The Analytical Files

Chapter 2

When Maddie levitated, she experienced the levitation as a purple color moving and coloring her body as she shut her eyes and imagined her body hovering in space against a gray background. The purple was dynamic even once it had colored her body, moving when she wished it to move. Maddie could pull more of it out of the gray with her mind. She sometimes drew clumps of it into a thin, swordlike shape and shot those out below her into the gray.

These propelled her up quickly. However, she had learned from trying this on grass that these swords of the purple substance burned grass and any other things in the vicinity.

So, Maddie kept to the usual – taking a thick glob of purple shaped like slime and moving it below her legs, creating a purple wind to lift herself up.

Then she opened her eyes, and started to imagine the purple as opposed to seeing it. Opening her eyes made Maddie stumble in the air, and it was always a little harder to control herself. But it was the only way Maddie knew to navigate. She didn't want to run into any walls (not that she ever did).

In the air over the wall, Maddie looked at Paul, who was practicing an in-air dance routine which he had come up with.

It was a clever routine, made up of little twists and turns that would give the viewer no idea of Paul's faults and every idea of his strengths.

Maddie smiled looking at it, wishing that Rozni, her mentor, had given her a routine like that to perform for her Candidacy. Her routine was swishes and curves, slow and beautiful and insanely difficult to perfect. Maddie only had to choreograph one part of it.

Suddenly, Paul narrowed his eyes mischievously, flicked his hand, and zoomed over Maddie quickly.

Maddie gasped and closed her eyes as his feet came an inch above her face. She shuddered, moving downward briefly.

She tried with every fiber of her being to focus on the purple, her body clenching up as she concentrated.

Finally, she was able to return to a somewhat stable position, and she opened her eyes and looked accusingly at Paul.

"What was that for?" Her voice had a whiny tinge to it, like an angry toddler's.

"I wanted to try something! And it worked!" He smiled.

"But you nearly killed me!"

"What?! I flew over you!"

"By like one inch!"

"Fine, fine!" Paul frowned, his eyebrows scrunched downwards. "Do it to me!" He held his arms out.

"No..." Maddie said. She didn't want to hurt him. She would find some other way to settle it. Beating him in her Candidacy score, for one.

A bell sounded and Paul levitated higher into the air. Maddie followed looking East towards where the coast of the Drained Sea would be.

To her and Paul's right was the school's break field, nearly deserted considering that most of the popular groups had stayed inside to work on something.

To their left was the Ithkuil Academy for Analytical Enrichment, the first and only Ithkuil and Analytical school to operate.

It had been founded during the early days of the Analytical existence, when Analyticals were still studying and discovering their abilities.

The Academy was a tall building with curved, chrome walls and expansive windows. It rose up several stories and had a roofdeck with a view that stretched, on clear days, from Ikilis off on the horizon to the glimmering city below, and from there to the farms in the southwest that supplied the city of the Analyticals with all they needed to survive.

It held one Eastern wing, for teaching and one Southwestern wing, for performances.

Despite the presence of official, better-fortified houses of government, the Academy was seen as the real headquarters of the government. The council of leaders of the city were chosen from the most brilliant students, and citizens regularly visited them for guidance as they looked from viewing points stationed throughout the Academy at the students below.

Maddie could imagine one of the councilmembers looking at her right now, as she flew toward the third-story balcony with Paul having fallen behind her.

Entering from the sky was technically forbidden to students, but Maddie believed that the Council could be stupid when it came to some matters. To her, authority was flexible as the elastic rubber bands that her ancestors had used to bind their hair.

She dropped down onto the balcony and pulled open the door to the third floor.

"I'm going to Rozni!" She shouted over her shoulder to Paul, who was still flying.