I woke up to the sound of the alarm on my phone going off. Rolling over, I reach out to turn off the first of my 10 alarms set over five minute increments to ensure I would actually get out of bed instead of just turning off my alarms without waking up.
Usually it requires at least 5 alarms going off to convince me to get my butt moving, but for some reason I was immediately awake, sitting up after the first alarm and turning on my lights before standing in the mirror for several minutes contemplating my existence, just as I do every day.
I'm fairly tall, standing at about six foot two, which for the age of 17, is pretty nice.
Everyone always talks about how they wish they were over six foot, and how women seem to love tall men. What they don't tell you, however, is how the desks at school aren't built for tall backs and cause you incredible amounts of back pain.
As I feel sorry for myself, I brush my messy brown hair out of my eyes and stare deeply into my own dark brown eyes, looking for any visible changes within them.
Supposedly, when you approach the end of puberty, you have a chance at unlocking a unique power within you, causing your eyes to shift to an unnatural color that represented your power.
People with super strength tended to have gray or silver eyes, while those who could create fire, ice, or lightning tended to have eyes that reflected their respective powers.
Dont even get me started on the weird powers like magnetism or controlling plants. Those people tended to have eye colors that seemed to vary from person to person but the concept was still similar.
Most people didn't awaken powers, having to take up normal jobs within the dredges of the massive corporations that ran Mega City, slaving away for a mere pittance of what the companies were raking in each year, until their bodies gave out and they died.
So far my eyes had stayed depressingly brown, with not a single speck of color changing over the years despite my scrutinizing gaze hoping otherwise.
Today was no different.
With a sigh and a slouch I finally turn away from the mirror and start to put on my school uniform.
The shirt and pants were a deep crimson, with a white vest and tie adorning the shirt.
I finish getting dressed and brush my teeth before exiting my room and leaving my apartment.
They government issued every student a place of residence if they needed one. This seems like a great opportunity at first glance, especially for someone who had no family like myself. However, all of the nice apartments seemed to be snapped up by children who awakened powerful abilities early and the dirty, grundgy apartments in the housing projects were assigned to powerless children like myself.
I exit my apartment on the third level and walk out onto the metal grating that provided a walkway down to the ground level.
Other students are exiting their housing as well, but no one speaks to eachother since what's the point? We're all powerless, and the only people that really matter are those with powers.
Powers grant you opportunity. The corporations are constantly snapping up children with promising abilities the instant they awaken and whisking them away to their fancy shmancy super hero academy in the business district, leaving the rest of us to either claw our way to a college degree and a chance at a paying job, or to die starving on the streets.
The second option was looking more viable for me, I thought as I made my way down the stairs and towards school. I had no powers to speak of, and they say that if you don't awaken by your 18th birthday you never will, and my birthday is tomorrow.
There's also no way I'd be able to afford a college education. Even with my test scores being at the top of my class, scholarship opportunities are few and far between, with the best ones being reserved for powered students.
My only hope was to somehow find a job that payed decently enough to where I could start saving money to pay my own way to a degree, but the future didn't look very bright.
Most of the jobs that payed well in the projects involved doing something illegal. Whether that be working for one of the many gangs that ran the streets, or if I really wanted to die, trying to start my own gang.
Neither option seemed especially promising as a six foot two skeleton doesn't exactly inspire fear in hardened criminals who would like nothing more than to harvest my organs and sell them to the highest bidder.
That's another thing! I could be an organ harvester!
No, no I'm too skinny to hold someone to a table while I cut out their kidneys, that'd never work.
Guess I'll have to join a gang then. I thought while visibly slouching while a continued trudging down the dirty streets with my fellow students towards my highschool.
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When we all finally arrive I take in the dingey building with a small amount of nostalgia, having spent the last four years of my life within it's dull, gray concrete walls.
I've had a few pleasant memories like my first 100 on a test and a hundred bad memories to accompany it but still, the building held a special place in my heart.
School was a place where I was never bored, as I had plenty of things to learn every day. I never went hungry, being able to eat 3 square meals a day. And I never felt overly special, as everyone who attended my highschool was powerless, and if they did awaken, they were taken to an academy immediately, leaving us behind to wallow in our normalcy.
I walk through the cracked glass doors and take my seat in my homeroom class before a surprise announcement echoes out.
Attention students! As you all surely remember, the job fair is set up in the gymnasium and we'll be taking time out of your first and second period classes to allow you to visit with all the different career representatives. Please make sure to take you time as the representatives are allowed to write you tardy passes if you stay past second period to ask them questions. Please enjoy the job fair and have a super day!
That last line always irked me but I let it slide this time. I'd completely forgotten about today's job fair! Maybe there would be a job that pays well enough for me to go to college while staying on the good side of the law!
I get up and follow the herd of my fellow students travelling towards the gymnasium and I'm pleasantly surprised at what I see when we enter.
Within the gym, there are around a dozen tables set up around the perimeter of the room, being manned by people of all shapes and sizes.
Some of the jobs they were representing were immediately obvious, as plumbers, electricians, welders, and waste management workers were all wearing their uniforms and had the tools of their trades displayed on their tables.
Some of the other careers were fairly obvious too, with men from different branches of the military wearing their medals and ribbons proudly on their chests, and food service workers displaying delicious looking dishes on their tables.
I'd seen all of these careers before, having seen their faded recruitment posters and billboards everywhere in the projects, as most of their employees were hired straight out of highschool.
There was a new table here that caught my eye though.
Towards the back of the gym and slightly tucked behind the electrician table was a fairly simple display.
There were three masks on the table. Each of them made to represent a different animal, with the left one being a gorilla, the middle being a panther, and the right being a golden lion.
The man behind the table wore a similar golden lion mask, albeit with a slightly different design, with a visage of a snarling lion instead of the expressionless mask on the table.
He stood patiently with his hands neatly behind his back, and stared straight ahead until someone asked him a question, causing him to turn to face them and awnser before facing forwards once more.
Being instantly intrigued, I make my way through the crowd of students until I'm standing directly in front of the man.
He's wearing a black suit and tie with a bright red undershirt that made his golden mask seem to stand out aggressively.
"Hello" I say curiously.
"Hello" He says, turning to face me before he faces forwards again.
"What's the deal with the masks?"
"The masks conceal our identity and signify roles in our organization."
"Why do you need to conceal your identity?"
"Our organization deals in morally questionable activities and deems our employees secrecy to be of utmost importance."
"What exactly is your organization?"
"Our organization provides a labor force for unregistered powered individuals who wish to remain anonymous."
"You mean super villians." I say incredulously. This guy's recruiting highschoolers to work for super villians!
"We prefer the term powered individuals. Our clients often times feel as though they are operating within the bounds of their own moral laws and therefore are law abiding citizens."
"Okay whatever you say. So what's the pay and benefits like if I were to work for these so called powered individuals? I'm trying to save money to go to college and I'm not sure I'd want to get mixed up in something that could land me in prison."
"The pay varies from client to client, we only act as intermediaries in the recruitment process. However, our organization has set specific standards for health insurance, dental insurance, and even payed maternity leave so employees are fairly compensated for the risk associated with their work. Many of our clients even offer scholarship programs for promising employees, which for you case, we would find you a suitable employer that fits that description."
"All right, that all sounds good but what exactly are the risks that come with this job?"
"Prison time is a real possibility as you've already mentioned, but many of our clients have deep pockets and excellent lawyers. Bodily injury is also a possibility but a very minor one as most of our clients tend to keep their uncovered employees away from combat to avoid having to pay workers compensation. If you would like to know more about our line of work I could schedule an interview for you without making a full commitment. We also have many part time employment opportunities if that would interest you as well."
After he finished speaking, the man took a piece of paper from a box behind him and placed it on the table before pushing it towards me.
The top of the paper read INTERVIEW CONTRACT and as I read through the paper I got the gist of what it was about.
Basically, If I signed the contract they would match me with a powered individual and I'd be required to show up at their regional office today after school for a trial interview with one of their clients to see if they'd be a right fit for me.
If the client decided they liked me, they give me an employment offer with the required minimum benefits and a pay scale of their choosing. I could either sign an employment contract and begin work at my new employer's convenience or I could walk out the door with no sweat off my back.
The whole contract seemed pretty straight forward, having me sign a non disclosure agreement when I went in for the interview and an agreement not to testify against them should I chose not to sign.
After I finishing going over the contract, I look up at the man who had by now gone back to facing forwards.
"Do you have a pen I can sign with?"
The man turns to me before nodding and reaching into his suit jacket and producing a golden pen.
I take the pen from his hand and sign my name on the dotted line before handing the paper and pen back to the man, who turns to face me again before speaking.
"Thank you for your interest, Mr. Alex Corsair. We look forward to seeing you later this evening."