Talented (3 page)

Chapter Four

In the decades following the Great Contamination it became clear to the powers-that-be that the Talented were a new breed of child that posed many potential threats.  At global summits, the question of how to deal with these children was the most hotly debated topic.  Fear of the unknown drove many nations to demand that the children be locked up “for their own safety;” imprisoning Talents was actually for the peace of mind of scared politicians.   Some extremist nations even argued that the eradication of any persons exhibiting paranormal abilities was the only answer to the ever-growing problem.  In the end, no satisfactory global solution was reached; instead each country was left to handle the situation in a manner that best served their individual interests.

Margaret Anne McDonough was the seventy-fifth president of the United States of America and also grandmother to tow-headed, five-year old Daniel McDonough – an exceptionally strong mind manipulator.  President McDonough believed that the children born with abilities needed to be nurtured, and taught to use their Talents.  She converted a military facility located in western Maryland, previously a presidential bunker, in to a training facility that soon became known as The McDonough School for the Talented.

The McDonough School for the Talented doesn’t only play host to American children.  Since many other countries aren’t as forward thinking when it comes to Talents, the School welcomed all gifted kids from anywhere in the world.  I, like many of the children there, wasn’t born in the US; I was born in Capri, Italy.  Even though my parents, Francis and Katerina Lyons, traveled a lot on account of my father’s position with the government, I called Capri home until their deaths seven years ago.

At first, President McDonough merely offered families the option to send their
Talented children to the school.  Over time, however it became apparent that some parents were reluctant to have their children attend a special school; they didn’t want the stigma that many associated with having a Talented child.  Instead, these parents chose to homeschool their children if they were unable to hide the abnormalities.  If they could hide the abilities, these parents sent their kids to normal schools and pretended there was nothing “special” about them.

This ignited a chain reaction.  Parents of “normal” children argued that it was unacceptable, because their offspring were at a disadvantage when compared to “Talented” children.  These parents claimed that the
Talented kids had an unfair edge in every aspect of life, including sports and academics.  They argued that the Talented children shouldn’t be allowed to attend schools and play sports with the “normal” ones; it simply wasn’t fair to those born unaffected by the nuclear contamination.

Parents of non-Talented children weren’t the only adults calling for segregation of the Talented.  Five years after the school’s inception, Congress passed the Mandatory Talent Testing Act.  This law required that at the age of five, every child be tested for special abilities.  Any child testing positive was brought to the School.  As the first generation of these School-trained children turned eighteen and graduated, it became clear that all of the training and Talent development was going to waste, and TOXIC was born.

The Talented Organization of Exceptionally Interesting Citizens is an agency within the government that utilizes each child’s unique ability in the most advantageous way.  Divisions within the Toxic Agency were created around the most prevalent talents.

The Hunters are aptly named, because their main duty is to hunt both people and information. Morphing, Light Manipulation and Telekinesis are the most common gifts among
Hunters.  If another division perceives a threat, a Hunting team is dispatched to neutralize it.  When another division tumbles across valuable information, a Hunting team goes to retrieve it.  Hunters have effectively replaced, what used to be the government’s more clandestine divisions – spies.

Toxic’s Crypto Division was created for Higher Reasoning Talents (Brains).  The Brains spend all their time in front of computer screens, sifting through streams of encrypted communications, quickly decrypting the streams, and analyzing any hidden messages in their heads.  They monitor every text, voice or holographic communication throughout the entire United States, and many abroad.  Essentially, Brains are the eyes and ears of the Agency; they are the first line of defense against all threats, both foreign and domestic.

Toxic’s Tracking Division is staffed by Viewers – Talents able to remotely observe events taking place anywhere in the world.  The more powerful Viewers are better able to control the Talent; given a picture or a piece of clothing, they are able to focus their energy, locate the individual, and give an accurate description of the surroundings.  Unfortunately, strong Viewers are rare these days.  The one or two Talents that test positive for viewing every year are usually too weak to be very effective trackers.  At best, they are able to track an individual they are physically close with or related to by blood.

The Planning Division is home to the Visionaries, or Talents that see the future.  The difficult with Visionaries is that most cannot control the timing of their visions.  The average strength Visionary only has a vision every couple weeks, and it occurs at random.  Most are unable to control the target of the vision as well. The strongest, or
Elite level, Visionaries are able to concentrate on one person and see flashes of their future on command.  The insight of Visionaries often prevents attacks on our country.

The Interrogation Division is manned by Talents with varying degrees of Telepathy and Mind Manipulation capabilities.  Telepaths and Mind Manipulators use their abilities to question any individual thought to be a threat to the country’s safety.  Telepaths can easily tell if a person is lying, and manipulators can compel him to tell the truth.  The Agency even lends out weaker telepaths and manipulators to local governments to interrogate criminal suspects.  Mental Talents have led to swift justice and an expedited legal system. Many years ago the Supreme Court ruled there was no need for a trial in cases where the prosecution has a documented Telepath or Mind Manipulator interrogate the suspect.

There are also divisions within the agency that are not gift-specific.  The Research and Development and Medical sectors are staffed by any Talent exhibiting a high enough academic aptitude in one of the sciences, biology, chemistry, or physics.  Those demonstrating extraordinary physical strengths, that aren’t accepted into the Hunters, or don’t want to be, join Toxic’s Military division or Guard Toxic’s various facilities such as, weapons plants, prisons, and the McDonough School.  Some Talents stay on at the McDonough School and help the newbies develop their own abilities.  Finally, there are the low-level Talents, some of whom end up in one of the agency’s manufacturing plants, assembling anything from weapons to office chairs.  The really unfortunate low-level Talents become secretaries, cooks, or cleaning technicians.

After the death of my family, I came to live, and attend McDonough.  My decision to Pledge the Hunters had brought me to my current home, the Hunters’ Village,
at Elite Headquarters, located approximately one hundred miles west of the Nation’s capital in scenic Brentwood Springs, West Virginia.    If all went according to plan, I would officially graduate in one year, become a Hunter, and find the man responsible for the deaths of my parents.  But for now I would settle for learning to live with my new teammates, without killing Erik or dying of embarrassment on account of his constant teasing.

Chapter Five

I wasn’t hungry, but I accepted Henri’s invitation to have lunch with him before our afternoon practice anyway.  Henri was twenty-two and already a full-fledged Hunter after following the usual Toxic protocol.  He had started at the McDonough School, leaving his home in Somerset, Pennsylvania, when he was just five.  At seventeen he’d
Pledged the Hunters and come to live at Elite Headquarters.  At eighteen, after successfully completing his Pledge year, he’d officially graduated and become a member of Toxic’s most coveted division.

Henri and I chatted comfortably through lunch.  In the two weeks since my arrival we’d rarely spent any time alone, just the two of us.  Normally during meals he lectured me about the nuances of life in the Hunters.  But today he told me a little bit about his family back home in Pennsylvania.  His parents, neither of who are Talents themselves had been shocked, yet pleased to learn that he was a poly-morph.  His much younger sister,
Melony, was twelve and also a Talent – a Light Manipulator.  He visited her at the School as often as he could get away since neither went home very often.

Most people didn’t know about my past, so I let him do most of the talking.  At School I had kept a low profile, not really displaying my full powers.  Telepathy was not uncommon but advanced Mind Manipulation, like I was capable of, was extremely rare.  Here, at Headquarters with Henri and Erik, they knew exactly what I was capable of; if it unnerved them, they didn’t let it show.  Henri had even said that he’d requested me specifically because he’d heard rumors of my abilities.

After lunch we met up with Erik at our designated practice area, Area Thirteen.  Today, like every day since I’d been assigned to Henri’s team, we worked on three-way mental communication.  This skill was the entire reason Henri wanted me as part of his team.  I was able to mentally communicate with each of them individually, but he’d thought I might be able to figure out a way for all three of us to hear each other at the same time.

Ordinarily I would’ve said three-way communication was not possible, but in this case I wasn’t the only one in our group with an unusual Talent for a Hunter.  Erik is what Toxic calls a Mimic, meaning that he can mimic the abilities of any other Talent he is physically close enough to.  When all three of us are together, Erik is able to mimic my mental abilities, and Henri’s morphing Talents at the same time.  This allows me to communicate mentally with both Erik and Henri, and for Erik to communicate with both me and Henri mentally.  The final step, the one we’d worked on every day for the past two weeks, was to establish the three-way link.  So far, we weren’t having a lot of luck.  Henri was becoming frustrated with my lack of progress and Erik’s constant threesome jokes, but he was doing a good job of hiding it on the surface.  He was too polite to complain out loud, and too professional to let his disappointment show.  Still, I could feel his patience waning with each passing day.

In addition to the mental training, we also trained physically.  I typically spent my afternoons at the firing range, practicing with both firearms and a bow and arrow, or learning to control throwing knives.  Once a week Erik also taught me how to fence; I wasn’t very good, a fact made more apparent by Erik’s amazing skill, but Henri insisted that it was important for me to train with every weapon available.

After our training that afternoon we went back to the cabin to shower and change
.

“
You gracing us with your presence at dinner?” Erik asked as I sat on my bed, drying my hair after my shower.

“Not tonight,” I replied, off handedly.

“We’re way better company then the Director’s son.”

“Keep telling
yourself that,” I scowled.  I was used to the way that others acted towards Donavon.   He wasn’t only the son of the Director of the Agency, but also shares a last name with the founder of the school.   Margaret Ann McDonough was his great-great-great-great-great grandmother, give or take a couple of greats.

“Oh Talia, come on now, I don’t need to tell myself that there are plenty of girls who tell me all the time,” he winked at me.

“Erik,” Henri warned, giving him a pointed look.

“What? You know it’s true.  The only reason people want to hang out with him is because he’s the Director’s son, and they think that’ll somehow get them favors.  Probably the only reason he got into the Hunters; he’s not even that good.”

“Erik.  Stop,” Henri said through clenched teeth.

“Is that how you feel about me too? Is that why you wanted me as part of your team?” I rounded on him.  I was seething.  I might be used to the way that people talked about Donavon, but that didn’t mean I liked it.  It wasn’t his fault that he was born Mac’s son.

“What?” To his credit, he seemed slightly taken aback, like he really didn’t know what I was talking about.  My anger lessened slightly.

“Mac raised me.  I lived with his family up until I came here,” I said evenly.  “Do you think that I get special treatment?  Do you think I only got here because of Mac? That he called in special favors to get me in to the Hunters?”

“Oh, shit.  Talia, I’m sorry.  I didn’t know,” he apologized, but Henri was the only one left in the cabin to hear his words.

I was very sensitive, maybe overly so, when it came to my relationship with Mac –what those close to him called him – Director Danbury McDonough.  The crappiest part of being able to read minds
was knowing what people really think about you.  Erik’s view wasn’t the minority opinion; a lot of other students thought I’d only been accepted to Pledge the Hunters because Mac had pulled strings to get me in.  I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that a lot of Toxic Operatives believed that too.  They complained to each other – that if I were anyone else I would be working in some remedial Agency position, like food services or janitorial duty.  It had been this way since I went to the McDonough School:  the whispering when I walked past, the sneers when I answered a question correctly in class, the outright condemnation by all the girls my age when I started dating Donavon.  It usually didn’t bother me much; mostly the accusations just made me work harder, and I didn’t make an effort to correct them.

The truth was that I worked extremely hard to get an invitation to Pledge the Hunters.  Mac had begun working with me when I first came to the School.  Hunters are typically Morphers because their natural Talents give them extremely heightened senses in addition to the ability to morph into a variety of animals, and in some rare cases other humans.  I will never be able to “learn” to morph, since it’s not a learned behavior, but fine-tuning my senses was something that could be taught.  So I did.  I also took extra combat and weapons lessons every day instead of making friends.  When I went to try out for the Hunters, I felt confident my abilities rivaled those of the best of my classmates.  Captain Alvarez, the leader of the Hunters, had thought so too; I’d taken the liberty of taking a peek in to his head to make sure.