Chapter 16 - The Past and the Pending

Art by YinYangMyriad

A few days later, Carmen asked me to come into her lab again. As soon as I lay down on the lab table and saw the fluorescent lights, I began to lose my grip on the present. "Jay, are you okay?" Carmen asked me as I tried to fight my memories of the Academy away.

"I'm fine," I said. Carmen said something disguised in scientific jargon to one of her assistants, and I couldn't fight my memories anymore. Even though a part of me knew that Carmen would never hurt me, the lab still reminded me far too much of the Academy's Research Floor, so that's where my mind went.

Almost a year after I arrived at the Academy, Harper and I were sitting on the grass in the courtyard, staring up at the clouds. "That one looks like a chicken," Harper noted as she sketched what she saw.

"Don't be silly," I said. "It looks more like Mickey Mouse than a chicken."

"No, it's definitely a chicken," Harper said.

"Do you even know what a chicken looks like?" I asked.

"I used to live on a farm in North Dakota," Harper said. "My family had chickens when I was little. I'm not sure you know what a chicken looks like."

"I've seen pigeons in real life before," I said. "That's close enough, right?"

Harper sighed and shook her head. "No, that's not close at all," she said.

All of a sudden, Harper and I both heard a loud noise. It sounded like a splash, and then a scream. "What was that?" I asked her.

"I don't know, but it sounded like it came from the Research Floor," Harper said. "We should go check it out."

Harper and I walked to the Research Floor, but it seemed that everyone else had the same idea that we did. Almost every student and teacher at the Academy rushed downstairs towards the Research Floor, and I was nearly trampled by some of the larger, more powerful older students. Harper transformed into a mouse and scurried ahead of the crowd, leaving me behind. As it was, I was one of the last students to find out what all of the fuss was about.

In a rarely used offshoot of the Research Floor, there were several large vats of the mutagenic chemical known as hydroglosseide that the Academy's scientists sometimes used in attempts to disable or modify our powers. The students crowded around one of those vats, while I stood on my tiptoes to get a better look.

When Harper transformed back into a human next to me, I asked, "What's going on?"

"It's hard to tell," she said. "Let's get closer to the front."

She grabbed my hand and shoved a few other kids out of the way until the two of us were at the front of the crowd. Harper then looked up and gasped. "It's Deven!" she exclaimed. "He must have fallen into the vat."

"I don't think that's actually his name," I said, although I couldn't say for sure. I wasn't sure what the intern's name really was. I looked up towards the vat, and sure enough, two scientists were pulling the barely conscious intern out of the hydroglosseide. I wanted to help somehow, but there was nothing that I could do but stare up at the vat and hope for the best.

After a few minutes, the scientists had taken the intern out of the vat completely, and they were placing him on a stretcher. I could see that he was only a few years older than me, and every piece of his body, from his fedora to his sneakers, was soaked in hydroglosseide. I had overheard enough scientific babble on the Research Floor to know that it was dangerous in large doses. Even when the scientists were trying to use hydroglosseide to "turn on" my powers, they only used a few drops. So far it hadn't worked, but I worried that the huge amounts that the intern had been exposed to might hurt him.

Harper apparently felt the same way. "I hope Dylan's okay," she said.

"Me too," I said as the scientists took him away. The students stood there for a few minutes in silence, but all of us quickly lost interest when it became obvious that the intern wasn't coming back.

A few weeks went by, and none of us saw the intern again. Despite the fact that he was so unremarkable that nobody could remember his name, rumors began to circulate about him. A few kids said that he had died, while others claimed that he had lived, but the Academy had fired him. A third group claimed that Dawson (or whatever his name was) had moved to New York, and his parents were suing the Academy, complete with evidence from a teleporter who said that she saw him wandering through the streets of New York City.

Something even stranger happened exactly three weeks after the intern fell into the vat of hydroglosseide. A new student arrived at the Academy. This alone wasn't a strange event - new students arrived all the time - but he was older than average. His name was Declan, and he was sixteen years old. The Academy claimed that Declan had flown under their radar for the last three years, but that seemed unlikely. The Academy usually brought new superhumans to their institution as soon as they turned thirteen.

I hardly ever got the chance to talk to Declan, since he was two years older than me, but I heard rumors. He had super speed and a magical fedora, and he insisted on being called "Captain Fedora." At first, a few students suggested that he might be the same boy as the intern who fell into the vat, but that rumor quickly disappeared. Declan acted so differently from that kid. They looked alike, dressed similarly, and had similar names, but Declan had a sort of charisma that the intern never did.

The months passed by, and before long, the students at the Academy embraced Declan McAllister as one of our own and forgot all about the shy, awkward intern that he had once been. After a short while, everyone referred to him as Captain Fedora, and despite, or possibly because of, his ridiculous nickname, he was by far the most popular Academy student. He had more friends than I would ever dream of, and he had already stolen the heart of every girl and more than a few boys at the Academy.

There was certainly something strange going on, but it was easy to forget about that when Captain Fedora was around.

Just as spring began to turn into summer again, Harper told me something quite alarming. "They're getting rid of the ice cream in the cafeteria!" Harper exclaimed in the cafeteria one day.

"You must be joking," I said. "They wouldn't do that. That would just be cruel."

"Camille told me, and her mom is the Chief of Superhuman Hospitality when she's not doing whatever it is that real superheroes do, so it must be true," Harper said.

"That's ridiculous," I said. "They can't do that to us!"

"We should make a petition or something," Harper said.

"I think so too," I said.

Harper pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. She then wrote in large, bold letters across the top of the paper, "PETITION TO KEEP ICE CREAM IN THE ACADEMY CAFETERIA." Harper signed her name on the second line of the paper and passed it to me. I signed my name underneath Harper's, and she took the paper back and passed it to the table behind us.

"They're taking away our ice cream?!" Julian said. He glanced at the paper, furiously scribbled his name onto it, and passed it to Edward.

Harper's petition circled around the cafeteria, and when it returned to Harper, nearly every student at the Academy had signed the petition. After lunch was over, I followed Harper as she marched into Sanjana's office and gave her the petition. "The students of the Academy have spoken," Harper said, with a sort of defiance in her voice that I could never muster. "We want our ice cream."

"I'll deliver this to my boss later," Sanjana said. She then returned to her work, and Harper and I returned to class.

In retrospect, Sanjana probably never sent the petition anywhere. It probably lay on her desk long after the whole affair blew over, never to change anything, but it seemed cool at the time. To my thirteen year old self, the petition proved that Harper was the most earth-shatteringly awesome girl at the Academy, and I was proud to be her friend.

Four days after the petition, Harper and I entered the cafeteria for lunch, only to find that the ice cream was gone. "They took it away," Harper said. She frowned and then took a cookie for dessert instead of ice cream.

I was disappointed at the time, but the next day, the ice cream returned. There were rumors circulating around that the Academy's largest donor had threatened to withdraw funding if they didn't provide ice cream to us, but those seemed silly. Besides, it didn't matter why the Academy had decided to give us back our ice cream - it only mattered that they had done it.

The summer continued onwards, and as it did, I found myself having to spend more and more time on the Research Floor. The Academy's scientists still had no clue what my powers were or if I even had them, but that didn't stop them from trying to find out. Being on the Research Floor was always miserable, but to this day, one particular incident stands out.

It was the second week of June, and Sanjana had called Dean Hughes and I down to the Research Floor. The researchers led both of us to a vat identical to the one that the intern had fallen into a few months earlier. "We're testing the effects of large doses of hydroglosseide on superhumans," Dr. Rosenberg explained as both of us stared into the vat. "We know that it is possible under rare circumstances to induce the development of superpowers in normals using hydroglosseide, and we know that it can inhibit the usage of superpowers if superhumans breathe its fumes, but I do wonder if large doses of hydroglosseide could strengthen your powers."

As if attempting to prove Dr. Rosenberg's point, Dean tried to heat up the cold, linoleum floor. "I don't get it," he said. "How is hydroglosseide going to strengthen my powers if I can't use them when I breathe its fumes?"

"It's only a prediction," Dr. Rosenberg said. "My assistant will submerge each of you in the liquid, and we will measure the activity of your powers immediately afterwards. Who would like to go first?"

Neither of us volunteered, so Dr. Rosenberg insisted that Dean should go first. Dean shook his head, but two of Dr. Rosenberg's assistants pushed him towards the vat. I stood far away from the hydroglosseide, watching as Dean struggled against the grip of the researchers. Despite his protests, they managed to submerge him in the hydroglosseide and hold him under for a few seconds. When they pulled Dean out, he seemed lifeless. I watched worriedly as the two researchers carried him away. I never saw Dean again.

A year later, after my escape from the Academy, I tried to contact Dean, curious as to what exactly had happened to him. That was when I learned the truth - Dean had died that day on the Research Floor.

"Come on, Jay," Dr. Rosenberg said to me. "It's your turn."

Horrified by what I had just seen, I refused to go anywhere near the hydroglosseide. "No," I said quietly, but unlike Dean, I didn't have the nerve to truly protest. Dr. Rosenberg dragged me into the vat, and almost immediately, the liquid filled my lungs, and I couldn't breathe. I fought to remain conscious as the hydroglosseide burned my skin and tightened my throat. The only thing that I could do was reach for the surface, but even that was impossible when I couldn't tell which way was up.

It must have only been a few seconds, but it felt like hours before one of Dr. Rosenberg's assistants finally pulled me up. I coughed up the bright green liquid as Dr. Rosenberg handed me a towel. "Very good, Jay," he said.

I tried to respond, but it was impossible with the hydroglosseide still clogging my throat. I coughed up more of it as Dr. Rosenberg pulled out some sort of fancy instrument. I had seen it before - it was used to measure superpower activity, but I couldn't remember the name of it.

"That's odd," Dr. Rosenberg said. "I'm detecting low levels of activity, similar to a superhuman who is not actively using their powers, but it's still not apparent what type of powers you possess. I'll see you back here tomorrow, and we'll see if there's an increase in activity."

I came back the next day, and when there was no increase in superpower activity, Dr. Rosenberg concluded that immersion in hydroglosseide was more harmful than it was beneficial for superhumans - which in my opinion was blatantly clear from what had happened to Dean. I wasn't sure why it took so long for Dr. Rosenberg to find even the most obvious truths.

Despite all of the experiments of the Research Floors, my powers still wouldn't manifest. By the end of my first year at the Academy, I had been to every training class offered, and none of them seemed to match whatever ability I had. I was certain that I actually had no superpowers at all.

The day after Dr. Rosenberg immersed me in hydroglosseide, Harper knocked on my door shortly after dinner. "Are you supposed to be here?" I asked as she strolled into my dorm room.

"Probably not," Harper said. "I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. You've seemed a little bit off lately."

"I'm fine," I said.

She sat on the edge of my bed and asked, "Are you sure?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'm just worried that I'm not supposed to be here."

"Jay, I'm sure that you have superpowers," Harper insisted. "The Academy will figure out what they are eventually."

"It's been almost a year," I said. "If they haven't found out what my powers are by now, they never will."

"Just be patient," Harper said.

"I've been patient for the last year!" I shouted.

Harper gently touched my hand, and my heartbeat sped up. "Jay, it's all going to be fine," she said. "I actually came in here to ask you if it was okay if I made a drawing of you."

"That's fine," I said.

"Great," Harper said. She took out a piece of paper and a set of colored pencils and began to sketch me. A short while later, she showed me the finished product.

It was a beautiful portrait. Harper had captured every little detail of me, and I smiled when I saw all of the love and care that she had put into the drawing. "What do you think?" Harper asked.

"It's amazing," I said, but that didn't quite capture it. A strange feeling filled me as I looked at the drawing and then back at Harper. I knew that I wanted something deeper from our friendship, although at first, I couldn't quite say what.

"Thanks," Harper said. "It's getting kind of late though. I'll see you tomorrow morning, Jay." She got up and left, carefully closing the door behind her.

It was only after she left, as I was lying in bed, that I realized that I had a massive crush on Harper Knight.

"Jay, you have to stop zoning out in the middle of our experiments," I heard Carmen say. I jolted back into the present and noticed Carmen's brown eyes staring at me.

"I'm sorry," I said.

Carmen shrugged and jotted a few things down into her notebook. "I think that I've finally made a breakthrough," she said.

"Really?" I said.

Carmen nodded and then said, "I've created a machine that should be able to remove Terry's soul from your body and place it back into his. Could you come back tomorrow?"

"Yes, but what are you planning to do tomorrow?" I asked.

"I'm going to attempt to use the machine for the first time," Carmen said. "All of my tests indicate that it should work as expected, but if something goes wrong, I have several backup plans. By the end of tomorrow, I expect to have Terry to have his soul back."

"That's great," I said.

"I think so too," Carmen said. "Anyways, I'm done with you for now. I'll see you tomorrow, Jay."

"See you tomorrow," I said. As I headed out of the lab and into the corridors of Ellen's castle, I couldn't stop thinking about Carmen's breakthrough. If everything went according to plan, she could give Terry his soul back.

If she could do that, then couldn't she do the same for Harper?