Brianna Acero and the Second One's Return

20. I visit Jordan's lair

We make it to the training rooms and find other students practicing on their own.

I spot some third years over by the weapons wall, some by the punching bags, and a couple of second years laying on the floor, chests heaving as if they just finished their workout. I hear a grunt to our left and turn to find a girl I recognize from initiation sparring with two boys on the mat. It's Quinn, but as I scan the room, I find no sign of Jack or the rest of his team. I watch, transfixed, as she makes bright blue energy spheres appear in her hands. One of the boys, the Quick that beat me in our duel, is having no problems as he dodges her attacks. He's even smiling as he dances out of her reach, putting distance between himself and her energy spheres. But the other one, Mark, a Muscle, has the disadvantage when it doesn't come to hand to hand combat. His Gift only helps if he can get a hand on his opponent, and the blue balls of light being thrown at him every few seconds are keeping him from doing just that.

"Careful!"

I whip my head around just in time to watch as one of the second years nearly gets impaled by a flying dagger. They're quick to jump out of the way, looking at the dagger in shock.

"Sorry about that," says one of the third years I spotted earlier, picking up the dagger and making sure the second year was okay. So, daggers were the weapon she chose. Cool. Everyone gets to choose their own weapon once they learn more about their Gift and they start going on missions.

"I want to use whatever it is she's using," says Cassie, pointing to a girl using some sort of iron looking staff.

She twirls it up and over her head before she brings it down on top of the dummy she's practicing against, leaving a dent where she hits it. When it connects with the fabric a small burst of electricity seems to envelop the dummy, leaving a small trail of smoke in its wake. It must be one of the new high-tech weapons that Mara had been telling us about when we visited one of the labs after meeting up with her and Jayson. Jordan, the man I met with Kalen when I first arrived at the compound, had been showing some of his creations to the new trainees. When we walked in, he was showing them a new bulletproof vest that also protected its user from energy beams, like the ones installed in stun guns or some throwing knives, just to pack an extra punch. He also created phones and TekPads that were resistant to EMPs, should anything like the New Boston shutdown of 2190 ever occur again. I was glad to see that he remembered me, and he happily showed us how some of the pieces were made. That was probably my favorite part during the whole tour and my new favorite room. I love things that go boom.

"This," he had said, pointing to a small metal disc no larger than a coin sitting in the middle of his palm, "is a new type of explosive that we have been playing around with for the past few months. It's powerful enough to take down a small skyscraper and won't be found by any sort of metal detector because of the special coating we developed." He lifts it up to the light, and I see that the little disk seems to be covered in a purple substance, that must be the coating he's talking about. He passes the bomb around, assuring us that it is not active, and I get to inspect it more closely. I look at it in amazement, wondering how something so small could make so much damage.

I glance over at Cassie. Yeah, okay, I guess little things can be quite destructive.

"And this over here," said Jordan, walking around the large table full of wires and metal pieces towards one of the glass cabinets, which he opened with a retinal scan. Whatever is in it must be important if the lock isn't a standard fingerprint.

"She's my favorite," he coos, taking out what looks like a regular old stun gun. He comes back to us and places it on the table, letting us get a closer look at it.

"What's so special about a stun gun?" asked Cassie, scrutinizing the small gadget in front of her.

"Oh, but my dear, this isn't a simple old stun gun," he chastised. "This weapon is what enables us to recreate a person's mutation."

I furrow my brow in confusion.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Since when do we want to recreate someone else's mutation?"

He claps me on the shoulder, and I jump at the sudden contact. He smiles, as if I just told a very funny joke, but I don't see what's so funny about my question.

"So we can find a way to counter it of course." he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

He lifts the thing, whatever it is, and points to a circular bubble that is attached to the back of it. I see little shapes inside the orange bulb, and I squint, trying to make out what they are.

"The chips in here," says Jordan, jiggling the gadget to make the chips clink against one another and the sides of the bulb. "They embed themselves in the person you're firing them at, kind of like a bullet, and it collects a sample of their DNA, which will later be sent to this very lab. Once we receive the sample, we can analyze the mutation and find a way to incapacitate it."

Incapacitate? My eyes widened in surprise. I see Mara frown, while Kalen just crosses his arms in front of himself, but the action alone tells me he doesn't like it either.

"But that's horrible!" I exclaim. "Why would you take away someone's Gift?"

I knew what it was like, not having a Gift, and knowing that other people had something you didn't, something you should have, was hard. It was like something about you was missing, it was wrong.

"Not everyone is ready for the responsibility," says Jordan, a slight frown pulling at the corners of his lips. "What of all the people that use their Gifts for the wrong purposes? If they have powerful Gifts that they are going to use to harm people, we need to make sure they aren't able to use them. And we can't just keep locking people away. There isn't enough space, and they will eventually get out. There is no guarantee that the rehabilitation they go through has had its desired effect, and they might get up to the same trouble they were getting into before. Not all the programs work, and there isn't enough time or resources to change them, and as much as we hate to admit it, it's getting harder and harder to fight the rogues."

He smiles, but for some reason I am not comforted by it. And as he continues, I figure out why.

"Which is why we decided to take the Gift of anyone who didn't know how to use it."