Super Powereds: Year 2 (37 page)

“So, tell me about this non-literal wall you’ve hit.”

Roy explained about the ceiling of weights he’d been unable to break through, despite months of effort. Professor Fletcher listened attentively, nodding in the right places and keeping all his thoughts to himself. By the end, Roy was feeling more confident, trusting his professor would be able to help him get past this issue in no time at all.

“Sounds like you’ve got a real problem,” Professor Fletcher commented once Roy was done.

“Yes, sir. So what’s the solution?”

“Hell if I know.”

The collapse of Roy’s confidence was as visible as the airborne plummet of a Depression era stockbroker.

“Wait, what?”

“Listen, Roy, do you know how many of your classmates have super strength and durability?”

Roy nodded. “Chad, Violet, Stella, and I have both. Others like Sasha have the enhanced endurance, but aren’t really the same.”

“Very good,” Professor Fletcher said, moderately impressed that the boy actually paid that much attention to his surroundings. “So in just the sophomore class we have four people whose powers produce similar abilities. That said, each of those powers is wholly unique. Violet increasing her density is nothing like the way Stella shifts into steel or Chad continuously renovates his body. That’s three people who at first glance seem to be similar, but would have to approach training and improving themselves in completely different ways. That’s one class, in one college that offers the HCP, in one country, in the world.”

“You’re saying helping me is too hard?”

“I’m saying that each of you little bastards works in your own way. Now, you came to me for help, and I’m going to give you all I can. I just want you to understand upfront that I don’t have all the answers. We’ll try every method I can uncover, but there’s a chance we won’t find the one that helps you get stronger. Hell, it’s perfectly possible that this is simply as powerful as you are able to get.”

“Oh.” Roy looked like he’d been told his dog had died. Professor Fletcher understood. The young people in this program had worked incredibly hard and progressed beyond what most Supers could ever do. Each one was easily in the top ten percent of his specialty. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough to be a Hero, and the closer they drew to graduation, more and more of them would discover where their limitations lay. Most would find a barrier they were physically incapable of passing, and it would be one of the hardest things they’d ever have to accept.

“Look, I’m not saying you’re dead in the water here. If I can find a way to help you I’ll damn sure do it. I just want you to be ready to do a lot of work on your own time.”

“I’ll work out all day every day, sir.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Professor Fletcher leaned back in his chair. “We talked about why the others are strong. Steel body, ultra density, all that stuff. So what makes you strong?”

“Me, I guess. I mean, when I’m Roy I’m just stronger and tougher.”

“Just stronger and tougher,” Professor Fletcher repeated. “Roy, the key to improvement is understanding how your power works. I mean every last nuance. I’ll give you this much, you seem to have the shift down, but I think there’s more to your abilities than just a split personality and a good punch. You need to learn more about yourself. It’s the best shot you’ve got at breaking through this ceiling of yours.”

“I’m, um, I’m not really good at that touchy feely stuff. That’s more Hershel’s rodeo.”

“Then work with him. Between the two of you I bet you can figure something out. In the meantime, how about we start going through the basic techniques I’m well acquainted with? Maybe we’ll get lucky and hit a functional one right off the bat.”

“I’d like to try that.”

“Great; come by here when you finish your afternoon classes. We’ll work out a schedule that doesn’t conflict with my other duties.”

“Yes, sir.” Roy rose from his seat, the consternation and frustration evident on his face. Professor Fletcher took those as good signs. You don’t get frustrated with things you’ve given up on. If you still cared enough to get pissed off it meant you still had hope. Hope was the difference between people who accepted their limitations and the ones who surpassed them. Professor Fletcher wasn’t sure which one Roy would be in the end, but he was definitely curious to find out.

70.

“Fall... the... hell... over.” Alice hissed the words through gritted teeth as she stared at the small particle board table. It was shoddily built and would lean to the side on its own. The weight of it was practically negligible and it couldn’t really be used to support much more than a whisper, let alone functionally hold up anything with tangible mass. Professor Hill had built it himself specifically so it fulfilled all of those specifications. Weak and barely stable was a good starting ground.

“Let’s take a break,” Professor Hill said, handing his pupil a bottle of water. Alice accepted it and took a deep swig. She never would have guessed doing nothing could be so draining. This was her third private training session and she still hadn’t gotten the hang of her new abilities. Sometimes she could send the table tumbling multiple times in a row; other times she’d go for an hour producing not so much as a wobble. Professor Hill had been a surprisingly patient teacher, supportive during her failures as much as her successes. Alice felt she might have given up on the whole endeavor already if not for his encouragement.

“I can’t seem to get it today,” Alice said, gulping down the rest of the bottle and setting it aside.

“That’s okay; I told you on the first day you’re going to have steps back as well as forward until you get a stronger level of control.”

“I remember, it’s just frustrating,” Alice admitted. “By the end of our work Wednesday I could knock it down no problem. Now it’s two days later and I’m getting zilch.”

“It happens to nearly everyone in this situation. You’re still learning the motions. It will get easier once you understand the coordination.”

“You sort of lost me there.”

Professor Hill gave her a reassuring smile. “Look at it like you’re learning a new exercise, like a jab. At first you just blindly slug away on the bag with all you’ve got. Some hits seem to make it move more, some barely get it to wiggle. If you keep punching long enough, you’ll stop paying attention to just the motion of your arm and start noticing other things your body is doing. You’ll feel the tension in your abs, you’ll catch the way your back swivels slightly, even your foot placement will become more obvious. You’ll keep taking in the details and realizing that altering these pieces makes a visible difference in how much the bag moves.”

Alice could see what he was saying. When she’d first started doing her defense tapes she’d just been swatting at the air. After a few weeks she had gotten the form down. More than that, she found herself doing it without even focusing.

“So you think once I learn how to do more than just turn it on, once I get the hang of all the factors that affect it, I’ll be able to use it more reliably. Right?”

“Succinctly and intelligently put,” Professor Hill confirmed. “First you learn the motion, then you learn the system, then you can elevate both to higher levels. So let’s get at it.”

“Sounds good.” Alice turned her attention back to the barely-balanced table and drew together her concentration. She’d tried tapping into her anger, the way she’d inadvertently done on Halloween, and found that while it drew some reactions, it was inconsistent. Applied concentration and an empty mind had been the best tools she’d uncovered so far. She wondered how anyone ever learned to use their powers as a child if this was the required effort. Perhaps it was like language: it simply came more easily in earlier stages of brain development. Even Powereds at least figured out how their abilities worked, even if they couldn’t willfully turn them on or off.

“Your mind is drifting.”

“Sorry.” Alice could never figure out how he knew when her brain started filling up with idle thoughts, but the man had a knack for it. Empty mind turned into distracted mind more than she would have expected. A couple of deep breaths dissolved the meanderings of her brain and put her concentration back on the ugly, leaning table.

The hardest part was reorienting the way she thought of her power. She’d always picture her flight as severing the connections with gravity, which had left her idly tumbling through the air when she was a Powered. No, Alice didn’t ignore gravity, she repurposed it. She understood now that she oriented it in the direction of her choosing. What she could do was less flying and more incredibly-controlled falling. Alice kept that thought in mind. She wasn’t trying to push the table over: she was just trying to shift the gravity slightly to the side.

Her eyes close as she imagined hundreds of hands all over the room, each one stretching directly from the ground and grabbing an object dead center then pulling down. The hands weren’t pulling hard, just firmly enough to bring down anything unbalanced. Alice put her attention on the hand gripping the table. Rather than trying to sever it or make it curl, she tried to slide it ever so slightly to the left. It moved in her mind, inch by inch, pulling the table at an increasingly acute angle. There was a soft thud as the table tumbled over, its mass too low to generate any more impressive sounds.

“Nicely done,” Professor Hill complimented. Alice had to suppress the urge to squeal with joy. Every time she pulled it off she still felt a rush of surprise and giddiness. The professor moved to reset the table so she could try again.

“Wait,” Alice said.

Professor Hill looked over at her. “Do you need another break?”

“No, I just want to try something.”

“By all means.” Professor Hill stepped back and kept his eyes on his pupil. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she stared at the now-defeated obstacle. He smiled to himself, perfectly aware of what was going through her head. She’d found a method that felt particularly effective and she wanted to test it in other applications. She was trying to recreate it, just as it had been seconds ago. If she succeeded, she’d be taking a big step forward; if she failed, she’d likely waste several days trying fruitlessly to recapture that initial sense of magic.

The table leapt from the ground and rocketed to the ceiling, smashing itself to bits against a metal support pillar.

“Very impressive.”

“Not really; I was just trying to stand it up.”

“Still, you got a good bit of force with that one. Control is learned through practice, and now we know you can handle heavier and more stable objects.”

“You think so?”

A few splinters of particle board wafted down from the ceiling and settled on Professor Hill’s shoulders. He watched them land then surveyed the other chunks of former-table that now littered the ground before him.

“I’m positive you’ll be fine.”

71.

Sasha and Julia were already sitting on the couch when Jill got back from class. They’d queued up some mindless fashion show that Jill had never truly understood the appeal of but had learned to fake interest in all the same. For the most part she genuinely liked her roommates and she indulged their peculiar tastes just as she was sure they indulged hers. Today she had good ground to mute the television, thankfully, as she came bearing news.

“Soooo guess whose brother is throwing a big house party next weekend?”

Sasha paused the show, an image of a wafer-thin girl traipsing down the catwalk frozen across the screen. “Will is throwing a party? What’s the theme, physics through the ages?”

“Funny. No, actually Thomas is putting it on. It’s the traditional November kegger where we see which of the remaining freshmen have the balls to attend.”

“Oh yeah, I remember something about that last year,” Julia chimed in. “Didn’t we skip it?”

“We did indeed. Evidently it was pretty decent,” Sasha replied.

“Well, you won’t be missing this year. Will has never been involved in planning a party before so we’re going to be supportive. Plus, we want to make sure the freshmen don’t make the mistake of thinking they’ve got more good-looking girls than our class.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Julia said. “Although they do have a girl whose ability is to appear as your heart’s desire.”

“Ohhhh yeah, I heard about her. Seems like cheating,” Sasha pointed out.

“More cheating than a girl who eats nothing but sugar and stays thin thanks to her super-charged metabolism?”

“Touché,” Sasha yielded. It would have been hard to argue the point, as she currently had a bag of marshmallows and a bowl of chips in front of her. She popped a fluffy white treat in her mouth to illustrate the point and perhaps to rub it in just a bit.

“So who all is going to be there?” Julia asked.

“According to Will so far they’ve gotten confirmation from Shane, Amber, Britney, and Gilbert. Chad is a probably since Shane is going, and I’m sure Stella will bully Camille into showing up. They only started spreading the word today, so the guest list will likely get much bigger.”

“And just how far are they planning to spread this word?” Julia asked.

“Everyone in the sophomore class is welcome to come,” Jill replied.

“Every person, or every Super?”

“Everyone.”

“If that’s the kind of party it is I’m not certain we’ll be able to make it.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sasha interrupted. She looked at Jill and gave her a smile. “Please tell Will to count me as attending.”

“Really?”

“Really?” Julia echoed.

“Really,” Sasha confirmed. She popped another marshmallow in her mouth and chewed it slowly. She still wasn’t certain how she felt about Vince or any potential of a future together, but she did know the hot poker of pain and anger that used to reside in her stomach had faded. Maybe it was his apology; maybe it was seeing things from his side. Deep down, Sasha suspected the greatest cause had simply been that hating him had been easier than missing him; however, that thought was buried too deep to be consciously considered. The hate was gone, whatever the reason, and she found the idea of seeing him at a social function somewhat appealing. Especially a social function with alcohol.