Super Powereds: Year 3 (139 page)

           
      
“Blaine,” Professor Pendleton repeated. “The DVA committee is asking for you.”

           
      
“Thank you, Sean.” Dean Blaine lifted his head up, turning away from the document he’d been staring at for the past several days. It was a list of every life, Super or human, that had been lost in the attack. The media had been in a frenzy, waffling between an outpouring of sympathy for the deceased, issuing a call to arms against the Sons of Progress, and blaming the HCP for not better protecting its campus. Students were leaving in droves, all final exams canceled in the wake of the tragedy.  After conducting their own research, the DVA had moved on to interviewing the Lander staff, assessing if any fault lay with them.

           
      
“For what it’s worth, Chapman hasn’t turned on us,” Professor Pendleton said. “He told the committee that he authorized the use of students and HCP grounds for evacuations. I was sort of expecting him to say he had no idea what we were talking about.”

           
      
“Ralph Chapman has no reason to lie,” Dean Blaine replied. “For one thing, in a situation like this, telepaths will doubtlessly be employed if stories clash. For another, I’d be surprised if he isn’t up for a commendation. Regardless of how he might act toward one of our students, he paved the way for us to save countless lives that night. Ralph did nothing wrong. None of you did. Rest assured, the fault for what happened does not lie on any of your shoulders.”

           
      
Dean Blaine left the room, heading toward the area the DVA had turned into a makeshift office. No matter what they said to him, he already knew the truth. He was the one charged with keeping this school, and, most importantly, its students safe.

           
      
He was the one who had failed Lander.

*         
      
*         
      
*

           
      
“How are they holding up?” Owen Daniels, sans his Titan mask, set a bag of take-out from a nearby Mexican restaurant on the Melbrook kitchen counter. He hadn’t felt up to returning to Brewster yet, not until he knew for certain that Hershel and Roy were safe. This paternal desire was somewhat complicated, however, by their lack of desire to see him.

           
      
“As good as we can really hope for,” Mr. Transport said. “Alex has effectively moved in; he’s slept on the boys’ lounge couch every night since the incident happened. They’re all down, of course, but each is dealing with it in their own way. Roy and Hershel have been training non-stop; Chad went back to his usual routine. Vince, Mary, and Alice have mostly been sitting around, occasionally talking about what happened. Sometimes Thomas, Jill, and Will come as well. They’re processing this as best they can, I think. I wish classes weren’t canceled. It would help if they had something to take their mind off things.”

           
      
“Summer break technically starts in a few days anyway. They were going to have to face boredom eventually,” Owen pointed out.

           
      
“I know, I just want to help more,” Mr. Transport said. “Mr. Numbers is being used to try and track down whoever was leading the attack, but it’s a tall order. None of us even saw his face, and the only name people would give us is ‘Crispin.’ Assuming that’s a real name, it’s still not much to go on.”

           
      
“Right now, every Hero in the world wants that guy’s head on a pike. And since the Sons of Progress were nice enough to claim credit for the attack, we know where to start asking questions.”

           
      
“That’s all well and good for revenge, but I don’t know that it will help them move on,” Mr. Transport said.

           
      
Owen nodded and began unpacking hot dishes from the paper sack. “Right now, they probably feel helpless. They’ve put in all this time training, and yet, when shit got real, they weren’t able to protect all those people. Some of them even got their first taste of what real defeat in the field is like. Truthfully, they don’t have any reason to feel ashamed. Those kids saved so many students that would have died without them, and those amped-up bastards were far out of their league. The one I took down managed to hurt me with just a punch. He probably could have effortlessly killed most other strongmen.”

           
      
“The feeling of their actual accomplishments isn’t much compared to the weight of their perceived failures,” Mr. Transport said. “You speak like this happens to most Heroes at some point, though. How do you usually get through it?”

           
      
“Normally, it doesn’t happen on this big of a scale,” Owen admitted. “And the truth is, some people don’t get through it. Facing the fact that no matter what you do, people will die, is enough to break certain folks. The ones who come to terms with it usually find solace in working harder, and train their asses off. The more powerful we become, the more people we feel like we can save. I won’t say it’s the healthiest mindset, but it lets a lot of us get out of bed in the morning. That’s something.”

           
      
“Perhaps there’s something we can do along those lines,” Mr. Transport said. “After tomorrow, I mean.”

           
      
“Smart call. No sense in making progress before then.”

252.

               For the first time in any of the student’s memories, there was not a single gray or white uniform to be seen in Lander’s underground halls. In fact, few people wore their uniforms at all. Most were dressed in dark clothing, many in black suits with matching ties. The only ones wearing their freshman black uniforms were the ones who hadn’t owned any other clothing somber enough for the occasion. No one would have judged them for showing up in what they had, but everyone, oldest senior to youngest freshman, wanted to be respectful. After what they’d seen and experienced, each student had a keen understanding for the importance of these ceremonies, and the likeliness of attending more in their futures.

           
      
Today, the lifts didn’t stop at the main hub where the classrooms, gym, and combat cells were hosted. Nor did it bring them to one of the many training arenas that lived further underground. The platforms kept lowering them past all of that, deeper than any student had been before, finally coming to rest in a large room. It was made of the same tough concrete material as the rest of the underground world, though here, swaths of black cloth had been hung, running from ceiling to floor. In front of them was a small stage and podium with a large television screen above it. Behind that, they could see that the back wall of the room was different than the others, made of a material like dark marble.

           
      
Students filed down the rows of chairs, finding seats as their professors watched from the sides. Dean Blaine stood at the podium in front of them, patiently waiting as they made their way into seats. Not until the last person was resting in a chair did he speak, and when he did, it was with more gravity than almost any student had heard before.

           
      
“Sasha Foster’s body has been taken home by her family, where they will bury her with her ancestors. In their grief, they have requested that none of our students, not even those of you close to her, attend that ceremony. I know many of you loved her, but I will ask that you all respect those wishes. They must mourn her in their own way, just as we will mourn her in ours.”

           
      
Overhead, the screen lit up, showing a collage of pictures, all of them of Sasha. Group photos with her friends, snapshots that had been taken mid-match, images of her in all the ways they had known her.

           
      
“I will not presume to speak to you all about who Sasha Foster truly was. She was a human, which is to say she had many sides and ways to be loved. Many of you knew her as a friend. Some as more. All knew her as a peer, or perhaps a rival. Anyone who has ever gone against her in combat knew her as a fierce warrior. As the dean of this school, I only knew Sasha as a student. But even in that small window I peeked through to see the person within, I could tell she was an extraordinary being.”

           
      
The screen flickered, changing to a new set of pictures. This time, there were more of her mid-fight, a determined expression set in her eyes as she was caught racing about the battlefield.

           
      
“Sasha Foster was willful, dedicated, and relentless on the battlefield. She was also kind and loyal to the ones she held close. Sasha was not perfect, as none of us are, but she was always striving to do better. To be better. She never forgot what it was we are all working toward here—the ideals of being a Hero. It was how she lived in her time with us at this program, and it was how she died: protecting a fellow student.”

           
      
A few gazes turned to Alex, but found he was composed, with nary a single tear in his eye. Alex had cried over Sasha’s corpse for hours the night she died, and hours more after it was taken from him. Their relationship had been new, untested, but she’d still been a friend long before that. So many of those tears had been drawn out by guilt over his own weakness that had ultimately cost Sasha her life. But Alex was done with crying. He wouldn’t weep futilely anymore. Sasha had given her life for his. He intended to live it, and to be strong enough that no one else would ever have to make such a sacrifice.

           
      
“Sasha Foster is not the first student I have lost,” Dean Blaine continued. “The Hero world is a dangerous one. You understand that in a way no class before you has, and in a way I pray no class after you will. She is not even the first I have lost before they achieved graduation, as disease and accidents are tragedies that even we must bear. Sasha Foster is, however, the first uncertified student I have ever lost who managed to still die in the line of Hero duty. Most of you know that when a Hero is killed in the field, there is a public ceremony held by the city they protected. The ones they love hold smaller events like this one, akin to normal funerals. And at the school they graduated from, in a room just like this one, their name is inscribed on a wall like the one you see behind me. Not their code name, mind you, their real one. Here is where we mourn and honor the person under the mask.”

           
      
Behind him, Professor Fletcher walked over to the wall and crackled lightning between his fingers, illuminating a name that had been etched into the dark marble. Not everyone could make it out, but they all understood whose name it was.

           
      
“Sasha Foster died a Hero’s death, and we have chosen to honor her as we would any other. It is a futile, impotent gesture that in no way encapsulates the bravery that young woman showed, but I’m afraid it’s all we as a school can do. As people, as her friends and teachers, we can honor her better. We can carry the memory of her with us, a reminder of those who have given their very lives in service to keeping this world, and the people in it, safe.”

           
      
Dean Blaine paused, and the sound of softly muffled sobs filled the air. His students were mourning more than just one of their own; they were grieved by the loss of their own idyllic innocence. Most Heroes had time to see the field and prepare for the inevitable loss of a friend. For these children, it had come out of nowhere, and they couldn’t unlearn the truth laid out cold before them.

           
      
“I am sure many of you are scared about what the future holds. For yourselves, for our program, for Lander as a whole. I don’t have many answers to give right now. All I can do is promise you that I will do everything in my power to ensure that Lander rises from the ashes of this tragedy, even if it’s a single brick at a time. I refuse to let those killers get what they wanted. I will not see the potential of so many future Heroes derailed. And, most importantly of all, I refuse to let Sasha Foster’s death be in vain.”

           
      
Dean Blaine bowed his head, his own tears finally breaking through the self-control he’d been so ardently exercising.

           
      
“My student gave her life to help protect this school. I can ask nothing less of myself.”

253.

               Nick ignored the ringing of his phone as he stared at the ceiling. He’d made the necessary calls once things had calmed down: letting his friends know that he was safe being at the top of the list. There were also certain arrangements to make, followed by checking in with Jerome and Eliza, and then, of course, he’d had to phone Ms. Pips and drop the big news. Everyone else could think Nathaniel died in the attack on Lander, a victim of his own involvement with dangerous people. She had to know the truth, though. Nick might be willing to square off with armies, trained Supers, and sociopaths, but even he refused to try and deceive Ms. Pips.