Super Powereds: Year 3 (78 page)

                “You have got to be 
shitting
 me.”

145.

               The image of Professor Stone had reappeared, but this time, her placid, lifeless expression was nowhere to be found. Instead, she had her arms crossed and was sporting a scowl that would have been worthy of a disapproving southern grandmother. Her eyes narrowed even more as she looked at the group, still clutching hands with one another. The unpleasant look on her face matched the uncharacteristic curseword she’d just let fly. For just a moment, her mask of professionalism slipped away, and the real Esme Stone poked through.

                “All of you? 
All
 of you? Honestly, I’m a little insulted. It’s like you don’t put any value at all on the education we’ve worked so hard to provide, if you’re willing to toss it all away so easily.”

                “No, Professor Stone, we greatly appreciate what we’ve learned here at Lander. We just value our friend more,” Mary said.

                “I am just so very, very confused,” Vince said, looking around the ice-encased room.

                “Nick passed his final test,” Professor Stone announced. As she spoke, the chunk of ice in the center of the floor dissolved, as did the chains attached to Nicholas and Nick’s legs.”

                “His final test was failing?” Roy asked.

                “His final test was two parts: the extent to which you all truly cared for and trusted him, and whether or not he was worthy of that trust,” Professor Stone explained. “If Nick keeps his memories of Lander, he will hold each of your lives in his hands. He knows all of your secrets, your weaknesses, your fears, and your identities. That is no small power for any person to have over another. We couldn’t, as administrators, make that sort of choice for you. You had to decide for yourselves that your friendship with Nick was worth risking everything for.”

                “Which we did when we chose to stay with him, even though it might mean losing our memories of Lander,” Hershel said.

                “Exactly. The other part of his test was whether or not he deserved the trust you put in him. Nick figured out some time ago that the real exam was whether or not you all would stay with him.”

                “Suspected, really.” Nick had his pride, but he was loathe to lay claim to achievements he hadn’t earned.

                “Point is, he deduced enough about the exam to realize getting you all to stay might be what passed him, and he tried to get you to leave. You were willing to risk everything for Nick, but he wasn’t willing to see you all damaged for his own sake.”

                “This sounds ridiculously complicated,” Alice said.

                “Tell me about it,” Professor Stone agreed. “But you can thank Dean Blaine for all of it. The man has never been one to throw away a useful asset, especially in times of need.”

                “I have to ask, Professor Stone, when exactly did you gain the ability to dream-walk?” Mary stepped forward, apart from the rest of the group, as she confronted her mentor. “You’re obviously not a buried memory anymore.”

                “No, I’m not, nor am I truly dream-walking. It would be more apt to say that I’m creating new memories to speak to you as you ask your questions. Of course, they’re actually going in your head, Mary, but since it’s a shared experience, everyone can see them.”

                “But to do that, you’d need . . . . I see. We played right into your hands, didn’t we?”

                “It’s more apt to say you played right into his.” Professor Stone pointed to Nick, who had the good sense to at least feign confusion. “When I set this up, I never really expected to see it fulfilled. Nick Campbell, you are a strange and gifted young man. Make no mistake, though; the greatest piece of luck you ever pulled off was winding up with friends like these. You only needed one to stay so you would pass. For all of them to stick by you . . . be thankful for what you have.”

                “Not to interrupt all the warm fuzzies and happy feelings, but would you mind explaining what’s going to happen to me?” Nicholas had pulled himself off the floor and crossed most of the gap between he and the others.

                “Nick gets all of his memories back, which includes the ones he forged while cut-off from his Lander knowledge. You exist in the way you always did, as a part of Nick; the culmination of who he was at eighteen years old.”

                “Do I die?”

                “No, you just go home to the place where you belong. You’ll still be around, still be a part of everything he does. You’ll just be surrounded by other parts of his consciousness as well. If anything, you’ll be much happier there.”

                “Suppose I’ll just have to take your word for it,” Nicholas grumbled. He didn’t seem thrilled with the outcome, but compared to an eternity engulfed in ice with only himself to talk to, it wasn’t quite as horrifying a scenario.

                “It occurs to me that this is a conversation we could more easily be having outside of my head,” Nick pointed out.

                “Dreams are safer places to talk,” Professor Stone reminded him. “Here, very few ears can overhear what we’re saying.”

                “So, this newfound memory of mine, I’ll be needing to keep it a secret,” Nick surmised.

                “Yes, you will.” Professor Stone’s face grew grave as all levity fell out of her tone. “What we’ve done today violates a myriad of HCP protocol guidelines, as well as several laws passed down by the Department of Variant Human Affairs. The repercussions for this would be serious, for the dean and I especially.”

                “Seems like an awful big risk to take on someone like me.” Nick noticed the walls of the ice dome were beginning to grow thin and crack, small fractures racing up and down the sides of it.

                “You have a knack for uncovering information, and we’re in a situation where that is a very precious commodity. Better to break small rules than see people get hurt,” Professor Stone said. “Sometimes, doing the right thing overall means you have to do a few wrong things in the process.”

                “Now that’s the kind of thinking I can get behind.” The dome began splintering audibly, chunks of ice falling away and turning to smoke before they hit the ground.

                Vince turned and opened his mouth to speak, but before a single word was uttered, he vanished, along with everyone else save for Nicholas and Nick. There was no puff of smoke or preamble—one minute they were there, and the next they were gone.

                “I assume my friends are okay?” Nick asked.

                “They’re fine; we just broke the connection between Mary and you. Unbinding sealed memories takes a fair amount of concentration, and extra people in here only makes it harder. You’ll see them soon.”

                “While it’s just the two of us, will you tell me the real reason I’m getting saved? All that bunk about me finding information is true, but there must be a few Subtlety Heroes who can probably do a better job than even me.”

                “That there are, but right now, we don’t know who we can truly trust,” Professor Stone said. “You are a criminal, a con artist, and a villain through and through. But you’re loyal to your friends, and that means we can use you.”

                “Honesty, what a refreshing change of pace.” Nick looked up at the still shattering sky. “Anything else I should know before we leave the dreamscape?”

                “You don’t really need me to do something as trite as threaten you with the unending terror and pain that will come if you screw up or betray us, do you?”

                “No, but in a way, you just did,” Nick pointed out.

                “Yes, I did, didn’t I? See you on the outside,
Nick
Campbell.”

146.

               The first thing he realized was that he was no longer in his apartment. He wasn’t much for ancillary comforts, but a quality mattress was something even Nick felt was important. The bed beneath him was hard, barely squishy enough to qualify as a proper cot. As his eyes opened, he noticed the burning glare of fluorescent light attacking his retinas, confirming his suspicion that he was no longer in his own home.

                “Doesn’t it figure: the one time I actually need a pair of damn sunglasses, and I don’t have any on hand.” Nick pulled himself up to a sitting position slowly and surveyed the room. It was largely bare, with a few other cots scattered about and a single steel door as a point of entry. There were no windows dotting the cinderblock interior—all illumination came from the gently humming lights thrumming overhead.

                “Forgive the lackluster accommodations; we couldn’t very well take you to a Lander facility.” Dean Blaine was sitting on a cot a few feet away, Professor Pendleton at his back. He actually did look apologetic over the setting, which was more than Nick expected.

                “Yeah, I guess breaking rules on campus would be sort of asking for it,” Nick agreed. He spun carefully around on his cot, testing to see if the extended rest had left him with stiff joints or dizziness. As far as he could tell, he was in tip-top shape. “Where is this place, anyway?”

                “An old recovery station for Heroes,” Dean Blaine said. “Back in the beginning, before people got used to the idea of Heroes, our kind was fighting back a nearly endless sea of Supers who thought they could crush the system before it took hold. The fights were bloody, dangerous, and frequent. Heroes sometimes had to find places to lay low and heal in safety, so sporadic shelters were set up in all major metropolitan areas. Almost no one uses them anymore—we’ve graduated to fortified bases—but they do still come in handy from time to time.”

                “Like when you have to secretly transport five unconscious bodies out of a near-campus apartment so your pet telepath can tinker around in one of their heads,” Nick said. “I take it Transport kicked in on that front?”

                “I will neither confirm nor deny the involvement of anyone beyond myself, Professor Stone, and Professor Pendleton. We are the only people outside your group of friends you should feel comfortable displaying knowledge in front of. On that note, I suggest you think of a good excuse to give your bodyguards; they were certainly quite shocked to find you had all vanished in the span of a blink. To them, and everyone else, you are exactly as unaware of the Super world as you’ve been since last semester ended. ”

                Nick smiled; a lazy expression that stretched across his face like a cat in a sunbeam. “That’s why you made them seeking me out one of the conditions to crack open my head. Any curious parties will have done telepathic sweeps during that time and come up clean. Now it will seem perfectly natural to pal around with my old friends.”

                “Glad to see a few months of quasi-slumber haven’t dulled your mind,” Dean Blaine said.

                “On the subject of my friends, where are they?”

                “Moved to another area for their own debriefing. You’ll all be cut loose of here soon; we just have to be certain they understand the extent of the situation. Besides, there are some things we need to discuss with you that are not for prying ears, not even those of your friends.”

                “I take it no telepaths will be overhearing us then.”

                “Unless they have a level of ability I’ve yet to encounter, no, they will not be.”

                “That explains why you stuck around, but why is Professor Pendleton here?” Nick asked.

                “I’m here to give you your syllabus, as well as your assignments for the winter break,” Professor Pendleton said.

                Nick tilted his head a few degrees to the side. “Did I get re-enrolled, and no one told me? Because I’m not going back to eating dorm food. You can just reseal my memory right here and now.”

                “No, you’re good and out of the HCP forever,” Professor Pendleton said. “But surely someone like you didn’t imagine that getting your memories sprung was going to be free. You’ve got a capable mind and some interesting intelligence resources. As of today, your new part-time job is helping us gather information about Globe. We’ve got a lot of questions, and it’s time to start finding some answers.”

                Dean Blaine rose from his cot, stepping aside so Professor Pendleton could come around. “I’ll leave you with your teacher to get your new assignments and syllabus while I check on the others. Have no fear of being overhead; I plan to stay close enough to keep any errant telepaths at bay.” Dean Blaine strode across the room and exited through the thick steel door.

                He walked down a small hallway, also made of cinderblocks and without windows, for several feet before he found Esme Stone waiting patiently.

                “I told them Nick needed to be checked over before we could release him, and that they’d see him later tonight. They weren’t thrilled, especially not Mary, but they left with Mr. Transport.”

                “Her skill at sifting through thoughts seems to be growing every week,” Dean Blaine noted. “The information gathering she pulled off in her exam was nothing short of spectacular. They’re all coming along so fast.”