Coursing my way slowly to the slump I knew would be today's math class, my eyes bounced off several people either walking the halls, or slumping against lockers to talk to their friends. Even though I slowed my pace to snail speed, I of course was the only person in the hallway walking by my lone self. In this moment of mental silence and clarity, it felt like time slowed around me, matching my tune and favoring my emotions.

I was in no rush to make it to class, and that was because I had much to think about especially observing all of those around me. I mostly felt envious of the others, be it couples or other girls just hanging out for fun. It took nothing for me to realize that I have none of what they do, true top-down friendship. But I couldn't fully understand this feeling, because it was so quickly overridden with another strong sensation, the kind that tightened my body, clenched my teeth, and boiled my rage. There were many of them, groups of boys huddled together or strung about, doing such stupid things.

One cluster of men were laughing and throwing soft objects at each other, caring not for who they might hit or bump into in the process. I could hear the conversation of another, two guys going off about their offensive view on girls. Lumina used the phrase misogynistic, though I still didn't know all of the language to understand it. Basically, the hallway was half full of 'boys just being boys.'

But it wasn't that long ago that Lumina showed me the true nature of men who embrace their masculinity, the nature of the heathen. Just being around this many at once was bringing back those reminders again, especially when their own stupidity and familiar behavior was on full display. Every time I got a glance at something like this, my thoughts were all sent to the direction of what happened in the Altiri history because of Legasso. I remember too well what happened to them, what happened to her. The association of genetics is enough reason for me to hate the other men too.

"Look at them. They're all such idiots!" Despite not trying to, Lumina and I voiced our anger at the same moment with the same words. I'm so refreshed to have someone to shoulder the same hatred I'm feeling now. It's still tough though; I don't see how Lumina gets by everyday seeing these heathens just roaming the school.

"I'm kind of surprised that you feel the same way now. Not that I'm complaining." In all her gloating to have shifted me to her way of thinking, Lumina must have forgotten the revelation she revealed to me earlier.

Weeks back, Lumina showed me what people were really like, revealing to me their darkest, most twisted natures. She showed this to me by sharing distant memories of her past observations to me, rather forcefully. They were memories of the people she watched when she was using clairvoyance on them. The horrible things men did to other people can't ever leave my mind. I've tried to forget about it, and I just can't. But even that alone wasn't enough to sway me into hating heathens. There was one more catalyst to all of this; the Altiri.

The dark ages of their history left scars on all of them, including Lumina. If I were not friends with Lumina right now, then it would never have bothered me this much. But the mental pain this left on her has gone unpunished. Legasso died a quick, easy, and painless death, and men of similar nature roam freely on the Earth, doing whatever destructive or hurtful things they want to try. Lumina isn't feeling pure rage when she's surrounded by all of these heathens. Some of this is also a background terrifying fear, fear of what they might do again if they ever get the chance. Her anger, her fear, her anxiety, her sadness, I can feel it all without even having to try. But of all those emotions, she clings to anger, because it is the easiest one to deal with. Deep down, I think I knew this as well, leaping onto her bandwagon for both our sakes.

So, I don't see why she is so surprised that I would telepathically voice the same aggressive hatred that she feels onto the same targets. "At first, these feelings only belonged to you alone. I felt them through the purge, enough that they temporarily controlled how I reacted around other men. But the way I feel now has nothing to do with the purge; this hatred is born of my own free will. I mean, look at them Lumina. All of these losers are so incredibly stupid, that they don't realize the significance of the time they are wasting. Instead of paying for that themselves, they'll just grow up, menacing society from the inside out with their disgusting yet contagious ideals."

"There is plenty of that already going around in the world. Trust me on this one."

When I tried thinking about everybody's future some more, it only twisted more nerves, testing the limits of my blood pressure. "Isn't there some way to stop men from harassing or bullying women?" My question was a little too broad, but I just couldn't find the words anymore. Most teenagers this age don't even realize how dangerous this is to them, that so many idiotic men carry the power of social status around here. Not all of them are misogynists, but enough of them make up the difference for how women get treated around here, and in society after they all grow up. Even if it's something as miniscule as characterizing them by subjective attractiveness, that pattern affects everybody's collective behavior much more as they all grow up. The effect is, the girls focus too much on how beautiful they appear on the outside, but never allocate that same energy to how they feel inside. But in all of that consideration, I wished there was some way for me to reverse this, even if my efforts are small.

"You're free to try, but there is only a very small area of proportion that you could affect. Your school is not the only place where this kind of stuff goes on. If anything, Saffrin Middle is paradise compared to some of the other schools I bore witness to observing. But it still heads in that direction, little by little."

"I knew my pessimism would swallow you whole someday. Glad to see my hopes are as bright as a shining ray of doom and gloom." I could tell Lumina wanted to respond to that, even if it was just reactionary gesture. But before she could, something was happening to my right side below the lockers, the tail end of some kind of weird setup.

"Hu hu! Look man! This pest can't even lift forty pounds."

"But he is on the soccer team."

"Man, soccer is for little girls and gay dudes."

It was a lot to take in so quickly. Three crappy friends of each other decided to convince another freshman boy yearning to fit in to lift one of their backpacks. Only, the backpack was obviously filled with bricks and cinder, visible through the slightly open zipper. It was a test of strength, or something to that effect. But unofficially, it was more of a prank. Of course someone of that body mass is going to struggle lifting a bag of bricks to his shoulders! And instead of patting the kid on the back, the two heathens mocking him were now laughing at the person clearly weaker than the two of them.

It was obvious that the two of them were on the football team. No heathen would ever mock any other sport to such extremity unless they were on an opposing sport. American Football and Soccer may be different kinds of games, but they are just similar enough that their popularity rivals each other to the point of a heavy clash. This is why people in football tend to stay in football, while people in soccer tend to stay in soccer. For these two idiots, playing football instead of soccer is seen as the more manly way to be in their pathetic lives. And even though I understand this already from my own intelligence, this invisible projection always gets understood by most others as well, for reasons I don't know. The points all prove themselves in nature, right in front of us.

"Even in their own stupidity, you can see and hear the evil in their torment. Those assholes will mock anything they don't understand, and belittle everybody else to make themselves feel stronger."

"Even with that," I added, "They would even involve themself in a lame heathen sport like football. I mean, what the hell is so fantastic about kicking a ball through a goal?" Even though Lumina would treat my question as jibber jabber, I really wanted the real answer myself. I just don't get it. What does it do for the world? What does it do for society? I don't even see the entertainment value in such a sport.

"They act like they're heroes of the entire world for scoring arbitrary points with a stupid ball of air. They're all nothing but vermin!"

"They give the term human a very bad name. And there are millions of them in the world." Lumina doesn't realize how lucky she is, to live in a world where there are no heathens, no sources of corruption and evil.

"If only I were there, I'd kill every last one of them. I'd cut off their heads with my blade and shove their limbs down their throat!" It wasn't hard for me to imagine the violence she described, but given what I've learned, I felt too engrossed in the same hatred to deny this desire.

I've never killed anybody before, and I've never even thought about it... But now, I'm beginning to know how it feels, to understand what it means desiring to remove pestilence from the world. "I wonder if I could get in on that action."

"I would be just fine with my powers, but you would end up getting arrested and put into prison. So it's not worth it to you. I know you hate them now too, but don't think they are worth the prison time Reed... I just need to get this out of my system." Does she actually want to kill them, or does she just want to vent?

No, I could feel her anger mixing in with my own. Her hatred and drive to kill are all very much there. Lumina never killed anyone either, though she had orders to destroy Legasso. I'm sure that if she were here in person, it would be a wonderful bloodbath of karma-driven death... But she isn't here, and I can't rid the world of heathens for the reasons she just pointed out. Still, if I put all of that hatred aside, I should still be able to focus on mitigating the devastation that is to come. "Lumina? I feel like I should be doing something. There has to be a way to wake the people up and make them realize how evil men really are, how toxic they are to society."

"And what ways are you going to do that? Playing dress up? You only get the choice of being more active and involved, or ignoring the enemy and having your own fun."

Is she mad that I like to cross-dress? It never bothered her before, and she said it herself; there is nothing I can really do. I don't want to believe it myself, but Lumina can't be mad at me for this. "Whatever then. Guess I'll have to settle for adding the topic to more school assignments." For the final minute leading up to my next classroom, I stopped my walking entirely, turning myself around... Everything I've been feeling now is weighing too heavily on my mind. The idiots in the hallways are still idiots, and the girls are essentially asleep to their surroundings, or accepting of it. I can't go to my class like this, not yet.

"Let's just change the subject... I never did get a chance to read your work the last time. But I bet you've improved since last week."

"I bet I have, but I'm not worried about that right now." I panned around me, realizing what was really bothering me. "Lumina? Do you think I'll ever become smart enough to make friends?"

"Smart enough? Reed, you probably haven't realized it yet, but the others around you are shrinking in intelligence compared to yours. You've been getting rapidly smarter, ever since the purge. I've taken notice myself."

Is that really true? Do I have it backwards, that everybody else in the world is too stupid to understand the way the world is? If I were to think that way, it would feel too self-righteous and arrogant, but I can't be sure either way. I let my body carry me again, wherever it wanted to go. Heading far away from my classroom now to skip math, my feet carried me through the side exit of the hallway, and out to the cold nature-filled outdoors of the school grounds. "That's a scary thought. Though, you are the most intelligent person I know, so it's bound to rub off on me at some point. I hang out with you every single day, so who knows what I've really learned?"

"I know. Many people walk by you daily, and most just simply don't have a clue. It's more of a matter of opportunity to learn everything we know, an opportunity that cannot exist. Of course, if we're looking at IQ points, I'm sure yours also excels beyond most."

"IQ points?" I realized only now that Lumina wasn't referring to everybody else as a random example. She's speaking as if she knows for certain. "Is that something you can just scan for?"

"Well, no, not really. I can't tell how intelligent someone is just by looking at them, but I can still get a good guess if I take a psionic scan of that person."

"A psionic scan?" Now she's going to tell me she has even more psychic powers?

"Yes. It's an ability that can't be used on others in conjunction with clairvoyance, only face-to-face. However, the purge changes that for us. We can conduct quick scans on people through the senses of another human who has already been purged. Through your eyes, I can scan people to see how psionically active they are. Those who are active tend to have a higher level of intelligence, for whatever the reason."

"But what good would that do me now? I'm the only person in Georgia to be purged, so your scan would show as empty, would it not?"

"Well, I'm actually talking about detecting lower levels of psionic buildup. The ability lets us read a person's psionic potential, which we call psionic aptitude. We then summarize whether or not they are capable of being purged. If they are, we can typically judge just how powerful of a scion that person would be."

"Capable?" There was a lot of explaining she needed to do for me. I don't remember all too well of the specific details I learned on the first day, and I barely remember the phrase psionic aptitude. She just used the term scion again, which was not an official Altiri or human word, but one she and I decided to come up with, for reasons I'll explain later. Basically, a scion is simply a coin term for psychic. If she can tell who has potential psychic powers just by looking at them through me, that's pretty impressive. "Are you saying that not every single human being is capable of being purged?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. Between our psionic census of 2007 and 2009, we've checked and learned that only about 49% of the female population are compatible for a purge. The exact proportion for males is still pending, but thought to be much lower. The other side of the proportion simply does not have the physical potential to develop psionic abilities, which is why a purge on them is physically impossible."

Amazing! So all this time, there was less than a coin's chance that I was even viable for a purge? "That's strange. Are all psionic abilities just random like that, or is it genetic?"

"We have strong evidence suggesting that the traits are genetically passed down. Most who are confirmed potential scions tend to share those results from the same family tree, but the correlation is still not concrete."

"That's really bizarre Lumina. Is there some reason why half the population are not scions? If it's a genetic trait, shouldn't that have spread to just about everyone?"

"The Altiri scryers are still searching for an answer. We believe it's most likely due to an evolutionary delay."

"Evolutionary delay?" By now, I was enjoying the fresh cold air of the outdoors, remaining well hidden since my mouth was more silent than my mind. I cared not about the potential that I might be caught skipping, since this was now too interesting for me to ignore.

"Yeah. You really think most humans were this capable in the distant past? Our census relays show much lower levels of psionic aptitude if we turn the clock back thousands of years. It shows that the human race must undergo the process of prodaption. Prodaption is kind of like the process of adaptive evolution only over a very long period of time. The brain in each following generations becomes structured for higher levels of intelligence and additional simultaneous parallel processes, until there is a visible break-through."

If I'm understanding what she is saying correctly, Lumina's words could mean that humans will one day grow up to become scions on our own without the need for alien purges. One day, humanity will begin to turn into psychics right out of the womb! It sounds too good to be true. "So you think, over a long enough period of time, people will eventually develop the potential to transmit psionic data on their own?"

"Yes, eventually. At least, that is how the theory of prodaptivity would frame it. In about a thousand more years, I wouldn't be too shocked if I suddenly saw humans start using clairvoyance on their own during childhood."

"Well tell your scryers to look harder. I haven't heard anything about people using psionic powers on their own without a purge, but I would love to know if it's possible." I had to remind myself what an Altiri Scryer really was. Simply put, it's just an Altiri looking for raw data in a clairvoyant-style study. They need nothing but their own natural powers from within.

"We'll try looking into it some more, but our data isn't fully complete. Surely, we have not scanned every single person on Earth. The human population today greatly outnumbers our own, so there could still be hidden outliers. And then, there is also the ten percent."

"Ten percent?"

"Yeah. For about ten percent of the people that we scan, regardless of color, gender, or age, the echo-return data just doesn't reveal a single point of detail."

"No data? Doesn't that just mean the same thing as not being psionically active, I mean, not a scion?"

"It isn't the same. If we scan someone who has no psionic aptitude, the echo-return data would let us feel this difference in potential. But with the ten percent, what gets revealed is absolutely nothing at all. Such people are completely immune to any kind of psionic scan. It's worse than that. Any Altiri person cannot use clairvoyance or any other sensing ability on them either. They are a total mystery. Whether they are actually capable of having psionic powers or not is yet to be determined."

"All because you can't spy on them." I didn't really mean to derail the conversation. I was too loaded down with amazement to think of anything else. Clairvoyance is the spying ability, something any Altiri can do to just about anybody. But this is the first time I'm hearing that ten percent of the world population have an immunity to psionic energy waves.

"It isn't normal for people to be able to completely block out powerful psionic waves. They are invisible even to those with the best psionic senses, and nobody knows why."

"So, that would mean ten percent of my school, give or take. Can you really just scan anybody with a single glance through my eyes?"

"It takes time, but I could tell you who is a potential scion and who isn't." I was amazed to hear that, and even more did I try to apply some way to let Lumina use this technique to further prove her own existence. "For them, it ultimately makes no difference in their lives whether they know it or not. Being aware of one's potential does not mean they can start using abilities. But it does mean that those who are a potential scion, including the ten percent are capable of getting purged or being transperated. And if they turn out to be a powerful potential scion, it will yield faster purge rates and stronger average connections."

I wonder where I stand on my scale of psionic aptitude. It isn't low enough to not be purged, or else I would be in class writing numbers like a blissful idiot. Speaking of which, how long have I been out here? "I might have you scan some people later, even if it's just for fun."

"I can do that if you wish. Like I said, it's not that hard. I might even be able to teach you to do it somehow."

"One thing at a time Lumina. First, I should try and blend in a bit better." By that, I mean going back to math before I get marked for skipping, assuming it's not too late already. I couldn't help myself this time. I had to know where this conversation would lead, and I was right to presume it arouse interest. I never knew there was a scale for psionic aptitude, let alone that ten percent of the human population are immune to such as scale. "I'm going to sink back into class now, but I want you there with me once it hits gym time again."

"Fine..." Anyone could hear the annoyance in her voice, soon to explain why. "But if I have to hear a single heathen again today, I might lose it."

I knew she was approaching her quota for today's heathen hatred. "I can only do so much to avoid them you know."

"Maybe you can feign some innocence and change in the girl's locker room for a change."

She can't be serious! She would want me to go that far just to avoid the heathens for five minutes? "Lumina? I'm not that stupid. Even if I want to be more like a girl, there are boundaries that even I won't cross. And nobody would accept that idea in a million years." Does Lumina even understand why that would land me in a lot of trouble?

"I was only testing you Reed. I wanted to know how you would react to the idea."

"Really? I'm going back to class now." Why Lumina? Why did you have to plant that image in my head? Even if I don't want to, whatever gets said to me is usually projected in my own imagination, part of a vivid thought process I don't control too well. If I have to make it through three more classes with her teasing me like this, I'm not going to make it out alive.