The alarm went off like a bomb in my head. To make matters worse, it was accompanied by the sudden flickering of overhead fluorescent lighting. One second, I was sound asleep in complete darkness. The next, I felt like an insect being studied under a magnifying glass. I peered blearily at the alarm clock.
You've got to be kidding.
5.30am
The previous night I'd been housed in a dorm room with Chad and Dan while Brodie and Ebony were given a room across the hall. Compared to our previous penthouse accommodation, this place was more like Guantanamo Bay. Everything was concrete. There were no windows because we were still a hundred feet underground. The beds were reinforced steel bunks. The walls were bare. Even the television looked like it was built during the cold war.
I had half expected to find orange jumpsuit pajamas, but they turned out to be military green tops and shorts.
Sitting up in bed, I found myself wondering one thing.
What have I gotten myself into?
Then the shower started running. Confused, I looked across at Dan and Chad, who appeared even worse than me. A computerized voice emanated from a speaker in the ceiling.
'The shower provides hot water for three minutes,' it informed us. 'After that, it converts to cold water only.'
You're kidding.
The three of us charged madly for the shower, but Chad got there first. I don't think he'd ever showered with two guys watching him.
'What're you looking at?' he asked, rubbing soap all over.
'Two minutes,' the computer intoned.
'Out!' I yelled. 'Get out!'
We virtually dragged him out by the hair. I jumped in next, promising I'd give Dan his full minute. Before I was even half washed, though, the computer announced the shower had one minute of hot water remaining. Dan glared at me.
'Jeez,' I groaned and got out.
I dried myself and pulled on clothes. As soon as Dan finished his shower, cold and shivering, the computer told us breakfast would be served in five minutes in Kitchen Twelve. I remembered the location from Anna's tour the previous evening. It was about two hundred feet down the hallway.
The computer continued.
'Breakfast will begin at five forty-five am and will conclude at five fifty-five am.'
I had to think really hard about what the computer had said because my head was still in bed while the rest of me was only pretending to be awake.
'Ten minutes,' I said. 'That's ten minutes for breakfast.'
We charged out of there and bumped into the girls in the hallway. They looked like they'd just escaped a flooded building. Neither had combed their hair; Ebony's was still dripping wet.
'We had three minutes for both of us to shower!' Brodie yelled.
'Three minutes?' I yelled. There's some sort of inequality here! 'Between the two of you? That means you each had an entire minute and a half! We only had a minute!'
'Bad luck!' Brodie snapped.
No one spoke during breakfast. There were three attendants bringing food out to us like clockwork. And there was plenty of it: pancakes, bacon, toast, oatmeal. We ate it as fast as we could. Who knew when our next meal was arriving?
This is insane.
I remembered the abandoned warehouse I'd shared with Brodie that first night. The cold, damp building with rats eyeing us hungrily seemed like heaven as compared to this. I caught Brodie's eye.
'Remember the good old days?' I said.
She shook her head, and a lock of red hair bounced before her eyes.
'Just eat,' she replied.
Our drill instructor turned out to be a large black man by the name of Mister Henderson. It seemed that no one here had first names. He never smiled; I don't think his mother ever taught him how. He took us outside via an elevator that opened up to reveal a large field. Rolling hills surrounded it on all sides. It was very picturesque.
'Where are we?' I asked.
He ignored me. 'I will be your physical exercise instructor. I have three weeks to beat you recruits into shape. That's not much time. That means you'll have to follow my every command if you want to be ready in time.'
'What if I don't plan to be ready?' Chad asked, smiling.
What is it with this guy?
'You don't want to find out,' Henderson said.
I believed him.
We started with a three-mile run along a track through the woods. It was a magnificent morning in a beautiful part of the country. Shame it had to be ruined with exercise. By the time I was halfway around, I was regretting eating so much at breakfast.
After that, we moved onto pushups and sit-ups. Around that time, breakfast made a return visit for me, Dan and Ebony. Chad took a little longer to crack. It wasn't until the second three-mile run that he emptied his stomach. Brodie made it through everything unscathed.
It seemed like she had a natural advantage in all the exercises. Whereas the rest of us had powers that involved the manipulation of external elements, her ability was mostly physiological.
We stopped for lunch. This time the break was more relaxed. No one spoke. Dan didn't eat anything. It was the first time I'd seen him say no to food. Even Chad barely touched his meal.
We all got separated after lunch. My personal trainer was a man named Mister Brown. He was like Henderson, but a smaller and stockier version—if such a thing were possible. He wore a tracksuit like a personal trainer, but he looked like a military guy. He knew all about my powers and began by getting me to produce shields of various sizes. Small. Large. Then he got me to morph them into different shapes.
I moved onto flying. Mister Brown didn't get me to fly any great distances. In fact, he got me to do the opposite. He had me do flying drills, flying short distances, but doing it with total precision. Sometimes he'd have me hovering bare inches off the ground. At other times I'd fly upside down and do complete somersaults. After doing this for an hour, I reminded him that I was capable of flying both high and fast.
'I'm well aware of that, recruit,' he told me.
He'd either forgotten my name or refused to use it.
'You need to polish your basic skills before you move onto advanced moves.' He gave me the closest thing to a smile I'm likely to see. 'Baby steps, recruit. Baby steps.'
The day's activities ended with me creating air weapons. First, I made balls and threw them. Then I moved onto darts. In the last hour, he showed me pictures of a Japanese throwing star called a shuriken and got me to create and throw them at targets.
'So, when do I get a break?' I asked him.
'You can relax when I say you can,' he replied, smiling.
It was not a pleasant smile.
By the time I headed back for dinner, I was so physically and mentally exhausted that I was just about falling over my own feet. Stumbling into the dining room, I found the others were already there. They looked the same. Poor Dan looked like he was ready to pass out. Ebony looked ill. Even Chad seemed tired.
Brodie…well, what can I say?
'How was your day?' she asked brightly, eating like she'd been fasting for a week.
'Great…great…'
'Feel like a run after dinner?' she suggested. 'Nothing like a quick ten-mile jog to polish off a perfect day.'
She's so evil.
After dinner, we had free time, but for every one of us—even Brodie—free time equaled sleep. An attendant showed us the location of a television and a games room equipped with the latest video games, but no one showed the slightest interest.
Later, I remembered getting into my pajamas. I remembered falling into bed. I remembered closing my eyes.
After that, I remembered nothing.