by Hayes, Drew
“What do you mean you want a secret?”
“Did I not just tell you I was breaking a rule? That kind of thing isn’t free, not even for my boyfriend. I want you to tell me something honest, something deep, something on par with what I just revealed to you.” She paused for a moment, watching his face carefully. “I want you to tell me the truth: do you want to intern under Titan?”
“We just went through all the reasons it’s a bad idea,” Hershel said.
“Yes, we did, but that’s not what I asked. I asked if you wanted to be his intern. What you want doesn’t have to be what you do. It doesn’t even have to make logical sense. It simply is, and you don’t need to feel bad one way or the other about how you feel.”
The truth of the matter was, Hershel had been asking himself that same question since he’d failed to find an offer from their father. Why did its absence feel so potent? Was it because he’d taken the offer for granted, or did it represent one more way their father hadn’t been there for the two of them? The issue had seemed so complex before, yet with Mary sitting at his side, asking him plainly, Hershel found that the truth was right there, just waiting for him to grasp it. It probably always had been, he’d just been too scared to face it. Oddly, he felt a small pang of empathy for his father.
“Part of me wants to intern under Titan. The best memories Roy and I have of our dad are training together. Even when I went to see him during sophomore year and we reconnected, that’s how we spent our time together. And no one has ever understood our power better than him. I guess I think that, if there’s some way to try and repair our relationship, training would be the best place to start.”
Mary pulled him in closer, turning their coziness into a full embrace. “That’s not nothing. It doesn’t mean you should intern under him; the points you made are still valid. But it sounds, to me anyway, like the reason you want the internship is because it would give you a chance to repair that relationship. You don’t need the internship to do that, you know.”
“I know. But it would have made things a lot easier,” Hershel admitted.
“You’re an HCP senior and a former Powered. Since when do things ever get to be easy?”
181.
To say the meeting was going chaotically would have been quite the understatement. Kennedy’s collection of cronies, usually so classy and composed, were on the cusp of a full-blown riot. Shouting, accusations, and angry declarations filled the room. To her credit, the leader of Take Back Lander was holding her composure perfectly as madness swelled around her, calmly sipping from a cup of tea as if nothing were amiss.
For his part, Will wasn’t acting much more perturbed than she was. He’d considered it—after all, he was supposed to be just as exposed as the rest of the group—but decided that it didn’t fit the quiet, thoughtful character he’d been portraying amongst them. Living in the moment was important; however, consistency in character mattered more.
Finally, when the shouting was beginning to ebb, Kennedy set her tea cup down and addressed the room. “Everyone, if you’ve gotten that out of your system, let’s discuss this rationally. Now then: thirty minutes before this meeting was scheduled, we all received emails with personal information contained therein. It seems that, for the most part, the information was embarrassing, but not necessarily damaging—things that would destroy relationships, friendships, and possibly even the bonds between parents and children in a few cases, yet none of it would have led to us facing actual criminal charges. So, let’s all take a deep breath and remember that as vital as the stakes feel, they are in fact not quite so dire as they might seem.”
“The information wasn’t the problem!” A man in khakis and a pressed polo leapt up. Will knew his name was Tad, and it had taken a lot of willpower not to make any jokes about that during the previous meetings. Tad wasn’t done with just one yell, though. “The problem is that they promised there was a lot more of it, and that they had stuff on our families. This is extortion, plain and simple!”
Will wanted to correct Tad, but he held his tongue. It was unnecessary anyway, as Kennedy was already on the case. “For it to be extortion, they would need to have made some sort of demand, or implied that the information was about to be leaked. All they sent were private emails telling us something embarrassing, something pulled from our private devices, and letting us know more information had leaked. We still might be able to use that as documentation to start an investigation, though I’d be surprised if any of us still have the email anyway.”
Now that part took Will, and everyone else, by surprise. She was spot on—he’d set everything up to trigger while he was in the meeting to solidify his alibi, but Will hadn’t expected Kennedy to figure out what was going to happen before it did. One more reminder never to take his opponent lightly.
He took his phone out with the rest of the group, affecting a shocked expression when he discovered that the email was no longer present. Mutters filled the air this time, darker and angrier than the prior screams had been. Hacks and messages containing secrets were something they could wrap their head around, but something digital vanishing without a trace was unexpected. They were starting to realize that this was not a caliber of enemy they were used to dealing with.
“Wait, I took a screen shot,” Tad said, flipping through his phone. “I can’t find it, but it has to be on here.”
“No, I don’t think it does. I doubt any of us will find any proof of what we received tonight outside of our own memories.” Kennedy poured herself a fresh cup of tea while she spoke, still unruffled. “Between the content of the messages and the signature the sender used, it’s easy enough to see what’s going on. Our plan to hunt for the hidden HCP students on campus has leaked, and someone out there is set against us… someone with exceptional resources of their own.”
“Hang on, how do you know that’s what’s going on?” This came from one of the other members, a stout fellow with a constantly uncertain expression.
“The implied threat is right there in the open. We started chasing the secrets of others, so our enemy reminded us all that we have secrets of our own, as do our families. In one swoop, they proved they have the means to uncover our indiscretions and the willingness to use that information.”
Tad stood up from his seat, face turning red as his eyes swept the crowd. “You’re saying the plan was leaked? That means one of us leaked it then. We’ve got a traitor in our midst.”
Will braced himself to lie, but before Tad could begin interrogating the rest of the room Kennedy let out a deep, annoyed sigh. “Sometimes I forget how truly idiotic you can be. Yes, a leak could mean that our internal group has been compromised, but it could just as easily mean that one of us was thinking about our plans around a curious telepath. Or a Super with enhanced hearing overhead the wrong whispers. Or we tripped some sort of mental alarm set up to detect those even considering our course of action. The point is, we are dealing with people who work outside the known spectrum of possibility. We can’t know for sure how we were discovered, and there’s nothing to be gained by turning on ourselves now. So sit down and shut up while we think this through.”
Deep down, Will hadn’t expected this initial gambit to work. There was a chance it might sow seeds of distrust and cause the group to implode, but he was logical enough to see the slender chance of success the plan had. It was an opening move, nothing more, designed to let Kennedy and her crew know that they had a challenger to their plans. All the same, he was still wowed by how quickly she shut down Tad’s beginnings of a self-destructive witch hunt. The others were just cogs, pieces doing as they were told: Kennedy was the only other real opponent on the board.
“Ultimately, we have little to go on right now,” she continued. “As it stands, we’re probably dealing with someone who either is or has access to a Super with tech-based powers, seeing as the secrets stolen from us—at least, given what I gleaned from your shouting—were all discoverable on our personal devices. That may be a ru
se, however. Our enemy just as easily could be using a telepath and someone who can induce hallucinations to start us searching in the wrong direction; we may never have gotten those emails in the first place. With what we have now, nothing is knowable for certain. If we want more information we’ll have to keep pressing the issue. Push until they push back, hopefully overexposing themselves in the process.”
“What... what if they expose us? Our secrets, I mean.” While shouting was out of character, being worried and neurotic fit Will’s previous behavior perfectly. Not to mention raising the point was a good way to remind all of the flunkies that they were playing with stakes in the game now. They had secrets to lose as well.
“It’s a possibility we have to face,” Kennedy replied. “We’re going up against the HCP. There was always the chance that they were going to try and stop us. They are tyrants, used to doing as they please and ignoring what happens to the humans in their wake. Petty personal secrets are not enough to deter me from seeing this through, and I’d hope the same would hold for the rest of you. I chose this group because you are people of conviction, and conviction means making sacrifices. Perhaps I chose poorly, though. If any of you aren’t here at the next meeting, then I’ll understand.”
A girl in a white dress raised her hand politely, and Kennedy nodded to her. “How do we know we’re the only ones who got emails? There were other members before you boiled it down to just us. Maybe we should see if they got something too? At least that tells us if whoever did this has figured out who the inner circle is.”
Will said a silent prayer of thanks to her; he’d been wondering how he was going to steer the conversation in that direction. He should have given them all more credit; they weren’t all complete idiots, after all.
“That’s a good point. Everyone reach out to people who showed up at the old meetings, people you trust, see if they got anything. If they didn’t, then it’s contained to us. If they did, then I guess we’ll see how many received the message and go from there.” Slowly but surely, Kennedy was restoring order to the room, pinning it under her perfectly manicured thumb once more.
“What about the way they signed the email?” Tad asked. “Who the hell are ‘The Ghosts of Lander,’ and what does that name mean?”
Kennedy took her time replying, adding more sugar than was probably proper to her fresh cup of tea. “I can’t speak to the exact meaning just yet— though I have a few theories—but one point of the name is crystal clear. It means that someone out there is challenging us to a war, and we should be ready for them. Which, by the way, we will be.”
182.
As sure as she’d been about her decision to walk away from the program, Mary hadn’t been quite as prepared for how immediately different her life would become. Not for an instant did she regret the choice – it was right for her, and she knew that to be true in the deepest parts of her heart – but Mary did wish she’d been better mentally braced for the impending changes.
Time was the biggest shift. In the span of a few conversations and a formal withdrawal from the HCP, she suddenly found herself with an overwhelming amount of the thing. Even after taking more shifts at Supper with Supers and keeping ahead of her senior-level homework, she couldn’t manage to fill a day. Mary was too used to spending half of her time underground, working out and training and learning to be even the slightest bit better than she’d started the day. Now all those hours had been given back to her, and like an itchy, oversized sweater, Mary wasn’t entirely sure what to do with her unexpected gift.
It might not have been so bad if she’d had her friends around, but now that she was out of the HCP, she was truly starting to see how much it dominated the lives of its participants. Between their classes, their training, and their jobs, Mary had gone from spending every minute around her friends to only seeing them during fleeting windows. Her world felt different, even though she knew it wasn’t. Her world hadn’t changed: she had. She was just seeing her old reality from a new vantage point now.
By the third week of her freedom, Mary began to grow accustomed to the new arrangement. The extra time allowed her to start filling out graduate program applications, and she managed to rework her schedule so that her free time lined up better with her friends’. Things weren’t so bad, although part of her wondered how easy the situation would be to remedy if she weren’t still living with them. Partial memory-wipes were generally viewed as a harsh yet necessary part of purging someone from the program, a way to ensure the safety of those who remained. Only now, seeing it from this side, Mary couldn’t help wondering if those wipes weren’t also for the benefit of the students leaving. It was impossible to miss what you couldn’t recall, to try and hang on to something if you had no idea where to grab. Mary wondered if any sort of counseling was provided to those cut from the HCP. She hadn’t been given that offer, but between the fact that she’d chosen to quit and Dean Blaine’s awareness that her memory was still intact, maybe it had been deemed unnecessary. It was something to look into; she might be years from having enough degrees to do the job, but someone should be on it in the interim.
To her surprise, Mary found herself spending much of her newly acquired downtime with Nick. Since he had a looser schedule and lived nearby, turning up and bothering him when she was bored seemed natural. That was the cover story, anyway. The truth of the matter, which he surely knew yet chose not to comment on, was that Mary was trying to stay close in case he needed to talk. Nick was handling the loss of Gerry well, better than she’d expected, but she could hear enough of his thoughts to know the pain was still tearing him up. And Nick enjoyed having someone else around, even if he would never say it out loud. Plus, she liked the company as well.
All things considered, it wasn’t a perfectly smooth transition back to quasi-civilian life, but it wasn’t nearly as rocky as it could have been. Mary had found a balance between leaving her old world and laying the foundations for a new one, which was what made it all the more shocking one morning at a coffee shop when a familiar figure plopped down on the other side of her booth.
Mary’s textbooks were spread out as she worked; she had sunken so deep into her studies that for a moment she didn’t even notice the new presence. It was unnerving; Mary had to turn off her telepathy to focus, but she did this infrequently enough that she had never quite gotten used to people sneaking up on her. Even and especially people from the HCP.
“Good morning, Mary.” Dr. Moran was smiling, looking as put-together as always. She’d been sitting for less than a minute when one of the shop’s employees showed up with a steaming mug of coffee which was then set down wordlessly in front of her. “I hope I’m not interrupting, but I wondered if we might have a chat. If not today, then perhaps we could schedule a better time.”
“You know, I feel like way too many people are comfortable just dropping in while I’m out doing my own thing.” Despite her words, Mary began to shut her books. Whatever this was, it probably deserved her full attention.
“Apologies. My schedule is tight so I tend to use open spots as best I can. Like I said, though, if this is a bad time then we can pick another,” Dr. Moran replied.
Mary finished closing her books and shoved them to the side of the table. “No, it’s okay. You’re a better surprise guest than my last one. What’s going on?”
Dr. Moran tilted her head slightly, nodding to the nearby clusters of regular people going about their day. “I’ve come to talk to you about a possible opportunity, however at this stage I’m afraid I won’t be able to go very in depth. Confidentiality agreements and all that. Much of what I’m going to cover will have to go unsaid.”
If there was a more blatant way to communicate “read my thoughts,” Mary couldn’t imagine what it would be. She focused in on Dr. Moran’s mind while the HCP’s counselor continued to speak.
“I heard through the grapevine that you were interested in taking your education in a new, specialized direction,” Dr. Moran said. “Something akin to w
hat I do. That seemed like a topic worth discussing, since much of my training was quite specialized. The truth is, there aren’t a whole lot of people in my field, Mary. Not as many as there should be. And much of the research for treatment is still confined to the minds pioneering it. There isn’t a good formal system in place, is what I’m trying to say. So, rather than have you and others interested in applied psych, start from scratch, it seemed more prudent to let you learn from those who have come before.”
While Dr. Moran’s words made things clear enough to figure out the general meaning of her proposal, her thoughts helped fill in the gaps nicely. Therapy and counseling of Heroes was still considered a niche field of study, with nowhere near as much education and research going in to it as other areas. Dr. Moran was offering to let Mary work under her, or someone like her, in grad school to gain firsthand experience.
“Aren’t there going to be clearance issues?” Mary asked.
“Not at all. I’ve been pitching this sort of program for years now. Thanks to the backing of some higher-ups, they’ve finally agreed to sign off on a trial version. And you, you are a prime candidate. My first choice, in fact.” Dr. Moran was still smiling as she mentally rattled off the details: the new head of the DVA had agreed that not enough funding was going in to treating the long-term mental side effects of the job, so several programs would soon be starting trial runs. The DVA would permit her to work with and remember the identities of HCP students and Heroes, so long as she signed an obscene amount of non-disclosure documentation.
“Sounds intriguing,” Mary said at last. “Maybe we can set up a meeting to talk about it more in depth?”
“I’ll see about setting up a time. But if you’re interested, I’ll go ahead and start getting the preliminary paper work done. There’s going to be a lot of it for both of us, so I hope you’re not susceptible to hand-cramps.” Dr. Moran lifted her still steaming mug of coffee and downed the entire beverage in a rapid gulp. She noticed the shocked look on Mary’s face and gave a half-hearted shrug. “Learned skill. I told you, I don’t have a lot of windows of free time. In fact, this one is up. We’ll put something together, Mary. I look forward to talking with you about the topic further.”