Paulo is a bright young man. He had recently turned fifteen in a place of limited but fulfilling prospects for a fully-fledged adult. His father is a businessman, like his father was before, and so forth. And he has great pride in the family product. What’s more, he had come into his powers as the first gifted in the bloodline. Superhuman strength. Category? At least three, surely, if his favorite American movies were anything to go after.

Paulo spends his mornings guarding the family farm. The forest is dangerous when the sun was up. At lunch he walks past the barricade and waves to the guards in the watchtower. The guards lower the 50.cal emplacements to wave back. He eats lunch with his sisters, who have made it a pastime to break various objects over his head, such as wooden planks or bricks, and giggling as he over exaggerates a response. He is a doting brother.

In the evening he doubles his vigilance. The forest is even more dangerous when the sun was down. At dark, trucks arrive. A couple platoons of men in dark green with AKMs slung over their shoulders exit the vehicles. They salute him. He salutes them back and then goes home, knowing they would do their jobs well. He walks through the greenhouses before he returns to his house. His keen eye sweeps past the many rows of carefully tended trees. Powerful fingers gently touch the verdant leaves, which were almost visibly pregnant with bounty, waiting to be extracted and processed into Alkalova. Powdered gold. White gold. Booger sugar.

He eats dinner with his family. A quiet affair, usually. Unless his father had frustrations to share.

“The walls are closing in,” Jarlan Ramos-Ortega says. He ate sparingly from his meal of fried fish and bandeja paisa. “I don’t know how long I can sustain this world for us.”

The girls are on their phones. Paulo frowns.

“What more can I do, father?” He asks. “Please tell me.”

“I do not know,” Jarlan says. “He warned me it would be a mistake. He told me to toe the line. I did not. But my ambition…”

Paulo feels his anger rise.

“We should never bow to a man with a coward’s gift,” he says. He considers slamming the table with his fist. But that would be a misappropriate use of his power. “What happened to our deal with the government? Surely we are protected?”

“Officially,” Jarlan says. “That has not meant much in a long time. It is a great boon to our family that you are gifted, Paulo. But I am afraid in this world, the order belongs to whosoever has the most genetic strength. Those American-” He spits. “-films portray their gifted as heroes. They have erected academies to teach children how to use their abilities responsibly. Bah. They do not see the parallel they have with Hitler’s Uber Youth and his obsession with genetic superiority. Their Hero Academia are nothing more than military boot camps in plain sight. Marketing is truly the most powerful gift. We are very behind in a difficult world, Paulo.”

“They are just movies, father.”

“I know son. But these stories would not generate billions in revenue if they did not resonate with some part of us deep inside. Some hidden truth.”

Paulo thinks hard. He must assuage his father’s concerns. Despite being an adult he had been spared from the niceties of Jarlan’s business. The night had progressed. Paulo resolves to ask his father to let him into the wider world further bright and early tomorrow.

He draws breath.

“Maybe…”

Sunrise.

No. It is hotter than the sun. But not beautiful to behold. Paulo sees stars. His skin feels as though he had been dipped in boiling water before his powers came to fruition. His ears are ringing.

He is sitting in the blackened slope of a crater. The deepest point was where his father sat. Paulo’s eyes slowly turn to the side. He manages to convince himself, for a millisecond, that his sisters are picking themselves up, ready to come running to him crying. But there is nothing there besides remnants of bone. His home is gone. A thin layer of ash accrues around him. Bits of his house are still falling.

Paulo grabs the sides of his face and screams for a second, before falling unconscious.

--

“Good effect on kill box one. Tango down.”

“Turning this bird around.”

“That was way too easy.”

General Minerva stood from his observation chair. He turned to the woman to his side and extended a hand. She grasped it, perhaps too firmly, and shook.

“There will be further talks,” he said. “But I think it’s safe to say your upper-atmosphere precision strike vehicles would be quite valuable in our arsenal.”

Helena Hegemon nodded. “My facilities are prepared to manufacture ten PSV-1 Mountain King’s within the next six months. Come to a decision quickly and you could choose which shade of black it comes in.”

General Minerva laughed. “We’ll be in touch. For now, are you free for dinner?”

“I am busy,” Helena replied. She left her seat and headed for the door. “Perhaps after the signing.”

The guard swiped his card, unlocking the door so she may leave. She ducked under the doorway and made her way back to her jet.

“Got a minute?”

“Cormigieu Whitworth,” she intoned without pronouncing the words. “How am I hearing your voice all the way out here?”

“I got the amplifier working. Anyways, I have something to discuss with you, perhaps over dinner. You free?”

“Yes. I’ll arrange it with that place I bought in New Langshir.”

“See you at eight.”

--

“Gifts,” Dorothy Verruck said with a brief burst of enthusiasm. “Complex genetic systems interposed into our DNA that enable us to do fantastical feats. Approximately one in two people worldwide are gifted on average. But most gifts are weak in an extreme case of the Pareto principle. Most of you are lucky to have a powerful enough gift to have made it through the entrance practicum. Here’s an obvious question. Who here wonders where all that energy comes from? There’s no way oxidative reduction or ATP reactions can provide enough to allow someone to lift a tank.”

A small number of hands were raised.

“Well you’re all insufferable,” Dorothy said. “And your question will be answered by Dr. Rajamani in physics. This is a biology class.”

The brain calculated. That was its job. It did its job at all times, while you were asleep, while you were awake, especially while you were generating fireballs out of your hand or breaking boulders with your head. The brain worked hard just to run a normal human body. Gifts required a whole new level of processing power.

“One or two, you’re good,” Dorothy said. “It takes a genius to be born with full control over two different gifts, as rare as it already is to have two. Three or four, a savant. There have been six recorded cases of gifted with five or more distinct gifts. They have all been completely and utterly, incurably insane.”

Lyssa stopped her note taking. Her pen fell from her grip, sliding across her foldable desk, then to an audible clatter on the floor.

“Do you need help, miss?” Dorothy called out.

Lyssa glanced around her.

“Uh… no,” she said. “Sorry.”

The lecture continued. Lyssa kept a tight grip on her pen for the rest of it. At the end of the day she hurried to that spot in the gardens under the blossoming trees, where Lian waited.

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d show up to more of these,” the psychic said.

“Let’s get started,” Lyssa said. She assumed a meditative sitting position opposite of Lian.

“Ok,” Lian remarked. “So enthused all of a sudden.” She placed her fingertips on Lyssa’s temples and closed her eyes.