The brown curly hair that frames her face surrounds a smooth, perfect face with high cheekbones, a straight sharp nose, and beautiful gold flecked, green, eyes. Those would be hazel, I think? Her chin has a slight dimple that must mean a strong chin in the men in her family, but for her adds just the right amount of strength in her feminine beauty to place her in my personally preferred category of Warrior Goddess.
"Hi – Theo," are the only words I can manage now that I’ve fully taken her in, and I stick out my hand. The professor is background noise I no longer care about.
"Carly," she responds and takes my hand with a smile. "You've got a strong mind - and I like that it stays in your head,” she tells me, “Kind of refreshing to meet someone who isn't either broadcasting every thought or trying to break into my head.” She’s still holding my hand. I noticed, but am avoiding doing anything to make her notice hoping she doesn’t pull her hand away, “You know, it's always one or the other. But, you're different. Huh," she is looking at my forehead as if looking through it into my brain.
"You can sense what other telepaths are doing?" I ask, even though she has already said she can. She pulls her hand away to my disappointment.
“Yeah. There are half a dozen telepaths in this auditorium and they have sifted through the minds of every non-telepath in the room. Except yours," she replies, briefly pointing at my forehead.
"So why didn't I feel them like I did the professors?"
She looks at the professor like he’s some kind of eyesore, "Because the professor is a bull in a china shop. You don't have to beat on a wall to know it's a wall, and yours is definitely a wall."
Carly and I have a whispered conversation for the rest of the class, with the occasional annoyed look from the professor, which I return in kind. At the end of class I ask, "Hey, would you like to get lunch later?"
“Sure, that'd be fun. What's your schedule?"
"I'm in the science building in a specialty class right after this until one o'clock. How about you?"
"What is that, a five hour class?" She doesn't wait for an answer and continues, "I've got algebra until ten, and then I have my specialty class from eleven to three. When's your last class?"
"I get out of my last class at six," I say, and then explain, "I'm carrying twenty units this semester."
"Wow, you sure you have time to eat?” Once again not waiting for an answer from me, she continues, “Okay, what about meeting at your commons later and we can get dinner?"
"Okay. Do you know where Atlas Quad is?”
"You're in the monkey house!" She laughs, amused and shocked at my admission.
Is my quad that bad? Well, yeah. Maybe. That is a fitting name for dorms full of the super strong - and the not too bright, I think, the “Welcoming Committee” coming to mind.
"Yeah, I guess I am," is my almost, but not quite embarrassed, response.
"Wow, never would have guessed," she says, letting me off the hook.
I'm taking that as a compliment to my intelligence, rather than a knock on my physique. This has been a great conversation, though, so I'm going to stick with the positive. "So, seven o'clock?"
"Sure, I'll see you then. I have to go! Bye, Theo!" She waves and turns and I get to see her long wavy brown hair bouncing half way down to her very attractive, athletic backside as she rushes out of the auditorium.
Shaking off the warm blob of goodness I'm feeling, I grab my bag and head out for my science class. It doesn't start for an hour, but it is half way across campus in the science department’s specialty buildings and I want to check out the lay of the land in that part of campus as I will be spending most of my time there.
Chapter 12
My specialty class is Engineering for Advanced Minds 301, located in Hoover Building. I took every advanced science and math class there was at my high school and two mechanical drafting classes and a basic engineering class at the local community college during my senior year to qualify for this class, but it was worth it so I can get the most out of what Nova has to offer.
By the time I get to the large auditorium where the class is scheduled, it's mostly full and I'm stuck taking a seat in the front row. I hate sitting in the front. It’s annoying to have so many people sitting behind me, where I can’t see them. Especially a mob of potential mad scientists.
There are easily sixty people here, but the room is mostly quiet with only a couple conversations that I can see. That's about what I expect in an advanced science class full of super genius science geeks. You could win a bet on there being less than ten of them having any more social skills than a door stop.
Walking into the class late, the instructor starts before he reaches his podium, "Good morning. My name is Dr. Manning, and I will be your instructor for this class. All work is to be completed in the lab, using lab equipment.” He goes on with the usual spiel professors give on the first day of class that students need to listen to so they know what needs to be done to pass the class, but find mind numbingly boring.
I turn and look back at the room and everyone's attention is hanging on every word, except one person in the back of the class who turns and looks right at me. Except that his eyes are closed. It's creepy as I am pretty sure he can see me even with his eyes closed and I can feel what can only be described as tentacles touching the walls around my mind. It is unusual in the extreme to have a super genius that is also a telepath. The powers use different parts of the brain, so it’s possible, but generally the more overdeveloped with super powers one part of the brain is, the more normal developed the rest of the brain. Jet black hair, sharp features, and a nose like an eagle's beak, and, creepy feeling telepath ability. I take care to remember the face as a person to keep mindful of.
Pulling my attention back, the professor continues, "I take roll at the beginning of every class and expect you to attend every lecture. Lab time can be difficult to get…." I start tuning out Dr. Manning as he walks behind the lab table that extends the width of the room in front of the white board and grabs a huge stack of papers, continuing his syllabus lecture. He handles the stack of papers as if they have no weight, giving away he is at least a Class 1 super.
Carrying them to the front row of the class, he begins handing smaller stacks of what are thick, stapled syllabi to the people along the front row and says, "Pass these back. Everyone take one and pass the rest,” the droning continues and I only start listening again when he brings up cheating, “Trust me when I say that if any of you tries to plagiarize someone else's work, I will know about it and you will find yourself expelled not just from this class, but from this institution." Dr. Manning gives us a minute to let that sink in, but I would be astonished to hear that someone that qualifies to be in this class would be willing to put their name on someone else's work. Having super science ability is a badge of honor and the level of arrogance that goes with it leaves no room for stooping low enough to be willing to cheat. Secretly steal their designs to use to advance their own research? Sure. Cheat on assignments with a possibility of being exposed as being so stupid as to need to steal someone else’s work? No way.
"The room next door is our drafting lab. We will be spending the next two hours in there where you will do your first draft assignment so I can assess your skills. The last hour we will spend in the lab going over the safe operation of the machinery. Are there any questions?" Half a dozen hands go up, "Good. Make your way into the drafting lab and let's get going." Dr Manning walks out of the room without acknowledging the now falling hands that were up. The first assignment isn’t just to show how good at drafting we are, it is for us to design and draft schematics for our first project for manufacture.
My final two classes on Monday are required for my major, Advanced Chemistry and Advanced Logic Algorithms. Both are thankfully subjects I'm familiar with from my personal studies, but they will go much further and still take up a good amount of my time. My Monday and Wednesday schedules are the same and make up the bulk of the classes I'm taking this
semester. Tuesday and Thursday I have two classes in the morning, Metallurgy followed by Robotics, with those afternoons and my Fridays free.
On my free afternoons and Fridays I will be mostly working on my own projects in the Student Labs. At least that’s the plan. This will allow me, for the first time, to have access to real custom manufacturing and prototyping machinery. I will finally be able to build my own inventions with the quality and materials I've always wanted and not have to send off projects to custom shops for manufacture like I had to do back home.
Chapter 13
It's 6:30pm by the time I make it back to my dorm room. I can see Carlos has already been here as the backpack he uses for school is hanging half on, half off, his bed. The guy from class with the jet black hair who was looking at me while his eyes were closed is still creeping me, but I don't have time for crazy. Carly is meeting me in the CL Commons in thirty minutes and I need to get ready. I’m feeling a little giddy.
Getting ready for a date, that isn't supposed to be a date, but you want to lead to a date, is a delicate process. You want to look good without looking like you tried to look good and you definitely can't dress like you're going on a date. I start to go with my new pair of khaki knee length shorts, but they look like I just took the tags off of them, which I did. Then I go for my blue jeans, because you can't go wrong with blue jeans, but it's like a hundred degrees out with ninety percent humidity. Definitely shorts. Going with a print tee shirt and sports shorts wouldn't give a good impression to a trailer park manager, so I finally decide to go with my desert camo cargo shorts and a red pullover from a Bone Diggers concert I went to last year. Spending this much time to get ready makes me think I'm into this chick way too deep, which is nuts. Why would I spend this much time worrying about how I look? I didn't spend this much time getting ready for my prom.
Then it hits me. Did Carly mess with my head? Something doesn't seem right, so I sit on the side of my bed, close my eyes, and settle my mind to try to figure out what is going on. This is another one of my powers. One that I inherited from my mom that she made me practice religiously. I focus my conscious thoughts into my subconscious mind, which in my mind's eye looks like a fortress with eyes within a mountain with feet, and start my search. My power is the ability to see the organization of my mind as a construct and to track how it changes and what influences made the changes. I don't need to look at everything right now, just what I'm suspicious of, which is Carly, so I skip past the usual walk-thru my mind I normally take when doing this. I review my memories of our entire conversation and can't find anything, but something is not right, so I start looking for triggers, which my mom taught me are external stimuli that activate body chemistry in order to illicit a desired reaction. The only way to really test a trigger is by activating it, which I had not planned on doing as it can take forever to go through all the possible things that can be used as a trigger. Since this seems to be all about Carly, I can focus on only the triggers that could be related to her.
I've never known of anyone getting past my mental defenses, and I'm a little spooked - and getting a little pissed, which is not the emotional mindset I normally have when rummaging around in my own head. I go through the various ways I can think of that could be used for a trigger in this case: Carly's face, her smell, her voice, even the cute little way she scrunched her nose up a couple times when we were talking. Nothing was happening. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not fabricating something out of nothing and I let the spooked feeling and anger subside. Relief floods through me and I think about seeing Carly in the CL Commons for dinner - and POW, my brain gets flooded with endorphins. I can see it in my brain like you would the lights in a high rise at night all coming on at once.
Whoa! That's pretty cool what she was able to do, except now I'm going to have to kill her. I easily identify and sever the connections to the endorphin trigger Carly installed as they are very simple and do not have the complexity of a naturally created trigger.
Without another thought about my appearance, I grab my keys and head for the Commons.
Chapter 14
I walk in looking for Carly. The Commons is packed with students, most of whom live in the Atlas dorms, which mean they're loud, boisterous, and completely oblivious. Bobbing and weaving I look around the chaotic flow of bodies in hopes of spotting Carly before she spots me. I finally spot what looks like Carly's mane of curly brown hair and she immediately turns, looks right at me, and gives me a smile topped with those golden green eyes. I’m not smiling, but that does not seem to stop her smile. Her eyes, I realize, have a far more predatory look than they did when I was talking to her this morning. Or, that could be just me projecting.
Making a "T" with her hands like she's calling time out in a football game, Carly gives her head a jerk toward the double "Emergency Exit" door she's standing next to and walks out the door. I'm still standing where I first saw her staring at the emergency exit as it swings closed until some ape playing catch with a Nerf football slams into me while going for a long pass and knocks me on my ass.
I pick myself up and dodge out of the way of the ape that ran into me and see he's the same guy that was holding the "Welcoming Committee" sign when I checked into my dorm.
Your time is coming pal, keep it up. I think to myself. Turning away, I look back to the exit Carly went out and it hits me. She knew where I was when I spotted her. That I spotted her. And that I knew what she had done. She had to, otherwise why make the "T"? Why duck out? Should I follow her?
By the time I finish asking myself if I should follow her I'm already at the exit and pushing through. I brace my mental shields as I go through the exit, sidestepping as soon as I'm through. Carly is facing me, ten yards away, with her hands held out away from her sides, palms out where I can see she is not holding anything. She's trying to show me she's unarmed and means me no harm, but the stance she takes is the same one an energy projector could take to throw lightning, or fire, or a dozen other types of energy. My body jerks as I stop myself from diving to the side to avoid the attack and I start toward her.
Giving a head jerk at me again, this time toward the grassy quad that is mostly vacant, Carly heads out into the open space. I follow and pick up the pace to close the distance but not enough to look like I'm chasing her. Just before I get within reach of grabbing her arm and spinning her around, she spins around on her own and says, "Wait."
Pulling up short, I'm about to start yelling, but manage to keep it down and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing messing around in my head. After that I snap my mouth shut with a toothy 'clack' and just stand there looking at her, trying not to go into a rant. Tess says the best conversations she has with me start with me shutting up, so I give it a try, raise my eyebrows at her, and just look into those big golden green eyes.
"It was a test." Carly raises her hands, which I look down at before she drops them back down and takes a step back. "It was a test. I'm sorry, but I had to do it. I needed to know."
"Needed to know what?"
"I needed to know that you can control your own mind. That you can protect yourself from a telepath."
Confusion is setting in if it wasn't before. "Why the hell would you need to know that? Isn’t it obvious? You were in my head! How the…how did you even get in my head?" I'm rapidly moving past my confusion and into anger. Unlike confusion, anger for me isn't really asking questions to get answers so much as it is to justify being angry. "How is that okay?"
"I can explain!" Carly shouts as I start to open my mouth to vent more anger in the form of a question.
I step back, take a deep breath, and let it out too fast to be of any help calming me down, "Explain."
"I really liked talking to you in class and … and I want to get to know you more." Carly takes a step toward me, "But I don’t want to know just anyone. I want to be careful, and pick friends who can take care of themselves. Take care of themselves around telepaths, I mean."
That gets a surprised lo
ok from me, "Why? Why would I need protection from telepaths? Wait, wait. I know why I need to be able to protect myself from telepaths, but why does that matter for you? You're a telepath. Do you want me to be able to protect myself from you?"
"No. Well, I mean, yes. Yes, you should be able to protect yourself from me. But it's not me I'm concerned about." Carly turns and spreads her arms out, "Have you looked around? Do you have any idea how many telepaths are on this campus?"
"There is a whole quad full of students with mental powers, I'd say a lot."
"Yeah, a lot. Hundreds of them." Turning back to me, "Do you have any idea what they're doing?"
"You mean other than planting crap in my brain?"
"No, I mean reading thoughts and messing with the heads of every baseline brain they can get away with poking into. Did you know that some of our instructors actually give out assignments to control other students? They say it’s the only way you will really learn to control your powers."
That stops me in my tracks and I step back and turn to look around the quad. I'm in Atlas Quad, home of the biggest bunch of muscle bound apes with weak minds on campus. Could a telepath walk in here and own this place inside of a day? "They can't do that to me," I say, less certain than I would have been if I had said it this morning.
"I could." Carly says with a little regret in her voice. "At least I was able to up until you came out of that exit," and points back at the Commons. "I needed to test you to see if I could allow you to be a friend of mine. All the muscle around here are toys to a telepath, but they’re boring. Now, the friends of another telepath? Them? Friends that can't protect themselves? They're fun. Messing with them is like messing with another telepath when they can't do anything about it."
Nova Academy: A Superhero & Supervillain Novel Page 6