Citadel (Book 1): Training in Necessity

by Clevenger, J.

  Ester was surprised to find that she recognized the first one. "Isn't that the girl from last week, the one that was in the news?" she asked.

  "Jenny." her friend supplied. Mary had been as fascinated by the story, and as impressed by the girl's impassioned statements, as Ester. At least she had been then, now she seemed oddly disturbed by the young woman.

  "Did you meet her during training? What's she like?" Ester asked her son.

  "Jenny? Sure, I met her. She was the top ranked fighter in our class." Hector said. "Jason knows her better than me but..." he grinned, "She's Awesome."

  Ester decided to change the subject. She'd found that Mary was oddly reluctant to discuss her own son and Ester didn't want to make her uncomfortable. "Oh, is that Isaac?" Hector had spent a lot of time talking to her about his roommates, as well as his other friends among the trainees. "Do you think we'll have time to meet, after the ceremony?"

  "Sure," Hector smiled, "I told everyone all about you. They probably can't wait to see how you're doing." His face, his voice, everything about him changed and grew more serious. "Oh, and Mary? There's someone else I'd like to introduce you to."

  Ester followed his gaze, saw that he was looking at the man who'd been speaking earlier, Achala Juggernaut.

  * * *

  Private Quarters

  Describing Empowerments was difficult at best. There were multiple systems that attempted to do so, but they were invariably bogged down in vagueness or exceptions. The Archetype Method, the one used by the Citadel, was a compromise. Its Types, usually named for a prominent figure who'd had a simple version of the power in question, described the effects of a power without addressing the mechanism.

  Bruce Richards was, obviously, a Richards type, someone with the ability to make insights into a given field of interest that gave results beyond the reach of current technology. In the classic form, that meant inventions that seemed almost magical and couldn't be reproduced by anyone else, at least not without a great deal of work.

  What truly distinguished the Richards type, and the reason that they were almost universally designated as Support rather than Operations, was that while only their inventor could replicate them, anyone could use such devices. Worse, others could usually use them better. William Smith had come up with a process to make blades with a near monomolecular edge but he'd never be as dangerous with one as Drew Stasis.

  Bruce Richards was the exception to this. His area of interest was, to put it simply, fighting. The only thing he'd ever invented was a personalized exercise routine, one that he'd never been able to properly explain but one that gave him the body of a world class athlete in exchange for fifteen minutes of grueling effort a day. More to the point, he could see the combat potential in any object, in any situation.

  He looked down at his desk, at the three objects sitting on it. Each of them had been made, or at least modified, by a Support member at his request.

  A directional speaker, roughly the size of a pen, had been made by Agatha Richards. It emitted something that wasn't actually a sound wave but propagated in a similar manner. The 'sound' triggered a reaction in the brain of anyone that 'heard' it, similar to the delta wave rhythms that accompanied deep sleep.

  She'd meant it to aid therapists treating Super Shock and sleep disorders. In his hands, it had let him backstab a woman with eyes that could see through stone and three hundred and sixty degree vision. It had also let him bring down the forcefield of the Citadel's most powerful Strong type and keep several dozen extremely capable combatants from effectively coordinating their attacks.

  The knife was functionally identical to the ones he'd ordered for Drew. He'd used it to cut down three people who were capable of crushing his skull with a single hand or ignoring a shotgun blast to the face in the space of seconds. Those two he understood, knew why they were here. They were the two items he'd needed to play the Monster role, the capstone of the final exercise he'd designed for Melody's special project. The third item...

  Bruce had some unusual habits. For example, with each applicant that the Citadel accepted for operative training, he spent around five minutes figuring out how to beat them. Not just kill, that was too simple, especially if he assumed the element of surprise. No, what he sought was the most efficient means of utterly neutralizing someone, the key to bypassing their strengths and exploiting their weaknesses.

  This particular habit, or perhaps the accompanying preparations he inevitably incorporated into his combat rig, was why some of his colleagues had taken to calling him "Overkill" Richards. Admittedly, he found the nickname amusing, but he didn't think it was deserved. The point of the activity wasn't to be able to take down Citadel personnel, though traitors and mind control were both things that had to be kept in mind.

  No, the point was practice. Bruce could reliably come up with a way to win even the most lopsided fights, but that didn't guarantee he'd have the resources to take advantage of it. Encounters in the field were, more or less by definition, random. Citadel operatives made for an excellent sample of the Empowered population as a whole. If he was prepared to take them down, any of them, then there was an excellent chance he'd be ready for whatever the field threw at him.

  The third item was one of those preparations, a chemical cocktail he'd had made by one of Support's Richards types with a focus on neurochemistry. The accompanying notes said it was designed to adjust the levels of various chemical receptors and signaling agents in his brain, rendering him emotionally neutral for slightly over an hour without any long term side effects. There was only one problem.

  Bruce Richards had no memory of requesting the drug. He didn't know why he'd wanted it, who it was meant to counteract, nothing but when he'd ordered it: six months ago. Why would he want to strip himself of emotions, even temporarily? He'd reviewed the files of every Empowered to enter the Citadel in the last year and he couldn't see how it would give him an advantage against any of them.

  He decided to trust himself, pressed the injector to his arm. It felt like ice in his veins and his thoughts went slow and cloudy. Moments later, they cleared with a rush. Memories popped up like they'd been sitting just below the surface, waiting to be freed.

  Jenny. She'd pranced around her school, worshipped like a goddess. They'd put her in a class with operatives all but guaranteed to be among the Citadel's strongest. The report from William R. Power, her ability was totally out of her control. The group exercises, Samantha Soar taking a shot she had to know would miss; the Grim boy's hesitation; Protean acting outside its norm; she was directly affecting the decisions of others. The incident with Donald Dust, that was far too convenient for her, couldn't be a coincidence. Her power was getting smarter, planning ahead, broader in-

  His train of thought abruptly cut off as the obvious finally hit him. He knew, if he'd been capable of it at the moment, he'd have felt a spike of terror.

  They'd let her have access to that reporter. Jenny Awesome's interview had been broadcast on Tuesday afternoon, just a local story. Wednesday, it'd been picked up by one of the nationals for rebroadcast. By now it was all over Viewtube, no way to contain it since Abigail Turing didn't have her own power under control yet.

  Jenny's power, its influence, was loose in the world and it was getting stronger. It was probably too late to contain it. Killing her might still be possible but... the sheer waste of that...

  Bruce Richards sat alone in his room, his power working frantically. He had slightly less than an hour to decide what to do about the most dangerous teenage girl in the country. Eventually, he raised his communicator and made a call.

  * * *

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  * * *

  If you’re reading this, then you either liked my book enough to read all the way through and keep going or you skipped to the end for some reason. If you did the second one, please go back to the beginning and read the book in the proper order. I’ll wait.

  …

  There we go, you’ve read the whole
thing. Much more satisfying this way, isn’t it?

  Seriously though, thanks for reading the book, hope you liked it. This was originally written as a Serial Novel, which means it was released in bits in pieces on the web where people either praised it or mocked its silliness. If you’d like to be one of those people, or just keep reading before the sequel is published, you can do so at my website.

  www.unillustrated.wordpress.com

  Hope to see you there!