“She’s quiet. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want any.”
Sunny squinted back at him. “Oh, I get it. You guys want to be alone. O … kay.” He bundled up the ice cream bars against his dragon-printed shirt and strolled off to Snow, walking with deliberate casualness.
Sarina laughed, pressing the back of a hand to her mouth. It was a soft, subdued sound, and the fact that she tried to hold it back made it all the more endearing.
Jasper adjusted his focus, and allowed his senses to become flooded by the sound of her. The gentle harmonies that joined in with the chime of her laughter were of an ethereal quality, unlike any instrument he ever heard. Some of the chords that he produced with his composer’s software came close, but they sounded cold in comparison. Inorganic. What was most fascinating was her music reinforced the natural sounds of life around her without drowning them out. Birds warbled with more clarity as the voices of their fellow team members carried across a greater distance. Even the chirping of the crickets gained a better quality.
“Jasper, are you zoning out again?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. The late sun set her hair afire with a glow of reddish gold. “You’re so frustrating sometimes. One Snow is enough.”
“Not zoning out,” he murmured, focusing on the words she spoke rather than the composition of chimes surrounding her. “Just thinking.”
“Well, either way, your ice cream’s melting.”
“Oh.” Jasper looked down at his half-eaten chocolate rocket to see it drip down his hand onto the front of his shirt. He took another bite, trying to shut the sounds out of his mind.
As he gazed up at the swing carousel on the other side of the fence, he wondered what would have happened if they never met online. If they just passed by each other on the street, strangers who happened to take the same subway or grab a coffee at the same café. He could have picked her out of a crowd of thousands.
Hello. What’s your name? You sound nice. Would you mind if I just sat here and listened to you for a while?
“Seriously, what are you thinking about?” she asked, following his gaze up to the motionless carnival ride.
“Have you ever been to a carnival before?” he asked, grasping the first thing that came to mind.
“Once,” she said. “It was a fall fair, but it was small. Not like this.”
“Just once?” Jasper remembered to take another bite of his half-melted ice cream. “My sister used to drag me to at least two of them every year.”
“The Scotts, my last family before the Baumanns, were pretty strict.”
“How strict?”
“Very,” she said emphatically. “They picked a ‘problem kid’ from the juvenile shelter, after all.” She lifted her hands from the fence to indicate air quotes with her fingers.
Jasper’s brows furrowed. “If you were a problem kid, I would be locked away already.” He tried his usual approach to lighten the mood. “Swiss juvenile shelters must have really broad admissions criteria.”
“My last foster parents dropped me off there after my foster mom had a nervous breakdown.” Sarina’s face was distant, eyes fixed on the shadows beneath the looming Ferris wheel.
“See?” Jasper said. “It wasn’t even your fault. I lost my tuition fee for the Royal Academy of Music by gambling with some idiot who looked like my best friend after half a bottle of whiskey. That was my fault. My father grounded me for two weeks. He mentioned that he would disown me at least three times.”
“But he didn’t,” Sarina whispered.
Jasper cursed at himself for saying such a thoughtless thing. He was searching for a way to apologize when Sarina spoke again in her normal tone. She didn't sound offended at all.
“Mr. and Mrs. Scott thought they had been chosen by higher powers or something to set me straight,” she explained. “Mr. Scott said over and over how I would always be a nobody until I earned my place in society. They gave me rules for everything. How to eat, how to dress, how to do my homework. I wasn’t allowed to have any mirrors in my room because I had to defeat the ‘ugliness inside me’ before worrying about looks.” More air quotes.
“Wow. That is strict,” Jasper muttered. It explained a lot of things about her, though. He never met a girl with less self-awareness than Sarina.
“If I did everything right, I was allowed to spend the evening with them, watching TV or going for a walk,” she continued. Then her voice was so quiet it was barely audible. “But most of the time I screwed something up and spent the evening in my room. Alone.”
Jasper didn’t know what to say. His instinct was to offer her a hug, but he didn’t want to startle her. It all felt so grotesque to him. There wasn’t a single thing about Sarina he would change. The setting sun cast a golden glow over her heart-shaped face, enhancing her strong cheekbones and the adorable quirkiness of her slightly uneven eyebrows. Her full lips were slightly parted, making him wonder if they tasted like vanilla ice cream.
He could imagine what she might have looked like a few years ago. Pretty on the verge of gorgeous, forced into some kind of mousy outfit by her foster parents. Shy and insecure, desperate to make friends.
He realized he was staring. “What about school?” he asked, hoping to avert an awkward moment.
“Mrs. Scott tutored me at home for a year,” Sarina said. “Then my social worker arranged for me to go back to a public school when I was thirteen. I had a few friends there, but they weren’t the best kind of friends, you know? I tried coke for the first time at one of their birthday parties, at my boyfriend’s suggestion. He probably wasn’t the best influence either.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” he assured her. “You were young. Only thirteen, right?” She looked so vulnerable. He just couldn’t understand how anyone could ever do anything to harm her.
“I was fourteen,” she said. “But maybe it’s just in my genes,” she answered. “My real mom was on heroin. That’s why I got taken away from her in the first place.”
Jasper ignored the part about genetics, refusing to reinforce it with an answer. He hoped that one day he could help her to understand how ridiculous the idea was, but now wasn’t the time.
“Fourteen-year-olds can get coke in Switzerland?” he said instead. “I should write a serious letter to your government.”
Sarina shrugged her shoulders. “My boyfriend was seventeen. And a lot of rich kids in Zürich take it.”
“I’m just glad it’s all behind you, and you found parents who actually deserve you,” he added.
Sarina gave a weak grin. “Me, too.”
Jasper wasn’t sure if he should say anything more. He wanted to show his interest, but he didn’t want to probe if she didn’t feel comfortable sharing.
“The Scotts sent me to rehab when they found out about the coke, but never came to pick me up,” she told him in a small voice. “I think they went back to England or something. So it was back to the juvenile shelter for me. Again.” The sun sunk below the tree line, highlighting the vulnerability in her face as she stared off into the red sky.
“My social worker was pretty awesome, though. She found the Baumanns for me three months later, and my mom—well, I think of her as my mom now—said she had really looked forward to meeting me.”
Maybe she could hear you, too, Jasper thought, resisting the urge to open his senses to the sound of her. He didn’t want to zone out again. Not now.
“That’s amazing,” he said, partially distracted by the wisp of strawberry blonde hair that blew across her lips.
Her face broke into a genuine smile for the first time since their conversation had turned serious. “They are amazing,” she corrected. “Mrs. Baumann even quit her job to look after me, so I wouldn’t fall back into my old patterns. Because they lived in Bern rather than Zürich, I didn’t see my old friends anymore which turned out to be the best thing for me.”
Jasper glanced at Ace and Tess, still engaged in casual conversation on their bench. Not far away, Snow and Sunny ate t
heir ice cream amid the flowers, content in their shared silence.
I hope these guys will turn out to be good for you, too.
He had listened to them, and decided they were pretty alright people. Snow had a very peculiar sound to her: a slow adagio piece of delicate notes spaced out so much they barely sounded as though they were connected. Ace gave off an energetic combination of strong notes without any of the undertones typical of misconception or aggression. Tess sounded so complex that he barely identified the various elements, but her dulcet piano core was heard through the piece while Sunny’s animated rhythm of wind instruments chimed with youthful insecurity.
What worried Jasper the most was the change he observed when Sarina’s power surfaced. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but the shift in tune was so extreme, it hinted at some kind of personality disorder. And the other version—the power version—wasn’t pleasant to hear. Its dissonant and thundering percussive pulsations had a dark intensity which overpowered everything else. He suspected that she might need help standing her ground against her darker side.
“I wish every day could be like this one,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “I mean, I miss home, of course, but this is almost like … a vacation. I half expect I’ll write some postcards about how the weather is great.”
“And how you hung out at an amusement park that was closed for everyone except you,” Jasper added.
“Rau … ight,” she said, affecting Ace’s Australian accent.
Jasper scanned the park, awash in the sunset’s last hints of reds and golds, and his eyes landed on a small pavilion at the eastern end of the picnic area.
“Come on,” he said, touching her arm with his fingers before heading off in the direction of the pavilion. After several feet, the sound of footsteps told him that Sarina was following him.
After she caught up to him, she gave him a skeptical look. “Where are we going?”
Jasper took the ice cream wrapper from her and threw it in a nearby trash can along with his own. “You’ll see,” he said in what he hoped was a mysterious tone.
And we’ll both see if I chicken out or not.
He reached the wooden steps leading up to the pavilion first and took them two at a time. The wooden construction creaked beneath his shoes. “Can’t you just imagine an orchestra playing here?” he asked as she came up the stairs behind him.
Sarina surveyed the small gazebo. It was about sixteen feet in diameter, surrounded by a waist-high railing with spindles that were alternately painted in red, white, and blue. A French flag hung overhead, swaying in the wind.
She nodded. “Yeah. It would be wonderful to see.”
From up here they had a good view of the entire park. Their team was assembled around a newspaper kiosk, checking out the display of magazines. Ace and Tess stood side by side, sharing one of the headlines.
“Do you think Ace and Tess are a couple?” Sarina asked.
“Nah. I don’t think Ace would be into a tech girl who could knock him out with one blow of a wrench.”
She tittered. “You’re probably right. I bet he likes French strippers, like Eve.”
“I’m not so sure about that. That woman is poisonous. She would scare any man away.”
“How did you meet these guys, anyway?” Sarina nodded her head at the rest of their team. “I’ve wondered.”
“There’s an Evolved community for the UK and Ireland,” he said. “I met Tess and Sunny at one of its gatherings. A little while after they disappeared, Tess got in touch with me through one of her hacker friends. I’m pretty sure that they decided to disappear because the kid surged. Can’t say I blame them.”
“What about Ace and Snow?”
He shrugged. “When I agreed to meet up with Tess and Sunny, they brought Ace and Snow along. They had already formed their group by then.”
They fell into a short silence.
Jasper cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. “Has anyone ever asked you to slow dance before?” He fixed his eyes on hers.
“Sure. You think I lived in a cave?” Her eyes narrowed curiously. “Can you even dance?”
“Not well,” he admitted. “They offered some classical dance courses at the Royal Academy of Music that we all had to sign up for, but I really stunk at it.”
“So you made it there after all, in spite of the whiskey-fueled gambling.”
“Yeah. I went for almost two years, until I transitioned, then the other students got intimidated by the skinny Evolved guy’s music projects.”
“Their loss,” she said. Then she paused, brows furrowing. “We’re still driving out of Paris tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Headed for where?”
“Not sure yet. Ace was on the phone with Gentleman for half an hour this afternoon, and they made some kind of a plan.”
Her eyes locked onto his face. “We still have an agreement, right?”
“We do,” he said. Wherever she went, he would follow. No questions.
Sarina broke the awkward silence that followed, taking a step closer to him. “Well, what about that dance you promised? Don’t tell me that you were bluffing.”
“Not bluffing. Just remembering what they taught in that dance class.”
“I think a waltz starts like this,” she said, taking his hand in one of hers while settling her other on his shoulder. And with that, they shuffled their feet in tune with a melody that wasn’t heard by anyone except them.
4.1 Investigation
San Francisco, USA
Friday, the 8th of June, 2012
9:08 a.m.
As it turned out, the transition from imprisoned rogue to an official US heroine was basically a non-event. All it took was a signature at the end of a five-page contract, outlining the rules and duties of being a Warden, and that was it. After a few days of holding the title of “non-person status” over her head, the United States of America welcomed Christina Jia Chung back as a hero—and, by extension, as a citizen.
Chris was grateful, though she didn’t appreciate the temporary imprisonment, and wasn’t going to forget the way she was coerced into the Wardens. She didn’t feel ready for this. Her introductory chat with the other Wardens hadn’t convinced her that she was going to fit in, but the authorities had twisted her arm until she signed the contract.
Okay, they hadn’t literally twisted her arm, but the mix of psychological sweet talk and threats regarding her non-human outlaw status had come pretty close. Kid’s drawing had the biggest impact on Chris. She didn’t understand why. But after seeing it, she would have felt like the biggest prick ever if she hadn’t agreed to at least meet the Wardens. Things had developed from there, and the rest was history as they say.
Everyone had been in a rush to get her ready for action once she signed the contract. Her counseling sessions were cut short, and she wasn’t offered any sort of grace period to settle into the team. Mrs. Clarence had informed her that Homeland Security and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency would be present during her briefing today. It was almost as if they expected her to disarm nuclear bombs from day one or something.
In retrospect, Chris didn’t regret her escape from that stifling cell because she was able to move again. Outside, a perfect summer morning greeted her. Warm, but not too hot. The sea air carried the faint scent of home, and her memory of the days spent in solitary confinement melted away in the sun.
To her surprise, almost no one watched her release. She had feared the authorities would turn her arrival at the Wardens’ headquarters in the Union Square district of San Francisco into some kind of media spectacle, with interviews and the usual political drama. But apart from her psychological therapist, Mrs. Clarence, no one even talked to her during the five-minute walk from the observation cells to the main building.
Maybe they were worried that I would change my mind if anyone asked the wrong question, Chris thought as the uniformed guards ushered her through the huge steel-reinforced double doors at
the entrance to the main building.
The three Wardens were in the main hall, waiting for her, all dressed up in costume for the occasion. Two were in their late teens. The third was Kid, the nine-year-old Empath Chris had already met. She couldn’t spot the Counselor, a Visionary in his forties who was supposedly the team leader.
Of the three Wardens present, Noire immediately stood out, and not just because she was an inch taller than Overdrive who was the oldest team member at nineteen. Noire could have passed for a villain with her horned silver-and-purple mask. The costume that covered most of her body consisted of a matching mix of leather and Kevlar in shades of purple, gray and silver. Ribbons and shreds of fabric, in varying lengths and shades ranging from silvery gray to black, dangled from her arms, waist, and thighs.
Since the costume was worn by a Darkshaper whose powerset could have been inspired by a horror movie, the design was much tamer than it could have been. Noire’s power was animating her own shadow, which could turn into a semi-sentient creature whose power increased with the absence of light. The exact details hadn’t been released to the public, and for good reason. Noire’s power scared a lot of people. Persistent Internet rumors suggested that her animated shadow wasn’t stopped by walls or bullets, and it even had the ability to cut a whole car to ribbons in the second it took Noire to think it.
Overdrive’s costume followed an energy theme. His helmet was asymmetric, with metallic blue plates covering the entire left half of his face and his right forehead, and the eye slits were surrounded by jagged white lightning bolts. His skin-tight blue suit bulged where protective materials had been incorporated while thin white lines extended across its entire surface, each one forking at least half a dozen times, as three foot-long bolts poked up from each of his shoulder blades.
From their brief chat a few days ago, Chris knew he had some degree of control over all the electronic devices within his range, regardless of their size or complexity. The problem was, his power wasn’t very reliable—at least not yet. He could feed those devices some of his energy, but the resulting short period of hyper-performance often ended with an unintentional burnout or explosion.
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