“Both of you have above-average IQs, so I am not going to stand here and lecture you. You are welcome to consider this class a study hall, but playing it like a traditional class would waste both your time and mine. You have a lot of reading, though, and a full class schedule, which is why it’s scheduled in three-hour blocks.”
The teacher was a normie, although I knew better than to use the term around, well, normies. It was considered kind of offensive, although in my opinion just about any term used to describe a group of people was, sooner or later, deemed offensive. As if changing the language would make a difference. I think the current socially approved term was non-alpha, but that would probably change eventually too as the council of the eternally butthurt decided on something new to pitch a fit over.
I’d gotten a surprisingly good night’s sleep and a delicious breakfast from the school mess. It was quite a bit more crowded in the mornings, so I figured Mindy’s guess about where the students were the night before seemed pretty accurate. A few people had been interested in me, but a stern glare had kept them mostly away until Mindy had shown up. I wasn’t making any friends, but I wasn’t here to make friends, and I was more than capable of ignoring the occasional ‘What the fuck is HIS problem?’ I caught.
“To be honest, I don’t even care if you show up except on Fridays for the next four weeks. That’s when I throw a test to make sure you have read what I assigned you. I usually teach early American History, So I plan to use this time as a way to catch up on my work. I’ll be here even if you aren’t, so if you have questions about what you have read, or about American History, I will be happy to help you. I get paid to be here, you don’t, so use it as you will.”
Doctor Menendez was a young guy, maybe in his thirties, so I guess that meant he wasn’t like… tenured or something. I didn’t really know how academies or universities worked, and I also didn’t really care.
“The only real rules I have are that when you are here, you treat this like a public space even though there’s only the two of you. That means no eating, sleeping, or other acts that are best held in private… I don’t want to watch that. If you are Alphas, and no, I don’t need to know, try to avoid using any powers in this class, at least spectacular ones. I don’t care if you can use your abilities to sharpen your pencils or memorize the dictionary, I just don’t want superpowers flying around my head, or you burning down the classroom.”
“Do we need to raise our hands?”
He shook his head. “Nope. And you are perfectly welcome to talk about whatever you think you need to. Just don’t try and talk over top of me if we decide I need to go into full-on teacher mode for something. Also, keep quiet during quizzes. This class is remedial, but it DOES help determine class placement when the regular semester starts. If you screw up the reading, you’ll be dumped into remedial Alpha history, and that class DOES get graded, and it’s boring and time-consuming. They will figure you need the lecture time to learn. Some folks do.”
The books and websites he gave us to read were not exactly basic, but they were not too bad, written from the standpoint of both alphas and normies. They didn’t delve into powers but rather addressed the social and strategic effects of alphas before and after the Kaiju started becoming a real problem.
The BSA was created to be the organization that coordinated those who stood on the line between the monsters and humanity. It still filled that job, but its scope had expanded to be the line between normies and supers as well. It wasn’t a BAD organization, and it was funded from the resources recovered from groups like monster hunters and sales to the private sector of both resources and their technology patents.
They were also the go-between for humanity and defense systems, like Kaiju guns (which seldom worked) and advanced peacekeeper weapons and armor (which usually worked).
Their third role was peacekeeper forces and direct intercession for non-kaiju threats, like true supervillains and dimensional invasions. They were the direct support for the academy, wall bounties, and both state and federal teams, but they also ran a small army of ‘emergency enforcers’ who were pure humans specially trained and equipped with the best of the best equipment for dealing with superhuman threats and assisting the super teams.
Good in concept, but the tinfoil hatters were convinced, for good reasons, that the emergency enforcers were black-ops teams. Too many of their lower-profile operations resulted in unexplained disappearances, silent witnesses, and ‘shot trying to escape’ cases. I understood it, but I firmly supported the fact that alphas should go after alphas because when humans were faced with people who could turn them into mulch with a blink, they tended to turn ‘capture’ into ‘lethal force’ simply out of fear.
It was like that experiment back before most cops were outfitted with powerful nonlethal as well as lethal weapons. Small, feminine women started joining the various police forces, and many of them, because their threshold for feeling threatened was far lower than the big bruiser males, gained a suspect-kill ratio in the double digits.
It wasn’t because they were evil, it was because they weren’t as intimidating, and situations where intimidation and physical force could have ended them fairly peacefully turned into gunfights as the women were forced to protect themselves with lethal force.
That wasn’t the case so much anymore, there were lots of effective female police officers now, but suspects knew that no matter how aggressive they were, 50 kilovolts at 19 milliamps would turn them into a flopping fish. It changed the face of low enforcement among normies.
But supercops? If the only thing between you and instant death is a thin layer of armor and a recursive plasma cannon, that cannon becomes a much more attractive option. The Emergency Enforcers, of course, had access to a huge variety of nonlethal alternatives, but most of them were not guaranteed to work on most alphas. It was hard enough finding LETHAL weapons that worked in a lot of cases.
That and a ton of case studies were embraced in the websites, and to be honest, despite my initial trepidation, the concepts were fascinating… I had no intention of becoming a superhero, but if I was able to process energy like a normal alpha, my huge variety of potential special effects up to and including complete molecular lockdown would make me a shoo-in for a team anchor, and when the time came to leave the class, I was hooked on the subject matter.
“Doctor?” I asked as we unplugged and folded our new school-issue tablets. I wouldn’t hit Vilnet with it, that was for certain… heck, I wouldn’t even do it from the school’s network. If I needed it, I’d head off-campus to find a solid hard link.
“Yes, Mister Doyle?
“I’ve been running through the justice center’s files on takedowns of certain medium-profile reprobates. Is there a better source of details? I am hoping to get into team support and logistics, and a better idea of the strengths and vulnerabilities of certain classes of Alpha would be pretty useful, but most of the records just talk about who and where… the how is mostly useless quotes. Who helps, a lot, but as you know most of the actives keep their take-down abilities secret, not that I can blame them.”
He nodded, “That’s the biggest reason right there. Unless a takedown happens in front of a digicam, it’s usually kept quiet by both the BSA and the individuals involved. I hate to have to say wait and see, but until you are in a better place, your security rating is going to be too low to get into the real meat of a lot of the encounters. However, the Monster Hunter records are kept a lot looser, would that help? I like where your head is at.”
He gave me a few more sites, one of which required a visitor password that he was happy to provide, and I decided that this particular remedial class was worth my time.
After lunch was physical fitness, the non-costumed kind. Easy breezy, even though in this case, it wasn’t exactly remedial since I was in pretty good shape. Technically I was auditing the course, but it was a full class, and after the coach/teacher checked to make sure I knew what I was doing, I found a ‘spotting partner’ who was a big guy named George, he left me alone.
George considered himself an unsophisticated farm boy, and he even had a hint of an accent from the Texan unity, which only disappeared when he was stressed. He repeated the whole ‘I’m just an unsophisticated farm boy’ thing pretty much every time anyone pressed him, although he did ask me if I was going to try out for the ‘a-plus football program’ when I pushed a bit more iron than was normal for my size, which was already a lot.
“Can’t do it, I’d get disqualified.”
“You an alpha? He asked bluntly.
I nodded, “Class two. Just enough to make sure that I can never participate in any sports.”
“Wahl,” he drawled slowly, “Thar’s rules and then thar’s rules. A bit of physical enhancement's usually just noted and ignored. Have you seen some of those monsters that play running backs? Alpha or not, they could squash both of us into a ball.”
I severely doubted that, but I just nodded, “Mine is an automatic disqualification. Microkinesis.”
“What’s that?”
I sighed, “A very weak form of telekinesis, like a nudge. It’s not good for more than just pushing dust around, but it’s strong enough to foil a pass or an interception. Some wide receiver gets butterfingers while I am nearby, I can guarantee I know where all the fingers are going to get pointed, even if he just fucks up.”
“Dude, that sucks. I’d hate to have to work under those kinds of restrictions, and if it had just been a bit of enhancement, I can guarantee that the coach would be looking at you. Is that true for other sports too?”
I thought about it a little, “Most of them, although I might try for wrestling or kendo as long as they don’t try to put me in the ring with might-based class threes. That sort of stuff is WAY out of my reach.”
“Can you play basketball?”
I grinned as I started cleaning up the weights. Between the two of us, we were attracting a LOT of female attention in our gym clothes, and while I tried to dodge it, George just seemed to soak it up, which I was fine with. “That depends. Do you think I will cheat?”
He laughed, “I don’t care. This class is a gimme for the team, an easy pass to bring up our GPA. I just gotta stay busy for three hours, and the weight equipment for basics is Nautilus trash. I do my own sets in the morning before I even get here.”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Ironically, it was NOT that easy to cheat with a nudge. My range was too short to affect anything I didn’t have my hands on, and it would be a huge waste of energy, but I had to build my brand as that ‘weak-ass alpha’ to counteract any unearned popularity, and I did a great job by sucking completely at basketball.
I didn’t even have to fake it, since while I could run around the court all day and steal with ease, I’d never really played that much and could reliably miss the rim with every shot, especially when I tried to hit it. Still, some of the guys were looking forward to playing with me again, since after I realized I was NEVER going to be mister basketball, I was pretty good at the passing game.
The best part was that the hot shots who could sink the ball from half-court were fawned over. The power forward, whatever that was, who made sure that every rebound was snatched and passed off to someone who could actually shoot wasn’t much of a celebrity. Heck, the only reason I even tried shooting occasionally was because otherwise the defenders would stay a few feet back and try and block passes instead of staying close where I could get around them.
“Well, on the plus side, at least no one will ever accuse you of cheating if you play basketball. Great hands, but you shoot like my sister,” George said as we headed to the locker room afterward.
I nodded. I think I could have found a way to use my abilities to increase my rebounds and tip a few shots, but it would have been a huge waste of energy. I was guessing George had assigned himself as my designated mentor, and I could do a lot worse… at least no one had assigned themselves as my nemesis, although that didn’t happen as much to big, athletic guys. Be pleasant but not too friendly, and people leave you alone. I’d probably make a great wingman, which might have been George’s goal.
George Pendergast was affable enough, and I needed to start building a new contact network. Considering that the “unsophisticated farm boy’s” family ran one of the largest agricultural conglomerates in the Middle States, acting friendly was probably a good start.
***
The morning class on day two was… unusual. Because of the number of alphas and their training, the school had adopted an almost Maxwell Smart approach to keeping their ‘uniformed selves’ separated from their student identities.
First, you were expected to go in uniform. I didn’t have a ‘uniform’ for Blueprint, so I simply wore a light blue World Gym tank top and gi pants I used to train in, with my lifting trainers. A black domino with a holographic feature alteration to make me look like I had lower cheekbones was more than enough of a disguise.
Second, the rooms had a secondary transit elevator in each closet, which would deposit us into a subsurface assembly room with a private code to return us to our rooms. It wasn’t great identity protection, but most alpha students were expected to change their super-handle when they joined a team to protect either their identity or to suit a theme. I mean, come on, can you imagine Mindy calling herself ‘Glacier Girl’ into her forties? I certainly couldn’t.
I would probably hang onto Blueprint for as long as possible, simply because ‘Paradox’ was taken. Trademarks were very real, which was why I was glad I was able to grab ‘Blueprint’ as a legal ID. My supervillain personas, though, were not registered because, you know, supervillains. They were not often sticklers for trademark law.
And teams like the Olympians, of course, wanted their teammates to use a handle based on Greco/Roman mythology. THOSE trademarks were often registered property of the team itself, sort of like in professional wrestling. As I recall, there’s been at least three Vulcans, and only one of them was a widgeteer.
Once the small, well-lit transport cab brought me to the underground hub, Glacier Girl was already waiting for me, only instead of the revealing outfit she’d fought me in, she was dressed in a well-supporting sports leotard and tee combination in blue, surprisingly close to the color of my gi.
She had a mask similar to mine, but only idiots wouldn’t recognize each other. I just hope she didn’t recognize Diabolus, except he’d been wearing a full helmet with voice modification and much heavier military-surplus armor. Same height, but that was about it.
“Nice look, GG,” I said.
She shook her head, “I am burying that until I graduate. Right now I am registered as Frostweaver instead, to get a little distance. It’s funny that we match, though.”
I smiled, “Not a bad handle at all. I'm just Blueprint, but I don’t have a real uniform, so I just dug this out of my gear for right now. Once I graduate, I figured my uniform would be whatever the team chooses, or nothing at all.”
She giggled, giving me the up-and-down. “Can I vote for nothing at all? You look amazing.”
I gulped, “Uhh… you look good too, but I meant just civvies or whatever I need to wear to support a team.”
She laughed, “I know what you meant, I was just… I mean, I knew you were well-built, but damn.” she held out her hand towards my shoulder, “Can I touch?”
I growled a little and then said “Fine,” tilting my head a little as she ran her fingers down the muscles of my arm. I didn’t like it, it was a little too flirty for my tastes, but if we were going to train together, physical contact was absolutely going to be necessary, so she might as well get it out of her system now. Maybe I should have picked a sweatshirt, but have you ever tried lifting in a sweatshirt? I had no idea what this ‘Eastern Studies’ was supposed to be, but since it was in uniform, it was a good assumption that it wasn’t just Chinese history.
“Your muscles are incredibly hard.” she said curiously, “I thought you were a widgeteer or something. Physical strengthening?”
I nodded, “Materials specialist. But an enhanced physique seems to come with the package. Most people with any kind of healing gifts have pretty good bodies because they can just think of themselves as improved, just like kinetics. It’s not like a mass manipulator or internal elemental, I mean, I am not bulletproof, but I do intend to be the best I can be.”
“So you just… thought yourself into looking like that?” she asked skeptically, brushing my bicep again.
I shook my head, “No, I broke my ass on the weights for years, and trained in Sambo, boxing, Lethwei, and wrestling. When I was a teenager I dreamed of being a superhero, and then my dad died, my lucky superpower turned out to be a dud, and I went broke.”
She sighed, “I am sorry about your father. My father was… He disappeared when my sister and I were babies, so I don’t know much about him. But uh… I got a pretty good Alpha gift, so I have been focusing on training that. Still, they graded you as a rank six, I doubt very much your power is a dud, even if it’s support.”
I chuckled, “I still don’t understand why. I mean, yeah, it has a lot of potential, and I have been trying to train and expand it for two years. Mostly I think it’s because it has a healing component that is…” I tried to think of a good term to explain it.
“Weak but Consistent?”
I nodded, “Right. Utterly consistent in its applicability. If the injury is small enough, I can heal it no matter what it is. Poison, radiation, burns, severed, whatever. That’s why my body is enhanced, because I can fix any workout damage instantly, including temporary improvements, and I keep the strength and durability without having to deal with the scarring or loss of flexibility.”
“That, and I can make widgets work.”
“What?”
I smiled a little and decided to offer a hint of trust. “If a widget is small enough, within my field, I can power it even if the widgeteer has disconnected it. Not for very long, I have massive energy problems, but a few seconds is usually long enough to at least figure out what it does, or to trick it into doing what I need it to do. That’s one of the reasons I like the name Blueprint. I am not a widgeteer, but I can play one on TV.”
She laughed, “Now I know why he registered you as a tier six. That’s sick. I mean, you could use ANYTHING, even the most powerful widgeteer gear.”
I laughed, “Sure, like I said, for a few seconds.”
“Can you heal yourself?”
“Well, yeah. That’s how I learned.”
“How much? I mean, you said you can heal anything small enough to fit inside your field, or whatever. But your whole body is part of you. Can you heal yourself?”
I nodded slowly, “Yeah, but again, energy problems. Do you know what burnout is?”
She nodded as we started walking towards the G wing. “That’s when you run so far out of energy that you pass out, and if you overdo it, you can kill yourself.”
I nodded, “Well, I have a very small energy pool. I won’t kill myself, but if I try something too big for me, I can run into something I call energy debt.”
“What’s that?”
“I go into the negative. I can run into the negative as deeply as my maximum energy, but when I run into the negative I feel like complete crap, all of my food and rest are just spent trying to recover, and I walk around like a zombie for days or weeks until I can get a positive balance again. It’s like a really nasty flu, and I can even get sick because it depresses everything, including my immune system.”
She looked at me shyly, “Can you tell me how you awakened? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
I ignored the innuendo, “It was stupid. I was trying to build real claws like Wolfling when I was seventeen, out of some beat-up steel knives and some of those chain-mail gloves that you use to keep from lopping off a thumb when you are cutting meat. I didn’t secure the vice well enough, and the grinder slipped, and a piece of knife went flying at my face. Of course, as a seventeen year old I never even considered something like safety goggles.”
“I tried to dodge out of the way, and my ability turned its path just enough so that it hit me in the ear instead of the eye. And then I managed to heal the ear while my dad called the ambulance, and went into massive energy debt. They kept me in the hospital for a week not because of the ear, but because my entire system was acting like it was trying to shut itself down. After I recovered, the doctor submitted a report to the assessment center about a boy who was covered in blood with no apparent injuries, and two weeks later I was a class 2 microkinetic that could barely influence a coin flip.”
She smiled a little, “That was more exciting than mine. A boy at the resort where I was working thought it would be funny to jam up a lift while I was in the maintenance bay. I almost froze to death when he took off for the night without telling anyone, because he forgot I was closing. After a while, I got comfortable again, and then I froze and broke the lock. Boom, superpowers.”
I nodded, “Boom. Still, cryokinesis is an incredibly useful power. Control, attack, defense, it’s super popular with teams.”
She nodded, “Yeah, exactly. It’s both the most common elemental and the most popular. Most teams have at least one already, which is why I felt like I had to do what I did. Although technically, it’s a bit different from normal cryokinesis.”
I nodded slowly, “Hire a PR team.”
She nodded and looked at the G annex. “Well, I thought we had the same class, but it looks like I am in room G305 and you are in G306. Catch you at lunch?”
I nodded, smiling in what I hoped was a friendly way instead of a rictus grin. “Sure thing,” I said, before turning to face my fate.