For the Love of a Patriot || 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 ✔️ [#wattys 2018]

4 | Ability

As the last of the students were leaving, Roxy and I made our way down the stairs and towards Hank Carlisle.

"Bennett." He said, not looking up from his paper.

Uh oh. I was in trouble. I sighed. "Hank, I'm sorry. I got caught up, that's all."

"You're never late." He looked up at me and I smiled sheepishly.

"I missed my bus. You never scold Roxy about this." I put my hands on my hips.

He stood. "That's because I expect that from her."

Besides, Roxy rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm right here. Can we just get to the point?" I looked at her then back at the professor. "I'd like that as well."

He sighed, clearly agitated. "Follow me." He turned and walked towards the door behind his chalkboard. Behind that door was an unusually large library. That was where we did our research.

Walking through, though, I immediately knew something was up.

Both mine and Roxy's eyes widened.

Before us stood a bald black man with an eyepatch and a black overcoat.

I gulped.

"Roxanne, Rachel, this is Nick Fury. He's the director of SHIELD."

I knew who he was, but I kept my mouth shut. Beside me, Roxy was confused. "What's going on, professor?"

The director looked directly at me. "Ms. Bennett."

My face stayed worried. "Mr. Fury." Roxy looked at us, confused. "Is my brother okay?"

He smiled and looked down. "Zero is just fine, Rachel."

I breathed a sigh of relief and Hank's weight shifted to his other foot. "SHIELD has obtained some sort of artifact from the wreckage of the New York invasion last year." As the professor spoke, Fury picked up a silver case that was by his feet and placed it on the table behind him to open it.

Fury put his hand inside the case and pulled out a small tan stone the size of his palm. It was rigid on the sides and rectangular, so it looked like it was only a part of something bigger. I mean what rock wouldn't be. There seemed to be markings on it--like some sort of pattern.

"We only managed to obtain half of it. The other half landed somewhere else most likely halfway around the world. This piece is only a small part of it." He held it up so we could see.

Roxy's eyes widened again. "Wait so you're saying this thing came from outer space? What is it?"

Unexpectedly, I answered. "It's like an alien Rosetta Stone." Both the professor and Roxy looked at me.

"Rachel, how did you know that?"

I shrugged, still looking at the stone. "I'm not sure...I just do."

Fury walked towards me. "That's why we need you, Rachel. You're the only one left like you who can tell us what this is." He put his hand on my shoulder. "What this means."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "I majored in linguistics not alienlinguintoligy or whatever it's called. And only one like me? What do you mean?"

"Rachel," the professor spoke. I averted my eyes to him. "You have...special abilities. Powers."

I didn't move for a few seconds and I felt frozen. What did he just say?

I shook my head and gave a denying, nonhumorous laugh. "I'm sorry, can you repeat that? Did you just say I had powers?"

Fury shook his hand. "You have the ability to comprehend and fluently speak any language--even the ones that you can't speak like morse, sign language, or even computer code. If you see a sequence of numbers--"

"My mind automatically deciphers the pattern." I finished slowly.

Fury nodded. "You got it. It's called Omnilinguism. You've got quite a gift."

I slowly looked over at the professor who looked at me, not with surprise but with content. He knew.

I looked over at Roxy who had her eyebrows raised and her eyes widened. She didn't know.

I shook my head slowly and looked at him. "I...don't..."

"Don't believe me?" He took a pamphlet out of his overcoat and handed it to me.

I slowly took it and looked down at it. The words were in Tamil. I looked up at him. "I've never read Tamil in my life. Let alone spoken it."

Fury raised an eyebrow and smile. "Now how did you know it was Tamil?"

My eyes widened. "I..." I actually don't have an answer to that.

He looked down at the pamphlet. "Read the first two sentences."

I looked back down at the words. I began to doubt everything when suddenly the words began to...rearrange themselves? I opened my mouth and the different language flowed out of me quickly and fluently.

"See? That wasn't so hard." Fury smiled. "Now in French."

As soon as I heard the word, the words on the pamphlet seemed to translate in my mind. "Les mots sur la page sont écrits en tamoul. Tamil est l'une des langues les plus anciennes du monde." I said with no hesitation.

"German."

I repeated the same two sentences in five different languages before I dropped the pamphlet with shaky hands.

Words couldn't describe how freaked out I was.

"Dude...that's so cool." Roxy put her hand on my shoulder.

My eyes stayed wide and I stared at The Director of SHIELD.

"We need your gift, Bennett."

"W...why? For what?" I asked, shakily.

"Well..." Fury shrugged. "To possibly save the world."

Oh yeah. It's been one hell of a day.