Super Powereds: Year 3 (11 page)

“I did have a question, ma’am,” Vince said, raising his hand tentatively.

“Go right ahead.” Brenda gave him a warm smile of reassurance when she spoke, the type that can only be conjured by master politicians and the truly sincere.

“I get that the costumes will let us blend in somewhat, but how does that help with things like my hair or Mary’s eyes?”

“A very fair question,” Brenda replied. “The answer is two-fold, actually. For one thing, many of our wait staff like to employ the sort of look you two have naturally. This is one of the few establishments in town where bright green, spiky hair and makeup that looks like a salamander make you more likely to get a job, rather than less. The other aspect is that, for those employees who don’t favor such affectation in their personal lives, we offer a wide variety of wigs, contacts, and makeup, all for your use. Since people come to work in costume—a policy I’ll have to insist you adhere to as well— they won’t know your look isn’t just part of the uniform, as long as you don’t spend time with them outside of work. Even if you do see them beyond the restaurant’s walls, you can always claim you dye your hair.”

“Thank you, that does make me feel more at ease,” Vince said. His opinion of both Kent Mears and Brenda were rising steadily. This really was the perfect place to stash Supers like him and Mary. Some of the others were quite noticeable when they used their powers, but at least they could blend in when they needed to.

“Perfectly natural. So, when would you be able to start?”

“Don’t we need to be tested or something?” Mary asked. Even she had expected the hiring process to be a bit more arduous than simply showing up and answering a few questions.

“In normal process, yes, you would, however, I’ve had nothing but positive experiences hiring from the HCP pool in the past. Rather than make you jump through the hoops, I’d prefer to give you the benefit of the doubt. Obviously, if we run into attitude problems, or you can’t handle the work, I’m afraid you won’t be able to stay here, but otherwise, I don’t see any reason not to push forward,” Brenda explained.

“I guess we can start whenever you’d like us to, then,” Vince said, once the reality of impending work had set in.

“Great. First, I’ll need you to fill out some paperwork, get me copies of your schedules so I don’t put you on shift during HCP courses, and, of course, we’ll need to do your fittings.”

“Our fittings?” Camille asked. “Don’t we just put on a costume?”

“Oh heavens no, these things are full-body suits. You don’t want one that hasn’t been hemmed and trimmed in the right places, or you’ll be tripping over loose fabric. Don’t worry though, we’ve got a wide selection, and I’ll make sure each and every one of you looks eye-catching."

Brenda couldn’t have chosen a better phrase to alarm Camille.

16.

Her team wasn’t really her team anymore. Mary had difficulty with that realization, yet the longer she mulled it around, the more she realized how it couldn’t quite be denied. It wasn’t just because the team dynamic had been dissolved at the end of sophomore year. They’d been a group long before that had even been a part of their education. It wasn’t losing Nick either, though that damn sure hadn’t helped things.

No, the problem was one of focus. They’d once had a shared goal: keeping their secret and making it through the program for as long as they could. Even after they’d been outed, they’d been the collective of freaks and had needed to stick together. It had galvanized them, given them the teamwork they needed to overcome opponents with years more experience than they possessed. Then, somehow, they’d lost it.

Vince still trained relentlessly, but at least one part of his mind was always on his father and the criminal actions he’d taken. Alice dwelled endlessly on the mystery of her mother. Hershel and Roy were focused on the goal of graduating the HCP, but they thought of themselves as a duo rather than a piece of the group. She heard all this swimming about in their thoughts, along with the occasional pang of sadness for their lost comrade, one who had returned to campus, and whose presence would eventually be noticed—it was only a matter of time. When that happened, it would likely splinter their focus more. On top of that, the addition of jobs wasn't going to help the situation one bit.

Mary’s own mind drifted back to freshman year, when they’d been left on the mountain. At the time, she’d thought it overkill, but in retrospect, it hadn’t been a bad idea. They’d bonded, they’d come to rely on one another, and they’d had their first taste of functioning as a team. She wondered if she could talk Mr. Transport into doing it again. No, even if she could, that wouldn’t be much of a challenge anymore. Alice could float them all up with ease, and Vince would keep them toasty as she did it. Even her own control had evolved to where she could hold and lift a normal person’s body without accidentally crushing them. Strange to think that what had been a nearly insurmountable task only two years ago would now be little more than an inconvenient few minutes. Assuming they worked together, of course.

With a groan, Mary set her head on her desk. She’d been best at moving them along personally, helping each one find their own strengths and talents. Wrangling Roy’s ego, pushing Vince through his fear of himself, helping Alice to stop seeing herself as useless, this was stuff she could handle. Nick had been the one who could move them as a group. He saw the way people fit together, how to use them as a unit, and how to tighten the cogs so that it worked more efficiently. Mary’s chess skills had advanced to where she could utilize each piece for the whole of a greater strategy, but that didn’t mean she knew how to impart in them a sense of unity.

They needed a goal, or a trial, or something to push them back into a solid mass. Right now, they were drifting apart, turning into four people working to graduate, instead of one team. That might work for everyone else, but they were different. The others couldn’t hear the barbs, the angry thoughts percolating in some of their fellow student’s minds, but she could. To much of the student body, they weren’t welcome here.

And if Mary didn’t think of something soon, she doubted they’d be here for a whole lot longer.

*              *              *

Mary wasn’t wrong about Hershel and Roy’s dedication; at that very moment, Roy was underground in the HCP gym, pushing hard to find his new limit. Only a year ago, the concept had terrified him. Not the concept of running out of strength during a lift, but of hitting the sort of wall where, no matter the effort, his muscles refused to make progress. That had been when he thought such things were permanent, though. Now, he knew better. Now, he understood it was his way of tossing the ball back into Hershel’s court.

In a way, it had become a game between them: could Hershel ratchet up Roy’s potential before Roy hit the wall? It drove them both to train hard, each brother trying to stay one step ahead of the other, to avoid plateaus and continue growing. And they were growing, that was ridiculously evident. Roy’s strength had risen exponentially, and his endurance had nearly kept pace. Even his reaction speeds were improving, though at a slower rate. Hershel had taken up sparring over the summer, the genuine combat experience helping to push up Roy’s potential just as effectively as Hershel’s exercise.

It was a testament to the construction of Lander’s workout equipment that the weight bench didn’t shudder as Roy set down the bar after his final rep. No, there was no question of his strength anymore, even if there were still miles to go. The real hurdle facing him was skill. Despite Owen’s belief that their kind only existed to hit and get hit, Roy saw value in learning to punch and dodge more effectively. He had a feeling they weren’t going to move him up the ranks unless he was able to actually land his blows, and Roy absolutely intended to move up the ranks.

Mary had been right about their dedication, but not about their goals. Hershel was focused on graduation, that much was true, but Roy’s eyes were set on another prize. He’d come here with an undeserved ego and been put in his place. He understood now just how far behind the head of the pack he’d been. But that didn’t mean his pride wasn’t still there. Roy wanted to be on top, he wanted to be the King, to use Nick’s old analogy. This time, he didn’t want to claim to be the best from misplaced idiocy though. He intended to earn it.

Roy was aiming for one thing and one thing only: beating Chad.

17.

As he checked his schedule and walked down the hall, scanning for the appropriate room number, Vince was definitely confused. It was Friday, and everyone else was done with HCP classes for the week. He, on the other hand, had a single remaining item on the printed paper clutched in his fingers. “General Discussion” was all it said—that, and a room number Vince was certain he hadn’t been in before. If not for the subterranean location, he would have assumed it was some lab that went with one of his usual classes that he’d forgotten about. The fact that it was underground, however, and that no one else seemed to have it on their own schedules, made him wary.

Vince finally located the room; it was only about half a hallway down from the infirmary where he’d woken up so frequently last year. The door was open, so he was spared the awkwardness of knocking. Instead, he stepped through and took in the surroundings.

Immediately, it was clear this wasn’t a classroom. Though the walls were thick concrete like all HCP rooms, it was too small to accommodate more than a few people at once. Besides that, there were personal knick-knacks and a large central desk that gave away this room’s function as an office. The curious part was that the woman sitting behind it was unfamiliar to Vince. After two years in the HCP, he believed he had met all of the teaching staff, yet the salt-and-pepper-haired woman with dark-framed glasses currently sitting at the desk before him was utterly foreign to his memory.

“Hello?” Vince said tentatively. The woman looked up from her desk and greeted him with a warmer smile than he’d been anticipating from her professional appearance.

“Vince, right on time. Please, shut the door and take a seat,” she instructed, gesturing to a large, cushioned chair that would have looked more at home in someone’s living room than in an office. Vince complied automatically, pulling the door closed and settling into the indicated chair. It was even more comfortable than it looked.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here,” the woman said, once he was situated.

“Yes, ma’am,” Vince confirmed. “No one else seemed to have this class.”

“That’s because this isn’t a class, per se,” she told him. “I think it’s best if I start from the top. To begin with, my name is Dr. Moran, and I’m the head physician here at Lander.”

“I didn’t even know we had a head physician,” Vince admitted.

“That’s because most of my work is overseeing the healers taking care of you students. Healing is a discipline that one can only improve through practice, so except in very extreme situations, I leave all the patching-up work to the students who need the experience. Of course, in years where we have no healers, I take a more active role, but right now, we have many skilled Supers with healing talents in attendance.”

“My friend, Camille, is a healer,” Vince supplied, still unsure of what he was supposed to say.

“And a wonderful one at that. Camille is one of the most skilled students I’ve ever had the chance to work with,” Dr. Moran told him. “However, we aren’t here to discuss that kind of healing. Vince, in addition to being a Super with a healing ability, I am also an M.D. who has done fellowships in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry. I even ran my own practice before coming to Lander. I’m telling you this to assure you that you are in safe, experienced, and professional hands.”

“I don’t really understand what you’re talking about,” Vince said.

“You were informed that your continued attendance at Lander would come with special requirements, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“This is one of those requirements. You and I are going to sit here for an hour, once a week, and talk. The goal is to make sure that you’re handling everything that’s been thrown at you well, and to provide help if you need it,” Dr. Moran told him.

“Oh. So you’re making sure I’m not crazy,” Vince surmised, understanding finally kicking in. “Awesome.”

“If you choose to see it that way, then I can’t stop you,” Dr. Moran said, setting her hands down on her desk. “What you get from therapy rests more on your attitude than anything I have the ability to say. But Vince, if I may be so bold, I think you would benefit from having someone to talk things through with.”

“I’d rather if that someone wasn’t working for Ralph Chapman,” Vince said defiantly.

Dr. Moran’s smile darkened, just for an instant. “I do not work for Ralph Chapman. He wanted to bring in his own personnel for this task, but he was unable to find someone more qualified than I. And let me assure you, Vince, standard confidentiality applies. Unless I suspect you are about to become a danger to yourself or others, everything said in this room will remain between the two of us.”

“That’s not so bad, I guess.” Vince paused for a moment as he contemplated this new information. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I should have assumed you were working for Mr. Chapman so suddenly. This whole situation of being constantly screened just has me a little worried.”