DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  1400 Defense Pentagon

  Washington, D.C. 20301-1400

  OFFICIAL NOTICE OF CONSCRIPTION

  Document ID: DOD-NSA-2020-0415-TA

  Date: April 15, 2020

  To: Thomas Ross

  Address: 1245 Beacon Street, Apt. 4B,

  Los Angeles, CA 90015

  Status: STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

  Dear Mr. Ross,

  This notice informs you that monitoring systems of the United States Department of Defense have recorded the manifestation of anomalous abilities in your person, hereafter referred to as "Awakening", cssified under National Security Directive No. 44-B. This event was registered on April 15, 2020 at 16:43 local time.

  In accordance with the Extraordinary Ability Registration Act and Title 10 of the United States Code, from the moment the Awakening is registered you are transferred to the category of special military reserve. Your civil legal capacity becomes limited by obligations to the state in matters concerning national defense.

  Your obligations:

  You are required to report to the Washington State Induction Center for a medical examination, threat level assessment, and military registration.

  Special conditions:

  Taking into account your status as the sole provider of your household, under the Household Protection Amendment you are granted a deferment period of 90 (ninety) calendar days to settle personal and financial matters. The deferment period expires on July 14, 2020.

  Liability warning:

  Failure to appear by the assigned deadline, attempts to conceal the level of your abilities, or crossing state borders without written authorization from a military commandant will be treated as desertion during a state of emergency. This offense carries criminal liability in the form of imprisonment in a specialized maximum security facility for a term from 10 years to life.

  Any malicious use of your abilities prior to registration will be considered an act of aggression against the United States.

  Service for the good of the nation.

  Signature,

  Major General Arthur P. Crowley

  Department of Extraordinary Resource Registration (DERR)

  United States Department of Defense

  The light from the monitor seemed painfully bright in the dim room, pulling from the darkness only the edge of the desk and a cold cup of coffee. I reread the message for the fifth time. Official government domain, digital signature with the national seal, forgery was impossible.

  Three hours ago I discovered I had abilities. Only three hours. I had not even managed to understand what exactly had changed in my body, yet the machinery of the state had already turned its gears, identified me, and spat out an electronic draft notice.

  It makes me shiver how fast they move when their interests are involved. I gave a bitter smirk, remembering my endless attempts to reach the tax office about work issues. "Your call is very important to us, all operators are busy, please try again next week..." Back then I was just an ordinary citizen, now I have become a resource. Dangerous, valuable, and subject to registration.

  I never thought this crap would hit me personally.

  For forty years the pnet has lived to the rhythm of portals opening and closing. During that time the world accumuted myths, conspiracy theories, and hundreds of forums. Who are they? Where do they come from? Ordinary mortals like me know only what we are allowed to know. On the forums where I used to hang out in my youth people still build theories: alien intelligence, a demonic dimension, or parallel worlds. The truth remains securely locked inside the safes of the Pentagon.

  I used to burn with curiosity about those mysteries too. Life quickly rearranges priorities. When your transmission is failing and the bank reminds you about a te loan payment, the riddles of distant space fade before the reality of daily existence. Everyday problems have an amazing property. They bring you down to earth more effectively than any gravitational anomaly field.

  Only one thing is known for certain: since the day of the First Portal the world has changed on a genetic level. Among teenagers from twelve to sixteen years old the Awakened began to appear. In movies they are rebels tortured in secret boratories until they start a revolution. Reality is far more mundane and cynical. The state practically showers those living nuclear bombs with benefits ordinary people cannot even dream about. For the masses they are rock stars, the elite, a new pantheon of gods.

  I wanted to be one of them too. As a child I spent hours drawing my future costume, inventing a grandiose name, and believing that any moment I would leave the dull walls of school to go save humanity. But twelve years passed. Thirteen. Sixteen. The hope faded but never vanished completely, because there was always that tiny, ghostlike one percent chance of a te awakening.

  College, job hunting, rent payments, and helping my mom finally drove those childish fantasies out of my head. At thirty two you no longer wait for a miracle. You wait for your paycheck.

  And now, when I had finally built my life, secured a well paid position, taken out a mortgage for my own house, and bought a car, the universe decided to grant my childhood dream.

  To hell with all of you. I am thirty two. I do not need upheavals. I need peace and a stable schedule. At fifteen, superpowers are a ticket to life. At thirty two, they are a sentence for the life I built.

  Rumors about the sky high saries of the Awakened always go hand in hand with mortality statistics that authorities prefer not to publicize. Every portal opening is a military operation. The army enters, secures the perimeter... and in the best case half of them return. And now I am part of that.

  The thought of fleeing to Mexico stayed in my head for exactly one minute. Pointless. If they tracked me down in my own house even though I had not demonstrated any power, the surveilnce must be total. Satellites, energy scanners, background sensors, I am under a dome of observation. They would grab me at the first checkpoint or train station.

  I do not want to die. Especially now, when life has only just begun to bear fruit.

  And the worst part is my ability. It does not make me stronger, it does not grant regeneration or the ability to dodge bullets. I simply exhaled and it appeared before my eyes. A translucent blue window that ignored the ws of optics, remaining perfectly clear no matter how I turned my head.

  [System Notification]

  Css: Trainer

  Description: Your trainees (familiars) receive a bonus to development speed and gain evolution branches unavaible in the natural environment.

  Current task: Capture your first familiar!

  Twenty years ago I would have traded my entire Pokémon figurine collection for a message like that. Now... For a moment I imagined myself, a grown man in a cap and short shorts, running through bushes chasing some glowing squirrel. What a disgrace.

  But if I want to survive, I will have to py by the rules. I have three months before I must report to the base. What waits for me there? A personal instructor who will teach me the nuances of controlling power? Or a dry registration followed by deployment into the field as cannon fodder, where I will have to figure everything out myself? I had no right to take risks.

  There is another reason to hurry. Life insurance does not apply inside portals. If I die, the bank will seize the house and my mom will be left alone with no means of support. That means I have to use these abilities to earn money. A lot of it, and quickly.

  Rob banks? Out of the question. The letter made it perfectly clear: I am under watch. Any illegal activity will turn me from a valuable resource into a dangerous asset scheduled for elimination. I need a legal arena. But who could I ask for advice? Other Awakened are as unreachable as celebrities, and the letter did not include any consultation hotline. Write back to the general whose signature stands on the draft notice? No. Better not provoke the lion ahead of time, otherwise my final three months of freedom will turn into interrogations in a cell.

  That leaves experimentation.

  I looked at the table. Inside a small cardboard box my test subject was rustling, purchased an hour ago from the nearest pet store according to every genre cliché.

  An ordinary white mouse.

  I could feel something moving inside me, a barely perceptible stream of energy linking me with that tiny creature. My first step toward survival began with a ten dolr rodent.

  My only active function at the moment is [Capture Familiar]. It sounds simple, but the devil is always in the details. At first my pn had been ambitious. I imagined a snarling tiger, a massive bear, or at the very least a wolfhound, someone who could become my living shield when the time came to step beyond the horizon of a portal event. But the common sense of an office worker quickly cooled my enthusiasm. If the beast rebelled or the magic malfunctioned, it would be far easier to crush a defective mouse with a slipper than fight for my life in my own living room against a furious predator.

  I focused. Energy began to gather in the center of my right palm. It did not burn the skin. Instead it felt like a faint, almost delicate prickling of static electricity. Gradually a blue sphere formed, translucent and weightless like a soap bubble, yet inside it vibrated a subtle power.

  "Come on, little guy, do not fail me," I whispered and pushed the sphere toward the box with a mental command.

  The sphere slipped from my palm, gently sank into the body of the rodent and silently burst, scattering sparks.

  [Warning! Binding Error]

  [Creature intelligence too low to become a familiar]

  I froze while rereading the system message. What do you mean too low? It is a mouse. Its intelligence is instinct by definition. Does the system require a chess pyer or a Harvard graduate as a pet?

  I walked to the window. On the empty night street, under the glow of a streetmp, an old stray dog limped along. I aimed, feeling the charge forming in my palm again. Release.

  [Warning! Binding Error]

  [Creature intelligence too low to become a familiar]

  A chill ran down my spine. A dog is not a mouse. They have social structures, attachment, even the beginnings of logic. If that is still not enough, then cats, parrots, and other household animals are useless. Dolphins? Monkeys? Where am I supposed to find a chimpanzee in the middle of the night?

  Then a disturbing thought struck me.

  Equal intelligence. If the System is searching for someone capable of understanding the process, that means another human could become a familiar.

  My throat went dry. This was no longer a "Pokemon Trainer". This was full scale svery. I imagined myself searching for some unfortunate guy in an alley just to turn him into my "trainee". Trust would be impossible. That kind of servant would slit my throat in my sleep at the first opportunity, and he would be completely justified. I was not about to put retives or friends in danger either. If I am destined to die in a portal, I will do it alone.

  I looked at my hands. What if...?

  Turning my palm toward my face, I activated the skill and directed the sphere into my own chest.

  [Binding Request]

  [The Trainer offers you the role of familiar. Do you accept? Yes/No]

  I almost burst out ughing at the absurdity of the moment. So that was the trick. A familiar must make a conscious choice. It must read the contract and sign it. A mouse cannot read. A dog does not understand the concept. The System is bureaucracy in its purest form. Even here legal formalities are required.

  I have no choice. I pressed [Yes].

  For a moment the world blurred like it was covered in mist. The energy that had been gathering in my hands rushed back into my body, spreading through my veins like a stream of liquid nitrogen. Two interfaces unfolded before my eyes at once, overpping each other.

  [Control Panel: TRAINER]

  Level: 1

  S-Power (System Energy): 10/10

  Special Command: 3/3 (Avaible)

  [Status of Trainee: MONSTER]

  Race: Human (Homo Sapiens)

  Level: 1

  Strength: 5 (your muscles need training)

  Endurance: 3 (you get tired very quickly)

  Agility: 4 (flexibility almost nonexistent)

  Current Effects: [Chronic Fatigue], [Mild Dehydration]

  The monster stats were depressing but expected. Average office pnkton that would be ughed out of any gym. The Trainer interface, however, sparked intense curiosity.

  I mentally touched the [S-Power] bar.

  [Energy required to activate and sustain development skills for trainees.]

  Logical. Mana in its pure form. The [Special Command] looked far more interesting.

  [Directive command of the Trainer. Executed instantly by the trainee, ignoring physical resistance and mental barriers.]

  That sounded disturbing. Real svery applied to myself. I decided to test how it worked in practice. Something simple. Something my body could perform without injury.

  "[Special Command: Do 5 push ups]," I said aloud, although a thought would have been enough.

  The sensation felt as if steel threads had been inserted into my joints and muscles, and someone invisible had pulled them from above. My body literally dropped onto the carpet in a push up position. I felt no pain, only absolute loss of control. My arms moved on their own, rhythmic and precise with perfect form. Up. Down.

  Then the interface fshed with a new message.

  [Warning! Physical activity detected for trainee]

  [Trainer presence increases metabolism]

  [Effect: Muscle fiber growth +200%]

  I froze, or rather my body kept doing push ups while my mind analyzed the situation. This was not just a command. My Trainer aura functioned like the perfect steroid, accelerating regeneration and tissue growth threefold. Any training under this buff would turn me into a super athlete.

  When the fifth repetition finished, the invisible threads vanished. I stood up, feeling warmth spreading through my triceps. For the sake of the experiment I tried doing two more push ups on my own.

  [Trainer presence increases metabolism]

  [Effect: Muscle fiber growth +200%]

  "Unbelievable..." I wiped sweat from my forehead. The buff was passive. As long as I remained near myself, which thankfully is twenty four seven, any physical effort operated at triple efficiency. It would not turn me into Mister Olympia tomorrow, but in three months I could push my body to its absolute limit.

  My gaze shifted to the clock. 01:00.

  Tomorrow will be a difficult day. I need to go to the office, pretend nothing happened, deal with paperwork, and possibly start preparing the ground for resignation. With this schedule and stress I will never fall asleep.

  I y down on the bed staring at the ceiling. Thoughts about portals, the Pentagon, and my mom buzzed in my head like a swarm of annoying flies.

  [Special Command: Fall asleep instantly for 6 hours]

  [Warning! Recovery mode activated]

  [Trainer presence optimizes sleep cycles]

  [Recovery efficiency: +200%]

  The st thing I remember is my consciousness simply shutting off, like someone flipped a switch. No tossing from side to side. No anxiety. Darkness.

  I opened my eyes at exactly 07:04.

  No heaviness in my head. No desire to lie there for five more minutes. I felt like I had spent a week at the best resort on Earth. My body felt light. My mind was crystal clear. The System had not only given me power, it had begun repairing the damage I had inflicted on myself through years of sedentary work and ck of sleep.

  I sat up on the bed, feeling an unfamiliar surge of energy.

  The ability to fall asleep instantly at any moment. I am starting to love my superpowers.