Super Powereds: Year 3 (39 page)

Mary sat alone in the common room, a look of uncertainty on her face. She’d known Nicholas was on campus, and that Alice was intrigued by him, but the events of the evening didn’t quite add up against what she’d heard in his thoughts. With Mr. Numbers occupied, perhaps it was time to play a different kind of game.

*              *              *

“The good news is that you didn’t do anything illegal,” Dean Blaine informed her, once Alice finished giving him a run-down of the previous night’s happenings. He, Mr. Numbers, Mr. Transport, and Alice were all sitting in his living room, an informality he would never have tolerated in circumstances less dire than one of his students being attacked.

Her eyes widened in surprise; evidently, that possibility hadn’t even occurred to her.

“Fighting criminal Supers is the job of Heroes,” Dean Blaine reminded her. “There are very serious penalties for Supers who try and take up the job without proper certification.”

“But . . . he was attacking my friend.”

“I didn’t say the law was perfect, only that it was the law. Here, thankfully, it was rendered moot by your assailant's clearly-stated intent to do you harm. Supers cannot go looking for a fight, however, using their abilities in self-defense has been deemed within their basic rights,” Dean Blaine explained. “So, assuming you’re telling the truth, which we can confirm with a telepath if needed, there’s no reason you’d need to see any charges filed against you. That’s the good news.”

“The bad news is that if he turns me in, I’m out,” Alice said.

“Correct,” Dean Blaine confirmed. “While I don’t disagree with your use of power, the secret identity rule is an HCP standard for good reason. It teaches you restraint, how to live and blend in among humans, gives you a clean slate to launch a Hero career from, and most of all, educates you on how to solve problems without resorting to your abilities. What you did, while understandable, does put you at risk. But there is a bright spot to consider.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” Alice said.

“The man who learned about your powers did so while attacking you and another citizen,” Dean Blaine reminded her. “Busting a Super in the HCP is not a small thing, and we don’t take anonymous submissions. If he does come forward to expose you, he will be immediately arrested for assault, as well as any other crimes we can tie him to. From what you’ve told me, and what I know about Mr. Campbell’s previous lifestyle, there is a good chance Nathaniel Evers is smart enough to be aware of these consequences and avoid them. It would not surprise me at all if he never spoke of the incident to another soul.”

“Not turning me in, maybe, but why would he keep the whole thing a secret?”

It was Mr. Transport who filled in this gap for her. “The male ego, especially at your age, is a fragile thing. Even knowing he was beaten by someone undergoing Hero training, the thing he’ll most likely focus on is losing to a young, blonde girl.”

“That’s idiotic,” Alice commented.

“That’s boys, or at least boys in their late teens. Not everyone has their gender biases forcefully beaten out of them by trained professors,” Dean Blaine reminded her. “In this case, it could work to your advantage, so cross your fingers and hope that Mr. Evers is the prideful sort.”

“There’s almost zero chance he isn’t,” Alice said. “Especially knowing he runs in the same circles as Nicholas.”

“Ah yes, the other portion of the evening I wanted to speak with you about,” Dean Blaine said, jumping on her words immediately. “While there is no rule forbidding it, I trust you understand the risks you are taking by associating with Nicholas Campbell?”

“Professor Stone went over them at length with me, and I made sure I was comfortable with them before I ever approached him.”

“I was not speaking of risks related to the HCP,” Dean Blaine said, correcting her misassumption. “Nick Campbell, for all the strange wonder that he was, no longer exists as we knew him. You are not the first HCP student to try and reconnect with someone who has been forced out of the program. Even in cases less severe than his, it rarely ends well.”

“Did you ever try to do it?”

“Once,” Dean Blaine admitted. “A close friend I had during my freshman courses. I tried to reconnect with him, to rebuild a friendship on the ruins of his somewhat scattered memory. It wasn’t the gaps in his recollection that sank the efforts, however. It was the distance in the lives we were living. You don’t realize it, because all of your friends are in the HCP, but your world is tremendously different from a normal human’s. The gap between normality and your life is the hardest thing to overcome, even when dealing with people who used to be part of the HCP.”

“You make it sound like connecting with any non-HCP students is impossible.”

“Not impossible,” Dean Blaine said. His mind flashed on a memory of Miriam in her youth, the girl he hadn’t been able to keep with him as the HCP grew more intense. He’d failed to bridge that gap too, but Joshua had accomplished it, making it seem almost effortless. It could be done . . . by some. “Not impossible. Just very hard.”

“I’d hardly be much of a future Hero if I shied away from a challenge,” Alice pointed out, her eyes set in determination.

Dean Blaine smiled patiently. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t be.”

72.

Chad’s “Welcome to Melbrook” party consisted of a homemade dinner, prepared by Vince and Hershel, and took place in the common room so they could all eat together. The purpose of this was both to demonstrate the benefits of Melbrook living (easily accessible kitchen, comfy places to dine in), as well as letting him know that it was nice to have him there.

The young blond man took everything with his usual detached politeness, though inwardly, he felt a touch overwhelmed. Chad had lived alone his entire time at Lander, and before that, he’d been the lone child of a single, working mother. Bustling, lively living spaces weren’t a thing he was accustomed to. When he felt that sensation rise up, though, Chad calmly reminded himself that such was exactly the reason he’d chosen to come live here in the first place. He needed to break out of his comfort zone.

Once the food was eaten and the plates were dumped in the sink for consideration at a later time (in other words, whoever broke down and washed them first), the conversation turned to other options for the evening.

“I’d say we could go to a club or something, but honestly, even Roy’s a little burned out on that now that he’s working at one,” Hershel said.

“And if that’s how Roy feels, I doubt we even need to ask Alice and Chad,” Mary surmised. A nod from both confirmed her suspicion.

“We could watch a movie,” Vince suggested.

“Not a very social activity,” Hershel countered. The exception was the horror movies Nick had subjected them too, which fostered ample talking, complaining, and, of course, booing. “Is there anything happening on campus tonight?”

“I don’t think so,” Mary said. “I mean, aside from the nightly dorm parties with poorly smuggled booze.”

“That’s it!” Alice declared, rising up in her chair. “We should throw a party.”

“It’s like nine already, and all we have to eat are leftovers,” Vince pointed out.

“No, not tonight. Sorry, I was just drifting through things to do, and I realized the sophomore slash freshman party is coming up soon, and then I realized this is the first year we won’t get to go. That sort of bummed me out for a moment, until I realized Halloween was coming up, and Mary mentioned parties. We should throw a Halloween party.”

“Tabling that for the moment, it doesn’t really help us figure out what we’re doing tonight,” Mary said.

“What’s to figure out? None of us are big drinkers, save for Roy, so since we vetoed watching a movie, we’ll end up having some sort of board game tournament.”

“You know, that actually does sound kind of a fun,” Hershel said.

“I have no objections,” Chad said, presumably affirming the idea.

“I’ll go see what we’ve got,” Vince volunteered. He rose from his seat and ambled over to a small closet, where a moderate selection of games sat on the upper shelf.

“There, now that we’ve settled that, can we get back to my Halloween party idea?” Alice asked. Mary made a “go ahead” motion with her fingers, and that was all the incentive Alice needed. “Look, our Halloweens have traditionally sucked, right?”

“Got jumped freshman year,” Vince supplied from the closet, where he was stacking boxes in his arms.

“Right, then Nick, Mary, and I got brain-jacked last year,” Alice said. “What if, this time, we met Halloween on our terms? We reserve a nice section of tables at one of the local bars and throw a party for the juniors and seniors in the HCP. Not everyone will come, and even if they do, our numbers are pretty low, so we can easily fit everyone into a medium-sized space.”

“It sounds to me like, when things take their usual turn, the difference will be that, this time, we’ll be left with the bill for damages,” Mary pointed out. “We do have bad luck on Halloween; no reason to tempt fate by upping the stakes.”

“Actually, I think I’m with Alice on this one,” Hershel interjected. “All superstition aside, I feel like a party could be a good thing. This year has started off more tense than the others, and it’s only gotten worse. The first day was spent finding out which friends had gotten booted out of our lives; that’s some serious stuff. A party might be a good way to remind everyone about the friends they have left.”

“I don’t object to the party idea. I’m just wondering why we have to be the ones to throw it,” Mary said. She was somewhat surprised that Hershel had disagreed with her, not because she expected unquestioning boyfriend loyalty, but because he was often the voice of reason alongside her.

“Because we’re the ones who can,” Chad said. It surprised almost everyone in the room to hear him come down on the side of pro-party. He wasn’t known for cutting loose and getting wild. “We recognized the need for social bonding and stress relief, we have the resources to facilitate it, and we have no reason to suspect any other group in our year fulfills the first two criteria. Therefore, it is our duty to undertake the task.”

“You just made getting half the class drunk sound surprisingly noble,” Alice complimented.

“I fear Angela must be rubbing off on me,” Chad said, letting out a sigh that might have seemed genuinely depressing, if not for the slight smirk on his face.

“Okay, since it seems like I’m outvoted here, can we at least be smart about this?” Mary asked. “Halloween is three weeks away. Let’s shop around, and see what our options are. Maybe we can find someplace reasonably private where we can at least minimize damage if things go wrong.”

“That seems both prudent and easily accomplished,” Chad agreed.

“Yahtzee!” Vince yelled. This confused everyone, until they noticed the bright red box in his hand. “No? Okay, we’ve got other stuff. Just seemed like a good one.”

“Pick a few and bring them over,” Alice instructed. “In the meantime, I’m getting my laptop and looking up costume ideas. Mary, what size do you wear again?”

Mary lifted a single eyebrow and somehow managed to scowl with the other one. “Why do you need to know that?”

Alice said nothing, merely scampering out of the room with a mischievous gleam in her eye. Mary wondered if it was too late to request her own change of dorms.

73.

With the first round of trials over, life in the HCP settled back into the strange form of normality that occurred when you had dozens of highly skilled Supers training rigorously. For the junior class, little heed was paid to the outcome of the matches, beyond the personal lessons they’d learned. Training regimes were tweaked and new strategies conceived, but for most of the class, it was just like any other battle they’d endured at Lander: they moved past it almost as soon as it was over. There was one notable exception, however.

Will glanced up from his worktable in surprise at the sound of a knock—generally, his roommates left him alone during construction time. He set down the soldering gun, but left his safety goggles on; no sense in taking them off if this would be a quick meeting. With a few steps, he reached the door and pulled it open. To his surprise, it was not one of his housemates on the other side. It was Camille.

“Hey,” she greeted sheepishly. “I was wondering if you had a moment to talk.”

“Of course,” Will said, opening his door the rest of the way. Camille stepped inside, unfazed by the sprawling collection of various electronics spread across the dwelling. It looked like a robot serial killer’s hidden lair, but she’d known Will since freshman year and was accustomed to his cluttered environment.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Camille began. “I was over visiting Violet, and we started talking about last week’s Close Combat trials.”

Will gave her a slight nod. The small girl’s upset, taking out Chad as well as Roy, had needed less than a single afternoon to spread throughout the class. Discovering the sweet little healer was actually packing serious power had left more than a few students rethinking what they believed they knew about their classmates.

“Anyway, while I was complaining about the biggest weakness of my ability—skin on skin contact—it reminded me that I wanted to talk with you about finding something that could help.”