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“A person who’s only developed their telekinesis,” Isabela explained. “They stick with each other, commiserating about what losers they are, waiting for their big moment. They are like virgins, but worse.” She flashed Taylor a devilish look, her tone growing conspiratorial. “We had another healer before you. Vincent from Italy. He’s off with Earth Garde now. You will be very popular. The idiot boys, they’re always hurting each other. And you’re much prettier than Vincent.”
They entered the training center. In a huge grassy area cordoned off by a safety net, a handful of Garde practiced using their telekinesis to launch bricks at straw dummies carrying plastic machine guns. Low-tech, yes, but why waste the resources on gear the young Garde were just going to destroy? Everyone knew that Professor Nine had designed much of their training material himself. All the equipment—from the mundane straw dummies to a reprogrammable obstacle course with a vicious AI—had been inspired by Nine’s own training methods when he was their age.
To Taylor, it was like stepping into another world. Her eyes darted from a girl shooting a torrent of frost from her hands that was cold enough to ice over a small pool to a boy who punched through the solid ice and lifted a massive chunk over his head. She jumped when a scrawny bleached-blond punk let out a piercing screech that exploded a pane of glass. Isabela smirked when the new girl shied back, half hiding behind her.
“Chaos, no?”
“It’s . . . it’s very intense.”
“Eventually, you’ll get used to the madness.”
Nearby, a crowd had gathered around two boys. They stood twenty feet apart, hands outstretched towards each other, both of them sweating profusely despite not moving at all. One of them was small, barely thirteen, with dark hair and almond eyes. The other appeared to be almost eighteen, tanned, with fried-looking dreadlocks and a lean surfer body. Taylor watched them with her eyebrows furrowed. Isabela noted her interest with a sly smile.
“Checking out my boyfriend?” she asked.
“What? No.” Taylor replied quickly.
“It’s okay. He’ll be graduating soon. Mentally, I’m already moving on.”
Taylor tilted her head and made a show of examining the smaller boy. “Really? He looks young to be graduating,” she said innocently.
“Not Miki!” Isabela replied with offense before she realized Taylor was joking. “Aha. So you are funny.”
“I was just wondering what they’re doing,” Taylor said.
Isabela made a face. “A stupid game the boys here invented. They call it Thrust. Probably because they aren’t getting any.” She waved her hand in the direction of Miki, the diminutive Inuit, and her boyfriend, Lofton. “They are pushing on each other with their telekinesis.” She sighed. “Lofton is good-looking, but not very smart. Everyone knows Miki is strong for his size. Telekinesis is not about muscle, it is about willpower.”
As soon as Isabela finished her sentence, there was a sound like dry wood breaking and Lofton was thrown across the room, overwhelmed by Miki’s telekinesis. Some of the onlookers used their own Legacies to catch Lofton and set him down gently, but he came up cradling his wrist.
“Case in point,” Isabela said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Dummy probably sprained his wrist again.”
“Oh. Should I . . . ?” Taylor started forward, but Isabela grabbed her shoulder.
“No, no. Once they know you’ll heal them, they’ll be hounding you nonstop. Are you ready for that today?”
Taylor rubbed her face. “Um, not at all.”
Isabela dismissed Lofton with a wave, then dragged Taylor out of the training center. “Let him go see the nurse and then later he can lie to me and tell me he won his silly game while I rub ice on his muscles.”
“You know, you never told me . . . ,” Taylor began.
“What is my Legacy?” Isabela finished her question, leading her towards the dorms.
“Yeah,” Taylor replied with a quick laugh. “Guess superpowers aren’t one of my go-to conversation topics.”
“That will change soon.” She stopped, turned to Taylor and covered the other girl’s eyes with her hand. “Close your eyes.”
“Okay . . .”
“Now open them.”
Isabela was gone.
In her place was Taylor.
“Howdy, I’m from South Dakota,” Isabela said, her voice now Taylor’s. “I like cheeseburgers and fireworks.”
Taylor screamed. Then, she clapped both her hands over her mouth, embarrassed by the other students now peering in their direction.
Isabela grinned with Taylor’s face. She knew how convincing her shape-shifting could be. She’d gotten Taylor perfect, right down to her threadbare hooded sweatshirt and ugly old sneakers.
Taylor finally managed to collect herself. “Wow,” she said at last. “Do I seriously look that tired?”
In the blink of an eye, Isabela was back to her tanned and beautiful self. She still grinned. Most people, when she stole their shapes, tried to tell her that she wasn’t getting it quite right. Not Taylor. She was chill enough to make a joke about it. Isabela liked that. She decided, much to her own chagrin, that she kind of liked this new girl. That was something of a personal milestone. With the exception of Ran, who she warily tolerated, Isabela didn’t like any of the other girls on campus. Despised them, in fact. This half-clever, self-deprecating American, though—well, she might make a worthy apprentice. A project.
Isabela put her arm gently around Taylor’s shoulders and guided her to the dorms.
“Yes. Let’s get you a nap,” she said, then leaned in close to Taylor and whispered, “And when you’re ready to escape this place, I will show you how.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RAN TAKEDA
THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
MONDAY MORNING FOUND RAN TAKEDA IN DR. SUSAN Chen’s weekly Adjusting to the New World course. Dr. Chen was in her midthirties, pretty, with her hair always arranged in a fastidious braid. She was Chinese by way of Canada and, like most of the Academy’s faculty, academically impressive; she held dual PhDs in world literature and behavioral science. Ran enjoyed Dr. Chen’s literature class but liked these weekly New World meetings even more. The discussions were always freewheeling and wide-ranging—last week, they’d spent the entire session debating w
hat to do about the Mogadorians in the Arctic internment camps. Ran wasn’t much of a participator, but she liked listening to the debates, and especially the way Dr. Chen made complicated real-world problems of life and death seem like they could be solved right there in the classroom with rational debate.
This week, Dr. Chen had written “Constructive vs. Destructive Legacy Use” on the board. In the seat next to Ran, Nigel yawned dramatically.
“Look around at your classmates,” Dr. Chen began. “What do most of you have in common?”
Ran pushed her overgrown black bangs out of her eyes and did as she was told.
She looked first at Nigel. Her nakama. The literally loudmouthed punk who Ran knew was secretly fragile. Nigel did the talking, Ran did the listening. Nigel caught her staring at him and made an ugly face. Ran subtly raised an eyebrow. In their secret language of facial expressions, Nigel would interpret that correctly as amusement.
In the next seat over from Nigel was Lisbette. From Bolivia. Capable of creating and projecting ice.
Caleb Crane. America. The duplicator.
Omar Azoulay. Morocco. Immune to fire and capable of breathing it like a dragon.
Lofton St. Croix. Canada. His skin projected razor-sharp quills at will.
Nicolas Lambert. Belgium. Enhanced strength.
Maiken Megalos. Greece. Enhanced speed.
And on and on, around the room Ran went, until she arrived back at herself.
Ran Takeda. Japan. Girl who blows things up.
“Combat,” Ran said under her breath.
Nigel raised his hand, getting Dr. Chen’s attention.
“Oi, I got it, Susan,” he said, and Ran’s mouth tightened in disapproval. She didn’t like the disrespectful way he insisted on addressing their instructors, but Nigel was Nigel. “We’re all a bunch of considerable badasses, aren’t we? Take over the bloody world with this bunch, couldn’t you?”
Some laughter from the rest of the class. Dr. Chen nodded in patient agreement with Nigel’s bluster.
“Exactly, Mr. Barnaby,” she said. “These seminars weren’t put together at random. This group, in particular, intentionally includes those with advanced control of Legacies that Earth Garde deems combat-oriented. One day soon, when your training here is completed, you’ll be placed into a division of Earth Garde Peacekeepers and potentially be deployed into dangerous situations. War zones, riots, Mogadorian insurgents. That is your future.”
