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"Psyche, watch out!"
I blinked, confused for only a moment before Jubilee's shout registered as my own codename. I wasn't used to being referred to as anything other than my given name. Something heavy hit me on the right; I fell onto the hard ground and hit my left shoulder as I did so. The pain came from both sides - on the left from my collision with the ground, and the right from the lingering sting of impact. What had hit me? I couldn't get up - well, I could, but I didn't want to. It would be best, I reasoned, to hide among the low foliage so as not to be found.
For a long time the only sounds were my own breathing and heartbeat; the only sight the orange-green behind my eyes. It was nice there - or would have been, if not for the pain in my right shoulder. The breeze washed over my too-hot body, cooling away the sweat that soaked my red uniform. I concentrated on the wind and the heat of the sun shining through the biosphere, on the beating of my own heart and the rhythm of my breathing. I could lessen the pain that way.
Footsteps crunched on the grass covering the ground. I could hear them slowly coming closer. Had to concentrate on my breathing …
"Jen, are you okay?"
That sounded like Paige. At that point I would have rather faced Ms Frost before I faced Paige. I did, however, open my eyes to show her that I was at least alive. She bent over me, the sunlight she blocked casting a golden halo around her head.
She simply stared at me as one might stare at a car wreck along the side of the road before she extended a hand down to me.
I reluctantly accepted it, pulling myself to my feet to stare her in the eye. I said nothing.
"I'm sorry," she apologized.
What on earth was she sorry for? Making contact with my pitiful unworthy hands?
Catching that sentiment, she clarified, "During the exercise, I was husking and my, ah - " She knelt to the ground again and picked up a bright yellow plastic gauntlet - apparently the cause of my pain, which I could feel becoming a bruise on my shoulder. "This," she continued, indicating the errant costuming. "I meant to just leave it and get it later - like usual - but I guess that's not what happened."
Of course that wasn't what happened. She'd thrown it at me, trying to hurt me. She wasn't sorry at all. I remained silent, trying to keep a tight rein on the bitter resent I felt towards her. It would do no good to emote now. As Paige fastened the gauntlet back onto her forearm, I went ahead of her into the main building, where I sensed everyone had gone for debriefing.
I took my seat at a round table in the smaller classroom, keeping my head low to avoid eye contact. Paige was only a few seconds behind me; she sat in her place, fully prepared to accept the information that would soon come to her.
As soon as she was settled, Mr. Cassidy began the report on our activities within the biosphere.
"Ye've all done an decent job this time. M, excellent performance, as usual." I could feel her ostentatious pride radiating, even though I'd done all I could to block everyone's emotions from bombarding me. Mr. Cassidy pulled up the replay of our session, fast-forwarding until he reached what he was looking for. "Okay," he began, studying the screen intently before turning back to us, "Psyche, it seems we've run into some problems here. What's wrong?"
The truth of the matter was that I'd been keeping to myself, tired from the prior exercises and hoping I wouldn't have to deal with direct confrontation. But I didn't dare tell him that - I'd look like a fool in front of everyone. Of course, I'd met my idiocy quota for the day in the earlier attack by Paige's gauntlet, so any further stupidity would go above and beyond my recommended daily allowance. And anything I said would inevitably come out sounding stupid.
Mr. Cassidy tapped his foot impatiently.
"Strategy, sir," I answered. With the way he continuously went on about strategy during lectures, it seemed like the best answer - even if it was a fake one.
He raised his eyebrow skeptically. "Strategy," he repeated disbelievingly before playing the tape again. Onscreen, I disappeared from view, no flying yellow gauntlet in sight. What --? I examined the replay closer, but found nothing unusual.
I knew Mr. Cassidy wanted to say something - his emotions were colored of impatience and restraint. Instead, he called on Jubilee, who hadn't done much in the way of participation besides crack her gum. "Do ye have any suggestions?" he asked her. "Any thoughts on what could have happened here?"
She shrugged. "I dunno."
"Ye saw something before," he explained. "Ye were shouting out on the tape."
"I don't remember," she told him, bored.
"Sir," Everett interjected with one hand in the air, "I think I saw something on the tape. Could you rewind it, please?"
Still skeptical, Cassidy rewound the tape and played it back again. Nothing happened. Nothing changed.
"There!" Everett exclaimed, standing from his chair.
Cassidy paused the tape, and sure enough, a bright flash of blue light had erupted just beside my head. I admittedly had no recollection of the event.
"What was that?" I asked, confused.
"I think it's some kind of energy signature," Everett explained as Mr. Cassidy allowed him to continue. "Probably telekinetic or psionic. But I couldn't tell you its exact origin."
"Nice work, Synch," Cassidy complimented. "Can anyone tell me where it came from?"
Without raising her hand, Monet launched into her explanation. "Considering that it is, as Everett has already noted, psionic in nature, it can only be assumed that it is the act of one of our own psi-powered individuals. However, Chamber is still recuperating from his … incident, and Ms. Frost was not in the area, nor was she participating. Variance has thus far not exhibited any sort of psionic energy manifestations - though it's not impossible, given the definition of her powers. She, too, was nowhere near the area. Thus, we can only conclude that the originator of the burst is Psyche."
I'd sat through her explanations before, but this was absurd. "What are you talking about?" I exclaimed. I had done no such thing. I was not Jubilee; I did not go around creating energy bursts.
Mr. Cassidy silenced me with a look, then nodded to Monet. "Go on, M."
"As I said before," she continued, "the blast was rather near to you, and your powers *are* psionic. The chances of a completely foreign attack are relatively slim - so slim, in fact, as to be nonexistent. It had to be you."
"But I don't - " I protested, cut off by Mr. Cassidy's raised hand.
"Are there any other theories?" he asked the class. Nobody said anything. "Good," he said. "Get changed and get some lunch. We'll meet in the main classroom at 1:30. See ye all then." He watched the other students depart.
I rose to leave, but again Mr. Cassidy's hand signal kept me in place. Monet, as well, was retained.
"I dinnae want to keep the rest of class," he explained before turning to me. "It appears ye've reached a new level with yuir powers. I'll want ye to discuss further training with Ms. Frost later, perhaps during our break if she's nae busy. Until then, ye can talk with Monet if ye're still confused." He left the classroom, presumably to get out of that ridiculous winged spandex costume. It was bad enough one teacher wore her unmentionables around campus, that the other had to wear spandex was mindboggling.
Monet turned to me. "I suggest you seek Ms. Frost," she said, and without another word she left the room.
I planned to take her advice after showering and changing into some more comfortable clothes, all the while praying I wouldn't cause some other blast like that.
Ms. Frost was in her office, speaking at some length to someone else in there. I wasn't sure when she'd be out, but I waited anyway - I was at least in the right frame of mind to talk to her. I hadn't a clue what I was going to say; I had no prepared speech, no real reason for coming, and no idea what was really going on. The door soon opened, revealing Jono's tall, dark shape emerging from the office.
He didn't see me; just continued on his way without so much as an acknowledgement of my presence. Watching him leave, I reached out empathically, but he'd shut his mind off from me, his walls firmly in place. I resigned myself to the fact that I just didn't matter anymore and would have to get on with my life. I pushed open the door to Ms. Frost's office.
"Psyche," she greeted. "Come in. Mr. Cassidy has already informed me of the situation."
I nodded, taking a seat in front of her desk. "He told me to see you."
"Yes," she agreed. "I've seen the tape; I am aware of this unusual physical manifestation. I would like to hear the events in your own words, though." She leaned forward, propping one arm up on her desk and apparently prepared to hear anything.
"Well," I began, "we were in the biosphere. Training. And everything was going fine and normal when, I don't know, Jubilee told me to watch out, and then I fell because something hit me." I indicated my shoulder, still in pain from the blast. Despite the discomfort, I was apparently well enough to go about my daily life. "I don't know how long I was down. Paige came over to see how I was and told me that her gauntlet had accidentally hit me when she was in the middle of husking. I mean, obviously that's not the case, because that isn't on the tape, but I don't know why she'd say that."
Ms. Frost nodded slowly but remained quiet.
Her silence was unnerving. My mind drifted from her; my eyes wandered around the too-bright white room. There were no personalized comforts as any other office would have: no pictures of friends or family, no reminders scribbled across notes, no artwork hanging on the wall - Ms. Frost's office was pristine with all the ease of a hospital.
Why, I wondered, would she want to surround herself with blanched sterility? Her letter had said she'd spent most of her formative years in a white room - why on earth would she impose such an existence on herself when any normal person would want to run from it? Why keep that reminder?
And what on earth had Jono been doing in here? I didn't have a chance to even speculate; Ms. Frost's voice broke through my thoughts to bring me back to the situation at hand.
"As I'm sure you're aware, this comes as a surprise to me. I'd imagined we'd covered the extent of your abilities in prior sessions. Tell me, has anything else … unusual … happened regarding your powers?"
I swallowed, thinking. There had been the boost during the storm so long ago, and the recent erratic behavior of the link … "Only that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't," I explained. "And sometimes it works more than it should."
She nodded. "That is to be expected - at least until you've had further training."
"Of course," I agreed, perhaps a little too readily. "But -"
She waited for me to finish my sentence. In all truth, it was a silly observation, one that likely didn't mean much in the long run, but one that still bothered me.
"But everyone else seems to have better control than I do," I admitted. "And all this new weird stuff is happening, and it's -"
"Very frustrating," she finished for me. "I understand. Psi-abilities differ greatly from other mutations. You're expected to maintain your own psychological stability while at the same time attempting to gain control of these abilities. It's to be expected that you would take longer to gain control, by the very nature of your powers."
"So … " I ventured, "it's okay?"
"Perfectly acceptable," Ms. Frost assured me. "I would be worried if you were progressing any faster. If there is nothing else, I will meet with you after your 1:30 session with Mr. Cassidy to ascertain your potential with this new development." She turned her attention to some papers on her desk, dismissing me.
I left the office and headed for the kitchen, where I detected everyone else was - or at least, most everyone else.
Alison sat at the table with her head in her folded arms, as far from the fridge as possible. Jubilee blankly scanned the refrigerator's contents like a zombie. Everett appeared to be waiting for the microwave to finish heating his lunch.
I pulled a chair up to the table. "Alison?" I asked. "Is everything okay?"
"No," she muttered into her hands.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"No," she repeated.
Well, if she was going to be that way, I could just go away. I grabbed an apple from a bowl of fruit on the counter, then sat at the table again. "It's not Everett, is it?"
Everett turned at the sound of his name and Jubilee stopped staring vacantly into the refrigerator, slamming it vehemently behind her. "What!" she demanded.
Alison raised her head to glare at me with forceful eyes. She didn't need to speak; her expression alone conveyed the weight of her anger. "You are so dead," she informed me darkly, and rose from her chair.
I conveniently ran from the room, taking my apple with me. I wasn't sure what time it was, but it certainly couldn't hurt to be early for once, so I began walking towards the main classroom.
Once I arrived, the analog clock displayed that it was only 12:00 or so, and I had no desire to sit around waiting for an hour and a half, so I left the classroom and went to the music room. It wasn't so much an actual music room anymore as it was simply a classroom that happened to have a piano in it. Music was no longer a part of the curriculum at the Massachusetts Academy; the room had been abandoned. The desks had been cleared, but a few chairs remained scattered about the room and on the risers: carpeted steps along the back wall where a choir would have stood. It was actually kind of sad - the lack of appreciation for music here. Jono seemed to understand, but he hadn't been playing his guitar lately. I had to admit that I, too, had become remiss in practicing recently, and in an effort to correct that, I sat at the instrument and stared at the keys.
But my heart wasn't in it. I really had no intention of playing anything; there wasn't anything to play. I was bored with music, and I wanted desperately to find something that could lift me to the same heights as music once had. Was the lack of appreciation spreading to me as well? Or was I simply building an unwanted tolerance to my passion? It was only slightly unsettling.
I looked down at the black and white keys extending to either side beneath my limp fingers. Halfheartedly, I played a series of chords and then stopped, feeling altogether pointless.
It wasn't just my music that was pointless. It was everything.
What was wrong with me? Why was I feeling so out of it? I sighed, my head crashing on the piano keys and making a horrendous sound. I did it again. And again. It started to make my head hurt, so I stopped - but everything seemed so empty and plain.
I should have been excited about this new ability. I should have been so happy about a lot of things - my grades were up, I was getting along with Ms. Frost, I was getting along with Paige - but even though so much was looking up, I couldn't feel happy. I'd gained these good things by being good - by being "normal" and trying to fit in. Of course, that was what I wanted: to fit in. But now that I did, I felt - empty. And I didn't want to play the piano.
In this empty state I was susceptible to other emotions that might come along - I soon sensed someone's vague ~worry~ as he approached. I stood from the bench and went to the door, anticipating an arrival, but nobody was in the hall, so I retreated to my bench and stared at they keys again. Before long, a soft knock on the half-opened door called my attention. I looked up to see Jono's dark outline in the doorway.
I studied him for a moment, contemplating our situation or the complete lack thereof in much the same way I'd contemplated the piano keys. Back and forth - never deciding what we were to each other. I would have liked to rely on emotions rather than titles, but that left so much room for uncertainty.
"Hi," I said softly, not sure where exactly this was about to go.
*Hello,* he replied. *Busy?*
"Eh." I glanced back at the piano. "Not really." And then back to him, outlined by the light in the hallway. He took a few steps inside the room. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought you were recovering."
*No,* he said, sitting beside me on the bench, *not anymore. I'm fine.*
I gave him a purely skeptical look, the sort that insisted I wanted to hear the truth.
*Frost gave me an 'evaluation' and all that,* he assured me.
Ah - so that's what he was doing in her office. It still didn't explain why he'd shut me out - and for all I knew he wasn't doing it intentionally, some part of me still took it personally. "What are you doing here?" I asked. I imagined he'd like to spend his free time alone, or at least with a friend.
*Well,* he began with the sentiment of someone who didn't want to talk about what he had to talk about. He shifted on the bench to face me. *Yer know I want this just as much as you do,* he explained.
Light, no. If he had to start that way then I didn't want to hear the rest of it. I looked back at the keyboard.
*… but there've been some problems going on. Technical stuff.*
Oh, Light, he was breaking up with me. And before we'd even really started. I wanted to disappear.
*And yer know I'm not one to just go along with whatever Frost says….*
Sets of black keys among white ones: two, three, two, three, two, three …
*… but wot if it happens again? I don't want to be anymore incapacitated than I already am.*
He sounded like Emma. I could hear her accents and mannerisms in his psionic voice.
*I don't want to do this,* he continued, *but I have to.* He reached for me, his hand on my shoulder where my new power had stung. And he simply drained himself out of me as I stared at the keys before and below me. Two, three - black keys in a row. Two, three, two, three, two, three, two, one. I held onto whatever parts of him I could manage to salvage, as though my meager power and my sheer force of will could keep him there, inside my head with me, but the effort was wasted. I couldn't expect to hang onto him like that. Draining out … two, three, two, one … my voice was the only one inside my head. I was not going to cry.
My resolution, however, could not be kept. In one swift motion, I stood from my bench and summoned all my courage - perhaps more than I really needed - and feeling the thunder behind my eyes, stared down at Jono: the reason I'd stayed here, the reason I'd endured Frost and Paige and Monet and Alison, the reason I'd managed to live this long. He was all this and more, and he knew it, and he didn't want me anymore. He just didn't want anything to do with me. I refused to just sit back and watch, to just sit back and accept it without question. I didn't want to hurt him - but oh, Light, I couldn't just let this happen. I wanted that force I'd felt earlier, the one that had knocked me down, in the hopes that it might knock him down as well. I let the rage fly. "Why the HELL did you do that?" I demanded.
*I told you!* he insisted.
"With your contradictory conditions and Emmaspeak," I said. "That wasn't you. This isn't you. What happened?"
*I told you,* he repeated. *I'm sorry. I didn't want to. I didn't have a choice.*
Now I wanted to cry. This wasn't right. This wasn't like him. "You have a choice," I muttered darkly. "You always have a choice. You're stronger than Frost. You're stronger than me. You can control this. I can't believe you'd do this."
He stood now, so that I had to look up to see him properly.
I pushed my request into his eyes, forcing him to understand my necessity. He was all I had; couldn't he see that? "Please."
*I can't, Jen.*
His words hit deep and hard - so hard I thought they might strike real tears. I bit my lip, but all control was lost. "Why not?" I asked, hearing the shaking desperation in my own voice.
*I told you already.*
I understood. I understood just fine. He didn't really want this. And if he just wanted to -
No, I corrected myself. That wasn't right. He was sincere; I could hear it in his voice, even if he was trying to keep me locked out of his emotions.
*Maybe when you've got more control,* he suggested.
"More control," I laughed ruefully. "Sure." I knew that day was a long way off.
*Jen - listen to me.*
I listened. Reluctantly, of course, but I did listen.
*I know this looks bad. I know this must seem like I’m just doing wot Frost told me. Yer know as well as I do that it doesn't - that I don't work like that. But here - now - she had a valid suggestion. A catalyst, really, to put in motion things I'd already been planning.*
"You were what?!"
*Please, listen.*
I listened.
*You have to trust me on this one,* he said. *I - I couldn't handle it. It's hard - never sure where my own ... voice is, always getting these spare thoughts from you - I just couldn't handle it.*
"So you're going to quit," I said flatly. It wasn't really a question.
~helplessness~ *There isn't anything I can do.*
I just looked into his eyes, hoping to find some kind of comfort, some reason to believe that the removal of the link was for the best. He seemed to believe it was. I wanted to understand him. I wanted to believe him. He was the only person who had understood me in the short time I'd been here - perhaps one of the only people who had understood me in my entire life. Why couldn't he grasp the simple idea that I needed him to be there, especially at that point in my life, when the blandness and normalcy of life was threatening to collapse around me? In truth, I reasoned, I couldn't be without someone or something to help and guide me through my days, whether they were painfully normal or positively earth shattering. Yes - I would live without him in my head; I would survive another day, and another day after that. But it wouldn't be easy, and I didn't have to like it.
And as angry as I was - as much as the odd complexities of this usually simple emotion rolled beneath my skin - my need outweighed that feeling. My need and something else, some stronger sentiment I couldn't place. It certainly wasn't -
*I don't want to hurt you,* Jono explained.
How true was that? I wanted to believe him….
*I'm sorry. I have.* He turned to leave.
I couldn't stand it any longer. He couldn't do that - he couldn’t just *leave*! Not now! "Where are you going?"
*Where I can't hurt you anymore.*
I ran out into the hallway after him, but he was gone. My anger finally overcame that softer emotion to send me spiraling down into disgusting, tainted black depths. What in hell had Emma told him? I could have killed her. Screw getting along. She wasn't my friend. We weren't supposed to "get along". And she had seriously messed with Jono's head in some way or another. I'd make her pay for that.
Furious, I stomped down the hallway, praying I didn't run into Emma or Paige in fear I'd kill either one or both of them. Because now I had a way, even if it was less reliable than some other mutations. I had a way and I would use it.
If only I could figure out how.
But that was beside the point. I kept going down the hall until I reached the main classroom.
I couldn't go in there, of course. Jono was in there - and if he weren't, he would be soon. And I couldn't speak to him after what he'd done, even if there was a perfectly good reason for it. Of course there was a perfectly good reason, I reminded myself. But until I knew what that reason was, until I knew exactly why he felt it so necessary to kick me out of his life, I would stay mad. What was this talk of hurting me? He hadn't done that.
Sure he had.
That was the way these things worked with me. The way they worked at all. Girl meets boy, boy hurts girl, girl runs off screaming violently because she's not worth it - then girl decides all men are such idiots and becomes turned off of them altogether.
I was not made for this: this dating thing. That ritual of society, it seemed, was created for fabricated girls to shamelessly promote themselves and their lack of sense in nature's vain effort to propagate the species. Pity nature never realized the system was wasted on the short of mind. She just kept breeding stupidity.
And I, as a teenaged girl, was subject to her every whim - all the chemicals racing through my bloodstream in terrible amounts, never really balancing, and giving rise to the emotions I held so dear. How strange that the very feelings I prized so highly were only the results of unusual chemical imbalances! It appeared my empathy, too, was wasted. Such an invalid gift. Like the sudden decline in my musical interest. It seemed I could only be rid of this ugly emptiness when I was angry - or when I was with Jono.
But now I couldn't even tell where he was. Light burn it!
I went to my seat inside the classroom and waited for class to begin.
