Chapter 16:

Will was back at his spot in the desert. The idea to make this place a more dedicated training spot had hit him as a result of his conversation with Artie the previous day.

They didn’t have any weights or lifting machines, yet, but they did have basic tools for yard work. Well, that’s probably a little generous. They had a shovel and a rake.

He was honestly surprised they even had that much. It wasn’t like any of them had a green thumb, and their ‘yards’ were really more vaguely rectangular shaped patches of dirt. They were firm believers that they should fit their landscaping into the desert area they lived in.

It definitely wasn’t just because they were way too lazy to actually maintain a lawn. Well, not entirely anyway.

Regardless of why they had the implements, Will was happy about it. It meant he could get started on setting up his little home away from home immediately.

When he had updated his roommates, Jake had let him know he could pick up his old weight set from his parents house at some point in the next week. They weren’t anything fancy, but would work well for their purposes.

Working on his project throughout that afternoon, Will was surprised by how fast his little spot was taking shape. His newfound strength and dexterity made shoveling much easier than he had expected, given childhood memories of digging in the rock-filled dirt.

He had already dug a trough about twenty feet long. Then he had started a berm that would effectively block sight of him from the nearest dirt road through the desert. Since the area around him was basically just flat fields of sagebrush, he would have plenty of warning if someone was approaching when he didn’t want to be spotted.

He was taking a break to down a bottle of water from the cooler he’d brought out with him when he heard footsteps nearby. He realized he’d forgotten how sensitive his hearing was now when he looked and saw there was a girl hiking in his direction, but she was further away than he had realized.

He was pretty sure who it would be when she got within about a hundred feet of his position, and all doubt suddenly evaporated.

His new energy senses suddenly spiked, demanding his attention, and he stopped trying to pretend he didn’t notice her approach. The reaction was shocking enough that his reaction seemed natural when he looked her way, even though he had been expecting her to make contact soon.

His surprise faded rapidly, allowing him to take her in. She was beautiful, and her choice of clothing definitely emphasized her assets. He took in her athletic form, dark hair, and olive skin. He then abruptly realized he was staring like a weirdo and snapped back to his senses.

He knew she must have sensed him as well, since he was actively pulling in as much as he could while focusing on other things. He was also guessing her range was similar to his own, as she had stopped moving towards him. Knowing the big random dude in the desert would not generally be someone a random woman would want to approach, he decided to call out to her.

“Um, hey! I’m Will. What’s your name?”

She laughed briefly, and it seemed like some mild tension drained out of her, leaving a very attractive smirk behind.

“That’s your opener? Really? By your expression you just sensed another Operator for the first time, and your reaction is to completely ignore the seven ton elephant in the room?”

“Hey, would you have preferred if I offered to show you a magic trick with my mysterious superpowers? That sounded creepy as shit even in my head. Besides, we’re in the middle of bum fuck nowhere, in a desert. It’s not like a single elephant is in the way of anything.”

She snorted before replying to his question.

“Good call on that. Nice to meet you, Will. My name is Cierra. I’m an Operator, and so are you.”

A few minutes later the two of them were sitting on his new berm, sipping water, and Cierra was giving him the basics of their world. He knew if he tried to act it would only make her suspicious, as he truly was THAT bad at acting. Instead, he calmly listened and digested what she was telling him.

She explained about the different levels, or ranks, of the people who made up The Activated, and how they were essentially a secret society that functioned on a global scale to keep their existence a secret from the general public.

She then went into how they got started as a series of branches that had linked up with one another as technology, the internet, and the blending of cultures the world over caused them to come into contact with each other. That actually reminded him of a question he had meant to ask when Artie and Sil had given him the spiel, so he spoke up.

“So these abilities existed in groups all over the world, before colonists ever got to some areas? Like, here, there were already native people with Activated abilities before white people rolled in like locusts?”

Cierra’s eyes lit up a bit at that, and she responded in a more animated tone than she had used so far.

“Good catch! Yeah, it’s really interesting. There weren’t a ton of Activated in the colonies in those early days, so the white people with abilities tended to separate from the bulk of the colonization efforts and form smaller settlements. There also weren’t many native people with our abilities, so they tended to form relationships with those smaller towns.

These little villages or whatever also tended to coexist peacefully with the native populations. At least, they did with the groups that also had relationships with their Activated allies.

I think something about being able to sense each other energetically shaped their beliefs in a different way from the main populations of both groups. It makes it hard to see someone as lesser, or even all that different, when you can literally feel their existence.

I also can’t help but wonder if witch hunts in Europe and the east coast made Activated nervous of being themselves around large groups of norms. It would explain why they so often split off from the main colonial groups, and I don’t know if native tribes had anything similar.”

At that point, she realized she’d gone off track and reigned herself in.

“That’s a bit off topic. If you’re interested we can talk more about history later, but I should keep to the basics for now.”

“No worries. I do find it really interesting, so I’ll definitely be taking you up on that at some point. So, how much is this secret society going to suck?”

She smiled as she replied, “Spoken like someone who has done a bit of studying up on historical secret societies. Or cults.

For the most part, it’s actually not terrible. Members pay dues, but those are always based on the income of the individuals, and the leadership is usually pretty good at requiring the more wealthy members to pay their fair share. It’s a small enough percentage that most don’t even fight it, as far as I know.”

“That might be the most shocking thing you’ve told me so far.”

At that, they both laughed. They also realized they shared a certain, cynical perspective that could easily create a genuine friendship. Not that either of them would actually say anything about it out loud.

“Anyway,” Cierra continued, “there are dues, but nothing bad, and we have the benefit of them using it to keep the governments off our backs. Turns out, they like the idea of a solid line of revenue they don’t have to advertise.”

“Sounds pretty basic. Governments hiding shit is no surprise. I am curious though, if they’re that happy about it, it has to be a pretty large sum. How many of us are out there?”

“Oh, we make up a pretty tiny percentage of the population, but that gets into some of the side benefits of ranking up. I’m assuming you’ve noticed you haven’t gotten sick since you hit Initiate? Also, at your current level I’m sure your healing ability is a lot faster than normal?”

“Yeah, though I don’t know the full extent of those abilities. Testing them hasn’t seemed like an exceptionally exciting proposition.”

“Right, well, what you wouldn’t have been able to tell yet, is that the energy in your body drastically slows down cellular decay, while accelerating cellular growth. On top of that, whatever it is that controls when our bodies begin breaking down from old age is… suppressed would be the word, I guess. “

Knowing the curiosity that topic always brought up, Cierra continued quickly.

“Basically, Activated can live a LONG time. We have records of Initiates who never learned how to pull energy actively, and lived over hundred and forty years without ever really knowing why.

We also have records of Initiates who actively pulled, but could never break into Operator rank. They knew enough to stay out of the spotlight, and people who read stories about them have always assumed it was fictional. They could live to be almost two hundred and fifty years old, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the urban myths out there were based on them.

Operators and above are another beast, entirely. As far as we’ve been able to tell so far, there really isn’t any dying of old age for those who break into Operator rank.

I’ve read that some of the people who originally led the charge to get the various branches to link together are over four hundred years old. They’ve broken into the next ranks of activation, though, so we can’t say for certain if Operator is where age stops being a factor.”

Will was trying to remember if Artie or Sil had mentioned aging in their intro course, and was pulling a blank. He’d been so overwhelmed with new information at the time, that he just couldn’t be sure.

“That’s a lot,” Will said slowly, “but I don’t think it’s something I can really make sense of right now, on a personal level. I’m guessing the usual trope of compound interest with multiple generations of false identities is how some of these people have a ridiculous amount of money?”

“Got it in one, though I’m sure there is more to it than that. Rich people's finances are weird. My family got hooked up with an Operator who is also an accountant, so they just follow his guidance.”

“So you come from a family of Activated?”

“Most of us do. We don’t know much about the mechanics behind these abilities, but we have been able to figure out that it follows genetic lines, and different lines have different upper limits on how powerful they usually get.

I have to ask, is it possible your family knows about this stuff?”

“No idea. I was adopted, and my parents died when I was in my teens. I’ve never been able to find out about my biological parents, and as far as I’ve found it’s a dead end. I might think about looking into it more in the future, but for now I want to just deal with what’s in front of me.”

“That’s fair, but on that topic, you should have a mark on your body somewhere that glows when you pull in a lot of energy. Would you mind showing it to me?”

Without speaking, Will took his shirt off to show her his Crest.

Cierra looked at it closely, and said, “I don’t recognize it. These crests usually can be used to identify our lines, so you might be able to discover more with records from the archive of The Activated.”

“Good to know. So, do I get to see yours? I showed you mine, so it’s only fair.”

“Ha ha,” she replied, dryly, “I suppose it can’t hurt.”

With that, she turned around and lifted the bottom of her sports bra on either side, stopping when the mark it had covered in the center of her back was visible.

Momentarily distracted by the sudden clothing removal, Will shook his head and looked at her Crest. It looked like a stylized lightning bolt passing diagonally over a crescent moon, and he definitely appreciated its beauty. It… fit her, somehow, in a way he couldn’t really explain.

Then the top came back down, and he put a mock sad face on as she turned around.

In response, she smirked and made a show of looking him up and down.

At that, they both laughed, and it dispelled any lingering tension from that part of their conversation.

Settling back on the berm after a bottle of water for each of them, Cierra asked, “So, what’s with the moleman act?”

Chuckling, Will responded, “Well, pushing myself physically at home got to be pretty dicey after I ranked up to Operator. I was breaking shit. MY shit. I like my shit not broken. Therefore, I figured out a way to do it away from home, but out of the way. I’m honestly surprised you found me.”

He was curious how she would respond to the implied question, but knew he’d accept whatever she said, for now.

“I’m visiting a friend who lives a few miles away for a couple days, and decided to go on a hike while she was at work. The visit was pretty impulsive, so she wasn’t able to get today or tomorrow off. I’ll head back home the morning after tomorrow night.”

“Oh? Where is home for you?”

“Up just a little Northeast of Reno. My family has a compound out in the middle of nowhere up there. We have a combination of geothermal and solar power, so we’re off the grid. It’s a decent place to live, but pretty isolated. Not all that different from here, really.

What kind of workout were you planning, besides shoveling?”

“Oh, right, I should warn you I’m adhd as shit. Just fyi. Anyway, the dig is one thing. I’ll get some boulders to test myself against. Also, one of my roommates will be picking up an old weight set he has from his parents in a week or so.

With everything going on lately, I’ve really thought about learning how to fight. I’ve only ever been in standard fist fights, basically, so my experience is pretty lacking. I’ve gotten held up on the whole I-have-super-powers thing, though. Can’t very well go to a normal martial arts class.”

Cierra got a look then, telling Will she was thinking about something. After a moment, she looked around slowly, then back at Will. The look on her face was definitely bordering on evil when she asked, “How do you feel about getting your ass kicked by a girl?”

Will smirked in return, saying, “I think my fragile ego can handle some beatings. Can you deliver?”

“Only one way to find out.”

With that they both got up and walked away from the ditch Will had dug.