After my outburst at the office, I sat musing on the bench in the patio. Aimlessly looking at the empty grounds, the kids still in class. Being close to the end of the day, soon the place would be crawling with the rascals. I enjoyed teaching; it was the one other thing that had kept me going, as I got older and much of my enthusiasm died, I even considered just dedicating myself to it, but the more I learned about powers the more my desire grew to also wield these powers in my own hands.
To casually go against what should be possible, to soar beyond every physical limit. The chance always there taunting me. And now I had been the closest I’ve ever been to getting power for myself. As I sat there looking at my empty hands, I heard someone sitting beside me.
“I heard what happened, Joseph.”
I raised my head looking at who it was, the old guy just wearing the same small smile, the director almost never came in between trouble between teachers and student's problems, which made his presence here unusual, although he also was the only one that knew of my past.
“That so?” I finally said. He just smiled again in my direction.
The silence dragged along a bit until he finally spoke of why he came in here. “They took the girl, her brother was a member of the FCC, before he died.” I winced. The criminal organization might very well want to poach the girl too.
Yeah, that explained a lot. The family was using the belief that powers corrupted people to justify the brother's choices. Not that it mattered, anyway. The blunder I did there was unacceptable, even today I was still under observation from the government for Sleepwalking, if someone makes a big deal of me saying she should be grateful I might end up in trouble, even if I don’t believe much would come of it, I don't want even more eyes from the big brother on me.
I kept my silence, having nothing to add to that. Maybe if I had been with my emotions more in check, she could've just been taken to the city's training facility and not directly by the EOID enforcers. it was unsure if it would matter much with the family story. They might take her anyway. It was uncertain if she would appear in class ever again, though.
I chuckled. How ironic for the invisible girl. “What now, then” I asked instead.
“Just take a few days out. I've heard you took the news of what happened to that kid harshly.”
“Sure did,” I said, still unsure what this case even was about. I lucked out in having Paul as my supervisor, though. “Thanks for everything as always, Paul.”
He gave me a pat on the back as he got up, not reaching that high with his curved back. The guy was a living fossil still taking care of the school instead of just retiring. It was admirable, having so much purpose. I didn’t compare my own to him. My resolve in getting power was more born of an unshakable fear of missing out, of being powerless.
It wasn’t even for vengeance or to do the right thing, most of the time I was wallowing in how cool it would be or how amazing it would feel, even at my thirties I still sometimes felt like the pathless young man waiting to get powers for his life to finally start. I somehow got over that part, studying and teaching even if it was all about powers, deep down only preparing myself for when I got my own powers. It was how I really got through all these years.
I looked at the sky, still the same from when I was a kid, and powers were pure fantasy. Who would've thought that them being a reality would make them even more out of my grasp. I sighted untangling the emotions inside of me. Even after all this, I knew I wouldn’t give up, so I'd just keep going. Step by step... torture session by torture session, I thought grimly, already making more plans while I’d have to stay out of forums for a while. I could just keep doing my own research.
By the time the school had finally finished and the patio became full of noisy students, finally being freed I was feeling much more in control so I got up, stretched my legs and left as well.
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Arriving at my house, I saw there was a car parked in front of it. I stopped normally at my garage finding it weird but not paying it that much mind; I had a terrible day and wanted to get around to seeing what would come of the forum shutdown, in the end I didn't know if I was going to get my dose or not, as Morning_Tea just disappeared without saying anything about the state of the deliveries.
But before I got inside, two men came out of the car. They were dressed in some jeans and jackets, with work boots. They painted an intimidating image. And were clearly coming to talk to me.
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I frowned, not remembering anything to do with anyone like this, but resolved to see what they wanted at least, they noticed me stopping and smiled as they got closer, one of the two, the blonde one, getting closer and offering a hand, I took it absentmindedly and the guy gave it a firm squeeze; he shined me a confident smile, his light brown eyes staring directly into mine. That was concerning in a lot of ways as I had no idea who any of those two were, a gave them both a confused look.
“Ironpillow I presume?” He said this completely raised my alertness from mild to extreme. The forum was busted and those guys appear on the same day using my handle. The guy, apparently seeing my alertness, raised his hands, taking a reassuring step back.
“Wait wait, no need to get so alarmed.” He looked around. The streets were empty. This just got my heart racing even more. He put a hand in his pocket. My body tensed at the same time, my mind was blank.
What he took out was thankfully not a gun or handcuff, but a vial. An innocent all black vial.
My mind raced. If these guys weren't the cops, could they be? I hesitated, this being already very weird, “Morning_Tea..?”
The guy gave a laugh back. “Hah, using internet names is indeed weird. Sorry ‘bout using your handle like that but no I’m not him. You caught on quickly though, as expected of a senior.” as he finished saying that I gave him a sour stare back for the rudeness.
“Sorry sorry, not meaning you 're old or anything.”
The guy from behind him spoke up at that: “Get to the point.” This was the first thing he said, and he didn’t appear to want to participate in the conversation any more than that.
His tall, taller than me by a couple centimeters, muscled figure and black skin made him look like a bodyguard to the white cocky youngster talking rudely here, but both of them didn’t really fit this bill from the little I've seen.
“Right right, so yeah this here is the promised serum, The thing the actual Morning_Tea was sending you.” the blonde continued “It was already on the way here when the forums got busted.” He gave me a devil like smirk, seeing the clean greed on my face. Did these guys come here to extort me? Fuck, my heart was pounding from newfound expectation, goddammint this day didn't stop with these ups and downs.
I stared at him evenly; “What do you want for it?”
“Hoh, no hesitation, you’re one of the determined ones I see, huh. If I asked you to handover all you have, you probably would just do it,” he continued before I could answer, although the response was probably yes. “You see this thing here is quite valuable, the feds type don't leak this around but normally the sleepwalkers that end up triggering almost always awaken meta powers, probably to do with all the research and the intent. When a forum start getting too much triggers, they go on and crash down onto it.
I was startled at this. If what he was saying was right, it meant that; “They were watching the forum since the start.”
“Yes, its common practice, they get to cultivate an important asset.” He shook the vial in front of my eyes “an activator.”
“What? As, as in that's just common?” If powers that made other powers were a thing, why wasn’t everyone going around advertising them, or selling their services for ridiculous amounts?
“It's as you heard. The government, the military really, regulates these meta powers, but it isn't even that rare. Well, to awaken it. They normally don't live that long.”
I had a good extra reason to hate the military now. Fucking hell. I always suspected they regulated power related tech, but I imagined it was just that, tech; information and research, there would be no reason to regularly crash down on the sleepwalker forums otherwise, they always claimed that we were just a bunch of dangerous individuals doing human experiments, but we were mostly harmless. Taking out some very rare examples, the human experimentations we did were just on ourselves.
“How do I know you two aren't just lying?” it was a valid concern; two shady guys arrive at my door with promises of power and selling antigovernment propaganda. Could just as well be a trap, although for what reason I wouldn’t know.
He pointed a thumb in the quiet guy’s direction “My friend here is one of them”
"One of them what, exactly?”
“An activator of course, or awakener or Type C. There are lots of names.” I stared at the blade look alike, with a mix of incredulity and greed. He just gave a sigh and raised his hand, making a light blue ring of solid light appear, hovering on top of it.
A snap bought my attention again to the blondie. He was with his smirk again. Seriously, what those two wanted. They spoke as if they knew me, or at least dealt with sleepwalkers constantly.
“You seem pretty confused so let me get it out of the way, we came more or less to recruit you.”
“Why me” I felt my rage rising through my confusion again, my voice raised slightly with it. Why now damn it, what happened what’s different. This shit’s too good to be true. I about to start a rant when the guy stopped me, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“Hey, calm down man.” he patted my shoulder with the same hand, then used it to point down the street. “It's quite simple really, look.”
There at the end of the street I could see around five police cars, the heavy-set kind that's clearly not just the city police, on the side of the cars clearly stamped was the logo of the EIOD. I felt my body going cold, my ashen face turning to the smirking face of the blonde stranger.
“It’s very simple indeed, we just collect the desperate, just when they're at their lowest.” He chuckled at the irony of being so jovial with such a grim topic.
I was speechless. What was the point? I would accept it anyway, of course, but why wait until my lowest point. I guess there was no way I would refuse now, or leak anything about them. So that could be the bonus. It guaranteed me to comply with anything. I didn't even know who they were. I didn't even know what they wanted from me or would have me do. Yet in this situation, it didn’t matter. They were my ticket to not disappearing in the clutches of the state.
“I can see you caught on quickly,” he said as he passed by me, opening my front door that I was sure should still be locked his friend went to follow, just letting out as he passed by me:
“Welcome to the dark side.”