Super Powereds: Year 3 (119 page)

           
      
“I don’t understand.” Mary had been in the park, watching two sets of parents play with their children. She rose from her perch slowly and turned back to their guide. “If you don’t know how to stop the war from happening, then what’s the point of bringing us here at all? To torture us? To make us doubt and question every choice we make for the rest of our lives, never knowing if we’ll cause that awful destruction decades down the line?”

           
      
“No.” It was Alice who spoke, her mind whirring as she began putting the last piece of Abridail’s puzzle into the pile he’d provided. A shape began to quickly form, and at last, Alice understood this strange man’s agenda. “No. He’s bringing us here
because
he doesn’t know what to do. He needs help. And while this sort of information is incredibly dangerous in the hands of anyone who wants to see that conflict happen, he’s trusting us to try and work toward the side of peace.”

           
      
Abridail nodded slowly, and Alice thought she caught the slightest glimpse of shame in his eyes. “I have spent years combing through the dreams your mother sees, and I have only gained the barest of hints as to what creates this world. But I have seen so very much of you, Alice Adair. Your mother has so little control of what she sees, and every ounce of power she has goes toward looking for you, making sure her daughter’s future is safe. I have witnessed, from her visions, how powerful you can become, and what kind of woman you might turn out to be. I’ve realized that it is beyond me to choose which future comes to pass on my own, so I decided to put my trust in you. Perhaps you can do what I’ve been unable to. Or, at the very least, you’ll be forewarned.”

           
      
He paused and glanced at Mary. This time, Alice was certain she caught shame in his eyes. “And Mary, this is not decades after your lifetime. The exact timeframe fluctuates, but in most of them, that first great battle occurs thirty years from now.”

           
      
Mary’s eyes widened, and Alice felt a stone form in her gut. So soon. So quickly society could spiral down into chaos and blood. For a moment, she couldn’t believe it, but Alice was a smart girl. She’d read her history books when given the assignments. Mankind had been down that road before. It could certainly go there again.

           
      
“I want to bring us to this better future,” Abridail continued. “I don’t know if it’s perfect, but it’s better than the alternative. As your mother herself once told me: ‘This world has hope. It has a chance.’ For me, that’s enough to make it worth working toward.”

*         
      
*         
      
*

           
      
Chips of concrete and bone littered their feet, with smears of blood dropped in at irregular intervals. Roy’s bat had several new dents, as well as a sizable gash in the side. He looked far worse—bruises stretched across much of his visible skin, and he winced with every breath. Still, his eyes never wavered; they stayed locked on Chad as the pale-white bone armor moved, getting into position.

           
      
Chad, unlike Roy, looked almost fresh in the fight. It was only if one had keen eyes that they could spot the subtle breaks in his armor, the weariness in his steps. Though he could heal his injuries and patch his armor, doing so still required energy. To keep his healing to the speed Roy dished out damage had taken a toll on him, and it was starting to show.

           
      
Professor Cole watched the battle patiently, marveling at the determination in these two young men. It was hard to remember back to her HCP days, before lives had been at stake and she had donned her mask. Had she fought this hard for the simple matter of pride? Possibly so, but her ego was not so great that she took it for granted. Moments like this reminded her why she’d taken up a professorship after her Hero career had come to a close. Every now and then, she got to see beyond the children in her care, catching a glimpse of the Heroes they would become. As Professor Cole saw Roy and Chad charge at each other one last time, she could picture their futures, and she felt a pang of pity in her heart for the poor sons of bitches that would go up against these monsters.

           
      
The exchange was brief and brutal. Roy swung hard, but the injury in his shoulder weakened the attack, allowing Chad to dodge rather than use his armor. He closed the gap between them, catching a punch to the armor around his chest for the trouble, but pushing on and snagging Roy around the neck. Rearing back, Chad slammed the cone-shaped spiked bones on the end of his fist into Roy’s back. Once. Twice. On the third blow, Roy buckled, his body failing to keep up with his willpower.

           
      
“Halt!” Chad’s hand stopped halfway toward delivering another punch, and he stood frozen as the professor hurried over to check on Roy. He was okay, or as okay as someone could be after that kind of beating, but he was too far gone to keep fighting. “Roy Daniels has lost this match. Chad Taylor is the winner. Camille, please hurry ov—”

           
      
The professor’s words were cut off by the sound of Chad Taylor, having attained his victory, collapsing onto the ground next to her in an unconsci
ous heap.

220.

               Alice’s eyes fluttered open, and she immediately realized two things: this wasn’t the room she’d been put under in, and she was hellishly thirsty. Thankfully, the second issue was easy to correct, as a hand with long, bony fingers reached out, offering her an open bottle of water. Alice accepted it gratefully, throwing back the liquid and guzzling it down as quickly as her throat would allow. Only when it was completely drained did she try to sit up and get a sense of her surroundings.

           
      
They were in the infirmary, though curiously, none of the usual healing students were on hand. There was a woman Alice had caught sight of from time to time, but didn’t recognize, as well as Dean Blaine and Professor Pendleton. Alice’s hand groped around of its own accord, grasping at nothingness with frustration. It took a moment for Alice to realize she was looking for Mary, whose absence suddenly became the most important issue at hand.

           
      
“Where’s Mary?”

           
      
“With the others,” Dean Blaine said. “She has more experience with being handed unexpected information, and will join us when Ms. Wilkins’s testing is done.”

           
      
“You . . . you kept this all going?”

           
      
“Perhaps you’d have preferred we alert everyone in the room to the fact that you had a visitor burst into your head, declare that the Powereds were going to usher in a nightmare future where we were all at war, and charge you with somehow preventing it,” Professor Pendleton said. “Since you had a history with ‘bad reactions’ to Rich’s power, we simply said you’d had another and took you to the infirmary to recuperate, thereby ensuring your secret.”

           
      
“You’re right, sorry I—” Alice stopped mid-apology, staring at the tall, scarecrow-like teacher who’d clearly been trying to drum her out of his class since she was first put in it. When she next spoke, all softness was gone from her voice. To Alice’s ears, it sounded like a different person entirely, though not an unfamiliar one. In truth, it sounded like the voice she heard from within during the bloodiest parts of a battle.

           
      
“Get out.”

           
      
“Alice, you’re right to be a bit upset about us putting you under, knowing that Abridail might come intruding,” Dean Blaine began. He didn’t get the chance to finish however, as Professor Pendleton was suddenly five feet off the ground and dangling helplessly.

           
      
“You’re my uncle. My mother’s brother.” Her words were barely above a hiss as she glared at Professor Pendleton, who looked oddly unfazed by his impromptu flight. The words, however, caused an expression of sheer shock to break through his stoic facade.  “You’ve been around me for two years, and never once did you try and tell me. Did you even treat me like family. Hell, you clearly have fucking hated me from day one. Well, I’ll take that from an old bastard who might have a grudge against my father, but I will be goddamned if I let it stand from you. Now, get out before I throw you out.”

           
      
Alice raised her hand to prove the point, but Professor Pendleton dropped to the ground unexpectedly. She was confused, but only for a moment. Dean Blaine was in the room, after all. It had only been a matter of time before he cut off the use of powers.

           
      
“Alice . . . listen, I don’t have a good—”

           
      
“Sean, perhaps you should take a walk for a while. Go check on the other students.” Dean Blaine helped his friend and colleague up from the ground, but the grip he used made it clear that this was not a request.

           
      
“Yeah. Maybe that’s a good idea.” Professor Pendleton chanced one last look at Alice, who refused to meet his eyes, and then walked out of the infirmary and down the hall.

           
      
“I’m surprised Professor Stone didn’t tell you I’d been given a heads up,” Alice said, once he was gone.

           
      
“We only had a few moments to speak as you were transferred to the infirmary. She no doubt put more importance on what Abridail showed you than on discovering part of your hidden family tree.”

           
      
“Part of my . . . right, Professor Hill too.” Alice shook her head and wrung the blankets between her hands. “Is there anyone in my life that’s not keeping some sort of crazy secret from me?”

           
      
“Knowing the company you keep, probably not,” Dean Blaine said. “Though, it seems you and Mary now have one of your own.”

           
      
“I just wanted to know what the hell happened to my mom.” The ferocity that had ballooned in her when she saw Professor Pendleton deflated, and in its place, all she could feel was the familiar emptiness where her mother was supposed to be. “Now I find out she’s on some weird future vision-quest, doesn’t want to see me, and that, oh yeah, my existence might accidentally trigger a war between the different species of humans. This was a terrible Saturday.”

           
      
“If I may offer some advice,” Dean Blaine said. “I would like to remind you that, from a fundamental standpoint, that knowledge changes very little for you. You are already here, in the Hero Certification Program, because you want to make the world a better place, to guide it to a more peaceful future. Abridail’s warning doesn’t change that; it only reminds you of the stakes you’ve always been playing for. As a Hero, if you don’t succeed, then people die. The scale may vary, but that is always true.”

           
      
“This isn’t making me feel much better,” Alice said. “Though I appreciate the effort.”

           
      
“You have my apologies. For all of what you endured today.” Dean Blaine adjusted his glasses slightly. It was the only way he could force himself not to look at the floor. Right now, Alice didn’t need a dean who was ashamed of what had been done; she needed to feel that her trial had been worth it. “And I promise that, as we try and run down every bit of information we gleaned from Abridail, I will keep you in the loop should we uncover your mother’s whereabouts.”

           
      
“Thank you. It’d be nice if one good thing came from this.”

           
      
“Alice . . . you know we’ve been searching for your mother for nearly a year now, ever since we learned she was still alive. Sean—sorry, Professor Pendleton has been tireless. I’m sure you have a lot of anger and questions regarding him right now, but please know that, at least in terms of wanting to find your mother, you two share common ground.”

           
      
“I guess I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Alice reached over to the side table, where more bottles of water were piled up and guzzled one down. She would do her best to keep her word to Dean Blaine, but she couldn’t imagine reaching a place of understanding with her Subtlety teacher.

           
      
Alice had been lied to for so long, by so many people, that her tolerance for it had just about run dry.

221.

               Vince was staring at his book, pencil tapping lightly on the cover as he scoured his mind for something to put down about it. Literary Analysis wasn’t a hard class per se—since everything was interpretation, there weren’t exactly “right” and “wrong” answers. Any idea was valid, so long as it could be backed up by examples from the text. Unfortunately, the professor adored symbolism and the deconstruction of it, which may as well have been advanced calculus as far a literal brain like Vince’s was concerned. He was still trying to be diligent, to do his work to the best of his ability, but as Melbrook’s door opened and he heard people coming down the hall, Vince’s mind immediately shoved all thoughts of classic literature out of his head in favor of whatever his dormmates might be up to.