There were many things Quinn hadn’t known about her job at Apex Laboratories prior to starting. Most of them were inane, like the working hours, or who her coworkers would be, but there were three things in particular that stood out to her.
For one, she didn’t know the lab was secretly underground. She was used to working in buildings that had windows with sunlight, something she didn’t realize how badly she’d miss as her months in the lab wore on. Additionally, the job posting also failed to mention that she’d be working with a team of scientists to help the city of Ascension stave off total oblivion from a previously unquantifiable source of radiation that burst from the ground eighteen months ago and hadn’t reappeared since. If she had known that, she probably wouldn’t have taken the job, keeping her boring but steady lab job in Virginia and instead leaving that tall task to someone else.
But despite the weight of those two negatives, the worst part of her job, and the thing that no amount of research could have prepared her for were the floors inside Apex Tower, which were incredibly well cleaned, to the point of feeling like she was walking on ice. Quinn thought it had to be a defense mechanism in case of superpowered attack: anyone who raced inside Apex’s Tower would immediately end up on their backs, which Quinn very nearly found out the hard way. On her first day, she took her first steps inside the lobby and gasped when her sneaker slid out from under her.
After taking a pit stop to her apartment to get her backpack with all of her notes and lunch, Ethan dropped them both right in front of the front door to Apex Tower.
“That was incredible,” she breathed out, pushing back her long blonde hair. “You do that every day?”
“Every day I can,” he smiled. “Thanks for coming with me. Sometimes it can get a little lonely being above everyone. I kind of miss sitting in a car with someone, just listening to the radio and being stuck in traffic.”
“I never would,” Quinn shook her head, holding the door open for Ethan. He took a deep breath, then stepped through. “I have way too much work to get done.”
“I don’t think I asked, what is it you do, exactly?”
“Radiation scientist,” she told him, hoping that was as vague as she meant it to be. Ethan nodded as if he understood. “What are you here for?”
”An interview, of sorts,” he told her. “It’s…pretty important. Either I ace this or I have to find something else to do.”
Quinn furrowed her brow. She was about to ask Ethan to clarify until she caught the sight of a man sitting in the receptionist area taking frequent, impatient glances at his watch and shaking his head. He was about the same age as Ethan and herself, wearing what Quinn had to assume was his nicest button down shirt and tie with khaki pants to match his brown shoes. He was as grumpy as Quinn had ever seen someone, nostrils flaring, breathing out like a bull ready to charge. She looked at him curiously, wondering what could be infuriating him so early in the morning before the rest of the world even had a chance to wake up.
It only took a moment before she got her answer. When the man’s eyes locked onto Ethan, he shot out of his chair, making a beeline straight for them.
“Uh, do you know him?”
Ethan gulped, nodding. “That’s my boss .”
“Ah,” Quinn patted him on the shoulder. “Need me to save your life again?”
”More likely than not, yes,” he answered as Raz stopped, his nose practically touching Ethan’s.
“It should be impossible for you to be late, Ethan,” Raz whispered angrily, throwing his hands up. He was trying, and failing, to keep his voice down, which brought a smile small to Quinn’s face. “Are you trying to blow this?”
“If I wanted to blow this, I wouldn’t have shown up at all,” Ethan replied, calmer than Raz, but with an edge to his voice. “Besides, I thought you didn’t even want to be here.
“I don’t,” Raz hissed, “but I also don’t have a choice, thanks to you.” Ethan’s face dropped, and Raz rolled his eyes. He gestured to the elevators behind him, his tone softer. “Come on, we need to go so we’re not any later than we already are.”
While the two reset, Quinn noticed, for the first time, the deep bags underneath Ethan’s eyes. She cut in, stepping halfway in front of Ethan.
“You must be Raz,” she said, holding out her hand. Raz looked at her in surprise, as if he somehow hadn’t noticed her. He took her hand, just a small hint of a smile in his blue eyes as he answered.
“Unfortunately.”
“Well, don’t be too hard on Ethan,” she told him. “He’s late because he was saving my life this morning.”
Raz’s eyes widened in surprise. He looked at Ethan.
“Is that true?”
“She may have saved mine, but…yeah, it’s true.”
Some tension left Raz’s shoulders as his stance softened. “Hmph. Maybe you had a good reason to be late for once.”
”Regardless, I’m still sorry to keep you waiting.” He turned to Quinn. “Great to meet you this morning, Quinn. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“I certainly hope so,” she replied, smiling.
Ethan tried to stop himself from blushing. He was grateful that Raz grabbed his shoulder, pulling him towards the elevator.
“I swear,” Raz shook his head, speaking quietly as they walked, “the only person you actually listen to is Rainey.”
At the mention of the name, Quinn snapped her head to Raz, losing her balance on the slippery floor. She crashed down with a loud thud. Ethan whipped back to Quinn.
“I’m fine,” she told him, pushing herself to a stand. “I played a lot of soccer, I’m used to falling. Good luck with your interview!”
”Thanks,” he smiled, shaking his head as the pair entered the elevator. “And be careful, Quinn. I hear they polish these floors with a special material in case of Altered attack.”
She smiled uneasily until the elevator doors shut in front of her, then took a deep breath to gather herself and headed over to her own elevator on the opposite side of theirs.
They didn’t say Rainey, had they?
Quinn dismissed the thoughts from her mind as the elevator opened out into an inauspicious hallway, completely sterile and white, save for a black door at the far end of the hall. She reached the end of the hallway, the solid black door stood stoically in front of her, blocking her access to what she expected to be the lab. She fumbled with her badge when the door flew open, nearly crashing into Quinn, who jumped back at the noise.
In front of her was Kingston, staring absentmindedly at his tablet. She waved a hand in front of him, grabbing his attention.
“Quinn,” he greeted her, nodding. “It’s your lucky day. I was just looking for you. We’re needed upstairs.”
”Upstairs?” She asked. Kingston nodded, motioning for her to follow him into the elevator. She paused, then shrugged, taking her place next to him. Her eyes traced a spiderweb full of burn scars on his arm, some fresher than others. He had gotten quite a few in last year maintaining the Junction.
“What’s going on?”
“I had to double check with Amory, but we are administering the first evaluation in nearly a year.”
“Evaluation?” Quinn asked.
“Another idiot wants to become a Protector so they can get paid until they get killed out in the field.”
“Oh,” Quinn said. Kingston put in a code Quinn didn’t recognize and she felt the elevator begin to descend.
“I didn’t know we could go any deeper,” she told him. He laughed darkly.
“You’d be surprised.”
Quinn mulled that over, then shifted uncomfortably. She decided to change the subject. “How do we…evaluate them?”
“By doing the only part of this job I actually enjoy.” The elevator opened to an observation deck overlooking a large, sand filled pit, not unlike a miniature version of the Colosseum. Quinn immediately felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, already guessing the answer. Kingston turned to her, smiling widely.
“We’re going to try to kill them first.”
------
“Will you please stop that?”
Standing in a dark tunnel, waiting for the moment the gate would rise to open the path to his metaphorical stage, Ethan couldn’t help but open his left fist, creating a swirling portal just above his hand, then shutting his palm, closing it with a small whoosh.
“Sorry,” Ethan said, closing his fist, extinguishing the purple light swirling above his hand. “It’s just that sometimes, I get worried it’ll…go away.”
Raz scoffed, and though Ethan could barely see, he could almost feel Raz roll his eyes. “That’ll never happen.”
“How do you know?” Ethan asked. Raz swirled to meet Ethan’s eyes.
“Because, Ethan, I’m being punished for enabling you. I should’ve stopped you from going down into the mines, but I didn’t. If you lost your powers, I’d finally be free of you, and I’ll never be that lucky.”
They stood in silence, Ethan shuffling uncomfortably, until he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Raz, I-I know this wasn’t exactly your dream, but I was just tired of measuring my life in tv show episodes watched or games played or overtime worked. I needed something else. Something better. Something I could be proud of.”
Raz snorted in derision. “And now you run out every night and get your ass kicked while I stay home and stare at a computer, tracking your location and trying to make sure you don’t die at least until I can find a way to kill you myself and make it look like an accident. Is that what you wanted?”
“Look, Raz, I’m sorry and I-”
“Not now,” Raz cut him off, his eyes falling to the floor. The gate in front of them shuddered and groaned as the chains pulled it open, slowly releasing a bright white light into the darkened tunnel. He shook his head, then brought his eyes up to meet Ethan’s. “After. For now, let’s just make the best of this situation. Don’t blow this, because if we end up in Sector Five as Hyp-quatic’s sidekick I’ll be furious.”
“Getting stuck with the ability to control water in a landlocked state would make me a jerk, too,” Ethan chuckled. “Thanks for all the help, Raz.”
Raz gave him a nod. “You know the deal, right?”
“Go out there, wow them with my intellect, then beat up whoever they tell me to,” Ethan said. “All without getting killed in the process.”
“Close enough.” Raz walked out in front of Ethan, onto the pit and up into the stands, seated behind plexiglass a foot thick, leaving Ethan alone in the tunnel, the sepia-toned light of the pit awaiting him.
Ethan took a deep breath, pushing down a wave of nausea forcing its way to the surface, then whispered to himself.
“Showtime.”
He took a tentative step out into the pit, surprised when his boot sunk in the sand. The ‘pit’, as it was known amongst the Protectors, was the closest a lot of Protectors would ever get to being in a sports stadium. Deep in the belly of Apex’s Tower, it was four stories high and complete with rounded seating a few rows higher than the pit to watch the action and giving the potential Protectors plenty of room to maneuver. When it wasn’t used for evaluations, Protectors often used it for sparring, honing their skills away from the public eye.
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After what felt like an agonizingly long walk, Ethan took his place on the raised, black metal platform centered in the pit. He gave a wary glance towards the darkness behind the black metal bars that housed whatever Apex was preparing to throw at him, then, following the metal structure up, his eyes took in the observation deck ten feet above the ground where two complete strangers were to decide if he passed or failed.
At least, they were supposed to be complete strangers.
”Uh, is it a problem if I know that guy?” Quinn asked. Kingston swiveled his chair to face her. “Normally, it would be, but I think we know how this one’s going to go, so why don’t we just pretend you don’t, alright?”
Quinn nodded, taking in the enormous scope of the pit. The observation booth featured numerous camera angles and a control panel, including a number of safety measures like a fire extinguisher kit, a blast shield over the glass, and a kill switch for the lights. Kingston clapped his hands together, startling her.
“Okay, Quinn! Welcome to your first, and probably only Protector evaluation.”
“Only?” she asked, glancing down at the sand below. Kingston nodded, pulling up his calendar from last May. Evaluation appointments filled nearly every one of his days, save some breaks for ‘catastrophes’ that Quinn was certain she didn’t want to know anything about.
“Eighteen months ago, in the early days when Apex’s Protectorate program was in its infancy, we had to screen every single candidate and, when possible, provide them a sector to operate in. When word got out how much Apex was paying its Protectors, everyone with powers lined up for a job. Anyone with a power that could be used offensively in the slightest was contracted to become a Protector. Apex then chopped the city up into five sectors, with a few satellite sectors extending beyond Ascension’s immediate area, and started paying people, while also providing training and uniforms, to fight against people with powers who wanted to do harm in the city, also known as the Altered.”
“That’s a smart way to score some easy PR,” Quinn chuckled.
Kingston shrugged. “Also an easy way to know exactly where the people you accidentally mutated will be at any given time, and paying them enough money to want for nothing prevents bribes given by people who want everything. So, a bit of a win-win. Apex throws a lot of money to fix a problem they caused, and they get a whole new brand of people to merchandise out of the deal.”
“Also true,” Quinn said, nodding. “So, everyone ran to join the goldrush and now the veins are all dried up?”
“We brought in an army of meteorologists, sociologists, and nuclear fallout specialists to estimate the percent of people that would’ve been affected by the Junction’s blast. That ran about five percent of Ascension’s population, given the blast occurred shortly after midnight on a Tuesday during the frozen wastes this city calls March, and of that five percent, only one percent of people were affected at all. Which is a fancy mathematical way of saying that a very small percentage of people ever gained powers in the first place, and even a smaller percentage of that portion were useful or dangerous depending on what side of things you’re on.”
“So Apex contracted every powerful person they could find to fight who they couldn’t bring onboard to their Protectorate program?”
“Bingo,” Kingston said, pointing at Quinn. “After we filled all the spots for each sector, we pretty much stopped running evaluations unless we somehow missed someone with extraordinary powers that we’d feel more comfortable having on payroll. Which is why I was surprised to see someone on the docket today, but I guess we’ll find out why Amory thought this guy was so important. Now that we’ve got all that out of the way, let’s start off with something simple.”
Ethan wanted to take a moment and collect his thoughts while it was still quiet, but he didn’t have long to let his thoughts settle before a booming voice echoed over the intercom.
“Please state your name for the record.”
Kingston’s voice reverberating throughout the pit made Ethan jump, and he spoke far louder than he needed to.
“Ethan! Uh, Havoc!”
“Um, using your…inside speaking voice is fine, thank you. I know you’re about a story down from us, but we can hear you just fine up here.”
Ethan nodded, wondering if his face blushing in embarrassment was visible from that far away.
“Wow this guy’s super nervous,” Kingston laughed.
“Are you…supposed to still be holding the intercom down?”
Kingston glanced down, sighed, and shook his head. Ethan shifted uncomfortably and Raz rubbed his temples. “Sorry. That was…unprofessional.”
“I’ll say,” Ethan muttered, folding his arms. Behind him, he heard Raz laugh.
“Anyway, let’s continue. Please describe to us your ability.”
“Teleportation.”
“Ah, so you’re great at running away,” Kingston joked. He took his finger off the intercom button. “That time was intentional.” She rolled her eyes.
“Gets funnier every time,” Ethan grumbled quietly, stretching his arms and neck.
Kingston turned to Quinn, typing on his computer. “Okay, now we need a demonstration. We used to just take people at their word, but you would not believe how many people we injured early on. Oh, man, I remember this one guy said he could catch swords. Weirdly specific, right? So, anyway, we took him at his word and just started launching swords at him and, wouldn’t you know it-”
Without warning, a swirling purple portal opened behind them, and Quinn jumped out of her rolling chair as Ethan poked his head through.
“Oh, hey, Quinn!” Ethan smiled. “I didn’t know you were in charge of evaluations!”
”I’m…ordinarily not.”
“Well, I bet you’ll be great at it. Sorry to scare you, but I’m starting to get tight, and I’m not sure if I should go through my stretching routine again. Are we doing this or what?”
Quinn looked at Ethan, then glanced down where he was standing from the pit.
“Go…back down there,” Kingston instructed him after he had caught his breath, then gestured at Ethan’s portal. “Or just…fix this. We have a few more questions to ask.” Ethan shrugged, closing his fist and shutting the portal.
“Incredible,” Quinn whispered. “Did you notice, Kingston, that the color of his powers were the exact same combination that we saw earlier when the Junction was flaring three months ago? Are all the Protector's powers like that?”
Kingston thought for a moment. “Now that you mention it, while his powers did resemble the color the shielding lit up…most of them don’t.”
“Interesting,” Quinn replied, nodding, her brain working quickly. “Maybe Ethan has somehow become attuned to the energy released by the Junction and can use it to connect a pathway between the energy in front of him and the energy where he wants to go, like a portable subway system.”
Kingston shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t really care how it works, I just wish he couldn’t do it. Speaking of…” he turned his attention back to Ethan. “Scope of ability?”
“I can teleport anything, myself included, anywhere I can see,” Ethan answered confidently, “so long as there’s space for me. And, before you even ask, no, I can’t close portals and cut off body parts, or anything else that might cause a hitch in my eventual TV-licensing deals. It’s a lot like how you can’t bite off your own finger if you think about it-”
“Weaknesses?” Kingston interrupted.
“Women with nice arms.”
While Quinn nodded knowingly, Raz simply shook his head.
“Oh,” Ethan continued, “and obstructed vision. Darkness, both moral and physical. I don’t think I could make a portal if I couldn’t use my hands but maybe I could use my mouth if-”
“Alright,” Kingston said to Quinn, ignoring Ethan as he rambled on, “normally there’s a few more questions, but I wouldn’t mind watching this guy get bashed around, so let’s get to the fun stuff. Now, the point of the evaluation is to make sure the candidate not only has powers, but also to make sure they can control them, at least enough to prove they aren’t a danger to themselves or, more importantly, others. At Apex, we’re in charge of elevating in-training candidates to the level of Protector,” Kingston said, pointing to the scarlet A embroidered on his own shirt, “so we have to make sure they won’t run out there and kill themselves on the first day.”
“Right,” Quinn said, nodding. “Then we’d have fewer Protectors to keep the city safe.”
“Well, really it’s just bad for business. If Apex says someone’s competent, and he gets blown up by Detonator on his first day, we look pretty bad. Now, to make sure that doesn’t happen, let’s try to kill this guy so he doesn’t die right after we put him on TV.”
“We’d help him if something went wrong, right?” Quinn asked slowly.
“Not really sure what I could do considering I don’t have powers, but it normally doesn’t come to that. Except a few times.” Kingston leaned forward, holding down the intercom. “Alright, Ethan, are you ready?”
Ethan gulped, hoping his voice wouldn’t betray him. “Absolutely,” he said, his voice totally betraying him.
Kingston smirked, with joy permeating his voice. In front of Ethan, the sand parted and a shallow pool of water about the size of a tub rose, complete with a red LED light installed in the bottom.
“Now, despite what you’ve previously heard about the evaluation process, this one is going to be a little different.”
Kingston mashed the giant red button on his tablet, and Quinn suddenly heard a whirring noise from above. She squinted upward, confused at a mass tangled in rope or wire dropping slowly from an open panel in the ceiling.
“Wait,” she said, the figure slowly coming into view, “is that a person?”
“It’s just a mannequin. We couldn’t get legal to sign off on dangling an actual person above a pool of lava, unsurprisingly.” Kingston cleared his throat. “Okay, Ethan, here’s the situation: an evil Altered has kidnapped this fine citizen of Ascension and is threatening to kill them unless we meet their demands. You have two minutes to defeat the Altered before your friend here gets dunked in the pool of lava. If you save the citizen and defeat the Altered, you pass. If he takes a dip, he burns in an endlessly hungry pool of lava until his very bones are nothing. Oh, and you fail and have to go back to…whatever it is you were doing prior to this. Understand?”
Ethan nodded. “Morbid,” he whispered to himself, glancing up. “But going back isn’t an option.” He cleared his throat, speaking loudly. “Alright, who do I have to go through to get to save this plastic man’s life?”
Kingston pulled the lever to his left, and Quinn felt the whir of a motor underneath them, the metal gates in front of Ethan pulling up slowly. Out walked a woman, a head shorter than Ethan with sharply cut black hair falling just below her chin. She was wearing a forest green leather jacket with a black shirt tucked into her black jeans.
“Meet Bramble,” Kingston said. “Her…temperament didn’t make her an ideal Protector, but her power set allows her to pick up all kinds of jobs around Ascension, including evaluating new Protectors when we're in a pinch. Get through her, save the mannequin from certain death, and you’re in.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes at Bramble. She was obviously in shape, but not physically imposing enough to draw his attention. She also didn’t have any sort of obvious means of attack that would’ve intimidated him. In fact, she almost seemed entirely disinterested in the process, which Ethan was hoping to use to his advantage.
“Piece of cake,” he said, trying to project confidence. Bramble silently raised an eyebrow, and Ethan gulped quietly in response.
Kingston set his timer for two minutes, then started it. “And…begin!”
Ethan feigned a step to the left, then pivoted to his right, trying to gauge what powers Bramble had. To his surprise, she still didn’t move at all, her expression mildly disinterested, leaving him feeling like he had performed an awkward dance move at the wrong time.
“What is she doing?” Quinn asked urgently.
“Just wait,” Kingston chuckled.
Ethan gave it another moment, his anxiety giving way to curiosity. Regardless of whatever power she had, Ethan was hoping he could grab the mannequin before Bramble had the chance to unleash it. With it safely on the ground, Ethan could go to work on finding a way to defeat Bramble. In fact, if he was fast enough, he might be able to grab the mannequin before Bramble had a chance to strike.
The mannequin is moving too slowly for me to just open a portal beneath it and teleport it to safety, Ethan thought. No doubt Bramble would attack before then with…whatever it is she can do. I need to get up there, untie it, and open a portal for it to land safely on the sand.
It sounded simple in his head, but with the quiet confidence currently radiating from Bramble, he didn’t expect it to stay that way.
Without moving his head, he clocked the mannequin’s position, accounted for a few second’s worth of slow descent, and opened a portal right where he expected it to be, roughly three stories in the air. He tossed the still unmoving Bramble a wary glance, then connected the portal in front of him. Waiting a half-second until the mannequin’s head had passed below the portal, Ethan leapt through, grabbing the rope and swinging back and forth until it stabilized.
“Ethan, do you know who that is?” Raz spoke to him through their communicator.
“Haven’t seen her before,” Ethan admitted. Reaching down, he clung to the rope with his right hand, straining to hold his weight, and went to work on the bindings with his left. “But so far, she doesn’t seem to be much of a threat.”
“Bramble is a huge threat,” Raz said quickly, trying to communicate the urgency of the situation. “She’s immensely dangerous, and she’s not afraid to hurt people. She was kicked out of the Protector program for being too violent against Altered.”
“I better move quickly, then unless I want to end up like them,” Ethan replied, grunting with exertion. “I’m going to free this guy first, then deal with Bramble after.”
Ethan had managed to free the mannequin’s left hand, leaving it dangling by his right, which he was hard at work moving to get it free.
“Halfway done,” Ethan said, panting. “So, what can she do? Can she even reach me all the way up here?”
Before Raz had the chance to answer, Ethan let out a pained cry as thorns suddenly bit into his ankle. He jerked his head down and found a green whip extending from Bramble’s hand thirty feet below wrapped around his leg, a wry smile on Bramble’s face. Without warning, she pulled her whip down to the sand with extraordinary strength, ripping Ethan’s grip from the rope and sending him flying off, leaving the mannequin swaying wildly above the pit.
Thinking quickly, Ethan opened a portal pointed away from Bramble just above the base of the pit, then one in front of him, sending him tumbling over the sand rather than slamming into it, kicking up a dust cloud until he came to a stop lying on his back. Pushing himself onto his elbows with a pained groan, he wiped the dust from his face and locked eyes with the now-smiling Bramble.
“Still think this’ll be a piece of cake?” She asked.
Ethan groaned, slowly coming to a stand. His eyes caught the mannequin, and he realized he had a new problem: it was was barely hanging on, swinging from left to right, threatening to slip through its last restraint.
“Ethan!” Raz yelled. “Hurry up!”
In the observation deck above, Quinn grabbed Kingston’s arm.
“Do you have a plan for stopping Bramble if she gets too violent?”
Kingston rubbed his chin. “Now that you mention it,” he said quietly, “I…probably should’ve made one.”
Quinn scoffed. “So it’s really all on Ethan to save himself?”
Kingston shrugged. “Bramble might help?”
Down below, Bramble laughed as she wrapped another vine around Ethan’s wrist and dragged him to the ground.
“Or not.”