by K. T. Hanna
Sleep wasn’t my friend that night. My gourmet dinner of ramen sat heavily in my stomach, taunting me to throw up and feel worse. Orion avoided me completely, not even walking home with me. And, of course, I’d completely avoided the street where the scene of my accident was. No one had time to relive that shit.
The irritation didn’t help. While a part of me was petrified that I might slip up and suddenly be dead, another part of me didn’t operate well under threat of punishment. Not even punishment for committing crimes. I’d be disciplined if I didn’t commit them. What sort of fucked up logic was that?
Not to mention the fact that I had a sentient thing living in my head now was really starting to sink in. I refused to dignify its existence by calling it sapient. Humans had to be better, or at least strive to be.
Waking up left me groggy, only just having fallen asleep. I washed my face, pulled on some clothes that didn’t smell bad, and dragged myself into the kitchen. Laundry was the bane of my existence. There was a small container on the counter with an apple balanced on top and a sticky note stuck next to it.
Peanut butter is better.
Don’t forget your apple.
See you at lunch.
Ry
Idiot. But I couldn’t help smiling, even if it was a little corny. Apparently I was just being a grumpy sod. Although, what Orion had to do up at this hour, I had no idea. His scholarship was purely academic, so he didn’t have to be up this early at all. Lucky bastard.
I grabbed a piece of toast, smothered some jam on it—gotta keep some variety, after all—and headed out the door. Being a bit early to practice never hurt anyone, especially since I needed to figure out how I was going to manage to do that assignment the system gave me today.
Sadly, when I wanted to get somewhere early, I tended to catch all of the red lights. I leaned against the button on the side of the streetlamp, stretching my calves. Not that the button did anything except give me the illusion of control. A tingle ran through me, followed by a shower of sparks that sent a thrumming beat through each of my limbs simultaneously. I yanked my hand away quickly, watching in dismay as the streetlights all around me began to blink yellow.
Fuck. Was that me?
Oops.
Reminder: you must discharge your excess electricity on a regular basis or else it will build up and discharge at random.
“Thanks.” I muttered to no one in particular, and at least took advantage of the confusion to cross with the group of people who’d been standing on my side of the street. Two blocks later, and those lights were at least working. I didn’t lean on anything remotely electrical or metal for the rest of the way to school, despite really wanting to. Looked like I needed to get some practice in with this discharging thing. And I had a feeling I could make it fun as hell.
I felt energized. Like strangely good about myself and my body. Powerful. I’d never felt that way. It always seemed like I had to drag every shred of effort out of myself by force. If discharging a little electrical power in the mornings could do this? I was going to have to do it on a more regular basis.
Not only did I feel energized, but I seemed to fly over the ground like it was nothing and I had wings. Not the sort you get from a canned energy drink. Lighter than anything.
Coach Marth’s whistle caught me off guard, and I stumbled slightly, but changed direction and headed in to where he was standing.
“I’m not sure what you’re doing out there.” The grin on his face was wide and greedy. “But whatever it is, I hope you know how to recreate it. You’ve just run your best five miles ever.”
I smiled, but a little voice in the back of my head reminded me that this probably wasn’t natural. “Thanks, coach. I’ll do my best.”
Except I had no idea how to do it again. I’d been running on adrenaline since the light incident. But damned if I didn’t want to. It was all I could do to stop myself shaking. Whether it was with fear or anticipation, I wasn’t quite sure. Did this make me faster? Had I somehow charged myself with electricity? And how much was too much?
The one thing I knew was I had to be careful with my new skill. If this morning’s totally inadvertent mess made this much of an impact, then too much would make me unbelievably fast. I couldn’t afford to stand out like that. Not being in the program, not already having died. I had to be careful how I used this, because obviously it had way more applications than I’d even dreamed of.
“Dare!” Cyan greeted me outside the Intro to Cyber Security lecture. It was the one lecture I could zone into and soak it up. While we didn’t go much more in depth into it in this course, it was exactly what I aimed to pursue as a career.
“Hey.” I smiled, genuinely happy to see her. Right now her bubbliness could help soothe my over calculating brain. Maybe it would bring me back down to earth a bit. Since my ramped-up speed probably had a hell of a lot to do with my accidental electrical discharge, I found it difficult to concentrate, even on my favorite subject.
“You’ve been really quiet the last couple days.” Her concerned face made her button nose twitch like a rabbit’s.
I didn’t correct her, because I had been quiet. But she’d only had two classes with me excluding this one. Couldn’t I just be having an off day?
About to answer, I was interrupted by a hand on my shoulder, and one on hers as Levi inextricably inserted himself between us.
“Let’s own this shit! Hackers beware, Dare is—” His brow furrowed, like he was trying to think of a rhyme.
“There?” Cyan supplied before biting down on her lip and giggling. Her eyelashes fluttered just that bit with the laughter, and Levi squeezed her shoulder. That or he had to hold on so he didn’t faceplant. Sometimes he was rather uncoordinated. When were they ever going to admit it and just fuck already?
Although, if I thought about it, Cyan flirted with everyone, including me. I kept my grin on the inside and refused to let my thoughts wander. I had bigger things to worry about right now. And she hadn’t forgotten her previous question, which she proved as she leaned in front of Levi and poked me.
“Answer me. What’s up?”
I sighed, wanting to just devote my brain to figuring all this shit out. But I had great friends. Treating them like shit would be long term disaster. “I’m fine. Just got a lot on my plate.”
“That’s an excuse if ever I heard one.” Levi looked at me this time, frowning too. “You do look a bit pale. I can drive you to the doctor if you need me to.”
Levi wasn’t a bad guy. I hadn’t known him as long as I’d known Orion, or Cyan for that matter. I met Cyan during orientation while we were still in high school, and we’d hit it off. I can’t deny the occasional fantasy about it being more than that. But those visions didn’t have any place in my current predicament if I wanted to keep my train of thought going.
“I’m fine. I ran five miles, and then two mile sprints this morning. Coach is pushing me pretty hard.” All of it was true, even if I was quite certain any paleness on my behalf had nothing to do with my fitness.
“Mile sprints is an oxymoron.” Levi just shook his head.
“No, it’s not!” My retort came out harsher than intended, and I took a breath to steady myself. “Run as fast as I can for a mile. It’s exhausting. You know I can’t do shorter distances well.”
Levi laughed, but it wasn’t unkind, and I was grateful he didn’t take offence at my initial tone. “You’re insane with all that sports shit.”
I didn’t think so. Running was helping me right now. It cleared my mind, made it easier to analyze things. And hell, it had even inadvertently showed me a variance of this power I hadn’t anticipated. If I could just go back out and run, maybe I’d be able to figure out how to perform this damned next task. The clock was ticking down, and I had to get to the anthropology department. But I had to take notes, and I had to figure out just how much of my power co
uld do what.
So much to do, not enough time.
I flopped down in my seat, eyes scanning the room for anything out of the ordinary. Did the system really exist in my head or was this all a dream? Could it seriously see everything I did or was someone constantly monitoring me? Since it had shown me the view of my accident from outside of myself, I got the feeling everyone was being monitored. I just didn’t know how. Had they inserted something into my brain to communicate with me while I was in the ambulance before I woke up?
All of these made a lot more sense than the explanation given. Even if I felt it in my bones. Already having this system inside us? Maybe it only booted up on death.
I’m not sure how I managed to pay attention to the lesson and to take coherent notes, but I did. And moments before the professor dismissed us, I shoved everything into my backpack and slipped out before Cyan could attach herself to me and thus thwart my one available time window to get this task out of the way.
The anthropology department’s corridors were teeming with people. I frowned as I walked through them. This was going to be a disaster. Not only was everyone everywhere, but cameras were connected at every corner of each of the passageways, even though the light didn’t appear to bleed into them. Those corners were dark, filled with shadows that—oddly enough—felt like they were watching me.
Welcome to paranoia 101.
Perhaps they were like those things that I’d seen down there. In the lab. I shuddered involuntarily at the thoughts. It made every corner, every play of light feel like I was being hunted. My adrenaline spiked igniting my flight instinct.
Your assignment can be completed in these conditions. Proceed with caution.
Suppressing a groan, I focused the electricity buzzing through my veins as a distraction. I needed to touch an object in order to utilize my power, right? If the map I’d looked at toward the beginning of this section of the building was anything to go by, then around the next corner there should be steps with a railing I could balance on while I reached up to touch the back of the camera. Technically.
I wanted to grumble and complain and maybe even shout out why me, but in the end, I’d just been given a super power. A fucking super power. Holy shit.
Okay so, that sank in. Finally. I stood there blinking rapidly as a zillion different questions popped into my head. It gave me this power and could take it away. At least that’s what it wanted me to think. Shaking my head, I cleared the thoughts. I couldn’t afford to have them now, or when it might be listening in.
The thing I needed to avoid at that moment was being seen by any camera or person. I’d reach around the corner to touch the damned thing while hoping these mind shadowy things that lived in my overactive imagination and apparently in the lab didn’t try to suck out my soul. Because that would be terribly awkward.
I had to keep an eye out in both directions, ostensibly rummaging in my backpack while doing so. What I wouldn’t give to be a pigeon for several seconds. It was obvious I wouldn’t have a lot of time to get this taken care of, so as soon as both corridors appeared clear, I moved.
Getting up onto the railing wasn’t difficult. I hugged the wall and shimmied up to the tips of my toes to feel around the corner and latch onto the connection that ran into the wall. Managing to touch it with the pointer and middle finger of my left hand, I willed electricity into the system. I wished for it to only affect the cameras in this particular building, including the good Professor’s.
I had no idea how accurate my thoughts would make my ability, but I had to hope. This is what I got for only half paying attention to the tutorials.
My fingers heated but didn’t burn, and the sparks that leapt across felt subdued and nothing like the burst of bright enthusiastic energy that halted traffic this morning. Still, the soft smell of faint sulfur reached my nose, and I jumped down from my balance beam to land on the floor.
No twinge in my knees, and no rolled ankles. I’d live to run another day. And only two people had entered the corridors before I managed to jump down, their heads buried in their phones. Lucky me.
I had no way to check if the cameras were indeed disabled, but I was marginally confident I’d fried some sort of electrical wiring. At least, if the smell was anything to go by. Did the system even take that sort of damage into account? Destroying university property. It practically made me a vandal as well as a thief.
The office I needed was two corridors and one right hand turn over, so I set about trying to appear as if I belonged there.
I should have known it wouldn’t be a problem. If you didn’t know people in the vicinity, students didn’t randomly notice you if you also looked like a student. Since I did, it was easy to make my way to the door.
Truth was, I hadn’t been here since freshman year when I’d been torn between anthropology and psychology for my behavioral requirement. The head of department’s office was right where the map said it would be: in a darker twist of the corridor with uneven ghosts lingering on the outside of the door. Those tricks of light played havoc with my brain. It took effort not to reach out and touch them, to check if they were real.
She should have been teaching a class. Professor Chapman’s schedule was easy to see online, like most of the current college and university classes. I paused and knocked, pretended to hear her, and pushed into her office, relieved to see that she was, in fact, sticking to her schedule.
I closed the door behind me and leaned against it for a moment, taking in a breath. This shouldn’t feel so thrilling. It had to be the nature of the electricity, because I felt far bolder than I’d ever been before. The sensation wasn’t at all unwelcome.
Day Planner. Book thing. Whatever. Why would she not have taken it with her wherever she was going? Her office was tidy on the surface, but one glance at the bookshelves showed me another story. It seemed even some of the world’s most respected researchers were as messy with their research as I was. She needed a tablet so she could sort shit digitally. Only I wasn’t going to tell her that.
But I was going to steal her planner.
It sat open to this week on her desk. A pang of guilt rushed through me as I hesitated to pick it up. If she depended on a paper planner, then she needed this information. Taking it would mean her whole week, or worse, her whole month would be out of whack.
Except if I didn’t take it, I’d be dead. That was the deal, wasn’t it? What a stupid fucking waste if it really worked that way.
My life or her diary? Was that even a choice? Two days ago it wouldn’t have been a question, because I wasn’t on borrowed time back then. Guilt and I didn’t have a good relationship, and I could already tell I wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight either. Whether it was because of my emotions or my brain not shutting up had yet to be decided.
Steeling myself, I grabbed it and shoved it into my backpack before I could second guess myself again. I paused once I’d done so. There was no clicking of a secret door, no sliding of bookshelves, or disappearing desks. The silence crescendoed the longer I waited.
Just as I was about to heave a sigh of relief, I heard footsteps approaching the door, followed by a knock. Even almost expecting it, I practically jumped out of my skin. Fuck.
The window.
I whirled around, thankful for the first time that the voice was apparently omnipresent when it chose, and saw the single hung window.
Move. Open it. Jump out. It’s a slight drop, but we are on the ground level.
I did as I was told, able to move without thinking, and execute the departure quickly. I was up on the ledge, just about to jump through the opening when the second knock sounded. It surprised me again, and I almost fell, but caught myself and rolled onto the grass, hoping against hope I hadn’t shattered my tablet.
My breath came fast, and I didn’t look back as I ran away from the building. Her office window backed out onto grass and closely cro
pped trees. The ground was cushy beneath my feet, and I fed some of that overenthusiastic energy into my body to help fuel my flight.
Finally, I pushed through onto one of the sidewalks that wove its way through and around the university. I stood, my hands on my knees, gulping in air. It wasn’t that I was winded, I was exhilarated. Like a drug, all I wanted was to experience that adrenaline again. Even if it had knocked a few years off my life.
And even if I was mildly disappointed that this planner hadn’t triggered a hidden opening.
Assignment halfway completed. Quick thinking on an exit strategy. Remember to deliver the item to the prescribed spot.
I know, I know. I didn’t think at it, but was fairly sure it heard me anyway. While I had to attend an afternoon class, I’d be home long before the deadline. The planner weighed my backpack down, but I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or its actual weight.
I bit into my apple like a starving monkey. Hungrier than usual, I wondered if channeling my ability consumed more calories. It wouldn’t surprise me, but in that case, I was going to need to eat a lot more.
Heading home tonight became my focus. After I popped this planner in my mailbox, I needed to learn more about how to control this ability, master it. And then, I needed a plan.
Jacob was in the apartment when I bounded on upstairs. I wasn’t expecting him to be home; it was already after six in the evening. Maybe he’d taken on a weekend shift for a friend. He did that sometimes, as weekends paid slightly better.
“Hey, Jacob.” I half smiled at him, realizing I was starving. Underlying smells in the kitchen only increased that to ravenous, and I walked to the fridge. Pulling out ham and cheese, and some mayo and mustard, I rummaged around for the tomatoes I knew I’d bought on special.
“Perfect.” Jacob’s clapped the book shut that he was reading and jumped to his feet. “Just the person I wanted to talk to.”
“Why?” It was out of my mouth so fast I hadn’t finished the piece of ham I’d just shoved in there. Bad manners right there.