The Point

by John Dixon

  Scarlett straightened in her chair, face suddenly hot. She’d blown off last night’s reading to escape once more to the drafting room with Seamus. Still, she wasn’t that far behind. Her mind raced over limited possibilities. “The suitors murdered her, sir.”

  “Very Hollywood, Cadet Winter, but incorrect. I recommend that you read more closely. Your last exam score was less than heroic.”

  The class chuckled.

  Major Petrie said, “Someone help Cadet Winter. How did Odysseus’s mother die?”

  Seamus’s hand shot up.

  Petrie called on him.

  With his chin held high, Seamus said, “Sir, his mother died of grief.”

  “Correct, Cadet Kyeong,” Petrie said. “Now, if Cadet Winter is prepared, we will commence with the prophecies and get poor Odysseus out of the Underworld.”

  When Petrie turned his back and walked toward the white board, Seamus grinned at Scarlett and stuck out his tongue.

  She rolled her eyes and mouthed brownnoser.

  Seamus resumed his focus as Petrie pivoted and paced back in that direction.

  “Homer gives us more sacrifice,” Petrie said. “In order to enable his deceased mother to speak, Odysseus must give her blood to drink.”

  Cadets groaned, making faces.

  Scarlett was one of them—Stephen King had nothing on old Homer—but the distracting pressure returned, pressed against her ankle, and moved slowly up her calf. She shifted in her seat but kept her face trained on Petrie, who eyeballed her as he glossed over the prophecies.

  The pressure moved higher and paused at the knee, tickling her. She resisted the urge to squirm. Looking down, she saw the pressure. It pressed her pant leg flat, then smoothed up her inner thigh, an invisible hand feeling her up.

  She brushed at it to no avail. Force had manifested out of thin air…

  She glanced up sharply, but Seamus remained as focused as before, his attention locked on Major Petrie, who said, “For as shocked as Odysseus was to meet his mother in the Underworld, the presence of Achilles must have been even more disconcerting.”

  Scarlett stared at Seamus for a second, certain that he was messing with her, but he showed absolutely no sign whatsoever. But if not him, who?

  She glanced down the row of chairs as Dalia glanced up. Dalia smiled and wiggled one finger in her direction.

  Scarlett wiggled her fingertips in a return wave, then swatted as stealthily as she could at the pressure, which had reached the top of her thigh. What the…?

  She jumped when the pressure moved between her legs. “Hey.”

  Major Petrie executed a snappy about-face. “Cadet Winter?”

  “Sir, this cadet regrets interrupting you, but I’m wondering if you could explain—” She scrambled, trying to hear in her mind the instruction she’d missed. “—why what Achilles said was so shocking.”

  “Achilles had no business in the Underworld,” Petrie explained. “He had died bravely and should have been enjoying a singularly glorious immortality.”

  Scarlett composed her face, nodding appropriately as the force cupping her began to rub gently back and forth. She tried not to squirm.

  Who was doing this?

  Petrie said, “Achilles’s message—dead is dead—must have rattled a hero like Odysseus to the core.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Scarlett said, and shifted in her seat.

  “Imagine surrendering your entire life to the heroic ideal, sacrificing everything,” Petrie told the class, “only to learn that it was all a lie, that you could have stayed at home with your friends and family and enjoyed a simple yet rewarding life.”

  Scarlett glanced once more around the classroom, feeling desperate.

  Seamus regarded her with a slight smile and mocking eyes, the wild, playful Seamus peeking out from within the focused student.

  It was him. She shook her head and mouthed stop.

  Seamus turned away, smirking.

  The pressure faded, and Scarlett exhaled with relief.

  Then the invisible hand returned, pressing softly against her.

  She gestured sharply at Seamus. Several students were looking at her now. Seamus, allowing a satisfied grin, pretended not to notice.

  The cruel pressure moved softly back and forth.

  She pretended to pay attention to Petrie, who was saying something about Sirens and the importance of music in mythology. She crossed her legs, but that only intensified the pressure, which had begun rubbing her in slow circles.

  There was no way to follow what Petrie was saying, and at that point Scarlett didn’t care. She had a situation here. Because now, despite her shock and embarrassment, the sensation was starting to feel good…no, great. She glanced across the aisle at Seamus, pleading with her eyes.

  Seamus pretended not to notice.

  Then she felt a different kind of pressure down there. A pressure in her, building.

  Seamus had to stop, had to cut her a break. She made desperate chopping motions.

  Seamus gave her a cocky grin. The invisible force circled faster but stuck to a mercilessly simple rhythm, and—no, no, no—she gripped the desk, fighting the urgency rising within her.

  Kliener and Bowles, TKs whose grins suggested that they understood exactly what was happening, settled in with the rapt attention of fireworks fans awaiting a grand finale.

  Her face burned. No, no, no! In mere seconds, she was going to…

  Someone knocked on the classroom door.

  The invisible hand vanished.

  Petrie went to the door.

  Thankful for the interruption, she glanced across the room and chilled with apprehension. Dalia glared at her, the whites of her eyes showing beneath the irises. Dalia crumpled the paper on her desk and squeezed it in her fist.

  Lopez entered the classroom and mumbled a few words privately to Major Petrie, looking even sterner than usual. No, Scarlett realized, not sterner—he looked somber—and then the hulking drill sergeant turned in her direction. “Winter,” Lopez said, and beckoned.

  Great, she thought. More trouble.

  She rose, embarrassed, and gathered her things, aware of everyone watching her. Seamus grinned as if he’d announced checkmate. She drilled him with death eyes and followed Lopez into the hall.

  It wouldn’t occur to her until much later that she should have wondered about Lopez’s somber face, his uncharacteristically soft voice, and the strange way he’d motioned to her. Normally, the man’s every move was as forceful as a throat punch, but he’d beckoned her into the hall with a subtle sweep of the arm, not so much a command as an invitation, a gesture that would, in retrospect, seem almost tender to Scarlett.

  Out in the hall, Lopez laid a hand on her shoulder and regarded her with an expression she wouldn’t have thought the scarred face capable of making:

  Pity.

  “I’m sorry, Winter,” Lopez said, and patted her shoulder gently. “Your brother is dead.”

  BY THE TIME SCARLETT PULLED herself together, The Point had assembled in the auditorium.

  When she entered, Rhoads, standing at the podium, paused in midsentence.

  The cadets stared.

  “Scarlett,” Rhoads said, “please join us.”

  She felt the cadets’ eyes on her as she slid into a seat at the edge of the row, far from the rest of them. Her eyes burned, but there would be no more crying. Anger had settled over her like a killing frost, freezing her tears and chilling her intentions until they were as hard and cold and pointed as an icicle.

  Dan was dead.

  She would never see him again. She would never hug him again, never bury the hatchet, never congratulate him on his engagement.

  Somewhere, Mom was sobbing uncontrollably, with only the cold comfort of her father to hold her up. But they were safe. Lopez guar
anteed that. Safe and on their way to Virginia with a security detail. After the assembly, she was supposed to pack her bags and join them on emergency leave, accompanied by her own set of bodyguards.

  Scarlett pushed those thoughts from her mind. No more sorrow, no more tears.

  This was her fault.

  She had caused Dan’s death.

  “I might as well tell you now,” Lopez had said in the hallway as Scarlett reeled. “The terrorists—we know them. They’re posthumans, too, and somehow they know about you. That’s why they killed Dan. They said as much in the statement they sent to the White House.”

  Scarlett listened, feeling numb. The news had hollowed out her skull and filled it with cement. Her body trembled and twitched as Lopez spoke. She stared at the drill sergeant, her dumbstruck brain chiming no, no, no in a measured cadence of denial. As Lopez explained that the terrorists had followed Dan from his fiancée’s house and ambushed him on a lonely stretch of road, the cadence grew louder and faster. By the time Lopez told her about TKs flipping the Jeep and a pyrokinetic torching it, a blaring Klaxon filled her skull. No! No!! NO!!!

  Finally, her legs had gone weak beneath her, and she’d grabbed Lopez’s shoulder to keep from spilling to the floor.

  Now her mind and body had reunited in cold purpose. She sat rigidly as Rhoads said, “The president wants a rapid-response strike force. He told me that if he’s dealing with posthuman terrorists, he needs a posthuman counterterror unit…yesterday.”

  Rhoads panned the cadets. “Alumni of The Point will form the core of the strike force, but the president has authorized me to include a small number of talented upperclassmen.”

  Excited muttering rippled across the ranks.

  Scarlett leaned forward.

  “Upperclassmen,” Rhoads said, “before I ask for volunteers, I need you to understand that this will be an exceedingly dangerous assignment and one that offers considerable risk even if you never engage the enemy. Training for the strike force will require all of your time for the foreseeable future. You run the very real risk of being recycled and having to repeat a full semester next fall. Firsties, that might mean not graduating this summer.”

  He cleared his throat, letting the gravity of that sacrifice resonate.

  Recycled? Scarlett thought. Repeat a semester? No one would volunteer for that.

  Rhoads said, “Do I have any volunteers?”

  Scarlett watched the hands rise.

  One after another, upperclassmen raised their hands—Lucy, Clayton, Dalia—until the room bristled with hands. Even Hopkins raised his arm as straight as a flagpole.

  Scarlett felt a lump form in her throat. Whatever these people had done in the past, even Hopkins, all was forgiven now.

  As she looked around, gratitude flooded her. Every upperclassman in The Point was—

  But no.

  One upperclassman sat with his arms folded over his chest, looking sullen.

  Seamus. Of all people…

  “Hooah,” Rhoads said. “Those who make the team, Sergeant Lopez will be your leader.”

  Sergeant Lopez, Scarlett thought. Not drill sergeant. Out of the cadre and into the fire.

  Lopez, standing behind the colonel, gave a short nod.

  Rhoads said, “Sergeant Lopez will direct your training and command you in the field. He knows the enemy better than anyone.” Rhoads stepped away from the podium. “Sergeant.”

  Lopez pushed the microphone aside and gripped the podium in his big hands. “The sons of bitches who did this,” he said, his inhumanly deep voice filling the auditorium, “are the same ones responsible for all the crazy attacks that you’ve heard about. Vegas, Atlanta…and that Charlie-Foxtrot-tastrophe on New Year’s Eve. They call themselves the High Rollers, and the only thing they hate more than normal society is you.”

  High Rollers echoed through Scarlett’s numb mind.

  “They’re ex-army posthumans trained by Colonel Rhoads before The Point existed.”

  Rhoads stood at parade rest several feet behind Lopez. If the man felt any guilt at all, it didn’t show on his politician’s face.

  Lopez said, “They were special ops, a banana republic’s worst nightmare. Things got hairier than an ape, and the High Rollers went rogue. We’re talking major atrocities. Women and children, the whole nine. The details would make you puke. The Army rounded them up and put them in The Farm…only they escaped, and now they’re pissed.”

  “We’re pissed, too!” Clayton hollered. The meatheads roared agreement. Scarlett loved them for it.

  Lopez’s animal snort sliced through the bravado. “None of you are ready. The High Rollers spent ten years in the field, honing their powers. They’re fanatically loyal to their leader, Jagger. To him, the human race is nothing but a buzzing fly, and all he wants to do is pluck its wings and watch it suffer.”

  Jagger, Scarlett thought, and the High Rollers, and suddenly she understood everything with the burning clarity of a blowtorch flame.

  “Jagger is hell in combat boots,” Lopez said, “and he’s marching this way. I’m the only one who can prepare you.” His eyes found Scarlett. “See, I used to be a High Roller.”

  * * *

  —

  AFTER THE ASSEMBLY, Scarlett walked to the front and waited for the auditorium to empty.

  Passing cadets gave her pitying looks. Several mumbled condolences and reached out to touch her arm. Others avoided eye contact, as if tragedy might prove contagious.

  Lucy wrapped her in a hug, promising revenge.

  Seamus stepped up, face twisting with emotion.

  Scarlett didn’t try to hide her dismay. “Seamus, why—”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and hurried away.

  She watched him go, feeling confused and angry.

  Then she was alone with Rhoads, who regarded her grimly.

  Scarlett snapped to attention. “Sir, Cadet Winter requesting permission to speak.”

  “At ease, Scarlett,” Rhoads said softly. “Why aren’t you packing your bags?”

  She didn’t want to relax. She was done taking the easy way out. “I want to stay, sir. I want to join the strike force.”

  Concern wrinkled Rhoads’s face. “I appreciate your spirit, Scarlett, and I’m sorry about your brother, but your request is denied. Only upperclassmen may apply. You’re a plebe.”

  “I’m more than a plebe, sir. I’m a Level III.”

  “A Level III who still hasn’t broken through with her training.”

  “I’ll break through,” she said. “I’ll train harder than anyone.”

  Rhoads’s eyes twinkled briefly—the notion of Scarlett unleashing her full power no doubt sparking his imagination—but he sighed and shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

  She felt a surge of desperation. Dan’s death was her fault.

  She had never lived up to her potential, not as a student, an athlete, a friend, a girlfriend, a daughter, or a sister. Nor had she applied herself here. As soon as she’d tested Level III, she’d coasted. When Dalia had flapped her lips instead of teaching yoga, Scarlett had gone with the flow. When Rhoads had asked her to hold on to energy, she’d claimed it was too painful. She palmed meds, did the bare minimum in class, and blew off much-needed rack time to stroll campus and hook up. She was a lifelong slacker who’d squandered every gift ever given to her.

  She wouldn’t let Dan down now. “Let me fight, sir. They killed Dan because of me.”

  Rhoads blinked at her. “They did. I won’t deny it. But—”

  “Give me two weeks, sir. If I haven’t broken through, you can kick me off.”

  “You’ve had months to harness your power,” Rhoads said. “You’re telling me that you can break through in two weeks?”

  “Yes, sir,” Scarlett said. “I’ve never been so motivated.”r />
  Rhoads stared at her.

  Scarlett waited, letting the man think. In the distance, Lopez barked orders.

  Rhoads pulled TUMS from an inside pocket and crunched a handful. “The strike force will train hard, seven days a week. You would miss classes for weeks, maybe months, and wouldn’t have time for homework. That would probably mean—”

  “Recycled,” she said, nodding gravely. “I understand.”

  “Your class would move on without you,” he said. “You’d have to repeat plebe year.”

  “With all due respect, sir,” Scarlett said, “I don’t give a shit.”

  “Pack your bags, Scarlett. You leave for North Carolina in thirty minutes. You need to say good-bye to your brother.” Rhoads started away.

  “But sir…I—”

  Rhoads paused in the doorway without turning back around. “After the funeral, come straight back to The Point, and I’ll give you two weeks to prove that you belong on the strike force.”

  EVERYTHING HURT.

  Once more, Scarlett sat in Room 17, receiving a steady flow of current. From the crown of her head to the soles of her feet, pain filled her like boiling oil. Every cell in her body screamed for her to release the torturous energy into the oversized gloves, but she gritted her teeth and stared at Rhoads through blurry eyes stinging with perspiration.

  She had never held on this long, had never harbored this much energy.

  Rhoads checked the meter. His expression passed from excitement to concern. “All right, Scarlett,” he said. “That’s enough for today.”

  “No,” she growled. She gripped the chair more tightly, trying to keep her involuntarily flailing body from dropping to the floor.

  She couldn’t let go, not now, with only one week left to prove that she belonged on the strike force. She had defensive capabilities but could only counterattack. Since the strike force was training primarily for ambush and infiltration, she had no clear role on the team. To earn a spot, she needed to absorb more power and hold on to that force the way a magazine held ammo.