I thought you wanted a third team member.
Yes, I wanted a team member. Not a kid to look after.
Were you hoping for another you? People don't get experienced overnight. Give him a chance.
He doesn't have time to get experienced. If he keeps running headlong into danger the way he's been doing, he won't last another week.
Running headlong into danger… That sounds familiar.
Are you talking about me? I take calculated risks. This kid is just reckless. I need someone I can count on, someone I can trust to do his job.
Oh, I see. You don't want another you. You want another me.
Ha! I should be so lucky. But I swear, whoever named that kid sure had him figured out. "Brat." Couldn't have said it better myself.
Another day dawned over the Silver Sun Dorms, but no sun reached the windowless barracks. Instead a distant Screamer provided an alarm. Ninde was instantly awake and standing at attention at the foot of her bed, along with every other girl in her row. Sleepy or not, if you weren't on your feet when the Myrmidons came through for inspection there would be hell to pay.
The Myrmidons led the girls to the washrooms. To one side was a giant communal shower, but in the morning they were only given enough time to relieve themselves and splash some water on their faces before they were forced to run laps around the courtyard. Ninde, still bleary-eyed, squatted over the long porcelain trench and tried not to bump elbows with the girl next to her. When she bent to pull up her panties, she froze and stared at them, nonplussed.
Menstruation was no secret amongst the girls of the Dorms. In fact, it was one of the most hotly-discussed topics. Plenty of Ninde's classmates had gotten theirs already, even Sola. But it still took her a moment to register what the chocolate-colored smear on her underwear was. She had expected it to be red.
The Myrmidons didn't speak, but the kids were pretty sure they could understand English, so Ninde held out her stained underwear to one of them and said, "What are you gonna do about that?" After staring down at her briefly, it turned and left the room. When it returned it was carrying a fresh pair of underwear and a rag that may have once been white. Ninde stared at the rag dubiously.
"They used to have pads and tampons," said Sola, who had snuck up behind Ninde and noticed her unhappy expression, "Before our time. But I guess they figured that we wouldn't be bleeding for long before our Sad Birthdays, so they got lazy about it."
Ninde held up the stained rag. "That," she said in no uncertain terms, "Is disgusting."
"Get used to it," said Sola, digging a knuckle into Ninde's ribs until she coaxed a smile to her friend's face, "And welcome to the club. Now you get to bleed every month just like the big girls."
"Oh, hooray," said Ninde unenthusiastically.
They changed out of their cotton nightrobes and into their workout clothes. Sola showed Ninde how to place her rag so it wouldn't fall out of her shorts while she was running. The novelty of her first period was quickly wearing off and being replaced by frustration. "This is really uncomfortable," Ninde complained.
Sola patted her on the back as the group began moving for the door. "I've had mine for a year now," she said, "Did you think I was making it up when I was complaining to you all that time?"
Ninde sighed. Sola was a good friend, but getting sympathy out of her was like trying to wring water from a rock. "My stomach hurts," she added as they stepped outside, blinking and shielding their eyes from the bright grayness of the sky.
Sola rolled her eyes. "So tell one of the Myrmidons," she suggested sarcastically, "I'm sure they'll let you sit down and have some tea."
They lined up two-by-two on the short gravel running track. The sky was a solid sheet of clouds. Everyone was doubled over, rubbing exposed flesh to fight the chilly morning air, their eyes downcast. Ninde raised her head to look out past the chain link fence topped with razor wire, past the perimeter where the Myrmidons patrolled, and caught a glimpse of a road lined with a few squat buildings. Freedom. It didn't look like much from this distance, but Ninde knew it would be worth it. It had to be.
A whistle sounded, and the whole line of girls broke into a clumsy trot. Every once in a while a Myrmidon would reach out and cuff any girl who happened to be running slower than the others, but for the most part all they had to worry about was keeping their legs moving and rubbing their hands together.
The shuffling of feet on gravel and the chorus of breathing around her was familiar to Ninde, but today there was a strange undercurrent to the usual noise. It was a whispering hiss just as much as it was a sense of general unease, as if there was something she had forgotten that the barest hint would remind her of.
"Do you hear that?" Ninde asked Sola between gasps of freezing air.
"Hear what?" said Sola, flicking her eyes back and forth looking for the source of a sound.
"A buzzing sound," said Ninde, "Like voices from really far away."
"It's just your ears ringing," said Sola confidently, "Probably means you've got a headache coming on. Looks like you're going to get all the fun side effects. Just let me know if you think you're going to start having mood swings, because I'll want to stay out of your way."
Ninde sighed and took another gulp of stinging air. Sola was probably right. The other girls had blamed their periods for everything from fevers to bruises to minor mental breakdowns. Not to mention that some girls had had even worse reactions. One girl, shortly after getting her period for the first time, had woken up one morning laughing. Nothing anyone did could get her to stop, and she wouldn't move, eat, or speak. After a few hours the Myrmidons had dragged her away, still shrieking with laughter. No one ever saw her again.
Another girl had started vomiting. When her friends tried to find out what was wrong with her, she had frantically asked them why they couldn't see what she was seeing. She went to bed as pale as a ghost, and in the morning they found her drowned in her own sick.
And another had simply disappeared while no one was watching. There was no break in the perimeter, and no trace of her was found. She was just gone.
So Ninde tried to ignore the whispers in her ears and the strange feeling that there was a thought she was having that wasn't quite reaching her brain. And she reminded herself that it could have been much worse.
Author's Note: Seeing as the Overlords didn't know about the Change Talents, I figured that they couldn't have been very much on display in the Dorms. My interpretation is that very few kids even figure out that they have powers, since some would be so subtle, specific, or useless that they would never really be noticed. And some kids get strong powers but never figure out how to use them, resulting in what appears to be insanity. Only a few would get a useful power and learn to control it, and only a few of those would have the guts to try to escape.
And if you were curious, here's what was going on with those girls Ninde was remembering: I imagine the laughing girl gained perfect clairvoyance, allowing her to see everything that was happening in the entire scope of the Projectors' power. Her mind snapped under the pressure of so much input and the horror of witnessing the battles firsthand and up-close. The vomiting girl had x-ray vision, but she couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Since she couldn't see the floor and her depth of perception kept changing, she suffered crippling vertigo. It continued even when she tried to sleep, because she could see through her eyelids.
Okay, those were pretty horrific, so here's a nice one. The disappearing girl was able to turn invisible. She didn't tell anyone about it, and as soon as she perfected using it she escaped.
Thanks for reading, and please review!
