If you take anything from this class… then I guess you’ll have done alright. – From Clayton in Missed Conversations, Vol. 1

That night, Alex dreamed of death. He was a shadow upon the land, touching the hearts of a million men and women and burrowing into them like a parasite. He stood in the cold black desert, a solitary figure with night tendrils emanating outwards, flowing like clouds of pestilence on the wind. A mirror, broken up into shards, rotated around him. Each piece held a different face, but all were pale, and all were dead.

Alex felt the odd sensation of awaking into a standing position. He could see Jesse’s face, peaceful with sleep, and his hand stretching out as if trying to--

He leapt back, almost crashing into another bunk, a cold sweat taking him, his heart hammering in his chest. He had almost done it. Supressing an outburst of panic, he did his best to turn away, searching half-blind in the dark for his bed. It was just a dream. He told himself. Just a dream. I was sleepwalking, that’s all. But it was a pointless, and time-consuming lie.

***

Alex stared down at the trunk at the foot of his bed, his eyes itching from a combination of his gift and the lack of sleep it apparently inspired. He was doing his best not to look at the other boys, who were idling about in various stages of undress.

When had this thing got there? He thought, crouching down and unlatching the trunk lid. Inside was a set of pressed uniforms, a chunky laptop and multiple pairs of shoes. Several notepads and their corresponding stationary had been stuffed into the sides of the trunk also.

Jesse stretched, groaning obnoxiously until the boy named Simon threw a pillow at him. He strode over to Alex and crouched down to survey the trunk. The memory of last night flared within him and Alex found himself flinching unexpectedly. Thankfully, Jesse didn’t seem to notice.

“A-ha!” Jesse declared, reaching in and pulling out a sheet of paper. “Everybody gets the letter.” He said, handing it to Alex with a cheshire grin.

“They’ve got experience dealing with orphans, y’know. Like Simon over there.” Jesse said, nodding to Simon, who merely scowled in response.

Breakfast was a relatively quiet affair, as students focused on stocking up and getting ready for the day, over trading dreams. Alex was glad that even Jesse was taking the morning seriously. He didn’t even seem to mind when Tabatha came in to swipe at his food. Alex, for his part, was looking over the day’s schedule – and doing his utmost to ignore the constant mutterings of Jasmine, who sat not one row down.

History was first up, it seemed. Followed by Information Technology, Business and, finally, Combat. Lessons were two hours a piece, which was something Alex supposed he’d have to get used to. This wasn’t a university or college, which meant that everything on the sheet was mandatory. With a sigh, he turned the sheet over and found a list of school rules. They covered everything from tardiness to fighting, their length a worthy ode to the school’s villainous nature.

***

Mr Ellis stood at the front of the classroom. He was a wiry old man with thin, snow-white hair and a paltry beard. He licked his lips, as was his way, before every other sentence.

“As per the syllabus, Tuesday was our last lesson on non-gifted history. By design, we now leave the turbulent world of post-war America and find ourselves perfectly aligned with the beginning of the age of gifts.” He liked to pace as he spoke, both because it afforded him new views of his students, and because he felt that it impressed upon them the importance of his subject. “Can anyone tell me how it all began?” Silence. Mr Ellis continued. “1962 if that helps?”

Alex had no idea how the age of gifts had begun, his education up until that moment having mirrored that of a perfectly ordinary student. Jesse raised his hand.

“Anyone else?” Mr Ellis asked. Alex smiled inwardly as Jesse lowered his arm and began to pout.

A tall boy with cropped brown hair and a long, yet handsome face, raised his hand. Mr Ellis pointed at him with a shaky finger.

“Arthur, if you will.” He said.

The boy spoke in a dreary, aristocratic voice. “That would be the arrival of the superhero known as Tomos.” He said, with open confidence.

Mr Ellis dithered, as if the answer needed proper and due consideration. “Yes.” He said, finally. “Very good Arthur. You can have a point for that.”

Jesse groaned loudly, which caused Mr Ellis to turn and throw a book at him. Jesse dodged, easily, and that seemed to enrage Mr Ellis further. “Well!” He snapped. “Perhaps, Jesse, you can answer me this!? What do we know to be the full extent of Tomos’ power?”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows its teleportation. You don’t have to be the Inquisitor to figure that one out.”

“No.” Mr Ellis said sharply. “You don’t. You just have be stupid enough to believe everything you watch on television.” Then he turned back to Arthur and gave him the same question. I could feel Jesse start to boil over as the response came.

“It’s complicated.” Arthur began.

“Very good, Arthur. How so?” Said Mr Ellis, in a capriciously chipper tone.

“Well, we know that he can teleport. However, we’ve also seen him affect aspects of spacetime in far more general ways. The Constabulary - that is - the Inquisitor, puts him at an S rating, but there have been requests by high-ranking analysts to rank him higher. He is a Prime after all. The public knows him as a teleporter and the first person to bring gifts into the world – the epitome of hero. But it’s a great big riddle as far as the full spread of information goes.”

“Wonderful!” Mr Ellis beamed, turning to make sure that Jesse was paying attention. “Another. Point.” He clipped. Jesse folded his arms and stared childishly off into empty space. The lesson continued, and Alex quickly found himself losing interest. History, no matter the period or locale, had never been his subject.

Looking around at the other students, he noticed that Tabatha was missing. With a glance to make sure that the teacher wouldn’t notice, he leaned over and nudged Jesse.

“Hey, where’s your sister?” He whispered. Jesse turned, expression still sour.

“She doesn’t take this class. It’s a special arrangement she has for any subject that’s droppable in the second year. She trains in the gym, instead.”

“Why?”

Jesse shrugs. “It’s complicated. You probably noticed in combat, but she’s pretty easily the strongest of us.”

“Yeah…”

“Well that’s ‘cause she trains so damn hard. It’s all she thinks about. I mean, she’s flunking every other subject, so it’s not an issue of scholarship, exactly-”

Alex blinked in surprise as the spine of a book connected with the side of Jesse’s head.

***

Information Technology was not as boring as Alex had feared it would be. Mr Clayton had gone over the syllabus for him in the first five minutes of the lesson. Apparently, the emphasis for this class was on system penetration, social engineering and the development of malicious software. Alex quickly learnt the ‘why’ behind his burly teacher’s line of work. His power was the ability to transfer knowledge instantaneously, and as a former specialist in military intelligence, he had a lot to teach. There were, however, a number of caveats to this Prime-Minus gift.

Mr Clayton walked up to Alex and punched him squarely in the jaw. It wasn’t so much the pain that Alex felt - though that was picketing for attention near the front - it was the mind-melding sensation of spontaneous knowledge erupting throughout his brain. He felt himself about to pass-out and was lolling over to one side when a hand caught him by the shoulder. When he eventually came to his senses, the whole class was gathered around him, blurry and loud. Jesse was apparently filming him on his smartphone.

“Like drill day at the dentist.” He remarked, moving in for a close-up.

Alex realised with a start that his mouth was open, and that he had been moaning softly about something. He blinked away some of the dizziness and looked down to regard the hand on his shoulder, it belonged to Mr Clayton.

“And I thought my first day was bad.” Alex heard someone say.

Mr Clayton shot the speaker a glare and then turned back to Alex, his eyes strangely gentle.

“Here.” He said, offering Alex a glass of orange juice. “Drink this, it’ll help.”

Alex took the glass, numbly. His cheek was starting to liven up, and he had regained just enough self-awareness to feel the beginnings of indignation.

“I’m sorry I had to hit you. It’s always better to do it without warning, though.” Mr Clayton said. “A month’s a lot to absorb in one punch… And I can’t promise that you won’t be experiencing this again.”

The next twenty minutes passed quickly, as Alex tried desperately to track down some presence of mind. It didn’t help that Jesse kept replaying the video of him, adding some fresh insight here and some colour-commentary there.

It was the term-long assessment that finally brought Alex back.

“Now that we’re all up to speed on the basics of remote hacking, I have a little gift for all of you.” Mr Clayton began, holding up a blocky device in one hand. “An old ThrillBoy, the kind your parents probably won’t shut up about. The first handheld gaming device to offer cellular capabilities. It let you add friends and it let you talk to those friends, but most precociously of all, it let you play with those friends on a direct peer-to-peer connection.” Mr Clayton waggled the ThrillBoy under our noses. “So, this is where things start to get interesting, people. Before I let you play around on modern systems, I want to see if you’re capable of looking into the past first. Everyone check your desks.”

Alex followed his classmates in stowing away his notepad and lifting up the desk’s lid. Within, he found a ThrillBoy of his own. Like everyone else, Alex picked his up and began to study it.

“Good.” Continued Mr Clayton. “Now turn it on at the top.”

Alex did so, and a green, backlit display pushed forward the words: ThrillBoy 1978, in black letters. He’d never even heard of a ‘ThrillBoy’ before.

“Friends.” Was all Mr Clayton said, a small smile playing at his features.

Alex navigated to a ‘Friends’ option with an arrow-click, and then pressed enter. Two text strings, both thirty characters long, greeted him. Both were pinned up on what could conceivably be a digital corkboard, if one were particularly forgiving of the artist. Alex wasn’t immediately sure how, but he recognised them as hashes – words that had been obfuscated using a computer. He was certain that the letters and numbers held some deeper meaning. With a look of wonder, he touched his cheek, it was still tender.

“Forget about the first string. That’s me. I’m connected to all of you. I see all, I know all. Don’t try any stupid shit because I’m constantly monitoring all connections with my own ThrillBoy.”

He cracked his neck and waved a hand over the room. “No. Meet your target: string number two. You don’t know them. They don’t know you. But both of you are in this classroom. Your mission, should you choose to pass this class, is to find out who your opponent-string is actually talking about. This is something that’ll serve you well in the field, because believe it or not, people aren’t people anymore, they’re files. More specifically, they’re encrypted files. Now, if you want more than just a passing grade, and I would advise you to always want more at Black Vine… you will use what you’ve learnt over the past month to remotely access your opponent’s device and download their game-file onto your own ThrillBoy. That’ll get you an A.”

Mr Clayton sat down atop his desk and began flipping his device over in his hand. “Questions?” He asked.

Tabatha put her hand up and Mr Clayton nodded in her direction.

“We don’t have anything to charge them with, and they don’t have a compartment for batteries. You said this is a term-length assessment?” She asked.

Mr Clayton’s grin went wide at that. “I did. And it is. Each device has around eight hours of charge and you will not be permitted to replenish that in any way.” He held up his own ThrillBoy. “Remember, I see all. I know all. This is part of the assessment. How do you manage your time, your attempts, over the term? Can you think under pressure?”

A great deal of mumbling ensued, as people began re-examining their ThrillBoys as if they were made of feeblest glass. Alex raised his hand next.

“Alex, go right on ahead.” Mr Clayton said.

“What happens if they catch us trying to remotely access their device?”

Mr Clayton had evidently expected this, as his answer came immediately. “If they can make good on it by decrypting your personal string, then you’re in the shit. Otherwise, I can’t see as how I’d know to fail you.”

Alex kept his hand raised. “So… does that mean that fifty percent of us are going to fail?”

The classroom went deathly silent at that. Only a few students had realised the implications of a peer-to-peer challenge, for most it was an unpleasant surprise.

“Yes. At least fifty percent.” Mr Clayton said, with an air of finality.