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Taylor hesitated. Recognizing the tension in Isabela’s words, she wisely backed off. “Nothing. Never mind. Good night.”
Isabela nodded sharply. “Good night.”
Back in her room, Isabela slid her newly installed dead bolt into place. She exhaled slowly. Taylor was sweet and kind; she wouldn’t say anything about what she had seen. She’d leave it alone.
Talk about it. Pah. What was there to talk about?
As always, this late in the day, Isabela’s face had begun to ache. It was like that tense sensation one gets from smiling too much. Her stamina had vastly improved in the months that she’d been at the Academy, but the constant Legacy use still drained her by nightfall. She took one last look at herself in the mirror, touched her smooth cheek and smiled wistfully.
Then, she turned off the lights.
With a sigh of relief, Isabela let her true face slide back into place.
CHAPTER TWENTY
KOPANO OKEKE
THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
SIX A.M. THE FIRST RAYS OF SUN SHONE RED through the gym’s wide windows. Kopano braced himself as he brushed by a series of thick ropes that hung from the ceiling. Cautiously, he made his way through the training center’s deserted obstacle course. The program wasn’t active at the moment—that meant no ball bearings or electric shocks would come shooting out at him. But still, there was danger. An attack would come. And soon.
Because Kopano was not alone.
“YAAAA!”
The scream alerted Kopano just seconds before Professor Nine dropped from the ceiling and landed on top of him. His knees crunched into Kopano’s shoulders and knocked the wind out of him. In his one metallic hand, Nine held a savage combat knife. He plunged the blade down between Kopano’s shoulder blades.
The weapon crumpled against Kopano’s skin. With a grunt, Nine flung the ruined weapon away. Kopano rolled beneath him and socked Nine with a punch to the sternum. The older Garde went flying backwards.
Kopano’s fists were as hard as bricks. Nine sucked in a breath as Kopano scrambled to his feet.
“Did I hurt you?” Kopano asked, grinning.
“Yeah,” Nine replied. From the back waistband of his pants, Nine drew a pistol. “Same question.”
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Kopano flung up his hands. One of the rubber bullets he managed to deflect with his telekinesis. The other two thudded into his chest. Kopano felt that now-familiar tightness in his skin as his flesh hardened to rebuff the impact. He wouldn’t even be bruised.
“Painless!” he shouted at Nine gleefully. Then, he reached out with his telekinesis and yanked Nine’s gun away.
Nine retreated. Kopano gave chase. His limbs always felt heavy right after his invincibility kicked in. Carefully, he hurdled a pile of logs, part of the obstacle course. His body got lighter, loosened up, and he picked up speed. These fights with Professor Nine had become part of his routine. Three times a week, bright and early. Nine pushed him, tried to hurt him and was rarely successful.
“Remember!” Nine shouted over his shoulder. “Control your Legacy! Think about what you’re doing!”
Nine reached the sideline of the obstacle course, where a dented Dumpster usually served as cover for the projectile attacks launched by the system. With strength that still awed Kopano, Nine ripped a metal sheet off the side of the Dumpster and held it before him like a shield.
Kopano cocked his fist back, knowing his knuckles would harden as soon as he struck the metal. Sure enough—wham! He punched a dent into Nine’s makeshift defense, nearly knocking the steel straight back into his professor’s face.
Nine recovered quickly. He swung the metal at Kopano’s head in a backhand motion. Kopano ducked, but the move was meant only to create space. Nine leaped on top of the Dumpster, escaping again. He held his hand up towards the catwalk that overlooked the training center.
“Weapon!” Nine called.
From above, something white fell down. Nine caught the object and sighed.
“Thanks a lot,” he said dryly.
Kopano squinted as he climbed up after Nine, who now held out a pillow in front of him.
“Are you going back to bed, Professor?” Kopano asked with a grin as he squared up with Nine.
“Less talking, more hitting,” Nine countered. He bounced from foot to foot on the Dumpster’s creaky lid, swinging the pillow in front of him.
“As you wish,” Kopano replied.
He should have known it was a trap.
Kopano swung a big right hook at Nine. The professor raised the pillow to block. Kopano felt his knuckles strike the soft surface—and then his fingers cracked. He shouted in pain and surprise.
The pillow was filled with rocks. Worse yet, Kopano’s Legacy hadn’t kicked in to protect him.
“Hold! That’s enough!” Dr. Goode called down from the catwalk.
Kopano thought a couple of his fingers were broken. He stomped down on the Dumpster, not so much in pain as frustration. This was the third time he’d been injured in practice, always because Professor Nine managed to somehow surprise him.
“You all right?” Nine asked. He tossed his loaded pillow away with a clatter.
“I’m fine,” Kopano muttered, nursing his injured hand. He looked up at Nine with watery eyes. “Why doesn’t it work? What good is being invincible only some of the time?”
“Clearly, you aren’t invincible,” Nine replied, and hopped down from the Dumpster. Kopano followed. “Or maybe you could be. But you’re letting your instincts do the work for you instead of controlling the power.”
“I have listened to all the lectures,” Kopano replied, ashamed of the desperation in his voice. “About visualization and meditating on the energy within me. But there is nothing to visualize, Professor. And I do not feel any energy. It simply happens, or it does not.”
“You aren’t trying hard enough, kid,” Nine responded brusquely.
Kopano frowned and began to pluck off the plastic sensors that Dr. Goode always affixed to his body before a session. Just then, the scientist made his way down from the catwalk, thumbing through results on his tablet.
“Anything to report, Malcolm?” Nine asked.
Dr. Goode stroked his chin and looked appraisingly at Kopano. “Actually, I did pick up an interesting reading,” he said, and Kopano’s heartbeat quickened. “When your Legac
y successfully triggered, your weight momentarily increased. It went back to normal when you gave chase to Nine. Did you feel that, Kopano?”
Kopano nodded, remembering the heaviness in his bones when he first chased Nine. “Yes. That happens sometimes.”
Nine snapped his fingers. “There you go, man. That’s what I want you doing from now on. Thinking like you’re fat.”
Kopano frowned. Dr. Goode patted him on the shoulder.
“It’ll come, Kopano,” he said. “Go see Taylor about that hand.”
As Kopano trudged off the obstacle course, Nine called after him, “Kopano! Show me something today, man. I’m counting on you.”
Kopano nodded in response, then quickly turned away to hide his grin. Nine was counting on him! He didn’t want the professor to see how giddy that made him. Had to be cool and macho, like Nine.
He’d show Nine something all right.
He’d win today’s Wargames event even if he had to do it by himself.
“How’d you do this?”
“I punched some rocks.”
“That was dumb.”
“They were hidden inside a pillow.”
“Even dumber.”
Kopano chuckled. Taylor held his hand, letting her warm healing energy flow into his fractured fingers. In a matter of moments, the swelling was gone and Kopano was able to flex his digits without pain. He bowed dramatically to Taylor.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah,” she replied, shaking her head as she let his hand drop.
The two of them were part of a larger group on their way to the wooded area south of campus. Although participation in the Wargames event was entirely voluntary, all of the Academy’s students were required to attend so they could at least watch. Many of the instructors were making their way to the woods as well. Students chatted excitedly, all of them discussing the possible challenge Professor Nine had designed in concert with Colonel Archibald and the Peacekeepers. The Garde got plenty of training time with each other and at the obstacle course, but today would mark the first time any of them faced outside opponents. The atmosphere reminded Kopano of when his school would face a rival in sports.
