Alice blew her whistle, sharply. "Once more!" she called out to the gaggle of young espers at the far end of the course, and they began to file back towards her: Clover bouncing along, Light maintaining his upright, princely bearing, Nona and Ennea slightly breathless but still giggling to each other some joke Ennea had made. When they were all lined up in front of her once more Alice waited just a couple of seconds to check their readiness. Then she sounded the whistle a second time, pressing the button on her stopwatch as the espers took off at a full sprint.

'Baseless Training': that was what some of her coworkers had called this when Alice had requested a transfer to the newly opened experimental division. On particularly sharp-mouthed SOIS officer had twisted the words into 'Boot Can't-p'. The idea that the most elite intelligence agency in the country was pouring this much time and resources into agents claiming to have psychic powers was ludicrous on the face of it, so Alice could understand where her colleagues were coming from. She just didn't care. These new recruits were her last, best chance to get to the people who'd kidnapped her father, and Alice was going to take it.

That meant bringing them up to speed. It wasn't as though SOIS could expect that the miniscule proportion of people with these special abilities would be the exact same people who had the military physiques and constitutions needed for the gruelling rigours of SOIS work. And the new recruits didn't just have to operate at the peak of human ability. They needed to be able to do all that, wear themselves to the bone over hours of effort and then, at the end of it, still be able to use their esper powers on behalf of the mission.

There wasn't yet much research into research into how espers coped with physical exhaustion. All Alice could provide was drilling, drilling and more drilling; she would have to hope this level of physical conditioning was enough.

At least her recruits' teamwork was up to par. Alice took particular note of the moment when Clover, a couple of strides ahead of the group along the course, glanced back at the exact right moment to assist her brother in cornering tightly around the cones.

Alice was satisfied to see that each and every one of the trainee's times had improved from the sessions before, even if they weren't yet up to the standards of the agency's usual recruits. As long as this final run went well she could be confident that the espers would be ready for the field by… No. Something was wrong. Alice didn't yet know what, but her instincts were prickling.

Moments after Alice started dashing forwards Light let out a hoarse gasp. His legs buckled and he fell to his knees, his remaining carrying him skidding and tumbling across the grass. By the time Alice had caught up to the other runners, and brought them to a halt, Clover was knelt down by her brother's side. Her wild pink hair fell across her eyes as she clutched at Light's right arm. A mistrustful anguish contorted her expression.

"Light! What's hurt you?!" Clover cried out. She glared up at Alice. "He didn't just trip. Don't you dare say he just tripped!"

It was probably a good thing that Clover was joining SOIS where such an attitude, even towards a superior, was appreciated as a sign of initiative. "Yes, I saw. This won't affect his ratings," Alice reassured the younger woman. She then assessed Light's condition with a practiced eye: some pain that had caused him to fall, certainly, but no serious or permanent damage. Alice allowed herself a sigh of relief.

Alice's judgement was confirmed a few moments later when Light raised his head. "It has passed," he said, his tone measured and steady despite the aftereffects of whatever had brought him down. Relying on Clover's arm for support he made his way to his feet. With his eyes still firmly closed he turned to face Alice. "A certain ripple, you could call it, in the morphogenetic field. Streaks of black and white swam across the images Clover was sending me. It was quite disorientating."

With a quick glance towards the other espers present, Alice asked if any of them had endured the same thing. Shakes of heads all round, plus Nona's murmured "No. Nothing like that," confirmed that they hadn't.

Alice weighed up the situation in front of her, and came to a decision. "I'll need to report this to the higher-ups," she said to Light. "Once I find out what we know I'll pass it on to you all." It looked like the rest of her day had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.

o-0-o

At the debriefing later that evening Alice addressed the SOIS director and the head science advisor, describing what had occurred during what should have been a routine physical fitness session. "It didn't have much effect today," she concluded, "but who knows what problems it could cause if it happens again. When it happens again. We don't know what triggered it today, so we can't prevent the next time."

The science advisor nodded, then passed a pair of thin folders to Alice and the director. "Trainee Field's report has been corroborated by the prototypes we've been testing. Certainly, something morphogenetic happened at that time. We'll try to narrow it down further, but that will take time."

Alice bristled at the insinuation against her subordinate's trustworthiness, but held her tongue.

"What I don't understand," the director said, tapping the diagrams in the file with her fingertips, "is why only Trainee Field was affected. Not even his sister showed even a single symptom. Correct?"

"Yes. That's correct," Alice replied. She marshalled her thoughts, and then added, "The documents we appropriated from Cradle Pharmaceuticals suggest that espers can be divided into two classes. 'Transmitters' and 'Receivers'. Surely that has something to do with it."

"Light is a receiver, certainly," the science advisor concurred. Then his lips pursed; his nose wrinkled. "That can't be the sole factor. I was under the impression that receivers and transmitters both made up a good proportion of our recruited espers."

"Then perhaps we should look at something only connected to the Field siblings, which then only affects Trainee Light because he is a receiver," the director mused. She then fixed Alice with her piercing gaze. "You were the one to pick them up after that particular incident. I'll leave the investigation of any leads related to that to you."

It looked like the entire rest of Alice's year had gotten more complicated, too. "Yes, ma'am," was all Alice could reply.