Kei

  I glance down at the familiar, if fading, white tracery of the shark’s dental impressions. To be fair, if you hadn’t seen me the first time they changed the bandages, this probably looks bad. As opposed to a giant mass of blood and hamburger held together by sheer obstinance and one unbreakable thighbone.

  “So cool.” Joey stares in awe. “Was it really a Great White?”

  “Yeah.” I shrug. “Really rare for the coast. Some school was tracking him but their software forgot to sound the alarm. Apparently he’d been following me for a while, but his tracker went down a day or two before. They pulled his position later.” I can’t remember much of the incident beyond an intense pain, sand and surf, and the lights of the shoreline.And all the people trying to save me. I suppose it’s good that shock set in long before I got a good look at the shark. I’m glad it made a good story for everyone else, though. But I’ve got enough nightmares.

  “And you lived?” Joey continues. That seems kind of obvious, but…

  “More or less.” I wave a hand dismissively. “He got me just as I was reaching shore, though. Normally they don’t come that close. If he’d bitten me even ten, twenty feet sooner I’d be nothing but a stomach ache, somewhere in the Pacific.” Read, don’t try this at home, kids. Especially you, Joey.

  Joey nods. “I got you a gift,” he says suddenly, and pulls something soft and plush out of his backpack.

  He hands me the white mass, and I see it is a much smaller bookbag – in the shape of a white shark. The open mouth with its rows of rounded teeth is where I put my books. Pens go behind zippers at the gills, and there’s an inside pocket which goes into the fin. The bag has a soft, well-made feel to it.

  Gag gift or not, he’s put some effort into this or gotten lucky in shopping for a present.

  “Joey!” the other three girls gasp at once as he stands there, beaming up at me, clearly pleased with the thought he’s put into his welcoming gift.

  “Wow,” I say. “Thanks.” On impulse, I give him a little hug. “It’s beautiful.”

  He flushes but quickly hugs me back. “I just thought it worked. You know, because of your story. Like, you hollowed him out and he carries your books around now, or something.”

  “No, he’s still out there.” I open my sharkbag’s mouth, and then suddenly lunge for Joey’s knee. “Rawr!”

  He laughs, but pulls his leg away. I guess I do a convincing shark roar. Whatever that is.

  “It… doesn’t bother you?” Emily asks, confused.

  “Hmm? No,” I respond. “The shark was the best part of the trip, honestly. Getting bit was the end of it. After I got loose, I passed out. Kind of a relief.” What can I say? Honesty seems best.

  “Getting eaten by a giant shark was the best part?” Haley says, obviously confused. Her hands shift unconsciously towards a guard position on her staff as she thinks about the attack. Not that it would have done her much good in the sea. I think.

  “I’ve blanked out most of it, but yes, that much I’m clear on.” I look around at the still-quiet grounds. “Speaking of getting eaten alive, is this school hard?” My foster family seems to be a bunch of early risers, but knowing how they view the school should give me an idea of how tough it is. Or how smart they are. Either one will do.

  Emily shrugs. “They think you can handle it.” I notice her sketchbook, which shows perfect illustrations of two figures – clearly Haley and Tam – engaged in a furious dance of staves across the grass. And the beginnings of a sketch of me, peering with piercing eyes, impossibly beautiful and deep. I look away. Flattering yet somehow unsettling. Emily is putting me to page scant minutes after seeing me.

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  I’m a black box to myself, an open book to others.

  “Handle it?” I repeat. “That’s reassuring.”

  Tam nods seriously as she takes a firmer grip on her staff. “Anya says the big question is how ‘Gifted’ the professors think you are. Just don’t blow them away too much and they won’t expect your science-fair project to win a Nobel prize.”

  “Don’t worry,” Haley says with a dismissive wave of her bo staff. “Today’s orientation. People are still signing up for classes or swapping them out. They’re demonstrating some tech we’ll be using in classes. You’ll want to see that.”

  “Holoscapes,” Joey confides. To my blank look, he adds, “You know, holographic simulations. So they can give you the live experience of whatever they’re lecturing you on. You can live it while you learn it.”

  I blink. “That’s… interesting. How does it work?”

  “Really well,” Tam says with a grin. “I’ve just been in test runs for history classes, but it’s wild to be in the same room and experience historical events while the people stand there and live it out in front of you.”

  “And it’s a rip they don’t let middle schoolers use it for real,” Joey huffs, crossing his arms. “Just enough demos so we know what we’re missing.”

  “They only had so many VR rigs, Joey,” Emily tells him. “You’ll get your chance, soon enough.”

  “Besides,” Haley adds, casually hefting her staff, “the real world is still better for most things.” She gives Tam a meaningful look, who seems to be leaning on her staff for support at this point.

  “Except if you swim with the sharks and they eat you,” Joey interjects, “there’s no ‘Reset’ button.” Point. A little on the nose, but point.

  The girls roll their eyes at him, but I give a faint smile and a half-nod.

  Tam sighs. “Yes, it does help that you can skydive and rock climb without breaking your real body.” She starts stretching. “Give me a minute,” she says to Haley. Tam flexes a hand stiffly. “Mag shielded this time. I can’t take anymore bruises.”

  She in fact needs about five minutes, and the two of them pull out some very light gear covering their chests, backs, shoulders, knees and slip into all of it, finishing off with gloves. There’s some padding, but I wonder how much protection they can really offer.

  Joey follows my gaze. “Repelling magnetic fields,” he explains with a wave at the equipment. “Blunts impacts. For safety. It’s a whole thing.”

  I nod, guessing at his meaning though not quite certain. I figure I’ll see soon enough. And then Tam and Haley are squaring off again.

  “Freestyle dance?” Haley asks her. “Still a challenge, but it’ll be easier on y… on both of us.”

  Tam nods acceptance. “Thanks.” Her eyes dart towards me, then back to Haley. I wonder, for a moment, if she’s worried about impressing me. Or embarrassing herself.

  At an unseen signal, they begin. And their bodies burst into motion.

  Their staves blur, rotating so fast they seem to be discs vibrating in the air. The girls face each other and then lunge with their spinning bo staves, bringing them within an inch or two of each other, until the pressure from the conflicting fields holds them apart.

  They move faster and then accelerate as they build a rhythm. They spin and spar and I almost miss Tam kicking off the low wall beside us as she lunges forward in an overhand strike… and then rides Haley’s parry as the larger girl spins her overhead.

  This is no longer exactly a fight, even a kata, but more like a dance. They take turns striking, parrying, dodging, somersaulting in midair, leaping off the wall, and backflipping over each other, using their clashing staves to lift each other up and over, and then pole vaulting again.

  I glance at Joey and Emily. Only we three are watching, yet the two girls are showing themselves to be a bit more than any two teenagers could be. At least as far as the world knows.

  Somehow it all seems awfully familiar to me. And I enjoy it, a smile touching my lips as they revel, unconsciously, in their freedom.

  Their movements are hypnotic, and as they spar I can feel my system unconsciously responding. A trickle of something cold moves within me.

  And the world begins, ever so slightly, to slow. I take deep breaths, but a second coldness joins the first. A chilling fear that my power is far from dead, or even sleeping. But simply waiting.

  Seeing this much speed and skill stirs it to readiness. Cold eyes not my own are with me now, and watchful.

  “They have talent.” I start at the voice almost in my ear. “Both trained and inborn.” I glance toward the speaker, welcoming the interruption. An eerily beautiful student stands beside me, watching Haley and Tam spar. Her calm silver eyes meet mine as I turn. “What gifts do you have, Kei Kimura? What secret fire?”

  I step back, assessing her instantly. She looks my age, but extremely composed, almost serene. Almost like the perfect, Platonic ideal of a brilliant, beautiful young woman – too perfect to be real.

  My eyes narrow. Perhaps it is an illusion. But my life is a witness to how the unimaginable can be sculpted from genes and extremes into all too solid flesh, and I feel the odd sensation of staring into a mirror.

  Not a mirror to be hated and feared, like any that carries my own reflection, but one to be watched carefully as the image within takes on a life her creators never imagined.

  One of my kind. To the extent I have one.

  Her silver eyes stare straight into my violet ones as though boring into my soul, and I gaze right back into hers. The world seems too still around us, our wills not so much testing each other as in quiet harmony. Ready to seek the truth together.

  A small cough interrupts us, even as the body of a tall young man interposes himself.

  My eyes seek his face, and another pair of silver eyes looked back at me, but open, and kind. “Kei?” he asks. “The Office sent us. We’re here to help with your orientation.” He hands me a tablet, its screen already showing my tentative schedule.

  A strong voice speaks behind him, from another, red-headed teen just as tall and almost twice as wide. All smiles and muscles.

  “Oh, and welcome to Waycross. You won the full Aspect welcome wagon. Trial By Fire Edition.”

  Patreon page. The first 10 chapters are already up there, even for free subscribers, and you can also see the art which didn't upload to Royal Road.