Mina was dying. She felt pins in her lungs with every breath she drew. Her muscles complained, trying their best to convince her to just stop and lie down. The sun burned mercilessly. Still, she ran on. Well, moved her feet as fast as she could. More of a jog than a run, honestly.

"Is that the best you can do? I eat pipsqueaks like you for breakfast."

The terrifyingly huge man approached at an actual run. With Mina being dead last, there was no one else to buffer for his wrath.

"You think you know pain? You know nothing. But you'll learn soon enough."

The worst part was the accompanying feeling of glee he was projecting. One thing is to torture kids. Another to enjoy doing it.

At least he wasn't serious about his threats. Even knowing he wasn't serious about them, they were still effective. She threw up a little in her mouth, but kept moving.

He was right behind her now, shouting more insults and threats. The exact words failed to register, but his message was still clear enough. She couldn't give up. She wasn't allowed to give up.

The finish line came into view. Mina had no energy left. Her legs felt like jelly. Her lungs were burning. And worst of all, she could feel the schadenfreude from the spectator stand. Ironically, that motivated her more than anything the coach did.

Somehow, through some unseen miracle, she managed to cross the finish line. Two more steps was all she managed before she fell to her knees and hurled. The combination of throwing up and gasping for air was pure agony. Even more schadenfreude from the sidelines. Some sympathy, too, from someone else.

The coach approached her. Surprisingly, he was not angry or disappointed. Quite the opposite, he was pleased.

“See that?” he boomed out, “That is effort! You should try it some time, you lazy bastards.”

She was actually being used as a positive example, despite being dead last. Any moment now, the Gods were going to come down and do a river dance wearing lederhosen. That seemed about as realistic as what had just occurred.

Was this really a blessing? It was probably good for her lacking PE grades, but not so great for her social standing. She could already feel the contempt from her classmates. There were times she envied others for not having to be constantly tuned in to others' feelings.

"Now get up and walk one round, or you'll really regret it tomorrow," the couch ordered. Or maybe advised. The difference was extremely subtle.

She evaluated her options. If she had to get up, she would die. On the other hand, the coach might kill her if she defied him. In addition, she would succumb to the taste of bile in her mouth if she didn't get water soon. Two against one.

She got up with all the elegance of a pregnant hippo, and probably some similar sounds. Only her promise to herself of chocolate when this was done kept her from giving up. It was important to keep your promises. Not that this promise would be hard to keep.

On her feet now. Too bad the water bottle was miles away. Okay, twenty steps away. She could do this. If she didn't faint on her way there.

While walking at the pace of a zombie, she peeked at the stands. Just as expected, Kat sat there. She radiated a lot of negative feelings, chief among them annoyance. While she was not the only person watching, it was obvious she had been the source of the schadenfreude Mina felt earlier. It overshadowed the other feelings, including the horny boy at the uppermost row.

She could recognize her enemy based on just her feelings now. What a pointless milestone. It was cool when she could differentiate her friends based on their feeling landscapes. But Kat? The less they interacted with each other, the better. At least as far as Mina was concerned.

Kat had a different opinion. It was strange, but also understandable that the bully from her old school sought her out when Mina started school here. Mina hadn't seen her for two years, ever since Kat graduated from Dawnhill. It was not a welcome reunion, at least not from Mina's perspective. She had thought, or maybe hoped, that the bullying was done when Katinka graduated. Apparently not.

It could be worse. The bullying was more petty than anything else. Unlike Dawnhill, Kat couldn’t get away with anything she wanted here. She had been scolded by teachers several times, which hadn’t stopped her from trying new methods. In the end, she had found a way that worked exclusively on Mina: Stay close, and share all her negative feelings. It was impossible to hinder, and the teachers did not consider this to be harassment.

It was aggravating. Her trainer had theorized that it should be possible to block or at least reduce her sensitivity with practice. But until she mastered projecting feelings to others, she was not given exercises that could help her defense, so to speak.

At least Mina wasn't alone in her misery. She could only pick up Kat's actual feelings, which meant she was just as miserable as Mina. More, in fact. She had to be somewhat deranged to willingly nurture those feelings so much. Or, more likely, genuinely depressed.

Mina didn't know the full story. Was she sympathetic to Kat’s plight? Not very. Despite involuntarily latching on to all the negative feelings, Kat made it exceedingly hard to sympathize with her. All of Mina’s attempts at communication were rebuffed. Worst of all, she retaliated when Mina suggested she might be suffering from depression. Kat was like the snake from the fable. Even if you helped it, it would still bite you back.

If only she could successfully project indifference back. Unfortunately, that was one of the hardest feelings to project. She could project the more straightforward feelings pretty well by this point. Anger? Easy. Cheerfulness? No problem. Indifference, though? It was like calling someone to tell them you wouldn’t bother to call them.

Her training with projection had also been somewhat detrimental to her social life. She was encouraged to train on people unaware of her actions, as the true test of skill came when she could affect someone without their knowledge. The problem was that she was hardly the master of the craft. Every failure meant more test subjects distrusting her, and more rumors.

Meh. Who needed a truckload of friends anyway. She might not have the largest group, but they were worth their weight in gold. Too bad most of them were miles away.

At least three of her friends were close. She’d meet Nico for dinner later at the cantina. Until then, she desperately needed a shower. Unfortunately, that required her to actually get to her dormitory. She walked slowly, still tired. Oh boy. This would be fun tomorrow when the muscle soreness set in.

Like her last school, the campus was in the middle of nowhere. This one was in a stone desert. Practically nothing but sand, stone, and hills for miles. This place was a lot more boring than Dawnhill. She missed the place. It had personality. Okay, this place had personality, too, just a very hostile one. It matched the surrounding desert.

Concrete everywhere. It was not only the choice of materials. Everything had been built with defense in mind. The innermost buildings were built on elevated star-shaped plateau. The outer perimeter had a small mountain on one side, and walls on the other three. Tall walls, with a minefield between them. A fucking minefield. There were checkpoints at each gate. Guard towers were placed at every corner and intersection. Along the outer wall were huge metal doors in the ground, that someone had told her housed anti-air missiles. All around there were physical obstacles to prevent vehicles from driving anywhere but on the prepared paths. Each reinforced building had heavy metal doors outside the main doors, the type you’d see on a bomb shelter. And everything was painted in a dull grey-brown color.

It was the unholy love-child of a fortified military installation and a high security prison, conceived during the Cold War. That also happened to be a school. The only part that didn’t match the aesthetic was the small tables dotted around the buildings and arguably the track arena. The occasional sculpture only added to the aesthetic rather than detract from it.

Mina hadn’t been inside the facilities dug into the mountain. According to the rumors, extremely secretive research was taking place there. What kind? Who knew? She wouldn’t be surprised if it involved research on live humans or even aliens.

Someone ought to have told the architects that people were formed by their surroundings. This place, so steeped in sharp, hostile concrete, was absolutely not the place to teach future agents moderation and nuance. It was easy to draw a connection between the seemingly cold-hearted and cynical agents and this place.

Mina wondered what the Consortium really had been up to during the cold war. The answers she had gotten from her teachers had been evasive at best. She got the distinct impression that they had done something they would rather people forget or, in Mina's case, never learn of.

Was this cold war era installation originally built by the Consortium? Maybe they had just inherited it from some kind of federal organization. It was obvious they weren’t about to lower their security, so there had to be some threat they were worried about. Considering the existence of the gates, she guessed the threats were extra-dimensional. If the rumor was true, what kind of research were they doing that made them so wary?

The dormitories were thankfully on the outer ring, so she didn’t have to go through the gate to the inner section. She trailed behind a small stream of fellow students. Practically no one hung around outside. Would it have killed them to set up more places with cover from the searing desert sun?

She passed by five other dormitories until she reached her own. A wall of cold air greeted her when she entered the building. The blessings of air conditioning. If someone seriously wanted to siege this place, all they had to do was stop the air conditioners, and wait for people to succumb to the heat. Or cold. It was really bloody cold outside during the night.

She went to her room to fetch her shower utensils and towel and the last chocolate. Experience had shown that it was a bad idea to maintain a large storage of sweets; she lacked the self-control to leave it alone. At the same time, having nothing was just as bad, if not worse. She would have to buy more after her dinner with Nico.

She dumped down heavily on her chair and broke off a bit of chocolate. A dark chocolate with salty nuts. Simply divine.

By the time she found a change, a towel and her toiletries, there was already a queue at the common bathroom. Waves of feelings washed over her. Everything from annoyance to arousal to envy. Right now she didn’t want to deal with it, so she picked up her phone and tried to ignore her surroundings.

Suddenly, something tickled her right above her butt. She almost dropped get phone in surprise

“Hey, Sexy,” the owner of the finger greeted her, "You shouldn't use loose sweatpants. They hide your delicious butt."

Mina turned around to face Alysia. She was not amused.

"Maybe not everyone wants to advertise their butt to the whole world. Have you considered that?"

"Of course. There are plenty of ugly asses out there. But to hide a beauty such as your own is a crime."

"I'll take that into account the day you become a dictator and enact that as a law. Until then, I'll decide for myself."

She was not feeling particularly social at the moment. If it was any other person, she could complain about the coach and the test. That was a fruitless endeavor to a training nut such as Alysia. She would just say something along the lines of ‘I’ll help you train, so you’ll be in better shape’.

Mina liked Alysia, but she still found her public persona somewhat obnoxious. Everyone acted differently in public and private settings, and Alysia more than most. She was, or at least acted like, a sexy diva. The interesting part was that Mina couldn't tell where she stopped being and started pretending. Her best guess was that Alysia had pretended for so long that it had become a part of her.

In a more private setting, they could share deep and interesting conversations. But here, in public, where everyone could listen in? All they could talk about were safe topics. There was always someone listening in, and here in the queue the interested party didn’t even have to pretend to just hover nearby.

Outside of their skin color, Alysia and Mina shared precious little. And yet, the fact that they were the only people of color in the dormitory kept them from drifting apart. In addition, Mina was about the only one that Alysia let down her guard around.

Not here, though. She had to keep up appearances in public, after all.

"Hey, no cutting in line," a blond girl behind them called out. Maria or something.

There was a clear hint of hostility from the girl. She would not shy away from a confrontation. On Alysia’s end, Mina picked up on her hesitation. Oh boy. She could already tell that her friend could not back down, or risk her social standing or whatever was at stake. Fortunately, she had nothing much to lose herself.

"Sorry, that was awfully rude,” Mina spoke up before Alysia could confront the girl, “Feel free to go past us.”

The girl flashed a grin as she walked past them, satisfied with her victory.

“You’re lucky Mina is so lenient,” Alysia muttered. Mina did not agree. Non-confrontational was more like it.

“When is your birthday again?" Mina changed the topic.

“In six weeks. Don't worry, you don't need to give me anything."

It was hard to find a present to someone that practically had the world at her fingertips, but she had put in some effort and found something within her price range. A handcrafted necklace of whale bone, crafted by a young inuit. Probably not the greatest gift she would receive, but it would hopefully still be appreciated. It ought to arrive in the mail in around a week or two.

She felt a bit bad about spending a decent amount of money considering her current economic situation, but at the same time she wanted to do something special for her friend’s eighteenth birthday.

“So, how do you plan to celebrate your entry into the adult world?”

“I don’t know. My father has promised me a real surprise. I’ve thought about what it could be. Maybe we’re going skydiving? Or he’ll get me a car of my own? There was also the time I mentioned I wanted to try skiing down a fresh hill after being dropped off by a helicopter…”

Economic resourcefulness was obviously another thing they didn’t share. As far as Mina could tell, Alysia’s father was a bigshot in both the veiled and unveiled world. Regardless of where he got his resources, he obviously had a lot more money than time to spend with his daughter. Unlike many others in similar situations, it seemed that they still had a good, if somewhat distant relationship.

Mina would be lying if she claimed she wasn’t a bit jealous of her friend, but she didn’t hold it against her. She judged people on how they acted, not how rich they were born. Though there was often a correlation between the two.

Alysia wasted no time waiting for Mina to keep the conversation rolling. She launched into topics Mina didn’t care all that much for. The latest fashion she had read about, complaints about the new, cool nail polish flaking off far too easily, rumors she had picked up here and there. Mina mostly nodded and acknowledged. It was part of the public charade, but also things Alysia genuinely cared about. She did her best to pay attention. Still, she was very happy when they retreated to Alysia’s room after the shower.

Alysia fetched her hair dryer and bag of hair products.

"Can I just say I'm incredibly jealous of you," Alysia said loudly, over the sound of the hair dryer.

"Oh? How so?"

"Your hair. It must be incredible not to spend so much time fixing it up all the time."

"Okay? You do know you have the option of cutting it shorter like mine, right? Unless there's a divine commandment preventing you or something."

"It's not that simple. Not everyone can pull off your tomboy style."

"It's not a deliberate choice. More like a consequence of me not caring enough to bother."

"Yeah, well, if I did that, everyone would flip their shit. Nobody expects much from you."

"If that was an attempt at a veiled insult, you have to try a bit harder," Mina said jokingly.

"No, no, I wasn't trying to insult you. Honestly! I was just…"

"Relax! Remember, I can sense your feelings. I know you didn't mean anything bad."

"I… know, but I don't really understand it. So you know what I wanted to say?"

"No, I can't read your thoughts. Most of the time, I can't even tell your exact feelings. I just catch your general mood. I bet you don't even know your own exact feelings a lot of the time."

*Yeah, I guess it's kinda common? Let's do an experiment. What am I feeling right now?"

"Hmm. You're a bag of feelings right now. Your general mood is good. I can sense some curiosity, in particular."

"Correct. I would also say I feel anticipation.”

“That’s a hard feeling to pick out. Can I ask what you’re anticipating?”

“Your answer. I’d like to invite you to my birthday.”

“Really? Are you sure I’d fit in there?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not throwing you into the lion’s den. I’ll have three parties. One for the family, one for appearances, and the last for people I actually want to celebrate with.”

“Not so fond of the family?”

“Oh, I didn’t make myself clear. My family is … fine, for the most part. But the second party, where dad gets to show off his adult daughter to all his acquaintances… yeah, that’s not very fun. I think he wants me to find someone to marry among the elites, so I’ll get introduced, or rather, re-introduced to all the eligible bachelors.”

“Is this common among the rich?”

“Maybe. It’s definitely common among the elite of the unveiled world, though. There’s the money and connections, of course, but also the prospect of future children that might awaken to greater powers if their parents had good powers. No one knows if it’s true, but no one seems to actively disbelieve it, at least.”

“So, you’re getting married away for your womb?”

“No, dad’s understanding enough that he wouldn’t do that. Oh, he’d surely veto me marrying someone veiled, but apart from that he lets me choose. Doesn’t mean he won’t try to influence my decision, though. As long as he respects my opinion, that’s fine with me.”

Mina accepted a brush and started working through her friend’s hair.

“You didn’t answer my invitation?”

“Oh, sorry. Yes. I’ll come. Provided there’s not going to be mandatory drinking. I’m still only sixteen.”

“No one would care if you choose to drink. I’ve seen plenty of sixteen year olds drinking themselves silly.”

“Yeah, but I’d prefer not to. Some people have the opinion that you’re implicitly granting permission to adult stuff if you choose to drink, or something like that. Particularly if you’re black. I have no idea why.”

“I haven’t had that problem, but I guess the people I’ve hung around with know of my father and what he’d do if someone crossed the line.”

“What would he do?”

“I don’t know, make their life a living hell? I don’t think he’d kill them.”

“Reassuring. Good thing that won’t apply to me. Before the party, I’ve got to find a dress that won’t embarrass anyone. Or maybe I should lean into the tomboy style and go for a suit instead?”

“Dress. Definitely dress. I can help you find one. I won't say no to some shopping together.”

“Eh, I have to warn you that I probably can’t afford the stores you frequent.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for a dress. No protest. What kind of friend would I be if I ignored my broke friend?”

“Not quite broke, but slightly less financially viable, yes. Okay, I won’t reject your non-negotiable generosity.”

“Good girl.”

She handed the brush back to her friend. Alysia proceeded to get some oil to apply to her hair.

“There’s something I’m curious about,” Mina asked. “All the agents I’ve seen have been pretty uniform in their appearance. Isn’t there a risk they will force you to cut your hair when you become an agent?”

“Maybe they have rules regarding that, I don’t know. They won’t apply to me, regardless.”

“No? Is that another rich elite thing? Ignoring the rules you don’t like?”

“No, I'm just not going the agent route."

“Okay, now you’ve lost me. I thought the point of studying at this school was to become agents for the Consortium.”

“It’s a bit adorable how little you know sometimes."

"Right. My only redeemable trait. I'm a bit adorable."

"Haha, more than a bit. No, the graduates here have the option of entering the agent training program. It’s not mandatory. Unless you’re here on a stipend, in which case they'll decide for you.”

“Well, I obviously won’t have a choice, then. But why are people enrolling here if they don’t want to be agents?”

“This is a prestigious high school. It’s an open secret that almost all the elites graduated from here, so they probably enroll their children here, too. I don’t know for sure. I never questioned Dad when he chose the school for me.”

“Color me surprised that the top choice of school among the elites looks and feels like a prison.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of bad. On the other hand, it’s possibly the most secure school in existence.”

“Which begs the question; what threats are they anticipating? Humans, or something extra-dimensional?”

Alysia shrugged.

“I haven’t thought about that. I’ll ask dad next time I see him.”

“Let me know unless the answer is confidential. Meanwhile, indulge me with another question. Was it your choice to sign up on the combat course? I mean, what are you going to use it for if you’re not going to become an agent?”

“That’s just because it seemed like the most exciting course. Or, more like the only exciting one. The diplomacy course seems like a bore, no offense. I know you couldn’t choose. The tactical course seemed like a wish-wash. The combat one is the only one that had some real meat on the bone.”

“Is ‘meat’ an allegory for action?”

“It’s definitely part of it. It’s also the lack of fat, as in boring stuff. I mean, there's the mandatory stuff everyone needs to learn, but thankfully no more than necessary.”

“It’s not that bad, at least not yet.”

“If you say so. Time will tell.”

“Speaking of time; I need to leave, I'm going to meet a friend for dinner."

"The white trash?"

"No. No, in so many ways. You're thinking of Brenda. The dinner date is not with her. And please don't call her white trash."

Alysia shrugged.

"Just repeating what everyone else is saying."

"Well, in that case, everyone else are stupid. Don't listen to them. You've probably heard what they call me."

"I guess. Who are you meeting, then?"

"Nico. Remember him?”

“How can anyone ever forget him. It’s not a real date, is it? He’s gay, right?”

“Definitely not a romantic date, if that’s what you’re referring to. But can’t a boy and a girl just enjoy some food together?”

“Of course. If they’re siblings. And not into incest. At least that’s what it feels like according to the rumor mill.”

“I’ll take my chances. See you later.”