RAN TAKEDA
THE TRAINING CENTER
THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
SWEAT BEADED ON RAN’S FOREHEAD AS SHE LET the energy pour out from her palms and into the slab of concrete. She had probably used her Legacy more than a thousand times and yet the sensation still surprised her. It tickled. How was it possible that something so potentially destructive could tickle?
Charged up with her energy, the stone gave off a crimson glow, its molecules vibrating. Ran sometimes wondered where the energy came from. It was a destabilizing force and, apparently, she possessed an unending font of that deep within her.
What did that say about her?
She had spent time with some of the other kinetics—the students whose Legacies allowed them to produce energies and elements from nowhere. There was Omar Azoulay, who could breathe fire. There was Lisbette Zabala, who could create and manipulate ice. These Legacies made sense to Ran. They weren’t inherently violent. Fire could keep someone warm in the winter, and ice could keep them cool in the summer. The chaotic energy that Ran produced simply blew up, no matter the season.
It came from nowhere. And it produced nothing.
Ran could feel it under her fingertips. The charge in the concrete was growing and growing. If she took her hands away now, Ran would have about five seconds to get cover. Then, the stone’s destabilized molecules would become permanently repulsed from one another and fly violently apart. The stone would explode, shards would go everywhere, and bystanders would be hurt.
But that didn’t have to happen.
“That’s good, Ran,” Dr. Goode’s voice issued over a loudspeaker. “I’ve got my reading. You can stop.”
The scientist watched from an adjoining room, protected by a window of blastproof glass. He monitored her activity through a powerful set of lenses that recorded data on a variety of spectrums. Next to Malcolm sat Lexa. As usual, she had a laptop open in front of her, although her eyes were currently locked on Ran’s glowing block. Lexa didn’t normally come to these sessions, but she’d been sticking close since the midnight meeting a couple of days ago.
Ran grunted, focusing on her work. She gritted her teeth. “I will . . . pull it back . . . now.”
“Be careful.”
Ran nodded. A dark strand of her chopped black hair stuck to her sweaty cheek. This was the hard part.
She pulled her energy back into herself. It didn’t want to return; it wanted release. This part didn’t tickle—it burned. Like swallowing back a mouthful of vomit with her entire body.
If she put just enough energy into an egg and then yanked it back, she’d have a hard-boiled egg. She got tired of eating those things weeks ago.
If she desperately poured her energy into a British guy with a stopped heart, Ran had learned, then yanked it back, she had a best friend who was alive again. She’d learned that trick back in Iceland. But that wasn’t a trick anyone wanted her to do on the regular, not after seeing the bruises on Nigel’s sternum. She wasn’t going to be replacing a defibrillator anytime soon.
So if she poured her energy into concrete, what would happen then? Something useful? She was about to find out.
The only problem was that her energy—her inner chaos—it still needed release. All that violence had to go somewhere.
The glow dimmed. The concrete was drained. Ran’s hands trembled and she braced herself.
It felt like a great hand made of fizzy bubbles reached down and slapped her. Ran was thrown off her feet, her body jerking and twitching. They’d done this experiment before with different inanimate objects, so they knew what would happen and had positioned a net behind Ran to catch her. That didn’t mean exploding didn’t hurt like hell.
Like every previous time, Malcolm rushed out of his safe area and came to her side. “Ran! You okay?”
Her clothes prickled with static electricity, and when she opened her mouth to answer, a plume of smoke rolled off her tongue. Her hands—where the energy had come and gone—were badly bruised, already turning purple and swollen, like she’d slammed them in a door over and over. She’d have to go see Taylor.
Ran nodded as Malcolm helped her up. “I’m fine.”
“That was more—you expended more energy than we talked about.”
“I wanted to see what would happen,” Ran said.
Malcolm adjusted his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I know Nine likes to teach that pushing your limits is the best way to grow your Legacies, but in your case . . . we ought to be cautious, is all I’m saying.”
Ran looked down at her hands—slender and long-fingered; she had taken piano lessons in Japan when she was younger. The veins stood out now, dark and angry. She wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if she completely unleashed. She’d never come close to reaching this “limit” Malcolm described. How much energy was within her? How much destruction was she truly capable of?
She forced this thought aside. She didn’t want to find out.
Lexa poked her head out of the safe room. “You good, Ran?”
“Fine,” she repeated.
Shaking out her aching hands, Ran approached the concrete block. She prodded it with her toe. A puff of brick dust shook loose, but otherwise the stone still felt solid.
“Any change?” she asked, turning to Malcolm.
The scientist produced a hammer and approached the block himself, striking the stone with a few sharp blows. He knocked loose a few chips, then glanced down at a tablet held in his other hand.
“Not really,” he told her. “You charged the atoms, as usual, but when you withdrew the energy, the concrete settled back to its inert state. Apparently, your Legacy only has a transformative effect on organic tissue and even that is . . . hard to quantify.”
The corner of Ran’s mouth twitched. “Useless.”
“Well, we know that’s not entirely true,” Malcolm attempted to console her.
“I can cook an egg. I can jump-start a heart as an absolutely last resort. These things are not . . . they aren’t valuable, Dr. Goode. How am I supposed to help people with this Legacy? I’m essentially a bomb with a brain.”
“Hmm.” Malcolm swiped through some readouts on his tablet, then came to stand beside Ran. “There’s this.”
The tablet displayed an infrared image of the concrete block, recorded by one of the many lenses Malcolm had trained on the test area. It looked like nothing more than a glowing blob to Ran, at least until Malcolm traced his finger across a dark slash in the cube’s middle.
“You see this? Where there’s none of your energy accumulating?”
“Yes?”
“It’s a crack,” he explained. Malcolm led her in a circle around the concrete, where there were no visible flaws in the rock. “It’s a crack inside the concrete. That happens sometimes, when air gets inside the pour. If we were to exert enough pressure on the stone—a lot of pressure, mind you—that’s the fault along which the concrete would break.”
Ran studied the thin shadow in the image with her lips pursed. “Earthquakes in Japan were always a worry. My father is—” She cleared her throat. “My father was an engineer, in charge of checking buildings to make sure they would stand. Maybe . . .”
“Maybe that’s something you could use your Legacy for,” Malcolm finished her thought, brightening. “Your energy—or the absence thereof—could potentially be used to highlight structural weaknesses that can’t be detected by more traditional means.”
Ran’s expression soured as Malcolm grasped for a silver lining. “And if I should make a mistake . . . what? I destroy a building? Blow it up?”
Malcolm’s smile disappeared. “Well, of course, we would have to approach the process with caution . . .”
“The safest course of action is to just not use my power at all,” Ran replied.
“Safe? Or selfish?”
Ran and Malcolm turned towards the voice. Greger Karlsson leaned into the training center’s entryway, an insufferably smug smile on his face. As usual, the Earth Garde liaison wore a designer suit, his hair brushed meticulously, everything about him exuding a confidence that bordered on arrogance. Ran had been so wrapped up in her testing, she hadn’t noticed him standing there.
Greger often came to watch Ran train. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Lexa disappear back behind her laptop.
“Excuse me?” Ran replied to Greger.
“Greger, maybe this isn’t the best time . . . ,” Malcolm said diplomatically.
Greger waved this objection away as he walked farther into the room, approaching Ran.
“I’ll admit that there’s something admirable about your insistence on pacifism, Ms. Takeda, but I do think you’re being somewhat obtuse.”
Ran’s lip curled—admirable and obtuse. A compliment followed by an insult.
“You needn’t strain yourself in here or deny what you are. There’s much good that could be done using your Legacies as they were intended.”
“Hmm. I hardly think we can know what the Lorien entity intended for these Legacies, Greger,” Malcolm replied.
Ran didn’t feel like approaching the issue as some kind of intellectual debate. Before Greger could get too close, she snatched the hammer away from Malcolm, charged it, and thrust it in the liaison’s direction.
“Show me,” she said sharply. “Demonstrate how you would use this for good.”
Greger shied away from the glowing object. He reached inside his jacket and took out his phone, eyes never leaving Ran.
“I will,” he said. “A moment, please.”
While Greger navigated to an internet browser, Ran tossed the charged hammer into the nearby obstacle course’s sandpit. It exploded with a small burst of debris.
Greger held out his phone to Ran. On the screen was a headline from the Guardian. “AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS MASSACRED IN YEMEN.”
“This happened last week,” Greger explained. “An Australian helicopter was flying routine reconnaissance over a terrorist stronghold. Funny, isn’t it, that after an alien invasion and a complete shift in the bounds of reality that such petty human differences as religion and borders should remain a dire issue, hm?”
“Hilarious,” Malcolm replied dryly.
Without asking permission, Ran took Greger’s phone. She started scrolling through the article, even as Greger explained the contents.
“After an engine malfunction, the helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing,” Greger continued, speaking more to Ran than to Malcolm. “The enemy had the Australians pinned down on all sides. Their positions were deeply dug in. Traditional air support—missiles and such—were deemed too risky. Extraction was impossible. And so, these brave young men and women were left to their fate.”
Ran looked up and locked eyes with Greger. “What could I have done that the military couldn’t?”
“A young lady with your abilities could have detonated enemy barricades with more precision than traditional ballistics,” Greger explained. “Your controlled explosions could have saved these soldiers, while minimizing damage to local infrastructure and civilian casualties.”
Ran flicked a look in Lexa’s direction. The movement was subtle, but she saw it—Lexa nodded once. Ran shoved Greger’s phone into his chest.
“You still do not understand,” she told him. “My explosions—they are not always controlled, not always predictable.”
“Frankly, I think you sell yourself short,” Greger replied. “I’ve watched your training. Better yet, I’ve seen videos of you in the field. You’re incredibly skilled.”
“An expression comes to mind,” Ran answered coolly, deflecting the compliment. “When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I’ve told you before, I don’t want to be Earth Garde’s hammer.”
Smirking, Greger glanced at the shrapnel left from the hammer Ran had just detonated. “An apt metaphor, I suppose. Nonetheless, my recommendation to Earth Garde remains unchanged. You are ready, Ran. You should be fast-tracked for graduation and allowed to begin your service to the world. Inherently destructive as your Legacy might be, it would ultimately save lives.”
Ran suddenly felt tired. This was the same discussion she had with Greger any time he popped up around the Academy. She was tired of it. There were only so many ways to tell a foolish man that you wouldn’t blow people up for the greater good. She turned her back on him and touched Malcolm’s arm.
“Thank you for working with me, Dr. Goode. Can we resume our testing tomorrow?”
“Of course,” he replied with a sympathetic smile. “Go see Taylor and get yourself patched up.”
Ran nodded. Without another word, she stepped pointedly around Greger and stalked towards the training center’s exit. She could hear them talking about her as she pushed through the door.
“One day,” Greger told Malcolm, “she will have to come to terms with what she is.”
“I think,” Malcolm replied icily, “that’s exactly what she’s doing.”
“It was easier than I thought it would be,” Ran told the others that night, when they once again gathered underneath the training center. “He handed his phone right to me.”
“With Greger connected to the Wi-Fi and not paying attention to his device, I was able to gain access,” Lexa said. “I downloaded his contacts, his emails, everything.”
“Find anything suspicious?” Kopano asked.
“Unfortunately not,” Lexa replied.
“Prick could have a second phone, though,” Nigel said with a glance at Ran. He knew the pressure Greger put on her and didn’t like it. Ran appreciated his being so protective, but said nothing. She didn’t think it was likely that Greger was their mole. He was almost too overtly sleazy to be hiding even more sleaze.
“Oh, a guy like that definitely has a second phone,” Isabela put in, blowing on her nails. “One for business and family, one for all his affairs.”
“Dude’s not even married,” Professor Nine said.
Isabela shrugged. “You’ll see.”
“There was one strange thing,” Lexa said, “although I don’t necessarily see a connection to the Foundation.”
Ran leaned forward. “What is it?”
“There were calls, both incoming and outgoing, to some encrypted numbers. It took some work, but I managed to trace them back to the CIA.” Lexa notice Isabela’s blank look. “The United States spy agency.”
“Oh,” Isabela said.
“You know, like Jason Bourne,” Kopano added helpfully.
“Who’s that nerd?” Isabela asked.
Taylor spoke up before they veered too far off-topic. “Greger is Swedish, right?”
“Swiss,” Nine said.
“No, he is indeed Swedish,” Malcolm corrected.
Nine threw up his hands. “This planet has too many countries.”
“Why would a Swedish guy be talking to the CIA?” Taylor asked. “That’s a little strange, right?”
“Could be related to his work for Earth Garde,” Caleb said. “A lot of different organizations are probably interested in us.”
“Too many,” Taylor said.
While the others talked, Nigel got up and sauntered over to the whiteboard. He picked up a black marker and drew a speech bubble next to Greger’s head. Inside, he wrote: Am I evil?
That actually got a laugh from Ran, probably louder than Nigel’s drawing deserved. It felt good—a pressure release almost like when she charged an object.
Evil or not, Greger was wrong about her.
She would show him. She could do more than blow things up.