One (One Universe) (2 page)

I slump against one of the walls and check my schedule on my cuff. Nothing with Hoffman. I’m sure that, whatever he’s teaching, it’s so high level I’ll have to get notes from Mom and Dad and a meeting with the principal just to get me a seat in the class. That is, if I actually did see him. I can’t imagine why he would actually leave the state-of-the-art Superior classrooms to come teach at this dump.

I pass my locker, number 5637, noting its location. I have nothing to put in it yet and don’t feel like programming the new print-scanning lock Mom slipped in my bag, so I don’t even stop.

My first class is History: Modern American. I sigh with relief. At Superior High, freshmen take this class, so I should’ve already learned all this stuff. When I click through my reader to find the textbook, though, it’s not
AMERICA: PATHWAYS TO PROGRESS
, the one we used last year. Instead, it’s
AMERICAN HERITAGE AND YOU
.

There’s no teacher’s desk at the front of this classroom. When one of the few adults I’ve seen walks into the classroom, plugs a cartridge into a port on the back wall, and a 3-D projector displays a life-sized image of a teacher at the front of the room, I almost cry with disappointment.

This year, the weird projected holo-teacher says, we’ll be focusing on American history post-Uranium Wars, but that she wants to go through a brief summary of that thirty-year period before we begin.

“Seventy-five years ago, foreign missiles suddenly and deliberately attacked a transport of uranium cores being transported to safe storage in the American desert, triggering the Uranium World Wars. The leakage into Lake Michigan made thousands sick, killing some and fundamentally altering the genetic structures of thousands of others.

“Many of these individuals developed extraordinary powers: for example, super-speed or -strength, control of natural forces, teleportation, or telekinesis. Twenty years later, a diabolical group of five of these mutants, all leaders in their communities, formed a plan to assassinate the President of the United States and overthrow the government. Thankfully, it was stopped before damage was done.

“Never had our nation experienced such a threat from within our own borders.

“Most of the mutant population, some 30,000 strong, was concentrated around the Great Lakes. Even after the investigations and trials in the aftermath of said threat, we knew that some among them were potentially dangerous. Though most were loyal Americans, no one knew what would happen among this concentrated population if the new leaders’ efforts congealed into a full-fledged revolution.

“Military authorities therefore determined that all of them would have to move. Tens of thousands of men, women, and children, all affected by supernatural abilities caused by the uranium contamination decades earlier, were removed from their homes to communities in established, out-of-the-way places. Of course, the government helped in any cases of financial hardship and — once the families had reached their destinations — provided housing and plenty of healthful nourishment for all.

“The mutated citizens wanted to go to work developing their abilities for the betterment of society. Many were allowed to do so in areas away from our main government and weapons stores and under appropriate safeguards, with the condition that they would work together with the existing United States government for the welfare of all United States citizens.”

After every sentence this non-teacher speaks, my mouth drops open just a little farther. This is not the history they taught us at Superior.

Of course, they taught us about the Uranium Wars and the attempted government takeover. But the story of the camps sounded totally different at Superior.

Notices were posted. All mutated persons and their families were required to register. The evacuation was not cheerful. Stones were thrown, and jeers were screamed. It was out of fear, they taught us at Superior. Of course the Normals feared the Supers. But this twisting of history was inexcusable.

The lecture doesn’t include video footage of the internment camps’ shoddy housing or the mothers clutching their crying babies while they waited for the food trucks. It doesn’t show the Supers waiting in long lines to see doctors they didn’t trust or the makeshift schoolrooms full of dirty-looking kids in clothes that didn’t fit quite right.

The holo-teacher directs us to the touchscreens in our desktops to answer some multiple choice questions about the lecture. I force my brain to go numb as I answer them the way I know the textbook wants us to.

I don’t know exactly what this means for the next three years I’m supposed to spend here at Nelson High, but after hearing this lecture, I know I can’t spend my life among Normals. No way.

I’ve got to get that internship.

By the time I’ve sat through calculus, bio, and English, I’m feeling grateful for the remote-lecturing holo-teachers — it means there’s no one to ask me to stand at the front of the classroom and introduce myself. That is, until I realize that people are going to start asking me who I am to my face.

I have no idea what to expect from these Normal kids. Will they suspect that I’m not like them? Can they see that I can float if I want to?

I manage to keep my head down all the way to my locker. All I want is to get there to ditch my sweatshirt, retreat to the girl’s room — if I can figure out where it is — lock myself in a stall for a few minutes, and take a deep breath for the first time since I got here.

And maybe eat my lunch in there. Just for today.

I wiggle the handle of my locker, but it won’t open. I bend down to take a look at it. No jerk’s poured superglue in there or anything.

Before I know it, I’m shaking the stupid locker handle so hard that it’s making a racket, and a few people standing near me look over and cock their heads. When I almost whack my own face with my struggling hand, I give up, resting my head against the cool, solid metal for a second, breathing in through my nose.

I am seriously losing it. Over a locker.

Half a second later, a shoulder taller than my head pushes into the metal door, and a large hand with long, thin fingers jiggles the handle side-to-side a couple of times and wrenches it up, letting the locker pop open.

I feel the warmth of his nearness against my cheek, countering the chill of the locker, like a shock on my skin.

The guy clears his throat, and says quietly, “They’re tricky.”

I barely glance at him before I look down at the floor, but I do catch that he has blond hair and glasses.

“You new here?”

Before I can answer, some guy halfway down the hall hollers, “E! Coming?”

The guy at my locker — “E” — gives his head half a shake, smiles a little, then turns to walk away.

And now everyone’s staring at me. Great.

As soon as I find my way to the bathroom, I place both hands on the rim of one of the sinks, steadying myself there. After a few seconds, I splash my face with water and reach over to the soap dispenser. Everything about this place feels dirty.

As I’m lathering my hands, I notice the logo on the soap dispenser. Hub Technology — it appears on every product they make. It’s four arcs, one for each Hub, intersecting in the shape of a circle. Someone has crossed out the “Hub” in “Hub Technology” and written “Freak” next to it.

Suddenly I can’t get enough air into my lungs. I duck into a stall, sit on the toilet, bury my face in my hands, and take one, two deep breaths.

I hope with everything in me that all the other kids actually eat in the cafeteria.

TWO

I
loathe the idea of art class. Something about the idea of ripping out part of my soul, translating it into colors and materials, and putting it on paper or canvas for everyone to gawk at and misinterpret is completely horrific to me. For self-expression, I’ve always loved my drums. Drumbeats dissolve on the air — they’re out in the world for a moment before they go away. No one knows whether there was anger or frustration or passion or excitement behind them. They don’t give anyone else the time to mess with them. Drumbeats are all mine — the only things I’ve ever had that are.

There are ten of us in the class: three jocks, a couple of girls in tight jeans and new shoes who reek of hairspray, a handful of others. There’s no orange-shirted adult coming in, though. When the bell rings, everyone scoots their seats to a place at one of the wide, black tables.

The sound of metal legs scraping against the floor makes me cringe. I whip my head around, and that blond boy from the hallway scoots his stool a little closer to my desk.

Well, “boy” isn’t an accurate term. It’s even clearer now — with him sitting right next to me outside of the hustle and confusion of the hallway — that he’s a giant. He’s easily six foot two, with a shadow of stubble running across his jaw. My feet barely reach the bottom rung of the art stool, while his slide comfortably on the floor.

“You’re a freshman?” he asks, and looks right into my eyes. For a second, I can’t look away.

He is 100 percent generic looking. He could be anyone. Except for those eyes. I see his irises right through the thick lenses of his glasses — light brown sparked with streaks of green and flecks of blue. I have never seen so many colors in someone’s eyes before.

Then I feel like an idiot because I have spent exactly two seconds too long thinking about the color of some guy’s eyes. I cast my gaze downward, trying to focus on anything but his face.

His jeans don’t have a single rip or fray, but they’re not pristine, either. His gray t-shirt hugs his waist, letting me see how thin he is. Even though he’s two heads taller than me at least, he probably doesn’t break 160 pounds.

“No. Sophomore. I transferred from Superior.” The words come out of my mouth almost before I can think them. “My parents — uh…I thought I’d try something new. They bought a house on the border when I was nine,” I explain, like he should care. Like he needs to know.

For an instant, he looks surprised, and then his eyes sparkle at me when he gives a little smile. “Well. For the electives — music, art, architecture, film, whatever — we just scan our cuffs into the tabletop and pick an assignment. Then it records whatever we do.” I raise an eyebrow. “It probably doesn’t teach us much, I know, but at least no one hassles us.”

“Yeah, okay.” I press my cuff into the input section of the tabletop and choose
Option 1: Draw a picture of what you did this summer.
Lame, but at least it’ll be over with soon. The blond guy chooses the same option on his half of the table.

“I didn’t get to introduce myself. I’m Elias — I’m a junior.” He sticks out his hand, and I stare at it. It’s so huge — strong but thin, tendons showing in the back of it. If I put my hand against his, palm to palm, my fingertips probably wouldn’t reach his first knuckle.

“I started out at Superior Public,” he says. “Parents took me out after first grade.”

My heart jumps. Is he another One? No, he can’t be. He wouldn’t have transferred away that early unless his parents were absolutely sure he wasn’t going to go Super, and six or seven years old is too young. He must be a Normal.

It would make sense for me to mumble some comment or even get up and walk away, but the space between us suddenly feels weird — charged or something. The fine hairs on my arm stand on end, and I can swear I feel my skin prick. It’s like a magnet, keeping me there, even though I know it’s probably not the best idea to keep talking to this guy because I will waste even more time thinking about his eyes.

I can’t speak to him, but I can’t make myself move away either.

He drops his hand, smiles that slight smile again, and looks down at the blank tabletop in front of him. He pulls a stylus out of his bag. In bold handwriting, all caps, he writes at the top of the screen: “What I Did Over Summer Vacation.” He draws a stick figure lying on a hill in the sunshine, staring up. Then he draws an arrow pointing at it and writes, “Bored,” beside it.

He draws a vertical line to make a new frame and then swipes the old one out of view. Next, he draws a stick figure with a backpack on and a massive building in the distance with a huge sign that says, “Normal High.” A dotted line with an arrow at the end shows him walking in. He motions for me to move my arms off the surface in front of me, and I lean back without thinking. In front of me, he draws a room with long rectangles for chairs and circles for stools and a handful of bodies filling them. He writes “Art Class” at the top, the quotation marks greatly exaggerated. I hold a giggle back in my throat.

I never giggle.

He sketches two stick figures sitting closer to each other than any of the other ones, one much smaller than the other. He labels one “Elias” and the other “Girl Who Won’t Tell Me Her Name.” Then he writes, “(Pretty blue eyes.)”

Well, that does it. This doesn’t feel like the only attention I got from a boy last year — the kind I definitely didn’t want — but I still can’t tell whether it’s good or bad. My stomach does flips, and I have to get out of there. Have to. I hoist my body off my perch on the stool with my left hand, hop down and grab my backpack with my right, and walk toward the door.

I scan my cuff at the door, mumbling, “Bathroom.” The door registers my exit, and I get the hell out of there as fast as I can, not even looking back at his —
Elias’s
— stupid lanky frame and ridiculous sparkling eyes.

THREE

I
pace the hall. I tremble from my core and all the way out to my limbs.

In one short year there, I’d seen a few new girls come to Superior High, girls who got shipped in from across the country for the “community” and hadn’t been around those asshole boys for their whole lives, so they didn’t know any better. I heard the jeers of, “Hey, sweetie, you know I’ve got X-ray vision, right? Might as well take it all off right now.” I saw superhuman strength used in threats against girls, veiled or not-so-veiled.