Finding myself under the full attention of some of the world’s leading scientists in the field of superpower study was a surreal and unnerving experience. I was so used to dealing with lab techs looking at me with barely concealed pity—the best I’d ever been able to hope for was a spark of novelty in their eyes. Being a source of fascination was a new experience.
Once Dr Klein spread word of my odd encounter with the PFG, the scientists who’d accompanied us before were suddenly a lot more intrigued by the question of my power’s rank. Theories were thrown around, ranging from fairly logical to utterly outlandish. They scientists debated at light speed, jumping between obscure topics and casually dropping scientific terminology even I didn’t know.
And that was a novel experience, let me tell you. I’d been under the impression I was up to date on everything there was to know about superpower research. Apparently not.
They soon started shuffling me between other intimidating machines of various sizes, asking a litany of questions I barely kept up with along the way. They wanted to know every little detail about what signals felt like to me, when it had started, how it had developed over time, and more.
I answered as best I could, describing the soul-deep resonance I experienced when powers were used in my vicinity. I could see by the disappointment in their eyes that it wasn’t really anything new to them; sensing power signals showed up occasionally in younger people who hadn’t come into their own powers yet, and there was little variation in how it felt.
Admittedly, mine was more fine tuned than most simply because of how long I’d had it. But that just meant I was feeling functionally the same thing as other people but significantly more keenly. To go back to auditory metaphors, it was like most signal sensors heard a power humming, and I heard shouting.
Except sound metaphors didn’t really cover it. But it wasn’t like you could explain an extra sense to someone without delving into things they were familiar with.
A bit of intrigue returned when I explained when I’d started sensing signals: it was far less common for power signals to just abruptly show up a little while after one’s thirteenth birthday. Usually it was a steady build up, starting off with a vague impression that there was something more in the world, and getting stronger until it was hard to ignore. For me, one day it was just there.
But, again, that wasn’t unheard of, just a little unusual. Nothing for the eggheads to get really excited about, though a few made note of it.
Its development was probably the moment when they were most visibly let down—one guy even slumped his shoulders and sighed before a look from Dr Klein sent him scarpering.
I’d done my best to try and improve my signal sense, but it wasn’t something I could really do anything with. It was passive. A sense. Always on. Just… there. I could no better train my signal to be stronger than I could train my eyesight to be clearer with sheer determination. I had managed to train a bit of practical utility into it; I was kinda sorta able to gauge how strong someone’s power was at this point, and there were times when I could tell which direction a power use was in relation to my position if I concentrated really hard.
Not particularly impressive stuff.
However, the scientists did go a bit crazy when I explained what the PFG felt like, and they never stopped reacting with excitement no matter how many times I reexplained it to any new scientists who joined our ever-growing group. It was something none of them had ever seen before.
Their enthusiasm was through the roof by the time I was on my fifth power test. Each machine so far had yielded a similar story; they were all designed to resonate with power signals in different ways in order to yield different data points, and each one blasted me with a different flavour of signal.
After some tests where the scientists had me feel some of their own signals before hopping in front of a machine, I could tell there was a difference, broadly speaking, between them. Power signals, I felt, were more… refined. Precise. There was a subtle design to their resonance, little patterns I could pick out.
The machines were blunt instruments, no matter how precise they were supposed to be. Like they were hitting a mystery object with a hammer to see what kind of dent it made in their metal.
Each one was more than a little uncomfortable. A spherical thing that made me feel like my teeth were going to shatter from its high-pitched signal; an enclosed chamber that compressed my soul; a handheld wand that tickled my existence as a lab tech waved it over my body; a spinning cube that I was asked to stand near while it spun, and its weird, warbling signal made me feel like I was spinning too.
I endured it all, getting little enjoyment out of it myself but unable to voice any complaints when so many of the scientists seemed infected with curious energy. It was making me tired in a way I didn’t know I’d been capable of, making me sore in a muscle I didn’t know I had. That anyone had.
When I pointed that out, the scientists pounced on it with a spray of more rapid-fire questions. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really explain it. I was still sensing signals, no different to usual. It just felt more straining. Like I’d run 5k and was faced with 5k more. There were puzzled looks all around at that answer.
Before we could move on to my sixth test—a ring of light attached to the ceiling that would lower down on thick metal cables and scan me head to toe with a psionic field—Dr Klein abruptly stopped and frowned at his tablet. He adjusted his glasses as he flicked through whatever he was reading, his signal buzzing.
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When he lowered his tablet without commenting on it, though, I felt compelled to ask, “What’s up, Dr Klein?”
He levelled a heavy gaze on me, his eyes thoughtful. “I’d like to get through a few more tests before I say anything, if you think you’re up to it,” he said. “I want to confirm this as best I can.”
We went through a few more tests, and the atmosphere of the group started to change a bit as Dr Klein conferred quietly with a few of the scientists. Plenty of them were still brimming with enthusiasm, but the ones he talked to gained an air of utter bafflement, staring at me like I was an exhibit at a freakshow to be gawked at rather than a curious specimen to be studied.
Suddenly they were paying a lot more attention to the calibration of the machines, spending longer on setup and making sure it was all aligned and working as it intended. Techs checked each other’s work with sharp-eyed diligence. That wasn’t to say they’d been unprofessional before, far from it. It was just that Dr Klein was now personally watching over everything with his signal buzzing and his power sign in full view, and the researchers were treating the tests with a lot more gravity than they had been before.
Whatever had changed Dr Klein’s attitude, it quickly spread through the others, until everyone seemed more confused than intrigued. I was even starting to detect a hint of alarm, and that had me worried enough that I kept my questions to myself, dreading whatever it was that had them all so abruptly out of sorts.
Ideas ran through my mind. Maybe they’d discovered I had literally no signal at all now, and that was why I was feeling every other signal so clearly. Or perhaps my signal was some weird alternate thing that messed with the machines they used to measure signals, and that was why my rank had always been so low. I even considered the possibility, with no small amount of sourceless forced optimism, that my rank had skyrocketed since I last took a test and they were all in shock at meeting a teenage S-rank.
In the end, my first guess turned out to be closest to the mark.
Dr Klein approached me when I was done with my tenth test, and instead of saying anything, he merely turned his tablet around so I could see the results he’d been frowning over. I blinked at the number on the screen a few times, then looked up at the Doctor to make sure this wasn’t some kind of prank.
Since the superpower research community was always changing and refining the parameters as they gathered data from around the world, and it was rare for someone to bother getting a precise reading, the numbers of the Shimada Scale weren’t really a thing people paid a lot of attention to. Aside from researchers, amateur or professional, most people kept it simple with lettered ranks and single-digit levels. Many people claimed, after all, that there was no test that could give you a better idea of when you’d be ready for your next revelation than your own feeling of your power. Rank was a similar story; putting a large number to it wasn’t worth the potential confusion, for the most part.
Naturally, I kept up with the latest research, and thus knew that the Shimada Scale was, as of the Monday just gone:
F: 1X - 50X
E: 51X - 250X
D: 251X - 500X
C: 501X - 2000X
B: 2001X - 5000X
A: 5001X - 10000X
S: 10000X+
(X for X-factor, ostensibly because a higher score made someone special, but they didn't know why it happened. Really, they hadn't wanted to use S or SS in case of confusion with the rank letters, and Dr Shimada thought 'X' looked cool. Or so my dad said, once.)
There were ten numbers highlighted amongst a bunch of other data I couldn’t hope to parse. All of them were lower than one, something almost unheard of. Almost. I wasn’t the only person to ever get a score lower than one.
I was definitely the only person to get a score lower than 0.1, low enough that they hadn’t been able to tell I even had a signal until they used experimental equipment to measure it. In that first experimental test, the scientists had been truly mystified to see a score of 0.08.
Just like now, when the scientists were all evidently gobsmacked at the fact none of the readings taken from me today had been higher than 0.05.
As far as I was aware, I now had the dubious honour of being the only human being whose power had fucking weakened since records began.
A breath left me like I’d just been punched in the stomach. I could feel my heartbeat in my head. My vision fuzzed a little.
I tried to give Dr Kein a reassuring smile, but judging by his slight wince of sympathy I didn’t quite manage to make it believable. A hush had descended on the scientists, all watching proceedings while Ashika lingered off to the side awkwardly. Evidently, she’d overheard the news already.
“Well,” I said, looking around. My voice sounded hoarse. “Any ideas?”
Dr Klein looked at me for a long moment. “I’m sure you know, Mr Shaw, this is unprecedented.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“This goes against everything we know about powers. Yours is, I’m afraid to say, a singularly unique situation.” He paused. “I’m ashamed to say I don’t even know how to begin trying to figure out why this is happening.”
“That’s—”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up,” Dr Klein said. His grimace deepened. “I have to be honest with you, however: the company probably won’t be very interested in your situation. Certainly not enough to fund extensive research, much as we boffins here certainly want to sink our teeth into you with all the financial backing of a massive corporation. I suspect we’d have to design, prototype, and test entirely new and expensive equipment to get to the bottom of this, and much of it may end up only being useful in this single case. And unfortunately there’s a limit to how much they’ll indulge Ms Reddy.”
“You’re not poking at me until you figure out what’s going on with Emmett,” Ashika said, frowning.
Dr Klein raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I just told you I’m not going to give up. At the moment I’m speculating from my knowledge and experience. My gut tells me Superverse won’t be interested, but I’m still going to try my damndest to convince them. That won’t be an immediate thing, however. Big corporations move slowly, at times.“ He gave Ashika a helpless look, then turned back to me. “The most important thing is that you don’t give up either, Mr Shaw. Towards that end, I have some… suggestions for you.”
“What kind of suggestions?” I asked.
With a grin, Dr Klein explained.