Citadel (Book 1): Training in Necessity (25 page)

He smiled back.  "You're Awesome, yeah.  I remember.  I just figured out what that actually meant.  You have some kind of idea about what you need to do to impress everyone around you, sort of like a limited precog.  Is that right?"

She nodded.  "Pretty much."

"Cool."  It wasn't as good as a full Wayne type, but straight precogs almost never joined the Citadel.

The critique resumed.  "Samantha, you performed well, for the most part.  I am pleased to see you are no longer so hesitant to engage."

She beamed, thrilled by the unaccustomed praise.

"But you did make one mistake.  You shot a bystander."

Hector looked at the syringe in his hand.  It held a single dose of the painkiller that let her sleep, sometimes. 

Her smile left as quickly as it'd come.

"You should have realized that Kelly was well outside of the effective range of your pistol.  You did much better during your challenge matches last weekend.  No stray shots, even your ricochets were under control."

"I'm sorry sir.  I know I shouldn't have tried for that shot, it's just... I saw two of my team were down and..."

"I understand.  Under almost any circumstance, your teammates come first.  Please consider though, that round could just as easily have hit Anna or Jason." Achalla told her.

"Yes sir.  I... I won't make that mistake again."

Hector saw Anna frown, wondered what was bothering her.

"Jason," Achalla shifted his attention, "your hand to hand skill is improving.  However, you are still underutilizing your ability.  Keridwyn's dragon form-"

"Oh come on!" Jenny interrupted.  "That's not fair.  He's just a low end Strong type with some regeneration.  You can't possibly blame one of the weakest fighters in our class for not stepping in front of Kerry!"

He loved his mother but he didn't want her to suffer.  Hector didn't know what to do.

Achala seemed taken aback, a rare break in his composure.  Hector appreciated that Jenny was standing up for his friend, especially after their near disaster the other day, but he had to repress a smile at the idea that she thought he hadn't acted because he was too weak.

"Jennifer, I appreciate your support but it is not necessary." Jason said in his usual, perfectly polite tone.  "I believe I know the general thrust of your criticism, Coach Achalla, and the point is well taken.  Next time, I shall be better prepared to act."

Coach didn't answer at first, just pursed his lips in thought.  "Very well.  Also, please keep in mind that you won't be able to conceal the exact nature of your abilities forever.  Be careful that you don't let others, or yourself, come to harm in the attempt."

"Yes sir." Jason answered.

Sammy and Jenny looked a little confused, but Hector could tell Anna had followed both layers of the conversation.  Not surprising, she could identify the general nature of an Empowered's abilities at a glance.

Hm, interesting point.  Why hadn't she realized Kelly had been imitating Drew on sight?  It should have been obvious to her long before the fight started.

Jenny laughed at something Sammy was saying and Hector completely lost the train of thought.

Hector still held the syringe.  If he added any more, the overdose would mean she never woke up.

Instruction Area

Billy leaned over the podium, examining the training class he'd be speaking to today.  A few of their lights were pretty bright.  The big negro-

He shook his head to break that train of thought, old habits.

One of them was even brighter than his own.

"Okay guys, this lecture's going to be a little different.  I'm sure you all saw the title: Citadel History."  He didn't try to hide his smile.  "Well, that's me.  What do you want to know?  Don't be shy.  Just shout 'em out."

There was a moment of quiet.  At least a few kids probably recognized him.  He'd found that those were usually the ones too nervous to ask anything, at first.  As for the rest, their first question was usually...

"Um, who are you?"  It was a short girl, brown hair and glasses, almost bouncing in her chair with nervous energy.  Her light was a little brighter than average... but there was something... something off about it.

Giving a mental shrug, he answered.  "My name is William R. Power.  I'm the Citadel's senior Operative, literally."

The girl's jaw slowly dropped.  "You're... you're really...?"

"Yep.  I know, I don't look much like the way you'd expect."  He was short, a little on the thin side and tended to slouch, just a bit.  "But that's me.  Anything more before we give someone else a turn?"

"Did you... uh, did you really fight Adam Selene on the Moon?" she asked.

He couldn't help laughing first, but he answered the question seriously.  "No.  As far as I know, there's no such thing as sentient supercomputers or space travel.  Though some Richards type could prove me wrong about the first part any day now."

She looked a little embarrassed.  "Sorry, it's just... there was this cartoon show when I was a kid..."

"I'll tell you a secret; I was a huge fan."  He grinned.  "I never could figure out why they drew me with all those muscles and a spit curl though."  Billy had kept his hair short since his time in the army and whatever it was that made him so strong had nothing to do with muscles.

"I know no one's managed to get a manmade object out of the atmosphere, but what about you?"

This time it was a Hispanic kid.  For a second, Billy thought he had a brother sitting next to him.  The two were practically identical.  A closer look told the real story, they shared the same light.  He must be some kind of duplicator.  That new Richards type, Bruce, probably had him keeping an extra out at all times, practicing coordination or something.  The guy came up with some weird ideas but they usually worked out pretty well.

"You're invulnerable and you can fly.  I guess you might need to carry oxygen tanks or something, but couldn't you make it into space?  Or someone else, teleporters, flyers, it just seems like there's a lot of Empowered that could do it with the right support."

"That's..."  Billy was momentarily startled.  "That's true, we should be able to.  But we can't.  I was one of the handful that tried, back in the sixties.  I know there's a version of this in the textbooks these days, but I doubt it has the whole story."  He took a second to gather his thoughts.  One of the worst parts of living as long as he had was that you got plenty of opportunity to gather bad memories.  This wasn't anywhere near the top of the list but it hadn't been pleasant.

"President Kennedy got elected in nineteen sixty and one of his earliest moves was to start the country's first space program.  Things... well, the country was in a bad way at the time.  The government thought we needed something to rally behind, and space travel was it."  He gave a sigh.  This wasn't a story he could grin through.

"The first probe, Explorer, just vanished.  No one could figure out why.  The next move was to send up a group of Empowered, me and ten others.  They called us the Apollo group.  We had these special suits, airtight, shielded, state of the art communications...  It was incredible.  We headed up and..."

No one said a word.  This wasn't the kind of story you interrupted.

"It went poorly.  Everyone blacked out at about the same height the Explorer vanished.  I came to just before impact... most of the others died when they hit the ground.  I just hope they never woke up.  No one else made it.  There've been isolated attempts, with vehicles and Empowered... but it always ends the same.  Nothing's ever made it and only the toughest even survive."

The kid's face was grave and a little pale, despite his skin's color.  "Should... should you be telling us this?"

He gave a little smile.  "Yeah.  This is like a lot of things in the Citadel.  It's not an official secret, but it's not something to spread around.  One of the things they look for in your personality profiles is discretion.  You don't end up an operative if you're in the habit of putting everything in your life up on Mybook."

"Did you really fight the Lords of Time and stop an invasion from the Mirror Universe?  Or- is that stuff like the space travel, just TV?"

It was that same girl.  She was kind of cute and the rest of the trainees were all giggling.  Apparently she was popular, but he was starting to get a little irritated.

"Yes and no.  The time travel episode was pure fiction, same as that Chrono Trek show, but the Mirror Universe was based on an actual incident.  Alternate dimensions have never been verified but there was a man whose power created evil duplicates of popular Empowered, complete with goatees.  Even the women."  He gave a chuckle.  "Intervention Prime got called in before they realized the catch.  All the duplicates were utterly incompetent.  The fight was over in a couple minutes."

"What happened to the guy?  Did you have to kill him to protect everyone else or something?" the girl asked.

"Nope.  The duplication was involuntary.  Once we had the situation under control, he was able to hold off on making new ones while we teleported him to a US embassy in England.  As soon as he set foot on British soil, the Monarch's power took hold and he wasn't a threat."  Before she could ask another question he moved on to the other half of his answer.

"As far as the time travel thing...  that's a bit of a mixed bag.  There's only ever been one case of actual time travel.  It's a little ugly but..."  He looked over the expectant faces and went on.  "A child by the name of James Ray was murdered in nineteen thirty two.  Witnesses said his killer vanished in a flash of strange blue light."

"That's time travel?" the girl interrupted.

"Well, he left the murder weapon behind, complete with fingerprints.  At the time, it just went down as a random Empowered event, but..." He gave her a serious look.  "The full details on this are classified, but I think this much is safe to tell you.  Those same fingerprints were later found to belong to an individual born in nineteen fifty seven.  He's under observation but has yet to demonstrate any abilities.  We think that the killer was a version of him from a timeline that no longer exists."

"Whoa." she said.  "That's pretty awesome."

He shrugged.  "I like the more common examples better."

"What-" she started, but he cut her off.

"Healers.  The vast majority of them manipulate time.  They aren't genuinely healing your bodies so much as... resetting them, I suppose."

"So why do we remember the injury then?" she asked.

He gave a shrug.  "That's one of the many things we don't understand about Empowered.  Add it to the list, along with why most of them can't reattach missing limbs or 'heal' the dead.  There's no reason the same process shouldn't work there."  He paused a moment, deciding whether he should elaborate.

"Powers... well, they can be pretty strange."  He let the laughter die down before going on.  "Pretty much anything you say about them comes with an asterisk, but there's a few general rules.  Healers can't do much for an injury after it's been there for an hour or so.  No defense, or offense, is invincible.  There's always something that can shut it down."

"Even yours?  You're the strongest guy in the Citadel, everyone knows that."  Another girl, this one with red hair and a boy's haircut.  Her light wasn't as bright as the black man's, but it was enough to let him know she was near the top of the scale.

"Even me." he said, giving her a serious nod.  "Let's just say... my reputation is exaggerated.  Who're the strongest ones in your class?  Just flat out strength, I mean."

The class split, some looking to the redhead and others to the- to the big guy.

Billy gave him a nod, "What do you do?"

He stirred before answering, "Forcefield.  It protects me and enhances my strength."  Billy had to make an effort not to think of his tone as uppity.

"And you?" he asked the girl.

"I turn into a dragon."  Her grin was downright predatory.

"Nice."  He gave an appreciative whistle.  "Now, care to guess what I do?"  He fought to keep his grin from turning into a smirk.

She looked a little puzzled.  "You're just a flying Strong type, aren't you?  I mean, the strongest... but-"

"Nope.  Technically, I'm a Parker type."

She looked more than just a little puzzled now.

"That means I have a bunch of different powers that add up to make me way more effective than I should be.  Pretty much a living version of 'the whole is more than the sum of its parts.'" Billy said.  "I've got strength, toughness, flight, regeneration and a touch of Null and Perception type abilities."

"Wow." she said softly.  He could see similar reactions throughout the crowd.

"What that means is that I can use the flight to brace myself and hit harder.  Between the toughness and nullification, I'm damned hard to hurt.  The regeneration is actually my most intense power.  Even if something gets through the rest, I can recover fast enough to get back in the fight."  He didn't like bragging, but the kids needed to know what the top of the ladder looked like.  "But there's still a few folks that could swat me the same as anyone.  I can't fly in British skies and if I tried to shake Winter's hand I'd end up as dead as anyone else."