by Sophie Davis
Suddenly, I was struck with a realization. Not only did all of my new friends appear normal just then, they all were normal. They all had real, normal lives. They had ordinary jobs, struggled to pay the rent and buy food, and took care of their families when they got sick. All things I’d never contemplated until now. I’d simply never known anyone like that before. Being educated by TOXIC, with a guaranteed placement within their ranks after graduation meant never worrying about the mundane details of “normal” everyday life. I suddenly felt ridiculously naïve, juvenile, and more than a little pathetic for feeling sorry for myself in light of my current financial troubles—I’d spent three weeks scraping to get by, the four others sitting at the table had done so for a lot longer than that.
My class had been called up early, going from students to operative pledges in a matter of days, when Talia went rogue. Director McDonough had insisted that every available, capable member of TOXIC was needed if we were to bring her, the Coalition, and eventually UNITED, to heel. I’d been thrilled. I’d essentially become a Hunter without having to pass the grueling Placement Exams—the same exams, strangely, that Talia had been training me for before she turned traitor.
As a Pledge, just as when I was a student, my food, wardrobe, and housing were provided for me. At the time, the dorm rooms, cafeteria fare, and standard issue workout clothes and combat suits hadn’t seemed like anything special. After being on this side of the pond for nearly a month and seeing how rudimentary accommodations could truly be, what I’d had back in the States was downright luxurious. If TOXIC had won the war and I’d continued on as a full-fledged operative, I would’ve received a stipend as well. My basic necessities and money for frivolous nonsense like cyber games, nail polish, and nights out in the city with my friends and teammates would’ve been provided for me in perpetuity. TOXIC took care of their own.
I’d spent the last several weeks sulking over the loss of material possessions and luxuries that I’d felt owed. But even living in the hostel and eating just once a day, I’d had as much, if not more, than my new friends did. Their everyday life was a struggle to survive.
I shook my head, mentally chastising myself for being so damned childish, so selfish, so entitled. I’d been so miserable without my mother and the girls I considered my sisters, so despondent wondering if I’d see them again. But besides Willa, not one of my new friends had so much as mentioned family members, let alone said anything about ever seeing said family members.
Just how long had Riley, Honora, and James had been on their own?
Completely unaware of my dark mood, conversation between the others was light. No talk of Poachers or the Created. Neither James nor Honora brought up my excellent Helix skills—even after Riley insisted on playing a round before he and Willa had to leave.
“Want to give it a go, Kenly?” he asked, slipping on a headpiece and a pair of gaming gloves.
I glanced across the table at James to gauge his reaction. His expression was annoyingly blank.
“Nah. I’m not much of a gamer,” I said breezily and popped a cheese cube into my mouth.
“Come off it,” Riley laughed. “I know your secret.”
The cube lodged in my throat and I had to work to get it down.
“What secret?” I asked tightly.
James told me that the entire group knew I was Created, but no one else had mentioned it before now. I was surprised that Riley was bringing it up. But I was shocked and annoyed that he was bringing it up in here, in public. Where others could overhear. UNITED hadn’t made a secret of the reward they were offering for information leading to the capture of Created. It was enough to live comfortably for a lifetime. Enough to assuage the guilt one might feel over turning me in. Everyone already thought the Created were bad, dangerous even. And Alana’s little stunt in New York the previous day surely hadn’t helped popular opinion of my kind.
Riley pointed to the elbow-length black gaming gloves lying across my lap.
I blushed. I was an idiot.
Me, hyper-observant-me, had completely forgotten the gloves were there. God I really am being careless, I thought. First I let James out-logic me, and now I just wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. Get it together, girl.
“You caught me,” I said with a forced laugh. “Alright, I’ll play. Prepare to lose.”
Being too good might draw attention. Being just good enough to beat Riley, not so much. I hoped.
Riley grinned. “Care to wager?”
“She hasn’t got anything to wager,” James interjected.
I glared at him and James glared right back. A dozen unspoken messages passed between us in the ensuing moments. He raised his eyebrows, reminding me of his earlier lecture about drawing attention to myself. I widened my eyes and cocked my head to the side, holding his gaze and asking him to have a little faith. James became exasperated, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. I couldn’t contain my annoyance at that point and stubbornly jutted out my chin and crossed my arms over my chest while I glared daggers at my volatile new roommate.
“Whatever. Your funeral, Chief,” James muttered and slouched back in his chair, irritated.
I hesitated before pulling on the gaming gloves. I did need to be careful, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun, right? Sure, I’d enjoyed playing the game alone earlier, but that wasn’t nearly the same as having some competition. It felt like a lifetime since I’d done something actually fun. Even before coming to London. There had been the battle in D.C. Before that TOXIC was on lockdown, preparing for the war with the Coalition and UNITED. And before that there had been Placement Exams to worry about. I couldn’t remember the last time Alana, Francie, and I had sat around and watched movies on the wallscreen. Or snuck out of the dorms so Francie and I could climb through the window of the dining hall and steal ice cream, while Alana made out with her latest crush. All of a sudden, awash with memories, I needed this bit of levity.
“House duties,” Riley was saying smugly.
“Um, what exactly is a house duty?” I asked, unsure of what he was proposing.
“I do believe you Yanks call them chores,” Willa supplied with a snicker.
I didn’t like the sound of that. Chores, like cleaning and stuff, were not concerns I’d had in my former life. TOXIC paid people to do those types of menial tasks.
“Precisely. Thanks, love,” Riley said to Willa, before turning back to me. “When I’m done wiping the floor with you, you’ll do my household chores for the next two weeks.”
“And when I win?” I asked.
Riley shrugged, unconcerned. “I suppose I’ll do yours.”
“I don’t have any,” I reasoned.
“You’re about to.”
I laughed. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Riley.”
“Stupid,” James muttered under his breath.
I wasn’t entirely sure which of us he was calling stupid. Me for ignoring his warning or Riley for making a losing wager.
Riley and I played for an hour. He was good, like really good, by far the best opponent I’d faced all day. Yet he was still no match for me. Even being cautious, taking longer than necessary to crack the codes at the end of each level, and purposely making mistakes when my avatar battled his, I was well on my way to triumph.
Willa and James, unbeknownst to them, made good distractions, which helped my cause. Willa cheered loudly for both her boyfriend and me, clapping when one of us did something impressive and lamenting when our avatars got delayed in quicksand or lost a finger to a man-eating hibiscus.
James was watching the news on another holoscreen that he’d pulled up from the table, meant for gaming from his chair. Even over the sounds of Helix filtering through my headpiece, I could hear the reporter recounting another incident involving the Created. This one in Miami, Florida.
At least their choice of location was sensible, I thought with the slightest sense of relief. It’s practically a ghost town down there, casualties are unlik
ely.
Within weeks of the Great Contamination, coastal towns in the U.S. were completely abandoned because of the tainted water. Fear of residual nuclear contamination still kept most people far away from the beaches and out of the oceans today, nearly a century later. Miami Beach was an ideal site for a group of my schoolmates to experiment with their new abilities. Still, the fact that the incident had been deemed newsworthy made me nervous.
I lessened my concentration on Helix, and focused more on the news report, anxious for the details of the latest episode.
Please don’t let it be a big deal, please say it was just a harmless accident.
“The authorities have mostly pieced together the actual events of today’s tragedy,” a somber woman’s voice said from James’s holoscreen.
Crap. She said tragedy. That doesn’t bode well.
“Miami-Dade County Chief of Police, Shawn Schaffer, had this to say about the incident.”
After a momentary pause and a bit of crackling noise, the woman’s voice was replaced by that of a stern-sounding man. With the whistling of wind in the background, it was obvious he was still on the scene.
“At approximately 7:15 a.m. this morning, a 17-year-old Created male, possessing unidentified powers, caused ocean swells described as exceeding fifty feet in the waters off of Miami Beach. He then lost control of the waves, which purportedly continued travelling to the shore as a tsunami.
“Apparently, quite a large group of Created were there with him. Reports have come in that the perpetrators companions attempted to mitigate the damage by using their own powers. Despite their efforts, the series of waves continued ashore and flooded downtown Miami, though the damage was considerably less than that of a typical tsunami.
“Two civilian bystanders are claiming they were pulled out of harm’s way by the youths. One woman…,” here there was a pause, followed by the sound of crinkling paper before he continued, “…one woman claims to have been pulled above the surface by an unseen force, which then guided her through the water to safety. We are unable to confirm the claim at this time. Ten people have, however, been confirmed dead, including three innocents. We expect that number to double, at a minimum, once the water recedes. As soon as it is reasonably safe, search and rescue will enter the area.
“At this time, the male responsible and two of his cohorts are in police custody. They are cooperating fully with the investigation. Members of UNITED, the International Talent Administration, will be arriving shortly, and charge of those at fault will be turned over to them.”
No, no, no, no, no, I thought. Shit. This was way worse than Alana’s stunt in Manhattan. The disaster in Florida killed people. Including at least seven of them…seven of us…Why couldn’t my brethren see that juvenile antics, like creating a tsunami, only solidified the notion that we, the Created, were dangerous?
Consumed by the disaster in Florida, I was no longer paying attention to the game. Even the small pulses of electricity that came through the gloves as Riley’s avatar beat the crap out of mine barely registered. I felt sick. Director McDonough hadn’t gifted us with additional Talents for this. So that we could wreak havoc, destroy towns, and take lives. What was wrong my classmates? Why were none of them thinking straight? James worried that being too good at a cyber-game was going to draw attention. Meanwhile, some of the Created were off generating natural disasters.
As infuriated as I was with whoever was responsible for the scene in Florida, and heartbroken over those lost, I still couldn’t help feeling slightly awed. Controlling the weather was a rare byproduct of strong Mind Manipulation. Only one person I knew of had that ability, and even she lacked the control to call the power at will. Talia had once told me that she could only affect the weather if she experienced incredibly strong emotions; it wasn’t something she could do on command. Whoever had created the tsunami in Miami was tremendously powerful. Reckless and stupid, but powerful. An untrained, unsupervised Talent experimenting with such a dangerous gift was a threat to us all.
Maybe not everyone should be Talented.
I shook my head to clear the traitorous thought before it grew roots. No. That was unfair. One irresponsible idiot should not ruin the opportunity for the rest of the world.
No. Everyone deserves to be Talented.
And I honestly believed that.
Still, this guy had to be a natural-born Talent, trained at the McDonough School, to have received the Created gifts. If someone who’d been raised with his Talents and thoroughly educated to use them was so quick to abuse his new abilities….
Could those experiencing Talents for the first time be trusted to act responsibly?
“Yes! Loo duty is all yours!” Riley abruptly cried, jumping to his feet and doing a strange little dance with his fingers.
“Huh?” I stared blankly up at Riley, who was now claiming his prize from Willa in the form of kiss that lasted so long I blushed and averted my eyes. When they finally broke apart, Willa’s cheeks were flushed a pretty shade of pink and her hazel eyes were glassy.
Riley turned to me, “Toilet duty. It was my turn to clean the loo. Which means it’s now your turn. I’ll make a list of your other household responsibilities while I’m at the Giraffe tonight.”
“I…lost?” My mind was struggling to comprehend this while still coming to terms with the tsunami in Miami.
“Riley’s really quite good, Kenly. Don’t feel bad,” Willa said kindly, unaware of the true source of my agitation. “And he’s not the most gracious winner. We need to get going, love.” She swatted her boyfriend playfully on the arm.
How could they be so nonchalant? Was it possible they didn’t see the news report?
Riley and Willa said their goodbyes. Willa, attributing my melancholy mood to losing at Helix, assured me that I’d wipe the floor with Riley if I practiced. I didn’t bother to correct her. Only James seemed to understand the real reason I’d suddenly become quiet.
He confirmed as much as soon as the couple was gone.
“Did you know them?”
I said nothing. Neither the police chief nor the reporter had actually mentioned any names, but I knew the person responsible for the tsunami. A seventeen-year old Created would have been in my year at school. He may have been the chubby boy who sat next to me in Talent History last year, or the freckled kid who always ate lunch two tables over, or the hot guy who ran the trails near instructor housing without a shirt. Or any of the other guys I’d interacted with, learned with, ate with, lived with, trained with, and grew up with in my eleven years at the McDonough School. Without a doubt, I knew him.
I also knew something else with absolute certainty: his loss of control would cost him and the rest of his friends their lives. More dead Created. We were an endangered species to start with. Now our numbers were whittling down at an alarming rate. Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any more alone in the world….
“You were listening to the newscast. That’s why Riley beat you.” James spoke with more compassion than I’d have thought him capable of.
I felt frozen, hollow, unable to look anywhere except at my hands in my lap. Yet, I wasn’t seeing them. Fighting hard against the sting of tears behind my eyes, I was overcome by images of towering waves, flooding, and the feeling of being swept out to sea. Alone.
Stop it. This is neither the time nor the place. You need to keep it together.
When I finally met James’s platinum gaze, his hard features softened.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“If those Created were your friends. And the ones who died…I’m sorry.” His voice was low, gentle even.
“Not all of us know each other,” I snapped, instinctively annoyed by his pity. “TOXIC is a huge organization you know.”
Real nice, Kenly, He’s trying to be nice, don’t take out your anger on him.
Before I could even open my mouth to take it back, to apologize, his closed-off look returned.
“Was,
Kenly,” James said flatly. “TOXIC was a huge organization.”
And the tenderness was gone.
The deaths of my classmates were a knife to the heart. James’s reminder that TOXIC was no more twisted the handle, embedding the blade even deeper.
HONORA’S SHIFT ENDED promptly at eight. The meat and cheese platter was long gone, so she packed up three sandwiches for our dinner and we set off for the Slums.
All three of us were vigilant, six eyes constantly sweeping the train cars, bus seats, and sidewalks for threats lurking in the shadows. Despite having no formal training that I was aware of, my new friends reminded me of TOXIC operatives. There was a rhythm, a pattern to the way they moved and interacted with each other that only came about after countless hours of working together as a team. Words weren’t necessary for communication. It seemed like they always knew what the other was thinking and reacted accordingly. It made me envious how in tune they were with one another. It was how I’d always imagined being a Hunter would be like.
James always ensured his back was to a corner, allowing him the best vantage point from which to survey any enclosed space. Even if there were vacant seats on the train car, neither James nor Honora ever sat. This I understood—the precious seconds that it took to leap to your feet could mean the difference between escape and being caught.
What I found amusing, though, was how James and Honora arranged themselves in relation to me. No matter what, I always found myself in the middle of our little group. I’d also noticed it at the Giraffe after the encounter with Jaylen Monroe. At the time, I’d felt as though the group was trying to box me in to prevent escape. Now, I realized that wasn’t the case at all. They were protecting me.
On the Tube, Honora repositioned herself every time a new rider got on or off so that she was always standing between me and the shadiest character on the train car. At one point, when the train made an abrupt stop, a young teenage boy with blaring headphones stumbled and fell towards me. James snatched me from harm’s way. His venomous glare nearly reduced the poor kid to tears.