The Finder’s comment back in the car suddenly made sense. The Academy only opened its doors to those few Powers ranked Category Three or above. A Four was a shoe-in. A Five? They were so rare as to almost not exist. And if I was a One or a Two, I could kiss admission—and my only shot at staying sane—goodbye.
“So you do know.” Jeremy looked disappointed for a moment, then shrugged. “Technically, it’s your power level potential, but close enough. Grab a seat and take off your shirt.”
I did as instructed, wadding my faded tee into a small ball and lowering myself into the indicated chair. The cracked vinyl cushioning made a rude noise beneath me.
I looked up to find Jeremy staring.
“That was the chair, not me.” I scowled.
“Huh? Oh, the noise? Yeah, it’s always like that.” He turned and busied himself with the machine for a moment, before tossing a glance back over one shoulder. “So uh… can I get you something to eat, maybe? Like a sandwich? Or twelve?”
I looked down at my all-too prominent ribs and flushed. A sandwich sounded great, but I’d be damned if I accepted it with a side order of pity. I shot the older man a glare. “I’m good. Let’s get on with this.”
“Sure thing.” Jeremy shrugged yet again, and began to sort through the bundle of wires. He slathered the plastic pads with some sort of cold, sticky gel and stuck them to my chest like mutated nipples. By the time, he was through, my torso was covered. “Grab the handles, please.”
I leaned forward, causing the chair to fart a second time, and took hold of the copper-wrapped bike handles.
Nothing happened.
“Do you have to plug it in or something?”
“These don’t work off garden-variety outlets.” Jeremy winked. “That’s what I’m here for.” He rubbed his palms together for a moment, as if trying to warm them, and then reached forward and touched both hands to the machine. Moments later, a low hum told me it was active.
“You’re a Spark?”
“Most testers are, for obvious reasons. And you are…” He paused, adjusted a couple of dials on his side of the box, and checked the readouts a second time. “Wait, you’re…”
“A Necromancer,” answered Mr. Grey mildly.
Jeremy mustered up a wan smile. “Never tested a Crow before. Alright now… keep a hold on the handles. This might tingle just a bit.”
The world erupted in light.
CHAPTER 6
I was seven when Mama Rawlins finally decided to fork out the cash for a vid screen. Way she explained it, she was getting too damn old to be chasing us kids around and needed something to occupy our attention when she was off doing adult stuff.
Adult stuff, in this case, mostly meant smoking, though she did have a man come calling from time to time—even older than she was, with four long hairs pasted to an otherwise shiny bald scalp. That was a pairing designed to give you nightmares, let me tell you, even before I walked in on them in the moment. Or whatever passes for the moment, when you’re a million years old.
Anyway, vid time became our entertainment of choice, and no matter how many times she programmed the box to stream educational programs, one of us would always switch to something a little bit more our speed.
Hero-vids, mainly.
A lot of it was crap, of course; pure kiddy stuff, where the Cape—someone like Captain Cosmo—was a noble stick in the mud, and the Black Hats were as dumb as they were dirty. Great for the little ones, but those of us creeping towards our teens knew bullshit when we saw it.
In the evenings, though, and every Saturday, they’d air vids based on real events. Paladin’s year-long crusade into the Badlands. Aspen’s awakening in the wreckage of San Diego. Even Tempest’s battle with the Sea Reavers, where she sank their battleship and everyone on board with a storm of pure lightning.
The last one was my favorite. I must have seen it a dozen times—I could hum the musical score in my dreams—but I’d always focused on Tempest herself, long-limbed and gorgeous, ribbons streaming behind her in hurricane-force winds, eyes white and charged like the force of nature doing her bidding. I’d never once wondered what the Reavers must have felt like to have the electrical hammer of God crashing down on them.
Turns out it really sucks.
•—•—•
Sometime later—could have been minutes, could have been hours—I regained consciousness. I was slumped forward, head nestled in one arm, a cool surface under my cheek. My limbs were vibrating and my exposed skin felt hot and prickly, like I’d wrestled a thorn bush.
Pretty sure the thorn bush had won.
My eyes were open, but the world was blurry and indistinct. I focused on the closest blob, but it was the smell, more than anything, that told me what I was looking at.
A sandwich. Synth-meat—pork flavor, if my nose could be trusted—and a leaf of browned lettuce between two slabs of processed wheat. Behind it, carefully out of reach of my flailing hand, was a glass of water.
My mother—my real mother, not Mama Rawlins or Sue Jacobsen—had always joked about my appetite. She would know something was wrong, she told people with a grin, the day I passed up seconds at lunch… and if I skipped dessert, well, she was paying for a Flyboy to rush us to the hospital, and to seven hells with the cost.
After the asshole killed her, dessert became a thing of the past—along with seconds and a whole host of other happy family bullshit—but the basic point remained; few things motivated little Damian like food.
I flopped my second arm onto the table, and used both limbs to push myself into a seated position. Hell
