“First thing’s first!” Tracker called excitedly—more excited than normal, Aaliyah realised. Instead of the usual joking and theatrical excitement that Tracker usually displayed, Aaliyah noticed that the excitement was more tangible than before, maybe even harbouring an anxious edge. Aaliyah wasn’t good enough to psychoanalyse someone so deeply that she could pin the tail on the donkey, but she was good at picking up vibes from people—errant emotions, unusual behaviours, basic reasonings and motives.

“I know that we spent much of our last little session focussing in on Ivan Vasiliev, the powerful hyper cognitive behind Think.” Tracker let the team kick their mind into gear, the others in the group slowly nodding as they remembered the strange Russian man. Aaliyah recalled the man easily, having done some research on him and his company ‘Th.inc’—as obnoxiously as it was named—after the last lesson, searching for more information. He really was as secretive as she had been told and apparently, he ran a tight ship when it came to information leaks. Or everyone was too scared to go against him.

“However! While the context of Linked being literally linked to a greater, cosmic energy source—its mostly superfluous information that doesn’t really add all that much to our actual small-scale understanding.” Tracker paused again, letting the team chew and absorb the information, leading them into her topics for today’s lesson.

“So, instead of the hypotheticals that Ivan and some of his peers can offer, we are going to dive into the practical world of links.” Tracker paced in front of the four students in the front row of the lecture room like a drill instructor, making eye contact with each of the trainees. “This includes general rules of thumb, common limitations, common link types, common adverse effects, and common Awakening mechanics.” She flicked up a finger for each point listed, staring at the group intensely so as to impress the importance of the information they held. Even Aaliyah, who thought herself relatively resistant to the influence of other people’s flow, found herself being brought into Tracker’s story.

“This class is not going to be as interactive as the last one was. This is important information that—if you intend on interacting with other Linked—will save your life more times than you could possibly count.” Aaliyah opened her mouth to pose a counter-point, but Tracker turned to look at her with a cheeky grin, “Even if you intend on being in a non-combat focused role. Take it from me.”

Aaliyah almost scowled at the woman, if she hadn’t been caught out so hard on trying to make a small power play. Aaliyah hated how her instructors—and even one of her teammates—were so immune to her social intrigue. It wasn’t that she was bad at it, by any means—she had begun to doubt her abilities herself, resulting in her setting difficult social engineering tasks to prove to herself that she still had it. No, Aaliyah was still really good at playing the social game, it was those that surrounded her that threw her so significantly off kilter—so hard that it destroyed any real likelihood of her working on the other two members of the team as they can tell something is wrong from just the interactions she had. All this just made Aaliyah angrier than she had already been today.

“So, first on the list; general rules of thumb. We will be adding to this as we go along in our lesson.” Then Tracker stopped dead still, her face deadly serious, “But, rule number one—the one rule that will save your bacon more than anything else you learn in your time here…” Tracker paused, searching each of the faces of the trainees for just the right amount of rapture in their eyes.

“There is nothing that is truly as clear as its labelled on the tin.” This drew strange glances, even from Aaliyah, subverting expectations thoroughly. Tracker began to pace she continued.

“Let’s say we have a new Linked Awaken in town. They start galivanting across gang territory, messing up some low-level thugs and maybe a Linked gangbanger or two. When someone finally gets a few words out of the pompous idiot, they say that they are completely invulnerable. Their link is invincibility.” Tracker observed the room quietly, as Aaliyah immediately understood what Tracker was reaching for.

“But it isn’t true invulnerability.” Aaliyah said quietly, but Tracker shrugged flippantly.

“I don’t know. You shoot them in the eye with a .50 calibre sniper rifle and they don’t even need to blink. Even their hair is so strong that it has the highest tensile strength of any material that isn’t linktech produced. They are functionally invulnerable, and even effectively immortal.”

“But then poisons–” Tracker waved a hand.

“Extremely complex immune system, brain and nerve overhaul to resist any natural, Linked, or linktech created poisons or diseases, mental powers—including mind control of any kind, and every other method you could think of. Their link is perfect and covers every basis.” Aaliyah sat back in her uncomfortable flip-out chair and glowered at the suited woman.

“So,” Tracker continued, a question sprouting from her smirk, “how do they die?” The silence was deafening, until—surprisingly—Walter spoke up.

“Heat death of the universe?” He said, almost joking. Tracker shrugged again, her face pulling itself into a lackadaisical expression.

“Maybe not. They surpass any modern conception of biology and could theoretically survive anything.” She smiled at Walter, but continued on without taking another answer, “No, I’ll tell you exactly how this extremely powerful Linked will die.” She sat herself on her desk, entering a faux philosophical pose.

“What will happen, is that one day a fifteen-year-old guy will wake up from his Awakening dream. He’ll try to figure out what it does on his own, but only figures that it enhances how hard he hits. Dime a dozen, as far as Linked go. So, instead of sauntering up to the AASAU HQ, he decided to continue on with his life.” The whole team was sceptical now, dumbfounded by the strange and twisting narrative.

“One night, this guy realises he’s out of milk and he made most of a coffee, with his last spoonful of mix no less. He needs this hit to get through his studying for an exam the next day. So, he moseys on down to the corner-store, grabs some milk for a dollar fifty more than he would at a supermarket, and makes his way home. On his way though, he encounters a group of gangbangers who are all racing away from something. Guy gets spooked and ends up running along with them.” She paused for a moment to let the absurd situation sink into their mind. It was absurd, but also somewhat realistic so far. In fact, Aaliyah had seen similar situations happen in front of her eyes.

“The invulnerable Linked was the pursuer, taking out groups of gangbangers one at a time, weakening the gangs in the area. A noble cause.” Tracker said, though Aaliyah suspected her true opinion was hidden neatly under the mask she wore, “Unfortunately for our normal Linked guy, Captain Invulnerable over here is getting a little loose on what is defined as ‘with the gangbagers’, and unfortunately the invulnerable Linked pegs a guy running frantically with a carton of milk as just that.

“So, the almighty powerful Linked decimate the gangbangers around the other Linked, but when the invulnerable Linked lashed out to knock out the kid, he is met with a plastic milk carton—cutting its way across his torso, all the way through the body and killing him instantly.” She raised her hands in the air, as if to elicit a reaction from the stunned crowd of four. The team, however, had nothing for her after a few seconds. She nodded with satisfaction.

“Exactly. This is why the first rule is the only rule, the rest are simply guidelines. Absolutely everything you know and understand about your link, or even other people’s links, can change in a fraction of a second if you meet someone with the right link.”

“Wait, wait,” Walter held his hands up in surrender, blinking rapidly with confusion, “how did the kid kill the invulnerable Linked? With a milk jug?” Tracker looked at the flustered Asian man slyly.

“You tell me.” She stated, and after resisting the man’s pleading expression for a moment, she relented, “Perhaps he could command reality to tear in front of him, with a wave of any object he held.” Walter’s eyes scrunched in thought. It was a reasonable answer, Aaliyah thought.

“Or it could just be that the specific type of damage the kid was capable of dealing was the invulnerable person’s incredibly specific Achilles’ heel.” Which was an answer far less reasonable.

“The point being you must always be wary of having the rug ripped right from under your feet. At all times, in any situation.” Tracker let the silence reign before continuing peppily.

“Continuing on from that downer, let’s talk about common link limitations, shall we?” She barely received a nod, “the main limitation links have are their connection to this cosmic power we all are linked to, and how the link consumes or stores the power. For example;” She clicked a button on a little remote in her hand and a graphic came up on screen in a cartoon art style, depicting a man punching and kicking, his skin glowing red—lessening the power bar sitting just below, until it was empty, leaving the man to pant and fall over from exhaustion. However, over the next second, the bar refilled and made the man capable of standing again, repeating the aforementioned process.

“This is a relatively common type of power management. There are some basic tweaks on the individual level, but it’s a good enough representation. My own link technically falls within this category, which we just call it the ‘reserve type’. Once that reserve is gone, you’re in trouble. The amount of time those with this type get out of their link in consistent usage varies wildly, usually depending on the power ‘hungriness’ of the link. For example, I can continuously use my link at maximum strength for just shy of nine hours continuously. More if I tone it down.”

Tracker clicked the remote again, bringing up the same man but with a different link—this time the man would send out a zap of electricity that arced cartoonishly across the screen, depleting one of five golden circles below him. He continued until totally depleted, and the circles returned one at a time, slower than it had taken him to use each one.

“This is the ‘charges type’, which is how it sounds on the tin. Usually those with flashier, more powerful links are charges types. For example, Fireball out of South Africa.” Walter’s eyes lit up with the reference, making Aaliyah roll her eyes sufferingly, “He is capable of expanding a charge to launch a fireball that can explode a modern military tank. The quirk on his part is that he can expend multiple charges for a bigger boom.” The trainees shuddered, even Walter who seemed to be a bit of a fanboy. No-one could find a link even remotely related to explosions funny anymore. Suicide’s terror still lingered to this day, even twenty-some years later.

The screen changed again, depicting the same man yet again—this time holding a hammer. Below him a blue bar filled slowly, the bar shifting colour towards red. The hammer blow was unleashed with a crack in the floor underneath the character, then repeating with a longer charge time and bigger payout, until the last blow—fully charged—that blew a hole in the floor, before resetting to the beginning.

“Another type, usually called the ‘load type’. Characteristic of a wait before a stronger attack can be unleashed. This is a very variable type, as most do not follow this exact demonstration, and are more loosely defined as our next type.” She clicked again.

The graphic simply had the man with lasers shooting out his eyes, the power bar below replaced with an infinity symbol that had a light perpetually circling its course.

“A person with a link that cannot be exhausted of its power stores. These types are very common, either as truly ‘infinity types’ or someone whose link has no practical limit they’ve reached. This is common, but also pretty dangerous, as it means that a true infinity type has no power on hand or in reserve. So, if a Linked appears who can shut down another’s access to that power, the infinity type is severely hampered, if not outright defeated.”

She clicked the remote again, letting the image behind her flick back off. She waved her arms emphatically as she began to pace again.

“There are more types, the ‘ignition type’ for example—where power is only used to incite the release of power, like a lighter to a hair spray can—but if we listed each permutation, we’d be here all day. These are the main ones, and its more than likely that all of you fall into the infinity type, just by coincidence really. Keeping the limitations of your own type—and those of your possible enemies—is important beyond words. If you can drag out a fight because you know your enemy has a limited amount of charges and you are an infinity type? That’s a good method to adopt. Play to your strengths, rather than try a shoulder your own weaknesses in an encounter that might just spell your death.” Tracker let the room be quiet before she readjusted her grin and motioned towards the door.

“Time for a break!”