by Drew Hayes
* * *
“Okay, Alex’s Force powers I sort of got, but this one has me stumped,” Roy admitted. On the screen, Vince took down his second opponent in similar fashion to the first. “How does he know where they are? Am I the only person in our whole damned dorm that doesn’t have some sort of ultra-sense?”
“Alex doesn’t live in our dorm,” Alice pointed out.
“Just a technicality; the guy’s one of us,” Roy replied, eyes still unmoving from Vince’s exam. He hadn’t realized that Alex was nearby, nor did he see the look of unexpected happiness on the shorter man’s face, all of which was likely for the best. Roy was his most genuine when he didn’t know he was being overheard, which made the sentiment all the more appreciable.
“Judging from what I know about Vince’s ability, I would guess that he is somehow locating their energy signatures, and then using that to estimate their positions,” Chad said.
“You nailed it,” Mary confirmed. “That’s exactly what he’s doing.”
“Whoa, wait a minute. That sounds a whole lot like the sort of thing that only works on robots,” Alice said. “You know, the kind of strategy that we were all expressly forbidden from using.”
“That’s only true if he can’t use it on humans as well,” Mary reminded her.
“Can he?”
In response, Mary just smiled and looked back at the screen. She knew Vince was nearly done with the guards and wanted to see how things went with the cluster room. Alice took the hint and glanced up as well.
“Sensing them or not, our boy is in for a hell of a fight,” Roy said. “Six Sims in one room, three of them red. He’s either going to have to try and nuke the whole thing at once, or take them one by one and risk serious collateral damage. Either way, that’s tough.”
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Chad said. “If there is one thing I’ve learned about Vince Reynolds, it is that he is oddly unpredictable at times. Perhaps he’ll show us something unexpected.”
* * *
With the final guard down, Vince headed toward the massive concentration of electrical energy centered in the middle of the building. This would be the hard part, because he wasn’t confident that he could handle that many opponents without going overboard. Three were red-light Sims, he knew that from process of elimination, so killing them wouldn’t take away points. Still, he wasn’t that concerned about the points. He wanted to do this right. Dean Blaine had been right; this was training to be a Hero. Vince wanted to know that he could take down a situation like this his way. Otherwise, he knew in his heart, he’d never be able to do the job.
Vince’s sense expanded as he drew close to the room. He barely even needed to focus anymore; he could hear the Sims in there shifting about. It wasn’t them he was reaching for, though. Instead, Vince focused on the light radiating off the bulbs all around him. Light was like fire, it assaulted him, pressed against him, tried to go inside him. All he had to do was open the doors. And in the desert, reeling under George’s blows, that was exactly what he’d learned to do.
Vince took one step into the room where all the Sims were gathered, and the world went black. Not a single speck of light could be seen; all existence was devoured by a shadow.
And then, in the miniature world of starless midnight he’d just created, Vince did something truly surprising.
129.
“Everyone, stop what you’re doing! You are all suspected of various crimes and the intention of committing more. To those of you who are innocent, please lay down on the ground right now, and put your hands over your heads. I promise to do all I can to ensure you aren’t falsely charged. To anyone who stays standing: I will be forced to interpret that as a sign of aggression and respond to it with force. Make your choice now, before the lights come back on.”
* * *
If Vince had conjured a dolphin out of his ass and hurled it at the largest Sim, he couldn’t have shocked the room of fellow students more than he had by demanding the Sims surrender. In fact, they would have handled the ass-dolphin better, because they were at least accustomed to that particular brand of unexpected action.
“What a fucking moron,” Allen said, still in shock from the way Vince had blown his element of surprise. “What the hell did he think would happen?”
“Perhaps we should wait and see how his gamble pays off before we pass judgment on it,” Thomas said. He kept his voice calm, but the slight puffing of his chest and widening of his eyes left no doubt over how he felt about someone insulting his friend.
Even the Melbrook group was fairly flabbergasted, though not all for the same reason. As Roy and Alice gaped with open mouths at the dark screen, waiting to see what came of Vince’s ultimatum, Chad gently nudged Mary on the shoulder.
“Mary, I am new to this group, and as such, haven’t seen the full range of all of your abilities, so perhaps this is something inconsequential. Still, I must ask, when did Vince learn to use area techniques?”
“Huh?” Roy snapped out of his fugue at the words and looked over. “What are you talking about?”
Chad pointed to one of the cameras that was looking down on a hallway near the center room. “See how the light abruptly stops halfway down, turning to darkness? That implies that Vince is absorbing all the light in a targeted area, not merely draining every bit of it he can.”
Roy felt a whole new wave of surprise wash over him, this one far more cutting than the one that had come from Vince’s speech. If Chad was right, then it meant Vince was on a whole different level than they’d realized. Before he could thoroughly register the implications of that, though, Roy’s thoughts were cut off by Vince’s voice from the screen.
“Time’s up.”
* * *
The hardest part about Vince’s plan was switching gears with near-instant speed. He had to go from absorbing the light to throwing out energy in as much time as it took for his opponents to find him. Again, he found himself begrudgingly thankful for his time with George. Hand-to-hand combat had sharpened his absorption reflexes daily as he struggled to hurt George while defending himself. As a result, when light finally filled the room again, the Sims barely had time to register the change before Vince attacked.
A bolt of electricity struck two of the red-light Sims. The shots weren’t as precise as the ones Vince had gotten on the guards at close range, but they still found their targets. One dropped instantly, but the other stayed on its feet, turning toward Vince as green sparks ran down its arms.
Recognizing the flaw in his plan, Vince ceased the attack and reassessed the room. He had two yellow-light Sims closing in on him—one large enough to be a strongman unit, the other unknown. One red-light was down; the other obviously had electrical abilities. Most shocking of all, though, was the fact that one yellow-light and one red-light were actually on the ground with their hands over their heads. Seeing them there, knowing he’d avoided hurting innocents, filled Vince with a rare glow of pride. He’d reminded the class that they shouldn’t assume everyone was guilty at the outset, but that message wouldn’t mean much if it cost him the exam. He would have to get aggressive with these last three.
Vince ran toward the yellow-light Sims. Though the red constituted a larger threat overall, he was confident he could absorb its attacks before any damage landed. Taking it would require concentration, which meant he needed to get these other two dealt with. As he got closer to the yellows, Vince let another twin shot of electricity loose. The smaller of the two went down, but the armored one shook it off. From his left, Vince felt the familiar crackle of energy as the red-light Sim let loose its own jolts. Contained electricity was hard for Vince to access, but once the stuff ran wild, he could grab it as easily as fire. With a mere thought, he absorbed every bit of energy the Sim sent his way.
He probably only had a few moments before it recharged, which meant now was the time to handle the last yellow. The big, bulky thing launched from its position, heading toward Vince with thundering steps. Since h
e’d already been running toward it, it seemed they were going to forcibly collide. When they were only ten feet away from one another, Vince jerked himself to a sudden stop. From his hands came glowing orange tendrils of energy, a familiar sight to the students who were gasping in the observation room. Though he’d gotten a stockpile of Thomas’s energy from their training, Vince wasn’t nearly as good with it as its owner. Thankfully, he had enough skill to manifest a large orange hand that wrapped around the arm of the charging Sim, spinning it slightly and using its own momentum and mass to send it tumbling across the room—
Tumbling right into the red-light Sim that was charging up for another blast. The area was filled with the sound of crackling electricity and crunching metal as they collided. Large chunks of the floor shattered, and dust filled the air. For a moment, it seemed both had been incapacitated, but then the burning scarlet of a red Sim light could be seen as it pulled itself up from the rubble.
This time, Vince didn’t run. He walked over calmly, eyes unwavering from his final opponent.
“You’re under arrest. If you stop resisting now, you can plead your case to a judge and lawyer. But if you keep fighting, I’m going to have to stop you. Please, just give up. I don’t want to hurt you. I really don’t.”
Green sparks flew off its arms as the Sim readied itself for another attack.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Vince repeated, voice low and soft as the sorrow at what he was doing, what he was training to do, filled him. “But I can’t let you hurt anyone else.”
This time, he didn’t use electricity, or fire, or even Thomas’s borrowed energy. Instead, Vince went with what he considered the most basic and useful technique he’d acquired so far. He punched the Sim, avoiding it’s clumsy attempts at blocking, right in the center of its body. As soon as he made contact, he released some of the kinetic energy he’d been holding in reserve. He only meant to use enough to dent the thing and knock it unconscious.
Instead, it flew backward, slamming violently into a concrete wall and nearly shattering on impact. As it slid to the floor, last flickers of green electricity already dying away, Vince had no doubt that he’d just registered a “kill” on his opponent.
“I wish you’d just surrendered.”
130.
As Vince stepped into the observation room, he was met with the expected reactions of applause and glaring from various parties. What he didn’t anticipate, however, was Dean Blaine putting a hand on his shoulder after a few steps through the door. The grip was gentle, but firm, rooting him in place. Thankfully, he didn’t have to speculate about the reason for this stop, as the dean immediately began to speak.
“Some of you are probably wondering why two of Vince’s Sims voluntarily shut themselves down,” Dean Blaine said, addressing the unseen watchers in another room as much as his students. “That’s because, in each scenario, there is a randomized chance that each Sim will surrender if given the opportunity. The number will vary, just like the hallway layouts and formations, but it is an element in the exam.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that before?” Allen asked, clearly still a bit peeved from his own merely-moderate performance.
“We never tell any class. You should have figured it out,” Dean Blaine said, voice growing sharp. “I told you that you were informed of Supers suspected of gathering to commit a large crime. I told you that this was a real-life scenario. So, given those two pieces of information, why did each and every one of you thus far assume that all the Sims were guilty?”
“Because . . . they were there,” Thomas answered, his own voice fading out as the truth of the dean’s words hit him.
“Precisely. You all went into a situation where Supers were suspected of criminal activity, and immediately resorted to force as the best way to neutralize them. Many of you merely inflicted pain and injuries that can be healed, but some of you killed indiscriminately. And more than one of you killed an innocent Sim who would have happily surrendered if only given the chance.”
“But, if we’d given them all chances, then we’d have risked way more collateral damage,” Amber pointed out.
“That is also true,” Dean Blaine agreed. “I am not saying your strategies were inherently wrong, or that Vince’s was inherently right. I am just making you aware of a bias you all entered that field with. As Heroes, you will have to walk a very fine line when dealing with criminal Supers. Some will be bent on destruction, and every second you waste can cost lives. Others are merely swept up in something beyond their control and will jump at the chance to get out of it. Only you know your power; only you know if you can afford to offer someone the opportunity to surrender. Always be aware of what you’re doing, and the people it impacts. We’re training you to be Heroes, not tyrants.”
Dean Blaine released his grip on Vince’s shoulder, and the silver-haired student scurried back to the area with his dormmates in it. The dean gave a nod to Professor Pendleton, whose long fingers plucked a fresh strip of paper from the jar.
“Sasha Foster,” he announced, setting the scrap on the table with the other discarded bits.
Sasha headed over to Dean Blaine, who allowed her to grab some weaponry off the rack and took her down to the exam field. Once they left, the room filled with the gentle hum of conversation as discussion about the newly revealed rule commenced.
* * *
“I thought the dean had more subtlety than that,” Ralph Chapman said, shaking his head at the picture on the screen. This room was smaller than the one with the students, however, it contained monitors with views of all the same angles as theirs, plus two. The first showed the stairwell where Dean Blaine was currently explaining the procedure to Sasha. The second showed the observation room, where Vince was now speaking excitedly with his friends.
“How do you mean?” Mr. Transport asked. He and Mr. Numbers had been asked to babysit the politician during the viewing. Ralph Chapman had clearance to be in the HCP’s halls, but there were still areas that were off-limits to him. Officially, they were there as his temporary aides in case he needed anything. In reality, they were making sure he didn’t try to sneak off and do some snooping.
“Obviously, he told Vince about the surrender shut-down protocol. Wanted to make it seem like he was just such a smart guy that it had occurred to him all on his own. Too heavy-handed by far.”
“And when, exactly, do you hypothesize this exchange took place?” Mr. Numbers asked. “We have watched them this entire time, since the exam was revealed. You saw them talk in the hallway before Vince went in. You even got permission to covertly use a telepath last night and ensure that Vince hadn’t been slipped any advanced information about the trial. So, please tell me how you believe this trick was pulled off.”
“How should I know? You damn people can do impossible things. Maybe you had someone beam it into his head; maybe someone made instructions appear on his eyeballs. I’ve got no way of knowing how it was done, because you all make anything possible.”
“Mr. Chapman, I get the feeling you don’t care for Supers,” Mr. Transport said carefully.
“I don’t care for people who play by an entirely different set of rules than the rest of us,” Ralph replied. “Because of a genetic fluke, you people are born unique in one singular way, and yet almost all of you choose to use that to act like you’re special all around. This is America, and we’re all equal. That means no one is above the rules we’ve laid down, not even people who can bend the laws of nature.”
“Yet, what Vince just did was well within the rules,” Mr. Numbers countered. “You read the briefing on the exam; you knew that the surrender shut-down system existed. Why are you so set against giving him credit for discovering it?”
“Because there’s no way that kid actually figured it out. I’ve read the I.Q. assessments and seen his grades. He might not be an idiot, but he’s nowhere near smart enough to put that together.”
“You’re right,” Mr. Transport said. He ignored the look Mr. Num
bers tried to shoot him and kept talking. “Vince is far from the smartest member of this year’s class, and he almost certainly didn’t mentally work out that there would be a hidden protocol to account for innocent Sims.”
“Then you see—”
“Vince probably didn’t figure it out, but no one told him either,” Mr. Transport continued. “So that means he offered them the chance to surrender because he was treating it like a real-life scenario. He did it because he knew that’s how he would handle the real thing. Vince found the protocol because he understood the importance of a Hero showing kindness as much as power. He isn’t terribly smart, I’ll give you that, but you would be hard-pressed to find a more inherently kind and gentle boy in the entire school.”
Ralph Chapman said nothing; he merely turned back to the screen to watch Sasha’s performance. Mr. Numbers, on the other hand, gave Mr. Transport the small nod that was their version of a high five. From him, it was a tremendous show of support.
131.
Sasha put on a solid early performance, her speed allowing her to tackle many of the Sims before any of them could raise alarm. Unfortunately, when she had to fight her cluster—which was four Sims, two of which had red lights—she was hit by an area attack of energy and sent sprawling. She eventually recovered, but loss of momentum, both literal and metaphorical, cost her dearly. By the time she cleared the final Sim, the room was almost entirely rubble, and a back wall had been blown out. It was the most destructive result since Roy.
After Sasha was Jill, who refused to be slowed down by the lack of ability to remotely shut down her opponents. She accessed the lighting system and the cameras, targeting her opponents one by one by turning out the lights on them, and then striking in the confusion. Will had clearly been making upgrades to her suit, as evidenced by the strength of her punches and the power of her weapons. It seemed he’d also added optic abilities, as she had no issue maneuvering in the dark rooms she created. When Jill came into the cluster room, she promptly offered them the chance to surrender, which one accepted, then turned on the same sonic Taser Will had used against Alex in the prior year’s matches. It didn’t work on all of them, but enough were incapacitated to allow her to handle the rest.