What? You know it’s true. The only reason people want to hang out with him is because he’s the Director’s son, and they think that’ll somehow get them favors. Probably the only reason he got into the Hunters; he’s not even that good.”
“Erik. Stop,” Henri said through clenched teeth.
“Is that how you feel about me too? Is that why you wanted me as part of your team?” I rounded on him. I was seething. I might be used to the way that people talked about Donavon, but that didn’t mean I liked it. It wasn’t his fault that he was born Mac’s son.
“What?” To his credit, he seemed slightly taken aback, like he really didn’t know what I was talking about. My anger lessened slightly.
“Mac raised me. I lived with his family up until I came here,” I said evenly. “Do you think that I get special treatment? Do you think I only got here because of Mac? That he called in special favors to get me in to the Hunters?”
“Oh, shit. Talia, I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” he apologized, but Henri was the only one left in the cabin to hear his words.
I was very sensitive, maybe overly so, when it came to my relationship with Mac –what those close to him called him – Director Danbury McDonough. The crappiest part of being able to read minds was knowing what people really think about you. Erik’s view wasn’t the minority opinion; a lot of other students thought I’d only been accepted to Pledge the Hunters because Mac had pulled strings to get me in. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that a lot of Toxic Operatives believed that too. They complained to each other – that if I were anyone else I would be working in some remedial Agency position, like food services or janitorial duty. It had been this way since I went to the McDonough School: the whispering when I walked past, the sneers when I answered a question correctly in class, the outright condemnation by all the girls my age when I started dating Donavon. It usually didn’t bother me much; mostly the accusations just made me work harder, and I didn’t make an effort to correct them.
The truth was that I worked extremely hard to get an invitation to Pledge the Hunters. Mac had begun working with me when I first came to the School. Hunters are typically Morphers because their natural Talents give them extremely heightened senses in addition to the ability to morph into a variety of animals, and in some rare cases other humans. I will never be able to “learn” to morph, since it’s not a learned behavior, but fine-tuning my senses was something that could be taught. So I did. I also took extra combat and weapons lessons every day instead of making friends. When I went to try out for the Hunters, I felt confident my abilities rivaled those of the best of my classmates. Captain Alvarez, the leader of the Hunters, had thought so too; I’d taken the liberty of taking a peek in to his head to make sure.
Chapter Six
After the Mandatory Testing Law took effect, several Rebel factions developed in response; they accumulated a strong following, mostly in the southwestern United States. The Rebels staged a small revolt, but the Agency had quashed it before it had gone too far. In the end, the Coalition of Rebel States: California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, seceded from the rest of the country and elected their own president. Over the years, the Coalition has served as a safe haven for citizens who championed a country where Talents were suppressed, hidden, where being Talented, was something to be ashamed of. One of the primary objectives of Toxic is to prevent the Coalition from gaining any more momentum. In fact, Mac’s main goal as Director was to defeat the Coalition’s leaders and reunite the country.
I was ten years old when my parents, Katerina and Francis Lyons, were killed in an attack by the rebels. My family moved around a lot when I was a child, on account of my father’s job as a government scientist, and at the time of the attack we visiting the States so that my father could attend an annual meeting with members of Toxic. My family always stayed in the same hotel in the same small town in Maryland, about twenty minutes away from the School’s campus.
The men in black came in the dead of night. My father and his bodyguard tried to fight them off, but they were greatly outnumbered. My mother hid me in a closet and went to my father’s aid, but she was no more a fighter than he was. I watched through the slats in the closet door, terrified, as the men in black mercilessly killed my parents. I stuffed my small fist in my mouth, and bit down until I tasted blood, willing myself not to scream out loud. I wanted to close my eyes against the carnage. Instead, I sat frozen, with my eyes open so wide that they began to water, producing tears even before my brain could process what was going on.
My parents’ deaths had been quick. One cold metal bullet to the side of my father’s head was all it took to steal the life of the man whose lap I curled up in every night before bed so he could tell me a story; the man who brought me cold milk and warm cinnamon sugar cookies when I had nightmares; the man whose warm, dark brown eyes and toothy smile lit up the room every time my mother walked in.
My poor mother, she never stood a chance. Before she could even reach my father, a man in black grabbed her from behind. With one flick of his wrist, a gaping wound appeared across her throat. The man in black tossed her carelessly next to my father’s crumpled form, like she was trash.
I was murderous. The feelings overwhelmed me, stirring in my stomach and rising like bile in my throat; overwhelmed me. Then the horrible, high-pitched shrieking started; it filled my ears, suffocating all of the coherent thoughts in my brain.
I am still not sure if it was the cold, calculated murder of my father, or the careless disposal of my mother – probably both – but I felt something inside of me snap. One minute, I was hiding in the closet with the silk of my mother’s long dresses pulled tight around my face, like curtains trying to block out the brutal scene in the bedroom. The next, I was sitting in the outer room of our hotel suite, surrounded by broken furniture, shattered glass, and the bodies of the men in black. They were all dead.
The heavy black clouds in the night sky matched the darkness I felt building inside me. The rain began to fall through the now-broken windows in fat drops; they came down slowly at first but it wasn’t long before the drops blended together, resembling streams of water falling from the sky. The rainwater was cold – a sharp contrast to the hot tears pouring from my eyes.
I don’t know how long I sat there in the rain before a large, blonde man rushed through the open door to the hotel room. I recognized him from meetings with my father, but I couldn’t remember his name. He was a large man, with broad shoulders, hair that was cut short, and a tanned lined face from spending time outside over the years.
The blonde man carried a large gun slung over one shoulder, and several smaller ones were tucked at his waist. An entire team of men clamored through the doorway after him. He held up one of his hands, indicating for the men to stay back. He approached me slowly, hesitantly. He was greater than an arms distance away when he tentatively extended one of his large, gloved hands toward me; I had seen people do the same thing with wounded animals.
“Natalia?” he asked in a soft voice. I couldn’t find the energy to even nod my head, I just stared blankly. “Natalia,” he repeated. “My name is Danbury McDonough. Do you remember me? I’m friends with your daddy.” I rewarded him with another of my blank stares. “Natalia, ar
e you hurt?” He took my silence as an indication that I was not.
He knelt down next to me, and gently untangled my fingers from the folds of my dress. Without thinking, I threw my arms around his neck. He patted me awkwardly on the back, unsure how to react. I dug my small fingers into his shoulders, scared to let go. He carefully picked me up.
“You’re freezing,” he commented, hugging me close and trying to warm me with his own body heat. I started shaking, actually feeling the cold for the first time. He carried me through the crowd of men huddled in the hallway. The men spoke in low voices to one another as Mac carried me the length of the corridor, and down the stairs to a road car waiting in the parking lot.
“How many are dead?” One man whispered to the shorter man standing next to him.
“There have to be at least ten right there,” another proffered.
“Did she do that?” the shorter man asked, in disbelief.
“Impossible, she’s a child,” a heavily accented voice interjected.
“Does she even have a weapon?”
I could feel Mac’s body tense in response to the mutterings of the men.
He placed me in the back seat of the waiting vehicle. I curled into a ball as he covered me with dry blankets. My body and mind were numb, impervious to the rain and cold. He tucked the red and black fabric under my chin. I was vaguely aware that the material was itchy against my skin, but I didn’t move it away.