Superverse’s laboratory was like something out of a sci-fi movie. Square ceiling tiles radiated soft light that left no shadows, illuminating a clean, sterile open floor space filled with the cutting edge of power research technology. Their facilities took up much of the 122nd floor, divided into various zones for different fields of research. In front of me stood billions of dollars worth of equipment dedicated to measuring power signals.

Aegis Academy’s facilities were widely considered to be the best in the world on the whole, but that didn’t mean they were number one in every conceivable area. That wasn’t to say there was any subject they were lacking in, but it was undeniable that certain avenues of experimentation were less useful for an institution that was, ultimately, meant to be a training ground for prospective superheroes.

Superverse was different. They had their own goals, their own ethos. Their stated goal was to break the limits of superpowers for the betterment and entertainment of all mankind, and they were at the forefront of research into everything to do with the strength of powers. People wanted to watch shows involving higher powers, and Superverse was determined to provide for them. It was in their best interests to understand why some signals were stronger than others.

If there was anywhere in the world that could give me the answers I was looking for, it was here.

Dr Klein led our group through the labs, winding our way around a maze of machines. Half a dozen more scientists had joined our retinue, decked out in the same scrubs and lab coat getup as Dr Klein. They’d been enthusiastic to work with Ashika, and had noticeably dimmed when it became clear she wasn’t going to take her tests until she was satisfied they’d completed mine.

It wasn’t as if they were rude. Far from it. I’d just grown attuned to that bafflement people showed when they discovered I was sixteen years old and hadn’t manifested a power yet.

“I’ve never heard of anything like it,” said an owlish scientist with an ocular powersign that made it look like her irises were a kaleidoscope. She flicked her fingers over a tablet, sorting through my test records. Her signal had been buzzing away ever since she’d attached herself to our group. “Late bloomers are one thing, but you have a signal. It’s just…”

I took mercy on her, seeing that she didn’t want to upset me. “My signal’s singularly weak, yeah. It’s fine. You can say it. I’m here to find out what’s up with that, after all.”

“Yes,” the woman said, frowning. She blinked, and the kaleidoscope in her eyes rotated. “I’ve never seen a reading this low. I always thought the LRM was a misallocation of resources, but if it’s helped just one person, I suppose it was worth every penny.”

I smiled at that. “I always wondered what that thing even got built for, back then.”

“It was to test if animals give off signals, I believe.”

“And did they?”

“Not a single one.”

“Pity,” I said, imagining a world of animal sidekicks. Or mascots. The Olympians would’ve surely had a Pegasus by now, either way, and they’d be the envy of every horse girl on planet Earth.

Dr Klien led us to a larger machine at the centre of the room. A series of metal loops large enough to drive a car through were suspended in the air around a long tube with a series of cables sticking out of one end. The other end pointed at a reclining chair a group of techs were setting up.

The scientists spread out to inspect various parts of the machine, and I went to stand by Dr Klein. “What’s this one for?” I asked, excitement and apprehension going to war within me. It was hard not to get ahead of myself, looking around at this insane array of technology. They made me feel like the answers to all my questions were surely within my grasp. But if I didn’t get what I wanted here, where else could I go?

“Well, we’re going to take a basic reading of your signal to start off with,” Dr Klein said. “This is just a highly specialised rank tester, you could say.”

“It looks nothing like any rank tester I’ve seen before,” I said.

“It’s super accurate,” Ashika said from my other side, looking and sounding bored. She’d fallen still for a moment, and her signal had quieted. She and I had changed into blank white hospital gowns, and she looked far more at ease in it than I felt. It wasn’t warm in here. “The readings it gives out always have tons of numbers after the decimal point. They use it to measure signals from different parts of your body. Not sure what they really get out of it.”

“In your case, Miss Sharma, it’s important we get as accurate a measurement as possible so our predictive algorithms can give the best possible results. Speaking of which, have you been recording your power uses since your last visit?”

Ashika waved a hand without looking at him. “Ask me questions after you’re done with Emmett.”

Dr Klein chuckled to himself. “Your wish is my command.” He turned his attention to me, and his signal thrummed like a bass instrument. “Did you end up participating in the Aegis exams as you’d intended?”

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“I did, yeah, ” I said. It was so fucking unfair that my stomache had to drop every time someone mentioned AA now. My dream wasn't supposed to make me feel this way.

“How was it?”

I drew in a deep breath through my teeth. “Better than I hoped in some ways, worse in others. I think I’ll end up getting accepted.”

Dr Klein blinked at that, then smiled. “Good for you, young man. Good for you.”

Evidently, he hadn’t expected me to succeed. There was a time when someone underestimating me like that would’ve put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. In recent times, their pessimism broke against me like waves on the rocks.

There was a buzz of static, and the machine came to a life with a deep, bassy hum. The very air seemed to vibrate as the metal rings circling the machine started to slowly turn in place. Red lasers lit up on the inner face of the rings, and they beamed down onto the metal rod, turning it red. I tried to recall, briefly, how bright a laser had to be for its entire beam to be visible to the naked eye without any fog.

“Here we are,” Dr Klein said, beckoning me forward with a smile.

He led me to the reclining chair, where the techs started strapping me in. They pointed me to a screen standing by the chair’s side, and warned me to stay as still as I could until it had finished counting down.

“A minute or so of boredom and then we’ll have you moving on to the next test,” Dr Klein said. He inspected the machine for a moment, his eyes darting over the rings as his signal resonated. Then he nodded to himself, satisfied. “I admit, I’m a little excited for the little challenge Miss Sharma has posed to me today. I spend so much time working at the top end of the scale; this will be a novel experience.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so said nothing until he strode off to bother Ashika some more. She ignored him, giving me a thumbs up, which I returned hesitantly.

The chair rotated beneath me, putting me face to face with the end of the giant rod. From my perspective, it looked like a grey circle surrounded by red lasers. In a brief moment of irrationality, I feared it was going to take the power of the smaller lasers and fire a concentrated beam at me, vaporising my entire body in an instant and reducing me to a tragic footnote in Ashika’s superhero origin story.

Then the machine whirred to life, and I forgot all about that bit of nonsense.

Humanity had never been able to reproduce the signal given off by power use. Its effects could be measured, recorded, studied, with highly specialised and expensive equipment, but the ability to create a signal was far beyond our ken.

So the whine blaring in the sense usually reserved for power signals took me by surprise. I often mentally related signals to sounds, but this one had no appropriate word. It hit me like a physical force, striking something deep inside me that I hadn’t even known was there. My brain felt like it had flipped upside down. My vision blurred.

And then it was gone as abruptly as it appeared.

I blinked the white spots out of my eyes, and found Dr Klein leaning over me. He was smiling, clearly unaware of what had just happened. “It’s unusual to see someone take ‘stay still’ so seriously. There’s some leeway programmed into the machines to account for subjects fidgeting around, for future reference. You looked like you were going to burst a blood vessel.”

I stared at him for a moment. “That machine…” My tongue felt sluggish, and my thoughts were crawling through jell-o. “Has anyone ever felt a power signal from it before?”

Dr Klein’s smile slowly died. His eyes searched my face, but I couldn’t guess what he was looking for. His own signal hummed online. “No. It doesn’t produce one, Mister Shaw. Nothing in here does. Surely you know such a thing is not possible with our current capabilities?”

“What does it do, then? I could feel something, Dr Klein, and it was a hell of a lot like a power signal.”

“It produces a localised high-density psionic field that’s merely supposed to interact with power signals in order to measure their strength with utmost precision. You could truly feel it?”

I nodded.

“That,” Dr Klein said with a flash of interest in his eyes, “is a level of sensitivity to signals I have never encountered. To feel something that isn’t even a signal itself, just a psionic field designed to interact with them…”

“This is the first time I’ve felt anything like that. My experiences with power testing machines before now have been completely normal.”

Dr Klein leaned closer. “Can you describe what you usually feel from people, and what you felt today?”

“I liken it to sound in a lot of cases because that’s how people online commonly do it,” I tried to explain, “but it doesn’t always fit. Sometimes it might be better to describe it as feeling them. They’re… They resonate, you know? But not in a sound way? Maybe vibrate is a better word.”

I cringed a little. There was so little information out there about signal sensing, and for the most part my experiences with them were the same as other people’s. It was in the edge cases that I diverged, apparently. “And there’s an emotional aspect to it, I guess? It's uncomfortable. Like I can feel someone looking in my direction. Sorry, I’m not really explaining myself well.”

“Don’t worry,” Dr Klein said, waving off my apology. “This is the most interesting thing I’ve seen all week. And the PFG?”

I looked back at the machine. The lasers had powered down, and it had reset so the rod was back in its previous horizontal position. Like this, it was just a hunk of expensive metal with electricity running through it.

If it could produce something that registered to me as a signal, then what were signals? What was I feeling, when a power was active?

“This isn’t going to be very scientific,” I said, “but it felt like it was vibrating my soul.”

“Interesting,” Dr Klein said. “Would you be willing to take some more tests?”

I looked at him. “That’s literally what I’m here for.”