Chapter 20:

About an hour later, Will and Cierra had showered in the locker rooms on her family compound, and had almost completely healed. Both of them had underestimated the damage to their ribs, illustrated by the occasional wince as one of them tried to take too deep of a breath.

Feeling the bones rapidly popping back into place in his torso in a gloriously painful moment, followed by euphoric relief, had been one of the stranger things Will had experienced. Not that he was about to complain about the experience. He knew Cierra was going through the same thing after all, so bitching about his own situation would likely fall on deaf ears.

Now, sitting on a bench swing next to each other, he knew it was time to come clean about one of things that made him a weirdo in the land of crazy. Considering where to begin, he figured it would be best to just come clean starting with his shocking entry into their world.

He explained what had happened during his transition to Initiate rank, figuring getting hit by lightning might be a good way to set the tone for his story. He explained the experimentation he had done with his roommates, which had her laughing profusely.

He was up front with almost everything he had experienced in the last month. The only exception he made was leaving Sil and Artie out of it. He figured that whole situation would be a mess at the best of times, and it wasn’t really his place to tell their story.

Then, he explained that the electrical energy seemed to be permanently part of his system, and that he’d been suppressing any channeling that started while they were together.

The parade of emotions that crossed her face during his story was interesting to see. There was laughter, nostalgia, curiosity, and a whole lot of confusion.

He was just glad she wasn’t pissed that he hadn’t told her, so sat quietly while she organized her thoughts.

“I have to ask,” Cierra said, “why didn’t you mention it sooner?”

“Well, it seemed like something out of the ordinary, even by our standards. After you had explained things it was just that I didn’t want to mention anything that might get back to branch leadership.

It would not be unfair to say that I have problems with authority. It’s also possible that I tend toward a naturally cynical disposition where people like that are concerned.

Then, it was basically a habit by the time we were really friends, and between fighting and you teaching me, I didn’t really think about it.”

“Okay, so why tell me now?”

“For one, I know I can trust you now.

It’s also possible that I only just remembered yesterday that I still hadn’t filled you in.”

At that, she gave one of the most obvious eye-rolls Will had ever seen, and he chuckled in response.

“I warned you I have ADHD. You can’t really be that surprised that I kept getting distracted. This gorgeous woman started teaching me all kinds of interesting things, after all. Blame her.”

That got a smirk and a cocked eyebrow, so he knew they were good.

“Okay, so let’s see what this electricity looks like.”

In response, Will stopped suppressing the electricity flowing into him, and opened his energy tap as widely as he was able. The now familiar flood of energy felt amazing.

Almost instantly Will’s crest grew bright enough to see through his shirt, the whites of his eyes developed a distinct blue glow, and electricity started crackling across his skin.

“Whoa. You’re a friggin nightlight.”

“That’s what I said! I don’t suppose you get afraid of the dark when you’re alone in your room at night?”

The exaggerated waggling eyebrows he flashed told her that his lame line had been a joke, mostly, and she laughed again.

“Sorry, not so much. I’ll let you know if that changes though.”

“That’s fair.”

“So you can channel this to temporarily boost strength, reflexes, perception, etc, but it doesn’t bleed out of you? Damn, that’s useful as hell.”

“Yeah, though I’m not sure if my supply is finite or not, yet. Whatever I channel winds up absorbed into my body, so there might be a limit to my turbo boost ability.

Where it bleeding out over time goes, I honestly don’t know yet. My best guess is that when I channel a boost, most of it just dissipates back into my system, but I’m pretty sure I lose at least some in that conversion. I might have to start draining batteries or something soon, to make sure it doesn’t run out.”

“That makes sense. We should definitely start combining that ability into our training. It’s past time I learned how to properly channel, anyway, so it will be good for both of us.

Your instinct was good though. We should definitely keep it to just us and your friends. I’ve never heard of anyone able to do what you can do, but even without that you’re seriously powerful for how new you are. I don’t trust the council or head to not see you as a threat and want to do something incredibly stupid.”

“You think they’d attack me or something?”

“No… Well, the two decent ones would probably just get really annoying to deal with while making your life difficult where they could. It would be simple jealousy, with them.

The head… He’s basically greed personified. I think he’d want to figure out what makes you able to do this to try and get the ability himself. Whether he succeeded or not, his instinct would probably be to try to make you his faithful goon or kill you. I’m pretty sure he’s a total psychopath.

That last councilor though… I don’t know what he’d do, but I’m pretty sure neither of us really want to find out. He honestly scares me. He tried coming onto me once, in the creepiest stereotypical way you can imagine. He didn’t want to take no for an answer, and I’m almost positive he would’ve forced it if I were weaker than I am. He’s strong enough to most likely beat me in a fight, but I would be sure the collateral damage was more than he wanted to deal with.

Also, he’s afraid of my grandfather. That might have helped.”

Will felt true rage boil up in him at her comment about the last councilor. It caught him totally off-guard, and he felt his energy surge with his anger. Cierra sensed the surge of energy and saw a small spark of electricity arc into the frame of the swing they were sitting on.

“Will, get a hold of yourself,” she said calmly, “I’m not a damsel that needs protecting. I handled it and put out the word for any female Activated in the area to never be alone with him.”

Breathing in deeply and slowly exhaling, Will got his emotions under control.

“I’m sorry, I’ve never had that happen before. I know you’re more than capable of defending yourself, and don’t need me riding in on a white horse. I just really can’t stand pieces of trash like that guy. Why on earth is he on the leadership council?”

“The branch head appointed him.”

“Ah. I should’ve guessed. Okay, so why don’t you ever use their names? You haven’t told me what their names even are yet.”

“Honestly? Even the mostly decent ones are pretty useless, so I don’t really use their names even in my head. I only know the last names of the councilors. The two decent ones are Williams and Stone. The creep is Frankston.

The head is named Cecil George, and unlike the councilors, he’s pretentious enough to make sure everyone knows his name.”

“Wow, with that name I’m not surprised the dude is a douche. Frankston…”

Trailing off for a moment, Will couldn’t quite figure out what about that name bothered him.

“I wonder if that’s his real name?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I’m not sure… something about it is tickling something in my memory. I can’t place it though. Damnit, this is going to bug me until I figure it out.”

“Random, but whatever. It doesn’t really matter anyway.”

“True. Anyway, there was another thing I wanted your help with today. It’s time to put my big-boy panties on and get myself registered. I don’t want you getting in trouble for my stalling.”

“Good, because I was just about ready to fight dirty to get your ass in there. Let’s stop for food on our way into town.”

“Sounds good… wait, fight dirty? You have my attention. What did you have in mind?”

“Too late now. You already agreed. Now you have to wait till the next time I need you to do something.”

“Hey now, I’m so curious!”

“I know.”

The Activated branch office operated out of a massive old house, by Will’s admittedly modest perspective, that sat on a big plot of land in the hills outside of Reno. That surprised him, though he didn’t know why.

It wasn’t as if a shadowy secret society needed to be set up in some large downtown building. If anything, it was smarter to have it away from prying eyes when he considered how potentially destructive people like him could be.

Paige’s aunt would be disappointed at the lack of a sex dungeon, but since she would never find out about this place, that point was moot.

Still, they were totally failing to live up to conspiracy nut stereotypes, and that was just rude.

“Does this place maybe have a sacrificial altar stashed away somewhere?”

Cierra raised an eyebrow at him.

He shrugged in response, and said, “Paige’s aunt would be seriously disappointed at their failure to live up to expectations.”

“I’ll make sure to add a note to the suggestion box.”

“Do they have one of those? I could have a lot of fun with that.”

Cierra ignored that, and walked them into the not-a-house.

Will wasn’t even going to bother trying to remember the names for various rooms in houses this big, so he settled for thinking of it as the receptionist’s office in his head. There was even a big desk with a middle-aged looking woman sitting behind a computer, and Will quietly mumbled something extremely important to Cierra.

“Ten bucks says she’s on old people's social media.”

Cierra snorted, and slightly shook her head, walking up to the desk to speak with the woman.

Quickly, Will walked slightly sideways while the lady was distracted by his friend, so he could approach the desk from an angle. Looking at the screen, he saw a familiar blue banner over a white backdrop, and barely suppressed the urge to laugh out loud.

Apparently done with niceties, Cierra turned his way and introduced him to the woman.

“This is Will. He’s the one I was sent in as the welcoming committee for.”

When the woman responded, he began to wonder about her age, but only because he would’ve thought that level of proper condescension was lost to time. Then he remembered the one clip of a certain First Lady he’d seen a while back, and just sighed internally and started paying attention again.

“Ah yes. The new inductee from down South. I suppose it is time you registered. Fill this out, dear.”

“Down… riiight. Whatever. Won’t take long.”

Taking the form, he filled in the blanks. It was basically an old school job application, and it confused him. From what Artie had told him about their national computer assets, he couldn’t figure out why this branch was using such an archaic method for bringing people in.

“Anything else?” he asked, as he turned the form back to her.

“That’s quite alright, dear. I’m sure your… friend can explain anything you may need to know.”

Just like that, they were done there, and turned around to leave. On his way out, Will spotted a painting of a middle aged guy dressed in what looked like Victorian Era dress, and was about to ignore it when he spotted the name tag under it. The tag read, “Cecil George.”

He started to stop to look closer, but felt Cierra push him from behind, so he kept walking. As soon as they were outside though, his curiosity got the best of him.

“How old is the branch head?”

Knowing the question was coming, Cierra kept her reply short.

“He’s fifty-something.”

“He’s… but… that mother fucker was wearing a CAPE!”

The incredulous expression on his face made Cierra laugh loudly before responding.

“That was him in his ‘official work attire.’”

His expression at that made her laugh harder.

“Where is the suggestion box? I have a suggestion: only douchebags wear capes, unironically, in 2022.”

She shook her head, and kept walking toward the car.

“Maybe I could drop in a set of fake fangs and an instructional video on speaking in a Transylvanian accent?”

Cierra got into the car and started the engine.

“Would it count as a bio-weapon if we sent him a clove of garlic?”

She shifted into drive, so Will took the hint.