Megan always knew she was different. Ever since she was 4 years old, she could move things with her mind. Moving things just came naturally to her, her power was like an extension of her body, or herself as a whole. It became an everyday part of her life. The most shocking thing though, was her other power. The one she discovered when she was 14 and dating an ex boyfriend of hers. She was simply laying with her head in his lap when she thought she heard him say how ugly her hair was. Meg sat up, appalled he would say that, and confronted him. But, when he had no what she was talking about, that's when she started to question her sanity. Until she realized, she was hearing his thoughts. It was like a dam had burst, his thoughts, feelings, everything flowed through her mind like water as she looked him dead in the eyes and read his mind. That was the day she found out he was cheating on her with her best friend. He didn't come out unscathed. Never piss off a telekinetic girl who can read your mind. It's not smart.
Now, at 17 years old, she finally thought she had her life straightened out and took control of her powers by the horns. 2 years previous the best thing that ever happened to her occurred. The arrival of two new kids. One from Colorado, one from South Carolina. Meg jumped at the chance to have real friends, finding both of them in turn, secretive of something. Meg finally used telepathy to figure out that they were just like her. Special. Soon, Meg and Kai were dating. Kai and Aliyah were working together to harness more control of their powers while Meg giggled from the sidelines and offered tips. Everything seemed right with the world, until that day.
It was just a normal boring Tuesday, really! Nothing was wrong until lunch, when the popular kids decided to humiliate the three. Acting as if they were going to present them with an award for collecting the most toys for the school toy drive. Until the three got creamed...literally in a sense, 8 gallons of creamed corn rained upon them, drenching them with the gooey grossness. The whole school was in hysterics, almost every member of the student body was in on the little 'prank'. Meg snapped, screaming like an eternal creature, she used her powers in public for the first time ever. Moving the chairs in the cafeteria to make everyone sit, shoving them close to the table so they could not escape, she prowled the crowd, reading minds left and right to find the culprit, the mastermind. She was about to pass Jordan Evans, the captain of the basketball team when a flash of guilt came from him.
Meg turned on him like some sort of demon, an eerie smile etched on her face as she got close enough to kiss him. "Did you do this?" She whispered very softly, very dangerously, creamed corn dripping from her hair onto him. Petrified by fear, he nodded. Meg leaned back, a triumph smirk on her face and let out a cackle of evil laughter, she prided herself in the ability to creep people out, and used this as a home advantage. Every eye was on Meg, even Aliyah and Kai's their faces full of amusement. Meg stared straight into Jordan's eyes. A strange look came over his face, before the screaming began. Raw, primal screaming, full of pain and terror. Jordan, collapsed out of the chair, thrashing on the floor, clutching his head as tears streaming down his face in waterfalls. Meg cackled, her eyes alight with murderous intent. Kai sighed softly, descending down the stairs to wrap his arms around Meg's waist, the cream corn sticky around them.
"Love, you can't kill him, too messy." Kai reminded her lightly, as if they were discussing the weather. Jordan's screams subsided to whimpers, skittering away from the corn splattered couple. Meg had stopped her physic attack, for now. Kai kissed her cheek. "Thank you." He murmured softly in her ear. Meg let out a small giggle and looking around the cafeteria at all the terrified faces, she spoke.
"If any of you even whisper a word to anyone, even each other, I will hunt you down. You will end up like poor Jordan here, but I will not stop, until your pathetic little brains pop like a blister. Believe me, I will know. Now leave!" Meg yelled to the room at large, uprooting everyone's chairs to drop the student in it onto the floor in a heap. Their was pandemonium as all the students rushed and scrambled to flee the cafeteria. Kai held Meg close to his chest as Aliyah descended and made her way through the mess to stand by the couple and look down at the one student who now remained. Jordan. "Are you deaf? Get. Out." Meg hissed, glaring at the boy as if he was a pathetic thing stuck to her shoe. Jordan whimpered and scrambled to stand, he looked at Meg, then Kai, finally Aliyah before bolting from the lunchroom. Meg sighed, hanging her head and using her powers to remove the creamed corn from all three of them. Kai rubbed her arms comfortingly as Aliyah walked around, straightening the tables. Meg turned and buried her face in his chest, inhaling his comforting scent of green tea and fabric softener. "I love you." Meg whispered softly, tears flooding her eyes. Kai held her closer.
"I love you too baby." He murmured, kissing her hair. Aliyah soon came back over, raising an eyebrow.
"We should split, before the principle comes run-." Aliyah cut herself off as the principle, Mrs. Black came in, a severe and prim woman, her hair in a uniform bun and not one wrinkle in her white pant-suit.
"It would be easier to locate you three if you were in class for once." Mrs. Black said coldly then shot a look to the embracing Kai and Meg. "I have half a mind to give you each 6 demerits." She snapped. Meg and Kai broke apart, Meg wiping her tears on her light blue shirt sleeve. The principle glared at them over fashionable glasses. "You have someone in the office for you." She announced, turning on her heel and walking back to the office, expecting them to follow her. Kai held Meg's hand as the three followed glumly. Soon they were in the sickly beige office with the ugly plastic green chairs in front of Mrs. Black's massive desk. A familiar woman with sleek blond hair that clung to her head and aquamarine eyes stood, smiling and shaking each of the suspicious student's hands. Aliyah flinching when the woman's hand touched hers. Meg shot Aliyah a look and she nodded.
"Well, I'm not sure if you remember me, but I'm Joyce Piper, congratulations!" The woman said, dismissing the girls strange behavior without a second thought. Kai looked skeptical.
"Congratulations on what?" The 18-year-old senior asked suspiciously. The woman chuckled.
"Oh don't worry you three, sit please." Mrs. Black chipperly said, pressing on Kai and Aliyah's lower backs to have them sit. Mrs. Black hissed in Kai's ear, "Two Demerits McKee." before returning to her desk, sitting in the dark leather chair.
"Do you three remember the vision screening from a few months back?" Joyce asked us. The 3 teenagers nodded, not sure of where she was going with this. "Now what exactly do you three remember?" She asked kindly. Meg scoffed slightly.
"It was exactly the same as at my optometrists every 4 months." Meg said, slightly bitterly, she had to update her glasses often because of her rapidly changing vision and it annoyed her immensely. Kai let out a light chuckle at Meg's childish sulking.
"Wasn't it for some new program?" Aliyah inquired. Joyce smiled a little.
"It was a new program, but we weren't screening for vision, at least not the one you three think. Do you remember where you had to write down the letters to saw? Or when one of the attendants started yodeling, and of course that unfortunate case that poor volunteer lost her grandmother's necklace because it turned out to be the cause of her death." Joyce said. Meg, Kai, and Aliyah nodded in accordance to the event that had affected them.
"Yeah, you gave everyone a pen and paper, and had them write those frickin' microscopic letters. I could barely see them." Meg complained, grimacing. Kai then picked up.
"That attendant was yodeling so loud my ears hurt, then he quit on the spot and ran out singing 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'." Kai griped, crossing his arms.
"That poor girl nearly had a panic attack when the cop showed up to take it away. I knew that clasp looked weird, never would've realized their was poison in there." Aliyah commented, leaning back in her chair. "But what's your point, that was months ago." She continued, raising an eyebrow in question. Joyce clapped her hands.
"Perfect accounts of your unique situations, yes, Meg you kept writing, but you didn't see the letters did you? You read the minds of the attendants to figure out the letters didn't you?" Joyce said. Meg stiffened, her eyes widening. Kai bit the inside of his cheek and his right hand formed a fist, his knuckled straining. Aliyah looked at Meg in astonishment that she would use her powers for something so stupid. "And Kai, you were bored out of your mind weren't you? Deciding to change that attendants mood after you were finished feeling the moods of everyone you could, exhausting all options." Joyce continued, ignoring the reactions. Kai's eyes bulged at this. Meg grit her teeth, so she wasn't the only one. Aliyah gave him a stern look, both of them, really? "Oh, and we can't forget you Miss Aliyah, texting your uncle, a cop, to tip him off on that poison necklace, your lucky that girl let you touch it, saved her life you did." Aliyah's look hardened as she stopped glaring disapprovingly at her friends, looking slightly sheepish herself. Meg threw her head back and sank in her seat. Kai sighed.
"Your gonna take us to the nuthouse aren't you?" Kai asked wearily. Joyce looked surprised then laughed.
"Of course not! You each have beautiful, unique gifts, and you have more then one a piece do you not? Kai, you can sense and change emotions, Aliyah, you have psychometry, you can know about the history of anything, or anyone by simply touching it, coupled with that levitation you've practiced in your apple orchard. And last but not least, Meg, mind reader, and telekinetic? Powerful too from that display in the cafeteria." Each of the three, looking stunned and happily so, they were not freaks, they had gifts. Meg reached to her sides and clasped hands with Kai and Aliyah.
"I would like for you three to come out to San Carlos, California with me, to train and develop your abilities with your equals." Joyce said, smiling wide and standing before them.
"Equals?" Kai inquired curiously.
"Yes, 6 other high school seniors, 5 kids like you. All with different talents of course, none of you can do the same thing. But that's great; that's just what we were looking for. We'll be able to do a variety of experiments." Joyce said happily.
"You want to experiment on us?!" Aliyah gasped, looking to Kai and Meg, then the principal in alarm.
"I'm getting ahead of myself, as I've said, I'm from San Carlos, California, and I work for the Zetes Institute. It's a very small laboratory, not all like SRI or Duke University. It was established last year by a research grant from the Zetes Foundation. Mr. Zetes is-oh, how can I explain him? He's an incredible man-he's the chairman of a big corporation in Silicon Valley. But his real interest is in psychic phenomena. Psychic research."
Joyce paused, taking a drink from her expensive mineral water. "He puts up the funds for a very special project, a very intense project. It was his idea to do screening at high schools all over the country, looking for students with high psychic potential. To find five or six, or in this wonderful case eight, that were absolutely the top, the cream of the crop, and to bring them to California for a year of testing."
"Whoa whoa whoa, a year?" Aliyah said, holding up her hands.
"That's the beauty of it, don't you see? Instead of doing a few sporadic tests we'd do testing daily, on a regular schedule. We'd be able to chart changes in your powers with your biorhythms, with your diet-" Joyce broke off abruptly and took Aliyah and Kai's hand, looking between us. Kai grit his teeth slightly, you could see it in his jaw. "Guys, let the walls down and just listen for a minute, can you do that for me please?" Kai grabbed Meg's hand under the cover of his big coat, Meg rubbed his knuckles gently, comfortingly and smiled softly at Kai, then looked to Joyce for a minute, before looking slightly taken back but shaking it off.
"Look, I am not here to hurt you three, i'm sure I couldn't even if I tried. I admire you tremendously, you have wonderful gifts. I want to study them -I've spent my life preparing to study it. I went to college at Duke -you know, where Rhine did his telepathy experiments. I got my master's degree in parapsychology -I've worked at the Dream Laboratory at Maimonides, and the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, and the Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory at Princeton. And all i've ever wanted it a subject like you three. Together we can prove that what you do is real. We can get hard, replicable, scientific proof. We can show the world that ESP really exists, together."
She stopped, and the three teens heard the noises of tell-tale switching classes.
"There are some additional benefits for them as well." Mrs. Black said. "I think you should explain the terms Miss Piper."
"Oh, of course." Joyce said, letting go of Kai and Aliyah's hands. Meg looked to Aliyah and asked a question with her eyes, Aliyah nodded as well and Meg looked confused. "You'll go to a very good school in San Carlos to finish up your senior year. Meanwhile you'll be living at the Institute with five other students we've chosen. We'll do testing every afternoon and it won't take long -just an hour or two a day. At the end of the year, you'll receive a scholarship to the college of your choice." Joyce then opened the manilla folder she plucked off Mrs. Black's desk. "A very generous scholarship." She said.
"A very generous scholarship." Mrs. Black emphasised, aware of the three teenagers financial situations. Each of them found a paper thrust upon them, a number on it. Meg's jaw dropped, while Kai's eyes widened and Aliyah looked surprise.
"This is for all of us...to split?" Meg asked, shocked.
"This is for each of you, alone." Joyce said. The teenagers felt astounded. "You'll be helping the cause of science." Joyce picked up on her shpele. "And you could make a new life for yourself. A new start." Meg started to look appealed to the idea. "No one at your new school needs to know why you're there, or what you've done; you can just be an ordinary kid." Kai straightened his spine. "Next fall you can go to Stanford or San Francisco State University -San Carlo is just half an hour south of San Francisco. And after that, you're free. You can go anywhere." The teens started to feel really dizzy.
"You'll love the Bay Area. Sunshine, nice beaches -do you realize it was seventy degrees there yesterday when I left? You guys look like you could use the sun." Joyce said, taking in each of the teenagers pale and paler forms.
"I can't." Aliyah said softly. Meg and Kai's head snapped to Aliyah's. Joyce and the principle exchanging looks.
"I can't, my parents, Hallie, Carrie. They need me." Aliyah said, sitting straighter. Kai and Meg exchanged a look.
"Li, all that money!" Meg said pleadingly. "How else are we gonna get into college? How else are we gonna get away?" She pleaded with her best friend. Kai nodded and grabbed Aliyah's hand gently.
"Aliyah, your family will still be here when your done, you can Skype and talk on the phone, but this is the opportunity of a lifetime! We can develop our abilities...and most of all, like Meggie said, the money! College is not cheap." Kai pleaded.
"You won't be alone either, we're going!" Meg pleaded. "Please"
"Don't you think your family would want you to do? To do what's best for you?" Mrs. Black quipped. Aliyah looked down at her lap, biting her lip. She let loose a sigh.
"You all have a point...fine." Aliyah said, looking up at her only two friends in the whole world. "I'll go." She said, smiling softly. Meg and Kai smiled and hugged her. Joyce clapped her hands together.
"Great! Remember, Seventy degrees you three." Joyce said, looking at the hoodies and thick jeans. "Pack light."
That night, as the three teenagers packed, they all wondered, was this the right thing after all?