by V. St. Clair
The summer session was always the most crowded, since more people tended to be born in the summer months, and it felt like she stood in that long line forever, inching gradually up the fourteen flights of stairs and closer to the closed door at the end of the hall. The testing always took place in the very heart of the Academy, within the clock-tower itself; it had been Ana’s first time visiting the Academy, since her family didn’t live near the capital city of Silveria and had to travel here to have her tested. As far as Ana knew, the clock-tower was the only place in all of Elaria containing an imbued elarium testing sphere, which was capable of determining if a person was Gifted or not. If the orb remained blue-grey, she would be safe; a bright green glow meant she was Gifted.
Ana had tried to take in the sights to keep her mind off of the impending test, but even the glamorous skyscrapers of Silveria and the impressive sight of the Augenspire itself weren’t enough to divert her attention fully. She asked everyone she knew what the testing would be like, and they all agreed there wasn’t really much to it other than standing there and touching the sphere, but Ana remained concerned. How was this sphere supposed to know if she was Gifted or not? What was it imbued with that made it so special and why was it the only one of its kind on the entire planet? What if touching it made her Gifted and it was all a government conspiracy to control the populace?
Ana was distrustful of anything with the power to change the course of her entire life, especially if she couldn’t even tell where that power came from or how it worked. But there was no question of avoiding the testing. Thirteen-year olds who didn’t show up to the Academy during their assigned session drew the attention of the Provo-Minor, who did not like to be inconvenienced by tracking down non-compliant commoners.
After many hours and countless stairs, Ana made it to the testing room at the very top of the clock-tower, hungry and thirsty but too scared to dare complain to anyone about it. Other people in line with her brought food and drinks with them and were carrying them in backpacks the whole way, so they were obviously prepared for a day of standing and walking without being fed, but many more people looked as hungry and miserable as Ana felt.
Finally, it was her turn.
She tried to hold her head up high as she walked into the mostly-empty room, which was surprisingly well-fortified given its primary function was as a timepiece. The walls here were thick steel that blocked outside noise, and even the door to get in was two-inches thick and reinforced with a series of heavy deadbolts and electronic locks from the inside. It took several people just to open it each time a new person came in for testing, which seemed a little over-the-top to her, even to hold a large ball of special elarium.
That was the first time she had ever laid eyes on a member of the Provo in person. The testers were Provo-Minors, of course, wearing their signature slate-grey uniform with black robes pulled over it. The robes seemed excessively decorous, though they were oversized and billowed impressively when the Minors walked around. It was only later that Ana learned the Minors wore them as a mark of rank, to show they weren’t common foot-soldiers who might be expected to go to battle at the drop of a hat; these men and women could afford to wear impractical clothing.
The heavy doors were pulled shut behind her, sealing the room off in eerie silence. It felt like a tomb. She didn’t like having the attention of so many important people focused solely on her, and looked wildly around the room for a window or something interesting to stare at instead of them, but there was nothing.
The three Minors in the testing room seemed unimpressed with her as they took a brief look and then immediately dismissed her from their attention. A lanky thirteen-year old girl probably didn’t seem very imposing and likely wouldn’t be Gifted, but it still stung to be so easily dismissed by such important people. The entire population of Elaria was required to be tested for Gifts at the age of thirteen, so people came from all over the world twice a year to be watched by these powerful men and women. Of that huge number of teenagers, only about five percent would test positive. Being Gifted was quite rare, and no one knew why some obtained powers from elarium exposure while others did not.
Ana followed their instructions carefully, removing her earrings and setting them in a silver bowl laid out for her before she approached the testing sphere. It was bigger than she expected: an orb of blue-grey elarium about three-feet in diameter, hovering unsupported above a stone dais. While all elarium had that odd blue tint to it, this was the first metal she’d ever seen that actually glowed blue as well, a clear sign of its unique power. Ana had no idea if she shivered from the power of the sphere, or from fear.
She placed her hands on the orb as indicated and clenched her teeth, praying with everything inside of her that it didn’t change colors. Nothing good had ever come of being Gifted, and she didn’t want to become a social outcast for the rest of her life. Still, as she pressed her hands to the strange, warm metal, she thought it would be kind of neat to have a special power no one else had; some people could even change their appearance at will! But it wasn’t worth the price, no matter what the Gift was; she would be better off living a normal—
The sphere flared to life and turned a bright, sickening shade of green. Ana’s heart dropped within her chest. The Provo-Minor suddenly looked much more interested in her, rising from their chairs as one to approach her.
“I—I can’t be Gifted,” she found herself saying to them, stammering horribly from the shock of it. “It’s wrong. It has to be. N-No one else in m-m-my family has ever b-been Gifted before, so—”
“Gifts are often not hereditary,” a short man with greying hair cut her off sharply, eyeing her critically while one of his partners donned a pair of black gloves from her pocket and opened a locked cabinet at one end of the room. Inside the cabinet were stacks of four-inch cubes of imbued elarium, all lined up in neat rows, one of which she drew in her gloved hand and brought forward before closing and locking the cabinet again.
“But sir,” she tried desperately, “there must be a mistake—I can’t be Gifted! What will my parents think? They said this wouldn’t happen! They told me I’d be safe!”
The Minor looked unmoved by her plight, stepping aside as the woman approached Ana with the block of imbued elarium. They commanded her to touch it, and even though she didn’t want to touch anything made of elarium ever again, she complied with their orders out of fear of what they would do to her if she refused. As though by magic, the metal began crumbling away beneath her fingers and taking new shape in her hands, until she was staring down at the emblem of the eye she’d worn around her neck ever since. It was like it had always been there, inside that block of elarium, waiting for her to uncover it all this time.
Emblems usually resembled some form of the Gift the wearer possessed, which is why most people thought Ana should be in the Illusions and Perceptions building—Illucept, for short. After all, most people with similarly-shaped emblems, especially those involving eyes, almost all had illusion-based Gifts. Ana privately thought she knew why her Gift seemed at odds with her emblem, but she had no intention of ever letting the Provo find out the real reason.
She closed her mind to the painful day of her testing, of saying a tearful farewell to her parents before being pulled into a small, cramped room with another member of the Provo-Minor to be grilled at length about her entire life. Everything from family history to political affiliations to her favorite subjects in school was fair game, and she had no idea whether she was giving right or wrong answers because she had no idea what they were even looking for.
Then she had been sent back to the Academy to begin her new life there as a prisoner. Now she had to get special permission just to leave town long enough to visit her family, so she often chose not to go; they were safer halfway across the planet, away from her and her grand schemes.
That was a long time ago. Right now all Ana wanted to think about was getting a cup of coffee before meeting her friends for lunch. She exited the bus
when it pulled into the stop nearest the Physman courtyard and approached a food truck for a sandwich and some caffeine.
She checked the time on the clock-tower and found a seat at an empty wooden table near the edge of the grass. The weather was nice today, and most of the other people eating and relaxing outside right now were sitting on blankets in the grass itself, but Ana had always preferred eating off of an actual table. She stared at the Physman educational building while she waited for her friends to join her, always taken by how much larger it was than the Anomalies school where she spent most of her time.
Physical Manipulations was the most common classification of Gifted, and thus housed the most people in its dormitory and school. Anyone who could make a physical change to something without altering it on a chemical or fundamental level fell into this category of Gifted. Risa Vorhees, one of the people Ana was meeting for lunch today, attended Physman. She was able to physically switch places with anyone within her line of sight, which she complained wasn’t a very useful Gift to have in comparison to some others. Ana personally thought it would be nice to never have to wait in a long line again, but they agreed to disagree on this point.
The next largest school of the four was Deconstruction/Reconstruction—Deco-Reco—which dealt with people who could change things on a chemical or fundamental level. The Deco-Reco side of campus was barely visible from here, partially obscured by the clock-tower and several other buildings and shops blocking the main classroom buildings from view. Ana had a few acquaintances in Deco-Reco, though the coolest Gift any of them had was the ability to turn any liquid into alcohol, aside from Carl, who was unusually powerful even by Gifted standards.
Illucept was much smaller than Deco-Reco, dealing with those whose powers were mental rather than physical. Since Ana was forced to attend practicums there twice a week to make absolutely sure she didn’t have any untapped potential in that field, she knew quite a few people from Illucept. Illusionists who could change their appearance at will simply by making others perceive them differently, people who could force you to hallucinate almost anything, and those who could touch the dreams of others all fell into this category.
Then there was Anomalies. The smallest school of the four, and with no cool nickname, it was truly for the freaks in an Academy full of freaks; the people who had a Gift so obscure or odd that it didn’t fit into one of the other three major schools of learning. Freaks like Ana.
If they knew the full power of my Gift, they would have killed me years ago.
She recovered from this unpleasant, melodramatic thought when Risa sat down heavily at the table across from her.
“Bad day to be a Physman,” her friend groaned in greeting. “The Minors are here in force today for audits and inquisitions because of the idiot who tried to climb the Augenspire to make a political statement the other day.”
Risa, at twenty-one, was several years older than Ana, though she usually dressed to make herself appear younger than her actual age. Her orange-red hair was curly and pulled into pigtails on either side of her head right now, making the blue in her eyes stand out much more by contrast. Today she was wearing the kind of pale-blue dress you might find on a child’s doll, lacy over the bodice and puffed out at the bottom in a bell-shape; it drew attention to the flatness of her chest and made her look about thirteen. Ana had asked her about this tendency to dress like a child before, and Risa had simply said she preferred to look as unthreatening as possible so her enemies would underestimate her. Ana couldn’t blame her for the line of thinking, even if it wasn’t a choice she would make for herself.
“Ouch, I’d heard he was a Physman, but I don’t know any of the details other than he finally snapped. What happened?” Ana asked with interest. She couldn’t imagine trying to scale the bluff and the three-hundred-story Augenspire single-handedly, even after a psychotic breakdown.
“Like you said, he was apparently sick of being watched like a rat in a cage and decided to lead a one-man assault against the government.” Risa rolled her eyes. “He only got halfway up the bluff before they got to him. They dragged him inside, and who knows what’s happened to him ever since. Nothing good, I’m sure.” She shuddered darkly. “Anyway, now they’re all paranoid there’s some bigger conspiracy going on here to mount an attack against the government, so Physman has been littered with Minors all morning.”
Ana grimaced in sympathy.
“They didn’t give you a hard time, did they?”
“Of course not. Why do you think I dressed like an absolute idiot today?” she gestured to herself. “They took one look at me and decided I wasn’t a threat, asked me about four questions, and immediately went looking for bigger fish to fry. Sometimes it’s nice having a worthless talen—Gift.” She corrected herself immediately, wincing at the blunder. Talents were reserved for the Provo, and they got very offended when anyone used the word interchangeably with ‘Gift.’
“Well, at least you were able to escape unscathed,” Ana opined sincerely. “I hope they stay away from Illucept this afternoon. I’ve got practicum there until they’re convinced I don’t have any dangerous mental powers.” She scowled and threw a remnant of crust from her bread to the ground for a nearby bird to eat.
“Last I heard, they haven’t been to any of the other schools yet, so you should be fine in Illucept. They’ll probably leave everyone alone as long as they don’t actually uncover any plots against the government during their Physman investigation.” They exchanged a meaningful glance at this. “And at least your Gift is useful on a practical level, even though it’s a bit weird,” Risa consoled her. “Heck, I wish I always knew when my life was in danger; would’ve saved me a lot of problems when I was younger.”
Ana rolled her eyes but said nothing to this. It was true she usually knew when she was in life-threatening danger, and this perception usually extended to include the people nearest her at any given time. As far as anyone else—including the Provo—knew, this was the extent of her ability. Ana had no wish for them to find out the real power of her Gift, or they’d lock her up in the Augenspire for life.
“Are you listening?” Risa interrupted this depressing train of thought, and Ana blinked back into focus.
“Sorry, no,” she answered apologetically. “Anyway, where’s Carl? I thought he was meeting us for lunch today, too.”
Risa frowned and said, “He bailed out at the last minute. All he said was that something came up.” She grimaced at Ana and added, “Probably found someone more exciting to eat with.”
Sorry that she had brought up the sore subject but now committed to the course, Ana said, “Maybe it’s something school-related, or maybe he just wants to avoid the Provo because he’s ridiculously powerful and doesn’t want any trouble. Besides,” she pressed on valiantly at the look of disbelief on Risa’s face, “I still think you two like each other when you’re not picking on each other…I’m sure he wouldn’t pass up a chance to spend time with you without having a good reason.”
At this Risa’s face became abruptly stormy and she said, “Stop trying to set me up with Carl, Ana. It’s not going to happen,” quite fiercely.
Surprised, Ana asked, “Why not? In all the time I’ve known you, you never go on dates with anyone, and you clam up whenever I ask you about it. What are you so afraid of?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s what you always say. I’m one of your best friends, Risa. Surely you can tell me why you’re so against the idea of dating. I promise I won’t judge you or laugh at you—or whatever else you’re worried I’ll do to make you upset.”
Risa’s resolve seemed to weaken fractionally, and Ana pressed her advantage.
“Have you had your heart broken before?” she guessed.
Risa’s expression was stony when she said, “You could say that. I was in love once before and it ended in disaster; a childhood friend of mine before I became Gifted. I’m not eager to repeat the experience, especially with the activ
ities you and I are both involved in.”
“Oh,” Ana frowned thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t blame you for feeling cautious, especially if you’ve been burned in the past, but I hate to think of you missing out on a chance at happiness out of fear. What happened with your childhood love, anyway?” It was hard to believe that Risa would let a failed childhood romance embitter her for life. “Did you just lose contact with him because you had to come to the Academy and he didn’t?” That often happened when someone found out they were Gifted; all their old friends seemed to melt away to avoid the taint of association. “Because you could probably still reach out to him and maybe—”
“No,” her friend answered very softly. “He’s dead.”
“He died?” Ana asked in shock, wondering what could have possibly happened to someone so young. Maybe a tragic auto accident, or one of the rarer diseases that they didn’t have a cure to yet, or…
“Yes,” Risa added bitterly. “The Provo killed him.”
Suddenly a lot of things made sense about her normally risk-averse friend.
“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Ana replied truthfully. “Just one more life wasted by the Provo-Minor,” she added in disgust.
“No,” Risa breathed softly, still staring down at her hands. “Not the Provo-Minor…it was the Majors that got him.”
Ana’s eyes widened and she barely suppressed an audible gasp. What in the world could a teenager have done that was bad enough to bring down the wrath of the Provo-Major? She was dying to ask, but knew better than to push the painful subject any further. Instead she said, “Wow, then I’m even sorrier that one of those horrors got to him. I wonder how they justify their evil doings to themselves while they stand around their mystical tower, lording their power over us all.” She looked up at the Augenspire disdainfully, wondering if someone was staring down from one of the top floors at them even now.