Super Nobody (Alphas and Omegas Book 1) (20 page)

No, it was. But he wasn't going to insist on
something that couldn't be true. Maybe Charlotte could make you see
things, like illusions or something. No, that wasn't possible. She
was deep under the Marcus Patterson eighth grade school building,
under a ridiculous amount of security, including some Actives
guarding her. There would be no sneaking in there, even if the
rumors of deep tunnel systems under the school were true. They
would sense him coming, and they would blast him with acid or
fireballs or something.

It was hopeless.

But his mother didn't believe him when he
agreed that he was just imagining things. It didn't make sense that
she knew something was true, and she made him say it, and then
didn't believe him when he listened to her. That didn’t stop him
from seeing Charlotte walking a dog before they got home, or
sitting on the Henderson’s front porch reading a newspaper he’d
delivered earlier that day. Each time when he’d looked back, she
was gone, or it was really somebody else. At least there was
orientation to take his mind off Charlotte.

To get the students ready for the Marcus
Patterson eighth grade building, the faculty had five whole days of
orientation activities planned. The first of these took all of them
over to the other school.

Just approaching the school, he knew it
wouldn’t be good. The Marcus C. Patterson eighth grade wing was a
large and hunched over C-shaped structure, facing away from the
LADCEMS main building. It clearly used to be something else. Where
the main building was a technological marvel of graceful curves and
a domed library with a bajillion books and little beanbags and
artsy carpeting, the Patterson building felt like it was in danger
of keeling over.

“Alright ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Samuelson
said. “You’re going to divide up into groups and take a tour of the
building. Last names A through H, follow me please.”

Another teacher took the I through M’s (there
were a lot of M’s for some reason), and Michael gulped when he saw
who would take the N through Z’s.

Mr. Jackson, the grumpy mind-reader guy who
thought Michael was synergistic. He folded his arms over his chest
and glared at the lot of them.

“Right, listen close,” he said, and leaned
toward them. “You don’t want to be here any more than I do, but
we’ve had an emergency at the high school. Three dead. So I’ve got
the day off, and I’m here. Live with it. About this school: it is a
garbage heap. You’re only going to spend one year here, we hope,
and move up to the high school where things get really scary. So
stick close, don’t touch
anything
.” A student who was about
to try opening a locker jumped back. She also squeaked. “And
whatever you do, don’t make eye contact with any of the students
here. They don’t need any more stress than they already have.”

As much as Michael didn’t like Mr. Jackson,
he was right: the school was a dump. There were a few banks of
lights out, or flickering in a horror-movie-about-to-start sort of
way. The walls were freshly painted, but only in select spots, more
like something that had been torn out, replaced, and covered over.
Dozens of banks of lockers couldn’t be opened at all, just empty
spaces nobody would ever fill with books or backpacks. Several
classrooms also sat derelict, with yellow warning tape
criss-crossing them. Michael believed the whispers he heard, that
these were former crime scenes and would have chalk lines somewhere
inside, in the shapes of dead students or teachers. The drop
ceiling tiles were mismatched as well and it wasn’t possible to
tell the old from the new, so you always felt like something might
fall on you at any time. There were stretches of hallway nobody
ever went down. The basketball hoop had been torn down ages ago,
just leaving a backboard standing watch over the dirt lot. Michael
personally felt, as his imagination caught wind of the strangeness
of Marcus Patterson, that there were bodies stashed all over the
place, and that one day he might turn one up.

The teachers at LADCEMS were bright, cheerful
people who made up nice bulletin boards and smiled when they heard
their horrible nicknames, like Conehead Kroner, and
Stick-in-the-butt Stackleman. These were the types of people that
always came in with a new science experiment or some cheesy but
enjoyable video full of singing cartoon cats.

At Patterson, the teachers were more likely
to have a wandering eye, strange limp, shuffling walk or bad comb
over.

“Who’s that?” one girl whispered to another.
Michael followed their eyes to an honest-to-goodness hunchback, who
was staring at them with one big eye. Either Michael couldn’t see
the other one, or it just wasn’t there.

“That?” Mr. Jackson said. “That, is the
English Teacher, Mr. Bones. Everybody wave and say hello to Mr.
Bones.”

Instead of waving, everybody exchanged
glances with each other. They were about to get up the courage to
whisper to each other when Mr. Jackson spoke up again.

“A joke people. Mr. Bones is the day janitor.
Now, you will be polite and say hello to Mr. Bones.”

Michael stepped forward and waved. “Hi Mr.
Bones.” He felt bad that all the other kids would hardly look at
the janitor. His mother taught him that the janitors had a tough
job, cleaning up after hundreds of children. He could see her nod
in his mind.

Mr. Bones grinned and raised a four-fingered
hand at him. He had a mouth like a shark. “Yo. Niceta meetcha.”

A few brave whispers started up behind him,
but Mr. Jackson snickered and shook his head.

“Of course you would. Wouldn’t be surprised
if you were a synergist after all, Washington.”

The tour included the woodshop, which was
down in the basement, and over to where art classes were going on.
The teacher there seemed to have a thing for paintings of fire,
demons, beasts that were made of different animals mashed up
together, and one massive piece where inhuman things were eating
and chasing people around toward somebody’s version of hell. Later,
they were asked to fill out forms indicating their interests, and
what classes they thought might be good for the future. Michael
liked computers, but there was a lot of math involved.

Finally, Terrence Jackson called them
together and said, “We’re probably going to be late to the gym, so
we’re going to take a shortcut. Ordinarily, you should never head
to this part of the Patterson building. It’s off limits.”

Michael’s heart leapt into his throat. They
were going into the underground Active prison thing!

But he was disappointed. Mr. Jackson led them
around a corner, ducked under more of the yellow police tape, and
stepped into a dark hallway with one flickering light at the very
end.

“Step lightly people,” he said. “Holes in the
floor. Single
file
, Washington.”

It was one of those annoying things that
Jackson could just bark out one word as a shout. Everybody always
jumped, too, like they weren’t expecting it.

He started to weave his way around the
hallway, and now Michael could see some glowing, molten-red spots
in the floor here. They were melted deep, which was why he couldn’t
see them from far off. The walls also had scorch marks all over
them, and in one place he looked out, through the wall, into a
classroom, and saw another scorched hole looking out into the
center courtyard.

“Mr. Jackson?” Michael asked. “What-“

“Not now. More you open your mouth, more
radiation you’re likely to get, Washington.”

Several students screamed, but eventually
they all made their way through the crater-filled hallway and past
another big X of police tape. The gym was just beyond, and already
full of seventh graders from LADCEMS. A large, fat, bald teacher in
thick glasses was ushering everyone in. Michael recognized him as
Mr. L, the Active who could take powers from someone and give them
to somebody else. He turned a lopsided smile on Michael and the
other N through Z's and ushered them through.

“Right here, all the way back, pack in
tight,” he said. “Here we go, here we...ohhh.”

Most of the students had already made it into
the gym, but Mr. Jackson suddenly folded up, clutching his head.
One of the veins in his forehead suddenly stood out, and Michael
wondered if his head wasn’t going to just pop.

“What’s wrong Mr. Jackson?” he asked, far too
nicely.

“Shut up, Washington,” Mr. Jackson grunted.
“Get in there before I give you a month’s detention.”

The gym looked like a darker and more
run-down version of the LADCEMS one, without the banners hanging
from the rafters telling when the school had been state champions
in girls' volleyball or boys' basketball.

Mr. L rushed (more like waddled) over toward
center court, where a podium was set up. The throat clearing
sounded just fine coming through the huge speakers hung high up
over the center of the gym, but Mr. L got much too close to the mic
when he started speaking.

“Thank you!” he said. “Thank you everybody.
Settle down now. Heh. I know this is pretty exciting for everyone,
of course.”

Michael watched Mr. Jackson until the lights
went out, but couldn’t tell if he was just having a really nasty
headache or something else was going on.

It didn’t take a minute. The lights went out,
like someone had stolen the sun out of the sky. Girls started
screaming and boys laughing. The only light Michael could see was a
few specks dribbling in under the doors.

“Nothing to worry about! Nothing at all!” Mr.
L shouted. “Just...get...this darned...projector...”

Finally something buzzed to life, and a
minute later a light came on. Another spotlight from somewhere high
up flared to life, and after some confusion found Mr. L.

“Now, right, then, aha...” he said, and
dropped a few of his note cards on the floor. More laughter
followed, along with a ripple of disbelief. This was one of the
Actives?

“Well, like the bird said to the flying fish,
haha, just wing it,” he said, and went on even through the groans.
“Not long from now, what, roundabout five months or so, you'll be
enrolled in LADCEMS no longer! You will instead be a part of the
Marcus Patterson high school preparation building. Which, aheh,
doesn't have a good acronym, but there you have it. And things, my
friends, are going to be very, very, very, very, very
different.”

He beamed at them all. Michael stared at him
in horror. He could not for the life of him believe anyone in the
world talked like this. He also couldn't believe that person was
trying to talk to
him
like this. He was embarrassed for Mr.
L. If he had to give this presentation, he would probably burst
into flame out of sheer embarrassment, and not in the good,
I’ve-just-activated-my-super-powers way.

“It might not look like much, but Marcus
Patterson has a long history of excellence. I’m sure in a few
years, it’s going to be bulldozed and remade like LADCEMS, but not
next year! You’ll have the pleasure and privilege of attending here
next year.

“The programs that we, ah, set up here should
help you get orientated to your, ah, new surroundings. This school
will be your home for the next, what, nine and a half months? Let's
call it a year. You will need to meet some of the people who will
be your neighbors, no, your family, for that time. You'll need to
be ready for high school, because Lincoln Area District High is
very different,
very
different from what you have
experienced so far.

“Why, I remember the moment I arrived at the
Lincoln Area District,” Mr. L said. “Takes me back, sure. I had no
idea that I was going to be a part of such an exciting and
wonderful environment. But then I met Mr. Jackson here, and...”

A bright white stab of pain, much like a two
foot long nail, erupted into Michael's head. The gym disappeared.
He was blind.

No, that wasn't right. The world just
dissolved really quickly. Like if you were staring at the place a
nuclear bomb was being dropped.

In its place were a few smells. One was a
summer smell, the smell of grass cuttings on his lawn, the scent of
summer roses and tulips in the city center not far from city hall.
A hint of car exhaust. Aftershave, like the stuff his father
splashed on his face. Sweat. Fearful sweat.

Blobby voices came into his ears.

“-can't be serious,” one said. “Washington
won't stand for it.”

“Won't stand for it,” the other voice said.
Both were familiar. “Listen to yourself. Who cares what people will
stand for? Look at this place! No, really, look, look around
you!”

Michael could look. He wasn't far from the
high school, near the edge of town where fewer cars went.
Everything was blurry, but he could make out the water tower as a
sky blue blob and the chunky forms of trees. Two people stood
before him, but they were nothing more than fuzzy smears of color.
His eyes were starting to get the handle on this
dream...hallucination...thing.

“What do you see? Let me guess. A flourishing
community. Something perfect and wonderful.”

“Well yes!” the first voice said. Michael
knew it now, the first was Mr. L.

“You only see the shiny red apple, you can't
see the rot on the inside. This place is doomed, Archibald. You
take my advice and steer clear of here.”

This had to be Jackson. Yes, his eyes were
clearing, and he could see them now. Younger, both of them with
more hair and Mr. L quite a lot thinner.

“No, no, that's not right,” Mr. L said. “Have
you seen the rest of the world, Terrence? They've really built
something here. A diamond in the rough.”

Somewhere, a long way off, a siren was going,
a shrill blast like a super powered scream. “Eeeeeeee!”

“A diamond in the middle of a volcano,” Mr.
Jackson said. “This thing's going to come down, I promise you that.
And you, you want to be here in the middle of the eruption?”