Mike woke to the dark after just a few hours on the cot, back stiff and his bad shoulder aching. I should figure out how to fix that with the teleotic talent, he thought. For the moment, he would accept the pain as a convenient alarm clock. He had to train the ability to clear out precursor residue and his schedule wouldn’t include a lot of personal time over the next week or so.

In the dark, Mike used a blend of animas, nous, and gravitas to effect a major operation. First, he identified clots of residue using feelers of precursor. Next, he identified which type of precursor had created the residue, something he likened to a flavor. Then, he used the two other precursors to seize it in a manner similar to picking up single grains of rice using chopsticks. For animas residue, he used gravitas and nous as his manipulators.

Little by little, he formed a tiny stack in a corner of his mind. The sky had already begun to lighten by the time he figured out the method and managed to put it into use. He judged he had maybe another hour to go before there would be enough daylight to rouse his troops.

Then his phone began to buzz from its place in his pocket. Mike got up out of his cot and walked outside to answer it without even looking at the caller identification. If someone wanted to call him at this time, it had to be important. “This is Mike.”

“Hey, Ski, it’s Varanelli.”

“Damn, roomie, you miss me already?”

“It’s a serious call, Ski.”

Mike’s mind began to rush. “What’s happening?”

“A couple of kinetics went on a murder spree in a hospital somewhere in Virginia.”

“Angmari deserters?”

“No, it was two white guys. The first one looks fresh from the trailer park. The other guy is wearing a suit. They were going after hospital workers, squashing their heads like grapes. It’s insane, Ski.”

“Do you think these are people Marius attuned?”

“I hope not.”

Mike sighed. “I hope they were. Otherwise, the other Angmari are handing out super powers to people with questionable morality.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“I’ve got to train an army, Varanelli. Looks like we might need to be ready for action sooner than expected. And you do nothing. You’re outnumbered and I don’t think you’d do well against kinetics who can crush heads.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, Marius is the one who should handle this. He’s always bragging about being the most powerful human on the planet.”

“Exactly. For all we know, Marius is hunting them down as we speak.”

“I’m not going to hold my breath for that. I just wanted to make sure you had the news. How is training going?”

Mike winced. “It’s going. I had to get a little rough with them.”

Pause. “A little rough . . . . Are you talking about being strict or are you assaulting a woman and an old man?”

“I’m putting them through a version of basic training. I also smacked around the old man.”

“Ski.”

“He had it coming, Varanelli.”

“Ski.”

“He wouldn’t follow orders and then started popping off about how the national guard didn’t have real soldiers. He had it coming.”

“This is just like the situation with the marines.”

Mike took a steadying breath. “No, I’m under control, Varanelli. It was a strategic beatdown.”

“Strategic? Be real, Ski.”

“Sorry, I got to go now, Varanelli.”

“Try not to kill any of your students.”

“Yeah, sure, bye.” Hanging up, Mike glared at the rising sun. “I need a drink.”

“No you don’t,” Spencer said from a spot just inside the door.

Mike grunted. “Are you going to give me shit too, now?”

Spencer stepped outside and lowered her voice. “I’m going to support your leadership decisions. Just try to think about what kind of organization you want this to be. Marius is a shit leader who bullies his subordinates because he doesn’t know how to lead any other way. You were an NCO in the United States Army. Use your experience to mold this army into something we can be proud of. Think about it. We’re going to become historical figures like George Washington and General Patton. We need to do this right so we can be proud of our legacies.”

“OK, now I really need a drink.”

Spencer chuckled at his exclamation. “You can do this.”

“I guess we’ll see soon how true that is. We’re going to need to wake the others up soon. Varanelli dropped some bad news on me. There are kinetics running around causing havoc on Earth. They killed a bunch of doctors at a hospital.”

“Shit,” Spencer said. “How strong were they? Was it just brain pushes?”

“They were squishing people’s heads.”

“So stronger than us. Maybe. I honestly don’t know how hard it is to crack a skull.” Spencer looked Mike in the eye. “If you have booze out here, I wouldn’t mind a drink myself.”

“I don’t have any alcoholic beverages,” Mike said. “I have a little problem, not a big one. Drinking problem, that is. The supervillain problem is a big one.”

“Want me to rouse the recruits?”

“I guess we should. There’s a lot of training to do.” Mike patted Spencer on the shoulder. “I owe you for backing me up yesterday.”

Spencer shrugged. “At the time, I thought if I didn’t go along with things you might kill Woodrow.”

Mike nodded towards the room full of occupied the cots to send Spencer inside to wake everyone up, then turned back to face the rising sun. History is watching my every move from now on. Unless I screw up and we all die. I guess this is what I get for trying to turn my life around. It sure is a high stakes second chance. Am I a heroic early leader of a planetary defense army or some idiot who gets himself killed playing at being competent? I guess I’ll learn the answer to that soon enough.