"Can we go flying this Saturday? Like when I was younger?"

"Absolutely not—you're too squirmy."

"Can I learn flying by myself, then?"

"Nope. You're still twelve."

"Can't go flying, can't shoot a gun, can't know what Project Aristeas is all about, can't have champagne at New Years…can I do ANYTHING around here?"

"You can assemble this transponder for me. Remember how to do that?"

"Yeah, I'm not five anymore…."

"Sure you aren't."

Crystal—

My world isn't black, that's a misconception. It isn't even white. It's more…grey, than anything. It's an absence of color. I lost my sight so young I don't think I remember what colors are. If I think really hard, I can almost remember red. If I think really hard…

It's happening again. Those flashes of memories I can't control, and that feeling like something in my mind is spinning out of control…

If I wait it out, it'll be gone. It's already fading. These episodes where I feel like I'm going crazy—they're happening more and more often. I'm barely able to hide them. I have to carry around that tape recorder again because the phantom voices are back. My mentor gave it to me after I cursed at the head guard for calling me a cripple. No one else heard him say anything. Everyone heard me. The phantom voices aren't picked up by the tape recorder so when I play things back, I can be sure what I'm hearing is real. It used to be my security and my toy. I hadn't needed it since I was young.

Colors, colors…I've forgotten what they mean. Once when I was really little I asked around for someone to explain them to me. I got bits and pieces from different people. Blue is like the sound of waves, cool water, and calm before bed. Green I think was a rainstorm in the jungle outside. Yellow was something like sunlight, red was heat off the lava and passion and hatred—

Black is listening to your new friends play with their powers and knowing that you can never, ever keep up with them. It's knowing some of them think you're a freak. That I had to find out myself.

But red…

Another wave of crazy hit and I had to hang on to the edge of my mattress. What was happening to me? At least it was late at night, and my mentor was distracted with some new project…it's like he knows everything that goes on on this island, and after what I discovered via the computer the other night, I knew I had to keep everything I could on the low-down…

"Woman murdered, daughter taken" the headline read.

The article (by some Deirdre Brannan) went on. My fingers shook as I read it.

"Friday, February 17th, our own Naomi Averry, reporter and columnist, was found dead in her 5th street apartment. Cause of death is still under investigation, but police correspondent is positive foul play was involved. "Evidence is pointing to a robbery gone wrong…a few things were stolen from the apartment, most notably Ms. Averry's two-year-old daughter, Crystal…". An anonymous source from inside the investigation has more details. "You've heard they suspect foul play. What you might not know is the sick unsub moved her body, crossed her arms over her chest…some do that, you know. To say to the world 'I was here.'" The cremation is set for Sunday."

I….honestly don't know what I expected. I thought I'd been given over to my mentor willingly. When I was young and learning what families are from movies and books, I'd pestered him for any answers on where mine was. I had a mother, at least. He said dads ditch all the time, sure, I could accept that—but I had a mother. The laws of nature said so. I'd asked about her—and why she wasn't here—just once. Just once. All I got before he got mad at me was "She couldn't take care of you anymore."

I'd learned to read between the lines of adult-speak. "Maybe later" means "no", "because I said so" means "because I can't think of a good reason", "because you're twelve" means "because you can't see", and so on…I never dreamed "she couldn't take care of you anymore" meant "I killed her."

Tears (a sign of weakness) sting my eyes. I didn't want it to be true. I still don't want it to be true. I grew up here…sure, it was a bit lonely, I almost died about a dozen times when I was younger, and I had to learn my way around my mentor's dark times, but…there were good times too. Playing in the workshop, talking for hours about Superheroes…I knew he'd done bad things. Even the guards whispered about them. About how he was a hero, once. The way he made his own villain, and the truth got out before he came to the island. (Alan and I couldn't even talk too much about him to the new kids because they'd recognize him, his great fall wasn't too long ago.) When I was young I decided I didn't care. I hate thinking my mentor, protector and guardian, committed that crime and stole me…I want to go back to the way things were before I stumbled on the damn article.

It finished with a call to the public. "An Amber Alert has been activated in California and the Municiberg police are doing everything they can to find Crystal D. Averry. The public is advised that this is a high-priority kidnapping, as the victim is nearly blind. Be on the lookout for a very young girl with strawberry-blonde hair and faded blue eyes, last seen wearing blue jeans and a white shirt with an embroidered sunflower…"

Alone, in the darkness of my room, I reached up and touched my own hair. Why was that important, why change it? I read somewhere that the first thing kidnappers do is change something about the appearance of their victim. When they don't want the kid to be found. Figures.

God, it was happening again. That crazy feeling—like I was getting foreign thoughts and feelings beamed into my head.

I think someone messed with my iPod—

.y'know what, Hal? This is why we have ants.

Crazy how that one guy just walked into the ocean last month, hope it wasn't whatever weapon the boss tested on h—

Those voices and that sensory information were back again. It was way stronger this time. This was totally new, and God, I didn't know how to handle it.

I had to stop it. Turning it inward would…I had to turn it inward. The wave lasted a long time. After enough concentrating, I figured out how to do it. I didn't stop it—the information I got was memories instead. If my mind was a tape recorder, it was skipping backwards through old information, at an insane pace.

"—can assemble this transponder for me. Remember how to do that?" Like I'm still a little kid—

I walk into the workshop, still humiliated, throw the concussion blaster somewhere, and take my usual spot, criss-cross on a lab table. This time my head is in my hands. I want to hide in my shirt, like when I was little. "I couldn't keep up with them." Outside, in the game we were all playing, I mean. My mentor sighs. He was probably afraid of this…Then he launches into a speech about how one day I'm going to be the best of them and take my place in the sun. He's so animated, enthusiastic, and so sure of what he's saying that I stop hiding and forget why I was mad—

"What's going on? Where are we?" "No idea. Someone kidnapped us…"

a short, low laugh from the other side of the room, and I wonder if that's who my mentor expected me to pick. "Thy will be done."

"What do you mean? I'm defective?!" It's a very low, very black time, since grey was all I'd ever known I thought…I assumed…everyone was like me, but no, I was lacking a superpower everyone else had, I was lower than the average human…I was so. Angry. I had to do something with my hands. I swept everything off a lab table, ignored the pain and the noise, and retreated to the server room—

"Fine, you're not grounded. Just don't do anything like that again." "I won't wreck anything else." "Don't call yourself defective again."

"His name is Alan Siegel. Go say hello." I'm very young, and still hiding behind my mentor's cape in front of strangers. "Is he looking at me?" I ask. "Yes—now go say hello." I stand taller and try not to be afraid before walking forward and offering the scared new boy a handshake. "I'm called Gadget. Welcome to Nomanisan."

"—the people loved me while it lasted…before it was all taken away from me. You'll see one day. You and I are going to fix the mess those other Supers made. It'll be our turn in the sun….You're still listening, right?" Not really, I mostly wanted a snack…

It wasn't just sound that came to me this time. There was the taste of candy smuggled in from the mainland, and the feeling of words under my fingers. My mind was spinning out of control—is this all a part of growing up?

There was something else in the sensory mix. Something else…I focused on it, and suddenly,

Sight.

Dizzying, overwhelming, stark information, hitting my brain all at once. Sharp focus, rich colors, brilliant texture, confusing depth, all at once! Sight. After all these years. The image depicted a girl, a child, with short, bleached hair and unseeing white eyes. She was wearing a grey shirt with a single horizontal black stripe, dark jeans, black shoes, a distant expression…

With the image came ideas. Knowledge. In an instant I knew what jeans were, how old this child was exactly, that she was brilliant in a way that was strikingly familiar but she'd always be so different from the other kids. I knew that white wasn't a normal color for hair—or eyes. Then, it was like the image changed. The child had blue eyes and hair that fiery color-familiar, but I didn't know where I'd remembered them from. I knew it was written into her DNA, as was the power she'd get and the heights she'd rise to—

And, in the back of my mind, a memory burned—a lady, smiling wryly, as if at some shared joke. An image I could not get out of my mind. I had a sense that I was sick of thinking of all of that, too. Sick and tired of reliving painful memories. If I could just get this plan to work….

Then, in an instant, the flow of images and ideas stopped dead.

That…wasn't like anything I'd ever experienced. It scared me. In the silent minutes after the wave I tried to make sense of the images. Was that girl…me? Did I really stand like that? Oh, God, I've got to work on my posture.

I tried to reconcile that image of what I was supposed to look like with the raised relief picture of the smiling woman and child from the article. Both faces seemed familiar. Was I really her? The missing girl? Did I have a mother, a life, before Nomanisan? Was it really cruelly taken away? I didn't want to believe it. So I wouldn't believe it!

Another wave started. I could feel it, rising in the back of my mind. It was going to be stronger and bigger than the last. I could tell.

Have to focus it inward, so no one will know….just have to focus it inward….

Red….

The sound of music drifts through the air, and I move (unsure and slow) to go find it. I know where it's coming from. Light floods in from the window and the whole main room is gold, like the room smells like the flower sitting on the sill. Busy noises drift in from outside. It smells like comfort in a primal way…Home…

Someone's slender fingers press black and white keys. A rising melody, something mysterious and almost foreboding…

This didn't feel like a memory. Memories can be recalled, and stopped. This just played out like a movie and I couldn't find the button to stop it. The recalling swept me up in a wave of emotion and after a while…I forgot it wasn't really happening…

The music kept on, and even though I couldn't see the woman well anymore, I knew she was lost in it. I found the bench and crawled up next to her. I felt her warmth. The notes rose to a crescendo and I pressed a high-note key…

The woman stops and looks at me with a wry smile. She spoke in an honest, clever voice that was so familiar I knew it better than my own. I remembered her talking me to sleep…

"Didn't like that one? Sorry, I'm still learning. You're right, Crystal, we should change it up." My mother says.

A rustle of pages and another tune starts. This one is happier. Jumpier. I remembered every note. I hop down from the bench (it's a long way) and feel the old carpet under my feet. My mother laughs as I start to dance…The song didn't last that long…

Because I trip over the corner of the carpet that stuck up. The piano stops and mother picks me up, crooning at me in a soft voice. I'm just upset the music is gone. Suddenly there is a sound at the door. Mommy walks away.

The memory skipped. Suddenly I'm being put down in another room, my mom no longer gentle and soft-voiced. I feel the tension in her—the fear—and hear it as she talks into something.

"Didi? It's me, something's wrong, he's not dead, he's here—I KNOW what we saw on the news!"

She starts to leave me with a false-calm "Stay here, sweetie. I'll just get him talking." I am afraid.

I can hear noises at the door again, more insistent. Mommy starts moving things and gathering things. I just stand by the door, frozen. She moves past me into the main room, shuts me behind a door, and yells at someone trying to get in.

"Don't lie to me, I know what you did! I should have known when—"

I don't hear any more of the yelling, I cover my ears. It's too much for someone so small. Too much.

There is more yelling from outside the apartment. I can't understand it, I uncover my ears to hear my mother moving around. I'd never heard her so…scared? Frantic? Angry? Then there is—

A crack, and then silence. That is scarier than the yelling. So much scarier.

I can't take it anymore, I hit the door in front of me as hard as I can with small hands. It swings open. There's silence everywhere, like the whole apartment, and the world outside is motionless in anticipation. I'm too young to know why but something is wrong. That sense at the back of my new mind was telling me something was very, very wrong. With failing eyes I look out and see a figure on the floor. Motionless. That sense at the back of my mind told me that my mother's form was there on the carpet…but she wasn't there anymore. On small legs I walk over to her, brush dark hair away from the familiar face, and feel something odd. I bring my hand close to my own face and squint.

Red.

Something pulls me away from the figure on the floor. Hands clean the red off mine. A voice (not so gentle, but trying to be) calms me, and a stranger takes me away from the crime, from the music and my mother…

The memory ended. I ended it.

I was so young…too young to know what was happening to me, or why…

Murderer…

Too young to understand the stranger—who called himself my mentor, and me his ward—killed my mother.

Murderer…

All the things I'd read about the other night, all those crimes immortalized in history texts…

Murderer…

And the children stolen, called weapons, to be used as pawns in this greater vendetta against the Supers who'd wronged him…

Murderer…

Hurt overtook me, like a wave all its own. Betrayal. I was so young. He had no right. He used me. Kept the truth from me. I went along with everything he said.

Murderer…

I'd been blind. But not anymore. He didn't have the right to use us. To take us away from what little family we had. (At that thought I felt that loss I'd been carrying for years suddenly sharpen, cutting deep like a knife. That crime had always been between me and my protector, I'd realized in a distant way, something that prevented our bond from growing too close. Naomi Averry had been here on the island in some form, all these years.) My mother was dead. But it wasn't too late for the other kids.

Hot tears fell onto the canvas of my shoes. I didn't care. Through the overwhelming doubt and fear and loneliness I felt, I dug deep and found the one thing I could survive. Raw, unbridled anger boiled up from somewhere deep in my mind. It pushed everything else out. Rage. Pure, directionless fury.

…no, my rage has a direction.

Syndrome.

Murderer.