Talent Chronicles 2 - Impulse Control (2 page)

There were tears on her cheeks.

Beyond my rage at Anderson, at the instructor, at pretty much the whole world just then, I felt bad for even looking at her in that moment, at not having the sense to look away and give her that much privacy.

The instructor looked at his watch. “We’re done for today. I trust all of you will now diligently practice the exercises you’ve been given and strengthen those mental defenses. Dismissed.” As always, the instructor and his guard left first. They took Anderson with them.

Lucky for him,
I thought.

“Ow!” I looked up to see it was Karen who had cuffed me on the back of the head. Big surprise.

“You’re having a relapse. Snap out of it. I didn’t spend all that time helping you learn to control that temper of yours so you could blow it now,” she said in a low voice. She turned to Rand. “How’s the nose.”

“It’s fine. What an asshole. Is that what they do at Everlast, turn people into assholes?”

“Watch your mouth! Ethan, what’s going on in the guy’s dorm? Why’s my baby brother talking like a sailor?”

Rand made a disgusted noise in response to the “baby brother” remark. “You okay, Elle?” He changed his voice to mock the instructor mode, “Okay, Anderson, it’s lackey’s choice.” Then to mock the idiot mode, “Oh, um, I think I’ll pick…get the prettiest girl in the class to kiss me!” Back in his own voice, “How original. Asshole. Like he’d ever get any any other way.”

Karen cuffed him on the head, but Elle smiled. Man, the stuff you can get away with saying to a girl when you’re only twelve.

“Come on,” Karen the mother hen said, herding us chicks along behind the other kids. “We’re gonna be late for PT.”

Physical Training meant different things for different Talents. For Karen and purely mental Talents like her, it just was just calisthenics, laps, stuff like that. She hated it. Rand loved it. The kid had way too much energy. They were trying to curb that with the discipline of a lot of martial arts training. As soon as we walked outside he put a little spring in his step. For a kid who could manipulate his own gravity, that spring sent him sailing over our heads with a wave, and bouncing off to his sensei like a man on the moon.

“Like Tigger on crack,” Elle said.

“Who?” Karen and I asked together.

“Tigger. Tigger and Pooh? He’s bouncy, pouncy, flouncy…and you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

Unlike Karen, Rand, and I who had been here since we were really little, Elle had spent years in the real world before coming here. Sometimes I didn’t understand a word she was saying.

I shook my head, thinking how pretty she was, especially when she had color in her cheeks like that. The wind blew at strands of hair that escaped her braid and I really wanted to— I coughed, feeling Karen’s amused eyes on me. “I, uh, gotta…” I hitched my thumb over my shoulder.

“See you at lunch, big guy,” Karen said.

Elle smiled at me.

I thought about that smile later as I waited for a healer.

It must have been a busy day on the PT fields because it seemed to be taking forever. I concentrated on Elle’s smile, on holding my form, on not passing out. There’s nothing worse than getting burned, and I was lucky it wasn’t a lot worse.

“I’m so sorry, Ethan,” Emily said again. She looked like she was going to cry.

I opened my mouth to tell her, again, that it was okay, it wasn’t her fault. But the coach cut me off. “No apologies.

Maybe that’ll help him think a little faster on his feet next time, right Ethan? Hold that form. You’re morphing.”

Of course I’m morphing! It was hard enough taking the
form of this skinny little girl, then add dodging the fireballs
you made her throw at me, and now I’m supposed to be able
to concentrate enough to hold it when she’s fried my damned
arm? Son of a bitch!

“I’m doing my best, Sir.”

“Well your best sucks. Your best let this girl make barbeque out of you. Where’s that healer? Let’s see another shift—no, don’t go back to your own form. Do…Marcia over there.”

God forbid you could ease up and let me do someone
my own size.

It was a really long PT.

Later, in the mess, I spotted Elle and Karen on the line.

Elle waved me over to cut in. Most kids didn’t much care about that kind of thing. We were all getting fed and the food was nothing to hurry for, and even if someone did have a problem, I’d been big, mean, and unpredictable enough when I was younger that I still had a certain reputation. No one wanted to start something.

“What happened to you?” Elle grabbed my arm to examine it as soon as I was within reach. Her fingers were warm on my bare skin and all the air pretty much evacuated my lungs. The next moment she dropped it like a hot potato and took hold of her braid instead.

I rubbed at a sudden chill, feeling the charred ends of where my sleeve used to be. I’d have to wear this shirt the rest of the day—so that everyone could see I was clumsy enough to get hit, I guess.

“Singed a bit?” Karen asked.

I had no doubt she knew. Her giant, all-powerful, scary-ass psychic brain always seemed to be everywhere at once and she had no concept of privacy.

We were nearing the entrance to the serving area. An armed guard stood off to the side, droning in a loud monotone, “Keep both hands on the trays. No talking to the staff. Keep the line moving.” I always wondered why they didn’t just record that and play it over a speaker.

We moved through the serving room. Karen seemed distracted. I saw Elle take her hand off her tray to push Karen’s arm forward. The server behind the glass glared at both of them as she smacked a scoop of something down on the plate. “Keep your brain to yourself and pay attention, nosy,” I whispered, in what was supposed to be a taunt to jolt her back to her own reality. But she didn’t seem to hear me.

We had almost reached the exit when I saw Rand’s dark head bobbing in and out of the crowd ahead of us. He fought his way upstream, shoving kids with trays as he pushed through the narrow doorway. I turned to Elle who switched her grip to balance her tray on one arm and held out the other for mine, and when my hands were free I grabbed Rand by the shoulders and planted his feet firmly on the floor. The guard had stopped droning, and Rand had his full attention.

“Hey kid, calm down. What’s going on?”

He looked up at me for just a second, then his face screwed up and he fell against my chest. He was crying.

Aw, hell.
I glanced at Karen whose face was tight.

Somebody’s dead. One of his friends.

One of the kids?

Yeah.

Aw, hell.

I took him by the shoulders and pulled him away from me, giving him what I hoped was a comforting squeeze while shook him a little. “Snap to, okay, buddy? You can’t do this here. Straighten up.”

I felt like an asshole. You shouldn’t have to say that to a little kid who’s just lost a friend. You shouldn’t have to deal with things like little kids losing friends and guys with automatic weapons looking like they’re ready to pounce.

“You got that under control?” the guard barked at me.

“Yes, sir. We’re fine. Sorry, sir.”

I turned Rand around to walk in front of me. All the other kids had spun back around when the guard spoke and we were moving in quick, orderly fashion. I kept my hands on Rand’s shoulders as I marched him out and over to a table and sat him down next to me. The girls followed and sat across from us. I knew it about killed Karen not to cuddle him.

Karen and Rand were about as tight as siblings could be. They came here when Karen and I were five and Rand was only two. I think their parents might have coped with having a telepath around, but having a toddler literally bouncing off the walls probably made them glad for the excuse of the Ability-Affected Persons Civil Responsibility Disclosure Act—the law that required citizens to notify the government of suspected Talents. It also required parents to allow them to be taken to State Schools to be trained under the authority of the
National Institutes for Ability Control
.

The last few years had been especially hard on them—

more for Karen, I think. She and I had turned twelve and were moved up to Senior Section together, while Rand was left behind in Intermediate. We were hardly able to see him at all until he got old enough to catch up to us again. Karen had taken a big step back from him, and that was hard on her too, but she knew she couldn’t keep fussing over him. We were too old for that. NIAC let us socialize, let us form friendships, but they frowned on deep relationships that might get in the way of their own agenda. If two people seemed to care more about each other than they cared about getting along with NIAC and sticking to the program, well, there were a bunch of other State Schools a kid could be transferred to. Got a problem with that? Then there was always Detention.

Elle slid my tray across to me and I shoved my paper napkin at Rand. “All right now, mop up, kid. Take it easy.

This ain’t the place and you know it, so man up.” That sounded harsh. It was harsh. But I just couldn’t let him make a scene and show weakness. Not in front of the guards, not in front of so many other Talents, kids he’d be facing off against on the field or in the classroom, who’d be looking for weaknesses to exploit in order to impress the instructors. I kept my hand clamped to his shoulder, and that was all the support I could offer.

Karen’s face had a look of intense concentration. She was sorting through Rand’s jumbled thoughts, trying to get the whole story. “Eat your lunch,” I told her sharply, jolting her out of her study. “And that goes double for you, kid.

Take mine, I’ll go get another.” I shoved my tray in front of Rand.

“I’m not hungry,” he whined.

“Ask me if I care. You’ve been bouncing around like a maniac and I’m sure you put in a good workout before you got your bad news. So eat something, whether you like it or not, or you’ll crash and burn before the day’s over.”

“Says the guy who was dodging fireballs.” Elle’s tray slid across the table and stopped in front of me. “
You
eat, and listen to your own advice. I’ll get another.” She was gone before I could argue.

“Come on, kid, let’s dig in. We’ll talk this out later. I promise.” I was more than ready to lead by example. A big guy like me needs a lot of calories in the first place, and morphing, holding the more complicated forms under stress, dodging fireballs, getting healed…I was starving and if I didn’t fill up now I was gonna tank big-time before food was offered again.

* * *

“Did I mention what a bad idea this is?” I reached up and adjusted the tag in the neck of uniform shirt I was wearing. It was itching my neck.

“Only five or six times,” said Elle, who was walking beside me along the quiet, dimly lit corridor.

On her other side, Karen grunted irritably. “But you’ve been thinking it non-stop. At this point I think I’d prefer your daydreams about—”

“Hey now,” I interrupted on cue. Karen wasn’t really about to out me in front of Elle, she just wanted to annoy me.

But what did she expect? That I would be thrilled when the two of them snuck out of the Girls’ Dorm and came looking for me, bearing the dirty laundry of NIAC personnel? I’d said it then and I’d say it again, sneaking around trying to find information about the story Rand had told us was a bad idea.

“Please,” Karen drawled, “don’t say it again.”

“Just keep your nose in your clipboard and look officious.”

“Is that even a word?” Elle asked.

“It is,” I told her. Sure, I liked hanging out and joking with my friends, but with Karen wearing the white lab coat of a NIAC researcher or technician, me disguised as a guard, Elle walking between us as the subject under study, the three of us so where we were not supposed to be, and lighthearted banter was not where my head was.

“This is it,” Karen said, stopping in front of a door. She looked around. “No cameras, and I don’t hear anyone nearby.”

“That’s good, because if anyone hears this, we’re gonna have some explaining to do.” The form I had taken was one of the guards I was saw fairly often, a guy pretty close to my own size and muscle mass. Unfortunately, the girls had brought me a uniform, but no boots and all I had were my sneakers. They were black and would probably pass if anyone stopped us, but for this, it was gonna hurt. “Stand back.” I snapped a kick at the lock.
Son of a…
Had to kick it twice before the door swung inward. We hurried in.

Elle wrapped her hands around the busted lock and closed her eyes. When she pulled them away the door looked good as new. She shut the door and locked us in. I let myself morph back to my real form with a sigh of relief.

“Ethan, these file cabinets are locked.”

“Of course they are.” I broke those locks and we commenced rifling. “I got some more out of Rand before I finally got him to sleep. His friend in the Intermediates told him that they took five kids almost two weeks ago. They came back a week ago with their heads shaved, bandages on their scalps, and acting strange. Over the last week, two of them, his friend Chaz and some other kid, collapsed with seizures and died. Now they’ve notified five more kids in the Section that they’ve been selected for a special project. It’s supposed to start Monday.”

“That’s pretty much what I got out of his head earlier—

except it was a lot messier than your version,” Karen confirmed.

“Anderson’s got something to do with it.” Elle got our attention with that one. She was sitting on the desk with a file labeled
Confidential.
“What happened to Rand’s friend is a later phase in an experiment that started at Everlast. The round of…procedures—the surgeries they did two weeks ago—the results haven’t been what they expected. So they’ve flown Anderson in, as a successful test subject, so the doctors involved can study him before the next round.”

“Test subject for what? What kind of surgeries?”

“They’re doing brain implants. Computer chips. For mind control.”

We all let that sink in for a moment. It made sense. Who would these paranoid monsters want to control more than a Talent who had the power to control them?