The Pulse Series (Book 1): Pulse (13 page)

"Everyone go get some lunch and meet at the classrooms at twelve thirty hours. Dismissed."

SIXTEEN

It had been two weeks since my arrival and I was getting to a point where I no longer felt like I was dying at the end of each day. Math had been one of the harder parts of my classes, but with help from one of the boys in the unit, Thomas, I was getting through it.

My self defense had gotten better, and Bradley had moved on to teaching me some kick boxing moves. It was harder than I thought to maintain kicking the large pads, but I could feel the results in my body more and more every day.

I caught my reflection in front of the mirror in the bathroom and noticed that I had put on some muscle. I was no longer the skinny little thing that I used to be. Although I didn't have bulging muscles like some of the older boys, my waist and legs were a lot more toned than they had ever been before. I stood staring for a bit, even turning to see the backs of my legs better.

Sarah poked her head up over my shoulder. "Checking yourself out, huh?"

I blushed and started putting on my pants and shirt, not meeting her eyes. She just laughed. "Don't worry about it. Everyone here does it during the first few weeks. It's amazing how fast your body changes." She leaned forward and whispered into my ear, "You even see the boys still doing it."

I giggled at the image of Bradley flexing his muscles in front of a mirror, but the giggle was soon replaced with a blush. I coughed to hide my discomfort and turned away from the mirror to pick up my bag with my dirty clothes in it.

As I walked through the doorway Jane entered and hit me with her shoulder, causing me to drop my bag.

"Watch it."

I sighed and picked up the bag. Jane had been a problem ever since I had started. There was nothing as bad as that first night, but things like this were a constant dark cloud looming over my otherwise good mood. I hadn't worked out what her problem was, so I just tried to avoid her as much as possible. That was easier said than done when we trained in such close knit units.

We made our way back out to the mess hall and sat with the others at our usual table. Paul, one of the guys from the unit, slid up next to Sarah.

"So when are you going to let me take you on a date?"

Sarah gave him a smile. "When you work out that making out behind the barracks isn't what a girl considers a date."

Paul's eyebrows rose. "Sound like the best time spent in the world!"

She rolled her eyes. "Perhaps to someone without a brain."

He stood and shook his finger at her. "You'll be mine one day." I watched as he slid back over to the boys' table. He gave Robert, another of the boys in our unit, a high five and fell into his chair. I just rolled my eyes. This happened once every couple of days, with Paul trying to get Sarah to go on a date with him.

I turned to her. "Will you ever say yes?"

She turned to look over her shoulder at the boy who was now standing on his chair doing his best impersonation of a duck. The other boys seemed to find this quite amusing.

She gave a shrug. "Nah. He's cute, but he's a little too immature. Once he works out that he needs to be more than just a good kisser we'll see what happens."

I grinned at her and wiggled my eyebrows. "So you've kissed him before?"

She chose to answer by throwing a bread roll at my head. We spent the rest of the evening chatting about nothing in particular when Bradley came up to our table. He sometimes sat with the boys, but spent most of his time in officer training up in the mansion when mealtimes were on. We stopped talking and looked up at him.

"Alex, I need you to come with me," he said, before turning and walking away.

I frowned and looked at the other girls who all shrugged. Sarah wiggled her eyebrows back at me, so I stuck my tongue out at her as I walked away. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jane standing with Benny in the lunch line. She was glaring daggers at me, but I ignored it to follow Bradley. I jogged to catch up with him and walked out of the building after him.

"What's going on?"

"You've got a class to be in."

"Without the rest of the unit?"

He gave me a sideways glance. "Your pulse training starts tonight."

My eyes widened as I let his words sink in. I had been looking forward to my training starting since my arrival, but hadn't heard word from anyone about it. Sarah went off for her training three nights a week, and others went at varying intervals too. It had been getting to the point where I was going to ask Bradley when I would start, but in the past week I had been hard pressed to catch him alone.

"You look happy."

I turned to look up into his eyes, but had to look away after a few moments. The disinterested look he often carried was gone, replaced by the look that I had seen in the first few days I had spent with him. I had been thinking I had imagined the whole thing, but seeing it on his face again now caused my cheeks to flare.

"Y—Yes," I said, coughing to cover my blush. "I've been looking forward to it for a while now."

He turned back to look up at the mansion. "That's good. The first time is always better when you're willing."

I coughed.

Bradley kept walking for a dozen feet before he realized what he had just said. I saw his cheeks fill with red, and I couldn't help it any more. I let out a bark of laughter. I slapped a hand onto my mouth but it was too late. I looked up at him, dreading the expression on his face, but he surprised me in that he was laughing too. The sight of him caused it to break free from my chest, and the two of us laughed together.

Bradley gave a cough to clear his throat. "Well that broke the tension."

"So you noticed it too, huh?" I fidgeted with my hands. "I thought I was just being a girl."

He turned to me with a softer look in his eyes. "Look, I'm not always an asshole, but I've got a job to do."

I looked up at him and nodded. I understood what he was saying. I swallowed and took a chance.

"Let's say you didn't have a job to do." I felt my cheeks heat again. "Would that make a difference?"

His face twisted into a grimace, and my stomach fell. "Let's not venture into that territory." I nodded and turned back to the mansion, blinking hard to make sure nothing escaped my eyes.

It was nothing. There was nothing even there. I had no idea why I was feeling this way. There was no point. I swallowed hard and bit the inside of my cheek, snapping me out of my foolishness. I was just a silly girl with a silly crush. Nothing more.

We arrived at the mansion. Instead of the usual doors Bradley led me to a set of stairs that descended into the ground.

"The training facilities for pulse lessons are in the basement sections. They're upgraded to use reinforced steel for the walls and doors to prevent any… accidents."

I was about to ask what kind of accidents, but the expression on his face said he didn't want to talk about it. We walked past many numbered doors, stopping when we reached fifty-two. Bradley gestured toward the door.

"Your trainer will be here in about five minutes. He or she will let you know about when your next sessions will be. Good luck."

"You aren't staying?"

"Not allowed to know what you have, remember?"

He turned and walked away. I had assumed since he had been the one to come and pick me up he already knew what my ability was, but clearly that information was even hidden from him. I realized I was standing alone in a cold hallway so I turned toward the steel door and took a breath. With a hard shove I pushed it open and entered the room. The whole thing was steel. The floor. The ceiling. Everything. There were two main sections. First was the open area that I was in now, which about fifteen feet wide and the same length deep. The room was a square box with nothing by a steel chair in the center welded to the floor. The second room was smaller, but had a nicer chair and a large see-through section for observing the larger room. Also inside was complex piece of machinery that I didn't recognize. I assumed that was the instructor's booth.

I walked to the center of the room and sat on the steel chair. It was cold, but not uncomfortable considering the material. After a few minutes the door swung open and a woman with glasses and her hair in a tight bun entered the room. She smiled upon seeing me in the chair, and walked over to me. I stood and saluted.

She waved her hand and gave me a smile. "No need for any of that. I'm a scientist, not military. My name is Doctor Lynn and I will be your Pulse instructor for your duration here."

She reached her hand out in front of me which I took in my own and shook.

"Nice to meet you, Doctor. I'm Alex."

She gave me a nod and a fire lit up in her eyes. "Yes. Alexandra Murray. Sixteen years old. Former inhabitant of New York City. An only child. Power is in time manipulation."

I felt my nerves coming back as she stared down at me with glee in her eyes. I felt like she was about to dissect under a microscope. She much have seen my reaction.

"Sorry, I tend to get a bit over excited." She threw me a grin. "I just love learning more about pulse abilities, and having a new recruit is always an exciting time for my studies. Don't worry, you're safe with me."

I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at her. "Should we begin then?"

"Yes!"

Doctor Lynn gestured to the chair. I sat back down on the metal, and she crouched down in front of me. She took hold of my hands and started into my eyes.

"Can you feel the heat in my hands?" I frowned, but nodded and she continued. "Of course you can. It's heat transference. You feel it just as you feel any other change in the areas of your body that the nervous system touches."

"Okay…" I wasn't sure of what the point of this was.

"The nervous system is, among other things, a vast network of nerves that run along your body. It is there to alert you to changes in temperature, pressure, and many other changes in body and environment. It's what allows you to feel pain. With me so far?"

I nodded.

"Good. Now know that your body doesn't have nerves everywhere. If I were to cut your skin it would hurt, but if one of your internal organs were to get cut, it would be unlikely you would feel it. The reason I am telling you all this, is that from what we can tell, the pulse ability is not connected to the nervous system." She paused for a few seconds before continuing. "But responds like it is."

I frowned which caused Doctor Lynn to laugh.

"Yes I understand your confusion, but it makes things easier for us. When you first pulsed you would have felt a large pressure in your chest, no?"

I nodded. "Yeah it just kinda came out of nowhere and built up like crazy. I thought my chest was going to explode."

"Others report similar reactions, but you should now be able to feel that pressure inside of yourself. It will be much smaller, a more manageable level, but it's there isn't it?"

I nodded at her. It had been an odd feeling to get used to for the first few days, but I had all but forgotten about it after everything that happened since.

"What I need you to do is locate that pressure and squeeze it as hard as you can. Not right now of course. Please wait until I'm behind the safety wall. Do you think you can give it a try for me?"

I frowned again, but nodded to her. "I'll give it my best shot."

A grin lit up Doctor Lynn's face. "Perfect!" She stood and released my hand. "Please wait until I give you the signal to try, I want to make sure the recording equipment is functioning."

She turned and walked into the smaller room, closing the door behind her. After about half a minute of fiddling with the equipment in the room, she sat in the chair and gave me a thumbs up.

I took a deep breath and put my hand up to my chest. I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could on finding that pressure again. I could feel it there, but for the first time I was aware of its shape. It seemed to be a small ball shape that filled the space between my lungs, right under where my heart was.

I tried to focus on gripping the thing with the surrounding pressure, but for some reason it felt… slippery? I just couldn't get a grip on the thing, no matter how hard I tried. It felt stupid to think of something as slippery when it wasn't a physical object, but I couldn't think of another way to describe it. I began to get frustrated. I tried and tried to grip it and was soon grunting in effort. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I could feel sweat dripping down the back of my neck.

"Stop." I looked up at Doctor Lynn who was still behind the glass. I stopped my efforts and looked up, and realized I was panting. She came out of the room and crouched down in front of me again. "You're trying to force it too hard. Don't think of it as an object you have to grip, but try to think of it more as a part of your body that you are surrounding with pressure. I imagine you're picturing a hand and trying to grab the ball?" I nodded, amazed at how much she knew about the subject. "Instead try not to think in such literal terms. Your best bet is to build a bigger ball of pressure around it, and then make that ball smaller. Understand?"

I nodded and she smiled, stood, and made her way back to the room. When she sat down on the chair she gave me another thumbs up.

I took a few deep breath to calm myself and start to try building a ball of pressure. I concentrated on building a perfect sphere around the ball, and filling it with as much pressure as I could. When I felt it harden, I started making the ball smaller.

It was still harder than I thought it would be. I could feel the tension as I tried to make the sphere tighter and tighter. The pressure started rising in my chest like it did that first night. I knew I was getting closer, I just hoped I could hold out until I had it. My body was shaking hard, and it felt like I was about to lose my grip on the sphere.

It happened all at once.

The sphere I had built collapsed in on itself and I felt the ball crumble up something like tissue paper. A wave like water rushed out from me all at once and I opened my eyes to look at Doctor Lynn.