Super Powereds: Year 3 (74 page)

                “I believe we’re at the block in your memory,” Nicholas said. “This is the ice that obscures the information I try and access, or at least a mental representation of how it seems to me.”

                “This dream just keeps getting more interesting,” Nick said, eyes sweeping the terrain carefully. In front of them was a single chunk of ice sticking up, just a little higher than their knees. Aside from it, the entire landscape was utterly barren. He began approaching the ice-block carefully, noting that Nicholas was shadowing a few steps behind him.

                “Oh yes, revisiting our many crimes and sins from the past. Such a thrill.”

                “Personally, I found it refreshing to see our skill and techniques grow, like watching a montage made just for us,” Nick said.

                “I highly doubt that was what we were supposed to take from the experience,” Nicholas said. The two were drawing closer to the chunk of ice now, near enough to see it had no recognizable shape, aside from jagged ice.

                “Are you bothered by who we are?” Nick asked.

                “Are you not?” Nicholas shot back.

                They stared at each other for a moment, and Nick felt a strange tickle in his mind as a new thought tried to bloom. Unfortunately, before it had the chance, something very distracting occurred.

                From the chunk of ice came two enormous chains and cuffs, one snapping around Nick’s right ankle and one around Nicholas’s left. Each link in the ice chain was as thick around as one of their forearms, and the cuffs seemed to seal completely when they locked, as if they’d been one solid piece the entire time.

                “You have learned nothing. You have repented for nothing. You have experienced no growth whatsoever.”

                The image of Professor Stone was back, and this time, she didn’t look nearly so cheery.

                “You were given the chance to regain yourself, to experience your memories with new clarity and see how you became the man you are today. With that knowledge, you could have made a new path, become someone worthy of carrying around the memories of Heroes. But you have done nothing. Changed nothing.”

                The image blurred slightly, and a disturbing sound began to fill the air. The ground splintered as new ice grew up from it, moving slowly but unmistakably. It was coming up all around them in a perfect circle, with Nick and Nicholas trapped in the center.

                “You have failed.”

138.

               For most of Rich’s match, it seemed his ability was going to work out exactly as he’d predicted. He walked briskly through the halls, clearing his throat when he encountered a Sim to make it look his way. Each one immediately shut down as their mechanical eyes made contact with his Super ones. As he made his way into the room with five Sims clustered together, he seemed like a lock for easiest take-down since Will. Rich stepped in, saw the various opponents, and struck the ground with his staff to draw their attention.

                Rich did manage to get three of the Sims with this technique; however, two of them didn’t bother to look him in his eyes. That was because they were targeting his center of mass. He managed to dodge the jolt of green electricity, but the blast of compressed air took him by surprise and sent him sprawling. Rich scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, making it up just in time to see another strike of electricity coming his way. This time, he wasn’t able to get away, and he slammed into the nearby wall as his consciousness faded away. As he crumpled to the floor, the Sims’ protocols kicked in, and they retreated.

                There was no need to bother with a downed opponent.

                While Rich was taken to the infirmary after some quick on-the-spot healing to make sure he was stable, the rest of the students in the room began to turn and look at Mary. With only one slip of paper left in the jar, it didn’t take a giant leap to figure out who the last examinee would be.

                “Mary Smith,” Dean Blaine said, looking over at her. “By process of elimination, you are the last remaining student. Do you require any weaponry before we begin?”

                “No, thank you,” Mary replied. “I feel comfortable going in with just my abilities.” She gave her friends a hurried smile as she walked over to the dean. They didn’t even look slightly worried; most were eager at best. She’d been number one among the girls in the first year and number two ever since the ranks were combined, so it wasn’t as though anyone expected Mary to be easily overcome. In fact, they were expecting a hell of a good show out of her.

                “Follow me,” Dean Blaine said, leading his final student of the day down the stairwell. He laid out the rules for her as they walked, carefully covering each aspect of the trial in the same detail he’d used with the others. For her, however, there was an additional addendum, the same one he’d had to give to Alex.

                “As a telepath, I’m certain you were able to dredge up the code words from the Subtlety students. The system, however, will not recognize them from you. It is keyed to only allow such entries from students enrolled in the Subtlety program.”

                “I sort of figured as much,” Mary said. “Plus, that would be cheating, and I get the feeling that using any kind of tricks in this exam only really cheats me out of the experience.”

                “You always have been one of the more perceptive members of your class,” Dean Blaine complimented.

                “But, that leads me to a question. People can’t use abilities that work on technology, because we’re supposed to treat these Sims like humans. That leaves me at a significant disadvantage, since my ability won’t work on robots. If they really were human, I could read their minds and find their positions.” Mary wasn’t accusatory with her words; in fact, she was smiling and had a bit of a gleam to her eye.

                “Mr. Griffen managed to make it work.”

                “We both know Alex and I have different abilities,” Mary said. “Just so we’re clear though, there’s nothing wrong with going outside the box?”

                “Mary, you’ve been in this program for two and half years now. If you haven’t realized that out-of-the-box is where you should be spending most of your time, then nothing I say is going to help you.” Dean Blaine gave her a slight grin of his own. “Any more questions?”

                “No, that pretty much takes care of it.”

                “Then proceed forward, and I wish you the best of luck.”

*                             *                             *

                “Pretty sure luck isn’t going to get us out of this,” Nicholas said, jerking on the ice chain and trying to find an angle with better leverage.

                “If you have a better idea, I’d love to hear it,” Nick replied. His eyes glowed beneath the sunglasses, calling up all the positive luck he could manage. As he worked, he also kept an eye on the growing ice around them. It was moving slowly, but steadily. He’d have tried to gauge how long they had left, but time was meaningless in this place.

                “Try and break these damn chains. With the two of us—”

                “With the two of us, we’ll accomplish nothing,” Nick snapped. “Those things would be tough for Roy to break; you and I aren’t going to do crap.”

                Nicholas gave up struggling for a moment, pausing to reassess his best angle of attack. “Do you think she really meant it?”

                Nick needed no clarification. After her announcement that they’d failed the test, the image of Professor Stone had informed them in no uncertain terms what that meant. Even as he watched the ice grow, her words echoed in his head.

                “
You will both be sealed here, as will all recovered memories from your time at Lander. A full-wipe is occurring, and when it is done, it will be as if Nicholas Campbell never set foot on the Lander campus. All memories of time in the Hero Certification Program will be forever sealed.”

                “I don’t think she locked us up down here with a bluff,” Nick said. “But I also don’t think it’s as cut and dry as she made it seem. If she was just going to finish the wipe she started, then why all the theatrics? No, we probably didn’t do what she wanted in the memories, but I’m pretty sure it’s not over quite yet.”

                “Then why aren’t you helping me try to break free?”

                “Why should we double down on the same method? There are two of us, but we’re nearly identical in most ways. Odds are slim one of us will figure out a trick the other doesn’t, so it makes more sense to try different tactics.”

                “You don’t even know if you’re really using our powers,” Nicholas pointed out. “We’re in a dream. It’s possible that the real body isn’t calling up any luck at all.”

                “I know,” Nick said.

                “Then why are you still bothering to try?”

                “Come on, since when have we minded taking a long shot?” Nick ran his fingers through his hair as he fought back the growing headache from constant power-use. Even if he was actually doing nothing, he still refused to let himself give up. Nick Campbell might go down, but it would not be softly or gently. He’d go down fighting until the end. It was what any of the others would have done.

                “Even if it’s working, how is luck going to pull us out of this?”

                “I haven’t the foggiest of ideas,” Nick admitted. “But we’ve never been able to control luck beyond deciding if it’s good or bad. Just because I don’t see a way, doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

                “When did you get so stupidly optimistic?”

                Nick smiled and continued his work. His doppelganger didn’t know it, but he’d just paid Nick an oddly endearing compliment.

139.

               As Mary headed toward the outside of the fake building, keenly aware of the various mechanical adversaries awaiting her inside, she forced herself to remain calm and centered. What she was doing would require splitting her concentration in various directions; she couldn’t afford to waste mental capacity on pointless things like fear. Mary moved slowly, determined not to make too much noise and give herself away by accident. With every step, she extended her telepathic senses, searching for the minds she needed. If the Sims were real people, then they would be who she was looking for, gathering information about their positions, capabilities, and perhaps even whether they were inclined to surrender. Sadly, she was not going to be able to get such data from their heads.

                But, lucky for her, there were human minds nearby that were still accessible.

                Mary skimmed the thoughts of her peers as they watched her and, more importantly, the Sims on the various monitors stocked throughout the observation room. Their keen eyes and focused minds made her task all the easier; they were thinking about almost nothing besides her and the impending battle. By the time she reached the door of the building, Mary not only had a reasonable idea of the building’s layout, but also of each Sims relative position in it. She was dealing with four independent guard units—two reds and two yellows—with the other five remaining clustered together in the central room.

                Her light form gracefully stepped into the hallway and began moving across the floor. There was a red-light Sim not too far from her current location that she wanted to neutralize first. Mary strode with purpose, never wavering or bothering to hide. The others were confused by this, wondering how she was navigating without the aid of her telepathy. Only Alex, Amber, and Shane had figured it out. Well, it was possible Chad knew as well, but being unable to read his mind made it impossible for Mary to tell. It was a pity; she would have loved to overhear his tactical analysis as she moved through the various encounters.

                The first Sim was facing away from her, just as she knew it would be. Though she loathed taking a page from another student’s book, even one she respected as much as Alice, there was simply no getting around a certain amount of ability similarity. Mary grabbed the Sim in a crushing, telekinetic grip, lifting it off the ground and pinning its arms and legs just as her tall blonde roommate had done. Of course, only the results were the same; the methods employed to achieve them were drastically different.

                “As a presumed innocent civilian, I would like to offer you the chance to surrender. If you do not take that chance, I’ll have to assume you mean to do me harm and immobilize you by any means necessary.”

                The Sim’s eyes sparked, and a strange blue glow began to surge across its torso. What that glow might have done would forever remain a mystery to Mary and the watching students. As soon as it manifested, Mary tightened the telekinetic grip from a hold to a crushing force. Within seconds, the Sim had caved in on itself, shattered limbs and inward-bent torso being set carefully on the ground as the red light in its chest dimmed.

                Mary was a bit surprised at how the others seemed taken aback by her ruthless display of destruction, their thoughts bubbling up so quickly that it threatened to become a distraction. Really though, how did they expect her to discern what the proper amount of force was for crippling and not killing without a little trial and error? That was why she’d targeted the red-light Sim in the first place; if she crushed too hard, at least it wouldn’t take away from her score.