Super Powereds: Year 3

by Drew Hayes

  “I’d appreciate it if you backed me up here. It’s why I waited for you in the first place.” Abridail was staring not at Alice, as she’d initially thought, but past her. He was looking at something over her shoulder and, as Alice turned, she caught sight of a familiar figure, one she’d have recognized even if it weren’t abnormally short.

  “He’s telling the truth, Alice.” Mary took a few steps forward, away from the door she’d come through that Alice was certain hadn’t been there moments before. “Nick figured it out a while back, and I overheard it from his thoughts, but I didn’t want to say anything without having solid evidence. Good as he is, sometimes Nick leaps to conclusions.”

  “Wait, hang on, my teachers are my uncles? How is that possible? And how are you here?” The anger faded quickly from Alice as confusion retook its spot in the forefront of her mind.

  “Someone must have put your hands together a while back. I sensed the moment Mary’s mind was linked to yours, and knew it would only be a matter of time until she found her way here.” Abridail finished off his smoothie, then rose from the bar stool, pausing only to smooth out his crisp suit jacket. “Now that she’s here, we can finally begin in earnest. Are you two ready to go sightseeing?”

  “That depends. Where are you taking us?” Alice asked.

  “Oh, we’ll be staying right here, safely in your mind. I merely want to share with you something your mother has been looking at all these years,” Abridail said. “If you’ll permit me a little more freedom to shape this world, then I can take you to see the future.”

  215.

  Despite his promise that they would be staying in Alice’s mind, the world certainly seemed to change as soon as Alice gave Abridail permission. The spa vanished as the world stretched outward, the soft glow of the lamps shrinking down to small pinpricks of light. Within moments, it seemed as though they were hanging in the void of space, racing across glowing bridges that ran between the stars.

  He piloted them over the bridges wordlessly, shifting the world around them even though they were technically standing still. As they hurtled through this new realm, Mary was struck by how bright it all was. She’d always imagined space would be dark, the light of the stars too far away to feel, but out here, they burned and pulsed, flickering into and out of existence at irregular intervals.

  “Where are we?” Alice was the one who asked the question, her mouth hanging open as she stared in wide-eyed wonder at the infinite skyscape around them. It was easy to think that they were worldly and jaded after seeing the marvels other Supers could produce, but standing out here was a keen reminder of just how young they were, and how little of the world they had truly experienced.

  “This . . . is my world.” Abridail’s words were heavy, his tone somber as he gazed up at the sea of twinkling lights surrounding them. Mary supposed the effect never entirely wore off, and she could see why.

  “Forgive the slight delay; before I show you your mother’s visions, I need to mentally formulate every detail accurately. While we wait, I thought you might enjoy glimpsing the world as I see it. Every light you see here is a dream. Some last forever, as their owners return each night. Others burn only for moments, dying away before they’ve had the chance to reach their true glory. Each is as unique as the mind that summons them. I’ve spent most of my life walking amidst the dreams, and I’ve yet to see two that are quite the same.”

  The space between worlds twisted under Alice and Mary’s feet. Neither was sure what he was conjuring, or if it was a good idea to allow him this much power, but they were set on seeing it through. Whatever Abridail knew, it was something they couldn’t walk away from. Not with so few clues as to what was going on around them.

  “Earlier, you said we were going to see the future,” Alice said, her voice falling away after a few feet, as though the darkness between stars was devouring it. “Did you misspeak?”

  “I told you before, there is no set future.” Abridail didn’t turn around as he spoke, but his words reached her and Mary without effort. “There are only the most probable ones looming before us. Those are what your mother can see, and what I feel it’s time you were given a glimpse of as well.”

  “Why? I mean, why bother telling us this? Why do we get to see these futures?” Mary asked. She dearly missed her telepathy, as she would have given almost anything to poke around in this mysterious man’s head.

  This time, Abridail did turn around, though Mary almost wished he hadn’t. The levity that had been on his face since she’d first walked into Alice’s dream was gone, and in its place was a seriousness that made her wonder if he was about to tell her the secret to life itself.

  “Because, there is a crossroads coming soon, one that splits the potential futures into two general categories. One of those is something I would dearly like to not see come to pass. And as to why you two are being shown this glimpse, rather than someone else, it only seemed appropriate that you be given the warning.” Abridail turned away once more, but they still heard his next words as crisp and clear as the previous ones.

  “After all, you five are at the center of what causes the split.”

  * * *

  “It was a good fight.” Camille took her hand away from Roy’s face, and as she did, he noticed that his cheek wasn’t throbbing with pain anymore. A deep breath confirmed that his ribs were no longer broken, and as he stood, Roy could feel his right leg bearing weight once more.

  “Thanks. I thought I almost had him at the end. Also, thanks for the healing. You really do some top notch patch-jobs.”

  Roy stood to the side, allowing Chad to receive Camille’s healing next. Technically, the blond Super could heal his own wounds, but it made more sense to conserve his energy while simultaneously feeding Camille’s arsenal. Chad was mostly uninjured, save for the fractured shoulder that Roy had managed to give him on their last confrontation. It had been meant to crack his sternum, but Chad dodged, and when he hit Roy’s ribs that time, it had filled the larger man’s brain with shockwaves of pain. By the time he regained control of his senses, he’d been on the ground with a cracked shin and several bruises. It had been close, just not close enough.

  “You are a strong son of a bitch, you know that?” Professor Cole walked across the combat cell, a single bandage wound around Roy’s bat as she held it out to him. “If you’d tried to hit anyone else in your class like that—hell, if you hadn’t gotten permission from Chad first—I probably would have had to stop the fight for attempted use of lethal force.”

  “I don’t know about ‘anyone’ in the class,” Roy said as he accepted his bat. It felt heavy, yet familiar, as he tightened his grip. “Vince could have absorbed it, Sasha could have avoided it, Thomas’s armor probably could have held up against, and Violet would have been fine if she was in extra-dense mode; when you get down to it, a lot of the class would have been fine if I’d hit them.”

  “No, they wouldn’t have. What you just listed were three people with methods to prevent the force of your punch from reaching them, people who would be turned to pudding if those methods failed, and one who might be able to withstand it if she were in the form that gave her maximum durability. You can see why I wouldn’t have been able to just let you go throwing those full-power punches willy-nilly. You’re stronger than you think you are; which is saying a lot, because I know how big your ego is.”

  “Too bad it wasn’t enough to make the difference,” Roy said. He’d known going in that he couldn’t beat Chad; their abilities were just too at odds for him to triumph. Still, he would have liked to have seen some sign of progress. Hitting Chad a couple of times was nice, but Roy wanted more. He wanted to know that these last years of endless training had yielded tangible results, ones he could actually see.

  “It wasn’t, that time,” Professor Cole agreed. “But there are two things to keep in mind. The first is that your last attack was close, damn close, to landing in Chad’s center mass. If you’d managed to pull it off, the fight may
have turned out very differently. Who knows, if you had a rematch with fists, you might surprise yourself at what you could achieve.”

  “Maybe, but we’ve had a lot of sparring matches during class. I’m pretty sure Chad would find a way to win. He always does.”

  “True as I’m sure that is, he’s never fought the version of you that knows how to wield a weapon.” Professor Cole reached out and lightly tapped Roy’s bat with her index finger. “And that’s the second thing to keep in mind. As strong as you are with those fists of yours, this bat makes you a lot stronger. Chad may have beaten Close Combat Roy a thousand times in a row, but this is the first time he’s ever dealt with Weapons Roy. Try to make a good first impression.”

  216.

  “The five of us . . .” Alice let the words slosh around in her head, distilling as much meaning as possible from Abridail’s statement. The implication was obvious: the only unique group of five she was a part of was the Powereds who’d been turned into Supers. And while it certainly possible that they’d have an impact on the future—in fact, that was what they were training to do—Alice couldn’t see any of her friends intentionally taking things down a bad path. Well . . . maybe Nick, but he’d have been equally capable of that with or without his abilities. It was possible that time would change them, though possible wasn’t the same as likely. Looking at the fact as they were, the most likely conclusion was that it wouldn’t be their actions that caused some sort of timeline uproar at all.

  “You mean the procedure, right? Once our test group shows that Powereds can be changed with no negative side effects, that’s going to cause an issue?”

  Abridail nodded as the winding ride they were on slowed, letting them take in a full view of the bridges that ran like threads between the seemingly infinite number of dreams. Idly, Alice wondered if these bridges existed naturally, or if Abridail conjured them specifically for his journeys. If it were the former, some interesting metaphysical possibilities opened up, though she strongly suspected it to be the latter.

  “You five have made too much of an impact; the secret is out, even if powerful people are keeping a lid on it for now. There’s almost no future where what happened to you doesn’t become common knowledge, and once Powereds know what they can become, there’s no way to stop them, short of genocide. The lines between Powered and Super blur, and the ranks of variant Homo sapiens swell.”

  “And not everyone is happy about it,” Mary concluded. No one knew better than a telepath about the simmering resentment in the hearts of humans. Powereds they could pity, find a sense of superiority against, but Supers . . . discovering one’s species had gone from the top of the heap to the number two spot was a bitter pill for many to swallow. Envy burned in them, and all too often, that slowly morphed into hatred for the people whose whole world worked on a different set of rules.

  “No, they aren’t,” Abridail confirmed. “Humans begin to feel like they’re getting choked out, the societal power they’ve wielded since Supers were discovered starts to erode, and even more violent militant groups emerge to fight against the idea of Supers. At the same time, Supers feel their sense of superiority seep away as the Powereds lose their status as ‘lesser beings.’”

  “Wait, why do the Supers care?” Alice asked. “It’s not like us getting control of our abilities takes away theirs. The humans I can kind of see, but other Supers hating us makes no sense.”

  “You haven’t noticed, have you?” Abridail said. Suddenly, Alice realized that the star world was beginning to fade out, turning to fog as Abridail began the true start of what they were meant to see.

  “I did.” Mary’s voice was quiet, one of the few times it matched her size, yet Alice could still hear each word perfectly. “I’d just hoped it was a fluke.”

  “It’s not,” Abridail told her. He looked back at Alice, who met his eyes with uncertainty. “Five of you were turned and thrown into the same HCP class. Of that five, only one of you was kicked out, and it was based on moral grounds. Around you, dozens of Supers who’d had their abilities for their entire lives were cut, and yet your lot stayed. You really never put it together?”

  Alice swallowed hard, trying to push the revelation through her throat to where it could be properly digested in her gut. “I guess . . . I guess I tried not to think about it.”

  “Others are not so willing to overlook the coincidence, and in most futures I’ve seen, the next groups bear out the theory,” Abridail said. “Powereds who are turned to Supers are, on average, more powerful than naturally born Supers. Some scientists even propose that your increased abilities are why you were Powered in the first place: they were more than your bodies could handle. At least, handle without artificial assistance.”

  “Do you know what they did to us?” Mary was staring at Abridail with more intensity than Alice had seen in her friend’s face since she was kidnapped. “I listened to every thought the doctors and nurses had, I combed through their heads looking for clues, and I’ve skimmed the thoughts of everyone I met who had even a loose affiliation with the program, but no one I’ve encountered actually knew what they were doing. Even the doctors only had compartmentalized tasks. You’ve gotten to look into these futures that Alice’s mom can see; surely you know something about what they did to us.”

  “Yes, I know what they did.” Abridail met Mary’s intensity with a somber peace, an armor of calm against the weapon of her ferocity. “But I cannot tell you that today.”

  “Why the hell not? Don’t we deserve to know?”

  “You do, and you will, but not today,” Abridail told her. “Today is about a different piece of your puzzle. What’s been done to you is in the past, nothing you can do will change it. I have to prioritize stones that are not yet cast.”

  “Then what’s the harm in telling us?” Alice said, stepping forward. “Why not just answer her question so we can focus on the things you want us to see?”

  “Because our time is limited, and this,” Abridail gestured to the world forming around them, “is more important. We could afford the moments it would cost to answer your question, but not the unstoppable sea of new questions that would come afterward. I’m sorry that I can’t provide all the answers you want. All I can ask is for you to trust that you will get them someday, and that what lies before you is worth the sacrifice.”

  “I don’t know that I trust you at all.” Alice walked over to Mary, who’d managed to calm her unexpected swell of emotion. “But if these are really my mother’s visions, then I want to see them.”

  Mary reached out and took Alice’s hand in her own, giving it a firm squeeze. “And I can’t just let you have some stranger puttering about in your head all alone. I’d be the worst surrogate dorm mom ever if I did.”

  “Thank you for your understanding,” Abridail said. “And now, please prepare yourselves. What you are about to experience is not for the faint of heart.”

  217.

  Chad prided himself on his analytical abilities. Though the others didn’t realize it, a great deal of what he accomplished was tethered to the fact that he could predict an attack based on an opponent’s style and history. His brain enabled this wonderful trick, and the body he’d spent his youth training and remodeling allowed him to act on the information. Often, the data was processed so quickly he didn’t even consciously register all of it; instead, it felt like what others would call “intuition.” Chad knew better, of course; it was merely his subconscious running a routine that had been done so much it was automated, like breathing. Still, as Roy charged forward with his bat in hand, Chad felt an impulse that had never come from his intuition against this opponent. It was to not only dodge the blow, but to get clear altogether. The idea made no sense, yet Chad prided himself on those analytical abilities; he’d be damned if he stopped listening to them now.

  The crack filled the cell, and flecks of concrete pelted Chad’s skin as he landed, having jumped back a solid eight feet from where Roy was swinging. Where he’d been mome
nts before was a small crater, the tip of Roy’s bat resting in its center. By Chad’s calculations, the blow had been carrying a lot of force . . . and it was clear from Roy’s muscle position as he swung that he was holding himself back.

  “Haven’t seen you hop away like that before,” Roy commented. He swung the bat around and up to a ready position, eyes set on the target before him.

  “Your attacks have never been that dangerous before.” Chad lowered his stance slightly, improving his center of gravity. Technically, the stakes weren’t any different than they had been before; Roy’s strikes had been strong enough to end the fight with one direct blow in their last match too. But that was a maybe, at best. The bat carried a far higher chance of him pulling it off, especially with its increased range. He could try to disarm Roy, but if he was able to wield something that heavy, Chad suspected his grip might difficult to break. This wasn’t a fight where he could allow Roy to go down and recover after each bout. Chad had to keep the momentum if he wanted to win this time.

  “If you liked that one, you’ll love this.” Roy charged forward again, bat held ready. This time, Chad understood the danger. Rather than letting Roy get into a spot where he could swing, Chad bolted forward, slamming a palm into Roy’s chest while simultaneously sweeping both legs out from under him. Powerful as he was, with no time to counter, Roy found himself airborne, and suddenly, all the strength in the world became meaningless. He barely had an instant to adjust to the spinning world before he caught sight of Chad’s heel raised directly overhead. It shot down, delivering a perfect hammer kick to Roy’s skull and driving him into the concrete, creating a brand new crater.