by K. T. Hanna
“Dare?” Orion’s tone was filled with concern. While it wasn’t fair to him right now, I was buzzed, and not quite myself. So, I came up with an excuse.
“Not feeling well. Going to bed early.” I managed to squeeze the words out from between clenched teeth as I shut my eyes to avoid looking at the light beaming down at me from the ceiling. Both of which helped the nervous laughter that threatened to escape again.
I could hear the emptiness of sound on the other side as he tried to puzzle out my words. It was unusual for me to avoid a friend gathering. I never realized that hesitation had a sound. Or perhaps I was simply hyper aware right now.
“I’ll bring you some dinner.” He’d given up and tried to hide his worry with the excuse of food.
Once he was gone, I opened my eyes and looked up at my ceiling, daring the light to blind me. The laughter had drained as quickly as it arrived. All of the weight on my shoulders appeared to have fallen away and I sat, drinking in the silence of my room.
Your heart rate has returned to normal. It is advisable to remain lying down for the time being. You will feel tired shortly as the adrenaline ebbs.
I raised an eyebrow at the well-meaning system. You think?
It paused for a moment before actually replying to me. I know.
Very well then, it knows. Calming down fit well with me. I stretched my arms up tand looked at my hands. It was strange, but my finger tips felt numb, asleep. Like someone had placed them on a tiny pad of pins and needles. Yet, despite the tiredness I could feel starting to creep over my body, the thrill of what I’d done wouldn’t abate.
Your mission has been completed. Payment has been transferred. Due to the unexpected twist of this last assignment and it’s associated energy expulsion, you have ranked up.
You have moved from Junior Rank, to Novice Rank.
Successful execution of: General Electrical Pulse Control
You have gained field experience.
Successful execution of: Rudimentary Electrical Shock Application
You have gained field experience.
Unexpected twist is a good way to put it. I couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped me. I guess I’d gained a skill too.
We could not see what attacked you, but know you were assailed. This put your most recent task up a category.
Which was very interesting information. But something else the system said finally hit me. Wait. What now? They’ve already retrieved what I went to get?
I sat up, irritation welling inside once again. My joy at discovering how powerful I could be ebbed. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen, maybe twenty minutes since I put that bag in our mailbox. Who on earth could have retrieved it so quickly? Unless they had someone who was close by and received a message when I’d completed a task. Did they have a skeleton key or something?
Retrieval of items obtained is paramount to the success of Second Chance. Items will always be retrieved with as much haste as possible.
I knew it heard my thoughts, it wasn’t like I tried to hide them. Just yelling them loudly in my mind so anyone could hear. So it chose not to give me more information than that. I sighed and pulled myself back up. As much as I might like to after my encounter with whatever that was earlier, I couldn’t hide in here all weekend. What I could do was avoid the route I’d taken to the diner like I usually did and go out to the living room and spend time with my friends. Maybe that way I’d get distracted enough to stop noticing how quickly my charge seemed to be replenishing.
Remembering my recent reflection, I grabbed my brush and ran it through my hair quickly to tame it. I held my breath before checking the mirror to make sure I didn’t look too manic. As luck would have it, I appeared to have regained some composure, even if I was still pale.
I opened the door, only to find Orion with his fist raised, ready to knock on it. He almost dropped the tray in his hands. But I manage to help him save it and rescue the PB&J he’d made from potential death. We all know the five second rule was just an excuse to see how much bacteria could jump on your food while it sat on the floor.
“You’re up.” He eyed me quizzically. “I thought you were too busy dying to come out and hang with us. So I thought I should bring you sustenance, just in case.”
“Maybe I just wanted to see your exotic face,” I quipped as I bit into the food. I’d never been able to figure it out, but Orion was like a magical sandwich maker. No matter what was in it, it always tasted like he should be in some competition. Even with a PB&J.
He raised an eyebrow at me and shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips. “More like you just want to see Cyan.”
He laughed and tucked the small tray under his arm as he ushered me out of my room.
He was right, in a way, but not completely. I liked Cyan, but I liked Orion too. I just wasn’t sure which one was the stronger like, or even what type. Besides, it’d be horrible to lose Orion’s friendship, so it wasn’t something I dwelled on.
Jacob was gone when we got to the living room, but Cyan was there dressed in an alarming shade of indigo that clashed with her hair enough to make me blink. That was probably her intention. Her smile lit up the room, and she gave me a brief hug.
“Dare! Orion said you weren’t feeling well. But you look fine.” She nudged me, like she was in on some huge secret. She whispered in my ear. “Though you could do with a bit of color.”
Memory of the arm around my neck, of those fingers against mine wrestling with the bag made me suppress the shudder and grin back at her, hoping I managed not to snarl. At that moment, before she could look into my expression with any depth, there was a buzz at the door.
Her enthusiasm was usually contagious, but I wasn’t feeling it right now, even if I wanted to. Maybe I should have stayed in the bedroom, because my brain had started to overanalyze every portion of my ill-fated trip home. I wanted to dissect it, to figure out how I’d called up that much force. Orion watched me from the kitchen, not bothering to hide the fact. The frown on his face said what I knew he was thinking. That I was keeping something from him. Oh boy, was he ever right.
Cyan buzzed the next guests through the door like she lived here too. I could hear their feet tromping up the stairs. From the sounds of it, it was the rest of the group. Sam was one of Cyan’s friends. I’ve never been able to figure out from where. She didn’t go to our school and didn’t seem to go to school at all. Her finances appeared to be unlimited, because she provided us with the majority of our snacks and food for any gathering.
Sam was a good person from what I’d been able to see. Always willing to help, always there if you needed someone to go get more supplies. Her bob was always pristine, like she’d just had it styled at a salon, and the red sheen to her black-brown hair would have seemed natural if I didn’t know better. Maybe her money came from Second Chance too. For all I knew everyone’s everything could come from there.
Neale walked in next. Tall, athletic, on the basketball team. I’d be surprised if he didn’t get scouted early. Great guy if he could get rid of that darker than acceptable sense of humor. It was like it had chosen to be the precise opposite of his almost white-blonde hair. One of these days, it was going to get him in trouble.
I heard someone trip up the stairs and cringed. That had to be Levi. It was never quite the problem at school where walls and railings were readily accessible. I sighed, unable to keep the grin off my face when he stumbled through the door. Good old Levi. If anyone was going to trip, fall, crash into the decorations that just got set up for a fundraiser? It was Levi. Luckily, we didn’t own anything valuable.
Neale nudged me with his elbow. It was closer to shoulder height for me. I mean, the guy was a mini giant. I wish I had a few more inches of height. My legs would be longer. I could be so much faster, even without giving myself a push.
“Whatchya doing, Dare?”
I glanced up at his friendly grin. “I’m standing here pretending not to notice that you’re using me as a resting place.”
He laughed. Neale had to have the worst laugh I’ve ever heard. If you took a donkey, crossed it with a seal, and let it smoke for thirty years, you’d only just get in the same vicinity as Neale’s laugh. “Good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor, even if it looks like you’ve lost a bit of weight instead of gaining. Keeping your training diet up?”
I gulped and looked away, feeling guilty. He was right, I should be eating a specific amount of calories and balancing healthy proteins with my eating habits. Making sure I had enough calories to burn was important and since last Sunday, it was something I’d been largely ignoring. Not to mention, I had a sneaking suspicion I needed to up my food game to keep my body charged enough to house my electrical abilities. Knowing my luck, I’d probably end up eating my profits.
“Been a hectic few days. I’ll make sure to adjust back this coming week.” I tried to put effort into the words, but even I didn’t really believe myself. Sure, I meant it now…
He leaned a bit closer and studied my face, the hint of a frown evident on his own. “See that you do. I’ll check in on you next week. You have an important meet coming up. Don’t blow it, Dare.”
I nodded. He was right. I’d just been a tad preoccupied. I did my best to grin positively. “Thanks, Neale.”
“No problem.” He grinned and tapped my left shoulder. “Nice tattoo though. When did you get it?”
I didn’t want to explain this again. I didn’t want those looks that made it feel as if everyone was trying to save me or make me feel better. They didn’t know the full truth, and my brain resident had other ideas anyway. I couldn’t tell them precisely how bad the accident had been, so I just went along with his perception of my scar. “Last week.”
He gave me a high five. “Nicely done.” And he turned to talk to Sam, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Or at least, so I hoped. It was like my luck stopped with the whole, you’re not dead yet thing.
You aren’t dead. It shouldn’t be so hard to grasp. It seems like you’re having problems digesting this information. As mentioned in the initial tutorial, it would be best for your progress if you read the orientation guide.
I don’t remember seeing the ability to open an orientation guide.
Sure, I was known for sometimes skimming important stuff, and excelling with academic experimentation as I liked to call it. Reading about how to do it, was never as much fun as actually doing it. I wasn’t entirely sure, but I thought the system was getting irritated with me.
Down the right hand side, under personal information and Frequently Asked Questions. Take time and read the instructions and guidelines. It’s been almost a week, and you should be far more familiar with the system than you are.
Anger welled in me, and I could feel the sparks begin to gather under my skin. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like playing with my friends. I also didn’t feel like playing this life or death game I suddenly found myself in the middle of.
“Hey guys, that nausea is coming back. I’m going to lie down. Don’t worry about keeping the noise down, I won’t hear it.”
The looks on their faces as I left the room said everything. Like they were sorry for me and knew something was up. Pity, and concern, with understanding only just tempered it.
They had no idea what the whirlwind in my head was like. I didn’t want to sit around listening to them laugh like everything was normal, like I hadn’t died. But I couldn’t tell them that, because I’d risk my life all over again. My adrenaline began to boil again, and my power prodded at my brain, begging to be let out. If this happened in a fit of anger, we’d be in for a world of hurt.
A thought struck me. Could letting my friends know about my predicament result in their demise too? For just a split second I wished I’d never been saved. I wished the electricity had just done its job and left me for dead.
Is this truly what you wish?
The question took me by surprise and for one split second, I had no idea how to answer.
The easiest way to deal with this was to avoid everyone for as long as possible, while I attempted to understand and analyze everything I was going through. With the way my ability had been bouncing around in and out of my body, I couldn’t trust myself to be too close to anyone I cared about. Hell, close to anyone at all if I looked at it that way. How much irritation would it take for a strand of electricity to escape my control? No. I needed to practice with this. To feel as if I had a modicum of control. To understand my power.
Naturally that meant I had to get up even earlier and make it to the track before anyone else. It allowed for me to have a private place I could go, somewhere I could analyze the way my power sang to me, how it felt alive inside me while my feet pounded against the pavement and the track. It enabled me to practice control and release of the ability, boosting my strengths before coach got there to time me.
I loved running. It was like a mantra that constantly ran through my head. The one constant in all of this crazy shit.
As the next week passed, I began to hone my control. If I wasn’t careful and didn’t limit myself, I’d end up zooming in a way that would find me locked in a laboratory myself if I wasn’t careful. Which made me really want to go back to that lab I’d found and figure out just what it was it contained. The system never remarked anything about it to me. Which only made it even more suspicious.
If I applied my ability subtly, I could give myself a boost that seemed like infinite energy for most of the day. I’d call it cheating, but I was only using the skills I had at my disposal.
The second advantage to this was that it allowed me to discharge excess electrical energy. I still didn’t completely understand how this whole thing worked, but I did know that if I bottled it up, I’d explode and spray everyone with glass shards. Metaphorically speaking, anyway.
While that might be good if I got into trouble again, it probably wasn’t best to walk around every day like a loaded gun.
By the time it rolled around to the following Friday, I’d completed three more tasks. Mundane, boring, nothing chasing me tasks. I was ready for something frightening. I hadn’t even got to use my Rudimentary Electric Shock again.
Why have this power if I didn’t get to use it. And I still hadn’t ranked up again. I wish the interface had an experience bar so I could see where the hell I was.
I’d also been paid around nine hundred dollars so far, which went a hell of a way to reducing my schooling costs. I was curious as to how the system paid me. How did I get money from it? Did it secretly belong to a corporation or the government? All of these questions overflowed in my head and the system was stubbornly silent about it. Selective thought hearing in the flesh. Just like it hadn’t mentioned anything else to do with the run-in I had with old pineapple hamburger hands.
Unsure what attacked me? Sure, they were. Either SC ignored what happened, or it didn’t see it. The latter was more unsettling than I wanted to admit. They’d seen my death. How the hell had they not seen my attackers?
Managing to avoid my friends completely for the most part became exhausting, but also thrilling in its own way. Like I was a spy in a movie, except I wasn’t. This was the real world, and I refused to get them all accidentally dead. Whether that was through electrocuting them, or getting them killed because I inadvertently gave away my secret, didn’t matter. Since the system refused to respond to my very loudly thought questions on the matter, it was simply something I couldn’t risk.
I even managed to slink in and out of my lectures all week without Cyan being the wiser for it. Although it was obvious she did know—she just couldn’t catch me in time. She was the same academic track as me, though we’d diverge when we eventually hit postgraduate. At least she was easy to spot in a crowd, thus making it simple to stay on the opp
osite side of her with a baseball cap on.
About two minutes before the current lesson wound down, I finished off my notes, shoved my tablet in my bag, and inched out the side door before anyone else could get up from their seat. I turned to the right to make my way out of the building, only to find Orion there blocking my way. I wasn’t sure how people recognized an aura, but if I could see them, I was willing to bet that Ry’s would be black right about now.
He grabbed me by the upper arm and dragged me along with him.
“What the hell, Ry? That hurts.” If he wasn’t careful he’d get shocked. My skin could turn into a conductor at any given moment, and I didn’t quite have that under control yet after discovering it the other day.
He glowered as he locked eyes with me, and if I could have stepped back, I would have, but he held me tight. “No. I have been trying to catch you at home, and at the track, and after most of your lectures this week. You avoided me and Jacob all weekend, and you haven’t even checked in with your family. So, no. You are going to stay with me because I can’t trust you not to disappear if I let you follow behind.”
My family? What the hell? My temper was difficult to control before I was pumped with electrical power. Gritting my teeth I ground out the words. “I’m not a child anymore. I don’t need a babysitter. I told him I’d call him when I could.”
Orion was really worried about me. His tone said it all. His grip wasn’t really hurting, just uncomfortable. I just didn’t like following. That whole competition thing. Plus, I didn’t feel like facing anyone today, or yesterday, or even tomorrow. He raised an eyebrow at me. “That’s what you focus on, in everything I said?”
He was right though. I took a deep breath, and willed the power to calm down. “Sorry. I promise I won’t run away.”
My voice was soft, but he heard me and immediately let go. I’d call him gullible, but I knew he wasn’t. He’d known me long enough to understand that if I promised, I did it.